Board Thread:Fun and Games/@comment-27460754-20160402002043/@comment-27405625-20160406162330

Hmm, well I think I agreed with everyone on the magic synergy with the crystal refining. It just really feels like we're building to something big out of all these little components we find each break in the chapter. It would really be too good of an opportunity to overlook.

On the other hand, I'm not convinced that making battles harder would necessarily entail granting us more exp. What I was thinking was more along the lines of having to fight actual unpeople instead of regular knights or troops as the party group. We've only actually seen one fully realized unperson, Vhala, and I'll admit that as soon as I saw her rip through that Canine Abomination boss in 3-4 arrows of purity I said: "Well, I'm fucked now." Ugh, if I meet one of those with the Arrow of Abstinence lvl 40 skill unlocked? Yeah, that battle's gonna be a wonderful experience... Attack, revive, cure, revive, attack, revive... I mean, a group of unpeople granting the same exp as a regular knight group would be much more difficult for us simply because of the skills they use instead.

That said, it's not necessarily rewarding failure, either. Getting the dwarves deprives you of some suppliers, processors, or manufacturers in Eustrin, because you can no longer afford them. You can win more votes that way, but your supply chain will suffer. Skipping the dwarves means you probably have to fight unpeople with your main group. Getting the dwarves means you avoid unpeople, but your army can't deal with as many elite knight/mage groups that your party then has to step in and handle. They're just not as well equipped as they would be otherwise. What set me off down this path was when Simon said that the party might want to cut a deal as they were discussing that vote. Seemed like a subtle way of bumping up the difficulty level.

I've been trying to think about how Robin's research might influence things, too:

1. Secrecy: As we've seen, it made one quest give a slightly worse RP result. It also made one boss battle somewhat harder because it kept Simon out of it.

2. Orcs: I'm thinking this will almost assuredly affect our army quality.

3. Mages: This is the big unknown, but I'd almost bet you need to convince their council of something later on and Robin's research would have gained you a slightly better result. (With the other factors being getting the membership, and doing well enough for the mage hat.)

As for the third day votes, my thoughts are:

1. Orcs: Almost assuredly affects your army's size. Slightly leaning towards quality, too. I think getting it voted down carries a risk, though. Simon says: "Our party is better equipped to handle this." That seems to imply we'd have to do some meeting/bribing/defeating to get all that extra size/quality.

2. War Vaults: Loot, but the collectable set has me intrigued. Technically, the DK is a suit of IK armor. Why would we need 2? I wonder if she's setting up a situation where we need to bluff our way out of another conflict.