Renowned Explorers on Curious Expeditions

Games
21

Started and ended up finishing another game last night, and I’m definitely getting sucked in by all the little details. I picked different characters and tried to do different quests (or at least a different order) - yeah, this time I got tons more stores whereas last go around I only had the default one, and wow I had a lot more movement with a couple high speed scouts running around. The trinkets have the most fun effects so far, but I guess I still have to work on clever attack combos. Definitely glad I’m playing it on “softcore” mode so I can tool around and check out the shop contents, price of specialists…but I’m only complaining because I’m having so much fun. I do wish you could customise your guys a bit more though (maybe it’s the lack of hats…)

Anyone figure out what determines how many (and which?) tokens you get for the Insight actions on the world map? It’s somehow tied to something in the characters and makes thematic sense…
Also - one of my characters in the last run (Harry) has an innate buff that lets him move easier on tough terrain. Until that point, I hadn’t realised there was terrain in this game…or is there? How does movement get calculated? I don’t do much deep planning - mostly block up choke points, sit on healing spots and mostly check enemy movement to see who will likely get hit next turn.

22

There’s definitely terrain! You can tell by looking at the shaded area that shows how far your character can move. As near as I can tell, it’s just a matter of some terrain costing two movement points to enter. It’s usually designated as a river, or a muddy area, or something.

As for the exchange rate on insight activities (I believe they’re all lectures), that was a question I had as well. I was assured that it should be listed somewhere if you check a character’s stats and your progress on the research tree. Be sure to also check whatever treasures you’ve gathered. Those bonuses can be easy to miss. BTW, much like shops, be sure to unlock the advanced insight locations on one of your playthroughs. Those lectures in distant lands can be crazy lucrative. I almost think you’re better off saving up your insight up if you’re going to eventually unlock those areas.

-Tom

23

Patch:

We now offer Easy, Normal, Classic and Impossible to make sure that every player can adjust the experience to their liking. You select it at the start of every game, and it will be shown in your score screen. For the people that liked the game as it was: Classic has exactly the same balance as the game at launch.

24

I bought it while listening to the podcast yesterday and I was puzzled why I saw the difficulty settings and hearing discussion of possibly including them. It didn’t take too long to see that combat was going to get interesting. It isn’t even strictly rick paper scissors either. Sure you see the icon there explaining how each style trumps each other but if you can deal with whatever way the mood shifts you can still exploit an attack that would be considered weaker. There’s a lot to it and thank goodness for those tooltips and little bars explaining what the next mood will be and what it does.

I haven’t touched Curious Expeditions yet. I think I’ll do the Tom thing and see it when it’s done.

Tom M

25

Also from the “More to Explore! Game roadmap” topic posted by the devs on Steam

But what we really want to do is make more places to explore! Making a whole new expedition takes quite some time and resources, but we think it’s where Renowned Explorers shines the best. It will take a little while, but new expeditions will be made available to you! Because we’re excited to bring you this unique experience, our first expedition will be added to your world map for FREE once it’s done!

I always love more content… Although this implies that there will probably be new expedition DLC (although probably also only if the base game sells well)…

26

Brian, you only need to get adjacent to ?'s to explore them in CE. ;>

27

I bit on CE but my advice would be to wait to see how it develops further. I think there is limited variety and I have run into a couple of frustration points with it. With the goal of 6 expeditions, the first five are very similar aside from the main terrain. The 6th one finally changes the world as you go to some prehistoric (and very tough) world.

The main frustration I found was that level 4 requires a “moonstone” to exit the map, 5 and 6 requires 2 each. However, moonstones are not always available on the map, and I have been in situations before where I searched 100% of the map and verified no moonstones. Being a Rogue-like, you loose everything. Went to look at their forums and evidently this issue has been around for at least 5 patches (over 6 mos) and it still is not fixed.

Also, you are forced to do shrines due to moonstones, as well as take other risks you don’t always need to take as your carry space is limited.

I do like the retro feel, but I always seem to be wanting more game.

28

I’m still learning the game, but really enjoying it.

29

You really want to read the boss descriptions - the gorilla, for example, will punish you severely if you try for the obvious Devious mood.

TOOLS: To use the tools you click on the lower right hand corner of the frame. This is not obvious.

30

So is this the thread where we get all glowy and ecstatic about how great Renowned Explorers is?

Or does it have its own thread?

31

Re terrain, some of it gives buffs. But is there a way to see this before moving onto the tile?
Also some bosses can be brought “all the way red”(mood to the far left) by terrify but seem immune to being terrified off of t the map. IS there a way to see this in the ui or does it just take trial and error?
Anyway I’m enjoying learning how the mood systems work, thanks for the tip to the game

32

OK I now see that the regen tiles are outlined in yellow, was that mentioned by the tutorial anywhere? And is there a visual clue for which tiles are rough terrain?

33

The thing with the emotional bar is that it just shows far the person is, either positively or negatively and has no impact on if they’ll leave the map; that’s spirit. Basically, if they’re really positive, it’s going to be harder for negative effects to take affect, as they have to “eat away” at their positive and the same goes for negative to positive.

Also click on every enemy you see, this will show you their stats, strengths, weaknesses and a little about how that character will react.

34

When you click on an enemy, it lists the weaknesses and immunities (lower left near the portrait). For bosses there’s also usually a hint about which moods might be particularly dangerous to use.

There’s also at least one stat-reducing positive mood (Impressed) - I’m not sure but I think there are no stat-improving negative moods that are analogous to Confident or Excited…Is there a list of all the moods somewhere?

35

Yep. In the very good ingame documentation!

-Tom

36

I’ve logged at least 10 play throughs on this game since two weeks ago. Having a blast so far. I’ve encovered most of the secrets, but clearly have not won many of them. Still having a great time coming up with teams and watching them succeed or burn.

PSA: According to the steam forums, it sounds like Dolores’ captain perk is not working well at the moment.

The biggest meta team seems to be Research full scientist with Anna as captain. She snowballs very quickly. Add in Earl and Agatha for the AOE and stuns, and max Preparedness and the Science tree, and you will be kicking serious butt. I was able to go 3000 renown using that combo, and beat Shangri-La for the first time.

Now I’m working on more interesting combos. I.e. If you take a glass cannon like Harry walker, then spend a turn where he uses his self buff, the healer gets him excited, and the support/tank enrages the boss, you can hit some huge “criticals”.

I have found Transylvania to be the hardest expedition thus far, and have only completed it on a handful of runs, occasionally using it as my 5th location when I’m not confident that my team can handle Shangri La, but they already have plenty of renown. Depending on team comp, I will switch between Hungary and the Island, I will switch between the Abbey and Egypt (always bring an archeologist to Egypt!!!), and almost always go for the emerged island as 4.

The other thing I have noticed, but not quite exploited (yet) is that an unbelievable haul by doing a second lower tier mission is far more useful than a substandard expedition to a current tier mission. If you are saving up perks, or have a lot of gold left in the bank, it may be advisable to do a lower tier and clean the place out.

I have a feeling, that the encounters you find are highly dependant on your specialization. The one time I played a greedy Harry Walker, I had lots of events in Egypt where I was losing gold on negative outcomes (-100 gold). When I played as Dolores, I seemed to encounter far more of the scorpions in Egypt. I’m not 100% how it works, but changing up captain class and preferred reward seems to make a difference for seeing more encounters.

Spoilery question below

In Egypt, Rivaleux asks if you have heard about the anti explorers. In the Abbey mission, I have run into the anti-explorer hut, with no real impact to the game, and in Egypt a Level 4 archeologist can get a treasure and a snippet of anti explorer dialogue. However, I have never experienced any further anti-explorer action after these events. Has anyone found a ‘tier-2’ anti-explorer event in the Level 4 or 5 missions? I’m thinking I’m missing something, I just don’t know what…

37

Ah thanks I misunderstood, I thought that when people got “terrified” off the map, or joined my side, that was because of their mood. I guess on the easier target the spirit must have hit 0 at the same time as the mood did.
Anyway by trial and error I decided to just attack boss’ spirit at the end of the fight. I have beaten the game in perma-death mode on both normal and classic difficulty, and added to my 4 or 5 party wipes I think I’m done until they add more maps- I know I could try out other teams but it’s starting to feel a bit samey. Still I enjoyed my time with the game, and don’t regret getting it.

38

This game seems fun, but can someone please explain how the hell you combat?

Every time I get into an encounter (outside the tutorial island) I am getting my ass handed to me, and I know it’s because I really have no idea what the hell I’m doing. How can you tell when one action will be better than another? When should I try to be devious? Aggressive? Charming? Why do my enemies almost obliterate me with a single attack while I struggle to do more than -11 spirit when I try to terrify them?

I have tried to find some guides or beginners info but all I can find are let’s plays and I don’t want to WATCH someone play hoping to learn a thing or two. So I can actually successfully complete even a 2 star freaking expedition!

39

What are you doing playing this Scott? You’re supposed to be playing Might & Magic Heroes VII! You gave you the key to your cell?!?

40

LOL I’m plinking away on this while I work on some stuff that requires (most) of my attention. HoMMVII is for at night when I don’t have interruptions. :) I actually made it to the third Haven map, by the way, and the Haven campaign has been a lot of fun. I should update that thread, now I think of it.