Thea 2: The Shattering

I took a break from my big party to spend some god points and try something new. Went with Triglav as the god, plus a hunter, two human kids, a dwarf kid, and an orc kid as the chosen. Had hopes of a brutal orc warrior using gear made by a legendary dwarf smith. Then the trials came, and the dwarf matured into a gatherer and the orc matured into a disgruntled gatherer. Not the heroes I was expecting. Guess it’s back to my older game w/the big party to earn more god points.

So those unique race kids almost all do that… get a slightly more advance version of the human basic classes but… having them in the party can mean you get a chance to get another. I hear rumor that some events might even advance them AND the higher class is available for purchase.

I won’t ruin the surprise but one of the most awesome characters I’ve run into that you can’t purchase comes one of those kids you selected, but I am not sure how it’s triggered. I just know I chose Chance a couple of times and… got it. Chance is, well hugely risky.

I just don’t understand how those two can wind up so far apart it takes us 20-30 rounds to meet up and the best they can do in a challenge is to summon a low level pig that won’t even make it to round two!

Alright, the last Windows update seems to have ruined my ability to play Wizardry 8 and the flurry of activity in here got me back to try out the latest (and final) content.

And it’s been a while, I went straight to 200% because I know how to play this game dang it, and didn’t last 50 turns or see any of the new stuff. Fun times ahead relearning!

So I’m having a good run, using the green goddess, 160%-ish difficulty. I’m now up to 11 party members. Have not started a village or built a boat. I’ve done some of the main quests but still have more to do on the main island.

But I’ve had a curse forever and no witch in sight, but I don’t have enough amber to cure it. And I see no amber at all on my starting island. Is that unusual? Did I miss a tile? Is there a way to be sure which tiles I haven’t explored? I could use more gold and such to make better wands and things too.

Is it time to build a boat and find a new island?

I really like her. Her bonuses are fairly effortless, and gives a nice boost early on.

I moved to Pangea awhile ago, not recommended until you are really steady because you can get your… handed to you early on if you are unlucky or just stumble too close to a lethal biome. As for missing resources… I don’t see that often, but I have seen it. Not having amber or herbs would be unusual though. And no, I have never seen a mechanism that actually validates you’ve uncovered a full island. I have actually missed stuff myself too.

2-3 things typically get me to build a boat. 1) I need better resources. 2) The story has pushed me to the next island. 3) I don’t think I can finish the story so I move on with the intention of getting stronger, with better stuff, and to go back and do that story.

At some point, the story will tell you to move to the next island though, assuming you get that far with it.

The story didn’t say anything about a new island, but I traveled anyway, moving verrry slowly. I guess I didn’t build a fancy enough boat? Ingredient quality makes faster boats, I suppose?

Anyway, I found an island with pirates and volcanic land, which was interesting. A pirate joined me, and I researched some volcanic terrain. What does researching terrain get you, anyway? I didn’t see any benefit in my Theapedia.

I was able to handle the encounters n the new island fine, and I discovered one Tier 2 resource, Obsidian, which wasn’t as helpful as I’d hoped. I think I used it for artifacts or jewelry, once I found gold too.

Er, how do you tell what “tier” something is, anyway? By the research cost?

I had made decent progress on a lot of quests, including the lighbringers, but then I got careless. I can easily beat the mystical beasts on the island if I select a physical challenge, but I have a tougher time with mystical challenges against them, even though they grant reputation for the latter. Alas, I decided to gamble on a magical challenge one too many times, and I lost half my party, just as I was on the verge of founding my first village. I’m ready to call it quits on that run, as I lost many of my favorite characters.

I did resurrect my Chosen, and he’s now Undead, which is interesting, lol. So I might play a few turns just to see what that’s all about.

But ugh, one careless mistake and there goes 300 turns of gameplay. :\ Well, it did earn me a dozen God points.

I am not sure if the game tells you are not, but as long as you have just one piece of some ingredient, you can see the results of what something would be with the whole ingredient which… helps you determine if it’s worth saving up or just going for it.

I typically make my boats out of dryad or elven wood and then the best gems or leather I can get my hand on. The quality will not just affect your movement, but also how much the boat can carry and how many hexes you can see away from your position. You also have to carry the darn thing around, anyway I like a lot of carry limit because i don’t want to leave my bounty behind because my ship is too heavy!

I think there is an achievement maybe if you do all of them but more importantly… it’s a source of research points, like a lot of them I think. Research anything you can to get those points! You’re going to need them eventually.

Due to the groups I tend to build, pretty much all the stone is just too heavy for me to haul around, level up and make gear form but the orc and dwarf groups that are in coop… she loves it. Weight is not nearly as much a problem for her.

It probably does something interesting and maybe not as nice. I’ve played this game so much but there is a… special character my coop group has received, twice in like a year that I have never seen. It is also… interesting and in that same realm. I have no idea what triggers that.

300 turns seems pretty darn good to me on a one and done shot.

Thanks! It has been a great run. I had 13-14 party members, and I had exceptionally strong physical characters, decent mental characters, a healer – but just one witch to carry me through mystical challenges. I’m just so bummed to have lost 5 or 6 great characters, but maybe by tomorrow I’ll have gotten over it and will continue my run with my now-Undead Chosen, lol. I was just so looking forward to making a village, and now that ain’t happening.

Yeah! Er, what do I do about that? Trade it away? Just drop it? This run I didn’t make any weapons or shields; I did fine just looting stuff. So the only use I had for metal was the occasional ring or relic.

Both.

I am usually traveling around near maximum weight towards mid and end game. I’ll dump low stone first because it’s just too heavy. The higher end stuff, we’re talking the one above obsidian, Pure Stone, I’ll sometimes carry around to make heavier but higher end gear for the warriors, bandits, orcs… anyone with a lot of strength. Sometimes I’ll even trade it. There are… events that can require a ton of value.

IF I wind up with excessive coal, I might turn it into something but the problem is I don’t often research stone because of the weight issue. But… if I have a village, I basically just dump a lot of stuff there. The village is… hard to keep alive early on, especially if you wind up doing it at 12 or even 10… but there are some nice events for it, the hiding helps some so every wondering mob doesn’t just beeline for it. You can get some really, really nice bonuses for the kids with it AND the one time I did get a nice village up and going post the hide update… my adventuring party almost never stopped for food after that. We just hopped a ship, sailed across the see, said high to my 2nd tier just good enough to stay alive group, told them about our nice traveled, dumped the kids and excessive supplies on them, picked up some really nice gear they’d crafted for us, waved as we left with a fully stocked supply ship and didn’t return again until one of the kids grew up and I decided, yeah I need them in the adventuring group. I’d do a village a lot sooner but unless it’s like really close to where i need to be with resources and dungeons and stuff, I feel kind of stuck not being able to go far from it for awhile.

Yes, weight is a constant nuisance for me from midgame on. I should’ve just dumped my low-level stone. I tried my best to convert it to higher-level stuff, but it still sat in inventory, weighing me down. It helps to cook up all raw food, as cooked stuff seems to weigh less, even accounting for the additional yield cooking brings.

I had 13 party members and was on the verge of starting a village. I suppose 14 would be optimal, right? Then you have enough to fill a party of 7 both at home and in the adventuring party. I had picked out a nice spot and everything. Sigh!

Yeah, thus the reason stone is usually the first to go. Bones and wood are also heavy but wood can be life saving and bone can be used in a lot of crafting so I pick and choose. I also break stuff down that is severely lower level than me. Breaking it down saves weight too, a ton.

As for the village. I think i will let you just explore that and get a feel for what it means to have one. I am no expert with villages, but the advantages are always tempting. A nice spot means a lot though… a lot.

I’ve picked the game back up, I’ve gotten to turn 113 in pretty good shape, and I had a child able to choose to try to be a witch. She failed and ended up a wraith. I have not seen this before – but it looks like this failure is a good thing. Am I missing something? Stats and skills look very good, it seems like there has to be a downside somewhere.

This is that thing! I’ve never seen this result after playing tons of hours by my sister has… twice! So the stats aren’t terrible but that character is unliving which gives some interesting options for some events.

You’ll have to tell me what you think of having that kind of character around. I’ve only seen it in a group setting.

I think I am missing something about curses.

I have a spiritual curse, modifying mysticism and destiny to 60%. So I researched curse removal and performed the ritual, which supposedly removes one random curse from all characters. That was the only curse, but… all characters remain at 60%.

What am I missing here?

So curses have levels. I don’t have a group that has a curse at the moment to show you, but the game is not clear at all that what the spiritual ritual does is remove the curse one level at a time. So if you have three bars full and you do it one time… it removes, one bar make the curse less bad but not gone. So if it’s three, I believe you have to do it… three times. It makes it a lot more expensive to clear it via ritual instead of the travelling witch or the town bonus.j

I’ll try to get a before and after shot when I get a change to get one. I get cursed often enough, heh. Black Cats!

This is all I see, no bars or levels

Not there, you would see it on the person’s tag.

In the effects area.

I don’t have one right now, so I can’t show the bar it has for curses. But it’s levels, like a filled in kind of like the equipment levels, just a partial or full bar.

Yep, you’ll find the curse in the panel that shows effects on the character, including the level of the curse. I think you see the level of the curse when it’s placed on you, too. Also, I think the remove-curse ritual does have a tooltip indicating it removes just one level, but I could be mistaken.

Anyway, it took me a little while to figure this out as well. It’s a bit expensive to remove a level-3 curse: you have to run the ritual three times, expending the required resources each time. I try to hoard herbs, as they’re lightweight.

Another alternative is just to wait it out and hope you wander into the witch who sells a complete cure, often at a cheap price (especially if you have a witch in your party).

What’s your wraith like? My chosen just became an Undead when he kicked the bucket, so I have some similar weirdness going on!

Well then, the plot thickens. Under tags, no character shows a curse. Yet, as the screenshot above shows, my characters are showing the effect of a curse.

I think I found a cursed item once. Any chance of that being the culprit?