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A Legionary's Life - historical Roman soldier simulator RPG

spectre

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
5,381
It worked! I've increased sword/shield stat and right off the bat got 2 kills with 0 lost HP. Previously I've bought nice sword but tried to boost stats like strenght/cons/sword/javelin etc. evenly and thus got a lot of misses.

Thanks for the tip!
I think the most important tip is to use the aggressive/defensive slider - I missed it the first time and it can dramatically affect your odds of hitting things.

For your first playthrough, I would just try surviving as long as you can (preferably until the end of the game) to get a few more points to spend at character creation.
This means avoiding any heroics and just getting the feel of how the game plays out.
Don't fuss too much over physical stats in the beginning. It's okay if a lot of them are average, as long as nothing is abysmally low. I think it helps the most if you roll above average charisma,
this lets you spend your leisure time playing dice and gaining troop opinion, which in turn lets you train by sparring with the best fighters around until you become an all-round competent fighter.
(you will notice that at one point your char has gotten the hang of it). I said avoid doing unnecessary heroics because for a the really touch challenges you need a really powerful char, even having 70s in your skills and stats
may not be enough. I'll leave you to figure this one out. As a rule of thumb, If the game lets you do something out of the ordinary (like stepping out of your ranks or challenging someone), you need to carefully weight your options.
Often you'll get subtle cues about what kinds of enemies you're going to face.

If you want tips for training, my usual routine was like this - start by practicing your one-handed skill solo until you hit about 40, if you're nearing the point where the legionary would start losing morale, give it a rest
and play dice. If you gain enough troop opinion to spar with decent guys, try balancing your sword and shield skill. Repeat until you hit a wall and your skills stop increasing. It means you need more troop opinion for higher quality training.
At one point chance of success becomes less of a concern and you can start making meaningful choices in combat - will you tire the opponent out with sporadic cuts to the arms and legs, maybe feint them or shield bash until they fall over and go for the neck?
This is where the combat gets actually enjoyable. Different stats are useful for different moves, e.g. quickness is good for quick feint, take your time figuring it out.

Sword and shield is important because you'll be using that a lot. Focus on other skills when you feel you have enough s&s. On the other hand, training with pilum lets you pull one hit kills on some guys. Might be irrelevant when you're fighting an endless stream of opponents,
but if you one hit an important character, it'll be recognized and may get praised for valor in combat. The rule of thumb is you can train it up to your coordination value, getting to 40 is nice, because it lets you make the throw without embarrassing yourself. If you have the coordination to become an expert thrower, go for it.

When it comes to workout, I would only do it after sword&shield is acceptable and if you want to want to raise an abyssmal score that's been bringing you down.
 
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Haba

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Codex 2012 MCA Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2
Much RPG, such character development. I rolled a RNG Cult Legionnaire and won the game. Yay.

Here is my fourth try:

legi_firstfight.jpg
Yes, that is right at the end of the first battle, before awards

I even did dumb shit such as this, without the meta knowledge (yes, I had to fight later on with that many HP left...):
legi_challenge.jpg

Post game strats:
legi_postgame.jpg

I guess this is the perfect game for autists who love banging their head on the wall.
- Want the best loot in the game? Pray for RNG to give you the right events.
- Want win tough acheevos? Pray for the RNG to give your throat cutting 50 dmg roll instead of a 0.
- Want to use javelins effectively? Pray for RNG extra hard so that you can get those handful of one-shots.

Over all, not a bad little game. I liked the Black Company/Myth -esque way you are spectating big events from the ranks of normal soldiers. But a really fucking infuriating at times, and RPG lite at best.
 

Haba

Harbinger of Decline
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Codex 2012 MCA Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2
I don't know if it is possible to do better without cheating:
TmJ7yzC.png

Failed one bullshit skill check (first campaign and requires 80+ AWA, wtf bbq). But other than that I killed everything and everyone.

And thanks to RNG, didn't get a ton of events.
 

jungl

Augur
Joined
Mar 30, 2016
Messages
1,420
Games fun but gets annoying after dozens of tries. I dueled this greek dude and got him near death but he managed to win. Can unlock swordsman trait now but going through all that again is boring and fuck the rng
 

Agesilaus

Antiquity Studio
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Grab the Codex by the pussy Codex USB, 2014 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I don't know if it is possible to do better without cheating:
TmJ7yzC.png

Failed one bullshit skill check (first campaign and requires 80+ AWA, wtf bbq). But other than that I killed everything and everyone.

And thanks to RNG, didn't get a ton of events.

Meh, it's possible. I finished up with the game a month or so ago, here was my last high ranking guy:

EKB-e3vX0AAkigo


He has less points, but you can see I had more civic crowns and mural crowns. I killed literally everyone and saved every injured Roman I encountered. However, I didn't break the phalanxes in the last battle so I guess no grass crown for poor old Diomedes.
 

Haba

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Codex 2012 MCA Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2
Yup, bullshit design. You can't get certain events if you are not lucky, and you also won't get certain events if you are good enough (If you are promoted early, some events are excluded.)
 

Cosmo

Arcane
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Messages
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Project: Eternity
Yup, bullshit design.

You simply didn't understand that this game is by nature designed to be played multiple times, which means the optimal playthrough where you get to "win" every event simply doesn't exist.
I'd say a single playthrough tends to strive towards realism in the sense that below a certain ability level you can only hope to survive and make it as far as the harsh realities of war (and the RNG) will let you.
The gamist and completionist aspect only intervenes with the hall of fame metagame, but outside of it your analysis is totally beside the point.
 

Agesilaus

Antiquity Studio
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Grab the Codex by the pussy Codex USB, 2014 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Yup, bullshit design. You can't get certain events if you are not lucky, and you also won't get certain events if you are good enough (If you are promoted early, some events are excluded.)

You are too harsh on the game. There are design errors, yes, but it's one of the best games that came out in 2019.

I definitely enjoyed the game, and the hours I put in probably indicate that it was one of the best games that came out in 2019, but... it feels like an impressive mobile phone/tablet game rather than PC game. Also, once you know how to play, you basically become god-tier and there is little if any challenge. On the one hand, you learn how things work and get better at playing, and on the other hand due to the character generation points the game itself also becomes easier and easier every time you play. In the end, nothing is a challenge at all. Battle essentially boils down to slaughtering huge numbers of low tier opponents, and then if a champion appears I let him get tired and then kill him with ease.
 

Tigranes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
10,350
I bought this to support MORE ANTIQUITY GAMES

But I haven't gotten to try it properly yet, I ran a couple playthroughs and the combat scenes seemed really confusing and sluggish? Felt like I'm clicking a lot of buttons to keep a lot of different numbers healthy while a single fight takes many rounds anyway. Is that just because my guy was shit
 

Haba

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Codex 2012 MCA Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2
The gamist and completionist aspect only intervenes with the hall of fame metagame, but outside of it your analysis is totally beside the point.

It is a game with a high score. High score that is determined by RNG, not player skill. That is degenerate design.

Even if we put that aside, I am not a big fan of this kind of RNG determined progress, especially when there isn't enough events in the pool to ensure that no two playthroughs really are alike. If you get dealt a shit hand, there is not really much you as a player can do to deal with it. 'cept maybe retire early.
 

spectre

Arcane
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Oct 26, 2008
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Not disagreeing about the game being RNG-heavy. I once lost a very promising guy to a half-dead and out of balance swordsman going for a throat hit which miraculously connected and lost me 40 points.
On the other hand, that would pretty much describe every roguelike out there. It's not like the game is heavy on choices anyway, the only meaningful one seems to be Low vs. High Virtue,
and even then it seems hight Virtue offers you more opportunity to do endgame stuff.

To me, the game is designed like a snowball - once you hit the right spot with numbers and commit to taking a route, you keep getting opportunities to start rolling.
Start raising virtue and the game will throw virtue-raising events at you. Get a nice kill streak and you get a combat skill boost which lets you kill more things and take their things... which leads to more killing.
I finished one playthrough at ~1000 points then got into a 6000 one with the guy getting all the recognition, only to be fucked over in the end by getting no office despite having a mural crown and two pubic crowns.

I'm still new to the game, biggest challenge seems to be figuring out the treshold values for skills. E.g. how much awareness do you really need? What are the good stats for winning the throwing contest? etc.
I realize the game hides the checks on purpose, but it only makes me want to look them up or datamine.
So far it seems that 80 -ish in a stat gives you decent odds, but is by no means a guarantee.


I ran a couple playthroughs and the combat scenes seemed really confusing and sluggish? Felt like I'm clicking a lot of buttons to keep a lot of different numbers healthy while a single fight takes many rounds anyway. Is that just because my guy was shit
Generally speaking, the combat gets less confusing as you figure out what does what. Still, be prepared to do a good deal of eye-rolling. A lot of the options just contribute to the information overload, cause most of the time you're just using the offense/defense slider, recover and swing at torso. And yes, it's mostly about keeping your stance meter 100% (or as low as you can get and still get a good chance for hits).

It's also quite normal to take many turns to drop a guy, unless someone gets terribly (un)lucky or there is a heavy disparity between skills and/or equipment. If a guy is armored and trained (this covers most "boss" fights and veterans), the course of action is usually to tire them out - stay relatively defensively and mostly hit recover and respite while they wear themselves out on all the feints. If you can get away with a hit, try going for an arm or leg - no armor there and it tires them out quicker. Once you have a full circle of stamina worth of advantage,
slowly start going on the offensive and chip away at their arms and legs until dead. Such duels can take ~60 turns.

The other extreme case is when you're facing guys with inferior equipment and skill, this starts happening on your second campaign where you're decently armed and trained and start slaughtering militias. You can try and such fights quickly by waiting for them to stumble (miss and attack and take a good -25+ to stance). You can try and keep them down with feints or shield bash (depends on which odds are better, but a successful charge usually seals the deal by giving you a few free shots with maximum accuracy), then finish them up by striking the head, groin or neck. Results are still random and while theoretically neck shots are the best, sometimes you get better mileage with good old torso hits. This depends on their equipment. If a spot is unarmored, you know where to hit. Read up on the stats on armor to make the right call here. Soft spot strikes can come into play here - usually I'm not seeing much of a difference vs. regular hit, but it seems to be slightly more effective with armor that doesn't fully cover a body part

Try rolling a high quickness on your characters (this gets easier once you finish one decent playthrough cause you can specialize by spending points on character creation), it lets you take two turns in a row more often, and it helps you exploit certain situations better, for example the enemy stumbles, you feint them, get an extra turn and can shield charge to seal the deal.

EDIT:
Seems that I'm hitting a wall. Another playthrough ended with a ~6500 score and doesn't want to budge.
Who do I have to blow to hold some kind of office in the end? Had two civic crowns but apparently there's also Cha + Int check involved.

What's your opinion on the starting stuff you can pick at character creation?
So far I picked the Natural Swordsman thing, was pretty good ended up with 94 sword skill which was good, made a lot of the boss fights a breeze, but still not enough to beat the phalanx. Managed to chop through it, but didn't have enough stamina to kill more than one phalangite afterwards.

I need to check the Shield thing, but the shield skill looks much less useful. It's better to be able to kill things quickly due to turn limits.

When it comes to equipment, I believe one should pick the best sword asap cause it's the only thing that actually makes a difference. Helmets aren't too useful and you can probably buy or loot a better one. Same goes for armor, 1000 points for chainmail is steep and I usually loot all my armors. The 85 point armor looks like it makes barely enough difference to justify the purchase.

I'm also wondering about the stat scores to aim for to see as much content as possible.
Strength - seems to affect damage and bashing, although if your roll low, it does diddly squat. Looks comfortable to have around 55, I usually train it a bit later in the game.

Endurance & Constitution - I always mix these two. Obviously more is better, especially when it comes to HP and stamina. Overall, the physical stats seem to trigger a bunch of +troop opinion events which may help you get good training faster, but on the other hand, it looked like I could raise them by workout somewhat.

Quickness - I usually prioritize this one, plenty of important checks use it (climbing the walls, saving people), it also helps a lot in combat. Had 75+ in a bunch of games and it felt like a good stat to roll for.

Coordination - used in plenty of checks, gives you the soft cap on Javelin skill. I mostly felt fine having this at around 55-60.

Charisma - this one seems to be important. I never go below 60. Lets you gain troop opinion just by fucking around the camp to unlock better sparring. Also used a lot when you become promoted, although I tend to easily max troop/centurion/tribune bars, so not sure what's the good value.

Intellect - also not sure about a good value here. If you're a dumb fuck, it'll fuck you over when you get promoted (won't be able to organize things). Seems to be used a lot during the endgame checks, but isn't too useful early on save for a minor morale boost here and there.
Appears to be used when playing the boardgame at camp. Maybe it can substitute charisma to an extent?

Awareness - I also tend to buff this one. Plenty of good opportunities hidden behind awareness checks. Unfortunately, heavier helmets will crap on your score here. Not sure about a good value here. Been playing with ~70 and I have a feeling I'm not passing checks as often as I wanted to.
 
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Shadowfang

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Road to Arnika
Shadorwun: Hong Kong BattleTech
hope the author publishes this on GoG or some other store that allows setup download without store client installation bullshit (yes, GoG just barely qualifies nowadays with Galaxy crap)
the demo and the LP above have convinced me i need to give this guy money to support the game as it's right up my alley; hell, i'll pay him double the current asking price
however, i cling to ancient traditions and "death before Steam" is my family motto (i have it engraved on my scutum below the etching of a vodka bottle)
You don't have to use GOG Galaxy to play their games and lets hope they keep at it.
About a DRM free version, i think there is going to be one available soon.
 

jungl

Augur
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Mar 30, 2016
Messages
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What I learned from trial and error is that morale very important. Superb morale basically buffs all your skills and stats by 20%. You can have 40 in a certain stat and win rolls that require you have like 20+ points higher. BUT if you have low stats some events you fail no matter what.
 

Dayyālu

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Shaper Crypt
I need to check the Shield thing, but the shield skill looks much less useful. It's better to be able to kill things quickly due to turn limits.

Of all the things I can reply in your post, this is the only one I can quickly respond to: a Shield build is far more murderous than a Sword build.

Knock 'em down and slit their throats. It works wonders.
 

spectre

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Of all the things I can reply in your post, this is the only one I can quickly respond to: a Shield build is far more murderous than a Sword build.
Knock 'em down and slit their throats. It works wonders.

Thanks. I'll be checking it out at some point. My sword and shield skills tend to be even so I never really saw that big of a difference.
In any case, sword tends to be easier to develop to ~50 in the early game, and for the endgame, my biggest concern is the usability vs. the Phalanx fights. Rest of the stuff, the Chillarch and Bulwark weren't too tough.

Do reply to the rest. I'm still in the process of figuring things out.
 

Haba

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Yeah, pushing them down with shield and slitting the throat is viable 90% of the time. Hell, a superman can even push down the damn phalanx by himself (though chopping it up is preferred). There are a few boss fights where this does not work, so you have to be careful.

Also the numbers lie in somecases, what looks like 75%+ chance can get some hidden modifier applied it to it, which turns it into a practical 0% chance.
 

Üstad

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Yeah, pushing them down with shield and slitting the throat is viable 90% of the time. Hell, a superman can even push down the damn phalanx by himself (though chopping it up is preferred). There are a few boss fights where this does not work, so you have to be careful.

Also the numbers lie in somecases, what looks like 75%+ chance can get some hidden modifier applied it to it, which turns it into a practical 0% chance.
How so? Also I finished the game, I expected something longer and better and more replayable. There is no different builds that gives you other things in the game. We have many stats but they barely do anything.

The only reason I don't ask for refund because you can do something good with that money.
Like a decent replayable rpg

But I must say I did love the writing.
 

vazha

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Aug 24, 2013
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GOTY of last year for me, hands down. Cant wait for barbarian expansion to come. I wants to be a burly german lumberjack axeman laying in ambush in Teutoburg forest.
 

Storyfag

Perfidious Pole
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Yeah, pushing them down with shield and slitting the throat is viable 90% of the time. Hell, a superman can even push down the damn phalanx by himself (though chopping it up is preferred). There are a few boss fights where this does not work, so you have to be careful.

Also the numbers lie in somecases, what looks like 75%+ chance can get some hidden modifier applied it to it, which turns it into a practical 0% chance.
How so? Also I finished the game, I expected something longer and better and more replayable. There is no different builds that gives you other things in the game. We have many stats but they barely do anything.

The only reason I don't ask for refund because you can do something good with that money.
Like a decent replayable rpg

But I must say I did love the writing.

Sufficiently high stats unlock events. So there are "different builds" in a way.
 

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