Expeditions: Conquistador Discussion Thread

[Severian Silk]

Man this game is hard. I've been ambushed by some rebels and I can't seem to survive for 10 rounds. Other encounters are just as hard.

 

[tuluse]

Man this game is hard. I've been ambushed by some rebels and I can't seem to survive for 10 rounds. Other encounters are just as hard.

Use the consumables, they make a huge difference.

 

[Severian Silk]

Which consumables do you mean? I don't have enough supplies to build barriers.

 

[tuluse]

Which consumables do you mean? I don't have enough supplies to build barriers.

You should be able to build lanterns, caltrops, net traps, spike traps and barriers. Barriers are usually the least helpful of this lot.

Several of these you have to find by talking to people.

 

[Severian Silk]

I'm still early in the game. Is it important to research new items to tinker? Or will I learn all I need from NPCs?

[edit]

BTW, I save scummed to get past the rebels. I'm actually kind of disappointed that this is possible.

 

[Shadenuat]

You don't have to win. Game will continue even if you lose a few battles.

 

[Severian Silk]

What skill and level do I need to detect or remove caltrops? Thanks.

 

[Avonaeon]

You can detect caltrops by using spot trap (In the lower left corner, it's a tactical ability available to everyone from the beginning), but you can't remove them, save from going over them. There is a passive ability that lets you walk over them better though.

 

[Jack Dandy]

You don't have to win. Game will continue even if you lose a few battles.

I really liked that about the game. Made it feel much more dynamic.

Spoiler

I never managed to win against the bitch at the end of the first campaign..

btw Severian, if I were you I'd play it on Ironman, much more fun and tense that way.

 

[Severian Silk]

You can detect caltrops by using spot trap (In the lower left corner, it's a tactical ability available to everyone from the beginning), but you can't remove them, save from going over them. There is a passive ability that lets you walk over them better though.

I tried that in the last tournament battle but the caltrops were not revealed. Do I need a certain level of the skill to pull it off?

You don't have to win. Game will continue even if you lose a few battles.

I really liked that about the game. Made it feel much more dynamic.

Spoiler

I never managed to win against the bitch at the end of the first campaign..

btw Severian, if I were you I'd play it on Ironman, much more fun and tense that way.

To be perfectly honest, I am not liking this game as much as Blackguards. Maybe it will get better later?

 

[Darth Roxor]

Maybe it will get better later?

Nope, not really. It gets better for a while when you land in Mexico proper, but after that it gets steadily more and more boring and repetitive, up to a point where you simply just want the friggin' thing to end already.

 

[Jack Dandy]

Nah, this is more of a "love it or hate it" sort of thing, I think.
I enjoyed it right from the get-go and into the ending. There was never a point where I thought "Hey, this is better than before, I'm glad I stuck thru this".

 

[Shadowfang]

I actually enjoyed this game more than blackguards.
I am on my second playthrough right now and i am really appreciating the quality of the writing.
The plot makes sense, everything is believable from each event to each character motivation.

Are you going about more opened minded and peaceful or doing a more historically accurate approach?

 

[Jack Dandy]

The entire blend of survival\tactical battles\RPG\obsessive hoarding\exploration just scratched a really specific itch for me.
I also loved the UI, especially in combat. So neat, so clear, so immediate. Great stuff!

After my "historically accurate" approach, I just kind of felt like shit. But it wasn't like the writing was all "WHY DID YOU KILL THEM YOU EVIL, EVIL WHITE OPRESSOR", it all felt very natural, but still powerful. Kind of hard to explain.

Hearing the "Potente" tune everytime you burn down a village \ assfuck some wandering caravan didn't make me feel any better, either..

 

[Karmapowered]

This game is anything but historicallly accurate, not even close to it, should you even look through deforming lenses.

Spanish kicked Aztec ass right and left, mainly thanks to smallpox, local politics/diplomacy that granted them native allies and technological superiority in almost every field that mattered during a military campaign of the 16th century. Not to mention the rampant religious zealotry at the times, bolstering their fears determination. I didn't experience any of that in the game which was kind of disappointing to me, since I had bought it on that premise.

Next, as much as I still enjoyed the first part of the game, during which it really shines, the second part is crap. I could elaborate, but as far as I'm concerned, the designers dropped the ball in the later stages and failed to keep balance in check, which significantly lowers the incentive of playing the game through more than once.

From what I gather (I haven't tested the new version yet), the new patch doesn't seem to make things look any better, introducing level-scaling (?) to make up for design shortcomings, setting us back to 15 years old standards that I wished I would never see again in our cRPGs. Also, RNG-heavy features like criticals should probably be reduced in any tactical game to a non-significant factor if it comes to decide the outcome of a contest spanning several turns. Keep them to amuse the peanut gallery, but it's futile to claim they add to the challenge.

No hard feelings since it's their first game, but I'll be more attentive with their next one for sure.

 

[Darth Roxor]

You get a brofist for mentioning historical accuracy without OMG WOMYN

 

[Avonaeon]

We increased the difficulty of a lot of the battles in Mexico, precisely to try and balance it better. There isn't any level scaling in the game.

 

[Severian Silk]

Is this game getting any more patches?

A few suggestions:

1. The UI needs more tooltips. It took me a while to understand what all the menus and buttons were for.
2. The game really really really needs a "Restart battle" menu option during combat. I hate having to exit to the main menu, then reload, then go through the events all over again.
3. There needs to be some way to tell cairns/markers apart on the map based on whether you have visited them or not. Maybe change the icon or the icon color.

Thank you.

 

[Shadowfang]

This game is anything but historicallly accurate, not even close to it, should you even look through deforming lenses.

Who said the game was historically accurate? Jack Dandy and I were referring to the racist and aggressive approach under the euphemism of historically accurate approach. He even wrote it within quotes while i went with italic.

Spanish kicked Aztec ass right and left, mainly thanks to smallpox, local politics/diplomacy that granted them native allies and technological superiority in almost every field that mattered during a military campaign of the 16th century. Not to mention the rampant religious zealotry at the times, bolstering their fears determination. I didn't experience any of that in the game which was kind of disappointing to me, since I had bought it on that premise.

The game mentions smallpox several times, unless you wanted the ability to sneeze at your opponents, its quite in the game.
There is local politics/diplomacy at the mexico part of the game. You can gather several settlements together against the Aztecs, its very simple but sounds a lot like what you were expecting.
Religion does shave a small part on the game but hardly anything that can influence the outcome of it.

 

[Jack Dandy]

Actually, there is also a specific achievement for spreading smallpox in Tenochtitlan, it only appears in the Steam version tho. You do it by helping that one doctor around the area.

 

[tuluse]

2. The game really really really needs a "Restart battle" menu option during combat. I hate having to exit to the main menu, then reload, then go through the events all over again.

That would defeat the whole purpose of their fancy failstates for losing battles and their injury system.

 

[Severian Silk]

2. The game really really really needs a "Restart battle" menu option during combat. I hate having to exit to the main menu, then reload, then go through the events all over again.

That would defeat the whole purpose of their fancy failstates for losing battles and their injury system.

Are you really one of those people? I mean, ironman is OK, but only as long as you can load a previous save quickly and easily. For instance, being able to load a previous save game during a battle is a major reason why Blackguards was playable as opposed to tedious. Or any tactics game like JA2 or X-COM for that matter.

 

[tuluse]

Are you really one of those people?

I guess. I restarted the game twice after getting into really tough, potential un-winable situations, but then I breezed through the game on my 3rd attempt.

One of the cool things about the game is that you can lose a battle and not lose the game. If you just restart the game every time you lose, you miss all that.

 

[Jack Dandy]

Really can't say anything but ditto on Tuluse on this one.
They went the trouble of making it so lost battles =\= game over. It would be a complete waste if people could just easily restart any lost battle.

 

[7/10]

Soo... Is the second campaign any good? Also, is it harder?

I just managed to beat the tutorial island and found it rather easy, at least on normal, though it wasn't my first attempt. The last Esteban encounter and defending the governor were the only somewhat challenging fights. For some reason, I didn't get the bullshit "defend for 10 turns" random event.

As Tuluse said, the game's difficulty stems mostly from the fact, that it does a bad job of explaining the finer points of gameplay to you, so you'll probably get owned on your first playthrough. Once you get the hang of things, most fights can be won with a flawless victory, because the AI simply charges at you and you can flank and cut them down one by one.