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Expeditions: Rome - the final Expeditions game from Logic Artists

Aarwolf

Learned
Joined
Dec 15, 2020
Messages
439
26-28 hours in, I'm in the middle of act II (Egypt). How long till the end?
 

Larianshill

Arbiter
Joined
Feb 16, 2021
Messages
1,719
My thoughts on the endings:

There are two ways to approach the finale - the violent and the peaceful one, that depend on whether or not you cross the Rubicon. If you go violent, it goes about the way you'd expect - you take Rome by force, kill a lot of people, take the bad guy's head. One of the companions ditches you and even turns against you, but it's incredibly easy to make him switch sides back to you. The game makes a big deal about you having to dispose of Cato, Cicero and Pompeius, but again - you can effortlessly convince them to stand with you, or at least stand aside and let you do what's necessary. There is no actual human cost to betraying the republic and declaring yourself dictator, aside from a bunch of nameless, faceless NPCs. You can also flee to Egypt or get crucified, but I have no idea what kind of cuck would cross the Rubicon with an army and then not declare himself emperor. Caeso is upset with you and moves to Egypt, but he moves to Egypt regardless of which ending you pick. Julia is also mildly upset and leaves Rome, but eventually she returns.

Meanwhile, if you decide not to cross the Rubicon, the game starts off with killing of Syneros, the cool old guy who's always been on your side. After that, your villa is set on fire. Then the bad guy takes your entire party hostage, and you have a choice between saving them (and being branded a criminal, because you've just killed a consul) and watching one of them die (in my case, it was Caeso, I don't think there's any variation as to who dies) before the crowd has enough and tries to get some mob justice done. If you do save Caeso, you need to either flee to Egypt or get crucified. If you sacrifice him, you can either become a consul or retire to a farm. Regardless, the tone of the ending tries to be triumphant - you saved DEMOCRACY! - but the game makes a giant presumption that democracy is worth preserving because it just is, and is worth this huge human cost that preserving it requires.

In the end, the real choice in Rome is between getting personal power, wealth and fame, becoming a beloved and effective leader and making Rome great again (at the cost of making Caeso not even upset enough to try and assassinate you, boo fucking hoo), OR preserving muh democracy, but losing the people you care about. I'm sure that maybe for some people more in love with the ideas of the republic that's a real, difficult choice, but I'm just baffled. In Viking, you could become the ruler of the Danelaw, but it required you to turn on two of your companions (and potentially even kill them), turn on two people you've been helping the whole game (and potentially kill them), and through the whole sequence you're being called a power-hungry traitor and murderer, because that's exactly what you are. Rome kind of tries to do the same, but it doesn't work - in Viking you don't really have a righteous reason to go for the violent ending, while in Rome you do - after repeatedly trying the political, socially acceptable solution, you get sick of it failing and try to finally get things done. You get called a traitor by either people you can easily convince to choose your side, or by the villain of the game, who cheated, robbed and murdered for 40 hours of gameplay, so both sides feel kind of hollow.

On the flip side, Rome does get one thing better than Viking - both peaceful and violent endings have engaging gameplay and story, while in Viking, both routes were completely the same, except peaceful route lacked about three hours of cool violent gameplay.
 
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Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Oct 2, 2018
Messages
17,897
Location
大同
Crafting RNG is annoying as fuck. Wish I could just upgrade the items or modify the skills associated with them at an extra cost rather than just dismantling and recreating them again and again.
 

Toffeli

Atomkrieg, ja bitte
Patron
Joined
Feb 24, 2011
Messages
1,553
Location
Nordic Mongolia
Wasteland 2
Crafting RNG is annoying as fuck. Wish I could just upgrade the items or modify the skills associated with them at an extra cost rather than just dismantling and recreating them again and again.
You can? Or is there something wrong with it?
expd.jpg
 

SmartCheetah

Arcane
Joined
May 7, 2013
Messages
1,076
Is this game getting any new mechanics after Asia minor? If not, it's fucking garbage.
I mean, it is garbage because of so many reasons but I still hope it gets at least slightly better in 2nd and 3rd act.

UI is atrocious. Battles with timers which basicly force you to run thru enemies just to save a guy in 2 turns are fucking retarded. Healing your party injuries is the most fucked up thing I saw in a video game - enter the camp just to place a guy in a tent, exit the camp, come back later, enter the camp, take the guy from the tent and you're free to use him 4 loading screens later. And guess what - sometimes you have to heal them that way because of retarded random events (some of them don't even let you choose the outcome. Just deal with the injury motherfucker)
Ofc you can treat them while traevlling but it takes longer.
And this is only the tip of the iceberg. This game is such a mess it's not even funny. If there is nothing good after act1 I'm uninstalling this shit.
 
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Sensuki

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2012
Messages
9,799
Location
New North Korea
Codex 2014 Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong A Beautifully Desolate Campaign
For those that have complained about the game becoming repetitive after the first act (I'm not up to that part yet). Did you play Viking or Conquistador?

I haven't played Conquistador for a long time, but I played Viking again recently. In England I remember looking forward to unlocking the weapon skills, it's a good time in the game when you finally unlock something like Fire arrow or One-Two, for instance and leveling up my Crafting skills to make better gear. Mechanically I can't remember anything new being introduced at that point though other than getting new skills.

Is the issue that the leveling system in Rome is too horizontal at that point in the game ?
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,228
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/987840/view/4991679131368517435

Hotfix - v1.1.4
1. Modified the encounter in the quest Ambiorix’s Warning:
  • Fixed an issue with the encounter not completing if players manage to kill all the enemies during the encounter.
  • Cativolcus now places a Rally banner at the start of the fight.
  • A Charger and Arsonist have been added to Cativolcus’ team.
  • Adjusted the level of the enemies in the encounter slightly.
  • If you lose the encounter, all injuries will be cleared when you wake up later.
2. Fixed an issue where characters who are hurt during the Rome Sweet Rome quest will still be injured after the 5 year jump at the start of the Message From Lucullus quest. They will now be healed.

3. When using the Twitch extension, the nameplates for the characters will now be colored based on whether they are allies (green), enemies (red), or neutral (grey). The name plates will also fade out a bit if the character is defeated.

4. Fixed an issue with Afrorum legion not pathing correctly in the Gaul region.

5. Fixed an issue where Centurions could be hired for the Afrorum legion in Gaul when the Legion Afrorum was not available.

6. Fixed an issue where a barrel was blocking a ladder on the Mountain Village instance.

7. Improved game stability (crashes).

8. Fixed an issue where Deianeira was appearing in sections of Rome when she was not supposed to (based on story decisions).

9. Fixed a hex issue on Cliff Pass Overlook that could cause the player to get stuck if their own character happens to be standing on this hex when combat ends.

10. Fixed an issue where characters would “RAAAAAAAHHHHHH” every time enemies move from retargeting when using the Twitch extension.

11. Added some refund functionality to the Twitch extension:
a. You will be refunded if you try to apply a status effect when that effect is already applied.
b. You will be refunded when you try to heal a character at full health.

9297100c58114d6ac2f017c74551121d8683f670.png
 
Joined
Dec 17, 2013
Messages
5,103
Not going to read through the entire thread as I am playing it now and don't want spoilers nor the usual negative Codex bullshit, but just wanted to give my 2 cents:

Much like Conquistador and Viking, it's a damn good game! These guys definitely have talent. Not perfect, lots of small quibbles, but so far, having a lot of fun with this. The combat is both challenging and interesting (playing on Hard), the historical flavor is great (even if there is some SJW stuff), and the game does a really good job of mixing story, combat, strategy, characters, and history together into an excellent final product. Will provide more feedback as I get deeper into it.
 

jungl

Augur
Joined
Mar 30, 2016
Messages
1,420
The game has light rpg mechanics but its got that forward momentum, good pacing. Characters and and tactical combat is alright. Injury system is pathfinder kingmaker loading screen simulator trash. Also most the hardcore survival management elements are non existent. I guess conquistador only game they made a serious attempt in that department.

Its a decent game.
 

Sunri

Liturgist
Joined
Apr 16, 2020
Messages
2,746
Location
Poland
I can't believe that they made this stupid mission that force you to lose even before it starts you know that it is an ambush, but you have to go with it then I wipe everyone with Bestia infinite attack stuff on turn 1 but no I need to die with honor and game turns into skipping turn simulator for 5 minutes after that cucks from other legion kill some randoms and smugly proclaim hehehe shoulda know better and everyone is injured, so you need to spend another 5 minutes healing everyone literally no redeeming qualities what were they thinking when they designed this crap and act III doesn't even have any new waifus :negative:
 

Larianshill

Arbiter
Joined
Feb 16, 2021
Messages
1,719
I loved the part where the bad guy's whole plan is to lure you into Gaul so you can get killed, and then when there's a perfect opportunity to just stand by and do nothing, he saves you because... Because.
 

ERYFKRAD

Barbarian
Patron
Joined
Sep 25, 2012
Messages
28,236
Strap Yourselves In Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I loved the part where the bad guy's whole plan is to lure you into Gaul so you can get killed, and then when there's a perfect opportunity to just stand by and do nothing, he saves you because... Because.
Dude probably got hit by a menhir
 

notpl

Arbiter
Joined
Dec 6, 2021
Messages
1,374
alright this has become terminally boring halfway through Egypt. the enemy AI cannot keep up with you at all once you master some class skill trees, even on Hard I'm ending every combat in turn 1 without taking a single point of damage and the conquest stuff is shallow and tedious. if they had cut that portion out and condensed the rest of the game I'd be happy to beat it but after 30 hours I don't ever want to touch this again
 
Joined
Sep 25, 2013
Messages
651
alright this has become terminally boring halfway through Egypt. the enemy AI cannot keep up with you at all once you master some class skill trees, even on Hard I'm ending every combat in turn 1 without taking a single point of damage and the conquest stuff is shallow and tedious. if they had cut that portion out and condensed the rest of the game I'd be happy to beat it but after 30 hours I don't ever want to touch this again
I did like literally two main story missions in Gaul act 3 and uninstalled. Pretty much felt the same.
 

Shrimp

Arbiter
Joined
Jun 7, 2019
Messages
1,033
alright this has become terminally boring halfway through Egypt. the enemy AI cannot keep up with you at all once you master some class skill trees, even on Hard I'm ending every combat in turn 1 without taking a single point of damage and the conquest stuff is shallow and tedious. if they had cut that portion out and condensed the rest of the game I'd be happy to beat it but after 30 hours I don't ever want to touch this again
I did like literally two main story missions in Gaul act 3 and uninstalled. Pretty much felt the same.
I'm fairly sure I'm almost done with Egypt and knowing that I'm only two thirds through the game is not doing it any favours. The game blew its load way too early and I feel like it simply doesn't have anything new to offer past the first campaign in Asia Minor.
 

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