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Expeditions: Viking - historical Viking RPG from Logic Artists

Darth Canoli

Arcane
Joined
Jun 8, 2018
Messages
5,687
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Perched on a tree
I don't know, i only replayed the first "half" recently and 2 characters were at -1 and 0/1 for the other.
For example, if you use a light poison for the early duel and admit it, one of your goons starts with a very low morale, 0 or less and there's plenty of opportunities to lose morale afterward.

Maybe you were just lucky or picked the right choices for your team without putting much efforts into it.

I believe you can get everyone to 7-10 very early for your main crew if you put some efforts into it and don't try to get different outcomes during a second playthrough.
 

Jackpot

Learned
Joined
Dec 15, 2019
Messages
224
Can you not eat in cities?
Like I get not being able to rest in cities, but not eating?
 

Cadmus

Arcane
Joined
Dec 28, 2013
Messages
4,264
Guys what the fuck does the base management do? I finished the game and have no idea what is it for.
I visited Skjern I think 3 times after leaving and it was useless anyway because I had better crafter than the village blacksmith. What is the whole upgrade system for?
P. cool game tho.
 

NJClaw

OoOoOoOoOoh
Patron
Joined
Aug 30, 2016
Messages
7,513
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Pronouns: rusts/rusty
Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture
Guys what the fuck does the base management do? I finished the game and have no idea what is it for.
I visited Skjern I think 3 times after leaving and it was useless anyway because I had better crafter than the village blacksmith. What is the whole upgrade system for?
P. cool game tho.
It determines which ending you can go for. You need at least 100 prosperity for the peaceful ending and at least 100 power for the true conquest ending.
 

ERYFKRAD

Barbarian
Patron
Joined
Sep 25, 2012
Messages
28,237
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
Guys what the fuck does the base management do? I finished the game and have no idea what is it for.
I visited Skjern I think 3 times after leaving and it was useless anyway because I had better crafter than the village blacksmith. What is the whole upgrade system for?
P. cool game tho.
It determines which ending you can go for. You need at least 100 prosperity for the peaceful ending and at least 100 power for the true conquest ending.
Why not both?
 

Cadmus

Arcane
Joined
Dec 28, 2013
Messages
4,264
My ending was I helped Northurmbia and made a strong base on that island and the Franks decided not to invade I think. Which ending is that?

To be honest I didn't notice where the endings are branched.
I only noticd I had the change to attack Northurmia during the victory feast but I didn't have any ships because I had not visited the island before that.
Other than that I don't know.
 

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
Why not both?

It is apparently possible to get both to 100 according to a Steam guide I read but you still have to 'choose' an ending.

Power points 50 unlocks Wrath of the Wretched Heathens quest, Other than that it's pretty minor - the camp upgrades bonuses are super minor. certain levels of prosperity changes some fluff responses from Astridr etc

I'd like to do the second last battle of the game without the wall upgrades but 2/3 times I've finished the game I've done the power option and I upgraded the walls at least one level in the prosperity one.
 

Iluvcheezcake

Prophet
Joined
Aug 27, 2014
Messages
1,651
Location
Le Balkans
As far as i can remember there is a uber ending if you reach 100 in both power and prosperity, where your main village and clan becomes a powerhouse and you invade and conquer the southern lands. Cant remember additional details tho
 
Self-Ejected

Thac0

Time Mage
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Messages
3,292
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Arborea
I'm very into cock and ball torture
So, as has become tradition for me the release of a new rpg by a developer has lead me to pick up their old title again to finish my run. I finished Expeditions Viking a while back.

A summary of my thoughts:
Overall my opinion hasn't changed that much. The core problem of this game is that it reuses a lot of the mechanics from Conquistador which were designed for a weird Kings' Bounty esque survival experience and puts them into the structure of a normal rpg. Overall my opinion improved and I no longer think it is a bad game, but I still like Conquistador more.

The drawbacks of keeping Conquistadors' mechanics around:
Without the threat of real death through survival conditions resting, wounds and the entire world map are no longer an engaging main gameplay mechanic but extremely annoying tedium. The moral system was also insanely annoying to me, as Conquistador gives you the ability to assemble a balanced group that mostly aligns with your morals, and only has a few outliers who you can cater to especially, and whom you keep around for their extreme usefullness. Here my entire host had highly conflicting morals, and making decisions to keep their morals high was extremely annoying due to the immediate penality of bad morale on your saves. As an example, why is every single archer and every single support character you get peacefull? Almost every melee character is aggressive. If you run a balanced party then half of your hird will be demoralised if you consistently pick aggressive or peacefull solutions. Survival, Resting, Wounds, Morale, nothing really works to the benefit of the game in Viking.

The new drawback introduced:
Holy hell is the loot in this game borked. Trash containers everywhere put Skyrim to shame, and the economy is so completely retarded that looting every barrel in a huge civilllian city gives you about as much ressources as winning 100 battles. Battle loot is pathetic, random garbage laying around consists of premium materials like hides and salvage.
The crafting system is not very good either, because you can max out certain stats much earlier than others. I played a mostly nonlethal approach, so crit rate was just not important for me, as in every second fight I could not crit anyway. By the halfway point I could craft weapons with a guaranteed perk and maximum penetration and damage. There was no feeling of progression after that.
The problem of the new loot is so bad that it even mires an aspect this game is otherwise good at, the isometric maps.

What there is to like:
Combat is good enough, it is nice that they reshuffled everything, making different skills good than last time. Small nitpick was only that there were too many shields around, as these are quite hard to bypass unless you field dual wielders for shield hook. Difficulty felt good on hard, my doods went down often enough for me to somewhat interact with the wound system, but not enough to make that strongly tedious. The game can probably comfortably be played on max difficulty on first run.
Most builds had at least one skill worth using, and there were many that were bad on first glance, but pretty good the more I think about them. Skald for example. Yeah the defense buff is good, the damage buff good for melee heavy hirds, the rest looks bad on first glance. But the AI really loves to spam stun and especially demoralise against you in predictable scenarios. And it keeps doing that even after you set physical or mental resist to 100% through a buff. At the end I ran a 2 archer 1 Skald 1 Shieldtank 1 Knife Dual Wield setup, and my first turn on my Skald was almost always setting mental resist to 100% so my archers can't get demoralised.
A lot of love went into the isometric maps. I didn't see this at first glance, because the game violently shits itself at certain points when it comes to map design. York is an extremely bothersome map, with tons of stupid quests, random fights, garbage loot and just a shitty layout in general. Later maps, especially those related to the Pict questline or the Romans however, were full of hidden quests, C&C and just love in general.

Stuff I am neutral about:
Factions. Some stuff was cool, but I am a bit annoyed you need to betray either the Picts or the Anglos, and the best ending is betraying both even. What annoys me so much that two of the most interesting companions in Aife and Morcanth through their unique skills and their ton of unique dialogue and even unique quest selections get taken away from you if you betray their faction. But not at the beginning, only in the last 5 hours of the game you get massively inconvenienced if you ran both and were buddy buddy with both picts and anglos. But ah well, it is cool C&C in a way, even if it inconveniences the player.

Towards the end of the game my morale to finish the game weaned a bit, as my double archer hird got really strong, and most fights were a waste of time. And damn, there were a lot of fights. The bossfight was also really disappointing. But when I look back at the game it had some great moments.
Fighting together with the Einjerhar in the afterworld. Renaming your companion. Saving a druid from a town that wants to stone him. Deciding wether Romulus or Remus should lead the last Roman legion. Fighting for control of Orkneyar.

I had my fun with this game. It is probably better if you don't go into it directly after Expeditions Conquistador, expenting more of the same.
Overall my impression is this: A diamond in the rough, when it hits its' stride it is really fun, but it inconveniences you at every opportunity, trying to keep you from prying the fun from the game.
 

Lawntoilet

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I am a bit annoyed you need to betray either the Picts or the Anglos,

Not if you go for the Prosperity ending.

As far as i can remember there is a uber ending if you reach 100 in both power and prosperity, where your main village and clan becomes a powerhouse and you invade and conquer the southern lands. Cant remember additional details tho
I had 112 Power and 100 Prosperity and just got the regular Danelaw ending, nothing about invading Frankia or anything.
 
Self-Ejected

Thac0

Time Mage
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3,292
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Arborea
I'm very into cock and ball torture
I am a bit annoyed you need to betray either the Picts or the Anglos,

Not if you go for the Prosperity ending

Thats an interesting idea. I wondered what the point of a prosperity ending was, as it doesn't unlock any new content unlike the Power ending as opposed to just forging an alliance. Allowing you to end the game without an alliance, and thus without declaring war on either the picts or the anglos is a fact I didn't even consider.
On the one hand, don't you cuck yourelf out of a lot of content if you do that? The battle of the village, two entire locations and the battle for the respective city. Then again, I did complain that there were too many battles in the end and that the final boss was a joke, maybe that would have been better if I arrived at Skullcleaver with 20 battles less fought and 30 skillpoints less earned.
 

Saduj

Arcane
Joined
Aug 26, 2012
Messages
2,547
I am a bit annoyed you need to betray either the Picts or the Anglos, and the best ending is betraying both even.

Betrayal on the part of the player really isn't possible because if you work with these kingdoms, they betray you. Both Kings have you running around doing their dirty work all game. You get to a point with each where he says "Do X and I will voice my support". Upon completing X for each kingdom, both then go back on their promise saying "I know what I said. But... We need one more small thing from you: Destroy the other kingdom". At this point, you have been lied to and betrayed. When they pulled this shit on me, I hadn't even been working towards the Danelaw ending. I wasn't even sure I would have enough time left to trigger it. But I would have rather risked losing than role play as some jackass who would continue to trust either of those weasels.
 
Self-Ejected

Thac0

Time Mage
Patron
Joined
Apr 30, 2020
Messages
3,292
Location
Arborea
I'm very into cock and ball torture
I am a bit annoyed you need to betray either the Picts or the Anglos, and the best ending is betraying both even.

Betrayal on the part of the player really isn't possible because if you work with these kingdoms, they betray you. Both Kings have you running around doing their dirty work all game. You get to a point with each where he says "Do X and I will voice my support". Upon completing X for each kingdom, both then go back on their promise saying "I know what I said. But... We need one more small thing from you: Destroy the other kingdom". At this point, you have been lied to and betrayed. When they pulled this shit on me, I hadn't even been working towards the Danelaw ending. I wasn't even sure I would have enough time left to trigger it. But I would have rather risked losing than role play as some jackass who would continue to trust either of those weasels.

This brings me to another point. This game really wants you to be the marauding viking. As we both agree, both kings and both alliances are shit. If it wasn't for Morcanth and Aife there would be no reason at all to ally with either of these fags, their markets don't even sell slaves. Danelaw is by far the best ending. And Danelaw ending has tons of additional content.
Marauding Viking also has quite a lot of extra content in general, like the red wedding quest. Or scorching churches. There is a lot of stuff you can't do if you want to go for a merchant norse, who historically have been as common as raiders, if not even much more during the ancient times. I don't think being peacefull even has any quest or advantage attached.
It also doesn't help that the reputation system is so raw around the edges. The anglos had a mild dislike against me for most of the game, then they flipped over to extreme like after I toppled their king. After all quests with them are finished, and the reputation doesn't mean much anymore. The picts I never got above 40 reputation, so they were fairly cold and had shit prices all throughout the game, and I even allied with them. A murderous viking is treated by the game pretty much the same as a trader norse, only the marauder has more content.
Similarily the take hostages function, while really cool in theory, usually just was there to mock an enemy before you execute him after you knock him out.

This game is oddly weighted in its choices if compared to Expeditions Conquistador where I never felt like the game was nudging me in any direction, and both being a cruel or a curious Conquistador had their advantages.
 

Saduj

Arcane
Joined
Aug 26, 2012
Messages
2,547
Yeah, the game would require additional systems before "merchant viking" would be a truly viable option.
 

Lawntoilet

Prophet
Patron
Joined
Oct 5, 2018
Messages
1,840
I am a bit annoyed you need to betray either the Picts or the Anglos,

Not if you go for the Prosperity ending

Thats an interesting idea. I wondered what the point of a prosperity ending was, as it doesn't unlock any new content unlike the Power ending as opposed to just forging an alliance. Allowing you to end the game without an alliance, and thus without declaring war on either the picts or the anglos is a fact I didn't even consider.
On the one hand, don't you cuck yourelf out of a lot of content if you do that? The battle of the village, two entire locations and the battle for the respective city. Then again, I did complain that there were too many battles in the end and that the final boss was a joke, maybe that would have been better if I arrived at Skullcleaver with 20 battles less fought and 30 skillpoints less earned.

I think Prosperity is an easier "good" ending, since you can just buy prosperity points with valuables. Not like it's hard to max out Power either (though it does take at least a little bit of forethought to get >100 in both).
It's nice that you keep all your companions too, though. I believe Exp: Rome also only has 1 ending that lets you keep all companions, or at least only 1 that I found.
 

Larianshill

Arbiter
Joined
Feb 16, 2021
Messages
1,719
NLixb1r.png


Does anyone know if the full version of this art exists anywhere?
 
Joined
Oct 1, 2018
Messages
2,323
Location
Illinois
Does anyone know if the full version of this art exists anywhere?
Oddly enough the largest copy I found was a thumbnail for a Youtube video. Found other crops of that with and without text in various places so presumably a full clean version exists somewhere but I'll be damned if I could find it. Even picked up the Expeditions Viking art book to look through it and they don't have that particular picture with that character.

maxresdefault.jpg


As an extra, here's the dude that seemingly did the original character concept art.
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/5BB6eO
 

Cadmus

Arcane
Joined
Dec 28, 2013
Messages
4,264
Dunno if I posted this somewhere but I finished the game and it was really enjoyable for me.
I still wish the crafting wasn't based around looting every container you can find. This part was annoying and boring. Basically the traditional RPG elements they introduced here as opposed to the first game were all for the worse.
 
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