Pathfinder Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Enhanced Plus Edition - now with turn-based combat

[Litmanen]

Holy shit, was the Nyrissa fight fucking pathetic. In RTwP, I just rushed her and she died almost instantly. This is also one of the few fights that's harder in Turn-Based mode, although everything depends on your save against her first Wail of the Banshee.
Still, it's fucking disappointing. Once again, the actual boss is substantially easier than the mooks in the rest of the dungeon. This is even worse than Vordakai.

Spoiler

Okay, I apparently finished the game by accident. I decided to let Nyrissa go and be forgiven which ended the game prematurely and the Lantern King got what he wanted. I suppose that's the downside of playing a merciful Neutral Good character and always choosing the nice option. Apparently my romance score is also not high enough to begin with so I can't give her the Briar, not that I'm really interested in romancing her anyhow, even though I generally chose dialogue options with her that weren't overly hostile and I even got the special storybook sequence in her dream. Is there any way to check the romance score? Like through a save game editor or console or some shit?
I feel like allying with her as she is is kind of an evil aligned thing to do so I guess killing her is the best option now, although I guess that's also depriving myself of an ally against the Lantern King. Although with how pathetic she was I think she won't be of much use anyway.

Spoiler

Actually all the story tries to tell you that she act "evily" but she wasn't that bad before she get involved in Lantern King games. That's why you can try to "redeem" her.

Spoiler

Yeah, but failing that, allying with her would be kind of evil, no? If she stays as she is, that is.

Spoiler

The whole point is that you ally with her BECAUSE you succeed to redeem her and she is no longer that evil fay you know.

 

[Nas92]

Spoiler

There's an option to ally with her even when you haven't romanced her and she doesn't accept the Briar, thus staying Chaotic Evil.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Spoiler

Hey guys, what's going on in this thread?

 

[Jarpie]

Spoiler

There's an option to ally with her even when you haven't romanced her and she doesn't accept the Briar, thus staying Chaotic Evil.

IIRC I managed to ally with her and remove the curse thus turning her back being good.

 

[Desiderius]

Spoiler

There's an option to ally with her even when you haven't romanced her and she doesn't accept the Briar, thus staying Chaotic Evil.

IIRC I managed to ally with her and remove the curse thus turning her back being good.

Many such cases.

Hands of a king are the hands of a healer.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Hands of a king are the hands of a healer.

Who let Ioreth in here?

 

[Nas92]

I managed to actually complete the game, no more faux ending in the HATEOT.

I must say, the Ravaged Capital and the actual boss fight was way more satisfying. Overall, the design was simple but elegant, the fights were just challenging enough not to be frustrating and the boss fight at the end was vicious but not impossible with the right buffs and builds, as any boss fight should be.

Spoiler

I ended up killing Nyrissa, revenge for Linzi and a lot of other things. Since she didn't accept the Briar there was nothing really to talk about. After defeating the Lantern King I ended up simply asking it to piss off and forget about me. Not nearly the best ending, damn I should have researched more curses. Also I kind of mismanaged my kingdom I think but it was still considered prosperous and powerful so whatever. Couldn't manage to get to Rank X for every stat, I just sucked at time management, I guess.

Anyone who's planning on playing this game, I'd say it's worth it, just don't be afraid to turn kingdom management diffulty down to Easy and maybe even turn on Invincible Kingdom. I don't think you should put it on auto, kingdom management can be fun, but it seriously needs some refinement. Also, you gotta research the curses to get the best possible ending, so make sure to do that.

That being said, how am I supposed to do the curse project with all the events and rank-ups popping up? Am I supposed to leave Divine on lower ranks and keep researching curses with my high priest? I think these curse research projects should have been quests or maybe have special research council members for these projects. Seriously, with the amount of events and shit, the advisors we get to research and resolve events and opportunities and capture territories, etc., it requires serious juggling. Just not fun at all, especially for new players. If I ever replay this game, I'm looking into kingdom management overhaul mods, especially the ones that lessen the amount of time an advisor spends doing shit.

I'd say this game is actually better than Pillars of Eternity, very much so, but it's seriously bloated. This one playthrough took me more than 200 hours and I've still missed a whole lot of areas and this is without the DLCs. Kingmaker is a textbook case why cutting content is sometimes necessary. HATEOT could have been much smaller especially since most of it were overpowered and annoying trash mob fights anyhow. Thinking of all that is one reason even the idea of another playthrough is tiring. So on to Wrath of the Righteous, I guess.

 

[Litmanen]

I'd say this game is actually better than Pillars of Eternity, very much so, but it's seriously bloated. This one playthrough took me more than 200 hours and I've still missed a whole lot of areas and this is without the DLCs. Kingmaker is a textbook case why cutting content is sometimes necessary. HATEOT could have been much smaller especially since most of it were overpowered and annoying trash mob fights anyhow. Thinking of all that is one reason even the idea of another playthrough is tiring. So on to Wrath of the Righteous, I guess.

I loved the first PoE and I'm playing the second one. Maybe the first was better, but I like a lot this one too.

Anyway, overall, Pathfinder: Kingmaker is a better game with a more satysfying gameplay. For example, the unique objects in Pathfinder makes a lot more sense, to me.
But is bloated: some dungeons are unnecessarily long, and the story is clearly stretched out to include more chapters.

Choosing to make a more compact and shorter game (100 hours instead of 150?!) would have potentially made it an amazing game. But it still remains a great game nonetheless.

 

[Average Manatee]

There's one long dungeon per chapter. Without that the whole chapter would feel like there's nothing to it. HatEoT could be slimmed down but that's all IMO. Maybe you could trim one chapter out but I find the pacing pretty good.

What could have been trimmed massively is the time and struggle to get things done in Kingdom mode.

 

[Desiderius]

There's one long dungeon per chapter. Without that the whole chapter would feel like there's nothing to it. HatEoT could be slimmed down but that's all IMO. Maybe you could trim one chapter out but I find the pacing pretty good.

What could have been trimmed massively is the time and struggle to get things done in Kingdom mode.

Idk once I figured out taking the loan and rushing Community everything goes pretty smooth.

 

[Average Manatee]

Idk once I figured out taking the loan and rushing Community everything goes pretty smooth.

I'm talking primarily about how everything in Kingdom mode requires a loading screen to get to. The actual mechanics are reasonably OK, the UI to the mechanics is not.

 

[Desiderius]

Some of that was fixed in Wildcards DLC IIRC. They've since learned to put that kind of upgrade in the main game instead.

 

[Lios]

Started a new game, went with a cleric mc, then I remembered that I don't like playing clerics so I settled for a cleric of Gorum. STR/CON and 14 WIS. The guy's AC sucks (at least until now, Stag Lord's fort) so I should equip him with a glaive I suppose, but the whole point is having him buff himself into a giant meatmachine and rush into battle with a two handed sword. Chaotic Evil is pure stupid fun, it's always funny when for example the elf mage chick goes "Since I've joined you, we keep setting people free!" trying to warm up to me, only for me to respond "I'll fucking put them in chains myself after I become baron, hahaha fuck you".

Either I keep playing with this character, or I make a crusader. I've never played one. Is crusader OK or am I better taking one level of Fighter in my cleric?

 

[ga♥]

The loss of 1 spell slot/level hurts too much. I would say go crusader only if its not your only divine caster.

 

[razvedchiki]

the crusader gets 5 feats plus fighter feats so he will be a better fightan cleric.

 

[Jarpie]

There's a mod called Kingdom Resolution for those wanting to mess with how long it takes to research curses:
https://www.nexusmods.com/pathfinderkingmaker/mods/36

 

[Yosharian]

There's a mod called Kingdom Resolution for those wanting to mess with how long it takes to research curses:
https://www.nexusmods.com/pathfinderkingmaker/mods/36

I would strongly recommend using Bag of Tricks rather than that mod.

 

[Jarpie]

There's a mod called Kingdom Resolution for those wanting to mess with how long it takes to research curses:
https://www.nexusmods.com/pathfinderkingmaker/mods/36

I would strongly recommend using Bag of Tricks rather than that mod.

Oh, something wrong with that mod?

 

[Yosharian]

There's a mod called Kingdom Resolution for those wanting to mess with how long it takes to research curses:
https://www.nexusmods.com/pathfinderkingmaker/mods/36

I would strongly recommend using Bag of Tricks rather than that mod.

Oh, something wrong with that mod?

It's more like you can turn the option in BoT on when you need it, churn out the curses in one day, then turn off the option and continue playing, this reduces the chance of running into a bug - sometimes there's a scripted event that must not fail/succeed or takes a specific amount of time, or the game bugs out. The KR mod doesn't work correctly with these events I suspect

 

[Desiderius]

You eventually get plenty of time to research curses once everything else is rolling.

 

[Average Manatee]

Unlocking the rest of your council is the big thing. Once that's done you'll have multiple spares hanging around ready to do random events whenever needed. Doing any long projects at the start of the game is a trap, you'll probably miss being able to handle a problem and take a big punishment

 

[Haplo]

You eventually get plenty of time to research curses once everything else is rolling.

Not really my experience. Unless you optimise exceptionally well, maybe. I remember windows of opportunity to research maybe 3-4 curses, not nearly enough for the secret ending.
Of course, you can prioritise curse research at the cost of other things.

 

[Desiderius]

I ended up hitting Next Day 237 times at the end. Don't need to be all that optimized to get them in once you've hit X in your stats.

And that was before I figured out taking the loan and rushing Community. That playthrough would probably have had even more time but Wrath came out or whatever and I never finished it.

Unlocking the rest of your council is the big thing.

Yes, that's the best goal for a lot of things, including curse research. Can afford to miss some opportunties that come up once those stats hit X.