-
It starts the second week. After you've chosen what classes to take, but before the weekend, Julianna the Duchess of Ursul shows up. The only publicly known Lumen outside of the current king or queen (which, since the game takes place interregnum, makes her the only openly Lumen person in the country at the time.) She has come to teach you, the queen to be, magic.
You can send her away, in which case she states in no uncertain terms that she will return if you call for her. She does this in spite of you sending her away quite rudely.
Cut to a time when the kingdom might be saved if you could just get one more Lumen to come, you bring up the idea of getting her but it's shot down because you sent her away. Apparently the whole I'll come as soon as you call thing was bullshit.
-
In Week 9 there's a situation that calls for diplomacy or war. If you don't know what you're talking about you default to diplomacy but no matter what you consider it as an option.
In Week 25 you (can) realize another country is preparing for war. Diplomacy, once the default option, is not an option, you either begin your own military buildup or do nothing.
In Week 31, if you know divination, it is confirmed that the country preparing for war is preparing for war with YOU. There are no options. The lack of diplomacy, what you originally defaulted to, is notable.
The invasion isn't launched until Week 34 and doesn't land until Week 35. You had plenty of time to send diplomats to see if war could be averted. You didn't. This is notable for two reasons.
One, it's completely inconsistent with the Week 9 situation which is more than a little important because the Week 9 - Week 10 events can send the game spiraling off in various directions.
The second is that diplomacy would have worked. The enemy king wants access to you directly. If he can get that by coming as a diplomatic envoy (with sufficient guards to be confident he won't be assassinated) he'd do it.
Diplomacy, set up as the default option, turns out to be something you don't even consider.
-
On week 16, Depending on past choices, someone may try to assassinate you. Based on the clues you can determine where they were sent from, but not by whom. Your options will be to guess and make an accusation, or to drop the matter entirely.
Even though you have agents who can look into things, even though you will later hire a spy, you can't have anyone look into the matter further.
Assassination attempt = no follow through whatsoever. You either accuse the first person who comes to mind, or you let the matter drop.
Except... later, after you've hired a spy, there's another assassination attempt, and you get much stronger evidence of who is behind it, and you still send the spy to do follow through to make sure you're not accusing the wrong person.
Intrigue, breaking into a noble's household, reading encoded journals, all that stuff. Follow up, follow up, follow up.
Try to fit those to things together in a a way that makes sense:
1 The proper way to respond to an assassination attempt is to investigate not a jot even though you've got basically no idea who did it.
2 The proper way to respond to an assassination attempt is to investigate fully even though you've got strong evidence as to who did it.
These two things do not fit together.
-
Only one more example because I have other things I have to do.
At one point in the game you can find out someone might be plotting against you. You can send people to arrest her, send assassins to kill her (looks like a natural death in her sleep), or wait till later.
Ok, so that's how you deal with people working against you.
BUT
Later in the game you can learn that someone has been actively trying to kill you. You can execute her (with or without various members of her family) or banish her (with the entire family.) What happened to arresting people? What happened to assassins?
Arresting wouldn't have worked out any better than banishment because MAGIC, but it seems like it should be an option on the table. Assassins who make it look like death of natural causes would have been much better than executioners because at least you could have avoided traumatizing all the innocent members of her family.
But the thing here isn't how these options would or would not have changed the game. The thing is: Why aren't those options there?
-
With all of these things the problem is that the game sets something up and then fails to follow through. You're told that Julliana will come when called, she won't. It's indicated that you think of diplomacy first, when it matters most you don't consider it at all. Your tools for dealing with treasonous nobles are assassination and arrest WAIT! NO! Execution and banishment. The way one assassination attempt is handled completely contradicts the way another one is.
The game would be more solid if it didn't act this way.
----
[up]
No comments:
Post a Comment