Long Live the Queen: A silly tangent

So I do think the things I've talked about in my previous posts are serious points.  E.g. choosing to refuse to symbolically submit to someone when you've got your emotions under control enough to make a choice shouldn't automatically mean charging them in a suicidal rage and then, because I wasn't kidding about the "suicidal" part, dying from it.

This is something else.  This is me being silly.

The only part from the actual game is this, which comes up if Briony is with you when the civil war breaks out, you choose to hold her hostage, and you ask for more than the other side is willing to give as ransom because you don't have the [presence + cruelty*10] to pull off a threat convincing enough to make them give up that much.

Diplomat: What are your demands?
Elodie, Crown Princess: I can't trust nobles who are willing to turn traitor against me.
Elodie, Crown Princess: In exchange for Briony's freedom, the leaders of the rebellion will be stripped of their titles.
Elodie, Crown Princess: They will then be exiled from the domain of Nova, under order of execution if they ever return.
Elodie, Crown Princess: This rule applies to the Duchess of Lillah, the Duchess-Consort of Kigal, and the Duchess of Mead.
Elodie, Crown Princess: (It was Arisse and her daughters who planned this.)
Diplomat: That is a great deal to ask for.
Elodie, Crown Princess: I don't think exile is too high a price to pay for the life of Briony.
Diplomat: We do not believe you would actually murder one of your own friends to spite the rebellion.
Elodie, Crown Princess: (... well, no, I wouldn't, but you're not supposed to realise that!)
Diplomat: Since we cannot come to an agreement, we will meet you on the battlefield.
Elodie, Crown Princess: (Sigh.)

Anyway, story begins.

-

Elodie knocked on the door, "Briony?"

The door flew open and, Briony said, "Why are you keeping me cooped up in this room?  I thought we were supposed to have an adventure."

Elodie looked away, "We were, but... but a civil war has kind of broken out and your family is on the other side so you're sort of a hostage now."

However it was that Elodie expected Briony to react, that was how Briony didn't react.  "Being a hostage sounds exciting."

Elodie sighed, "Not really.  You just have to sit around until you're ransomed."

Briony made a sound somewhere between an "ugh!" and an "argh!"

"You'll have full run of the castle, you just can't leave till this is over."

"I came here because I'm sick of being trapped."

"I know, and I'm sorry, but you could save Nova from a civil war just by playing along."

Briony sighed then said, "It won't work."

"What?" Elodie asked, confused.

For a time there was silence then Briony's words came unsteadily, "My parents ... don't care about me.  They don't notice me.  They ... don't miss me."

Elodie didn't know what to say.

"I don't even think they like me," she said, close to tears.

Elodie launched into a hug and just held Briony.

"They ignore me," Briony, now crying, said.

It was impossible to tell how much time passed, but finally they stopped holding each other and Elodie said, "We have to try, a civil war threatens all of Nova."

"I already told you it won't work."

"Will you at least try for Nova, for me?"

"What do you hope to gain?"

"Well, they can just attack again as soon as you're out of the castle, so the safest option is to exile the leaders."

"You said they were my family."

Elodie looked to the floor, "They are."  There was a short pause and she said, "Your grandmother, your aunt, your mother."

"If you promise not to exile my mother, I'll play along.  She might not care about me, but I care about her."

"Deal!"  Elodie said.  It seemed like an off note to end on but she didn't know what else to say.  So she started to leave.  When her back was turned Briony spoke.

"Elodie?"

"Yeah?"

"When this is over..."

"Yes?"

"Then can we have an adventure?"

It was a horrible idea.  Briony's idea of adventure was likely to get them both killed.

Elodie said, "Yes."

---

First the diplomat for the rebels demanded proof that Briony was there and unharmed.  Briony did a good job of playing along considering that she was Briony.  Then again Briony was able to escape from her guards before, there must have been more to her than met the eye.  She confirmed that she was fine, but managed to seem frightened the entire time.

With her standing in the background, an armed guard to either side (with very specific instructions to look as threatening as possible without risking harm to Briony) the negotiation began. Elodie hated everything the rebel diplomat represented, but at least ze was to the point:

"What are your demands?"

"I can't trust nobles who are willing to turn traitor against me," Elodie began.  "In exchange for Briony's freedom, the leaders of the rebellion will be stripped of their titles.  They will then be exiled from the domain of Nova, under order of execution if they ever return.  This rule applies to the Duchess of Lillah, the Duchess-Consort of Kigal, and the Duchess of Mead."

If the terms were accepted then the rebels would still demand that their heirs be allowed to remain in control of their duchies.  That would mean that Briony would inherit Mead.  Once that demand was made Elodie would say that she couldn't hand over a Duchy to one who had recently been her captive and let the Briony's mother, and only Briony's mother, escape exile by paying a large tribute.

The diplomat said, "That is a great deal to ask for."

Elodie replied, "I don't think exile is too high a price to pay for the life of Briony."

And then the diplomat called Elodie's bluff, "We do not believe you would actually murder one of your own friends to spite the rebellion."

Well, no, Elodie thought,  I wouldn't, but you're not supposed to realize that!

Knowing that she wasn't good enough at bluffing to change the diplomat's mind about that now, Elodie tried a different tactic.  "Of course not.  All that I said was that if you agreed I'd free her, I never said that I'd kill her if you disagreed.  She'll stay here.  You'll kill her.

"I will fight you even if I'm the only one left to do the fighting and so much as one brick of this castle remains.  I am queen of this country and I will die before I see it fall to foreign rule.  Certainly not some Yeveni castoff whose own people hate her so much that they refuse to acknowledge she even exists."  Elodie knew that throwing in racism always helped to look like a fanatic, but after she said that she worried how Briony might feel.  After her confession about her parents, that might have hit her close to home.

"The only way your side will win is if you burn down this castle with Briony inside," Elodie finished.  She considered adding, "I'm trying to keep her safe, you're the ones who declared war on her vacation spot," but thought better of it.

"You speak well," the diplomat said, "but we still don't believe you will endanger her life.  Since we cannot come to an agreement, we will meet you on the battlefield."

The diplomat left and Elodie sighed.

"Are you really going to keep me here?" Briony asked.

Elodie gave silent thanks that Briony didn't say, "I told you so."  Then considered the question.  The castle was the safest place on land that Elodie controlled, but she didn't just control the land.

Elodie turned to her father, "The rebel duchies are all landlocked?" she asked.

"Yes, it's why our navy is useless right now."

"Useless for war, perhaps, but it means we control the only access to the ocean.  Anything, and anyone, we put to sea will be safe."  Elodie turned back to Briony, "You're going sailing."

"Can I look for pirate treasure?"

And once again, Briony was Briony.

Elodie considered pointing out that they were dealing with matters of life and death.  She considered telling Briony to take things seriously.  She said, "Yes."

Then she turned to her father and said, "Give her our best ship manned by our best captain and a large enough escort to make sure nothing happens to it."

Only those in the room, the king, the two guards who were assigned to be Briony's body guards, Briony herself, and Elodie knew that she was leaving the castle.  As far as everyone else knew she was to locked in her room in the tower.  The sole exception being Alice, who would make it appear that there was someone living in that room.  Alice believed that the ruse was so if anyone tried to rescue Briony they'd go to the wrong room, not because Briony was leaving.

--

Within the next week Briony set sail and armies collided.  Elodie wasn't a good enough strategist to win, but she could see when she was losing.  True to her word she refused to surrender.  Instead she ordered a full retreat.  Everyone who didn't want to live under rebel rule was to flee to the seas.

There were many.  It seemed that while certain nobles might not approve of Elodie's rule, most of the commoners were against the coup.  The battle lines, set up to keep enemy soldiers from getting into the rebel duchies couldn't stop commoners from getting out.

In addition Maree and Hellas, who remained neutral during the conflict, allowed both safe passage to the sea and resettlement.

Elodie did go on fighting until she was the last one left, alone in her castle on Lampai Island, but not because the others had died.  Instead because they had fled.  First her soldiers covered the retreat of civilians, then some of the soldiers covered the retreat of the rest, and finally Elodie focused all attention on her so that what remained could flee.

Every seafaring ship was put to use in the evacuation and many were packed quite tightly.

When the rebels took the capital they found Elodie alone in the castle, the treasury empty, provisions removed, and little left to do.  Elodie was thrown into the dungeon.

Maree and Hellas declared rebel rule illegitimate and thus formed and independent country with Elath, whose 13 year old ruler-to-be had been left under the care of Brin, duchess of Hellas when his previous steward was forced to flee.

Sudbury at first remained silent, it was surrounded by rebel provinces to begin with, and after the rebels won its young Duchess Gwenelle, a friend to Elodie, was forced to hold her tongue.  But when diplomats from Yeveh and Hellas returned with favorable news of alliances, Gwenelle declared independence.

The evacuation had destroyed the infrastructures of the loyalist provinces and the war had made the new rulers incapable of preventing the secession.  The new states of Sudbury and Maree-Hellas-Elath (collectively called "True Nova"), didn't have much in common with the Yeveni, but they all hated the rebels' rule and the rebels couldn't risk the possibility of war on three fronts.

Additionally Nova's economy had always relied heavily on ocean shipping and the loyalists had taken all the ocean going vessels in their territories.  Of pre-war Nova only Maree, now part of "True Nova", had shipping vessels left.  Even with the high tariffs they charged the rebels couldn't afford to anger them.

At this point, when a new stability had settled over the fractured remains of Nova, Briony returned.

She had a convincing and engaging story of how she had escaped the castle and hidden near the old forest where everyone else feared to tread during her time away, but it was all lies.  The story was thought up by Elodie's court "musician" and practiced so many times that Briony knew every hesitation, every pitch, every crack of her voice by heart.

Even with two Lumen several agents and an outright traveling spy among the loyalists Briony was the only one they were sure could infiltrate the dungeons.

She was welcomed back with open arms, some loyalists believed this expected outcome might make her change sides, but she never forgot how she'd been left to die by her family.  She snuck into the dungeon on the same night she arrived, and the next morning she and the Elodie were gone.

When they escaped the castle the "musician" guided them through the Calorian wetlands to a hidden ship.

Following Elodie's orders the Novan loyalists had gone to the islands of Malini, one of Nova's strongest trading partners.

Some Novans were allowed to resettle there, but the islands were hardly large enough for an entire nation of refugees and instead the treasuries of all loyalist factions, including the Novan royal treasury itself, had been brought to be paid to Malini in exchange for what the people would need to survive.  Mostly food and more boats, the Novan remnants would become a floating nation.

They planned to sustain themselves off of fishing and trade, but soon found that, without the Novan navy patrolling the waters, there was also a market for shipping (so nations wouldn't need to risk their own ships) and escorts.

Briony even found her pirate treasure, but it proved much easier to rob from living pirates than chase after sunken ships.

What had at first seemed a hopeless overcrowded fleet seeking nothing more than refuge became a nation in it's own right.  Its eventual capital city, a floating "island" of pontoons and various boats laden with soil and farmed for crops, became known as a wonder of the world.

Ties between this "New Nova" and "True Nova" were established, though no attempts were made to combine the two into one country again.

It was through these ties that "New Nova" learned that the rebel regime had been wiped out within a month of Elodie's departure.  The ruler of Shanjia had come, apparently looking for the royal line.  When he found that they'd been driven out and there whereabouts were unknown he killed most of the nobility in a rage and claimed rebel held Nova as his own.  He didn't bother with Sudbury or "True Nova" as he was apparently after something else.

With this advanced warning Elodie was able to learn everything about the man, and everything she would need to face him when he finally did track her down.  Nova survived, and flourished under her rule, albeit in a completely different form.

And thus Queen Elodie's legacy stretched into the future.

-
--
-

If anyone were wondering I think that would go:
Player Chose: Hold her Hostage
Weekend Activity: Talk to Briony (not in canon)
Player Chose: Exile
--Player failed due to lack of cruelty.
(everything after not in cannon)

[Bluff][Give up][You'll be the one killing her.]
Player chose: You'll be the one killing her.
--Player passed Public speaking.
--Player passed Foreign affairs ≥ 60
--Player failed Presence.

Are you really going to keep me here?
[Yes][No]
Player Chose: No.

Can I look for pirate treasure?
[Yes][No]
Player Chose: Yes

The loyalists have no chance of winning

[Surrender][Retreat][Fight until there's no one left]

Player Chose: Retreat

And the rest would be epilogue.

But, of course, it would be a silly addition to a rather serious game.

Adding hypothetical options to Long Live the Queen

Ok, so I've already talked about things I feel should have been there that weren't.

Should have been there because the lack of option opened up an inconsistency.
Should have been there because a lack of flavor convos made the plot ones stand out as "PLOT!"
Should have been there because it was a blatantly obvious option.

Something that has come to my attention since then is that Hanako Games is (apparently) just one person.  Now there was help, but Hanako Games is still one of only two credited for the story which is where much of this stuff comes in.  So, along with the sheer size of the game, there's definitely understandable reason for any oversights and omissions.

In addition, I've still played only a comparatively small portion of the game so what I'm about to say should in no way be exhaustive, but I've got some other things that, while not "Should have been there," things, are "Wish were there," things.  I'm going to combine those with the things linked to in the above linked posts to make a list of options that I would add if I could.

-

First off, as a general rule, if someone is in the castle and is on your radar (your father, Alice, Lottie, Lucille, your uncle, Jullianna, the musician/spy, anyone you've thrown into prison who has not escaped/been executed, Selene once you know of her as a more than just some random priestess, Briony, anyone I'm missing) come the weekend, I think talking to them should be an option as a weekend activity.

Most of this would accomplish nothing game mechanics wise, though it does potentially give a useful out if you're otherwise in zugzwang*, because most of this would not affect your mood.  On the other hand, you don't know if it would affect your mood unless you actually have the conversation, so it would be a gamble if you're in zugzwang.

One of the things that this would mean is the potential for follow up conversation.

If you go to see Julianna in prison and hear her out rather than taunt her, you get the option:

Julianna, Duchess of Ursul: Release me, and I will teach you what you need to know to keep your responsibilities. 

Menu: [Free her] [Refuse] 

If you choose [Refuse] then you'll never be able to visit her in prison again except to taunt her when that possibility comes up.  (Though you will get two more opportunities to free her, one of which allows you to keep her on as magic tutor.)

If it were possible to keep on visiting her then you could have additional conversations and not be stuck with the all or nothing, "Do it NOW or do it NEVER."

-

Second:

When you do go to talk to someone you should have an option over what you talk to them about.  In the game there's only ever one option and you don't know what it is until you decide to talk to them.  If you haven't talked to someone in a while and as a result there are three things to talk to them about you'll have to take them in order.  Even if you really don't want to mention the first one at all.

I don't have too much of a problem with there being only one possible topic of conversation.  I do have a problem with having to commit to that topic of conversation before you know what the topic is.

Elodie saying, "Nevermind," or choosing not to speak up at all, or something else like that, should be an option once you learn what you'd bring up otherwise.  Presumably it would hit you with a Lonely +1 because you wanted to talk to someone and then, for whatever reason, didn't think you could.

The big example of this for me is the outing of Selene.  There should have been an option to NOT do that.  You'll never out Lucille even though, if you choose not to talk to her about it, you've made no promises and are in the exact same position with her as you are with Selene.

Maybe, for whatever reason, "That priestess, Selene... She's a Lumen! I can sense it, " is the only thing you can say to Julianna that week, but on learning that's the only thing you can say you should be able to choose to say nothing instead.

-

Third:

The game makes very clear that the events of the week take place before the weekend activity (note for example: Lottie coming to stay, talking to anyone about Julianna's arrival, visiting your father if he's put into a coma) but sometimes (for example: if you and Lucille have a death struggle, if you stand judgement over a Lumen murderer) it forces you to wait until the weekend after to talk about it.  In one case this forced wait results in someone's death.  What the fucking fuck?

Via the first thing that I said, you should be able to talk to the relevant person THAT weekend, maybe this goes without saying, maybe it doesn't, but you should be able to talk to them about the relevant events of the week THAT weekend.

-

Moving from the general to the specific.

Imprisoning Julianna based options that I'd add:

Ordering her to tell you what really happened to your mother 

Saying that you'll investigate her claims further.

If you talk to your father after talking to Julianna in prison I'd add the option to tell him to tell you the details he previously withheld about your mother's death and, if you were willful enough, the option to threaten that you WILL DEFINITELY become a Lumen if he refuses to explain the details of how being one killed your mother. 

His "...you don't need to hear that." is not a sufficient answer when the fate of the kingdom hangs in the balance.  If you've got the willful you should be able to tell him that if he wants you to stay away from magic then you DO need to hear that. 

With Selene as well, you should have some kind of [Consider it] option rather than flat out release or don't release Julianna.

And then we come to her brother.  If Julianna is in prison for long enough he'll come to say either set her free or give him ruler-ship of the Duchy she rules.  (He wants the second, but doesn't say it.)  This also deserves a [Consider it] option. 

Take the weekend to talk to whoever in more depth.  Julianna (this is your chance, convince me I should free you), Selene (her only advocate), your father (who is the reason you imprisoned her in the first place), or her brother (who will no doubt advocate for himself while trying not to look like he's saying, lock my sister up and throw away the key.)

Alice based options I'd add:

If you send her brother to the dungeon, not a word.  Given that he seems pretty sure of himself when he's imprisoned by the guards I wonder if Alice does, in fact, get him out. 

If she does then that should be something that comes up if you try to see him in the dungeon (I said you should be able to talk to anyone in the castle on your radar, and I meant it) and learn he's not there. 

If she doesn't then, again based on my belief that you should be able to talk to anyone in the castle on your radar, if you decide to talk to Alice then Alice might mention, "Hey, the apple thief is my brother.  Would you mind letting him out?" 

Before you choose to dance with Alice you have no idea how she'll feel about it (terrified) we don't know if this is because she's dragged into a position she doesn't belong (at the center of attention of all the assembled nobles) because she can't dance very well (she can't) or because she doesn't like to dance (we have no idea.) 

If you could talk to her you might be able to learn about that.  If it's just because she can't dance, perhaps you could offer to have her be your partner in your dance classes so that she'll learn.  If she wouldn't like that (it's not established how Alice feels about dancing) you could order her to do it for asshole cruelty points. 

Also being able to talk to Alice could potentially give you feedback one one of the hidden stats (commoner approval) but at the cost of other possible weekend activities.

Lucille based options that I'd add:

If you're the sort of person who would out Selene, you're probably the sort of person who would out Lucille.  If you sense that she's a Lumen but don't talk to her about it, you should be able to tell, at the very least, Julianna or your father about it.  AS AN OPTION.  The whole no choice in whether or not to out someone with Selene thing is bullshit. 

If you do talk to her about it your options are offer her a position, keep her secret, or (if you can sense magic well enough) accuse her of lying to you.  I'd add pretend to keep her secret to that.  Accusing her is dangerous.  Automatically becoming secret keeper for someone just because you don't want to do that or offer them a court position is not a good path either.  If you choose to keep her secret then things play out as they do in game, if not then you have options.  The ones I just mentioned above and, if your sense magic is high enough to know she was lying to you, telling one or both of those people with a big, "And she was lying to me about how powerful she is." tacked onto it. 

That to me suggests the possibility (again, option not forced) of sending Julianna, with Selene if you know about her, to confront Lucille. 

If you learn Lucille has been trying to kill you then your options are to execute or exile her. I'd add assassination (like what you can do with Arisse) because that would be less traumatic to all involved and more politically expedient than straight up execution.  I'd like to add trial as an option, so that all the people could see evidence presented and whatnot. 

Moreover, I'd like to add the option to move more slowly so that preparations can be made.  Then, if you think about it (I don't think the game should broadcast that this is something to think about) you could add Lumen to the squad sent to deal with her however that dealing is done.

Spy based options that I'd add:

Your spy, if you hire her in that capacity, is better than your agents.  A lot better than your agents.  You don't use her except in one very specific case.  That should change. 

If Lucille dies at the ball you should be able to tell the spy to go and find out if anyone else was involved.  If Lucille doesn't die at the ball: 

If you know Lucille was lying to you about being a powerful Lumen you should have the option of asking your spy to investigate.  Why would she lie about that.  Especially if you've tracked the pre-ball assassination attempt to Lucille's Duchy. 

Which brings us to the pre-ball assassination attempt.  You should have the option of having the spy look into that. 

If the spy does discover what Lucille is up to she leaves all the proof because doing otherwise would let Lucille know they were on to her.  As previously mentioned I'd have the possibility of not acting immediately with regard to Lucille and one of the things I'd have as an option if you chose not to act immediately would be for the spy to steal the proof just before formal charges were laid against Lucille if formal charges were laid.  (Execute, bring her to stand in judgement, or Exile would be the formal ones as opposed to assassination.) 

- 

Also, this I would make automatic (unlike everything else where I'd add things as choices.)  If Lucille dies at the ball and Elodie can't decipher her journals then the journals don't get deciphered.  That determines, in part, how Charlotte's epilogue goes.  BUT the spy can decipher the journals no problem.  (This is canon.)  So if you hire the spy the journals should automatically be deciphered for epilogue purposes. 

- 

The spy should have uses beyond Lucille.  Yes, Lucille is the one trying to kill you more often than not, but if you find out a certain powerful noble is putting out feelers that could result in a coup or civil war your options are "[Send soldiers to arrest her] [Send assassins to kill her] [Wait for more information]" this is the week after you hire the spy.  THE WEEK AFTER.  She's been on the job for one week and here is a situation that calls for a spy and [Send your spy to gather more information] isn't an option?  To hell with that.  Make that an option.

Your maternal uncle:

You never really talk to him.  This wouldn't be a problem except for two things. 

First if you find out that the assassin came from his duchy your options are to ignore the assassination attempt entirely or publicly accuse him personally.  You can't talk to him about it and see if maybe he can look into who might have tried to kill you.  You can't make a private accusation to which he can then present his defense. 

A public accusation is basically a declaration of war.  If you back down on it when he claims, truthfully, that he would never do such a thing, you have seriously damaged your position as queen.  If you don't ... then you don't.  This is not a thing where you can cancel your trade agreements and be done with it.  You have to either send him to prison or execute him.  (And you don't get to visit him in prison and maybe change your mind.) 

I'd add the option of being able to fucking talk to him about it. (Also, if you do imprison him, I'd add being able to talk to him in prison, see the first thing I pointed out in this post.) 

The second thing is that it's possible to kill his wife (Lucille the ever plotting your demise.)  He's your uncle and next in line to the throne.  His daughter was (before you killed her mother) your best friend.  He's ruler of the Duchy next door.  You probably should be actively trying to patch things up.  Whether or not you would I'd leave up to the player, but the option should be there

The Lumen Murderer:

If you know the murderer is a Lumen then, whatever you choose to do to him, I'd give you the option to talk to your Lumen mentor (actually Selene might be best even if she isn't your mentor, provided you know she's a Lumen) about him that weekend.  If he's not dead this could be especially important because treating him like an ordinary criminal (assuming you didn't pardon him) will allow him to escape and your mentor can probably stop that. 

Also if he's not dead but is in the dungeon I'd give you the option to talk to him in the dungeon (awaiting execution or on a permanent basis).  Which could lead to you a Lumen death struggle happening in private and you know what that means.  If you don't tell Julianna things will go to shit very fast.  Same as with Lucille. [update] actually, not so much.  Lucille had bad consequences because of the power levels involved.  He wasn't that strong. [/update]

The Creeping Shade:

Julianna apparently deals with it whether you tell her about it or not.  I call bullshit.  You didn't let it become public knowledge that your aunt was a Lumen after she died trying to kill you.  Why, then, would it be public knowledge that the shadows are killing people? (Well... person.)

Thing one: I'd let it be an option [keep this a secret until we know more][warn people that the Vashta Nerada are here] Option one would mean that if you don't tell Julianna she won't know and more people will die.  Option two would cause massive panic as everyone would be afraid that any given shadow might eat them (ok, kill, not eat) at any time. 

Thing two: If you do choose to keep it hush hush to avoid a panic but you also choose to NOT tell Julianna I'd have things get worse and worse until it couldn't be kept a secret, at least not from Julianna, anymore. 

Don't tell her about the non-public Lumen death struggle immediately and the squire dies the next week.  Don't talk to her that weekend and more people die the week after.  Don't talk to her that weekend and it's even worse the week after.  And maybe that's a good point for the problem to get so bad that Julianna can't miss it even though you're keeping her in the dark.

The Old Forest:

I don't think the additional choices you should be allowed to make are all smart ones.  (Can you tell I originally wrote this before the previous section?)  Smart ones spring to mind because, "Why can't I stupid thing?" is not a question most people ask.  But here's one that I do ask:

Why can't I attack the monster? 

Initially you can't attack it (though you are armed with either magic or mundane weapons) because Briony is in the way.  But when she gets free why can't I immediately attack it? 

This would be a bad idea, the clash will probably attract other monsters and there's no guarantee I'd win against just the one.  Trying would probably get me killed.  Briony too (she needs your help to make it out alive even after getting free of the monster.)  But that doesn't mean I shouldn't be allowed to try.  I can try other stupid things. 

I'd have that be an option.

The Damn Chocolate

Staying home can protect you from almost all threats to your life.  There are two exceptions.  One is Togami who invades your country, the other is the chocolate.  (The one assassination attempt the Spy will look into.) 

There are five ways to survive the chocolate.  One is to have a high enough poison skill that you can save yourself even after eating the poisoned treat.

The other four are indications that something is amiss.  From an omen presaging hidden danger just before you learn the chocolates arrived to a pet dog that acts strangely toward them, with etiquette and trade in the middle. 

The warnings, whether you get only one or all four together, only let you postpone eating the chocolate (thus accidentally killing a chocolate thief) they don't let you try to have the chocolate tested or let you simply dispose of it.  What the fuckity fuck? 

You know what you will dispose of for fear it might harm you?  A pillow.  I shit you not.  Possibly suspect food from a place you've never heard of via a shipping route that doesn't make sense with omens and animals indicating it's probably a danger?  That you can only set aside for later.

Of course I would give you the option to check or dispose of the chocolates.  Maybe both.  (Maybe just throwing them out kills a street urchin who goes through the palace trash looking for food and to properly dispose of them you need to check to see if they're dangerous first.  Maybe not.  Maybe throwing them out keeps everyone safe but leaves you unaware there was an attempt on your life while checking them does the safety plus the awareness -- which would change your mood where throwing them out not so much.  Whatever.)

The invasion:

Run and hide. 

Seriously, I'd give the option to run and hide.  A battle on the open ocean is not to your advantage, so don't fight there.

With sufficient military skills Elodie should know that the opportune moment to attack the enemy is when they're landing their army.  So if she passes a skill check she should be allowed to have that be her strategy. 

If not, run and hide.  (As an option.) 

Wait until her army has superior knowledge of the terrain at the very least. 

However the enemy army gets to the Novan soil, you know what should be an option when they do?  Run and hide.  Pull her army back to the fortifications.  That's what castles are for.  Evacuate the land in the path of the invasion. 

She might lose approval from people who think she's a coward, but all options have trade offs and these should be options. 

And I've skipped one of the most crucial things.  If Elodie doesn't know enough about the military when the Ixion affair comes up she defaults to diplomacy, if she does know enough then she still sees diplomacy as an option.  Elodie can, with the right skills, see this invasion coming in advance.  She should have the option of trying to stop the war before it starts via diplomatic envoy. We know she considers diplomacy an option elsewhere, why not here?

And on a last note about the invasion, remember what I said about not only smart options?
When Togami comes in (she doesn't know it will be Togami, just a diplomatic envoy), why exactly can't she set up to ambush the incoming group?  Why not have her response to the duel request be a hail of arrows? 

One of the ways Elodie can deal with Ix is by killing their ambassador (thus triggering war) so it's not like Elodie can't be the sort of person who would kill the diplomats.

Nova is losing the war, killing off the leader might make Nova somewhat better off, but this option seriously doesn't seem like a good one for the country.  At best it seems like it would ravage the country dealing a blow to law and order for years to come and making Nova much weaker than it's ever been in the recorded history you have access to.  At best. 

But that doesn't mean it shouldn't be an option.  There are plenty of bad options you're free to choose, why not this? 

[Added:] If one has the composure to avoid a suicidal attack on Magic Man post-dad-death you can choose to either symbolically submit to him kneeling and kissing his hand, or do exactly the same thing you would have done with no composure. 

I... did not see that coming.  I thought that refusal would simply be not kneeling and not kissing his hand.  Perhaps standing stoically by, perhaps simply glaring at him.  Something that said, "You killed my mom, you sank my fleet, you invaded my country, you've been killing my people, you killed my dad, you have what you want, you said you would leave, now GET OUT," but not in words. 

I'd make that be an option, and have that be refuse, and current refuse be renamed "attack" or something.  And there should be consequences, but not directly apparent ones.  An assassin coming on one of the last weeks or something. 

Togami can't kill Elodie right when she refuses because then his, "If you duel me no one else has to die," offer, which he no doubt plans to make to every other ruler with a Lumen crystal, will be known to be a lie.  If Togami kills Elodie then and there without provocation then it becomes, "If you agree to my terms I'll still kill the person you love most in the world."  Who is going to accept that offer?

 So instead of a choice between "Sacrifice all dignity of both yourself and your country" and "Die" I'd have it be: "Sacrifice all dignity of both yourself and your country", "Face/risk facing unknown, and covert, future retaliation" and I have no problem leaving "Die" as an option. 

At this point there's nothing real that Elodie can do to Togami, but she can, at least, symbolically refuse to give in.  Which is what I originally thought the [Refuse] meant.  I'd really like that to be an option (if you have the composure.) [/added]

If peace:

Say Elodie saves the world through song, she might want to learn from her new ally how to change the resonance of a Lumen crystal.  Just saying.

-

* It's a chess term.  In chess you can never pass on a move, just like you can never pass on doing a weekend activity, but sometimes any move would be a move for the worse and you'd really really like to pass.  You are said to be in zugzwang when every possible move makes your position worse.

Long Live the Queen: An inability to do the obvious. (Spoilers)

This will be in three sections
Assassination Related Things

Lumen Related Things

Invasion Related Things

Assassination Related Things

You have an evil Aunt.  By marriage.  She showed up out of nowhere, no one even knows where she came from, claiming to be next in line for the neighboring duchy.  There was no proof.  Your mother, the Queen, offered a solution to the problem of, "Well maybe she is, maybe she isn't, maybe civil war."  She appointed her brother Duke of the place and then married her brother off to evil aunt.  Which is how she became evil aunt.

This... wasn't necessarily the best idea, although it did produce your cousins who seem nice.  Certainly the only one with a speaking role is.

The problem, of course, is that it means that evil aunt is married to the person next in line for the throne and the mother of the person in line after that.  If she kills you, then your uncle (her husband) she can rule the kingdom.

So there's a decent chance she'll spend a large portion of the game trying to kill you.  There are a couple of ways out of it, one of them is for you to unknowingly appoint pure evil to a position in your court, another is to point out that you can tell she's hiding something from you at which point she'll try to brain-death you.  If you are able to resist the magic rebounds back on her and she dies.  We'll get to that because it has its own inability to do the obvious problems but for now let's talk about trying to kill you.

It starts with a snake.  There's no cure for the snakebite but a temporary immunity can be built up by ingesting watered down toxins or some such.  The implication is that evil aunt has been having her daughter do that without her knowledge.  Thus she can release a deadly snake into the place she knows you and her daughter will be playing without risking her daughter.

There are many different ways this can play out.  One of them has the daughter, Charlotte, use special magical powers to save you because Charlotte is totally innocent and not at all in on the assassination plot.

If this happens you'll eventually realize that Charlotte having magical powers could mean certain things (because having magic without being a Lumen is basically unheard of but you do too, so when you talk about your thing it makes you think of hers) and send for her so you can talk to her.

This will bring about assassination attempt two.  If you can decipher the only clue you know the assassin came through evil-aunt's domain.  Which leads you to suspect your uncle.

Now you can ignore this, correctly guessing he'd never try to have you killed, or you can publicly accuse him.  You cannot, say, ask him to do an internal investigation.  But that's not the obvious thing I want to talk about with respect to this.  The important thing here is that there was a plot to kill you and you know where it came from.  (Well, there can be a plot to kill you, depending on previous choices, and you can know where it came from, based on skills. )

That's important from the, "Very obvious things to do that you can't do," perspective because during week 23 you can hire a spy.  What would be a good job to immediately set the spy on?  Going to that place and trying to find out who is trying to kill you and also, equally importantly, who is not trying to kill you.

But you can't use a spy to track down what's going on with assassinations, except when you can.

Before we get to that there's another assassination attempt, but it's made to look like random bandits and the only way that we know it's an assassination attempt is that if evil aunt is no longer trying to kill you at this point it doesn't happen.  Of course if your agent has been in your evil aunt's domain then maybe she could have worked it out.

Unless I'm forgetting something the next time your evil aunt tries to kill you is with poisoned chocolates.

If you've got the right skills you can see signs on several fronts that there's something very fishy going on, but rather than being able to decide to test the chocolates somehow, or to have them destroyed, even with all the signs pointing to, "This is probably a death trap," your only options are to eat them or to set them aside for later.

If you've got the necessary skill in medicine: poison to survive eating a chocolate then that's probably the optimum route because otherwise some hapless chocolate thief will die from them the next week thus alerting you to the poison.  Death is a steep price for chocolate theft.

Now remember how you're not allowed to so much as consider having your spy investigate the earlier attempt on your life?  Well this one totally does get investigated by the spy.  You don't even have to tell her to start, and when she reports her initial findings there isn't a conversation choice, you totally send her to find out more.

So spies don't investigate assassination attempts except when they do.  Interesting that.

Also discovering the assassination attempt when it happens or one week after the fact has no effect on how long it takes to deliver her initial findings.

The reason that it's here is that the most sensible thing would be to let you go to to the spy and tell her to look into it.  Yes, she does it anyway, I don't care.  It's the reasonable option.  Also, just in terms of game mechanics, unless there's a reason (the ship I needed to interview crew on wasn't back until [whenever]) having a one week head start in knowing to investigate should yield a one week heat start in getting the results.

What happens after she delivers her results has more problems which will be discussed in the Lumen section.

-

--

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Lumen Related Things

It is possible to detect that the priestess is a Lumen.  It is not possible to bring that up in private with the priestess.  Instead your only option is to out her to your Magic mentor.  This isn't a problem as your magic mentor already knows but:

1. Talking about this person's secret with them is an obvious thing to do when you don't know who they want knowing about it.
2. You don't actually know that you'll be outing her when you choose to talk to magic mentor that day.

-

I said I'd come back to to what happens if your aunt's magic rebounds on her and kills her.

You do nothing.  You do not go to your mentor in magic and talk about it.  You don't hit the books and find about about magical duels and if there could be any lingering effects.  You do nothing.

[added] This when you were specifically taught that there can be dangerous negative effects from events like the one that just happened.  Does this cause you to jump into action to learn more about those dangerous things?  No. [/added]

Then, after doing nothing for a week, someone dies.  He is killed by a shadow monster.

At this point you can choose to talk to your mentor.  The conversation makes clear that this is the first time she's heard that your aunt was a Lumen.  This is the first time she's heard about the unplanned death struggle.  If she'd known sooner she probably could have stopped the evil shadow monster before it killed anyone.

-

Later on you can learn that a condemned man is a Lumen.  You can confront him, you can order his execution be carried out without letting him know you know what he is, you can order him imprisoned, again without letting him know, or you can pardon him based on his bullshit claim that demons made him do it when the only magic on him is his own.

What you can't do is talk to your magical mentor about it.

If you confronted him you just had another duel, you might want to ask her to check for shadow monsters.  (Based on the lack of them I think she does it anyway, but you don't know that will happen. [added] Or it could be because he was less powerful than your aunt and you only got the bad things warning for the more powerful duel knowledge. [/added])  Also you might want to talk about suddenly being in possession of a "This can make people magic" crystal right away rather than waiting a week.  (More than a week actually since the opportunity to talk only comes on weekends.  So one week plus however many days between the event and the first time the game could have let you talk about it.)

If you ordered him executed you might want to talk to your mentor about how to contain him until the deed is done.  You can't and so he uses magic to escape causing a general sense of fear and paranoia.

If you ordered him imprisoned you might want to ask your magical teacher if that will work.  You can't and so he stages a successful jailbreak.  Not good.

The most obvious thing to do after encountering a magical person who is a murderer is to talk to your Magic Teacher, as soon as possible.  You can't. 

-

And then your country is invaded by sea.

As it turns out if you can get three or more Lumens working together you can use magic to stop the invasion.  This is not the best idea as that much magic has consequences and such.  Specifically it will unleash the Kraken and if you've watched either Clash of the Titans movie you know that that is not a good thing.

But the choice you are given is... interesting.  Either you can call upon the deep dark magic (separate from The Deep Magic (TM)) or you can leave all the other magic users at home.

You can't say, "Well I'd rather not dabble with powers beyond imagination but I could really use some extra magical support, especially since the invading king is magic himself."

That's kind of an obvious option, driven home even more when, if you go with the fleet, are magic, and lose, it will specifically state that part of the problem is that, however much your magic helps you, you're just one person.

BECAUSE YOU LEFT THE OTHERS BEHIND.

-

The enemy king wants to duel you so he can take your magic crystal off your dead body.  (Once bonded to a person it stays until death.)  You point out that it wouldn't work for him (crystals are attuned to the personality of the wielder) to which he responds that the resonance of a crystal can be changed.

This goes against what you previously knew and is important because at this point you might have access to one or two crystals previously owned by evil people and the only way you know of to use them would be to find someone impressionable (the crystal would prefer evil-like-the-previous-owner but will take impressionable) and then carefully raise them to be not evil which, since the crystal will be bonded to them, will redeem the crystal in the process.

If enemy king can, as a not-so-impressionable not-at-all-like-you adult make use of your crystal then when he says that resonances can be changed he means something entirely different than what you know about.

So if you turn him not evil, which can be done, the most obvious thing to do next is to ask him about that whole changing of resonance thing.  You don't, you can't.

In the event that you never realize your aunt is evil and give her a court position the fact that you don't means that attempts to give your totally not evil cousin a crystal fail because the resonance of totally-not-evil is somewhat different from murderously-evil.

-

If your spy went out, your spy comes back having deciphered your aunt's secret journals and learned that your aunt is totes evil.  She plans to kill you and her husband making her daughter future queen and herself regent.  Yay.

Elsewhere I've talked about the lack of internal consistency with the options you have here.  If you trust the spy, or events back in week three allowed you to test the spy and find out she was telling the truth, you'll be given the option of who to execute and/or who to banish.

That those are your only options is problematic, but I've (hopefully, writing out of order here), covered that.

Here's the problem.  Your aunt has magic.  Sending people off to get your aunt is like sending them after evil-Gandalf.  So Saruman I guess.

Regular soldiers are not up to this task.

Even if we accept the game saying that these are your only options, the obvious thing to do would be to send at least one of your own wizards Lumen with whomever you send out.  It should be an option.  Your weekend talk, "Listen, my aunt is evil and trying to kill me.  Repeatedly.  But she's also magic so I don't know if the people I'm sending can handle her.  Would you please go with them to make sure things don't get out of hand?"

Can you do that?  No.  Do you know what happens?  Things get the fuck out of hand.

Which is why, in spite of all logic saying that investigation and whatnot is the way to go, the best way to deal with the situation is to have high detect and resist magic at the royal ball and have your aunt get blown up as the magic she tried to unload on you rebounds onto her and overloads.

-

--

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Invasion Related Things

Run and Hide is a perfectly viable strategy.

When the invasion comes an obvious option would be to NOT meet the enemy head on.

First, at sea no one has home-field advantage.  If you let them onto your soil then, yes, morale will take a hit and property damage will be unavoidable, but you at least have knowledge of the terrain on your side.  Plus by not engaging their navy you still have your navy intact.

You can use it to get supplies for yourself, disrupt their supplies, whatever.  Options are open.  Including temporarily disbanding the navy so the naval forces can aid with the war on land.

Second, when they make landfall, which in the game only happens when you've lost the naval battle, your troops automatically try to hold them off as long as possible.

Wait.  What?

Nova is not Athens, the port is not fortified.  All evidence is that your troops are fighting largely in the open.  If the enemy is making for the capital evacuate everything between the capital and where the enemy landed, pull all of your troops together, and make your stand at the fucking castle.  You know: the building designed to repel an invading army.  That's what castles are for.

It's possible to win the naval battle, barely.  But really all of the military decisions in the invasion, in spite of the fact that Elodie can be a fucking military genius at this point, seem to automatically be, "Let's overextend ourselves and see how that works out."

The one time you get a chance to make a smart decision is if Elodie is a military genius, with the fleet, and the fleet looses.  She gives the order to bravely run away when it becomes clear to her that they can't win.  Well before they would have bravely run away without her, thus saving many lives.

Everything about the invasion says pull back.  Get to your fortifications and make your stand there.

It's the obvious thing to do.  You, obviously, can't do it.  The game doesn't let you.  And so your soldiers die needlessly.

-

There was never supposed to be a third, but you know what?  Third, historically do you know when the best time to attack an army invading by sea is?  When they're landing.  This has a long history.  You know if you've ever heard the word "marathon".

When they're landing they're occupied with things other than fighting, where you don't need to be.  Given simple hydrodynamics if they're coming out of the sea and you're on the land YOU HAVE THE HIGH GROUND.

Once their troops are mixed with yours at the landing site their ships can't fire at your troops without hitting their own but you can fire at their ships with impunity.

If you also have a navy, you can pull it in behind their ships so that you have them surrounded.  They have to fight on two sides, none of your forces need to fight on more than one.

Waiting until the enemy is trying to land is a sort of obvious response to the invasion.

What do we know about obvious things?  You can't do them.

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[up]

Long Live the Queen: Lack of Flavor Convos

Ok so this is pretty simple, and I think I can do it without spoilers.

At the end of every week you can pick an activity, these are mostly used to change your character's mood because what mood she's in determines how well she can learn various skills and skills determine a hell of a lot.

Sometimes you can also talk to someone.

Here's the problem: You can only talk to someone if there's PLOT reasons for the conversation.  There are, I think, two exceptions.  You can tell your cousin that you like seeing her, you can tell your father that you love him. (One time each.)  Other than that if the option exists to talk to someone you had better talk to someone because PLOT.  You might choose the wrong person, but these things happen.

That's... kind of annoying.  It would be nice if you could talk to people because you wanted to and recognizing that PLOT meant you should talk to someone was on the player's shoulders rather than directly indicated because that's the only reason you're allowed to talk.

There are two reasons I see this as a problem.  One is that when social interactions are only for PLOT and you have a reminder of that 40 times in a given play-through it's sort of like the game screaming, "I'm a game!"  You'll never forget a game is a game, but having it scream that it's a game is usually undesirable.

The game does a pretty good job of not screaming that out in other areas.  For example it'll never say, "Even though you still have stuff left that you could learn in this skill, there's no game mechanics left that checks it so you can't take these classes."  Actually, even after you have nothing left to learn it will still let you take classes, they just accomplish nothing.

When your decisions change the story it does so in generally natural and unobtrusive ways so it feels more like plot than PLOT.

It would be nice if the weekend conversations kept that up.

The other reason is that from a purely enjoying the game and having fun perspective.  Being able to talk to the people in the castle, regardless of whether or not there was PLOT to the conversations, could give you other perspectives, interesting insights, and so forth.  I'm not suggesting game changing insights, though if any naturally arose from being able to talk to people they should be there and moreover they should have already been there.

From week two onward, if you let her stay, Juliana is always at the castle.  Alice is always at the castle regardless.  So is your father.  So is Selene (priestess who becomes important in some circumstances.)  Under certain circumstances Briony is at the castle for at least one weekend, maybe two (not going to check right now)

These are people it should be possible to talk to at any time they're there.  Even when doing such a thing will accomplish nothing game mechanics wise.

It would give the feeling that people exist independently of plot, which is important, it would give something else to enjoy, and it would change the weekend conversation mechanic from, "I can talk to someone, I guess I should or else suffer consequences/put the plot on hold," to, "Is there anyone I want to talk to, because if I do then I totally can."

-

I mentioned that if you try to keep taking classes in a subject after you learned everything on the topic you can but it accomplishes nothing.  This is another area where flavor text would have been nice.  Rather than learning more academically you hang out with your teacher and talk about the subject because you have an interest in it beyond, "I must max out this skill."

It'd be somewhat more satisfying than the "Learned nothing; you have nothing left to learn" that you do currently get.

Plus it gives the mechanic of interest versus usefulness.  If it's not increasing your stats then there's nothing useful about taking a class, but maybe you're just interested in it.  So you choose between, "Upping my stats in X would be helpful, but I really like the flavor text they're giving me in class Y that's maxed out," which is a legitimate game mechanic.

But that's much more of a, "How I would handle this," than, "This should have been better," thing.  The weekend conversation mechanic should have been better.  Going to useless classes giving you nothing more than, "You learn nothing, you have nothing more to learn," is a completely valid choice.  Not one I would have made, but completely valid.

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[up]

Long Live The Queen: Inconsistency (Spoilers)

Several times Long Live the Queen sets something up somewhere only to ignore it later on.

-

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.

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[up]

Long Live The Queen: Unfortunate Implications (Spoilers)

Part of Long Live The Queen is that you can't have everything.  Understandably so.  If you go to your friend's birthday party then the commoner isn't going to make you blueberry cookies to help you with being down over having to skip the party for safety concerns, and since that's what started your relationship you don't get to have a relationship with him.

That sort of thing happens, and it generally happens in such a way that there's no huge problems brought up either regarding internal consistency or bad out of game implications.  Generally.

There is one glaring exception.

It has to do with the rights of non-straight people.

The queen-to-be dancing with another woman is considered scandalous.  If you tell the game that you want to marry another woman the best you can pull off is making her your lady in waiting, having both of you marry other people, and then having sexy-fun-times when no one is looking.

Same sex relationships, male and female, are kept hidden.

And, for the nobility, since titles are hereditary it's absolutely vital for stability (read: not-civil-war), that they marry members of the opposite sex and have kids.

All of that implies a less than good situation for people attracted to members of the same sex.

There is something you can do to change all that.  But before I get to it, some background.

-

Lumens are magic users.  They get their magic from special crystals that they bond with for life.  (Want another Lumen's crystal?  You've got to kill them.)  They are generally regarded with fear.  Possibly hate.  A while back court politics went less than well and, since the ruling class was composed entirely of Lumens, magic was used, things went to shit, after the fallout there would only be two open Lumens until the time of the game, all the others either gave up their power or said they did.

One was whoever the current ruler of the kingdom was.  It was acknowledged that some problems needed magic to fix, rulers can get away with shit, so a Lumen crystal was passed down through the royal line.

The other was the family line of your first option in magic teacher.  They've been hated and feared for hundreds of years because they felt it was necessary to keep magic alive and not lose the knowledge thereof.

-

Background point two.

You will be invaded.  It cannot be stopped.  I'll talk about that when I get to inconsistency because there's really some evidence based on the handling of past events that it should have been stoppable.

There are several ways to deal with this, but the pertinent two go like this:

Your navy gets its butt kicked meaning lots of people die and your military is generally fucked.  Surviving soldiers sacrifice their lives to buy time even though, well, that's pointless.  Then it turns out that what the enemy king is really after is your Lumen crystal, so he wants to duel with you and win or lose he'll call off the invasion.

At this point the two important-to-us options come up.

1 You can use high skills involved in conversational manipulation and just plain being an imposing force worth listening to combined with personal knowledge of the enemy king and an ability to be a kickass heart string tugging musician to redeem him and have him go home in peace.  Other than death and turning evil, this is the only option in the entire game that does not leave your kingdom under the constant burden of knowing that the country in question wants to retaliate.

2 You can kill him in a magic duel.

-

Background over, it is possible to have a same sex marriage in the game.  Here's what you have to do:

Lose the naval battle killing off most of your military.  Lose a lot of what remains in a losing battle against the invaders cutting a swath of destruction across your country.

Fight and win in the duel.

Find out that while the enemy king was completely serious about calling off the invasion it's kind of hard for him to do once he's dead.  The high level commanders all return home, but many of the soldiers go AWOL, bringing lawlessness and death and whatnot to your country.  Also you'll have trouble with soldiers turned bandits into the foreseeable future.

Back in foreign country the Queen is pissed off beyond all measure that you killed her husband and begins the process of regrouping so she can take revenge.

And then two women can get married.

Got that all non-straight people? You can only get married in public (the affairs going on behind the scenes are more inclusive) if you're willing to destabilize a nation and have this generation live under constant fear of retaliation.

Seriously, take notes.

Except... it's worse than that.

You see killing the enemy king in a duel is the only way you can raise the status of Lumens above an uncomfortable subject that sometimes involves produce being thrown at people.  I've cheated to max out skills (thus opening basically all options) and tried every Lumen popularity related variation I can think of.  There is nothing else.

But killing the enemy king doesn't just raise the status of Lumens to, "Let us treat them with respect as we would any other person," it makes them into idols.  It's the highest public opinion has been in living memory.

Little kids pretend to be them and want to be them when they grow up.

In this setting your magic tutor and her lover (who can be your magic tutor if you don't accept the first) feel comfortable coming out publicly as Lumens in love and then get married, by you, the queen.

Let's break that down.

The queen gets a pass on being a Lumen because she's the queen, but her personal support isn't enough for people to not throw produce at her tutor.  So her being a Lumen doesn't matter much.

The other publicly known Lumen is who all those kids playing at being Lumens can aspire to be when they grow up.  While others might come forward now that there's not a need to keep it hidden (her lover does) she's the one everyone knows about.  Then she gets married to another Lumen, double awesome points, and the wedding is officiated by the queen, awesome icing, and the other Lumen is also a woman.

Now children are left thinking, "I want to be like that married lesbian when I grow up." Will this turn children gay? Of course not. Will this go a long way towards establishing marriage equality in the country of Nova? Almost certainly.

But then the situation for people with same sex attraction gets better.

The couple adopts.

It works.

Showing that adoption can work as an heir producing method is absolutely vital if members of the nobility want to have same sex marriage.  There are other obstacles (just dancing with a woman was scandalous when the princess did it) but in many ways the high profile lesbian couple will go a long way towards dealing with the other obstacles.  What can't be dealt with is the fact that two people of the same sex cannot produce a child.

Under certain circumstances the player character will even say to someone, someone who can become her romantic partner later, that it doesn't matter if the woman doesn't like men, she needs to get married to one and produce an heir pronto.  After that she can get divorced.

But if you've established that adoption is ok then suddenly that pressure evaporates.  Now, admittedly, the adoption was someone with family ties (the niece of one of the women) so it doesn't overturn everything, but it goes a long way toward letting the nobility have marriage equality and what the nobility does will tend to filter down to the rest of the country.

So you get to choose between lasting peace and what seems like it would mean an explosion of equal rights and public respect for non-straight people.

And either way requires you to lose a bunch of lives by having the opposing army sink your navy and trample your lands.

-

That's an unfortunate implication.  "Yeah, we can have gay rights, we just need to ruin the country and place it at risk of future invasion."

----

[up]

Long Live the Queen

Ana Mardoll did a Let's Play of Long Live the Queen by Hanako games.  Her thread on it can be found here, and that obviously leads to the youtube video.  Of interest to people like me who don't always have reliable internet and reliable sound at the same time is that in the comments are links by which the video can be downloaded (now I just need to move the file to the computer with sound.)

Without seeing the video, Ana talking about it intrigued me enough that I ended up buying the game (it's not expensive, currently less than ten US dollars.)

I'm going to be making a series of posts about the game, by which I mean in preparation for a time when I have limited internet access I've already made a series of posts about the game (actually I would have made them anyway) and they're all about things I think could have been better.

This might leave one with the impression that I don't like the game.  That is the opposite of true.  I think the game is great, and that's saying something because I'm usually a first person shooter kind of person.

Before I get into what I think could have been better, I'd like to talk about what I liked but there's a problem.  I'm not good at that.  When I like something I tend to be, "I like it."  When I don't like something I tend to have more to say.

I like choice and consequences, I like that you can do things and have them send the narrative spiraling off in another direction.  I, for example, completely avoided any civil wars.  You might not.  I like that.  I like that the story conforms to fit your choices.  I wish we saw that more in games.

The only downside for me is that I like games where, if you play just right (usually constantly skating on the edge of disaster) you can get an all around good ending.  Not get everything, see everything, or do everything, that would be silly and would kill replay value, but get to a happy ending rather than, "This was good, but that sucked."  The example of this game forcing between "This is good and that sucks," or, "This sucks and that is good," is why "Unfortunate Implications" is to be the first of my posts on where I think the game went wrong.

But where I think it went right is all over the place.

I was looking into the game while on the phone with someone and reading over the achievements from the steam version basically convinced them that they're interested in it.  I think it was something like this, "saved the world with song, fought a tentacle monster?, PREFORMED A HUMAN SACRIFICE?"

Yes, all that and more is in fact in the game.  And makes sense in context.  Though you can't save the world with song and preform a human sacrifice in the same playthrough.

The upcoming posts will be:
Unfortunate Implications (Spoilers)
Inconsistency (Spoilers)
Lack of Flavor Convos
An inability to do the obvious. (Spoilers)

When they're posted and I have the chance I'll turn that into links.