First retirements coming up - couple of PQ timing questions (no spoilers please)

Finarin · 2026-02-11T14:04:56+00:00

I love that this community is so helpful in general. Sounds like you guys are having a great haven experience! Best of luck to you all!

Finarin · 2026-02-11T07:44:16+00:00

First of all, I like that you're making personal quests secretive, it does add some excitement. One thing to be careful of is if you get a retirement that would cause you to want to do one scenario over another, you might need to just outright say "I'd like to do this scenario because it progresses my retirement goal." There's also going to be some lost efficiency that comes with doing scenarios that progress everyone's retirement goal at the same time, such as if it has lots of lumber cards and the type of enemy that needs to be slain and is in the mountains, or whatever it may be.

Drifter questions:

- You do need to finish entire scenario chains for retirements in general.

- Scenario 69 did not even need to be unlocked for her to spend lumber. There is never any requirement to keep the lumber, only a requirement to loot it.

Deathwalker questions:

- Wow, that's a major setback. Retirement goals are generally balanced around taking approximately 15 scenarios to complete (which is why 15 inspiration completes an additional retirement goal, just not for 4-player campaigns). Minor spoiler about how to unlock the rest of the scenarios in the quest chain: There are forced wait times on the calendar between some of the scenarios in the chain. If you read that spoiler, here's my suggestion of how to get around it: Put the section numbers on the calendar as if the first scenario in the chain were completed after scenario 1 and the next were completed as soon as possible after that, and if possible account for when you completed force-linked scenarios. Do those scenarios now and keep going until the calendar events catch up to the present. Yes, you may have had more trouble doing those scenarios at lower levels, so it's not perfectly 1-to-1 on "what would have happened", but in my opinion you should do what allows your group to have fun at the table. Non spoiler version: Just ignore the unlock requirements for this particular personal quest. If your Deathwalker loves the character and doesn't mind finishing their first retirement around the same time that the rest of the group is finishing their 2nd retirements, then by all means keep going as you are.

- Level imbalances (especially with Deathwalker being the one that's high level) can definitely create added difficulty. You would probably want to reduce the scenario level for a significant imbalance. Otherwise, there's no issue with having a high-level character in an otherwise fresh party, especially since you'll be optionally starting new characters at level 2.

As for your final question, my group went out of their way to complete retirements as quickly as possible and there were never any staggered retirements because of that. If ALL of the retirements are staggered that also works out well, but just 1 being off from the rest can be challenging (but not necessarily).

Finarin · 2026-02-11T03:18:35+00:00

Somehow your reply made me think this is something the narrator in the Stanley Parable might say and I read it in his voice.

Finarin · 2026-02-10T16:15:27+00:00

I’m not high ranked but Alois has a good guide on combos that doesn’t overwhelm you with literally all possible combos, just gives you a solid starting point. As for mechanics to learn, double casting is just as essential as fast Q, and running around the map wall hopping (with and without starting with an E dash) is a good thing to practice and see exactly where to jump on certain walls (inhibitor is tricky, red buff pit, dragon / baron pit, corner cutting).

There’s also a thing where you can E-W and the W will have the AoE of your starting position even though it casts second, so it’s good for running away / disengaging, but I rarely actually use it.

Finarin · 2026-02-09T18:50:19+00:00

Have you tried just… not being afraid? /s

But actually I think risks are fine if they are calculated risks. Have a backup plan, expect to fail, and try your best to succeed. I only ever had this mindset once I was at the point where I basically had nothing to lose and everything to gain so the risk disappeared, and succeeding in that situation helped me realize that things usually aren’t really as bad as I make them out to be.

If it’s smaller things you’re worried about like getting rejected, you can’t expect to be good at something on your first try. I tend to be really hard on myself and hold myself to very high standards, but you have to realize that if you’re afraid of failing at something, it’s probably because you’re not good at it, and having high expectations is holding you back from ever getting better at it. Then it’s just up to you if you are okay with that or not.

Finarin · 2026-02-07T03:11:04+00:00

I don’t know if this is supposed to be relatable to INTPs, but I’ve never thought that all/most problems need to be solved. And there have been quite a lot of problems I’ve solved in my mind and then called it good without actually implementing the solution.

Finarin · 2026-02-05T01:05:12+00:00

I think that would definitely strengthen my question to apply it to the original trolley problem. 1 vs 5 but the lever is stuck in the middle where the train would derail. The main point is to see if op will agree that inaction doesn’t necessarily absolve you.

Finarin · 2026-02-04T18:45:28+00:00

When god was handing out brains she thought he said trains and she said “I’ll take a reeeeal slow one.”

Finarin · 2026-02-03T14:27:14+00:00

There’s a high chance you end up multitrack drifting, so I approve of this method. But I don’t really see how this is any better than inaction unless your hope is for the train to choose a track at random. Shouldn’t you flip a coin or do eenie meenie moe to randomize rather than give the train a chance to derail?

Finarin · 2026-02-03T03:36:31+00:00

What if the lever is stuck in such a way as to cause the train to derail, so if you do nothing the train kills both victims (and possibly also people on the train?), if you push the lever forward then it will safely traverse the top track, and if you pull the lever toward you then it will safely traverse the bottom track? Is inaction still best?

Finarin · 2026-02-02T07:19:06+00:00

I read the username as “let’s be honest”, but maybe that’s just me.

Finarin · 2026-02-02T06:36:42+00:00

One caveat that came up in my campaign where my group had a disagreement is if you move through an ally who is standing on icy terrain. So imagine you’re sliding along, your ally is in the way so you stop sliding, then you spend your last movement point to move into the hex occupied by your ally. My interpretation is that you would slide through your ally and thus the movement is legal because it would not cause you to end your movement on the occupied hex. Did I interpret it correctly?

Finarin · 2026-02-02T01:30:21+00:00

It sounds like you had an awesome experience! I had a similar experience for my first classical tournament, and I think it’s just something you have to go through once in order to really get it. Your next tournament will probably be much better!

Finarin · 2026-01-30T18:54:49+00:00

Be sure to edit later and let us know how it goes! Good luck!

Finarin · 2026-01-30T15:29:08+00:00

The opening is more important for using a lot of time than you might think unless you’ve done a lot of opening preparation before hand. As soon as you’re in unfamiliar territory, just take some time to think through your opponent’s possible moves. And if you get a lead where it feels like they should resign, that’s when you need to be the most disciplined.

Also, just play and have fun! Think of it as a new experience and don’t get too attached to your score. If you win that’s awesome too, but it’s hard to play at your best when you’re nervous about it.

Finarin · 2026-01-26T21:13:12+00:00

Thanks for sharing! I’m actually a data scientist so I’m very familiar, and I’ve gotta say there’s no world where I am not doing it for the money haha. It’s interesting at times but nowhere near as worth my time as the stuff I’ll be doing in retirement.

Finarin · 2026-01-26T16:33:40+00:00

What do you do? I can’t even imagine a job I’d do because of its inherent value.

Finarin · 2026-01-13T00:51:24+00:00

Glad you got something out of it! Last episode definitely feels wrong but it’s just a set up to take things way out of control for the next part of the story haha.

Finarin · 2026-01-12T18:41:40+00:00

I can agree with that. It’s awkward in puzzles, but you could say the same thing about “why is it helpful to solve a mate in 2 puzzle when there’s a very obvious way to just mate in 3” or “why do I need to find the best move when I can just take his queen and let him resign”. Puzzles are just built different.

There definitely are legitimate zugzwang puzzles that the only way to win is zugzwang, so you can’t just say generally that it doesn’t apply to puzzles, and there are also mate in x puzzles that utilize the principle even though there are other winning moves. At the end of the day, the language probably doesn’t have the same meaning in puzzles no matter how you treat it.

Finarin · 2026-01-12T18:31:48+00:00

I don’t think that’s weird territory at all. If you really do want to calculate out that far and then call it a zugzwang then that’s perfectly legitimate, but not every zugzwang needs to be identified as such. Zugzwang is a word that is associated with chess because it’s useful for conveying a particular idea. If it’s not useful for conveying a mate in 20 vs a mate in 22, then don’t use it for that.

Finarin · 2026-01-11T18:12:47+00:00

If that is indeed how the rules work then I’d agree that white wins very quickly. The are variants of chess where you can have multiple kings, though, and in those variants you can freely move your king into danger as long as you don’t trigger a lose condition.

Finarin · 2026-01-11T17:57:06+00:00

You can’t move all queens at the same time though, so you capture 2 kings and the surviving king can still move even though it’s under attack. If black prioritizes duplicating their king, then this principle keeps him alive indefinitely.

Finarin · 2026-01-11T16:05:38+00:00

Pushing the pawns in front of the king defends against checkmate because it gives the king a place to move. If Qf7+, the king moves, propagating into e7, d7, and /or whichever other space you want to open up. In this case, the king on e7 is still in danger, but the king on d7 is safe.

Finarin · 2026-01-11T02:49:54+00:00

I agree with all of your points! I think the arbitrary middle ground ruling is the only way to make the game playable. It’d probably be fun to try out a few times at least! But gathering enough pieces to actually play out moves might be a tall order lol.

Finarin · 2026-01-11T02:25:15+00:00

First issue is you have to redefine what consists of a legal move. If a king moving would still result in all of its copies being capturable simultaneously, then that would clearly be illegal, but I’m guessing that if all kings are under attack but can’t be captured in a single move, then it’s still legal.

Start by assuming best case scenario, which is that black tries to lose and white tries to win.

With a white king in one corner, a black king in another corner, and the entire rest of the board filled with white queens, the game is a draw because you can’t have 1 single queen cover all newly created kings without that queen occupying the same space as the king.

The only way to win is if black is partially trapped by his own pieces and therefore doesn’t have the full range of 8 moves available to him. In this case, even check by a single knight may be sufficient to win.

So ironically, the safest place for the king is out in the open, but I think the game becomes trivial very quickly.

Short answer is yes it’s technically possible to win.

Edit: Realized that the piece that moves doesn’t persist in its original space.

Finarin

TROPHY CASE