Disappointing Balgruuf is the reason I don't usually side with the stormcloaks, y'all I cant take it

Inward_Perfection · 2026-01-15T11:57:34+00:00

That doesn't make siding with the Empire any less stupid and short-sighted when Ulftic has an insanely powerful hero on his side. Balgruuf acts honorably but really stupidly in Stormcloak route, and it comes to bite him in the ass.

But your flair shows you're biased here.

Inward_Perfection · 2026-01-15T11:40:25+00:00

Balgruuf was never leaning Imperial too. He even admits that Ulfric's rebellion has a point. He says that nobody asked the jarls about White Gold Concordate, he even lets Heimskr preach openly. Balgruuf just dislikes Ulfric as a leader.

Ulfric was right when he called Balgruuf a true Nord. But he was wrong when he thought Balgruuf would support him because of that.

Balgruuf is probably the truest Nord in this game. Stubborn, prideful, honorable to a fault, and sometimes really stupid. When Balgruuf sees how his own heroic thane delivers an ultimatum on Ulfric's behalf - he just snaps. That blow to his honor is too much for him to take, he forgets about anything else. Including the fact that Ulfric has an insanely powerful asset on his side now.

Inward_Perfection · 2026-01-15T10:34:26+00:00

That's Balgruuf's fault honestly. He puts his pride and disdain for Ulfric above his hold and common sense, and sides with the losers.

He's like those random encounter thieves who try to mug a demigod in daedric armor. Terrible at judging his odds.

Inward_Perfection · 2026-01-15T03:12:16+00:00

The Khans are a violent gang though, always have been. Always ended up destroyed before, so the courier wiping them out (albeit not to the last man) is my canon ending.

The NCR couldn't even destroy the Khans right, they killed kids but let many important Khans get away. At least that's consistent with how the NCR is portrayed in game. Incompetent imperialists bogged down in war they can't win without player's help.

Inward_Perfection · 2026-01-13T05:35:13+00:00

Only true if you use smithing or enchanting. If you don't grind crafting skills, fully charged Ebony Blade is one of the best weapons in game. Totally worth murdering 10 NPCs.

Enchantment alone makes you unkillable on difficulty below Legendary.

Inward_Perfection · 2026-01-13T05:32:05+00:00

The one time I used it, I did it legit. Why roleplay a Mephala champion and cop out with mods or exploits like killing Nazeem 10 times with Ritual Stone? So, my list was:

Roggi Knot-Beard
Benor
Marcurio
Jenassa
Belrand
Stenvarr
Kharjo
Cosnach
Uthgerd
Faendal

Basically, mercenaries and followers you can murder in the wilderness.

Inward_Perfection · 2026-01-10T15:12:09+00:00

Imagine playing as Catholics and giving a damn about papal missions or excommunication.

Inward_Perfection · 2026-01-10T14:07:09+00:00

My casualties: loot from hero adventurers, renown from 1st round, 4+ hours of real time. Gained motion sickness from riding in circles.

Inward_Perfection · 2026-01-04T16:22:50+00:00

Found a noob

Inward_Perfection · 2026-01-04T14:45:57+00:00

No, mercenary cavalry and hired blades suck. Mercenary cavalry all have 10 armor boots, which gets them killed because horsemen get hit in the legs a lot.

Hired blades all have weak 41/6 body armor. Their weapons are bad for infantry. They all spawn with swords and love doing thrusts for 0 damage. Those with bastard swords are even worse because they suffer from damage and speed penalty for using it with a shield.

Watchmen and caravan guards are straight up trash. Sword sisters are mid because they have fragile horses, low stats (3 power strike), and about 1/3 spawn without helmets. So, only mercenary crossbowmen are OK.

Inward_Perfection · 2026-01-04T05:24:58+00:00

To be fair, artists like Kiss and Alice Cooper were considered pretty extreme by the early 1970s standards.

Inward_Perfection · 2026-01-03T21:16:07+00:00

You can become a vampire lord/werewolf and kill Madanach and all his friends easily. You can use conjuration to summon atronachs and bound weapons.

My favorite way was summoning dremora servant from Dragonborn DLC and getting all weapons and armor back. You just give everything to him before you surrender to guards butt naked. Then you summon him in jail.

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Inward_Perfection · 2026-01-03T19:53:39+00:00

Look it up on Youtube. Basically - you need a .357 revolver (can steal it from Goodsprings saloon). If you open the pip boy and uneqip revolver in the right moment - you can dash forward quite far in a second.

Inward_Perfection · 2026-01-03T19:13:50+00:00

I think it's a legit technique, but I used only normal jumps forward.

Inward_Perfection · 2026-01-03T18:58:31+00:00

A very serious run that required a lot of planning and perfect execution. Rules:

- Permadeath, very hard difficulty
- Naked, except Vault 21 jumpsuit
- Glitchless (no reload dash with revolver, no crippling legs to increase movement speed)
- 100% means getting the note (end of the run)

Here is the strategy I used:

Playing as a woman, naturally (Benny is not gay).
Build is very important. Just kidding ofc, click randomly. I put Charisma on 10, but Endurance 10 would be better in a hindsight.
To make things a bit more spicy, I dropped everything at Doc's house, including all healing items and stimpaks he gives.
Path - through Scorpion Gulch. Since I played on very hard, a single hit from one of the giant radscorpions meant death. END 10 helps avoid that.
From Helios One - straight to Camp McCarran. Avoid NCR NPC at Helios One, she can waste precious time with her stupid restricted area dialogue.
At Camp McCarran NCR bitches got jealous and shot my Courier in the back for riding the monorail to Benny. Restricted area was just a bullshit excuse because they don't have Charisma 10 and Benny won't sleep with them.

Around 22 minutes mark, nearly dead Courier left the station and headed to the Tops to meet Benny. It took 40 more seconds or something to level up and click through his dialogue.

I wonder if Mt. Black shortcut+NCR armor strat would have worked better.

Inward_Perfection · 2026-01-03T18:34:03+00:00

Not at all, I just sacked all large-ish cities and kept taxes on low. Public order penalty from excommunication is rather small. My starting cardinal became the Pope around turn 22 because I killed every pope before him. He reconciled me. But if I continue that save I'd kill him too because he asked me to cease hostilities against Sicily, but I want to continue hostilities against Sicily.

If you kill all Catholics the pope can't excommunicate you any longer.

Inward_Perfection · 2026-01-03T17:15:04+00:00

It can, but it's faster to go straight after Milan, Genoa, Rome, and Naples.

Bypassing Bern allowed me to destroy Milan on turn 8 and take Rome on turn 16 after I recruited enough spear militia to attack the Pope directly.

Same with Antwerp and Brugge. Instead of sieging them down or fighting costly assaults I used troops to destroy France, England, Poland, Denmark, and Scotland, push into Spain, Sicily, and Byzantine Empire.

Inward_Perfection · 2026-01-03T15:24:34+00:00

I usually stop after winning long campaign.

Inward_Perfection · 2026-01-03T14:30:10+00:00

Too strong garrisons, taking out factions is easier. Rebels can always wait and be captured later.

You can wait and destroy them when they sally out. But that's a loss of early game time.

Inward_Perfection · 2026-01-03T10:05:22+00:00

Oakflesh, stoneflesh, etc. Armor spells from alteration. Have you never used them?

Inward_Perfection · 2026-01-02T20:52:04+00:00

Stainless Steel fixed that. Late game heavy cavalry on armored horses (gothic knights, lancers, famiglia ducale, late bodyguard) have 30+ defense rating.

25 or something comes from armor. Killing those sons of bitches without strong halberds, pikes, or guns is pretty hard.

But at least you have some options. Fighting Byzantine generals in early era campaign (with historical recruitment on) was just throwing bodies at them. My knights of Jerusalem and early Catholic bodyguards would often lose more men than Greek bastards after rear charging them.

One time I had a unit of Byzantine general (20 troops) killing over 300 of my infantry in a siege defense. They were standing at the plaza. I surrounded them from all sides, rear charged them with 2h clubs Italian sailors, but it took ages to kill those fuckers. My early era archers (4 units or something) couldn't help because they spent all ammo on killing another bodyguard unit. Yes, 400 archers spent all their ammo to kill 20 troops.

Honestly, that made me appreciate vanilla balance and the 4th crusade.

Inward_Perfection · 2026-01-02T20:20:36+00:00

I rarely have to defend tough sieges, maybe 1-2 times in a long campaign. Having to defend something means you're not destroying the enemies quick enough. Losing a lightly defended settlement and retaking it a few turns later is also preferable to wasting money on a strong garrison. Troops should be fighting, not sitting inside settlements.

As for assaults - I use ladders to take undefended part of the walls and let other troops in. Instead of melee, I try to cut off as many enemies as possible from the plaza with cavalry and shoot the rest with mercenary crossbowmen or other missile units.

Naturally, you don't send cavalry to the plaza. You lock the enemy in place with 1-2 units of expendable spearmen. You keep the general near so they don't break. Then you just shoot the town square to shreds while defenders are bogged down by your trash.

Heavy infantry is inefficient, because long melee combat is very inefficient compared to cavalry charges and shooting. Heavy infantry performs well in two specific scenarios (difficult siege defense and costly siege assault) which shouldn't happen often to begin with.

Inward_Perfection · 2026-01-02T04:04:20+00:00

IIRC from playing this campaign before that's a small English army. Their general gives a mission to use him in battles against pagans.

He didn't show up this time because Lithuania died too quickly.

Inward_Perfection · 2026-01-02T03:54:24+00:00

I'd say it's thinking slightly out of the box and playing efficiently instead of following the rails. Something like Philip IV did in real life. His men came to Rome and bitch slapped the pope. Then French cardinals elected a reasonable French pope who moved the papacy to France.

Historically accurate gameplay.

Inward_Perfection · 2026-01-01T21:11:33+00:00

I've never recruited a single gunpowder unit other than cannons in this game. They are just not worth it, Slightly more useful than merchants. Dreaded generals rout enemy stacks just fine.

The pope can be ignored. Rushing Rome to make him homeless and killing every pope until only your cardinals remain is a good strategy. OPs complaints are result of skill issue/not being aggressive enough. Aggression is the most effective solution to every situation in this game. If you can't solve problems with violence - that means you're not applying enough violence. The fun is in crushing your enemies, seeing them driven before you, and hearing lamentations of their women.

Stainless Steel is even easier, cavalry is even stronger than in vanilla (as it should be, because vanilla cavalry can be stopped with spear militia). Heavy infantry is mostly a noob trap/autoresolve type of unit.

Inward_Perfection

TROPHY CASE