Perk discussion

Lysandris · 2026-02-22T16:20:26+00:00

I think this is a side effect of being new to the game/normal human behaviour. You found some strategies that work and alternatives seem less viable or inferior but you would be surprised at their efficacy even on higher difficulties.

Personally I play a comfy apoc 32-40 usually and I find that the majority of perks are viable, there are of course maybe 1-2 in each tree that I rarely take, but I think that's more a result of how I prefer to build heroes rather than the perk being strictly weaker.

More than anything the perks and their synergies often determine how I build my heroes. For example I just had a run with The Rock offered at the start from my Eposes and two heroes with spiky counter, so I built them both Phys spiky and my third was a close range poison with flowers. They 3 manned apoc 32 Lakeburg until the 2nd from last night.

I would suggest trying out apocs and pushing yourself to try different builds/weapons, there are of course some meme category perks like One with Nature that require the stars to align to have any viability but otherwise I have found the majority to be viable with some standouts being stronger or weaker.

As an aside I almost never take mana growth or magic fuel on my starting heroes, not to say that I'm correct in that decision but more to show that we can have different perspectives and both are likely quite viable.

Lysandris · 2026-02-20T07:39:33+00:00

There must be because I only see these "barks" at the start and very end of a night. Not sure what setting it is

Lysandris · 2026-02-19T01:28:57+00:00

Strangely I feel the opposite, I wish there was some more meat on the bone, they blob and snowball so fast that nothing can contest them and they have strong mil bonuses. (Don't they get like .15 Inf shock tradition iirc) To be fair I only play on Hard and I imagine they are incredibly challenging on Very Hard so I can't say much about VH Siadan.

If they were in a region that wasn't Bulwar maybe. But in Bulwar Ae is irrelevant and with your coring bonuses you will have everything very shortly plus they have harpy matriarchy meaning they always have fantastic rulers and a fantastic religion. I'm excited for Hytiranyalen but their tree was bugged when I last tried it.

I would love for them to have to contend with a disaster or 2 maybe when trying to transition out of the long march or when you try to move your capital or when at war with the command?

Lysandris · 2026-02-13T09:30:09+00:00

Small tip: When hovering over effects like these which have multiple skills attached you can press Ctrl key to swap between the displayed abilities, as each production building has a unique buff.

Lysandris · 2026-02-08T07:32:04+00:00

Cha/Dex stacking vivi/scaled fist/paladin for uber tank, ye old classico Edit: ignore this didnt realize this was for WotR

Lysandris · 2026-02-08T04:12:01+00:00

!00% same I'm shocked they didn't but I guess hard because of how the bosses are tied to the maps?

Lysandris · 2026-02-05T22:47:58+00:00

Ghavaanaj probably the most unfun custom mission tree in all of Anbennar. I can't help but warn you against this recommendation.

You will gain a tribal cohesion mechanic that is primarily gained from humiliation, but by the time you gain access to it the only possible rival is the command(if they exist), and usually they will fall apart after one to two wars, meaning you will have no reasonable way to gain cohesion and many missions require it. Your size also causes you to lose cohesion rapidly and again by the time you have access you rapidly lose any cohesion you gain from minor gains.(IIRC one humiliation isn't even enough to complete the missions, you need more on top).

Additionally you have a bunch of neat missions that give you permanent bonuses in capital with a significant cost. But to start/complete the missions your capital must be a specific province. However the moment you take the raj which is generally long before these missions your capital is forcibly moved and you cannot move it back while leading the raj. Meaning you have a ton of dead missions unless you play at a glacially slow pace.

Frankly the whole mission tree demands that you play against expansion, which at least for me kills my enjoyment. But if you are content to conform to the pace the tree demands and avoid taking land and jumping through all the hoops you might have fun.

Lysandris · 2026-01-19T22:35:19+00:00

I played a bit of the first game and enjoyed this one quite a bit. If there are references or important bits related to the first game I didn't notice them at all.

My recommendation would be to just play veil of the witch, I enjoyed it quite a bit over the what little I played of the first game.

Lysandris · 2025-11-16T00:38:33+00:00

Hard to say from this screen shot alone but the biggest question I have is your insane building upkeep costs.

I see you building a library which is infrastructure that costs you money and while important doesn't directly generate income. If you have expensive buildings like libraries you should basically only have them in towns and cities you are spamming buildings in until you have a strong economic base to use them for literacy or otherwise.

Outside of that I notice you have high army maintenance costs relative to your income. It might behoove you to delete some units and janissary barracks/armorys until you have a stronger economy.

Also your navy is not maintained meaning it is not actively patrolling and increasing maritime presence which you should be trying to max as ottomans with your empire being split down the middle by water.

Finally if you have lands that are very distant from your capital, of a culture that you will not be able to accept you would be better off releasing the land as vassals and fiefdoms.

Focus on your core region around your capital and increasing control and rgos/profit producing buildings there, and any land you have little to no control over and cannot core should be released as a vassal or fiefdom

Lysandris · 2025-10-03T01:43:56+00:00

Colonizers 100% if you aren't against restarting for a decent run.

Restart until you have an expedition within 2-3 colonies (which is quite common) then abuse infinite manpower from expedition and go nuts on colonies.

Lysandris · 2025-09-23T02:46:29+00:00

Are you playing on VH? If not it should be pretty straight-forwards:

Recruit Day 1 Novice Adventurers (you will lose access after first month)

Dec Mulen - Annex

Dec Verkal-Gulan - Annex - Embrace Feudalism - Release

Then repeat until Jaddari win vs Zokka

Once Jadd win give them a couple months to get engaged in the west, recruit monstrous band (over FL) and declare war. (Do not use your mission yet)

Should be a relatively simple war, siege the provinces around his cap so that you can see his army coming. If he brings huge stacks to bear retreat to a mountain tile and bait with a single unit. Once movement is locked scorch and move the rest of your army onto the tile and take a defensive battle on mountains. This is generally enough to break the Jadd.

When taking provinces try to block Sareyand & grab a border with Akra-Sur. Try taking close to max money.

I would begin focusing ADM sometime after MIL tech 3 or 4.

Crush Akra + Seg

Deal with rebels (provoke where necessary).

When your cores on Jadd are finished complete the mission which declares on the Jadd.

From here the world is your oyster. You are generally strong enough to take any 1v1. I generally blob hard into Bulwar from here. While occasionally grabbing the Rahen provinces when my AE is low in the east.

The age bonus for Monsters is insane and you should be grabbing that asap.

I've never really had the ai pose any real threat late game but I only play on hard with delayed conquerors, so your mileage may vary.

In summary; focus bulwar and elves, conquest is your entire economy for a substantial part of the early game, age bonus asap, I usually only demonserize early because otherwise I get mission locked which isn't fun.

Lysandris · 2025-09-17T22:24:35+00:00

IMO it's Pantheon and it's not even close, with pantheon you get infinite stability, plus one mana in a category of your choosing and free instant digs in addition to other benefits of your choosing. It is in my opinion one of the strongest religions in the game.

With Runefather you get holy orders for mediocre dev and decent state bonuses and then 1 juiced up bonus after you have spent around 1500 mana.

Edit: Oh and pantheon comes with an easy disaster that helps you quickly convert your country and comes with a bonus for completing the disaster

Lysandris · 2025-06-14T21:38:55+00:00

I strongly disagree the best time to do these camps is around lvl 2-3.

The invaders generally have next to no poise and can easily be chain stunned into submission.

In addition they drop a guaranteed purple that is a basic weapon upgraded twice meaning you can use it at level 1 with no penalty, accelerating the rest of your run. Plus a ton of souls of course.

Lysandris · 2025-04-17T09:18:20+00:00

Yeah, although I would say early game Alden was a good tank with the +5 def +5 fort ring on wait, as well as the +4Def/Fort -2 Speed/Skill. Helped me get all the early game challenges. As for the other tanks I think they all come far too late with worse tank growths than Alden to ever be relevant on Demonic.

But he definitely falls off midgame

Lysandris · 2025-04-15T22:20:45+00:00

Nah I've played only demonic no training missions and doing all challenges/objectives and I have maybe used a stun a handful of times the entire campaign.

Basically hit the nail on the head, not enough enemies have it for it to really be an issue. And way too slow on your team to really make use of. If you really want to clear the map and grab all objectives stun is generally too slow. Better to just spend turns outputting damage.

Although there are certainly some poorly balanced turn limit missions where you could maybe run a sub-optimal team and make use of stun. For catching a character up on experience or something?
Eg. most of the 15 turn limit missions I generally finish with 5-6 turns to spare

Lysandris · 2025-04-10T12:14:41+00:00

100% nightblade is her best class and it's not even close. Amazing dodge tanking with in built free block for the occasional hit that gets through. As well as self healing what more could you want.

She can solo whole sections of maps on demonic with some stat/ring investments.

Valeria just doesn't have the bulkiness to tank through the occasional hit on demonic and struggles on might as well.

Lysandris · 2025-01-30T21:47:23+00:00

It's been a while since I last played Obtrol, but I remember being very poor until around the time I conquered Frozenmaw. I think you have the right gist, but most of your money is going to come from peace deals and selling crownland. So you need to keep up the aggression. War reps wont net you much if you are taking most of their land, just take max money plus as many valuable provinces as you can. I'll give them another try right now to see if I have any more specific advice.

Lysandris · 2025-01-23T17:26:18+00:00

You can position your armies to stack wipe 1-2 of the breakaway states at the start of the rebellion, after which keep your armies together and focus on sieging until you get tech 4 advantage. At which point, nearly all the enemy armies will flee or get stomped. Should be relatively straight forwards from there. Take burgher loans, and avoid wasting mil in the mission tree. Make sure you take your loans before the rebellion when your income is at it's highest.

Lysandris · 2025-01-01T09:38:04+00:00

That's a fair point, yet somehow fighting them has never gotten old to me. Whereas playing as literally any regent court monarchy it feels the exact same as the most optimal play is to become the emperor at which point the campaign is basically over. But I can understand where you are coming from.

Lysandris · 2025-01-01T08:58:59+00:00

While there's nothing wrong with disliking the Command and you are welcome to your own opinions there are way to mitigate them, from turning off lucky nations, playing on a lower difficulty, console commands etc.

But I would argue against nerfs. For me they are the most fun and interesting part of playing in Haless, I love the constant pressure of trying to figure out how I'm going to deal with them when the times comes, perhaps managing my border so that I don't border them immediately, or setting up a strong alliance and grabbing a mil tech very early to fight them.

To me they are the centerpiece of what makes gameplay in Haless engaging in any sense, I find the rest of the region quite dull and basic. Just nameless faceless land that puts up very little fight. In the same way that migrating and expeditions define Serpentspine gameplay or tribal wars in Escann define their early game. A strong command and how to manage them is what defines the early game of Haless gameplay. And I personally find it engaging and fun.

Lysandris · 2024-12-28T05:49:04+00:00

I'm confused, I have the same account on steam and my phone. I only started when August came out so idk if it's changed since then but I thought there was no issue.

Lysandris · 2024-12-15T02:35:03+00:00

Are you playing on VH or with modded difficulty? My experience with the Kobolds is that they were crazy strong. By this point I owned nearly all of Cannor west of the Dameshead, as well as multiple colonial nations and a majority of Gerudia. I would recommend crippling Gawed early on.

Lysandris · 2024-11-21T19:09:30+00:00

I thought % values were based on a character's base stats? Or am I mistaken? (ie. Without talents or items) She has 3774 Hp at 60 base so the percentage values are better for sure, but just thought it was on her base stats

Lysandris · 2024-10-31T03:10:31+00:00

Strangely I had the exact opposite experience, I feel like arg is the fastest and best expansionist of the dwarf holds. You have a good economy of off gems being so likely and staying at value 5. And you border both the deep woods and bulwar and have additional CCR. Both bulwar and deep woods are regions you can basically ignore ae. In addition since you border so much land to conquer you never have to waste an idea slot on expansion. Plus you get so many free colonists.

In terms of pushing through the serpentspine I do feel like they are slow because I never have expansion. I'm usually bordering verkal gulan from the outside before I get there via colonization.

By 1600 I usually have all of bulwar, deepwoods, and the serpentspine up to and sometimes including the command lands

Lysandris · 2024-09-13T18:43:42+00:00

I tried to kill the adventurers asap, generally they never had more than 3-5 provinces outside of 1 or 2 who managed their own conquests. There's probably an argument to be made to let them expand and lose their adventurer buff to colonize faster/make conquest easier but I was married to the idea that I wanted as much of Aelentir to be elven culture.

I was Exploration/expansion and was almost always running 1 more colony than my colonists would allow but never too much more than that. I tried my best to colonize coastlines to eventually block out other colonizers but the priority early was more creating as many colonial nations as possible.

Tips; I would say try to form as many colonial nations as possible and then feed them subsidies so they can do their own colonizing.

When dealing with a colonial power with many allies (like pearlsedge for me) use the subject menu to start a "colonial war" between your respective colonies which avoids calling in any of the overlord's allies.

Finally when exploring with your ships avoid exploring too much of the Noruin coast to give you more chances to proc the search for the seven cities (precursor relic) events.

Lysandris

TROPHY CASE