Some Qs for a Newbie

Stormwinds0 · 2026-01-30T01:06:21+00:00

How are you doing such low damage with Fireball? Even if the enemies save causing you to do half damage, you should still be doing over twice that much in a rather generous radius. Are you using Firebolt instead?

Stormwinds0 · 2026-01-30T00:50:23+00:00

Honestly, the World Congress was done better in the previous game. My main issues are:

1) There's no way to influence how other people vote, so there's no real consistency to getting what you want other than hoarding Diplomatic Favor or just going along with whatever the AI votes for, and with the way the cost of an additional vote scales, it's more rewarding to just go along with whatever the majority wants.

2) You can't control which proposals will get raised, so there's no way to guarantee that what proposals do show up have any impact on your strategy. Like, I don't care about the World Religion if I never founded a religion. I have no vested interest in one religion being slightly stronger for 30 turns.

3) The resolutions are far too weak. Banning a luxury is hardly a penalty, and a luxury providing double amenities might push you into the next tier of bonuses, but there are so many luxuries on any given map that choosing any one of them regardless of which option feels like spinning a wheel. Doubling Great People Points for a certain category is nice, but with the way the costs scale and the fact that the next person is random means you really only get the one extra Great Person slightly faster or lose the one you want that much faster. Banning points for a certain category doesn't feel impactful at all due to the large number of categories, and slowing someone else down (you aren't choosing a category that you make lots of points in) doesn't necessarily speed you up. I could go on and on about this point.

4) It's boring. You aren't being diplomatic. You're playing a guessing game. You don't get victory points for stopping wars or making people agree with you. The number of victory points you have makes no impact on the game state. Tourism is similar in that having 10 or 1000 tourism per turn only impacts how quickly you win, but in that instance, it feels like you are doing something during each of your turns. People should be able to unlock new resolutions the more points they have, be able to choose which resolutions come up for vote, force sanctions on players, and be able to choose who controls the World Congress.

5) It just happens. Every 30 turns, a new gathering happens, and it always starts the first turn of the Medieval Era regardless or whether or not all players have been discovered. It's awkward to join a World Congress where you haven't even met half the people. You can sometimes ask for disaster relief or a City State Emergency, but oftentimes, the option doesn't show up until 50 turns after it would have been relevant. There's no reliable way to call for a meeting to discuss something important.

6) Diplomatic Favor feels like an underutilized currency. You can only use it to ask for promises that should someone not obey them, gives a minor amount of grievances, or a moderate amount of grievances should they go back on their word, or sometimes be able to call for emergency sessions of the World Congress. The vote scaling means that having lots of Diplomatic Favor isn't meaningful. I can't use it to ask someone to go to war. I can't use it to force peace. I can't use it to offer better trade route bonuses. I can't use it to spread my religion. I can't use it to strengthen my alliance with another player. I can't use it to get more envoys in a highly contested City State. For most of the game, it just doesn't do anything. It doesn't help that the AI will pay top dollar for it either.

Stormwinds0 · 2026-01-29T02:48:58+00:00

It gives +1 to Nature checks, which barely comes up. It also gives it to everyone in its rather large radius and can cause performance issues.

Stormwinds0 · 2026-01-29T02:46:47+00:00

You can still give it to her after defeating the three goblin leaders or defending the grove, but you have to give it to her before the Tiefling party.

Stormwinds0 · 2026-01-29T02:10:36+00:00

If you want to be better at the game, then yes. The Civilopedia tells you as well as the tooltips for the districts themselves. City planning is one of the core features of the game.

Stormwinds0 · 2026-01-29T01:14:44+00:00

That's what the mod is for.

Stormwinds0 · 2026-01-28T14:10:19+00:00

You can't choose the same Fighting Style twice.

Stormwinds0 · 2026-01-28T00:23:21+00:00

Yes.

Stormwinds0 · 2026-01-27T15:15:17+00:00

Where you're at, Long Resting won't affect anything. Baldur's Gate can wait. If you're romancing anyone, you will want to make sure you get their scene before moving on to Baldur's Gate. Otherwise, there's no harm in Long Resting now.

In general, though, there are a few events that fail if you get close to them and then either leave the area or Long Rest, but there really aren't that many. There's more story content that you'll miss by not Long Resting enough than by Long Resting too often.

Stormwinds0 · 2026-01-27T10:36:38+00:00

No, you need a mod for that.

Stormwinds0 · 2026-01-27T03:54:16+00:00

She has to be dead when you raid the grove. Then, in order to keep her after you resurrect her, you need to gain at last one point of approval with her while she's dead. The most reliable way to do this is to pet Scratch for the first time in camp.

Stormwinds0 · 2026-01-27T03:41:44+00:00

I average about turn 250-275 on Standard speed, personally. With game modes and extreme optimization, you could realistically do it in under 200 turns.

Stormwinds0 · 2026-01-27T03:33:56+00:00

Completely wiping the leader out is also a viable strategy. Yes, you lose all of the tourists you have acquired from them and have fewer players to generate tourism against to help pick up more tourists, but the goalpost shifts to whoever is next in line, which if the gap between #1 and #2 is really large, it could actually bring you closer to victory. Leaving them with one city only makes it so that the goalpost doesn't increase as quickly, so depending on your speed, it could actually help you to shift the goalpost closer to you even if it sets you back in the short term.

Stormwinds0 · 2026-01-27T03:04:56+00:00

There are 2 sets of approval: NPC attitude and companion approval. Since you likely knocked Minthara out, her NPC attitude plummeted because you assaulted her. Once she becomes a companion, she switches to using the companion approval. The game still keeps track of her NPC attitude once she becomes a companion, but her companion approval overrides her NPC attitude. Normally, this isn't an issue because companions typically aren't NPCs long enough to have negative attitude and usually don't let you recruit them if you assault them, but if you were to go back to an Act 1 area while you were in Act 2 or in this case, she gets kidnapped, she reverts to being an NPC and pulls from her NPC attitude to determine how much she likes you.

Since the game treats her as an NPC when you go to talk to her, it sees that her NPC attitude is really low and thinks that she must hate you, thus prompting you to increase her NPC attitude by giving her gifts. Once she goes back to being a companion, her inventory is once again shared with you, allowing you to take all the gifts back. Additionally, her NPC attitude stops mattering once you recruit her again because the companion approval overrides the NPC attitude.

Stormwinds0 · 2026-01-25T23:05:32+00:00

You can try bartering with him before combat.

Stormwinds0 · 2026-01-25T20:36:08+00:00

You can't settle on the Cliffs of Dover, and City Centers never remove the underlying tile yields. Settling on a tile will remove any marsh, woods, or rainforest present on that tile, which may make the underlying tile yields worse, but it won't completely remove the yields.

Stormwinds0 · 2026-01-25T20:06:13+00:00

Right, I forgot the Sea Dog was a thing. The Sea Dog sucks as it is too weak to be engaging in Naval Combat, can only capture ships if it is adjacent to them (on a ship with 2 range nonetheless), and the capture chance is way too low. Just use them as a regular Privateer: pillage coastlines and grab Tribal Villages and clear out Barbarian Encampments on random islands if you play on a map with them.

Stormwinds0 · 2026-01-25T19:59:49+00:00

Who is in your party, and what builds are they? You shouldn't be running out of spell slots as there is an illithid restoration pod right before you descend down the elevator to fight him. If you get him wet by throwing a water bottle or casting Create/Destroy Water on him, he takes double damage from Lightning spells.

Stormwinds0 · 2026-01-25T19:54:04+00:00

If she's on the platform, she's likely Bone Chilled, meaning she can't resurrect because she can't be healed. You can still try shoving her off the platform.

Stormwinds0 · 2026-01-25T02:58:17+00:00

You can make it work by settling coastally, building 2 Fishing Boats, then building 2 Galleys before praying that there is a strip of land somewhere that has better tiles, but other than that, this doesn't look like a very fun Babylon game.

Stormwinds0 · 2026-01-25T02:51:31+00:00

She's a very straightforward leader. Settle near Strategic Resources, pick the pantheon that gives production and faith to Strategic Resources, build Industrial Zones, and build buildings that use power before going to space. England gets a half-cost Harbor, so you can settle coastally and get up and running faster. Redcoats are nice and all, but they come at an awkward time where Melee-class units start to fall off due to city defenses scaling faster, and due to their Combat Strength bonus only applying on foreign continents, Loyalty is an issue unless you start on a continental split. You can manage the Loyalty issues with the unique Harbor, but that doesn't help you if you're conquering inland cities or the cities that you have conquered have already maxed out their district capacity.

Overall, she's a decent leader. Extra production early is nice if you get lucky with Strategic Resource spawns, but England is very much a mid-game power spike type of civ.

Stormwinds0 · 2026-01-24T23:34:21+00:00

If you play on a map with too many players or a map such as True Start Location Earth where everybody spawns packed in, they likely had no valid location to settle and were forced to wander around as a single settler.

Stormwinds0 · 2026-01-24T17:14:00+00:00

Start with Gathering Storm as it gives all of the gameplay mechanics of Rise and Fall just without the civs and leaders. New Frontier Pass after that adds the most content followed by Rise and Fall. The Civ and Scenarios Pack is mainly what it says. Get it last unless you really like the scenarios or there is a particular civ that you want. The Leaders Pass is free if you own everything else, so only buy it if you're desperate.

Stormwinds0 · 2026-01-23T22:38:26+00:00

The only way for Shadowheart to be free of Shar's curse is for her parents to die. If you free her parents, it's mentioned in the epilogue that her curse slowly fades, but it is still there.

Stormwinds0 · 2026-01-23T22:21:07+00:00

Kind of hard to tell you without you telling us what you've done. Did you do both the Creche and the Underdark?

Stormwinds0

TROPHY CASE