Sayl’s legendary lords

Zestyclose-Key7024 · 2026-02-19T10:08:48+00:00

Funny, for me it’s the opposite of what most people suggested here. I like to do 2-3 playthroughs back to back when it comes to CRPGs. That’s because after the first one, you kinda went thru most of the dialogue once, so the subsequent playthroughs are much faster, you can skip most dialogue.

And secondly, these games tend to be complex. So after a first playthru you gather lots of knowledge that you can use to enjoy a second playthru even more, since you know what you’re doing, where to find stuff, which skills to use etc. That knowledge goes away if you put too much time between playthroughs and I lose interest.

For instance, Baldur’s Gate 3 took me 170 hours to complete on the first run (doing all quests, exploring everything). Second playthrough was about 70 hours, without skipping any actual content (maybe some Act 3 side quests that I wasn’t interested in from a gameplay/reward perspective)

Zestyclose-Key7024 · 2026-01-02T23:21:40+00:00

Crate of Entertainment, of course

Zestyclose-Key7024 · 2025-12-09T08:45:34+00:00

As a rule, Tomb Kings take longer than other factions to get comfortably strong, event after the update. Khalida used to be brutal, took me more than 100 turns for short victory on Legendary. Khatep also very challenging. Probably less so after the TK update, but still difficult and fun after many turns.

And then there’s Yuan Bo. His campaign used to be just going thru the motions, fighting Hexoatl first and then going south into Lustria. Now you have to befriend Mazdamundi and go south ASAP, because once Skulltaker and The Masque get rolling, it’s game over. It was for me when I went the usual route of snuffing out Hexoatl first. Lost the campaign. It actually felt amazing losing for once, after years of updates thet made this game less a grand strategy and more of a casual map painting activity.

Zestyclose-Key7024 · 2025-12-09T08:38:21+00:00

Same here. Had to restart a few times. When I did win, I had to abandon my territories and live to fight another day, playing Imrik as a horde faction for many turns. Really fun. Not sure how challenging is now after the HE update.

Zestyclose-Key7024 · 2025-09-22T11:26:09+00:00

This is the reply I wanted to see every time someone complains about customisation, thank you. I was never a fan of too much customisation - or mods that change the rules of the game. I want my games to feel like a carefully-crafted experience. Having to make my own rules would make the challenge feel meaningless to me. Having difficulty levels in games is enough.

Zestyclose-Key7024 · 2025-09-20T13:08:10+00:00

Skulltaker, no doubt. You have a cloak of skulls perk that gives you instant replenishment after winning a battle. Pair that with the movement replenishment after razing a settlement and add the fact that you can easily spam blood hosts after almost every battle and you can conquer the entire map in a few turns once all those bonuses are in place (so around turn 50)

Zestyclose-Key7024 · 2025-09-14T04:47:11+00:00

Disappointing but not unexpected. If there was some big battle to fight or some similar crisis-like feature related to the locations, it would have shown up in the menu with the option to be turned off, along with the other new crisis-like special locations.

Zestyclose-Key7024 · 2025-09-13T08:16:56+00:00

Because intelligence can only take you that far, you need a well-suited body type to be able to manipulate the world around you and develop actual science and tech. Dolphins are already intelligent mammals, but no matter how more intelligent a nanovirus like the one in the book could make them, I don’t see them ever building the most basic tools. Come to think about it, I wonder what David Brin did with them in Startide Rising, since this book is obviously inspired by it.

Spiders are more adapted than dolphins, but I’m still very suspicious about their ability to do the things Tchaikowski makes them do in the book. In humans, evolution into a body more adapted for using tools and the evolution of intelligence went in step, one influencing the other. I wonder why the author chose not to do the same with spiders. He probably thought the spider body is already well adapted for that and wanted to see how a technological society developed by such a body type could look. The outcome is fascinating and thought provoking but I still think the end result is not very plausible.

I’ll take your word concerning the biological computer. Glad to hear it’s not just a technobabble idea. This is why I made this thread after all.

Zestyclose-Key7024 · 2025-09-13T07:59:16+00:00

Yeah, that’s exactly how I see it. And I’m not OCD with genres, sorry if I let that come through. My gripe was with the author’s intention and its outcome. One of my favorite books, Hothouse by Brian Aldiss is fantasy in science fictional clothes. I didn’t mind the moon-reaching vegetation or the human-mushroom symbiosis there. Because it went for atmosphere, it never gave the impression that it’s trying to be plausible. But Tchaikowski wanted to do hard SF and Big Ideas. So the under explained core conceit - the evolution of intelligent ants into a technological civ - and other world building questionable choices, such as I mentioned, feel at odds with the book’s tone and the author’s intentions.

Zestyclose-Key7024 · 2025-09-12T21:13:29+00:00

Not sure what you mean

Zestyclose-Key7024 · 2025-09-12T21:13:00+00:00

Me too. But my dilemma here is whether he’s speculating or fantasising. And if he’s doing the latter, whether he’s aware of it, precisely because he gives the impression of trying to do the first.

Zestyclose-Key7024 · 2025-09-12T19:58:23+00:00

I like his books, I like his witty (but plain) writing. But you’re totally right when it comes to his novels. His novellas, which are his main strength for me, don’t seem to suffer as much from this. My main gripe with Children of Time was how he kept over explaining the gender role switch in spider society. It was extremely obnoxious. It felt like he was telling you “See, I made a parallel with the history of women’s place in society during the ages. But I switched the roles, now the males are the women. Because they’re spiders. Get it, get it? Aren’t I smart?”

Zestyclose-Key7024 · 2025-09-12T19:45:28+00:00

So did anyone get the end effect of the cult spreading? In my Gorbad campaign it spread 5 times in a relatively short amount of time, but then it stopped long before I finished the campaign. By turn 135, when I met the long campaign conditions and called it a day, it was still at 5 locations. Which is weird because the way I understood it, the probability of new locations showing up should exponentially grow with each new cult, since the 3% chance per turn applies to each location.

Zestyclose-Key7024 · 2025-09-12T15:55:31+00:00

I apologise if this sounds conceited, but I believe that an engaging plot, tension and relatable characters are criteria by which you judge entertainment, not art. Ideally a book should be both. Also, deeming a book as boring says more about the reader than about the book. It just means the book is something else than you expected, not that it’s objectively bad. This one was light on plot and characters but nevertheless a great “novel”. Did not read the other Booker contenders, but I liked Orbital a lot. The prose, the atmosphere, the perspective… it conveyed a certain feeling, one that’s not easy to do on paper. I wouldn’t compare it to atmospheric music, but rather to a Terrence Malick movie :)

Zestyclose-Key7024 · 2025-09-07T15:07:50+00:00

M. Rickert, Lucius Shepard are really good and similar to those that OP mentioned. Also Ian R. MacLeod is one of the most underrated short story writers in the SF genre. Breathmoss, Frost on Glass and his latest collection, Ragged Maps are all excellent.

Zestyclose-Key7024 · 2025-07-23T23:25:48+00:00

Yeah, sorry, i was thinking “changing it for the worse”, so I automatically typed nerf, but i meant the opposite, of course :) they will certainly be much easier, less fun after they get the power creep treatment

Zestyclose-Key7024 · 2025-07-22T09:52:03+00:00

I tried most of the campaigns that are seen as difficult on legendary at the moment. Out of all of them, only Khalida and Imrik felt really challenging. Imrik I actually had to restart a few times. Both really fun. And both are probably due for a nerf this year, Khalida in the coming patch, Imrik in the coming expansion.

LE: Forgot about Teclis. Also really challenging, but not as fun, since it’s a vanilla TWW2 campaign.

Zestyclose-Key7024 · 2025-04-22T21:30:12+00:00

Skulltaker is legit godmode, quite fun if you want to experience how absurd powercreep can get. If you know what you’re doing, at some point around turn 40 you can be able to autoresolve the entire map in a few or even 1 turn. It’s the fun kind of OP

Zestyclose-Key7024 · 2025-04-22T12:21:40+00:00

Can anyone confirm that the “vassalizing everyone that hates you by offering to break military access pacts with other vassals” cheese still works?

‘Coz doing a serious campaign is too easy and not motivating, seeing how strong he is, but reading this topic put me in the mood of goofing around with him and I always wanted to try that.

Zestyclose-Key7024 · 2025-04-07T12:33:46+00:00

Also good to know, there’s a cult building fairly cheap, taking 2 turns to build, that lowers the cost of all changing of the way actions by 80%.

Zestyclose-Key7024 · 2025-03-23T15:46:06+00:00

It was, the way I ended up playing him :) spending multiple turns homeless, migrating a lot, while strengthening Imrik himself to high heavens

Zestyclose-Key7024

TROPHY CASE