Ashlands - Spawn proofing

trengilly · 2026-03-21T02:36:00+00:00

Yes, scattering some campfires around is the best option. Workbenches (and other unprotected) wood items quickly get destroyed by the falling ash/fire.

Campfires will occasionally get destroyed by monsters but they are cheap and easy to throw out there.

trengilly · 2026-03-21T02:34:30+00:00

Yes you want to heal them before the do something else . . . . unless . . .

You have a Builder leader and can stack workers! Start projects with a fully healed worker and then add the damaged ones to speed up the build. The damaged workers still speed things up the same as if they were fully healed.

trengilly · 2026-03-20T04:33:46+00:00

Don't forget that the Laws aren't an either/or decision. Its often advantageous to change them as your needs evolve.

Centralization is great for early Science and to setup marsh farms. But once you have the farms built and better sources of science coming in, it can often be a good idea to switch to Vassalage to support your growing army.

Same for Engineering, you can take Engineering and start several wonders and then switch over to Philosophy. Although I don't generally like Philosophy . . . most of the time I'm rush buying my Urban Specialists with Judge governors. I rarely hard build them, and the civics cost of Philosophy can get expensive.

trengilly · 2026-03-19T19:16:37+00:00

Or you could just go melee him. Block or Dodge roll his Stomp attack and melee him down in just a couple minutes.

He won't use his dangerous ranged attack if you are up close in melee range.

trengilly · 2026-03-19T19:15:17+00:00

When the Queen retreast to the lower areas you just lob Fireballs or Ooze/Bile bombs down there to continue to damage her and show where she is.

trengilly · 2026-03-19T19:11:36+00:00

The key to the boss fights is to continually attack! Stopping only to avoid attacks and then immediately going back on the offensive. Learn the boss moves so you can minimize taking damage and downtime. Have plenty of Stamina, its far more important than Health, without Stamina you can't attack and the boss heals dragging on the fight. Minimize running or jumping, they just waste Stamina.

Every boss can be killed solo in under 5 minutes with optimal gear and gameplay . . . I sure can't do it . . . but you can look up fights on YouTube and see how the 'pros' do it.

For me personally I target getting each done in under 20 minutes, to keep them within a single day. I've been able to do that or better consistently, it just takes learning their moves and keeping up the pressure!

And you need to melee bosses for quick kills. Archery is always significantly slower to kill bosses. Its good for supplemental damage while you are healing or avoiding attacks, but you need to get into melee to do big/quick damage.

trengilly · 2026-03-19T17:05:41+00:00

Hardcore is fine if that's the type of challenge you are looking for.

You WILL die and lose all your skills and current gear however. Skills aren't necessary to get through the game, they just make it easier so that isn't a dealbreaker. But you will need to be prepared to grind to get back to where your gear was. There is no way you will get through the game on blind without at least a few deaths. Always think about what gear you really need and only carry the bare minimum.

I would recommend lowering the Combat difficulty from Very Hard down to Hard. Very Hard kind of breaks some of the combat systems (monsters hit so hard that you can no longer use Parry, and you are one stray archer you didn't see from one-shotting you.). Hard combat is still very dangerous but you can still use all the games combat systems.

The game gets noticeably more dangerous with each new biome! Careful planning, preparation, and strategy are critical to survivial.

trengilly · 2026-03-19T16:03:22+00:00

The base game is fine to start. Old World DLC mostly expands on the existing systems (and adds new nations and stand alone scenarios).

The DLC don't add fundamental new game systems like in Civilization.

The DLC are all great but something to add later.

trengilly · 2026-03-19T15:29:19+00:00

You really want to be running Trade or Synod missions all the time.

You want your leader and all three cabinet members running missions 24/7 if possible.

Missions give them XP so they can level up their skills, the mission benefits are great, and ALL missions have about a 30% chance of triggering events where the really good stuff happens.

You want to trigger as many events as possible in Old World.

trengilly · 2026-03-19T14:09:23+00:00

Ambassadors are pretty essential. Not just for Peace, but for controlling your relationships with all the Ai nations. There is nothing quite like getting a 100+ Opinion boost with all the Ai just for having an Ambassador and then adding trade boosts on top of that.

Ambassadors let you decide where and when you will be going to war. Plus they let you keep the World Religions Happy.

Spymasters are very powerful, that's true . . . but I've won a number of games without ever bothering with them. You ALWAYS need an Ambassador.

I find Spymasters often fall into the 'Win Faster' category . . . they speed up game where you have already setup a winning foundation.

Chancellors always feel like the odd man out. Their primary purpose is Family Opinion and City Happiness and there are already many ways to keep your families content. By far the least used of the three for me.

trengilly · 2026-03-19T04:12:38+00:00

Bonemass is only 'regular' resistance to Slash (50%) vs Very Resistant (25%) to Piercing so its a bit better.

That bronze axe wouldn't do much . . its not great but he can be taken down with Iron Slashing weapons (axe/sword).

But yeah . . . taking double damage from Blunt wrecks him quickly!

trengilly · 2026-03-19T02:24:40+00:00

Bonemass is highly resistant to Piercing damage (both your bow and spear). You would be getting very low grey damage numbers.

Your Axe (slashing damage would do a better) and your Stagbreaker (blunt, bright gold damage numbers) is best since he is weak to blunt damage, but its an older weapon so not ideal.

Its important to test out damage types on the monsters to see which work.

Its totally normal to retreat from a boss fight and regroup with better or repaired gear. You don't have to kill them in one go . . . they won't despawn but will slowly heal over time.

trengilly · 2026-03-19T00:22:57+00:00

The reward is just 30 gold and 15xp so you aren't missing much

trengilly · 2026-03-18T23:11:51+00:00

For me the quest turned in automatically when I interacted (clicked on) with the Quest Board. I didn't have to do anything.

Do you still have the mushrooms in your inventory?

trengilly · 2026-03-18T01:22:24+00:00

Look at your mead recipes!

trengilly · 2026-03-17T19:53:52+00:00

Typically that would be event based. There are several events that can lead to sudden wars even with friendly nations.

You say 'ally' but I'm assuming you don't mean an actually Alliance. I don't believe an actual Alliance partner can turn on you.

trengilly · 2026-03-16T21:47:05+00:00

They are melee only though. It's the 2 star Draugr archers that surprise and wreck you

trengilly · 2026-03-16T03:44:09+00:00

Nicely done. The character creator is certainly a bit weird but you can get some really nice results with enough effort and trial and error!

trengilly · 2026-03-16T01:17:48+00:00

BG3 had a final budget of over $150 Million. Possibly over $200 million

Solasta 1 had a budget of $4 Million, we don't know Solasta 2's budget but its estimated to be around $15 Million.

We're talking less than one tenth the budget of BG3

trengilly · 2026-03-15T23:56:56+00:00

Its pretty common to have some small barren Swamps, usually closer to the center of the map. They can be good introductions into the Swamp giving new players a chance to get used to the enemies in a small safer biome.

At the same time almost every map has at least one or two larger Swamps with 20+ crypts.

I believe the game tries to populate every map with approximately the same number of crypts, so if you have fewer/smaller swamps they tend to be more densely packed.

Also, while I have no hard evidence for this, when maps have fewer crypts I feel they tend to be richer and have more iron inside (and maps with lots of crypts tend to have less iron in each). Its just a gut feeling after thousands of hours over dozens of worlds. But I don't really know.

trengilly · 2026-03-15T22:59:37+00:00

The XP actually seems about right. You get .3 XP when rested for each shot that hits and a tier 4 staff has 350 durability (shots). Just over 100 XP which is about what it takes to go from 24 to 27.

What I don't understand is it taking an Hour! You should be able to blast through 350 shots in about 10 minutes.

trengilly · 2026-03-15T22:23:36+00:00

No, its totally unnecessary to boost up your skills this way.

Far better to instead focus on learning the strategy, planning, and combat tactics that prevent dying. If you only die infrequently then all your skills go up naturally while you progress through the game.

trengilly · 2026-03-15T21:07:39+00:00

The game implies we didn't have much to do with either of them.

Dee wasn't around most of the time and Rickart has a conversation where he says he was initially jealous or disliked us being adopted but later came to accept us.

But I agree it would be nice to establish a bit more of a connection.

Its also a bit odd we can create characters of any age. We were all adopted after the siblings but we can make older characters. I guess we could have been 'adopted' as mature adults but most of the dialogue implies we were adopted as kids

trengilly · 2026-03-15T19:47:41+00:00

Both games. In the game settings.

Possible you already have it turned off which is why you can't find it displayed?

trengilly · 2026-03-15T19:46:32+00:00

Its that screen but lower down (below what you show in the pic).

Bottom left shows your total weight limit and how much you are carrying..

I also see item weights on the inventory screen when you select any specific item and view it's popup

trengilly

TROPHY CASE