Report card
I will preface this report card by first admitting that some of what happened here was partially my fault, for starting the quest on 2 forums, even though it eventually migrated to SV fully. I won't pretend some of my choice options weren't clumsy, and the fact that I had to add the mechanics for the sequel midway in the quest to help you roll better probably didn't help.
I am also fully aware most of the people reading this began the quest later on, when the choices were already made, but for the sake of thoroughness, I will start by the beginning anyways.
First choice of the game, you chose to remain neutral. Keep that in mind, we'll come back to it soon.
Let's start with the character creation.
I know it's mostly not you guys' fault, Biigoh's voice carries a lot of weight in these parts, but it still needs to be said.
The problems began from here, allow me to break them down, for those of you who didn't come here from QQ:
What you knew :
You were an old-ish, neutral Pureblood in Harry Potter, during Voldemort's reign of terror.
Your daughter tried to kill you, and she's with the Order of the Phoenix.
Furthermore, this daughter of yours has divine backing.
Due to a roll of the dice, that divine backer was now hostile to you.
You see the problem here?
Chibi the first got incredibly good rolls, and they did well to upgrate one of her traits. They chose to upgrade Blood of Scathach, which gave Chibi, in the
long term, the ability to craft a legendary weapon, in the same league as Gae Bolg or Excalibur.
Not the best or what I'd have recommended due to how tenuous the situation was, but not the worst either.
Then came perk selection, where I repeated what you already knew, Freyja, Norse goddess of War is hostile to you, and Andraste, goddess of victory is willing to throw more shinies in your direction that she normally would.
And you didn't take it.
That didn't put you in the losing path, but it would have helped a lot, more than the shadow queen would ever have.
You guys are
very lucky Freyja had other things to worry about, like Riddle's ascension to power ( we'll touch on that later), to go after you, because without Andraste, you'd have been toast if she did.
Most of the following choices were for flavor, save for the choice with Elizabeth. It was a good call to inform her, and then agree with her on Chibi's name because it delayed the impending divorce long enough for you to find yourself a replacement ( more on
that later too)
Then, you threw away a hero unit in the form of Sarah Green, maid of the Gwallawg manor and whose loyalty was guaranteed. It was made even worse because she was a Diplomacy/Learning type ( More on that
also later on).
Now, the Nat100 came, and with it Oliver, and the beginnings of the Anchor fiasco.
Though, at this point, things were going swimmingly for you, and I was being pretty optimistic about how this was going to develop.
Choosing good equipment for the expedition didn't raise that many flags, but Dace personnally getting involved and leaving his manor did, because it was fairly out of character coming from him, which lead to Riddle investigating and arriving before Dace.
Then, the first red flags appeared. Riddle being interested
for some reason in your heir should have been, for you guys who had knowledge of the plot, a warning to keep Chibi as far out of the light as you could. Moreover, the fact Dace was careful towards his fellow scholar alerted him that something was off and you barely managed the roll to bullshit your way out of his fighting you because of your absurdly high intrigue saving you from your pitiful diplomacy. Not to mention, Riddle began to be suspicious of Dace, because Golden dragons = Rampart. That made him up his level of surveillance of you rise, and Aimée began stalking you.
To further drive the point home, I had Oliver mention that not only he was more receptive to magic ( which would have helpe you a lot had you chosen to SL him before that other fiasco), but Riddle was also stinking of Death and Destruction. This was rather heavy handed of me, was what I was thinking at the time. I was quickly corrected.
Diplomacy with dragons failed, but Dace was rich, so he wasn't turned into a pile of cinders, and then, you got a lot of loot.
Then, came your biggest miscalculation of the game, which was also, hilariously enough, the moment SV began to vote.
You chose, despite the fact that Riddle being interested was a bad thing, to outright
advertise Chibi.
That confirmed (in his mind) Riddle's suspicions of her not only being blessed, but also of you being a potential rival, put her in Riddle's list of people to capture immediately, and ruined your chances of remaining in the shadows. Looking at it, this was truly the turning point of this quest, as a character who was set to play the long game, saddled with a
defensive faction, was put in the limelight.
Fleur de Lis, the Interlude at the end of Chargen, gave a lot of data that wasn't necessarily heeded.
First : Gods are a thing, and they reincarnate meta aware people.
Second: You need to second guess everything, especially if it looks like canon.
Third; and biggest of them all : The Overlord was already active
years before the quest. As all things with this quest, this will become relevant soon.
Turn 1 :
Once again, I say Dace is a Main Intrigue character, and that he sucks at fighting and leading armies.
And therefore, you guys deliberately didn't try to spy on Voldemort or the Order of the Phoenix, despite Tom Riddle and Aife belonging to both.
This, is a very recurrent problem of this quest.
The character isn't good at martial or diplomacy. His main ability lies in striking from the shadows at the enemy's weak point, but to locate that weak point, he needs information you guys
didn't try to get.
Also the Prophecy.
It was written, since the very beginning in his character sheet, that Dace was born on July 31
st. The very first reaction you should have had, was to refuse to touch it with a ten feet pole.
Keeping tabs on Lily was a good choice, inviting Skeeter to the wedding was not.
Turn 2 :
Outbidding the Unspeakables was a good move, any less money and you'd have lost Agatha to the Ministry, then, Aimée later on.
Still no spying on your enemies, and once again, Loot-chan comes to rescue you.
By then, it was well advertised that I was heavily using the HoMM4 wiki, and people would have noticed that Nature faction don't have any building to learn Order spells. The good choice here would have been to go for the Conservatory of Order, due to the sheer usefulness of the Order spells. I even mentionned it was an Irregular building, therefore the shiniest available action.
Also, if he didn't know before, now you knew Riddle was certain you were involved with Nature faction, and you mass murdering his dementors should have sent you in a defensive frenzy, because after murderizing Lily's faction as
collateral damage, you could be sure he'd go after
you next.
Then began another trend of choosing nonrelated interludes, free info you let go of. I almost released the most important part of DeathQuest, about them getting Grim Reapers, but in the end decided against it, you chose Aife's salt over tactically sound information, on your heads be it.
Turn 3 :
At this point, you know the drill, too visible, not enough sneaking.
In fact, it's even worse, because you waste multiple actions on Aife, when she's already a wanted criminal on the run, when there's bigger fish to fry.
I mention your waifu isn't feeling well but you ignore her because she's SL10 despite my telling I'm basing SLs on Persona 3 and therefore they are susceptible to degradation but meh.
I mean, who cares she's feeling sad because she had a miscarriage and her hubby doesn't care enough about her to talk to her?
When going to visit granmama, you chose too big an escort and got detected. More fighting against Riddle's troops, more red flags ( if it was even possible after that rumor mill)
Then, came the choice of Nasu Scath versus OG. At this point, you'd have been better of choosing the Nasu one, because you were too weak to deal with Riddle or the Overlord due to your decisions to play late game, then your contradicting actions.
Also, one more thing: Scath lived in a
dead land. That should have worried you a lot more, but Chibi managed to diplomance her out of killing you. Because yes, OG Scath is
undead. She's also got the Stealth skill that fooled you into thinking she isn't , because your perception sucks when it comes to people.
Turn 4 :
No building the workshop when your character has crafting bonuses and is good enough he can
create humans from a cauldron. Regardless of the tech paths that weren't yet mentionned ( my bad on this one), the possibility of creating anti undead weapons should not have been ignored.
No building dragon pens when they're your most powerful units and need time to breed.
Still wasting actions on Aife.
No training your units either.
You stopped spending time with Chibi in a familial manner, instead focusing on teaching her intrigue. If you'd bothered to use a personal action on her, you'd have learnt she had nightmares due to the attack of the vampires, and the travel to the Land of the Dead. This was the first pebble of the avalanche concerning her, as it caused her to become much closer to Oliver afterwards. That's also the moment Oliver began to doubt you, because of your decisions.
Then, as I said explicitely Riddle was about to attack ( several times, in fact), you decided not the get Martha the skill that allowed her to resist Death magic, instead making her rely on RNG, and then, there was the Grail.
I explained, rather clearly, the uses, and type of planning around it, and you chose the long term one, on the eve of an attack, when
any other bonus would have helped you against Riddle, who you knew was aware of your base's layout and had an advantage against you, which led you to taking unacceptable losses against the man.
Also, civvies in the battlefield. I said it enough by now, and I'll say it again, keep your advisors off the field or they'll die and you'll have to waste an ungodly amount of actions to replace them.
Of course, then, you chose to work for a woman who worked with Riddle's god, the god of
Evil himself, didn't believe in sharing information, who disapproves of
Nature ( you know? Your whole mojo?), said whe wanted you to serve her ( as opposed to 'Themis' milder 'contract') and lied to your face several times. By the way, Death God alliance including the angry guy was also a lie, most death gods have enough self respect not to work with Ahriman. There is, however, a Death God alliance.
At this point, I was losing patience and trying to find a way to get you out of the hole you dug for yourself. So I gave Martha a bit of help and had her rez Agatha and Lizzie.
Looking at it right now, they should have remained dead as a lesson.
No house for the dragons means they went away, and Ollie made a split second, impulsive decision.
Of course, the Divorce bomb finally blew up after 4 years of you ignoring your wife, and you promptly failed Lizzie's test for waifu reasons.
Also, all of Chibi Scath's beloved summoned dogs are dead, she found one of the dead puppies curled up against her door and now she's so traumatized she swore she'd never summon anything ever again. You never did anything to adress that either. But hey, Personal action economy!
Turn 5:
Looks like last turn's fiasco wasn't a complete loss, seeing as you finally began using your intrigue. No workshop yet, but I had no more expectations at this point, so...
You choosing the mystery option given to you by the shifty goddess twice shot you further in the foot, ruined your SL with Oliver, and led him to feel infinitely less guilty about becoming your rival.
Still no SL with Chibi.
Andraste lost patience and chose to declare a comatose guy her champion, and Dace stumbles in the meeting of 3 different factions around his shop, in which he decides to do the dumb thing and separate from his bodyguard when the streets were teeming with enemies and he still sucks at killing living things.
That's when Aimée and Shirley came in.
So, Dace get himself kidnapped ( what suspense) gets mugged, then saved by a sooty Oliver and his accidentally dyed dragons. His low perception strikes again and Dace decides the Overlord was here when the real one was chilling in a Brazilian strip club .
Chibi was shown to keep secrets from Grandpa, fact that was blissfully ignored, then you tried to steal people from your ally, causing your relationship with him to take a nosedive.
Also, Cherry. Oh god Cherry. Let's just say Ollie outright hates you after the latest stunt. At least Chibi doesn't feel so sad anymore, her grandfather is just crazy... And likes toturing people... And tried to teach her that when Daddy Oliver punched him in the face.
Turn 6:
By far, your biggest mistake this turn was to marry Martha, for the simple reason that pregnancy will keep her off the fields, and she's your
best hero unit, the reste being subpar at best.
Still, as if last turn wasn't enough, after princess Peach-Sorry, Lucius got abducted, you decided splitting forces was a good idea. When you don't even have trained troops save for the wolves. Had the Discord decided to speak up, you'd have known this was a Nat1, and therefore, every choice was a bad one.
Special mention goes to the Overlord fight.
Seriously, faction leader of the ' everything must burn' faction, and you had no idea ha may have a few offensive spells up his sleeve? What makes it worse was the fact that it was completely unnecessary and cost you several units you just paid for, and cause the elves' morale to drop, leaving Oliver with the opportunity to poach a few of them.
Up North, the
same problem hapened with Martha.
When an obviously strong enemy,
covered in magical items, tells you she doesn't want to hurt you, and you're not even defending your home base, you should start running. SO Martha gets her butt kicked, and loses the Elder wand.
A special shout out to those who said Shirley was being lucky here : So was Martha back against Riddle, and the stakes were infinitely higher with her.
Basically, Martha's successes caused you to become overconfident and this was your wake up call.
Just be glad it was Shirley she was fighting, Aimée would have enslaved her and essentially put you in game over state by next turn.But she was busy ruining your ally.
Also, you fell down into the 'no spying' trap, so you had no way to warn Rufus of Aimée's plot.
Turn 7 :
I won't speak about the plan since we didn't get that far, but I'll speak about something else instead:
Speaking of Aimée's plot.
When an intrigue character learns an OP enemy needs an item really bad, the first reflex should be to ensure no one can use it against them instead. You didn't take the option, but Aimée sure did, which landed three favors with the Overlord, that she used with extreme prejudice, essentially allowing her to set up her late game about 20 turns early, which she did, when Dumbledore spooked her.
I won't lie, at this point, your best shot at survival would have been to go along with Cherry because of her alliance with Angra Mainyu, that would have spared you from the ensuing Aimée rampage.
You'd have lost Chibi, but it's not as if you haven't got a perfectly functionnal, Cherry-approved heir, right?
But you decided to go and attack the tinker in her base. With undertrained units.
The battle was pretty much decided because of the shopping trip, because Aimée plays smart and sacrificed every child that gave her combat bonuses, then would have sacrificed Shirley at the end of turn 1, before dealing with you herself on turn 3, postponing the rest of the sacrifices.
That would have meant fighting a level 20 enemy who got Grandmaster to all combat skills, and to beat that, you'd have needed high levelled combatants, or at least, highly skilled.
Too bad Martha was preggers and as such, she suffered from a rather substantial combat penalty.
I may have sounded annoyed, but keep in mind I have to play all other factions in a balanced way, and dumbing them down so that you'd avoid an early game over coming from the left field because you aren't aware of what's going on is rather time consuming. Especially if you insist on ignoring QM advice.
In any case, this concludes it. So here's the final grade:
D- : Too little, too late.
Word of warning: In the reboot, prepare youself to play with a lot less information coming from me, and no more 'Themis' save in the background.
In fact, you get to pick your difficulty, that way I won't get any complaints about it being too hard for easy mode.
