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Unrulyevil: Please stop replying to threads that are two years old if you do not have anything truly significant to add. This is considered "topic necromancy" and you have already been asked to stop. The Code of Conduct has more details if you want them.

While she does benefit in the end if you ally with her, if you aren't in the picture I think the personal benefit of not having her territory besieged is probably outweighed by the assassination attempts. Here's another analogy: Astoria's sort of the Shaper counterpart to Greta. Moderate, but willing to break eggs to make an omelette.

Astoria is to the Awakened what Litalia is to the Trakovites: somebody who is more practical than the idealists who founded the sect and willing to get her hands dirty for the greater good. The analogy isn't perfect since Astoria doesn't identify as Awakened and is probably only mildly invested in Ellhrah's goals as an end in themselves. But, I think it basically fits.

Actually, no, when the second continent is mentioned, it is mentioned as a Shaper continent; while the "Sholai lands" have never been referred to as any kind of continent (or described at all).

Originally Posted By: Blurb Slarty, you make some excellent points, as usual. The problem for me is that the endings don't really jibe with what goes on during the game. Astoria is never even taken to task for being a traitor during wartime, not in any scenario. Alwan deciding to allow serviles their own island is another unexpected twist. Where did that come from? It certainly isn't expected from anything he said. It makes him less of a hardliner than he appears. The endings are strange to me and really don't match the stories. The endings *are* a little different. Perhaps they reflect shifted attitudes during wartime; perhaps Alwan is less of a vengeful "island fanatic" when not being assaulted by rogues, and perhaps Astoria is more open and honest when people aren't trying to kill her because she wants peace. The real explanation may be that Jeff wrote the endings, and Linda wrote some of the character dialogue in-game, or vice versa or some other permutation.

In the US, it used to be the exception rather than the rule for any physically capable white male to not have a history of armed service. Since all but one of our presidents have been white males and they tend to be very old, it wasn't until Clinton in 1992 that we actually got to the generation where military service became less popular.

Astoria's exact underlying motives are not entirely clear. There are some hints, but the player is left to fill in the blanks. One possibility is what you mention: that she is weak, cowardly, and reluctant to give up her power -- basically a Rawal in less sheltered geography. The other possibility is that she genuinely wants to make things better for her people, and is willing to risk being assassinated to pursue a radical policy to this end. I think there is some good evidence pointing in this direction in the endings: (1) If you help Astoria, the ending makes it clear that she is genuinely invested in achieving a lasting peace for all parties. This ending also disproves the assertion that she is an ineffective leader. (Note that this is not the case for all leaders with their own ending: see Taygen.) (2) If you help Litalia, the ending states that Astoria sees "a chance to end the war" and is "willing to sacrifice much for it." When Litalia is before the council, it says Astoria is "willing to give anything for peace." (3) If you help Taygen, when the Council votes to release the Purity Agent: "As he speaks, Alwan and Astoria look ill. To the Shapers, creations are like their children. To them, this is the greatest possible betrayal. Shema ignores them." (4) If you help Alwan: "As for Councilor Astoria, the Shapers never forgave her for the peace she helped to bring about. Even as they suspected things would be far better if she had prevailed... And yet, she never apologized for her actions. Her belief in the rightness of her path never wavered. And she was thanked in the history books, if not in life."

She may be a rebel, but she is clearly not a Rebel, a.k.a., part of the rebellion. Plotting for peace is not even remotely the same thing as leading an armed rebellion. The ultimate proof here is the fact that Ghaldring asks you to kill her. Ghaldring has shown remarkable willingness to spare the lives of shapers who help him, in the past. So neither Ghaldring nor Shema seem to consider Astoria an actual rebel; she upholds Shaper law and lends her support to them in the final battles. Ideologicaly she is no loyal shaper, although it's unclear how much is that is a genuine desire to see creations treated as equals, and how much of it is simply unbiased pragmatism. She's clearly a pretty practical woman.

DV, isn't your option basically just the Taygen ending, plus dead Shaper Council members? I fail to see how that makes the ending truly bring the madness to an end; it seems like it would only add an element of chaos and fighting for power among the survivors. I think I would have enjoyed a Trakovite ending that killed Ghaldring and the council (but not Litalia) and installed a servile in power.

Astoria is not considered a rebel. She requires pro-creation answers to the ethical questions just like the actual rebels do, but her engame plays out just like Alwan's, Alwan won't work with you if you kill her, etc.

ADOS got the basics. The other point is that hard drives used with Macs can be formatted either as case-sensitive, or not case-sensitive. Older macs (before OS X I think, but not sure about the cutoff point) weren't designed to handle case-sensitive stuff at all, just like PCs. So generally, you get better compatibility from a case-insensitive format.

I sincerely hope that someday, somewhere, someone makes an RPG in which one of the classes you can choose for your PC is "rouge."

The creature isn't removed until everything in DEATH_STATE is called, but it could very easily be irrevocably set to be removed once that happens. I suspect this is the case.

Essence = Intelligence times (Level + 1) There is a class multiplier as well, but that is the basic formula. Essence won't go up much unless you buy some Intelligence.

When Bandit Busywork was made, there WERE no epic scenarios anywhere near At the Gallows or Falling Stars in quality. There weren't any near them in size, either. There were, however, a handful of fairly large, sprawling, lumbering, poorly designed scenarios.

Yeah, this is pretty well known. 'Bandit Busywork' was made a few months after BoE came out, at a time when there were very few reasonable scenarios uploaded to Spiderweb. Presumably it was an attempt to help tide over eager scenario consumers until better work came along. From that perspective, it did what it needed to, as more quality scenarios started appearing soon afterwards. From any other, it's very short, incredibly generic, and not particularly interesting.

Vempele however seemed to be claiming that in G5, creations that accidentally go rogue *will* give you experience. Has anyone tested this?

A lot of things have changed since G1. Try it and see if it works. I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't.

Reread my post. Alorael vetoed the only creations that start above 32, and betas are nearly the highest level creations that don't have mental resistance. Ur-glaahks are 30, I suppose, but also a potential hazard.

Isn't it harder to get any of those to go rogue, since they have high mental resistance? I think you'd be best off (and many times safer) with battle betas. Their base level is 26, which is not much lower than 5th tier base levels anyway.

Sigh. See, this is the kind of thing that leads to the most annoying of all exploits: the kind that only max something a little bit extra, but are extremely tedious and repetitive. Ugh.

*Has* anybody done the challenge area on Torment without creations? Randomizer said he didn't think it was possible. It probably is somehow, but it may not be very practical to do. Although creations are not as overpowered in G5 as in G1 and G3, singletons are weaker as well; I think the mechanics reward having creations more than in any previous game.

It does? Are you sure about that?

Dungeon Master portculli FTW.

Is it possible the wolf went through the entrance out of view, and then a bat quickly moved from out of view into the entrance? Or you actually saw it change instantaneously? If so, that's pretty weird.