mikeprichard

Thanks - there's some fairly involved "strategery" here for those who want to really dig into the fort management mechanics.

Is the theft rate completely negated (i.e. reduced to 0%) on all game difficulties in each region if you a) kill the appropriate world map encounters in the region and b) build barracks and guard towers in every fort in the region (not sure if upgrading the fort affects theft rates - the manual doesn't say it does)? I note Slarty's post above implying that may be the case (at least for the "central area", and I'm not sure about game difficulty differences), but I also see the below from Randomizer's Strategy Central "advice" topic which seems to be more vague/nuanced. Any confirmed stats/details would be appreciated! 2) Upgrade Fort (increases resources from that fort), Barracks (attack bonus), and Guard Towers (damage reduction bonus) as well as reducing thefts from that land. Killing off bandits on the roads and monsters also reduces thefts. Base theft chances increase with game difficulty level from 20% to 30% on torment. Reclaiming a second fort increases theft chances by 20%. Your choices when picking a faction in each vassal land will also increase theft rates so consider delaying that until you are done with all 7 forts.

Thanks, Randomizer - appreciate all the helpful info in these topics. Seems so far that iron is the big resource to keep an eye on, followed by wood, then quicksilver (but only pre-Ahriel).

I'm still in the theorycrafting stage rather than the actually playing for real stage, and am very interested in specific strategies (chronological recommendations for which buildings to build in which forts and at which times) to avoid running out of cash and materials, as this seems to be by far the most significant (and unprecedented for Spidweb) meta-strategy in QW. I get that the general fort improvements always take priority, then the 3 cash buildings, followed by gradually building other resource buildings, finally leaving repairing the home teleporter for the very end, but will keep watching this topic for more details. Anyway, carry on.

Great to hear the 1.0.1 update (which I still haven't installed) allows you to see the buildings in each fort from the map - very useful! Still and as also discussed above, making inventory switching among party members more convenient would be a huge plus. Maybe Jeff can license that fancy tech from Final Fantasy NES? 😁

(ninja'd by Ess-Eschas's post!)

Jeff, thanks for the reply! As I mentioned above, I understand these are likely lower priority fixes than gameplay bugs, but these manual and in-game text corrections would prevent a lot of confusion among players, including here on the boards. Please let us know here if you need anything more than the below. Re: the armor description, the manual currently states: "Each piece of armor absorbs a percentage of damage you take, and each piece has a maximum amount of physical or magical damage you can absorb. For example, iron chainmail blocks 60% of damage. It can block up to 9 points of physical damage and 4 points of magical damage. If you take 20 points of physical damage, 60% of that is 12 points, so the armor will block 9 of that, you will take 3 points of damage." There are a few confusing parts to this. Most significantly, it implies in the last sentence that of the 20 total points of raw incoming damage, you will only "take 3 points of damage" total. However, I believe what you mean to say is that the armor will only block 9 points of the 20 - i.e. up to the 60% limit of .60 x 20 = 12, then 9 within that - so you'll still take both the 3 points of damage out of the 12, as well as the 8 remaining (20 - 12) to result in 3 + 8 = 11 total damage received by the player. If this is the case, I suggest the below revised paragraph. If it isn't and something else is going on, please consider revising the paragraph in another way to clearly reflect the total damage actually inflicted on the player out of the 20, which I don't think is only 3 as currently stated. "Each piece of armor is assigned a percentage representing the maximum possible portion of total incoming damage the armor may block, which is further limited by specific maximum values for the amount of physical or magical damage the armor can absorb. For example, iron chainmail may potentially block up to 60% of incoming damage, further limited to the absorption of up to 9 points of physical damage and 4 points of magical damage. If an enemy attacks to attempt to inflict 20 points of total physical damage on the player, the player's iron chainmail may block up to 60% of this total - 12 points - with the amount of damage actually absorbed by the armor further limited to the armor's physical damage absorption limit of 9. Thus, 9 points of the 20 total incoming points are blocked, and the player receives only the remaining damage of 11 (i.e. 20 - 9)." In addition to the above revision, it would be extremely helpful for you to include an additional paragraph in that section explaining how exactly the corresponding percentage/flat damage reductions related to chest (armor/robe), head (helmet/cowl) and shield (shield/orb) defensive pieces interact with each other to produce the character's overall damage reduction. There's detailed educated guesswork and several questions in Slarty's post at http://spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com/topic/25006-how-armor-works-chest-head-shield/?do=findComment&comment=307210 for your reference on this issue. Re: the Battle Frenzy vs. Haven's Might tooltips, both currently have the exact same starting description: "Hastes and blesses all allies within 6 spaces for 5 turns". However, per the in-game testing described at http://spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com/topic/25040-party-composition-races/?do=findComment&comment=307601, this is incorrect, as Battle Frenzy in fact lasts 1 turn + 4 turns per skill point in the skill, while Haven's Might lasts 5 turns + 4 turns per skill point in the skill. Since you've already made efforts to be exact in the skill tooltips regarding the skills' specific effects, it would be very useful if you could please adjust the text (and similar text for other skills that may not match actual game mechanics) for these skills accordingly.

I'm repurposing this topic to collect bugs regarding text in the game manual and in-game tooltips/instructions. I fully realize that a) these will be lower priority for fixes than gameplay bugs, and b) it's likely Jeff may not notice this topic. Regardless, I (and others) can add to this topic as time goes on and I'll continue to collect new entries in the top post, then I'll email the list to Jeff in a while for his consideration. Misleading documentation always "bugs" me, so I figure it's at least worth a shot.

Steam is always going to update first, with every other distribution platform (including GOG) at least a couple days behind, in my experience with many many multi-platform releases. So we probably just need to wait again.

Excellent point - this is exactly my plan for such cases.

Oh, I didn't know there was a way to skip the edit notice - sorry for pestering you!

As discussed in another topic, glad to see confirmation that the tired ol' one-size-fits-all D&D to-hit chance dice roll is largely being obsoleted in favor of more individually tailored monster evasion/block statistics. Anyway, as a game mechanics nerd, I appreciate this thread. I would still be grateful if Randomizer could please update the top post here where needed to correct/clarify these points, since that's the first info dump everyone will read when linking from Strategy Central, but it is what it is.

I'm in the same place with this change. Jeff made a conscious decision to force infinite respawns in dungeons until the big bad is killed in order to focus on the achievement of "clearing" the area, but doing so does ruin a bit of the fun of prior titles where you could sneak in even with a lower level party and gradually whittle down the enemy defenses. I understand the reasoning, but I'm still on the fence about this from a pure "fun" as well as immersion standpoint (even if one would argue the whole base should be alerted by your sneakery, it's also hard to get behind the notion that those wolves keep instantly cloning themselves whenever you leave and reenter the area, but then disappear and never return after the guy in the back of the cave is bopped). But I also appreciate some of the other "streamlining" changes (free skill respec, not needing to micromanage training points/costs, no messing around with tons of "junk" loot).

Yep, I'm well aware that Jeff usually doesn't read the forums except right after a game release, but since that's where we are now and he is responding to these bug reports here currently, I preferred to raise another issue here rather than spamming his email folder. But if he doesn't get back in a few days here, I will shoot an email to let him know.

GAME MANUAL 1) The section describing armor mechanics on page 24 of the game manual is unclear and possibly incorrect; please see details at http://spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com/topic/25006-how-armor-works-chest-head-shield/. IN-GAME TOOLTIPS 1) The Battle Frenzy and Haven's Might skill tooltips imply that the skills have nearly identical effects, when they do not; please see details at http://spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com/topic/25040-party-composition-races/?do=findComment&comment=307602.

Favor to ask of Randomizer - if this is what's going on, could you please edit your advice topic original post as needed (i.e. to remove/edit the "extra set of 5 action points"/"miss a turn" language)? As it's pinned in Strategy Central, a lot of people are probably going to rely on it (like me). Thanks, all!

So the below info in Randomizer's advice topic (http://spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com/topic/24978-queens-wish-the-conqueror-game-advice/) is incorrect? Or am I misreading something? "Haste increases speed so you go earlier and have a 40% chance of an extra set of 5 action points. Slow can cause you to miss a turn." Regardless, it would be extremely helpful if Jeff would clarify any tooltips that are vague in the 1.01 patch.

Tower of Might's tooltip indicates boosts to both physical and magical evasion, but the skill in fact confers a boost to physical evasion only. As reported here: http://spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com/topic/24978-queens-wish-the-conqueror-game-advice/?do=findComment&comment=307460

Some other answers to common questions: Random outdoor enemy encounters: -Don't respawn after they're killed (unlike enemies inside "dungeon"/hostile indoor locations, which will repeatedly respawn upon reentry to the dungeon until the dungeon's "boss" is killed and the dungeon is thus "cleared") -Don't award experience when they're killed (but they sometimes award loot, with human encounters more likely to award money; also, defeating bandits in Haven Lands and certain other enemies in other lands reduces the chance of theft from your forts) Companions and leveling: -XP of new recruits always equals your main character's current XP -XP is awarded equally to companions both within and outside your current active party -Therefore, as noted in the original post of this topic, all of your allies will always level up at the same time

Good to know! Would be helpful to see this in the Strategy Central linked advice topic at http://spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com/topic/24978-queens-wish-the-conqueror-game-advice/, but no big deal if not.

Nice, that's what I was hoping to hear. This also doesn't "punish" you (especially in a game where total XP rewards are strictly finite) if you want to switch characters mid-game, which given the unique racial traits only available with later recruits, I'm sure was exactly Jeff's plan. Cheers.

Sorry if this is answered elsewhere, but do all recruits always immediately scale to the current XP of your Prince(ss)?

Yes, notarockstar - Avernum is my personal favorite series so far, but I appreciate Jeff's model where he's going to continue to alternate remakes of the "classics" (at least I suppose G1-G3(?) for the next few years) with installments of his new adventures like QW. Given the very different style of QW, that's a good balance to strike, and of course it keeps food on his table so he can keep making new stuff. One of the common criticisms I've seen elsewhere of Jeff's work is that all he does is remake his old games, but while he does do a lot of that (and his remakes are actual quality overhauls in any case), his "original" catalog is pretty huge - Exile/Avernum x6, Geneforge x5, Avadon x3, and something called Nethergate, so this complaint seems pretty ridiculous. Anyway, I'm getting off topic again - really looking forward to getting into this one more after the upcoming patch.

Yes, I do very much like the flip side here in QW, in contrast to previous Spidweb titles - when you finally do clear a dungeon, it stays cleared! Not only does it arguably make more sense, it's definitely less annoying when revisiting locations.

Sure, that all makes sense, Randomizer. I'm just sensitive to things that tend to break the dynamism of the game world, like these apparently infinite henchman respawns. This kind of anti-immersive (to reuse the cliche) element is directly against the grain of the other major QW mechanics - taking over and building bases, forming alliances that have real consequences, etc. - which show how choices and actions actually impact the world, all of which I'm very much for. But as with other issues with the game, there's always going to need to be a compromise of systems at some level, so while the infinite instant dungeon respawning in itself is something I'll find hard to accept as logical in the context of the game world, at least I understand it's an attempt to serve a greater strategic goal.