Geneforge 2 demo

[Elyssaen]

How's everyone found the demo? What do you think of the new Weapon Shaping system, and have you decided what type of character you'll play?

 

Also, I'm really curious how much XP you had at the end of the demo. My Shaper on Veteran ended up at level 5 with 4951 XP, and my Guardian on Torment just scraped level 5 with 4821 XP. Not sure if I've missed something with the Guardian or just did things in a less optimal order for XP. I try not to think too much about XP gain order because if I remember rightly, Geneforge has never been had 'XP commutativity' and overthinking that is a dark path[*].

 

It's early days to say how I feel about Weapon Shaping. It's definitely a big improvement, but at the moment I'm not sure about the decisions of what to use when and it's still very noticeable that Guardians can't deal with groups (yet). My Shaper definitely still had a lot more options, but that's Shapers for you. Guarded Lunge does get very powerful though – seems you can get it to Level 4 just in the demo, for 155% damage. I haven't quite settled on the right way to use which abilities as a Guardian: Lunge is cheap and powerful, War Infusion is kind of a round 1 buff, and Guardian Push alternating with Thahd stuns got me through a few more difficult encounters. I never got War Blessing for my Guardian but think I really should.

 

Lastly, being able to get a particularly powerful weapon in the demo was pretty critical to feeling competitive with Shapers... think you're stuck with a Bronze Sword otherwise? And was that weapon available so early in the original G2? It's been a while since I played.

 

 

[*] How much XP you get from an event depends on your level. If you had two events, one giving 50 XP and one giving 100 XP, and whichever you get first will level you up, then getting them in a different order might give you a different XP total. If you overthink this you'll totally ruin the game for yourself...

 

Edited February 19 by Elyssaen

[Aoslare]

44 minutes ago, Elyssaen said:

if I remember rightly, Geneforge has never been had 'XP commutativity' and overthinking that is a dark path[*].

 

You remember rightly, and you put that elegantly.  The XP adjustments are steep enough that's it's pretty hard to actually shift your endgame XP total by all that much.  e.g., in Mutagen, there were more than enough XP sources (quests and enemies) that zero out beyond, say, level 5, to get you all the way to level 5 -- thus you don't need to worry about getting them in an efficient order, as you'll have "leftovers" anyway.  I suspect this actually applies way beyond level 5, as there are extremely few sources of XP with a base level anywhere near the PC's max level.

 

Assuming I'm not way off on this, it means the only way you can meaningfully lose XP is by using up high-level sources when you're at a much lower level.  There are a few places this might be likely to happen, but not a ton.  I'm not sure that even a perfectly minmaxed XP gain order would allow you to squeeze an extra level out at game end.  Maybe; but gosh that seems miserable.

[Randomizer]

To squeeze out an extra level or tw0 at game end you need to hold off on doing two things that give experience that isn't dependent on your current level.

 

Don't turn in any bars of iron quest until the near end or before making Drypeak hostile by attacking Zakary. This was in the original game. But the remake ends the quest once you reach 50, but will take all if you wait until more.

 

Don't read an information codex (14 in game) or learn a creation unless you are a Shaper since each gives you 25 XP. There are 15 creations and only one is a quest reward for and Shapers get trained in Create Thahd by Shanti.

 

If you are a Barzite you can get the quest in Gheth to collect Shaper Records (Research Notes In the original game) that can also be done near the end for almost a level in experience.

 

It does balance out for the rest, but you can get higher levels sooner using leadership options in Drypeak area. You can't make higher than level 5 in the Demo.

[alhoon]

This is not trolling or nay-saying but... is there a benefit in squeezing those two levels out, considering you have shorted yourself of XP earlier on? 

What I mean is more or less questioning whether it is better to go to X at level 9 so you could hit level 21, or go to X at level 10 despite that limiting you to level 20. 

Is that challenge zone (I have never done a single challenge zone in all Geneforge games... ) really that tough? 

Edited February 18 by alhoon

[Elyssaen]

5 minutes ago, alhoon said:

This is not trolling or nay-saying but... is there a benefit in squeezing those two levels out, considering you have shorted yourself of XP earlier on? 

What I mean is more or less questioning whether it is better to go to X at level 9 so you could hit level 21, or go to X at level 10 despite that limiting you to level 20. 

Is that challenge zone (I have never done a single challenge zone in all Geneforge games... ) really that tough? 

The reason I had to learn to stop overthinking it is because my automatic way of playing an RPG is to avoid level-appropriate content and chase the hardest thing I can reach... and that's the situation that generates both challenge and a noticeable XP shortfall. If you play more normally I don't think it's ever really a problem!

 

What are you all planning to play for your (first?) playthrough of Infestation? I definitely think this is the time for Guardians. I'm hoping I can focus a fair bit in Battle Shaping and take advantage of how the new mechancis allow you to specialise and throw away creations. I'm excited to try out the new creation as well!

[Randomizer]

Maximizing your character depends on what you want out of the game, story or completionism combat, and difficulty level. For torment difficulty you might want every level especially if you are playing a solo character without using creations. If you are playing on normal difficulty , then you won't need those extra levels.

 

If you do the expert challenge area in Gaza-Uss, then you may need every last level. Mostly I just wanted to find out if it was possible to get that high without joining the Barzites. The game is definitely capped because you stop getting experience for killing things. I was surprised to find out you keep getting skill points at every level unlike Avernum and you could get a higher level than Mutagen..

[Mechalibur]

6 hours ago, Elyssaen said:

It's early days to say how I feel about Weapon Shaping. It's definitely a big improvement, but at the moment I'm not sure about the decisions of what to use when and it's still very noticeable that Guardians can't deal with groups (yet). My Shaper definitely still had a lot more options, but that's Shapers for you. Guarded Lunge does get very powerful though – seems you can get it to Level 4 just in the demo, for 155% damage. I haven't quite settled on the right way to use which abilities as a Guardian: Lunge is cheap and powerful, War Infusion is kind of a round 1 buff, and Guardian Push alternating with Thahd stuns got me through a few more difficult encounters. I never got War Blessing for my Guardian but think I really should.

 

Guardians can absolutely deal with groups. All the shaping paths now have AoE options available (fire is the best, followed by magic, but battle can make use of stalkthorns and rots now which both have AoE potential) and guardians are perfectly fine at shaping to keep it relevant. But even if you don't consider shaping, guardians have access to the allmighty spray baton which works with the new weapon shaping system as well. Spray Baton + Chain Lightning is *devastating* to big groups, and anything left alive is usually either a boss enemy or can be cleaned up by your creations.

Edited February 19 by Mechalibur

[Randomizer]

It depends upon difficulty level, but on torment, magic shaping edges out fire because tier 4 creations don't affect your party whereas fire creations still do. Still like magic for the early acid attacks even if fire is cheaper cost. Battle shaping is better than in Mutagen even without war thralls doing range attacks.

 

Guardians are finally much improved with area effect weapon shaping. You still can't do as much damage as an agent, but you are more likely to survive during a long fight with more health and evasion. You don't even need creations except for two fights that involve a new ability given to certain magic creations.

[Aoslare]

6 hours ago, alhoon said:

What I mean is more or less questioning whether it is better to go to X at level 9 so you could hit level 21, or go to X at level 10 despite that limiting you to level 20. 

Is that challenge zone (I have never done a single challenge zone in all Geneforge games... ) really that tough? 

For the XP Randomizer mentioned, unlike most (all?) other XP in the game, those are flat awards not adjusted for level.  So it's a trickle of occasionally getting 25 XP many times throughout the game, or a lump sum of 25 x 29 (or whatever) XP at the end.  The vast majority of those 25 XP awards won't make a difference early on -- by the time they would really add up enough to do so, they'll have reduced the amount you gain from other sources anyway.

 

The real question is, is it worth giving yourself the chore of going back and finding every single codex (and creation type I guess) at endgame?  That's a slog and I'm skeptical.  The iron bars, on the other hand, might actually be worth delaying.

[Mechalibur]

Iron Bar and Shaper Equipment XP is level-based, so that's not worth holding onto.

 

Shaper Records, curiously, are not level based and give a flat 10 XP. And I think you can get around 200 of them. Downside is you can't turn them in unless you join the Barzites.

[Aoslare]

thanks mech!  and wow, that's rather a huge chunk of XP if you save them up.  tempting for sure... join the barzites, get some free levels... and then immediately kill them all.

[Mechalibur]

It's kind of weird, really. The quest works differently on 3 levels from the other 2 collectibles.

 

1. It's faction locked. I'm curious if this is intentional. Gareth actually has dialogue if you're not a Barzite but it's literally impossible to trigger due to him being hostile if you're not a Barzite. The town will also turn hostile if you open the door to Gareth then leave the Barzites, so there's no sneaky way to talk to him while unaligned.

 

2. The XP isn't level-based.

 

3. You can turn in any amount. Well, technically you can bypass the iron bar and shaper equipment limits by turning in a huge chunk before you hit the limit, but there is a cutoff point where they won't accept any new deliveries. Gareth has no such point.

 

It also gives a really good value per turn-in, with him giving 40 coins per record (which has a nominal value of 15 coins, translating to a 2.5 coin sell price). Min-maxers are absolutely going to want to join the Barzites at some point regardless of which faction they end with. On top of this quest, they also have 2 unique canisters that can only be accessed if you have the badge, a unique training opportunity for Quick Action, and a charm from a quest only they offer. It's nuts.

Edited February 19 by Mechalibur

[Elyssaen]

Torment Agent demo done! Ended up with 4839 XP, 18 more than the Guardian, but with a catch: I didn't end in any Iron Bars... damn you Randomizer for putting that in my head. If I do that I'd be at 5079 XP.

 

Highlights:

1. Never made a creation at all. Not really a big deal for an Agent though there were a few times it would've been useful.

2. Luring Grubbhins back to the essence pool where I could finally spam Airshock. I could've lured him to a pylon but dammit I didn't want to. (I did do that with the level ~15 Thahd in the upper area though.)

3. Killing the Baffled Glaahk by hitting him with one Searer and then playing hide and seek with him, and repeating until he died of acid.

 

I want to re-run the Shaper demo at Torment to see how he, err, shapes up. Agents and Guardians felt pretty balanced with one another, even more so had the Agent shape in the few occasions it would've made sense to. It's nice that Guardians can get that sword, and Agents can get Airshock early. I wish the demo was a bit longer... I think the original G2 demo had the full valley?

[Randomizer]

1 hour ago, Mechalibur said:

Iron Bar and Shaper Equipment XP is level-based, so that's not worth holding onto.

 

Shaper Records, curiously, are not level based and give a flat 10 XP. And I think you can get around 200 of them. Downside is you can't turn them in unless you join the Barzites.

Iron Bar is not level-based, and I just checked the latest beta. You can gain over a level worth of experience by waiting until late in the Taker Lands since there are over 300 bars.

 

Shaper Equipment should be turned in until reaching near the 30 needed for the quest for the experience. After that save them since they are worth more for the quest than selling elsewhere. You can get over 3000 coins for them later in the game to use for buying training and sell the rest anywhere if you anger Medab.

 

Only saw a little over 120 Shaper Records even with buying up from merchants. Still Barzites offer plenty of advantages with canisters that you can't get elsewhere since there is a restricted area only available to members in Rising.

16 minutes ago, Elyssaen said:

I wish the demo was a bit longer... I think the original G2 demo had the full valley?

The original game demo was 24 zones so most of the Awakened Lands and all the Shaper Lands.

[Aoslare]

1 hour ago, Mechalibur said:

Min-maxers are absolutely going to want to join the Barzites at some point regardless of which faction they end with.

At least this feels utterly thematic!

 

Curious that there's disagreement over the iron bars.  Which one of you has checked the scripts?

[Mechalibur]

I just checked, Randomizer is correct. It may have been different at an earlier point in the beta.

[Aoslare]

Wow.  That is a big pile of low hassle save-till-the-end XP then, between those two quests.  That's pretty crazy.

 

I wonder if there's a point prior to the very end where they'll no longer push any remaining viable XP sources into zero-XP territory, and therefore can be cashed in for minimal loss, but instead gaining benefit from them for longer...

[Randomizer]

There is a point where only named NPCs give over 20 XP and a few guards will still give 2 XP. Even Gaza-Uss has the respawning creations no longer give experience, but I don't know if that was because of my level or they just don't because f the type.

 

The jump of waiting and turning them in near the end is getting a boost In to hit chance and making it easier to do Gaza-Uss boss fights. Jeff kept tweaking the last few fights up and down in hardness almost every beta. 

 

You can enter Benerii-Uss and not make the Takers hostile if you go through the Power and make sure not to meet the three drayks that run it. After clearing out the minions you are at the point to turn in bars of iron to make the rest easier.

[mikeprichard]

Helpful to get confirmation (unless something changes again, of course, which is always possible) that the same shameless munchkin tactics I recorded years ago in the original G2 still seem to apply - get stuff from Loyalists > join Awakened for stuff > join Barzites for stuff > kill Barzites/Takers > get unaligned ending (and throughout the process, save all iron bars/shaper equipment/shaper records to get the largest possible XP boosts before any respective points of no return). I also can't be bothered to save all codex entries for a fairly paltry and inconvenient 14x25 = 350XP at endgame, but it's still good to know that could be a thing.

[Aoslare]

if randomizer's list happens to include all codex locations and which one is where (i think it usually only lists the first appearance) there might be an only slightly inconvenient way of saving those up.  same for many of the creations, i suppose -- even shapers don't really need to make all of them in any one game.

[mikeprichard]

Yeah, I'll see just how munchkiny I want to get. I doubt I'll want to revisit areas just for a few pops of 25XP, but I always rely on the info on this-a-here's Strategy Central.

[Mechalibur]

Yeah, you can still game the factions. For testing purposes I did a Servants > Barzites > Awakened > Takers run to see how much stuff I could get, but it turns out pretty much all the goodies are on the Barzite side. I'll put some notes in spoilers since I'm getting pretty specific about the backer beta:

 

Spoiler

Servants - Still feels like half a faction, but you get access to quite a bit more than in the original. You get all the penultimate spells/creations (including drayks!) as well as Rots and I think Mass Restore. Curiously, Tyallea immediately teaches pretty much everything on offer. The Loyalist Encampment offers nothing new at all in terms of spell/creation progression for a Servant. A downside to joining them is that Zhass-Uss and the Zhass-Uss outskirts will turn hostile.

 

Awakened - Joining them is a pretty low effort way to get access to every spell and creation other than the Cockatrice. There's also some cool loot near Learned Pinner that you get access to, but that can also be bypassed with enough Mechanics/Living Tools. One downside, I suppose, is not being able to kill Tuldaric for Teriel, who awards an incredibly useful +1 essence mastery.

 

Barzites - Gives you the best stuff, although you have to do a few quests for them before you can actually get the best training. It's noticeably more effort than the Awakened. That being said, Barzites give the best stuff, including 2 unique canisters, a unique charm, a paid lesson in Quick Action, and the ever useful Shaper Notes quest. Unless something changed, Burham is also the only Cockatrice trainer (although that may not be intended since there are like 4 canisters for them). Downsides include turning the Loyalist Encampment and Zhass-Uss hostile.

 

Takers - They don't actually offer that much? I guess arguably they have an easier final quest since you can peacefully move through Benerii-Uss. They also have good spell training, but by the time you've done enough quests for that you're probably near the end game already. Turns the Loyalist Encampment hostile to no one's surprise.

 

Unaligned - Phariton will teach you high level spells and T4 creations after completing a quest (which has no other reward, including XP), but he charges more money than the faction trainers would. You can steal pretty much all his stuff with him still being alive if you accept his quest, so it's not like you ever need to kill him. 

 

[mikeprichard]

Cheers, Mechalibur! There are several IMO equally detestable factions in this one, so planning how to exploit each to the hilt is for me a big part of the fun.

[alhoon]

10 hours ago, Mechalibur said:

Iron Bar and Shaper Equipment XP is level-based, so that's not worth holding onto.

 

Shaper Records, curiously, are not level based and give a flat 10 XP. And I think you can get around 200 of them. Downside is you can't turn them in unless you join the Barzites.

 

Yeah, I will probably make a mod about that, so that you can use them to boost Shaper abilities as you learn more. 

 

=================

Thoughts, and those thoughts given not from a min-maxing point of view or what is better for the built, but from a role-playing point of view:

The Barzites offering the fastest and most selfish raise to power? Who would have thought... (sacrasm)

 

Awakened:  Kill Tuldaric, the person that did most for the Serviles than everyone in the entire series except for (perhaps) Greta, for a +1 essence Mastery? No. 

Yes, he was going nuts in the original, but his Tuldaric-ism ritual gave the Serviles magic they needed WITHOUT them going gaga like the Cultists or the Barzites. Tuldaric removes the limitations the Shapers built in the Serviles, so they could forever exploit and abuse them. He leveled the playing field. 

Tuldaric is a hero that is ... well, losing his mind. Even if it comes to me having to put him down, I will not do that for a +1 essence mastery. I would do that only if he is more unstable than he was in the original. 
(OK, I have killed him once in the original; I don't think you can join the takers otherwise. Or perhaps I was roleplaying a cannister-mad non-Barzite at the time, I don't remember. What I do remember is that he was hard to kill.) 

 

What the Takers offer is ... another view. I am not sure I can express it. I had the very same problem in Mutagen as I was hovering between the Takers and the Awakened. I like them both. They are both correct, in their own right. 

The Takers are right that they have to take their free and it is moving to read that they KNOW they will die, but at the moment of their death, they will be free. Zealots? yes. But moving. 
The Awakened now... are walking in the clouds with optimism thinking that the brainwashed-from-childhood Shapers, scions of an oppressive philosophy that puts them on the top, would ever consider mere creations as "equals" and would treat them as the Common. Not that they treat the Common well, mind you. It will take the Great Rebellion and half of Terrestia in ruins and the Unbound and Shredbugs for one Shaper faction to consider accepting some of the Creations right to exist outside of Shaper control (Astoria).  But... Awakened are not genocidal bastards. They are likeable. Yes, Pinner is ready to run in GF2 (at least in the original), so what? Yes, they kill servant minds in Mutagen for ... ???? I still like most of the things they do. 
But their philosophy is not attainable. I wish, I really wish I could find a compromise between the Awakened and the Takers, where the Takers allow the Radiant College and Tuldaric in peace and focus their rage on the Shapers and the Barzites. Even if it meant the Awakened falling to 2nd-banana status. 

Edited February 20 by alhoon

[Mechalibur]

My notes were entirely from a gameplay perspective rather than a moral one.

 

I prefer the G2 Awakened to the G1 version. Their goals are still unrealistic, but they know they need strength to back it up. The Barrier of the Winds gives them enough leverage to, at the very least, secure their freedom, and they don't hesitate to fight back against the Shapers if peace fails. The G1 Awakened really don't have much of a plan at all, although perhaps their naiveté can be attributed to their actual lack of interaction with any Shapers.

[Randomizer]

GF1 Awaken have an idealized view of Shapers based on a few memories of the more enlightened ones working on the first Geneforge. By the time of GF2 the Awaken have had dealings with Shapers and started to realize that they aren't that nice. Especially after the "war" started with the Baezites that want all power to only Shapers and have no respect for creations. Now without an idealized view, the Awakened have taken some of the Taker view that they have to defend themselves from Shapers and have created the Barrier of Wind to protect themselves so they can live free with sympathetic Shapers.

 

Gf2 Takers are more realistic and have allied with the drayks and drakons against all Shapers and threats. They now can learn magic without the crazed cultists from such Islands. You see the start of the war coming in GF3 and how they will achieve it with more powerful creations. They also see the mistakes they made with gazers and not was trusting of them as Barzites.

 

The Barzites are mad with power. They see the war coming with the Shaper Council and Takers and are building up their forces to takeover. Making Commons into Shapers without proper training has resulted in a surge of rogue creations. Trying to find machines to control huge numbers of creations since they don't have enough real Shapers handle their own problems. Given long enough they would fight amongst themselves as the madness requires each to want to take control.

[alhoon]

1 hour ago, Mechalibur said:

My notes were entirely from a gameplay perspective rather than a moral one.

 

I am aware. Also, I am not sure I would call my approach "the moral one" as things are pretty gray. 

 

As for the Barrier of the winds... Well, I always thought it was a bit too far fetched that it would hold off the entire Shaper world at bay; unlike the Takers the Awakened did not aggressively expand. And the Drakons they made were powerful but not as much as the Unbound. All in all, if the Drakons in GF4 were about to lose and the Drakons in GF5 can lose even with the Unbound and their scorched earth, genocidal tactics, after the great purge of GF3... I don't see how the Barrier of the Winds would be good enough to hold the Shapers at bay for long enough for them to sit down and start peace negotiations. 

I remind you all that I came to the game starting with GF4, then GF5 before I went to GF3 and then GF2. So, by the time I played GF2 I was aware what it takes for the Rebellion to have a chance in GF4 and to win in GF5. 

 

@Randomizer: Yeap, I agree.

Powermad people (And the Barzites are literally mad with power) do not play well together. They would break up in several factions and fight with themselves, while they would have to often pull back to put down those they lost to madness. And those lost to madness would be powerful individuals. 

I have not seen the Barzite ending of GF2, but assuming it doesn't end with "And they collapsed, fighting amidst themselves and the monsters they created" but with something similar of the others (i.e. they destroy the Radiant College and steal its power and then overpower the Takers and the Loyalists), I also don't see such an ending as realistic. 

The hilarious part for me is, that the Rebels in GF4, the south side of the humans, was borrowing tactics from the Barzites: throwing Common with nearly no preparation to the geneforge, putting down those like Sheila (or what her name was) that went crazy and then boosting with cannisters those that survived. 

 

  

1 hour ago, Randomizer said:

Making Commons into Shapers without proper training has resulted in a surge of rogue creations.

And a surge of madmen and madwomen. Like that woman that speaks to shadows in their library or that obnoxious beefed-up guy that patrols outside their lands, with several sets of muscle that should not be there. 

 

Shutting down those machines that were torturing the creations to keep them compliant and in control always, always felt sooo good. Even though I had to cut my way out of that place since it descents into bedlam with creations going rogue and attacking anything and everything. 

The Shapers in GF4 and GF5 do have such machines but they keep the creations docile without torturing them. 
The serviles on the other hand... well, they have their whips and chains to torture creations into not being rogue. Or rogue creations into not doing naughty things. I think it was in Mutagen that you find a fyora and the text says "that creation is utterly rogue, but it remains compliant because of the treatment" (i.e abuse). 

 

Edited February 20 by alhoon

[Elyssaen]

4 hours ago, Mechalibur said:

I prefer the G2 Awakened to the G1 version. Their goals are still unrealistic, but they know they need strength to back it up. The Barrier of the Winds gives them enough leverage to, at the very least, secure their freedom, and they don't hesitate to fight back against the Shapers if peace fails. The G1 Awakened really don't have much of a plan at all, although perhaps their naiveté can be attributed to their actual lack of interaction with any Shapers.

 

Am I remembering right that the G1 Awakened wanted you to use the Geneforge? That's a decent enough plan – if the PC was canonically as successful as Trajkov post-Geneforge, and stayed loyal to the Awakened... okay, not a trivial ask... that could've won everything for them. Arguably, trying to cultivate a benevolent 'ascendant' in G1 is sadly the best plan the servile rights faction has in any Geneforge game. I admit my memory's a bit fuzzy but many of the later plans for the servile rights factions are wrapped up in drakons and people who are already mad, not just who might become so.

[Aoslare]

8 hours ago, alhoon said:

As for the Barrier of the winds... Well, I always thought it was a bit too far fetched that it would hold off the entire Shaper world at bay; unlike the Takers the Awakened did not aggressively expand.

But this is exactly the point.  Aggressively expanding, and putting your enemy on the defensive, is one way to be successful in a conflict.  Aggressively defending is another option.  There are plenty of historical examples of (1) years-long sieges that never succeeded, and (2) cities or states that retained their independence despite being within reach of an empire that conquered everything it could -- and, yes, even when there were fanatical ideological beliefs held by the would-be conquerors.

 

8 hours ago, alhoon said:

I remind you all that I came to the game starting with GF4, then GF5 before I went to GF3 and then GF2. So, by the time I played GF2 I was aware what it takes for the Rebellion to have a chance in GF4 and to win in GF5.

You also obstinately refused to even learn anything about what happened in the earlier games, all the while continuously arguing things that completely contradicted them.  You don't need to remind us 😛

 

It's one thing to consider the question of "what it takes," period, for anyone to have a chance; but that's very different from "what it took the Rebels to have a chance" in that outcome of G2, which was not the Awakened ending.  The Awakened ending is nothing like the one that led forward into G3/G4.  Lots of things were different.  And the time elapsed between G2 and G4 is actually quite long.  You can't analyze what it would take them based on the world of G4, which is wholly shaped (no pun intended) by the Rebellion.

[alhoon]

4 hours ago, Dry Peak, Soggy Bottom said:

But this is exactly the point.  Aggressively expanding, and putting your enemy on the defensive, is one way to be successful in a conflict.  Aggressively defending is another option.  There are plenty of historical examples of (1) years-long sieges that never succeeded, and (2) cities or states that retained their independence despite being within reach of an empire that conquered everything it could -- and, yes, even when there were fanatical ideological beliefs held by the would-be conquerors.

 

You also obstinately refused to even learn anything about what happened in the earlier games, all the while continuously arguing things that completely contradicted them.  You don't need to remind us 😛

 

It's one thing to consider the question of "what it takes," period, for anyone to have a chance; but that's very different from "what it took the Rebels to have a chance" in that outcome of G2, which was not the Awakened ending.  The Awakened ending is nothing like the one that led forward into G3/G4.  Lots of things were different.  And the time elapsed between G2 and G4 is actually quite long.  You can't analyze what it would take them based on the world of G4, which is wholly shaped (no pun intended) by the Rebellion.

 

 

Very interesting post. Allow me to say why I respectfully kinda-but-not-completely disagree: 

While there are indeed plenty of examples of aggressively defending working, the 13 colonies becoming the USA being one such case in fact, there are many more examples that such tactics failed. So, while aggressive defense is an option it doesn't often work. 

Furthermore, there is the difference that those year-long sieges and city states that retained their independence while in reach or surrounded by much stronger forces, the siege/war failed because of other reasons, like the food situation or having to deal with other enemies. 
Constantinople held in 1402 while surrounded by Ottomans because the Turks had to pull away to go fight Tamerlane. The Germans in WW1 retreated from Belgium not because their army lost but because the food embargo broke them. I am not a historian to know of all such cases to analyze what worked and what didn't, but all cases that come to mind have other circumstances at play, some other pressure. 

 

The Shapers (and the Awakened) can keep throwing creations at each other. The winged drakons defending passages are indeed effective to block armies and could quickly move where they are needed. So neither side will experience "real" losses as in countless mothers burying their kids. It is armies of creations. 
Hunger is not an issue for the Shapers or the valley. They made it lush and they can shape food. 

Disease though? If the Shapers started throwing diseased creations to weaken the Awakened, even with the Awakened healers being good at it, at some point, the Shapers would succeed. I am not talking about Purity agent, as that would cripple the Shapers too as we have seen. But something more tame. 

Numbers of creations: The Awakened's Pre-Unbound are good, nobody denies that. But if the Shapers are angry and with many ambitious Alwans wanting to make their name, they could gather a greater number of them and send bigger and bigger armies. Quantity has a quality of its own, as Stalin said (I think). 

Then, it is also the matter of how much area they have to lose. 5 decisive defeats in rapid succession, even if that takes 100 years to happen, and the Serviles would go down. 5 decisive defeats for the Shapers and the Awakened have... land that is harder to defend.  

 

Meanwhile the only reason for the Shapers to stop fighting the Awakened would be (as far as I can think):
1. devastating losses that the Awakened are not prepared to deal to the Shapers (they don't have the numbers and many of them don't have the will to burn down entire cities to make a point)

2. A big invader that forces them to focus elsewhere and not able to spare the resources and numbers to deal with a bunch of rogues sitting on a mountain 

3. Spontaneous rebellions by other Serviles in Terrestia, threatening the homeland and forcing the Shapers to have a heavy presence everywhere - thus not able to have 3000 shapers throwing 20,000 battle betas per day at the fires of the Drakons. 

 

3 has the greatest chance to happen and it is possible that as the war goes on, the Awakened will become more zealous and closer to the Takers, so they may start fighting back and hitting the Shapers where it hurts. 
But honestly, I think those are low chances. I.e. while aggressive defense is an option, in this case it has low chances to succeed. 

 

TL;DR : I kinda but not completely disagree. Stalwart defense has worked some times, but it is often a losing strategy. Most of the times I can remember it working, there were other factors at play that forced the aggressor to pull away from the walls, factors that are very difficult to replicate for the Awakened. 

 

And last but not least: 
"You also obstinately refused to even learn anything about what happened in the earlier games, all the while continuously arguing things that completely contradicted them." 

I am calling "Refused to learn" as "avoiding spoilers"  furthermore about the things I argued ... come on who would ever believe there were other Shapers in Sucia island?! Finding Goetch there was a slap in the face. And no, I had trouble to believe that every word out of Zackary's mouth was a lie. I mean, I could expect some lies, I guess, but everything? 
As of the other things I supported that contradicted earlier games, eh... well, in my defense, the world is quite different from each GF game to the next. It was hard to reconcile with how bad the Rebels are portrayed in GF3, especially in the beginning.

[Aoslare]

 

3 hours ago, alhoon said:

I am calling "Refused to learn" as "avoiding spoilers"

The issue wasn't that you were avoiding spoilers.  The issue was that you thought it was appropriate to vehemently argue about the very same topics you were avoiding spoilers on!  

[alhoon]

25 minutes ago, Dry Peak, Soggy Bottom said:

 

The issue wasn't that you were avoiding spoilers.  The issue was that you thought it was appropriate to vehemently argue about the very same topics you were avoiding spoilers on!  

On that... I have no answer. Yes, I did that. 

[Mechalibur]

5 hours ago, alhoon said:

Disease though? If the Shapers started throwing diseased creations to weaken the Awakened

 

That's more of a Taker tactic than a Shaper one. The biggest weakness of the Shapers is their lack of adaptability. They don't take the Awakened seriously and have many of their forces captured by the Awakened early on in the conflict. They don't have effective answers for an army of flying drakons. They also have Tuldaric designing their defenses - a shaper so brilliant that even the smartest Barzites and Takers can't proceed with their plans until they steal his research.

 

In the Taker ending (and future conflicts in the series), the situation is a lot different. Shaper's homes are being invaded, not just a no-name colony on the fringes. They aren't fighting for supremacy, they're fighting for survival. That isn't the case in the Awakened ending where I imagine many of the shapers being told to reclaim Drypeak aren't particularly motivated to be sent out to fight drakon bomb squads. Wouldn't surprise me if the Awakened increased their forces from defectors or sympathetic individuals living in Shaper lands.

[alhoon]

Some Takers fight for survival. The Drakons in later games are increasingly fighting for supremacy and if Greta is alive, she conspires with you and attacks the Drakons with you, humans and serviles after the Shapers fall in a second rebellion, giving one of the best endings of GF5: Both the oppressors are down. The Shapers and the Reptilian-Shapers that go "all creations are equal but some creations are more equal than others".

That said, the Takers in GF2 indeed fight for survival. I don't remember their ending but what I recall is that they take out the Awakened, they don't absorb them back in. They eliminate them as "too moderate" considering them traitors to the cause. Then they go more or less rampart. 

 

I do agree with you that some Shapers would not be 100% motivated to go and die over a mountain somewhere, but the majority of the Shapers would and those Shapers that didn't show enough loyalty would be culled. Shapers don't take kindly to traitors. 

 

That said... I have to see how the Awakened ending goes for Infestation. Perhaps it more expanded and clearer. I think do remember what you say, about the Shapers losing a bunch of battles early on because they don't take the Creations seriously. I do remember countless captives that the Awakened slowly release (including taking you back)... more or less proving to the other side that they CAN be reasoned with. 

And yes, I have forgot how slow the contemporary Shapers are to change and adapt. Without the Takers smashing everything and throwing out cannisters with abandon and geneforging people, without the Unbound and Shredbugs crushing their lands the Shapers would not have changed. 

 

As for the Barzites and Tuldaric: The Barzites are too mad with power to concentrate on continuing their research. They try to do as much as they can with the tools already at their disposal once the limitations are out and seem more focused on controlling large numbers of creations. They do have those hellish devices that keep drakons enslaved.

The Takers now... they have made the geneforge. Barzites don't have that. Thus, I would respectfully disagree, the Takers can and do progress without need of Tuldaric. They want him dead because their leaders are [not nice word] and because he is indeed very dangerous to them. The research of the Radiant College is a cherry on the top, but they don't really need it if they can spam Lifecrafter Drakons. 

Edited February 21 by alhoon

[Aoslare]

Summary of the old G2 Awakened victory from this chart:

 

The Council puts you in jail and executes Zakary if he is alive. The Awakened activate the Barrier of the Winds. Rising surrenders to them and Barzahl dies if he is alive. The remaining Takers flee. The Awakened obtain victories over the Shapers and arrange a prisoner exchange for you. You spend the rest of your life fighting a war against the Shapers; apparently neither side can obtain decisive victory, but the Shapers aren't willing to back down.

 

I do think G4 and particularly G5 show that, if a war is pushed far and long enough, the Shapers are not beyond pragmatism.  So I agree with alhoon that initially most Shapers would be willing to cross the mountain and die... but the Shapers aren't actually stupid, and the longer that goes on, the more of them won't be willing to.  This is especially true because the Awakened will obviously try to communicate that they don't actually want to fight, and as we have seen, the Shapers don't really have much ability with propaganda, or much control over news; they just have their baked-in culture and that's it.  When facing the Rebellion, if the Shapers stopped fighting, they would lose literally everything.  When facing the Awakened, if they stopped fighting, they would lose things, but they would all be abstract: some pride, and some orthodox principles.  That changes the calculus a lot.

 

The old ending text does however establish canonically that, if the PC helps the Awakened realize the BOTW in G2, the Shapers are unable to crush them.  The imagined scenario about gradual losses simply isn't what happens.

[alhoon]

Gradual losses isn't what happens... for some years that the character lives. It is open-ended. We're left with the knowledge that for 20+ years (possibly 50+) it is a stalemate. But that we don't know what happens indeed doesn't mean the Awakened do not get a truce or peace. And if the Shapers didn't win in 30-40 years, I can indeed see new generations of Shapers saying that "enough is enough".  

[Mechalibur]

16 hours ago, alhoon said:

 The Takers now... they have made the geneforge. Barzites don't have that. Thus, I would respectfully disagree, the Takers can and do progress without need of Tuldaric. They want him dead because their leaders are [not nice word] and because he is indeed very dangerous to them. The research of the Radiant College is a cherry on the top, but they don't really need it if they can spam Lifecrafter Drakons. 

 

They made the Geneforge, but they need Tuldaric's research to finish it. The Taker quest line does require stealing Tuldaric's research to progress.

Edited February 21 by Mechalibur

[alhoon]

6 hours ago, Mechalibur said:

 

They made the Geneforge, but they need Tuldaric's research to finish it. The Taker quest line does require stealing Tuldaric's research to progress.

 

Ohhhh... I kinda remember the Taker line requiring destroying the Radiant College and stealing Tuldaric's reseach. 

But I do remember that the geneforge was kinda ready as in the Awakened ending, I had to fight a geneforged Taker boss (very famous drayk turned drakon, the first Drakon I think, forget his name). And after he uses the geneforge he becomes quite more dangerous, unless I recall wrong. I remember that fight was difficult for me, even though I was playing on easy. He was much harder than Barzhal or Zakary. 

 

I could have mixed up a few things, but I remember fighting a geneforged ... Rukkus? Something like that. Could be Eass (or something like that). But it was (I am 80% sure) a geneforged drakon without me destroying the Radiant college (I was awakened). 

I have unistalled GF2 so I can't check his name, but he was a very important Taker. 

Edited February 22 by alhoon

[Mechalibur]

You can goad Eass into using the Geneforge in non-Taker playthroughs. He's clearly hesitant to do so, however, because the Geneforge is unfinished, which is why you need a good amount of leadership to get him to do so. There's no guarantee the re-shaped Eass has any long-term stability since either he or you are about to die after he uses it 😄

Edited February 22 by Mechalibur

[alhoon]

I did bait ... one of them. But IIRC he did use the gloves. I didn't manage to Trakoj him off.