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[Neonivek]

No you are kind of right Harvesters seeeems to be the better choice.

Since combat focus is kind of a slight buff that gets not only muddled when you add equipment but that gets outright buried once levels get you combat improvements.

While Harvesters is a HUGE boost that only gets better once equipment comes pouring in. Since the +5/+3 for everyone is kind of large.

It helps that being Harvest focused means that you get an outright +5... while combat is split over several stats.

[Kruniac]

Ran into some bullshit scenarios in this game, but to be honest, losing is fun.

I had 11 people with mithril swords and shields run against three undead (the normal one skull encounter). Autocalculated and we lost. The group was then jumped by horrible things. Wiped.

My own fault for not giving them armor, but still. If I could have manually fought that, it would have went fine.

Overall, a pretty innovative and good game. I love the gods level up thing, although I'm not a huge fan of the repetitive grind for god xp.

Ideally, modders will introduce zounds of new encounters and quests.

[EnigmaticHat]

Spoiler: I hold all the cards now (click to show/hide)

That's a four skull orc encounter in case you were wondering.

One concern I have about this game's balance is that there doesn't seem to be a mechanism to prevent deathballing your entire village everywhere.  Maybe the idea is that once you're at the point where you can defeat lategame 4/5 skull encounters on defense that you should just go win; I haven't been terribly efficient due to this being my first game.

[Dostoevsky]

The disadvantage with deathballing the full village is that there'd be nobody around when the village gets hit with a random event (which seems to be not too rare). Some of those can get no-so-great, though I don't think I've encountered any that would ruin a game entirely.

The slightly silly part about deathballing is it thematically doesn't always make sense to be so effective. Fighting, sure. But... none of your folks superb at social skills? Just swarm them! Sneaking? Swarm them! And so on.

[ChairmanPoo]

The disadvantage with deathballing the full village is that there'd be nobody around when the village gets hit with a random event

Or a random party

I've gotten insta gameovers while deathballing

[EnigmaticHat]

The disadvantage with deathballing the full village is that there'd be nobody around when the village gets hit with a random event (which seems to be not too rare). Some of those can get no-so-great, though I don't think I've encountered any that would ruin a game entirely.

The slightly silly part about deathballing is it thematically doesn't always make sense to be so effective. Fighting, sure. But... none of your folks superb at social skills? Just swarm them! Sneaking? Swarm them! And so on.

Yeah... it would be kinda cool if you could only bring your top X people to challenges.  Unfortunately skill in a given area isn't linear; social 10 is not as good as social 9 + attractiveness 9.  And it would be tedious to pick who gets to participate.

I guess the universe of Thea runs on the principles of the power of friendship?  Its already kind of like a children's cartoon already, what with a small group of people who seem to spend all of their time going on adventures instead of doing practical things like farming.  Herculoids anyone?

In other news, the story of Ostoya has ended... in victory!  My advice to anyone who wants to win is this: figure out in advance how you're going to win and actually start working towards it.  There are two ways to win, story (which should make itself obvious quickly enough) and advancement (which the scoring screen tells you how to do).  The game is designed so that once you pull ahead you can win in decently order.  But if you don't actively try to, well... I was so borrreeeeddddd at the end.  I autoresolved a five skull challenge.  And beat it.

It'll be very sad to leave my village behind.  I feel very attached to many of my villagers, and I have tons of top tier raw resources.  Not to mention memories, this was a very long game in real time.  We made peace with an orc tribe, met a troll who shared our religion, and convinced basically every sentient being we met to see things our way.  It feels cruel that I have to delete the whole thing.  But, their story is over, time for another one to begin.  I'm curious how much differently the game can go...

[Il Palazzo]

How do those of you who are not Polish, or at least no inside the same language group, feel about the names used throughout the game? Are these readable? Relateable? Or do you just mentally skip over them as if they were garbled letters?

[Kruniac]

How do those of you who are not Polish, or at least no inside the same language group, feel about the names used throughout the game? Are these readable? Relateable? Or do you just mentally skip over them as if they were garbled letters?

I'm used to more exotic names from King of Dragon Pass. The names were fine, and I found myself easily becoming "attached" to badass gatherers and/or warriors.

[EnigmaticHat]

My only problem is that my non-human allies don't get names.  I correct that immediately whenever it comes up.

He's not "Orc Fighter" dammit, his name is "Gruumsh"!

[Il Palazzo]

I actually meant names of creatures/folklore myths etc. more than those of people.
I'm asking from a standpoint of semi-professional curiosity, as I do translations for a living, even if of a completely different sort.

Do you, for example, not mind reading that you're fighting a 'Bies', and would not rather have to deal with a more recognisable 'hellhound'? Or do you find a 'Poludnica' meaningless and forced, or a welcome change from the industry standard of making all forms anglicized, e.g. to a 'noon wraith' in this case.

There's at least one case where they give both the original, phonetically-adjusted form together with the anglicized one: in one event they use both 'Pzyloznik' and 'Bybedder'.
Basically, what I'm asking is: If you had to choose just one, which one would be better?

[EnigmaticHat]

At this point, I welcome any move away from tolkienesque fantasy.  Not that I dislike tolkienesque fantasy, but its been run into the ground, and then the bedrock, and then the mantle.  Anything that's even a little unusual is nice.  There is something obnoxious about random renaming, but it feels appropriate here.  The game is obviously drawing from some kind of pagan mythology, I couldn't tell you which, but it makes it feel justified that they use the names.  Kinda like if the game were set in a fictionalized Japan I'd be OK with an oni, but if an oni showed up in THIS game I would be a little miffed.

[E. Albright]

I'm actually familiar with a modest percentage (though probably less than a majority) of the "exotic" critters from other readings/games/whatever, so I find it less jarring than some might. And being imperfectly bilingual and being willing to read above my fluency level also has made me more comfortable assigning meaning based on context rather than on pre-existing associations.

There have been serious works written on this particular subject, and it's a worthwhile question. For an accessible but still useful examination of some aspects of it, I heartily recommend Hofstadter's Le Ton Beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language. There's a section therein which contrasts two translations of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (a novel set in a Soviet labor camp). The "more complete" translation which goes for the most accessible American English word choice and retains no Russian whatsoever is almost unreadable to me, and feels like a novel about an American in a prison in the US. The one that is "less complete" - choosing words that are less straightforward and perhaps more jarring but closer in "feel" to the Russian text, and also selectively refusing to translate some words or phrases - helps to create an atmosphere that is sufficiently alien to me that I more actively consider what descriptions mean rather than just mentally assigning familiar tropes to situations, objects, and characters.

TL;DR, it depends on the reader/player. Some people want their movies dubbed, some are perfectly happy with subtitles, and some are okay with subtitles in a non-native dialect of their mother tongue. I personally have no problem with the "exotic" language - a strigoi is not the same as the modern "vampire". Different is different, even if it's also similar.

[Kruniac]

My only problem is that my non-human allies don't get names.  I correct that immediately whenever it comes up.

He's not "Orc Fighter" dammit, his name is "Gruumsh"!

I see I'm not the only person who names every orc badass Gruumsh.

[EnigmaticHat]

Tried Lada.  Well actually I tried Horos but that village died a noble death in combat.  (I'm trying to reset my sleeping schedule by staying awake so I have nothing to do except play this game).  Anyway, Lada is apparently the god of geography because, ah, holy shit.  First of all, I'm on what can only be described as a land bridge between two continents (they're probably just large lakes but I haven't scouted enough to tell).  This is massively safe with the side effect that my home food is fish which is gathered like 3 or 4 times slower than normal.  Still worth it.  But that is nothing in comparison to this.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Is that a sweet gig or what? Bonus funny thing, this appeared as a quest marker:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Scared the shit out of me.

[Dostoevsky]

Do you, for example, not mind reading that you're fighting a 'Bies', and would not rather have to deal with a more recognisable 'hellhound'? Or do you find a 'Poludnica' meaningless and forced, or a welcome change from the industry standard of making all forms anglicized, e.g. to a 'noon wraith' in this case.

There's at least one case where they give both the original, phonetically-adjusted form together with the anglicized one: in one event they use both 'Pzyloznik' and 'Bybedder'.
Basically, what I'm asking is: If you had to choose just one, which one would be better?

Even if I don't know the meaning of the word, as a person who is really bad at learning other languages I prefer non-anglican terms whenever suitable. Similar to what EnigmaticHat said, it's often a welcome change to see something more exotic (even if only in name) than the generic fantasy stuff. It helps add to the sense of being in another culture/world as opposed to just generic swords & sorcery.

I'd argue it works especially well in this setting, as (for my American background, at least) a good percentage of the demons & whatnot aren't immediately familiar. Learning about the folklore of the world, and then being able to use that knowledge in the game (albeit often with certain stat requirements) was pretty refreshing.