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[Gazrick]

Now I'm curious when I bought Shadows Behind the Throne 2, and how much I paid for it.

Used to be a time where players might get a discount when they buy the sequel if they have already bought the first game.  I haven't seen that in years.
Kinda wish they'd bring that back for this title.  Might take the sting out of buying into the game, not realizing a sequel was coming out soonish.

Other than than, this is good news.  The game this dev is trying to make is great, they have great ideas, but they've been limited by the engine.  A fresh start should produce a decent game.

Shadows Behind The Throne is open source and free. A player could elect to purchase the paid version of the game that offers only cosmetic updates. That version, the version on Steam, is $8.50, it cost me less than £7.50.

I don't think it's unreasonable to have to pay for a new and enhanced game without a discount for purchasing the previous one. It's inexpensive for a start, and a very common game release cycle. You don't get a discount for buying last year's COD or FIFA and they're released every year.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Wait. I missed that there was even a Shadow Behind the Thrones 2... now we get Part Trois? Is the series in general worth playing??? (Is it replayable?)

[Kagus]

Shadows Behind The Throne is open source and free. A player could elect to purchase the paid version of the game that offers only cosmetic updates. That version, the version on Steam, is $8.50, it cost me less than £7.50.

I don't think it's unreasonable to have to pay for a new and enhanced game without a discount for purchasing the previous one. It's inexpensive for a start, and a very common game release cycle. You don't get a discount for buying last year's COD or FIFA and they're released every year.

Personally, I had no idea until a couple days ago that Shadows 1 even existed as a released title, or that Shadows 2 was available for free. My first interaction with the series was finding Shadows 2 (Enhanced Edition, even though it doesn't state that on the Steam page), purchasing it because I thought it looked neat and the price was only slightly higher than a cup of coffee here (not that I actually drink much coffee, but hey), and immediately after buying it seeing the update that informed me it would no longer be developed; in favor of a new title and direction.

As for COD and FIFA, those are both (arguably) complete, functional games. Shadows 2 is playable (at least for a couple hours at a time, until some game-ending bug rears its head and you have to quit out), but is still very much a janky, unpolished mess of horrendously opaque UI and incomprehensible systems/design choices.

Thanks to my own timing, I'm a bit more personally vexed by his opting to drop Shadows 2 in favor of a different project, but frankly I'm okay with looking past that in the grand scheme of things. ...or I would be, if the new game looked to be like much of an improvement over the last. So far, after a couple runs of the demo, I'm just seeing old issues tossed out the window in favor of exciting fresh issues like making agents actually highly valuable to keep alive in the long-term while simultaneously making that harder than it used to be.

Hopefully there will be a lot of development beyond what's currently in the demo, as it's still quite obviously rough around the edges... According to someone's bug report, it apparently *is* possible to actually summon the baroness somehow. I guess my game just borked then. But trying for that again seems tedious as that was the one start out of 3 different attempts where the stars aligned in such a way that I could get the option for desecrating a holy place in time.

Wait. I missed that there was even a Shadow Behind the Thrones 2... now we get Part Trois? Is the series in general worth playing??? (Is it replayable?)

It's... Well, it's something. It's got an incredible amount of heart and some really interesting ideas behind it. It just happens to be implemented a bit haphazardly, is unbalanced as hell, and then it's all buried under a dreadful UI that takes some real wrestling to figure out what the ass any of it actually means.

By all means, check out the free version on itch, and give it a whirl. As for replayability, there's a little bit to try and figure out how the different names and agents work, but... Then you figure out the ones that work and the ones that are elegantly useless, and you end up kinda gravitating towards the ones that work.


I'm honestly not entirely sure how I feel about the direction he's taking things with Shadows 3. Once you crack the shell on the politics in 2, it can actually be a little fun to muck around with. And with the extra focus on agents in 3, I'm worried by how much more of a pain enemy agents seem to have become. As if they weren't annoying enough before, now they're positively dreadful... And I can't even go around getting them ostracized by their own communities with false accusations anymore.

[Salmeuk]

I really liked my experience with Shadows 2, and suggest anyone interested in this kind of thing to learn that game first. It appears that this dev has some really interesting ideas but might not have the best design flow, or rather, is not designing around a core, but instead following a much more chaotic path. Echoing others, not sure much has positively changed in the new one, but I plan to watch the dev for a few months and see what happens!

Still more than happy with Shadows 2, despite the clunk factor. A compelling little story generator.

[EuchreJack]

As for replayability, there's a little bit to try and figure out how the different names and agents work, but... Then you figure out the ones that work and the ones that are elegantly useless, and you end up kinda gravitating towards the ones that work.

Actually, it has added replayability in that those useless names get fixed so you can play them, and perhaps the more useful ones either get buggy or rebalanced.
I'm thinking mostly of the Deep Ones.  The Fog was also added I think after I bought Shadows 2.

Since the replayability was tied to the continued development of Shadows 2, it does lose some now that it's effectively done being developed.  I mean, I even ADDED to the replayability by suggesting an idea that the Dev implemented!  How is that for replayability?  Pretty good I think!

But overall, I'm quite happy to hear about Shadows 3.  I'll get over the $7.99, if I even paid that much.  I think I basically considered it a throwaway amount, like "Hey, this looks interesting, and I'm willing to spend $7.99 to see where this is going!"

I can see the emphasis being on the Agents instead of the Politics.  While I liked the political system personally, I don't think the player base really enjoyed it very much.  I think we all very much preferred using the Agents to wreck things, honestly, so it makes sense to develop that further.

Heh, and even if Shadows 3 isn't the greatest game ever, I'm sure the Dev will have a Home Run with Shadows 4. 

[Gazrick]

I think the idea for focusing less on the politics and more on the agents is around community feedback. Much of the community despised the political element, even when they cracked it, it seems.

From my playthroughs it appears Agents (and their good counterparts, Heroes) are designed in Shadows of Forbidden Gods to be far less tedious to play with and against. They can do many, many more things, rather than having a very limited set of abilities. The rationale for why a Hero does something is displayed and somewhat clear, compared to Shadows 2 where the Heroes would seemingly just attack your agents at random. There are also more interesting ways to counter them, in that there is actual agent Vs agent combat and less reliance on a stun-lock spell.

From what the developer has said, there is a LOT of development to be added. This is like a tech demo at this stage. Stuff to be added includes - different gods with different abilities, lots more minions, different races, magic (and different schools therein), items, currency, trade, lots more events, developed army Vs army combat etc

There is a discord where a few of us (including the developer) discuss this in some detail. I'll ask if people are happy for me to share and drop an invite if so.

[Kagus]

There are also more interesting ways to counter them, in that there is actual agent Vs agent combat and less reliance on a stun-lock spell.

Except that the agent vs. agent combat is absolutely grotesque in its current state, requiring a massive time expenditure to build up retinue (with, so far as I can tell, no way of telling what their stats are or even their current health without going into battle) that gets completely lost upon running away and needs to be rebuilt, excruciatingly (and only one person able to perform the same action at once in a location! This is almost certainly going to be fixed eventually though), one mook at a time.

And for what? That some rando hero can have his priorities reshuffled by your moving one province closer to them, causing them to jump onto your agent and lock them into a combat scenario where they get the first move and weaken/potentially kill the troops you spent so long building up and shifting the balance enough with that alpha strike that you need to run away and lose the rest of them?

I'm not super happy with agent combat right now, no. Sure, falsifying evidence and running through a nation's provinces spreading mean and nasty rumors about a troublesome agent was a bit cheesy, but I preferred that to not having the option.

The idea of enshadowing a hero's home city and having them get slowly corrupted by restocking is a pretty neat idea though, I'll give them that. ...I can't necessarily speak to its efficacy though. I'll need to spend more time working with the face-grindingly-slow infiltration and enshadowing mechanics to really comment.


I'm also not entirely sure how I feel about the new suspicion mechanics either. "Laying low" seems a teensy bit pointless when your minimum values keep rising up so quickly, and the idea of "For every 10, heroes can detect you from one more location away" is a neat concept, but horribly flawed by the inherent confusion of the spaghetti network. Some sort of overlay that shows an agent's profile range would help save the idea somewhat.

Sacrificing an infamous scapegoat to reduce suspicion on your other agents is a fantastic idea though, I'm very much down with that. I haven't checked to see if it does anything to minimum profile/menace though, because if it doesn't... That kinda defeats the purpose.

[Gazrick]

There are also more interesting ways to counter them, in that there is actual agent Vs agent combat and less reliance on a stun-lock spell.

Except that the agent vs. agent combat is absolutely grotesque in its current state, requiring a massive time expenditure to build up retinue (with, so far as I can tell, no way of telling what their stats are or even their current health without going into battle) that gets completely lost upon running away and needs to be rebuilt, excruciatingly (and only one person able to perform the same action at once in a location! This is almost certainly going to be fixed eventually though), one mook at a time.

So some of this is false.

The minions are lost if you retreat in turn 1, the game tells you when it is safe to retreat without losing minions.

As grotesque as it is now, it is an infinitely better system that it's predecessor of 'attack and both parties lose 1 health'.

Could probably do with information on the stats of a minion prior to recruiting. Generally the higher the command required, the better the minion.

And for what? That some rando hero can have his priorities reshuffled by your moving one province closer to them, causing them to jump onto your agent and lock them into a combat scenario where they get the first move and weaken/potentially kill the troops you spent so long building up and shifting the balance enough with that alpha strike that you need to run away and lose the rest of them?

I'm not super happy with agent combat right now, no. Sure, falsifying evidence and running through a nation's provinces spreading mean and nasty rumors about a troublesome agent was a bit cheesy, but I preferred that to not having the option.

You can actually kill heroes with this current set up, unlike S2, where, if your agent was attacked first, you had lost them through either tedium (running away while stun locking the enemy) or quickly if you didn't catch the attack. The political game took far too long to set up to be relied on quickly as a defence.

I'll need to spend more time working with the face-grindingly-slow infiltration and enshadowing mechanics to really comment.

Infiltration is pretty quick, if the right agent is used for the job and the surrounding area is in a mess.

I'm also not entirely sure how I feel about the new suspicion mechanics either. "Laying low" seems a teensy bit pointless when your minimum values keep rising up so quickly, and the idea of "For every 10, heroes can detect you from one more location away" is a neat concept, but horribly flawed by the inherent confusion of the spaghetti network. Some sort of overlay that shows an agent's profile range would help save the idea somewhat.

Sacrificing an infamous scapegoat to reduce suspicion on your other agents is a fantastic idea though, I'm very much down with that. I haven't checked to see if it does anything to minimum profile/menace though, because if it doesn't... That kinda defeats the purpose.

Laying low by design is not a sensible move. The player should be encouraged to do things, though there will be challenges to reduce profile and menace at a later stage.

In terms of the different mechanics -
Profile relates to the distance at which the different actors will react to your agent. As you've stated - the greater the profile, the greater visibility the heroes have of him.
Menace relates to how dangerous the agent is perceived to be. Even if a hero can see an agent, they may not react to them until the agent has acquired enough menace to be considered a threat.
Heat maps would definitely be useful.

I get why you're pissed about the timing of this, but honestly that feels more like a problem of your own making than anything else. COD, FIFA etc as 'complete' as they are, are also $60-$100 titles, this is $7.50. Hardly breaking the bank.

I'm hopeful and confident Forbidden Gods will be significantly better than Shadows 2 in all respects. You've also thrown this indie developer a coffee, which isn't a bad thing given he's making games you enjoy.

[thegoatgod_pan]

I think Shadows 2 is complete, I am sad it is not getting more features, but I will buy the third because the dev has really good ideas and works on them.

For me the game is great for trying to be thematic—it doesn’t always work—the winter apocalypse is bloody hard to get working, and mist won’t win the game on its own, but they create interesting works and themes and moods that the mechanics support, sometimes really well, sometimes poorly.

I like starting slow, letting people get into in fighting and then once the war is thick, using it to fuel winter.

I also like eating the world with zombies and the land.

For my money, the best mode is Eternal Darkness where you can use all of the powers in the same playthrough, even if I don’t or rarely use some.

[Kagus]

As grotesque as it is now, it is an infinitely better system that it's predecessor of 'attack and both parties lose 1 health'.

I don't necessarily agree. Losing minions in the first wave means that your ability to survive the battle at all is grossly reduced, and thereby makes the alpha strike incredibly important. In S2, getting hit once neither reduced your capacity to fight back nor locked you in place (unless they were blocking off the only escape route out of that location). Yes, it was a very simplistic "one hit = one damage", but that made such battles more of a deterrent and harassment than a fight to the death, except under certain circumstances (getting cornered, suddenly bringing in unsuspected agents to help gang up and deal the finishing blow). It was still possible to outright kill enemy agents, and it was entirely possible to lose your own if you didn't run them away effectively, but it wasn't the straight up warfare and attrition seen in Forbidden.

And even getting hit first didn't necessarily mean you'd lose the engagement, thanks to how resupplying worked for your agents contra the enemy.

Also the way you wrote that made it seem like the attacking party in S2 also lost a hitpoint when making an attack, which isn't the case.

Laying low by design is not a sensible move. The player should be encouraged to do things, though there will be challenges to reduce profile and menace at a later stage.

That's what I'm referring to; the challenge "Lay Low". Complexity 15, requires a city, reduces profile and menace by 10 each when completed. ...except it doesn't, because the gap between current and minimum for those values is rarely a whole 10, and it can't reduce below minimum. And since it's a base rate challenge that cannot be enhanced by stats, it will always be afflicted by some sort of issue partway through that either puts the progress back by several turns or cause some other sort of nastiness (such as increasing your profile/menace... Which is exactly the thing you were trying to reduce).

Unless you mean to say that the challenge itself is by design not a sensible move, which... Well I won't disagree that it's probably not the best use of your agent's time, but I doubt the developer would implement an intentionally bad option.

Infiltration is pretty quick, if the right agent is used for the job and the surrounding area is in a mess.

I think we may just disagree on what constitutes "pretty quick", if a single infiltration mission can take 13 turns (with 0 security) when using an intrigue-based agent archetype, and you need 3-4 such completed challenges in order to 100% a larger city. Upwards of 30 turns if it's not in complete and utter disarray. The infiltration power is an absolute godsend (hah), but sadly can't be used on a work-in-progress city, so if you start the process before using the power you've cost yourself quite a few turns before completion.

But, to be fair, that is two turns shorter than getting three sellswords to protect your agent. So I guess that counts as quick.

Sure, one could argue that "the right agent for the job" is a practiced veteran with +3 intrigue on top of an already decent score... But chances are, that individual has accrued quite a bit of heat during their storied career, and may need the extra speed in order to just get out of there in time to avoid his hunters.


I just ran another match while writing this in order to check my statements. I rushed towards doing everything I could think of to destabilize a basic (as in, not a capitol with its +3 security) city to the point where I could efficiently infiltrate it for sneaky goodness.

Managed to get it mostly done in reasonably short order! Which is to say, under 100 turns. Only half of the demo timer, and 1/5th of the "you lose by this point" date which the dev decided to put in by default for some reason!

Of course, by that point the entire countryside was absolutely ravaged and in riotous chaos. Oops. Not particularly subtle.


And I got away with it all because the combat mechanics meant I could just play whack-a-mole with the various agents coming in, and so long as I struck first there was little to no attrition. I suppose if you want to play Wargame: Beefcombat then yeah, this is a nice change. Personally, I prefer staying behind the scenes as much as possible.

Also I still can't figure out how to get the baroness to spawn. *shrug*

I think Shadows 2 is complete, I am sad it is not getting more features, but I will buy the third because the dev has really good ideas and works on them.

For me the game is great for trying to be thematic—it doesn’t always work—the winter apocalypse is bloody hard to get working, and mist won’t win the game on its own, but they create interesting works and themes and moods that the mechanics support, sometimes really well, sometimes poorly.

I'd call it a beta, honestly... It may be feature-complete, but it's so buggy and janky that I can't shake the feeling that it's just not finished. Which bugs me, because I really do like it for the exact same reasons, and I'd like to like it above and beyond that.


Also, talking shop... So far as I could garner, the trick to Winter's Scythe is 1): Prepping everything so that you can do a bunch of cooling in one lump sum, rather than trying to gradually shift the temperatures over time, and 2): Every ability BUT Death of the Sun.

Sure, Death of the Sun is the primary, central power to the name, but it's... Really not very powerful. The amount of cooling it causes, versus the cooldown requiring a colossal multi-front war to use effectively (which isn't sustainable in the slightest)...Yeah. It's free, so use it when you've got it, but you can't rely on it. It's the icing (hah) on the cake.

Instead, set up several broken nobles, preferably from rather populous (landed!) houses, and once they're all lined up start knocking them down one after the other with Ice in the Blood. The power you can cast on single battlegrounds can potentially also be very potent, but it relies on having a lot of neighboring locations. With just 1-2 land connections, it's kinda a whiff. If you've got 4-6 connections, it can crank a couple percentage points of cooling all by itself.

And the game's pretty much in the bag once you've got Runaway Catastrophe. But yeah, getting to the point where you're already at 12% cooling can be a pain.


All-names mode is, frankly, one of the best learning tools the game doesn't point you towards. It lets you work out not only what everything does, but also what powers synergize well. Without having to restart again and again with new name combos.

[Gazrick]

Sure, one could argue that "the right agent for the job" is a practiced veteran with +3 intrigue on top of an already decent score... But chances are, that individual has accrued quite a bit of heat during their storied career, and may need the extra speed in order to just get out of there in time to avoid his hunters.

I've had plenty of +3 (or more) intrigue characters that hasn't accrued a ton of 'heat'. In fact they've been fine insofar as the notice of heroes is concerned until late into the game.

Managed to get it mostly done in reasonably short order! Which is to say, under 100 turns. Only half of the demo timer, and 1/5th of the "you lose by this point" date which the dev decided to put in by default for some reason!

100 turns feels a long time to me. I manage similar tasks in maybe 30, or less. Again, you need to use the correct agent for the job. The warmongering Orc is better suited to raiding the countryside and causing unrest (that you can then use to infiltrate quicker).

Not sure what you're talking about when you reference a 'lose by this point date'?

Of course, by that point the entire countryside was absolutely ravaged and in riotous chaos. Oops. Not particularly subtle.

Not sure why some random raids would necessarily point towards an evil god? It doesn't matter if it's less subtle, if it doesn't point back to you. Think Sauron as his Necromancer guise. Orcs and nasties raiding didn't point back to his true nature until it was thoroughly investigated.

And I got away with it all because the combat mechanics meant I could just play whack-a-mole with the various agents coming in, and so long as I struck first there was little to no attrition. I suppose if you want to play Wargame: Beefcombat then yeah, this is a nice change. Personally, I prefer staying behind the scenes as much as possible.

Whack-a-mole is the shadows 2 combat, except your agents are the moles. It's worth noting here that you, that is, the evil god IS still behind the scenes. Don't expect your raiding Orc to not accrue menace and profile, but that won't carry over to your other agents or your own awakening (unless they do something very poorly).

There's lots to work on, to be sure, but the base is there and the tweaks you talk about to challenges such as 'laying low' or agent combat and minion recruitment are fairly trivial, honestly.

Edit - I should also add, some of the gameplay styles you talk of, those that you miss (for example spreading rumours of a hero to turn nations/other heroes against them) are absolutely going to be added, if you prefer a more nuanced approach. I think the beauty of this iteration is that it allows more flexibility overall from S2, that was so politics-heavy.

[Kagus]

100 turns feels a long time to me. I manage similar tasks in maybe 30, or less. Again, you need to use the correct agent for the job. The warmongering Orc is better suited to raiding the countryside and causing unrest (that you can then use to infiltrate quicker).

I feel like we must be using different words for things, because my interpretation of what you just wrote isn't physically possible. I'm talking about fully 100% infiltrating a full-fledged city. Three infiltration locations (Points of Interest).

The only way you'd be able to pull that off is if there was a 100% unrest city with an additional unrest-heavy neighbor within a couple spaces of the elder tomb. It takes 13 turns for a supplicant or hierophant (4 intrigue on both) to infiltrate one POI with zero security. You could move the supplicant, summon a hierophant, and have them work simultaneously on the two open POIs before unlocking the final one. Then you'd be able to get a city fully infiltrated within 30 turns (the power doesn't unlock until later, and you won't have the power points to actually use it until *much* later).

At standard level 5 city security, the number of turns for a 4 intrigue agent (no, I'm not using the warlords or the survivor for intrigue missions) to infiltrate a single one of the three POIs goes from 13 to 44. So you need to prep the area ahead of time.

Note that I had a particular city in mind when I went to try and crack it. Not a capitol or otherwise extra defended, just a basic city but it was a bit of a walk for the supplicant. I got lucky and had two 0-security light settlements (allowing for raiding) right next to the city I was looking to infiltrate. I infiltrated both of them, which took approximately 30 turns since I had to get the supplicant into position while also picking up an orc fortress with him on the way. With that orc fort, I then took a warlord and raided both of those settlements to cause devastation, which lead to famine, which lead to unrest. At that point the city's still at security level 3, meaning an infiltration challenge complexity of 125 (32 turns for 4 intrigue, and neither of them had leveled up). But I had enough power to slap down an auto-infiltration, and it hit the sewers as I'd hoped (not sure if it's random or if it follows a priority list). Using that, I started a plague and kicked that into gear to really fan the unrest.

About 60-70 turns in, and the city's down to 2 POIs left at 1 security, which meant it was a straight shot to getting my now slightly-enhanced supplicant in to finish the job one place at a time (since the final POI doesn't unlock until the others have been infiltrated). And that's how I got a fully-infiltrated city before turn 100, while also laying waste to the countryside with plagues and riots.

It's worth noting here that you, that is, the evil god IS still behind the scenes. Don't expect your raiding Orc to not accrue menace and profile, but that won't carry over to your other agents or your own awakening (unless they do something very poorly).

Except it does. It literally, directly does. My agents are doing work, causing unrest, devastation, and plagues. That leads to awareness. By the time the city was fully infiltrated, I was at close to 50% world panic, which is an indicator of how much the human world is hip to you, the elder dark trying to mess with life and reality as we know it. Not about Warlord Bouissant. It's what leads to heroes running around warning nations around the world that "Hey, the end of the world is happening" and starting stuff like the Lightbringer ritual (or whatever analog of that is used for Forbidden). Awareness of your agents does translate into awareness of you as a whole.

Now, mind, you can get good ol' scapegoats killed off in that time. Bouissant himself had some 140 menace by the time I let him die at turn 198, which presumably reduced world panic by some amount. But that doesn't mean you weren't getting sussed out before.

Not sure what you're talking about when you reference a 'lose by this point date'?

Looking at the turn counter, you can see that it's [current turn]/500. He's mentioned it in a couple places and it was a standard feature in Shadows 1, but the gist is that if you haven't won within that time; you lose. "The stars are no longer right" and so on. I'm not sure why it's getting added back in as apparently the default for Forbidden, but with any luck he'll allow for disabling it in options like in 1.


And again, I really didn't have the same experience you clearly did with Shadows 2's combat. Sure, if you just went balls-out and used a bunch of evidence-causing abilities without setting the stage or trying to minimize the consequences, your agents are gonna get sniffed out and attacked in short order. But once you understand how evidence and suspicion work (which admittedly, is not a particularly clear mechanism going into it), it all does make sense. And frankly I kinda liked the chases cross-country with agents trying to avoid the paladins and whatnot who were coming after them. It let you use stuff like Blizzard to great effect, and I also found out that they won't follow or attack you if you're in a flesh-controlled location, which honestly gave that name a bit more utility in my eyes.

[Gazrick]

The only way you'd be able to pull that off is if there was a 100% unrest city with an additional unrest-heavy neighbor within a couple spaces of the elder tomb. It takes 13 turns for a supplicant or hierophant (4 intrigue on both) to infiltrate one POI with zero security. You could move the supplicant, summon a hierophant, and have them work simultaneously on the two open POIs before unlocking the final one. Then you'd be able to get a city fully infiltrated within 30 turns (the power doesn't unlock until later, and you won't have the power points to actually use it until *much* later).

At standard level 5 city security, the number of turns for a 4 intrigue agent (no, I'm not using the warlords or the survivor for intrigue missions) to infiltrate a single one of the three POIs goes from 13 to 44. So you need to prep the area ahead of time.

Ah I see. You're trying to complete fairly difficult challenges with unleveled agents.

Yea, you need to level up your agents to infiltrate cities easier and destroy stuff around them. I don't believe the idea is to bum rush the city infiltration either, but rather they are the end point after you have taken the surrounding area and set yourself up for it.

Except it does. It literally, directly does. My agents are doing work, causing unrest, devastation, and plagues. That leads to awareness. By the time the city was fully infiltrated, I was at close to 50% world panic, which is an indicator of how much the human world is hip to you, the elder dark trying to mess with life and reality as we know it. Not about Warlord Bouissant.

I don't think world panic directly relates to awareness in the way you think it does because it can be reduced via scapegoats/death of agents and you can also manipulate it so the world believes something else nasty is coming, so the world is unprepared for your rise. I think the world panic is more a measure of, well, general world panic. It's different to Shadows Behind the Throne 1 and 2 in that.

Looking at the turn counter, you can see that it's [current turn]/500. He's mentioned it in a couple places and it was a standard feature in Shadows 1, but the gist is that if you haven't won within that time; you lose. "The stars are no longer right" and so on. I'm not sure why it's getting added back in as apparently the default for Forbidden, but with any luck he'll allow for disabling it in options like in 1.

This isn't a feature in Shadows of Forbidden. A lot has changed since Shadows Behind the Throne 1 and 2. I think this number relates to how long before the god awakens (and then things get really messy).

And again, I really didn't have the same experience you clearly did with Shadows 2's combat. Sure, if you just went balls-out and used a bunch of evidence-causing abilities without setting the stage or trying to minimize the consequences, your agents are gonna get sniffed out and attacked in short order. But once you understand how evidence and suspicion work (which admittedly, is not a particularly clear mechanism going into it), it all does make sense.

Haven't you only had the game like a week or so?

And frankly I kinda liked the chases cross-country with agents trying to avoid the paladins and whatnot who were coming after them.

Not for me I'm afraid. Grand Vampire Millet, the scourge of Asse, destroyer of Butte, reduced to some Benny hill like run away from paladins? I thought it was incredibly boring and tedious, myself and would almost always immediately drop the agent because their utility for me had now reduced to almost nil.

Horses for courses I suppose.

I would suggest waiting and seeing how progress develops with forbidden Gods'. If the features, extra agents ,gods and gameplay styles sound interesting then go for it when it hits EA. If not, obviously there's no obligation to purchase.

I'll continue to post the developer's updates here, so you can see if it's going in a direction you like. I have high hopes you'll like where it's going though. Again - try not to look at it through a SBTT or SBTT2 lens too much, and make assumptions on stuff based on how SBTT was, it's a different direction for the series.

[Kagus]

This isn't a feature in Shadows of Forbidden. A lot has changed since Shadows Behind the Throne 1 and 2. I think this number relates to how long before the god awakens (and then things get really messy).

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Unless that text was put into the game specifically relating to the demo version, I dunno. Pretty snazzy if you manage to pull off a 200-turn victory though.


I'm not entirely sure I understand what you mean with my having had the game for only a week. That I haven't actually understood how evidence and suspicion work yet?


As for Benny Hill runs, I don't see how that's not still going to happen in this iteration at least as much as the previous ones; because although combat has been expanded upon, it still doesn't favor your squishy do-something-useful agents. Heck, arguably even more now that the agent itself has profile and menace sending out a big "come fight me!" beacon to anyone nearby, rather than individual enemy agents who'd managed to gather enough evidence of your work. And now you can't even resupply on the run/during a fight, as you could in Shadows 2. Not to mention the fact that agents aren't nearly as expendable anymore, so you're going to be even more protective of them.

The difference is that now you can specifically dedicate an agent or two to straight up murdering hostile agents as soon as they show up. But since you still need to keep that agent around your intrigue/lore guys to protect them from getting chased off, and how two agents could always (well, except merchants) defeat one other agent in Shadows 2... Yeah, I don't see this being the saving grace for fixing an annoying system. I think it's different, and that it could be expanded upon to be more fun, but I personally don't see it as infinitely better than how things worked in Shadows 2.

Quick side note on that, however: I do think it was pretty terrible that investigators could occasionally don their robe and paladin hat based off of just 10% evidence against a character. That's some witch hunt booshi right there.

Again - try not to look at it through a SBTT or SBTT2 lens too much, and make assumptions on stuff based on how SBTT was, it's a different direction for the series.

That's exactly it though; it's a new direction. And considering I liked the direction the previous game was going in, even if I felt the implementation was a bit rough, I'm now faced with a direction I know I enjoyed being supplanted by one I'm not sure if I'm in agreement with. Of course I'm going to be following the development, as I'm fascinated by the series as a whole (despite its flaws) and would very much like to see the points I don't like in this early version get ironed out.

But what I'm currently looking at in front of me, in the form of an early playable demo version? I'm not entirely convinced yet.

[Gazrick]

This isn't a feature in Shadows of Forbidden. A lot has changed since Shadows Behind the Throne 1 and 2. I think this number relates to how long before the god awakens (and then things get really messy).

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Unless that text was put into the game specifically relating to the demo version, I dunno. Pretty snazzy if you manage to pull off a 200-turn victory though.

Yea that relates to the demo only bud AFAIK.

As for Benny Hill runs, I don't see how that's not still going to happen in this iteration at least as much as the previous ones; because although combat has been expanded upon, it still doesn't favor your squishy do-something-useful agents. Heck, arguably even more now that the agent itself has profile and menace sending out a big "come fight me!" beacon to anyone nearby, rather than individual enemy agents who'd managed to gather enough evidence of your work.

Well this is it, higher tier/level, unique Agents will be useful for infiltration, casting spells, spreading shadow or whatever else AND combat.  You'll have Agents that can manage more than one task well, so those "do-something-useful Agents" will not be squishy.  Also consider higher tier minions, that might take less Command but have better stats, that will allow your legit squishy agents to get stuff done because they'll offer a measure of protection.  This system allows for minions that reduce damage, minions that only take magical damage, minions that always attack first or bypass the defenders, all sorts of fun stuff!  Much more than what was present in S2!  This demo serves really as a glimpse as to what might be ahead, it's by no means finished product (or even close to).

I think it's different, and that it could be expanded upon to be more fun

Exactly!

That's exactly it though; it's a new direction. And considering I liked the direction the previous game was going in, even if I felt the implementation was a bit rough, I'm now faced with a direction I know I enjoyed being supplanted by one I'm not sure if I'm in agreement with.

Well you still have S2, it's not going anywhere, but you also have the excitement of a new direction that might be even better and more fun.

But what I'm currently looking at in front of me, in the form of an early playable demo version? I'm not entirely convinced yet.

Give it time man, I can't make any promises, they're not even mine to make, but from your critiques so far I have faith your continued interest will be very much rewarded.

I'll keep everyone posted of updates as they go out.