I started playing the other way around; cranking the difficulty and after enough punishment I nudged it down.

Heres another way to make lots of money while also managing AE: be picky about what provinces you take in a peace deal, especially early on. Take provinces/areas that are in trade nodes that would benefit you the most, such as those you are already in, those that are upstream (feeding into you) and downstrean (you feed into them). Not only that, but take the provinces with the highest trade value in those provinces, which always have special markings on them. Remember, when you take someones entire kingdom, the world gets mad at you, but if you just take most of their trade income and half their land, its called 'expansion'.

In my game, Tristian has bracers of armor +4 and with buffs, he's still very much a back line party member and I usually will take Harrim on my adventures vs him. But as you point out, he has some very useful features. I agree on Valerie being basically useless. Her and Jaethal get to come on the occasional mission but otherwise just stay at base for me to experiment with builds - I dipped her into stalwart defender.

Honestly combination of fragile, unreliability of spell actual doing something, and limit resource of spell make people not like caster. Now this can be chalk up to poor character building. Honestly low level caster feel bad to play in general and there only be a few spell that are actual worth casting even when due work cause feeling of weakness. Now are these problem of game knowledge but it take hell of a lot game knowledge to be a good caster and why most feel that they are weak. This is never explain in game anyway and is problem of video game design.

I made an entire party of summoners with pets. Massive army.😅

This video was difficult to watch because of the presenter’s nervousness.

Well melee is king of single target dps. Caster is king of aoe. Caster has tools for everything. As melee you pretty much win when your stats are better. This game discourages resting with all the silly time limits on everything, so then casters are not that great. On the other hand melee can't hit anything on unfair until endgame.

I believe this is a faithful project. The projector has a lot of attractions so hopefully the project will be best in the future. @alifj3807 @RKRakib242 @Rirobinadsp @Atikur_01 @Minayem #Earniverse #EIV #Metaverse #VRMetaverse

I don't understand how people think Linzi is weak. Bardic Inspiration+multiple slots for Grease and Summon Creature is a perfect setup for a god-wizard. Between her and Tristain's infinite buffs, you have a friggin *busted* core. Throw in anyone who gets Web and give Linzi some.of the animal totem buff spells and encounters feel mean spirited on normal difficulty.

Finally I started to understand something in this game😂💕 thanks a lot man! Very helpful

Oh shit darkfireslide i remember i used to watch you when i played eu4. now im binging kingmaker so good to see you again.

Thanks, now i have a better notion of how to build martial and casters

Where is Episode 6?

What the fuck?Shouldnt sword units absolutelly destroy pikes and spears?Why pikes win against swords?

No one can beat this game because its unfair

Eldritch archer ranger and rouge 👌

The people who complain want to solve all encounters by spamming fireball.

Ha, jokes on you, I sat down and watched through the entirety of this video.

Amazing rundown. Thank you very much. Any similar guide/tutorial exists for Field of Glory 2 (Ancients)?

I think setting up a slayer as an archer is a waste. The Slayer will not have the AC of a sword and board fighter, but he doesn't need it, he will be putting out the kind of damage that a fighter can't match until very late in the build. I have played many slayers in regular pathfinder, generally leaning towards dex base with a 3 level dip into rogue and then two weapon fighting for crit city, but here you can do strength or dex. If strength go two handed weapon. Only real weakness is armor class and wisdom save. Go dex based, turn on mobility and you got a heavy hitter able to move past the front rank to destroy archers and casters in the real.

Thanks for your guides darkfire. You made this game 10 times more enjoyable for me with your comprehensive videos. :)

Thanks for the vid, umm

It is horrible game. it is really dissapointing. Missle units are OP, Cavalery is trash and unit contact ist most strange one out of all total wars. try to engage 2 malee units in shogun 2 and then in rome 2, you will see that something is odd about rome 2 contact.

Linzi is the perfect Bard for her role, which is pure support. If you're using her to do anything else, you're using her wrong.

wow, very informative and I loved it! ty very much for the explanations and hard work!

Jaethal is one of the best if not the best evil companion, actually. As a spontaneous caster her Cure spells don't take any spell slots, not that you'd ever use her for healing anyway as she's a melee DPS character at heart. Channeling Negative Energy is also not necessary, she can cure herself with Inflict Wounds just fine. With the Judgments she can buff her AC up to keep up with your main tank and even give you respectable levels of DR and Fast Healing by the end. Even if she goes down, she can't ever die (unless you do her good ending). She's also an amazing skill monkey, wins all your Perception and Intimidation checks (who's gonna say "no" to the psycho undead judge lady?), is totally immune to all mind-affecting stuff and poisons (suck it souleaters), gets Greater Bane at lvl 12, can cast Greater Invisibility on herself, has weapon proficiency to scythes with 4x crit multiplier from her deity etc etc.

I know it's kinda late but could you tell me where you got your portrait from?

👍

I can tell this guy really likes this mod😅 idk why but that made me subscribe, and I don't even like Floris that much (althoughi do prefer it when playing "vanilla"), I just play it because of balances the game.

I know I’m a little late, but hasn’t the Ranger Class the best Progression when it comes to Baseattack, Fortitude, Will & Reflex? Like at Level 20: BA 20,15,10,5 Fortitude: 12 Reflex: 12 Will: 6 Isn’t that really good and better over other classes just like the Progression from Lvl 1-20 looks better??

Honestly I should have traded out Valerie a long time ago, since she was just a worse version of my main character (okay sure she had a lot more hit points than my MC, but she's getting 2 attacks per round while I'm getting 4 have a crit threat of 15-20, deal almost double the damage per attack, and have a higher AC (by like 9, 1 of that came from equipment difference because I have mithral full plate +2 and she had mithral full plate +1, the other 8 came from the build) I was a straight up better tank even though I only have 12 base constitution, and I don't consider my build to be minmaxed because I spent like 5 feats getting really good at ranged combat as well (which has been really nice and I don't regret at all, but doesn't help me in melee, and primary tank is the role I'm comparing her and Val in) At least Amiri is passable, she's not optimized but she can do her job, Valerie doesn't even tank well.... If you multiclass with her or take a couple of feats with her (like dazzling display) she can have her place, but I still wouldn't say she was great.... And I took her to 10th level because of pure laziness.

Wait people complain that Linzy is weak? My dude.... She is a bard, which makes her automatically one of the best characters in the game. It doesn't matter that she isn't minmaxed, the only reason to not bring her along in every party is if you are playing a bard yourself. Currently I'm at level 10 in the game (I've played TT but this is my first run with the CRPG), so with inspire competence, one of her earliest abilities she is giving a +3 to attack rolls, a +3 to damage rolls, and a +3 to saving throws. That is the equivalent of having a +3 weapon and a +3 cloak of resistance, that stacks with your magic weapons and cloaks of resistance.... She can haste, she can slow, she can buff ability scores, she can completely shut down multiple enemy's turn. The only thing she doesn't do well is stand in the frontlines. She wasn't minmaxed when you get her and I didn't min-max her afterwards (I focused on making her passable in the damage department, she's never going to compete with a well or even halfway decently built fighter (although she deals more dpr than Valerie, who I stuck with out of pure laziness but finally replaced before starting the current quest-line with a merc.) but that's because I think it's fun to have a little halfling running around shooting people with a crossbow, not because I think it's the optimal way to build a bard), but even with me NOT building her as the "best bard" she's still the MVP of the party, with only my merc wizard giving her a run for her money. That's including my MC (which is how you actually build a sword and board tank *cough cough* Valerie) and my merc fighter (which is how you actually build a two handed damage dealer *cough cough* Amiri)

For my first fighter (I played TT but this was my first character in kingmaker) I had my ability scores as 17, 15, 12, 10, 10? 14 (I can't remember if wisdom was a 10 or a 12, hence the question mark) I don't recommend new players go with a 12 constitution, that's what I did, like to drop constitution to the lowest level I can get away with. I wouldn't recommend putting your constitution above 14 if you are trying to be optimal, though I don't recommend necessarily doing what I tend to do and have a max of 12 as a frontliner and a 7 or 8 if I'm not in the frontline, depending on how well my class can disengage. I should have had higher wisdom than charisma for truly being optimal, but I was basing this character off of my actual tabletop character. Also I completely agree with you on min-maxing vs optimizing, min-maxing (which I've always called power gaming) where someone is intentionally trying to break the game and to feel like they beat the DM has always been one of my pet peeves... But equally annoying and game breaking is the guy who is making a character who is not competent. You don't have to take the absolute optimal choice at every level, but build a character who contributes to the party.

This was so helpful even 4years later thank you

I remember this video, first DarkFireSlide video I ever watched, what a time.

Linzy is broken.

In native, Rhodok sharpshooters are the most accurate and high damaging per shot ranged unit in the whole game, plus they have polearms for dealing with horses. They're far and away the best ranged unit.

This video in a nutshell: Let me start a sentence in a sentence in a sentence so no one knows what Im talking about

Super super helpful, and I enjoy the game much more with a mental framework to place units in. Thanks much Edit *sorry for being a nitpickyPrick, but ribaud is pronounced "reh-bawd", it's an archaic form of ribald... (Rogue, ruffian, crude, licentious, etc).

5:20 - Not sure what the discussion surrounding Valerie is about, but she is 100% the strongest story companion and one of the few that is outright better than a player-built merc. Her stat total is very high (even if you consider the odd-numbered ones to be 1 point lower, she has around 30 points in stats, and that's before accounting for her quest bonuses) and those stats are well distributed. You also get her at lvl 1, and even though her first level is kinda wasted, it's still a max BAB class with a ton of free feats and there are no downsides to it (like useless domains). The reason you might find her underwhelming is because you kept giving her fighter levels. She should be a bard (+RDD, ofc), maybe a scion. Anyway, only divine casters are bad. Res/restore is dirt cheap, but priests are still useful because of the party wide poison immunity, which should be cast 24/7 so you can walk around in stinking cloud. Honestly, that and a couple of immunities/protections for specific opponents are the only good thing about priests. Arcane casters already have the most important buffs, and don't get me started on damage/cc spells. Arcane casters are completely broken. With a few exceptions, any build for any role you can think of can be improved by replacing some/most/all of the levels with an arcane casting class: -Melee DPS? - Rogues, rangers and barbs are completely inferior to a vivisectionist or a sword saint. -Tank? - You can't get enough AC with full plate + shield on higher difficulties, you need dodge stacking. Monks can do that, but they don't have concealment and mirror image. So, it's bard, scion or sorc with a monk/paladin dip. -Support caster? - As explained before, priests are trash, use alchemists instead. -Ranged DPS? - Bows are garbage compared to ray attacks and spells, so arcane trickster or pure sorc will always out-DPS any fighter, ranger or whatever rogue mix you can think of, and they can also protect themselves. -CC? - Well, kineticists are overpowered, but sylvan/arcane sorc is just as good. So is a grenadier, at least early in the game. Divine casters don't work because they have the same important CC spells as arcane casters, but their DC is lower. -Skill monkey - Sure, you could make a rogue, but then you are stuck with a rogue in your party, which sucks. Wizards and alchemists will be able to max all the skills you need and leave the lore checks to your bard. tl;dr - divine casters ARE weak, arcane caster are OP.

I feel like what you are saying here applies more to pnp Pathfinder than this game in particular. In Kingmaker, especially on higher difficulties, the only two viable "martial" classes are magus and eldrich knight. True strike and mirror image are so good on melee chars (and absolutely necessary on unfair) that all class specific feats martials get pale in comparison. This is not just specific to this game, it's a problem with d20 systems in general, especially 3.5 and the like. Either your setting has such an abundance of high enchantment items that it doesn't matter what martial class you pick (anything with full BAB will do, items will do all the work) because items are doing all of the work, or there are not enough high enchantment items in which case gish types will be just straight-up better by making up the lack of item bonuses with buffs (in which case, again, it doesn't matter what martial class you pick because they all such equally). You will always want a divine class for healing/res/restore, a dedicated arcane class for cc/support and rogue-like class for skill monkey purposes (wizards work technically). However, assuming you want to optimize your party, you will either never touch a martial class and replace them all with arcane casters or you will want to stick as many of them into your party as you can once all the other roles have been filled up.

sometimes when i fart i poo a little

thank you for a quick explanation.

o.o Please forgive me......but i *already* need an "um" break. (As in, a break from all of the "um"s!) My goodness does a single thought ever cross the threshold of your mouth *without* it being immediately covered in an audible shroud of self doubt?

Tower Shield specialist is good. IT gets it's shield bonus to reflex saves AND touch AC. Meaning you only have bad will saves, which is fixed in 2 ways. 1. someone casts unbreakable heart on them. 2. 9 levels of tower shield specialist, 9 levels of bard. You get will saves up, blur, mirror image, and all the bard songs. Can cast unbreakable heart on themselves. Plus singing steel plate mail exists. Basically Valerie. Nothing will hit you at all. Perfect for 5 mages/ranged attackers and one tank holding everything far away.

Can you do your best monk build

I so join you on the charisma being a waste on a class that doesn't need it. I often build my characters with roleplay in mind but in video games (baldur's gate, neverwinter nights, etc) I try to justify taking charisma by using a class that needs it or I don't use it at all. I started playing kingmaker this month for the first time. I made a druid feyspeaker, so charisma all the way. Well most of my friends in my group have high charisma and high persuasion so I can't stop myself from feeling that I wasted this. I am sure that I will be able to change later (I don't know, I am still discovering the story) but for now, all those guys have high charisma and high persuasion, and of course high wisdom and high perception, which I upped with a feat because I thought "since my druid has less wisdom, maybe it's important to still have perception, right?" Right?

I am new to this game and have only played one game as Portugal, but I ended up colonizing Brazil, southern Africa, Australia and most of Siberia. I allied with both Spain and England early on and kept Spain as a friendly power for the entire game, so my homeland was secure. I avoided fighting as much as possible this learning period. Both Brazil and Australia were spun off as crown colonies and they fielded large armies that were very helpful when I did face invasions, plus they generated a lot of revenue. Two questions (which may not be answered since this is an old thread): (1) Is it worth paying for three months or so to the developer to try all the DLCs?, and (2) who should I play next?

The most important function in a list like this is to let me know what classes not to choose with my main, so that I don't stack classes in my party when I decide who I want to take.

its no wonder that starting with rome 2 and continuing with all the nu-tw games, auto resolve rates have kept rising- as confirmed by CA when they released those numbers a while ago. theres just not very many interesting things you can do in the battle