Paizo Blog: The Makings of the Kingdom

[Voss]

My kingdom's story is it quickly entered a degenerative fail state beyond my control so I had to turn it to automatic and ignore it, or auto-lose on a mandatory rest that I had to take to progress in the climax of chapter 2. Since I would have lost 30 hours of progress... yeah.

Since turning it off, the game has been much less annoying.

Quote:

While you're out adventuring—whether you're more a diplomat, monster hunter, or canny explorer—you can leave those companions not actively in your party to manage different aspects of the kingdom in your absence.

This is wrong, though. Companions in your party manage the kingdom just fine, even if they're on the edge of map outside your kingdom boundaries. Active companion and advisor aren't incompatible in any way at all.

[Mark Moreland]

Voss wrote:

Quote:

While you're out adventuring—whether you're more a diplomat, monster hunter, or canny explorer—you can leave those companions not actively in your party to manage different aspects of the kingdom in your absence.

This is wrong, though. Companions in your party manage the kingdom just fine, even if they're on the edge of map outside your kingdom boundaries. Active companion and advisor aren't incompatible in any way at all.

Oh, I didn't mean you could only leave inactive companions to manage the kingdom, but rather that even the ones not in your core adventuring party could still contribute.

[fraserstanton]

Last time I checked the calendar wasn't obvious ... there is a "c" listed in the keybindings but it didn't do anything for me. If I have an event that vanishes on the 1st of Arodus ... how do I know how long away that is? Do I have a month, 10 days, 5 days?

Also not obvious is how to upgrade your village to a town then to a city. I had to go poking around the forums to find out.

Nor any information on how I could upgrade my longhouse to a town hall ( I since found out you have to upgrade your village to a town to unlock this ... again found on the forums). It also was not obvious on what effect upgrading your building had - what do I get for upgrading this building?

Nor a link between value and rank ... other than projects, how can I increase the rank.

I am sure there was more that bugs me, but this is the list off the top of my head.

[archmagi1]

Hover over the pause hourglass and it gives you date and time.

[Cole Deschain]

No kingdom yet! Been spamming characters through basic creation so when I want to get back to them, the portrait dance has already been worked out to my satisfaction.

[Rysky]

SHENSEN! YAY!

[Thebazilly]

Voss wrote:

My kingdom's story is it quickly entered a degenerative fail state beyond my control so I had to turn it to automatic and ignore it, or auto-lose on a mandatory rest that I had to take to progress in the climax of chapter 2. Since I would have lost 30 hours of progress... yeah.

Since turning it off, the game has been much less annoying.

The amount of loading screens required to transition through kingdom management is atrocious. And Abadar help you if you have to go back to the throne room.

It's honestly disappointing to see that the kingdom management seems to be nothing but a minigame that gives you an additional way to game-over your entire campaign. None of the merchants in my capital have so much as refreshed their inventory since I became Baron, no new buildings or anything shows up where you can walk around in them, it's all just making numbers bigger and praying that the RNG doesn't screw you over. It also seems that it's bugged, since I upgraded my capital to a town, but the visuals haven't changed at all.

[Kcinlive]

I kickstarted the game and now have my copy. Haven't really had a lot of time to play though. (Stupid work) Kind of glad though. Based on everything I've been hearing there are a LOT of bugs. Not uncommon in games like this. Especially since it's Owlcat's first game. (Hopefully not their last.) Unfortunate though. Having said that I've also heard a lot of good things about it, and I'm really looking forward to having more time to play.

[Catharsis]

Thebazilly wrote:

The amount of loading screens required to transition through kingdom management is atrocious. And Abadar help you if you have to go back to the throne room.

This!

I set governance to auto but still occasionally have to drop by. I appreciate the quick-travel functionality upon entering the town, but getting out of there is a slog.

[Elorebaen]

I've been enjoying the game, though I have not made it to the kingdom stage. Looking forward to it!

[Howard197]

Loving the game, but dang if the Kingdom Management is a slog. I feel like if Owlcat sold advertising on their load screens they'd be rich by now, getting into and out of the Throne Room is a nightmare.

A lot of the building, events and quests in Kingdom management are quite fun, but the rules are unclear and its not like you can go back and read the tutorial tips. Getting new counselors beyond the original 5 is incredibly difficult.

That said, the rest of the game is so fantastic everyone should be playing Kingmaker anyway.

[grandpoobah]

The game is fantastic. I hope they port many more adventure paths. The key challenge is that there is no real guide for the game. So for those of us that know PFS well, that's no big deal, but the Kingdom management is really hard (there's no guide or tips or explanation of how things really "work"). In a few months, gaming community will have well built guides we can all read.

Best advice for Kingdom is to either put it on auto, or to save right before a kingdom check so you can save-scum if a roll goes poorly. I've had to do that several times as my kingdom teeters on collapse.

Kingdoms reach a death spiral easily, as all it takes to get a kingdom penalty is fail a roll (which is 20% to 60% likely on any given roll) or not be able to do an event (which can happen when you are away or if your advisers are locked into other 10-30 day jobs). Whereas IMPROVING the kingdoms stability takes a 1000BP event (which means spending 80,000gp) or some other very rare event. It's kind of like playing Pathfinder if there's no magical healing.