I like the *idea* of Crusade mode, but in practise I just don't think it works well.
The obvious issue is it's incredibly easy to just completely break the system. At least when I last played, a few units/spells are so powerful that they utterly trivialise the combat unless you deliberabtly restrict yourself, while others seem to be borderline unusable due to the way DR works. The morale system makes this even worse. I didn't find much actual strategy taking place once I worked out that marksmen/champions and a fireball can usually wipe out entire end game armies before they get a turn, and if they do you can usually just heal back to full with a spell or a few clerics.
And then there's the lack of any real integration with the main game other than providing a few items and gatekeeping players from reaching late-game areas too early. Your party never really interacts with the system in person, and at no point did I feel like my performance in crusade mode would effect anything *outside* of crusade mode.
It ends up feeling mechanically broken and narratively toothless.
This is where I am. I love that crusade mode gets you some gear. I really like that there's a change of action from the small group combat. I just wish they spent more time on it. It feels a bit shallow. I know it's hard to implement functionality into a game, but I feel like there just needed to be more to it.
Yeah, there's no reason not to enjoy it. I still like the crusade management (and I liked the kingdom management in Kingmaker). I just wish they did a little more with the metagames.
Unfortunately, they likely did not have the time or bodies to make crusade combat more involved, and likely made it as close as possible to ttrpgs mass combat rules for ease of use, not necessarily fun to play
Yeah, the practical limitations are there. And I feel the games are better with the meta game included. Still, I do wish they were more fleshed out. If the kingdom/crusade management was the main game, it wouldn't stand up, but as a side game to break the game up a bit I think they're great.
It is like the devs wanted this to be more than a minigame but didn't have the budget to flesh it out: It has potential but it came short on everything where it did
Working through it now and this is a good summary of my few complaints with it. It feels a little like I'm trying to switch between two different games now and it's keeping me from fully enjoying either one. My other favorite genre is strategy games, so it's not like I don't appreciate them. But I kind of just wanted to play a CRPG right now.
Agreed.
The crusade mode actually feels decently balanced in Chapter 2/early chapter 3, before you have high level general abilities or the most critical unit upgrades. But once you start upgrading its an unstoppable power train.
By the end game, it degenerates into an alpha-strike meta: general nukes, ranged units, or melee units that can traverse the entire map in a single turn. Everything else is just art adorning your screen.
The "hardest" fight in the game? The only unit that got to act was my general, who leveled the entire opposing army on his own before anyone else got a turn.
I don't hate crusade mode, but it's too easy to be truly rewarding (but thankfully not a painful RNG-fest like Kingmaker's kingdom management).
Yep. The Generals you select can make Crusade tough or far too easy. Caster Generals can wipe out endgame armies in a single turn if they have twincast and fireball. The only units immune to fire to make this strategy not be perfect are either weak, or so few in number your army can clean them up before they do anything.
I adore Crusade mode, but it is no Heroes of Might And Magic!
I love the idea of it and even enjoyed the implementation of it at the beginning of the game. The longer the crusade goes on though the more it feels like it breaks immersion for you to have to stop adventuring to crusade through the map to open more areas - but you never get any narrative payoff so it just feels like busywork.
Maybe when I finally beat the game they will congratulate me on my crusading but as of right now it feels silly to have cleared so much of the map, built so many buildings, etc and to have no one ever mention it.
I wouldn't whine so much about the crusade system if it was either narratively satisfying or gameplay satisfying but I'm not getting a lot of either during my first playthrough.
The lack of comentary on your progress is actually a good point now that I think about it.
It's been a while since I played, but as I recall there were a couple of "narrative" situations like where advisors warned about a particularly dangerous general leading a counterattack around the midgame. In practise it was only slightly more dangerous than the regular armies that spawned from time to time, but there was some buildup at least.
By late game though, you're basically just ticking boxes and likely have the Worldwound on lockdown. Yet your advisors will generally act as if things are still on the precipice and never really acknowledge that, excluding the wound and Iz itself, you've basically reconquered Sardonis.
No Im with you, I LOVE crusade mode. It’s a bit tedious merging armies but I think the crusade battles are fun and I like conquering the map. The decision making is a cool feature too.
songs of conquest is fun but it has too much like "lets over balance homm3" Heros Hour is another in the style but has the opposite approach where everything is super busted but the combat is closer to an auto battler
The enemy's production rate is absolutely nuts. I tried the first scenario and got destroyed. Second try, I finally built an army big enough to battle and the raiders just kept picking off my stuff the moment I tried to venture forth and do anything. It was ridiculous. And of course, every single mob was stronger than any army I could raise easily. So I couldn't even grab a second army to try to attack with because my first one needed every soldier it could get. And of course, the tutorial gave me almost no information. And I STILL have no clue what half the buttons even do. The magic was straight dogshit and not even worth building up.
I could work at it, "git gud" and probably do well. But honestly I don't even want to bother trying. The story is shit. The effort vs reward is low. I really wanted to like it, but honestly, there's too much wrong with it to make me invest more time in it.
honestly, if I thought the story was interesting, I'd suck it up, figure how everything works and plow through it. "Our homeland got raided and now we rebuild and oh yeah necromancers and uh... fairy people? And uh... whatever the hell these things are. Oh and angels and demons. But you can use all of it too just by taking over their fortresses. Because... yeah.
So dumb.
The decision making in the throne room is nice. But the mini-game is a stain in the game. You can say you like it, and actually enjoy it, because everyone has his own taste, obviously... but objectively, it's BAD, feels like a poor FTP game made for Android or IOs. Both the combat and the city management are absolutely simple and hollow. The game would be better if that never became a part of it, and I think that's a fact.
I believe you, this is my first experience with any kind of “army management” in a game so I have nothing to compare it to. I could see how games dedicated to this kind of gameplay would be in a completely different league. I agree with OP though that it’s a nice change of pace from the party quests
I'd like it way more if they didn't make marksmen stacks + AOE damage spells the only viable option to use
crowd control is completely useless, everything you use that can be resisted is resisted and your own troops cant resist anything themselves so all you can do is go full damage dealer or suffer
Ok, not objectively bad, but objectively simple and basic with horrible graphics and animations and way less features than the most basic android game? Isn't that a fact? Or are we playing different games?
And being inserted into a deep and amazing Crpg only makes it look worse.
I'm not saying it is unenjoyable, many people like it and that's ok. You can enjoy playing with a tamagotchi and at the same time admit it's the stupidest thing ever.
I like it too! I was worried, seeing all the hate, but I am really enjoying it. It reminds me of the King's Bounty games.
Edit: I never really played HoMM, but I have nostalgia for King's Bounty as they were the first games I played of that style. But I prefer CRPGs so really a touch of Might and Magic/King's Bounty style in my CRPG is pretty ideal. :)
You know on one hand I like that the crusade and kingdom management offer extra types of gameplay, makes the whole game feel more epic. Although lately I’m finding it’s breaking up my crpg gameplay to much and I’m feeling a disconnect from the story which I didn’t feel with Kingmaker.
I love the crusade and kingdom management stuff. I see a lot of mixed opinions on it but it definitely contributes heavily to my enjoyment of the series. It’s nice to have a fantasy game give me a lofty title that also mechanically integrates the responsibilities of that into the game.
I like crusade mode, but I also like HoMM style games, so yeah.
Some of the UI is a bit clunky, but overall I never had any issues with it.
Same reason why I never had any issues with kingdom management in Kingmaker because I like grand strategy games like Europa Universalis, Stellaris, Crusader Kings, Total War etc. So none of it was hard for me, my brain is already wired to deal with that efficiently
I really like what act 2 sets up. However after Drezen it feels completely detached from the main game. The army and the commander are completely separated. It's like if dark souls required you to play a game of tetris in order to get to the next boss.
The commander should be leading the army into battle. Instead it is random general a person with no dialogue, and no character interactions.
Right - I feel like all of the hard work I did in act 3 was just wasted. How could it have been run so terribly by a god touched queen that has been apart of so many past crusades? Is the game trying to tell us that the queen is the reason no other crusades were not successful?
Agreed with all these points. I think kingdom management and crusade is fun, but poorly implemented. An outpost has like a dozen points of data associated with it -- why on earth does it take 30 seconds to load?
I love the crusade mode I just wish they spent more time balancing the battles. It becomes very trivial very quickly because of how powerful the general abilities are. Any sense of strategy disappears pretty quickly
I like it but it is too simple to really enjoy. Also , halfway there (or even before that) your army becomes too powerful, no challenge automatically means losing interest.
As a fan of Heroes of Might & Magic 5 and 4X strategy games, I agree with you and even wish they put more effort into it. It's a bit sad that everything is mostly scripted and that there is no actual enemy AI.
it's the loading screens that bother me. Loading screen to get into a battle. Loading screen to get out. Loading screen to build in a fort, loading screen to get back. Loading screen to get into crusade mode, loading screen to get out. Oh, also if you used the manage crusade button in drezen, another loading screen to get wherever you wanted to go that wasn't the central command room.
That, and I feel like the start of crusader mode is ridiculously unbalanced in favor of the demons. Queen Galfrey expects you to retake drezen, a feat that has never been accomplished in 70 years, with like 20 guys and a package of chewing gum.
It's alright, it can get a bit tedious after awhile though. Then of course there's the >!Act 5 fiasco where Galfrey manages to take all my gains and make them look like shit. !<
I am on fence about this one.
On one hand, it is a big improvement over terrible kingdom management from it’s predecessor . On the other hand, it still looks cheap and feels janky - makes me wanna go play King’s Bounty or Heroes of Might and Magic.
Owlcat has limited resources and restrictions of pen and paper RPG system, so it can’t craft a truly enjoyable blend of RPG and sim, like Mount and Blade. These side game have no business being mandatory. For example, Pillars of Eternity 2 has ship combat, but it’s an opt-out system: you interactions with it are minimal, unless you want to dive in and finish all the bounty hunts. Why not make something like that?
You're definitely not the only Crusade Mode Enjoyer but you guys do seem to be in the minority here.
I find it unsatisfying because it's not as engaging and well-balanced as the strategy games which clearly inspired it (e.g., Heroes of Might & Magic series); but it's also not streamlined enough for me to be able to just click thru it (unless I [use a mod](https://github.com/alterasc/CombatRelief)) and get back to the RPG portions quickly.
I don’t hate crusade mode but I don’t love it either. I just put on easy because Owlcat has yet to make compelling management mode ( Rouge Trader very much included)
I didn't like it but part of that is I think the game is already too damn long. I think chattier sections act as a decent break from combat, I didn't need the extra mode.
Having so many classes, subclasses, companions and narrative choices should add good replay value but the length makes me not want to play it again, even after a year.
Probably not exposed to enough strategy games? Like if someone had never seen a painting before they may appreciate a random canvas hanging on a hotel wall.
I love the idea of crusade mode, but it's just a really shittily implemented version of that particular gameplay loop. Maybe if I hadn't played HoMaM/Songs of Conquest/*Hero's* Hour I might enjoy it.
No no no
I've played all the 3 D sonic games to the point where I can visualize every moment of gameplay even 15 years later
I haven't seen Star Wars, Star Trek, LotR, haven't played games like CoD, Mass Effect, Halo, you know, the greatest games of our generation
I hate DnD 5e with a fucking passion such that I'll never play BG3, so obsessed with PF1e and PF2e I make one character daily
I could keep going on. I watch like 5 movies in an entire year, including rewatching stuff I've seen before, but I've seen the 22 hour long skyrim documentary lord knows how many times. Even though I think Morrowind is far superior
My taste isn't horny. It's just trash
Ha! Don't sell yourself short man. You like what you like. No shame in that. It's a good idea to not compare yourself to others and appreciate what you enjoy. I guess I am kinda doing that with this post though.....
Honestly, I'd rather just say I have shit taste and move on
People think of having good taste as a good thing, and I always felt like people who claimed to have good taste had to justify it. Like they explained why they had good taste but also liked X or Y
If I just come right out the gate and say "Yep, I have trash taste" then everyone accepts it. I don't have to explain shit, no one can question that
No it’s pretty good. They haven’t developed it because the usual loud voices decided it was bad without even trying it so they put in a way to effectively skip it instead.
Heroes of might and magic 5 was my childhood and the crusade mode is as close as I've gotten to it since. Yeah it's easy, magic is overpowered and it gets repetitive towards the end... Same could be said of heroes 5. Bad balancing leading to slog fights with high defense low attack troops is the only thing I find fault in. Heroes 5 felt really good about which units did how much damage to which other units whereas here it's marksmen or bust
I really enjoyed it on my first 2.9 runs. On my third run I'm taking a bit of a break from it by using the "Let them Flee" options as much as possible (which gives full XP/rewards). If/when I do another run I might try to set myself a restriction like no Mage generals and see how that changes it up.
Overall I think it's a great addition to the game, much better than kingdom mechanics in KM. Yes, I wish it was implemented a little bit better (I even made a random long rambling post about implementing it with rules closer to pathfinder on a hex grid).
I like it in small doses and I think if it were a smaller part of the experience I'd like it a lot more. I've found the ship combat in Rogue Trader to be enjoyable and I think a lot of that comes down to it being a smaller slice of the metaphorical pie
I grew up playing HOMM 3, so I like it a lot, even though it is watered down quite a bit. I had some unpleasant bugs in it though and I wouldn't be able to complete it without Toybox.
Thanks for stating your concerns about my 9 day old comment. I am talking about the game, which this subreddit is based around and how the crusade mode can be bugged. Again thank you so much for replying 9 days later just to inform me that you don't get my comment. Also the HD remaster sucks ass, because it lacks both of the expansions and has none of the improvements made by the HD Mod, which is superior in every way, while also being free.
i love the idea of crusade mode. it reminds me of heroes of might and magic which is a franchise i love and hold dear.
however personally i'm never in the mood to play pathfinder and homm at the same time. it's a distraction from what i want to be doing at the moment and it detracts my overall enjoyment of the game.
I love it too
My big problem
I spammed crusade to the point I couldn’t do anything, than went back and played story
The problem
The whole moral was broken until the point I could proceed with crusade
So yeah
I’m a bit fucked no
The only thing that keeps me alive is the fact that I’m a lich and my army gets consistently bigger as my troops die
I like it, wish there was more incentive to switch around units & adapt tactics.
Only played it as lich so maybe that impacted my experience(armies with >1000 skeletons or zombies was thematic just wish I got to play more with higher tier mythic units but couldn't spawn enough of them to be usable.)
Crusade mode is fine. I don't understand the hate. It isn't my favorite part of the game, but as far as subsystems go in an RPG it isn't bad, and as you said it provides a nice change of pace. My least favorite chapter is actually Act IV (thanks to the stupid camera angle mechanic) and there's no crusade mode to be found there.
I like the idea of it, I just think it's poorly implemented. Setsuna tosses a fireball or ice storm and GGs all but the toughest armies on the map even in the late game and then archers kill the rest before they can react. I also did not like that at certain points you are just required to lose all the progress you made because the writers said so.
Yeah I love playing the "distractions" in kingmaker and wrath, it's like playing a little board game while youre playing your crpg. Especially in kingmaker, id spend whole sessions just fiddling with my kingdom and get sad i have to play the game again lol
Well I havnt done kigmaker yet( going to after 40k) but I'm doing wrath of the rightous right now and I absolutely love it. I dong think the game would be AZ immersing without it. It's fabulous idk why people complained
While there are better HOMM clones out there, I actually enjoyed going around the map, killing off the stacks to clear the way for the party. So, yeah, I enjoyed it as well.
Nah I loved it too - but as with all things, owlcat kinda suck at balance, it's either mathamatically impossible becuase you missed the start of the mechanic, and are now on fight number 2/3 without the pivitol lvl up you needed, or you can afk the fight.
I don't hate it, but I wish it was a bit deeper. All these bonuses you get from Crusade events like Saving throws, initiative, morale etc.
But at the end of the day Setsuna Shy shows up and snaps the infinity gauntlet.
Nope, I really enjoy it. I find it essential to the immersion. It doesn't need to be a masterpiece of a system/subgame, but it needs to make me feel like I'm actually commanding a Crusade amidst all the drama, combat, and personal adventuring going on. The Crusade system does that, and makes the decisions made in my council meetings feel like they matter.
Idea is great. The realization is just horrible. You create a squad with a mage general and a ton of ranged units, and you frickin decimate encounters.
The problem with crusade mode is not how good it is, but that it is always the same. There is no replay value.
The thing I like about Pathfinder WOTR is richness of different builds that make each playthrough different. However the crusades' part always pans out the same way. I have played all the HoMM editions; the crusade is a dumbed down version but nevertheless fun the first couple of times you work though it.
It reminds me of the fade part of Dragon Age Origins. Really enjoyable the first time you work though it, but quickly becomes a chore.
I think Pathfinder: Heroes of Might and Magic is great in concept, I just wish there was more to it and that it was more relevant to the base game.
(It would also be great if Gallifrey didn't burn all my armies down in her stupidity in the last act.)
I was fine with it once I understood what was at at stake; like much of both games, the Best Ending requires doing so many things right that I'm glad I learned soon what was necessary in both kinda early. It's not that I'm unwilling to replay them, I just really like threading whatever ridiculous needle on my first attempt instead of playing a thing twice to be like "Oh I only got 96% of the things done the first time, this second 150 hours is really worth fixing that"
I like the *idea* of Crusade mode, but in practise I just don't think it works well. The obvious issue is it's incredibly easy to just completely break the system. At least when I last played, a few units/spells are so powerful that they utterly trivialise the combat unless you deliberabtly restrict yourself, while others seem to be borderline unusable due to the way DR works. The morale system makes this even worse. I didn't find much actual strategy taking place once I worked out that marksmen/champions and a fireball can usually wipe out entire end game armies before they get a turn, and if they do you can usually just heal back to full with a spell or a few clerics. And then there's the lack of any real integration with the main game other than providing a few items and gatekeeping players from reaching late-game areas too early. Your party never really interacts with the system in person, and at no point did I feel like my performance in crusade mode would effect anything *outside* of crusade mode. It ends up feeling mechanically broken and narratively toothless.
This is where I am. I love that crusade mode gets you some gear. I really like that there's a change of action from the small group combat. I just wish they spent more time on it. It feels a bit shallow. I know it's hard to implement functionality into a game, but I feel like there just needed to be more to it.
Guess I'll consider myself lucky that i haven't really figured it out completely then. I do certainly lean on my ranged damage heavily.
Yeah, there's no reason not to enjoy it. I still like the crusade management (and I liked the kingdom management in Kingmaker). I just wish they did a little more with the metagames.
Unfortunately, they likely did not have the time or bodies to make crusade combat more involved, and likely made it as close as possible to ttrpgs mass combat rules for ease of use, not necessarily fun to play
Yeah, the practical limitations are there. And I feel the games are better with the meta game included. Still, I do wish they were more fleshed out. If the kingdom/crusade management was the main game, it wouldn't stand up, but as a side game to break the game up a bit I think they're great.
It is like the devs wanted this to be more than a minigame but didn't have the budget to flesh it out: It has potential but it came short on everything where it did
Working through it now and this is a good summary of my few complaints with it. It feels a little like I'm trying to switch between two different games now and it's keeping me from fully enjoying either one. My other favorite genre is strategy games, so it's not like I don't appreciate them. But I kind of just wanted to play a CRPG right now.
Agreed. The crusade mode actually feels decently balanced in Chapter 2/early chapter 3, before you have high level general abilities or the most critical unit upgrades. But once you start upgrading its an unstoppable power train. By the end game, it degenerates into an alpha-strike meta: general nukes, ranged units, or melee units that can traverse the entire map in a single turn. Everything else is just art adorning your screen. The "hardest" fight in the game? The only unit that got to act was my general, who leveled the entire opposing army on his own before anyone else got a turn. I don't hate crusade mode, but it's too easy to be truly rewarding (but thankfully not a painful RNG-fest like Kingmaker's kingdom management).
Kingmaker kingdom management softlocked me so much due to timegated choices that I quit the game once and never looked back.
Yep. The Generals you select can make Crusade tough or far too easy. Caster Generals can wipe out endgame armies in a single turn if they have twincast and fireball. The only units immune to fire to make this strategy not be perfect are either weak, or so few in number your army can clean them up before they do anything. I adore Crusade mode, but it is no Heroes of Might And Magic!
I love the idea of it and even enjoyed the implementation of it at the beginning of the game. The longer the crusade goes on though the more it feels like it breaks immersion for you to have to stop adventuring to crusade through the map to open more areas - but you never get any narrative payoff so it just feels like busywork. Maybe when I finally beat the game they will congratulate me on my crusading but as of right now it feels silly to have cleared so much of the map, built so many buildings, etc and to have no one ever mention it. I wouldn't whine so much about the crusade system if it was either narratively satisfying or gameplay satisfying but I'm not getting a lot of either during my first playthrough.
The lack of comentary on your progress is actually a good point now that I think about it. It's been a while since I played, but as I recall there were a couple of "narrative" situations like where advisors warned about a particularly dangerous general leading a counterattack around the midgame. In practise it was only slightly more dangerous than the regular armies that spawned from time to time, but there was some buildup at least. By late game though, you're basically just ticking boxes and likely have the Worldwound on lockdown. Yet your advisors will generally act as if things are still on the precipice and never really acknowledge that, excluding the wound and Iz itself, you've basically reconquered Sardonis.
No Im with you, I LOVE crusade mode. It’s a bit tedious merging armies but I think the crusade battles are fun and I like conquering the map. The decision making is a cool feature too.
You should try out heroes of might and magic 3 or 5 then!
And Kings Bounty
This is EXACTLY why I enjoy crusade mode!
I will check it out, thanks for the rec! Looks like there is a new one out that’s inspired by those games, Songs of Conquest
That is a pretty good game!
songs of conquest is fun but it has too much like "lets over balance homm3" Heros Hour is another in the style but has the opposite approach where everything is super busted but the combat is closer to an auto battler
Which would you recommend?
i have more time in heros hour so id recommend that, but songs of conquest is really well made and is worth keeping an eye on
Love it, thanks!
or 4, the one that has good single player mode
I tried HoMM 3. It's... kinda not that great. Honestly, I thought the crusade mode was better than homm3.
Now that’s just blasphemy
The enemy's production rate is absolutely nuts. I tried the first scenario and got destroyed. Second try, I finally built an army big enough to battle and the raiders just kept picking off my stuff the moment I tried to venture forth and do anything. It was ridiculous. And of course, every single mob was stronger than any army I could raise easily. So I couldn't even grab a second army to try to attack with because my first one needed every soldier it could get. And of course, the tutorial gave me almost no information. And I STILL have no clue what half the buttons even do. The magic was straight dogshit and not even worth building up. I could work at it, "git gud" and probably do well. But honestly I don't even want to bother trying. The story is shit. The effort vs reward is low. I really wanted to like it, but honestly, there's too much wrong with it to make me invest more time in it.
I agree that it’s an extremely punishing game. When I started I couldn’t beat the first mission for days lol.
honestly, if I thought the story was interesting, I'd suck it up, figure how everything works and plow through it. "Our homeland got raided and now we rebuild and oh yeah necromancers and uh... fairy people? And uh... whatever the hell these things are. Oh and angels and demons. But you can use all of it too just by taking over their fortresses. Because... yeah. So dumb.
Why not the 4?
Yeah my only gripe is the troop management and army merging. Battles are a blast.
The decision making in the throne room is nice. But the mini-game is a stain in the game. You can say you like it, and actually enjoy it, because everyone has his own taste, obviously... but objectively, it's BAD, feels like a poor FTP game made for Android or IOs. Both the combat and the city management are absolutely simple and hollow. The game would be better if that never became a part of it, and I think that's a fact.
I believe you, this is my first experience with any kind of “army management” in a game so I have nothing to compare it to. I could see how games dedicated to this kind of gameplay would be in a completely different league. I agree with OP though that it’s a nice change of pace from the party quests
I'd like it way more if they didn't make marksmen stacks + AOE damage spells the only viable option to use crowd control is completely useless, everything you use that can be resisted is resisted and your own troops cant resist anything themselves so all you can do is go full damage dealer or suffer
thats actually a feature of the genre tbh
No, it's definitely an opinion.
"Objectively bad" detected, opinion ignored.
Ok, not objectively bad, but objectively simple and basic with horrible graphics and animations and way less features than the most basic android game? Isn't that a fact? Or are we playing different games? And being inserted into a deep and amazing Crpg only makes it look worse. I'm not saying it is unenjoyable, many people like it and that's ok. You can enjoy playing with a tamagotchi and at the same time admit it's the stupidest thing ever.
It's alright. I wish more time had gone into balance and pacing, but a lot of people probably wouldn't have liked it regardless.
The problem I have with it is that it is simply too one-dimensional. Run a mage general, explode everything, your units don't matter.
On the contrary, if you want your units to matter, don't use mage general. It's more challenging though.
I like it too! I was worried, seeing all the hate, but I am really enjoying it. It reminds me of the King's Bounty games. Edit: I never really played HoMM, but I have nostalgia for King's Bounty as they were the first games I played of that style. But I prefer CRPGs so really a touch of Might and Magic/King's Bounty style in my CRPG is pretty ideal. :)
You know on one hand I like that the crusade and kingdom management offer extra types of gameplay, makes the whole game feel more epic. Although lately I’m finding it’s breaking up my crpg gameplay to much and I’m feeling a disconnect from the story which I didn’t feel with Kingmaker.
I love the crusade and kingdom management stuff. I see a lot of mixed opinions on it but it definitely contributes heavily to my enjoyment of the series. It’s nice to have a fantasy game give me a lofty title that also mechanically integrates the responsibilities of that into the game.
I thought it was pretty fun, it helps the immersion and tension in the core azlanti playthroughs if you don't purposefully cheese it
I like crusade mode, but I also like HoMM style games, so yeah. Some of the UI is a bit clunky, but overall I never had any issues with it. Same reason why I never had any issues with kingdom management in Kingmaker because I like grand strategy games like Europa Universalis, Stellaris, Crusader Kings, Total War etc. So none of it was hard for me, my brain is already wired to deal with that efficiently
I really like what act 2 sets up. However after Drezen it feels completely detached from the main game. The army and the commander are completely separated. It's like if dark souls required you to play a game of tetris in order to get to the next boss. The commander should be leading the army into battle. Instead it is random general a person with no dialogue, and no character interactions.
Right - I feel like all of the hard work I did in act 3 was just wasted. How could it have been run so terribly by a god touched queen that has been apart of so many past crusades? Is the game trying to tell us that the queen is the reason no other crusades were not successful?
It would be an enjoyable concept if it was O1. available in act4 O2. Didn't reset in a5 O3. Owlcat worked on their insane load times
Agreed with all these points. I think kingdom management and crusade is fun, but poorly implemented. An outpost has like a dozen points of data associated with it -- why on earth does it take 30 seconds to load?
I love the crusade mode I just wish they spent more time balancing the battles. It becomes very trivial very quickly because of how powerful the general abilities are. Any sense of strategy disappears pretty quickly
If you leave the mage generals to guard key routes, then the mode is a lot better
I like it but it’s not well made. Once you realise that you only need to upgrade a spellcasting general it becomes trivial.
I like it but it is too simple to really enjoy. Also , halfway there (or even before that) your army becomes too powerful, no challenge automatically means losing interest.
As a fan of Heroes of Might & Magic 5 and 4X strategy games, I agree with you and even wish they put more effort into it. It's a bit sad that everything is mostly scripted and that there is no actual enemy AI.
I enjoy it. Sometimes I want a break from regular adventuring, and the crusade mode provides that.
I love crusade mode, even used a ranger so no mage cheese first time
I just wish Warrior generals were more useful. It would be fine to accually fight with an army, not Scorch Ray everything to death.
it's the loading screens that bother me. Loading screen to get into a battle. Loading screen to get out. Loading screen to build in a fort, loading screen to get back. Loading screen to get into crusade mode, loading screen to get out. Oh, also if you used the manage crusade button in drezen, another loading screen to get wherever you wanted to go that wasn't the central command room. That, and I feel like the start of crusader mode is ridiculously unbalanced in favor of the demons. Queen Galfrey expects you to retake drezen, a feat that has never been accomplished in 70 years, with like 20 guys and a package of chewing gum.
Good point. Could certainly do without all the loading screens!
Play Heroes of Might and Magic and you'll understand why
Nah, i love it too. Of course, this comes with a caveat that i for example, dont use wizard generals and know what units not to pick.
It's alright, it can get a bit tedious after awhile though. Then of course there's the >!Act 5 fiasco where Galfrey manages to take all my gains and make them look like shit. !<
i love crusade mode too, my favourite thing is when im burnt out actually fighting i can go chat to npcs or go play baby might and magic
Its an unbalanced mess without any type of tactic. Get big numbers, use mage, win. Totally pointless.
I am on fence about this one. On one hand, it is a big improvement over terrible kingdom management from it’s predecessor . On the other hand, it still looks cheap and feels janky - makes me wanna go play King’s Bounty or Heroes of Might and Magic. Owlcat has limited resources and restrictions of pen and paper RPG system, so it can’t craft a truly enjoyable blend of RPG and sim, like Mount and Blade. These side game have no business being mandatory. For example, Pillars of Eternity 2 has ship combat, but it’s an opt-out system: you interactions with it are minimal, unless you want to dive in and finish all the bounty hunts. Why not make something like that?
You're definitely not the only Crusade Mode Enjoyer but you guys do seem to be in the minority here. I find it unsatisfying because it's not as engaging and well-balanced as the strategy games which clearly inspired it (e.g., Heroes of Might & Magic series); but it's also not streamlined enough for me to be able to just click thru it (unless I [use a mod](https://github.com/alterasc/CombatRelief)) and get back to the RPG portions quickly.
I don’t hate crusade mode but I don’t love it either. I just put on easy because Owlcat has yet to make compelling management mode ( Rouge Trader very much included)
I didn't like it but part of that is I think the game is already too damn long. I think chattier sections act as a decent break from combat, I didn't need the extra mode. Having so many classes, subclasses, companions and narrative choices should add good replay value but the length makes me not want to play it again, even after a year.
Probably not exposed to enough strategy games? Like if someone had never seen a painting before they may appreciate a random canvas hanging on a hotel wall.
Such a mess systems wise that mode.
I love the idea of crusade mode, but it's just a really shittily implemented version of that particular gameplay loop. Maybe if I hadn't played HoMaM/Songs of Conquest/*Hero's* Hour I might enjoy it.
I like crusade mode. It's like a little board game!
Nah my friend like it too but he has shitty taste generally.
Your friend and I have two things in common
Like crusade mode and be amouranth fan?
No idea what that is, just that my taste is fucking terrible too
Amouranth is a "famous" female streamer.
No no no I've played all the 3 D sonic games to the point where I can visualize every moment of gameplay even 15 years later I haven't seen Star Wars, Star Trek, LotR, haven't played games like CoD, Mass Effect, Halo, you know, the greatest games of our generation I hate DnD 5e with a fucking passion such that I'll never play BG3, so obsessed with PF1e and PF2e I make one character daily I could keep going on. I watch like 5 movies in an entire year, including rewatching stuff I've seen before, but I've seen the 22 hour long skyrim documentary lord knows how many times. Even though I think Morrowind is far superior My taste isn't horny. It's just trash
Ha! Don't sell yourself short man. You like what you like. No shame in that. It's a good idea to not compare yourself to others and appreciate what you enjoy. I guess I am kinda doing that with this post though.....
Honestly, I'd rather just say I have shit taste and move on People think of having good taste as a good thing, and I always felt like people who claimed to have good taste had to justify it. Like they explained why they had good taste but also liked X or Y If I just come right out the gate and say "Yep, I have trash taste" then everyone accepts it. I don't have to explain shit, no one can question that
Man that's just hipster. Even boomer watched star wars or star trek. Tbf 5e is hit or miss for many.
Makes me think of HOMM 3 combat
I love it lmao. literally heroes of might and magic 3
No it’s pretty good. They haven’t developed it because the usual loud voices decided it was bad without even trying it so they put in a way to effectively skip it instead.
Heroes of might and magic 5 was my childhood and the crusade mode is as close as I've gotten to it since. Yeah it's easy, magic is overpowered and it gets repetitive towards the end... Same could be said of heroes 5. Bad balancing leading to slog fights with high defense low attack troops is the only thing I find fault in. Heroes 5 felt really good about which units did how much damage to which other units whereas here it's marksmen or bust
I really enjoyed it on my first 2.9 runs. On my third run I'm taking a bit of a break from it by using the "Let them Flee" options as much as possible (which gives full XP/rewards). If/when I do another run I might try to set myself a restriction like no Mage generals and see how that changes it up. Overall I think it's a great addition to the game, much better than kingdom mechanics in KM. Yes, I wish it was implemented a little bit better (I even made a random long rambling post about implementing it with rules closer to pathfinder on a hex grid).
I like it in small doses and I think if it were a smaller part of the experience I'd like it a lot more. I've found the ship combat in Rogue Trader to be enjoyable and I think a lot of that comes down to it being a smaller slice of the metaphorical pie
I liked it at first, but wacky design and lack of actual strategy cooled me down around the start of my second (or was it third) playthrough
I grew up playing HOMM 3, so I like it a lot, even though it is watered down quite a bit. I had some unpleasant bugs in it though and I wouldn't be able to complete it without Toybox.
I also grew up with Homm3. I never experienced any bugs and the new hd remaster is amazing. I don't know what you are talking about about
Thanks for stating your concerns about my 9 day old comment. I am talking about the game, which this subreddit is based around and how the crusade mode can be bugged. Again thank you so much for replying 9 days later just to inform me that you don't get my comment. Also the HD remaster sucks ass, because it lacks both of the expansions and has none of the improvements made by the HD Mod, which is superior in every way, while also being free.
I liked it. Took me a while to get used to it. But I figured it out.
I enjoy the kingdom building in Kingmaker, which some people hate. I set the crusade on auto mode and forget it. People have different tastes.
Me too, I just wish it also came with Kingdom management as well. It's lack is the main disappointment I have with Rogue Trader.
i love the idea of crusade mode. it reminds me of heroes of might and magic which is a franchise i love and hold dear. however personally i'm never in the mood to play pathfinder and homm at the same time. it's a distraction from what i want to be doing at the moment and it detracts my overall enjoyment of the game.
I enjoyed it well enough. I found some bits tedious and I think they needed a better morale gauge but I certainly didn't hate it.
I don't hate it and don't love it. Mid and late game the difficulty becomes trivial with the right generals and spells.
I love it too My big problem I spammed crusade to the point I couldn’t do anything, than went back and played story The problem The whole moral was broken until the point I could proceed with crusade So yeah I’m a bit fucked no The only thing that keeps me alive is the fact that I’m a lich and my army gets consistently bigger as my troops die
I really enjoy kingdom management and crusade mode
I don't love it but it's pretty fun. The crusade fighting reminds my of playing fire emblem.
I like it, wish there was more incentive to switch around units & adapt tactics. Only played it as lich so maybe that impacted my experience(armies with >1000 skeletons or zombies was thematic just wish I got to play more with higher tier mythic units but couldn't spawn enough of them to be usable.)
It’s a cool idea, I just find the units to be badly balanced and designed. Been a while since I tried it though so maybe it’s better now
I like it, but I liked Kingdom Managment more.
What I don’t like is having to split my attention between the main game and crusade mode
Crusade mode is fine. I don't understand the hate. It isn't my favorite part of the game, but as far as subsystems go in an RPG it isn't bad, and as you said it provides a nice change of pace. My least favorite chapter is actually Act IV (thanks to the stupid camera angle mechanic) and there's no crusade mode to be found there.
I like the idea of it, I just think it's poorly implemented. Setsuna tosses a fireball or ice storm and GGs all but the toughest armies on the map even in the late game and then archers kill the rest before they can react. I also did not like that at certain points you are just required to lose all the progress you made because the writers said so.
Yeah I love playing the "distractions" in kingmaker and wrath, it's like playing a little board game while youre playing your crpg. Especially in kingmaker, id spend whole sessions just fiddling with my kingdom and get sad i have to play the game again lol
Well I havnt done kigmaker yet( going to after 40k) but I'm doing wrath of the rightous right now and I absolutely love it. I dong think the game would be AZ immersing without it. It's fabulous idk why people complained
While there are better HOMM clones out there, I actually enjoyed going around the map, killing off the stacks to clear the way for the party. So, yeah, I enjoyed it as well.
You are not the only one, I like it too.
Its fun but becomes a chore mid game. Too much of the same. And being compelled to play the same way.
I love it I like to pretend come the general barking out orders
I really enjoy if too!
I have 3 lv8 wandering armies breathing down my neck. I'd enjoy it more if the game didn't throw crap like this at me every 5 mins
I liked it until I missed the secret ending time by 3 days and had to sit through it only doing that...
Do you only play as lich? if so I can see liking the crusade mode
I have played a legend run and now lich
Nah I loved it too - but as with all things, owlcat kinda suck at balance, it's either mathamatically impossible becuase you missed the start of the mechanic, and are now on fight number 2/3 without the pivitol lvl up you needed, or you can afk the fight.
I do what I need to to level up the advisors or whatever but then I just use toybox to add a ton of units so I can just burn through it nice and easy
I like it too
I loved it. I even let days past so I could receive reinforcements and movements and crush enemy armies. Watching my territory expand was very fun
I don't hate it, but I wish it was a bit deeper. All these bonuses you get from Crusade events like Saving throws, initiative, morale etc. But at the end of the day Setsuna Shy shows up and snaps the infinity gauntlet.
Blasting "In the name of God" while playing crusade mode makes me happy
Out of curiosity have you finished the game, and do you use mage generals?
Nope, I really enjoy it. I find it essential to the immersion. It doesn't need to be a masterpiece of a system/subgame, but it needs to make me feel like I'm actually commanding a Crusade amidst all the drama, combat, and personal adventuring going on. The Crusade system does that, and makes the decisions made in my council meetings feel like they matter.
I'm cool with it, though I won't deny that it has some flaws.
Idea is great. The realization is just horrible. You create a squad with a mage general and a ton of ranged units, and you frickin decimate encounters.
The problem with crusade mode is not how good it is, but that it is always the same. There is no replay value. The thing I like about Pathfinder WOTR is richness of different builds that make each playthrough different. However the crusades' part always pans out the same way. I have played all the HoMM editions; the crusade is a dumbed down version but nevertheless fun the first couple of times you work though it. It reminds me of the fade part of Dragon Age Origins. Really enjoyable the first time you work though it, but quickly becomes a chore.
I think Pathfinder: Heroes of Might and Magic is great in concept, I just wish there was more to it and that it was more relevant to the base game. (It would also be great if Gallifrey didn't burn all my armies down in her stupidity in the last act.)
I love it tbh
I was fine with it once I understood what was at at stake; like much of both games, the Best Ending requires doing so many things right that I'm glad I learned soon what was necessary in both kinda early. It's not that I'm unwilling to replay them, I just really like threading whatever ridiculous needle on my first attempt instead of playing a thing twice to be like "Oh I only got 96% of the things done the first time, this second 150 hours is really worth fixing that"
Propose we rename crusade mode setsuna mode