Review: Pillars of Eternity (PS4)

I recently finished my first playthrough of Pillars of Eternity. I played on Easy (default difficulty), did some side-quests, completed the Caed Nua (fort/home sub-storyline) but this was not a completionist playthrough. Obviously there are some spoilers within but I’ve kept them as light and possible and don’t believe they compromise the story significantly.

Character Creation

There’s a huge degree of choice here, which affects both combat and roleplaying. As well as both genders, there are six races, each with at least one subtype, eleven classes (I erroneously said thirteen in my early impressions blog), customisable attribute stats and numerous background options.

Of the races, there are the fantasy staples of men, elves and dwarves, along with the unique aumaua (reptilian beefcakes), orlans (pointy-eared midgets), and godlikes (who look a bit freaky). The classes include standard fare (rangers, fighters, rogues etc) and some more unusual options (ciphers, chanters etc).

The only real downside to character creation is that there are so many options it can be hard to pick what to go for.

Story

The protagonist begins as part of a caravan headed for Gilded Vale, where the local lord has offered a good deal for new settlers. However, the protagonist has fallen ill, and so camp is made beside some ruins. What could possibly go wrong?

After the wrongdoing occurs, the player learns their character has become a Watcher, able to see into people’s past lives. It’s a bit freaky, and you continue on your journey to find out more…

The game is text- and lore-heavy. Personally, that’s not a problem (although it is a little overdone early on) but for some people this will be off-putting. One thing that did irk me was that there’s a lot of voice-over but sometimes (in the same conversation) the voice will be absent entirely and it’ll be just text, which is a little jarring.

I found five (there are more, it seems) companions on my playthrough, and each was distinctive both in combat and story terms. They’d have banter together, interject into my own conversations, and sometimes you can take them aside for a chat. They’re a good little crew, each with their own motivations and character.

World-building is extensive, and if you want to delve into it there is extra information (both lore and gameplay relevant) in the bestiary, as well as an encyclopaedia of information about gods and so forth.

As for the central plot, it hangs together well whilst allowing plenty of scope for side-questing. I don’t want to say too much. I did enjoy it, though here and there the twists were a little easy to see coming.

Gameplay

Combat is real time but can be paused easily and commands given to each party member (including animals following rangers, or summoned beasts). There’s a nice array of interesting commands that enable magical or physical effects and make, as usual, a balanced party more than the sum of its parts.

One thing that was absent which would’ve improved things was tactics. You can set a basic disposition for companions but you can’t pre-set tactical commands (as per FFXII or Dragon Age: Origins). On the upside, you can determine one or two customised formations, putting your beefcakes on the front row and having the weedy wizards at the back.

Combat isn’t scaled, so enemies have a certain toughness. If you wander into an area that’s beyond you, you will know, as the enemy sets about transforming your party of adventurers into worm food. There also isn’t random combat (you can sneak past enemies sometimes, if you like) and once you kill all enemies in an area, that’s usually it and they’ll be gone forever.

Experience is granted both for combat victories and advancing quests, and proceeds on an increasing basis (so, 1,000 xp for one level, then 2,000, then 3,000 etc) so the rate of levelling declines over time. I was level 10 when I finished the game, but I suspect it would’ve been possible to get significantly higher.

There is crafting of potions, cooking of food and enchanting of weapons and armour but this isn’t given a particular introduction (check the bottom of the inventory menu) and I missed it for some time. Good incentive to collect shiny rocks and magic weeds, which take up no inventory space.

If party members are knocked out (and they can be killed permanently but this is easy to head off) they acquire injuries that damage their stats, and if they’re tired much the same occurs. Both fatigue and wounds can be removed by resting either at a camp (camping supplies are limited, you can’t lug around 20 odd) or an inn. These rests can also confer bonuses, so paying for the swankiest room at the inn can be well worth it.

As well as a number of fleshed out party members, you can also make your own at any inn. Especially useful for higher levels when getting the balance just right will matter more.

Whether you fix up the fort of Caed Nua or not is up to you. There is a related quest line, and certain features offer resting bonuses or other advantages (I particularly enjoy the bounty tasks).

Away from combat the gameplay focuses upon the numerous decisions the protagonist makes. These vary a lot by choice (being nice or nasty etc), and by unique opportunities your particular race, class, background might afford. This gives a real sense of your adventure being a unique one rather than running through the exact same routine every time you play. In most RPGs nowadays, decisions that change things are actually pretty rare. Here, they seem to happen in pretty much every quest.

Graphics

The isometric view can’t be rotated but you can zoom in or out and the camera is rarely problematic. The nature of the game doesn’t place the emphasis on graphics, but they’re clean enough, and I like the style of art used in the rare ‘cut-scenes’ (parchment with ink drawings and options to do this or that) and bestiary. Functional and fine would be the way I’d put it.

Sound

The music practically oozes fantasy, sometimes reminiscent of Lord of the Rings, sometimes Final Fantasy or The Witcher 3. Sound effects are pretty good and voice-acting is generally strong. One quibble I’d have (and this might just be me, because I’m quite into voice-acting) is that sometimes you can tell when two characters have the same actor/actress and it makes my VA senses tingle (although it’s a long way from Oblivion…).

Longevity/Replayability

The game advertises itself as 70 hours. Not sure how long I spent, but I can easily imagine exceeding that amount. Varying difficulty settings, roleplaying opportunities, and some extra settings (like having your save file auto-delete if you die) certainly open up the possibility of multiple replays.

Bugs and Other Issues

I’ve mentioned a few things above and shan’t repeat them, but one I’d add would be that load screens are both frequent and long. Usually this sort of thing doesn’t bother me (Dragon Age Inquisition/Skyrim never made me gripe) but they are excessively long/frequent.

I only had the one freeze throughout, during a load screen, which isn’t too bad. So, loading aside, not much to complain about.

Conclusion

Some rough edges to sand off and polish, and if you dislike lore/text-heavy games then avoid this one, but if you like an in-depth story world with a great range of roleplaying opportunities then this is very much a game you should seriously consider buying.

Thaddeus

Review: Complete Works of Tacitus

The edition I got is by The Modern Library, 1942.

The vast majority of the book is the Annals (which covers almost all of the reigns of Tiberius, Claudius and Nero) and the History (which covers 69-70AD, a very tumultuous time). At the back there are shorter sections, namely a biography of Gnaeus Julius Agricola (Tacitus’ father-in-law), a summary of Germanic tribes, and a discussion about oratory.

This is my second reading of the book. I was a little less than enthused by the first. I didn’t dislike it, just felt a bit apathetic.

Upon a second reading, I did enjoy it. That’s not to say it rivals my favourites. Tacitus, a little like Thucydides, is unafraid of an eight clause sentence and sometimes this can lead to the meaning being difficult to grasp at first glance. However, he does his best to be objective, sometimes relating two varying accounts of the same event when he’s heard both and doesn’t know which to be true. The author also often indicates what he believes and if he has a firm reason for believing a certain account to be true.

The period of which Tacitus writes is almost entirely one of bad emperors. The exceptions would be the misled and personally naive Claudius, and Vespasian, whose rise to power came amid much bloodshed in the Year of the Four Emperors (69AD). Accordingly, the Complete Works is brimming with tyranny, treachery and civil war.

It’s also very interesting for watching how the remaining vestiges of republican authority (Tiberius being only the second emperor, after Augustus) faded. Amidst the dark days there are also examples of nobility (one man accused by Tiberius of being a friend of a fallen associate of the emperor replied that he could hardly be expected to be a better judge of character than the emperor himself, an unusual stroke of boldness that saw him go unpunished, a rarity for the time).

The period covered is similar to much of Suetonius’ Twelve Caesars, but is written in greater depth, and with more accuracy. A broadsheet to the Suetonian tabloid, if you like. Sadly, time has robbed us of certain portions (such as the final years of Nero’s reign) but it is mostly intact.

The Agricola biography is perhaps rather less objective, but nevertheless of interest as it covers campaigning in Britain. I enjoyed the discussion of Germanic tribes, particularly the praise Tacitus had for their monogamy. The final section, on oratory, was my least favourite, it must be said.

For early imperial Rome, this is a good set of works, particularly for the Year of the Four Emperors which is covered in some detail. Perhaps not the best book for an introduction to classical history, but for those who have read a bit already, it’s a worthwhile addition.

Thaddeus

Medieval Taxation

Death and taxes are life’s only certainties.

In the UK today there are many taxes, but the big three are income tax, VAT (a sales tax that is widely but not universally applied), and National Insurance (effectively extra income tax, but I think pensioners don’t pay it).

None of these existed in the medieval world. Income tax was only brought in by Pitt the Younger as a temporary measure (ahem) to ensure we had sufficient funds to fight Napoleon.

How did medieval monarchs get the money necessary just to fund the day-to-day expenses of the state, as well as the huge sums essential for castle-building, going on crusade or that age old expense of war with France?

The king was the greatest landowner in the country, which meant he had, on a personal level, a vast income from rents and the like. However, this was not enough to cover significant expenditure. There were a range of smaller taxes and tolls (not all going to him directly) which I’ll mention below, but the quickest way to raise cash was a general levy on wealth.

This might be levied at a rate of a tenth of a man’s total assets. So, if you had £100 of goods, it’d be £10. Needless to say, this was not a popular thing. In fact, it could often be very, very difficult to get such a levy approved by the nobility and clergy (the degree to which their consent was legally required varied over the medieval period, but given how many rebellions there were it was never a good thing to repeatedly piss off your own nobles).

One of the reasons King John was and is so reviled is the amount he taxed. John, when not starving prisoners to death, was a devious taxman and worked out he could make a lot of cash without needing to curry favour with the nobility simply by hiking the fines for various transgressions. He did this to punitive levels, and mulcted huge sums from his people. He got a lot of money, and resentment, this way.

Edward I, the grandson of John, had a rather clever idea which worked very well for a number of years. The big export of England was wool, and Edward arranged for the customs to be handled by Italian bankers who, in return, ensured the king always had access to credit. It was mutually beneficial, as the bankers got steady income from a guaranteed source and the king could get ready cash very quickly whenever he needed it (until the bankers over-stretched themselves elsewhere and the arrangement collapsed, but that was hardly Edward’s fault).

Knighthood could be a punishment. This sounds odd, but knights were sometimes defined by wealth (an order might go out commanding every man worth £40 or more to turn up at a given time and place to be knighted). As knights, they’d be expected to fight for the king when required, for a certain length of time, and perhaps furnish a few soldiers themselves. Needless to say, many men were not taken with this idea. Scutage was a way around this problem. From the Latin ‘scutum’ (shield), the term means cash given in lieu of fighting, enabling the king to hire mercenaries and enabling the reluctant knight to avoid going to war. Once again, John got quite a lot of money this way (and yet more resentment).

There were also a number of tolls applied to pay for various things. Pontage was a toll for the repair and maintenance of bridges, stallage was a toll for stallholders in the market, pavage for roads, murage for walls and wharfage for, er, wharves.

It’s interesting that the medieval form of taxes focused on assets and specific actions. There was no attempt to tax income, and it’d be hundreds of years before income tax, now the mainstay of the tax system, came into being. The overall tax burden on people was generally low, but their overall prosperity also wasn’t great, healthcare was often actively harmful, and a bad harvest would see thousands die.

Of the two certainties, taxes were lower than today, but death was eminently more commonplace.

Thaddeus

Common historical mistakes in TV and film

I’m not picking out specific films, just commenting on some historical inaccuracies which are common. Some have a film-making excuse (such as the lighting one), others are just plain wrong.

I’ve never used a bow, but I know that the war bows used (most famously by the English at Agincourt) in the medieval period were immensely powerful. So powerful, in fact, that a huge amount of training was necessary not merely for the skill aspect, but to have the physical strength necessary to draw one back. If an average modern man tried it, their skeleton would give way before the bow did.

Even if you were very strong, you would draw back and either loose immediately (for a high arc, aiming for a mass of men type shot) or pause very briefly to target a specific individual. You most certainly would not hold it whilst your buffoon of a commanding officer had hundreds of archers in agonising exertion because he decided to leave a huge gap between the words ‘draw’ and ‘fire’ [more on that below]. It’d be physically impossible, as well as immensely stupid.

Whilst we’re on bows, they aren’t ‘fired’. They aren’t firearms, there is literally no fire involved (unlike guns). They’re loosed or shot. This is a pet hate of mine (although it’s very easy to do it by accident, so it’s a bit more forgiveable than the idiotic idea of having men’s shoulders torn apart by needlessly holding back a fully drawn bow for half a minute).

Scots and woad do not mix. Woad was applied by Picts (the word is from the Roman name for them, the same root as the word ‘picture’, because the Picts were painted). The Scotti were a Hibernian (Irish) tribe that migrated to Caledonia, killing and conquering the Picts. As an aside, woad was antiseptic, and may’ve helped slightly with preventing wounds becoming infected.

An understandable inaccuracy relates to plate armour. Plate armour (beneath which would be mail and a quilted jacket that was, by itself, strong enough to sometimes prevent an arrow piercing the body) was bloody fantastic. Medieval knights shifted from the sword and shield to the two-handed sword because the armour was so good a shield was pretty much superfluous. Curved metal plates with mail and gambeson underneath rendered a knight almost impervious to attack (the longbow was something of an exception to this, and one reason French knights detested English archers). At Agincourt, an awful lot of French knights either drowned in mud or were stabbed in the skull (either through eye holes in helmets, or after having their helmets wrenched off). Getting through plate is a devil of a job. Something like a crow’s beak works relatively well but in a duel a sword would outclass such a top-heavy weapon.

However, in films you do have to kill and wound characters. Having everyone wander about in surprising safety would rather kill dramatic tension, so this is the most understandable inaccuracy. That said, stabbing’s the way to go if you want to knock off a knight in armour. Slash at him with a sword and you may annoy him by scratching his favourite breastplate, but bruised pride is about as far as the wound will go.

Battles often degenerate into mêlées, but this was generally not accurate. Whilst the medieval period didn’t quite have the strategy of the Greek and Roman world, tactics and battlefield deployments were not haphazard, nor did warfare regress to pre-Roman Celtic mayhem. Being together in a unit is advantageous. If you’re spearmen, you get a bristling hedge of steel to face the enemy, and a shield wall to confront their attack. If you’re archers, you get a cloud of arrows which is rather harder to avoid than just the one. Not only that, foot soldiers who are spread out are a horseman’s dream to destroy. In formation, foot soldiers can fend off cavalry with relative ease. Routed, infantry are target practice for horsemen.

There are also a number of little everyday inaccuracies, some of which are understandable, others of which are odd. Maps were pretty uncommon (there are some famous examples, such as the old mappa mundi, but these were exceptions rather than the rule). They can be useful for storytelling purposes, but mostly they weren’t needed. A man from a village would know the way to the nearest town. If he needed to go on from then, he’d ask for directions. The absence of maps and understanding of geography beyond the immediate vicinity did have occasional perverse consequences, such as the horde of peasants that followed the First Crusade asking if they were nearly at Jerusalem after a few days of walking (they weren’t).

Clothes were not bland. They were often bright colours, sometimes of differing hues. Mud-stained peasant brown was not the extent of the 14^th century colour chart for poor people. (Some believe Robin Hood was actually invented by dyers to advertise their wares).

Cartwheels have spokes. This is not high technology, it’s common sense. A solid wheel weighs a lot more, creating more work for your donkey and increasing the risk of the cart sinking into mud.

Thatch has to be thick. Several feet, at least. You can’t have a few layers of straw and call that thatch because it won’t actually work.

In the modern world, we’re used to constant and widespread light. But that just didn’t happen in the medieval world. Yes, there were light sources, including the hearth, candles, lamps and torches. But these things aren’t free. The hearth devours wood, candles cost money, lamp oil is expensive (which reminds me, boiling oil wasn’t used by those defending sieges so much as boiling water or sand [much cheaper]) and torches only last thirty minutes or so.

When an explorer enters an ancient ruin and torches are burning, or a medieval clerk has eight damned candles burning on his desk or scattered about for a visually pleasing shot, it’s just plain wrong. There’s often excessive lighting in films (in modern day settings, there are sometimes half a dozen lamps in a room, or more) but it makes no sense at all in a medieval setting.

Thaddeus

Proofreading and formatting services

Bit of a break from my usual reviews and historical rambles to bring you some more serious business.

Having proofed and formatted numerous solo works, from short stories to full-blown novels, I’m now offering proofreading and formatting to others, on a professional basis.

Full information can be found at my new website: www.twwritingservices.com

Both services are intended for text that is complete from an editorial/creative perspective, and requires only the final (if time-consuming) touches of a proofread and formatting. Proofreading will be a line-by-line reading to find and correct/delete spelling and grammatical errors, whilst formatting gets text into a form that can be submitted to an electronic or hard copy self-publishing service.

Prices will vary somewhat according to word count, error frequency, and whether there’s anything finickity, but a rough guideline (not including discounts) would be £50-60 for e-book formatting and around £200-240 for proofreading.

A range of discounts are available, the best being 30% off for a limited time, to help encourage new clients. (Discounts are also available for returning clients and for those commissioning both services at once).

If you’ve got a finished story on your hands but would prefer someone else spend hours doing the donkey work, give me a bell at twwritingservices@gmail.com and we’ll discuss getting it into shape for submission.

Thaddeus