Neverwinter Nights 2 Walkthrough - Original Campaign - Part 4

Neverwinter Nights 2 - Original Campaign - Walkthrough Part 4 - Neverwinter Docks, Neverwinter Merchant Quarter, Skymirror

This is one of a series of walkthroughs/hints for Neverwinter Nights 2 (Original Campaign). Click here for a listing of all our guides for Neverwinter Nights 2.

Neverwinter Docks

• When you visit Duncan, you will be presented with your first major choice in the game with very far-reaching consequences: To work for the City Watch, or to work for the Thieve's Guild. In general, the quests mirror each other. There are minor consequences once you take over Crossroad Keep.
• Sand will buy your items for a lot of gold -- about twice as much as other merchants if you have even very little net Appraise skill, and especially if you have the Merchant's Friend feat. You can make a profit by buying from other merchants and reselling to Sand, or possibly by buying from him and reselling to him, but this is more likely an oversight from the Merchant's Friend feat. Regardless, before you proceed to Act II, sell absolutely everything you are sure you won't need because you won't get a better deal than from Sand. I recommend stripping party members of gear if they do not commonly adventure with you, as you will have the opportunity to find or buy better gear later anyway.
• With the expansion installed, you can access the Party Roster from your menu instead of just from the Sunken Flagon. The storage at Fort Locke is more convenient with the crafting tables nearby and more open access, but you do need to check in at the Sunken Flagon now and then for special events and dialogue.
• After meeting Duncan, you can return to West Harbor for new developments and dialogue, but no new quests. The Swamp Ruins are reopened but still empty.
• Later in the City Watch / Thieve's Guild missions you will come across a child, Wolf, in trouble. Helping him gets you "Wolf's Minions" in Crossroad Keep later -- they basically provide shortcuts for otherwise tedious travelling within the fort.

Neverwinter Merchant Quarter

• If you stole Leldon's Lucky Coin without triggering any of the traps in his hideout, you will not confront Leldon there. Later, after he confronts Neeshka in the park and flees, your journal will say something about fighting Leldon prematurely but making off with his coin -- a reference to fighting Leldon in his hideout when Neeshka tries to steal his coin.
• You will come across a child accused of pickpocketing. Helping her gets you "Wolf's Minions" in Crossroad Keep later -- they basically provide shortcuts for otherwise tedious travelling within the fort.

Tomb of the Betrayers

• Fenthick will stop to attack (and he has a powerful melee attack) when he is not being pursued by someone trying to hit him with a melee weapon. When pursued, he basically tries to kill the pursuer by getting them to step on traps in his special room. You can therefore have a character with the Evasion feat (and maybe Leldon's Lucky Coin for a +3 Reflex Save) chase him and avoid all the trap projectiles while other characters shoot or cast spells on him.
• After this mission, if you decline the reward from Judge Oleff, he offers a discount at the store. This is a sizable 25% discount when purchasing something only, and does not affect the return you get when you sell something to him.

Skymirror

• Straightforward but highly scripted area.
• Pay attention to the dialogue and you will realize that Elanee has been watching you since before the attack on West Harbor. If your Influence with her was somehow high enough prior to this, you will have learned from her that that she has been watching since you were a child.

Working for the City Watch

• Once you get to Crossroad Keep, if you worked for the City Watch, you can aim to get the Warden of the Keep epithet, which is a sort of "best-case good ruler" achievement. It apparently does nothing for you, however, and you need to still choose or succeed at very specific actions. Also, you probably cannot get the Dreadlord of the Keep epithet for your management of Crossroad Keep.
• At Crossroad Keep you will get two extra events -- Dobbson and the Sheriff from Leeves -- if you work for the City Watch, which can further modify management stats for the Keep.

Neverwinter's Newest Watchman

Enforcing Order in the Docks

• Trent - If you fail to get him inside with Diplomacy, subsequent conversation can gain you Influence with Khelgar and Elanee, or you can still talk him in when the other guards come (for 75xp).
• Cart - You can accept a bribe and then reposition your party before looting the cart (which makes the thugs hostile). This will net you 200 gp extra from the bribe.
• Injured Wolf - This triggers Elanee's sidequest to go to the Skymirror (which replaces the Maiden's Glade area).

Weapon Smugglers

• There is a group of mixed Watch and Thugs (just before the barricade encounter). If you go down the alley on the east side, you can emerge behind them and they will remain neutral and not talk to you. You must backtrack along the main road until you walk over the invisible script trigger.
• Neeshka will not search the shipment wagon to find the Namarra (Neversleep) +1 rapier unless Khelgar is present when the thugs and Watch are defeated. Khelgar is needed to initiate the dialogue tree for this. If you bring in Khelgar afterwards (e.g., using the Party Roster menu), he will not initiate dialogue -- He must be present before you kill the last thug.

The Warehouse

• Barlowe stands behind some crates with enough space that he looks accessible on foot, but is actually not. You will need to quickly destroy the crates to reach him if you want to melee him and take him down fast. A couple of area effect spells should do it, or you can also try putting a long-lasting area effect like Spike Growth or Evard's Black Tentacles and then walking out of line of sight. Since he can't walk out to you either, he would be stuck in the damaging area of effect.
• It is easy to get surrounded by the thugs here, who can have an Attack Bonus approximately equal to your level. At ECL 8, they had an Attack Bonus of about 9, which means even a fairly high unbuffed Armor Class of 24 is very vulnerable to their Sneak Attacks, which can strike for a lot of damage and tear down a Stoneskin spell quickly. Engage with melee quickly to keep your spellcasters out of trouble, then hit them with spells that need no Reflex save, such as Ice Storm, Evard's black Tentacles, or Magic Missile.
• There is a lot of good loot here you can haul out and sell to fund rebuilding Crossroad Keep later.

Protecting The Watch's Informant

• All the thugs here start Stealthed and use Stealth until they are spotted with Spot and are attacked. Even if you can locate them with Listen, if you haven't located them with Spot (e.g., you see them moving about, but they are all shaded black), you cannot use any attack on them that requires a hit roll and spells which require any sort of hit roll (e.g., ranged Touch) will fail due to Concealment unless it is a danger-zone type spell, such as Evard's Black Tentacles.
• Probably the best way to handle this dangerous area is to force them to come at you through a doorway you control with one or two melee characters, and have the rest use ranged attacks and spells. For spells, go for those with no Reflex saving throw because high-level rogues completely evade all damage with the Evasion class feat if they make their Reflex save.

City Watch Undercover

• This optional quest is available when you are accused of the massacre at Ember later in Act II. When you go to see your patron knight you can also speak with Brelaina to get this quest.
• At any time you can end the encounter anytime by blowing your cover -- the only reason to continue it is to actually get gold out of them (7500gp) and 300xp for completing the transaction.
• The backup called in by the thugs apparently teleports in because they cannot be detected beforehand even though it appears they come out of Stealth.
• If you use Appraise to reduce the price, you get less gold (75%). If you fail to hold your price, you get even less (half). Intimidation will never work unless paired with Wisdom and is the best option.

Working for the Thieve's Guild

• The Thieve's Guild quests mirror the City Guard quests. If you don't have the Expansions installed, then you will need to go this route to access the Shadow Thief of Amn prestige class.
• If you do take the Thieve's Guild route, you do not get to kill Moire and get her Moonstone Mask or Rapier +3.
• Once you take over Crossroad Keep in Act II, you cannot refuse to have the black market merchant Uncus, which means you cannot get the Warden of the Keep epithet. There isn't really anything getting that epithet does for you, however.
• Overall, we recommend you play through the Thieve's Guild events just to see how they run, but for more events and interest, working for the City Guild is better.

Neverwinter Nights 2 Walkthrough - Original Campaign - Part 3

Neverwinter Nights 2 - Original Campaign - Walkthrough Part 3 - Highcliff, Shandra's Farm, Highcliff Castle Ruins, Lizardfolk Cave

This is one of a series of walkthroughs/hints for Neverwinter Nights 2 (Original Campaign). Click here for a listing of all our guides for Neverwinter Nights 2.

Highcliff

• As you head up the stairs from shore to HighCliff, the camera will zoom closer to your characters and you will find you can't zoom back out. To reset this, switch to Exploration or Strategy Mode, and use your middle mouse button to change the viewing angle. The zoom should reset to normal relative to your current altitude.
• You can sometimes steal a bit of gold from the randomly generated villagers who come and go from buildings you cannot enter. Most of the time, they have nothing on them, however.
• There are cheap hats/helmets for sale that provide Concentration +2 for your spellcasters.

Shandra's Farm
This is an entirely scripted scene. No action occurs here at this time.

Highcliff Castle Ruins

• Slann as a temporary companion can be affected by normally enemy-only area effect spells such as Body of the Sun. Like Commander Tann at the Graveyard, keep him out of your way by right-clicking on him and issuing him a command to Stand Your Ground.

Lizardfolk Cave

• This location is only accessible if you kill Slann or attack the lizardmen when Slann takes you to meet them. If you negotiate a deal with them, the Cave does not show on your overland map and you cannot travel to it.
• Killing the lizardmen is worth about 1,290 xp at ECL 7, plus some good treasure which can, if nothing else, be sold for lots of gold. Of particular note is the Major Circle of Blasting worn by the Lizardfolk Shaman.

Neverwinter Nights 2 Walkthrough - Original Campaign - Part 2

Neverwinter Nights 2 - Original Campaign - Walkthrough Part 2 - Weeping Willow Inn, Swamp Cave, Fort Locke, Graveyard, Bandit Camp, Maiden's Glade

This is one of a series of walkthroughs/hints for Neverwinter Nights 2 (Original Campaign). Click here for a listing of all our guides for Neverwinter Nights 2.

Weeping Willow Inn

• You will probably be able to reach ECL 5 if you clear out the Inn and finish the small quests there.
• After the Weeping Willow Inn, you have the option of going to the Swamp Cave, but I would skip that and instead rush to grab Neeshka at Fort Locke, and then Elanee on the road between Fort Locke and Highcliff. There are two main reasons you may want to do this:
  
  • The size of your party does NOT affect the XP you get per kill unless you go solo.
  • You can control Companion levelling. This is not as critical if you are willing to use the NWN2 console and re-level them.

Swamp Cave

• If you already rescued Galen from his bodyguards outside Fort Locke, you will not encounter him here and you will miss one of the opportunities to gain +1 Influence with Khelgar. Aside from this, there is no dialogue here for any of the companions.
• Lots of traps here. Best to come back with Neeshka and either Disarm or try to Recover the traps if you are not a Rogue.
• The Bone Phoenix inflicts good fire damage, so try to get it before going to the Graveyard where the undead there have good Damage Reduction against non-magical physical attacks.

Fort Locke

• If you rescue Galen here before going to the Swamp Cave, you will not encounter him there, and you will not have to compete with his guards for XP from the lizardmen. If you see him here but do not trigger his encounter, you can still encounter him outside the Swamp Cave.
• You can also kill Galen, but you will not have access to his store, and the unique rapier he drops (Namarra (Neversleep) +1; item code "nw_wswmrp008") has only a DC 14 effect (which means you will likely see a creature fail probably less than 50% of the time -- on top of the effect triggering only 75% of the time). On the other hand, because a roll of "1" on a saving throw is automatic failure, in the long run this weapon will more or less have a flat 5% chance of affecting any creature, no matter what their level. If you are going to play around with crafting, I recommend you opt for having access to his store instead. You can also get this rapier in Neverwinter later.
• You can make some cash by buying crafting components, crafting an item, and then selling it back to a merchant. But once you use a mold, it is destroyed.
• If you ask Vallis for a reward to investigate Tann's disappearance, you receive a +1 Evil alignment shift -- but only if you asked for the reward right away. You can wait until he mentions the dangers involved, and ask for compensation without any alignment shift.

The Graveyard

• It will help a lot if you have done the Swamp Cave first and given Khelgar the Bone Phoenix morningstar.
• If you are having a hard time with the Shadow Priest, retreat out of the room and force him and his minions to come at you one or two at a time through the door. At the doorway, have Elanee put down a Spike Growth, which lasts a very long time. One strategy for a direct assault involves having Khelgar run around the zombies to strike at him, and shooting him in the meanwhile with Neeshka. Elanee doesn't have a lot of ranged spells, so she can instead either shoot or cast Body of the Sun and wade in to defensively engage the zombies and keep them off Khelgar. Also, if Khelgar is close to a weakened zombie, have him hit the zombie instead and trigger a free-attack from Cleave to hit the Shadow Priest.
• Commander Tann joins you as a temporary companion if you agree to look for his men with him. He is added to your party, but not being a true party member, he is vulnerable to spells that normally avoid allies. For example, the Druid spell Body of the Sun does not normally hit party members, but it will hit temporary ones like Tann or Slann (at the HighCliff Castle Ruins later). Also, his AI is very simple in that it just runs to whatever enemy he detects. What you can do to keep him out of harm's way and to avoid foiling your tactics is to right-click on him and issue an order to Stand Your Ground (you can do this even though you cannot left click to select him and command him directly).

Bandit Camp

• There are a lot of archers and a couple of spellcasters here that are dangerous because you are still at a fairly low level and failing a couple of saving throws can get you killed. Run around behind walls or close doors to force them to come to you.
• If you haven't rescued Tann, you cannot dialogue with the Bandit Chief. Successfully negotiating the Bandit Chief's surrender is worth 700 xp. At ECL 6, the Bandit Chief and his party are worth 333 xp (plus treasure) if killed.
• Typically the Bandit Chief and his immediate bodyguards start neutral if dialogue is allowed. If you come here before rescuing Tann, and open the door to the room without entering, then get into a fight nearby, his bodyguards can be lured out (responding to nearby allies in combat), but the Bandit Chief will *sometimes* remain inside.
• During the prisoner rescue (which you can avoid if you can talk to the Bandit Chief), the refugees will follow the main character. You can move the main character into a corner in the prisoner compound, thus moving the prisoners back in and out of sight of the bandits, who can then focus on your Companions. Here, it is helpful to have Elanee as well, as Khelgar and Neeshka alone can have a hard time with all the Sneak Attacks.
• The only dialogue here (involving Khelgar and Neeshka) occurs after you lead the refugees out.

Maiden's Glade

• Typically the last area before you reach HighCliff, but I recommend doing this easy area early to get Elanee early. Also, controlling Elanee's levelling early will make her much more useful later on.
• Even if you told Elanee you prefer to investigate the Glade, you are allowed to leave. It is a very small area with little to do, however, so you might as well finish it while you are there.

Neverwinter Nights 2 Walkthrough - Original Campaign - Part 1

Neverwinter Nights 2 - Original Campaign - Walkthrough Part 1 - Uninvited Guests, High Harvest Fair; Act I - West Harbor, Swamp Ruins

This is one of a series of walkthroughs/hints for Neverwinter Nights 2 (Original Campaign). Click here for a listing of all our guides for Neverwinter Nights 2.

Uninvited Guests
Prior to Act I of the Original Campaign, you can play through the short standalone module "Uninvited Guests", and the tutorial / prologue that takes place in West Harbor's High Harvest Fair.
This straightforward module will net you about 220 XP, and two pricey magic items. Before Exporting your character to import into the Campaign, put the items in inventory instead of wearing them.

Tutorial - High Harvest Fair

• You will lose the Reptile Bane Cudgel from "Uninvited Guests" when you load a saved game if your character was wielding it. You can safely leave it in your inventory. This circumstance does not exist starting in Act 1 (i.e., after the Tutorial/Prologue).
• If you do the Harvest Brawl before earning enough XP to level up (whether you actually take another level or not when you qualify to level up), you might earn slightly more XP for each "kill" depending on whether your character's race has an ECL (Effective Character Level) modifier.
• If you lose to the Mossfelds, you can speak with Brother Merring to set up a rematch. Theoretically, if you defeat two of the Mossfelds then throw the first match, you can defeat them again for slightly more XP in a rematch.
• If you put the Training Clubs and Light Crossbow in a companion's inventory, you can keep them after the Tutorial. Otherwise they are removed.
• In order to accept Lewy Jon's bribe (a Potion of Bless), you must successfully Influence Bevil when you talk to Lewy, and then talk to Orlen. After you take the bribe, you can still dispel the enchantment on the pig, but you cannot then speak with Orlen again to claim a reward.
• If you complete all quests except the one involving Lewy Jon's pig, Amie should have gained enough XP to level up and choose a level 2 spell -- which can be Lesser Dispel, allowing you to save the scroll Greta Starling gave you.

West Harbor Under Siege

• This mission has you competing with NPCs for kills and it is theoretically possible to finish it without gaining any kill XP from the sheer randomness of war -- at any time, an NPC could get lucky and finish off an opponent you were working on, robbing you of all the XP. Or you could do the same to them. Theoretically, it might cause you to fall behind a level, but you can make it up by getting more XP per kill later because you are of a lower level. Try not to worry about it too much.
• While you are still inside your house at the start of this mission, Bevil warns against entering Daeghun's room but there's no consequence either way. Before you leave West Harbor, you can ask Daeghun for help and he will invite you to take whatever you want anyway.
• At the bridge, Georg Redfell tells you he has orders for you. If you ignore him for now and clear West Harbor first, you will not have to compete with him for monster kills. After you have killed the four clumps of duergar/bladelings, go back to him to formally get the quest to rally the militia.
• The enemy clumps in West Harbour are marked as enemies, but the encounters with the West Harbor militia do not activate until you are close enough. Some of Amie's spells have enough range to hit targets outside of their scripted activation range, so if you want her to help (or you want to draw them away from the militia so that you are not competing with them for kills), you can use her Scorching Ray set to "many targets". This will inflict 0 damage, but draw one target to you at a time, while leaving the rest of the encounter dormant. Note that if you are using her Scorching Ray, you will still need line of sight to hit a target since the rays start from the caster.
• Except the Starling farmhouse (which you can only access right before attack wave 3), you can come back to any of the open buildings in this mission later. For example, if you are not a rogue, you could continue the campaign until you pick up Neeshka, and return with her to Open Locks and such instead of bashing open containers and risking damage to treasure inside.
• When rallying the militia, you can pickpocket injured militia before speaking with them. You don't have to use the dialogue option about picking their pocket (unless you want an alignment shift of Chaotic +3) to find anything.
• If you do not have the Open Locks skill, clicking on the door to Pierson's house will cause him to answer the door. You can then dialogue him into opening the door to enter and recruit him for the Rally the Militia quest.
• If you do not help Bevil in the Starling farmhouse just before attack wave 3, you cannot enter it later. If you do go, there will still be some fighting from wave 3 after you exit the house.
• In the final attack wave, some bladelings will go for Daeghun and the archers. They start with injured and down to just 1 hp and can easily be killed by arrows or weak spells--and still give full XP (probably about 48 each at this point in the game).
• You will probably be nearly overloaded with assorted loot by this time.
  
  • You can cache most of it in the cart near the barn, or the barrel in the barn. Ultimately, you will probably want to move it to Fort Locke, where there are several containers near a crafting room that is more conveniently laid out than at Neverwinter.
  • Don't sell anything yet unless you need cash: You might as well wait until you find a better merchant (Sand in Neverwinter gives the best prices), your Appraise skill goes up, and you get Grobnar (who has a Bard Song that can improve skills). Choose the character in your party that has the highest Appraise and compare the price they would get with the price you can get (especially if you have the Merchant's Friend feat). Note that just because you get a good price for things you sell doesn't mean the merchant's price for things you buy from them will be the best. Hold one pricey item for comparison between merchants to see who will give you the best price.
  • Do not cache anything in the Swamp Ruins as that area will be closed to you shortly after the Weeping Willow Inn and reopen only after you've talked to Duncan in Neverwinter.

Swamp Ruins

• There are two floor traps in the ruins, but you do not have to go through that area.
• Using skills to avoid hostilities with the Lizardmen at their altar gives you a flat 100 xp and no treasure. Killing them will probably net you 322 xp as well as a Dagger +1 and 2x Cure Light Wounds potions (unless they were used in combat).

West Harbor

• After the Swamp Ruins, you have to report to Daeghun. Talk to everyone before leaving because after you do, their dialogue changes.
• After you speak with Duncan in Neverwinter, you can come back for different dialogue and news that Bevil has been hurt.

Game Review - Loki: Heroes of Mythology

Game Review - Loki: Heroes of Mythology (See all PC Action Games)

Score +6/-3

Overview
Loki: Heroes of Mythology (See all PC Action Games) is a real-time third-person Diablo-style "fantasy role-playing game". Like most games of this sort, there isn't really any role-playing involved per se since there are little or no choices to be made that really affect the outcome. It is more of a type of "shooter" game where you run around killing interesting monsters in interesting environments.

+ It's a big game with various culture-themed worlds to play through. Compared to Diablo 2 or Titan Quest, there's a lot of gameplay here.
+ There's a lot of gear to get and wear, which keeps things fresh. The items are not merely cosmetically different -- each level of superior item is distinctly different and often quite interesting in their details. For instance, higher-level Norse Warrior armor can have a wolf head for a pauldron/shoulder piece. Some very nice epic-looking pieces are displayed by iconic heroes in the main menu.
+ There's theoretically a lot of replayability since each of the four hero types have three specialization trees, and some of the trees have a viable option of either doing a combat or magic route, for as many as 24 character play styles.
+ You can reset your powers in a skill tree easily and frequently, letting you try different skills or correct allocation mistakes. (You cannot roll back stat increases the same way, though.)
+ The boss fights feel epic, especially when there's a huge boss like Fenris.
+ The game has three tiers that escalate to a heroic/epic look and feel.
- It gets intensely boring very quickly. The map is thick with enemies which bogs things down. This is not normally bad, but you go through big maps that look and feel the same before you come to a plot point and there's a lot of running in between teleport points.
- The rate of progress is very slow, especially for powers. This also contributes to a game that feels very static for a long time.
- In general you will come to rely on just a few powers and increase your ability with them. This also gives a static feel to the game. Play balance between the skill trees is very skewed, but this isn't a problem with the Single Player option.

Battle for Middle Earth 2 - Walkthrough

The Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth II - Hints and Walkthroughs
This post indexes all our hints / walkthroughs for the Battle for Middle Earth II campaigns -- Good, Evil, and Angmar -- all played on HARD Difficulty (120% damage from the enemy, enemy has no limitations on powers and abilities it can choose to use on you).
They are actually best read AFTER you've finished a particular mission or if you are having trouble with one, as you may find a different and interesting approach to the mission than your own -- or have a superior strategy yourself.
None of these strategies really apply for Multiplayer or Skirmish.

Overall, the game plays almost identically to SpellForce. You can build almost anywhere, build an obscene number of archery towers to do the fighting for you, and you might as well spend your units like water because none of them follow you to the next mission (unlike the original Battle for Middle Earth). Only heroes retain veterancy, so you should strive to use them as much as possible and quickly level them to 10. Even then, heroes are often limited in level during various missions.
Something you can often do is to move in with as many heroes as you have first, and if they are in trouble, retreat them and follow up with regular troops. Put heroes on Guard because their attacks are usually strong enough to kill enemy troops in one swing anyway.
For most missions, having a lot of upgraded archers rule. Put them in two teams so that if one team is charged, the other can still attack instead of micromanaging a retreat of some battalions before they are engaged in hand-to-hand.

Campaigns

Good Campaign
EvenStar Powers
Mission 1 - Rivendell
Mission 2 - High Pass
Mission 3 - Ettenmoors
Mission 4 - Blue Mountains
Mission 5 - Grey Havens
Mission 6 - Celduin
Mission 7 - Erebor
Mission 8 - Dol Guldur

Evil Campaign
One Ring Powers
Mission 1 - Lórien
Mission 2 - Grey Havens
Mission 3 - The Shire
Mission 4 - Fornost
Mission 5 - Mirkwood
Mission 6 - Withered Heath
Mission 7 - Erebor
Mission 8 - Rivendell

Angmar Campaign (Rise of the Witch King expansion)
Angmar Powers
Mission 1 - Foundation of Angmar
Mission 2 - Conquest of Rhudaur
Mission 3 - Amon Sûl
Mission 4 - The Dark Lord's Eye
Mission 5 - Barrow-Downs
Mission 6 - Carn Dûm
Mission 7 - Plague Bearer
Mission 8 - Fornost
Epilogue - The Fall of Angmar

Game Review - Demigod

Game Review - Demigod

Score +5/-3

Overview
Demigod is a real-time tactical game where two initially equal forces charge at each other, trying to breach defenses and destroy the enemy citadel. Each side has a Demigod that can be customized with abilities and items, and a citadel where upgrades can be developed. The command of the Demigod and citadel is what tips the scales.

+ From the time battle starts, combat is non-stop. But because the units/reinforcements follow a pre-set path, there is actually very little micromanagement. Your focus is on your Demigod and occasionally going back to your citadel to buy reinforcements.
+ The artwork is gorgeous for comparatively little processing power. The environments are epic, and the level of zoom that can be attained is remarkable (although in the fast and furious combat, you will probably not be zooming in that much for idle sightseeing).
+Each Demigod has its own flavour and a wide range of abilities. You cannot get every ability for your Demigod and you are reset to level 1 in each tournament. This sounds like a bad thing, but wiping the slate in this way allows you to try different strategies and to customize your Demigod against each opponent and for each map. The game is kept fresh in this way.
+You can purchase special item with Divine Favour that will be applied to future games you play. In this way, there is some campaigning and continuity.
+ There are a lot of options, so there is a lot to try -- not just in Demigod powers, citadel upgrades, and items you can buy, but also in the types of games -- you can set the number of opponents on each side and tweak a lot of parameters, although the defaults play just fine.
- There is a multiplayer component, but there have been unresolved connection difficulties as well as only a very small community. You should still try to go online to update your game, however, as it will add two additional Demigods to the roster. There have been issues with using the Demon and Oculus in Single Player, so check the official Forums now and again for help. Stardock may no longer be supporting the game at all.
- The play balance is severely lacking. Not too big a deal in Single Player since it's then up to you what sort of challenge you want, but some Demigods are very powerful and you may end up with the same build over and over unless you force yourself to try something new.
- There is a background story, but no story per se during the games. Because each game is essentially the same (although you can add additional victory conditions other than destroying the enemy citadel), it can get boring really quickly.