Alright, this kind of low-fi Paradox-esque evil being simulator was interesting enough to pick up.
My first notable game I picked the Deep one and Teeth names, as well as starting with a noble enthralled. After worldgen, a central nation by the name of Sennerect had managed to gain control of %60 of the landmass (this is important later). I picked a low-prestige noble in some out-of-the-way northern country. All of my society was deeply afraid of Sennerec's aggressive expansion. At this point I was unaware of many game mechanics, so my first choice was an obvious one: immediately reveal the horrible, dark truth to my Soverign Archduchess and drive her to insanity. With this insanity, however, came %100 suspicion of my enthralled noble, which meant the Archduchess was constantly calling votes to turn the countries focus inwards. This forced her into conflict with the rest of society who (for very good reasons) were more afraid of Sennerect than some supposed dark forces at work.
Over the next few turns I was able to align myself with the majority vote enough to gain reputation with most every noble, excluding the Archduchess of course. At this point, a vote for assignment of a unlanded title arrived - unlanded meaning it would stack with my enthralled's already existing landholder title. I cashed in my reputation with enough lower nobles to upset the vote (Archduchess had like 30 prestige, enough to vote herself in if I hadn't done anything) and I was suddenly the most powerful vote in the country.
While all this politicking was occuring, I was also planting Deep One lairs all over the large, northern ocean. Slowly but surely the sea was filling with stacks of lizard people. The Deep Ones have a useful ability to start cults in coastal cities, which increase infiltration without risk to your agents. So I started a few cults as well for good measure.
Anyways, at some point I became Archduke of my country, and all was going well . . but I used 'uncanny glamour' at some point and this evidence would lead to my downfall. Over time, agents from other countries arrived and revealed more and more evidence, and while I could use reputation to pawn off the evidence onto other nobles, there was enough suspicion toward me that the dislike grew and grew and I was unable to influence other's votes. Despite my prestige advantage, the country voted to execute me.
At this point I wanted to start a new game so I just all-inned with my Deep One army. The attack was GRAND and it was quite exciting seeing the little armies pile upon the coastal cities . . but then Sennerect rallied, and with their 20 cities came 20 armies, and little did I know these armies also double as navies, and my assault was not only rebuffed but annihilated as Sennerect commanders swept through the ocean lairs, killing and destroying the colonies that had taken many, many turns to create.
So, it's pretty fun. I think it's kind of simple, however, for how much data is being thrown at you. If you just keep an eye on your reputation and try to find 'free' methods of increasing infiltration, using a Hierophant you can easily break and entire country.
One trick I found with the Teeth name is the save your enthrallations (?) for when an agent starts getting in your business. Just enthrall them, and they have this 3-turn ability that can lower suspicion for other agents. With one agent infiltration, another claiming innocence to the nobles and fighting off any other agents, you can piece-by-piece take over a weak enough country.
Funny story, when I tried the above strat of enthralling an agent, the country I was enshadowing was apparently very happy with his performance because they immediately promoted him to investigator. That's my investigator, thank you!
It's a fun game if you're the kind of player who constructs narrative around game events. The game does a great job at creating interesting and unique scenarios, and giving you the power to enshadow and infiltrate through MANY different methods. If you're just in-it-to-win-it, the game might be less complex than it appears, and you will likely find broken or overpowered combinations (though I personally haven't seen anything obviously imba) I have also found that certain agents are kind of monotonous to play - the corpsefiend is cool in concept, but becomes repetitive when you have to move them and steal corpses every damn turn.
My next goal is to enshadow one of the larger countries, with 20 or 30 nobles to keep track of, and see if the society dynamic opens up in a larger playing field.
Author
Topic: Shadows Behind the Throne: steam release—That Which Sleeps but not a scam! (Read 1019 times)