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Name your book!

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Shar Dundred

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I am curious, which did you enjoy the most?
Note that this isn't "just" about your favorite protagonist (or antagonist) or your favorite faction/race, your favorite plot or your favorite gameplay but all of them, the overall synergy!

First:
What is your favorite First Book?
What is your favorite Second Book (so far)?

And then the overall choice (yes, we are doing a lot of polls today!) :
Choose your overall favorite book!

And let me know why! I'd like to see this.
Until you made your choice, I'll go back to dig up some graveyards for bones which are put into the lab for... science!
 
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My favorite is the Undead Book.

The humans kept annoying me. Most of the characters we interacted with were one-dimensional and/or hateable. A pity the story didn't decide to focus more on the most interesting ones like Gardon and Aedale. The ending was good, but sad, because most of the work we did was for naught due to humans' greed, untrustworthy nature and lack of cooperation.

As you all may know, my opinion of the orcs during the first book was quite low. The orc characters were simply too short-sighted and idiotic to realize that their plan was basically doomed from the start. I am glad that in the Second Book most of them either died or changed perspectives. The plot was too simplistic for my taste and the ending, while predictable, was also quite frustrating.

Unlike the first two, I liked the Undead characters that seemed to have more personality than most characters in the other books. The storyline was good and the missions were both diverse and fun to play. The ending was a bittersweet victory, but at least it was due to unforeseen stuff not due to infighting or failure to take into account important matters.


My favorite was the Second Orc Book (I know, right? What a surprise :D).
I loved the new characters, I liked the character development of the ones we already knew and I loved to see the characters I hated the most die.
I enjoyed the new race mechanics, I loved playing with so many races at the same time and coming up with strategies to use them all properly. The plot was pretty good, with its plot twists and revealations about some past moments that seemed unimportant.
And at last we have an ending that doesn't feel bittersweet. We actually managed all of our goals without setbacks or someone from our ranks ruining everything.

And then the overall choice (yes, we are doing a lot of polls today!) :
Choose your overall favorite book!

I chose the Second Orc Book due to it having better improved gameplay and maps, more interesting characters, more interesting plot and an ending that doesn't feel bittersweet for once.
 
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First Book Fave:
"First Orc Book"
- Played this when I was bit younger and became attached to it.
- It gave me inspiration to make stories and campaigns.

Second Book Fave:
"Second Human Book"
- What I love most is the almost total-war or all-out-war feel in many of the missions.
- Story-driven chapters that looked more provoking and powerful to me.
- Really challenging and vast gameplay.

Overall Book Fave:
"Second Human Book"
- Though I could not and have not played SOB, I would say SHB is the best because of how heavy action-packed it was and story is easily to catch up.
- Additionally, I like human perspective gameplay than undead which I see stories from them are less substantial because they are undead and most tales are dead stories.
- And, lengthy wars is what I love most.
 
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Favourite First book:
I'm going to have to go with the human book.
The missions were as varied as they could and the difficulty was better than the orc and undead book. (Chapters like FOB 7 and 9, and FUB 9 are still scary to this very day, even though the latter is technically easy, in a way.)
The story felt more realistic and the characters had just the right amount of flaws ( unlike the orcs which were 100 % flawed, and the undead, who were 100% perfect. :p)

Favourite second book:
The SHB ending is enough of a reason for me to chose the Second Orc Book. :p
That and the big unit roster.
The ending was less "realistic" than the SHB, which can be considered a flaw, but it was a nice ending regardless.

Overall favourite:
The second orc book. Even though the ending is not canon, it was nice and the gameplay was nice too. I enjoyed it a lot more than the SHB.
 
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My opinions tends to switch from time to time, but i'll have to say the following:

FIRST BOOK:
The First Human Book was my favorite of the firsts, the conflict was there and the choices you made felt like they had inpact. I didn't feel to different for when i made different choices in the other first books as i did with the humans. So basically, choice mattered more to me there. Than of course there was the characters who i loved.

SECOND BOOK:
This one has to go to the second orc book. The challange was present, but not to hard, the story was nice, and the consequences of the first book was present a lot of the time. I LOVED the different races! The only nitpick i can think of, is that i wish that if you chose the "Agree with Veneesa" path, that Sasrogarn would be more accepting for Amari and maybe even apolgiesed after seeing Vaneesa in action and agreeing with her, and maybe said something like "I agree" to the idea of allying with other races, catching Amari by surprise, but again that's just me nitpicking. Besides that, pretty much everything else was great.

FAVORITE OVERALL:
That would be a tie between the first undead book and second human book. Strange choice right? Well the reason for that is pretty simple: Character, story and aesthetics. The other two won me over with their gameplay and how choice felt like it mattered. These two however has my favorite aesthetics out of all of them. (Or who knows, maybe the second undead book will change things for me.)
 
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For the FIRST BOOk:
It was hard to make a choice between the First Human Book and the First Undead Book.Never been a huge fan of orcs.
I will go for the First Human Book for the following reasons:
  • being the fisrt one to play, the story and characters had a bigger impact on me.
  • the choices seemed to have a bigger role at that moment then the other books
  • always was a fan of the humans and characters like Gardon,Aron and even Blen
For the SECOND BOOK:
I played the Second Orc Book and gameplay-wise it was even more enjoyable on some missions,still I will easy go for Second Human Book:
I have so many reasons but I will point only a few:
  • after watching the Prologue, seeing the Golden Guard, the elite warriors of the Empire, I already saw the great battles that are to come.Shar really managed to show how powerfull were the imperials actually.The Creation of the Purifier a good example.
  • the diversity between the factions
  • many choices with great impact and multiple ways to play throughout the campaign.
  • not knowing so many thinks left more room for mistery ( Larine shots Brian, Aridon dies, Renovas shadow ...)
  • each character (old and new ones) had very good development in the campaign
  • missions like Lord of Shadows, Lords of the Golden Guard, Last stand of the Golden Guard remain my favourite.
OVERALL: The Second Human Book:
I felt more connected to the story and characters:
  • Gardon: seeing him rebuilt his Empire from the ground, starting a war against his kind.The Cult of the Black Dragons, the old nation of Zyainor so many things to explore :D
  • Renald: while it may sound weird, I always had sympathy for Renald, before Shar made it official I always thought that van Durce wanted to save Gardon, when they argued at the castle during the interlude when Gardon insulted the Emperor, van Durce told all the soldiers to leave , he did that because how could HE HIGHLORD ADVISOR OF THE EMPEROR allow someone to talk like that, I saw like a clear sign of not wanting to kill Gardon, he had the best occasion there and he didn't. I went so far into believing Brian and Scarlet framed Van Durce to turn Gardon against him.
 

Shar Dundred

Community Moderator
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Renald: while it may sound weird, I always had sympathy for Renald, before Shar made it official I always thought that van Durce wanted to save Gardon, when they argued at the castle during the interlude when Gardon insulted the Emperor, van Durce told all the soldiers to leave , he did that because how could HE HIGHLORD ADVISOR OF THE EMPEROR allow someone to talk like that, I saw like a clear sign of not wanting to kill Gardon, he had the best occasion there and he didn't.
Very intruiging, I do not think I have ever seen ANYONE "like" van Durce at that point during development!
Or at least no one really "wrote" anything like that. ;)
You forgot a few titles though! d:
 
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I like Human books above all others because well I like to play human against others. And I prefer First human book rather than Second for a few reasons: the death of Blen really make me feel sad, he may lack portrait in the first book, but it's just sad to see a character you played for so long die suddenly (should Gardon die in the future book then I would also feel sad), also Second Human books are hard to play without cheating(at least to me), the story is good, but the playthrough is a bit tired to do.
 
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I felt that secondary objectives and choices were more rewarding/relevant in the SHB than in any other. Also the fact that your hero squad has burst healing while the SOB squad doesn't, that's a big deal for me. Characters also felt less cheaty lore wise, orcs are "magically" immune to undead influence and everyone gets to live in the end and be happy with their own country accepting everyone in it, even humans who survived the war, while the human campaign is in my eyes much more realistic, down to earth and has much more realistic characters with less plot armor. Stablishing that the undead are the all powerful all seeing all knowing entities of doom and then having the orcs be completely over it makes me think that it's either a retcon (as I believe feedback regarding undead was bad because of this "no matter what i do they always win" situation) or you like the orcs better and want them to succeed, comic book character style.

Overall I just wish that in both books non top tier units were more viable. There are very few missions where you can make grunts, footmen etc and not be completely stomped. Most units feel redundant or overly weak compared to the enemies you are fighting against or unefficient cost/power wise.

Please don't take any of this harshly, I still very much like all the custom campaigns you've made and look forward to the SUB and whatever projects you may make afterwards.
 
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