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Viking Conquest Reforged Edition Female Character Power Gaming Guide (minor spoilers)
So I decided to play a chick, for role playing purposes. A chick has +4 to INT and CHA, as opposed to +4 to STR and AGI as a dude. Having high INT and CHA doesn’t cripple the character. It just makes her more party oriented:
-having high INT(1 makes the protagonist take advantage of all the books, so as to reach skill level 10 and take advantage of the +4 bonus in important party skills, such as surgery and wound treatment.
-having high CHA(16) brings the protagonist’s leadership and persuasion skill to 10(with skill book and the crown), which has many great benefits, such as reduced troop wages, higher troop morale, higher persuasion chance of lords (gift letters and defections), higher prisoner ransom fees
Starting Choices at character creation:
Base: 4 STR, 4 AGI, 4 INT, 5 CHA
Gender: female INT+4 CHA+4
Nationality: foreigner INT+2
Height: doesn’t affect the build; I chose normal STR+1, AGI +1
Age: adult STR+3 AGI+3 INT+2 CHA+2
Personality: choleric INT+1 CHA+3 (The idea is to have as many attribute points as possible)
Virtue: justice INT+2 CHA+1(same as above)
Father’s occupation: noble; Learned as a child: oratory. Both options give the most skill points.
Vocation: hunter (chose whatever you like, since this char won’t be using bows anyways)
Religion: pagan (saves you trouble at beginning of story line, but otherwise no effect on build)
Choice effect on end attributes: 8 STR, 8 AGI, 15 INT, 15 CHA.
After adding 5 points: 10 STR, 10 AGI, 15 INT, 16 CHA.
Target: 14 STR(as high as possible), 10 AGI, 18 INT, 16 CHA.
- 10 AGI allows important party skills such as map finding to go up to 5, to take advantage of the +2 bonus modifier, thus justifying the investment of 2 points. Important personal skills, namely weapon master, also depend on this skill (a book can take you up to 6). Athletics isn’t that important power-gaming-wise (since wearing full heavy armor reduces it to 0), but it affects your gaming experience when you run around in town or engage in competitions.
- 10 STR is (barely) sufficient early game, in fact it is so crippling that I had to run and stay away (b/c I don’t run fast enough) from bandits and make my men do the fighting, but you’ll have to deal with it. Later on, the moment you have superior heavy armor is when this build truly shines. You will fight on par with the best warriors, while commanding an army effectively. 9 is the STR requirement to wear scale armor, and 11 is the requirement for the ultimate heavy armor (acquired during the campaign).
- My favorite choice of weaponry is size 85 shield + Nad (or some other legendary sword) + horseman javelins + balanced Ray on champion horseback. You can 1 v 50 with this equipment, just like you would in a warrior build game.
- Why STR over AGI? STR governs: power strike(most important), power throw, iron flesh, and inventory management, the higher the better. While AGI governs: weapon master, path finding, spotting, etc. Since you won’t have enough points to level AGI to 16 or 20, it’s best to leave it at 10. A tweak over this build would be to trade 2 AGI for 2 STR, thus sacrificing the AGI based party skills. It is not recommended to have lower than 8 in AGI, since then you won’t be able to ride the champion horse, and “call” your horse.
- After you own castles and towns, you might trigger a random event that (when choice taken correctly) gives you STR +1 and INT +1. Therefore, there is no need to bring INT higher than 17.
Tips on making and saving money:
I know a lot of guides already covered this part already. Just to sum it up:
1. Grind villages, buy cheap goods, especially wool, and sell wool to Dorestad for 2x+ profit. Buy jewelry, wine, and salt from Dorestad to sell in any other town for 2-5x profit. Buy furs and smoked fish from Ribe to sell in any other town for 2x profit.
2. Invest in productive enterprises, before buying yourself that fancy champion horse.
3. Choose the location of your refuge wisely (I set it up in the middle of the map near Jorvik). Upgrade your refuge and take advantage of the legendary smiths (they pay good price on loot!) to upgrade your helm armor to 57, and scale armor to 50-30, and make/upgrade Widow-makers.
4. Extra money early game is used mainly to upgrade weapons and armor, buy (heavy) horses for companions, and build Busses.
5. By end game, everything costs money: buying and upgrading troops, feeding and maintaining your troops, upgrades for settlements, raising dispositions for nefarious lords… So money is scarce, don’t squander it! One way to save money is to search and attack enemy troops with high tier prisoner units…you acquire the prisoner units for free. A trick is to wait till your target enemy to fully capture a caravan or your own AI lord’s troops (don’t rush in to save them), watch as the number of prisoners pile up…then move in for the kill.
6. Field warfare: infantry units square grouped and clustered to engage the enemy (charge if superior); archers attack from side or behind (renders the enemy shield wall ineffective - funny that they don’t raise shields to face you); cavalry and protagonist grind up enemy archers from the edge of its line formation.
7. Siege warfare: my typical strategy would be to engage with 250+ troops, infiltrate: poison the fort’s water, and assault. Saves time and money. If you’re really short on time, just assault. I’m sure a talented strategist such as yourself can still profit from the win.
This build, with high INT, high CHA, and decent STR makes troop management and maintenance a breeze. Your soldier’s death rate will be so low, and recovery rate so high, that you can find yourself fighting multiple battles consecutively in a short spam of time. Also I forgot to mention, engage the AI factions diplomatically: your huge wealth and elite troops won’t save you if you fight on multiple fronts - your AI lords who only fight over fiefs aren’t smart enough to fight and save your ass – as always, you can still profit from their undoing. Satisfying the monetary needs of those Pagan/Christian priests will help.
So I decided to play a chick, for role playing purposes. A chick has +4 to INT and CHA, as opposed to +4 to STR and AGI as a dude. Having high INT and CHA doesn’t cripple the character. It just makes her more party oriented:
-having high INT(1 makes the protagonist take advantage of all the books, so as to reach skill level 10 and take advantage of the +4 bonus in important party skills, such as surgery and wound treatment.
-having high CHA(16) brings the protagonist’s leadership and persuasion skill to 10(with skill book and the crown), which has many great benefits, such as reduced troop wages, higher troop morale, higher persuasion chance of lords (gift letters and defections), higher prisoner ransom fees
Starting Choices at character creation:
Base: 4 STR, 4 AGI, 4 INT, 5 CHA
Gender: female INT+4 CHA+4
Nationality: foreigner INT+2
Height: doesn’t affect the build; I chose normal STR+1, AGI +1
Age: adult STR+3 AGI+3 INT+2 CHA+2
Personality: choleric INT+1 CHA+3 (The idea is to have as many attribute points as possible)
Virtue: justice INT+2 CHA+1(same as above)
Father’s occupation: noble; Learned as a child: oratory. Both options give the most skill points.
Vocation: hunter (chose whatever you like, since this char won’t be using bows anyways)
Religion: pagan (saves you trouble at beginning of story line, but otherwise no effect on build)
Choice effect on end attributes: 8 STR, 8 AGI, 15 INT, 15 CHA.
After adding 5 points: 10 STR, 10 AGI, 15 INT, 16 CHA.
Target: 14 STR(as high as possible), 10 AGI, 18 INT, 16 CHA.
- 10 AGI allows important party skills such as map finding to go up to 5, to take advantage of the +2 bonus modifier, thus justifying the investment of 2 points. Important personal skills, namely weapon master, also depend on this skill (a book can take you up to 6). Athletics isn’t that important power-gaming-wise (since wearing full heavy armor reduces it to 0), but it affects your gaming experience when you run around in town or engage in competitions.
- 10 STR is (barely) sufficient early game, in fact it is so crippling that I had to run and stay away (b/c I don’t run fast enough) from bandits and make my men do the fighting, but you’ll have to deal with it. Later on, the moment you have superior heavy armor is when this build truly shines. You will fight on par with the best warriors, while commanding an army effectively. 9 is the STR requirement to wear scale armor, and 11 is the requirement for the ultimate heavy armor (acquired during the campaign).
- My favorite choice of weaponry is size 85 shield + Nad (or some other legendary sword) + horseman javelins + balanced Ray on champion horseback. You can 1 v 50 with this equipment, just like you would in a warrior build game.
- Why STR over AGI? STR governs: power strike(most important), power throw, iron flesh, and inventory management, the higher the better. While AGI governs: weapon master, path finding, spotting, etc. Since you won’t have enough points to level AGI to 16 or 20, it’s best to leave it at 10. A tweak over this build would be to trade 2 AGI for 2 STR, thus sacrificing the AGI based party skills. It is not recommended to have lower than 8 in AGI, since then you won’t be able to ride the champion horse, and “call” your horse.
- After you own castles and towns, you might trigger a random event that (when choice taken correctly) gives you STR +1 and INT +1. Therefore, there is no need to bring INT higher than 17.
Tips on making and saving money:
I know a lot of guides already covered this part already. Just to sum it up:
1. Grind villages, buy cheap goods, especially wool, and sell wool to Dorestad for 2x+ profit. Buy jewelry, wine, and salt from Dorestad to sell in any other town for 2-5x profit. Buy furs and smoked fish from Ribe to sell in any other town for 2x profit.
2. Invest in productive enterprises, before buying yourself that fancy champion horse.
3. Choose the location of your refuge wisely (I set it up in the middle of the map near Jorvik). Upgrade your refuge and take advantage of the legendary smiths (they pay good price on loot!) to upgrade your helm armor to 57, and scale armor to 50-30, and make/upgrade Widow-makers.
4. Extra money early game is used mainly to upgrade weapons and armor, buy (heavy) horses for companions, and build Busses.
5. By end game, everything costs money: buying and upgrading troops, feeding and maintaining your troops, upgrades for settlements, raising dispositions for nefarious lords… So money is scarce, don’t squander it! One way to save money is to search and attack enemy troops with high tier prisoner units…you acquire the prisoner units for free. A trick is to wait till your target enemy to fully capture a caravan or your own AI lord’s troops (don’t rush in to save them), watch as the number of prisoners pile up…then move in for the kill.
6. Field warfare: infantry units square grouped and clustered to engage the enemy (charge if superior); archers attack from side or behind (renders the enemy shield wall ineffective - funny that they don’t raise shields to face you); cavalry and protagonist grind up enemy archers from the edge of its line formation.
7. Siege warfare: my typical strategy would be to engage with 250+ troops, infiltrate: poison the fort’s water, and assault. Saves time and money. If you’re really short on time, just assault. I’m sure a talented strategist such as yourself can still profit from the win.
This build, with high INT, high CHA, and decent STR makes troop management and maintenance a breeze. Your soldier’s death rate will be so low, and recovery rate so high, that you can find yourself fighting multiple battles consecutively in a short spam of time. Also I forgot to mention, engage the AI factions diplomatically: your huge wealth and elite troops won’t save you if you fight on multiple fronts - your AI lords who only fight over fiefs aren’t smart enough to fight and save your ass – as always, you can still profit from their undoing. Satisfying the monetary needs of those Pagan/Christian priests will help.