Pillars of Eternity Walkthrough – Od Nua

Pillars of Eternity is a game created by Obsidian Entertainment.  This walkthrough covers the game and all of its side quests.  For the full guide click “Pillars of Eternity Guide” in the side bar.  This part of the guide will cover all of the quests surrounding Endless Paths of Od Nua.

For the last part of this walkthrough click here.

Oda Nua is a giant tunnel of basements underneath your fortress.  It is promised underneath it is some demon that haunts everything, someone known as The Master Below.  The format of this guide will be different.  The goal is to kill The Master Below, however what guides you there is a quest called Time and Tide.  Time and Tide is picked up by speaking to Kana who you meet just outside of Caed Nua.  After this you will have to complete The Old Watcher to get to the part where you venture into the actual maze.

The Blade of the Endless Paths

There are four pieces of the blade.  You will find the first piece on Floor 2 in a hut made of skins.

The second piece can be found on the Floor 5.  There will be a secret room that can be opened with a switch.  You will need to enter scout mode to find the switch.

The third peice can be found on floor nine along the south you will find another secret wall.  You will need to enter scout mode to find this switch.

The fourth piece can be found on the Floor 12 along the southern path.  It will be on a Mad Vithrack.

Od Nua Floor 2

As you head south and kill a few xeurips you will notice there is a door that is blocked by a force of energy.  If you want to remove this you will need to talk to the Talking Chair on the ground floor.

Head south into a place where there are some xurips and a hut made of furs.  Inside the hut is a broken hilt.  This will start the quest The Blade of the Endless Paths.  This is a mega sword that will require more parts to build.

head west to fight some spiders.  You will quickly run into the Spider Queen, a floor boss.

You will find a piece of a sword that will begin

If you continue down this way you will eventually reach a floor hatch.  This will lead you outside, a quick way to get out of the basement to restock.

If you’ve talked to the ground floor talking chair person (Sentinel) head to where the energy field once was.  It will now be gone and you can walk through it to reach Floor 3.  Alternatively you can head a bit to the west to a sacrificial alter which will allow you to skip to Floor 5.  However you will still have to cover Floor 4 to proceed further and you will miss out on a side quest.

Od Nua Floor 3

There is a side quest on this floor called Desperate Measures.  Desperate Measures is given by a neutral ogre who asks you to kill his Queen Zallo.

The ogres are much harder to kill than most mobs, so take them carefully.  All of the ogres on this floor have a leash.  A leash means after they hit a certain point they will return to where they came.  With their leash they also will not regenerate health, while you do.

This gives you a definitive advantage in easily killing ogres.  Simply pull them and run away until you see some returning to where they came from, then engage them.

Zallo is particularly tough.  Zallo is a caster that has a cleaving ogre and a druid who will heal her.

You will want to pull the room and only take on two at most a time.  Quickly burn down one using all of your abilities on it and leash the encounter if you are getting low.

Once Zolla is down collect everything on her.  You will need to return her Zolla’s torc to this friendly ogre as proof of your deed.  Once you have done so you will have completed the quest.  You will need to clear the floor of ogres to get to the next floor.  Use the leashing technique to deal with larger packs of them.

You may find a statue on this floor with a hidden wall.  You will need to find Retribution on the next floor and bring it back to this statue to unlock it.

Od Nua Floor 4

There is not too much to this floor.  There is a signet that you will need to pick up for later.  You will find it by following the path sound.  You will go down some stairs and then go to a room that will have only one trapped box to open.  Inside is the signet that you need to pick up.

Continue along the path following the southern route and you will hit the stairs to the next floor. To see something really cool explore south to see the face of the Master Below carved in Adra.

Od Nua Floor 5

Things are about to get interesting.  There is not much to this floor, but it is terribly difficult.  There will be some xurips that you will have to kill.  North will give you access to the grand staircase that will get you quickly out of the area.  It is the last grand staircase in the whole tunnel so it might be worth restocking before going deeper.  Heading west will bring you to the location you could have fallen to if you jumped in the sacrificial pit at Floor 2.

Ahead is Drake.  He is a drake.  He is also a talking drake.  There is no way to really avoid this fight and he is quite dangerous.  Focusing down drake first should be your goal.  Once he is dead you will gain access to Floor 6.

If you’re struggling with this you can use a method called leashing.  With this you can pull an entire group and they will leash back to their primary location.  If you tag them just as they leave some will peel off and you can fight a few separately.  This is a method of pulling you will need to be able to do other floors.

You may notice a hidden wall in the middle of this level.  Go near it with scouting mode on to unlock it and you will be able to find a hidden switch.  Inside is a chest with a piece of The Blade of the Endless Paths.

Od Nua Floor 6

You will feel like the drake was the hardest thing possible, but it will get worse.

You will need to find three different overseer sigils on various floors to get deeper into Od Nua.  This is designed as an experience gate so that you have to get more experience to continue on.

Bloodstone Overseer Sigil can be found on the fourth floor in a small room along the southern bend.

Peridot Overseer Sigil can be found on this floor to the north.

Sapphire Overseer Sigil can be found on this floor to the south.

When you get to the puzzle door you need to place the bloodstone in the sword socket, sapphire in the eye socket, and peridot in the hammer socket.

Once the door is open head down to floor 7.

Od Nua Floor 7

This is the floor that finishes off Time and Tide.  In this area there are four forges that you can choose to activate.  Activating the forge is completely up to you.  To activate the forges simply kill everything and move on.  However that is easier said than done.

Wind blights deal ranged area of effect damage, kill them first.

Fire blights deal splash damage upon death, kill them last.

There are minor, regular and greater blights.  Take note of what you’re fighting.  You may have to leash many of them if they overwhelm.

To get to the end of Time and Tide head towards the south and take the crossroad west.  Go into the room and loot the old copper key.  Move east from here and head south when you get into a room.  Kana will identify that there is a room with a mark of his hero.  Open the door with the copper key.  Inside is a skeleton wizard who is in fact the man you’re searching for.  After killing it you will loot the quest reward from the table in the room.

From here you go back north and head east.  This will be a tough engagement with multiple greater blights.  You may need to leash these.

After this touch the middle post to open the door and move to the eight floor.

Od Nua Floor 8

This level will introduce a new unit these are fampyrs which are sort of like super ghouls.  The fampyr has the ability to take control of one of your heroes so be careful not to accidentally kill your hero.   Leashing will be very valuable here.

As you go through the linear path you will have an option of going over a bridge made of adra.  If you speak the ancient Agewthian you will get a quest to kill off all of the other fampyrs on the floor.  To learn this language you will need to continue the main storyline.  If you did not you will not be able to understand the fampyr and he will attack you.  It is recommended at this point that you leave Od Nua and continue the main quest line so that you can get more quests from here.  You will also need to get this language to progress to the end of Od Nua.  The mission is called Undying Heritage.

The whole floor is nothing but fampyrs.  If you want to work on clearing out the fampyrs for money continue on through the area and kill them.  However if you just want to progress to the next floor kill this fampyor on the hand made of adra and continue from here south to the next floor.

Od Nua Floor 9

Upon entering the floor you will be able to continue straight or turn right.  If you have 10 mechanics you can venture right for the easy way.  Otherwise you will have to go forward for the hard way.

The hard way means crossing a floor covered in spikes in which every single move you take will cost you life.  Take just one hero and move across the spikes.  There are jars on the ground.  Loot the jar that is near the skeleton (but not the skeleton).  Inside it will be a key.  This is a designed trap intended to get you to try it on doors and thus cost your life.  Instead hover towards the east to find another jar that is locked.  Inside this locked jar is another key.  This key will work on the door as well as the previous locked door that required high mechanics.

From here move south along the narrow corridor but be very careful of traps.  One trap can get everyone stuck in place.  This can be absolutely catastrophic.  Make sure to send in a single “dummy” to trigger the traps, someone disposable.  That way when you leash these packs properly you won’t be losing too many people.  If you have a ranger using your animal can be used for fully pulling the packs away from the traps.

Continue north from here and in the next room is going to be the stairs to the next floor.  You can clear the room to the north from bonus gold.

If you head along the southern wall and enter “scout mode” you will find a panel that will unlock a hidden wall.  In here is a chest with a piece of The Blade of the Endless Paths in it.  If you can’t find the switch you may not be high enough level to find it and may have to level up mechanics.

Od Nua Floor 10

This is a very small but very difficult floor.  You can go straight across to get to Floor 11.  However you can also choose to turn right, pick up a key and then go back to the locked door and open it.  Inside the room is a pile of ghosts that you can kill.

Od Nua Floor 11

This is another small floor.  There are giant packs of units, however there is a way to avoid it.

However it also means that you lose out on a potential sword from killing a Dank Spore.  On Floor 12 is the next masters staircase so there’s no real need to return to this floor, unless you want to kill these very difficult to kill mobs for gold that is.

Od Nua Floor 12

This is the Vithrack floor.  Vithrack are sort of a spider-like telepathic set of beings.  They don’t work in a hive mind but they do have a hive mentality.  You should avoid pulling the first set of vithrack directly northeast of you.  There is no way to leash them and the vithrack have the ability to mind control two units each.  With four vithrack that means your entire party can potentially be mind controlled leaving you very vulnerable to death.  So instead pull everything else but it so that you can potentially leash this area later.

After you’ve cleared out these areas head north east and you will find some vithrack who will speak to you.  If you offer to do a quest for them you can bypass a lot of dangerous mobs.  If you decided to kill them you don’t get the quest.

This will give you the quest The Masters Tools.

Head south from here to kill a Mad Vithrack.  The Mad Vithrack will give you your final piece of the Blade of Endless Paths.

Continue heading east and you will run into more vithrack who will talk to you.  Inform them that you have permission and they will let you by.  This will lead you to floor 13.

Od Nua Floor 13

In order to complete The Masters Tools quest you will pretty much need to clear out the entire northern part of this.  Turn left and there is a room with traps that you can loot the machine part.

Move north up the road and you will find the adra shell.

Along the south is a room that will give you the pure adra.  If you continue from here you will reach a wall that has treasure behind it.  In order to access it you have to have either absorbed the knowledge of The Old Watcher or speak a special language.

In order to pass this you need to speak to the ghosts and if you speak the language they will let you into it.

This is also how you get past the door with the Medusa head on it.  If you do not speak this ancient language you will need to continue the main story line and leave Od Nua.

The quest line you will need to do is Undying Heritage.

If you speak it speak to the spirit in the southwest and the spirit to the southeast and they will give you a password for the door.  One person will tell you the loyalty oath, another will tell you it’s corrupted.  Tell the oath in which you are an enemy of Od Nua to get through.

Od Nua Floor 14

This is a fairly simple floor.  You go to the middle of the room and touch the crystal, this will summon the Spirit of Od Nua.  If you have high enough stats you can talk him down and he will send you to the final floor.

If you do not he will attack you and be joined by three other dangerous spirits.  Upon killing or bypassing him it’s off to Floor 15.

There is a grand staircase on this level to allow you to restock on any goodies.

Od Nua Floor 15

This is another pretty straight forward floor.

Head down the linear path and you will find a clickable pile of rocks.  If you choose to simply walk down it one of your team mates will sprain a leg and get a stat decrease until they rest at a hotel.  At the bottom of the rock pile is an adra dragon.  The adra dragon is in fact the Master Below.  When you talk to him you can convince him to leave the place as there isn’t really that much adra left here.  Alternatively you can kill him.  He is a fairly tough to kill so talking him down may be the better way.

If you choose to talk him down you will need to bring an amulet to the Hand of the statue on floor 1.  Once you do this you will need to head out into Black Meadows.  North east you will find a woman.  You will have to kill her which is laughably easy.  This will finish up The Master Below.

Once defeated or once he leaves you can follow the path to the end where you will find a cache of goodies… and a dead end.  Because this is the end of Od Nua.

Pillars of Eternity Walkthrough – The Gilded Vale

Pillars of Eternity is a game created by Obsidian Entertainment.  This walkthrough covers the game and all of its side quests.  For the full guide click “Pillars of Eternity Guide” in the side bar.  This part of the guide will cover all of the events surrounding the town of Gilded Vale.

For the first part of this walkthrough click here.

Gilded Vale

After you go to the inn you will have had a dream that reveals who you must talk to, a dead person hanging from the tree.

Go to that person and…. talk to the dead person.  What you will have found is that you can communicate to them through their soul.  This person will tell you that what you have isn’t an illness and instead makes you a Watcher.  The person tells you that you should see an old watcher who lives to the east.

After speaking with her talk to Eder.  Eder will tell you about the problems of the area and will eventually offer to join you.  Eder is a tank and will have a familiar knock back ability.

He will tell you that right next to him is an abandoned temple of Eothas.

Buried Secrets

So you should go into the abandoned temple of Eothas.  Once inside a man will give you the Buried Secrets side quest.  He will tell you about how there are remains of some priests inside that he wants you to get.  He also warns you that it is very dangerous inside.

In this room head north and then try to head west and south.  There will be tonnes of enemies on the way.

You will gain a hint that will tell you that the three bells are important.

Now head north to the bells.  You need to find four note pattern from the three bells.  The pattern to get through is Right Middle Left Right.

A door will open leading you downstairs.

When downstairs try to head southeast.

You will find a room with a wheel you can turn.  This will drain water.  Head from this room down the corridor and down the stairs to a fountain.  There is a dead priest there, loot his key.

Use the key to open the locked door.  Continue heading southeast until you hit a fountain with four stone angels around it.  From here head the eastern path for the boss room.

In here is a Skaldr who is stronger than the rest.  He is… the Skaldr King.

Now for the actual quest.  Go south and there will be a dead end with a wall.  Notice on the wall there is a latch you can pull to open up the dead end.  Once inside you will be able to speak to the dead priests and see exactly what happened.

With your evidence go back to the boss room and go up the stair case.

Upon going upstairs there will be another secret door you can open to get a short cut back to the front.

When at the front you can turn in the quest with the guy you got it from.  There are 5 possible outcomes of the quest.

The Smith’s Shipment

Look on your map for the Blacksmith.  Go to it and talk to the smith to pick up this quest.  He will have had some shipment that will have been raided.

Go south into Magran’s Fork.  Head east from here into the Black Meadow.

Once at the Black Meadow follow the path along the north to find a group of bandits next to a broken cart.

Beat them up and loot the cart to get the Smith’s Shipment.

After returning it to the blacksmith he will give you a nice shield and a discount on all future purchases… of which you are unlikely to make many.

Against the Grain

Head to the mill and you will see a bunch of townsfolk outside threatening to kill the miller.

Go inside to talk to the local miller.  He will break down capitalism to you and how a person can’t possibly sell below value, supply and demand, and what not.  He also awkwardly mentions that most of the grain goes to beer and less of it goes to bread.  There is no dialogue option for using less on beer and more on bread.

You are told to go talk to the drunkards who want him dead.  Of course, they are drinking beer.  You can offer them a beer to reconcile, join them against the miller, or kill them.

Once you turn in the quest you will get a cash reward, because the miller of course is loaded rich.  Completing this quest will also unlock a quest to dethrone Raedric (Lord of a Barren Land).

A Mother’s Plea

There is a house to the northwest of the town.  Go inside for the final side quest.  She will tell you that her son was Hollowborn and needs a special witch to the south to help her.

Head south into Magran’s Fork.  Continue heading south to get to Anslog’s Compass.

Go around all of Anslog’s Compass and kill every single xerup in the zone.

Once that is done talk to the witch in the southwest.  She will thank you for killing off of the xerups and offer a cure to you.

She will tell you to go get a fungus from a cave to the north.  Go inside the cave and there will be some mushroom enemies you will have to kill.  Kill them and loot them.

Bring them back to the witch and she will make you a cure.  She will tell you it doesn’t do anything to actually cure anything.  It will make her feel better.

Take it back to the mother and you will have a moral choice.  You can be honest and tell her nothing will cure her child.  Or you can tell her to drink the potion and make her feel better about it working.

Lord of a Barren Land

In order to get this side quest you need to complete Against the Grain.  It will be offered to you upon completion from a stranger.

Head east through the Esternwoods.

From there head east into the keep.

There are three different ways to get into the keep.

If you head to the north you will find a castle wall you can climb if you have high enough athletics.  Alternatively you can use a grappling hook and rope item to climb.

If you head south you will find a sewer entrance that you can pry open if you have a high enough strength.  Alternatively you can use a pry bar to get it open.

As another option you can choose to blitz through the front, which is the longest possible path to getting to Raedric.

For the climbing method once you are up head in and you will find boxes with robes in them.  If you put on the robes and apply stealth you will be able to walk through the area without anyone knowing who you are.  Guards can identify who you are so you will need to dodge them.  Every time you get stopped by the guards you can trick them if you have high enough Perception stat.  As a more safe option you can just kill all of them.

For the sewer method you will have to battle through weaker creatures.

In here you will find a prisoner.  If you offer to help him you will get an unofficial side quest.  There is a witch in the area named Ouya.  Killing her will get you the rusty key and unlock the door.  This will add an additional quest reward to the Barren quest.

For the frontal assault you will have to take on his strongest guards.

Your goal is to get to Raedric’s Hold Sanctuary.

There will be one door that will need to be lock picked.  This one holds Nedmar.  It is very high so you will either need to have high skill or a lot of lock picks.  Either way you have to get in.  If you need more lockpicks you can buy a lot from the blacksmith back in town.

Once inside Raedric will give you a master key to get to Raedric.  If you helped his friend you will also receive another reward.

If you head south into the chapel there are skulls on the wall.  Loot the first one and you will get a gem.

Now head to the Keep Kitchen.  Here you will find a door with insanely high lockpicking required, this is the giant door you will need to unlock to get in.

Now you are at Raedric.  You can choose to work with him or kill him.  If you kill him you succeed and you can turn in the sidequest upon completion.

After he dies how people will act around town will change and there will be unique dialogue options.

Ferry Floatsome

Head south to the bridge.  You will find from a merchant that the bridge has been destroyed.  The merchant informs you that looters have stolen his cargo that has washed up on shore after one of his boats crashed into a rock.  Head south along the path and you will find two guards to kill.

Head down the path and you will be able to talk to these looters.  They will inform you they are just farmers who have found some cargo.  Times are tough.  You will have the option to kill them and collect a reward from the merchant or lie to the merchant about the cargo.

The Old Watcher

Go to Black Meadow and head east into Oda Nua.

Oda Nua is a Portuguese word which means roughly “Naked Ode.”

This is going to be your stronghold eventually.  For now it’s a dump.  As you enter there is a chanter who wants to join your party.  Let him in your party and you will get a new side quest (one so massive it will be it’s own guide).

Navigate through the courtyard to the larger of the two buildings.

Enter inside and once you walk in there will be a talking chair at the entrance.  She explains the history of the area and how the Watcher abandoned repairing the place.

She will open a door for you.  Head into the basement.  Before doing this you can enter the other two rooms for some easy experience (no enemies in those places).

As you journey through the basement killing what’s inside there will be ghosts.  Speaking to each ghost will unlock new speaking options later.  Each reveals a piece of history over the course of a 200 year war.

Go down another level and you will find a locked door.  You will need to unlock it through a lockpick or by skilling it down.  Inside is Maerwald.

Speak with Maerwald and he will tell you what happened to him and what is happening to you.  Eger’s questions will not be answered, nor will Kana.  You will have to talk to both of them to find out what direction they want to take.

Maerwald tells you to go to a new city, so that’s your new main quest.  However Marwald is also crazy and he will eventually attack you.  He is quite powerful.  Upon his death you will gain a new main quest to head to a new city.  You will need to repair the Eastern Barricade.  To do this quickly just navigate the map until the time passes.

 

This concludes The Gilded Vale part of this walkthrough.  The next part will cover the missions and side quests related to Oda Nua.

Pillars of Eternity Walkthrough – Introduction

Pillars of Eternity is a game that was created by Obsidian Entertain via a Kickstarter campaign.  Th game has several dozen hours of gameplay and features so much content that a single guide would not be able to focus in on elements.  For this reason this guide has been split up into various parts. To see all of them click on the “Pillars of Eternity Guide” link on the side bar.

The focus of this guide will be from the beginning of the game to getting to your first town.  All of these guides will cover all of the side quests in the general area.

The Camp

Your convoy stops and forms a defensive parameter around an area as they try to make their way to Cilant Lis.  The leader gives you a female warrior as your side kick to find a cure for a disease you have.

A Moment’s Respite

Head northwest of the camp to find a wolf.  The warrior has a knock down ability, use this to knock down the wolf.  After the wolf is dead move a little more northwest to find a herb on the ground.  Pick it up to complete your first quest.

Return to the camp and turn in the herb to complete the quest.  You will be given another objective.  You will have to go fetch water by the lake.  Head south to find a rag that you can put in the water.

You will be ambushed by two bandits.  Focus each of them down.  As you head back to the camp there will be more bandits there.  Kill them and make your way to the Glanfathan Leader.  With appropriate answers you can avoid the fight and get free experience, with the wrong answers you will have to fight.

Next up you will have a dialogue box with Heodan.  No matter what dialogue you choose Heodan will die.  At this point in the game you will not have enough skills to use any of the options for saving him.

Ruins of Cilant Lis

You will enter a cave in which you will gain a quest objective of escaping the Ruins of Cilant Lis.

If you immediately head northwest you will be able to loot two boxes which will give you some camping supplies and a torch.

There are two potential paths for getting out of Ruins of Cilant Lis.  Head south and you will have your two ways, continuing south or continuing east.

If you go south you will have to deal with a xurip.  These are a small furry creature in the game that will be very common.  If you have the appropriate skills you can negotiate your way past the xurip and gain experience for not killing it.  With enough skills it will temporarily join you as a pet.  But if you don’t you will have to kill it.

Heading further east you can loot a corpse to reveal a semi-sidequest.  You will pick up a gem and instructions on how it works.

For this sidequest head northwest past the puzzle maze, past the braziers and at the end.  Place the gem inside of the wall and it will unlock a door to the east with a few choice items in it.

Continue back south to where you left off and continue east.  You will run into a skuldr whelp.  These are not as easy as the xurip was.  You will find a semi-broken wall.  When you click on it there are two ways to open it.  If you have a lot of strength you can just push the wall down.  However if you do not there was a hammer and chisel that you picked up as an item that you can use to break it down.

Moving into the next room will be more skuldr whelps.  After killing these move north for a final fight and then you are out.

The alternative route is to take the puzzle maze.  Keep in mind that you can do both for the slight bonus gold.  Just northwest of the puzzle maze are six braziers with various markers on them.

Equip your torch that you picked up earlier and light each one of these braziers.  Once they are all lit up head back down to the puzzle maze and two safe paths will be lit up.  Move through the safe paths to get across.  There will be one last fight before you can exit the cave.

Once you exit the cave you will run into an event in which your ally will die.

The Gilded Vale

Head south to get to the Vale Woods.  This is an area that has a very low amount of enemies to fight but a very high amount of resources to gather, so take advantage of that.

Heading south you will run into Nonton.  Nonton will tell you to make sure not to go to a cave to the northwest.  This is a side quest.  If you head east of him you will find there are some enemies there you can defeat for some experience.  They are low on damage and low on health meaning you will be able to solo them.

Once you get here you will find a dwarf begging for help.  Kill the captors and you will gain the side quest “Late for Dinner” the goal of this is to go to an innkeeper, something you will do later anyway.

Head south into The Gilded Vale.  After a dialogue box you will have completed the quest.

If you head towards the inn there is an elf being picked on.  You can choose to fight the bullies or reason with them.  Doing either will give you the option of recruiting Aloth, a powerful wizard.  He is well worth picking up.

Go into the inn to cash in Late for Dinner.  You can also recruit more adventurers here.  Pick up at least one and take a room in the inn.  You will unlock another quest.

Before doing that, knock out the side quest Revenge from the Grave.

Revenge from the Grave

To get this mission take your party of three to the cave in northern Vale Woods.  In it is a bear.  You will need to use your powers and those of your heroes to beat it.  It is not an easy task.

Once inside you will find the remains of a man and see a spirit.  You can talk to the spirit to reveal what actually happened.

Head to Nonton.  He is in the dead man’s home with his wife.  Upon talking to them you can come up with a number of possible outcomes.  It comes down to that you can accept a bribe from them, let them go with the money, or kill them.  Each outcome will effect your reputation in some manner.

Climbing the Wall in Vale Woods

There is a wall in the vale Woods that has the option of climbing it.  There are two ways to climb it.

The first is to have enough Athletics stat that you can just climb up the wall.  Your stats will bypass any need for an item.

The second way is to have a grappling hook and rope item.  This can be purchased at the inn or it can be found south of Gilded Vale.

Upon climbing up you will find a corpse with a powerful item.  No official side quest is given for doing this nor do you get one from this.

 

This concludes the first part of this walkthrough.  The next part will cover the quests and side quests relating to the town of Gilded Vale

Review: Idol Hands

The god game genre has seen very little evolution in the last 30 years.  Ever since Populus every half decade or so someone tries and put out a new god game with a moderate amount of improvements.  But this is really the first time I’ve seen a god game that has taken a step back.

Idol Hands sets you running a village of idiots who are incapable of making decisions yourself.  You have to tell them their supreme destiny.  You sir, you are a farmer.  You sir you are a soldier.  You, you’re the priest.  And then there’s loggers, blacksmiths and the happily unemployed.

They will go out and collect various resources after building their little homes.  Your job is to provide them with flat land to build their facilities.  Each facility will provide a different resource with the exceptions of your soldiers.  Blacksmiths provide iron, lumberjacks provide wood, clerics provide religion, farmers provide food, and your soldiers go to war.

One of the weaknesses in the game is the very limited population cap.  In most of these games you can develop civilizations for an almost endless amount of map.  In this game you are limited to under 100 population total meaning once you max out your population, it’s a matter of spamming the enemy.

You do this with your god powers that require the religion resource.  These include volcano, earthquake, lightning, rain, and meteor.

The game unfortunately becomes very bland over time.  Initially you might get excited believing the game has potential.  But getting to the end game is all too easy.

There is a fairly long campaign but unfortunately it ends up being the exact same match up every single time.  You take on a computer player, the exact same one.  The computer player plays exactly the same way and you beat them in exactly the same way.

Overall this game is pretty weak and leaves me not expecting much from God games anymore.

Review: Offworld Trading Company

From Civ 4 developer Soren Johnson comes Offworld Trading Company.

The game is described as being a 4X game without units, but that’s not entirely accurate.  The game is closer to an economic simulator along the lines of Port Royale, Rise of Venice, or Anno 2070.

The game is based around a dynamic open market.  You buy and sell goods on it.  After you purchase goods an item increases in value, when you sell goods it decreases in value.  With your profits you can buy infrastructure that in turn produces goods.

To keep things interesting the game requires you to have certain resources.  Consumption will draw away some of the necessities of life for your colonists.  Leveling up will require steel and glass.  Transporting goods will require fuel or energy.

As various elements of the game require more of these resources the value will go up, and as they need less the market will flood and lower the price.

Leveling up is an essential part of the game.  You can build so many buildings per level and then you are forced to invest in leveling up.  After Level 5 you are maxed.  After this the only way to build new buildings is by unlocking a black market perk to get a new zone license.

The game is multiplayer and the Black Market is your way of attacking people.  You can shut down buildings by EMPing them.  Or you can cause a mutiny and have a facility begin sending goods to you.  The underground explosion will shut down one building.  But all of these perks cost money that you need to have in hand.  They will scale up in cost over time and although you may be able to hurt one person, you are also taking a small hit yourself which will give you a disadvantage against the other two players.

The way in which you win is all about the money.  The value of your company is decided by your total assets against your debt.  Debt is earned by not being able to supply yourself with your consumptive goods and will automatically draw to your account.  As well there are often auctions being held to try and get goods from the Black Market or new technologies slightly faster.  This also adds to your debt.

Paying off your debt will increase the value of your company.  But money is needed or expansion.  Money is also needed for buying out shares in enemy companies.  Once a company is bought out you gain control of their whole operation and can develop and trade their resources.

Playing the game means balancing off your progress as a company with making sure your value doesn’t fall so low that your competitors can buy you out.

The game is very good.  It does have the early access tag.  The main issue with the game is the balance of it.  The game is set to spend a year in balancing before it makes its official release.  When the time comes it will be worth having in your gaming collection.  Right now though you will have to deal with wonky AI and cheesie play.