Thea: The Awakening, Morena 2, Final Part

It would be quicker to unlock Morena's last bonus if I ended the current game and did a speed-run. However, I could get bored playing with early-game assets in that speed-run. Thus, I kept with my slow game that had end-game assets available.

I had the Poludnica Event a second time. Having chosen each of the three answers in separate games, I wondered what the result of 'Say what?' would bring. It brought combat followed by an amount of resources.

Answering 'Say what?' led to a fight with the Poludnica.

When I checked the score screen, I noted that my score for 'Events taken part in' increased. It appeared that choosing different routes for the same Event would add to the score.

I constructed a Smithy using Dragon Bones. Dragon Bones were even more effective than Enchanted Bones in attracting Demons.

A Smithy made of Dragon Bones might attract Demons.

I had a child grow up and was randomly given three of the four special options for his/her class. Amusingly, one of the options described the kid as a 'wise arse'. Also amusingly, the child's gender could be chosen with his/her class (Sages were men while Witches were women).

The kid could be a 'wise arse'.

My village attracted another Beast. This time it was a Royal Crow, who had high Health and Tactics along with a good amount of Stealth. At level 6, the Royal Crow was the best Beast I had attracted thus far.

My village attracted a Royal Crow.

I had unlocked Moonstone, which had spawned two gathering spots close to each other. That made it easier to gather the resource. In addition, I had unlocked Rubies and Dragon Leather within the area.

Gatherers camped to harvest Moonstones.

The Black Mist threatened my main expedition. The expedition 'kicked the mist's arse' and the Fat Rat absorbed some of the black magic of the mist.

The Fat Rat absorbed dark magic.

The buildings of Enchanted Bones and Dragon Bones finally attracted a Demon, which was a Liho. There was still no Goblin recruit, though.

My village attracted a Liho.

I met with another wandering Elf. After suppressing his curse, I recruited him. What was unusual this time was the amount of Coal the Elf had when he joined my expedition.

Is he Santa Claus with lots of gifts for bad kids?

Previously in the score summary, I noted that my rarest item was the Palisade. With a supply of Moonstone, I thought that I would create the rarest item I could. I made a Totem out of Moonstones. As a side effect, Moonstone attracted Humans.

A Totem of Moonstone.

The village well was poisoned once again and I decided to test my theory on the choice involving the herbs. I brought three of the poisoned villagers along with me to look for the herbs. However, only five of the six villagers were healed. One, who was left in the village, was still afflicted with poison.

Only five out of six were healed!?

So my earlier theory was incorrect. Perhaps only five of the six villagers would be cured. Or perhaps all six villagers had to be present in the expedition that looked for the herbs in order for all affected people to be cured. That would be something to test the next time I had this event, perhaps in another game.

I brought the last villager to the herbalist for a cure. Interestingly, the herbalist had a different challenge for me to solve in return for the cure. She gave me a Physical challenge instead of the usual Tactical challenge.

Don't blame my Lihos - both of them had been away in expeditions.

I think the different challenge added to the 'Events taken part in' score.

On its way home, one of my supply expeditions had encountered a Dragon.

The supply expedition spotted a Dragon.

Fortunately for the Dragon, it was time to quit the game. I had accumulated the score required to unlock Morena's last bonus. In addition, I was getting increasingly bored of management. My settlement had eleven people crafting. I had four expeditions out - one to explore, one to gather resources far from the village and two to keep those two expeditions supplied as well as bring home loot and resources. And I was planning to make another expedition to gather ingredients close to the village to cook food to feed the 68 people I had.

In the Early Access version, I had found that an expedition size of 10 was sufficient. With the increased difficulty of the Release version, I increased the expedition size to a minimum of 12.

Other than the score screen, the only other place for game stats is the Advancement Victory screen, which displays a few details of the player's exploits.

My achievements in this game.

I had unlocked every research option. The game allowed me to continue gathering Research Points (note the 3 Advancement Points in the screenshot with the Dragon earlier) and it awarded me points under the 'Recipes researched' category for each additional Advancement Point I gained.

I am glad I had not set a high difficulty that would increase the difficulty of the challenges as turns went by. That allowed me to complete most challenges with the Auto Resolve option. Otherwise, I would be bored when the game slowed because of all the challenges I faced. I had completed 370 challenges of 4+ skull difficulty, many of them through Auto Resolve.

The Fat Rat had been in many adventures and had learned much. In addition to its strong combat abilities, it was pretty, smart, knowledgeable, could do magic and had learned to communicate.

The Fat Rat with selected attributes displayed.

A good number of my village of 68 people were Orcs. Thanks to many Events involving Orcs, I had 10 Orc Fighters and 4 Orc Workers. And I still had the Orc Matriarch from the main quest.

Here is the final score summary:

The score summary, just before quitting.

Most of the points came from XP, most of which came from dealing with wandering baddies and their lairs. As expected, the Totem made of Moonstone became 'The rarest item', which contributed 60 to my score.

Unfortunately, there was no minimap to show the layout of the land in a screenshot. Water had divided the land mass into sections so it had been easier to plan on areas to explore. Water had also created a dead end once, which I had discovered at noon. That had wasted precious daylight time as I had to backtrack.

I had explored most of the map. The northwest was almost done while there was still an area to the north. There were also very large sections of land to the northeast left.

There had been sections of water that I could not reach and others that could only be seen from the shore at daylight. As daylight was limited, I had not fully explored all the water hexes that I could.

I had unlocked all of Morena's bonuses.

The bonuses of Morena, version 1.6.1201.

The last bonus of Morena, which gave 2 Advancement Points, will let the player unlock a recipe to craft items that contribute Research Points and make the resource for that recipe available at the start. In addition, those Advancement Points do not increase the number of Research Points necessary to unlock more Advancement Points (I think).

However, for a last bonus, I had expected something more interesting. For the record, in the Early Access version, Morena gave 3 Advancement Points as her third bonus.

Morena's fourth bonus may or may not be worth it depending on the items that will be given. As for the bonuses to attributes, their effectiveness may be seen in this account of my second game with Morena.

I had played this game for three weeks. It took a little more than a week to complete the main quest and the rest of the time to accumulate enough points to unlock all of Morena's bonuses.

I think I shall avoid long games for a while. Maybe I shall try a speed-run next after updating my version of Thea (this game had been played on version 1.6.1201).

Thea: The Awakening, Morena 2, Part 1
Thea: The Awakening, Morena 2, Part 2
Thea: The Awakening, Morena 2, Part 3

Thea: The Awakening, Contents

Christmas 2015

It is time once again to celebrate the birth of He who is called Immanuel,
He who came to fulfill the promise of 'God with us'.

As life goes on tomorrow and the days after, remember that you are not on your own.

Have a blessed Christmas!

Thea: The Awakening, Morena 2, Part 3

In order to produce great Equipment, good material was required. Dragons were a reliable source of good material.

Dragons had good resources.

The Dragon in the screenshot above was found when my party fell into a hole in the ground. From experience, I knew the route to confront the Dragon. Since I had been saving regularly, I took the risk, attacked and gained a lot of good material.

Another way to get good material was to unlock them with Research and then gather them. When I unlocked Enchanted Bones, four gathering spots appeared, one of them quite close to my village.

Enchanted Bones appeared near my village.

With a constant supply of Enchanted Bones, I could make melee weapons and armor that provided the rare Magic attribute. In addition, buildings constructed with Enchanted Bones could attract Demons.

Building a Palisade with Enchanted Bones.

I decided to build a Palisade with Enchanted Bones. Since I already had Orcs among my villagers, I decided to add Steel to attract more instead of using Gold to attract Dwarves. At a cost of 2400, the Palisade more than met the requirements for one of the goals for Advancement Victory.

Later, I had the Event where I could work with Orcs to open a vault again. I had the opportunity to trade a party member for an Orc Fighter a second time. This time, the main expedition was involved. As the main expedition was filled with the most experienced of my villagers, I had thought to decline the exchange. Before making my decision, I took a look to see who the lowest-level member of my expedition was.

The villagers were listed according to level.

Seeing that my lowest-level villager was the Blood Bee, I made the exchanged without hesitation.

Exchanged a Blood Bee for an Orc Fighter, his equipment and his lunch.

The Liho I had received from the Divine Quest had Piercing as an innate attribute. To take advantage of this, I gave the Liho the most powerful 2-Handed Axe (since Axes focused on Damage) I could craft. In a fight, this allowed the Liho to deal a lot of damage when dropped behind an opponent, potentially defeating a baddie of moderate strength.

The Green weapons were made of Enchanted Bones.

Continuing on the theme of recruiting Orcs, I decided to attempt the main quest, aiming for the middle route that would award an Orc Matriarch. I discovered that in the release version, the difficulty of the Social challenge against the final opponent, the Zmey, had been increased.

Look at the Zmey's social stats!

Fortunately, the Zmey's companions were not as unreasonable and my party soon ganged up on him.

Bogumyslaw would bravely take the hit so his friends could counter.

As a reward for choosing to hide the Cosmic Seed of the quest rather than planting it, I had an Orc Matriarch join my party.

An Orc Matriarch joined the party.

After completing the main quest, the game presented me with the score summary. I had enough points to unlock Morena's fourth bonus.

The missing text bug had finally been fixed.

Unlike my previous games, I wanted to play more with the resources and assets that I had available. So I chose to keep playing. First, I checked the Orc Matriarch. The Orc Matriarch appeared to be a good fighter. In addition, she had Magic, Folklore and a little Attractiveness - she was a multi-talented fighter.

The Orc Matriarch.

I checked around the map for other challenges and found a Dragon Lair to the south. Looked like I would be having Dragons soon.

A Dragon Lair spawned south of my village.

I had explored a little of the west of my village during my Divine Quest. And while pursuing the main quest, I had fully explored the southeast region of the game world. That left a lot of land for me to explore, which would contribute to my score. Thus, I still had a lot to do.

I required one more Grand Building of at least 1230 Production Points for one of the conditions of Advancement Victory. I decided to build a better Watchtower.

A Watchtower of Granite and Ancient Wood.

I could build a Watchtower that also attracted creatures. However, I considered the ability to see danger from further away to be more important. Advance warning would give me more time to plan a response, especially since Dragon Lairs had spawned.

When I completed the Watchtower, the score screen appeared again. I checked my Advancement Victory screen, which informed me that I had achieved the conditions required. However, my technology was at 47% instead of the 70% required. Was this a bug with the information presented or the condition checked?

I completed the Technology Tree requirement!?

Later, I discovered that a Cabbage Field built with Obsidian attracted Goblins.

Cabbage Field built with Obsidian might attract Goblins.

My main expedition explored an old house and found books. The Fat Rat was again interested in the written text and gained in Intelligence and Folklore.

Maybe I should rename the rat as 'Sage Rat'.

When I met a wandering Dragon, I discovered that I could convince it to leave the land through a Social challenge. If I had known it would be this easy to chase a Dragon away and score some loot, I might not have attacked a Dragon Lair earlier so it could keep spawning Dragons for me to collect resources. That Dragon Lair had been tough as it had been guarded by a Dragon, a Zmey and their minions.

Convincing a Dragon with words.

I am uncertain as to the requirement for the Social Challenge against the Dragon to appear. From the text in the screenshot, my guess would be the presence of one or two party members with a high amount of Folklore, an attribute that was not common.

I had been crafting a lot of glowing-green equipment out of Enchanted Bones. For giggles, I equipped an Elf Wanderer with an almost full set of glowing-green equipment. Enchanted Bones could not be used in the crafting of any tools.

The Elf Wanderer with glowing-green equipment.

The Elf Wanderer had been recruited from a random Event where I sealed the curse affecting the elf. More details of the curse could be found while attempting the Divine Quest of Veles. Like the Liho, the Elf Wanderer had Piercing as an innate attribute. Thus, he would also benefit from having as much Damage as possible.

I had the Event where I worked with Orcs to open a vault many, many times. So many that I had a good number of Orc Fighters and I had run out of low-level villagers to exchange. The next time I met the Event and had no one I wished to part with, I chose not to make the exchange. I was given an Orc Worker.

I could have gotten a new Orc all this while without an exchange!?

The Orc Worker might not have stats as good as an Orc Fighter's but he was an extra party member and he could carry a good amount of load.

The Orc Worker.

Later, my village attracted a Wild Boar. For more giggles, I assigned the Wild Boar to do some crafting.

The Wild Boar could finish a Reed Flute.

By this time, the game was going slowly. I had a lot of villagers, resources and equipment to manage. I had three expeditions out. The main explorers explored hexes to increase my score. A party of gatherers collected resources close to the village. A third party, where the Wild Boar would later be assigned, formed the couriers. The couriers were filled with fighters who could carry heavy loads. They would move assets between the other two expeditions and the village. In addition, the couriers could handle any threats that wandered close to the village.

I wanted to score enough points to unlock Morena's last bonus. However, that would probably take a very long time. Considering the slow progress of the game, the next part of this account of my game will likely not be anytime soon.

That is assuming I do not quit out of boredom.

Thea: The Awakening, Morena 2, Part 1
Thea: The Awakening, Morena 2, Part 2
Thea: The Awakening, Morena 2, Final Part

Thea: The Awakening, Contents

Thea: The Awakening, Morena 2, Part 2

I planned to complete Morena's Divine Quest since the reward would give me a character with Magic. In the meanwhile, I visited quest locations that appeared near my village to prepare my people.

I completed the Icy Princess Event. Part of the reward was a history book, which gave a few of my villagers permanent bonuses. It looked like the Fat Rat could read, or at least it understood the words read to it.

The Fat Rat became smarter and knowledgeable.

My village well was poisoned for the third time. This time, my expedition was too far from the village. Considering that fact and that my expedition had some Attractiveness, I decided to look for the water spirit. Fortunately, the Event location appeared close to my expedition and I was able to meet the water spirit and complete her challenge.

The water spirit healed my villagers.

My villagers were healed and no one was cursed. The text said that curses were also healed but I did not have anyone with a curse to confirm if the words were true. The water spirit also bestowed a Blessing of Attractiveness on three of my villagers. Amusingly, the Fat Rat was one of the chosen.

Maybe I should rename the rat to 'Pretty Rat'.

Before dawn, I had a random event where my party met a Striga Mistress. In that event, only the male members of my party participated. That was when I discovered that the Fat Rat was considered male.

There were only men in the Intellect challenge.

My party went on their way to the Divine Quest assigned by Morena. The quest location was far since the direct route was blocked by a large body of water. I came across two 4-skull baddie camps. My party was not experienced enough to deal with them so I decided to avoid the confrontations.

The Spiders' Nest was the second 4-skull camp I came across.

When I detoured round the Spiders' Nest, I came across a large number of baddies. At least they were of lower difficulty so the baddies were tedious rather than difficult to handle.

What was beyond the Spiders' Nest.

I started the Divine Quest where I successfully released the dead university scholars from their imprisonment. From my experience of past games, I think that even though the quests for different deities started similar, the result of this part of the quest varies depending on the god or goddess chosen as the patron.

I post this screenshot here as a record for future comparison.

The successful release of the scholars was rewarded with the Blessing of Intelligence to all party members.

Meanwhile, I had not been able to attract any Goblins to my village. I decided to try recruiting Beasts instead. Clay and Monster Bones could be used to attract Beasts. In addition, the Totem that I chose to build costs 1240 Production Points. This met the requirement for one of the Grand Buildings required for the Advancement Victory.

A Totem of Clay and Monster Bones.

I had created a second party to gather resources close to the village. The gatherers met with a group of Orcs in a random Event. By working together to loot a vault, the gatherers were able to befriend the Orcs. The Orc Matriarch proposed that each side send a representative to join the other.

The orc leader made a proposal.

The new 'View My Group' button was very helpful while I was considering the proposal. I guessed that my lowest-level party member would be chosen. The only factor against the proposal was that the lowest-level member of my party was a Hunter, an uncommon class which was very useful in a party of gatherers. In return, I would likely receive a good fighter.

I decided to make the exchange. As I had guessed, the Hunter was chosen though he left his equipment behind. In return, I received an Orc Fighter and his good equipment.

The Orc Fighter was quite attractive because of his Equipment.

I continued on my Divine Quest, looking for a way to restore power to Morena.

Can you spot the missing word?

As before, that led to a battle with words to convince Morena, or an avatar of hers.

Yarostry dealt the last verbal blow on Morena.

After convincing Morena, she pointed me to the final step of the quest.

Morena gave more instructions.

Interestingly, Morena referred to the avatar of Death that I was to seek as a male. When I found the avatar of Death, she was referred to as a female. That must had been an avatar of Morena I spoke with earlier instead of the real deity if she did not know the gender of one of her important servants.

Met the avatar of Death.

After the meeting with the avatar of Death, as the game before, my party completed a ritual to restore Morena's power. As I hoped, a Liho joined my party. Unlike that other game, my village had not been plagued by a Liho in random events before this.

The Totem in my village managed to attract a Beast, a Blood Bee. The Blood Bee had some Stealth. In addition, it had Poison and Piercing. Its low damage reduced the effectiveness of Piercing, though.

My village attracted a Blood Bee.

My expedition met the Striga Mistress again. By dealing with her with Magic through the Hex challenge, the Fat Rat learned Magic permanently. This Event was good for training characters in Magic.

The 'Magic Rat' was back.

I had the Poludnica Event. I chose Maple Sap, which reminded her of a trap. Perhaps Rowan Tree was the best option.

For answering Maple Sap, my villager received some wood.

The Totem in my village attracted another Beast, a Wolf this time. Looked like recruiting a Beast was likelier than recruiting a Goblin, especially since my Totem had a high bonus to Attract Beasts. The Wolf had some decent strength and Animal Kinship. It would probably be best assigned to the gatherer party.

My village attracted a Wolf.

With my village growing well, I could start thinking about researching and producing powerful Equipment. This shall be continued in the next article.

Thea: The Awakening, Morena 2, Part 1
Thea: The Awakening, Morena 2, Part 3
Thea: The Awakening, Morena 2, Final Part

Thea: The Awakening, Contents