If I surrender, do I have to kill them in later game? Or some of the crusaders will stop attack me in future ? I hope that by sparing them or surrender to them, they will see me as non-hostile character and together we solve this conflict peacefully.
Even though my character is a neutral good blade, I faked a resignation and then attacked because I had heard from the half orcs at the camp that Barghest is cruel, so I did not believe he would be true to his word about letting us go.
Man oh man this battle was just the best. The crusaders were decimated before the reinforcements could even arrive. SoD is in such a sweet spot for AOE spells.
I wrecked them, in my first play through, just to see if I could. A strategically well placed cloud kill made sure i only had to fight about half of the crusaders, while the others walked straight into their demise (that's also why I did not invite the fists to the fight). I will, however, try different approaches in the future.
By the way
is there a reward for betraying Bridgefort? Or is an evil deed it's own reward?
Sadly, there is literally no incentive to betray the garrison. I had hoped you could somehow side with the crusade by doing so, or at the very least prevent the coalition from reaching Dragonspear in time. (i.e. after the portal was opened)
Furthermore; it doesn't make any logical sense to do so, it seems there are no die hard fanatics on either side. If the garrison was to be butchered to a man when they surrender or were to be decimated, you could argue that you took matters into your own hands to prevent any further loss of life. You can argue that without the knowledge of what will happen the choice seems more believable but even then I'd be hard pressed to come up with a reason that doesn't involve a complete psychotic breakdown.
Perhaps I'm missing something there but I was sorely disappointed in the outcome. Still, it managed to get me to try it, so there's that.
I had hoped you could somehow side with the crusade by doing so, or at the very least prevent the coalition from reaching Dragonspear in time.
I've yet to figure out why anyone would do this. To my way of thinking, only a chaotic evil character would side with the Crusade, and even then...it's IFFY. The CHARNAME isn't stupid (I don't mean whether CHARNAME has a low int score or not), so it's clear something is odd about the Crusade.
I chose to surrender. IIRC there were civilians within the fort and the collateral damage caused by picking a fight could have been terrible when the option for a peaceful resolution was present. I had Glint cast Know Alignment on Barghest out of curiosity which revealed him as neutral so I decided to take the risk in trusting him not to attack.
i did all 3 main paths - now i just usually surrender since khalid always seems to die unless i attack from the defenders side with him to keep him alive
Surrender. Following the RP for my character it was more important for her to prove that Caelar use the wrong method than killing her soliders, literally a principe war.
She strong because people follow her, it's an important thing to show that she's not the only good. The supply can be destroy and nobody have to be hurt here, so it's a good deal. The enemy will not get advantage of the deal.
I destroyed them. I was playing an evil dick who didn't need a reason to shed blood, was furious at Caelar and her crusade by extension, and his boyfriend Dorn wanted the Barghest dead besides. So it was a pretty decision. I don't think either choice, fighting or surrendering, is necessarily good or evil. There are legitimate reasons supported by all alignments for either. The only truly evil choice seems to be betraying Bridgefort, and I struggle to understand why even an evil character would do that.
I killed them all because I wasn't sure how else to proceed. I was unable to join them; they said I had to find a missing squad in a ruined temple or something but I had no idea where that temple was. I looked all over the eastern part of the bridge map as well as the entire wyrm area, but I didn't find a ruined temple.
I threatened the guard to lower the drawbridge, as if to betray the coalition. But then when the Siege commander came up to thank me, I turned the tables and attacked him...
What can I say, my character was of Chaotic alignment...
(Also, this way I could fight the invaders without stupid AI-controlled allies getting in the way.)
I considered a surrender, but after going through the crusader camp, I judged an attack to be more practical. It just didn't seem like a fight I could not win... and the surrender deal seemed like a lose-lose proposition, what with the defenders destroying their own supplies just to starve their enemies.
I tried fighting on my third SoD run (actually a replay of my first). I think I would've lost this fight several times if I was playing anything other than a Blade. Defensive Spin + Mirror Image-Blur sequencer was the MVP. Insane difficulty, no damage increase. I only reloaded once and that was because underleveled Khalid charged in and died, charmed him out of the fight on the second attempt.
I finally got round to playing Dragonspear this year after waiting so long for BGEE and co, I didn’t get much time to play when it launched.
This confused the hell out of me, I had a wardstone from Cyric’s temple and my journal suggested I return to the crusader camp, which I had never visited before. When I tricked my way in having saved an errant dwarf from his cage In the temple I was given the option to give the stone to the enemy!? I couldn’t figure out a motivation to do so.
Anyhow, having found a Thayvian mage jealously guarding a chest, Glint attempted to secretly remove him from the picture, out of sight. Things didn’t go to plan so he raided the chest, gulped an Invis potion and ran for it. My party took the portal In the forest into the keep only to find that both sides had engaged in earnest. By the time I sallied from the main gate there were already many dead and some.. familiar items among them.
Yeah, turning the Crusader camp hostile ruins any chance of other resolutions than "kill them all." You missed out on a couple minor side quests (potential 2nd pair of boots of speed), and a few different ways to resolve the stalemate.
I went with the 'nuke 'em all, let their gods sort them out' approach, but I did it by summoning a whole bunch of nasties outside the camp, then sent them in with one invisible "AWACS" character to position them. As soon as they went hostile, it was total pandemonium - so much so, my tablet slowed down a bit.
I had the rest of the party invisible and strategically positioned as well, so that fight didn't last very long. By the time the bridgefort folks showed up on the scene, the crusaders were already in rough shape.
I wasn't aiming for chaos but on a first playthrough I like to try and stick with my more impulsive choices so long as they don't prevent me progressing through the game. I look forward to trying out some more passive options in my next playthrough.
I finally got round to playing Dragonspear this year after waiting so long for BGEE and co, I didn’t get much time to play when it launched.
This confused the hell out of me, I had a wardstone from Cyric’s temple and my journal suggested I return to the crusader camp, which I had never visited before. When I tricked my way in having saved an errant dwarf from his cage In the temple I was given the option to give the stone to the enemy!? I couldn’t figure out a motivation to do so.
Yea this is the problem with having so many different outcomes for quests. The number of possible outcomes gets kind of silly. I do remember regularly testing the wardstone and getting it before ever I travelling to the camp. But I may have just missed what that journal entry said. If it is the case that you get that journal entry then that is definitely something that should have been caught during development.
I always did fight, and enjoy it. As F/M/T, backstap few mages inside (as I recall, one of them won't even turn on others hostile), and start slaughter. While my party is at entrance and start fighting guards at entrance, along with summons.
Not sure what triggers it (maybe killing of one speficic Crusader guy inside?) but than Flaming Fists arrive in big army. What a fight!
I just finished Chapter IX with my Wizard Slayer (9)>Thief (8) so figured I'd share. Rest of party is Minsc, Corwin, Dyanheir, and Glint BTW.
Guess it kicked into high gear when I interrupted Wynan Hess and the party got level drained by the sickness meteor.
I had rescued Kharm's son, so had been welcome into the Crusader camp previously. This time, stumbled upon the Crusaders partaking in some religious ritual in front of a fire...Okkkaaay...figured now was my time to snatch Vichand's scroll.
Got into an argument wit the guard guarding the scroll, but basically just snatched it and ran away (it was just my char and Glint in the camp at the time, I left the rest outside a ways from the entrance.) I think Vichand was on his way back over from the ceremony, but wasn't over in time to initiate any dialog with my characters--if that's indeed what is supposed to happen.
The rest of the camp didn't aggro as first, just the one guard...as Glint and I ran out of the camp, he eventually stopped pursuing. After a few moments I hid in shadows and snuck back to see what the deal was...and I saw ALL the guards at the front were aggroed.
Being level drained, I rushed back up to the rune circle and delivered the scroll to break the meteor sickness curse. At this point I think I can take a breather. I'm slowly thinking about my next steps for the siege camp, how/when to attack, best buffs and spells to use, do I need to return to Troll Clow Woods and tell the FF, etc.
But to my surprise, I can only think about that stuff for about 5 seconds when I "hear" (see combat dialog) Flaming Fist and Crusaders fighting outside. I go outside but they still have the drawbridge up and can't talk any sense into them. So I buff up and quickly as possible (really just Haste I think and maybe another one? My spells were half gone because I was NOT expecting this battle to go NOW), take the rune circle back outside, and head towards the camp.
A lot of the Flaming Fist had already been killed and defeated by the time I got there, and Crusaders were milling outside the entrance. I didn't really sneak up on them per se, but Dyanheir did hit the entrance quickly with a series of stinking clouds and cloudkills, Horrors and Hold Persons also came in handy early on. With my two Rangers and CHARNAME laying down a blanket of arrows, and with Dynaheir eventually just slinging fireballs from a fire wand and using Breach/Magic Word on the mages when they spilled out, it was actually a fairly clean victory (if you don't count all the FF that died before I got there...).
Best part was adding Khalid to get back all my BG1 fighter gear he had been holding onto this month.
I finally got to it over the weekend and surrendered cause Im kinda in a hurry to finish it up so I can get to BG2 finally. But I do have a save game right before, just in case you know..
Comments
By the way
Furthermore; it doesn't make any logical sense to do so, it seems there are no die hard fanatics on either side. If the garrison was to be butchered to a man when they surrender or were to be decimated, you could argue that you took matters into your own hands to prevent any further loss of life. You can argue that without the knowledge of what will happen the choice seems more believable but even then I'd be hard pressed to come up with a reason that doesn't involve a complete psychotic breakdown.
Perhaps I'm missing something there but I was sorely disappointed in the outcome. Still, it managed to get me to try it, so there's that.
She strong because people follow her, it's an important thing to show that she's not the only good. The supply can be destroy and nobody have to be hurt here, so it's a good deal. The enemy will not get advantage of the deal.
But then when the Siege commander came up to thank me, I turned the tables and attacked him...
What can I say, my character was of Chaotic alignment...
(Also, this way I could fight the invaders without stupid AI-controlled allies getting in the way.)
Win-lose was better than lose-lose.
I finally got round to playing Dragonspear this year after waiting so long for BGEE and co, I didn’t get much time to play when it launched.
This confused the hell out of me, I had a wardstone from Cyric’s temple and my journal suggested I return to the crusader camp, which I had never visited before. When I tricked my way in having saved an errant dwarf from his cage In the temple I was given the option to give the stone to the enemy!? I couldn’t figure out a motivation to do so.
Anyhow, having found a Thayvian mage jealously guarding a chest, Glint attempted to secretly remove him from the picture, out of sight. Things didn’t go to plan so he raided the chest, gulped an Invis potion and ran for it. My party took the portal In the forest into the keep only to find that both sides had engaged in earnest. By the time I sallied from the main gate there were already many dead and some.. familiar items among them.
I seem quite unpopular following this episode!
I had the rest of the party invisible and strategically positioned as well, so that fight didn't last very long. By the time the bridgefort folks showed up on the scene, the crusaders were already in rough shape.
Yea this is the problem with having so many different outcomes for quests. The number of possible outcomes gets kind of silly. I do remember regularly testing the wardstone and getting it before ever I travelling to the camp. But I may have just missed what that journal entry said. If it is the case that you get that journal entry then that is definitely something that should have been caught during development.
I can't get enough of the quarterstaff, backstab chunkiness for thousands and thousands of XP.
Not sure what triggers it (maybe killing of one speficic Crusader guy inside?) but than Flaming Fists arrive in big army. What a fight!
Guess it kicked into high gear when I interrupted Wynan Hess and the party got level drained by the sickness meteor.
I had rescued Kharm's son, so had been welcome into the Crusader camp previously. This time, stumbled upon the Crusaders partaking in some religious ritual in front of a fire...Okkkaaay...figured now was my time to snatch Vichand's scroll.
Got into an argument wit the guard guarding the scroll, but basically just snatched it and ran away (it was just my char and Glint in the camp at the time, I left the rest outside a ways from the entrance.) I think Vichand was on his way back over from the ceremony, but wasn't over in time to initiate any dialog with my characters--if that's indeed what is supposed to happen.
The rest of the camp didn't aggro as first, just the one guard...as Glint and I ran out of the camp, he eventually stopped pursuing. After a few moments I hid in shadows and snuck back to see what the deal was...and I saw ALL the guards at the front were aggroed.
Being level drained, I rushed back up to the rune circle and delivered the scroll to break the meteor sickness curse. At this point I think I can take a breather. I'm slowly thinking about my next steps for the siege camp, how/when to attack, best buffs and spells to use, do I need to return to Troll Clow Woods and tell the FF, etc.
But to my surprise, I can only think about that stuff for about 5 seconds when I "hear" (see combat dialog) Flaming Fist and Crusaders fighting outside. I go outside but they still have the drawbridge up and can't talk any sense into them. So I buff up and quickly as possible (really just Haste I think and maybe another one? My spells were half gone because I was NOT expecting this battle to go NOW), take the rune circle back outside, and head towards the camp.
A lot of the Flaming Fist had already been killed and defeated by the time I got there, and Crusaders were milling outside the entrance. I didn't really sneak up on them per se, but Dyanheir did hit the entrance quickly with a series of stinking clouds and cloudkills, Horrors and Hold Persons also came in handy early on. With my two Rangers and CHARNAME laying down a blanket of arrows, and with Dynaheir eventually just slinging fireballs from a fire wand and using Breach/Magic Word on the mages when they spilled out, it was actually a fairly clean victory (if you don't count all the FF that died before I got there...).
Best part was adding Khalid to get back all my BG1 fighter gear he had been holding onto this month.