Preview RPG Codex Preview: Expeditions: Conquistador

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Tags: Expeditions: Conquistador; Logic Artists

Logic Artists' Expeditions: Conquistador now has four days left on Kickstarter, with little left to go to reach their target $70K goal. Codexer Tigranes has written a preview for you if you need convincing to pledge, based on some playtime with a press version of the game.

Here's a bit on character development in Expeditions:

Expeditions involves two types of characters. The first is the protagonist; he/she does not fight in battles, and in fact is generally not present in the gameworld, but interacts at a more abstract level, such as in dialogues. You begin the game by picking a name and gender for your hero, and distributing points into 5 attributes: Tactics (greater maneuverability in combat), Leadership (follower loyalty), Diplomacy (persuasion in dialogue), Healing and Hunting (self-explanatory). It’s hard to know how well balanced these attributes will be over the course of the entire game, but nothing immediately stands out as useless or obvious at the present - an advantage of a simpler system. The downside is that there is very little scope for customisation or personalisation; you can’t even choose a portrait, at least in the press build. I missed that little extra dash of colour, perhaps like a small selection of backgrounds à la Arcanum.

The real focus is on the followers, who are disposable, pre-set characters with their own specialties and personalities. You begin by choosing ten followers from a static pool of 30, divided into five jobs (the Kickstarter page promises ten): doctor, hunter, scholar, scout and soldier. I didn’t get much use out of scholars in the press build, especially as they and scouts cannot fight, but the other three roles were very generic, falling into the tank / archer / healer stereotypes. In addition, they have a mix of personality traits like 'Pious', 'Narcissistic' and even 'Racist', and come with a short bio that knits it all together into simple but believable personalities. They might be best understood as a simpler version of Jagged Alliance 2’s mercenaries. Subsequently, I found two main ways of customising the followers. Each battle accrued a shared pool of experience, which I could expend on any follower to level them up. I don’t know if the press build hiked up XP gain, but I could generally level up one follower after two battles at most, and there were only 5 levels. Each level seemed to unlock a new skill, making it 5 skills per class. The doctor begins with a basic heal skill, for example, while the hunter begins with a double-shot then unlocks an aimed shot that negates the distance penalty. I could also find or purchase ‘equipment’, again a general resource I could use to increase a follower’s melee, ranged or defensive capabilities.

Thanks Tigranes for the write-up!

Read the full article: RPG Codex Preview: Expeditions: Conquistador

Nice and informative preview. Shame to hear about the combat being bland though.

Tigranes Tell us about your imaginary friends.

Looks cool, it would be even better if you could create/roll your own expedition members and select their abilities, choose a portrait, and the "pool" was only optional, but I guess that's outside the scope of a strategy-y game.

Wander what The Brazilian Slaughter will tell about this.

They said I shouldn't, you might steal them from me.

I.... have to go now.

Sounds like they really need to hit the 100k point and implement thee skill trees. It will be an uphill battle...but godspeed....godspeed.

Further proof that this game NEEDS the ability tree stretch goal. A game with smaller scale combat and a limited number of classes needs greater depth and customization in individual units. Outside of combat things sound pretty good. I especially like how your troops will interject throughout the story based on their personalities. I also like the bit with having stuff stolen, finding the culprit and choosing an appropriate punishment.

Regarding the complaint with the giant floating symbols, they mentioned in their last video that those were only a placeholder.

Good to see they switched up the Stretch Goals.

They made their $70,000.

Congratulations on reaching the goal. I hope they set up a preorder service after Kickstarter has ended though, to reach these stretch goals and then some. Character development is an area, that they need to spice up in my opinion.

Hopefully they at least reach 80k. Choosing a passive bonus each time your dudes level up sounds like it would be a nice extra feature.

By "passive bonus" do you think they mean feats or attribute gains?

It would be pretty WTF if $10,000 = every level up, choose to increase +2 Melee or +2 Ranged!

From what I saw of the game as is, I feel it would have to be feats of some kind. And yes, I really hope they reach 80k, it wouldn't be a game-changer but would definitely improve the experience - especially if you could choose between different abilities.

$71,277 with 50 hours to go.

There hasn't been any huge spike at the end as far as I can tell, besides the more moderate incline over the past week or so. Hoping they get one and hit 80k.

Someone message fargo and see if he'll tweet the project; their on kicking it forward now.

Shit, they will not meet 80k, I am afraid. Maybe post-kickstarter paypal donation will bring it home. I just hope they will implement passive skills nonetheless.

EDIT::

So, it is done at somewhat over 77k. Good news is that they will be implementing passive skills afterall. Personally, I would also like to see more visual customization of our followers, but I am fine with what we get.

Crap. I left it until today because I wasn't sure whether to do $15 or more, but then I was in a meeting.

Good to hear they made it that far anyway, maybe like other projects they'll have a post-KS thing with same tiers.

Yeah I forgot to do it last night as well, oh well, I'll wait until its released, well done on making it.

I was hoping for a bigger boost at the end...

We'll be putting up a Paypal soon so people who came late to the party can still join, and those who wish can upgrade their pledges. When we have it set up, the money will continue to go towards the stretch goals for a little while.
As for customization, it's currently in the works. How your followers look will change depending on how much equipment you put towards their armour.

Good news. It is not anything overly important to be honest. It just gives you this feeling that you are not leading the army of clones throughout the game. I mean, the fact that you are implementing individual portraits is already great in my book. But it would simply be fantastic if this sort of "individuality" was also preserved during combat by just having nicely customized sillhouettes of your men.

Sorry guys, my payment bounced back, but I will correct it.