Jagged Knife incident

I have been away for a while and was hoping for a new experience with Twilight of the Arnor.  It plays very well until it gets to a point where the you are about to get the upper hand.  I than get the incident "Jagged Knife" which brings in a new player with all the techs of every race in the game and arbitrarily takes halve of the planets that have been colonized in the game.  This incident I believe to be a game breaker and I think it needs to removed or at least toned down.  Any suggestions on how to disable this one incident.

Walt

5,079 views 7 replies
Reply #1 Top
There is no way to disable a single mega-event, its all of them or none (you can turn of the mega-events option). You can however restart from your last save and the odds are that the event won't re-occur.
Reply #2 Top
Thak you. I will turn off the Mega Events.
Walt
Reply #3 Top
the Jagged Knife event is a reoccuring discussion. But it's nothing that came into the game with ToA, been in the game at least also during DA.
As for game breaker...well Mega events are supposed to be that.

And as for "needs to be removed"...hell, no.
If you are the one that lags behind in tech (as one probably will be when one is playing at the highest 2-3 difficulties) and is military in a disadvantage compared to the AI...this even also can be one great advantage that allows you to win and previously extremly tough game.

hint: JK doesnt have any warships at first...if you can capture many planets before they can build up (m)any you will gain lots of highly advanced techs that will save you literally years of researching.

I posted a AAR of a suicidal game (DA) which I probably won (easily) mainly due to the JK event, if you care...look at my past postings and searhc for it ;P

I'm having a new go at suicidal games on ToA...and basically I will be hoping for a JK-event to take place again sometime after the 2nd year or so ;P
Reply #4 Top
Doesn't the Jagged Knife affect only Evil Civs? I haven't played with Mega Events since my first game.
Reply #5 Top
No that's a different one. Jagged Knife affects all civs. There's a similar event called Fundamentalists or something that leaves evil empires cuz they're all moral and stuff.

I had the Jagged Knife event go off last night. End game, 2 enemy civs left with 3 planets each. They each lose 1 to the JK, I lost 15. Needless to say, I loaded an autosave lol.
Reply #6 Top
I love the idea of a game that keeps thing interesting and presents new challenges to you once you achieve the critical mass necessary to win the game.

However, so many of the mega events just feel so arbitrary, illogical and game breaking. I think this is stardock's biggest (but probably only) problem as a developer; they don't understand how important immersion is to players. The Political Machine has the same problem, where players can take totally contradictory stances on very similar issues.

Likewise, the occasional "moral decision" screens in GC: They just through some screen at you and let you choose an option, then throw some arbitrarily calculated bonuses or penalties at you. It is an absolute joke that I can play the game like an absolute bastard (stab races in the back despite having treaties with them, keep two sides at war with each other for my own profit) and still maintain a good alignment simply because I chose to spend a paltry number of BC on a few event screens.

Likewise, the mega events; they just feel tacked on and totally divorced from the gameplay mechanics.

The appearance of pirates should be a gameplay mechanic, dependent on your level of taxation. Outbreaks of plague might be due to a failure of races to research zeno biology. If you want to keep my challenged in the late game, then you can give my far flung conquests "distance to capital" penalties to morale to make them harder to keep hold of. Rebellions shouldn't be random events, they should be based on a range of factors like poor morale, spending neglect, loyalties to previous occupants, differences in ethics between natives and conquerors.
Reply #7 Top
Fundamentalists are the event that affects only evil civs. And has anyone ever had Jagged Knife and Fundamentalists in the same game? I just did :D I had to laugh out loud when it happened, it was like, "what's next? Plague? Recession? Dread lords?"

I found the Fundamentalist planets really, really easy to conquer and they basically won me the game. But the JT had an advantage factor of 5 and getting those back was agony.

Agree that the JT event can swing a game if you play it right, but god I still hate it.