The new ambition is quite nice, but too similar to the Song of the Zee or the Zeppelin.
Aside from having multiple options at the start for protection against sunlight and at the end for declaring independence the journey wasn’t too exciting. It doesn’t feel like Aestival is growing as a settlement; you ferry nothing but zailors to the place, you put down supplies and treasures, you make your Campaigner or Magician viceroy and don’t get to see them bossing people around. The map does change to reflect Aestival looking better, but I have trouble imagining a life on Aestival with the descriptions we have, aside from lounging around eating fruits.
Would be nice to have some more variations in citizens, buildings and economy I guess. I mean if you get to visit a Post-Ambition Aestival ingame right now it would just be a boring island full of interchangeable zailors eating fruit. If it was up to me I’d set up a sunbathing salon and become the East Neath Company to corner the market on bananas, oranges, and stupid animals. There’s a lot of pressure on being a special snowflake island when you are surrounded by places like Irem!
The endings are awesome though. Especially the independent one. edited by Estelle Knoht on 2/20/2015
The fact that Aestival is ALWAYS bathed in sunshine is the most obvious logical error in the game-lore, I think. Is there no more night on the Surface? No bad weather? ;)
I concur, the nature of the Neath is such that it could be a portal to the center of the Sun on the roof. It could also be a really, really shiny stalactite. I jest of course, but really it will likely remain a mystery if not perceived oversight as suggested by Rupho.
Well, the implication of the Irrepressible Engineer’s quest seems to be that they made a gun so powerful it blew a hole in the roof over Aestival, then abandoned the project, which is why there are the ruins of an I&M base on the island, as well as the remains of the super-gun.
What I would say is that I’m not entirely clear that the 'Neath is actually under the earth. I mean, it could be that it’s conceptually the underworld but not literally underground (although traveling between the world and the 'Neath involve going “down” or “up” for reasons of magical correspondences). If that’s the case, then blowing a hole in the “roof” symbolically connects that part of the 'Neath to the world “above,” which is to say, the world of life and sunlight.
So where would you be if you actually climbed through the hole in the roof?
And, even if it was the sun, it would only shine through the Neath’s roof directly onto the island… what, an hour and a half per day? The Neath’s “roof” must be quite far from zee-level.
I’m happy to just write it up as a visual conceit, a simplification that makes Aestival immediately impressive without having to account for the extremely loose time structure that games like this have to operate on.
(Also, generally, I’m inclined to believe that the Neath really is a literal cave within the Earth, rather than a purely metaphysical location… but also, given that in this setting, celestial bodies are alive and have personalities and agency, that the Neath being this strange hole in the Earth does have immense metaphysical and metaphorical significance in itself.)
Actually, maybe that’s why they don’t all immediately die the moment they set foot on Aestival. Indirect sunlight is still way more sunlight than they usually get, and moonlight is just reflected sunlight, and starlight is the light from yet more distant suns.
Would someone mind letting me know how to start the ambition? I’ve brought all the things I can think of to the island, and none work to fend off the sunlight.
I would also love to see the map change more to reflect the building of a kingdom on Aestival. Heck, I’d love to have a more animated map in general. Changes in the map due to player actions is very rewarding; it gives the player a tangible sense that s/he has affected the world.
Until Aestival, the Hunter’s Keep storyline was - IIRC - the only story that had a visible impact on the map (there may be others; I haven’t done everything). That change has an enormous impact on the game, in my opinion; it gave the story much more weight for such a small visual change. Every time I pass Hunter’s Keep, it reminds me of what happened there. More such changes would be great. There are some particularly effective and creepy changes that could happen to Visage, for example. edited by Jascob on 2/25/2015
Very much agreed, though I still don’t really know what actually happened (I haven’t been able to save Phoebe, does the matter become more clear when you do? Or does the maid tell you anything? I confess I just plundered the place… ;) )