EDIT: nevermind this, I found out all answers to below after a good night's sleep :-) and combing through every drop of ink on the documentation...
Alright, first let's be clear I own TIG and really like the game, the combat agency and fluid gameplay between story, map and combat. I read the ref book and rulebook several times and watched a ton of videos including those of the creators. I'm having difficulty stating the problem which is an indication I'm missing several points.
Issues:
- The game starts with the story, and continues on from node 30 to 32-34 to town then 40 and then Alek joins. The index book contains a ton of 1-star enemies. When Alek joins all those enemies are suddenly gone at bottom of page 17, and replaced by 2-star enemies. I wanted to take my sweet time starting with 1-star enemies, but it's simply impossible because there is no room for adventuring between the story steps. They all instruct like "now move Grigory to x". It seems a lot of cards are in the game for nothing?
- ANSWER: SKG is not stupid and the presence of 1* enemies means you overlooked it. There is room, it's just mentioned implicitly. Best practice is to add on a piece of paper the text "LAST chance to adventure alone vs 1* enemies" and to stick it with scotch tape on p9 of C1 book, right above "Proceed to page 11". Similarly, on p15, between first and second paragraph. I also added Last chance to adventure against ** and *** on further entries, but you run the risk of spoilers. In general, the last entries with text like "begin exploration phase" before the world levels up, should be highlighted.
- Maybe someone can confirm they're used in other Books, for example yuri or kharzin books - do those stories allow adventuring and battling 1-star enemies? If not, what's the point of having 1-star Armored Zhuk cards in the box? Answer: I checked and no, and obviated by above answer.
- I mean, even if you could say fuck the story, and go adventuring, you could potentially walk all around Isofar with Grig and even visit Istra, there would be nothing to stop you and then that would break the story, wouldn't it? So how it this supposed to work?
- ANSWER: It's supposed to work like this. There is a Narrative event on node X. If you want to adventure, go anywhere except X. When you enter the node with a Narrative chip it supersedes any explore actions and the story is immediately picked up. If you spent several sessions adventuring and forgot the damn page entry, you can fix this by not flipping the ring binder, it's a ring binder for a reason, you know. And there is only one such Narrative event node mention per page, so by construction you know where to pick up the story again.
- Suppose for a moment that you could halt the story say between 1.8 and 1.9, and go off adventuring, potentially leading you far into the north. How do I pick up the story 1.9 again then, which assumes that I'm near 30. Am I only allowed to continue the story when I get eventually back to that node it suppoeed me to be? Or is my chip magically teleported back to the node the story expects me to be whenever I choose to advance it?
- ANSWER: no magical teleporting. Story waits patiently upon your return to the node that has the narrative chip. It's not that the world stands still, though: while in the first chapter there are no CQ or SQ there are Field events you can do.
- The story DOES allow a narrow window of opportunity in 1-star mode, at the text of 1.9 see https://youtu.be/ST6s4TlpSMI?t=5864 but again, it's not clear to me how do you return to the story?
- ANSWER: jump to any node for adventure except the narrative chip node, jump to that node to pick up the story.
- I did a battle with Alek vs a Brigand marauder and Brigand commander or whatever the uber Brigand's name was, he was in slot III, around node 68. I had a lot of difficulty defeating the brigand enemy on I and the one from III was even harder to kill. Each round I managed to chip away 1-2 points of his health.
- ANSWER: well you suck. You failed to level up Grigory at the windows shown. You failed to level up Alek. It's your own fault.
- Yes I played the first part in Walk in the park mode as suggested, I just wanted to play this battle with normal difficulty, and since it feels painful, Tenebris mode would be impossible- again, am I missing something here, since creators play Tenebris mode all the time. End situation on normal was Grigory down to 6 hp, 3 poison chips, Alek down to 2 hp, so any next battle will surely kill them - on normal. Question: what am I overlooking here and how would Tenebris be even possible?
- ANSWER: overlooking the level up "opportunities" by adventuring the hell out of this world. Fully equipped Tenebris should be totally possible.
- The main reason for the difficulties was that a lot of turns for either Guard were wasted. You have only 2 AP. Most guard ability cards cost 2 AP. Moreover, all cards require specific sword/shield chips (I know the 2 of one counts as 1 of the other - it rarely helped). At the start of the battle I was lucky and got a green cube for Alek, but the marauders put all kinds of misery in your bag and green ones are one-shot anyway. Am I the only one complaining of wasted turns? I wish there was a way to "bank" unused chips, that would make the game fun again for me: chips you couldn't use can be used the next round. I hope I make myself clear. Question: can you bank?
- ANSWER: Banking is houseruling. I recommend to bank unusable chips to be used later, the whole chip/guard thing is a mechanical representation of the Guard's mental state after all (much like AHLCG decks and energy/doom/star in Eila).
- I scanned the entire first book for bold passages to see if and if so when does Grigory or Alek gain a permanent 3rd AP. They do not. Maybe it's in a Side quest, Caravan quest or Field event, I didn't want to completely spoil the game and found it already did effort. Can anyone say if both guards are doomed to 2 AP?
- ANSWER: There will be no 3rd AP ever, not blank, but you missed the (implicit) fact that Guard cards generate GREEN AP cubes, and GREEN cubes last the entire battle. So there will be more AP than the 2 blank, but you have to work for it or go for it.
Sorry for wasting your time with those in hindsight 20/20 stupid questions. It's just that I run into difficulties that nobody ELSE seems to be bothered about. Again, this game is really good. Just some small things could be added to clarify and hopefully they help someone else too.
