Quote:
Originally Posted by Sabbo
Baldur's Gate 2 confused the heck out of me.
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Basic background (This is explained if you watch the very first intro movie, the one that shows up if you sit through the splash screens, and is also the backstory/plot of Baldur's Gate I):
The setting of the game, the universe of the Forgotten Realms, has actual deities, each of which has an aspect of the world that they watch over, known as their portfolio.
Originally these gods were very...Greek (Well, maybe more Norse). They fought amongst themselves and schemed and so on. Eventually, one of the evil ones stole a powerful artifact from the "Overdeity" Ao, who had created all the other Gods. He decided that enough was enough, the gods had been too neglectful of their followers and were simply making a mess of things, so he made them all mortal. Incredibly powerful mortals, but still mortal. He also made it clear that he'd only return them to Godhood when the artifact was returned.
This was known as the Time of Troubles. Chaos...was pretty much omnipresent. Lots of parts of the world stopped working without divine oversight (such as magic, which now only worked if you were within a few miles of the ex-goddess of magic) and the gods started trying to kill each other so as to gain more influence and power when they once again became immortal.
In addition, normal people tried to kill gods so that they could get their power, and followers of the gods tried to protect/help their deities.
One of the gods, Bhaal (the god of murder), foresaw that he would die when the Time of Troubles came. so he set about creating as many children as he could. By the time that the Time of Troubles started he had a few hundred "heirs".
So, the time of troubles comes along, he's murdered, as are a few other gods. Some new ones show up, etc. but eventually the artifact is returned and the gods are made immortal again. (This whole thing is just the explanation for why the Dungeons and Dragons rules changed between 1st and 2nd edition. Seriously.)
You grow up not knowing who your parents are, but still living a reasonably normal life. Until the monastry that you live at is razed to the ground and you're forced to flee. Turns out that you're a "Bhaalspawn", or Child of Bhaal, and that the one Bhaalspawn who can kill the rest will get to become the new god of murder (There are other ways to accomplish this, too, but the more Bhaalspawn you kill the more powerful you'd become, it would seem.)
As such, one of the other Bhaalspawn is trying to hunt you down and kill you.
You eventually kill him before he can ascend to godhood.
Pretty much immediately after that your camp gets attacked in the night and you're taken captive. You then wake up and it's the start of Baldur's Gate II.
Hope that clarifies things.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiroth
I really don't understand where you got the idea that Civ III emphasises combat, though - especially not when you consider the original and Civ II. O.o Civ III was the first one that put the emphasis away from combat.
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Civ III is all about expansion, and once you can't expand any further through peaceful means you have to expand through military might.
Seriously, in competitive play your only hope is to have the biggest military and to expand constantly.
Civ IV, however, can be won even if you only have three cities and your opponent has twelve. It's not easy, but you don't lose automatically because you failed to claim an entire continent from the start.