Turned on Auto-Crusade to skip their incredibly poorly-made strategy/tactics game and now can't enter the war camp. A web search reveals this is a failure in game design by Owlcat that has been known for months and still hasn't been fixed. Is there any work-around for this or do I just have to stop playing until they get around to fixing it? Playing the fun RPG part is not worth slogging through the badly made war-game part.

I know it's too late to warn you, but no, unless you like losing (and who does?), don't enable the auto resolve battles toggle. I thought the regular game AI was bad.

Here are your workarounds:
Turn Crusading off in the menus (recommend against it - see other threads)
Get Combat Relief mod - activate - battles are auto WIN
Get Toybox - turn down Crusade difficulty - go forth and ROFLstomp

In general, take archers, take mage generals, win.

Thanks. If only owlcat would stop trying to make multi-genre games and give us a straight Pathfinder RPG.

Welll ... all I can say is ... if you're going to add a strategy feature/component to your game, I'm not asking for the moon, it doesn't have to (on its own) be the best evah, but come on, at least make it suck less.

Originally posted by ecjones1975:

Thanks. If only owlcat would stop trying to make multi-genre games and give us a straight Pathfinder RPG.

Unfortunately many folks do not agree with you about this. I think the strategy layers in Kingmaker and this one are really good from the point of view of driving and pacing the narrative and generating choice and consequence. Could they be better? Yes, certainly. But that means expanding and refining them IMO.

In short I think the strategy layers are what puts Kingmaker and WotR way ahead of other cRPGs, it's what make them special. They make stuff like strongholds in NWN2 and PoE look stupid IMHO.

Part of the reason I think that of course is that being a big 4X/grand strategy fan as well I did not find it hard to figure out how to win the crusade game easily which means a) I get all the benefits of it with no draw backs and b) I can relax and enjoy the way it drives the story etc. I get the full benefit of it as intended in the design.

I think a lot of people who complain about the crusade system simply haven't buckled down and learned how to play it properly. Which is sad for them 'cos they're degrading their experience of this amazing game.

That it's easy to win, even without hacks, is not its drawback. Difficulty is not the problem.

That it's poorly implemented, designed, balanced, and also bugged like everything else ... well. People who care about these things more than me would say that it is so easy to win with one kind of troop and general means it's unbalanced.

It's not a difficulty problem that the auto resolve function is a massive fail. It's a design problem.

Disagree. I loved the Kingdom management and I now also enjoy the crusade management. As pointed out above, it could be better. But I still really enjoy the pacing, the opportunity after another adventure/dungeon/quest to take care of the bigger picture, play these mini-games, resting at the Citadel and talking to companions before heading out in the world again. I hope they keep doing this in further games.

That it has a Crusade feature that paces things out is great. That they went to the effort of adding another game layer is great. That there are some aspects of it I really like (the Council meetings) I won't deny.

I loved HOMM. I played it. I know how to do a strategy game. I also know a well designed strategy game. This isn't. It has numerous design issues, PLUS bugs.

Some aspects are cool - I do like how the Mythic Paths get special troops and commander abilities - I again won't deny that. Still won't ignore poor design.

Other peoples' mileage may vary.