Linguistic Dragon has made more progress in his ongoing playthrough of Savage Empire. This time around, his main focus was on building up a party, which took him to a number of different locales within northern and central Eodon. And it also caused him to encounter an issue that, to this point in all of his playing, had not presented itself to him in quite so direct a fashion:

I paid a visit to the Barako’s rivals, the Pindiro. And there I saw yet another rather familiar face, in the form of the warrior Dokray, more than a little reminiscent of the paladin Dupre back in Britannia. He too wanted to see the tribes of Eodon united against the Myrmidex, and here I had a decision to make – whether to bring him along or not.

You see, I’d run into the party limit.

This was the first time I’d run up against the party limit that I hadn’t already planned around a bit during my playthrough of the series – I did some party juggling in Ultima V, but that was something I was already prepared for. I’d thought the party limit in Savage Empire was six, not including those who automatically joined, and Dokray’s refusal to join my group on account of already having enough came as a surprise. And also left me with a bit of a dilemma – who to leave behind? I’ve chosen my party members (at least since the first game that allowed me to do so, Ultima V) based more on story and thematic reasons than solely for function in the party, and the fact that I can without seriously crippling myself is one of the things I like about the series – even Katrina in Ultima IV can turn out to be quite the powerhouse, she just takes a while and a bit more work to get there. I’ve made mention of the fact I don’t feel right not taking along Iolo, Shamino, and Dupre if I can help it, and the same goes for their analogues in Savage Empire, but it didn’t feel right leaving either Rafkin or Jimmy behind either – I had brought them with me, after all. Ultimately, it was with reluctance that I told Shamuru to catch up with us later so we could bring Dokray along. I couldn’t leave behind my companions from Earth, we were a team, we’d come here together and we’d stick together until we found a way back home. Triolo was the only shaman among us and thereby the only practitioner of the valley’s form of magic, and all three of them were more well suited to fighting from a distance than flinging themselves into a melee. Dokray was a heavy hitter, though, at least moreso than Shamuru the hunter, so I decided to give Aric some support on the front lines and take Dupre’s doppelganger along with us.

As always, there is much, much more to read, so click on through for the rest.