5 Tips For Pillars Of Eternity II: Deadfire

With Pillars Of Eternity II: Deadfire released, the time to explore a new side of Eora is at hand. As with any cRPG, things can be a bit overwhelming at first. That’s why below, you’ll find a list that, while far from exhaustive, contains a couple of small tips to help with your first journey across the Deadfire Archipelago.

1. There are multiple ways of importing saves from the first Pillars of Eternity.

The Watcher Of Caed Nua has left their citadel behind, but that doesn’t mean their past actions are completely forgotten. Saves from the previous game can be manually imported, while Pillars Of Eternity II: Deadfire also offers a couple of preset legacies, alongside the option of creating your own from scratch. The latter is very thorough, going through a high number of decisions involving actions from both the original story and the White March DLC. If you’ve lost your saves and feel like setting up your legacy in detail, you’ll find the option in a sub-menu under the “Options” tab.

2. Item stacks can be split by double clicking.

Nothing revelatory, but it took me a while to properly remember that double clicking on an item stack splits it, and I haven’t seen it mentioned in the Cyclopedia (which does, otherwise, cover a vast number of things concerning both gameplay and lore). If your memory is as bad as mine, you’re welcome.

3. Keep your party together near Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style events.

Sometimes while exploring on foot, Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style events will pop up, possibly opening a new way through the level, or a path towards hidden treasure. You’ll want to keep your party close when dealing with them, so that you have all their skills at their ready. My Cipher leaned more towards being perceptive instead of athletic, so when I approached a well with him alone the odds of retrieving what was inside without injury weren’t stacked in my favor. Bringing Edér, expert farmer, tank and better athlete near the well solved my problems.

4. Food and drink need to be assigned to the proper slots unless you want a hungry, thirsty crew.

Captaining a ship doesn’t just mean you get to wear a fancy hat. Part of taking care of your crew is keeping them fed and hydrated. It’s not enough to purchase food and keep it in your stash. In order for your crew to have access to it, it needs to be moved into the appropriate rows on the Ship Management screen. As you can only see daily consumption when hovering over the icons at the top of the screen, it’s wise to keep plenty of food and drink available to the crew, while also checking on how different items affect their morale. Food and drink is consumed in order, from left to right.

5. Injured crew members only heal when in reserve.

So, you were sailing the seas, found a ship to plunder and your cook stopped a cannonball with their face. While crew members are pretty hardy, in order to heal they need to be put in reserve, which is found on the lower right corner near the ship schematic in the Ship Management screen. When in reserve, you can’t take advantage of the bonuses they otherwise impart (so, in the case of the experienced cook, the crew eats more while they’re taking a break to heal) and can end up in situations where you have to replace an experienced member with a bumbling idiot fresh sailor you found in a cave somewhere and which totally isn’t a cannibal in secret. Healing takes a number of days, depending on the wound, and consumes medical supplies. Injured crew members put to work reduce the crew’s morale.

6. Clean not your first ship of bird shit.

This is less of a tip and more an objective, irrefutable truth. Your first ship will be covered in bird shit. You could buy another one, once you have enough money, or replace its parts to clean it up, but why would you do that? It’s a bold fashion statement that no other sailor in the Deadfire Archipelago can lay claim to, and a surefire way of making history remember you as the true rebel that you are.

If you haven’t already, give our Pillars Of Eternity II: Deadfire review a read. If you’ve already read it once, a second read never hurt anybody.

Bogdan Robert, NoobFeed
Facebook | Twitter