I finished the expansion victory recently and would like to post a few comments based on my experience.
First of all, it is not all what I expected. I thought expansion victory mean vast territory. I understand the towns and POI requirement, again because I was thinking accumulating a vast piece of land. This victory felt more like a wealth victory with all the coins and other items required. No other victory interacts with other victories so did not understand why this one does. I feel the game has other characters that could have been used, i.e. people in gypsy town, Matriarch or even your advisors.
I understand using multiple characters to increase the opportunity of getting the recommendation letters, but some are very costly. For instance, I'm ok with the 100k for Stuppa, but unless you have progressed enough on the tech tree, then you need to upgrade camp to be able to pay Stuppa.
The blueprints and armoires where not hard to obtain.
I had already done other things when the victory was released therefor, I missed some opportunity of free letters. I went with the architect option. I build the architect to get Zod town. I had to upgrade 2 camps to pay 200k for the tavern, then I had to upgrade another camp to level 10 for my next building!! That's a lot. This is very costly for players not playing monarchy and having achieved wealth victory a few times. Why can we the letter from the mayor once Zod is available?
I also can't see how a player not donating would be able to acquire and save the amounts of coins needed to achieve victory. Maybe the Herald can give an option to those that do not have the coins? Also, If spouses can share towns to achieve victory, why can they also share resources? For instant, sending coins to each other and maybe allowing larger amount of daily limit on resources received from spouse.
The forgotten kingdom was a great addition, but I think there were some missed opportunities in there. The basement could have maybe a puzzle or creatures to kill. The front area of the castle could maybe be a labyrinth; the back could have puzzles or something before the final fight. Also, maybe Preddo mountain could have played a part. I'm just throwing ideas.
Overall, I'm happy there's another victory to obtain. and the new quests. Thanks for a great game and great options. Hope to be back soon :)
