Called the Iroquois Confederacy by the French, and the League of Five Nations by the English, the confederacy is properly called the Haudenosaunee Confederacy meaning People of the long house. The confederacy was founded by the prophet known as the Peacemaker with the help of Aionwatha, more commonly known as Hiawatha. The exact date of the joining of the nations is unknown and said to be time immemorial making it one of the first and longest lasting participatory democracies in the world.
The confederacy, made up of the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas was intended as a way to unite the nations and create a peaceful means of decision making. Through the confederacy, each of the nations of the Haudenosaunee are united by a common goal to live in harmony. Each nation maintains it own council with Chiefs chosen by the Clan Mother and deals with its own internal affairs but allows the Grand Council to deal with issues affecting the nations within the confederacy.
The Haudenosaunee symbol of the long house, provided by the Peacemaker, is recognized in traditional geographic locations. Upon confederation each nation took on a role within the metaphorical longhouse with the Onondaga being the Keepers of the Fire. The Mohawk, Seneca and Onondaga acted as the Elder Brothers of the confederacy while the Cayuga and Oneida were the Younger Brothers within Grand Council. The main meeting place was and still exists today on Onondaga territory.
the Haudenosaunee Confederacy’s constitution is believed to be the oldest, participatory democracy on Earth. What makes it stand out as unique to other systems around the world is its blending of law and values. For the Haudenosaunee, law, society and nature are equal partners and each plays an important role.
Haudenosaunee’s Legendary Founding
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Baldur's Gate has some really good encounter design. There have been so many fights that have been super fun to figure out.
late act two
I think a big difference between the fights in this game vs DOS2, is that while they're still very puzzly, there's just so much more freedom as far as how to tackle them and they're so diverse in their mechanics. Whereas DOS2 ended up being about picking which targets get which armor down in which order to do busted combos, oh and also surfaces, always, BG3 has that toned down quite a bit, but it makes up for it with more preparation gameplay and a more diverse set of tools to deal with painful enemies. They've all got multiple weaknesses of different severities, and you get to apply your team to that to see what tool gets applied where to greatest effect - which segues to the sidegame of managing your per-rest resources. It's very, very fun to see how many encounters you can squeeze out of an adventuring day, seeing how little you can get away with using without taking too much damage.
And even though I really like the fights, it's also often really satisfying to check your way through bosses, using a broad array of skills and abilities and even some pretty interesting dialogue trees for it.
Maybe the best tactical crpg I've played.
Yeah, the reactivity and branches are crazy. There's stuff that I've done that I nearly skipped that seemed to have the potential to drastically change the plot depending on my choices. And it was also super fucking cool.
From what I've played of both games, I think I prefer the Divinity combat system to the BG3 one. Something about having action points just vibes much better in my brain. This is my first exposure to the DnD combat system and it's been a lot to get used to and IMO isn't properly explained, hell, it took me until the end of Act 1 to actually understand what an advantage or disadvantage roll is doing (more than just "it makes me more likely to win") and I'm in late Act 2 and still struggling with how to make all my attacks stop missing and how to stop eating shit every fight. I feel like if the game just sat me down at the beginning and was like "Okay, look, my guy, an advantage roll means you have two dice and you take the better result. Here's how you can get those rolls. Next, here's how the armor system works..." not through in-game pop-ups but through a real tutorial-for-idiots, instead of dumping me on the Nautiloid and sending some imps flying at my face then I would have had a substantially better time earlier on. I've heard that the tutorial used to be much more substantial in Early Access and I'm unsure why they changed it.
It's like XCOM for me, in that while I enjoyed the combat on the whole, it occasionally gives you such an infuriating time that it makes the game harder to like. I'm unsure if I'll play BG3 again after this first run, which is sad because I was looking forward to it for a couple years (I didn't play the game in Early Access). I feel like I'm missing some really big obvious thing to make the game easier, as if I've somehow managed to miss some option that makes me not deal bad damage or keep missing, but I've been trawling around online and I don't find much. I've respecced each character in my party like twice now and it's only marginally improved.
What is undeniable is that BG3 gives you a LOT more options in combat than Divinity. Surfaces in Divinity felt like a really cool tool but it never felt like I was actively using them, as opposed to accidentally finding myself in a situation where the surfaces happen to be in/against my favor because of something else I did - and I have a frankly embarassing number of hours in DOS2 with a good number of playthroughs under my belt, so it's not mere inexperience. I'm both happy and sad that they've laid off them a little in BG3. But BG3 feels more like you're fighting an enemy or group of enemies, with tactics and strategy, and while DOS2 obviously had that too, fights were more of a "If I just shit out enough damage then I win every fight, regardless of how tactically I'm actually playing" kinda thing.