Well whatever… I’ll just skip it then!! I thought this game was smarter than that. Am I crazy for thinking the sabotage was actually going to matter? Why am I still surprised by this. I thought I was going to run through there, poison a bunch of cumans and bandits, and then have an easier fight. Especially because Radzig says something about not wanting to pull too many soldiers off their post which leaves other forts vulnerable. I thought all of this meant something. Everybody always tells me to pay attention to the dialogue. Now I’m going to have to start ignoring it.
It even asked me how many soldiers were at the camp. I thought my response was going to determine whether or not we had enough to win the fight, or , if I brought too many soldiers, they would attack one of our other camps.
I think if you don’t bring enough soldiers you can fail the quest as they may all die, I can’t confirm it.
You know what would be really cool? If when you sabotaged a camp, it actually mattered later on. Is there an idea’s column on the forum? That’s a good one. I bet nobody thought of that one yet. okok , i’m done. But srsly though, that would be cool.
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I look at it as they send reinforcements when they realize people took them out. But, it does seem unrealistic that I can kill all of them. I’m playing this game much different (And I just did the Baptism of Fire quest and I killed everyone to poison all the pots and burn all the arrows - why ? Because I like to that’s why). than the firs time. I’m using a high stab and have been stabbing people. And it has worked like a charm. People come running up and go down in two stabs. I used “Stinger” stab 79.
I just killed Runt with 4 hits. The 2nd hit really hurt him and the clinch and knock him in the head worked well, too.
You know. Honestly. Almost none of the sidequests really have helped me. Oh I know, the ones where you kill bandits, then Cumans, then Bandits again gets you armor, skill ups in combat, and you get money, but I can get that just fast traveling back and forth.
It’s what’s fundamentally flawed about KCD combat. The call to arms at Pribyslavitz and Vranik should leave Henry with a simple choice, retreat or die. And by retreat I don’t mean travel 50-100m beyond the bridge at Pribyslavitz or down the path at Vranik.
I horse archered all but about 3-4 guys in HC. Loved the challenge and satisfaction of winning but it shouldn’t be possible in a game that intends to be realistic. That the NPCs exhibit some semblance of fechtbuch misses the whole point. Squad tactics range from underwhelming (battle spawn points) to deplorable (inside enemy stronghold).
Stinger (jabbing) stabbing is the most lethal and lowest risk strike in KCD. Get on an uneven level with Runt and you can one strike kill him in the face in HC. (Surprised as heck when I did it.)
So two things,
First, the sabotage DOES have an effect and honestly I don’t know why people would tell you that it doesn’t. I have done the Baptism mission twice; once without the sabotage and once with fully completed sabotage. Destroying the arrows reduces the number of bowmen that appear on the walls and poisoning the stews reduces the number of enemies overall as well as spawning some with “Poison” debuffs which make them weaker.
Secondly, it’s generally counter-productive to rant at people who are trying to help you when you ask a question. While I understand that you are frustrated (and we all get frustrated) it is a waste of your time and others to approach a forum asking for assistance with what can be perceived as an impatient or even aggressive tone. In future I would recommend waiting until you are in a less aggravated state before taking to the forum.
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I didn’t have an issue when i was playing it. I burned all arrows and posoned 6 pots . I did everything, i did even go as far to kill 20 Cumans with my Bow 20 Skill. Looted them, packed everything in the chest waited 3 days and re did that so the chest was full of stuff xD But coming to the gameplay: I did everything i should do and when i talked to radzig the quest was successfully completed
Don’t know where you found a 2 extra pots, there are only 4 in whole camp.
Anyway, just finished it the proper (my opinion) way - dressed as cuman, scouted the area, watched the cutscene with Runt etc. Then waited till night while sitting in the unobservable part of bandids camp, when I was able to sneaky poison 4 pots and burn 4 arrows barrels.
Yeah I completed it as well. The confusion came from the game giving me a green checkmark , indicating that the sabotage was complete after only poisoning and burning arrow’s on the Cuman side. The game should not indicate the mission is complete, until it’s complete… Now that I know what’s required to actually complete it, I was able to finish it. Unfortunately it didn’t matter either way, as the sabotage is just metaphorical. It doesn’t actually amount to anything that helps you in the fight that follows.
Apparently not. Someone on these forums said they will spawn less archers on the wall if you burn the arrows, and some enemy soldier will have weakened health during the battle.
Even with sabotage they still have about 5-6 archers on the walls and nobody can really confirm that it weakens enemy health.
I myself didn’t do any sabotage at all. I tried to, but I’m no good at sneaking and didn’t figure out to dress like a Cuman. So after some tries of getting into the camp and some fights and retreats I just gave up and reported to Sir Radzig.
I also couldn’t actually see many of the forces there, so I picked a middle option in dialog about their amount.
And so I got the hardest mission of all I’ve played! I mean, I’m no hardcore player and play on normal level and also not very good at fencing, though I did plenty of training with Sir Bernar, and also I don’t wear any plate armor, cause I’m playing more of an alchemist/diplomat than a soldier.
Anyway, I don’t know how many times I replayed the culmination part (from Cuman camp to storming the castle). Sometimes I died from a pair of unlucky shots or just missing too many hits and unable to heal myself in time. Most of the times I just got “too many men died” end.
Every time I rushed at enemies fencing with my allies. I attacked without shield and without much attention to defence - to make max damage in min time. I ran to a Cuman leader and tried hard to beat him. Then I rushed to the archers to kill some before they reach their spot and to kill others before either they switch to a sword or put too many arrows in me. Then I was shooting the archers on the wall, hiding by fortifications and step out to shoot while they reload. Then I tried to find a spot where the battle icon disappeared so I could recover my health with potions - to rush to the higher camp, where I fought another pack of bandits from the side and shot more archers, which weren’t handicapped by enough fortifications and shot so much better than me.
I actually thought I could not make it - especially after googling a walkthrough hints and realizing, I don’t have even nearly enogh preparation, nor do I have proper armor for the mission. I was pretty sure I’ll have to reload to an earlier save and do a proper sabotage or at least change my armor.
But then I decided to try one last time. I drank my potions, becoming pretty much a berserker - after all, I don’t have a witcher perk for nothing, do I? I used all the experience for the mission. I knew where and when to run, where and when to hide, where and when to recover and drink even more potions.
And eventually it all went well. Maybe it was a poor luck and I wasn’t controlling the situation, but there I was - facing my horrifying enemy. Then I beat the bastard on the first try. Cannot say it was easy - but pretty confident win.
And it was soooo good! Like if all that was for real. And it was so natural that Henry killed Runt trying to get the info from him - after all the combat rush and drugs he’d been under.
So after all it is now the most memorable mission in the game and one of the most memorable experience from all the games I’ve played. And I just love KCD for this: “You see! You did it all wrong, you moron! But you know what? I’ll let you proceed. It’s life, you know: first you make mistakes, then you pay for them and go on. Enjoy your stupidity!”
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I did most of the poisoning using sneaking, at night when nobody was eating. (If someone eats it while you are at camp it will raise the alarm).
You can use Cuman outfit for that. Also its up to you if you use normal Poison, Bane Poison, Lullaby potion. The last one does not cause trouble with alarm.
There are 3 or 4 arrow barrels. If you torch them, it will always raise the alarm. In that case i used my sneaking set and run away from the camp.
Depending on how many these goals you finished, the less reinforcements you need to call from Talmberg.
I killed several guards while there, they just seem to endlessly respawn though. I poisoned 3 of the pots and lit one bucket of arrows on fire on my way out. I got the “completed sabotage” message while I was in the camp but when I report to Radzig I get a “sabotage failed” message. It’s got to be a bug.
completed sabotage related to pots, but not arrows. A simple look into your Journal would have shown you
[SPOILER ALERT]
There are 2 reasons, there are 2 areas in that Camp… the Cuman Camp and the Bandit Camp. Both of them have Pots and Barrels, once you take out the first camp, you should leave the area and do an intermittent quest to report to Radzig, he should be in Merhojed. *This is the report of the Pots and Barrels in the CUMAN Camp! * After that, you may want to go back in and try to take out the rest of the Pots and Barrels for both the Cuman & Bandit Camps before continuing to the next mission and reporting to any other leader (ie Lord Hanush etc). You do not have to take everyone out in order to complete this mission, the main focus of this target is the Food Pots and Arrow Barrels.
Disguises work! I managed to take out all of Pribyslavitz manually a-la Assassin’s Creed style. At early level, disguised myself as a full suited Cuman, I went at night, hit all their food and arrows like a Foot Pad. Then, well… I followed the Creed, worked my way into the Bandit camp after the Cumans were taken out. I left Mr. Morcock for last, and shed my Cuman form and dawned my full light armor set for an epic 1 on 1 battle in which I died more than once due to my level. Only did this to see if it was even possible dare I do it. The whole camp respawns in order to complete the next mission, but it’s possible to take down everyone before the mission starts… that’s if you have the patience. Lots of it… lots of ears too if ya know what I mean 
If you can withstand it all… take bandages and be a Lazarus. It won’t be easy, but intrinsically it’s pretty satisfying! Otherwise the mission in itself is pretty epic. I’ll be riding back in at Max level to see if it’s possible to take them all on at once.
I will say this was one of the best parts of the game for me, the preparation time was long as well. I really had to use ALL my skills that I learned throughout the entire time. Even if you’re disguised, some of the Cumans or Bandits on patrol won’t fall for it, and if you can single them out, you’ll have to fight your way back to a safe zone. Thank goodness Pebbles has a big pair of pebbles and doesn’t shy and run!
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I found it to be a unique, not necessarily enjoyable experience doing it first run.
didn’t minmax
didn’t spend 10 hours grinding ignoring the story
played it straight as a man at arms, only had middling armor (most of it taken of the faint hearted knights corpse) and didn’t have the stats to back it up regarding the stamina vitality health buffer, strength, etc. to go toe to toe like I know from fighting in my actual 15th century suit of armor.
was every bit the blacksmiths boy, a few days out from almost dying saving Sir Capon against two drunk cumans
did things the right wrong way, like killing morcock and his men on sight in a fight that almost killed me
scouting mission was doomed from the start. Killed about 5 cumans and bandits past the bridge but never made it further than the perimeter of the camp after watching 20 cumans in formation march down the path on patrol (I swear it happened.)
fugg
bring everyone.gary oldman
hard fought fight, eat shit taking out the cuman archers several times always knowing in the back of my head I need near perfect health to get muh sword back. Sheer force of numbers wins the day. Auto chasing runt and then the end cutscene keeps me from looting much needed gear from the bandits (and fallen skalitz men) but the few pieces I grabbed at the beginning of the fight.
So it did keep me feeling that feeling of powerlessness that assumedly was the point despite the soul sucking nature of the whole thing.
Playthrough 2:
Light Archer build.
fuck around getting the gear I want by farming skalitz and picking off the highest bandit enemies in the game (ergo, in the game) with sub 5-10 bow skill on the back of pebbles.
sell 27,000 worth of gear just clearing out some of my loot before even finding ginger
yada yada let the bandits kill timmy, get my hood pass
3 stealth.
trigger the guards trying to do anything. fuck this/10
oh boy here I go killing again.jpg
stack bodies 40 deep killing everyone in the camp, leaving anything worth less than 500 grochen to rot with their corpses.
go into it being able to 1 or 2 shot kill archers, 2-3 shot kill mail and plate torso men at arms
poison
doggo ripping throats out
went into it lv 9, left lv 11
Significantly more fun, very less immersive to game AI detection range and the fact no one else owns a horse in bohemia, but thats what the first playthough teaches you.
Sum totality of both playthroughs, I wish there was more to this/these components of the main quests and a larger number of side quests to reward exploring the world and grinding. Such as the number of troops meaning anything but a difficulty slider in nest of vipers. If the game had 5 nest of vipers incidents one after the other with the number of troops in the region having a fixed number and not spawning in for each setpiece battle… now that would make for a much more interesting game. Band of bastards but on a regionwide scale is what they’re simulating with illusion of choice dialogue in this quest and the rest that talk about consequences to your actions. At least main game it only matters if you roleplay that it matters. It’s a handy writers tool and in moderation can add the feeling of depth. conversely you have this thread where it takes most of the punch out of things when " It is unclear whether requesting fewer troops from Radzig has an effect on later parts of the game." is what you read after looking up the quest.