Well... I can't answer that because I've never made it past the first chapter. I keep restarting to try out other character types (I'm new to pathfinder, so there's a lot of interesting stuff I want to see).

Also, they seem to be debugging the chapters as the players get to them. If I let the aggressive players plow ahead, then I miss the worst of the problems (this is my cunning plan, anyway). Right now, the kingdom management part of the game seems so messed up that I am in no hurry to get that far.

Nah don't worry about it. I feel the same way you do about being rushed. I'm 65 this year and I can't play FPSs or RTSs at all any more. Being rushed in a game just makes me feel anxious and raises my blood pressure (literally). The first part (second part, I guess) is more of a timed chapter than a timed quest. And you have plenty of time to find and kill the boss. Some of the fights are pretty hard, though. And you will have to wait and come back to a few of them, after you are stronger, and maybe with better tactics than your first tries.

I'll just add a few thoughts I'ver had in the last couple of days.

So. Act 2 and Act3 both have this huge loming.....hm, trying for no spoilers here...PROBLEM hanging over your head. You're told you have a very long time between the most recent occurence of this problem and the next one, and you need to prepare (ie: level up and acquire better gear). Just for the shits and giggle, I quicksaved and then did several 14-day long kingdom events, to see what would happen.

Short version, my kingdom stats suffered, but failing to deal with the problem personally (go to the designated place, kill the monsters) doesn't end the game in and of itself. You kingdom falling into anarchy DOES. The PROBLEM and the current Act's main questline are the big things that send your kingdom stats into a death spiral. Go handle those issues as soon as the game alerts you to them and then use the remaining time to explore.

Side note here, about exploration. The little blue resource nodes you find are far more cost effective (only 15 BP) at raising Kingdom stats than city building is, so grab all the ones that fall within your borders early on.

So, here is how I handled it (after quickloading). You have to micromanage the kingdom events, the ones that just require a councilor and you don't have to return to the Capitol to handle it yourself. Be on top of it when new ones pop up, assign a councilor and start the event, then go out and do your regular adventuring. Of course, you can also turn the whole thing off, lets not forget that, so if this sounds like its going to not be your cup of tea, just set the kindome to Auto.

Well, that's basically praise for a game like this. Though I'm currently set on finally being able to play a dual-wielding, dagger-maniac of a shorty. :)

I'm with you on the stressful part - I want my RPGs to evoke the feeling of reading a good, long story (PS: Torment-like lengths of text not necessary). So, I'm not being locked out form further exploring that area later then? Then it's all good.

Thank you VERY much for sharing that experience - it seems I'll use the Auto-setting for my first play-through.

Also, as a VERY IMPORTANT note for people who choose to do kingdom management, ALWAYS keep ~200 BP in reserve (maybe more, but that's sorta a minimum). The reason is that it's possible to go negative in BP through dialog options with no warning, and this is effectively game over for your kingdom (ie: it quickly degrades in stability, and there's no feasible way to recover). Unless you notice, and/or have a timely save, you're looking at many hours of regression; for me, it was a restart 50+ hours in.

Also, in hindsight, save before all baron-related conversations, and check your BP afterwards. It's not really emphasized in the UI, but this will absolutely also end your kingdom even if you're doing everything else "right".

(This PSA brought to you by my getting hosed by it.)

Good to know. Thanks!