Neverwinter Nights 2 Walkthrough - Original Campaign - Part 11 - Build Order #1

Neverwinter Nights 2 - Original Campaign - Walkthrough Part 11 - Crossroad Keep Management - Build Order #1

This is one of a series of walkthroughs/hints for Neverwinter Nights 2 (Original Campaign). Click here for a listing of all our guides for Neverwinter Nights 2. For general notes on Crossroad Keep and links to build orders, click here.

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Build Order
This Build Order for Crossroad Keep will focus on the initial stages and the 70,000 gold that Nasher starts us with (plus initial income), since it is entirely possible for a player to reach this point with little or zero gold as gold is very tight during the game (especially if they sold everything to buy something pricey, like the vorpal falchion Headsman from Fibba in the Neverwinter Docks District -- which can cost almost 400,000 gold depending on Appraise skill). The main optimization / foresight taken here is to get the best outcome for the Sheriff of Leeves City Watch player event.
This Build Order is for a good-aligned main character who worked for the City Watch. Except for the satisfaction of getting the "Dreadlord of the Keep" epithet, there is really very little reason to make evil choices because it sets you back in every way -- even cash, ultimately, even though evil and chaotic choices tend to aim for cash at the expense of everything else. We are also not driving for the Warden of the Keep epithet, which doesn't do anything anyway.

1. Keep Time not started
• Recruit Calindra, Petin, and Orlen.
• Raise cash.
2. Keep Time 0%
• Speak with Kana and Veedle for the first time (forced dialog when you walk up the hill toward the Keep).
• Build Blacksmith.
• Kana:
• Set Greycloak recruitment standards to highest.
• Assign Katriona to Special Missions (there won't be anyone to recruit for a long time if you put only her on Recruitment)
• Assign Greycloaks to Training.
• Set Merchant Tax to zero. Use Appraise to institute secret tax on merchants.
• Set Farmer Tax to zero.
• When you exit the Keep after speaking with Kana, it will be Keep Time 2% and the Blacksmith will be ready.
3. Keep Time 2%
• Build Merchant Shop.
• Leave to recruit Deekin, Edario, and Jacoby.
• When you come back, it will be Keep Time 5%.
4. Keep Time 5%
• Build any one section of the Keep. Not strictly necessary, but it's silly to not have a place to stay at the Keep. If you are desperately short on cash, then build the Library because there are books and scrolls you could potentially sell.
5. Keep Time 7%
• Commission Basic Armor and Basic Weapons.
• Build Roads 1 (Widen Merchant Trail)
• Kana:
• Daerred's adventurers - Send them to Port Llast.
• Torio - Send for her.
• Set Merchant Tax to Light.
6. Keep Time 10%
• Commission Decent Armor and Good Weapons if you have about 30,000 in personal gold to spend. This is not necessary for any of the missions up to the Keep Time 25% Time Freeze.
• Build Fortifications 1 (Repair Walls).
• Kana:
• Sheriff from Leeves - Send half men to assist. Having Katriona on Special Mission does not appear to help here.
• Report from Kana should say the Greycloaks are at "Very Good" Training.
• Special Mission: Old Man Morris - Make sure Katriona is assigned to Special Missions and start this mission.
7. Keep Time 12%
• Build Roads 2 (Cobble Roads).
• Commission Good Armor and the Best Weapons if you have about 65,000 in personal gold to spend. Until you report more Ore Veins to Calindra or Petin, this is the best you can do with 8 Ore Veins (the maximum possible that you can find to this point in the campaign).
• Kana:
• Special Mission: Old Man Morris - Should be total success (gold and magic necklace).
8. Keep Time 15%
• Build Fortifications 2 (Reinforce Walls).
• Kana:
• Letter from Daerred.
• Report from Kana should say the Greycloaks are at "Best" Training.
• Speak with Kana a second time before leaving the Keep:
• Sheriff from Leeves - Should be total success. It does not appear to be possible to get the best outcome (bandits "slaughtered") any earlier than this.
• Assign Katriona to Recruitment.
• Assign Greycloaks to Recruitment.
9. Keep Time 17%
•  Build Roads 3 (Renovations).
• Kana:
• Daerrad - Send them to investigate the King of Shadows.
10. Keep Time 20%
• Build Fortifications 3 (Towers).
• Kana:
• Special Mission: Doman the Ogre - Reassign Katriona to Special Missions before starting this mission. Greycloaks need not be reassigned.
11. Keep Time 22%
• Build Roads 4 (New Bridges and Towers).
• Kana: Nothing special.
12. Keep Time 25% - Time Freeze in effect, but we will still talk to Veedle and Kana.
1. 
   
• Build another section of the Keep.
• Kana:
• Ziffer arrives. Use Appraise to change the Charter, then sign. It is okay to leave men on Recruitment despite what Kana says.
• When we come back from the Ritual of Purification, we need to periodically check if there is anyone to recruit. We can do this by saying we want to assign men to Recruitment. If Kana says the last recruiters found nothing, switch them to Patrolling the Land and Roads.
• Letter from Daerred.
• Speak with Kana a second time before leaving the Keep:
• Special Mission: Doman the Ogre - Should be total success (gold and magic weapon).
• Assign Katriona to Recruitment.
• Make sure men are assigned to Recruitment (there are bug reports about Greycloaks automatically being reassigned to Training after Special Missions).
2. 
   
• Build another section of the Keep. This is the last construction project that can be done until Act III.
• Kana:
• Ziffer comes back with recruits. Use Diplomacy to avoid penalties.
• Leave Keep.
3. 
   
• No more construction can be done for now.
• Re-enter Keep to talk to Kana:
• Captain's Company - Agree to form the Captain's Company.
13. Ruins of Arvahn and the Ritual of Purification. Time freeze lifts when you get back.
14. Keep Time 27%
• Kana: Special Mission: Escort Tax Collectors
• Katriona still stuck on Recruitment, so we delayed this mission until Keep time 30%.
• No more men to recruit, so Greycloaks reassigned to Patrols.
15. Keep Time 30%, end of Act II
• Kana:
• Katriona reassigned to Special Missions and Escort Tax Collectors mission initiated.
• At this time, we chose to continue the main quest, and complete Ammon Jerro's Haven and Castle Never. We are ultimately taken back to Crossroad Keep at Act III and Keep Time is still 30%.
16. Keep Time 30%, Act III
• Talked to Bevil several times until his dialogue ran out. You will have to keep initiating conversation until it runs out as he has a lot of conversation threads.
• Build Temple of Tyr.
• At the entrance into the Keep, Khralver is interrupted by Sand and there is a scripted transition into the Library.
17. Keep Time 32%
• Once we are inside the Keep, time advances to 32%.
• Talked to Aldanon.
• Kana:
• Daerred's adventurers - Sent them to investigate the Guardian.
• Normally, at 32% it should be the Dobbson event for City Watch players. However, Daerred's adventurers are scripted to appear at the start of Act III, and we could not trigger the Dobbson event without going back out the Keep and returning (whereupon it becomes Keep Time 35%).
• Kana talks about the main character being knighted as her initial dialogue.
• Talked to her again to get a report on the last Special Mission: Escort the Tax Collectors.
• Talk to her again to be informed of Nasher's War Levy. Paid 6000 gold to increase Peasant Growth
• Reset tithes that were changed by the Tax Collectors Special Mission. Also had to reinstate the secret tax on merchants that is allowed by having a high Appraise skill.
• Trained Bevil to Patrol the High Road.
• Training him for Recruitment did not increase the rate at which Greycloaks and Volunteers increased.
• When set to Patrol the High Road, we noticed an increase of 1 additional merchant over the normal increase.
• Talked to Guyven.
  
18. Keep Time 35%
• Used Wolf to send me to the path outside. Picked up the buried loot mentioned by Guyven.
• There wasn't yet an option to build the Wizard's Tower because we haven't spoken with StarTear (Veedle says you must know of an interested party before he can rebuild either the Church or the Tower). You are supposed to talk to Torio who will send an agent to find someone, but Torio only talked about potential recruit Jalboun.
• Talked to Ivarr in the Temple. Used console to get xp to take 1 Cleric level for the quest, then removed the xp (and de-levelled the Cleric level out).
• Talked to Deekin inside his store. When I exited the store, StarTear was standing at the ruined tower. Talked to StarTear, then told Veedle to build the Tower.
• Talked to Daeghun, Elanee and Bishop (forced dialogue). Bishop interrupts Khralver.
  
• Kana:
• Dobbson situation.
• Daerred's Final letter and a Ring of Positive Thinking.
• After exiting the keep, if we anywhere, time advances to Keep Time 37%. Therefore, if you don't immediately see Kana again but instead make an area transition elsewhere, the next time you see Kana it will be Keep Time 40%.
19. Keep Time 37%
• Back into the Keep to see Kana, to save time.
• Kana:
• Special Mission: Bugbears. Initiated.
• Adventuring:
• Circle of the Mere
• Port Llast - Gnome scholars, Light of Heavens encounter 1 of 3.
• On-the-road encounter between Port Llast and the Strange Clearing: 3 trolls versus Greycloaks.
• Strange Clearing - Ore #9.
• At this point, we have ore #9 and place of interest to Guyven #3. Neither will yield any special results yet, so we kept adventuring to form alliances:
• Road to HighCliff - Ore #10.
• HighCliff.
• Neverwinter Merchant District
• Light of Heavens encounter 2 of 3.
• Recruit Joy.
20. Keep Time 40%
• Light of Heavens encounter 3 of 3.
• Report ores #9 and #10, commission Best Armor.
• Kana:
• Daerred's final letter and Ring of Positive Thinking.
• Assign Light of Heavens to Patrols - When assigned to Recruiting, got less increase in Merchants, Peasants, Greycloaks and Volunteers.
21. Keep Time 42%
• Spoke with Khralver, went to see Sydney, recruited Jalboun - all Sergeants now recruited.
• Kana: We have to initiate conversation with her several times.
• Triggered by having true names - Found the location of one group of Shadow Reavers.
• Bugbears mission complete - Reward from Nasher.
• Assigned Jalboun to Special Missions. Assigned Katriona to Patrols.
• Gift from Greycloaks - Short Sword +5.
• Talked to Guyven and Mephasm about Shadow Reaver patrol.
22. Keep Time 45%
• Shadow Reaver Camp.
• Dwarf Stronghold, Mount Galardrym.
• Kana:
• Reports dragon's horde recovered - 200,000 gp.
• Captain Breleina wants troops - Sent 25% for Lawful +3 and Good +3.
• Talked to Guyven about Mount Galardrym -- the last of four locations of interest. Received the Explorer epithet.
23. Keep Time 47%
• Ancient Valley (Nolaloth).
• West Harbor - reformed blade.
• Crossroad Keep - Scripted event - Callum chased by a Shadow Reaver, and the Tome of Iltkazar.
• Kana:
• Merchant Costers - Circle of Friends.
• Set Merchant Tax to Standard.
• Talk to Aldanon about Tome of Iltkazar.
• Talk to Grobnar about Shandra. Upgrade the Golem with the Touch of Iltkazar.
24. Keep Time 50%
• No events.
25. Keep Time 52%
• Kana:
• Raven's Allies - Refused.
• If you accept, you can immediately put Greycloaks on recruitment because standards lowered, so more men are available to recruit.
• If you accept and didn't put Greycloaks on recruitment, Peasants +19, Greycloaks +57, and Volunteers +57 at Keep Time 57%. If you reject, Peasants +20, Greycloaks +10, and Volunteers +60 at Keep Time 55%. It appears then that the Raven's Allies give a one-time boost to Greycloaks of +50, but the rate of Greycloak and Volunteer gain erodes. With almost 20 turns to go, it more or less evens out except you lost Civility (and Peasant gain) and Greycloak Elite rating.
• Special Mission: Mere of Dead Men
• You MUST assign Katriona to Special Missions, or this mission will not succeed. Assigning Light of Heavens does not appear to improve the outcome and taking her away from Patrols means population growth is reduced.
  
26. Keep Time 55%
• Kana:
• Special Mission: Mere of Dead Men - Success.
• Greycloaks reassigned to Patrols.
27. Keep Time 57%
• Kana:
• Katriona to Patrols.
  
28. Keep Time 60% to 65%
• No events.
29. Keep Time 67%
• Kistrel's Cloak is ready.
30. Keep Time 70% to 77%
• No events.
31. Keep Time 80%
• Kana:
• Conscriptions - No Conscriptions.
• At time 80%, our keep stats were 398 Merchants, 462 Peasants, 1451 Greycloaks, 1334 Volunteers, 67 Recruits, Civility High, Morale Very High, Greycloak Civility High.
  At time 82%, the populations were...
  
  • "grab them by force": 450 Merchants, 506 Peasants, 1583 Greycloaks, 1466 Volunteers, 67 Recruits.
  • "every able hand": 450 Merchants, 512 Peasants, 1601 Greycloaks, 1484 Volunteers, 67 Recruits.
  • "no conscription" / leave it up to Kana: 450 Merchants, 513 Peasants, 1604 Greycloaks, 1487 Volunteers, 67 Recruits.
  In all cases, there was no apparent change to Civility, Morale, or Greycloak Civility.
32. Keep Time 82% to 97%
• No events.
33. Keep Time 100% - Lockout.