Apparently it's slated to leave early access in Q4 2020, so I'm holding off on buying it for the moment, but I'm very eager to play it.
[1] http://www.freeholdgames.com/papers/Generation_of_Mythic_Bio...
Makes you wonder what you could do applying something like the GPT-3 AI text model to this kind of problem (history generation).
The way I played I got more of a NetHack in an open world setting vibe, rather than a sandboxy exploration of a generated world.
I'm not sure what I was doing wrong. Was I focusing on battle too much? Is it even avoidable when the plains are full of monsters, and goals are placed on the other side of the plains?
You can play characters which avoid combat to a large extent, in quite a few different ways. You can get so good at talking to people that you can get some extremely powerful allies to do all the fighting for you. You can also tinker up some really powerful automated turrets that will clear enemies no problem, and use force fields to protect yourself from attack. You can also avoid combat to a considerable extent by picking up some wilderness lore.
Having said all that, combat is a major part of the game, just as it is in most roguelikes.
If you like the classic Fallout games (1 & 2) and you enjoy roguelikes with a lot of weird stuff, I think you’d get a kick out of CoQ. The game has incredible atmosphere that gives you this feeling like you’re exploring a real, living, breathing world. There’s a lot of depth to the gameplay as well, with deep character building and a complex crafting system.
I really want to get back to playing it but I’m in school right now and have a ton of work to do!
[1] http://www.cavesofqud.com/