marimo

I don't know, but she's definitely bugged somehow in my game. I turned her down and I was able to start a different romance later just fine, so I shouldn't have had a romance flag for Xoti, but she started sounding really annoyed when I clicked on her in battles despite being at +2 rep, and the ending slide I got for her was the one you're supposed to get if you romance her but dump her. I'm thinking there might be some form of DA:O style ninjamancing going on.

I think the best way is to alternate exploring the city with going out to sea, and switch it up when you feel tired of one or the other. I'd progress the main story up to the step where the objective is to go to the islands to the far NE but then put it off actually going there for a while while you do faction stuff and sidequests.

They definitely are not player-sexual since all of them express interest in men and women regardless of how you interact with them.

I used Pirate Cosmo almost the whole game just because he's cute and his hat kinda matches my Watcher's.

Have you tried going back to the audience hall at the palace? There's a part where you act as a witness, I think that's what this is referring to.

I didn't like the ship combat either at first but by the end of the game it grew on me. I think the biggest problem with it is the difficulty is very front-loaded. It's frustrating in the beginning when you don't have all your companions and sidekicks recruited and you're getting attacked by other ships all the time, on top of having to learn how the battles work. By the endgame, the battles become trivial. I do like the little flags you take that show up on your ship though.

I actually liked that there were so many things you could resolve by talking instead of fighting if you wanted.

I could be way off base but I interpreted Eder's quest as not really being about Elafa and Beorn at all, but more about Eder having a little crisis about the direction of his life. I think he was kinda coasting along on his adventures, thinking that he'd get around to settling down "one day" like he always thought he would, and then was blindsided by the possibility of having a son, and was surprised by the strength of his own feelings about the idea. But then he very quickly discovered that Elafa is dead and Beorn is already grown and it sort of slams the door shut on this possibility that had existed in the back of his mind for a long time, and again the way he feels about it probably surprises him. I don't think Elafa was a one true love kinda deal, I think Eder is in shock and in mourning over the death of a dream. Kind of a midlife crisis I suppose, but the reverse of the one you see more often, which is someone bored with their life who wants excitement. Anyway that type of feeling came off as very natural to me. I'd have liked to see Eder as a romance option but I didn't mind his quest. If it was the case that his writer just didn't want to write a romance then I think that's a valid reason, even though it's disappointing.