For the Sir Cauthrien fight I had the most success by putting my party on hold position near the door of the room which leads into that antechamber, then standing behind them while I filled the room with every AOE spell I had, chugging mana potions and casting buffs/heals in the recharge time. Most of the archers couldn't line up a shot with my party, and the melee people could only enter in limited numbers.

It was very close. I was the last member of the party standing and my health was mostly gone by the time the last soldier dropped. Managed it on my first go - I thought you had to win.

Quote Originally Posted by Meneldil
As Froggy pointed out, I'm tempted to say it's bad writing. As we don't hear of any rational reason as to why Loghain (who is always described as a former noble, honorable, intelligent, loyal and brave patriot) turns into a psychotic and paranoid killer, I see no other way to explain his recent behavior.
Maybe Bioware will develop on that in some DLC/Expension/Comic book/Novel, but so far, it's quite of a weak link in the whole plot.
Agreed. Considering the character further, I'm changing my vote to bad writing. He's a terrible villain and quite nonsensical. Not a patch on Irenicus.

Loghain spent his young life fighting to free his motherland and to put the rightful bloodline back on the throne. He loved his king's wife, Cailen's mother, and he was close friends with the king himself.

Then, years later, he throws away a certain victory against a horde which was threatening the kingdom. He walks away leaving the main army to be slaughtered, leaving the kingdom practically defenceless. Somehow he expects his own army will not realise what they have done, and will not talk about it so it will remain a secret. He lets the only child of two people he loved, his daughter's husband, and the last member of that royal bloodline he fought so hard to re-establish - die just because. The grey wardens were the blight fighting experts and he let them all die too, wiping out (as far as he knew) the only native wardens in the process. On returning to the capital he begins alienating those whose support he most needs and lets his sidekicks run wild. He openly bullies, threatens and pushes around his daughter, in whose name he rules, and we see him doing this in the cutscenes. He openly becomes obsessive with hunting down the last two grey wardens when he learns of their survival. He upsets potential allies like the dwarves with his rude emissaries. When the whole kingdom is collapsing around him and being overrun by the darkspawn what does he do? Send out more parties to hunt for the two grey wardens.

We're supposed to believe he does all of this because Cailen suggested allying with the Orlesians to fight the blight?

And his daughter, ugh! She might have well have "I'm a liar!" textured on her forehead. So very obviously untrustworthy right from the word go. I suppose they were aiming for shrewd politician and ended up with a reject from the House of Lords. She is not going to be happy with the outcome of my city elf playthrough.