What Happens If You Try To Poison Mithridates In Hostage Exchange – Expeditions: Rome

Hostage Exchange is a side quest in Expeditions: Rome that doesn’t really have any main attachment to the overarching story. As a result, many players breeze through it without giving it a second thought.

The two key characters in this quest are Mithridates and Lucullus, who are debating over the fate of Cotta who’s being held by Mithridates… and there is an interesting interaction that many players might not have seen.

Expeditions Rome – Poisioning Mithridates In Hostage Exchange

To get the Hostage Exchange side quest, you need to have first completed the main quest “Whack the Mole”.

After completing the initial dialogue with both Mithridates and Lucullus, you are then directed to speak to Laomedontas.

At this point in the quest, if you obtained the poison from Julia (during the Whack the Mole quest) and also have the Pathos perk, you can convince Laomedontas to poison the wine.

Mithridates will then drink the wine, commenting on how it is “particularly interesting” and his “favorite vintage”.

Lucullus (who has been served non-poisoned wine) will then comment that his wine seems “quite ordinary” and asks to try Mithridates’ wine.

Mithridates declines to share the wine with Lucullus and then turns his attention towards you. He will then compliment you for being bold but then say “not all bold plans turn out well.” This insinuates that he knows that the wine has been poisoned but that he drank it anyway to show that it has no effect on him.

To further prove his point, he will then give you a “consolation prize”; an item that removes poison and grants 100% poison resistance for 2 turns.

Trying to poison him won’t affect the side quest in any way. You can still follow the normal path and have Lucullus take the deal for Cotta for 200 legionarii or 300 legionarii.

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