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NihilCredo posted:Children eat less, too. Basically I really don't want to have to look at the population screen and do mental arithmetics in order to know if I should spend an action on acquiring food or not. Food consumption is measured per year, not per turn, so each bushel will feed one person for 10 turns. As a general rule if you look at your farm screen and your expected farm is more or less the same as your population, you're probably good (the extra food from hunting and milk will cover the increased consumption for thanes).
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Jun 28, 2013 00:15
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NihilCredo posted:Children eat less, too. Basically I really don't want to have to look at the population screen and do mental arithmetics in order to know if I should spend an action on acquiring food or not. There are 5 seasons, two actions per season so that comes out to 1000 food consumed. Looks good to me.
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Jun 28, 2013 00:17
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Yeah, food isn't something you can plan out too well due to the fact that not everyone eats the same, and you get a constant trickle from your cows no matter what you do. You shouldn't worry too much about it anyway, growing massive amounts of food is the easiest way to get a ton of wealth (40 Food = 15 Cows. Never forget) so it behooves you to simply plan to grow as much as you possibly can.
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Jun 28, 2013 01:00
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Your nobles will also start yelling at you if your supplies get too low, so if you don't let it get to that point, you're probably good. Even in Fire Season(the natural low point for food) you shouldn't be seeing "we need to get more food!" noble messages - with a surplus that thin, your clan could be headed for trouble with a single bad harvest year.
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Jun 28, 2013 01:14
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Dauntasa posted:It is actually possible to completely destroy another clan. There's also a random event which will give you the opportunity to utterly obliterate a rival clan - every man, woman and child slain, the livestock slaughtered and every building razed to the ground. Every other clan will immediately drop their disposition towards you to the notch just above feuding. A map of pink clan names. I'm pretty sure it's the quickest way to trash your reputation. sebmojo posted:One of my favourite bits of writing in KoDP is actually in the intro, where it's talking about the dragons, and it calls them 'either actual dragons or men with the hearts of dragons' and you get the feeling that the narrator sees no real difference, or doesn't even see that as an important issue to resolve. One of my favourite bits is simply the explanation of how the Pharaoh arrived in Heortland - that he just swims out of the ocean. Even without the ocean being magically closed before that, the idea of this someone just swimming onto shore out of nowhere is hugely creepy. I also love the ominous phrasing of what a megalomaniac he is: "He declared Kethaela to be a place called the Holy Country. It was holy, he said, because he ruled it." And question for those who are read-up on their Gloranthan lore - I vaguely recall hearing somewhere that the Pharaoh is a time traveller?
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Jun 28, 2013 03:39
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I tried four games now, and I'm strongly leaning towards "gently caress this game". Half the events that seem like they have a correct response are in fact completely random, and 'roleplay as an Orlanthi' is hardly any help because among other things divinations don't work. (Despite the wiki saying they do, which isn't the game's fault but was extremely exasperating.) Most recent example, for which you can blame half the nerdrage in this post: Urox warrior says one of my cows is infested by Chaos, and since I even happened to have the Sense Chaos and Smite Chaos blessings active I choose to take a divination; the divination says the cow is alright and automatically ends the event. Shortly after, broos, and a series of choices each of which is worse than the next. gently caress you, game. The part of the game where I can apply some strategy, i.e. collecting huge herds of cows and running profitable trades, is (a) trivial and (b) pointless because having a huge and rich clan only results in the clan-splitting events, so why the gently caress should I bother in the first place? The heroquests -> form tribe etc. are the only hint of progress, but "hey, throw a huge amount of resources into an event that fails 90% of the time even after piling up every bonus you have, even on Easy" doesn't exactly make me want to launch this stupid masochist game. Feel free to explain why my rant is wrong. But seriously, I tried this game after so many fellow Crusader Kings II fans spoke highly of it, but I can't fathom why people would find enjoyment in navigating a sea of deliberately hidden information. If you're familiar with Magna Mundi, it seems to me that this is a game Ubik would absolutely love.
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Jun 28, 2013 03:56
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NihilCredo posted:I tried four games now, and I'm strongly leaning towards "gently caress this game". Half the events that seem like they have a correct response are in fact completely random, and 'roleplay as an Orlanthi' is hardly any help because among other things divinations don't work. (Despite the wiki saying they do, which isn't the game's fault but was extremely exasperating.) Most recent example, for which you can blame half the nerdrage in this post: Urox warrior says one of my cows is infested by Chaos, and since I even happened to have the Sense Chaos and Smite Chaos blessings active I choose to take a divination; the divination says the cow is alright and automatically ends the event. Shortly after, broos, and a series of choices each of which is worse than the next. gently caress you, game. Everything in the game has a random element attached to it but your actions influence the result table. Your divinations can fail but are often helpful. The way you play does have an effect on the game, but it is often frustrating for players because of the feeling that it doesn't.
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Jun 28, 2013 04:11
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If your clan is getting too big, build a shrine to Vinga. It'll send your birthrate plummeting, which will keep your population fairly steady. I've honestly never had a problem holding at about 1000 people, which works out fairly well, but one of the first things I do is get that shrine up and running. Helps with the earlygame defense, too, since it lets women act in your fyrd. What was your magic like when you used the divination? They don't always work, especially if your magic is low. I will admit that that particular event could have more of a relationship to whether Sense Chaos is active, since I've never noticed when that spell does anything anyway. And heroquests are heavily dependent on you following the quest properly and having your chosen character be strong enough in the relevant stats to do so. This is one reason the Humakti quest is often so hard, since the correct answer relies on a skill check that Humakti typically aren't great at. And, well, frankly, if the game made anything clear, it wouldn't be fun. I honestly don't know if sacrificing to Humakt does a drat thing before fights, but when my warleader is a Humakti wielding Humakt's sword and I'm running a Great Temple to him, I'm drat well doing it on principle. And I like it that way. If there was always an answer to each event that worked well, I can't see enjoying the game. Part of the fun is rolling with it.
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Jun 28, 2013 04:13
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I also find the game mechanics dull and repetitive, but I've been playing it on and off since about 2000. I can pick up the game after not playing it for a year and still have it feel fresh and new, but raiding and trading have lost any interest for all of time. What I do still love about the game is the random events, which are deep, rich, compelling, and sometimes have long-lasting repercussions and follow-up events. When I play these days I always get irritated at being raided, not because it means I might lose men and cattle, but because it means I have to cycle through a few more scenes before I get another random event.
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Jun 28, 2013 04:25
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Preemptive apology: I'm not mad at you, I'm mad at the game. Please don't take any RANDOM CAPS personally.Ravenfood posted:If your clan is getting too big, build a shrine to Vinga. quote:What was your magic like when you used the divination? They don't always work, especially if your magic is low. quote:And heroquests are heavily dependent on you following the quest properly quote:and having your chosen character be strong enough in the relevant stats to do so. Which is something I can totally control and I don't just have to wait DECADES to get characters that can do the heroquest I want, or information on the heroquest they have a chance of pulling off. OH WAIT quote:And, well, frankly, if the game made anything clear, it wouldn't be fun. [...] If there was always an answer to each event that worked well, I can't see enjoying the game. Part of the fun is rolling with it. No, sorry, I brought up Crusader Kings II before and that's exactly the case for that game. You can throw all sorts of random poo poo at the player to have the "rolling with it" experience, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't give them meaningful choices and let them know what their effects are. KoDP fails on both counts.
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Jun 28, 2013 04:31
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I think this just might not be the game for you, man. KoDP's not a strategy game so much as it's a bronze age tribal life simulator, with all the uncertainty and lack of control that brings.
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Jun 28, 2013 04:51
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The fact that you mention FAQs and wikis is a big red flag, since this is probably the game that suffers THE MOST from doing that kind of thing.
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Jun 28, 2013 05:26
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There are three levels of knowledge you can have about a heroquest: none, a minimum (which allows you to do it) and a large amount. The large amount lest you click on an extra button in the lore screen (or it did in the PC version) which will greatly expand it and basically have all the "right" answers to the options underlined. I say "right" but as you know it's still possible to fail. Bad luck. You may also be heroquesting too early. Heroquesting is one of the most dangerous things a noble can do and failures can have serious repercussions. In the first part of the game I probably only heroquest once every ten years or so, and even then it's one of the easier ones like Orlanth Builds The Storm Tribe. In the later stages of the game you'll have to do them a lot, but in the first 20 or 30 years of your clan's life the reward is honestly not worth the risk. And yes, divination not giving you a follow-up option shits me off too. Only certain random events do it but I can never remember which ones. Also if you get your crop rotation right you should end up with a buffer of like 3,000 bushels of food which means you never have to worry about it again. (Unless they removed that loophole in a recent update? I vaguely recall that they may have). About the first 20 or 30 times I ever played this game my clans got stuck in starvation spirals, until I figured this out. Keep your population under 1,100 at all times. Hovering around 1,000 is ideal. A shrine with a blessing to Barntar is essential, as is Ernalda. Ask the ducks for 50 bushels tribute a year and they'll give it to you 100% of the time. In the early part of the game - like, the first 10-15 years - you should seriously just be worried about rising above the poverty line, not heroquesting or resolving feuds or exploring the far parts of the map. Explore your tula over and over again to find good trade goods. Trade that poo poo for cattle. Establish permanent trade routes (in game terms these don't actually trade anything - they just generate goods). If you have a grain surplus, trade that for cattle as well. Once you have some wealth up you can start building shrines and stuff which will help you maintain that wealth without having to constantly send off trade missions and raiding parties and stuff. As in real life, the rich get richer. KODP has a very steep learning curve but it's worth persevering.
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Jun 28, 2013 05:26
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There are a ton of events with little gently caress you details to them, and I say this as a huge fan of the game. The one NihilCredo mentions is actually a prime example - divinations simply provide you more information about a situation, except for that one time where it provides you a little more information and makes your sucker nobles act upon it immediately. Actually reading over it, pretty much all of his gameplay complaints are completely valid. I don't think it's a mystery that KoDP's gameplay is pretty loving asinine. The game sells itself on its unique experience and powerful storytelling. NihilCredo posted:I actually built that early because the Fyrdwomen blessing sounded awesome and I had a Vinga warlady; had no idea of its fertility effect. Still got the event twice (and no, I knew better than get children blessings.) But that wasn't my point: my point was, why even go through the immensely tedious (adjust pastures, trade for cattle, adjust jobs, rinse & repeat) work of managing your clan's prosperity if all it earns you is a slightly larger safety buffer? 1) Go to the fields screen 2) Find my plants specialist and see what he/she says about how many more hides of land we can handle 3) Double that number, and clear it for farmland 4) Find my animals guy and see what he says about cattle grazing ground 5) Double that number, and clear it for pasture I then only ever touch the fields screen again if I get a big influx of people, or I get a bad portent for the barley crop or something. Using this technique I'll usually be producing 150%-200% of what my clan needs to eat by year 5. I can barely GIVE the food away fast enough at that point, let alone get enough caravans out to trade it for something that doesn't get eaten by rats and can be used in more than 25% of events. Your nobles will constantly whine at you about needing more farmers, but gently caress them - all their complaining means is that you are working your land at optimum efficiency. quote:Read: either check a FAQ, or go trial and error. (Even with all the hints the lore page sucks, and you can't seriously figure out heroquests on your own because they randomly fail anyway.) Awesome. 1) The skill of your clan magician 2) The amount of magic on-hand when the heroquest is performed (just don't be 0 or less) 3) The number of worshipers you have at the quest site (bigger clans quest easier, people with allies quest easier still) 4) Your knowledge of the myth in question (don't ever heroquest without knowing the full myth unless you are desperate. If it is possible for you to get the 'details' of the myth, do that too. You can tell if you're done if the Mysteries sacrifice option disappears from the god you're propitiating.) 5) Whether or not you prepared for it at Sacred Time (this is another big one) 6) Whether or not the hero being sent is a devotee of the god in the myth (Vinga counts as Orlanth for this purpose) 7) Whether or not you've heroquested too recently (you should wait a year without heroquesting before you heroquest again. So, if you heroquested in 1033, whether you fail or not, you shouldn't heroquest again until 1035) I have seen plenty of totally mediocre Elmali or Humakti handily complete their gods' very difficult myths if these other things have been controlled properly. Most of these things are mentioned as factors in the instruction manual. I think only #2 is not. quote:Which is something I can totally control and I don't just have to wait DECADES to get characters that can do the heroquest I want, or information on the heroquest they have a chance of pulling off. OH WAIT quote:No, sorry, I brought up Crusader Kings II before and that's exactly the case for that game. You can throw all sorts of random poo poo at the player to have the "rolling with it" experience, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't give them meaningful choices and let them know what their effects are. KoDP fails on both counts. Also, regarding divinations, their reliability is directly linked to how much Magic you have at the time. If you have an experienced magician (e.g., high Magic skill), they'll warn you about this in events when divining is an option. A skilled magician makes a lot of things easier, actually, including Heroquesting (see above). But anyway, the instruction manual also warns you about faulty divinations if your Magic is too low.
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Jun 28, 2013 06:01
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fount of knowledge posted:The fact that you mention FAQs and wikis is a big red flag, since this is probably the game that suffers THE MOST from doing that kind of thing. freebooter posted:There are three levels of knowledge you can have about a heroquest: none, a minimum (which allows you to do it) and a large amount. The large amount lest you click on an extra button in the lore screen (or it did in the PC version) which will greatly expand it and basically have all the "right" answers to the options underlined. I say "right" but as you know it's still possible to fail. Bad luck. This is relevant to both posts: So after the nice no-win infested-cow event above left me with what sounded like a major Chaos problem, I figured it was time to take drastic steps. The cow event offered two heroquests to oppose Chaos, Elmal Guards the Stead and Orlanth and Aroka (though I wasn't dumb enough to do them on the spot). I knew from past games that the latter was a huge pain in the rear end, and I happened to have an Elmali with pretty good stats, so Elmal Guards the Stead it was; I sacrificed for information, maxed quest magic on the next sacred time, and immediately went for it on the following Sea time. I took the answers to the first challenges that best matched the myth description, and failed. Then I failed again. And then in one particularly bad failure my freshly-recovered Elmali got literally ripped to shreds. At this point I was pretty drat miffed so yes, I went and looked at the wiki. Guess what it said on the matter? quote:-When fighting the three chaos monsters, options seems to be random, even learning all the secrets of the myth doesn't tell you much.  So yeah, if you think that discovering that fact is what stopped me from having fun, I'm going to have to just raise my hands and acknowledge I don't understand this game's appeal at all and take my frustration out of this thread.
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Jun 28, 2013 06:01
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NihilCredo posted:This is relevant to both posts: Sorry dude, you picked a hard quest. But none of those things are going to ruin your game by themselves. The game is really about telling the story of your tribe's history - ups and downs included - and just maybe their brush with destiny. Failing that sequence wouldn't have crippled or even seriously hindered your ability to keep going and reach plot quest threads. Very few things can outright make you lose the game, really only antagonizing the tribe killing forces or getting stuck in a death spiral can make it impossible to continue. The hard part is coming to grips with that. We're used to games where if you didn't get the best result you quick load or just see a game over screen. Kodp is not that kind of game. andrew smash fucked around with this message at 06:21 on Jun 28, 2013 |
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Jun 28, 2013 06:19
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NihilCredo posted:So after the nice no-win infested-cow event above left me with what sounded like a major Chaos problem, I figured it was time to take drastic steps. The cow event offered two heroquests to oppose Chaos, Elmal Guards the Stead and Orlanth and Aroka (though I wasn't dumb enough to do them on the spot). I knew from past games that the latter was a huge pain in the rear end, and I happened to have an Elmali with pretty good stats, so Elmal Guards the Stead it was; I sacrificed for information, maxed quest magic on the next sacred time, and immediately went for it on the following Sea time. quote:So yeah, if you think that discovering that fact is what stopped me from having fun, I'm going to have to just raise my hands and acknowledge I don't understand this game's appeal at all and take my frustration out of this thread. Coolguye fucked around with this message at 06:26 on Jun 28, 2013 |
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Jun 28, 2013 06:19
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Coolguye posted:You should have sacrificed to Llankhor Mhy and figured out if he agreed that the Chaos threat was particularly dire. (Sacrifice for Divination, Threats) If the Knowing God agrees with you, start taking some stronger action. Recruit more weaponthanes, and build a shrine to Urox. Get Sense Chaos running, and if the threat continues to increase visibly, switch it to Smite Chaos.
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Jun 28, 2013 06:41
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NihilCredo posted:Read: either check a FAQ, or go trial and error. (Even with all the hints the lore page sucks, and you can't seriously figure out heroquests on your own because they randomly fail anyway.) Awesome. Everything you need to know is either in the manual or in your decisions when you made your tribe. Always make sure your choices match your early tribal choices and you'll come out ok (once you figure out food. Food is the one thing you should be checking a FAQ for) quote:Which is something I can totally control and I don't just have to wait DECADES to get characters that can do the heroquest I want, or information on the heroquest they have a chance of pulling off. OH WAIT This is not a strategy game. This is not a strategy game. This is not a strategy game. Take a deep breath and say it with me. There is a strategy, but this is an advanced viking choose your own adventure. There are no right and only a few truly wrong answers, choose the option that sounds like fun (when all else fails, follow the trickster). Heroquesting is a not something you should be doing on the regular, it's a last ditch effort until you have a large tribe that can afford to risk losing a few hundred people/cattle/reputation when you fail. And you will fail. You're not roleplaying the event, you're throwing some viking rear end in a top hat into his gods footsteps and trying to do what a god did (but you're not a god). When you do heroquest, follow the quest details you know. The game will punish you for making the "right" choice if you haven't discovered that part of the myth. While you heroquest, search for other solutions. Hire more weaponthanes, feast if you have extra food and trade whatever you do have lying around to get more food if you don't. Worry more about shrines and blessings than heroquests. Urox has great anti-chaos, orlanth, barnatar, humakt, ernalda, chalana arroy all have pretty important blessings. IF you do a ton of trade you'll need the talking god as well, and Lhankor Mhy if you want to be all diplomatic or legal about something. Elmal is also essential if you're going to be combative. Get blessings going, switch them when to whatever you're dealing with right now. Make sure you have the maximum number of crafters and use precious resources before regular crafted goods. You want cows, so raid, raid, raid, cattle raid, raid during fire season. Take most of your tribe (unless it's a cattle raid). Get a trickster on the ring and follow his advice all the time (if you want to have a good time, anyway). Most importantly, stop acting like you and stop trying to win everything all at once. Bad poo poo will happen to you and you will have to deal with it. That's the appeal of this game (that and vikings). If that doesn't appeal to you, it's the wrong game. quote:No, sorry, I brought up Crusader Kings II before and that's exactly the case for that game. You can throw all sorts of random poo poo at the player to have the "rolling with it" experience, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't give them meaningful choices and let them know what their effects are. KoDP fails on both counts. The choices in KODP are meaningful, and the effects make themselves known. KoDP isn't a strategy game where everything is immediately apparent, and it shouldn't be. You're not going to get a little trait+1 to keep track of crap for you, you have to figure it out. Stop reacting like a person playing a videogame and try to get into the mindset of a violent angry barbarian and things will start to make more sense. Oh, and is it asking to much to sacrifice to your ancestors every now and again? Seriously, if you keep getting bad divinations, then the ancestors are probably pissed off at you and telling you lies. Sacrifice to them and divinations get better.
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Jun 28, 2013 06:47
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NihilCredo posted:I took the answers to the first challenges that best matched the myth description, and failed. Then I failed again. And then in one particularly bad failure my freshly-recovered Elmali got literally ripped to shreds. The quest goes like so: Each Chaos monster is encounter based, every option you choose rolls a check based on one of the hero's skills to attempt to hurt the monster. The exchange deals damage to both hero and monster, but while the hero can't normally die to this, it has some impact on further combat checks if he fails badly enough(you however, don't get to see how well you did on the check). Between monsters is a healing check based on your hero's Magic, your clan's magic and how much damage you took in the Chaos Monster. Giving tears usually works if you didn't take too many options to defeat the monster, sacrificing actually lowers your odds if you are doing well, but if your hero is barely adequate to the job it helps. The Teller of Lies is I think, Custom/Leadership checks, which are greatly modified for Elmali, but extra difficult for Orlanthi(who have a good chance of taking up leadership whatever your actual choice is). If you got through the chaos monsters with an Elmali following the rote answers should almost always clear this. Basically for heroquests you got the following challenges: -Elmal Guards the Stead, it's difficult pretty much because of the number of tough Combat and Magic checks early on. And there's no graceful failure, you win or your hero comes out exploded. -Orlanth and Aroka meanwhile is smooth sailing, most of the checks are trivial for an Orlanthi, but the final check is a Combat roll so high that even doing it perfectly still have a chance of becoming dragon food.
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Jun 28, 2013 06:50
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TheAnomaly posted:Everything you need to know is either in the manual or in your decisions when you made your tribe. quote:Oh, and is it asking to much to sacrifice to your ancestors every now and again? Seriously, if you keep getting bad divinations, then the ancestors are probably pissed off at you and telling you lies. Sacrifice to them and divinations get better.  Thanks, that may actually explain a fair bit, as my Elmali had lovely Custom. Regardless, at this point I feel the people who say that it's not a game for me are correct. I don't like the fundamental design philosophy, and that's a problem that can't be fixed by people giving friendly metagame tips like "ancestors wreck your divinations if they didn't get sacrifices" or "this particular heroquest has a stupidly hard Combat check, avoid" - if anything, it aggravates it.
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Jun 28, 2013 07:11
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NihilCredo posted:Elmal guards the stead A lot of things like chaos/undead threat have hidden values that go up & down based on you loving things up/helping to unfuck things. The broo event doesn't mean that your tula will be smashed to bits by Yog-sothoth tomorrow, it just means you should keep an eye on things. I honestly never bother with sense/smite chaos, but being nice to Uroxi who stop by the tula seems to do the job just as well. If you get a "chaos happened!" event, doing more than just the bare minimum means you're actively preventing future chaos. Also, don't panic & start over even if you fail at something in your clan, or if you get a chaos beast/zombie invasion/other "gently caress you" event. Your clan can take a surprising amount of punishment and still manage to make a full recovery; you'll usually get a warning if an actual loss is imminent. Pressing on even if your game isn't going as planned is how you get better at it, since it forces you to learn how to deal with bad situations instead of just reloading if things aren't perfect. The things you should watch out for, since they can actually end your game, are: -Starvation -Angering elder races too much (you can annoy them to a certain extent, and you're expected to if they're your ancient enemy, but if they send you a delegation telling you to knock it off, do what they say) -Angering certain cults too much(some of these got broken in one of the PC patches, but I think they're restored in iOS) quote:Oh, and is it asking to much to sacrifice to your ancestors every now and again? Seriously, if you keep getting bad divinations, then the ancestors are probably pissed off at you and telling you lies. Sacrifice to them and divinations get better. E: quote:Regardless, at this point I feel the people who say that it's not a game for me are correct. I don't like the fundamental design philosophy, and that's a problem that can't be fixed by people giving friendly metagame tips like "ancestors wreck your divinations if they didn't get sacrifices" or "this particular heroquest has a stupidly hard Combat check, avoid" - if anything, it aggravates it. Haifisch fucked around with this message at 07:17 on Jun 28, 2013 |
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Jun 28, 2013 07:13
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One smaller note: when Heroquesting, make sure that you are doing it at the right time of year as well. I notice that you tried to complete "Guards the Stead" in Sea Season; Elmal has no connection to that period, but he is tied to the Sun and Fire. So, Fire season works, but even better than that is Darkness, because the myth you are reenacting takes place during the Great Darkness. Every myth has its proper time. As a general rule of thumb, anything to do with chaos or disorder should be quested for during the Darkness, anything with Orlanth in Storm season, and the remainder in Sea season (although I may be forgetting one or two).
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Jun 28, 2013 07:28
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Fuligin posted:One smaller note: when Heroquesting, make sure that you are doing it at the right time of year as well. I notice that you tried to complete "Guards the Stead" in Sea Season; Elmal has no connection to that period, but he is tied to the Sun and Fire. So, Fire season works, but even better than that is Darkness, because the myth you are reenacting takes place during the Great Darkness. Every myth has its proper time. As a general rule of thumb, anything to do with chaos or disorder should be quested for during the Darkness, anything with Orlanth in Storm season, and the remainder in Sea season (although I may be forgetting one or two). I always do the Cow one in earth season.
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Jun 28, 2013 07:36
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Haifisch posted:A lot of things like chaos/undead threat have hidden values that go up & down based on you loving things up/helping to unfuck things. The broo event doesn't mean that your tula will be smashed to bits by Yog-sothoth tomorrow, it just means you should keep an eye on things. I honestly never bother with sense/smite chaos, but being nice to Uroxi who stop by the tula seems to do the job just as well. If you get a "chaos happened!" event, doing more than just the bare minimum means you're actively preventing future chaos. Don't forget the potential for there to be a Chaos Cultist somewhere in your clan. That could gently caress things up pretty good, especially if they happen to be your Dude In Charge Of Magic Stuff. For dealing with Chaos: -Sense Chaos actually just boosts your chances of knowing that a Chaos event is occurring, sort of an early warning so you get the Broo/Chaos Cultist events etc, first rather than skipping to a Walktopus. I think it helps a bit with divining the danger of Chaos as well. It may help when you are trying to exterminate Chaos, without Sense Chaos even if you kill the potential broocows, you might miss a few and the event comes back. -Smite Chaos is the same, it gives you an edge in combat checks against Chaos events. -When in doubt, keep the Uroxi happy. Cows are easy enough to replace, a potential Chaos incursion would cost you more cows than the Uroxi ever want to kill. The only time I did otherwise was when they called out my King as a Chaos Cultist, who would have been more inconvenient to replace than any likely invasion. -Snakepipe Hollow is a good place to hit if you want to dampen chaos, and have an expendable noble with decent combat. Send a small band every so often to mess them up.
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Jun 28, 2013 07:41
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NihilCredo posted:it's not a game for me I sympathise, honestly. I haven't played since I lost my awesome tribal leader on a heroquest. They are brutally, mockingly unfair. It's the Dark Souls of CYOA/Hamurabi clones.
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Jun 28, 2013 07:48
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NihilCredo posted:But that wasn't my point: my point was, why even go through the immensely tedious (adjust pastures, trade for cattle, adjust jobs, rinse & repeat) work of managing your clan's prosperity if all it earns you is a slightly larger safety buffer? sebmojo posted:I sympathise, honestly. I haven't played since I lost my awesome tribal leader on a heroquest. They are brutally, mockingly unfair. Looking back, I think that there should be an optional 'Ironman Mode' checkbox at the beginning. Rogue AI Goddess fucked around with this message at 08:05 on Jun 28, 2013 |
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Jun 28, 2013 08:00
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freebooter posted:And question for those who are read-up on their Gloranthan lore - I vaguely recall hearing somewhere that the Pharaoh is a time traveller? That's one theory. Sadly, the old Glorantha digest archive where I saw it is down right now, but from what I recall the idea was that he was a God Learner from their perfect would-be future utopia that was destroyed in the Second Age, who then escaped in time and conquered the Holy Country. Well, he certainly metagamed like one, didn't he? I don't think it's canonical though, and even if it is, it is vague enough to allow a multitude of other theories to exist. He may be Lord Pavis returned, or the wyter of Kethaela incarnate, or John Carter of Mars, or, or, or. Personally I think it's possible that he was just a man once, but has become something greater, perhaps by merging with the spirit of Kethaela. Thus it is the Holy Country because it is ruled by its community spirit, the embodiment of all of its sacred institutions and traditions, directly, rather than through priests or kings or nobles. Belintar has a lot of theories around him, not just those about his origins. This is a bit dated and very much a fan creation, but can still be an interesting read, both for non-Dragon Pass cultures of Kethaela and for Belintar himself. I would also like to add that I had never had any problems with the Humakti heroquests.  Except for that one time I sent a weakling who gave in to Orlanth - but the rest of the times my Humakti or stand-ins were badass enough to pass with flying colours. The Elmal quest takes a bit of getting used to, but after the first few times it turned out to be one of the easier ones for me. Uralda's quest remains a slaughterhouse though.
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Jun 28, 2013 12:53
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NihilCredo posted:Thanks, that may actually explain a fair bit, as my Elmali had lovely Custom. Regarding the 'nice metagamey tips', I really don't think any of the tips people have given you except for process are terribly needed, aside from maybe the farming tips I gave you. That part of the game is kind of antilogical because you have to ignore a bunch of whining from your nobles. You probably would not have gotten your rear end kicked if you'd just soldiered on from the Elmal Guards the Stead fiasco, particularly if you were failing at the Teller of Lies as opposed to the Eater of Skin/Maker of Bad Growth fights. The Teller of Lies just kills your Elmali, the Chaos creatures will gently caress up your situation beyond that in various ways. It sounds like you lost your head well before any actual apocalypse events happened, and that's one of the biggest reasons why people quit this game. A lot like XCOM, actually.
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Jun 28, 2013 12:55
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veekie posted:Don't forget the potential for there to be a Chaos Cultist somewhere in your clan. That could gently caress things up pretty good, especially if they happen to be your Dude In Charge Of Magic Stuff. I could swear this happened to me once. I started with this guy. He was an Elmali. Excellent combat, and RENOWNED magic. All kinds of bad chaos poo poo kept happening that I can't remember because it was ages ago, including him giving bad advice on one or two chaos related events. It all culminated when I sent him on Elmal Guards the Stead...which he performed flawlessly until the Teller of Lies showed up, where he pretty much immediately declared himself king despite what I chose. I like to imagine he's somewhere on the God-Plane even now, plotting horrible things. I could also have just been my imagination though, since it's hard to imagine an Elmali secret-chaos-cultist. Great cover though, I suppose.
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Jun 28, 2013 13:51
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Being a Chaos cultist is sometimes like being a Cylon - not even the cultist himself can know it until it's too late. This isn't a rule, of course, but it comes up in the source material from time to time.
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Jun 28, 2013 14:17
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advokat posted:I would also like to add that I had never had any problems with the Humakti heroquests. For heroquests, assuming someone from that god does it, Ernalda, Chalana Arroy, Issaries and Making of the Storm Tribe seem to be the easiest. They tend to have gentle failure generally, with potentially lethal parts towards the end(meaning you likely get there if you're competent enough to clear it anyway, and you get plenty of opportunities to back out), and their skills used are either common or practically a given with the proper questors. Heck, if you have a good Ernaldan in your starting ring, it's sometimes a worthwhile gamble to blast straight into her quest for the harvest boost early in the game and then have your food problems solved for the foreseeable future. Humakt and Lhankor Mhy's quests can be slightly trickier, since they require some access to skills their typical questors aren't necessarily good at(Humakt needs to fool Eurmal, which isn't all that hard, and Lhankor Mhy needs to recruit companions, unless you have multiple good questors. Both of them tend to have antisocial followers). Elmal and Orlanth present the next problem, the quest contains some VERY challenging checks, despite being in their specialist skills. Both quests have a high risk of death and injury, meaning whoever you're grooming for the quest is going to hurt to lose. Orlanth's is worse here of course, Aroka might kill him no matter what you do at the last check, whereas a lategame Elmali would have the multiple high skills to win through. And then you have Uralda. HER problem is simply a skill mismatch, high combat is necessary to survive the repeated maulings, while bargaining/leadership/animals are all needed. Candidates are limited to women, making the pool even smaller. Uraldans and Ernaldans will have high Animals but nonexistent Combat. Vingans have good Combat, but their Animals stat is usually low. Issaries followers have bad Animals, but are otherwise well rounded for the quest. Chalana Arroy followers have basically no Combat(excepting the undead hating lunatic in the LP). Odayla followers are rare, but more or less perfectly suited. So your best chances are a Vingan or Issarite with good Animals or the rare Odayla follower. If you do find one of those they can basically clear the quest perfectly every time though. It's just so damned hard to find the ideal candidate.
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Jun 28, 2013 16:38
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NihilCredo posted:I took the answers to the first challenges that best matched the myth description, and failed. Then I failed again. And then in one particularly bad failure my freshly-recovered Elmali got literally ripped to shreds. Were you save scumming, or did you keep sending him on the heroquest right after he'd failed it? The latter is a huge no-no. But anyway, as others pointed out, your first mistake was thinking that a few broo-infested cattle was a major problem. Wait till the zombies show up, then you'll know you're alive. Stop heroquesting. Just stop. It doesn't matter what your advisors say, you don't need to do it and it's a bad idea in your current risk/benefit analysis. As others have pointed out, you need to let go of the mindset that you have to do everything really, perfectly well. Your clan can (and will) suffer a lot of blows before anything really bad happens. And don't bother with any of that divination stuff (outside of an actual event) or any of the Ancestor divination sacrifices or Sense Chaos rubbish. At least, I never do. I know I have a Chaos issue when cows start erupting, I don't need to waste a turn divining when I could have been raiding or trading. Anyway, yeah, the most important piece of advice to enjoying this game, if you haven't given up already, is not to worry about things going wrong. Failure is part of the game. You're not going to show up in Dragon Pass and be wealthy and powerful in a couple of years. veekie posted:Don't forget the potential for there to be a Chaos Cultist somewhere in your clan. That could gently caress things up pretty good, especially if they happen to be your Dude In Charge Of Magic Stuff. Huh. I didn't know this could happen, but it sure does explain the handful of games where I've had neverending Chaos problems - there was one in particular where a walktapus just wouldn't gently caress off and the event kept reoccurring no matter what I did.
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Jun 28, 2013 16:59
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freebooter posted:Huh. I didn't know this could happen, but it sure does explain the handful of games where I've had neverending Chaos problems - there was one in particular where a walktapus just wouldn't gently caress off and the event kept reoccurring no matter what I did. Sometimes a Walktapus just doesn't want to gently caress off though. It's kind of their thing. The problem with the Chaos Cultist thing is it's nigh impossible to confirm, short of savegame hacking. You never know if you executed an innocent and useful guy.
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Jun 28, 2013 17:43
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freebooter posted:As others have pointed out, you need to let go of the mindset that you have to do everything really, perfectly well. Your clan can (and will) suffer a lot of blows before anything really bad happens. And don't bother with any of that divination stuff (outside of an actual event) or any of the Ancestor divination sacrifices or Sense Chaos rubbish. At least, I never do. I know I have a Chaos issue when cows start erupting, I don't need to waste a turn divining when I could have been raiding or trading. It's easy to forget that you're not the only power in Dragon Pass. There are a lot of other Orlanthi tribes and their cults, the ducks are around (unless you ran them off like a douchebag), and there's even the dragonewts to your north. None of them are particularly large fans of Chaos. Just because you have a bad event doesn't even mean you have to be the one to clean it up. Just hiring more weaponthanes and being on guard for a bit can solve the problem as the Chaos creatures disseminate in the wilderness and are eventually hunted down by wandering Uroxi, a particularly pissed off duck, or a dragonewt that isn't pleased about a broo trying to hump it while it's doing some crazy magical ritual. Drastic interventions like heroquests should be reserved for if you've had repeated trouble with Chaos, and the situation appears to be getting worse. This goes even if you have a particularly powerful clan, because you don't want to waste a heroquest fighting Chaos or some other one-trick thing when you could instead be strengthening the quester to provide you bonuses on 40+ years of checks. Coolguye fucked around with this message at 00:24 on Jun 29, 2013 |
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Jun 29, 2013 00:21
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Coolguye posted:This is certainly true when you're a bit more experienced and have a better sense for the game. I haven't bothered doing any divinations for the last like 6 games I've played. But, that said, it helps a new player keep better track of what all's going on. It's really simple to forget about the dragonewts or beastmen after a broo event, so you might start panicking about Chaos until you have a chat with the Knowing God and he points out that one of the elder races is a way bigger deal. I beg to differ with regard to divinations outside of events. They're a good indicator of a number of things it's hard to gauge otherwise, such as clan strength. Keep getting creamed by one clan in particular? Ask the knowing god. Similarly, clan attitude is a good one to ask about on occasion: did these guys just raid me for the hell of it or is there a feud brewing? I realize it's entirely possible to get a sense for all these things without the sacrifice, but I figure the information is there so may as well take advantage of it.
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Jun 29, 2013 02:28
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I think I found another new (awesome) event. A troll came to my tula and wanted to challenge someone to a duel. Everyone talked about her huge scary muscles except for my trickster, who said he could take her. So I let him duel and then the troll tells me that it's an eating contest. The troll ended up eating a whole cow and a couple loaves of bread. My trickster said he was hungry enough to eat a horse, and then proceeded to eat an entire horse, whole, as well as two other cows, winning the contest handily.
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Jun 29, 2013 02:34
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BlindGuy posted:I beg to differ with regard to divinations outside of events. They're a good indicator of a number of things it's hard to gauge otherwise, such as clan strength. Keep getting creamed by one clan in particular? Ask the knowing god. Similarly, clan attitude is a good one to ask about on occasion: did these guys just raid me for the hell of it or is there a feud brewing? I realize it's entirely possible to get a sense for all these things without the sacrifice, but I figure the information is there so may as well take advantage of it. This is very true, I always forget that the Knowing God can tell you about other clans. It's definitely something you can gauge on your own (or just react to on your own via your situation), but if you're not sure, Llankhor Mhy is a great guy to ask to advise your position. Flame112 posted:I think I found another new (awesome) event. A troll came to my tula and wanted to challenge someone to a duel. Everyone talked about her huge scary muscles except for my trickster, who said he could take her. So I let him duel and then the troll tells me that it's an eating contest. The troll ended up eating a whole cow and a couple loaves of bread. My trickster said he was hungry enough to eat a horse, and then proceeded to eat an entire horse, whole, as well as two other cows, winning the contest handily. This is incredible.
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Jun 29, 2013 03:26
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veekie posted:For heroquests, assuming someone from that god does it, Ernalda, Chalana Arroy, Issaries and Making of the Storm Tribe seem to be the easiest. They tend to have gentle failure generally, with potentially lethal parts towards the end(meaning you likely get there if you're competent enough to clear it anyway, and you get plenty of opportunities to back out), and their skills used are either common or practically a given with the proper questors. Heck, if you have a good Ernaldan in your starting ring, it's sometimes a worthwhile gamble to blast straight into her quest for the harvest boost early in the game and then have your food problems solved for the foreseeable future. I actually wouldn't recommend doing Ernalda's quest until you know the full secrets of the myth, otherwise the check at the very end goes from "outside chance to kill your noble" to "will probably kill your noble". Chalana Arroy can be surprisingly risky too: there's a non-zero chance of losing your noble right at the start of the quest, especially with low Bargaining (which Chalana Arroy devotees tend to be okay at, but not always great). Issaries, Llankhor Mhy and Making of the Storm Tribe are all relatively safe for your noble, since they're much more likely to be spat out of the quest wounded than killed outright, but they can all have bad effects on other aspects of your clan if you fail at the wrong time.
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Jun 29, 2013 03:44
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^^ Early in the game the risk of noble death isn't so bad, you usually have a spare Plants/Animals expert(goddamn Barntarites are everywhere). Just make sure you go into the quest with decent magic reserves and you're fine. Didn't know about the Chalana Arroy thing being potentially lethal though, by the time I learn enough to even do the quest, my potential candidates for her quest beats the initial check all the time. Including the comedy "Send in Trickster" option(he usually gets smacked down like a bitch by Urox instead). Mind you I usually have more Issarites to send than Chalanan healers. Coolguye posted:the ducks are around (unless you ran them off like a douchebag)
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Jun 29, 2013 05:57
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