Re: doing it the proper way

From: Bryan Thexton <bethexton_at_...>
Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2004 08:05:09 -0700 (PDT)

I tend to play in short spurts, so have forgiven myself for honest memory lapses regarding sacred time prophecies. That is, when I picked the game back up in mid-year, all excited, took a couple of turns, then remembered to go back and check the prophecy and realized taht I needed to have done something different (one was picking it up mid-fire season, making three moves, then checking the prophecy and seeing we were supposed to visit Kero Finn. Experience says you can't pull this off leaving later than earth season. I went back to the fire season save (incidentaly losing a treasure in the process) and played it from there. I forget the other prophecy issue now). So that is the minor cheat, forgiving some sloppy play.

I did have one major lapse however. My chief was struck down by the hereditary illness. I was attached to my chief, and enjoying her story, and while I had reasonably substitutes available I was weak and went back to the last save. If I'd lost her in battle, on a mission, or something else I would have taken it, but for me the most compelling part of the game is the story, and that evening I wasn't able to accept that twist on the story.

So no, I won't be able to claim a 'pure' game, but this one is looking pretty close. There were some rough times at the beginning after our trickster lost most of our goods gambling with the dragon, and we had one of those awful years when we were short on weaponthanes, didn't have enough horses to equip more weaponthanes, and didn't have enough cattle, food, or goods to trade for more horses. But we made it through. We also survived the devestation caused by a drought that we didn't break with our first sacrifice. Our herds took huge damage, but we'd just finished our first heroquest, Ernalda Feeds the Tribe with the benefit of making our cattle healthier, so we managed to recover, although it was a contributor to some lean times.

It took ~15 years to make a tribe, and for the first time it was not prompted by a visit by the hermit. We'd been hovering one notch below the top of the scale for a few years when another clan hosted the cooking contest. We talked to other clans about making a tribe, and it turns out that is enough to start the tribe making event (we'd already succesfully quested for Orlanth's blessing).

We did have one heroquest go off the rails so far (our first attempt at making of the storm tribe) but fortunately the quester was able to succesfully get lost before doing too much damage, and eventually got brought home by Yinkin for no great cost. We have succeeded at Ernalda Feeds the Tribe, Making of the Storm Tribe, Challana Arroy Heals the Scars (twice! Both times in response to the disease spirits sacred time predictions, fortunately both times we'd been building up towards a quest and had an appropriate quester) and the Issaries quest. Kallyr just came back from being trained by the Vingans, so we should complete another quest or two now :)

Oh, and this was on Medium. I wasn't dedicated enough to try a pure game on hard! It might be possible, but I think you'd need to be willing to have a few clans die on you for each one that succeeds.

--Bryan                 



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