KoDP again.

From: bjm10_at_cornell.edu
Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2000 11:23:49 -0500 (EST)


> I can second most of Gazza's points re KoDP frustrations particularly on the
> pointlessness of splitting the clan - once you get your clan up to 1200 pop
> (which is the minimum you need to compete effectively in the later stages of
> the game when every enemy clan has 20+ weaponthanes and 200 or more footmen)

Wrong, my dear fellow. I won with a smaller clan than that. Although I was able to support 50+ weaponthanes on a clan that I kept down to the high 900s in population.

> you have to waste most of your actions each year sending your surplus
> footmen off on pointless exploratory expeditions or suicidal visits to

Waste? Pointless exploratory expeditions? How many diplomatic missions do you have out at any one time? In the end game of my victory I was sending AT LEAST five every year. Likewise, there's scouring the locale to keep bandits, undead, and chaos down. Got to be done, lad. You can't just sit on your butt like you're playing Alpha Centauri. Think like an Orlanthi, not like a CivII player.

> resort to filling the ring with second-string nobles because you know you're
> going to be forced to reorganise the ring soon to avoid a split anyway.

Why avoid splits? I LIKED them! INSTANT ALLIES!!!!!

> Quite apart from lessening realism by forcing you into actions a real
> Orlanthi clan wouldn't take for purely game reasons ('Go exploring up north
> with just one weaponthane and three footmen as escort when the last twelve
> expeditions never returned - not on your nellie mate') this also contradicts

I was NEVER "forced" to do something like this--and I won the game with an Elmali clan.

> the canonical KoS Report on the Orlanthi which IIRC states that Orlanthi
> clans typically range from 500-2000 pop and implies that 1200 is the norm
> rather than the exception

Given that KoDP was done under Greggian supervision, I would think that it's about as "canonical" as is "King of Sartar". Prove that "canonical" means "infallible".

> turn up at once (real shortage of Uroxi though - I've only seen three in a
> dozen clans and several hundred game years so just as well there isn't an

I tend to find that one has an abundance of whatever you've got the most temples and shrines built for.

> Other than the game need to have seven different deities on the Ring can
> this be rationalised as meaning that effectively all devotees of the major
> Orlanthi specialist deities that live with a clan are ex-officio members of
> the outer ring - at least in the 1300's ? (possibly by the 1600's position

That's what being an Orlanthi "noble" means--you're on the outer ring.

> Would also second the point about repetition of random clan events - my
> current clan has had Rangarda and her bloody horse saga and the squabbling
> merchants repeat themselves two or three times each in under 60 years. If
> there's any future updates (and I certainly hope the game will be successful
> enough to make them profitable)new random events would be a high priority -

Actually, I had that idea, too--events packs, at least until the game that describes taming the next area of Glorantha arrives--and even then more would be nice.

> On trade, other than running out of sheep my other perennial problem is
> accumulating a giant horse herd which I can't trade away because no-one will
> trade you food or cattle when you need them and once you've got over a
> hundred horses they breed faster than you can sell them or give them out to

So give them as gifts!!!!!

> Instead the game seems to drive my clans to retreat into isolationist
> autarky where the most common form of contact with neighbours is to raid
> them.

This is exactly the opposite of how my victorious game went.

> OK, maybe in game terms the point IS to force clans to either do Uralda's
> Blessing or raid whenever they need more cows, but IMO trade would
> definitely be a safer and more realistic option in most cases (particularly

Realistic to your mind or realistic to an Orlanthi?


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