I've been playing less KoDP over the last few months,
but I did finally finish up one of my long running
games. By and large it had everything I'd been
missing in my previous victories:
- A long, hard game. Might as well have a challenge.
- I had a king who could reasonably rule for a while
and start a dynasty (46 years old elmali, heroic in
combat, leadership, and magic). In my two previous
long games I won with very elderly queens, which
seemed to me a formula for squabbling and civil war a
few years down the road.
- A natural succesor to lead the clan (a 28 year old
Humaktia woman with heroic combat and excellent magic
and leadership).
- I hadn't "cheated" too much. I had a policy on this
game of re-playing a year if I thought that it was
necessary, but not re-playing individual events.
Hence no "keep trying the heroquest until it
succeeds." (although possibly "I tried this heroquest
and it was a devestating failure that will cripple
this young clan. Let's redo the year and skip the
heroquest). Definately gives some added satisfaction.
But of course there have to be a few niggling details
to make it less than perfect.
-I've never had Kallyr go off on her quest, but
normally I've never had her as an adult for long. In
this game the event for her came up in the first few
years, and when the game finished she nearly fifty,
still a hero with sword or spell, a renowned leader,
and she'd actually been around long enough to get very
good at bargaining and to actually develop a fair
plant's skill (something I've never seen with Kallyr
before!). But no quest. Granted, she did spend a few
years as a thrall to the horse *spit* spawn, maybe
that took the heroic spirit out of her? Anyway, I
thought that for sure this would be the game where I
finally saw her go off to meet her destiny. I'm
almost wondering if there is something I'm not doing.
It is OK to leave her on the ring, right?
- The cursed Enhyli. They were early on our whipping
boy clan, and around the time of tribe formation we
took most of their land. But in the next generation
we couldn't kick them out totally. First couple of
times our raiders were so moved by the tears of the
widows and babes that we had pity. Then we found that
the spirits of the land kept opposing us. Finally,
just before the crowning, we completed a gratuitous
heroquest, pumping up our magic, then raided the
Enhyli with everything we had, and burned off ten
magic. We completely crushed their three weapon
thanes and 70 fyrdmen, but yet again pitiful tears
softened our raiders hearts and we left them be.
Never before have I found it so hard to totally
displace a clan. (by the way, the reason I cared so
much is that we foolishly split our tula on one clan
division near the end of the game, then gave part away
to the telmori, and had what was really too little
space left for a thriving clan). Has anyone else hit
this? Any theories on what was happening there?
--Bryan
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