1b. Cragspider started to dislike me in the most recent game. I can't be having with those filty Trolls, although the first time around I cowardly sent tribute. Then later the bitch came with another claim for tribute. No effing way! I told her to stuff her claim up somewhere nasty. A few years later, she came down visiting and destroyed my clan completely.
Do I have to bend over? Or is there something I can do? I was doing fine, had over 25 Weaponthanes, and a lot of horsies I wanted to trade off, and had just slain a wyrm or dragon or something so I had a total of over 400 goods (200 from the wyrm, the rest from other things) and was on a spending spree. Then craggybitch came visiting with great vengange and furious anger, and even though I tried to continue my gimped clan, everybody told me to give up
What can I do?
2. I often try to take prisoners when others attack me (I figure the Trolls won't pay ransoms anyway, so no bother there, and the gods or ancestors might prefer me to butcher as many as possible), but in almost all cases that fails. sometimes it succeeds (I always get 5 goods in ransom per prisoner, whether from another clan or from the Horse Dudes). I go for Truesword from Humakt, and usually have a fair amount of Weaponthanes even for a Peace Clan, e.g. 14 or 17 early on, later in the game 22 or 25 or even more if I can have that many (sometimes I can). But I almost always fail to get prisoners.
2b. How can I increase my chance of capturing horses from raiders? Especially the Horse Dudes they're are all mounted, so battling them ought to give lots of horses, but usually I get none. Once I got 49 or so, which was far too many, because I had to do numerous Trade journeys to sell them all.
2c. I suppose if I have a wild excess of horsies, I can sacrifice them instead. But I'm used to sacrificing only goods, because goods don't mate and reproduce the way cows do. Or horses do. So I really have no clue as to which gods like blood sacrifices. But having a list of which gods prefer goods and which prefer cows/horses or thralls, would be very nice (I don't keep thralls, though. I don't see much advantage in it, and it's nice to occasionally get a boost to Magic when I get the chance to liberate other peoples' thralls).
3. How much food is consumed by Feasting? I throw a Large feast once in a while, to raise my clan's mood. It seems there's no effect to inviting neighbouring clans, so I never do that. I'm also unsure why there are two lesser sizes of Feast. If I'm gonna have a feast, it might as well be a Large one.
4. I'm concerned about over-sacrificing goods to the gods, to unlock mysteries. Ring members usually say that 7 goods or cows is the minimum amount, and 2 or 3 time that is preferable, so I tend to give 21 in the first sacrifice to each god of that year, then in 2nd sacrifice to the same god a few more, maybe 23 or 24, in a 3rd sacrifice (although I rarely do 3 sacrifices to the same god in any given year) maybe 27 or 30.
But it's like playing blackjack without knowing what the target number is. I worry a lot that I don't get any kind of benefit whatsoever for sacrificing more than is necessary.
Is there some kind of "stored-up goodwill" that lasts for years, and makes later sacrifices easier, if I over-sacrifice? Or am I forced to participate in this unpleasant gambling?
4b. How does assigning Clan Magic to Mysteries work? I assume that 1 Magic equals 7 Goods/Cows, and thus for 1 Magic I can sacrifice 7 Goods less in my FIRST sacrifice of that year only. That seems unattractive. It seems to me that it would be a more reasonable design if Magic allocated to Mysteries have an affect that last throughout the entire year, e.g. reducing the cost of EACH sacrifice by a small amount, maybe 2 or 3 goods/cows.
4c. How does allocating Magic to War work? If I allocate 1 Magic to War during the Sacred Time, does that give return-on-investment in all combat that I'm involved in in that year? So that later if I'm attacked and I sacrrfice 2 Magic during that fight it counts as a total of 3, and then if I'm attacked again the same year, and I sacrifice 2 Magic again, it AGAIN counts as 3? Or how does it work?
4d. How does temporary sacrifices work? That is sacrificing directly for a miracle rather than to unlock a Mystery that I can then get from a temple?
Sacrificing to Chalana Arroy seems to heal or cure proportionally more clan members, the more I give. So that makes sense to me.
But other sacrifices produe lasting effect, e.g. if I were to sacrifice for Truesword. Apparently such effects last for 5 seasons, that is for an entire year.
I'd have assumed that that is influenced by the amount I sacrifice, so that if I give a larger sacrifice the effect might last for longer, such as 6 or 7 or 8 or even many more seasons. And/or that the effect is stronger, so that e.g. that while a Shrine-based Truesword always gives a x2 swordpower bonus to Weaponthanes, so that e.g. 4 Weaponthanes count as 8, a sacrifice effect can give a smaller or larger multiplier, so that a miserly sacrifice might give only x1.7 or even x1.4, while a larger sacrifice might give x2.1, x2.2 or even x2.3 or more.
But is that so? Is there any evidence or indicators that suggest it to be so?
5. Sometimes I'm stuck with a boring set of nobility, e.g. I almost always pick Orlanth as my primary god, yet in recent games I've had clans that only has 1-2 nobles of Orlanth none of which had impressive skills.
What do I do about that? How often do I get new nobles? I've sort of decided to re-do my Ring all over every 8 or so years, except if I got an Eurmal I might as well not un-Ring him because I know I'll just re-Ring him again, but even still then doing the six other guys over, un-Ringing them all and then picking new Ring members even if I often end up choosing some of the old guys again.
5b. Men and women elevated to the Ring are presumed to improve their skills, but I've barely seen that happen. Sometimes I see somone rated at Renowned and I'm like "hey, I kinda think this guy started out at merely Excellent, but I'm not 100% sure". Only time I'm fairly sure I've seen Heroic is with the Kallyr woman (a Vingan IIRC?) raised on a shield, who might be Heroic in Combat.
I know skills are rated in a more fine-grained fashion, so that it's not like +1 to skill always raises you from Very Good to Excellent, but rather there's a hidden value, and maybe skill 20-29 is Very Good and 30-39 is Excellent, and so +1 to skill makes no difference because 24 and 25 are both Very Good. But still, over time, over a decade or a decade and a half, I'd expect some of my most talented Ring members level up, and I don't really think I've actually seen that.
6. I like it during battle when one of my nobles, usually a Vingan or Humakti, gets the chance to do insane feats of heroism. I always let them do that, and usually they kick a lot of butt. Sometimes they die, but it seems to me that there's a much-better-than-even chance of them prevailing.
But is there something similar for other kinds of feats? Especially Magic? I'd like a chance or two to get my magicians to engage in similarly insane heroics. Firballing a minotaur or something.
7. My notes, gotten from the official KODP Blog, says that Explore = Bargain + Combat.
Is that true? It doesn't make much logical sense. I can see some sneakery and deception (Deception skill is Bargain + Leadership), but I'd have assumed that Explore was more like Animal+Combat. Many of the other combo skills makes perfect sense to me. For instance, OF COURSE Strategy is Combat+Leadership. Poetry is Custom+Leadership. All the others make intuitive sense to me, but Explore is the exception.
7b. To what extent does the game help me choose the right guy for a job? The 7 direct skills are obvious, but the combo skills such as Diplomacy, Hunting and Propechy are not. Does the game properly emphasize the right man or woman for the job, by going by the summed combo skills, or does it tend to go for one high skill at the expensive of the other skill in the combo being lower? And if the later, is that good or bad? It's my assumpion that combo skills are simply the sum of the two combined skills, e.g. Combat 35 and Leadership 30 gives Strategy 65, same way as Combat 46 and Leadership 19 gives Strategy 65 and so bot are equal, rather than as one could ALSO assume the higher Combat more than compensates for the lower Leadership to yield an overall better strategic performance?
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Peter Knutsen
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