The Gaming Den

Anyone play this game around here ?

Any tips, guides, etc. are welcome.

Newbie tips:

1.) Cows are everything in this game. They're a combination universal currency and food source. If you run low on cows you'll be locked into a death spiral where it's hard to get more and you'll keep losing them. You don't want to rely just on cows (you have other foodstuff for a reason) but they're your barometer for how well you're doing. If you have a lot of cows but little anything else it's pretty easy to recover.

If this is your first time playing I strongly recommend that you pick every perk in the game that will help you get more cows.

2.) Don't bother snagging thralls. They're hard to deal with and don't add that much more productivity.

3.) Be as greedy as possible in the opening game, especially if you can get enough magic for war and recruit enough thanes. Unless your tribe is in a death spiral, always take the opportunity to recruit more weaponthanes. They fight way above their weightclass, don't consume that much more food than jarls, and you don't need that many to have a kickass fighting force.

4.) The game rewards self-interest, not morality. Do what is best for your clan, later tribe, subject to the knowledge that you're a couple hundred to a thousand dudes sandwiched between some seriously hardcore peeps.

5.) Go raiding often. Raiding builds up stats vital for Heroquests and leadership shit in general, which is a special quest you can do to give you some boss shit. That said, don't shoot yourself in the foot trying to do Heroquests; the stuff you get from them is very nice but by no means vital. Plus, raiding helps build up cows and keeps other tribes weak.

6.) It's possible, but very hard to eliminate neighboring tribes in this game. Once you start getting your neighbors down to 0 weaponthanes / ~10 jarls per engagement raid don't worry about them too much unless they have shit that you want.

7.) Once you have a steady supply of cows, start making trade agreements and whatnot. They'll ensure that you have a steady influx of wealth.

I just started playing this, which I found out about because I was looking at the wikipedia page for Robin Laws. It made me interested to learn more about Glorantha, and from what I've read I absolutely love it. I wish I were a fan of Runequest at all, so if I ever use Glorantha as a game setting I have a bit of work to do adapting it.

silva wrote:Anyone play this game around here ?

Any tips, guides, etc. are welcome.

Played it and beat it. Here's some tips:

Be aware of what to do each season. Never raid in any season except Fire. Even during Fire Season raid only occassionally and against one specific target (you don't want to be picked on by everyone). Do not go for genocide (e.g. driving them off), as the game is not won by wiping out rival tribes.

Build shrines and pick up blessings via sacrifice whenever you can (I usually drop at least 7 goods per sacrifice). Blessings are very powerful. Many let you do a lot more even with a limited number of people. For instance, there's a blessing (from Humakt?) that makes your Thanes count as double, effectively making your army twice as powerful. Vinga has a blessing which essentially doubles your army on defense (Fyrdwomen).

Open up trading routes with people you're not killing as early as possible. High trade provides you with free goods. Trade is also dependent on having a big Issaries temple (plus having an Issaries person in the circle, and spending magic on trade), which again jives with the "build shrines" advice above. Eventually, you want to have weekly markets which earn you so much trade goods than you'll know what to do with (use them to buy artifacts, cows, and bribe people into being friends)

Explore a lot. You get lots of free stuff when exploring. Explore mainly near your Tula (village) in the first few years. Be careful when exploring outside of the Tula, preferrably don't do it without a protective blessing.

Feeding your people is a problem until you have plenty of cows; or you have a bunch of blessings to improve crop yields. Get cows by selective raiding (again, pick only one target) backed up by strong blessings to beef up your army. Alternatively, if you're producing a ton of goods via trade already, then send trading caravans to exchange goods for cows.

In combat I usually just charge when attacking, or avoid battle when defending. Victory or defeat is usually very random anyway unless you have blessings and artifacts.

Do NOT overpopulate. Maybe recruit once or twice early on (if you have food); but if you go way over 1000 population the tribe starts demanding to be split into two. There's no going around this without constant and costly payments, while splitting makes you lose a fair amount of land and cows. Best bet is to just keep your population at around 1000 and stay there.

The game is ultimately won by doing Heroquests. Don't do them until you're familiar with the actual legend and have magic to spare to support it. Avoid doing Heroquests in consecutive years.

Oh, and just for reference, I played my game with a peaceful Elmal tribe (with more land than we need option).

Elmal is good because he comes with both a decent defensive blessing and a crop-improvement blessing (Orlath technically has one too, but they seem worse).

After that I built and improved the Issaries temple to get more trade routes, followed by Humakt (awesome combat bonuses) and Vinga temples.

The goods pile allowed me to sacrifice for more blessings (usually conditional ones), and to trade for cows. With the defensive blessings most raids fail against me (especially with a few defensive structures built) even if they're jealous of my huge cow pile.

Once I had about 1.5 - 2 cows per person all of my food problems go away for good, which is when I begin pursuing other stuff in earnest (Heroquests)

Edit: Also, I realize this is different from Lago's advice but I tend to think that warring early is bad in this game. You generally just don't have enough power to take on multiple enemies early on; even with constant thane recruitment as a war clan.

Instead I find it's better to be on good standing with most clans, and have only a few which you will constantly pick on later in the game. You can't attack more than one enemy per turn anyway, and you don't want other clans to attack you while your army is out beating someone up. Have one enemy to pick on and practice on, and keep everyone else your friends. It will also help when the "nation building" portion comes up.

Hrm. I never thought about doing the defensive hole-up strategy thing.

I'm going to give it a go and see how that works next go-round. It sounds better than my high-stakes strategy.

Thanks for the tips so far.

Is Ernalda + pacifist clan a viable route ? I dont like fighting.

silva wrote:Thanks for the tips so far.

Is Ernalda + pacifist clan a viable route ? I dont like fighting.

Ernalda is actually the hardest by my estimation, because you lack any sort of early defensive tools from your Goddess and being peaceful stunts your Thane production too (Peaceful Elmal has fewer thanes, but the blessings make them strong).

Also, if you have a complete lack of fighty folks in your circle you won't be able to get the fighty blessings; and you need to get lucky to get one of the better ones fast instead of having one virtually "guaranteed" (Elmal usually starts with Sun, but you can get his defensive blessing with 1-2 successful sacrifices).

Also, I need to point out that Pacifist Elmal does not turtle the whole game - even peace clans need to fight from time to time.

It's just that I tend to have them not fight much in the first few years (usually first 3-5), and have them make friends and establish trade routes with most of the neighbors. This synergizes pretty well with the peace clan's magic bonus (you get extra magic if you don't attack), but you can still defend competently thanks to Elmal's bonus (and his circle usually has fighty people). That, and peace clan gets to put more magic points at the start of the year in things like trade or crops, which helps get the economy moving early on.

By Year 6 I usually have one or two clans who are my regular raiding targets, who we raid once or twice a year during fire season. And because everyone else is my friend, I don't have to worry about getting attacked while the army is away. By this point, you should also be swimming in magic points anyway so not getting the full peace bonus is fine.

Edit: Forgot to mention that you should build up some defensive structures too. They seem to help a lot in early defense and helps prevent cow thefts.

Any advice for a pure war clan ? I want to create the greatest modafuckers ever in the face of Dragon Pass. Is it better to get Orlanth or Emal for an agressive war clan ?

What initial options should I choose? I remember reading somewhere that getting the Hundred Days Hunt event give your leaders better combat skills. And I think I will get thralls just for the villany of it. And trolls as enemies because Im a badass.

Also, is it possible to subjulgate rival clans the same way you subjulgate the ducks ? (by make them pay annual tribute to me?). If it is, I will try to make it to all my neighbours. I want to conquest Dragon Pass through steel and blood.

(is it possible to have Humakt as your main deity, btw ? )

Pure war is kinda a bitch. You want Orlanth because everyone hates Elmali and war clans have trouble feeding large numbers of weaponthanes in the early game so you need to pick your initial fights. Thralls are good because you'll be fighting a lot and your agricultural output will be fairly poor.

Only Orlanth, Ernalda, and Emal are avaliable as main deities.

If you raid a particular clan over and over again, when they sue for peace you can demand annual tribute in cows but usually you only go a couple years before they cut off the tribute. Also, word of advice: pissing off the ducks is one of the few ways to outright lose the game because their friends show up and proceed to burn your fortifications, population, and livestock to the ground.

Thanks for the tips, Name_here.

Do you think I could invest 100% in war blesses and ignore the agricultural ones ? Is it possible to rely totally on raids (and tributes) for feeding myself ?

Not in the slightest. You can only raid at most four times per year, making lots of enemies and the tribute in cows you get from pacifying clans really isn't that high. Also, once you get the cows, you can't raid them for more cows, so you have to raid other clans, and you die.

Bihlbo wrote:I just started playing this, which I found out about because I was looking at the wikipedia page for Robin Laws. It made me interested to learn more about Glorantha, and from what I've read I absolutely love it. I wish I were a fan of Runequest at all, so if I ever use Glorantha as a game setting I have a bit of work to do adapting it.

Yeah, the whole "everyone casts magic" really screws with D&D and most of the clones. RQ doesn't really scale well (like pretty much every other RPG) so it breaks at the point where some really interesting options should be opening up. Which why Stafford hired Laws to do HeroQuest. Which kind of works...

But yeah, it's really interesting setting once you accept the crazy stuff.

I prefer to have a dominant military than a particularly aggressive one. So when I start feeling saucy I layer my clan with Steadfast, Berserker, Truesword and Earthblood. Then, instead of raiding all the bloody time I respond to diplomatic slights with a hearty "Come at me, bro" until a satisfactory number of assholes is mildly unhappy with me, resulting in a conga line of dumb shits I can ransom when I catch them chasing my cows in Fire Time. The casualty rate is surprisingly manageable despite the Berserker penalty, likely because tacking Steadfast on top of it makes your warriors pretty fuck off powerful.

This game could really do with a sequel.

One of the things that interested me about the game was the city-building and diplomatic aspects. Unfortunately, it's very weak tea. The micromanagement is very basic and what's more the game intentionally railroads you into keeping a small population base with limited military and political ambitions.

I think it'd be much cooler if the arc of the game was towards you becoming more civilized. Start as a small incest clan, then become a tribe, then become a nation, then become an empire, then smash Pharaoh. If the game is really feeling its oats you can start to more directly fight the Unholy Trio, but I'd just settle for a kingship that wasn't just that of a measly 5000 people.

Play Romance of the Three Kingdoms 8 instead - start as a bum, end as the emperor of China.

Lago PARANOIA wrote: I think it'd be much cooler if the arc of the game was towards you becoming more civilized.

Like start as some young girl named Teelo Estara...

Lago, If Im not mistaken when you create a tribe the game opens a new layer of diplomacy, both intra- and inter-tribes. Did you know that ? But yeah, overall I agree with your assertion. I would like to see two distinct things for a new KoDP:

1. a sequel using the same engine only for different cultures and stories ( Khan of Prax ? Emperor of Red Empire ?)

2. an isometric CRPG in the style of the old Fallouts but with the Glorantha setting. It would be awesome playing the saga of one of the setting many heroes.

kzt wrote:Yeah, the whole "everyone casts magic" really screws with D&D and most of the clones. RQ doesn't really scale well (like pretty much every other RPG) so it breaks at the point where some really interesting options should be opening up. Which why Stafford hired Laws to do HeroQuest. Which kind of works...

While I dont exactly dislike Heroquest, it never did it for me. Even if not fitting the more high level stuff in the setting, I prefer Runequest visceral style more.

kzt wrote:

Lago PARANOIA wrote: I think it'd be much cooler if the arc of the game was towards you becoming more civilized.

Like start as some young girl named Teelo Estara...

No, fuck playing someone else. I also looked up if there was anything iconic and awesome on the internets concerning Teelo Estara. There isn't.

silva wrote:Lago, If Im not mistaken when you create a tribe the game opens a new layer of diplomacy, both intra- and inter-tribes.

No, it doesn't. There are some extra events, is all.
0. Decide to ally with or make war on a tribe (one time only).
1. X from one clan in your tribe accuses Y from another clan in your tribe of one of three (?) things, sacrifice for a divination to make the correct ruling.
2. A clan from an allied tribe raids you. Demand compensation/break off the alliance/make war/let it slide.
3. You raid a clan from an allied tribe, they show up to demand explanation.
4. Tribal king dies, choose another.
5. Someone else is dissatisfied with the king, tell on them or go along with the conspiracy.
6. Promises you made during tribe-making come to bite you in the ass. Revert them (or not), then heroquest to smooth things over with the dissatisfied party.

silva wrote:2. an isometric CRPG in the style of the old Fallouts but with the Glorantha setting. It would be awesome playing the saga of one of the setting many heroes.

No, it wouldn't. I should have never clicked HERE.

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Re: overpopulation: make a tribe asap, then wait until the carls complain. The new clan will break off and settle to the east AND be in your tribe.

Re: Ernalda: layer food blessings, then give away extra food 70+ at a time to make everyone on the map except your designated raiding targets indebted to you.

kzt wrote:

Starmaker wrote: Like start as some young girl named Teelo Estara...

No, fuck playing someone else. I also looked up if there was anything iconic and awesome on the internets concerning Teelo Estara. There isn't.

She's the girl that got kidnapped off the street by a band of fanatics, criminals and nutcases to serve as the focus of a ritual summoning and ultimately she, or at least her body, ended up as the red goddess. So yeah, I'm suggesting a game in which you create the Lunar empire.

silva wrote: While I dont exactly dislike Heroquest, it never did it for me. Even if not fitting the more high level stuff in the setting, I prefer Runequest visceral style more.

I have the same problem. But I remember talking to Sandy Peterson and Greg Stafford about their attempts to create "super RuneQuest" to make heroquests work way back when. I've even got at least one version of their super RQ rules somewhere. It just didn't work, the fundamental mechanics just don't scale.

From the discussions in the most recent SA LP, I would love a game for either the Lunar Empire

possible event wrote: Peasants are protesting high taxes in an outlying village.

1. Lower their taxes
2. Send troops to enforce tax collection
3. Send troops and raise their taxes
4. Ignore them
5. Feed them to the bat.

or the God Learners

Passing to say Ive just finished a short campaign with a full slaver war oriented badass clan. By the end of the game I had all Humakti and Urox blessings, had 3 of my neighbours submitted and paying anual tributes to me, and was feared through all of Dragon Pass.

One thing I didnt expected was to have a very conflicting tribal leadership. I barely managed to keep my reign for 10 years for finishing the game because the tribal member kept revolting and trying a coup. I even had to reload a couple times. Perhaps this hostility toward me had something to do with my clan agressiveness and arrogance ?

I am resurrecting this thread just to babble about how to succeed as a War Clan. Contrary to conventional wisdom War Clans have some great advantages, they're just not terribly apparent unless you've got a fuckton of enemies such as during a Hard start. You just need to understand the following:

1. War Clans tend to maintain a larger fyrd. I repeat: War Clans have a bigger fucking fyrd. This isn't that big of a deal if you're fat, rich and have few enemies but on Hard starts you start off feuding with 3 clans and potentially a raid happy ancestral enemy like the Praxians or trolls. Then it's a huge deal since without a big militia your stickpicker ass can lose cows frighteningly quickly during Fire Time. Diplomacy isn't going to fix the situation in a year or even three and since thanes can't patrol your lands while guarding your emissaries it's actually pretty dangerous to send out delegations most seasons due to the threat of raids and severe weather. So unless you like groveling to RNGesus or save scumming the safest thing you can do is buckle down with a big fyrd so you can outnumber people more often when they inevitably invade. You'll take some licks but by maximizing enemy casualties whenever you have a numbers advantage you can wear enemies down and start using events to improve your diplomatic situation. I'd even go so far as to say that War is a more consistent way to start on Hard since being a Peace clan with a tiny fyrd means that sooner or later you'll get kicked down a flight of stairs by losing consecutive raids.

2. Timing is everything. You need all your warriors at home for Fire Time to man patrols--not just because you can lose cows, but because wounded farmers likely won't be able to help with the harvest in Earth Time. This means that you're going to do most of your full-scale raiding, trade, exploration and diplomacy during early Storm Time so that your warriors have all of Sea Time to get back home or heal up before real raiding season begins. Yes, this sometimes means that an ugly Storm Time leads to an ugly planting season, but overall that's less likely than a bad Fire Time leading to a bad harvest season.

3. Speaking of raids, I think of cattle raids as profitable and full raids as strategic. The difficulty involved with sending farmers to war makes plundering something of a rube's game--you can take heavy casualties and there's no guarantee that your foes will have much worth stealing in the first place. If you do send a full war party it should be to bleed your enemies, burn homes or seize land so that they're less of a threat to you in the future. Whittling down your enemies is simply way more consistent than getting away with a few extra cows, and you need that consistency on your side when you've got more enemies than allies. Someday when your enemies are weak and beaten down you can start taking captives and ransoming people for extra bank, but by that point you probably don't even need my advice any more.