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Six Ages: Ride Like the Wind - King of Dragon Pass spiritual successor
Endemic
Arcane
- Joined
- Jul 16, 2012
- Messages
- 4,326
Admittedly I don't know much about how Glorantha changed between those two time periods. We're talking 50+ years of lore and worldbuilding, after all.
I'm starting to enjoy Six Ages more and more.
+ The quality of writing is identical to that of KoDP, which is a huge relief for me. I really enjoy trying to figure my way through events.
+ I really like the new multi-phased combat.
+ Having a ritual purely dedicated to allowing exploration beyond rivers is really cool.
+ It's really interesting interacting with Orlanthi tribes (Rams) as a Rider clan. I find myself using my prior KoDP knowledge to figure out how Orlantis will likely react to my diplomatic endeavors.
+ Reading through Lore and Manual really helps figuring out how to approach the game. I was afraid this aspect of the game would have been dumbed down for casual gamers. Fortunately my fears were unfounded.
+ The quality of writing is identical to that of KoDP, which is a huge relief for me. I really enjoy trying to figure my way through events.
+ I really like the new multi-phased combat.
+ Having a ritual purely dedicated to allowing exploration beyond rivers is really cool.
+ It's really interesting interacting with Orlanthi tribes (Rams) as a Rider clan. I find myself using my prior KoDP knowledge to figure out how Orlantis will likely react to my diplomatic endeavors.
+ Reading through Lore and Manual really helps figuring out how to approach the game. I was afraid this aspect of the game would have been dumbed down for casual gamers. Fortunately my fears were unfounded.
- Joined
- Sep 25, 2012
- Messages
- 28,345
More details, my good man.
Here's what I've observed about the battle system so far.
+ Combat can go on for 5 or even more phases or it can be over in just 1 phase, in the case of a cattle raid for instance.
+ Battles essentially function like a thug-of-war - one moment you might be winning, next moment the enemy takes the upper hand. Each battle maneuver affects who gains the upper hand.
+ There are usually between 5 and 8 different battle options available. You can try to take advantage of your battle commander's abilities, sacrifice for blessings, try to steal treasures during combat etc.
+ Different type of battle require different approach. If you're defensing against a raid, it's best to use your fortifications to your advantage, stand your ground and skirmish.
+ Whether the enemy clan fears or hates your clan can open new battle options and alter the battle result.
+ You can actually see the amount of troops you and the enemy have available in each phase of the battle. You can make battle decisions based on this information.
+ You have to take into consideration your troop distance to the enemy.
+ You can try to parlay and negotiate during a combat to prevent casualties or to get enemies to give up their valuable without a fight.
+ Many gods have blessings that greatly affect the combat.
+ It's much easier to determine how a battle is going than in KoDP.
There's probably a lot more to the battle system than this though. I'll edit in more details as I become more familiar with the system.
I made another important discovery:
+ Spirits play a MUCH larger role in Six Ages than in KoDP. You can find spirit stones that basically give you new minor deities that you can sacrifice to. When you go to the clan Magic page, you have to open a Spirit sub category from a slide menu on top of the screen. There you can see all spirits that you can sacrifice to or ask for favors. This menu was so well hidden that I only found it after playing the game from some 10 hours.
+ Today I asked Raven, the Trickster spirit, to steal from a clan I'm feuding with. Since I have a Raven worshiper in my clan ring and she has a pretty high magic skill, Raven stole some 20 goods to my clan for free.
+ In KoDP you could sacrifice to some spirits, but it usually required going through a special event. In Six Ages you can actively search for spirit stones and presumably find wast amounts of different spirits who you can then sacrifice to and ask from favors.
+ Spirits play a MUCH larger role in Six Ages than in KoDP. You can find spirit stones that basically give you new minor deities that you can sacrifice to. When you go to the clan Magic page, you have to open a Spirit sub category from a slide menu on top of the screen. There you can see all spirits that you can sacrifice to or ask for favors. This menu was so well hidden that I only found it after playing the game from some 10 hours.
+ Today I asked Raven, the Trickster spirit, to steal from a clan I'm feuding with. Since I have a Raven worshiper in my clan ring and she has a pretty high magic skill, Raven stole some 20 goods to my clan for free.
+ In KoDP you could sacrifice to some spirits, but it usually required going through a special event. In Six Ages you can actively search for spirit stones and presumably find wast amounts of different spirits who you can then sacrifice to and ask from favors.
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2017
- Messages
- 195
Yeah the spirits can be quite useful, and getting their blessing doesn't necessarily even cost anything except time if you have a shaman. I've found a couple of new ones by exploring, like the Beaver spirit which reduced the costs of building fortifications. No idea how many different ones there actually are though, but I suspect quite a few.
In other news, a bunch of ravens landed on my spirit stones, so naturally we held a festival honoring Raven. Now one of the wheel clans is afraid of us and it turns out Raven is not a very nice god.
Yeah the spirits can be quite useful, and getting their blessing doesn't necessarily even cost anything except time if you have a shaman. I've found a couple of new ones by exploring, like the Beaver spirit which reduced the costs of building fortifications. No idea how many different ones there actually are though, but I suspect quite a few.
In other news, a bunch of ravens landed on my spirit stones, so naturally we held a festival honoring Raven. Now one of the wheel clans is afraid of us and it turns out Raven is not a very nice god.
He's basically this game's Eurmal. Did you read the Raven lore? A classic trickster archetype how likes to screw up everyone's plans. Very unpredictable spirit.
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2017
- Messages
- 195
Yeah figured he (she?) is basically Eurmal, which means I always want to have a Raven worshipper on the clan ring. Still, that event caught me by surprise and I gotta learn more about him.
Played several games and not managed to get the optimal ending (though some interesting mixed success ones). Think I will with my present one, the mighty Blue Arrows renowned as bullies and for their frequent shrines.
In brief
- Warfare is more transparent and interactive in the phase system but still produces interesting results while increasing player input. Big improvement
- Diplomacy is a bit more interesting too with the like/hate/fear/mock system giving four different gradients. I tend to try whipping the clans that mock me into submission. You can also enter interesting situations where you have clans that hate but fear you (fine by me), hate but mock you (I will destroy you), fear and like you (heh we can be friends.. for now) or like but mock you (uh.. idk)
- Heroquesting is slightly easier but also more nuanced. Fewer options and most of them aren't duds (KODP tended to have 1-2 optimal answers in each quest that you stuck too forever once you learnt, here deviating from the quest line can be beneficial if your quester/clan has strengths in that area) but entirely valid alternate solutions
- Exploration feels more dangerous if anything without the appropriate blessings and expedition leaders
- Interestingly food provision is a lot harder despite the mechanical simplification. I remember running huge food surpluses that I'd trade in KODP but here even with a clan/treasure/shrines/magic oriented to food production it seems tough to produce much of a surplus. Hunting and foraging (a steady year-around trickle of food compared to the scarcity then sudden influx of farming) is a lot more useful here than KODP when 95% of your food inevitably ended up being tied to the harvest and hunters were an irrelevant joke.
- Artwork is of a slightly lower overall quality and consistency but still some breath-taking scenes. Much better than I expected considering the decline of serious hand-drawn art in the West in the time that has passed between the games
- Writing is just as good as KODP. In fact it's almost uncanny if you didn't know better you'd think the two games came out within a few years of each instead of 20 years apart
- Spirits are a fun but not hugely important addition. At least propositioning them, they don't demand sacrifices unlike the greedy gods, doesn't cost you anything so gives you something to do in Dark Season
- Game is not as long or difficult as KODP. The reduced length also means you don't tend to enter the death spirals common in KODP after being raided one time too many that end up crippling your clan. Even if you're not doing great if you can survive to the end-game events and choose the correct choices you stand a good chance to win
On the whole it's very good. If you liked KODP you will certainly like this. If you've never played KODP this is probably a better entry point due to the lessened micromanagement and less obtuse heroquesting and endgame (though definitely grab KODP once you've gotten a handle on this).
In brief
- Warfare is more transparent and interactive in the phase system but still produces interesting results while increasing player input. Big improvement
- Diplomacy is a bit more interesting too with the like/hate/fear/mock system giving four different gradients. I tend to try whipping the clans that mock me into submission. You can also enter interesting situations where you have clans that hate but fear you (fine by me), hate but mock you (I will destroy you), fear and like you (heh we can be friends.. for now) or like but mock you (uh.. idk)
- Heroquesting is slightly easier but also more nuanced. Fewer options and most of them aren't duds (KODP tended to have 1-2 optimal answers in each quest that you stuck too forever once you learnt, here deviating from the quest line can be beneficial if your quester/clan has strengths in that area) but entirely valid alternate solutions
- Exploration feels more dangerous if anything without the appropriate blessings and expedition leaders
- Interestingly food provision is a lot harder despite the mechanical simplification. I remember running huge food surpluses that I'd trade in KODP but here even with a clan/treasure/shrines/magic oriented to food production it seems tough to produce much of a surplus. Hunting and foraging (a steady year-around trickle of food compared to the scarcity then sudden influx of farming) is a lot more useful here than KODP when 95% of your food inevitably ended up being tied to the harvest and hunters were an irrelevant joke.
- Artwork is of a slightly lower overall quality and consistency but still some breath-taking scenes. Much better than I expected considering the decline of serious hand-drawn art in the West in the time that has passed between the games
- Writing is just as good as KODP. In fact it's almost uncanny if you didn't know better you'd think the two games came out within a few years of each instead of 20 years apart
- Spirits are a fun but not hugely important addition. At least propositioning them, they don't demand sacrifices unlike the greedy gods, doesn't cost you anything so gives you something to do in Dark Season
- Game is not as long or difficult as KODP. The reduced length also means you don't tend to enter the death spirals common in KODP after being raided one time too many that end up crippling your clan. Even if you're not doing great if you can survive to the end-game events and choose the correct choices you stand a good chance to win
On the whole it's very good. If you liked KODP you will certainly like this. If you've never played KODP this is probably a better entry point due to the lessened micromanagement and less obtuse heroquesting and endgame (though definitely grab KODP once you've gotten a handle on this).
I noticed the same thing. It seems my clan is constantly running out of food. I don't particularly like the fact that food is only displayed in seasons rather than in the actual amount of grain you have. Every time you trade for grain, you have to trade a whole season's worth, with costs approx 40 cows and 60 goods, which is a really large investment. In their future titles A# should have a screen with a breakdown of how your clan members are actually fed - how many are fed by dairy, how many by grain, how many by hunting/foraging etc. This shouldn't be too difficult to implement and wouldn't be too difficult for newcomers to understand either. Currently it's difficult to make decisions when all you hear is you're running out of food, but have no idea how to address the issue in the long term.
I wonder whether the amount of grain you accumulate is even been calculated at all?
Another issues is recruiting new clan members - how do you know whether you're going to have enough food to feed everyone? If you can only see food surplus displayed in seasons, you cannot tell how many new clan members you can adopt without risking famine.
Another thing I don't like is I took in some starving refugees and I didn't even have the option to make them second class citizens or slaves. That's a terrible Decline.
Last edited:
Binky
Cipher
- Joined
- Nov 17, 2015
- Messages
- 453
Most of your food comes from barley. It's mentioned somewhere in the game. Ring members will tell you if you're producing enough food, you'll also get the food shortfall effect. You've got plenty of shrines to help you with food production. If that isn't enough, either send out foragers on the exploration map, or do ventures like hunting. I guess you could also trade for food, but I never had to do that so far.
Some cool things I've encountered:
- got some info about horses that allowed me to obtain a flying horse during a ritual as a reward.
- stole a god.
- failed to trick a demon god during a ritual. Worshipers of said god raided me later. One of them ripped my war leader's heart out during battle.
- found a rock that made my heroic combat ring member 10 years younger.
- lost a treasure to a raiding party from a distant southern kingdom. Sent an exploration party there. Killed a badass champion in a duel and got my treasure as a reward.
Some cool things I've encountered:
- got some info about horses that allowed me to obtain a flying horse during a ritual as a reward.
- stole a god.
- failed to trick a demon god during a ritual. Worshipers of said god raided me later. One of them ripped my war leader's heart out during battle.
- found a rock that made my heroic combat ring member 10 years younger.
- lost a treasure to a raiding party from a distant southern kingdom. Sent an exploration party there. Killed a badass champion in a duel and got my treasure as a reward.
I would still prefer a numeric representation of your grain supply, like in KoDP.
Binky
Cipher
- Joined
- Nov 17, 2015
- Messages
- 453
Yeah, me too. I also miss how starvation was the biggest danger in KODP, not your enemies. Having your harvest fail several years in a row could really mess you up. Plague is also missing in action in SA.
Really? Starvation was barely an issue for me, unlike the death spiral of raids by enemies and ever lowering number of adults with growing number of children.
All you had to do was call in your favors at game start for cows, demand tribute from the ducks and generally raid/trade for cattle. I routinely ended up with thousands and thousands of cattle.
Binky
Cipher
- Joined
- Nov 17, 2015
- Messages
- 453
Yup. Played several games on hard where I had years and years of poor harvests. Nothing helped. Shrines and temples to Ernalda, Bantar, etc. Did the Ernalda heroquest. Traded for food, raided, called in favors. It was... painful. On the other hand, I never had much problems with enemy raids. No death spirals.
Losing lots of people is more of a problem in SA, since you can't replace them so easily. Getting raided several times a year, win every time but lose about 20 people per battle? Ouch.
Neanderthal
Arcane
Usually means somebody's cursing you or you haven't set your crops to please the triple goddess.
hello friend
Arcane
Rye is great
Balancing the different grains was a nice touch. Barley was good for morale but too much would harm your production due to people getting overly drunk from it. Rye was disease resistant and reliable but people didn't enjoy it as much. Wheat tended to greater extremes in good or bad harvests and was the tastiest (regarded for both morale and trading).
With the lack of food production clarification is it can be hard to say whether it's worth your while to say start sacrificing to Dorstal for better hunting when you don't have a clue on how much hunting actually contributes to your total food (10? 25? A third?). Likewise if we knew how much our cow and goat herds contributed in dairy it'd be easier to ascertain just what the problem is in your food shortfalls.
I wont switch my OS but i want to play it. I hate such Choices and Consequences in real life.
Same. But apparently the game has really big problems with older OSes, as it doesn't even work on earlier versions of Windows 10 pre a certain patch.
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