Q & A: plot, gameplay, etc

[Wolf Mittag]

Where's X?; do I need Y?; what's the story behind/deal with Z? etc

Any questions concerning plot, gameplay, things or people in "Teudogar", combat, wizardry, character system?

Please feel free to ask; I'll be happy to answer (though sometimes with a delay of one or two days).

 

[Anonymous]

How do you place personal photo for the char's face into the game?
Full version only feature?

 

[Wolf Mittag]

How do you place personal photo for the char's face into the game?
Full version only feature?

This works in the Demo Version, too. In your "Teudogar and the Alliance with Rome - saved games"-folder (that's in "C:\My Documents" or whereever Windows stores your personal files), there's a file called "Photo.Bmp".
Simply open and edit this Photo.Bmp file (you can use Windows' Paint-program to do so): Insert your personal photo into the empty frame, save Photo.Bmp, and then run Teudogar.

 

[Paolo]

I was wondering how to do that, many thanks

 

[LCJr.]

Could you explain Runecasting a little? Is it something like a horoscope/astrology and you come up with own interpretation or does it have a real game effect?

 

[Wolf Mittag]

It's really nothing but a horoscope, and within the game the Runes are drawn randomly.

The idea of Germanic (and Roman, too) prophecies was to get an indication of Fate's course, of the will of the Gods, of the threads of fate the Norn Goddesses were weaving. Since nothing was considered random, you could get these indications from any sign, be it small wooden sticks with symbols drawn out of a heap (it's unclear if Teutons already used the exact Runic symbols in 12 B.C.; they're documented from about 100 A.D.), or neighing of horses, or the flow of blood from an animal or human sacrifice's body.

So Runecasting is basically a tool to help you make decisions: When you're unsure what to do, you can leave the decision to chance, or, as you would have thought of it, to the will of Fate.

The advantage of Runecasting over simply throwing dice may have been that in order to interpret the Runic symbols you'd drawn, you'd need to think over specific aspects of your problem: E.g. if you drew Wealth, War, Victory, you might consider if your or your opponent's wealth would be a cause or a means of war, if you'd be successful because of your wealth, or victory would make you capture your enemies' wealth etc. These considerations would probably make the conclusion and plan of action you'd arrive at a bit more sensible than what you've gotten if you'd simply flipped a coin and asked "Shall I go to war, yes or no?".

 

[Gavin Spooner]

Spells

How many spells are there and what are they?
I order the full game but don't have it yet so i wanted to ask you can you chose you career? ;for example can you be a blacksmith?

:shock:

 

[Wolf Mittag]

Re: Spells

How many spells are there and what are they? - only about 30 (and that includes "spells" like "Sleep" or "Wait". Because this game is supposed to be historically correct, there are no fireball or lightening-spells, but only historically documented, or at least more or less realistic spells like curse, bless, frighten, berserk, protection, consult runes, dress wounds, cure poison and so on (no instant-heal, either). (The blessing-spells you'll learn in the Full Version should be very useful to you, since you can also bless your weapons with them.)

can you chose you career? ;for example can you be a blacksmith? - You can be a blacksmith in the sense that you may spend your gaming time repairing damaged weapons and then selling them (since your skills improve with everything you do, you will be a more capable blacksmith than many after a while), just like you can be a merchant by travelling around and bartering with everybody (there's no need at all to follow the game's plot). But you can't set up your own shop - I've (so far) implemented these gaming features only as sub-plots, more for your own use (repair your weapon), than as real main plots and careers (but maybe I ought to - might be fun)...

 

[Anonymous]

Worker

yeah that would be really great.
having you own shop would be cool. :twisted:

 

[Anonymous]

I completed demo version (in fact i spent a few hours traweling between villages, mastering my combat skills and freeing this poor world from bad, bloodthirsty people )
Great game!!! But I have a few questions:

1. I undestand that wearing heavy armor makes it harder to use your skills. But why the hell does it affect faith and knowledge ??
2. Could you tell me, when my skill and the skill of my enemy are equal - what is the chance of hitting in combat? 50% ?
3. Is it actually possible to defeat warriors of Thoralf's brother, after slaying him? (just curious )
4. Is there a time limit? Or can i wander, fight, trade endlessly and the plot doesn't break?
Thank you in advance!

Once more - great game When do you plan to relase second part?

 

[Anonymous]

And an addisional question: after hours of fighting, when my combat skills were quite high (very good), strength,dexterity and intelligence were still fair/avg/avg. (i've also mastered all demo spells). Does it mean that character progress in the demo is limited? And if so, it will me major disadventage when using these saves after upgrading to full version...

 

[Wolf Mittag]

1. I undestand that wearing heavy armor makes it harder to use your skills. But why the hell does it affect faith and knowledge ??

Because weapons and armor were powerful status symbols. A chain mail shirt cost as much as 4 or 5 slaves, so everyone who saw you wearing one knew immediately how extremely rich (therefore, successful / powerful / mighty) you were. Besides, good clothes make you feel good; the same should apply to arms. Additionally, good arms ought to give you confidence (faith) in your ability to defeat all foes. (However, it's a kind of bug that your knowledge-skill also rises (if it does) - got to check this.)

2. Could you tell me, when my skill and the skill of my enemy are equal - what is the chance of hitting in combat? 50% ?

Your attack skill is set against your opponent's defense skill (randomly chosen, either shield / parry / dodge). When both skills are equal, you ought to have a 55% chance of hitting (odds are tilted a bit in your favor to make sure you don't get killed too easily).

3. Is it actually possible to defeat warriors of Thoralf's brother, after slaying him? (just curious )

If you mean these people who attack you on your way between two villages in order to take revenge: No, you can't defeat them, for technical reasons. (Other people would have to react to your killing of such an important person - that means, I'd have had to write dozens of additional dialog passages - every NPC for every main character you might have killed. By making sure you can't reach other villages after killing a main character, I only had to take care of the NPCs in that same village.)

4. Is there a time limit? Or can i wander, fight, trade endlessly and the plot doesn't break?

endlessly; the game is purely event-driven. While that may not be perfectly realistic, I think it's more fun that way.

5. When do you plan to relase second part?

I'll start work on it as soon as I've finished and released DARGHUL, the Teudogar-engine-based fantasy RPG I'm currently working on: That'll probably take me at least about 8 more weeks of work.

6. after hours of fighting, when my combat skills were quite high (very good), strength,dexterity and intelligence were still fair/avg/avg. (i've also mastered all demo spells). Does it mean that character progress in the demo is limited? And if so, it will me major disadventage when using these saves after upgrading to full version...

No, that hasn't got anything to do with Demo/Full Version. Your character development in Teudogar is reflected mainly by your skills, while your attributes (STR/DEX/INT) improve only slightly and very slowly. The basic idea was that if you've got an I.Q. of 110, you'll still have an I.Q. of about 110 after graduating from a university - e.g., you can easily and comparatively quickly improve your skills, enabling you to make better use of your mental or physical capacities, but it's very hard and takes many months or even years to change these latter.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your detailed answer
ad1. Ok ok, i understand... but why experience of life suffers penalities ? :} very good->(equipment)->good.

 

[Wolf Mittag]

but why experience of life suffers penalities ? :} very good->(equipment)->good.

Well, your effective skill values depend not just on your skill experience, but also on your strength, dexterity and intelligence. Even with more or less purely cognitive skills, to a certain (small) degree your dexterity is considered in the computation in order to reflect your bodily condition - based on the assumption that you'll be able to archieve better results when you feel totally well, healthy and unencumbered.

In case of Experience of Life, of course you'll still have the same amount of experience after putting on a heavy piece of armor - but carrying such a heavy load should make you feel quite encumbered, and distract you a bit, making you unable to make full use of your experience. (The same applies to your Charisma and other mental skills, of course; but in case of Charisma, this drawback is more than compensated by the gain in status; or in case of Belief, by your increased feeling of security.)

I'm not sure if this concept is really ideal. I think that by giving such a strong consideration to how you would _feel_ in certain circumstances, I can reflect psychological effects better than by a purely "rational" approach - but maybe it's too complicated, and maybe some of my ideas in this regard don't really make sense. What do you think? Anyone else any opinion on that?

 

[Anonymous]

In my opinion it is great idea -it makes the game deeper than it looks. And it is one of the best character-building systems i've met. Do you plan to use a mechanics like this in your later games?

 

[Wolf Mittag]

Do you plan to use a mechanics like this in your later games?

I guess so. However, DARGHUL (the fantasy RPG I'm currently working on) will be different in some aspects: Faster and higher growth of Strength, Dexterity and Intelligence will be possible (since this will be Fantasy, there's no need to prevent you from gaining superhuman strength etc); there will be people who can train you in different skills, thereby boosting your skill experience values; and there is going to be "magical energy" like in most fantasy RPGs (there's going to be the usual curriculum of fantasy spells as well).

 

[Anonymous]

When I read the description about that game I understood that it is possible to win by causing an allience with the Romans and by fighting for the freedom of the Germanees. Is that true? Can I win by uniting the Germanees against the Romans?

 

[Wolf Mittag]

Yes, exactly. These are the main two ways of finishing the game. If you manage to unite the Germanic tribes against the Romans, the outcome would be the following: United, your tribes would be powerful enough to keep up strong resistance against Roman occupation for long enough, until the Romans would find their endeavor of colonization too costly, or need their troops elsewhere.

In reality, the Romans spent about 30 years of occupying parts of Germania while regularily fighting uprisings or wars in other parts of it. Finally, in a successful ambush, Germanic rebels managed to defeat 3 Roman legions (20,000 Roman casualties in 3 days). The Romans still didn't give up, but rather retaliated with scorched-earth tactics and massive killing of civilians and warriors alike. But in the end, they came to the conclusion that the entire endeavor didn't and wouldn't bring them the stability they had hoped for, and didn't justify the constantly high costs, troop numbers, and losses of life at present and over the past 3 decades.

The "Teudogar" game assumes that this result would have been archieved earlier if more Germanic tribes had been united into a durable alliance under strong leadership, instead of the rather fickle coalitions that existed in reality. So if you manage to build up such a strong alliance, you'll save your tribes from several unnecessary years of bloody wars...

 

[Anonymous]

small question

Heya. Is there only one time in the game that you can get the pickpocket skill or is that only in the demo ?

 

[Wolf Mittag]

Hi RonX,
you can learn the pickpocket skill at any time during the game, from from the bard in Heremod's Hall - provided that you know he's got this skill. You're told about this by the henchman wearing a blue shirt. Since you may fight a duel against this henchman, it's a good idea to talk to him before you fight him.

However, pickpocketing generally isn't worth it anyway; it was considered unGermanic and cowardly: A real man would commit decent armed robbery instead of secretly stealing...

 

[Adam P]

What happens when you are overburdened? I skimmed through the guide and didnt see anything about it.

 

[Wolf Mittag]

When you're carrying too much equipment, your dexterity will suffer. (That's in addition to the loss of dexterity already caused by cumbersome pieces of armor, helmet, shield etc, even when you're not overburdened.)

To see how much exactly this amounts to, go to the Player Info Screen, and click on the current/virtual button: "virtual" will display how your character stats would be if you were totally healthy, awake, well-fed, and un-burdened.

 

[Anonymous]

Imp I totally agree with your words.