King of Dragon Pass

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Your average event in the game.

King of Dragon Pass and it's prequel Six Ages are single-player realm management video games where you, as the player, take the role of the ruling council of a human tribe and attempt to lead them to mastery over the other tribes and cultures in the region. The games are significant for taking place in the fantasy realm of Glorantha, one of the earliest and most un-Tolkien tabletop RPG settings. There's some customization regarding your tribe's history and what they're good at, but the choice of who you appoint to your council, where you explore, and which gods you pay homage to have a greater effect. The artwork is on par with the original Heroes of Might and Magic and other management games of the early 90's.

The game was published by a company that normally produced office software, and when they decided they couldn't support it the game went out of print, causing its price to soar to a thousand dollars on eBay. Then the abandonware vendor Galaxy Of Games picked it up and it is now available for free on Android or DosBOX, or for a modest fee on modern PCs.

The game tends to bring weal or woe right after you end your turn using a random roll. This can be defeated by saving the game just before you end your turn, ending it, reloading if you don't like the results, and repeating these steps until satisfied. At least in the older versions, the Android and current PC versions don't let you save whenever you want and only let you load an autosave at beginning of each season.

King of Dragon Pass

Summary

You take the role of the ruling council of an Orlanthi tribe in Dragon Pass and attempt to lead your people to mastery over the other tribes and cultures in the region. Your abilities are limited by which tribesmen you appoint to your Council, which are critical to deciding your tribe's success at growing food, responding to dilemmas, and waging war; and the breadth of sacred lore you acquire, which is necessary for the all-important heroquests in which your tribe conducts shamanic rituals to send champions to the realm of the gods for answers, blessings, and treasures.

Strategy

Do NOT Fuck With The Ducks

Do Not Fuck With The Ducks.

You Can Never Have Enough Cows

Food and cattle are the foremost priority and many a great playthrough have ended scuffed by not being on top of the food situation. Without enough farmland or hunting grounds, your clan will begin starving and will start killing cattle for food. However, cattle is also a measure of your wealth and power, and having fewer cattle not only limits your economy but also makes you more vulnerable to the AI targeting your clan for raids. As such, your council should at all times have at least one member who is Excellent or better at getting food. Expect to be micromanaging your pasture and cropland every season just like a real Bronze Age tribe. Optimally, you'll start with more than enough land but you may elect not to as you can use your neighbors as unwilling donors.

Keep Your Enemies Close

At the start of the game, single out a neighboring clan or two as your personal whipping boy. Generally, pick a clan whose nature is alien to yours (such as horseriders) or who will interfere with the eventual kingdom unification endgame (such as the First Clan or slavers.) If you are at war with anyone else at the start of the game, offer them horses and make peace ASAP. War is sub-optimal and you want to be at peace as long as possible with as many people as possible to keep your population from being wasted in battle. Remember, pre-Industrial, even pre-Classical, warfare involved a few masses of untrained men supporting a few elite warriors, and KoDP's combat system reflects that. If you fight too many battles and lose them or don't win them decisively, you may lose two to five of your elite Weaponthanes, but you'll lose dozens of men who, when they're not fighting, are your hunters, farmers, and herdsmen. You will lose agricultural and economic production with every death, and be much more vulnerable to counter-raids.

To improve your skill at war you should have at least one councilor that is Excellent or better in Combat. The one with the highest combat score will automatically become your warleader and a combination of their Combat and Leadership skills will affect the random rolls you make in combat. Other factors will include the amount of magic assigned at the start of a year to War, free magic assigned to any battle, and the effect of various treasures you may discover or buy. Also, when traces of existential threats such as undead or Chaos show up, deal with 'em immediately, preferably under the direction of specialists.

Only raid when you're trying to prove a point, need more land, or your local warhawks start getting bored. Raid your whipping boy too much and they will migrate out of fear of you, and you'll be forced to find a new one.

You've gathered by now that having food and winning battles are highly important and as such your magic should always be allocated for anything that improves these.

With food and combat secure, your playthrough is set. Technicals for Heroquesting, combat tactics, and tribe building are freely available elsewhere and by your own experimentation.

Six Ages

Riders using their heads in this "sport of kings" (preferably the ancestral enemy king's)

The spiritual successor and distant prequel to KoDP, set in the same world during the age of the gods. Originally released for iOS and later ported to Windows 10, 6 Ages was made with the lead writer and composer of King of Dragon Pass after internet Let's Plays vastly increased the original's fanbase.

Six Ages is an episodic game divided into the titular Six Ages, each of which will cover the development and evolution of a tribe, the Berennethelli, from the earliest ages of Gloranthan myth up to the founding of the Kingdom of Dragon Pass.

Ride Like the Wind

This time you play the Riders, who brought both horse riding (as the Orlanthi were inbred morons who can't wrap their heads around the concept of stirrups, saddles, and general horse-wrangling) and the god Elmal into the Orlanthi culture, and are the ancestors of all the horse-nomads you saw in KoDP. It is the Storm Age and you are caught in an age before Time in the long-running Godswar, with your own Solar pantheon constantly losing. Not to mention, there are signs in the air that the world as you know it is about to change fundamentally.

The optimal strategy is to grow your tribe's wealth and safeguard your growing army. If possible, gather certain powerful treasures and uncover a few very powerful exploration landmarks so that you can undertake heroquest rituals at least once per year. These will all be necessary for the endgame, particularly after the Skyquake happens. Heroquesting is your primary way to strengthen your characters, and there are some genuine heroes that will always be generated for your clan and should be strengthened as often and as much as possible. As they improve their skills, you will find it easier to undertake heroquests and, if you suffer any particularly bad setbacks, can use the heroquest to mitigate your losses.

Moreso than King of Dragon Pass, Six Ages (perhaps due to its more mythological nature) has many important and powerful random events that can drastically alter the balance of power in the game. When Cenala's revelator visits your tribe, reciprocate by sending an emissary to the demigoddess and adopt her worship. Any who accept her worship will become automatic helpers for any heroquest, which can dramatically improve their chances. When the fire children are blessed by Elmal, train their powers and then use them as your warleaders, possibly as councillors, if you can. Their fire magic will become tremendously useful in battle. Finally, when Beren begins to fall in love, support him. Otherwise you will lose the game.

Lights Going Out

ETA 2023 and is currently in playtesting and acquisition of those pretty art and assets you have been so used to. You still play the same tribe and may even import the playthrough and decisions of your Ride Like the Wind save, only this time you are set to relive the chaos and horror of the Darkness Age before Orlanth returned Yelm to the sky as Chaos direly threatens the world. Shit has now hit the fan. Good luck.

The World Reborn

Will be developed if Lights Going Out is a success. Will presumably be centered around your tribe as part of the Orlanthi Heortlings in their attempt to create and live in a globalized world, fresh out of a genuine apocalpyse.