King of Dragon Pass
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King of Dragon Pass and its 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 Good Old Games picked it up and it is now available for a modest fee.
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.
The game was remade by the original developers for iOS and later ported back to PC. The new version files off some of the micromanagement, actually has a UI larger than a postage stamp (so you can see more of the gorgeous art) and adds new "canon" characters with their own event chains. However this comes at the expense of a lot of the little bits of flavor that made the game so special in the first place; the 1999 interface with its hand-drawn elements that made you feel like you were sitting in a longhouse deciding the fate of your clan is now a glorified web page, with a parchment JPEG background and plain text for most UI elements. You also can't savescum anymore as you're limited to one autosave slot per run with the option to rollback to an earlier save if you lose. Start with the oldschool version and try the remake if you bounce off; fortunately the GOG package includes both.
King of Dragon Pass
Summary
You take the role of the ruling council of an Orlanthi tribe that recently migrated to Dragon Pass. 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. Your goal is either to forge a tribe with your neighbors and hold kingship of it for ten years or (if you're playing the long game) actually unify the disparate peoples of the region and become the true King of Dragon Pass™.
Strategy
King of Dragon Pass is first and foremost a roleplaying game, so trying to minmax by looking up guides and such is arguably defeating the purpose. In general the manual is very good and should be enough to get you started after you figure out how the UI works, however there are some Important Things that may fuck you over if you don't grok them quickly enough.
Do NOT Fuck With The Ducks
Fairly early in the game, your explorations will turn up a random encounter in the form of a clan of duck people living in the nearby swamps. Given they are small and look like a Disney knockoff, you will probably be tempted to either bully them into submission or just slaughter them and take their land for yourself, especially if you chose beastmen as your ancestral enemies.
Do NOT do this!
While the ducks may look stupid, they are in fact well-trained, vicious little fuckers with a massive grudge against the whole world that they are more than happy to aim in your direction if you try and start something with them. Unless you are either very good at the game or extremely lucky, they will send in their Humakti magicians (you know, the ones that help you commit Total Horsespawn Death) to fuck you up. And even if they don't kick your ass, then their beastfolk allies, who are even nastier than they are, will probably do it for them. If you ask your clan ring they'll tell you this but if you forget or give into temptation you likely won't live to regret it for very long.
It is far safer and far more prosperous for your tribe to forge peace with the ducks. They can't accept treasure, and their "unique" take on Orlanthi religion poses some problems with getting along, but in general it is just far better for you since the alternative is getting demolished by furries.
You Can Never Have Enough Cows
Food and cattle are the foremost priority and many a great playthrough has been 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 means the AI will consider you a bunch of stickpickers and preferentially target you for raids. As such, your council should at all times have at least one member who is Excellent or better at Plants and/or Animals, preferably someone who also worships the relevant god. Expect to be micromanaging your pasture and cropland every season just like a real Bronze Age tribe. (If you're playing the original version you can also expect to micromanage your crop mix every year based on the omens you get every Sacred Time.) Optimally, you'll start with more than enough land but you may elect not to as you can use your neighbors as unwilling donors. If you expect a bad harvest try to call in favors for food early so you're not surprised by the starvation warning in Dark season and forced to either emergency slaughter or send an expedition out who will probably die from the cold.
Explore, Explore, Explore
There's a lot of crazy awesome shit in Dragon Pass that's just waiting to be discovered. If you don't send expeditions out to go find it you're not only missing out on a lot of what the game has to offer, you're inviting bandits and worse things to skulk around right under your nose. That said you have to remember that you're living in a Bronze Age setting and overland travel is difficult and dangerous. NEVER send an expedition out during Dark season if you can possibly avoid it, ideally you should do it in Sea and/or Earth seasons when there's not a lot going on and the other clans are too busy farming to start shit. The same also applies when you send a trade caravan or diplomatic mission to another clan. The farther you travel the riskier exploring gets, so start small by just exploring your tula (don't move the target crosshair after clicking Explore) and when you're fairly secure start sending some reasonably large scouting parties into the unexplored areas of the map.
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 slavers) or who will interfere with the eventual kingdom unification endgame (such as the duck-hating First Clan). 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. 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.
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. Your general is primarily improved by their partaking in Heroquests with respective foci in Combat and Leadership. Heroquests are also available for your Food specialists such as the one wherein they pretend to be a cow.
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. Specific guides for Heroquesting, combat tactics, and tribe building are freely available elsewhere, though the game has so many options and events that you can freely experiment and try new things every playthrough.
Six Ages
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.
Much like KoDP, the goal is to grow your tribe's wealth and safeguard your growing army. Identical to KoDP, you must first secure your food and defense situation. Unlike in KoDP however this time foreign cultures like the proto-Orlanthi "Rams" and your chariot-riding cousins the Wheels are now actual entities on the map. It is imperative that Rider society is united in the face of these darkening times and as such you would want to keep war within it to a minimum, if not zero. Feel free to bully slaving clans of the aformentioned foreign cultures, though
Exploration is much more important than in KoDP in this time of wandering gods who you will often meet personally. Along with the crafting materials in your locality, if possible, gather certain powerful treasures and uncover a few very powerful exploration landmarks so that you can undertake Rituals at least once per year. These will all be necessary for the endgame, particularly after the Skyquake happens. Rituals (as Heroquesting was known in the mythological Storm Age) 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 Ritual to mitigate your losses.
Moreso than King of Dragon Pass, Six Ages (perhaps due to its more mythological nature) has many important, powerful, and frankly railroadey events that can drastically alter the balance of power in the game. Examples include
-A certain demigoddess will make herself known and will divide Rider society on the matter of including her in the pantheon. You will be made to choose between these two divisions with either committing to support your Rituals no matter what (even if they are your lifelong enemies), simply to prove the superiority of their beliefs against the other faction. The effects of this are highly noticeable especially when you have the majority of Rider clans in your faction, with you succeeding difficult Rituals on the regular. This effect only lasts until this schism is mended and as such you may want to maintain the schism for at least one rider clan until the very end.
-Some children will be natural arsonists. But fire is the blessing and sphere of Elmal. Train their powers and then use them as your warleaders, possibly as councilors, 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 Summer 2023 and is currently in playtesting and acquisition of those pretty art and assets you have been so used to available as a demo. GO PLAY IT. 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
Planned to be developed if Lights Going Out is a success. Will presumably be centered around your old tribe as part of the Orlanthi Heortlings in their attempt to create and live in a globalized world, fresh out of a genuine apocalypse. Instead A Sharp (really just KoDP programmer David Dunham) is shelving the series and working on Thousand Hells: The Underworld Heists, a "tactical narrative game" with an original setting and gameplay based on the event system used in King of Dragon Pass and Six Ages. Oh well.
Gallery
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One of the possible events is meeting an adventuring party, naturally the best response is to kill them all -
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Yes, she is a cow. Heroquesting is a hell of a drug.
