Hi Welshweyr.

One thing about Kodp to remember, especially about happiness is that there isn't any one solution. If your doing well in one thing, say producing food or winning battles, it will have a knock on effect to how happy your people are, unfortunately the converse is true.

To understand some of the systems in the game the Kodp wiki is rather helpful, however a lot of what you need to know is already in the game. For example, your clan ring know far more about farming, and about the current state of your land than you do, so go onto the farming screen and read the advice, especially of worshippers of ernalda or uralda, they will let you know what needs doing regarding alocating more land etc.

I will say goods production is a good route to success (no pun intended), building up a good markit, getting trade partners and using iseries blessings to improve your traide sinse that way if you have a bad harvest you always have something to sell, indeed if you take care of producing as many goods and cows as possible, the food situation will take care of itself.

Regarding mysteries, firstly, 35 cows is waaaay too much, 10-20 cows or a similarly quantity of goods is a much better bet. Plus, consider whether the god your sacrificing to would prefer cows or goods (for example Iseries obviously likes goods). I wonder are you sacrificing correctly? You need to make sure that the radial for the God and! the radial for the mysteries is checked when you sacrifice. Also, note that it's far more likely to work if your sacrificing to a god who you either have a worshipper of on the ring or a shrine to, or both.

As regards quests, if your going by trial and error your not doing them correctly. You first need to carry on sacrificing mysteries to a particular god until you have all the knolidge of the myth (when it says "so and so has revealed the secrets of the such and such myth"), then you should read the myth and be familiar with it, sinse that will give you the best idea of likely courses of action. If your very stuck the wiki has pages for each quest listing the choices and chances of success, though note "chances" is the operative word here.

Dedicating magic to quests, (and remember if you have a trickster on the ring you can dedicate two points of magic), and having a quantity of clan magic in reserve also have an effect. Plus, note that you can't attempt quests too often, if your failing to get your quester into the realm of the gods that might be the reason why.

The making of the storm tribe and ernalda feeds the tribe quests are imho the easiest, indeed making of the storm tribe is the quest you need to do in order to start forming a tribe with other clans and progress in the game.

Hth.

Kodp is not an easy game, particularly sinse you sort of need to start thinking in an Orlanthi  fashion to get the best outcome of various events, (listen to your ring's advice). but it is well worth the trouble, indeed I don't think I've had a game absorb my attention so completely for quite as long as I have when playing Kodp last summer literally for about 18 hours a day for four days! Indeed, that is why I am having something of a break from Kodp at the moment.

Me too Dan. I had to physically restrain myself from beginning immediately after finishing the short game in July, but it is very tempting.

King of dragon pass, a fantastic sort of semi rpg, semi stratogy game, semi gamebook for Ios, albeit one with quite the learning curve. See the page on the db for more info.

Dark has already given a great summary of the mechanics involved here, so I think I'll just chime in on the long game for a bit.

Winning is certainly a lot of fun, and I can't deny that the timer is a factor. Nevertheless, it's generous. You'll receive a variety of warnings before it runs out, and taking on one quest successfully might help you get into a position to tackle another. They tend to give substantial magic boosts.

Another point about KoDP that I think should be remembered is that it's fundamentally a game about story. The strategy bits are interesting, but they aren't all that compelling on their own. It's really about the journey, as they say. Ending a game with a loss is frustrating, for sure, especially near the end, but it still makes a story that is worth telling, which is the whole point of the game. I'm not saying "don't try to win,," but rather, "don't feel like losing is necessarily bad." Restoring from a  prior save is one option, of course, but I discourage it if only because the game really works when you have good years and bad  years, and they balance each other out. Your clan can take a lot of punishment and still endure, and that's what matters.

I hope people don't give up on the game. It's well worth the effort.

Hi Dark,

I take your point. It's easy for me to forget what it was like when I first played KoDP, since I've been exposed to it for so long. I'm taking an extended break from it myself, so I can approach it with fresh eyes whenever i decide to play next.

By the way, I don't know if word has got out to this forum yet about the announced sequel to KoDP? It's apparently going to be called Six Ages, and will be set in a different part of the world of Glorantha. Beyond that details are sketchy, though it apparently aims to have some of the same depth and replay value in the original. Release date is looking like 2016, if we're lucky.

One thing I do love about KODP is the fact that you have to be in the mindset of a gloranthi clan.  It really makes you feel as though all your choices matter, especially as sometimes you'll make one and all will be fine at first, then suddenly it's as if the game is saying... Hey guys, you know that choice you made earlier and nothing went wrong?  Yeah about that.

About Six Ages accessibility, the developer hasn't made any commitment about that—things are still very much in the early stages. I'd personally be very surprised if it wasn't accessible though, since he's written previously about how many of his KoDP players on iOS (about 10%), use VoiceOver.

I do have a few ideas about what Six Ages might involve, but am definitely not sure. My initial guess right now is that the "ages," refer to a concept in Lunar cosmology—there is a Lunar Empire far to the north of Dragon Pass who's fortunes tend to wax and wane in cycles which you might call ages. But that's all theory at this point.

It's worth mentioning how relatively small the Dragon Pass events are in the larger scheme of Glorantha—it's only one part of the world, but KoDP manages to make it feel epic and huge. That's quite an accomplishment.

really looking Forward to six Ages, I don't know if I can really wait for 2 years...

Hmmm, trying to apply ethical systems to such a different ethical code as Orlanthi life could be rather difficult, however remember the game already includes lots of starting conditions to play with. I did have an abortive game as an ernalda worshipping clan, though that didn't work out, and apparently worshipping elmal makes the game far harder.

also, check the game center if you want challenges, sinse there are some quite interesting achievements.

I do believe you get notified when you get achievements, though again I don't recall precisely as it's been a few months sinse I last played Kodp seriesly myself. Iseries is one of my favourite gods to have on the ring, sinse it really boosts trade and availability of goods, and it's quite amazing sometimes just how many problems in the game can be solved by throwing money at them .

I've never had a problem with choosing different gods sinse generally speaking different god worshippers will have high attributes in specific areas, eg, Urnalda woshippers will be high in plants and animals, Iseries worshippers high in bargaining, Lhanka'mhy worshippers high in custom etc. The only problem tends to  arise when you get say a Urnalda worshipper high in leadership or a barnta worshipper high in combat (yeah, I've seen that happen, don't mess with the ploughman!), also one of the things that makes Urlnalda and Elmal clans harder is that certainly Urnalda worshippers don't always have the best leadership. eneraly sinse so much depends upon stats I'll go with stats and usually have a ring with at least six gods represented, but I'll keep checking in the two  categories where I don't have the best person just to see if another god worshipper comes up that is as good or  better in the given area.

This is however one of the things that makes Kodp so  unique, you have to work with the clan your given and take them through different situations, not just minimax your stats.