*blows the dust off*
So I actually got around to playing this. Got Windows 10 a while ago, finally bought this on sale.
I like it. It's pretty much KoDP.
I'll say that I think I like the art a bit less than KoDP. It feels done by multiple artists and the styles diverge sometimes. One is the classical style and the other one, while good....tends to go for caricatures. None of it is bad or detracts from the game. I just prefer the more realistic look to the stylized one.
Biggest difference I notice between this and KoDP is that the Doom Clock is in your face, obviously. The theme of the game is that the cold is coming from the North. What this means for gameplay is that your crop and hunting yields just go down over time. You can do rituals to restore your pastures and as many blessings for additional food as you want, but basically at some point you're going to have to migrate again. I don't know what that looks like. I think I'm 20 years into my game and maxing out all my blessings is just enough to maintain a surplus but it's getting harder and harder. Once the cold starts, you simply cannot trade for food either. And no amount of raiding I do ever seems to net me food. Just goods and cows and horses. So there really is a time limit on how long you can play.
That sort of dovetails into my second observation. There's just more to do with your time it feels like than in KoDP. While some actions don't require time advancing (switching what blessings shrines are using), and other actions which used to advance time are now gone. (Managing the # of people on patrol, crop allocations.) So while some of the management has been simplified, there's WAY more gods and shrines it feels like (plus spirits), so half the year feels taken up by sacrificing. Which was fairly common for KoDP too. But now with the food changes, you're looking at a minimum of 2 seasons (2 actions per season) to activate all the food blessings. Where as you didn't really need spend that much effort on food blessings in KoDP unless things had gone terribly awry. In SA you also have to set "Ventures" at least twice a year or so. Which are activities that take time to complete but are like "protect our herds better", "get more food from foraging", "get more crafted items", "get more food from hunting", "be better at combat for a year" etc....
So it feels like you have more than you can do in a year's time available to you.
Story-wise I feel pretty well-prepared for the game due to my time in KoDP. The pantheon and world story is different, yet the same and completely identifiable based on your understanding of Orlanthi history and deities and myths.
Not much else to say I guess, it's KoDP with some twists. Obviously the next two installments (one being "The world is literally collapsing around us" and the other being "it's a brave new world!") will shake things up yet again. Looking forward to them. I imagine the next one is going to be just savage. KoDP can already be a pretty mean game sometimes. I can only imagine the trials and tribulations you'll face when the world is falling apart.
Still need to finish this playthrough though and I imagine I'll do several more before the next one is out. I can now see why they split it up into 3 games. I'm not 100% sure Ride Like The Wind has as long of legs as KoDP, especially with how much time they give you before the land becomes uninhabitable. But I'm enjoying it and feel like whatever was subtracted from KoDP in terms of gameplay was added back and then some in Six Ages.
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Topic: Six Ages/King of Dragon Pass (Read 30807 times)