King of Dragon Pass

A Living World

The world of King of Dragon Pass is a dynamic, living one where things are constantly happening. Fortunate is the player who has a few seasons to order his forces and people and plan out a long-term course of action. Much of the game is spent reacting to one damn crisis after another. Bandits raid the caravans. A drought ruins the crops. Beggars and priests and charlatans and traders appear asking for sanctuary, gifts or asylum - or threaten dire consequences if their demands are not met. Travelers who may be spies, assassins or innocent passers-by will visit the settlement, and how the player treats them may or may not have an important effect on the game.

Magic

The clan accrues magic through the building and maintenance of temples, shrines and other places of worship, as well as through the accumulation of artifacts, treasures and regalia. Magic is also earned through a variety of actions, including the completion of the quest mini-games. Magic exists to be spent, like money, to increase the clan's chances for good harvests, healthy children, bountiful herds and victory in combat. Magic can be spent on intelligence services (i.e. a divination) and can be given/received from other clans to solidify alliances. There are no spells or wizard-like actions. Magic is just another resource and is used mostly as a force-multiplier or die-roll modifier.

War, Bloody War

Board gamers and card gamers will find battle sequences particularly enjoyable. Instead of point-and-click moves or real-time wrist reactions, the player has to allocate resources and chose tactical options before committing troops to battle. On the strategic level, this includes deciding when and if to recruit more professional warriors (who not only need to be paid but who also eat three times what part-time farmer/fighters eat) or to rely mostly on the part-time farmer-fighters. The player must decide how many of the professionals to put on patrol and how many to send off as escorts for traders, explorers and diplomats, or to respond to crises events. These decisions will also affect the defensive and offensive stance of the tribe, as will decisions about which gods the clan will sacrifice to or build houses of worship for.


Explore the surrounding land.	Battle preparation.

In battle, whether defending or attacking, the player has to decide from at least two menus what kind of battle he will fight. Will he skirmish and evade, seek captives and charge ahead, or chose some other mix of tactics and objectives (like maneuver, plunder, kill as many foes as possible, and other tactics)? Will the player take time to sacrifice to one or more gods, or draw upon the clan’s store of magic to increase their luck in battle, or rush in and hope to catch the enemy in mid-prayer? On the attack, will the player send a large force in an attempt to overwhelm the enemy (thus leaving his own home more vulnerable to other raiders) or will he choose a small party that might sneak in unnoticed to raid their cattle herds?

These and other choices only set the stage for the battle. Players whose clans specialize in certain kinds of warfare (like skirmishing or berserk charges) can do well doing what they do best - although keep in mind that the computer’s clans know all about that and are just as likely to use that knowledge to trap the player’s forces. During the course of the combat, individual battle leaders may be confronted with options or choices, ranging from "take insane risks" to "hide." Again, a little paragraph will set the stage and it is up to the player to decide what course to take. Audacity often wins battles - but it is just as likely to get the war leader killed, maimed or captured, and that can turn a nearly-won victory into a rout (after all, this is the Dark Ages...).

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