food shortage Rook caravan 4chapter

[archita]

I noticed very low food resouce on start of 4th chapter, few days and price of food ( 4 honour for 1 food ) is very high. There are not enough enemies to fight to achieve enough honour for long travel. I try to make forced march but moral go down and food shortage hold low morale with several casualties ( the rest not recover morale ). I think that honour price for supplies is too high in this part.

[Aleonymous]

Yes, the start of Chapter 4 finds you at very low Renown and Supplies (only 3 days worth). Things are worse if, at the end of Chapter 2, you decided to stay outside Frostvellr. If you chose to stay inside, there is a "way" to get more Supplies...

[zekitbot]

I decided to stay outside in Frostvellr and still never had problems getting the "no one dies of starvation" achievement.

I wasn't really thinking on the strategy too hard, but basically spent reknown to buy supplies early so I always had 10-14 days worth. Some characters I did not level because I found them less useful in combat (Egil, Onef, Krumr, and I never had Hogun and Monun[sp?])

My archers were all Rank 5 very quickly though.

[Aleonymous]

Archers (supported by a couple of high Breakers/tanks) are the most OP classes, but the hardest to play correctly. Women are naturally more subtle than horned giants!

[archita]

i like very much trashers, they are useful to break armour and great movement range, i achieved the 2 trashers brothers.

[SoMeOnE_the_oDD]

Having enough food probably depends also on how eagerly you spend on promotions and objects early in the game. You start out with an abundance and don't have that much of a reason to save.

I waited outside Frostvellr as well and suffered for it.

I also waited for Juno to return in the sketchy village. And waited. And waited. Once I realized I'd put my hopes in a seemingly unachievable accomplishment, I continued waiting until everyone pretty much died before reloading (the only time I think I needed to do so). That one was a little odd considering how multi-directional every other decision in the game felt. You usually get pressured out of any waiting scenarios by the approaching dredge.

[Aleonymous]

Yes, there should be *something* to force you to leave from Sigrholm, if you spent too many days waiting for Juno. That was a design miss-step.

[Blueberry]

Very much disagree that Sigrholm was a design misstep. I loved the fact that it didn't hold your hand there or forced you away, but really made you feel that damn, I've made a mistake and now I have to deal with it. I set out from Sigrholm with barely any supplies and that broke morale and left a trail of dead clansmen, fighters and varl behind me until the game ended. And that was awesome.

That you had to realize this yourself without being told was one of the best moments of the game. Games should dare to use this tactic more.

[SoMeOnE_the_oDD]

It makes sense except that, unlike every other chance you get to wait (there are several examples that don't bother me at all), in Sigrholm there is no change to the day-to-day observations and progression. In Frostvellr, things change every day: the battle worsens, characters get injured or die, and the enemy gets closer. In Sigrholm: nothing happens, nothing continues to happen, nothing happens, nothing continues to happen.

Each town you spend time in gives you a constant update on your party and the people around you as you continue to wait. The only instance where it allows you to wait without giving you updates is when you make camp. The major difference between those two scenarios is that when you make camp, the camp doesn't tell you specifically to wait.

The design of the game and the way it delivers its storytelling indicates that, if the player is supposed to be making their own judgement call as to whether to keep waiting, the game will apply pressure to reenforce your decision or change your mind. Sigrholm is an example of a situation where the player is absolutely put in a position of choosing whether to wait but, in terms of the player's understanding of the game, the consequences are more related to that of making camp to rest and move on.

It's stuck between the two, and therefor doesn't fit the design of the game. Every single other example of waiting felt great and I pushed through regardless of my losses so I agree with you there, Pillis. Transitioning from the constant pressure of the chase to the hesitant waiting of the first few days at Sigrholm works fine and dandy but when the chase doesn't catch back up again and the hesitation doesn't stir up any trouble, the game loses its momentum.

[FatalFrosty]

You have people in tow and not a lot of food. The place is a wreck and if menders can do what they do, they can surely arrange a meeting otherwise at a later time relatively easily, while it is much harder compared to that for your caravan to survive being idle in unhospitable lands. As a leader in charge of these people there is only you to blame if you decide to risk their lives waiting too long in the unknown for someone that you have no way of knowing for sure if she will come, when it is likely that she already did and something happened.

This game is about the players' own judgement throughout the story, and the consequences it puts into it. Not about the player trying to do what the game has predetermined as 'right'.

[kebabsoup]

One tip in all random event is to avoid getting new clansman like the plague. I reloaded today a Chap4 save to do the morale + food achievement. I can't tell how happy I was when I was struck by a blizzard right after the first godstone. Oh yeah! Needless to say I ran away without ever looking for survivors. Lost something like 60 mouths to feed!

[SoMeOnE_the_oDD]

The player's judgement is always, always limited by the situation placed before them by the game. When I say that the game misleads the player, what I'm pointing out is that the entire universe, the entire story exists in the form of the information delivered by the game to the player. From my perspective, there was no escalating discontent in my camp, there was no increasing threat from pursuing enemies, there was no additional information or conversation about the available options, there were no temporary side tasks to assign my party, there was no ability to scout the area, no nothing. It's difficult to make up your mind about a decision you yourself are required to fabricate.

Throughout the entire game, the condition and restlessness of your followers is described through daily occurances, fights, thefts, feasts, etc. I don't see how it's the player's fault when the story suddenly goes silent and the game enters a dead zone where nothing seems to be progressing.

As an aside, unless there are way more endings to the game than I thought, the player's decisions are guided largely by the game's predetermined design and not by the player's judgement.

@kebabsoup, that's actually practical advice given the limited effect your clan has in the first iteration of the game. It felt like a burden with no benefit. I took on probably thieves out of principle and wasn't terribly upset when they got away, though I would have assigned more guards if the game were in my control as FatalFrosty suggests. Maybe in the rest of the game there'll be more use to having a larger party and you'll get into trouble but so far I think it's something worth keeping in mind.

[FatalFrosty]

Originally posted by SoMeOnE_the_oDD:

From my perspective, there was no escalating discontent in my camp, there was no increasing threat from pursuing enemies, there was no additional information or conversation about the available options, there were no temporary side tasks to assign my party, there was no ability to scout the area, no nothing. It's difficult to make up your mind about a decision you yourself are required to fabricate.

The point is precisely there. From your perspective, there was no reason to feel the press of time. I mentioned quite enough in my previous post why your perspective was a bit naïve. You gained personal and gaming experience from this, you should be thankful to the devs lol

[SoMeOnE_the_oDD]

You seem to think, having apparently avoided the situation yourself, that you're somehow entitled to deny my perspective or judgement skills. I told you the cues I was looking for in order to make my decision and explained that they simply weren't there. The only reason I was in the village in the first place was because the dredge were chasing me. As it turned out, the dredge were very clearly not chasing me, in which case I don't know what the rush to get to that village was in the first place.

My decision making was directly tied to events within the game, events which were postponed indefinitely during the decision making process. I played the game with a reactive strategy, choosing to act second in most matters rather than assuming a lost cause and slaughtering my way through unproved theives and murdering untested mercenaries. The game gave me nothing to react to. It's absurd to criticize me for expecting time to continue passing. That's what time is supposed to do.

[FatalFrosty]

You're forgetting one event which is part of the core of the whole game; keeping your people fed. The whole point of that place is to test how long you'll risk making your people suffer in the face of uncertainty. You reaped what you sowed.

[SoMeOnE_the_oDD]

I didn't forget that. I took a risk and made a mistake, then took another risk and made another mistake. Out of curiosity, I decided to see what happens if you continue making risks. Nothing happens. Ever. That's the flaw, not my strategy.

If you need a reason to call it a flaw, consider that the entire game is spent running away from the dredge. If all I had to do was just stop running away and they'd stop approaching, I'd have gladly done so to give the rest of the world time to prepare themselves (at the cost of my life). Word would soon make its way inland of a massive horde of dredge swarming forward before coming to a complete standstill for seemingly no reason. Over the next week, they'd probably deduce that the dredge are sitting still because a small party of starving heroes refuses to continue running way. Obviously, they would then begin sending relief parties bearing food to keep me alive while they position seige weapons to annilihate the threat of the dredge.

The world would be saved because I my sacrifice.