Goatfolk insanely difficulty spike

[Xaygon]

Hey guys,

I have been playing Caves of Qud on and off over the past months.
Before roleplaying, which I enjoy greatly btw, I usually hit a roadblock with any of my characters when doing anything related to the jungle or getting lost on a jungle tile.
I am getting the hang of avoiding getting blown to pieces by sowers but I just cannot deal with them to seemingly always overwhelm me in numbers. Especially that river part close to Kyakukya. Is that part of the quest?

Anyone any tips and tricks of how not to die in the jungle?

It was one of the main reasons for me to put the game down in the past few months.
Again really liking the roleplay mode allows me to finally get used to certain environments without feeling like cheating (disabling permadeath and enabling loading and stuff).

[CHOO CHOO]

There are two rivers near Kyakukya - the large river biome you can see on the world map, and the smaller river immediately north of the village. The latter one is indeed part of the Raising Indrix quest.

Still, the general goatfolk density there isn't that much different from the jungle in general. There just are a lot of them. And they absolutely are a big step up in difficulty compared to snapjaws, especially the sowers you mentioned, since they can knock you back while also ignoring your AV.

There are many ways of dealing with goatfolk, but most of them are just variations on the theme of "be good at killing things without dying". Have attributes, skills and equipment that allow you deal with them safely. This may sound trivial, and it is. Anything can work here. Shoot them with guns, use the charge skill to close the distance to sowers, shield bash the others, disarm the armed ones, maybe toss a grenade at the goatfolk espers, or just be an esper and toast the lot of them. Or bring friends!

It might be more helpful for you to tell us what build you generally use, so we can tell you whether that's build unsuited for combat, whether you're simply going into the jungles too early, or whether you need to change your tactics.

[-skimmer-]

Alternatively the cheap Wayfaring skill tree + compass bracelets are there so you can get to Kyakukya early with ease.

Otherwise most of my characters can take on goatfolks relatively safely around level 25, which is pretty late. Having high toughness stat and upgraded sprinting helps a lot too.

Also sowers tend to blow themselves up and everyoneone around them if you set them on fire. Flamethrowers, laser guns or thermal grenades work. Those seeds really dont like fire. Maybe burning torches + deft throwing would make for makeshift early counter to them? I gotta try that.

[ephemeraltoast]

Not sure what level you are when you go to the jungle. But if you're going straight there after Joppa/whatever your starter village is, I recommend not doing that. Go to the Six Day Stilt first and turn in any books you've collected to Sheba, and share Resheph secrets with the cultist. That should get you a good xp boost without any danger. Maybe all you need for the goats is a few more hit points and skill points.

Also, since you mention getting overwhelmed by numbers, consider what your options are for crowd control. Even if you don't have a good mutation for this, there are LOTS of grenade types that will disable groups of enemies--sleep, stun, freeze (my favorite), stasis. And if you're lucky, a grenadier at the Stilt will sell you some. Otherwise, your starter dromad should have one or two.

[Sentient_Toaster]

Things would probably be a bit saner in the jungle if the sowers had any regard for blowing up other members of their own faction.