Ring management

[500g of Oranges]

Hey mates. I'm new to this game, but I'm gripped so far. I wish the mechanics were a little more transparent, but it's still great.

I'm a bit confused about managing the ring, though. In my current game, I've struggled a bit with the new generation replacing their elders as they die off. Seems like most of the Gods aren't interested in calling members of my clan! I have no choice if I want to get 7 different gods represented on the ring. In fact, the most recent elder to die brought the total Gods represented among all my nobles down to 6. Is there any way to influence this at all?

As for developing them, I see two ways to increase their abilities, hero quests and time. But hero quests are hard - it's usually wanting to try a hero quest that motivates me to increase their abilities in the first place - and time is too passive for my liking. Are there any other options? If not, can anyone clarify the manner in which hero quests increase stats? Like the difference between strengthening the quester, and strengthening the group more generally?

Any info greatly appreciated.

[500g of Oranges]

Also, which is worse - Sending an Orlanth worshipper with "good" combat on an Orlanth quest, or sending a different God's worshipper with better combat skills? (Assuming they're both good at magic).

Based on my limited experience, it seems like each quest needs Magic + one other skill. Is that right?

[Igg12]

Originally posted by Sigereth:

Also, which is worse - Sending an Orlanth worshipper with "good" combat on an Orlanth quest, or sending a different God's worshipper with better combat skills? (Assuming they're both good at magic).

Based on my limited experience, it seems like each quest needs Magic + one other skill. Is that right?

For Orlanth's quests you need high magic, combat and leadership, diplomacy(bargain and custom), Vingan is a 1:1 substitute, meaning she counts as an Orlanthi, since Vinga is his female aspect.
As for you first question, If I understand correctly you have a problem with new nobles not having an appropriate deity and skills, the best way, if its not too cheesy for you, is to send them to suicide exploration runs, check Dragon Pass wiki, Troll Mother is the best option.
Orlanth and Aroka is a rather difficult heroquest, unlike The Making of The Storm Tribe, so from the gameplay perspective, the better is the latter to build your potential king/queen. IMO always do strengthen the quester, in my experience strengthening everyone is not significant.

[Curiousfellow]

I believe some of the heroquests require more than 1 skill besides magic. The making of the storm tribe definitely needs combat, but also leadership I think.

The only way to get new godtalkers is to have your old ones die off. The easiest way to make that happen is to send someone running off on a solo exploration mission outside your tula during dark season.

Most quests allow you to 'strengthen the quester'. This means the clan member doing the quest becomes stronger. The more times you pull this off, the easier it'll become to train the person even futher. The lankhor mhy, storm tribe and Elmal heroquests let you improve your clan ring. I don't how the other two work, but the lankhor mhy quest seems to increase your ring's abilities based on the god they worship(I.E a barntar godtalker will improve his animals and plants, an issaries worshipper's bargaining will increase)

I believe you really need to send in a heroquester with at least excellent combat skill to pull off Orlanth and Akora. It's definitely better to send in a heroquester with higher combat skill. You could also consider using the storm tribe heroquest to train up your heroquester since it raises combat, and Orlanth and Akora is a pretty hard heroquest.

Also note that you can improve your chances of succeeding at a heroquest by having more members in your clan, and that you can do the easier heroquests after waiting just one year so long as your heroquester is good enough.

One more thing, there is -one- other way you could diversify your clan ring. Humankt worshippers turn into orlanth or vinga worshippers(Depending on their gender) and lose stats when they give the sword to orlanth in humankt the champion. If you have multiple humankt worshippers but no vinga or orlanth worshippers, you could try doing that heroquest and trading the sword to orlanth for a gift as a way to change the god that your humankt godtalker worships.

[Igg12]

Originally posted by Curiousfellow:

I believe some of the heroquests require more than 1 skill besides magic. The making of the storm tribe definitely needs combat, but also leadership I think.

The only way to get new godtalkers is to have your old ones die off. The easiest way to make that happen is to send someone running off on a solo exploration mission outside your tula during dark season.

Most quests allow you to 'strengthen the quester'. This means the clan member doing the quest becomes stronger. The more times you pull this off, the easier it'll become to train the person even futher. The lankhor mhy, storm tribe and Elmal heroquests let you improve your clan ring. I don't how the other two work, but the lankhor mhy quest seems to increase your ring's abilities based on the god they worship(I.E a barntar godtalker will improve his animals and plants, an issaries worshipper's bargaining will increase)

I believe you really need to send in a heroquester with at least excellent combat skill to pull off Orlanth and Akora. It's definitely better to send in a heroquester with higher combat skill. You could also consider using the storm tribe heroquest to train up your heroquester since it raises combat, and Orlanth and Akora is a pretty hard heroquest.

Also note that you can improve your chances of succeeding at a heroquest by having more members in your clan, and that you can do the easier heroquests after waiting just one year so long as your heroquester is good enough.

One more thing, there is -one- other way you could diversify your clan ring. Humankt worshippers turn into orlanth or vinga worshippers(Depending on their gender) and lose stats when they give the sword to orlanth in humankt the champion. If you have multiple humankt worshippers but no vinga or orlanth worshippers, you could try doing that heroquest and trading the sword to orlanth for a gift as a way to change the god that your humankt godtalker worships.

Humakti are much rarer then most, Uroxi is probably the rarest from my experience, so I don't think its worth it, still interesting strategy.

[500g of Oranges]

Ok, thanks everyone. It's normally a 1-3 year wait between quests, right? Depending on the difficulty? Which ones are the easy quests?

Also, how do you get the secrets of the stories that you don't get told from sacrificing for mysteries? I tried trading to the clan with the ancient texts, but they keep telling me stuff I already know.

[Curiousfellow]

Chalana arroy's quest is the easiest I think. Issaries' quest is also not too difficult and may be better to specifically train issaries worshippers. The making of the storm tribe is the easiest heroquest that trains combat. (If your godtalker's combat is good or worse, I suggest fighting only rustling veins). Lankhor mhy's quest can be done pretty reliably by a good godtalker, but I haven't had much success using it to train up weaker ones. Ernalda's heroquest isn't too hard, but there's a decent chance you lose your godtalker in the end and it doesn't seem to train up magic, the most important heroquest stat, all that much.

Edit:
Oh also if there is a way to get secret versions of non-heroquest myths I don't know of them. Lankhor mhy's doesn't allow you to learn about those myths, it seems and I haven't gotten them by asking other clans either.

[500g of Oranges]

Thanks friends, that's really helpful.

[Igg12]

I am interested to know how important Magic is, from my experience its always Magic + relevant skill for the choice, so for fighting its Magic + Combat, but singing or composing a poem( lullabye from Uralda Heroquest) it's Magic + Custom + Leadership, Magic is the most important skill during heroquesting imo, dev could explain better.
Edit
So it would seem that the best candidate to improve should always have at least excellent/renowned in magic, this of course is for ironman runs.

[Curiousfellow]

I'd say it's better to have to train up magic than combat. Going through the making of the storm tribe without enough combat can end with your best candidate dead, the effect of failing chalana arroy's quest is much more mild.

In a long game, you want someone young to be your tribal king, and it's pretty rare for someone to start out with excellent magic. Getting a young godtalker with very good in magic is the good scenario, imo, I've had cases where I've had to try to ram someone with a good in magic through a quest just to train a tribe leader.

Edit: I seem to have misremembered. The part that I thought could kill the candidate just wounds them. I guess either route is viable.

[500g of Oranges]

I tried doing the Making of the Storm Tribe with the same person twice, it didn't seem to increase his stats the second time. Do you have to do different hero quests to train them further?

[Igg12]

Originally posted by Sigereth:

I tried doing the Making of the Storm Tribe with the same person twice, it didn't seem to increase his stats the second time. Do you have to do different hero quests to train them further?

what was his skill level, you cant go past heroic?
edit
also from my memory, doing certain actions while heroquesting will increase different skills, telling Lhankor Mhy to lunch a legal clam against the cube will improve your custom more then the other options.

[Curiousfellow]

It's possible for some stats to stay the same when you do heroquests to raise them. I suspect they have an internal value that goes up, and sometimes that increase doesn't put it past the threshold that would put them on a different rank.

It's really unlikely that none of your characters' stats went up unless they were already heroic in some, though.

[500g of Oranges]

I guess I might've missed one, I think there were two I hoped to increase, and neither went up. They definitely weren't heroic.

Still, that guy's dead now. :(

This is kind of getting off-topic, but I'm surprised by a couple of other things. In a previous game, I managed to build almost every possible temple & shrine to the highest possible level. This game, my clan is huge, it's split once, and I put it off as long as possible. I had 1400 people at one point. But I haven't built that many temples, and I keep hearing that I need more worshippers to expand them further. How does that work?

Also, I ignored the blind prophet a couple of times early on, hoping to amass more wealth before I started building a tribe. Now I'm worried he's given up on me or died of old age. It's been a long time (not sure exactly, I don't want to check the saga, but I reckon at least 15 years) and I can't work out another way to start a tribe. I'm pretty sure I've done the Founding of the Storm Tribe quest for that purpose - I've done it a few times to train the ring, and I don't see the option of gaining a blessing to start a tribe. Is there anything else I can try?

[Curiousfellow]

I don't really tend to wait to build a tribe, so I have no idea if this is still salvageable. I generally have a tribe by year 1740. Completing the making of the storm tribe for any reason should be sufficient to create a tribe, Orlanth's blessing for tribe making just makes the process of tribe making easier.

There's two events that might let you make a tribe. One is a rare event with musical skeletons, no way to trigger that one on purpose but you might get lucky. The other one is when the Colymar start asking tribute of you, you then get the option to try and join the Colymar. So, I guess if you have a Colymar member as one your neighbors, you could try raiding them, asking them for tribute and generally just picking a fight so that maybe they decide to bully you.

Edit: Oh and in the future, the easy way to postpone tribe making is by not performing the making of the storm tribe.

[500g of Oranges]

Aha, thanks kindly. How many clans do you normally manage to get in your tribe, if you make it that fast?

I got this great new achievement in that run, "Troll Apocalypse," but my *new* clan will benefit greatly from your advice.