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Topics - koteko

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16
General Discussion / Culture Poll
« on: August 29, 2017, 04:27:01 PM »
I've been looking into the different cultures, and trying to play as all of them. Apart from the stats/skills differences, it's quite cool to actually travel to their lands and live according to their customs. I wish there were more marked differences, more lore, more interactions but I'll patiently wait for future updates :)

In the meanwhile, I'm curious as to what you guys play the most, or which culture you love the most even if you play it little (some are objectively hard!).

I personally used to be a Owl-guy, and never really liked the Kaumo (luckly, they are not the only "big guys"). Nowadays I love Seal for active hunting (spear & club) and Reemi for passive hunting and some farming.

17
Guides and tutorials / Choose the starting Culture based on skills
« on: August 28, 2017, 04:00:35 PM »
Here is a short commentary/guide to the starting cultures, based on the simple analysis of the starting skill bonuses/maluses. This should help any beginner looking to make things smoother for themselves.. or harder, if masochistic :)

  • Reemi, Sarto, Kaumo and Kiesse are quite versatile tribes, with bonuses far outweighing the maluses. Good choice for beginners, especially if the right tribe is chosen for a specific play style (eg, choose Sarto for agriculture-related characters, Kaumo for warriors and active hunters, Reemi for trappers and Kiesse for the prototypical woodsman.)
  • Owls have many maluses (which reduces their versatility in using multiple weapons and wood/construction stuff, but also fishing), but are probably the best active hunters (Kaumo is easier to play overall but takes more grinding to raise some important skills). This is your bow-sniper character, able to track down quickly the prey, kill it and produce high-quality hides, as well as identify useful herbs.
  • Seal tribes are not as bad as you would think from their -4. They are the best spear-users, club-users, fishers and "shamans". Their stealth bonus is also good. They make fun (and reality-appropriate) seal-hunters if you don't go the easy way (eg, traps): sneak up, throw your javelin/spear and club to death. I enjoyed playing as one.
  • Driik seem very "poor", but they have the best sword, shield and crossbow bonuses. Most other tribes have maluses there, or at best a zero. They might make for interesting atypical characters.
  • Islanders are the best weather predictors.. which is sadly useless (maybe for some quests? not sure). They can only swim, fish and carve wooden objects better than default, and have plenty of important maluses. More "carpentry" options (eg, fishbone carvery?) might make them more appealing in the future.
  • Kuikka are essentially lesser Owl that can fish very well (like Islanders and Seal-tribe), and carve wooden objects decently. Never got interested in playing as one.
  • Koivulanen.. these are weird. They have good Agriculture, like the Sarto, and also small tracking&trapping bonuses. They have a bonus to the least used weapon, the flail. That's it - however, they also lack significant maluses. Herblore & Physician only. So they make for the real average man, which can be interesting for the expert player.



Source of the above: the ini_skills.txt shipped with the game. I uploaded it on the wiki for easy consultation.

I found the actual file a bit hard to read - a table works much better. Also, I prefer a bonus/malus view (eg, difference compared to the default) instead of the absolute numbers.

It would be great to also have a table for attribute bonuses.. what we have was found empirically a long time ago and I'm not sure how accurate it is.

I find, however, that when planning a character I care more about the skills than the attributes, since I'm a heavy roller to get high values (or I even correct the attributes manually, if I can't be bothered to roll). So it doesn't affect me overmuch.

(URW version 3.4)

18
Suggestions / Reindeer genders
« on: August 25, 2017, 01:39:31 PM »
One of my recurrent "themes" for playing is as a pure northern nomad. Small kota and furs carried by my docile reindeers Astrid and Gudrun and off to explore the north.

It occurred to me that reindeers should be "gendered" just like cattle and sheep. This would allow the collection of nice reindeer milk from domesticated female. Antlers grow on both sexes apparently, so that'd be the same, but males are bigger (eg, carry more and yield more fur/meat).

This would make my northern experience much more complete :)

According to this paper, this is the nutrition of reindeer milk:

Proteins: 9.9
Fats: 15.5
Carbs: 1.2

It's now clear why Sami people took good care of their reindeers!

This is a very nutritious milk but I believe it can be balanced by milk output: should be less than cows, maybe like sheep?

19
Gameplay questions / Fur protection/warmth values
« on: August 22, 2017, 01:12:17 PM »
Does anyone have a table for 3.4? I couldn't find the protection and warmth values for animal furs, neither on the wikis, nor the old forums, nor reddit. OBJ inspection didn't help because there needs to be an existing clothing made of a specific animal to see the values.

If there is none available I will slowly make it but it's going to take ages to find all animals and make a cap out of their furs :P

20
Suggestions / The underdog of weapons: the short sword
« on: August 16, 2017, 04:42:32 PM »
Since Sami has been tweaking weapon values for the next release, I think it's important to discuss how this poor little weapon, the short sword, can be valorised.

Right now:

  • Handaxe is beaten ONLY by the battlesword in all three damage categories. I love handaxes dearly, but they are OP when compared to swords (and, IMHO, other axes as well)
  • Short sword has the same point damage of bastard sword and battlesword, where it should shine, and is beaten by all other swords in cut damage (fair). It also has the worst bonuses in the sword category. And even more weird: it's worse at stabbing than the Handaxe!
  • Three knives have more point damage than the short sword, and other three knives have exactly the same point damage, while all six of these are MUCH lighter. Also three of these knives have the same attack/defence bonus compared to the short sword
So, briefly, the short sword sucks. Which in itself is not a huge deal (of course some weapons are going to suck) but coupled with the fact that it's crazy expensive, it becomes a "useless weapon", so to speak.

My proposal would be:

  • nerf Handaxes slightly: 3-5-4 is probably more than fair for a tool that is in everyone's inventory. Perfect if associated with a shield.
  • up point damage of short swords slightly: 5 instead of 4. This makes it the best stabbing sword, on par with the three best knives

If you are asking yourself whether giving 5 point damage to short swords is unfair to the three best knives, I would argue that:

- all of those three knives are MUCH lighter and cheaper (which is the point of using a knife). Also if I'm not mistaken, light weapons should consume less fatigue when fighting
- they can double as tools, whereby the shortsword is a pure weapon

The only knife that I think gets the short end of the stick is the Skramasaksi, which is supposed to be a Seax, thus essentially a short sword. I have a small suggestion for this, too:

- instead of having damage 2-3-4, make it 2-4-4. That is, exactly equal to the current short sword but slighly worse than my suggested shortsword (but lighter!).

21
Off-topic / Kalevala in prose
« on: August 15, 2017, 12:52:01 PM »
I'd like to get more into Finnish mythology, but I find it hard to read poems. I loved Neil Gaiman's retelling of the Norse myths, and was wondering if there was something similar for the Kalevala, in English?

Even some good narrative could be interesting, actually. Any suggestions? :)

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