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  1. #1

    Gorgon's alliance questions

    I stumbled upon this place again and remembered playing gorgon's alliance when I was a kid. Brought back some old memories.

    However, there were a lot of things i didnt get about the game and which the manual doesnt cover...so I was wondering if anyone ever figured these out :

    - I remembered the game having random crash to desktops on newer machines (win xp or later i think), did anyone manage to fix this?

    - In adventure turn based mode, I remember that sometimes the combat would get glitch and both sides would just get stuck playing defend animations, neither side would attack and the only workaround I found was to retreat.

    - I noticed that in some adventures, you can walk through solid metal bars but once past the bars, you wouldnt be able to go back (so it wasnt an illusion). I remember that you could walk through some metal bars to fight the gorgon in his castle. Is this a glitch or some kind of intended feature?

    - Was it just me or were most lieutenants useless for domain actions? I dont think they could improve their success rate when doing domain actions so they had a very low chance of success. Obviously wizards/priests could cast spells but fighters/thieves seemed pretty useless for domain actions.

    - I remember that when an AI controlled realm lost its regent/lieutenant (which was usually pretty quick given that they tend to get them killed in battle often), you couldnt do any diplomatic actions with them anymore so you couldnt ask them for an alliance or anything. The only thing you could do was declare war on them I think. Just felt really annoying because after the first couple of turns, diplomacy becomes impossible as all the regents are getting killed off. Was this intended?

    - Whats the deal with the city of Anuire in the game? I remember it being really annoying, something about not being able to move troops in there/declare war so you had to wait till an AI take it because only they could declare war with it or something? I dont remember getting the city automatically even after becoming emperor either. Just felt really buggy.

    - I never really got how combat worked. Gold was pretty easy to get once you got a few trade routes running so spamming stacks of nothing but knights seemed to be the best option. There didnt seem to be any reason to use mixed units at all, especially since each stack has a unit limit and mustering units always take 1 action, so you want to muster the strongest unit.

    I found missile units to be the weirdest...they usually can only get one or two shots off before the enemy reaches melee range and most of the time the shots do nothing at all. Even blessed elven archers/cavalry was pretty dissapointing using their missile attacks, and elven cavalry was pretty bad in melee unless using the auto-resolve option. It just seemed easiest to spam knights and melee everything because missile combat was pretty weak. And pikemen seemed to lose very often vs knights for some reason...how did the unit stats work?

    - I didnt really get how lieutenant hiring worked either. For some reason, super powerful characters like Rhobher Niclair can be hired as lieutenants sometimes when that makes no sense (isn't he the head of a non-realm faction? how is he hirable as a lieutenant?). But after the early game, all you can hire are low level characters that seem like placeholders that cant do anything.

    - For most realms, it seems the game heavily favors picking the character of the highest level who can cast spells. Playing as the mage of Endier seems way easier since you dont seem to benefit much from having a thief as your regent compared to having a high level mage as your regent. Am I missing something?

  2. #2
    Well seems this forum is dead, thats a pity.

    Just reinstalled it and tried playing. Unfortunately the game does randomly crash with a "the memory could not be read from" error during adventures which is kind of problematic.

    Its also ridiculously easy to get gold by simply throwing money at guild/temple non-landed regents since you get all their holdings when they swear an oath of fealty to you. Province tax gives you very little in comparison since each level of a guild/temple holding is a flat 1 GB. And the difference between light and severe taxation seems to be only 2 GB. I think removing all non-landed regents from the game would make getting gold a lot harder and the game more challenging...going to try a scenario like that eventually.

    Bards/thieves seem really gimped since their special abilities are not implemented.

    Something also seems wonky about the experience needed to level up. It takes like 700k xp to get to fighter level 11...and slaying the gorgon only gives 32k which is a drop in the bucket, let alone the regular monsters or the 40k from completing a level 4 adventure.

    Units wise, infantry seems really gimped. They will die to archers before reacing melee even though they are supposed to counter archers. No real advantage to using pikes either since knights are basically better in every way except cost, and gold is only a problem for the first few turns.

    Loyalty (and hence agitate) seems largely irrelevant...you can completely ignore law holdings and just leave provinces on light taxation to keep them at max loyalty.

  3. #3
    The forum is not dead. It's just that no-one can answer your questions. The game is 22 years old ^^

  4. #4
    Site Moderator Magian's Avatar
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    The PC game "Birthright The Gorgon's Alliance" and the RPG tabletop game for 2nd ed. AD&D "Birthright" setting are 2 different things. Most people here are for the latter. The PC game isn't played much I assume because of the issues you bring up with crashes if you can get it to run at all.

    From my recollection your issues are accurate with the bugs in the game. I recall going on adventures only after I saved so that if the adventure engine crashed I wouldn't lose too much progress.

    The Imperial City of Anuire seems like a good location that an Anuirean should not have cause to go to war. I am sure their rule if making impossible to do so for a player is a reflection of that. Although Julius Caesar did it when he crossed the Rubicon. PC games among others were not always completely fleshed out in form and function, usually requiring a little imagination to explain for rationale sake.

    As the game went on the political map turned into a mess. This seems to be a downside for war games. They don't give us a sense of the unfolding of history such as in the case of the Total War games as well where it is pretty much a sandbox / do anything you want sort of conquest without other meaningful dimensions considered with such willy nilly expansion.
    One law, One court, One allied people, One coin, and one tax, is what I shall bring to Cerilia.

  5. #5
    Site Moderator AndrewTall's Avatar
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    Archer units are fine if you have space on the map - you keep moving and shooting and eventually wear down your opponent.

    If you get your relationship with a non-landed regent high enough you can hire them as a looey, as you note this is an easy way to get some high level spellcasters.

    Law is needed for high taxation, but if you use trade routes for gold then, as you note, you can ignore them.

    Otherwise I think that most of the things you said I agree with, though I don't recall some of the bugs - maybe they got fixed in one of the upgrades (good luck finding those though)

  6. #6
    I thought the game was pretty similar to the pen and paper version? Speaking of which, are the rules for the pen and paper version posted anywhere?

    I figured out what was causing the crash during adventures...seems to be an issue with direct draw in full screen mode. Playing the game in windowed mode doesnt crash during adventures.

    The game runs surprisingly well today, but they didnt implement all the rules. Paladins/Rangers get priest spells, but they can only use them in adventures and dont get any of their other special abilities (but they still need more experience than fights to level up). Thieves dont get any of their special abilities at all, and bards are gimped wizards.

    Getting gold is quite weird. You would think province taxation would be the main method to get gold, but province taxation gives very little gold actually. A level 4 province generates 2-7 gold on severe tax level, 2-5 gold on moderate and 1-4 gold on light. You need at least half the law holdings to do severe taxation with no penalty...so you are effectively getting 1-3 GB for a level 2 law holding. Meanwhile, a level 2 guild or temple seems to generate 2 GB automatically every turn. Coeranys actually generates a pretty large amount of gold due to all their temples...something like 40+ GB a turn IIRC.

    A trade route is pretty easy to setup...not sure if the rules in the pen and paper version are the same, but all you need is a level 0 guild, a road and permissive alliance. A trade route between two level 4 provinces generates 4 GB per turn and a level 4 province can support up to 2 trade routes...so thats 3 actions to generate 8 GB. After a few turns of this, you basically have enough gold to maintain an army the size of Avanil's with no problems.

    Law claims seems quite weird as well, I tried using law claims as Elinie, and even with max law holdings, law claims generate 0 GB from Coerany's temples. When it does work, you get 1 GB at most which is not impressive.

    Im actually quite surprised that Anuire is so undeveloped overall. We are talking about an empire that lasted hundreds of years but most of the provinces seems to be pretty low level with very few holdings and trade routes seem to be the exception, not the norm. Avanil could easily maintain an army several times its current size if they bothered to establish some trade routes with it's vassals...but despite the obvious advantage this would give them over Boeruine, they never bothered to do so.

    It really makes me wonder what all the rulers for the last few hundred years were doing with all their regency and gold. I mean, look at the Gorgon. If he just invested some of his regency into increasing his bloodline strength every domain turn, he would have 200+ bloodline strength or some other insane number by now. Dont even need to bother with bloodtheft.

    Units : Archers seem quite OP in the game after some testing. You can basically fire several times before any unit gets into melee range which destroys anything short of skeletons or awnsheghs. I tested pikemen, and they seem bugged...3 units of pikemen cant even beat one cavalry unit in melee! And goblins are pretty much useless.

    The Cty of Anuire seems pretty oddly setup. You cant engage in any diplomacy action with them, but they can initiate them. You dont need to declare war to move into any of their provinces though.

    Probably the biggest flaw is that you cant engage in diplomacy with domains once their regents get themselves killed (which happens very quickly...Coeranys usually suicides into The Chimaeron in the first few turns). Really takes away a huge element of the game. There also seems to be a strange bug with vassalage...if a domain becomes or gains a vassal, you can never ask them to become your vassal for the rest of the game because the diplomacy option is permanently grayed out for you. E.G. Brosengae starts as Avanil's vassal, if you downgrade the relationship to an alliance, Brosengae still cant make anyone a vassal because the option is always grayed out in diplomacy.

    The character editor and scenario editor offers a surprising large amount of customizability...but i was dissapointed that certain options were still locked. You cant change a character's realm or the guards they have on the battlefield for example. I wanted to fix the dwarven lieutenants...for some reason they have Anuirean elite infantry models but the stats of dwarven crossbows, so they "fire" using their halberds. Available diplomacy options seem hard coded as well...you cant enable diplomacy options with Rhoubhe for example.

    I also found it quite weird that the regent of Five Peaks is The Wizard while the Eyeless One is a non-landed regent...makes more sense for it to be the other way round but I guess Sierra goofed.

  7. #7
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    Slow archers like dwarves crossbowmen are bad, but other archers are very good for hit and run tactics that allow you to kill many units with zero casualties. Irregulars seems very good: really cheap, fast, decent in melee and with decent health. Scouts have higher missile value and are faster but they have very low hp so unless you attack a slow unit with 0 missile you will die. If the map is filled by units then knights are better than elven cavalry: more hp and less cost.
    For skeletons unless you have priests just simulate the battle: they are worth 4 GB in simulation, on the field are gods because their missile defense is converted in total defense.

    Lieutenant just give you a free action. If they are your same class you can give them easy tasks like giving holding/provinces to vassal (100% success, usually you do it just for roleplay purpose like recreating the 12 duchies) or you can create holding in friendly provinces or promoting level 0 holding because chance of success will be high. And of course if you lieutenant is of another class can unlock some actions.

  8. #8
    Site Moderator Sorontar's Avatar
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    The pen'n'paper Birthright rules are copyright of TSR/WotC so can not be published online without their permission. Permission has been granted to www.birthright.net, as the official Birthright fan organization, to use all copyrighted material in its creation of the 3.5e BRCS. This material may not be used for profit. This latest version of this manual will be made available, without charge, on www.birthright.net. For-profit sale of this document is in violation of TSR/WotC's copyright and is prohibited. See http://www.birthright.net/forums/downloads.php where you may also find some help for the PC game.

    The wiki on this site contains transcripts of the 3.5e BRCS as well as fan-based expansions and adaptions of locations, NPCs, creatures and rules, based on canon publications swhere possible.

  9. #9
    Don’t guilds give thief regents regency? I think it says that somewhere in the game guide. Or was it temples for priests/paladins?

  10. #10
    Site Moderator AndrewTall's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by kasrkraw View Post
    Don’t guilds give thief regents regency? I think it says that somewhere in the game guide. Or was it temples for priests/paladins?
    Should be law=fighter, guild=thief, temple=cleric and source=wizard.

    I'm not sure about Paladin in the game. Province should give regency to any class.

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