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Six Ages released in 2018 as a long-awaited sequel to the beloved Story-telling Saga, King of Dragon Pass. Both games fit in their own unique genre of a choose-your-own-adventure book […]
Six Ages released in 2018 as a long-awaited sequel to the beloved Story-telling Saga, King of Dragon Pass.
Both games fit in their own unique genre of a choose-your-own-adventure book and tribal management game hybrid. These elements blend together as you manage a bronze-age clan from the fantasy world of Glorantha.
Six Ages takes everything that made King of Dragon Pass great and keeps it, streamlining some things and tweaking others. In fact, the first thing you’ll notice about Six Ages is just how faithful it is to its predecessor.
King of Dragon Pass was released in 1999 and is today a cult classic. The game was immediately noted for its unique style, blending gameplay and story in an enjoyable manner. Although it was popular it never spawned a genre in the way Dune II or Civilization did.
While the clan management in King of Dragon Pass was good, it could also be incredibly frustrating by obfuscating necessary information. You often didn’t know exactly what was happening since on top of all of the management and story elements the game takes place is the mythologically inspired fantasy world of Glorantha, which is not your average fantasy world.
This uncertainty was one of the main draws of King of Dragon Pass. The events were often weird, like a talking Dinosaur asking your clan for a favor. But the entire world had an internal coherence that once you learned, could then be used to your advantage.
The other main draw was placing yourself in a fantasy world and actually having to think as a bronze-age clan leader would have. Doing what we modern people would consider the “right” thing often ended in disaster in events. Instead, you had to train yourself to think like a tribal chief.
As an example, your ancestors are real and can come back to berate you if you stray too far from tradition. Trading, herd management, and building clan relations were all far more important than conquering your enemies.
Where King of Dragon Pass was unapologetically expansive, Six Ages is far more restrained in its design.
All of the game’s mechanics wouldn’t work without the downright bizarre and uniquely fascinating world of Glorantha.
Glorantha was created by Greg Stafford and first introduced in 1975 with the release of the board game White Bear and Red Moon. The series continued receiving publications in the coming years with the two most famous being RuneQuest and HeroQuest.
The world of Glorantha is heavily influenced by Stafford’s love of mythology. The gods here are real and can materially affect the world. Spirits, demons, and talking ducks inhabit this world.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about Glorantha is that the creation myths of each civilization happened but are each told from a different perspective. For example, the Orlanthi worship their god Orlanth who overthrew Yelm to become king of the gods. But the Riders, who you play in Six Ages, worship Yelm and see Orlanth as a hated Usurper.
Your tribe in Six Ages is an inversion of the Orlanthi you played in Dragon Pass. In Six Ages, you’ll play as the Yelm worshipping Riders, whose ancestors will eventually become the hated “Horse Spawn” in King of Dragon Pass. Your great enemy will be the “Rams” who worship Orlanth and are likely the ancestors of your tribe in KDoP.
The lore of Glorantha is so deep and interesting they produced a two-volume, 800-page manuscript laying it all out. It’s called the Guide to Glorantha, and before you ask, yes I read the entire thing.
More specifically to Six Ages, the game takes place during the beginning Storm Age. When the Gods War in the heavens, forcing your people to flee their homes. There are massive upheavals, the great movements of people, and the laws of the universe are at risk. It is a time of chaos where you’re just trying to survive.
Six Ages begins with you living out the history of your clan. You’ll choose what your people chose to do in the preceding time period, while also learning about the state of the world and how you came to be where you are.
This mechanic is an amazing carry over from KDoP that both gives players tons of information about the world while also giving them the agency to make this clan their own.
The things you choose won’t only impact the starting magic you know and some resources but will continually determine how you interact with the world. For example, did you take in the Goat Herders during your foundation myth? Well, that determines how the clan will feel about taking them in now.
The whole package fits together so well that it truly forces you to consider your options as a bronze-age chief might.
Most interactions in the game are done through a series of menus. This is where the strategy management part of the game lives. You’ll focus on herding cows, planting crops, raiding, exploring, and conducting diplomacy, to name only a few.
Unlike in King of Dragon Pass, where things were generally well set up for your arrival in a new land, in Six Ages you will have to work just to produce enough food to survive. The early years of the game are focused simply on getting enough crops for everyone. You will need to build houses, reap, and sow the fields before you can think about anything else.
There is a great event at the beginning of the game where your leaders discuss what your clan’s ambition should be. There’s an option which says that you should find a new city but if you choose it your people will lose morale. This is not a time to think about art and culture, your people simply need to survive, and fend off hostile neighbors.
To navigate this confusing world you’ll have your Clan Council to help guide you. During events, each can be asked to give their opinion on the matter. They will often give conflicting advice, disagree, or have no opinion at all. Learning which councilors to trust in different scenarios is a key part of learning about the world.
Councilors will have skills, family, and a preferred god they worship. You’ll need to balance having a wide range of skills and representing each family and god on the council. This means you’ll often have to make political decisions to appoint someone less competent in a skill you need to a position because they come from the right family.
The year cycle in Six Ages has a great flow to it. You generally won’t be stopped from doing anything during the different seasons but will be penalized for it.
Raiding, for example, is not done much in Sea or Earth season as that is when you will be planting crops. While magical rituals are generally best done during the winter season, where it’s more difficult to raid and explore.
At the beginning of each year during the Sacred Time, you’ll have to allocate your magic points for the year. You can focus them in any area you’d like from helping crops grow to make your warriors stronger.
You’ll want to save some of your magic for the rest of the year though, as it can be critical for succeeding in events or during battle.
Otherwise, your main interaction with the supernatural will be through the magic menu where you can sacrifice to the gods, build their shrines, and perform rituals.
Sacrificing can help you learn new blessings, new pieces of lore, or give a current blessing. Building a shrine will permanently apply a known blessing but it will cost resources to upkeep the shrine. Meaning you’ll have to think carefully about which blessings are important enough for a shrine.
Rituals, also known as Heroquests, are huge undertakings for your clan. These are points where one of your clansmen will attempt to enter the world of the gods and reenact some myth for a reward. These are incredibly high-risk high-reward missions that must be undertaken with great care and preparation.
You can answer exactly right to every event in the Ritual and still lose. This happens with other events too and is likely a large cause of people’s frustration with the game.
I think this misses the point though. This world is closely tied to its myths, and myths are mostly allegorical. They’re also often passed down orally and subject to change, in fact, a part of the game is finding out what pieces of lore other clans have and trying to get it.
Sometimes the myths aren’t going to work out, it’s not Dungeons & Dragons where every spell has an exact numerical value, magic is messy. You don’t fully understand it. It’s often dangerous and unpredictable.
In short, it’s exactly how magic should be.
Warfare is not the focus of the game like it is in many other strategy games. You’ll not be building large armies to conquer your neighbors. Instead, you’ll be conducting small scale raids for cattle and goods.
The game truly makes you feel how valuable these goods are. Far more valuable than taking your neighbors land. Reading for cattle may seem like a very mundane concern compared to conquering empires. But I’ve rarely felt there are as high stakes for a battle in a Total War game as a simple raid in Six Ages.
The game makes you feel the effects of war. If you lose a ton of troops in a battle, those are your people. Those troops you lost don’t come from the ether, those were your farmers and artisans, and now that they’re dead your people are going to starve.
Battles have seen a huge facelift from King of Dragon Pass. In the original, you’d simply choose your initial strategy, a sacrifice, and any magic you wanted to use.
In Six Ages, there’s a push and pull mechanic where you’re choosing your strategy at each point in the battle. Instead of just one click it now requires actual strategy.
The game doesn’t explain well what each tactic you choose will do. On the other hand, this is part of learning and being a military commander during the bronze-age. Perhaps that berserk attack is just what was needed to break the enemy, or maybe it got a bunch of people killed.
As important as warfare to your clan’s development is diplomacy. Surrounding your Rider clan will be others, and your cousin people, the Wheels, who ride chariots. The Wheels at least worship Yelm, like you, but those weird Rams across the river are trouble.
You’ll need to interact with all these different peoples throughout your time in Six Ages. You’ll forge alliances, build trading relationships, and fall into rivalries.
What’s different from KDoP is that there are now more modifiers affecting your relationships with others. You’ll now have Hatred, Fear, and Mockery all tracked about your clan.
This helps you better navigate your standing with the clans. Are you mocked? Go on a successful raid. Hated? Give gifts to other clans and do them favors.
Raiding has much more of an impact on diplomatic relations then it did in Dragon Pass. The Orlanthi in that game had a warlike culture, here other Riders don’t take kindly at all to your raids.
Perhaps the biggest change in Six Ages is the story. The Ride like the Wind scenario is much shorter than even the “short game” option of KDoP but it does have a more focused main narrative.
This narrative centers around a Romeo-and-Juliet style romance where one of your clansmen falls in love with a Ram tribeswoman. The narrative is good if a bit short, there’s not much else to say without spoiling it.
Though the game is fairly short the developers have made clear that this is one of three scenarios.
The next scenario “Lights Going Out” will take place during a different time, and likely feature a new map and all-new art. The last scenario will be “The World Reborn” but there’s little information on that at this point.
Six Ages is an extremely faithful successor to King Of Dragon Pass that condenses and clarifies the overall experience.
It also is a perfect prequel, building off many of the themes of the first game while expanding them and giving them a different perspective. This is what all prequels should do. Throughout King of Dragon Pass, I hated the Horse Spawn for their constant raids but in Six Ages, it was the Orlanthi who were the hated harassers, while the story humanized both sides.
Adding to this is the amazing art present in all events. The vivid watercolor style and unique clothing further brought to life this weird fantasy world.
Ultimately, any game set in Glorantha is a welcome addition, and this one will only get better as the new scenarios come out.
If you didn’t like the randomness of the gameplay I’d truly recommend giving it another try with the mindset of not looking to win or play the perfect game but to tell a great story.
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