Some silly stuff I ran into on my first play through Gathering Storm

[Gregory Wollf]

I ran into some silly quirks on my first play through of Gathering Storm. I thought someone here might find them amusing.

So I'm playing as Norway and 15 turns in the Maori sail up to my capital city. We say hi to each other, Kupe seems like a friendly guy, but I wasn't terribly thrilled at the prospect of having them settle right next to me. They shove off but a few turns later Kupe is all angry and denounces me for harming the environment.

I was confused. It's the stone age. I have to wonder what 'harming the environment' in the context of 3000 BC looks like. The Vikings haven't mined anything, farmed anything, or even built anything except scouts. We are literally just existing on the shoreline and Kupe denounces us just for that. There wasn't even a river for them to pee in. We are VERY low emissions here. I guess they didn't appreciate the cooking fire or the thatch roofed huts.

A few turns later I have a Viking Longboat (because you HAVE to raid when playing the Vikings) and I find Kupe's capital not too far down the shoreline. So I declare war and start raiding him. He is obviously unimpressed and I see that he has grievance against me. The grievance system is new to me, I didn't really understand how it works. I was still under the impression that aggression in the Ancient Era didn't count for anything. It would appear that this is no longer the case...

I keep beating on Kupe and exploring the globe with my ocean fairing vessels and come across some truly exotic civilizations on another content (Spain + The United States of America). Both of these far eastern empires somehow heard I was cause Kupe grievances and immediately began denouncing me and demanding that I pay them money.

So I'm wondering how empires across the globe new I was a war monger if they had never met me or Kupe before. Then it dawned on me, carrier pigeons. It was still too early for 'message in a bottle' so Kupe must have trained carrier pigeons to deliver messages all over the world and then scattered SOS messages depicting Harold Hardrada with horns, a Hitler stach, carrying loot into their longships and tossing empty water bottles into the ocean with the entirety of the world's rain-forest set ablaze behind them. Sneaky Kupe, so clever.

But seriously, these are some wonky mechanics that could use some tweaking. Hope you enjoyed the read.

 

[Victoria]

Kupe is all angry and denounces me for harming the environment.

This is a Kupe bug hopefully fixed in the next patch. A small thing.

I was still under the impression that aggression in the Ancient Era didn't count for anything.

grievances do and yes, your sailors have loose lips. The issue to me is the diplomatic feeling degrades too slowly while grievances disappear fast.

So formal war regardless of age = 100 grievances, surprise war = 150. While still at war those grievances do not degrade but once you make peace they degrade at 10-era grievance points per turn while the diplomatic feeling is 1/10th the grievance value but degrades much more slowly. Is really does damage Harald natural ability but the idea is raid the shores then declare peace once there is nothing left.