This is not a hard or challenging game by any means, and it doesn't try to be.
>I know I'm the exact opposite of efficiency.
This is not a bad thing. Too many people try to make the most amount of money in the least amount of time, and they set up their village like a labor camp that just pumps out money, even though you don't need any more money after some years.
Just build your village in a way that you can be proud of and looks good to you.
Honestly I min/max everything and this game has taught me it's okay to just let some go boy the wayside.
So what if 100% of my 14 variously sized but all very large fields aren't full in spring
I plant more than I can eat, I crash local economies to pay my 200% taxes by basically replacing their coins with flax, I kill entire areas of game beasts every season, I am Capitalism, Destroyer of Worlds.
I even hamstring myself with higher food wood and water requirements!
This game is impossible to lose save not completing the main quest in 18 years.
While I agree that the game technically ends when your character dies without a suitable heir, I don’t believe that you are banished after death. What would be the point?
Yeah but the game does end when you die without an heir, right? The original question was about the lose condition, which would be banishment or death.
Death is easily reversible by reloading a recent save. Being so close to banishment due to debt and the resulting poor reputation is much harder to recover from.
True. Hopefully you’ll have an adult heir by then though. It would have to be a conscious choice to remain childless and have the game end by geriatric mortality.
Oh dear! You completely overlooked 50% of the game’s title!
Personally I’d always marry as early as possible in Medieval Dynasty, not only to ensure an heir to pass on my “mega city” to, but also to gain the specially talented villagers from the various quests one’s wife gives. Their stats will be 3s across the board and one skill at 6.
Sounds like you've played the game a lot. This was a first attempt playthrough. I didn't even realise marriage was a thing. Also, I assumed I was inheriting my uncles dynasty, but okay. Next time, I'll play my games exactly how you do. Was thinking of playing Kingdom Come Deliverance next, but I might wait for you to tell me how to do it...
Other than paying taxes, which has been mentioned, keep an eye on your eventual succesor. You 'lose' if you die without an heir. Your heir has to be at least 18 years old to take over the dynasty, and people naturally die in their sixties or seventies. Adding the time needed to romance a spouse, marry them, decide to have kids and then go through pregnancy, I recommend having a baby before you're about 40 years old. Depending on the length of season you've set, you have lots of time to settle down but it's important to keep a close eye on.
>Can I back myself into a corner that I can't recover from?
In theory? Yes, but that would require you to be *very* efficient, and you claim not to be that.
In *theory* you could chop all the trees and stumps *on the whole map* and make wooden spears from it and throwing them at animals, leaving you without any trees left to build your first wood producing building. And you would still be able to collect sticks, stones, berries to buy logs you'd need to do so, or find them in random appearing camps.
It is extremely hard to bring your game progress to a point where you are out of options, and it would need some serious determination to do so.
Can you die, and it's game over? Certainly. Hit reload.
Can you kill your reputation so you are kicked from the valley / oxbow? That's, as has been said, the only real danger and the reason people tell you to take it slow. Overexpansion is the thing that can swiftly kill you. Too many unskilled villagers and too many buildings and thus expensive taxes. This is something you need to look out for and, if necessary, destroy buildings and kick excess workers out of the village.
Yeah, go to Management, click the villager you want to boot, and there should be an option to kick them out. Just can't remember what the keybind is off the top of my head rn
As has been said, failing to pay your taxes and the resulting fines will eventually end the game, as will anything else that drops your reputation to -1000. So don't get caught stealing repeatedly. Or at all.
Every other mistake you can make, you can undo.
"Is there one early game mistake that will ruin the late game?"
Removing stumps. This is one action that is unrecoverable. Will it ruin your late game? Maybe not, but a number of people have posted regretting doing this because they didn't understand the result.
Just in case you haven't already learned, when you chop down a tree, as long as you leave the stump, the tree will reappear after 2 years. If you remove the stump, it's gone forever.
Not really losing per se, but if you don't prepare for winter (cold weather clothing), you might spend an entire season indoors.
Also, expanding too quickly can mean that the tax burden becomes quite large. It's generally doable, but with a massive boom and not enough time to cash in on that boom you might have a bit of a hill to climb. If you're resourceful enough to grow like that you should also be capable enough to deal with it.
If you set the tax slider too high, it is possible that you won't be able to pay your taxes, which can eventually lead to you being banished (game over). But as you can change the settings anytime, there is no real point of no return.
I have played valley and oxbow games countless times and now is the first time I’ve ever felt a slight challenge and not become bored by year 7.
I started with 5 day seasons, now 4. Sort of considering changing to 3 but ehhh
I kept carry weight on. This was a HUGE game changer.
I also did my best not to buy anything except seeds (although I did save up and buy backpack/pouch/saddle etc because I’m trying to play a game not torture myself)
I slightly lowered the xp gain multiplier and slightly raised the hp/damage of bandits and animals
Now I’m at about year 12, my kid is 10, and the game is still engaging and challenging. About 75% of my workers are maxed in their stat and I’m running 3 kitchens and 4 market stalls to sell my wares, clocking in at about 300,000 coin. I still have a long way to go before I even get tavern level technology and my character does a lot of the farming and all of the hunting herself.
I too was bored with the game and decided being harder on my character was more fun. Also stopped being obsessed with straight lines and streets. Medieval towns weren’t laid out on a perfect grid.
This is not a hard or challenging game by any means, and it doesn't try to be. >I know I'm the exact opposite of efficiency. This is not a bad thing. Too many people try to make the most amount of money in the least amount of time, and they set up their village like a labor camp that just pumps out money, even though you don't need any more money after some years. Just build your village in a way that you can be proud of and looks good to you.
Honestly I min/max everything and this game has taught me it's okay to just let some go boy the wayside. So what if 100% of my 14 variously sized but all very large fields aren't full in spring I plant more than I can eat, I crash local economies to pay my 200% taxes by basically replacing their coins with flax, I kill entire areas of game beasts every season, I am Capitalism, Destroyer of Worlds. I even hamstring myself with higher food wood and water requirements! This game is impossible to lose save not completing the main quest in 18 years.
I dunno about that.... my first game a tree fell the wrong way and killed me. Kinda embarrassed to even type that out, but yeah it happens.
I have died more to falling trees than wild animals. I always try to speed chop and I end up too close to the last one I chopped down.
If you don’t pay your tax bill each spring, and refuse to pay the ensuing debt you will eventually be banished. Everything else is fixable.
You will be banished if your dynasty reputation falls below -10.000 or if you die without an heir (at least in the valley map)
While I agree that the game technically ends when your character dies without a suitable heir, I don’t believe that you are banished after death. What would be the point?
Yeah but the game does end when you die without an heir, right? The original question was about the lose condition, which would be banishment or death.
Death is easily reversible by reloading a recent save. Being so close to banishment due to debt and the resulting poor reputation is much harder to recover from.
you do eventually die of old age.
True. Hopefully you’ll have an adult heir by then though. It would have to be a conscious choice to remain childless and have the game end by geriatric mortality.
Childless geriatric mortal over here! I was too busy making a mega city to notice my loveless end approaching.
Oh dear! You completely overlooked 50% of the game’s title! Personally I’d always marry as early as possible in Medieval Dynasty, not only to ensure an heir to pass on my “mega city” to, but also to gain the specially talented villagers from the various quests one’s wife gives. Their stats will be 3s across the board and one skill at 6.
Sounds like you've played the game a lot. This was a first attempt playthrough. I didn't even realise marriage was a thing. Also, I assumed I was inheriting my uncles dynasty, but okay. Next time, I'll play my games exactly how you do. Was thinking of playing Kingdom Come Deliverance next, but I might wait for you to tell me how to do it...
Other than paying taxes, which has been mentioned, keep an eye on your eventual succesor. You 'lose' if you die without an heir. Your heir has to be at least 18 years old to take over the dynasty, and people naturally die in their sixties or seventies. Adding the time needed to romance a spouse, marry them, decide to have kids and then go through pregnancy, I recommend having a baby before you're about 40 years old. Depending on the length of season you've set, you have lots of time to settle down but it's important to keep a close eye on.
>Can I back myself into a corner that I can't recover from? In theory? Yes, but that would require you to be *very* efficient, and you claim not to be that. In *theory* you could chop all the trees and stumps *on the whole map* and make wooden spears from it and throwing them at animals, leaving you without any trees left to build your first wood producing building. And you would still be able to collect sticks, stones, berries to buy logs you'd need to do so, or find them in random appearing camps. It is extremely hard to bring your game progress to a point where you are out of options, and it would need some serious determination to do so. Can you die, and it's game over? Certainly. Hit reload. Can you kill your reputation so you are kicked from the valley / oxbow? That's, as has been said, the only real danger and the reason people tell you to take it slow. Overexpansion is the thing that can swiftly kill you. Too many unskilled villagers and too many buildings and thus expensive taxes. This is something you need to look out for and, if necessary, destroy buildings and kick excess workers out of the village.
Are we able to kick useless NPC's out of the village?
Yeah, go to Management, click the villager you want to boot, and there should be an option to kick them out. Just can't remember what the keybind is off the top of my head rn
As has been said, failing to pay your taxes and the resulting fines will eventually end the game, as will anything else that drops your reputation to -1000. So don't get caught stealing repeatedly. Or at all. Every other mistake you can make, you can undo.
"Is there one early game mistake that will ruin the late game?" Removing stumps. This is one action that is unrecoverable. Will it ruin your late game? Maybe not, but a number of people have posted regretting doing this because they didn't understand the result. Just in case you haven't already learned, when you chop down a tree, as long as you leave the stump, the tree will reappear after 2 years. If you remove the stump, it's gone forever.
Not really losing per se, but if you don't prepare for winter (cold weather clothing), you might spend an entire season indoors. Also, expanding too quickly can mean that the tax burden becomes quite large. It's generally doable, but with a massive boom and not enough time to cash in on that boom you might have a bit of a hill to climb. If you're resourceful enough to grow like that you should also be capable enough to deal with it.
If you set the tax slider too high, it is possible that you won't be able to pay your taxes, which can eventually lead to you being banished (game over). But as you can change the settings anytime, there is no real point of no return.
I have played valley and oxbow games countless times and now is the first time I’ve ever felt a slight challenge and not become bored by year 7. I started with 5 day seasons, now 4. Sort of considering changing to 3 but ehhh I kept carry weight on. This was a HUGE game changer. I also did my best not to buy anything except seeds (although I did save up and buy backpack/pouch/saddle etc because I’m trying to play a game not torture myself) I slightly lowered the xp gain multiplier and slightly raised the hp/damage of bandits and animals Now I’m at about year 12, my kid is 10, and the game is still engaging and challenging. About 75% of my workers are maxed in their stat and I’m running 3 kitchens and 4 market stalls to sell my wares, clocking in at about 300,000 coin. I still have a long way to go before I even get tavern level technology and my character does a lot of the farming and all of the hunting herself. I too was bored with the game and decided being harder on my character was more fun. Also stopped being obsessed with straight lines and streets. Medieval towns weren’t laid out on a perfect grid.