King of Dragon Pass

classic

an interactive historical fantasy book reminiscent of mesopotamia

Great game that I shamefully missed out on when I was younger and am very glad I got to play it. Expect to wander through menus and meet economic ruin many times until you stop being an impatient gamer in the year 2023 and start reading through the lore and determining what it means to be an Orlanthi. Soon, you'll be riding alongside Gods against your ancient foes, swatting aside the attacks of enemies that once laid you low without losing a single soldier, and establishing absolute rule over a once-disparate smattering of clans, many of which probably enacted blood feuds against you for decades and now supplicate themselves in awe of your godliness.
My only complaint about the game is that in the long game (the real game, the short game is essentially a demo) the pacing can feel a bit weird. There's almost always something to do with your time, but towards the end of the game I found myself skipping turns since I was such an almighty powerhouse that very little required my attention. I had to split my clan twice by the time I finally finished the game with my 74 year old king, who I'm assuming can no longer die of old age once the endgame starts because every other member of my original ring had long since passed away. The pacing only really feels bad because the game is so obtuse with its demands of you - for example, I failed to perform one of the first tasks required of the endgame three times before finally succeeding, and I had no idea that it was a requirement of finishing the game.
There is also something to be said for the game's reliance on hidden RNG. You can do a lot to tip the scales in your favor, but ultimately whether you succeed or fail seems to be a little too random at times. There is no better example of this than in Heroquests, where sometimes knowing all the secrets, devoting as much magic as you can, and choosing a more than suitable Hero will result in a miserable failure the first time you attempt it only to succeed easily the next 9 times you try it (since you can quit the game before ending a heroquest without it saving your progress, I did this as an experiment and was flabbergasted). Sometimes you'll have vast numerical superiority during a raid, invest 5 points of magic in it, benefit from several boons from treasures, heroquesting, and many blessings, utilize superior maneuvers, go on to succeed at the heroic event that occurs within the raid, and then see "unfortunately, it was not enough" and half your forces are wiped out and you suddenly have to pay a ransom of 500 goods when you outnumbered your enemy 3 to 1. The game is just weird like that, and it puzzled me when I was reading reviews of Six Ages that whined that there wasn't RNG in KoDP. That aside, if you like simulation games and games with a deep, rich lore that will challenge your modern perspective, this one is fantastic. You can restore from the previous year if you feel like you really got ripped off by the RNG, but I would say the game is more fun if you limit doing so. Comebacks are often more satisfying than steamrolls.

One of the best ever
KoDP is a highly unique game set in a well-established Bronze Age fantasy setting, Glorantha / RuneQuest. First published in 1999, KoDP remains unique to this day, spectacularly combining TBS, RPG, choose-your-own-adventure and grand strategy. You play a clan of totally-not-vikings trying to make it in a fantasy world that manages to be both epic and realistic.
The vibe is Norse / Greek mythology meets tribal / agricultural society meets Civilization meets Crusader Kings meets tabletop meets Homer meets system design. It's fun to be in, fun to play in, and fun to watch.
The gameplay is turn-based strategy / colony / management / roguelike, with plenty of randomness, resource management, and meta-knowledge.
Overall, you have one of the tightest gaming experiences ever designed. When games are taught in universities a century from now, KoDP will be next to Civ and XCom in the TBS 101 course. It will also make it to the world-design and systems-design courses.
KoDP is an easy and hard 10/10. It has a fantastic iOS version, and two wonderful spiritual successors, Six Ages 1 & 2.

Just discovered this gem in 2023, never played it before. It's amazing how addictive it is, even though the concept seems extremely simple. The number of events and sub-plots is huge, even after 40 hours of game you discover something new. Long game is much more interesting, with some additional story and challenges, but i think one should start with a short one to get the flavor..

This game gave me deep racial prejudices toward Donald Duck, 10/10

I tried roleplaying as the Ironborn Greyjoys from A Song of Ice and Fire. We do not Sow, we do not farm, we do not bow and we do not honor foolish gods only the Drown God. We raid, we plunder, we kill, we defile, the iron price is our only curency.
Turns out you can't roleplay as a badass clan of bloodthirsty vikings that glorify violence and death mainly because the only clan we raided and kept killing aggresively for 10 years would keep getting repopulated, I killed up to 3,000 of their weaponthanes and footsoldiers over the years and they would keep getting restored. A couple of bad fights and my entire population was starving while that only clan we kept raiding non-stop was doing fine like nothing was being done to them.
Still a good game but i can't commit genocide.