I hope you’re ready for some hexagonal turn-based combat and tense procedurally generated exploration, because the Kickstarter campaign for The Iron Oath has successfully concluded, and the game is expected to be released in Q1 2019. The campaign managed to raise a total of $94,524, more than doubling the initial $45,000 goal. As a result, quite a few stretch goals were funded as well, allowing us to manage our guilds, acquire our own vessels, greatly customize our characters, and so on. You can read more about the stretch goals in the 20th campaign update.
Choices & Reputation
Alright, let’s begin! The choices you make doing the course of gameplay can have various implications for the management of your guild. As mentioned before, making a choice that goes against a character’s alignment can decrease their loyalty and eventually cause them to question you or even leave the guild. But your choices also affect your guild’s Reputation.
While traveling throughout the world there will be numerous encounters where you will need to make a choice, the result of which can affect how the rest of the world sees your guild. Perhaps you helped some citizens fend off some bandits or wild animals? Such a deed would have a positive impact on your reputation within that area. However, come across an unprotected trade cart and choose to rob them blind? An action like that would not go over well with the faction of which the cart belongs.
If you continually assist a faction and make choices that benefit them, your reputation with them will increase. This can be very beneficial to your guild(such as reduced prices within their cities) and it will open up a variety of mission possibilities(like aiding them in wars through smaller tasks) once you’ve gained their trust. However the choices that please and benefit some, may anger and harm others. If your reputation with a faction falls too low, opportunities for missions from them will become few and far between, and even traveling within their borders may eventually prove risky.
Traveling & Missions
Traveling takes time, and time is money. Since your characters expect payment every month, it’s important to carefully consider your travel route and choose the right missions to accept and complete.
At the beginning of the game, everyone in your guild will travel in one caravan, with the exception of those who are injured and stashed away at a city infirmary. There is a little less planning to be done in this fashion but it’s still an important consideration. However, once you’ve gotten a grasp on things and have enough coin, you be able to purchase a guild perk that will enable you to send out multiple parties from your caravan to complete your missions. The caravan has a radius that your parties will need to stay within(further upgraded with perks), so you won’t be able to send them halfway across the world.
There can be some downsides(or risks) to doing this however. A party you send may arrive at their destination without incident(allowing you to begin the mission), but it’s also possible for an encounter to trigger on the way. Perhaps you are within the borders of an enemy faction and your party is set upon by their soldiers. Combat ensues and concludes, but not without injury, and now you will need to decide whether or not to send them back to the caravan or continue on towards the mission.
With the $65k stretch goal, the sea will now be another way to travel. Each major coastal city will have a port where you can secure passage for a cost and avoid otherwise long travel times. Not all ships will be equal. Some may be cheaper, but take a little longer to arrive, so you’ll have to decide what is right for you in the moment.
Thanks to the $70k stretch goal, with enough coin you will be able to purchase your own vessel. The ship behaves as a separate unit from your caravan, and you can order it around the map anywhere you wish. Its crew can complete various tasks for you while your guild is away, like ferrying passengers between cities, or smuggling supplies across trade routes. You can choose your captain, a crew(all with their own expertise rating) and spend money on upgrading your ship to increase its seaworthiness. And if you so desire, you can take it out to sea and stalk trading lanes, boarding and fighting on the decks of other ships and earning notoriety as pirates.
Guild Council
We’re thrilled to be including the Guild Council in the game as it was one of our favorite stretch goals. A lot of this info is stuff we already mentioned in previous updates, but there’s a bit we haven’t shared yet.
Guild Council members can be recruited from all over the world, but not all will be equal in ability. Each member will offer you advice and has a number of tasks that they can perform for the guild.
The Master at Arms is in charge of your warrior classes, and he or she is able to train them in the art of war and other aspects of combat. You can assign each of your characters to study a subject under them by selecting one of the existing categories available. Each category has a number of traits attached to it, and over time as the student learns, they will acquire some of these associated traits. The ability rating of your Master at Arms will play a part in how effective, and how fast they are able to teach students. In addition, you can also send your Master at Arms on journeys to various destinations to find promising new recruits. The Archmage functions in the same fashion as the former, but is instead charged with your mages.
The Emissary is your guilds chosen representative for improving your reputation with other factions. When assigned, they will slowly increase your reputation over time with the targeted faction. In addition, they will bring a variety of missions to your attention that the target requires assistance with, allowing you to further increase your reputation and get rewarded in the process. If you wish to improve relations with an enemy faction, it may be best to start by sending your Emissary, but this is not without risks(will continue on this below..).
The Master of Intrigue is your main advisor and functions as your eyes and ears throughout the world. They will bring important matters to your attention that you may otherwise never hear about(such as a plot to kill a liege) in addition to any unsubstantiated rumors that may be worth looking into. They also have the ability to disrupt relations between factions of your choosing, potentially providing the spark that leads to an all out war.
For most tasks there will be some sort of risk involved for your Council members. For example, by sending your Master at Arms to recruit warriors in a region that is hostile(either because they dislike you or because it is at war), there is a small chance he may be killed. Your Adviser has a chance to get killed while trying to uncover plots or disrupt relations between factions. Your Emissary could fail at improving relations, and instead their head gets returned to you courtesy of the faction of which they were assigned. As mentioned, positive outcomes can result in mission opportunities, but negative outcomes can too. If any of your council members are killed during a task, this has a chance to trigger a retaliatory(if you know who was responsible) or an investigative quest that you can choose to undertake.
As a bonus, and a sort of reward for managing to keep a character alive until their retirement, you will be able to offer them a position on your Council. Perhaps they had a very high Charisma rating, and you feel they would make a good Emissary? Or their martial prowess was unparalleled and they would make an excellent master at arms? Whatever the case, if their Loyalty to the guild is high enough, they will most likely accept the position.
There’s a bit more I could have covered as I wrote this up last night, but I had been running on fumes and required some much needed sleep! There are still some more content updates we want to share with you too such as ‘Overworld Encounters, Events & Simulation’ and ‘World Lore, Regions, Houses & Factions.’ The former is already mostly written up and we’ll likely get it out sometime this weekend!
A big thanks again to all of our backers and supporters. This campaign has already surpassed our best expectations and we’re so thrilled to have so many of you along for the ride; your enthusiasm for the game has been nothing short of amazing. Thank you!
