Ludeon Forums

Pretty self-explanatory. What storyteller do you prefer most and why?

I haven't played the game that much but for me, as a Dwarf Fortress-grown player, Randy all the way! Last time I got a buffalo herd mass-charge followed by two simultaneous raider attacks (each worth about 10-15 men). After a glorious battle I ended up with demolished base and three badly hurt survivors (out of ten initial population). And mysterious blight. Fun enough for me :-D.

Right now I'm testing stuff with Callie.

(If similar topic was already there I apologize - haven't found anything in Search.)

Cleo.
After more than 1.000 games during testing i do need a challenge d-;

Randy Random for me for the most part.  I enjoy the unscripted chaos and the lack of a population cap.  Though I will probably need to downshift to chill callie to figure things out again. 

It's interesting that Randy is obviously a favorite despite taking much less design effort.

Perhaps this indicates an expert bias on these forums.

i think randy is popular because it has no population cap, also it isn't plotting against you or taking it easy on you, it is just random, and because of that it seems more fair and middle level dificulty

Actually, for me, no cap on Randy is a con. But then there is a big pro of it not scaling linearly in such a obvious way. Games on Randy feel better, more alive and unpredictable - when on other storytellers, you start to see patterns after a while.

Quote from: Galileus on January 28, 2014, 04:18:27 PM
Actually, for me, no cap on Randy is a con. But then there is a big pro of it not scaling linearly in such a obvious way. Games on Randy feel better, more alive and unpredictable - when on other storytellers, you start to see patterns after a while.

Randy random is the best in my opinion.
Due to his randomness.


And yea gal is right..you notice patterns with all of them except randy.Like the infamous day 40 on chill callie (30-40)

I like cassandra classic as-well. She is my second favorite, the increasing difficulty just feels great to me.

Well, I'm certainly no expert myself. Each time I fired up Randy I failed miserably :-). I haven't played enough of the others so I can't really say anything about them. I think I'll give Cassandra a go and see for myself how does that feel like.

No pop cap is not the reason for Randy to me. I like the unpredictability and occasional (well... more than occasional :-) ) chaotic mess. You need to be wary all the time. And so far it was far from being "fair" or "middle difficulty". It was actually really challenging. Again I don't know how does it compare to the others but I wouldn't call it "mediocre" :-).

Randy is definitely my favourite, the complete randomness makes for some great stories and general hilarity.

Though when I want a more 'structured' game (sometimes I do!) or when I just want to try the new features or test things, I go with Cassandra Classic as it's the most balanced for my skill level. Phoebe and Chill Callie move too slowly for me I think but I do see why they exist :D

Yes, No pop cap is without doubt a significant factor to make Randy my favorite. But the most important factor is, like other had said, a complete randomness.

Sometime the game is super easy. I swam in metal from all the drops. Sometime AI just want me to start new game and throw three consecutive raids at me. It make for DFish hilarious story. It also increase replayability.

But then again, many of us come to this game from Dwarf Fortress so we have this mindset. Other scripted story tellers are fine and non DFish players should appreciate them. It lack variety and fall into pattern but I think that is more to do with the lack of content than the story teller itself.

i prefer Phoebe Friendly, because i lose every time raiders count is over 20 (or double times colonists and above).

i just like to build up my base and settle. i also like the fighting part, but as long as raiders are such op i don't get it. as i experienced yet, there are the same events like the other storytellers send, but less hard to take - only the popcap pleases me not.

Quote from: Cdr.Keen on January 29, 2014, 03:24:08 PM
i prefer Phoebe Friendly, because i lose every time raiders count is over 20 (or double times colonists and above).

i just like to build up my base and settle. i also like the fighting part, but as long as raiders are such op i don't get it. as i experienced yet, there are the same events like the other storytellers send, but less hard to take - only the popcap pleases me not.

I never actually fired up phoebe (this is the only storyteller I haven't played with), i stick with cassandra (though i might switch to cleo) and I also love playing on randy random.


It seems we have a few seperate groups here:

People who love randomness ( aka people who probably also like dwarf fortress :) ) (approximately 70% of those who took the poll)
People who like building more then anything. (10-13%) of the people
Then we have the "Others". (the rest%)


to the person I am quoting:
Trust me if you know how to defend your base raiders become completely ridiculously monstrously easy to deal with. Especially with mines.. I actually think they are under-powered.

Randy. You get the high population you would with Phoebe, but unlike the other storytellers, he can throw a challenge your way when you least expect it. One time I went a good 20 days or so with no pirate attacks, then suddenly was attacked by three groups of 10-15 raiders in a row, one landing while the other was attacking. They killed only one of my colonists, and I captured three of them, the worst being at 3 HP left whom I had to make a temporary sleeping spot for in my hydroponics farm to save.

You think a muffalo herd sounds bad? Wait until Randy sends a wave of nine boomrats at you out of the blue, and your colonists are panicking while your buildings burn down.

The classic storytellers become too predictable after you've played under them for so long. Only Randy seems to keep things fresh and truly thrilling for me.

I've had to go from Tough Cassandra Classic in pre Alpha to normal Cass Classic.

And I am getting my ass handed to me. So I cant go to Cleo to play the games I was playing.

And I only played Phoebe once and found it was a bit too easy.

So far I've just been playing Cassandra as I learn the game. Probably will switch over to Randy soon, both for the randomness and the popcap removal.

Cassandra's escalating difficulty is fun, but with the existing tech/development curve being as short as it is in alpha, you pretty quickly reach the point where you're basically just waiting for the next, bigger raid, and the pattern becomes quite predictable.

As the tech tree deepens, and the roster of possible attackers, events, and hazards increases, I think the storytellers OTHER than Randy will actually grow in popularity somewhat, as they become less easily predictable. Right now I think you kind of need some total crazy to make up for the limited palette.

I like Phoebe I just want to see my colony grow and when it gets to boring I switch from storyteller.

I just tried the 'challenging' classic (Cleopatra?) - I got off to an excellent start, with a very efficient colony layout, and all of my starting colonists and early recruits having excellent gun skills.

Didn't matter. Still got wiped out by giant waves by about day 15 or so, as the only weapons available were pistols and the starting enfield. I should have jammed research for blasting charges and immediately built an outer compound wall with trapped kill boxes.

Classical fortifications - I use a wall/bag/bag/wall/bag/bag/wall structure as my firing line, so that my soldiers have the benefits of both wall and sandbag cover - just don't serve when the attack waves are 3-1 and come every couple days. Casualties mount far too quickly to be recovered.

Even the turrets, which are reasonably effective in the early game, didn't make any real difference.

I like Randy for mostly the same reasons that were already mentioned. After playing the others long enough they become predictable, and Randy shakes things up once in a while. Also, I don't like the hard population caps of most of the other storytellers, especially since they're so low. In part because I just think the game is more interesting with more than 10 colonists, and also because it just kills immersion for me. "Oh look, I have 10 colonists. That means I will never capture another, and no slave traders will ever show up, unless someone dies." It's too rigid, and I don't like that - I would much prefer diminishing returns that never quite reach 0.

Phoebe for those times that I want a more relaxed game and then classic Cassandra if I want to go beyond a relaxed game.

I doubt that I'll ever desire to play on anything more difficult, but then again I said the same thing about never likely having the desire to play on anything more difficult than Prince level in the Civilization series and found eventually I needed to.