River Oath: a strategy guide for new players

This guide is for your first few campaigns. It assumes you know how to give a task (choose a place, press Enter, pick the task and who does it); if not, start with How to play. All the numbers here are the game's own.

1. Feed the band first. Keep at least three months of rice in hand.
2. Hold more places. Every place you hold gives you one more task a month.
3. Do good upstream. Tales flow downstream every month, so a kindness done high on the river reaches the most towns.
4. Mend a dike or two every year. Dikes fall about 15 points a year; the ending depends on them.
5. Never send your leader to steal. A leader caught is the end of the band.
6. Pick one way to win early, and point everything at it.

The opening months decide how fast you grow. A good order of things:

1. Month 1. Look at your band (C) and your place (P). Note who has which talents: an Engineer for dikes, a Gossip for tales, a Forger or anyone with Craft 5 or more for evidence, a Speaker for recruiting, a Drillmaster for training.
2. Rice. Upkeep is 1 rice for every 10 men (or part of 10) and 1 for each person; the band panel shows it as Upkeep a month. Gathering gives Might x 4 rice, half that in winter, and half as much again at fishing places in spring and summer, so a strong gatherer at a fishing place in spring is your best food source. The harvest (your places' rice) comes at the end of month 9 and silver at the end of month 12, so the first winter and spring are the hungry time.
3. Men. Raise men where you hold the place (or have goodwill 40): up to Heart x 3 men a task, 1 silver each, and no more than Might x 10 in one crew. Then Train: drill rises by Might + Heart (double for a Drillmaster) and every 20 points of drill counts like a point of Might in battle.
4. Boats. Every traveller on the river needs a boat. Build a boat (Craft 4, 10 silver) early; a band without boats is stuck on the roads.
5. People. Wanderers wait in many places. Recruit costs 5 silver whether or not it works; the chance is 20 + 5 x Heart + a quarter of the goodwill there (+10 for a Speaker), so send your best Heart and recruit where people already like you. Scout shows who is in the places next door.
6. Places. At the month's end you take any empty place where only your band has people, there is no garrison, and goodwill toward you is 30 or more. A raid on a place nobody defends takes it at once. Each new place is a new task every month, more yield at harvest, and somewhere to raise men.

Goodwill (0 to 100) is a place's base opinion plus 5 for each point of strength of your good tales told there, minus 5 for each point of bad ones. You need it to take places (30), raise men away from home (40), expose an official (60) and petition the court (50 in 8 places).

• Help the town raises the base by 1 for each 10 rice or silver (10 at most) and starts a tale of kindness with strength 1 + amount / 30, up to 3. 60 is the sweet spot: goodwill +6 and a strength-3 tale. Where people are hungry (spring, near Grain Hill) help counts double and the tale is one stronger.
• Repairing a dike also starts a strength-2 kindness tale, so it is never wasted.
• Tales travel: one link downstream every month, and upstream or by road only every second month. They lose 1 strength every 3 links and every 6 months. So a deed at Cloudgate Gorge or Willow Spring is heard all the way down the river; a deed at the Tide Gate stays at the Tide Gate.
• Bad tales: putting a prisoner to death and breaking a pact make tales of cruelty. The Intendant sends slander against whichever band people like best, and the Tolls Supervisor quietly silences good tales near her gate. A Gossip can answer with tales of your own, or silence a bad one.
• The Tales view (V) colours every place by its goodwill toward you: red under 30, gold to 59, green 60 and up.

Each dike loses 1 a month and 2 in summer, about 15 a year (more on Hard). In the Great Flood (month 7 of year 20) every dike below 50 breaks; in any summer storm a dike below 20 may break. A broken dike floods its place and the next one downstream: goodwill there falls, the holding band loses rice, and men drown.

• A repair adds rice / 5 + Might, doubled for an Engineer. Wen Shuyi (Might 5, Engineer) with 50 rice adds 30.
• One good repair per dike per year keeps it level. Six dikes, so plan about one repair every two months.
• Your ending depends on the dikes: win with the average at 60 or more and it is The River Kept; otherwise A Hollow Pardon. The Dikes view (V twice) shows them all.

Evidence. Steal evidence at an official's seat. The chance is 10 x Craft - 20 - garrison / 10, plus 20 for a Forger: Shen Wuyan (Craft 8, Forger) at Salt Weir's garrison of 50 has 75%. A failure hurts the thief, and one time in three the thief is caught and taken to Jade Lock. That is why your leader must never do it.

Bringing officials down.

• Expose an official by reading out evidence against them where goodwill is 60 or more. They flee the river, their garrison breaks up and their seat is left empty for the taking. This is the cheapest way.
• Sway turns an official: 5 x Heart - 10 + silver / 5, plus 30 with evidence against them and 10 for a Speaker (the Intendant is 20 harder). A turned official stops acting and hands you evidence against a colleague.
• Capture one by winning a battle at their seat.

Which official first? Luo Tie at Iron Ford. Every three months (two on Hard) he marches with all but 30 of his garrison on a band's place within two links of Iron Ford, if he outnumbers its defenders by 1.3 to 1. Exposing or turning him ends the marches for everyone. Until then, keep places near Iron Ford well manned, or keep away.

A raid is worth it when you clearly outnumber the defenders. The defender in a fort counts 1.6 times as strong, behind a dike wall 1.4, in a village 1.3 and in reeds 1.2; a unit in the water or on mud is weaker.

• Your commander is the battle. If the commander flees, drifts away, is carried off or is taken, the battle is lost. Keep them behind the line.
• Archers shoot two or three hexes with no return blow (not at night). Ambush from hiding in the reeds hits half as hard again with no return blow: halt a unit in the reeds (H) and wait for the enemy to come next to it. Charge (after moving, with half the movement left) hits half as hard again but takes a return blow.
• Take the fort: an attacking unit standing on it at two phase-ends running wins the battle.
• Rice: each side eats about 1 rice a day per 50 men; a side with none at the day's end loses. Raid with rice in store.
• Boats drift one hex downstream at the end of each night unless a Boatman leads them, and drifting off the field takes them out of the battle. Land them before night, or burn the enemy's boats (Craft 4, not in rain).
• Bribes buy off an enemy crew (never its commander) for carried silver; a big crew costs more.
• When it is not going well, A lets the computer finish the battle.

• Loyalty falls by 1 every month the band runs out of rice and rises by 1 for winning a battle and for each year without hunger. Below 3, people may leave at the month's end and take their men with them.
• Ties: each friend of a person at the same place adds 5 to that person's task chances; each grudge takes 5 off. Two people with a grudge of -3 at the same place will not stay together: one leaves. The character sheet shows ties.
• Wounds heal one step every second month, every month with a Healer of the band at the place, or by a Rest. Hurt people can still do light tasks (travel, trade, recruit, help, scout and the like).
• Prisoners: recruit them if the chance is good (it falls with their loyalty to their old band), ransom them for silver, or release them for a kind tale. Putting them to death makes a cruel tale.

• Spring: the marsh flood channels open (Reed Marsh to South Levee and Heron Bend); the fords close. Fishing is good. Towns near Grain Hill may go hungry: help there counts double.
• Summer: storms can close the river at a place for a month, and break weak dikes. Dikes fall twice as fast.
• Autumn: the fords open (Iron Ford to Black Reed Source, Lower Weir to Black Reed Dike); the upper streams are too low for boats going up. The harvest comes in month 9.
• Winter: the upper river freezes and can be walked without boats; gathering gives half. Silver comes in month 12.

• Hot seat: every band has the same rules; the others should look away at the hand-over screen. Pacts (no attacks for 12 months) let neighbours grow in peace, but breaking one makes a cruel tale.
• Online: give your tasks early in the month. One battle at a time is fought per game, so if another player acts while your raid is unfinished the computer finishes it. End your turn (E) when you are done, so the month can move on before the deadline.

• Running out of rice in the first winter: men leave and loyalty falls.
• Sending the leader to steal, or into a raid that can be lost.
• Forgetting the dikes until year 18.
• Doing kindness at the river mouth, where the tale goes nowhere.
• Leaving places near Iron Ford thinly held while Luo Tie is in office.
• Raiding without boats along a river, or without rice for the days of the battle.

See also: How to play, Multi-player games.