Six Ages: Ride Like the Wind Combat Cheats

So, when you choose your Clan Circle, make sure that your best warrior is on it.

For example, in the clan at left, Kimka is far and away the best warrior, so she gets to be on the circle.

Sorting by combat is the easiest way to find a potential warleader. Some nobles also offer a campaign pitch such as “The best warrior belongs on the circle. I am the finest warrior this clan has.”

You do not get to assign the warleader role directly. Normally it’s taken automatically by the best fighter on the circle (Kimka in this case), but I have occasionally had an Elmal worshipper usurp a better-skilled worshipper of a different god. If this happens, take the troublemaker off of the circle. (Or, I suppose, boost them with rituals until they actually are as good as they think they are.)

If you don’t have a great warrior (or if all of your great warriors are old—in Six Ages a sixty-year-old can still fight like a hero, but is vulnerable to dying of old age), you need to train someone up. Look at your noble pool, and try to find a youngster who’s fairly good at combat (Excellent, though Very Good might do in a pinch) and worships Elmal or Osara. For example, if Kimka in the example clan above dies, I could train up her cousin Balindrai to be her successor.

Send them on the Elmal Path Guardian ritual, then pick the option to strengthen them–this will boost their Leadership and Combat. For the best chance of success, put magic in War and Ritual at Sacred Time, get everyone you can to help, and sacrifice generously. Note that women can only do this ritual if they worship Osara.

Gamari Horse Mother can be used to boost the Combat and Leadership skills of female nobles (though unfortunately it seems to be one of the tougher ones to get through), and Dostal Elk Hunter can be used to boost male ones in Combat (unfortunately, it does nothing for Leadership). Although these rituals aren’t quite as good for the purpose as Elmal Path Guardian, they can be useful as a supplement or emergency substitute.

For how to get through those rituals, see the following links:

Elmal Path Guardian[sixages.fandom.com] (available to men, and to women who worship Osara; worshippers of Elmal and Osara get a boost)
Gamari Horse Mother[sixages.fandom.com] (available to women; worshippers of Gamari get a boost)
Dostal Elk Hunter[sixages.fandom.com] (available to men; worshippers of Dostal get a boost)

You can start knowing the details of “Elmal Guards the Sunpath” (the myth that Elmal Path Guardian reenacts) if, during clan creation, your ancestors were the best fighters when the First Clan split. Otherwise, you’ll need to sacrifice to Elmal to learn it. Since Elmal has four blessings and two myths, this may take a while.

You do not always get a good warleader prospect early in the game. You will definitely get one eventually.

Swords are professional warriors, who do not do any other work. They enjoy high status, since they risk their lives in defense of the clan–and often lose them. When your circle members say you need more warriors, they’re talking about Swords.

One Sword fights as well as five Bows—or ten, if you have Elmal’s Flaming Lance blessing. So promoting Bows to Swords can boost your effective numbers significantly.

Since Swords do die fairly often (especially if you’re struggling in battle), you’ll need to recruit more from time to time. Recruitment costs three or four cows’ worth of goods per Sword (depending on whether you offer extra gifts to sweeten the deal).

Keep in mind that sick, wounded, or absent Swords cannot fight for you. If you have twenty Swords but half of them are incapacitated or away from the clan, you should probably recruit some more.

Bows are clan members who can fight, but spend most of their time doing other things, such as farming. (This is why you shouldn’t raid in Sea or Earth: your Bows are busy farming, and taking them away from that work will impact your food supply.)

Hyaloring men are expected to fight as long as they’re physically capable of doing so; women aren’t required to fight, but many choose to. So many, but not all, of the adult members of your clan will be Bows.

Not all Bows are equally dedicated. The ones who respond quickly to emergencies and are on hand to defend missions are called the short-call. The short-call will start small, but grow as you build more shrines granting war blessings.

It’s tempting to take absolutely all of your fighters along when you raid someone. However, there are a couple of reasons why this isn’t a great idea.

First, if you take all of your Bows away on a raid, your neighbors just might take advantage and raid your herds while you’re gone! There’s no point shedding blood to steal cows if you’re just going to come home to find that an equal number of cows have been stolen from you.

Second, smaller armies are better at sneaking past defenses. If you send everyone, you’re likelier to end up facing your foe’s entire army; if you manage to sneak up on them, you’ll be facing fewer warriors.

Personally, I tend to take all of my Swords—might as well take advantage of their strength of five-or-ten—and about half of my Bows. Thirty Bows left at home to guard the herds is usually too few, in my experience.

And if you’re planning a herd raid, less is more. If you send a very small number of warriors on a herd raid—say, only nine Swords—you have much better odds of sneaking past the other clan’s patrols and bringing home cows without fighting for them. (Of course, if your warriors are seen, you should probably just run away if you sent such a small force! This is what evasion is for.)

After the first two years (one year in Harsh) you should generally be putting as much magic as you can into War at Sacred Time.

By default you can put one point of magic into War. If you have a worshipper of Elmal or Osara on the circle it’s two, and if you have both, you can devote three points of magic to helping your warriors.

War magic will help you in battle throughout the year, and allows you to work rituals before battle (more on that later). It also helps you if you need to contact Elmal or Osara in an emergency.

I strongly recommend investing as much magic as you can in War, unless you desperately need that magic elsewhere.

Occasionally, you will be unable to put magic into War. This lasts only a year; you can weather it. Minimize raids for this one year, and consider putting magic into Diplomacy, as you may want to parley if you’re raided.

You can also receive omens telling you not to raid in the coming year. In these circumstances, you should heed the omens, but you may want to put magic into War anyway, in order to defend against potential attacks.

Finally, if the gods want you to raid, do so. Failing to obey their demands can damage your war magic (or occasionally, your farming magic instead) for years.

The gods can also help you in some more concrete ways. The battle blessings are as follows:

• Flaming Lance (Elmal): This makes each of your Swords count as two, boosting your effective numbers. Swords already fight as well as five Bows; this makes them as good as ten.
• Protection (Elmal): Reduces wounds in battle, helping keep your effective numbers up. You can start with this blessing if you choose Yelm as your first god in clan creation.
• Steadfast (Elmal): Helps you when you defend your own lands. You can start with this blessing (including a shrine) if you choose the Battle of Akashar as your Famous Event in clan creation.
• Morale (Elmal): Boosts the confidence of your warriors in battle, allowing you to take riskier options and reducing the risk of them running away. You don’t need this if things are going well, but if your mood is low and you’ve been losing a lot, you might want it active.
• Firearrow (Osara): Makes skirmishing more effective. Also, it’s Osara’s only blessing, which makes it easy to get.
• Sureshot (Dostal): Makes skirmishing more effective and brings in food.

As a special plus: As you learn more war-related blessings, your short-call will grow. The short-call is the group of warriors who respond in emergencies. The more war blessings you know, the more of your army will actually show up to fight.

Special mention:

• Healing (Erissa): While Erissa is the pacifistic goddess of healing, your warriors have great cause to appreciate her. When you fight, your warriors end up wounded, and wounded people can’t fight. Healing will get those people up and active much faster than otherwise. You can start with this blessing if you choose the Bone Mending Ballad as your Famous Event in clan creation. Her other blessing, Curing, will do the same for your sick people.

I’d recommend having shrines to Osara (Firearrow), Dostal (Sureshot), and Erissa (Healing or Curing, depending on whether you have more sick or wounded). You should also have at least a shrine to Elmal, or perhaps a temple if you want to keep two of his blessings active.

The gods’ rituals offer a motley assortment of warfare-related benefits, of varying usefulness. I’ve already mentioned some of them in the Warleader section, and I do think that when you’re starting out, the rituals that can be used to strengthen a warleader are the most useful. However, later on, you may want to consider other things.

• Dostal Elk Hunter: Can either help you fight monsters (some enemies do take monsters to the battlefield) or strengthen a male quester’s Combat.
• Elmal Path Guardian: Can strengthen a male or Osaran quester in Combat and Leadership. Alternately, can make each Sword fight as two (stacks with Flaming Lance), aid leaders during battle, grant a random battle treasure, or reward victories in battle by increasing your magic.
• Gamari Horse Mother: Can strengthen a female quester in Combat and Leadership. If you unlock it with certain choices outside of the ritual, you can also gain the Flying Horse, an effective battle treasure that helps you sneak up on your foes.
• Hyalor Tablet Maker: Provided you defeat the ice giant (more or less requires Heroic Combat), you can win a treasure that increases your magic when you use a certain tactic to win a battle.
• Inilla Forage Finder: Can make your foragers into keen-eyed scouts, making it harder for enemies to sneak up on you on your own land.
• Nyalda Marriage Maker: Provided you make particular choices, can grant you a random battle treasure, or a war blessing against your ancestral enemy. If your enemy is the Ram People, this blessing lasts seven years. Otherwise it is permanent.

For more detail on how to succeed in rituals (and get the more esoteric rewards), see the Rituals[sixages.fandom.com] articles on the wiki.

In order to get any benefit whatsoever from your sworn spirits, you have to go to your spirit screen and bargain with them.

To do this, you first go to the Magic screen. Click the “>Gods” text at the top of the gods list, and then choose “Spirits” from the menu. Finally, select a spirit to bargain with.

When bargaining, you have the following choices:

• Persuade: This costs nothing but time. However, it can fail.
• Offer Magic: This is guaranteed to work, but costs a point of your precious magic.
• Release for larger effect: You will lose the spirit, but its effect will be magnified.
• Release for longer effect: You will lose the spirit, but enjoy the effect for several years.

Note that not all options will appear for all spirits. For example Raven is a very powerful spirit, sworn to the god Hyalor rather than to your clan. Therefore, Raven cannot be released from his oath.

Bargaining with spirits goes better if you have a (non-Raven) shaman on the circle. (Raven shamans are especially good at bargaining with Raven herself, though.) The skill level of your best magician is also important. And it helps if you devoted magic to Rituals during Sacred Time.

Some of the most useful spirits are:

• Raven: Raven is the only spirit you’re guaranteed to have. Unlike the vast majority of spirits, he has two blessings: Stealth and Theft. Stealth (helps your raiders avoid being detected, leading to having to fight smaller defending armies) is extremely useful once you start winning battles at home and are up to raiding others. Theft is not nearly as useful. Stick with Stealth.
• Hawk: Helps you win battles. That’s it. Literally. Recommended. If you have this spirit, bargain with it and keep its ability active. If traveling shamans show up offering to sell you a Hawk spirit, buy it.

Other spirits that are likely useful (though I haven’t tested them as much):

• Owl: Helps fighters respond more quickly. This should mean that when you’re attacked, more of your people show up to defend their land.
• Winter Fox: Helps your raiders in snow, making Dark Season raiding viable.
• Healing: Basically discount Erissa, with the same Curing and Healing abilities. Useful for getting your warriors back on your feet. (And your farmers. And leaders. And… but this is a battle guide.) It heals/cures ten people at a time.
• Beaver: Makes building fortifications cheaper, which doesn’t really matter with a watchtower but is nice when you’re building a stone wall. It offers as 12% discount, and cannot be released for greater effect.
• Bear: Helps leaders with single combat.
• Wolf: Helps leaders with fights against groups of lesser foes.
• Sakkar: Helps overcome your own fear. I think it helps you resist an enemy’s intimidation tactics.
• Antelope: I’m fairly sure that this one helps your nobles pull off risky stunts in battle, like leaping over an enemy chariot.

Spirits aren’t essential, and you can’t rely on getting any particular spirit (other than Raven) in a particular playthrough. However, they can be useful. Use what you have.

These are some of the best combat treasures in my opinion—but keep in mind that that’s the opinion of someone who usually ignores combat treasures! The ones that do their job despite being ignored are, obviously, my favorites.

• Agimori Fire Spirit: Helps with vs Skirmish test; bonus increases during Dark Season. Obtained via event.
• Flying Horse: Helps your raiders sneak past patrols (you will face a smaller force). Also, should you win an offensive raid, causes the clan you attacked to fear/respect you more. Obtained via the Gamari Horse Mother ritual.
• Master Sword: “Fights as an extra Sword.”
• Storm God Bone: Combat bonus when you fight Rams. Obtained via event.
• Sword of Death: “Kills someone each round of combat” —at one point this killed fighters on both sides, making it dubiously useful; I think that it’s been changed to only kill enemies, but I’m honestly not sure.

Fringe Cases

• Helm of Elmal: Although this is a warlike treasure, I’m not sure it helps you win battles/raids—what it does is grant bonuses to Elmal worshippers on Combat (yes!) and Magic. (It helps your heroes Beren and Yatakan with all other tests as well.) However, it only acts when you choose them to be tested, which in battle you don’t…
• Singing Stone: Targets of offensive raid won’t like you less because of it. (This works no matter what, but doesn’t actually help you win—instead, it removes an unpleasant consequence of warfare.)

These treasures reward you if you win, but don’t help you to do so. Many have additional requirements.

• Flying Horse: as mentioned above, increases your foe’s fear of you (if you were the attacker).
• Insistent Arrow: increases margin of victory if you win skirmishes. I think this means that it increases the favorability of the victory (i.e. grants you more loot if you’re attacking).
• Sly Dagger: increases margin of victory when your nobles win duels during the battle.

Magic-Granting Treasures from the Giant’s Pouch

These treasures can be earned by completing the ritual Hyalor Tablet Maker and choosing a treasure from the giant’s pouch as your reward, though you can also find them exploring or even start with them. The majority grant magic if you won a raid by using a particular battle tactic. (I’m pretty sure this means you have to use that tactic on your last turn to win, so there’s a certain amount of chance involved—you don’t get every option every turn.)

• Blood Twig: Grants 1 magic if you win a raid in which you made a berserk attack.
• Turtle Stone: Grants 1 magic if you win a raid by fighting cautiously (i.e., you chose to fight cautiously and won the battle on that turn).
• Owl Egg Stone: Grants 1 magic if you win a raid by fighting cleverly. (I think of this as the best of the lot, since “fight cleverly” is a very good option once you have a Heroic Combat / competent leadership warleader.)
• Skull of the Old Wolf: Grants 1 magic if you win a raid by conserving your strength.
• Marten Skull: Grants 1 magic if you win a raid by fighting fiercely.
• Squirrel Skull: Grants 1 magic if you “flee cleverly”—successful fleeing counts as a loss but hey, free magic!
• Bull Stone: Grants 1 magic if you win a raid by holding your ground.
• Terror Lizard Skull: Grants 1 magic if you win a raid by pressing the attack.
• Darestone: Grants 1 magic if you win a raid by taking risks to win.
• Sakkar Skull: Grants 1 magic if you win a raid by waiting for opportunities. (Note that waiting for opportunities makes you less likely to win that turn, & thus less likely to win on that turn—so this might not be the treasure to pick over the others…)
• Cautionstone: Grants 1 magic for withdrawing cleverly. (Again, a successful withdrawal counts as a loss; I think “cleverly” here means pulling it off, basically.)