Posted March 19, 2015
This is my first playthrough of the game, on easy. It has taken a very high number of hours to get even close
to winning on Short, so clearly there are aspects I haven't really grasped yet. But my clan is in great shape,
I am king of the tribe, I have the max number of permanent trading routes (7 or 8), tons of allies and trading
partners. But NOBODY WILL SELL ME ANY COWS. I have insanely good bargainers who worship Issaries. I have
lavished other tribes with grand gifts and been celebrated throughout the lands. But regardless if they are
allies, trade partners, tribe members or all three, all I ever get is "they have no cows to trade". I have
tried dozens of attempts with just about every clan. I have tried every mathematical combination of caravan
size and goods offered for sale. I have switched up emissaries. I even dropped one of my permanent trading
partners but removing the Issaries worshipper from my ring, thus reducing the maximum allowed. I have every
single trade blessing on permanent via shrine, and if there are any other ways I can maximize trading via, say,
a Heroquest reward or skillful manipulation of a tribal event, I have done so. Typically I will have every
trading bonus possible stacked during the year. I am basically at the point where I'm assuming this is a bug. I
have found a few minor bugs in the game that gave opposite results, but nothing like this where I cannot move
forward unless I expand my herd dramatically, and without trade I am basically screwed. I raid frequently but
raids are not efficient enough to resolve the issue on there own, and can in fact be a net loss, since I notice
that cattle raids are almost immediately countered by a cattle raid from some other clan. I was thinking this
is pretty much the best game ever, but now I'm feeling burned out and frustrated.
TL;DR: Regardless of relationships or any other factors, nobody has any cows to sell me.
to winning on Short, so clearly there are aspects I haven't really grasped yet. But my clan is in great shape,
I am king of the tribe, I have the max number of permanent trading routes (7 or 8), tons of allies and trading
partners. But NOBODY WILL SELL ME ANY COWS. I have insanely good bargainers who worship Issaries. I have
lavished other tribes with grand gifts and been celebrated throughout the lands. But regardless if they are
allies, trade partners, tribe members or all three, all I ever get is "they have no cows to trade". I have
tried dozens of attempts with just about every clan. I have tried every mathematical combination of caravan
size and goods offered for sale. I have switched up emissaries. I even dropped one of my permanent trading
partners but removing the Issaries worshipper from my ring, thus reducing the maximum allowed. I have every
single trade blessing on permanent via shrine, and if there are any other ways I can maximize trading via, say,
a Heroquest reward or skillful manipulation of a tribal event, I have done so. Typically I will have every
trading bonus possible stacked during the year. I am basically at the point where I'm assuming this is a bug. I
have found a few minor bugs in the game that gave opposite results, but nothing like this where I cannot move
forward unless I expand my herd dramatically, and without trade I am basically screwed. I raid frequently but
raids are not efficient enough to resolve the issue on there own, and can in fact be a net loss, since I notice
that cattle raids are almost immediately countered by a cattle raid from some other clan. I was thinking this
is pretty much the best game ever, but now I'm feeling burned out and frustrated.
TL;DR: Regardless of relationships or any other factors, nobody has any cows to sell me.