Remove ads

Epoch: A Grand-Strategy Quest

Reader mode
So, we got a water focus. The island, the rivers and the coastline should provide enough territory for a good sized kingdom or an empire, so no worries there. Naval might enables raiding, trading, and controlling a large territory, but is probably weaker in buildings or metals or farming. We should probably try to avoid competing too much on areas where our competitors excel. Mobility is the best bonus of navy, so going wide instead of tall is probably in order. Let's battle quality with quantity, and fix our deficits with trading and raiding? That's my tentative plan.


All that is for the future though. Currently my proposed plan is:
1. Develop a cultural unity and religion that can hold a big territory together even with long distances.
2. Fix the Birth/Death Rate problem.
3. Expand like crazy.

Oh, and don't die while doing this :)


Here's a take on the current vote:

[] [Spirits] Force Hortho and Glort to move.
Should work? Neutral, with some enforcement for religious leadership (which can't really be avoided anyway in this quest).

[] [Spirits] Sacrifice Hortho and Glort to the river spirits.
Heavy commitment to the river spirits, with potentially great rewards. Human sacrifice might need slavery later on, or at the very least religious fanaticism. We don't have the pop to do this often right now.

[] [Spirits] Pray to the gods that they calm the Spirits.
I think we should save praying power for harder problems.

[] [Spirits] Do nothing.
Get angry spirits near our first settlement. Negative.

[] [Spirits] Experiment with how to appease the spirits
This would probably work much better a bit later, with shrines and prophets and experience in dealing with the spiritual world.


[X] [Spirits] Force Hortho and Glort to move.

I'll go with this for now, though I'm not against human sacrifice either.


[X] [Path] Epic Shaman

(This or Shaman. Leader bonus probably won't stack with Vshera well, and she's only ~15 years old herself. Hero is the more conservative choice and good for defense or raiding, while Shaman is more experimental and will go for the religious influence route. I'm okay with either.)

Edit: Changed from Hero to Shaman. The culture argument was good.


[X] [Units] Build nothing

Hmm. No galley yet I say. The area can support more people still, and we have no pop growth. Defend the city until it's time to strike out.
 
Last edited:
So when are we making a Theocracy? When Gods are real, having any other form of government is kind of dumb.
 
[X] [Gender] Girl
[X] [Name] Varrix
[X] [Spirits] Experiment with how to appease the spirits
[X] [Path] Epic Shaman
[X] [Units] Galley
 
[X] [Gender] Girl
[X] [Name] Varrix
[X] [Spirits] Experiment with how to appease the spirits
[X] [Path] Epic Shaman


We must learn all about the spiritual side of the world.... so we can ABUSE IT TO ALL HELL.

EDIT: The Queen seems to provide evidence that the less believers a god has = the less power they have.

So we need to prop up a god/goddess with as many followers as possible in order to make that god/goddess capable of dealing with rivals.

OR

We can ignore the gods/goddesses (suicide at this stage, maybe possible come a Renaissance or
more modern time period) and watch as they wither from a lack of worship.
 
Last edited:
Necrosis said:
[X] [Gender] Girl
[X] [Name] Varrix
[X] [Spirits] Experiment with how to appease the spirits
[X] [Path] Epic Shaman


We must learn all about the spiritual side of the world.... so we can ABUSE IT TO ALL HELL.

EDIT: The Queen seems to provide evidence that the less believers a god has = the less power they have.

So we need to prop up a god/goddess with as many followers as possible in order to make that god/goddess capable of dealing with rivals.

OR

We can ignore the gods/goddesses (suicide at this stage, maybe possible come a Renaissance or
more modern time period) and watch as they wither from a lack of worship.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
So (assuming theres a next level from epic) We will have A Legendary Hero who ends the Age of Gods?
 
[X] [Gender] Girl
[X] [Name] Varrix
[X] [Spirits] Experiment with how to appease the spirits
[X] [Path] Epic Leader
[X] [Units] Build Nothing
 
[x] [Gender] Girl
[x] [Name] Varrix
[x] [Spirits] Force Hortho and Glort to move.
[x] [Path] Epic Shaman
[X] [Units] Galley
 
[X] [Gender] Girl
[X] [Name] Varrix
[X] [Spirits] Experiment with how to appease the spirits
[X] [Path] Epic Shaman
[X] [Units] Build Nothing

Again do not build the boats.
They cost us land power that we really need in case of a fight with another tribe.
 
[X] [Gender] Girl
[X] [Name] Varrix
[X] [Spirits] Experiment with how to appease the spirits
[X] [Path] Epic Shaman
[X] [Units] Build Nothing
 
To all who want to experiment with spirits:

I understand the urge and I am a fan of the scientific method myself. But can we please experiment on some other spirits than the ones right next to our settlement, who currently love us and provide a huge defensive bonus? Or at the very least, if we absolutely have to meddle with the good arrangement we have with the river spirits, let's wait until we have a Shaman, a Great Prophet or a shrine.
 
Paroni said:
To all who want to experiment with spirits:

I understand the urge and I am a fan of the scientific method myself. But can we please experiment on some other spirits than the ones right next to our settlement, who currently love us and provide a huge defensive bonus? Or at the very least, if we absolutely have to meddle with the good arrangement we have with the river spirits, let's wait until we have a Shaman, a Great Prophet or a shrine.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Not really. We pretty much have to experiment with how to please or piss off the spirits we live next to.
Learning the taboos and rituals of the spirit of some other place is completely useless.

Currently we have two stubborn idiots volunteering to be test subjects, Spirits which have a history of relatively favorable relations, and the chance to spawn a hero Shaman who can unfuck whatever happens if it goes bad.

So questions we need answered here:
-Why are the spirits unhappy about the two idiots? Is it building next to the water at all? Did they churn up silt when they build or is their construction material displeasing to the water spirits?

-How can we get the spirits to stop being upset. Now, anyone who's read much of mythology knows that moving the offender away doesn't usually solve the problem(it usually expands the problem since spirits are not known for being reasonable). The spirits have been offended, and need to be appeased. Do they want food, crafts or blood? If blood, would animal do?

-How do we communicate with the spirits? Immersion in their substance, trying to reach a trance state, or by casting signs?
 
[x] [Gender] Boy
[x] [Name] Gino
[X] [Spirits] Experiment with how to appease the spirits
[X] [Path] Epic Shaman
[X] [Units] Build Nothing
 
veekie said:
Not really. We pretty much have to experiment with how to please or piss off the spirits we live next to.
Learning the taboos and rituals of the spirit of some other place is completely useless.

Currently we have two stubborn idiots volunteering to be test subjects, Spirits which have a history of relatively favorable relations, and the chance to spawn a hero Shaman who can unfuck whatever happens if it goes bad.

So questions we need answered here:
-Why are the spirits unhappy about the two idiots? Is it building next to the water at all? Did they churn up silt when they build or is their construction material displeasing to the water spirits?

-How can we get the spirits to stop being upset. Now, anyone who's read much of mythology knows that moving the offender away doesn't usually solve the problem(it usually expands the problem since spirits are not known for being reasonable). The spirits have been offended, and need to be appeased. Do they want food, crafts or blood? If blood, would animal do?

-How do we communicate with the spirits? Immersion in their substance, trying to reach a trance state, or by casting signs?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
You assume that moving the perpetrators away is not enough to calm the spirits, who according to the threadmark are not "upset" as you claim, but merely "agitated". Your assumption might be correct, but it also might not.

I'll also point out that the Shaman is currently 0 years old.

Experimenting will provide better results eventually, and we indeed need answers to these questions. Simply avoiding construction near the river might cause a small penalty as well.

Still, we are not in a hurry in construction. Let's try the moving away first, and wait until the Shaman is of age and we have a shrine. If moving away doesn't work, well, we can consider that the first experiment we did, and go back to trying other things.

Edit: Let's not try to fix something that isn't necessarily broken. A better time to assess this should be a bit later.
 
Last edited:
Wouldn't we get our +25 bonus from water? So for the roll to appease the spirits, we'd get +25 to it. Also, our Great Leader is specced into understanding things, and our Hero is at least partly religious oriented potentially giving another bonus to the roll. We are the water tribe, seems to me that experimenting with ways to appease the river spirits would be helpful.
 
jjffjhjf said:
Wouldn't we get our +25 bonus from water? So for the roll to appease the spirits, we'd get +25 to it. Also, our Great Leader is specced into understanding things, and our Hero is at least partly religious oriented potentially giving another bonus to the roll. We are the water tribe, seems to me that experimenting with ways to appease the river spirits would be helpful.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Reading it it specifically says sea. It's entirely possible that carries over to river but I get the feeling it might not.
 
Vote Closed :)
Adhoc vote count started by Arthellion on Jan 23, 2019 at 4:25 PM, finished with 36 posts and 23 votes.
Click to expand...
 
This yearly progress mechanic is something I can't quite get a grip of. For me at least, it is a bit hard to see the significance of some of these choices, because their finality is so hard to grasp. Let me explain:

In a "usual" Civ game, when we make a decision we are stuck with it for at least 400 years (~20 rounds) before we can change our minds and the course of the civ. That is a lot of time for unintended consequences to happen, and makes all decisions very important.

In this game, being stuck with a decision for 20 rounds means that we can change it 10 years later. That is no time at all. Despite what Skjadir said about yearly rolls balancing it out, there are still many things that aren't affected by time frames this short.

For example, the development of a tribe will not even notice a cultural tradition that lasts only 10 years. Only a few babies will be born to these new ways, and they can be re-educated before they grow to adulthood.

One could pretty much say that many decisions that we make at the start of the yearly played periods are pretty irrelevant, because we can always change them soon later. Take the "Build Nothing" vote from last voting cycle, which turned out to be completely inconsequential. Or the earlier decisions for aristocratic instead of authoritarian elder rules, which will very likely be rewritten before 30 years have passed, and before they have had a chance to mean mostly anything.

I guess there is one important mechanic which will work differently to the other direction, and that is the unrest mechanic. In a regular game, civic unrest can be calmed in a generation (1 turn) with correct policy changes. Here, if we manage to piss off our tribe at the beginning of the yearly play period, we could have penalties for 20 years or more, because trust in the government is much harder to build that it is to destroy.
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top