Remove ads

Knight of Dandriss: Stone and Steel

Reader mode
Not a fan of year long turns in a character driven story. It seems like a massive disconnect to me that there's so much focus on Ella but we barely see what she's up to during a whole year. I think it's because you're trying to have us managing a settlement, while using a character to drive the story forward. I'd recommend striking more of a balance between the two, maybe have turns be 3 or 4 months long. As it is now, we just see snapshots of Ella's life which cheapens the character driven experience to me.
I'm also sad about dropping the 40k setting, but there's really nothing to be done on that front. That said, I'm still excited about you continuing this quest and managing to move on from the power creep that was happening in the original. It was getting a bit ridiculous near the end.(before Mirande's revival)
 
Last edited:
Ekans Ekans Ekans said:
Yes but those kinds of investment actions you're talking about would bite heavily into our growth curve at this phase of the game. They'd slow down our ability to build up, which would give us a lot of influence of multiple kinds per year. If we wait a little longer we can automate without cutting into our growth, get the best of both worlds.

And "Just invest two to four more" is not a really good platform, that's a huge investment in terms of opportunity costs. I'd rather spend a few more actions doing it later when the path to automation is much clearer and we've got a solid plan for rolling it out rather than commit fully HALF of all our actions in the first 5-7 turns to something just because we could eke a little more action efficiency out of it (at the cost of a LOT of economic efficiency and political independence)
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

We are not in a 4x game.
We do not have other ten towns with the same starting conditions to compete with us.
To lose an year of build up for long term advantages is worth it, in my opinion.

And what political independence are we losing?
None if we pay from our budget.

So it is either we lose some economic efficiency or we lose some political independence, not both.
 
Last edited:
[X] Construct building
-[X] Reactor
[X] Patrol rail lines
[X] Patrol forest
[X] Investigate rumours
[X] Nomad diplomacy

[X] Study politics
[X] Solidify allies
 
Partying benefits:
- Get to meet people
- People like us
- It's fun!

Partying risks:
- We have to meet people, ugh
- People might not like us
- In fact people could mock or embarrass us
- It'll stop being fun

Partying Drawbacks
- It costs
-- either personal funds, or political favours
- It uses up half of all of our available personal actions

3 benefits that are closely linked to 4 risks, with 2 definite drawbacks.


Why. WHY. Somebody explain it to me why those benefits, which can be found elsewhere, are worth it to the detriment of all other actions.
 
[X] Construct building
-[X] Reactor
[X] Patrol rail lines
[X] Patrol forest
[X] Investigate rumours
[X] Nomad diplomacy

[X] Study politics
[X] Solidify allies
 
tenchifew said:
We are not in a 4x game.
We do not have other ten towns with the same starting conditions to compete with us.
To lose an year of build up for long term advantages is worth it, in my opinion.

And what political independence are we losing?
None if we pay from our budget.

So it is either we lose some economic efficiency or we lose some political independence, not both.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I... I don't think we're having the same conversation here.

The buildup of the settlement is what's on an exponential (or at very least logarithmic) growth curve. The party automation is a (fairly small in the big scheme of things) fixed value. It'd make a lot more sense to sink the cost of it once we can AFFORD more costs.

And of course we're competing against other settlements. You think we don't have a few dozen cousins, uncles, inlaws and just career politicians waiting in the wings looking for a shot at us? This is absolutely a competition. It might not be a 4X game but we're definitely not operating in a vacuum here.


AN talked about action automation in the IRC when he was setting up the game. It's meant to be expensive to buy into and to remove actions that we're doing frequently so they don't turn the potential action list into a bloated mess like what happened in his last two games.


Tunnel visioning onto it on the first turn and saying we've already sunk too many costs into it to turn away now is not how it's supposed to work, nor is it a very efficient course of action.

Making our big signature thing reliant on someone else's generosity, dancing through the hoops to set that deal up in the first place, and squandering other opportunities to do so doesn't make sense when we could set this up as automatic almost casually out of our own pocket 15 years from now (and just do it manually when it benefits us in the meantime)
 
[X] Construct building
-[X] Reactor
[X] Patrol rail lines
[X] Patrol forest
[X] Investigate rumours
[X] Nomad diplomacy
[X] Study politics
[X] Seek allies
 
Ekans Ekans Ekans said:
I... I don't think we're having the same conversation here.

The buildup of the settlement is what's on an exponential (or at very least logarithmic) growth curve. The party automation is a (fairly small in the big scheme of things) fixed value. It'd make a lot more sense to sink the cost of it once we can AFFORD more costs.

And of course we're competing against other settlements. You think we don't have a few dozen cousins, uncles, inlaws and just career politicians waiting in the wings looking for a shot at us? This is absolutely a competition. It might not be a 4X game but we're definitely not operating in a vacuum here.


AN talked about action automation in the IRC when he was setting up the game. It's meant to be expensive to buy into and to remove actions that we're doing frequently so they don't turn the potential action list into a bloated mess like what happened in his last two games.


Tunnel visioning onto it on the first turn and saying we've already sunk too many costs into it to turn away now is not how it's supposed to work, nor is it a very efficient course of action.

Making our big signature thing reliant on someone else's generosity, dancing through the hoops to set that deal up in the first place, and squandering other opportunities to do so doesn't make sense when we could set this up as automatic almost casually out of our own pocket 15 years from now (and just do it manually when it benefits us in the meantime)
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

What I meant is that we are in a grand strategy game, with an asymmetric start, thus the, indeed, logarithmic starting curve does not matter this much, since some settlements we are competing against already have a starting time advantage on us, while others will start later.

I also was not in the IRC, so I only have information from this thread.
And I just had the idea to make events just as buildable/establishable as businesses or buildings, since we will need more repeatable events in the future.

And again, I think that you severely overcomplicate the necessary steps and expenses to establish an annual gala.
 
Last edited:
tenchifew said:
What I meant is that we are in a grand strategy game, with an asymmetric start, thus the, indeed, logarithmic starting curve does not matter this much, since some settlements we are competing against already have a starting time advantage on us, while others will start later.

I also was not in the IRC, so I only have information from this thread.
And I just had the idea to make events just as buildable/establishable as businesses or buildings, since we will need more repeatable events in the future.

And again, I think that you severely overcomplicate the necessary steps and expenses to establish an annual gala.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...


We are at an asymmetric start which is why we can't afford to do something that's significantly less efficient. The influence that we got out of the party this year was due to all good rolls across the board, plus the complementary action of seeking out the elites of this place and getting to know them. We shouldn't expect those kinds of yields every time, and even if we could it would be significantly less than creating buildings would give us (at a greater buy-in cost).

I'm not overcomplicating anything. I think that the COSTS of automation are very simple, I just don't think they're worth it. It pays off less than what Entertainment Complexes and Reactors would (And you can't use "would draw people to come here" because that's literally the meaning of the Culture Influence stat. It's how appealing the settlement is to visit/live in) and it would require us to owe someone important for helping fund it if we did it this early.

There's also the fact that doing it 5 more turns in a row would result in major opportunity costs to other actions. We'd be sacrificing a lot of personal growth in order to... spend resources on something inefficient and owe someone important favors (and give them the ability to fuck with our livelihood if we were on their wrong side- or use that ability as leverage against us).
 
Ekans Ekans Ekans said:
We are at an asymmetric start which is why we can't afford to do something that's significantly less efficient. The influence that we got out of the party this year was due to all good rolls across the board, plus the complementary action of seeking out the elites of this place and getting to know them. We shouldn't expect those kinds of yields every time, and even if we could it would be significantly less than creating buildings would give us (at a greater buy-in cost).

I'm not overcomplicating anything. I think that the COSTS of automation are very simple, I just don't think they're worth it. It pays off less than what Entertainment Complexes and Reactors would (And you can't use "would draw people to come here" because that's literally the meaning of the Culture Influence stat. It's how appealing the settlement is to visit/live in) and it would require us to owe someone important for helping fund it if we did it this early.

There's also the fact that doing it 5 more turns in a row would result in major opportunity costs to other actions. We'd be sacrificing a lot of personal growth in order to... spend resources on something inefficient and owe someone important favors (and give them the ability to fuck with our livelihood if we were on their wrong side- or use that ability as leverage against us).
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I again do not understand how you come to the conclusion that we would owe anyone favors if we were to pay it ourselves out of the Economy stat.

You also cannot say that Entertainment Complexes and Reactors are more efficient since you do not know the yield of the gala, especially since the major costs here would be our personal time to establish it, not the Economy to pay for it, since the first two years it would have cost exactly zero Economy, and I expect just one or two Economy later.

And we do not need to be absolutely efficient because we are in an asymmetric start.
We simply cannot compete with the likes of indigo hammer.

Age of strife was far more a 4x, where all our neighbors were in a similar situation and were we to fall behind we would have been eaten.

Here we are Monte Carlo, which cannot compete with, say, France.
But we have other advantages - diplomacy and being able to pace ourselves among them.
 
Last edited:
tenchifew said:
I again do not understand how you come to the conclusion that we would owe anyone favors if we were to pay it ourselves out of the Economy stat.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

We either pay it out of the Economy Stat and get dice-dependent flat income while putting ourselves behind on growth (which would give more) or we owe someone. To clarify. Neither is an enjoyable or reasonable move to make.

You also cannot say that Entertainment Complexes and Reactors are more efficient since you do not know the yield of the gala, especially since the major costs here would be our personal time to establish it, not the Economy to pay for it, since the first two years it would have cost exactly zero Economy, and I expect just one or two Economy later.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
We do know the yield of the gala because we just did one.

The economy to pay for it is a major cost in that it keeps us from producing buildings which consistently generate a feedback loop of increasing influence (and get more efficient as you build more of them in groupings of 4/16/etc).

Sure the party doesn't have a cost after you've established it, but neither does the reactor :p
 
Powerofmind said:
Are you talking about the buildings or the party?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
He's talking hypotheticals, he's pretty deep into the scenario he and Tench are discussing.

But he meant the party. Doing it repeatedly will cost, and we can either find others to support the cost, or we can pull the cost directly from our economic influence.

Here, ekans is saying that the penalty to our economic influence that hosting the party would bring could damage our ability to build our town up.

Note: he's not arguing about a singular party on turn 2; he's discussing an automatic party that won't take any personal actions due to how regular and therefore impersonal it is.
 
Last edited:
I'm confused and i'm going to look over the options/what i voted on again.

Admitedly I saw a bandwagon oppertunity with the nomads for exotic goods and said ("Exotic items? That's sounds like something snobby rich people would want to buy in order to show off to their colleagues and be a douche. We'll trade food for it and sell it at exagerated prices!).
 
Construct building
-[] Reactor
[] Patrol rail lines
[] Patrol forest
[] Investigate rumours
[] Nomad diplomacy


[] seek allies - Look for people among the community and in the wider polity
[] Solidify allies - Bring Samantha Sea and Massi Sturgeon into your corner

Reactor for first bulding sounds nice since we get science and economic influence out of it. Patrols are needed and are the official reason of WHY we are here so that's important. Not sure about my investigate rumors..but it's a rich persons community i'm sure it's nice to know the gossip isn't about you right?

Nomads giving us exotic stuff in exchange for maybe extra food? Deal since we can then pawn that off to rich people in galas. They get exotic items to show off and we get the equivalent of thousands of dollars at the cost of some regualar food that the nomads REALLY want due to living in a harsh enviroment.

Seeking more allies is good to know who else we can round up in our 'faction' so to say. We must have a good political stronghold here in case the future ever attempts to challenge us. An I imagine the Reavers will shake things up a bit.

Cementing allies..well this is what drives me "Still, she was fairly certain that not only had her interactions gone well, but that she had probably secured the both of them as tentative allies for the near future. A bit of cementing of the relationships and she could get some important people in the international finance and trade game in her pocket."

Hmm. Possible discounted loans in the future? Possibility to call them in case we need indirect pressure to get what we want? Yes please.


-------------------

The above is what I voted for and why. I'm open to suggestions and debate. I'd also like to ask everyone to name the reasons why they choose what they choose as their plan of action. It helps newbies like me navigate yes?

Also, is everyone going for the 'lets turn this place into a Las Vegas'?
 
Ekans Ekans Ekans said:
I'm going back to voting for the party. No sense ruining this turn's synergy. Gotta remember to vote with the head, not the heart. Sorry @redzonejoe :p We can learn things next turn.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
B-b-but I'm scared of parties! I never get invited to them ;.;

More seriously, I'm legitimately worried that next turn, voters like tench are going to argue that "we're already halfway there!" and lead us to some rather unprofitable choices.

I've also been of the opinion that a turn 3 party is just as useful as a turn 2 party, so we're not really losing out.

*shrug*

I'm keeping my vote as-is, and we'll see how it goes down.
 
3man75 said:
The above is what I voted for and why. I'm open to suggestions and debate. I'd also like to ask everyone to name the reasons why they choose what they choose as their plan of action. It helps newbies like me navigate yes?

Also, is everyone going for the 'lets turn this place into a Las Vegas'?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I think that most people are on board with Las Vegas at this point.

This turn most people voted the same way you did except with a second party instead of Seeking more allies. It has synergy with most of our other actions this turn.

There have been some votes against it simply because there are a few vocal players who want to party every year forever. Even I counter-voted, but ultimately I switched back to partying simply because it's more efficient to do it this turn and then switch to something else next turn.
 
Ekans Ekans Ekans said:
There have been some votes against it simply because there are a few vocal players who want to party every year forever. Even I counter-voted, but ultimately I switched back to partying simply because it's more efficient to do it this turn and then switch to something else next turn.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yeah the only reason I'm voting to party is because there seems to be a little pressure that we do something bigger from IC.
 
Ekans Ekans Ekans said:
I think that most people are on board with Las Vegas at this point.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Honestly, I'm not entirely into the whole Vegas thing.

With any village or civilisation building game, an experienced player will tell you that the first thing you want to do is secure resources for growth.

This has different forms. Military assets cost, but can secure plunger.

Pure resource income is important, but useless for other tasks

Science can be used to boost other aspects, but can't actually ensure growth by itself

And so on. The key is to find an efficient balance.

The 'Vegas' style town you proposed sounded like a good foundation to grow our village on, and it fit with what we were told. So I supported it, and continue to support it.

But if at any time, this concept gets in the way of efficient growth? I will drop it in an instant.

If you tell me I have to do something, or that I can't do something else because of this vague, self-imposed theme, then I will do my best to kiss that theme goodbye.

We're already seeing some of it with this 'party hard' group, but it hasn't actually impacted our building growth yet, thankfully.
 
By my count, this is the winning vote:

[X] Construct Building (Reactor)
[X] Patrol Rail Lines
[X] Patrol Forest
[X] Investigate Rumours
[X] Nomad Diplomacy
[X] Throw a party - Hold a major social gathering
[X] Solidify allies - Bring Samantha Sea and Massi Sturgeon into your corner

I will have an update up tonight and then starting tomorrow I will give a bit more time for the votes but also introduce a new feature: Codex entries!

I've been leaning a bit too much on prior knowledge from Age of Strife, so time to start filling in some of the blanks for the new players or letting people know where there are changes from what came before.
 
redzonejoe said:
Honestly, I'm not entirely into the whole Vegas thing.

With any village or civilisation building game, an experienced player will tell you that the first thing you want to do is secure resources for growth.

This has different forms. Military assets cost, but can secure plunger.

Pure resource income is important, but useless for other tasks

Science can be used to boost other aspects, but can't actually ensure growth by itself

And so on. The key is to find an efficient balance.

The 'Vegas' style town you proposed sounded like a good foundation to grow our village on, and it fit with what we were told. So I supported it, and continue to support it.

But if at any time, this concept gets in the way of efficient growth? I will drop it in an instant.

If you tell me I have to do something, or that I can't do something else because of this vague, self-imposed theme, then I will do my best to kiss that theme goodbye.

We're already seeing some of it with this 'party hard' group, but it hasn't actually impacted our building growth yet, thankfully.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I'm all for ditching Vegas when it becomes inefficient.

At some point we're going to have to build it up on the military front as well, and that's probably when we're going to see the transition. It'll still be a nice place to live, but we want to be a well-rounded metropolis as our endgame, not just Sin City. I mean, we'll still have some of that tasty Vegas flavor, but we'll be doing a hell of a lot more with our resources.
 
While this is not, strictly speaking, relevant to this Quest, I realized that I still had this lying around my computer, and I thought you all might enjoy it.
 
I'm convinced not to go for party automation next turn. I plan to start looking at whether we can start the 4 turn clock on turn 8 and may start pushing for it then.

Looking at turns 4-7 actions, I'm interested in trying to devote 4/8 of those actions to studying a particular subject. Maybe 3 or 5 turns depending on specific results.
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top