Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[X] Belegar Ironhammer has sent word that any that wish to seek their fortune are welcome to join him in retaking Karak Eight Peaks. While it is far from the civilized lands of the Empire, the treasure, the glory, and the adventure will be all the greater.

One wizard might not change much, but it also could. We wont know unless we try and honestly Belegar Ironhammer and his campaign for Karak Eight Peaks is more important as whole. The dwarves losing would be a horrendous set-back for the races of Order.

BoneyM said:

2300: Karag Dum, east of the World's Edge Mountains, falls to the forces of Chaos. A small portion of the Hold continued to hold out against attackers for two hundred years until rescued by Gotrek and Felix.

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I've always been curious about that one. Did they really hold out for 200 years or was there time-dilation involved and the Dwarfs only experienced 20 years?

[X] Belegar Ironhammer has sent word that any that wish to seek their fortune are welcome to join him in retaking Karak Eight Peaks. While it is far from the civilized lands of the Empire, the treasure, the glory, and the adventure will be all the greater.

I want a plan that talks to Kasmer and puts time and effort into expanding the EIC. I don't want to spend dwarf favors on the fief.

I would prefer to put the swords back in the tomb and want one overwork action with the boost from Renald.

[X] Belegar Ironhammer has sent word that any that wish to seek their fortune are welcome to join him in retaking Karak Eight Peaks. While it is far from the civilized lands of the Empire, the treasure, the glory, and the adventure will be all the greater.

vsh said:

Eight Peaks was approval voting last for some people at least: those who wouldn't want to run Hogwarts. My preferred option was mercenary unit, and if there was "build a spy ring abroad" option I'd choose it over founding a Grey Company. So now people who don't really like dwarven crusades but like building granaries even less are voting for "getting done with it and going for something I'd like better".

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So the winner ends up being the least offensive option instead of the option that the most people actually want. That's actually really depressing, and though I'm trying I can't see a way to keep this from happening.

vsh said:

I think it'd help if you told us how do you want to run the reconquista (like Purge Turns?), how long do you expect it to last and how long before we can "take a vacation" so people could vote more informed instead of relying on PTSD from a completely unrelated quest.

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There'd likely be a series of turns similar to the combat of the Sieges until a foothold is taken, and then Purge turns based out of that foothold.

BoneyM said:

Can people explain their thoughts with the choice of Zhufbar vs Eight Peaks? I didn't expect the low-stakes, low-reward option to be so overwhelmingly favoured, especially after Eight Peaks had the edge in the last round.

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For me it's more of a fact that it is a first time we try to help Dwarfs. Not the only time.

I do not expect singular adventure to Zhufbar take more than one turn - and that would allow us to see how does it go, and what is really needed. We can try, we can find a niche for Mathilde - and we can learn what is needed for Mathilde to become useful.

To give few examples:

I can imagine great utility of Fog of War spells. I mean, tunnel fighting - it's a classical terrain where fog of war becomes absolutely deadly. But to confirm it Mathilde needs to try first, to know what it needed.

I can imagine Mathilde to work superbly in dark, shadowed halls, with her new intangibility spell. I can imagine her doing great as incredibly quick messager. I can imagine her being damn useful to break enemy charge with terror spell. I can imagine her being extremely valuable as a detection against hostile magic.

But for all of that, Mathilde needs to first try. We don't know what would be of use.

Zhufbar is a good, relatively safe way to do so. Eight Peaks... well, it would be a very big test right from the start.

[X] Zhufbar regularly sends salvaging parties into Karak Varn and mining parties into the tunnels below. It will be close enough to Stirland to keep in touch, and you have a good reputation in Zhufbar especially.
[X] Leave them stored in your spare room.
[X] Leave it behind; have Heideck come in and replace the containers as they fill.
[X] Bring it with you, safely locked within the enchanted box Abelhelm kept it in.

[X] Plan Finaly Getting IT DONE

BoneyM said:

Can people explain their thoughts with the choice of Zhufbar vs Eight Peaks? I didn't expect the low-stakes, low-reward option to be so overwhelmingly favoured, especially after Eight Peaks had the edge in the last round.

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I've voted for Zhufbar as a learning opportunity. It's a chance to get some experience under our belt before committing to a larger and more dangerous campaign. It will allow us to learn how to best fight alongside our dwarven allies (when not in command of a massive battery of artillery), what gear might be needed / useful for fighting underground, and a thousand other little lessons that you only learn from experience. Once we get that under our belt we can make what adjustments we need to and decide if we want to join the K8P campaign if it is still ongoing.

Now, if we had an opportunity to learn more about Belegar's campaign, I would definitely be interested even if it cost us an action to gather information or a favor to arrange a meeting with him. If we learn that we could actually contribute in a meaningful way as we currently are then I could certainly be persuaded to take that larger risk. But, if we are going in blind either way, I would rather walk blind into the relatively safer choice.

DiceOfStupidity said:

For me it's more of a fact that it is a first time we try to help Dwarfs. Not the only time.

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Basically this. Except Dice said it better.

BoneyM said:

So the winner ends up being the least offensive option instead of the option that the most people actually want. That's actually really depressing, and though I'm trying I can't see a way to keep this from happening.

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Only for some part of the player base. Many have different reasons.

First, I have to say that your quest is very good, our tasks are challenging, characters are alive, choices are meaningful and update speed is second to none (seriously, can't praise you enough for that). There's nothing to be depressed about.

Second, it's a bit late for that but there is the option of asking people not to vote strategically for some choices, especially as important as "what we'll do in the next five years". I think that framing it as a meta vote or choose-your-job-from-the-list vote would work better that "write-in what Mathilde wants to do" because Mathilde is a bit detached from worldly affairs after Abelhelm's death and in-character vote is a bit depressing here. Also there is the option for you to just choose direction you'd have most fun pursuing: I think no one would object that.

[X] Belegar Ironhammer has sent word that any that wish to seek their fortune are welcome to join him in retaking Karak Eight Peaks. While it is far from the civilized lands of the Empire, the treasure, the glory, and the adventure will be all the greater.

[X] Zhufbar regularly sends salvaging parties into Karak Varn and mining parties into the tunnels below. It will be close enough to Stirland to keep in touch, and you have a good reputation in Zhufbar especially.
[X] Plan Ready For Battle

There's no good way to avoid tactical voting. If people hate the leading option they'll always band behind the next highest option they can stomach. Better second worst than worst, even.

[X] Belegar Ironhammer has sent word that any that wish to seek their fortune are welcome to join him in retaking Karak Eight Peaks. While it is far from the civilized lands of the Empire, the treasure, the glory, and the adventure will be all the greater.
[X] Donate them to the Amethyst Order (+2 College Favours)
[x] Plan Ready For Battle

[X] Belegar Ironhammer has sent word that any that wish to seek their fortune are welcome to join him in retaking Karak Eight Peaks. While it is far from the civilized lands of the Empire, the treasure, the glory, and the adventure will be all the greater.
[X] Donate them to the Amethyst Order (+2 College Favours)
[X] Leave it behind; have Heideck come in and replace the containers as they fill.
[X] Leave it safely in your Sunken Palace.

[X] Belegar Ironhammer has sent word that any that wish to seek their fortune are welcome to join him in retaking Karak Eight Peaks. While it is far from the civilized lands of the Empire, the treasure, the glory, and the adventure will be all the greater.

Heretek said:

There's no good way to avoid tactical voting. If people hate the leading option they'll always band behind the next highest option they can stomach. Better second worst than worst, even.

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Relax the dictator criterion? The word "dictator" is doing a lot of connotative work in Arrow's theorem; it's much less impressive to say that a voting system can always end up having a tiebreaker voter.

BoneyM said:

So the winner ends up being the least offensive option instead of the option that the most people actually want. That's actually really depressing, and though I'm trying I can't see a way to keep this from happening.

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Actually that's better than the reverse. At least for me.

Example:
You have 6 options and 100 voters.

Vote comes out:
4. 27 votes
5. 20 votes.
1. 17 votes.
2. 15 votes
6. 11 votes
3. 10 votes.

With this vote, 27 are happy, and the rest, 73 are unhappy. This is why we do stuff like approval voting, or preferential voting. They give fairer results. Sure, less people got exactly what they wanted. But more people got something they could support.

Or in other words: Do you prefer a small but enthusiastic group, that loses and gains members with each meaningful vote, or a smaller but enthusiastic group that forms the core of a much larger group of interested, if not enthusiastic, voters?

I'd prefer the second option. You do you.

EDIT: Basically, first past the post voting systems are bad, and should not be used if you want to keep a large and active player base. Otherwise every meaningful choice will shear a part of your public away, as they walk away in disgust.

BoneyM said:

Can people explain their thoughts with the choice of Zhufbar vs Eight Peaks? I didn't expect the low-stakes, low-reward option to be so overwhelmingly favoured, especially after Eight Peaks had the edge in the last round.

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I look at Mathilde's list of available actions and see that she is so close to being a monster on the battlefield- she has conceptual fog of war spells to study, Dread Aspect is literally a "charge and the enemy line will break" spell against any enemy subject to mental effects, she has the Liber Mortis which feels almost certain to give a trait which is beneficial from the perspective of magical skill and power- but she's not, yet. Burning Shadows is her best combat spell and it takes careful setup to use and past that she's basically down to shooting and swording. She's quite good at those and can mix in some nasty tricks to make her even better, but there are a lot of really effective heroes with melee weapons in the service of the dwarves.

So I feel like going all-in on one of the nastiest wars likely to be fought in the near future is only sensible if we spend our last turn actually prepping for it instead of wrapping up Stirland interests, but obviously no one is doing that- look at the votes; they're all centered around magical research with no immediate application where they study magic at all. Since there's no strong interest in becoming better at warfare, why would we sign up for the harder war? Sign up for the lesser one where our existing skills are likely to make more of an impact.

Aside from that, I like being in a position where we could reasonably hear news from Stirland on a regular basis, and where we could reasonably take a week consisting almost entirely of safe riding to go check up on things if we hear that something is on fire rather than going home requiring a lengthy ride through hazardous territory.

[X] Belegar Ironhammer has sent word that any that wish to seek their fortune are welcome to join him in retaking Karak Eight Peaks. While it is far from the civilized lands of the Empire, the treasure, the glory, and the adventure will be all the greater.

Adventure!

[X] Belegar Ironhammer has sent word that any that wish to seek their fortune are welcome to join him in retaking Karak Eight Peaks. While it is far from the civilized lands of the Empire, the treasure, the glory, and the adventure will be all the greater.
[X] Donate them to the Amethyst Order (+2 College Favours)
[X] Leave it behind; have Heideck come in and replace the containers as they fill.
[X] Leave it safely in your Sunken Palace.

[X] Zhufbar regularly sends salvaging parties into Karak Varn and mining parties into the tunnels below. It will be close enough to Stirland to keep in touch, and you have a good reputation in Zhufbar especially.

Personally I'd say looking at Mathilde's potential to be helpful only through the lens of her straight combat potential is missing the point what we should do is act a supernaturally good scout and spy. The kind of person who can get where no one else can and can provide the dwarves with the kind of information they can use to win battles.

[X] Zhufbar regularly sends salvaging parties into Karak Varn and mining parties into the tunnels below. It will be close enough to Stirland to keep in touch, and you have a good reputation in Zhufbar especially.
[X] Donate them to the Amethyst Order (+2 College Favours)
[X] Leave it behind; have Heideck come in and replace the containers as they fill.
[X] Bring it with you, safely locked within the enchanted box Abelhelm kept it in.

No7sHere said:

Personally I'd say looking at Mathilde's potential to be helpful only through the lens of her straight combat potential is missing the point what we should do is act a supernaturally good scout and spy. The kind of person who can get where no one else can and can provide the dwarves with the kind of information they can use to win battles.

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But her potential for that is also much greater than its realization. Fog of War is applicable there. With Doppelganger Mathilde could walk into an orc camp to have a look around, and Shroud of Invisibility or Illusion similarly have obvious potential for ridiculous shenanigans. And on a more boring level, her recent college examination and studies were fairly extravagant and really pushed her skills, so Mathilde could easily take an intrigue or learning (particularly learning) internalization action keyed off them and become better than she is at key aspects of both scouting and spying nonsense and using her magic in support of it.

The action votes remain focused on not doing any of this.

Wistways said:

[X] Plan Tying up loose ends
-[X] Hire a steward.

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@Wistways
Just a note but because you changed that line your vote doesn't get counted for Plan Tying up loose ends.

BoneyM said:

Can people explain their thoughts with the choice of Zhufbar vs Eight Peaks? I didn't expect the low-stakes, low-reward option to be so overwhelmingly favoured, especially after Eight Peaks had the edge in the last round.

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Low-stakes, close enough to Stirland that we aren't completely abandoning our old infrastructure, characters we already know and not a single decades long campaign we will feel obligated to finish.

Exmorri said:

Relax the dictator criterion? The word "dictator" is doing a lot of connotative work in Arrow's theorem; it's much less impressive to say that a voting system can always end up having a tiebreaker voter.

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Actually it's easier to violate voting theory premise (ask voter not to exercise some forms of rational behavior like strategic voting) or make his preferences to take account not only of his own enjoyment but QM's satisfaction, voting base overall mood and so on. On small scale in real world voting with no big thing on stake it's much easier to make voters behave differently rather than change voting system.