So I might not paying enough attention, but have we a clear idea what Cai plan actually is, beyond showing mom what a good girl she is?
I still find trying to change society is interesting, still it seemed our dear overlord has not given us any actual clue how she will make everyone happy and productive.
Because trying to make everyone live a better live than before and reaping its rewards (taxes and resources) sounds nice, but happiness and productiveness for her sounds like mind control. Maybe I am just over-thinking, but maybe we need to confront her at some time and actually learn enough about her intention, cause I prefer to stage an intervention, while we still seem to be in the trial stages.
I leave calculation to others and wish them good luck.
She's more talking about things like the tax exemptions and those kinds of casual "perks" I suspect.
Like, unlike most lieges she actually has a direct interest in supporting our development and us rising high as her hand. In contrast look at the relationship between the Gu and the Han.
Yeah, we can still have a high salary and collect generous taxes, but feudal systems (at least in fiction, I can't speak to history) often have so many exceptions that it amounts to a separate set of laws that go with a given position. Most of that isn't much of a loss since the userbase wants to be fairly moral and many restrictions are easily compensated for materially.
Also, some(many?) of these exceptions are simply things we never stood to gain since we had no competing offers to be the direct retainer of another ducal heir.
Not my reaction, this reconfirmed to me that Renxiang is a worthy leader. I don't think you need to have a Way dedicated to an orderly society in order to live in or support that orderly society. Everyone is different and has different perceptions on the world, but that doesn't make it impossible for them to live together according to common rules.
Our semi-consistent concept of embodying safety for our loved ones in an indifferent and dangerous world actually meshes with it incredibly well. It's just that CRX treats the entire empire as we do our close friends. But yeah, Ling Qi a few centuries from now embodying home and care to all the empire's citizens, if to a lesser degree than her personal friends seems like it could be a natural outgrowth of having her be in charge of a feif as is planned. And it would mean that the blizzard outside the walls of her "home" is reserved for foreign agents that would seek to harm her and hers, or traitors. Which...that seems pretty great for a spymistress. The two-faced nature of that sort of domain even works well with us taking the public role of musician and diplomat, but the private role of spy and assassin.
I mean, it isn't like the chaos that LQ dreads won't come to pass.
There's at least one Barbarian Invasion looming, the soonest one triggered by the Ice Thingy to the far South (whether it's the guy that married one of her (grand)daughters/nieces/etc or the more 'standard' one depends on things we don't know), and the second one will most likely triggered by the Genghis Khan expy hitting Prism sometime a few centuries after that.
Then we've got the looming Civil War, which could occur at any time in the next few centuries.
Then there's the looming problems to the West, East, and North. Though we are rather less concerned about them, our friends and allies will most likely be directly effected, so we may well be sent as support - 'a token of the Esteem of the Emerald Seas Province'.
She's more talking about things like the tax exemptions and those kinds of casual "perks" I suspect.
Like, unlike most lieges she actually has a direct interest in supporting our development and us rising high as her hand. In contrast look at the relationship between the Gu and the Han.
Her absolute material superiority came from those "perks" as you call them. Without that nepotism, her regular payment is far from sufficient to be considered "absolute material superiority".
Like our robe ? It came thanks to nepotism. Same for our flying sword, once again CRX called up people she knew, rather than use what was hers, the outer sect.
Point, but your comment about the Ji Rong fight is incorrect, because we lost initiative. If we'd had initiative, and used that Art first, you'd be correct... but in any situation in which we DON'T have initiative, it's worse.
Our opponent hit doesn't significantly surpass our avoid*. Very different as as a dodge tank this will almost always be true (exception made for stinking cheaters like the blood bimbo). That make two conditionnal only, one of which is going to be true as we will need to do some duels to go up in the rankings.
"I believe that everyone I'm responsible for can live happy and fulfilling lives being productive on my behalf, Ling Qi. To demonstrate this, I'm going to reassign you to a job you find unpleasant in the expectation of making that your life. Forever."
This is not how you build loyalty in your subordinates, Renxiang!
Sure. But it is better yet to do neither, if that is an option.
We shouldn't stick to arts that don't make sense for us, or feel like we HAVE to finish arts we started - but neither should we be picking up every other art we see because it is "fine" to discard arts.
It's better to 'waste time' on Arts we might never use to find good Arts to slot into our Domain than to let our domain languish with a muddle of half-formed ideas.
Having additional options for our domain is a decent reason to get new arts, yes. However, it is hardly an urgent reason - there are any number of current arts that many of the voters are thinking of slotting already, many of them coming to completion soon. And it isn't like this is a limited time opportunity; any art that we can grab now, we can also grab in a month or three. Why rush into it?
While we are in a hurry, we have quite a chunk of time that can be spent training Arts just to see what they do, or what their final lesson is before our Domain is narrowed so much we can't add too many new Keywords.
For the first point, I contest that. Sure, we could spend time training Arts "just to see what they do", but I think that is a terrible waste of time. If you want to learn more about what arts could do, go to the archive to research what is there instead of going to pick things up.
For the second point, you are missing half the story. Yes, waiting until we've slotted lots of other things means we may not be able to slot a given new art because of incompatibility. But it is equally true that if we slot the new art first, then one or more of the other arts might not fit due to incompatibility. The only way you get to sample more arts is being more discerning about their insights - and we should be just as able to do that starting with a new art as with an old art.
On a side note. Cai is talking about the sort of quasi legal system fuckery and nepotism style stuff when she says that you won't be getting things from her. Please don't flanderize things
She just told us, after we'd accepted the position, that we won't be getting the usual perks associated with the position. I don't think it's flanderizing to find this a little alarming.
It's not like our friends' tax exemption was the result of some kind of hidden double dealing. CRX built it into the system herself in order to entice Ling Qi to her side. It was freely offered and formed part of the background information we had when we signed up with CRX. Now we find out she was gritting her teeth and hating it the whole time. It raises the possibility that other facets of our relationship are the same way.
Also, if these kind of perks are a standard part of the system, the fact that they aren't on offer will make it harder for us to recruit talented subordinates. Will CRX grade our efforts in that area on a curve? Will Shenhua?
It's fine if she's thought this through and has alternate compensation plans. The sense I got from this conversation, though, is that deep down CRX thinks people should do as she says because it's their duty and they buy into her vision. It seems like she thinks that compensating people for their efforts is vaguely distasteful.
It's fine if she's thought this through and has alternate compensation plans. The sense I got from this conversation, though, is that deep down CRX thinks people should do as she says because it's their duty and they buy into her vision. It seems like she thinks that compensating people for their efforts is vaguely distasteful.
She just told us, after we'd accepted the position, that we won't be getting the usual perks associated with the position. I don't think it's flanderizing to find this a little alarming.
It's not like our friends' tax exemption was the result of some kind of hidden double dealing. CRX built it into the system herself in order to entice Ling Qi to her side. It was freely offered and formed part of the background information we had when we signed up with CRX. Now we find out she was gritting her teeth and hating it the whole time. It raises the possibility that other facets of our relationship are the same way.
Also, if these kind of perks are a standard part of the system, the fact that they aren't on offer will make it harder for us to recruit talented subordinates. Will CRX grade our efforts in that area on a curve? Will Shenhua?
It's fine if she's thought this through and has alternate compensation plans. The sense I got from this conversation, though, is that deep down CRX thinks people should do as she says because it's their duty and they buy into her vision. It seems like she thinks that compensating people for their efforts is vaguely distasteful.
Compensating Ling Qi well is necessary for her growth, which is definitely something CRX has an interest in. Given that she's all about order and civil virtue, should it be a surprise that she doesn't want to be handing out special privileges? We don't need to worry about too little pay; she's a ducal heir, and I think the problem with the robe wasn't that it was a lord giving too much her vassal, but that it was Duchess Cai reaching into a system that is 'supposed' to be independent.
Her absolute material superiority came from those "perks" as you call them. Without that nepotism, her regular payment is far from sufficient to be considered "absolute material superiority".
Like our robe ? It came thanks to nepotism. Same for our flying sword, once again CRX called up people she knew, rather than use what was hers, the outer sect.
Her talk seems more with regards to distasteful favourtism that leaves rules only constraining those who aren't close to her. As a leader in a martial world, I hardly think properly equipping vassals is something she's against. I also doubt that she plans to completely ignore what resources and connections her name gives her.
For a turn of music training I have the maximum music plan, designed to finish our backlog of music arts and buff those Music arts with our new music art, Evanescent Anthem of the Nights Parade. Due to the Music Pill, each Music art trained is worth about 50% of a Spiritual Base AP. Due to the Physical Pill, each art trained period is worth about 20% of a Physical Base AP. Therefore AP spent training music arts this turn are at about 30% opportunity cost, in addition to being very quick due to +80 dice.
This plan trains 14 AP of music. 4 AP are spent on EPC to level it and gain its 4 free GSS per month henceforth. 2 AP are spent to top off Physical and make sure it levels to appraisal.
The main thing this plan sacrifices is a challenge this month. I think with the large narrative focus on one last month this is fairly acceptable, especially with multiple socials this month and 2 AP spent on challenge research last month. We can research challenges again in Month 4 when we are done with our heavy music training, along with other incidentals like meridians. The extra art training (from sacrificing a challenge) also lets us EPC into Spiritual instead of Physical, to make Foundation easier to achieve in Month 5.
I know there are also a lot of pressing and compelling nonmusical arts. However, training music this month is really good, so I think these arts can wait a month to be trained more efficiently in Months 4 and 5.
[X] Drugged-Fueled Musical Battle Royale
-[X] Invest 8 GSS, also use 8 free YSS
-[X] Medium Pills (free)
-[X] Buy and use Unwavering Discipline Pill (30 SP) and Melodic Elixir (60 SP) (Total 90 SP)
-[X] EPC bonus XP into Spiritual
-[X] Physical Cultivation x2
-[X] EPC x4
-[X] FSS x4
-[X] FVM x3
-[X] HDW x3
-[X] EANP x4
-[X] New default Art loadout: de-equip AE, AM, AC, FZ; equip HDW, EANP
Note: * denotes +1 to skill dice from Keyword and/or Silent Stones, should both these plans win.
Skills are how they are mainly to take advantage of keyword +1s and to train vital defense masteries up quickly.
Some details:
Physical: 96.4% Bronze 2
EPC: 100% cap
FSS: 100% max
FVM: 100% max
HDW: 98.4% cap
EANP: 100% cap
All of this assumes no overflow in any useful way, including overflow into the 0.25 spiritual. If overflow happens there will be large extra amounts of XP, possibly radically immense depending on lots of hard to predict variables in tabulation.
Yes, technically we'll have less advantages than the direct vassals of a different ducal heir would get.
This means we have to endure the terrible indignity of not being able to lean on judges and arbitrators to let our cronies get away scot-free with everything they get up to.
How will we ever take care of our nascent clan, when this means we don't get to lobby CRX to appoint inept and indolent descendants of ours to offices they are unqualified for?
What use is it even to be the left hand of the ducal heir, if we cannot unilaterally exterminate every baronial clan that ever offends a scion of the Emerald Seas' Southern Ling Clan by not bowing low enough?
Get a freaking grip.
We still get the outrageous salary and benefits that are afforded to someone of our position above board and will be able to drown ourselves and our kids in drugs accordingly.
And the fact, that we won't be allowed to agitate on bad faith for policies that we can make absurd amounts of bribe money from, will hardly stop someone, who's going to be in the position Ling Qi will be in, from shaping policy towards goals she legitimately believes in either.
Whoever actually believed we'd get the kind of benefits of someone who is in our position and corrupt as all hell was always delusional, but we're still gonna get notably more cash and political power from CRX than the other routes would have had afforded us early on or even ever.
She just told us, after we'd accepted the position, that we won't be getting the usual perks associated with the position. I don't think it's flanderizing to find this a little alarming.
She did the equivalent of entering into business with us and then saying she wouldn't be giving us the customary (but illegal/frowned upon) bribes, and instead would just pay us really well. Considering the other options we had, this is still the best monetary choice by a massive margin.
there are currently 2 AP plans in the math channel that are being discussed. The one below and the one @DeAnno posts.
They both use 8GSS to boost the dice per AP we throw, use medium pills as they are free anc buy the same special pills. The bonus physical xp the unwavering discipline pill gives us with the base cultivation we do gives us a very good chance at reaching Bronze 2. The Melodic Pill will give a lot of bonus xp to music arts, give us more spiritual xp than normal base training would give us and give us a decent chance at getting the next domain rank.
both plans cap EPC, and HDW and finish FSS and FVM and can reach Bronze 2. This plan puts focus on doing a rank challenge for the chance of getting into the above 800 ranks so we get a better Vent and +1 GSS/turn income. This means we have a bit less physical base xp, which will be compensated for by the EPC XP. the remaining 3 AP are given to SES so that we can get a useable Resist Art.
[X] Plan Music Month
-[X] Invest 8 GSS, also use 8 free YSS
-[X] Medium Pills (free)
-[X] Buy and use Unwavering Discipline Pill (30 SP) and Melodic Elixir (60 SP) (Total 90 SP)
-[X] EPC bonus XP into Physical
-[X] Physical Cultivation x2
-[X] EPC x4
-[X] FSS x4
-[X] FVM x3
-[X] HDW x3
-[X] SES x3
-[X] Challenge Research x1
-[X] New default Art loadout: de-equip AE, AM, AC, AS, FZ, FSA; equip HDW, SES
Edit: since Skill votes are seperate and deAnnos Skill-plan works for us both, I see no need to make another one
We can certainly sideboard arts, but at best that takes care of half the cost of picking up the art. If you are lucky and/or plan things very well, swapping things in and out lets you get away with skipping the typical work needed to open or compress meridians - but no matter how good your planning is, you aren't going to get around the fact that train arts costs actions.
Yeah, we can do what we did with AE and discard an art entirely - but that means trashing all the time that went into developing it! We could have spent the time compressing meridians, or getting sect points (to be turned into pills that can boost base cultivation or our domain or what have you), or exploring.
Sure, it is not the end of the world if we pick a weak art for our sideboard where it is used once or twice a year for some small effect. Nor is it the end of the world if we practice an art only to discard it outright. But just because it is not the end of the world doesn't mean it isn't a waste. We only have so much time to advance, and even if we might be fast enough to afford throwing some of our actions away on dead ends, that doesn't mean it is a good idea.
Something to note is domain xp. For example, next turn we are getting enough Art XP to give us a real shot at +1 Domain. Having arts to train semi-constantly means this will go up, and that helps a lot. Ling Qi also 'learns' things narratively with arts, helping her to find exactly how elements and 'keywords' means. As such, even a 'wasted' art like SES will likely help Ling Qi learn more about Perserverance (which is a main FVM thing), and so on.
So my take on Cai's statement is that she hopes to get rid of things like the right of the first night. Laws and traditions whose sole purpose is oppressing others and making a terrible person feel good will have no place with cai.
She will want us to be comptetive with our barons. In fact she wants us to crush other barons to show that her system is better. We may not get all the tax exemptions or loopholes that others do but I fully expect cai to pour more resources into us to make sure we stay hyper competitive.
Her talk seems more with regards to distasteful favourtism that leaves rules only constraining those who aren't close to her. As a leader in a martial world, I hardly think properly equipping vassals is something she's against. I also doubt that she plans to completely ignore what resources and connections her name gives her.
The problem is that those ressources only exist thanks to nepotism. If she refuse nepotism, she should logically refuse those ressources too.
The problem is that we were told she was going to pay much more than any other option and she 1) doesn't pay much more spiritual stone wise (she pay about the same thing as the sect) and 2) she is telling us that she will not use her connection (nepotism) to give that absolute material superiority anymore.
This is one of those situations in English where usage is completely inconsistent and you're forced to guess purely based on context. So 780~ presumably because jumping into the 720~s like two months in would be preposterous.
Another example of this awful linguistic ambiguity would be 'bimonthly' it should mean twice a month but people use it to mean once every two months just as frequently.
Is her working theory that in the future she won't have to provide people with material rewards in exchange for helping her out? Or is it that she can dial down Ling Qi's compensation specifically since she's now committed and no longer needs to be won over?
She's fine with paying people, she's just categorically ruling out the unthinking graft and preferential treatment which is kind of taken to be a given for friends and allies in the culture.
Her talk seems more with regards to distasteful favourtism that leaves rules only constraining those who aren't close to her. As a leader in a martial world, I hardly think properly equipping vassals is something she's against. I also doubt that she plans to completely ignore what resources and connections her name gives her.
I'll just quote this rather than a dozen people:
The issue is that "properly" means "more than the opposition". Her connections and resources ? those are the definition of nepotism. She has them because she was born into it.
If we take her words at face value she literally wants to break down the system that hold her up.
That's why i fear she's a "unrealistic idealist that dreams of an impossible system".
@naths@DeAnno any reason why we're keeping to Medium pills when we're borderline rich ?
Seems to me than getting high (or even very high) would be worth it if it secures physical and HDW level up, plus whatever else we'll get as overflow...
What are you talking about ? What outrageous salary ? What outrageous benefits ? Because currently Cai pay as much as the sect does for us, including her benefits.
The sect give us 1 gss and 40 yss, Cai give us 1 gss and 20×15 rss=300 rss.
I mean sure you can debate that the entire idea of monarchal systems is an exercise in nepotism, and I'd probably agree with you, but good luck implementing anything other than strongman rule in a world where the monarch can fart out kill-sat lasers.
Stripping propriety away, Cai's position is a result of the support of the scariest monster, if she ascends to the throne, it will be because all the other monsters agree that fighting for it isn't worth it. Please work within the context of the setting for your definitions. For fucks sake.
Also she is almost matching the funds given you by an entire organization when she doesn't even hold any property herself yet, quit with the goddamn greed
@naths@DeAnno any reason why we're keeping to Medium pills when we're borderline rich ?
Seems to me than getting high (or even very high) would be worth it if it secures physical and HDW level up, plus whatever else we'll get as overflow...
High pills are only 50% as efficient as Green Stones. If we had a truly urgent need for something it might be worth considering, but other than that I don't think I buy it.
