Should the world be a Low Fantasy setting?

  • Yes

    Votes: 63 70.0%
  • No

    Votes: 27 30.0%

  • Total voters
    90
  • Poll closed .
Yup, while i don't personally love how this was handled i do love Bronwyn as a character and i think that she does deserve fair chance at divinity.

@Oshha is becoming a goddess a possibility for her?
It took Evalyn killing the local Satan equivalent for her to even have a chance, so I doubt it. She'll probably have to make do with "just" being a legend that has a statue of her standing for all eternity.

Though she does have the Godshaper at her side...
 
Eh, the creation of a Goddess actively opposed to one of our core values (community over family) seems unlikely.
Maradysh and Merthyr put quite emphasis on family so she should have a good base there.
It took Evalyn killing the local Satan equivalent for her to even have a chance, so I doubt it. She'll probably have to make do with "just" being a legend that has a statue of her standing for all eternity.

Though she does have the Godshaper at her side...
Well she is descendant from one of the goddesses, so she may have a chance to be raised to goddess .
 
Is this a reasonably proximate summary?

Wyrn considers what she did to be right as she and Arthryn disagree regarding how equality works on in practice. Wyrn believes that the People are best under a strong leader to guide them and a Divine Royal Family can give the People that strong leader consistently and while treating everyone equal is nice in theory, it doesn't work out so well in practice compared to the alternatives. Arthryn believes that everyone is born equal in spirit and therefore should be given fair treatment and opportunity to prove themselves. Some people may prove themselves to be better, but they are getting judged by their actions and not the circumstances of their birth. Those beliefs is what Born Equal is and Arthryn expects the People to carry out those beliefs.

Arthryn doesn't agree with the hereditary monarchy and considers it to be bad, but so long as the People are trying to do what is best for the People and it doesn't cross certain lines, she will tolerate it. To put simply, so long as the People are doing the monarchy for the good of the community (Communal Mandate) and they still treat others fairly and give them opportunity to prove themselves (Born Equal), Arthryn will let them be.

She has effectively told them that they can have their Divine Royal Family so long as it doesn't take priority over Communal Mandate and Born Equal. This is a problem for the People due to the conflicts between DRF and BE, but hey, that is their problem and not Arthryn's. Her problem is keeping BE around and if the People can find a way to keep both DRF and BE, then good on them.

Wyrn does acknowledge that she enabled Bronwyn's selfishness, but since the end result is a good outcome, that is an acceptable compromise and a lesser evil for the greater good. For that reason, she understands why she is being punished and considers a fair price for her actions.

Bronwyn accepts her punishment and that she did wrong by using her position to empower her family at the expense of the community. She got a good result, but she did it for the wrong reasons and she needs to be punished for that as an example for future generations. She isn't happy about the whole being a statue thing (who would be?), but she agrees that the precedent needs to be set.

With the People, Arthryn was unhappy about Bronwyn
using her position to empower her family at the expense of the community.
The end result was good, but the bad behaviour and motive needs to be punished because while it turned out okay this time, that may not be the case next time.

They also understand that they need to uphold Born Equal and not discard it lest they suffer the wrath of Arthryn. So the Royal Family is okay and for the best, but they still need to give people the chance to prove themselves and treat others fairly regardless of their birth.

@Oshha is becoming a goddess a possibility for her?
Normally, the answer would be no as while prominent, she isn't really done anything to get worshipped, but...
Though she does have the Godshaper at her side...
This. Bronwyn is prominent enough and memetic enough that if Wyrn decides that she wants her as a new sister, she could probably set things up to get Bronwyn as a new Arthrynite Goddess.

Bronwyn would certainly get Beauty as a domain if she became a goddess, but the others would depend on Wyrn.
 
We need to upgrade Born Equal, this will decrease our chance of losing it. This may be possible (long term) by devoting the Temple to Arthryn the Teacher.
 
Inserted tally
Adhoc vote count started by Parzival95 on Mar 1, 2019 at 5:39 AM, finished with 7494 posts and 50 votes.
 
We need to upgrade Born Equal, this will decrease our chance of losing it. This may be possible (long term) by devoting the Temple to Arthryn the Teacher.
Upgrades aren't always upgrades though. In the original PoC, some civ upgrades Grand Sacrifice (sacrifice goods for stability) to Moloch Calls (Sacrifice babies), which was a negative for them.

The upgrade depends on how the society views the value at that time, and how the upgrade is done. If we do the upgrade now, the risks exists that it is upgraded in a way that weakens equality, thereby making it better because it no longer conflicts.
 
We need to upgrade Born Equal, this will decrease our chance of losing it. This may be possible (long term) by devoting the Temple to Arthryn the Teacher.
Though I am beginning to wonder, is it possible that we might accidentally upgrade Born Equal to something Arthryn wouldn't approve of?

It's not going to happen if we upgrade it via Temple, but I could see something similar to Janteloven pop up from it. Like, not only are we born equal, but we are to stay equal. If anyone tries to be more than anyone else, that is itself a sin. No matter the effort you put in.

I have strong doubts that the Mothership would approve.
 
Upgrades aren't always upgrades though. In the original PoC, some civ upgrades Grand Sacrifice (sacrifice goods for stability) to Moloch Calls (Sacrifice babies), which was a negative for them.

The upgrade depends on how the society views the value at that time, and how the upgrade is done. If we do the upgrade now, the risks exists that it is upgraded in a way that weakens equality, thereby making it better because it no longer conflicts.

Upgrading values is less upgrading into something better and more upgrading into a more advanced form, which can be good or bad depending on your perspective regarding the changes.
 
This. Bronwyn is prominent enough and memetic enough that if Wyrn decides that she wants her as a new sister, she could probably set things up to get Bronwyn as a new Arthrynite Goddess.

Bronwyn would certainly get Beauty as a domain if she became a goddess, but the others would depend on Wyrn.

Well let's hope that she puts all of her charm to good use then.
 
Upgrading values is less upgrading into something better and more upgrading into a more advanced form, which can be good or bad depending on your perspective regarding the changes.

I just thought of something.

We may not want to upgrade Unity. If Unity has any relation with any of our values, it is with Communal mandate. The problem is, as we saw in the original Paths of Civilization, that strengthening a value which reduces internal dissent can upgrade into a value which can destroy the ability for individual expression.

I mean, if internal dissent is socially frowned upon, then people can no longer express their concerns, or offer suggestions to improve the leader's behavior. This compounds significantly with the fact that we have a centralized monarchy, as well as the belief that the Monarch is inherently superior.

Consider too, that we're exceeding maximum stability and are at maximum legitimacy. We would be upgrading Unity in the context of a civilization which is already too stable for it's own good.
 
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Upgrading values is less upgrading into something better and more upgrading into a more advanced form, which can be good or bad depending on your perspective regarding the changes.
So lemme take a poke at our values and what they might focus on in the present context:
-Communal Mandate - Main issue here is definitions. How do you determine whats your Community? What about actions that are risky but can be good?

Given the recent smiting, its going to focus mostly on not being selfish. Thats the big thing here, benefitting your family is NOT how a leader should be.

-Born Equal - Main issue here is that its definition isn't correct. Some people ARE literally born better.

Recent events say that its going to shift away from blind equality. Because Arthryn is clearly fine with Born Equal, Made Great what with all the heroes that wound up in her family. Its likely to shift towards something about making the most of your opportunities, or proving your worth.
We really need an event to take in refugees or something to emphasize the Equal Opportunities aspect...

Would do more, but lack the time x.x
 
I just thought of something.

We may not want to upgrade Unity. If Unity has any relation with any of our values, it is with Communal mandate. The problem is, as we saw in the original Paths of Civilization, that strengthening a value which reduces internal dissent can upgrade into a value which can destroy the ability for individual expression.

I mean, if internal dissent is socially frowned upon, then people can no longer express their concerns, or offer suggestions to improve the leader's behavior. This compounds significantly with the fact that we have a centralized monarchy, as well as the belief that the Monarch is inherently superior.
Oh God no, we're becoming MAKUG!
 

It's a reference to a nation in the old Paths of Civilization Games. MAKUG is it's iteration in Paths of Industry. Most of the time you'll see them referred to as the Highland Kingdom.

The questers had a big "Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam" feeling about it for various reasons (IIRC, they stole our stuff, killed some of our traders, stuff like that) but the combination of their extremely rigid and stable civ, as well as their strong fortifications and a convenient meteor strike meant we never got around to conquering them.
 
They just kept backstabbing us when they got the chance too. Every time we got into the war, we always had to be careful about the Highlanders launching a surprise attack against us or one of our allies while we were distracted.
 
We really need an event to take in refugees or something to emphasize the Equal Opportunities aspect...

Well that really depends , if you remember those little stories when Ymarn were takin in refugees, player base found some unpleasant things.

Now add our blessing in picture and beliefs that blessed do have advantage over non blessed,refuges coming from completely different environment , social presure to have children with the blessed and so on.
 
The problem with refugees in PoC was a matter of assimilation.

The questors consistently went around advertising, so they started arriving faster than they could assimilate which led to Valuing Diversity and Cosmopolitanism.

With an active religion, the People have a much better benchmark for successful integration. And we have traits that encourage less, or at least slower, outreach.
 
The problem with refugees in PoC was a matter of assimilation.

The questors consistently went around advertising, so they started arriving faster than they could assimilate which led to Valuing Diversity and Cosmopolitanism.

With an active religion, the People have a much better benchmark for successful integration. And we have traits that encourage less, or at least slower, outreach.

What was the problem with PoC's refugees. Afaik, the refugee thing worked perfectly fine.
 
The problem with refugees in PoC was a matter of assimilation.

The questors consistently went around advertising, so they started arriving faster than they could assimilate which led to Valuing Diversity and Cosmopolitanism.

With an active religion, the People have a much better benchmark for successful integration. And we have traits that encourage less, or at least slower, outreach.
Actually it's not that, assimilaton worked fine but main problem i would point out was the fact that most of the refugees that came came from completely different environment and thus didn't have the same conditions as Ymaryn, if you have language barrier it would be even harder and thus were unable to progress up in social leather but their children will do fine, but if you add the fact that those children have to compete with blessed then we are actually somewhat at disadvantage compared Ymaryn.

I would say that we have the same problem because if you noticed most of our hero's were actually descendants from those refugees and as such have a chance to prove themselves , but even then they are probably but a drop of water in the sea if you take countless others non blessed. You can say that all are equal but you can't really deny the fact that blessed people are mostly more successful in their life.
 
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