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Victoria Falls: A Post-Collapse American Nation Quest [Down With Victoria!]

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Rivenscryr said:
Without some risk does not mean taking a combination of risks that can - and likely will - cripple us without having certain things handled like Established (which again, was cheaper for us because we were Chicago, as per Poptart). If you are not, in fact the legitimate government of a region, then you do not have the right to act for or in that region, and should not expect to be able to do so without opposition, no matter how efficient your Bureaucracy is.
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Efficient Bureaucracy is also cheaper, i believe per @PoptartProdigy .
 
Rivenscryr said:
Without some risk does not mean taking a combination of risks that can - and likely will - cripple us without having certain things handled like Established (which again, was cheaper for us because we were Chicago, as per Poptart). If you are not, in fact the legitimate government of a region, then you do not have the right to act for or in that region, and should not expect to be able to do so without opposition, no matter how efficient your Bureaucracy is.
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And taking established without a bureaucracy means we have no actual way of doing anything the government needs to, the benefit of established is that we have popular legitimacy over a region, not that we can rule/or govern it.
 
Simon_Jester said:
You argued angrily against the Burns option at the time, so this comes across as kind of disingenuous.

Please do not intentionally set us up to have our sand-castle kicked over because gambling is fun or because The Fall Of The Sand Castle makes a fun story.

It would be a bad approach to take to those of us who are trying to have fun and succeed in the quest by developing a story and becoming attached to it. Especially if that was motivated in part by anger and bad feelings over an earlier choice in character/nation generation that didn't go the way it "should."
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I would have went for the safe option if people hadn't picked burns. I don't see it as a workable option now though. I have never voted in such a way as to screw other players because I'm angry. I'll be angry, and express it, but I'll never vote out of pettiness.
 
The vote's only one or two votes away from flipping.
Adhoc vote count started by Derpmind on Mar 27, 2019 at 7:01 PM, finished with 318 posts and 91 votes.
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So we will govern without legitimacy? Plus again, there is still some Bureaucracy, just not a particularly efficient Bureaucracy yet - which one might expect to be the case after just intergratimg with a new region anyway.

You can still govern without an efficient Bureaucracy - it just won't be efficient. Without legitimacy, you don't even have a state.
 
Libandlearn said:
Considering how much Burns the World was poo-poohed (rightly) for being reckless, I just find it incredibly ironic how the most popular plan is just as reckless if not more so.
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Speaking entirely seriously, Burns might have a lot of crises but it comes with an entirely functional state that includes all of the military and economic tools to actually address those problems. Vaccinations, trade, transportation, and established to address the Pop Boom, an established bureaucracy to address disunited currency, and a strong military to face down Russian and Victorian attention. Things might have been crazy for a few turns, but short of utterly fumbling right out of the gate we would probably make it.

Antix_Shadows said:
Live a little! Life is boring without risks, and we screwed ourselves on safe options when we took victorian attention from the onset.
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This.

The smartest approach in this scenario would have been to start slow and gradually build our strength before facing down Victoria, but by starting with Victorian Attention that stops being an option. We can't build slowly because we are going to be fighting right out of the gate no matter what. Which means we have to hit the ground running with a military strong enough to defend us and an economy capable of maintaining that military. And the only way to get that many pluses is by taking on an uncomfortably high level of risk.

All jokes aside, I don't see how the current leading plans are that much better than Burns. Particularly considering that Victoria trying to subvert us internally is guaranteed, given Lind's ideas of "4th Generation Warfare".
 
Rivenscryr said:
So we will govern without legitimacy? Plus again, there is still some Bureaucracy, just not a particularly efficient Bureaucracy yet - which one might expect to be the case after just intergratimg with a new region anyway.

You can still govern without an efficient Bureaucracy - it just won't be efficient. Without legitimacy, you don't even have a state.
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Then why is the main benefit of EB listed as: Begin play with a proper census, established taxation structures, and all of the manifold other things that go on in the boring background of governance.

Without it we do not have a bureaucracy.
 
Blackstar said:
Then why is the main benefit of EB listed as: Begin play with a proper census, established taxation structures, and all of the manifold other things that go on in the boring background of governance.

Without it we do not have a bureaucracy.
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Stop trying to push this. We have a beaurocracy without efficient beaurocracy, the fact that efficient beaurocracy improves on that doesn't mean that without it we're working from nothing.
 
QTesseract said:
Stop trying to push this. We have a beaurocracy without efficient beaurocracy, the fact that efficient beaurocracy improves on that doesn't mean that without it we're working from nothing.
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Is there actually word of gm on that? (I could be completely wrong in my interpretation and just missed it, in which case I apologize)
 
Blackstar said:
Then why is the main benefit of EB listed as: Begin play with a proper census, established taxation structures, and all of the manifold other things that go on in the boring background of governance.

Without it we do not have a bureaucracy.
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Except that the rest of it says...

Efficient Bureaucracy (-3 CP): Cursed by many as they were, the old bureaucratic institutions of the United States were what allowed it to function as it did, and bureaucracy, in general, is essential to the functioning of a modern state. You have ensured that yours is capable of handling the challenges demanded of it by this latest expansion. Begin play with a proper census, established taxation structures, and all of the manifold other things that go on in the boring background of governance.
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Note how it says Efficient Bureaucracy, and how this option "ensures that yours is capable of handling the challenges demanded by the challenge." The implication here is that we already have a Bureaucracy of some sort, with the main benefit of EB being that it has been efficient enough to set up all these structures for the entity. Without it, I suspect we would have some, but not all of these things done, because our existing Bureaucracy would be strained.
 
I'd like to stump for All-Round Start; it provides a solid set of basics without nearly so much of the "interlocking disadvantage" problem. Security, Established, and Economy has less of that, but still a significant amount- Victorian Sympathizers and Victorian Attention are unlikely to play well together. Although Good Security at least means that SEE has the tools to mitigate that problem.

Blackstar said:
Because those risks are all short term and can be solved given time. Plus having an established state apparatus makes all of them that much more survivable.
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...All the short term problems may be individually soluble, but that doesn't mean they can all be solved simultaneously while dealing with the consequences of the other problems.

Moreover, in the early years, even if we succeed, our options will be greatly restricted in terms of us having to avoid or delay projects that would otherwise give us a long term payoff, because we'll be dealing with the multiply-stacked crises.

It is extremely discouraging that the main defenses of All the Economy have basically reduced to "well we have to take some risk," "come on, live a little," and "I'm sure these problems won't be as bad as all that." Most good plans can be explained in terms of an interlocking strategy that self-evidently helps things work out well in the end. This plan seems to read "first, we somehow survive 3-5 horrible years, then we win because we have lots of riches."

EBR said:
The smartest approach in this scenario would have been to start slow and gradually build our strength before facing down Victoria, but by starting with Victorian Attention that stops being an option. We can't build slowly because we are going to be fighting right out of the gate no matter what. Which means we have to hit the ground running with a military strong enough to defend us and an economy capable of maintaining that military. And the only way to get that many pluses is by taking on an uncomfortably high level of risk.
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I think you're overestimating the amount of military strength required to deal with the level of Victorian Attention implied by a +2 CP malus.
 
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Simon_Jester said:
I think you're overestimating the amount of military strength required to deal with the level of Victorian Attention implied by a +2 CP malus.
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I mean, we have 2 CP of old world stuff, and 2 CP of boats, so it is out-spent two fold going by point value.

Rivenscryr said:
Note how it says Efficient Bureaucracy, and how this option "ensures that yours is capable of handling the challenges demanded by the challenge." The implication here is that we already have a Bureaucracy of some sort, with the main benefit of EB being that it has been efficient enough to set up all these structures for the entity. Without it, I suspect we would have some, but not all of these things done, because our existing Bureaucracy would be strained.
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Then why would that be an effectively discounted 4 point trait? Like, would what we have by default been that difficult to expand? (Am just, wondering what made it so expensive without our Chicago discount)
 
Simon_Jester said:
...All the short term problems may be individually soluble, but that doesn't mean they can all be solved simultaneously while dealing with the consequences of the other problems.

Moreover, in the early years, even if we succeed, our options will be greatly restricted in terms of us having to avoid or delay projects that would otherwise give us a long term payoff, because we'll be dealing with the multiply-stacked crises.

It is extremely discouraging that the main defenses of All the Economy have basically reduced to "well we have to take some risk," "come on, live a little," and "I'm sure these problems won't be as bad as all that." Most plans can be explained in terms of an interlocking strategy that self-evidently helps things work out.

I think you're overestimating the amount of military strength required to deal with the level of Victorian Attention implied by a +2 CP malus.
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You're kind of ignoring the other end of these +2 and +3 Maluses. If we don't take a +2 no navy, we aren't going to "lose it eventually." Meanwhile, we were guaranteed to come into conflict with Victoria eventually, unless like the NcR rolled really well and steamrollered them before we got there or something. In my planning and desire for more military than the burns basic (navy + one land modifier), I've been assuming that at least part of the reason for the low price is that it just changes the timeframe rather than manufacturing a crisis.
 
Antix_Shadows said:
I think you might be underestimating how they are unlikely to stop attacking us after the first wave gets rocked.
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I think @PoptartProdigy is enough of a good faith actor that "literally unending total war" would not be presented as a malus co-equal with "oh yeah and the enemy has some sympathizers in your city."

Blackstar said:
I mean, we have 2 CP of old world stuff, and 2 CP of boats, so it is out-spent two fold going by point value.
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We have a three-point bonus in military logistics. Professionals Study Logistics is, in itself, pretty likely to make a difference against the Victorians. Who are intentionally by Lind's author fiat fairly indifferent to supply issues.

Then why would that be an effectively discounted 4 point trait? Like, would what we have by default been that difficult to expand? (Am just, wondering what made it so expensive without our Chicago discount)
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Well for starters, a 4 CP bonus is probably not going to be a mandatory bonus, something we're hopelessly crippled without. It'll be valuable, but it'll be something we won't just lose the game for not taking, if we choose to instead take other bonuses or simply to avoid more maluses.

QTesseract said:
You're kind of ignoring the other end of these +2 and +3 Maluses. If we don't take a +2 no navy, we aren't going to "lose it eventually." Meanwhile, we were guaranteed to come into conflict with Victoria eventually, unless like the NcR rolled really well and steamrollered them before we got there or something. In my planning and desire for more military than the burns basic (navy + one land modifier), I've been assuming that at least part of the reason for the low price is that it just changes the timeframe rather than manufacturing a crisis.
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Having to fight the Victorians right at game start rather than several years in is a big disadvantage if we don't get some breathing room by defeating their first expeditionary force.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I don't expect the Victorians to just forget about us. But I also don't expect the game to devolve into There Is Only War. And if it did, we'd be screwed under All The Economy anyway, because we'd never get a recovery period in which to build up after somehow surviving the initial wave of chaos caused by all the front-loaded maluses.
 
Simon_Jester said:
I think you're overestimating the amount of military strength required to deal with the level of Victorian Attention implied by a +2 CP malus.
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My consideration was geared towards transporting food/goods/people up and down rivers and being able to block an attack by sea (Brown-Water Navy), having a foreign ally (Foreign Sourced Equipment), and the fact that having a single veteran unit will be less important in the long run than a universal bonus for all our units (Old World Training). The extra Old World Equipment was intended as an ace in the hole, just in case we needed to auto-resolve a bunch of tactical engagements in our favor all at once while fighting the Russians and Victorians.

I agree that people are overestimating the threat of Victorian and Russian attention (whether separate or together) considering how any initial attacks on their part will probably underestimate our danger.
 
Blackstar said:
Then why would that be an effectively discounted 4 point trait? Like, would what we have by default been that difficult to expand? (Am just, wondering what made it so expensive without our Chicago discount)
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Well, you would be taking actions to make sure you have the missing information needed to effectively run your larger polity, and probably need to get more recruits as well - which implies grabbing a large amount of literate, capable people in advance of the Accords to expand your existing Bureaucracy and lay out everything in advance for a smooth transition - no small feat when we have a smaller pool to draw from and no experience governing on that level (Chicago only).

Without EB, we will need to take actions to expand our Bureaucracy, get information and such - this is more of taking all the actions to do it in advance of becoming the full polity, which is nearly as expensive as a nuke.

Basically, it's expensive because it consumes a lot of resources, and would take more if we weren't a big city like Chicago which has more experience with this sort of stuff.
 
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