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[X] [TOWER] Complete

I am really torn.... but I actually thinking putting a focus on underground defense as soon as we can would be for the best Karaks the Skaven aren't going to fight each other forever and the sooner Eight Peaks can secure it's underside from the better, and Ironbreakers actually seem to be one of the Dwarf groups most receptive to new inventions in the existence of Irondrakes is anything to go by.
The better we secure the surface the more of our assets we can reallocate to the war below. It's the difference between being about to move some of our defenses underground and being able to transfer nearly all of them, by virtue of having a twenty four hour a day, all weather superweapon covering for them.
 
"Still stalled on the damn ratling gun, but I've been working with Panoramia with the ooze we found. It can digest just about anything organic and turn it into... well, more of itself. We're feeding it to some of the cattle and they seem to like it okay, we're up to three months without ill effects at half their diet."

"That's," you pause, consider. "Possibly a really big deal." You consider further. "And might answer some questions about Skaven logistics."

"It's a matter of how far we can scale without running into deficiencies," Panoramia says. "The Halflings have agreed to scale up tests, so we'll be starting sample groups of goats and sheep on 10%, 25%, and 50%. That seems to be as much as they're willing to eat without becoming upset and uncooperative. If they're still doing okay at one year in, we'll start draft cows, milk cows and horses at Ulrikadrin. After five years, we slaughter and do full autopsies."

Interesting.....

Might want to make this one an official assignment.
 
This makes me think that one day, were we to have a friendly sparring match with Johann (without setting Branulhune to Kill, of course), our perfectly muscled ass is gonna get spanked by golden hands.

...I think I need to lay off the romance novels for a bit.

The point where we SHOULD have considered the consequences of our actions was back when we were voting on whether to hire a punching trainer for Johann.

At this point we should just keep this going as far as possible and see what happens. Maybe we can loot Eshin for scrolls containing their secret ninja techniques and get him to learn those, too. :V
 
[X] [TOWER] Ongoing

[X] [LIBRARY] Plan: Finding the Mines
-[X] Skaven: Dwarven Esoteric
-[X] Karaz Ankor: Imperial Esoteric, Bretonnian Extensive

[X] [DWARF] No purchase.

[X] [COLLEGE] No purchase.

[X] [PURCHASE] No purchase.
 
"Still stalled on the damn ratling gun, but I've been working with Panoramia with the ooze we found. It can digest just about anything organic and turn it into... well, more of itself. We're feeding it to some of the cattle and they seem to like it okay, we're up to three months without ill effects at half their diet."

So, burning some plants with fire is too dangerous, but feeding the Skaven Self Replicating Ooze to live animals is apparently fine.
 
've been working with Panoramia with the ooze we found. It can digest just about anything organic and turn it into... well, more of itself. We're feeding it to some of the cattle and they seem to like it okay, we're up to three months without ill effects at half their diet."

so, low key, but this is big. we might have just stole one of the big reasons the skaven don't starve, and it seems to be self replicating. if we can scale this, and if there is not a kill plague already made, we might be able to massivly increase the amount of food available to dwarvs and humans. Especially if carnivores can eat this ooze.
 
Agreed, if we're concerned with defenses, getting that up and running in a form that the dwarves can replicate and repurpose will make holding defensive likes a lot easier.

Agreed. Dwarf-made ratling-gun-alikes would basically turn the underground war into a more concentrated version of the Western Front of WW1, with Skaven clanrats playing the role of the poor bastards sent to charge machine guns in close order.
 
The better we secure the surface the more of our assets we can reallocate to the war below. It's the difference between being about to move some of our defenses underground and being able to transfer nearly all of them, by virtue of having a twenty four hour a day, all weather superweapon covering for them.
I will say I'm still learning underground, but if we do choose to upgrade the tower I want to either do all we can to make sure night functionality work or see about other upgrades.

Agreed, if we're concerned with defenses, getting that up and running in a form that the dwarves can replicate and repurpose will make holding defensive lines a lot easier.
That seems more like an human thing personally due to newness and origin.... it's a real shame Slayers don't take up weapon testing often considering some we willing to man the Goblin Hewer.
 
DP updates to go along with wizard club:

Johann gained another point of martial, 14 to 15

"Martial: 15 - There might be a point in the future where you'll regret not stopping this here and now."

Here's Johann like 15 turns from now doing the heel turn where he reveals he's been a Skaven agent this whole time, as he uses his newly acquired 35 martial to pile drive us through the planet. He's here normalizing Moulder projects left and right! Infecting our livestock with garbage goo! THE END IS NIGH!
 
Why do they need to live in Karak Eight Peaks to have hope? If he spent his entire life and got very lucky he might be able to make his people almost as safe and comfortable as they would have been in Karaz-a-Karak or any of the other ludicrously underpopulated Old Holds. All the things that make Eight Peaks meaningful are tied up in the values he's discarding to conquer it.
Well, by that same pragmatism you can see that a great many of the dwarves aren't discarding those values. Those dwarves will hopefully be galvanised and given hope, working off of the blueprint laid down here. Thousands(?) of years ago the dwarves decided to gift humanity the secrets of fire etc., and now like all good dwarf plans after a great deal of time it is paying off. This is an incredible example of how the Karaz Ankor can revitalise itself by leaning on the humans, who can replace their numbers more readily and even have access to useful tricks the dwarves don't usually bother with (magic). Just as the dwarves once lifted humanity out of the dirt, humans can cover for and help up the dwarves who have themselves been knocked down by the Skaven.

The march of progress is slow, but inexorable. The best days of the Dawi are yet to come.

...Or at least, that's the argument I'd make to him.

Curious that he is so certain that it's aftermath of a civil war. Yes, Mors being seriously pressured in their heart of power makes it certain that the Great Clans are currently winning, but Pestilens and its vassal clans are foes not to be underestimated. They could probably prolong the war to catastrophic casualties on both sides for decades more.
Also, here's hoping that the Forces of Order don't get too zealous, and run into a trap.
We were explicitly told that Pestilens and Mors took their shot and failed. We know they've lost, and have passed this onto Algard.

The worst part is: That's not what's killing off the dwarfs. They can afford to lose their young men, but they can't afford to lose their women or have them choose to remain childfree.

Thinking on it I feel like the biggest single way to improve the Dwarf race's survivability would be to introduce professional childcare so that there's much less of a burden on dwarfen women when they do have children. If possible even using human nursemaids to handle the feedings and let the mother get back to work as soon as she likes.
IIRC difficulty raising children isn't really the problem, it's that Dwarves tend to have children for reasons, planned out: one as an heir, one to run the shop, and so on. The best solution I can think of is to get them in a state of mind that they always need another child, possibly for war. (Which is grim, but they're pretty much there already for the kids they do have.)
 
[X] [LIBRARY] Focused Spending
-[X] Skaven: Dwarf Antiquarian (100g, 2 Dwarf Favor)
-[X] Karaz Ankor: Imperial Esoteric, Bretonnian Extensive (250g)
-[X] Linguistics: Dwarf Antiquarian (100g, 2 Dwarf Favor)
-[X] Ulgu: Imperial Esoteric (50g, 2 College Favor)

Total expense: 500g, 4 Dwarf Favour, 2 College Favor
Out of pocket expense: 200g, 2 Dwarf Favour, 2 College Favor

This library plan is improves our Skaven bonus to almost the maximum possible (+11) for our prisoner and general anti-Skaven activities, puts our Karaz Ankor bonus to the maximum possible without spending favor (+9), puts our Linguistics bonus up to just shy of the maximum (+11) because learning Queekish can use every point that we can scrape up, and finally maximizes our ulgu bonus (+5) as that applies to any ulgu-related research we may do in the coming turn (though not spell learning), and we're a Magister and deserve a maxed bonus on our own wind, dammit.

The overall point here is to get key bonuses for the coming turn and have a willingness to spend favor to increase those bonuses without getting excessive about it.
 
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Regarding the mines.. i see one very underutilize resources here.

Niter.

We got a hundred thousand living souls with accumulated waste of thousands of years from thousand of dwarves

Why are we not making filtering and factory out of it?
Who says the Dwarves aren't? That said the fresh stuff is also needed as fertilizer since greenskin and Skaven materials both have contamination issues and old gong will include them.

Waste management is a key part of Karak stewardship but it comes under Edda rather than Mathilde.

There would be many Orc corpses after Karagil but few live captures which means a glut of food for the We but none that can be kept as reserve. How much can they consume and how much of that do they turn into new individuals who will need to eat in the future? Is anyone gong farming for the We?

How are the weapons, armour and tools of the Skaven and Grobi being recycled?

All interesting questions but below a rather crusty abstraction layer.
 
IIRC difficulty raising children isn't really the problem, it's that Dwarves tend to have children for reasons, planned out: one as an heir, one to run the shop, and so on. The best solution I can think of is to get them in a state of mind that they always need another child, possibly for war. (Which is grim, but they're pretty much there already for the kids they do have.)

Or restructure/modify the structure of their society so that there's more acceptable and productive places for "spare" children to go.
 
Mathilde and Johann casually swiping one of the key pieces of the Skaven's magical logistics is potentially huge. If it works out, Johann is going to get a dumb amount of Favor from just about everybody. Obviously we're gonna have to be really careful with the stuff, though, since it's a gift from dark gods even greater than the Four: Games Workshop.
 
Editing the following into the previous update:
So second Duckling club, thoughts: I'm not sure I like the dynamic so far.

it's a Little listy, they are not really talking and interacting.

To expand on that: I thought there would be more Q and A where they can get advice, or things we can help within next turn if needed or etc or even bring up something that gets us thinking. instead of the 'did you do your homework?' that happening.

and finally its the one thing where Mathy isn't so much 'Miss Frizzle' as 'Smug ass styling on people who should be less good than her.' it's not really funny when the other side isn't a peer or third party but a student. it's condescending. (almost the opposite of good teaching theory.)

I would have said that it's her 10 dip showing, but other Wizards are a group she is specifically ok with.

I'm not trying to be a downer, but I think it's important for the writer to point out when their stuff is weaker than normal.
 
So, burning some plants with fire is too dangerous, but feeding the Skaven Self Replicating Ooze to live animals is apparently fine.

Baby steps! We clearly are having an influence :D

Also, it's less fire and more DWARVEN HELLFIRE combined with MAGICAL ACID. I suspect we'd have better luck with using the tower for weeding if we didn't crit so hard to make it so exotic and OP. Why would QM offer the option if the answer was always gonna be "hell no"? Kinda like the difference between using a flamethrower to combat locusts/wasps (metal, unconventional, but potentially useful) and using a nuke to do the same (batshit insane).
 
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