TBF the real pro-move would to manage the fief until Biyu comes of age and then dump it on her shoulders and go snort drugs.
Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)
- Thread starter yrsillar
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- Original Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
TBF the real pro-move would to manage the fief until Biyu comes of age and then dump it on her shoulders and go snort drugs.
Jensaarai
Sing Victory Everlasting
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Who's been saying this?
Once LQ gets C intelligence she will be about as good at being an administrator as a Yellow steward (as she already has C government). Said steward would be able to take some pressure off her limited time, which is valuable because time is likely to be really scarce but they wouldn't be doing much that LQ couldn't. Getting B rank government probably and some red/yellow arts that are applicable to governing wouldn't take that long either, which would make her strictly superior to the Yellow.
She might not like it but she will be able to do a good job.
She might not like it but she will be able to do a good job.
- Location
- Ukraine
- Pronouns
- She/They
Yup.
I mean mom's not going to be doing it alone, yeah?
Drive away the spirit beasts while someone else is fixing the wards, yep.
We're an artillery turret.
See, that's the thing I'm not seeing. Cai Renxiang wants us as her retainer for our abilities - namely, our spy/thief abilities and our diplomat/musician abilities. That's not "managing the fief" abilities. She's bringing us up to bare minimum competence, yes. Making us into a manager, absolutely not lmao.
What choices we have will likely only be a choice because of intrigue/political implications making it a meaningful choice for Ling Qi, not just "do what's best, professional who's handling this and knows better than I do".
The first is what mom is for. See above: Ling Qi plans to offload the overall audit/supervision to her, the value of which is precisely that Ling Qi trusts her.
Second, very true! Our duty is to defend the fief.
Not to micromanage it.
Ling Qi is already planning for her mom to be the trusted overseer.
And sure, I imagine a lot of new Barons cannot get a trusted administrator and end up stolen from. I don't recall it being mentioned as a major issue they have to contend with though.
Yes, she's going to be able to do what a Yellow can do for her with about equal competence.
A Yellow is going to be doing this for her.
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There's been a number of other responses about this, but it really boils down to this - for every bit that a kid noble is expected to play artillery and intrigue, they are also expected to grow up into a responsible adult. There are limits to how aloof and hands off we can afford to be, and the situation you describe is well beyond them.
- Location
- Ukraine
- Pronouns
- She/They
I just... really disagree. It's perfectly NORMAL to delegate. It's WEIRD to NOT delegate, especially when your main expected job is to cultivate as high as you can.
- Location
- Finland
Assuming we can afford to hire someone else to fix the wards.
Getting someone in to fix the wards might also be a time sink, could take more AP than just fixing them ourselves.
- Location
- Canada
[X] Defend the Geomantic Forts (Defensive Mission, Objective: Hold the Line, Defend production students, Survive)
- Location
- Brazil
[X] Assault the Cloud Tribe Ritual Site (Offensive Mission, Objectives: Kill and capture enemy combatants, gather intelligence, Survive)
- Location
- Ukraine
- Pronouns
- She/They
That seems like the kind of duty temples handle straightforwardly? A temple is where Ling Qi went for the supplies she needed for the "fix the wards" mission.
- Location
- Colorado
Ok, this is something I kind of take issue with. Both of these options are going to be the biggest military operations with the highest concentrations of force we've seen the sect deploy yet.
For the ritual site I'm expecting something like a 5th realm high ranking core disciple/low ranking Elder commanding officer with multiple 4th realm core disciple lieutenants, each one of those with a small hand picked squad of 3rd realm inner disciples who specialize in mobility/stealth/movement restriction. While it's technically possible we'll be bringing along 1st and 2nd realm soldiers it doesn't seem like the extra dps is worth bringing a bunch of people who will need to be dragged along by stronger cultivators for a raid like this. Especially since they'd be much more useful holding down the fort on the other mission.
For the geomantic forts the level cap is more of an issue, but we've seen that 4th realms can function deep inside shishigui territory for a limited time, so for an operation closer to the surface it could be feasible to field a 5th realm commander, but if so they're going to be under strict limits. The win condition might be to hold out until the formations that help higher realms exist underground activate so our 5th realm boss can obliterate the enemy force. So a 5th or 4th realm commander, some more 4th realm officers, some lower ranked 3rd realm officers below them, and 1st and 2nd realm soldiers beneath us holding the line.
For military operations of this scale we are probably not going to be the command staff. We do not have the standing to argue for significant changes to the plan and if we try we will probably be ignored unless there are very clear advantages to our suggestion. For the geomantic forts Zhengui is of obvious utility to any defensive plan. For the ritual site we have to gamble on getting a CO that bothers to include a gigantic slow moving turtle in an important part of their lightning stealth abduction raid.
I think it will be very easy for this thread to vote for the option Zhengui has the most trouble contributing to, then *surprised pikachu face.jpeg* when our boss doesn't feel like rewriting their plan to give our son an important roll, and then just shrugging our shoulders and saying we tried to keep our promise even though we explicitly picked the worst option for fighting alongside him.
Sorry for taking so long to get to the point.
- Location
- The United States
- Pronouns
- He/They
If you note the prologue the mortal farmer states it would be a Disciple from the Sect, which is the property owner.
Presumably that would mean that it would fall to us.
Of course land management delegation arrangements are INCREDIBLY varied in real life, so that could be very different from situation to situation.
- Location
- Finland
Having temple handy is not guaranteed.
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
She's the Clan Head of the Ling Clan. She is basically required to have responsibilities and run her fief and the various other political things like making nice nice with her neighbors, she can't just focus on cultivation since the Ling Clan is too small to let her be a Clan Matriarch (the social role of people who spend the majority of their time cultivating). This has been enumerated to us in multiple different facets by Renxiang, including when she talked about us doing tasks in court for her, her struggles with trying to make use of Ling Qi's skills as a musician or diplomat, and how the general social construction in the empire is that liegelords who don't take care of their lands with some kind of personal attention are derided, and general discussions of cultivation slowing down as people need to deal with things in their lives.
In a feudal system delegation works and is a necessary tool, but Ling Qi is going to still need to put forward actual presence, effort and focus on her fief if she wants it to come out how she wants instead of how whoever she delegates to wants it.
If we want a temple there, we have to organize it and negotiate with the temples nearby.
If we want fortifications and wards we have to do it ourselves or organize someone to do it.
If we want good health care we have to find an appropriate health minister and doctor who is willing to work for us.
If we want to make peace with the local spirits, we have to organize that.
If we want anything out of it we have to take some kind of responsibility and not just focus on cultivating as high as possible, because these tasks take time even if its just finding someone else to do it, and in a feudal system delegating too far is just going to leave us with disconnected servants who feel abandoned by Ling Qi. Its worth noting that Renxiang in her priorities basically goes "strength is important because it is the basis, but what about everything else after it?"
Is delegation possible? Yes and its a really useful tool in the constantly evolving process of administration. Is cultivating as high as we can as fast as we can being the primary focus possible? Not really. Cultivating efficiently is, but we have other things that are going to need doing as part of Ling Qi's responsibilities. My fundamental issue here is that cultivation in and of itself is not the focus Renxiang is asking from Ling Qi, and that doing that opens the way for stuff to slip under Ling Qi's notice and end up ignored until something bad happens. Because we work for the Cai, such things are not really tenable in the long term due to their high expectations.
You can't be a really good fief runner if you just yeet the job onto a bunch of other people, especially when that creates more paths for trouble to arise. There needs to be some kind of significant personal effort and involvement.
E: We also can't make the assumption that there will be a pool of possible candidates to delegate to because we are new, young, and our fief will be small and not pay that much in the grand scheme of things. Yes we're connected to Renxiang, but she's only got so much political pull.
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- Location
- The United States
- Pronouns
- He/They
This is important.
If we want to be able to spend all of our time cultivating to try to make it to White, the only way to make that happen is to raise up the generations following us into successors or pull Shenhua hax. Imperial society does not allow for anything else. Those resources we'll be cultivating with have to come from somewhere.
This is naive. Firstly because administrators cost money to employ, and secondly, a running theme of Ling Qi's character is the tension between what she needs to grow stronger and what civilization needs to grow stronger, so from a design perspective, if we ever get to the point where Ling Qi's fief is an actual thing in the quest, then Ling Qi will be managing it, and getting administrators will be an option that has significant costs. And that's before we consider that your perspective isn't actually supported by the setting. Even the Empress, who should have the resources to employ as many administratiors as she needs, still personally manages areas under direct control of the throne, as seen in the last interlude.
I totally expect, once Ling Qi moves off to the fief, that not only will Ling Qi manage her fief personally, but spirit stones will be tight enough that the thread will be forced to make uncomfortable choices regarding what advances.
Cecylene
Eternal Idea Engine
- Location
- Massachusetts
- Pronouns
- He/They
My expectations of "Managing Our Fief" follow the general idea that we will be as the Senior Management to the daily operations.
A CEO/CFO/COO does manage their business, but they don't handle the nitty-gritty of minor expense. They aren't deciding "does this ward need to be fixed?" Because it obviously does, or else things go to shit and fast. We might be involved in deciding WHO handles that for us on a contract basis, like do we hire the Sect and use our friends there for it to build up a more professional relationship with them, or use some other Emerald Seas contact for closer business ties or just a cheaper process.
I hardly imagine we won't be using a middle management structure since we effectively are already doing so for a single house with Qinnge and her associates handling the day to day expenses.
Will our management abilities come into play? Certainly, as we will be receiving monthly/quarterly/annual reports about a number of things that we need to understand, interpret, and determine our goals going forward but unless we plan on completely avoiding the insight into micromanagement that we managed to inadvertently give CRX we are not going to be doing that much directly in our Fief ourselves that cannot/should not be done just as well by others more suited to the job and leave our time free to handle the tasks we are best suited for.
A CEO/CFO/COO does manage their business, but they don't handle the nitty-gritty of minor expense. They aren't deciding "does this ward need to be fixed?" Because it obviously does, or else things go to shit and fast. We might be involved in deciding WHO handles that for us on a contract basis, like do we hire the Sect and use our friends there for it to build up a more professional relationship with them, or use some other Emerald Seas contact for closer business ties or just a cheaper process.
I hardly imagine we won't be using a middle management structure since we effectively are already doing so for a single house with Qinnge and her associates handling the day to day expenses.
Will our management abilities come into play? Certainly, as we will be receiving monthly/quarterly/annual reports about a number of things that we need to understand, interpret, and determine our goals going forward but unless we plan on completely avoiding the insight into micromanagement that we managed to inadvertently give CRX we are not going to be doing that much directly in our Fief ourselves that cannot/should not be done just as well by others more suited to the job and leave our time free to handle the tasks we are best suited for.
- Pronouns
- He
If I am honest all this talk about fief management just makes me really excited for a future arc/thread focused on the subject. Ling Qu forging a community for herself and her family out of the spirit-ridden frontier is a hell of a pitch as far as I'm concerned. Presumably with occasional interludes were she tours the province and acts as Cai's retainer and personal troubleshooter.
On delegation, its important that a liege lord be familiar enough with all the aspects of the job your delegating. Otherwise you can't manage or supervise your employee's properly. So studying up on administrative skills seems a safe bet in the long run, if not an immediate concern.
On delegation, its important that a liege lord be familiar enough with all the aspects of the job your delegating. Otherwise you can't manage or supervise your employee's properly. So studying up on administrative skills seems a safe bet in the long run, if not an immediate concern.
- Location
- Colorado
Of course not, but if given the option we should choose to work more closely with him, especially right after we made the damn promise. If we were given a choice between 2 stealth/raid options I wouldn't be arguing we should refuse both because Zhengui doesn't have a big enough part, but since one of the options is a defense focused one that is perfect for him, we should really go with that one.
zamin
The Watcher in the Dark
Remember during the vote for the Ji Rong duel? Someone expressed worry that Ji Rong would hurt Zhengui during the fight and seemed to think that he wasn't tanky enough to take it for some reason.
I expect that to be an option, but given the increasing trend of having votes represent something beyond Ling Qi's choices(which target to attack in the underground mission) I am fully anticipating a vote on what kind of fief Ling Qi will acquire, and well, one of the options will either be a ramshackle village suffering drought, or blighted crops, or whatever, or a completely wild holding that will need to be built up from zero. You know to something that requires investment before putting out revenue and encourage us to pick hard mode because "Zhengui could fix that."