You sent a priest to get some books on the topic of "zero" from Kus. Within a year he came back with a number of books on the philosophy and mathematical properties of this strange "number".
It has always been wild to me how rare the idea of zero was, given the number of times *the absence of stuff* occurs in daily life. If I'm keeping track of my pantry to know when to buy groceries, the ability to write "none of" in shorthand seems super useful.
 
[X] Accept (Khemetri gain King of the Hill, possible delay in guild industry recovery, -1 Authority, unlikely +1 Influence, probably take Trelli next year)

Let's hope they come through for us...
 
There are only 11 votes and it's been less than 12 hours. Calm down.

I was thinking of the update that list options, and then finally update that lists the outcome.

It has always been wild to me how rare the idea of zero was, given the number of times *the absence of stuff* occurs in daily life. If I'm keeping track of my pantry to know when to buy groceries, the ability to write "none of" in shorthand seems super useful.

I was hoping we stir the pot even more by investigating the pegan communities in Khem. You could call it the Ymaryn Renaissance.
 
[X] Accept (Khemetri gain King of the Hill, possible delay in guild industry recovery, -1 Authority, unlikely +1 Influence, probably take Trelli next year)
 
[X] Accept (Khemetri gain King of the Hill, possible delay in guild industry recovery, -1 Authority, unlikely +1 Influence, probably take Trelli next year)

Not sure if we ever saw the benefit of King of the Hill, mechanically at least. Prestige was good supposedly, but we never really saw it have an effect since we always had it at "higher than everyone"
 
[X] Accept (Khemetri gain King of the Hill, possible delay in guild industry recovery, -1 Authority, unlikely +1 Influence, probably take Trelli next year)
 
News from Trelli

Dafydd tried a number of gambits to take Western Trelli this year. He tried to build a bridge. He tried an assault in the morning when the sun was behind him. He tried guile and sneaking a number of his soldiers over disguised as merchants. All failed.

He needs an actual navy able to contest the sea if he is to have any chance of taking Trelli.

(-1 Influence)

Disappointing. Players' opinion have led me to be more optimistic than I otherwise hoped to be.

Touch the Cow, Do it Now, MoS
Needed: Irrelevant, Authority

Things continue to go well on the reconstruction of the Sacred Warding. Many of the holdouts in the Memory of Spirits have fallen in line with the restoration of medical services. Things are going well from the reports.

A little redundant since you already said that the project is going well. I believe it is 2 years since we started the project. Would be nice to track them automatically, something like 2/3 progress so that it will be easier to keep track.

Touch the Cow, Do it Now, Txolla
Needed: Irrelevant, Authority

Txolla is in a much better position than the Memory of Spirits Province with regards to the Sacred Warding. While substantial amounts have been carried off by the nomads, substantial parts are also fully intact. The priests get to work.

This project just got started. 1/2 progress here. So next turn, the project should be completed.

Restore Administrative Control, Hills
Needed: Irrelevant, Authority

The hills prove unfortunately stubborn. Many of them reject your bureaucrats, blaming the King for failing to protect them from the Khan. Which is honestly fair enough, but you need the tax revenues from there and the border with the Black Sheep is woefully undermanned. It is frankly a miracle that Maximilian hasn't already moved again to take the Kingdom.

Something must be done to bring the hills into line.

The first impulse, naturally, is military. They are your subjects, and if they will not send the taxes they owe, then you should simply take them. However, these are still People, and hill fighting is extremely difficult. If these rebels fight with the same tenacity against you as they did against the Khan, it could take a very long time indeed to bring them into line. It might be faster to send diplomats and priests to coax the hill People back into the fold, but then talks might simply fail as well.

(Restore Administrative Control, Hills is nonviable. A new approach, martial or diplomatic, must be chosen next turn.)

I assume that the authority point is returned to us?

Diplomatic Outreach, Khem
Needed: Irrelevant, Authority

Khem is the preeminent power of the Saffron Sea. They survived the rise of the Syffronites, who are apparently part of the Hellas now. They survived the rise of the Rum Impyra that emerged in the aftermath of the Syfrronites. They fell to the Samynish emerging from the Arabs, but swiftly swallowed them culturally.

As such, Khemet remains ruled by the high cleric of the Samynish faith who is also their king.

While the Khemetri have old grievances with the Syffronites of the Hellas League, they are presently focused on the Berba and some troublesome tribes to their south. That said, they would be willing to lend you the use of some of their Saffron navy to help you retake Trelli, in return for some... considerations.

They want: Sweetheart deals on your steel products, lower tolls than others for their traders going through Trelli into the Yllython, commitment to fighting piracy in the Saffron Sea in the future once you have a navy again, and to be formally acknowledged as the greatest power in the region.

[] Accept (Khemetri gain King of the Hill, possible delay in guild industry recovery, -1 Authority, unlikely +1 Influence, probably take Trelli next year)
[] Reject (King of the Hill remains in flux, no aid for Trelli.)

With the vote going the way it has, we'll lose an authority point.

Diplomatic Outreach, Vynta
Needed: 11+. Rolled: 5. Failure.

You never hear back from the diplomat, or the ship. It probably sank in a storm.

Diplomatic Overview, Monsoon Sea
Needed: 11+. Rolled: 1 + 5 (Nothing) = 6. Failure.

You receive no less than three reports on your desk about the diplomatic situation on the monsoon sea. None of them agree.

You cradle your head in your hands. You thought the bureaucracy was fixed!

Disappointed that our rolls are so low. We need new customers after all.

Resettle Northern Core Areas
Needed: 6+. Rolled: 80. Success.

People continue to stream from the cities to the farms and towns they had abandoned in the wake of the Great Khan. The cities are still husks of their former selves, but rebuilding has already begun.

2/3 progress done if I judged correctly. it will bring us a much needed treasury point next turn if all goes well.


Kus Numerals + Much Ado about Nothing
Needed: 41+. Rolled: 88 + 10 (Nothing) + 10 (Personal Attention) = 108. Success.
Needed: 51+. Rolled: Nat 100 + 10 (Kus Numerals). Crit Success.

On a hunch, you decide to investigate the Kus Numerals personally. As such you hire a Kus merchant to teach you their numbers for a large pile of Sonbywlls. You've always been good at math, so it goes fairly quickly. The Kus system is fascinating. It only has a small handful of glyphs, and relies on positions to tell the exact numbers. Doing math in this way is somewhat slower than the traditional methods, but much more precise. You imagine the Kus merchants have higher profits simply because their rounding errors are smaller.

The strangest thing about the numerals however, is that the Kus have a glyph for nothing. That is mindbending, and takes a lot of thought to get your head around. Honestly, you still don't really get it.

You sent a priest to get some books on the topic of "zero" from Kus. Within a year he came back with a number of books on the philosophy and mathematical properties of this strange "number". This immediately set off a firestorm. Within a month, shopkeepers and half-exiles were debating the significance and properties of "Zero".

There are possibilities here. But to grab them would be to admit that the Kus were better than the People on this. It might be worth it even so.

Beyond 100% success. Two influence points well spent. Disappointed at not unlocking the Grand Library, however. We need to talk to Kus more if they have more knowledge lying around. Unfortunately, Kus diplomacy roll failed us.
Adopt Gunpowder Weaponry
Needed: 11+. Rolled: 23. Success.

How many years is this? I think we're in the third years of adoption. I hope combat bonus steadily go up.

Accounting:

Lost -1 influence due to terrible news of Trelli. Hopefully we'll regain influence point next turn.
2 authorities locked up on Sacred Warding.
Gained back 2 authorities for failure on regaining control of the hills, and diplomacy talk with Khems, but expected to lose 1 authority in exchange for ships. Authority point is much harder to gain back.
2 influence from failed diplomacy mission returned.
1 influence continued to be locked up in resettling the core.
2 influence from kus math study returned.

In total, we're looking at a projected:

1 authority.
3 influence.
 
There's really only one option. Stalling here won't do us any good.
[X] Accept (Khemetri gain King of the Hill, possible delay in guild industry recovery, -1 Authority, unlikely +1 Influence, probably take Trelli next year)

The adoption of the Zero is a big one, it's a corner stone need to get a lot of *extremely* useful stuff, like double-entry bookkeeping.
 
The sooner we retake Trelli, the sooner we have an army on the western shore of the Ylthon. That will help our diplomatic efforts to get Greenshore and Tinshore to rejoin. "Of course you had to go it alone in the wake of the Khan. Quite understandable. You did a great job. Still, the People are back in business so it's time to rejoin and enjoy the the many benefits. Why, our army to your south stands ready even now... to help you deal with those raiders from the west... for instance."
 
The sooner we retake Trelli, the sooner we have an army on the western shore of the Ylthon. That will help our diplomatic efforts to get Greenshore and Tinshore to rejoin. "Of course you had to go it alone in the wake of the Khan. Quite understandable. You did a great job. Still, the People are back in business so it's time to rejoin and enjoy the the many benefits. Why, our army to your south stands ready even now... to help you deal with those raiders from the west... for instance."

So, here's two things we have to worry about:

1. Money, money, and money.
2. Fielding a big enough army to force Western Walls to give in.

We can't really take full advantage of troops levy because we just don't have enough money.

So, we take Trelli. That might gives us 0.5, and annexation of Hathatyn should give us 1, or at worse only 0.5. Currently, income is -2, but it's really -2.5 if you account for Khem's upcoming KotH status. So -2.5 + 1.5 with Trelli and Hathatyn gives us -1 income, or worst case scenario -1.5. Treasury is at 1/10, but resettlement of the core should net us a 1 giving us 2/10.

Our treasury could very well be 1/10 or 0.5/10 assuming that we don't need to spend money on anything else.


To sum up our potential income source to break even or more:

1 Hathatyn
.5 Trelli
.5 Tinshore
.5 Greenshore
.5 The Hills

That gives us...3+ potential income, repairing our total income up to...-2.5 + 3 = .5. Even if we were to grant that Trelli gives us a full point, it will only equals to 1 income, a pittance.

Either way, the bare minimum means we cannot afford a levy, let alone expand our navy. Invading the Black Sheep is just a pipe dream at the moment. We need new customers!
 
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To sum up our potential income source to break even or more:

1 Hathatyn
.5 Trelli
.5 Tinshore
.5 Greenshore
.5 The Hills

That gives us...3+ potential income, repairing our total income up to...-2.5 + 3 = .5.

Either way, the bare minimum means we cannot afford a levy, let alone expand our navy. Invading the Black Sheep is just a pipe dream at the moment. We need new customers!

Don't forget a potential +1 from Trelli plus another +1 from Guild Industry every couple of years once it is fixed.
 
Don't forget a potential +1 from Trelli plus another +1 from Guild Industry every couple of years once it is fixed.

I counted only 0.5 for Trelli. Also, it's kinda hard to count Guild Industry income, not to mention that repairs will take a very long time.

Given that the Guilds give us 1 every 2 years...That means 2.5 income...Who woulda thought? The Guilds are very profitable, all things considered.

That's the equals to Hathatyn, Txolla, and Tinshore combined.
 
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One thing we CAN do is once the army takes Trellli we turn them around and send them to the hills to say "Taxes are not actually optional."

It would be profitable and bring more of our lands under our control.
 
Hmm, I count as a 1 as the loss of income from losing KotH is a separate thing to it.

It didn't take into account KotH.

In any case, we need to find new customers or new product lines. Any suggestions?

One thing we CAN do is once the army takes Trellli we turn them around and send them to the hills to say "Taxes are not actually optional."

It would be profitable and bring more of our lands under our control.

The Hill and Tinshore are equally profitable, and Tinshore is probably much easier to subdue. Even if we were to subdue all but Western Wall, it wouldn't give us enough income to call up a levy to invade Western Wall or pay for any investments.
 
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One thing we CAN do is once the army takes Trellli we turn them around and send them to the hills to say "Taxes are not actually optional."

It would be profitable and bring more of our lands under our control.
I think @Kiba is right that Tinshore is the correct next move - sending the army to try and subdue a province that was specialized into a defensive frontier sounds like a recipe for a slog.
 
This is decisive. Closing.

Adhoc vote count started by Aranfan on Nov 23, 2020 at 9:18 AM, finished with 67 posts and 16 votes.
 
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