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.