Hmmph... this junior is a good seed [Cultivation Management Quest]

occipitallobe · Oct 2, 2020

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Mochinator · Mar 13, 2021

Brief point that came up in discord.

Flood Dragon Gang are wanderers because they don't have the land to cultivate in. So right now my personal aim is to go for New Sect and see if we can get the land assigned to them.

Flood Dragon Sect as allies would be so sweet

EDIT: Info from Occi in Discord that i think is pretty important

Like, each choice here opens up new options and geopolitical realities.

[21:58]
If you seize all the land and cripple the Jingshen, you're committing to conquering the desert.

Occipitallobe — Today at 21:58
Or at least trying.

[21:58]
If you create a new Sect there, you're implicitly agreeing the great contest for influence in the desert will be one of soft power, you versus Jingshen.

[21:59]
trying to win over the third party to gain dominance

[21:59]
Likewise, if you negotiate a land split between you and Jingshen, you're going back to the inevitable showdown.

[21:59]
And if you go Righteous, you're inherently agreeing that almost all contests are soft power contests from now on.

nothingtoseehere · Mar 13, 2021

Ooooh Lore on Hong Xuan, sounds like they rely on volcano-power for much of their stuff. Bet many of the arrays there are maintained by us as part of the "alliance". Lots of propaganda, but another set of floating islands are neat (they do seem to be common in the desert)

And I really don't want to give Old Cannibal the resources of the Bees - and escalate our dispute with Jingshen to a Feud, which it probably would once this came out (and it inevitably would, see the option)

occipitallobe · Mar 13, 2021

Mochinator said:
Brief point that came up in discord.

Flood Dragon Gang are wanderers because they don't have the land to cultivate in. So right now my personal aim is to go for New Sect and see if we can get the land assigned to them.

Flood Dragon Sect as allies would be so sweet

EDIT: Info from Occi in Discord that i think is pretty important

A note on this: this isn't a mandatory direction for the quest.

You can choose to found a new Righteous Power in the desert and then decide to fight them and the Jingshen. It's just kinda dumb to do so.

Your choice won't prevent you from making war or trying to win via soft power, or making whatever choices you want to in future. It just shapes the situation so some choices are much worse (or better) than they were before.

Mochinator · Mar 13, 2021

Some more info that pop up regarding the New Sect Idea, Pros and Cons. To be fair, it's mainly my exchanges with Occi, there are other points raised by others in the discord as well

Mochinator - Xiao Yi/Jin Muyi — Today at 22:01
IF we can get the Flood Dragons In, we already have a slight advantage on the influence front

@Mochinator - Xiao Yi/Jin Muyi
Any chance of there being a negotiation involved? Like if we can trade stuff/bribe so that it's Flood Dragon, i think it;s worth it
Occipitallobe — Today at 22:02
Yes, but it's unlikely to be Flood Dragon. You could win a concession and have the Flood Dragons offered a bunch of elder positions, for instance.

[22:02]
But the Sect would be a tripartite sort of thing.

Occipitallobe — Today at 22:02
Realistically it would be centuries before it reached any sort of real coherency.

Mochinator - Xiao Yi/Jin Muyi — Today at 22:02
Like offhand, giving spirit stones, lowering tarrifs etc

@Mochinator - Xiao Yi/Jin Muyi
Hmmm, no bribing to make things lean more heavily towards the Flood Dragons?
Occipitallobe — Today at 22:03
Jingshen have no reason to heavily compromise on this, though Strength Purity happily would.

Mochinator - Xiao Yi/Jin Muyi — Today at 22:06
I mean, if we could try and get one that thinks of the Clan in favourable terms..

[22:06]
After all we just need them to NOT HIT Us

@Mochinator - Xiao Yi/Jin Muyi
I mean, if we could try and get one that thinks of the Clan in favourable terms..
Occipitallobe — Today at 22:07
They likely will. Strength Purity like the Clan and think they're an excellent candidate to reform onto the Righteous Path.

Occipitallobe — Today at 22:07
But if it came down to war between the Devils and Jingshen...
Occipitallobe — Today at 22:07
they would very strongly protest such a war
Occipitallobe — Today at 22:07
but ultimately the Righteous Path remains coherent by sticking together

Occipitallobe — Today at 22:09
Righteous vs Demonic is more 'any Righteous power can join the war on the other side and gains a penalty for not doing so without good reason"

[22:09]
So if a new Sect is created it's a disadvantage for the Clan in all-out war.

[22:09]
Which leads back to the 'contesting soft power and economics'.

Gore17 · Mar 13, 2021

[X] What are the qualities of a righteous man? (Can only be taken with "Walk in the Light, Cloaked by Shadow" option from the following post)
[X] Walk in the Light, Cloaked by Shadow (Can only be taken in conjunction with "What are the qualities of a righteous man?" from the prior post)

These seem most interesting/beneficial medium-term.

Negotiated End + Step Into the Light would be my second choice.

TimEd · Mar 13, 2021

[X] Cloak the Ways Between
[X] The New Sect

Screw it. Safe play it is.

Can anyone think of a way to rationalize how Cloaked Ways could have come about as an unintended byproduct of the last Trials? Maybe the dimensional membrain was sprained and it overcorrected and got stuck there, making future Trials more expensive? Or maybe some sort of rolling crit fail on the Invaders who tried to experiment on the means to travel to our lands?

Rakuhn · Mar 13, 2021

@occipitallobe
What would a contest of influence over the new sect look like? Would we we need to use our diplo action every turn on the new sect to keep abreast with the Jignshen's efforts? Other than our responses to random events, what would we be doing to try to win the contest?

Faraway-R · Mar 13, 2021

I don't often comment here but I think I need to offer my thoughts on the options.

occipitallobe said:
[ ] All that is necessary for evil to succeed...

Old Cannibal's option is a goddamn trap. He has zero incentive to not tell fucking everyone about the deal. I can see him wait, wait until he wins the Devil Bee Civil War, until he secures his position. But after that? The secret will be leaked. Even if he himself binds the agreement like he did once before... He has disciples that he will lead through our territories with distinctly weak resistance. And they aren't idiots. And they won't be bound to silence. Hard pass.

occipitallobe said:
[ ] The New Sect

This option is also suspect on the grounds that it is Old Jingshen, another Old Monster, that is offering the suggestion. The opposition of the Sect for any territorial gains will basically lock our expansion.

Any attempt to take their lands is a political suicide for us who are already perpetually on thin ice, and entering the conflict with Jingshen is gonna have two Righteous sects oppose us. This will no longer be a three-way conflict it had been before.

occipitallobe said:
[ ] The Negotiated End

Unsurprisingly, Manuel suggests an option that is probably the most favorable to Golden Devils, in normal situation. Butting heads with Jingshen will be trouble, but it's old and well known trouble, without involving proxies of Strength Purity with whom we want to preserve good relations. It gets my vote.

occipitallobe said:
[ ] War to the Knife

We already gambled enough. Sadly. Were it not for the great gamble of Hundred Year Trials this might have gotten my vote.

As is, it is the textbook definition of how when Lion and Tiger fight, the one who prospers is the Wise Monkey watching from sidelines. The one who will prosper will be Old Jingshen - who will get to absorb the Cannibal Lands and instead of needing to deal with two separate enemies we will need to contend with one, who has the combined potential power of both.

occipitallobe said:
[ ] What are the qualities of a righteous man? (Can only be taken with "Walk in the Light, Cloaked by Shadow" option from the following post)

Also very nice. The opportunity cost will be very high but it is almost tied with War to the Knife in my eyes.

Regarding the 1m bonus. It is roughly 2 Shinies.

Dangerous Tribulations is 3 Shinies worth. Thin Qi and Tempering Trials are both 4 Shinies worth. Or at least they were so back in the chargen. With our recent boosts and gambles, I would rather stay the course and nerf the Trials more and further.

Less enemies. Ability to track them. Better (average) disciples. All the good things.

[X] The Negotiated End
[X] Cloak the Ways Between

EDIT: For people wondering why removing Thin Qi is possible and good. You can check Alectai. And also consider two things:
1) The Curse had to weaken itself on our current territories in the backstory.
2) It has been said at least once in the thread that roughly doubling up our territory would likely have it fully expend itself.

Adding approval vote for a different boon.

[X] Blind the Thief

occipitallobe · Mar 13, 2021

Faraway-R said:
Old Cannibal's option is a goddamn trap. He has zero incentive to not tell fucking everyone about the deal. I can see him wait, wait until he wins the Devil Bee Civil War, until he secures his position. But after that? The secret will be leaked. Even if he himself binds the agreement like he did once before... He has disciples that he will lead through our territories with distinctly weak resistance. And they aren't idiots. And they won't be bound to silence. Hard pass.

Notably this won't be distinguishable from the alternative where everyone just lets Old Cannibal go through Clan land initially. The secret should hold for quite some time, though it'd be unrealistic for it to hold forever.

If you go down that road it is very much a confrontation with the Jingshen you're aiming for.

occipitallobe · Mar 13, 2021

Rakuhn said:
@occipitallobe
What would a contest of influence over the new sect look like? Would we we need to use our diplo action every turn on the new sect to keep abreast with the Jignshen's efforts? Other than our responses to random events, what would we be doing to try to win the contest?

It wouldn't be required, no, but it'd help, especially early on.

You'd see a lot more diplomatic Choices and Purchases, however, especially in the first 3-4 turns of the New Sect existing. So expending wealth, mainly. Manuel actions as well if you wanted to go high risk, high reward.

But it's realistic to say if you get a new Sect founded between you and Jingshen, winning it over to your 'side' is absolutely, completely key to the Clan's long-term wellbeing, so I'd expect to see all sorts of resources poured into winning that contest. A lot of Good Seed Missions would be focused around them, as well.

Sparsebeard · Mar 13, 2021

Neshuakadal said:
So unless this is lying, I would assume we would get a quarter to a third of the land, but the best would go to the new sect.

Mochinator said:
Regarding A New Sect, do we get absolutely none of the Cannibal lands? No grounds for negotiation?

If we chose "A new sect", we get the crappiest land AND we have already promised some of that land to our vassal the Hong.

Considering how much we borrowed from our vassals and allies, taking so little might actually leave us destitute. All in order to set up a power which would stand on Jingshen's side if it came to blows...

BadAtScreenNames · Mar 13, 2021

Faraway-R said:
Old Cannibal's option is a goddamn trap. He has zero incentive to not tell fucking everyone about the deal. I can see him wait, wait until he wins the Devil Bee Civil War, until he secures his position. But after that? The secret will be leaked. Even if he himself binds the agreement like he did once before... He has disciples that he will lead through our territories with distinctly weak resistance. And they aren't idiots. And they won't be bound to silence. Hard pass.

THIS. This right here. Even with what @occipitallobe said, this is a bad play because it'll look like were trying to hide it, as opposed to pitching it publically and getting two other powers to agree to it. It gives us a bad rep with all other powers as backstabbers you can't trust.

nothingtoseehere · Mar 13, 2021

Currently, we lose about 25%-30% of our cultivators each Trials. I'd imagine Cloak the Ways would lower this to about 10% - so we are still taking attrition from that, it's just alot more manageable and doesn't limit our actions as much.

Resonant · Mar 13, 2021

To be honest, I don't see why New Sect is so popular, it's suggested by Jingshen for a reason: it limits our growth and favors soft diplomacy which is a field the Jingshen specialize in.

Manual suggests a Negotiated End as a return to status quo and combined with the debuff to 100-year Trials, the Golden Devils have the greatest chance to become the major power in the Desert.

Moreover, we can negotiate how much land Jingshen get instead of having to give all the best territory to a neutral Righteous Sect straight away.

Faraway-R · Mar 13, 2021

occipitallobe said:
Notably this won't be distinguishable from the alternative where everyone just lets Old Cannibal go through Clan land initially. The secret should hold for quite some time, though it'd be unrealistic for it to hold forever.

If you go down that road it is very much a confrontation with the Jingshen you're aiming for.

It's not that I am aiming for Jingshen confrontation, actually.

It's that I see it as almost inevitable and assessing our chances. It's one thing to let Old Cannibal flee with "blessings" of Righteous powers, but quite another to also put a bomb under our relations with literally everyone else.

When the secret comes out it will look as if two Demonic Powers conspired to split the spheres of influence and take over the entire Desert region. And this will be the kind of secret that I, in Old Cannibal's place, would have made certain be revealed in case of my death. A final jab at one of my hated enemies.

uri · Mar 13, 2021

btw @occipitallobe I think you missed my question so I'll just quote and ping you again

uri said:
@occipitallobe do we have one or two great circle core formation cultivators, because I remember that after the trial we had one left but as far as I can see (looking at Manuel age and the timer of the trials) the status page is updated to the end of the 6 turn and the start of the 7 turn, so did we get another one? and if we did can we have some information on them?

BadAtScreenNames · Mar 13, 2021

Resonant said:
To be honest, I don't see why New Sect is so popular, it's suggested by Jingshen for a reason: it limits our growth and favors the soft diplomacy which is a field the Jingshen specialize in.

Manual suggests a Negotiated End as a return to status quo and combined with the debuff to 100-year Trials, the Golden Devils has the greatest chance to become the major power in the Desert.

Moreover, we can negotiate how much land Jingshen gets instead of just giving all the best territory to a neutral Righteous Sect.

Not all the land, we get a quarter to a third. A new sect gives us inroads to neutralising the diplomatic advantage that the Jingshen have, and lets us gradually shift the status quo against them by shaping the third power over time.

Having said that, I'm not massively opposed to Manuel's option. I think it'll eventually lead to war, but that's not necessarily the end of the world.

Nyssar · Mar 13, 2021

[X] The Negotiated End
[X] Cloak the Ways Between

Faraway-R · Mar 13, 2021

occipitallobe said:
He doubted he could refuse. Old Jingshen would take it poorly, and no doubt whatever trap he had set up - diplomatic, of course - would close its jaws around him one way or another. Personally, he suspected the man just wanted to prevent him from seizing all the Cannibal lands. He would be sensible to do so. Despite being the poorest third of the desert, the Cannibal Sect still held sufficient lands that taking them would double the power of the Optimatoi in the long run, and make them far more powerful in relation to not only the Jingshen, but his own vassals and lesser allies as well.

Once that happened, with a force of powerful Core Formation elders and a possible Early Nascent Soul, Manuel would never need to fight the Jingshen. Simply turn the screws on them, increasing tariffs and levies and taxes one by one until they became isolated and desperately weak. That sort of supremacy was almost sure to come if Old Jingshen let him seize the entirety of Cannibal lands, which is why it would never happen.

He scoffed.

If the Clan took half of the Cannibal lands, he'd be happy. Two-thirds, and he'd be ecstatic. Even a third each, with a neutral third would open up a great many possibilities.

One final reminder. This is how Manuel himself assesses this discussion. He would be fine with both a Negotiated End and a New Sect (as a neutral third).

Sparsebeard · Mar 13, 2021

BadAtScreenNames said:
Not all the land, we get a quarter to a third. A new sect gives us inroads to neutralising the diplomatic advantage that the Jingshen have, and lets us gradually shift the status quo against them by shaping the third power over time.

Having said that, I'm not massively opposed to Manuel's option. I think it'll eventually lead to war, but that's not necessarily the end of the world.

Why take a quarter (less since we owe land to the Hong) when we can take 50 % or more by negociaing with Jingshen?

Do we trust Righteous Sects (including the one we helped establish) never to turn on us?

Faraway-R said:
One final reminder. This is how Manuel himself assesses this discussion. He would be fine with both a Negotiated End and a New Sect (as a neutral third).

But he considers the New Sect the lesser option of the two.

Mochinator · Mar 13, 2021

Sparsebeard said:
Why take a quarter (less since we owe land to the Hong) when we can take 50 % or more by negociaing with Jingshen?

Do we trust Righteous Sects (including the one we helped establish) never to turn on us?

Not the Righteous Sects as a whole, but the Strength Purity.

We have a pretty decent relationship with them, and they don't like the Jingshen that much as well. What New Sect does is allows them to also have a say, and them + us could very easily get a New Sect that is decent towards us, in essence having their help with Diplo

Without it, it's our diplo against the Jingshen during the negotiations. The last time we did that with Lady Jingshen, it didn;t go so well.

gigantisrex · Mar 13, 2021

[X] The Negotiated End
[X] Cloak the Ways Between

Sparsebeard · Mar 13, 2021

Mochinator said:
Not the Righteous Sects as a whole, but the Strength Purity.

We have a pretty decent relationship with them, and they don't like the Jingshen that much as well. What New Sect does is allows them to also have a say, and them + us could very easily get a New Sect that is decent towards us, in essence having their help with Diplo

Without it, it's our diplo against the Jingshen during the negotiations. The last time we did that with Lady Jingshen, it didn;t go so well.

Even then, we'd still get much more Cannibal land than if we give most of it away to a third party. If it's a split between us and Jingshen, 50/50 seems like the worst case scenario considering we were the one to fight the war.

The new desert Sect have only one way to expend... through us. And their small territory, will ensure that they are always tempted to attack us, their demonic neighbour. Especially if they have potential allies like the Seven Swords or Jingshen.

If we split the land with Jingshen, it's one more front we close off... and let's be honest I don't see the merchants attacking us unless they are truly out of options.

dreamdweller · Mar 13, 2021

[X] The Negotiated End
[X] Cloak the Ways Between

Rakuhn · Mar 13, 2021

The issue is that we can only digest a portion of the Cannibal's lands. The land was already very poor, even before considering that it was controlled by Blood Cannibals engaged in a war to the knife. It's going to take a few turns, and a significant sum of wealth, to turn our conquests into productive territory.

The more we take, the more wealth we need to spend to improve, garrison, and defend it.

Hmmph... this junior is a good seed [Cultivation Management Quest]

Protect the weak against the evil strong.

Protect the weak against the evil strong.

Meteor maker

Killed a man in Reno just to watch him die

Procrastinator Supreme

Killed a man in Reno just to watch him die

Protect the weak against the evil strong.