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

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    • no. said:
    Our best course of action for the mid-term is extremely simple: sit our asses down gathering more and more resources, then use those resources to brush off the next Trial without much damage. That's what puts us in good position for the future. After that, it depends on what the board looks like. The Great Era gives the Righteous a leg up, true, but it's a leg up while in a desperate position; might only be enough to break even for now.

    There are times for skullduggery and there are times to level grind; this is the latter. Next turn, a lot of us are thinking we should spend no wealth whatsoever, and spam economy actions on top of that, to guarantee both a repaired Technique Place and another big purchase on turn 15.
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    I agree with most of this, but fortifying is more important then grinding wealth. I know that fortifying doesn't help that much against the trials, but I expect to start seeing blood path raids some. OC might not be able to come to the desert yet, but plenty of other blood path on his side can. And even if they don't it would be for the best to put multiple clan focus actions into it so best to start sooner then later. When OC does come we want loads of available traps and ways to make sure any and all fights are in our favor.
     
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    We probably can argue for Righteous support helping us against Old Cannibal when he invades the desert.
    Mostly because our major population centres lie on the Scorpion trade road which is vital for their war effort, and if Old Cannibal takes it from us he chooses to then strangle the Righteous path and then slaughter them all.

    And Old Cannibal has to at least convince his subordinates he's taking the major population centres, because trying to convince Blood Path Nascent Souls to leave the highly populated Verdant South to go raid sparsely populated fringe territories is a non starter.

    Voting for the Ma Clan because
    1) Yes people will try and put spies into the Ma clan to check up on us. And also ask the Ma clan members directly because they know them.
    But those spies will end up reporting that we're pretty good to our vassals, that we treat people with dignity

    Many Righteous sects consider us practically demonspawn. Even our greatest allies SPS used that as their official response about us for the longest time. That you cannot even admit you are having meetings with us.
    Getting a voice that the Righteous sects are used to working with talk about how we're not actually monsters is long term move making any dealings we have with the Righteous powers more likely to favour us.

    Now due to the Ma Emperor they don't have as much goodwill as we would like to be considered reliable. But if they had none this wouldn't be a question and they would have already been executed.

    2) Even if we are turtling, we probably send troops to aid the Righteous, a place where we are notoriously poorly suited to fighting.
    We settle hardpoints and then the blood path just go somewhere else because there are mortals everywhere in the Verdant South.

    The Ma faction being strong skirmishers give our hardpoints the ability to contest the areas around them making them strategically useful. You now have to attack our fortifications or get constant raids eating your lines around them.

    And plains fighting is our foreseeable future until Old Cannibal has free game to march into the desert again.
    We have almost always sent troops to the great battlefield when given the option. Having auxiliary forces well suited to the fight there makes us more valuable as mercenaries.

    3) There are currently no opportunities that seem incredibly obvious for us to expand out into.
    But we also just had an Altar Lord interlude talking about his new offensive. So Strength Purity front is being opened up again.
    Old Cannibal has been marching from strength to strength. Technically he could already sent raids to attack us backed by a mid Nascent now that Old Fish has joined him.
    We haven't heard anything from Magic Oak, which is actually kind of terrifying. While their blood path was very ethical beforehand they still had an actual blood path Nascent who saw the blood mist. I'm hoping that silence is a good thing and not an argh it is spiralling out of control thing.

    Sixty years might be a long time for our borders to remain peaceably comfortable right now.
    We have ten legions that can act offensively right now. The Ma clan effectively doubles that.

    4) Yes I want to help them because they were one of our first backers on the Righteous Council.
    This is entirely a feel good statement, it is helping people that were amenable to helping us.
    Perhaps seeing that will make the other Righteous powers show us more face in the hopes of better treatment on their spirit stone shipments. But mostly its just I want to help them.

    [X] Plan Vassal Synergies
     
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    Luxon said:
    We probably can argue for Righteous support helping us against Old Cannibal when he invades the desert.
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    There is no grantee that the rightous path is going to be in any position to help us during the OC invasion and less than they will do so. They could easily decide that it makes a great opportunity to regroup or focus on their other enemies. If they weren't able or willing to help the Jingshen then we definitely can not count on them helping us.

    Other points are good.
     
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    Well to be fair, now we are the ones mining the spirit stones. and any conflict involving old gold will be a long one.

    So I can see some delays or threats on both sides but they should send some help. Since they can't expect OC to complete own us. And if he complete own us, then he will be the one with the access to the stones (to block).

    This is my option^^. with the note that the 'rightful' certainly would make us bleed; and allow us to die if they ever thought they could mine the stones themselves without shooting themselves on the foot.

    So I will cross my fingers for not meet that SPS elder again.
     
    adamashield said:
    Well to be fair, now we are the ones mining the spirit stones. and any conflict involving old gold will be a long one.

    So I can see some delays or threats on both sides but they should send some help. Since they can't expect OC to complete own us. And if he complete own us, then he will be the one with the access to the stones (to block).

    This is my option^^. with the note that the 'rightful' certainly would make us bleed; and allow us to die if they ever thought they could mine the stones themselves without shooting themselves on the foot.

    So I will cross my fingers for not meet that SPS elder again.
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    Well all things being equal they would rather help us beat OC then not, but we can't expect all things to be equal. If all things were equal they would have helped Jingshen. It's not a question if helping us against OC is in their interests. It's a question of if it is more in their interests then all the other demands on their time and cultivator power.
     
    fictionfan said:
    Well all things being equal they would rather help us beat OC then not, but we can't expect all things to be equal. If all things were equal they would have helped Jingshen. It's not a question if helping us against OC is in their interests. It's a question of if it is more in their interests then all the other demands on their time and cultivator power.
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    To be fair, if they lose the Spirit Stones? They are basically dead, because they lose the ability to sustain a prolonged war due to how the Qi here is so thin. it's the same reason that with a hefty enough bribe they were content to let us knock the Jingshen over. Because they knew we'd play ball if we won, but also because any amount of stones for them is a huge boon in keeping up with a sustained force engagnement.
     
    CuriousRaptor said:
    To be fair, if they lose the Spirit Stones? They are basically dead, because they lose the ability to sustain a prolonged war due to how the Qi here is so thin. it's the same reason that with a hefty enough bribe they were content to let us knock the Jingshen over. Because they knew we'd play ball if we won, but also because any amount of stones for them is a huge boon in keeping up with a sustained force engagnement.
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    They know the OC invasion is coming just as much as we do. It's basically scheduled at this point. Plenty of time for them to build up a spirit stone reserve so they can watch us beat each other up for a bit before interventing. Leave us both a bit weaker and it gives them more leverage to demand bigger concessions from us in return for their help.

    Edit: Incidentally that is likely part of the reason OC has been so open about his plans.
     
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    fictionfan said:
    They know the OC invasion is coming just as much as we do. It's basically scheduled at this point. Plenty of time for them to build up a spirit stone reserve so they can watch us beat each other up for a bit before interventing. Leave us both a bit weaker and it gives them more leverage to demand bigger concessions from us in return for their help.
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    There WOULD be a chance for such, if not for the desperate straits they are in. They are getting continuously pressed and are at war time. Unless they break the back of the NDA quickly, they won't have the ability to sit it out, because even if they have them pushed back, a decade or more without stones means they lose all the progress made.
     
    fictionfan said:
    There is no grantee that the rightous path is going to be in any position to help us during the OC invasion and less than they will do so. They could easily decide that it makes a great opportunity to regroup or focus on their other enemies. If they weren't able or willing to help the Jingshen then we definitely can not count on them helping us.

    Other points are good.
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    You are right the Righteous Path may well be dead or entirely incapacitated.
    Don't really have any plans on what we can do at that point. It implies enough of their Nascents got eaten by the blood path that we're in serious trouble. Probably pray Altar Lord bails us out.

    They didn't intervene to save Jingshen due to massive concession payments, and the expectation that if we won we would restart it on the spot.
    Old cannibal will do neither.

    I think.
    They will certainly make us bleed for it.
    But the loss of the Scorpion Trade Route is an absolute defeat for the Righteous Path, and they have too many military actions going to build up a strategic reserve for a crisis.

    If they can see the war coming, and know we need the help. They will try and extort a good deal out of us at the start, just so that it doesn't go horribly wrong. Because killing Old Cannibal, and keeping the Spirit Stone Trade running are both strategic goals.

    One lets them keep operating out in the field, without it their armies all grind to a halt.
    The other evens out the horrific disadvantage they have at the Late Nascent level.

    If they stay out of the war, it will be because they literally cannot intervene. Because they regret every time in the past they ever let Old Cannibal do what he wants.
     
    no. said:
    I mean the Ma Clan as a nation. Individual members will be accepted into various Sects, but there will never again be a Righteous Power that calls itself the Ma Clan. The absolute best outcome for them is that new rulers move into their old territory, the country is renamed and they get to serve under said new rulers. And that's if the entire Ma Empire is conquered, which is hardly guaranteed.

    Think about this in terms of pride, and in terms of Nascent-scale time. A nation was relatively recently accepted into their coalition. As soon as the Blood Path begins making big inroads, they turn on their allies and betray them. Is this reading entirely charitable? No. But image is important to the Righteous, including the image of having lines which cannot be crossed.
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    I read what you're saying here, and I read the QM saying "reclaim their former lands", and I think there is something of a disconnect between the two. From a simple reading of the vote option, it seems pretty clear that the remnant Ma clan, the ones we invite into the desert, would still have some hope of claiming the lands of the old Ma empire for themselves once more... to the point that the chance that they might do so is actually listed as a disadvantage of the pick. I'm not really seeing how you can read it any other way.

    As a general rule, If you are arguing with the QM, then you have probably made a mistake somewhere along the way. If you are not arguing with the QM... then how do you square that circle?
     
    Sirrocco said:
    I read what you're saying here, and I read the QM saying "reclaim their former lands", and I think there is something of a disconnect between the two. From a simple reading of the vote option, it seems pretty clear that the remnant Ma clan, the ones we invite into the desert, would still have some hope of claiming the lands of the old Ma empire for themselves once more... to the point that the chance that they might do so is actually listed as a disadvantage of the pick. I'm not really seeing how you can read it any other way.

    As a general rule, If you are arguing with the QM, then you have probably made a mistake somewhere along the way. If you are not arguing with the QM... then how do you square that circle?
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    I'm not arguing with the QM, I'm giving my interpretation of his words. Maybe I'm wrong; if I am, perhaps he'll tell me. But from where I'm standing, it doesn't seem likely they'll be granted sovereignty. Sure, maybe they'll reconquer their own lands, but I don't think the RP will let them rule it themself. They'll likely install a puppet ruler who's in their pocket, and prohibit the Clan from raising another Nascent Soul. Under those circumstances, the Ma Clansmen would definitely return to their lands; they'd be pseudo-vassals, but at least they'd be living in their own land.

    Maybe I'm somehow totally wrong, and have totally misinterpreted how the Righteous Powers work. All I'm saying though, is that if I were them, I would never let a Ma Patriarch come to power again.
     
    Sirrocco said:
    I read what you're saying here, and I read the QM saying "reclaim their former lands", and I think there is something of a disconnect between the two. From a simple reading of the vote option, it seems pretty clear that the remnant Ma clan, the ones we invite into the desert, would still have some hope of claiming the lands of the old Ma empire for themselves once more... to the point that the chance that they might do so is actually listed as a disadvantage of the pick. I'm not really seeing how you can read it any other way.

    As a general rule, If you are arguing with the QM, then you have probably made a mistake somewhere along the way. If you are not arguing with the QM... then how do you square that circle?
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    There's also the whole, they have no Nascents and are on the complete other side of the region from the land, in addition to being a remnant and the enemy they must unseat is at elast a mid-tier nascent with lots of prep time and followers, but.

    Them getting the lands back even within the frame of the quest is going to be nigh impossible for them.
     
    Adhoc vote count started by Resonant on Dec 5, 2021 at 4:49 PM, finished with 129 posts and 54 votes.
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    CuriousRaptor said:
    There's also the whole, they have no Nascents and are on the complete other side of the region from the land, in addition to being a remnant and the enemy they must unseat is at elast a mid-tier nascent with lots of prep time and followers, but.
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    Also, the land could be eaten by the Maze before they ever hear about it again. Rough stuff.
    Sirrocco said:
    I read what you're saying here, and I read the QM saying "reclaim their former lands", and I think there is something of a disconnect between the two.
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    no. said:
    I'm not arguing with the QM, I'm giving my interpretation of his words.
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    My interpretation was that they are desperate people who like their horses and want them safe and happy and fed and have no idea how to make that happen.

    Heartbreaking stuff, but we'd be setting ourselves on fire to keep them warm.
     
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    adamashield said:
    I curious if anyone will make a good seed, of a scion of Ma clan that was recruited (and got the blood of our clan).

    And name that guy or girl the name Genghis Khan (universal ruler).

    At first that would be a joke, then when that dude/dudette become stronger, like core stronger. than that name will be feared :D
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    I mean if i ever figure out how to do Core Level Combat and do a 2nd Good Seed, i'll go for it. A pure Byzantine Cathrparct clad in Gravebronze is just pure AWESOMENESS.

    Also, on Ma Clan as a whole, i honestly don't think the Blood Path issue is as big a factor because with our roots we only have a negative view on it from the repercussions of uncontrollable blood path unlike the Cultural Negative view the rest of 3rd sea has.

    Gravebronze + our gear is bloodpath and i'm sure with out long history we should have records of "ethical" bloodpath techs done by our clan in the past. So going from past updates, we should get options to gradually integrate Ma clan with us be it via loyalty, aiding them with controlling blood impulses etc.

    Lastly, a bit pie in the sky, but we do still have that close borders with the Beast Mountains and the Ma Clan is basically a Beast Taming Group with greater specc into horses. So it might be possible to get taming expeditions going to upgrade the menagerie
     
    Mochinator said:
    I mean if i ever figure out how to do Core Level Combat and do a 2nd Good Seed, i'll go for it. A pure Byzantine Cathrparct clad in Gravebronze is just pure AWESOMENESS.

    Also, on Ma Clan as a whole, i honestly don't think the Blood Path issue is as big a factor because with our roots we only have a negative view on it from the repercussions of uncontrollable blood path unlike the Cultural Negative view the rest of 3rd sea has.

    Gravebronze + our gear is bloodpath and i'm sure with out long history we should have records of "ethical" bloodpath techs done by our clan in the past. So going from past updates, we should get options to gradually integrate Ma clan with us be it via loyalty, aiding them with controlling blood impulses etc.

    Lastly, a bit pie in the sky, but we do still have that close borders with the Beast Mountains and the Ma Clan is basically a Beast Taming Group with greater specc into horses. So it might be possible to get taming expeditions going to upgrade the menagerie
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    Yep, they are a whole cavalry we can send to help the RP on the trial round, and quite possibly flip them, if we tempt them enough going by this bit.
    occipitallobe said:
    Of course, much of the Ma Clan fell to the Blood Path, and they are not known for their resilience of spirit against temptation.
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    Just gotta clean out some of the bandits, hopefully one of the missions will be that.

    Would be neat if we could get them to adapt some of thier animal care and mounted combat stuff for scorpions.
     
    Lampshade said:
    I think you're underselling the Maze and writing the Altar Lord off early. Recall that one of our best moves was baiting Heavens to be overconfident in one round of trials, only for us to triumph in the next. There is no reason Altar Lord couldn't follow the same pattern - the Heavens are conveniently predictable like that. Any plan that begins with the Altar being destroyed ends with the steel jaws of a trap snapping shut.

    As for the Maze, recall that it requires constant attrition just to stop it from passively expanding and it has grown to twice the size already. Gemstone Justice is freshly rekt and Ma Empire lost a sizeable chunk of manpower as well. By the time RP rolls around, the Maze could very well be 3-4 times the size and tie up a commensurate amount of forces.

    Finally, Cannibal also has ideas on Blood Path sustainability and growth and even if he focuses on us, he isn't the type to keep his back open.

    For the forseeable future, I suspect RP "inevitability" will likely be relegated to "not-fully-rekt-ability".
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    Righteous inevitability is described as a Deus ex Machina for a reason. Even if Altar Lord wins his gamble, the RP can always bounce back with Heaven's intervention, to the point that new RP cultivators might even arrive from another Sea. The Poison Maze would eventually get out-scaled by the Great Era's empowering effects.
    It's the age-old issue: the Demonic/Blood Path needs an unbroken winning streak just to survive, Whereas the RP can afford taking losses and just need to win once.

    Here's a hypothetical scenario proposed by the QM on Discord:
    #good-seed-discussions said:
    Occipitallobe — 26/11/21
    If they were exterminated to a man next turn, they'd be back on top in another 25 turns, max.
    And would win that war by Turn 30

    Occipitallobe — 26/11/21
    It's the old 'you need to win every time, I just need to win once' problem.

    Shard the Cake - Savvas — 26/11/21
    New RP people would come over?

    Occipitallobe — 26/11/21
    Decent, Heaven-following cultivators get empowered bigtime. Within 500 years they're strong enough to beat the Demonic Path, within 600 they've wiped them out.
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    Lampshade said:
    Other than fortifying the Cannibal front, I'm thinking of working out some kind of cultivator "opportunity exchange." Many of our vassals have some smaller landmarks that they might not be fully utilizing or are unsuited to them, so we could start with exchange quotas, "We will open this thing for 1000 of your Qi Condensation disciples and you'll let 100 of our Foundation Establishment dudes into that thing."

    We could then build that into some kind of voucher system. Vacant opportunities go into a central register and are traded as goods. Promising seeds could then compete for grants and discounts and have their cultivation "path" mapped out in advance with suitable opportunities lined up one after another. (Surely everyone remembers a xianxia scene where tickets into a secret realm are being auctioned and fought over. I'm thinking of a hybrid between that and the classical "Adventurer's guild" . . . xD )
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    Occi has previously said minor landmarks in vassal territory are not relevant for Clan purposes. If any were useful to us, they would already be under Clan ownership. Referring to this:

    occipitallobe said:
    @exerty

    Not really.

    Sand Whirlpool Tower is worth about as much as just regular Golden Devil training. It's considered a secret realm for the Hua, but keep in mind the Hua top out at (early) Core Formation and in practical terms are irrelevant. There are ~50 Legions, the Hua could maybe fight 1/3rd of one. They're a nothing power, and if their secret realm was worth anything, it wouldn't be a Hua Secret Realm - it'd be a Golden Devil one.

    It's still a neat place to go, though.
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    no. said:
    I mean the Ma Clan as a nation. Individual members will be accepted into various Sects, but there will never again be a Righteous Power that calls itself the Ma Clan. The absolute best outcome for them is that new rulers move into their old territory, the country is renamed and they get to serve under said new rulers. And that's if the entire Ma Empire is conquered, which is hardly guaranteed.

    Think about this in terms of pride, and in terms of Nascent-scale time. A nation was relatively recently accepted into their coalition. As soon as the Blood Path begins making big inroads, they turn on their allies and betray them. Is this reading entirely charitable? No. But image is important to the Righteous, including the image of having lines which cannot be crossed.
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    I don't get this impression at all, the Ma Clan option explicitly states their hope to reclaim their territory as an important consideration, and they would probably govern themselves in such a scenario. Ergo, it's still possible for the Ma Clan to be reestablished as an independent power by the survivors who didn't get corrupted and didn't participate in the backstab. If the survivors were considered untrustworthy and assigned blame, they shouldn't have stayed on as part of the RP.

    I can see how the Ma Clan wouldn't get the opportunity if they get assimilated into the RP and lose their sovereignty, but they should still be able to if we help them maintain their identity.

    fictionfan said:
    I agree with most of this, but fortifying is more important then grinding wealth. I know that fortifying doesn't help that much against the trials, but I expect to start seeing blood path raids some. OC might not be able to come to the desert yet, but plenty of other blood path on his side can. And even if they don't it would be for the best to put multiple clan focus actions into it so best to start sooner then later. When OC does come we want loads of available traps and ways to make sure any and all fights are in our favor.
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    Occi has confirmed that the deal which allowed Old Cannibal to flee the Desert also prevents him from ordering his subordinates to attack us. Random devil bee raids aren't likely to happen since the Desert isn't appetizing enough as a target compared to seizing more ground in the fertile Plains.

    The upcoming Trials are still the biggest threat to prepare for, Old Cannibal won't be able to commit a full invasion until the treaty expires so any Devil Bee raids will be minor/manageable.
    Fortifying against the Devil Bees won't help if we take horrible losses from the Trials and become vulnerable.
     
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    Luxon said:
    We probably can argue for Righteous support helping us against Old Cannibal when he invades the desert.
    Mostly because our major population centres lie on the Scorpion trade road which is vital for their war effort, and if Old Cannibal takes it from us he chooses to then strangle the Righteous path and then slaughter them all.

    And Old Cannibal has to at least convince his subordinates he's taking the major population centres, because trying to convince Blood Path Nascent Souls to leave the highly populated Verdant South to go raid sparsely populated fringe territories is a non starter.

    Voting for the Ma Clan because
    1) Yes people will try and put spies into the Ma clan to check up on us. And also ask the Ma clan members directly because they know them.
    But those spies will end up reporting that we're pretty good to our vassals, that we treat people with dignity

    Many Righteous sects consider us practically demonspawn. Even our greatest allies SPS used that as their official response about us for the longest time. That you cannot even admit you are having meetings with us.
    Getting a voice that the Righteous sects are used to working with talk about how we're not actually monsters is long term move making any dealings we have with the Righteous powers more likely to favour us.

    Now due to the Ma Emperor they don't have as much goodwill as we would like to be considered reliable. But if they had none this wouldn't be a question and they would have already been executed.

    2) Even if we are turtling, we probably send troops to aid the Righteous, a place where we are notoriously poorly suited to fighting.
    We settle hardpoints and then the blood path just go somewhere else because there are mortals everywhere in the Verdant South.

    The Ma faction being strong skirmishers give our hardpoints the ability to contest the areas around them making them strategically useful. You now have to attack our fortifications or get constant raids eating your lines around them.

    And plains fighting is our foreseeable future until Old Cannibal has free game to march into the desert again.
    We have almost always sent troops to the great battlefield when given the option. Having auxiliary forces well suited to the fight there makes us more valuable as mercenaries.

    3) There are currently no opportunities that seem incredibly obvious for us to expand out into.
    But we also just had an Altar Lord interlude talking about his new offensive. So Strength Purity front is being opened up again.
    Old Cannibal has been marching from strength to strength. Technically he could already sent raids to attack us backed by a mid Nascent now that Old Fish has joined him.
    We haven't heard anything from Magic Oak, which is actually kind of terrifying. While their blood path was very ethical beforehand they still had an actual blood path Nascent who saw the blood mist. I'm hoping that silence is a good thing and not an argh it is spiralling out of control thing.

    Sixty years might be a long time for our borders to remain peaceably comfortable right now.
    We have ten legions that can act offensively right now. The Ma clan effectively doubles that.

    4) Yes I want to help them because they were one of our first backers on the Righteous Council.
    This is entirely a feel good statement, it is helping people that were amenable to helping us.
    Perhaps seeing that will make the other Righteous powers show us more face in the hopes of better treatment on their spirit stone shipments. But mostly its just I want to help them.

    [X] Plan Vassal Synergies
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    There's less need to negotiate Righteous support against Old Cannibal if the Clan were stronger and more capable of resisting by ourselves. Especially considering how the RP will attempt to bargain and squeeze for concessions, making the Ma Clan's goodwill less valuable than it would otherwise be.

    1) Trying to improve the Clan's image amongst the Righteous is pointless. They're well-aware of the Clan's good treatment towards vassals/mortals and deliberately smear us because we remain fundamentally opposed on core principles. Remember how Saber Palace became our Enemy? The Clan protected a mortal empire that was under Saber's jurisdiction, but they framed it as "oppressing mortals" and used that excuse to wage war in our moment of weakness.

    2) The Clan is not obligated to find more effective ways to aid the Plains' war. The longer the fighting drags out, the more time we have to develop our strength without interference from both Righteous/Blood Path. We've only sent aid in return for concrete benefits; getting more value from our aid requires an extra step to exchange it for something else, compared to directly improving the Clan. Our spirit stone monopoly already makes the Clan invaluable to the RP's war effort.

    3) The obvious targets for expansion is towards the Devil Bees / Sorrowful Blacksmiths. The latter is suffering a civil war, making them susceptible to Clan intervention. Opening up a second warfront with the Devil Bees will help take the pressure off in the Verdant South, which we can get the Righteous Path to pay for. However, the Ma Clan's cavalry wouldn't be useful in either situation which requires sieging the Mountains.

    Old Cannibal is bound by treaty, he cannot order his subordinates to attack us, nor enter the Desert himself until Year 350.

    occipitallobe said:
    [ ] The Negotiated End

    Manuel spoke.

    "Perhaps a simpler solution. Old Cannibal is permitted to flee, provided he does not enter the Desert again for two hundred years. The Jingshen Clan and I shall negotiate over the territory remaining, some going to them, other parts to us. "
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    #qm-questions said:
    Resonant — 27/11/21
    Can you clarify whether Old Cannibal is still restricted from returning to the Desert? Does that only apply to himself, can he order conventional forces or Nascent subordinates to attack the Clan in his stead?

    Occipitallobe — 27/11/21
    Loopholes are largely closed - they entail giving orders to subordinates or acting himself.
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    Last edited:
    Resonant said:
    Righteous inevitability is described as a Deus ex Machina for a reason. Even if Altar Lord wins his gamble, the RP can always bounce back with Heaven's intervention, to the point that new RP cultivators might even arrive from another Sea. The Poison Maze would eventually get out-scaled by the Great Era's empowering effects.
    It's the age-old issue: the Demonic/Blood Path needs an unbroken winning streak just to survive, Whereas the RP can afford taking losses and just need to win once.
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    Even if the Blood Path can't win forever, they can still very much win enough to doom us though.

    If Princess Wei is killed, there are 2 (maybe 3 if her corpse get eaten strategically) late nascent souls for the Blood Path to our zero. The blood path might lose in the end, but it won't matter if we are already all dead by then.

    So we might want to ensure that the RP doesn't actually loses, because right now, things are looking dire on the Nascent Soul front and the rising stars of the RP will probably take quite a while to come in effect...
     
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