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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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chocolote12 said:
I think we could actually add a few new waystone components, if we wanted to.

Information and Defense are two pretty big categories that could see straightforward uses. The use of information is clear; some way to know if a waystone is being messed with without having to be near it would be a life saver. This wouldn't normally be something so casually suggested, but given that the whole point of waystones is sending stuff down to other waystones you kind of have to admire the synergy.

A straightforward on/off life signal could feed into a map. Just, a simple map with little on/off dots of light on it. It's technology that feels like it existed back in our Stirland days, and the utility of not having to do mapping actions twice is obvious.

River spirits could also be bribed to provide updates about the state of the stones in their care, if we ever decide to rely on them.

Alternatively, we could use a variant of the spell to call Vazila, spirits which serve any sorcerer in Kislev for the purpose of letting them know if someone is about to steal their horse. (Yes, there is a set of spirits with that specific job and any caster of any lore can learn the spell to employ them. It's an entirely sincere suggestion.)


As for defenses, one of the things that bugs me the most about leaving waystones out in the wild is that there are these big Beastmen Ogre things that will just steal them. The whole waystone, just pick it up, because they're blind to the physical world and it's the only object they can see. Also they eat the souls of wizards specifically, which I also hate, so this serves a dual purpose.

Anyhow, attaching an apparition that hates dark magic to a waystone with the instruction that anything that damages the waystone is basically doing Dark Magic would result in most people who damage waystones discovering what happens when their insides become their outsides.

Dark mages are scary, but usually notably weak to something just eating them out of the blue. It won't always work, but it can't hurt.
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One of the things that was mentioned was that river spirits could be relied upon to attack anyone who tried to steal the flow of waystone energy from them.
So I kind of hope it'd be possible to convince them to also go after anyone who attacks the stones.

And one of the things a nation-state could potentially do is something like burying a waystone forty feet underground, then checking on it frequently enough that digging it out before a patrol comes by would be an impressive feat, if we come up with a design that can handle that.

One of things I remain interested in for riverine transmission is figuring whether we can dump extra Ghyran into the floodwaters that irrigate farmland every year along every major river system in the world.
Thinking about it, Ghyran is the only wind we actually know how to correctly get out the existing network. There may be potential here.
Talk to Panoramia and Tochter about whether an automated system to get ghyran out of the network, into the rivers, and then into the farmlands across an extremely wide area, is feasible?
If it worked it'd absolutely attract the interest of the Electors. And greatly improve the empire's military potential twenty or forty years down the line.

Yep, that's it, my continued fantasies about human civilization coming up with new and interesting ways to make use of new forms of energy for productive purposes has bitten me again. I'm gonna have to vote for a Waystone design with a river connection. Going through the plans now.
 
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[x] Plan Building A Better Future (With reverse engineering)
- [x] [CAPSTONE] Stone Flower
- [x] [RUNE] Dwarven
- [x] [STORAGE] Reverse-engineered
- [x] [FOUNDATION] Grey Lord
- [x] [TRANSMISSION] Both (Jade Riverine)
 
Excuse me, I'm not sure the vote counter was counting mine, possibly because I edited it after posting. Trying again and deleting the previous vote.

[X] Plan Building A Better Future (With reverse engineering)
-[X] [CAPSTONE] Stone Flower
-[X] [RUNE] Dwarven
-[X] [STORAGE] Reverse-engineered
-[X] [FOUNDATION] Grey Lord
-[X] [TRANSMISSION] Both (Jade Riverine)

[X] Plan Building A Relatively Cheap Future
-[X] [CAPSTONE] Stone Flower
-[X] [RUNE] Dwarven
-[X] [STORAGE] [Expensive] Runed
-[X] [FOUNDATION] Grey Lord
-[X] [TRANSMISSION] Both (Jade Riverine)

[X] Plan Near-Original+
-[X] [CAPSTONE] Stone Flower
-[X] [RUNE] Dwarven
-[X] [STORAGE] Reverse-engineered
-[X] [FOUNDATION] Grey Lord
-[X] [TRANSMISSION] Both (specify which Riverine)
--[X] [TRANSMISSION] Riverine (Spirit)

[X] Plan: All-Stars
-[X] [CAPSTONE] Stone Flower
-[X] [RUNE] Dwarven
-[X] [STORAGE] [Expensive] Enchanted
-[X] [FOUNDATION] Grey Lord
-[X] [TRANSMISSION] Both (Jade)

[X] Plan Waystones of the future (spirit edition)
-[X] [CAPSTONE] Runic Inductor
-[X] [RUNE] Wizard
-[X] [STORAGE] [Expensive] Enchanted
-[X] [FOUNDATION] Grey Lord
-[X] [TRANSMISSION] Both (Spirit)

[X] Plan Building A Better Future (Collegiate edition)
-[X] [CAPSTONE] Stone Flower
-[X] [RUNE] Dwarven
-[X] [STORAGE] [Expensive] Runed
-[x] [FOUNDATION] Collegiate
-[X] [TRANSMISSION] Both (Jade Riverine)
 
HanChenYou said:
Why on Mallus are people so interested in the reverse-engineered storage?

It adds a huge extra source of complexity and uncertainty, as well as potentially seriously limiting deployment.

What is it that so many see as the selling point of it?
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This is already a very long-term project. It's not going to be finished next year. As-is, we have a limited staff of magical experts, not an immense staff of magical dabblers. Therefore, an option currently requiring experts whose drawback is negated over the long term is the ideal starting point for this project.

None of that stops us from churning out a different design next turn; there's compelling reasons to also make simpler cheaper less diverse models later... but for now, there's a legitimate presentation aspect to consider. The reverse engineering prototype will be better-than-the-Golden-Age amazing, and will gain momentum over time as the development process accelerates, especially if it's the first thing we're showing off and all the fancy Elven Archmages who want in on the new hotness have a look at it. Lesser waystones can be employed later in a supporting role, after more nations are signing onto the project and we have more resources to throw around anyways. For now, though, we're capped on volume, not skill, so we should show off our skill in order to gain the prestige we need to arrange volume.

Shine said:
I've seen the worries about spending future AP designing new models of Waystone dropping up in thread, and although I'm not sure if this argument has been made already, on the off chance that it hasn't I feel this is worth saying:

Almost inevitably, new models of Waystone will have to be designed, but we don't need to be around for it, because the Waystone designing cabal is more than capable of doing so without us.

Maybe not as easily and diplomatically without Mathilde standing between them acting as a soothing intermediary, but now that the project had probably worked I really can't see them just… refusing, if they feel the needs arise.

They're all extremely capable and experienced adults, most of them magnitudes older than Mathilde will ever be. The Project will soon, reasonably, be as complete as it will ever be, and so there's no moral nor practical demand to linger if we really do not wish to.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with it if we do! It's just- we shouldn't feel the need to make a one side fits all Waystone that will work forever, everywhere, kind of well enough today, especially if it sacrificed a great deal. We, or other people, or the next (human) generation of arcane scholars can now always return to the drawing board if the need ever does arise.
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Future action cost is also a good reason to start with the model that gets better over time, in the whole 'best time to plant a tree' sense. If we get the political capital to push a large-scale effort and do in fact find that we're bottlenecked on skill, then we can revise with cheaper models... or perhaps the Thorek will go design the Dwarf-only Waystone model on his own or something, saving us the trouble of arranging it. My point is that there's no rush to build cheap models, and a great deal of rush to do reverse-engineering ASAP.
 
Well if the reverse engineered storage has better capacity than even the Expensive alternative options than I feel it's probably worth trying to roll out now in the hopes of reducing it's difficulty over time
Even getting it down to moderate difficulty would make it significantly better than every other option in terms of creating central, high quality Waystones

[X] Plan Building A Better Future (With reverse engineering)
 
Blackshard said:
None of that stops us from churning out a different design next turn; there's compelling reasons to also make simpler cheaper less diverse models later... but for now, there's a legitimate presentation aspect to consider. The reverse engineering prototype will be better-than-the-Golden-Age amazing, and will gain momentum over time as the development process accelerates, especially if it's the first thing we're showing off and all the fancy Elven Archmages who want in on the new hotness have a look at it. Lesser waystones can be employed later in a supporting role, after more nations are signing onto the project and we have more resources to throw around anyways. For now, though, we're capped on volume, not skill, so we should show off our skill in order to gain the prestige we need to arrange volume.
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One of my long term goals for the project is that we should figure out designs that the Wizards, Kislev, Laurelorn Elves, and Dwarves can all build independently of one-another, because the more people who can expand the network, the less likely the network's expansion is to be disrupted by political kerfuffles in the future.
Which requires cheaper designs in each paradigm.

My other long-term goals include draining incredibly problematic areas of magic, like Sylvania, or the northern parts of Kislev.
Which requires spirit-driven transmission and leyline transmission(for sylvania).
And figuring out some kind of secondary way for the empire to benefit from Waystone infrastructure(which will also convince all the Electors to invest), such as using Ghyran to enhance irrigated farmland.
Which requires further research.

Only after the invention of some secondary immediate benefit to having the waystones in place is apparent does designs that require widespread cooperation become important enough to maybe tilt politics in the Empire, and the Empire is the important link for a lot of this cooperation.
 
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guyfromtheplace1 said:
One of my long term goals for the project is that we should figure out designs that the Wizards, Kislev, Laurelorn Elves, and Dwarves can all build independently of one-another, because the more people who can expand the network, the less likely the network's expansion is to be disrupted by political kerfuffles in the future.
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The lowest common denominator of every polity is non magical citizens.

If we can figure out a mundane capstone we could do it physically up until the leylines, which is about as broadly available as a design can get.

It'll even probably be vaguely decent (assuming material storage is vaguely decent), which isn't something I think we would normally associate with a non magical equivalent to all this enchantment.
 
Blackshard said:
This is already a very long-term project. It's not going to be finished next year. As-is, we have a limited staff of magical experts, not an immense staff of magical dabblers. Therefore, an option currently requiring experts whose drawback is negated over the long term is the ideal starting point for this project.
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That's a good point. Combined with Boney saying the reverse engineered one is more powerful, I'll vote for it too, then.

[x] Plan Building A Better Future
- [x] [CAPSTONE] Stone Flower
- [x] [RUNE] Dwarven
- [x] [STORAGE] [Expensive] Runed
- [x] [FOUNDATION] Grey Lord
- [x] [TRANSMISSION] Both (Jade Riverine)
[x] Plan Building A Better Future (With reverse engineering)
- [x] [CAPSTONE] Stone Flower
- [x] [RUNE] Dwarven
- [x] [STORAGE] Reverse-engineered
- [x] [FOUNDATION] Grey Lord
- [x] [TRANSMISSION] Both (Jade Riverine)
[x] Plan Simple and Functional
- [x] [CAPSTONE] Stone Flower (simple)
- [x] [RUNE] Dwarven (simple)
- [x] [STORAGE] [Moderate] Runed (simple)
- [x] [FOUNDATION] Grey Lord (moderately difficult)
- [x] [TRANSMISSION] Leyline (simple)
 
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I am not fully convinced reverse engineering is a good idea, given that it'd really limit production initially (and we don't know just how much it will ease up), but I guess I'm not super thrilled about the cost of Runed storage either.

And we do have The Gambler backing us right now. I wouldn't be surprised if more than just two other Grey Lords happened to be available and interested in improving the design.

[X] Plan Building A Better Future (With reverse engineering)

But by god, I will be pushing to see if we can make a mostly Dwarven-reliant Waystone sometime within the next few turns.
 
guyfromtheplace1 said:
One of my long term goals for the project is that we should figure out designs that the Wizards, Kislev, Laurelorn Elves, and Dwarves can all build independently of one-another, because the more people who can expand the network, the less likely the network's expansion is to be disrupted by political kerfuffles in the future.
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Parabola said:
But by god, I wish to see if we can make a mostly Dwarven-reliant Waystone sometime within the next few turns.
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I have posted 3 plans that every polity can build themselves. It is in the thread somewhere. My plan is to pick from them next turn.
 
Tasoli said:
I have posted 3 plans that every polity can build themselves. It is in the thread somewhere. My plan is to pick from them next turn.
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I'd been going for riverine first, and just putting up with whatever other foolishness people wanted to add, because that seemed more likely to win, and potentially able to open up avenues of research that might bring the Electors onboard.
 
[X] Plan Building A Moderately Expensive Future
[X] Plan Building A Relatively Cheap Future
[x] Plan Simple and Functional

Why are people investing so much in the storage capacity? Really it seems to be nearly the least important component to me in the majority of cases.
We can make a extra strong waystone to put around population centers and like later. Right now a basic waystone that can be used to drain blighted areas, and make sure new ones don't develop seems far more valuable.

Same thing with the Both transmission method. It makes sense for certain key critical waystones. But many waystones won't benefit from it.
I would rather keep things as simple as possible for our first waystone. Get some waystones out there first and impress people. Having our first waystone be very expensive and/or very difficult seems bad.

Keep It Simple. This is our first prototype. Add the cool extra features later.
 
Tasoli said:
I have posted 3 plans that every polity can build themselves. It is in the thread somewhere. My plan is to pick from them next turn.
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Either fully by themselves, or 4/5 components of it, IMO. It would not be a horrible idea to incentivize the polities to rely on one another a bit more, at least for the amount of time it'd take for them to experiment a bit and do that final fifth component on their own.

Take the reverse-engineering plan as an example: if it wins out now, that's basically almost entirely Eonir-doable - if they wished to use that design for their own land, they'd need a runesmith for the Rune, and possibly (if the Riverine Jade component is getting outsourced from the Jades rather than fully shared) the aid of (one of ) the Colleges.

These can be argued to be a very tangible benefit when you consider that up until recently they were hardcore isolationists.

And for the Karaz Ankor or Kislev, we still have to see whether Caledorian leylines work fine for them or not, or whether we'd need to come up with different existing solutions.

Hell, Kislev currently has very little they can contribute to entirely on their own. It'd be a hard sell but maybe we could try revisiting the Capstone or Foundation actions just with them, see what contributions we might have missed from them.
 
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JayTar said:
Keep It Simple. This is our first prototype. Add the cool extra features later.
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The framing of these products as a prototypes isn't a particularly helpful one I think, it sort of implies incremental improvement to future designs which basically isn't going to happen.

Boney said:
but the necessity of making sure each of the components will work in harmony indefinitely means that each one would take just as much effort as this one will.
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If we want one with certain features, the way to get it is by voting for it, there's no real working up to it.
 
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Honestly, if repairing nexuses is an unviable option, then finishing the project with entirely mundane Waystone seems like a decent send off. Replicating an achievement of a golden age with something which requires almost no magical assistance seems really cool.

We do want to make a solution for Kislev and Karaz Ankor first, though.
 
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Thomasfoolery said:
The framing of these products as a prototypes isn't a particularly helpful one I think, it sort of implies incremental improvement to future builds which basically isn't going to happen.
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Well, there's one option that might be gradually improved if it wins, but for the rest of it, +100. We aren't just prototyping, we're building the first functional model to put in places that need it.
 
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