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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Look, the EIC is great and all, but all trade goods does is make them grow faster. The Fog Bridge and Kislev canal are already going to be tying together the old world economically regardless. This is our only chance of getting sweet restricted military knowledge and writings that predate the elves. That means tomes either straight from a Slaan or from the fucking Old Ones who reshaped this entire planet.

I want to corroborate dragon bedtime story damn it
 
Talon TigerDino said:
Look, the EIC is great and all, but all trade goods does is make them grow faster. The Fog Bridge and Kislev canal are already going to be tying together the old world economically regardless. This is our only chance of getting sweet restricted military knowledge and writings that predate the elves. That means tomes either straight from a Slaan or from the fucking Old Ones who reshaped this entire planet.

I want to corroborate dragon bedtime story damn it
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Sarvoi was coy about those bedtime story topics too, wasn't he? We could totally find out what he knows if we take books.
 
I'm personally an Elfcation fan because I want to get back to slitting some well-deserved throats. The possible new Ulgu knowledge is just a bonus.

On a side note, when I first read the wiki on Alith Anar and played him in TW3, I would have been all for agonizing to see if we can glimpse him. But after reading his novel, my honest impression is that he's kind of cringe.

He's the Sasuke to Eltharion's Batman. If we see him, sure, cool, but if all we do is give a ton of Dark Elves a very bad day and sip cosmos with the Shadow Warriors then I'm totally happy.
 
Valmond said:
People were insistent that we should do the ithilmar thing for money.
So i am voting for trade goods or gems, because those translate to money.
If the money argument had not been such a prominent driver of the action, i would be voting for books, but it wasn't.
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Yeah, but trade goods option is not actually good for money. It is to help EIC, it's monetary impact for us is negligible compared to the actual money options.
 
Valmond said:
People were insistent that we should do the ithilmar thing for money.
So i am voting for trade goods or gems, because those translate to money.
If the money argument had not been such a prominent driver of the action, i would be voting for books, but it wasn't.
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Pretty sure the Trade Goods will not give us much money. I think it was asked to Boney how much it'd increase the amount we get from the EIC each turn and it only went from 100 to 250, which you know, not really good for having a big sun of money to spend (and actually will take matching what we get from Gems tens of turns...)
 
Retrueno said:
Pretty sure the Trade Goods will not give us much money. I think it was asked to Boney how much it'd increase the amount we get from the EIC each turn and it only went from 100 to 250, which you know, not really good for having a big sun of money to spend (and actually will take matching what we get from Gems tens of turns...)
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I think you're misremembering. What happened is that someone mistakenly thought that the current EIC income was 100 when it was actually at 250.
 
Retrueno said:
Pretty sure the Trade Goods will not give us much money. I think it was asked to Boney how much it'd increase the amount we get from the EIC each turn and it only went from 100 to 250, which you know, not really good for having a big sun of money to spend (and actually will take matching what we get from Gems tens of turns...)
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Not quite. 250 per turn is what we're getting right now, which you can see if you check the 'EIC profits' section on each major turn post.
Here's a helpful graph to visualize our EIC profits by turn over time:

Now imagine that line going up.

It's absolutely not as good in the immediate short term for spendable wealth, but it's not trivial either.
 
We get trade goods, it grows EIC, which gives us money.
Yes, not as much as some people might hope, but that is still money.
also, i did vote for gems as well.
 
Retrueno said:
Pretty sure the Trade Goods will not give us much money. I think it was asked to Boney how much it'd increase the amount we get from the EIC each turn and it only went from 100 to 250, which you know, not really good for having a big sun of money to spend (and actually will take matching what we get from Gems tens of turns...)
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That was me being mistaken about the income we currently have, not how much we'd boost the EIC by.

The fundamental point is valid though - the EIC option doesn't give a lump sum for Lothern in any form. Vote for a money option if you want money.

EDIT::ninja:
 
[X] Dooming and Quickening
[X] Entrance Examination
[X] The Festival Lord
[X] Sarvoi
[X] Niedzwenka

My favourites from all the admitedly excellent options.

[X] [ITHILMAR] Trade Goods

We can always take a loan if we need to during the Elfcation. A stronger EIC means that we will be able to repay it even more quickly.
 
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I personally find it kind of ironic that trade goods is being billed as preferable to numbers go up when it's pretty directly about a number going up, and not even a number that shows itself in the narrative that often.

Like, people complain about the EIC being mostly absent from the quest. Will giving them more trade income in Laurelorn change that? I'm not sure, and I don't think anyone can be sure which is why it seems like such an odd choice for people pursuing narrative results.

We have open plot hooks about really cool setting mysteries that we know the library will reopen, like the old ones and their silver ships, like Albion - things we know the eonir know more about, that are written about in that library. New conversations to have among the colleges about new magical lore, if not college favor outright. We got results even from a small library that touched on magical subjects, the elementalist texts.

The EIC just... Doesn't seem like such a good bet for narrative payoff.

I'd rather buy a library and learn new secrets about dragons and the old ones and magic and Albion.
 
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As I was the one jokingly asking boney about loans I feel it is my responsibility to ask once more for clarification and with some hindsight.

@Boney on the matter of taking out loans with the EIC shares as a collateral you indicated that it is a thing we could do. Would we need an action for that or and EIC action or a purchase round action ? And how would that work mechanically? Would we dedicate a part of our EIC income to repayment or would we get a target repayment date and left to figure it out on our own?
 
I really don't wanna risk well being of a national-tier trade company in any way. Bloody thing is crucial to Stirland, and is very big in several other provinces. An oopsie there gonna be horrendous. /in context of loans and such
 
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Derpmind said:
This is why I want the books. (It's also why I, perhaps erroneously, worded the write-in the way I did.) We got all of this from the Elementalists's small library. First, an examination of an entirely different magical tradition that, due to our suffusion in Ulgu, Mathilde literally cannot see. Second, an insight into Indic magical culture, and an entirely different understanding of Aqshy than the Collegiate's view. I want more of this. I want more of this wonderful writing, I want Mathilde to learn from it, and the Library of Mourning is several libraries bigger than the Elementalist's tiny collection.

To me, the mechanical benefits, (including apparently, the entire rest of the library) aren't as important. But that's just my bias. The mechanical benefits are real and very, very valuable. But what excites me is the opportunity for more of this kind of incredibly engaging insight into the Eonir's understanding of magic.
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Yeah, ok, reasonable.

Precious Stones is third by about ten votes (if you group the two Book options together, which I think Boney will since they seem to be functionally the same -- they're both voting for a Library xerox), so while that's my preferred option, I should think about which of the top two options I prefer and approval vote between them. As opposed to the two "I would like to be paid in cash money, thanks," options, both of the frontrunners pay off primarily in the form of long-term narrative benefits: Trade Goods boosts the EIC's expansion in the north, while the book option gives us lot of cool lore drops. Both of them have shorter-term mechanical benefits -- Trade Goods boosts Mathilde's income by a noticeable amount (though not nearly as much, any time soon, as Precious Stones), and the book option gives us a bunch of extra +s to various rolls if we consult our library.

So I guess the question is, do I like reading about economics and spy shit, or do I like reading about metaphysics?

[X] [ITHILMAR] Books, primarily restricted books on magic with everything else secondary.
I'm a huge fucking nerd, #sorrynotsorry, I never metaphysics I didn't like (I'm literally writing a quest where one of the main selling points is "weird metaphysics," even)
[X] [ITHILMAR] A copy of the Library of Mournings, including most restricted texts.

And my previous votes:
[X] [ITHILMAR] Precious Stones
[X] Initiate
[X] Dooming and Quickening
[X] Entrance Examination
[X] Sarvoi
[X] Middenland
[X] Witch Hunter
[X] Skull River Ambush
 
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picklepikkl said:
So I guess the question is, do I like reading about economics and spy shit, or do I like reading about metaphysics?
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Talon TigerDino said:
Look, the EIC is great and all, but all trade goods does is make them grow faster. The Fog Bridge and Kislev canal are already going to be tying together the old world economically regardless.
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Prime 2.0 said:
I personally find it kind of ironic that trade goods is being billed as preferable to numbers go up when it's pretty directly about a number going up, and not even a number that shows itself in the narrative that often.
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It's not 'reading about economics and spy shit', it's 'ensuring the economic co-dependence of the Old World by binding together the future and fates of the member nations via a massively powerful trade league that's sworn to act not for profit, but in the best interests of the Empire'.

This type of thing IRL is what led to the formation of supranational organizations like the World Bank, WHO, League of Nations, and UN, because a superpower democracy having some percentage of its constituency being economically invested in the success other nations means the superpower needs to also be invested in those nations. It also means the superpower cannot use overt threats or force to ensure good outcomes (because threatening an invasion is a great way to lower a countries' GDP, not raise it), which means the superpower has to rely on soft sticks and softer power to set up international norms that other countries begin to follow because following those norms gets them access to a whole bunch of financial benefits (free trade, cheap trade goods, low-interest loans, supranational investment companies, etc).

The point is, the EIC investment is the first major step to beginning to set up a UN/NATO organization in the Old World, by first creating a series of formalized new trade routes that will need international enforcement from all involved parties to be maximally profitable. And if there's one thing history has taught us, it's that this approach is the most likely to successfully build long-term alliances between nations.

Thus, setting up this international trade route isn't about measuring the short-term profitability of 'Gems vs Trade Route vs Books', it's about creating Mathilde's most important legacy to all Empire citizens- a formalized trade route that not only enriches the Empire and its neighbors, but is so sprawling that it also enriches the Empire's citizenry, and forces the various Elector Counts and central government to invest into its protection and defenses lest their own incomes be threatened.
 
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Prime 2.0 said:
I personally find it kind of ironic that trade goods is being billed as preferable to numbers go up when it's pretty directly about a number going up, and not even a number that shows itself in the narrative that often.

Like, people complain about the EIC being mostly absent from the quest. Will giving them more trade income in Laurelorn change that? I'm not sure, and I don't think anyone can be sure which is why it seems like such an odd choice for people pursuing narrative results.

We have open plot hooks about really cool setting mysteries that we know the library will reopen, like the old ones and their silver ships, like Albion - things we know the eonir know more about, that are written about in that library. New conversations to have among the colleges about new magical lore, if not college favor outright. We got results even from a small library that touched on magical subjects, the elementalist texts.

The EIC just... Doesn't seem like such a good bet for narrative payoff.

I'd rather buy a library and see Mathilde discover that Albion exists.
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The way I like to think about it on a narrative level is this: We've gotten books from the Library of Mournings over time, increasing our access as our relation with Laurelorn develops and strenghtens. But it's been coming slowly, and nobody likes to part with ancient lore easily.

Similarly, the EIC has been expanding into the northern Empire slowly over time, increasing with each trade deal and giving us greater access to the area as that business develops. But each deal takes time and effort to set up, and there's a lot of political resistance from traditional isolationists.

The first option is narratively represented by Marrisith throwing her political weight around to give us books, paying out scribes and steamrolling any opposition that may exist to giving us lore.
The second one is narratively represented by Marrisith throwing her political weight behind giving us trade deals, accelerating her political agenda and wrangling the Houses to open up trade with the Empire.

Going for BOOKMAXX lets us skip a lot of the waiting and book deal effort we'd need to do to fully access the Library of Mournings.
Going for EICMAXX lets us skip a lot of the waiting and trade deal effort we'd need for Laurelorn to start opening up trade.
 
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mathymancer said:
Adhoc vote count started by mathymancer on Apr 27, 2024 at 10:27 AM, finished with 859 posts and 149 votes.
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So we're "only" 12 hours into the vote, but there are already 149 voters so I think it's worth looking at the state of it.
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I feel most of the leads fall in line with the thread's taste, but I am a bit surprised at how much of a favorite "Initiate" has been. Mandred is one thing, I knew people would go all in on that, but this is just some rando we don't even know who happens to live in K8P. Mildly interesting, sure, but not sure why it's lit such a fire in people.
 
Dust&Ash said:
It's not 'reading about economics and spy shit', it's 'ensuring the economic co-dependence of the Old World by binding together the future and fates of the member nations via a massively powerful trade league that's sworn to act not for profit, but in the best interests of the Empire'
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That is economics and politics, tho. It is just the accompanying read is not "uoooh +100 income we are a little bit more rich now" but more about civilization flourishing, nations connecting, happy Boris, and other such things.
 
ReImagined said:
Going for BOOKMAXX lets us skip a lot of the waiting and book deal effort we'd need to do to fully access the Library of Mournings.
Going for EICMAXX lets us skip a lot of the waiting and trade deal effort we'd need for Laurelorn to start opening up trade.
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The trouble is that time is not necessarily on our side with the books. Prestige is a geopolitical resource and boney has stated very clearly that Laurelorn just has not realized that their library and the exclusivity of its texts is a source of it.

Yet.

We can preserve or even enhance the geopolitical benefits for Laurelorn if we choose, but this is the cheapest getting the library is ever likely to be because the risk that we don't isn't priced in right now.

The moment the price shoots up could be as soon as they figure out their books are where the EIC figured out how to weave silk from.

Trade goods could make that moment happen even sooner, given the whole "interact with the EIC more" thing.
 
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Briefvoice said:
I feel most of the leads fall in line with the thread's taste, but I am a bit surprised at how much of a favorite "Initiate" has been. Mandred is one thing, I knew people would go all in on that, but this is just some rando we don't even know who happens to live in K8P. Mildly interesting, sure, but not sure why it's lit such a fire in people.
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It's because the parents of the wizard in question are probably very open to the idea of their child being a wizard, rather than how Mathilde's own parents reacted. It would probably be a somewhat heartwarming contrast.
 
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