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Paths of Civilization

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A reminder: That 25-30% chance of -1 stability from not even telling our friends about Scourge Warding is a big threat to our civilization.

The chance that the Dead Priests will get anything useful out of that warning after it's been through a game of telephone? Not significant at all.

I'd be more worried that telling our friends about the warding will lead to them getting it wrong and fucking themselves over.
 
[X] [Sacrifice] Large (-3 Econ, +1 Stability, ???)
[X] [Harmony] No, they could cause further panic
[X] [Ward] No, it is sacred magic (Small chance of stability loss)
[X] [King] Remain home (Chance of stability gain)
[X] [Refugee] Some from friendly groups can come in (-2 Stability, +4-5 Econ)

If my math is right, this will leave us at about -2 stability. Of course, we might get totally screwed over by the order in which the options are completed but that's a risk I'm willing to take. I think it's fine if the "Everything" option wins in the Sacrifice category but I'm a little vary about the potential consequences of throwing all our food on a big fire and hoping that will somehow stop the coming disaster.
 
bluefur87 said:
I love the combination of this being horrible logic, yet the actually distilled form of the logic many players would have.
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Actually, if you extend it out a couple turns, it becomes pretty self evident logic! Why?

Because clearly it was those nasty hills people that did this! Look at them, cackling away in the hills, boosting their economy while simultaneously not dying of plague! It's not natural, that's what it is! Clearly, they took in the remainder of the Spirit Talkers after they got wiped out by Frickin' Nomads, learned their secrets, and summoned the comet! THEN, using the baleful powers granted to them by it's false light, they unleashed a plague upon everyone in the Lowlands, intent upon driving us out, and taking all of the precious farm lands for themselves, without having to lift a finger!

The fiends! They must be destroyed, before they bring ruin to us all!

2995Well, crap. This is actually reasonable IC logic. Not exactly inevitable, since we aren't going around taking credit, but it isn't exactly impossible either. Oh, also, I had a good nights sleep, and have forgiven you all now. I'll probably be miffed by something later though.

PS, I think we might be Warm!Canada.
 
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TotallyNotEvil said:
They severely outnumber us. A frenzied, bloodthirsty mob vs mostly farmers? Not pretty.

In the end, they will hurt us, perhaps even badly, and we really don't need it, especially right now. Spreading the wards gains us little to nothing at a great risk.

We have no real major allies. Anyone we could teach that's closer to us can trivially be absorbed as refugees. Win-win.
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Okay that is a good reason not to tell everyone or even most people.

But can we at least tell some of our friends?

They are probably the reason we learn things third or fourthhand at all. It is also very unlikely to teach them the absolute true way of doing it. Especially since word of mouth would vastly disfigure the little info there would be at all of the process.
 
Sightsear said:
Actually, if you extend it out a couple turns, it becomes pretty self evident logic! Why?

Because clearly it was those nasty hills people that did this! Look at them, cackling away in the hills, boosting their economy while simultaneously not dying of plague! It's not natural, that's what it is! Clearly, they took in the remainder of the Spirit Talkers after they got wiped out by Frickin' Nomads, learned their secrets, and summoned the comet! THEN, using the baleful powers granted to them by it's false light, they unleashed a plague upon everyone in the Lowlands, intent upon us/them out, and taking all of the precious farm lands for themselves, without having to lift a finger!

The fiends! They must be destroyed, before they bring ruin to us all!

2995Well, crap. This is actually reasonable IC logic. Not exactly inevitable, since we aren't going around taking credit, but it isn't exactly impossible either. Oh, also, I had a good nights sleep, and have forgiven you all now. I'll probably be miffed by something later though.

PS, I think we might be Warm!Canada.
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Negaverse players: Damn those Hill People! How did they predict that a plague would arrive and prepare for it in secret?

Hill People: Um, yeah. We planned it out. Everything went according to plan. We definitely weren't just chasing the shiny option, no siree...
 
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zamin said:
Negaverse players: Damn those Hill People! How did they predict that a plague would arrive and prepare for it in secret?

Hill People: Um, yeah. We planned it out. Everything went according to plan. We definitely weren't just chasing the shiny option, no siree...
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I am now convinced NONE of the Civilizations are any good at long-term planning. Any time something looks like a brilliantly timed manuever, behind the scenes it's more like "Holy shit, that was lucky wasn't it?" Or "AAAAHHHH DO IT NOW, BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE, GET THE SHINY!"

Also, I've kind of settled on what my long term plan would be, if it were possible to actually implement a long term plan in this clusterfuck we dubiously call a community (oh, sorry, had some salt stuck to my sleeve there).

Basically, I want to be Warm!Canada+TheGreatWalloftheLowlands, wrapped up into one, extortionist package. Basically, over the course of the next few centuries, we completely take over the Lowlands, while remaining relatively chill dudes, and sit upriver of whoever happens to own the Lowlands, and be inexplicably successful, despite not having to go through all the blood and horror whoever is down river had to get through to reach their level of success. Than we start charging them for not unleashing plagues of Nomads upon them all, because it would be a shame if something were to happen to all those nice farms, now wouldn't it?

Incidentally, where the bloody hell did that one Thunder Horse splinter tribe get too? You'd think that if they were still Nomads, they would have started back-filling towards us by now. Guess they found someplace better to hang out?

2997 Sadly, being extortionist assholes is likely to be frowned upon by Harmony. Ah well.
 
[X][Sacrifice] Large(-3 Econ, +1 Stability, ???)
[X][Harmony] Yes, the people need to be further calmed (-1 to +2 Stability)
[X][Ward] No, it is sacred magic (Small chance of stability loss)
[X][King] Remain home (Chance of stability gain)
[X][Refugee] Some from friendly groups can come in (-2 Stability, +4-5 Econ)
 
Sightsear said:
Basically, I want to be Warm!Canada+TheGreatWalloftheLowlands, wrapped up into one, extortionist package. Basically, over the course of the next few centuries, we completely take over the Lowlands, while remaining relatively chill dudes, and sit upriver of whoever happens to own the Lowlands, and be inexplicably successful, despite not having to go through all the blood and horror whoever is down river had to get through to reach their level of success. Than we start charging them for not unleashing plagues of Nomads upon them all, because it would be a shame if something were to happen to all those nice farms, now wouldn't it?
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I'd support this plan. Though honestly I expect the dice to completely screw up all our plans before we ever got that far.

Still, if we ever decide to build that dam, we can pretty much ruin the lives of everyone living downstream by blocking their precious water. Our people will make the Lowlands learn our peaceful farming ways - even if we have to kill them all to do it.
 
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Sivantic said:
Okay that is a good reason not to tell everyone or even most people.

But can we at least tell some of our friends?

They are probably the reason we learn things third or fourthhand at all. It is also very unlikely to teach them the absolute true way of doing it. Especially since word of mouth would vastly disfigure the little info there would be at all of the process.
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It's a risk we don't need to run.

Absorbing more people would net the same result of sheltering our closest allies, and not spread the word.

Because the longer this drags on, the more desperate and dangerous others will get. And I don't like how loosely defined "closest allies" is.

It's hard not to talk when you've seen the entire neighborhood be gruesomely sacrificed, with your family next in line. "Hill People have the cure" is all that needs to be said for the power barrel that is the lowlands to explode all at once, strictly in our way.

I suspect a whole lot of annexation will happen with those small villages, which are our only "friends".
 
Candesce said:
A reminder: That 25-30% chance of -1 stability from not even telling our friends about Scourge Warding is a big threat to our civilization.

The chance that the Dead Priests will get anything useful out of that warning after it's been through a game of telephone? Not significant at all.

I'd be more worried that telling our friends about the warding will lead to them getting it wrong and fucking themselves over.
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I don't get why y'all are like "the chance that the DP will get anything useful out of that [full and complete transferal of the ritual to others] after it's been through a game of [sending emissaries back and forth and kidnapping people and then torturing them for more information]." Like, the literal three things that need to be known are as follows: 1) this diseases from cowpoxes fights off the plague, 2) the disease looks like these sores on the cow, 3) if you get goo from the sores into people it infects them. 1 & 3 are easily transferred, only 2 is an issue.

Obviously sharing only w/ our allies - who are presumably enemies to the DP - means that it spreading is less likely. However, plz remember that the DP took in nomads and gained cart technology. It's extremely likely that if we share it with others a similar process will happen eventually. Also recall that we visited the MW and stole a certain amount of metalworking info, which requires a fair bit more expertise than "disease looks like x, infect ppl w/ it."

But, on the other hand, if we don't share w/ our allies and they learn that we had this and didn't share it, bad shit might occur.
 
Endless Blue Sky: Blue's Distressingly Large List of Shit that Needs to Get Done
As I sit here, observing that our lack of mysticism probably had more to do with, at the very least, a lack of negative choices than we would like, I add 'better mysticism' to the list of stuff we need to do, and stare blankly at it as it just seems to grow endlessly. There is only one answer to the continuingly increasing quagmire that is this list, that we all acknowledge to some degree in the back of our mind in between our wants for the civilization and desire to play to a more optimal level. At least, only one we can take at the moment, and lest we wait for a better opportunity to come we may find we have not taken the proper opportunities present for us at the moment.

We must organize this absurdly long list.

I've started this daunting endeavor by breaking down the categories of things we want done into Centralization, Mysticism, Martial, Stability, and Expansion. Each of which covers a broad area of wants and needs for our current civilization before we can safely advance to more esoteric actions. Let's start with Centralization.
Centralization
What we know about Centralization is that it gives bonuses to collective actions. That is, the actions we choose for our civilization, at least the ones our King does, and gives us the ability to deal with crises better. This makes having higher Centralization a good thing in general, but I believe there is more to it than this. Centralization is the measure of how much our central government is, well, centralized.

Currently we have spent our first turn being under the number of provinces in difference between our hierarchy and centralization. That is, the difference between the two stats is 3 at the moment, where as we have 4 provinces. Coincidentally we have also actually had our first bit of information on what exactly one of our provinces is doing. As a result, I hold a high belief that we need centralization to be equal to or higher than hierarchy, in order to know what all our provinces are up to. At least for the current form of government.

The question is, how vital is this? While not immediately important, it does represent our provinces acting unchecked from government authority, which is a very large problem long run, and can run into significant more problems down the line. So it's not vital, but we should be ticking away at every other turn.
Mysticism
As we have seen this last turn, Mysticism allows us to deal with Mysticism crises. It would be of no small surprise that if we had a larger Mysticism stat it would give us a better set of options from which to choose from. This alone shows we need to try to keep some level of positive Mysticism at all times for general purposes. We don't have a good number to aim for though, so our best guess is more random as to it's actual benefit as anything. We do know it is a benefit.

We also need to advance the actual technology of our temples so to speak. They currently run three practical duties of health improvement, training for our Blackbirds, and general knowledge repository. Increasing their size so that they may handle any one of those functions with more dedicated areas is rather critical to our Mysticism's ability to function in general. It also gives us points to spend on things like more of our sacred warriors, both of which we need and want.

The real problem with Mysticism is that, while it is of vital importance to get it to at least 1, we don't really know what is a good value to aim for beyond that. As such, while an emergency input of expand holy sites is needed, we can not afford to commit to this too much without knowing the actual benefits. It would likely still be wise to improve it every other turn, if possible.
Martial
Ah, our greatest weakness in terms of raw tech and ability. Despite having a Martial of 6, we are quite definitively not on great grounds for it. Every one of our neighbors of a large size has become that way through specializing in Martial to some degree, while we have always stuck to immediate defensive needs. Currently we need Martial to defend our expansions and, in the case of Blackbirds especially, increase the internal policing force of our society. Not to mention that Blackbirds also act as our espionage force, and the more we have the more information we get about the actions of other civilizations.

The first act of our Martial expansion, though, should be to continue working on the backbone of it. In part because that will give us something to build off of, but also in part because that will not eat up Mysticism and we can build it up alongside Martial without having to worry about having too low of a Mysticism score as a result.

We have dealt with the absolute emergency need in martial this lat turn, as it was stated that we just break even with our super advantageous defenses compared to what our opponents can field, but we have a long ways to go. We should definitely chug away at this in the future, especially since our ability to safely expand relies on it. One of the things we may need to do to up martial is have actual fights. Ironically this means the nomads are to our advantage, as we can gain some non serious war experience rather easily. That said, fighting nomads is not going to be like fighting other people.
Stability
While there isn't much to be said about Stability that isn't already known, or making it's importance blatantly obvious with the current sequence of events, it does bare some repeating. Thanks to our Land of Opportunity trait we are in a situation where we can tank our Stability at pretty much any given time. Furthermore, having positive Stability tends to act as both a general boost to our society, and a safety net for when things go wrong.

I thoroughly believe we should push rather hard and increase Stability by 1 a turn until we get to +1 whenever we are bellow it. Stability is important and we would not be facing nearly the same problems if we had it higher here.
Expansion
Expansion is somewhat unique in several ways. While it is not vital, it is an increasingly shrinking opportunity. While there is no truly linear path we need to take it, there are a couple of things we ideally want before heavily pursuing it. It is something that we can't ignore, just as much as it is something we can't immediately take.

Let's start with those things we really do want before we start expanding. Martial is one. With better Martial, we can much more easily defend our expansions, and considering our current martial will only easily win inside our lands, this is rather important for expanding outside of them. We also need better Centralization, because we really do not want our Centralization to drop at any moment more than we can avoid. Thirdly, we want copper tools.

A huge portion of the projects involved in expanding involve construction ventures. Building a settlement, building walls, establishing farms, new trails, these are all construction projects. Copper tools give us a more reliable set of tools that do not need to constantly be replaced, thus giving a very large advantage to these actions. While we will probably not be able to afford copper tools before we take any expansion action, getting them sooner rather than latter, is important.
Anyways, there's an analysis from me to the board on at least starting to organize our overly long list. I'd recommend a staggered approach where we try to tackle at least one of these problems to relatively bite size degree every other turn in order to deal with them, as in the end, none of them can be ignored.
 
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Oh look a Tally!

Vote Tally : Paths of Civilization | Page 667 | Sufficient Velocity
##### NetTally 1.7.10.1
Task: Sacrifice
[x] [Sacrifice]Everything! (-4 Econ, +1 immediate stability, chance of extra stability, ???)
No. of Votes: 33

[X] [Sacrifice] Large (-3 Econ, +1 Stability, ???)
No. of Votes: 32

[X] [Sacrifice] Medium (-2 Econ, ???)
No. of Votes: 8

——————————————————————————————————————————————Task: Harmony
[X][Harmony] No, they could cause further panic
No. of Votes: 40

[x] [Harmony]Yes, the people need to be further calmed (-1 to +2 Stability)
No. of Votes: 29

——————————————————————————————————————————————Task: King
[x] [King]Remain home (Chance of stability gain)
No. of Votes: 46

[X] [King] Speak with spirits (Twythulmyn dies, +1 immediate stability, +1 Legitimacy, ???)
No. of Votes: 24

[X][King] Talk with the Thunder Horse (Applies Heroic diplomacy to interactions over the crisis)
No. of Votes: 4

——————————————————————————————————————————————Task: Ward
[X] [Ward] No, it is sacred magic (Small chance of stability loss)
No. of Votes: 39

[x] [Ward]] Even less friendly groups should know of the magic (Shares with many groups, chance of stability gain, ???)
No. of Votes: 14

[X] [Ward] It should be shared with friendly tribes (Shares with a few groups)
No. of Votes: 14

[X][Ward] Everyone, even the Dead Priests! (Shares far and wide for -1 Diplomacy, +1 Stability, ???)
No. of Votes: 6

——————————————————————————————————————————————
Task: Refugee
[X][Refugee] Some from friendly groups can come in (-2 Stability, +4-5 Econ)
No. of Votes: 30

[x] [Refugee]Many may enter (-3 Stability, +6-8 Econ, ???)
No. of Votes: 15

[X] [Refugee] Those with preexisting ties can come in (-1 Stability, +2 Econ, small chance of further stability loss)
No. of Votes: 13

[X][Refugee] The People must offer aid (-4 Stability, +8-11 Econ, probable overcrowding issues, ???)
No. of Votes: 6

[X] [Refugee] All who need aid must receive it (-5 Stability, +11-15 Econ, overcrowding issues, ???)
No. of Votes: 4

[X] [Refugee] Only let in some (Significant chance of stability loss)
No. of Votes: 2

Total No. of Voters: 75


@bluefur87 I can help with that list.
 
TotallyNotEvil said:
It's a risk we don't need to run.
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I think you are exaggerating the risk at this level. We wouldn't be teaching anybody the technique at this level. A few of our shamans would travel with a few cows and an armed escort to the outskirts of our territory. Once their they, to the viewpoint of the outsiders, are going to do spooky shaman things before giving them a cut on their arm and poking a copper needle in the wound. We aren't telling them how it works. They would have zero idea of why it works.
 
Sacrifice has a tiny 1-vote lead, but all the rest are fairly secure with at least a 10-vote lead.

[33][Sacrifice] Everything! (-4 Econ, +1 immediate stability, chance of extra stability, ???)
[40][Harmony] No, they could cause further panic
[46][King] Remain home (Chance of stability gain)
[38][Ward] No, it is sacred magic (Small chance of stability loss)
[30][Refugee] Some from friendly groups can come in (-2 Stability, +4-5 Econ)
actionOrderBase = ['SacrificeEverything', 'KingStay', 'HarmonyNo', 'WardKeep', 'RefugeeFriendly']


Overall I'm fine with either of them- large has a 3% chance of death but I don't like the trait combo of our people sacrificing everything and our king not sacrificing as well, especially with the moderately limited Immigration. For those wishing to check/explore options themselves, program is here.

Assuming SacrificeEverything and KingStay happens, I think our local maxima is to also take HarmonyYes. This puts us back to a 3% chance of death instead of removing it entirely, but also gives a 44% chance of ending up at 0 or greater stability, 68% chance of -1 or greater. (HarmonyNo gives 18% to 0, 62% to -1 or greater)

I still think that my vote is the best plan overall with both good mechanics and some nice trait effects, but it's unstable since any single change makes it very dangerous, and without plan-based voting that's a big risk. My vote is
actionOrderBase = ['SacrificeEverything', 'KingDies', 'HarmonyNo', 'WardKeep', 'RefugeeMany']
This has 0% chance of death, 88% chance of stability -2 or greater, and most importantly has our people doing their best to help those who come to them.


Umi-san said:
But, on the other hand, if we don't share w/ our allies and they learn that we had this and didn't share it, bad shit might occur.
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It's sacred magic like the ST's or the metalworking. People will be annoyed, sure, but I think it's far more likely that they don't realize that we could give it to them since it's our own sacred magics.

Sivantic said:
We aren't telling them how it works. They would have zero idea of why it works.
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False.
Academia Nut said:
You would explain what they need to do, and they would have the general idea and initial samples, but how they implement would be up to them. They couldn't get everything straight from you, you have an entire system for maintaining it.
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Sivantic said:
*explosion*
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I'm not in front of a computer right now do you want to help me and @bluefur87 make an action list?

[color= cyan]

An explosive time to be had~

A request made and a debt deepened.

Do you accept?[/color]
Adhoc vote count started by BungieONI on Apr 15, 2017 at 3:33 PM, finished with 17166 posts and 75 votes.
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Adhoc vote count started by BungieONI on Apr 15, 2017 at 3:47 PM, finished with 17168 posts and 76 votes.
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Adhoc vote count started by BungieONI on Apr 15, 2017 at 4:10 PM, finished with 17169 posts and 76 votes.
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[X] [Sacrifice] Everything! (-4 Econ, +1 immediate stability, chance of extra stability, ???)

[X] [Harmony] Yes, the people need to be further calmed (-1 to +2 Stability)

[X] [Ward] It should be shared with friendly tribes (Shares with a few groups)

[X] [King] Speak with spirits (Twythulmyn dies, +1 immediate stability, +1 Legitimacy, ???)

[X] [Refugee] Some from friendly groups can come in (-2 Stability, +4-5 Econ)
 
zamin said:
I'd support this plan. Though honestly I expect the dice to completely screw up all our plans before we ever got that far.
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You know, I think you've unlocked why I have a disconnect with so many other people in the thread about what is and is not important and/or useful. It's not about their Strongly Held Opinions. It's about MY Strongly Held Opinions! I never figured that out because I was above such petty things. :p HUBRIS STRIKES AGAIN!

But, yeah, now that I've figured out what my Strongly Held Opinion is, I may as well share it: Short-Term Benefits are more important than Long-Term Consequences. Basically, trying to aim for any goal that can't be achieved within the next two turns is wasted planning, therefore, consequences that LAST longer than two turns aren't some, or more relevantly, won't kick in for more than two turns, is wasted effort.

Take our military for example. While there is some grumbling that we should probably have worked on it a bit more, that's suppressed by the general feeling of "there was more important shit to do!" On the other hand, take a look at when we released the Thunder Nomads onto the Lowlands, instead of opening Trade with the Metal Workers. Sure, they collapsed pretty fast, but it gave us enough confidence to go "screw it, Canal!"

I understand that people disagree with my opinion on this, that we should be focusing on the long term, even at the expense of the short. I just feel that they're missing opportunities that could be considerably more valuable NOW, than whatever problems they may cause in the future (and it's not like we wouldn't have gotten problems ANYWAY, otherwise we wouldn't be in this mess).

For example, holding on to the Warding? Inherently a long term at the expense of the short term goal, in that it is banking on more big plagues happening in the future, which will give us another opening to exploit in the future. All it costs us is nudging the worst case scenario from "barely functional" to "time to muligan your entire civilization! Let's see, this province's chief decided to burn himself at the stake, this one decided to go murder the Thunder Horse, THAT ONE has decided that clearly, building houses was where everything went wrong in the first place..."

Investing in the long term is great. Thinking that you can finely manipulate what we get out of it is a bit silly though.

2999
 
[X] [Sacrifice] Everything! (-4 Econ, +1 immediate stability, chance of extra stability, ???)
[X] [Harmony] No, they could cause further panic
[X] [King] Speak with spirits (Twythulmyn dies, +1 immediate stability, +1 Legitimacy, ???)
[X] [Ward] No, it is sacred magic (Small chance of stability loss)
[X] [Refugee] Many may enter (-3 Stability, +6-8 Econ, ???)
 
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