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Paths of Civilization

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You know...

Somebody said we should get Treeships when we go to space so...

Have some :)









bluefur87 said:
I'm going to have to agree in large part of how our action economy works. That said, people are overlooking one simple thing, which I'm going to get to at the end of this post.


Yes, strong social mobility continues to be one of our most bs advantages.


Grand Sacrifice is more expensive then festivals. We should only really do it if we want to bring the wealthy down or want to main it for 2 stability.


Well-


As veekie has pointed out here, our greatest weakness is troop count, more than anything. Also a lack of troop organization.


Thunder Horse does not even begin to have the ability to actually hold that much land while remaining sedentary. Even if we did help them with their farming, they're new to the government problem. They're far more likely to fracture if they try that.


And now we get to the point I want to make. The important part of your statement is underlined, metal tools are not in wide spread use.

What would it mean to make metal tools in wide spread use? As an example, I asked AN awhile back, 'If we mained new trails, would we get 2 centralization for it?' The answer was along the lines of 'maybe if you had better tools.'

This addresses a very important part about action economy that I am seeing heavily ignored here. It doesn't just matter how many actions you have, but what you can do with those actions. With copper tools becoming wide spread we could safely say that our ability to perform construction actions would go up to somewhere between half a tier and a full tier.

Why does this matter? Because if we increase the effective strength of our action economy, that propagates to all actions. We will either gain more raw econ, or our effective econ numbers will be upgraded. Walls will become easier to build and may very well drop somewhere between a full tier and half a tier (with the other half of a tier being filled in by experience). Many construction actions that are done are much more likely to gain advances. This holds not only true for us, but down to our provinces, at a time when they all now have econ to spend, pretty much ensuring that at least two of them will. Walls are certainly not outside of the realm of possibility, especially for Redshore. If Northshore doesn't gain walls over this miniturn, they're quite likely to want to build them as well.

There are many places that are likely to be vastly improved by copper tools, thus causing an effectively drastic increase in our action economy with them. As a result, I am highly in favor of Study Metal next turn, and putting off us doing any actual construction actions if at all possible, so they can more efficiently benefit from unlocked copper tools the following turn.
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Grand Sacrifice is more expensive than festivals. But it is not limited in uses. I see Festivals as a way to get out of -2 or -3 stability relatively cheap. Grand Sacrifice is basically to me our new best tool for a couple of reasons. It has no cap except our Legitimacy, can be used safely at any Stability level, lowers classism. And doesn't run the risk of dumping us in a bad spot like Restore Order. I care only a little that it costs 2 or 3 Econ. With the crazy wonderful focus in Econ we've been doing it's become very nice. Especially because it isn't that hard for us to get to a situation of earning 3+ Econ a turn.
 
[X] Reinforce Northshore
[X] Send additional resources to assist (-1 Centralization, allows Northshore to spend Econ on defensive measures while being attacked)
[X] The People always welcome the needy (-1 Stability, +2 Econ)
 
BungieONI said:
Grand Sacrifice is more expensive than festivals. But it is not limited in uses. I see Festivals as a way to get out of -2 or -3 stability relatively cheap. Grand Sacrifice is basically to me our new best tool for a couple of reasons. It has no cap except our Legitimacy, can be used safely at any Stability level, lowers classism. And doesn't run the risk of dumping us in a bad spot like Restore Order. I care only a little that it costs 2 or 3 Econ. With the crazy wonderful focus in Econ we've been doing it's become very nice. Especially because it isn't that hard for us to get to a situation of earning 3+ Econ a turn.
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I'd rather the extra econ go towards our provinces spending, since we're already there. Festivals are also much more thematically in tune with what we are doing here. We want to culture bomb the hell out of the immigrants to get them to want to convert to our ways. We don't really have a wealthy class to bring low at the moment.
 
bluefur87 said:
I'd rather the extra econ go towards our provinces spending, since we're already there. Festivals are also much more thematically in tune with what we are doing here. We want to culture bomb the hell out of the immigrants to get them to want to convert to our ways. We don't really have a wealthy class to bring low at the moment.
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Point. My concern is that we only have two more festivals going by the action description and this thought path of not needing to use it will propagate and when we run out of Festivals the thread will lose it's collective shit complaining because we don't want to spend econ because it is inefficient.

You know this place can be that salty. *looks around, scrapes off a piece of salt to season rice.*

*Mouth full* I want to avoid that if we can. Ease the thread into it as it were.
 
I feel like our religion should evolve to the point where we are no longer waiting for the land of plenty to return but instead are trying to create it our selves.
 
[X] Reinforce Northshore
[X] The king will deal with the problems as they come (No change)
[X] The People always welcome the needy (-1 Stability, +2 Econ)
 
No7sHere said:
Isn't part of our religion that we originally came from a land of plenty and that eventually it will return?
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Maybe? It would make sense considering our starting option in turn 1.

But that was mostly my own whimsy. ;)

I have more stocked up.

I mentioned I wanted to make a History post at one point.

I'm thinking a legend post would be better.
Wonder when I'll have the time?
 
BungieONI said:
Point. My concern is that we only have two more festivals going by the action description and this thought path of not needing to use it will propagate and when we run out of Festivals the thread will lose it's collective shit complaining because we don't want to spend econ because it is inefficient.

You know this place can be that salty. *looks around, scrapes off a piece of salt to season rice.*

*Mouth full* I want to avoid that if we can. Ease the thread into it as it were.
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Counter point. We know that the way we gain new technology and traditions is by pushing current ones to their limit. Gaining 'too many festivals' may push us to use our astronomy knowledge to create a calendar or to create formalized games, which have such a slew of benefits that I'm not 100% sure how AN would swing that.
 
[X] Reinforce Northshore
[X] Send additional resources to assist (-1 Centralization, allows Northshore to spend Econ on defensive measures while being attacked)
[X] Actively encourage the abandonment of the Dead Priest leaders by their people (-2 Stability, -1 Diplomacy, +4-5 Econ, chance to collapse the Dead Priests)
 
bluefur87 said:
Counter point. We know that the way we gain new technology and traditions is by pushing current ones to their limit. Gaining 'too many festivals' may push us to use our astronomy knowledge to create a calendar or to create formalized games, which have such a slew of benefits that I'm not 100% sure how AN would swing that.
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*Smoking, waving multiple arms around* We shall see. Not too fussed either way.
 
[X] Reinforce Northshore
[X] The king will deal with the problems as they come (No change)
[X] The People always welcome the needy (-1 Stability, +2 Econ)
 
bluefur87 said:
Thunder Horse does not even begin to have the ability to actually hold that much land while remaining sedentary. Even if we did help them with their farming, they're new to the government problem. They're far more likely to fracture if they try that.
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Not necessarily. Remember the Thunder Horse have an above average horse-to-population ratio. They could probably hold that much land with low centralization, precisely because the lowlands are easier to work. They just need to adopt the Western Confederacy strategy.

And now we get to the point I want to make. The important part of your statement is underlined, metal tools are not in wide spread use.

What would it mean to make metal tools in wide spread use? As an example, I asked AN awhile back, 'If we mained new trails, would we get 2 centralization for it?' The answer was along the lines of 'maybe if you had better tools.'

This addresses a very important part about action economy that I am seeing heavily ignored here. It doesn't just matter how many actions you have, but what you can do with those actions. With copper tools becoming wide spread we could safely say that our ability to perform construction actions would go up to somewhere between half a tier and a full tier.

Why does this matter? Because if we increase the effective strength of our action economy, that propagates to all actions. We will either gain more raw econ, or our effective econ numbers will be upgraded. Walls will become easier to build and may very well drop somewhere between a full tier and half a tier in difficulty (with the other half of a tier being filled in by experience). Many construction actions that are done are much more likely to gain advances. This holds not only true for us, but down to our provinces, at a time when they all now have econ to spend, pretty much ensuring that at least two of them will. Walls are certainly not outside of the realm of possibility, especially for Redshore. If Northshore doesn't gain walls over this miniturn, they're quite likely to want to build them as well.

There are many places that are likely to be vastly improved by copper tools, thus causing an effectively drastic increase in our action economy with them. As a result, I am highly in favor of Study Metal next turn, and putting off us doing any actual construction actions if at all possible, so they can more efficiently benefit from unlocked copper tools the following turn.
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Metal tools are slowly increasing in usage however. We know how to work copper even if it's imported. We'd gradually transition to greater metal use because we never throw metal away, just melt it down and rework it when broken.

Nobody is arguing that metal is useless. But there's a lot of arguments in favor of metal not being urgent like Stability, the military lack of counterstrike capability, or taking advantage of landgrab opportunities.

Metal is easy to slot in, so it joins the megaprojects in that it would be awesome to have, but not essential to have immediately.
Only it's cheaper, so we can cram it in if only things stop being on fire.
bluefur87 said:
Our provinces can't spend mysticism, so no one can study metal.
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Maybe if we build up enough Mysticism they can gain the ability to spend it via later event?
No7sHere said:
Isn't part of our religion that we originally came from a land of plenty and that eventually it will return?
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Classic Garden of Eden story yes. Though we've taken the tack of "we'll freaking build our own paradise dammit"
 
BungieONI said:
IF the DP completely collapse next turn, which I find unlikely
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The DP have a chance of dying off simply by us taking a -2 Stability amount of people. They are in very bad straights and while their collapse is not certain, it is likely, not unlikely.

bluefur87 said:
As veekie has pointed out here, our greatest weakness is troop count, more than anything. Also a lack of troop organization.
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veekie is wrong. AN said our greatest weakness is in counter-attacking, and he later said that more chariots would help in that regard as well as more troops. Considering chariots provide more Martial per point of Economy and are also especially strong in this offensive aspect of war, I'd say building chariots should be our focus.

He also has this image in mind that because chariot archers were historically few that we should instead increase the quantity of our troops. He thinks that because he ignores several things. He ignores the amount of chariots we can support due to Sacred Forest. He ignores the GM's statements about how more chariots will help in the areas we're struggling in. He ignores how building more chariots gives more Martial per point than Expand Warriors. He also thinks that whenever it's said that "war carts were effective, but too few to make a major impact", it's because it's an inherent flaw of war carts being too expensive, rather than the simple, obvious, and correct answer that we just needed to do a Build War Carts actions to up their numbers.

Point being, he's developed tunnel vision and can no longer accurately see what is best for our military. He is locked into his way of thinking of Expand Warriors and nothing else. Not that it would be a bad action to take, per se, but it's not the optimal action to take, and certainly not the only effective action that can be taken.
 
Andres110 said:
The DP have a chance of dying off simply by us taking a -2 Stability amount of people. They are in very bad straights and while their collapse is not certain, it is likely, not unlikely.


veekie is wrong. AN said our greatest weakness is in counter-attacking, and he later said that more chariots would help in that regard as well as more troops. Considering chariots provide more Martial per point of Economy and are also especially strong in this offensive aspect of war, I'd say building chariots should be our focus.

He also has this image in mind that because chariot archers were historically few that we should instead increase the quantity of our troops. He thinks that because he ignores several things. He ignores the amount of chariots we can support due to Sacred Forest. He ignores the GM's statements about how more chariots will help in the areas we're struggling in. He ignores how building more chariots gives more Martial per point than Expand Warriors. He also thinks that whenever it's said that "war carts were effective, but too few to make a major impact", it's because it's an inherent flaw of war carts being too expensive, rather than the simple, obvious, and correct answer that we just needed to do a Build War Carts actions to up their numbers.

Point being, he's developed tunnel vision and can no longer accurately see what is best for our military. He is locked into his way of thinking of Expand Warriors and nothing else. Not that it would be a bad action to take, per se, but it's not the optimal action to take, and certainly not the only effective action that can be taken.
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Do I need to say anything @veekie?

Not really feelin what Andre is sellin.
 
I'm a bit confused as to why people want to main 'Expand Warriors' rather than 'Expand Chariots' given we're told that our main issues are on the attack and pursuit. That's kinda what chariots are perfect for! I opposed them earlier in favor of more warriors when we were just shoring up defenses, but now seems the perfect time for them. I do see the 'additional effects' flavor for warriors is a bit more certain than that for chariots, but I don't really think it's worth leaving our pursuit ability stagnant.

[X] Reinforce Northshore
[X] Send additional resources to assist (-1 Centralization, allows Northshore to spend Econ on defensive measures while being attacked)
[X] The People always welcome the needy (-1 Stability, +2 Econ)
 
drake_azathoth said:
I'm a bit confused as to why people want to main 'Expand Warriors' rather than 'Expand Chariots' given we're told that our main issues are on the attack and pursuit. That's kinda what chariots are perfect for! I opposed them earlier in favor of more warriors when we were just shoring up defenses, but now seems the perfect time for them. I do see the 'additional effects' flavor for warriors is a bit more certain than that for chariots, but I don't really think it's worth leaving our pursuit ability stagnant.

[X] Reinforce Northshore
[X] Send additional resources to assist (-1 Centralization, allows Northshore to spend Econ on defensive measures while being attacked)
[X] The People always welcome the needy (-1 Stability, +2 Econ)
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I am ok with Expand Chariots.
This said, since we indeed did not do "Expand Warriors" action in a while, I am somewhat anxious that our army is quite brittle, with too few numbers to take a beating and keep swinging.

We do have a good martial stat - on paper- but I fear similar actions would cost us far more martial than, say, high kingdom.
 
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drake_azathoth said:
I'm a bit confused as to why people want to main 'Expand Warriors' rather than 'Expand Chariots' given we're told that our main issues are on the attack and pursuit. That's kinda what chariots are perfect for! I opposed them earlier in favor of more warriors when we were just shoring up defenses, but now seems the perfect time for them. I do see the 'additional effects' flavor for warriors is a bit more certain than that for chariots, but I don't really think it's worth leaving our pursuit ability stagnant.

[X] Reinforce Northshore
[X] Send additional resources to assist (-1 Centralization, allows Northshore to spend Econ on defensive measures while being attacked)
[X] The People always welcome the needy (-1 Stability, +2 Econ)
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It's because skirmish warfare is being phased out for massed infantry war by our neighboring polities as their population grows.
I interpreted AN's comment as we don't really have the ability to fight decisive battles in our favor. we can shred anyone who comes in but we have trouble closing the gap in forces count and finishing off an enemy on an open field.

We basically went from Raiding -> Skirmishing Groups -> Infantry -> Massed Infantry

Everybody around us is trending towards Massed Infantry and I think the DP are already doing it. We are hanging out near the border of Skirmishing Groups and Infantry.
 
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