...Hasn't it already been like 5 or 6 turns (we've had three just from the admin heroes) since they started what was for us a 4 action megaproject? I'd easily believe its harder for them, but i'd still give better than even odds that they're already got it done...
It was small raids and annoyances like now that gradually escalated into total war. It took only 3 total war turns for them to subjugate them both.
 
The moment to strike, or to fortify? To Zhuge Liang or Cao Wei?

To play small and offensive (Zhuge Liang) or big and defensive (Cao Wei)? We would be out-manned and out-resourced if our developed territory is too small, and out-maneuvered if we are too big.

But our more pressing need is territory that funds our efforts, looking at the map we are about 1/2 size against everyone except DP.
 
Doesn't look like I am. That red dashed line looks like it's the Thunder Horse zone of influence, which is ... not good.

Also our Blitzkrieg(read: 12x War Mission) might be their Main War Mission.

Just by the size of the area they've dominated in a few turns, they at least out-martialed both the Thunder Speakers and the Xohyrissi at the same time. If we compare their ability to what the March did with a double Main, they did that to two polities at once. That means they had, in our terms, a 4x Main War Mission at the very least, if my guess that the Xohyrissi and the Thunder Speakers have about the same level of power is right. Of course, this is ignoring the fact that the reason why the Thunder Speakers were in such bad shape was because the Thunder Horse just kicked their ass, and now suddenly it looks to me like a Secondary War Mission from the Thunder Horse might be 6-7x our Main War Mission.
 
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To play small and offensive (Zhuge Liang) or big and defensive (Cao Wei)? We would be out-manned and out-resourced if our developed territory is too small, and out-maneuvered if we are too big.

But our more pressing need is territory that funds our efforts, looking at the map we are about 1/2 size against everyone except DP.
Tru

Not tru, necessarily. We're 1/2 the size of everyone else but have more fertile land due to our labors. But we do need more territory cus more territory is literally always nice. I just want more effort to be placed on the territory in the north, which is less likely to be a target for the TH.

Doesn't look like I am. That red dashed line looks like it's the Thunder Horse zone of influence, which is ... not good.
It's the TH zone of influence aka the Xohyssiri zone of influence.
 
I don't think it's time to panic, but I suspect ETH is the first polity with an administrative structure that would let them hold the lowlands. All the others are too centralized.

Otoh, that low centralization is why noone is helping TS yet.
 
Oooh, I wonder what a new immigrant thinks of a longterm citizen being aware of the king in such a close manner as our people are.
like, one coming from the xohy's who just got here, and her cousin whos been here a long time.
1"No I don't like that guy for king, he's a dick."
2"Well, what are you gonna do?"
1"I'm gonna complain to the chief, that's what I'm gonna do!"
2"Wait, what?"
1"Hey Chief! Xehlmyn's a dickbag!"
2"What- you can't just SAY that!"
1"Why not? He's got a problem with it, he can come tell me himself."
2*UTTER BAFFLEMENT*
Actually, due to Symphony, you can protest to the King, but you still have to be polite.

Because Talk Shit Get Hit is part of the Law. Being that rude is grounds for Xehlmyn to send a bunch of big beefy dudes to punch you and everyone will nod sagely that you had it coming.
Those are ones where you probably don't want to redline them in either direction.
Gotcha.
*Shelves plan to Enforce Law to see what happens*

The northern hills/plains far from the rivers are far less populated and are mostly goat and sheep herders, there are maybe a couple thousand of them with them giving way to more farms the further south and close to the major river systems you go. There are lots of independent or de facto independent villages scattered in the "unclaimed" or "partially claimed" territories within the lowlands, probably between 80k-100k all together. They tend to be the prize that the major powers in the region kick around between them. Culturally they are closest to either the Highlanders or Xohyssiri, depending on who is closer.
Ah, the good old football.

Meanwhile we just harvest them for Econ regularly.
We're the final, desperate hope, but people who run this way never come back. For all they know we eat them :p
It's mostly a mildly alcoholic porridge for beer at the moment, but more strongly alcoholic horse yogurt is migrating down from the nomads and some people are starting to experiment with these small fruits that grow on vines.
Grapes! We are moving to Wine!

@Academia Nut
Anyone tried fermenting honey yet?
It's possible, although these groups tend to have a very strong sense that they'll only bow once someone shows up with enough force to beat them/be able to protect them. They tend not to be proactive on that regard and are pretty xenophobic all things considered, even if they are relatively quick to nod along and say "Okay, yeah, we'll send our tribute to you guys now."

Ironically, the Ymaryn periodically systematically remove any reasonable people from those regions via absorbing refugees and thus letting people know that if they are tired of this bullshit they can just leave for the northern hills.
Oh...I think that might prove the theory that when we take in refugees we bleed off lowland Economy in exchange for giving them Stability.

Which means that we've been encouraging them to never bother reforming their social values except when they are cut off from the Ymaryn, because they'd never face internal strife to trigger reform, and only ever break when they lose enough Economy that people running to the Ymaryn triggers repeated Stability losses from Economy being plunged below 0(these would be the events where we can pull 3 Stability worth of dudes at once, since the refugees trigger more Stability hits that are immediately paid off).

Which...kind of makes disturbing sense that the Xohyssiri reformed so much compared to all their neighbors. They've been completely cut off from us for many generations and have to deal with social pressures caused by having lots of angry dudes.

But we can literally throw a double main fortification+ main watchtower down the turn we get it. As far as we know the only major fortification in the Lowlands is the Xoh's walls- because no one wants the tributaries feeling safe enough they feel they don't need to send tribute. We can completely revolutionize warfare in the Lowlands by emphasizing taking and holding land over simply claiming tribute. Us eating the Lowlands in small, heavily fortified bites, is entirely possible.
Actually odds are that once we start doing that, within 3 generations everyone down there will be doing fort spam. We're going to need to make Main Fortifications integrated with Main Settlement, or we'd lose the action economy race to project down

That's true, but i was talking about active sieging, anyone can surround a city and cut off food, that has been available forever
Actually, that's not yet available. Supply lines have not been invented yet, and feeding a siege camp for more than a few weeks is going to be very difficult. Especially for anyone relying on freemen/levy armies instead of professional warriors.
Won't the ETH implode if they discover siege tactics since the only reason they aren't raiding each other is that they can't get past each others walls?
Yep. If they know how to crack walls easily, they'd be doing each other.

Mind you, it's just a matter of time before they figure it out.
Valley home doesn't have Walls?
I thought they did?
We built a shitton of walls with watchtowers this turn, was none of them at Valley home?
People have been agitating strongly against making city walls standard. Actually, even Lower Valleyhome doesn't have walls, and until very recently, it was the nearest settlement to the lowlands.

But standardized city walls that autobuild with Main Settlements are pretty much the only way we're going to find expanding into hostile territory workable.

That is a view waiting for a first time. Rather than preventing it.

The trick here is that the logistics line to get to each other is absurdly long. We have lots of space between us. This means the best method to keep them out is to expand west. That is away from them and develop tech and tactics to may their life as miserable as possible in transit.

Their only real method of invading is to take the hills of The People or the HK first or they can't really deal with the other effectively. If we want to keep them out they either have to tower walk a logistics network to us (read fort spam going into city spam) or they have to go around. The obvious counter is to build units that can nickle and dime their forces into oblivion.

What we need to hold them off is harassment tech.
Actually no. Chariot based armies can do it.
You see the red dotted line across the middle? Our older, less mobile chariots could reach there already.

Your missing that actually doing something is shaping the bonus given. Your on team sit on your hands and hope for dumb luck I'm on Team research metal and while your going to war.

I see getting metal everywhere as the vastly superior option... to dithering and hoping for the best. Action versus inaction.
You on the other hand are ignoring explicit word of AN that removing the supersition is a propaganda action, not a study action. We don't bother with proof, just hammer it into heads via repetition.
 
Doesn't look like I am. That red dashed line looks like it's the Thunder Horse zone of influence, which is ... not good.

Also our Blitzkrieg might be their Main War Mission.

Just by the size of the area they've dominated in a few turns, they at least out-martialed both the Thunder Speakers and the Xohyrissi at the same time. If we compare their ability to what the March did with a double Main, they did that to two polities at once. That means they had, in our terms, a 4x Main War Mission at the very least, if my guess that the Xohyrissi and the Thunder Speakers have about the same level of power is right. Of course, this is ignoring the fact that the reason why the Thunder Speakers were in such bad shape was because the Thunder Horse just kicked their ass, and now suddenly it looks to me like a Secondary War Mission from the Thunder Horse might be 6-7x our Main War Mission.
I think that may be over stretching into panic. It's okay, just... calm yourself a bit.

What the ETH did was Beat on the TS for a couple of turns. T1 thru T3ish

The TS vassalized and EHT + TS Start beating on the Xoh. T4

The Xoh surrender as the Swamp People break away. T5

That says they had to be a bit smart about this. So this means that they are not extremely powerful. Just very, very strong. Also there are internal stresses which are another factor.

Also note something: We on an Offensive Policy can throw out 7 times War Missions. Without kicking at all. We can alternate this kinda thing with turns of 5 times or 4 times war missions in order to recover.

Next reason to lower your concern. It is a very long Logistic trail to get to our borders. The ETH probably can't strike us with their full might. Environmental Attrition is a thing in this age and what kept the Lowlands bottled up in part.

Edit: There also seems to be an implicit assumption in your calculus at the very beginning of your statement, where you are talking about the four times Main War equivalency, that they did the TS and Xoh with only a secondary. Which seems silly to me. This is one smart city state who carefully planned out and took control of their cousins and is making the Booku bucks.
 
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Is the contested land in the lowlands that we've been discussing equal or lesser in quality to that which the ST March and the northern provinces are built on?

The land you have settled in the lowlands area is about equal to the quality in the northern steppes at the moment.

does [Mystic[ Wait actually have effects besides just sitting on our hands? Or is the 'cusp of something big' referring to the options you gave us?

It's possible something better will come next turn, especially now that Art is in play, but maybe the cusp of something big refers to one of the other options. You don't know.

Anyone tried fermenting honey yet?

There were some experiments in the past, but the demand for honey for a sweetener/medical usage has made it kind of silly to do that aside from accidental spoilage, and, well, honey, which can be edible thousands of years later so long as it doesn't get wet.
 
The land you have settled in the lowlands area is about equal to the quality in the northern steppes at the moment.

It's possible something better will come next turn, especially now that Art is in play, but maybe the cusp of something big refers to one of the other options. You don't know.

There were some experiments in the past, but the demand for honey for a sweetener/medical usage has made it kind of silly to do that aside from accidental spoilage, and, well, honey, which can be edible thousands of years later so long as it doesn't get wet.
Well... that's somewhat demotivating me to do the whole lowland thing. @veekie I'll accept walled cities as a standard if you agitate for the north.

Aka let's wait and see ;)

Tru... but it's the "what happens when it gets wet" thing that leads to the discovery of a social lubricant.
 
[X] [Honour] Quality training
[X] [Mystic] Wait
[X] [Goal] Degrade sphere of influence (Hardest, +1 Prestige, pleases allies)
[X] [Stallions] Split efforts between Thunder Speakers and nomads
 
...Hasn't it already been like 5 or 6 turns (we've had three just from the admin heroes) since they started what was for us a 4 action megaproject? I'd easily believe its harder for them, but i'd still give better than even odds that they're already got it done...
Possibly, though they had a rebellion along the way.

Which we ended for them.
They don't have provinces though. They aren't a provincial kingdom like us
Uh, that assertion doesn't line up with history however. They started as an Oligrachy in the Western Confederacy. They formed a Kingdom when one of their cities wound up unifying the rest by force. The advantage of an Oligrachy is having many more actions than a Kingdom, it's one of the reasons we were behind on expansion, since a Kingdom can take more powerful actions with more control but loses out on the large number of secondary actions provinces can take.

Odds are they have provinces, because on previous turns they have a statement of "The Highland Kingdom and the Dead Priests left their tributaries to fight each other while they dealt with issues".

This is fluffed up speak for: "They stopped taking War Missions with their Main actions and left the provinces to do it for them"
To play small and offensive (Zhuge Liang) or big and defensive (Cao Wei)? We would be out-manned and out-resourced if our developed territory is too small, and out-maneuvered if we are too big.

But our more pressing need is territory that funds our efforts, looking at the map we are about 1/2 size against everyone except DP.
Actually, according to AN we have a 3:1 population advantage on them. Despite being half their size.
Basically, our entire force is a high density(per acre) professional military.
 
Possibly, though they had a rebellion along the way.

Which we ended for them.

Uh, that assertion doesn't line up with history however. They started as an Oligrachy in the Western Confederacy. They formed a Kingdom when one of their cities wound up unifying the rest by force. The advantage of an Oligrachy is having many more actions than a Kingdom, it's one of the reasons we were behind on expansion, since a Kingdom can take more powerful actions with more control but loses out on the large number of secondary actions provinces can take.

Odds are they have provinces, because on previous turns they have a statement of "The Highland Kingdom and the Dead Priests left their tributaries to fight each other while they dealt with issues".

This is fluffed up speak for: "They stopped taking War Missions with their Main actions and left the provinces to do it for them"

Actually, according to AN we have a 3:1 population advantage on them. Despite being half their size.
Basically, our entire force is a high density(per acre) professional military.
I believe that 3:1 was if we have the HK with us too, but with the way things are shaping up I don't see wrangling the HK to our side to be a problem, so the clairfication is moot.
 
[X] [Honour] Quality training
[X] [Mystic] Wait
[X] [Goal] Degrade sphere of influence (Hardest, +1 Prestige, pleases allies)
[X] [Stallions] Focus efforts on the Thunder Speakers
Adhoc vote count started by Crazy7s1 on May 15, 2017 at 12:19 AM, finished with 34042 posts and 80 votes.
 
[X] [Honour] Quality training
[X] [Mystic] Wait
[X] [Goal] Humiliate (Hard, +1 Prestige)
[X] [Stallions] Focus efforts on the Thunder Speakers
 
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[X] [Honour] Quality training
[X] [Mystic] Wait
[X] [Goal] Humiliate (Hard, +1 Prestige)
[X] [Stallions] Focus efforts on the Thunder Speakers

OK, I'll switch to Wait. Hope the shiny is shiny enough.
 
Cleaner Tally! :drevil:

Vote Tally : Paths of Civilization | Page 1340 | Sufficient Velocity
##### NetTally 1.9.0
[17] [Honour] Loyalty
[7] [Goal] Stop raids (Easiest, annoys allies)
[4] [Mystic] Temper superstition (-5 Mysticism)

Task: Honour
[55][Honour] Quality training
[6][Honour] Overwhelming numbers

Task: Mystic
[35][Mystic] Wait
[28][Mystic] Evolve spiritual value (-7 Mysticism)
[11][Mystic] Overturn superstition (-10 Mysticism, -1 Stability)

Task: Goal
[43][Goal] Humiliate (Hard, +1 Prestige)
[24][Goal] Degrade sphere of influence (Hardest, +1 Prestige, pleases allies)

Task: Stallions
[46][Stallions] Focus efforts on the Thunder Speakers
[23][Stallions] Split efforts between Thunder Speakers and nomads
[3][Stallions] Focus efforts on the nomads
Total No. of Voters: 80

 
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Welllll while we're doing the whole China metaphor I think we should absolutely totally execute
Befriend a distant state and attack your neighbors.
Nothing could possibly ever go wrong with this plan!
 
It's possible something better will come next turn, especially now that Art is in play, but maybe the cusp of something big refers to one of the other options. You don't know.
So...there's a chance that we spawn a better reform if we can maintain the state, since we can apply both Art and Mysticism overflow at once.

Or there's a chance that waiting would give us a more focused upgrade on the Honor trait(maybe skipping to second stage with luck).

Hmm, barring doing something really stupid we can expect at least one more turn of Golden Age, so yeah, sure. Lets see what Art gives(besides, Diplomacy is about to overflow soon too if we managed to pressure cooker it for 2 turns :p)

There were some experiments in the past, but the demand for honey for a sweetener/medical usage has made it kind of silly to do that aside from accidental spoilage, and, well, honey, which can be edible thousands of years later so long as it doesn't get wet.
Ah. We'd probably need a lot more honey before people start trying to ferment it for mead.
 
[X] [Honour] Quality training
[X] [Mystic] Wait
[X] [Goal] Humiliate (Hard, +1 Prestige)
[X] [Stallions] Focus efforts on the Thunder Speakers
 
Welllll while we're doing the whole China metaphor I think we should absolutely totally execute
Befriend a distant state and attack your neighbors.
Nothing could possibly ever go wrong with this plan!
To be fair, that's one of the diplomatic master move that allowed the Kingdom of Qin to end the Warring States and establish the Qin Dynasty.

Granted, they made sure to eat their ally as well in the end.
 
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