The vote seems pretty one sided, unless someone pulls an insanely good argument for something else out of their ass... I think it's done.
Next turn we oughta just do a fully dedicated metalworking turn, with establishing an iron mine as a priority. Along with this, we should survey and study tailings or do something to raise stability.
It's not very one sided on Main if AN counts the two Expand Forests together (which I think he should, even though I'm going Carrion Eaters.)
There's only 10 points between them.
So, one of the topics that came up during our last turn was martial sustainability. This is a fairly important topic, because we're currently at low Martial AND Econ; that means a lot of any combat we do will have to be paid for sustainably. So a quick analysis:
If we have nothing:
1 action per Econ
1 action + 1 Econ per 2 martial
1 action to deploy 2 martial via war mission.
So it takes 3 actions to create 2 martial out of whole cloth and deploy them. We usually get 9 actions per turn, so we can sustainably deploy 6 Martial ([Main] + [Secondary] War Mission)
If we have high Econ:
1 action + 1 Econ per 2 martial
1 action to deploy 2 martial via war mission.
2 actions to create and deploy 2 Martial. At 9 actions a turn, we can sustainably* deploy 9 Martial (2x [Main] War Mission, and half a secondary.)
*Until we run out of Econ; we'll use 4.5 Econ per turn on that plan.
I really don't see that as doable. The nomads cover pretty much the whole steppe. Even if the Stallion's borders were expanded ten-fold, it wouldn't make a dent.
Presuming geography and climate is relatively close to reality, see this:
The people's territory barely covers the light green fringe on the east of the Black Sea.
I wonder if we could connect the black river to the river in valleyhome. Should provide a barrier against the nomads, and even if we build bridges, we still have a chokepoint.
Largest? Ha! No, that goes to Puella Magi Adfligo Systema, which is the top dog at 4674 pages. The second and third largest are somewhere in the 2000s.
Fastest? I dunno how to find that out.
I am pretty sure that it is the fastest growing thread amongst the biggest threads in the questing forum. It's due for a break-in for the top ten. Then, AN will have three threads in top ten questing threads of all time.
I am not concerned about Balance generated walls stopping the mine progress. I'd love some of those actually. What I am concerned about is Redshore (thanks for specifying where it is in an earlier post) specifically reaching for Bleeding Hills, I rate it as a less than 25% chance they will do it even with AN knowing what we want. There are a lot of things they could be doing, and if we are being attacked next turn for example, then I see it as more likely that Redshore will do something to boost Martial or an Expand Econ. If we are not being attacked then I rate the chance as a 40% maybe 50%.
Reasonable, but I protest the probabilities. AN had made it explicit that the Provinces will always take the most effective actions possible to their knowledge, and so they will always preferentially settle a resource location when settling anythiing.
The only exception is spending Stability, and gaining Centralization as far as I can tell. However, as the settlement would not cost Stability(because only the process of extracting metal is tainted, the ore itself is supposed to be safe)
... no it isn't. Exterminatus is when we push the button that says "multiple main action War actions, kicked" and unleash sectupled (or more) war actions upon the enemy. Where its as much a mass migration as it is a invasion. Possibly ending up with us defacto expanding our territory
That was just the elimination of a small fringe of the nomads.
And I kind of want to push that button, to firmly establish for our expansionistic neighboring Thunder Horse empire that the People are not to be fucked with. Grabbing a bunch of clay up north could also choke the nomads by dint of seizing control of all the water supply
The downside, of course being that such a major invasion would weaken our defenses if the Thunder Horses/Speakers aren't intimidated and instead decide to use the opportunity to shank us.
Speaking of which, could you imagine someone conquering the People only to be presented next year with hundreds of clay tablets explaining what everyone did that year, beauracratic reccomendations of what they should do next year, and questions about what is commanded to be done
Actually, no, remember the context. Back then, Exterminatus was:
-Double Main War Mission
-Double Kicked War Mission
For a total of 4 Main War Missions.
Now we just did:
-March Double Main War Mission
-King Double Main War Mission
-Law Main War Mission
-Province fused Main War Mission
-Province Secondary War Mission
-Symphony Bonus Main War Mission(a full civilization War Mission would activate it)
For a total of 8 Main War Missions.
Now we have the kind of logistical power to leverage Exterminatus WITHOUT damaging the land anymore.
Forests are self-regenerating soil sources. Their roots break up hard soils to reach aquifers, and their leaf litter will improve topsoil over time with organics. Their branches shelter the land from extremes of temperature and the roots limit the damage of extremes of water.
To plant a forest IS labor intensive. You basically have to dig pits, pack them full of fertilizer, and then plant a sapling. Then you must protect the sapling while it grows from wild grazers, who will happily trample smaller saplings and eat up the fallen seeds and nuts. But once they reach maturity, it's self sustaining and even self propagating.
This is false. You have no proof. The new value makes subordinates less likely to break away, but that's compared to the usual rate of subordinates breaking away, not integrated provinces. Integrating them will either make them no less likely to break away or decrease the chance further.
Reading comprehension please. I'm amazed at how our diplomats get anything done when people from the same basic culture, and language can still consistently screw them up.
Integrating them makes it impossible for us to hold them militarily. They will go from Main + 2 Secondary, spending their own resources, to a single Secondary, spending our resources. At the same time the urgency to integrate them no longer exists. They now culturally dislike Nomads and will actively pick off Nomad tribes around their area when strong enough, rather than assimilate Nomad traits. We have improved our administrative logistics such that we no longer face such severe cultural drift, though we still could use Double Main roads, after we get Iron.
The next Nomad Hero that shows up will be exceedingly painful to see off without a March acting as our buffer. The only reason to integrate the March now then, would be if we intended to create a NEW March past it. After the March itself contains 4-5 heavily fortified settlements.
I really don't see that as doable. The nomads cover pretty much the whole steppe. Even if the Stallion's borders were expanded ten-fold, it wouldn't make a dent.
Presuming geography and climate is relatively close to reality, see this:
The people's territory barely covers the light green fringe on the east of the Black Sea.
Yeah. this is why despite the Nomads having extremely poor population density, terrible central organization and no food reserves, they aren't going to ever run out of dudes.
In terms of states of matter:
-Nomads are a gas, they expand to fit the limits of their environment.
-Lowlanders are a liquid, they shuffle around, get mixed up, but generally they just spread thinly over a wide surface.
-The Ymaryn are a solid. We don't grow much. But boy every inch is full of dudes.
-March Double Main War Mission
-King Double Main War Mission
-Law Main War Mission
-Province fused Main War Mission
-Province Secondary War Mission
-Symphony Bonus Main War Mission(a full civilization War Mission would activate it)
Integrating them makes it impossible for us to hold them militarily. They will go from Main + 2 Secondary, spending their own resources, to a single Secondary, spending our resources. At the same time the urgency to integrate them no longer exists. They now culturally dislike Nomads and will actively pick off Nomad tribes around their area when strong enough, rather than assimilate Nomad traits. We have improved our administrative logistics such that we no longer face such severe cultural drift, though we still could use Double Main roads, after we get Iron.
Their actions were not as powerful as ours. We've known for a long time that action and stat effectiveness scales with population at least. This would reduce their flexibility, but NOT their power.
Integrating them makes it impossible for us to hold them militarily. They will go from Main + 2 Secondary, spending their own resources, to a single Secondary, spending our resources.
Integrating them may actually be the only way for us to hold them militarily. At the moment, they only have a Main and two secondaries. If we integrate them, they would have a Main and two Secondaries, plus the actions of the other provinces as well. That's the military advantage of integration - funnelling our province's resources into our shield.
Their actions were not as powerful as ours. We've known for a long time that action and stat effectiveness scales with population at least. This would reduce their flexibility, but NOT their power.
It would severely reduce their safety buffer, because they would no longer be fortifying their land extensively, expanding their military to as near maximum as possible, and they would be spending their Economy as fast as they can get it. Because we have consistently proven to be unable to focus on maintaining a particular state.
Our play style is to rapidly swing between extremes of high and low Economy/Stability, which is very undesirable in a scenario where you have to deal with at least a minor war every 3-5 turns and a major war every 10 turns, but breeds rapid growth of technology and culture. Their play style so far as consistently been:
1) Main Settlement + Wall
2) Main Towers + War Mission + Chariots
3) Expand Economy + Logistics/social needs(Holy sites, boats, roads)
4) Repeat 1
Which, if we take over, will optimistically be building 3 big walls, buffing military once in one turn and then forgetting about it until the next nomad war. They are substantially more capable of claiming and stabilizing the March. Turning the settlements into fortress cities.
Integrating them may actually be the only way for us to hold them militarily. At the moment, they only have a Main and two secondaries. If we integrate them, they would have a Main and two Secondaries, plus the actions of the other provinces as well. That's the military advantage of integration - funnelling our province's resources into our shield.
Uh, no, that's the advantage of a March. We can already spend actions on building stuff for them. E.g. the proposed forest we were originally going to plant for them. We've simply never been motivated to do so.
If you don't believe me, you can check with @Academia Nut
An Integrated March/Colony/Trading Post just becomes a normal province, losing it's own action spread, risk of cultural divergence and independent resource pools in exchange for absorbing their standing resource pool and half a province action.
For the record I am against integrating the march under current circumstances, not only to we have a value that gives us and advantage regarding peripheral state loyalty, we have also had a mixing of populations and and for better of for worse we are already moving towards cultural uniformity with the marchers with the new mode of government/military value
Integrating them makes it impossible for us to hold them militarily. They will go from Main + 2 Secondary, spending their own resources, to a single Secondary, spending our resources. At the same time the urgency to integrate them no longer exists. They now culturally dislike Nomads and will actively pick off Nomad tribes around their area when strong enough, rather than assimilate Nomad traits. We have improved our administrative logistics such that we no longer face such severe cultural drift, though we still could use Double Main roads, after we get Iron.
The next Nomad Hero that shows up will be exceedingly painful to see off without a March acting as our buffer. The only reason to integrate the March now then, would be if we intended to create a NEW March past it. After the March itself contains 4-5 heavily fortified settlements.
