Paths of Civilization

Abby Normal said:

If the doom comet does come, then opening the mine will probably lead to "everyone 'knows' that the mine brought the comet, we must seal the weapons of the gods back where they lay or face the consequences!" midturn vote...

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Odds are we have to delay a turn regardless. Everyone will go BUT OMENS so they will be hypersensitive and overreact to any bad events

Its a favorite trick of quacks to proclaim vague dooms. Because bad shit happens all the time, so theres always something to pair to an omen

highs2lows said:

We have nothing to lose from stockpiling resources just in case. If we're wrong it becomes a reserve. If we are right we get much needed stability. The mine will still be possible next turn. Academia Nut's foreshadowing is pretty reliable.

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Noting we can stockpile without heeding the omen, but it ALSO means anyone babbling is a legit omen in the future.

Which with Observance is going to be a pain. Mad prophets are bad enough without feeding their mythos

ETA50M said:

It's his constant analyses man it'll have you agreeing with him even if you don't.

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More it's the fact he never gets involved with the baseless stupid anal and puerile arguments we get into.

I am still angry if you couldn't tell. I want that damn mine next turn, though after some thought I am less angry since I realized my plans are still intact even if we have to wait an extra turn to get the mine.

E: I certainly ain't in a mood to debate for the ignore option so I'm gonna leave now. See ya!

You know if we do take the advise of the madman and it doesn't pan out? Well having something you observed turn up false in such a spectacular way is one way to change a trait like observance. Also if it does happen well than good thing we prepared.~

All the options are equally good actually it just depends on what risks you want to take and what you want to sacrifice.

[X] Stockpile resources for the return of the Doom Comet (+1 Stability if over 5 Econ by mid-turn next turn, ???)
[X] Trade mission to the Metal Workers (-1 Diplomacy)


If a comet doesn't come, then we still got some nice stability and our people will have evidence that people speaking in tongues aren't to be listened to. If it does come, we have the stability and our people will put more trust in the Shamans and the Oligarchy, because clearly they know what they're doing.

[X] Examine Star Mirror (possibility of disrupting holy site, ???)
[X] Trade mission to the Metal Workers (-1 Diplomacy)

Take a good look at the giant pond and talk to metal workers. Balanced options for balance result.

[X] This man is sick, care for him but ignore his ramblings (???)

[X] Stockpile resources for the return of the Doom Comet (+1 Stability if over 5 Econ by mid-turn next turn, ???)
[X] Trade mission to the Metal Workers (-1 Diplomacy)

Academia Nut said:

These would be sort of mini-survey actions to check the sites if there is anything that might be important that has been overlooked.

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So...basically we could do them anyway. Its a free Secondary action if we want to accept concussion induced hallucinations as a legit form of 'advice'...

...tempting to 'advice' the shit out of the Lowlands.

sidestory said:

It does cost econ now, not sure if it was always like that, might be now due the size of our kingdom



Not really, since the time between main turns is 20-25 years and a mid turn is roughly 10-15 year after we decide our main turn, it could easily arrive the next mid turn without any indication of it appearing during the main turn

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We've never had any sign of comets until mid turns. Comets only show up for one year out of a turn's span of 30 and you can only spot one without a telescope when its practically here already.

sidestory said:

You can't know that, maybe he got a look at some records during the time he spend within the local holy site to recover from his head injury, or he is one of the new chariot guys who comes originally from a family with access to the records, unlikely but not impossible


Have people considered that if the comet indeed does return and people will remember the fact that we ignored his warnings, that there will be a huge backlash from this that will most likely result in another worse Debilitating Belief and might cause an additional stability drop when the comet does return, because people will feel really unprepared for it ?

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Or we ignore what he says, maintain an Econ stockpile instead of spending every last bit like we tend to and the People won't have anything to say.

BungieONI said:

since I realized my plans are still intact even if we have to wait an extra turn to get the mine.

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We COULD do some Survey next turn to find more iron while we wait. If we're saving Econ in case of disaster, Surveys are free after all.

[X] Examine Star Mirror (possibility of disrupting holy site, ???)

Our Mysticism stat has been fixed, we're now at 1(+2).
This seems like a very solid option because
1) if it disrupts anything, it's not a big deal since one minor Holy Site lost is not a problem when we have a Mysticism buffer.
2) study actions are really nice, learning more about optics or from a Study Stars would be pretty nice.
-if it is a comet coming, Study Stars might give us more warning.
3) we don't start treating the mad as prophets, but at the same time we do go and investigate to be safe. Hedge our bets, don't treat his ramblings as facts but also don't dismiss them entirely.

veekie said:

We COULD do some Survey next turn to find more iron while we wait. If we're saving Econ in case of disaster, Surveys are free after all.

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You know I love you sometimes veekie. Survey was never in my Iron plan but it is a decent salve for the skin ripping agony of not taking the mine next turn. Which I will be campaigning for because we really do need it as fast as possible.

... I think the biggest inconvenience with the stockpile pick is, if it does block opening the iron mine, we can't switch to defensive policy next turn and still get the free stability.

And we really do need to switch off of expansion, and probably onto defense; a double-main wall on that new Blackriver settlement is really important.

So I won't be picking stockpile; I don't want to know what the penaly for trying to reach 5 and then failing is, and I think we've got too many short term econ needs if we're not about to build the iron mine.

veekie said:

Observance evolution chance I think.

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Eeeeh... it could also be a "let's drop observance as a trait" pick, @veekie. "These things we've heard don't mean anything, there's no reason to investigate them," isn't an Observance-friendly path. Evolving Observance requires following Observance.

If we're not building the mine, disrupting the Bleeding Cliffs settlement is less likely to be a problem. I'd prefer the black mirror pick, but we don't have the mysticism to tank a hit there. So.

Wait, I see we do have a point of mysticism. Ok!

[x] Examine Star Mirror (possibility of disrupting holy site, ???)
[x] Military scouting mission

Looks like Dead Priest are tempering their social-economy model into trading and crafting instead of slavery and farming.

A bit concerning if their soft influence are expanding across the lowland. But for now, they can act as stabilizing factor in Thunder Speaker-Thunder Horse area. Might even wane off their raiding tendency.

Candesce said:

Eeeeh... it could also be a "let's drop observance as a trait" pick, @veekie. "These things we've heard don't mean anything, there's no reason to investigate them," isn't an Observance-friendly path. Evolving Observance requires following Observance.

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Observance isn't a matter of hearing the ramblings of people, but of "observance." I.e. show and if it's seen it is true.

Anyways why are y'all voting to send a trade mission to the MW? We're basically leaving the nomads out in the wind, doing something we know nothing about that will come back to hurt us eventually. The MW offer nothing.

Candesce said:

Eeeeh... it could also be a "let's drop observance as a trait" pick, @veekie. "These things we've heard don't mean anything, there's no reason to investigate them," isn't an Observance-friendly path. Evolving Observance requires following Observance.

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Wrong actually. We evolved Eye for an Eye by going against it. It turned into Protective Justice.

Here its: "He's saying weird things, but maybe we should check if he's just sick in the head? We Observed head hitting causing him to babble."

[X] Examine Bleeding Cliff (possibility of disrupting settlement activity, ???)
[X] Trade mission to the Metal Workers (-1 Diplomacy)

Umi-san said:

Anyways why are y'all voting to send a trade mission to the MW? We're basically leaving the nomads out in the wind, doing something we know nothing about that will come back to hurt us eventually. The MW offer nothing.

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The MW are on the other side of the nomads. If they're not messing with us, they're either doing something on the MW side, on the blind side, or over on the TH side.

Umi-san said:

Observance isn't a matter of hearing the ramblings of people, but of "observance." I.e. show and if it's seen it is true.

Anyways why are y'all voting to send a trade mission to the MW? We're basically leaving the nomads out in the wind, doing something we know nothing about that will come back to hurt us eventually. The MW offer nothing.

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If you read the update more carefully you will see that visiting the MW is looking further afield for nomad info.

veekie said:

Or we ignore what he says, maintain an Econ stockpile instead of spending every last bit like we tend to and the People won't have anything to say.

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Pretty sure it won't work like that, because it won't be seen by the people as us actively preparing for a meteor

But let's ask the man himself

@Academia Nut
If we choose the ignore option and quite conviently then have5 econ next mid-turn anyway, will it count the same as the prepare option, thus giving us Stability and/or provide us with a bonus to comet handling if there is indeed a new comet ?

sidestory said:

Pretty sure it won't work like that, because it won't be seen by the people as us actively preparing for a meteor

But let's ask the man himself

@Academia Nut
If we choose the ignore option and quite conviently then have5 econ next mid-turn anyway, will it count the same as the prepare option, thus giving us Stability and/or provide us with a bonus to comet handling if there is indeed a new comet ?

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I'm saying we DON'T get free Stability, but being prepared anyway means the hypotheical comet doesn't hurt us.

Almost nothing that granted free Stability had led to good precedents you know...

[X] Stockpile resources for the return of the Doom Comet (+1 Stability if over 5 Econ by mid-turn next turn, ???)
[X] Trade mission to the Metal Workers (-1 Diplomacy)

Umi-san said:

Anyways why are y'all voting to send a trade mission to the MW? We're basically leaving the nomads out in the wind, doing something we know nothing about that will come back to hurt us eventually. The MW offer nothing.

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I would say sending out a party into semi-hostile steppe would risk our people. I'm also betting on Nomads gathering their strength to launch a raid at someone. So no risk setting it off with a diplomatic party.

On the other hand, looking at metal workers would likely tell us the situation at their place. So if a surprise empire pop up over there, we would know. Them being the main trading partner deserve some attention.

BungieONI said:

If you read the update more carefully you will see that visiting the MW is looking further afield for nomad info.

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Interesting. It hurts us less to look nearby, however.

veekie said:

We evolved Eye for an Eye by going against it.

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Academia Nut said:

Retribution and punishment had to follow, but it not only had to be proportional to the crime, some thought had to be devoted to not just those being punished, but the one carrying out the punishment.

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This bit, you mean? Where we explicitly declare that punishment is necessary and must be carried out, but with care to what it does to the punisher, as well?

We're not going to evolve Observance by dismissing a hypothesis without evidence, or if we are, it's not going to evolve in a happy direction.

The Ymaryn don't have a historical body of knowledge of things that don't work, and we're not going to be able to skip building one.

[X] Examine Star Mirror (possibility of disrupting holy site, ???)

Let's go see if those ramblings mean anything, or if its just a coincidence, yeah?

Nomads gathering strength to raid somebody is not a thing.

I said so earlier in response to "but the forest won't be ready if they attack!", and I'm saying so again now.

Turns last decades. An active military group like the nomads aren't going to wait 30 years to attack somebody. They'll just focus somebody less difficult if they need to lick their wounds.

So they might be busy elsewhere, they might be growing in strength while busy elsewhere, but they will never just be building up for an attack.

That's not the nomad way, it's not compatible with the timescale this quest runs at.

Babbling Man seems somewhat straightforward depending on whether or not you think AN is punking us over the comet.

1) Comet Incoming

Ignoring him is undesirable. Yes, listening to him reinforces the religious superstitions regarding head trauma victims who happen to babble half-understandable gibberish. Not listening to him will still reinforce that because the People are already thinking that may be what he's talking about, and we'll take a hit for ignoring a warning from the spirits themselves. Especially if something bad does happen. Doom Prep is clearly a good option for the stability boost that could come if the comet does bring disaster.

2) Gibberish Man is Gibberish. AN is punking us.

Ignoring him triggers Observance. Gain some skepticism. We look like fools for heeding his advice about the Doom Bunker, but otherwise nothing disastrous happens. Slight chance of skepticism. Probably get stability anyway because the King is doing something that he thought was following the spirits, he just got it wrong which happens. AKA, we get the stability anyway because AN told us we would.

3) Psych! It's a Giant Meteor/Super Volcano/Whatever.

Somebody's getting fuuuuuucked. Big crisis. Stockpiling for the disaster is gonna look real good for the government as being all wise and whatnot. Gain Legitimacy for being great Kings. If we ignore it and this happens? People gon' be pissed... but honestly the crisis will be huge and that will overwhelm our choice, but in this case Stockpiling for the bonus Stability/whatever is super necessary because man do we wanna be prepped for an actual natural disaster.

4) Fuck it, let's study shit.

Honestly a decent neutral pick. There's more than one bit to the babbling.
We find nothing, comet comes: Whoops, got it wrong. Worst outcome because it means we fucked up, but not as bad as straight up ignoring the prophecy.
We find something, comet comes: Eh. Depends on how much 'damage' comes with the comet. Probably a neutral outcome because we got something out of the prophecy but well the comet also came as was foretold.
We find nothing, comet doesn't come: Well I guess he was babbling after all.
And if we find something, and the comet still doesn't come? We got it right! And we get a shiny bonus! We look good, we get a free guided study action, no comet superstition.


tl;dr, yeah, Doom Bunkering and Ignoring both have the potential for Trait Evolution or something for sure. Yay for the mystery box. Problem is, any assumptions about what it'll be depends entirely on whether or not the evil-omen comet is actually coming. I realize nobody wants the evil omen comet to come because man do superstition and Iron not mix with our society right now, but frankly if it does show up then Ignoring it will obviously backfire. Instead of getting Skepticism you get Superstition. Pretty sure nobody wants that.