Paths of Civilization

Citino said:

Well, we don't do it anymore. But yeah, we used to.

We actually have a saint patricks day tradition where we dye the chicago river green. However, the reason that started was because when Chicago actually started to crack down on the illegal dumping into the river, they used a chemical to dye the river and see where the waste was coming from. So our st. patricks day tradition is also a way to make sure nobody is polluting.

I just always find it amusing that the entire reason Chicago decided to defy nature and reverse the flow of a river was because the city's shit was contaminating our drinking water. And rather than do the normal thing and just push anti-pollution laws out, we instead just put a bunch of time and energy into making the problem not our problem any more.

Edit: Should be noted that Chicago wasn't even the worst offender. I believe it was Lake Erie that actually used to catch on fire due to its pollution.

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For bonus fun, the canal company was in the middle of losing their court case, as everyone important downstream on the Mississippi was sueing them to stop construction. Luckily for them, they managed to complete the final segments necessary to complete the canal such that it was not readily reversible without another major project before they heard they were legally obliged to stop.

Excuse me, 'luckily' for them. Totally unintentional, they swore.

Umi-san said:

Why are we aiding the MW rather than defending ourselves... charity? utility?

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Realpolitik. Deny the main threat their resources, while bringing in periphery powers into our orbit. If we can spend a bit of resources we have an abundance of now, they'll be better able to bleed off nomad attacks that could otherwise hit us, and thank us for the opportunity.

Citino said:

They make no distinction other that 'we hate the southerners' apparently.

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Nomad cultural memory does tend to miss out on details frequently.

Abby Normal said:

Sweet, the stallions have their own iron mine =D

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Oh no, they Stallions built an iron mine within horseriding distance of Nomadland!

Ok, I'm not really that upset, but I am a bit concerned. We could probably use a second march up that direction again. Right now, I'd say the ideal location would be west of the Stallions, north of the Westwall colony, and if its possible, stretching up to Metal Worker's territory. Having a wall of warriors between the !Black Sea and Nomadia, and encouraging the Metal Workers to think of us as trusted allies guarding their flank (while serving as guards on ours) would be fairly nice.

Also, making it easier for us to peacefully become owners of all of the !Black Sea's shores is a nice bonus.


[X] [Library] Sacred Forest
[X] [Temple] See to the spread of the techniques that went into making this place (+3 art, tech advance)
[X] [Corruption] Deploy force
[X] [Diplo] Send aid to the Metal Workers (-2 Diplo, -2 Econ, -2 Art, -2 Mysticism)
[X] [Policy] Defense

@Academia Nut
If we're on Policy:Defense, will we be reinforcing our own territories or will we be building walls/watchtowers in the provinces?

Because if it's like last time and we only build up locally, Defense policy makes very little sense since the entire point of the Marches is to absorb the attacks for us. They'll be the ones hit, and we'll have just burnt a bunch of econ and actions building walls we don't need.
It does act as a form of Art/Mysticism income from the double-main walls which is nice. But that's a hilariously inefficient way of generating it when we have enough of both to finish the Library anyway.

edit: Policy:Defense automatically converted to Policyefense.

Southerners slaughter each other, westerners collapse, nomads come south to fuck with us, and we grow ever taller. Truly, this is the way of the world.

Kiba said:

We can't afford to play around with our stability at this point.

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Then we shouldn't have pissed away the better opportunities to take it. It has to be done. Everything else is explicitly a one-time fix which doesn't address the incentive mismatches. It's going to hurt, but lessons often do.

@Abby Normal actually make a good point for the Library in Valleyhome causing an admin upgrade. I figure with the recent law issues, our Library is going to be crucial in evolving that most dread of beasts. The Lawyer. No matter where we put it.
So what will it mean for their development for each site.

In Valleyhome:
Pro: Will be faced with the problem immediately. Likely development in short order of Lawyer profession. Institutional knowledge will build quickly. Will be focused on corruption in particular.
Con: Politically biased Lawyers may interpret the Law unfairly and unjustly. Will be focused on corruption in particular, letting other parts fall behind.

In Sacred Forest:
Pro: Will be unbiased. Institutional knowledge will build quickly. Will have a more general focus on The Law.
Con: Will develop slower. Will be some distance of travel for their centre, impacting journeying lawyers and the king.

My thoughts.

Sivantic said:

Next turn we will have two, so we may need to use some Expand Econ to allow our provinces to build Watchtowers and Walls.

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Err, that still doesn't work, you know? If we have 2 econ going into the turn the provinces will still only spend at most 1 econ, no matter how much expand econ we do...that's part of why i switched to the war mission and am thinking of choosing a different policy than defense :/

Incidentally, as long as i'm quoting you, can i convince you to switch to valleyhome library in the interests of government accounting and admin improvements to help non-hero chiefs deal with our complex system?

Abby Normal said:

Err, that still doesn't work, you know? If we have 2 econ going into the turn the provinces will still only spend at most 1 econ, no matter how much expand econ we do...that's part of why i switched to the war mission and am thinking of choosing a different policy than defense :/

Incidentally, as long as i'm quoting you, can i convince you to switch to valleyhome library in the interests of government accounting and admin improvements to help non-hero chiefs deal with our complex system?

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Doesn't Baby boom trigger to give us 4 econ at the start?

@Academia Nut After the completion of this library would we be able to build more libraries as extended projects?

Actually Abbs has convinced me on one part of the vote.

[X] [Library] Valleyhome

All hail the Lawyer Vampires!

Sivantic said:

[X] [Library] Sacred Forest
[X] [Temple] See to the spread of the techniques that went into making this place (+3 art, tech advance)
[X] [Corruption] Deploy force
[X] [Diplo] Send aid to the Metal Workers (-2 Diplo, -2 Econ, -2 Art, -2 Mysticism)
[X] [Policy] Defense

Wow, nothing happens by halves around here does it?

You cannot act against the nomads, only react. So we need to step up defenses as much as possible. Econ is something we are going to need help with. Next turn we will have two, so we may need to use some Expand Econ to allow our provinces to build Watchtowers and Walls.

The problem is that it helps spread the knowledge that "Oh look, someone has Ironworks. We need to steal that tech"

I am perfectly fine with our slight isolationism.

I would dearly love to switch to geographic, but we have a nomad hoard on the way and I'd rather not have to deal with instability at the same time.

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As if we can keep having iron a secret forever.....

What we can keep secret is how to make it, ironically enough, our guild system would insure that no trade secret ever leaves the guilds.
And even without guilds, tradesmen are fiendishly protective of the thier secrets to making money.

Hmm. Mordin. Merlin?

Citino said:

Doesn't Baby boom trigger to give us 4 econ at the start?

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Hmm...i dont think we had the baby boom going during the last time this was a major discussion*, so i'm not sure...i'd think it would count the same as any other expand econ (and thus the provinces wouldn't plan around it, in case of admin roll failure)...but then again, we also didn't have an admin hero last time, and this turn with the hero unit the provinces spent down to 0 before expand econ, instead of hte usual 1, so maybe its different? we'd have to ask @Academia Nut on both counts.


*I spent literally hours arguing the point before AN got online again and confirmed that things worked how i thought they did regarding province spending and admin rolls...that argument somewhat stuck in my memory at that point

I'm kind of interested in proselytizing, honestly. Would be nice to convert the nomads and have them stop nomad-ing

[X] [Library] Valleyhome
[X] [Temple] See to the spread of the techniques that went into making this place (+3 art, tech advance)
[X] [Corruption] Burn occupational administration down (-2 Stability, switches to geographic admin within Valleyhome)
[X] [Diplo] Send aid to the Metal Workers (-2 Diplo, -2 Econ, -2 Art, -2 Mysticism)
[X] [Policy] Defense

Wait!

Send aid means we only have 2 econ left next turn! Then -1 from the city, putting us at 1! That means that on Policy: Defense we'll get 4x Expand Economy, except we don't have the econ slots for that plus the Baby Boom (which applies during the turn, not before)

[X][Policy] No change
[X][Policy] Offense

(My other votes are either clearly winning or ridiculously far behind, so I don't care about them)

I'm back again off again if any one wan'ts to know. If anyone still remembers me with how fast pace this tread and general internet goes.

[X] [Library] Valleyhome
I remember some discussion about pairing the temple with the library a long time ago. but now there in a newer pairing of the library and the true city of valleyhome
[X] [Temple] See to the spread of the techniques that went into making this place (+3 art, tech advance)

[X] [Corruption] Deploy force
from some narrative clues/wording going with Deploy force
[X] [Diplo] Send aid to the Metal Workers (-2 Diplo, -2 Econ, -2 Art, -2 Mysticism)

[X] [Policy] Defense
A little questionable on this as Offence can be a better Defense.

DocMatoi said:

I'm kind of interested in proselytizing, honestly. Would be nice to convert the nomads and have them stop nomad-ing

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Huh we'd start the process to sucking on the Nomads if it worked.

Basically what I am thinking is we make it so that any Nomad who comes to the Temple is really really impressed so they get their tribe to move towards us. They make friends, hopefully. Then when it all goes to shit and they freak a bit they, instead of raiding, simply flee in our direction. Creating Nomad refugees.

Really flimsy though. Really flimsy.

notgreat said:

Send aid means we only have 2 econ left next turn! Then -1 from the city, putting us at 1! That means that on Policy: Defense we'll get 4x Expand Economy, except we don't have the econ slots for that plus the Baby Boom (which applies during the turn, not before)

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Yeah.

Defense only makes sense if we don't send aid.

[X] [Library] Sacred Forest

[X] [Library] Sacred Forest

[X] [Library] Valleyhome
[X] [Temple] Let the glory of your gods be known far and wide (+1 Prestige, Pilgrimage trade power increased)
[X] [Corruption] Deploy force
[X] [Diplo] Send aid to the Metal Workers (-2 Diplo, -2 Econ, -2 Art, -2 Mysticism)
[X] [Policy] No change

notgreat said:

Wait!

Send aid means we only have 2 econ left next turn! Then -1 from the city, putting us at 1! That means that on Policy: Defense we'll get 4x Expand Economy, except we don't have the econ slots for that plus the Baby Boom (which applies during the turn, not before)

[X][Policy] No change
[X][Policy] Offense

(My other votes are either clearly winning or ridiculously far behind, so I don't care about them)

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Oh dear.

Welp.

Vote is now.

[X] [Library] Valleyhome
[X][Policy] No change

E: Just in case.

To everyone that is paranoid about hanging on to iron I have some sad tidings: We are probably going to lose the secret to the nomads unless we are insanely lucky.

The March, which is the first line of defense has an iron mine. Nomands are not stupid so they are going to prioritize taking metal workers prisoner. I suspect that even if we repulse them in one turn they are going to grab a few and a few is all they need. Iron ore is very common and easy to find once you know what to look for.

Moreover since the tech leak will be to the nomads I expect the knowledge to flow down to the Thunder Horse in a few generations. The time of our Iron monopoly is at an end.

[X] [Library] Valleyhome
[X] [Temple] Let the glory of your gods be known far and wide (+1 Prestige, Pilgrimage trade power increased)
[X] [Corruption] Deploy force
[X] [Diplo] Send aid to the Metal Workers (-2 Diplo, -2 Econ, -2 Art, -2 Mysticism)
[X] [Policy] Offense

notgreat said:

Wait!

Send aid means we only have 2 econ left next turn! Then -1 from the city, putting us at 1! That means that on Policy: Defense we'll get 4x Expand Economy, except we don't have the econ slots for that plus the Baby Boom (which applies during the turn, not before)

[X][Policy] No change
[X][Policy] Offense

(My other votes are either clearly winning or ridiculously far behind, so I don't care about them)

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Eesh, good catch, i forgot about the true city drain...

Before i switch my vote around:
@Academia Nut for the temple vote, are the "techniques that went into making [The Temple]" the sturdy construction techniques, teh statue shaping/decorations and other art-based techniques, both, or some other thing? And is this like the improved kilns way back when where we'll get them in a few turns automatically, or would the tech opportunity be lost until/unless we triggered the techup again through innovation rolls and/or more temple building?