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Paths of Civilization

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pbluekan said:
That depends on the number of turns it takes us to break it and what we are classifying as a loss. If we fail entirely? Likely 60% chance of losing in some form. We require a lot of seaborne communication. However, they can't stop riverine trade and communication, so there's that.


Yeah but those percentage estimates are entirely arbitrary. We have no idea of the chance on any of those at all. Just some mildly educated guesses. So, thus, arbitrary.
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Cool. Then with your spitballed numbers we have a 3% chance of losing.

Agreed that this is only a rough estimate, but it's useful to get a feel for the probability IMO.
 
Concho117 said:
Which values in particular?

I see alot of values that would trigger on Environmental Damage but nothing that would trigger on Pandemics. I believe a case can be made that a smallpox outbreak would not be considered environmentally harmful as it primarily targets people. It might actually help the environment by reducing pollution and forest depletion. Then there is also the 'nuclear bomb' justification that attacking now with weapons of mass destruction will reduce casualties later on in the event of an invasion.

Also could you link to Academia Nut's post on that? I couldn't find it.

If straight Biological Warfare is out of the question, what about targeted sabotage of things like food and water, or maybe strategic resources like burning warehouses or dry docks? Anything that might soften them up before direct engagement would be beneficial.
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It's a problem for Justice at least.
 
pblur said:
Did they get to redhills? I didn't realize they came so far east?
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They attacked it with an army whilst Phygrif was seiging Xoh, it was part of their plan to screw us over alongside the Thunder Speakers (until the TS pussied out). They wanted to cut our new conquest off from our main territory alongside our armies and take Redhills and all the Iron they could carry before we became too powerful to kill.

The TS backed out and they were stalemated by the Royal Armies we had brought back to garrison our rear after they attacked. It's why Phygrif decided to burn Xoh, he needed to get back and help beat the Highlanders.
pblur said:
Ah. Maybe edit to clarify? Rakuhn might take that as an attack on him.
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Done
 
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Concho117 said:
Which values in particular?

I see alot of values that would trigger on Environmental Damage but nothing that would trigger on Pandemics. I believe a case can be made that a smallpox outbreak would not be considered environmentally harmful as it primarily targets people. It might actually help the environment by reducing pollution and forest depletion. Then there is also the 'nuclear bomb' justification that attacking now with weapons of mass destruction will reduce casualties later on in the event of an invasion.

Also could you link to Academia Nut's post on that? I couldn't find it.

If straight Biological Warfare is out of the question, what about targeted sabotage of things like food and water, or maybe strategic resources like burning warehouses or dry docks? Anything that might soften them up before direct engagement would be beneficial.
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Academia Nut said:
Honestly, if someone were so stupid as to use biological warfare derived from a gift of healing given by the People, the next vote would be

[] Press THE BUTTON
[] Let's think about this first
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pblur said:
It's a problem for Justice at least.
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Greater Justice
Justice exists for the good of all, protecting the community from the depravity of those who would do it damage.
Pros: Justice is a community objective that can be served through the careful application of punishment
Cons: The needs of the many can outweigh the needs of the few
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I believe that with Greater Justice we can trigger the Con condition if we spin it right. If we can get the Trelli to grant us a Causus Belli we can then leverage that as justification for saving more Ymaryn lives in the eventual invasion/occupation.
 
In interest of thread's sodium level, lets talk about what other resources we might encounter in the future.
(Put in resources and way of obtaining them)

Tea: Land route going further than Swamp people or Land route going far south of Highland Kingdom then ship route.
Silk: See above
Spice: See above

Whale: Sea route far west of Trelli
Ivory: Sea route south west of Trelli or sea route to Khem

?Watermill parts?: I would think this is a viable good that HK & company would like.
?Sophisticated siege weapons: If we ever developed early Ballista.

Trade Status
Resource
Luxuries
Amber
Fine Pottery
Fine Dye
Fine Textiles
Furs
Gems
Glass
Gold
Incense
Mercury
Silver
Salt
Spices
Wine
Strategic
Copper
Bronze
Slaves
Tin
Iron
Cultural
Pilgrimage
 
You know, it occurs to me that this whole "be passive-aggressive with the Trelli by preempting their strategic resource trade" is rather... immature. I mean, really? We have a problem with the Trelli, and instead of confronting them about it we decide to poach their trading partners?

Do we really not have better means of conflict resolution than this? What happened to Honour of Elites; weren't we supposed to be the honorable polity?


So you know what? I'm changing my vote. lets handle our confrontations the way our ancestors would have wanted us to, and in a away that would make our descendants proud.

[] [Exp] Found Trelli Trade Post, West
[X] [Exp] Challenge the Trelli to a children's card game.
 
Concho117 said:
Which values in particular?

I see alot of values that would trigger on Environmental Damage but nothing that would trigger on Pandemics. I believe a case can be made that a smallpox outbreak would not be considered environmentally harmful as it primarily targets people. It might actually help the environment by reducing pollution and forest depletion. Then there is also the 'nuclear bomb' justification that attacking now with weapons of mass destruction will reduce casualties later on in the event of an invasion.

Also could you link to Academia Nut's post on that? I couldn't find it.

If straight Biological Warfare is out of the question, what about targeted sabotage of things like food and water, or maybe strategic resources like burning warehouses or dry docks? Anything that might soften them up before direct engagement would be beneficial.
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Let's see:

Greater Justice: We are underhandedly attacking people. We hate disease and it's demons, like literal religious crusade, see the update where we kicked cholera in the head. The Ymaryn consider it something to be fought.

Joyous Symphony: Spreading disease, which is made by demons(which are considered disharmonious errors in reality basically) is also disharmonious. That's a biiiiig no right there.

Divine Stewards: A nuance you might have missed is that Ymaryn are not like the stereotyped "Humans must go/stop" conservationists. They manage nature and live in symbiosis with it. Removing people can be harmful with nature. What would happen if we stopped caring for our trees? They'd die to blight. Same applies to other people caring for their lands, though to a much lesser extent.

Cosmopolitan Acceptance: Foreigners are humans too in need of care and help. Making them sick is the opposite of that.


In general this is a bad idea.
 
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Honestly, if someone were so stupid as to use biological warfare derived from a gift of healing given by the People, the next vote would be

[] Press THE BUTTON
[] Let's think about this first
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Ok, so this quote specifies using "biological warfare derived from a gift of healing" and also specifies that it would be a foreign power doing it. In the case specified by AN I believe that most of the anger of the Ymaryn would come from twisting a gift into a weapon. In our case it wouldn't be a gift to start with as we discovered the science in the first place and secondly we would be developing it purely as a weapon of war which might make it more palatable.
 
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Academia Nut established that just the lowland primitives supplying the Red Banner for like a turn or two in passing through would be enough probably allow a society with their own access to ores to reverse engineer iron.

...So, no. I don't think I'm 'fearmongering' when I say deliberately pressuring the Trelli to develop Bronze alternatives while simultaneously showing that those alternatives exist could backfire. Economic incentives and knowing something can be done? Big spurs to innovation.
Abby Normal said:
THe main issue is how much they know about iron working and other technologies we want to avoid getting out to peer nations... either @Academia Nut hasn't seen my questions on the subject, or he's holding that info close to his chest, so its possible we just cant know how much they know, or that we'll find out more next update, since the lowlanders are supposed to be a main focus on this update
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Academia Nut said:
They've probably seen enough that they could given pointers to a society with their own access to ores to assist in reverse engineering much of the process.
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I don't think giving the Trelli as much credit as, say, the Swamp People or Thunder Speakers is all that big a stretch. If anything, I'd say we should give them a lot more credit than that. And I'd expect they can do better than grabbing some random lowlander smith if motivated sufficiently- our people are hardly immune to corruption, as we know.
 
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Concho117 said:
Ok, so this quote specifies using "biological warfare derived from a gift of healing" and also specifies that it would be a foreign power doing it. In the case specified by AN I believe that most of the anger of the Ymaryn would come from twisting a gift into a weapon. In our case it wouldn't be a gift to start with as we discovered the science in the first place and secondly we would be developing it purely as a weapon of war which might make it more palatable.
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Oh and if we did this I'm sure AN would give us the mother of all shitty traits for going against the will of the spirits. It doesn't matter that it was our discovery, everything is a gift from the spirits. So we would be perverting their gift.

Please stop talking.
 
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VoidZero said:
In interest of thread's sodium level, lets talk about what other resources we might encounter in the future.
(Put in resources and way of obtaining them)

Tea: Land route going further than Swamp people or Land route going far south of Highland Kingdom then ship route.
Silk: See above
Spice: See above

Whale: Sea route far west of Trelli
Ivory: Sea route south west of Trelli or sea route to Khem

?Watermill parts?: I would think this is a viable good that HK & company would like.
?Sophisticated siege weapons: If we ever developed early Ballista.

Trade Status
Resource
Luxuries
Amber
Fine Pottery
Fine Dye
Fine Textiles
Furs
Gems
Glass
Gold
Incense
Mercury
Silver
Salt
Spices
Wine
Strategic
Copper
Bronze
Slaves
Tin
Iron
Cultural
Pilgrimage
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TEA! WANT!

Silk: East over land to the Eastern Salt Sea, then past it and onto Not!China.

Petrified Wood: Sea route to Khem?

Hmmm...

I'm gonna need to think for a second...
 
Concho117 said:
So the Ymaryn have been developing medical knowledge for thousands of years. We have significant experience dealing with the effects of diseases on large populations. We even have a government funded dedicated public health sector. So what if we applied that knowledge offensively against the Trelli?

One of the most powerful weapons anyone could bring to bear against the great middle age cites was Biowarfare.

There is precedent for such action.

[/sup]
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No
 
Concho117 said:
Ok, so this quote specifies using "biological warfare derived from a gift of healing" and also specifies that it would be a foreign power doing it. In the case specified by AN I believe that most of the anger of the Ymaryn would come from twisting a gift into a weapon. In our case it wouldn't be a gift to start with as we discovered the science in the first place and secondly we would be developing it purely as a weapon of war which might make it more palatable.
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That's actually the wrong quote...

Let me find the right one.

Academia Nut said:
Wow... under the category of terrible ideas... just... wow, that...

Normally the People don't have offensive casus belli, but holy shit, they would be able to kick an offensive war they would be that fucking ripshit mad if they found out. That violates basically all their values.
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If someone else doing it can piss them off this bad because it spits on all their values, you can guarantee that them doing it themselves is unthinkable because it violates all of their values.
 
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pblur said:
Per WoG it only gets dicey if they blockade us. In a straight land battle our scorpions hilariously outmatch any force they could bring against us.
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That was before they bring in help. Which I expect them to do. With extra armies, their odds go way up.

The Drake equation isn't arbitrary, but it is the wrong equation for this scenario. The Trelli don't need all the stars to align; they have multiple alternative paths to victory. They can attack by themselves and get a lucky roll, *or* bring some help and win with a good roll, *or* bring lots of help and win with an average roll, *or* blockade us and we fail to develop tech, *or* we develop tech but our attempt fails. You have to add the probabilities of those different paths, not multiply them all.
 
drake_azathoth said:
Academia Nut established that just the lowland primitives supplying the Red Banner for like a turn or two in passing through would be enough allow a society with their own access to ores to discover iron.
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A turn or two in passing was actually being the basis for a large supply line into hostile territory alongside a sizeable population, and those areas would've had to have been conquered for that to work. So yes, thinking a Trade Post that has only existed a single turn and would be hard to conquer in the first place could give them full iron is fear mongering.
drake_azathoth said:
I don't think giving the Trelli as much credit as, say, the Swamp People or Thunder Speakers is all that big a stretch. If anything, I'd say we should give them a lot more credit than that.
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You've also ignored the point that the Trelli are a single city state, without the land available to survey for Iron properly or the capability to secure it properly. And the fact the Trelli sell goods as middle men mainly, not make them like everyone else, making them worse at manufacturing even then.
 
ThrawnCA said:
That was before they bring in help. Which I expect them to do. With extra armies, their odds go way up.

The Drake equation isn't arbitrary, but it is the wrong equation for this scenario. The Trelli don't need all the stars to align; they have multiple alternative paths to victory. They can attack by themselves and get a lucky roll, *or* bring some help and win with a good roll, *or* bring lots of help and win with an average roll, *or* blockade us and we fail to develop tech, *or* we develop tech but our attempt fails. You have to add the probabilities of those different paths, not multiply them all.
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My interpretation on AN was that them sending all their mercs was nearly certain, and all the situations he described had that built in.
 
McLuvin said:
You've also ignored the point that the Trelli are a single city state, without the land available to survey for Iron properly or the capability to secure it properly. And the fact the Trelli sell goods as middle men mainly, not make them like everyone else, making them worse at manufacturing even then.
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Do we actually have AN quotes that Trelli do not have colony/march/trade post? Like they were K's trade post, so the concept is there already.
 
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