Remove ads

Paths of Civilization

Reader mode
Как представлю. Мы побеждаем горцев, делаем их вассалами . Тут на их территорию падает комета. Наша стабильность в минусе, падает легитимность и религиозная власть. У Thunder Хорсе отличная погода , начался беби бум. Они нападают посреди кризиса. Мой худший сценарий.
How to present. We defeat the mountaineers, we make them vassals. A comet falls into their territory. Our stability is in the red, legitimacy and religious power are falling. Thunder Horse has great weather, the boom began. They attack in the middle of the crisis. My worst scenario.
 
[X] Yes (Forfeits the CB against the Highlanders, declares war against the Thunder Horse, brings Yenyna out of retirement, ???)
 
Powerofmind said:
[X] Yes (Forfeits the CB against the Highlanders, declares war against the Thunder Horse, brings Yenyna out of retirement, ???)

Go east, fuck up the TH. The Highlanders are, at this point, squeezed on all sides by us, and their land, while similar to our own homeland, isn't really much of the lowland floodplains. The TH, on the other hand, literally hold the rest of the floodplains.

I can definitely see how 'the gods' (calling you out @Academia Nut) would say that dropping the HK for now to just blow up the TH is a good idea, and I agree with all of it, save perhaps forcing Yenyna herself to come out of retirement (though, considering the rest, I'll still go for it).
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
We can't actually kill the TH, we don't have the logistical ramge, all we can do is start a war that will make them hate us for centuries to come
 
DragonParadox said:
No also puts it to the test and does not have confirmation bias on the side of superstitious idiocy.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
If anything bad happens in the next century they can claim they predicted it. ANYTHING. A century with significant suck happens frequently. On the other hand, a perfect century basically never happens

McLuvin said:
Or they get lucky this time around and Astrology becomes the profession used to control the nation despite it being bullshit
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
When was the last time we had a perfect century?
 
NewAgeOfPower said:
Exactly.

The Scientific Method's core is literally assuming your own hypothesis is trash, then do everything you can think of to try to disprove your own hypothesis, and then letting other Science-inclined individuals to take a swing at your theory.

Only then can it be accepted.

If we pick [] Blindly Obey Astrology, it will be a long term, possibly crippling negative for civilization and progress.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
For this argument that I just saw right now, I will say this.

To assume our hypothesis is trash is generally the way to go, but you can't test a hypothesis by only performing it's antithesis. That's just not how science works.
 
NewAgeOfPower said:
Exactly.

The Scientific Method's core is literally assuming your own hypothesis is trash, then do everything you can think of to try to disprove your own hypothesis, and then letting other Science-inclined individuals to take a swing at your theory.

Only then can it be accepted.

If we pick [] Blindly Obey Astrology, it will be a long term, possibly crippling negative for civilization and progress.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Exactly. It's frustrating that people want to throw our civ's skepticism in the trash just because of some vague portent of doom.
 
AN is beating the Ymaryn with the nerfing stick lately. Both option are bad choices, it's just a matter of which form of bad you accept.

We know bad shit is going to be happening soon regardless, so if we pick No, then it means the king ignored the warning of the priests, causing a whole slew of problems that will result in a civil war or dark age or social fracture. If we pick Yes, then he gets to erase Love of Wisdom and have it replaced by a value that will impede us more. If we pick No and somehow nothing bad happens, then he gets to smack the Ymaryn with the downside of Love of Wisdom in order to cripple our religious institutions to provoke a religious crisis, with a result of importing a large amount of Khemetri religion.

Lose, lose, lose.

Welcome to the 'market correction' for the bubble that the quest has been in since the outset.
 
McLuvin said:
We can't actually kill the TH, we don't have the logistical ramge, all we can do is start a war that will make them hate us for centuries to come
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
You underestimate our limitations. We hold land much further from Valleyhome proper than the segments of the lowlands the TH control. If we only walk away making close allies of the smaller swamp folk and a fair chunk of the TH's lowland holdings, we'll have made out like bandits.
 
I just...

So first we essentially were too hipster and had that ingrained in our values, making us even more brittle and liable to cascading state failure. And now we are throwing our weight behind predictive astrology (predicted by a mythological genius, to be fair) that has only been tested in what appears the positive sense (I predict this happens, it happened: we have not had enough time to negatively test nor have had a large enough sample size to conclude anything concrete). And all of this is leading for a war on an enemy we were not expecting while giving up the CB on an enemy we were planning on attacking.

Why are we "throwing our lots" and "going with" the Yes option? We are taking steps further and further away from LoW. Just because we traded smallpox warding for this tech does not mean that we absolutely have to implement it right now. Remember the starmetal options a long time ago? We could either make an axe out of it (immediate benefit), or do research on the metal (actually find out what was happening). Guess what we chose?

I suspect this "predictive astrology" has some basis in fact: after all, everything that rises to the national level likely has its roots in some mechanism that yields benefits (e.g. saving the crops). However, this being spearheaded by a largely mute hero that can "magically" predict things has me thinking it has something to do with actual patterns in the records as opposed to whatever funny business with constellations and astrology. The technology is much too rough right now and trying to adopt it would only lead to superstitions and ultimately stymy the actual technology from being discovered.

[X] No (???)
 
Kiba said:
I prefer not to use megaproject kick nilly willy.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yes, I seem to recall you bringing this up the last few times this came up (apologies if I'm remembering someone else) but it's an incredibly strong ability that we can now utilize much more effectively. Obviously we shouldn't be kicking projects that would probably complete in one turn anyway, or other such nonsense, but ignoring one of our great strengths in fear of narrative speculation seems far too cautious.
 
Powerofmind said:
You underestimate our limitations. We hold land much further from Valleyhome proper than the segments of the lowlands the TH control. If we only walk away making close allies of the smaller swamp folk and a fair chunk of the TH's lowland holdings, we'll have made out like bandits.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Aside from the fact we can't administer that territory that far away properly, aside from the fact that the area will be heavily culturally against us, aside from the fact the SF are too weak to be really good allies and aside from the fact that if we lose that hard too keep land we are fucked yeah.

We'll have made out like bandits
 
Godwinson said:
If we pick Yes, then he gets to erase Love of Wisdom and have it replaced by a value that will impede us more.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I don't think so.

We have a tested hypothesis that has not yet been confirmed, yet is making a very strong prediction right now. Either route tests that prediction to a degree, but "Something really bad happens" and "Everything goes perfectly for a century" are two claims with very different probabilities. Going for 'Yes' actually tests Love of Wisdom more, since if we followed the signs yet we did not get a perfect century even though we've quadruple-checked the predictions, then that means something is wrong with the predictive process.
If we go for 'No' then confirmation bias is a heck of a lot easier.

This does mean that during the upcoming Golden Age we need to drop out of it ASAP. If we literally can't, that means that the process is proven correct and we get all the Golden Age benefits. If we don't... well, we get the Golden Age benefits and further advance our predictive technologies.
 
[X] Yes (Forfeits the CB against the Highlanders, declares war against the Thunder Horse, brings Yenyna out of retirement, ???)

Why not, Swamp people are interesting and TH did hit us. HK will likely start up another strike when we hit TH, so it's good that they did and better if they didn't.
 
DragonParadox said:
I can bear the criticism of cartoon characters with great fortitude.

On a more serious note, do you guys want another Debilitating belief about listening to omens and basing our policy on them.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Is it really a Debilitating Belief if everyone did it? I am more scared about what letting our hatred decide our course instead of the counsel of our wisest will do to us.

Timewinders said:
I don't care if you're a genius, no one can predict things accurately a century into the future, and we should be extremely skeptical of anyone who claims to be able to. For all we know, she is intentionally misleading us.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

This war and the aftermath will be a test for our civilizations values that could easily damage us more than some small neighbours taking a swing at us ever could.
Her prediction is similiar to someone today saying that innovations in automatisation will immensely challenge cultures who base an individuals worth on their productivity. Predicting problems isnt the same as predicting the future.
 
It is like the Great Drought again.
We did not sacrifice or attempt piligrimage, instead we buckled down and persevered.

And were rewarded. I feel we should not suddenly start running head over heels, but prepare for the worst, esp. with damage control being our King's power.

Edit: he will even live for extra 1-2 turns
 
Last edited:
McLuvin said:
We have a Religion based around science.

You want to replace that with horoscopes.....

Do you even Ymaryn?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

It's not science - it's the beginning of science. Spirituality and gods is involved in everything - as seen in this update where the woman isn't seen as "mentally ill" but "Spirit-touched". Making use of the Astrology, finding that the predictions are off, and continuing to study the stars is the first step to turn Astrology to Astronomy. If they never study the stars they'll never know.
 
Last edited:
DragonParadox said:
We do not have science, we have proto-science rife with confirmation bias that is being performed by our priests.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
And that argument still falls flat. You can't prove or disprove something if you never do it. If bad things happen (and they likely will, since astrology is more about guessworking the weather than magic), then it will still hit confirmation bias. If bad things happen alongside the benefits of taking the action (which is still likely), then this simple astrology won't be so cut and dry yes/no next time.
McLuvin said:
Aside from the fact we can't administer that territory that far away properly, aside from the fact that the area will be heavily culturally against us, aside from the fact the SF are too weak to be really good allies and aside from the fact that if we lose that hard too keep land we are fucked yeah.

We'll have made out like bandits
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Alternatively, go to war with the HK, and the TH will join anyway, and we don't get friends with the swamp people because our issue with the TH is only secondary. I do like how you casually ignore my point that we administrate stuff farther away than the lowlands to repeat it, though.

We have no idea how strong the swamp folk are, we have no idea how 'culturally antagonistic' they will be (since the TH, by last knowledge, are still a series of city-states under a confederate model, which would mean only the leadership would be against us), and war with a distinct non-peer has very little chance of 'losing too hard'.

Your arguments are slim-to-nil speculations. Come up with something solid before dismissing the idea out of hand.
 
notgreat said:
I don't think so.

We have a tested hypothesis that has not yet been confirmed, yet is making a very strong prediction right now. Either route tests that prediction to a degree, but "Something really bad happens" and "Everything goes perfectly for a century" are two claims with very different probabilities. Going for 'Yes' actually tests Love of Wisdom more, since if we followed the signs yet we did not get a perfect century even though we've quadruple-checked the predictions, then that means something is wrong with the predictive process.
If we go for 'No' then confirmation bias is a heck of a lot easier.

This does mean that during the upcoming Golden Age we need to drop out of it ASAP. If we literally can't, that means that the process is proven correct and we get all the Golden Age benefits. If we don't... well, we get the Golden Age benefits and further advance our predictive technologies.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Astrologer: Obviously we did not get a perfect century because of some sin or failing, even the gods cannot anticipate the failings of men, like not listening to the astrologers enough.
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top