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Paths of Civilization
- Thread starter Academia Nut
- Start date
- Original
- Location
- Austria
Dependency of army on whoever is paying them is one of bigger factors in fall of Rome, for example, so this may well be a poisoned medicine.
PS as a value...wait, why wouldn't PS be a solution of its own? @veekie ? New settlements for spare sons is narratively a solution.
[X] [Reform] Begin Myranyn Reforms Event Chain
And so Ymar continues its trend of developing social concepts well before their time. While I'd love to start working towards gender equality, I cannot see it helping more than a genuine restructure of how we raise armies. Aside from the fact that conscripting urban poor as soldiers was historically obscenely effective, it simply synergizes too well with our society. Assuming everything ever stops burning, we leverage our large population, food production and true cities for massive, easily trainable armies.
edit:
Myranyn is getting thrashed at the moment, but Both has a shot still and I'd rather not pass up this chance. Approval voting it is. Hopefully this doesn't explode us any further.
[X] [Iron] Upgrade Iron Blooded to Steel Blooded
No brainer.
[X] [PiA] Khemetri (Probably a Spiritual Value, hard to tell compatibility with new religion)
Basically just hoping for something stability related. No strong opinions otherwise.
[X] [GA] Administrative innovation (-8 Wealth)
[X] [GA] Subordinate reform (-10 Prestige)
Seems like either of these could help.
And so Ymar continues its trend of developing social concepts well before their time. While I'd love to start working towards gender equality, I cannot see it helping more than a genuine restructure of how we raise armies. Aside from the fact that conscripting urban poor as soldiers was historically obscenely effective, it simply synergizes too well with our society. Assuming everything ever stops burning, we leverage our large population, food production and true cities for massive, easily trainable armies.
edit:
Myranyn is getting thrashed at the moment, but Both has a shot still and I'd rather not pass up this chance. Approval voting it is. Hopefully this doesn't explode us any further.
[X] [Iron] Upgrade Iron Blooded to Steel Blooded
No brainer.
[X] [PiA] Khemetri (Probably a Spiritual Value, hard to tell compatibility with new religion)
Basically just hoping for something stability related. No strong opinions otherwise.
[X] [GA] Administrative innovation (-8 Wealth)
[X] [GA] Subordinate reform (-10 Prestige)
Seems like either of these could help.
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[X] [Iron] Upgrade Iron Blooded to Steel Blooded
Sadly, there wasn't any infusion of econ from Ironwork, so we have to rely on the next best thing: a new legacy.
[X] [Reform] Begin Myranyn Reforms Event Chain
Employ the urban poor class to counter the power of the yeomen.
[X] [GA] Subordinate reform (-10 Prestige)
[X] [GA] Financial innovation (-8 Wealth)
Subordinate reform might help with the crisis, and financial innovation might help us deal with a future liquidity crisis.
[X] [PiA] Western Ymaryn (Possibly Pioneering Spirit)
We need more econ.
Sadly, there wasn't any infusion of econ from Ironwork, so we have to rely on the next best thing: a new legacy.
[X] [Reform] Begin Myranyn Reforms Event Chain
Employ the urban poor class to counter the power of the yeomen.
[X] [GA] Subordinate reform (-10 Prestige)
[X] [GA] Financial innovation (-8 Wealth)
Subordinate reform might help with the crisis, and financial innovation might help us deal with a future liquidity crisis.
[X] [PiA] Western Ymaryn (Possibly Pioneering Spirit)
We need more econ.
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
- Location
- Present
Gilded age = Economic prosperity + social issues
Removing the prosperity is a dangerous thing narratively. We don't want to find out that Dark Ages are a thing here.
Dutch
Bored Spearman of the Wind
- Location
- CET
I have class in a minute. But IIRC the Marian reforms were needed because the Roman concept of citizen soldier was failing to provide Rome with the soldiers it needed. As in, citizens had to fight further abroad, not being able to work the farms, which were bought up by the rich, leading to a decrease in recruits and a crisis in the army.
This is true but irrelevant, as only 1-10% of farmers are Yeomen(depending on land cultivation efficiency, the better the more the excess flows to the cities so each yeoman is in charge of less people but the same land), you will get similar troop quantity out of the urban poor as the rural middle class, as you can conscript a third of your urban poor without doing lasting harm to your economy, whereas doing the same to your farmer class would make things fold pretty quickly.
The Roman situation is exactly why this works. They implemented three things which are individually beneficial, but combined into a terrible outcome:
-They required their armies to source their own equipment and funds from local populations. This extended how far they could conquer and reduced the administrative burden, but also gave their armies independence.
-They converted from landowner armies to paid armies. This greatly improved the effectiveness of their armies.
-They granted land to their armies in lieu of cash. This allowed them to rapidly settle new conquests and culturally convert them. This also meant that when they ran out of land to distribute they started looking for new people to stab.
Look, the Roman problem was basically that their armies were doing whatever they wanted regardless of what the state says. You might want to look at the current system, where our Yeomen armies are doing exactly that, right now.
The Marian Reforms were wildly successful and led the Empire to greater heights than ever. The mistake was to let the generals payroll their armies from the proceeds of their land instead of the Senate.
Because we run into the problem we were facing when the crisis started: No more land to settle -> Lets go stab those guys next door for their land -> Oh look we're too far from the King to be controlled.
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BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] [Reform] Begin Myranyn Reforms Event Chain
[X] [PiA] Harmurri (Something trade related maybe [Not Center of Trade related])
[X] [GA] Subordinate reform (-10 Prestige)
[X] [Iron] Upgrade Iron Blooded to Steel Blooded
Hmm I've thought over the reforms thing. There are certain very specific things we don't do which the Romans do, in particular distributing land. What Rome did was pay the army in land when coin did not work, however the Ymaryn do not distribute land in this way and we are quite against that to begin with.
The problems we will have to deal with are a case of patricians developing their own armies. That could be a right pain in the ass, in the sense that if patricians wish they may be able to rise up and threaten the Throne, but they are far less likely to go for the stuff the Yeomen are doing right now. There are also other things I probably am not thinking about.
Gonna have to think about it a little more, but I've decided to switch for the moment.
I also thinking about it, want Second Son over and done with, or at least mitigated.
E: Thought about it and don't want a trait which might cause our religion to schism.
E2: and wealth is too tight for admin or financial.
[X] [PiA] Harmurri (Something trade related maybe [Not Center of Trade related])
[X] [GA] Subordinate reform (-10 Prestige)
[X] [Iron] Upgrade Iron Blooded to Steel Blooded
Hmm I've thought over the reforms thing. There are certain very specific things we don't do which the Romans do, in particular distributing land. What Rome did was pay the army in land when coin did not work, however the Ymaryn do not distribute land in this way and we are quite against that to begin with.
The problems we will have to deal with are a case of patricians developing their own armies. That could be a right pain in the ass, in the sense that if patricians wish they may be able to rise up and threaten the Throne, but they are far less likely to go for the stuff the Yeomen are doing right now. There are also other things I probably am not thinking about.
Gonna have to think about it a little more, but I've decided to switch for the moment.
I also thinking about it, want Second Son over and done with, or at least mitigated.
E: Thought about it and don't want a trait which might cause our religion to schism.
E2: and wealth is too tight for admin or financial.
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This is a large motivation for me too. While Harmysyn would be valuable and have its own benefits, I cannot imagine how it would be anywhere as effective as Myranyn for actually addressing the crisis. I'm more than happy to stamp out sparks that flare up from it down the line if it means my house stops burning down now.
Huh. Well that went about as well as I suspected. We got lots of luck on our Stability, we touched -3 but didn't break for touching -4. It turns out that starvation isn't really a good thing. Who knew?
That "Independent Priesthood" is simultaneously extremely ominous yet might bail us out next time we do something stupid. Again.
Anyway,
[X] [Reform] Begin Myranyn Reforms Event Chain
[X] [Reform] Begin Harmysyn Reforms Event Chain
I don't care which wins, but Both is stupid. Reminder what our last chain was like:
[X][Iron] Upgrade Iron Blooded to Steel Blooded
[X][Iron] Gain an additional Social Value slot
The upgrade is worth at least +2 econ/turn so long as we stay on Balanced, and quite possibly more. We're going to be using a ton of Enforce Justice, so the Social Value is likely to be filled with something related which is likely to be quite useful.
[X][PiA] Freehills (Social Value)
[X][PiA] Harmurri (Something trade related maybe [Not Center of Trade related])
I do not want to start a religious schism right now, and that's likely what stealing a semi-incompatible religious value from the Khemetri would do. I especially don't want their God-Kings trait which lets RA act as Stability, because while that's awesome mechanically it is the complete and utter antithesis of what we've built our entire scientific and governmental structure- that we need to think about these things and investigate.
Freehills sounds like they have separation of powers which is really interesting and might be very valuable (though not without its downsides). Still, having some checks and balances last turn would've been pretty freaking useful.
I'd normally go for Pioneering Spirit but we already have Personal Stewards of Nature which gives us a far better conversion rate for Centralization->Econ and we want to get lots of Centralization anyway so that's out for me and we don't yet seem to be at the point where we need more ways to drop our Centralization value.
The Harmurri I'm a little iffy on, but it's not a bad choice as far as I can tell and we still have lots of trade goods so it's useful to dominate them more. This famine was due to people not wanting to risk the Blackbirds, and that wasn't exactly a wrong decision, it was just one that cost us a lot due to the failed roll.
[X][GA] Financial innovation (-8 Wealth)
We're still dealing with the aftereffects of our Land reformation, and I don't want to risk the Khemetri surpassing our Prestige and having the game systems automatically start a war.
edit: the most important thing here IMO is
[PiA] Khemetri = possible incompatibility with our new religion, which is inherently prone to schisms. I really don't want to make yet another crisis for no good reason.
That "Independent Priesthood" is simultaneously extremely ominous yet might bail us out next time we do something stupid. Again.
Anyway,
[X] [Reform] Begin Myranyn Reforms Event Chain
[X] [Reform] Begin Harmysyn Reforms Event Chain
I don't care which wins, but Both is stupid. Reminder what our last chain was like:
We quite simply would not be able to manage two at once while also dealing with all the other problems.
[X][Iron] Upgrade Iron Blooded to Steel Blooded
[X][Iron] Gain an additional Social Value slot
The upgrade is worth at least +2 econ/turn so long as we stay on Balanced, and quite possibly more. We're going to be using a ton of Enforce Justice, so the Social Value is likely to be filled with something related which is likely to be quite useful.
[X][PiA] Freehills (Social Value)
[X][PiA] Harmurri (Something trade related maybe [Not Center of Trade related])
I do not want to start a religious schism right now, and that's likely what stealing a semi-incompatible religious value from the Khemetri would do. I especially don't want their God-Kings trait which lets RA act as Stability, because while that's awesome mechanically it is the complete and utter antithesis of what we've built our entire scientific and governmental structure- that we need to think about these things and investigate.
Freehills sounds like they have separation of powers which is really interesting and might be very valuable (though not without its downsides). Still, having some checks and balances last turn would've been pretty freaking useful.
I'd normally go for Pioneering Spirit but we already have Personal Stewards of Nature which gives us a far better conversion rate for Centralization->Econ and we want to get lots of Centralization anyway so that's out for me and we don't yet seem to be at the point where we need more ways to drop our Centralization value.
The Harmurri I'm a little iffy on, but it's not a bad choice as far as I can tell and we still have lots of trade goods so it's useful to dominate them more. This famine was due to people not wanting to risk the Blackbirds, and that wasn't exactly a wrong decision, it was just one that cost us a lot due to the failed roll.
[X][GA] Financial innovation (-8 Wealth)
We're still dealing with the aftereffects of our Land reformation, and I don't want to risk the Khemetri surpassing our Prestige and having the game systems automatically start a war.
edit: the most important thing here IMO is
[PiA] Khemetri = possible incompatibility with our new religion, which is inherently prone to schisms. I really don't want to make yet another crisis for no good reason.
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BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
There's that and what I was getting at in my post you quoted: We are not Rome.
We do things differently than they. The biggest one being how we handle land, as that is probably one of the linchpins in the shitshow the Marian Reforms became several centuries down the line.
Like the absolute best thing would be to snag it so that these armies are always and exclusively under the king, in the sense that the king authorizes their pay. If he/she says no, no money for the soldiery.
Beh.
*shrug*
The Harmysn reforms are certainly interesting, and unique as all hell. We probably won't get a chance to do this until much further down the line, and it seems to me to be an excellent idea to get it into the cultural matrix that women, even just elite women can get into the gymnasia because that will be awesome once the Academy rolls out. Having the Gym precedent will make it much easier to have women attend that institution.
I'd be super happy if that won, which it looks like it will, but that's tempered by the fact that we would essentially have to solve Second Son on our own which is painful as hell.
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
- Location
- Present
I can't see the Myranyn Reforms solving the Second sons crisis. It'll eventually prevent it from occuring, but in the short term it'll make it worse. After all, by removing the Yeomen from the military we cut of further pathways for them to gain land and glory.
They'll be forced to go West if they want to grab stuff.
Stat changes (from calc'd):
>Economy -6, LTE -8!!! (Also this bath didn't take any forests which is likely an error)
By calculations we should be at Econ 11, EE 9 with +2 EE from the Aqueduct and Baths. Instead we are at Econ 5, EE 9. I'm now deeply worried, as this means that the econ drain from PiA doesn't refund the LTE it consumes. That's scary.
>Martial -2 (+1), Naval +1
We do war badly, pirates have heroic leader and the Trelli died. Naval boost seems to be fixing of an error from last turn.
> Wealth -3
Likely from our religion being unhappy and/or from our loss of Rule of Gold.
> Prestige +5!!!
Umm... I'm really not sure where this came from to be honest. Not gonna complain though.
Also we continue to get the bare minimum +Centralization from Enforce Justice, so I think we can safely start ignoring the claim that it provides a range and just always assume minimum.
>Economy -6, LTE -8!!! (Also this bath didn't take any forests which is likely an error)
By calculations we should be at Econ 11, EE 9 with +2 EE from the Aqueduct and Baths. Instead we are at Econ 5, EE 9. I'm now deeply worried, as this means that the econ drain from PiA doesn't refund the LTE it consumes. That's scary.
>Martial -2 (+1), Naval +1
We do war badly, pirates have heroic leader and the Trelli died. Naval boost seems to be fixing of an error from last turn.
> Wealth -3
Likely from our religion being unhappy and/or from our loss of Rule of Gold.
> Prestige +5!!!
Umm... I'm really not sure where this came from to be honest. Not gonna complain though.
Also we continue to get the bare minimum +Centralization from Enforce Justice, so I think we can safely start ignoring the claim that it provides a range and just always assume minimum.
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- Location
- Meycauayan, Bulacan, Philippines
[X] [Reform] Begin Harmysyn Reforms Event Chain
Come on folks! Vote for gender equality! Maybe our political and financial problems right now need a feminine touch to solve!
[X] [Iron] Upgrade Iron Blooded to Steel Blooded
Err...I hope that Steel is worth it.
[X] [PiA] Western Ymaryn (Possibly Pioneering Spirit)
Pioneering Spirit never did us bad in the past. So maybe it would be what would save the Ymaryn now.
[X] [GA] Administrative innovation (-8 Wealth)
Please, please, please let us solve our admin. woes.
Also, @Academia Nut, how many years has it been since Original - Paths of Civilization | Page 3857
Come on folks! Vote for gender equality! Maybe our political and financial problems right now need a feminine touch to solve!
[X] [Iron] Upgrade Iron Blooded to Steel Blooded
Err...I hope that Steel is worth it.
[X] [PiA] Western Ymaryn (Possibly Pioneering Spirit)
Pioneering Spirit never did us bad in the past. So maybe it would be what would save the Ymaryn now.
[X] [GA] Administrative innovation (-8 Wealth)
Please, please, please let us solve our admin. woes.
Also, @Academia Nut, how many years has it been since Original - Paths of Civilization | Page 3857
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I have been unsold on the Khem value. Striking from vote now
Uh, they won't be able to grab stuff once we finish the reforms. What with no longer being armed and trained at state expense.
Thats the whole point of the reforms.
Basically as predicted we ate 2 Martial damage.
But we didn't know the cities would cover for it.
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
- Location
- Present
I don't think this gets us steel. Rather, it improves the Iron Blooded Trait, which boost the strength of Expand Econ.
I thought the Yeomen where a sort of self-organised militia. We don't really have state training programs, after all.
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Yeomen are armed by the state. Their weapons are legally borrowed from the state, but they can spend their own money to improve or replace lost gear, provided the state gets the same gear back or better.
We do not have personal ownership of weapons or tools, they belong to the community.
I mean, yeah, that's why I was going for Chariots (+4 Martial) instead of Blackbirds (+2 Martial). Here's hoping those bonus effects were worth it considering they weren't even mentioned in the entire update.
But I'm still wondering WTF happened to our LTE. This is basically a crisis, we're at 14 LTE. That's so far below our econ cap (24) that even without the Ironworks econ drain we're gonna be on the edge of Starvation all the time.
- Location
- France
[X] [Reform] Begin Myranyn Reforms Event Chain
[X] [Reform] Begin Both (-1 Stability, Both Events Started, ???)
[X] [Iron] Upgrade Iron Blooded to Steel Blooded
[X] [PiA] Freehills (Social Value)
[X] [GA] Administrative innovation (-8 Wealth)
[X] [GA] Subordinate reform (-10 Prestige)
[X] [Reform] Begin Both (-1 Stability, Both Events Started, ???)
[X] [Iron] Upgrade Iron Blooded to Steel Blooded
[X] [PiA] Freehills (Social Value)
[X] [GA] Administrative innovation (-8 Wealth)
[X] [GA] Subordinate reform (-10 Prestige)
Go nuts on new settlements?
Efficient yes, but narratively not quite coherent
In the short term, sure. Well trained and adventurous Yeoman will be further encouraged to leave, but this is not a short term problem. Myranyn Reforms presents a viable plan to address this by changing who gets trained with what weapons - it's a lot harder for people to make a crossbow than it is a bow, which increases the reliance on the state for arms.
If the thread wants to pursue Harmysyn for its own merits, then arguing to vote for Myranyn to solve Second Sons isn't going to change its mind. I hope we can get out of this mess regardless, but I haven't seen anyone argue that Harmysyn will actually address our problems, and the logic of how it will is pretty weak:
So the plan is to... lure back the second sons by having more attractive women? I mean, really? Let's contrast this with Myranyn:
It identifies why having Yeoman armed and trained is uniquely problematic, why this would not be the case for the urban poor and how this system gives the state more control. It's a pretty decent plan that I feel would probably work, which is not something I could say about Harmysyn.
Harmysyn would probably do a lot of good for Ymar in the long term, but this action should be used to deal with the crisis that is currently wrecking us. I ask the thread to reconsider chasing shinies during this difficult time.
Certainly that'll help, but we won't be in charge of that anyway. We're gonna be busy just treading water getting our Stability back up. Provinces will be the ones managing everything for a couple turns. We're gonna have to Enforce Justice a ton and not spend any LTE on our Guild actions.
As to narrative coherence... I suppose narratively it would've meant that patricians' sons started defecting as well, which would've been problematic. Fair enough.
- Location
- Low Earth Orbit
Disregarding the mechanistic issues, narratively I want to see some women empowerment (or equalisation of disparate statuses, which I didn't realise was an issue in the first place). Giving women the right to join the army (if that's what this is actually what it's all about) would lead to a general expansion of their rights later and an equalisation. I think. Probably. With all its host of problems, definitely.
That said, I agree with notgreat's reasoning for the most part.
[X] notgreat
That said, I agree with notgreat's reasoning for the most part.
[X] notgreat