Some (halfassed) analysis:
-Trade table
--Common Pottery seems to be still competing with the Khemetri for dominance, but we don't have direct contact to confirm it beyond the pots coming by sea. One of these days Tinriver will send an expedition in that direction to check.
--Forhuch's ghost is still Leading in salt and trading in Copper, Bronze and Iron. Spoopy.
---Copper may become Dominant once we add the former-Forhuch mines to our production. Pretty sure theres a tin mine in those mountains too, since the Mountain Horse had their own bronze donkey years ago.
-Minions
--Eastern Marches love us and the war damage means they won't have any ideas for a while.
--Western Colonies are still okay with us, but their dependency is not going to improve any time soon.
--Sourthern Vassals love us for doing our duty, but Txolla's Dependency is getting low in a bad way.
--Forhuch seems to be taken partly intact, given their Dependency. Loyalty will be a problem there.
--Amber Road's Dependency is liable to be a future headache. No solution for that really.
--Banners all regenerated a point of effectiveness, except the Blood Rain...who got the shit kicked out of them and lost a point instead. Again.
Random tech musings:
-Our entertainment technology is still terrible. The height of our entertainment are plays and young idiots getting their balls crushed by bucking horses.
-I wonder if our metalworking skill have gotten to the point where we can use lead inlays or fillings to adjust the weight balance of our weapons. The stuff is cheap and we've got a bunch we aren't really using for much.
Ranged
Composite Bows
Light crossbows
Ballistae
Massed fire
Slings
Pila
-Oh hi thar. We have
true ballistas now! At this point in history we should be using them as dart or stone/lead shot throwers. This will be very important when we actually build warships because our war catamarans become an actual threat rather than just recon elements. An early torsion ballista is not going to be sinking any hulls, but it CAN shatter masts(admittedly with great difficulty in aiming when firing from a fast platform), shred sails, and horribly maul rowers wherever a shot hits.
However, said ballistas aren't actually effective on city walls and gates(hence why Ranged rather than Siege), they
are effective at sniping barbicans and wall defenders so that rams can move up to the wall unopposed. Well, so are our spamming levies with crossbows shooting over the wall, but the ballista can be used without crashing our economy.
As a final point, ballistas mounted on city walls makes siege REALLY hard, because they can mount and launch bigger rocks than mobile platforms, allowing a number well placed wall ballista to pound through covered rams(the counter to this is siege towers).
Theory
Shield wall
Tactical Phases
Supply caravans
Formal lieutenants
-Supply caravans were already discussed previously, but this is to reiterate, the
formalization of military logistics. Prior to this, military supply involved mainly living off the land, or difficult to protect wagons traveling in a strung out format(because the intuitive way to avoid raiders burning your supply train is to use irregular, scattered wagons so they can't destroy as much each time, while this innovation packs it into large, well protected caravans which eat a big chunk of the supply as they travel)
-Formal Lieutenants were also discussed, but the big difference here is that by delegating on site tactics for an engagement to a subordinate leader, you get fine control without micromanaging to death. Only really came up with truly large armies where you needed commanders on the thousand man scale while the general worked the ten thousand man scale.
-Its odd that Urban Levies/conscripts aren't listed in the Warrior techs
@Academia Nut ?
Only, pretty much as soon as they got into Forhuch territory the local tribes all went "Wow, you killed the king so hard, you're totally in charge now".
Sort of a benefit of fighting former nomads. This is how Fortharmin's father unified them to begin with, so they were perfectly happy to follow a Hero on that basis.
Next generation might be difficult if we don't secure ties
The fact that those left behind were only marginally loyal - the least loyal had been thrown against the People early on, while the most loyal were the ones who got to come along for loot - also went a long way towards securing things. The fact that Alyxunmyn had excellent control over his troops and he made sure to peel off some of the more trustworthy warriors to station them as garrisons in key places made convincing the locals that they didn't need to resist and it would be a bad idea if they tried very easy.
And he dumped a shitload of Core Ymaryn people in as a Create March action, ensuring some level of cultural unity with our core. Clever.
The entire 'conquest' was over in about a year, during which time the king and governors confirmed Alyunmyn as the heir, both for his achievements and to minimize the possibility of either the Forhuch that had joined up getting pissy or the priest-acknowledged Avatar of the Spirits of War deciding he wanted to take the crown more directly.
We crowned him champion of Khorne?
From there Alyxunmyn took the troops north and west from three different directions to deal with the nomad tribes that had been harassing them. That campaign had gone nowhere near as well as the lowlands campaign, although that was primarily because the lowlands campaign had been a spectacular success, and secondarily because the northern nomads were much less willing to maintain contact with the People. After a few years of back and forth and losses on both sides, it became entirely obvious to the nomads that the People both were not going to fold as they were well lead, numerous, experienced, and no longer distracted by the Forhuch. Deciding that they had had more than enough time to raid and gain honour and continuing to engage with the armies of the People was foolish, the nomads simply packed up and left for the east.
Hopefully they go and stay go, but Nomads...well, we're going to need more pony.
Refugees streaming out had revealed that the Highlanders had conquered everything along the Great River and in fact had gone all the way to the western bank of the Urri River, with the king and his armies being cut down in a major battle that had only further energized the Highlanders. While resistance had been reorganized in the eastern part of their territories, despair ran thick through the Harmurri, and many worried that if pressured further then collapse was imminent.
As expected, the Hamurri are still alive, but had lost something like 2/3 of their territory AND their King. They must have rolled amazingly badly because their terrain is hard to conquer!
The cities were empty, with only Redshore really retaining its enormous urban flavour, although even that was diminished. The effort of the levies and the guilds to meet the demands of war had placed an enormous pressure upon the People, hollowing them out in ways. And yet there were traders and patricians who retained and had even grown much of their wealth and influence, leading to new things but also resentment. So much had been sacrificed, but where was their sacrifice?
So more or less war exhaustion, as happens when you draw so heavily from the urban population for war.
Especially since the king of the Storm Ymaryn had sent word that he had a few lovely daughters who were of marriageable age. Wink wink.
He had actually literally gone 'wink wink' in the message, adding the special characters for that to the end of his sentence. The scribes suggested that maybe there had been something of a change in meaning.
Emoticons...also I just remembered this guy is also a Hero on their side. Just that they got stalemated because everyone in that direction has a Hero and he's getting nothing done.
[] [Marriage] Internally from a patrician family
The Status Quo option. Mild reinforcement of Purity(too mild to really matter here), but the big danger is a strong King married to a politically powerful wife would forge a permanent ruling dynasty.
[] [Marriage] From one of the Forhuch tribes to secure their loyalty
The Vassal option. Note that the Forhuch are only with us because of our Genius King, and if they retain their Nomad cultural values, they're liable to start making noise once he dies. A marriage there would give them ties of kinship to the core, which appeals to Nomad Family values even after his death.
If we're lucky we can arrange another wave of marriages between their leaders and ours to bind their ruling class to ours(and broaden that practice to our vassals in general. But we need the river control for that to be feasible.
[] [Marriage] From the Storm Ymaryn to gain an alliance
The Outsider option. Keeping in mind that the SY have:
-A Hero King
-Been fighting a stalemated war with Freehills for multiple turns
-Expansionistic
-Slavery
Overall it gives us a powerful ally, but the Storm Ymaryn are more likely to be at war than we are, so it's distinctly to their advantage.
Found Colony - When a province gets too distant, sometimes it is best to grant it additional autonomy so that they can get down to the business of working the land and gathering resources without needing to talk to the king about every little thing. Current Target: Spirit Channel, Amber Road
*F: Convert Amber Road
Oh and a bad idea here. We'd never retain control.
Integrate Colony - The colony of Txolla can be integrated into the People more fully, transitioning from a Colony to a province
*S: -6 Diplomacy, gain Econ and Martial from integrating Colony
*M: Same as above, completes at mid-turn
Word of AN that this has 5 provinces. We need to do this sometime soon, but currently we can't afford to pop our cities without pissing EVERYTHING off.
Terrify - You've killed cities, walls will not keep your enemies safe
*S: -3 Diplo, can force minors to become vassals or integrate, can cause major civilizations to lose Stability
Special: Not applicable to nomads, efficiency greatly improved by performing a War Mission against the target the same turn
Warning: Crit fails can cause backlash, losing Stability
I wish this worked better on the Highlanders...
Warning! All Free Cities but Redshore will disband if EE not below 20 by the end of turn, returning Econ and EE but needing to be reformed at a later date.
Oh and we finally find the threshold for keeping free cities. Good to know!
The Yeomen were deliberately trying to pop the cities.
Yeomen (3 {9})- Power: Adds faction power to secondary Martial Objective: Have 40 Sustainable Forest within 3 turns. Success: +1 Sustainable Forest. Failure: -5 Wealth
On the plus side they are happy and giving a decent quest...well if you didn't realize that Forestry was LTE positive and makes it even harder to avoid citypop.
Astrological Prediction: Harmony in nature follows harmony in man
Prediction says we want lots of Stability to get good weather. On it!
