Attempting to Fulfil The Plan: ISOT Edition
- Thread starter garphield
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[X] Plan Farms and Forts
[x] Plan Farms and Forts
@garphield you can prob close the vote early if u want with there only being one plan unopposed that gotten a good lead
Yeah I was in the process of writing my own plan until Chimera posted literally the exact thing I was envisioning anyways, I think there's going to be broad agreement on what to do in the early turns.
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Like I'm not 100% certain on this plan but any suggestions I would have to change it at this point would be things I'm equally (if not more so) uncertain about. This plan has everything I felt should absolutely be done turn 1 so I'm happy about that.
Called for [X]Plan Farms and Forts
Accidentally rolled one too many dice for the plan dice so ignore the 99 at the end
Results:
Derveni-Zapantis Canal : (2*-13) + 27 + 55 = 56 + 255 = 311/1200
Mycenae Water and Sewage (Stage 1): (2*-13) + 10 + 82 = 66 = 66/100
Coal Prospecting: -13 + 54 = 41/30 (Complete)
Iron Production Experiments: -13 + 53 = 40/50
Machine Tools: -13 + 10 = -3 (negative numbers mean no progress but don't make things actively worse) = 0/100
Hand Tool Production: -13 + 12 = -1 = 0/50
Mills (Stage 1): (3*-13) + 4 + 28 + 37 = 30/100
Waste Collection Systems: (2*-13) + 84 + 79 = 137/100 (Complete)
Livestock Breeding: (2*-3) + 87 + 81 = 162/50 (3x requirement, also build zoo, -5 ps) (Complete)
Crop and Livestock Distribution: (3*-3) + 63 + 15 + 97 = 166/100 Complete)
Adult Literacy Campaigns (Stage 2): -13 + 77 = 64+145 = 209/200, next stage 9/300 +5 ps (Complete)
Civil Service Academy: (2*-13) + 81 + 77 = 132/100 +5 ps (Complete)
Fortification Improvements: (4*-13) + 3 + 28 + 36 + 48 = 63/200
Recruit Downtimers to Bureaucracy: (2*-13) + 97 + 83 = 154
Accidentally rolled one too many dice for the plan dice so ignore the 99 at the end
Results:
Derveni-Zapantis Canal : (2*-13) + 27 + 55 = 56 + 255 = 311/1200
Mycenae Water and Sewage (Stage 1): (2*-13) + 10 + 82 = 66 = 66/100
Coal Prospecting: -13 + 54 = 41/30 (Complete)
Iron Production Experiments: -13 + 53 = 40/50
Machine Tools: -13 + 10 = -3 (negative numbers mean no progress but don't make things actively worse) = 0/100
Hand Tool Production: -13 + 12 = -1 = 0/50
Mills (Stage 1): (3*-13) + 4 + 28 + 37 = 30/100
Waste Collection Systems: (2*-13) + 84 + 79 = 137/100 (Complete)
Livestock Breeding: (2*-3) + 87 + 81 = 162/50 (3x requirement, also build zoo, -5 ps) (Complete)
Crop and Livestock Distribution: (3*-3) + 63 + 15 + 97 = 166/100 Complete)
Adult Literacy Campaigns (Stage 2): -13 + 77 = 64+145 = 209/200, next stage 9/300 +5 ps (Complete)
Civil Service Academy: (2*-13) + 81 + 77 = 132/100 +5 ps (Complete)
Fortification Improvements: (4*-13) + 3 + 28 + 36 + 48 = 63/200
Recruit Downtimers to Bureaucracy: (2*-13) + 97 + 83 = 154
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Chimeraguard
We do deserve to exist.
Okay, lemme see here:
Derveni-Zapantis Canal: 27 + 55 - 26 = 56; 56 + 255 = 311/1250 Progress
Mycenae Water and Sewage (Stage 1): 10 + 82 - 26 = 66/80 Progress
Coal Prospecting: 54 - 13 = 41/30 Progress
Iron Production Experiments: 53 - 13 = 40/50 Progress
Machine Tools: 10 - 13 = 0/100 Progress
Hand Tool Production: 12 - 13 = 0/50 Progress
Mills(Stage 1): 4 + 28 + 37 - 39 = 30/100 Progress
Waste Collection Systems: 84 + 79 - 26 = 137/100 Progress
Livestock Breeding, 2 dice: 87 + 81 - 6 = 162/50 Progress
Crop and Livestock Distribution: 63 + 15 + 97 - 9 = 166/100 Progress
Adult Literacy Campaigns (Stage 2): 77 - 13 = 64; 64 + 145 = 209/200 Progress
Civil Service Academy: 81 + 77 - 26 = 132/100 Progress
Fortification Improvements: 3 + 28 + 36 + 48 - 52 = 63/200 Progress
Recruit Downtimers To Bureaucracy: 83, 99; Quality Dice (presumably)
Hmm, if I've done this right, then some good things completed, though our Industrialization progress can best be described as "nonexistent." Also would have really liked the fortification improvement rolls to go better given that I'm pretty sure that needs a bunch of labor from the rurals so we may not be able to get much done there until next year.
But Downtimers in Bureaucracy rolling so high can only be good, and quite a bit of other stuff did complete despite our -13 per die penalty. And hopefully Civil Service completing plus that high roll means that penalty's gonna go down some.
Derveni-Zapantis Canal: 27 + 55 - 26 = 56; 56 + 255 = 311/1250 Progress
Mycenae Water and Sewage (Stage 1): 10 + 82 - 26 = 66/80 Progress
Coal Prospecting: 54 - 13 = 41/30 Progress
Iron Production Experiments: 53 - 13 = 40/50 Progress
Machine Tools: 10 - 13 = 0/100 Progress
Hand Tool Production: 12 - 13 = 0/50 Progress
Mills(Stage 1): 4 + 28 + 37 - 39 = 30/100 Progress
Waste Collection Systems: 84 + 79 - 26 = 137/100 Progress
Livestock Breeding, 2 dice: 87 + 81 - 6 = 162/50 Progress
Crop and Livestock Distribution: 63 + 15 + 97 - 9 = 166/100 Progress
Adult Literacy Campaigns (Stage 2): 77 - 13 = 64; 64 + 145 = 209/200 Progress
Civil Service Academy: 81 + 77 - 26 = 132/100 Progress
Fortification Improvements: 3 + 28 + 36 + 48 - 52 = 63/200 Progress
Recruit Downtimers To Bureaucracy: 83, 99; Quality Dice (presumably)
Hmm, if I've done this right, then some good things completed, though our Industrialization progress can best be described as "nonexistent." Also would have really liked the fortification improvement rolls to go better given that I'm pretty sure that needs a bunch of labor from the rurals so we may not be able to get much done there until next year.
But Downtimers in Bureaucracy rolling so high can only be good, and quite a bit of other stuff did complete despite our -13 per die penalty. And hopefully Civil Service completing plus that high roll means that penalty's gonna go down some.
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Yeah, the "No Bureaucracy" malus decreased to -7. Also, how do you make colored text? Thank you.
I decided to roll for coal in other nations as well, with a dice below 25 meaning said deposit is useless and above 75 meaning that limited open pit mining is possible. The ones in your territory got a 4 and a 32, so you're going to have a fun time doing shaft mining for lignite. Crete got another open pit mine in addition to the Megalopolis one though, this time on the island itself.
Chimeraguard
We do deserve to exist.
I just highlight the text I want a different color and change the Text color.
Also, blegh. We're kinda screwed when it comes to coal. Hmm, in general I think we want to make nice with the Dual Kingdom at some point and focus on New Arizona/USA(Athens) instead of constantly fearing a two-front war. May need to up that in importance if we can get cheap coal from trade, though being completely reliant on them for coal is gonna be "Hell No" from an internal political standpoint.
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Next to B and I there should be three vertical dots, clicking that opens a menu which includes a color pallet.
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Well that sucks.
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comrades i don't understand what your so sad about, having poor coal mines simply means that we'll have more coal miners, which means that we have coal unions! black lung, brown coal, and blue jeans is how we build communism!
apropos of nothing, do you think we could get artificial indigo in our chemical tech tree?
apropos of nothing, do you think we could get artificial indigo in our chemical tech tree?
Well a navy just shot up in importance, it was already high on my list so we could start looting Tucson but if we have shit native coal supplies then securing imports just became an absolutely critical strategic objective. At least we have a trickle to keep us on life support but one low accessibility mine is not going to extract enough mineral energy to give us the edge we need.
Attempts to increase agricultural energy production and efficiency going well at least, but there's still just no substitute for millions of years of fossil energy. We need to focus on securing a trade fleet to import coal and a navy to protect them, and soon before we deforest ourselves out of the wood needed for shipbuilding.
Attempts to increase agricultural energy production and efficiency going well at least, but there's still just no substitute for millions of years of fossil energy. We need to focus on securing a trade fleet to import coal and a navy to protect them, and soon before we deforest ourselves out of the wood needed for shipbuilding.
Chimeraguard
We do deserve to exist.
On that note, do you think it'd be worth just not doing the Canal for a turn and just eating the -5 PS? It's likely to tie up 2-3 dice if we want to try and dodge the penalty, and that's dice that could be put on ports.
Though we might need that PS if we want to try something like negotiating a coal import deal with Crete.
Though we might need that PS if we want to try something like negotiating a coal import deal with Crete.
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Honestly I think making sure that we don't spend PS if we don't need to is a good policy, but could be convinced otherwise if there's a need.
And yeah, do you people think not having Crete be hostile is possible? A major part of me thinks it isn't but I could be wrong.
And yeah, do you people think not having Crete be hostile is possible? A major part of me thinks it isn't but I could be wrong.
Chimeraguard
We do deserve to exist.
In canon I believe that Crete's focus turned pretty far away from Greece when it stopped being a walkover, so it should be possible assuming that hasn't radically changed. I don't think Wilson would turn down the opportunity to have one less potential enemy/front to have to worry about.
You will have the ability to make artificial dyes at some point, assuming the country still exists by then. Mauvine will probably be the first one since it's so easy to make (although you've apparently been sent back before Tyrian Purple was a thing, so the color isn't yet associated with royalty) and indigo seems harder to make than a decent amount of other dyes so it might not be the first artificial dye produced.
Also, on the topic of chemistry, from what I've read it seems like sulfur mustard, Lewisite, phosgene, and a decent amount of tear/choking agents (ie xylyl bromide and chloroacetone) might be easier to mass produce than gas masks. So that could be fun.
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I don't want to bank on Canon too heavily but yeah, Crete is generally very opprunitistic with who it fights, hence why it's invading Sicily at the moment.
Turn 1 (10 AE First Third): Progress Is A Historical Inevitability Results
Turn 1 (10AE First Third): Progress Is A Historical Inevitability Results
175 + 5 = 180 Resources Per Turn, 150 in storage
Political Support 50 - 5 + 5 + 5 = 55
Derveni-Zapantis Canal: A navigable canal to connect the Gulf of Corinth to the city of Mycenae and the Aegean as a whole will massively decrease the difficulty of transporting goods to our capital. Work has begun on a series of locks, reservoirs, and pumps to enable the movement of small barges between the Derveni and Zapantis rivers, but this requires a vertical climb of close to a hundred meters. However, even with its massive cost, it must be worth it for the Cretans to have built a similar canal. (10 Resources per dice (255+56=311/1200), loss of political support if less than 50 progress/turn) (Makes most other projects cheaper) (+25 Political Support on completion)
Work has continued on the canal at a steady pace. Yet more earth is dug up to make room for the canal, and several more gates for locks are constructed. The recent discovery of coal deposits near the canal means that steam engines are now a viable option for pumping water uphill instead of wind and livestock, possibly changing the design.
Mycenae Water and Sewage (Stage 1): The sanitation conditions in Mycenae are not great. While a lack of resources and disorganized city layout means that running water at every house will be decades away, we can at least make a basic network of water pipes and sewers going to the most important buildings, and set up public water pumps and toilets throughout the city. (10 resources per dice (66/80)) (+5 Political Support on completion)
The actual sewers and water pipes have been laid out by now, although the network is extremely sparse due to the limited availability of copper for pressurized pipes. Water is taken in through wells upstream of the city, which will hopefully be cleaner than river water, and sewage will be discharged into the Derveni river downstream of the city. All that remains now is to construct the planned public fountains and toilets.
Coal Prospecting: While the largest lignite deposit in the Peloponnese is under Cretan control, a few peasants have reported finding small amounts of flammable rocks when asked. We should see if any of these deposits are large enough to exploit. (5 resources per dice (41/30)) (Complete) (Unlocks many more projects if successful)
While many of the peasants who reported flammable rocks had not in fact found any coal, and most of the coal that was found was in deposits too small or buried too deep to practically exploit, one potentially viable deposit has been found. It lies fairly close to Mycenae and is in fact right along the Zapantis river, but the good news ends there. Like nearly all coal in Greece, it is lignite, the lowest grade of coal, and unlike the Megalopolis coal field just a few kilometers south of your border with the Dual Kingdom most of it is too deep for open pit mining. While in the world before the Event shaft mining for lignite was hardly heard of due to the availability of alternatives, it will have to make due for now. (Unlocks Kópos Coal Mine (Stage 1), Steam Engine Workshop, Lime and Brick Kilns)
Iron Production Experiments: We have disappointingly little access to Tucson and its massive amounts of steel scrap, so the production of large quantities of iron and steel is a high priority for us. While we are a long way off from being able to make it on a truly industrial scale, we can at least try to set up something larger scale than the few blacksmiths we currently have. This would involve making a small blast furnace to make pig iron, as well as a puddling furnace to try and make some wrought iron. (10 Resources per dice (40/50))
The quest to make iron on a larger scale has progressed fairly well. A functional, if small, blast furnace and puddling forge have been built. However, as we have still been unable to make functioning steam hammers, and the blooms produced by the puddling forge are too large to hammer into wrought iron by hand, it is still incomplete.
Machine Tools: Our machining capability is massively limited, and will be for the foreseeable future. However, we can at least make more tools such as lathes and trip hammers, even if they need constant maintenance and have horrible precision. (15 Resources per dice (0/100)) (+5 Political Support on completion)
Very little progress has been made in this area in the past four months. While the original lathe owned by Billy Rhodes before the Event and a few made after it have been run using hydroelectric power, the massive bottleneck on electricity production caused by the difficulties in making insulated wires means that all future machinery must be ran via mechanical means. While many designs and prototypes for running lathes and other machinery via belts driven by a waterwheel have been worked on, so far they have had extreme problems with breakdowns and inconsistent speeds. A few smaller, manually operated trip hammers have been made, but the attempts at building larger steam hammers have also been plagued with issues. However, all of these problems coming to light should at least help future efforts.
Hand Tool Production: Setting up workshops additional to make hand tools will be a massive help to work in mining, construction, and many other industries. This includes not only tools such as hammers, picks, and saws, but also measuring instruments such as rulers and calipers. (10 resources per dice (0/50))
With most of the engineers and other skilled personnel at your disposal having spent all of their time working on other projects, efforts at expanding hand tool production have been mostly fruitless. With most merchants being unwilling to trade with you, tin for making bronze is unavailable, and a few of the Mycenaean blacksmiths who were not working on other projects actually slipped away on a merchant ship hailing from the Terramare peoples in northern Italy, apparently upset by what they viewed as oppression of their religion. While none of these are too harmful, they have still made it so you aren't much better off in this area than you were at the start of the year.
Mills (Stage 1): Anywhere with a decently sized stream can be home to mills for grinding grain, cutting wood, and more. This will decrease the cost and increase the quality of goods such as flour and lumber, and free up large amounts of labor. (5 resources per dice (30/100))
While many waterwheels have been set up, actually using the power from them is a more complicated business. The efforts to set up mills for grinding grain have been fairly successful, but sawmills have seen nearly zero results. The lack of tin imports and issues with iron production have made the production of sawblades and other critical components nearly impossible, and those that could be made have had constant issues with reliability and accuracy.
Waste Collection Systems: The cities and towns of the Republic are very unsanitary. Setting up municipal garbage collection services will be a huge benefit to public health, as well as give us large amounts of feedstock for the production of saltpeter and fertilizer. (5 Resources per dice (137/100)) (Complete)
In every major town, a system of garbage bins collected at regular intervals have been set up. Facilities for composting and saltpeter production have also been rapidly built. While it may not be as flashy as cannons or steam engines, this has provided us with an increased supply of critical raw materials, will decrease disease, and has generally made the cities of the Republic much more pleasant to be in.
Livestock Breeding: Only a few uptime sheep, cows, pigs, and horses escaped Tucson, and we only have access to crossbreeds between them and downtime livestock. However, even crossbreeds are usually much more useful than downtime breeds, so breeding as many of them as possible is a high priority. Some effort will also be devoted towards selective breeding aimed at making breeds more similar to uptime ones. (5 Resources per dice (162/50)) (Complete) (-5 Political Support)
While many other projects lagged behind, this has done much better than planned. This was not only because of competence in the hands of the workers involved, but also your decision to commit large amounts of resources to this project. While you have secured facilities and feed for maintaining hundreds of cows, horses, and pigs and over seven thousand chickens, this may be overkill considering the small number of animals in the Republic that are even partially descended from uptime stock. The decision to build a zoo has come under even more criticism, as some view it as your personal pet project borne out of a near obsession with the capybaras you managed to bring with you from the Reid Park Zoo. However, it is still useful, and many peasants have brought in animals for breeding with those of uptime stock.
Crop and Livestock Distribution: Uptime crops are far more productive than downtime ones, even accounting for the fact that hybrid and pesticide-resistant strains are no longer viable or useful. Chickens are also useful in converting scraps of food, insects, et cetera into protein- and vitamin-rich eggs. Distributing these will increase agricultural output, as well as population health and happiness. (5 Resources per dice (166/100)) (Complete)
Even with several years of work on increasing the number of seeds of uptime crops, as well as raising chickens, there are still not enough to give everyone access to them yet. However, for many crops, enough seeds are now available to start mass distribution. Uptime cultivars of crops such as wheat, barley, and lentils often yield twice as much as downtime variants, even when limited to non-hybrid cultivars and with no fertilizers or pesticides. More interesting are entirely new crops. Maize, potatoes, amaranth, and sorghum are the largest in terms of the number of plants expected to be grown this year, although due to unfamiliarity with these crops most of the farmers who are growing them are only doing so in small amounts. For legumes, soy is being given to peasants in areas with reliable irrigation, while cowpeas are distributed in more arid areas. Alfalfa is also given out to a few farmers for use as a fodder crop. While several thousand chickens are given out, a majority of those are given to city residents, although some villages end up with a few. For non-staple crops, tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers are distributed on a smaller scale. While these crops will probably make up less than a percent of the total agricultural output of the Republic this year, this will enable them to spread on a far larger scale in the future.
Adult Literacy Campaigns (Stage 2): Most adults in urban areas still do not know how to read, write, or use Arabic numerals. We must continue the struggle against ignorance in all of its forms, with even more classes on basic literacy being started, now with free meals provided at the end of lessons to encourage attendance. (5 Resources per dice (145+64=209/200)) (Stage 3 and Libraries unlocked and +5 Political Support upon completion) (Complete) (+5 PS) (Stage 3 9/250)
Over five thousand people have now been recorded as having achieved a basic standard of literacy. This may be less than a twentieth of the population, but it's still a massive leap forwards from where you were before. Even though these programs only teach the basics of reading, writing, and counting using Arabic numerals, those who have completed them are far more useful than illiterate workers.
Civil Service Academy: With the priests finally out of the way, we can finally make progress on constructing a secular bureaucracy. A school will be set up in Mycenae to teach politically reliable, literate downtimers accounting and management techniques, allowing for us to replace many of the low-level bureaucrats which were swept away by the people's wrath. (5 Resources per dice (132/100)) (+5 Political Support on completion) (Complete) (+5 PS)
Given the availability of workers with basic literacy, it was only a matter of time until more advanced education would come into place. Around twenty people, mostly Americans with experience in relevant fields and former administrators whose loyalty can be trusted, are now tasked with teaching prospective bureaucrats basic arithmetic, accounting principles, and other skills needed for tasks such as tax collection. While this will take some time to pay off, even the scant education offered from this will make them far more effective at their jobs than the former priests.
Fortification Improvements: While a complete restructuring of the walls of cities like Mycenae and Tiryns is far too expensive to consider right now, we can at least improve them somewhat. Gates will be strengthened, and angular bastions made of brick and rammed earth can reduce the number of dead zones by the walls. (5 Resources per dice (63/200))
Significant progress has been made on making Mycenae and Tiryns more defensible, if not as much as you would like. Most of the planned bastions are at least starting to be built, but shortages in bricks and especially lime (needed for both mortar and as an additive to rammed earth for increased durability) have constrained the amount of work that can be done. One bastion that was nearly complete will also need significant repairs due to damage from uneven settlement. Still, assuming no one attacks this campaign season, the planned improvements will be completed before any invasion at the current pace of construction.
Recruit Downtimers To Bureaucracy: Even if they don't have much of a formal education, there are thousands of intelligent, motivated, and literate downtimers in the Republic. These people are capable of doing lower-level administrative work, and will learn more with time. Having more of them in our government will also bring us closer to a true people's democracy. (5 Resources per dice) (Larger effect the more dice are spent) (Decreases malus from No Administration) (154, malus from No Administration decreased to -7)
Several hundred graduates of the recent literacy programs, as well as smaller numbers of former nobles and priests who arrived as refugees from other states, have been given jobs in areas such as tax collection and supervising the production of goods. While their political reliability is often suspect, both the urgent need for administrators and the leniency of other members of the government have left you with no other option but to accept them.
Note: If anyone feels like writing an omake, I've decided that a cannon omake can be used to give a +15 bonus to a dice from most categories (some stuff, like the rolls for coal deposits, can't have omakes used on them), and non-cannon omakes will give a +10 bonus. This would be useful if a project ends up very close to completion to avoid needing to use another die.
175 + 5 = 180 Resources Per Turn, 150 in storage
Political Support 50 - 5 + 5 + 5 = 55
Derveni-Zapantis Canal: A navigable canal to connect the Gulf of Corinth to the city of Mycenae and the Aegean as a whole will massively decrease the difficulty of transporting goods to our capital. Work has begun on a series of locks, reservoirs, and pumps to enable the movement of small barges between the Derveni and Zapantis rivers, but this requires a vertical climb of close to a hundred meters. However, even with its massive cost, it must be worth it for the Cretans to have built a similar canal. (10 Resources per dice (255+56=311/1200), loss of political support if less than 50 progress/turn) (Makes most other projects cheaper) (+25 Political Support on completion)
Work has continued on the canal at a steady pace. Yet more earth is dug up to make room for the canal, and several more gates for locks are constructed. The recent discovery of coal deposits near the canal means that steam engines are now a viable option for pumping water uphill instead of wind and livestock, possibly changing the design.
Mycenae Water and Sewage (Stage 1): The sanitation conditions in Mycenae are not great. While a lack of resources and disorganized city layout means that running water at every house will be decades away, we can at least make a basic network of water pipes and sewers going to the most important buildings, and set up public water pumps and toilets throughout the city. (10 resources per dice (66/80)) (+5 Political Support on completion)
The actual sewers and water pipes have been laid out by now, although the network is extremely sparse due to the limited availability of copper for pressurized pipes. Water is taken in through wells upstream of the city, which will hopefully be cleaner than river water, and sewage will be discharged into the Derveni river downstream of the city. All that remains now is to construct the planned public fountains and toilets.
Coal Prospecting: While the largest lignite deposit in the Peloponnese is under Cretan control, a few peasants have reported finding small amounts of flammable rocks when asked. We should see if any of these deposits are large enough to exploit. (5 resources per dice (41/30)) (Complete) (Unlocks many more projects if successful)
While many of the peasants who reported flammable rocks had not in fact found any coal, and most of the coal that was found was in deposits too small or buried too deep to practically exploit, one potentially viable deposit has been found. It lies fairly close to Mycenae and is in fact right along the Zapantis river, but the good news ends there. Like nearly all coal in Greece, it is lignite, the lowest grade of coal, and unlike the Megalopolis coal field just a few kilometers south of your border with the Dual Kingdom most of it is too deep for open pit mining. While in the world before the Event shaft mining for lignite was hardly heard of due to the availability of alternatives, it will have to make due for now. (Unlocks Kópos Coal Mine (Stage 1), Steam Engine Workshop, Lime and Brick Kilns)
Iron Production Experiments: We have disappointingly little access to Tucson and its massive amounts of steel scrap, so the production of large quantities of iron and steel is a high priority for us. While we are a long way off from being able to make it on a truly industrial scale, we can at least try to set up something larger scale than the few blacksmiths we currently have. This would involve making a small blast furnace to make pig iron, as well as a puddling furnace to try and make some wrought iron. (10 Resources per dice (40/50))
The quest to make iron on a larger scale has progressed fairly well. A functional, if small, blast furnace and puddling forge have been built. However, as we have still been unable to make functioning steam hammers, and the blooms produced by the puddling forge are too large to hammer into wrought iron by hand, it is still incomplete.
Machine Tools: Our machining capability is massively limited, and will be for the foreseeable future. However, we can at least make more tools such as lathes and trip hammers, even if they need constant maintenance and have horrible precision. (15 Resources per dice (0/100)) (+5 Political Support on completion)
Very little progress has been made in this area in the past four months. While the original lathe owned by Billy Rhodes before the Event and a few made after it have been run using hydroelectric power, the massive bottleneck on electricity production caused by the difficulties in making insulated wires means that all future machinery must be ran via mechanical means. While many designs and prototypes for running lathes and other machinery via belts driven by a waterwheel have been worked on, so far they have had extreme problems with breakdowns and inconsistent speeds. A few smaller, manually operated trip hammers have been made, but the attempts at building larger steam hammers have also been plagued with issues. However, all of these problems coming to light should at least help future efforts.
Hand Tool Production: Setting up workshops additional to make hand tools will be a massive help to work in mining, construction, and many other industries. This includes not only tools such as hammers, picks, and saws, but also measuring instruments such as rulers and calipers. (10 resources per dice (0/50))
With most of the engineers and other skilled personnel at your disposal having spent all of their time working on other projects, efforts at expanding hand tool production have been mostly fruitless. With most merchants being unwilling to trade with you, tin for making bronze is unavailable, and a few of the Mycenaean blacksmiths who were not working on other projects actually slipped away on a merchant ship hailing from the Terramare peoples in northern Italy, apparently upset by what they viewed as oppression of their religion. While none of these are too harmful, they have still made it so you aren't much better off in this area than you were at the start of the year.
Mills (Stage 1): Anywhere with a decently sized stream can be home to mills for grinding grain, cutting wood, and more. This will decrease the cost and increase the quality of goods such as flour and lumber, and free up large amounts of labor. (5 resources per dice (30/100))
While many waterwheels have been set up, actually using the power from them is a more complicated business. The efforts to set up mills for grinding grain have been fairly successful, but sawmills have seen nearly zero results. The lack of tin imports and issues with iron production have made the production of sawblades and other critical components nearly impossible, and those that could be made have had constant issues with reliability and accuracy.
Issues in construction have led not only to delays but multiple catastrophic failures of equiptment, one case resulting in the collapse of a dam that nearly flooded a village and another causing a flying sawblade to amputate the arm of a worker, leading to his death from sepsis five days later. (Classified message for MoED headquarters, destroyed after reciept)
Waste Collection Systems: The cities and towns of the Republic are very unsanitary. Setting up municipal garbage collection services will be a huge benefit to public health, as well as give us large amounts of feedstock for the production of saltpeter and fertilizer. (5 Resources per dice (137/100)) (Complete)
In every major town, a system of garbage bins collected at regular intervals have been set up. Facilities for composting and saltpeter production have also been rapidly built. While it may not be as flashy as cannons or steam engines, this has provided us with an increased supply of critical raw materials, will decrease disease, and has generally made the cities of the Republic much more pleasant to be in.
Livestock Breeding: Only a few uptime sheep, cows, pigs, and horses escaped Tucson, and we only have access to crossbreeds between them and downtime livestock. However, even crossbreeds are usually much more useful than downtime breeds, so breeding as many of them as possible is a high priority. Some effort will also be devoted towards selective breeding aimed at making breeds more similar to uptime ones. (5 Resources per dice (162/50)) (Complete) (-5 Political Support)
While many other projects lagged behind, this has done much better than planned. This was not only because of competence in the hands of the workers involved, but also your decision to commit large amounts of resources to this project. While you have secured facilities and feed for maintaining hundreds of cows, horses, and pigs and over seven thousand chickens, this may be overkill considering the small number of animals in the Republic that are even partially descended from uptime stock. The decision to build a zoo has come under even more criticism, as some view it as your personal pet project borne out of a near obsession with the capybaras you managed to bring with you from the Reid Park Zoo. However, it is still useful, and many peasants have brought in animals for breeding with those of uptime stock.
Crop and Livestock Distribution: Uptime crops are far more productive than downtime ones, even accounting for the fact that hybrid and pesticide-resistant strains are no longer viable or useful. Chickens are also useful in converting scraps of food, insects, et cetera into protein- and vitamin-rich eggs. Distributing these will increase agricultural output, as well as population health and happiness. (5 Resources per dice (166/100)) (Complete)
Even with several years of work on increasing the number of seeds of uptime crops, as well as raising chickens, there are still not enough to give everyone access to them yet. However, for many crops, enough seeds are now available to start mass distribution. Uptime cultivars of crops such as wheat, barley, and lentils often yield twice as much as downtime variants, even when limited to non-hybrid cultivars and with no fertilizers or pesticides. More interesting are entirely new crops. Maize, potatoes, amaranth, and sorghum are the largest in terms of the number of plants expected to be grown this year, although due to unfamiliarity with these crops most of the farmers who are growing them are only doing so in small amounts. For legumes, soy is being given to peasants in areas with reliable irrigation, while cowpeas are distributed in more arid areas. Alfalfa is also given out to a few farmers for use as a fodder crop. While several thousand chickens are given out, a majority of those are given to city residents, although some villages end up with a few. For non-staple crops, tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers are distributed on a smaller scale. While these crops will probably make up less than a percent of the total agricultural output of the Republic this year, this will enable them to spread on a far larger scale in the future.
People's opinions on "chili peppers" are nearly as divided as their opinions on the Americans as a whole. Some people love them, while others are utterly disgusted and have no idea why anyone would eat such a thing. - Plouteus son of Hektor, villager.
Adult Literacy Campaigns (Stage 2): Most adults in urban areas still do not know how to read, write, or use Arabic numerals. We must continue the struggle against ignorance in all of its forms, with even more classes on basic literacy being started, now with free meals provided at the end of lessons to encourage attendance. (5 Resources per dice (145+64=209/200)) (Stage 3 and Libraries unlocked and +5 Political Support upon completion) (Complete) (+5 PS) (Stage 3 9/250)
Over five thousand people have now been recorded as having achieved a basic standard of literacy. This may be less than a twentieth of the population, but it's still a massive leap forwards from where you were before. Even though these programs only teach the basics of reading, writing, and counting using Arabic numerals, those who have completed them are far more useful than illiterate workers.
I may not like everything they've done, but before the Americans came I would never have thought anyone but priests would be able to read. Even if I had wanted to learn, who would teach someone like me? But now that I've learned how, I know just how useful it is to be able to reference a pamphlet on better tanning methods or keep a written inventory of materials. - Citizen Ekhinos, leatherworker
Civil Service Academy: With the priests finally out of the way, we can finally make progress on constructing a secular bureaucracy. A school will be set up in Mycenae to teach politically reliable, literate downtimers accounting and management techniques, allowing for us to replace many of the low-level bureaucrats which were swept away by the people's wrath. (5 Resources per dice (132/100)) (+5 Political Support on completion) (Complete) (+5 PS)
Given the availability of workers with basic literacy, it was only a matter of time until more advanced education would come into place. Around twenty people, mostly Americans with experience in relevant fields and former administrators whose loyalty can be trusted, are now tasked with teaching prospective bureaucrats basic arithmetic, accounting principles, and other skills needed for tasks such as tax collection. While this will take some time to pay off, even the scant education offered from this will make them far more effective at their jobs than the former priests.
Fortification Improvements: While a complete restructuring of the walls of cities like Mycenae and Tiryns is far too expensive to consider right now, we can at least improve them somewhat. Gates will be strengthened, and angular bastions made of brick and rammed earth can reduce the number of dead zones by the walls. (5 Resources per dice (63/200))
Significant progress has been made on making Mycenae and Tiryns more defensible, if not as much as you would like. Most of the planned bastions are at least starting to be built, but shortages in bricks and especially lime (needed for both mortar and as an additive to rammed earth for increased durability) have constrained the amount of work that can be done. One bastion that was nearly complete will also need significant repairs due to damage from uneven settlement. Still, assuming no one attacks this campaign season, the planned improvements will be completed before any invasion at the current pace of construction.
Recruit Downtimers To Bureaucracy: Even if they don't have much of a formal education, there are thousands of intelligent, motivated, and literate downtimers in the Republic. These people are capable of doing lower-level administrative work, and will learn more with time. Having more of them in our government will also bring us closer to a true people's democracy. (5 Resources per dice) (Larger effect the more dice are spent) (Decreases malus from No Administration) (154, malus from No Administration decreased to -7)
Several hundred graduates of the recent literacy programs, as well as smaller numbers of former nobles and priests who arrived as refugees from other states, have been given jobs in areas such as tax collection and supervising the production of goods. While their political reliability is often suspect, both the urgent need for administrators and the leniency of other members of the government have left you with no other option but to accept them.
I had spent my whole life being ordered around by Nikostratos before the Revolution, but now I am the one who gets to berate him for quarrying limestone too slowly. Truly, nothing is more desirable than the global liberation of the working class. - Citizen Akhilleus, former slave
Note: If anyone feels like writing an omake, I've decided that a cannon omake can be used to give a +15 bonus to a dice from most categories (some stuff, like the rolls for coal deposits, can't have omakes used on them), and non-cannon omakes will give a +10 bonus. This would be useful if a project ends up very close to completion to avoid needing to use another die.
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Chimeraguard
We do deserve to exist.
Hmm, I think the post is missing the Crop and Livestock Distribution results.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I was wondering if the Capybaras would ever come up.
Yeah that seems an understandable reaction. On the one hand we clearly engaged in some massive personal bias that didn't go unnoticed. On the other, well this seems like a sturdy operation, and we got a zoo out of it.
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Well I know what I'm doing tomorrow.
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socialism is being one step closer to reality comrades
