Chronicles of Nations - Civ Quest

[ctulhuslp]

lol

> enemy uses strategy and diplomacy while player civ, hrmmm

Diplomatic Relations
Your opinion/Their opinion/Frequency of Contact
Boarfolk Nomads = Disliked/Unknown/Minimal
Caradysh = Ultimate Evil/Annoyed/None
Lowlander Tribes = Servants of Evil/Indifferent/War
Barbarian Maradysh = Evil-Serving Traitors/Hatred/War

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...literally hates everyone not their vassal
> cue grumbling about OP enemies who....use diplomacy and subterfuge against us - enemy who is allergic to those, apparently?


We got outplayed by somebody who knows how to plan ahead, diplomance and have a backup plan. It happens. It should happen in any good game - being bad at diplo being punished by someone out-diploing us is exceedingly fair.
Like, a good start would be to use diplomacy more often to actually be capable of getting an early warning about such things and/or getting allies.

Ideally, we might have couple of option here.
1. Lean on gods/goddesses. @Oshha , Divine Magic lists "Detect Undead". Can we use it on wider scale or develop some sort of "Harm Undead"?
2. Look for allies. A fun option would be to bribe nomads with promise of riches and let them into lowlands (PoC veterans have seen it coming).
3. Peace out. Way worse negotiating position than Urth came with peace offering, but we are on the backfoot here and have no certainty of victory. At least a ceasefire while we grind anti-undead spells and make friends would be great.

However, war is still going on without any pause and we have crisis looming (they always do that).

Still, if Urth have other stuff going on, she probably will be ok with a peace. So, my idea is such:
1. Now, try to peace out. Agree to some concessions cause she has shown she has leverage enough to extract those.
2. Grind diplomacy to a) get info on what "other fires" Urth has and try to exploit them; b) get allies or at least nomad tribes willing to go pillage lowlands for us; c) establish at least a shot at early warning of diplomancery against us.
3. Try to grind anti-undead magic or divine stuff against those.


Additionally, if we want to exact more control over vassal, we probably want to settle towards them to intermingle more.
However, we don't really have "peace out" button, so...

[X] [SEC] Settle Land = Greenbay
[X] [SEC] Trade Expedition = Boarfolk Nomads

 

[Lukepop]

> Everyone except the Arthwyd Maradysh and the Boarfolk are currently trying to kill you.
> Why don't you diplomacy more SV?

 

[Marlin]

"Urth needed time so he came up with a plan that would buy him time." That's not the nasty QM making you fail everything you do, that's NPCs actually having a level of competence.

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Is it really competence if the npc can't screw up with god holding their hand? Even real world geniuses can fail to succeed a plan they prepared due to a mistake they made themself. The timeline is pointing in a direction where Urth made every 'perfect' action possible to exploit the arthwyd to Urth's whim, and would continue to do so if we were 'friends'.

 

[Random Member]

> Everyone except the Arthwyd Maradysh and the Boarfolk are currently trying to kill you.
> Why don't you diplomacy more SV?

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Oh please, "they attacked us" is literally another Tuesday in this era. If you don't diplo them, how can you ever expect to turn them into friends?

Then again, SV doesn't have friends, only subjects and enemies, so....

 

[10ebbor10]

We got outplayed by somebody who knows how to plan ahead, diplomance and have a backup plan. It happens. It should happen in any good game - being bad at diplo being punished by someone out-diploing us is exceedingly fair.

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Except that's not what happened. Over the last bunch of turns, we've engaged in constant diplomacy with the Maradysh. It's basically all we've done in the midturns, with the sole exception of having to do the Temple thing .

Urth however, needs only a single turn to cause a major revolution.

 

[Star]

2. Look for allies. A fun option would be to bribe nomads with promise of riches and let them into lowlands (PoC veterans have seen it coming).

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Expect that Urth has diplo hero and we are richest civ around, richer than him at least.
So i don't see a reason for nomads not to team up with him and attack us for lot drawing us in yet another war.

 

[Lukepop]

Oh please, "they attacked us" is literally another Tuesday in this era. If you don't diplo them, how can you ever expect to turn them into friends?

Then again, SV doesn't have friends, only subjects and enemies, so....

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Hey now... Merntir were our friends. We diplo'ed them, and turned them into friends. Also that is a good idea honestly, but extremely unlikely given the Diplo Hero kicking around in the Urth gang, and our lack in said department.

 

[Random Member]

Except that's not what happened. Over the last bunch of turns, we've engaged in constant diplomacy with the Maradysh. It's basically all we've done, with the sole exception of having to do the Temple thing .

Urth however, needs only a single turn to cause a major revolution.

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You mean the on-off-on Personal Union which wasn't really working that well because of some conflicting Values? That "diplomacy"?

 

[Star]

You mean the on-off-on Personal Union which wasn't really working that well because of some conflicting Values? That "diplomacy"?

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You mean a personal union on wich we spended bunch of action's, even had a hero solify it only for it to be destroyed by personification of devil wich ruled Maradysh before and them teaming up with Lowlanders wich they hated just couple turns ago despite conflicting values.

 

[ctulhuslp]

Except that's not what happened. Over the last bunch of turns, we've engaged in constant diplomacy with the Maradysh. It's basically all we've done, with the sole exception of having to do the Temple thing .

Urth however, needs only a single turn to cause a major revolution.

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We didn't, not really.
Well, we did some midturn decisions with diplo in mind to be fair. But we didn't really do proper diplomacy, just tried to keep PU from exploding.
Which is why vassalage is a double-edged sword btw - its an action black hole quite often. You either invest enough diplo (actual diplo and not putting out fires) or, well, this happens.

Expect that Urth has diplo hero and we are richest civ around, richer than him at least.
So i don't see a reason for nomads not to team up with him and attack us for lot drawing us in yet another war.

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That's actually a good reason to talk to them first, before Urth buys some tribe or other into attacking us. Thanks for reminding me.

Us being rich also mean we can pay them btw.

 

[Star]

That's actually a good reason to talk to them first, before Urth buys some tribe or other into attacking us. Thanks for reminding me.

Us being rich also mean we can pay them btw.

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Yes we can pay tribute not to be attacked by them, and there is also the fact that his diplo hero daughter can simply turn them against us, she did it with Maradysh who are far closer to us.

 

[10ebbor10]

We didn't, not really.
Well, we did some midturn decisions with diplo in mind to be fair. But we didn't really do proper diplomacy, just tried to keep PU from exploding.
Which is why vassalage is a double-edged sword btw - its an action black hole quite often. You either invest enough diplo (actual diplo and not putting out fires) or, well, this happens.

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We spend all the actions we could afford. I count that as attempting diplomacy.

Just because it didn't magically work in a single turn doesn't mean we didn't try.

 

[Star]

Seriously let's just ignore him. That way we won't have to deal with him.

 

[10ebbor10]

Seriously let's just ignore him. That way we won't have to deal with him.

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Ignoring him is just inviting the GM to come up with another plan to simultaneously murder/kidnap parts of the royal family.

 

[Star]

Ignoring him is just inviting the GM to come up with another plan to simultanously murder/kidnap large parts of the royal family.

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I mean what else is to do, not ignoring him is just calling for another crisis to come at us while he is working on becoming a god and pulls something like that again.

 

[10ebbor10]

I mean what else is to do, not ignoring him is just calling for another crisis to come at us while he is working on becoming a god and pulls something like that again.

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Follow the railroad, I guess.

We don't have the actions available to make meaningful independent decisions.With 2 actions and multiple fires we can only ever be reactionary.

 

[Knight Draco]

Follow the railroad, I guess.

We don't have the actions available to make meaningful independent decisions.With 2 actions and multiple fires we can only ever be reactionary.

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Our civ wont last if we are reactionary and we are literaly on thin ice, not in terms of external conflict, but internal. Why follow a railroad when it leads to hell?

Venerating the goddesses gives us divine support and might be something we need to break the crack in the cage we are as well as stablizing our nation.

If we keep attacking our martial wil be too low and an action will be needed to raise troops. Save it for now and use it in bulk the turn after when we have enough turns to compensate.

 

[Random Member]

Yes, Venerate the Gods during a crisis. Remember how that worked out before?

Though a change of leadership right now might not even be so bad....

 

[Star]

Our civ wont last if we are reactionary and we are literaly on thin ice, not in terms of external conflict, but internal. Why follow a railroad when it leads to hell?

Venerating the goddesses gives us divine support and might be something we need to break the crack in the cage we are as well as stablizing our nation.

If we keep attacking our martial wil be too low and an action will be needed to raise troops. Save it for now and use it in bulk the turn after when we have enough turns to compensate.

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Situation is such that it requires us to help Maradysh, we aren't fighting Urth here.

And i mean even goddesses follow the railroad.
Look at the last magic, it was literally designed to respond to Urth latest attack.

 

[ctulhuslp]

Yes we can pay tribute not to be attacked by them, and there is also the fact that his diplo hero daughter can simply turn them against us, she did it with Maradysh who are far closer to us.

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It won't be as simple if we are proactive diplomatically for a change. And that's assuming attention is not needed elsewhere for them.
Also, it's very old and proud tradition of sedentary civs bordering steppes to pay nomad tribes to work for them/become march/be sorta weird hereditary mercenary thing. Or at least just mercenary. So it's not like the idea is weird, it's just we are weird for never doing what most people bordering steppes did.

But really, we must be proactive diplomatically to have a shot at anything.

We spend all the actions we could afford. I count that as attempting diplomacy.

Just because it failed doesn't mean we didn't try.

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"We got the vassal we cannot afford actions to actually keep" is actually not how you attempt diplomacy. It's how you fail at it.
Like, really, how many trade missions did we send to them?

Speaking of, they are, unfortunately our vassal and thus our problem, so I guess we must send war party to their civil war or something? What a bother.

 

[Star]

It won't be as simple if we are proactive diplomatically for a change. And that's assuming attention is not needed elsewhere for them.
Also, it's very old and proud tradition of sedentary civs bordering steppes to pay nomad tribes to work for them/become march/be sorta weird hereditary mercenary thing. Or at least just mercenary. So it's not like the idea is weird, it's just we are weird for never doing what most people bordering steppes did.

But really, we must be proactive diplomatically to have a shot at anything.



"We got the vassal we cannot afford actions to actually keep" is actually not how you attempt diplomacy. It's how you fail at it.
Like, really, how many trade missions did we send to them?

Speaking of, they are, unfortunately our vassal and thus our problem, so I guess we must send war party to their civil war or something? What a bother.

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We had proactive diplomacy with Maradysh. I can already see that the moment we deal with this situation he will throw another on us.

Basically he has immortal heros that can take action automatically.

 

[ctulhuslp]

We had proactive diplomacy with Maradysh.

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We didn't do a single non-freebie action diplomatically to them, iirc?
Vassals have upkeep cost in actions. Non-formalized, but...yeah.

 

[10ebbor10]

We didn't do a single non-freebie action diplomatically to them, iirc?

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The very first action we took after defeating Urth was supporting them.

Here's the actions we took in between Urth's death and his return. Since we're discussing an alternate history, please pick which ones to replace. I will then tell you what disaster that would have caused

[X][SEC] Sunrise Mountain Passage
[X][SEC] Support Subordinate = Maradysh

Arthwyd = [SEC] Sunrise Mountain Passage, [SEC] More Farming (Hero override)

[X][SEC] Sunrise Mountain Passage
[X][SEC] Study Metal.

[X][SEC] More Farming
[X][SEC] Temple

As far as I can see, the only option suited for replacement is study metal.

 

[Random Member]

We had proactive diplomacy with Maradysh.

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Which involved insulting them and electing someone as Cadlon who they deemed unfit.... Their Loyalty to us has never really been High (Not that I can remember atleast? Atleast not very long, that's for sure), for the last few turns it was only Medium.

 

[Star]

Which involved insulting them and electing someone as Cadlon who they deemed unfit.... Their Loyalty to us has never really been High (atleast not very long), for the last few turns it was only Medium.

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All wich was fixed by Browyn through her entire life, and undone by another hero in couple of turns.