Chronicles of Nations - Civ Quest
- Thread starter Oshha
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KleverKil'Vanya
Ortillery Operator
So what I'm seeing is that the QM couldn't care less that a chunk of his players are frustrated at the fact that the AI Civs are effectively narrative heavy entities controlled by a single voter, while the Player run Civ is a Lightly narrative entity hamstrung by demagogue style voting and having to guess at what questions will get the magic QM 8 Ball to tell us what we need to know to make informed decisions.
- Location
- Titan
There doesn't seem to be any carrot to this stick. Hard pass from me.
How do you know that what you think is true as opposed to the fog of war and being salty about it because you lose?
- Location
- Southampton, Great Britain
- Pronouns
- He/Him
No. I am fed up with people looking for a handout instead of looking for solutions to their problems.
KleverKil'Vanya
Ortillery Operator
The options you handed us were
A) IC response of hell no to the Prime Evil.
and
B) OOC response of give up and let the Prime Evil into our society.
The narrative of B only works if the civ's cultural identity and all previous characterizations are thrown out.
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The big problem is that every complaint is pretty much dismissed as good chunk of players not being able to take a loss.
Basically this
But posts about obvious difference in narrative between us and Urth are literally ignored and not answered.
Basically we are told that Urth is getting his bonuses due to building wide but where are our bonuses.
We literally are now forced to take the drawback of building tall while not getting any narrative bonuses from it.
About defeating Urth, that is not literall problem here, problem is unfairness in the process.
Good example is the the reason why you don't want goddesses to intervene, basically you don't wish to give player's advantages while at the same time throwing them narratively at Urth.
Narrative magically working when Arthwyd need to blame their leadership for war trumping our values.
Basically this
But posts about obvious difference in narrative between us and Urth are literally ignored and not answered.
Basically we are told that Urth is getting his bonuses due to building wide but where are our bonuses.
We literally are now forced to take the drawback of building tall while not getting any narrative bonuses from it.
About defeating Urth, that is not literall problem here, problem is unfairness in the process.
Good example is the the reason why you don't want goddesses to intervene, basically you don't wish to give player's advantages while at the same time throwing them narratively at Urth.
Narrative magically working when Arthwyd need to blame their leadership for war trumping our values.
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- Location
- Southampton, Great Britain
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Or you could have considered that maybe instead of being zealously devoted to destroying a terrifying evil and are willingly to go to any lengths to that. Perhaps you could have instead considered that your People are both weary of the war has been going on for generations with nothing to show and are terrified of Urth and just want him to go away. Or that a war being ignited in their vassal as a result of the peace deal being rejected could get the emotional and irrational choice of blaming your leaders for failing to prevent it from happening.
No, you assumed one possible outcome was the only one that could happen and ignored other potential outcomes and are now getting upset that you got a different outcome to the one you were expecting.
You have bonuses. You have higher stats, better infrastructure, better wealth and quality of life in addition to having more control over your actions and having more focused and effective actions in addition to making you a harder target to attack or conquer. It gives you modifiers to your rolls and alters the range of available outcomes for you in addition to keeping your civ from culturally splintering or otherwise forming cracks in due to distance and lack of infrastructure.
What I will not be doing is coming up with a bunch clear and direct mechanical bonuses to show the players because one, that would cause mechanical bloating and two, it would be too much for me to maintain and keep track of. Both of those would result in the quest getting bogged down unnecessarily and me suffering QM burnout.
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
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The problem is communication. How were we supposed to figure any of this out, without badgering you into revealing it?
Because if I'd had to answer these questions based on the information in the narrative, I'd come up with the inverse answers.
For example :
Stats
Our generally low advanced stats (0 wealth, 0 tech, 1 Culture, 3 Diplo), as well as the fact that Urth appears to be executing his plans without any resource shortage would have led me to conclude that Urth is doing fine for stats.
Infrastructure : (There's 4 types of infrastructure)
- Econ Boosting (farms) : We've build none. So, if Urth has build any, he's ahead
- Cohesion Boosting(trails) : We've maxed trails, but Urth does not appear to have any problem coordinating his civilization despite his micromanagement, so I would assume he has the equivalent
- Mysticism boosting(Shrines and Temples) : We got shrines, but Urth is much better at magic than us, so I would have given Urth the advantage here because clearly he's getting mysticism from somewhere without much trouble.
- Defenses : Urth has both a central citadel and an outer line of defense. We only have the central citadel.
So, in 3 out 4 aspects of infrastructure I would have given the advantage to Urth.
Better Wealth
Out wealth is 0. Urth offered tribute. Based on the conclusion that we have nothing to give, and Urth has something, I would have concluded he's wealthier.
More control over actions
Urth massive multi-turn schemes and coordination would lead me to conclude he has more, not less control.
Better QoL
Does that even matter to undead? Anyway, based on lack of info, I would have assumed equal.
Better actions
Urth actions seem plenty effective, so I'd have assumed they'd be about equal.
Edit: In fact, because you explicitedly say that Urth doesn't need to produce food or drink, I would have assumed his civ is many, many times more productive. In ancient times, 90%+ of the people worked in agriculture.
Freeing up that massive labor force would be tremendous.
Anti Splintering bonus
I wasn't even aware that we needed one. We're pretty tiny, and transport infrastructure is the one thing we maxed.
That said, Urth has shown no sign of splintering despite being wide, so I wouldn't have counted this as an advantage.
Basically, you've given incomplete information and are then upset that said incomplete information results in an incorrect view of the situation.
Edit: As an example. You've said OOC that a large settlement of them is smaller than a small settlement of ours. But when we invaded them, that was nowhere to be seen in the narrative. All we were told was :
All that doesn't paint a picture of a civ with less infrastructure or lower stats or smaller settlements than us. It indicates, to me, the opposite.
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Tribute can be in the form of econ instead of wealth.
I have not seen descriptions of Urth using metal weapons or tools so he might lack the needed mines or tech for that.
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Tribute would be in Econ in this period.
We don't know that, because we actually know not alot about Urth and his civ. For all we know, she spend almost all her resources on this gamble. We don't know, we lack information. Not because the QM refuses to give it to us, but because we haven't done anything IC to earn that information.
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Players assumed outcome based on gathered information.
Basically we knew about Urth and his goals, so we naturally assumed that we must keep presure on him to keep him from achieving his goal and becoming a bigger threat (god) because of his obsession with power, we knew that something will happen to Maradysh and that is the reason players attacked to stop him from gaining even more influence over Maradysh , you yourself said that he would had used peace to foster better relationship with them and even those players calling for peace wished so to build up and attack him,but if he had fostered better relationship we wouldn't had Maradysh civil war but Maradysh rebellion.
If we had done what you expected and gone with peace when time comes for us to ultimately attack again we would had been faced with far greater backlash in form of Maradysh rebellion, our people blaming us even more for breaking peace while Urth on second hand would had been closer to his goal.
About Arthwyd blaming their leadership, that was unplanned and sudden because player base counted on value that stopped that from happening and all of requirements for that value were met, but suddenly that value stopped working.
Basically player decision was based on information we knew and war in long shot was better decision than temporary peace wich would had given Urth more time to consolidate.
Only way i could see a peace working was if we accepted Caradysh being our vassals but that would mean that we and Urth are allies and that we are basically supporting him in becoming a god and won't attack him.
Wich from the looks of it player base didn't want.
As you see our problems isn't with what happened, only thing that isn't predicted is Arthwyd blaming their leadership , i even expected Maradysh rebellion.
Problem is the feeling that Urth is able to pull things without consequences.
Basically let's look at kidnapping of Cadlons body, you say Urth was almost killed but that is more Arthryns opposing roll, or this rebellion, you said he needed multiple actions to achieve it yet those actions basically mean that he wasn't able to do other things as a leader of his civ wich would mean that he should had been hit hard by some sort instability.
Then there is nature of the enemy , in civ quest you fight opposing civ but with Urth civ doesn't matter so there is nothing stopping him and his daughters from running away when they see they are losing and rebuilding, later becoming a headache down the road.
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10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
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Econ as tribute would be weird. Econ represents primarily food, and specifically excess food that can used to feed non-food producing labor. The Caradysh neither require nor produce food.
And yeah, I don't think we've seen descriptions of Urth using metal weapons. We've also not seen any info on Urth not using metal weapons, afaik.
Sure, but we can not make conclusions based on information we lack. Assuming the enemy made a desperate gamble based on zero information is a strategy that can backfire badly.
As such, we couldn't reasonably assume that Urth had lower stats, and thus couldn't reasonably use those lowers stats in our assessment of Urth's civ, which leads to an overestimation. We can not account for weaknesses we do not know.
Edit: Based on what little info we do have (undead need no food) I would have assumed they have much better stats than us, because in this time period easily 90% of labor goes to food production and food related activities. Not having that provides a massive labor boost.
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Making conclusions based on information we lack is exactly what people have been doing though.
We know next to nothing about the Caradysh civ, and yet here people are, drawing conclusions about them and making assumptions based on incomplete data.
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We had made conclusion based on what we know more than what we don't.
And from looks of it Urth was basically spending all of his actions on infiltration and study of magic without any consequences.
It would be the same as us ignoring everything and just going for shiniest options, but us doing that would mean our civ falling apart weather we are building tall or vide.
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10ebbor10
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Sure, but the game requires that we do that. We do not have and can not have perfect information on everything. We have to come to conclusions based on incomplete information, and that'll lead to situations like this, if the evidence of a faction's strength is present, and that of it's weaknesses is not.
Keep in mind, working from incomplete info doesn't mean working from zero info. It's not pointless speculation.
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Another thing i would like to ad is narrative based as well.
Basically goddesses have narrative ability to give us champion and if not that, to predict future and warn us about threats yet you are saying that you don't wish to give player's immortal heros or other things you consider OP, yet at the same time you are perfectly willing to give Urth even more immortal hero's than he already has and let him use his narrative powers fully to the point to ascend to godhood .
Basically if you are going by logic that immortal heros are NO for us then you should deny them to Urth as well and make his daughters mortal. Or give everyone equal chance to use our narrative advantages fully.
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- Location
- PA
built tall versus built wide...
Well, 'tall' might mean we've built serious structures and whatnot that help us out. It might not seem like it because it's shrines but judging how Brys and Gwen's self-petrification turned their location into a holy site it sounds like our 'tall' is basically our Goddesses.
Meanwhile, Urth is...Basically the closest thing to a counter to them his civ has. And frankly he found out how well that works out when Evalyn caved his head in. He can't take the Goddesses.
From what I can tell, our Goddesses are generally a major beatstick in their realm-We don't hear about enemy gods getting up to shenanigans or smacking us in the face somehow-every time they've gotten to play in battle Arthwyn&her daughters seem to win.
This, I think is one of the reasons Urth is much more willing to use puppets and vassals to swing at us- He cannot match the Goddesses, but they can't intervene in physical matters, that's up to us. And being elite based we're vulnerable to attrition and he's hoping to run us down.
*sighes* I should just wait for the next update.
Well, 'tall' might mean we've built serious structures and whatnot that help us out. It might not seem like it because it's shrines but judging how Brys and Gwen's self-petrification turned their location into a holy site it sounds like our 'tall' is basically our Goddesses.
Meanwhile, Urth is...Basically the closest thing to a counter to them his civ has. And frankly he found out how well that works out when Evalyn caved his head in. He can't take the Goddesses.
From what I can tell, our Goddesses are generally a major beatstick in their realm-We don't hear about enemy gods getting up to shenanigans or smacking us in the face somehow-every time they've gotten to play in battle Arthwyn&her daughters seem to win.
This, I think is one of the reasons Urth is much more willing to use puppets and vassals to swing at us- He cannot match the Goddesses, but they can't intervene in physical matters, that's up to us. And being elite based we're vulnerable to attrition and he's hoping to run us down.
*sighes* I should just wait for the next update.
- Location
- United States
From my understanding, province actions are actions that we as players have no control over, and are chosen by our civ based on what they need (or want) at the moment.
In the middle of a war? Might decide to raise more warriors, or to try and learn new types of magic.
Feeling like the current infrastructure is a bit lacking or otherwise particularly pious? might start building some temples.
The actions they cannot take are those that we can reasonably assume would need to be ordered in by a high ranking leader of the civ (such as war missions or megaprojects).
This is how I remember them being in other quests, but Oshha might have changed them a bit in his quest so who knows. I'll edit this if I'm wrong
10ebbor10
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I disagree with this entire bit. Us not getting immortals is no different than say, not being able to utilize plentiful slave labor. Sometimes the narrative locks of certain options for certain civs.
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But what about not being able to see the future or his actions? All-Seeress has narrative ability and it was confirmed that Arthryn could give us Champion(no need to be immortal ) but we don't have neither, yet Urth has ability to fully use his narrative powers when it comes to immortality.
I don't mind undead but immortal hero's in civ that is our peer isn't really fair because it secures him access to hero's all the time while we are reliant on luck.
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- Location
- Southampton, Great Britain
- Pronouns
- He/Him
At this point, I think the subject has been exhausted.
While I am not nerfing your opponents or getting you bonuses, I do acknowledge that has been some miscommunications as my assumptions and interpretation of events and what is being included in the update are not necessarily the same ones that some players are getting when they read the update.
In the future, I will try to include more information in the updates and explain things that I may feel are obvious. However, I will only be putting so much information into the updates as I can only do so much without suffering QM burnout by giving myself too much work to do.
I will also say that if the players think there isn't enough information in the update or what has been provided is contradictory, you will need to speak up and ask for clarification. If things are making sense for you, you need to ask for answers.
In the meantime, I am going to post a side story I have been working on. Since it involves the Arthrynite pantheon having a meeting, it will include descriptions of the goddesses so since I vaguely remember some players not liking them, I am giving up a heads up before I post it.
To clarify this, I am perfectly okay with giving you an immortal Hero or something if you can figure out a way to get one and do so. For example, if you were to subvert a Daughter of Urth who is a Hero, then I would let you keep that immortal Hero. If you were able to figure out how to magically make your people immortal or convince Arthryn to give you an immortal Hero, then you could an immortal Hero that way.
What I will not be doing is just giving you an immortal Hero because your opponent has access to them and you want to make things 'balanced' or something along those lines. This isn't me saying you can't get immortal Heroes. It is me saying that I am not going to give you bonuses for free. You want immortal Heroes, you got to get them yourselves and not ask the QM to give you one for free.
It depends. The more decentralised a civ is, the more province actions they have, but would lack more control control over them in exchange as the provinces would act in their best interests and not those of the overall civ. More centralised civs have greater control, but less actions and can direct the province actions to follow a goal.
Province actions have the same action list as regular actions and draw from the same stat pool. For a decentralised civ, this means that your provinces may put you in the negatives, but for a centralised civ, you have enough control to keep that from happening.
For the Arthwyd, it means that you will have the option to set a policy for your provinces to follow and determine what sort actions they will take. Normally it takes an secondary action to change the province policy, but the first one will be free to set. I will also give you the chance to change the province policy for free at the start of a war and the end of it so you switch your provinces to focusing on the war if you want and then switch them to something else when the war is over.
While I am not nerfing your opponents or getting you bonuses, I do acknowledge that has been some miscommunications as my assumptions and interpretation of events and what is being included in the update are not necessarily the same ones that some players are getting when they read the update.
In the future, I will try to include more information in the updates and explain things that I may feel are obvious. However, I will only be putting so much information into the updates as I can only do so much without suffering QM burnout by giving myself too much work to do.
I will also say that if the players think there isn't enough information in the update or what has been provided is contradictory, you will need to speak up and ask for clarification. If things are making sense for you, you need to ask for answers.
In the meantime, I am going to post a side story I have been working on. Since it involves the Arthrynite pantheon having a meeting, it will include descriptions of the goddesses so since I vaguely remember some players not liking them, I am giving up a heads up before I post it.
To clarify this, I am perfectly okay with giving you an immortal Hero or something if you can figure out a way to get one and do so. For example, if you were to subvert a Daughter of Urth who is a Hero, then I would let you keep that immortal Hero. If you were able to figure out how to magically make your people immortal or convince Arthryn to give you an immortal Hero, then you could an immortal Hero that way.
What I will not be doing is just giving you an immortal Hero because your opponent has access to them and you want to make things 'balanced' or something along those lines. This isn't me saying you can't get immortal Heroes. It is me saying that I am not going to give you bonuses for free. You want immortal Heroes, you got to get them yourselves and not ask the QM to give you one for free.
It depends. The more decentralised a civ is, the more province actions they have, but would lack more control control over them in exchange as the provinces would act in their best interests and not those of the overall civ. More centralised civs have greater control, but less actions and can direct the province actions to follow a goal.
Province actions have the same action list as regular actions and draw from the same stat pool. For a decentralised civ, this means that your provinces may put you in the negatives, but for a centralised civ, you have enough control to keep that from happening.
For the Arthwyd, it means that you will have the option to set a policy for your provinces to follow and determine what sort actions they will take. Normally it takes an secondary action to change the province policy, but the first one will be free to set. I will also give you the chance to change the province policy for free at the start of a war and the end of it so you switch your provinces to focusing on the war if you want and then switch them to something else when the war is over.
Family Meeting
- Location
- Southampton, Great Britain
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Family Meeting
"Now that we are all here, we can start this meeting," says Arthryn as she stands before all of her daughters, having gathered them for a family meeting.Arthryn is the tallest of them, with her body halfway through its third decade with its relatively mild curves alongside a lean and muscular build. Her blue eyes look across her divine children while her brown hair falls down to her shoulders and no further. She wears a leather tunic with a loose fur cloak wrapped around her.
As per the legends, Wyrn looks like her mother except she is both younger and beautiful. Not only is her body a decade younger, but whereas Arthryn has adopted a mundane appearance, Wyrn has gone for a more divine appearance with a fuller figure and she chosen to show it off with a tight-fitting leather skirt and vest while stone bracelets that have shifting designs on them rests on her waists and a stone necklace laced with gold is tied around her neck.
All-Seeress sits off to the side of Wyrn and while she has similar curves to Wyrn, she looks distinctly different with white eyes and long blonde hair in addition to lacking the muscles of Wyrn and Arthryn. This is only further empathised by her thick fur clothing concealing her body and a general disinterested look on her face as she seems to be distracted by thinking of something else other than what is going on around her.
Ymarn is paying more attention and looks somewhere between Wyrn and Arthryn as not only is she halfway between their ages, but Ymarn has also gone for a middle ground in her appearance as her figure isn't as divine as Wyrn, but neither is it mundane as her mother's. She smiles as she locks her green eyes with the blue ones of her mother and gives Arthryn a nod of acknowledgement. Like her mother, she is wearing a leather tunic, but Ymarn wears it better as it rests closer to her larger figure in addition to having a necklace with series of glittering gems set into the stone.
Like Wyrn, Evalyn has gone for a divine figure to go alongside her tall height and thick muscles and unlike everyone else here, she isn't wearing clothing. Instead, she has gone with the same armour that her Catclaws wear, a leather tunic with hard, thick leather armour over her chest and lower body alongside leather armour over her shoulders and lower arms. Unlike proper Catclaw attire, Evalyn has chosen to shape her chest armour so that it fits her breasts. Her cat ears poke up amongst her red hair and her equally red cat tail gently flicks back and forth. While she doesn't have a shied or any weapons on her, Evalyn has a look of a warrior who is both fearsome and beautiful at the same time.
The youngest of the goddesses looks closer to Wyrn than any of the others and as one would expect from Bronwyn, she is able to look more beautiful than Wyrn. Slightly older with long blonde hair whilst also having blue eyes, it is hard to point down how Bronwyn looks more beautiful. Her curves just managed to seem fuller while she happens to have just the right amount of muscles in proportion to her tall height. Her leather skirt is as short as it can be without showing too much of her hips to be indecent while her leather vest hugs her chest tightly as it doesn't reach down far enough to conceal her abdomen and reveals just enough of her cleavage while remaining alluring without verging into being inappropriate. She wears gemstone rings on half of her fingers while her stone bracelets have detailed and intricate designs on them and a stone necklace laced a swirling mix of gold and silver rests around her neck and falls down to just above her breasts.
"While we are a family and the ones responsible for guiding our People to a better future," says Arthryn, "Despite preaching a message of unity to our followers, we have done a poor job of doing that ourselves. We all wield immense power and influence and yet we have different goals and outlooks. We have all tried to guide our followers towards a different way of doing things and while we all genuinely believe that what we are doing is for the best, it has lead to conflicting outcomes that ultimately result in something that isn't in the best interests of the people. Combine that with how our followers will come up with their own conclusions and beliefs, we need to decide what message we need to share with our followers and what sort of things we are going to guide them towards."
"I suggest that we establish what you consider to be fundamental and work from there," says Ymarn, "While I love you Mum as do we all, none of us are foolish enough to deny that you have final say over matters and none of us can truly contest your chosen course of action."
"That is a fair statement," acknowledges Arthryn, "As we all know, looking after others and the rest of your community is important. So is treating others fairly and giving them a chance to prove themselves. Beyond that is not gaining things for yourself at the expense of others."
"So we got treating others fairly and giving them a chance to prove themselves, not being selfish and looking after your community," states Ymarn, "Those are some simple beliefs which are the backbone of Arthwyd society. I don't know about anyone else, but I don't have anything to add upon that. Mum's beliefs make for a good foundation and anything else is just adding to them."
"I think we should talk about the main contention, which is to say the royal family," says Evalyn, "Some of us support it as do the people yet Mum is against it."
"It is foolish to limit power to a single individual or a select group of individuals," says Arthryn, "Not only does it unfairly limit others in what they can achieve, but it makes it harder to get rid of an incompetent or malicious individual."
"Which is hardly likely to happen," argues Wyrn, "Besides, we can just avoid the problem by making sure that the royal family is competent and good at being leaders. If we use our power to ensure that the Cadlons are all good rulers, the People benefit from a strong and capable leader to guide them to greatness. Eva is already doing it via giving her descendants a divine bloodline, but we could do more."
"Perhaps, but so long as it doesn't cause unfair treatment amongst the People," replies Arthryn, "Since the subject has been raised, we should talk about the growing belief that war is for men and leadership is for women since we all know that they are untrue and the belief has the potential to go down an unwanted path."
"While I understand why you dislike it Mum," says Ymarn, "I don't think it is going to go away any time soon. If it was, your improvements to your blessing would see more impact on countering it. As things are, it is entrenched and if will take some concentrated effort to get rid of it."
"Personally, I am thinking that since we cannot get rid of it easily, we ought to migrate the worst of it and try to make use of it," says Evalyn, "That is already happening with the royal family as the women are better suited for peace than war and it isn't the same for the men, but it could be the case."
"I do not like it," states Arthryn bluntly, "The idea spreading through the People would result in people given deny chances and opportunities due to their gender. It might work for the royal family nonsense the rest of you support, but it will be bad for the People as a whole. Bronwyn, you wish to say something?"
As the rest of the goddesses focus on their newest member, Bronwyn shifts uncomfortable under the attention, but speaks up anyway.
"I want to pointed out that the People are viewing bigger figures as a sign of our favour," says Bronwyn, "So I thought maybe we could make their reality rather than let our People use it as an incorrect belief as the basis for an important system."
"Ooo!" exclaims Wyrn excitedly, "I like this idea."
"Shh Wyrn," say Ymarn, "Let Bron finish."
"I was thinking that Mum could reduce the range of chest sizes for our People and then, we could give a slightly bigger size for those with our favour," continues Bronwyn, "We could find girls who stand out to us for one reason or another and increase their breast size when they grow up as a sign of our favour since that is what the People will think. We could also do the same for our priestesses and sacred warriors as once they successfully become one, we could increase their size if we haven't already as a sign of our favour and approving of them successfully become a priestess or sacred warrior."
"That is an interesting idea that has some merit to it," muses Arthryn.
"Perhaps we could apply something similar to the men?" Evalyn starts to suggest, but is cut off by her mother.
"No, it is one thing to do with the women when there is already something in place and it is another thing to introduce more diversions amongst our People," states Arthryn, her voice firm and unyielding, "We will not be formalising a gender divide amongst our people or making what has already occurred even worst. Even with Bronwyn's idea, I am not convinced it is for the best even I am willingly to admit that the idea may have some merit to it and is worth considering."
"What about punishment for the living?" inquires Ymarn, "I know that you have punished Bronwyn, but what others? It may be a good idea to use your influence to remind the People that their worst excesses have consequences."
"It may be," answers Arthryn, "But I am wary of imposing my will. I do not want to force people to follow my way of doing things because I think it is for the best. Even with Bronwyn, I only did it to make my point felt and I feel I didn't handle the matter as well as I should have. Rather than have it end her life, I should have let her body turn back to flesh and blood so she may have live out the rest of her life."
"It wasn't that bad Mum," Bronwyn reassures her, "I wouldn't say that I am happy to have died, but we all die at some point and at least I got to avoid growing old and kept some of my youth alongside most of my beauty."
"I have some suggestions Mum," says Ymarn, "Rather than punish political decisions, you should go for outright unacceptable behaviour. Things such as forcing yourself upon another person without their consent or murdering a member of your community. It wouldn't have to be like how you punished Bronwyn as you could just turn to stone temporarily for the duration of their punishment and let them turn back afterwards."
"You would still run into the problem of being trapped alone and unable to move would drive someone insane," points out Wyrn.
"Aye, that is a problem," acknowledge Ymarn, "But I think the idea has merit. If we can solve the problem of how long to punish them or how to keep them from going insane, we could get the priest to bring the accused before us in our places of worships so we can judge them guilty or innocent."
"I will look into that idea," declares Arthryn, "If we can solve the problem of the punished going insane, we could try to implement it. All-Seeress, you have been quiet so far. Do you have anything to add or suggest?"
"No," answers the All-Seeress without hesitation.
"What about the royal family?" asks Evalyn, returning to her original point, "How do they fit into the People in your view?"
"I will tolerate them so long as they act in the best interests of the People," answers Arthryn, "If they can do that and their wrongs that they embody stay with them and don't spread to rest of the People, I will leave them and tolerate them even if I do not approve of the existence of the royal family."
Evalyn gives a nod of approval and declines to press the matter. For a moment, a companionable silence reigns as none of the gathered goddesses speak up.
"I think we should more meetings like this," says Wyrn, smiling as she breaks the silence, "Spending time together as a family is something we ought to do more often."
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- Location
- Behind You
And this is where I think people are mistaken. I previously mentioned that I thought this was less Urth "winning" against us or anything and that his actions seemed more like a desperate attempt to get us to back off. We know what the general downsides of a "wide" playstyle is, you may get more actions but some of those need to be invested into keeping yourself together, or else you risk fracturing into multiple polities. I don't really see that changing just because the Caradysh are (mostly) undead/unliving.
Urth's Revenants did have a level of autonomy, since they could be left in charge of a settlement, and Urth did convince some of the Maradysh that the previous undead plague was caused by a rogue necromancer, so presumably the Caradysh have atleast some necromancers with some level of independence? The best lies have an element of truth after all. Same with Urth's Daughters. Sure, they've been brought up in what's basically a cult, but how long can they or their children be left alone before they forget their education and start to think of themselves as Urth's equal and split off to form their own civ?
Meanwhile, Urth really wants to research how to ascend to godhood and we, presumably, did put a significant dent in his undead army. It's kinda strange how there's no undead army currently attack us, isn't it? Just Lowlanders and Maradysh rebels. Almost like Urth didn't rebuild her army enough for an offensive and is holding them back to defend her? You yourself said that it looked like Urth spend almost all her actions on infiltrating the Maradysh and studying magic.
My point is, it looks like Urth simply can't afford to keep us busy and hold the Caradysh together and spend actions on growing his polity (through research into godhood or whatever), only two of those at most.