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Epoch: A Grand-Strategy Quest

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[X] [Gender] Matriarchal Society
[X] [Government] Elder Lead
[X] [Religion] Many Gods
[X] [Region] B
 
Corripere said:
Steppe Nomads are a problem, but I think, given our knowledge of history, we know how important it is to defeat them and keep them down rather than just ignoring them.
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...you're learning the completely wrong lesson here dude.
You cannot defeat and 'keep down' the Eurasian Steppe nomades until the gunpowder age. Its like trying to stab all the alligators in a lake with a spear, you'd kill all those near the shore and then you get torn apart out in the water where they are faster and more numerous than you, if you chase them further.

The lessons of history regarding nomads is:
-Bribe the shit out of them with urban products. Its dirt cheap, nomads are easily impressed due to living subsistence lifestyles, they want bling to impress their rivals and you don't have to worry about appeasement policies when odds are the people you appease would die stabbing the people you didn't. Hell, throw them spare princesses to impress them, they don't HAVE land inheritance or any kind of reliable genealogy, so you don't need to worry about claims(because if they wanted a war they need a casus belli like settled peoples).

-Build walls. All the walls. And all the forts. Wall your cities. Wall your towns, wall your villages. Nomad hordes are swarms of high mobility looter-raiders and they rapidly get frustrated because they can't afford to trade losses and overcoming walls requires a significant amount of time. They win battles through local force superiority, and so being stuck in position means they can be hammered by a superior army.

-Build watchtowers and signal towers. Make your empire look like a game of tower defense. Settled civs need time to raise their armies and the only way you're going to get that against superior horsemen is signal fires to move a message faster than a horse can run.

-Build all the roads. Sure they benefit the invaders' mobility too, but your armies aren't going to be moving very far without a supply train and you're not in a direct contest of speed.

-Keep a standing army. Levies get fucked good by nomads, because Nomads don't care what season it is, they don't need to do harvest or planting.

Basically do all the boring shit.
Arthellion said:
*coughs*

If you go back to the rolls you'll see the one was for a 45 sided die. That was initially supposed to be the number of the minority.

So if I'd kept purely to mechanics you'd likely have had 1 female and 92 males.

But I don't believe that pure luck should kill you guys off before we even get to official turn one. So manipulated it a bit.
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If we wound up with that I think basically the only viable plan is to find the nearest civ and loot all their women even if it kills half our men
 
veekie said:
...you're learning the completely wrong lesson here dude.
You cannot defeat and 'keep down' the Eurasian Steppe nomades until the gunpowder age. Its like trying to stab all the alligators in a lake with a spear, you'd kill all those near the shore and then you get torn apart out in the water where they are faster and more numerous than you, if you chase them further.

The lessons of history regarding nomads is:
-Bribe the shit out of them with urban products. Its dirt cheap, nomads are easily impressed due to living subsistence lifestyles, they want bling to impress their rivals and you don't have to worry about appeasement policies when odds are the people you appease would die stabbing the people you didn't. Hell, throw them spare princesses to impress them, they don't HAVE land inheritance or any kind of reliable genealogy, so you don't need to worry about claims(because if they wanted a war they need a casus belli like settled peoples).

-Build walls. All the walls. And all the forts. Wall your cities. Wall your towns, wall your villages. Nomad hordes are swarms of high mobility looter-raiders and they rapidly get frustrated because they can't afford to trade losses and overcoming walls requires a significant amount of time. They win battles through local force superiority, and so being stuck in position means they can be hammered by a superior army.

-Build watchtowers and signal towers. Make your empire look like a game of tower defense. Settled civs need time to raise their armies and the only way you're going to get that against superior horsemen is signal fires to move a message faster than a horse can run.

-Build all the roads. Sure they benefit the invaders' mobility too, but your armies aren't going to be moving very far without a supply train and you're not in a direct contest of speed.

-Keep a standing army. Levies get fucked good by nomads, because Nomads don't care what season it is, they don't need to do harvest or planting.

Basically do all the boring shit.

If we wound up with that I think basically the only viable plan is to find the nearest civ and loot all their women even if it kills half our men
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This guy nomads.
 
Why don't we play the steppe nomads? It's practically a gamble to reach gunpowder age to begin with, IMO.
 
The reason why I prefer B is because it'll be much easier to trade with civilizations over sea in the Middle East, Africa, and Europe than if we were in China. Plus, the natural barriers surrounding us will protect us from invasion and the varied terrain will result in the rise of multiple polities instead of one monolithic state, allowing for more innovation.
 
Gonna Go ahead and close vote since it seems pretty apparent which wins.

And...naturally y'all choose the region I know the least about. So next update might take a little longer to be up. If anyone has any good research they can suggest on the geography of India/the types of tribes that were located there I'd sincerely appreciate the links.
Adhoc vote count started by Arthellion on Jan 17, 2019 at 8:40 AM, finished with 187 posts and 35 votes.
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veekie said:
...you're learning the completely wrong lesson here dude.
You cannot defeat and 'keep down' the Eurasian Steppe nomades until the gunpowder age. Its like trying to stab all the alligators in a lake with a spear, you'd kill all those near the shore and then you get torn apart out in the water where they are faster and more numerous than you, if you chase them further.

The lessons of history regarding nomads is:
-Bribe the shit out of them with urban products. Its dirt cheap, nomads are easily impressed due to living subsistence lifestyles, they want bling to impress their rivals and you don't have to worry about appeasement policies when odds are the people you appease would die stabbing the people you didn't. Hell, throw them spare princesses to impress them, they don't HAVE land inheritance or any kind of reliable genealogy, so you don't need to worry about claims(because if they wanted a war they need a casus belli like settled peoples).

-Build walls. All the walls. And all the forts. Wall your cities. Wall your towns, wall your villages. Nomad hordes are swarms of high mobility looter-raiders and they rapidly get frustrated because they can't afford to trade losses and overcoming walls requires a significant amount of time. They win battles through local force superiority, and so being stuck in position means they can be hammered by a superior army.

-Build watchtowers and signal towers. Make your empire look like a game of tower defense. Settled civs need time to raise their armies and the only way you're going to get that against superior horsemen is signal fires to move a message faster than a horse can run.

-Build all the roads. Sure they benefit the invaders' mobility too, but your armies aren't going to be moving very far without a supply train and you're not in a direct contest of speed.

-Keep a standing army. Levies get fucked good by nomads, because Nomads don't care what season it is, they don't need to do harvest or planting.

Basically do all the boring shit.

If we wound up with that I think basically the only viable plan is to find the nearest civ and loot all their women even if it kills half our men
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Click to shrink...

Not sure, but I think China historically dealt with the Xiongnu and (after they collapsed) the Mongols by genociding them after focusing all their effort on them. Not impossible to beat them.
 
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Tribe Creation III
  • Threadmarks

    • Our people made no distinction between the value of men and women. Both men and women served on our tribe of elders. This would have both positive and negative effects on our future.
    Egalitarian Tradition
    Liberty Policies Modifier: Medium Increase
    Authoritarian Policies Modifier: Medium Decrease
    Toleration Level: Medium Increase
    Unruly Population Suppression: Medium Decrease
    (Explanation: Increases will add positive modifiers, decreases negative modifiers.

    IMMEDIATE EFFECTS: Morale remains stagnate. Both men and women are okay with the standard.

    Elder Lead Tradition
    Aristocratic Governments: High Modifier Increase
    Democratic Governments: Low Mod Decrease
    Authoritarian Governments: Low Mod Decrease

    IMMEDIATE Effects: The lack of a single ruler results in occasional debate amongst the elders. Each time a vote is made regarding movement, foreign relations, or war, there is a 30% chance it will receive a low negative modifier, 15% Chance it will receive a medium negative modifier, 10% chance it will receive a High Negative Modifier; it will also receive a 5% chance of some people leaving your tribe and a 1% chance of a civil war within the tribe.
    We also worshipped a vast pantheon of gods and goddesses. We lacked names for our gods, though we hungered and beseached the heavens that they would reveal themselves to us. We were so naive...but that story comes later. We only knew that the gods existed and each ruled over some facet over the world we lived. It would take a Great Prophet to learn the names of our gods.
    Many Gods
    Religious Toleration: High Increase
    ???
    ???
    Immediate effect: Each turn, a roll will be made to see if a God or Goddess blesses your people. If they do, another roll will be made determining that God's domain. You will receive a Medium Modifier to rolls of those domains for 5 years.
    We traveled far and soon reached the land that would become the birthplace of our civilization. We arrived in this land by:

    Travel
    [] [Travel] By Sea
    We approached from the south. We had learned to create some canoes and left the barren lands for hopefully greener pastures across the sea. After many months of traveling, we found those pastures.
    [] [Travel] By the Mountains
    We approached from the Northern mountains. Traversing the hazardous paths, we eventually came to a place that appeared to have been inhabited before. Caves had been dug out prior to the Long winter.
    [] [Travel] By the Desert
    We had been surprised to see such arid lands after the troubles of the long Winter. But we traveled and came to a land of fertility. A vast river created fertile land that could be useful for agriculture.

    We were still nomads at this time, but this location would provide a potential starting boost to certain technologies and our first cities.​
    At this time, the first great figure of our civilization arose. They were
    Gender
    [] [Gender] Male
    [] [Gender] Female
    and developed as a
    Class
    [] [Class] Hero
    [] [Class] Elder
    [] [Class] Witch/Witch Doctor
    [] [Class] Philosopher (Locked)
    [] [Class] Great Prophet (Locked)
    [] [Class] Writer (Locked)
    ???
    ???
    ???

    They Bore the name
    Name
    [] [Name] Write In?​
    First Official Turn begins next :)​
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • I really liked the idea that we would have ancestor worship due to a tribal culture of respecting the elders. Alas, no.
     
    Wait, didn't option C win?

    Edit: Nevermind, I'm just an idiot. Carry on, nothing to see here.
     
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