Rihaku
The Internet
The main issue is that it only works on Solars, so you'd need a friendly and competent Solar who you'd trust with that power.
[Exalted, ?] Most High
- Thread starter Rihaku
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The main issue is that it only works on Solars, so you'd need a friendly and competent Solar who you'd trust with that power.
meianmaru
The Devourer of Fiction
Well, my main point was that we could use it on ourself if we take it at Essence 5.
meianmaru
The Devourer of Fiction
Well, the leaked sourcebook suggest playing those out more as storytelling than mechanics. So how about we get a summary about the state of things in our new little empire, followed maybe with one to five dot "empire-level" stats like Resources, Wellfare and Education, Bureauacratic Efficiency/Corruption, Military, etc. Then give us some Civil and Military Projects to choose from, with things like Resources/Bureauacracy levels deciding how much and how fast we can do things, with splitting our attention too much decreasing efficiency and maybe decreasing stats permanently (unless raised again), like splitting our troops too thinly causing more losses to our side, even if we succeed in all of the actions. Alectai also had a pretty good system in his own empire builder quest with limited Personal Interventions for Hero Units to boost empire actions, as well as Personal Actions that could also be sacrificed for Interventions.
Was that any help?
EDIT:
The sourcebook also has good idea for "Failure Conditions": if there isn't any reason for the Project to fail, it automatically succeeds. Projects that are more ambitious or face opposition have those, and as they are triggered, you have to solve them somehow or, well, they fail. You could put up those Projects and the Failure Conditions on them, and require us to come up with stunts to solve them first before we even moving to rolling, if you decide to do rolling for those in the first place.
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The fact that you seem to think these problems can't be solved with the combat system is worrying.
Maybe modified some of Dynasty quest in this site,Alectai used to run Exalted dynasty quest,He has some resource like Jade and can use some exalted deed to help in some project.
I believe Skaro is referencing the Crusader Kings 2 system which has seen some use on this site.
Doing it in a too mechanical perspective will probably detract from the story telling aspect to it.
Maybe have most of it be Narrativistic based off of your general idea of our resources and decisions but on occasion zoom in to a specific issue, event or policy decision to deal with in a mechanical perspective.
As for expressing our empire power maybe something like this. They would all be generalized abstractions for more complex issues and resolving a major strategic problem not expressed by the statistics can result in major changes.
Money: (how much money we have in organization scale version of resources)
Might: (our access to hero units, both named characters and ones not shown on camera)
Military: (how much non-hero unit based military we have for holding and controlling land)
Intelligence: (our ability to know information that isn't publicly available.)
All of these would be presented as a percentage of the total amount of that statistic controlled by all relevant factions for the current story. Decisions we make on policy would influence those 4 values. They would also just change a bit from turn to turn just due to NPCs fighting the war as best they can. We for example would probably have a great might value to start and a pretty good military value but not as great intelligence and money.
Offensive actions we could make could include assassinating enemies to drop their factions might. Sabotaging or stealing things to drop their money. Waging war or sabotage to lower military. Misinformation campaigns or spyhunting to lower intelligence.
Defensive ones would be training an army to raise military. Stealing stuff or making a financial deal to raise money. Training ourselves, our allies or recruiting to gain might. Going on spying missions or forming a spy network to raise intelligence.
Gaining allies would either just make them non-hostile or add them to our faction depending on how strong the alliance is.
The important thing is to assume that everyone in our faction is doing the best they can without being micromanaged and only require us to look at the big picture or the small picture when Uly is doing something attention worthy.
Maybe have most of it be Narrativistic based off of your general idea of our resources and decisions but on occasion zoom in to a specific issue, event or policy decision to deal with in a mechanical perspective.
As for expressing our empire power maybe something like this. They would all be generalized abstractions for more complex issues and resolving a major strategic problem not expressed by the statistics can result in major changes.
Money: (how much money we have in organization scale version of resources)
Might: (our access to hero units, both named characters and ones not shown on camera)
Military: (how much non-hero unit based military we have for holding and controlling land)
Intelligence: (our ability to know information that isn't publicly available.)
All of these would be presented as a percentage of the total amount of that statistic controlled by all relevant factions for the current story. Decisions we make on policy would influence those 4 values. They would also just change a bit from turn to turn just due to NPCs fighting the war as best they can. We for example would probably have a great might value to start and a pretty good military value but not as great intelligence and money.
Offensive actions we could make could include assassinating enemies to drop their factions might. Sabotaging or stealing things to drop their money. Waging war or sabotage to lower military. Misinformation campaigns or spyhunting to lower intelligence.
Defensive ones would be training an army to raise military. Stealing stuff or making a financial deal to raise money. Training ourselves, our allies or recruiting to gain might. Going on spying missions or forming a spy network to raise intelligence.
Gaining allies would either just make them non-hostile or add them to our faction depending on how strong the alliance is.
The important thing is to assume that everyone in our faction is doing the best they can without being micromanaged and only require us to look at the big picture or the small picture when Uly is doing something attention worthy.
Or we can mirror the stats of an pc.
Willpower=morale
Limit=rebellion
Heath=polpulation
Strength=military
Dexterity=infrastructure
Stamina=wEalth
Charisma=resiliance to foreign influence
Manipulation=projecting of your influence
Appearance=pr
Perception=intelligence network
Intelligence=tech level
Wit=communication/bueracracy
Willpower=morale
Limit=rebellion
Heath=polpulation
Strength=military
Dexterity=infrastructure
Stamina=wEalth
Charisma=resiliance to foreign influence
Manipulation=projecting of your influence
Appearance=pr
Perception=intelligence network
Intelligence=tech level
Wit=communication/bueracracy
Guile
Having a really great time right now
There should probably be a Faith bar. Immaculate dogma boosts morale but affects Loyalty in the worst case scenario.
Wealth shouldn't just be wealth, but trade contacts- who are your friends, who are your enemies?
Infrastructure isn't just standard of living, it's military fortifications.
Etcetera.
Wealth shouldn't just be wealth, but trade contacts- who are your friends, who are your enemies?
Infrastructure isn't just standard of living, it's military fortifications.
Etcetera.
Trade contract woukd be lumpe under infrastructure. Wealth would represent liquid cash to fund projects.
Military would also represent fortification. At any time only a fraction of military will be available to fight fireign wars. The unused represent static defense.
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Well in my version all that stats are very generalized abstractions so wealth would include money, businesses, trade partners, natural resources and ability to apply those things in a strategically relevant manner. Money sitting in a vault wouldn't be worth much if you lack the mans to spend it well.
Millitary would be as much about positioning and logistics as it is about the actual armies.
Might would just be a measure of your ability to apply exalted hax to leverage all the other aspects better.
Intelligence is knowing what your foes are doing and ability to interrupt it.
meianmaru
The Devourer of Fiction
Fanwork## 1795 words
This one just kept ballooning out. An omake for hopefully boosting the effectiveness of Arch-Predictionist.
***
Arch-Predictionist
In the library of Seacrown's Imperial Naval Academy, Sesus Ulyssian was, surprisingly, not training. While he had spent countless hours of nearly every single day of his entire life strengthening his body, sharpening his mind and accumulating skill and knowledge, not to mention every other possible advantage he could reach, he had finally arrived at the point where he could put those things to actual use.
Raised to untold heights from its solid mortal basis, his mind was soaring through information on the papers spread before him, with piles of it only growing as he added his own analyzes to them. Reports about friendly and enemy troop movements, battles and their outcomes, how the morale was holding between different groups and his own estimations how far they could pushed without breaking, personel files about officers and reports about people even tangentialy connected to war, their relations to different factions and to each other, current politics between the different Dynasties (which were quite hard to read because of the current disarray, caused by his miscalculation at the tournament) extremely detailed maps dotted with added markings and notes, this seasons compiled reports on food and goods production flowing to support the Navy, current and past weather and trade records, high-level theories about the world's Essence flows, astrological signs related to all of this and their predicted future shifts, and much more.
In his battle-trance, connections and their effects to each other shined clearly like golden threads between seemingly unrelated things, and what should have been an unintelligible mess became painfully simple and logical before his mind, which was burning away the confusion, one cluster of information solving itself leading to an another doing the same. Their long-term effects and the probabilities for those easy to see, and even the cascading changes that would launch through the spider-web logistics, relations between the people, supply and everything else, all were within his reach.
Here, during the following lunar cycle's third day, a battle fought between the Realm's Navy against mix of aquatic beastmen threatening the local coastal towns would favor the Realm greatly, with the undersea streams bringing in water flowing from a small and far away Shadowland, as the weakened but still impure Essence would be enough to make the beastmen breathing it through their gills sick for the duration of approximately two to three weeks. Combined with fresh troops being cycled in, even their inexperience would be not much of an issue with their high if naive morale, which was unlikely to be immediately tested to its limits which particular foe. Instead, they would gain experience in real fighting, seasoning them for future conflicts with high-chance of only minimal losses by attrition. Diverting some extra supplies and pay to the troops from where it was not needed currently would cause their high-morale being kept there, and the money they spent on the towns they were protecting would stimulate their economies, leading to a small positive feedback loop by making them more worth of protecting and preventing of yet an another easy-to-exploit weakspot from appearing.
There, pursuing a few Fair Folk's playing the role of "pirates" too much would leave to the troops overextended and easy pickings for their minions. But by negotiating with the Storm Mothers with the right approach and sacrifices, the retreat of the enemy could be cut off with weather bad enough to deter or sink even a ship navigated by the Fae, negating their maneuverability and facing them with an overwhelming force, enough to completely crush them with sheer numbers.
The overall distribution process of food, materials for repairing ships after battles, medicine, replacement weapons and ammunition for troops suffered from a somewhat fixed schedule, not being flexible enough to take into account myriads of things that might require changing of the timetables. Also, it could not easily made be more flexible, the mortal and Exalted elements involved in it not efficient and skilled enough to execute it with too much last minute changes thrown in. However, by predicting some of the more major events in advance, this issue could be bypassed partly and the timetable made more efficient.
Politics between the different Great Houses would cause friction between certain Dragon-Blooded officers, as would the internal politics and rivalries. Taking into account different levels of talents, alliances and needs of the Navy, the backstabbing could be minimized to a certain extent by minimizing the contact between current and would-be rivals. Hopefully, in the next batch of future officers, the flaw wouldn't be so pronounced. Coming straight from the Naval Academy which was under the new curriculum developed by Lung Feng Zao himself should have the problem stomped down to as small as possible. He should know, as he had first hand experience of its effectiviness after all. Even better, his previous suggestions based on earlier predictions would help speed up the process, and maybe even raise the quality of the graduates somewhat...
"Hi, Uly!" Twitch. He had known Nilul was approaching the library, with her pile of papers carried by one of her infatuated minions till the door, where she entered alone and started moving towards him. But her voice still somehow managed to almost break his trance. She then proceeded to dump her papers on his table, disrupting the carefully managed organization for a moment, before he quickly moved to correct it. "Have some updated reports about that one particular officer you were interested in! Completely corrupt, and in for it to line only her own pockets. Smart one too, there isn't any obvious evidence you could point towards her."
He quickly glanced through some of the more salient points on the fresh reports. An easily solvable problem, luckily. "Have Fei Ling assassinate Peleps Daiyu. Her second-in-command is competent and somewhat loyal to her, but she is also unaware of Daiyu's dealings with the Realm's enemies. If we also fabricate some evidence pointing towards the truth, the investigation towards the killer will be somewhat less intense as their attention will be divided, and her former second-in-command can start securing the safety of the waters in her jurisdiction again, after she gets over the shock."
Nilul had started frowning after hearing the Infernal's name, but even then managed to make the act just prounounce her features in a way that would appeal most persons to try sooth her worries. "I don't like how much trust you put on them, even if its only on minor issues like this. While I'm pretty sure that they are willing to work with us, for quite a while at least, they still have their own agendas."
Luckily for Ulyssian, as he had been told, he was kind of an asshole. "Its the most optimal way to do things. A normal Dragon-Blooded assassin wouldn't be enough to reach the target, and Ivory has more important matters to accomplish now that she has recovered, and those more important matters, surprisingly, require someone that I'm willing to trust with them."
A long-suffering sight escaped from the lips of Princess of Lies, as she flung her hands in annoyance, the very image of a wise woman frustrated about not getting through the thick skull of a dense male. "Which is why I still think we shouldn't have gotten involved them in the first place! I know we need allies, but we would do well to pick more trustworthy ones!"
"Well, while I don't think they are as trustworthy as you-" "Ahaha, very funny." "-but even if we end up as only short-term allies and go on our own ways, after all the help and information they have already given me they would have a very hard time to returning to their former positions under Yozis. Not to forget that the former Primordials would note that their pet Infernals have been in extended contact with me. I'd like to think that I left a lasting impression the last time I was around."
Nilul was silent for a moment, seemingly contemplating on something intensly, while Ulyssian continued to write down more of his insights on various issues.
"Hmm. I could always have Moon deliver my arguments to you. I think you would pay a bit more attention if she was the one expressing her fears about those two. But unlike you, Uly, I'm not that much of a dick to my friends."
He snorted. "I'm sorry to dissappoint you so greatly, Princess." As he turned to grab the next report from the never-ending stream of them, Nilul plopped her head on the particular pile he was reaching toward, a magnificent pout painted on her face. "Stop calling me that, Ulyyy..." He was not deterred, but instead snatched the folder with blindlingly fast and subtle moves, which would have let a hypothetical obsever following the theatrics happening blinking his eyes, and wondering from how the folder opened before the young Dynast had shifted places before his fully opened eyes.
He calmly started writing annotations "As soon as you stop calling me Uly" Springing back up from the forest made of dead and pulped wood, Nilul dramatically pointed her finger at Ulyssian "Never! This is one matter where I will not lose! As long as the Sun continues to rise, I will- Err, you don't have any plans on destroying it, right?"
Yes, that would be the right approach to handle the planted evidence... "Not currently, but I will have to see to that at some point. Just to be prepared, you see."
After a while, he decided to raise his head as Nilul continued to be silent and unmoving, having been frozen for after his last comment with a woodenly blank face. As their gazes met, she finally broke the silence. "You know, this would be a lot easier for my sanity if I didn't see through your every word, and know that you are not even exaggerating when you say things like that. I think I'll just go to my room to tend my headache for now."
As the Ebon Dragon's daughter left, Ulyssian pulled out a small pocket-book from somewhere under the seeming chaos on his table, and started making notes on it on a blank page.
Causing slight mental turmoil by making claims that are ridicilous even by the standards of the Exalted seems to work if the target understands that you are speaking the truth. First tests have shown it to be an effective for ending conversations by causing the other party to leave you alone as they go deal with their scrambled worldview somewhere where they can be alone with their thoughts. However, more testing is required.
After that, he shifted his attention from his side-project back to his real work. And, for a moment, Ulyssian was happy.
***
This was supposed to be just a middling length omake about describing how Uly uses his new expanded mental abilities. Then the damn Nilul appeared out of nowhere to my writing, and started eating more of my time! And then Uly started doing it too! But eh, I could have wasted my time on worse things.
This one just kept ballooning out. An omake for hopefully boosting the effectiveness of Arch-Predictionist.
***
Arch-Predictionist
In the library of Seacrown's Imperial Naval Academy, Sesus Ulyssian was, surprisingly, not training. While he had spent countless hours of nearly every single day of his entire life strengthening his body, sharpening his mind and accumulating skill and knowledge, not to mention every other possible advantage he could reach, he had finally arrived at the point where he could put those things to actual use.
Raised to untold heights from its solid mortal basis, his mind was soaring through information on the papers spread before him, with piles of it only growing as he added his own analyzes to them. Reports about friendly and enemy troop movements, battles and their outcomes, how the morale was holding between different groups and his own estimations how far they could pushed without breaking, personel files about officers and reports about people even tangentialy connected to war, their relations to different factions and to each other, current politics between the different Dynasties (which were quite hard to read because of the current disarray, caused by his miscalculation at the tournament) extremely detailed maps dotted with added markings and notes, this seasons compiled reports on food and goods production flowing to support the Navy, current and past weather and trade records, high-level theories about the world's Essence flows, astrological signs related to all of this and their predicted future shifts, and much more.
In his battle-trance, connections and their effects to each other shined clearly like golden threads between seemingly unrelated things, and what should have been an unintelligible mess became painfully simple and logical before his mind, which was burning away the confusion, one cluster of information solving itself leading to an another doing the same. Their long-term effects and the probabilities for those easy to see, and even the cascading changes that would launch through the spider-web logistics, relations between the people, supply and everything else, all were within his reach.
Here, during the following lunar cycle's third day, a battle fought between the Realm's Navy against mix of aquatic beastmen threatening the local coastal towns would favor the Realm greatly, with the undersea streams bringing in water flowing from a small and far away Shadowland, as the weakened but still impure Essence would be enough to make the beastmen breathing it through their gills sick for the duration of approximately two to three weeks. Combined with fresh troops being cycled in, even their inexperience would be not much of an issue with their high if naive morale, which was unlikely to be immediately tested to its limits which particular foe. Instead, they would gain experience in real fighting, seasoning them for future conflicts with high-chance of only minimal losses by attrition. Diverting some extra supplies and pay to the troops from where it was not needed currently would cause their high-morale being kept there, and the money they spent on the towns they were protecting would stimulate their economies, leading to a small positive feedback loop by making them more worth of protecting and preventing of yet an another easy-to-exploit weakspot from appearing.
There, pursuing a few Fair Folk's playing the role of "pirates" too much would leave to the troops overextended and easy pickings for their minions. But by negotiating with the Storm Mothers with the right approach and sacrifices, the retreat of the enemy could be cut off with weather bad enough to deter or sink even a ship navigated by the Fae, negating their maneuverability and facing them with an overwhelming force, enough to completely crush them with sheer numbers.
The overall distribution process of food, materials for repairing ships after battles, medicine, replacement weapons and ammunition for troops suffered from a somewhat fixed schedule, not being flexible enough to take into account myriads of things that might require changing of the timetables. Also, it could not easily made be more flexible, the mortal and Exalted elements involved in it not efficient and skilled enough to execute it with too much last minute changes thrown in. However, by predicting some of the more major events in advance, this issue could be bypassed partly and the timetable made more efficient.
Politics between the different Great Houses would cause friction between certain Dragon-Blooded officers, as would the internal politics and rivalries. Taking into account different levels of talents, alliances and needs of the Navy, the backstabbing could be minimized to a certain extent by minimizing the contact between current and would-be rivals. Hopefully, in the next batch of future officers, the flaw wouldn't be so pronounced. Coming straight from the Naval Academy which was under the new curriculum developed by Lung Feng Zao himself should have the problem stomped down to as small as possible. He should know, as he had first hand experience of its effectiviness after all. Even better, his previous suggestions based on earlier predictions would help speed up the process, and maybe even raise the quality of the graduates somewhat...
"Hi, Uly!" Twitch. He had known Nilul was approaching the library, with her pile of papers carried by one of her infatuated minions till the door, where she entered alone and started moving towards him. But her voice still somehow managed to almost break his trance. She then proceeded to dump her papers on his table, disrupting the carefully managed organization for a moment, before he quickly moved to correct it. "Have some updated reports about that one particular officer you were interested in! Completely corrupt, and in for it to line only her own pockets. Smart one too, there isn't any obvious evidence you could point towards her."
He quickly glanced through some of the more salient points on the fresh reports. An easily solvable problem, luckily. "Have Fei Ling assassinate Peleps Daiyu. Her second-in-command is competent and somewhat loyal to her, but she is also unaware of Daiyu's dealings with the Realm's enemies. If we also fabricate some evidence pointing towards the truth, the investigation towards the killer will be somewhat less intense as their attention will be divided, and her former second-in-command can start securing the safety of the waters in her jurisdiction again, after she gets over the shock."
Nilul had started frowning after hearing the Infernal's name, but even then managed to make the act just prounounce her features in a way that would appeal most persons to try sooth her worries. "I don't like how much trust you put on them, even if its only on minor issues like this. While I'm pretty sure that they are willing to work with us, for quite a while at least, they still have their own agendas."
Luckily for Ulyssian, as he had been told, he was kind of an asshole. "Its the most optimal way to do things. A normal Dragon-Blooded assassin wouldn't be enough to reach the target, and Ivory has more important matters to accomplish now that she has recovered, and those more important matters, surprisingly, require someone that I'm willing to trust with them."
A long-suffering sight escaped from the lips of Princess of Lies, as she flung her hands in annoyance, the very image of a wise woman frustrated about not getting through the thick skull of a dense male. "Which is why I still think we shouldn't have gotten involved them in the first place! I know we need allies, but we would do well to pick more trustworthy ones!"
"Well, while I don't think they are as trustworthy as you-" "Ahaha, very funny." "-but even if we end up as only short-term allies and go on our own ways, after all the help and information they have already given me they would have a very hard time to returning to their former positions under Yozis. Not to forget that the former Primordials would note that their pet Infernals have been in extended contact with me. I'd like to think that I left a lasting impression the last time I was around."
Nilul was silent for a moment, seemingly contemplating on something intensly, while Ulyssian continued to write down more of his insights on various issues.
"Hmm. I could always have Moon deliver my arguments to you. I think you would pay a bit more attention if she was the one expressing her fears about those two. But unlike you, Uly, I'm not that much of a dick to my friends."
He snorted. "I'm sorry to dissappoint you so greatly, Princess." As he turned to grab the next report from the never-ending stream of them, Nilul plopped her head on the particular pile he was reaching toward, a magnificent pout painted on her face. "Stop calling me that, Ulyyy..." He was not deterred, but instead snatched the folder with blindlingly fast and subtle moves, which would have let a hypothetical obsever following the theatrics happening blinking his eyes, and wondering from how the folder opened before the young Dynast had shifted places before his fully opened eyes.
He calmly started writing annotations "As soon as you stop calling me Uly" Springing back up from the forest made of dead and pulped wood, Nilul dramatically pointed her finger at Ulyssian "Never! This is one matter where I will not lose! As long as the Sun continues to rise, I will- Err, you don't have any plans on destroying it, right?"
Yes, that would be the right approach to handle the planted evidence... "Not currently, but I will have to see to that at some point. Just to be prepared, you see."
After a while, he decided to raise his head as Nilul continued to be silent and unmoving, having been frozen for after his last comment with a woodenly blank face. As their gazes met, she finally broke the silence. "You know, this would be a lot easier for my sanity if I didn't see through your every word, and know that you are not even exaggerating when you say things like that. I think I'll just go to my room to tend my headache for now."
As the Ebon Dragon's daughter left, Ulyssian pulled out a small pocket-book from somewhere under the seeming chaos on his table, and started making notes on it on a blank page.
Causing slight mental turmoil by making claims that are ridicilous even by the standards of the Exalted seems to work if the target understands that you are speaking the truth. First tests have shown it to be an effective for ending conversations by causing the other party to leave you alone as they go deal with their scrambled worldview somewhere where they can be alone with their thoughts. However, more testing is required.
After that, he shifted his attention from his side-project back to his real work. And, for a moment, Ulyssian was happy.
***
This was supposed to be just a middling length omake about describing how Uly uses his new expanded mental abilities. Then the damn Nilul appeared out of nowhere to my writing, and started eating more of my time! And then Uly started doing it too! But eh, I could have wasted my time on worse things.
I don't think you need a separate stat for Exalts. A night caste spy would be worth something +1 Intelligence by himself alone, where as you might need an entire spy network in a country to get +1 Intelligence.
My sides.
Nilul.exe has stopped working.
It is less for exalts and more for exceptional exalts that matter on an individual basis. The reason for this is damaging might via assasinations is now viable and in the military sense once exalts reach a minimum level of power regular armies stop being relevant for fighting them. A faction with high military but low enough might can simply be taken over by Uly showing up and murderizing everyone who objects to him being in charge. Regular dragonbloods are folded into the other ratings it is only ones that are stragegic game changers by themselves that are relevant to might.
For example us just killing our opponent would have just dropped house Cathaks might rating by a couple notches due to not having him around anymore.
For are faction might represents what Uly, Zao, Ivory, and Nilul have been up to.
meianmaru
The Devourer of Fiction
Hmm. I'm not completely sure if it would be worth it (though it could be), and Rihaku might have already started writing the update.
Rihaku
The Internet
Alectai, could you explain the system that skaro mentioned in this post? I understand it's something similar to the CK2 system that is popular on this site, but I don't know anything about that either.
Usernames
Merc gonna merc ya
SirLagginton
Shadow Cabal Caerbannog Bun-Bun
- Location
- Arrrghhh
It's a system based on Crusader Kings 2 that was developed by the poster Gaius Marius, and it first appeared in his quests. I'm not sure it'll be your cup of tea though, generally from what I've seen of it it's more narrativist than pure crunch.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Long story short, I measure out aggregate liquid resources as "Jade Obols", (Which also represents available labor, material, as well as actual money), which serves as your "This is how much economic power you can throw at your projects this turn without compromising on something important, like feeding your people". And those "Jade Obols" are used to purchase things such as advantages (Better equipment, training for your troops), improved economics (Investing in local industries, exploiting resources, public works), or dicking over your enemies (Conducting raids, intelligence operations, and soforth). I set the difficulty of any given task by eyeballing roughly how good the odds are for an "Average" Citizen of the polity to execute it (This can exceed 100 if it would be straight up impossible), and then I reduce that difficulty making use of advantages available to the polity (Such as distribution of Exalted labour, specialized training and tools, diplomatic reputation, and so on). Once I've crunched everything, I roll a d100, and if you score above the final difficulty, it's a success.