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[Exalted, ?] Most High

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Lacking the ability for a Lore write-in, I'll go with

[X] Prey and Hunter
[X] Implement Purge
[X] Prayer Optimization

A single (-) Bureaucratic action seems doable (that is, not pairing it with Consolidate Gains), and we need to deal with this corruption now. 15% off the top is simply too greedy. Levy those punishing fines, and then feed that money back into the Public Works project; that should nicely cut off any theoretical accusations of Satrap graft/corruption, and should further boost our stock with the common man. Giving all refugees a way to contribute in exchange for food and wage will help that along further.

Prey and Hunter, of course, has the chance to destroy us, but with Better Listener, Fortune-stealing Palms and our excellent stealth and perception this is one of our better battlefields to challenge our Solaroid contemporaries in. And Consolidate Gains seems much more likely to get our men killed by the armies camped on our doorstep without meaningfully stopping Lunar monsters or Solaroid-led contingents.

The Peerless City is tempting, of course, but doesn't pair terribly well with Tip of the Spear last turn, and is almost certainly going to end with us receiving Anys-fed Home Office orders that will be terrible for us, or else pulled and sent to another front. Well, we'll beat her, we're going to toss ourselves headlong into danger before she can order us to do it!
 
Rihaku said:
Your Strike Force will be secret until it hits the Cusp, so they'd have to be spies among your Exalts themselves. Which, the Shikari... but they wouldn't seriously work with a Deathlord over you, would they?

Would they?

Hey! What's wrong with Shang-jyi's tactics? They're good, sound policies. Compare the amount of power a human in Exalted can generate by optimized prayer versus 80% of professions, and optimized prayer comes out on top! If you can wrangle the gods into using even a fraction of that power on your behalf, well - you've got an empire of legend, in the making!


Depends if you want them to or not. Your fieldcraft is superior, with Scar on your side. Assuming he's not an Abyssal infiltrator or something, but he hasn't pinged Infallible Watchman's eye.


Nope, not enough votes either way.


Hm, well, while you could definitely disengage with a high chance of survival, your DB friends might not be so lucky.
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Still a worthwhile risk, a fair chance at either headcapping their Necromancer master or teasing out useful data from the enemy is worthwhile. At the very least, the infiltration should be enough data to Prophecy them, even if we fail to bring down any of their Exalts, and we're not going to get a better chance to infiltrate and wreak havoc then we are now, when we're putting our ridiculous strategic pace to work against a mostly shambler-based economy.

How are we doing for XP? Enough to grab some bits of Absolutely Unbreakable yet? Or something else useful?
 
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[X] Prey and Hunter
[X] Implement Purge
[X] Prayer Optimization

Seriously 15% at the beginning? Naw those guys are taking way too much money as it is. Plus our reputation will only increase once people see we don't y tolerate corruption.
 
Rihaku said:
Tower of Ivory and Jade would let Moon arrive in fewer updates!
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Now that's just playing dirty.
Rihaku said:
Hey! What's wrong with Shang-jyi's tactics? They're good, sound policies. Compare the amount of power a human in Exalted can generate by optimized prayer versus 80% of professions, and optimized prayer comes out on top! If you can wrangle the gods into using even a fraction of that power on your behalf, well - you've got an empire of legend, in the making!
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I don't like the idea of reinforcing Creation's inherent hierarchy, putting mortals near the bottom of the food chain, mere sources of sustenance for various divine beings. No matter how sound and empirically validated the tactics are, having deities profit from human supplication rankles. We're not in a strong enough position to be making choices based on that kind of preference, though. Efficiency must reign supreme in Luseng for it to survive at all.
Rihaku said:
Your Strike Force will be secret until it hits the Cusp, so they'd have to be spies among your Exalts themselves. Which, the Shikari... but they wouldn't seriously work with a Deathlord over you, would they?
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One hopes not... but I wouldn't put commanding the shikari to sell us up the river to the Gardener past Syn. If they could heroically die against the Poppy or the Lily, that'd be great, but I don't know if we want to give them the opportunity to leak our plans to the enemy by cutting them in on the ambush in the first place. A question of risk versus reward; since the option is already risky, I'd say we should leave them out of it. If we can slaughter them all trivially, the Lily can likely do the same, so it's unlikely they'd be a deciding factor in a contest between us.
Alectai said:
How are we doing for XP? Enough to grab some bits of Absolutely Unbreakable yet? Or something else useful?
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We have almost enough to flash-buy a couple Charms at this point.
 
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Orm Embar said:
One hopes not... but I wouldn't but commanding the shikari to sell us up the river to the Gardener past Syn. If they could heroically die against the Poppy or the Lily, that'd be great, but I don't know if we want to give them the opportunity to leak our plans to the enemy by cutting them in on the ambush in the first place. A question of risk versus reward; since the option is already risky, I'd say we should leave them out of it. If we can slaughter them all trivially, the Lily can likely do the same, so it's unlikely they'd be a deciding factor in a contest between us.
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If we just tell the shikari, "Hey, pack your stuff, we're going Anathema-hunting," how exactly would they turn that into a counter-ambush?

And if we do run into Lily or the Gardener, Rihaku did say we'd have good odds of disengaging (though our DBs may not be so lucky). Though even then, I'd prefer to successfully guard their lives if possible.

EDIT: Oh, and I'm not sure that Lily - being as strong as we were when we killed Polemgaos - would be able to ignore them entirely.

We'd beaten a Perfect Brotherhood at that point in our career, yeah, but they weren't shikari. And we weren't trying to fight those hypothetical shikari together with Polemgaos himself (or as Lily, Ulyssian).
 
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Guile said:
If we just tell the shikari, "Hey, pack your stuff, we're going Anathema-hunting," how exactly would they turn that into a counter-ambush?

And if we do run into Lily or the Gardener, Rihaku did say we'd have good odds of disengaging (though our DBs may not be so lucky). Though even then, I'd prefer to successfully guard their lives if possible.
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We could likely hold a line for them to get some range before disengaging ourselves, we're actually pretty good at fighting defensively.

Guile said:
If we just tell the shikari, "Hey, pack your stuff, we're going Anathema-hunting," how exactly would they turn that into a counter-ambush?

And if we do run into Lily or the Gardener, Rihaku did say we'd have good odds of disengaging (though our DBs may not be so lucky). Though even then, I'd prefer to successfully guard their lives if possible.
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They could burn anima and "Attack before we're ready".

They'd be willing to suicide if they could potentially result to a mutual kill.
 
Guile said:
If we just tell the shikari, "Hey, pack your stuff, we're going Anathema-hunting," how exactly would they turn that into a counter-ambush?
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Sorcerous communication through pre-arranged channels? This is just a possibility, and I'm fully aware I'm being paranoid in suspecting such a thing, though Rihaku's response didn't exactly do much to quell my fears. More plausible scenarios include them stabbing us in the back at a pivotal moment during a fight between Ulyssian and the Lily, hoping to kill two dangerous Anathema in a single stroke.
 
Orm Embar said:
Sorcerous communication through pre-arranged channels? This is just a possibility, and I'm fully aware I'm being paranoid in suspecting such a thing, though Rihaku's response didn't exactly do much to quell my fears. More plausible scenarios include them stabbing us in the back at a pivotal moment during a fight between Ulyssian and the Lily, hoping to kill two dangerous Anathema in a single stroke.
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Aren't we actually stronger when being attacked by multiple opponents than alone?
 
Guile said:
EDIT: Oh, and I'm not sure that Lily - being as strong as we were when we killed Polemgaos - would be able to ignore them entirely.

We'd beaten a Perfect Brotherhood at that point in our career, yeah, but they weren't shikari. And we weren't trying to fight those hypothetical shikari together with Polemgaos himself (or as Lily, Ulyssian).
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They actually were shikari; it was a full-fledged Wyld Hunt.
Rihaku said:
Five Immaculate shikari, one of each element. Each a wholly dedicated warrior-saint of the Elemental Dragons. A Perfect Brotherhood.
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They might give us an edge, but there's a risk that edge would turn and cut us in an attempt to get a mutual kill. They are fanatics, after all.
 
Alectai said:
Still a worthwhile risk, a fair chance at either headcapping their Necromancer master or teasing out useful data from the enemy is worthwhile. At the very least, the infiltration should be enough data to Prophecy them, even if we fail to bring down any of their Exalts, and we're not going to get a better chance to infiltrate and wreak havoc then we are now, when we're putting our ridiculous strategic pace to work against a mostly shambler-based economy.

How are we doing for XP? Enough to grab some bits of Absolutely Unbreakable yet? Or something else useful?
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You're at 189,000 Normal and 212,00 Solar XP.

I've gotta say, guys, from an entirely pragmatic standpoint - given the diminishing rates of participation, and the sharp drop-off this week in particular, I don't know how much longer I can maintain this update rate, or perhaps even this quest. There are still many of you who contribute substantially in discussion or fanworks, and I appreciate each and every one of those posts. However, I've run my fair share of these things, and I know my energy level as a writer. It is no one's fault, and likely the result of underlying trends; Exalted is not a very popular or accessible medium, and we're never going to get the numbers that a more accessible property would pull. The SV/SB schism, in retrospective, did a lot of damage to audience sizes for questing. It's a medium that fundamentally relies on reaching a critical mass for discussion. It's been a good run, and maybe posters feel that Ulyssian is powerful enough now not to need their help.

We've run a little over one month; I've written a shade over 64,000 words in direct updates in that time. But I can't continue to do the equivalent of Wildbow's job and my own full time job with the situation like this. Whether a quest lives or dies - it's not just a matter of the person writing it. Often, it's not even in their hands. That's the problem with human brains. I know how quickly a quest can die if it loses momentum, and we've lost it. It's extremely hard to get back. I don't like doing things by halves. Whatever I do, I'm all in. But what comes next is up to you guys. Don't force yourselves; if there's stuff to talk about, then talk about it. If not, then don't.

At the end of the day - it was fun while it lasted. And how many things can you say that about, really?
 
Rihaku said:
You're at 189,000 Normal and 212,00 Solar XP.

I've gotta say, guys, from an entirely pragmatic standpoint - given the diminishing rates of participation, and the sharp drop-off this week in particular, I don't know how much longer I can maintain this update rate, or perhaps even this quest. There are still many of you who contribute substantially in discussion or fanworks, and I appreciate each and every one of those posts. However, I've run my fair share of these things, and I know my energy level as a writer. It is no one's fault, and likely the result of underlying trends; Exalted is not a very popular or accessible medium, and we're never going to get the numbers that a more accessible property would pull. The SV/SB schism, in retrospective, did a lot of damage to audience sizes for questing. It's a medium that fundamentally relies on reaching a critical mass for discussion. It's been a good run, and maybe posters feel that Ulyssian is powerful enough now not to need their help.

We've run a little over one month; I've written a shade over 64,000 words in direct updates in that time. But I can't continue to do the equivalent of Wildbow's job and my own full time job with the situation like this. Whether a quest lives or dies - it's not just a matter of the person writing it. Often, it's not even in their hands. That's the problem with human brains. I know how quickly a quest can die if it loses momentum, and we've lost it. It's extremely hard to get back. I don't like doing things by halves. Whatever I do, I'm all in. But what comes next is up to you guys. Don't force yourselves; if there's stuff to talk about, then talk about it. If not, then don't.

At the end of the day - it was fun while it lasted. And how many things can you say that about, really?
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I haven't felt like the momentum's dropped off though?

Then again, my activity kind of varies anyway. Isn't this exam week for a lot of people?
 
Alectai said:
I haven't felt like the momentum's dropped off though?

Then again, my activity kind of varies anyway. Isn't this exam week for a lot of people?
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It's been falling off for a while, though this latest week was the slowest - from monday's update to today's, we're at less than 50% of normal postcount, and 30% of postcount compared to weeks 1 and 2. The decrease is larger near the end of the week; less than 200 posts per update, and a large fraction are just mine. Of course, post count is not the only metric I track, but it correlates strongly with everything.
 
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Bummer. 35 voters doesn't seem so crippling to me, but you know yourself best.

Are you thinking of picking up something with a more popular bent on these boards (mostly popular anime like nasu, naruto or something with magical girls in it, or sci-fi), or what?
 
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Well, it would be a damned shame for this to end; I think my attachment to the story is readily apparent, as I have almost half the number of posts in the thread that you do. But I understand that motivation requires reinforcement, and that we must also do our part for this to succeed.
 
I'm trying! Seriously! I want to actually see one of these grand adventures actually Conclude for once. Jounin Quest did, but it also basically did so because "You really have no rivals left at this point".

Or at least get out of the early game.
 
Rihaku said:
You're at 189,000 Normal and 212,00 Solar XP.

I've gotta say, guys, from an entirely pragmatic standpoint - given the diminishing rates of participation, and the sharp drop-off this week in particular, I don't know how much longer I can maintain this update rate, or perhaps even this quest. There are still many of you who contribute substantially in discussion or fanworks, and I appreciate each and every one of those posts. However, I've run my fair share of these things, and I know my energy level as a writer. It is no one's fault, and likely the result of underlying trends; Exalted is not a very popular or accessible medium, and we're never going to get the numbers that a more accessible property would pull. The SV/SB schism, in retrospective, did a lot of damage to audience sizes for questing. It's a medium that fundamentally relies on reaching a critical mass for discussion. It's been a good run, and maybe posters feel that Ulyssian is powerful enough now not to need their help.
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I know that I haven't been participating as much recently but that's due to personal issues on my part taking up my time, has participation from the audience as a whole really been dropping off recently?
 
[X] Consolidate Gains
[X] Implement Purge
[X] Tower of Ivory and Jade

We pushed, and in the end we couldn't push hard enough. Surprise is blown, but we reclaimed some territory and purged infiltrators at least. Now? Now it's time to do some consolidating and continuing purging, not traitors this time around, but a much more insidious threat: bureaucrats. Now that the looming threat is not literally looming over the city walls in the form of a fucking behemoth, some people might get... ideas. Not seditious ideas, per se, but the idea that they can skim off the top without actively hurting their chances of survival.

We must disabuse them of this notion.

Wait, fuck, this is in danger of ending? Nonono, not again. What must we do?
 
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Alectai said:
I'm trying! Seriously! I want to actually see one of these grand adventures actually Conclude for once. Jounin Quest did, but it also basically did so because "You really have no rivals left at this point".

Or at least get out of the early game.
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We have a terrible habit of picking the most powerful possible character, and then being super surprised when they outgrow the setting.
 
Guile said:
Bummer. 35 voters doesn't seem so crippling to me, but you know yourself best.

Are you thinking of picking up something with a more popular bent on these boards (mostly popular anime like nasu or naruto, or sci-fi), or what?
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Well, 64,000 words a month is a pretty serious amount of work, even though it's often fun.

It may be that the questing audience has capsized to a degree that it doesn't make sense to run them anymore; SB/SV may have inadvertently caused that, at least for some. But that's not to say that even this quest is dead; like I said, it's up to you guys.
 
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