Yes, but the way it was handled in PoC was shortsighted. There was too much emphasis on technology and not enough on societal development. Not saying that technology is unimprtant, just that our society nedds to remain adaptable or it will perish.
This seems like a kinda reductive statement. There was a lot more going on, and a lot more moving parts, in PoC than just an overemphasis on technology at the cost of 'society development' (whatever that means.)
This seems like a kinda reductive statement. There was a lot more going on, and a lot more moving parts, in PoC than just an overemphasis on technology at the cost of 'society development' (whatever that means.)
I think it was more that once people realize they can get a tech they focused on that to the point it was nearly crashing the economy, or some other bad things.
I think it was more that once people realize they can get a tech they focused on that to the point it was nearly crashing the economy, or some other bad things.
ehhhhh.... That was kinda the case when the thread started to really pump up their iron production, but even then it was mostly just internal political forces driving the economic issues, not the questers themselves. My recollection is that we were mostly just trying mitigate a shitton of different problems all at once.
That's not to say that the PoC players never made mistakes, just that it's hard to point to a single systematic issue throughout the whole quest that caused all of our problems. (Except maybe misunderstanding or romanticizing the way that the thread's chosen values influenced Ymaryn society. But even that certainly doesn't account for everything)
Well, color me confused. Where are we right now? We came in with River Bend and set up a point there, which is apparently now abandoned. The Fingermen have their settlement in ruins, so that's not it either. Where is our existing place?
I tried to read the map to figure out but it's too blurry for me to make out the labels on mobile.
Well, color me confused. Where are we right now? We came in with River Bend and set up a point there, which is apparently now abandoned. The Fingermen have their settlement in ruins, so that's not it either. Where is our existing place?
Ouch, I deserve that for zoning out on the prior vote. Thanks for the info.
I still think it's best to try and assimilate the peoples we have within us before we start bringing more in with their own aims and goals, but that argument makes sense then.
Trading away Spirit Food also means that you can't use it as much internally. Right now, that's one of the things that's papering over one of the biggest cracks in the People; the trade imbalance between Crystal Lake and the Fingers.
This vote was supposed to be a lot more contested than it ended up being.
It's probably modern sensibilities talking, but Slavery is right out. However, we do need to expand our trade network, and getting more hands to work and heads to think would be useful.
If you don't take these people, the trade leader is just going to kill them. To him, being forced to work is better than death. Slavery isn't so nearly as horrific as the chattel slavery of the 1700-1800s at this point in history.
Of course, our martial culture and the prisoners' apparent 'troublesomeness' may just see them maltreated and deepen the divisions already present, but I'm willing to take the risk for more Tech.
The more likely result here, according to Miri (Diplo/Admin Hero OP), is that the prisoner's troublesome behaviour would be valued in of itself. Bellicose Behaviour promotes a sort of a casual acceptance of violence and low-level fights. If a couple guys get into an argument and it ends with fists flying it's not really seen as much of a problem. Even if it gets bad enough that the losers end up spitting out a few broken teeth, as long as they're not injured to the point where they couldn't work, it isn't seen as much of a transgression.
We've been shown in the narrative that we've been struggling on our population size such that we had to downsize to just two settlements, and this is as someone mentioned effectively free growth. They'll also come with knowledge of tribal life up river, and perhaps things that they have learned there.
Buying the slaves will give knowledge and ideas. The only issue is that the ideas are very different between Crystal Lake and the Fingers.
Building a Holy Place in the Fingers actually brought Crystal Lake and the Fingers further apart, culturally. They were already divergent, but before the Holy Site was built, Crystal Lake was the uncontested spiritual centre for the People. Now it's divided. I'm a bit surprised that no one commented on the cultural drift part of the narrative; you were at risk of losing Legitimacy but Tymon crit enough to save it.
I'm also a bit disappointed that no one commented on your government upgrade.
According to the leader of the Northern Hundred Bands, these prisoners are from a conflict between the north and south faction among the Hundred Bands. He wasn't really clear on what the cause of the internecine conflict was. As far as Miri could tell, a decision rendered by their tribal council ended up provoking a murder and then subsequent blood feud between two large extended families. The unity of the tribe then slowly disintegrated over the next few decades with the sudden disappearance of the Fingersmen being the last cause to make them Shatter.
He says that being able to provide Spirit Food is a massive source of Legitimacy since it's the best tasting thing that anyone has ever found. It's also extremely important in preserving food. Aside from drying and smoking, sugaring is the only known method of preservation.
Well, under the current option, you're adopting them into the People. This means that they'll become kith and kin; fully trusted with canoes and hunting. Miri and Tymon feel that it's highly likely that some of the ones you buy will steal from you and then try to disappear. The northern Hundred Bands could take that badly if the captives escape from you and then become a pain in their ass.
There's also issues of cultural drift between Crystal Lake and the Fingers. Crystal Lake is pure People, but the Fingers are a mix of Fingersmen, River-Bend, People and potentially Hundred Bands.
We tried a similar system in Paths of Civilization. It actually worked pretty well, all things considered, but there was a lot of drama surrounding dealing with some of the abuses that eventually crept into the system.
tbh, I think it's a pretty workable solution at this level of development.
The issue, as I understand it in PoC was more because players didn't maximize interconnectivity and central authority. They ruled over vast portions of lands that didn't have adequate roads or shrines and that left a lot of people in the backwoods to their own devices. This allowed corruption to seep in over time as some of the people in the backwoods realized it was easier to keep a few undesirables as Half-Exiles to do the crappy jobs no one enjoyed than it was to have the position of Half-Exile rotate among trouble-makers as it was initially intended.
The Palace Crisis and Tax Crisis back to back during the early Iron Age were also major causes of later abuses. Players didn't realize that having a centralized palace meant a centralized bureaucracy and authority; they thought it was just a boondoggle. The Bronze Age civilizations were described as Palace Economies for a reason and players never really clued in that was the source of their first real problems with corruption setting in.
This was really exacerbated by how massively the Ymaryn expanded after they conquered the low-lands (traditional slave holders) and were not able to really culturally convert them.
PoC had the tools to solve the Half-Exile problems before they ever cropped up; they just didn't know what the actual solutions were.
There won't be an update tonight. I had to drive my brother back home and six hours in a car is brutal. Also, as some people guessed, spirit food is Maple Syurp based; it's actually maple sugar. The reason that it's so sought after is because it's refined sugar: the flavour is profoundly sweeter than anything else anyone can make and it's also an important preservative since no one's yet discovered salt.
Improve hunting + Build Palisade netted: Flat Bows (by narrative)
Improve hunting also got: Sinew binding for bows due to a good innovation rolls
Expand Traps + Collect Shelfish netted: Entrapment fishing (this was unlocked purely by narrative)
Expand Traps also netted: Snare traps
Investigate Spirit Food netted: Sugaring food preservation
I'll update the front page soon, give it a look over in about an hour for all updates.
We really should probably put priority on increasing the bonds between the two halves of our society next turn and finding a way to actually fix that crack the sugar is covering up.
We really should probably put priority on increasing the bonds between the two halves of our society next turn and finding a way to actually fix that crack the sugar is covering up.
Roads, we should build Roads, while its pretty straight what Im saying is we clear the underbrush and trees so its a straight and smooth travel threw the forests.
Actually, I take back the Future Succession/Civil War thing
IF we develop the government system towards King and Queen
Where its a Duarchy where BOTH are equal, and their Married. This is best for both Gender Equality and makes its less divisive. (Though the system is inherently dividing)
It also makes Idiot Kings/Queens mitigatible... and since theirs two the chances of BOTH being idiots are low, course we need to further lower this.
Fixing the hole is partly a matter of better travel but also partly a matter of reducing the trade imbalance. Having crystal lake be giving away rocks that the finger is dependent on FOR NO REAL BENEFIT (because we're trading most of our sugar for adoptees) is a flawed status quo.
We need:
-Better roads.
-Increase maple production or come up with other trade goods in order to reduce that.
-Motivation for inter-group member exchanges (cough rotating festival cough).
We need a bigger boat! No seriously, roads are a huge money sink and you can transport much more on water than on land. We ought to build river craft specialized for the transport of high value goods.
We need a bigger boat! No seriously, roads are a huge money sink and you can transport much more on water than on land. We ought to build river craft specialized for the transport of high value goods.
If they are being sold to us as an alternative to killing them, wont they risk being killed if they return home?
And wont this keep most of them at our camp not wanting to return and risk their lives?
Since wolves around our area weren't hunted to extinction, this also prove to be terrifying to our enemies if they see wolf drawn sleds with such massive wolves.
Anyway... Have to say it's a pretty cool readthrough.
I don't expect to be able to stop the bandwagon sliding down the frozen River full speed but I'll try anyway.
[X] Find something else to trade with the northern Hundred Bands
[X] Refuse to deal with a slave trafficker
I'd prefer the first of the two but am okay with either. We can't use the slaves right now, nor do we need foreigners to join our tribe with the situation we're currently in. Let the trafficker drown them in the River if he feels he has to, we'll wash our hands off the guilt. Only question that remains is if we snub our violent neighbors and keep the sugar to bribe our own people, or if we make some profit at the expense of sweet sweet social lubricant.
Anyway... Have to say it's a pretty cool readthrough.
I don't expect to be able to stop the bandwagon sliding down the frozen River full speed but I'll try anyway.
[X] Find something else to trade with the northern Hundred Bands
[X] Refuse to deal with a slave trafficker
I'd prefer the first of the two but am okay with either. We can't use the slaves right now, nor do we need foreigners to join our tribe with the situation we're currently in. Let the trafficker drown them in the River if he feels he has to, we'll wash our hands off the guilt. Only question that remains is if we snub our violent neighbors and keep the sugar to bribe our own people, or if we make some profit at the expense of sweet sweet social lubricant.
[X] Accept the proposed trade of workers for food.
-[X] Accept them as adoptees
[X] [Admin] Build Palisade
-[X] Crystal Lake
[X] [Admin] Study Travel
*Proc -> Great Trace Megaproject 1/4-6
[X] [Diplo] Explore
-[X] South of Crystal Lake
[X] [Action] Great Trace 2/4-6
[X] [Action] Tap Sugar
Tymon wondered what his brothers would have thought had they still been alive. He was old now, among the last living in his generation. His teeth had started to fall out and his limbs had none of the vigor of their youth. Even his mind was starting to slow. At least, in comparison to his granddaughter, Miri, his mind was slow. The young woman was always moving, always with a new idea in her head. All of the troubles that he foresaw, he knew that she would safely handle. The woman had all of his skill when it came to organizing the People and all of his mother's skill with words to make the People follow along.
It made him smile to see her bustle in, chat with a few of her friends, and then have them accomplish the work of a dozen in a single afternoon. Listening to her voice seemed to put you in a trance and make work happen far faster and with fewer mistakes.
Even the new adoptees respected her, for the most part. There were, of course, some that stole canoes and stole food from the People, trying to make their way back to their lands in the south. The losses hurt, but not enough to cause lasting damage. The Big Man of the northern Hundred Bands was quite cross with the People for allowing them to leave, especially when some of his tribe were killed by returning warriors, but he took no concrete steps to make his displeasure known; the palisade of the People at the Fingers was fearsome. Tymon also made sure that their palisade was covered in mud to prevent fire damage and that the snows were quickly cleared away from it. Feodor's daring raid would not be repeated as long as he had anything to say about it!
Still, Tymon had definitely noticed the fact that there were fewer adult men and youths given to them; though some boys still were. When Miri had pressed the Hundred Band Big Man about the situation, he had excused it as: 'Men are muscled and sink in the river. Women are fat and float.' The men were drowned in other words so that they wouldn't leave the People and become a problem to the Big Man of the northern bands. It was cold-blooded murder for convenience, but it was also a topic on which Tymon would say nothing. The People were too fragile to bring hostilities against the Hundred Bands.
The adoptees that did arrive on the People's shores at the Fingers, were quickly put to work, tapping more trees for collection of 'sugar', as it was starting to be called. During the months were life returned to the world, the People's hunters slowed their efforts temporarily and focused on gathering buckets upon buckets of tree sap in order to boil for sweet sugar. They were tied over by the gathering of water-grass and trapping small fur-bearing animals, but it made for a few moons of rather bland fare.
It was worth it, though, many times over. Sugar was the most distinct taste that the People knew and quickly became a staple of many of their meals. It went a long way to hide the taste of meat that had gone to long from when it was killed. If added early, just after the meat was dried, it made it last for months!
The extra production had also been necessary in dealing with many of the difficulties between Crystal Lake and the Fingers. Before the widespread use of sugar, there had been a significant imbalance in goods produced between the two settlements. Blackstone was in extremely high demand by everyone. It was good for weapons, for knives in the preparation of rawhide and leather, cutting plants down to size to cook; virtually every area of life benefited from having access to Blackstone.
More than a few had grumbled about making the two moon long round trip in order to drop off supplies that would not benefit the People of Crystal Lake. That had changed as sugar production slowly increased. Given all of the food that had to be brought back to feed the a caravan making the trip back, the limited production of sugar wasn't seen as a massive bottleneck. Even when some was diverted to pay the northern Hundred Bands for the slowly increasing number of captives, the amount of sugar production managed to keep pace. The fact that Crystal Lake seemed to lake in the type of trees that made the production of sugar possible (even if only in comparison to the Fingers) it firmly tied the two settlements together.
Access to sugar had paid dividends for Crystal Lake when Miri had organized an expedition to the south, along the rim of the great bay. They had traveled by canoe only a few days to the south when they came across an area of the bay riven by rivers that was inhabited by a tribe they'd never before seen! They had been completely shocked at the coming of the People, especially once they realized how close the People's camp actually was!
Apparently, once Miri had managed to piece together enough of their language to have a short, broken conversation, she found out that they were from the south. The land that they had come from had not one other tribe, but four who were engaged in constant, low-level raids. The entire area was a large expanse of flat land that was extremely fertile. The tribes feed themselves by cultivating the land, which meant that land was extremely valuable. It was also, they had said, often easier to take the land another tribe had cultivated, than turning the vast forests into productive farms.
The entire tribe had broken off from the various belligerent tribes to the south, forming a group that foremost sought peace. Every one of them had lost a family member to war and they wanted no more of it. They believed murder and killing to be a sin in the eyes of the spirits; unforgivable when they could just plant their crops. It meant they must work harder, be more prudent, and have fewer children, but that's what the spirits had intended. They had moved to the north then, and passed through the Rough Lands until they found the eastern edge of the great bay.
Miri had told the People's story, but, perhaps wisely, glossed over the difficulties the People had with the Fingers. She emphasized the fact that the People were a coalition; People, River-Bend, Fingersmen, and now Hundred Band folk all together. This pleased the Peace Seekers and caused them to invite the entire exploratory party to a great feast.
The sugar that Miri had brought with her was an immediate hit among the Peace Seekers and they eagerly shared their evergreen tea in thanks. They claimed that it had medicinal properties (and from what Tymon knew of the evergreen that the People had later managed to source in their own lands - it did) and made the hurting and the old much, much younger.
The feast had also given the Peace Seekers the chance to show off their unique pots and other earthenware before the People. It was clearly more advanced in manufacturing, but it also came in numerous colours. Not only brown, like the People's, but in grey, white, red, and even yellow. When Miri returned, it was with trade goods, medicine, and news of other tribes. Even the most reluctant of People at Crystal Lake had to admit their thanks for a girl born of the Fingers.
Even though relations between the Peace Seekers and the People were cordial, with occasional trade, Miri managed to turn the presence of another tribe, one so close to the People of Crystal Lake into a way to bind the People together. She imported huge numbers of workers from the Fingers to construct a palisade in Crystal Lake. The huge number of woodworkers brought in and the length of time it took to fully construct the palisade resulted in many of those workers, whether they were Fingersmen, People, Hundred Band, or River-Bend, settling down in Crystal Lake. The fact that many of the young men in Crystal Lake soon learned that there were a lot more young women in the Fingers caused many of them to move down in the hopes of better being able to attract women.
It was a temporary transfer of population, but it did a lot to heal divisions between the two Settlements.
It also brought to light several issues that weren't really noticed before. Specifically in how the People treated debt and 'marriage'.
Tymon, as the most local of the two great Big Men, had been called in to arbitrate a dispute between two men. They had come to blows over a debt that one of the men owed to the other. The actual fight was of little consequence and was stopped before either party was injured to the point where it could become a problem. Dust ups were common in the People, especially among young men, and weren't really seen as a matter of import as long as no one was injured to severely.
The aggressor had ended up asking for judgement because he claimed to have been wronged. He claimed to have lent the men he attacked a large amount of food in exchange for a supply of sugar. The second man did provide the sugar, but it was of profoundly terrible quality. It was known that sap could only be collected for one or two moons during the thaw. If you gathered before, the return was very poor, and if you gathered after that, the resulting sugar tasted terrible.
The second man claimed that it was not his fault that the other young man mishandled the sugar given to him; exposing it to water quickly made sugar turn sour. Other witnesses stepped forward at that point, however, and noted that the second man was a known scoundrel. There had been more than a few people that he had cheated or lied to. The man actually had accumulated informal debts from nearly everyone. He had just managed to evade the consequences for years by tricking others out of small amounts of food and moving between Crystal Lake and the Fingers.
Everyone agreed that the man was a scoundrel and a cheat. Normally, what happened in such cases was that people simply refused to allow that person to borrow anything. Reputation was currency among the People. If you weren't renowned, you didn't have friends, family, or connections, and you didn't pay your debts, people wouldn't give you anything. Starvation was a frequent out come at that point and from what Tymon could see of the man, that was likely to soon be his fate. The reason he had stole as much food as he had was because he wasn't able to get enough of his own and no one would lend to him.
The man needed to be punished, but in what way?
[ ] Provide restitution to the victim, but do nothing about the thief's debt.
[ ] Put the man to work on behalf of the People, his food ration will be given upon him working.
[ ] Force the man to pay the debt back to the person he stole from, however he can manage it.
[ ] Brand the man a thief and allow nature to take its course.
[ ] Exile him.
