From Stone to the Stars

[x] [War Debt] Recognize Raiders as akin to Shaman
[x] [Wall] Stagger the palisade, build multiple layers of defenses!
 
hmmmm
[X] [War Debt] Select Raiders by Lot
we are already a martial people, might as well go all in. it might hurt us in the short-term but perhaps this could result in a better militant society.

dammit I want all three of those!!!

but alright ill choose:
[X] [Wall] Stagger the palisade, build multiple layers of defenses!
the first one can be circumvented by digging under, the next results in the people getting shot at by archers even if we have the range advantage, I suggest we stagger the defenses...then next turn get the elevated platforms with some keen-sighted people. also put torches not around the elevated platforms but near the ground so they light the area up.
then we can get some actual walls with the clay bricks...

can we do this as a mega-project though? take a few seasons and generations to make the settlements staggered at first, then make the elevated platforms and finally add bricks to the walls until it alternates between the logs and the bricks (the logs to hold the bricks in place while the bricks provide protection to the log, the logs can be replaced later on with metal once we get metal-working)
 
[X] [War Debt] Select Raiders by Lot
[X] [Wall] Change the walls materials to tougher brick!

Maybe some climate and plant rearrangement? AUearth :p

I think it is more likely that we may be in North America all things considered. Sugar Maple, which is what we use to make our sugar, is natural only to North America. While rice cultivation and domestication is normally believed to have been developed and started in China, due to the alternate history nature of this quest we can't rule out that our actions could have changed that. While domesticated rice was brought to the Americas by the Europeans, there was wild rice to be found that was native to the continent as well, so it is possible that our actions here have changed how that has occurred.



What does intrigue me however is the recent map change we've seen. Specifically those three tan tiles to the far west of us in the bay. To me it looks like we might be near a desert of some sort. While our climate so far has been suggested to be a more northerly clime due to the amount of snow we've received, who knows if that is true for the entirety of the area. I personally think that we should eventually develop a settlement on the bay so that we can firstly get access to the bay and the resources it can provide, and also perhaps innovate our way into salt production.
 
We should consider what we're planning in the future when it comes to the Raider vote.

Are we looking to expand by force? Then the Professional Army should be our choice, but if we aren't, a militia will keep our people productive and won't be a drain on our resources during peacetime.

Our people have never been the expansionist type, we've barely explored beyond our borders after we got that sweet crit in Crystal Lake (Thanks RNGesus!), so I'm favoring the latter right now.

I'm also wary of the 3rd option that encourages the capture of enemy hunters for several reasons. Like I said before, we run the risk of an internal revolt once there's too many of them, and there will be if our hunters want to pay their debts. I don't want to end up like Sparta, martially excellent but forever living in fear of a Slave Revolt, never straying too far from their city. That, and we will come to rely on the Debtors for our agriculture since there'll be too many of them to feed unless we start dipping into the slave trade, which is a big no-no for me. I'm fine with any raider vote winning so long as it isn't #3.

That said, I'm pretty hyped for Rice. We have Rice AND Sugar! I can personally attest that the food you can make by combining those two is second to none.
 
I don't want to end up like Sparta, martially excellent but forever living in fear of a Slave Revolt, never straying too far from their city. That, and we will come to rely on the Debtors for our agriculture since there'll be too many of them to feed unless we start dipping into the slave trade, which is a big no-no for me. I'm fine with any raider vote winning so long as it isn't #3.
Slave Revolts are not even Common, Rome had slaves up the ass and only had like three that were worth mentioning and none were really successful. Don't treat them like total shit (Well this one doesn't seem to be as important as the weapon one though) and don't give them weapons, you'll be good.
Edit: Yes this is a vast simplification, but going into the mechanics of keeping slaves is both a topic not for here, and not one i really want to delve into.
 
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Slave Revolts are not even Common, Rome had slaves up the ass and only had like three that were worth mentioning and none were really successful. Don't treat them like total shit (Well this one doesn't seem to be as important as the weapon one though) and don't give them weapons, you'll be good.
Edit: Yes this is a vast simplification, but going into the mechanics of keeping slaves is both a topic not for here, and not one i really want to delve into.
Didn't catch that edit while writing so I'm just gonna spoiler the reply I wrote (I don't want the time I spent writing it to go to waste). That said, I'll go drop the topic from now on since like you said, it's not a topic for the thread.

Rome had the advantage of both being huge so one revolt though uncommon won't cripple their entire economy, and a very efficient road system that allowed them to respond quickly to any that did crop up.

We don't have either advantage, though admittedly we are working on the latter. We're less Rome and more Sparta. The probability of violence due to small or perceived slights is higher than normal since our People look to violence as the first solution to their problems, so mistreatment of debtors can happen and might even be socially accepted. That, and a revolt doesn't need to be successful to harm us, it just needs to happen and suddenly, one of our two settlements is disrupted possibly ruining our economy since we'll need to secure debtors to replace those that died. The fear of that happening can also trigger maltreatment of debtors, just look at Sparta's Helots.

The Spartan economy was so reliant on Helots, that they feared a Helot revolt would ruin Sparta. So, they did their best to cull excessive numbers of Helots, and generally treated them horribly out of fear and to keep them in line.
 
Didn't catch that edit while writing so I'm just gonna spoiler the reply I wrote (I don't want the time I spent writing it to go to waste). That said, I'll go drop the topic from now on since like you said, it's not a topic for the thread.

Rome had the advantage of both being huge so one revolt though uncommon won't cripple their entire economy, and a very efficient road system that allowed them to respond quickly to any that did crop up.

We don't have either advantage, though admittedly we are working on the latter. We're less Rome and more Sparta. The probability of violence due to small or perceived slights is higher than normal since our People look to violence as the first solution to their problems, so mistreatment of debtors can happen and might even be socially accepted. That, and a revolt doesn't need to be successful to harm us, it just needs to happen and suddenly, one of our two settlements is disrupted possibly ruining our economy since we'll need to secure debtors to replace those that died. The fear of that happening can also trigger maltreatment of debtors, just look at Sparta's Helots.

The Spartan economy was so reliant on Helots, that they feared a Helot revolt would ruin Sparta. So, they did their best to cull excessive numbers of Helots, and generally treated them horribly out of fear and to keep them in line.
I will say that were not Sparta either, Sparta is easily superior, at this point in time. The difference here is Sparta is reliant on their slaves, were not, we would be extremely independent since our agricultural development is low we rely more on hunting still, as rice production goes up were going to have to give up military strength or get slaves or servants since early agrarian societies were tremendously weak.
 
[X] [War Debt] Recognize Raiders as akin to Shaman
[X] [Wall] Build elevated platforms form which the People can fire!

Will be feeding the raiders regardless, so we might as well make it a state basis rather than a slave basis.
Elevated platforms = pseudo-watchtowers. Wooden palisades are cheaper, anyways.
 
[X] [War Debt] Select Raiders by Lot
[X] [Wall] Change the walls materials to tougher brick!
 
[x] [Wall] Stagger the palisade, build multiple layers of defenses!
[x] [War Debt] Recognize Raiders as akin to Shaman
 
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[X] [War Debt] Recognize the labour of captives as paying their captor's debts
[X] [Wall] Change the walls materials to tougher brick!
 
[X] [War Debt] Recognize the labour of captives as paying their captor's debts
[X] [Wall] Change the walls materials to tougher brick!
[X] [Wall] Build elevated platforms form which the People can fire!

Okay, we now have our first cultivated grain. This is really big.

It also means that we're going to have a decent safe level of food going forward, meaning things like spending an action each turn on Trade is no longer as potentially dangerous as before when we needed as much food as we could get.
 
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[X] [War Debt] Select Raiders by Lot
[X] [Wall] Build elevated platforms form which the People can fire!

I want architectural innovation! I want my militia!
 
[ ] [War Debt] Recognize Raiders as akin to Shaman

Professional warriors. Great on offense as they have high shock value, and can start developing organization and combat techniques. Poor on defense as their number grows far slower than the territory that needs to be defended, barring slavery or similar inequities to support their number.
Eventually the warrior elite tend to take over the rule of the civilization.

[ ] [War Debt] Select Raiders by Lot

Militia. Great on defense, as they mean that we don't really have any weak points, but over the long run they aren't really much good for attacking other people, and losses will hit our economy.
This preserves population equities for longer, which is helpful if you want to transition to one of the forms of oligarchy, theocracy or bureaucracy based governments later. Theres a vested interest in not being too abusive hwne a lot of dudes are armed(but also a problem with making sure the armed dudes go to the right places)

[ ] [War Debt] Recognize the labour of captives as paying their captor's debts

Slavery. As with the warrior elite, but using slavery to generate a larger number of warrior elites through forced inequity. This also unlocks slave raids for boosting Econ I think.

[ ] [Wall] Change the walls materials to tougher brick!

Mortared Brick Walls. These walls are more durable, and cheaper to maintain. The average guy is not going to make much headway hacking at it with an axe, so they are going to be proof against assault until siegecraft is invented.

[ ] [Wall] Build elevated platforms form which the People can fire!

Towers. These focus on sight range and first strike. While easier to develop with brick walls(as they are stronger and can go higher), they're also harder because once you have brick walls you might well not get the impetus to build active defenses like towers when you're sure enemies stay outside.
Fortunately our new value means we probably won't accept Enough.

[ ] [Wall] Stagger the palisade, build multiple layers of defenses!

Layered defenses. This is good for protecting outer farms and stuff later on, as field walls slow down enemies, then perimeter wall stall them and finally a keep in the middle lets your last ditch defenders and dependents wait for reinforcements

The problem is, while its made of wood it would be increasingly expensive to maintain.

[X] [War Debt] Select Raiders by Lot
[X] [Wall] Build elevated platforms form which the People can fire!

So Defense focus. Get Towers while we have the idea. We can convert them to brick pretty easily later on as brick spreads as an important building material
 
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[x] [War Debt] Recognize the labour of captives as paying their captor's debts
[x] [Wall] Build elevated platforms form which the People can fire!
 
[X] [War Debt] Recognize the labour of captives as paying their captor's debts
[X] [Wall] Change the walls materials to tougher brick!

This probably means that down the road, slavery would become an issue.
 
[X] [War Debt] Select Raiders by Lot
[X] [Wall] Build elevated platforms form which the People can fire!

The platform is not towers only, but a firing step. This would mean for example piling up earth behind a palisade until you could stand on it to fire down. This would both strengthen the wall and make it harder to advance up to it at the same time.
 
[X] [War Debt] Recognize Raiders as akin to Shaman
[X] [Wall] Build elevated platforms form which the People can fire!
 
[X] [War Debt] Recognize the labour of captives as paying their captor's debts

[x] [Wall] Build elevated platforms form which the People can fire!
 
[X] [War Debt] Select Raiders by Lot
[X] [Wall] Build elevated platforms form which the People can fire!

The platform is not towers only, but a firing step. This would mean for example piling up earth behind a palisade until you could stand on it to fire down. This would both strengthen the wall and make it harder to advance up to it at the same time.
Oh yeah, that's a big advance too. Our current wall is unable to be garrisoned at all, so once they reached it it was only a matter of time to chop through.
 
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