- Location
- USA
Right, well it looks like we have at least a primitive communications system. I'm curious, though, @Redium , how come the Great Relay isn't in the Megaprojects Tab on our civilization sheet? I assume it does confer some bonuses to us, aside from the aforementioned communications assistance?
This leaves us with quite a conundrum. Do we simply wait for the Hundred Bands to either be assimilated or fall to the Tribe to the West, or do we knock them off ourselves and try to position ourselves to gain an advantage?
While I am not entirely sure what to believe regarding the Band to the West, specifically the claim that they had created an entire island of their own, I do believe that they do represent a legitimate threat, as seen by some of the excerpts below.
When it comes to them building an island however, the only thing that comes to mind with that are the chinampas of the Mayans, the floating fertile gardens they created in order to expand their agriculture. At this point though, I think that seems a little farfetched that they could have accomplished that with this level of technology and history. All the same, we do know that at the very least they seem to have competent engineers and pioneering minds.
From this it seems like the Band from the West is carrying out consistent raiding against the Hundred Bands. To me this likely qualifies as an external event that we could use to tip them over the edge into shattering, especially if we use our dog sleds to attack during winter and raid their settlement bare.
From what we know of the South, which seems to be very generalized knowledge from before, they are expansionistic and warlike, raiding and driving away others in order to claim their fertile land for their own. While the Band to the South of the Hundred Bands may not be notable, opening a vacuum probably won't lead to us gaining a friendly neighbor to our south. Our gamble here is whether or not we believe by eliminating the Hundred Bands will benefit us. There are to possibilities if we eliminate the Hundred Bands. The first is that we raid them, they shatter, we might assimilate a few of them into our tribe, and then we leave to go back to the Fingers, leaving the entrance to the lake below open for other tribes to try and claim for themselves. If this occurs, we will have to gamble on whether the one replacing the Hundred Bands are a combination of strong or weak, hostile or friendly. Considering what we know of the South, I doubt they will be friendly, however if they are strong we will need to know if they will serve as an adequate bulwark against the Tribe to the West, yet if they are weak they will most likely serve only as a speedbump to them and won't really pose a threat to us. Overall, knocking off the Hundred Bands and leaving their territory for someone else to claim is a huge gamble which we don't have the appropriate information for to know which scenario is more likely.
On the other hand, if instead do as Kaspar suggested and tried to incorporate their territory into our own, we will likely gain another geographic strong point. By anchoring ourselves along the Great River once again we will obviously gain an advantage in terms of agriculture and travel. Our canoes will allow our traders to travel fast in one direction during the warm months, while in the cold months our dog sleds will still allow us to adequately connect and resupply our various settlements with the Fingers as a hub of sorts. The fact that their territory is the river will also allow us to keep on expanding our wild rice growing efforts, helping keep our food stable. Furthermore as Kaspar illustrated above, through incorporating the lands of the Hundred Bands into our own we will likely open ourselves to even more trade with other tribes. For a neolithic tribe, the resources we have at our disposal are some of the most sought after and formidable, obsidian and sugar most of all. Considering how rare those two are, we can likely secure our position through making it so that our trade is something to be valued, thus building alliances as stated. Their territory stands at a point of confluence between the Great River and the southern lake before them. Considering how quickly we can travel on water, both through our canoes and dog sleds, we have an unparalleled advantage when it comes to both raiding and defending against raids as we can always travel quickly enough to do both.
Conversely, if we try to claim the territory of the Hundred Bands after shattering them, we will obviously be putting ourselves in a delicate situation. I doubt the Western Tribe will simply hold off on their attacks against the islands we will hold simply because we are not the Hundred Bands, while I doubt the Southern Band will do the same, making it so by claiming their territory we will have to be ready to defend against two pronged raids and assaults. While we do have an advantage in that regard due to our brick walls, numbers still mean a lot. @Redium If we did raid the Hundred Bands and they shattered from this, would we even have the population numbers to set up a proper settlement to claim their territory?
That I feel is one of the key questions regarding the aftermath of raiding them.
Another consideration needs to be taken however, and that is, if we don't raid them now, will we be able to successfully do so again later? Think about it, at the moment we still seem to have two Martial Heroes which we can use to lead our forces in battle, yet as the excerpt has shown they are both approaching old age. Who knows how long it will be until we gain another one, let alone two, to help prosecute an offensive? By eliminating the Hundred Bands, we will also likely gain more prestige, which will lead to other tribes respecting us more and taking us more seriously.
All in all, I believe that raiding should be taken into consideration as a valid option. I don't like the idea of simply sitting around and waiting for the situation to be dictated to us. While choosing another action will likely still allow us to progress, we will still have to be reactionary to any developments down south. From what the passage seemed to indicate, the Hundred Bands seem to be faltering in the face of the Western Tribe, who's to say that the Western Tribe doesn't do in the Hundred Bands and consolidate their territory sooner or later? While raiding is an energy negative activity, I think that the merits for eliminating the Hundred Bands should be considered, as if we do eliminate them we will likely gain not only prestige, but also chances to gain their technologies and an upgrade to our values.
This is also something we should be keeping in mind. As I have stated before, the Barrow Builders right now seem like an enemy in waiting. The Hundred Bands have so far been our most consistent enemy, but at the same time due to our own advances we have seemingly eliminated them as a credible existential threat to ourselves. If we raid and eliminate the Hundred Bands, and then follow up with that by establishing a settlement down South, I am not entirely sure if we will have the concentration of numbers necessary to defend all three settlements.
This is a reminder that Kaspar is aging and his time with us will soon be over. With all of that in mind, we should use his Quad Hero powers now while we still can to gain another leap forward, an advantage to build off of.
With everything in mind, right now I am leaning towards the Raid option as well as the Studying Fire option. My reasoning for both options are simple. Raiding the Hundred Bands right now will likely be our best bet to eliminate them ourselves within the near future. We currently have two martial heroes, ones which are unlikely to survive the next turn. Our elite units combined with their leadership should give us the edge needed to shatter them, and thus gain the prestige, technology, and values that comes with the reward for doing so. So far it seems that conflict for us seems to a crucible of sorts, every time we engage in a conflict we tend to generate things like new heroes, gain new technologies from the defeated, gain new values for our conduct, and so on and so forth. This choice will likely be a now or never option, meaning if we don't do so now we won't have as good a chance to do so later, both due to not having two martial heroes, as well as the chance that the Western Tribe beats us to the punch.
As for studying fire, Kaspar is a quad hero of disciplines including (Diplo, Martial, Art, Admin). We also know that he has earned the Citrine Bead for those inducted into the Ember Eyes. With his genius I believe that in his remaining time, Kaspar will likely be able to give us another innovation that will likely allow us to progress further long after he is gone. Compared to the other options, I don't believe they will have the same effect as allowing Kaspar to dedicate his time to this. Increasing Aquaculture will probably just be another instance of us building more food stores and more food production, something that is useful but unlikely to bring innovation in the near future. A Festival doesn't really appeal to me as I don't think we've done anything so far to honor with one. I do like rearming, I'm just unsure if it's the most optimal option, then again with our new upgraded value it will likely help with our martial actions.
Altogether right now I am leaning towards raiding or studying fire.
The Northern Tribe is hunting mammoths or mastodons then? Doesn't seem sustainable due to what we know about history, but at the same time at least their ivory is useful enough. This does make me somewhat curious about domesticating the Orkers and these mammoths again, but at this time it seems unlikely for both. At least the confirmation of Mammoths still being around gives us a better idea of where we are in the timeline, as we know when mammoths started to decline and go extinct, which puts us solidly in the neolithic period I think.
Anyway here's my vote:
[X] [Raid] No, study. (Study Fire)
[X] [Raid] Yes (Raid: Hundred Bands)
