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From the Depths of the Arcology Quest

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[X] Ericson's cyberpsychos, The mans abuse of technology and disregard for his and anyone who works for him's humanity is sickening, it's honestly surprising it didn't happen sooner. (They won't go down easy, but they're not terribly active)

[X] The Scrappers, you grew up scrapping it's where you found all those old logs, books and recordings that had been buried deep out of the hands of the rest of the Arcology, of course you're good friends with most of them, and they were good friends with your parents too, they'll stand by you.

I don't see how we're likely to be able to beat any of the gangs. We've got two people, who are likely at least above average in skill, but not superspies or charismatic leaders. The gangs have the manpower and firepower to beat us without issue. I see one way to go about things that might work:
1) Build up a hidden support network (of scavengers).
2) Manipulate or use an existing gang war to weaken and occupy your enemies.
3) Get access to their bases and armories.
4) Get lucky or arrange for the enemy leader to get killed.
5) Eliminate the gang in a coup using the chaos to stage numerous assassinations and take control of their resources.
6) Somehow manage to not be rolled over or assimilated by the surrounding gangs smelling blood in the water.

This plan has numerous faults, as it relies on enough things going perfectly that the only realistic way it would work is by plot convenience. Nobody discovers your plans or betrays you. You get a ragtag group of people with little coherence and less resources to devote themselves to a series of dangerous and thankless tasks, even as they are struggling to survive. Enough of your forces both survive and stay loyal to you to not be immediately overwhelmed by more the surrounding gangs that are better organized, better equipped, and more experienced.

I might be completely wrong, and it all works out and makes sense. But I'd rather not have "PLOT ARMOR DEPLOY!" or "Turn 53: we scavenge and infiltrate a tiny bit more than last chapter, we're halfway to taking out the first enemy!".
 
@harnackam
Well there's a few more things going in your favor than might be apparent, so lets address these as your character would be aware of them.

1. "The enemy are better organized, equipped and experienced" This is nominally true for most of the gangs, but to varying degrees.
  • TT's are the least experienced in combat, they're large, and decently equipped, but TT solves his problems through soft power not violence most of the time.
  • Alexander's are the smallest, but they're decently equipped, well trained, and well organized, probably the most professional force of the bunch
  • Scorfields are the largest and best equipped, but there's little inherent loyalty left, they're powerful, but the whole thing is a rotting structure.
  • Matthais is literally a cult of personality, granted that cult head is decked out in possibly the best cybernetic enhancements in the whole of the depths, and is something of a mad genius, but ultimately he's the least ambitious and proactive of them content to his territory
2. On the note of equipment:
  • Guns are rather rare down here, as is education in general, I'd say about 3% of the population is armed with a fire arm down here, and most of those individuals are in positions of power or management in a gang
    • For what its worth the few people with the chemistry knowledge to produce propellent for fire arms as well as guns in general tend to be in the Markets, as are most of the available firearms not already owned by someone.
    • This means most of your opposition are fighting with melee weapons.
  • Utility equipment is also relatively rare
    • Most of this is stuff that scrappers use rather than gangers although enterprising gangs do make use of them.
3. Your probably in the top 1% of educated Depth Dwellers considering that most don't either have the luxury, drive or interest in the matters you did growing up.
  • You've got a good chance of outwitting most folks down here when it comes to strategy
  • You also have a much better chance of utilizing old tech as intended if you have the right personnel, which gives you a material advantage socially and militarily if you can get it set up.
4. You're not a ganger or a warlord, ostensibly you promise more than security
  • If it can be delivered upon and shown to be true then loyalty should not be a problem, not to say this is easy
  • Don't discount fanaticisms strength in the face of overwhelming odds, though this would have ramifications on society.
5. The place is twice the size of New York City, in the half with the Gangs about the size of New York City
  • While still relatively densely populated, there are plenty of places to hide and set up shop in such a wide area.
  • Arguably you can even head east to try and set up in one of the Anarchy zones, but there's less infrastructure and stability over there
That said it's not going to be easy, but I certainly hope it's not 53 turns to end one of the gangs hard.
Hope this helps in figuring out what your options are.
 
[X] Ericson's cyberpsychos, The mans abuse of technology and disregard for his and anyone who works for him's humanity is sickening, it's honestly surprising it didn't happen sooner. (They won't go down easy, but they're not terribly active)

[X] The Scrappers, you grew up scrapping it's where you found all those old logs, books and recordings that had been buried deep out of the hands of the rest of the Arcology, of course you're good friends with most of them, and they were good friends with your parents too, they'll stand by you.

Seems like a slower burn, susceptibility to tech attacks, and contacts with similar interests as us seems optimal and thematic
 
Adhoc vote count started by Warden_Draconis on Jan 15, 2022 at 9:38 AM, finished with 6 posts and 4 votes.
  • [X] The Scrappers, you grew up scrapping it's where you found all those old logs, books and recordings that had been buried deep out of the hands of the rest of the Arcology, of course you're good friends with most of them, and they were good friends with your parents too, they'll stand by you.
    [X] Ericson's cyberpsychos, The mans abuse of technology and disregard for his and anyone who works for him's humanity is sickening, it's honestly surprising it didn't happen sooner. (They won't go down easy, but they're not terribly active)
    [X] D'Hautville gang, Up and comers in the region they've sliced off territory from both the Scorfields and Ericson and started expanding rather rapidly. (Deal with them fast or they Will deal with you)
    [X] Scorfields Goons, They're the old blood and think they run the Western edges, but their control has been slipping for years, and they don't take kindly to interlopers or upstarts, your parents were just collateral to them. (The strongest and the most corrupt faction, pick your fights carefully)
    [X] The Normal folks, You do a lot to help them when you can, and your good deeds don't go unnoticed, you've got a strong if quiet base of support amongst most of the gangs protectorates.
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A bit late, but I'll throw in my vote just the same.

[x] Ericson's cyberpsychos, The mans abuse of technology and disregard for his and anyone who works for him's humanity is sickening, it's honestly surprising it didn't happen sooner. (They won't go down easy, but they're not terribly active)
[x] The Traders, you always got them what they needed, and they'll get you what you need to win this fight.

Warden_Draconis said:
The third was the Officer, the Founders only child who would quietly tie strings around the limbs of the Dictator and hoist him up from above the banisters like a puppet.
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Warden_Draconis said:
However once in control the Officer did not restore the First System, and found the Second System lacking. So the Officer expanded the Corporation and invited the Architect to create a new system, one that would not fail the Officer like the First had their father and the second the Dictator.
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The Myth refers to the 2nd leader as "the Dictator" on two occasions. All other mentions call him "the Director". Is this a typo, or intentional?
 
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Turn 0: A Humble Start
  • Threadmarks
    • Strategic Briefing:
    You and your brother had been quietly working together with the local scrappers, planning something to get back at Ericson and his cybered up psychos he calls followers. You can't fight them directly that much is certain, they're practically super human in a straight up fight, but they've got more weaknesses than you can count on both hands. They're utterly reliant on the few technically capable individuals in the Depths, the merchants that will do business with them and the ones that Ericson has personally tutored. Ericson himself is an entirely different beast, he wasn't born here he was tossed down here, a defective soldier in some project that knew how to maintain his own equipment 'Ware and all.

    It's astounding how much old cybernetics are tossed down here, the sheer wastefulness of it makes you grit your teeth when you think about it, but it's not like you can let the higher levels know your opinion. This however is the next weakness you can exploit, if your scrapper allies can horde as much of the cybernetics they can find in the fields it'll make it much harder for those psychos to get the maintenance they need. Once they're glitching out or breaking down in mass it'll be a matter of mustering your forces for some attacks on their territory, if we push hard enough it'll bring out Matthias himself, and if he dies the whole damn thing crumbles.

    The real problem is actually killing the bastard.

    It's well known the monster has a stock of various weapons he's personally constructed for himself, his whole load out is modular and he'll easily lose an arm just to replace it with a single shot explosives launcher or some sort of adhoc chainsaw. He's probably the most technologically advanced thing down here, and it's a blessing that he's content with just the small cult of personality he has and the control over the territory he has.

    Regardless he'll be a major road block to anything you want to do if he gets personally involved so it's best to avoid that until you've dealt with his subordinates and his various replacement limbs and equipment.

    Personal Actions:
    [] Join the Scrappers to help increase the scarcity of cybernetics in the scrap fields
    [] Attempt to convince the few remaining merchants to not do business with Matthias' faction
    [] Personally scout Matthias Territory
    [] Write in?

    Ally Actions:
    [] Assign Adam to bodyguard duty (What group?)
    [] Assign Adam to Antagonize a faction (Increases their aggression)
    [] Assign Adam to hold the fort
    [] Write in?

    Faction Actions:
    [] Engage in diplomacy with another faction (which?)
    [] Change of Strategy (Define your proposal)

    Current issues:
    The manpower problem
    We're currently a small faction with not many individuals to our name, several hundred scrappers have thrown their lot in with us in unspoken solidarity finally sick of the madness down here, but that still leaves us grossly outnumbered against most of our enemies, how will we resolve this?
    []Stick to our base, we'll appeal to the rest of the scrappers. (Scrappers approve, will have a smaller, but more dedicated force when your territory is established)
    []Head out and start rallying the population in Ericson's territory, anything is better than him after all. (Scrappers neutral, Will give you a steady increase in manpower, but dilutes the quality of your forces.)

    Base of Operations issue
    While we have one, at least nominally, that being the Jones' shack, it's not exactly impressive nor is it much of a fortification we need an actual base of operations.
    []Build a new one, there's some open territory just on the border of the D'Hautvile's and Ericson's territories, while it might be blatant it'll provide us with a central point of control near the frontlines (Progress on increasing the scarcity of cybernetics will be delayed, may provoke both factions, enables more base building options)
    []We'll work on what we have, the neighbors are supportive so we can probably merge the housing together into one big base which is easier than building it form scratch (Base building options are minimal, but no delays or diplomatic incidents)
     
  • Threadmarks
    • @Nevill
    Those are typos, in an earlier draft I referred to the 2nd founder as the Dictator, which was a bit to on the nose so I changed it to the Director, thank you for pointing those out for me.
     
    Nevill said:
    Who are the known factions? Scrappers / Traders / Normal Folk? The gangs?

    Are unknown gangs considered factions that we haven't met yet?

    Do we even have allies?
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    Factions are the Gangs, unknown gangs are a faction you haven't met with yet.
    Scrappers, Traders and normal folk are more like pops than factions, though they do have their own approval metrics.

    Fair point on the assign bodyguard duty, really you could assign him to yourselves or to the scrappers you're sending out.

    I'm pretty new to the whole format when it comes to civ or organization quests so I'm open to criticism because I'd like to become better at this.
     
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    [X] Boil This Frog
    -[X] Join the Scrappers to help increase the scarcity of cybernetics in the scrap fields
    -[X] Assign Adam to bodyguard duty (Scrappers)
    -[X]Engage in diplomacy with another faction (D'Hautville)
    —[X] Look to establish lines for trading our high end finds for firearms and tools
    -[X]Stick to our base, we'll appeal to the rest of the scrappers. (Scrappers approve, will have a smaller, but more dedicated force when your territory is established)
    -[X]We'll work on what we have, the neighbors are supportive so we can probably merge the housing together into one big base which is easier than building it form scratch (Base building options are minimal, but no delays or diplomatic incidents)

    I think we need to keep a low profile for now. I know guns are rare so I am not expecting a great exchange rate, but better to start early. I would like to setup a workshop too when we get a chance.
     
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  • Voting
    • Scheduled vote count started by Warden_Draconis on Jan 15, 2022 at 10:49 AM, finished with 9 posts and 4 votes.
    • [X] Boil This Frog
      [X] Boil This Frog
      -[X] Join the Scrappers to help increase the scarcity of cybernetics in the scrap fields
      -[X] Assign Adam to bodyguard duty (Scrappers)
      -[X]Engage in diplomacy with another faction (D'Hautville)
      —[X] Look to establish lines for trading our high end finds for firearms and tools
      -[X]Stick to our base, we'll appeal to the rest of the scrappers. (Scrappers approve, will have a smaller, but more dedicated force when your territory is established)
      -[X]We'll work on what we have, the neighbors are supportive so we can probably merge the housing together into one big base which is easier than building it form scratch (Base building options are minimal, but no delays or diplomatic incidents)
    Click to expand...
     
  • Voting
    • Turn 0: A Humble Start Results
  • Threadmarks
    • Turn 0 Results:​
    The Scrapping Efforts
    "Hey Dorthy, how's things looking in your sector? Over." spoke the man into his radio. He was standing in a vast field of scrap overlooking a team searching through the junk, his eyes glaze over for a moment as the steady stream of outdated, wasted and destroyed material goods rains in from the sky before a clattering noise of something heavy hitting the roof of his dugout.

    He pops his head out for a moment, to see a corpse on the roof, busted beyond recognition, though the clothes seem to tell the story of someone who lived the high life, but couldn't deal with it's problems. It occasionally happens that bodies make it down this far from the City proper, but it's pretty rare.
    It's typically a bad omen.

    The radio buzzes to life, "We're not doing too hot over here Oren, we've got a bunch of shit, but the high quality goods aren't showing themselves."
    Oren clicks his tongue in response, "Alright, don't strain yourselves on it."

    That's where you come in, putting an arm around Oren's shoulder, "Bad haul?"
    He perks up, "Certainly not the best Jones, you sure you got the time to be on the ground like this?" he jokes to you.

    You smile, "Always got time, just need to know how to use it, what's the haul?"

    He heads back into the dugout and you follow along and he moves a mouse side to side, an old as hell computer has been set up here with an antenna looking for wifi signals, acting as a hub of information on the scrapping efforts and an itinerary.

    The computer's screen refuses to light up for a few moments before he slaps it, and then it does, "Looks like we've got about 350 Grains worth of goods." You nod, certainly not the best haul, "How many cybernetics?"
    He frowns a bit, before clicking a few times, "about a third of the goods, but that's about 20% of what our projected haul was supposed to be, so either someone beat us here, or that shit's buried deep."

    You nod, look over the maps of the area, "What sectors were you scavenging again?"

    "Alpha, Delta, Epsilon and Phi." his response is quick.

    Those were the richest in cybernetics, you check the co-ordinates sent against the maps you have, "I think there's an issue with the GPS on this thing." you respond, "Co-ordinates are off by several minutes if I'm reading the maps right." he gives you a confused look before looking at your map then at the computer, "Oh for fucks sake." he smacks the computer again, "Piece of shit!" and grabs his radio, "All scrapper parties attention, you're in the wrong sectors, head 8 minutes due east."

    You smile, "Good thing we caught that." he laughs, "Good thing you caught that, you mean, would have been a mean set back."

    Roll 1d100+19 x 10+350=total Grains of goods
    [93+19]x10+350=1470 Grains of Goods

    Scrap field projected cybernetics remaining: 80%

    No Casualties

    Diplomacy with the D'Hautvilles

    The D'Hautvilles were new blood in the grand scheme of things, but Alexander himself has been around a decent while. He was a high ranking officer in Scorfield's organization, a very competent one at that. Unfortunately for Scorfield he thought he could run things better than him, and a lot of lower officers thought so too.

    However his soft coup failed, him and his cadre were kicked out of Scorfield's territory, but that hasn't stopped them, he's set up shop on the southern edge and has rapidly built up a support base amongst the various gangers, and even the average person down there by implementing various populist policies, any wealth, food or goods taken from Scorfield are being redistributed among the population, a triage list set up for the most critical households.

    But what really has won him his base is his charisma and willingness to lead from the frontlines, if there's a series of raids you can bet he'll be leading one of them, and you can bet double that he'll bring the biggest haul back.

    From your understanding he's got a similar aspiration to yourself, to unite the Depths, he'd be a good ally, but you suspect that any such alliance will be temporary.
    Still it's worth trying for now, you need friends, and perhaps given enough time and strong relations some compromise can be settled on.
    Of course that's counting your chickens before they hatch.

    Your diplomats have arranged a meeting with the man personally for next month, their initial reports say he was receptive to their overtures.

    Sticking to our Roots
    The Scrappers appreciate the sense of solidarity given to them as you pursue greater cohesion amongst them. The bonds of brotherhood shall be forged in the scrap fields.
    You understand the needs of Scrappers, you know how they work and what they do, and how they contribute to society here in the Depths as a whole. There'll be plenty of time to work with the people when you have the resources to invest in the matter.
    Until then however you're going to do everything you can to bring the Western Scrappers together in solidarity.
    And they will Remember that.

    Scrapper Opinion: High
    Scrapper Loyalty: High

    Building a Base of Operations
    Home is where the heart is, and with the help of your neighbors and the scrappers that have banded together with you, you've built a pretty big home.
    Well more accurately you've reconfigured a series of ramshackle scrap heaps into what could be considered a common house of sorts, a base of operations large enough to hold important meetings and house a few other operations in as well, all though room for expansion is rather limited.

    Unlocked the following Construction Actions:
    Build a mechanics bay
    Build a workshop
    Build a Science Lab
    Build an outreach center
    Build an Armory
    Warden_Draconis threw 1 100-faced dice. Reason: Determine Goods amount Total: 93
    93 93
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • Turn 1: Momentum
  • Threadmarks
    • Strategic Briefing:
    The last month went over smoothly, we managed to deplete several sectors of their cybernetics, and at the rate those fall down here it'll be quite some time before there's enough to fill them back up. At that with our growing support amongst the scrappers it's unlikely that they'll sell to merchants that are willing to trade with Matthias anyways even if they're not working for us.

    The Planned meeting with Alexander is this month, we should definitely consider what our terms and position regarding him and Scorfield will be, it'd be beneficial to be there in person, but given the unreliable at best log keeping and reporting on the scrapping front you might need to be there to just keep things consistent.

    Having a base of operations will help us with expanding our operational capacity, hopefully we'll be able to expand its capacity at some point, but we'll need better relations with the general public. We also don't want to expand to fast less we become to obvious, there's a balance to strike here.

    We have 1470 Grains of Goods

    Personal Actions:
    [] Join the Scrappers to help increase the scarcity of cybernetics in the scrap fields
    [] Attempt to convince the few remaining merchants to not do business with Matthias' faction
    [] Personally scout Matthias Territory
    [] Attend the Meeting with Alexander
    [] Write in?

    Ally Actions:
    [] Assign Adam to bodyguard duty (What group?)
    [] Assign Adam to Antagonize a faction (Increases their aggression)
    [] Assign Adam to hold the fort
    [] Write in?

    Faction Actions:
    [] Engage in diplomacy with another faction (which?)
    [] Purchase goods from the Merchants
    [] Change of Strategy (Define your proposal)

    Construction Actions:
    You have 3 building slots
    []Build a mechanics bay (Costs 500 grains, 2 turns, improves quality of equipment)
    []Build a workshop (costs 1000 grains, 3 turns, allows production of equipment at running cost)
    []Build a Science Lab (costs 500 grains, 2 turns, enables research at running cost)
    []Build an outreach center (costs 300 grains, 1 turn, improves public relations)
    []Build an Armory (costs 300 grains, 1 turn, expands equipment capacity)

    Current issues:
    Organizational Issues
    We have a good amount of men and women following us, we're unified under a goal right now, but what is the future of this group of people? You want to Unify the Depths, it's best to define what that will look like here and now before things get out of hand.
    []Write in
     
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Plan Growing Clouds
    -[X] Attend the Meeting with Alexander
    -[X] Assign Adam to bodyguard duty (Ourselves)
    -[X] Purchase goods from the Merchants
    --[X] Focus on essentials and long term benefits for the organization. (First Aid, Improved Equipment, etc.)
    -[X]Build an outreach center (costs 300 grains, 1 turn, improves public relations)
    -[X] "Learn the lessons of the past and work towards a better future." A meritocracy focused on mutual support and improved standards of living seems to be a good societal model to develop in our organization. A focus on regaining what was lost to the past (technology, learning, living standards, etc.) without repeating the same mistakes that our predecessors did.

    So my plan is to personally focus on the meeting with our brother guarding us. As for the scrappers, investing some of the newfound wealth we helped obtain into improving their loyalty and equipment seems to be the best option. I focused on our specialty in history for the write-in, using that as a basis for the future. It's what we are specialized in.
     
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    [X] Plan Growing Clouds

    This is pretty spot on! I would prioritize the workshop over outreach though, we need an edge to take out the big bad and it is logical for that to be tech.
     
    Warden_Draconis said:
    He pops his head out for a moment, to see a corpse on the roof, busted beyond recognition, though the clothes seem to tell the story of someone who lived the high life, but couldn't deal with it's problems. It occasionally happens that body'sies make it down this far from the City proper, but it's pretty rare.
    It's typically a bad omen.

    The radio buzzes to life, "We're not doing too hot over here Oren, we've got a bunch of shit, but the high quality goods aren't showing themselves."
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    Warden_Draconis said:
    you smile, "Always got time, just need to know how to use it, what's the haul?"
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    Missing capitalisation.
    Warden_Draconis said:
    He heads back into the dugout and you follow along and he pulls moves a mouse
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    ???
    Warden_Draconis said:
    The computer's screen refuses to light up for a few moments before he slaps it
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    Warden_Draconis said:
    so either someone beat us here, or that shit's buried deep."
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    Warden_Draconis said:
    He was a high ranking officer in Scorfield's organization, a very competent one at that. Unfortunately for Scorfield he thought he could run things better than him, and a lot of lower officers thought so too.
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    Warden_Draconis said:
    However his soft coup failed, him and his cadre were kicked out of Scorfield's territory
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    Assuming Scorfield is just one guy and not a crime family or something.
    Warden_Draconis said:
    From your understanding he's got a similar aspeiration to yourself
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    [x] Plan Growing Clouds
     
    Vote closed
  • Voting
    • Scheduled vote count started by Warden_Draconis on Jan 16, 2022 at 9:20 PM, finished with 5 posts and 5 votes.
    • [X] Plan Growing Clouds
      -[X] Attend the Meeting with Alexander
      -[X] Assign Adam to bodyguard duty (Ourselves)
      -[X] Purchase goods from the Merchants
      --[X] Focus on essentials and long term benefits for the organization. (First Aid, Improved Equipment, etc.)
      -[X]Build an outreach center (costs 300 grains, 1 turn, improves public relations)
      -[X] "Learn the lessons of the past and work towards a better future." A meritocracy focused on mutual support and improved standards of living seems to be a good societal model to develop in our organization. A focus on regaining what was lost to the past (technology, learning, living standards, etc.) without repeating the same mistakes that our predecessors did.
    Click to expand...
    Warden_Draconis threw 2 50-faced dice. Reason: Determine Goods amount Total: 43
    23 23 20 20
    Warden_Draconis threw 1 100-faced dice. Reason: Determine Merchant Barter Total: 20
    20 20
     
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