Hmmph... this junior is a good seed [Cultivation Management Quest]

[occipitallobe]

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[Shard]

Well, at least is 1 down and 4 to go! I shall hope!

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The bad luck was one (1) shiny worth of stuff.

 

[TimEd]

If we suffer the Wound, would recovery prevent us from Teaching?

The combo of that expensive Palace and our Talent in teaching just might make it so that we can recover the lower level cultivators much faster. Hopefully the Good Seeds that survive can pad enough of our higher levels that it would still work.

 

[Kaboomatic]

[X] Kleisthenes Sarantapechos - Your sole remaining friend and diplomat. She has lost a foot and could be carried out.

 

[Olivebirdy]

If we suffer the Wound, would recovery prevent us from Teaching?

The combo of that expensive Palace and our Talent in teaching just might make it so that we can recover the lower level cultivators much faster. Hopefully the Good Seeds that survive can pad enough of our higher levels that it would still work.

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Yes. If we want a good teaching action next turn, we either save the master of disciples, or we don't take the wound in the first place.

Could I ask people who are voting for diplomacy what they intend to trade for peace? We have neither money nor strength, and we can't risk losing our nuke.

 

[Nordlending]

[x] Nikephoros Theophylaktos - Your apprentice and spymaster. He is missing an arm and an eye, but you could carry him out, you think.

 

[ReaderOfFate]

[X] Staurakios Palaiologos - The stolid master of disciples. He is unwounded, but is unconscious

We just lost 30 Core Formation experts. To raise up new ones, it's be preferable to have our experienced Master of Disciples instead of a newbie.

 

[Unstorpable]

[X] Staurakios Palaiologos - The stolid master of disciples. He is unwounded, but is unconscious.

 

[fictionfan]

[X] Staurakios Palaiologos - The stolid master of disciples. He is unwounded, but is unconscious

It is really sad that we have to deliberately avoid saving our last friend. But it is fairly clear who the clan is going to need.

 

[Rakuhn]

Yes. If we want a good teaching action next turn, we either save the master of disciples, or we don't take the wound in the first place.

Could I ask people who are voting for diplomacy what they intend to trade for peace? We have neither money nor strength, and we can't risk losing our nuke.

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There is always future promises of wealth or assistance. Sort of like how the Flood Dragon had nothing to offer us to help them get back their Natal Soul (which put them in a lot weaker position than we are in right now), but they were able to promise help in the coming turn. Thanks to that agreement, we actually have a chance of recovering from this massive setback.

But really, the most important thing to me is that having the diplomat will keep our diplomatic channels open. Our adversaries and rivals can't see our intrigue networks, nor can they see our disciples' training, but they can see if our official communications are in chaos, which will be a strong signal that we are in trouble.

Keeping our diplomatic channels open allows us to better hide and obfuscate the level of damage that we suffered, and forces our rivals to consider that even if we are weak we might call on our (theoretic) hidden allies (which, as you note we might have to heavily bribe) if they try to attack us.

 

[veekie]

[X] Staurakios Palaiologos - The stolid master of disciples. He is unwounded, but is unconscious

So, what consequences did they actually get from breaking their rules, Heaven bending over for them and still failing to kill their target?

 

[George]

bringing that particular xianxia trope to life.

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I feel like sometimes it's better if we just... don't do that :/

 

[Mr. Prokosch]

[X] Kleisthenes Sarantapechos - Your sole remaining friend and diplomat. She has lost a foot and could be carried out.

 

[Quest]

[X] Staurakios Palaiologos - The stolid master of disciples. He is unwounded, but is unconscious

 

[Olivebirdy]

But really, the most important thing to me is that having the diplomat will keep our diplomatic channels open. Our adversaries and rivals can't see our intrigue networks, nor can they see our disciples' training, but they can see if our official communications are in chaos, which will be a strong signal that we are in trouble.

Keeping our diplomatic channels open allows us to better hide and obfuscate the level of damage that we suffered, and forces our rivals to consider that even if we are weak we might call on our (theoretic) hidden allies (which, as you note we might have to heavily bribe) if they try to attack us.

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Thank you, that's very cogent. I will, however, point out that without an Intrigue master or a personal action next turn, everyone will find out anyway. Keeping diplomatic channels open isn't going to hide the fact that almost our entire council and core formation cohort got wiped out. Nascent Soul fighting is very noticeable, and this attack comes in like clockwork every hundred years, and it was expected we'd do worse this year than last century. We're not hidden, our vulnerability is not secret. We have nothing to trade but our rickety future ability, we have already established in this thread that no one trusts us enough to extend us credit. We've got so very little diplomatic leverage, I can't see it as anything but an obvious bluff.

So instead of going for diplomacy and intrigue, first we need to boost our value. That means disciples.

A similar argument holds for Intrigue. We may be able to mask our weakness, we may be able to find plots. However, we will not have the strength, money, or clout to act. Rebuilding is needed before everything besides direct strength.

 

[Kaboomatic]

[X] Staurakios Palaiologos - The stolid master of disciples. He is unwounded, but is unconscious

 

[Shard]

I'm not going to answer this question, but I will say that the answer is very plot-relevant in the long-term.

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Wait.

I get it.

He used the Qi Condensation token.

That's why it didn't break.

If so, welp.

 

[Rakuhn]

Thank you, that's very cogent. I will, however, point out that without an Intrigue master or a personal action next turn, everyone will find out anyway. Keeping diplomatic channels open isn't going to hide the fact that almost our entire council and core formation cohort got wiped out. Nascent Soul fighting is very noticeable, and this attack comes in like clockwork every hundred years, and it was expected we'd do worse this year than last century. We're not hidden, our vulnerability is not secret. We have nothing to trade but our rickety future ability, we have already established in this thread that no one trusts us enough to extend us credit. We've got so very little diplomatic leverage, I can't see it as anything but an obvious bluff.

So instead of going for diplomacy and intrigue, first we need to boost our value. That means disciples.

A similar argument holds for Intrigue. We may be able to mask our weakness, we may be able to find plots. However, we will not have the strength, money, or clout to act. Rebuilding is needed before everything besides direct strength.

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We don't need to hide our weakness for multiple turns. We need to hide it for one. At the end of this turn we are going to have 54-32= 12 Core Formation cultivators vs our vassals' 9. We are at a serious risk of internal rebellion (or even them allying with foreign powers).

We are still rebuilding our Military after losing our previous Elder, and we are going to have to rebuild two more branches of our clan. Every twenty years is another 4 Core Formation cultivators, another 20 years of experience and treasure for all of our clansmen, another twenty years to rebuild our devastated organization, and another 20 years for our Good Seeds to gain power and influence.

A single turn of apparent normalcy will give us enough strength that the opportunity for rebellion will have passed. Having loyal vassals will make an invasion in the second turn much less appealing. By the third turn, we will be back in a secure enough position that we can focus again on long term strategies instead of stemming the bleeding.

The master of disciples is an excellent longterm choice, but leaves us too vulnerable to invasion and rebellion in the shorterm. We were just heavily fucked by prioritizing longterm benefits over shortterm costs, now we need to pursue a shortterm strategy to make sure that we can survive long enough for the longterm to be a concern.

We need to appear (relatively) strong while we are weak, rather than advertising to our enemies that we are ripe for the plucking.

 

[TehChron]

I'd assume that the our spymaster has the best chance of making it out on his own, and that our diplomat has a very small chance of getting away.

That said, I think that we are going to want to prevent the jackals from taking advantage of us in out weakened state. To that end, I think saving the diplomat is our best choice.

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That's been long seen to with every other move we've made.

That said, yeah diplomacy feels like the best bet here

 

[Resonant]

I just want to point out that I have a very low expectation of attempting diplomacy resulting in much value. Remember, this setting uses Xianxia Logic. When cultivators see a weakened target, they are incentivized to kick others down so there is less competition with a law of the jungle mindset. Diplomacy is usually only considered when the 2nd-party has some inherent deterrence against someone simply taking what they want.

The Golden Devils are not popular and there is no benefit we can offer in the short-term. Don't rely on allies acting logical enough to invest in a long-term alliance. Raising Good Seeds and talented Disciples as our next generation of Elders directly solves our most pressing issue, whereas Diplomacy indirectly buys time without directly addressing it.

 

[LordEdric]

I think it is a good idea for my seed to send his memories wine to the whole council if he survives the battle

 

[TehChron]

We're the Golden Devils; nobody is going to want to do much diplomacy with us when we're weakened, I thought?

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That's precisely the problem

We need diplomacy right now since theres a 40-year lull before we have to deal with any serious attacks from anyone else.

We Need Trade Partners

It's the only plausible way for us to increase our wealth per turn

[X] Kleisthenes Sarantapechos - Your sole remaining friend and diplomat. She has lost a foot and could be carried out.

Basically, we have nothing to sell,

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*gestures at Formations speciality*

Lemme make this as explicitly clear as possible:

Income:

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Can maintain roughly 650,000 Condensation Cultivators, 6,500 Foundation Establishment Cultivators, 65 Core Formation Cultivators, 1 Nascent Soul Cultivator.

Stored Wealth: 25 years of income.

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We Cant Afford Two Nascent Souls

We can, right now, afford one.

That means we need more money

Yesterday

Which our potential new Nascent Soul would be in charge of generating and could really use her sister to help negotiate said deals on her behalf

We dont need intrigue and disciple raising bonuses

We need money

 

[atrophy]

[x] Nikephoros Theophylaktos - Your apprentice and spymaster. He is missing an arm and an eye, but you could carry him out, you think.

Why arent people voting for this guy , not rescuing him leaves us tied down to intrigue actions for several turns and this is literally the time that intrigue shines the most . And as its said if we rescue him we can either do wealth generating action to rebuild better or groom disicples ourself . I think even wounded we could do qi cultivation lectures hopefully in our super duper free time to give the appareance of strenght.

 

[Olivebirdy]

We don't need to hide our weakness for multiple turns. We need to hide it for one. At the end of this turn we are going to have 54-32= 12 Core Formation cultivators vs our vassals' 9. We are at a serious risk of internal rebellion (or even them allying with foreign powers).

We are still rebuilding our Military after losing our previous Elder, and we are going to have to rebuild two more branches of our clan. Every twenty years is another 4 Core Formation cultivators, another 20 years of experience and treasure for all of our clansmen, another twenty years to rebuild our devastated organization, and another 20 years for our Good Seeds to gain power and influence.

A single turn of apparent normalcy will give us enough strength that the opportunity for rebellion will have passed. Having loyal vassals will make an invasion in the second turn much less appealing. By the third turn, we will be back in a secure enough position that we can focus again on long term strategies instead of stemming the bleeding.

The master of disciples is an excellent longterm choice, but leaves us too vulnerable to invasion and rebellion in the shorterm. We were just heavily fucked by prioritizing longterm benefits over shortterm costs, now we need to pursue a shortterm strategy to make sure that we can survive long enough for the longterm to be a concern.

We need to appear (relatively) strong while we are weak, rather than advertising to our enemies that we are ripe for the plucking.

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Thank you, that gives me new information. 4 Core Formation elders? Excellent. Does having our disciple master matter, or our own teaching action?

To your point, though, even if we could hide our weakness for one turn, which I doubt, we don't have to. We have 'Hao'er Yao' protecting us that turn, and she's a Nascent Soul now. So we'd have a turn to get those four Core Formation cultivators we need.

I absolutely agree with you on prioritizing short-term over long-term, but Diplomacy and Intrigue are not short-term. They're medium turn, they depend on us having power, money, clout. Disciple-raising is shorter-term than that.

We need diplomacy right now since theres a 40-year lull before we have to deal with any serious attacks from anyone else.

We Need Trade Partners

It's the only plausible way for us to increase our wealth per turn

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We have nothing to trade. First build strength, then build diplomatic ties. We need the strength first!

Edit: I'm not going for Spymaster because I intend to go all-in on teaching. Drop Intrigue entirely, drop Diplomacy entirely. First we need the ability to act before the information we need to act upon and before trading that action for money.

 

[Marlin]

[X] Nikephoros Theophylaktos - Your apprentice and spymaster. He is missing an arm and an eye, but you could carry him out, you think.

 

[TehChron]

We have nothing to trade. First build strength, then build diplomatic ties. We need the strength first!

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What are you even talking about?

We have a literal trade good that people already buy.

The Vile-Blood Searing Array was a magnificent work. For any Blood Path disciples below Nascent Soul, it would simply kill, searing them where they stood. Of course, it would need to be installed in a city, with plenty of Spirit Stones and available Qi to power it, and he doubted it would be at full power most of the time. However, it would make it truly impossible for a city to be infiltrated by Blood Path enemies, whether they were traitors or no.

The Grand Elder hadn't foreseen a success at this level, he could tell. They had already contracted to sell it to the Strength Purity Sect, at exorbitant price. If Old Gold had known that this array would be so powerful, well. He doubted it would've been sold. Still, his brilliance had been told to the Clan - his masterpiece had made more income than much of the Clan would in a decade, it being one of the best works the Clan had seen in centuries. It hurt to let it go, but the Contributions Points...

He began to drool. Imagine what he could make with all of those?

Array crafters have immense variability in wealth generation. On average Wealth generation adds 5 Wealth. This turn, gain 14 Wealth.

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14 Wealth from selling it to the Purity Strength Sect. Moreover, the Golden Devils get hit by the Hundred Years trial every hundred years, and have done so for millennia. They know this. They expect this. And most of the Righteous Powers are too busy dealing with the Ninth Demon Annihilating War to bother with screwing with us directly, especially with the loss of face that the Seven Divine Saber Palace is about to endure.

Given everything else we've done the past five turns we are at zero risk of attack for the first twenty years while Manuel recovers, and can endure it regardless once he's recovered afterwards.

You may not like it, but we literally can not afford to lose an out to making potential Trade Partners as it's our only convenient method left to passively increase our income generation barring getting lucky on spamming Clan Focuses on econ for now.

So if you'd like to avoid the death spiral from having negative income for having two nascent souls, or to make up for our significant loss to wealth generation we'd get from the Elder in charge of managing our finances dying then our path forward is pretty clear.