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

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    • [X] Kleisthenes Sarantapechos - Your sole remaining friend and diplomat. She has lost a foot and could be carried out.
     
    TehChron said:
    *gestures at Formations speciality*

    Lemme make this as explicitly clear as possible:



    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
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    I agree, we need money ASAP. However, making and selling items is Administration, not Diplomacy, and if Euphrosyne survives tribulation, which I doubt, she'll be the one making money, not her sister.

    Diplomacy does not make money alone. If Euphrosyne dies, we'll have a diplomat with no formations to sell. (edit: and no incipient 2x nascent soul death spiral) And remember, we won't have an action next turn, we won't be able to make money either, we're wounded.
     
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    Olivebirdy said:
    I agree, we need money ASAP. However, making and selling items is Administration, not Diplomacy, and if Euphrosyne survives tribulation, which I doubt, she'll be the one making money, not her sister.
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    And how will they be doing that while acting as a constant drain on our finances either as an extremely expensive Nascent Soul or as a newbie with zero experience inflicting their own malus on wealth generation?

    Moreover

    There's a reason that this:

    Trade Partners:
    None yet.
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    Appears under this:
    occipitallobe said:
    Fate & Diplomacy
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    Because arranging for such is the purview of our Hetaireiarches, not our Stratopedarches.

    Unless you have a better idea, we need our diplomacy elder to negotiate for trade partners in the immediate future if we're to make this work moving forward.


    Olivebirdy said:
    Diplomacy does not make money alone. If Euphrosyne dies, we'll have a diplomat with no formations to sell. (edit: and no incipient 2x nascent soul death spiral) And remember, we won't have an action next turn, we won't be able to make money either, we're wounded.
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    Oh so you're saying we ought to spend our Clan Focus on making money then?

    Rather than raising up disciples?

    Interesting choice. Why even bother with the Disciple elder, then?
     
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    TehChron said:
    And how will they be doing that while acting as a constant drain on our finances either as an extremely expensive Nascent Soul or as a newbie with zero experience inflicting their own malus on wealth generation?
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    Probably with "managing mines, herbs, cities, camps - all manner of resources [that flow] through her hands." Or taking on tasks too dangerous for Core Formation. Either she dies or she lives. If she dies, she won't be a drain on our finances, if she lives, she'll have the ability to make money.

    Either way, we don't have the wherewithal to make deals, as we have neither the power to enforce them nor the power to make trade with us necessary. We sell goods without Diplomacy, and if we don't have any trade agreements before now, what makes you think we'll be able to make them now? First, build power. Then, only once we're strong enough to actually have carrots and sticks, can we make actual trade deals.
     
    Olivebirdy said:
    Probably with "managing mines, herbs, cities, camps - all manner of resources [that flow] through her hands." Or taking on tasks too dangerous for Core Formation. Either she dies or she lives. If she dies, she won't be a drain on our finances, if she lives, she'll have the ability to make money.
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    And how will that work mechanically while we're scrambling to replace our Core Formation forces during the forty-year lull in hostilities that we bought in preparation for this outcome? No matter what we're making money. The issue at hand is "are we making enough money to grow?"

    Saying "Oh this and that" is all well and good, but I'd like to know why your proposed narrative supersedes my mechanical elaboration in terms of reliability in pulling ourselves out of this mess and recovering as quickly as possible.

    At best you're proposing a course of action that would serve as stasis or returning to where we were before this turn, which as noted by Manuel was already approaching a Death Spiral.

    How do you intend to parlay this situation into growth? Because I don't see it.

    What I see is a holding action, which will simply not be enough to recover enough within two turns to matter.
     
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    [X] Kleisthenes Sarantapechos - Your sole remaining friend and diplomat. She has lost a foot and could be carried out.

    This here's gonna be a hell of a balancing act. In that sense, I believe that getting better wiggle room and margin of errors through trade/diplomacy is more valuable than better disciple-rearing in the short-term. Do we need to raise 30 Core Formation disciples ASAP? Yeah, but if we don't save Kleisthenes then we essentially cannot improve our conditions outside of that, be it trade or extending truces or whatever. That's us gambling everything on good training rolls or however that works.

    Instead I think I'm going to trust the clan's Juniors to endure, and go for the option that allows us to more directly maneuver around the conditions of our situation. The last Trial saw the Clan lose their Nascent Soul leader and we survived - we can make it through this if we play it right. The fact that she's Manuel's friend doesn't hurt either.
     
    People forget, but the reason why we kept getting so many good options for the Strength Purity Sect is because this is a time in which diplomatic opportunities are ripe throughout the region as the balance of power shifts from the Demon Annihilating War.

    Folks will become desperate enough to trade with the Golden Devils to eke out every small advantage that they can.

    The Strength Purity Sect has approached us twice in the past few turns with opportunities. The first with the 14 wealth purchase of the Blood Searing Array that made this gamble possible, and the second with the investment of resources that allowed the Flood Dragon Clan to return back to relevance with their own Nascent Soul.

    They're gonna be hungry for more formations of the Blood Searing Arrays quality to better turn aside whatever attacks the War Demon Altar Sect goes for in their war. If we can turn the Strength Purity Sect into a reliable trade partner, then that is an utterly massive coup and method to get us back on our way towards being able to recover our strength.

    We just need to be clever about it.
     
    [X] Kleisthenes Sarantapechos - Your sole remaining friend and diplomat. She has lost a foot and could be carried out.

    We are good a teaching, that is a trait we took. We can teach the yung uns until we raise a new disciple elder.
     
    TehChron said:
    And how will that work mechanically while we're scrambling to replace our Core Formation forces during the forty-year lull in hostilities that we bought in preparation for this outcome? No matter what we're making money. The issue at hand is "are we making enough money to grow?"
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    Twenty years. We have forty years from the cannibals, twenty from other sources with protection from Yao. We don't have time to muck around with intrigue and diplomacy, we need to be back at half strength yesterday.

    TehChron said:
    At best you're proposing a course of action that would serve as stasis or returning to where we were before this turn, which as noted by Manuel was already approaching a Death Spiral.

    How do you intend to parlay this situation into growth? Because I don't see it.
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    I don't think you're understanding me. Without enough people moving up the ladder, we're dead. We won't be able to make deals, because other people can just ignore us or walk through us. Without enough people moving up the ladder, we won't be able to apply strength to anything, and in this heaven-cursed Xianxia world, strength is everything. Supplies and money will be thin, but 'thankfully', we don't have as many mouths to feed right now. We need cultivators in order to make money in the first place. How? Up to the GM, but it's not as if Diplomacy will make money appear out of the air either.

    We need cultivators in order to make formations to sell. We need cultivators to defend our borders. We need cultivators to take tolls. We need cultivators to do missions. We need cultivators so we can actually get anywhere. Our situation wasn't that desperate before this culling, so getting back up to our previous strength would be excellent, not a death spiral.


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

    We are good a teaching, that is a trait we took. We can teach the yung uns until we raise a new disciple elder.
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    Can't, we've got no actions next turn. Also, I'd prefer to have both the Disciple Master and Manuel teaching until we're back up to code.
     
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    Olivebirdy said:
    Twenty years. We have forty years from the cannibals, twenty from other sources with protection from Yao. We don't have time to muck around with intrigue and diplomacy, we need to be back at half strength yesterday.
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    Except, and this is kind of the crux of the matter...

    So long as we have a mid-nascent soul to serve as a deterrent then that's all that matters? That's kind of the point of keeping Manuel alive in the first place and keeping the Jiangshen in check from raising a second one of their own.

    So long as Manuel survives, we'll be at least at half strength at all times.

    The problem you're attempting to address is force projection, which our Core Formations are the core of. They are the ones that handle the majority of combat actions, as generally the first to provoke a Nascent Soul to move wins as the acting Nascent Soul summarily gets ambushed in the middle of exerting themselves. We just saw how much forty Core Formations matter against a Mid-Nascent Soul, even with the benefit of being in a formation that let them hit high enough to be relevant.

    Olivebirdy said:
    I don't think you're understanding me.
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    It's not that I'm misunderstanding you.

    It's that you literally don't understand the situation we're in. Which is why you're insisting that your narrative about raising disciples is the crux of our current crisis.

    It isn't.

    It's our ability to recover and grow past this. Which isn't dependent purely on our Disciples, but our ability to fund their growth.

    Which you insist is a solved problem, and it really really isn't. Growing past where we were is expensive. And therefore we're not at any point going to be "saving" money from anything as a result of this. Our costs of operation are only going to increase going forward, and that's just the reality of the situation.

    So until you solve the income problem we're facing regardless of the outcome of that tribulation, then you've literally solved nothing.
     
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    Without resources we can't move people up the ladder. And really, what if Euphrosyne survives? If we get two Nascent Souls and don't have a resource funnel ready we just... starve. Very unlikely - but it's there.

    This feels like people are reacting without thinking. We're down 30 Core Formation cultivators which is terrible, but the only solution to this problem is not 'invest every single resource towards returning to our previous number'. I also think that the assumption most other sects or clans are going to go conquer-happy instantly is a bit too fatalistic - we've got truces with some, and the others have rather profitable relationships with us that, contrary to popular belief, would not generate the same value if they just conquered our land.

    Really, this would be an absolutely killer time for other sects to try and trade with us, because we're in a position of weakness and need the aid which would allow them to get a lot more bang for their buck. In that sense I'd argue we need the good negotiator because we will have to take any offers just to stay afloat, and it's going to be important for us to try and not get too ripped-off.

    In theory, during the turn after the next, we could go ham on disciples as well to get 30 - once our economical and diplomatic situation has stabilized a bit. And in time for the Cannibal ceasefire end too.
     
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    TehChron said:
    Which you insist is a solved problem, and it really really isn't.
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    So you are misunderstanding me. You don't get it, we're screwed both ways. It's not a solved problem, we're going to be impoverished and scrabbling for money, just as I was arguing before we did the assassination. Remember? I was saying, 'We don't need to take the risk of an assassination, instead we could put Manuel on making money.' Your beautifully-written assassination plan was too juicy and we went for it. Which I really can't blame them for, it was really pretty.

    We're screwed both ways. We don't get to choose a path where we're not in trouble, that ship is past the horizon. The trouble of 'not having a diplomat' is far better than the trouble of 'not being able to defend our borders'.


    Zephias said:
    Without resources we can't move people up the ladder. And really, what if Euphrosyne survives? If we get two Nascent Souls and don't have a resource funnel ready we just... starve. Very unlikely - but it's there.
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    We have resources, or at least we have enough land to support everyone up to Core. We've got enough room on the ladder to mave people up it. We don't have enough to support another Nascent Core, but I really don't know what we can do to solve that problem, maybe have one of our Nascent Souls buy room and board over at the Altar? Either way, I don't think Diplomacy is going to solve our incipient cannibal problem.
     
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    Olivebirdy said:
    We're screwed both ways. We don't get to choose a path where we're not in trouble, that ship is past the horizon. The trouble of 'not having a diplomat' is far better than the trouble of 'not being able to defend our borders'.
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    ...


    TehChron said:
    The problem you're attempting to address is force projection, which our Core Formations are the core of. They are the ones that handle the majority of combat actions, as generally the first to provoke a Nascent Soul to move wins as the acting Nascent Soul summarily gets ambushed in the middle of exerting themselves. We just saw how much forty Core Formations matter against a Mid-Nascent Soul, even with the benefit of being in a formation that let them hit high enough to be relevant.
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    You need to read my posts before responding to them I think.
     
    Good luck to our elder of war. He survived, but we will work him to death by the sheer amount of work it will take to salvage and rebuild the chain of command.
     
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    Olivebirdy said:
    The trouble of 'not having a diplomat' is far better than the trouble of 'not being able to defend our borders'.
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    Uh, again - not having a diplomat is directly hurting our ability to defend our borders especially in contrast to force projection and Core Formation numbers. Without a Diplomat, we can't really use diplomacy to try and protect those borders after all - and we do have some alright diplo options. Jiangshen is one - and with the Dao of Acceptance lady around I would absolutely not trust that to a greenhorn, for example.

    There is more to securing borders than pure military might, even in a Xianxia world.
     
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    [X] Kleisthenes Sarantapechos - Your sole remaining friend and diplomat. She has lost a foot and could be carried out.

    Even setting aside the friendship…

    We need diplomacy right now.
     
    TehChron said:
    You need to read my posts before responding to them I think.
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    What Core Formations do you think we have? We've got maybe ten left, probably less since they're about to get hit by a lightning bolt.
    Zephias said:
    Uh, again - not having a diplomat is directly hurting our ability to defend our borders especially in contrast to force projection and Core Formation numbers. Without a Diplomat, we can't really use diplomacy to try and protect those borders after all - and we do have some alright diplo options. Jiangshen is one - and with the Dao of Acceptance lady around I would absolutely not trust that to a greenhorn, for example.

    There is more to securing borders than pure military might, even in a Xianxia world.
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    The Jian are not trustworthy, we just de-eyeballed hundreds of them because they attacked our council. They are not our allies, and we have neither stick nor carrot. The Strength Purity Sect was using Yao as bait, they're not trustworthy either.
     
    [X] Kleisthenes Sarantapechos - Your sole remaining friend and diplomat. She has lost a foot and could be carried out.
     
    Olivebirdy said:
    We have resources, or at least we have enough land to support everyone up to Core. We've got enough room on the ladder to mave people up it. We don't have enough to support another Nascent Core, but I really don't know what we can do to solve that problem, maybe have one of our Nascent Souls buy room and board over at the Altar? Either way, I don't think Diplomacy is going to solve our incipient cannibal problem.
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    If we have a strong base, we can afford to thow everything and the kitchen sink at extending back to 30 Core Formation disciples the turn before the Cannibal ceasefire ends. If we have the Diplomacy options that outright state we can use them to increase our income, we may be able to support two Nascent Souls in the short-term - which would make the whole 30 Core Formation elders completely meaningless a problem because of the sheer ridiculous power of a nascent soul. Even without that, Manuel himself existing is a massive deterrent to any overt military action against us because of just how ridiculously powerful Nascent Souls are. I'd also gander that so long as some high Foundation Building disciples survived, some of them will Tribulation into Core Formation just as a result of the Trials being bullshit.

    Your idea amounts to 'numbers are the only thing that is important for our survival', justified by the idea that no one will want to negotiate anything when they can just take it - but that's just wrong. Whatever we do, be it diplomacy or raising disciples or whatever, will take at least 20 years. There are 20 years in which we have very little agency of our actions, and where we will need help. Not every faction around us is the Cannibals - Jiangshen or Strength Purity would get significantly more benefit from offering us aid in trades or negotiating help with high cost, knowing we have no real alternative. Going into that, I would much rather have Manuel + Kleisthenes than Manuel + Staurakios. After that, once Manuel is healed, we have another 20 years to raise disciples - which if we have income above our current, I'm sure it'd be much easier to push it to 30 in 20 years than doing it while recovering from a calamity.

    If we have no base, it matters not how powerful an army we have. And there is much the Golden Devils can offer than conquering the land outright would not.

    Olivebirdy said:
    What Core Formations do you think we have? We've got maybe ten left, probably less since they're about to get hit by a lightning bolt.

    The Jian are not trustworthy, we just de-eyeballed hundreds of them because they attacked our council. They are not our allies, and we have neither stick nor carrot. The Strength Purity Sect was using Yao as bait, they're not trustworthy either.
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    Literally no one is trustworthy - this is Xianxia! It's not about trust, it's about greed, self-interest and value. Getting advantageous deals for them, in return for aid, is so much better than starving us out to SPS or Jiangshen. And we need that aid - we're not at the same spot as we were before, as you implied, where we lost units but have the same resources. This is us rebuilding after a catastrophe - we can't do that alone. Again, this means I would much rather have someone who has spent centuries negotiating with these people when they come at the doorstep offering the poisoned apple we have to take to survive.

    Diplomacy is about much more than stick and carrot. It is about value, opportunity cost, and circumstance.
     
    [X] Kleisthenes Sarantapechos - Your sole remaining friend and diplomat. She has lost a foot and could be carried out.


    @Olivebirdy so here's how I see it:

    -For the next twenty years we have One Flood Dragon Nascent to guard our borders, and a Wounded Manuel.
    -In the next forty years we have Manuel kicking around.
    -Our Core Formations don't do much to increase our border security.
    -Our stewardship council person is very likely to be completely dead.
    --If our diplomacy person is also dead and we have two very green stewardship and diplomacy people dead, we are completely fucked in terms of increasing our income or maintaining our current state of income. Therefore having the disciple master won't matter.

    We need to be able to have tools to prop up and reach for Trade Partners in either the magic oak sect or the strength purity sect.

    Olivebirdy said:
    What Core Formations do you think we have? We've got maybe ten left, probably less since they're about to get hit by a lightning bolt.

    The Jian are not trustworthy, we just de-eyeballed hundreds of them because they attacked our council. They are not our allies, and we have neither stick nor carrot. The Strength Purity Sect was using Yao as bait, they're not trustworthy either.
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    Congratulations that's literally everyone on the world stage like, ever except potentially the Flood Dragons? No one is trustworthy, and that doesn't actually matter all that much when it comes to making money. Like you were harping on about when we made the gamble.

    Without our diplomacy and our stewardship elder our income is not going to stay in place, one because of the greenhorn we'll have in charge of finances and two because with a greenhorn in diplomacy we'll be in a bad position to keep people from exploiting us with bad deals.
     
    [X] Kleisthenes Sarantapechos - Your sole remaining friend and diplomat. She has lost a foot and could be carried out.

    I'm not entirely sure on this, or any other course of action, but TehChron is very convincing.
     
    [X] Kleisthenes Sarantapechos - Your sole remaining friend and diplomat. She has lost a foot and could be carried out.
     
    [X] Nikephoros Theophylaktos - Your apprentice and spymaster. He is missing an arm and an eye, but you could carry him out, you think.
     
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