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

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    • no. said:
    Removing the wealth curse is definitely very tempting, but it seems far from optimal since expanding will already weaken the curse. I am tentatively considering throwing my vote behind weakening the trials, but I could lean toward buffing Manuel or weakening tribulations depending on the arguments I see.
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    Counterpoint: It's unlikely that expanding will weaken the curse as much as the million-word bonus, and the decrease in strength of the Wealth Curse from expansion stacks additively with the decrease of strength of the Wealth Curse from this bonus.

    We may be able to reduce it from a four-shiny disadvantage down to a one shiny disadvantage if we choose one of the options that gets us more land.

    That's a really big deal, to put it lightly. That sort of massive uptick to our income would significantly improve our ability to scale upwards and deal with other issues.

    Remember, power compounds power. This would mean taking long-term options would be a lot more viable since we'd have enough money to take those on top of short-term needs.
     
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    AlphaDelta said:
    If we take Righteous, it's suboptimal to take trials, since we won't get kicked while we're down. SPS/etc will have our back.

    If we don't, well... it's a lot more tempting.

    I likely will vote for Good Seed regardless, since the idea of a halved tribulation difficulty or whatever for Our Prodigy of Gold interests me.
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    I think I need to make this more clear, but taking Righteous costs the bonus. You don't get Righteous + another bonus. Admittance to the Righteous Path is so powerful (especially from a downside risk perspective) that Fate itself is going to need to work on your behalf quite strongly to get it done. I'll update the latter post to make that clearer.
     
    Bloodalchemy said:
    It's not a reflavor. when we were going World Gen it was clearly said the Curse is added on top of the Thin Qi. That's why when we take new lands those lands lose power. If we were handed a hunk of land in the middle of the Rich Qi plains that land would get a lot weaker. not at weak as our land in the desert but weaker then the rest of the plains.
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    Nah, it absolutely is a reflavor, not an addition.

    Essentially, Thin Qi attacks the primary cultivation resource of an area. If we were in the Plains, it would probably still be called Thin Qi, if we were in the Mountains, it would probably be called something on the lines of Poor Game or something else that would indicate lower-quality or just lesser amounts of Beast Cores, and since we are in the Organ Meat Desert where Spirit Stones are primarily used to cultivate, we have Heaven's Impoverishment.

    This is evidenced by the fact that Thin Qi isn't written in addition to that curse on that sheet, but more importantly, Occi directly confirmed that is the case to me.
     
    AlphaDelta said:
    If we take Righteous, it's suboptimal to take trials, since we won't get kicked while we're down. SPS/etc will have our back.

    If we don't, well... it's a lot more tempting.

    I likely will vote for Good Seed regardless, since the idea of a halved tribulation difficulty or whatever for Our Prodigy of Gold interests me.
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    we cant take both. Righteous option only exists if we spend the Shadow on it.
     
    ...honestly, Negotiated End sounds good to me.
    Jingshen didn't exactly do anything to earn land, but if we hand over lets say half as a gesture to them, it could warm two of us, and allow us to focus more strength on the damn bees.

    Jingshen focuses on mining, we focus on the scorpion road and the bees and our strength grows.

    I would also urge for easier trials as this, more than anything else is bleeding our people dry. We are already weakened by that damn Severing cultivator. We need to ease up the blow to the clan until we can rebuild. Plus, It would be nice to be able to use Old Gold's bonus and teach some students once more. We don't need the wealth bonus, we just added a massive section of land and resources for ourselves. Old Gold doesn't need any bonuses on his end. So it falls to either easier trials or easier tribulations. And frankly, I think easier trials is a better choice in the long run. Too many of the clan give up and prepare to die for the trials, sapping us of skills and abilities. Plus the trials really have become a cultural scar that hamper much of our attitude.

    My recommendation:

    [ ] The Negotiated End
    -something like 60 for us, 40 for Jingshen
    --Plus with any luck the Sword Sect will get to deal with Old Cannibal for the next century or two. Let them bleed as we have bled
    [ ] Cloak the Ways Between
     -Easier trials will save much over the long run. Allowing us to not have to rely on 13 students performing a miracle every time.
     
    I'm thinking that some of these combo well together.
    - If we're going to kill the wealth curse, we want something that will maximize our gained land.
    - If we decide that we want war to the knife (the only way to kill Old Cannibal without going Righteous) then buffing Manuel would aid that significantly.
    - Reducing the trials means that we can afford to expend more of the clan's might on seizing territory.

    In a more general sense...
    - "evil to succeed" gives us some nice payoff right now in exchange for putting more daggers at our back later. Combos well with killing the wealth curse, as it's the biggest income boost that doesn't depend on going righteous.
    - "The New Sect" is a solid defensive play if we decide not to go righteous. We get something, Jingshen gets basically nothign, and we get a new neighbor who's reasonably friendly, but who also won't let us beat up on Jingshen all that badly.
    - Negotiated end is... currently unclear. If we take this, we don't get all that much land for the curse to taint, and our need for Manuel as a combat mosnter goes down, so it would suggest reducing either the trials or the tribulations.
    - War to the Knife... well, like I said, if you really, really want Old Cannibal dead, and you aren't willing to go Righteous, this is what you get. Strongly encourages buffing Manuel.
    - Going Righteous... it's a major boost to funds, does a goodly degree of damage to the Wealth Curse itself, and makes our lands much, much better protected in a number of ways... to the point where it almost makes some of our build choices semi-obsolete. Like, what's the point of the hard-core defensive spec if you're not getting attacked all the time? Well, I suppose that selling arrays to the righteous sects, and being their array specialists in the war? This is not so bad. Still, it's a major change in the direction and feel of the sect... but if we're looking for something that would ensure that the sect successfully turns the corner and starts rebuilding in a major way, this would absolutely give the protected space to do just that.

    Speaking as someone who's earned no influence here at all, I think I might go for the New Sect. It doesn't give any real advantages to any of our enemies, it reduces the overall threats against us, we do get a nice little wealth bump, and the only way it constrains our actions is to make actions directly against the Jingshen a bit more impractical.

    War to the Knife and Evil to Succeed seem like they're setting us up with two very different ways to seize defeat from the jaws of victory. Negotiated end seems uncertain, and will involve giving significantly increased funds to the Jingshen. That leaves two.
     
    fictionfan said:
    Weakening either the trials or tribulations. I am thinking the trials. They are a huge weight on our back even when they aren't happening because everyone knows they are coming and takes advantage.
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    Not just that but it is a HUGE culling of our numbers, threat to our good seeds, wealth drain as we fortify every 100 years to defend it, threat to old golds life and leaves us vulnerable to enemies immediately after the trials.

    The trials inhibit nearly every aspect of our clan growing. Its no exageration to say our clan nearly revolves around building itself up to survive these trials. Considering the only other way to lessen the trials is to get good seeds to a ridiculous level of power and that

    A. The wealth curse can be broken just by normal course of play.

    B. Old gold is still OLD. Its a good buff, but its also time limited by old golds age.

    C. Tribulation boosts. This is the second best buff imo. Its great, but our good seeds can survive just fine without it. Long term it does have good benifits as it might allow an npc or two to step into realms of power where they actually matter naratively. Getting an npc into nascent soul because of this would be an awesome boon. Its good but imo...

    ...Weaking trials is just too much of a game changer imo. All these are good, but i think this is the real long term winner in practically every aspect.
     
    I love the idea of weaking the trials. I'm just worried how much it would effect the Nascent Soul who messed with the last Trial. He is still alive and most likely very mad at us.
     
    I wish we had a better idea of the demon Bees civil war. Old C is likely to join in on any of the options where we let him go. Don't know if without our help he becomes another faction prolonging the war longer or if he quickly ends it.
     
    occipitallobe said:
    [ ] What are the qualities of a righteous man? (Can only be taken with "Walk in the Light, Cloaked by Shadow" option from the following post)

    +++ Gain the entirety of Cannibal Territory
    ++ Old Cannibal is hunted down like an animal by you, the Jingshen, and Strength Purity Sect. Very likely to wipe out an enemy entirely.
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    occipitallobe said:
    [ ] Walk in the Light, Cloaked by Shadow (Can only be taken in conjunction with "What are the qualities of a righteous man?" from the prior post)

    Fate grinds, the hatred of the light burns. Let it be turned away from the children of shadows, let those who stand in the light hate them no longer.
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    Wait a minute... I just realized a possible consequence or side-effect of this. Namely... What does this do to the enmity the Seven Divine Sabers Palace have with us?

    @occipitallobe does us becoming a Righteous Clan curtail the ways that they can strike out at us?

    Are the Seven Divine Sabers limited to 'only' fucking with us on the level that 2 Righteous Sects/Clans can fuck with each other?

    In other words, does this mean that picking this option means that the Seven Divine Sabers can't screw us over 100% AS badly as before?

    (Or does it mean that the Divine Sabers start trying to kick us out of the Righteous Sects, or start trying to undermine us, or start trying to nickel-and-dime us for everything possible, or what?)


    This is a pretty damn good choice even without that though! Because, well...

    +++ Gain the entirety of Cannibal Territory
    ++ Old Cannibal is hunted down like an animal by you, the Jingshen, and Strength Purity Sect. Very likely to wipe out an enemy entirely.

    We get all of the Cannibal Territory AND we kill off a Nascent Soul level enemy!

    Let's not forget the value of this, guys. Because, hell, Manuel can lose a fight against Old Cannibal. And also, we don't know how much of the Cannibal Territory we will be able to absorb.

    But this choice? Gets us both a secure defeat of Old Cannibal, and annexation of Cannibal Territory. It's pretty good for that alone.
     
    Katana1515 said:
    And we were talking about using it as a bomb!?

    A permanent Debuff to the trials is the sort of thing we can't get anywhere else. If we decide not to go Righteous I would favour that option over the (admittedly) tempting blows to our wealth curse.
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    Not the same thing. This isn't the blood crystal. We still don't know what the blood crystal does.

    As far as the Old Gold buff goes... well, it becomes dramatically less pertinent if and when we pull another Nascent Soul.

    Incidentally, this is a reason to *not* either go Righteous or add a New Sect... because if we can turn a corner, and we can keep the Jingshen from hitting a win condition on their own, we'll be in a good position to eat them.

    Now, we won't be allowed to eat them. That's the sort of thing that the other righteous sects would object to pretty strenuously... but it would potentially let us carve significant chunks of meat out of their sides. Going with one of the two protected options leaves us with notably fewer local enemies to bedevil us... but effectively leaves the Jingshen with none.
     
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    ReaderOfFate said:
    We're like 1600-something. We have 3400 years of lifespan left since we're a Nascent Soul. Age isn't something to be concerned about.
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    I suppose thats true, but there is still the fact that its spending our entire buff on one guy who cant be everywhere at once. It focuses on making situations that we can already navigate easier to deal with rather than answering issues and curses that are completely unanswerable currently. Also manuel will still be in danger since as someone already pointed out, no matter how strong ild gold gets they world traveling assholes can still easily outmatch him which could lead him to an early death anyways.

    Its a strong buff, but its entirely too narrow for my tastes and the opportunity cost of weaking otherwise unanswerable debuffs is a very steep cost indeed.
     
    DangerKitty said:
    I suppose thats true, but there is still the fact that its spending our entire buff on one guy who cant be everywhere at once. It focuses on making situations that we can already navigate easier to deal with rather than answering issues and curses that are completely unanswerable currently. Also manuel will still be in danger since as someone already pointed out, no matter how strong ild gold gets they world traveling assholes can still easily outmatch him which could lead him to an early death anyways.

    Its a strong buff, but its entirely too narrow for my tastes and the opportunity cost of weaking otherwise unanswerable debuffs is a very steep cost indeed.
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    Worth noting that "Old Gold dies early" is basically a lose condition for us. the fact that it can happen is not a reasonably argument against buffing him.

    The point where it becomes less valuable is the one where we get another Nascent Soul.

    fictionfan said:
    They are a sect. I don't think that they bought every unity buff. Without any outside enemies there is a good chance they will start developing more internal factions.
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    Hmmm... good point... and we are exceptionally nice overlords. We could reasonably draw off some of their underlings, yes.

    Still, that Dao of Acceptance is a reasonably solid defense against such things, given its power hen deployed against those who don't have Nascent Soul experience and defenses.
     
    Sirrocco said:
    Worth noting that "Old Gold dies early" is basically a lose condition for us. the fact that it can happen is not a reasonably argument against buffing him.

    The point where it becomes less valuable is the one where we get another Nascent Soul.
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    yes it is, and,

    A. Weakening the trials helps lessen the threat to old gold while also helping the clan flourish and create more nascent souls.

    B. Tribulution weakening also makes it far more likely for us to get another nascent soul, thereby practically erasing our main lose condition.

    Manuel buff is good, but imo its far from the best
     
    Looking at the gameplay advantages of the different Shadow bonuses...

    -Eliminating the wealth curse doesn't provide an immediate benefit to anyone, but a significant increase to income means more good shit down the line. A long-term pick.
    -Easier tribulations helps us get more FB, and also helps us deal with our elder shortage a little bit faster. the main benefit here though is that our good seeds will get stronger faster
    -Easier trials means a major boost to raw numbers in the long term. This makes holding territory easier. Doesn't help the good seeds much though.
    -Buffing Manuel will give us no benefit most of the time... but in those times when Manuel has to personally kick ass, it will be invaluable. This option makes emergencies less dire.
    -Going righteous is a whole other really complicated thing with a lot of pros and cons. I'm not in favor of this one simply because the Shadow bonus is so damn huge.

    So basically, when picking a Shadow bonus we should consider in what way we want to make things easier on ourselves: more hordes of mooks, more elites, a better gigachad nuke or LODSOFEMONE?
     
    I'm not really trying to convince anyone here. I lack in-depth perspective and won't be voting on account of that.

    But I think the 'shadows', 'righteous sect', and 'step into the light' are the least appealing options. While shadows is obviously a huge malus, it's relatively far away on the horizon. And because this is cultivation land, having enemies to kill can be a good thing even if it's mostly a bad thing.

    Step into the light just seems slightly thematically inappropriate for the narrative the current MC has built for himself. He's all about killing his enemies by deaths of a thousand cuts so he can buy time for the next generation to succeed him, which flies in the face of this option.

    And the righteous sect offer tastes a bit sour just because the Clan is supposed to be its own independent thing, not beholden to native values.

    The others are pretty straightforward. One is more wealth from areas solidly under control, which is great. Another is easier tribulations, which means less resources needed to spend on them by all, and elites having less impossible odds breaking through at the later stages.

    To me, the easier tribulations seems like the best choice. It's pure benefit, and not something that can really be accomplished by the clan, requiring 'fiat' of some sort. Since the Heavens themselves are a form of fiat. Hypothetically, most of the other options could be solved in-verse by the clan to some degree.
     
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    It might just be my subconcious dislike for the Jingshen coming through. But backing Cannibal seems the best path forward if we want to become the true Overlords of the Desert Region. (And I really do)

    The New Sect basically locks off that path as far as I can see. We aren't going to be able to mess with either Righteous power when they have Strength Purities direct backing.

    Going Righteous locks us into their rules system and we will always be the snubbed new guys who have to toe the line for fear of being thrown out. We also aren't really kitted out for earning lots of glory on that side of the fence, since our disciples don't excel at the individual contests and tournaments that are the stock in trade of the Righteous Path. Our defensive arrays will win us some points with Strength Purity, but we have started doing that already, and we should expect the Saber Palace to try and make sure we come out the worst of every round of negotiations/job allocations etc.

    Going to the negotiation table with Jingshen seems unlikely to net us more land than dealing with Cannibal and our favourite enemy gets to slip off to the Bee's either way. If Old Cannibal can off the daughter on his way out, all the better. We just need to keep laying the diplomatic groundwork with SP to convince them we can be just as reliable a source of Spirit Stones.
     
    I think LODESOFMONEY would be my preference. Since it provides greater flexibility with whatever we agree to on the negotiation side of things
     
    I am currently wavering between dolla dolla billz and easier tribulations. I kind of want to keep the current difficulty of the trials because I want to see what insane schemes Bhigru The Failson will pull each century, now that he's blown his big chance at direct cheating.

    In that same vein, I might go with the money simply because gigantic, ridiculously dangerous tribulations are fucking cool.

    In terms of conquest plans... directly negotiating with Jingshen is dangerous, they're the diplomacy specc'd ones. Working with Old Cannibal means potentially massive gains but also massive potential losses if our scheme is exposed. Building a new sect is a decent compromise honestly, as long as we prevent Jingshen from getting their claws in too deep with the newbies. I dislike the face turn here for thematic reasons on top of using up the Shadow bonus. Going balls-out to kill Old Cannibal just doesn't seem worth it here. Sure the Blood Cannibals are eliminated as a threat forever, but Jingshen is put on the fast track toward their win condition and we don't get any land with which to weaken our wealth curse.

    So...

    [X] The New Sect

    Things are high-risk enough already. A moderate gain for the Golden Devils plus zero gain for Jingshen is A-Okay with me. We can seize some Devil Bee land later on. Plus, adding a brand new Sect allows for some really fun potential storylines.

    I'm gonna think on my Shadow vote some more.

    Edit: I totally forgot about juicing up Manuel. That could also be very cool, if niche. Manuel avoids direct fights with peers if he has to, after all. I'm mixed on it.
     
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