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

[occipitallobe]

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[Shard]

Given our previous vote options I think we should focus on maximizing personal pop growth in this vote as well.

 

[Resonant]

Gain three to five new vassals in this territory, a new sub-vote is opened. Each vassal offers a powerful treasure worth 2-4 Purchases.

Click to shrink...

So important clarification from Occi: Grand Auction does not provide any extra Wealth. It specifically trades land for special treasures owned by each vassal that are worth 2-4 Purchase each. So unfortunately, we can't use them for previous Purchase options like the Technique Palace.

Each treasure can be considered "probably as good as having two or three free Legions dumped in your lap as a generic measure of power" but it varies heavily in general, so it's less guaranteed of a benefit.

 

[Sparsebeard]

I'll probably go for :

[ ] The Coloneia
[ ] The Scorpion Trade Palace
[ ] Unification
[ ] Rebuild the Bandit Kingdoms

Seeing how the winning plan invest all our Jingshen loot into boosting the average cultivator it only makes sense to get more cultivators with Coloneia and Bandit Kingdoms. Scorpion Trade Palace means interating our vassals slowly which might mean some of them choosing to join the clan eventually. Plus, seeing how we just gained quite a few vassals, it just makes sense to integrate those further. As for Unification I think we are getting strong enough that we don't have to worry about the our vassals being stronger, I'd much rather they could take care of any blood path outbreak quickly. Plus it's probably better for the mortals.

The auction is mighty tempting though as it might lead to tactical advantages that could help us gain even MORE lands (I'm looking at those bee infested mountains) but ultimately, one in the hand is worth two in the bush. Although, it IS a LOT of wealth, almost half as much as we looted from the Jingshen...

 

[Resonant]

So taking in the Ma Clan would mainly serve as a political tool to leverage on the Righteous Path, which needs a general outline and objectives. Some suggestions for that:

1. Getting SPS to hold on to Foundation/Core pieces of the Technique Palace, to purchase it later.
2. Negotiating for more access to Clan inheritance inside Sorrowful Blacksmith territory.
3. Negotiating for control over the Colossus Footstep Path, or perhaps increasing Spirit Stone tariffs.
4. SPS returning control over the Spirit Oasis to Golden Devils.
5. Nascent tribulation treasures or Nascent LSTs?

Anyone else have ideas?

 

[Sirrocco]

Well, let's see what we've got.

The Southlands

[ ] The Coloneia
Safety, stability and the slow growth of the Clan. What's not to love? Well, the payoff is going to be slow. How soon are we going to need our power? Long-term, this is the highest payoff in raw clan power, but it is very long term.

[ ] The Ma Clan
A much more immediate power-up, and extra help with wooing the Righteous, but the chance of suddenly going cancerous, and the likelihood that they'd want to leave at some point. Also, yeah helping out the poor bastard Ma clan? On the bright side, if they do leave (or suddenly go feral) we get the land back, so it's nor a total loss.

[ ] The Great Auction
This one is just selling the place off. We get a small number of Really Nice Treasures to crank our Nascents with, and we get some vassals in name only who fill up the space and give back... basically nothing. I dislike this one. Selling off long-term value for short-term gain bugs me on general principles, and I really don't feel like it's necessary here.


The Grand Scorpion Sect

[ ] Rebuild the Scorpion Sect
Yay free legions. This is the thing to do if we aren't worried about our vassals. Delightfully, that means that the "get a couple new legions" pick follows naturally on all of the picks that are investing in the long-term future of the clan.

[ ] The Scorpion Trade Palace
Yay more loyal followers. This is a great one if we decide to grab a bunch more vassals, and then want them to be more loyal. Worth noting here that we decided not to do that with the Jingshen remnant.

[ ] The Scorpion Transformation Cult
Nope. Just nope. "just like rebuilding, except that they'll be crazier and harder to control but more powerful" just doesn't sound like a good idea.

Sixty Kingdoms Alliances

[ ] Unification
Stronger, less likely to go cancerous, but might have loyalty issues.

[ ] Scattering
Weaker, more likely to sprout blood path, less able to actually be useful to us.

Heavenly Bandit Kingdoms

[ ] Rebuild the Bandit Kingdoms
This is another one of those "grow the clan slowly" plans, except that it also comes with a bunch of grow the vassal slowly vassals. Also richly rewards the guys who backed us up

[ ] Open the Dreamlike Tower
We roll the dice every turn to see fi we get a free vassal Core Formation and and extra purchase. Unlikely to fire more than once or twice.

[ ] The Rise of Seven Temples
Do we need more combat power in the short term? This is the "combat power in the short term" option for the bandit lands.

/**************/

So... coherent plans...

Plan We Need Armies Now Dammit:
- The Ma Clan
- The Scorpion Trade Palace
- Unification
- The Rise of the Seven Temples

Basically, this is the plan if you think that our ability to project combat power in the short term is the critically important thing. The only power it doesn't grab is the scorpion-shifters, because it wants the Trade Palace to try to maintain loyalty among all of our new combat-capable vassals.

Plan Nurture the Blood
- The Coloneia
- Rebuild the Scorpion Sect
- Scattering
- Rebuild the Bandit Kingdoms

This one is going for long-term growth of the clan itself. The Scorpion sect is rebuilt as it was because we just don't have the same kind of need for loyalty-boosting. The kingdoms are scattered because we don't really want to bother with them.

Plan The Good Boss
- The Ma Clan
- The Scorpion Trade Palace
- Unification
- Rebuild the Bandit Kingdoms

This one is focused around rewarding our allies and diplomacy, and leans into the idea that we're good people to be vassals of.

 

[Rakuhn]

The Southlands
[] The Coloneia
A nice boost to our power relative to our vassals, but a bit boring.

[ ] The Ma Clan
So this has a couple of considerations:
-They are horse archers, so if they ever reclaim their lands in the great battlefield they probably won't retain the Southlands.
-They are mercenaries, and have been members of both the righteous and the demonic paths as circumstances shift
-Taking them guarantees that they will continue to fight in the great battlefield on the side of the righteous powers, instead of the demonic powers
-Taking them gets us political benefits from the righteous powers
-They have a decent possiblity of rebellion

Honestly, I'm not particularly interested in taking them in. They can neither make good use of the land we are considering giving them, and they aren't particularly interested in staying with us in the long term. If the righteous path want to make use of their talents, they can find another method to do so.

[] The Great Auction
I'm actually really excited about this. Not for the treasure, but for the new factions that the mystery box contains.
A mystery box. Who knows, it could even be a Coloneia!

The Grand Scorpion Sect
[ ] Rebuild the Scorpion Sect
They get points for style. But I think I'd rather get more scorpion riders through our turn purchases.

[] The Scorpion Trade Palace
I like the idea of a bunch of anti-heroes being able to finally "retire" into merchants and traders now that the mass-murderers that they have been fighting for centuries have finally been extinguished. And in the course of their travels, they might find that their ability to detect and prevent blood path infiltration just might come in handy yet again. And the permanent +vassal loyalty per turn is very, very nice in and of itself.

[ ] The Scorpion Transformation Cult
This kind of skeeves me out. If their members want to turn into scorpion men, they are more than welcome to do so. We aren't in desperate enough straits to warrant forcing the entire sect to do so.

Sixty Kingdoms Alliances
[] Unification
One of our defining traits is to treat our vassals and people well, better than many of the "righteous" powers, even though we are a "demonic" faction. I don't see a reason to break that habit here, especially as we will want all the support that we can get.

[ ] Scattering
See above.

Heavenly Bandit Kingdoms

[ ] Rebuild the Bandit Kingdoms
So 25 milion mortals is 250,000 Qi Cultivators capacity, 2,500 Foundation Establishment, and 25 Core Formation Capacity split between us and our new vassal. Which would probably make them our third most powerful vassal.

The original writeup indicated that the beast surges were both triggered by "graduating" the dreamlike tower, as well as semi-regularly triggered based on the number of people living in the fertile parts of the Heavenly Bandit Kingdom. Should we be concerned that we are encouraging beast tides by maximizing the number of people living in the region, or are all beast tides triggered by graduation (and population density only correlates to them in that there were more attempts at the tower)?

[ ] Open the Dreamlike Tower
I find the concept of deliberately sacrificing 20,000 "useless" allies to generate one purchase and one core formation elder every ten turns abhorrent from a narrative standpoint. From a mechanical standpoint, the rewards are infrequent enough to be basically non-existent (if we had this ability from the game start, about 12 turns ago, we'd have a 28% chance of it not proccing yet). One of the other options would certainly be better.

[] The Rise of Seven Temples
So this looks like it is forfeiting our share of the Heavenly Bandit Kingdoms in order to create a much more powerful and unique vassal, but with little initial loyalty. When paired with the scorpion trade palace, I feel comfortable pursuing this course of action.

 

[Sparsebeard]

The more land we hold directly, the more Nascent Souls we can support. Coloneia probably gets us at least 30-50% of a Nascent's upkeep.

 

[AlphaDelta]

@Lampshade @Rakuhn

You should probably vote as a plan, since this is a vote that can have synergy.

E:

[11:51 PM] Resonant: Btw occi, is this vote going to be plan voting?
[12:06 AM] Occipitallobe: It always is!
[12:06 AM] Occipitallobe: Or rather, it makes the most sense for people to pursue a unified policy here.

Click to shrink...

 

[Rakuhn]

Do we know if the Scorpion Traders would eventually make the Southlands minor vassals (if we pursue Great Auction) eventually loyal enough to either pay taxes or contribute troops? Or would they not qualify for the +loyalty/turn mechanic?

 

[Mochinator]

[ ] The Coloneia

Sheng Yu suggests this as a military solution. Simple Golden Devil colonies, well-suited for tamping down on Blood Path rebels. Of course, these lands have some wealth, but realistically it will be concentrated within the Southlands themselves. So far from the rest of the world it is unlikely Legions will be easily deployed from here, or Spirit Stones mined and sent west in any meaningful number. A safe, quiet land. From here, in time, twelve loyal Legions could be raised, but this will take centuries to come to fruition.

Click to shrink...

In regards to this, not sure if it will count as part of our lands and thus vulnerable to Trial Damage. Because this is the long-term wealth option, which might be a issue if we have to fix it up after each trial.

Personally, i'll go for:

[X]A Coalition of our Own:
-[X] The Ma Clan
--[X] The Scorpion Trade Palace
---[X] Unification
----[X] The Rise of Seven Temples

So as the plan name states. Build a Coalition of our own and remain 1st among Equals in the Desert. Main thing really is that it will help mitigate the repercussions of a bad trial if we have sufficient loyalty/bonds built up with the rest of the vassals. Since us becoming slightly weaker is covered by the Vassals/coalition members being untouched.

The Scorpion Trade Palace is key in hopefully helping to build up the ties, while the Support everyone option for Ma, Kingdoms and Temples is to hopefully give off a benevolent impression that we're a rising tide that raises all boats that work with us.

In regards to the Ma Clan, sure they might not be loyal to us for now but we should be able to gradually bring them into the fold. Especially if we have other goodish vassals to point to as us being GOOD. Also our 2nd NS is our Diplomancer, so i think that should help.

On a more personal level, FINALLY WE GET SOME DEDICATED CALVARY!! ACTUAL CATAPRACTS Please!! Making them be the Hammer to our Hoplite Formation's Anvil ala Alexander The Great would be EPIC

 

[Lampshade]

You should probably vote as a plan, since this is a vote that can have synergy.
[12:06 AM] Occipitallobe: Or rather, it makes the most sense for people to pursue a unified policy here.

Click to shrink...

Thanks, I'll resubmit it as a plan.

Anyone else have ideas?

Click to shrink...

• Ma / Auction also invites an influx of spies.
• I dislike the idea of RP having a say in what goes on so deep into our territory.
• We can keep some of the more RP-unpalatable aspects out of sight.
• We'd have vassals that are pretty far out from proper Clan influence and could get up to shenanigans.
• After Underworld Devil Fortress, building up another population centre in another corner of the desert has nice symmetry.

Scorpion Trade Palace seems obvious with the sheer size of our territory naturally requiring a matching investment in logistics.

The last two decisions fall under the good neighbour policy as already discussed above.

[X] Plan Clean Backyard
-[X] The Coloneia
-[X] The Scorpion Trade Palace
-[X] Unification
-[X] Rebuild the Bandit Kingdoms

 

[Killer_Whale]

[X] Plan Clean Backyard

This has everything I want.

 

[Resonant]

[X] Plan Clean Backyard

Solid and straightforward plan, no messing about with mystery boxes.

 

[trent8688]

[X] Plan Clean Backyard

 

[Shard]

[X] Plan Clean Backyard

 

[TehChron]

Casia states that without the raids from the north and south, the Bandit Kingdoms can recover. With the massive river-systems feeding into the Spirit Lake, the Heavenly Bandit Kingdoms host some of the richest agricultural lands in the entire desert. As many as twenty-five million mortals could live here without over-spending on Spirit Stones, and these new cities would be a mixture of coloneia, as well as lands the various bandit kings wish to claim. For their allegiance to the Golden Devils, they will be rewarded with a lush and richland. Of course, the Dreamlike Tower would be guarded by the Golden Devils, nobody would be permitted to approach it. Seven Temples would remain as-is, but their lack of loyalty to us and defensive power means that they are a poor choice for a vassal.

Click to shrink...

Occi about how many Legions would this translate to? Five or less?

Probably less since it's a mix, but still. I thought that trying to hand over administration rights to the Flood Dragons was an option for this region?

 

[dbRevned]

[X] Plan Clean Backyard

 

[Humbaba]

The Southlands

[ ] The Coloneia

Ok, so from what I can see, I think a legion is 10,000 Qi Condensations, 100 FB and 1 Core. This would raise our cultivator capacity by 120,0000 qi condensations, 1200 FBs and 12 Cores.

Our current caps are:
Qi Condensation - 1,060,000
Foundation Building - 10,600
Core Formation - 106

Putting our new caps at:
Qi Condensation - 1,180,000
Foundation Building - 11,800
Core Formation - 118

The ting is that this would take centuries to come to fruition, and honestly I don't see these increases as gamechangning.

[ ] The Ma Clan

Potentially synergies with [] The scorpion trade palace.

I do like this. I liked Tisamenos's section and feel bad for the Ma clan. Again though, I don't actually see that another 10 legions is particularly useful to us right now. I do like that it is helping refugees though which brings us to...

[ ] The Great Auction

Gain three to five new vassals in this territory, a new sub-vote is opened. Each vassal offers a powerful treasure worth 2-4 Purchases.


Allright, I'm going to be somewhat contrary to what I expect to be the popular opinion. I think we should go for this. This provides an absolute minimum of 6 purchases worth of treasures and a maximum of 20 Wealth worth of Treasures. [Edit: Occi clarified] 10 purchase worth of treasures. Our per turn income is IIRC 3 purchases. That is 3 and a bit turns worth of purhcases in treasure right now. 10 treasures was previously the price of the best equipment an early nascent soul could buy.

It also matches up to the clans ideals of helping people and providing good treatment to their vassals just as much as the Ma clan option. We're still getting a lot of refugees out of the line of fire. Now some might say this costs us in the long run, but short term power can be leveraged into long term power. If we get a good slate of treasures we may well be able to leverage that into a greater increase in population later.

The Grand Scorpion Sect

[ ] Rebuild the Scorpion Sect

This is pretty cool, and the Scorpion legions help mitigate the huge clan weakness, which is speed. Not a bad option. Also, 2 scorpion legions were equalivent to one purchase last turn.

[ ] The Scorpion Trade Palace

Increase in vassal loyalty and integration, potentially leading to ultimately completely integrating them? Yes please. Our vassals have about half our numbers in qi condensation and FB and nearly as many Core Formations as us in total (we have 58, they have 52). Better loyalty is significant.

[ ] The Scorpion Transformation Cult

Notice how it says their most fanatical members do this, but we'd be doing it to the entire sect? Involuntary transformation into giant scorpions for a lot of the sect. No thank you. Let's try and be somewhat decent people.

Sixty Kingdoms Alliances

[ ] Unification

Probably going with this, but I think we need the Scorpion trade palace to go with it.

[ ] Scattering

If we aren't taking the trade palace we should probably stick with this.

Heavenly Bandit Kingdoms

[ ] Rebuild the Bandit Kingdoms

Casia states that without the raids from the north and south, the Bandit Kingdoms can recover. With the massive river-systems feeding into the Spirit Lake, the Heavenly Bandit Kingdoms host some of the richest agricultural lands in the entire desert. As many as twenty-five million mortals could live here without over-spending on Spirit Stones, and these new cities would be a mixture of coloneia, as well as lands the various bandit kings wish to claim. For their allegiance to the Golden Devils, they will be rewarded with a lush and richland. Of course, the Dreamlike Tower would be guarded by the Golden Devils, nobody would be permitted to approach it. Seven Temples would remain as-is, but their lack of loyalty to us and defensive power means that they are a poor choice for a vassal.

Takes our mortal limit up by nearly a third. That's pretty big.

[ ] Open the Dreamlike Tower

Ugh. A 1/10 chance. It's not nothing, but with the slowdown in turns it's unlikely this would trigger more than once in the remaining game time. Also, beast tides kill a lot of people. Pass.

[ ] The Rise of Seven Temples

Less population, but stronger Auxillia. Potentially even as good as a Silver Blood if they have any cores. This is actually pretty good given the Great Era. However, we may be better served getting more population in general. This or rebuild for me.

 

[Sirrocco]

I still kind of feel for the Ma Clan, but...

[X] Plan Clean Backyard

 

[occipitallobe]

On a more personal level, FINALLY WE GET SOME DEDICATED CALVARY!! ACTUAL CATAPRACTS Please!! Making them be the Hammer to our Hoplite Formation's Anvil ala Alexander The Great would be EPIC

Click to shrink...

The Ma Clan are more horse archers - they're very much a Mongol-inspired faction.

Occi about how many Legions would this translate to? Five or less?

Probably less since it's a mix, but still. I thought that trying to hand over administration rights to the Flood Dragons was an option for this region?

Click to shrink...

In terms of Legions, exceptionally few. One or two at most. This is a rich, verdant land for mortals, but the actual resources for maintaining cultivators are almost entirely occupied. These would be large mortal cities with big arrays surrounding them, and would serve more to improve the quality of recruits than the number of recruits.

You can write the latter in, but the real problem is that this region doesn't have the resources needed to sustain the Flood Dragons at all. As a buffer state owned by the Flood Dragons near a Jingshen that still existed it as potential, giving over this region to Yao is pointless if there's nobody nearby for her to fight.

 

[uri]

[X] Plan The Short and Long of it
-[X] The Great Auction
-[X] The Scorpion Trade Palace
-[X] Unification
-[X] Rebuild the Bandit Kingdoms


In my opinion, the great auction is the best of the three options, not because of the expansive and powerful treasures it offers – which are useful- but because of the new vessels we might gain and the unique specialties they might possess.

True, they will be loyal in name only but loyally can be improved. In fact, we have an option to passively increase the loyalty of all of our vassals every turn in this vote. and there are options to activly increase loyalty, like we did with the strokes.

 

[Nordlending]

A roman/Mongol army.
What's there not to love.

 

[Humbaba]

Allright, I've come up with three potential plans based on my earlier reasoning [THIS POST] and discord discussion.

[] Plan Short term gains into long term advantages
-[] The Great Auction
-[] Rebuild the Scorpion Sect
-[] Scattering
-[] Rebuild the Bandit Kingdoms

This plan forgoes the increased clan capacity and Ma Clan in favour of getting up to 5 major purchases equivalents in treasures upfront. These can then be leveraged into greater power and ability elsewhere. For example, the hateful mirror, a previous major purchase was a Nascent LST. If we got one for Manuel, with the spear we might be able to confidently send him to explore Turtlebone mountain and the legacies there. That was one purchase.

It also rebuilds the scorpion sects for the advantages this provides in the trials. Scattering due to loyalty risks and bandit kingdoms due to the population increase.

[] Plan The Short and Long of it
-[] The Great Auction
-[] The Scorpion Trade Palace
-[] Unification
-[] Rebuild the Bandit Kingdoms

This plan also goes for the Purchase options to leverage into greater long term ability, but trades the immediate power of the scorpion legions for another vassal and long term loyalty from our existing ones.

Plan Vassal Synergies
-[] The Ma Clan
-[] The Scorpion Trade Palace
-[] Unification
-[] Rebuild the Bandit Kingdoms

This plan is all about getting more vassals and increasing their loyalty.

My preferred plan at the moment is
[X] Plan The Short and Long of it
-[X] The Great Auction
-[X] The Scorpion Trade Palace
-[X] Unification
-[X] Rebuild the Bandit Kingdoms

 

[Insane-Not-Crazy]

[X] Plan The Short and Long of it
-[X] The Great Auction
-[X] The Scorpion Trade Palace
-[X] Unification
-[X] Rebuild the Bandit Kingdoms

@Humbaba @uri You have the same plans with different names.

 

[tenchifew]

[X] Plan Clean Backyard