[X] Plan Cash-flow
-[X] Trim vague and ill-defined duties, or at least clarify them, preferably towards the lower end of the range of ambiguity.
-[X] Trim misplaced responsibilities. The palace pays for upkeep on several properties it doesn't own, and subsidizes goods you see little reason to subsidize.
-[X] The palace is still losing money, but less of it. Make it lose even less, so Clan Wisdom doesn't have to subsidize it. (costs one action per sub-option taken)
--[X] Prioritize repairs, reconstruction and reutilization of palace-owned land so you can start charging rent on it again. You've made a little headway here, but it's slow going.
--[X] The threats of audits you issued made some people implicitly admit they owed money by stalling. Make good on your threats, start auditing.
-[X] Study Smithing. Zara has blessed you with particular competence and understanding here, you will advance rapidly.
-[X] Slow and Steady. Take your time to think and plan properly before you act. Other planned actions this turn get a bonus die to their rolls. Cannot be used if overworking.
-[X] Spend time with someone else? (Wisdom Shining Void, Portlord of Silverport) (Free action)
Only two trim actions but the other are all marginally useful or unacceptably risky. In compensation we get two general money making actions and I'm taking Slow And Steady because I expect the audits to meet resistance.
Smithing for the smith god. Starmetal for the starmetal throne. Only the one action but I really want to milk that blessing.
It occurs that we should have good relations with our boss.
I'm unsure about the tax. Too many variables. We don't even know what land is worth or what the average person makes. @Exmorri sorry but this is going to be long(ish) on theme and very short on definitive numbers.
[X] [Tax] Plan A first step
-[X] Start small and keep it simple. Place a tax on each building within the city walls, based on the land used (foot-print?). If the owners contribute troops to the army (or similar military aid) levy only a token tax. If they do not provide military aid levy a minor tax. Tax can be paid either in currency or trade. Temples are either exempt or pay the lesser tax, justified as them helping to defend us from mystical threats.
--[X] This means the clans and large / more powerful families are largely unaffected. It means raising a lot less money, however in exchange there should be significantly less resistance.
--[X] Once the city has accepted one emergency tax they are less able to refuse the next.
[X] Plan: Trim Down.
[X] Trim vague and ill-defined duties, or at least clarify them, preferably towards the lower end of the range of ambiguity.
[X] Trim misplaced responsibilities. The palace pays for upkeep on several properties it doesn't own, and subsidizes goods you see little reason to subsidize.
We are spending our year's wage almost entirely on the upkeep of an experimental forge designed to make a hitherto vanishingly rare and almost mythical magical substance, without having any prior knowledge about the subject or even the slightest training in either metallurgy or thaumaturgy, just because we thought it'd be cool if we could mass-produce it. Void's right to doubt our restraint.
This is hardly an emergency, you aren't even under siege! There will always be work to do. And other things to do. Like schmoozing, and studying skills, and money laundering to hide your embezzlement, and future inventions, and potentially raising your own army to strike out as an independent character.
[X] Plan Cash-flow
-[X] Trim vague and ill-defined duties, or at least clarify them, preferably towards the lower end of the range of ambiguity.
-[X] Trim misplaced responsibilities. The palace pays for upkeep on several properties it doesn't own, and subsidizes goods you see little reason to subsidize.
-[X] The palace is still losing money, but less of it. Make it lose even less, so Clan Wisdom doesn't have to subsidize it. (costs one action per sub-option taken)
--[X] Prioritize repairs, reconstruction and reutilization of palace-owned land so you can start charging rent on it again. You've made a little headway here, but it's slow going.
--[X] The threats of audits you issued made some people implicitly admit they owed money by stalling. Make good on your threats, start auditing.
-[X] Study Smithing. Zara has blessed you with particular competence and understanding here, you will advance rapidly.
-[X] Slow and Steady. Take your time to think and plan properly before you act. Other planned actions this turn get a bonus die to their rolls. Cannot be used if overworking.
-[X] Spend time with someone else? (Wisdom Shining Void, Portlord of Silverport) (Free action)
[X] [Tax] Plan A first step
-[X] Start small and keep it simple. Place a tax on each building within the city walls, based on the land used (foot-print?). If the owners contribute troops to the army (or similar military aid) levy only a token tax. If they do not provide military aid levy a minor tax. Tax can be paid either in currency or trade. Temples are either exempt or pay the lesser tax, justified as them helping to defend us from mystical threats.
--[X] This means the clans and large / more powerful families are largely unaffected. It means raising a lot less money, however in exchange there should be significantly less resistance.
--[X] Once the city has accepted one emergency tax they are less able to refuse the next.
I'm worried that the "A first step" tax plan may result in major backlash by the populace, as they will see us acting king-like. A tax on luxury goods and the rich may be more acceptable to the common people and will be more in line with our republican principles.
I'm worried that the "A first step" tax plan may result in major backlash by the populace, as they will see us acting king-like. A tax on luxury goods and the rich may be more acceptable to the common people and will be more in line with our republican principles.
I'm worried that the "A first step" tax plan may result in major backlash by the populace, as they will see us acting king-like. A tax on luxury goods and the rich may be more acceptable to the common people and will be more in line with our republican principles.
I expect a strong backlash… from people who don't matter. If none of the clans or temples object strongly then it happens. The ordinary people have no voice whatsoever.
Any change, progressive or otherwise, is going to prompt some degree of backlash as there will always be conservatives and traditionalists in any population. We just need to keep it below open rebellion long enough for it to become normal.
Edit: By Ryoga's sense of direction I'm getting ninjaed a lot recently.
Huh. I get distracted by RL, come back to find that the thread has stalled quite a bit. Tie between two plans with three votes each as things stand.
Can I get a tie-breaker between Plan Cash-flow and Plan Cutting the Rot?
[*] Plan Cash-flow (Angelform, ALanos, veekie)
-[*] Trim vague and ill-defined duties, or at least clarify them, preferably towards the lower end of the range of ambiguity.
-[*] Trim misplaced responsibilities. The palace pays for upkeep on several properties it doesn't own, and subsidizes goods you see little reason to subsidize.
-[*] The palace is still losing money, but less of it. Make it lose even less, so Clan Wisdom doesn't have to subsidize it. (costs one action per sub-option taken)
--[*] Prioritize repairs, reconstruction and reutilization of palace-owned land so you can start charging rent on it again. You've made a little headway here, but it's slow going.
--[*] The threats of audits you issued made some people implicitly admit they owed money by stalling. Make good on your threats, start auditing.
-[*] Study Smithing. Zara has blessed you with particular competence and understanding here, you will advance rapidly.
-[*] Slow and Steady. Take your time to think and plan properly before you act. Other planned actions this turn get a bonus die to their rolls. Cannot be used if overworking.
-[*] Spend time with someone else? (Wisdom Shining Void, Portlord of Silverport) (Free action)
[*] Plan Cutting the Rot: (gutza1, Pathetic King, RookDeSuit)
-[*] Trim obsolete activities. This is the safest category, but also the least rewarding, where you'll be scraping the bottom of the barrel. Entirely useless jobs don't last all that long without finding camouflage.
-[*] Trim vague and ill-defined duties, or at least clarify them, preferably towards the lower end of the range of ambiguity.
-[*] Trim misplaced responsibilities. The palace pays for upkeep on several properties it doesn't own, and subsidizes goods you see little reason to subsidize.
-[*] Go and help out at your new forge. It'll surely go better with both your vision and your new understanding to assist.
-[*] The palace is still losing money, but less of it. Make it lose even less, so Clan Wisdom doesn't have to subsidize it. (costs one action per sub-option taken)
--[*] The threats of audits you issued made some people implicitly admit they owed money by stalling. Make good on your threats, start auditing.
-[*] Slow and Steady. Take your time to think and plan properly before you act. Other planned actions this turn get a bonus die to their rolls. Cannot be used if overworking.
-[*] Get to know one of your fellow councillors - Blade.
[*] Plan Cash-flow
-[*] Trim vague and ill-defined duties, or at least clarify them, preferably towards the lower end of the range of ambiguity.
-[*] Trim misplaced responsibilities. The palace pays for upkeep on several properties it doesn't own, and subsidizes goods you see little reason to subsidize.
-[*] The palace is still losing money, but less of it. Make it lose even less, so Clan Wisdom doesn't have to subsidize it. (costs one action per sub-option taken)
--[*] Prioritize repairs, reconstruction and reutilization of palace-owned land so you can start charging rent on it again. You've made a little headway here, but it's slow going.
--[*] The threats of audits you issued made some people implicitly admit they owed money by stalling. Make good on your threats, start auditing.
-[*] Study Smithing. Zara has blessed you with particular competence and understanding here, you will advance rapidly.
-[*] Slow and Steady. Take your time to think and plan properly before you act. Other planned actions this turn get a bonus die to their rolls. Cannot be used if overworking.
-[*] Spend time with someone else? (Wisdom Shining Void, Portlord of Silverport) (Free action)
Once again you turn your attention to the attempted restoration of rents, dependent on finding customers, which means having appealing houses available, which means kicking out squatters, which means proving authority.
Once again you stumble on the records gap. It's not just that the Abominations failed to keep paperwork during their tenure. They also redistributed by fiat, killing several former owners, and then the new owners tended to disappear shortly after the Abominations did. After you've kicked out the stupidest, meanest squatters, the smarter ones start claiming that the place they're squatting in is something like this.
But you can demonstrate that it usually isn't. Absence of recent documentation means you get to point to older documentation, after digging it out of the appropriate archives. With your good memory and the competent new palace staff, you gradually reconstruct the proof you need. There's more that could be done - when isn't there? - but you have made a significant impact.
And once again you turn to the forges when you are tired of the houses.
The hammer lies easily in your hand, now, and the bellows move smoothly. You soon exhaust what you can learn of simple metalcraft by studying the iron in your own project without needing to interrupt that, and have to find a master smith. She's at first sour and charges dearly for her time to teach someone she's never heard of before, but soon relents when she hears about Zara and sees how fast you progress.
The finer points of understanding come rapidly to you, amplified by the decree of a god. You learn to identify plates of metals simply by weighing them in your hand or by their tone when struck. You intuit how much fuel, for how long, will make a fire hot enough to soften or melt just this size of ingot. You learn the colors of different shades of alloy, and it occurs to you that you could find several other uses for this such as spotting a badly debased coin.
---
Why is the palace paying to keep a minor candlemaker in wax? This and many other questions regarding a host of minor palace expenditures could, one imagines, be answered by further digging into the archives of transaction records and histories, and approaching each individual case in the manner of a detective.
You are not a detective. You are an intelligent, forward-thinking man who realizes that that would consume significant time and effort of a palace employee (yourself) which is contrary to the point of lightening the burden of the palace. Moreover, you have plenty of time both to consider a better course of action and to await its conclusion.
[Misplaced responsibilities: Stewardship, 32+19=51. They are now better placed.]
So instead you send out a hundred letters asking the recipients of these expenditures to be the ones to justify why they are receiving the relevant funds, freeing you to relax and do other things while you await the answers.
The candlemaker, it turns out, received this favor in exchange for letting a very large order of candles from the palace jump to the head of the queue six years ago. With that much more specific reference to look for, it's much faster to find the relevant promissory note. As it turns out, the palace only owed five years of wax. Then again, they were somewhat interrupted three years ago, so you settle for ending the wax subsidy without getting into the hassle of billing the candlemaker.
Not all the cases are resolved that easily. Some don't know why they're a financial burden on the palace, or give vague references like an old man citing only "the business with the palace guard", forcing you to do research nonetheless. A minor shrine is receiving donations far out of proportion to its importance, listed under the same generic entry as large temples.
You are not at all surprised to find the shrine was run by a relative of the Portlord of twenty years ago.
A little voice in your head, perhaps it is your conscience, asks: Maybe someone pulling in improperly large amounts of money due to their own position at the palace shouldn't criticise such arrangements too harshly?
Between writing letters, you try to find time to casually meet with the current Portlord. He's quiet and reserved, letting you do much of the talking while he listens intently. You keep him steadily informed on how your work is going, and give some simple flattery.
[Socialize with Void: Diplomacy, 21+15=36. It's appreciated.]
The old man grumbles a little that he listens to better flattery all day, but he still smiles at hearing it, being able to relax since you're not flattering in an attempt to wheedle concessions out of him.
Gradually, he starts to tell you a little about his past plans. He had it all mapped out, he says, and fate dictated otherwise. A short victorious fight in the Red Hills, then he would bask in the glory of a Silverport rebuilt in both body (by you) and spirit (by Ebuskun). From there, he was going to annex a few of the closer petty princes that were on the verge of becoming tributaries anyway, then with Silverport's ongoing rise and glory, attempt to negotiate a marriage or adoption for Ebuskun into Clan Wisdom while pushing her claim to the throne of the Iron Empire, and so expand the city's reach and influence while hopefully bringing hundreds of the nomadic Iron Plains warriors onto the roster of the city's army, more or less loyal to him personally...
"I could have become an emperor." he says wistfully.
You are skeptical. "In ten years? That seems optimistic even if everything goes right."
"The law says that the Portlord is elected for a term of ten years and his successor may not be from the same clan. Now usually, the Portlord is elected from the clan heads, and the clan heads hold their positions mostly by experience and seniority. They are so old they either die in office or are content to retire with their spoils after their term and live on warm soup."
"And you thought you could do more because you are young and vigorous?" you ask, reminded once again that while the Portlord is old compared to you, he's young compared to the grey-haired elders who comprise so many of the movers and shakers in the city.
"No." He looks around and lowers his voice. "I thought I could do more because I was young enough to exploit a loophole in the law: seeking a second term of office."
That... that can't be legal, can it? Well, maybe it can, arguably a man isn't his own 'successor' if he continues in the job. Huh. It's not like there's precedent either way. The Confederation of Caligia elects its kings, but those are for life - it occurs to you that if Void tried this, he might well provoke a civil war in Silverport likewise.
"It's all moot now. Fate has dashed my ambitions against the rocks. I will still do what I can, of course. It would be a shame to let many of the preparations go to waste, or to do less than my utmost for Silverport, even if I shall not have the glory and renown that I would need. Such is life. Disappointing."
[Opinion of you up to 7/10.]
Future meetings with the man are less moody. You show him your land tax proposal for review.
[Tax] Plan A first step
-[*] Start small and keep it simple. Place a tax on each building within the city walls, based on the land used (foot-print?). If the owners contribute troops to the army (or similar military aid) levy only a token tax. If they do not provide military aid levy a minor tax. Tax can be paid either in currency or trade. Temples are either exempt or pay the lesser tax, justified as them helping to defend us from mystical threats.
--[*] This means the clans and large / more powerful families are largely unaffected. It means raising a lot less money, however in exchange there should be significantly less resistance.
--[*] Once the city has accepted one emergency tax they are less able to refuse the next.
"I've said it before, I'll say it again, this is a very intriguing idea you have here." Void taps the table thoughtfully. "Building footprint would encourage building taller buildings, making better use of the land. Downside is, though, it could easily be viewed as taxing only the first floor of a building and I can see possible resentment building up against people who live higher up and look untaxed."
He continues scrutinizing your suggestion. "If you exempt the temples then you'd have to exempt ancestral clan mansions too; none of the clan heads are going to put up with what they see as a fee to live in their own house, even if it's token."
"And if we don't exempt the temples?" you ask.
"Some of the same complaints, but then I could expound more intensely on how this is providing vital military defense benefiting everyone in the city, so everyone in the city should contribute. Hmmm. Mmmhmm. Very interesting. What of unused buildings? You risk encouraging land to lie fallow and hasty last-minute erections, if owners are not taxed on a site until construction begin."
"Anyone letting land they own in the city lie fallow is a fool."
"Mmmm, fair enough. And I suppose I don't mind if they convert it into a botanical garden or some such instead, it would be nice to see more of those. What if someone avoids the tax by tearing down their house and living in a very large tent instead?"
"Would people actually do that?"
"You're naive if you think they wouldn't. Some people are entirely spite-driven and will go to great lengths to get out of an obligation or payment they don't like, even if escaping from it costs them ten times as much as paying it. But I suppose they're rare enough they can be handled on a case by case basis." Void shrugs. "Who were you thinking would be responsible for collecting this?"
"I would?" That wasn't a thing you had given much thought to. "With the assistance of the palace staff, naturally."
"You'd overwork them. Silverport has a million people. They live maybe ten to a house. Double that for non-residences, and you'd be trying to collect on two hundred thousand houses."
"Require people to track their own houses and payments?" you suggest.
"Half the population would send in the token tax because they once passed on a new helmet to their nephew in the military. The other half would expect one of the other residents was handling it. Or maybe half would just ignore it. You'd have to follow up on two hundred thousand buildings consistently to make this work."
This is harder than you thought. "A ministry of taxes then?"
"That could work for the logistic side, but the political side would be absolutely impossible." Void sees your increasingly bewildered expression. "This isn't a bad idea, Marble, just an incomplete one, and I thank you for it. I'll keep it up my sleeve, maybe do some improvements of my own, look for a good moment to introduce it. It's been fascinating talking to you about it."
---
There are audits to be done. Audits that you've been putting off for a long time. Just because you're good at it doesn't make it any less boring.
[Audits: Stewardship, 33+19=52.]
It's for the good of the city, you tell yourself, when a helpful merchant has been suddenly eager to resolve any misunderstandings or difficulties there might be, and you have to read through fifteen pages, and you think it might be a bluff or an attempt to snow you, but you check with the temples and it turns out that the incense wholesaler in question is just meticulous, and you approve in principle, but not when it means being so bored that you long for one of the actually deceitful cases to clear up because they don't end with you simply moving a file on your desk and reaching for the next file.
You hope you aren't letting vengefulness for boredom get to you when you issue the fines for false reporting and send out the collectors.
Less familiar but far more interesting is the process of clearing up another kind of unknown.
Some of your letters asking for clarification of palace responsibilities get good answers on the 'why', but you look into them and find them a little short on the 'what'. The palace pays for the maintenance of one of Clan Wisdom's orchards, for instance, and while the justification is impeccable, the maintenance varies greatly from year to year.
[Unclear responsibilities: Stewardship, 36+19=55. They are now clarified.]
You talk to Wisdom Ribbon who's responsible for the orchard, and a farmhand who knows about tree maintenance, and an underwriter to outline the odds, and the four of you manage to hash out a compromise contract for a standard amount the palace will pay that should keep the orchard maintained to a respectable level.
And so it goes, dabbling into various subjects and learning bits and pieces about all sorts of things like the proper use of a whetstone.
---
The investment of a new patron god of a city is an event that happens perhaps once a millennium, and you're certainly not going to miss this occasion. Preparation has gone on for two months ever since word came down from on high, via Wolf Three, that the removal of the previous for dereliction of duty had gone through. There were no recorded ceremonies for this sort of thing, which meant a lot of scurrying around trying to invent appropriately festive ones. You'd been struggling with seating; by virtue of your post you could get one next to Avalanche Pillar, or else next to Avalanche Jade, but not both, and in the end you'd decided that your wife was more important than your clan head just now. It would be a memory to treasure more than a political occasion. Probably.
The Sun Temple is already packed full when you arrive. There had even been talk of knocking out part of the front wall to let spectators watch from outside. People are constantly bolting from their positions along the processional route to the City Temple, trying to enter one or the other and having to be harshly rebuffed by ushers.
Floating above the heads of the mortals are numerous spirits also in attendance. A mountain god is talking to several hearth spirits. You think hearth spirits might be fire elementals, but you're not sure. The city gods of several foreign cities have come over to see the spectacle. Have they dressed for the occasion or are they always that ludicrous? Even a delegation from Foundation has found its way here, accompanied by an unknown reddish-gold dracomorph spirit. Or maybe it's the other way around - the spirit is visiting and the mortals are in the spirit's retinue.
Litanies are said, incense is burned, Zhu's past history as god of a small mining town leading to prosperity is summarized, the sun priest and the moon priest interrupt each other at an unscripted moment, the subject of your previous city god is delicately tiptoed around in an attempt to focus on the glories of the present and not remind anyone of the unfortunate events of three years ago, and a great many requests for good luck are made and invitations said expectantly.
When Zhu manifests physical form up front, you are nearly deafened by the celebratory outbursts. You see the priests' mouths moving, but have to infer from context what's happening. Your new god is blessing the Portlord, it seems, receiving praise, probably giving a speech. Shouted questions and acclamations continue to fill the air, the verbal battle eventually being won by a chant of the new god's name: "ZHU! ZHU! ZHU! ZHU!"
Jade tugs on your arm and points at something. You try to shout a question, but it's clear she doesn't hear it. She waves her hand again, points. Out? You think she wants out. You point out too and mime walking. She nods. Fine. The procession is almost certain to be more shouting from even more raucous crowds thronging about everything. Getting out early would be good, two months wasn't nearly enough to plan an event like this, you think. Maybe it'll be better next time, if the lessons learned today survive another millennium. Maybe not.
---
Shortly before it's time for the next Privy Council meeting, you get word from the alchemist you've hired at your experimental forge: your team has developed a consistent recipe for creating a sort of iron alloy that's very easily smoothed and made reflective. It could perhaps be used to create cheap, high quality mirrors that don't shatter, maybe even bend safely. What do you want to do with it?
[] [Forge] Be satisfied with this concretely useful result of your wild experiments. Sell off the whole project, forge and recipe.
[] [Forge] Intriguing, but it's not starmetal. Sell off the recipe, have the forge continue seeking starmetal.
[] [Forge] This sounds like a good business venture. Convert the forge to producing sheets of mirror-iron.
Voting time.
You can write in a report on the past turn with a focus on the subject of your choice, which could be used to praise the importance of one of your fellow councillors, attempt to direct the Portlord's attention towards a particular matter, or blame someone you hate for something that's gone badly. Writing in a report is optional - the default is simply being judged on the merits of what you've done.
[X] [Report] Just the facts.
or
[] [Report] Write in
Suggest courses of action for the next turn (six months); the Portlord is likely to choose one of them. You can use this to your advantage. One possibility is to suggest things that align with your personal goals, another is to suggest things you can do easily and have plenty of time left over to spend elsewhere. However, if there's a pressing concern the boss has that is not covered by what you put forward, he may 'write in' your orders, and cause a relationship hit due to losing respect for your abilities. Votes for this will be in plan format - the more options you give the Portlord, the greater chance he'll pick one, but the less you can steer his instructions.
[] [Orders] Plan name goes here
-[] The palace budget is almost balanced. Just a little more work and it could pay for itself.
-[] The new exams are a stopgap measure, they're going to get memorized too eventually. I need more time to redesign the whole examination system.
-[] Redesigning the examination system is still of finite use, I should establish a Ministry of Exams to solve the problem indefinitely.
-[] The census is a lot more important than I thought, order me to do that properly.
-[] The city walls could still use a lot more work to make them even better.
-[] We need a whole new set of proper fortification walls for the city so we're not scrambling to patch them up next time there's a war.
-[] Clan Bridge and their allies need to be destroyed. Peacefully and financially, of course.
-[] So we're fighting demon spiders to the south and Tokarans to the east? Maybe it's time to impose an emergency tax.
-[] Let's invent central banking.
-[] Other suggestions (write in)
Former wealth: 88g
Income: Earned 50g, embezzled 50g
Expenditures: Family 5g, shrines 5g, clerks 5g, debt downpayment 35g, forge upkeep 38g, expert tutoring 6g
Current wealth: 94g
QM note:
-Void's opinions on the tax are not identical to mine. But he's a veteran operator, you should at least consider his advice.
-You can vote separately for each category of Forge, Report and Orders, and you don't need to vote in all of them.
-You had good rolls even before Slow and Steady was applied. It bumped them up further. Just look at that: 20,32,33,36,45.
It's a half-reroll that weights the dice towards the high end, rather than being a flat bonus, so that you can get consistently good results without becoming record-breaking.
The +5 is a separate bonus because you'd been working on the same thing last turn and making little progress then.
Edit: in retrospect it occurs to me that I should have put in the before and after values to make this more obvious, but now I've discarded the before values. I remember the 36 was up from a 29 though.
The forge stuff is personal buisness or its affliated with the palace? Cause what im reading and from the example quest we might get kicked with the new port lord when his term ends. So some income source makes sense outside palace.
and what money would the selling the idea get and what about starting a buisness ourself get.
Decent results. Nothing appears to have exploded in our face.
Poor Void. He had such dreams. Be interesting to see if he tries for a second term anyway. By the sound of it he doesn't have all that much to lose in the attempt.
On a related note we should find out the customs and traditions regarding what happens to the council when a new portlord is elected.
I find myself curious as to how many tiers of smithing there are. Advanced is already getting up near the limits of mortal achievement.
Shame about the taxes. Didn't really expect my idea to hold water but it is still disappointing.
Forge… I would actually love to set up a new forge for making mirrors while the existing forge keep searching. We are getting results and given how little the learning advisor seems to be doing Silverport needs all the R&D we can get.
Forge… I would actually love to set up a new forge for making mirrors while the existing forge keep searching. We are getting results and given how little the learning advisor seems to be doing Silverport needs all the R&D we can get.
A little voice in your head, perhaps it is your conscience, asks: Maybe someone pulling in improperly large amounts of money due to their own position at the palace shouldn't criticise such arrangements too harshly?
Jade tugs on your arm and points at something. You try to shout a question, but it's clear she doesn't hear it. She waves her hand again, points. Out? You think she wants out. You point out too and mime walking. She nods. Fine. The procession is almost certain to be more shouting from even more raucous crowds thronging about everything.
Do you guys suppose our in-universe wife was afflicted by a curse from the Abominations? I mean, yeah, it would be boring and headache-inducing, but it feels weird to leave a once in a lifetime event. A curse would explain why it seems like we never get any description of physical characteristics, and why we don't have an image for her in the Informatinal tab.
Like a Reverse-Weeping Angel, the image of our wife gets forgotten.
[X] [Forge] This sounds like a good business venture. Convert the forge to producing sheets of mirror-iron.
[X] [Report] Just the facts
[X] [Orders] Plan Outcast
-[X] The palace budget is almost balanced. Just a little more work and it could pay for itself.
-[X] The census is a lot more important than I thought, order me to do that properly.
-[X] The city walls could still use a lot more work to make them even better.
-[X] We need a whole new set of proper fortification walls for the city so we're not scrambling to patch them up next time there's a war.
Census improves taxes. Fix budget, build new walls to not need them later, and expand the city. IIRC our first estimate implied too few people in the city.
As far as I can tell we can build walls without interuption.
Yeah , i agree about setting a new buisness doing the metal mirror instead of just ending our smithing research is a thing to consider but again cost will be needed.
@atrophy , the forge is personal business, but you've funded it with money embezzled from the palace.
@Angelform , there aren't strong customs about what happens to the old council since it's something that only happens every ten years. You know some of them get replaced and some of them have stayed on in the past. It depends a lot on circumstances - for instance, your job would be much easier to keep if you could ensure Avalanche was elevated to the fifth Great House somehow.
@veekie , @emberwing , you can write in to start a second forge, nothing's stopping you. I just didn't think of it, because you're paying down debt from your wages and paying for the existing forge with your embezzled double-wages and it seemed odd to start a new venture at that time.
@DarkKing98 , the palace is losing about 20-30 talents a year now. It'll take some time to get an exact result of your changes. I don't want to pin down exactly how much a talent is beyond "lots" (100-1000g maybe?). The city budget and the personal budget operate on different scales.
[X] [Forge] This sounds like a good business venture. Set up a new forge to begin production and continue research.
[X] [Report] Just the facts.
[X] [Orders] Plan Incremental Improvements
-[X] The palace budget is almost balanced. Just a little more work and it could pay for itself.
-[X] We need a whole new set of proper fortification walls for the city so we're not scrambling to patch them up next time there's a war.
-[X] The census is a lot more important than I thought, order me to do that properly.
"Would people actually do that?"
