I agree with everything except repairing walls. I think improving the farmlands would be better because our presence will defnitely increase the demand for food but an attack by hostile creatures is not certain. Even if there is an attack our improved Legion should be able to handle it. The higher demand for food might also increase food prices in the regions leading to starving peasants. I'd like to avoid that possibily.
Can we get a bit of info on the engineers' expertise here? What kinds of things did they typically do back home? Roads, bridges, walls, etc are obvious. But was farmland improvement something they were known for or would this be something new for them?
That said @Tharuk you've convinced me. I was already on the fence before, but knowing that a palisade is in fact already there eases my concerns a bit. That and having the same improvement to local opinion certainly doesn't hurt.
@Trent01 as you've voted for the plan heads up that I'm switching from walls to farmland improvement.
[X] Shoring Up Weaknesses
-[X] Legion Auxiliaries
--[X] Training.
-[X] Engineers
--[X] Improve farmlands of Vollug.
-[X] General Lothar Vanrich
--[X] Talk with the burgomaster.
I'll live with that, sticking to the plan. Like I said, pretty much everything on the Engineer action list needs to get done ASAP. We flat out just need more engineers to get stuff done because I'm gonna lay odds that action category is going to explode in option overload very quickly.
If we ever get any options to get more engineer actions, I'm voting for those no matter the cost. Too damn useful to pass up.
I'll live with that, sticking to the plan. Like I said, pretty much everything on the Engineer action list needs to get done ASAP. We flat out just need more engineers to get stuff done because I'm gonna lay odds that action category is going to explode in option overload very quickly.
If we ever get any options to get more engineer actions, I'm voting for those no matter the cost. Too damn useful to pass up.
Maybe we could get some penal engineers? Given the corrupt state of the empire, theres bound to be some engineers among the prisoners we could use for the more hazardous duties. Or ones that were framed or dishonored similar to our leader that we could repurpose.
I know, likely to have severe drawbacks, but action economy is king for these games.
Maybe we could get some penal engineers? Given the corrupt state of the empire, theres bound to be some engineers among the prisoners we could use for the more hazardous duties. Or ones that were framed or dishonored similar to our leader that we could repurpose.
I know, likely to have severe drawbacks, but action economy is king for these games.
I'm a bit leery of penal engineers. The one thing you definitely want in an engineer is trustworthiness. Untrustworthy engineers cut corners, are incompetent, take bribes, etc. I wouldn't trust anything they build. Of course you could have the occasional savant who's been unfairly persecuted, but we'd need a good roll to manage that.
We can't bargain away any adamantine since that's the property of the empire, but with luck if we find some other rare material maybe we could attract more engineers who'd be interested in working with it? Eh, this is all just dreaming big with things we don't have anyway.
@Duesal
I think the format should be like this:
[] Shoring Up Weaknesses
-[] Legion Auxiliaries
--[] Training.
-[] Engineers
--[] Improve farmlands of Vollug.
-[] General Lothar Vanrich
--[] Talk with the burgomaster.
I think the format should be like this:
[] Shoring Up Weaknesses
-[] Legion Auxiliaries
--[] Training.
-[] Engineers
--[] Improve farmlands of Vollug.
-[] General Lothar Vanrich
--[] Talk with the burgomaster.
Can we get a bit of info on the engineers' expertise here? What kinds of things did they typically do back home? Roads, bridges, walls, etc are obvious. But was farmland improvement something they were known for or would this be something new for them?
Farmland improvement is very much within in their area of expertise. Draining swamps, setting up wind and water mills, building irrigation systems, creating low-maintenance rural roads, and so on and so forth are all things that the Engineering Guild is doing all over the empire.
In this case, don't expect miracles to be done in a mere season though. Vollug is a backwater, so they will most likely spend most of their time fixing and maintaining the existing infrastructure, repairing mills and dredging existing irrigation and drainage channels, not so much building anything new.
Farmland improvement is very much within in their area of expertise. Draining swamps, setting up wind and water mills, building irrigation systems, creating low-maintenance rural roads, and so on and so forth are all things that the Engineering Guild is doing all over the empire.
In this case, don't expect miracles to be done in a mere season though. Vollug is a backwater, so they will most likely spend most of their time fixing and maintaining the existing infrastructure, repairing mills and dredging existing irrigation and drainage channels, not so much building anything new.
Excellent, that's more than I'd hoped for. I'm not expecting any miracles, but even a marginal increase in food production and good will among the locals will be very welcome. We absolutely need the locals to like us if we expect to have any success.
[X] Shoring Up Weaknesses
-[X] Legion Auxiliaries
--[X] Training.
-[X] Engineers
--[X] Improve farmlands of Vollug.
-[X] General Lothar Vanrich
--[X] Talk with the burgomaster.
[X] Shoring Up Weaknesses
-[X] Legion Auxiliaries
--[X] Training.
-[X] Engineers
--[X] Improve farmlands of Vollug.
-[X] General Lothar Vanrich
--[X] Talk with the burgomaster.
Turn 1 - Spring of 2164 Anno Imperialis - Results
Legion Auxiliaries
-[] Training.
These soldiers have already gone through the basic training of the Legion and been found wanting, but you have made proper Legionnaires out far worse people than them. Benefit: Auxiliary training improves.
The order for additional training, and you were very careful to not imply that the current state of the men was rather lacking, lest they take offense and boycott the effort, was received as good as it was to be expected. That is, badly, and you could not help but feel it partly justified. While the winter had passed, the weather remained chilly and most days were market with torrential rain, leaving everyone drenched and freezing whenever they were forced to leave the relative comfort of the makeshift barracks. Master Becker helpfully suggesting that the alternative to training was to work in the fields with his people did not raise their motivation either.
It was looking not very promising at that point. Sitting on a ship as passengers for nearly a month and doing not much at all had already taken a toll on their fitness, or at least you hoped that was the cause of it, and their drills were so much of a disgrace that it was pretty clear why these men had not been found fit to become true Legionnaires. By mid-spring though, things started to change, and it took another two weeks for you to figure out what had happened.
To celebrate the modest improvements they had shown, and to make sure that their morale did not sink even further, they had been granted leave for some drinking and merrymaking. One night of raucous carousing later, a few tentative friendships with the local peasants had sprung up. Thankfully, no womenfolk had been involved, and you quietly prayed to the gods that it would stay that way. Instead of siring a few bastards, the Auxiliaries now heard plenty of stories about their new home from the peasants and that managed to motivate them where you had failed so far.
Lazy bunch or not, the idea of being eaten by a Wyvern appealed to no one and as the reality of the danger they would soon be in, they started taking the drills much more seriously. As spring slowly turned into summer, they had improved quite a bit. The shield wall still was quite uneven and it took quite a lot of fantasy to interpret their efforts as marching in formation, yet compared to what you had started with, it was undoubtedly a success.
Moderate Success
Auxiliaries training level now at Adequate
Relations with locals unchanged.
Engineers
-[] Improve farmlands of Vollug.
While there is plenty of farmland around the city, it does not produce all that much more food than the city itself needs and you will need to import more from the mainland to keep your colony fed. Alternatively, you could order the engineers to work with the farmers to improve their fields. That would cut down on the food imports and the people would be grateful for the aid. Benefit: Improves relations to the locals. Improves food production of Vollug.
In the meantime, master Becker and his engineers had descended on the farmland outside the city with the task of aiding as much as they could. The first they did was to dredge the drainage channels among the fields and to hastily dig a few new ones when it turned out that even that was not enough to keep many of the fields and meadows from flooding. According to the farmers, this was not out of the ordinary, with half the land only fit for grazing sheep and goats due to being water clogged year around.
While convinced that they had greatly improved the situation already, the engineers had to abandon their work on the channels by mid spring as most of the worst affected areas did indeed turn into nothing but vast fields of mud too deep and soft to even wade through. By master Beckers estimate, it would take years to fully solve the drainage issues of the farmlands, simply because there were at most two months in the year where the ground was not either frozen or too soft to work with. When giving his report, he off-handedly suggested that they should rather grow rice than wheat on this dreary island and while he clearly had not put much thought into the matter, you still made a note of the idea, just in case.
Overall, the man had left an impression with you that was both better and worse than anticipated. His love for drink was a major problem and the peasants had quickly taken note of it, earning him unflattering nicknames like Master Beer, and some of the cleverer farmers had found out that they could get his attention, and thus some priority with his work, by making sure he had plenty to drink while at their houses. On the other hand, he truly did great work. While overly friendly when drunk, he was almost shy when sober, and while he worked, he did so with a single minded determination that bordered on mania. You had the feeling that you would like both curse and praise the man in equal measure for pretty much as long as he would work for this expedition.
For now though, it was mostly praise. Once the fields had soaked, the engineers instead had taken care of some minor repairs to the roads and the two mills near the city, which had both been received warmly by peasantry and merchants alike, even if the latter would have preferred the roads of the city receiving fresh cobbles. If the work would actually increase the yield of the fields remained to be seen, though at the very least it had done a lot to quiet the fears about your presence.
Great Success
Learned about the possibility of rice cultivation.
Further projects unlocked.
Relation to Merchants now Neutral.
Relation to Peasants now Amiable.
General Lothar Vanrich
-[] Talk with the burgomaster.
His distaste of your presence is understandable and having burgomaster Gudmann as an ally, or at least indifferent to you, would be rather helpful in the future. Spend some time with him and see if you can win him over. Benefit: Improves relations to the locals.
During all of this and ever since the day of your arrival, you had made a point of talking with burgomaster Gudmann and keeping him appraised of what your people were doing. The city of Vollug was his responsibility after all and you were merely a guest in it. One that had been 'invited' by imperial decree at that. People all across the empire loved the Legion for their valour and deeds, though it was the kind of fondness that grew with distance. In all your years of service, you had yet to see a single settlement that liked the presence of soldiers and the Auxiliaries were not the most reassuring sight at the best of days.
Keeping with this tradition, the man was staying cold to your efforts for quite a while. Especially the dispatchment of the engineers seemed to rankle him for some reason and your best guess was that he felt it amounted to meddling in his affairs. But as the weeks went on, he gradually began to tolerate you, even going so far as asking a few questions about whatever you told him about. It felt a lot more like reporting to him, though with you still formally a general and him a mere burgomaster, that was simply not done, and so you kept the tone of these talks more informal to not breach protocol.
As the spring came to an end, you still had not really built as much of a rapport with him as you had hoped, so wary tolerance would have to suffice. Even that seemed more the result of the merchants warming up to you, likely because they hoped to see the engineers do some more work for the city. At least you had not to worry about the only man with authority on the island being vaguely hostile to you, which was quite an improvement over the imperial court.
Minor Success
Relation to Burgomaster Gudmann now Neutral.
AN: The last action nearly failed, but the synergy from having good results with the engineers pushed it over the edge.
Great Success
Learned about the possibility of rice cultivation.
Further projects unlocked.
Relation to Merchants now Neutral.
Relation to Peasants now Amiable.
This is a lot better than I was expecting. Ideally I'd love to have the auxiliaries trained a bit more, but I get the feeling we're not going to have all that much time since we need to find that mine and get it running.
EDIT: @Azel, what is the scale for Auxiliary training level?
Okay, yeah, I would like at least basic level training given the sort of things out in the mountains. And, you know, the fact that we're going to be running a prison colony operating an adamantine mine. Inadequately trained prison guards is just asking for mutiny.
Ideally I'd love to have the auxiliaries trained a bit more, but I get the feeling we're not going to have all that much time since we need to find that mine and get it running.