Looking at the management tab I'm pretty sure the most optimum strategy under current Norse Market Conditions is to basically, become an animal breeder.

Also I think it's moderately hilarious that we basically skipped from a basic farm with basically nothing on it to a superfarm handing out herds of animals to everyone else as gifts and breaking Farminglife Manager under our knee due to RAID LOOT MONEY. Like we basically skipped like, uh, 10ish plus years of growth there.

As to Animal Breeding being optimal:

From Winter 5 to Summer 6, our Sheep made 120 Cloth, or about 10 oz Silver (Plus all the management dice in order to get so many Cloth)
In the same period of time, they made 3 Fine Ram, 3 Fine Ewe, 2 Good Ram, 2 Good Ewe, 1 Decent Ewe; 40.5 oz Silver, at no Management Dice cost.

The most optimum strategy far as I can tell is basically:

1x Fine Bull (replace with a Superior Bull the moment you can)
??x Basic Cows (The maximum amount you can supply - For us, that's like 35 Basic Cows)

For us this setup would cost 36 + 122.5 = 158.5 oz Silver, plus 36 Fodder per turn, or 0.75 oz Silver upkeep per turn, 4.5 oz Silver per year. The only management dice needed would be to maintain the barn they're staying in.

Over 1 year the Fine Bull would produce more cows from all the Basic Cows. I'm a little unclear on animal pregnancy mechanics, but assuming only half the basic cows got pregnant over the year, say 17 cows, rounding down, the Fine Bull then rolls 4d6 for each of the 17 calves.

According to anydice, the distribution for 4d6 would be

~0%: Basic
~15%: Decent (7/12 Silver)
~50%: Good (14/24 Silver)
~30%: Fine (28/36 Silver)
2.7%: Superior (Priceless)

With a 50-50 on the result being either a Bull or a Cow. Multiplying by 17, we get (results split 50-50 between Cows and bulls):

2.55 Decent Cows
8.5 Good Cows
5.1 Fine Cows
0.459 Superior Cows

Obviously, Bulls are pretty much going to be converted into Oxes, or slaughtered unless they're superior Bulls, in which case they're priceless. Either way they're unlikely to get sold.

What's more interesting are the Cows. We get 1.25 Decent Cows, 4.25 Good Cows, 2.5 Fine Cows and negligible Superior Cows. That's worth about 138.25 Silver if we immediately sold all the Cows to the market. The only management dice needed would be upkeeping the Barn holding the Cows. I guess realistically we'd start slaughtering or selling the Basic Cows and replace them with the better cow variants, so the first year is probably a bust. We do get to eat a ton of meat though, which is nice I guess.

As to what we'd do with out free management dice, I'd suggest just upgrading our house, barn and crafting workshop nonstop. Probably spam Ox power to autoclear clear/seed/tend fields for some Fodder, but not really needed.

On the downside I think this would basically kill @Imperial Fister since it would involve like a bajillion dice being rolled every farm turn. It's probably for the best that the Management Tab was shut down, really.
 
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From Winter 5 to Summer 6, our Sheep made 120 Cloth, or about 10 oz Silver (Plus all the management dice in order to get so many Cloth)

120 Cloth is actually 20 silver and we actually made 148 cloth, so more like 25 Silver there. Not to say that animal breeding isn't the best money-maker (it is, and by a fair amount), but cloth is actually not nearly as small a percentage as you're stating here.

1x Fine Bull (replace with a Superior Bull the moment you can)
??x Basic Cows (The maximum amount you can supply - For us, that's like 35 Basic Cows)

Uh...with the current Management Rules supplying 36 animals is wildly not viable. That's 216 Fodder per year...that's economically sustainable if we buy most of it but our farm itself can only supply, like, half of that, so one bad year with no Fodder for sale and we start having real issues feeding our stock.

And if the herd gets sick we get very screwed, which was my original logic for diversification. A sickness among the cattle means we don't have enough to eat any more with this...with a few sheep and chickens, suddenly that's much less the case.

I'm admittedly also unsure why you're not selling bulls...they sell for a whole lot. Oxen are useful, sure, but there definitely comes a point of oversaturation.

2.7%: Superior (Priceless)

I'm pretty sure Superior stock aren't actually priceless, we just don't know the price because there weren't any for sale when we bought livestock.

But really this whole discussion is obsolete given that the Management Rules are not in use and are currently going through a significant revamp. We'll need to see the eventual version before we can actually start discussions on the optimal setup.
 
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Yeah, at the end of the day, the Farm Management stuff should be a cool thing, not dominating most of the narrative like it was starting to become.
 
Yeah, at the end of the day, the Farm Management stuff should be a cool thing, not dominating most of the narrative like it was starting to become.

It's not that it was dominating the narrative, IMO, it's that it was taking up too much rule discussion and headspace. It was almost irrelevant to the actual narrative...which is the whole problem, really.

Like, having a successful and profitable farm is 100% relevant...details of which animals contribute how much to that? Not so much.
 
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Uh...with the current Management Rules supplying 36 animals is wildly not viable. That's 216 Fodder per year...that's economically sustainable if we buy most of it but our farm itself can only supply, like, half of that, so one bad year with no Fodder for sale and we start having real issues feeding our stock.
A more sustainable amount would be about half the herd, yes.
And if the herd gets sick we get very screwed, which was my original logic for diversification. A sickness among the cattle means we don't have enough to eat any more with this...with a few sheep and chickens, suddenly that's much less the case.
We would definitely be screwed, yes. Although we'd be fine for quite a surprising amount of time.
I'm admittedly also unsure why you're not selling bulls...they sell for a whole lot. Oxen are useful, sure, but there definitely comes a point of oversaturation.
Mostly because I'm not sure if you can actually sell Bulls, save for Fine+ Bulls.

(Plus I would just sacrifice Fine Bulls/Cows for whatever rewards the gods give since we'd be rich a.f anyway)
I'm pretty sure Superior stock aren't actually priceless, we just don't know the price because there weren't any for sale when we bought livestock.
I think it would be about double the previous, but we also wouldn't sell them (at most, we'd sacrifice or give them away), so the price would be.. well, priceless.
It's not that it was dominating the narrative, IMO, it's that it was taking up too much rule discussion and headspace. It was almost irrelevant to the actual narrative...which is the whole problem, really.

Like, having a successful and profitable farm is 100% relevant...details of which animals contribute how much to that? Not so much.
Yep.

Thinking about it, our Farm pretty much exists as a vehicle to generate.. Orthsirr (via Prestige), Drenskapr/Hamingja/Relations (via Food), God Gacha (via Yule Sacrifices), Money, and finally where we keep our stuff/live. There isn't actually reasons other than that to really keep a farm.
 
A more sustainable amount would be about half the herd, yes.

Just clarifying my own point there.

We would definitely be screwed, yes. Although we'd be fine for quite a surprising amount of time.

A little over a year with our current food stores/number of people.

Mostly because I'm not sure if you can actually sell Bulls, save for Fine+ Bulls.

(Plus I would just sacrifice Fine Bulls/Cows for whatever rewards the gods give since we'd be rich a.f anyway)

I think it would be about double the previous, but we also wouldn't sell them (at most, we'd sacrifice or give them away), so the price would be.. well, priceless.

Fair enough, though I think we'd likely sell Good Bulls at the very least in this hypothetical.

Thinking about it, our Farm pretty much exists as a vehicle to generate.. Orthsirr (via Prestige), Drenskapr/Hamingja/Relations (via Food), God Gacha (via Yule Sacrifices), Money, and finally where we keep our stuff/live. There isn't actually reasons other than that to really keep a farm.

I mean, it also exists to feed us (and clothe us, in the case of sheep), which isn't nothing by any means. We sort of leapt over the 'subsistence level' of farming, but the fact we can sustain our own lives (and those of our retainers) off of things we already own remains relevant. Sustainability is no small thing to have, and the only thing we actually need to go buy rather than making in-house is metal (and some metal items) as of now, which is pretty nice.

Also, that's actually a lot of reasons.
 
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And that's just normal animals!
Imagine if we or one of the kids learned shapecrafting or we catch some magical beasts we can tame.....
In the not so distant future, our farm breeds phoenixes, because phoenix eggs are amazing, fire dragons for dragonmeat, and our fire breathing cows are famous for their milk. Our fields are sown with hearthberries, fire flowers, and torch trees. It is said that only those born of fire can tend to the farm without immediately being burnt to ash.
 
Alright, small storm screwed with my power. Had a small scare with the computer, but every thing is alright.

Voting will be called in an hour.
 
Wondering can we put spirit knife in our soul to warm up near the heartberry bush
From the "bond at birth" comment it sounds like they'll be best used by our kids.

IRL, a puukko is 'just' a Finnish personal utility knife, though if Scandinavia and the World has taught me anything it's that Finns have a particular cultural appreciation for knives. I guess that since Norse weapons have spirits, in this world the puukko is a kind of bonded spiritual tool that grows with you, maybe a bit like a zanpakuto from Bleach.
 
Speaking of zanpakutos, would it be worth spending a Research action next turn trying to commune with Sagaseeker's spirit? We haven't really done anything with the whole "all our weapons have spirits in them" part of the lore.
 
Odr+X
See how different things react to being combined with Odr. Like the Aspects, Orthstirr, Tricks (figureing out if it works at all is valuable even if it isn't practical yet as anything but absolute emergency actions die to resource constraints)
Can we give our Odr to someone else?
Can our Aspects interact with someone elses?

I'm a little leery of too much experimentation with odr when it's hard to get and we don't have much, but we can try some of this next time yeah. For this turn specifically...I think 3 dice in Research is enough.

Does stoking while in close contact with someone closely related (especially if they are too young to have their own Orthstirr) have any effects on them?
What about pre-cultivation?

How far can we teach Aki before we get to the trap of the door?

These I'm a lot less sanguine about. This smacks of using our family and friends as guinea pigs in very dangerous experiments and I'm not thrilled by the idea.

Speaking of zanpakutos, would it be worth spending a Research action next turn trying to commune with Sagaseeker's spirit? We haven't really done anything with the whole "all our weapons have spirits in them" part of the lore.

I'm down for trying at some point, yeah. Dunno about next round, depends on what other research subjects we have.
 
And voting is now closed.

But, real quick, what specifically do you tell your friends about the process of not dying to Cultivation?
Scheduled vote count started by Imperial Fister on Apr 19, 2023 at 9:00 PM, finished with 104 posts and 14 votes.

  • [X] Saga Establishment
    [X] Plan Stalking Horra
    -[X] (Crafting) Try to make something
    --[X] Forged Iron Wood Axe (+7 Successes from Tools/Workshop)
    -[X] (Personal) Spend time with...
    --[X] Aki, Abjorn, Stigr, and Stigmar
    --[X] Try telling some of our allies as much as we can about the steps not to die in our cultivation quest and see what they have to say, or if they can even hear what we're saying
    ---[X] Strongly suggest they not actually try it as it's a very good way to die
    ---[X] Be careful not to tell them the imagery precisely
    -[X] (Visit) Go visit...
    --[X] Horrby, Horra's Farm
    ---[X] Rather than visiting normally, you instead stealthily approach and try to scout it out.
    ---[X] Send our Fylgja using Dressed in Rags and its natural stealth skills to avoid notice
    ---[X] Attempt to follow Horra's tracks (using our tracking skills) to any secluded locations he goes to looking for where he works his magics. Specifically, we're avoiding actually following him within his actual line of sight so as not to get caught.
    -[X] (Rolled)
    --[X] Train Kindle-Spinner 2d6 (1d6) (+1 Success from Born of Fire)
    --[X] Train Firebomb-Strike 2d6 (1d6) (+1 Success from Born of Fire)
    --[X] Train Ember-Winged Cloak 2d6 (1d6) (+1 Success from Born of Fire)
    --[X] Train Campfire 2d6 (1d6) (+1 Success from Born of Fire)
    --[X] Train Beaconlight 2d6 (1d6) (+1 Success from Born of Fire)
    -[X] (Research)
    --[X] Go investigate our new grove of weird magic trees 1d6
    --[X] Try feeding more odr (up to 6) to the bush gradually and see what happens, stopping if it seems 'full', then see what we can do with the Hearthroot's berry (probably by eating it, but we'd at least look if there were other options) 1d6
    --[X] Do more bible reading with Jerasmus 1d6
    -[X] (Blackhand's Training) Try to develop old/train new hugareida tricks
    --[X] Train Halting Vortex 1d6
    -[X] (Training) Tricks
    --[X] Train Goal-Tell 1d6
    --[X] Train Cool-Off 1d6
    --[X] Train Skewer-Flick 1d6
    --[X] Train 'Sax' Weaponcraft Skill-Trick 1d6
    --[X] Train 'Mail' Armorcraft Skill-Trick 1d6
    --[X] Train 'Tracking' Wildcraft Skill-Trick 1d6
    -[X] (Training) Hamr (62 successes to rank up)
    --[X] Train Hamr itself 1d6
    --[X] Train Chop 1d6
    --[X] Train Cut 1d6
    -[X] (Training) Hugr (28 successes to rank up)
    --[X] Train Hugr itself 1d6
    --[X] Train Armorcraft 1d6 (+1 Success from Sten)
    --[X] Train Composure 1d6
    --[X] Train Housecraft 1d6 (+1 Success from Sten)
    --[X] Train Scouting 1d6
    --[X] Train Silver-Tongue 1d6
    --[X] Train Weaponcraft 1d6 (+1 Success from Sten)
    --[X] Train Wildcraft 1d6 (+1 Success from Sten)
    --[X] Train Wordplay 1d6
    -[X] (Training) Fylgja (11 success to rank up)
    --[X] Train Fylgja Itself 1d6
    -[X] (Orthstirr Usage)
    --[X] 6 Hamr
    ---[X] 4 Chop, 4 Defend, 4 Dodge, 4 Glima, 3 Bash, 3 Pierce, 3 Throw, 3 Cut, 3 Labor, 3 Overland (34 total)
    --[X] 6 Hugr
    ---[X] 3 Barb-Tongue, 3 Composure, 5 Housecraft, 3 Management, 4 Scouting, 3 Silver-Tongue, 3 Strategy, 3 Tactics, 4 Wordplay, 5 Wildcraft (36 total)
    --[X] 4 Fylgja
    ---[X] 3 Command
    --[X] 1 First Impression
    --[X] 189 free for tricks
    -[X] (Fylgja Capacity)
    --[X] Remove Shield, Boulder, and Tools.
    --[X] Add Halting Vortex
    --[X] Add Kindle Spinner
    --[X] Add Ember-Wing Cloak
    [X] First Stage Name: First Spring
    [X] First Stage Name: Midgard
 
And voting is now closed.

But, real quick, what specifically do you tell your friends about the process of not dying to Cultivation?
Scheduled vote count started by Imperial Fister on Apr 19, 2023 at 9:00 PM, finished with 104 posts and 14 votes.

  • [X] Saga Establishment
    [X] Plan Stalking Horra
    -[X] (Crafting) Try to make something
    --[X] Forged Iron Wood Axe (+7 Successes from Tools/Workshop)
    -[X] (Personal) Spend time with...
    --[X] Aki, Abjorn, Stigr, and Stigmar
    --[X] Try telling some of our allies as much as we can about the steps not to die in our cultivation quest and see what they have to say, or if they can even hear what we're saying
    ---[X] Strongly suggest they not actually try it as it's a very good way to die
    ---[X] Be careful not to tell them the imagery precisely
    -[X] (Visit) Go visit...
    --[X] Horrby, Horra's Farm
    ---[X] Rather than visiting normally, you instead stealthily approach and try to scout it out.
    ---[X] Send our Fylgja using Dressed in Rags and its natural stealth skills to avoid notice
    ---[X] Attempt to follow Horra's tracks (using our tracking skills) to any secluded locations he goes to looking for where he works his magics. Specifically, we're avoiding actually following him within his actual line of sight so as not to get caught.
    -[X] (Rolled)
    --[X] Train Kindle-Spinner 2d6 (1d6) (+1 Success from Born of Fire)
    --[X] Train Firebomb-Strike 2d6 (1d6) (+1 Success from Born of Fire)
    --[X] Train Ember-Winged Cloak 2d6 (1d6) (+1 Success from Born of Fire)
    --[X] Train Campfire 2d6 (1d6) (+1 Success from Born of Fire)
    --[X] Train Beaconlight 2d6 (1d6) (+1 Success from Born of Fire)
    -[X] (Research)
    --[X] Go investigate our new grove of weird magic trees 1d6
    --[X] Try feeding more odr (up to 6) to the bush gradually and see what happens, stopping if it seems 'full', then see what we can do with the Hearthroot's berry (probably by eating it, but we'd at least look if there were other options) 1d6
    --[X] Do more bible reading with Jerasmus 1d6
    -[X] (Blackhand's Training) Try to develop old/train new hugareida tricks
    --[X] Train Halting Vortex 1d6
    -[X] (Training) Tricks
    --[X] Train Goal-Tell 1d6
    --[X] Train Cool-Off 1d6
    --[X] Train Skewer-Flick 1d6
    --[X] Train 'Sax' Weaponcraft Skill-Trick 1d6
    --[X] Train 'Mail' Armorcraft Skill-Trick 1d6
    --[X] Train 'Tracking' Wildcraft Skill-Trick 1d6
    -[X] (Training) Hamr (62 successes to rank up)
    --[X] Train Hamr itself 1d6
    --[X] Train Chop 1d6
    --[X] Train Cut 1d6
    -[X] (Training) Hugr (28 successes to rank up)
    --[X] Train Hugr itself 1d6
    --[X] Train Armorcraft 1d6 (+1 Success from Sten)
    --[X] Train Composure 1d6
    --[X] Train Housecraft 1d6 (+1 Success from Sten)
    --[X] Train Scouting 1d6
    --[X] Train Silver-Tongue 1d6
    --[X] Train Weaponcraft 1d6 (+1 Success from Sten)
    --[X] Train Wildcraft 1d6 (+1 Success from Sten)
    --[X] Train Wordplay 1d6
    -[X] (Training) Fylgja (11 success to rank up)
    --[X] Train Fylgja Itself 1d6
    -[X] (Orthstirr Usage)
    --[X] 6 Hamr
    ---[X] 4 Chop, 4 Defend, 4 Dodge, 4 Glima, 3 Bash, 3 Pierce, 3 Throw, 3 Cut, 3 Labor, 3 Overland (34 total)
    --[X] 6 Hugr
    ---[X] 3 Barb-Tongue, 3 Composure, 5 Housecraft, 3 Management, 4 Scouting, 3 Silver-Tongue, 3 Strategy, 3 Tactics, 4 Wordplay, 5 Wildcraft (36 total)
    --[X] 4 Fylgja
    ---[X] 3 Command
    --[X] 1 First Impression
    --[X] 189 free for tricks
    -[X] (Fylgja Capacity)
    --[X] Remove Shield, Boulder, and Tools.
    --[X] Add Halting Vortex
    --[X] Add Kindle Spinner
    --[X] Add Ember-Wing Cloak
    [X] First Stage Name: First Spring
    [X] First Stage Name: Midgard

I did a writeup about it shortly after the post, let me grab it, editing it in here soon.

We should pick one to bring the rest of our inner circle up to date with our findings so far. That we seem to have figured out something kind of like that Zeal thing that Christians have, but activating it is pretty risky, we passed out the first time we tried our idea and if we weren't woken up, we're pretty sure we would have died. The way I see it, there's two conditions involved to try it for yourself and a warning.

1) A large sum of Orthstirr--the more you have, the more time you have to regain consciousness, and the more you gain from trying this in the first place. You certainly wouldn't suggest someone trying this without the Orthstirr held by someone who's been on at least one successful raid, or a similar level of development in other fields. There just isn't enough time to recover before you're in trouble otherwise.

And 2) A way to reawaken yourself when you're completely overwhelmed, or barring that, an outside force to drag you back to wakefulness before you run out of time. You were able to retain consciousness the second time you tried it, and you think you'll be fine trying it in the future now, but that first step is absolutely going to be courting death--you'd bet it's an outright guarantee to anyone who tries it too soon, or doesn't have people on hand ready to drag you back awake.

3) If they want to take a look themselves, they can burn their Virthing and Saemd in tandem while your Orthstirr is full. Do not introduce Frami however, as that's what triggers the effect. And as you've said, you're pretty sure anyone without a good quantity of Orthstirr and someone to drag you back awake will die a True Death. Absolutely do not try this alone even if you think you're up to it.

We're also going to do our best to check and see if anything got edited out by having them warn us if they think we're skipping words or something, and to repeat what we told them afterwards. Aki at least should be able to vouch that something is sanitizing the topic.
 
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I did a writeup about it shortly after the post, let me grab it, editing it in here soon.



We're also going to do our best to check and see if anything got edited out by having them warn us if they think we're skipping words or something, and to repeat what we told them afterwards. Aki at least should be able to vouch that something is sanitizing the topic.


Yeah, basically this...I added a stronger warning against doing it themselves than point #3 in there (or at least intended to). But basically the rest of that.
 
I feel a little like we're in one of those old text adventure games, where I get stuck and type LOOK INVENTORY and then USE [ITEM] ON [OTHER ITEM] until I hit the right combination by trial and error.
 
"Of a probing attack from The Enemy, to ascertain your power," he squints at the tree line, "unfortunately for its plans," a broad, tooth-filled smile forms on his face, "I don't take very kindly to my day being interrupted, not by the likes of it."

Wait, was Thor warning us that they will be a probing attack in the future, or that there was going to be a probing attack during Yule but Thor stopped it?
 
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