Paths of Civilization II: Paths of Industrialization

[Academia Nut]

Also, how long was the fall after Not!Alexander? And how many years passed since our fall?

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Like 1300? And it has been about 600 years since the collapse of the Ymaryn Empire.

 

[Academia Nut]

Shit. It's going to be difficult to turn them against each other. Luckily we have Intrigue and Diplo specialists to cause some strife.

What's Hung and Nohons opinions on us? Do they even have an opinion?

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Hung have some trade contact through both sea and overland routes. They consider you barbarians of course, but polite barbarians who hold to their deals with remarkable vigour. Overall they grade you as "A+ barbarians, would send princesses to if were closer"

Nohon, who actually go out to sea, see you as competition, but also if they want to go raid the shit out of Syffrynite merchants they know your captains are up to it. There is a particular longstanding tradition between your gun manufacturing guilds and merchants who have a bitter rivalry over production and selling to groups without significant native production. They rate you as "B- foreigners, good mostly for going pirate with".

 

[Academia Nut]

In that vein, AN, what do our people and our diplomatic corps rate them as?

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The diplomats, who are all also pretty much scholars, see the Hung and can only wince. The Hung are at the top of the world, everyone comes to them for their goods, they have a massive population, a sophisticated bureaucracy, massive manufacturing capacity through their population... and they are just sitting their, safe behind their armies and fortifications, letting the world come to them. It reminds the People painfully of their own history, but whenever they try to bring up discussion of their literature, let alone their history, the Hung scholars and nobility have little interest in it, and if it does come up the Hung are quick to agree with themselves that they are different from the Old Ymaryn Empire. While from a realpolitik stance the Hung being brought low might have certain advantages to the People, they feel that the Syffrynites would probably be the largest beneficiaries. For the moment the Hung seem internally stable though, so there is probably little chance of the Syffrynites causing any real trouble. They rate them as "A+ nation, but needs to read more history."

The Nohon on the other hand are seen of as a threat. They do sail and trade and are competing to colonize areas of the People's interest and Syffrynite interest, which means that they get in conflict with others. The Nohon can lose and have lost in various situations in the past, but that means that they lack the arrogance of certainty of superiority of the Hung. While distant, the Nohon are assessed as being a long term threat to the People, if far lower on the scale than Syffrynites or even the Black Sheep. The diplomats rate them as "C+ nation, long term worry but have bigger fish to fry."

 

[Academia Nut]

If it would please you to do so, @Academia Nut, as a diplomacy-focused Great Power we well and truly are in need of knowledge of what our people think of other nations and vice-versa what the other nations think of us.

While this information can and will change in play, at least the State Of The World As It Is In 1800 EY would be much appreciated and, I think, quite necessary to get the right picture of the Dual Crown of Gyrluv-Ymaryn into the minds of the questers.

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I intend to include a list of Great Power news in every update going forward. The now inevitable breakup of the United Ueman Empire is going to shake up the list a fair bit, but here is a list of common stereotypes for the national identities of the Great Powers.

1. Hung - the stereotype is the noble bureaucrat in silk robes with assessor's tools for judging the quality of silver, or peasants in tunics and straw hats
2. Hespranxer - one word: "passionate". While their art and poetry is seen as the gold standard in most places, they are also ridiculously quick to anger, declaring vendettas and demanding duels for satisfaction
3. Tortuns - there are a variety of nations within the empire, but a jolly love of beer and wine and arguing is a typical stereotype. They are also seen as some of the better clockmakers
4. Sketch - the stereotype is of the rough and crude sailor, but above all else the Sketch are seen as having the sharpest tongues of all. Pretty much everyone agrees that you only send the ambassadors with cool heads and quick wits, because the Sketch love to bust out high speed lyrical insults at the drop of the hat. It is said that Sketch-Hespranxer animosity is mostly derived from Hespranxer nobility offering insult to a Sketch peer, at which point the Sketch man busts out a high speed series of insults in turn, at which point the Hespranxer draws steel and the whole thing descends into a brawl
5. Kielmyr - favouring gravitas above all else, the Kielmyr are seen as very staid and reserved, but will also match insult for insult in equal intensity. The Sketch have good personal relations with them, the Hespranxers not so much, but until recently their diplomats kept their heads around each other
6. Both the Gylruv and the Ymaryn are typically seen by outsiders as being dour and more interested in work than having fun, although for somewhat different reasons. The Gylruv because there is a certain air of "We will die if we are not ready for winter" while for the Ymaryn it is more "Our ancestors expect us to be busy". This is obviously not true as far as internal assessment of external stereotypes are concerned, but the People do tend to prefer to get business out of the way first in a quick and efficient manner in comparison to many neighbours
7. Black Sheep - there are two main stereotypes: either a prince in silks sitting within a smoke filled harem being attended by women in gauzy outfits, or a ferocious warrior prince from eras of old seeking to recreate past glories. To the People neither of these stereotypes are known to be true, but there is a certain dynamic of decadence versus conquest that happens within the Black Sheep. For many within the Ymaryn they see the Black Sheep and their Kus vassals as actually being more interested in the perfection of craft, as they love to make high quality and elaborately decorated goods
8. Nohon - pirates and mercenaries the lot of them

EDIT: Derp, Vortuga are a great power.

Vortuga - murdering rapists and pillagers! While not necessarily a view held by many neighbours, the only thing that the People find good about them is their skill at sea, which merely allows them to find new places to loot

 

[Academia Nut]

Oh! Right, one of the funniest interactions is pretty rare, but the Qeshyks are known for their elaborate and acrobatic dances, which since interaction with the Ymaryn scholars and their practice of unarmed combat for when someone attempts to resort to the Argument from the Stick, has also incorporated unarmed combat practice routines. For many others dance is done with the legs and maybe also the arms, but there is pretty much no part of the body that is not expected to touch the ground at some point in their most intense dances. While some of these dances follow very strict sequences, others are more improvised, and some are basically intentionally acrobatic sparring sessions. On occasion Sketch sailors have been known to encounter Qeshyks on garrison duty in a port where the Sketch make dock, and the combination of Sketch improv poetry fighting with Qeshyk dance fighting has been reported by all who have witnessed it as being 'spectacular'.

 

[Academia Nut]

...did we not used to do this? Since Yshuyn the Mad?

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It has since evolved into long form written poetry insults. Outsiders don't experience it and don't get it.

EDIT: One of the national treasures is a certain play that most see of as a tragedy about the confluence of fate and circumstances, but the nobility understands as a five hour long set up for a "Your momma" joke.

 

[Academia Nut]

Oh yes, a bit of information for you all.

The Ymaryn use the Era Ymaryn calendar for tracking dates. A solar calendar, it is very accurate, and has the end of calendar year occur shortly after the vernal equinox, with leap days included as intercalendary days at the end of the year. However, it also has an issue in that it was devised significantly after its 0 year, as for political reasons the full scale adoption of the Khemetri calendar was seen as being an issue. Instead, the scholars in charge of setting the 0 year chose what they saw of as the founding of their kingdom as being the point to start the calendar. Unfortunately, there was a lot of dodgy scholarship and backroom politics in choosing this year, so not only did the Ymaryn kingdom definitely exist for centuries before Year 0, but the Year 0 didn't even fall on the coronation of a particularly important king. By the time this was actually reviewed and worked out, centuries had passed and the scholars had no interest in changing around all of their dates. Due to cultural influences many nations use the EY calendar without even knowing what the EY stands for, while many others know how to roughly convert between their year count and the Ymaryn year count and are thus comfortable in discussion about the year.

Author's Note: It is entirely coincidental that EY can also stand for Equivalent Year.

 

[Academia Nut]

What's the week-equivalent? How's it broken down, in terms of expected activities?

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Five six day weeks, with five days for work and one for rest. However, every month has one or more long weekend for religious or national celebration.

 

[Academia Nut]

[X] [Research] Standardized Rifling (0/30) [Military]
[X] [Research] Mechanized Loom (0/???) [Industrial]
[X] [Agenda] Plan 8bit
-[X][Agenda] 1 PW - Develop Industry
-[X][Agenda] 1 PW - Claim Kyberi Territory
-[X][Agenda] 2 PW - Improve Standard of Living

Liberalism (41/50)
Standardized Rifling (7/30) [Military]
Mechanized Loom (5/???) [Industrial]

In the end the budget for the next few years was pretty simple. Open up further land in the Kyberi to settlement to please nobles looking for new titles while also sending the ambitious and troublesome peasants off east instead of letting them wandering into the cities where scholars and merchants might speak to them about such things as 'human rights' or 'representative government'. None of that now! The more scholarly types were also given some toys to distract them from philosophy. The Sketch had a number of mechanized looms, so the king bought a few for the physicists and mathematicians to play around with, as there were apparently some interesting principles to the motions of the machines. Meanwhile, other scholars were tasked with sorting out what the best standard of rifling to apply was, for use in cannon and specialist sharpshooter muskets. While most gunsmiths could do the process, there were longstanding arguments about what was best with a given material or design, and standardizing it was both an academic task and bureaucratic one.

Unfortunately, shortly after the latest wave of settlers went out it came out that there was some sort of religious conflict going down between the latest settlers, older settlers, and local tribes. The exact specifics were not Poetyr's concern, all he really needed to know was that villages were getting torched by angry mobs and the Haddyth had to send a response. Asking for a bit more detail, it had come out that in the region in question there was a plant considered sacred to primitive tribes for it's medicinal properties, and the latest settlers had been disturbing these plants somehow. When the new settlers went to their more established neighbours for help, some religious schism from fifty years back was revealed in the more isolated communities, who didn't want to help the 'heretics' or the 'primitives', and now all three groups were at each other's throats. It wasn't a terribly big issue, but if the Haddyth didn't do something it could lead to loss of confidence in his ability to maintain order and protect them, and also had the potential to spread. The advisors suggested just sending in a few Qeshyk clans to knock heads together and then separate the offenders until things calmed down. Only...

Only, there was definitely a bigger concern brewing. While the United Emperor was still claiming that he had things under control and any move to intervene against his subjects would be viewed as an act of war - no doubt because there were enough neighbours who would take a bite out of his patrimony using the excuse of "intervention against radical elements", but for all intents and purposes Tortun was out of the fight against the Hespranxer Republic. Worse yet, with the Sexton force solidifying into the Tortun Republic in the northern states, the Kielmyr had abandoned all action against the Hespranxer to deal with the agitation in their ethnic Tortun territories and the fact that First Citizen Faron had made it clear he was going to 'liberate' those regions once he was done with the Ochruhr and the Emperor. With the Tortun and Kielmyr out of the fight, the Hespranxer focused everything they could spare on the Halvyni while keeping a holding force for the Vortuga. By the winter of 1802 the Syffryn Halvyni lands had been completely overrun, the king and his family fleeing to the Sketch. Demands were being worked out, but it seemed entirely possible that the Hespranxer would simply abolish the monarchy and install a republic, if they didn't annex the territory outright.

While the Sketch were apparently doing quite well at sea, the governors and nobles in the Hespranxer colonies had decided that they had no interest in taking orders from the republican government now that they had the full details of what was going on, and it appeared that no restoration of the monarch was coming any time soon. Some were in a state of disobedience, some were in open revolt, and at least one colony had declared that while it agreed with the aims of the Republic, they would not take orders from half the world away and were instead forming their own independent republic to address their local concerns. This had the Vortuga distinctly distracted, both in terms of keeping their own colonies from exploding into revolution and from the possibility the chaos represented. So basically the Sketch were the only ones dealing with the Hespranxer seriously, and they could only really fight them at sea at the moment, which had of course been a contributing factor to both the colonies being in a state of uncertainty but also why the colonies had ultimately decided to rebel.

So, this meant that things were rapidly flying apart on the People's doorstep. Intervention against the rapidly growing Tortun Republic might be advisable, even if it would likely mean problems with the Ochruhr later. Not only could they come into contact with the People's territory in Wyrmyn and cause issues there, but also because it would be in support of a longstanding ally in the Kielmyr. Then again, the People had longstanding issues with the Ochruhr and the way they sometimes interfered with various internal affairs in ways detrimental to the People. There was of course also some agitation for the support of the Tortun Republic, but that was not a particularly great idea even if the inevitable implosion of the United Ueman Empire might be useful. Too many bridges burned. The general consensus was to either just continue to stay out of it, or to only go so far as to send aid in the form of cheap loans of gold and guns to the Kielmyr to assist in their conflict.

Then of course there was the question of how to pay for this. There was the old standby of raising taxes, but there was enough irritation with the crown at the moment that maybe a more hands off method was advised. Fortunately they had the Crown Bank, which could be used to get money now and pay it off through other people later. There were some merchants who wanted to expand their trades in the Gylruvian north - notably away from the strongest segments of the guilds - who could be a good source of immediate cash. Sell some operating licenses and crown lands, get them to take out loans from the bank backed by crown debentures, standard sort of deal.

Due to international crisis, gain +2 PW towards addressing the issue

Kyberi troublemakers
[] [Kyberi] 0 PW - Send in the Qeshyks (-1 Temp Army, -1 Temp Happiness, situation resolved)
[] [Kyberi] 1 PW - Send in proper negotiators and scholars to sort it all out (-1 Temp Happiness, +1 Temp Consciousness, situation resolved, ???)
[] [Kyberi] 0 PW - Ignore it, you have other things to deal with (-1 Temp Happiness, situation not resolved)

Republican crisis
[] [Crisis] 0 PW - Remain neutral and watch (-1 Temp Trust)
[] [Crisis] 1 PW - Send aid to the Kielmyr (-1 temp SoL, +1 Temp Trust)
[] [Crisis] 2 PW - Declare war on the Tortun Republic (+1 Prestige, declare war on Tortun Republic, Ochruhr aligned segments of Tortun likely to declare war on you or otherwise demand reparations for insult)
[] [Crisis] 3 PW - Declare war for the Tortun Republic (declare war on Ochruhr, -2 Trust, +1 Consciousness, anti-Republican forces break ties with you, Kielmyr likely declare war on you)

Paying for it all
[] [Paying] 1 PW - Raise Taxes (-1 Temp SoL, -1 Temp Happiness)
-[] [Paying] +1 Temp IC
-[] [Paying] +1 Temp Armies
[] [Paying] 0 PW - Bank and Business Fun
-[] [Paying] +1 Temp IC
-[] [Paying] +1 Temp SoL
-[] [Paying] +1 Temp Armies
-[] [Paying] +1 PW + promises
[] [Paying] No need for change



AN: I realize that I need to adjust how Temp damage shall iterate to keep this all clear, and so shall be adjusting things going forward, but for the time being I will iterate temp changes from last round and then apply the new changes afterwards going into the next turn/war turns

 

[Academia Nut]

How exactly are the Nohon keeping up tech wise anyways? Do they send a lot of their young ruling class to foreign universities, or are they reverse engineering any European tech they get?

Cause while I understand how they could catch up gun wise, I thought they had pretty shoddy tech in terms of naval and domestic production?

I mean, Japanese history isn't exactly my field of expertise, so I just may be underestimating them, but it seems weird that a country so far from the European heartlands is going toe to toe with other European countries.

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While they don't have the same access to intellectual capital as you, they do have transoceanic trade based on native construction (this is in part why they are interested in expanding their Siberian holdings, they have need for the forests there too), so they aren't cut off and isolationist. That's why I said they could get ahead of you if they got lucky and you got unlucky, because they remain somewhat aware of what is happening in the larger world and won't need to do a crash restructuring of their society to catch up, but can instead see if they start to fall behind.