- Location
- Panama City
I would point out the earliest mechanical farm equipment was horse powered, so we don't technically need steam power for it. But ok.
Paths of Civilization II: Paths of Industrialization
The ability to make high quality farm tools cheaply, however, is dependent.
The tools exist. They're just not cheap to make yet
- Pronouns
- He/Him
You already have those and have had them for decades.
Things like the combine harvester and the earliest steam tractors weren't a thing until the 1880s or later.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Yeah, those sorts of things are really the ones that require better mechanics, steel production, and engines. But lots of horse drawn mechanical harvesters are around in various forms.
Random Member
Gardener of Human Happiness
- Location
- Behind You
You know, I've been thinking. With metagreen being a thing, this world's Stalin might be less of a cripple and more:
Literal Man of Steel! Make it happen, AN!
Literal Man of Steel! Make it happen, AN!
- Location
- Minnesota
Given how the Sketch are close to getting the Maharathans to fold to them I think those ports would be a better place to invest than Traigon. We really do not want Sketch to get their territories.
- Location
- Illinois
Issue there is that the Hung are about to divest their southern territories, and we need a strong foothold in the region to stop the rebels from taking too much. If we invest, we can secure the confidence of the regional governors and also start prodding our allies into investing as well.
Mah ports are, while problematic, somewhat addressed in that they can be reinforced when we complete the railway to Kus, meaning that we can threaten any attacking force sufficiently as to discourage an attempt to take the ports.
Edit: That's not to say I don't plan to invest in them ASAP, I just think that the Hung port is more time critical than the Mah ports are right now. My plan for next turn is to try and devote resources to a Mah port as well.
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And maratha is going to be looking for a way to get those ports regardless of how we update them.
The Tragon port will make the lands around it more loyal.
The Tragon port will make the lands around it more loyal.
- Location
- Illinois
@Academia Nut if we get nitro explosives, how long would the Not!Suez take to build, assuming a rail to Khem was completed?
This is a plan that's been in the works for IRL months now, and I'm excited to finally move into the execution phase. It's been back and forth a ton, and is one of the main reasons that I'm so invested in the quest. To explain it, we must first explain the context.
Essentially, we're now moving into the immediate phase prior to building the Suez Canal, a project that will solidify ourselves at the very centre of east-west trade, bring vital income to us and the Khem whilst undercutting the Sketch dominance of the seas (and thus world trade). This brings its own set of problems. The moment that we announce the construction of the canal, the Sketch start forming an alliance to immediately declare war on us, and since they are currently allied with the Hespranxer, this is more than a little worrying to us.
As such, the Suez plans are currently classified top-secret, on the same level as metalight, and are only known to the very highest level of officials within the Dual Crown and Khemetri governments - perhaps the Kings of both countries, and the Prime Ministers. It must stay this way, but thankfully our internal intelligence networks are so good that countries don't even bother trying espionage within our territory. The risk of leaks are minimal, thankfully, as it is the single greatest failure point of this plan. Engaging in the Suez before we're fully prepared would be disastrous. The disparate pieces of preparation are hard to piece together into a coherent whole without knowing the full picture.
This conflict is destined to be an interesting one. The alliance cannot hope to win in a land invasion of us and the Khemetri, between the logistical advantages of our rails, the communication of telegraphs and two world-class armies buried up to their necks in fortresses. They cannot expect to take control of the site of the Suez. Similarly, however, the flipside of this is that we absolutely cannot contest these nations on the sea, their ironclads having the potential to turn our wooden navy into matchsticks. Their naval dominance means that what they can do is place a stranglehold on our seaborne trade, blockading our ports with unsinkable ironclads and harming our finances until they can extract hefty concessions from us, potentially even losing us the thalassocracy title (even though we are only nominally a thalassocracy).
This is a problem, and must be accounted for, in order to mitigate the extent and the damage of the war. The planned solutions are as followed:
There will be some delay between our starting of the project and the coalition's ability to muster an organised response, due to the time delay on information travel, both of the announcement and the orders/diplomatic response. It is therefore imperative that the canal comes online as soon as possible, for the moment it does, merchants and businessmen all across the globe will be demanding access to it due to how much quicker and cheaper it makes east-west trade. This provides a massive financial and therefore political incentive to not be at war with the canal operators, and makes it increasingly politically untenable for coalition leadership to continue a war with the Dual Crown and the Khemetri. To this end, the canal plans should remain secret until, and ideally during the canal construction (though the latter is unlikely given the quality of Sketch foreign intelligence). Furthermore, cost reduction in the form of mass produced explosives must first be obtained before starting, and as much IC investment as is feasibly possible must be put into the canal during its construction (to the point of halting IC spending a turn or two beforehand to allow full regeneration, and investing in temp IC increasers during the turn).
The current problem of facing an ironclad navy at the present time is our inability to sink the things, so they could essentially sit in front of our ports and we wouldn't be able to do anything about it. The answer, however, is simple – obtain a method of sinking them before we start the canal (and thus the war). This comes in the form of breechloading cannons (currently researching) and smokeless powder, which is the tech directly after nitro explosives in the tech tree, and allows for higher velocity, explosive shells with long range, capable of sinking ironclads. Fortunately for us, early ironclads were little more than floating gun batteries: slow, low range and incapable of going very far from the shore. This means that if they are used to blockade our ports, they would be static targets solidly in range of our coastal defences, and thus, extremely sinkable. Once you compare the costs of producing the anti-ironclad guns with the vast expense of building the ironclads, it becomes economically infeasible for the ironclad navy to in a protracted war if their 'unsinkable' ships have to be continually replaced. This is the 'hard' answer to the problem of ironclads.
Another angle of attack is to attempt to remove one of the players entirely before the war even begins. The Sketch, being the coalition leaders and our current main rival for the title of supreme power, obviously can't be targeted in this manner, so we must instead turn to the Hespranxer. It must be forwarded that this is not guaranteed to work, but the potential benefits in both resources and averting loss of life during the war mean that it should be attempted.
The approach follows a traditional Ymaryn maxim – 'the fire is warm'. In essence, a protracted soft power campaign, consisting of a combination of diplomatic overtures, favourable trade negotiations and Dual Crown agitators influencing politicians and businessmen, all directed at the Hespranxer. The aim of this campaign is to introduce luxuries and favourable opinions of the Dual Crown, tying our trade and continued favourable relations in with the wellbeing of their citizens, such that the idea of a war becomes economically and politically untenable if the Sketch present it. It is to our advantage that the Sketch-Hespranxer alliance is a tenuous one, formed of a mutual wariness of the Dual Crown's growing power, on an extraordinarily unstable foundation of mutual hatred on a cultural level. If we can turn that wariness into more favourable relations on the Hespranxer, so that continued cooperation with one another is more profitable than war, the alliance evaporates. Our diplomats are some of the foremost in the world, and the Hespranxer are fairly predictable in their desires – they want prestige, and they want luxuries, and all the trappings of a modern, enlightened industrial nation. This is something that we can work with – between our splendid porcelain, high quality glassworks, culture, precision industrial goods and vast natural resources, we have many levers that we can pull to influence them.
We must take care to never threaten the Hespranxer, but merely let them realise of their own accord that it is better to be with us than against us. The fire truly is warm.
And so we move to the elephant in the room: the Sketch. They are a tricky behemoth, between their wealth, industrial power, bleeding edge navy and their superb intelligence capabilities. Fortunately, they are also extraordinarily beholden to the whims of that great beast, capitalism. If something is profitable, Sketch businessmen will follow like hounds after a rabbit, so the answer to the Sketch is to target their finances and make it infeasible to prolong a war. To this end, the secrecy and short construction period of the Suez already go a long way, but there is another option that we have already prepared. The wellbeing of the sketch people is horrifically dependent on the imports from their colonies, being used to a certain level of luxury, much like their real-life counterparts in the British. As such, targeting the principal among these colonies, Sketch Kus and the HEKC that manages it when we start the Suez, disrupting it so as to cut of the supply of luxuries means that the Sketch face the possibility of internal revolt at the same time as a war with the Supreme power. A nasty predicament, to be sure.
With all this in mind, I suggest the following distribution of PW to the parties: 1PW to the royalists, and 2PW to the Urban Workers, with 1PW held in reserve to be potentially used for either a temperance action or a war action if necessary. I can thus present to the thread a tentative plan for the current parliamentary phase, which has been extensively discussed between myself and the other party leaders, taking into consideration their various interests, concerns, and personal desires.
Conservatives (4+0 PW)
This forms the core of @ManusDomine's conservative platform – 'education, education, education'. It's been something that we've wanted to do for a while now, but between the cost reduction from the conservatives being in power, and our trade SoL coming back online, we're in a perfect position to execute it. It also serves as the rush for Nitro Explosives (and finishes metalight), giving us at least 26RP from the boosters, and another +(2*2)*1.9 RP in the research phase. Having run the maths on this, 2 Edu 2 Boost is the most efficient formulation of this in terms of RP gain whilst still obtaining Nitro Explosives next turn.
Royalists (2 + 1 PW)
This, along with the trade action explained later, form the triple pronged, synergistic opening phase of the aforementioned protracted soft power campaign directed at the Hespranxer, the start of a multiple turn initiative to bring them onside. The DO action is a strong, above-board action signalling our intentions, whilst the espionage network action is our increased funding of our existing spy network in the country to start promoting Dual Crown interests within politicians and businessmen. It also serves to bring us to 10 temp espionage, to allow for the usage of the improved DO action this turn and in the next main phase, saving us a substantial amount of temp trust.
Liberals (0 + 1 temp by AN fiat)
Urban Workers (0 + 2 PW)
The Liberals and the Urban Workers are an interesting bunch, and are currently extremely bound to one another. I shall attempt to explain what's going on here.
Since @Citino has taken control of the Liberal party, he has been clear with his desire to reform it towards a more trade-focused standpoint, and investment in the Traigon ports in Binaan (the equivalent of Vietnam) serves as the core of his plaform. This provides us with a greater foothold in the region – greater influence and stability in Binaan, and the potential for greater opportunities and sources of wealth. The end goal here is to turn it into our equivalent of Hong Kong, a major base in the region for when we turn our focus east.
The dynamics of the Urban Workers this turn mean that the more PW invested into them compared to the liberals, the more influence they have over the changing liberal platform. @Horologer's key focus is jobs, and worker safety/rights – it is, after all, an employer's market at the moment, with too much power in the hands of business owners granting them far too much leeway in their actions. The RDI action should need no explaining; RDI is jobs, and lots of them. The promote trade action, however, is far more interesting – in order to gain greater sway over the liberals, and further influence their platform, the urban workers have opted to horse-trade one of their potential PW to the liberals, who use it for a trade action, which is the last piece in the soft power trifecta. In return, however, they receive greater sway over the liberal platform, helping to curb the greatest excesses of the 19th century, and an undefined future favour from the liberals to be called in at their leisure.
An addendum, because I know it's going to be brought up and thus I should explain it. The Nohon, our other great power rival, do not really have a stake in the Suez War (aside from disliking us, perhaps) – by the time the information reaches them, it will be too late, and they will not be able to coordinate with the Sketch.* However, it has been suggested to start a TKR rail company early, before the Suez situation is handled. If word of the TKR reaches the Nohon, especially several years into its construction (as there are a few more years to go before we can start the Suez), they will declare war on us. This cannot be allowed. We cannot afford a naval war between potentially three great powers at the same time, in two separate theatres thousands of miles apart. Such split attention and resources will ruin everything that we are trying to build.
* [For reference, the journey time for the fastest clipper ships from London to Japan is about five months pre-Suez. Add on mobilising the navy even with immediate acceptance without payment or reply… the information/travel lag makes this impossible to handle.]
The current suggested plan regarding the TKR is as follows:
Tldr: Khem finishes in 2 turns, Kiel in 3 turns, Kus in 4 turns, and TKR in 7 turns from this point, with the only additional company needed being a TKR one later on, after we've dealt with the Suez situation.
Vote 1 PW Royalist, 2 PW Urban workers! ^^
I'll get an IC post done tomorrow. After 2.5k of this I'm shattered.
Essentially, we're now moving into the immediate phase prior to building the Suez Canal, a project that will solidify ourselves at the very centre of east-west trade, bring vital income to us and the Khem whilst undercutting the Sketch dominance of the seas (and thus world trade). This brings its own set of problems. The moment that we announce the construction of the canal, the Sketch start forming an alliance to immediately declare war on us, and since they are currently allied with the Hespranxer, this is more than a little worrying to us.
As such, the Suez plans are currently classified top-secret, on the same level as metalight, and are only known to the very highest level of officials within the Dual Crown and Khemetri governments - perhaps the Kings of both countries, and the Prime Ministers. It must stay this way, but thankfully our internal intelligence networks are so good that countries don't even bother trying espionage within our territory. The risk of leaks are minimal, thankfully, as it is the single greatest failure point of this plan. Engaging in the Suez before we're fully prepared would be disastrous. The disparate pieces of preparation are hard to piece together into a coherent whole without knowing the full picture.
This conflict is destined to be an interesting one. The alliance cannot hope to win in a land invasion of us and the Khemetri, between the logistical advantages of our rails, the communication of telegraphs and two world-class armies buried up to their necks in fortresses. They cannot expect to take control of the site of the Suez. Similarly, however, the flipside of this is that we absolutely cannot contest these nations on the sea, their ironclads having the potential to turn our wooden navy into matchsticks. Their naval dominance means that what they can do is place a stranglehold on our seaborne trade, blockading our ports with unsinkable ironclads and harming our finances until they can extract hefty concessions from us, potentially even losing us the thalassocracy title (even though we are only nominally a thalassocracy).
This is a problem, and must be accounted for, in order to mitigate the extent and the damage of the war. The planned solutions are as followed:
There will be some delay between our starting of the project and the coalition's ability to muster an organised response, due to the time delay on information travel, both of the announcement and the orders/diplomatic response. It is therefore imperative that the canal comes online as soon as possible, for the moment it does, merchants and businessmen all across the globe will be demanding access to it due to how much quicker and cheaper it makes east-west trade. This provides a massive financial and therefore political incentive to not be at war with the canal operators, and makes it increasingly politically untenable for coalition leadership to continue a war with the Dual Crown and the Khemetri. To this end, the canal plans should remain secret until, and ideally during the canal construction (though the latter is unlikely given the quality of Sketch foreign intelligence). Furthermore, cost reduction in the form of mass produced explosives must first be obtained before starting, and as much IC investment as is feasibly possible must be put into the canal during its construction (to the point of halting IC spending a turn or two beforehand to allow full regeneration, and investing in temp IC increasers during the turn).
The current problem of facing an ironclad navy at the present time is our inability to sink the things, so they could essentially sit in front of our ports and we wouldn't be able to do anything about it. The answer, however, is simple – obtain a method of sinking them before we start the canal (and thus the war). This comes in the form of breechloading cannons (currently researching) and smokeless powder, which is the tech directly after nitro explosives in the tech tree, and allows for higher velocity, explosive shells with long range, capable of sinking ironclads. Fortunately for us, early ironclads were little more than floating gun batteries: slow, low range and incapable of going very far from the shore. This means that if they are used to blockade our ports, they would be static targets solidly in range of our coastal defences, and thus, extremely sinkable. Once you compare the costs of producing the anti-ironclad guns with the vast expense of building the ironclads, it becomes economically infeasible for the ironclad navy to in a protracted war if their 'unsinkable' ships have to be continually replaced. This is the 'hard' answer to the problem of ironclads.
Another angle of attack is to attempt to remove one of the players entirely before the war even begins. The Sketch, being the coalition leaders and our current main rival for the title of supreme power, obviously can't be targeted in this manner, so we must instead turn to the Hespranxer. It must be forwarded that this is not guaranteed to work, but the potential benefits in both resources and averting loss of life during the war mean that it should be attempted.
The approach follows a traditional Ymaryn maxim – 'the fire is warm'. In essence, a protracted soft power campaign, consisting of a combination of diplomatic overtures, favourable trade negotiations and Dual Crown agitators influencing politicians and businessmen, all directed at the Hespranxer. The aim of this campaign is to introduce luxuries and favourable opinions of the Dual Crown, tying our trade and continued favourable relations in with the wellbeing of their citizens, such that the idea of a war becomes economically and politically untenable if the Sketch present it. It is to our advantage that the Sketch-Hespranxer alliance is a tenuous one, formed of a mutual wariness of the Dual Crown's growing power, on an extraordinarily unstable foundation of mutual hatred on a cultural level. If we can turn that wariness into more favourable relations on the Hespranxer, so that continued cooperation with one another is more profitable than war, the alliance evaporates. Our diplomats are some of the foremost in the world, and the Hespranxer are fairly predictable in their desires – they want prestige, and they want luxuries, and all the trappings of a modern, enlightened industrial nation. This is something that we can work with – between our splendid porcelain, high quality glassworks, culture, precision industrial goods and vast natural resources, we have many levers that we can pull to influence them.
We must take care to never threaten the Hespranxer, but merely let them realise of their own accord that it is better to be with us than against us. The fire truly is warm.
And so we move to the elephant in the room: the Sketch. They are a tricky behemoth, between their wealth, industrial power, bleeding edge navy and their superb intelligence capabilities. Fortunately, they are also extraordinarily beholden to the whims of that great beast, capitalism. If something is profitable, Sketch businessmen will follow like hounds after a rabbit, so the answer to the Sketch is to target their finances and make it infeasible to prolong a war. To this end, the secrecy and short construction period of the Suez already go a long way, but there is another option that we have already prepared. The wellbeing of the sketch people is horrifically dependent on the imports from their colonies, being used to a certain level of luxury, much like their real-life counterparts in the British. As such, targeting the principal among these colonies, Sketch Kus and the HEKC that manages it when we start the Suez, disrupting it so as to cut of the supply of luxuries means that the Sketch face the possibility of internal revolt at the same time as a war with the Supreme power. A nasty predicament, to be sure.
With all this in mind, I suggest the following distribution of PW to the parties: 1PW to the royalists, and 2PW to the Urban Workers, with 1PW held in reserve to be potentially used for either a temperance action or a war action if necessary. I can thus present to the thread a tentative plan for the current parliamentary phase, which has been extensively discussed between myself and the other party leaders, taking into consideration their various interests, concerns, and personal desires.
Conservatives (4+0 PW)
This forms the core of @ManusDomine's conservative platform – 'education, education, education'. It's been something that we've wanted to do for a while now, but between the cost reduction from the conservatives being in power, and our trade SoL coming back online, we're in a perfect position to execute it. It also serves as the rush for Nitro Explosives (and finishes metalight), giving us at least 26RP from the boosters, and another +(2*2)*1.9 RP in the research phase. Having run the maths on this, 2 Edu 2 Boost is the most efficient formulation of this in terms of RP gain whilst still obtaining Nitro Explosives next turn.
Royalists (2 + 1 PW)
This, along with the trade action explained later, form the triple pronged, synergistic opening phase of the aforementioned protracted soft power campaign directed at the Hespranxer, the start of a multiple turn initiative to bring them onside. The DO action is a strong, above-board action signalling our intentions, whilst the espionage network action is our increased funding of our existing spy network in the country to start promoting Dual Crown interests within politicians and businessmen. It also serves to bring us to 10 temp espionage, to allow for the usage of the improved DO action this turn and in the next main phase, saving us a substantial amount of temp trust.
Liberals (0 + 1 temp by AN fiat)
Urban Workers (0 + 2 PW)
The Liberals and the Urban Workers are an interesting bunch, and are currently extremely bound to one another. I shall attempt to explain what's going on here.
Since @Citino has taken control of the Liberal party, he has been clear with his desire to reform it towards a more trade-focused standpoint, and investment in the Traigon ports in Binaan (the equivalent of Vietnam) serves as the core of his plaform. This provides us with a greater foothold in the region – greater influence and stability in Binaan, and the potential for greater opportunities and sources of wealth. The end goal here is to turn it into our equivalent of Hong Kong, a major base in the region for when we turn our focus east.
The dynamics of the Urban Workers this turn mean that the more PW invested into them compared to the liberals, the more influence they have over the changing liberal platform. @Horologer's key focus is jobs, and worker safety/rights – it is, after all, an employer's market at the moment, with too much power in the hands of business owners granting them far too much leeway in their actions. The RDI action should need no explaining; RDI is jobs, and lots of them. The promote trade action, however, is far more interesting – in order to gain greater sway over the liberals, and further influence their platform, the urban workers have opted to horse-trade one of their potential PW to the liberals, who use it for a trade action, which is the last piece in the soft power trifecta. In return, however, they receive greater sway over the liberal platform, helping to curb the greatest excesses of the 19th century, and an undefined future favour from the liberals to be called in at their leisure.
An addendum, because I know it's going to be brought up and thus I should explain it. The Nohon, our other great power rival, do not really have a stake in the Suez War (aside from disliking us, perhaps) – by the time the information reaches them, it will be too late, and they will not be able to coordinate with the Sketch.* However, it has been suggested to start a TKR rail company early, before the Suez situation is handled. If word of the TKR reaches the Nohon, especially several years into its construction (as there are a few more years to go before we can start the Suez), they will declare war on us. This cannot be allowed. We cannot afford a naval war between potentially three great powers at the same time, in two separate theatres thousands of miles apart. Such split attention and resources will ruin everything that we are trying to build.
* [For reference, the journey time for the fastest clipper ships from London to Japan is about five months pre-Suez. Add on mobilising the navy even with immediate acceptance without payment or reply… the information/travel lag makes this impossible to handle.]
The current suggested plan regarding the TKR is as follows:
- Obtain nitro explosives, pushing us up to 2 railway actions per company per turn.
- Khem Rail (7 progress needed atm) finishes in two turns, spin those companies into the Kus Rail
- Kielmyr Rail (6 progress needed, 2 after two turns) finishes the turn after that, spin that company into the TKR
- The Kus rail (15 progress needed, 11 after two turns, 5 after three), with three companies in it, will finish the turn after that. TKR gains 2 progress, do an additional action to remove the debuff.
- Spin all the remaining companies into the TKR and found an addition company. 5 companies in the TKR, 26 actions needed to completion. The TKR finishes in 3 turns after this point.
Tldr: Khem finishes in 2 turns, Kiel in 3 turns, Kus in 4 turns, and TKR in 7 turns from this point, with the only additional company needed being a TKR one later on, after we've dealt with the Suez situation.
Vote 1 PW Royalist, 2 PW Urban workers! ^^
I'll get an IC post done tomorrow. After 2.5k of this I'm shattered.
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KlinkerKing
Man bites dog?
- Location
- The Lion's Den
Yes. There was actually a plan tossed around in the discord that would more or less have locked Sketch out, Continental System style, but with the Behryvar situation as is, I have doubts about any success in Hespranxer. They sold out their cousins to Ochruhr for a swing at us, no way a single DO is gonna stay their hand now.
Their navy is 'Sort of Present', a result of the Ochruhr being landlocked before their last stream of conquests. No doubt they'll be building one but it'll take them time, specially since they have a whole bunch of land objectives they want so that'll stay their primary focus.
The Hespranxer strategy is complicated because really, they could go either way up until the very end. Their only commitment is wanting more prestige.
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- Location
- Illinois
If we want to be optimistic, I'll note that the Hesp were said to have little real love for the Beh, and I'll also note that the Hesp king was the guy who pretty much got chased out of the country by his younger brother to take over the Hesp throne instead.
Their navy is also going to be a shallow sea navy. Smaller ships better able to maneuver in the shallow seas of the Saffron Sea.
Our costal forts will smash them to tinders if they try anything, and the Khem have a serviceable shallow sea navy we can equip with nitro powered guns.
And we will soon be able to sail our bighest ships through the Suez and shatter their ports as needed. No reinforcements can reach them through gebralter unless the Khem let them.
Nitro explosives will also let us break fortifications in the Western BS war we are currently in easier.
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I think you're over looking something here: our counter-intelligence isn't that good. We have concrete evidence that someone was screwing with us this turn and succeeded. The archaeology mission that we had going to the Khemetri had the artifacts stolen and we don't know who did it. Stealing artifacts is one of the core examples of intrigue missions.
Additionally, someone leaked very highly damaging parliamentary documents in the worst possible way to cause political chaos. There isn't any proof that this was enemy action, but it certainly seems like something that could be. We should be suspicious, especially since we've already been the victim of intrigue this turn. Further, we know that someone is out to get us and has motive to screw with us and our alliances.
We know the Sketch want to pry apart our alliance network. They (perhaps unintentionally) tore the Black Sheep in half a few turns ago. Stealing an archaeological expedition from the Khemetri (our other ally) in order to harm relations isn't too far removed. Combined with a little bit of chaos in the Dual Crown, and it looks like we're being set up. We know explicitly that the Sketch have it out for us and we have at least circumstantial evidence they are acting against us.
This also is occurring in the background of our own expansion into espionage with the East Kus company. Our efforts there have had to go to ground temporarily, by word of AN. We'll need to invest more resources if we want something to happen there.
We may have been manipulative spiders in centuries past, but that's now how things are working now. Before the action against the East Kus Company, the last Intrigue action we took was at the very beginning of the game where we assassinated the monarch of Hespranxer in order to cause a claimant more to our liking to take the throne. Everyone else has had the time to expand their intrigue networks and refine their skills. We know the Sketch are better at intrigue than we are. We have likely lost the edge in internal espionage and counter-intelligence that we once had.
It's something we really should take some time to shore up.
The biggest thing we should do in order to check the expansion of Hespranxer is to offer to guarantee the independence of the North Tortun Confederation. If we pull them out of the Hespranxer sphere and into our own, it gives us a meat shield. Much better for us to be fighting in the NTC than in our own lands. The NTC are going to be fought in either way, we just need to look as the more pleasant overlord. Given we have an alliance with the Triple Crown, we have a lot more leverage on then than the Hex can.
This bit was clearly internal intrigue. I mean seriously the only one who felt any benefit from that little spark of chaos was the nascent temperance movement, which was very well prepared to make a pitch to the conservatives right after discrediting royalists and liberals.
The Relic robbery was probably sketch yes. But the Canal thing is going to be on a whole other level of secrecy. We're talking most people won't even know what they're stockpiling materials for until it's go time.
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KlinkerKing
Man bites dog?
- Location
- The Lion's Den
You're working on outdated data. The North Tortun Confederation got absorbed by Behryvar who we just threw to the wolves last turn. The plan tossed around (championed chiefly by myself) did deal with this using a triple guarantee of independence from all the neighbouring great powers. However, that plan is a pipe dream now because we sold out Behryvar to Ochruhr and Hespranxer was fully willing to go along with that, presumably to get an additional fist when they try to swing at us.
This is just speculation. That has not happened yet in any update. The most the Ochruhr will get from a conference are small gains, and yet you have continued to bang on this drum. The idea that the Hespranxer wants the Ochruhr to get Beh can not possibly be explained. Because seriously since when does Not!France want Super Not!Germany+Italy to form?
While the Hespranxer did not bother pissing off the Ochruhr to block them from some minor gains, neither did we. Because we're not feeling like fighting a war right now. This of course says nothing of our long term intentions and what would happen if the Ochruhr did go for the whole thing.
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Nobody sounds willing to war over the deals talked about currently. It seems mostly a rationalisation of borders talk as we ended the war with wierd borders caused by occupations.
And we beat the italians back to their heavy forts. A lot of their forward land likely ended up in others hands. They want it back. I see no reason to argue as long as it stays talk.
We don't care about the specifics of Saffron other than "peaceful". You do not war our border states.
They know, however disinterested we seem, the DC will be on a war in Saffron like a bee on honey.
So there will be peace there for a while. If Beh wants our help, they will ask.
And we beat the italians back to their heavy forts. A lot of their forward land likely ended up in others hands. They want it back. I see no reason to argue as long as it stays talk.
We don't care about the specifics of Saffron other than "peaceful". You do not war our border states.
They know, however disinterested we seem, the DC will be on a war in Saffron like a bee on honey.
So there will be peace there for a while. If Beh wants our help, they will ask.
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KlinkerKing
Man bites dog?
- Location
- The Lion's Den
I don't read "major gains" as "minor gains".
Emphasis mine.
Major gains, without war? Now 'major gains' as in 'major, for what can be diplomatically acquired' are possible, but they are an entirely different thing.
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