Can we do espionage missions to steal tech? I want to put some spys following the "special" ore shipments we are sending out.
Paths of Civilization II: Paths of Industrialization
VoidZero
Passing Flan 布丁魔王
- Location
- Anywhere but RL
Twin spy mission with DO or TM then we are cooking with gas. It's not corporate espionage if we are touring important trade partners' pride of nation.
I'd rather send a team to stick a net under some Sketch bridges. There's got to be a couple Education or Innovation points worth of out of work or ruined folk we could pick up completely above board, and we could gain a bonus to various technologies they have experience with.
edit: And if those points come out of the Sketch's stats then all the better. Serves them right for being uber-liberals.
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Yeah, but I specifically want to pick up whatever metalight tech they are treating their steel with. Even just opening the tech option would be great.
We can probably get that in an honest trade for our metalight healing, it'd be safer than risking pissing off a major ally. I agree we're better off hunting for tech in a more covert fashion in Sketch.
Smart people are usually more valuable than patents, inventions, or discoveries. Whatever discoveries they made in metacolor research probably will be discovered by us in due time. Remember, we're the nation with proper instruments to study it.
Diplomatic Outreach to the Kiemlyr could let us accomplish some of the following:
1. Student exchange. We share scientific progress especially since Academic Freedom is unlocked.
2. Officer exchange. We have a world class navy but not a naval academy to go with it. This let us leech naval tech from Kiemlyr while they get land knowledge from us. It is a stopgap measure, but it is better than nothing.
Diplomatic Outreach will improve our relations, whereas espionage will give us uncertain rewards in exchange for risking our relationship with them.
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Wiadi
Uncompromising Radical Leftist
- Location
- Something Clever
- Pronouns
- She/Her
We have no reason to believe they're using metalight. The link AN gave suggests that they may just have discovered some new useful elements for putting into their steel, e.g. ytterbium.
Scanning over the various elements discovered there....
Only ytterbium is used directly to make stainless steel alloy. Yttrium can be used to make working vanadium and chromium easier, which in turn may be part of a chromium-vanadium steel alloy.
If something is related to metacolor research, I think it has to either be radioactive or something that could interact with our glassworks.
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Various hints on what the Kiemlyr is working on.
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There may be some smiths and smelters, one with perhaps debt or other reasons they would need to move to a new country.
An espionage mission to find and recruit such smiths to teach ours wouldn't be illegal per say.
An espionage mission to find and recruit such smiths to teach ours wouldn't be illegal per say.
As opposed to using an espionage mission to find Sketch engineers and scientists in a very target-rich environment?
Horologer
Incertae sedis
- Location
- a risen sea
Divergent physics probably means divergent chemistry, so any theory about the specific metals they're using is going to be a little tenuous. The Kielmyr could be making anything from tacky jewlery to vibranium, depending on what metals have which properties. If their metallurgy is directly related to our weird color experiments... Hmmm. I wonder if they're imbuing metals with metacolor properties? That would be interesting. Scalpels that heal their own incisions would be a very popular export, I'd imagine.
Next turn's a little crowded, what with ConCon and our neighbors being on fire, but the midturn should be give us some opportunities.
That's true, but it is going behind their back, which is unnecessarily provocative, IMO.
We can just ask them. We've helped them out this turn, we have tech to swap, and they are our allies. They'll probably agree.
I assume that the eastern Saffron is sort of sphered. The Ymaryn haven't conquered it because for the past 4000 thousand years they've usually preferred stability to conquest and it might piss off the Khem. The Khem haven't conquered it because for the past 4000 thousand years they've usually preferred stability to conquest and it might piss off the Ymaryn.
Nobody else attacks there because in the process of driving them off we or the Khem will claim it and the little, nominally independent countries are easier to deal with than an irritated great power. It's also mostly not that rich - the eastern med has a lot of rough terrain with a high ornery hillfolk : good farmland ratio.
Nobody else attacks there because in the process of driving them off we or the Khem will claim it and the little, nominally independent countries are easier to deal with than an irritated great power. It's also mostly not that rich - the eastern med has a lot of rough terrain with a high ornery hillfolk : good farmland ratio.
Another note on stealing engineers and scientists:
Kiemlyr has the world's greatest metallurgists, but not necessarily world leaders in science and engineering. Meanwhile, Sketch is the world leader in industry, and presumably engineering, and until recently, has the money to fund some of the greatest scientists in the 19th century.
Don't get me wrong, metacolor/metalight is great, even revolutionary, but I rather have people of all stride in various fields rather than be limited to one field of research.
When metacolor spread into mainstream science and industry, we can leverage the wide knowledge base and apply it to metacolor, as opposed to being limited to only metallurgists.
Kiemlyr has the world's greatest metallurgists, but not necessarily world leaders in science and engineering. Meanwhile, Sketch is the world leader in industry, and presumably engineering, and until recently, has the money to fund some of the greatest scientists in the 19th century.
Don't get me wrong, metacolor/metalight is great, even revolutionary, but I rather have people of all stride in various fields rather than be limited to one field of research.
When metacolor spread into mainstream science and industry, we can leverage the wide knowledge base and apply it to metacolor, as opposed to being limited to only metallurgists.
- Location
- being near locations is my passion.
Trade mission sketch, sol for boats and experts?
Or trust for experts?
Wanttttt.
Probably can't afford, fingers crossed.
We're liable to finish high pressure steam engine next turn, so I doubt I want to snag blueprints and designs. More valuable is snagging the engineers.
Even that is questionable, since they would be presumably loyal engineers working for the Royal Navy, and as well as a heavy presence of counterintel activity.
However, I would argue that it's more valuable to focus on broad spectrum of knowledge and skills to get an increased diversity of ideas floating around and to increase the speed of research, not just industrial technology.
We want mathematicians for all sort of reasons, from codebreaking and encryption to fundamental research of metacolor.
We want someone who understand chemical engineering, because we know oil is the future and hydrocarbon is used everywhere.
We want machinists, because we want to increase our industrial precision industry and prep ourselves for building the Difference Engine and the Analytical Engine.
People, not designs or formula.
And people who are out of jobs and begging for work of any kind? Easy peasy.
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- Location
- Somewhere
With questionable Loyalty.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Unexpected evening out, so I may not get this update finished this evening.
Most of these people are not working for the Sketch crown, they're working for private enterprises. This is Sketch, Liberal paradise at its most cutthroat. It's all about the money.
- Location
- Staring into the void
If it comes with tech or IC, good luck getting the thread to vote against it.
I agree we shouldn't take anything from the Sketch, now refugees from them on the other part? That's just the moral thing to do, and if some of them are highly educated professionals, well that's good for everyone.
If you have unemployed engineers on the street, then they're are of no good to anyone.
- Location
- Somewhere
All the Sketch need to do is pay a fee for any info they want from their ex-scientists?
edit: Why isn't there a buy tech of Sketch from scientists in Sketch action? If the people in Sketch like money that much.
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