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Paths of Civilization II: Paths of Industrialization

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Chronic said:
I think you misunderstand something. The Sketch are not limited to attacking us in Europe. Their navy allows them to attack or reinforce their allies wherever they please. They are likely to open a second or third floor in Kus against the Black Sheep in any fight against us.
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We would love it if they did that. Force the Black Sheep to go to war with them and take us both on on land, where the Hes can't support them. We get to take away their richest, most populous overseas holding. Without Kus only their rapidly shrinking tech edge stops them dropping to secondary power status. South Africa is a target for rival powers and not deeply controlled yet, Canada is likewise a target and mostly wilderness and prairie, Australia they've mapped the coast and laid claim but they have barely any presence, New Zealand is very remote and has locals capable of forcing them to keep their treaties.

The big danger if they attack the Black Sheep is that the Black Sheep will end up with Kus and overtake us as Asian hegemon.
 
noliar said:
We would love it if they did that. Force the Black Sheep to go to war with them and take us both on on land, where the Hes can't support them. We get to take away their richest, most populous overseas holding. Without Kus only their rapidly shrinking tech edge stops them dropping to secondary power status. South Africa is a target for rival powers and not deeply controlled yet, Canada is likewise a target and mostly wilderness and prairie, Australia they've mapped the coast and laid claim but they have barely any presence, New Zealand is very remote and has locals capable of forcing them to keep their treaties.

The big danger if they attack the Black Sheep is that the Black Sheep will end up with Kus and overtake us as Asian hegemon.
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The Black Sheep are ridiculously brittle because they are an old style despotic oriental Empire that incorporates a multitude of peoples in a realm too big and mountainous for their central powers to control, with an outdated economic system to boot. Academia Nut has already told us that there is a good chance that war with the Sketch will rip them apart completely:

Academia Nut said:
They figure that they can do damage to you faster than you can do damage to their Kus holdings, and your generals think that if there is a war with the Hespranxer at the same time then the Sketch are very probably correct. Economically the Black Sheep do not need a GP conflict in their backyard and in their house and everyone knows it.
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Academia Nut said:
The Black Sheep government have got your back on this, it's just that a war with Sketch might kill them through economic shocks tearing the two parts of their empire away from each other. So they will council not going to war with the Sketch unless absolutely necessary.

The Sketch know this, which is why they are pretty clearly going to play brinkmanship with you, see which allies you really value. They aren't going to throw the first punch at you, but they are going to get in the face of your interests and see if you will back down or swing first and be the aggressor.
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If we go to war in Syffryn the Sketch will strike at the Black Sheep (mostly by blockading their ports and killing their SoL dead) and the Nohon at the Hung, very likely collapsing both of them and leaving us a broken mess of warlords and civil wars instead of allies at our borders. Warlords that the Sketch can bribe into a hostile position towards us.
 
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noliar said:
We would love it if they did that. Force the Black Sheep to go to war with them and take us both on on land, where the Hes can't support them. We get to take away their richest, most populous overseas holding. Without Kus only their rapidly shrinking tech edge stops them dropping to secondary power status. South Africa is a target for rival powers and not deeply controlled yet, Canada is likewise a target and mostly wilderness and prairie, Australia they've mapped the coast and laid claim but they have barely any presence, New Zealand is very remote and has locals capable of forcing them to keep their treaties.

The big danger if they attack the Black Sheep is that the Black Sheep will end up with Kus and overtake us as Asian hegemon.
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Except AN already mentioned that the Sheep are likely to explode from this.
Academia Nut said:
Given relative naval performance, the probable balance is in them gaining territory in Kus as you and the Black Sheep lose logistical support and massive amounts of cash from trade due to blockade. Your new guns and doctrine and improving rail logistics may tip this balance for the next war, but especially if the Hespranxer join in for a Syffryn land war your attention will be split and you will have a bad time. Now, while this means that their interests aren't entirely immune to you, the balance is still in their favour, especially right now.
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Academia Nut said:
It's actually that the Black Sheep are likely to face rebellions or an outright a civil war if the Sketch shut down their sea trade and their SoL tanks, and there's all this jungle and not great roads for the overland routes, so you would want to supply an invasion of the Sketch's Kus holdings via sea, which you would be hard pressed to do.
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Academia Nut said:
They figure that they can do damage to you faster than you can do damage to their Kus holdings, and your generals think that if there is a war with the Hespranxer at the same time then the Sketch are very probably correct. Economically the Black Sheep do not need a GP conflict in their backyard and in their house and everyone knows it.
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Academia Nut said:
The Black Sheep government have got your back on this, it's just that a war with Sketch might kill them through economic shocks tearing the two parts of their empire away from each other. So they will council not going to war with the Sketch unless absolutely necessary.
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Ok, crazy idea. What if, instead of the Suez canal, or at least as something we can do easier first, we set up a ship train to haul ships from one side to the other.

Picture it. It looks like a dry dock, except we back a special train car with a seat for the boats hull. The whole ship is set on the train and carried to the other side and the train car is backed into a set of rails that go down into the water, releasing the ship on the other side?

Much cheaper than diggin the canal. Crazy idea?
 
Fouredged Sword said:
Ok, crazy idea. What if, instead of the Suez canal, or at least as something we can do easier first, we set up a ship train to haul ships from one side to the other.

Picture it. It looks like a dry dock, except we back a special train car with a seat for the boats hull. The whole ship is set on the train and carried to the other side and the train car is backed into a set of rails that go down into the water, releasing the ship on the other side?

Much cheaper than diggin the canal. Crazy idea?
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How is that cheaper than digging a canal? You're proposing that we build a flat rollercoaster ride for ships.
 
Blockade their ports? The Black Sheep have the largest internal market in the world until the Hung reform and we've developed Kyberia - they have land borders with both of us. Their most important ports are on the Salt Sea where no other power can touch them. Most importantly, they are one of the largest producers (and exporters) of food in the world and the economic failure that topples governments is famine. The Sketch are are ones who will go hungry if the global food trade is disrupted.

Unlike the Hung, the Black Sheep have not spent the last couple of hundred years assuming they already rule the world and subcontracting their naval interests to outsiders. They have a lot of coast, a lot of ports and they've had to deal with Syffrynites trying to peck at them. They can't be more than a generation behind the state of the art at sea and even for the Sketch the state of the art is still wood and sail - they can spam that as fast as anyone if they choose. The Sketch should still win at sea but they won't be pulling a Nohon.

The Salt Sea makes the Black Sheep far more internally connected than any historical central Asian power. They are a very experienced despotic empire who have remained unified for 600 years. The Sketch are a johnny come lately despotic empire (their semi-democratic oligarchy only applies if you happen to be ethnically Sketch and live on the Sketch Iles) who are much further away ethnically, religiously, culturally and spatially. What have our advisers been doing for the past couple of decades? Upgrading their administration, tech base and military.


Kus conquests may eventually give the Black Sheep Empire terminal indigestion but not in time to save the Sketch on the subcontinent.
 
noliar said:
Blockade their ports? The Black Sheep have the largest internal market in the world until the Hung reform and we've developed Kyberia - they have land borders with both of us. Their most important ports are on the Salt Sea where no other power can touch them. Most importantly, they are one of the largest producers (and exporters) of food in the world and the economic failure that topples governments is famine. The Sketch are are ones who will go hungry if the global food trade is disrupted.

Unlike the Hung, the Black Sheep have not spent the last couple of hundred years assuming they already rule the world and subcontracting their naval interests to outsiders. They have a lot of coast, a lot of ports and they've had to deal with Syffrynites trying to peck at them. They can't be more than a generation behind the state of the art at sea and even for the Sketch the state of the art is still wood and sail - they can spam that as fast as anyone if they choose. The Sketch should still win at sea but they won't be pulling a Nohon.

The Salt Sea makes the Black Sheep far more internally connected than any historical central Asian power. They are a very experienced despotic empire who have remained unified for 600 years. The Sketch are a johnny come lately despotic empire (their semi-democratic oligarchy only applies if you happen to be ethnically Sketch and live on the Sketch Iles) who are much further away ethnically, religiously, culturally and spatially. What have our advisers been doing for the past couple of decades? Upgrading their administration, tech base and military.


Kus conquests may eventually give the Black Sheep Empire terminal indigestion but not in time to save the Sketch on the subcontinent.
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I mean, you're free to ignore Word of the QM, if that's what you want. Just don't be surprised when it later turns out that you're wrong.
 
Fouredged Sword said:
A serious part of me wants to say "frick industrialization the historical way" and dump everything into racing down the metalight tech tree in an attempt to hit light-punk tech.
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Problem is that we have no idea if metalight is even capable of supporting a techbase. Currently its known capabilities are...healing, and that's it. There's tons of wild speculation on what other colors would do, but no actual evidence for its accuracy.
 
Wiadi said:
Problem is that we have no idea if metalight is even capable of supporting a techbase. Currently its known capabilities are...healing, and that's it. There's tons of wild speculation on what other colors would do, but no actual evidence for its accuracy.
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And that is why I want to rush it. AN clearly has an idea of where he wants to go with it. Shiny things sometimes ARE gold.
 
Fouredged Sword said:
And that is why I want to rush it. AN clearly has an idea of where he wants to go with it. Shiny things sometimes ARE gold.
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You do realize IIRC the players lost calculus, and an early elemental survey chasing the shiny called archeology?

The meta-green cannot be rushed without hospitals, which cost edu. To gain edu we must improve education to a 7-9 edu (edu loss hurts narratively, we are losing our language). Sadly our Intrigue could not stop our edu loss, we need higher espionage to deal with this, actually build a network inside our borders to boost intrigue.
 
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Prepare, my friends, for the Blood God has stirred. The Redwood Blood Cultists have received his demand, and seek fresh bodies to sacrifice to their cult.

Discord said:
AN: A Syffryn chemist ran to the Redwood Dominion during the latest disaster and made an astounding discovery...

Kiba: Rubber?

AN: Ding.
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