Paths of Civilization

[BungieONI]

The question is why we need a win in the low lands even if we can get a decisive one, we currently have more than enough lands for our needs.

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Fertile flood plains would go nuts under our care. We'd be outputting literally ridiculous amounts of resources. Among other things.
I agree about the Logistical issue though.

Except they become increasingly less valid. The Stallions, whatever you want to say- have been an immense boon for us. And as for using an action? lol. We have around 5 Main actions considering our provinces can do war actions. Spending a main fighting a war is a relatively trivial expense compared to back then when we didn't even have a provincial action system.

So yes, I can't take you seriously when you don't recognize the immense differences any war we fight would have compared to then.

Not even necessarily, we have an alliance with the HK. Between us, them, and the TH- the DP have far too many fronts they need to cover to contest us feasibly. Frankly, barring grabbing some centralization+throwing an aqueduct the North's way, this is probably one of the best opportunities we'll have to secure a section of the Lowlands.

Seriously, I know the Lowlands are the memetic meatgrinder, but it's possible to get a decisive win there, especially if we're not going into this alone.

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I actually agree with you about that we should grab the Lowlands. I'm just a little fuzzy on the decisive victory. I believe it is possible to, but I'm not sure all of the factors have come together for that particular path to open to us.

If we had taken Atti's advice we could have immediately had a long lasting alliance with the HK and then push south east with them. Even with our current temporary alliance we could actually make it longer. We'd have to be careful but the possibility seems sound. After checking them out with this sounding action and careful consideration I am fine poking it to see what falls out.

 

[veekie]

...Stallions indeed.

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Like an young stallion, they are unruly and spirited, even when they are trying to be helpful, vicious and brutal when they are not. But tamed to the harness they are a valuable tool.

 

[Karugus]

Alliances do not really last, especially since HK were prone to violent regime changes so far. And they are far more eager to claim the lowlands for themselves than they are to help us claim it - they are not NPCs which will bleed for you and win your wars.
And since we've got whooping 3 new provinces, we need to recenter ourselves first, else some *other* provinces will start feeling neglected. More trails, more boats, forests, watchtowers on Southshore because Southern Metal Workers probably aren't a peaceful lot, same in EH province just in case...the biggest advantage we have is continuity and slowly growing, explosive growth rarely lasts.
Like, seriously, growing too fast will mean we'll start facing much more serious crises than this one (which is not even a crisis yet, just a headache), so we better take some time to make some defences and cultural upgrades.
Also, we have to somehow spend Mysticism, I guess?

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1. Who said I gave a shit about the alliance lasting? It's to break the grip of the DP on their section of the Lowlands. Not an eternal oath of friendship. Once they're in a position to break the alliance, then we'll be ready to repel them if that comes to it
2. Who said I'm advocating seizing all of the DP's eastern tributaries? There's plenty of spoils to share with our ally that we couldn't effectively secure any ways.
3. I mostly agree on securing the provinces, my point is for all the people simply hoping an opportunity falls into our laps that we can make an opportunity happen feasibly.

 

[ctulhuslp]

Like an young stallion, they are unruly and spirited, even when they are trying to be helpful, vicious and brutal when they are not. But tamed to the harness they are a valuable tool.

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On the bright side, we have our pet Rohirrim.

 

[ctulhuslp]

1. Who said I gave a shit about the alliance lasting? It's to break the grip of the DP on their section of the Lowlands. Not an eternal oath of friendship. Once they're in a position to break the alliance, then we'll be ready to repel them if that comes to it
2. Who said I'm advocating seizing all of the DP's eastern tributaries? There's plenty of spoils to share with our ally that we couldn't effectively secure any ways.
3. I mostly agree on securing the provinces, my point is for all the people simply hoping an opportunity falls into our laps that we can make an opportunity happen feasibly.

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1. DP don't really have much of a grip there? It's a mess, TH are directly bordering HK, everyone fights everyone, DP probably are in deep shit because ETH have returned...
2. Again, I am far from sure that's not outdated map you have in your head. Maybe map in my head is outdated, but I do not think we have a direct border with DP anymore, it's either TH or HK in the lowlands. Not sure though.
3. We can, but, like, you were talking about 'great opportunity right now' and I reacted to it because now we have to properly integrate first and foremost. Preferably integrate Stallions if at all possible.

 

[Motoko]

Juuust gonna squeeze this in here...

 

[BungieONI]

1. Who said I gave a shit about the alliance lasting? It's to break the grip of the DP on their section of the Lowlands. Not an eternal oath of friendship. Once they're in a position to break the alliance, then we'll be ready to repel them if that comes to it
2. Who said I'm advocating seizing all of the DP's eastern tributaries? There's plenty of spoils to share with our ally that we couldn't effectively secure any ways.
3. I mostly agree on securing the provinces, my point is for all the people simply hoping an opportunity falls into our laps that we can make an opportunity happen feasibly.

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I'm all for making number 3 happen.

I like making opportunities for us.

My personal intuition is twigging that we are only a short way from getting to integration with the March, to some form of where they are not a problem even if they have slightly different views.

Juuust gonna squeeze this in here...

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Ooo cool!

 

[DocMatoi]

Juuust gonna squeeze this in here...

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I've been trying tothink of a way to bring this up in here since it came out. Especially relevant portion is 4:40
E: Also, "Introducing B R O N Z E! with special ingredient Tin! From the far lands of... Tin-land, I dunno my dealer won't tell me where he gets it."

 

[veekie]

2. Again, I am far from sure that's not outdated map you have in your head. Maybe map in my head is outdated, but I do not think we have a direct border with DP anymore, it's either TH or HK in the lowlands. Not sure though.

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This is correct. The DPs had to pass through Thunder Speakers to reach us. Or vice versa. But our caravans can reach them easier than they can reach us because our traders aren't stuck into the wars, so everyone lets our guys through. While they remember the salt anyways.

Also the lowlands are too damned big to hold using natural borders. EVen the central bit between the rivers, is, as far as I can tell, the size of our entire polity and it borders a swamp somewhere to the south. You'd expand until you form Marches if you tried to hold the middle. If you didn't, you'd be flankable without a natural barrier to slow enemies. Where cavalry can hit any site they choose, whenever they choose.

Rich soil, but it's practically red with spilled blood

 

[Karugus]

1. DP don't really have much of a grip there? It's a mess, TH are directly bordering HK, everyone fights everyone, DP probably are in deep shit because ETH have returned...
2. Again, I am far from sure that's not outdated map you have in your head. Maybe map in my head is outdated, but I do not think we have a direct border with DP anymore, it's either TH or HK in the lowlands. Not sure though.
3. We can, but, like, you were talking about 'great opportunity right now' and I reacted to it because now we have to properly integrate first and foremost. Preferably integrate Stallions if at all possible.

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1. They have tributaries running all east of the river, and the TS were less annexing territory and more subjugating villages to staff their farms and quarries with bodies rather than taking the lands. And presumably most of the fighting with the TH is east of their capital.
2. I think with EH we should have some kind of border with DP or nominally independent Lowlands, but with the lack of map it's hard to be sure
3. I'd like to at least get the Stallions integrated before we kicked off such a war as well, but I was more thinking 'one turn of consolidation, and the last turn we use to kick off the war with some of our actions still being consolidation'.

I think part of the issue is that we haven't really discussed how absurd Offensive policy get's even outside the Kicks of Exterminatus. We can theoretically replace all our martial and then some in a single turn while still maining war. I don't think most other civs just have a warmachine anywhere near comparable to what we're hypothetically capable of.

Also the lowlands are too damned big to hold using natural borders. EVen the central bit between the rivers, is, as far as I can tell, the size of our entire polity and it borders a swamp somewhere to the south. You'd expand until you form Marches if you tried to hold the middle. If you didn't, you'd be flankable without a natural barrier to slow enemies. Where cavalry can hit any site they choose, whenever they choose.

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Than clearly we need to seize land on the left bank of the river, with the river anchoring one flank and hills+mountains on the other. It means we'd have to punch out the HK- but that's not an immense difficulty in and of itself if we do it right. God knows fighting them in the hills is less a problem for us than it would be for pretty much anyone else.

And Lowlands does not equal impossible to defend. Garrison it with lots of chariots, fortify settlements and ensure there's lots of watchtowers. If we can hold steppe against steppe nomads, than we can fortify and hold some of the Lowlands.

 

[Umi-san]

Realistically we could invade the HK and get land with a natural barrier. But then again, rather than going into the lowlands we could simply expand east of the Eastern Hills until we're adjacent to the TS.

Edit:
I don't see the point in a war. The only thing involving the lowlands that I support is maintaining chaos as we steadily expand elsewhere.

 

[veekie]

Than clearly we need to seize land on the left bank of the river, with the river anchoring one flank and hills+mountains on the other. It means we'd have to punch out the HK- but that's not an immense difficulty in and of itself if we do it right. God knows fighting them in the hills is less a problem for us than it would be for pretty much anyone else.

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The HK have a solidly backed defensive position. Military annexation between two polities with capitals in hills is...pretty fruitless. Both ways.

It's a terrain defense bonus. It doesn't matter so much that we're good at fighting in hills if we'd be attacking villages uphill...and probably going to run into walled villages on hilltops for anything remotely important. We'd take generations of war to merely chip away at their fringes.

 

[Karugus]

The HK have a solidly backed defensive position. Military annexation between two polities with capitals in hills is...pretty fruitless. Both ways.

It's a terrain defense bonus. It doesn't matter so much that we're good at fighting in hills if we'd be attacking villages uphill...and probably going to run into walled villages on hilltops for anything remotely important. We'd take generations of war to merely chip away at their fringes.

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I don't think they're liable to fortify their hill settlements anywhere near as much as their river-based provinces. They've been focused pretty heavily on the DP and using the river as a line of fortifications makes more sense than anything else.

And I think you're overestimating the advantage hills give to people who likewise planned and have trained to fight in hills, especially with the Blackbirds to trailblaze and reconnoiter. I'm not saying it's easy, but saying the HK is unconquerable seems laughable.

 

[Romv]

Maybe the Queen can convince her Highlander wife to convince her people that we're super awesome and they should really just join us and copy our values.

 

[Kiba]

I don't think they're liable to fortify their hill settlements anywhere near as much as their river-based provinces. They've been focused pretty heavily on the DP and using the river as a line of fortifications makes more sense than anything else.

And I think you're overestimating the advantage hills give to people who likewise planned and have trained to fight in hills, especially with the Blackbirds to trailblaze and reconnoiter. I'm not saying it's easy, but saying the HK is unconquerable seems laughable.

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We're still going to charge up their hills unless we develop siege warfare technologies, and the mean to use masons and bulk labor force.

 

[DocMatoi]

Maybe the Queen can convince her Highlander wife to convince her people that we're super awesome and they should really just join us and copy our values.

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Well, Mags is a heroic diplo, AN has said before that he really wants to see a heroic crit-success, and after rolling for this turn, AN called the results, and I quote, "Fun."
So you might not be wrong.

 

[Sivantic]

I think the problem with trying to conquer the lowlands is that to do so we need to put 100 percent effort into it.

Which means dropping all our other projects and problems...

Not saying it's impossible, but that's going to be very hard to convince people to drop pet projects to go full war.

 

[Candesce]

that's going to be very hard to convince people to drop pet projects to go full war.

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Not even just pet projects, it's also asking people to accept having to pick seriously painful choices when something inevitably goes wrong, and possibly not even getting to keep our conquests - provinces breaking away from our civ is one of the explicit disadvantages of our government setup, after all.

Also one that really fucks our stability and legitimacy, thanks to the disadvantage of Divine Stewards.

 

[BungieONI]

Not even just pet projects, it's also asking people to accept having to pick seriously painful choices when something inevitably goes wrong, and possibly not even getting to keep our conquests - provinces breaking away from our civ is one of the explicit disadvantages of our government setup, after all.

Also one that really fucks our stability and legitimacy, thanks to the disadvantage of Divine Stewards.

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The best way to avoid those would be to be attacked by someone from the Lowlands. And with this temporary alliance we are opening the door to some of that.

Interestingly what with what Karugus was basically stating if we switch to Offense we can get a total of 3 Mains or at least 2 Mains and a Secondary War Mission from our Provinces.

That is a lot of oomph to throw their way. I think some one made a calc recently but if we have a population of ~150,000 and about 10% are warriors, which makes sense considering our Martial score relative to our Econ, then we have a total army of 15,000 people. That is huge for this era.

Throwing our own might on top of that we could easily retaliate with 4 to 5 total of War Missions without a single Kick. That's scary for everyone but us. Additionally we could throw our own actions behind boosting Martial and we'd essentially have an engine that could just keep going.

I personally don't feel that now is the right time, we could do it and survive and even make gains, but secure first then poke.

 

[ctulhuslp]

I think the problem with trying to conquer the lowlands is that to do so we need to put 100 percent effort into it.

Which means dropping all our other projects and problems...

Not saying it's impossible, but that's going to be very hard to convince people to drop pet projects to go full war.

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What's wrong with the current rate of expansion, where we amass a 'layer' of provinces and then process them? If anything, it's good we are taking it slow-ish, because we can address the problems on a smaller scale first.

 

[BungieONI]

What's wrong with the current rate of expansion, where we amass a 'layer' of provinces and then process them? If anything, it's good we are taking it slow-ish, because we can address the problems on a smaller scale first.

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I don't think Sivvie actually has a problem with that path of action and in fact actively supports it.

It makes sense to me too and fits our almost Borg like benevolent behavior.

 

[Candesce]

We should probably put Policy back to General at some point, because it's one of our only ways to find out what our provinces are currently interested in.

 

[Sivantic]

The best way to avoid those would be to be attacked by someone from the Lowlands.

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The problem with that we have had a neutral stance through most of history, almost anyone that comes near recognizes that our core territories are difficult to reach and attack. The nomads originally only attacked our very northern frontier, and we've expanded in that direction. The lowlands? There is plenty of land there that is easy to reach and farm, if not necessarily hold. They would need more than an economic incentive to attack us and we've been doing well of not giving one

What's wrong with the current rate of expansion, where we amass a 'layer' of provinces and then process them? If anything, it's good we are taking it slow-ish, because we can address the problems on a smaller scale first.

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I think you are misunderstanding me. I am not arguing for war. I am merely noting the difficulty in trying to persuade people of such

I don't think Sivvie actually has a problem with that path of action and in fact actively supports it.

It makes sense to me too and fits our almost Borg like benevolent behavior.

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Yes, I've argued for slow and steady in the way of expansion. With three new provinces, I do believe we should switch policies again to raising infrastructure, be that economic or defensive.

 

[Karugus]

We're still going to charge up their hills unless we develop siege warfare technologies, and the mean to use masons and bulk labor force.

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It's a good thing we're better masons* than the HK and have a huge labor pool.
*Based on having domestic copper and having far more engineering/stoneworking projects under our belt

Not even just pet projects, it's also asking people to accept having to pick seriously painful choices when something inevitably goes wrong, and possibly not even getting to keep our conquests - provinces breaking away from our civ is one of the explicit disadvantages of our government setup, after all.

Also one that really fucks our stability and legitimacy, thanks to the disadvantage of Divine Stewards.

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To be fair, harmony and symphony really help address that. As well as the fact each province has more stake in staying because each provincial chief get's a decent shot at the kingship. I'm not saying we won't ever run the risk of breakaway states, but we're ridiculously well suited for making Elected Provincial Kingdom work.

I'm not saying we can take and hold the entirety of the Lowlands as things stand (even if it should be viable as we get more advanced) but I'm saying if we carve ourselves even a small chunk of the lowlands and then proceed to leverage our obscene amount of actions to fortify the shit out of it- no one is going to be able to easily take it from us. Especially since the various settlements we conquer are going to be fairly well inclined to stick with the guys actually developing and fortifying their territory rather than simply taking tribute and fighting over them.

 

[Sivantic]

To be fair, harmony and symphony really help address that. As well as the fact each province has more stake in staying because each provincial chief get's a decent shot at the kingship. I'm not saying we won't ever run the risk of breakaway states, but we're ridiculously well suited for making Elected Provincial Kingdom work.

I'm not saying we can take and hold the entirety of the Lowlands as things stand (even if it should be viable as we get more advanced) but I'm saying if we carve ourselves even a small chunk of the lowlands and then proceed to leverage our obscene amount of actions to fortify the shit out of it- no one is going to be able to easily take it from us. Especially since the various settlements we conquer are going to be fairly well inclined to stick with the guys actually developing and fortifying their territory rather than simply taking tribute and fighting over them.

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If so, then the first step will be to settle the Badlands. It has been the biggest deterrent in expanding into the Lowlands. Without anything to serve as a jumping point, all our efforts are blunted.