BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Paths of Civilization
- Thread starter Academia Nut
- Start date
- Original
- Location
- United States
Yeah, the alliance is kinda bad for attacking them now but I wasn't really assuming we'd start right away (maybe in 5-7 turns depending on other factors).
- Yeah, we need to assimilate the SHP in the next 1-2 turns. Thankfully our diplo hero will make that relatively easy.
- If they were allies then they would've been aiding the HK against other polities. Since we haven't heard any reports of that nature, it's safe to assume they're trading partners for now.
@Academia Nut A couple questions.
Why have the Eastern Thunder Horse been doing so well against both the Thunder Speakers and DP? Good rolls, or something else?
How does our military, economy, and diplomacy compare to other civs?
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
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- She/Her
- Figured as much that you were operating on such an assumption.
- I don't think we can assimilate them in 1-2 turns it honestly sounds like they are a major polity in their own right. Do you consider them some form of minor?
- Point, though we don't have as detailed intel as I would have liked about the deeper Lowlands situation.
- I believe the Eastern Thunder Horse (who rolled up the Thunder Speakers) are still holding to our pact, but I am not sure. Can you point to any confirmation?
- I don't think the TH have the logistical capacity to actually create a Hegemony in the Lowlands. See their status as separate city states.
I'd be more concerned about the DP doing the other way around and solidifying their grasp on the Land between the two rivers, in the Lowlands heart lands. They do have the logistical know how and admin skill to do it in my opinion. See their far in the past ability to hold many tributaries.
- Location
- Simi Valley, CA, United States
So, I just thought of a way to merge the "marry them all" and the "listen to Attrikwyn's advice" options.
Simply, marry them to other chiefs and to Magwyna.
You know that expression "married to your job" or "married to the sword"? I imagine this happening to the 18 women they are "married" to her in the sense that they hold greater allegiance to her than otherwise and once she dies and she's heralded as a goddess they will become a order of priestess - hopefully that will equalize gender norms.
Simply, marry them to other chiefs and to Magwyna.
You know that expression "married to your job" or "married to the sword"? I imagine this happening to the 18 women they are "married" to her in the sense that they hold greater allegiance to her than otherwise and once she dies and she's heralded as a goddess they will become a order of priestess - hopefully that will equalize gender norms.
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The Southern HIll People are probably city-states.
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Interesting way to look at it.
The locked in vote is that everybody will be marrying Magwyna though so we'll have to see how that shakes out.
I kinda vaguely remember wording from updates past when they were still freaking out and raiding us that implied such a set up. Care to enlighten me as to your thought process?
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- Location
- Simi Valley, CA, United States
They are named after that one city, but it seemed to be the most prominent city, rather than a polity that control everyone else. It's likely that the other cities are colonies, like how Greek city-states spawned politically independent colonies.
Diploannexing them is going to be tricky, even though we never annexed anyone by force. Even annexing one city is going to be seen as a way of muscling in.
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BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
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- She/Her
Who exactly critted could lead to several different variations of Fun. There's Fun. Then FUN!. And then there's !!FUN!!
Hey @Academia Nut I asked this a couple pages ago, but could you please post that strategic map you have on the front page without any borders? I would like to make a much more accurate strategic map.
Ohhhhhhhhhh! *fist in hand with lightbulb* Now I remember Hathatyn.
Yeah that changes the dynamic.
Dreams of bureaucrats
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Magwyna should marry them personally (Secures alliance with Highlands Kingdom while Magwyna lives, has a small chance of triggering conflict with the nomads)
[X] Remind people along trade routes that the People don't suffer the blue plague (-1 Stability, chance of further loss, +4-5 Econ)
The chiefs took in Attrikwyn's advice and then began to discuss it all, and in the end despite strong support far too many of the others on the council were leery of both the long term entanglements and the idea of entrenching Magwyna's power. Somewhat frustrated at his advice being asked for but not followed, Attrikwyn was at least glad that his input was asked and it was made obvious that the king was not acting the dictator and was still attempting to maintain harmony through consensus and input from the provinces. He was also somewhat amused when one of the delegates was told that Magwyna would be marrying their chief's daughter and the man demanded proof of consummation. He probably hadn't expected his demand to be accepted... although from Magwyna's face after she probably had been put into a rather uncomfortable spot with that, and he did have to consider how he might have felt had someone demand that he bed another man in front of them to prove something.
It was something Attrikwyn was mulling over all the way home, in that even if the 'marriages' were essentially a polite fiction and abuse of the People's traditions for the benefit of mollifying outsiders, there was something distasteful about the whole affair. He would speak with his own wives as to their thoughts...
Meanwhile, Magwyna herself was settling her new 'wives' into her household and having something of a thunderstorm in her head. Any children the women had would be 'hers' even though she had nowhere near the spiritual potency to make that a possibility and the foreign peoples would not believe that any children from the marriage would be legitimate, although the People would of course care for them. The women could also pursue other activities if they so wished, but the thought of descent got Magwyna to thinking. Thinking about names, and how most of the People had three or four names: a personal name, a matronymic, and at least one of a clan name, village name, or nickname. Not everyone could read or write, but there were probably enough literate people who could ensure that everyone's name could be written down...
The local authorities kept track of their own resources, of who worked what and generally what they possessed that could potentially be taxable, and of how many People there were. Generally they just sent in reports and those higher up just had to trust that they were receiving accurate information, which was mostly true, but there was always the possibility of a cheater who had phantom population for one reason or another. The king keeping track was essentially impossible...
The idea kept turning over in her head for months. If you wanted to keep track of everyone, even on a generational basis, you would generate more records than would be useful. It would all be a bunch of useless junk kicking around because you would have no idea where everything was. No one could keep track of that many records... not unless you had a record of records. And even then that would rapidly spin out of control once someone took a record out to look at it, since if they didn't put it back in the right place it would be a mess and...
You needed both records of records and some sort of set order so that not only could you find things, but you could take any random record and know where it came from and thus put it back properly. The sheer logistics of managing the logistics were rapidly growing every time Magwyna passed the idea through her head, but with each pass she realized that while there were problems, she had the solutions available to her. She began to write and plan and do in addition to her thinking.
She wasn't quite sure if she could ever work out how to keep track of everything, so that the king - or, really, the king's administrative advisers and the clerks - could know what was going on without needing to simply trust the two or three layers of chiefs below, but as it was her early ideas helped organize the collections of records and tallies they already had, freeing up time for clerks and shamans to work with them rather than remembering roughly where they put stuff and then going to search it out. There were of course complaints from the older members that they already had a system and these new layers were just wasting their time when they already knew how to do things, but Magwyna had ways of tracking beyond the complaints of her subordinates, and she knew that once the initial teething problems were sorted out that things were running better and smoother and it was easier to pluck out both corruption and mistakes.
Heroic Admin Critical!
+2 Econ
+1 Stability
New Admin Tech: Primitive Indexing
This was perhaps most useful in the newer provinces, the ones that didn't have lots of old records and where the grain counters and shamans were a younger generation of the sort willing to move around. These were also the places with the highest influx of people and the attendant confusion and chaos. With her new administrative prowess and calling for a Grand Sacrifice to smooth out the accumulation of goods - and thus also make it easier to keep track of who had what by clearing out some long term wealth that was easier to hide - Magwyna soon had the economy spinning like a greased wheel. To this she sent masons and bricklayers to the new province to the east, Redhills, to build enormous walls around the main settlement springing up there. There were many more passes into that territory from the lowlands and if someone wanted to raid the area they would be much harder to stop. Further settlements were also springing up, and there were some concerns about both protection and ensuring that they were adequately surveyed.
Protection definitely came to the forefront of the People's minds as the Thunder Speakers and their new overlords proceeded to spend the next few years looting the north and east of Xohyssiri, carrying off much of the population there to work their farms or live as their wives. It got so bad that not only did the traders say that the Swamp Folk to the far south had broken away, no longer offering tribute or any sort of political support, but eventually it came up that the priest-king in charge of their great city had decided to simply play the same game the Thunder Speakers had and requested vassalization from the same king in the east. This would undoubtedly accelerate the cities of the Eastern Thunder Horse to turn on each other, but in the meantime it offered the city some degree of protection and the chance to lick its wounds.
Of course, with the new settlements pushing into new territory, there was the possibility of getting some of the ongoing conflict on them, and with her hair turning from silver to white Magwyna received reports of intermittent raiding in Redhills by Thunder Speaker warriors. They were probably just lone individuals or bands out doing their thing with no oversight from their higher ups and for the most part they had caused and received minimal casualties and mostly just been driven off... but if Magwyna wanted to organize a larger response and give the Highlanders and excuse to beat up on their eastern neighbours, this was as good as any... it was just that it would be the two of them against the Thunder Speakers, Xohyssiri, and Thunder Horse in all likelihood. It would be neither easy nor fun, but they could take a swing if they wanted and be able to expect back up. Magwyna wasn't exactly a fan of the idea, but no one liked being attacked and not retaliating when justified. Depending on what the Thunder Horse did next, the issue might clear itself up from its low level anyway, but no matter her decision Magwyna would probably be leaving a mess for her heir.
Which, ironically enough for the decision so many years ago, now looked like it could in fact be her eldest son Yehlmyn, who had inherited some of her intelligence and had learned at her feet and thus carried on much of her administrative genius. He was perhaps not quite as charming, but given that Magwyna had her suspicions that at least a few of her 'children' from her wives had come from her son it was perhaps best for all that he had not inherited all of her charms, lest every babe in Valleyhome be born with his eyes. Still, by his own merits he was within range of becoming the Clerk Chief in a year or two, which would legitimately put him in the running for king... it would just sort of look bad if she supported his bid, and she had enough sway over the council that if she didn't it would be assumed that her not speaking up would be taken as a negative endorsement.
Have weak casus belli
[] Attack Thunder Speakers to stop border raids (Declares war with goal of stopping attacks, Highlanders will join, likely brings in Thunder Horse and Xohyssiri)
[] Send an envoy to request the Thunder Speakers rein in youths (-2 Diplomacy, chance of TS king actually complying, small chance of triggering war)
[] Ignore the issue (-1 Prestige, large chance of loss of stability)
Question of succession
[] Support son (Chance of -1 Legitimacy, heir becomes Yehlmyn [Mediocre Martial, Good Diplomacy, Heroic Admin])
[] Remain quiet (Next king is probably standard)
[X] Remind people along trade routes that the People don't suffer the blue plague (-1 Stability, chance of further loss, +4-5 Econ)
The chiefs took in Attrikwyn's advice and then began to discuss it all, and in the end despite strong support far too many of the others on the council were leery of both the long term entanglements and the idea of entrenching Magwyna's power. Somewhat frustrated at his advice being asked for but not followed, Attrikwyn was at least glad that his input was asked and it was made obvious that the king was not acting the dictator and was still attempting to maintain harmony through consensus and input from the provinces. He was also somewhat amused when one of the delegates was told that Magwyna would be marrying their chief's daughter and the man demanded proof of consummation. He probably hadn't expected his demand to be accepted... although from Magwyna's face after she probably had been put into a rather uncomfortable spot with that, and he did have to consider how he might have felt had someone demand that he bed another man in front of them to prove something.
It was something Attrikwyn was mulling over all the way home, in that even if the 'marriages' were essentially a polite fiction and abuse of the People's traditions for the benefit of mollifying outsiders, there was something distasteful about the whole affair. He would speak with his own wives as to their thoughts...
Meanwhile, Magwyna herself was settling her new 'wives' into her household and having something of a thunderstorm in her head. Any children the women had would be 'hers' even though she had nowhere near the spiritual potency to make that a possibility and the foreign peoples would not believe that any children from the marriage would be legitimate, although the People would of course care for them. The women could also pursue other activities if they so wished, but the thought of descent got Magwyna to thinking. Thinking about names, and how most of the People had three or four names: a personal name, a matronymic, and at least one of a clan name, village name, or nickname. Not everyone could read or write, but there were probably enough literate people who could ensure that everyone's name could be written down...
The local authorities kept track of their own resources, of who worked what and generally what they possessed that could potentially be taxable, and of how many People there were. Generally they just sent in reports and those higher up just had to trust that they were receiving accurate information, which was mostly true, but there was always the possibility of a cheater who had phantom population for one reason or another. The king keeping track was essentially impossible...
The idea kept turning over in her head for months. If you wanted to keep track of everyone, even on a generational basis, you would generate more records than would be useful. It would all be a bunch of useless junk kicking around because you would have no idea where everything was. No one could keep track of that many records... not unless you had a record of records. And even then that would rapidly spin out of control once someone took a record out to look at it, since if they didn't put it back in the right place it would be a mess and...
You needed both records of records and some sort of set order so that not only could you find things, but you could take any random record and know where it came from and thus put it back properly. The sheer logistics of managing the logistics were rapidly growing every time Magwyna passed the idea through her head, but with each pass she realized that while there were problems, she had the solutions available to her. She began to write and plan and do in addition to her thinking.
She wasn't quite sure if she could ever work out how to keep track of everything, so that the king - or, really, the king's administrative advisers and the clerks - could know what was going on without needing to simply trust the two or three layers of chiefs below, but as it was her early ideas helped organize the collections of records and tallies they already had, freeing up time for clerks and shamans to work with them rather than remembering roughly where they put stuff and then going to search it out. There were of course complaints from the older members that they already had a system and these new layers were just wasting their time when they already knew how to do things, but Magwyna had ways of tracking beyond the complaints of her subordinates, and she knew that once the initial teething problems were sorted out that things were running better and smoother and it was easier to pluck out both corruption and mistakes.
Heroic Admin Critical!
+2 Econ
+1 Stability
New Admin Tech: Primitive Indexing
This was perhaps most useful in the newer provinces, the ones that didn't have lots of old records and where the grain counters and shamans were a younger generation of the sort willing to move around. These were also the places with the highest influx of people and the attendant confusion and chaos. With her new administrative prowess and calling for a Grand Sacrifice to smooth out the accumulation of goods - and thus also make it easier to keep track of who had what by clearing out some long term wealth that was easier to hide - Magwyna soon had the economy spinning like a greased wheel. To this she sent masons and bricklayers to the new province to the east, Redhills, to build enormous walls around the main settlement springing up there. There were many more passes into that territory from the lowlands and if someone wanted to raid the area they would be much harder to stop. Further settlements were also springing up, and there were some concerns about both protection and ensuring that they were adequately surveyed.
Protection definitely came to the forefront of the People's minds as the Thunder Speakers and their new overlords proceeded to spend the next few years looting the north and east of Xohyssiri, carrying off much of the population there to work their farms or live as their wives. It got so bad that not only did the traders say that the Swamp Folk to the far south had broken away, no longer offering tribute or any sort of political support, but eventually it came up that the priest-king in charge of their great city had decided to simply play the same game the Thunder Speakers had and requested vassalization from the same king in the east. This would undoubtedly accelerate the cities of the Eastern Thunder Horse to turn on each other, but in the meantime it offered the city some degree of protection and the chance to lick its wounds.
Of course, with the new settlements pushing into new territory, there was the possibility of getting some of the ongoing conflict on them, and with her hair turning from silver to white Magwyna received reports of intermittent raiding in Redhills by Thunder Speaker warriors. They were probably just lone individuals or bands out doing their thing with no oversight from their higher ups and for the most part they had caused and received minimal casualties and mostly just been driven off... but if Magwyna wanted to organize a larger response and give the Highlanders and excuse to beat up on their eastern neighbours, this was as good as any... it was just that it would be the two of them against the Thunder Speakers, Xohyssiri, and Thunder Horse in all likelihood. It would be neither easy nor fun, but they could take a swing if they wanted and be able to expect back up. Magwyna wasn't exactly a fan of the idea, but no one liked being attacked and not retaliating when justified. Depending on what the Thunder Horse did next, the issue might clear itself up from its low level anyway, but no matter her decision Magwyna would probably be leaving a mess for her heir.
Which, ironically enough for the decision so many years ago, now looked like it could in fact be her eldest son Yehlmyn, who had inherited some of her intelligence and had learned at her feet and thus carried on much of her administrative genius. He was perhaps not quite as charming, but given that Magwyna had her suspicions that at least a few of her 'children' from her wives had come from her son it was perhaps best for all that he had not inherited all of her charms, lest every babe in Valleyhome be born with his eyes. Still, by his own merits he was within range of becoming the Clerk Chief in a year or two, which would legitimately put him in the running for king... it would just sort of look bad if she supported his bid, and she had enough sway over the council that if she didn't it would be assumed that her not speaking up would be taken as a negative endorsement.
Have weak casus belli
[] Attack Thunder Speakers to stop border raids (Declares war with goal of stopping attacks, Highlanders will join, likely brings in Thunder Horse and Xohyssiri)
[] Send an envoy to request the Thunder Speakers rein in youths (-2 Diplomacy, chance of TS king actually complying, small chance of triggering war)
[] Ignore the issue (-1 Prestige, large chance of loss of stability)
Question of succession
[] Support son (Chance of -1 Legitimacy, heir becomes Yehlmyn [Mediocre Martial, Good Diplomacy, Heroic Admin])
[] Remain quiet (Next king is probably standard)
[Main] Grand Sacrifice
[Main] Build Walls - Redhills
Provinces: [Main] New Settlement - Southshore Interior, Badlands
[Sec] Blackriver West
Stallion Tribes - [Main] Build Walls - Stallionpen, [Sec] Watchtowers x2
[Main] Build Walls - Redhills
Provinces: [Main] New Settlement - Southshore Interior, Badlands
[Sec] Blackriver West
Stallion Tribes - [Main] Build Walls - Stallionpen, [Sec] Watchtowers x2
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- Location
- United States
- Aren't the SHP really new? They were just settling in when we made it our providence. I think of them as similar to the lowland minors really.
- Yeah you have a point there on the DP being more organized. I'm concerned that the TH will transfer over to a more organized system though, as they've shown to be changing from a nomadic people to a settled one (pointing at the walled settlements).
@Academia Nut Are the Eastern TH still upholding the contract that Wendtikwos made with us?
- Pronouns
- He/Him
They forgot about you outside of myth centuries ago, so no.
And I blackbirded my post.
Anyway, the city-states are going to be divided, and as long as they remain that way, we can annex them easily. The problem is if they decide to unite because of an outsider threat.
We need to not be the outsider threat and yet somehow be in a position to annex them. Perhaps, a war with the DP would do...
Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
- Location
- Dancing on wires!
Me approve big deal!!
- Location
- Mists of Albion
We have a trait that means we get far fewer heroic characters than any other faction, we could get a double Heroic Admin here.
Not gonna lie a tiny bit of deserved nepotism is worth a rare Heroic character
- Location
- United States
@Academia Nut If we remain quiet, do we have the option of choosing him as king later?
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Possibly, but not probably.
- Location
- United States
The biggest reason we've never had succession wars with the Sons of the Stallion is that we maxed out legitimacy. They've never had just cause to complain that our king wasn't the rightful king, even if we repeatedly snubbed them for the position. They've only complained about corruption. Can you imagine how much worse it would be with a lowered legitimacy?
[X] Send an envoy to request the Thunder Speakers rein in youths (-2 Diplomacy, chance of TS king actually complying, small chance of triggering war)
[X] Remain quiet (Next king is probably standard)
[X] Send an envoy to request the Thunder Speakers rein in youths (-2 Diplomacy, chance of TS king actually complying, small chance of triggering war)
[X] Remain quiet (Next king is probably standard)
- Location
- Hell
lol, there you go @Karugus
And heroines continue to be great. News at 11.
[X] Send an envoy to request the Thunder Speakers rein in youths (-2 Diplomacy, chance of TS king actually complying, small chance of triggering war)
[X] Remain quiet (Next king is probably standard)
Say no, to nepotism. Especially since we just got two new Admin Techs and likely have a war on our hands.
And heroines continue to be great. News at 11.
[X] Send an envoy to request the Thunder Speakers rein in youths (-2 Diplomacy, chance of TS king actually complying, small chance of triggering war)
[X] Remain quiet (Next king is probably standard)
Say no, to nepotism. Especially since we just got two new Admin Techs and likely have a war on our hands.