no just rly lazy and tired of always being like "Expand Place Dedicated to the Spirits in a Forest Managed by Us Together With Snails Whom We Have Domesticated Through Pasteurization"
XS, XDS, XF, XMF, XP. they're just so much easier.
It might actually be XSC for Snail Cultivation tho. & XPS for Place of Spirits but that's too long when a simple XS suffices.
no just rly lazy and tired of always being like "Expand Place Dedicated to the Spirits in a Forest Managed by Us Together With Snails Whom We Have Domesticated Through Pasteurization"
XS, XDS, XF, XMF, XP. they're just so much easier.
If we don't start interacting with them they are never going to see a better way and join the circle. Or alternatively show the slaves that there is a better way and then support their revolt. If we just stick our head in the ground they will just stay the course and one day maybe start looking north for new raiding targets.
Well, whatever it is, I hope it doesn't create further costs for Economy. So whatever you said shouldn't double down on that as then that would be three projects consuming our Economy, a Main and our two Secondaries.
Word goes out, the forests are sick, and it is up to the People to push back against whatever is ailing them. The orders from the chiefs are simple: find the blight, burn it out, replant as necessary. The implementation is however considerably more complex, with the chiefs deciding that they need more people to delegate to. As the years go by, more and more senior experts from various positions are elevated to advisory positions so that their jobs are to tell sub-chiefs, chiefs, and the High Chief what they think the best approaches are to be, and then once a decision has been made to determine the best implementation of the orders. While in part it achieves the goal of reducing consolidation of power to a few families by both reducing the amount of things one needs to know in order to be a good chief and providing an alternate path to leadership roles by meeting the current people in power through advisory roles, it is rapidly noted that those who already have power still have the means to hang onto that power most effectively. Still, there is so more turn over of the dominant families as the children of farmers and potters and masons have a chance to become sufficiently good at their job that the chiefs will come to them for advise and then order them to tell other farmers, potters, or masons what to do to get jobs done, and from there possibly become chiefs themselves one day.
The distribution of tasks and advisory roles also eases the burden of the massive undertaking the People have committed to. Scouts are sent out into the woods to search for affected areas while closer to the villages the areas where people have been caring for the trees are expanded, both to provide depth for their own orchards and logging zones in case the blight gets to them, and to have more available seeds, saplings, and cuttings that can be transplanted to blighted areas for replanting. It also provides more managed fuel supplies for the new black soil that the High Chief has decreed will be produced as quickly as possible in as large of supplies as possible.
Out in the wild woods, several things are learned about the blight. The first is that there are sections of forest that are eerily low in game, where the growth of the forest seems to run rampant and the blight seems to start. As the disease gets worse the bark of the trees grows brittle and leaks sap while the leaves grow yellow and splotchy. On the forest floor saplings grow fewer and fewer as the illness of their parents kills them before they can have a chance to grow. The next stage is fire as the riotous growth of the underbrush and the dead plants becomes fuel for conflagration, only instead of bringing renewal and fresh growth of trees, instead only dead poles are left behind. Lesser plants unaffected by the blight rush to fill the gap, but their roots cannot hold the soil together as well, and as rains and winds knock over the dead trees, there is less and less cover to allow the smaller plants a chance to take root, and the soil degradation accelerates. Out in the hills it is also discovered that there are regions where forests have tumbled over and created jams where water accumulates with dead matter, char, and ash, and become temporary breeding grounds for swarms of insects, with the game in the area looking ill and mangy.
The first step, obviously, is to rip out blight with fire and axe and to undo jams wherever they are found to let those places drain, but the task is enormous and easily the work of a thousand lifetimes, but fortunately the People have many thousands of lives who can do such tasks. The progression of the blighted zones does however suggest that the issue is even bigger than the already daunting task had initially seemed. It is not "merely" a job requiring the rooting out of disease and the replanting of hills on an enormous scale, but something wrong with the function of the forests themselves. The discovery of old foundations in some of the places gives the next important clue: there were people here. The droughts and floods and diseases have progressively caused people to drain out of more marginal lands into the People, where hard work guarantees food, and despite the fact that no one has seriously gone hungry within the People in generations, the elders going over old memories and tallies remind people that there have been crop failures, its just that the People maintain enough stores to ride them out year to year. Smaller settlements not part of their greater trade network would not be nearly so lucky, so the people who had once moved into these hills had to have died or moved on.
Theories quickly abound. Are the ancestral ghosts of those old people upset that their descendants have abandoned them? Were there spirits of the forest who were being appeased now angry that they are ignored? Had the prior people done something wrong that had unleashed the blight in the first place? Questions abound, and it becomes obvious that not only is the work to stop the damage and then undo it going to be a multi-generational project, but preventing its resurgence may be an eternal task. Given the depths some of the scouts go into the forest, they naturally build landmarks and mark trails, but soon enough as the knowledge begins to spread, they start setting up little shrines in an attempt to appease what spirits might be upset out here.
Closer to home but well away from, great pits are being excavated and lined with brick, to be filled with trash and waste. Potters are told to throw extra pots to hold waste that is hurled directly into these pits. Once filled to a certain with garbage, flammable debris is used to fill up the tops, which are covered over with dirt and then ignited to turn to char. During the wet months, water is allowed to sit and seep into these pits, aging them. After a year or two, they are opened up and the material inside is churned and ground up, thoroughly mixing and fining it all, before they are reburied and left to age a few more years to turn to the rich black soil. Once properly aged and matured, the pits are emptied and the black soil is carted to areas where the soil is intended to be stable, such as the step farms and areas of fresh tree plantings, and the now empty pits are once more used as garbage dumps. Need quickly outpaces demand despite the dedicated efforts to produce the material, especially out in the blighted zones the People can directly work on repairing, where the black soil is often the only thing that can be used to plant upon once the previous soil has been washed away.
It is, unfortunately, an uphill battle as the spirits of wind and rain and sun all seem distinctly uncooperative. The People's efforts against the Blight are definitely slowing it down, but other peoples seem to be encountering their own problems. In particular, the Western Confederacy, which lives along the hills along the western edge of the lowlands, are definitely in trouble, and the Dead Priests have started sending raids their way once more. Whether to take advantage, because they are dealing with their own problems, or both is not entirely clear from the stories the traders are bringing back, but it is obvious that trouble is continuing to brew. While the chiefs are obviously massively concerned with the struggle to repair the forest, looking over the tallies, they decide that it is possible to divert a few experts to the Western Confederacy to see if they can help them with their own forest problems, or a small military expedition to take some pressure off them from the Dead Priests. Not both though, especially since more warriors are needed to defend interests to the north as the nomads have completed their reorganization in a most uncomfortable way: some are still hostile to the People and associated small clans, while others are now more interested in trade.
Choose a response...
[] Send expedition
[] Send experts
[] The Confederacy is on its own (Likely to cause internal strife)
Black Soil - Mass production of this intensely useful stuff has begun, but the need for it is seemingly endless [Gardeners] [King]
Build Wall - Long experience with retaining walls has lead to the idea of a settlement wall for protection (Coastal village completed)
Build War Wagons - Increasing the number of war wagons would increase the general strategic and battlefield mobility of forces, although would be expensive to do so
Establish Annual Festival - People already like to celebrate at certain times of the year, but with the level of control over food distribution a new and particularly lavish festival can be established
Expand Farms - The people have brought an enormous amount of land under cultivation in the valley, but there is more available in more marginal areas, and in the forests around the fishing village
Expand Fishing - There are managed cultivation zones along the shore, and dedicating more people to the tasks can increase the yields of fish and luxuries brought in
Expand Managed Forests - There are many forests throughout the hills about the various forests that could be brought under proper management
Expand Pasture - While the traders mostly just take their animals where there is good grazing, specific areas can be set aside around the settlements that can be made ideal for the protected grazing of herds
Expand Place to Spirits - The current place dedicated to the spirits and wisdom is nice, but it could be bigger and grander...
Expand Snail Cultivation - While now more reliably grown and harvested, the snail domestication has only managed to hold environmental changes at bay rather than increase production. More investment would increase cultivation
Expand Warriors - More men can be inducted into the ranks of the warriors every year and not face major food shortfalls
New Settlement - The land is not particularly good for farming in between the valley and the sea, but there are places where a settlement could be set up, serving as a stop over point along the journey between the two settlements
New Trails - The settlements in the valley and the coast are well tied together, but there are new contacts to the north who could be better tied together
Step-Farms - Step farms have been established and have grown across the valley, but there are still plenty of hills to resculpt [Gardeners][King]
Trade Mission - Sending a major caravan to another large group can bring new opportunities and find out more about the outside world
War Mission - You can send raiding parties against groups that have declared themselves hostile
Mega-Projects - Mega-Projects can require many generations to complete, take an unknown amount of time to do so, and drain Econ while active, but can produce massive benefits once complete. Once chosen, the occupy the Main Focus slot until either completed or stopped early. Early stopping once started does not refund any of the investments and increases social strife. To reduce confusion, mega-projects are not listed as part of the voting project list and must be "written-in". Fight Forest Blight - Something is going wrong in a number of wild forests, and generations of intervention may be required to stop it [Gardeners][King] (Active)
Grand Canal - The hills between the valley and the sea are rough and the rivers there fast and wild. In one man's dream there is the vision of an artificial river cut through the land, tame and managed [Gardeners][King]
Great Dam - The river can run wild and dangerous when the rains come strong, but could it not be controlled by the same principles by which the water on the hills is channelled and contained, merely on a larger scale? [Gardeners][King]
Choose two [Secondary] Focus. [Main] Focus is Currently Fight Forest Blight for the next ~2-4 turns
[] Black Soil
[] Build Wall
[] Build War Wagons
[] Establish Annual Festival
[] Expand Farms
[] Expand Fishing
[] Expand Managed Forests
[] Expand Pastures
[] Expand Place to Spirits
[] Expand Snail Cultivation
[] Expand Warriors
[] New Settlement
[] New Trails
[] Step-Farms
[] Trade Mission
-Target Options: Spirit Talkers, Western Confederation, Dead Priests, Northern Nomads
[] War Mission
-Target Options: Dead Priests, Northern Nomads
Villages for projects: Valley, lower valley, coastal
We care for our neighbors. If we care enough, they will probably come to accept our ways more...and we need military to keep friendly northeners dependent on us. Will build New Trails next turn.
[X][Secondary] Black Soil
[X][Secondary] New Settlement
First is mandatory, second is...well, for logistics of this all, and prevent veekie from exploding.
EDIT: Waaait, wait, wait. Our Economy is currently 3. This is bad, we are burning economy per turn. Can we be sure new settlement won't burn even more? Fuck. Maybe I will change Settlement to something for more of economic boost.
[X] [Secondary] Black Soil
[X] [Secondary] Expand Snail Cultivation
We need pretty much solid econ actions. Despite a double-tap of econ actions last turn we still lost a point trying to run the blight removal. Building a settlement is an enormous, expensive undertaking that will only eat more econ as it goes, and I doubt we can really afford that right now.
