- Location
- Staring into the void
We need a way of raising the martial cap. Any ideas of what could do that?
Paths of Civilization
- Thread starter Academia Nut
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pblur
Reminiscing over the halcyon days of Ymaryn
- Location
- Lawrence's Wagon
The Thunder Speakers are now just another city state of the Thunder Horse. Their king has almost no power at all.
I mean, I'd LOVE to support the Thunder Speakers in a revolution to remove TH control there, if we get the chance. But the control is already there. Xoh and TS are both full vassals. I'm recommending we keep the idea of sending some support to the highlanders if it looks like they're going into active war.
- Location
- Voidbetweenstars
Such things never end well.
pblur
Reminiscing over the halcyon days of Ymaryn
- Location
- Lawrence's Wagon
Probably social traits.
On the other hand, I'm pretty sure the negative effects of Martial don't apply to Yeomen. The description is yellow, like the pre-yeoman martial, not red like the effective marital including the Yeomen. Which makes sense from a fluff perspective; Yeoman tend to be the very class which values stability the most (farmers.)
pblur
Reminiscing over the halcyon days of Ymaryn
- Location
- Lawrence's Wagon
Such things never end well for the thunder speakers, I'll admit. But supporting rebellious city-states is a time-honoured tradition, and very cost-effective. More recently, that strategy was essentially how the Soviet Union and Mao's China spread their influence spheres; supporting revolutions in the minor border nations. And it worked rather well overall.
The strategic map.
You'll note that the Highlands lowland borders are pretty much the rivers, which make for excellent barriers against raiding.
No, they're not. The city-states of the Thunder Horse have their own militaries.
Now, we might see the Thunder Horse absorb the Thunder Speakers in the near future so that they can get a staging area farther into the lowlands, but until then the Thunder Horse in the area are sitting on the Thunder Speakers to make sure they don't get uppity again.
- Location
- From the moon
*sigh* I don't think we have much choice in regards of expanding all of them have their own poison. Our choices are currently to try to continue expanding south acoss the coast via either martial or diplo annexation, Heading east across the hills towards the thunderspeakers, Heading into the the lowlands by adsorbing the HK, Heading northward hugging the coast, heading further into the steppes(many ways to go about this), Tacking our chances and going YOLO360NOSCOPE as we send our me out deep into the sea in search of distant lands such as islands and taking our luck there.
pblur
Reminiscing over the halcyon days of Ymaryn
- Location
- Lawrence's Wagon
All of them are pretty sucky right now. TH is still being aggressive in the lowlands, and is almost done digesting TS. HK has been prepping for war a couple turns. It's a really bad time to piss someone down there off. Maybe if they do a bit of mutual destruction we can reasonably do some expansion that direction, but I can't see it on the current map. North (coast hugging or not) will need done very slowly regardless because we need a lot of infrastructure in place to keep nomad raids from being too deadly. Heading east is giving TH a target that isn't the highlanders once they finish digesting TS; we don't want to do that.
Which leaves martial/diplo annexation of the river people. We have to be opportunistic about that, but it's a reasonable plan if a good opportunity comes up.
Overall though, we don't have a good place to force-expand into right now. That may change after a war in the lowland depletes things, but for right now I think we're pretty much stuck going Tall.
And hey, it's what Crow would want anyhow, right? All the shinies?
- Location
- Australia
If we want to maintain peace, we can send a Main Salt Gift to the Highlands Kingdom and a Main Trade Mission to the Xohyssiri.
The salt gift will give us friendship and defensive alliance with the HK. This'll give us casus belli to go to war alongside the Highlands Kingdom if they get attacked and means the Thunder Horse will need more time to build up in order to attack.
The trade mission has three purposes. First, it's a way of opening up information channels over to the Thunder Horse side of things. It'll get us more intel and it ensures the Thunder Horse get informed of our alliance with the HK. Second, the trade ties will make it more inconvenient for the Thunder Horse to attack. Third, it'll probably get us new tech.
The goal of this plan is to keep the Thunder Horse from invading without having to stick our dick into the lowlands. There is a chance we'll be forced into war if the Thunder Horse go to war with the Highlands Kingdom anyway, but less chance than if we went and started taking land there for ourselves. Taking lowlands land makes us a target of both the Thunder Horse and the Highlands Kingdom. Then we'd have enemies on all sides and no allies.
The salt gift will give us friendship and defensive alliance with the HK. This'll give us casus belli to go to war alongside the Highlands Kingdom if they get attacked and means the Thunder Horse will need more time to build up in order to attack.
The trade mission has three purposes. First, it's a way of opening up information channels over to the Thunder Horse side of things. It'll get us more intel and it ensures the Thunder Horse get informed of our alliance with the HK. Second, the trade ties will make it more inconvenient for the Thunder Horse to attack. Third, it'll probably get us new tech.
The goal of this plan is to keep the Thunder Horse from invading without having to stick our dick into the lowlands. There is a chance we'll be forced into war if the Thunder Horse go to war with the Highlands Kingdom anyway, but less chance than if we went and started taking land there for ourselves. Taking lowlands land makes us a target of both the Thunder Horse and the Highlands Kingdom. Then we'd have enemies on all sides and no allies.
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pblur
Reminiscing over the halcyon days of Ymaryn
- Location
- Lawrence's Wagon
We're not talking about raiding, we're talking about conquest war like TH did against TS. As far as we know, those rivers aren't significant impediments to that, and may well serve as useful logistics routes for TH.
Also, their borders go half the width of our entire country beyond those rivers. They aren't stopping at them in any meaningful sense.
Umi-san
Procrastinating.
- Location
- ꙮ
but then whoever wins has too much power
The TH aren't a maritime power, and the rivers flow the wrong way. It's the Highlanders who will be using them for the logistic benefits.
Which explains why the Highlanders have presence on the far side of them at all.
Don't exaggerate. It doesn't strengthen your argument any.
pblur
Reminiscing over the halcyon days of Ymaryn
- Location
- Lawrence's Wagon
The goal would be that neither of them fully win. And that's actually the most likely outcome if HK 'wins'. HK has been plagued with internal unrest for centuries, and they have never projected their rule farther than it's currently projected today. They don't have the ability to conquer the TH. They can drive them back, but if HK wins, the lowland will be disunified for a long time. Whether you want to eventually conquer it or simply want to avoid it being unified against us, HK 'winning' is the Ymarryn winning.
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
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- Lickwidget
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Yeah this is my assessment too, and out of our options the least shit are going east, Yolo-ing into the sea, and expanding southwest through Hathaya.
I've already gone over the east.
The yolo tac is something we actually don't have to spend a lot of resources on. We can spend a secondary on it when we have them free and we'll find something eventually. The only downside is our lack of navigation tech and difficulty colonizing and governing an island. It'd be hella defensible though.
The southwest is a nice place to go because of rich river valleys. The downsides are that it might take conquest to do. And it is an opportunistic grab which will only open based on the decisions the Hathatyn's make.
I agree with everything except that expanding east gives the TH a target that isn't the highlanders. Since we are in the sightline of an expansionist proto-empire like them, we are already a target. Observe their vassal attacking us a couple of generations ago. While not their main arm it is still part of their sphere of authority. With the recent annexation of the Thunder Speakers they now have means to attack us directly by using them as a funnel, and with such an assholish culture they will. I figure we can send Salt Gifts their way for a while to basically buy them off while we settle a couple more places in the east hills and fortify them. So when they preform the time honored tradition of stabbing us in the back for our shinnies we have some more stuff to throw at them.
At that point it's a case of us beating them so soundly they retreat and, much like Creed did with the Stallions, we basically get land by accident and our enemies dropping it in our laps. It is kinda hilarious but our biggest total land grab was by complete accident when we made the Stallion March. I'd like to continue this trend, and securing some of the east is very conducive to that. To repeat myself and be totally clear, we can expand east at least a small amount without actually conquering anyone and instead fight off raids, we have an option for south east Redhill for a reason. So just continue along that path.
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Suddenly imagine a quest where everyone plays a deity quest. Each spirits, gods, demons etc play their own side.
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pblur
Reminiscing over the halcyon days of Ymaryn
- Location
- Lawrence's Wagon
On that map, we range from 8.5 pixels (in the north west) to 121 pixels wide. The Highlander post-river-provinces range from 14.5 - 45.
The ratio of average widths is 46%. That's way closer than I had any reasonable expectation of being given the roughness of my original claim.
Guile
Having a really great time right now
Or we could just send a diplomat Hathatyn's way to show how very much we don't care about his gambit with the pirates, and see if he wants to be friends now.
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Or crush him with economic and civic might. Longer, painful, and satisfying.
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
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- Lickwidget
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- She/Her
This works too. Not right now obviously since the vote locked but maybe in a turn.
Guile
Having a really great time right now
Wasn't that what I said? Friendship!Or crush him with economic and civic might. Longer, painful, and satisfying.
Abby Normal
High Clerk of the Ymaryn
- Pronouns
- He/Him
@Academia Nut Should we expect an update tonight, or should i head to bed early?
pbluekan
Somethin's Fucky ...
- Location
- Trumpistan
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- He/Him
You know, depending on the state of not!Africa and some other environmental factors, it might not be terribly far to a rainforest, temperate or tropical.