Paths of Civilization
- Thread starter Academia Nut
- Start date
- Original
The problem I see with enforce law is that it would preclude us from building roads, again.
We had multiple turns where we wanted to build roads, but could not because centralization was yellow.
This said, we need to main roads, better double main roads, yesterday.
We will have a warding challenge on our hands though.
We still should take at least one main trails action asap.
pbluekan
Somethin's Fucky ...
- Location
- Trumpistan
I agree we need to main roads, but enforce law doesn't really preclude that. Our current max centralization is five or six. I'll go with five for safeties sake. There is less than a 33% chance that enforce law will get us that high, if we do a secondary. I can't remember what settlements have walls or how many do, so whatever. Either way, most likely that will leave us with a centralization point left over for a main roads, while at the same time removing some of our issues with crappy middle management chiefs.
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
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Tally tally tally.
Vote Tally : Original - Paths of Civilization | Page 1620 | Sufficient Velocity
##### NetTally 1.9.1
[59] Main provinces (Chance of stability loss, +2 Econ)
[45] Challenge the validity of the Sacred Warding (???)
[33] Send missions to the chief belligerents (Secondary Trade missions to Highlanders and Thunder Horse)
[17] Remind the lowlands of your wealth and power (Main Salt Gift)
[15] Challenge the validity of the Sacred Forest (???)
[8] This is a step too far (Challenge continues one last turn)
[8] Look around for more reasonable people (Main Sailing Mission)
[6] Stay at home, garden (Main Expand Econ)
[5] Stallion Tribes
[1] Suppress this new movement (+1 Stability, WotG removed, Challenge failed)
Total No. of Voters: 70
Also have a Map!
The size of The Western Wall, which I think is an awesome name, is an estimate. As of <Initial Experimental Results> they have been around for what I figure to be thirty to forty years at maximum.
So far they have built a Main Watchtowers. They have no forests and have no walls. Presumably they can handle this, particularly with the pruning that just happened.
I'm going digging for the wall, forest, and tower status of the Stallions and the other Provinces. Later!
Vote Tally : Original - Paths of Civilization | Page 1620 | Sufficient Velocity
##### NetTally 1.9.1
[59] Main provinces (Chance of stability loss, +2 Econ)
[45] Challenge the validity of the Sacred Warding (???)
[33] Send missions to the chief belligerents (Secondary Trade missions to Highlanders and Thunder Horse)
[17] Remind the lowlands of your wealth and power (Main Salt Gift)
[15] Challenge the validity of the Sacred Forest (???)
[8] This is a step too far (Challenge continues one last turn)
[8] Look around for more reasonable people (Main Sailing Mission)
[6] Stay at home, garden (Main Expand Econ)
[5] Stallion Tribes
[1] Suppress this new movement (+1 Stability, WotG removed, Challenge failed)
Total No. of Voters: 70
Also have a Map!
So far they have built a Main Watchtowers. They have no forests and have no walls. Presumably they can handle this, particularly with the pruning that just happened.
I'm going digging for the wall, forest, and tower status of the Stallions and the other Provinces. Later!
- Location
- Cara Fahd
I see, I'll change my vote in consideration of that.
As I understood it, the shamans now have empirical evidence of what is bad about metal, but not the people. Meaning that the belief has been disproved, not that that discovery has been widely spread to the general populace and became common knowledge. Superstition is a tough beast to kill in general, especially among people who aren't in on all that happens in the research process and disproving it tends to create disturbances. Taking 3 turns to do things with metal seems the best way to make the population realize that metal isn't too bad as long as you know what you're doing, especially when they realize the sky isn't falling on their heads even if you poke the DOOM button repeatedly over a long period of time.
A secondary Study Metal, especially iron, is also likely to give us more advances which would capitalize on the tech advantage we have. So that could be a plus.
Though in the end we'll see when the turn comes if it is a viable action. I'd say that this or stability enhancing actions could be good in order to get rid completely of that superstition. Maybe I'm just too pessimistic on how to get rid of superstitions though and it will be unnecessary.
War is like oil, it tends to make messy spills. With all the civs with high martial duking it out within spitting distance, can you really say that none of the fighting will reach us?
I agree however it can't spill over in less than a turn as it has yet to start.
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
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Can't comment on your understanding of how the information has been disseminated to the people. But, what the current vote of Warding vs Forest vs This is too far vs Suppress is about, in my understanding is that our shamans are starting to question the validity of our other beliefs and practices. They are doing this because we took a hard look at our Metal belief and this sparked thought on why do we manage forests like we do, why do we have this ritual involving cows? Basically this is people going, okay if this metal thing is wrong, what about these other things we do?
Suppress takes a hard-line approach and stifles thought. It gets rid of the Weapons of the Gods belief but fails in evolving Observance. It also sets some nasty precedents.
This is too far is a lesser version of suppress, instead setting a precedent that some things are not meant to be questioned, but it makes the next turn a complete shot in the dark. We have no idea of what the ??? will be, or if we can even do it.
As to sacred forest vs sacred warding take a look at the pages starting from around 1624 to 1629. Their respective goods and bads have been adequately covered.
pbluekan
Somethin's Fucky ...
- Location
- Trumpistan
To be fair, it hasn't really in the past, unless we decided to involve ourselves. The consequences have hit us before. The initial growth of the Dead Priests was due to fighting with the spirit talkers that we just let happen.
Fact is, not fighting has usually paid us better dividends. It's why I'm so surprised we went absolutely berserk on the nomads.
Yes, but one main roads will not cut it.
We need multiple main roads actions to connect everything and improve our infrastructure.
And this would not go well with enforce law.
So I would prefer to fix centralization slow way, with more roads.
But we need to do it asap.
Because it set bad precedent that would have resonated with the negative side of cosmopolitan acceptance to make us look like a cash cow to every warlord that happened along.
Someone already posted it once, but here the reason again, and it is a good one.
Kipling said:
It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
To call upon a neighbour and to say: --
"We invaded you last night--we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away."
And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld
And then you'll get rid of the Dane!
It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say: --
"Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away."
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we've proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.
It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray;
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say: --
"We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that pays it is lost!"
- Location
- Cara Fahd
Agreed, but it is just about to start and we still need to build better walls as veekie has been proposing repeatedly. And more roads. And the Aqueducts. And the Library. *sigh* so much to build, so little slots...
What worried me isn't the specific good and bad ends of the specific choices between warding and forest, but that challenging a lot of of our beliefs endangers our societal structure. If you challenge the metal belief, then the warding/forest belief, it stands to reason that it would also weaken other existing beliefs, like the supremacy of the king, the spiritual prominence of shamans, the law and so on. In the end, our society is an accumulation of multiple beliefs that we agree to believe in. If you consider nothing sacred, everything could fall apart.
Say what you want about status quo, but it has its uses.
Maybe I'm just paranoid, but since this is the first Challenge of the Ymaryns, I'm also a bit worried about when the challenge ends and if it will result in other consequences and stat drops. AN mentioned that it would be a highly destabilizing process, but we haven't seen much change until now beyond the normal stat drops and ups. Social sciences is also something we have no knowledge of, so if something could happen, we can't know. In that context, I'd rather have a comfortable stability and centralization buffer, in case something happens. This is, in fact, our very first extended social engineering project while in the past, we simply went with the flow.
Basically, I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop while we are playing with something we have, in game, no knowledge of...
Yes, but I'm worried about if we can stay out of the fighting. If like I fear in my above response, Challenge Belief also causes unrest in addition to the "normal" stat drops, we would be a highly unstable polity surrounded by warring civs. If they see a weakness, compounded by cosmopolitan acceptance, we would be in a very bad place.
OMG, I just realized, that I have just become a paranoid Devil's advocate...
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- Location
- Asia
[X] Send missions to the chief belligerents (Secondary Trade missions to Highlanders and Thunder Horse)
[X] Main provinces (Chance of stability loss, +2 Econ)
[X] Challenge the validity of the Sacred Warding (???)
I think we can integrate the Stallions and build a new march to take control of that sweet steppe land between the rivers. That way the new march will be easily reinforced by the Stallion province when needed.
We could even build a canal to link the two rivers in the steppes to create a delta that is irrigated on all three sides.
[X] Main provinces (Chance of stability loss, +2 Econ)
[X] Challenge the validity of the Sacred Warding (???)
I think we can integrate the Stallions and build a new march to take control of that sweet steppe land between the rivers. That way the new march will be easily reinforced by the Stallion province when needed.
We could even build a canal to link the two rivers in the steppes to create a delta that is irrigated on all three sides.
@Cathon Grimeye remember the provinces have actions too. If we just set the policy to defensive and built the roads manually we can be done with most of our deficiencies within a single turn.
- Location
- Cara Fahd
Yup and I expect, that it will be the choice taken next turn in prevision of the war. With maybe a secondary vineyard.
A bit more like "Tuesday" really.
The current period of peace is downright unnatural.
We should be able to fit a main roads in. Hopefully the provinces cooperate, but we'll see yet how things turn out.
Also, we need LOTS of roads. We'd created three new provinces and zero major roads in the recent time period!
New challenge wise:
-Sacred Forest
--Main problem here is that some people feel that maintaining the Sacred Forest is a lot of work and want to stop spending so much effort on it. They also think the controlled burns are a waste of time that destroys perfectly good wood, that cycling forest into pastures and then replanting it with new trees is pointless make work. This will impact the megaproject if not resolved.
---This is of course, wrong in the long term. The controlled burns eliminate deadfall and rejuvenate the undergrowth, cycling into pastures and back is to protect the PASTURES from growing unhealthy over time, and also to replenish the soil nitrogen content from animal poop.
---This is also right in the span of one lifetime. It's not going to benefit any individual still living. It'd only matter for descendants and society.
--Study Forest - Requires it to be taken continuously over multiple turns to see a difference.
--Expand Forest - Maybe we'll try to expand a forest without taking all the Sacred Forest rituals to see if it flops.
--Hope for a drought to trigger the fire hazard without a controlled burn being performed.
--Hope for a flood to trigger the canker.
-Sacred Warding
--Main problem here is that some people think that cows don't make sense as a source of disease protection, that this whole slaughtering them young thing is wasteful and cruel, that keeping herds separate is a pain in the ass when the cows want to do whatever, that keeping cows near the city(where they are needed by our clinics) is noisy and smelly. This will impact the megaproject if not resolved.
--Study Health - Requires it to be taken concurrently to a smallpox outbreak.
--Smallpox outbreak - We can help this along by taking in refugees and sending out trade missions. Odds are good that we can pick it up this turn with current choices
--Expand Economy - Potentially required to create a trial non-blessed herd for testing.
Both of the above are likely to evolve Observance if completed successfully. They will also reinforce the cultural importance of the project so challenged, in that we prove "Yes, this really works, our ancestors were not wrong."
-Step Too Far
--Main problem here is that we are challenging inconvenient beliefs, but refusing to consider applying the same standards to ones which align with the leaderships' goals. This is likely to result in screwing up how Observance develops if not resolved.
--Uncertain approach. What beliefs can we challenge to affirm things? Will likely fixate upon random belief
---If we pick a belief and prove it false again, it will likely evolve Observance towards Skepticism, if one value proves false, why not more? Expect the megaprojects and our social values to be challenged again down the line.
---If we pick a belief and manage to prove it true, it will do much the same as succeeding at a challenge on a megaproject, but with a lower profile(and thus less impactful) result.
--Note that ALL our values can be up for chop here, even if Divine Stewards and Symphony are too actively used to be threatened.
Personally, I'll take the megaprojects. They have clear cut associated beliefs and benefits, so we can at least solve it consistently.
- Location
- Source of confusion itself.
[X] Look around for more reasonable people (Main Sailing Mission)
[X] Main provinces (Chance of stability loss, +2 Econ)
[X] Challenge the validity of the Sacred Forest (???)
[X] Main provinces (Chance of stability loss, +2 Econ)
[X] Challenge the validity of the Sacred Forest (???)
pblur
Reminiscing over the halcyon days of Ymaryn
- Location
- Lawrence's Wagon
So... the plan is still:
2 is completely implausible (they DON'T have our values.)
If you really want to do this, you need to salt gift the Xoh for slaves to experiment on. As revolting as that is to me, it's the only way I see to get an uninnoculated stranger to test on.
- Get refugees back from trade mission
- Find refugees willing to be infected with a 30% fatality disease
- Test it.
2 is completely implausible (they DON'T have our values.)
If you really want to do this, you need to salt gift the Xoh for slaves to experiment on. As revolting as that is to me, it's the only way I see to get an uninnoculated stranger to test on.
redzonejoe
Vaguely Pastafarian
- Location
- Canada
No.
The plan (as I understand it) is
1. Incorporate nomad refugees into main population
2. Send unwarded nomad citizens on trade mission
-2.1. Trade leader* will attempt to have group contract star pox
3. Compare likeliness to contract starpox disease between unwarded nomads and warded vallyhome traders.
* leader will have honorable death and greater good values to assist in his decision to help examine necessity of warding in this manner
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pblur
Reminiscing over the halcyon days of Ymaryn
- Location
- Lawrence's Wagon
That's not veekie's plan at least. He's insisting that only the trade mission will work because it brings us test subjects. Unless I'm missing something...
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
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And redzonejoe's is one variation.
There are several which explicitly do not involve deliberately infecting someone. I'm... honestly not sure where you got the idea that we would be deliberately infecting someone.
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
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You are.
