- Location
- Actually pretty lost
I think our records are okay, because they've been buried to prevent such degradation?
Paths of Civilization
- Thread starter Academia Nut
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I think our records are okay, because they've been buried to prevent such degradation?
I will point out that burial is variable in preservation qualities, and that the places we bury do get rained on. Provided we never dig them up they shouldn't degrade too much, but in a century we'd be lucky to see 10% of them readable over time until they get really deep.
Barring packing the buried records in salt or similar, but that's extravagantly expensive.
Well, we really should build a library asap.
Just after the temple if at all possible.
- Location
- Austria
A bit late, but I'd actually prefer to build Grand Temple in Holy Sea.
Why? Because sea routes make it easier for our northern provinces to reach it. Geographic distance is one thing, but it would be closer in a logistical sense to every province if it were situated in the easiest-to-reach province; given Canal and all the boats and rivers, it's Redshore most likely, especially since we are on the verge of Boat evolution.
Why? Because sea routes make it easier for our northern provinces to reach it. Geographic distance is one thing, but it would be closer in a logistical sense to every province if it were situated in the easiest-to-reach province; given Canal and all the boats and rivers, it's Redshore most likely, especially since we are on the verge of Boat evolution.
- Location
- Staring into the void
Since there are a number of people stating their preferred location for the Grand Temple; mine is Sacred Forest.
Noting that Sacred Forest has a direct route to the sea downriver as well, and remains the shorter path to Stonepen and Red Hills. You could sail the whole way at present(since we currently don't distinguish riverboats and sea ships yet). That's the navigational advantage there: that it's just as far from all our provinces, where Holy Sea favors the West and Valleyhome favors the East
Main issue with Redshore remains politics however, same as with Valleyhome. It's the home of the most influential chief families since ancient days and as such that'd weaken the shamans ability to remain as a check and balance rather than part of the problem.
Its also easier to raid, but I doubt that's a serious concern until everyone else catches up to the late Bronze Age at least.
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- Location
- Austria
But it still requires travelling after sailing.
And having a temple in our most sea trade-y city is intentional on my part because it sets it up nicely to eventually become our second True City, with more focus on trade and sea.
Having a Grand Temple there will also make for a nice attraction to anyone who comes trading.
So, Holy Sea temple will be better for our external relations and eventual seafaring routes, both internal and external, and for pushing towards second True City, but worse for the balance of power between Chiefs and Shamans.
Besides, a politicization of shamans, once they grow in power (so...Temple), is basically inevitable regardless of where the Temple will be situated.
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
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As to this particular threat I do believe that we should watch for the Hathatyn making advances in this area and for any wildcards coming from the Southwestern Shores of which we know very little beyond "Super Rich Civ".
For the Hathatyn they are a metal working civ which means they will of course eventually develop the tools needed to work wood precisely enough to leap ahead in boat tech. Without iron it is debatable how well they will keep up with the Ymaryn, but bronze from my understanding can stand in for some of the tools used for shipbuilding. Iron itself is also useful as a building material in various small pieces.
The super rich civ is a complete wild card. They maybe centuries ahead of us or simply a massive trade utopia. Completely in the air, and they also do not seem interested in us.
As to the Metal Workers becoming Metal Nomads, I do not remember any indication of a naval force for them. So how skilled they are at it is probably much less than us or the Hathatyn. They are the most direct Martial threat we have right now but they are unlikely to attack us by sea.
I agree that it pushes whatever city it is in indirectly towards True City status, which is quite useful for whatever city we put it in. Aside from that the reason I want it in the Sacred Forest is because I know that the politicization or accumulation of influence among the shamans is inevitable when and wherever we build it. I do, however, want to use that politicization/accumulation to cement the Shamans as a counterbalance to the Oligarchy mercantile/administrative/martial families and the King. We can't really have separation of church and state in this time, and truthfully I actually don't see much point in separating them right now especially since our shamans are very practical and more like scientists. So if we can't have separation I say use the situation to our advantage and make our government more stable in the long term (I believe that setting up checks, at least at a sensible density, are very important to have a healthy government).
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- Location
- Madness realms
Not to mention language shift making it difficult to decipher
- Location
- Austria
> semi-command economy
> shamans are almost scientists
> Love of Wisdom
> oligarchy
We can eventually push for a technocratic government, it seems.
Main issue on politicization is timing.
Yes, it's inevitable, but a shaman base in the center of politics, before they developed their own systems and techniques to manage shamans, would lead to taking strong influence from the extant favor trading.
You can contrast with RL religions:
-Judaism, Christianity and Islam rose to prominence, with their Great Temples being based in their political centers. In times of chaos, the religious system was basically the secular state system as a whole, and acted to worsen fracture lines and seize power of their own.
-Hellenism(can't recall the proper name for the Greek system), Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism and Shinto rose to prominence with their centers of religion at a prominent, but not political location. This led to them being focused more on their rites and the people early on, and then later they actively resisted political influence much more strongly, by having their own spiritually organized hierarchies which were difficult to intervene in. This meant that while individual temples or sects may influence individual kings and nobles, the overall religion largely stood apart from the administration save to stabilize things.
Timing matters. If the Governors seized power back in ChariotSon's crisis, we would have a far less coherent Oligrachy than we do now. Political changes will happen, but changes which happen slowly tend to serve the purpose of their social caste better than swift changes.
BungieONI
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That'd be a fun thing to experiment with.
Probably not something that will eventuate until the atomic age or the Industrial Revolution. That sort of governance system carries with it many very complex ideas that we just don't have the ideas to have the ideas to come up with yet.
But yeah we might be headed that way.
A great summation of what I was thinking my way towards. I want the Shamans as a stabilizing force, and thus a counter-stupid force and by putting them onto the path you outline that Hinduism, Buddhism etc took, we can do that.
Bronze was fully substitutable for iron, and in fact, superior for shipbuilding due to it's resistance to corrosion. We'd be able to make more ships, and experiment more often, as our tools are cheaper, but the better boats until later steels will be using more bronze.
Former Nomads had a distressing willingness and ability to go pirate unfortunately.
Yep. Assuming we don't have the current Oligraches drag the Shamans into their system before they know what the fuck.
For the matter, our current Oligrachy is powered by Elite Clerks.
BungieONI
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Yeah on this whole technocrat evolution, if you look at ancient china it almost seems like their clerk bureaucracy, which ours shares some similarities with, was a technocracy. At least how I understand it it was.
While true do they have the means to make the conceptual desire/leap to go for boats? They've been attacking us overland in chariots for longer than living memory. How interested would they really be is where my doubt comes from. Especially since we are already in poking range of them with the Western Wall so, in their view, why waste resources on these hideously expensive contraptions when the enemy is right there?
I know it will happen eventually but I'm unsure how quickly it will.
Well, one positive part is that any kind of shipbuilding requires access to a shipbuilding culture. It can happen if a Nomad group takes over a coastal settled group, as they become warrior-nobility over the previous population who are converted to artisans for their war efforts.
And then you look at the Metalworkers and the Western Nomads there.
BungieONI
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Well at least we know the threat is coming and that it will take quite some time until they come up with boats.
If they do not collapse outright due to a combination of us beating on their eastern peripheries and some other stressor which is needed because I really doubt our pressure is enough to destabilize them by itself.
Actually, I suspect that BECAUSE of us beating on their peripheries, they would fuse into the Metal Worker culture given a few more turns and become a settled raider people like the Eastern Thunder Horse did, if not for us hammering them like that, odds are they'd have fucked off back into the Steppes by now.
And having enough boats to raid won't be too hard if they already have brasses. We'll see yet.
Yes!. We have techpriest.
For true preservation, build lots of libraries for redundancy, only thing that historically worked
- Location
- Mists of Albion
Might as well. Shamans are techpriest in name only.
- Location
- Actually pretty lost
And not even that! The pronunciation and spelling are all wrong.