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Paths of Civilization

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Powerofmind said:
-Not necessarily. Just because they 'win' the war doesn't mean we look weak.
-There's a surprisingly small number of deaths in war from actual combat. Permanent casualties, sure, but deaths aren't nearly to the level of more than half the participating soldiers dying. The technology simply doesn't support it.
-That is a risk.

-Weak economy means lower growth, and leaner times for the people in general. Fortunately, that's something we are uniquely capable of bouncing back from due to the way our government is structured.

Frankly, I feel we can afford to have a minor internal crisis. I'm not quite as optimistic about losing a war with the plainsmen.
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Thanks for clearing that up
 
We really shouldn't break ourselves rushing in to save the outer tribes just yet. Expand our farms so families can have that one extra child survive through childhood/be born so when we focus on war and expanding our warrior class there's enough people to do so.

[X] Formalize breaking and exposure
[X] Any who are interested may join the fight
[X] [Secondary] Step-Farms
 
Powerofmind said:
The war-mission is aggressive enough that we're not on favored terrain, which has it's own risks and if it FAILS, will still trigger Eye for an Eye.
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I think you're overestimating the chance of it triggering. Only a severe loss would activate it. A regular loss will just reinforce our people's hatred of them, it won't cause internal instability so long as we're continuing to seek vengeance. There's also the possibility of a draw, which wouldn't trigger Eye for an Eye.

Powerofmind said:
Step-farms doesn't guarantee 0, it just puts a greater risk on the heads of the war.
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It doesn't guarantee 0, but it allows for the possibility of it remaining at 1. War carts does guarantee a 0 before going up again. The big difference is that at least step-farms gives us a chance to not lose Centralisation and to not clash with one of our values. War carts guarantees both.

Powerofmind said:
Even if the mission doesn't decrease economy, it's universal across both equations. Removing it just means there's 1 less on each, which keeps them even.
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His equation was wrong and I have already explained why. It's entirely possible for step-farms to keep it above 0.

Powerofmind said:
Alternatively, I could argue that most successful attacks against the nomads could allow us to raid for pasture and animals, which would also raise Econ if we're lucky. If it comes down to you being right, then we'd either be trading a chance at instability for a higher chance of winning, or a greater chance of losing for a greater assurance we don't hit instability.
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It would only raise Econ if we were really lucky. Expand Pastures wouldn't be enough on its own so we would have to take a truly legendary amount of animals to make up for the lesser amount of food compared to step farms. I have also already explained that step-farms is not more assurance vs less victory, but more assurance AND more victory.

McLuvin said:
Wouldn't losing the war potentially have a much more long term affect on the economy?
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Long term isn't that important. We only need to sustain ourselves until next turn, until the mega-project finishes.
 
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Andres110 said:
It would only raise Econ if we were really lucky. Expand Pastures wouldn't be enough on its own so we would have to take a truly legendary amount of animals to make up for the lesser amount of food compared to step farms. I have also already explained that step-farms is not more assurance vs less victory, but more assurance AND more victory.
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Don't you think that argument seems a little easy? 'Oh, the GM left this totally ideal means of getting through the turn without anything going wrong at all, clearly I've thought this all the way through and there's no failures of my assumptions here,' is the gist of what I'm getting. Do you really think that there's absolutely no downside to step-farms?
 
@Academia Nut What does our economic specialist advisor say? What option would allow our economy the best chance of staying at 1 or minimizing the drain? I think we have that maybe.
 
Andres110 said:
Please read my post on the subject. You are not taking all the negatives into account, and the negatives are severe.
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I did take them into account. You're misreading the traits:
Pioneering Spirit (LTN linked)
In times of strife, it is best to set out into new territory rather than draw a line in the sand, which also benefits setting out into new territory when there isn't strife.
Pros: Whenever stability drops, Econ increases as the political losers find something else to do with their time. New ideas introduced by foreigners are also more quickly adopted, and new settlements are established more quickly.
Cons: Whenever stability drops, also lose Centralization as pioneers break away from central authority figures

Eye for an Eye
Justice is to be served, but it must be discriminating and proportional. Retribution must follow, but it must also end once served.
Pros: Greater assurances of fair behaviour, regardless of position within the tribe
Cons: Justice must be served

Spiritual Values
Harmony
To live in harmony with oneself, ones neighbours, and ones environment is to live in harmony with the spirits. To live in disharmony is to invite disaster.
Pros: Bonus to collective action
Cons: Disharmony is to be corrected
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Pioneer Spirit procs once per stability drop.
We take a stability drop from economy hitting 0.
We take a stability drop from Eye for an Eye triggering if we fail to serve them justice for attacking us.

We do not autoconvert all centralization into Economy until it equals out.
We do not trigger Disharmony from activating Pioneer Spirit. It specifically says that political losers will choose to do something else productive instead of causing strife.

We do not see people break away from our civilization unless Centralization hits 0(which is when people break away completely from the civ).

pbluekan said:
You ever read the stories about parties of armed trappers finding plots of land with men buried up to their necks in them? They were fucking frightened.

The whole idea here is that they think we're weak, but they do know that we're stubborn. Part of the idea is to get rid of the weak bit and conflate the stubborn with a "don't push or they'll fuck you up."

Just stating that it will drive them to greater atrocity is more than a little useless.
What greater atrocity could there be in this day and age. They are already raiding our northern allies, and will try and raid our people. They'll carry off and rape women and kill children without any goading on our part, its part of the whole war thing already.

Frankly, they're already desecrating our dead. That's about as bad as it gets, and that is why our people are so mad.
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You're dealing with a Martial Honor culture again.
Remember the last time we tore them a new one? They went home and started a generations long blood feud for kicking their ass.

You want to terrify people with displays of violence, you need military superiority. Which we don't have.

Andres110 said:
The War Mission will be focused on defending the tribes with some counter-raiding, which is what we're doing now. This ensures our trade doesn't go down and it satisfies Eye for an Eye.
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War Mission - You can send raiding parties against groups that have declared themselves hostile
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And how do you propose to perform a 'defensive' raid on nomads without comparable mobility? Their entire battle strategy is hit and run. Attack you, take your stuff, and be gone by the time the reaction force is mustered.


How do you satisfy Eye for an Eye when your retaliatory force is engaged in the open repeatedly by enemies they can't outrun?
By adding another grudge for the killed warparty?
The War Mission will not decrease Economy. The warriors we send out fighting would be consuming resources regardless of whether we send them on a war mission or not. We will not lose Economy to raids because War Mission is meant to defend against raids.
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Okay, at this point you're contradicting your below case statement.
Raid forces are resource hungry. Warriors in active combat consumes several times the amount of food they do while at rest. Warriors traveling must expend additional energy(whether human or animal), and thus food, to carry them to the fighting area.

Hell, even Trade Missions cost Economy. We've done those before. They just pay off in goods, just as War Missions can pay off in loot if successful.

This is false. Step-Farms will not have a higher chance of ailed war mission, it has a higher chance of succeeding. The biggest things that can make us fail is a decrease in Centralisation combined with no food stockpiles and a drought. Step-Farms will ensure we do not hit 0 Economy and ensures we have food stockpiles for when the next drought hits, allowing us to continue fighting at full capacity.
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Food supply doesn't matter if you can't damage the other guy. Any war where they can hurt you, but you can't hurt them back except when they are attacking you, is going to be onesided. They'd always attack at their best condition, and we'd be engaging at our worst as a result.
VoidZero said:
I think we should attempt to discuss the definition of "Losing a War".

Our holding in the hill area are strong, and the enemy appears reluctant to enter the hill. This almost ensures our food and other production remain unmolested.

So from this point of view, losing is not quite possible.
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That's without Eye For an Eye, which forces us to go out there, and raid them back to get even. If we weren't locked into sending a raid, I'd just double down on food production and wait them out.
 
hylas240 said:
If we trigger Pioneering Spirit, how many points of centralization will we lose?

Edit: Also, how much would the Econ boost from Pioneering Spirit be?
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Depends how low Econ goes, but generally its a 1:1 exchange between Econ and Centralization.

Ghostdevil said:
What does our economic specialist advisor say? What option would allow our economy the best chance of staying at 1 or minimizing the drain? I think we have that maybe.
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More Fishing, Farms (Step or Regular), or Pasture land should keep things stable. However, given the military necessities, investing in the military is probably a good idea, even if it will be disruptive.

Also, the expedition won't necessarily chase the nomads out onto the plains, it is just that you are compelled to fight it out. Failure to pay back the attack this turn is unlikely to cause problems, but the score needs to be settled in some way eventually.
 
Hmm, we have 3 options to keep the econ stable, we should do that until next turn then blast the fuck out of the stupid Nomads
 
Ghostdevil said:
Hmm, we have 3 options to keep the econ stable, we should do that until next turn then blast the fuck out of the stupid Nomads
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You do realize that next turn will be some forty years later, right? Most continuous conflicts in history generally don't last more than twenty-odd years before people just get sick and tired of it.
 
[X] Formalize breaking and exposure
[X] Any who are interested may join the fight
[X] Build War Carts
 
Sightsear said:
I swear, if our first religious text ends up being a list of people who fucked us over, I will die laughing!


This is true, but why wait to punch someone tomorrow, when you can punch them today? ... On the other hand, a book of grudges... Nah, too silly. Awesome, but silly.

2600
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Because we can stabilize the economy this turn according to our economic advisor.
 
veekie said:
We take a stability drop from Eye for an Eye triggering if we fail to serve them justice for attacking us.
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Are you sure? The text just says that justice must be served. That could easily just be action-locking us into sending a war party against them, like what has already happened.

Edit: Nevermind. AN just clarified. This thread moves so fast.
 
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Sightsear said:
This is true, but why wait to punch someone tomorrow, when you can punch them today? ... On the other hand, a book of grudges... Nah, too silly. Awesome, but silly.
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Because punching them with power-fist instead of Spiked knuckles is more fun? A book of grudges is just history book isn't it?
 
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