Remove ads

Paths of Civilization

Reader mode
McLuvin said:
We were just at war in Megaproject Support mode and we didn't get penalised by Lords Loyalty. There is no evidence to support your assertion that staying in Megaproject Support whilst attacked would hurt us in that way, considering that's what has been happening the last two turns and it hasn't triggered
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Academia Nut said:
[X][Main] More Blackbirds
[X][Secondary] War Mission - Northern Nomads
[X][Secondary] War Mission - Northern Nomads x2
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
That would be because we took a main war mission. The current vote doesn't have us doing any war missions, and our provinces can't take war missions on mega project support policy.
 
Marlin said:
Could you give a refresher? I thought that was mostly opinion based with a bare bones narrative structure built based upon reality.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Sure.

@MTB that's pretty much right. Here is my take on them.

Caveat: This is to the extent of my knowledge alone and I am kinda tired. Get secondary confirmation.
What @ctulhuslp said. Here is my understanding as well to compound/accent.

Diplomacy: Luxuries and ties to other nations, usually marriages in trader families. We can spend this to close trade ties, like we did when the HK and TS got into a brawl like 30 updates ago and we stopped trading with both of them.
Economy: A representation of manpower and manhours we can divert from subsistence farming without people dying, with food surplus being a big part of this as well.
Expansion: The space we have. To gain Econ value, we spend this. I call this "space" because a lot of this is adding new fields in places they were not before and improving what we already have.
Martial: A representation of the amount of people we can send away to fight without collapsing our food intake. Made up of professional warriors, yeomen (warrior farmers), and specialists. Really it's how big a military we have and how experienced it is.

Stability: How happy everyone is in our civ. Health of current society and how close it is to fracturing. Other civs will die (i.e fracture into successors) if they end a turn at -4, we die if we even brush -4 due to the Symphony trait line. We use this to gain Econ from Cosmopolitan Acceptance.

Legitimacy: The belief of the populace that the rightful rulers are in place and have the people's best interests at heart. Useful for the painful decisions.

Centralization: Is how much power the King directly has. How much information flows through them, how fast it flows back and forth, and how much the provinces bow to their authority. This does cover disaster resistance but also means we can do stupid things very efficiently with a bad admin leader.
Hierarchy: Level of complexity in our bureaucracy. How many levels between peasant and king. I'm not actually all that sure what it does. It's changed all of once since I have been in the quest and that was to decrease by 1 point. (And note I have been active since page 700 so yeah...)
Religious Authority: Big new one, showed up after the Temple and Pilgrimage was added as a "Trade Good: Cultural". Not sure what it does, but I think it has to do with making our Pilgrimage trade power greater. Makes us more attractive to come too.

Art: Our quality of art, a representation of the amount of free artists in our civ, the amount of general art we have. Kinda similar to Econ and Martial in this respect.
Mysticism: Free time of priests and shamans, availability for projects, how fast and how much new ones are being trained, as well as a measure of straight up mystical knowledge. There was speculation way back that having this high can mitigate things like Comet panic, which I don't think was ever verified.
Prestige: How worthy of awe we are to other civs, as well in part how rich we look to them. It ties into Pilgrimage and Diplomacy a bit. Thinking about it as how awesome the other civs think we are is a good way to do it, though do keep in mind that due to our refugee sucking behavior the other civs in the Lowlands at least have some grudges.

Our various actions all spend them, and there is this thing called the admin roll which decides the order with which we do our actions in and how they match with the timing of resource payouts and the like.
 
Last edited:
DragonParadox said:
I've just had a thought: if prestige is the measure of how impressive our neighbors find us, shouldn't their prestige values be transparent to us?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Not particularly since part of the issue is that we are very isolationist. We don't hear a lot of news from them except oh they are fighting again. Another issue is that our society is probably not complex enough to accurately gauge that information, like how we only started getting real hard numbers when we got writing.

My thoughts on it, probably best to ask AN though.
 
BungieONI said:
Stability: How happy everyone is in our civ. Health of current society and how close it is to fracturing. Other civs will die (i.e fracture into successors) if they end a turn at -4, we die if we even brush -4 due to the Symphony trait line. We use this to gain Econ from Cosmopolitan Acceptance.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Oh, yes, true. My bad.

BungieONI said:
We don't hear a lot of news from them except oh they are fighting again.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

History of Lowland in a nutshell.
 
BungieONI said:
Not particularly since part of the issue is that we are very isolationist. We don't hear a lot of news from them except oh they are fighting again. Another issue is that our society is probably not complex enough to accurately gauge that information, like how we only started getting real hard numbers when we got writing.

My thoughts on it, probably best to ask AN though.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

We are non-interventionist sure, but also a major center of trade, hardly what I'd call isolationist.

Also we see our prestige. It seems odd that we can gouge how others will see us but not how we see them.
 
Last edited:
DragonParadox said:
We are non-interventionist sure, but also a major center of trade, hardly what I'd call isolationist.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I really don't know, like I said I think that falls under a case of "you do not have the IC tech to know this" like writing was. I would really ask AN.
We do know that the Thunder Horse, and thus probably the Xoh now, have the highest local Prestige because AN has said as much.

Other questions @MTB?
Adhoc vote count started by BungieONI on Jun 11, 2017 at 9:05 AM, finished with 52133 posts and 75 votes.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
[X] [Value] Do not spread
[X] [Main] Proclaim Glory
[X] [Secondary] Restore Order
[X] [Secondary] New Settlement - South-Eastern Redhills
 
MTB said:
Know? No. Fuzzy gut feeling? Yes:

Civilization Stats

General
  • Diplomacy 9 [+4]
    The capacity to influence others by using actions. Fuzzy if 'others' would also include rebelling provinces.
  • Economy 1 [-1+4]
    Reads like 'how much stuff you can do', but runs face first into 'and then what is the thing below?'
  • Econ Expansion 9 [+1-4]
    Something to do with how much economy expands per turn. In game, new shops, new fields, new mines (or expansions of them) per turn.
    But no idea how that would fit with the static value in front of it.
  • Martial 9 (+1) {9}
    Militarization, both how many people have martial experience and also includes somehow the mindset (I would think 'using power to get things' is more okay with a high Martial value than a low one).

Stability
  • Stability -1 (anxious)
    Likelyhood of the current society collapsing.
  • Legitimacy 3 (max)
    How rightful the rulership is seen to be.

Organizational
  • Centralization 3
    How likely it is that orders from the central government are followed, regardless of stupidity // likelyhood of provinces deciding for themselves what to do
  • Hierarchy 6
    Yes?
  • Religious Authority 2
    ... Influence of priests/shamans within the society?

Cultural
  • Art 4
    Competence at creating art. Spread?
  • Mysticism 6 [+1]
    Level of organization of religion, availability of teachers/shamans
  • Prestige 20
    How well we are known outside our civ // how impressive we are as a civ.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
...Hoo boy. Ctulhisp's is mostly right, but not comprehensive enough for my tastes. Alright, let me see if I can make this a bit more thorough.


First, what are stats in general? They represent abstractions of how our civilization works and handles the various features of its existence. Every stat, however, has several things that make up its hole, and we have seen that the details of these things do matter and are kept track of to some degree. The most famous example of this is the Spirit Talkers, and how they overly focused on elite warriors and could not handle mass numbers as a result. Further more, each stat is modified by our tech to determine how effective it is at any given action.

Now, looking at the Stats individually:

General
  • Diplomacy: Overall it measures how much people like us in general and think us friendly or cool. It is divided into several subsets including relations, active trade routes, and luxury goods. It should be noted that some people think quite poorly of us even if we have a high diplomacy score.
  • Economy: Represents the overall ability to leverage manpower. In effect, this represents people who are idle and do not have too much to do. Currently in our society these people spend their free time making more food, so having low or negative economy means reserves will start disappearing.
  • Econ Expansion: This represents free space that gaining economy usually takes up. If you look at the list of actions in their description, you will find how many econ expansions something takes up. It should be noted that our primary means of creating econ expansions now relies on the True City, so it's rather vital to us.
  • Martial: This represents our armies overall power. It is made up by the number of troops we have and their skill.
Fun Fact: By being amalgamations of various areas, certain things are not taken into account when just looking at the numbers. If people really want salt or dyes, for instance, then our diplomacy will look more impressive than it actually is. We are also one of the leaders, if not the leader, in tech that boosts food growth, making our econ value actually much more powerful than it appears in terms of a pure number. Considering we tend to solve all problems with more econ, this is the crux of our strength. We do know, however, that other people use things like mysticism and trade as specializations, often overflowing them into econ in order to gain advantages. The eastern salt kingdom is one such example, as has been the Xoh in recent turns.

Stability
  • Stability: How confident people are in society. Higher stability means they believe that the overall society is working well and generally enjoying life. This causes them to work better and more effectively in general. This is effected by things like festivals with happiness and enforce justice to keep our sense of right and wrong enforced. It's cap is normally Legitimacy's value.
  • Legitimacy: How correct is the government's rule. The higher this is the more people acknowledge the government as a thing that should exist. It represents the government following within the beliefs of the society as a whole. It is lowered when the government radically shifts away from the people's values and is raised when the government shows that it has the people's values as it's interest.
Organizational
  • Centralization: This is how much our government relies on central authorities. By having a high centralization, the government that holds the higher authority over all of the other governments can better communicate with people to get the things it wants done, done. In our current state this is measured with ease of communication (trails) and enforcing the laws put forth by the central government (enforce justice).
  • Hierarchy: This represents the power of branches that serve under the central government, directly differing to it. The higher the hierarchy the more the various 'departments' of the government can support the central government and allow it to do more things. This is currently measured with advisers to assist the king and provinces to help the king act. At one point we had a sort of extra action due to having a high hierarchy.
  • Religious Authority: Though we have yet to see this actual effect it stands to reason, based on it's location, that it is how much people believe that our priests are correct about what they say in how the world works.
Item of Interest: Much of our admin tech is focused on extending the reach of our high centralization focused government. However, we have little to no religious authority tech. A way to increase its tech may be to Main Art Patronage.

Cultural
  • Art: Art represents the amount of decorative and evocative pieces we hold. It's made up of artisans who create art themselves as well as art imported from other people. The latter is how things overflowing into art work. Lowering it is when we put the art or artisans to work on other, specific projects. An example would be proclaim glory creating political based art.
  • Mysticism: This represents the accumulation of knowledge about how the world works. It is currently measured in priests, knowledge, and sacred art. We lose this by making our shamans or knowledge busy and put to practical use.
  • Prestige: How great our civilization's accomplishments are. Where as diplomacy is something more akin to how attractive we appear, this measures how powerful we appear. It is made up of our accomplishments and deeds. We lose prestige by having what people perceive as great failings.
Hope that helps!
 
Last edited:
bluefur87 said:
...Hoo boy. Ctulhisp's is mostly right, but not comprehensive enough for my tastes. Alright, let me see if I can make this a bit more thorough.


First, what are stats in general? They represent abstractions of how our civilization works and handles the various features of its existence. Every stat, however, has several things that make up its hole, and we have seen that the details of these things do matter and are kept track of to some degree. The most famous example of this is the Spirit Talkers, and how they overly focused on elite warriors and could not handle mass numbers as a result. Further more, each stat is modified by our tech to determine how effective it is at any given action.

Now, looking at the Stats individually:

General
  • Diplomacy: Overall it measures how much people like us in general and think us friendly or cool. It is divided into several subsets including relations, active trade routes, and luxury goods. It should be noted that some people think quite poorly of us even if we have a high diplomacy score.
  • Economy: Represents the overall ability to leverage manpower. In effect, this represents people who are idle and do not have too much to do. Currently in our society these people spend their free time making more food, so having low or negative economy means reserves will start disappearing.
  • Econ Expansion: This represents free space that gaining economy usually takes up. If you look at the list of actions in their description, you will find how many econ expansions something takes up. It should be noted that our primary means of creating econ expansions now relies on the True City, so it's rather vital to us.
  • Martial: This represents our armies overall power. It is made up by the number of troops we have and their skill.
Fun Fact: By being amalgamations of various areas, certain things are not taken into account when just looking at the numbers. If people really want salt or dyes, for instance, then our diplomacy will look more impressive than it actually is. We are also one of the leaders, if not the leader, in tech that boosts food growth, making our econ value actually much more powerful than it appears in terms of a pure number. Considering we tend to solve all problems with more econ, this is the crux of our strength. We do know, however, that other people use things like mysticism and trade as specializations, often overflowing them into econ in order to gain advantages. The eastern salt kingdom is one such example, as has been the Xoh in recent turns.

Stability
  • Stability: How confident people are in society. Higher stability means they believe that the overall society is working well and generally enjoying life. This causes them to work better and more effectively in general. This is effected by things like festivals with happiness and enforce justice to keep our sense of right and wrong enforced. It's cap is normally Legitimacy's value.
  • Legitimacy: How correct is the government's rule. The higher this is the more people acknowledge the government as a thing that should exist. It represents the government following within the beliefs of the society as a whole. It is lowered when the government radically shifts away from the people's values and is raised when the government shows that it has the people's values as it's interest.
Organizational
  • Centralization: This is how much our government relies on central authorities. By having a high centralization, the government that holds the higher authority over all of the other governments can better communicate with people to get the things it wants done, done. In our current state this is measured with ease of communication (trails) and enforcing the laws put forth by the central government (enforce justice).
  • Hierarchy: This represents the power of branches that serve under the central government, directly differing to it. The higher the hierarchy the more the various 'departments' of the government can support the central government and allow it to do more things. This is currently measured with advisers to assist the king and provinces to help the king act. At one point we had a sort of extra action due to having a high hierarchy.
  • Religious Authority: Though we have yet to see this actual effect it stands to reason, based on it's location, that it is how much people believe that our priests are correct about what they say in how the world works.
Item of Interest: Much of our admin tech is focused on extending the reach of our high centralization focused government. However, we have little to no religious authority tech. A way to increase its tech may be to Main Art Patronage.

Cultural
  • Art: Art represents the amount of decorative and evocative pieces we hold. It's made up of artisans who create art themselves as well as art imported from other people. The latter is how things overflowing into art work. Lowering it is when we put the art or artisans to work on other, specific projects. An example would be proclaim glory creating political based art.
  • Mysticism: This represents the accumulation of knowledge about how the world works. It is currently measured in priests, knowledge, and sacred art. We lose this by making our shamans or knowledge busy and put to practical use.
  • Prestige: How great our civilization's accomplishments are. Where as diplomacy is something more akin to how attractive we appear, this measures how powerful we appear. It is made up of our accomplishments and deeds. We lose prestige by having what people perceive as great failings.
Hope that helps!
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Ahh yeah the "Civ specific Stat valuation/Meta stat value" thing AN brought up a long ass time ago. Thanks for filling that in bluefur!

As anyone in general can see it's a big amalgamation of mine, ctulhuslp, and bluefur87's posts. I suggest taking them all and keeping them in mind. Again if anyone has questions, due to being new or having a need for a refresher, please ask and someone will try to answer to the best of their knowledge.
 
Haven't caught up with the thread yet, and I need to go do a bunch of stuff today so I've no idea if this has been answered (curse your rapid update schedule!)

@Academia Nut if we leave the policy switch to the midturn, is there likely to be social unrest, upheaval, etc as a result, such that our advisors feel it would better to make it an official switch, instead of a midturn event?
 
[x][Value] Do not spread
[x][Main] Black Soil
[x][Secondary] Enforce Justice
[x][Secondary] Change Policy - Balanced

Well. That's a clusterfuck of poorly considered plans we've got there.

Not spending any econ, because I'd rather not risk dropping econ below zero from a bad admin roll.

Switching to Balanced lets our provinces act usefully and flexibly, especially important because it means their actions aren't being directed by an administrative incompetent.

Black Soil + Enforce Justice might well bring some of our existing caste-nonsense to light, and without Ancestral Deeds claiming that your ancestors being half-exiles means you should be one, we might actually push back against that tendency of our civ.

Entirely unsurprised that people are chasing the hero-generation shiny without consideration for the long-term consequences.
 
Last edited:
Tally
Adhoc vote count started by McLuvin on Jun 11, 2017 at 9:54 AM, finished with 52138 posts and 75 votes.
Click to expand...
 
Restore Order with Proclaim Glory means we have to hope that our hero got the orders right. He's just below average, though.
 
Inserted tally
Adhoc vote count started by Umi-san on Jun 11, 2017 at 10:34 AM, finished with 52143 posts and 77 votes.
Click to expand...
 
[x][Value] Do not spread
[x][Main] Black Soil
[x][Secondary] Enforce Justice
[x][Secondary] Change Policy - Balanced

This plan I can get behind
 
[x][Value] Do not spread
[x][Main] Black Soil
[x][Secondary] Enforce Justice
[x][Secondary] Change Policy - Balanced
I like that @Candesce
 
Candesce said:
[x][Value] Do not spread
[x][Main] Black Soil
[x][Secondary] Enforce Justice
[x][Secondary] Change Policy - Balanced

Well. That's a clusterfuck of poorly considered plans we've got there.

Not spending any econ, because I'd rather not risk dropping econ below zero from a bad admin roll.

Switching to Balanced lets our provinces act usefully and flexibly, especially important because it means their actions aren't being directed by an administrative incompetent.

Black Soil + Enforce Justice might well bring some of our existing caste-nonsense to light, and without Ancestral Deeds claiming that your ancestors being half-exiles means you should be one, we might actually push back against that tendency of our civ.

Entirely unsurprised that people are chasing the hero-generation shiny without consideration for the long-term consequences.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
So instead of taking the option that would give us overflow on Martial, Diplo and econ you decide to leave it up to the provinces to decide?

Why?

Because of an 'Administrative Incompetant' who only has below average, not even mediocre, you are overemphasising the issue massively
 
[X] [Value] Spread value (+Hero Generation)
[X] [Main] Black Soil
[X] [Secondary] Enforce Justice
[X] [Secondary] Change Policy: Balanced
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top