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Paths of Civilization

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veekie said:
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So option 1 doesn't need war carts, option 3 is stupid regardless of war carts, and option 2 benefits the most from having war carts, but isn't necessarily dependant on them. Is my understanding here correct?

Option 1 is frankly the most likely one, imo.

But the problem with advocating for war carts for option 2... is that we already own some. We can already use the war carts we have as scouts and reinforcements and whatnot, the benefit to spending more on carts is that we'd equip a small army with them.

We don't need a cart-only army at any point in this war, or in any foreseeable conflict in the future. Building one will give advantages, I'm not arguing that it won't. But I don't think the advantages are worth the disadvantages for doing it now, and I don't think it's necessary for this conflict either. Helpful, yes, necessary no.

Shocking news, we're allowed to lose a fight or two.

I think step farms over war carts will be better in the long term, even if the short term conflict suffer for it. A little bit. Not this bloody slaughter some people keep going on about.
 
Stop: Yes, a moderator might end up involved
  • Staff Post
    • Powerofmind said:
    1. We never stopped them from starving. That was an entirely different group, you half-baked nutcase.
    2. We are suffering from a war. The flowery bullshit language you're using evidences your fear-mongering attitude by pretending we're on the verge of civilization collapse, and to even begin to pretend that the DP wouldn't take advantage of weakened protection evidences your apparent insanity.

    You only make my argument about your delusion easier. You believe that the RELIGIOUSLY FANATICAL MURDER CULT will not take advantage of the near-total exodus of the WC's warriors to step up raiding practices to the point that they'd depopulate several smaller settlements entirely.
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    McLuvin said:
    Gonna back, reread what I wrote, accept that I am debating and you are just having a temper tantrum because someone doesn't agree with you, something you've done before, and realise that you really need to become a nicer, more polite person.
    Because right now you're acting like a right cockhead.
    So go take a deep breath, follow my advice, come back, debate.

    Otherwise a moderator might get involved, and I know who would be to blame for this thread dying.
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    yes, a moderator might end up involved For one, @McLuvin, using the threat of moderator intervention to try to win an argument, while also condescending and insulting your opponent is not okay; it's not against any rules explicigtly, but don't do it in the future.

    Now on the other hand @Powerofmind, this kind of incivility and treatment of other posters is not okay and a breach of Rule 3 - take 25 points and a one-day vacation from the thread to cool down.

    Everyone else, take a deep breath and do your best to cool down.

    Have a good day.


    official staff communication In retrospect, my judgement here was too harsh; keep the 25 points but there is no need for the threadban.
     
  • Staff Post
    • ctulhuslp said:
    You are making it sound as if commiting war wagons will guarantee it all going well. I am not convinced this will be the case, not against the horde at its strongest possible moment and us at our possibly weakest. It may well be better to assume that we are going to lose war action this turn no matter how much we invest (because Hero+united horde + Steppes + they are ahead in technology + they are equal or ahead in numbers), and plan for the worst, building up food, shoring up economy and waiting until horde weakens in some way to strike.

    We are the weaker side here no matter how much we commit to the war, it may be better to cut losses and strike when we actually have a shot at victory.
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    We are already committing to the war, but explicit word of AN, we won't necessarily be raiding deep into the steppes, unless we choose to. We can and HAVE won engagements(or we wouldn't have the whole debate about how to best desecrate enemy corpses) with them, despite their advantages, but we've failed to do enough damage to appease Eye for an Eye.

    This is a big gamble we're already committing to.
    But there are margins of failure and margins of victory. The closer the margin, the less they gain(their culture's whole schtick is that they snowball on successful battles, the horde model is to boost Centralization every time they win a fight, and to lose it every time they lose some).

    I'm pretty sure if we fail this raid badly(as we are likely to without military improvement), we're going to be going into the fight again next generation, only with our best warriors already dead or crippled and our economy damaged from enemy raids.

    Given the economic advisor's statements on the matter, then, shoring up economy is not as critically urgent as people make it sound, precisely because we have emergency powers from a trait.

    redzonejoe said:
    So option 1 doesn't need war carts, option 3 is stupid regardless of war carts, and option 2 benefits the most from having war carts, but isn't necessarily dependant on them. Is my understanding here correct?

    Option 1 is frankly the most likely one, imo.

    But the problem with advocating for war carts for option 2... is that we already own some. We can already use the war carts we have as scouts and reinforcements and whatnot, the benefit to spending more on carts is that we'd equip a small army with them.

    We don't need a cart-only army at any point in this war, or in any foreseeable conflict in the future. Building one will give advantages, I'm not arguing that it won't. But I don't think the advantages are worth the disadvantages for doing it now, and I don't think it's necessary for this conflict either. Helpful, yes, necessary no.

    Shocking news, we're allowed to lose a fight or two.

    I think step farms over war carts will be better in the long term, even if the short term conflict suffer for it. A little bit. Not this bloody slaughter some people keep going on about.
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    And yet step farm arguments ignore that the whole war thing is about protecting our economy. They don't need to reach our land to damage our economy, which is pretty much why the economic advisor says we need military improvement. Their perspective is based on protecting our economy.
     
    [X] Skull-smashing and anonymous burial
    [X] Any who are interested may join the fight
    [X][Secondary] Step-Farms
     
    I'm hoping we get a hero unit out of this war. We do have Ancestral Heroes as a technology and multi-souled people have not been unknown since Gwygoytha.

    @Academia Nut, I'd like to note Bureaucracy as a potential Administration technology.
     
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    If we were the Elder Council and Circle of Chiefs in a Joint Emergency Session, the Opposition and the Government would already have bruises...
     
    veekie said:
    We are already committing to the war, but explicit word of AN, we won't necessarily be raiding deep into the steppes, unless we choose to. We can and HAVE won engagements(or we wouldn't have the whole debate about how to best desecrate enemy corpses) with them, despite their advantages, but we've failed to do enough damage to appease Eye for an Eye.

    This is a big gamble we're already committing to.
    But there are margins of failure and margins of victory. The closer the margin, the less they gain(their culture's whole schtick is that they snowball on successful battles, the horde model is to boost Centralization every time they win a fight, and to lose it every time they lose some).

    I'm pretty sure if we fail this raid badly(as we are likely to without military improvement), we're going to be going into the fight again next generation, only with our best warriors already dead or crippled and our economy damaged from enemy raids.

    Given the economic advisor's statements on the matter, then, shoring up economy is not as critically urgent as people make it sound, precisely because we have emergency powers from a trait.



    And yet step farm arguments ignore that the whole war thing is about protecting our economy. They don't need to reach our land to damage our economy, which is pretty much why the economic advisor says we need military improvement. Their perspective is based on protecting our economy.
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    Thing is, Pioneering does not remove instability, it only gets Centralization -> Economy out of it as far as I understand. So....

    It is a gamble either way. We gamble on either being able to counter-raid them enough to offset damage to stability (and no, it won't go away, it just won't cause infighting and the like), or on being able to tough through it one more turn, finish up blight and then hammer them with the freed up resources.
    I am honestly inclined to flip a coin at it, because it is all bunch of unknowns. Because we have no way to know whether their raids can damage us more than us not bothering to feed the people that explicitly argued last turn that our typical food safety margins are not there anymore. And we have to way to estimate it at all, only guess -
    • on one hand, they won't beat us on our home ground barring crit fails (because hills + Gardeners means they just can't attack our actual lands and hope to not die horribly), so we can definitely turtle until they eventually fracture; our spherelings may suffer, but we are fairly safe; OTOH, we can't effectively push in the steppes until they fracture, so better not waste people;
    • on the other hand, their raids on our spherelings are going to be pretty damaging, and we won't leave those unsupported, so maaybe our support for spherelings will damage us more than not feeding people;
    First option is pessimistic - it assumes we will lose if we commit into the fight too much and thus turtles and cuts losses from war parties, while assuming that offensive ones will lose anyway, while defensive ones won't benefit from the wagons all that much and are unlikely to lose.
    Second is optimistic - it assumes that wagons can be a factor big enough to overturn horde advantage on their home ground at their best and thus doubles down on the fight, sacrificing stability and centralization to do so.

    They are both gambles, I guess, but we stand to lose more with the second choice.
     
    [X] Skull-smashing and anonymous burial
    [X] Any who are interested may join the fight
    [X][Secondary] Step-Farms
     
    veekie said:
    And yet step farm arguments ignore that the whole war thing is about protecting our economy. They don't need to reach our land to damage our economy, which is pretty much why the economic advisor says we need military improvement. Their perspective is based on protecting our economy.
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    What, you mean this?
    Academia Nut said:
    Depends how low Econ goes, but generally its a 1:1 exchange between Econ and Centralization.



    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.
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    The very same post where he says we could lose more than 1 centralization, that we don't have to be suicidal in our war efforts, and that we can satisfy eye for an eye in later turns instead of fighting the entirety of the war right now?

    Yeah, his advice that "it's probably a good idea to invest in war during war" isn't exactly filling me with an urgent need to put all other concerns aside to focus on this right now, when it can wait until we're no longer on the edge.

    Imagine winning this fight without fracturing our civilisation to do it!
     
    redzonejoe said:
    Yeah, his advice that "it's probably a good idea to invest in war during war" isn't exactly filling me with an urgent need to put all other concerns aside to focus on this right now, when it can wait until we're no longer on the edge.
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    So...he explicitly says "Investing in war during war is good" and your reaction is "Let's invest in land (when our main problem is lack of manpower not lack of land)?

    WHAT?!?!?
     
    Hangwind said:
    So...he explicitly says "Investing in war during war is good" and your reaction is "Let's invest in land (when our main problem is lack of manpower not lack of land)?

    WHAT?!?!?
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    Oh my goodness hasn't this been explained yet?

    I mean, AN spelled out that we need expanded farms or fishing to stabilize economy. Both in-quest and literally in the post I quoted:

    "More Fishing, Farms (Step or Regular), or Pasture land should keep things stable."

    Why is this such a difficult concept for you?

    Obviously, I value stability and long-term victory over instability, decreased centralisation and a short term... closing the disadvantage?

    So I want to vote for the option that explicitly keeps things stable.

    You can argue your manpower shortage thing with AN.
     
    McLuvin said:
    This does seem a bit extreme

    I'm not entirely convinced a couple turns of hardship will cause mass fractures to grow in our society, especially as we have gone through such things before
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    It causes instability, decreases centralization, and... does it splinter people off to form a new settlement? If it does, that's a new settlement that is angry with us. Not a good thing.

    Remember the lowlanders, how they used to raid everybody, fight amongst each other and splinter off? There were about 6 main tribes? We got this pioneering trait from their remnants.

    So yes, I'd say fractured. Not broken, not dissolved or destroyed or whatever. Fractured. Big angry lines that require a lot of time and effort to mend.
     
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    redzonejoe said:
    Oh my goodness hasn't this been explained yet?

    I mean, AN spelled out that we need expanded farms or fishing to stabilize economy. Both in-quest and literally in the post I quoted:

    "More Fishing, Farms (Step or Regular), or Pasture land should keep things stable."

    Why is this such a difficult concept for you?

    Obviously, I value stability and long-term victory over instability, decreased centralisation and a short term... closing the disadvantage?

    So I want to vote for the option that explicitly keeps things stable.

    You can argue your manpower shortage thing with AN.
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    Because you're cherry picking what you want to hear!
    Academia Nut said:
    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.
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    He literally shoots down your stability argument right there in that post! So, are you purposely trying to mislead people or are you just incapable of admitting that you are wrong?
     
    Hangwind said:
    Because you're cherry picking what you want to hear!

    He literally shoots down your stability argument right there in that post! So, are you purposely trying to mislead people or are you just incapable of admitting that you are wrong?
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    ???

    You said manpower issue, investing in land is stupid.

    Obviously, I pointed out the part where he says investing in land keeps us stable. Because it addressed the issue you brought up.

    Now you're moving the goalposts.

    Yes, he says military investment is a good idea. Even though it'd be disruptive.

    I just finished telling you that I value stability. Dude.
     
    Nomads "not" Mongols/Assyrian
    Advantages
    Population size - there are more of them and a higher percentage are warriors
    Military - their people have more advanced military tech and slightly better warriors
    - their warriors are better fighting on the plains
    Mobility - they are faster and more mobile

    Disadvantages
    Lack of unity - in a generation or two they will split back into multiple tribes
    Poor infrastructure
    Dependent on raids


    The People tree hugging dwarfs / industrious friendly druids
    Advantages
    Soon we will finish the project against the blight, freeing up a large amount of manpower
    Defense - they lack the ability to attack any of our important areas
    - our warriors are better fighting on the defense/ in the trees, hills
    Industry - we can out produce them

    Disadvantages
    Eye for Eye - we cannot stop the fighting until we defeat them



    The two main secondaries we are debating are Step-Farms and Build War Carts

    Step-Farms build more farms, focus on victory next turn when we are in a far far better position due to finishing the Blight
    Advantages
    (technological)moves us closer to perfecting step farms, hopefully fully incorporating this turn, worst case one turn left
    if we gain war tech from the battles we can more easily implement it
    might offer better anti chariot tech
    (population)provides more food, if extremely lucky increases our numbers to match that of the Nomads
    (stability)minimizes loss to stability
    (War losses) more affordable, any carts we lose this turn is ones we are planning to replace next turn anyway
    (Cultural) matches with our defensive fighting, hard working culture
    higher chance of completing Eye for Eye next turn
    (Economy) definitely better long term and maybe short term

    Disadvantages
    (technological)no immediate improvements in war tech from this project
    (population)most gains will be long term, not now
    (War losses) slightly higher

    Build War Carts construct more of the new war carts, offers a slight chance of winning this turn at the cost of a worse situation long term
    Advantages
    (technological) if we crit success may allow us to match/exceed the Nomads' chariots
    (population) if we need to retreat(crit fail) more of our warriors will survive
    (War losses)hopefully less than not building carts
    (Cultural) higher chance of completing Eye for Eye this turn

    Disadvantages
    (technological)will be outdated soon, it is implementing our best current design, not including what we learn from fighting the Nomads
    (population)outnumbered by Nomads means weaker against a second war with Nomads
    (stability)loss to stability is certain, but hopefully affordable
    (War losses) if we lose too many we will have to spend next turn replacing them wasting a secondary project slot
    (Cultural) will upset our people more
    (Economy) weaker, hopefully by a small amount

    Basically Step Farms is risk losing battle now, win the war next turn
    Worst case easily affordable military losses[war continues for many turns], best case complete victory next turn, most likely a longer war and more dead warriors.
    Basically War Carts is possibly win battle now, risk losing in the longer term
    Worst case unaffordable centralization losses[we lose the quest], best case quicker victory, most likely a shorter war and affordable stability loss.

    Both most likely result in a loss that we can recover from, but the impact of War Carts is in my view a far worse loss. If were seriously threatened it would be worth it to sacrifice (econ, stability, centralization) for victory, but why make sacrifices we do not need to.

    Academia Nut said:
    Towns are much denser, but populations are comparable to slightly less than the larger but more loosely organized groups such as the northern nomads and Western Confederacy. The largest settlement in the local area is however the Dead Priest's central settlement, although they have a small number of secondary settlements.

    General populations are:

    Spirit Talkers < Dead Priests = The People < Northern Nomads < Western Confederacy, although the differences are currently relatively small.
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    Academia Nut said:
    Depends how low Econ goes, but generally its a 1:1 exchange between Econ and Centralization.

    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.
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    Hmm, both options are valid strategies to me, but the Step-Farms is more convincing to me. I'll keep my vote and not build more War Carts.
     
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