[X][Main] New Trails
[X][Main] New Trails x2
[X][Secondary] Expand Forests
[X][Policy] Offensive
[X][RB] Rest, restores strength
[X][Wonder] Library
-[X][Wonder] Valleyhome
Provinces – [Main] War Mission - Highlanders x2, [Main] War Mission – Lowlander Support
Stallions – [Main] Expand Econ, [Sec] Art Patronage, [Sec] Study Stars
Western – [Main] Transfer Province, [Main] Expand Snail Production, [Sec] Expand Econ, [Sec] Art Patronage, [Sec] Survey
Greenshore – [Main] More Boats, [Main] Build Wall
Hatvalley – [Main] War Mission - Highlanders, [Main] Build Walls
Heaven's Hawk – [Main] Expand Warriors x2
Lowland Minors – [Main] War Mission – Swamp Folk, [Main] New Settlement – Far East Redhills
The wars in the south had exposed several problems to the People and the king after Phygrif, notably that movements of troops and supplies could become painfully slow during a major fight. The trails needed improving, needed a lot of improving, and simply maintaining them wasn't going to be enough. They needed widening, to be made less meandering where possible, for gravel to be laid down as much as possible. As it was, even despite an enormous amount of effort being invested in the project they only managed to uncover just how deep the problems went. It did however improve many of the main trails, allowing for more contact with the furthest parts of the kingdom, which helped prompt the Western Wall to move one of their internal provinces more fully under the administration of the king - they needed to reorganize to account for their own spread anyway. The practice of laying out trails was also considerably improved as builders from the cities went out to work on the roads in large numbers and applied skills for erecting truly tall buildings to the task.
Unfortunately, laying out the roads also began to expose a number of other issues, namely that somewhere along the lines the tax code had become a tangled mess. The tremendous stress of dealing with the weather had either caused or masked the issues, but now they were starting to bubble forth unpleasantly. Essentially, the emergence of currency was disrupting how taxes were taken and good were distributed. Many leaders had switched to giving out luxuries as currency because people would swap that around anyway when they weren't interested in their current allotment of materials, but this was playing merry havoc with assessing taxes. Beyond that, there were also many who were paying others to do their work quotas for them, viewing their regular occupations as being more worth their time. Again, this was playing merry havoc with assessing taxes and figuring out if anyone was hording goods. Old laws mandating certain quotas and assessment were also utterly lacking in dealing with the presence of new goods and the fact that with deeper external and internal trade people could leverage internal differentials to generate wealth without actually doing anything. Even traders had to move things from Point A to Point B, this was more like shuffling tablets around and forcing the king to pay you for proving that one tablet had higher numbers than the other.
Unfortunately, the standard adjustments to the law didn't seem to be the sort of thing that would fix this. A fundamental overhaul of how things were thought about was needed, because there were new ways of living and doing things that the old laws could not account for, and trying to just put them in just kept giving nonsense results.
New Status: Tax reform needed - Lose 1-3 Wealth per turn until complete The Law (Iron Age) megaproject. Prereqs to unlock: The Census?, Grand Palace?
And speaking of law, the lowlanders were proving to be a major headache. They had a vast number of grudges against their neighbours, and since they had been absorbed as entire communities all at once via military force rather than in crisis they also weren't entirely keen on actually adopting the laws of the People, and were repeatedly asking if they could just pay some sort of tribute to the king instead. Given that the only thing they had of significant value was their own population, this was a definite problem. They were also only paying lip service to a number of laws, such as the prohibition on slavery had resulted in what amounted to a name change rather than any change in behaviour.
A big part of it was that the local priests from the lowlands had all learned at the feet of the Xohyssiri and simply carried themselves differently and the People didn't quite know how to deal with them. The priests of the People argued and debated and tried to divine the secrets and intentions of the gods through careful study of the world. The priests of the lowlanders simply declared something to be so with such utter faith and conviction that it was hard to argue against them, and their certainty was definitely inspiring. Where the People had definite answers they crushed the foreign priests in debate, frequently leaving them speechless with demonstrations of magic, but the world was so mysterious that they frequently had to give ground in the face of unyielding belief. While this was an issue in their own territory where it was a rallying point for political issues, it actually got considerably more attention in Valleyhome where the Red Banner Company was spending a few years recovering their strength. With years of campaigning in the south and numerous brides taken in war, they had picked up a number of traits from their hosts, and the bloody minded gods from the south had followed them home. The confidence of the priests and the way the gods of the lowland seemed to speak to a warrior's life had earned many converts, and the general themes of self-sacrifice, community, and working for greater things resonated strongly with the People. While obviously human sacrifice was out, there were many who worried that the the fact that the lowlanders had a conspicuously higher number of "criminal" executions might leak further north.
The priests obviously wanted the influences of the foreign gods stamped out, but given all the troubles the People had been having, the king was having a hard time justifying the degree of disruption it would likely cause, especially if it had to be paired with the troublesome new people under their protection.
How to deal with foreign gods?
[] [RA] Stamp down on all of this (-2 Stability, +2 Religious Authority)
[] [RA] Increase debates to determine the truth (-2 to +2 Religious Authority based on success of debates, potential shift in Spiritual Values)
[] [RA] The correct gods will make themselves known (-1 Religious Authority, potential shift in Spiritual Values)
Aside from the problem of their not obeying the law, the lowlanders also had a problem with being way too interested in fighting with their neighbours. While some of it was that the Swamp Folk and Thunder Horse seemed more interested in claiming territory or gaining vengeance for Xohyr than in having peaceful relations and that couldn't entirely be solved easily, a big part too was that the lowlanders seemed overly eager to fight and were definitely driving some of the conflict with their belligerence. There were several solutions to dealing with the issue, although there were also many problems as well, not least of which was that the lowlanders were having more than a bit of trouble with the fighting with the Swamp Folk, even with the support of the warriors of the People. This was all inflicting a cost that the People were going to have trouble with paying to support, especially as they were also taking losses fighting with the Highlanders.
That fight was going well enough in the east, but the Highlanders had proven adept fighters in their hills and as such Hatvalley was being pushed back to their walled settlements. The People could however probably force the Highlanders to submit and admit that they were wrong to attack... although many called for more intense action to punish the Highlanders for their treachery in attacking.
Also, nomads were starting to move back into the north in significant numbers, so that was something to keep an eye on, especially since more than a few had been seen riding horses as part of herding their animals and thus probably had some sort of enhanced courier system like the People.
How to deal with the lowlanders? (Pick as many as you like)
[] [Low] Force them to follow the spirit of the law (Potential stability loss, potential war with vassal)
[] [Low] Crack down on their priests (-1 Stability, potential war with vassal, potential +1 Religious authority)
[] [Low] Restrict right to wage war to defensive only (Potential stability loss, potential war with vassal)
[] [Low] Introduce black soil to improve their conditions (Teaches black soil to vassal)
[] [Low] Introduce mill technology to improve their conditions (Teaches water mill to vassal)
[] [Low] Permit their use of iron tools (Allows iron tools to be traded to vassal)
[] [Low] Send over assistance (Transfer 1 Econ + 1 Martial)
War Goals for Highlanders
[] [High] Humiliate (+1 Prestige, completes immediately)
[] [High] Extra tribute (+2 Prestige, +2 Wealth, probably completes this turn)
[] [High] Demand territory (+3 Prestige, +3 Wealth, +2 Econ, +4 Econ expansion, -1 Centralization, requires further military commitment, likely requires more actions)
[] [High] Subjugate (+5 Prestige, +5 Wealth, gain new vassal, unlikely to complete this turn)
Deploy the Red Banner
[] [RB] Remain at rest
[] [RB] Deploy north to guard against nomads
[] [RB] Deploy against Highlanders from Valleyhome
[] [RB] Deploy against Highlanders from Hatvalley
[] [RB] Deploy to assist vassal against the Swamp Folk
Trouble's brewing, how to prepare?
[] [React] Main Expand Econ
[] [React] Main Build Mills
[] [React] Main Improve Annual Festival
[] [React] Main Expand Forests
[] [React] Main Survey
You're having trouble with the management of cities, make Sacred Forest a Free City?
[] [City] Yes (Transfers 2 Econ + 2 Econ expansion, nulls cost of maintenance for Sacred Forest)
[] [City] No
Everyone else isn't coping with the weather well
[] [Refugee] Just those who come of their own initiative (Potential stab loss, +2 Econ)
[] [Refugee] Bring in a bit more than usual (-1 Stab, potential further loss, +4-5 Econ)
[] [Refugee] Encourage people to abandon their homes for you territory (-2 Stab, potential further loss, +6-8 Econ)
[] [Refugee] Let everyone know that your environment is stable (-3 Stab, potential further loss, +9-11 Econ, ???)
[] [Refugee] Bring in absolutely everyone you can (-4 Stab, potential further loss, +11-14 Econ, overcrowding, ???)
