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Paths of Civilization

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[X] Bring them back in line (Increases Centralization if successful, decreases stability if not)
[X] Join the Western Confederacy
[X] Spirit Talkers (Probably spiritual based)
 
zamin said:
- They seem mighty interested in our grains. Are our plants especially larger or healthier compared to theirs?
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We've spent 10 generations aggressively making sure that our crops have plenty of rich soils and water. Our grain are thus selected for ease of harvesting and quality of the grain, while the Spirit Talkers are working with varieties adapted for frequent drought conditions.

In other words, our grains are likely to be much fatter than theirs.

zamin said:
- A "knuckle" of warriors? That's interesting. They're already dividing warriors into small squads under individual leaders
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From the sound of it, they got an early officer model there yeah. One leader, six followers, compared to our more general warparties.

Which is dangerous, since that allows them to micro their berserkers to better effect that way. They probably came up with the idea to use their numbers more effectively when they were putting down the civil strife from starvation. Big warparties are pretty useless for convincing rioting people to stop without killing them.
zamin said:
Ok, from what I can tell, the ST warriors are berserkers of some kind. The synchronized chanting and diluted pupils point to some kind of self-inflicted trance or hypnotism. For someone who isn't used to it, they must be terrifyingly fierce and strong. However, they do have a few weaknesses.
- They needed time to work themselves up into a trance. Hitting them by surprise could interrupt or even prevent them from going berserk in the first place
- Their tactics are limited to "charge towards the nearest enemy while screaming at the top of our lungs". Again, pants-shittingly terrifying if you're not prepared for it. However, they seem unused to working with ranged units (note that our archers had to stop firing in order to avoid hitting them). Our walls and ranged units might be able to counter them if needed
- Their tactics appear to be high-risk, high-reward. They were all injured in the fighting, though only one of them died. Their berserk state may allow them to ignore or shrug off minor injuries, though severe wounds will still kill them
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Also don't forget their battle masks are face armor. Which means no worries about an arrow or spear to the head blinding them from bloodloss or the like.

If they had more wood available, I expect them to start coming up with more elaborate wood paneling armor
zamin said:
First off, our Diplomacy has dropped slightly, but in exchange we've gained two points of Economy, which is excellent. Our stability is still at 0, which I'm not happy about, while our Centralization has dropped slightly. Also, our Art and Mysticism have both gone up to 6, which is something I never thought would happen.
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Diplomacy seems to be the effect of taking in the Nomads, as they are hugely unpopular with everyone after all those raids. Economy should be 1 point each for the Hill Folk and the Nomads.

Art and Mysticism should be imported from the Spirit Talkers.
zamin said:
No changes here, which is strange. I kinda expected that our Artists or Entertainers would have upgraded after the Festival. On the plus side, we have a few shiny new traits to play with!
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Eh, these things take time. We'll wait and see how well the culture develops.
zamin said:
On the other hand, Land of Opportunity basically turns us into Stone Age elf America, which is hilariously awesome. The only problem is that we're kinda expected to take in refugees now, though the fact that we can now profit whenever one of our neighbors collapses offsets this somewhat. The con that "many think you weak" is also kinda annoying, but if anyone decides to attack us they'll learn very quickly that we're not a pushover.
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Note that the trait suggests that we can choose how many to take in. Probably along the lines of:
-Take None - Stability hit.
-Take Some - Economy hit.
-Take All - Economy boost, technology boost, free settlement, stability hit.
Neptune said:
The trait says if our neighbors suffer a stability drop we can take one as well and get economy, technology and social advancement. I wonder though if we can actually inflict that stability hit on another polity with war for example, then once their threat to us is limited activate Land of Opportunity. We wouldn't want to do this on peaceful neighbors as it'd likely hit our harmony value, but on more warlike and aggressive nearby polities it seems like a pretty fantastic combination.

Hell, there's even better synergy as the more warlike and aggressive neighbors will see land of opportunity and activate the con of it, thinking that we are weak. They would then be more inclined to attack us, Shapers of the Land will gives us bonuses on the defense while Prospective Justice will also be activated enabling us to go after them once we've fought them off initially. We then raise an army with our sheer population and bonus to collective actions, go and inflict stability hits to them, then activate Land of Opportunity to assimilate them and expand even further while learning any good technologies they possessed and getting an economy boost.
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Well...nothing too strange there.

Considering we just did exactly that. We ate the nomads pretty much by favoring the defending party and then assimilating both.
bluefur87 said:
Oh, and one of the things I really want to do next turn is new trails. It will help us exert our influence on the Western Confederacy and we really need to do that so we can take that sweet sweet river land. I think we'll probably end up absorbing them piecemeal though.
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If we're joining the war, then I think it should be something like:
[Main] Expand Pastures
[Secondary] Expand Trails
[Secondary] War Mission

Which allows us to bring a fair sized raiding force down to the lowlands.
Considering our best way to fight there involves heavy usage of war carts, we need to Expand Trails to get there, and Expand Pastures...mostly so our warriors aren't so scrawny from a poor diet, and also to provide more work animals to transport supplies to the theater.

ctulhuslp said:
I'd rather send trade mission to look for the source of gold, which means nomads, or source of textiles WC have, which means trade mission to WC.
Also, I still want shrines+study forests for writing and generally lore.
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The gold is to the west. Which is kind of mostly water. The land route crosses the nomad raid clusterfuck, so not a good way to transport gold. Go for Fishing boost until we have better ships, then set sail for the unknown up the coast to find it
Hangwind said:
I am very confused with how things are going to shake out if we a adopt a ST value but ally with the WC.
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Our shaman saw some of what they were doing in their place and after some discussion looted an idea?
Arbit said:
The ST also might have a quartz/gold lode somewhere in their hills. The pieces our trader brought back point towards such a deposit. Of course they'd need to find it first and how to mine it.

It could all be pyrite though. Still on the meta level conservation of detail is a thing.
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The description is native sulfur crystals in quartz

A cloudy white to yellow crystal with yellow to white inclusions, which are often associated with sulfurous springs(which lines up with the humidity and heat of the cave)

Hangwind said:
@Academia Nut why isn't our Justice trait activating against the ST? Them messing with the dead is pretty strongly against our cultural mores.
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But they are Just as far as our people know. The taboo against the dead did cause some consternation, but ultimately the sheer number of the dead, displayed respectfully, and nobody getting sick, indicates the spirits were okay with it.

godofsmallthings said:
If our war carts are gonna be used primarily on infantry, then Scythed chariots would be useful innovation to have.
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No metal to make blades with.
 
Would it be possible to support both the Spirit Talkers and Confederacy if we devote enough focus on war?
 
We are still at stability zero. This is not good, folks, last turn we had it drop momentarily and we had chiefs turning to corruption. We desperately need to raise this stat if we are going to use/deal with Land of Opportunity.
 
bookwyrm said:
Would it be possible to support both the Spirit Talkers and Confederacy if we devote enough focus on war?
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Considering the Spirit Talkers want the Confederacy wiped out a little less than they want to do to the Dead Priests( I suspect one of their traits is at work here because it's illogical save for wanting a landgrab)

pbluekan said:
We are still at stability zero. This is not good, folks, last turn we had it drop momentarily and we had chiefs turning to corruption. We desperately need to raise this stat if we are going to use/deal with Land of Opportunity.
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No easy option for it on a war turn except to make sure our economy is high and the war goes well since people bitch less when well fed and winning. Or hoping the Spirit Talkers' trait helps.

If we weren't directly involved, Expanding the Spirit places and studying the forest would go a long way towards finding something good for it. It's fun how a little bit of food flavoring buys you a lot of patience
 
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[X] Bring them back in line (Increases Centralization if successful, decreases stability if not)
[X] Join the Western Confederacy
[X] Northern nomads (Probably honour based)
 
Hangwind said:
I'm actually expecting lances or javelins to be our next upgrade.
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Those really need metal to be effective though. Our next step there is spear throwers...which we'd never devise because we already have the recurve bow.

But archers on war carts are going to be pretty evil to fight.
As long as our warriors get as well muscled as the neighbors, those can drive an arrow a fuckhuge range.
 
veekie said:
The description is native sulfur crystals in quartz

A cloudy white to yellow crystal with yellow to white inclusions, which are often associated with sulfurous springs(which lines up with the humidity and heat of the cave)
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Flecked inclusion. That doesn't look like sulfur in quartz.
Compare your picture:
With those:


They look more like the described mineral.
Arbit said:
Possibly quartz with gold inclusion. The presence of pyrite is another clue for that, since gold is often found together with quartz or sulfide sulfide minerals. Which pyrite is.

Of course it could also be pyrite inclusions in quartz. They look quite similar.
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Also AN rated the above post insigithful, for what's it worth.
 
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Hmm, it could be that they have some mining going on. And if so getting gold out of the Spirit Talkers would be very interesting.
 
For those worried about stability 0, do remember that AN didn't put it up originally specifically to avoid the reactions that people are having right now. Stability 0 isn't bad, I think, and even dropping to stability -1 is pretty survivable.
 
veekie said:
Those really need metal to be effective though. Our next step there is spear throwers...which we'd never devise because we already have the recurve bow..
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Actually, proper javelins have existed since the late paleolithic era. And plenty of cultures have developed both, mostly because the idea of a weapon that can be both melee and ranged is very attractive.
 
Citino said:
For those worried about stability 0, do remember that AN didn't put it up originally specifically to avoid the reactions that people are having right now. Stability 0 isn't bad, I think, and even dropping to stability -1 is pretty survivable.
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Our current traits convert centralisation into stability to bring it back to 0, this is fine untill we run out of centralisation, and our civ collapses and fractures.
 
Citino said:
For those worried about stability 0, do remember that AN didn't put it up originally specifically to avoid the reactions that people are having right now. Stability 0 isn't bad, I think, and even dropping to stability -1 is pretty survivable.
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Yeah Stabiliy 0 is supposed to be the norm, meaning that the society is stable and is working perfectly. Trying to keep it above 0 is basically saying that people want the people to be harmonious to an impossible degree.
 
Citino said:
For those worried about stability 0, do remember that AN didn't put it up originally specifically to avoid the reactions that people are having right now. Stability 0 isn't bad, I think, and even dropping to stability -1 is pretty survivable.
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Stability -1 is likely what got us our current issue of corrupt chiefs. And even then it was only temporary.
 
Note that one of the big reasons both the Western Confederation and the Spirit Talkers want us on their side is because we have a big cavalry force compared to everyone else.

While they might have a few of their own, we're the only ones who can mass produce war carts due to our easy access to good quality wood. Apart from the nomads (who are too busy killing each other to care about the Dead Priests) we're also the only group who's got experience using war carts in battle.

Whoever we join is going to have a strong advantage over the other two groups, which is why they both want to make sure we're fighting on their side.
 
[X] Delegate further responsibilities to the local chiefs (Changes government type to Central Oligarchy)
[X] Stay out of it
[X] Northern nomads (Probably honour based)
 
[X] Bring them back in line (Increases Centralization if successful, decreases stability if not)
[X] Join the Western Confederacy
[X] Northern nomads (Probably honour based)
 
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