I'm focusing more on how it would affect our culture in the long run. I doubt this would give us a Game Over unless the Random Number Goddess gives us the middle finger again.
Raiding the lowlands would/could reduce our population from the attack on its own, like if it fails or something. But if it succeeds, then we'd get rid of a problem and get a boost of food.
The sacrifice i will never agree to, unless its to throw them at a problem that WOULD get them killed, but at the same time COULD get returns. The volcano i dont see much point besides some opportnity and some religion. And i still think the sea people should be befriended, not raided.
Generosity seems like it would go well with our current traits so it might give something later.
I also doubt we'd Game Over, but the very element you quoted presented a dangerous possible penalty for throwing all of our food into a bottomless pit; that our numbers dwindle to the point that we have to take on lots of culturally foreign people to make up the difference, and won't have the same sheer numbers to assimilate them with. I was worried that if we blew all our food we'd lose major cultural components or weaken them severely due to being rough equals with multiple immigrant groups.
Also you seem to be under the impression that I'm saying Religion is Bad, everyone who believe is Evil. I'm not. I just want to play a civ that doesn't have it and offered alternative to what could replace it's functions.
Sure, no source, just the parts where the tribe takes it as divine mandate to be proper caretakers of the land. If you don't see the religious influence in the previous posts I have nothing to say.
I know that's not what you're saying, but you are claiming that basically nothing we've done has any religious overtones or influence thus far, as though the tribe is already some paragon of rationalist thought; which is obviously false just looking at the writing elements of every single update since the thread opened. If you were to push away from religious thought, it will not magically work the way you want it to. A civ at this level of development cannot replace religious influence with something else (if it can even succeed, given how wildly meta the concept of being a-religious is in the time period) and expect to grow on par with it's neighbors. It simply will not work.
Quickly, we must seize the butter reserves, or all hope of Baked victory is lost! To preserve morale, I've brought Back-Up Brownies (only use in case of emergency).
If possibly, we should also capture the cheese silos, for extra deliciousness.
Also you seem to be under the impression that I'm saying Religion is Bad, everyone who believe is Evil. I'm not. I just want to play a civ that doesn't have it and offered alternative to what could replace it's functions.
If you have no idea that this is one of the reasons why you get a good sword or a bad one, its pretty easy to get superstitious.
Also...
But yeah, you need an intellectual caste to be able to open up philosophy, which requires a large number of precedents. Math can come from administrative purposes, but there's a lot of other things that are going to be tied up in mysticism first.
You are essentially, going for getting bronze before you have copper or tin.
The alternatives mentioned arose from the development of a spiritual caste to produce the prerequsites for the abstract thought and reasoning to move from survival and food oriented to finding causes.
This is not outright impossible, but we've already taken multiple choices that block off the development of a disproportionately rich and idle class of people who might figure it out on their idle time(rather than the priesthood's rather more motivated efforts to try to know how to influence the spirit world and greater forces)
This is not outright impossible, but we've already taken multiple choices that block off the development of a disproportionately rich and idle class of people who might figure it out on their idle time(rather than the priesthood's rather more motivated efforts to try to know how to influence the spirit world and greater forces)
eh, I just remembered my answer to a question history teacher once asked.
What is the most important thing for a civilization?
I wonder if any of you can give the same answer.
eh, I just remembered my answer to a question history teacher once asked.
What is the most important thing for a civilization?
I wonder if any of you can give the same answer.
You can see the spirits effect upon the world if only you Look, You think the drought was mere happenstance? that the lowlanders ways are not offensive to the beyond?
Can we drop the religion argument for now? It BUGS me, mostly because this is one of those "no good answers" arguments. Like Transhumanism, or Waifus. We could argue about it for ages and not get anywhere (unless faith and magic are real in-quest, in which case... we're probably still not missing out on much, purely because we'd probably have to dig deep to get at the good stuff).
I agree that we haven't actually seen whether magic exists and whether or not it will affect us. Considering that the spirit expedition vote seems to have won based on what AN said, we might find out.
I also doubt we'd Game Over, but the very element you quoted presented a dangerous possible penalty for throwing all of our food into a bottomless pit; that our numbers dwindle to the point that we have to take on lots of culturally foreign people to make up the difference, and won't have the same sheer numbers to assimilate them with. I was worried that if we blew all our food we'd lose major cultural components or weaken them severely due to being rough equals with multiple immigrant groups.
Sure, no source, just the parts where the tribe takes it as divine mandate to be proper caretakers of the land. If you don't see the religious influence in the previous posts I have nothing to say.
I know that's not what you're saying, but you are claiming that basically nothing we've done has any religious overtones or influence thus far, as though the tribe is already some paragon of rationalist thought; which is obviously false just looking at the writing elements of every single update since the thread opened. If you were to push away from religious thought, it will not magically work the way you want it to. A civ at this level of development cannot replace religious influence with something else (if it can even succeed, given how wildly meta the concept of being a-religious is in the time period) and expect to grow on par with it's neighbors. It simply will not work.
Too late on that front. Religion is the predominant force driving our gardener philosophy, as well as the moral backer for our justice policy. It's just not religion as we see it today.
This sounds like BS. Please quote something from a passage citing how our morals/philosophy and regard for the land stems from religion. No quote = bs. And yes, I could look it up myself, but you're the one who said it as if it's true.
I kind of think assimilating a bunch of people of different cultures would be interesting, tbh. It would ruin the experiment thus far, but whatever.
You keep saying that we cannot replace religious influence with something else, and we keep not believing you. I agree that religious approaches to interpreting nature are widespread - occurring in a number of the story posts, if in a way that seems decreasingly intense - and more or less "essential" to the early human experience (especially if you look at studies of anthropomorphization), but that does not mean alternative ways of thinking cannot be developed. All it would take is an apple falling onto someone's head and that person being thinking, "I'm not important enough for spirits to harass; what if there's a different reason behind it, a mechanical one?" And then going on to examine nature around them and tell their thoughts to others and prove it through some apparent relationship that is different from what is known. Kami are a way of having our cake and eating it too, if we put it right. Aka, each item behaves according to its nature, and that nature can be learned. The Kami have rules and customs, and etc. It's religious but not intensely so, to the point of an actual religion. But your whole schtick is that religion is ~!!NECESSARY!!~ for culture, art, literacy, etc. It is not, though it may be a fast route to it.
Even if spirits exist, they do not seem to be discerning in their punishment, they do not hold to our ideal of Eye for Eye. They will receive no tribute from us. We will thrive and die by our own hand
Or they simply aren't omniscient. We haven't done anything to signal that we exist after all. Every turn has had chances to poke the spirits and see what shakes out and instead we have stayed silent. For all they know maybe the slave taking culture is all that is left out here.
Keeping in mind that aristocrats are often QUITE busy, they're not idle much as fiction and folk tales of the lower classes depict them that way. Aristocrats need to maintain loyalty(whichever the means, they need to at least stay above the threshold for people to listen to them, whether by military, cultural, economic or diplomatic means), they spend a great deal of their time administrating, dealing with the designs of other nobles upon their resources, etc.
The idle philosophical noble is a transient thing, dependent upon having plenty of resources, large noble families(the discerning mind would notice that expansive noble families will rapidly deplete a surplus of resources in generations), a lack of external threats AND a lack of accessible opportunities to expand into.
It was hard. It was so very hard, and yet at the end of the day the Big Man put his foot down and said, "We trust that the rains will return, that only those fated to die will do so, and that we need not hurry along the process along... even by refusing those in need what little can be spared. We will, however, save as much as we can by staying put, not making an extravagant gambles on this."
There was disagreement. There was squabbling and fighting and violence. People within and without the tribe killed each other over scraps of bread to try to feed friends and family wasting away. Travellers arrived hearing of supplies of grain and found that despite the fact that there was barely any to share, they could still get a pittance. People wept and wailed and suffered. Fall turned to winter and the weather was perturbed and uncertain. The equinox passed and thin clouds taunted the people. Thin warriors guarded the storehouses and the chiefs from emaciated people all too eager to get at the remaining supplies. The most vulnerable had all died already and the older children and younger elders were next on the list, and the people knew that if the rains didn't come then maybe one clan would survive.
What fools they had been to trust that the rains would come and that they could afford to be charitable!
They could feel it, they could feel the skeletal presence of death among their ranks, bony fingers flaking away the flint of his sickle with hideous taps. The crop was well tended to, and now it was time to reap what had been sown.
Hunger beyond the mere physical began to gnaw upon the souls of the people. Their Big Man was useless, had done nothing to try to undo all of this, and had just given their food away! He... he was going to take the remaining food and run away, leave them all to starve, wasn't he? They had to get to the food, had to save their families before someone else got there first! Someone noticed that someone else had a rock, what for was unknown, but soon enough people knew that they needed rocks of their own, for self-defence if nothing else.
The warriors tightened their grips on their own spears and clubs. They had better weapons, training, and were only on a third their usual rations rather than the slowly murderous ones of everyone else. People eyed each other warily, hungrily, and knew that the only thing keeping it from immediately exploding was the fact that the first person to strike was almost assuredly dead.
Someone cried out in shock and outrage and the crowd drew in a collective breath as it prepared to strike itself like a maddened serpent biting its own tail, but before that breath could be released as the rabid death scream of a people, that first voice trailed off in confusion of all things. Confusion and then excited, agitated shouting, but not the anger that people expected. A cry went up, a chant.
"Not spit! Not spit! Not spit!"
The chorus made no sense to those further out, until they too started to understand as fat but sparsely spread drops of rain started to fall. The almost riot quickly broke down as the people collapsed into grateful sobs, the rain painting their faces with the tears they no longer had in them.
The rains that year were late and weak, but they came. The harvest was poor, but it was. And the channels and cisterns and forests were all there to catch every last drop, and to slow down the water flowing over the dry soil and keep a blessing from becoming a curse. It was a hard year, a lean year, a year without births, but rations could be increased just a little bit and stockpiles increased.
And with the coming of the next winter, the skies grew darker than they had been in years, and the people knew that the worst was over, for now.
And with the conclusion of the first decent rain in years, came travellers seeking the people not for food or shelter, but something more, something different. Dressed in extravagantly dyed cloth and carrying great canoes over the hills, they were pointed out as being from the fishers to the west by those who had travelled the trails with the traders before. Their presence was strange, but despite the natural wariness of large numbers of foreign men showing up out of the blue, there was some degree of hopeful wonder about what these men wanted.
A man who was probably a chief of some sort - possibly an heir or sub-chief since he probably wasn't their Big Man - approached with a friendly hand raised and a bundle held in the other. Wondering what this was about, the Big Man approached with his own warriors watching out for him and said in the blended tongue of the traders, "Who are you and what business have you?"
"I am of the Sea People, and I come bearing a gift for your people and request," the man said, holding out the bundle for inspection.
Curious, the Big Man approached to examine the bundle, which was a leather wrapped clay pot, that at the other man's prompting was carefully opened to reveal the pot was full of the powdered shell the village was famous for, used for creating the bright red-violet dye that was so prized among every tribe that knew of the village. The sea chief lowered his head at the Big Man's flabbergasted expression and said, "News of your remarkable generosity has reached our ears and has shamed us. We gather the shells while doing other fishing, and we couldn't really catch fish any faster than we could, but with the drought's passing and your story... we gathered together a full season's worth of dye, shamefully gathered when you were starving and we were merely hungry."
The Big Man tried to find the words, before he hung his head as well and said, "Just because we gave grain does not mean we did not send people to their deaths..."
"But you had nothing and you still tried," the foreign man replied, shameful tears upon his cheeks. "And now... now perhaps the curse turns upon us for our greed. The sea seems intent on turning against us for our harvest of its bounty... we come here for many reasons. To thank those who had nothing for their charity, to atone for our own sins, and to ask for your help."
Deciding that this situation ran deeper than he initially thought, the Big Man nodded and summoned his people forward to take the precious, precious gift and to prepare a limited feast to welcome these visitors. Eventually the full nature of the visit is made clear. Not only did they feel compelled to apologize for inadequate action during the drought, but now the fishers are having troubles of their own in the form of storms... an ironic punishment from the spirits perhaps. While there was some direct danger from boats being caught out on the sea during a bad storm or from a house being blown over, the real danger from the fact that the storms were changing the coast, changing the local currents and how to best harvest the fish. They were adapting as best they could, but when they looked at the shores and banks and saw the water cutting them away, all they could think of was of the charitable people of the valley who had mastered mud and water.
They needed help. They needed forgiveness. They needed friends.
They needed your people.
And help they would receive, but how much would be difficult to judge. The rains were still poor in comparison to previous years and there was an intense fear that they might fail again, and that while previous actions had been correct, preventative action might be in order, especially now that they wouldn't be risking mass starvation if things went poorly. A journey to the spirit talkers to get confirmation that their actions had soothed the anger of the spirits was a suggestion. Organizing a punitive action against the lowlanders was definitely high on the list of things to do... although there were also strong voices that if the behaviour of the lowlanders had triggered all of this and charity had solved it, launching a punitive expedition could very well anger the spirits once more. Then there was a suggestion that in terms of preventative action they should have something suitably established for appeasing the spirits closer to home instead of requiring a massive expedition in order to make a meaningful contribution.
Choose an expedition...
[] Fishing village
[] Spirit talkers
[] Lowlanders
[] Stay home, build monument
Dedicate Place to Spirits - The people have increasingly much to be thankful for, and while individual observations of respect for the supernatural continues, perhaps something more grand to represent the group as a whole is required
Establish Annual Festival - People already like to celebrate at certain times of the year, but with the level of control over food distribution a new and particularly lavish festival can be established
Expand Settlement - The community grows at the rate of births, but deliberately bringing more land under cultivation will lead to more food and thus more people faster than without intervention
Expand Warriors - More men can be inducted into the ranks of the warriors every year and not face major food shortfalls
Expand Managed Forests - The forests atop the hills surrounding your valley are now an integral part of your water management system as well as providing materials and the occasional bit of game. Expanding onto the back side of the hills can only bring more benefit
Organize Settlement - Because everyone contributes to the whole, the borders of fields could be reworked. Perhaps a similar principle can be applied to the buildings in which people dwell [Pre-King]
Step-Farms - Bringing the irrigation systems to its limit, the hills can be sculpted into a series of steps, each step supporting a farm plot, the run off from a higher farm irrigating the farms lower down [Gardeners][Pre-King]
Support Fishers - The fishing village is having problems, lending assistance will improve relations and will likely have additional benefits
Trade Expeditions - Instead of simply storing surplus during the good times, carrying it to other tribes to trade for exotic items will improve the quality of life of the people
Choose a Major Project
[] Dedicate Place to Spirits
[] Establish Annual Festival
[] Expand Settlement
[] Expand Warriors
[] Expand Managed Forests
[] Organize Settlement
[] Step-Farms
[] Support Fishers
[] Trade Expeditions
Actually, I think we're staying, and just really hoping that being nice to our neighbors will convince the spirits that we are a kind, generous people, who really don't deserve to be starved to death.
This sounds like BS. Please quote something from a passage citing how our morals/philosophy and regard for the land stems from religion. No quote = bs. And yes, I could look it up myself, but you're the one who said it as if it's true.
Meh, I think the issue is if you want to make a distinction between "culture" and "religion". If you make that distinction, than their isn't much evidence no. But if you shrug and accept that there isn't much difference at this stage of development, than it becomes something of a self-evident truth from the "Caretakers of the Land" trait.
Either way, this is becoming a trite argument, and choosing a Potato Side would be more productive than continuing to debate whether or not religion currently exists.
EDIT: NINJA UPDATE!~
[X] Fishing village
Keep the Generosity flowing!
[X] Support Fishers
ALL THE GENEROSITY!
Okay, I'ma say:
[x] Fishing Village.
[x] Support Fishers
Let's help them by figuring out their problem and then solving it. Aka realizing that the lack of rain has fucked up the rivers and that what we need to do is build dams and channels to help reduce the effect of floods.
