Well, the sole danger of the taiga is the climate, which would be manageable after a few turns. Horse nomads don't exist in taiga, and the locals are primitive enough that they are not even a nuisance. Furthermore trade posts manage themselves.
What am getting at is that the far north post would be beneficial if we decide to focus inwards.
And
@veekie regarding the tied up actions and costs. A war would have similar results if it breaks. True it depends on the dice, but so does the Northern weather.
The Far North Trade Post is counter-beneficial. Like, even WITH the Trelli and mercenary armies, it's still the more risky and costly option, while simultaneously committing all the resources we need to fight piracy.
It's simply insane, I wouldn't have had nearly this much opposition if the rival platform was East or Form Mercenaries, which while less effective, is at least not actively self-defeating.
ETA Plus, if we create the east trading post, the Trelli will likely leave it alone, yes? And then we can take the opportunity to make a second mercenary company using our new salt Wealth, and that will put us in a much stronger position.
Nope. Read the update. The Trelli would have similar chances of attacking it, the main difference is that it's right next to Hatvalley so they can't blockade it.
I don't expect a slugging match, I expect a blitz.
Hiring lots of mercs for one turn to utterly smash a threat is a very feasible strategy, and threatening their tin would give them ample cause to press their own exterminatus button.
By the way
@veekie, have you considered that if the Trelli take serious offense and launch a large-scale assault to protect their tin supply, we risk
losing the Red Banner?
I have to call bullshit here.
The Red Banner are probably hard enough to take them, but the Trelli are much closer and it would be difficult to support a post that far out. If you got blockaded things could get very dicey, especially if the Trelli brought in extra tribes for support.
Word of AN is they're probably going to lose to the Red Banner.
Yes with
all their
current mercenaries.
The risk lies in a blockade, which we counter with Build Ships(Greenshore, Western Wall and Hatvalley will contribute as well), and that they might hire additional tribes to attack, which makes their ability to sustain such a war even lower, but would require likely forming another Merc company to deploy to counter.
However, in a blockade scenario, the Trelli are also losing significant amounts of wealth every turn, so it's basically playing chicken, especially if we sent some aid to the West Trade Post in the first turn before they realized they need to use a blockade instead of raids. Does the Trade post fall before they run out of money?
Fighting a blockade will probably require innovation in boat design, although it will also massively accelerate the process. Support Subordinate may be blocked or intercepted by a blockade of sufficient strength.
And here, we're specifically getting a boat innovation speed boost while they do so, coupled to Love of Wisdom.
Their immediate neighbours work for them. Those that didn't were wiped out by those that hired on, sold off to the Saffron Islands, Khemetri, and Tin Tribes, their land brought under Trelli control or gifted to their mercs as a reward.
Typical enough, though does the bolded mean that they're forming Marches?
In the immediate term, the western post doesn't do anything to prepare us, though?
Long term, it could somewhat interfere with their tin supply, but all that means in the short term is, war becomes far more likely.
I'm still in favor of building boats and an extra mercenary company. That's as much as any plan can prepare IMO.
In the immediate term, it gives us a staging point near them at a strategic location. It means instead of dealing with raids all along the black sea, you're going to see more focused raiding directed at one spot, which is easier to protect. At the same time, this is a really poor time for the Trelli to turn their attention to the Black Sea, so it's tactically a bad idea for them to attack right now unless they know how well the Ymaryn fight(which they don't, because they've never seen us fight before)
In the mid term, it locks up the Trelli mercenaries and drains their wealth. We're WoG likely going to handle the blitz just fine, the real difficulty lies in a blockade, which would basically stall Trelli expansion while they wreck their own wealth
The ones loyal to them they hire out to make money, the ones loyal to club they keep under more direct control to secure the local area and raid for slaves.
Figures. Wouldn't that put them in a sticky spot if their hire opportunities run out?
Also how many loyal ones are they supporting with their prestige anyway?
For the matter, how does a slave raid work mechanically?
They switch them out when someone can no longer afford their services, which sometimes is to someone else, but again, they get the idea enough to not let the mercs that might be able to be bought out anywhere near anyone who might be able to buy them out. Hostages are often also involved, in that they will keep the families of mercs out campaigning for them "safe" in the comforts of Trelli.
Pretty typical means of control, both bribe and threat.
