BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
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- Pronouns
- She/Her
Hmm...
You might be supplanting Citino as Prophet of the Thread.
Hmm...
The near future is mostly me going back to sleep... I woke up in the middle of the night here.I shall give you hugs. People need hugs after reading that update.
*hugs*
So, thoughts on the future? I find the continued quiet from the North heartening, I think the Climate Disruption did not hit the Nomads especially bad.
Which I guess is why AN was having trouble parsing the entrails.One thing that got lost in the debate on corruption is how odd the innovation was represented. Normally one would have the refugees being innovation with them. This time it just looked like sheer serendipity, it's not like there was something about the PoV character's past or present position that made her more likely to have a eureka moment.
It boils down to: why would refugees give us trip-hammers when they come from a civ that does not even have mills?
Resource | Status | Rivals |
Luxuries | ||
Amber | Known only | |
Fine Pottery | Minor | |
Fine Dye | Dominating | Trelli |
Fine Textiles | None | Swamp Folk, Trelli |
Furs | Known only | |
Gems | Dominating | Trelli, Tin Tribes, Khem (in) |
Glass | Dominating | |
Gold | Significant + minor trading (in) | Metal Workers, Khem->Trelli |
Incense | None | Khem->Trelli |
Mercury | Dominating | None |
Silver | Significant (in, needing) | MW, Trelli (in) |
Salt | Dominating | Trelli |
Spices | None | (SI+Khem)->Trelli |
Wine | Dominating | Trelli |
Strategic | ||
Copper | Leading | Highlanders, Thunder Horse, MW, Trelli |
Bronze | Minor | Trelli |
Slaves | Forbidden | MW (in), Trelli, TT |
Tin | Minor + Significant Trading | MW (in), TH (in), HK (in), Tin Tribes, Trelli->Khem |
Iron | Non-traded dominant | None |
Cultural | ||
Pilgrimage | Major Competition | Thunder Speakers |
Evolved to:Txolla (Vassals) - Foreign territory under your control, follows you in war but has own agenda (L: 4/5, D: 4/5)
The Txolla are not very happy about being converted and blocked from offensive wars, but now they're dependent on us fully again so they can't do anything about it.Txolla (Vassal-Colony) - Foreign territory under your control, follows you in war but has own agenda, restricted to expansion through settlement (L: 3/5, D: 5/5)
We're working on it, but it's a complex design!
PTSD-chan why you do this. We asked for refugees, not slaves.Nahachaphuria wasn't a person. She knew this because she had been treated like a thing for many years. A cow or pig at best in her opinion. Something to be pushed around and traded at convenience.
When she was a young woman, her father had been killed by the Txolla, and her chief had sold her and every other dependent lacking a patriarch for protection in order to secure peace.
The Txolla had then passed her along as taxes to their overlords, the Ymaryn.
Problem 1: Communications problem.Stumbling along into the lands of the Hill Folk, she had been passed around like an unwanted urn among various villages, unable to speak the language when the wizards with their magic stones explained what they were doing, instead only meekly following along. They were a strange and confusing people, and nothing was ever straightforward with them.
Transferred to Redshore I think, which we see a True City forming regardless of our opinions on the matter.Eventually she had found herself in a great settlement by a great body of water filled with salt - such a strange world the Ymaryn lived in! - and the confusion and fear gave way to grindingly mundane horrors realized.
Problem 2: System complexityShe had learned to speak the language, but where she was drowning in the waters of foreign custom, the locals navigated the currents like fish born to it all. There were so many complexities to how they did things, at some point she had just given up and allowed others to take advantage of her. It was easier than resisting.
Problem 3: A law broken by everyone is useless. A law that MUST be broken by everyone is one that encourages further lawbreakingNaha made the majority of the money she used to buy her food serving others in one of the sprawling public houses that served as food distribution centers. She was pretty sure she wasn't supposed to offer herself sexually to the miners and artisans who frequented the place and spent the coin they made upon beer, wine, and women.
Problem 4: Income and Prices are not accurate to market realities.However, since the woman in charge of the place was definitely overcharging her for food and rent, if she didn't offer herself to the clients, she went hungry because she didn't have enough to pay.
Problem 5: Corruption is breeding in the wake of Problems 3 & 4. The systematic pretense that the law is still functioning REQUIRES systematic corruption to paper over the problems.What little extra she was able to scrounge together went to the witch who she had to let poke and prod her once a month, or to offering the stern faced tax collector the king's cut of her earnings - along with his personal bribe of sex and silver of course.
Problem 6: Child abandonment as a side effect of the massive baby boom.She'd had children from the men spilling their seed in her, but she had abandoned them for the priests to find. Maybe if they were raised by a proper person they might be able to understand all of this and avoid it - or at least know how to fight it. Sometimes the older women who worked alongside her wondered if any of the young men who came to them might actually be sons left for others to find, following in the footsteps of their fathers. She hoped it didn't happen, and wouldn't happen to her, but sometimes there was a flash of familiar features and she suspected the possibility was real.
Problem 7: Manual labor allocation requirement is outdated in current economy, requiring breaking the laws to rebalance. Fundamentally is Problem 3Of course, because all of this indignity wasn't bad enough, she was also expected to do a few days work for the king every month. Or at least that was what she was told. She was also expected to take the coin of stern faced patricians and wealthy artisans to do their allotment of work for the king - and pay off the tax man who tracked all of this - which mostly amounted to spending many of her days pumping her arms and legs to work the bellows and hammers that were part of turning red and black stone to sand to sand to iron sponge to iron bars. It was painful and painfully tedious work, assigned to her because it didn't require any skills, and then of course she was expected to spend her evenings at her "regular" work too.
This is our prostitution laws working, just not as well as intended.She was pretty sure that the most galling part was that she was still expected to smile and lie to the men she lay with, to pretend that somehow there was anything beyond them quickly getting their rocks off in exchange for copper and silver. If she didn't, if she let her pain and disgust leak out, then all but the roughest men avoided her, and she would go hungry until she was able to force a smile on her face once more.
That's our ballista scientists!Recently she had managed to convince a rather sad artisan with far more silver than sense to keep coming back to her, night after night, spending excessive amounts of silver on her for what amounted to an entirely average amount of effort on his part and a considerable chunk of her night half-napping while he spilled her heart to her about things she didn't understand. Apparently he was a member of a group doing something for the king - directly for the king actually! - and they had been having all sorts of problems. He also complained about another group of artisans also competing for the attention of the king - boat builders maybe? - and how their lack of success wasn't even a particularly good balm for his own failings.
The Eureka moment when you realize that a failed ballista is a perfectly fine hammer mill. Which will solve Problem 8 partially.Naha wasn't sure what exactly prompted it, but during her latest session with the artisan, while she had enjoyed being able to rest, something had clicked in her brain about how whatever mystical contraption he had been working on worked, and she asked, "Like a hammer?"
"Hmmm? Well, not intentionally, but without a main pin that doesn't break when you tension the system the loading arm will rebound like one," the man explained to her, obviously expecting her to understand more fully the terms he was throwing around.
"Oh. Wish you could make a hammer to pound iron for me then," Naha stated, taking advantage of a rare moment to be able to make small talk that also let her complain about her life.
"Well, you would have to tension the loading arm first, it's supposed to spin the main wheel so its not like..." the man began to explain some esoteric bit of mystical knowledge before he furrowed his brows in consideration. A moment later he leapt up out of the cot where they were laying, his clothes cast aside, and cried out, "A FOOL I AM!"
The good thing here is, they have the catamarans down.Somewhat fortunately for Naha, just as the other women around her were starting to accuse her of wickedness towards a customer, he came running back to collect his clothing while muttering to himself, "See if they can turn driving their own boats into the water into a good thing now!"
-Black Soil allows us to convert a Forest slot and 2 Econ into 6 Econ Expansions. This is VERY interesting, once we get through the megaproject rush period, because the 2 Econ will be refunded by cities, allowing us to create 8 LTE with a single Main.Black Soil - There are many places that could benefit from further black soil, but making more is starting to take up more resources than it is currently returning
*S: +2-3 Econ Expansion
*M: -2 Econ, 1 Forest Slot Consumed, +6 Econ Expansion, other effects [King]
* used 3 times
-Distribute Land noew reveals the maximum extent we can go before the Centralization floor increases. From what we can so it progresses the same way as New Trails, we'll never face problems with the cap if we always use Trails to raise Centralization.Distribute Land - By reworking the distribution of land, the king can improve tax income and reduce pressures administrative overhead. 0/4 Progress to Min Centralization increase
*S: -1 Centralization, +2 Wealth, +1 Progress
*M: -2 Centralization, +5 Wealth, +2 Progress
Margins are kind of tight now. We need a third Aqueduct soon to give us wriggle room.Expand Economy - Encourage the growth of food producing activities such as farming, pastures, or fishing, depending on where focus is placed
*S: +3 Econ, -3 Econ Expansion, potential additional effects
*3 Econ Expansion available (max 12 to keep Sacred Forest True City; max 17 for Valleyhome)
Forests are now labeled properly.Expand Forests - The People have knowledge of how to regrow and repair forests, which extends to bringing them to places they have never been, with considerable effort. With charcoal now in higher demand, can also provide a sustainable supply (7/8 currently locked up)
* S: -2 Econ, -1 Econ Expansion, grows forest, +2 Econ next turn if in settled territory and controlled, potential discoveries, +0.5 Sustainable Forest
* M: -3 Econ, -3 Econ Expansion, grows forest, +4 Econ next turn if in settled and controlled territory, improved odds of success, other effects, +1 Sustainable Forest
Snails/Vines need more cities to support the Main, but it otherwise just shifts Econ to Wealth and Dye/Wine dominance.Expand Snail Cultivation - While now more reliably grown and harvested, the snail domestication has only managed to hold environmental changes at bay rather than increase production. More investment would increase cultivation
* S: -1 Econ, +1 Wealth, +1 Art, potential additional effects
* M: -3 Econ, +3 Wealth, +1 Art, increased chance of additional effects
Expand Vineyard - There is a location in Blackriver that is judged an ideal place to grow the small fruits that are favoured for making a particularly potent drink
*S: -1 Econ, -1 Econ Expansion, +1 Wealth, +1 Art
*M: -3 Econ, -2 Econ Expansion, +4 Wealth, +1 Art
Free action now, since it has everything it needs to become a Colony, but we currently benefit from the status quo.Found Colony - When a province gets too distant, sometimes it is best to grant it additional autonomy so that they can get down to the business of working the land and gathering resources without needing to talk to the king about every little thing. Current Target: Greenshore
*F: Change Greenshore Trading Post to a Colony
*S: -1 Econ, 4 Econ Transfer, -2 Martial, founds colony to produce raw resources
Free Cities now actually do something!Found Free City - Cities are hard to manage, giving them increased autonomy to manage themselves will reduce administrative overhead. Current Possibility: Sacred Forest
*S: Transfer 2 Econ, converts True City to Free City. Free Cities now produce a Passive Policy of their choice in activity each turn
Influence now can directly boost Loyalty expensively on a Main, which is very nice.Influence Subordinate - By transferring specialists and teachers to subordinates they can be nudged into behaving more to the liking of the core provinces
*S: -2 Diplo, Transfer 2 Econ, Wealth, Art and Mysticism; influences subordinate culture
*M: -3 Diplo, Transfer 3 Econ, Wealth, Art and Mysticism; significantly influences subordinate culture, +1 Loyalty
Integrates now can be accelerated. Handy, but rarely relevant.Integrate Colony - Part of the colony of Western Wall or Hatvalley can be integrated into the People more fully, transitioning from a Colony to a province
*S: -6 Diplomacy, gain Econ and Martial from integrating Colony
*M: Same as above, completes at mid-turn
Integrate March - Better communications and administration means that the Stallion Tribes or Heaven's Hawk can be integrated into the People more fully, transitioning from a March to a province
*S: -6 Diplomacy, gain Econ and Martial from integrating March
*M: Same as above, completes at mid-turn
Interestingly, we can not take Mains for our religious elite units. We might be transitioning them to a different sort if taken enough?More Blackbirds - Elite scouts and woodsmen, the Blackbirds are a potent force, if not exactly mainline fighters. More of them could prove useful
* S: -1 Econ, -1 Mysticism, -1 Wealth, +2 Martial, +1 Art, many more Blackbirds, additional effects
More Carrion Eaters - Keepers of sacred and profane knowledge, the Carrion Eaters thread a dangerous path but bring valuable knowledge for treating wounds and inspiring courage, greatly bolstering the morale of warriors by ensuring them that their companions are not doomed if they fall. More could prove useful.
*S: -1 Econ, -1 Mysticism, -1 Wealth, +2 Martial, +1 Art, many more Carrion Eaters, additional effects
Main boats don't seem to do anything other than pay out faster.More Boats - The things are expensive but oh so useful, so having more of them will increase your capacity for trade, travel, and fishing
*S: -2 Econ, -1 Wealth, +1 Art; +1 Econ end of turn, +1 Econ, +1 Econ Expansion and Diplo next turn, additional effects
*M: -2 Econ, -1 Wealth, +1 Art; +1 Econ, Econ Expansion, and Diplo end of turn, additional effects
* used 8 times
New Settlements now have their quality revealed:New Settlement - There are a few new sites that could have new settlements placed on them: northern Blackriver (+3, moderate mineral, 0/6 province), far north-eastern Redhills (+1, good mineral, 0/6 province), south of cataracts (+6, poor mineral, 0/4 province)
* S: -1 Econ, +1 Econ and Mysticism end of turn, increases number Econ Expansion depending on environment, +1 Province progress
* M: +1 Econ and Mysticism, increases Econ Expansion, +2 Province progress
More Warriors has evolved to be able to directly spawn a mercenary company on a double main.Raise Army - More men can be inducted into the ranks of the warriors every year and not face major food shortfalls
* S: -1 Econ, -2 Wealth, +3 Martial, +1 Art, potential additional effects
*M: -3 Econ, -4 Wealth, +7 Martial, +1 Art, potential additional effects
*2M: -4 Econ, -5 Wealth, +2 Art, founds Martial 10 Mercenary Company
This is AMAZING.Colossal Walls - True Cities can support truly gigantic walls. Each {S} committed consumes 3 Econ and 1 Martial for 3 Progress. Valleyhome (0/9), Sacred Forest (0/9)
Mostly as expected here. Once we finally get around to them.Palace Annex - Can construct additional palace annexes, with each {S} committed consuming 2 Econ and 2 Art for a new annex (6/10)
-Great Hall Expansion (special: costs only 1 Econ and 1 Art)
-Shrine
-Library
-Gardens
-Storehouse
-Arsenal
-Fortifications
Greenshore and KotH already gave their Diplomacy when we started the turn. The +2 Diplomacy we got here was from the roads we built.Diplomacy 14 [+2] -> 12 [+2]
-Integrate Vassal -4
-Greenshore +1
-King of the Hill +1
If I had to guess it was either from Economy overflow or from our passive Wealth generation.Wealth 11 [+5-1] -> 10 [+5-1]
-Ballista Research -3
-??? +2
Where did that money come from?
Not sure why you like them so much. They're walls. Not a big deal. The Martial vent is very costly in terms of Econ. A better Martial vent is Support Subordinate as it sends 2 Martial per Secondary instead of 1 and only costs 2 Economy per Secondary rather than 3.This is AMAZING.
Colossal Walls are expensive as hell, since they take 3 Main actions to build. We now know why the Stallions are building the Aqueduct, Dragon Graveyard is becoming a True City, so they put in the aqueduct...then put up Massive Walls.
They also let us vent Martial so we can take Blackbirds or Carrion Eaters for innovations.
Maybe the cashout had a Expansion cost? I don't even remember what the cashout was from. Or... maybe Redshore ate it?Economy 11 (+1) [-2+5] -> 15 [-2+5]
-Refugees +5
-New Trails -2
-Cashout +1
Rolled high-ish on getting refugees.
Econ Expansion 8 (+1) [+2-5] -> 4 (+1) [+2-5]
-Refugees -5
-New Trails +2
-??? -1
This may be the other effects of tying everyone together? We get a tax infusion by connecting people up and being able to look over shoulders?Wealth 11 [+5-1] -> 10 [+5-1]
-Ballista Research -3
-??? +2
Where did that money come from?
Gonna need to work on that Dam and the Canal after the Law.PTSD-chan why you do this. We asked for refugees, not slaves.
...Oh right they're just following what Phygrif did on his way to Xohyr.
At least as a Colony they'd start culture converting, if we build up the links between us.
I have a theory that we might start seeing innovation in walls if we do passive defense and active defense together. I would also suggest that once we get the Dam done at least we switch to this so we can prep for any future Hordes.-Passive Policy is basically super inconvenient to take. I think generally we don't WANT to take any except Infrastructure, Innovation or Defence.
Paper progress perhaps?Forests are now labeled properly.
Secondary Forest generates 1 LTE with 2 Cities.
Main Forest is LTE neutral, but produces forest slots quickly.
The Other Effects is also interesting.
The base number of them may be too small to provide all the required teachers for a Main's worth of new ones. That's the first bad thing that comes to my mind.Interestingly, we can not take Mains for our religious elite units. We might be transitioning them to a different sort if taken enough?
*whack whack!* *blood spray* *squeal of the People!*You know what? I'm changing from Hatvalley propagation to Enforce Justice. Not because I think it will help poor Naha - there's about a 50/50 chance - but because I want the Stability room to KICK the Law project hard.
I'm very disappointed with how our People are behaving, and they must work their tails off to remedy their greed and exploitation. Time to start slapping the imps!
[X] [Main] Census
[X] [Secondary] New Settlement - south of cataracts
[X] [Secondary] Enforce Justice
And more darkly, why would refugees bring innovation when we did such a lousy job of integrating them? Thus, engineer gets an idea from the woman forced into prostitution.It boils down to: why would refugees give us trip-hammers when they come from a civ that does not even have mills?
Considering past mid turns when we were low on stability we should get a stability option.[X] [Main] Census
[X] [Secondary] New Settlement - south of cataracts
[X] [Secondary] Integrate Colony - Hatvalley - Propagate
Census is obvious.
I think settling the cataracts is very important geopolitically. If the Stallion Tribes secede that would be unfortunate and very damaging, but the only way they can expand without going to war with either Westwall or the Core (a war they would loose) is to settle the steppes, which aren't very good terrain for settling. It would take a thousand years for them to become a credible threat to the Ymaryn core territories. If they don't get eaten by nomads first.
If Txolla breaks away they'll quickly use our advances in warfare, our iron and sustainable farming techniques to overrun the entirety of the lowlands, and we have no idea how big those are. They have good chances of founding a massive Empire from here down to Not-Egypt if they play their cards right.
And then they'll turn around to try and eat their former overlords.
We must bind them to ourselves as strongly as possible, and that is only possible with a waterway. The Highland Kingdom must not be allowed to settle the Cataracts before us.
Hatvalley needs to be pushed out further so we can add their silvermines to the core, increase their dependency on us and deal with a makor failure point for our civ.
Hopefully we'll get midturns to increase stability.
To be fair, this woman's probably in the absolute bottom percentile - that it happened at all is unfortunate, but I doubt every single refugee is in quite as dire straits as she is.And more darkly, why would refugees bring innovation when we did such a lousy job of integrating them? Thus, engineer gets an idea from the woman forced into prostitution.
Influence Subordinate is also something we need to do to PTSD-chan to prevent the constant clash of ideals. More to the point, doing it with the Stallion Tribes will avoid a lot of the problems that people are worried about with them. Once we have The Law updated, we need to crank our Stability up to max to grab a Golden Age, and then start using Influence Subordinate on them. The narrative synergy of that sequence is tremendous.-Support Subordinate is cheaper than Influence, but it's a lot more action efficient now and the Loyalty boost is revealed. The Northern Trade Post is now viable, because we can send enough dudes to survive with a single Main and a company.
This kind of thinking sometimes leads to the fallacy that what we have is good enough, or that we can do little by trying to strive ever further. Be careful with your words.At our absolute worst we're still better than our neighbor's best.
Agreed. But, Stability will give us the ability to crack the whip over the People and kick the Law megaproject. At this point I feel like they deserve that treatment.I also don't believe Enforce Justice will solve most of the problems,