AN said that the yeomen want land and glory. Attacking the lowlands is a good way for them to get both. They're being kept in check by values and tradition, but if precedent is set there could be a substantial shift in the attitudes of the People, one that will lead to greater desire for war and expansion.
I'd say because we've got a whole bunch of problems right now - we're back down to 0 stab, for one, trails is ever looming, and we're probably going to war with the Highlanders - and actions are our most critical resource.
It's not like the Dam's going to be costing us much in the way of resources either, honestly, and there's a reason it's not my priority #1.
True; though i'll note that while the Dam won't cost any LTE permanently, it will cost econ permanently, and we've already been lucky not to downgrade from Pop Explosion to Baby Boom (and have already been spending most/all of the pop explosion most turns for that matter ), where if the Artisan Competitions cost, say, 2-3 actions, 1 culture, 1 mysticism, 2 tech/ action, they'd be literally free right now, with our refunds and reformers, and with culture and mysticism maxed and overflowing into tech. But yeah, you've more or less convinced me that its less important than my instinct said it was. Still, like i think you said, if its a guild action, might be worth slotting into that whether we're on megaproject support or not (though poppies are still important too...)
Oh, and i just realized i forgot my plan to tag at least @veekie@zamin and @BungieONI in my analysis post so they'd definitely see it; the former two because they do analysis posts as well, and bungie because we've had some really good tech speculation discussions. I'll try and remember to tag you all (and anyone else who asks, though i make no promises for remembering ) in future ones, but for now heres a quote to the post:
Unfortunately, we cannot. But @BungieONI was speculating about specialist Companies that are non-Martial in nature, and requested we bounce ideals about tech off of him.
True; though i'll note that while the Dam won't cost any LTE permanently, it will cost econ permanently, and we've already been lucky not to downgrade from Pop Explosion to Baby Boom (and have already been spending most/all of the pop explosion most turns for that matter ), where if the Artisan Competitions cost, say, 2-3 actions, 1 culture, 1 mysticism, 2 tech/ action, they'd be literally free right now, with our refunds and reformers, and with culture and mysticism maxed and overflowing into tech. But yeah, you've more or less convinced me that its less important than my instinct said it was. Still, like i think you said, if its a guild action, might be worth slotting into that whether we're on megaproject support or not (though poppies are still important too...)
Oh, and i just realized i forgot my plan to tag at least @veekie@zamin and @BungieONI in my analysis post so they'd definitely see it; the former two because they do analysis posts as well, and bungie because we've had some really good tech speculation discussions. I'll try and remember to tag you all (and anyone else who asks, though i make no promises for remembering ) in future ones, but for now heres a quote to the post:
AN:@ManusDomine, got the go ahead to just unlock this with my own abilities, thanks again for all your work
[X][WB] Upgrade Cosmopolitan Acceptance
[X][Inv] Trelli
[X][Inv] Thunder Horse
[X][Inv] Swamp Folk
[X][Inv] Metal Workers
[X][Inv] Storm Wolves
[X] No
[X][King] Hertythn (Heroic Admin, Average Diplo, Poor Martial; takes control while alive (1, possibly 2 turns))
The Northerners were a very strange people, but once Remaharmati got to see one of their major cities when it wasn't on fire, he got a better look at them and found them... very strange, but also strangely appealing in several ways. Finally though he decided that he just had to ask.
"Do your people not suffer from the pox?" The prince asked through his translator.
There was some back and forth as his intent got through, the translator showing several scars to demonstrate which pox exactly that he meant. Eventually the rather surprising answer came back as, "Our ancestors received a ward against the pox from the gods in centuries past. It is our most powerful and sacred magic, and it is also extremely dangerous if mishandled."
The information that the Northerners had a ward against the pox caused the entire delegation to stop dead in their tracks in amazement. What then followed was a deep discussion between the prince and the priests accompanying him. Finally they said, "We will have the royal court astrologers brought here the next time we come to teach you everything we know about the heavens and divining the future if your priests will teach us this magic."
A ward for the pox? Such magic would be invaluable in saving lives... in more ways than one. One of Remaharmati's younger brothers had been badly afflicted in his youth - well, several had, but the worst cases were dead - and the experience had left him badly disfigured. Rather than taking up any duties, he had retreated from public life and into the royal harem, where he was... well, were he not of divine blood he would have been dealt with already. If Remah became king he would strangle his brother himself just to keep the man away from the throne. He'd let the affliction get to him and had become as ugly on the inside as he perceived himself to be on the outside. And from the position of prince, Remah was of the opinion that more than a few disasters in the history of his people had come from promising princes perishing early, and some of them being twisted by the demons of disease. Reducing that by warding against the pox... the possibilities were incredible.
Because of their invitation to the Games, the Khemetri know of the Sacred Warding. Share the knowledge with them?
[] [Pox] Yes (Khemetri gain knowledge of how to do the Sacred Warding, the People gain Predictive Astrology)
[] [Pox] No (-2 Diplomacy, Khemetri feel snubbed)
Elsewhere, the new heir to the throne of the People was working on the list of things that needed to get accomplished in the near future. At around the top of that list was the fact that a few hundred warriors and a dozen ships had gone missing.
"The same young fools - or at least the same sort - that triggered the riot and fire seem to have decided that they want to go be pirates and raiders. We've officially warned the Trelli that they may be attacking isolated settlements and traders, and that if they catch them they can do whatever the wish as these renegades have shunned our protection," one his investigators told Hertythyn. "Oh! They've also reported back their interest in attending the games."
-2 Martial
Minor Pirate group preying upon your shipping, -1 Wealth until dealt with (Requires sending a Sailing Mission to find them, followed by a War Mission or deployment of mercenaries to deal with them
"Well that's something at least."
"The Swamp Folk and Metal Workers have also reported interest in attending. The Storm Wolves don't see the point, and the Thunder Horse snubbed our delegate. Incidentally, both of those latter two groups are currently making gains against the former two, so that may have something to do with it," a second man reported to the heir.
At that Hertythyn grunted in dissatisfaction. That was probably going to cause issues in the future. Nothing quite like having attractive youths coming over to talk with your elites about sob stories from home to whip up sentiment to do something. Hopefully it wouldn't be his problem though. Wars were a stupid way to sort things out. They just made messes that poor clerks had to go and clean up afterwards.
Although, reflecting upon some of the discussions being made, he considered the right to club some of the People upside the head an option he wished he could resort to.
Patricians - Objective: Build Chariots within 2 turns. Success: +1 Culture, Failure: -5 Wealth Guild - Objective: Build Glasswords within 3 turns. Success: +1 Tech & Culture, Failure: -3 Tech Traders - Objective: Obtain Leading status or better in a new trade good within 3 turns. Failure: -1 Stability Yeomen- Objective: Obtain a new province and have 50% or greater trails coverage within 2 turns. Success: +1 Stability Priests- Objective: Build a Level 2 Temple within 3 turns. Failure: -1 Legitimacy
The elites were complaining that the infantry were receiving all the support and they wanted more chariots for their sons to ride around on instead of doing other things and absorbing large amounts of luxuries. Well, given that bored young men with too much combat training and not enough to do had already sparked off a minor pirate problem, just increasing the funding for chariots was out of the cards. They would have to prune things down or introduce more discipline. Of course the traders were sort of happy that the elites were starting to buy more stuff locally, but their returns were better elsewhere so they were clamouring for the People to either increase production on something somewhere or get in on other trade channels. While the priests were glaring daggers at them over the idea that maybe there were some outsiders who no one would mind being sold to the Trelli because they were bad people anyway, there was another problem with the traders.
Selling iron the People made to outsiders was forbidden, but with the Metal Workers having their own mines and production there were a few traders who were staying within the letter of the law and flagrantly violating the spirit by buying up Metal Worker iron and reselling it elsewhere. Given that the secret was definitely out now, and the Khemetri were going to pursue the ability themselves, there was a lobby within the traders to simply lift the old restrictions and allow iron to be traded. Some even suggested that by doing it themselves they might suppress the spread of iron outside their control. They had the best quality because of experience, so if it was cheaper to buy from the People than to natively develop the smelting and then look for ore deposits. Not everyone was convinced... but then again it would probably keep them from doing something further stupid and get them to shut up about things.
What to do about iron trade?
[] [Iron] Crack down on resale (-1 Stability)
[] [Iron] Leave it be
[] [Iron] Open up the market for the metal
[] [Iron] Allow finished goods to be traded
Meanwhile the guilds were interested in expanding a number of operations, most notably glass since there was a high demand for the material for various other things - art and the storage of materials like vitriol or quicksilver - that had not entirely been filled before now. The priests were glaring daggers at them because their demands were going to rapidly start threatening the forests. According to them, if the guilds wanted all the charcoal and timber heavy projects they were pursuing they should grow the forests some more. The traders chimed in and suggested that a trading post in the far north would not only be able to tap into new markets, but there were those distant tales of giant trees. Imagine what the People could do with access to those markets!
The yeomen farmers were only asking for the relatively tame request of more land to farm and that the trails be in good enough condition to take their produce to market.
Feeling ignored, the Priests were stating that the temples needed to be improved in order to placate the wrath of the gods, who were not impressed by the bellicose and proud attitude the People had taken in recent generations.
Of course, some of that might be jealousy over the powers the priests of the Khemetri had, now that they were in communication with them, and had a better idea about them. While obviously the People's gods favoured locally, the priests of the Khemetri were backed up extensively by their king, and the People were so welcoming of others that the priests were clearly worried.
Cosmopolitan Acceptance -> Pride in Acceptance
The People see not outsiders but fellow humans in need of assistance, and are always willing to offer aid, knowing that even when friendship is uncertain the act of offering is a cleansing one.
Pros: Enhanced absorption of new ideas, +1 social value from current or historical neighbours, whenever a neighbour suffers a stability drop have the option to also suffer a stability drop in exchange for a large boost to Econ and technological and social advancement by absorbing especially large numbers of people, the first Econ boost a turn is free and the second only has a chance of causing a stability drop rather than a guaranteed drop, massively increased inward tech spread, new CBs
Cons: Many think you weak, no longer have the option to turn away the first two boosts, sometimes you get values you didn't expect, increased outward tech spread
Wildcat Prospecting merges into Divine Stewards -> Personal Stewards of Nature
Through the blessings of the spirits and the efforts of the People in individual and whole, the land is reshaped, and its management and protection is a good above all others. No effort is to great when it comes to the stewardship of the land, and many pursue their own little projects where it does not conflict with the symphony of the whole
Pros: Bonuses to all actions relating to land management, bonuses when fighting on own terrain, additional Econ and Stability whenever completing a land management type Megaproject, may spend Stability to double the effort of megaprojects and in defensive wars, certain projects may receive additional actions at the midturn at the cost of Centralization
Cons: Additional strife caused by deliberate environmental disruption unless it is for the long term betterment of the land, or loss of territory to others
Choose a new group to draw a PiA value from
[] [PiA] Khemetri (Probably Spiritual Value)
[] [PiA] Thunder Horse (Probably Honour Value)
[] [PiA] Highlanders (Probably In Service to Order)
[] [PiA] Trelli (Probably trade related)
[] [PiA] Swamp Folk (Probably Honour Value)
[] [PiA] Nomads (Probably Honour Value)
Choose a Personal Divinity reaction
[] [PDN] Push forward forests (Sec Expand Forests, -1 Centralization)
[] [PDN] Majorly push forward forests (Main Expand Forests, -2 Centralization)
[] [PDN] Bit more black soil (Sec Black Soil, -1 Centralization)
[] [PDN] Lots more black soil (Main Black Soil, -2 Centralization)
[] [PDN] Push forward farms (Sec Expand Econ, -1 Centralization)
[] [PDN] Massively push forward farms (Main Expand Econ, -2 Centralization)
Reaction for the turn
[] [React] Stand down army (Main Retraining)
[] [React] Reorganize army and hunt deserters (Found Mercenary Company + Sailing Mission (anti-pirate))
[] [React] Pre-emptively meet forest demand (Main Expand Forest)
[] [React] Meet yeoman demands (Sec New Settlement + Sec New Roads, meets Yeoman faction demands)
[] [React] Meet priest demands (2xSec Temple)
-[] [React] Sacred Forest
-[] [React] Dragon Graveyard
[] [React] Keep Working on the Docks (Adds another action towards the Grand Docks MP)
[] [React] Attempt to root out problems (Main Enforce Justice)
Libraries can be copied. We probably put the idea out and about by inviting people to the Games....well if we had any libraries in Redshore.
The fun part is well...can you imagine going to build libraries without the supporting literate infrastructure we've built up from trying to fight the first Tax War and setting up the Sacred Warding(which incidentally, looking back, is costed as per a Wonder if it wasn't made by the genius Mystic)?
The Khemetri can support it, we know their clerks have invented words for thousands from their PoV, given their size, but other cultures would find it a really dangerous idea to try if their literate population is their priests.
Pretty sure we don't but Life of Arete probably means we document what kinds of sex are a good idea and also have a list of "What not to do" for wild ideas that lead to wounded genitals.
Or my personal guess is that it's the diplomacy falling flat. We intended to awe the Khemetri with "and there is our third largest city of Redshore(and it's bigger than yours)" rather than "and there is our third largest city of Redshore...which is on fire...um...."
??? is i guess the red martial issues again, from deaths? Veekie suggested it was from having 3 cities, but that wasn't true when this turn began, so it shouldn't be that. Alternatively its possible we didn't get symphony action on the grand docks, and lost more econ from the riots, but... *shrug*
Probably from the riots...but AN's mention that the HK stole iron from us via an intrigue hero who was trying to do something else...do they have a "Destabilize" action they can use on us?
Destabilize isn't impossible, after all, Terrify largely does the same thing.
I personally doubt a Destabilize action is the cause though, if they have the agents in place to do it, they also know that the most likely outcome of a Destabilize would be our rogue warriors assaulting them anyways.
The Khemtri trade in slaves, meaning that the 3 friendliest of our neighbors are also 3 of the only 4 listed slave traders...and the Tin Tribes are possibly the 4th friendliest group! what the hell! D
I believe it's just that we don't really do much trading with the rest, so we wouldn't know if they HAD slave markets. The HK probably doesn't trade slaves for the sole reason that they don't have any trade partners.
Likely the Games will make Ymaryn into the regional trade tongue, because everyone attending the Games must be able to communicate with and purchase Ymaryn services and goods.
Nobody can compete in it except the Trelli and they weren't invited yet. The Khemetri can't get their boats to the competition unless the Trelli open the straits.
Probably Diplomacy costs.
With Great Powers playing, everyone wants in, you only need to inform them of it.
Without Great Powers playing, it looks more like THEY are doing you a favor to participate, because well...it looks like a formalized way to show off at them.
Damn, we still have this problem :/ Though this time it sounds less like "compromise candidates are bad" and more "bad luck with the whole crop of candidates". hmm...
Politics. We'd need to set some precedents to make the oligarch families more enthusiastic about adopting talented outsiders into their number to stay competitive.
His choice of retirement locations is interesting, too... i didn't know Blackmouth was that popular... I guess its quieter there, and easier to avoid the King's notice, while still being rich?
He WAS giving them out a lot.
Remember previously he said he was going to work hard at ensuring he had enough sisters and daughters to marry the whole Ymaryn nobility?
A good description of what Terrify actually involves as an action. Still not something i want to do much, but hopefully we can influence it towards the former example if/when we use it...
Interesting... presumably will boost up their effectiveness though, and assuming its a regular building shouldn't actually cost any mysticism with our refund. Even if its an extended project with 3 mysticism/secondary, we should have a 3 mysticism refund relatively soon; only need one more library.
Remember that we didn't get group tactics for large scale warfare until we got 'Quality of it's own,' showing that to some degree Tech is locked behind these traits.
Hopefully the Admin will build some roads. I really want to hopefully unlock some sort of social value or megaproject involving either automatic maintenance of roads due to building them becoming a regular skill for our citizens, or a giant expansion of roads using some brand new material that would allow them to last a lot longer without need for maintenance. I also just like building roads and centralization in general
[X] [Pox] Yes (Khemetri gain knowledge of how to do the Sacred Warding, the People gain Predictive Astrology)
[X] [Iron] Allow finished goods to be traded
[X] [PiA] Swamp Folk (Probably Honour Value)
[X] [PDN] Majorly push forward forests (Main Expand Forests, -2 Centralization)
[X] [React] Meet yeoman demands (Sec New Settlement + Sec New Roads, meets Yeoman faction demands)
Yeomen- Objective: Obtain a new province and have 50% or greater trails coverage within 2 turns. Success: +1 Stability
Forests, trails, and new settlement? YES YES YES
Astrology get!
Edit: And +1 Stability!
Approval vote just in case, HK value may be on the order above everything flavor.
[X] [PiA] Khemetri (Probably Spiritual Value)
[X] [PiA] Trelli (Probably trade related)
[X] [PiA] Swamp Folk (Probably Honour Value)
Yeah, we really shouldn't have entered the midturn at red martial. Ah, well. I can't be too salty about it since the majority of voters were under the impression that we had safe amounts of martial due to editing snafu.
My immediate thoughts are that we should take:
[] [Pox] Yes (Khemetri gain knowledge of how to do the Sacred Warding, the People gain Predictive Astrology)
We have no reason not to trade the knowledge, the Khemetri have the knowledge base to actually apply it and astrology tech is always good. Also, becoming known as the people who gave the Khemetri the immunization for smallpox will be very useful in the future, since they have the infrastructure to remember that we gave it to them.
[] [React] Reorganize army and hunt deserters (Found Mercenary Company + Sailing Mission (anti-pirate))
We need the mercenary company and we need to hunt down the pirates we accidentally unleashed.
OK, first off, since I've got a reputation as a do-gooder to uphold, my first vote right off the bat
[X] [Pox] Yes (Khemetri gain knowledge of how to do the Sacred Warding, the People gain Predictive Astrology)
[X] [Pox] Yes (Khemetri gain knowledge of how to do the Sacred Warding, the People gain Predictive Astrology)
[X] [React] Reorganize army and hunt deserters (Found Mercenary Company + Sailing Mission (anti-pirate))
[X] [PDN] Majorly push forward forests (Main Expand Forests, -2 Centralization)
[X] [PiA] Highlanders (Probably In Service to Order)
[X] [React] Reorganize army and hunt deserters (Found Mercenary Company + Sailing Mission (anti-pirate))
[X] [Iron] Allow finished goods to be traded
[X] [Pox] Yes (Khemetri gain knowledge of how to do the Sacred Warding, the People gain Predictive Astrology)
), where if the Artisan Competitions cost, say, 2-3 actions, 1 culture, 1 mysticism, 2 tech/ action, they'd be literally free right now, with our refunds and reformers, and with culture and mysticism maxed and overflowing into tech. But yeah, you've more or less convinced me that its less important than my instinct said it was. Still, like i think you said, if its a guild action, might be worth slotting into that whether we're on megaproject support or not (though poppies are still important too...)
