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Paths of Civilization

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Candesce said:
A) Keep in mind the penalty from ignoring idle rich is the exact Wealth cost of a [main] Chariots.
B) Pretty sure Gymnasiums are going to be unlocked as of our next turn, so if we want them building them immediately is already an option.
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A) Yes, they're taking that wealth and throwing lavish parties with it. Then they will justify to themselves why throwing lavish parties are awesome and in line with our culture. At least the chariots leave them in a better position to win the races.


B) Its a long term solution, but the short term one fits in anyways when we take a swing at the Highlanders, whether done on offence policy or a secondary.
 
veekie said:
A) Yes, they're taking that wealth and throwing lavish parties with it. Then they will justify to themselves why throwing lavish parties are awesome and in line with our culture. At least the chariots leave them in a better position to win the races.
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You'd rather give idle wastrels prominent positions in our armed forces than let them sit around and waste money.

Ok.

I think you're worried about entirely the wrong social problems, here, but ok.
 
veekie said:
And the bloody traders are just throwing a tantrum here about not being dominant enough when we dominant more than half of all significant trades.
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Since we open up the iron trade this is a open and shut quest since we will definitely dominate that market.
The only other two sellers have just started with iron while we are at it for decades.
 
veekie said:
A) Yes, they're taking that wealth and throwing lavish parties with it. Then they will justify to themselves why throwing lavish parties are awesome and in line with our culture. At least the chariots leave them in a better position to win the races.
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I'm really not worried about this. They're throwing lavish parties anyhow. I think your speculation on this causing a lasting culture issue is wrong.

Similarly, I'm not concerned about a Glassworks significantly increasing the power of the guilds (and I'm a guild-hater.) Or us getting Leading in a good significantly increasing the power of the traders. Those are both fairly necessary things for us to do as we pre-industrialize.

The temple is a BIT concerning... which is probably why it has so high a cost. On the flip side though, the priests were really wanting forests, and their agenda is basically "be listened to". And we're making a ton of forests! MAAAAYBE they'll tone down the penalty some.
 
Candesce said:
You'd rather give idle wastrels prominent positions in our armed forces than let them sit around and waste money.

Ok.

I think you're worried about entirely the wrong social problems, here, but ok.
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On one side we get a bunch of rich elites being the best warriors possible.
In the other we get a bunch of rich elites being the best partiers possible.

I know which I'd prefer.
 
DocMatoi said:
we literally can't do it until we're below the martial cap
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Well, thanks to the Pirates, we are. And now we're forming a mercenary company so we're WAY below martial.

I still think chariots would be a waste of time though. We don't need the stats, and we don't really need the favor of the patricians.
 
Candesce said:
You'd rather give idle wastrels prominent positions in our armed forces than let them sit around and waste money.

Ok.

I think you're worried about entirely the wrong social problems, here, but ok.
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The social values here are important...because the exact same thing happened in Ancient Greece.

The elite, bereft of their accustomed role in society save for lavish social events, decided that their proper and excellent role in Arete was to be the best at lavish social events.

Note that these are not exactly new positions. Its their role to begin with. There just aren't enough chariots built for them to participate
Azel said:
Since we open up the iron trade this is a open and shut quest since we will definitely dominate that market.
The only other two sellers have just started with iron while we are at it for decades.
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Yes, but it remains a quest thats...a demand for greed really. Not that wanting more is unexpected, but there is no need, nor lack of business for them.
 
Candesce said:
Let me rephrase this, so what exactly is going on with the Patricians' request should be more clear to everyone in the thread:

The wealthy nobility of Ymar want to purchase commissions in the army.

There's a reason no modern military of note allows this fuckery.
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No, this is wrong. Charioteers were hereditary elite patricians through most of the late bronze age because it's an incredibly specialized job with incredibly expensive equipment. And they want the crown to buy them some more super expensive equipment so more of their children can be trained up as charioteers.
 
Candesce said:
Let me rephrase this, so what exactly is going on with the Patricians' request should be more clear to everyone in the thread:

The wealthy nobility of Ymar want to purchase commissions in the army.

There's a reason no modern military of note allows this fuckery.
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I'm not sure if that's what would happen there. As far as I read the situation, the children in question are perfectly qualified, but there is simply not enough demand for them.
 
veekie said:
Yes, but it remains a quest thats...a demand for greed really. Not that wanting more is unexpected, but there is no need, nor lack of business for them.
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True, but ultimately the traders and guilds are factions built entirely around greed.
Fixing their power creep would need a restructuring of our economic model.

And no, that's not meant as an endorsement for Mandala since I strongly doubt that such a decentralised system would work for us.
 
The more I think about, the more I'm inclined to support the priests. Their arguments boil down to a loss of moral values through the focus on wealth and war of the last turns.
I'm still 100% for permanently fixing the HK situation, but afterwards we should turn back inwards and focus on culture and religion for a while to get back into proper harmony.
 
pblur said:
Well, thanks to the Pirates, we are. And now we're forming a mercenary company so we're WAY below martial.
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Wait what?
*checks tally*

we should be destroying corruption right now, damn it. We need higher centralization so this stupid bullshit happens less often.
 
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[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] Highlanders (Probably In Service to Order)
[X] [PDN] Majorly push forward forests (Main Expand Forests, -2 Centralization)
[X] [React] Reorganize army and hunt deserters (Found Mercenary Company + Sailing Mission (anti-pirate))

Please no Khemetri values. It'd be a disaster if our king declared himself a god like theirs do.
 
Kiba said:
Unsurprisingly, exchanging ideas lead to greater technological progress, but ideas are going to leak one way or another.

It's a good thing for humanity, considering the long threat to our progress is mother nature throwing a really nasty tantrum.
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Absolutely true.

We can't really do anything about it except progress as fast as we can without imploding our polity.
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But here, I'm going to have to disagree. A higher level of tech sharing actually had a significant number of meaningful impacts on what makes good tech policy.

With no tech sharing, the only question you need to ask about a prospective tech is its value to our polity as compared to the resources or opportunity cost required to attain it. But WITH tech sharing, there are three new parameters we need to consider.

A) What is the effect on our polity for our NEIGHBORS getting this tech?
B) Are we positioned to use this tech more effectively than our neighbors?
C) Could we get this tech from our neighbors without developing it ourselves?

Lets go through this one at a time. The first new question we need to ask when developing a new tech is what happens if/when our neighbors get it? For example, lets say we have a chance to easily push the Siege tech tree. If so, I would suggest MAJOR CAUTION in doing so, because our neighbors getting siege tech really hurts us, past what we would expect from an average tech. Similarly, if we were only now developing cavalry, I would suggest similar caution, because that tech bleeding to the nomads leads to massive headaches at a minimum.

The second question is whether we have a comparative advantage in using the tech. Does our cultural/economic/environmental/etc status makes the tech particularly useful for us as compared to our neighbors? If so, that means the tech is especially useful to us, since even if everyone got it immediately we would get more out of it than our neighbors.

Last but not least, could we easily get the tech from our neighbors? If so, making it ourselves might be less valuable overall. Why bother spending time and resources on something that we can easily get via tech diffusion?



So all in all, this encourages the following tech policies:
  • Focus on techs that you are okay with the people around us getting. Avoid developing techs that would let a polity target our own weaknesses.
  • Focus on techs that our polity can use better than other polities. Don't just look at the absolutely value of a tech to us, but also how much value it has to us relative to how much value it has to others. Prioritize techs that synergize well with our Wonders (International Games, Greater Sacred Forest, Dragon Graveyard), our higher-tier Values (Love of Wisdom, Pride in Acceptance, Personal Stewards, Joyous Symphony, etc), and so on.
  • Focus on techs that we are less likely to attain via osmosis.
 
Do we actually have de jure nobility? I was in the belief that clan patriarchs (and matriarchs) elect local chiefs, who appoint local officials and elect provincial chiefs, who appoint provincial officials and, along with priests, shamans and certain high-level government officials (war chief, etc.) elect the king.

Now, obviously a system like that breeds nepotism and quickly turns into a de facto oligarchy, where important positions are more or less inherited or passed amongst a handful of influential families. However, our chiefs should still technically be elected officials, meaning that no de jure nobility exists.

[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] Trelli (Probably trade related)
[X] [PDN] Push forward forests (Sec Expand Forests, -1 Centralization)
[X] [React] Meet yeoman demands (Sec New Settlement + Sec New Roads, meets Yeoman faction demands)
 
veekie said:
The way these leaks work, the other polities don't have the traits to leak to each other and leaks cannot skip prereqs as we learned ourselves.

So we get to go tall in chosen tech trees. They steal the lower fruits, which they develop and we steal back.
They get the same techs individually, we get innovations off all of them and can focus on building to exploit.

This inherently favors the larger power who can exploit the techs better, when with the passive techsteal they collectively can't get past us in any field for long even as they individually get closer.

Its more powerful the more they are hooked up to you. In this setup, the one at the center benefits the most.

Its the tech version of being the Trelli. Whoever gets a dominance, it becomes yours.
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First of all, other polities absolutely can leak to each other, even in the absence of such traits. Note how PiA says "increased outward tech spread". The tech spread is going to happen anyway, and I doubt that PiA does more than double it, so it will be comparable in magnitude to tech spread from us.

Second, I don't get the argument that a larger power can exploit techs better. Why would that be? A larger power certainly has more resources to throw at exploiting techs, but they also have more population to sere with said techs. It balances out to the same work per person.

Third, I don't think our tech absorption is good enough to do with tech what the Trelli did with trade. Trelli's deal wasn't just that they had advanced trade traits (which they do), but also that they controlled a trade route that their neighbors all needed to use.
 
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