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Paths of Civilization

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veekie said:
Economies of scale. A big chunk of our techs are outright useless to a smaller polity, and only really usable at all if you are at Thunder Horse or Khemetri sizes. Another chunk requires resources specific to certain biomes, or the skill and knowledge infrastructure to copy it.

Take the Sacred Warding here, anyone can see it and try to copy it, but only the Khemetri have a decent chance of pulling it off without fucking it up. It takes a large priesthood devoted to scholastic pursuits to imitate.
Or take the volley archery, anyone could copy it, but they don't have the social foundation of large numbers of militia archers with an obssession towards perfectionism trying to perfect their shot, or the cultural attitudes towards unity to synchronize effectively.
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You seem to be arguing more that techs can require certain polity-specific conditions. I entirely agree with that - in fact, that was the second point made by the previous post you quoted. What I disagree with is that size by itslef is a particularly large advantage.

The examples you cited are Sacred Warding and Volley Archery. Sacred Warding requires a well developed priesthood like you said, but it doesn't require size - in fact, I think The People were magintudes smaller than they are now when it was first developed. Volley Archery requires specific social conditions (large militia, perfectionism, unity), which again doesn't require size.

You've actually yet to cite anything that actually had requirements of scale.

veekie said:
And yet, when we got a direct route to the Khemetri, the trade still flowed through the Trelli, because they are the faster channel.

The same principle applies here with techs. Whoever in the region gets a shiny, we get it, then people copy it off us.
But we have the traits that make reverse engineering foreign ideas fast and effective, while they don't.
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I think you are vastly overstating the power of PiA here. We don't instantly get the techs around us, and they certainly don't instantly diffuse to our neighbors. At best, the channel is competitive with direct transmission; there is no way it is going to be dominant.
 
Candesce said:
By which we mean, we make it officially possible for the idle rich to buy glory at the cost of our military's competence.
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Except that was bullshit in the iron age, all the way to the middle ages. Cavalry was just too hideously expensive to outfit for any but the elites to pay for.

The choice is not "competent military" vs "nobles in military"
The choice is "have a decent cavalry force comprised of the elite" vs "not having a cavalry force".
They are idle because they are born expecting to be charioteers, trained to be charioteers, but there aren't enough chariots for them to use.
 
Candesce said:
We're going to have to be doing lots of new trails if we want to keep our centralization up, after all, and we're only spending centralization so quickly.
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We haven't been building trails fast enough to keep up with our centralization loss ever since we built the Palace; what makes you think that will change now, to the point of us exceeding centralization spending?

The fact of the matter is that we would need to dedicate at least a secondary each turn to trails if we want to keep up with average centralization loss, assuming one Personal Stewards trigger every other turn. And frankly, I've seen no indication that people are willing to commit to something like that.
 
PrimalShadow said:
The fact of the matter is that we would need to dedicate at least a secondary each turn to trails if we want to keep up with average centralization loss, assuming one Personal Stewards trigger every other turn. And frankly, I've seen no indication that people are willing to commit to something like that.
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And we'll have to do faster than that to keep up with the rate people want to push new True Cities, when as you said there's no sign people are willing to commit to something like that.
 
Point of note, the Population Explosion is affecting the elites as well, so they are having more kids than they quite know what to do with. They're currently training more chariot archers than they have chariot slots, and while the games is keeping that segment of the population somewhat distracted, it also gives them the resources to 'rest on their laurels', so to speak. Obviously its not a terrible problem right now, which is why you have a few generations to address it, but something the patricians are clearly worried about.

Da Boyz said:
will our passive Infrastructure policies prioritize things like roads and temples now that we have faction missions demanding them?
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Somewhat, but not entirely.
 
Candesce said:
And we'll have to do faster than that to keep up with the rate people want to push new True Cities, when as you said there's no sign people are willing to commit to something like that.
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What do True Cities have to do with Roads, anyways? Are you talking about the decreased Admin ceiling? Because if so, do recall that Free CIties don't contribute to said cap.
 
PrimalShadow said:
You seem to be arguing more that techs can require certain polity-specific conditions. I entirely agree with that - in fact, that was the second point made by the previous post you quoted. What I disagree with is that size by itslef is a particularly large advantage.

The examples you cited are Sacred Warding and Volley Archery. Sacred Warding requires a well developed priesthood like you said, but it doesn't require size - in fact, I think The People were magintudes smaller than they are now when it was first developed. Volley Archery requires specific social conditions (large militia, perfectionism, unity), which again doesn't require size.

You've actually yet to cite anything that actually had requirements of scale.
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Except they do. A well developed priesthood requires a large population to support, consider how backbreaking the cost was to build Sacred Warding when we were the size of the present day Thunder Horse. And similarly, only a large state could support the logistics of manufacturing, equipping and training their farmers to be disciplined and coordinated warriors without taking hits elsewhere.

Second order prereqs are even worse, because size merely enables you to get the prereqs.
PrimalShadow said:
I think you are vastly overstating the power of PiA here. We don't instantly get the techs around us, and they certainly don't instantly diffuse to our neighbors. At best, the channel is competitive with direct transmission; there is no way it is going to be dominant.
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And competitive is all we need here. Tech copying isn't simple or controlled after all, I expect the outflow rate to be approximately that of when we were taking in minimum refugee intakes, we got something worth mentioning every 5-6 attempts or so, and it was generally unprotected public knowledge type things, except for that bronzeworker
 
Academia Nut said:
Point of note, the Population Explosion is affecting the elites as well, so they are having more kids than they quite know what to do with. They're currently training more chariot archers than they have chariot slots, and while the games is keeping that segment of the population somewhat distracted, it also gives them the resources to 'rest on their laurels', so to speak. Obviously its not a terrible problem right now, which is why you have a few generations to address it, but something the patricians are clearly worried about.
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...come to think of it we've been riding that baby boom for longer than living memory, and the population explosion was going so strong that we broke even population wise even through the most bloody battle in history to date.

We'd have been getting this problem much sooner if it wasn't for the war killing off so many of them right?
 
PrimalShadow said:
Because if so, do recall that Free CIties don't contribute to said cap.
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If we'd been able to get any consensus on forming one of those, I'd be happier depending on them.

As it is, people don't want to make religious cities free, which writes off Stallionpen and Sacred Forest; and people don't want to make critical industrial cities free, which takes Redshore and Blackshore off the list and makes Redhills iffy; and people don't want far distant cities free, because they could catalyze a breakaway state.

So, y'know, where and when are we starting?
 
veekie said:
Actually, Build Chariots would be currently replacing lost chariots. We're channeling our best charioteers into the Dragon Company and spinning that off this turn. Need to replace them.
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Considering that they're just in a merc guild which we still possess and which noble sons could still join if they have the skills, we don't need to replace them. They're not missing from our pool, simply in a subsection of it.

You don't need a large scholastic investment to understand warding, just the knowledge that "hey, those sores on the cows are useful." And maybe some reckless disregard toward cross infection. But then again, we've discussed this before and neither of us have changed our minds.

I don't see why volleys would take "a perfect shot." They require decent timing.
 
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@Academia Nut one thing I'm concerned about. Would building new chariots slow down our adoption of proper cavalry?

And since we have horses big enough for people to ride in combat now, what actions need to be taken to encourage that?
 
The new tech sharing value looks to me like everyone knowing that the Ymaryn are the guys you go to for knowledge. So every scholar with the means makes a pilgrimage there to learn in our libraries. And as is usual in these times, they try to impress the hosts with what they know, so they share their stuff as well.

In this case, we'd have the advantage as our traits encourage the dissemination of knowledge across our society while they get individual scholars that want to buff their own importance.

If they return at all.

After all, here they get funding and people that can actually keep up!


Also with the Games, everyone else should notice our pox resistance as well. Which should seriously boost Pilgrimage in the region. It's a ward with clear, obvious results that has a near 100% success rate. Even if only the nobles come, it's a tremendous boost in spreading our culture as we have prestige coming out of our ears, are rich beyond avarice, militarily unmatched and have a shitton of bored young nobles we can marry off for international relations.

If we set up the Gyms, we may even get the option of educating the foreign nobilities children. Or at least our scholars will be asked to be their tutors, which still means we could get spies into every house of power.
 
Hangwind said:
@Academia Nut one thing I'm concerned about. Would building new chariots slow down our adoption of proper cavalry?

And since we have horses big enough for people to ride in combat now, what actions need to be taken to encourage that?
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Last time I asked, the answer was waiting.

And more Chariots should actually help to spread Cavalry as many more horses need to be bred and supplied, so once we switch, we have the infrastructure in place already
 
Umi-san said:
Considering that they're just in a merc guild which we still possess and which noble sons could still join if they have the skills, we don't need to replace them. They're not missing from our pool, simply in a subsection of it.
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A mercenary company is quite distinct and removed from the social system. These guys would be largely disconnected from the noble games unless we station them in a major city.

Umi-san said:
You don't need a large scholastic investment to understand warding, just the knowledge that "hey, those sores on the cows are useful." And maybe some reckless disregard toward cross infection.
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Actually, its VERY easily corrupted. A big chunk of the Sacred Warding work was figuring out means to hammer the idea into heads perfectly, so that it could not be lost or mistaken. Not all sores on cows were the correct type, nor was the transmission method always proper.

You could quite easily start a plague(and we did accidentally start one that was only headed off by experimental quarantine measures during the experiments) if the process was transferred wrongly and a step was missed, and then you needed to have the training infrastructure to generate enough priests and shamans to perform the task and to contain the cows.
Without that investment the warding is worse than a sham.
Umi-san said:
I don't see why volleys would take "a perfect shot." They require decent timing.
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Volleys require training a large number of militia in a high skill combat style, to a consistent level of skill.
Not exactly trivial to develop in man-hours, or more importantly, the equipment production.

We cheated that one too due to getting iron early.
Academia Nut said:
Had I realized the need for the faction system sooner, probably!

(Although a lot of the time I already have narrative ideas lined up before I figure out mechanical implementation)
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I recall you did mention something about populaton explosion causing nonspecific issues, but at least now we have confirmation that the need is real.
 
Rakuhn said:
From a direct action stand point, passive defense policy is more efficient than passive infrastructure policy (2/3 secondary vs 3/3 secondary). Considering our current massive stat income, an active infrastructure policy would be superior to an active defensive policy.
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Our massive stat income is a lot less massive than it appears.

To see this, just look at our current stats. Excluding Martial, we have 6 "resource" stats, all of which we generally want as much of as possible: Diplo, Econ, Wealth, Culture, Myst, and Tech. In each of these stats, our current cap is 17, but our totals are 2/16/5/17/17/7, which totals 64 out of 102. That is despite being on Population Explosion for a while now. So clearly, events are coming up quickly enough to drain off the excess stats.

Alternatively, lets look at our income directly. Right now, we generate 5+11+4+1+2+0 = 23 stat points a turn - a veritable surplus, before you realize that
A) We've been told that the Population Explosion can end whenever based on dice rolls, so 7 points of those may very well disappear sometime soon,
B) While we do have Population Explosion, we could give 2 Econ a turn to colonies, giving then extra resources and bringing them closer to our culture... but we haven't been doing that because we don't actually have the spare resources, and if we started our income would go down by as much as 8.
C) We have more than enough options to drain this income if we wanted to. If nothing else, a single Main Influence Subordinate action takes up 18 stat points, eating up our entire income. We haven't been able to use it because... guess what? We can't afford to spend that amount of stats right now, despite our income.
 
Hangwind said:
@Academia Nut one thing I'm concerned about. Would building new chariots slow down our adoption of proper cavalry?

And since we have horses big enough for people to ride in combat now, what actions need to be taken to encourage that?
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No, its just time, and the warriors on horseback are mostly scouts and couriers and try to avoid getting in anything beyond quick skirmishes. You just have to wait at this point.
 
DakkaMania said:
Last time I asked, the answer was waiting.

And more Chariots should actually help to spread Cavalry as many more horses need to be bred and supplied, so once we switch, we have the infrastructure in place already
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We got the size, IIRC, but breeding enough of them without causing either inbreeding or breeding OUT the traits by overdiluting them is taking a while.

We'd probably have had a lot of priests dedicated to tracking horses having sex.
 
veekie said:
Actually, its VERY easily corrupted. A big chunk of the Sacred Warding work was figuring out means to hammer the idea into heads perfectly, so that it could not be lost or mistaken. Not all sores on cows were the correct type, nor was the transmission method always proper.

You could quite easily start a plague(and we did accidentally start one that was only headed off by experimental quarantine measures during the experiments) if the process was transferred wrongly and a step was missed, and then you needed to have the training infrastructure to generate enough priests and shamans to perform the task and to contain the cows.
Without that investment the warding is worse than a sham.
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As I stated, we've already debated this and neither of us have changed the other's mind.

I do not agree, and will continue to repeat my disagreement so that your opinion that the spread of warding is impossible for countries who are not large and do not have significant investment in mystic matters is not taken as fact.

veekie said:
Volleys require training a large number of militia in a high skill combat style, to a consistent level of skill.
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"High skill combat style" aka archery? Sure. They need to learn how to fire an arrow to a certain distance and practice reloading in a consistent manner as a group.

Any polity with sufficient availability of wood (KH, MW, HK, SF possibly) can make bows. They don't take more skill than spears, swords, armor, furniture, etc. Just a higher grade of wood.

veekie said:
A mercenary company is quite distinct and removed from the social system. These guys would be largely disconnected from the noble games unless we station them in a major city.
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Unless the noble sons go and join them. The patricians want their sons to not be lazy and develop bad habits; a merc company (the closest approximation to a formal army we have, apparently) is a good way to develop leadership skills, discipline, and a worldly air. We do not *need* to replace our chariots because they have not been lost. We simply need to expand our pool to match the increased pool of nobles. It's a semantic point, but still one of note.
 
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Da Boyz said:
Haven't they automatically be absorbing up to a maximum of 8 of the overflow automatically?
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Up to a maximum of 8.

Given that we never had low enough EE, none of our overflow has been absorbed.

The safety valve doesn't get used unless you turn up the pressure, and we haven't. And won't, in the foreseeable future - since making new settlements gives More EE, and absorbing a Western Wall province also gives EE, and we wanted to do both of those soonish to get to 9 Provinces.
 
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veekie said:
We got the size, IIRC, but breeding enough of them without causing either inbreeding or breeding OUT the traits by overdiluting them is taking a while.

We'd probably have had a lot of priests dedicated to tracking horses having sex.
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The Libraries are probably a godsend for this.

Huh. With Forests being done this turn, and our ever increasing demand for writing utensils, we may get paper at long last.

Technically speaking, basic paper can be done by mulching wood, adding some glue and rolling it flat.

Bleaching it is nice for quality, but probably not needed.
 
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