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Paths of Civilization

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Umi-san said:
The languishments you take pleasure in must have weakened you in comparison to your more natural peers.


Humanity is not separate from nature, it is subject to it. To in-volve oneself solely in the artificial, in the hollow self-reflections of humanocentric myth, abstract art, cuisine divorced from its terroir is to live in a life in a bubble, and thus reject ones duty to watch over that which brought us into being.
Humanity is subject to nature, and steward to it. To subject oneself to the world is to delight in the pleasant coincidences and ugly reality of a chaotic system and, simultaneously, to reject the notion that such cannot be brought deeper into self-accord through deep understanding and delicate manipulation, always conscious that it is not our place to impose on that which exists but merely to guide it.
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Our mountain kin are lost to nature, they let themselves be subject to its whims.

Whilst humanity is master over it. For a steward is not subject to that which he has dominion over. Nay his stewardship is a statement of dominion. And that is no myth. For even the primordial man was master of his world no matter the resistance the world showed, his surrender to it was by his own accord. And do you not see the contradictory nature of your claim? One cannot guide without imposition no matter how slight. And in the momentary surrender to the world one experiences the world as is, tis not ugly or chaotic, it is raw and pure, it is a moment of absolute clarity and liberty, and one is both awed by its grandeur and gratified by his ultimate dominion over it.
For that surrender is momentary and the steward continues to shape the world to his own whims. But in the end, in both surrender and dominion tis by the will of man that determines the world.
 
We have to conquer the Trelli. This way, after Ymaryn civilization inevitably collapses, we can choose the successor state that's centered at the not!Hellespont.
 
Yeangst said:
We just need to make to keep picking fights with the most powerful civilizations and we'll be good.
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that sounds like a terrible idea, that will just make us warlike and unpleasant to play as.
Yeangst said:
We have to conquer the Trelli. This way, after Ymaryn civilization inevitably collapses, we can choose the successor state that's centered at the not!Hellespont.
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Why is it inevitable? The Ymaryn play the long game. We've outlasted every civilization that came before us, and a bunch of the ones that came after, too. Why can't we survive the way we are?
Why have you decided thats the way you want us to go?
Is this why you want us to warhawk and pick fights all over the place? So we can "inevitably" collapse and you'll be right?
 
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maximillian said:
Our mountain kin are lost to nature, they let themselves be subject to its whims.

Whilst humanity is master over it. For a steward is not subject to that which he has dominion over. Nay his stewardship is a statement of dominion. And that is no myth. For even the primordial man was master of his world no matter the resistance the world showed, his surrender to it was by his own accord. And do you not see the contradictory nature of your claim? One cannot guide without imposition no matter how slight. And in the momentary surrender to the world one experiences the world as is, tis not ugly or chaotic, it is raw and pure, it is a moment of absolute clarity and liberty, and one is both awed by its grandeur and gratified by his ultimate dominion over it.
For that surrender is momentary and the steward continues to shape the world to his own whims. But in the end, in both surrender and dominion tis by the will of man that determines the world.
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Unlike man, nature has no whims, only challenges. Only opportunities to stretch a bit farther, to strengthen oneself. To live in a world predeveloped is to lay on a couch and wait for death, rather than going on a quest to meet it.

There is no contradiction: one can guide through the provision of opportunities. A pole for a bean vine is not an imposition, merely a hold offered to the vine's tendrils. That this prevents the vine from choking out other plants is, as far as the vine is concerned, incidental.

The world resists that which goes against it, acts in accord with those who surrender to its ways. He who knows nature knows how to bring it into greater harmony without cause for resistance. He who knows nature knows himself. He who gives himself to himself, to whims and fancies, is a child flailing in a pool: unknowing; soon drowned.
 
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DakkaMania said:
True. But what about the speed issue?

We already use Chariots en mass, so we have a handle on maintenance.

Adding the Gastraphes means we can replace the expensive noble (both training and lifestyle) with cheap yeomen. Their gear would be expensive, but we'd still come out cheaper than a noble archer.

But the main point is that we could make a heavy anti-armor weapon very mobile. A primitive tank, essentially.

Currently, the Bolt thrower is mostly used by Blackbirds to snipe heavily armored nobles.
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The idea does have some merit, but limited ones. We'd need cranked designs to be practical to load on a chariot, and as crossbow sizes went up, you were more likely to transition them to wagon loaded designs, or keep the bow and go to horse archery instead once horses got big enough to ride.

The niche is mostly exploiting the mobility of a chariot and the fact that there's a driver and a warrior combo to load heavy crossbows while the chariot's mobility protected them from retaliation...but at the same time our heavy crossbows are only used against heavily armored targets like the Khemetri nobility.

For nearly every other type of target you want regular archers instead. And for taking out enemy command units, thats more for blackbirds.
 
veekie said:
This is the priests going around doomsaying about how the administration had neglected the gods.
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Actually, what is Legitimacy and what is Religious Authority in this context?

My take was that RA is how our political structure interacts with our religion and Legitimacy is a measure of how effective the central government is at its job.
In this case it make more sense that priests affect RA instead of Legitimacy.
 
Concho117 said:
Actually, what is Legitimacy and what is Religious Authority in this context?

My take was that RA is how our political structure interacts with our religion and Legitimacy is a measure of how effective the central government is at its job.
In this case it make more sense that priests affect RA instead of Legitimacy.
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Religious Authority is how much influence our religion and priests have in our nation, but we don't really know for sure since we haven't messed with it all that much.

Legitimacy is how legitimate people think the Government or the King are.
For example, we lost 1 Legitimacy when we elected Phygriff, since he was a Nomad from a mercenary band who was never a part of the people.
 
Concho117 said:
My take was that RA is how our political structure interacts with our religion and Legitimacy is a measure of how effective the central government is at its job.
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RA is how much the public listens to the priests regarding day to day life.
Legitimacy is a measure of faith in the central government
 
Raichu1972 said:
Religious Authority is how much influence our religion and priests have in our nation, but we don't really know for sure since we haven't messed with it all that much.

Legitimacy is how legitimate people think the Government or the King are.
For example, we lost 1 Legitimacy when we elected Phygriff, since he was a Nomad from a mercenary band who was never a part of the people.
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DocMatoi said:
RA is how much the public listens to the priests regarding day to day life.
Legitimacy is a measure of faith in the central government
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This makes me think that we want to get as many Gymnasiums built as fast as possible in order to replace our religious infrastructure with academic infrastructure. Religion is simply too unreliable.
 
Umi-san said:
Unlike man, nature has no whims, only challenges. Only opportunities to stretch a bit farther, to strengthen oneself. To live in a world predeveloped is to lay on a couch and wait for death, rather than going on a quest to meet it.

There is no contradiction: one can guide through the provision of opportunities. A pole for a bean vine is not an imposition, merely a hold offered to the vine's tendrils. That this prevents the vine from choking out other plants is, as far as the vine is concerned, incidental.

The world resists that which goes against it, acts in accord with those who surrender to its ways. He who knows nature knows how to bring it into greater harmony without cause for resistance. He who knows nature knows himself. He who gives himself to himself, to whims and fancies, is a child flailing in a pool: soon drowned.
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But ofcourse, for nature is but a force, tis deprived of will and intent. An thus is by it very being, servile. For force exists to be used and channeled. You do not bring a force into harmony with yourself, you utilise it or you subject yourself to it. In either case the force cannot care.

And the pole is indeed an imposition, first a plant us slave to its nature, and cannot reject it commands, and by making use of that nature one lays an imposition, for the ability to refuse is nonexistent.

And the resistance of the world is that if any other force to be subjected for the purpose of man. For such a force, harmony is only achieved in subjugation.
And man by by the grace of God knows nature, for he is it master, and a such he is interwoven with nature by bonds of dominion and creation. Thus to give one's self to one's whims is surrender to nature and an abrogation of one's control over it, and so a force unleashed would drown its former master in it power, but if the master remembers that he holds the reigns in the movement of surrender, he would awake before hitting the depths of the void.
 
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DocMatoi said:
no, thats wasps, iirc In fact, doing some light research...
Bees accept immigration. Although its referred to as "drift" and happens when an exhausted bee far from its hive decides to go for self preservation instead of dying in the way back
The Ymaryn are already very bee-like.
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So let's talk about socializing. It's well known that a honeybee can make an "offering" to the guards at the entrance of another hive, by regurgitating nectar from their crop, thus bribing the guards who would normally stop other bees. They are then tagged with the scent profile of that hive - like a lot of the pheromone properties in the hive, this part is loosely understood.

Often, honeybees going from one hive to another are robbing. This happens when there's enough honey for another colony's scouts to smell. The attacking colony will send scouts who attempt to overwhelm the guards and rob out the honey stores of the other hive. This usually happens when the robbed colony is weakened, either from queenlessness or disease.
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Truly corruption is eternal.

Raichu1972 said:
Religious Authority is how much influence our religion and priests have in our nation, but we don't really know for sure since we haven't messed with it all that much.

Legitimacy is how legitimate people think the Government or the King are.
For example, we lost 1 Legitimacy when we elected Phygriff, since he was a Nomad from a mercenary band who was never a part of the people.
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Both of those are basically Trust Stats really. How much people trust the institutions and traditions of religion and state.

Concho117 said:
This makes me think that we want to get as many Gymnasiums built as fast as possible in order to replace our religious infrastructure with academic infrastructure. Religion is simply too unreliable.
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Not replace. Supplement. Religion is how we cope with justifying our values over foreign ones, so it's an immensely valuable tool when engaged in culture mixing.
 
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What we gotta do is return to being the peaceful guys up on the hill: stop expanding, stop fighting our neighbors, and ensure our polity's survival to the modern age.
Warhawk behavior is non-conducive to a long-lasting civ. We've seen that multiple times in this very quest.
 
maximillian said:
Erm, what about every documented civilisation ever?
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They did both. Civilizations which expanded endlessly died when they overreached, tore apart when they could not govern themselves or finally found a bigger fish. Civilizations which never expanded were eclipsed and rendered irrelevant by weight of numbers.

Consolidation phase, expansion phase, consolidation phase. You do not need to be objectively huge, but you do need to be large enough to endure.
 
veekie said:
Not replace. Supplement. Religion is how we cope with justifying our values over foreign ones, so it's an immensely valuable tool when engaged in culture mixing.
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It's a useful tool, yes, but it's also an incredibly dangerous one.

We really shouldn't be using religion to justify our values regardless, the best way is to use widespread secular education to so that the populace understands why the government acts as it does. To this end it really should be more of a priority for our Civ to prioritize gymnasium construction so that more of the people are educated and thus less likely to be swayed by religion over hard science.

Greater education also opens up the door to Democracy and more opportunities for innovation.
 
veekie said:
They did both. Civilizations which expanded endlessly died when they overreached, tore apart when they could not govern themselves or finally found a bigger fish. Civilizations which never expanded were eclipsed and rendered irrelevant by weight of numbers.

Consolidation phase, expansion phase, consolidation phase. You do not need to be objectively huge, but you do need to be large enough to endure.
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I meant that every documented civilisation waged war in some fashion whenever an opportunity presented itself. And often time even when it was detremintal to do so, yet civilizations rose and collapsed, and some achieved rather long standing continuity.

A more late example would be France, which spent almost its entire existence involved in some war or other.
 
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Concho117 said:
We really shouldn't be using religion to justify our values regardless,
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That is IMO exactly what we should be using religion for. I am wary of giving any sort of political influence to the priests, but as the general back-up for our values they are very useful. We wouldn't have been able to maintain our millenia long social ban on slavery without it being enshrined as a religious value.
 
Concho117 said:
It's a useful tool, yes, but it's also an incredibly dangerous one.

We really shouldn't be using religion to justify our values regardless, the best way is to use widespread secular education to so that the populace understands why the government acts as it does. To this end it really should be more of a priority for our Civ to prioritize gymnasium construction so that more of the people are educated and thus less likely to be swayed by religion over hard science.

Greater education also opens up the door to Democracy and more opportunities for innovation.
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Values and morals are ephemeral things, they are born of religion, and are entrenched and watered by it, only when the seed become a towering tree can the priestly caretaker be cruelly cast adrift, for the mighty tree has deep roots and no longer needs the water of the priest.
 
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Susano said:
That is IMO exactly what we should be using religion for. I am wary of giving any sort of political influence to the priests, but as the general back-up for our values they are very useful. We wouldn't have been able to maintain our millenia long social ban on slavery without it being enshrined as a religious value.
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I agree that at the moment it is the most effective tool at our disposal for moderating negative external influence.

However, I also believe that we should be looking into secular alternatives to religion. Perhaps we can even attempt to introduce more Humanist and Enlightenment values early through the spread of secular education by building more gymnasiums. This would give us a more solid philosophical foundation for the continued abolishment of slavery rather than continuing to rely on Priests which may or may not favor the government at any given time.

maximillian said:
Values and morals are ephemeral things, they are born of religion, and are entrenched and watered by it, only when the seed become a towering tree can the priestly caretaker be cruelly cast adrift, for the mighty tree has deep roots and no longer needs the water of the priest.
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I don't really understand what you're arguing here, could you perhaps rephrase it?
 
maximillian said:
Values and morals are ephemeral things, they are born of religion, and are entrenched and watered by it, only when the seed become a towering tree can the priestly caretaker be cruelly cast adrift, for the mighty tree has deep roots and no longer needs the water of the priest.
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But ofcourse, the drought can cause a tree to question its hubris.
 
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