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Paths of Civilization

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So, with AN's answer regarding Vassal Support, I'm absolutely going to want to vote for at minimum two passive policy slots dedicated to that, because that will greatly slow any cultural divergence in our subordinates. Actively converting will still require Influence Subordinate, which we need to start doing with our Lowland Vassals.
 
Don't forget that a heroic admin crit gave us early indexing, so think what a genius admin could give.
 
Candesce said:
This is an argument in favour of Vassal Support, which is most certainly a long game.

Note that Vassal Support doesn't mean not taking Influence Subordinate right now, which is what you should actually be arguing over.
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Yes, I'm not arguing against taking Vassal Support. I'm arguing against taking a shitload of Vassal Support right now because of urgency. They won't resolve the issue on their own, but they're very good at preventing the issue from deviating later on. We have more priorities than vassals, so the Vassal support policy can get in line. Take one Vassal, put another policy on Defense, then cycle back to Infrastructure on the next one we get after that, then Vassal again. Once we've topped off infrastructure on our promising city sites, we can taper off the Infrastructure to Support policies next.

Vassal drift are an issue, but we've seen that they seem to be mainly a 10 turn span issue, so getting the Significant Walls and Infrastructure to support the cities to support the policies is more efficient until we near the city sustainability caps.
Academia Nut said:
Since you killed them, it is yours for the taking if you can re-fulfil the conditions.

Also, re:timing of max stats, I will check at the midturn and main turn, so if a stat is being replenished between by something else it can be paid for and not pop the Golden Age.
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That's good to know, but from the looks of things we're getting a Genius Admin, so we probably won't accidentally pop it that easily.
 
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@Academia Nut if the TH/TS decided to break away and we let them, would that lead to the war within a couple generations scenario of the Stallions or are they far enough away that we could just shrug it off?
 
veekie said:
Nope. Again, as with Forests, as with walls, as with Infrastructure.
Policies are all about the long game. The super long term benefits of making a problem less of a problem.

I'd agree that a Policy set to Vassal Support is useful, but for the immediate situation, we'd be better off taking Support Subordinate manually to cope with current issues.
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WhyNotBoth.gif

I don't think we can expect Vassal Support Policy alone to fix our issues. However, they will help, and keep helping as time goes on. This is especially true if we set two Vassal Support Policies; at that rate, I expect to see tangible gains by the 3-5 turn range, which is good because that is roughly when I expect our recent vassals to start making angry noises otherwise.

For reference. Two Forest Policies would have 3-5 extra forests in that time range, two infrastructure policies will have a handful of projects complete, and two Defensive policies will walled up the equivalent of 1-2 provinces. Passive policies are not solutions to short-term problems, but they can absolutely handle mid-term problems, especially if you set two of them to a task together.
 
Also keep in mind that at some point well probably need to take a city support policy, now that we don't have baby boom keeping us capped every turn. Unless we can stay on balanced with a main expand econ each turn, I guess...
 
veekie said:
No, this is good, we just demonstrated that two badly spirit touched individuals can have a normally smart but not broken child.

Kicked that bit of eugenics in the balls
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Mean regression is a thing. Michael Jordan's kids aren't tearing up the NBA.

Edit: not that I'm advocating we keep pursuing the eugenics stuff. I'm of the opinion it was literally magic.
 
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Moreover, they should tackle issues we don't notice.

We can't always use Influence Subordinate due to action economy. So something that runs in the background and at least stops the bleeding helps a lot. No one argues for a dozen policies. 2 are enough for now.
 
veekie said:
We have more priorities than vassals, so the Vassal support policy can get in line. Take one Vassal, put another policy on Defense, then cycle back to Infrastructure on the next one we get after that, then Vassal again.
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I think a second policy on Vassals is very much a higher priority than a second Defense policy or a fourth Infrastructure Policy.

I absolutely love Infrastructure Policies, but I think 3 of them is already a good place to be. As it is, our passive policy can do a medium sized (6 progress) project in a single turn, or finish a large (9 progress) project if we prompt them with the first action. More build capacity is always better, but I can't really call it urgent at this point.

As for Defensive policies, those do speed up the rate at which we plop down walls but I'm pretty sure that our old borders are already walled off, and our new borders are all in peripheral states and thus not subject to our actions. So basically we would be building more walls in the core, which I find to be of limited importance.

In contrast, Vassal Support is looking to be the crisis of our age. If we collapse or suffer a major setback in the next ten or so turns, I expect it it to be either directly caused or at least precipitated by our peripheral states having different culture and/or lowered loyalty to us.


In light of this, I think that 2x Vassal Support is our best bet at combating the critical issues that we will be facing. I say this not merely because we just absorbed two vassals that demand intervention NOW, but because we've seem Subordinate issues growing over a long time now.
 
@Abby Normal do you think you can draw up a diagram for the order everything happens to our stats in a turn cycle? Or, if you don't like making graphics, a bulletpoint list? I'm fuzzy on the details but they REALLY matter now to keep our GA.

I'll draw up the diagram if you do the list form, w/e. We just need to make this less arcane.
 
Academia Nut said:
Technically the gods own the land and all the things within and gave it to the People to tend to, with the king being the representative of the gods and the People who then assigns administrators and so on and so forth down the social hierarchy. Very, very technically speaking there is no such thing as inheritance. However, it is fully expected that children will be assigned the same lands and goods as their parents barring some major event.
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Given how harshly the thread tried to prevent land inheritance, I'm not sure I'm happy we ended up with it anyway.
 
10ebbor10 said:
Given how harshly the thread tried to prevent land inheritance, I'm not sure I'm happy we ended up with it anyway.
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Didn't we pretty much know it was inevitable? And this strikes a good balance; parents have the incentive to think long term and preserve/upgrade their land for their children. But massively incompetant children will end up disinherited.
 
Candesce said:
Dunno. It is a closer option for gaining audiences and relief from injustice, so long as it's not the current family in charge profiting from them.
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Ehhh if it establishes a new governor yes but if a governor already existed and all they can see is him getting a fancy house, no
veekie said:
Not really innovations that increase agricultural yield as discussed there. We're pretty much capped out on agricultural yield for now.
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how are we defining agricultural yield? Iirc pbluekan talked about how we can practice more directed breeding to get better cultivars, splicing, and crop rotation. We don't have those yet. Vineyards is quite likely to get directed breeding and possibly splicing/grafting (some grape varietals have better roots but worse grapes). Hemp, maybe, would result in crop rotation.
Other options are a more formal knowledge of plants that improve yields when grown together if we don't have that yet, better threshing tools, better seeding tools.

All of these are direct yield increases. Things like "industry" I.e. The water wheel increase agricultural yield by decreasing wastage and overhead. Same opportunities for wax, including bug repelling herbs, importing cats.
Yes, we have ox driven mills but you have to feed and tend to the on whereas the mills need repair and then only occasionally. Less work. More food leftover. Possibly more flour that can be produced at a time.

Our priests maybe haven't involved themselves in politics, but we have examples of that being an issue in the Xoh. Furthermore, social issues alone is enough to make traders wary. The unifying potential over the urban poor is an issue too, one we've had some experience with when dealing with the Txolla. There's also the whole priests glaring at traders thing. Having a large temple close by means they can glare harder.

Comment on GP above.

Sorry for lack of clear quotes; phone won't let me quote more than once or something
 
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Just for fun:
Each of the following assumes that we have one governor palace per city.
-2 Centralization Cap
-3 econ/turn
+3 econ expansion/turn
+1.5 culture/turn
+3 player policies
-1 Centralization Cap
-2 econ/turn
+2 econ expansion/turn
+2.5 culture/turn
+3 player policies
+1 AI passive policy
-1 Subordinate slot
-0 Centralization Cap
-1 econ/turn
+1 econ expansion/turn
+3.5 culture/turn
+3 player policies
+2 AI Passive policy
-2 Subordinate slot
-0 Centralization Cap
-0 econ/turn
+0 econ expansion/turn
+7 culture/turn
+1 free player policy
+5 allocated player policies
+4 AI Passive policy

Players choose following distribution of policies: 4 Vassal support, 1 True City support, 1 free. Infinitely extendable, but probably has unforeseen risks.
Overall, I'd say that a ratio somewhere between 2:1 and 1:1 of True Cities to Free Cities is probably ideal.
 
Kiba said:
Generational plot, indeed. Yet, in the end, they lost, and their empire eventually got sliced and diced by us and the Harmurri.
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Quest said:
I feel like this is a challenge.:p
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So just to put that ten turns in context... 10 turns ago was literally the turn after we killed the Xoh and finished the Greater Sacred Forest, our first wonder:
Academia Nut said:
[X][Main] New Trails
[X][Main] New Trails x2
[X][Secondary] Expand Forests
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Academia Nut said:
[X][Main] Grand Palace
[X][Main] Grand Palace x2
[X] [Secondary] Expand Economy
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Academia Nut said:
[X][Mine] Admit that mistakes were made on the record so that future rulers might not repeat them (-1 Stability)
[X][Main] Improve Annual Festival
[X][Secondary] Expand Economy
[X][Secondary] Change Policy - Megaproject Support
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Academia Nut said:
[X][Main] Grand Palace
[X][Main] Build Docks
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Academia Nut said:
[X][Main] Census
[X][Secondary] New Settlement - south of cataracts
[X][Secondary] Integrate Colony - Hatvalley – Propagate
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Academia Nut said:
[X][Main] The Law (Iron Age)
[X][Secondary] Proclaim Glory
[X][Secondary] Plant Hemp
[X][Free] Change Passive Policy - Defence (+1 significant walls/turn)
[X][Free] Found Colony - Change Greenshore Trading Post to a Colony
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Academia Nut said:
[X][Main] Build Annex - Arsenal
[X][Secondary] Study Metal
[X][Secondary] Support Artisans
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Academia Nut said:
[X][Mega] Upgrade Best of the Best to Life of Arete
[X][Main] International Games
[X][Secondary] New Trails
[X][Secondary] Change Policy - Megaproject Support
[X][Guild] Grand Docks
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Academia Nut said:
Actions Taken
[Main] Enforce Justice
[Sec] Change Active Policy – Balanced
[Sec] Build Chariots
[Guild] Grand Docks
[Free] Policy – Infrastructure
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Academia Nut said:
Actions Taken
[Main] Place to the Stars
[Sec] Support Subordinate – Ruined Thunder Horse
[Sec] Found Trading Post – Far North
[Guild] Grand Docks
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Things we've done since then:
5 and a half megaprojects and one wonder: Palace, Census, Iron Age Law, Games, International Games, Grand Docks, most of (maybe all of after this midturn) Place to the Stars
Gone from 40 prestige to 86
Upgraded at least 5 values
Gained 7 legacies, one of which is a second tier legacy
Upgraded government twice
Changed economic system
Gained/upgraded 16 Technologies
Gained/changed 5 social concepts
Gained/upgraded/obsoleted 8 military techs
Split up art into two new stats.
Doubled our action strengths and province scale
Went from 2 true city candidates to 6.
Gained +3 stat caps
Went from 9 original-size provinces to 8 double-size provinces
Finally integrated the stallion tribes, as well as propogated Hatvalley
Created/gained/propogated 5 new subordinates
Gained 6 subordinate slots
Fought a Great Power War, and befriended our enemy in said war after going from "losing on 3 fronts to 3 civs" to "destroyed one civ, white peaced another, and forced the third into the deadliest battle in history"
Gained...probably 3+ million people, since we gained 2+ since the census which was halfway through this span of time.
More than doubled the extent of forests within our core provinces...as well as more than doubled our charcoal and wood usage to match (7/7 forests to 15/16)
Edit: Oh yeah, and the God Fist happened :p
And just for raw time scale...this was ~200-300 years, depending on where in the 20-30 year range each of these turns was.
And for OoC timescale...this took more than a month, and we've had 19 staff posts since then, of which 11 were full "Stop" posts from @ManusDomine (who i hope is finally able to take his vacation from moderating this thread, and that said vacation is enjoyable <3)


So... yeah. Keep that in mind when you say that matching the Xoh's golden age duration is a challenge. It's frankly ridiculous. If we want to get even to 5 turns, which i think is likely either the first or second level of the legacy (i'm thinking either 3/5/7/9, or 5/7/9, or maybe 5/7/10?), then we need to be really damn careful, really damn wary, really damn conservative in the innovations we take, and really damn lucky. We need to be willing to take cheap innovations. We need to be willing to just mitigate our DB, or just get a random tech, instead of going for the genius. We don't have baby boom + pop explosion to give us infinite stats anymore. Our wealth generations pretty awesome now, yes, but so is our wealth usage.
 
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By the way. Here is what I'd like/expand to see as our actions next turn, give or take. Note that assuming an Admin King, we don't get to keep control of anything.

King Actions
{S} Integrate Colony - Txolla
{S} ???
{M} ???
{GM} Glassworks

Active Province Policy (balanced)
{S} -> {M} Expand Econ (doubled by The Law)
{S} Support Subordinate - Ruined Thunder Horse
{M} Expand Forest

Passive Province Policies (infrastructure x3 + defense x2 + forestry x1 + vassal support x2)
Sustainable Forest +1
Significant Walls +1
Redshore Baths (2/3 -> 3/3)
??? (+6 infrastructure progress)
??? (Unknown City Policy)
??? (Unknown City Policy)


Justifications

I don't know for sure what actions the king could take. Making a Theatre would be a reasonable call if we had a point of culture, but I'm not sure we do. If we haven't finished the PttS that will eat up a main. Road Building is practically always a good idea, and especially so under an Admin Hero. And so on. However, I am moderately sure about a couple of things. First of all, we WILL use the Guild Action to make Glassworks; there is just no reason not to. Second, we will integrate a province, opening up Econ Expansion and getting us to 9 Provinces for the two bonus secondaries.

Our province policy will probably Expand Econ (since that gets doubled, and we do need Econ), Support the Ruined Thunder Horse (since it needs our help and this is a cheap way to buy future loyalty), and Expand Forest (for the Yeomen Mission). That is my best guess, anyways.

Passive policies will all do their thing, though it is unknown what the cities will do or what the new big infrastructure project is going to be. Probably more baths or something, but who knows?
 
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