Remove ads

Paths of Civilization

Reader mode
8bitBob said:
Problem is that, if we want to do this, we'll have to spend basically all of our actions to do so. Need wealth generating actions on top of actually training the Spiritbonded and performing and other near mandatory actions such as war missions or raising armies.

I'm not necessarily against more Spiritbonded if they're an appropriate response to a threat, but it's a tall order.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
It'd be really nice to grab another point if we can afford to. Getting a GA then declining bonuses would be the most efficient way, I think.
Raichu1972 said:
The way I see it is that we really ought to start doing it sooner rather than later.
With the possible surprise Mountain Horse and the threat of hard mode Nomads on the horizon, getting the cavalry to properly contest them will be super important.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Also, the higher our light cavalry score gets, the sooner we can get medium cavalry, I think.
It's a matter of centuries regardless though, of course.
 
George said:
It'd be really nice to grab another point if we can afford to. Getting a GA then declining bonuses would be the most efficient way, I think.

Also, the higher our light cavalry score gets, the sooner we can get medium cavalry, I think.
It's a matter of centuries regardless though, of course.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
It is a matter of centuries, but when every turn takes about 20 years the centuries can really sneak up on you.

Starting to build up cav now will be good so that when we start to get medium horses, we'll already have a strong esquetsrian tradition to fall back on.
 
Horses sound useful, sure.

But are they more important than roads? What about Forests?


This is a serious question. We have only do many actions that aren't immediately spoken for, and every action spent on cavalry is an action not spent on Forests or Roads, and vice versa. We should think carefully about what is actually most important to us.
 
Raichu1972 said:
The way I see it is that we really ought to start doing it sooner rather than later.
With the possible surprise Mountain Horse and the threat of hard mode Nomads on the horizon, getting the cavalry to properly contest them will be super important.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I remain skeptical about our ability to out-cavalry hard mode nomads. I can't imagine a situation where dealing with them doesn't involve a defensive advantage with fortifications.

Now, as I said, I'm not against Spiritbonded, but it's a matter of what we'd have to give up to raise significant numbers. Do we delay the Dam and Lowland Canal another couple centuries? Do we delay roads further? Those would absolutely help in defending against eastern nomad attacks long term, since it improves our ability to move bulk sized armies and build up the region.
 
PrimalShadow said:
Horses sound useful, sure.

But are they more important than roads? What about Forests?


This is a serious question. We have only do many actions that aren't immediately spoken for, and every action spent on cavalry is an action not spent on Forests or Roads, and vice versa. We should think carefully about what is actually most important to us.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
8bitBob said:
I remain skeptical about our ability to out-cavalry hard mode nomads. I can't imagine a situation where dealing with them doesn't involve a defensive advantage with fortifications.

Now, as I said, I'm not against Spiritbonded, but it's a matter of what we'd have to give up to raise significant numbers. Do we delay the Dam and Lowland Canal another couple centuries? Do we delay roads further? Those would absolutely help in defending against eastern nomad attacks long term, since it improves our ability to move bulk sized armies and build up the region.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
If the problem ends up being the Mountain Horse, I will prioritize horses over roads, if only because we can't actually build roads directly to the Thunder Twins, while horses are mobile enough to contest the MH without the need for roads.

If the problem is nomads from the steppes, I will still prioritize horses over roads, since we need the mobility of horses to contest the Nomads mobility so they can't just hit and run raid us.

If the problem ends up being HK or a half exile revolt, I will prioritize roads, since roads can help with dealing with an internal rebellion and we can build roads directly to the HK boarder, letting us improve response times against them.
 
Yo
  • Staff Post
    • yo
    No, no don't run! No one is getting infracted this time! I'm here to alert you of a phenomenon which often surfaces during large quests, that of mass quoting large amounts of posters to inform them to switch their votes. This can get quite annoying although it doesn't rise to infractionable levels. It might, however incur a warning for marginal behaviour, and the thread banner has been updated to reflect this.

    Have a good day!
     
    Last edited:
  • Staff Post
    • PrimalShadow said:
    Horses sound useful, sure.

    But are they more important than roads? What about Forests?


    This is a serious question. We have only do many actions that aren't immediately spoken for, and every action spent on cavalry is an action not spent on Forests or Roads, and vice versa. We should think carefully about what is actually most important to us.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    I'd really like to get that second point of light cavalry so we aren't at risk of losing the tech, but I think we have some work to do with forests and roads first, aiming for around 45% connectivity and having some forest buffer after getting ironworks level 2.
     
    PrimalShadow said:
    Horses sound useful, sure.

    But are they more important than roads? What about Forests?


    This is a serious question. We have only do many actions that aren't immediately spoken for, and every action spent on cavalry is an action not spent on Forests or Roads, and vice versa. We should think carefully about what is actually most important to us.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    I mean, especially if we're gonna keep our mercs on hire, i think we need to boost our military in general, yeah. Even aside from AN hinting at MH attack, with the crisis over we honestly should have taken at least a little martial boosting action this turn, in retrospect, given our low martial and our mercs either weakened or on loan...
     
    Raichu1972 said:
    If the problem ends up being the Mountain Horse, I will prioritize horses over roads, if only because we can't actually build roads directly to the Thunder Twins, while horses are mobile enough to contest the MH without the need for roads.

    If the problem is nomads from the steppes, I will still prioritize horses over roads, since we need the mobility of horses to contest the Nomads mobility so they can't just hit and run raid us.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    This falls into the category of immediate threat, which is reasonable if the threat is dire enough. The question is whether or not we would do better holding them off with traditional armies and Mercs while building up the region. To raise 3 Spiritbonded costs seven secondary actions just to generate the wealth and train them. This is a significant investment.

    If the update drops and nomads are rampaging across the Lowlands, expect me to support Spiritbonded. Otherwise, I'd prefer to focus on improving our ability to deal with all threats via infrastructure and defenses.
     
    Abby Normal said:
    I mean, especially if we're gonna keep our mercs on hire, i think we need to boost our military in general, yeah. Even aside from AN hinting at MH attack, with the crisis over we honestly should have taken at least a little martial boosting action this turn, in retrospect, given our low martial and our mercs either weakened or on loan...
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    To be honest, Txolla plus Thunder Twins probably have a decently sized army, large enough to at least not get immediately run over.

    They do make up most of the Lowlands, so they likely have the population density for it.

    They also come from pretty martial cultures, so I wouldn't be surprised if they had something similar to our (now former) Yeomen army system.
     
    Raichu1972 said:
    To be honest, Txolla plus Thunder Twins probably have a decently sized army, large enough to at least not get immediately run over.

    They do make up most of the Lowlands, so they likely have the population density for it.

    They also come from pretty martial cultures, so I wouldn't be surprised if they had something similar to our (now former) Yeomen army system.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Hopefully. But the MH seem to be one of the stronger powers around. Probably weaker per "pound" than the storm wolves but otherwise the second strongest military threat around, after the Khemetri:
    Academia Nut said:
    The clawback of political rights and the closer administration of many of the subdivisions of Western Wall had somewhat mitigated the issue, but to some extent that had just focused their attention further west, outward from their capital in the mountains. Thankfully the troublemakers were keeping to the west, because the news from the traders to the east was that taking on the Mountain Horse was probably a really bad idea. While devastated from the loss of the lowlands, nomads biting at the eastern side of their mountainous territory had eventually resulted in the petty kingdoms there reuniting under a king of descent from both the locals and the nomadic tribes. It had come out that half the reason the Harmurri had been so interested in getting assistance in acquiring cotton and had asked for aid in doing so was because the Mountain Horse were progressively cutting off those incredibly distant routes to the south and far east. With those routes, control of a route to the mythical Salt Sea and the wealth concentrated there, internal supplies of tin and copper to keep well supplied in bronze, and being the best group able to capitalize on iron working slaves from the former Metal Worker tribes that were traded among the nomads, they were wealthy and militarily powerful. While for obvious 'not-wanting-to-be-smited' reasons they had little interest in attempting to take the lowlands once more, if someone took a swing at them the results would be... unpleasant.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Also, just in general, this quest has shown that we almost always underestimate our enemies military, and that the attacker has an amazing advantage both directly and indirectly--among other things, because the attacker often attacks because they have a martial hero, which is a major benefit.
     
    Abby Normal said:
    Hopefully. But the MH seem to be one of the stronger powers around. Probably weaker per "pound" than the storm wolves but otherwise the second strongest military threat around, after the Khemetri:


    Also, just in general, this quest has shown that we almost always underestimate our enemies military, and that the attacker has an amazing advantage both directly and indirectly--among other things, because the attacker often attacks because they have a martial hero, which is a major benefit.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    I'm not saying that the Lowlands can beat back the MH, that would be super arrogant to presume.

    I'm just saying that they could hopefully not just get completely crushed in the time it takes for us to get our troops over there, since lack of good road networks + connected only by land = it takes forever for us to get there.

    I don't expect them to win, or even stalemate the MH, but I'm hoping they can hold the line until we get our troops over there.
     
    MH is as far as I know, smaller than us. The Ymaryn has numerical and material superiority, but with logistics being shit, we don't know if it's enough to matter.
     
    Raichu1972 said:
    I'm not saying that the Lowlands can beat back the MH, that would be super arrogant to presume.

    I'm just saying that they could hopefully not just get completely crushed in the time it takes for us to get our troops over there, since lack of good road networks + connected only by land = it takes forever for us to get there.

    I don't expect them to win, or even stalemate the MH, but I'm hoping they can hold the line until we get our troops over there.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Having our subordinates "hold the line" honestly isn't enough for us, not right now with our army weak and our best and most readied troops either terribly weakened or already deployed in another civ's fights. That strategy is a good one, but it requires us to have a solid army ready and able to roll over our enemy if we just have the time. I think we've just gotten too used to having had such a thing for so long--i know thats part of why i didn't think to suggest/push for more martial this turn. We dont even have the best situation for quickly calling up and mobilizing a lot of troops either, with our wealth so unusually low. We can fix that next turn...but by then i'd be very surprised if we hadn't started taking stab hits from lost territory--if i recall correctly, the Khemetri war showed we took those even with "just" subject lands being taken. Not to mention the possibility of other civs jumping in on the matter while we're distracted, or the existing pirate war and the natives attacking amber road. This is honestly the most vulnerable to external wars we've been in a long time, i think.
     
    Kiba said:
    MH is as far as I know, smaller than us. The Ymaryn has numerical and material superiority, but with logistics being shit, we don't know if it's enough to matter.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    I'm pretty sure we've never actually been that far out, since the Mountain Horse are the remnants of the Thunder Horse that didn't get fucked by the Meteor.
    We know that they were essentially a confederacy of city states out in the Steppes that constantly fought with each other, and we know that they were one of the strongest polities in the Lowlands Rumble for quite a while.

    Considering it's been centuries since we've heard anything from them, they likely consolidated around a martial King and decided to loot us for all our stuff or something similar, since I imagine the Thunder Twins, who have a large population density but in comparison relatively underwhelming defenses, look like a juicy target for slave raids and such.

    Abby Normal said:
    Having our subordinates "hold the line" honestly isn't enough for us, not right now with our army weak and our best and most readied troops either terribly weakened or already deployed in another civ's fights. That strategy is a good one, but it requires us to have a solid army ready and able to roll over our enemy if we just have the time. I think we've just gotten too used to having had such a thing for so long--i know thats part of why i didn't think to suggest/push for more martial this turn. We dont even have the best situation for quickly calling up and mobilizing a lot of troops either, with our wealth so unusually low. We can fix that next turn...but by then i'd be very surprised if we hadn't started taking stab hits from lost territory--if i recall correctly, the Khemetri war showed we took those even with "just" subject lands being taken. Not to mention the possibility of other civs jumping in on the matter while we're distracted, or the existing pirate war and the natives attacking amber road. This is honestly the most vulnerable to external wars we've been in a long time, i think.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    This is why I'm hoping that it's actually a Great Power War, since those let us get swole super quick and would easily let us go onto the war footing without having to spend wealth raising armies.

    The most likely scenario is that the Thunder Twins will be teetering on the edge of being taken over, just like Gulvalley was for the Khemetri, and we'll have a turn to get troops over there before the land is taken and we go into a stability spiral.

    Now that I remember it, we were able to get troops into Txolla extremely quickly during the Khemetri War, so maybe our wartime logistics aren't as bad as we think?
    I'm mostly just trying not to be pessimistic before the update even drops, and I prefer to think of good, or at least not bad, scenarios instead of being all doom and gloom.

    In other good news, since Heaven's Hawks was in a position to send war missions against the Thunder Speakers back in the day, I wouldn't be surprised if they could send war missions to support them against the Mountain Horse.

    They are our only march, so they have to have some good martial scores, right?
     
    Last edited:
    What makes people think the Mountain Horse have anything to do with this?

    If anything, I would bet against them being the ones instigating something. After all, here is the last we heard of them:
    Academia Nut said:
    The clawback of political rights and the closer administration of many of the subdivisions of Western Wall had somewhat mitigated the issue, but to some extent that had just focused their attention further west, outward from their capital in the mountains. Thankfully the troublemakers were keeping to the west, because the news from the traders to the east was that taking on the Mountain Horse was probably a really bad idea. While devastated from the loss of the lowlands, nomads biting at the eastern side of their mountainous territory had eventually resulted in the petty kingdoms there reuniting under a king of descent from both the locals and the nomadic tribes. It had come out that half the reason the Harmurri had been so interested in getting assistance in acquiring cotton and had asked for aid in doing so was because the Mountain Horse were progressively cutting off those incredibly distant routes to the south and far east. With those routes, control of a route to the mythical Salt Sea and the wealth concentrated there, internal supplies of tin and copper to keep well supplied in bronze, and being the best group able to capitalize on iron working slaves from the former Metal Worker tribes that were traded among the nomads, they were wealthy and militarily powerful. While for obvious 'not-wanting-to-be-smited' reasons they had little interest in attempting to take the lowlands once more, if someone took a swing at them the results would be... unpleasant.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    It has only been about 2 turns since we got that piece of news; I would be surprised if it changed already.
     
    PrimalShadow said:
    What makes people think the Mountain Horse have anything to do with this?

    If anything, I would bet against them being the ones instigating something. After all, here is the last we heard of them:

    It has only been about 2 turns since we got that piece of news; I would be surprised if it changed already.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    The Heaven's Hawk just sent a trade mission to the Salt People. It seems that the mountain horse have a center of trade type modifier via control of the trade routes. They may have suffered a stability hit and then were given the option to either declare war on us or to suffer another stability hit.

    Nore pertinently, AN rated a post as 'meow' that claimed that the Mountain Horse were attacking us.
     
    Abby Normal said:
    Having our subordinates "hold the line" honestly isn't enough for us, not right now with our army weak and our best and most readied troops either terribly weakened or already deployed in another civ's fights. That strategy is a good one, but it requires us to have a solid army ready and able to roll over our enemy if we just have the time. I think we've just gotten too used to having had such a thing for so long--i know thats part of why i didn't think to suggest/push for more martial this turn. We dont even have the best situation for quickly calling up and mobilizing a lot of troops either, with our wealth so unusually low. We can fix that next turn...but by then i'd be very surprised if we hadn't started taking stab hits from lost territory--if i recall correctly, the Khemetri war showed we took those even with "just" subject lands being taken. Not to mention the possibility of other civs jumping in on the matter while we're distracted, or the existing pirate war and the natives attacking amber road. This is honestly the most vulnerable to external wars we've been in a long time, i think.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    We are vulnerable now this is something that happens now and then. The big problem is our glass jaw too much of our first line of Defence is in our Martial stat.

    The last time we did any Defence Infrastructure was over a 1000 years ago. The only reason we have any is the Passive wall Policiy.

    We need to use the next gold age on Defence Policiy.
     
    Manget said:
    We are vulnerable now this is something that happens now and then. The big problem is our glass jaw too much of our first line of Defence is in our Martial stat.

    The last time we did any Defence Infrastructure was over a 1000 years ago. The only reason we have any is the Passive wall Policiy.

    We need to use the next gold age on Defence Policiy.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Golden ages have basically nothing to do with defensive policy. If you want a defensive policy, find a time and try to push it. A golden age ISNT such a time; if you wanted something fitting you should pay for a time when we generate extra econ, like a Baby Boom.
     
    Manget said:
    We are vulnerable now this is something that happens now and then. The big problem is our glass jaw too much of our first line of Defence is in our Martial stat.

    The last time we did any Defence Infrastructure was over a 1000 years ago. The only reason we have any is the Passive wall Policiy.

    We need to use the next gold age on Defence Policiy.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    We can't build defensive structures in subordinates anyways, so your point is kinda moot in this instance.

    If someone is attacking our subordinates, unless they have their own defensive infrastructure, the only thing we can do is militarily contest them.

    Our policies, as always, only affect the Core, so a defensive policy is worthless unless someone gets past our subordiantes, at which point we're in deep shit anyways.
     
    Manget said:
    We are vulnerable now this is something that happens now and then. The big problem is our glass jaw too much of our first line of Defence is in our Martial stat.

    The last time we did any Defence Infrastructure was over a 1000 years ago. The only reason we have any is the Passive wall Policiy.

    We need to use the next gold age on Defence Policiy.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    WTF do you get out of a defense policy during a golden age?

    Also, we have not been neglecting defenses, since we have been building walls in our core for literal centuries now.
     
    Last edited:
    Reader mode
    You must login or register to reply here.
    Remove ads
    Back
    Top