Paths of Civilization

Susano · Oct 31, 2017

Janadus said:
Basically, if we are not willing or able to fight a civil war to keep our colonies, they will eventually leave, and if we let colonies slip away without punishment, we should expect repeat performances from other vassals.

I'm all for letting vassals leave who wish to do so. Txolla and Thunder Horse stay out of loyalty, and that is how it should be. The Ymaryn "Empire" should be one of mutual voluntary support; if the Western Colonies don't want to be part of that support network anymore, well, it's a pity, and we should try to convince them otherwise, but we shouldn't impose our rule over them.

That would just be blatant imperialism, and I'd rather not turn the Ymaryn into out and out conquerors of empires.

DragonParadox · Oct 31, 2017

Susano said:
It's a social contract. One that they might to cancel. In which case you don't need to complain about us helping them, either.

No it's vassalage, a fundamentally unequal and paternalistic relationship. The Ymaryn have no concept of a social contract.

Susano said:
If this triggers it. The land would still be cared for by Ymaryn after all, just Ymaryn outside of the King's control - that is how we've defined the Western Ymaryn so far, after all.

Well yes but rebelling colonies would also be traitors, untrustworthy and thus morally bankrupt. If they betrayed the king why would they not betray the land?

Raichu1972 · Oct 31, 2017

Susano said:
It's a social contract. One that they might to cancel. In which case you don't need to complain about us helping them, either.

If this triggers it. The land would still be cared for by Ymaryn after all, just Ymaryn outside of the King's control - that is how we've defined the Western Ymaryn so far, after all.

I have never complained about helping our subordinates.

I have always been for Influencing subordinates and vassal support and helping our subordinates in general.

I like helping them, they should also in turn help us.

I don't like how they've been acting recently, but the thread has been neglecting them lately because of the other crisis we have been in.

We really should have started doing this a while ago.

Edit: and no, this has never been a leave whenever you want kind of deal.

The colonies are more autonomous, but they are still subordinate to the crown.

They are allowed to expand and receive assistance from the Core, and in return they send us food and assist us in wars.

This has always been an unequal partnership, because the Crown has always been above the colonies.

Kiba · Oct 31, 2017

Susano said:
I'm all for letting vassals leave who wish to do so. Txolla and Thunder Horse stay out of loyalty, and that is how it should be. The Ymaryn "Empire" should be one of mutual voluntary support; if the Western Colonies don't want to be part of that support network anymore, well, it's a pity, and we should try to convince them otherwise, but we shouldn't impose our rule over them.

That would just be blatant imperialism, and I'd rather not turn the Ymaryn into out and out conquerors of empires.

One does not simply leave the union.

DakkaMania said:
@PrimalShadow

I don't know if you have already seen it and I just missed it being mentioned, but:

+1 Tech Refund/2 palaces,

From the Megaproject tab.

So that puts Governors Palaces (and roads with them) further ahead on our Do Want list, I think.

So with the two Palaces we already have, we have 2 Tech Refund and a +1 drip. Absorbing WW and Greenshore would add another if we don't build another two palaces in the Lowlands. But a refund of two is already substantial, I think, as only Expand Econ really devours it at a big rate.

Excellent, we don't have to build an arsenal after all and can focus on building all the other annexes. It's too bad that a further 4 of them will be taken up by the Grand Hall.

Abby Normal · Oct 31, 2017

DakkaMania said:
@PrimalShadow

I don't know if you have already seen it and I just missed it being mentioned, but:

+1 Tech Refund/2 palaces,

From the Megaproject tab.

So that puts Governors Palaces (and roads with them) further ahead on our Do Want list, I think.

So with the two Palaces we already have, we have 2 Tech Refund and a +1 drip. Absorbing WW and Greenshore would add another if we don't build another two palaces in the Lowlands. But a refund of two is already substantial, I think, as only Expand Econ really devours it at a big rate.

Oooh, nice catch, i hadn't noticed AN had updated the civ sheet again

So overall, gov palaces give:
Pro:
-0.5 Min Cent Tolerance
+1 Temp Econ Damage Resistance
+1 Max Interconnectivity
+1 RA Tolerance
+0.5 Tech Refund (Rounds down)
+1/3 City Admin Support (Functionally +1 Max Cent Tolerance, Rounds Down)
+1 City Attraction if in a City Candidate
Eases administrative issues

Con:
-1 Max Cent Tolerance
Can serve as core of breakaway state, and strengthens local patricians' power vs the king's

Also interesting in that it proves both @veekie and i right on how the palace annex/gov palace works. Like veekie thought, its a "as if each GP has 1 level lower for annex"*, and like i thought, its not full strength in all cases, since it would be broken if each palace gave a tech refund
*Or maybe half of the level? I'd have to look at the actual numbers more to do so, and i'm making an early dinner right now

8bitBob · Oct 31, 2017

DakkaMania said:
@PrimalShadow

I don't know if you have already seen it and I just missed it being mentioned, but:

+1 Tech Refund/2 palaces,

From the Megaproject tab.

So that puts Governors Palaces (and roads with them) further ahead on our Do Want list, I think.

So with the two Palaces we already have, we have 2 Tech Refund and a +1 drip. Absorbing WW and Greenshore would add another if we don't build another two palaces in the Lowlands. But a refund of two is already substantial, I think, as only Expand Econ really devours it at a big rate.

Oh whoa, totally missed that. Definitely makes them more attractive. After we finish the Patrician quest, we may want to see about getting these things online (assuming we ever get a chance to build some damn roads to raise our cap.)

edit:

This confirms that Shrine+Library+Arsenal = tech refund, right? So if we got 4 in each, which I believe is doable still after Great Halls, we could get +1 tech refund per GP?

edit2:

Derp. Definitely not doable. A potential goal later though.

Susano · Oct 31, 2017

DragonParadox said:
No it's vassalage, a fundamentally unequal and paternalistic relationship. The Ymaryn have no concept of a social contract.

"Paternalistic" doesn't exclude "social contract", and what @Raichu1972 argued was that it is a social contract. He basically argued that, that is what his post amounted to, no me. I just summed it up as social contract and said that those can be ended.

Well yes but rebelling colonies would also be traitors, untrustworthy and thus morally bankrupt. If they betrayed the king why would they not betray the land?

Because they are Ymaryn? And political disputes among the People have always existed. We never had had outright secession before, but in general terms you can be of the People and still oppose the King. They would still be of the same people, just the same people living in a different state.

Raichu1972 said:
I have never complained about helping our subordinates.

Sorry, that's not what I meant. I meant your post amounted to "we help them and they turn their back on us???". Basically accusing them of self-serving hypocrisy. But well, if they leave, then we also have no obligation anymore to help anymore, so it isn't really hypocritical.

That being said, I do fully agree we should now invest resources on having them, hm, converge more again with the Core. But I won't condone military expeditions against fellow Ymaryn.

Kiba said:
One does not simply leave the union.

One does.

sidestory · Oct 31, 2017

PrimalShadow said:
I have a question for you guys. Is rehabilitating our subordinates at this point really worth it?

Maybe not, but at least for me it is a matter of principles

I rather prefer to try it and saying 'it can't be helped' and not try at all

Also we kinda need to keep them if we want to get that government upgrade, cause without them we wouldn't have enough room for the Great Hall expansion

currently

Academia Nut said:
-Annex Limit: 12/17 [2 (Base) + 8 (#Provinces/2) + 7 (#LandedNonFCSubordinates)]

without western colonies

Academia Nut said:
-Annex Limit: 12/14 [2 (Base) + 8 (#Provinces/2) + 4 (#LandedNonFCSubordinates)]

Horologer · Oct 31, 2017

Susano said:
I'm all for letting vassals leave who wish to do so. Txolla and Thunder Horse stay out of loyalty, and that is how it should be. The Ymaryn "Empire" should be one of mutual voluntary support; if the Western Colonies don't want to be part of that support network anymore, well, it's a pity, and we should try to convince them otherwise, but we shouldn't impose our rule over them.

That would just be blatant imperialism, and I'd rather not turn the Ymaryn into out and out conquerors of empires.

This is absurd. Countries have the right to secure their territorial integrity and provide a strong disincentive towards secession; if they let anyone who was momentarily disenchanted with them simply leave on a whim then they would rapidly cease to exist.

It is also completely impractical. We are a Classical Monarchy in the Iron Age. Letting our subordinates secede at will just paints a target on our chest.

DragonParadox · Oct 31, 2017

Susano said:
"Because they are Ymaryn? And political disputes among the People have always existed. We never had had outright secession before, but in general terms you can be of the People and still oppose the King. They would still be of the same people, just the same people living in a different state.

There is a difference between partizan faction politics and treason. One is normal, the other was counted by most ancient societies among the most heinous crimes. It would make them outlaws, effectively a giant group of bandits that stole the king's land, because remember technically all land belongs to the king.

ctulhuslp · Oct 31, 2017

VoidZero said:
It looks like the alternate being negative triggering of our our traits and leading to civil war. So it's kinda like second son crisis? I think at this point we can all agree to not have anymore colonies, as their danger is now on display.

Fucking finally.
Also, @veekie , guess who was proven right by history?

We were garbage at seas compared to them and they did collapse but our lack of colonies to their east did mean we could not capitalize on it as well as we'd want.
Welcome from July 15.

ctulhuslp said:
Kind of? Venice was pretty strong and all...but honestly, if we just colonize not!Anatolia slowly we can creep up to them and catch them in the Bronze Age Collapse in about a 1000 years.
Playing the long game and all.

ctulhuslp said:
Yeah, we have no reason to hurry. We have exploded in size, relatively speaking, and are in a good strategic position to long-term (!) claim Lowlands once we build a palace and integrate Lowland vassal. We can them proceed to sit on part of not!Silk Road once it appears, while exploding in population size due to fertile lands + our farming + water mills + aqueducts.
Trelli will become quite strong, yes, but it is not exactly a problem for us, and we have better avenues of expanding that we have already started on.

ctulhuslp said:
I am somewhat interested in Main Support new TP + Main Influence Lowlands/Support one of the Northern subordinates. I think postponing Palace for slowly chipping away at cultural drift is worthwhile trade.
Because our main slow-burn problems are cultural drift, Lowlands and fucking Nomads.

Also called that we will be getting fucked by our reluctance to influence, but that was obvious for pretty much everyone

Abby Normal · Oct 31, 2017

Oh, for planning for next turn, remember that our newest province gives us an extra player/king action, so we're at 2 Main, 5 Secondary King now. @PrimalShadow i think i saw making plans but dont remember if you had that taken into account?

Also, here's the most recent diffs, since AN made a couple changes;
Diff Checker
Diff Checker

@Academia Nut reread the update as a sort of pre-A&D post thing and a few typos from the update:

Academia Nut said:
For the People the plague had been bad in the cities but had caught the countryside surprisingly hard - elsewhere the cities had been largely abandoned in short order, and the plague had likely burned out relatively quickly in comparison to the banditry and war and general disintegration, and while there had been some of the plague away from the cities before the nomads began burning everything.

Looks like this got cut off, and should have some extra clause at the end, or else maybe not have the "while" part?

Academia Nut said:
Also, it was realized that the Mountain Horse tended to keep more sheep and goats than cows, and while prized horses were relatively rare.

Again, either needs an extra clause or removal of the "while"

Academia Nut said:
Avoiding jumping to conclusions, Uvothyn ordered and extensive but quiet study.

super minor, but as long as i'm posting typos: and -> an

Academia Nut said:
It was just that most people who got it only had minor symptoms and they fought the curse off, it was just somehow even more transmissible than initially thought, and could dwell within the lungs of cows and horses with some success, although there the animals rarely got particularly sick.

This might not be an actual typo, just a really weird sentence formulation, but it just is hard to parse as a proper sentence?

Academia Nut said:
The absorption of the nomads and their slaves also brought other benefit, in that just before they had died the Mountain Horse had made a new advancement that had been taken up by the nomads, and from there to the People... and probably everyone on the steppe at this point.

Again, super minor, but either benefit -> benefits, or other -> another.

sidestory said:
Maybe not, but at least for me it is a matter of principles

I rather prefer to try it and saying 'it can't be helped' and not try at all

Also we kinda need to keep them if we want to get that government upgrade, cause without them we wouldn't have enough room for the Great Hall expansion

currently

without western colonies

Note that AN mentioned that the annex limit mostly doesn't go down, and still has us listed as having 18 limit when he just fixed the listing under megaprojects.

DakkaMania · Oct 31, 2017

Kiba said:
One does not simply leave the union.

Excellent, we don't have to build an arsenal after all and can focus on building all the other annexes. It's too bad that a further 4 of them will be taken up by the Grand Hall.

After the Grand Halls, I would like one Garden and a stable.

The Garden (well, two of them) was recommended when we first built the Palace, I think. And we really, really want anything that makes cavalry cheaper considering the risk we have from hardmode nomads. Walls are great, but cavalry can actually ride out and stop them. And they apply to other invaders as well.

Susano · Oct 31, 2017

Janadus said:
This is absurd. Countries have the right to secure their territorial integrity and provide a strong disincentive towards secession; if they let anyone who was momentarily disenchanted with them simply leave on a whim then they would rapidly cease to exist.

That is a nonsensical slippery slope argument. Our eastern vassals are loyal and basically always have been, there is no trouble in the Free Cities, and so on. Meanwhile, Northern/Western subordinates going their own way, that has been a long-standing problem. So we aren't speaking about "whims" here. Countries stay together because of shared loyalty; that is how it should be. Forcing people to be under your rule by force of arms simply is imperialism.

Raichu1972 · Oct 31, 2017

Susano said:
"Paternalistic" doesn't exclude "social contract", and what @Raichu1972 argued was that it is a social contract. He basically argued that, that is what his post amounted to, no me. I just summed it up as social contract and said that those can be ended.

Because they are Ymaryn? And political disputes among the People have always existed. We never had had outright secession before, but in general terms you can be of the People and still oppose the King. They would still be of the same people, just the same people living in a different state.

Sorry, that's not what I meant. I meant your post amounted to "we help them and they turn their back on us???". Basically accusing them of self-serving hypocrisy. But well, if they leave, then we also have no obligation anymore to help anymore, so it isn't really hypocritical.

That being said, I do fully agree we should now invest resources on having them, hm, converge more again with the Core. But I won't condone military expeditions against fellow Ymaryn.

One does.

Hmm, maybe I didn't explain myself properly.
Forget about the whole Social Contract thing for a second.

Let's talk about our mercenary companies.
We pay them money, and in return they fight in the name of the King.

If they suddenly decided they don't want to fight for us anymore, and take our money and leave, we would be rather upset, and likely refer to such people as deserters or traitors.

I think of colonies in a similar way.
They were given the right to colonize this land by the King, and in return were expected to build up said land, fight in wars in the service of the King, and more recently pay a food tax.

The fact that they are making excuses to not pay their food tax is bad enough, since they are already failing in one of their obligations.

Them seceding would be the equivalent of taking the lands of the King, and thus of the Ymaryn, and claiming it to be their own.

You can see why this is problematic, and why this is something we should stop, by military force if necessary, right?

Does this analogy make sense?

DragonParadox · Oct 31, 2017

Susano said:
That is a nonsensical slippery slope argument. Our eastern vassals are loyal and basically always have been, there is no trouble in the Free Cities, and so on. Meanwhile, Northern/Western subordinates going their own way, that has been a long-standing problem. So we aren't speaking about "whims" here. Countries stay together because of shared loyalty; that is how it should be. Forcing people to be under your rule by force of arms simply is imperialism.

Yes and this being the iron age trying to run a state any other way would be insane. the local elites simply do not have enough of an incentive to stay untied with the core without the threat of military action. Remember the last time we came close to breaking apart? A major reason we did not is because the core had the Red Banner as well as a strong army.

Kiba · Oct 31, 2017

Aside from the Grand Hall annexes, which will probably mean the construction of a forum and the creation of a senate...

I am thinking Garden 2, and either getting started on fortification or a stable.

LoserThree · Oct 31, 2017

I suspect that in the next turn, any western colony that isn't successfully influenced in this reaction will have already succeeded.

Either figure out how to make 'influence' actions work or write off sea dominance.

Which is fine, really. We should focus on the godsdamned dam and the East, anyway. After restoring external trade and repairing other damages of the Horseman's Plague, of course.

DragonParadox · Oct 31, 2017

loserthree said:
I suspect that in the next turn, any colony that isn't successfully influenced in this reaction will have already succeeded.

Either figure out how to make 'influence' actions work or write off sea dominance.

Which is fine, really. We should focus on the godsdamned dam and the East, anyway. After restoring external trade and repairing other damages of the Horseman's Plague, of course.

And in two turns or so when they start raiding our coasts and demanding tribute to stop that "written off" sea dominance will look very nice.

Abby Normal · Oct 31, 2017

Wait... just realized the bonus on top of what we had is not "+1/2 tech refund/palace" , that replaced the 1 tech refund we had... @Academia Nut how does the regular palace count for that? I assume it counts normally (i.e. we have 3 palaces), so we have 1.5 tech refund? Does that round up or down?

silereamer · Oct 31, 2017

[X] [Enclave] Attempt to reconcile issues (-1 Stability, -4 Mysticism, -6 Culture, ???)
[X] [React] Restore confidence after the plague (Sec Restore Order + Sec Proclaim Glory)
[X] [React] Greet new nomad chief (Main Targeted Salt Gift)
[X] [React] Attempt to get the western colonies in line (Main Influence Subordinate - Starts with Western Wall, x2 also goes to Greenshore, x3 goes to Tinshore)
[X] [PSN] Main Plant Poppies (-2 Cent + Costs)

Susano · Oct 31, 2017

Raichu1972 said:
Does this analogy make sense?

Hm, yes, it does. Basically, if the mercenary companies left with our equipment that would be straight-up theft, and you can argue it's the same with the land of the colonies - given to them for a specific purpose, and not (just) for their own ends. That does make sense. So I guess we'd have to, at the least, demand some compensation, basically as if they had bought the land...

DragonParadox said:
Yes and this being the iron age trying to run a state any other way would be insane.

I beg to differ and think the majority of Ymaryn history shows otherwise. Look at our subordinates and former subordinates. We absorbed Hatvalley during a crisis there, basically by accepting everyone as refugee, and then settled Gulvalley with people from there. We settled Greenshore, Tinriver and Western Wall. The Heaven Hawks asked to join us. The Thunder Twins were taken under our wings after they suffered a gigantic catastrophe and where thankful for our presence. The only arguable conquest we had was Txolla, and well, that was a nomad king outside our control and besides, Txolla is mostly made up of the people we liberated from Xohyr.

So, basically, we have never really forced anyone under our rule. So your statement that it has to be that way in the iron age is disproven by our own history, at least for purposes of this game.

Andres · Oct 31, 2017

@veekie, what do we do when poppies become common enough and cheap enough that we start getting a drug epidemic within our lands?

Susano · Oct 31, 2017

DragonParadox said:
And in two turns or so when they start raiding our coasts and demanding tribute to stop that "written off" sea dominance will look very nice.

It's not like we ever had naval dominance to begin with, hence why we had to pay protection money to Trelli!

LoserThree · Oct 31, 2017

DragonParadox said:
And in two turns or so when they start raiding our coasts and demanding tribute to stop that "written off" sea dominance will look very nice.

Yeah, probably.

Look, I voted 3x Influence. Someone said that's infeasible, but I never saw the math. If it can't be made to work it can't.

But if it can and instead we miss out then that's a different matter.

Paths of Civilization

High Clerk of the Ymaryn

Incertae sedis

High Clerk of the Ymaryn

Finds writing poorly easy

High Clerk of the Ymaryn

Finds writing poorly easy