Paths of Civilization

PrimalShadow · Oct 31, 2017

Wiadi said:
you yourself acknowledge that we sometimes err - and considering how damaging those errors have been, I think it's entirely rational to spend stats on preventing them

Certainly, we make errors - but those errors are typically errors of oversight and lack of foreknowledge, not errors of decision-making. Alternatively, they are issues of mixed priorities - but that again is a political issue.

I mean, what are some specific errors that you can remember us making?
The biggest one I remember was invading the Trelli during our golden age, but that was a matter of the thread collectively not having through things through sufficiently; it would not apply to a vigorously debated option like approaching the forest cap.
Another error was the error with the famine, but that is a matter of priorities; some people just felt like blackbirds were SO IMPORTANT that taking several points of stab damage was worth it. (Also, uh, we hadn't quite understood the mechanics there. Or I hadn't, anyways).
You could argue that not having Influenced WW and the like for ages was an error, but to do that we would have had to replace a bunch of actions early on, so I'm not sure we would have made the decision any differently.

Etc.

Marlin · Oct 31, 2017

Magnus-domon? This isn't a crossover with warhammer 40k , why do we have a tag called magnus-domon?

Susano · Oct 31, 2017

Marlin said:
Magnus-domon? This isn't a crossover with warhammer 40k , why do we have a tag called magnus-domon?

Magus-Domon, local god of clerks and headaches

(referencing our dutiful in-thread mod, @ManusDomine )

Rakuhn · Oct 31, 2017

bluefur87 said:
Well he seems more focused on trade for starters. War is kinda bad for trade, I'd imagine he's willing to trade with us still, and we're sitting on the doorstep to a crises.

There's also the fact that what comes in second matters, so if the second Main Influence comes up close and our king is still alive next turn he'll be more likely to pay attention to what we wanted to do.

He is interested in wealth. He can get it the easy way (trading), or the hard way (raiding). When nomads are not given the easy way to make money, they inevitably go for the hard way. I would not bet that he'll wait until the start of the next turn for us to make our decision. Every phase that he isn't out fighting (semi-rare martial hero) or trading is a significant loss for his tribe.

VoidZero · Oct 31, 2017

Rakuhn said:
Wait. Why are people willing to risk another nomad horde led by a heroic martial king so soon after the last one? We still don't have cavalry parity and our banners are still weak. Greenshore and Tinriver put together are not nearly as much of an existential threat to our polity. The worst they can do is secede. A nomad hero can kill the Thunder Horse, ravage the Txolla, enslave our people, and tear down our cities. And he'll only get stronger with each success.

I find it unlikely as the Khan would notice Ash faces encountered disaster when fighting against the strange Ymaryn, coupling the legendary story of giant sky rock from mountain horse survivors would make us a risky target.

drake_azathoth · Oct 31, 2017

Abby Normal said:
The precedent per word of AN is that the land belongs to the Gods, and the king is their representative, actually:

So them appointing a new king would if anything be a declaration of...maybe not a holy war, but it would definitely be a religious argument, not just "this is our land, we'll work it better", but "your king is not the true king, they do not represent the gods wishes!" or the like

It COULD be interpreted that way, but it could also be interpreted as 'the gods say this is OUR ruler, but yours is still the rightful ruler of YOUR land'. That is effectively our stance on the Khemetri. Our king could dispute that, but he could probably also accept that with a shrug and no complaint from the commons- the Ymaryn do not have a Manifest Destiny to rule Eurasia and that is actually pretty typical religious doctrine for the era. The gods are allowed to make new decisions, and this decision doesn't HAVE to reflect badly on the eastern king.

That might be a harder sell for the Monotheists, but it's still probably not an insurmountable problem or in conflict with Divine Stewards- Divine Stewards effectively says the land belongs to the Ymaryn who care for it- whether those people are represented to the gods by one or two or a dozen kings isn't really a core value.

George · Oct 31, 2017

Rakuhn said:
Wait. Why are people willing to risk another nomad horde led by a heroic martial king so soon after the last one? We still don't have cavalry parity and our banners are still weak. Greenshore and Tinriver put together are not nearly as much of an existential threat to our polity. The worst they can do is secede. A nomad hero can kill the Thunder Horse, ravage the Txolla, enslave our people, and tear down our cities. And he'll only get stronger with each success.

Because we still have considerable internal problems that leave us some small chance of spontaneously collapsing each phase from various rolls, and he can't get nearly as far as you say in a single phase without ridiculous rolls.

PrimalShadow · Oct 31, 2017

Kiba said:
We need to stop being queasy trying to max into a golden age all the damn time, and just influence people and do projects we can afford.

If we're gaining a main action, I am going to argue for the Dam over @PrimalShadow 's objection.

We need to be very careful about how we spend out stats, because people regularly spend freely only to notice on turns like this one that we are stuck because we don't have enough Wealth (or in other cases, Tech, Martial, etc.).

Abby Normal said:
One more, actually; it just says "palace", not "governor's palace", so presumably the original palace counts as well, so we're at 1.5 refund...which likely rounds down.

If so, that makes our next GP really, REALLY high priority. Like, I'd consider building it with actual king actions.

Net, it give +0.5 low cent tolerance, -0 upper cent tolerance (-1 by default, but +1 since it is the third GP and thus enables an extra True City), +1 RA tolerance, and +1 TED resistance, with more to come as we expand our Palace.

Rakuhn · Oct 31, 2017

VoidZero said:
I find it unlikely as the Khan would notice Ash faces encountered disaster when fighting against the strange Ymaryn, coupling the legendary story of giant sky rock from mountain horse survivors would make us a risky target.

I'd be surprised if the sky rock story is even remembered by the nomads. We got the five generations of peace out of the deal. And since he seems to have restructured the tribes after the disease had run its course, there is a very good chance that he'll focus more on how the last horde leader was able to easily crush us than the previous leaders ignominious death.

ETA50M · Oct 31, 2017

[X] [Enclave] Attempt to reconcile issues (-1 Stability,-4 Mysticism, -6 Culture, ???)
[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] [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)x2
[X] [PSN] Main Plant Poppies (-2 Cent + Costs)
[X] [React] Restore confidence after the plague (Sec Restore Order + Sec Proclaim Glory)

PrimalShadow · Oct 31, 2017

[X] [React] Greet new nomad chief (Main Targeted Salt Gift)
[X] [React] Restore confidence after the plague (Sec Restore Order + Sec Proclaim Glory)
[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)

George · Oct 31, 2017

Rakuhn said:
I'd be surprised if the sky rock story is even remembered by the nomads. We got the five generations of peace out of the deal. And since he seems to have restructured the tribes after the disease had run its course, there is a very good chance that he'll focus more on how the last horde leader was able to easily crush us than the previous leaders ignominious death.

I don't think that's at all the narrative he will take from this.

Rakuhn · Oct 31, 2017

George said:
Because we still have considerable internal problems that leave us some small chance of spontaneously collapsing each phase from various rolls, and he can't get nearly as far as you say in a single phase without ridiculous rolls.

They literally destroyed a subordinate (situated among hills), almost destroyed a second one, almost destroyed a banner company, and had enslaved some of our people in Redhills in a single phase. Txolla and Thunder Horse haven't had a chance to rebuild their armies yet. Heck the Thunder Horse barely has any settlements left to its name. I'd expect a new hero-led nomad horde to sack Redhills (not including our Free City), kill the Thunder Horse, kill a mercenary company, and ravage Txolla in a single phase.

PrimalShadow · Oct 31, 2017

@Academia Nut - what is the status of refugees this turn?

Marlin · Oct 31, 2017

@Academia Nut what are current funeral traditions for the ymaryn? And how have they transformed since the beginning of the game? Do the priests mummify respected individuals? Bury the King with precious masks? Practice necrophilia? Build elaborate traps to keep out wild animals from digging up burial sites?

Wiadi · Oct 31, 2017

DragonParadox said:
Slavery is enormously profitable and they would not have the SV hive-mind to keep them from following the logical local optima.

They do still have the cultural opposition to the notion that we've instilled, though, not to mention memory of what happened to Trelli over that issue. The Western Ymaryn were specifically disaffected warriors going out and raiding for land, whereas these breakaways would still have their whole infrastructure intact, complete with aggressively-anti-slavery priests.

bluefur87 · Oct 31, 2017

Rakuhn said:
He is interested in wealth. He can get it the easy way (trading), or the hard way (raiding). When nomads are not given the easy way to make money, they inevitably go for the hard way. I would not bet that he'll wait until the start of the next turn for us to make our decision. Every phase that he isn't out fighting (semi-rare martial hero) or trading is a significant loss for his tribe.

He's literally settling on the !NotSilkRoad and claiming it's territory. Explicitly in relation to it being the trade route to the eastern salt people.

A Salt Gift to him would be very nice, and I do hope our king does it if we do manage to turn around the vote, but it takes an incredibly short sighted person to just up and declare war on us when trade is so much more profitable. Meanwhile, we have serious internal issues that need to be solved still.

George · Oct 31, 2017

Rakuhn said:
They literally destroyed a subordinate (situated among hills), almost destroyed a second one, almost destroyed a banner company, and had enslaved some of our people in Redhills in a single phase. Txolla and Thunder Horse haven't had a chance to rebuild their armies yet. Heck the Thunder Horse barely has any settlements left to its name. I'd expect a nomad horde to sack Redhills (not including our Free City), kill the Thunder Horse, kill a mercenary company, and ravage Txolla in a single phase.

Ah, I took "enslave our people, and tear down our cities" to mean destroying at least half of the core.

Sure, if he decides to attack us at all and then rolls well then that's possible. We'd then be in a reasonable position to use Mass Levy and our 3 Light Cavalry. Our destruction from this scenario is not at all likely.

PrimalShadow · Oct 31, 2017

By the way; for anyone paying attention (@Abby Normal?), did you guys notice our stability shoot up from 0 to 1? What made that happen?

I mean, last turn we were at -1, going down to -2 from accepting the nomads. We then went up by 1 from Festival and 1 for Justice; that puts us at 0.

Did we get a boost up to 1 from successfully not dying to the plague?

Malevolo · Oct 31, 2017

Marlin said:
Magnus-domon? This isn't a crossover with warhammer 40k , why do we have a tag called magnus-domon?

BECAUSE OF BELOVED DANISH LAWYER AKA OUR IN HOUSE MOD

Rakuhn · Oct 31, 2017

bluefur87 said:
A Salt Gift to him would be very nice, and I do hope our king does it if we do manage to turn around the vote, but it takes an incredibly short sighted person to just up and declare war on us when trade is so much more profitable. Meanwhile, we have serious internal issues that need to be solved still.

Trade is more profitable if we are actually trading. He only has two western potential trade partners: us (initiated by doing the salt gift) or the Harmurri (who are still in chaos from the plague). If he was a normal leader he could avoid to wait. But he is a heroic martial leader, and every phase he waits is a wasted phase.

bluefur87 · Oct 31, 2017

PrimalShadow said:
By the way; for anyone paying attention (@Abby Normal?), did you guys notice our stability shoot up from 0 to 1? What made that happen?

I mean, last turn we were at -1, going down to -2 from accepting the nomads. We then went up by 1 from Festival and 1 for Justice; that puts us at 0.

Did we get a boost up to 1 from successfully not dying to the plague?

Uh... I guess?
I'm pretty sure there was nothing in the actions themselves that would have done that, and that sounds about the only other way I could see us gaining that much stability.

Rakuhn said:
Trade is more profitable if we are actually trading. He only has two western potential trade partners: us (initiated by doing the salt gift) or the Harmurri (who are still in chaos from the plague). If he was a normal leader he could avoid to wait. But he is a heroic martial leader, and every phase he waits is a wasted phase.

I mean, what makes you think a heroic martial leader managed to gather the entire nomad horde without executing a waagh on anyone and then chose to settle on a trade route?

He's most likely a diplo hero. Maybe a mystic one.

Alratan · Oct 31, 2017

Rakuhn said:
They literally destroyed a subordinate (situated among hills), almost destroyed a second one, almost destroyed a banner company, and had enslaved some of our people in Redhills in a single phase. Txolla and Thunder Horse haven't had a chance to rebuild their armies yet. Heck the Thunder Horse barely has any settlements left to its name. I'd expect a new hero-led nomad horde to sack Redhills (not including our Free City), kill the Thunder Horse, kill a mercenary company, and ravage Txolla in a single phase.

The last nomad king to attack the Ymaryn was cursed by the gods for him and his family to rot alive. The new nomad king will know that, as he'll have absorbed survivors of the Pure.

That's not a fate you take on lightly.

And, to be honest, it's a fate that he could well be taking on if he attacks. The non-Pure nomads are still a virgin field for this epidemic, and now that it's become endemic amongst the People and their subordinates, without the Pure's extreme quarantine techniques an attacking nomad horde would be utterly fucked by it, given their dependence on horses and pastoralism, and their complete inability to quarantine their herds once they're infected.

This is the big reason we shouldn't have to worry. We effectively have automatic WMD deployment against nomads for a couple of generations.

It kills one in ten of the People now that there's been brutal natural selection to remove the vulnerable from the Ymaryn gene pool.

DakkaMania · Oct 31, 2017

PrimalShadow said:
'fraid not. We have +1 Tech refund for the two GPs, and that is it. We need two more GPs to get to a 2-point refund.

Ah, I thought the Grand Palace counted separately.

Annex Effect: +1 National Library count, -1 Temp Econ damage for all palaces, +1 EE before Valleyhome loses TC status, +1 Safe Martial, +1 Tech Refund/2 palaces, +1 Tech/turn, palaces grant +1 RA tolerance each

But my reading of it is that we still have that Tech drip.

As for Palaces, what would be a good place for it? If we had parts of Txolla, I'd put it there somewhere along the river as the Canal makes it within easy reach of Valleyhome, improving oversight.

Otherwise, I'd say either Hat or Gulvalley and put the priests desired Temple down there as well. As both valleys have good riverine connections and have a good connection to the Core, drift should be minimal and it might make some headway in the Exile situation.

The Eastern Boundary Hills might work as well if the Province was finished as that is AFAIK a land bridge to former Thunder Speaker territory.

But quite frankly, either of the former Hathatyn provinces would work better for the mid term.

Wiadi · Oct 31, 2017

PrimalShadow said:
Certainly, we make errors - but those errors are typically errors of oversight and lack of foreknowledge, not errors of decision-making. Alternatively, they are issues of mixed priorities - but that again is a political issue.

I mean, what are some specific errors that you can remember us making?
The biggest one I remember was invading the Trelli during our golden age, but that was a matter of the thread collectively not having through things through sufficiently; it would not apply to a vigorously debated option like approaching the forest cap.
Another error was the error with the famine, but that is a matter of priorities; some people just felt like blackbirds were SO IMPORTANT that taking several points of stab damage was worth it. (Also, uh, we hadn't quite understood the mechanics there. Or I hadn't, anyways).
You could argue that not having Influenced WW and the like for ages was an error, but to do that we would have had to replace a bunch of actions early on, so I'm not sure we would have made the decision any differently.

Etc.

Fundamentally it's issues of priorities I'm most concerned with, but oversight and/or forgetfulness are also potential concerns - remember, the large portion of less-invested voters this thread has means that ongoing discussion of an issue among the more vocal participants does not guarantee its full consideration. As for priorities, I don't care what a majority of the thread decides is more important - if we're wrong, I want us to be unable to act on that decision, or at least to require greater investment (and thus greater certainty) to do so.

George said:
small chance of spontaneously collapsing each phase from various rolls

Source?

Paths of Civilization

Passing Flan 布丁魔王

Uncompromising Radical Leftist

Uncompromising Radical Leftist