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Paths of Civilization

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[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] [React] Restore confidence after the plague (Sec Restore Order + Sec Proclaim Glory)
[X] [PSN] Main Plant Poppies (-2 Cent + Costs)

I think the nomad can wait for the moment, lets try and avoid our colonies splitting off.
 
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Carrnage said:
What do we actually lose from negative wealth?
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Stability and stats. We lose 1 point of Economy and Diplomacy for every point of negative Wealth we get in order to make that Wealth back. Guild Mercantile also means we lose Stability for having low Wealth, and having negative Wealth is certain to proc that.
 
I think people might be a bit too paranoid about the western colonies, actually. Call me an optimist, but I think we actually only need one influce action.

I mean, look at it from their point of view. For the past few generations, these trio of colonies have been looking at the WY, and how the king didn't even try to bring them back under his control. They look at that, then look at these new taxes they are paying and wonder 'Hey, why can't that be us?'

Then the plague hits, and everything goes to shit. But this also provides an opportunity. Unless the king is extremely capable, it's pretty much guaranteed that the Core is going to suffer a big hit. Better yet, people are now angry and want someone to blame. And would you look at that, the king is failing to help after that one message! Surely this must be his fault!

So the leaders of these colonies all smile, and start prepping to break off. Maybe the send some messages to the integrated WW provinces, pointing out the good old times they used to have together, and how it would be nice to do stuff together again. Now they've got their excuse, and the Core is going to be weakened badly by this plague. Plus, they've got a legit grievance in the form of the king failing to aid his vassals, as Lords Loyalty demands, so their people are rightly pissed.

Only the new King turns out to be the super-competent type. Not only does he stop the plague, said plague also wipes out the attacking nomads that the king was protecting his vassals from. Said king also then sends aid to those damaged vassals, and even to WW.

Whelp. There goes the justification from LL. But still, the Core has to be weakened, right!

Well, no. The Core is actually just as strong as before. It's econ is strong, the king has just restored order and faith in his rule, and he's still seen as the only legitimate king. And if they rebel now, then they are the ones going against LL, since a vassal also has duties to their lord.

Tl;dr If the colonies rebel right now, they'd be facing a king who just firmly established his rule and legitimacy, who has pretty much all the power he had before the plague, and said colonies would likely trigger a LL backlash if they rebel, giving their already shaky legitimacy score another kick down.
 
The salt gift is a needless gamble that costs a lot of wealth that we don't have right now. And, what, you're hoping for a repeat of a freak incident that happened back when the people were more welcoming?

Remember that purity is a thing now and the nomad chieftain isn't an idiot. They'll know what the people think of them.

Not influencing all the colonies is also a needless gamble. They're going to leave. They need to be brought back. It's something that can be done
 
Citino said:
Tl;dr If the colonies rebel right now, they'd be facing a king who just firmly established his rule and legitimacy, who has pretty much all the power he had before the plague, and said colonies would likely trigger a LL backlash if they rebel, giving their already shaky legitimacy score another kick down.
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If our core is stabilizing than all are well, but Txolla is getting much too big for comfort and we don't know if there are politys wanting to play "fund foreign separatist" game. And the loyalty trend doesn't look good at all. Wonder if anyone past Trelli want to grab the ghost city?
 
[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] [React] Restore confidence after the plague (Sec Restore Order + Sec Proclaim Glory)
[X] [PSN] Main Plant Cotton (-2 Cent + Costs)
 
Marlin said:
We didn't think a marginally higher stability hit was worth the cost. We got purity when we chose cheap over a religious tolerance trait that was almost ours if we paid the extra stability!
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And I agree that was a mistake, but that doesn't mean that every case of choosing cheaper options will backfire as spectacularly.
DragonParadox said:
So the priests will be against it for cultural reasons, as the holders of culture, everyone else from the traders to the guilds to the yeomen to the patricians, hell even the urban poor would see the advantages of slavery. The priests will get buried under the power of the other factions.
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And this is, again, where I ask for a source. Because the modern Ymaryn under player control have never even seriously considered slavery, aside from specifically the traders murmuring about it, so it seems like the existing cultural norms & priestly insistence against it are doing their work just fine. I don't see any reason to assume that would magically stop when we lose control of the colonies.
George said:
Not really? People have repeatedly thrown around the idea that we might lose one stability for each colony we lose. I don't know what your standards for beyond improbable are, though.

It doesn't need to be very likely at all for my argument to be true, only more likely than the nomads sacking more than half of our core before our coming Main Turn.
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Do those people have any specific backing for that idea they're throwing around? If so, then fair enough, but especially considering that this would still leave Ymaryn managing the land - just not under our king - I'm not convinced that's likely.

And what's special about specifically sacking half our core before the Main Turn? I would argue that the odds need instead to be higher than the chance that the nomads eventually break us, either by force or by demanding actions that are needed to stabilize us elsewhere.
loserthree said:
The salt gift is a needless gamble that costs a lot of wealth that we don't have right now. And, what, you're hoping for a repeat of a freak incident that happened back when the people were more welcoming?

Remember that purity is a thing now and the nomad chieftain isn't an idiot. They'll know what the people think of them.

Not influencing all the colonies is also a needless gamble. They're going to leave. They need to be brought back. It's something that can be done
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If we plant poppies then we will have the wealth, because our Admin hero auto-passes order of operations. Purity is a thing we're actively attempting to address, and I see no reason to call a past success a "freak incident" when there's no body of contrary results to suggest its improbability. As for the colonies, we have no conclusive evidence that they're going to leave right now unless we influence all of them.

(I also object to the notion that "they need to be brought back," but I've accepted that for whatever reason the rest of the thread refuses to consider shrinking our territorial overreach except under threat of extinction (if then!) so I'm not going to belabor that point)
 
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loserthree said:
The salt gift is a needless gamble that costs a lot of wealth that we don't have right now. And, what, you're hoping for a repeat of a freak incident that happened back when the people were more welcoming?

Remember that purity is a thing now and the nomad chieftain isn't an idiot. They'll know what the people think of them.

Not influencing all the colonies is also a needless gamble. They're going to leave. They need to be brought back. It's something that can be done
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IIRC, we have done a salt gift to a nomadic hero twice. Once was to the Heaven's Hawk, and its fair that you don't believe that we can replicate that level of success.

The other was to the Storm Wolves. We immediately sent him a Salt Gift, he thanked us, and then immediately invaded the Metal Workers. The Metal Workers had all of one phase to make their decision. They didn't get to prioritize a trading mission at the start of the next main turn. While we may not be friends, we have not fought the Storm Wolves at all for the entire time that we have known them (Second Sons aside).

A Salt Gift is downright cheap compared to war missions, replacing the Thunder Horse, replacing a banner company, supporting Txolla, and repairing any damage they manage to do to our core. At the very least, having a secure eastern border should help us convince our colonies that they have our undivided attention, and that any breakaway is doomed to fail.

And if it does turn out that the nomad is a diplomatic hero instead of a martial one? That just means that the Salt Gift should be more effective at securing a lasting peace. Considering their geographical position, that could turn out to be very, very nice for us.
 
loserthree said:
Not influencing all the colonies is also a needless gamble. They're going to leave. They need to be brought back. It's something that can be done
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This is a pretty big assumption. We know that they were already hesitating. If we persuade WW, as is likely, that cuts the possible rebel's power significantly. Especially since WW would then be obligated to assist us against the other rebels, which would be a massive blow to any chance of the rebellion succeeding.
 
There's a possibility of a knock on effect if we influence just one of our colony, because they see WW getting the treatment, and they might conclude that they will also get the treatment.
 
Gotta admit, I got a headache from people declaring that the land doesn't belong to the king. Also from the "people are totally allowed to secede" btw.

Even ignoring the place the king has as representative of the people and their gods, and weird use of modern ideas way before their time, all of this runs into one giant problem.

If we're going with the interpetation that "we" (the players) don't have to hold the land of the Kingdom of Ymaryn has claimed as long as "The People" or the Ymaryn culture holds it, we're going to need a cut off point on and definition of Ymarynness. Because there is no way AN is just going to let that one slide by.

And boy do I wish people good luck figuring that out.
 
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Citino said:
This is a pretty big assumption. We know that they were already hesitating. If we persuade WW, as is likely, that cuts the possible rebel's power significantly. Especially since WW would then be obligated to assist us against the other rebels, which would be a massive blow to any chance of the rebellion succeeding.
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I'm not as worried about Western Wall or Tinriver leaving, former due to proximity to our land reachable 20+ martial and latter being less established while close to tribe/MW. But Greenshore seem to be free from those concerns. Depends on activeness of Western Ymaryn i guess? So WW will be on the fence most of the time until there is a clear victor.
 
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The colonies have effectively already left. They aren't paying taxes. They aren't listening to the king. They just don't want there to be a fight about it so they're keeping it kind of passive-aggressive, like you do.

This is our one chance to bring them back.

Like, your significant other just canceled date night, withheld their share of rent, and scheduled movers even though they haven't technically broken up with you. You have one chance to win them back, or you can network with that new person at the office.
 
loserthree said:
The salt gift is a needless gamble that costs a lot of wealth that we don't have right now. And, what, you're hoping for a repeat of a freak incident that happened back when the people were more welcoming?

Remember that purity is a thing now and the nomad chieftain isn't an idiot. They'll know what the people think of them.

Not influencing all the colonies is also a needless gamble. They're going to leave. They need to be brought back. It's something that can be done
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Our civ is explicitly vulnerable to losing land causing a failure cascade due to extreme stab hits.
 
Dutch said:
If we're going with the interpetation that "we" (the players) don't have to hold the land of the Kingdom of Ymaryn has claimed as long as "The People" or the Ymaryn culture holds it, we're going to need a cut off point on and definition of Ymarynness. Because there is no way AN is just going to let that one slide by.
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I don't follow. What exactly would AN be "letting slide," the voters' decision on how what our priorities for territorial control are? It's not like this has any mechanical effect.

Unless you're specifically talking about whether it would give us Stab hits for losing land, in which case no, we don't need to come up with the cutoff - that's up to our populace, by way of AN. But I'm reasonably confident that this will qualify if anything will (I readily grant that it's speculative that anything will, of course).
 
Wiadi said:
Do those people have any specific backing for that idea they're throwing around? If so, then fair enough, but especially considering that this would still leave Ymaryn managing the land - just not under our king - I'm not convinced that's likely.

And what's special about specifically sacking half our core before the Main Turn? I would argue that the odds need instead to be higher than the chance that the nomads eventually break us, either by force or by demanding actions that are needed to stabilize us elsewhere.
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Some? It's speculation on both sides really. It doesn't have to be as bad as that worst case to enable the scenario, though.

The original topic of discussion that you joined was about the nomads "enslav[ing] our people, and tear[ing] down our cities" and sacking half of our core is my clarification of what I took that statement to mean. The whole context of my statements here was about establishing a baseline chance of implosion to compare unlikely events to, since anything less likely than our baseline chance of implosion can be dismissed from our action priority.

You're saying it's unlikely, but I already know that. 3/100 or 3/1000 or 3/100000 only matter for my statements insofar as they compare to the likelihood of the nomad threat creating an equivalent or worse event, so without also assessing that you can't assess the argument I had been making.
 
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loserthree said:
Like, your significant other just canceled date night, withheld their share of rent, and scheduled movers even though they haven't technically broken up with you. You have one chance to win them back, or you can network with that new person at the office.
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I don't think this analogy is doing what you want it to. If your relationship is having that much trouble, you're better off finding someone new.
 
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