Paths of Civilization

Raichu1972 · Nov 8, 2017

Redium said:
[X] [MP] Spread the Wealth Around (All Subordinates Receive +0-1 Loyalty)
[X] [Int] Crack down on the puritans (-2 Intrigue, -1 to +1 Stability, ???)
[X] [Ext] Find out more about what the Highlanders are up to (Main Trade Mission)
[X] [React] Expand Great Hall (2xGreat Hall Annexes)
[X] [PSN] Main Plant Poppies (-2 Cent + Costs)

Crack Down is going to do everything you're worried about. We have Iron Age levels of law and justice. No matter what, innocent people will get squished if we attempt to deal with Puritan violence. People will be executed or exiled for murder, sedition, arson, and a dozen other severe crimes. We've known for a long time that corruption and abuse is a problem in our system. Literally anything we do will result in people suffering unnecessarily. Half-Exiles are basically slaves in rural areas, right? The same underlying issue that lets Patricians do that would let them redirect part of Crack Down or Tear Out to hit the undeserving.

The difference between Crack Down and Tear Out is that Crack Down is not coupled with any debates or any other type of re-education. Both of them will solve the problem, but Crack Down does nothing to actually change the underlying belief system of the Puritans. The symptoms of the problem would stop, but the disease is still there. We need to really engage with Purity as a social belief if we want the trait to change and we're not doing that with Crack Down, that merely papers over the cracks.

I assume you're okay with the Purity trait, and all the negative things involved with it?
I agree with your argument about how cracking down won't actually change the underlying belief system of the Puritans, but I don't understand why someone would want to keep a trait that's so narratively shitty.

Spectrum said:
I'm not sure how Real Life sucking has any relevance to posters being able to get away with shittier behavior overall because a few big boys take all the heat going way overboard.

I'm not really seeing that many people be shitty?
there are some people who act like shitheads, but they get reported and the thread gets locked again.

Do you have any examples of how the behavior has gotten shittier?

Citino · Nov 8, 2017

So were there any other arguments for Crack Down over Root Out? It seems strange that we are ignoring our mystic king's advice just because this situation could go badly.

Like, what are people's plan to deal with Purity if we don't tackle it here? Because as far as I can tell, there aren't many better chance than right now to tackle the negative issues Purity is spawning.

ETA50M · Nov 8, 2017

[X] [MP] Trade Excitement (+10 Wealth, +1 Stability from Guild demands)
[X] [Int] Attempt to tear out these maniacs, root and branch (-2 Intrigue, -1 Stability, -1 Legitimacy, -1 RA, ???)
[X] [React] Need more scouts (Sec More Blackbirds + Sec More Spiritbonded)
[X] [Ext] Find out more about what the Highlanders are up to (Main Trade Mission)
[X] [PSN] Main Plant Poppies (-2 Cent + Costs)

Sivantic · Nov 8, 2017

bluefur87 said:
and -4 tech...
We might want to actually make sure this overflow works. I think it will if we also take the +10 wealth option, which has a better chance of passing than the scout option at this point.

We do kinda need the Loyalty though. Even just one extra loyalty would be very helpful at this juncture.

BungieONI said:
Uh, might want to check your math again.

Secondary Expand Econs give +6 econ now. Mains are +12.

My mistake. Still, not taking the scouts now means we do not have enough Martial for next turn.

We take them now we end up with

Martial 11

which is enough to cover the Warships(-3 Martial) and the March(-5 Martial).

thatguy said:
Also unrelated to everything that's going on, my display of SV has been doing some seriously weird stuff, specifically the display has been jumping a distance up the scroll bar every time I hit Delete, Backspace or Enter. Count how many times you do that while commenting, I've had to resort to writing my comment out on word and pasting it in.
Does anyone know how to fix this?

Reload the page. That fixes it for me.

@Academia Nut Could you give us a similar explanation for the Crack Down vote? While we are glad for the clarification for the Root and Branch, we are still guessing on the other.

BungieONI · Nov 8, 2017

Citino said:
I find it unlikely we will lose the debates. Our hero king made frequent arguments against the Puritans, and those would have likely been public.

It could go badly, but so could a lot of other things. And honestly, how else do you hope to fix Purity? Cracking down is very unlikely to change the trait. My RL example of the KKK is pretty apt, imo, since these sorts of issues don't go away just because you enforce the law. We'll get stuck dealing with another outburst, one we might not catch early like we did here, and be stuck with an even worse decision.

I'm not even worried about losing the debates. Like, I'm kinda concerned about talking about this considering the lock and all what caused it but my concern is that the root and branch option goes quite a bit too far by twisting our normal religious debating tactics too far. We never physically isolated the Lowlanders while we actually debated them for example.

One of my worst outcomes is where we win the debates and get a negative evolution of Purity which is focused around Religious Intolerance because we boot stomped them(by the way before someone climbs down my throat I actually do want them punished for their stuff). That basically sounds like inevitable crusade. Also in a different problem I am also concerned because I don't have a good conceptualization of most of the possible bad things which could happen if we did root and branch and it goes sideways.

Now aside from that, where do we know that Cracking Down is unlikely to change it outside of the internal reasoning you have provided? I do not see any evidence which says we will not be debating in the Crack Down option for example, or that seeing the violent ones punished harshly won't temper the purity sentiment in our population. Sure it has a chance to temper it so that we just have people keep quiet about it and plot horrible things, but the other option has stuff which is worse in my opinion, and we have no idea of the chances involved in either so its pointless to compare them on the grounds of how likely they are to happen.

065tdsa · Nov 8, 2017

[X] [MP] Spread the Wealth Around (All Subordinates Receive +0-1 Loyalty)
[X] [Int] Attempt to tear out these maniacs, root and branch (-2 Intrigue, -1 Stability, -1 Legitimacy, -1 RA, ???)
[X] [Ext] Find out more about what the Highlanders are up to (Main Trade Mission)
[X] [PSN] Main Expand Forests (-2 Cent + Costs)
[X] [React] Expand Great Hall (2xGreat Hall Annexes)

Purity is an idea, you can't destroy an idea by stopping those who put it in practice. You need to destroy (financially, socially or literally depending on how stubborn they are) everyone who thinks it's an idea worth having. Otherwise they'll pass it down to their kids, the bastards. If we don't destroy this thing now while we have the chance, it'll haunt us for generations.

I am sure someone actually familiar with the US can explain nicely how this sort of thing has haunted them for 200 years despite the efforts of their central government, because it always festered in the provinces and there was no getting rid of it. If we give it 200 years without going for the root, it'll be all over the damn place like a weed. A Nazi weed.

guyfromtheplace1 · Nov 8, 2017

Redium said:
[X] [MP] Spread the Wealth Around (All Subordinates Receive +0-1 Loyalty)
[X] [Int] Crack down on the puritans (-2 Intrigue, -1 to +1 Stability, ???)
[X] [Ext] Find out more about what the Highlanders are up to (Main Trade Mission)
[X] [React] Expand Great Hall (2xGreat Hall Annexes)
[X] [PSN] Main Plant Poppies (-2 Cent + Costs)

Crack Down is going to do everything you're worried about. We have Iron Age levels of law and justice. No matter what, innocent people will get squished if we attempt to deal with Puritan violence. People will be executed or exiled for murder, sedition, arson, and a dozen other severe crimes. We've known for a long time that corruption and abuse is a problem in our system. Literally anything we do will result in people suffering unnecessarily. Half-Exiles are basically slaves in rural areas, right? The same underlying issue that lets Patricians do that would let them redirect part of Crack Down or Tear Out to hit the undeserving.

The difference between Crack Down and Tear Out is that Crack Down is not coupled with any debates or any other type of re-education. Both of them will solve the problem, but Crack Down does nothing to actually change the underlying belief system of the Puritans. The symptoms of the problem would stop, but the disease is still there. We need to really engage with Purity as a social belief if we want the trait to change and we're not doing that with Crack Down, that merely papers over the cracks.

To deal with the underlying issue I want to try to open up a value slot to keep division of power, or merge it with our greater justice trait to ensure the lawmen and judges are different people than, and unrelated to, the local governors, and are rotated around once every five-ten years.

George · Nov 8, 2017

Ghostdevil said:
Well lots of small things need to be allowed to slide if you want something resembling reality in a quest like this, because Real Life fucking sucks.

Ehh, you can discuss things that suck without hate or incivility. You just have to make a conscious choice about how you're going to conduct yourself.

thatguy said:
To deal with the underlying issue I want to try to open up a value slot to keep division of power, or merge it with our greater justice trait to ensure the lawmen and judges are different people than, and unrelated to the local governors, and are rotated around once every five-ten years.

I think that's too advanced a system for our tech level

Raichu1972 · Nov 8, 2017

BungieONI said:
I'm not even worried about losing the debates. Like, I'm kinda concerned about talking about this considering the lock and all what caused it but my concern is that the root and branch option goes quite a bit too far by twisting our normal religious debating tactics too far. We never physically isolated the Lowlanders while we actually debated them for example.

One of my worst outcomes is where we win the debates and get a negative evolution of Purity which is focused around Religious Intolerance because we boot stomped them(by the way before someone climbs down my throat I actually do want them punished for their stuff). That basically sounds like inevitable crusade. Also in a different problem I am also concerned because I don't have a good conceptualization of most of the possible bad things which could happen if we did root and branch and it goes sideways.

Now aside from that, where do we know that Cracking Down is unlikely to change it outside of the internal reasoning you have provided? I do not see any evidence which says we will not be debating in the Crack Down option for example, or that seeing the violent ones punished harshly won't temper the purity sentiment in our population. Sure it has a chance to temper it so that we just have people keep quiet about it and plot horrible things, but the other option has stuff which is worse in my opinion, and we have no idea of the chances involved in either so its pointless to compare them on the grounds of how likely they are to happen.

the difference I feel between the Lowlands priests and the Puritans is that the Lowlands priest didn't call for and attack portions of our population because of their beliefs.
Like, the fact that there are so many examples of Puritans shitting on our Half Exiles, prostitutes, traders, and artisans solely because of their puritan values just from one action of hunting troublemakers shows that there is a problem with the ideology of Purity itself, and not just with its adherents.

If we get a value for religious intolerance because we persecuted (I personally think that's a rather strong word for what would actually happen) the persecutors I will laugh at the irony personally.
We wouldn't be having pogroms is the street and hanging all the puritans. We would be catching and isolating the rabble rousers, and debating the rather flawed ideology of the remaining puritans until they are no longer puritan.
The Bad Things involved with root and branch going sideways is probably either public pogroms, or monotheism getting widespread adoption, neither of which seem likely to me.

Sivantic · Nov 8, 2017

May I ask some of the thread to discuss the other actions with me please?

They are just as important as the what we do with the Puritans. Focusing on just one part of the vote was how we ended up starting a land war with Trelli.

Citino · Nov 8, 2017

BungieONI said:
I'm not even worried about losing the debates. Like, I'm kinda concerned about talking about this considering the lock and all what caused it but my concern is that the root and branch option goes quite a bit too far by twisting our normal religious debating tactics too far. We never physically isolated the Lowlanders while we actually debated them for example.

One of my worst outcomes is where we win the debates and get a negative evolution of Purity which is focused around Religious Intolerance because we boot stomped them(by the way before someone climbs down my throat I actually do want them punished for their stuff). That basically sounds like inevitable crusade. Also in a different problem I am also concerned because I don't have a good conceptualization of most of the possible bad things which could happen if we did root and branch and it goes sideways.

Now aside from that, where do we know that Cracking Down is unlikely to change it outside of the internal reasoning you have provided? I do not see any evidence which says we will not be debating in the Crack Down option for example, or that seeing the violent ones punished harshly won't temper the purity sentiment in our population. Sure it has a chance to temper it so that we just have people keep quiet about it and plot horrible things, but the other option has stuff which is worse in my opinion, and we have no idea of the chances involved in either so its pointless to compare them on the grounds of how likely they are to happen.

The debates aren't focused on religion though. They are focused on the role of foreigners in Ymar, with Puritans believing that isolation is best, while the mainstream priests disagree. If this debate was between the One God worshipers, then you would have a point, but this is an internal divide. It makes no sense that these debates would lead to religious intolerance when they would be focused on issues of doctrine.

And why would Crack Down lead to debates? Crack down is a police action, there is nothing that even implies it would have debates as part of it. There is no RA loss because the priests wouldn't be involved, it would be purely a state matter, where we take down murderers and saboteurs.

@Academia Nut what would Crack Down consist of?

Raichu1972 · Nov 8, 2017

Sivantic said:
May I ask some of the thread to discuss the other actions with me please?

They are just as important as the what we do with the Puritans. Focusing on just one part of the vote was how we ended up starting a land war with Trelli.

Which other actions do you want to discuss?
I left an explanation of my actions and why I chose them in my vote, if you want to start the discussion from there.

8bitBob · Nov 8, 2017

BungieONI said:
I'm not even worried about losing the debates. Like, I'm kinda concerned about talking about this considering the lock and all what caused it but my concern is that the root and branch option goes quite a bit too far by twisting our normal religious debating tactics too far. We never physically isolated the Lowlanders while we actually debated them for example.

To be clear, we're only intentionally going after the most extreme and violent of the leaders. These people are being arrested and tried because they broke the law, not because of their beliefs. That's what the debates are for. It's okay to be wrong, but it's not okay to organize killings and harassment.

With that in mind, I feel it's incredibly unlikely to evolve into some sort of intolerance trait. We're pretty much doing everything we can to support the opposite.

bluefur87 · Nov 8, 2017

8bitBob said:
Nah, it's -2 after refunds, and we're overflowing the bottom trio of stats at the moment, so it'll probably just max out again. We're probably fine on tech no matter what we pick.

Right, let's math this.

Academia Nut said:
Diplomacy 25/27 [+6/2]

Academia Nut said:
Economy 24/27 [+5-0]

Academia Nut said:
Wealth 14/22 [+3]

Academia Nut said:
Culture 27/27 [+4]
Mysticism 27/27 (+2) [+3]
Tech 27/27 (+6) [+1-1]

These are the relevant stats. In order to get martial up we need to overflow by at least 1 point, ideally more so we won't be sitting at 0 Martial.

To overflow we need: 2(Diplomacy)+3(Econ)+8(Wealth)+2(Tech) for a grand total of 15 Stats.

If the current winning vote of a main trade mission takes place then we will have additional costs.

Academia Nut said:
Trade Mission - Sending a major caravan to another large group can bring new opportunities and find out more about the outside world
* S: -2 Wealth, additional effects depending on target, +1-2 Diplo
* M: -2 Wealth, -1 Econ, additional effects depending on target, +1 Diplo, +1-3 Diplo end of turn, +0-2 Wealth end of turn

2 Wealth and 1 Econ, with only an additional 1 Diplo returned before the end of the turn, assuming the trade mission to the highly hostile and xonophobic nation works.

This totals the stats we need to 17, maybe 19 if the tech return doesn't come through. We will have an overflow of 8 from stats., bringing that number down to 9 or 11.

So I suppose we would barely have enough to scrape by. Like, we might go down to 0 Martial, but we do have our Mercs to prop up our martial in the meantime. I'm not fond of this vote, but it is an out.

Edit: Wait, wait, no. We're also doing the expand Great Hall Annexes. Which is an additional 8 stats.

Yeah, we can only do this overflow plan if we also take the +10 Wealth.

Manget · Nov 8, 2017

[X] [MP] Trade Excitement (+10 Wealth, +1 Stability from Guild demands)
[X] [Int] Crack down on the puritans (-2 Intrigue,-1 to +1 Stability, ???)
[X] [Ext] Keep sending treasure to the Forhuch(Main Targeted Salt Gift)
[X] [Ext] Stay home, farm (Main Expand Econ)
[X] [React] Farm (Main Expand Econ, cannot take with switching to Mass Levy)
[X] [PSN] Main Expand Econ (-2 Cent + Costs)

I don't want all the Expand Econs to win but I do want one of them.

8bitBob · Nov 8, 2017

bluefur87 said:
Right, let's math this.

See my edit. It's actually -0 tech now due to our refunds from Governor's Palaces. Assuming I haven't missed something.

George · Nov 8, 2017

What kind of wealth actions are people wanting to take next turn? In the absence of specific need, I think the loyalty option is more valuable.

hylas240 · Nov 8, 2017

[X] [MP] Trade Excitement (+10 Wealth, +1 Stability from Guild demands)
[X] [React] Need more scouts (Sec More Blackbirds + Sec More Spiritbonded)
[X] [Int] Crack down on the puritans (-2 Intrigue, -1 to +1 Stability, ???)
[X] [Ext] Find out more about what the Highlanders are up to (Main Trade Mission)

Considering the crazy religious stuff the Highlanders are doing, grabbing more scouts seems prudent.

guyfromtheplace1 · Nov 8, 2017

George said:
Ehh, you can discuss things that suck without hate or incivility. You just have to make a conscious choice about how you're going to conduct yourself.

I think that's too advanced a system for our tech level

We did explicitly get the opportunity to rotate around distant colony governors to deal with corruption, and I think we could leverage our unusual access to Division of Power to pull it off.
Seriously, I think you normally only get that in response to abuses of power.
Applying the idea to the legal system isn't a huge stretch and it won't actually make our enforcement of laws neutral or impartial, though it'll be a step in the right direction.

George · Nov 8, 2017

8bitBob said:
See my edit. It's actually -0 tech now due to our refunds from Governor's Palaces. Assuming I haven't missed something.

Does anyone have a citation on that 1.5 rounding up?

8bitBob · Nov 8, 2017

George said:
Does anyone have a citation on that 1.5 rounding up?

Is it 1.5? We have 2 Governor's Palaces and had 1 tech refund before.

notgreat · Nov 8, 2017

George said:
What kind of wealth actions are people wanting to take next turn? In the absence of specific need, I think the loyalty option is more valuable.

The specific need is guaranteeing 3 or 4 Stability next turn, starting a Golden Age. And also to potentially overflow into Martial if we also take [PSN] Main Expand Econ.

BungieONI · Nov 8, 2017

Citino said:
The debates aren't focused on religion though. They are focused on the role of foreigners in Ymar, with Puritans believing that isolation is best, while the mainstream priests disagree. If this debate was between the One God worshipers, then you would have a point, but this is an internal divide. It makes no sense that these debates would lead to religious intolerance when they would be focused on issues of doctrine.

Actually it does in my reading of what he said.

Academia Nut said:
"Root and branch" here refers to a combination of political violence to execute, exile, and physically isolate a number of the major puritan priests and ringleaders while aggressively politically debating and isolating the root philosophies. Innocents and people undeserving of the punishments dealt it well get caught up in the process, but it is not intended to be a frenzied purge, although it could go sideways.

"Major puritan priests" and "while aggressively politically debating and isolating the root philosophies" sounds like a religious debate, because our priests are not entirely disconnected from our politics and this is a religiously based trait and ideal. The Puritan's focus is on foreigners in a lot of places, though not all, so the debates will cover a lot of that you are correct.

Thanks for asking what Cracking Down consists of.

Horologer · Nov 8, 2017

Sivantic said:
We do kinda need the Loyalty though. Even just one extra loyalty would be very helpful at this juncture.

Problem is that it's one or zero Loyalty.

If it was just flat one Loyalty, I'd consider it, but given that there's a chance it gives no Loyalty at all, it's not worth the risk. Trade Excitement gives us 10 Wealth, which we definitely want, and extra Stability, which will be useful while dealing with our religious issues. If we don't care for extra Wealth, then the Royal Investment megaproject acceleration is also extremely useful.

There are just better options with better odds this time around, in my opinion.

Sivantic · Nov 8, 2017

Raichu1972 said:
Which other actions do you want to discuss?
I left an explanation of my actions and why I chose them in my vote, if you want to start the discussion from there.

I did though...

Sivantic said:
I checked the numbers, Expand Econ at this point in time is largely unnecessary. We will still have 20+ Econ to work with next turn without it. I recommend we grab Poppies to ensure that we work with at least 16 Wealth for next turn as we need it for the Navy and any additional projects.

I checked the numbers on both. Even with the Annexes, we end up with 21 Economy for next turn. Even if you drop everything else, including the Trader Quest, the Priest Quest, and the Spirit Channel March, and go full out on the dam, you still have plenty of Economy

Right here...

Manget said:
I don't want all the Expand Econs to win but I do want one of them.

May I ask why?

George said:
What kind of wealth actions are people wanting to take next turn? In the absence of specific need, I think the loyalty option is more valuable.

Navy is it for me I think.

Paths of Civilization

Seven gremlins in a trench coat

Seven gremlins in a trench coat

Incertae sedis