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Paths of Civilization

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Academia Nut said:
Not a chance. And no, you're the only weirdos that actually write down stuff about artisan work.
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Found this quote trying to find another AN's quotes, which amuses me a bit.

Also got me thinking about guildmasters and artisans who are actually writing stuff down....We need paper ASAP if we want more recording of technical knowledge. Or maybe we need to build more libraries in cities?

Granted, this make our knowledge more accessible to other civilizations, but on the flip side, one cannot just read a book and become a leading expert in something.
 
Candesce said:
Everyone else who hasn't picked up a legacy or relevent Trait has a base value of 1 per secondary, 2 if they've gotten a sufficient government upgrade.

I'd bet on the Highlanders having a trait that boosts their fortifications, though, and it's quite possible they've the government upgrade - we actually got it pretty late, as I recall, though we get the full upgrade all at once because we'd picked up all the secondary requirements before building the keystone Palace.

We can be pretty sure they've the Palace, and the Highlanders had a habit of stealing the other shit from us.

So I'd expect at least some massive walls.

How loyal those populations will be, behind those walls - less sure. But they're not likely to be happy with us if we end up starving out the Highlander garrisons.
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Wait.

What if that is what having Walls on our Palace gives?
 
Kiba said:
Found this quote trying to find another AN's quotes, which amuses me a bit.

Also got me thinking about guildmasters and artisans who are actually writing stuff down....We need paper ASAP if we want more recording of technical knowledge. Or maybe we need to build more libraries in cities?

Granted, this make our knowledge more accessible to other civilizations, but on the flip side, one cannot just read a book and become a leading expert in something.
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The guilds probably write on codified manner.
 
Academia Nut said:
There is a new megaproject unlocked by having The Games + Love of Wisdom + Life of Arete + Guild Econ + No Slavery
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Found the quote I am looking for. That's a lot of conditions to facilitate the Artisan Games.

thatguy said:
But are we smart enough?
You see, avoiding slavery doesn't get economical until you've got steam engines, and I have no idea how to rush for those.
I could tell you what actions to take to rush for gunpowder (a whole lot of surveys, charcoal, and black soil coupled with simultanious study alchemy, then a long period of repeated study alchemy's after discovering that sulfur and saltpeter exist and are alchemically interesting(though we might need distillation before saltpeter is possible)), but to figure out steam we'd just have to rely on getting a natural 100 during a golden age or something.(after understanding valves, pumps, and vacuums)
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Steam engines aren't necessarily for mechanization, not even if you want to massively reduce agricultural labor requirement.
 
Citino said:
Uh, why would we want to redcue Partician power? You do realize they aren't a bad faction, right?
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All the faction aren't bad, until they GET power. By reducing the patrician early we could have retained a lot of wealth used for larger projects.
Just think how much money that Redshore smuggling/spy network run by the governors must have stolen over the years. Then times that by how many families just as old this civilisation must have.

It would also have enabled more social change, after all established power/wealth resists change.
 
RyubosJ said:
All the faction aren't bad, until they GET power. By reducing the patrician early we could have retained a lot of wealth used for larger projects.
Just think how much money that Redshore smuggling/spy network run by the governors must have stolen over the years. Then times that by how many families just as old this civilisation must have.

It would also have enabled more social change, after all established power/wealth resists change.
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The king is a patrician, someone has to be in charge and the people in charge will be corrupt. Hammering our ruling class for no good reason will just breed political instability because the people doing the hammering will also be patricians.
 
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RyubosJ said:
All the faction aren't bad, until they GET power. By reducing the patrician early we could have retained a lot of wealth used for larger projects.
Just think how much money that Redshore smuggling/spy network run by the governors must have stolen over the years. Then times that by how many families just as old this civilisation must have.

It would also have enabled more social change, after all established power/wealth resists change.
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Destroying a faction doesn't really change the fundamental socioeconomic structure of the Ymaryn or solve any deep problems.
 
RyubosJ said:
All the faction aren't bad, until they GET power. By reducing the patrician early we could have retained a lot of wealth used for larger projects.
Just think how much money that Redshore smuggling/spy network run by the governors must have stolen over the years. Then times that by how many families just as old this civilisation must have.

It would also have enabled more social change, after all established power/wealth resists change.
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It isn't the amount of power that a faction has that matters, it's the balance between the factions that matters. The guilds can counter the Particians to an extent, and the other factions working together can do the same. It's only when we have a faction with power concentrated in it that we get problems.

Also, you're misunderstanding the role of the Particians. They aren't stealing our wealth with their power, they just push for their own personal projects to get finished. Hammering them down does nothing but make more trouble for us, unless they are legitimately doing something dangerous.

And what social change could we have gotten by hammering down the Particians? There must always be a ruling class, so even if we crushed the current class, another of the factions would just replace them. We have WoAN that if we did, for some reason, decide to crush our current Particians, the next strongest faction would be renamed to Particians and gain the same powers as them.

Not to mention we've spent quite a lot of effort cultivating our traits to have a competent Partician class, so crushing them makes no sense.

Edit: It should also be noted that keeping the factions weak does make it easier to control them, but we also lose out on significant benefits if we do so. Urban Poor can increase our Legitimacy cap, Traders can increase our innovation rolls, Particians can suppress rebellious factions or support useful ones (like they did during the Horseman's plague), and so forth. Keeping them weak means we can't benefit from those powers.
 
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RyubosJ said:
All the faction aren't bad, until they GET power. By reducing the patrician early we could have retained a lot of wealth used for larger projects.
Just think how much money that Redshore smuggling/spy network run by the governors must have stolen over the years. Then times that by how many families just as old this civilisation must have.

It would also have enabled more social change, after all established power/wealth resists change.
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Way back AN said that there is some changeover with the Patrician families over the generations, so it's quite unlikely that there are millenia old dynasties. Eventually, they'd have run out of luck and usurped by a younger, more vibrant family.


Re: Mechanization

As Kiba said, steam engines aren't a hard requirement for more mechanization. The very early industrial revolution used a lot of water power, for example. Steam Engines were awesome because they allowed you to build factories even when no water was available and fuel it with a comparatively compact material.

But they aren't a hard requirement. The Mills at the Dam for example are likely to help a lot already. They will be directly at one of the major logistic hubs of the Empire and can do everything from grinding ore to processing black soil.

Other very important steps that the Guilds will take is to optimize their work flow so everything runs more efficiently and you need less people. They won't be able to get rid of the jobs that Half Exiles used to do as those tended to be hard to mechanize, but if you need one less Journeyman? That's probably equal to several Half Exiles pay. And that Journeyman will just go to another Ironworks or something as our demand is currently bottomless.

We might see the concept of manufactoria come up to cope with the labor costs. With those, you can specialize people so much that the total amount of training needed is lower and thus wage costs fall. We even have a value that sort of fits the thematic with Symphony. Everyone contributes to a greater whole.

Of course, the absolute irony would be if the T3 Ironworks increases the supply so much that other parts of the economy really take off and the Half Exiles labor shrinks as a percentage of the costs.
 
Your right now, the patricians are most likely more good than bad now. Still doesn't mean I can't wish they had never developed as they did. (Which to be clear is my main gripe, they they were allowed to happen not that they haven't been crushed.)

On a different note, what are the gender policies of the people? And why did the opening of the gyms fail?
 
Some example of mechanization without access to water or steam power:

1) Reaping machine
2) Seed drills
3) Cotton gins
4) Thresher
5) Combine harvester which combined reaping and threshing.
6) grain cradle

These are what I found in wikipedia.
 
RyubosJ said:
Your right now, the patricians are most likely more good than bad now. Still doesn't mean I can't wish they had never developed as they did. (Which to be clear is my main gripe, they they were allowed to happen not that they haven't been crushed.)

On a different note, what are the gender policies of the people? And why did the opening of the gyms fail?
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There was no way to prevent the rise of a group like we have, though we were able to delay it in the beginning. Honestly, our development of the Philosopher King and Life of Arete traits has actually made sure that we've had some pretty competent rulers at almost all times, so their development has actually been pretty acceptable.

As to gender policies, generally the People are a bit more accepting of women gaining power, but they see a powerful woman as more of an exception to the rule rather than it being something that all women are capable of.
Kiba said:
Some example of mechanization without access to water or steam power:

1) Reaping machine
2) Seed drills
3) Cotton gins
4) Thresher
5) Combine harvester which combined reaping and threshing.
6) grain cradle

These are what I found in wikipedia.
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Most of those are way too complex for us, I believe. The reaping machines were an American Civil War thing, iirc (it gets credit for helping the North throw far more men at the South than the South could ever possibly hope to handle), and most of the others were also made well into the AD era.

We might be able to do seed drills, but the rest would take concentrated effort into building mills and other mechanical pursuits to be able to get.
 
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RyubosJ said:
Your right now, the patricians are most likely more good than bad now. Still doesn't mean I can't wish they had never developed as they did. (Which to be clear is my main gripe, they they were allowed to happen not that they haven't been crushed.)

On a different note, what are the gender policies of the people? And why did the opening of the gyms fail?
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Part of the readership believed that it didn't solve structural problems and would lead women to value warfare and glory, which was what led to the crisis in the first place.

The solution was the professionalization of the military and centralizing power into the hands of the state.
 
Kiba said:
Part of the readership believed that it didn't solve structural problems and would lead women to value warfare and glory, which was what led to the crisis in the first place.

The solution was the professionalization of the military and centralizing power into the hands of the state.
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I thought the problem occurred because we had maxed our Martial stat at the time.

Edit: And we couldn't afford both more women in the army, and a professionalization of the military.
 
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Citino said:
It isn't the amount of power that a faction has that matters, it's the balance between the factions that matters. The guilds can counter the Particians to an extent, and the other factions working together can do the same. It's only when we have a faction with power concentrated in it that we get problems.
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The amount of power a faction has does matter. There is a difference between all factions having 6 power instead of 3 power. That difference is how much power they have over the king. More factions at high power means more factions who can hijack actions and push their agendas through. We have to be careful not to give too much power or else the executive power of the monarch will be badly weakened.
 
Kiba said:
Part of the readership believed that it didn't solve structural problems and would lead women to value warfare and glory, which was what led to the crisis in the first place.

The solution was the professionalization of the military and centralizing power into the hands of the state.
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It wasn't that we were worried about women glorifying war, it was the idea that we'd be pushing the Particians into becoming focused on war and conquest.

*looks at rome*

Which would be bad.
Andres110 said:
The amount of power a faction has does matter. There is a difference between all factions having 6 power instead of 3 power. That difference is how much power they have over the king. More factions at high power means more factions who can hijack actions and push their agendas through. We have to be careful not to give too much power or else the executive power of the monarch will be badly weakened.
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I know, look at my edit.
Citino said:
Edit: It should also be noted that keeping the factions weak does make it easier to control them, but we also lose out on significant benefits if we do so. Urban Poor can increase our Legitimacy cap, Traders can increase our innovation rolls, Particians can suppress rebellious factions or support useful ones (like they did during the Horseman's plague), and so forth. Keeping them weak means we can't benefit from those powers.
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Power matters, but it can be managed if it is balanced.
 
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thatguy said:
You see, avoiding slavery doesn't get economical until you've got steam engines, and I have no idea how to rush for those.
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As others have said, really what we need is mechanization more generally rather than steam power. I'd argue we need to add the concept of production lines and replaceable parts to that.

Suggested actions: build mills, support artisans, and ideally take a Mystic hero as a bonus somewhere in conjunction.
 
OliWhail said:
As others have said, really what we need is mechanization more generally rather than steam power. I'd argue we need to add the concept of production lines and replaceable parts to that.

Suggested actions: build mills, support artisans, and ideally take a Mystic hero as a bonus somewhere in conjunction.
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Not a mystic hero, and artisan hero is what would be best for that.
 
I just realized:

1) We're growing a ton of textiles for the forseeable future.
2) We want to complete the dam, which will give us access to hydropower.
3) Guilds bitching about the cost of labor required to harvest cottons despite the shitload of wealth generated.
4) More honking farmland with access to the core markets when we integrate Txolla and built that canals.
5) The desire to build watermills to defray the cost of labor in everything.
6) The increasing availability of iron, which allows for more experimentation.

Yeah, traditionally, the two largest industries during the industrial revolution was textile and iron.
 
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Soooooo I think that the best warning I can offer at this point is to brace for future epicness.

Here's the full set of actions to tide you over

[X][Main] Great Dam
[X][Secondary] Support Faction – Traders
[X][Secondary] Enforce Justice
[X][Secondary] Invite to Games – Forhuch
[X][Secondary] Found March - Spirit Channel
[X][Secondary] Upgrade Temple - Horse Valley
[X][Secondary] Upgrade Temple - Horse Valley x2
[X][Guild] Plant Cash Crops – Textiles
[X][Guild] Salterns
[X][Guild Secondary] Salterns
Provinces – [Main] Expand Econ, [Sec] New Settlement - Reorg, [Sec] Trade Mission – Forhuch, [Sec] Study Stars, [Sec] Survey Lands, [Sec] Expand Forests
Policies – Redshore Block Housing (6/6), Blackmouth Market (3/3), Blackmouth Block Housing (2/3), Redhills Colossal Walls (2/9)
FC – Redshore Baths (6/6), Redhills Colossla Walls (3/9), Valleyguard Colossal Walls (2/9)
Western Wall – [Main] Plant Cash Crops - Textiles, [Sec] Build Docks
Greenshore – [Main] Plant Cash Crops – Luxuries (Spices), [Main] Expand Forest
Tinriver – [Main] New Settlement, [Sec] Build Wall
Heaven's Hawk – [Sec] Build Wall, [Sec] Expand Econ
Txolla – [Main] New Settlement, [Sec] Expand Econ, [Sec] Build Roads
Thunder Horse – [Main] Expand Econ, [Sec] Build Roads, [Sec] Expand Forest
Religious Settlement – Black Soil
 
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