Even with our Hostile Core Creation National Idea King Still Stands they want to fight??? D=
Going back to the narrative, I'm not actually surprised that they do. The current Forhuch king is declaring war on us in order to shore up his own reputation. He's weaker than his grandfather(?) and everyone knows that. He has similar Martial ability, but he doesn't have the Diplomacy or Admin that his predecessor did. It's extremely common for kings historically to be forced to declare war in order to shore up internal stability. This is especially common after a disputed succession or where the successor is noted to not be as good as their forebearer.
The Forhuch probably rolled very low on one of their Nomad succession rolls and that's what landed them in this situation.
If you look closely at our own history, this is actually a problem we've had. Whenever we had a run of Hero Kings, their successors were always seen as never quite living up to the hype. It's been mentioned a couple times as far back as Gwygotha, Bynwyn, or Rulwyna that their Hero-King successors weren't good enough.
Now, for us, this has never been a problem. Joyous Symphony requires us to have a Casus Belli so Hero-Kings can't really declare war whenever they want. The only one that did was Phygriff the Nomad and even he had the excuse that Xhoyr were sacrificing babies on the alters of dark gods. We've never been forced to commit to a (potentially mistake) of a war because of internal politics or Kingly decisions. Right now, it looks like both the Highland Kingdom and Forhuch are being forced to make that mistake.
Joyous Symphony restricts us a lot, but it also has hidden pay offs such as avoiding this type of situation.
Guys, we should push the guilds to their limit, not merely meet demand. This will cause them to get better at producing more stuff.
More wealth is more valuable during the war than hoarding our tech.
THIS!!!
Not only does this protect our Wealth, but it forces the Guilds to innovate in order to save on labour demands. This option also forces the Guilds to act in a systemic manner. The other decision forces the smiths to work more and hopefully forces one of them to innovate. The problem with that is most innovations are likely to be on a personal scale. They are notgoing to be systemically exploited by the guilds since there's no higher level activity. Plus, if it's the smiths that are being overworked, the Winery or Dye Guilds don't care.
By forcing this on the Guilds as a whole, we can hopefully force them to innovate and then propagate that innovation as far as they can. The Guilds as organizations also likely have a lot more resources than any individual guild members do on their own.
We've been looking for a potential systemic solution to our Tech issues for a while now. Challenge forces innovation. Now that the Guilds can't rely on near-slave labour, they have to do things intelligently. The more work gets piled on them, the more likely they are to try new things because they have to. Doing something different would be easier for them than doing things they old way.
On another note, what are people's war goals? What is our end game plan looking like?
For the Forhuch, I want to take enough land to hopefully secure our eastern border along the various mountain passes there. It's probably one of our few options to reduce our vulnerable internal borders and hang our defenses on hardened terrain. The war is likely to a bloodbath, but the Forhuch could be somewhat fragile. The transition from Nomads to settled empires is probably when they're most fragile; they're not Nomad enough to draw on that strength, but not settled enough to have everything work there. Even if the Forhuch aren't fragile, we're going to hit them with all the force of a sledgehammer. We have 4 Cavalry (which we should probably get up to 6 with Support Sacred Orders during Mid-Turn) so we're in a better spot than when we fought the Pure. The Banners are also in good shape and we even have more Martial and can Kick. Mass Levy means we can trade 10:1 and still come out ahead.
After the fighting is finished, I don't think that it will be hard to convert them after they've been dislodged. We'd probably be looking at a Main Influence or two to at least get them out of the danger zone. Being able to anchor our borders on the hills and mountains of the east would do a lot to insulate the lowlands against further Nomad depredation.
For the Highland Kingdom, I want their pass up near Gulvalley and their lowland holdings. Considering the lowland canal is going to create shipping along the Great River, we need to have that firmly under internal control. Having someone able to disrupt internal trade or troop movements is not something we can afford. It would be extremely bad if they could cut off food shipments from the lowlands to Valleyhome, Lower Valleyhome and Valleyguard. Temporary starvation would
hurt, especially in the middle of a crisis. Or an army suddenly appearing on our doorstep because the Highland Kingdom had them shipped up by boat.
I'm not totally enamoured with taking all of the Highland Kingdoms. I think they'll be too hard to culturally convert. We're not willing to use slavery or genocide so it simply can't be done in a reasonable amount of time. By leaving them some of the lowlands, their xenophobes will likely bottle themselves up so we don't have to deal with them any more. Taking the Gulvalley pass would also bottle them up and potentially allow us to expand towards the not Mediterranean Sea.
