I wonder why they keep trying to expand rather then focusing inward?
They are like a pup nipping at our heels. There is no way they can project enough force to defeat the sleeping dragon that is Ymaryn. Not unless we were already weak and distracted.?
Because the nature of Kingship is Ambition. The unambitious do not seek to rule. The ambitious who gain the crown will always seek to expand the power of the crown. If not in the first generation of a new regime, then in the second when they are asked to measure up against the first.
We're freakish because we've never had a regime change. Our Kings don't worry so much about the glory of their dynasty, but rather have been cultivated to be the type of people who take calculated risks that always pay off, on their way up. Anyone else would have been dropped from selection before they get to be Heir, and once they take the Crown...well they'd be in their 30s. The fires of youth would have eben tempered.
Actually I don't think the core provinces have seen an enemy army since before Phygrif the Conqueror....
Jesus Christ, the Empire's heartlands haven't seen war in millennia. We really need to know how that affects Ymaryn psychology.
Valleyhome and Sacred Forest had never seen an enemy. Period. Ever since Arxyn. Redshore had seen the Hathatyn show up but that was more a boat slapfight.
They've seen more Ymaryn bandits than anything else.
And the harmurri were reported in the last update as being "worryingly quiet" or something like that. I'm honestly kind of worried they're already dead.
Reminder(again) that the Harmurri trade route to Ymaryn has to go up the Highlander controlled river. That their core is in swampy terrain that's hard to invade.
On which subject, collecting the Forhuch remnants will probably provide Econ + Martial? We don't need more Martial, but Econ would be great right now, and who knows, maybe there's even some cavalry left...
Maybe, maybe not.
We don't
normally loot people we invade, but that ironically leads to highly independent vassals.
An innovation would be to loot all their Econ and Martial, then spend an Influence to replace it with our dudes.
No penitence, we just set the priests to watch that they did not do any more 'spiritually impure things' but as far as I can see the PiA default for any sort of social integration is 'blank slate.' The reason so many refugees fell into half-exile status was because the laws of the Ymaryn are pretty complex by the standards of the societies around us.
As for laws that concern foreigners, we certainly have them but they are unlikely to the the same as for Ymaryn unless the foreigner wants to join.
Pretty much yeah. Ymaryn laws are complex as hell. And we have a bunch of crazy laws, so things which can get you arrested include:
-Spending work hours doing something else - Wasting state resources.
-Holding a celebration without permission - Disrupting the peace
-Taking a shit on the roadside or pissing in the river - Spreading disease
-Keeping too much money or food at home without permission - Hoarding
-Brawling in a tavern - Disrupting the peace
-Cutting down the wrong tree for fuel(what, they're everywhere) - Sacrilege
-Animal abuse - Sacrilege
Just to highlight some of the things we've been known for punishing that nobody else does(or just issues a slap on the wrist for).
I believe the Games rule for foreigners was, We encourage you not to bring any slaves, but you may, on the understanding that if they run away and get to a temple - too bad, they're free.
So, not the same rule as for Ymaryn, but there are still standards.
IIRC its less get to a temple. If they simply demand to join us they're now free Ymaryn.
The traditional solution for this is make sure the slaves you send to the Games have family under your 'care' back home.
And IIRC our rules for refugees is that they are assumed to be a blank slate(because it's just not possible to track their history), and we have WoAN that a fair chunk of our 'refugees' are actually bandits running away from their state after pushing their luck too far. We accept them all.
Weeeeell.
We could have POW as a separate, non-transferable and non-extendable status that was like being a half-exile but without pay. That minimizes the possible abuse by limiting it to foreigners, so we don't see a hereditary caste forming or anything like that.
On the other hand, that forms an incentive for us to raid neighbors...
That's basically legalizing slave raiding yes. Expect a lot more cases of "Factions force you into war for totally moral reasons, but look at the Econ you can loot!"
Didn't China cheat with virtual slavery? That is to say, grabbing peasants and making them do the work. I imagine most countries did at some point or another since it's a very simple cheat, specially for construction work.
China used a variety of options:
-Taxation was a fairly common means of extracting extra labor. Unpaid taxes can lead to conscription, asset seizure, indenture or corvee labor.
-Penal labor was a big deal.
You can get it done with just the above two. If you need more, raise taxes, which lets you generate excess labor by both increasing state treasuries to pay for labor and forcing marginal populations into punitive labor.
The work is still counted off their taxes of course.
In theory, you could just leave or change careers. But you still owe taxes so you can't leave unless you're going bandit or you're rich.
Mechanization and urbanization go hand-in-hand at this point. That and improved ironworks I guess.
Though I have to say, it's freaking weird how Build Mills was one of the greatest casualties of the half-exile reforms. I still don't get why they'd cost so much half-exile labor to build. Support Artisans/Art Patronage are two of the other biggest losses that similarly seem somewhat strange.
Its because they make use of a lot of highly skilled labor. Look to the social support pyramid here:
-Guild Master
-Guild Master supported by dozens of guildsmen generating the wealth to pay for expenses
-Guild Master supported by priests teaching the Masters at the Academy
-Each guildsman is supported by several apprentices doing the day to day manual labor of their craft.
-Each priest is supported by several shamans handling the actual doctoring work.
-All of the above need Half Exiles to carry their trash, and when they die, their dead bodies too.
Thus the costs rise depending on how long your support chain is. When you order a Mill expansion you're increasing the ranks of Guild Masters because you need those educated in mathematics, particularly geometry and ratios, to design and plan mills.
It's actually rather odd when you think about it, because if you give coins to half-exiles when you didn't before, then initially you need more coins, but after that they just go into circulation. They don't get eaten or melted down or anything. They could get hoarded, but the Patricians are more likely to do that than the half-exiles are. So, an initial Wealth hit would have made a lot of sense, but permanent Wealth costs kind of don't. Maybe Econ costs or something, representing the need to actively recruit people instead of just having a bunch of them quietly turn up and get the job done for free.
Thats where the Market comes in. Half Exiles getting paid only returns the Wealth to ths system given a sufficiently efficient economy to return their pay back to circulation.
What DOES matter for our purpose is that new projects(which are our actions taken), requires a greater investment of wealth to kick off, because you can't just overwork the half exiles for free until the labor demand equalizes(by making more people half exiles).
So think of it this way:
-Initial transition costs - Flat costs
-Permanent costs - Permanent wealth tax
-Project initiation costs - Permanent action cost increase
