Yep. It literally doubled the number of War Missions we sent.
Paths of Civilization
- Thread starter Academia Nut
- Start date
- Original
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- Australia
We need two libraries and an academy. Finishing the priest quest will get us to max RA if they get faction power from completion, which is dangerous. The academy will increase RA while the libraries will both help complete the quest and maintain our Mysticism refund.
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- Somewhere
Noooo, this is one where the marriage offer comes from multiple options inside, outside, and with a possible Hero descendent. Yes this isn't the first marriage for political reasons, but it is one the players get to choose.
I guess it hits diminishing returns after two-three kicks.
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- Australia
@Academia Nut, was there any innovation from Amber Road's Main Build Docks?
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- Somewhere
A lot of posters have stated they won't choose the Storm Ymaryn because they don't want the Storm Ymaryn to take our tech, contaminate the Ymaryn with the beliefs of the Storm Ymaryn, possibly steal a Hero from the Ymaryn, the belief that there are no benefits to allying with the Storm Ymaryn, the assumption that the Ymaryn are superior instead of equal to the Storm Ymaryn, the idea that the Ymaryn would be doing all the work if they married the Storm Ymaryn.
All of this sounds like fear to me.
Can you name one positive reason that we would ally with the Storm Ymaryn? Everyone keeps saying the Storm Ymaryn are bad people, and will be bad people to the Ymaryn, but where is that proof? The Storm Ymaryn gain things from the Ymaryn because of the vampiric Econ trait, they participate in the Artisan Games, not once have the Storm Ymaryn declared war on the Ymaryn. The Storm Ymaryn sound like good people, other than the fact they keep slaves.
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BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
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Like Malevolo and a few others have mentioned, I see all the options as having a chance to institute the downfall of our elective nature, with internal patricians being the worse for that in my personal opinion. It seems likely the most powerful/cunning patrician family will marry him and their clout plus Alyx's sounds like a prime recipe for someone trying to push for it to change. Its the paradox of having a guy as awesome as Alyx. I don't want this too happen, but don't really know how to avoid it other than not taking patricians. Leaving me with Forhuch vs Storm Ymaryn(I'll get to why I want Forhuch over Storm Ymaryn).
What is stopping the Forhuch from influencing the Ymaryn is manifold:
None of our vassals have ever seemed to directly influence us, we were always the instigators of change. (I don't know why, but there it is)
Distance. It is going to be difficult for anyone to go from there to the core to speak up about their issues with what we do, including who we make king. On the flip side they will diverge more quickly than anyone we've ruled over to this point(Amber Road is a bit of an oddball, I think we don't have enough contact.)
AN's comment here, states that they may be weirded out and could potentially cause problems on succession, but two things make me less concerned about it: One is that AN says "might" which sounds like a roll or something semi-random/out of our control, and that they will also have time to see how we do things before Alyx kicks it.
I figure that if we do the Influence Subordinate I want to, then we will give the Forhuch "the memo" so to speak and heavily reinforce that second thing AN said above. This I imagine will reduce the chances of them having a fuss.
Like I said they have lots of our people there already, I'm not sure how that may effect the Influence. Most likely we don't have to go for a Main or something. *shrug* I don't have too much information, need to ask AN.
They don't have any organized leader or center to base an objection from since we killed it and are now replacing it.
Put together the facts that its a chance that they may kick up a fuss, the influence, our take over, and Alyx working his magic I doubt they will have much inclination to try to change things. (On a side note they should, if they are intelligent realize that elective still lets them get a chance to get in if they are really good)
I'm sorry you don't like your speculations being challenged, but in the cause of thorough discussion I and others will do it.
As for the idea that the Forhuch are going to generate a hero "as great as the Hero possibly generated with the Storm Ymaryn", you were saying that it is a case of generating a hero at all before. Can you please clarify as to which one you meant?
Personally I don't really care if we get a hero or not, since I think the Storm Ymaryn are basically talking out their ass in part. We know that children of heroes can become heroes of their own dependent on environment, but to correct a mistaken piece of information you are holding, the Heroic SY King is giving us a daughter who may or may not be a hero. We don't know. And the SY know what she is, but likely don't know what the consequences of their idea will be, though they have some inkling as they are taking the shot in the dark. My expectation is that she is not a hero and so it would be Genius x normal in both cases.
Build more naval and complete the Trader quest to work on our western subordinates. If we treat Naval like Light Cavalry 5 is a pretty significant number. Considering social dynamics in this era this will discourage the Storm Ymaryn from making any large moves to the Western colonies and will also let us more easily defend said colonies. I am also going to say, Influence Subordinate. I don't personally know when since I want to do the Forhuch first to head off their issues. I'm thinking maybe around the time we start the Lowlands Canal is a good idea, which is in two to two and a half turns. Also, work on getting better roads and boats and horses and upgrade our government so that we can start integrating them.
The rest of this jumps around a little too much but I'll address it. I don't see the Storm Ymaryn as a long term investment. I see them as a strange bedfellow who may or may not decide to take a swing depending on how the tides of geopolitics go. A sort of foil and social experiment as well. I'm actually rather curious to see where they will go on their path. Whether or not they are an investment to you or others, however, is nigh entirely subjective.
Conquering to Not!China is a pretty funny idea even as a potential exaggeration, but I wouldn't go for it. Way way too far and also just in general not needed now or for a very very long time in the future.
Good point about the King of the Hill thing, but to a point I can take what you say here and flip it around and say that we may run into something which prevents us from influencing the Forhuch even though I want too. I'm not sure what it would be, but I've lost a lot of my ability to be surprised by what AN comes up with.
I assume by Province you mean Vassal/Subordinate? Because under the normal mechanics province has a very specific meaning, and Forhuch is pretty darn big as they cover the entirety of the Iranian Plateau. That's about on level with how big Western Wall was before we integrated part of it. They do want to be part of it I will completely agree, but again the sheer distance concerns me so I'd rather not let it get to be a problem so we can try and deal with our western vassals. Integrating the Txolla was on the table, I don't know if it still is. We might be distracted from it or something. But even with integrating them I am still concerned about the distance.
I want to give power to a vassal which has no overarching authority except us due to the pounding and bootcrunching we did to them. I also don't feel very inclined to tie ourselves in a governmental sense with the SY. I'm cool with trade and the like, but their warring ways don't appeal since once we get 5+ Naval, and maybe even before then, I expect them to try to get us to help them out and I'm more interested in seeing where they can go on their own and keeping ourselves a step away from the situation. I figure a diplo mission might be interesting, and the Games contact we have with them is good for keeping us all informed. I do like the personality of their King though. He sounds hilarious.
And to wrap up, if you preclude the use of Influence Sub there is not very much we can actively do about the West besides marry the ST daughter. Build Navy up is about the most impactful of the possibilities. We'd probably get the option to stop them, but I don't like the costs I can imagine for that. War with them, mostly, since they hold the advantage of reach by being so near our West.
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That is because almost no GM likes "take all the options" votes/write-ins in a quest where the player is supposed to chose between them...
- Location
- Australia
You...um...do you want to reread what you just wrote?
No, we got choices before too(Magwyna specifically has a choice of HK, Nomad, Why Not Both, and Sorry, Not Gay, while a marriage was one of the solutions to resolving the Stallion Tribe problem). We only get marriage decisions when they are politically significant, or it just vanishes into background noise.
This is not amazingly unique or anything, but it's politically important because government reform is this turn.
Thus:
-Patrician - Marriage as internal political tool. This focuses on marriage as a means of keeping contacts 'in the group', preventing outsiders from getting influence on your political system. Keeps the Patricians exclusive.
-Vassal - Marriage as imperial binding tool. This is what Imperial China used to manage their provinces, the Emperor took a concubine from each of his major vassals(other than his brothers of course), which reassured the provinces that they are not forgotten by the core. This in turn made it fashionable for the Kings and Dukes to marry people from distant provinces following the Imperial role model, which strengthened national identity.
-Foreigner - Marriage as a diplomatic tool. This was what the Hapsburgs made famous. By marrying outside and forming political connections, you can be influenced by everyone, but by being the Center of Fucking, everyone will influence everyone ELSE through you, giving you Fulcrum power diplomatically.
Positive reasons? International diplomacy.
You're propping up a strawman and shooting it down here. Nobody has been seriously arguing from that angle, we have considered the trait and cultureal impact of all the marriages, which is not the same as saying they are all demons wearing human skin.
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- Somewhere
Not so much being challenged as you showed me multiple things that kept hitting me, but at their base they were completely connected, while you made them seem far greater than they are. What you did was fantastic writing of an argument. I personally see my writing as inferior to that, you took very few sentences to get your point across, and I felt like giving up.
And yes by province I met periphery state. I just confuse the two terms because at the beginning we had provinces, and our first periphery state was called a province, or the term province applied somehow in meaning to our first periphery state. Also periphery state is not something I usually think of when it comes to countries.
Question, if we might lose Loyalty points from our western Periphery States because we allow a newly acquired vassal to enter the political table of the Ymaryn, something that usually takes a few genrations before the Periphery State can even try. Would you still encourage the Forhuch wedding if it was possible to lose Loyalty in the Western Periphery States?
Edit; because I shouldn't double post:
Rome kept slaves, Vikings kept thralls, slavery was a part of Ymaryn culture under the name of half-exiles for years. Just because a civilization has slaves doesn't mean there are not good traits in the civilization.
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Remember everyone else are default Xenophobes, and often lacks the Loyalty honor value. The typical thing for a vassal of a great empire to think of is to avoid central attention, because while it means they can influence things happening far away, they also lose power over their own holdings.
Amber Road is on a major river, has no significant neighbors above the tribal level, and only a connection to Blackmouth and Stallionpen within anywhere.
...from their perspective they're basically an Arctic Colony. The only civilization is the core, so while they CAN drift, theres nothing to drift to.
I believe the daughter is a child of a hero, but not a hero herself. We also know that Familial Honor/Ancestral Honor boosts hero generation, that Elective systems spawn heroes less often, so there might be something to the eugenics of it.
On the other hand for everyone else a Hero is incredibly socially disruptive if they spawn anywhere but a King's family, so we got the better end of the deal there.
Yes. I'd encourage all the provinces to send waifus in addition. Which would encourage our patricians to export spare children to the peripheries so they can build connections with the Royal power.
That would fix our culture drift problems so hard I hope it's a Gilded Age innovation.
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How? I'm at a loss for why international diplomacy is a positive reason for choosing the Storm Ymaryn. Is there an earlier post you can point me to, or will you just explain it? The Ymaryn are already the big fish in the diplomatic world, a diplomacy gain from marrying the Storm Ymaryn would bring little, wouldn't it? We don't expect the Storm Ymaryn to have something the Ymaryn don't. The Storm Ymaryn won't give the Ymaryn military aid. Trade might increase, but we are already trading with each other.
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
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Interesting idea. I'm not inclined to think it would happen, since the west does have political power which you can see when they facilitated the Second Sons.
However it is totally a valid option that could occur. *swishes drink around in thought* Not really sure what to do about it if they did. I mean, I would still do the Forhuch thing since it is only a possibility. If it was a certainty, I'd be a bit more leery.
I mean from the perspective of Lord's Loyalty there is an idea that they might be angry if we didn't include our Vassals since we would not be fulfilling our obligation as Lords. But I find this a really really unlikely possibility which can be summarily ignored.
*scratches chin*
Hmm. I'd focus on getting those boats done as fast as possible and move up the time table on when we should influence one of them. Also hope for mid turn options.
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Eh, that question was actually meant for BungieOni. Yes, is in my opinion a wrong answer because of our current loyalty score in the western States. They get hit and they could be reduced to 1 loyalty, or 2 loyalty. They are currently all at 3 loyalty. But well if you looked at the loyalty score, and say we should do it. You are Veekie. Shall I raise a banner in your honor? Or would you like a train design with your name on it?
ThrawnCA
Carbon-based biped
- Location
- Australia
Not "what can we get out of them" diplomacy, but "let's establish friendly relations with our neighbors" diplomacy.
ThrawnCA
Carbon-based biped
- Location
- Australia
Hey, @BungieONI, while you're online - did you see my earlier post querying your statement that we'll have 43 Econ Expansion to deal with? We only have 30 right now, and mills will give us Econ along with slots, so by my calculations we'll peak at 34 slots. I'm not sure why we'd need a second Expand Econ to get us under 20 slots.
Diplomacy is about connections. A marriage to a strong foreign power gives us connections that can be leveraged internationally. When dealing with Freehills or Nomads they must consider the possibility of both the Storm Ymaryn and the Ymaryn cooperating on matters of trade and war alike, all of which is diplomatic power, even if we marry to a lesser power.
It means on the day to day level, our ruling elite have more WAYS to get things done, which in turn weakens the bargaining position of everyone else.
The Games help a lot, which is why I don't think this investment is particularly worthwhile.
Which has been how our Loyalty score worked about never, so that's why this whole argument is a strawman.
We raise the Forhuch loyalty through a marriage. If the Western colonies make noise, then we SIMILARLY offer them marriages, which works out to our benefit because it ensures that the ruling caste of our peripheries are blood relatives of our core ruling class. As such, if the western colonies DON'T protest, then alas, an opportunity to trick them into gluing themselves to us is lost.
If I were to take the same angle as you are I'd ask: Why wouldn't Greenshore be pissed because we'd rather marry the half barbarian princess from their biggest regional threat than a Greenshore Governor's daughter?
But I wouldn't, because that angle is spurious.
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
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Oh that. Yeah that number was for if we still did Mega Support. Since we aren't the actual calculation is thus:
-4 Expansion (Net Income), +4 Expansion (Actions this turn) = 30 Expansion
+4(Net income), -4 Econ(Actions expenses), +4+4+3(Mills) = 11 Econ
30 Expansion, 11 Econ in the mid turn.
Main React Expand Economy -> 30 -12 = 18 Expansion, 11+12 = 23 Econ.
So yeah actually we would be fine and pass the 20 requirement. If we want the cities back though it is probably best to do another Secondary with PSN. That gets us to 11+24= 35 Econ. 8 overflow, three of which is refunded. So 30-24+3 = 9 Expansion. That means that every city but Lower Valleyhome and Stallionpen are up. Turn Blackmouth into an FC turn after. Maybe support the Urban Poor again, maybe turn Sacred Forest into an FC depends on your assessment of that being a good idea or not. I'd prefer Lower Valleyhome if possible, Stallionpen if not.
Stuff changes a bit unpredictably if the provinces decide to take an Expand Econ, though generally I think it makes our job easier.
ThrawnCA
Carbon-based biped
- Location
- Australia
What about Main Expand Forest? That initially drops 3 EE.
Thanks for clarifying.
Most of the factors against it early on are gone now I think. And Independent Sacred Forest would help draw the religious center closer to the core again.
Stallionpen is worse, since it has a Temple, a Natural Wonder AND is too far away to keep under watch.
I'd prefer to cap us at something like 5 free cities and then just gain tons of EE through forests and black soil so we can both give the Yeoman more actions (who do something like 80% of the actions we want) and start working on terraforming our land at large.
I meant as a defense against outside invasion. It takes awhile for the royal army to muster force and march out if it's completely centrally located, and we get raided in the meantime.
I'm not sure that would be too different...
We could probably just build tons of marches though.
Uhh....
I don't know how to break this to you, but.
On the Democracy-Autocracy scale we're somewhere in between Oligarchy and Autocracy.
We can't really even think of democracy until we get something like folding in an academy into every new settlement action like we do with shrines. I'm also not convinced the players would go for it, most of us are aiming for a meritocracy, which favors Oligarchy due to them being able to procure the best education.
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
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What were those reasons again? Its been a really long time since it came up for me.
It does, but I am pretty sure the -3 Econ gets refunded into +3 Expansion so it cancels out in the end. Forests are LTE positive as it were for the moment.
ThrawnCA
Carbon-based biped
- Location
- Australia
But things are substantially changing with the new government. From the beta rules, it looks like a True City gives us an action, while a Free City gives the guilds an action.
Also, since we really want cities under the new model, theoretically we can get a higher cap by using our subordinate slots for colonies and marches target than free cities.