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Paths of Civilization

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Reader of all said:
I see but if we ally with the strongest nomad clan i.e the thunder horses wouldn't that keep them in line?
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That's not how nomads work, overall. They probably will not remain the strongest for long, or will still attack the trade caravans after the time is up. Nomads.

tryrar said:
Oh, speaking of neighbors, @Academia Nut since the Metal Workers count as neighbors now, do we have a sense of what their culture is like, as well as what they actually call themselves?
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Oh, yes, this too. Can we get a hint of what values do they have and can we do the holy ritual of cultural appropriation?
 
[X] [Secondary] New Trails
[X] [Secondary] Trade Mission - Highlands Kingdom
Sorry I just copied someone else's vote .
 
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Omegahugger said:
They are only the strongest clan currently, those things change with time rather easily.

I still support a trade mission, but that's because I want to ensure that we keep a friendly nomad clan while they still remember us being decent.
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It's basically the only time you can send a trade mission to them, on a turn when they are REQUIRED to not attack you. If it fails to secure a longer period of peace, sure, nothing lost(Trade Mission would just provide a Diplomacy up instead), but if we want to get at the Nomads' trade partners without having to risk a trade mission on random encounter steppes, this is the only turn it works in.

It's also why next turn is slated for a Main Expand Warriors when the slot frees up to recover our Martial and to try to trigger a military innovation.=.

Unless people helpfully spent the Economy needed for it first, then we're going to have to deal with using less effective measures.
 
tryrar said:
Oh, speaking of neighbors, @Academia Nut since the Metal Workers count as neighbors now, do we have a sense of what their culture is like, as well as what they actually call themselves?
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You've mostly interacted with their trading partners, but they seem to be a number of hill tribes, with control consolidated around patriarchs that own the mines and lands around them. While not psychotic about it, they definitely are a slaving culture and their two main imports from surrounding tribes are food and slaves for the mines. They call themselves 'Yiheg Femb' in their language, but most people call them some combination of 'Metal', 'Mountain', 'People', 'Workers', or synonyms of those terms in their languages.
 
Sivantic said:
Not necessarily.

If we help prop them up, they ate likely to remain on top. Thus reinforcing the idea that the People are allies.
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That's...probably true. But honestly, Centralization 3 Hierarchy 7 just screams 'ticking timebomb' to me in what it means about our government. Maybe we should send a delegation to nomads instead of Highlands Kingdom (although I do not change my vote to such because tactical voting - I want my New Trails this turn), but Trails are mandatory.

Academia Nut said:
You've mostly interacted with their trading partners, but they seem to be a number of hill tribes, with control consolidated around patriarchs that own the mines and lands around them. While not psychotic about it, they definitely are a slaving culture and their two main imports from surrounding tribes are food and slaves for the mines. They call themselves 'Yiheg Femb' in their language, but most people call them some combination of 'Metal', 'Mountain', 'People', 'Workers', or synonyms of those terms in their languages.
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So sort of Greeks then, with low Centralization, hills and usage of slavery, but not of Roman magnitude. Not sure about other things.

Also, how do they import food? Isn't bulk trade a bit hard to accomplish in this age?
 
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Academia Nut said:
You've mostly interacted with their trading partners, but they seem to be a number of hill tribes, with control consolidated around patriarchs that own the mines and lands around them. While not psychotic about it, they definitely are a slaving culture and their two main imports from surrounding tribes are food and slaves for the mines. They call themselves 'Yiheg Femb' in their language, but most people call them some combination of 'Metal', 'Mountain', 'People', 'Workers', or synonyms of those terms in their languages.
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Huh, that makes trade with them a little awkward, since SV(and our civ by extension) is rather opposed to slavery-unless we're doing an explicitly evil quest.

Also, the trade route we have imports metal tools right? How much do we need to import for copper tools be a common sight?
 
tryrar said:
Huh, that makes trade with them a little awkward, since SV(and our civ by extension) is rather opposed to slavery-unless we're doing an explicitly evil quest.

Also, the trade route we have imports metal tools right? How much do we need to import for copper tools be a common sight?
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We are opposed to it?
I mean, that's pretty normal practice for the time period, so I would not exactly mind even within our civ (I mean, I probably would because we have egalitarian-ish communism here, but not in principle), let alone others.
 
Academia Nut said:
You've mostly interacted with their trading partners, but they seem to be a number of hill tribes, with control consolidated around patriarchs that own the mines and lands around them. While not psychotic about it, they definitely are a slaving culture and their two main imports from surrounding tribes are food and slaves for the mines. They call themselves 'Yiheg Femb' in their language, but most people call them some combination of 'Metal', 'Mountain', 'People', 'Workers', or synonyms of those terms in their languages.
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Hmm, sounds like Confederated Clans organization, going by strict inheritance.

And of course they're slavers. There's basically two routes to mining in this era: Have such ridiculous abundance that you can feed people as much as warriors to do work which does not produce food...or get slaves and solve it more disposably.
ctulhuslp said:
That's...probably true. But honestly, Centralization 3 Hierarchy 7 just screams 'ticking timebomb' to me in what it means about our government. Maybe we should send a delegation to nomads instead of Highlands Kingdom (although I do not change my vote to such because tactical voting - I want my New Trails this turn), but Trails are mandatory.
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FYI we've been at the opposite status, Centralization PAST the cap, Hierarchy at 3 previously. It triggered a crisis roll which evolved our Kingdom to have higher Centralization Tolerance. No harm resulted. If you want government structures to evolve, you have to put them under strain...and so we let that continue for a time to improve it. Provided Stability and Economy are positive, resolving the problem will lead to improvements.

Not a ticking timebomb, since it's exactly at the safe limit. Higher would be dangerous, but we're not likely to pick up even more Hierarchy yet.
Centralization 3 is Okay, not LOW. It's not as absurdly high as we'd like it to be, but then again nothing is.

Economy at 2, however, is low, because it actively limits what projects we can take next turn with the Main action, as the best Main actions cost Economy.
 
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ctulhuslp said:
We are opposed to it?
I mean, that's pretty normal practice for the time period, so I would not exactly mind even within our civ (I mean, I probably would because we have egalitarian-ish communism here, but not in principle), let alone others.
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The last time we allow slavers to prosper, it brought about a calamity that the lowlands have yet to recover from and the Dead Priests.

Slavery doesn't even make sense. Everybody is supposed to pull their weight, not just the immigrants. That is the harmonious way the Spirits like.
 
Omegahugger said:
Slavery doesn't even make sense. Everybody is supposed to pull their weight, not just the immigrants. That is the harmonious way the Spirits like.
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Eh, let's not forget that we too have a caste of criminals and other miscreants that we force to do jobs that nobody likes. It's not full on slavery, but not that much better.
 
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10ebbor10 said:
Eh, let's not forget that we too have a caste of criminals and other miscreants that we force to do jobs that nobody likes. It's not full on slavery, but not that much better.
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They can 'prove' themselves by doing a good job or doing other things helpful for society, like agreeing to experiments with the inoculation. It is more of prison labour of sorts than actual slavery.

veekie said:
FYI we've been at the opposite status, Centralization PAST the cap, Hierarchy at 3 previously. It triggered a crisis roll which evolved our Kingdom to have higher Centralization Tolerance. No harm resulted. If you want government structures to evolve, you have to put them under strain...and so we let that continue for a time to improve it. Provided Stability and Economy are positive, resolving the problem will lead to improvements.

Not a ticking timebomb, since it's exactly at the safe limit. Higher would be dangerous, but we're not likely to pick up even more Hierarchy yet.
Centralization 3 is Okay, not LOW. It's not as absurdly high as we'd like it to be, but then again nothing is.

Economy at 2, however, is low, because it actively limits what projects we can take next turn with the Main action, as the best Main actions cost Economy.
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Mm. Thing is, Centralization is the measure of how good is the central authority at ordering people around, and Hierarchy is the measure of how good and big is the overall structure of the government.
Having former too low means that more local chiefs slowly gain a bit more power. Of course, it would not be a problem at first, it just would encourage certain things. Like, you know, corruption or politicking.
The opposite situation would be problematic too, but we are not at the opposite situation.

Besides, 'triggered a crisis roll' does not inspire confidence. I can't remember the exact update to reread it and comment further though.
 
Th big difference between our half exiles and slaves is that the former still get all the protections and rations of non-exiles, where as the latter are disposable and probably get less than they need.
 
10ebbor10 said:
Eh, let's not forget that we too have a caste of criminals and other miscreants that we force to do jobs that nobody likes. It's not full on slavery, but not that better.
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The most recent project actually improved that.
Half exiles are essential to the medical work, as they are the people allowed to handle the sick and the dead aside from the shamans.
So now they'd be facing a distasteful, unpopular, but noble work.
*Honorable Death Triggers*

You still don't want to live their lifestyle, but you do respect them for taking one for the team.
Omegahugger said:
The last time we allow slavers to prosper, it brought about a calamity that the lowlands have yet to recover from and the Dead Priests.

Slavery doesn't even make sense. Everybody is supposed to pull their weight, not just the immigrants. That is the harmonious way the Spirits like.
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Slavery was a big driver for megaprojects in the ancient world.
For some reason people want unreasonable amounts of pay in luxuries and food to do extremely heavy work which doesn't produce more food. While you can order freemen to do it, they'd want paying and that means your leaders have to have less food and luxuries for everyone. Which overall means that non-slaver cultures generally don't get a lot of large constructions done, or break through into metalworking and quarrying.

We manage, but that's pretty much because we're pathologically workaholics, and private property is very limited. Nobody gets to object when their grain rations are cut and allocated to miners or masons, as these things are decided by the leadership. We managed to turn work in it's own right to a virtue.
 
ctulhuslp said:
Mm. Thing is, Centralization is the measure of how good is the central authority at ordering people around, and Hierarchy is the measure of how good and big is the overall structure of the government.
Having former too low means that more local chiefs slowly gain a bit more power. Of course, it would not be a problem at first, it just would encourage certain things. Like, you know, corruption or politicking.
The opposite situation would be problematic too, but we are not at the opposite situation.
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But Centralization 3 is not low. It's actually at the cap for non-Kingdoms.

Corruption and politicking, I would note, arose back when we were at the Centralization cap.
It turns out when you put a lot of power into a few hands, they can get kind of sticky. It's human nature, but AN also explicitly noted that the Spirit Talkers Centralized themselves to death, because Centralization slows growth even as it expands your ability to focus effort.

We have been at higher Centralization, dangerously high even, but I'd point out that prior to the Legacy and Kingdom style bonuses our Centralization cap was 3.
 
veekie said:
Slavery was a big driver for megaprojects in the ancient world.
For some reason people want unreasonable amounts of pay in luxuries and food to do extremely heavy work which doesn't produce more food. While you can order freemen to do it, they'd want paying and that means your leaders have to have less food and luxuries for everyone. Which overall means that non-slaver cultures generally don't get a lot of large constructions done, or break through into metalworking and quarrying.

We manage, but that's pretty much because we're pathologically workaholics, and private property is very limited. Nobody gets to object when their grain rations are cut and allocated to miners or masons, as these things are decided by the leadership. We managed to turn work in it's own right to a virtue.
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ALL HAIL COMMUNISM
Which, incidentally, is another reason to get high Centralization and Stability: to preserve glorious communism. I am worried that more rigid social order (kings and all) may mess with communal property.

veekie said:
But Centralization 3 is not low. It's actually at the cap for non-Kingdoms.

Corruption and politicking, I would note, arose back when we were at the Centralization cap.
It turns out when you put a lot of power into a few hands, they can get kind of sticky. It's human nature, but AN also explicitly noted that the Spirit Talkers Centralized themselves to death, because Centralization slows growth even as it expands your ability to focus effort.
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True, but we are now a bit too far in other direction: we have a difference of 4 points between Hierarchy and Centralization. Which is not exactly comfortable spot. IC, our new king has specifically noted this:

Academia Nut said:
The decision in his waning years to grant further responsibility to the local chiefs was honestly the only way things could have happened in the long run, the chiefs were accumulating power anyway so the proposal to change things just meant that the king would have a way to keep the reins on even as they grew stronger.
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I think it means that low-ish Centralization and high Hierarchy combined mean 'local chiefs are accumulating more power and it gets harder and harder to control them'. Which is a significant concern.

Also, @Academia Nut , two questions if you may:

1. How do local chiefs look upon the communal property? Are there problems because of it in our society?
2. Does the big difference between Centralization and Hierarchy have its own set of problems?
 
ctulhuslp said:
That's...probably true. But honestly, Centralization 3 Hierarchy 7 just screams 'ticking timebomb' to me in what it means about our government. Maybe we should send a delegation to nomads instead of Highlands Kingdom (although I do not change my vote to such because tactical voting - I want my New Trails this turn), but Trails are mandatory.
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As mentioned, centralization 3 isn't low, but more than anything we have a very limited chance of being able to trade with the nomads without risk of attack right now. The longer we have the nomads that like us on top, the less we have to worry about being raided.
tryrar said:
Huh, that makes trade with them a little awkward, since SV(and our civ by extension) is rather opposed to slavery-unless we're doing an explicitly evil quest.
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I think we were against them because they were destroying the land and eating people.

Slavery was just how things worked in this era.
ctulhuslp said:
True, but we are now a bit too far in other direction: we have a difference of 4 points between Hierarchy and Centralization. Which is not exactly comfortable spot. IC, our new king has specifically noted this:
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That wasn't caused by this since it was happening before this turn when we did have higher Centralization
 
Sivantic said:
As mentioned, centralization 3 isn't low, but more than anything we have a very limited chance of being able to trade with the nomads without risk of attack right now. The longer we have the nomads that like us on top, the less we have to worry about being raided.
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And I feel like we are running out of time to fix our slowly lowering Centralization. I dunno, just a feeling.

Sivantic said:
That wasn't caused by this since it was happening before this turn when we did have higher Centralization
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Uh, yes, it's a process, sure. I mean, it does not exactly deny that the problem of local chiefs gaining power exists?
 
ctulhuslp said:
ALL HAIL COMMUNISM
Which, incidentally, is another reason to get high Centralization and Stability: to preserve glorious communism. I am worried that more rigid social order (kings and all) may mess with communal property.

True, but we are now a bit too far in other direction: we have a difference of 4 points between Hierarchy and Centralization. Which is not exactly comfortable spot. IC, our new king has specifically noted this:

I think it means that low-ish Centralization and high Hierarchy combined mean 'local chiefs are accumulating more power and it gets harder and harder to control them'. Which is a significant concern.
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Except that, back in Bynwyn's rule, each chief was dealing with the responsibilities of a High Chief EACH already. It had more to do with our size than anything else. Remember the Chiefs Have Too Much Power event started at Centralization 5? Do you think that sounds like a Decentralization problem or a "there's too much to physically manage centrally, give them freedom to act or just insist on holding central power and let them fracture off on their own?"

The issue is not lack of Centralization. We do not have a low Centralization crisis. This type of crisis only happens in highly centralized economies, when a few people are in charge of a lot of things!
The crisis is that administrative and oversight technology is too primitive. We simply have more people than a High Chief can address at all. Heck, even the Chiefs don't have time to talk to the average farmer anymore, relying mainly on their advisors and local notables to inform them of issues.
 
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ctulhuslp said:
Uh, yes, it's a process, sure. I mean, it does not exactly deny that the problem of local chiefs gaining power exists?
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But you can't say that it was caused by "low" Centralization either.

Also we are not running out of time as centralization won't go any lower unless we build a new Province, so hardly something that has a time limit.
 
Sivantic said:
But you can't say that it was caused by "low" Centralization either.

Also we are not running out of time as centralization won't go any lower unless we build a new Province, so hardly something that has a time limit.
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*sigh*
Faair enough, I guess. I mean..lack of roads is painful, and our chiefs will not do it on their own because of low econ, so I'd rather we do it in the nearest possible future, but window of opportunity to prop our more trade-inclined factions is indeed closing.
And I did rant about us lacking external actions several updates ago. :V
[X] [Secondary] Trade Mission - Thunder Horses
[X] [Secondary] Trade Mission - Highlands Kingdom
 
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