Wasting the Lowlanders, who pretty much everyone hated, and are essentailly Acceptable Targets, like Nazis? Notably, the rain/drought cycle was most damaging to those who didn't have good farming practices, and therefore didn't give proper respect to the spirits of the land. We, on the other hand, could basically shrug it off, effectively making it a targeted strike against the Lowlanders. Tack on the fact that we aren't suffering from the crippling plagues that are supposedly happening over there, and it looks like this disaster was very specifically targeted against ONLY the Lowlanders.
But they've been enjoying every tribe going to them and giving gifts to keep them happy, if we started our own place of worship it might take away from their influence by giving other tribes a place to congregate around in worship of the spirits.
But they've been enjoying every tribe going to them and giving gifts to keep them happy, if we started our own place of worship it might take away from their influence by giving other tribes a place to congregate around in worship of the spirits.
Ok. So the prostitution debate is really getting heated. I havent read through the pages yet but i figured i should bring up my piece sooner rather than later.
Nearly everyone agrees that banning prostitution will just bring it underground and i agree with it too. But keep in mind that this is the stone age. The implications are VERY different than in a modern society
Personally the biggest resultant issue i see with banning it is the social stigma that would be born out of our decision. In a banned society, the only prostitutes would be those who are poor and in dire straights. Women (and men) who sleep their way to the top in this arent doing prostitution, thats bribery of a different sort. And is a different issue to be tackled.
I read a news article once about a latinamerican nation (forgot which) where a leader (forgot if local or not) got voted to power by getting the conservative catholic church on his side. As part of that support he had to make abortion strictly illegal. Now that is a very different topic, but relating to my fears of social stigma, the article was about a maid who was raped by her boss' neighbor. She was ready to raise the kid on her own, but suddenly had a miscarrage after being assulted by the boss. After that she was taken away...to prison and ended up serving 20 years for murder.
This. Now this is an even greater injustice than what most people who argue against banning are mentioning(as far as ive read). If we ban prostitution, the poor and marginalized people who inevitably become prostitutes will be hated and likely never climb out of their place in society.
Well my reason is because they didn't do shit, atleast there is no evidence they did it. It took them 5 years to do something and its very likely it was just due to natural weather than magic or spirits
While I can sympathize with that rationale to an extent, we have to keep in mind that Academia Nut said opposing civs will be using 'cheese' strategies that are actually pretty good. If 'worship spirits' didn't do much for them at all it wouldn't be their strategy.
Wasting the Lowlanders, who pretty much everyone hated, and are essentailly Acceptable Targets, like Nazis? Notably, the rain/drought cycle was most damaging to those who didn't have good farming practices, and therefore didn't give proper respect to the spirits of the land. We, on the other hand, could basically shrug it off, effectively making it a targeted strike against the Lowlanders. Tack on the fact that we aren't suffering from the crippling plagues that are supposedly happening over there, and it looks like this disaster was very specifically targeted against ONLY the Lowlanders.
It'll be a while before we become a major center of spiritual power, and good odds that some of their Speakers (or whatever)
We don't necessarily have to be a major religious power before they start hating us. All it would take would be a few turns before they learn about us and they start getting angry for taking away their monopoly on religion.
Something not mentioned yet but just as important is that it would allow us a chance for Seasoned Timber, really necessary if we want to advance ship building tech.
Right after a drought is not the time to push the limits of the irrigation system really. We need to stabilize our water resources first. Take this after Expand Manage Forest or one of the water mega projects.
I think it's actually meant that we are using the irrigation to the limits of its efficiency. Since it's using the water coming down the hills going from one Step to the next.
Poor timing. We need bigger food reserves to do this safely.
Boosts trade enormously, reduces flooding somewhat. Relatively safe, but it consumes a great deal of food, manpower and materials to do this.
If the harvest stabilizes next turn we should be able to start it, but right now, not good.
Err... nothing was proven either way. The rumor was that they would ask the spirits for another drought. We got alternating periods of flood and semi-drought, naturally followed by plague. Sounds like what usually happens after long, drawn out drought.
[X] Regulate such activities
[X] No (high chance of social strife, mitigated by certain other choices)
[X] {Main} Dedicate Place to Spirits
[X] {Secondary} Organize Settlement
-[X] Valley
-[X] Coast
I want to crush it like McLuvin wants to crush prostitution, tbvh.
But honestly, I mostly just don't want it to play that big of an aspect. I want our people to be more focused on the natural sciences, on how things work and how to use them best; on hoes rather than kami stones; on hard power rather than soft. Establishing an annual festival will likely increase our art, and decrease the impact of others soft power.
Pros of the Canal: Better access to the area leading toward the sea. Rivers in that area are better controlled, and thus will do less damage. Easier to maintain. Cons: no storage of great volumes of water, fishing is less easy, doing it will involve cutting through a ton of rock.
Pros of the dam: provides storage of large amounts of water, reducing the impact of droughts. Provides good fishing. Reduces the impact of heavy rains. Easier to make a place of worship. A much more dramatic image of our economic might. Cons: Easy access to the fishers needs to be done separately. It's an easy target if people figure out a way to damage it. Harder to maintain.
If both a canal and a dam can be built, building the dam first would be a better choice. It provides more stability economically, and the rock we will need to build it can be harvested in a way that makes building a canal going from the dam to the ocean easier.
Edit: Note that if the valley has a steadier food supply, that benefits everyone as the food supply will be distributed via the traders to the fisher people. We are communists.
For me i chose festival since i figured it would make people happy. As an atheist with a (nominally) catholic childhood, i define religion as "an important and interesting part of human history and culture" and see it as "a powerful tool for hegemony and creativity"
[X] Regulate such activities
[X] No (high chance of social strife, mitigated by certain other choices)
[X] {Main} Dedicate Place to Spirits
[X] {Secondary} Organize Settlement
-[X] Valley
-[X] Coast
[X] Regulate such activities
[X] No (high chance of social strife, mitigated by certain other choices)
[X] {Main} Dedicate Place to Spirits
[X] {Secondary} Organize Settlement
-[X] Valley
-[X] Coast
Alright this is the closest thing to a bandwagon that I can find, so I'm jumping on it for the sake of this vote being way too damn confusing.
[X] Regulate such activities
[X] No (high chance of social strife, mitigated by certain other choices)
[X] {Main} Dedicate Place to Spirits
[X] {Secondary} Organize Settlement
-[X] Valley
-[X] Coast
We have a strong economy, but it's also mentioned in text that we used up a lot of the food stores.
Economy is how fast they replenish, but we lack reserves to absorb bad luck(which as we've seen with the drought, can be sudden).
Basically Bad Timing, not Bad Idea.
Build up at least a turn's worth of reserves and I think the Canal would be a great idea(the Dam REALLY should wait until we've done the Canal, because we need to learn the lessons of the danger of water weight load on geography that you simply cannot learn with Irrigation).
People don't tend to realize how much water weighs, especially if the bedrock is flawed in some way. There are primitive dams that caused earthquakes from fracturing the land they're built on.
They have a social value that increases their Econ whenever their stability drops.
Using military means to restore stability causes an initial drop and then restores 0 to 3, for a total of -1 to 2. Because of timing, this means that whenever they restore stability, they grow their economy.
Because they take slaves, they also increase their Econ whenever they take a military action.
They also have developed a way to add a fraction of their Econ to their War score.
Their centralization is however in the toilet, and centralization mitigates damage from natural disasters, so since theirs was negative...
So its literally an economic boom/bust build. Be assholes to everyone until they riot, then roll in the warriors to enslave them, so they now work for minimal rations.
But they tunnelvisioned on human threats and ignored environmental.
Ehhh... I was thinking of it being a one time gift, with "gift" and "tribute" being somewhat academic.
Yeah, that was obvious, I mean, they're too far to send a steady stream.
It's a combination of these:
1) Please don't nuke us, see, we're friends!
2) Fuck yes, you destroyed the environment of our enemies, thank you!
3) Maybe we should pay off the spirits so they won't do this again.
Non-exclusive, but I think Gardeners would be thinking of 1 and 3. 2 is anathema to us.
3 would be mitigated by our building our own Spirit Place
1 would be mitigated by Dam/Canal(reducing our vulnerability to the elements) and to a lesser extent, Organize Settlements, as well as Manage Forests.
Both mega-projects can be done, yes, although you will want to keep an eye on your Econ and may need a rest after one project. Also, as time and technology advances mega-projects will eventually become mundane activities.
Makes sense.
Though I get the impression you're going to want a stockpile of food before you start a mega project, because while working on it your ability to respond to negative events is greatly reduced.
I'm going to have to sort this out, unpleasantly enough
Tagged voting (i.e. [][Major] Organize Settlement) helps.
You also need to establish a standard notation for actions which can be taken twice, like Organize Settlement and Build Walls.
Example version of my current vote in proper notation for the easiest tallying.
[X][Vice] Regulate such activities
[X][Tribute] No (high chance of social strife, mitigated by certain other choices)
[X][Main] Dedicate Place to Spirits
[X][Secondary] Organize Settlement 1
-[X] Valley
[X][Secondary] Organize Settlement 2
-[X] Coast
I said it as a joke, though I'd genuinely rather have windmills bringing up groundwater, but I rly didn't know it took that long for them to be developed. They're not much harder than water mills, and can be much more widespread.
Oh and this is old but, windmills required advanced woodworking, developing gears, bearings, fabrics or lightweight wooden construction...you need something sturdy enough to catch enough wind to do useful work without being too heavy for the wind to move.
If we dedicate a place to spirits and don't give a gift to the Spirit Talkers, won't that piss them off and make them see us as a potential religious rival?
No? We're far away, they didn't ask for tribute. Our people simply saw that whatever they did worked so we're doing it too(admittedly what they're really good at is to have people give them food for doing strange dances, give them food when people are starving, give them food when people get sick...it's a good gig).
Religious rivalry isn't a thing yet, unless we start going into dickwaving contests about the power of our relative spirits. Consider what happened when the Romans swept over the Greeks, they saw the Greek gods, liked the idea and pretty much cloned the pantheon.
Religious rivalry tended to be much lower key in the primitive era due to heavy syncreticism(which is to say, believing that you or the other guy have similar gods and spirits, just interpreted differently and freely stealing elements).
It's only when monotheism rose up that religions became exclusive and rivalries went from political justifications to long term grudges, because reconciliation became impossible.
If they actually did anything, it was cause a plague. Either way, why should we give these guys anything? What are we saying thank you for? Alternatively, why should we help them when we need to keep our people fed.
Err... nothing was proven either way. The rumor was that they would ask the spirits for another drought. We got alternating periods of flood and semi-drought, naturally followed by plague. Sounds like what usually happens after long, drawn out drought.
A significant portion of our population believed what they did worked, and they don't have the means to learn that it's not so unless we have people whose job is to look at clouds and stars all day and still get fed.
Whether it worked or not probably isn't relevant, but our people being anxious about angry spirits is a real concern that needs to be sated. They don't need to even do anything, people expecting a curse would attribute unrelated events to supernatural intervention.
...and I think I'd like our local beliefs not to be subsumed by other belief systems.
Note the 'proof' is from our people's PoV.
-Care for the land and it will care for you. Proven. Our care for the forests, soil and the flow of water sheltered us from the drought and the floods.
-Give unto those in need, and your needs too will be met. Proven. Our charity ended the drought and brought us tribute and friends. Our aid for the Fisher-folk saved us when the unseasonal rains drowned the farms, bringing us fish, and we saved them in turn again when the storms destroyed their fisheries.
-What was taken, you return in equal share. Not quite proven, but it's worked so far.
We have a strong economy, but it's also mentioned in text that we used up a lot of the food stores.
Economy is how fast they replenish, but we lack reserves to absorb bad luck(which as we've seen with the drought, can be sudden).
Basically Bad Timing, not Bad Idea.
Build up at least a turn's worth of reserves and I think the Canal would be a great idea(the Dam REALLY should wait until we've done the Canal, because we need to learn the lessons of the danger of water weight load on geography that you simply cannot learn with Irrigation).
People don't tend to realize how much water weighs, especially if the bedrock is flawed in some way. There are primitive dams that caused earthquakes from fracturing the land they're built on.
So its literally an economic boom/bust build. Be assholes to everyone until they riot, then roll in the warriors to enslave them, so they now work for minimal rations.
But they tunnelvisioned on human threats and ignored environmental.
Yeah, that was obvious, I mean, they're too far to send a steady stream.
It's a combination of these:
1) Please don't nuke us, see, we're friends!
2) Fuck yes, you destroyed the environment of our enemies, thank you!
3) Maybe we should pay off the spirits so they won't do this again.
Non-exclusive, but I think Gardeners would be thinking of 1 and 3. 2 is anathema to us.
3 would be mitigated by our building our own Spirit Place
1 would be mitigated by Dam/Canal(reducing our vulnerability to the elements) and to a lesser extent, Organize Settlements, as well as Manage Forests.
Makes sense.
Though I get the impression you're going to want a stockpile of food before you start a mega project, because while working on it your ability to respond to negative events is greatly reduced.
Tagged voting (i.e. [][Major] Organize Settlement) helps.
You also need to establish a standard notation for actions which can be taken twice, like Organize Settlement and Build Walls.
Example version of my current vote in proper notation for the easiest tallying.
Live and learn I guess.
They're probably learning fast how to do it better since we keep adding more stuff for them to administrate
Oh and this is old but, windmills required advanced woodworking, developing gears, bearings, fabrics or lightweight wooden construction...you need something sturdy enough to catch enough wind to do useful work without being too heavy for the wind to move.
Watermills also aren't that simple.
No? We're far away, they didn't ask for tribute. Our people simply saw that whatever they did worked so we're doing it too(admittedly what they're really good at is to have people give them food for doing strange dances, give them food when people are starving, give them food when people get sick...it's a good gig).
Religious rivalry isn't a thing yet, unless we start going into dickwaving contests about the power of our relative spirits. Consider what happened when the Romans swept over the Greeks, they saw the Greek gods, liked the idea and pretty much cloned the pantheon.
Religious rivalry tended to be much lower key in the primitive era due to heavy syncreticism(which is to say, believing that you or the other guy have similar gods and spirits, just interpreted differently and freely stealing elements).
It's only when monotheism rose up that religions became exclusive and rivalries went from political justifications to long term grudges, because reconciliation became impossible.
A significant portion of our population believed what they did worked, and they don't have the means to learn that it's not so unless we have people whose job is to look at clouds and stars all day and still get fed.
Whether it worked or not probably isn't relevant, but our people being anxious about angry spirits is a real concern that needs to be sated. They don't need to even do anything, people expecting a curse would attribute unrelated events to supernatural intervention.
...and I think I'd like our local beliefs not to be subsumed by other belief systems.
Note the 'proof' is from our people's PoV.
-Care for the land and it will care for you. Proven. Our care for the forests, soil and the flow of water sheltered us from the drought and the floods.
-Give unto those in need, and your needs too will be met. Proven. Our charity ended the drought and brought us tribute and friends. Our aid for the Fisher-folk saved us when the unseasonal rains drowned the farms, bringing us fish, and we saved them in turn again when the storms destroyed their fisheries.
-What was taken, you return in equal share. Not quite proven, but it's worked so far.
[X] Regulate such activities
[X] No (high chance of social strife, mitigated by certain other choices)
[X] {Main} Dedicate Place to Spirits
[X] {Secondary} Organize Settlement
-[X] Valley
-[X] Coast
If Veekie's vote actually gets picked, it will be interesting to see how it is implemented. We might actually structure our towns around the Spirit's dedicated place or something. I can see some pretty interesting synergy with this plan.
significant portion of our population believed what they did worked, and they don't have the means to learn that it's not so unless we have people whose job is to look at clouds and stars all day and still get fed.
Whether it worked or not probably isn't relevant, but our people being anxious about angry spirits is a real concern that needs to be sated. They don't need to even do anything, people expecting a curse would attribute unrelated events to supernatural intervention.
I agree. Hence why I'm voting to dedicate our primary action to spiritual development. Our people believe, and that is what matters. That belief needs an outlet, and I would rather that outlet be homegrown.
However, the lack of hard evidence tells me, as the player, that we have no reason to give tribute to people who probably can't control anything, and that we shouldn't base our decisions based on any threat they may make. Rather we should continue to base our decisions on what makes sense given the facts.
> Wakes up a bit later then usual
> "Oh, I wonder if Paths of Civ updated last night?"
> 14 pages of discussion in four hours
> Entire pages of "We need to ban prostitution!" VS "No, let's regulate it instead"
Holy shit guys. Slow down a bit, I can't keep up!
So before I get onto the voting, I'd like to discuss the progress we've made this turn. Here are our stats compared to last turn:
Civilization Stats
General
Diplomacy 4
Economy 4
Martial 2
Organizational
Centralization 3
Hierarchy 2
Cultural
Art 3
Mysticism 1
General
Diplomacy 4
Economy 5
Martial 2
Organizational
Centralization 4
Hierarchy 3
Cultural
Art 3
Mysticism 1
Our Economy, Centralization, and Hierarchy have all increased by one. It's not a big change, but it's better then nothing. We should keep an eye on Centralization, though. I think we're close to the limit.
As for our techs:
Administration
Memory
Proto-Writing
Construction
Wood
Masonry
Energy Production
Muscle Power
Food Production
Agriculture
Irrigation
Orchards
Materials
Stone
Pottery
Science
Animism
Transportation
Animal Husbandry
Solid Wheel Carts
Watercraft
Great Canoes
Early Sailboats
Administration
Memory
Proto-Writing
Construction
Wood
Masonry
Energy Production
Muscle Power
Food Production
Agriculture
Irrigation
Orchards
Materials
Stone
Pottery
Science
Animism
Transportation
Animal Husbandry
Solid Wheel Carts
Watercraft
Great Canoes
Early Sailboats
Looks like no real change there. Bit disappointing, but I suppose we can't leap forwards in science every turn.
Our Social Concepts seems unchanged as well, probably because we didn't take any big projects last turn to change it.
Artistry
Self-expressive flourishes
Administrators
Ad-hoc
Intellectuals
Elders
Leadership
Non-hereditary specialist
Merchants
Hereditary family
Property
Communal
Warriors
Non-hereditary specialist
Artistry
Self-expressive flourishes
Administrators
Ad-hoc
Intellectuals
Elders
Leadership
Non-hereditary specialist
Merchants
Hereditary family
Property
Communal
Warriors
Non-hereditary specialist
Kinda meh, but it's not a really big deal right now.
-----------------------------------
So, to sum up, this is what happened last turn:
The Three People:
We've been busy reorganizing our government, setting up a High Chief with a bunch of lesser chiefs to assist him. I'm really happy that we're actually taking steps to prevent nepotism by making sure that no one tribe can gain too much power. We're establishing a payment system of sorts consisting of food and luxuries, which is kinda interesting and might lead to a monetary system in the future. However, a side effect is that enterprising/lazy individuals have realized that they can get more payment for less physical work by providing entertainment (prostitution and gambling), which is something to keep an eye on in case it leads to social issues later.
Then the weather turned to shit and plagues began to pop up. Fortunately, we survived more or less intact as we had the food stores to spare and our developed infrastructure blunted the worst of the damage. Our High Chief also acted decisively by restricting travel into the diseased areas and quarantining anyone who fell sick. While not 100% efficient, this stopped the disease from spreading and probably saved us from a catastrophic outbreak.
Currently, we're doing pretty well. While the lowlanders got completely shit on by the weather and disease, we've survived and are stronger then ever. Hell, we've done so well that we're actually thinking of starting a great project (dam or canal) while everyone else is still trying to recover from the floods/droughts/plagues.
The Spirit Talkers
Ok, I think we want to talk to these guys at some point. They're either the real deal, are somehow super lucky, or have some way of predicting the weather. In any case, they've gotten a huge boost in prestige lately since all the other tribes think they were responsible for fucking up the weather and wiping out the lowlanders. Even if we don't get involved, I'm guessing that most of the lesser tribes are going to be sending tribute of some kind. Heck, our own people want to send tribute because they're a bit scared of what might happen.
I don't think that they're a threat from a military standpoint, but there's a growing chance that they'll just try to pressure us into serving them eventually. They're actually more dangerous then the lowlanders because our people will fight to the bitter end to avoid slavery but aren't as likely to put up much of a fight if a bunch of spirit talkers go "Hey, if you give us food we'll totally protect you from the spirits!". We can either join them willingly or try to resist by setting up our own religion and culture. I'm leaning towards the latter, which means we should pick options like dedicating a place to spirits or establishing annual festivals to resist cultural assimilation.
Currently, they're also doing well. They've wiped out their biggest threats, scared the crap out of everyone else, and are now doing the equivalent of kicking back and relaxing on their sofas and watching all the people come over to drop tributes at their doorstep. I expect that they'll be looking in our direction next, if only because we're such a big group that allying/taking control of us will be a massive boon to them.
Lowlanders
Got rekt.
They only just started to crawl back to their previous numbers when the whole flood/drought/plague hit. Since they didn't have our organization and food production capabilities, they got more or less annihilated. To add insult to injury, the spirit talkers (or us, it's a bit unclear) sent their warriors into the lowlands to pillage, burn, and kill anyone they could find, sealing the deal and ensuring that the lowlanders won't be a problem anytime soon.
Currently, the lowlanders are reeling from all the damage they've taken over the last ten years. They might just dissolve into a nonentity at this point, but even if they do recover, it'll be generations before they can become strong enough to threaten us. At this point, they're more or less finished.
-----------------------
Now, let's look at our choices this turn, shall we? If you haven't read it yet, veekie has some good points in his post a page or two further back:
Just got in and there's so much discussion. After spending half an hour catching up on mobile...
Damn, here I thought there was serious debate about the merits of the various actions going on and it turns out to be one guy intent on soloing the whole thread on a percieved morality issue.
Now to assess and address the vote and actual discussion.
Lets see:
[] Ignore the issue
This has the benefit of avoiding yet another Centralization increase. Remember the actual concern here:
This isn't just about prostitution and gambling. It's all means of non-productive labor for rewards, which include, but are not limited to:
-Actors
-Storytellers
-Dancers
-Prostitutes
-Gamblers
-Athletes
-Philosophers
These are people who do things that produce nothing tangible, but gain something tangible despite that.
Ignoring it isn't as horrible as people are assuming.
[] Regulate such activities
Regulation meaning increasing Centralization, and we put down rules. Common rules for cultures which did this:
-Prostitution is checked to ensure that nobody is forced into it. This isn't a big immediate concern due to our communal culture, few people are really desperate enough that selling sex is the only way to make a living unless they're crippled or diseased.
-Disease inspection is enforced. Unregulated prostitution is one of the faster ways to spread diseases after all, but pretty much EVERY form of regulated prostitution has strict checks for that.
-Gambling is checked to limit how much people can gamble away, what people can gamble away and all that. For our culture, gambling with your luxuries or labor time is acceptable, but your food allotment shouldn't be up to gamble, nor should people, nor should land, nor should they be allowed to gamble into debt.
-Establish set rate and valuation for entertainment activities, including prostitution. This naturally limits their profitability and indirectly restricts their growth economically.
[] Restrict such activities
[] Ban such activities
These two are similar, but the difference is in degree...however, the first problem is precedent, we'd be banning forms of non-productive wealth gathering, including stunting the development of entertainment professions.
The second is enforcement. How do you achieve it?
Anyone with a functioning set of sexual organs can be a prostitute, and we currently have a pretty liberal attitude towards sexual behaviors. How do you tell the difference between someone getting paid for it, and a lover bringing gifts? This goes on to
Same goes for gambling. What's the difference between gambling on chance and a footrace?
I think Restrict and Ban are a problem because these are rules we can't actually enforce without going to the extent of enforcing who can fuck who, and it will have ripple effects on the development of theater and dance culturally.
As such, it goes Regulate > Ignore > Restrict > Ban.
[] Yes
[] No (high chance of social strife, mitigated by certain other choices)
Straightforward. Set a precedent for paying off someone living far away, because they might call down the wrath of the spirits OR spent a major action slot to appeasing the people's concerns that the Spirit Talkers might call down the wrath of nature by building our own place of spirits so that our own mystics can confirm that they'd protect us from foreign voodoo.
We pretty much set ourselves up for this by avoiding all spiritual development, but on the other hand doing that allowed us to build a robust economic backbone to tank the whole drought with minor pain.
I'd say fuck no on principle to rewarding people for summoning ecological disasters, but that means we MUST invest in spiritual infrastructure.
Okay, now for projects:
Necessary(stuff we need to take very soon or face very real consequences):
-Dedicate Place to Spirits - The people have increasingly much to be thankful for, and while individual observations of respect for the supernatural continues, perhaps something more grand to represent the group as a whole is required
We need this to lay our people's worries to rest. Major project, because:
This is not a minor concern. People are seriously afraid that they don't know why the spirits are so angry and making doom happen.
-Organize Settlement - Because everyone contributes to the whole, the borders of fields could be reworked. Perhaps a similar principle can be applied to the buildings in which people dwell [King]
Also necessary, and long overdue. This is reducing the effectiveness of all other projects, and we need to get it done with early before we invent the concept of urban sprawl.
Note that if we do this for the Valley but not the Fishers, there will be social strife because of unfair treatment.
This is a consequence of Integration, but if we take another action that benefits the Fishers they'd be appeased.
Useful(stuff which helps us a lot but probably won't kill us to do without):
-Build Wall - Long experience with retaining walls has lead to the idea of a settlement wall for protection (Extra benefit if after or during Organize Settlement)
This helps us boost defensive protection. With the lowlanders wrecked, we can theoretically let this be for a time. Their desperate refugees simply don't have the ability to penetrate our defense bonuses by force after how hard they were fucked.
Walls at this era are basically unbreakable. Siegecraft has not been invented yet, so when confronted by people retreating behind a wall, the only recourse is to insult the sexual habits of their mothers.
-Domesticate Snails - The snails that can have their shells processed into a vibrant dye have long resisted being directly managed, but with the expertise in land, water, plant and animal management they might be made to live as cattle and sheep live
Major economic boon, since it means we have a stable source of the most valuable dye of the area, which bolsters both Fishers and Traders.
-Expand Farms - The people have brought an enormous amount of land under cultivation in the valley, but there is more available in more marginal areas, and in the forests around the fishing village
Not really urgent I think. Yes, we need food, but the option itself says the uncultivated lands are in marginal areas.
-Expand Fishing - There are managed cultivation zones along the shore, and dedicating more people to the tasks can increase the yields of fish and luxuries brought in
See domesticated snails, but boosts more food than economy.
A good choice in the post drought period, and it also makes Fishers/Traders happy.
-Expand Pasture - While the traders mostly just take their animals where there is good grazing, specific areas can be set aside around the settlements that can be made ideal for the protected grazing of herds
This makes the Traders happy, and begins organized grazing. Necessary for domesticating milk and wool production, it's a leap forward like managing forests.
-Expand Managed Forests - The forests atop the hills surrounding your valley are now an integral part of your water management system as well as providing materials and the occasional bit of game. Expanding onto the back side of the hills can only bring more benefit
Prerequisite for expanding farming, I think. These are the support base for the farms and irrigation systems.
-Improve Trail - The path between the valley and the sea has been cut by generations of travellers, but the dirt path is easily disrupted by rain. Infrastructure improvements could be done to reduce this damage
Develop roads. As we now have masonry, this means early paved roads(not fully paved, but lining the road with stones and planting trees along it will stabilize it from being washed away). Promotes development of the Wheel we already have, and favors the Traders.
Boosts centralization tolerance.
Bad Timing:
-Establish Annual Festival - People already like to celebrate at certain times of the year, but with the level of control over food distribution a new and particularly lavish festival can be established
Right after a drought is not a good time for an annual festival. We don't have the food stores to spend, even if it encourages cultural development.
Boosts morale in general, so people don't get spooked so bad by foreign spirits.
-Expand Warriors - More men can be inducted into the ranks of the warriors every year and not face major food shortfalls
Right after a drought is NOT a good time to establish expanding the proportion of people who eat more food than others.
We have a need for it, but the Spirit Talkers dealt with the last problem.
-New Settlement - The land is not particularly good for farming in between the valley and the sea, but there are places where a settlement could be set up, serving as a stop over point along the journey between the two settlements (If chosen during or after an Organize Settlement action, automatically Organized)
Poor timing to settle poor farmland after a drought. Useful for reducing centralization, by having a settlement between our two major settlements, this would promote trade.
Great for improving integration.
Just bad timing.
-Step-Farms - Bringing the irrigation systems to its limit, the hills can be sculpted into a series of steps, each step supporting a farm plot, the run off from a higher farm irrigating the farms lower down [Gardeners][King]
Right after a drought is not the time to push the limits of the irrigation system really. We need to stabilize our water resources first. Take this after Expand Manage Forest or one of the water mega projects.
-Grand Canal - The hills between the valley and the sea are rough and the rivers there fast and wild. In one man's dream there is the vision of an artifical river cut through the land, tame and managed [Gardeners][King]
Poor timing. We need bigger food reserves to do this safely.
Boosts trade enormously, reduces flooding somewhat. Relatively safe, but it consumes a great deal of food, manpower and materials to do this.
If the harvest stabilizes next turn we should be able to start it, but right now, not good.
-Great Dam - The river can run wild and dangerous when the rains come strong, but could it not be controlled by the same principles by which the water on the hills is channelled and contained, merely on a larger scale? [Gardeners][King]
Poor timing, AND intensely dangerous. A dam is good, but it has a lot of non-obvious points of failure(including for one, the completely unknown consequences of the ground absorbing vast amounts of water and weight, which can lead to catastrophic dam failure in about three or four generations if there's another flood/drought cycle to crack the foundations), failing which destruction will rain downstream.
I'd suggest starting this after we do both the Organize Settlements and Expand Forestry so that we have the building and land management experience to do it more safely.
So my vote now:
[X] Regulate such activities
[X] No (high chance of social strife, mitigated by certain other choices)
[X] {Main} Dedicate Place to Spirits
[X] {Secondary} Organize Settlement
-[X] Valley
-[X] Coast
And now I'd probably see that typing this for one hour means I missed another 5 pages >.<
And nobody would read it.
Now, I may not agree with him on everything, but he does make some good points. Here's my take on the choices.
Now the first choice is what we're doing about all this prostitution and gambling that's been popping up. We've got 4 options:
[] Ignore the issue
Probably not a good idea. Veekie had an interesting point about how letting it develop naturally might encourage art and culture, but I'm a bit uncomfortable about just letting it go on without any supervision.
[] Regulate such activities
"You need a license to do this". Some Centralization and government oversight, but it'll let the enterprising people keep doing their thing while setting up rules to prevent abuse or exploitation.
[] Restrict such activities
"You're only allowed to do this at our government-run brothel". More Centralization. Allows us to have firmer control over such activities, but may stunt the growth of entertainment professions. People might chafe under the restrictions, but that's not really a big deal at this stage.
[] Ban such activities
Probably not a good idea? For one thing, how are you actually going to enforce such a rule? How would you be able to decide whether an act is actually prostitution or just a couple of lovers giving gifts? The only way that would guarantee to stop prostitution is to go full Big Brother and turn the chiefs into micromanaging assholes who won't let anyone have sex without their permission. And even then people are still going to sneak out and have a quickie when nobody's looking! Our people have already shown themselves to be rather open sexually, so restricting and controlling them like this is just going to breed resentment and cause problems down the line.
In this situation, I'd go for either Regulate or Restrict, since both of those options give us some level of control and oversight over such activities. Ignoring the problem or trying to ban it altogether will just lead to more problems down the line.
Our second choice is about whether we're going to give tribute to the spirit talkers or not. Academia Nut has confirmed that this isn't a regular "We acknowledge you as superiors" tribute but a one off "Thanks for taking care of those lowlander assholes for us" kinda thing.
Tribute to the spirit talkers...
[] Yes
Lets us make contact peacefully, avoids strife within our own people.
[] No (high chance of social strife, mitigated by certain other choices)
Avoid meeting them for now, reduced chance of cultural assimilation. However, if we pick this option, we must choose either Dedicate Place to Spirits or Establish Annual Festival in order to minimize the social strife. I'd honestly feel better if we took both, but getting at least one is mandatory.
Now as for the project options...
First of all, I want to talk about our MEGA PROJECTS. I'm really excited to see these as they represent some fairly significant benefits if we can complete them. Right now we have Grand Canal and Great Dam.
Grand Canal - allows us to control the river, giving us a fast route between our valley and coastal villages. This will boost trade, help control the flooding, and is relatively safe compared to the dam. However, it will require a massive investment in manpower and materials since the river is so big.
Great Dam - building a dam will likely take less time and effort compared to the canal since we only need to concentrate on one area instead of the entire river. Constructing this allows us to maintain a safe and constant freshwater supply and mitigate any more flooding and droughts. However, if the dam collapses, it could cause a lot of damage in the surrounding areas.
Both of these are good, but I'm not sure if we need them right now. It might be a good idea to set up our infrastructure first by Organizing the Villages and what not.
Apart from the Mega Projects, we also have all our regular projects to choose from:
Build Wall - Long experience with retaining walls has lead to the idea of a settlement wall for protection (Extra benefit if after or during Organize Settlement)
Dedicate Place to Spirits - The people have increasingly much to be thankful for, and while individual observations of respect for the supernatural continues, perhaps something more grand to represent the group as a whole is required
Domesticate Snails - The snails that can have their shells processed into a vibrant dye have long resisted being directly managed, but with the expertise in land, water, plant and animal management they might be made to live as cattle and sheep live
Establish Annual Festival - People already like to celebrate at certain times of the year, but with the level of control over food distribution a new and particularly lavish festival can be established
Expand Farms - The people have brought an enormous amount of land under cultivation in the valley, but there is more available in more marginal areas, and in the forests around the fishing village
Expand Fishing - There are managed cultivation zones along the shore, and dedicating more people to the tasks can increase the yields of fish and luxuries brought in
Expand Pasture - While the traders mostly just take their animals where there is good grazing, specific areas can be set aside around the settlements that can be made ideal for the protected grazing of herds
Expand Managed Forests - The forests atop the hills surrounding your valley are now an integral part of your water management system as well as providing materials and the occasional bit of game. Expanding onto the back side of the hills can only bring more benefit
Expand Warriors - More men can be inducted into the ranks of the warriors every year and not face major food shortfalls
Improve Trail - The path between the valley and the sea has been cut by generations of travellers, but the dirt path is easily disrupted by rain. Infrastructure improvements could be done to reduce this damage
New Settlement - The land is not particularly good for farming in between the valley and the sea, but there are places where a settlement could be set up, serving as a stop over point along the journey between the two settlements (If chosen during or after an Organize Settlement action, automatically Organized)
Organize Settlement - Because everyone contributes to the whole, the borders of fields could be reworked. Perhaps a similar principle can be applied to the buildings in which people dwell [King]
Step-Farms - Bringing the irrigation systems to its limit, the hills can be sculpted into a series of steps, each step supporting a farm plot, the run off from a higher farm irrigating the farms lower down [Gardeners][King]
Yeah, not going to go through them all. I've already been typing for an hour. However, I will vote and explain my reasoning behind each choice.
[X] Regulate such activities
[X] No (high chance of social strife, mitigated by certain other choices)
[X] {Main} Dedicate Place to Spirits
[X] {Secondary} Organize Settlement
-[X] Valley
-[X] Coast
In order:
Regulate Activities - because it lets us potentially develop entertainment while keeping a lid on the worst problems that come with prostitution and gambling
No - because I just don't like the idea of letting them have the chance to take us over culturally. I do want to meet with them at some point, but let's set up our own religion first, yeah?
Dedicate Place to Spirits - we've been putting this off for awhile now. Get it now to keep our people happy and increase our own cultural influence
Organize Settlements - this should enable us to work more efficiently in the future. Setting it up in only one place might lead to envy or resentment, so lets do both our villages in one go
Edit: Holy shit this post is over 4, 000 words. Why can't I write my stories at this speed?! Also, Academia Nut changed the voting format, so I'll revote.
Also, we now have a new option: Trade Missions.
This will allow us to send a major trade caravan to another group, which sounds kinda interesting. Sending it to the Spirit Talkers might allow us to establish contact without having to give tribute while sending it to the Lowlander remnants could allow us to absorb them into our tribe or convince them to not be such douchebags in the future.
Unfortunately, I think that it might be a bit too late for this option to win, but maybe next turn we can give it a try.
Honestly, I kinda want to start on a Mega Project now, but looking at the tally I don't think it'd win. It's not perfect, but I do feel that the choices I picked made for a solid long term plan
So I accidentally thought I was being helpful by specifying the vote format to avoid fouling the counter, but it turns out that some clever person already worked that out. Hmmm...
Honestly, I kinda want to start on a Mega Project now, but looking at the tally I don't think it'd win. It's not perfect, but I do feel that the choices I picked made for a solid long term plan
By the way, because I don't think the like I gave your post is enough, let me just say that I really love your analysis, and turn-by-turn informational updates.
