Paths of Civilization

[Citino]

It is fear mongering when you are twisting logic to suit your needs by making people afraid of the other outcome based on super distant possibilities. You are absolutely guilty of the thing you just spent several pages railing against. That is why, despite failing more than I would like, I explicitly try to look at the positive side of plans.

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No, I spent several pages explaining why Cwiird hadn't set up his own private kingdom, which was supported by numerous other people, multiple sources from AN, and caused the other person to eventually realize he was wrong.

Here, I pointed out that:

1) Fully assimilating a province whose founder was repeatedly snubbed by the main government is harder than assimilating one which had that leader elected King.
2) Skipping over someone who is extremely competent in 2 fields, and is at worst mediocre in one, for a regular run of the mill leader, can cause problems in the future. Especially since the reason he would be passed over is because the chiefs disagree with his point of view, and thus even though he is clearly the most competent candidate, they chose someone worse in most ways to become King. That is problematic when we run on a merit-based election.

Both of those are legitimate concerns that have to be discussed, not 'fearmongering'.

 

[veekie]

His "fans" are an entire faction that is spread throughout our civ. There is a solid chance of civil war happening....after all, he's been snubbed several times and his faction has been growing restless.

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Fearmongering. "Solid chance" is not "small chance of -1 Stability while at Stability +1" because Civil War is at -3 Stability.
There is zero chance of a civil war starting if we snub him again.

He's a dual diplo/martial hero, not to mention the fact that snubbing him is going to almost certainly weaken our hold on the new province, plus puts out some pretty bad precedents in regards to heroic warriors in the future. If someone like Cwiid can't become king, why should any other king expect to be able to do so?

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1) He is old enough to last only 1 turn, and the Hero Bonus for 1 turn isn't worth undoing the last 4 turns of work.
2) Secondly, yes, it will weaken our hold on the new province, but it will also be easier to assimilate once we roll out the new laws and end the crisis on our terms, because they no longer have a Hero unit as their threat. His sons can be brought into the fold over time. Or removed at far less risk than their father. Or we can elect a son with more appropriate views, considering how many he's spawned.
3) Precedent is that the most suitable and harmonious person is made chief. Not the most skilled. He is skilled but as the update itself says, his values are in conflict with the actual situation, so we'd be facing the legal code crisis again shortly after...because the problems we're fixing with tax reforms are still there

Reread what I said. Those are all long term issues. Our hero is fine, but what about the next hero who grows up with stories about how Cwriid's reward was to be sent to rule a distant province rather than become king? The people of the province are also loyal to Cwriid himself, so if he doesn't become king, that loyalty never transfers completely to the people.

Thus, long term, skipping him is an incredibly shitty option.

Edit: It is not fearmongering, there is no immediate danger. But it makes things more difficult in the future, in return for making it easy on us now. That is what I am trying to warn of, not that we are going to have him suddenly overthrow the government next turn.

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I will reverse this on you here:
-Make him king
--Sets the precedent that going out there on conquest is a legitimate way to be elected proconsul King on merits of popularity. Even if their policy doesn't solve the problem, just shut people up.
--Does not actually solve the problem. By reverting the tax code to his method, we're going to be facing the same tax crisis in another 4-5 turns down the line, because none of the issues we did the reform for are gone.

-Don't make him king
--Sets the precedent that the election and system matters, even if you're a Hero. You should find the best place to employ yourself instead if you don't fit. In this case, we didn't waste him. We put him to work where he'd cause the least disruption while his skills remain the most useful out on the March(though I'd highlight that we'll have to see if his sons don't muck it up later, since he's sired enough to trigger a genghis khan scale inheritance dispute)
--Finishes the legal code reform properly to address all the issues we identified, so that when the next legal code crisis rolls around in another 10-20 turns, we are dealing with new problems and making progress rather than facing the same old ones.
--Makes it far easier to deal with the Young Stallions after they no longer have a larger than life leader to awe people with. Especially once the new code fixes stuff up so they can't say it doesn't work anymore.

 

[lioli]

[X] Snub him (Small chance of -1 Stability)
[X] Stop trading with both (-4 Diplomacy)
[X] We will find land for you to settle (-1 Stability, +2 Econ)

Wow, even a day staying away from the thread does wonders for my mental health. In any case, staying completely out of the lowlands war for now. Hopefully by the time the war settles into a simmering status quo, neither of the two states hold any grudges against us. I don't think they have strong writing or oral traditions to pass any grudge down a few generations, at least. As for the chief, I'd rather not have to vote on what inheritance laws we'll try to implement the next turn or so, as will happen under Communal ownership, Heritable assignment. That's even worse than taxes!

 

[Citino]

3) Precedent is that the most suitable and harmonious person is made chief. Not the most skilled. He is skilled but as the update itself says, his values are in conflict with the actual situation, so we'd be facing the legal code crisis again shortly after...because the problems we're fixing with tax reforms are still there

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Hm, I had thought we ran on merit? I know that was a point of pride in past votes, but I don't remember that ever being stated in text, so...

I will reverse this on you here:
-Make him king
--Sets the precedent that going out there on conquest is a legitimate way to be elected proconsul King on merits of popularity.
--Does not actually solve the problem. By reverting the tax code to his method, we're going to be facing the same tax crisis in another 4-5 turns down the line, because none of the issues we did the reform for are gone.

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Going out and conquering a province, then ruling it quite well for a few decades is quite an excellent way to choose a leader, imo. It gives them experience in pretty much every area for becoming king, so it isn't a bad system.

Though, yeah, the tax thing is a big sticking point. On the other hand, we'd have Law in place to help make the future tax reform work better.

-Don't make him king
--Sets the precedent that the election and system matters, even if you're a Hero. You should find the best place to employ yourself instead if you don't fit. In this case, we didn't waste him. We put him to work where he'd cause the least disruption while his skills remain the most useful out on the March(though I'd highlight that we'll have to see if his sons don't muck it up later, since he's sired enough to trigger a genghis khan scale inheritance dispute)

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We already set this precedent through the last miniturn. He spent his time fully setting up a new province, and with a possible war and trade disruption looming, having him as king would be perfect.

--Makes it far easier to deal with the Young Stallions after they no longer have a larger than life leader to awe people with. Especially once the new code fixes stuff up so they can't say it doesn't work anymore.

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But they might feel their issues were not addressed, and they've already become intergenerational. We might see something like the rise of a 'faction' even if he dies.

Or they could die out. Depends on our luck, really.

 

[ctulhuslp]

[X] Snub him (Small chance of -1 Stability)
[X] Stop trading with both (-4 Diplomacy)
[X] We will find land for you to settle (-1 Stability, +2 Econ)

With 1 more turn, we are not obligated to kick it anymore, and we still can and should do the sac.

 

[bluefur87]

With 1 more turn, we are not obligated to kick it anymore, and we still can and should do the sac.

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...You know, for some reason I hadn't considered that.

Edit: We probably still should, mind. We want people to see us fixing the issue, but it's a good option to have.

 

[hylas240]

Fearmongering. "Solid chance" is not "small chance of -1 Stability while at Stability +1" because Civil War is at -3 Stability.
There is zero chance of a civil war starting if we snub him again.

1) He is old enough to last only 1 turn, and the Hero Bonus for 1 turn isn't worth undoing the last 4 turns of work.
2) Secondly, yes, it will weaken our hold on the new province, but it will also be easier to assimilate once we roll out the new laws and end the crisis on our terms, because they no longer have a Hero unit as their threat. His sons can be brought into the fold over time. Or removed at far less risk than their father. Or we can elect a son with more appropriate views, considering how many he's spawned.
3) Precedent is that the most suitable and harmonious person is made chief. Not the most skilled. He is skilled but as the update itself says, his values are in conflict with the actual situation, so we'd be facing the legal code crisis again shortly after...because the problems we're fixing with tax reforms are still there

I will reverse this on you here:
-Make him king
--Sets the precedent that going out there on conquest is a legitimate way to be elected proconsul King on merits of popularity. Even if their policy doesn't solve the problem, just shut people up.
--Does not actually solve the problem. By reverting the tax code to his method, we're going to be facing the same tax crisis in another 4-5 turns down the line, because none of the issues we did the reform for are gone.

-Don't make him king
--Sets the precedent that the election and system matters, even if you're a Hero. You should find the best place to employ yourself instead if you don't fit. In this case, we didn't waste him. We put him to work where he'd cause the least disruption while his skills remain the most useful out on the March(though I'd highlight that we'll have to see if his sons don't muck it up later, since he's sired enough to trigger a genghis khan scale inheritance dispute)
--Finishes the legal code reform properly to address all the issues we identified, so that when the next legal code crisis rolls around in another 10-20 turns, we are dealing with new problems and making progress rather than facing the same old ones.
--Makes it far easier to deal with the Young Stallions after they no longer have a larger than life leader to awe people with. Especially once the new code fixes stuff up so they can't say it doesn't work anymore.

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He's technically not being directly threatening, its just that he's talking loudly, and has a big, dangerous force of warriors who owe him loyalty either directly or because they trust him from fighting with him.

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While the Young Stallion was becoming the Old Stallion, there were also a fresh generation of Young Stallions who had grown up on tales of their parents telling them that things used to be better, that the granaries used to overflow. Cwriid building boats and encouraging the young and disgruntled to migrate to his distant province drained away some of the tensions, but in those distant lands they could also become more radical.

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If anything, his successes had only entrenched his desires to see through reforms, returning taxation and distribution to how they had been while also ensuring that no one could have their birthrights stripped from them.

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While there were some who were turned off by his adoption of a number of foreign trappings, he had a definite appeal, especially for young warriors, and the number of marriageable daughters he had also allowed him to develop and establish numerous alliances with the more successful and ambitious of those young men, as well as with foreign groups for trade and agreements of peace.

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Or straight up declare for one side or the other and begin fighting, which while it turned off a few, there were enough distant relatives of the Thunder Horse among the absorbed nomads that Cwriid by far favoured them the most.

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Declare war on the Thunder Horse (-1 Diplomacy, small chance of civil war, cannot be taken if Cwriid king)

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You're saying that i'm fear mongering, despite my only saying that there is a legit chance of pissing off the hero and causing his faction to rebel. There has been many hints from AN foreshadowing a possible rebellion. Hell, it we attack the TH the nomad sympathizers (which are almost entirely in the hero's faction) might cause a civil war.

Solid chance is 35%, so yeah. Small chance is about 20-25% for me.

I'm not sure why you want to dismiss the actual chance (not guaranteed, which i've never said or implied) of rebellion or the March province breaking away. Are you just set on purely the mechanical, and completely ignoring the narrative?

Again, there is a serious undertone going on in this update.

Edit:

The fact that he had married into all of the tribes he had conquered and thus had several dozen surviving children, including a dozen male heirs who were to become the leaders of each of the twelve tribes he had under his sway, meant that even after he passed on his legacy and ideals would remain.

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This too, since I don't know how to neatly put in quotes with an edit. This implies that him dying won't necessarily remove the faction.

 

[Citino]

...You know, for some reason I hadn't considered that.

Edit: We probably still should, mind. We want people to see us fixing the issue, but it's a good option to have.

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Yeah, I admit, I'm a bit torn on whether to kick it or not. On one hand, kicking it will give us extra time to deal with problems that Law won't cover. On the other hand, we'd need more stability actions since we will be at 0 or -1 stability next turn (barring Greater Good procing).

 

[highs2lows]

[X] Snub him (Small chance of -1 Stability)
[X] Stop trading with both (-4 Diplomacy)
[X] We will find land for you to settle (-1 Stability, +2 Econ)

 

[ctulhuslp]

...You know, for some reason I hadn't considered that.

Edit: We probably still should, mind. We want people to see us fixing the issue, but it's a good option to have.

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We will be at, worst case, -1 Stability, which is not the best place to kick from. We have to stay +1 or higher to fulfill conditions, remember?

Wait, shit. Do we lose +1 turn by losing the achieved stability?

 

[veekie]

Hm, I had thought we ran on merit? I know that was a point of pride in past votes, but I don't remember that ever being stated in text, so...

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We didn't or we couldn't have gotten the series of incompetent warrior-chiefs whose mainsole claim to fame was "being really good at fighting from a chariot".

We have a system which systematically deselects bad candidates.
This is our political progression track:
Chief route:
-Be appointed the heir of a village chief by the village council.
-Train for 5-10 years under the chief and his advisors, then become Village chief.
-Be appointed the heir of a province governor by the province's advisory council if you demonstrate enough competence as village chief, or be dropped from the selection process if you don't and stay as village chief for life.
-Train for another 5-10 years under the old governor and his advisors, then become Province governor.
-Be appointed the heir of the king by the royal advisory council if you demonstrate enough competence as province governor, including policies.
-Train for another 5-10 years under the old king and his advisors, then become King.

Advisor route(e.g. War):
-Be elected to village warrior representative by the warriors of the village.
-Work as representative for the village until you gain enough favors and reputation with the other warrior representatives of your province. Your job here is mainly patrols and training.
-Be elected to provincial warrior representative by the warriors representatives of your province.
-Work as provincial warleader until you gain enough favors and reputation with the warrior representatives of the country. Your job here includes higher strategy and policy.
-Be elected to royal warleader by the provincial warleaders
-Work as royal warleader until you gain enough credit that the royal council elects you to be royal heir, and then train for 5-10 years before becoming king.

Shaman route:
-Represent your local clinic to the provincial council.
-Represent your province main holy site to the royal council
-Get enough political credit to somehow get elected by your peers on the royal council as royal heir despite being outside the system of favors.

Allowing for crossing the tracks...you should realize there's a reason he's already been repeatedly snubbed: Because despite great personal charisma, his policy conflicts with current policy. And the chiefs are nervous because their choice is:
-Elect him to King, watch the work of the past three generations go down the drain.
-Don't elect him to King, watch his followers make a fuss.

We already set this precedent through the last miniturn. He spent his time fully setting up a new province, and with a possible war and trade disruption looming, having him as king would be perfect.

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Humility - Not all Heroes should be King

But they might feel their issues were not addressed, and they've already become intergenerational. We might see something like the rise of a 'faction' even if he dies.

Or they could die out. Depends on our luck, really.

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Naturally. This is a political movement But their support will be undermined greatly if we resolve the crisis, as we are already on track to. It's hard to say that "these new ways are screwing everything up" when it's clear everything is functioning and now they are the disharmonious ones.

 

[Citino]

Naturally. This is a political movement But their support will be undermined greatly if we resolve the crisis, as we are already on track to. It's hard to say that "these new ways are screwing everything up" when it's clear everything is functioning and now they are the disharmonious ones.

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Agreed with your other points, but this one can be difficult. Remember that their stories that have been passed down were of 'a time when granaries were overflowing (econ 12)'. So unless we can get there again, they are unlikely to be fully satisfied. Getting the tax system up and running will be a good step in that direction, but I don't think this faction will go away. They will probably keep pushing for the ideals of the 'great Crwiid', where a man can pass down his work to his children and not have to worry about corruption etc...

So we can expect those issues to not just go away when Crwiid dies, land reform is going to be a constant thing most likely. Just not as pressing as it is with him around.

 

[veekie]

You're saying that i'm fear mongering, despite my only saying that there is a legit chance of pissing off the hero and causing his faction to rebel. There has been many hints from AN foreshadowing a possible rebellion. Hell, it we attack the TH the nomad sympathizers (which are almost entirely in the hero's faction) might cause a civil war.

Solid chance is 35%, so yeah. Small chance is about 20-25% for me.

I'm not sure why you want to dismiss the actual chance (not guaranteed, which i've never said or implied) of rebellion or the March province breaking away. Are you just set on purely the mechanical, and completely ignoring the narrative?

Again, there is a serious undertone going on in this update.

Edit:

This too, since I don't know how to neatly put in quotes with an edit. This implies that him dying won't necessarily remove the faction.

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No, look at this:
[] Elect Cwriid heir (+1 Stability, Crisis Ends on his terms)

No civil war possible

[] Snub him (Small chance of -1 Stability)

No civil war possible unless we manage to lose 3 Stability this turn in addition to failing this roll.

[] Suppress the Young Stallion movement (-1 Stability, +1 Turns to resolve crisis, small chance of civil war)

Small chance of civil war even if we go Oppression Intensifies on the movement.

Thus, fearmongering. Civil war is not happening unless we decide to beat them up instead of address the problem.
The movement is likely to survive their leader, but if their leader dies peacefully of old age, and now they no longer have a strong center, while the issues have been resolved, they no longer have the influence to make things happen.

Worst case scenario for snubbing him is if we hit Stability -2, the March breaks away proper and we'd need to assimilate them expensively.

Agreed with you other points, but this one can be difficult. Remember that their stories that have been passed down were of 'a time when granaries were overflowing (econ 12)'. So unless we can get there again, they are unlikely to be fully satisfied. Getting the tax system up and running will be a good step in that direction, but I don't think this faction will go away. They will probably keep pushing for the ideals of the 'great Crwiid', where a man can pass down his work to his children and not have to worry about corruption etc...

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I don't think they'd go away either. I do think they will become irrelevant as we solve the crisis, joining corruption as one of the possible troublemakers at low stability.

 

[tryrar]

[X] Snub him (Small chance of -1 Stability)
[X] Stop trading with both (-4 Diplomacy)
[X] We will find land for you to settle (-1 Stability, +2 Econ)

At some point, we are going to be forced to move away from complete state-controlled land to some flavor of hereditary land management. However, it looks like today is not that day.

 

[veekie]

X] Snub him (Small chance of -1 Stability)
[X] Stop trading with both (-4 Diplomacy)
[X] We will find land for you to settle (-1 Stability, +2 Econ)

At some point, we are going to be forced to move away from complete state-controlled land to some flavor of hereditary land management. However, it looks like today is not that day.

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@tryrar

Missing bracket

Though I'd note that in modern countries it work just fine to have all land owned by the state and then released to civilian use on long leases that are renewed at government discretion.

 

[tryrar]

@tryrar

Missing bracket

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thanks

 

[ETA50M]

The schadenfreude I will feel from this fallout will be much stronger then when I predicted the tax reform fail that's for sure. We have a chance here to unify our entire society along with a periphery state but people refuse to for a tax system no one still understands and doesn't work properly at all. The entire name of the previous update was 'Sacrifices have to be made' so instead of giving up a shitty tax system (if people can't understand it and it's overly complicated for them it's shitty) the bandwagon wants to divide our society and lose a province. I seriously can not believe people are willing to die on the hill of progressive tax reform instead of keeping things simple, stable and harmonious. We can always go back to this tax system when most of our society isn't 99 percent illiterate.

 

[veekie]

Actually, mechanically we won't be able to unify the periphery state. Even if we make him King.

The problem isn't politics, it's distance. Until we build significantly more boats, they will remain a semi independent entity. One which has removed one of our traits for the Nomad Nepotism Trait at that.

You'd just be removing the reforms that are now 80% to completion in exchange for a significantly less effective system that will trigger the same mess again a few generations down the line.

 

[ETA50M]

At least a few generations down the line most of our people will be literate and have a code of laws to help them understand the tax system.

 

[drake_azathoth]

I'm not sure why you want to dismiss the actual chance (not guaranteed, which i've never said or implied) of rebellion or the March province breaking away. Are you just set on purely the mechanical, and completely ignoring the narrative?

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...I dunno about everyone else, but I personally do not give a shit if the March province breaks away at this point. It's going to be a hot mess anyway.

Creed-expy already went the traditional nomad route of giving each of his sons dominion over one of the twelve tribes in his kingdom, which means that there's an excellent chance the March is going to turn into a clusterfuck when he dies as you have twelve effective claimants to his throne each backed by a tribe with a long tradition of rivalry and feuding with other tribes.

Part of the problem with the 'communal inheritance of land' he champions is that if the family or clan owns the land, practically speaking it's up for grabs by anyone who can claim a right to be the 'legitimate heir'. It doesn't exactly take a sociologist to tell that this mixes with the heavily nomadic population of the March to produce a recipe for instability.

I like the 40k character, and I was genuinely hopeful our martial hero would mellow out and get with the program as he aged. I personally do not give a crap if our primary productivity taxes are quota, fractional, or some unholy mix. And I don't much care how our 'luxury tax' is implemented. But the kind of land ownership this guy wants is just a bad idea, and if we make him king it STILL sets us up for civil war because of that.

There's really no point in risking that when we can probably just wait for this guy to die and finish up the economic reforms the way we want. Arguments about him 'deserving kingship' are silly. He was rewarded suitably for his accomplishments, we made him a governor, and if anyone thinks they 'deserve' kingship for military accomplishments that's an excellent sign they shouldn't have kingship.

 

[Killer_Whale]

[X] Snub him (Small chance of -1 Stability)
[X] We will find land for you to settle (-1 Stability, +2 Econ)

 

[UbeOne]

[x] Snub him (Small chance of -1 Stability)

[x] We will find land for you to settle (-1 Stability, +2 Econ)

 

[Reader of all]

So on the topic of the twelve sons I wonder if we will get an option to influence who will be the new provincial chief next midturn

 

[hylas240]

No, look at this:
[] Elect Cwriid heir (+1 Stability, Crisis Ends on his terms)

No civil war possible

[] Snub him (Small chance of -1 Stability)

No civil war possible unless we manage to lose 3 Stability this turn in addition to failing this roll.

[] Suppress the Young Stallion movement (-1 Stability, +1 Turns to resolve crisis, small chance of civil war)

Small chance of civil war even if we go Oppression Intensifies on the movement.

Thus, fearmongering. Civil war is not happening unless we decide to beat them up instead of address the problem.
The movement is likely to survive their leader, but if their leader dies peacefully of old age, and now they no longer have a strong center, while the issues have been resolved, they no longer have the influence to make things happen.

Worst case scenario for snubbing him is if we hit Stability -2, the March breaks away proper and we'd need to assimilate them expensively.

I don't think they'd go away either. I do think they will become irrelevant as we solve the crisis, joining corruption as one of the possible troublemakers at low stability.

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Yes, electing the king doesn't give a chance of civil war.

The current vote deals with immediate repercussions. Obviously there would be a chance of civil war if you assassinate the hero.

I was providing plenty of quotes indicating the narrative having a undertone of possible rebellion/break away from the Stallions if we continue saying no to them.

Yeah, him dying peacefully would take significant steam out of their movement, but he still has 1 more turn (maybe 2) before that happens. There is a chance that he would take the constant denials badly and make his province independent or incite his faction towards rebellion in the next 1-2 turns.

It's going to take 2ish turns before we actually fix the taxes problem, so I don't think the Stallions are going to be happy that they are (from their perspective) being ignored by the "corrupt" officials.

If he dies in 1 turn, then it's also likely that his 12 sons will take up the cause and/or make the province independent (since they do get control by inheritance).

While I don't think people are going to change their minds on the current vote, I don't feel that i'm fear mongering and don't appreciate being called that, as I'm not trying to make people afraid.

Edit: I'll solve this issue by asking AN.

@Academia Nut If we snub the hero, how likely is it that it leads to the Marches becoming independent or the Young Stallions inciting a rebellion?

 

[Eri]

[X] Snub him (Small chance of -1 Stability)
[X] Stop trading with both (-4 Diplomacy)
[X] We will find land for you to settle (-1 Stability, +2 Econ)

Also, because I am way behind the thread:

Quick question, would salt work as an early form of currency? I think I remember the phrase 'worth your salt' coming from such.

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luxury on par with dye, but more useful to the point it becomes a necessity.

bad as a currency due to melting in water

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I dunno. The word <salary> comes from the word <salt> for a reason. See etymology here.