- Location
- Germany
Your tribe has no tradition of taking skulls as trophies. Yet.
Vote stays open for roughly three hours.
Tales of History - A Civ-Builder Quest
- Thread starter Azel
- Start date
- Original
Vote stays open for roughly three hours.
- Location
- United States
- Location
- Germany
For you its a win-win.
If these are actually yetis we can gather their skulls.
If not they might have less impressive skulls, but we get snowshoes without having to invent them.
Loot and Lore forever!
- Location
- Chile
Oh look! Cousins!
...
Yep, they're going the way of the Neanderthal... soon at least.
Lets evaluate our options:
Fight:
Pro: kill enemy hunting party, release 2 men.
Con: risk of dying and leaving the tribe clueless that we're actually at war now, leaving the Neanderyetis to pick off our lessened hunters one by one or our more vulnerable gatherers. Chance of starvation, chance of losig our great hero before we've even used him.
Thought: this is a hunting party, we would not kill their tribe so killing them now does not preclude raids into our territory.
Live to fight another day:
Pro: the tribe knows what is actually happening and wont be surprised when the savages swarm the wattle fence to eat our children. Hunter hero alive and able to make pur tribe survive the winter and kill the bear.
Cons: loose 2 men (assuming the fight to release them didnt wound or kill any of our hunters. Leaves enemy hunting party active in the area.
The choice is clear enough.
[X] You cannot afford a fight now, with the possibility of dying without informing the rest of the village. Fall back for now, and prepare for revenge in the spring.
...
Yep, they're going the way of the Neanderthal... soon at least.
Lets evaluate our options:
Fight:
Pro: kill enemy hunting party, release 2 men.
Con: risk of dying and leaving the tribe clueless that we're actually at war now, leaving the Neanderyetis to pick off our lessened hunters one by one or our more vulnerable gatherers. Chance of starvation, chance of losig our great hero before we've even used him.
Thought: this is a hunting party, we would not kill their tribe so killing them now does not preclude raids into our territory.
Live to fight another day:
Pro: the tribe knows what is actually happening and wont be surprised when the savages swarm the wattle fence to eat our children. Hunter hero alive and able to make pur tribe survive the winter and kill the bear.
Cons: loose 2 men (assuming the fight to release them didnt wound or kill any of our hunters. Leaves enemy hunting party active in the area.
The choice is clear enough.
[X] You cannot afford a fight now, with the possibility of dying without informing the rest of the village. Fall back for now, and prepare for revenge in the spring.
Last edited:
- Location
- Germany
Pro:
Loot their current equipment too.
Get them without being ambushed by them, which might easily happen on the next encounter.
- Location
- United States
Also, we have a Winter Hero with us right now.
Ghostdevil
The Devil of Ghosts
- Location
- United States
Guys you know we can Lie and slaughter them later right? We can gather more men under the guise of complying with their demands.
I'm a little peeved that the straight-up attack option won. Let see how many hunters we lose to rushing through a narrow trapped checkpoint to fight superior numbers.
Ghostdevil
The Devil of Ghosts
- Location
- United States
Same, I will be pissed if we lose, we had a perfectly good strategy in the votes but instead were risking losing all our hunters and having no IC information and a new enemy for nothing when we COULD have warned our village and had an ambush attack on them.
Winter - 3
- Location
- Germany
Silence fell between the two groups as Snow-Fox weighed his options. To reward these beasts for the slaughter of his tribe was out of question, let alone giving them better weapons for the raids that would undoubtedly follow. Though pretending to agree would have gotten the hunters safe passage home and might yet have saved the prisoners lives. Then they could have gathered more men to strike down the creatures. But would the weather even have allowed that? It had been a small wonder that he had managed to bring his small band this far out against the wrath of winter and to lead even more might just have seen them decimated before even meeting their foes. Was there truly a choice? His task had not yet been completed and his band had quietly agreed with him that they would not shy away from whatever danger lurked here, as long as there was a chance to recover the lost.
He nodded deeply to the Snow Demons, resting the butt of his spear on his right foot and drawing it close to him. Just as he saw how his foes relaxed, he felt the hunters behind him tense, for they knew what the gesture with his spear meant. In a single heartbeat, Snow-Fox had changed his grip on the weapon and charged forward, trusting his companions to judge how many would follow and how many would throw their smaller spears at them.
His new name might have been that of the fox, but his charge was as the dive of the hawk. Ten steps divided him from his foes, yet his feet had eaten half that distance already when the spears of his hunters flew over his head. He ran around the first Demon, a thrown spear lodged in his chest and the creature already dropping. Idly he noted how the panicked throws of his foes went wide and clattered uselessly against the stone cliffs while eyeing his first quarry. One of the beasts thrusted his spear at him, but his weapon had greater reach and he counted on that. A short thrust towards his foes hands made him drop his spear, a second ran him through like a hare. The creatures outnumbered the hunters when the fight began and by an even wider margin as four more charged out of a small cave hidden by the cliffs, but they had lost this battle already. Two Demons lay dead before they even knew what was happening, the others torn between fighting back and running for a moment, then deciding for the latter.
The hunters charged on, trying to run them all down, but only claiming one more dead and striking another where its legs should be. Just as the stories told, the Demons were nothing if not swift and they left nary a footprint in the snow as they fled. No matter how dearly they wished to end this right here and now, Snow-Fox knew that his band would sink up to their knees into the same snow drifts the Demons took with ease, making pursuit impossible. And inadvisable too, for he lost sight of them quickly and it would be all to easy to set an ambush among the broken cliffs.
But what mattered most was that they had succeeded. The cave the Demons had used as their shelter was not overly large and the two prisoners were found underfed, but mostly fine. Of their captors, they could tell rather little, since the beasts spoke only in hushed whispers to each other whenever they were within earshot and their crude language made it nigh impossible to interpret the fragments they could make out. Two important things they could report, though. For one, the promise of butchering the men for food was not an idle threat meant to intimidate, but the actual intent of the beasts. It was this knowledge that had led to one of the caught group to sneak out and try to run just two nights ago, without a doubt the dead man they found on their way here.
The other thing, which was much more worrying, was the food. A huge number of baskets full of dried and frozen meat had been hauled into the small cave and the prisoners reported to see four beasts coming into the cave each day, carrying more of them and leaving immediately after dropping them off. They had already come and gone, so there was little risk of four more creatures attacking the hunters from behind, but the scale of their efforts was staggering. What lay here might have been enough to last the whole tribe quite a while and they still were not done to bring more of it. Thus two questions chased each other through Snow Fox's mind. Where did they get all of it and why bring it to a cave in this hostile part of the valley?
What followed was predictable and infuriating at the same time. The tribe could use the food, for even with the hunts going well thus far, they still barely brought in meat at the same rate as the people ate. A group of ten would not be able to take even half of what was stored here and coming back was quickly deemed too risky with the weather and the threat of the Demons ambushing them when given the time to prepare. But they could try to deny this storage to what was undoubtedly their foes. If it would force the Demons to abandon the valley or instead make them search for the village in an attempt to raid if for supplies, that was the thorny question. Or they could leave everything as they found it, save for taking their tribesmen back. The beasts might consider a settled score if the hunters did not go out of their way to spite them further, making it less likely that the fighting would go on.
For all his skill as a hunter, Snow Fox felt ill-suited to make these choices, but the council was a day's march through frozen death away, so he would have to make it. And then there was surviving Demon that was still moaning in pain outside. Would it show mercy or weakness in their eyes, if you let him live? And what should he do with the dead? Yet he had not much time to ponder this, for night was approaching fast and camping in the cliffs seemed unwise, even if it meant to brave the storm again instead.
The battle was won. What now?
[] [Food] Leave the food alone. You know the horrors of starvation and will not inflict such on others.
[] [Food] Take as much as you can carry and leave the rest alone. The tribe needs the supplies. (Gain 0.2 months of food.)
[] [Food] Take as much as you can carry and burn the rest. Let the Snow Demons starve. (Gain 0.2 months of food.)
[] [Food] Write-In
[] [Prisoner] Let the wounded Snow Demon be. His ilk will come for him when you leave.
[] [Prisoner] Kill the wounded Snow Demon. There is no use in letting him suffer.
[] [Prisoner] Tie him to one of the long spears and carry him to the village.
[] [Prisoner] Write-In
[] [Own Dead] Leave the dead behind.
[] [Own Dead] Burn their bodies, lest the Snow Demons defile and eat them.
[] [Own Dead] Write-In
[] [Enemy Dead] Gather them in one place and leave them behind. Let them know clearly that you wished them to have their own dead.
[] [Enemy Dead] Burn their bodies, lest they feed your enemies.
[] [Enemy Dead] Butcher them for pelts and trophies. This great victory needs to be commemorated.
[] [Enemy Dead] Write-In
AN: This took forever due to me having trouble to handle a battle between less than 30 people with a system designed to quickly resolve armies consisting of 500 men sized battalions, having to settle for something much rougher in the end. That might need some tweaking for short-term conflicts.
On the matter of Great Personalities, yes they are pretty strong and can massively sway a fight. Though their strength will go down a bit later on when armies grow larger, as a Great Hunter / Warrior can only grant this bonus to the unit he is attached to, making the bonus less extreme overall due to the size of battles.
If you feel this fight was a bit anti-climatic, blame the blizzard, who put the Snow Demons at a massive disadvantage.
He nodded deeply to the Snow Demons, resting the butt of his spear on his right foot and drawing it close to him. Just as he saw how his foes relaxed, he felt the hunters behind him tense, for they knew what the gesture with his spear meant. In a single heartbeat, Snow-Fox had changed his grip on the weapon and charged forward, trusting his companions to judge how many would follow and how many would throw their smaller spears at them.
Hunters Spear Volley
73 + 20 (Obsidian Weapons) vs 50 + 30 (Cover) + 20 (Padded Armor) = 93 vs 100
No effect
Snow Demon Return Volley
12 + 20 (Prepared Location) vs 88 + 30 (Cover) = 32 vs 118
No effect
Snow-Fox's Charge
71 + 50 (Great Hunter) + 20 (Obsidian Weapons) vs 45 + 40 (Defensive Location) + 20 (Padded Armor) = 141 vs 105
Three dead, one wounded
Snow Demon Counter-Attack
53 vs 26 + 25 (Great Hunter) = 53 vs 51
One wounded
Snow Demons sustained massive losses.
Morale check (DC 80): 60 -> Moral drops to Routing.
73 + 20 (Obsidian Weapons) vs 50 + 30 (Cover) + 20 (Padded Armor) = 93 vs 100
No effect
Snow Demon Return Volley
12 + 20 (Prepared Location) vs 88 + 30 (Cover) = 32 vs 118
No effect
Snow-Fox's Charge
71 + 50 (Great Hunter) + 20 (Obsidian Weapons) vs 45 + 40 (Defensive Location) + 20 (Padded Armor) = 141 vs 105
Three dead, one wounded
Snow Demon Counter-Attack
53 vs 26 + 25 (Great Hunter) = 53 vs 51
One wounded
Snow Demons sustained massive losses.
Morale check (DC 80): 60 -> Moral drops to Routing.
His new name might have been that of the fox, but his charge was as the dive of the hawk. Ten steps divided him from his foes, yet his feet had eaten half that distance already when the spears of his hunters flew over his head. He ran around the first Demon, a thrown spear lodged in his chest and the creature already dropping. Idly he noted how the panicked throws of his foes went wide and clattered uselessly against the stone cliffs while eyeing his first quarry. One of the beasts thrusted his spear at him, but his weapon had greater reach and he counted on that. A short thrust towards his foes hands made him drop his spear, a second ran him through like a hare. The creatures outnumbered the hunters when the fight began and by an even wider margin as four more charged out of a small cave hidden by the cliffs, but they had lost this battle already. Two Demons lay dead before they even knew what was happening, the others torn between fighting back and running for a moment, then deciding for the latter.
The hunters charged on, trying to run them all down, but only claiming one more dead and striking another where its legs should be. Just as the stories told, the Demons were nothing if not swift and they left nary a footprint in the snow as they fled. No matter how dearly they wished to end this right here and now, Snow-Fox knew that his band would sink up to their knees into the same snow drifts the Demons took with ease, making pursuit impossible. And inadvisable too, for he lost sight of them quickly and it would be all to easy to set an ambush among the broken cliffs.
But what mattered most was that they had succeeded. The cave the Demons had used as their shelter was not overly large and the two prisoners were found underfed, but mostly fine. Of their captors, they could tell rather little, since the beasts spoke only in hushed whispers to each other whenever they were within earshot and their crude language made it nigh impossible to interpret the fragments they could make out. Two important things they could report, though. For one, the promise of butchering the men for food was not an idle threat meant to intimidate, but the actual intent of the beasts. It was this knowledge that had led to one of the caught group to sneak out and try to run just two nights ago, without a doubt the dead man they found on their way here.
The other thing, which was much more worrying, was the food. A huge number of baskets full of dried and frozen meat had been hauled into the small cave and the prisoners reported to see four beasts coming into the cave each day, carrying more of them and leaving immediately after dropping them off. They had already come and gone, so there was little risk of four more creatures attacking the hunters from behind, but the scale of their efforts was staggering. What lay here might have been enough to last the whole tribe quite a while and they still were not done to bring more of it. Thus two questions chased each other through Snow Fox's mind. Where did they get all of it and why bring it to a cave in this hostile part of the valley?
What followed was predictable and infuriating at the same time. The tribe could use the food, for even with the hunts going well thus far, they still barely brought in meat at the same rate as the people ate. A group of ten would not be able to take even half of what was stored here and coming back was quickly deemed too risky with the weather and the threat of the Demons ambushing them when given the time to prepare. But they could try to deny this storage to what was undoubtedly their foes. If it would force the Demons to abandon the valley or instead make them search for the village in an attempt to raid if for supplies, that was the thorny question. Or they could leave everything as they found it, save for taking their tribesmen back. The beasts might consider a settled score if the hunters did not go out of their way to spite them further, making it less likely that the fighting would go on.
For all his skill as a hunter, Snow Fox felt ill-suited to make these choices, but the council was a day's march through frozen death away, so he would have to make it. And then there was surviving Demon that was still moaning in pain outside. Would it show mercy or weakness in their eyes, if you let him live? And what should he do with the dead? Yet he had not much time to ponder this, for night was approaching fast and camping in the cliffs seemed unwise, even if it meant to brave the storm again instead.
The battle was won. What now?
[] [Food] Leave the food alone. You know the horrors of starvation and will not inflict such on others.
[] [Food] Take as much as you can carry and leave the rest alone. The tribe needs the supplies. (Gain 0.2 months of food.)
[] [Food] Take as much as you can carry and burn the rest. Let the Snow Demons starve. (Gain 0.2 months of food.)
[] [Food] Write-In
[] [Prisoner] Let the wounded Snow Demon be. His ilk will come for him when you leave.
[] [Prisoner] Kill the wounded Snow Demon. There is no use in letting him suffer.
[] [Prisoner] Tie him to one of the long spears and carry him to the village.
[] [Prisoner] Write-In
[] [Own Dead] Leave the dead behind.
[] [Own Dead] Burn their bodies, lest the Snow Demons defile and eat them.
[] [Own Dead] Write-In
[] [Enemy Dead] Gather them in one place and leave them behind. Let them know clearly that you wished them to have their own dead.
[] [Enemy Dead] Burn their bodies, lest they feed your enemies.
[] [Enemy Dead] Butcher them for pelts and trophies. This great victory needs to be commemorated.
[] [Enemy Dead] Write-In
AN: This took forever due to me having trouble to handle a battle between less than 30 people with a system designed to quickly resolve armies consisting of 500 men sized battalions, having to settle for something much rougher in the end. That might need some tweaking for short-term conflicts.
On the matter of Great Personalities, yes they are pretty strong and can massively sway a fight. Though their strength will go down a bit later on when armies grow larger, as a Great Hunter / Warrior can only grant this bonus to the unit he is attached to, making the bonus less extreme overall due to the size of battles.
If you feel this fight was a bit anti-climatic, blame the blizzard, who put the Snow Demons at a massive disadvantage.
Last edited:
- Location
- United States
Ghostdevil
The Devil of Ghosts
- Location
- United States
Changed votes
Also make a habit of Cremation easier...
Also make a habit of Cremation easier...
Last edited:
Powerofmind
In Madness Fallen
- Location
- United States
Damn. This is a hard set of choices.
- Location
- United Kingdom
@Azel regarding this option can we first examine the dead/wounded so we know whether they're actually beasts or just wearing extensive coverings etc.
Ghostdevil
The Devil of Ghosts
- Location
- United States
Wonder if we can search the bodies anyways to show our guys there are no demons... Only Men.
- Location
- Voidbetweenstars
{X] Age of hunter
[x] [Food] Take as much as you can carry and burn the rest. Let the Snow Demons starve. (Gain 0.2 months of food.)
[x] [Prisoner] Kill the wounded Snow Demon. There is no use in letting him suffer.
[x] [Own Dead] Burn their bodies, lest the Snow Demons defile and eat them.
[x] [Enemy Dead] Butcher them for pelts and trophies. This great victory needs to be commemorated.
Waste not it kinda important thing to learn.
[x] [Food] Take as much as you can carry and burn the rest. Let the Snow Demons starve. (Gain 0.2 months of food.)
[x] [Prisoner] Kill the wounded Snow Demon. There is no use in letting him suffer.
[x] [Own Dead] Burn their bodies, lest the Snow Demons defile and eat them.
[x] [Enemy Dead] Butcher them for pelts and trophies. This great victory needs to be commemorated.
Waste not it kinda important thing to learn.
Powerofmind
In Madness Fallen
- Location
- United States
There's a few general outlines I can see from this:
Cold Peace: We poke around the mountains during the warm months, collect or stone and metal, and bug out during the winters so as to maintain uneasy peace with these obviously dangerous freaks of nature in the short term, and when we've civilized harder we can prosecute a more effective and complete elimination of the monsters, should we deem it necessary, or our herding skill grows enough to assimilate/semi-force them to adopt a less human meat diet. If they're human, though, allowing cannibals to survive is just bad thinking. To do Cold Peace we'd need to be as generally kind as possible, minimum pressures on them, but we would at least have to burn our own dead (accept no less in that area).
Status Quo: Don't antagonize them, but also do what is expected of us in this day and age. Take some of their food, respect their dead, burn ours, imprison or kill their wounded. We'd have border friction in the direction of the mountains, but we obviously have more advanced weapons and defenses so we're not as at-risk as they are should they come off the mountain to swing at us.
Vendetta: Maximum hate. Take and burn their food, burn our dead, skin theirs for trophies, and imprison the wounded.
Cold Peace: We poke around the mountains during the warm months, collect or stone and metal, and bug out during the winters so as to maintain uneasy peace with these obviously dangerous freaks of nature in the short term, and when we've civilized harder we can prosecute a more effective and complete elimination of the monsters, should we deem it necessary, or our herding skill grows enough to assimilate/semi-force them to adopt a less human meat diet. If they're human, though, allowing cannibals to survive is just bad thinking. To do Cold Peace we'd need to be as generally kind as possible, minimum pressures on them, but we would at least have to burn our own dead (accept no less in that area).
Status Quo: Don't antagonize them, but also do what is expected of us in this day and age. Take some of their food, respect their dead, burn ours, imprison or kill their wounded. We'd have border friction in the direction of the mountains, but we obviously have more advanced weapons and defenses so we're not as at-risk as they are should they come off the mountain to swing at us.
Vendetta: Maximum hate. Take and burn their food, burn our dead, skin theirs for trophies, and imprison the wounded.
Ghostdevil
The Devil of Ghosts
- Location
- United States
[X] Plan Burn
-[X] [Food] Take as much as you can carry and burn the rest. Let the Snow Demons starve. (Gain 0.2 months of food.)
-[X] [Prisoner] Kill the wounded Snow Demon. There is no use in letting him suffer.
-[X] [Own Dead] Burn their bodies, lest the Snow Demons defile and eat them.
-[X] [Enemy Dead] Search for useful items and then Burn their bodies, lest they feed your enemies.
@gutza1
Changing the burn part to search bodies then Burn
-[X] [Food] Take as much as you can carry and burn the rest. Let the Snow Demons starve. (Gain 0.2 months of food.)
-[X] [Prisoner] Kill the wounded Snow Demon. There is no use in letting him suffer.
-[X] [Own Dead] Burn their bodies, lest the Snow Demons defile and eat them.
-[X] [Enemy Dead] Search for useful items and then Burn their bodies, lest they feed your enemies.
@gutza1
Changing the burn part to search bodies then Burn
- Location
- Germany
You can do a write-in to that effect, though it would require a check to restrain the hunters after that.
The default option would take trophies, no matter if those are pelts or clothes. Taking the skull of someone you just had a chat with is not a choice you walk back from just because how his face looks.
- Location
- United States
[X] Plan Burn
Yeah, fuck these guys. There's no way this won't turn into a grudge even if we tried not to be dicks - let's just weaken them as much as possible and skedaddle.
Yeah, fuck these guys. There's no way this won't turn into a grudge even if we tried not to be dicks - let's just weaken them as much as possible and skedaddle.
- Location
- Brazil
[X] Plan Burn
Get those snow shoes.
Get those snow shoes.