Tales of History - A Civ-Builder Quest

[Mortenkam]

If we fight them as they're crossing the river, we'll get a bonus associated with that. If we let them cross unchallenged, we lose one of our biggest equalizers.

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I mean, we could try to offer/get terms before they cross the river.

 

[Ghostdevil]

Yes Traps, Just like in the beginning. We can trap them for losses, demoralizing them before they can reach us.
We adopt hit and run tactics

How is it more suicide, that facing them in battle? Like, sure they would be angry, but our people probably has stuff, they do not need to survive, that still has some value.

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Because imploding is just as bad as being slaughtered, nevermind that there isn't an guarantee they won't just do it anyways

If we fight them as they're crossing the river, we'll get a bonus associated with that. If we let them cross unchallenged, we lose one of our biggest equalizers.

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We CANNOT fight them in open combat, to do so is SUICIDE. The Trap method like we did in the beginning of the quest against the White Clans is much better. Harassing them all the way

 

[Azel]

There is a distance of some meters between the place where we are planning to fight the battle and the White Halls. Come on, Azel, this is a bit much. More than half our military might is off chasing goats. How on earth do our people think it's not the end of the world? How? Do they not see the giant army at our doorsteps? Do they not understand that we have only two hunter pops at home?

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Frankly? No. They don't. Some fisher in the northern part of the valley has not seen the army and has no concept of people raiding each other except of a vague notion that lots of stabbing is involved, so he will just assume that the hunters will take care of that. These are neolithic tribals. They don't hop on Twitter to watch live feeds of wars. They are also socialized in a culture that thinks of itself as the pinnacle of civilization, so they will by default assume that you will handily beat whatever comes.

 

[Ghostdevil]

So yea, were fucked unless were saved, or the traps we use delay them long enough that they decide it isn't worth the trouble.

 

[Satar]

So yea, were fucked unless were saved, or the traps we use delay them long enough that they decide it isn't worth the trouble.

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Traps are never going to work; there's a river, a Gentle River even, that goes straight to our doorstep. They'll just paddle up the river. Remember what I said about rivers and horses?

 

[Weirdo]

[X] Plan Never Corner A Bear
-[X] Meet them in battle.
--[X] 2 x Hunters, 12 x Mobs
--[X] Both remaining Councilors will jointly address the Valley People, and remind them that to their backs is the shrine where their forefathers lay buried, and that their Ancestors expect that they protect their earthly remains from the depredations from the Makar and the sowing peoples. The Makar, accepting no prisoners, will drag and kill even the children, if the Valley People do not fight this day; and the hunters, while valiant, cannot hold back a force many times their own numbers. If the Valley Peoples will not fight like bears and wolves this day, all will be lost!
--[X] Meet the enemy in battle as they cross the river and make landing on the mouth of the valley (river-crossing bonus).
--[X] Send a runner to the settlement at Speaker's Rest asking for its hunters to come to our aid. Runner will swear on his blood that we will repay assistance rendered generously.



There is a distance of some meters between the place where we are planning to fight the battle and the White Halls. Come on, @Azel, this is a bit much. More than half our military might is off chasing goats. How on earth do our people think it's not the end of the world? How? Do they not see the giant army at our doorsteps? Do they not understand that we have only two hunter pops at home?

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I'm fine with a lot of our forces meeting them on the river, so long as they retreat once they actually cross, we don't have the numbers to pray for lucky rolls and mountains are similar defensive positions to river crossings. I don't know or care how to rationalize it, meeting them for glorious combat in the field is just playing to all their advantages while minimizing our own

 

[Mortenkam]

Because imploding is just as bad as being slaughtered, nevermind that there isn't an guarantee they won't just do it anyways

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I will admit that it might damage our society, but when it comes to if we can trust them to back of, our biggest bet is that they do not want to pay the price to actually take our village and would settle for something less.

 

[Satar]

I'm fine with a lot of our forces meeting them on the river, so long as they retreat once they actually cross, we don't have the numbers to pray for lucky rolls and mountains are similar defensive positions to river crossings. I don't know or care how to rationalize it, meeting them for glorious combat in the field is just playing to all their advantages while minimizing our own

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I will admit that it might damage our society, but when it comes to if we can trust them to back of, our biggest bet is that they do not want to pay the price to actually take our village and would settle for something less.

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Even the guys who want to negotiate should deploy the hunters and mobs there if only to make a show of force so that the lowlanders keep their demands reasonable.

 

[Ghostdevil]

Traps are never going to work; there's a river, a Gentle River even, that goes straight to our doorstep. They'll just paddle up the river. Remember what I said about rivers and horses?

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Facing them on open combat is far worse of prospect, two glorified hunter units versus fanatics and heavy infantry (They already caught up to our megaproject progress so we don't even have a tactical advantage)

I will admit that it might damage our society, but when it comes to if we can trust them to back of, our biggest bet is that they do not want to pay the price to actually take our village and would settle for something less.

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Okay, i'll bite. What do you actually suggest we give them that WON'T fuck us? They have us by the short and curlies.

 

[looseanon]

Im genuinely not even mad.
This is both the best and the worst possible outcome. Coming out of this unscathed is practically impossible, but if we come out of this intact, we will be much stronger for it. The changes we can make to our culture and society in order to survive long term would be well worth it. No more pacifism and unilateral warrior education comes to mind.

If we fight them as they're crossing the river, we'll get a bonus associated with that. If we let them cross unchallenged, we lose one of our biggest equalizers.

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Mate they have 2 archers and really great river boat tech compared to us. We are not holding a crossing with just one buff.

I say we take everybody and evacuate them into the mountains temporarily, everybody who can fight makes a last stand at our holysite. If we have the capability to train archers then we can put them on the walls.

 

[Ghostdevil]

This is both the best and the worst possible outcome. Coming out of this unscathed is practically impossible, but if we come out of this intact, we will be much stronger for it. The changes we can make to our culture and society in order to survive long term would be well worth it. No more pacifism and unilateral warrior education comes to mind.

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Coming out of this without collapse is almost impossible, I personally view this as the worst case scenario that i thought only possible after they murder our army. They decided to go gallivant into the mountains east while the west decided to kill us.

 

[looseanon]

If we really do collapse, then the ancestors mandated it, for they could never accept such petulant and defunct children.

 

[Satar]

Mate they have 2 archers and really great river boat tech compared to us. We are not holding a crossing with just one buff.
I say we take everybody and evacuate them into the mountains temporarily, everybody who can fight makes a last stand at our holysite. If we have the capability to train archers then we can put them on the walls.

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Archers aren't overwhelming. Reread the battle at Riverbend.

The bottom line, which some people still aren't getting, is that if they burn our Orchards, it's game over. Those Orchards represent centuries of painstaking effort and make having a population above carrying-capacity possible. Without that we're going to lose a third or half our population to famine.

Orchards aren't like farms today, where you can regrow something by planting seeds and waiting a few seasons. They take decades to slowly mature. In the short term we cannot replace them.

 

[Ghostdevil]

Well, I guess we can do the plan where we just take over our army and become nomadic hunters like with Sparrow when we thought brushcrest was attacking us.

Archers aren't overwhelming. Reread the battle at Riverbend.

The bottom line, which some people still aren't getting, is that if they burn our Orchards, it's game over. Those Orchards represent centuries of painstaking effort and make having a population above carrying-capacity possible. Without that we're going to lose a third or half our population to famine.

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If they kill our 2 hunters, we DIE. Game over. We cannot Hold that fucking crossing.

 

[Weirdo]

Traps are never going to work; there's a river, a Gentle River even, that goes straight to our doorstep. They'll just paddle up the river. Remember what I said about rivers and horses?

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Yes they will? If they decide to sail the whole way (and why they would do that considering I'm also calling for harassing strikes, and aren't we upstream? They'd have to work against the current leaving them even more open to harassment) and somehow their entire army can, good, we can harass them while they're on boats paddling against the current, we win those fights, it's more likely though they'll be on land because they aren't stupid, which is why we need traps, to catch them when they are on land, and this demoralizes them, and they are fighting an offensive war, meaning they don't have much reason to fight to the end, basically, we need the harassment so that when we are forced to meet them in battle, they'll be exhausted and just want to go home, meaning easy wins for us

To summarize, if they sail, we harass, if they march, we harass and trap, to whittle them down to the final blow (this would be the whole shebang, night raids as well as attacking when they march, so they have to post more guards and their army grows even more exhausted. We win if we delay them, they win if we fight head on

Edit

Even the guys who want to negotiate should deploy the hunters and mobs there if only to make a show of force so that the lowlanders keep their demands reasonable.

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I don't want to negotiate, it would destroy us and we have nothing to give, I want to run guerrilla warfare the entire way they march, however, because we need all the advantages we can get, and any delay could mean our army returns

 

[Mortenkam]

Even the guys who want to negotiate should deploy the hunters and mobs there if only to make a show of force so that the lowlanders keep their demands reasonable.

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That might work, though they might be more intimidated by our stone wall.

Okay, i'll bite. What do you actually suggest we give them that WON'T fuck us? They have us by the short and curlies.

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Then Willow returned and with him came the bounty of his raid. He had tracked one of the caravans coming from the mountains and ambushed it near the valley, taking a few tamed yak bulls, a few prisoners and most of their wares.

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I will admit to not being sure what resources we have on hand, but perhaps @Azel could tell us what we could give them in a emergency. I would suggest, that we offer compensation for the damages suffered because of the illegal raids and the return of any prisoners we have, plus perhaps, that we will attempt to punish Willow somehow for his crimes.

 

[Ghostdevil]

That might work, though they might be more intimidated by our stone wall.



I will admit to not being sure what resources we have on hand, but perhaps @Azel could tell us what we could give them in a emergency. I would suggest, that we offer compensation for the damages suffered because of the illegal raids and the return of any prisoners we have, plus perhaps, that we will attempt to punish Willow somehow for his crimes.

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That sounds impossible, it goes right smack into our values, and going that hard against the Mandate will cause super strife, and thats assuming they go perfectly. Which it won't since the council is not united.

 

[Satar]

Well, I guess we can do the plan where we just take over our army and become nomadic hunters like with Sparrow when we thought brushcrest was attacking us.

If they kill our 2 hunters, we DIE. Game over. We cannot Hold that fucking crossing.

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Then fucking hell, deploy the 12 pops and 2 hunters by Greenvalley and the White Halls. I'm not saying no. Do whatever we gotta do to procc the Mobs into Fanaticism. It's our only realistic hope.

To summarize, if they sail, we harass, if they march, we harass and trap, to whittle them down to the final blow (this would be the whole shebang, night raids as well as attacking when they march, so they have to post more guards and their army grows even more exhausted. We win if we delay them, they win if we fight head on

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We don't have specialized scouts because they're off with Deer. We don't have better communication tech than the lowlanders do. We don't have better river-navigation techs. Realistically the lowlanders will detach a segment of their armies that will paddle upriver, thus flanking our harassment force by river. We know that because it's part of the A, B, Cs of lowlander warfare.

I'll tell you what'll happen. The hunters will go off and we'll never hear of them again. One and done. Now we'll be down two critical food producing pops. The last thing we need is to be defeated in detail by their superior mobility.

 

[Ghostdevil]

Then fucking hell, deploy the 12 pops and 2 hunters by Greenvalley and the White Halls. I'm not saying no. Do whatever we gotta do to procc the Mobs into Fanaticism. It's our only realistic hope.

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Then we die, because mobs are garbage against trained hunters let alone warriors and heavy infantry. We would basically be throwing our production pops into the literal grinder.
Our traits force us to give up on fanaticism pretty much.

 

[Darth Vader]

I assume they would see through any fake surrender we could plot. As in, tell them we surrender, then when a manageable (read: easy to slaughter) amount are inside the walls we lock them in and kill them? (speaking of, how do we get in and out of the walls? A gate? I dont know what kind of gate technology neolithic tribals have.) This is of course assuming they would even come in if we 'surrendered'. Its also assuming they arent just here to kill and enslave us all no matter what. This would probably need a intrigue hero to work of course. Lots and lots of assumptions.

Just throwin' this out there for people more knowledgeable than me to determine the value of.

 

[Weirdo]

That might work, though they might be more intimidated by our stone wall.



I will admit to not being sure what resources we have on hand, but perhaps @Azel could tell us what we could give them in a emergency. I would suggest, that we offer compensation for the damages suffered because of the illegal raids and the return of any prisoners we have, plus perhaps, that we will attempt to punish Willow somehow for his crimes.

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That sounds impossible, it goes right smack into our values, and going that hard against the Mandate will cause super strife, and thats assuming they go perfectly. Which it won't since the council is not united.

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Yeah, I'll be honest, given the choice between losing our civ and surrender, I'd choose losing our civ, because surrender I don't think we could come back from, and it would crush the identity we worked so hard and so long for, which would set us back generations, I'd honestly rather go down swinging, it's just I prefer not dying stupidly, and to swing in the most productive way possible

Please someone make a plan for guerrilla warfare, I'm on phone and really don't want to do that

 

[Satar]

Then we die, because mobs are garbage against trained hunters let alone warriors and heavy infantry. We would basically be throwing our production pops into the literal grinder.

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The mobs will procc Fanatic if they're defending the White Halls. It's shit that we can't defend Greenvalley from a forward deployment, but if we fight literally with our backs to the White Halls then maybe Joe Fisher from Up North will finally for once stop causing political crises and get a fucking clue.

 

[Ghostdevil]

Yeah, I'll be honest, given the choice between losing our civ and surrender, I'd choose losing our civ, because surrender I don't think we could come back from, and it would crush the identity we worked so hard and so long for, which would set us back generations, I'd honestly rather go down swinging, it's just I prefer not dying stupidly, and to swing in the most productive way possible

Please someone make a plan for guerrilla warfare, I'm on phone and really don't want to do that

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Agreed, I don't wanna surrender because azel interpreted the vote differently than many of us.

The mobs will procc Fanatic if they're defending the White Halls. It's shit that we can't defend Greenvalley from a forward deployment, but if we fight literally with our backs to the White Halls then maybe Joe Fisher from Up North will finally for once stop causing political crises and get a fucking clue.

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That seems like a reach, I doubt even then unless they specifically go after the White Halls will it proc.

 

[Mortenkam]

That sounds impossible, it goes right smack into our values, and going that hard against the Mandate will cause super strife, and thats assuming they go perfectly. Which it won't since the council is not united.

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I understand why you think so, but I disagree about how bad it would be.

- must always treat other polities as lesser and can't interact with them as peers

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If you can get both Tall Reed and Fingers to speak with one voice, that explanation would work. Willow did defy the majority of the Council after all.

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If this is the value that you think might be a problem, then I have suggested a possible work around.
We will of course need the last two members of the Council to be in agreement, but there is a decent chance that they would be willing to work together to blame the Hunters, at least those hunters who are gone.

 

[Azel]

I will admit to not being sure what resources we have on hand, but perhaps @Azel could tell us what we could give them in a emergency. I would suggest, that we offer compensation for the damages suffered because of the illegal raids and the return of any prisoners we have, plus perhaps, that we will attempt to punish Willow somehow for his crimes.

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You could give them:
- 2 Production
- 1 unit of Obsidian
- 1 unit of Azurite OR another 1 Production
- any of the above for a given period of time instead of as a one-time payment
- a number of Pops

All of these carry some degree of repercussions. Giving away all your production means no progress on the silver mine, which trigger a Perseverance Stability Check. Giving away the Obsidian or Azurite means you are short on culture this turn, which isn't good but isn't lethal either if you can fix it soon enough. Giving away pops is super no bueno for the Mandate, but if you want to brand the hunters as traitors, you could trade those two Pops away with far less of an impact.

I'd advise to include what your initial offer is and how high you are willing to go, since that will be diplo rolls to determine if they accept.

How badly the Mandata will clash with all of this depends a lot on the reasoning you offer.
How good Tall Reed and Fingers will cooperate to get this done also depends on your reasoning. You can try to sweeten the deal with blood oath enforced promises. (Fair warning: Breaking those later on would be a stupendously bad idea.)