Here are my thoughts going forward. We got screwed over by two main things: 1) Our isolationism and 2) our snubbing of our factions. Number two is probably the easiest to address, as we haven't outright ignored them. I think we can improve in this area by continuing to try and address as many factions where we can, but also by using the occasional point of culture to move our factions' desires closer together so it's easier to address them all. Number one is a bit harder. As long as the hunters (who want to kill the lowlanders) and the fishes (who want to ignore them) don't win out on the succession crisis, we'll probably have an easier time making diplomatic/trade relations with the lowlanders. I like the idea of offering our warriors as elite mercs we can hire out for a split of the loot while trading off silver or any other goods we want. All the while, we'll be waiting and watching for when the lowlanders inevitably hit the "bust" end of their boom/bust cycle and then we can take advantage of our ability to control far away settlements. I also agree with Walker of Chaos's assessment of the area south of our border; either us or Brushcrest are going to settle there soon, and we can't just force them out like last time without provoking a response from the coalition.
Here are my thoughts going forward. We got screwed over by two main things: 1) Our isolationism and 2) our snubbing of our factions. Number two is probably the easiest to address, as we haven't outright ignored them. I think we can improve in this area by continuing to try and address as many factions where we can, but also by using the occasional point of culture to move our factions' desires closer together so it's easier to address them all. Number one is a bit harder. As long as the hunters (who want to kill the lowlanders) and the fishes (who want to ignore them) don't win out on the succession crisis, we'll probably have an easier time making diplomatic/trade relations with the lowlanders. I like the idea of offering our warriors as elite mercs we can hire out for a split of the loot while trading off silver or any other goods we want. All the while, we'll be waiting and watching for when the lowlanders inevitably hit the "bust" end of their boom/bust cycle and then we can take advantage of our ability to control far away settlements. I also agree with Walker of Chaos's assessment of the area south of our border; either us or Brushcrest are going to settle there soon, and we can't just force them out like last time without provoking a response from the coalition.
For what it's worth the hunters no longer desire the destruction of Brushcrest based on the faction page.
Hunters
Description: Be it the Days of Blood, the Reign of Bear and Wolf or the many battles that followed these legendary times, they always revolve around the valiant warriors of the tribe. As the might and greatest food procurers of Greenvalley, the hunters are undeniable the most important and beloved group in the entire tribe.
Size: 1 (Tiny)
Influence: 3 (Low)
Mood: 3 (Unhappy)
Bottom line is that we're the only polity that can create a Stone Age empire, so we'll trade, get pottery, and only target those polities that don't spike infamy over 25. I at least refuse to let our dreams of Hegemony die here.
In short the mandate allows us to circumvent the normal issues preventing Stone Age polities from forging polities by allowing us to print our own legitimacy. To quote Azel
Ah yes, the magnificent white elephant in the room. As evident by the fact that it merges three ideals instead of two, it's the most advanced Identity you have available and has thus far reaching cultural consequences. But let's start with the mechanical analysis. The huge bonuses to morale, stability and the malus to weaker polities morale make you pretty damn strong both at home and in the field. Coupled with the Subjugation packages, this greatly incentivices conquest. Take note that I say conquest, not subjugation, because this Identity here actually enables you to take and hold other settlements. A while back, I told you that you wouldn't be able to do any real conquering in the Stone Age, since you lack the power projection capabilities to hold on territory without a constant occupation force that you wouldn't be able to supply. This here though can substitute soft power for hard power.
Culturally, this Identity represents a abominable merge between faith and politics. It is not a theocracy, since that implies a faith focused polity, but the Mandate entirely dissolves the distinction. The Council of Three is in charge of the polity because it was chosen to be by the ancestors. At the same time though, the council is the highest authority of the faith as the direct representative of the ancestors on earth. This concept means that the ruling body is effectively writing it's own legitimization and by spreading the faith, it also spreads its control by establishing itself as part of not a political, but a cosmic order of the world. You will still need to occupy a settlement for a few generations to have the new faith sink in properly, but when that's done, they will accept your rule without question as the natural order of the world. Likewise, any other polities dominated by your faith will consider you higher ranked then them, as you have the Mandate and they have not. This also neuters factions, as they too accept your rule by default.
(Higly recommend reading the entire thing as its a pretty thorough overview of the mandate)
EDIT This part is also pretty important
I can't really give play-style advice for this Identity, since it is a play-style in its own right. Diplomacy with peers becomes dicey and finicky by picking it, because you will have to run through some hoops to not trip over your own gloriousness when interacting with them, though lesser power will generally be easy allies and partners. Likewise, the stakes of faction politics rise quite a bit since many of the subtle and harmless methods stop working, making outright civil war a much more interesting prospect for any faction that wishes to change the status quo. You should also be careful with political reforms, because those have the risk of becoming precedents and part of the divine order, making it difficult and costly to change them later on. This is the Identity that will last millennia, so you should make every choice with that in mind.
In short the mandate allows us to circumvent the normal issues preventing Stone Age polities from forging polities by allowing us to print our own legitimacy. To quote Azel
(Higly recommend reading the entire thing as its a pretty thorough overview of the mandate)
EDIT This part is also pretty important
I am aware of our Mandate, I was asking what made us think nobody else was capable of a stone age empire. For all the trouble we've had with Brushcrest we know very little about them, and when Makar was still going strong they had something of a loose confederacy of multiple villages as far as we could tell.
Mind that the word "empire" means more then just a lot of territory.
What is growing in the lowlands is a confederation. Multiple independent polities who are aligned by diplomatic efforts, shared goals and cultural ties. It's a union of the willing.
What the Mandate enables is to march into a village, forcefully convert the people to your culture by a generous application of genocide and then ruling over the cowed survivors by divine right. It's the classical empire. The union established on the edge of a blade.
Mind that the word "empire" means more then just a lot of territory.
What is growing in the lowlands is a confederation. Multiple independent polities who are aligned by diplomatic efforts, shared goals and cultural ties. It's a union of the willing.
What the Mandate enables is to march into a village, forcefully convert the people to your culture by a generous application of genocide and then ruling over the cowed survivors by divine right. It's the classical empire. The union established on the edge of a blade.
Confederation? Are these like the Greek city states, but in the stone age? Are they city states or are they multi city polities in an alliance? If city states then yeah, we really should just wait until they fall apart over petty conflicts.
Basically, how decentralized are they, who calls the shots in the coalition, and why do these particular places call the shots
Confederation? Are these like the Greek city states, but in the stone age? Are they city states or are they multi city polities in an alliance? If city states then yeah, we really should just wait until they fall apart over petty conflicts.
Basically, how decentralized are they, who calls the shots in the coalition, and why do these particular places call the shots
Yea the Mandate lets us centralize power in a time where power centralization was difficult because the technology and cultural ideas were just not there.
[X] [Faction] Great Deer and the Hunters (focus moves away from Greenvalley)
Don't really want to go the theocracy route, and this might help us avoid Great Deer forming another polity or performing a hostile takeover that we're not controlling.
In these days, the White Halls were often seen as the one place of peace and unity in the valley. With Laketop the home of the Fishes and Greenvalley itself firmly under the control of the Artisans, all the other minor villages were left to either pick their sides or try their best to stay neutral. It was especially harsh for those who worked in the orchards, for while they mostly lived near Greenvalley, those from within the village saw them as members of the Fishes, while those outside felt they were under the Artisans sway, so they got shunned by the people of both factions equally. Worse yet though was the worry what would happen in the years to come. Some feared that the Fishes would stop sending food to Greenvalley to starve the Artisans into compliance, or that the Artisans would stop delivering tools and materials to those who didn't fall in line with them.
The one faction that nobody was overly worried about was, oddly enough, the remaining hunters. In the chaos that followed the coming of the lowlanders, those who were most inclined to stir trouble had either died in altercations or left the valley to look for their beloved Great Deer. Nobody stopped them, since the few troublemakers were largely considered no big loss. The remaining hunters then retreated with their families to Rivercrossing, south of the Gentle River, and tried their best to stay out of the conflict within the valley proper. Chastised by Bone Tenders preaching, their appetite for bloodshed among the Valley People was snuffed out. And besides. They were too few left to do anything on their own. Willow and the remaining hunters did not return that year and neither in those that followed, making many believe that he and his had died on the lowlanders spears or beneath the snow of the mountains.
Troubling as all this was though, no one dared to carry their conflicts and grudges to the White Halls. The talk of politics was strongly shunned on the grounds and the solstice festivals were one of the few occasions where the whole of the Valley People still got together in peace and unity. Thus the Bone Tenders preached to all equally, speaking of reconciliation and an end to the strife, and while it was hardly enough to mend the wounds of Willows actions and exile, it at least prevented things from worsening. Below the stones though, deep in the catacombs of the White Halls, there was strife even among the Bone Tenders. Many felt it was not their place to meddle with how the Valley People were ruled and benign as their actions were, they were meddling all the same. To them, it was paramount to do as little as possible, lest they too become embroiled in the conflict and thus loose their ability to foster peace.
To others, it felt as if that very goal was why they needed to take more decisive actions. What good, they argued, was their neutrality and good intentions, if they didn't act as others tore the Valley People apart? And it was not as if the Bone Tenders had not become embroiled in the valleys rule anyway. It was their members who served as messengers between the White Clans and the growing villages. It was them who told Fishes and Artisans what happened in the mountains, of the growing villages at Speakers Rest and near the dye mines, of the squabbles and ties of the clans, and how it all related to the Valley People. And likewise they knew quite well what the people of the valley were doing. The Fishes and the Artisans might not have been on speaking terms and actively tried to hide their actions from each other, but both had still Bone Tenders as their advisers and they talked about what they learned freely.
In the past years, the Artisans had focused their efforts to build a mine in the mountains to make Moonstone, haggling the price the Valley People paid for Azurite down to have the tools and people free to see it done. Word was that they were struggling to find workers for the mine though, as they held not much sway among the serfs that weren't already chopping lumber, hewing stone or otherwise making things for them. And then there was the food. Pulling people from the orchards to gather shiny stones while the larders were empty was bound to be unpopular. On the other side though, the Artisans had acted on their desires to grow ties with the lowlands fast. An envoy had been sent to Brushcrest, though what he was meant to negotiate, even the Bone Tenders didn't know.
Meanwhile the Fishes worked within the valley to spread their own influence, though swaying only few of the still unaligned serfs. For them, the most important things was to keep the people well fed. If they managed that, so their plan, they could make the people see that the Hunters and the Artisans were wrong to lust after Moonstone, lowlander dyes and all these other things. After all, a nicely painted house didn't stop your belly from growling. At the same time, they were sending envoys to the White Clans, talking with the chieftains of a few clans that had many hunters and who had no stake in the villages being build in the mountains. Most agreed that they were planning to settle Clansmen in the valley to replace the many hunters who Willow had led to their doom, but a few were worried that the Fishes were trying to gather loyal spears under themselves for other purposes.
As for the Bone Tenders? They had still no firm plan what to do about the divisions of the Valley People and worse yet, they had their own issue to deal with. After generations of preaching, the Faith of Bones was widespread among the clans, but that brought with it the issue of them wishing to train their own Bone Tenders. So far, all Bone Tenders had been trained in the White Halls and were nearly exclusively Valley People, which was one of the arguments some of the clans used to declare the Faith of Bones some foreign tyranny brought over their people. However, the same people would like claim the Bone Tenders were stealing children if they began to recruit from the clans and brought them all to the White Halls.
At the same time, many felt it a bad idea to have Bone Tenders trained away from the White Halls. They already had issues with a few of their number deviating from the rites as practiced in Greenvalley to incorporate old rites from the clans. Some even were accused of altering the tales of the ancestors to better suit them to whomever they were telling them to. No proof could be procured of such, but that a few argued that it might be a good idea to make the tales and their morals more accessible in such a fashion was worrisome. It was felt by many that the distance to the White Halls was breeding ambition among the Bone Tenders in the mountains and that they were no longer as beholden to the congregation at the White Halls as they should. If this was good or bad depended on whom you asked, but an agreement had to be found, lest the Bone Tenders too begin to quarrel among each other. It were thorny issues that the Bone Tenders would have loved to have the Council of Three resolve, but as it was, they had to make them on their own. For the good of the Valley People and the ancestors.
What did the Bone Tenders decide on the matter of training clansmen?
[] [Training] Begin recruiting orphans from among the clans and have them trained at Speakers Rest.
[] [Training] Begin recruiting orphans from among the clans and have them trained as the apprentices of other Bone Tenders.
[] [Training] Begin recruiting orphans from among the clans and have them brought to the White Halls for training.
[] [Training] Keep the system as it is and only recruit from orphans in the valley or those who are brought to the White Halls.
What did they decide on the matter of religious authority over the clans Bone Tenders?
[] [Authority] All Bone Tenders directly answer to the congregation at the White Halls. This is how it was and this is how it should be.
[] [Authority] The issue of distance needs to be resolved. Let the White Halls congregation name a representative who will hold sway over the Bone Tenders in the mountains.
[] [Authority] The argument that Clansmen are not Valley People holds merit. Let them form their own congregation that is equal to the White Halls.
[] [Authority] Every Bone Tender, no, every person can commune with the ancestors themselves to gain their wisdom. Thus every Bone Tender should preach this wisdom as he sees fit.
Make a turn plan for the coming turn:
[] [Turn Plan] Perform actions:
You have 3 Culture to spend this turn:
-[] Try to influence a faction.
--[] Write-In which faction.
--[] Write-In goal.
--[] Write-In how much Culture to spend.
-[] Try to sway Pops to join your faction.
--[] Write-In Targets
--[] Write-In how much Culture to spend. Note: In a Succession Crisis, the upkeep for Cultural Ideas is not spent automatically. Any leftover culture from all factions goes towards the upkeep cost. Thus you gain 3 culture for controlling the White Halls and can spend them freely instead of them being locked up for Idea maintenance.
Pick an action for the Bone Tenders:
-[] Gain +1 Culture to spend this turn.
-[] Send a diplomat to someone.
--[] Write-In target of the visit.
--[] Write-In goal of the visit.
Others:
-[] (Optional) Change the focus of the Pilgrim Village.
--[] Encourage own culture. (+1 Valley People Culture in Greenvalley)
--[] Encourage White Clans culture. (+1 White Clans Culture in Greenvalley)
--[] Bring Valley People Culture to the White Clans. (+1 Valley People Culture in the White Clans) - Current focus
AN: Take note that you can't spend the faction action to gain additional Production during this crisis. You will need to haggle with someone who has Production points to give you one if you want to build anything. Likewise, you are not directly in charge of any Pops right now, sou you will need to change that or use diplomacy on the other factions to get things done.
Note: In a Succession Crisis, the upkeep for Cultural Ideas is not spent automatically. Any leftover culture from all factions goes towards the upkeep cost. Thus you gain 3 culture for controlling the White Halls and can spend them freely instead of them being locked up for Idea maintenance
So, with the artisans trading with the lowlanders, it might be a good idea to use the pilgrim village to encourage our own culture in Greenvalley, until we reunite. A lowlander caused cultural rift between the the artisans and fishes is a big no-no for reunification, not to mention that it lowers the risk of river faith religious osmosis, even if the faith of bones is fairly resistant to outside influence, especially non-ancestor based worship.
As for the issues governing the faith of bones, this can sort of be seen as an early religious divide, Catholic one head of the church in Rome vs Byzantine head of the faith within a region vs autonomous preachers (which we really should not go for, as it does not mesh well with our political aims and usage of the bone tenders).
Edit- Side note, we're the ones with the big cultural production to use, the other factions have maybe one production each from trading, maybe more in the artisans, so focus the serf pops, then the fishes for our big population conversion.
I was thinking of something like this :
-[] Try to influence a faction.
--[] Fishes
--[] Establish a new council of three
--[] 1.
-[] Try to influence a faction.
--[] Artisans.
--[] Establish a new council of three
--[] 1
Reach out to everyone
[] Try to sway Pops to join your faction.
--[] Serfs in the orchards
--[] 2
Secure food
-[] Gain +1 Culture to spend this turn.
More culture = more actions
-[] (Optional) Change the focus of the Pilgrim Village.
--[] Encourage own culture. (+1 Valley People Culture in Greenvalley)
prevent idea decay
The Bone Tenders are supposed to be neutral. I fear that if we pick a side to support first, we will lose a lot of legitimacy and risk worsening the situation by flaring enimity. We should play the role of mediator, not the one of kingmaker.
@Azel How would swaying pops to join the Bone Tenders faction actually work? Like would they simply adopt the same priorities as the Bone Tenders and become some sort of zealots or what?
Really not sure which faction to pursue first. On one hand the Fishes control the food on the other the Artisans are currently making unsupervised diplo deals with Brushcrest and I don't want them doing something stupid like okaying Brushcrest resettling Lakeford.
@Azel How would swaying pops to join the Bone Tenders faction actually work? Like would they simply adopt the same priorities as the Bone Tenders and become some sort of zealots or what?
They would support the Bone Tenders politically and adopt the same priorities. It would be the end of Bone Tender neutrality and the first step towards theocratic influence on the government.
