The Wild Edge (Fantasy Border Outpost)

[X][Contact] Nicolas
-[X] About a possible partneship, if he can help you with initial funding and perhaps staffing you could construct a drydocks and port facility in the middle of nowhere, wich should help his logistical problems.

[X][Stance] Concentrated, fewer stronger patrols, raiding more prevalent, moderate casualties.

[X]Plan Fortication.
-[X][Construction] Reinforce the newest section of wall (2 actions, minus 1 if taken after or with the moat project)
-[X][Construction] A clay lined moat around the base with sections for bathing and swimming could add to the defensibility of the base while also improving morale. There's very little cost involved, but it will be an enormous amount of labor. (4 actions for defense bonus, gets morale bonus at 2 actions.)
-[X][Personal] Investigate what's happened with your siblings.
-[X][Personal] Design and produce a network of wardstones to harden the earth within your base to prevent cave ins or breakthroughs. (100 Denier, eliminates tunnel issue within base.)
-[X][Nerissa] Buy her some books? 25 Denier
--[X] Ask her for a steady supply of the fruits, aparently their effect is very diferent outside the overgrowth adn your father found a use for then, also you would like to make some experiments of your own on then.
-[X][Hunters 2] Scout to reduce chance of enemies slipping by.
-[X][Hunters 1] Explore the forest, collect flora and fauna samples. Attempt to map out the notable locations.
-[X][Footmen] Patrol, reduce chance of enemies slipping by.
--[X]Olivia helps
-[X][Levy] Guard
--[X] The base and sawmill
-[X][Captain] Command troops, raising morale and effectiveness

As the name implies the plan focuses on reiforcing that wall right now since the orcs are looking at our base and we are realy low on money.
Personal actions are used so as to look for more oportunitis and making construction more concistent.
Finaly we ask for the fruits since agains we realy need the money and we probably could also use then and the damaged hunters are sent looking for more stuff we could use, everything else goes as per standart.
 
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I'm glad this worked out. Should give us more Gold and help with the incoming Orc Attack.

You don't get as much work done as you normally do without her handling the household chores and pulling you out of bed.
Maybe we should make a magical Alarm Clock?

Nerissa is rather understanding about your worries over Olivia, so doesn't bother you too much about not seeing her much lately. She's managed to get fairly good at reading on her own now. It's a little surprising given her professed interest in the world beyond the forest that she's taken to heavily reading a book on animal husbandry, but you suppose you're the one that partly raised her interest in it, and she might be trying to do a grown up dryad thing.
This is great. So beside the making new Plants thing, she could even help us with taming Animals, Eventually.
I'm curious if we could make a Enchantment that allows someone to see through the Eyes of someone else.
Nerissa then could use that and Animals to see Places outside of the Overgrowth.

Now rabbits are running about the camp.
It's going to be interesting to see how fast they lose Magic and if Food from inside the Overgrowth is enough to let them keep some Magic.
Could also influence if they are useful for Enchanting.

Leo reports that the orcs have increased their forces with another infantry unit, and have thoroughly hammered your forces this season. Rather than moving to bypass they've focused on diminishing your troops to make their future efforts easier.
So we need to change how we patrol. Maybe do what we vote for now and later try something more?
We could try to raid them back or maybe make a second Outpost along the Border of the Overgrowth and have some Cavalry patrol it?
Then they would have to get past Footmen inside the Forest and Cavalry outside of it. Should give us at least one more Dice to stop them.

The wildlife doesn't make things any easier for either side, with many predators drawn by the scent of blood, undiscouraged by the sounds of battle.
Maybe we could have our Scouts use this against the Orcs? Use Blood or something enchanted to attract Animals and then draw them to the Orcs.

As his student you were aware that he'd actually enchanted the outer wall with some sort of light fear effect to make it imposing. Anyone scared off by it had no business talking to him he'd say. Mind you the 'privacy' wall was also enchanted enough to stand up to light siege engine fire, and anyone trying to climb it would probably die.
We should look into Stuff like this. The Fear Effect could help us keep Animals away from our Workers and the Enchantments on the Walls could help against the Orcs.
Maybe make Wardstones and then a huge Wall we can enchant while Leo and the Soldiers do other Stuff? It would need to be big enough that we don't have to extend it but after it was build we only would need our Actions to enchant it.

The entire grounds are covered in a sort of funneling ward scheme that sucks magic into the house.
Maybe we could use something like this to draw Magic from the Overgrowth into our Camp? Could be a Way around the Problems with enchanting inside the Forest. But...
The amount of resources invested in it though practically made you clench your purse strings.
It sounds expensive. Maybe after we get the Harbor going?

You activate the illusion, and Olivia covers her face as it starts with her bare body.
Hmm, how good is that Illusion? If we could make Enchantments that make realistic Illusion we could use them to hide Stuff. Nothing interactive, just something that records it's Surroundings and then projects them later. Could be used to hide Traps by recording the Place befor they are set and then covering them with the Illusion.

Everything is fitting together as if it was by some master design." Olivia flinched at the descriptions.
Could be the Overgrowth, could be that Dragons were Shapeshifter and that prevents Problems, could be that Olivia has some Dragon Ancestors.
Could be the Thing that takes all our good Rolls.:V

Well at least there was some good coming of that. Though it implied that the magic had a will, or at the very least a natural directive, which had all sorts of new issues associated with it.
Nerissa could calm the Magic so we have something to start if we want to learn how to talk with the Magic.

"Even I can't pick out and reverse existing effects," he admits, stressing the even, "but I've sealed off further damage to her mind with this collar.
Well, thats good.

Though I'm a bit sad that will likely prevent her ever gaining the iconic firebreath. She was quite insistent though.
Maybe we can enchant a Helmet to do that? If her Body wants to do it then the "Blueprints" for the Effect have to be in there somewhere.

Well it's likely that the weight changing effect is due to sporadic bits of dragons' inherent flight magic.
We could do hilarious Things if we can copy that Effect.

Her reproductive system is split part way between a human's and a dragon's, and so neither is functional, that's heading towards dragon though.
One Reason to research Shapeshifting.

The scales absorb a small amount of any incoming magic, and use that for a sort of natural strengthening enchant, most of which drains away over time, but it will gradually build up a bit.
That Enchantment would be useful for Armor. Just enchant it and it grows tougher over Time.

Word around the capital is that Tedora's saber rattling is because Nicola searched a ship he should not have and pissed off the wrong person.
Maybe we should write Nicola and make that Harbor so he has some Place to relax?

Now to Vote
[X] Nevill

@Nevill what's your Opinion/Plans on the Harbor, building a Wall that we don't need to extend and can enchant and maybe a second Outpost with Cavalry?
 

Okay before this goes to much further I have to say @Nevill your plan is unafordable and is going to ruin us long term.

First giving Nerissa 100 extra gold every season is a waste, she has demonstrated a willingness to grow things constantly just for the regular teachings and books before and our finances are strained enought alredy.

Second Skimishers cost 300 each and have 100 upkeep we can barely afford one and that is likely to ruin us already.

Look my plan is pretty simple, we don't spend much this turn and that will give us enought money to build a port and drydock, wich will fix our economy to the point were can get units whitout ruining ourselves and perhaps even buying suplies in advance for the discount. If we buy scouts right now and trow extra money at Nerissa for no reason it will at least a year before we can recover and that is if we are optimistc and nothing ese goes wrong.
 
@Nevill what's your Opinion/Plans on the Harbor, building a Wall that we don't need to extend and can enchant and maybe a second Outpost with Cavalry?
I want the Harbor, but right now we have a gaping hole in our defences that we need to patch. Next turn, perhaps.
A Wall we don't need to extend? Could you elaborate?
Second outpost with cavalry? What would it be for? We are sent to guard a border with a forest. Cavalry is useless in a forest, and could only be used as a response to the raids on the villages... which means we already failed at our job.
Or maybe I am misunderstanding your proposal?

Second Skimishers cost 300 each and have 100 upkeep we can barely afford one and that is likely to ruin us already.
My bad, I referred to the first post for the recruitment options instead of the character sheet. That has since been fixed. It now reads:
-[ ] Replace losses, 90 denier
-[ ] Skirmishers (300 Denier)
If you believe that your reasoning still applies after the fix, I'll be happy to discuss our options.

I am fairly adamant about hiring a military unit, and in fact of the opinion that this should have been done last turn. Our ability to stop the raids - which is our primary job, - has been severely compromised for the last few turns. In fact, we've been so inefficient at deterring them that the orcs have started hunting us down personally, inflicting heavy casualties and forcing us to reduce the number of patrols even further in favor of bigger groups.

This can not continue.

I would be appreciative if the words like 'ruin' weren't thrown around when it comes to a single military unit. No doubt you can do the numbers and provide a comparison of what happens should we hire one, as opposed to continuing doing what we've been doing for two years and what has stopped working half a year ago.

As for Nerissa... while I think that 100 Denier is a bit more generous than I would have liked myself, the 50-50 split of profits would be fair for something that requires her to do all the work. I know that she probably might be convinced to do it for free, but I am not sure it would be best for long-term relationship when she realises we are making money off of her without giving much in return. I'll probably succumb to the greed and reduce her allowance to 50 Denier if pressed on this issue... but I am too curious about what she would possibly spend money on to discard it entirely.

I am planning to start on the Harbor next turn. I am doing the moat mostly for morale... and because I am trying to save money.
 
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As for Nerissa... while I think that 100 Denier is a bit more generous than I would have liked myself, the 50-50 split of profits would be fair for something that requires her to do all the work. I know that she probably might be convinced to do it for free, but I am not sure it would be best for long-term relationship when she realises we are making money off of her without giving much in return. I'll probably succumb to the greed and reduce her allowance to 50 Denier if pressed on this issue... but I am too curious about what she would possibly spend money on to discard it entirely.

You seen to not have paid much attention to Nerissa because all that is already solved long ago, she helps us and we give her teaching and books, she is a tree so she would only use money for even more books, and we haven been making money of her since we started growing herbs and she didn't care.
Youre looking to solve problems that don't exist and find answers we already know in enchange for hurting us long term, from the beggning our relationship was about her helping us in anyway she coud in encharnge for the stuff she wanted, all you woud be doing is overcomplicating things.

I am planning to start on the Harbor next turn. I am doing the moat mostly for morale... and because I am trying to save money.
Then you better not give Nerisa a single extra coin, the ony way we going to have the money nest turn to build the Harbor with the extra upkeep from your military recruitment is if we give her anything more, we are cutting way to close as it is and we can't realy count on our Hunters before the fact since low rolls means we don't get the money and we roll low often.
 
she is a tree so she would only use money for even more books
Is that so? Have you asked her, or did you decide that for her?
She is a literate tree-girl who can only learn about the world beyond the forest by reading books and hearing stories... it doesn't mean she doesn't want to experience those things for herself.
The idea of making her a gift of some kind was floating around for a couple of turns already.

the ony way we going to have the money nest turn to build the Harbor with the extra upkeep from your military recruitment
Projected Income next turn: 600 base stipend + 400 Sawmill profit +200 Wood Workshop +200 charcoal +400 herb sales = 1800
Projected Upkeep next turn: (1290-100 forge)+15%: (100 you +100 leo +200 sawmills + 200 construction crews +100 hunters + 50 levies +100 footmen +100 skirmishers +50 herbalist +100 woodworkers+50 harvesters+100 charcoal burner +40 forge) = 1368
Difference: 432.

Pretty sure between the hunters and guarding the merchants we can break even even with paying off Nerissa.
I'll reduce the sum to 50 Denier. That is insignificant enough in comparison to our other expenditures that I don't think it'll matter much.
If the Duke keeps the stipend next turn, we are looking at 97 (out current funds) +43 (net profit from my plan) +150 (stipend minus Nerissa's cut) = 290 Denier in our coffers with a profit of 432 Denier, which should be enough to afford a Harbor.
 
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I am planning to start on the Harbor next turn. I am doing the moat mostly for morale... and because I am trying to save money.
I'm kind of unsure about my Vote right now. If we get attacked by Orcs during the next Turn and the Raiding gets worse then we could need the Harbor just to stay alive.
If both Plans want that next Turn...

A Wall we don't need to extend? Could you elaborate?
What I mean is that we had to extend the Wall around our Outpost several Times. I don't think we could enchant it with Stuff like Tristans Teacher has and keep those Enchantments while we keep expanding the Wall.
The Idea was to plan a Wall that's big enough that we don't have to expand it and use several Turns of Action to enchant it.
We know there are Fear Effects and other Stuff that could kill Attackers if they try to climb the Wall and it would be something Tristan could do without needing Hunters or other Units.

Second outpost with cavalry? What would it be for? We are sent to guard a border with a forest. Cavalry is useless in a forest, and could only be used as a response to the raids on the villages... which means we already failed at our job.
That was meant as a second Outpost outside of the Forest. We could have the Cavalry patrol the Borders of the Forest, so that Raiders would have to get past the Hunters/Scouts(First Dice), Footmen(second Dice) and then the Cavalry patroling the Border of the Forest and the Land outside of the Overgrowth(third Dice).
The Outpost would be at the Halfway Point between our Camp and the Mountains so that the Cavalry could patrol the Border of the Overgrowth.
It would be expensive but it would give us a extra Dice to stop Raids.

And after the Arguments above, and the Thought that keeping Nicolas away from anything related to the South could help prevent a War, I'm switching my Vote.
[][Contact] Nicolas
-[] About a possible partneship, if he can help you with initial funding and perhaps staffing you could construct a drydocks and port facility in the middle of nowhere, wich should help his logistical problems.


[][Stance] Concentrated, fewer stronger patrols, raiding more prevalent, moderate casualties.

[]Plan Fortication.

Aaand I keep flip flopping.
I feel like I'm turning into a Fish.
 
Well... yeah, but that was guaranteed by the word of QM, so being the thankless whiner that I am, I am lamenting that we didn't get more out of it. :p
The mental effect was a nice catch, though.
Well I had plotted results as basically brackets for 1, 2-25, 26-50, 51-75, 76-99, 100. Though admittedly I didn't plan out what all the brackets would do. 2-50 for instance didn't plan in advance. 1 and 100 had ideas for. 76-99 would have let you choose some of the results, which seems to be what you wanted.

As a bodyguard, I would imagine. Like, no one would probably bat an eyelid if we were to drag a trained bear around for protection, but it would raise quite a few eyebrows if we started making out with it. :V

Then again, there is no precedent for this, so maybe it is less of an issue than I think. Besides, all mages are supposed to be a bit kooky, and all Duke's children are a bit screwy, so that might even be expected of Tristan.
:lol Okay that's a fair and amusing analogy.

Also, were the prices for our units changed? I could swear Hunters were 150 Denier per unit, and Skirmishers were 300 Denier when I started reading, but that may be me remembering things wrong.
Those are in fact the current prices. You might have looked at the prices in the opening post by mistake, which were discounted.

You expect another price bump after this season.

@inverted_helix what happened to the upgrade option for the rabbit pens or do we need to do something else to unlock that?
Mostly forgot. Will add.

I'm curious if we could make a Enchantment that allows someone to see through the Eyes of someone else.
Nerissa then could use that and Animals to see Places outside of the Overgrowth.
Considering the various bits he knows, something along these lines would be right on the edge of what he's capable of. Likely with a fair bit of failures involved.

We could try to raid them back or maybe make a second Outpost along the Border of the Overgrowth and have some Cavalry patrol it?
Then they would have to get past Footmen inside the Forest and Cavalry outside of it. Should give us at least one more Dice to stop them.
I don't really see you being able to afford a second outpost right now. Though I suppose I might stat up cavalry if you want to patrol the outer edge, but even on horseback it's quite a long distance to patrol. I don't think you could keep the manpower density to avoid excessive casualties given the cost of horses.

You could try to raid them back. I've said before you can write that in, but I suppose I should add it as a default option.

Maybe we could have our Scouts use this against the Orcs? Use Blood or something enchanted to attract Animals and then draw them to the Orcs.
You could try.

We should look into Stuff like this. The Fear Effect could help us keep Animals away from our Workers and the Enchantments on the Walls could help against the Orcs.
Maybe make Wardstones and then a huge Wall we can enchant while Leo and the Soldiers do other Stuff? It would need to be big enough that we don't have to extend it but after it was build we only would need our Actions to enchant it.
This effect is relatively weak, particularly stretched over a whole wall like this. He uses it to discourage people, not send them fleeing in terror. While animals would probably be deterred by it, you don't have that much problem with them attacking your walls as it is. It might make the orcs perceive your walls as more daunting than they actually are, but they could still decide to assault them if they have enough forces.

Maybe we could use something like this to draw Magic from the Overgrowth into our Camp? Could be a Way around the Problems with enchanting inside the Forest. But...
It sounds expensive. Maybe after we get the Harbor going?
This is basically a second layer upgrade from the magic containment chamber that was mentioned by Tristan as an option for benefiting from the Overgrowth for enchanting earlier in the quest. This sort of thing would be on the order of thousands of denier.

Hmm, how good is that Illusion? If we could make Enchantments that make realistic Illusion we could use them to hide Stuff. Nothing interactive, just something that records it's Surroundings and then projects them later. Could be used to hide Traps by recording the Place befor they are set and then covering them with the Illusion.
It's photorealistic, but it's non-interactive and disrupted by objects passing through it. So a person can recognize an illusion if they're alert by things like leaves being blown through it or (lack of) reaction to the wind. Still there are many possible uses.

Could be the Thing that takes all our good Rolls.:V
:lol

Maybe we can enchant a Helmet to do that? If her Body wants to do it then the "Blueprints" for the Effect have to be in there somewhere.
Reverse engineering her blueprints is rather beyond you. Though you could probably make something that launched fireballs (though with some fairly harsh limits).
 
Considering the various bits he knows, something along these lines would be right on the edge of what he's capable of. Likely with a fair bit of failures involved.
Hm, Nerissa would like it and it could help our Scouts. Could even get us some Info on the Orc controlled Lands beyond the Overgrowth.
If we can train some Birds.

I don't really see you being able to afford a second outpost right now. Though I suppose I might stat up cavalry if you want to patrol the outer edge, but even on horseback it's quite a long distance to patrol. I don't think you could keep the manpower density to avoid excessive casualties given the cost of horses.
Something for Later. Maybe if we can tame some Wolfs and use them instead of Horses? Maybe after we have a City and with two or more Outposts?
I just thought a extra Dice could help us with keeping the Orcs out.

This effect is relatively weak, particularly stretched over a whole wall like this.
Maybe put the Enchantment on Scarecrows? I thought of it as something to keep our Workers save and the Wolfs away. A Bonus for the Lumberjacks.
Maybe if we dress the Scarecrows up as Maids? The Wolfs are scared of Olivia.

This is basically a second layer upgrade from the magic containment chamber that was mentioned by Tristan as an option for benefiting from the Overgrowth for enchanting earlier in the quest. This sort of thing would be on the order of thousands of denier.
So something very expensive and more for big Rituals and legendary Enchantments. But perfect if we want to turn into a Dragon.

Reverse engineering her blueprints is rather beyond you. Though you could probably make something that launched fireballs (though with some fairly harsh limits).
But the Things we could do with those Blueprints...
Well It's a Action sink, maybe after we have a City and gave Olivia enchanted Gear that let's her breath Fire.
 
Is that so? Have you asked her, or did you decide that for her?
She is a literate tree-girl who can only learn about the world beyond the forest by reading books and hearing stories... it doesn't mean she doesn't want to experience those things for herself.
The idea of making her a gift of some kind was floating around for a couple of turns already.

On don't start with that done with me, that is siple the logical conclusion, we interact with her a lot so if she wanted something besides books at this point it would be noted, also as much as she may want to experience things be herself she is a tree in the middle of nowhere and this is a mostly medieval society, there is realy not all that many options for experiencing the outside on budget for her.

Finaly if you want to make her a gift be all means go ahead, but don't just giver a bag of money every season and tell her to buy something nice to make yourself fell better for not being abe to thing of something, that is a shit gift and the oposite of good parenting.
Personaly I think a magical music box would be a nice gift.

Pretty sure between the hunters and guarding the merchants we can break even even with paying off Nerissa.
So I have to ask, you are planing on guading the mechants with wich units exactly ? Because everyone is kind of occupied in critical functions right now.
 
@inverted_helix , your latest upkeep projection doesn't include the 50 denier reduction from the rabbit pen we filled this turn as far as I can tell.
@Nevill , given the extra money in the budget from the above, could I convince you to run the brickmaking action this turn? IIRC there was something last winter about needing some more brick for fireplaces, and winter is the turn after next. That way we could do moat/brick this turn, moat/harbor next, and fireplace/rabbit during winter to get double the morale bonuses and additional upkeep reduction.

[X] Nevill
 
So I have to ask, you are planing on guading the mechants with wich units exactly ? Because everyone is kind of occupied in critical functions right now.
Well, my preferred choice of action would be the following deployment next turn:

Hunters - scout for orcs with Olivial
Skirishers and footmen - hunt down whatever the hunters scouted out under Leo's command
Hunters and levi - guard base (melee + ranged, compensate for Leo's absense)


...because I do not believe we are in too dire a state yet, financially. But it could easily be:

Hunters - scout
Skirmishers and levi - patrol together, under Leo's commant. Levi is to absorb casualties instead of a more valuable unit.
Footmen - protect the merchants, they should manage easily
Hunters and Olivia - guard base (melee + ranged, compensate for Leo's absense)


@Nevill , given the extra money in the budget from the above, could I convince you to run the brickmaking action this turn?
You could, but... is there a difference between doing moat x2 + harbor/brick, and moat/brick + moat/harbor? Moat is an action that is best done in pairs, since singular actions do not appear to have any effect.

I suppose starting with the bricks would mean we could hire advisors earlier (next time we go to the city), and thus start production faster?

If anyone else weighs in on this, I can easily adjust the plan, since currently I do not see much in terms of benefits or drawbacks.

Same with Nerissa, by the way. Does anyone else besides me and Zaratustra have an opinion what would be best here?
 
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As for Nerissa... while I think that 100 Denier is a bit more generous than I would have liked myself, the 50-50 split of profits would be fair for something that requires her to do all the work. I know that she probably might be convinced to do it for free, but I am not sure it would be best for long-term relationship when she realises we are making money off of her without giving much in return. I'll probably succumb to the greed and reduce her allowance to 50 Denier if pressed on this issue... but I am too curious about what she would possibly spend money on to discard it entirely.
You seen to not have paid much attention to Nerissa because all that is already solved long ago, she helps us and we give her teaching and books, she is a tree so she would only use money for even more books, and we haven been making money of her since we started growing herbs and she didn't care.
Youre looking to solve problems that don't exist and find answers we already know in enchange for hurting us long term, from the beggning our relationship was about her helping us in anyway she coud in encharnge for the stuff she wanted, all you woud be doing is overcomplicating things.
Is that so? Have you asked her, or did you decide that for her?
She is a literate tree-girl who can only learn about the world beyond the forest by reading books and hearing stories... it doesn't mean she doesn't want to experience those things for herself.
The idea of making her a gift of some kind was floating around for a couple of turns already.
Well analyzing her deal pragmatically from an adult human perspective she's drastically underpaid for the amount of extra output she's providing you. However she's not an adult human. She made a deal with very little idea of the value of various services she could provide to a human. Though in fairness you also have something of a cornered market, who else could she go to for trade? That being said, she's still getting what she wanted out of the deal, so the values being uneven from your perspective isn't that much of a problem. Differences in utility of the same goods/services between individuals is one of the fundamental economic drivers of trade. She'd rather spend more time with you than get more money anyway since she's grown rather attached, but I'm basically setting that you see her on a fairly regular basis regardless of action spent, the action spent just represents spending hours each day rather than a short visit.

In terms of what she'd buy with more money, it's hard for you to guess. Extra books is obvious, you're only getting a couple each time you spend on that. She might come up with something else though. You'd guess something similar, probably illusion crystals of various places (sort of like 3d postcard images, not full size reproductions clearly), which would be able to soak this level of money, especially if they were shipped from far away places. They'd mostly be from far away, because Revaria enchanters would be a bit looked down on for wasting time on that sort of thing. (OOC: I do have a few ideas on things she'd be interested in, this is what Tristan speculates. She's not got a lot of wants though, trees are pretty self sufficient.)

In case you're curious what she's doing for you at this point.
1. Protecting a flank of your base, offering +20 to your defense rolls.
2. Growing 2 units of lumber so your lumberjacks don't have to risk the forest.
3. Growing 1 unit of medicinal herbs.

I've got her penciled in as being able to grow 4 units of various things for you at a time with her current level of capability. (Which can rise, both over time from her growing up, though that probably won't add much more than 1 unit in reasonable timescale, or from less natural boosts.)

Personaly I think a magical music box would be a nice gift.
This is a fairly nice idea as well.

What I mean is that we had to extend the Wall around our Outpost several Times. I don't think we could enchant it with Stuff like Tristans Teacher has and keep those Enchantments while we keep expanding the Wall.
The Idea was to plan a Wall that's big enough that we don't have to expand it and use several Turns of Action to enchant it.
We know there are Fear Effects and other Stuff that could kill Attackers if they try to climb the Wall and it would be something Tristan could do without needing Hunters or other Units.
I'm a little unsure of how big you intend it to be that you won't have to expand it again. You're currently at 11/12 on internal spaces for reference. I've been modeling each additional 1x1 block adding 3 units of internal space. You're now at a 2x2 block made up of 2 1x1 squares and a 2x1 rectangle. Every 4 wall units of palisade takes 50 denier and 1 action, and reinforcing takes 1 action per units but no materials. If you want me to do the math for you just tell me how many internal spaces for construction you want available in the final product and I'll calculate it.

You're probably going to want to expand again soon though simply because of housing space being overcapacity again and dragging on morale meaning the last open slot is basically already needed.

If you want to do a huge wall expansion though I'd advise doing it before the moat building. While I won't charge you much extra for building a new wall around the moat, it will seriously diminish its utility.

Something for Later. Maybe if we can tame some Wolfs and use them instead of Horses? Maybe after we have a City and with two or more Outposts?
I just thought a extra Dice could help us with keeping the Orcs out.
That seems likely to be considerably more difficult. Extra dice could be generated simply by buying more normal units to put on the same patrol routes.
Maybe put the Enchantment on Scarecrows? I thought of it as something to keep our Workers save and the Wolfs away. A Bonus for the Lumberjacks.
Maybe if we dress the Scarecrows up as Maids? The Wolfs are scared of Olivia.
At present your lumberjacks are harvesting from the area Nerissa protects, so don't have any significant danger. (They're no longer rolling each turn.) Though of course if that changes then the scarecrow idea might be useful.

@inverted_helix , your latest upkeep projection doesn't include the 50 denier reduction from the rabbit pen we filled this turn as far as I can tell.
Added.
 
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Every 4 wall units of palisade takes 50 denier and 1 action
What is a wall unit?

Is this our outpost?
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How many wall units do we have that are built already? 20, by the looks of it?

How many wall units would it take to expand it to, say 24 spaces?
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9 wall units? How many actions is that? Two actions only grant us 8 units, so 3? But it's a waste to build only 1 unit with an entire action...
 
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Or maybe this one?
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How many wall units do we have that are built already?

How many wall units would it take to expand it to 18 spaces? 21? 24?
This second one is closer to your current outpost.

Keeping in mind the internal 3 units of walls you have 11. Basically I'm drawing a grid pattern. You have a 2x2 square base, which gives a perimeter of 8, then a line down the center for 2, and a line dividing one side from there for 1 unit.

Expanding to 18 spaces would involve making a 3x2 base, which would add 4 units of new perimeter.
xxy
xxy

21 would be an awkward size since you'd have to do something like:
xxyy
xxy
To reach 21, and that would take 6 new units of wall.

24 would be:
xxyy
xxyy
Which would take only 6 units of wall as well. 21 wouldn't realistically be offered as a result.

6/4 = 1.5 round to 2, with some allowance for rolls.

If this isn't clear you don't really have to pay attention and can just ask me to math out whatever size you like. Or I could go use some sort of image program to draw pictures. I generally don't want to make this aspect too complicated to players because it probably won't come up all that much. Which is why I offered default wall expansions with no explanation on how cost was computed in the past.
 
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Where were the housing slots detailed?

How do we count housing space?
Admittedly it's me showing more of the backend gradually. Perhaps I shouldn't. I added it so you'd have some idea of the crowding of your housing.

Any standard military unit or labor force takes a housing slot. The barracks you have at present provide 10 housing slots. You're at 12. Units that only consist of 1-3 people just aren't counted towards housing space (herbalist, blacksmith, Leo).

If you'd prefer I could just remove all these details and just go back to telling you when you've run out of space in your wall or need new housing? There's some value to that simplicity. I was considering this in the back the whole time, just not showing it. I was torn on whether to show it or not. But when people talk about mass expansions I thought it worthwhile to understand the cost mechanics. I now think that was a mistake.

Though I suppose I could do something like just give you some big projects to build a wall big enough you won't need to expand it for ages. Maybe something like 4x4, which would cost 3 actions, 150 denier, and give 36 new building slots and be unlikely to fill up any time soon.

Barracks are rather too expensive to build up enough to not need to worry about in that way. Building 2 more would cost 400 denier for instance, which is more significant than the 2 actions I think.

Adjusted construction options:

[][Construction] Build a much larger wall encompassing quadruple the area so you won't need to expand for a long time. 3 actions, 150 denier, increases space by 36
[][Construction] Your housing is overcrowded with your current population and so you'll need to build some more housing. 200 Denier
[][Construction] Build a much larger amount of housing so that you won't run out for a while. Doubles housing capacity. Costs 2 actions, 400 denier, 2 spaces
 
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But when people talk about mass expansions I thought it worthwhile to understand the cost mechanics. I now think that was a mistake.
I don't.

I mean, I'd never consider expanding the housing without understanding how bad the situation is, first. Going slightly over maximum capacity, and having to pack twenty people in a place only fit for ten are different situations.

In that case "+6 housing slots" without displaying how many we have overall and how much it would cost to expand (so that we don't know if 6 slots is a lot) is probably the worse option, and full transparency is a better one. Or you could hide it entirely, but then you'd have to either reflect it in the updates somehow, or substitute numbers for opaque descriptors ('slightly overcrowded', 'like fish in a barrel').

Frankly, I didn't even know the problem existed, and it's not like soldiers come to us with their troubles often.

1/5 share sounds about fair?
Its not like the fruits even have a buyer without our networking.
40 then? I suppose it could be done, and the difference with the current fee (50) is miniscule.

We are kinda already giving her 25 Denier in books, and now that she has money, we can probably stop (since she can buy them herself if she wanted to). So basically we aren't paying her all that much, compared to how things already are.
 
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Well analyzing her deal pragmatically from an adult human perspective she's drastically underpaid for the amount of extra output she's providing you. However she's not an adult human. She made a deal with very little idea of the value of various services she could provide to a human. Though in fairness you also have something of a cornered market, who else could she go to for trade? That being said, she's still getting what she wanted out of the deal, so the values being uneven from your perspective isn't that much of a problem. Differences in utility of the same goods/services between individuals is one of the fundamental economic drivers of trade. She'd rather spend more time with you than get more money anyway since she's grown rather attached, but I'm basically setting that you see her on a fairly regular basis regardless of action spent, the action spent just represents spending hours each day rather than a short visit.

In terms of what she'd buy with more money, it's hard for you to guess. Extra books is obvious, you're only getting a couple each time you spend on that. She might come up with something else though. You'd guess something similar, probably illusion crystals of various places (sort of like 3d postcard images, not full size reproductions clearly), which would be able to soak this level of money, especially if they were shipped from far away places. They'd mostly be from far away, because Revaria enchanters would be a bit looked down on for wasting time on that sort of thing. (OOC: I do have a few ideas on things she'd be interested in, this is what Tristan speculates. She's not got a lot of wants though, trees are pretty self sufficient.)

In case you're curious what she's doing for you at this point.
1. Protecting a flank of your base, offering +20 to your defense rolls.
2. Growing 2 units of lumber so your lumberjacks don't have to risk the forest.
3. Growing 1 unit of medicinal herbs.

I've got her penciled in as being able to grow 4 units of various things for you at a time with her current level of capability. (Which can rise, both over time from her growing up, though that probably won't add much more than 1 unit in reasonable timescale, or from less natural boosts.)
Eyeballing things we probably want a 10% to 20% share for her then. Most of her payout is in intangibles, giving a large amount is not important to her, its basically giving her pocket money...which she can only spend through us anyway. So pretty much just a means for her to show what she wants.
 
We are kinda already giving her 25 Denier in books, and now that she has money, we can probably stop (since she can buy them herself if she wanted to). So basically we aren't paying her all that much, compared to how things already are.

You may want to reword your vote because the way it is we can't stop with the books, we already had a deal and now you are trowing extra money on top of that whitout need, so the end result is going to be the 25 plus 40, wich is more than we pay our levies, so I would recomend reducing the amount to 15 so at the end she has 40 worth of stuff every season.
 
Would that be good enough?
[ ] Offer her a stipend of 40 Denier which she can spend on books or whatever she likes for as long as the offer stands

Basically, before we gave her 25 Denier worth in books when we didn't have time to spend with her. Now it's 40 Denier regardless of what we do.

(I still think 50 would be more fair... and easier to keep track of, since it's a good round number. What are we even going to buy with 10 Denier per turn?)
 
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