It absolutely matters. Grom from "average" to "pretty good" is very different from going from "very good" to "I own this market now".
It could have been the heart of the Iron Road, as people are calling it. At the very, very least, the heart of the frontier. A stable, rich valley, whose influence only grows and grows as it develops evermore, because where there is peace and food, there will be more people, more business, more ventures- and more cultivator talents.
The economics, demographics and diplomatic situation all called for it.
Alas, people have forgone our massive stacking advantages, and underestimated the power of land >.>
Oh well, let's see if it pays off (I don't think it will). Maybe there is a spirit stone mine somewhere. Of course, that probably will go directly under CRX.
Sorry for the late reply, but do you really think that just because we picked the Valley, we'll suddenly take over a market that's been established for many years? IIRC, the Golden Fields used to be the breadbasket of the empire, then it went boom and the task fell onto the Emerald Seas, where other counts and viscounts have had years to grow in the market. Like, with Zhengui, we'll get there in maybe 1000 years or so with either site, but we still won't take over the market completely.
And I don't really think you can say it "could have been" when our fief has barely started out. We've not fully developed any of the sites we've found. Iirc, Veins of the Earth will help with agriculture when they're finally developed, and that might boost the Medium Agrig to High Agrig even before Zhengui.
And again, we're now starting out. We're planning how all of that will go. For demographics, well, I'll wait for the Meng geomancer first since that'll decide how we even structure homes and how many buildings we'll have and everything. As for the diplomatic situation, we're based close to the meeting place. We're near our allies in the Wang and Meng. It's pretty good imo.
And for the power of land...well, we have that. It's not Low Agrig, but Medium, with the possibility of going further with Zhengui and Veins of the Earth (if my memory serves me right). We'll always have enough to feed the people in our fief so that they won't starve like LQ did when she ran away, and for me, that's the most important thing. For trade, we have the Shining Air, we have possible animals to domesticate and breed. We have the dragon ponies. We have special beaver wood and potential star reagents. We have possible Abyssal stuff from Suyin, and we have lots of spirit courts to share and learn from. Like the Beavers! History and a new or forgotten formation style in one! And that's ignoring ALL the other stuff we're getting from our connections because really LAND isn't enough. You need CAPITAL and ENTREPRENEURSHIP too. I didn't mention LABOUR because no matter what our labour will be low because of our cirrent size and people having to settle in.
So really, I think Rivers and Caves are okay. We'll be able to work well with food and as soon as we develop some stuff we'll have a lot to trade. Even if that takes a while we're the frontier so we'll be the middle man for White Sky trade, and we have the landfall LQ made from the auction to first fund us, plus CRX too, so I don't really see the problem.
And this is just speculation on my part, but I think Rivers and Caves will work best with Liminal Carver with all the entrances and BOUNDARIES.
But meh. Ultimately I wasn't there for the vote and learned all of this retroactively, but I still think Rivers and Caves is the best! I mean it even has Mist for LQ's aesthetic.
PS: Does fully quoting a message and responding to each paragraph count as spaghetti posting?
