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To Establish Peace - A Romance of the Three Kingdoms Quest

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Ghostdevil said:
But isn't book Liu Bei actually a really messed up person? Like the complete opposite of his game portrayal?
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Historically, yes, he wasn't much different from the other Warlords of the Era.
However, this is a Romance of Three Kingdoms-Quest. In the Source-Material, he was as much of a virtuos Hero as in the DW-Games (and frankly, narratively, I prefer him as an idealistic foil to the pragmatic Cao Cao).
 
[X] "It is regrettable, but I am not willing to sacrifice our foundation and all we have worked so hard for, not for such a dangerous and likely fruitless endeavour. Chu Yan will come to regret what he has done, but it will not be this day. He will soon pay for his hubris, but for now, our duty is to Xinshen. We continue preparing as planned."

To be honest my decision here has more to do with moral considerations than pragmatism. In some sense Yang Dian and his soldiers knew there would be a risk fighting bandits, and are prepared to die to varying degrees. Xinshen city has normal citizens who are not at all ready to fight and defend themselves. If we go north and lose, then Xinshen city is at risk... If we go north and win, Xinshen city is still at risk while we are away.
 
[X] "We mobilise at once, the Azure Lances ride north immediately. We shall save Grand Administrator Yang Dian at all costs, and take the Heishan Bandits head on. Prefect Zhang Xiu and the others can handle the defences of Xinshen in our absence, as we cannot miss this opportunity. Gather your units, and prepare for a force march!"

We dont have to fight the bandits to death if we do this, hopefully we can ambush them at first for good engagement and go for their leadership or attack a weak part of the siege i imagine since they should be distracted with the grand adminstrator so our numbers should tell alot better than usual.

Our main goal is hopefully rescuing the grand adminstrator and then kill the bandit leader and the bandits after that. Altough i dont love how the option is spelled out i guess mainly about taking the bandits on head on part especially.
 
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Bobalo18 said:
[X] "It is regrettable, but I am not willing to sacrifice our foundation and all we have worked so hard for, not for such a dangerous and likely fruitless endeavour. Chu Yan will come to regret what he has done, but it will not be this day. He will soon pay for his hubris, but for now, our duty is to Xinshen. We continue preparing as planned."

To be honest my decision here has more to do with moral considerations than pragmatism. In some sense Yang Dian and his soldiers knew there would be a risk fighting bandits, and are prepared to die to varying degrees. Xinshen city has normal citizens who are not at all ready to fight and defend themselves. If we go north and lose, then Xinshen city is at risk... If we go north and win, Xinshen city is still at risk while we are away.
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Also a good Argument.
 
[X] "It is regrettable, but I am not willing to sacrifice our foundation and all we have worked so hard for, not for such a dangerous and likely fruitless endeavour. Chu Yan will come to regret what he has done, but it will not be this day. He will soon pay for his hubris, but for now, our duty is to Xinshen. We continue preparing as planned."
 
Disclaimer: I follow both Records and Romance (and my own interpretations) for this Quest. Personalities of historical personages will be a blend of both history and Romance, if possible. The Wuxia stuff and strength of more powerful officers obviously comes from the Romance side. Actual events (as in, those not influenced by butterflies) will probably almost exclusively be based on the Records - although I am tempted to toss something like Hulao in when we get there. I am a fickle asshole who doesn't lean too strong in either direction. I mainly go with what seems more fun to me :V
 
[X] "We mobilise at once, the Azure Lances ride north immediately. We shall save Grand Administrator Yang Dian at all costs, and take the Heishan Bandits head on. Prefect Zhang Xiu and the others can handle the defences of Xinshen in our absence, as we cannot miss this opportunity. Gather your units, and prepare for a force march!"

While risky i think that if we can gain a victory here, or even just save the Grand Administrator we will win a major morale boosting win (and possibly a drip of recruits and officers from his surviving forces) and inflict a wound onto the bandits. The bandits faith in their leader and frontfigure of the invasion, Chu Han, will be shaken as his total victory was snatched from him by a mere boy.
Still it's a hairline decision, staying will give us safety to further entrench and strengthen our forces. But in the end the possibility of saving the GA and possibly his forces will give us a mighty force and morale multiplier.
 
[X] "It is regrettable, but I am not willing to sacrifice our foundation and all we have worked so hard for, not for such a dangerous and likely fruitless endeavour. Chu Yan will come to regret what he has done, but it will not be this day. He will soon pay for his hubris, but for now, our duty is to Xinshen. We continue preparing as planned."

Going suond like a trap, and the enemy is smart.
 
Actually, people keep saying this is enemy territory that we would be traveling into. But it would not be somewhere we have to be blind in.

Recall that we have these guys:
Gaz said:
Shangdang Sharpshooters
Troop Count- 150
Training- Veterans
- Bows, Swords and Armour
Speciality -
Shangdang Local Knowledge - These hunters know Shangdang's geography extremely well, and grant bonus to any Scout attempts they make in the commandery.
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Their bonus applies to the entire commandery and means we can use unconventional paths to march through it and have a bonus to countering Chu Yan's own scouting efforts.

[X] "We mobilise at once, the Azure Lances ride north immediately. We shall save Grand Administrator Yang Dian at all costs, and take the Heishan Bandits head on. Prefect Zhang Xiu and the others can handle the defences of Xinshen in our absence, as we cannot miss this opportunity. Gather your units, and prepare for a force march!"

I say mobilize and see if we can manage to blacken Chu Yan's eye.
 
[X] "It is regrettable, but I am not willing to sacrifice our foundation and all we have worked so hard for, not for such a dangerous and likely fruitless endeavour. Chu Yan will come to regret what he has done, but it will not be this day. He will soon pay for his hubris, but for now, our duty is to Xinshen. We continue preparing as planned."
 
[X{ "It is regrettable, but I am not willing to sacrifice our foundation and all we have worked so hard for, not for such a dangerous and likely fruitless endeavour. Chu Yan will come to regret what he has done, but it will not be this day. He will soon pay for his hubris, but for now, our duty is to Xinshen. We continue preparing as planned."
Our enemy specializes if getting forces to leave their defenses and then killing them. It happened 2 times that we know of and this is just asking for the third time
 
Valerian said:
Their bonus applies to the entire commandery and means we can use unconventional paths to march through it and have a bonus to countering Chu Yan's own scouting efforts.
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That bonus, as it appears to be written, only appears to aid us in scouting rolls, so I'm not entirely sure we'll gain the benefit of it as we are force marching and mobilizing, where speed and haste are the priority over caution. So while our Sharpshooters may know Shangdang's terrains very well that doesn't automatically mean that we will gain knowledge of any hidden paths right now to ambush Chu Yan. Even when we had the Sharpshooters back in the day, they didn't automatically give us the hidden path we eventually discovered and used to beat the bandit threat further down south.

I acknowledge, that we likely will do our own forms of scouting as we move ahead, at least in terms of screening our forces so that they know what is ahead. What I am not so confident on is if this will apply as we likely will not the same amount of time or caution to do such intensive scouting as we are furiously advancing.

So unless @Gaz says otherwise, I am somewhat leery of trusting our position on that one bonus.
 
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Shangdang Local Knowledge specifically boosts Scout actions done on Turns. You will always be assumed to do some scouting with armies, it's just you're unlikely be able to do too much recon with the force march option.
 
[X] "It is regrettable, but I am not willing to sacrifice our foundation and all we have worked so hard for, not for such a dangerous and likely fruitless endeavour. Chu Yan will come to regret what he has done, but it will not be this day. He will soon pay for his hubris, but for now, our duty is to Xinshen. We continue preparing as planned."
 
[X] "It is regrettable, but I am not willing to sacrifice our foundation and all we have worked so hard for, not for such a dangerous and likely fruitless endeavour. Chu Yan will come to regret what he has done, but it will not be this day. He will soon pay for his hubris, but for now, our duty is to Xinshen. We continue preparing as planned."
 
Gaz said:
Clear-head and sober(ish) explanation for what my plan going forward is.

I do fully intend to see this bandit arc to it's conclusion, one way or another. Once a satisfying enough ending point has been reached. I will present a choice - timeskip, or not? For all I know, the bulk of people here would like to follow Liang Shu through the Yellow Turban Rebellion, Liang Rebellion and beyond, step by step, and I wouldn't want to disappoint people further. I'm sure others are chomping at the bit to get to the warlord era already after all this long build up. So, the choice will be whether or not to employ a time skip.

If we don't do a timeskip, expect the story to closely follow Liang Shu through the next few years, albeit likely at a faster pace* than the bandit arc.
*Pace story wise, not making anymore promises regarding writing pace.
If we skip ahead in time, we will go ahead to the year 189. This will be shortly before The Gentry Save Luoyang and will allow Liang Shu to jump in and get involved in all of that mess - or make preperations elsewhere, perhaps. As part of the time skip, we will have several updates in a more "narrative" format, with lots of broad choices that will allow you to shape Liang Shu's path over the course of five years. This will decide his position and situation in 189. Will he be a local Administrator or Prefect, on the cusp of being his own warlord? A loyal officer of Ding Yuan? Veteran warrior of the Liang wars? Close confidant of the gentry in the capital? A land lord who had spent years living in peace after quelling the bandits, building up his clan? Who knows!

Anywho, that's the (tentative?) plan. After this arc, I'll leave it up to you guys how the story moves forward. As I said, I'm sure some of you were looking forward to crushing rebels in the name of the Han, whilst I'm sure some of you are eager to move ahead to the warlord phase.

Disclaimer - If Liang Shu dies during the bandit arc, which is always possible, then all of the above will be directed to a different character or another member of his family, instead
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Hmmm...quick question Gaz, would both options, timeskip and no-timeskip, still allow us to satisfactorily deal with the debt we owe to Big Papa Dong for getting rid of Leng Jun for us? (By satisfactorily deal with, I mean that we complete sufficient work so that Dong Zhuo isn't able to hang his favor for us/blackmail over our heads for the Leng Jun assassination)

And also, would we be getting married/arranging marriages during this timespan as well?
 
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Japanime said:
Hmmm...quick question Gaz, would both options, timeskip and no-timeskip, still allow us to satisfactorily deal with the debt we owe to Big Papa Dong for getting rid of Leng Jun for us? (By satisfactorily deal with, I mean that we complete sufficient work so that Dong Zhuo isn't able to hang his favor for us/blackmail over our heads for the Leng Jun assassination)

And also, would we be getting married/arranging marriages during this timespan as well?
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Yeah, the option to repay Dong's debt will come up in both cases. One easy way to potentially mitigate some of the debt would be accepting offers to join his command against the Yellow Turbans or Liang Rebels. Of course, the option to blow him off and ignore the debt will also be valid.

And yes, options for marriage will become available, including matchmaking your sisters and cousins.
 
Gaz said:
Yeah, the option to repay Dong's debt will come up in both cases. One easy way to potentially mitigate some of the debt would be accepting offers to join his command against the Yellow Turbans or Liang Rebels. Of course, the option to blow him off and ignore the debt will also be valid.

And yes, options for marriage will become available, including matchmaking your sisters and cousins.
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That's good to know for both cases, as at the very least if the timeskip option is chosen, it won't mean that we will be hamstrung too much in our choices.

In terms of our future options though, is it still the case where we are stuck in a binary position regarding our service to Ding Yuan versus servicing our debt to Dong Zhuo in fighting the Yellow Turbans/Liang Rebels, in that we can only do one or the other, or can we fight the Yellow Turbans/Liang Rebels for a little bit, and then return to do our dutiful service with Ding Yuan?
 
Japanime said:
That's good to know for both cases, as at the very least if the timeskip option is chosen, it won't mean that we will be hamstrung too much in our choices.

In terms of our future options though, is it still the case where we are stuck in a binary position regarding our service to Ding Yuan versus servicing our debt to Dong Zhuo in fighting the Yellow Turbans/Liang Rebels, in that we can only do one or the other, or can we fight the Yellow Turbans/Liang Rebels for a little bit, and then return to do our dutiful service with Ding Yuan?
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There's no binary option, you can do both. You can even do it in the other order - you can serve under Ding Yuan for a while, then offer to fight the Yellow Turbans or other rebels. Ding Yuan is unlikely to expect you to stick around forever, but you certainly can anchor yourself to him if you want. There's also the very likely possibility that the Han court might summon you for an appointment elsewhere once your fame grows and your peers and elders start recommending you.
 
I mean, our sisters and us are already taken. Mi is in the motions with whats his face right?
Zhen with Zhang and us with best girl.
 
[X] "It is regrettable, but I am not willing to sacrifice our foundation and all we have worked so hard for, not for such a dangerous and likely fruitless endeavour. Chu Yan will come to regret what he has done, but it will not be this day. He will soon pay for his hubris, but for now, our duty is to Xinshen. We continue preparing as planned."
 
[X] "It is regrettable, but I am not willing to sacrifice our foundation and all we have worked so hard for, not for such a dangerous and likely fruitless endeavour. Chu Yan will come to regret what he has done, but it will not be this day. He will soon pay for his hubris, but for now, our duty is to Xinshen. We continue preparing as planned.

Jumping on this bandwagon. Seems too much of a lose-lose situation rushing out to Chu Yan for the multitude of reasons already given.

P.s. So glad we back on this.
 
[x] "It is regrettable, but I am not willing to sacrifice our foundation and all we have worked so hard for, not for such a dangerous and likely fruitless endeavour. Chu Yan will come to regret what he has done, but it will not be this day. He will soon pay for his hubris, but for now, our duty is to Xinshen. We continue preparing as planned."
 
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