Eh. The Jamestown colony backers were dumb enough to think they could land at a random spot on the Chesapeake Bay and find gold and silver. No matter what we do to talk up the value of our trade goods, the odds are that European merchants will simply dismiss it as puffery or hope that we can find better sources, and come back anyway.
Or luxury goods that can't be made/grown at home. Like the three kings of cash crops, sugar, tobacco and cotton.
ACK! Done! How could I forget?
You are not wrong.
Fabric is very useful. Steel is still rather useful, especially if it's already in the form of tools and won't require active crafting to reshape. Just because we don't need it this second doesn't mean we won't need it ever. Our supplies of steel and tools are going to wear down over time, and we'll need all we can get in the long run.
Worst case, we have the power to tell the trader to fuck off, but a lot of the stress here is self-inflicted. We're taking on responsibilities and borrowing trouble for things that are unlikely to be a major issue for the foreseeable future, to some extent. Things that an actual community of 1600-era European peasants, North American tribesmen, and African maroons wouldn't worry about nearly so much because survival is foremost on their minds.
European merchants aren't morons. Once the Jamestown settlers proved that said hopes were false, British colonization in North America came to a halt. It wasn't until tobacco farming proved profitable that other colonies popped up, and even then they were motivated more by religion than profit.
Winter isn't seeking to wipe us out, despite appearances to the contrary. That wound end the fun too soon. Meanwhile, if we give the wrong impression to certain European powers, then we almost certainly will be wiped out. So yeah, being stressed is completely natural.
Well, fair. Though I'm at least tempted to see if Hunter would be willing to expend a question on how much we can squeeze him for via strongarming and what consequences that would have back in Europe.
I think a more profitable route is just growing tobacco and trading that for stuff. That's how the OTL colonies paid for stuff.
we could also just say hostile tribes like the tribuate takers and as you said yourself
and whatever it is all it sends to the king that the new world is a dangoures enough place that it filled with that can kill huntsmen it not profitbale or worth spending much more attention on cause every huntsmen he sends to the new world on a expensive ship is one less one he can use to keep a hold on the decaying new world monchary. Also old shadows said the rolls were quite bad for us in the first place meaning the huntsmen was unlikely in the first place
nah old shadows was very clear we need to hide all our supernatural stuff and we need to dress up the settelment for it and if we try to hide stuff he probably gonna notice pretty easily since he adept at this and automiattcly assume we are hiding something we are which does not have to be supernatural his mind would jump to treason and if he does notice ahhh we are devil worshipers or something. also just gonna requote my old post
I don't think this should be our top priority. Among other things, the lethality of the Atlantic seaboard kind of does the job for us. Beaver pelts alone aren't going to motivate people to keep trying after the next colony dies screaming, which it probably will. We barely made it and we had a lot of luck plus a large starting population that really helped us out.
Again, I'm not a fan of questions that basically boil down to "do our homework for us and come up with an optimal strategy."
The obvious answer is that he'll be talking about us as a bunch of pirates, which in truth we kind of would be. Enemies of any other white man to sail along this coast, which is absolutely the precedent we'd be establishing.
I get it, but we've got the Tribute Takers as our punching bag there, and the mist people probably worshipping Cthulhu are another likely target.
Eh. Tobacco may be more profitable than furs, but the point is, it's likely to be one or the other.
I think it's worth noting that we can get a constant stream of 1 Mediocre Steel/turn for the cost of 2 Craft AP and a 75 point project, with the quality of said steel improving if we get that 50 point Charcoal Burner project done as well.
I can say with a great deal of confidence that the answer to that question is in all likelihood "not much". It sounds like he's in more dire straits than Union is, and as such probably won't give up what remaining property he has without a fight. I'm fine with raiding, but let's save it for the Tribute Takers and New Spanish. 😁
Good point, what about "What should we avoid doing with regards to those returning to Europe so as to minimize negative repercussions for Union now and in the future"? That way we know what the landmines are but aren't asking for the QM to do our job for us.
So the Tribute Takers/monsters just happened to attack the one day the settlement was visited by Huntsmen? Like you said, the Huntsmen are professionals at finding traitors, and this is not the most subtle of treasons. When I was making that suggestion, I assumed a much larger window of opportunity than 24 hours, 48 tops. If the Huntsmen were staying a season or more, preferably including a Winter, I think we could manage something, but alas.
I think you're catastrophizing, something I know I've been guilty of all too often in the past. You're looking at all the (many) unknowns, and your brain is automatically jumping to the worst case scenario. I don't remember OldShadow mentioning anything about having to dress up the settlement or the like, just that we shouldn't have any religious ceremonies while the visitors are here.
Hmm, would probably work. And I suppose by the nature of the question it would warn us about whether or not the outcomes for things like the Huntsmen not returning would result in catastrophe.
sure we said the wild is a super dangoures place we said it nearly destroyed our entire settlement and we told them we are in active conflict with another natieve try. Also old shaodws has sugggeted multipe times we can just kill them he wouldn't sugggest if it not a viable option, there only three them they are entirely depdent on us to guide them through the supernatural wood send some trees and silent blade with skimrisher hitting them from the trees they fucking toast they ain't super human
this is early 1600s cenruty europe poltical and relgious treason is bassicly one in the same and before you say the franglis are already dealing with a ton of relious problems exactly the king and the huntsmen would not react at all well to another even more radical diversion from the dual country relgious( the kind def holds one sect above and all) and the only settelment they have in the new world
Not just military but penal as well. Speaking of which, I have an idea about how we might be able to cool his ardor for using Union as a penal colony. Perhaps we should let slip how a Tribute Taker infiltrated Union and almost managed to cause quite a bit of trouble. An outside force willing and able to stir up trouble covertly could make sending traitors here less attractive.
To be fair I don't think the Huntsmen not returning would be catastrophic, just extremely problematic. We're distant from the Dual Monarchies, and there's plenty of internal unrest back home. The most likely outcome imo is that we get sent a governor who we have to subvert or work around. That's bad, especially since we're more likely than not to get someone with more patriotism than sense given the undesirable nature of the posting. Then, if said governor has the poor taste to die within a year or two of arriving, then we'd be in much more serious trouble.
Thing is that the Huntsmen's interest in the Wilds is pretty negligible, so any attack would have to occur while under our protection. Worse, such would be blindingly obvious to anyone who knew him. Being unable to protect a VIP for a measly day like that sends two possible messages, neither of which are good. One, we're traitors, in which case see my above reply. Two, we're incompetent, in which case our warnings about unprofitability and danger have to be taken with a whole lot of salt.
We have zero evidence that these guys care anything about religion. Trying to enforce religious conformity like otl Britain and France would be asking for civil war. Don't get me wrong, he'd definitely object if he saw us performing a seance, but I doubt Bladworth would notice if we added a few extra saints to the rotation, nor would he care if he did.
