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Could you edit the previous post to indicate this by putting an X in the [] for that choice and spoilering the options not taken?
likewise for the following post after it.
Uniting All Under Heaven (Kingdom AU CK2 Quest)
- Thread starter Japanime
- Start date
likewise for the following post after it.
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- USA
You're pretty much right on the money when it comes to how the rulers feel about the philosophies of Taoism and Confucianism. The main problem I am having with both of the philosophies is that the philosophies as we know of them today are not the same as they were during the Warring States period, which is why I am having a hard time assigning different mechanical benefits to Taoism and Confucianism.
Since you seem to be rather more well-informed about both of these religions than I am, I would be open to suggestions on how to mechanically differentiate them because all I seemed to get from both of these religions is that both were popular with the peasantry during this time, with varying support from the ruling class.
For the most part the piety choices you make, such as what philosophies you learn about and/or choose to follow will only affect your interactions with other people to a certain extent, such as potential options during a dialogue. Such options would not necessarily be the right or wrong options, just one that would be correct from the point of view of the philosophy indicated, it will be up to you determine whether or not that option is appropriate. But other than that, piety doesn't play a huge role for unless you want it to, such as if you continue down the piety option chain and become a disciple of one of the philosophies indicated, at which point it will be a part of your character and affect the choices you make from then on. But that is as far as I have thought up for what to do with piety, seeing as this quest will focus more on your military endeavors than your philosophical ones.
Metalworking would definitely help you when it comes to designing new arms and armor, since you would pretty much be learning the trade of a blacksmith. As for more advanced designs such as rockets and stirrups, I will tell you that rocketry, and gunpowder in general, will be something that will be very hard for you to develop. For you to discover gunpowder you will probably need to have both very high learning, and research the right tech paths to discover the right combination of chemicals to make it. You will need very good knowledge of medicine and metalworking to discover it. As for the stirrup, I can say that you can probably invent or discover it in this quest, but you will need a good eureka moment in order to fully unlock it for use. Getting to know one of the steppe tribes will probably be useful in that regard, and by get to know it can be either friendly or unfriendly in how you get to know them.
But in general if you want to borrow tech from other cultures around the world, then it would probably be best for you to get to know some very well-traveled merchants. You can of course use your own OOC knowledge to attempt to create new weapons and armor but it will be harder to do so without a lot of trial and error, while having a merchant friend who has traveled through the ancient silk road would help you lower the difficulty for you through buying objects from abroad or telling you stories about foreign lands.
As for the expense and scarcity of metalworking as a skill, I can tell you that your funds due to being a noble will cover it. As for how long it will take to develop metalworking as a skill, that all depends on you. If you continue to choose it as a skill you could become an adept at it by the time you are 16 or so, while if you toggle it on or off with another hobby it will take a while longer. It also depends on the quality of your rolls, with higher rolls increasing your proficiency. At adept proficiency, you will be able to make normal quality arms and armor found in China already, and can experiment with making new or OOC arms and armor, but achieving master proficiency will help in lowering the difficulty when it comes to doing tasks like that. So no it won't take ages for you to develop metalworking to a good level, but you probably won't develop mastery in it until you are around 30, give or take good and bad rolls.
As you all mentioned earlier, engineering would definitely help you invent bigger and more complex things than weapons or armor and is not entirely dependent on learning metalworking to function. You can simply have a craftsmen make the materials for you if you don't have the skills in metalworking to do so. Obviously engineering would also help you in the task of siege-craft and building things like siege towers, battering rams, and ballistas. So it does have a military application in that regard. It also has civil benefits as well such as helping you in designing canals and roads.
As for architecture, I will say that architecture will definitely help you when it comes to building fortifications and normal buildings. It is probably something you will want to pick up if you ever want to make an earthen fort in the field. But, you could also use it to build normal civil buildings as well in your own territory as well, with the obvious prestige bonuses that come with designing and building aesthetically pleasing buildings.
All of the hobbies have their benefits.
Will do.
Well, they're not strictly distinct for one but I'll give it a shot.
Confucianism places a great deal of values on personal relationships, of family(including the ever popular in fiction sworn brotherhood), liege and society. The appropriate education for a 5 year old kid on this is basically inculcating a certain basic faith in humanity and your responsibilities to each other, how everyone is connected and how if we'd all follow these rules of respect and obligations, everything would be better.
So at it's most basic, having an easier time forming and maintaining relationships with your family, liege and subordinates, all the way up and down the tree....but it's also fundamentally clannish in nature, because you always prioritize your core links first, and not all of them are going to play by the rules.
Mechanically then, it's probably the Diplomacy heavy philosophy, of forming bonds and sticking to them, even if your obligations are to a monster or lunatic, they're yours. It makes you trustworthy, but predictable, however, if someone screws with anyone you have obligations to, you're supposed to stick with your kin, even if your kin was the one who did wrong. Classically, the Sworn Brothers archetype belongs here.
Taoism meanwhile is a bit closer to to logic. It also states that all things are connected, but focuses a lot more into numerical and philosophical bonds than emotional ones. It emphasizes study and awareness. Of paying attention to details big and small. It delves into a lot of esoterica if you really go deep into the philosophy(not a lot of worship going on at this stage), as already mentioned, Chinese gunpowder, and the like were the byproduct of Taoist research, though not the goal(achieving immortality through gunpowder is perhaps, not very well advised).
It also puts a lot of emphasis upon self awareness, self control and understanding, while there's also a certain element of swordplay I'm not sure what it's doing in there(swords are ritual implements for modern Taoism, but I'm unaware of how it evolved). Not so much the denial of desires as the Buddhist philosophy recommends, but controlled fulfillment.
Mechanically, it'd be the Learning heavy branch. Study of seasonal patterns, geography, and architecture I expect would be the focus of a noble going into this study(and they would probably not let an important kid near the alchemical furnaces, which, aside from being very hot, works with sulfur, nitrates and mercury, and thus can explode), followed by the arts of meditation and paying attention. This is the Zhuge Liang super strategist archetype, as exemplified by "how the fuck did he know a mist would rise there?"
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- Location
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So do you think giving Taoism mechanical benefits to research rolls, rather than bonus to rolls with peasants, would work better then?
Right now I am just trying to find a way to give you mechanical reasons to choose one of these philosophies for study. I can see how Confucianism would be appealing to both the peasants and nobility from your explanation, while I can also see how Taoism seems to be focused heavily on learning, similar to how Mohism seemed to be focused on logic.
So if I'm allowed to interpret those two religions into CK2-mechanics as told by veekie;
I wouldn't be surprised if Confucianism gave noticeable diplomatic bonuses between vassals/regents of Confucian make, but mechanically is very 'upkeep-heavy' in the way that it is quite possible for you to be drawn into a conflict/course of action you would prefer not to take because one of your Confucian friends just imploded diplomatically and you are required to be on their side on the matter. Saying no = heavy diplomatic malus with all Confucian characters for a long time, hit on piety and prestige.
While Taoism seems to be a branch which give a bunch of passive supports on tech and stat-increases similar to how one of the indian religions (it was either hinduism or buddhism which often has events that give you more stats/allow you to slowly eliminate bad traits, I think it was Buddhism) via self-improvement and studying - more of the latter than the former.
So here I am throwing things at a wall:
Confucianism is a great pick for keeping a realm of Confucian vassals happy and might allow more actions focused on interacting with friendly characters, but a bad apple of a 'friend' will cause complications.
- Diplomatic bonus with regent/vassals/friends if also Confucian.
- Unique piety-actions focused on friendships, oaths and alliances based on such oaths.
- More likely to have allies follow through with their promises if they are also confucian. Will be required to more strictly follow alliances if Confucian. The enemies of your friends are automatically your enemies, off-battlefield as well as on it.
- Maximum malus if proven a kinslayer or an oathbreaker.
On the other hand: Taoism is good for the Science/learning-game start which bridges into a stronger middle-late game because of stat-improving and new inventions.
Especially if the taoist scholars at some point crack gunpowder (not sure how the timeline actually goes, but the GM is of course allowed to change things on when/if gunpowder appears to the scene) by mere accident in-game, allowing whoever first catches the use of this new invention to have a notable military advantage at short-medium term before the invention spreads across the Warring States.
However, with no additional diplomatic support taoist are less likely to have great networks of friends to rely upon.
- Stat-gains on learning also increase piety because of the focus of Learning-based things on taoist philosophies.
- Taoists have actions focused on improvement, allowing them in some cases use piety-actions to affect learning-actions in some positive way.
- Taoists are able to use actions to slowly lower the effects of bad traits, but unlike buddhism can't completely eliminate them. So some taoist who is a hedonist can use piety- actions to diminish the negative effects of hedonism for the future, but can't use a piety-action to get rid off hedonism entirely.
-Taoism doesn't give a large opinion-boosts between other taoists like Confucianism would.
- Might give a small diplo-malus with Confucian characters.
- (maybe possibly) taoist characters more likely to be among the first characters to receive gunpowder-units.
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- Location
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That seems to generally be more or less correct with my understanding of things, though mechanically I am probably going to differentiate Mohism from Taoism in that Taoism can get benefits to research learning actions, while Mohists get beneftis to tasks involving mathematics or engineering. As for Confucianism I will keep the broad mechanical benefits of it giving you bonuses when dealing with peasants, while I take the specifics you mentioned under consideration, though they do appear to good mechanical choices. All of what you listed specifically though would only apply if you are an actual disciple of said philosophy, which comes with all of the motivations behind each. So if you choose to become a Taoist, good luck convincing your liege to go to war or if you become a Great General as part of the Six Great Generals System, you won't likely be prosecuting many wars of aggressive expansionism.
As for gunpowder, it supposedly was created in the 9th century, so we are more than a millenium removed from its creation. So while a Taoist scholar invented gunpowder originally, I won't make it a requirement that you have to be Taoist to do so. You only need to have a high enough learning, and research far enough into metallurgy, alchemy, and medicine in order to discover it. But be careful of doing so because once you discover it, it won't be long until others do as well.
Well that's a shame.
Really, if only there was a heretical taoist-branch which was less passive on the war-front. Might have been an interesting game trying to go for that
- Location
- USA
Well that's a shame.
Really, if only there was a heretical taoist-branch which was less passive on the war-front. Might have been an interesting game trying to go for that
Well, I did say that if you had a high enough piety score, IE understanding of philosophy, that you would be able to found your own philosophy. Whether it be a mix-mash of the other philosophies or completely original is up to you.
Right now I am still trying to think of what to do about legalism. All I have got so far, aside from the benefit of getting bonuses to rolls dealing with the bureaucracy, is that Legalism would help you deal with laws in general. For the specifics, Legalism would help you advance further in the Qin government due to how ingrained Legalism is to the Qins system, while Legalism would also give you bonuses when dealing with the administration of your own lands, as well as logistics when it came to your military unit. Legalism would also help you when working the system, IE you would be lawyer-esque in a sense, and that it would also benefit you when it came to enforcing order within your military unit. For example a commander who is a follower of legalism is more likely to have his unit not commit atrocities after the capture of a city, and would be better able to deal with those who commit those atrocities outside of your unit. So unlike Shin who essentially had to use force to get his way and prevent the usual rapes and killings that accompanied the sack of a city, if you had a reputation for being a legalist you could prevent such occurrences through your reputation and arguments alone.
If anyone else has any thoughts on this, I would be willing to listen. The ancient Chinese philosophies were very complex, which is why I am open to your interpretation of how they should be handled mechanically when it comes to specifics.
What is the magic number when this becomes possible? 20, 25, 30?
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30 is piety score you will probably need. You will need to be renowned enough as philosopher so that your teachings will have the credibility to back it up, as well as to gain disciples of your own. The score of 30 piety is what you want if you plan to start your own philosophy or reform one of the others.
On a rough scale of things the stats mean: 1-10 is below average, 10-15 is average, 15-19 is above average, 20-25 is great, 26-30 is exceptional, while 30+ is for figures who are masterful at this specific stat or skill.
- Location
- Germany
That means we are unlikely to come even close to it as we don´t/won´t focus on it. The dad of the mc has a martial stat of 29 and it is his main stat as an example for this. I hope that all the crits we get will be ether martial or learning. As these are the ones that would allow us to do the most unique things.
- Location
- USA
To be fair, your father is rather young at age 30. Plus he didn't get some of the traits associated with an actual front line veteran since he started relatively late in his career as a soldier. He will probably break 30 eventually after he either gets a mastery for his glaive skill or gets the veteran trait for having been in enough battles or spent long enough as a soldier.
So you could eventually get 30 in piety, but it will obviously take awhile.
- Location
- Germany
... maybe i wasn´t clear with what i meant.
Yes our father will break the 30 in martial and maybe he is able to get a second one that high and if he is lucky even a third.
We won´t focus on piety as the other stats are more important (piety is the least important skill for me).
Here we come to the mc we have our martial as our main stat like dad with learning as our second stat if i see it right at the moment. Piety is for us very much a dump stat at least at this moment, so for us breaking the 30 there (with i would very much like more on anyother stat) would need us to crit there more than a few times. With leads to us be unlikely to getting the 30 to make changes.
You are making a claim without facts. You have no proof that the votes in the future won't support heavy piety-growth, you are simply stating that as a 100% fact.
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- USA
No, I understood that. Martial is very much the stat to focus on in this quest. However one of the reasons I picked Riboku as a character was because of how multi-talented he was. You do not simply become the Prime Minister of Zhao by military prowess alone.
So while piety may not be as relevant as martial, learning, or diplomacy in the early parts of the quest, who is to say that as you age you won't gain enough wisdom or knowledge for it to become relevant in the future. Keep in mind that if the timeline stays consistent, you will be an important figure in the period of Ei Sei during his unification efforts. Someone with the influence of say Shouheikun and Rishi if you play your cards right. Who is to say that when the Qin Dynasty is founded the philosophy of it will stay the same historically, assuming you guys don't commit a coup or anything. Just wanted to put things into perspective, because while unifying China is an important goal, some of you may want to consider if that is the end all and be all of your pursuits, or if you have goals for the Dynasty after the unification...assuming you don't die of course.
- Location
- Pallet town, Kanto
Hell we could get a student or be a teacher to someone like shin.
That sounds broadly correct. Legalism emphasizes enforcement and adherence to laws, as well as a priority on doing the laws correctly. Broadly speaking then, it'd be the Stewardship(bureaucracy) specialty philosophy, though given it's idealism regarding the laws, there'd be some resistance to revoking old ones.
A lot more potent than it sounds, since China is fuckhuge and hard to administrate, so having an agile bureaucracy is really minor in comparison to having one that's well constructed and stable.
Sounds about right. The Taoist scholars/priests got there first because they were the only philosophy that aggressively mandated research and experimentation as part of their beliefs. And the original purpose was ingestion.
Though funny enough, while gunpowder led to a profusion of flame weapons and explosives, good metal was hard to get, and so cannon was rare and guns nonexistent. It's less of a superweapon than you'd think, more of a situational shock weapon when you don't have a perfect setup to blow up a wall with a large charge.
Also very true. Theres a whole profusion of philosophies that never got anywhere because their proponents crossed the wrong dude.
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Considering how broad legalism is as a philospophy, I'll count that as a victory in my book for my interpretation of it.
Legalism was one of the main reasons Qin ended up unifying all of China, by being able to use their efficient bureaucracy in order to leverage the manpower and resources necessary to conquer the other states...though having good Generals helped as well.
To be fair, gunpowder was used differently by the Chinese than it was the Europeans due to the different styles of warfare they had. China has a good supply of metal, and since metal poor Japan could craft European guns and musket, I don't doubt that China can't. But gunpowder seems like it will be a long ways off if it ever gets discovered by you guys, so you will plenty of opportunities to figure out the early uses of it.
All of this discussion though is making me consider my idea for a follow-up quest which would be a Warhammer Cathay Quest.
Well, considering the potential Riboku has, you might want to think of any potential philosophical ideas or reforms because you could end up starting your own eventually.
Sort of. China had more metal in general than Japan, but that was still far less than Europe, and Japanese guns were ultimately imported from Europe. The issue mostly being that experimenting requires stuff to be reasonably affordable after all, the ability to manufacture them doesn't give you the ability to research them economically.
On the other hand you could do a lot with gunpowder, pebbles, and just paper
- Location
- USA
True enough, I doubt you would get to cannons and arquebuses quickly after discovering gunpowder anyway. There are plenty of other things you could invent that would be easier.
I'l ******* fund it!
- Location
- USA
Maybe after I finish this quest. I don't like starting things and not finishing them. Suffice to say some of the concepts from this could be applied to the Cathay Quest.
The basic premise of which is that you as the player are a prominent commander who has just proven themselves after the Great War Against Chaos. Now the returned Dragon Emperor is tasking you with assembling an army so that you can escort a caravan to the Old World in order to deliver an item of significance to The Empire. Basically, a journey to the West but in Warhammer style.
I hope it won't end when/if we manage to reach our destination.
So... Endtimes Done Right, or just a regular great war against Chaos?