Voting is open
2) In a system where every disadvantage looks like some kinda disaster or another, Disunited Currency seems like it'll merely be a lingering pain in the ass instead of a looming calamity. I find myself gravitating towards builds with this.

Eh, Poptart has a trend (or so I've heard) of balancing things out so that creation choices that seem to be less severe than the CP they give have far-reaching consequences commensurate to their CP. For any build that wants a thriving economy, Disunited Currency is a no-go.
 
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-Gore
I know you think I'm crazy, that this is only going to end with me dying. But I can't forget what they've done. If I'm going to die, it'll be from trying to make a difference…

Did you know I was there when they sacked UVM? I saw my friends, people I'd worked with, professors and faculty I'd known for years, shot dead. I saw them burn the libraries, the museum… we had two reliefs that had been taken from the palace of Ashurbanipal. They survived a journey of thousands of miles and 2500 years, and I saw them smashed to pieces by bastards that didn't even know what they were.

It's not any better these days, you can't deny that. We work all day growing food that goes off east, get paid pennies for it, and we can't even relax. They banned alcohol a decade ago, weed's been gone since they took over, there's not a single ski mountain left that's open to locals without charging as much as we make a year.

I know they took your brother last year, don't try to deny it. What even was it? "Un-patriotic activities"? "Caught planning sedition against the majority rule"? Did they figure out he was an Athiest? Their turning the place I grew up in and loved into a hell-hole, and I'm done letting them.

Look, I know what you think, but this isn't a suicide mission. Vermont's got even less people now than we did before everything went crazy, and we weren't exactly packed back then… there's a lot of space out there where they don't know where to look. I've got plans on how to use that.

Back before the old US got independence from the British, the Green Mountain Boys were born. They were formed to fight New York, but their best work ended up being against the Crown. Well, this time we know exactly who our enemy is. The Green Mountain Boys are coming back, and we're not going away until Victoria is history.
-Letter found by Victorian secret police, believed to be written by "Ethan Allen", mysterious leader of rebel group the Green Mountain Boys.




AN: Wanted to write something representing my neck of the woods. When even was Vermont taken? The time-line goes straight from "Annexes New Hampshire" to "Annexes Northern New York", and we fought a war to not be in either of those states.

This is why I voted for Resistance back on the first vote.
 
@PoptartProdigy
[]Plan: All the economy
Old World Equipment
Old World Soldiers
Professionals Study Logistics
Victorian Attention
[]Brown Water Navy(2CP)
[]Disastrous Start(1CP)
[]The greatest Sin(3CP)
[]Independent Merchants(-2CP)
[]Rail Companies(-2CP)
[]Vaccines(-3CP)
[]Efficient Bureaucracy(-3CP)
[]Population boom(2CP)
[]Disunited Currency(3CP)
[]Import/Export(1CP)
[]Libraries(-2CP)

I'm throwing my plan into the mix, its basicly every single economic advantage we can get at the cost of a few issues. The thing however is, is that we have efficient bureaucracy enabling us to simply expand it to replicate established, while having the toolbox ready to deal with all the downsides over time.
 
@PoptartProdigy

[] Plan Stable Trade 2.0
-[] Brown Water Navy (-2)
-[] Good Security (-1)
-[] Independent Merchants (-2)
-[] Widespread Vaccinations (-3)
-[] Libraries (-2)

-[] Population Boom (2)
-[] Disastrous Start (1)
-[] Fringe Elements (3)


Anything that has Navy and Vaccines with minimal Econ. disadvantages has my vote though.
 
-Gore
I know you think I'm crazy, that this is only going to end with me dying. But I can't forget what they've done. If I'm going to die, it'll be from trying to make a difference…

Did you know I was there when they sacked UVM? I saw my friends, people I'd worked with, professors and faculty I'd known for years, shot dead. I saw them burn the libraries, the museum… we had two reliefs that had been taken from the palace of Ashurbanipal. They survived a journey of thousands of miles and 2500 years, and I saw them smashed to pieces by bastards that didn't even know what they were.

It's not any better these days, you can't deny that. We work all day growing food that goes off east, get paid pennies for it, and we can't even relax. They banned alcohol a decade ago, weed's been gone since they took over, there's not a single ski mountain left that's open to locals without charging as much as we make a year.

I know they took your brother last year, don't try to deny it. What even was it? "Un-patriotic activities"? "Caught planning sedition against the majority rule"? Did they figure out he was an Athiest? They're turning the place I grew up in and loved into a hell-hole, and I'm done letting them.

Look, I know what you think, but this isn't a suicide mission. Vermont's got even less people now than we did before everything went crazy, and we weren't exactly packed back then… there's a lot of space out there where they don't know where to look. I've got plans on how to use that.

Back before the old US got independence from the British, The Green Mountain Boys were born. They were formed to fight New York, but their best work ended up being against the Crown. Well, this time we know exactly who our enemy is. The Green Mountain Boys are coming back, and we're not going away until Victoria is history.
-Letter found by Victorian secret police, believed to be written by "Ethan Allen", mysterious leader of rebel group The Green Mountain Boys.




AN: Wanted to write something representing my neck of the woods. When even was Vermont taken? The time-line goes straight from "Annexes New Hampshire" to "Annexes Northern New York", and we fought a war to not be in either of those states.

Before Maine actually, when the "Christian Marines" team up with, ironically enough, fascist militias titled "The Green Mountain Boys" to kidnap the governor and impose their will upon the state by force in the name of "restoring true democracy", after they tried a more peaceful approach of a "white strike" and failed because they don't actually have a majority (in the book Lind claims it's because of not wanting to deal with their wives being mad). So uh, that's a thing that happened.
 
Hey, everyone?

Something important I think a lot of us missed.

" Rail Companies (-2 CP): Infrastructure has broken down in the Collapse. In the absence of enough funding to focus on roads, you have turned your attention to railways. You have set up several companies responsible for constructing rail lines across your territory. Rail companies subject to strict state supervision are hard at work building rail lines across your territory, both between population centers and within the larger ones. By Turn 3, you will have a complete, albeit not comprehensive and certainly not modernized, internal rail network."

Note the underlined passage. We won't have an internal rail network fully up and running for the first few turns.

Thus, Rail Companies cannot in and of itself be relied upon to solve our food supply problem from Population Boom. It may help a bit, but we'll be going at least a year during which time the railroads aren't set up to the scale we'd like... and the Victorian attack will come either during or right after that time.

Now, Rail Companies is still desirable, but we can't count on it to bail us out of the consequences of Population Boom

-Gore
I know you think I'm crazy, that this is only going to end with me dying. But I can't forget what they've done. If I'm going to die, it'll be from trying to make a difference…

Did you know I was there when they sacked UVM? I saw my friends, people I'd worked with, professors and faculty I'd known for years, shot dead. I saw them burn the libraries, the museum… we had two reliefs that had been taken from the palace of Ashurbanipal. They survived a journey of thousands of miles and 2500 years, and I saw them smashed to pieces by bastards that didn't even know what they were.

It's not any better these days, you can't deny that. We work all day growing food that goes off east, get paid pennies for it, and we can't even relax. They banned alcohol a decade ago, weed's been gone since they took over, there's not a single ski mountain left that's open to locals without charging as much as we make a year.

I know they took your brother last year, don't try to deny it. What even was it? "Un-patriotic activities"? "Caught planning sedition against the majority rule"? Did they figure out he was an Athiest? They're turning the place I grew up in and loved into a hell-hole, and I'm done letting them.

Look, I know what you think, but this isn't a suicide mission. Vermont's got even less people now than we did before everything went crazy, and we weren't exactly packed back then… there's a lot of space out there where they don't know where to look. I've got plans on how to use that.

Back before the old US got independence from the British, The Green Mountain Boys were born. They were formed to fight New York, but their best work ended up being against the Crown. Well, this time we know exactly who our enemy is. The Green Mountain Boys are coming back, and we're not going away until Victoria is history.
-Letter found by Victorian secret police, believed to be written by "Ethan Allen", mysterious leader of rebel group The Green Mountain Boys.




AN: Wanted to write something representing my neck of the woods. When even was Vermont taken? The time-line goes straight from "Annexes New Hampshire" to "Annexes Northern New York", and we fought a war to not be in either of those states.
Cheer, cheer, the Green Mountaineer!

[]Securing a better Tommorow V2.B
-[]Libraries
-[]Universities
-[]Independant Merchants
-[]Widespread Vaccinations
-[]Brown Water Navy
-[]Foreign-Sourced Equipment
-[]Population Boom
-[]Hostile Neighborhood
-[]Disunited Currency
-[]Disastrous Start
-[]Compromised

@PoptartProdigy
If it needs a decision on source of equipment, make it EU; if it needs more specific than that, EU France or EU Germany.
This plan seems long on "tomorrow" but very very short on "securing," what with all the neighbors distrusting us strongly after our failed espionage program and there being enemy spies all over the city...



Also, plans.
@PoptartProdigy

[] Plan Wide Start
-[] Brown Water Navy
-[] Established
-[] Independent Merchants
-[] Widespread Vaccinations
-[] Ear To The Ground
-[] Libraries
-[] Population Boom
-[] The Greatest Sin
-[] Crossed Wires
-[] Import/Export Professionals

[] Plan Entrepot
-[] Brown Water Navy
-[] Independent Merchants
-[] Ear To The Ground
-[] Libraries
-[] Population Boom
-[] Import/Export Professionals

"Entrepot" focuses a bit more tightly on making us a trading hub, as in one already established (waterborne), that has specifically the strengths and weaknesses that go with that. A bit of a navy and a widespread intelligence network goes with being a trading hub, but so does becoming a hub for immigration and having an active smuggler culture.
 
Before Maine actually, when the "Christian Marines" team up with, ironically enough, fascist militias titled "The Green Mountain Boys" to kidnap the governor and impose their will upon the state by force in the name of "restoring true democracy", after they tried a more peaceful approach of a "white strike" and failed because they don't actually have a majority (in the book Lind claims it's because of not wanting to deal with their wives being mad). So uh, that's a thing that happened.
I'm going to choose to ignore that.
 
Before Maine actually, when the "Christian Marines" team up with, ironically enough, fascist militias titled "The Green Mountain Boys" to kidnap the governor and impose their will upon the state by force in the name of "restoring true democracy", after they tried a more peaceful approach of a "white strike" and failed because they don't actually have a majority (in the book Lind claims it's because of not wanting to deal with their wives being mad). So uh, that's a thing that happened.

It turns out that Fascists ruin everything. Who knew?
 
Before Maine actually, when the "Christian Marines" team up with, ironically enough, fascist militias titled "The Green Mountain Boys" to kidnap the governor and impose their will upon the state by force in the name of "restoring true democracy", after they tried a more peaceful approach of a "white strike" and failed because they don't actually have a majority (in the book Lind claims it's because of not wanting to deal with their wives being mad). So uh, that's a thing that happened.

100% of Vermont based revolutionary groups will reference the Green Mountain Boys, regardless of ideology

Green Mountain Anarchist Collective - Wikipedia

In addition to organizing, GMAC attempted to gain a wider audience among Vermont's working class and small farmers by producing a seasonal newspaper called Catamount Tavern News (named after the headquarters of the Green Mountain Boys). The paper, which was worker-owned (by the collective)
 
Guys import/export looks like a minimal pain thing but it has potential for large amount of long term pain if say, a nu-mafia gets entrenched.
 
Guys import/export looks like a minimal pain thing but it has potential for large amount of long term pain if say, a nu-mafia gets entrenched.
I agree with you and fully intend to push back against it in the opening turns.

The problem is, ALL of our maluses have "this is gonna suck" attached in one way or another. Our alternative is a 'bare necessities' plan that skips a LOT of things we very much want, something like, oh, hm.

@PoptartProdigy

[] Plan Bare Necessities
-[] Libraries
-[] Independent Merchants
 
One thing I'd advocate for is Good Security rather than an ear to the ground. Especially if the plan is taking the smuggle4 mallus.

Good Security is also important for keeping libraries from going up in flames due to sabotage from the Victorians. Because libraries are quite soft targets.
 
One thing I'd advocate for is Good Security rather than an ear to the ground. Especially if the plan is taking the smuggle4 mallus.

Good Security is also important for keeping libraries from going up in flames due to sabotage from the Victorians. Because libraries are quite soft targets.
If I weren't worried about a Victorian army hitting us, I'd agree. The problem is, as it stands, I'm more worried about our lack of external intelligence than internal security. Victorian Attention forces us to be prepared to defend our region earlier than would otherwise be necessary, which means gathering information about that region.
 
[ ] Plan Everyone Loves Riding the L
-[ ] Established
-[ ] Good Reputation
-[ ] Good Security
-[ ] Victorian Sympathizers
-[ ] Rail Companies
-[ ] Population Boom
-[ ] Libraries

@PoptartProdigy
@PoptartProdigy

In my experience, editing tags in doesn't trigger an alert, so I'm quoting the post I edited the tag into while tagging you in the hopes of getting the same practical result.
 
@PoptartProdigy
[] Plan Navy, Economy And Intelligence
-[] Brown Water Navy
-[] Independent Merchants
-[] Rail Companies
-[] Good Security
-[] Ear to the Ground
-[] Libraries
-[] Population Boom
-[] Disunited Currency
-[] Import/Export Professionals

I think the above is a good base. Pop Boom is going to be a bitch, especially without vaccination, but rail plus merchant should help bring in the food and form the distribution network to (with work) blunt the food crisis. Disunited Currency hurts badly, but if we aren't taking Established... well, it makes sense thematically/ICly to take Disunited Currency as the Chicago area hasn't yet truly united yet.

Good Security is essential in protecting ourselves against Victorian asymmetric warfare shenanigans.

Basically this build focuses on having a solid base in economy (once we've straightened out the currency issue) and a strong intelligence arm of the nascent nation, as well as dominance in river and lakes to dominate the waterborne trade.

Plus hopefully the intelligence buffs will assist in solving the smuggling issue once the food crisis is under control.
 
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Hey everyone. Been following the quest and the thread and been sitting on my thoughts for a few days now.

My three main thoughts are this.

1. While we DO have Victorian Attention by nature of our Founder. I find it highly unlikely that "Victorian intervention at some point during turns 1-4." will manifest itself as a large scale invasion on turn 1. Short of that improbability we're rather well situated militarily, Burns nets us 3 military CP and we have parity with Victoria when it comes to naval warfare if I'm understanding things correctly. I do see the benefit of Green Water Navy, but IMO Old World Training might synergize with our small core of elite veterans (and possibly with Population Boom).

2. Overall it seems better to not take too many disadvantages so we can have more CP. We just need to make sure we can weather the worst of the looming Victorian intervention and make some modest investments aside.

3. Most importantly Disunited Currency is a terrible idea. Especially for any economics focused builds or any builds that take Population Boom (which is the malus I'm most strongly leaning towards because of the potential long term benefits). I cannot accurately describe how possibly terrible this could be, but I have two main concerns:

3A) "For now, you are faced with having to integrate dozens of petty currencies and a wide practice of barter". The prevelence of bartering in this economy would mean a substantial portion of our taxes would have to be taxed in kind, people would have to give us their shit to pay their taxes rather than just giving us money. As you might imagine this generates a whole host of logisitical problems and economic inefficiencies, that'll be especially problematic during a war, recession, famine, pandemic, ect.

3B) Related to the above, without a central currency (much less a fiat central currency) the ability of our government to deficit spend is nearly zero. You literally can't print money to finance things and debt financing through Treasury bonds (or the like) becomes difficult if not impossible. This means we're fucked if we need to pay for a long and costly war or if we need to import mass amounts of food or whatever. It basically leaves us without an insurance policy for our economy.​
 
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In accordance with my earlier post, I will not be voting for any plans which include disunited currency and will favor voting for plans which do not have too many maluses. The following is my thoughts for a plan, but I'll be willing to approval vote anything vaguely similar.

So my conceptual core here is to build on our core of elite and well-equipped veterans, use our military strength to further leverage investments into diplomatic endeavors, all while making basic investments in tech and econ. I have chosen a few moderate and minor maluses which I believe will either have long term benefits or can be mitigated without unduly cutting into our own boons. Remember, Poptart said we were only the first Revivalist state and we are almost certainly not going to be the last.

[] Plan Protector of the Northwest
-[] Old World Training
-[] Foreign-Sourced Equipment
-[] Revivalist Connections
-[] Established
-[] Good Reputation
-[] Independent Merchants
-[] Libraries
-[] Empty Spaces
-[] Population Boom
-[] Crossed Wires
-[] Compromised

6 CP are gained from compromised, crossed wires, and population boom. Crossed wires is a big long-term issue but our most pressing concerns are short term given that we'll have to deal with Victorian intervention in 1-4 turns, and empty spaces is also a long term problem but I believe it can be mitigated through diplomacy and trade. Compromised is a long term static malus, but nothing hugely concerning. Population boon is a short term crisis that can have long term benefits. With 4 CP from Burns himself, we now have 10 CP total to spend.

Old World Training is meant to synergize with our small core of veterans and strong logistics, along with a couple of other things. Population boom will give us a larger population of troops to draw from, old world training will improve performance across the board, our logistics will give us an edge in supplying our comparatively large and well-trained armies. Hopefully having Burns and Old World Troops will give us some further synergy with Old World Training, if the Devil Brigade isn't doing something more pressing I'm certain they'd make (comparatively) excellent trainers. We'll have two elite units to back up our rank and file, the Devil Brigade and whoever we choose to equip with the Foreign-Sourced Equipment. The supposed drawback of Foreign-Sourced Equipment is that it renders us indebted to another power, which to me is just another way of saying "gives us a diplomatic opportunity" (just look at the Early US and France).

A strong military can be leveraged to enhance our diplomatic ability, by providing a multiplicative effect our strong military makes investments in diplomacy more attractive. I don't think the thread is going to want to be heavily militarily expansionist so our best way to gain territory is through voluntary annexation, having strong diplomacy and the ability to protect people is crucial to that goal. Good Reputation, Established, and Revivalist Connections give us solid ground from which we can build coalitions, form alliances, and sign trade deals with our neighbors. This investment in diplomacy could deliver returns in any number of fields, from military to economics, and lastly, it could have benefits for our technology.

Which is where one of my main concerns with my own plan comes in. Both Empty Spaces and Crossed Wires are major liabilities to our domestic technological development. My hope is too offset this through strong diplomacy and trade. Hence the 4 CP in Diplomacy and my choice of Independent Merchants over railroads/trains, as well as the use of Foreign-Sourced Equipment.
 
@PoptartProdigy
I think I ultimately agree with @18scsc, taking a lot of disadvantages always seems to just pile on more problems than can be realistically solved early on. So here's two proposals, one's a very conservative start, taking only 1 cp worth of disadvantages, and the other's more of an all-rounder start.

[] Conservative Start
-[] Independent Merchants (-2 CP)
-[] Brown Water Navy (-2 CP)
-[] Good Security (-1 CP)
-[] Disastrous Start (+1 CP)

[] All-Round Start
-[] Independent Merchants (-2 CP)
-[] Established (-2 CP)
-[] Good Security (-1 CP)
-[] Libraries (-2 CP)
-[] Population Boom (+2 CP)
-[] Disastrous Start (+1 CP)

Conservative start chooses BW Navy over Established/Rail Companies/Libraries because BW Navy synergizes with merchants and is useful early while also jumpstarting our naval military for security/piracy/logistics.

All-round start drops BW Navy in favor of Established and Libraries so that we can spend the early turns immediately addressing the population boom (hopefully before Victoria intervenes) while Libraries gives us a more well rounded tech base and more importantly, an educated workforce to help us make improvements in a wide variety of categories more quickly.

Both starts take Disastrous Start and Good Security because Disastrous Start is one of the less-bad early drawbacks and by taking both we slow down the intelligence game (at least as it relates to us) for everyone, giving us the opportunity to focus our actions on econ/tech/military without needing to split our attention to pursue counterintelligence actions until later.
 
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Alright, I'm mostly just onboard for the story, but here's my proposal.

From Leader (+4):
Old World Hardware
Old World Soldiers
Professionals Study Logistics
Victorian Attention

Maluses:
No Navy (+2)
Disastrous Start (+1)
Disunited Currency (+3)
Population Boom (+2)

12 CP to spend

Bonuses:
Established (-2)
Revivalist Connections (-1)
Independent Merchants (-2)
Widespread Vaccinations (-3)
Rail Companies (-2)
Libraries (-2)

We get a strong military position from Burns, plus a decent economic foundation from the Independent Merchants, Rail, and the basic pharmaceutical industry that comes with Widespread Vaccinations. Libraries gives us an acceptable tech basis, and Established and Revivalist Connections put us in a very good place diplomatically (a small country with a functioning government and the ability to bring in Revivalist allies- or even convince them to join our New Union peacefully). The Maluses don't leave us with dangerous internal threats or a crime wave. Disunited Currency isn't ideal, but nothing that 6 months on a Non-Monetary Reference Currency followed by the gradual introduction of a new federal currency can't at least begin to address. The Population Boom will be a major challenge, but we'll be unified internally, with Vaccinations to prevent outbreaks of disease, Independent Merchants to help import food, and a strong military to maintain order until the Rail Companies can start shipping in more food in earnest. Intelligence wouldn't be ideal and there's no navy (outside of technical boats) but cuts had to be made somewhere.

EDIT: Plan Withdrawn, see "Hellfire Burns Vs. The World"
 
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I suspect that Disunited Currency will be either a crippling drawback in the short term, or an extremely difficult one to shake off in the long run. Those of us who expect it to be curable with a few actions are almost certainly being over-optimistic
 
I suspect that Disunited Currency will be either a crippling drawback in the short term, or an extremely difficult one to shake off in the long run. Those of us who expect it to be curable with a few actions are almost certainly being over-optimistic
I would expect it to lead to us needing to use a rescorce backed currency for a while. Which has it's own multitude of downsides, but is... managable as long as we tie it to something necessary/not in massive boom.
 
@PoptartProdigy Here's my plan to offer.

[] Plan Economy First

-[] Brown Water Navy (-2CP)
-[] Established (-2CP)
-[] Compromised (1CP)
-[] Independent Merchants (-2CP)
-[] Widespread Vaccinations (-3CP)
-[] The Greatest Sin (3CP)
-[] Population Boom (2CP)
-[] Hostile Neighborhood (1CP)
-[] Libraries (-2CP)

The big thing about this plan compared to others is well, not having to contend with Disunited Currency, since that's going to be such a fucking pain to deal with in terms of having to contend with an economy, and Established will be in my view really useful to help us to avoid the maluses of being stuck only with Chicago and having to spend actions on completing the Chicago Congress. Like, that's honestly my biggest fear with not taking Established in the actions we are going to be spending on completing the Chicago Congress can be better spent on other things which are going to be more important (like solving our food problems for instance).
 
This plan seems long on "tomorrow" but very very short on "securing," what with all the neighbors distrusting us strongly after our failed espionage program and there being enemy spies all over the city...
I'm of the opinion that we need at least brownwater navy + another military advantage for Victorian attention, or, if not brownwater navy, two military advantages / one military and one strong support of military, liek ear to the ground.
I suspect that Disunited Currency will be either a crippling drawback in the short term, or an extremely difficult one to shake off in the long run. Those of us who expect it to be curable with a few actions are almost certainly being over-optimistic
I don't disagree with the slightest. It's much less high variance than randomly losing all our best leaders, though, and... when I have to make a choice bwteen a disunified currency and a navy, or a disunified currency and a pharma industry, I know which one I pick. It's a deadly serious downside that I think is nonetheless worth is for the points.

The best way to think abotu disadvantages, imo, is to imagine that you already didn't have them. Would you spend three points to unite your currency, or would you spend 3 points to get a pharmaceutical industry and vaccinations? Would you preserve the chance to spy on your neighbors, or would you get actual weapons to help in the fight against victoria?
Put that way, some disadvantages are clearly less bad than the advantages you can buy with their perks, and some aren't. For instance, I think no navy is clearly worth it, but brown water navy is even more worth is so that doesn't matter. And at a hefty 3 points cost, I'm willing to have a disunified currency, and pay for universities, or libraries, in a way I'm not willing to pay for things via assasins.
 
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