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Bold of you to say that before the trade option is even written in. We do not know yet what it will cost. If the price is too steep, we can just not pay it
The update they already gave a general gist of what they wanted. Gold or silver is never mentioned.
I'm just failing to see how trading spices to the Druchii is any worse than this.
Druchi have easier time reaching Cathay then us. Unless you want to buy spice from them there will be no spice trade.
 
The big thing is that the dark elves aren't a major threat to the Empire. If we sell them orc and skaven secrets they'll be more likely to attack some of our actual enemies rather than humans, as it'll be easier than it currently is, changing the cost/risk/reward trade off. That will slightly strengthen the dark elves, which is generally a bad thing, but it also weakens some more threatening enemies.
Mathilde is not big enough economic factor to be a statistical blip in Dark Elf economy.
Druchi have easier time reaching Cathay then us. Unless you want to buy spice from them there will be no spice trade.
Pretty sure that Empire plants count for spices in Naggarond that is bleak wasteland. But i am not saying we establish that trade, i am just saying that trying to go against any sort of temp trade with druuchi because they are "oh so evil" is silly.

We literally had the debate over what "spices" are several times. We don´t need to retread it while already dealing with a topic like this.

Bigger EDIT: Like, Mathilde could affect DE Economy, like that one shadow magister we know of did, but like... throwing some gold for goods isn´t really going to do anything here except get us t he stuff we want and maybe give some low ranking officer slightly bigger cut from a sailing trip. Thats literally it.
 
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Mathilde is not big enough economic factor to be a statistical blip in Dark Elf economy.

I'm not talking about economic factors. I'm talking about trading them Waaagh and Peace and our skaven tech manuals for magical texts they've looted from other cultures.

That could make a meaningful difference to their ability to fight greenskins and skaven in the medium to long term as the knowledge diffuses.
 
Imagine how much it would improve their economy though, all that taxable income for Maleketh. I am fine throwing a few hundred gold coins at them, but I do not want to make their state meaningfully better off economically.

I mean, luxury goods might improve their economy marginaly (by making it less reliant on raiding and slavery which can be argued to be a win). But so can research, crafting goods, gold and mundane books and some of those even have military applications which would strenghten the Drucchi militarily which is even worst.

So I see no reason to exclude luxury goods from your list.
 
For me a prerequisite to literally any trade with the Druuchi is if we can reasonably guess the full consequences. A marginally less terrible house gains power at the expense of another house. The Druuchi get better at fighting Orcs, some Dreadlord gets a novel new wine to show off at the latest murderparty. That kind of thing.

Opening trade routes is fully out of the question to me, as well as a few other thing I've seen the thread suggest.
 
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I don´t think putting a purse or two away is really going to swing the war on Ulthuan or ease the ravaging of the Black Arks. At possibly significant benefit to our effort.
The benefit of trade on the expedition was 'increase the odds of the expedition succeeding and keeping the group alive in hostile territory,' the significance of which I don't believe is matched in the proposed dark elf trade.

Could you clarify as to what exactly you want from the trade? Because my current grasp of it is something along the lines of 'more items on the research backlog and which we probably can't use legally,' which doesn't quite rate on the same scale.
 
Pretty sure that Empire plants count for spices in Naggarond that is bleak wasteland. But i am not saying we establish that trade, i am just saying that trying to go against any sort of trade with druuchi because they are "oh so evil" is silly.
Is it? People want to be better and that is not silly. It is how ever rather distasteful how you are trying to convince that nothing matters, morality doesn't exist, and the mistakes of past has damned Mathilde already and we should keep doing them because of it.

That is wrong. In the expedition we had luxry of being away from what we cared for and mistakes we made blowed back on far way from our homeland. Here and now we are putting our own country and our own reputation in to the table and being recless or worse stupid about it is going to cause disaster.
 
Could you clarify as to what exactly you want from the trade? Because my current grasp of it is something along the lines of 'more items on the research backlog and which we probably can't use legally,' which doesn't quite rate on the same scale.
I don´t want anything from the trade at the moment, i just rail at the implication that it should be forsaken as a possibility to look into outright. Odds are i will never want anything on the potential list, but i just don´t agree with the principle because we have quite clearly explored trading with arguably more evil factions for benefits to our goals.

That is wrong. In the expedition we had luxry of being away from what we cared for and mistakes we made blowed back on far way from our homeland.
This will only be true if Slaaneth worshipper Captain #2 doesn´t end up being the next everchosen and razes Kislev. Just because the consequences aren´t here yet doesn´t mean they ever won´t be.


EDIT: Actually not only that, but current political landscape implies that any sort of Druuchi being a 200g richer would show itself on polities that are currently being raided by them, not Empire, so consequences for this one are just as far tbh. So either way you swing it its really eh on this plane.
 
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Minor nitpick, but the very mutated guy who was nearly a demon prince was the leader of the Yusak group we went with Ljiljana to grab the demon-goblet. The one we paid with silver was just a moderately mutated Slaaneshi tribe leader.
Just in the interest of total accuracy- the Yusak were the weak Chaos group that we had the chance to be Super Roadtrip Buddies with.

Mathilde and Ljiljana sacked a Kul encampment.


I don't particularly care to trade with the Druchii, and I don't really care if we've already arguably traded with worse.

I don't have much interest in what their offering, and I have no interest in any precedent that this would set (in regards to Empire, Collegiate, or Eonir diplomacy, not in terms of Mathilde's actions)

I also don't particularly want to strength the Druchii against Greenskins- sure, Greenskins are more of a threat to the Empire, but the Druchii aren't going to do anything to the Greenskins over here, they'll be strengthed against Greenskins over there, and the Greenskins over there are objectively less of a threat to us than the Druchii.
 
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One of the benefits of any trade with the Druchii is that we can throw them under the bus as soon as the Asur make us a better offer.

We use the Deceiver to make the Druchii front load their first few shipments with high value goods, maybe sink a slaver fleet, then we switch lanes to Ulthuan and watch as whichever house we traded with flounder as they lose their new source of income, whilst also reaping the profits of trade with the Asur.
 
I mean, luxury goods might improve their economy marginaly (by making it less reliant on raiding and slavery which can be argued to be a win). But so can research, crafting goods, gold and mundane books and some of those even have military applications which would strenghten the Drucchi militarily which is even worst.

So I see no reason to exclude luxury goods from your list.

We've had this conversation back when we talked about the Marianburg blockade, a lot of that they are blocking is luxury goods, but even though the goods themselves do not impact military readiness the loss of taxes for the Empire from those goods absolutely does
 
This will only be true if Slaaneth worshipper Captain #2 doesn´t end up being the next everchosen and razes Kislev. Just because the consequences aren´t here yet doesn´t mean they ever won´t be.
Borek got divine weapons thanks to our expedition and Vlag is likely close the High Pass so we can comfortably say that it was the lesser evil.

Who do you imagine as the greater evil than Druuchi at the moment? Marineburg?
 
We've spent dozens of pages total arguing about this, and it's all gonna be moot when we kill Malekith on the Elfcation.
 
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Borek got divine weapons thanks to our expedition and Vlag is likely close the High Pass so we can comfortably say that it was the lesser evil.

Who do you imagine as the greater evil than Druuchi at the moment? Marineburg?
Yes. Druuchi killed like. idk , five empire dudes. Mariengburg possibly sowed disentry on the river canal, possibly assassinated good portion of the Metalsmithing guild of Karaz a Karak, and a not even century ago, with the help of asur, wiped out an entire fucking army. So yes. Quite literally, they are the lesser evil in some contexts.

Ultimately what i am saying is not that we should trade with druuchi, or that we must trade with druuchi, or that i even think we should buy a single book, but that deciding the trade is outright out as an option ever, based on this, is imho kind of really weird since we didn´t rule it out other times.
We've spent dozens of pages total arguing about this, but it's definitely gonna be moot when we kill Malekith on the Elfcation.
Is Malekith actually currently in office? Shouldn´t he still be wandering chaos realms due to the second worst burn he ever suffered? I can never keep the timeline straight.
 
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Slaaksho Irnik was the name of the Chieftain we traded with, he is a Kurgan, and was going to use the silver to summon demons.
Slaaksho reads as a title to me, rather than a name. Probably linked to Slaanesh given the similarities and the mention of being rewarded with "Slaakshami" which is also similar.

Vlag is likely close the High Pass
They'll try, but they failed last time an Everchosen marched so I wouldn't bet on it working.
 
They'll try, but they failed last time an Everchosen marched so I wouldn't bet on it working.
Though, I don't think they exactly had the opportunity, what with the whole 'pulled into the Warp' thing.
Is Malekith actually currently in office? Shouldn´t he still be wandering chaos realms due to the second worst burn he ever suffered? I can never keep the timeline straight.
He's been back for like, 80 or 90 years.

He only spent a century in the Realm of Chaos, and he was sent around 2301.
 
Though, I don't think they exactly had the opportunity, what with the whole 'pulled into the Warp' thing.
I suspect the ritual to drag them there would be done at Vlag though, and that it wouldn't be particularly quick. Which would mean either they failed to disrupt that ritual by force or didn't attempt to (presumably because they didn't think they'd succeed).
 
We've had this conversation back when we talked about the Marianburg blockade, a lot of that they are blocking is luxury goods, but even though the goods themselves do not impact military readiness the loss of taxes for the Empire from those goods absolutely does

My point is not that there would be not impact (albieth indirect), it's that other things on your list ALSO have an impact, potentially even greater.

I mean, luxury goods COULD end up being taxed, but straight up gold could also be taxed. Taxes COULD end up being used to military ends against the empire or our allies, but so could the military forces saved by our research on skaven and greenskin. Mundane books COULD be used to refine their understanding of the Old World in order to better plan their raids.

There is no reason that the slight improvement in their economy due to a minor trade in luxury goods would be worst than all of those outcomes IMO.
 
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My point is not that there would be not impact (albieth indirect), it's that other things on your list ALSO have an impact, potentially even greater.

I mean, luxury goods COULD end up being taxed, but straight up gold could also be taxed. Taxes COULD end up being used to military ends against the empire or our allies, but so could the military forces saved by our research on skaven and greenskin. Mundane books COULD be used to refine their understanding of the Old World in order to better plan their raids.

There is no reason that the slight improvement in their economy due to a minor trade in luxury would be worst than all of those outcomes IMO.

Luxury goods will be taxed, that is not a question and if it is a major enough deal those taxes will have an impact on the economy, it is a far less tenuous connection than one that counts on guessing the priority time for research in the tower of Ghrond and as for gold, well we do not really have that much to give out so the impact has to be slammer.
 
Is there even such a thing as taxation as we understand it in Naggaroth, rather than the payment of feudal dues?
 
There's a difference between "the vast majority of the Empire's trade passes through this one city" and "a medium sized trade company set up a single trade route with a noble house on another continent".

Especially since many of us arguing for Druchii trade will happily betray them for a better deal with the Asur.

Seriously, it's win-win. We get magical knowledge and a few other knick-knacks at a discount, the Asur have to treat us as equals, and we get to betray the Druchii in one of their own power plays.
 
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