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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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picklepikkl said:
I'm a huge fan of using the EIC for spy shit (folks may recall that the one time we actually have inserted agents somewhere was my hobbyhorse I'd been championing for a while), though I do want to take the magical bridge action first. I've been supporting the Eonir trade actions because of the diplomatic benefits in normalizing relationships between Laurelorn and the Empire; Greys have diplomacy as one of their responsibilities, not just espionage. But once those negotiations are clear and started, hell yes let's gather some secrets.
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With the coal trade route being established and profitable, I don't think we need the fog-trade-route.

Especially since it'd take away from Nordland having a trading route with the Eonir.
 
I do wonder if the very appreciated generosity with which Boney answers questions acts as an unintentional disincentive to the thread putting the EIC to use.

The answers are generally surface level, reflecting Mathilde's current limited knowledge. But even that answer is usually enough to satisfy idle curiosity, so there's less of a drive to find out the nuance. If there were more "Mathilde doesn't know—please insert tokens spend actions to find out more" responses, I imagine we'd have seen the EIC expand further and faster than it has.
 
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LightLan said:
With the coal trade route being established and profitable, I don't think we need the fog-trade-route.

Especially since it'd take away from Nordland having a trading route with the Eonir.
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I strongly disagree; remember, Laurelorn also wants metals, and the route through the swamp to Middenland has the benefit of allowing much heavier goods to be shipped. Once we have the route set up, other merchants, from both sides, will have more reason to proactively seek out trading opportunities. I expect the Nordland route to survive too, because charcoal is something they're going to need more and more of as their metal usage expands.

The point isn't profit. I don't care about the EIC making money here at all. I care about Laurelorn having economic ties to the wider Empire, because that will help continue to ratchet down tensions over time. It's hard for someone to be the scary Other if you do business lunches with them every week.
 
picklepikkl said:
I strongly disagree; remember, Laurelorn also wants metals, and the route through the swamp to Middenland has the benefit of allowing much heavier goods to be shipped. Once we have the route set up, other merchants, from both sides, will have more reason to proactively seek out trading opportunities. I expect the Nordland route to survive too, because charcoal is something they're going to need more and more of as their metal usage expands.
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Actually the erengrad route is probably better for shipping if the eonir would allow a tow path, remember that riverine transport is still worlds better then roads.
 
Gavin Prince said:
I do wonder if the very appreciated generosity with which Boney answers questions acts as an unintentional disincentive to the thread putting the EIC to use.

The answers are generally surface level, reflecting Mathilde's current limited knowledge. But even that answer is usually enough to satisfy idle curiosity, so there's less of a drive to find out the nuance. If there were more "Mathilde doesn't know—please insert tokens spend actions to find out more" responses, I imagine we'd have seen the EIC expand further and faster than it has.
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I think the main reason the EIC's intelligence network is so rarely used is that it's just pretty poorly suited for Mathilde's needs. The EIC was established during the Stirland arc, and though it has expanded since it's still mostly in the east and the south of the Empire. Our second arc took us out of the Empire entirely, and our current arc is in Nordland, literally on the other side side of the Empire (I think Nordland is tied with parts of Ostland for "furthest point away from major EIC activity in the Empire"). The 'Tall, not Wide' policy of the EIC makes things even worse; it may be a sensible business policy but it's the opposite of what you'll want for a far-reaching intelligence network.

I'm honestly glad that the EIC is getting any use, even if it's currently mostly economical rather than intelligence gathering, because for most of the quest the EIC was nearly useless, an old tool for a job Mathilde wasn't doing anymore.
 
mathymancer said:
I think the main reason the EIC's intelligence network is so rarely used is that it's just pretty poorly suited for Mathilde's needs. The EIC was established during the Stirland arc, and though it has expanded since it's still mostly in the east and the south of the Empire. Our second arc took us out of the Empire entirely, and our current arc is in Nordland, literally on the other side side of the Empire (I think Nordland is tied with parts of Ostland for "furthest point away from major EIC activity in the Empire"). The 'Tall, not Wide' policy of the EIC makes things even worse; it may be a sensible business policy but it's the opposite of what you'll want for a far-reaching intelligence network.

I'm honestly glad that the EIC is getting any use, even if it's currently mostly economical rather than intelligence gathering, because for most of the quest the EIC was nearly useless, an old tool for a job Mathilde wasn't doing anymore.
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But now we have great uses for it and now no ones willing to do them. Infiltrating the ulricans would be extremely valuable to us (we even thought about it before the whole shism was revealed) and middenland is also a important part of the equation that we could draw info from.

But we choose to ship charcoal.
 
Gavin Prince said:
To be clear, I'm not against the bridge action at all and really won't mind when it inevitably wins.
I do think intelligence gathering is an equal or higher priority and it's something that has been passed over consistently in favour of economic actions. The bridge is big and shiny, though, and promises immediate concrete results where spywork is inherently speculative.
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The thing is, the RoW bridge isn't an economic action. It's high statecraft, an act with significant geopolitical implications. We're not doing it to advance the commercial interests of the EIC, we're doing it to change the diplomatic and military landscape of the northern Empire, Laurelorn, and Marienberg.

The actual profits made by the EIC are very much secondary, and possibly even counterproductive. We want first Middenheim/land's and then the Reikland's merchants to become deeply invested in the Eonir trade, for the Eonir Great Houses to seize the opportunity to become a rival port to Marienberg for the import of Old World, Araby Southlands and Far Eastern goods into the Empire.

This is as much an attempt to pincer Marienberg as anything else. As the Fogers told us, Marienberg isn't actually that threatened by the Black Water Canal, so it doesn't really act as a discipline on them. Post-RoW bridge, Tor Linethel should. Even better, it's one that their high elven sponsors are likely to strongly disapprove of them acting against.
 
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picklepikkl said:
I strongly disagree; remember, Laurelorn also wants metals, and the route through the swamp to Middenland has the benefit of allowing much heavier goods to be shipped. Once we have the route set up, other merchants, from both sides, will have more reason to proactively seek out trading opportunities. I expect the Nordland route to survive too, because charcoal is something they're going to need more and more of as their metal usage expands.

The point isn't profit. I don't care about the EIC making money here at all. I care about Laurelorn having economic ties to the wider Empire, because that will help continue to ratchet down tensions over time. It's hard for someone to be the scary Other if you do business lunches with them every week.
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I haven't been able to really keep up with the thread lately, so this was probably already answered, but is the plan that Mathilde will be the one that does the enchantment ?

Or are we going to hire someone else to do that ?

Would Mathilde even be able to accomplish that without being able to enchant things with battle magic? Or does RoW count as a fiendishly complex spell with our staff.

If we decide to hire someone else instead, will there even be someone capable of doing it when we only released the spell this turn?
 
mathymancer said:
I think the main reason the EIC's intelligence network is so rarely used is that it's just pretty poorly suited for Mathilde's needs. The EIC was established during the Stirland arc, and though it has expanded since it's still mostly in the east and the south of the Empire. Our second arc took us out of the Empire entirely, and our current arc is in Nordland, literally on the other side side of the Empire (I think Nordland is tied with parts of Ostland for "furthest point away from major EIC activity in the Empire"). The 'Tall, not Wide' policy of the EIC makes things even worse; it may be a sensible business policy but it's the opposite of what you'll want for a far-reaching intelligence network.

I'm honestly glad that the EIC is getting any use, even if it's currently mostly economical rather than intelligence gathering, because for most of the quest the EIC was nearly useless, an old tool for a job Mathilde wasn't doing anymore.
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The issue is that we didn't vote to expand EIC's capabilities, and as a result, its capabilities remained poor, and most actions to increase information capabilities have been rushed due to an immediate need and thus not the most useful.
I suspect that had the EIC being developed earlier, its output information might have been better, and so I think we should seek to rectify it by developing the EIC in ways that might not be paid off for multiple turns, but said pay-off should be good when we need it.
 
SpaceSloth said:
I haven't been able to really keep up with the thread lately, so this was probably already answered, but is the plan that Mathilde will be the one that does the enchantment ?

Or are we going to hire someone else to do that ?

Would Mathilde even be able to accomplish that without being able to enchant things with battle magic? Or does RoW count as a fiendishly complex spell with our staff.

If we decide to hire someone else instead, will there even be someone capable of doing it when we only released the spell this turn?
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Iirc our idea is to let the grey college do it because enchanting a mega project takes time that we don't want to spend. Which is why we had to formalize the spell beforehand for it to be possible.
 
Guys I know out first instinct is to be friends with everyone who does not actively sacrifice babies (and given some of the suggestions about the Druchi even that may not be set in stone :V ), but have you considered that being disliked by the Cult of Verena does come with some small advantages? Namely with the Verenans being the big boys in town, the wealthiest, the most prestigious, not to mention having their own rap sheet of book related crimes to annoy everyone else with the people who do not like the Cult of Verena will be inclined to like us because we pissed them off.

I am not saying we denounce them from the rooftops, but you know the odd bit of talking shit about the cult especially when we talk to secular libraries might get us a bit of sympathy and sympathy is an open door. Not to mention that the printing press is coming and parts of the Cult of Verena are going to hate it with a fiery passion. On the other hand if we were so set up some printers at the literal edge of the map in K8P they would have no power to stop us. We would of course need human printers, but that is fine in the multi-species Karak we have.
 
DragonParadox said:
Guys I know out first instinct is to be friends with everyone who does not actively sacrifice babies (and given some of the suggestions about the Druchi even that may not be set in stone :V ), but have you considered that being disliked by the Cult of Verena does come with some small advantages? Namely with the Verenans being the big boys in town, the wealthiest, the most prestigious, not to mention having their own rap sheet of book related crimes to annoy everyone else with the people who do not like the Cult of Verena will be inclined to like us because we pissed them off.

I am not saying we denounce them from the rooftops, but you know the odd bit of talking shit about the cult especially when we talk to secular libraries might get us a bit of sympathy and sympathy is an open door. Not to mention that the printing press is coming and parts of the Cult of Verena are going to hate it with a fiery passion. On the other hand if we were so set up some printers at the literal edge of the map in K8P they would have no power to stop us. We would of course need human printers, but that is fine in the multi-species Karak we have.
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The (movable type) printing press is coming in about 30 years, so 60 turns... We got a bit of time...
 
Gavin Prince said:
To be clear, I'm not against the bridge action at all and really won't mind when it inevitably wins.
I do think intelligence gathering is an equal or higher priority and it's something that has been passed over consistently in favour of economic actions. The bridge is big and shiny, though, and promises immediate concrete results where spywork is inherently speculative.
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I mean we can't even manage a social action on the Ulricans. People not wanting to spend a half-AP on them seems more like an outcropping of that to me than anything else.
 
SpaceSloth said:
I haven't been able to really keep up with the thread lately, so this was probably already answered, but is the plan that Mathilde will be the one that does the enchantment ?

Or are we going to hire someone else to do that ?

Would Mathilde even be able to accomplish that without being able to enchant things with battle magic? Or does RoW count as a fiendishly complex spell with our staff.

If we decide to hire someone else instead, will there even be someone capable of doing it when we only released the spell this turn?
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I think the plan is to have Laurelorn's elven archmages and/or Grey Lords make the enchantment. Firstly so that they can be sure of its workings and their control over it, but also because they're elven archmages and so making a large scale BM level enchantment should be way less risky for them than if College mages do it.
 
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Jyn Ryvia said:
While there might be benefits of being enemies of the cult of the god of books.

I'm fairly confident that the downsides far outweigh those benefits when it comes to our goals.
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And this is what I was afraid of. We are not enemies, as seen by the lack of marching armies, the world is not a black and white of war to the death and future friends. We have institutional tensions, a rivalry at best, that can be leveraged to some advantage with those who also have institutional tensions, which given the hegemonic positions of Verenans in the field as well as their more questionable actions with regards to heretical texts, is likely to be a lot of people.
 
Tobtorp said:
Iirc our idea is to let the grey college do it because enchanting a mega project takes time that we don't want to spend. Which is why we had to formalize the spell beforehand for it to be possible.
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My understanding of the idea, at least, is that we sell the codified RoW to the Eonir and they build the towers and perform the enchantments. They can already cross the marsh, so we're not opening up a route for them to invade Middenland.

In return, they do send something like send lecturers to teach magic at the Colleges.

They're not a strategic threat to us, we're (the Empire) a strategic threat to them, so we're the one that needs to perform confidence building measures.

Derpmind said:
I think the plan is to have Laurelorn's elven archmages and/or Grey Lords make the enchantment. Firstly so that they can be sure of its workings and their control over it, but also because they're elven archmages and so making a large scale BM level enchantment should be way less risky for them than if College mages do it.
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The other advantage is that if we offer our consultancy services as the inventor of the spell we might get a peek at their battle magic grade enchanting techniques.
 
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mathymancer said:
That's a pretty neat idea. One of the EIC options is to reach out to Rosie and pass on information about tax evasion by EIC rivals, maybe we could do something similar but with, uh, overdue library books? Ok so it needs some workshopping but this idea definitely has something to it.
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From their wiki article, I imagine the two things that would be of interest to the cult would be either tracking down rumors of rare and lost books (and the books themselves, or else using the scuttlebutt of merchants as a way to scout for things that would pose an imminent threat to the preservation of knowledge. Since it seems like a travelling merchant is going to have a different perspective than a scholarly academic.

A merchant might be better placed to hear rumors of a witch hunter with a penchant for burning literature or that there's been trouble in nearby villages that threatens to spill out. The merchant may not be so well placed to know a Skaven sinkhole is about to open up, but you can't win them all.

Aside:

Part of why I suggest this is that not only does scouting like this feel Warrior of Fog-y but the manner also Very Dwarven.

A Cell of the Cult of Verena says you wronged them by going behind their backs? Walk up, acknowledge that their role as protectors of the books and libraries of Nuln means they have a valid reason for their grudge, and ask what will make it right.
 
Alratan said:
My understanding of the idea, at least, is that we sell the codified RoW to the Eonir and they build the towers and perform the enchantments. They can already cross the marsh, so we're not opening up a route for them to invade Middenland.

In return, they do send something like send lecturers to teach magic at the Colleges.

They're not a strategic threat to us, we're (the Empire) a strategic threat to them, so we're the one that needs to perform confidence building measures.
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I still don't think it will be that easy to sell them battlemagic. It's a strategic resource and as soon ad it's out there who knows who gets it. And they might not be a strategic threat but they did clash with the empire (or parts of it) very recently and that has to be taken into account...
 
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