One thing I'd like to point her to, that's a little lower risk than Nordland or Ulric, is [ ] Investigate (one of the Isolationist Houses of Laurelorn), with an eye to finding out what would be needed to swing them away from the Isolationist faction.
Boney has noted that we can give Eike practical solo tasks with this slot, provided we're okay with getting back subpar results relative to what we'd get if we took the action ourselves. This is a very low stakes solo task - if she flubs it and somehow pisses off the House we point her at, well, as part of the Isolationist bloc they were already voting to kick us out of the country anyway. We lose very little. On the other hand, we know literally nothing about these people. Who the important individuals within the Houses are, what they want and how we can swing them to our side. If she finds anything, we can follow up ourselves later if the political situation necessitates firming up the voting base. I picked the Intrigue action ("Investigate") rather than the Diplomacy one ("Ingratiate") because her Intrigue cannot possibly be as bad as her 8 Diplomacy. But if we want to shore up weaknesses rather than build on strength, Ingratiate is also an option.
I
really like the idea of sending her to investigate an isolationist house, especially if Mathilde makes it clear to her that its a case of Mathilde not having the time to even get an overview. Freakin' great idea.
but.
1. in the past Mathilde has been in a position to leverage her learning score for understanding something rather than using her diplo score, and for this we might be able to have Eike analyse her data and present it via her learning [Mathilde would do her own analysis of the facts Eike has gathered/tried to gather].
2. When it comes to collecting data I'd
much much rather have Eike do it via diplomatic means via intrigue means; diplo is generally low risk in that unless there's a full blown 'flub'/crit-fail, then any response to her above-board inquires can be responded to with 'just trying to understand the feelings and motivations of our delightful hosts', where as an intrigue method feels to me like it would involve sneaky or underhanded actions, and those being found out may give fodder to the isolationist side/cause them to become more entrnched in their positions.
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Addendum: Mathilde told Johann to make friends. He's smart, espicaly when it comes to people. I wonder what perspectives he might hold on the houses.
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Huh; Boney. Can we do
1. [ ] Investigate (one of the Isolationist Houses of Laurelorn), with an eye to finding out what would be needed to swing them away from the Isolationist faction.
2. Do the above with Johann as a WEB-MAT action, as he was told to make friends?
3. Include Eike as an understudy
4. Send Eike to do it, with the explicit understanding that [no. as I type this it feels like trying to game the AP system]
4. Would sending Eike to do it, with the explicit understanding that she will provided less specific information/results and come with a greater risk of providing less accurate understanding of their position, be an ok thing to do or would it count as trying to game the AP system?
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Edit:
I like it, but I'd prefer to turn her loose on the three integrationist houses that we want to find some way for them to profit from the expansion and trade.
This is even more appealing to me than the 'send her to investigate the isolationist houses'. I
really like this idea.
