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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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DragonParadox said:
I do not buy that, not even a little bit, these things are too expensive to deploy in troll country and they are too expensive to deploy for marginal increases to the land fertility of northern Kislev. There is no way for Boris to grasp just how bloody expensive they are since he is not a magician so he is just wrong in wanting that as far as I'm concerned.
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You underestimate how important food yield is for the economy and even for a state's ability to wage war. I also do not believe the effects will be marginal.

Fritz Haber was the inventor of chemical warfare and the Haber Bosch process, which revolutionized agriculture. The second was actually MASSIVELY more effective in creating people and maximizing the ability of a state to wage war than the first. It created a population boom that defines the world to this day, while chemical warfare is considered sub optimal.

Waystones as weapons win battles. Waystones as economic maximisers of agriculture win wars.

... The way this is going, I may actually be near convincing myself for voting for the Tzar instead. Stay strong for baby Mathilde storry, ideas are more important than even economy.
 
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I think @Shard put it best: Karlsbridge is the option that will be known as "protect our homes against Chaos", while the Bridge of Death is the option that will be known as "strike at Chaos strongholds". Either of these will be quite famous and have a lot of takers across the world, but said takers will be of different kinds.
 
DragonParadox said:
Do you think that when the Ice Witches, you know the native magical tradition of Kislev shifted the flow of magic to Castle Alexandronov people there rioted or something?
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I'd guess they never found out about it. Although, no one actually lives in the Castle, because (despite the name) it's a fortress and not a castle, and while it has a permanent garrison, the members of that garrison rotate in and out (probably on 6 month stretches).
 
storryeater said:
You underestimate how important food yield is for the economy and even for a state's ability to wage war. I also do not believe the effects will be marginal.

Fritz Haber was the inventor of chemical warfare and the Haber Bosch process, which revolutionized agriculture. The second was actually MASSIVELY more effective in creating people and maximizing the ability of a state to wage war than the first. It created a population boom that defines the world to this day, while chemical warfare is considered sub optimal.

Waystones as weapons win battles. Waystones as economic maximisers of agriculture win wars.

... The way this is going, I may actually be near convincing myself for voting for the Tzar instead. Stay strong for baby Mathilde storry, ideas are more important than even economy.
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No, it's more that I think Northern Kislev is a awful place to grow food even if it does become slightly less hell.

Also there is no way option 3 is making up the difference at this point so don't worry about being conflicted in that regard.
 
DragonParadox said:
I do not buy that, not even a little bit, these things are too expensive to deploy in troll country and they are too expensive to deploy for marginal increases to the land fertility of northern Kislev. There is no way for Boris to grasp just how bloody expensive they are since he is not a magician so he is just wrong in wanting that as far as I'm concerned.
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I remember that Mathilde did a hourly wage calculation for wizards building the waystone and Thorek did add runesmith prices to it so presumably there is a known price for the waystones.

After that It will be up to stewards of Kislev to determine which parts of the country is cost effective to buy waystones for and prioritise that but as far as Boris is concerned this project is a massive chance for revanchism or even expanding his borders so he will likely pick up more stones than profitable ones. He is after all buying security and that is meant to be loss leader anyhow. Fertility increase is incidental.
DragonParadox said:
No, it's more that I think Northern Kislev is a awful place to grow food even if it does become slightly less hell.
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Troll country could be decent farmland. But I imagine better money will be herding and mining.
 
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Glau said:
Or it can be the third that almost no one lives in or looks at.
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Newtown actually is right next to Old town. It is very much a place people see and it influences them. It is a place criminals briefly run to, and law enforcement never follows them inside. It is a place where cultists can meet out in the open (briefly) before scurrying off to avoid the consequences of the dhar radiation.
 
DragonParadox said:
No, it's more that I think Northern Kislev is a awful place to grow food even if it does become slightly less hell.
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Well, it's not just crops, but also grazelands, mines, and forests. There are a lot of untapped raw resources that Kislev hasn't had access to for 200 years now, reclaiming that territory will be a big boon for the local economy, especially since there will soon be a canal route to southern Kislev and the Empire. It's a pretty big deal for Praag.

Not big enough that I think it should be the main focus, but I don't want to diminish its value either.
 
[X] Karlsbridge and Old Town

Protecting the people is definitely the image I want. Sabotage from locals is probably the worst danger it'll face- if they're cultists then that's a group to find and crush, but if they're just angry/superstitious locals? That's a total loss. Make them love the stones. Make them see the benefit in their daily life. Make them riot against anyone who tries to damage them.

Also it helps people the most short-term, and long-term we're deploying them to all of the above.

My second choice would be to recruit the Cult of Dzan, cuz they'll be national.
 
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chocolote12 said:
Prioritizing comfort over actually stopping people from dying doesn't feel like it falls on the right end of that dichotomy.
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I think you are unfairly minimizing the effects on the place people actually live.

Want fewer mutants? Put it where the people are. A smaller fraction (mutation rate in Old Town) of a larger number (people in Old Town) is much bigger than a larger fraction of a much smaller number. (The same two figures for new town)

It's not a fluffy blankets vs cancer cures situation.

I prefer to do a thing that creates an immediate, visible, positive impact on the people in the area rather than doing something that sucks for years before a payoff.

DragonParadox said:
OK then what do you think the second option does? Is it just a trap option in your eyes?
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It does just as it's boosters say: it stabs at the greatest concentration of chaos. No less. No more.

This is the choice for the people in charge who are looking to their own satisfaction at affecting the big picture the most.

I just don't value those people's satisfaction as highly.

HanChenYou said:
Newtown actually is right next to Old town. It is very much a place people see and it influences them
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I don't think they do. It's quite possible to live in a city a few blocks away from really awful areas and just never notice they exist. If there's walls between people and new town as per the map, if there is good reason to never go there as per the descriptions of what happens to people there, then I don't think people will really notice it improving.
 
Phrux said:
[X] Karlsbridge and Old Town

Protecting the people is definitely the image I want. Sabotage from locals is probably the worst danger it'll face- if they're cultists then that's a group to find and crush, but if they're just angry/superstitious locals? That's a total loss. Make them love the stones. Make them see the benefit in their daily life. Make them riot against anyone who tries to damage them.

Also it helps people the most short-term, and long-term we're deploying them to all of the above.

My second choice would be to recruit the Cult of Dzan, cuz they'll be national.
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I can't believe I have to invoke this again so soon but... common folks in Warhammer are not memetic lemmings. Leaving aside the legitimacy of the Z'ra, the reverence for the local mages, leaving all that aside for a moment: They are not going to attack the magical stones protected by the local army and the local magicians, anymore than random peasants during Vlad's conquest of Sylvania charged the gates of Castle Drakenhof with a stake raised high and a song in their hearts. That is an elaborate means of committing suicide.
 
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chocolote12 said:
Does Mathilde value a reputation of the stones providing comfort or a reputation of the stones exorcising evil?
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That is well said.
I prefer these waystones removing lots of dhar, and prefer the bridge of death option to do it.

I know magic does not really follow fluid dynamics, but if I am trying to drain a pond by pumping the water off to somewhere else, then I will get a better flow rate for longer if I stick it in a deep part of the pond, instead of in the shallows.

There are limitations, I don't need to put it right in the deepest part. (Like the center of the Chaos wastes) Instead, I put it in a part that is as deep as possible and also accessible.

Newtown matches both of those criteria really well.
 
[X] Bridge of Death and New Town


Glau said:
Want fewer mutants? Put it where the people are. A smaller fraction (mutation rate in Old Town) of a larger number (people in Old Town) is much bigger than a larger fraction of a much smaller number. (The same two figures for new town)
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You can't definitively say that, that's very much something that depends on the exact fractions and exact numbers.
 
deathofrats0808 said:
That's not necessarily true. It depends on the numbers. Data which we don't have for Praag.
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Given how New Town resembles the Deep Wastes it might also genuinely be data that is unobtainable until reality reasserts itself more. For all we know the number of mutants varies based on the phases of the moon and the nightmares of children in the rest of the city with some of them growing and reabsorbing clones as necessary.
 
[X] Bridge of Death and New Town

We designed this model of Waystone to stake the heart of Chaos, creating a political message. We chose Praag as the location of the first new Waystone to double down on that message. Let's triple down.
 
Glau said:
I prefer to do a thing that creates an immediate, visible, positive impact on the people in the area rather than doing something that sucks for years before a payoff.
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I feel like our conceptions of the time scales involved are too different to make reasonable conversation about the pros and cons, then. I'm operating on the assumption that results will be visible next turn, and you've implied that you think it'll occur after a few decades.

@Boney, do we have any idea what the timescale is imagined to look like? I feel like we should at least have an idea of what it would look like operating inside some spherical tainted areas, with our +15 to Waystones.
 
DragonParadox said:
Leaving aside the legitimacy of the Z'ra, the reverence for the local mages, leaving all that aside for a moment: They are not going to attack the magical stones protected by the local army and the local magician
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I believe the argument is that we are far better off if we don't need the local army and local magicians on stone protection duty.
 
DragonParadox said:
Given how New Town resembles the Deep Wastes it might also genuinely be data that is unobtainable until reality reasserts itself more. For all we know the number of mutants varies based on the phases of the moon and the nightmares of children in the rest of the city with some of them growing and reabsorbing clones as necessary.
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I mean, yes. That and the fact that censuses probably aren't something that really ahppen at this period. Countries are worried about land owned, rather than number of people. Although given Kislev's military system it's possible they care more, given that knowing how many soldiers you have matters quite a lot.
 
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