- Location
- Leeds
[X] Armor of von Tarnus
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
- Fantasy Users' Choice!
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- warhammer warhammer fantasy fantasy be gay do crimes (gay) female protagonist pansexual protagonist ck2 quest divided loyalties mountain vietnam ranald is real this is a dwarf quest (dwarfs) this is maybe an elf quest this is not a vampire quest this is not an empire quest try it and find out open voting
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Parabola
Divided Loyalties Librarian
- Location
- The Destination of Fate
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I'll be honest, I've been holding my tongue a bit because the topic has been discussed to death over the past few months, but I'll be a bit bummed out if the Armor ends up winning over the plan I made without at least making another effort.
I've extensively argued on the practical benefits of the ship over the armor before, so now, please allow me to fall back to the more subjective and sentimental arguments, now:
I've extensively argued on the practical benefits of the ship over the armor before, so now, please allow me to fall back to the more subjective and sentimental arguments, now:
- I don't want a historical masterpiece made by the greatest enchanter in College history, I want a modern-day masterpiece made by the best current minds in the Colleges. I want a reward that actually has all the Colleges work together to create something that none of them could do entirely on their own, or at least not to the amazing extent that we know they can if they put their greatest minds together.
- I don't want to imagine the other seven Colleges presenting the Brights with enough compensation that they'll let go of one of their best things ever, I want to make something that ideally future generations will speak of in the same breath as the Armor.
- Part of me is still hoping that the Armor gets lent out to Mandred more extensively in the future, as he is more likely to be in the battlefield for longer periods of time and unlike us doesn't have Grey magic to let him avoid harm by being hard to find or see.
- Airships are so cool, you guys.
consequences
Not A Nice Person At All
- Location
- Jerkville
My issue is that the armor being of any use to us is fundamentally a fail state where we have lost stealth and failed to break contact. If we're going to take a serious swing at an actual factual Big Bad it would probably be nice to have, and even nicer to have on someone without our mobility and stealth so we can cannon sword them while they are occupied, or possibly crash a flying ship into them.
SaltyWaffles
I am dissapoint, son
- Pronouns
- He/Him
So after reading a really good blog that discusses history--particularly military history--of pre-modern times through the lens of media and popular culture, I thought I'd take a moment to give some brief analysis of Divided Loyalties on one of the recurring sets of subjects the blog covers: logistics, strategy, operations, and tactics.
Namely, do logistics get the major focus they deserve that serves as the backbone of any major military action? Do the strategies of the involved factions make sense for the given leadership of those factions? Do the operations they employ make sense (or even exist beyond being handwaved away)? And are the tactics plausible within the setting's defined rules?
And in contrast to many mainstream works these days, the answer to all of these questions in Divided Loyalties is pretty consistently "yes".
Let's break it down by question:
Logistics
Right from the early days of the quest, the importance of travel times and the implications of those travel times is plot-critical and mentioned regularly. Mathilde's ability to ride a magical horse that does not tire or trip or eat is treated as very valuable and makes a big impact. She can cover way more ground more quickly than anyone else (yes, gyrocopters and pegasus-riders exist, but none of them are in Stirland at the time). Mathilde uses this to great effect to completely outmaneuver the Stirlandian League by conducting a well-prepared operation (get to that later) more rapidly than the League's riders can deliver word that the operation is even happening.
Then the war against Sylvania comes, and right away logistics gets the main focus. First, a road has to be constructed to facilitate the offensive at all. The army has to be prepared for the march. The march itself is painfully slow to Mathilde, used to riding on a magical horse by herself as she is, and it's noted just how slow an army of infantry moves. Also mentioned is the major concern of supply--a steady stream of supplies has to keep moving to keep the army going. While foraging for food--a required task for an army on the march if it isn't using supply caches laid out ahead of time--isn't really mentioned, the fact that Sylvania is populated decently with humans who grow food means that this task isn't impossible, either. The limited distances the army advances also makes it less of a problem. The wagon equation states that the further you have to use a wagon-based supply chain to an army, the less efficient that resupply gets because the horses/mules and cart drivers need to eat too, using up more and more of the supplies they're carrying in the first place. This is why making supply caches along the route you intend to advance or limiting your army's operation to a matter of days for lunges beyond your existing logistics is key--that, or having a resupply route by water, which is vastly more efficient.
The Karak Eight Peaks Expedition also passes with flying colors. Belegar spends quite some time preparing for this expedition, including with talks with rulers of places along the route his army will march. Belegar negotiating with the king of Barak Varr to get continuous resupply by boat via river makes the entire operation very believable, particularly since the army will be marching along the river. The route then has to go through an underground tunnel a ways before emerging outside of Karak Eight Peaks itself, but this is mitigated somewhat by the tunnel being smooth and well-built, making it more like a good road than a cave floor. The Expedition then secures its flanks, takes the East Gate, and then pushes to take the mountains closest to the East Gate, with Kvinn-Wyr being occupied by neutral trolls and thus securing that flank. The Eastern Valley, combined with the Citadel, makes for a defensible position that maintains the direct link with Barak Varr, itself a trade nexus that can import grains and foodstuffs from just about anywhere with ease. And almost immediately, there's a major effort to turn the Eastern Valley into arable soil for growing food locally, and the next military operation involves taking an adjacent mountain that provides a major source of fresh water, again a logistical boon. That that mountain overlooks the supply route to K8P makes the operation all the more sound. The one criticism is that cavalry actually bring multiple horses with them on campaign--the warhorse (which is very expensive) is reserved for the actual battle, but you'd have a riding horse or two as well. For Demigryphs, this would be more challenging because of how it seems nigh-impossible for a demigryph to be tamed by a new rider if the previous one dies, and demigryphs would be even more expensive than a warhorse, so perhaps demigryphs are just so good that you don't even need a spare horse (or they use a riding horse outside of battle). The Winter Wolves might have a problem of giant wolves just not being so available that spares can be found, and perhaps they too use a riding horse outside of battle, but that seems unlikely given there is no mention of riding horses in the Karag Dum Expedition.
The big battle for Karak Eight Peaks is perhaps unique in that logistics plays very little, if any, role...and that's believable because the battlefield is small enough that it doesn't matter; it's the unique terrain and three-dimensionality of the battleground that gives the various armies the space to maneuver into each other separately.
The Karag Dum Expedition is one giant logistics challenge that is tackled from mundane, arcane, and divine angles, along with extensive preparation. From the very start, logistics is treated as a vital focus and given the respect it deserves. The addition of two knightly orders with supernatural beasts for mounts vastly increases the logistics demands of the expedition--which is surprisingly realistic--which makes Mathilde's preparation for bartering with the locals for more food with money all the more wonderful to see. The loss of the biggest steam wagon also made its biggest impact by virtue of the hit to the logistics of the expedition rather than the military force it provided. Mathilde's improvisation with using magic to stack cows way more densely than would otherwise be possible onto the remaining steam wagons shows a beautiful blend of realism with fantasy, and I love it. That Borek later makes the journey from Karag Dum back to Karak Vlag by himself also shows a respect for the fact that it's far easier for a single fit individual who knows the terrain to travel long distances than it is for a major armed force ready for battle. And of course, Mathilde going so far as to invent a spell for creating smooth terrain for the steam wagons to traverse shows not just a respect for the rigors of traveling over rough terrain in heavy vehicles, but for how much faster a good road makes travel. The lack of spare mounts for the knights is kind of a problem, but when logistics are so strained it's believable the knights would just accept needing to take potentially tired mounts into battle if they're unlucky. It's also possible that giant wolves and demigryphs have amazing endurance and thus spares aren't needed.
Finally, the Battle for Shirokij Forest. Here is perhaps the most problematic showcase of logistical concerns, with things like "everyone but the women, children, and elderly are warriors ready to march for battle on very short notice" raising lots of questions about where some of these forces find the time to train for more than just basic combat, but it's within the realm of possibility to have at least a modestly-trained and equipped force like that ready to reinforce a professional army or more elite force. Likewise, the speed with which not just some forces with particular qualities, but practically all of the types of forces Kislev fields are assembled, marching, and prepared for battle in a couple of days at most, all converging at the same place, seems a little fantastical to me. For professional forces like knights and state troops, that makes perfect sense. But gathering the local forces of various villages and regions and concentrating them all together to arrive at a distant location so easily and quickly raises my eyebrows. Mathilde rides to Kislev City and back multiple times to ferry reinforcements to the battlefield (one of which is an army of infantry on foot) in the span of less than two days--the only way this seems plausible is if Kislev City is just really close to the relevant part of Shirokij Forest. Nevertheless, kudos for showing how being able to march on a good road makes an infantry army able to move much faster and with less fatigue. Logistically, the fact that these forces are not moving very far or for very long at all makes it very plausible, as infantry can carry something like ten days of rations with them even assuming they can't forage for food along the way. The battle plan likewise aims to provoke Drycha into battle sooner rather than later, so supplies are even less likely to be an issue.
---
That covers Part 1: Logistics. Part 2: Strategy coming later.
Namely, do logistics get the major focus they deserve that serves as the backbone of any major military action? Do the strategies of the involved factions make sense for the given leadership of those factions? Do the operations they employ make sense (or even exist beyond being handwaved away)? And are the tactics plausible within the setting's defined rules?
And in contrast to many mainstream works these days, the answer to all of these questions in Divided Loyalties is pretty consistently "yes".
Let's break it down by question:
Logistics
Right from the early days of the quest, the importance of travel times and the implications of those travel times is plot-critical and mentioned regularly. Mathilde's ability to ride a magical horse that does not tire or trip or eat is treated as very valuable and makes a big impact. She can cover way more ground more quickly than anyone else (yes, gyrocopters and pegasus-riders exist, but none of them are in Stirland at the time). Mathilde uses this to great effect to completely outmaneuver the Stirlandian League by conducting a well-prepared operation (get to that later) more rapidly than the League's riders can deliver word that the operation is even happening.
Then the war against Sylvania comes, and right away logistics gets the main focus. First, a road has to be constructed to facilitate the offensive at all. The army has to be prepared for the march. The march itself is painfully slow to Mathilde, used to riding on a magical horse by herself as she is, and it's noted just how slow an army of infantry moves. Also mentioned is the major concern of supply--a steady stream of supplies has to keep moving to keep the army going. While foraging for food--a required task for an army on the march if it isn't using supply caches laid out ahead of time--isn't really mentioned, the fact that Sylvania is populated decently with humans who grow food means that this task isn't impossible, either. The limited distances the army advances also makes it less of a problem. The wagon equation states that the further you have to use a wagon-based supply chain to an army, the less efficient that resupply gets because the horses/mules and cart drivers need to eat too, using up more and more of the supplies they're carrying in the first place. This is why making supply caches along the route you intend to advance or limiting your army's operation to a matter of days for lunges beyond your existing logistics is key--that, or having a resupply route by water, which is vastly more efficient.
The Karak Eight Peaks Expedition also passes with flying colors. Belegar spends quite some time preparing for this expedition, including with talks with rulers of places along the route his army will march. Belegar negotiating with the king of Barak Varr to get continuous resupply by boat via river makes the entire operation very believable, particularly since the army will be marching along the river. The route then has to go through an underground tunnel a ways before emerging outside of Karak Eight Peaks itself, but this is mitigated somewhat by the tunnel being smooth and well-built, making it more like a good road than a cave floor. The Expedition then secures its flanks, takes the East Gate, and then pushes to take the mountains closest to the East Gate, with Kvinn-Wyr being occupied by neutral trolls and thus securing that flank. The Eastern Valley, combined with the Citadel, makes for a defensible position that maintains the direct link with Barak Varr, itself a trade nexus that can import grains and foodstuffs from just about anywhere with ease. And almost immediately, there's a major effort to turn the Eastern Valley into arable soil for growing food locally, and the next military operation involves taking an adjacent mountain that provides a major source of fresh water, again a logistical boon. That that mountain overlooks the supply route to K8P makes the operation all the more sound. The one criticism is that cavalry actually bring multiple horses with them on campaign--the warhorse (which is very expensive) is reserved for the actual battle, but you'd have a riding horse or two as well. For Demigryphs, this would be more challenging because of how it seems nigh-impossible for a demigryph to be tamed by a new rider if the previous one dies, and demigryphs would be even more expensive than a warhorse, so perhaps demigryphs are just so good that you don't even need a spare horse (or they use a riding horse outside of battle). The Winter Wolves might have a problem of giant wolves just not being so available that spares can be found, and perhaps they too use a riding horse outside of battle, but that seems unlikely given there is no mention of riding horses in the Karag Dum Expedition.
The big battle for Karak Eight Peaks is perhaps unique in that logistics plays very little, if any, role...and that's believable because the battlefield is small enough that it doesn't matter; it's the unique terrain and three-dimensionality of the battleground that gives the various armies the space to maneuver into each other separately.
The Karag Dum Expedition is one giant logistics challenge that is tackled from mundane, arcane, and divine angles, along with extensive preparation. From the very start, logistics is treated as a vital focus and given the respect it deserves. The addition of two knightly orders with supernatural beasts for mounts vastly increases the logistics demands of the expedition--which is surprisingly realistic--which makes Mathilde's preparation for bartering with the locals for more food with money all the more wonderful to see. The loss of the biggest steam wagon also made its biggest impact by virtue of the hit to the logistics of the expedition rather than the military force it provided. Mathilde's improvisation with using magic to stack cows way more densely than would otherwise be possible onto the remaining steam wagons shows a beautiful blend of realism with fantasy, and I love it. That Borek later makes the journey from Karag Dum back to Karak Vlag by himself also shows a respect for the fact that it's far easier for a single fit individual who knows the terrain to travel long distances than it is for a major armed force ready for battle. And of course, Mathilde going so far as to invent a spell for creating smooth terrain for the steam wagons to traverse shows not just a respect for the rigors of traveling over rough terrain in heavy vehicles, but for how much faster a good road makes travel. The lack of spare mounts for the knights is kind of a problem, but when logistics are so strained it's believable the knights would just accept needing to take potentially tired mounts into battle if they're unlucky. It's also possible that giant wolves and demigryphs have amazing endurance and thus spares aren't needed.
Finally, the Battle for Shirokij Forest. Here is perhaps the most problematic showcase of logistical concerns, with things like "everyone but the women, children, and elderly are warriors ready to march for battle on very short notice" raising lots of questions about where some of these forces find the time to train for more than just basic combat, but it's within the realm of possibility to have at least a modestly-trained and equipped force like that ready to reinforce a professional army or more elite force. Likewise, the speed with which not just some forces with particular qualities, but practically all of the types of forces Kislev fields are assembled, marching, and prepared for battle in a couple of days at most, all converging at the same place, seems a little fantastical to me. For professional forces like knights and state troops, that makes perfect sense. But gathering the local forces of various villages and regions and concentrating them all together to arrive at a distant location so easily and quickly raises my eyebrows. Mathilde rides to Kislev City and back multiple times to ferry reinforcements to the battlefield (one of which is an army of infantry on foot) in the span of less than two days--the only way this seems plausible is if Kislev City is just really close to the relevant part of Shirokij Forest. Nevertheless, kudos for showing how being able to march on a good road makes an infantry army able to move much faster and with less fatigue. Logistically, the fact that these forces are not moving very far or for very long at all makes it very plausible, as infantry can carry something like ten days of rations with them even assuming they can't forage for food along the way. The battle plan likewise aims to provoke Drycha into battle sooner rather than later, so supplies are even less likely to be an issue.
---
That covers Part 1: Logistics. Part 2: Strategy coming later.
I hadn't thought of the idea that the armor is heavily unbalanced in terms of where it comes from. It's a good counter-argument. I'd always thought that getting the armor felt tacky.
But I've browsed through your past arguments, to refresh myself, and the practical benefits you mentioned aren't really there. Like SaltyWaffles has been pointing out: flying ships are very limited in forests. Like the most comparable real life thing to soldier deployment is paratroopers, though it's a very rough comparison. To my understanding, the practical benefit of paratroopers has always been very... meh. They need to be deployed basically five five away from the front lines, because otherwise they'll just be destroyed for a cheaper expenditure of resources than were invested into them. It doesn't really unlock traveling to any place. We can already get to most places.
The notion of Mandred wearing the armor is neat, but to my understanding Boney doesn't really simulate the universe to that extent.
Don't get me wrong, I think the Prismatic Wonderer is a neat idea. I just don't see how it fits Mathilde. Mathilde at least has a history of towers. pickle's requests is more fitting and doesn't feel like it's coming out of nowhere.
Adrian XXIV
Average User, from Poland
- Location
- Poland
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Mathilde: *"shows off" her Skyship to her Dawi friends*
Cousin Okri: *makes quick math about "How much Dawi Paratroopers it would be able to transport"*
Cousin Okri: *makes quick math about "How much Dawi Paratroopers it would be able to transport"*
SaltyWaffles
I am dissapoint, son
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It's not a failure state at all. Mathilde is well-built for being a melee powerhouse, and being a melee powerhouse has been directly useful to her in her work many times, including when stealth was involved. For example, the fight against Drycha. The fight against the Kurgan, where Mathilde started off stealthy and assassinating unaware targets, but that could only continue for so long before the enemy caught on and forced Mathilde into a conventional fight (a fight she nearly died in, I might add, and would have died in if her Aethyric Armor hadn't provided sufficient protection). Against Alkharad, we had the element of surprise and Branalhune, but still ended up in a conventional duel with him where our runic belt saved us and Branulhune gave us a fighting chance to win. We literally snuck up on him and tried to stealth-cannon-sword him, and it didn't work because he rolled well on his reaction, forcing us into a conventional fight we almost lost.
Against the skaven council envoy, it was Branulhune that allowed us to deliver a fatal blow before he could shoot us. Against orcs, we had to perform repeated assassinations and escapes, and it's not surprising that eventually one of them went badly enough that we had to stand and fight.
Armor absolutely matters. If you never have to fight because you're just that good at stealth, chances are you're not being sufficiently ambitious to go after harder targets and the bigger rewards that represents. Being able to fall back on being extremely well protected even if things go really wrong is what allows you to take bigger risks going after bigger targets.
Saying that the armor being of use represents a failure state is like saying that an item that heavily mitigates miscast dangers is bad because miscasts represent a fail state--yes, and the danger of miscasts is always present when casting magic in sufficiently adverse conditions. That's why something that mitigates that danger is so good.
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I am four parallel universes ahead of you.
SaltyWaffles
I am dissapoint, son
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I mean, we already have the coolest home base at Karak Eight Peaks. It's a mountain-sized wizard's tower that houses a magical superweapon, contains a magical bath, a dragon-skull reading chair, heavy fortifications, the best view you could ask for, a dragon-sized visitor's room, a gyrocopter landing pad, and an array of dwarf-grade towers for magical experiments, learning, and Wind storage. And soon, silk sheets.
As for a natural progression of transport: we have a custom-made gyrocarriage that flies much faster than even a flying ship and is ready to be enchanted to have incredible range and a much more comfortable ride, along with a hired pilot we know and trust (who can throw fireballs at people). If we get a flying ship, we are going to end up not using one of the two, which is a tremendous waste. We already spent a major boon for the gyrocarriage, which serves almost all of our needs and can serve all of our needs if we enchant it.
The bigger problem is having things to do with the flying warship when getting into open field battles isn't something we normally do. It's an asset for the Colleges and the Empire, but not particularly useful to us.
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The armor conceptually feels like it doesn't advance the thread that lead us here. Aetheryc Vita is Mathilde's Magnum Opus, one that ties in everything from the errors of her apprenticeship and the danger of miscasts to her friendship with the dwarfs, her love of research and understanding the fundamentals of magics to the aid of Ranald who helped us bind it. To have all that reduced to magic armor, even if it is the best magic armor that has ever armored feels cheap.
- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Since people are making cases for the airship and the armor, I figure I'd complete the set of frontrunners by reposting my argument for the Pickle Requests plan, which features Something For Everyone.
...but I'm going to be completely honest, the thing that I actually really want to win is [*] Save the boon until we choose our next project, which currently has 19 votes and has no shot, but has the advantage of knowing what we're going to do before we try to figure out something cool to grab.
K von Carstein
Likes to go for a walk
- Location
- Belgium
- Pronouns
- He
Yeah, I want it because it's cool. So often, the thread has to vote for serious reasons because of the consequences. Here, what we get is pure bonus. Let's get the craziest yet practical thing we can.
The problem is, that's a house, not a base. I don't really see the quest going back to K8P on an arc-basis ever again, Mathilde kinda solved the entire conflict around it. The Eye of Gazul is a defensive emplacement in a place that no longer needs defending, and the rest is nice things Mathilde gets to go home to in her downtime, but it's never going to be available on a quest or a mission unless we somehow crack global teleportation.
pucflek
Verified simpleton
- Location
- Czech Republic
It absolutely needs defending.
Karak Eight Peaks is specifically only considered relatively safe because there is a holy superweapon right in the middle of the valley that can annihilate armies at will.
It is horrendously under-manned and the defences that were decaying for three millenia are now somehow refurbished. But by Dwarven Karak standards, its the bare minimum necessary.
Karak Drazh is still stone throw away.
consequences
Not A Nice Person At All
- Location
- Jerkville
We have danger mitigation at home. We have spent significant effort ensuring both our first strike capability and ability to successfully not get cornered by mooks again in response to the fact that the target surviving the assassination attempt or their goons successfully pinning us down is a Bad Thing.
A failure state being an entirely predictable end result if attempting risky things doesn't change that it is one, and that we've already put like seven AP into avoiding repeats.
Yes. Very serious. Because of me.
*hastily tries to hide all of the Griffon votes in the closet*
pucflek
Verified simpleton
- Location
- Czech Republic
Mathilde fights in open pitched battles far too often for it to be a failure state.
And no, not always as an assassin, and as she gets better, she will encounter enemies that are far more readily able to counter her anyway.
I have to agree. This entire vote I haven't even had a clue about something I wanted, rather than identifying options I didn't want. Did you get 19 from merging 'Plan: Next arc boon.' into that?
Yeah but how cool can something be if we just have it rather than truly using it? What are we going to do with it? We're not visiting Cathay, much less Ind or Khuresh. I'm not sure if there'd be a significant difference in travel time if we went to Lustria. It's not really useful militarily, because forests are too dense. Mathilde also doesn't really do that very much.
The only use I can think of it is visiting the Norse Dwarfs hold, and they fell. I guess searching for Karak Zorn is an option too. But that'd be a way's off. There's still a lot left to be done in the waystone project.
Godwinson
"Well, I've got nothing."
[X] Break College Favor/ Tenure
[X] Plan Pickle Requests mk IV
[X] Save the boon until we choose our next project
[X] Cooperate with the dwarves on creating the plans for a flying ship type that can, in theory, be regularly produced - plus dibs on a prototype of a larger ship when such is built
[X] Plan: The Next Generation
-[X] Use the whole boon to have the gold college teach Eike everything she can learn about material-enchantment, alchemy(-adjacent if alchemy itself is too much), and all-around enhancing and supplementing her Natural Alchemist trait until she's a walking talking reverse-engineering machine that can pick up magical crafting skills lightning quick.
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The reward is something that's technically supposed to advance our research. A ship can take us to new places. A tower is a mobile lab we can bring with us. The individual requests open a lot of new research opportunities for us.
The armour just makes us less squishy. It won't actually make us take more risks with adventures than we already do, and it'll only benefit us if we fight something that can kill us in our current armour, but can't kill us in the Von Tarnus armour, which is an awfully narrow range of enemies.
The armour just makes us less squishy. It won't actually make us take more risks with adventures than we already do, and it'll only benefit us if we fight something that can kill us in our current armour, but can't kill us in the Von Tarnus armour, which is an awfully narrow range of enemies.
K8P needs defending in the abstract, what it does not need is defending by us on a regular basis. If there is an Orc Waagh or a Skaven invasion or I don't know a Dawi Zhar throng for some reason we can fly in and render aid, but the hold is long past needing us to live there. We've had a vote about it, arguably two:
- Once to take none of the projects that would have been obligatory within the hold
- A second time to not set the Waystone project there
This is clarified in the update itself to not be the case:
Not that the armor is selfish, but if we could ask for something of pure personal use there is certainly no issue with the armor.
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- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
No, I just can't remember numbers I read for longer than five seconds.
With regard to your point about identifying options you don't want -- yeah, the thing is that we've had close votes in the past, but this is the first vote I can remember seeing where even the winning option has such a low percentage of the overall vote. It's common that stuff doesn't win with an outright majority in multiway votes, but usually it has at least 40%! The best anything is mustering this time is 37%; back in the end-of-last-arc vote, which was fairly tight and controversial, the winning option had 47% of the vote. I've been sitting here for the last few months kinda hoping that someone would drop the game-changer idea that makes everyone sit up and go YES, to avoid the outcomes where something wins and most of the thread is unhappy about it.