chocolote12
A Penguin Flailing Against The Keyboard Of Life.
Useful? Tasty? I'm sorry, but your simile isn't really helping me understand what you're trying to say.
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
- Fantasy Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Valarauko
Demon of Power
- Location
- Angband
Inedible?
- Location
- Chicago
- Pronouns
- She/They
Agreed, but isn't that three actions? Or two plus the free one, or three turns of EIC dedication. I'd like to get a pro-empire policy in place and the info ring set up as well- go slow or go quick, do you think?
Mathilde considered the issue of a pie taking an hour to bake, and discovered that if you cover it in brandy and then cook it for a mere half-an-hour, you will get burned, half-cooked, brandy-soaked pie. Thus, I am imagining Master Chef Kragg Ramsey getting a suggestion from rank amateur pie maker Mathilde that maybe his dish would taste a lot better if he arbitrarily changed up the recipe a bit.
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Seems like one we should be able to grab all of by going "Spend seven favor on making it all of these things" tbh but if not I'd go for quality so Dwarves are actually more willing to use it.
- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
It's a good idea, but we should really prioritize the moral footing of the EIC first. Remember: Mathilde was sufficiently concerned about it that dismantle it entirely was a voting option. Getting that project started is time-critical, because culture is self-replicating; if other memes get the chance to root themselves in the EIC, we/Stirland/our friends back home might end up in a whole heap of trouble.
I'm so disappointed that we're going to build a tower on top of a mountain, just because it gets a few more points on the dice roll. Mathilde chose to live underground over a tower once before -- on the basis of a coin flip, but she still did it. What changed in her mind that suddenly wizards living in towers is so cool? Surely she can't think that the in-universe explanation for whatever it is that gives the bonus is worth all that much, because she was fine setting up her enchanting lab in the Sunken Palace before she stopped needing it.
I'm disappointed, too, that last turn cut out all of her purchases of romance novels. I guess because they don't provide mechanical benefits either. It's just one of the points of her characterisation since basically the start of the thread that she enjoys them, nothing important.
I'm glad that when BoneyM wrote about Kragg making the sword, he mentioned that it was a decision of the dwarfs to do so. If it had been like Mathilde's first runic item, where she hinted around at it, I think I would have disliked the idea of the sword much more than I already did.
I guess I'm just getting tired of the tendency to discard character in favour of mechanical bonuses. It's not a new tendency, I know. BoneyM had to institute free social actions long ago because they were never chosen. But it grates on me over time. Ugh. Don't know why I'm even typing this up. I could always just unwatch the thread and forget about it. It'd probably be better for me.
I'm disappointed, too, that last turn cut out all of her purchases of romance novels. I guess because they don't provide mechanical benefits either. It's just one of the points of her characterisation since basically the start of the thread that she enjoys them, nothing important.
I'm glad that when BoneyM wrote about Kragg making the sword, he mentioned that it was a decision of the dwarfs to do so. If it had been like Mathilde's first runic item, where she hinted around at it, I think I would have disliked the idea of the sword much more than I already did.
I guess I'm just getting tired of the tendency to discard character in favour of mechanical bonuses. It's not a new tendency, I know. BoneyM had to institute free social actions long ago because they were never chosen. But it grates on me over time. Ugh. Don't know why I'm even typing this up. I could always just unwatch the thread and forget about it. It'd probably be better for me.
The action cost continues to be the big issue there.
And we've already got like 3+ turns worth of actions we want for the EIC already.
If the spider situation looks stable, we might get a turn with no serious "go do this" from Belegar, in which case it only has to fight it out between our research projects, our papers, training Wolf, helping out other councilors, and the inevitable push for scouting out the other peaks.
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
She thought towers were cool back then, too.
- Location
- somewhere over there.
- Pronouns
- They/It
Personally, I find it very amusing that she lived underground when she was with humans, and is now going to live in a big tower while she's with dwarves.
- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
I'm on Team Mathilde's Romance Novels Are Great, but I think what people were upset about was the amount of money being spent on an Extensive/Esoteric collection in multiple languages, some of which we don't actually speak. If we go back next turn and have more moderate spending, I think it'll have a much easier time getting traction with the thread.
I mean, we're gonna do both. We can't build in both directions at the same time, but the tradeoff the QM is giving us is "build up to get 1 room at a time, with bonuses, build down to get more space (2 rooms on the first level down, then 3, and so on)." I expect that the next building action we take is going to be fairly bitterly split between the people who want us to build another lab above the first one and the people who want us to build out more rooms below our current one so that we can start dividing our space up into a bedroom/library/office for nonmagical work/etc. instead of just having everything in the penthouse.
Last edited:
Quest
The Great One
- Location
- Everywhere
Next project might be the mushrooms. Might be a good excuse go get Panoramia in to help.
chocolote12
A Penguin Flailing Against The Keyboard Of Life.
Mathilde never thought Wizard towers weren't cool, she just liked the secrecy more. Both locations were attractive, but she asked Ranald and he weighed in. When a god leads you to a specific location for a cool house, you don't often stop to think about how much you'd like to live somewhere else, if you know what's good for you. Ranald did not weigh in this time, so Mathilde decided she might as well have a tower; her residence is going to be expanding in every direction anyways, and towers are in fact cool. In fact, it's such a universally accepted fact that even magic thinks towers are cool.
They cost literally hundreds of gold. Hundreds of gold. More than the worth of (worthless) countries. More than the entire budget of the spy organization of Stirland, thrice over. Mathilde has already been indulging her quirks and habits, that's why we know about it at all. What she didn't end up doing was spending more money than most people will ever see in their lives on trashy romance novels.
I like entertaining novels. I think they are worth spending money on. But not like that. Never like that.
The entire point of favors is subtly making known to the dwarves that there is a debt in a way that doesn't cause offense; that's the entire fluff of spending them. Hinting about it so that the dwarves can think of an idea for how they might pay us back is literally how we 'spend' them. It's always their decision, because it represents them wanting to give us the equivalent of a friendship bracelet, it's just dwarves measure good feelings with hard numbers (even in their romance novels, apparently).
I thought that it was escalating levels. So, spending two favors would make a safe, efficient factory, and 4 favors would be a safe, efficient high quality factory. A Dwarf would never make a factory creating quality goods that's unsafe, he'd be shamed into a mohawk.
We have WoG it's three separate actions.
I want to note that Max didn't actually get around to a Petty Magic until this very turn. Its not impossible.
It'd be a very odd development for a wizard expecting to face hostile spellcasters, but its not impossible.
I just turn off autocorrect and swipe keyboard. Its physically impossible to do a review post with them on.
Also worth noting that any Necromancer who realizes the implications are likely to redact or hide that part when teaching their apprentices or readers.
Why?
Why WOULD a necromancer keep something that'd be super effective on themselves by their apprentice in the book they scribe if they could help it?
It depends a lot on what the Warpstone is being used for. If its just energy density, the Gold College could manage it with regular chemistry. If its telling physics to fuck off, they'd need to figure out which bits of physics are being told to fuck off and replicate it via enchanting.
If its BOTH...yeah, then we're looking at something really big and expensive.
Population too low to support a school when everyone's a subsistence herder. Once we have the improvements we ordered last time built and population shifts to be slightly more urbanized we could add more trades before it'd actually support any kind of school.
Depends a lot on the item...I actually suspect what is needed is hitting an Skaven manufactory, not armory. They SHOULD have machine tools
Eh, Bretonnian nobility are like Medieval nobility, who regularly created free city charters which made a lot of money for them to use in exchange for not doing a lot of work on them and letting them do whatever they like inside the city. Handrich expanding his influence there just makes sense.
The problem isn't in the expanding part.
Said nobility very often realized that the city was making a lot more money than they were paid(lack of economic understanding hurt a lot here, a lot of the wealth only 'appears' because its moving around a lot), and then tried to repossess a bunch.
Conversely when theres a lot of rich and powerful merchants they also start asking difficult questions like "Why am I even listening to that lord?". And on the other side, rich and powerful merchants tended to get that way by scraping every bit of profit off those they CAN oppress and that way lies laborer riots.
The Bretonnian Knights would encourage it as long as the taxes on the middle class continue to fund their horses and gear.
Naw, look at Ranald's portfolio:
-Protecting the masses - This is fundamentally socialist.
-Luck - This is apolitical. Or maybe anarchic.
-Deception - This is universally and equally political.
-Stealth - This is apolitical. Or maybe secret councils. Or secret unions.
So he leans vaguely socialist in that to him the purpose of a leader is to do good things for those below them.
But Shadow Councils are also his fetish.
But would it sword meaningfully better? It depends a lot on how fast the poison acts, because if you shoved a greatsword through them they usually expire pretty fast even without any poison.
The use case of poisoned greatsword is essentially:
-You can't ensure a killshot on your first blow because your target is too huge, too armored, or too aware to let you line up a fatal blow. In which case whatever hit you DO land would slow them down to finish.
-You're fighting a skilled opponent who can prevent you from landing a major wound but not skilled enough to avoid minor wounds. In which case the poison slows them down and lets you finish them off.
While true, the Grey College's intelligence network isn't all-encompassing, given that a big chunk of it is likely kludged together data from individual Magisters with impressive personal networks who ALSO maintain a professional level of "of course I know, I know everything" making it unclear what actual extents are.
Heck, there was one of those running right through Altdorf itself AND subverting Grey Wizards without the Grey Order knowing until we busted it.
Not saying that it should be a high priority, but it wouldn't be a bad use of our EIC proceeds to be used to pay for an EIC information network that we just turn around and mail to the Grey Order. Merchant networks are one of the most powerful information channels in the preindustrial era.
Knowledge is Money.
Double-entry bookkeeping was mentioned by Wilhelmina indirectly once I think?
Its one of those big leaps which take a lot of work and the benefits aren't very obvious until you audit your stuff.
So its probably known, but people without the Diligent, Meticulous or Organized traits are likely to skip it if they aren't ordered to.
I'd note that our spider diplomacy rolls were made with Learning. Given how the spiders seem heavily logic driven(to the extent that our poor Amberlings are completely confounded).
The important part is how well he can comprehend their alien logic and teach them the language in a way which doesn't show up in their minds as "Chirp"
I'd note that his real spell list should be at least twice(thrice if you count the various redundant spells that'd pop up) as long, and he probably can do Alchemy/Enchanting as well if he wants to do anything serious for guns.
Kind of what makes it so bloody hard to use him.
- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Here's the WOG with regard to factory construction:
So yeah, let's please, please prioritize "making sure the EIC is on firm ethical footing so we don't need to tear it down in three years and make Anton sad."
It teaches them things and I don't want to teach them anythig just to use them
On the scale the Skaven do things at?
I mean, maybe the Gold College can produce thousands of barrels of oil each day. Magic's bullshit, and the Jade spell for generating alcohol is certainly precedent.
But I'm pretty sure the attrition that's going to inflict on the wizards involved isn't going to be pretty.
And without the scale, we're talking about using what the Skaven are fielding as standard gear as expensive elite equipment.
A reminder that use of daemon blood for forging of the runefangs is 1993 Warhammer, closer to the Inquisitior Obiwan Sherlock Clousseau than it is to us. BoneyM already commented that we should not take it as gospel.
- Location
- some computer lab
okay, may I ask why you don't want to teach our new allies things?
because we know nothing about them beyond that they are spiders that eat Skaven and Orcs? It's not like they're dwarves who are incapable of betrayal, people are putting a lot of trust into an alliance with a hive mind of spiders that grow smarter the more of them there are.
I'm not saying we don't eventually teach them things but what is the benefit of teaching them to write?
Expensive elite equipment exactly. Its improved in that just by not having warpstone parts its not going to explode if you sneeze wrong, but more expensive.
Some elements if design might be worked into less potent stuff...but then I'd note gunpowder is pretty energy dense as it is.
Do you know what goes into producing gunpowder at scale?