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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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BioWolf said:
It teaches them things and I don't want to teach them anythig just to use them
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Well, unless we only want to use them as guard spiders (who hang arounds doing nothing, and might stumble into our troops in the wild, go into battle and causes death and thus causes problems to both sides), teaching how to communicate in the battlefield and during less strenuous battlefield-y activity is kinda steps we have to take to use them.
Mathilde is only a single person, even with the enchanted item (unless we want to commission Talk to We item for everyone?) we cannot be there all the time to supervise communications between our own people and We.
 
BioWolf said:
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?
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they get easier access to long term memory so they can better remember what great friends we are. also, they might be good at writing papers, who knows. written language gets new nodes up to speed faster which makes the We as a whole more efficient.
 
wrecksalot said:
okay, may I ask why you don't want to teach our new allies things?
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They seem to have answered that already; they're regarding them as a disposable buffer at best rather than an allied being/group. You don't teach them for the same reason you don't make sapient weapons and then tell them about how great it is to be independent and make your own choices. It risks them trying to grow out of a role where they can be exploited, and may lead to them resenting your poor treatment of them in the past.

Personally, I find the idea of exploiting a mostly friendly new species that way kinda disgusting, but there are reasons for it.
 
BioWolf said:
I'm not saying we don't eventually teach them things but what is the benefit of teaching them to write?
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Because reliable communication is a necessary pre-condition to developing any sort of diplomatic relations in the long run? There's a reason why Belegar gave Mathilde a mandate to establish a means of reliable communication with the We and the Dwarves. While a magical, enchanted means of communication help, it's only one item. Also, some people are attracted at the idea of eventually setting up a silk trade between the We, in exchange for food. Since written Reikspiel as I understand it is almost a trading language with outsiders from the Dwarven perspective (correct me if I'm wrong), it probably is a better option than Magic (many Dwarves don't trust it) or Khazalid (the Dwarves guard knowledge of this language fiercely, so this is a political no go). So it's either Reikspiel or Semaphores, and I'm not sure how much of the Dwarven population is familiar with Ranger Semaphores, and whether it's as high as the 25% of Dwarves literate in Reikspiel that WoG informs us.
 
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veekie said:
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.
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In canon Brettonian merchants don't actually pay taxes. Brettonian law only considers producing stuff to be taxable, so only farmers (and probably craftsmen, but that's not directly stated) are taxed. As a work-around, merchants will instead give 'gifts' to their local lords, and occasionally quietly buy them back the next day if the lord needs cash.
 
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WanderingEye said:
Considering the drought of weapons for the army, anyone considered ramping up EIC gun factory? I know it costs a lot of favor but hey (relatively) affordable source of guns!
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We tell Belegar that with investment and Dawi training we can get the manling Rifles up to good Dawi standards.

Favour invested pays for itself?

Edit: and as bonus, our EIC actions become Official Job actions. :V
 
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Seventeen said:
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.
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I would like to say that in the next Library vote I will be happy to support one purchase of Romance novels, not "expansive", not in a bunch of her non-native languages. Keep it at that, don't go overboard, and we have the votes.

Anyone else agree?
 
Briefvoice said:
I would like to say that in the next Library vote I will be happy to support one purchase of Romance novels, not "expansive", not in a bunch of her non-native languages. Keep it at that, don't go overboard, and we have the votes.
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hell yeah

...though I'm not staying up for the update and so I will probably miss the plan development, I'm off to bed (hope our QM is OK). But small purchases are great!
 
Briefvoice said:
I would like to say that in the next Library vote I will be happy to support one purchase of Romance novels, not "expansive", not in a bunch of her non-native languages. Keep it at that, don't go overboard, and we have the votes.

Anyone else agree?
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I am willing to drop the Imperial romance novels down to antiquarian, as well as dropping estalian and Tilean novels, but that is as far as I'll go.
 
Alliterate said:
We tell Belegar that with investment and Dawi training we can get the manling Rifles up to good Dawi standards.
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We already have a branch of the EIC in Eight Peaks. I wonder whether setting up another gun factory as a joint venture between the EIC (capital investors, war material importer) and the Engineer Guild/Royal Government (expertise) of Eight Peaks might be one way to go, but I assume this would be yet another radical move, and would have political costs.
 
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I remember a while ago someone brought up problems that the We might not understand that humans and dwarfs and the like are each their own individual We, but I don't think that'll be a problem. After all, we're an individual but we still understand the We's non-individuality (or at least well enough) so the We can probably understand (or be made to understand) individuality even as a non-individual.
 
Andmeuths said:
We already have a branch of the EIC in Eight Peaks. I wonder whether setting up another gun factory as a joint venture between the EIC (capital investors) and the Engineer Guild/Royal Government (expertise) of Eight Peaks might be one way to go, but I assume this would be yet another radical move, and would have political costs./
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Gotta get the Halfling Guild of Gong Farmers going first :V
 
I feel like being dicks to and treating a newly discovered sapient species like a disposable asset or only good for fighting is both unethical and quite likely to bite us in the ass.

Seriously, if they had a well of untapped evil beyond being hunters the Skaven would have provided ample inspiration for them, but as of right now their only goals seem to be food and the safety of the nest. While I agree we don't want to give them the keys to the kingdom right off the bat, I view it as imperative that we treat them in a manner consistent with the moral standards we would like them to adopt. They are likely VERY susceptible to cultural influence at the moment, as we are both their first non-hostile contact with a different species as well as the first species they have learned is also sapient. I would really like to avoid ingraining xenophobia and using others as tools into them too deep, as we could end up creating the very monster we fear in them.

When you get right down to it, being the Good Guys requires actually acting like good guys. Which does carry some risks that being a manipulative bastard that sees everyone and everything else as potential assets and liabilities first and anything else a distant second, if at all.
 
I gotta say, Being a Warhammer human and refusing to acknoledge this new sapient as anything other than a meat shield seems a bit hypocritical.
 
Redshirt Army said:
Isn't "expansive" meant to represent, like, ten books? That's not exactly excessive - the only reason it's so expensive is because it's pre-printing press so it's all scribed by hand.
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Yeah, 100 gold is 0.7% of our Ranald haul. Mathilde has done enough to deserve ten times that much. I get we want her to be Saintess Weber, supreme ascetic but spending less than 1% of your wealth on your one foible should be acceptable even for nobles who just get money by sitting around, let alone for someone who does genuine good.

Come on. Like, ask yourself the proportion of your disposable income you spend on luxuries and then question why you can't just let Mathilde indulge herself this tiny amount. Seriously.
 
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runeblue360 said:
Yeah, 100 gold is 0.7% of our Ranald haul. Mathilde has done enough to deserve ten times that much. I get we want her to be Saint Mathilde, supreme ascetic but spending less than 1% of your wealth on your one foible should be acceptable even for nobles who just get money by sitting around.

Come on. Like, ask yourself the proportion of your disposable income you spend on luxuries and then question why you can't just let Mathilde indulge herself this tiny amount.
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Proportions don't matter. Objectively, it's more money than many people get to see in their entire lives. It doesn't become reasonable just because we've got a lot of it.

We can have quirks and character traits without throwing literally triple digits of cash at them on a whim.
 
wrecksalot said:
yeah, they taught us things and became friends, rather than just using us as more bodies to throw at Chaos, that was pretty cool of them, let's pay it forward.
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Let's consider we're familiar with We for a grand total of six month. Waiting for them to prove themselves before further uplifting is not a bad idea, ethically and practically both.
 
BlackWink said:
I don't care about leaving a legacy. He's a Gold Magister, the college that basically specializes in researching weird magical substances. Hardly another pair of hands.

Also please clarify the risks. That entails a ton of things and you might have made a connection that I didn't.
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One of the problems with Johann is that he is a gold wizard trying to play a grey wizards game. And he is doing a fairly well job at it. That should raise some red flags.

In fact he has has so many red flags everytime I see him speak can imagine red flags pouring from his mouth.

A Magister does not hide their status without a very good reason. Why did he do it? Why didn't he reveal his status, even in private, once he knew a fellow Magister had taken command of the group?

Another big problem I have with him is that as a Magister he refused to work with a fellow gold journeyman in an active warzone. Maybe he was afraid of getting caught. Maybe he didn't want to show his hand and reveal he knew far more than he should. But the fact he was unwilling to put his fellow gold wizard above his "mission" tells me a lot about his character.

He seems completely focused on his goal and I trust him to do anything in his power to further that goal. Even if would mean screwing us over.

Gold is the color of logic. I believe he is acting logically. We already know one of his goals, the study of skaven tech, but what goal would have him hiding his true strength and distancing himself from his fellow wizards?

He wants to be left alone and I think if he could stir up enough crap to disappear he will. Mathilde does not want any scrutiny on her. She is studying dangerous things with the Liber Mortis and any attention that isn't "look at how good she is doing" is attention she doesn't want.

My belief is to keep that gold snake at arm's length. That way he can't bite us easily and if he goes up in smoke the backlash doesn't get us either.

It is my belief that Johann is a liability. He is too focused on his personal research to be trusted to act in the best interest of K8P and his character traits seem to put his goals and research above healthy relationships.
 
Briefvoice said:
I would like to say that in the next Library vote I will be happy to support one purchase of Romance novels, not "expansive", not in a bunch of her non-native languages. Keep it at that, don't go overboard, and we have the votes.

Anyone else agree?
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How would you feel about commissioning our thief from stirland to pick up a bunch out of Altdorf? ;)

But yes, I'm in for that vote.

I have hope for a blushing Mathilde quickly hiding books from a gentleman visitor, only to have him inquiry about the titles as light flirting.
 
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