They don't share our strong sense of civic duty and loyalty to the empire comrade.
Speaking for myself: it feels like a random arbitrary thing to do. Hiring an engineer grandmaster to take a look at the rifle and offer what advice he felt reasonable was a natural progression of events in the story, since we had just visited Anton when the factory opened. But we haven't paid any attention to the gong farmers and we've been selling that saltpeter offscreen for literal in-universe years without spending a single thought. Why does Mathilde suddenly care? Can we even build a gunpowder factory for a mere five favours and no money? I see "expert assistance" creating such a factory in the info threadmark, but that is a far cry from actually making the factory, which seems like something that would take AP. It doesn't feel like something Mathilde wants to do, it feels like something voters want to do. Part of why I voted for stepping back from our active role managing the EIC is because I don't want to play Business Tycoon.
I was one of the louder voices lobbying for "the EIC needs to be a prosocial institution" and instilling that particular value of maximizing the long-term good of the Empire, but I'm not playing Uplift The Empire's Tech Base Quest. I'll do it if that feels natural in the story, but not just cause someone thinks it'd be neat.
The stirland repeater would be made more dependable with the use of higher quality gunpowder, this helps our friends (who run the factory), Stirland (who uses those rifles) and the empire (because they are used to kill vampires).
Dwarf Favor has become a far less renewable resource now that all eight peaks have been reclaimed, since most of our contributions to Karaz Ankor at this point are likely to either just be us doing our job or too Rangery to earn Favors from.
Reasonable arguments, and I'm probably going to be busy today and tomorrow so
I wish you good luck in convincing people to vote for it.
This is a natural progression as well, since that Dwarf Engineer observed that inferior gunpowder was fouling up the repeaters and eroding the barrels.
These are good points, but I'd argue that hoarding the Dwarf Favours does nothing but make Dwarfs anxious over imbalance of debts. Why not reap the benefits sooner?
That would be better, yes, but it seems fairly optimistic to assume that we'll ever vote for that.
To your first point, because then we will have spent our mostly non-renewable resource, which would be an issue if we wanted to use it for something more relevant later. Hoarding Dwarf Favors comes with the benefit of having Dwarf Favors, and given that most research options involving Runes seem to cost Dwarf Favors we will find relevant things to spend them on soon enough.
That sounds like something we should pass along to Roswita and the EIC, and then if they start working on higher-quality gunpowder factories, we can hire consultants for them. Not something for us to take onto ourselves; we didn't build a repeater factory, Anton did, and we gave him help.
EDIT: @BoneyM Would asking Oswald to train us in Trig/Cannon aim be an option next turn? I'm asking for purely professional reasons.
Good enough for me. Dwarf Chemist encounters are rare so Anton and Wilhelmina will throw money at the opportunity.
Thank you. OK, so we don't need to worry about the power stone's definition, just whether we also want that collar for Wolf.
