Right, so I thought I'd toss my hat into the ring with a Men of the West/Hall of Speakers plan. I've argued for Men of the West earlier, and I think people are kind of sleeping on the Speakers plan: it's more or less a form of representative democracy (rather reminiscent of the Roman system, if I don't miss my mark...), and actually a relatively stable one. It allows various powerful factions in the city to have their voice (insofar as the elite/educated classes are almost universally those who will be selected as Speakers), but also (in the long and medium term, as the Hall of Speakers gains legitimacy and power) chains them to being dependent on the will of the people in general. It's a great long term move!
Right, so some thoughts on the plan in general:
First of all (and forgive me for my arrogance), but I'm kind of shocked that more plans don't have The Orc Hunter in them -- heroes are perhaps the most valuable currency in this game (they can, after all, function as both additional actions and as bonuses) (as well as being immensely cool to read about), and here's an action that actually gives us one! In terms of action-efficiency, this absolutely tops the chart.
As for the rest, I'm guided by the thought that we remain in an early -- and thus fragile -- state. Well before lofty dreams of surviving so long we rival Gondor and Arnor -- and even before contacting various far-flung polities that simply
don't matter to us right now, we should take care of two things: growth and security.
Our easiest avenue towards growth is, of course, immigration (natural population growth being fairly slow on the time-scales we're concerned with). I chose to encourage immigration from the Middle Men to both reinforce the Men of the West choice (nothing like first-hand experience for it!) and to get this into the culture of the colony 'on the ground floor', so to speak. In terms of other things (the establishment of farms, expansion of the city, etc.), I"m mostly content to wait until the public brings it up as a real issue. Another concern I have is that a growing population (which we do inevitably want!) is going to encroach on the woods, sooner rather than later. Hammering the Ironbark action in search of an accord seems wise, in this light.
Almost all the rest of the actions I've chosen are geared towards security. Mordor -- and the Eye -- is well-known for employing spies and scouts for selecting their targets. To that end, we absolutely have to keep an eye on the local servants of the Eye (the Pukel-men), and catch any trouble/invasions early. I'd also like to get a sense of their martial strength before we run into any mountain invasions (terrible things, those), and I'd doubly like to resolve the Tharbad situation before we commit to any offensive action.
Rebuilding the walls of Tharbad gains us their friendship everlasting, while simultaneously not giving them any additional offensive capabilities -- this wins us an ally and preserves operational flexibility for the factfinding Tharbad mission.
Lastly, I just think dwarves are neat, and so want to explore Nargil-Dum
.
