Why would a commoner not care about someone in favor with the court?
Especially if that guy is their commanding officer?
Edit: ninja'd
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You Are: A sector admiral of a strained imperium.
- Thread starter Packrat
- Start date
- Original Sci-Fi
Why would a commoner not care about someone in favor with the court?
Especially if that guy is their commanding officer?
Edit: ninja'd
Chimeraguard
We do deserve to exist.
But... it does?
It specifically says +Loyalty for noble officers.
The description didn't say "noble officers", but even then my point stands when we only have two commoners and one of them already has high Loyalty. 100 PC is very powerful for the bonus to Loyalty, Diplomacy and other benefits like being able to reliably increase our Sector Budget.
So with our current political capital, we have two officers who would help us commit treason, 5 officers who would fight a duel on our behalf 100% of the time, 6 officers who would help us 100% of the time and even our least loyal officer is happy doing their job and not messing with us.
Being the goose who lays the golden eggs and having a massive bank of goodwill to buy favours with means our underlings want to stay on Reinhard's good side for when they need him to put in a good word for them.
I say we keep things this way, even if it means less ships in the short run.
I'd like to stock up on patrol cutters and light cruisers and crack down on piracy and smuggling. Right now we don't control our own lines of communication and that's just not kosher.
Ideally, once we have a big enough bank of political capital and have shown our loyalty to the system by buying in, I'd like to open some informal diplomacy to our opposite numbers on the NASP side. They don't need to like us, but I want Reinhard to do his part for preventing war, which the empire seems ill-positioned to afford.
And long term, I'd like to make Reinhard rich enough that he can afford to pay for his fleet out of his own pocket. We may not be able to do this soon, but I do like the idea of becoming space Julius Caesar as a long term goal.
fasquardon
Rat King
Izutsumi-pilled
I'm definitely on board with trying to put out fires in our backfield for a while. However, that depends on what fallout (if any) comes from our recent battlecruiser action. We don't know if this will mean war or not (hopefully not, but you can never tell); but if our neighbors decide they don't want to keep the tit-for-tat going, then I'm all in favor of massive anti-piracy and smuggling operations.
High PC means we can also safely brush off noble house objections to getting smacked for illegal activities. At least for a little while.
Also a fan of the backdoor diplomacy; we'll have to see if they even want to talk to us, though.
overlord62
American Monarchist
- Location
- florida
HAIL CAESAR!!!! On a more serious note, what we our long term plans? Build up our wealth and prestige until we're powerful enough to take the imperial throne?
One who will commit treason, because Sones is a commoner. Sones will be at 18 Loyalty next turn so it isn't a huge loss. We can expect to max out his loyalty when we give him a ship.
We have 9 Patrol cutters, and 10 is what most fleets have. Patrol Cutters are too expensive and vulnerable to be worth spamming. One light cruiser and one corvette neatly comes out to a budget maintenance cost of 5 Sector Budget.
War isn't the worst thing that can happen for us. War means the Imperium will be willing to overlook our heritage to secure victory. War means we have more opportunities for prize money and glory.
Satar
Xetares, Third Redeemer; World Drinker
- Location
- Sesh
The long-term plan is to get promoted, climb up the ladder and get even more Strategy & Tactics training, and use our private funds to assemble a powerful private fleet that is ours from the crew to the ship to the officers. Meanwhile we'll replace the officers of our public command (i.e., of the fleet given to us by the Imperium) with loyalists so that when the Empress dies and the Imperium inevitably fractures, we can declare our own Imperium or marry some female XXth heir to the throne and press her claim as a puppet Empress while we do all the actual ruling. Hopefully a lot of the nobility will kill each other in the ensuing bloodbath, and we'll mop up the rest of the major houses, centralizing power in a more reasonable and just government with the Emperor at the top and minor nobility/commoners/titular nobility running the administration. Basically transition from space!feudalism to space!Enlightened Monarchy a la Napoleon.
PC: Keep above 100, cover our budget deficit. Then keep it high enough we can afford to take hits to our Political Capital like we almost did when we spoke to the Governor General. Use political capital for anything else we need like to replace disloyal officers with loyal ones who are competent.
W: Buy a share, invest heavily until we can support our own private battlecruiser. Then work on building a private fleet. Private ships are loyal to us first because they're going to be made up of dissidents and we pay their salaries. Fleet Command can't take our private ships no matter how low our PC gets.
During this time, we need to build up as much PC and W as possible. We need to increase our prestige as much as possible. When the Empress inevitably dies we"ll be an ennobled war hero with our own private fleet. All of that will make us a desirable marriage candidate and ally. Then it becomes a matter of using our genius to take over. We're playing on hard mode. We either take the risks that will let us become Emperor or die trying. Even though we came out on top despite getting the third worst Strategy roll and fighting a lucky vice admiral, it isn't my intention to take a high risk mission every quarter.
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I suspect they will. At the moment, the NASP is still rebuilding from defeat, but is recovering faster than the empire. As the saying goes, make hay while the sun shines. I have no doubt that the NASP has plenty of hawks, but most of those hawks will be looking at the rate of accumulation of their power versus the empire's power and... Well, I'm sure they've calculated a date for when they'll have maximum advantage.
Hopefully we have a few years at least.
Also, while we are building up our reputation, we can be doing things to make us a man that the NASP might want to talk to. Most importantly, we keep trouncing raids, pirates, smugglers and freedom fighters. Make ourselves the key man in the sector. The man they HAVE to deal with and make it so they don't want to deal with Reinhard on the battlefield. And maybe, when we can, do things that make them think "here is a man who is much more reasonable than those born-noble admirals and who maybe, maybe could be won to our side if we ever find a good enticement".
War means that the NASP will let themselves off the leash and right now I don't fancy the loyalty of the ducal houses. My bet is that if the NASP launched a limited war to take our sector, we'd face a great deal of subversion from the ducal houses, if not some outright rebellions and given the internal instability, the bulk of the Imperial fleet may be focused on maintaining superiority over the ducal houses and Reinhard will be left out to dry in the hot wind of the NASP invasion.
fasquardon
I don't recall @Packrat ever saying that. In the long term the Imperium will outgrow NASP because they conquered their planets. All we know that happened is that they sent their capital ships to the core worlds.
Satar
Xetares, Third Redeemer; World Drinker
- Location
- Sesh
All well and good, except that making private deals with NASP is treason. Seriously, we don't have the right to conclude private armistices with NASP, and doing so will blind Imperial HQ while giving NASP-- and anyone else who finds out about our little 'deals'-- significant blackmail over us.
For our private fleet I want commoner officers. People who have no other ties and are disenchanted towards the Imperial system. People who would have reasons beyond just pay to be in our service. People for whom we are a symbol of defiance, a dream they want to propel straight to the finish line.
About to head to sleep here, but while you do not in character know the full strength of NASP forces in the sector across the border you have utterly mauled them over the past few months. More importantly, you have been annihilating their 'core' forces, strike cruisers and their flagship who were likely a cadre from the more distant founder worlds who have large, professional militaries and better-than-imperial-tech shipyards, intended to form the core of their unified fleet.
That does not mean you have appreciably hurt the NASP as a whole, but the bulk of the NASP fleets consist of light or elderly vessels raised by individual worlds and rather grudgingly contributed to any overall strategic vision. They have their absurd super ships but also an awful lot of crap, planetary navies of two corvettes and a cutter or whatever, with half trained crews and limited experience beyond customs enforcement.
Of course about half the capital ship strength of the Empire right now is in various ducal navies who are each plotting to overthrow the Throne. So... Well. Also many of the Imperial Navy battleships are new built with green crews and have barely ever left the system in which they were manufactured as they are hoarded in reserve.
That does not mean you have appreciably hurt the NASP as a whole, but the bulk of the NASP fleets consist of light or elderly vessels raised by individual worlds and rather grudgingly contributed to any overall strategic vision. They have their absurd super ships but also an awful lot of crap, planetary navies of two corvettes and a cutter or whatever, with half trained crews and limited experience beyond customs enforcement.
Of course about half the capital ship strength of the Empire right now is in various ducal navies who are each plotting to overthrow the Throne. So... Well. Also many of the Imperial Navy battleships are new built with green crews and have barely ever left the system in which they were manufactured as they are hoarded in reserve.
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So it sounds like now is a perfect time to run around stealing everything that isn't nailed down and trashing the rest.
Chimeraguard
We do deserve to exist.
Well, the two Ducal Houses we have to deal with are also the ones that got mulched during the war IIRC.
With our high PC and having the dueling champion be a noble of one of the two houses, we'd have to go out of their way to make mortal enemies of them.
Which is why I am not suggesting we make deals. Instead, we be such a big fat winner that the only way the NASP can manage the border is by dealing with us. Then we see about opening some back channels so we can say "hey, maybe we can talk more, make arrangements to make prisoner exchanges smoother and faster, make it so friction can be dealt with by exchanging words more often than exchanging munitions". If we can, at the same time as we are being a big fat winner, do things that are loyal but also fair from the NASP perspective, so that they want to deal with Reinhard over whatever noble a-hole might replace him, so much the better.
Well... That's my understanding from "Pyrrhic victory" here. The empire won the first round, but the NASP has the advantage if there's ever a second round due to the costs the empire paid for victory.
Maybe it was Pyrrhic for other reasons? But I can't think of what those would be.
Yeah, maybe. I'd rather not even so. Because currently raiding comes at the opportunity cost of letting pirates and smugglers have a freer hand and runs the risk of a real war.
fasquardon
- Location
- canada
hmmm so we are pretty much the exception to the rule... no wonder we have not been politically smashed down hard yet. We are too valuable for our ability to get new crews experience relatively safely alone,and thats without counting all our victories. So I figure then that its mostly the ducal houses that hate us. Probably because they fear we are too powerful a piece for the imperial main house.
Alright so going forward my thoughts are that short term the background benefits to having the share bonus are worth a bit more than the open benefits of the extra diplomacy and loyalty from the political capital. With a share we will probably rise MASSIVELY in importance to the Imperial house and the Ducal houses will likely begin seeing us as a legitimate power....
Actually I think we can avoid getting that share for another 4-6 turns because that sounds when the game will really start up for us. We will be WAY too important once we have noble status for people too ignore.
Mine was that the Imperium barely won and it came at the cost of internal stability.
We"ll see. It depends on our options for the next two quarters.
We're already getting there with 100 Political Capital. We're going to look like much more of an anomaly and an exception that needs to be hammered down as a commoner with that level of influence than as a new noble that's paid his way into the system and so has an obvious incentive to support it.
A full on planetary invasion didn't cause a real war. Having some of our fleet pretend to be pirates seems pretty unlikely to.
Or instead of ruining all political clout we have, we buy the Share with wealth. We already have 69 Wealth, 89 if we liquidate our investment. That way we have both. If you have the patience to put it off for 6 turns you should have the patience to buy a Share when we have the money.
- Location
- canada
sorry but I feel the moment we have the share is when the game gets intense, therefore I am against buying it for now.
I feel that people will need a few turns to begin to act against us and we have the time to save up wealth and buy a share the conventional way with 100 wealth. That will slow down us getting a personal fleet but I feel once we are ennobled we don't need to worry about a fleet until a rebellion or war starts up which should be another 10-12 turns.
lol
I just said I want to wait in the same thing. I view the benefits as worth more but that in will kickstart the civil war that is brewing into a cold war or have the ducal houses at our throats. So I want that political capital before we get a share too.
- Location
- Denmark
As I understand it, the losses the Imperial Navy had in the war laid the ground for a civil war that could tear the empire apart or at least make them unable to respond properly, if the NASP decided to restart the war.
Sure, but it sounds like the NASP is interested in biding its time as well.
They need a couple more years to churn out their high tech ships and organize their forces (recall that prior to the war, the NASP did not even exist as a formal entity).
Meanwhile the Imperial house is also focused on rebuilding its fleet of capital ships to counter the Noble Houses.
Only the Nobles themselves are interested in stirring the pot and causing conflict. (Oh an Reinhard, because that's the only way he can advance)
Then again, the NASP is the one that began raiding the Mimir Sector first. Unless they have their own factions influencing things and their version of an upstart Admiral or Senator wanted to cash in on some raids for a quick infusion of profit and political capital.