You're the Queen - Now What? [CK2ish Character-Focused Quest]

[Embler]

I doubt the other creditors will mind so much as long as we're still paying the interest. If we wipe out the Geltric Bank this turn, and then the Feltrini Bank next turn, we're pretty much in the black at that point, so we don't have to make big payments on the principals after that. Now, continuing to make payments would be good and all, but we can keep them smaller.


1. Nope.
2. That would be stupid, and these are relatively small portions of our interest debt to begin with. Really, defaulting is bad in general and I don't think we have any good reason to do so right now.

Edit: Well, if we repudiated Syrokis' debt but paid off Geltric or Feltrini this turn, we might be able to salvage things - that we are going to pay off our debts, it's just that the new, lawfully appointed sovereign shouldn't be bound by the ousted, criminal predecessor's debts.


Because we still have to pay the leftover interest for the turn with what remains in our treasury. That's why we can't actually do Wipeout Geltric & Feltrini.

Click to shrink...

There are no minimum payments, per Kylia's above post, so we can absolutely pay off the two most expensive loans. The only reasons not to are sending some kind of message by paying them all, which I think would be silly, or to keep money in the treasury. I've said my opinion on that above, I'm skeptical we actually have a way to effectively spend that much next turn.

I agree that we don't plan to default on anything, though! Maybe if we have nothing else for Vallefor to do, he can investigate those merchants. Even if we only save 10 durek, that seems like a princely sum.

 

[Rockeye]

it's not as if you have to make a minimum payment on every debt every month, like with IRL debts 😂

Click to shrink...

Because we still have to pay the leftover interest for the turn with what remains in our treasury. That's why we can't actually do Wipeout Geltric & Feltrini.

Click to shrink...

Now, I think what Kylia is saying is that we don't, actually, have to make annual minimum payments on our debts. We're a nation state, with an army. What are they gonna do, invade?

The creditors would just keep getting louder and more insistent the more we put it off, and nuke any chances of further bridge loans or what not.

I'm not completely sure, though.

 

[MrRageQuit]

-[ ] Leaving 38 in the treasury

Click to shrink...

We still have to pay the remaining interest with what's leftover in the treasury and I'm pretty sure that's not enough.

There are no minimum payments, per Kylia's above post, so we can absolutely pay off the two most expensive loans.

Click to shrink...

Not in the same turn though. Because...

Now, I think what Kylia is saying is that we don't, actually, have to make annual minimum payments on our debts. We're a nation state, with an army.

Click to shrink...

Minimum payments are not the same as not paying interest. If we pay interest, they'll be fine with that. That's what interest is for: to ensure they're still making money while they wait for the principal to be repaid. And I don't see any good reason to not pay interest.

 

[Rockeye]

We still have to pay the remaining interest with what's leftover in the treasury and I'm pretty sure that's not enough.

Click to shrink...

We actually do not. That's the point of my plan, to not pay the full interest on some of the loans.

 

[Kylia Quilor]

Can we get more detail on the previous debts owed by Syrokis? Who are they to and can we argue our way out of any of them without pissing people off, or would it be better not to try?

Click to shrink...

Syrokis's personal banks of choice for loans were the Vincaro and Dontrelli Banks in the Varaday Republic, so the lion's share of his debt was to them. After the war, Rucdorn and other leading rebel bankers/merchants/etc negotiated with everyone Syrokis owed money to, and basically came to a primitive early debt-restructuring deal, where some debts would just be ignored and never repaid, some would be assumed at partial value by the Vincaro and Dontrelli Banks, and those two banks would accept a partial loss because they'd backed the losing side, and you gotta pay for for that. So in the end, the total debts owed by Syrokis were not what you guys ended up having to assume, and pretty much all of it is owed to Vincaro and Dontrelli (who, as banks, are very closely connected anyway)

Because we still have to pay the leftover interest for the turn with what remains in our treasury. That's why we can't actually do Wipeout Geltric & Feltrini.

Click to shrink...

You can let the Interest stack up if you want. You have enough to pay the 185 for those two outright. There won't be any more interest on those two added if you pay all of that now. Interest is applied after you make payments. Obviously you don't want to let Interest stack forever, but some missing is certainly not going to be a 'press here to fail' button, don't worry.

 

[Rockeye]

Interest is applied after you make payments.

Click to shrink...

While this benefits the questors, it makes insufficient sense to me. Doesn't this mean we could, instead of paying 10% interest on Axecavern Bank (Lortan Dwarves) (D. 15) instead pay D. 13.7 and bring the debt to 136.3, which then suffers 10% interest, and brings our debt owed to 149.9 Dureks?

 

[Kylia Quilor]

While this benefits the questors, it makes insufficient sense to me. Doesn't this mean we could, instead of paying 10% interest on Axecavern Bank (Lortan Dwarves) (D. 15) instead pay D. 13.7 and bring the debt to 136.3, which then suffers 10% interest, and brings our debt owed to 149.9 Dureks?

Click to shrink...

This is technically true. But I'm doing it this way because it will make the paperwork of the quest easier for me to do it this fashion. Income, debt payments, interest. Smooths out that side of the process for my needs.

 

[Rockeye]

The incentives are misaligned... We could shave off fractions of Dureks at the cost of annoying the QM with annoying math.

It's something like 12 Dureks in total! That's not nothing! Hmm!

 

[Kylia Quilor]

The incentives are misaligned... We could shave off fractions of Dureks at the cost of annoying the QM with annoying math.

Click to shrink...

More messy math bothers me less than the amount of time I have to spend getting all the numbers set up right. If I only have to adjust the debt totals once per turn (as opposed to applying interest and then applying payments) it's smoother for me.

That said, things are generally going to be rounded up to the nearest quarter-Durek. So your specific suggest wouldn't quite work.

 

[Zaealix]

"exploit QM Work for decent benefits!" Has always struck me as silly, in part because QM can just laze out of it, another part because it's hilariously easy to balance that trickery out, and of course, the third point is that QM can just say no and that's that. *shakes head*

 

[Embler]

Minimum payments are not the same as not paying interest. If we pay interest, they'll be fine with that. That's what interest is for: to ensure they're still making money while they wait for the principal to be repaid. And I don't see any good reason to not pay interest.

Click to shrink...

We actually do not. That's the point of my plan, to not pay the full interest on some of the loans.

Click to shrink...

No minimum payments should mean what it says. Interest will still accrue, so we will 'pay' it eventually. There is no functional difference between the principal and interest, except in what they're allowed to charge interest on. If it compounds, there isn't any.

If our goal is to minimize the total amount these cost us overall, we should go down the list from highest rate to lowest, paying each one off entirely before moving to the next. Paying more money as a nice gesture to be nice to the banks doesn't seem worth it, given how much money we're talking about.

 

[Nonexistent Tazz]

No minimum payments should mean what it says. Interest will still accrue, so we will 'pay' it eventually. There is no functional difference between the principal and interest, except in what they're allowed to charge interest on. If it compounds, there isn't any.

If our goal is to minimize the total amount these cost us overall, we should go down the list from highest rate to lowest, paying each one off entirely before moving to the next. Paying more money as a nice gesture to be nice to the banks doesn't seem worth it, given how much money we're talking about.

Click to shrink...

Lacking perfect understanding of economic theory and/or a mathematical inclination to calc it all out, just a vague intuition... I'll agree with you here, this seems like the more sensible course of action. Of course, this will mean we save the biggest debt for last, as there's no way to pay it off in full.

The only question is whether or not we just wipe both of the highest-interest debts out immediately and in-general prioritze wiping out as many debts as possible per-turn, or if we restrict ourselves and keep money in the pocket while knocking out debts one-at-a-time. This time I think that even if we knocked out both of our highest-Interest debtors we'd still have some Dureks to do stuff, but that may not be the consensus.

 

[Embler]

Of course, this will mean we save the biggest debt for last, as there's no way to pay it off in full.

Click to shrink...

I feel like a jerk just jumping on every post and saying it's wrong, but this isn't the case either. The biggest debt has a 12% interest rate. We should work on those after the 15%s are gone.

Think of it this way. Every 1 durek we spend on a 15% loan saves us 0.15 every turn. 0.12 for a 12% loan, and so on. It's more bang for our buck. How many active loans we have doesn't matter.

 

[Nonexistent Tazz]

I feel like a jerk just jumping on every post and saying it's wrong, but this isn't the case either.

Click to shrink...

Honestly I'd appreciate just being told I'm incorrect whenever I'm incorrect on something like a fact. It makes sense. Only question again is if we beeline to take out every debt we can per turn or if we play it slower and ensure we have some money in the bank for next round in case unexpected money-worthy expenses crop up.

 

[Eternal_0bserver]

Eh, we should probably approach paying off debt carefully and consistently. After all, the banks don't really benefit from us paying off our debts - have you seen those annual payments? Ideally, from their point of view, we should have enough money to pay interest, but not enough to pay off the debt, and ideally we would accumulate more than that. It would be even better, for example, if we had a strong army so that they could forgive us part of the debt in exchange for help with other debtors.

 

[bryanfran36]

Given the failures and weak successes from the Council Rolls, does that mean that our Queen is less influential and the Council getting most of the power dynamics?

 

[Kylia Quilor]

Given the failures and weak successes from the Council Rolls, does that mean that our Queen is less influential and the Council getting most of the power dynamics?

Click to shrink...

I'm not really sure what this question is asking?

The Council had one failure, two weak successes and two strong successes, the Queen had one weak success. But when you have five actions, yeah, you've got more odds for higher rolls.

Rucdorn just failed in his loan negotiation. Maybe the bank rep was just not in the right mood, maybe he just didnt give a convincing enough powerpoint, but one failure isn't quite enough to say he's failing. Plus, he did warn that the Goldaxe Bank would be the hardest nut to crack.

Rienne and Vallefor did a really good job at their side of things, while Rykall and Balmain did 'good enough', with various hurdles getting in the way of outstanding success, etc. The Queen did a pretty good job of overseeing the sales and negotiating the prices up a little.

But one set of rolls and actions hardly means that the Queen has lost power vis-a-vis the council, especially since the Council had a mixed bag overall?

 

[bryanfran36]

Thanks for clearing that up.

I thought it was Council Vs Queen in the rolls and thought more of the rolls for the Queen here.

 

[Mortenkam]

I think that there are two important questions for, how we go about repaying our debt. First, do we bother paying interest this turn or do we focus on repaying the debts with the highest interest rate. We have been told that we can get away with not paying the interest for a while, though it might still annoy our creditors. I prefer at the moment to simply repay the debt with the highest interest rate this turn, but perhaps we should start paying the interest next turn.

The second question is, how many Dureks we want to have for the start of next turn. The more Dureks we use to repay debt, the lower the interest will be, but we will likely want Dureks to spend on actions for turn 2, like rebuilding roads and establishing spy network. I am thinking, that 20 Dureks might be a decent amount to save for the next turn and would allow us to use 201 Dureks to lower our debt.

[ ] Plan: Start repaying Zedarsh and wipeout Geltric & Feltrini (201 Dureks)
-[ ] Pay 16 Dureks to the Royal Bank of Zedarsh
-[ ] Pay 85 Dureks to Geltric Bank
-[ ] Pay 100 Dureks to Feltrini Bank

This is what I think a decent plan might be. I chose repaying Zedarsh, since they have a interest rate of 12%, which are the highest rate after the two loans with a rate of 15%, and I prefer repaying them, before paying creditors of the old king.

It would leave us 20 Dureks to next turn and lower the interest to 88.83 Dureks, though since we will not be paying the interest, then our debt and interest will grow a bit again.

 

[T.T]

The rolls were okay, but we really couldn't raise much money, which left us worse off than I thought.
I'm glad we reduced the size of the army, otherwise we would have to do it in round 2 anyway and would be even worse off.
I still want to make a calculation for tax farming for the next round, but I think I have to be more pessimistic about my assumptions for that.

Maybe we should also consider that this can still bring in money: (possibly use all the money now)
[QUEEN] Decide what to do with the confiscated estates from the lords that were attainted. (Scene & Followup Vote)
Seems to me as if new costs would coincide with the next income anyway.

 

[Rockeye]

Previous Debts Owed By Syrokis has an effective ~12.5% rate, since it's compounded monthly, FYI.

 

[Eternal_0bserver]

I'm starting to think we should take over the County of Aloce if possible and we don't find very good candidates. Perhaps while simultaneously setting aside some other Crown Lands to alleviate the discontent. This is still our main source of income, and it will prevent the emergence of another powerful vassal.

 

[Mortenkam]

The rolls were okay, but we really couldn't raise much money, which left us worse off than I thought.
I'm glad we reduced the size of the army, otherwise we would have to do it in round 2 anyway and would be even worse off.
I still want to make a calculation for tax farming for the next round, but I think I have to be more pessimistic about my assumptions for that.

Maybe we should also consider that this can still bring in money: (possibly use all the money now)
[QUEEN] Decide what to do with the confiscated estates from the lords that were attainted. (Scene & Followup Vote)
Seems to me as if new costs would coincide with the next income anyway.

Click to shrink...

Well, since I am unsure about what to expect from that action, then I would prefer to have a buffer to make sure, that we have enough money for next turn.

 

[T.T]

Well, since I am unsure about what to expect from that action, then I would prefer to have a buffer to make sure, that we have enough money for next turn.

Click to shrink...

But money for what?
I'm sure we only have to spend again when we have income, like with the decision to reduce the army, which only came about when we had taxes, as will happen with the expenses for roads.
Edit: Everything we hold back is just dead capital that is lying around with us for a turn.

 

[Mortenkam]

But money for what?
I'm sure we only have to spend again when we have income, like with the decision to reduce the army, which only came about when we had taxes, as will happen with the expenses for roads.
Edit: Everything we hold back is just dead capital that is lying around with us for a turn.

Click to shrink...

Pre-Income Costs: 2 Dureks

• 2 Dureks Spent on Demobilization of [238 Heavy Cavalry, 694 Light Cavalry, 813 Men at Arms, 625 Crossbowmen, 425 Skirmishers, 438 Pikemen] at 25% of the standard demobilization bonus

Click to shrink...

I will point out, that the demobilization bonus was paid out, before we had got income, so that suggest that the money we pay for actions are paid, before we earn money, therefore we will need the money in our treasury at the start of a new turn, if we want to do any actions, that require money.