I have always enjoyed reading your extensive posts here and I sincerely hope everything will sort itself out with your health, just take greater care of it. Stay strong.
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I was wondering why you hadn’t chimed in more on Harris over at the Politics thread and am sorry this was the reason.
I’m glad you made it and I hope you have a quick and full recovery.
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Have you at least considered shifting the way you approach your dev cycle for Grand Shayard? Not in terms of scope per se, but in terms of allowing portions of a chapter to be released, instead of going “alright see you when chapter 10 is done in two years!” It’s obviously not something we as fans are owed or anything, but it’d probably help keep engagement up a tiny bit more.
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It will definitely be different from Irdu-didn’t-keep-his-promises, yes. The fact that I’m planning to try launching a Patreon when G2 is released will also influence what I share and when.
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“Well look, we tried, ok?” I say as I toss the Ennarchs into the woodchipper. We tried to be reasonable and they said no.
Gonna have to agree with K here. While I do think inter-class cooperation is a bit more viable in some cases, I also think that if WE are going to be doing all the fighting, there’s little reason to compromise with the noble classes, my primary enemy. It’s hard enough keeping the priests sympathetic.
In addition to the stated issues with how many nobles I’d have to let off for rape and murder (which, no, absolutely not. No.), as someone who lives in a society that successfully rejected monarchy and built a more equitable system of governance and economics, I just don’t see why I should bother compromising with the nobility. Their refusal to accept proper justice is just a convenient excuse to get rid of them.
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Gotta agree, especially in the case of some of the houses we encounter in part 1 (Pelematou, de Merre, so on). The ones that can’t even defend their own lands from yesterday’s slaves and don’t seem to have a particularly useful function even under the Hegemony in any case. They’re just chaff and I see no reason to put their “birthright” over the actual merit shown by any random competent helot/yeoman fighter.
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Yeah like, the Hegemony kept them around to preserve a sense of legitimacy locally and save them the trouble of setting up administrative governance. Not really the case for me, setting up new governance is something I have to do regardless for my ethos to bear fruit.
They’re actually less useful than the priests imo. Priests at least are important to the religious and ideological civic principles of the Hegemonic government. The nobles are just for convenience.
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I think the best thing to do after liberating shayard is to tp do an population extanges with the eretzan and karagons. The borders in my opinion overlap alot of cultures and why wouldn’t they, the karagonds didn’t care about culture at all, as long as the bickering tribes of continent aren’t Fighting eachother it means nothing. However with the hagemony dead I think if we want to form and Confederal hagemony that isn’t karagond imperialism in disguise, borders have to be redrawn as the period of anarchy caused by either by Our rebellion, mutines and other provincial rebellions, may fuel nationalism to an point when war with the post karagond states is inevitable. The hagemony is more like austria. But vastly more diverse if your talking dialects and regions. Also many people arcoss the now dead hagemony will see the shayardene revolution as like an example to follow as most Shayardene revolutions will take more nationalist approaches to gain support over the large country and as a result will be nationalist the idea of ‘The nation’ will be born to differentiate us from ‘them’. Also I don’t think nationalism exists in Any of the provinces because the idea of the nation doesn’t exist, most shayardenes who are anti karagond are generally just ideologues who clinging hard on an bye gone era. Old shayard is dead, but we can build an modern new one, we most rid of the old. Anyway I believe for the future of the continent an confederation led by and shayard led by like an french revolution based government should negotiate better borders with the new allied countries to cool tensions. I believe south karagon should be Shayardene and to deport the karagonds north for obvious reasons, which is to get the Reactionary irrdentists on by side . And to take small parts of Western Eretza. In the case of hellasurq invasion, (which is inevitable btw) we will join in and divide it polish style and we would annex it and give it High autonomy for good Pr in the history books. The karagonds,nyr, and whends will get their own republics to rule over. Then i can do what every Aristo/Helot MC should do, buy some land in westriding and settle down with the RO of your choice. Best ending for PR in the history books. As the game said You either go down as an bad person or an even more bad person. Also economy I will figure it out when irduin’s releases next month.
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Thats unfair the outer rim is an small settlement at the fringes of the westriding region. I’d doubt they all can afford to pay protection. Keriatou could because they are rich for the standards of the town, which wasn’t that much but they had braging rights and such.
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Most southern Karagonds and Avezians are not Shayardenes
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I HATE ETHNOSTATES I HATE ETHNOSTATES! NATIONALISM IS A TOOL OF THE BOURGEOIS TO KEEP THE WORKING MAN DIVIDED!
Anyways screaming aside, population transfers are pretty dumb in the era of the game. Nationbuilding hasn’t really happened, the archonties of the Hegemony are pretty openly artificial. Deciding who is a “Shayardene” and who is “Erreziano” in the border regions would be basically impossible, unless you want to bust out some calipers and get really racist lmao.
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My mc would agree with that, which is why, even if he does end up going for the western option, he’d still seek a two ocean continent spanning state encompassing what are now parts of Shayard Wiendrj and Nyral. Also probably a small part of Karagond, but they don’t really count. Oh, also forgot, in the western option at least a tiny part of what is now the Xaos lands, and they do count aka Sojourn as a port and frontier town with some archaeological curiosities to boot. He will never go for just (a part of) Shayard only.
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Yeah but that’s my point. Why compromise reforms in favor of the defanged noble houses that only have their sympathy to contribute in exchange for their endless hand-wringing over everything that makes the social order more just? Not worth it.
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One word - harrowing.
If you plan to get rid of it entirely then every remaining scrap of administrative capacity avaiable is needed and currently nobles will make your rule the smoothest when compared to all other social classes.
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i dont know if these question has been asked but what is plan for stats going forward?
will balanced playthrough’s be viable like 2 cha 2 com 
will they get special checks what about 1 high stat characters? or what about truly balanced character like 2 1 1. will there be check for which to pass you will need at least 1 stat in every category. because if not i think that gaiting off some stat development for some character’s should be good idea because if not all path will be viable then its better that player dont gets chance to create that kind of character. like (int)
also how stat heavy will irduin be? i mainly mean stat checks for mc.
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I don’t think the concept of “ethnostates” can be viable in the presented gameworld (except for maybe places that MC hasn’t visited yet). The archonties aren’t states, as such, they’re more like Roman provinces. Ethnic or cultural identities are what clashes with the power structure, not what implements it.
As an interesting aside, the dialectical view of the situation would be totally wrong here as well, because cosmopolitanism also clashes with the power structure. Clever Karagonds.
Regarding the excerpt - the intertextual winks to the reader are lovely and don’t trod too heavily into the fourth wall territory. Especially the Gordian one.
Consider the virtual hat’s brim deservedly tipped.
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I usually do not comment upon these matters, but I recall that @Havenstone had once said he was basing the “big picture” of his world on the Abbasid Caliphate. The Caliphate was a multiethnic and multi-religious environment where individual ethno-states existed, some stronger than others in identity, political power and economic power.
Major territories were captured by the Seljuks and Iranians as well as the Mongols and Ottomans which ended the supra-state in most regards but religion from forces both within and without.
I see the parallels that Havie has written and the Caliphate, with the MC and their rebellion echoing the Buyids and perhaps the Mamluks of a later period.
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For players taking a fear-maxing approach, this is highly likely. 
There’s a chance to sing it on your first arrival, to make friends.
With elite groups that currently enjoy power, if you choose not to amalgamate them into your new power structure – if, for example, all the offices of the state go to former helots, yeomen, and merchants, rather than nobles – I suspect your “ralliement” will not be very effective. I haven’t yet reached the chapter on Napoleonic Italy in this book, but I think it’ll be quite useful in exploring the limitations of ralliement as an imperial policy.
She’s much the most sympathetic Ennearch to Phaedrx’s vision of a reformed Hegemony. Her biggest achievement other than the Telone system has been liberalizing trade with the Abhumans, which also makes her beloved of merchant Seracca like Laj-jas. (Who, sadly, you’ll have to wait a little longer to meet.)
Slow Harrowing is the most painful, because it’s the most drawn-out, and also the most shameful; it’s hard to be more naked than having your internal organs exposed to view for days while you’re publicly tortured. It’s relatively common because no authority wants to waste a criminal’s blood.
I’d certainly agree with this.
Vlad’s psychological warfare tactics were (as I undertsand it) a garnish on Wallachia’s defensible terrain, rather than the main factor throwing back Turkish invasion. While inland Erezza is hilly and pretty defensible, its coasts are the main area that will be contested – and the Halassurq navy won’t be easily deterred by impalement.
Likewise! That’s going to be horrible/fun to write, I think.
Persuasion in general is charisma based. In the rare cases where INT plays a role, there will be something in the choice description about cleverness, knowledge, etc. Are there specific cases that are tripping you up?
And also like a much, much bigger Nepal. And maybe a bit like Scotland with the highland-lowland divide – that’s hardly limited to Scotland, but many of the cases I know best are from there. This is a fantasy world, not historical fiction; it riffs on different aspects of Earth history without being bound to any of them.
There will be sections that reward different balances. Of course there are some things that can only be achieved by a STAT 3 character. I’ve just (mostly) finished writing the section where things go badly wrong if you’re a STAT 0 character – so to get through that section of Game 2, you need to have a 2-1-1 build. Throughout, there are lots of STAT > 1 checks, where characters with a 2-2-0 build will have the advantage of being able to choose different approaches (e.g. win lots of your early encounters with COM 2 checks, saving your blood for the big INT 2 ones at the end).
Though I can’t promise (anything close to) perfect balance, there should be fun, challenge, and achievements to be had with any build. Let’s see how you all feel at testing time.
I talked upthread about the Irduin mechanics, which are mainly oriented around chapter-specific stats – though as with G1’s challenges, you’ll have different paths available to you based on your strength in other stats.
This is broadly right (and I think @apple would agree–“Nationbuilding hasn’t really happened”). The gameworld order is grounded in multiethnic empires, and it’s coming into a stage when ideas of national identity can start breaking those down. Proto-nationalism will, like skepticism, be a lot more useful as a solvent for the current order than a foundation for a new one.
Why thank you.
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Yes. The moment at the beginning when move to start rebellious act.
1 was something about cry about falsehoods? Seemed like it was knowledge based not charisma based.
2 was shout about not proceeding?
Seemed like charisma based, not knowledge based.
When i do charisma with combat, basically its a mess. When i do charisma with knowledge it goes the way I expect. But wanted charisma and combat more. Just can’t succeed at it properly.
I keep giving up and moving away. The other issue is screwing over people when trying not to each time. So, restart trying different way to continue.
I have no idea how I did it first time years ago. Lot of names I don’t recognize in book 2 that I need to go through 1 again. Unless added character appearances, attitudes and such in a tab?
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Summon large sharp rocks from the sea to impale ships with Theurgy.
Funnily enough for the longest time I thought the Wiends were supposed to be Welsh.
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