I think it sure could. But maybe first you need push wards far more into xaos land. That’s one of reasons I asked about just warding vigil. Still without that there is still a way as we had saw already in first village and taking seeds. but it’s limited because storms and beasts attacks are common and destructible.
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I think I remember something about cleansing the land with fire after a ward expansion
“The Theurges were very keen about one particular hillock where everything had transformed into something unpleasantly alchemical-smelling, and it wasn’t hard to see that this was why they were going to all the trouble of moving the Ward. They told us that once the new wall was ready, they would blast everything with fire to cleanse the Xaos-taint from the land."
Edit: Here it is, not sure whether it’d be in a farmable state or not
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The Hegemony is an empire that dominates its continent. It’s on par, scale-wise, with the major Chinese dynasties, Rome, the Abbasids… pick your empire that ruled over a huge land area containing major cultural diversity. When an empire like that collapses, it usually ushers in a lengthy period of chaos and retrenchment. The economic networks it maintained break down; surviving institutions spend more of their energy and resources on fighting each other; law and authority are contested rather than accepted as a foundation for other civilizational activity.
The degree of anarchy varies, and innovations can begin in the wreckage…but it usually takes at least a couple of generations before new institutions really thrive in the aftermath of an imperial collapse. The immediate experience is typically one of denial – of people pouring their energies into an effort at recapturing what’s fallen, rather than turning to innovation – followed by decades of shock, loss, and damage. Empires almost never collapse in a way that leads smoothly into improvements for their citizenry.
However high you get your cred_a, you’ll quickly burn it to the ground if you suggest that the price of continuing to be an aristo is to adopt Halassurq-style child sacrifice.
Even the nobles who are most sympathetic to the idea that they have a costly responsibility to their commons, like the de Irde or Suzane de Firiac, would almost universally recoil at the idea that that responsibility should extend to harvesting their firstborn. You’re pushing against centuries of propaganda telling them that helots are the rightful sacrificial class and that only the wicked Halassurqs sacrifice kids. They’re also one of the social classes least likely to embrace a religious cult that encourages voluntary child sacrifice. It’s too easy and plausible for them to tell themselves a story in which they’re the ones with the most to lose, given that they’re also the ones sending their children to die honorably in war.
Similarly, getting Theurges to accept that their children will be raised noble is a world away from getting them to accept that their children will be slaughtered for parts.
I’ve said elsewhere that child sacrifice is a bit of a trap, that a child sacrifice system inevitably “trends toward an other-people’s-kids-sacrifice-system” and that the circumstances that have let Halassur sustain it with largely voluntary compliance aren’t ones that a social engineer can conjure up on demand.
I’ll add now that trying to hybridize blood tax and child sacrifice is unlikely to succeed. The effort required to normalize child sacrifice and the effort required to put in place an extraordinary general taxation system reaching most of the population are not only both massive, but will send a post-Hegemonic state in inconsistent directions.
If you’re willing to kill kids for your blood supply, the sheer effort of also taxing everybody for vastly less Theurgic oomph-per-donation will inevitably come to seem a bit pointless – to your deputies and subjects, if not to the MC. Whichever group you target for child sacrifice, harvesting them a little more aggressively will make up for so many donation shortfalls that it will be almost irresistible.
CHA 1 is average charisma. Convincing your band of the Inner Voice has always required either CHA 2 or Breden’s intervention.
The more intact the institutions are, the more friendly pushback you’ll get if you try to change them in ways that your friends dislike.
That really won’t be clear to them at all on a low-anarchy run. Your friends are likely to tell themselves that you’ve succeeded because you went with the grain of things, rather than making a doomed high-anarchy challenge.
No, I didn’t say that. 
I just said that the evidence for their existence will be similar to that in our world, in which many people believe, many disbelieve, and proof is in short (and subjective) supply.
Any storm you made wouldn’t “engage” the Vigil ones, they’d just interact with them in ways that increase the chaos, ultimately making it more likely that your wall and workers would be swallowed up. And the closer you got, the more you’d find yourself with a near-constant storm along the wall, with further piecemeal advances all but impossible.
Ah, got it. That’s a pacing issue; the game is meant to be replayed, and rather than have a section that bogs people down in asking everything all at once (and then getting nothing new on their replays), I’d rather have it take three-ish playthroughs to see everything.
This isn’t your fault, but I’m always irritated when jargon takes us too far from the dictionary meaning of words. In my former day job, “humanitarian” has taken on a well-established meaning of “related to disaster response,” but it never stopped annoying me when people asked me if my mindset was more humanitarian or developmental. It’s both, obviously; the reason I do development work (or disaster relief!) is impartial concern for humanity.
Similarly, who doesn’t think they’re a realist? If I thought my worldview wasn’t realistic, I’d change it. I’m definitely a liberal, and I’d like to think I’m a realist about it, and don’t see the two as dichotomous.
Being consistently either pessimistic or optimistic isn’t a serious worldview. Well-intentioned change isn’t guaranteed to succeed and move us in a progressive direction, nor is it guaranteed to fail and make matters worse. I’m a liberal but not Whiggish (in the sense of believing that history moves teleologically in a liberal progressive direction); I recognize that liberalism often fails, and don’t think the aspects of human nature that nudge us in a liberal direction are stronger than those that nudge us toward authoritarianism.
Given sufficient time, I think that capacity is immense. But before the modern era, the pace of change was slow, and the inertia of existing systems much greater. And even today, when we push too fast for change, we risk unintended consequences and backlash derailing our intended outcomes.
That sounds like one reasonably likely outcome of a high-anarchy run. Albeit, as you say, one where you’ll sooner or later have to kill Cerlota and a bunch of other erstwhile allies who are horrified by your new murder mini-empire.
Unstoppable force, meet immovable object!
Thank you! That was…a long time ago.
I think this was talked about above…but the reason for the famine is that you won’t have enough Theurgy to keep making optimal use of all the marginal farmland currently yielding grain inside the Wards. Annexing more marginal land that requires Theurgic support to be fertile isn’t going to improve matters.
Edit: here’s the upthread post I had in mind, making a slightly adjacent point:
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in game one during last battle depending on how much influence you had in your band your people may have declined to take part in last battle and overruled you. which i found very interesting. so as our rebellion’s goes forward these mechanic will stay in game right?
like if you are very high anrachy helot rebellion’s it will be much harder for you to rain your followers in or in noble collaboration scenario when you’ll want to make some reforms they will just say no.
so we wont only be constrained by what we can do by but also by what are our followers willing to do depending who you have as your power base .
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You’re right that it’s rare for a new system to emerge so soon after an empire falls. But “rare” doesn’t mean “non-existent.” I’d like to see that path implemented in the game. I don’t want this game to be a power fantasy. But it’s perplexing and frustrating to have only one path: chaos, which severely limits innovation.
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I get that it’s frustrating. But perplexing? If you recognize (even as a fairly optimistic liberal) that what you’re asking for is historically unlikely, is perplexity really the right response?
If overthrowing an intolerable regime made things easily and unambiguously better, it would happen a lot more often in real life.
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I know this path shouldn’t be easy to take, and it’s not just about overthrowing a government, but is it really that weird from a historical and gameplay perspective to reward, for example, MCs who work hard to build and maintain a broad coalition of support? There are a few historical examples, like the Netherlands after Napoleon, or India after the British Empire.
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i personally don’t expect any big positive change except maybe abolishment of harrowing and helotry and even these are best case scenarios and will be very hard to get.
comparing hegemony’s collapse to real world event is interesting. i personally think that there never existed such collection of circumstance that makes hegemony’s existence possible and it also makes hegemony’s destruction apocalyptical.
what happened to India is practically heaven to what is going to happen to hegemony. i think Russian civil war is better example from modern times but even then what is going to happen to hegemony will be much worse.
if we are talking india then imagine if during independence movement 5-10 factions started killing each other Brittan sent his whole army to retake territory’s and plus massive famine was going during that. and only neiboring country also was war at that time with them. and it even would not be as bad as what’s going to happen to hegemony.
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I think what is unique here is that the Hegemony isn’t failing due to an internal or external security deficit. It is failing because it is unable to produce the sufficient quantities of a key commodity: aether. I honestly cannot think of a historical example where a commodity shortage was so deleterious to an imperial power. The closest that comes to mind would be Imperial Japan but its oil shortage wasn’t due to lack of capacity but rather external security pressures and ultimately outright military interdiction.
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It should be noted that the conditions for either don’t really exist in this setting, however. Remember that the setting’s big lie is blood magic, and the Hegemony is dependent on it to keep bread on the table. Those are the facts your rebellion has to deal with. So, right there, you face the stark choice of Harrowing or starvation - and as Havenstone has repeatedly explained, the “easy option” of a blood tax alone will not avert starvation.
There are options. Widespread dissemination of self-theurgy might allow for a functional agricultural system (but would likely push anarchy way to the high end). You can attempt a reformist route while cooperating with the Diadoch to phase out Harrowing through the use of bioengineered crops and/or a space program (it could work…). You could just continue Harrowing. Or you could stop widespread Harrowing and accept the massive hunger outside of Shayard.
In short, this is not the Indian revolution. It’s Russia. There is no neat solution and there is no way that the situation will not end up messy, though you can absolutely make something better out of the wreckage. Even India required significant compromises between some groups (India, Pakistan and Britain) as well as outright trampling the interests and rights of others (Hyderabad).
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So if we get friendly with Halassurqs they would have a rebellion themselves or a big blood economy depression because there is no war they could use as excuse for child sacrifice?
Could we use another hybrid? Like something like helot sacrifice that is used by hegemons in lesser brutality and lower degree + blood tax everybody else?
So we are forced to have a down cast like helots of Hegemony ourselves. But who could we force to be slave sacrifice when as you said yourself there is a 5hundred year culture dictate who should be that? Helots wouldn’t accept again as they started this movement and are its core, if we be friendly with all to reach a low anarchy how can we change this too, without resistance of our friends?
Also a question, if we build a alliance with Halassurqs can we get blood from them in exchange for what they need in form of trade? If they don’t have a war would be hard for them to continue their blood system, can we help them stay at power in exchange of blood for example?
But with high CHA that wont happen and the relevant achievement unlocks only if we have CHA 1 + Breden
There is still the question of can’t we propose what they would like more in exchange of some of our changes getting accepted? Like lower money tax for merchants in exchange of allowing serraca and Halassurqs merchants more access to our fief.
Or more freedom for helots in exchange of more special status for nobles and etc.
Edit: could we get help from our other friends to quell other friendly resistances? Like help of priests to force more changes on nobles?etc.
Can’t we make examples then to show and clear this? Or won’t our victories like the battle back in book 1 help to show yeah we have means to make true our threats to someone?
That too I take means we wont see xaos ourselves so that couldn’t be what we felt in vigil.
Edit: I’m actually more sure that was a powerful mage now.
So are the streels that dangerous close or can we work a Ward just at the start of streels? How much can we really expand in Xaosland?You didn’t mention black stones, so I take we will find what are they later but would we have a chance to use them? In everyday building or even maybe just in Xaosland to make a safe city for our people there( including Sojourners and the realm they would build)if we can’t move enough of Xaosland into Ward?
Will the mc themselves only know what we ask? Or they will know all even if we didn’t ask them then? I mean doesn’t MC knowledge only rely on what we ask? Because you are doing this play wise what happens mc then? think I played again and I the player know all those myself. Would my Mc still be ignorant about other questions that I know because of my last play through but I didn’t chose those this play through to ask another one?
And what was your thoughts on the ones I suggested to be added?
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Blood magic being real and being able to make mountains float makes me it unlikely to me that any successful regime would ever be what I consider to be humane in this world. I think the temptations blood magic presents set up a very Hobbesian situation with respect to states.
Also because there be some, that taking pleasure in contemplating their own power in the acts of conquest, which they pursue farther than their security requires; if others, that otherwise would be glad to be at ease within modest bounds, should not by invasion increase their power, they would not be able, long time, by standing only on their defence, to subsist. And by consequence, such augmentation of dominion over men, being necessary to a mans conservation, it ought to be allowed him.
With blood magic being a thing, I don’t see how a state that forgoes its use isn’t setting itself up for failure in the long run. To a degree, I think the Karagonds have really handicapped themselves and caused some of their current problems by using a much less efficient blood sacrifice system than they might have.
In general, I think the existence of magic does a lot to increase the chasm in power between people to the point where liberalism becomes difficult for me to envision, so I’m glad that it’s not a feature of our actual world.
Disclaimer - I do retain a somewhat grim view of human nature from my Calvinist upbringing even if I don’t subscribe to that theology anymore. The idea that humans have a very strong bent towards evil did stick with me and colors my views on what people are likely to do when they have the power to act without constraint.
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Maybe if you can get rid of the knowledge of it somehow but unless there was a magical way to do it 
I don’t really see that happening.
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And I want a lot of good changes to happen in a short time, like the French Revolution (even if it involves a lot of risk and sacrifice). And that’s exactly what I wanted to bring up. From the perspective of historical reenactment and gameplay, I want to be able to choose between a high-risk, high-reward path and a low-risk, low-reward path. Of course, the high-risk path will “most often” fail and be disastrous, but I don’t think that means it will “always” fail.
@Havenstone Also, I think we may just be talking about the same thing in different ways. Just to confirm, how much progress can be achieved in this game? (To avoid vague definitions, I consider the following to be progress: realization of liberal democracy and economic prosperity, discovery of new scientific knowledge and its application to real-life technology.)
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You mean the revolution that ended up empowering a new Emperor to replace the ancien regime, and took roughly a century to establish a relatively stable democratic government?
As to your second question, he’s already stated that some degree of technological progress will be possible, but the preconditions for modern liberal democracy aren’t there yet.
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France was a highly developed nation for the standards of the time where a lot of the philosophical ideas and reforms that were enacted during the revolution had been circulating for quite some time.
A lot of France’s military success was due to people implementing reform ideas the French Royal Army had developed after the disaster of the Seven Year’s War.
Yeah, short term you mostly got a more competently organized autocracy and the abolition of feudalism as the only things that really stuck.
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It seems that we have different historical understandings of the First French Empire.
I also argue that the fact that there was confusion and backlash in the wake of an innovation should not be confused with the fact that the innovation did not occur.
Let me rephrase the question: what is preventing the Empire or its successor regimes from progressing from Premodern to Modern in this game world?
Also, how much progress do you consider to be modern progress? I’ve pointed this out before, but even if Heavenstone’s explanation is correct, the Empire has the potential to create a system that is quite modern, at least 19c level of progress. (I think this is borne out by Heavenstone’s own explanations, including his own explanation of the possibility of an imperial parliamentarism.)
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It’s not “premodern” in its own world. It’s modern. And while it shares some features with what are to us “premodern” societies it’s also different. It’s not really reasonable to my mind to suppose that any society is going to become analogous in every way to what in our world we consider to be “modern”. The context of what is coming before is substantially different, so what comes after will be different as well and have a trajectory that is distinct from ours. The physics of the world are clearly different, whether or not they are actually Aristotelian to name a major difference.
The big one would be the existence of aether as a substance that can be used to impose one’s will upon reality. I really think that drastically alters a lot of things in terms of power dynamics (who can use it and to what degree) in a way that isn’t really friendly to the development of liberal democracy.
The gulf between someone who can use Theurgy and one who can’t or between a Theurge of the Third Circle and one of the first are pretty huge. And again, what the ability to manipulate Theurgy does is allow a person to bend physical reality to their will in a pretty direct way that is a lot less dependent on assistance from other people compared to the way we manipulate the phsyical world through machines.
Theurgy allows you to literally drop a mountain on people at the highest levels of ability and as natural science improves, I expect that the applications of Theurgy will expand since a Theurge’s proficiency to impose their will on the world around them is largely tied to how well they comprehend the things they are manipulating which improvement in natural science should enhance.
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Your answer was a bit too abstract for me to understand. What are the specific differences?
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This world’s equivalent of petroleum is harvested by Harrowing humans. Any effective power will need to be able to engage in Theurgy, which by the nature of Harrowing works against empowering the masses - who are most valuable as sources of aether.
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