I have often wondered how Phillip would have done in the Persian campaign had he lived.
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I think you also have to remember the soldiers that made up Hera’s original armies. They were with her since she unified Karagond before she set out to conquer the known world. Much like how Alexander’s army was built on the back of Philip’s Army and his officers.
Hera was in command of a veteran army and theuregic core that was attuned to her through a decade or so of campaigning prior to her War for Hegemony.
It’s why I feel that you can have a “Second Hera” moment if you play your cards right. Your most veteran and experienced officers by the end of the series can be with you for like two decades of conflict.
@roodcross
Lysimachus and Antigonus to name two of Philip’s Generals died in their 70s and 80s respectively. Antigonus died at 81 at Ipsus commanding the center of his army from the front.
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I would not have agreed until I saw the current literacy rate. There seems to be no way to train and educate enough people on the basics of Theurgery if less than a third of the free population can read your instruction booklet “How to bleed on your crops to make them grow” or “How to not starve 50 Million people.”
I was expecting that literacy was more similar to the pre-civil war US, in that free people had enough basic literacy to keep their own journal and physical records for store keeping but slaves were prevented from near all education.
I don’t think you can sustain the current population without either everyone and their mom knowing basic agricultural Theurgery or continually harrowing people so the people who do can find solutions and grow enough for you.
Granted those people don’t have to be helots exclusively but I can’t imagine a lottery system would go over well or that any system of selection wouldn’t recreate the same abuses anyway. Maybe Irduin will have some ideas.
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That partly depends on how you define enough. “Enough to break the caste system from the bottom up” might be different from “enough to hold famine at bay.” There are around 35m literate people in the Hegemony, compared to a current Theurge population of well under 100K. (I’m not going to pin myself to a number until I’ve finished balancing out all the different bits of my working model, but I think it’s going to end up around 60-70K.)
Around 7m of those 35m literate people are the current intellectual upper crust: the Theurges, aristoi, and priests. Another 9-10m are Alastors, merchants, and (mostly non-noble) Phalangites. (As a belated side note, only about 300K people Hegemony-wide are telones, idnlun; they can be a crucial component of your admin capacity but there aren’t enough of them to displace nobles, priests, and merchants from imperial administration if you aspire to rule at scale.)
That leaves almost 19m literate people from the lower classes (rural and urban), including about 900K literate helots and drudges. (The “you are one in a thousand” intro for INT 2 helot MCs is not literally true.) The desperately low rate of literacy among helots is going to pose major problems for an MC who wants their spread of Theurgy to be genuinely emancipatory rather than just helping the free population.
But Theurgy could be practiced much, much more widely than it is, with transformative impact – even if that impact might not easily reach the helotry.
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Yebben is blind and can practice theurgy is literacy really a hard prerequisite? Perhaps there are more intuitive potential casters out there like him?
Personally, I feel like the larger deathblow to Hegemonic power is getting the secret of Aetherial Blood out to the masses. I knew it was coming and it was still and mind explosion moment for me. Deflating the mythos around the blood will undermine the foundation that the Hegemony stands on more than any appeal to human rights or market economics or military defeat would.
My concern now is creating anything out of the mad max social implosion I expect that will cause.
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Tbh I feel like Yebben is sort of the exception. He has always been pretty smart in his own right, and ends up being the quartermaster for the rebellion. Also Yebben only finally learns theurgy if the MC decides to teach him and tells him what sort of mental exercises he needs to do. And even then it’s not enough for Yebben to be able to perform theurgy. In the one instance he actually does theurgy, it’s when everyone is about to die and he panics using up all his blood for one massive Change, killing himself in the process.
Ideally, you shouldn’t need to only have to rely on someone else having to tell you what to do and you should be able to read and understand the do’s and dont’s of theurgy. I guess theoretically it’s possible to become a theurge without being literate if someone is constantly with you teaching you, but it’s not really plausible imo.
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That is the only way to go, or at least the only one that has one worth to my mc. 
But there are enough of them to form the core, where they can train and supervise new recruits mostly from the merchant class and a few redeemable, lower-ranked phalangites with potentially a lot of those literate helots and drudges taking over the more simple clerical tasks.
Thus making setting up an education system even more important, secondary only to agriculture and the military.
Maybe but people like Yebben still, at minimum, seem to need somebody like the mc as a tutor, even if they do not need to learn how to read, though it couldn’t hurt to teach him braille, if the Hegemony has an equivalent for it. It just shifts the problem to getting enough tutors to reach all or even most of the potential Yebbens out there.
True, but it also shows how criminally the Hegemony due to its caste system under-utlizes its human resources between the high int mc, Yebben and maybe Pin that is two potential world-class theurges for just one backwards, podunk village and one who seems like she’d at least make a good one in the future.
Which could become one factor that could give my mc pause on that one given that free people are less likely to even see him as fully human due to the caste system and he is leery to do anything that might reinforce the notions the caste system has pushed upon the population for centuries.
Potentially pushing the realm into rule by merchant princes and exactly the kind of laissez-faire of our own “golden age” also holds little appeal to him as with the pre-existing caste system that would look less like early pillarization and more like the totally ineffectual abolition in name only of the caste system India has, where right now the caste system seems to be coming back with a vengeance, again in all but name and sometimes not even that. 
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That’s true Yebben being able to learn, as well as the Sereca all knowing Theurgy do provide some examples of learning Theurgery without needing mass literacy. Having a teacher go around to every little village could work at making Theurgy emancipatory but would also be more resource and time intensive.
Plus I imagine real skill with Theurgy requires more than just your letters and numbers, however even if it is something like 1 in 10 people who can read can become a Theurge who’s really useful for agriculture that’s still more than 3 million potential new Theurges.
Granted I don’t know if that’s enough to meet the dream of the end of harrowing with everyone having at least a half full stomach.
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Will we hear about more of of rebels learning to read/write if we chose to teach some in game one?
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I was under the impression the current farming practices were going to cause a famine regardless.
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There seems to be a struggle with the printing press. What exactly is it? For example, is it possible to establish journalism by publishing newspapers or enlightenment by publishing thought books and encyclopedias? Also, is it possible to use the printing press for commoner education?
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I don’t know about braille, but there is the pre-existing knot language of the merchant guild that also appears to have some encoding. Could be a method to pass subversive communication via the merchant network. I also expect there are many instinctual theurges like Yebben who aren’t necessarily blind. I only point him out as an example since he necessarily isn’t literate.
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So that’s for Low Anarchy runs, it seems you will have better time with actually managing your state. What is High Anarchy path good for in comparison - what does it offer which Low Anarchy cannot?
Also - will there be some situations where you can go “Mid Anarchy”?
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This is partly true. There’s more direct involvement by state elites in the Hegemony’s agriculture than in the most analogous time period in Europe (culturally and intellectually, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; technologically, verging into the nineteenth century thanks to the magic system). But we should be clear that even if it survived its current crisis, the Hegemony is at least a couple of centuries away from being able to pull off a Soviet or Mao-style centralized command economy; it just doesn’t have the administrative capacity to monitor the numbers.
Certainly there’s extensive state involvement of the kind we see in China from a much earlier epoch: the state buying up regional surpluses and shipping them to granaries in areas with deficits; price stabilization through stocking “ever-normal” granaries (in the Hegemony, administered by the priesthood from farm tithes); a goal of ensuring there’s always enough in the storehouses to feed both the army and the otherwise restive peasantry and town-dwellers (though as we’ve often noted before, the Hegemony has to worry a little less about the latter than any empire in our world).
But when it comes to blood for agriculture, as I’ve said before, there’s no single central “blood budget” (and thus no central planning):
As we’ll see more in Ch2, Theurges are allowed to sell certain services, especially healing and agriculture, to the elites in the areas they serve without needing to get central sanction for it. This helps keep the Theurges prosperous and the realm healthy and fed. Theurges are also officially mandated to help the local priests keep the Tithe Barns full; if the local nobility haven’t been able or willing to pay for a Theurgically enhanced harvest, the priests may call for one, but the benefit will go entirely to the Tithe Barn rather than the landowner. (A priest who calls in a Theurge to fill their Tithe Barn for free and then personally profits by selling the surplus on the black market is at risk of Harrowing for corruption if caught.)
Trying to shift this to a more centrally managed system of both blood allocation and agricultural planning should be possible for a state-capacity-maxing player (i.e. one willing to trade off against other potential goals like scale, popularity with certain factions, retributive justice, and social equity). I won’t be sure until we get into the weeds in Games 4 and (especially) 5 quite how challenging it’s going to be for players who aspire to something other than a smaller, better-managed Thaumatarchy to develop a significantly stronger state, at scale, with a transformative agenda. But it should be pretty tough.
Anyway, none of these quibbles about the definition of “command economy” changes the fact that
and that famine on some scale will result. The question is whether the MC will be willing and able (based on past choices) to mitigate the damage enough to avoid population collapse – which is what I had in mind by “hold famine at bay” in my last post.
A couple of notes on G1 numbers while we’re at it:
The reference to “seven [grain] harvests” in G1 is hyperbolic. Later in that chapter, there’s a more accurate estimate: “I’ve often heard my Keriatou cousins boast that they ‘feed the district’ by bringing in Theurges and deploying their helots to give them four or five harvests a year.” In G2 Ch2 it’ll be made clearer that only the biggest noble houses can afford to pay for as many as five grain harvests a year, as each additional harvest requires exponentially more blood (to boost fertility without giving the land time to rest). Having seven harvests a year is possible but only economical for the highest-value crops, not staple grains.
Another number that folk have picked up on is Horion’s estimate that Shayard has 20m helots. I’d just note that this is a major underestimate. 
Nobles have an incentive to underreport the number of helots they own, leading to fewer being Harrowed and the nobles having to spend less on replacing them. This leads to the folks in the center having a skewed estimate of the total.
Sorry, but that would be about as tough as giving you a detailed list of all the possible shapes your rebellion could be in at the end of Game 1. There are going to be a lot of different possibilities for your final state, along at least a dozen different axes – that’s all I can say for now.
whistles innocently
That’s absolutely right – literacy is the most efficient way for most people to learn enough to have a chance at mastering Theurgy, but high-intellect folks can to some extent self-teach if they’re set on the right path, and most people can learn some Theurgy if they have long-term mentorship (the Seracca model).
@andreww1 is right that people like Yebben are exceptional, but the Hegemony has well over 100m helots, so even the exceptions will add up if you spread the knowledge as widely as possible. Will those exceptions add up to enough for the helotry to avoid domination by more literate classes that can make more effective use of the knowledge? Probably not, without other intentionally emancipatory policy-making on the MC’s part.
Yes, to some extent, for all of the above. (“Enlightenment” involves a lot more than publishing, but you can spread knowledge more widely.) Though the Kryptasts put a high priority on snuffing out independent presses.
A thorough breaking of the old order, opening up more radical possibilities for transformation than you could see in a system where most of your power-holders are elites from the old regime.
I expect most players will end up going mid-anarchy, rather than being Savage Goetes or Sellouts to the Nobility. Minmaxing decision-making here is likely to turn off a lot of people too much to do it consistently; some kind of middle way will feel most appealing.
Right, back to writing…
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Would I be wrong in saying that an emancipationist movement which sought to provide favorable deals to the furries and to not recreate the Hegemony and its borders would at least be seen favorably by large segments of the Seracca population?
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Hmmm, ok. I have a few questions. Can we establish something like irl’s Jacksonian democracy? Also, is it possible to export the revolution to other countries?
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You said before that Game 3 could establish a system of maintaining order and judiciary, but what exactly can you establish? (For example, is it possible to establish a modern police force, a jury system, and a lawyer system?)
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@Havenstone, a certain question has been lingering on my mind, ever since one of G1’s dialogue options told us “I won’t stop until we’ve taken back every bit of Shayardene soil”: is the following suggested compromise/alliance (between Nationalist MC and Phaedra) plausible?
E.g. Shayard’s demands: be officially released/recognized as its own independent empire, regain both Steswick and Aveche, and then gain access to some of Karagon’s most advanced Theurgic secrets (including/especially the biotech research).
In exchange, Shayard will support Karagon’s dominion over the remaining Hegemony archonties (protecting the rump Hegemony from the vengeful masses of non-Shayardene rebels and Halassur invaders).
Any Shayardene military support sent by MC to aid Phaedra are to be treated by Karagon as handsomely paid mercenaries (who are oathbound to send a cut of their salaries to the Eclect/de Syrnon Monarch of Shayard), not as Karagon’s conscripted vassals/cheap labor.
Or to rephrase my question: is a “League of Two Empires” (with the continent being shared by independent restored Shayard and rump Hegemony, working together to protect each other’s imperialist spheres of influence) a plausible ending state for G5?
Alternatively, I was thinking Devout (and Erezza-sympathetic) MC could propose the following Roman-inspired power restructure to Phaedra: a Xthonic Holy Triumvirate (Shayard, Karagon, Erezza) which would reign supreme over its pagan/atheist/syncretist vassals (Nyryal, Wiendrj, and Abhumans).
Couldn’t an argument be made that priests and nobles generally see each other as indispensable natural allies?
E.g. the priests recognize the nobles’ expertise at maximizing the admin/state capacity of their respective faction(s), while the nobles recognize the priests as necessary propagandists (to legitimize/entrench their societal role as society’s elites).
Given your earlier Cao Cao analogy, how much do you want to bet that Kleitos is being covertly puppeteered by a Dong Zhuo-inspired Ennearch, lol?
An observation that Hamilton (the musical) captures brilliantly:
“A quid pro quo
I suppose
Wouldn’t you like to work a little closer to home?
Actually, I would
Well, I propose the Potomac
And you’ll provide him his votes?
Well, we’ll see how it goes”
An idea that’s as exciting as it is horrifying.
Which version of Breden’s G1 death did Caroline trigger?
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Oh, I’m not saying they’re all eager to destroy each other but historically, there have been several conflicts where the religious institutions and the nobility had some combination of a desire for more power, irreconcilable disagreements in how the state should be run, and usually a number of more specific points of contention and came to blows.
Sure, THEORETICALLY, the monarchy and nobility are ordained by the faith to rule, but in PRACTICE, the interests of the nobility often go against that of the church. For example, the nobles having governing policies that go against church doctrine (very common irl, the medieval times had a lot of stuff that was common that the church preached against for example). Normally, this gets let go because of the various difficulties with enforcing the rules of the church on the nobility, but sometimes they push too hard. Or perhaps the nobles are dealing with extremely corrupt clergy that are causing a lot of problems for the locals and are too well-connected for the church to do anything, and they’d rather cover it up.
In this case, we’ve seen the nobility display resentment towards the church for its taxation practices and in turn, the fact that they subvert these practices to the church’s detriment often. You have an opportunity to gain their favor at the expense of the church in this way.
Meanwhile, more idealistic members of the church may view the nobility as chiefly responsible for the fact that church teachings on how to treat the helotry are frequently ignored, such as the fact that helots die if they don’t have enough kids running afoul of the whole “everyone has the right to date whoever” scripture. Or the fact that they constantly have to look the other way when the nobles have “affairs” with helots (read: rape them). While a lot of the establishment views this either with indifference (since they only care about power) or just something they have to accommodate to maintain order, the fact is that you’re always gonna get true believers in every ideology, regardless of whether it’s meant to be all for social control or not (and evidence suggests the Xthonos faith did not start out that way).
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Can we eventually meet Ganelon again?
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