Choice of Rebels: Uprising — Lead the revolt against a bloodthirsty empire!

How does governing work?

Sorry, just so I’m clear: Governing what, and when?

You won’t be running any kind of government until at least Book 3 if that’s what you’re asking.

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Obviously really, really poorly or else the mc’s little podunk rebellion wouldn’t have a chance to grow into something potentially regime toppling. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
Though I am really curious to see how the dysfunction is affecting other parts of Shayard and the Hegemony that are considerably less backwards then Rim Square and its even more backwoodsy backwoods, such as the Brecks.

As for the normal answer, what Ramidel said above.

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@Havenstone I want to ask a thing about scheme with Laconniers and Leaguers. Considering that making alliance with both factions and forging compromise may not be possible, what will we need to do with other faction in a scenario where we align only with one of them? Purge? Sidelining them?Affirming neutrality?

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Purging will certainly be an option. You can also try to merely sideline or buy off the others, but with no guarantee of success.

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And what will be the consequences of failing to contain said other faction?

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Them potentially “containing” you, whatever they might mean by that. :sweat_smile:

That said the Laconniers are just about the last people my mc would ever “ally” with as they seem to be diametrically opposed to most of the things he wants (and that is leaving some very legitimate grievances with Hector and the other Keriatou, who seem to be fairly prominent members of that faction out of it :unamused: ). There is also still Cabel’s faction to consider and those are just the Shayardene factions we currently know about. I think there are likely gonna be at least a couple of others that we currently don’t know about…and that is just for Shayard and game 2. :sweat:

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@Havenstone What is your inspiration for the story and how is progress going with the next part? Not meaning to add pressure, but your story is the best CoG I have read and I am eager to read more.

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@Havenstone One more question. In my many playthroughs I have decided that for my MC I want to go to war in the final chapter and use the results of this moving into the next chapter. My question is: Since Zvad (One of my favourite characters) ditched our group, can we expect to see him in later installments?

Execute Order 66.

Cabel faction is still a quite aristo faction or it consist more ordinary citizens like townfolk?

And is that thing about Keriatou members being significant part of Laconniers really true? I thought they were loyalists.

Nope, the Cabel faction, or at least the backbone of it is formed by yeomen, not (former) “nobles”.

From what we know right now they are their own version of Shayardene nationalists, more rural, more focused on the anglo-saxon bits and thus less southern or noble friendly. While they want to resurrect the old freeholding farmers as the backbone of Shayard they seem to have no truck with the old Southern, “noble” monarchy the Laconniers want to resurrect.

All in all they seem like a much more promising faction then either the Laconniers or the Leaguers to my mc. As while there are differences of course they are likely not irreconcilable.

Yes, but in mine there are no “eclects” and he certainly isn’t one.

Which is how my mc likely feels about Cabel’s bunch the overly Shayardene nationalistic tendencies can be ironed out later on and if they pitch co-ops they could actually help my mc into a superior system to organise large scale farming with the potential to unite most of the yeomen behind him.

Which is the why my mc isn’t very keen on them (though if the odds against either the Laconniers or the Hegemony are overwhelming an alliance of convenience may be possible.) Unlike with Cabel my mc would see no viable path to making them a sustainable part of his coalition as he is still a helot who has no interest in pretending to be either a “noble” an “eclect” or both.

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You and your “allies.” In my rebellion, there is one Eclect. Those who will not accept My authority are heretics to be purged in flame; Laconnier, Leaguer and Cabelite as well as the Thaumatarchy.

(Though I’d be much more willing to cooperate with the Leaguers if it comes to that, as fellow nobles and cosmopolitans. The decentralization aspect of their ideology can be corrected later, and judging by Horion, they’d be much more willing to accept a limited expansion of helots’ rights.)

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Games with an s? Plural?

The story grew out of a college Dungeons and Dragons campaign I ran years and years ago. A couple of CoG authors were players (Adam of Choice of the Dragon , Broadsides , and Affairs of the Court , and Rebecca of Psy High and First Year Demons ). That campaign centered on a slave revolt against a magic-wielding empire; the players had to weigh their desire to bring down a terrible social order against the dangers of anarchy and the likelihood of even worse rulers filling the gap they’d created.

As for influences, can I say “the world of the 2010s”? The game’s evil empire takes its strength from a particular technology, one which it was the first to master and which now underpins its agriculture, transport, security, and industry. That technology requires the sacrifice of life, and while its collapse is foreseeable, it’s built so deeply into the system that it’s hard for the people in power to imagine changing it. Religion and national identity are being used both to challenge and to shore up an oppressive system, and some of the challengers are markedly worse than what they’re fighting. I didn’t and don’t want to write a straight-up allegory, but the parallels sometimes write themselves.

These are a few excerpts from Havenstone’s interview when the game was first released

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No, that was not what I meant. I meant how the government we are fighting against doing and how it works

Ah. The World Index on the game’s stats screen is a good place to start reading.

Though a short answer for “how it works” is “it doesn’t.”

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Most people who ascribe to political movements aren’t true believers in the movement’s ideology. If you can get enough mindshare in a movement by publicly championing some of their goals, and create a big enough network of influencers within the movement who are devoted to you and willing to amplify your message, you can steal a movement right out from under its true believers. The Laconniers are particularly vulnerable to this given that the hidden Laconnier heir (if they actually exist) is not only unable to compete with the MC for influence within the movement, but their very identity is vulnerable to appropriation by an aristo MC.

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Firat I love that this thread is so active.

This is my favourite game and why I got addicted to cyoa in the first place :sweat_smile:.

I do have a question.
The saves for this game are they being kept for the next book? (I know it’s in the future but let me dream) because I may have a lot of saves and I mean A LOT :sweat_smile:. I don’t know if the saves will be deleted or kept because now saves are only possible when the next book is in the process of release​:thinking:.

Not like I have any problem playing it again (and again, and again… :blush:) but I am curious :thinking:

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