Actually about the last battle combat path. Is there anything to do to maximize the enemy losses? I know training your men and getting enough arms for all is paramount but what about traps? Like 2 or 3 times to just wipe out a shitload of them?
Most I’ve gotten is get the magic crafted spears to increase combat ability, one round of full trap gets you 60~ men down, wipe out the mages with a suprise magic attack, but that’s all I can think of. Still not sure who the best commanders are or if there is another way to just make the poor bastards hate coming to the woods.
This is true, but I figured it had something to do with theurgy itself, like climate change but with magic.
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I think it was mentioned that there was some rival empire to Hegemony and tried some Theurgic ritual that backfired horribly. But that may be just official version though.
As I said above:
I think @HughMyronBrough will be better able than me to answer that question. 
The Brauracha–more on them coming in Ch 1.
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I have a couple of questions regarding grand nobility things.
1 - Considering that Leaguers are soft nationalists, but nationalists nonetheless, would they be more welcoming to Cosmopolitan or Neutral(on that matter) MC?
2 - What would Laconniers do if some noble with proof of being secret true heir aligned himself with Leaguers? Would their agenda and attachment to bloodlines force them to compromise and ally/form a truce with their rivals(Leaguers)?
3 - Are Laconniers interested in “de-karagonisation” of Xthonos church in Shayard? Also, I’m not sure in what language Xthonos priests preach in the country but if we assume it’s Koine, then would Laconniers want to enforce(or just promote) Shayarin preachings and translation of sacred text? Promoting national language over more cosmopolitan course of things was present in Europe during the Reformation when a process of Bible and other religious texts translation to national languages accelerated, as well as Holy Mass being spoken in one’s country language in opposition to Latin.
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Ok so we’re talking more that a canal is the soft engineering compared to a ward’s hard engineering. Would this be possible to be maintained with self fueled theurgy cause in that case it might be a worthwhile tradeoff
This is all assuming the storms are permanent. If an experiment created them, one could undo them as well.
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Quite possibly, with enough sufficiently powerful magic users. As I recall the main issue with the canal, or more likely whatever system of lakes, wetlands and diverted rivers you can create, as it need not be and due to the danger would not be a commercially viable canal anyway, is making sure they are cleared out and refilled quickly enough after every storm to be able to receive the next one.
Now with self-fueled mages you’re probably going to need quite a lot more of them than you would of theurges using harvested blood but other than that I could see it be possible.
Even if you do use harvested blood to maintain that sort of border system it will likely still mean a huge reduction compared to the super wasteful wards in place now.
Even so, I think that it was said that compared to the zero chance of a breach at very high cost for the wards there would be a 5% yearly chance of a breach at much more moderate cost for a properly maintained “canal” or whatever system of lakes, wetlands and swamps you can create.
So if our mc’s can reach satisfactory accommodations with whoever and whatever lurks on the Xaos side and it becomes purely a safety issue the much more moderate costs of border wetlands would definitely be a winner.
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while it might not be commercially viable as a canal I expect some of the things that blow over from xaos storms will be interesting and maybe worth something. Also I reckon the Halassurqs would pay a lot for shrub yam based medicines to increase fertility (I think that was mentioned earlier in the thread) which might be enough to balance the books.
Whatever it is beyond those wards if it isn’t new then before the wards there was some way of dealing with it
They will tend to like neutrals and Cosmo-light more than strongly Cosmo MCs. Strong cosmopolitans will be more appealing to the priesthood and some of the other provincial factions.
Accepting a truce would be no problem. If the true heir actually embraced the Leaguer agenda and stopped promoting the superiority of traditional Shayardene culture and the Old Shayarin tongue, the Laconniers might reconsider the quality of the “proof” that had been offered for the bloodline.
If they get enough power, yes, it’s a big part of their agenda.
Yes – the canal, unlike the Ward, could be maintained by a cadre of dedicated self-fuelled wisards.
That’s basically how the Abhuman Guardian yega’a do it on the river that separates the Xaos-lands from their domain. As M’kyar will explain in G2 Ch1, Storms rarely ricochet down that far, and when they do they almost never drop an obstruction into the river before dissipating – but the Guardians are always ready in case they do.
It’s worth noting that the exposed area for the Abhumans is a tiny fraction of the Shayard-Braurach border, so the scale of the mobilization needed in Shayard would be very different. But it would be possible.
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Hi guys! Can someone tell me how many followers would be ideal to get if my plan for them in chapter 4 would be to infeltrate the Rim (going with Bredens plan)? If I remember correctly, as opposed to fighting, too large number of followers would be a handicap here.
I think the ideal number of helots infiltrating the Rim would be a number of your current followers-21(or more) as that’s the requirement for getting “Missionaries of Rebellion” achievement. Anyhow, I’m not sure how exact calculation work but having literate followers, children, high yeomen and helot reputation, will boost the number of infiltrators. You can certainly still achieve it even if you have large rebellion.
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Eh? Not in my mc’s case I’ll wager. Cosmo he may be, but religious he is not and certainly not for the religion that views him as little more than an animal in practice.
Interested to see who they are…is there even a Shayardene faction among them? Thus far all Shayardene factions are some variety of nationalist: Laconniers= hard Shayardene nationalism, Leaguers = soft Shayardene nationalism, Cabelites = Their own “northern” Shayardene nationalism, distinct from the coastal South.
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Thanks for all these answers. However I have a bit more 
1 - If our MC becomes leader of the Leaguers/Laconniers or gather enough influence in these factions, would he be able to shape their goals a little? Like for example make Laconniers shift from autarkic/protectionist prospects when it comes to foreign trade policy, or something like that.
2 - You’ve said once that Teren may still be able to work and romance with nationalist MC. Was it about nationalist stat or Laconnier allegiance?
3 - Is Teren considered attractive? Asking in a context if MC will have some competitors if one decides to go romance route.
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you maybe could shift them on some issues but that is the kind of policy that sits on the more regular end of nationalism.
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Maybe, but one could argue in still nationalist sense that cutting Shayard from wealth of places beyond the borders only reduces its strength
protectionism isn’t the same thing as cutting off wealth and trade it means putting measures in place to ensure that foreign trade doesn’t negatively effect the country.
For a real world example Ghana’s agriculture sector struggles due to EU countries dumping their chickens that won’t sell on the European market for bargain bin prices. A protectionist position would be for Ghana to tax chicken imports.
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I do hope the MC can say “Screw Shayard, all my homies hate Shayard.” sooner rather than later. All these preexisting factions seem like real jackasses IMO, Wends are my only bros.
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Well, I didn’t really meant protectonism in that sense. My bad, used wrong wording. What I meant is that Laconniers seems to be fixed on autarky, so essentialy cutting import and export in the name of self sufficiency, at least that’s what I assumed from conversation with Horion in Chapter 3.
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Strong cosmopolitanism will be more appealing to the priesthood. But you’re right that it won’t be enough to make a rank skeptic or heretic any more palatable.
The Shayardene priesthood, and potentially the Grand Shayard merchants, will both be pro-cosmopolitan. But the most cosmopolitan factions will be the Big Three, the primary contenders (along, perhaps, with yourself) for an imperial-scale solution to the post-Thaumatarch chaos. All of them will find significant support within Shayard despite not being Shayardene-led.
Yes – it will be possible to sway them to some extent.
Nationalism stat. There might be a star-crossed romance possible for a Laconnier allied MC and Teren; we’ll see.
There will be competition for Teren’s hand, yes.
You can spend much of G2 hanging out with Halassurqs, Abhumans, Erezziano and Nyr, and from G3 Ch2 you can spend most of the rest of the saga outside Shayard.
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