My MC’s position: death to secession traitors! There is only one Shayard.
My MC’s biggest challenge is going to be welding the yeomen and nobles of Shayard together into one movement. She’ll probably need to be content to let Errezia keep its portion of former Shayardene claimed territory because of the need to have them as a shield against the enemy to the east and to keep the continent from ganging up on Shayard. Plus she’ll want good relations with Cerlotta as well, so need to be nice to her homeland.
Plans for policy towards the other nations of the continent, uncertain.
That’s a good question. I’m not going to lock myself into an answer for all factions right now – there’s a lot left for me to discover as I write them.
But I’ll note that one major issue would be the status of Corlune, the port city which has long been the regional capital of the Westriding (and in many ways the commercial capital of all Shayard, sitting as it does on the main navigable route to Karagon, Wiendrj, and Nyryal).
If Corlune stays with the rest of the Westriding and goes to Eàrlund, then “Brimlund” would be geographically non-contiguous, split between Southriding and Coast. If Corlune becomes part of Brimlund, then Eàrlund becomes landlocked and dependent for its trade on its former suzerains. No one is going to want to concede on this issue.
Another thing I’m not sure about my MC yet is if she’s going to end up being a “left wing” Laconnier or a “right wing” Leaguer.
She’d like Shayarin to be the main language of the court and she’d prefer the subculture of the unassimilated nobles to be dominant over the assimilated ones generally (since the subculture she’s been raised closest to is the unassimilated one as far as her name and how she dresses), but she also thinks trying to completely purge the culture of non-Shayardene elements is impossible and wrong-headed, thinks an educated person should know Koine and Karagond philosophy, and thinks autarchy is dumb.
Gonna post this here so it doesn’t get lost in the Discord, the skeleton for my canonical run, the very violent and fully minmaxed Ruthless/Skeptical/Homelander 2COM/1INT Helot guide.
In Chapter 1, you will say “Stop, the merchants are your flesh and blood” while trying to stop the Harrowing, this gives you the extra Homelander points you need for the bonus. (For roleplaying, pretend that your character initially wanted to win over Shayardene elites, but after that failed, committed to a path of vengeance).
In Chapter 3, you kill off Horion/Linos and show off their bodies, and ambush Hector while Kalt fights him.
Chapter 4 is fairly straightforward, and you’ll get a flawless victory.
Chapter 2 (took me a while to minmax this haha)
Week 1: Scout for mule raid, beg mules with Breden, steal mules from Yeomen and Merchants, Scout Telone Raid, then remainder (65) go steal food from Yeomen
Week 2: Buy as many bushels as possible, have Breden go and recruit with everybody
Week 3: Steal mules from mine/monastery, then check how many bushels you need, multiply by 10/7, round up, add 2, and send that many people to raid Yeomen farms. Rest recruit with Radmar
Week 4: NOW switch your rations to healthy, raid Tithe Barn farm with all mules (do not scout), have Breden recruit
Week 5: Breden recruits with everybody
Week 6: Steal mules from Merchants, Steal grain from nobles, have rest recruit with Breden
Week 7-10. Remember to scout Noble raid in Week 7, and reserve mules for the sick. In Week 8, Sell 1 mules and buy 43 bushels, round off the rest with Yeomen Raids.
Noble Barn Raid in Week 9. In Week 10 you’ll do the Noble Raid, and switch rations back to Subsistence for Healthy, Healthy for Sick if necessary.
And in Week 10 have Elery steal from the Merchants (optional).
50 traps each in weeks 8-10
Recruiting
Week 7: All Breden
Week 8: All Radmar
Week 9: All Breden
Week 10: All Radmar
I wonder if in the future for the Nationalist playthrough, other groups or groups within the Rebellion switches sides back to the hegemony or sabotage us because they don’t like seeing prospect of the former Hegemony being dominated by Sheyard?
Don’t worry, my minmaxed Helot builds will take down any traitors. The goal, if possible, will be to build a nice Shayard without harrowing or nobility abuses.
Long time player and occasional lurker here. I bought this excellent game shortly after its release and my returns to it through the years have been very enjoyable. What I’ve read about the sequel in this thread sounds extremely promising.
I spotted a few minor bugs during the winter though.
The casualties were not being reset to 0 after attacks on Alastor garrisons and raids on noble estates, resulting in brutal losses in the last weeks on extreme anarchy cha 2 runs. I checked out the code after noticing large differences on the extra Alastor attacks depending on which stat was weakest.
Zvad jumps the gun on dealing with treachery if you mention both Breden and Radmar to him after the first noble raid. “zvad > 1” should probabl be changed to “zvad > 2” there unless I’m much mistaken, mentioning both of them raises the value by a point.
Pin will hold our healthy rations against us, even when everyone is eating well, if we pick the “#“Because that’s how the Karagonds work. It’s what we’re rebelling against.”” option during week three. It’s not too hard for uncharismatic Hegemony raiders with no mules in the sick tents to have healthy rations at this point.
Thank you so much! Glad you enjoyed the game, and grateful for the bug report-- and especially for your generous code digging to get to the bottom of the problem.
I’m hoping to roll out a patch soon, once I’ve replicated a couple of other reported Ch2 bugs. I’ll add these to the list!
True, though their shared willingness to put aside those differences and then band together under an outsider Oathholder (aka the Cosmo MC) does represent an bright opportunity that shouldn’t be ignored.
Plus, I wonder how many Whendish Romeos and Juliets are out there, waiting for their chance to be (safely) paired together? (and then get a happy ending that their Shakespearean counterparts failed to achieve)
My MC may be merciful/willing to explore unconventional avenues of peace, but he’s certainly not unresponsive/stupid.
If the Archlich betrays me (or there’s damning evidence that he’s about to commit said betrayal), then he can expect to find a wooden stake/silver bullet (or whatever else kills the Unquiet Dead) in the heart.
While we’re still on the topic of Whends, there’s a certain Game 1 excerpt that I’d like for us to review, if possible…
“This is Andrejna, Eye of Clan Lesk," Zvad explains when they finally arrive and catch their breath. His guest is a tall, lean woman. Her silver hair is shorn almost to the skull in what you’ve been told is the fashion of the high-country Wiends. Through the part in her heavy fur cloak, you can see the glint of gold and ivory from her clan chief regalia. "Leader of half the villages on this end of Szeric. An old friend of mine, and the Pan. And she’s got some advice I thought you’d want to hear.”
#1: Does Andrejna’s role as the ally of the Pan of Szeric (sort of/indirectly) place her within the sphere of influence of Horion (and by extension, the Leaguers)?
(E.g. the Pan introduced Andrejna to Horion during a past visit of Horion’s)
I’m curious if Andrejna will turn out to become an important ally/stepping stone (beyond the initial G1 Whend recruits) for promoting MC’s Leaguer-friendly agenda during the G3 visit to Wiendrj.
#2: And does the title of Eye suggest that Andrejna is an accomplished/infamous spymaster? (or is it instead a mere symbol that she chose for personal preference’s sake, rather than indicating her specific talents)
Cool! Now I can already imagine Gaesh being voiced by Adam Sandler and spouting “bleh, bleh, bleh!”
How’s this for yet another “non empire-building endgame role”: high-CHA MC, Carles, and their Erezzan poetry buddies collaborate to create a large theatre/musical troupe? (specializing in comedic satires that celebrate the downfall of the Hegemony and perhaps lightly roast the (hopefully heroic, or at least tolerable) current post-Hegemony world order)
Ah, duly noted.
#1: On another note, do Abhumans have any “regular human” personas (for blending in), ore they “perma-locked” into any transformations that they choose to make?
FYI, what prompted this question is me vaguely remembering a G1 description that described Abhumans as werebeasts.
#2: And on yet another note, will it be possible for MC to ask their allied Whends to invent submarines/Uboats on his behalf? (in order for MC to gain naval superiority over the other XoR factions)
#3: And are “scuba suits/oxygen tanks” a plausible invention for this era, too? (if for example, I wanted my forces to scavenge for submerged Hegemony/Halassur treasure and weaponry)
Are such feats within Kleitos’ power? (during the Aekos boss fight)
With regards to the potential Earlund splinter faction, how much bitterness and jealousy do the Westriding/Rimmer aristos feel towards the Brimlund/coastal Shayard elites?
And do the Westriding/Rimmer aristos have any place in the Cabelite-imagined vision of post-Hegemony Shayard? (E.g. “these aristo houses (and their present day descendants) were the sole exception/minority who stayed loyal to Ester (and her legacy) when every other aristo backstabbed us”)
Or does the Cabelite’s anti-aristo distrust extend towards ALL Shayardene aristo lineages?
A rebel who’s shown (and will continue to show) great potential for rallying together/leading the winning side of the conflict against the Hegemony; are the senior de Firiacs really so blind to that sort of opportunity?
Since my low-anarchy MC doesn’t quite fit that criteria, the following other options come to mind:
1- Cast aside their original Game 1 identity to forever assume the Game 2 “fake aristo/trader” persona (and then marry S. as that persona),
2- Or instead, eventually reach a comfortable enough spot in MC/S’ relationship for MC to ask if S. would be okay with eloping with him/her (against the senior de Firiacs’ wishes)
Will these connections be cozy enough for Eclect Guildmaster MC’s faction to easily ask for zero-interest (or at least below market rate interest) loans?
So in other words, it’s the fantasy/dream (and not necessarily the reality) that motivates the Laconniers; how very fascinating (as usual)!
If Osterport is named after King Oster, which other parts of Shayard are likewise named after Queen Samena?
Duly noted. Then I guess I’ll move on to suggesting/predicting which colors (and additional supporting symbols) each Shayardene faction could end up adopting (in the final draft).
Laconniers: A purple gryphon (since purple is the color of royalty), with a golden fleur-de-lis in the center (since Shayard is partially inspired by France, and the golden fleur-de-lis was often used to symbolize both French royalty and saints)
Leaguers: A blue gryphon stamped on top of a white globe of XoR’s continents, while surrounded by an olive branch (inspired by the United Nations flag/emblem)
Cabelites: A tri-color (blue-red-white) gryphon (because the French Revolution adopted the tri-color flag as its symbol, and because I still remember that Wikipedia sans-culotte image of a French commoner wielding the tricolor flag), with a Soviet-inspired hammer/sickle stamped in the center of said gryphon (to acknowledge the leading role of the Westriding/Rimmer yeomen/farmers)
Which is why I’m glad that many of my MCs have elected to pick the “liberate everybody, and then lead as many as those who will follow me” tickbox (while nervously awaiting to see what moral compromises my “until we build a new Hegemony!” MC will end up making in the grand scheme of things)
While we’re still on the topic of blood tradeoffs, how many (or how few) ex-Hegemony provinces can be reasonably sustained by MC’s "Whendish waterpower + corp of self-sacrifice Theurges + caches of stolen aetherial blood vials+ trade connections/network/relationships of a merchant prince MC "-powered system?
And how much blood consumption will be saved from dropping the Wards to form trade agreements/non-aggression pacts with the Hegemony’s enemies? (while dedicating a bunch of self-sacrifice Theurges to build an anti-Xaos-storm canal)
Will these above combined factors be enough to create a "reasonably large/formidable, Harrowing-free" post-Hegemony faction? (even if it doesn’t quite reach the massive empire-building scale that a Harrowing trigger-happy MC can achieve)
My current guess/estimate is that under the suggested setup, my MC could theoretically lead/feed half of the former Hegemony (and a handful of other elements here and there), perhaps becoming the “superpower of the western/southwestern hemisphere” of sorts (e.g. uniting Shayard, Wiendrj, and the Abhuman Federation into a koinon while (very) reluctantly leaving behind Nyryal and Erezza to fend for themselves
#1: Oh my. How old are we talking about here?
You’re talking about an ancient Shayardene royal lineage that precedes King Oster, correct?
Could it be that Oster went out of his way to rewrite Shayard’s history books to fraudulently declare himself Shayard’s founder/first king? (while also erasing his rival family’s existence/deeds from (mainstream) recorded Shayardene history)
#2: And will there be enough clues/foreshadowing here and there for MC to deduce this mystery heir’s identity? (or will this instead be a completely out-of-left-field surprise?)
#3: And will this mystery heir be conveniently unmarried for (similarly “single and ready to mingle”) Laconnier monarch MC to offer a marriage alliance?
(Or does said heir feel vengeful/spiteful enough to “refuse negotiating with Oster’s lineage/court of usurpers”?)
#4: I have two directions (when it comes to predicting which mascot the “deeper historical roots” heir will adopt)- the Harry Potter angle, and the GoT angle.
Harry Potter angle: Because Shayard is currently represented by Gryphon/Gryffindor, the heir will pick one of the animals of the other three Hogwarts houses (Slytherin/serpent, Ravenclaw/eagle, Hufflepuff/badger).
GoT angle: Just as Jon Connington of Griffin’s Roost (whose emblem is a pair of red-white gryphons) served Rhaegar Targaryen (whose family is “the house of the dragon”), perhaps Oster was the former steward/advisor of a dragon-themed predecessor Shayardene royal family.
#1: Ok then. If not the GoT figures, then do you have a different preferred analogy for which fictional Machiavellian character(s) might best describe Teren’s flavor of ruthlessness (in a nutshell)?
#2: And to continue speculation on the method of courtship with Teren, what is the name of the XoR counterpart of chess, and is Teren an avid player of XoR chess?
#3: And what are your thoughts on “disguised as secret royalty” helot MC’s romance with Teren potentially paralleling the relationship between Aladdin and Jasmine?
Ooh, that sounds fun! Is this flashback exclusive to aristo MCs, or available by default for both backgrounds? (since helot MCs were previously employed/enslaved by the Keriatous)
Alternatively, maybe the flashback is limited to “smitten with cousin Hector” aristo MCs and “smitten with Calea (against one’s better judgment)” male helot MCs?
You both make very valid points here, but Calea and the “unnamed Pelematou boy” are guilty of treating their respective “other halves” helot partners in bad faith, right? (in Calea’s case, multiple times over)
Do the Xthonic texts have anything specific to say about the punishments for treasonous spouses/lovers?
And before anybody tries to suggest that helots don’t count as “valid other halves” for aristo partners, MC will argue that the innocent/victimized helot males (who dated Calea and the “unnamed Pelematou boy”) were given false hope of perhaps being treated as “exceptions to the rule”. (thus making Calea and the “unnamed Pelematou boy” guilty of fraud)
#1: How would MC’s potential subjects react to a post-Hegemony policy of encouraged heterosexuality? (e.g. MC’s faction’s leadership recognizes that their aging population aren’t birthing enough kids to replenish the workforce (and pay for the older folks’ Social Security), so MC institutes a Japan/South Korea-inspired policy of paying prospective parents to birth/raise kids)
Or, are there enough hetero couples in XoR to render the “running out of young people” problem moot?
#2: And can Theurgy assist with in vitro fertilization? (for gay couples who who would rather not “dirty their hands” with incompatible orientation partners)
There will be a named “True Companions”-ish achievement for keeping the original band of Game 1 lieutenants alive, united, and still loyal to MC by G5’s conclusion, right?
Holy crap, that’s an actual route we can take?
How (theurgically) expensive would it be to have MC’s personal fleet of reindeers constantly float/fly? And on another note, I can already imagine Santa Claus MC acting as air support, delivering “goodies/gifts”/bombs onto enemy forces from atop his floating reindeers/sleigh.
I wonder who’s on top of the XoR naughty list…
@roodcross What are your thoughts about establishing a “Shayardtown” in Erezza’s ex-Shayard territory? (a vacation spot that lets a rotating selection of Homelander Shayardene tenants live out the fantasy of ‘reclaiming Shayard’s old holdings’ while in exchange, Erezza (the landlord) gets the privilege of collecting extra rental income)
@roodcross Regardless of your Leaguer/Laconnier allegiance choices (in the grand scheme of your playthroughs), I’m still curious to find out which G3-G5 destinations your MC plans on personally visiting (versus delegating to lieutenants/ambassadors).
And on a separate note, I think your MC has a very good chance of brokering a lasting alliance between the Laconniers and Leaguers (though if circumstances ultimately force you to pick a side during the later games, then perhaps you’d fit in better with the Leaguers and their “soft nationalism” attitude).
Good work as usual; thanks!
And FYI, named my take of the character (for the above build) Corvus Ataturk, named after the historical Ataturk who salvaged the Ottoman Empire into Turkey, a secular modern nation.
Okay. First, Japan, South Korea and Singapore are hyperdeveloped nations on modern Earth. The economy of the Hegemony will be, for the foreseeable future, primarily agricultural. With that being the case, the majority of the population are still going to be heterosexual, and farming parents will want large families because that is social security for them. (And gay couples will want to adopt.)
Perfect! That is yet another administrative division my mc can make in Shayard, without alienating Cabel’s faction. Make Eàrlund big, particularly if the Cabelites become a dependable part of his coalition and further split the wealthier and more noble friendly laconnier sympathetic southern and coastal regions.
Secondly, and presumably so that Cabel and his successors don’t forget they are part of something larger Corlune can also host part of the new federal navy and marines.
Hmm…I wonder how much is forseeable in a world with the lifespans of some theurges? Anyway America went from a relative agricultural backwater to the imperial and technoligical powerhouse it is today in less than 250 years.
If the mc can succeed in unshackling innovation and making better use of human capital that is well within one theurge’s lifetime.
While that is still presumably largely true for the game-world thanks to some magitech flora tampering any post-hegemony state willing to shed hegemony taboos has potentially much better mechanics for population control than we have ever had…mullow and shrub yam. The way my mc is inclined to use it is through the price mechanism and taxation. Given the war and famine that are likely to be an ever-present risk in the immediate post-hegemony years it would be prudent to make mullow as widely and cheaply available as we can and if the situation reverses we can limit its availability and hike its price while making shrub yam the affordable and widely available option.
My mc will never outright ban either of them though since if people want one or the other there’s no real stopping them anyway as our own repeated wars on drugs prove.
And of course any regulation on the sexual morality of consenting adults is abhorrent to my mc as that reminds him far too much of the hegemony. Particularly if takes aim at gay sex.
Over the past couple montths, I’ve been tinkering with a more detailed version of the core world map. At some point when I’ve got access to a good scanner, I’ll upload a version with better color – the pencils are washed out a little on this one.
The northwest quadrant is largely blank. Please don’t expect anything exciting to pop up there in futue – it’s possible I might discover a bit more detail to it (as I have in the southwest while writing the Xaos-lands) but I sincerely expect it’s just a lot of sparsely inhabited tundra, grassland, forest, and waste in an area the game won’t visit.
No – the epistolary friendship between Horion and Pan Szeric wasn’t known or comprehensible to most of his clan allies. And “Eye” is the way some high-country clans refer to their leader, with no implication of spying.
A few Abhumans choose to look mostly human, but they have to be thick-skinned to put up with the scornful assumption that they’re incapable of understanding the strengths of their Gara’u animal. “Werebeast” just means human-beast, and applies to people at any stage of transformation. There isn’t a perma-lock on change.
Maybe this was a typo–not sure why the landlocked faction would seem the most likely to make a massive naval innovation? Regardless, no, I don’t plan to have submersibles or scuba kit in the gameworld.
They are in Kleitos’s power in that he knows how to do them, but it takes Ward-scale logistics and preparation. He won’t be doing them off-the-cuff.
Hugely variable. They’ve been subjects of a common ruler for nearly six centuries, with high rates of intermarriage, and the big Westriding Houses have been some of the most prosperous and powerful outside of Karagon. But with lots of power and wealth concentrated along the coast, resentments have inevitably built up among the less well-connected peripheral aristos, especially after the Rising reduced loads of small/medium Westriding Houses to genteel poverty. An Earlund movement could crystalize a lot of those resentments, especially if it looked like Loyalists were going to keep a lock on power in Grand Shayard.
Ester Cabel was betrayed by a Westriding noble. The Cabelites don’t differentiate between aristos on the basis of geography. (And most of them aren’t familiar enough with “Brimlund” to really feel the difference–it’s a yeoman-driven movement, and they travel less than any other social group in Shayard).
That’s how it looks to the eyes of faith – good role-playing. But even if you fought off the army sent to destroy you in the wilderness, that still leaves you miles from the point where any noble in Grand Shayard would look at you and think “they’re going to beat the Thaumatarchy”. Even sympathizers would still see you as a helpful distraction off on the fringes, depleting a bit of the Hegemony’s strength, rather than the core rebellion. Change comes from power centers, not from the periphery, everyone knows that! (Or at any rate, just about every noble believes that.) And unsympathetic nobles like the de Firiacs wouldn’t even grant you that much respect.
Fortunately, this doesn’t make it impossible to marry S – who’s already defied their parents’ wishes in an even more fundamental way by turning rebel. The vision of a proper, ordered courtship S ends up settling on won’t involve parental permission.
The ability of anyone to lend money to any faction is going to depend on the broader anarchy level. We’ll see how it goes.
Oster founded and built the port of Shayard; Samena was more of a conqueror than a builder, and didn’t slap her name on the places she conquered, Alexander-style, so I’m not sure she has any cities named for her.
That’s not a question I’ll be answering until we start playtesting Game 5, I’m afraid.
I’m also not going to respond to questions or speculation about the Gryphon claimant with ancient roots, though when G2 Ch4 is ready for review next year, it should answer several of your questions.
Likewise for Teren – they’ll become clearer in Ch3, and you can tell me which if any fictional counterparts you think they most resemble then, in their ruthlessness or romance.
There are two flashbacks, one aristo, one helot, seeing the same masque from quite different perspectives. (I only had to write in terza rima for the aristo version.)
Fornication is kind of its own sin in the gameworld – no one really considers it fraud or treason, except by slightly over-thought analogy. As in our world, most humans have an appetite for hooking up with more people than is good for them. The monogamous “myth of halves” doesn’t deny that, but just says that it’s a sin to indulge that appetite with anyone but your other half.
Also like our world, there’s been some fluctuation between times/places when the “other half” was taken, definitionally, to be your spouse–if you found you’d married the wrong person in error, tough luck!–and more “courtly love”-esque settings where there was cultural sympathy and glamor around the idea that many people only discovered their other half once they were married to someone else, and could be expected to outwork that all-important relation in more or less adulterous ways. There’s some of that diversity in the gameworld today. In the Rim of your youth, the expectation is strict chastity rather than courtly longings; in the coastal culture that extends (with significant variations) from Erezza to Grand Shayard, it’s more common to see variations on the amour courtois ideal.
Depends on how you encouraged it, and with whom. Not all pro-natalist policies are experienced as pushing people to mate against their nature. Killing off people who don’t reproduce is very different from rewarding people for every kid. Regardless, once Theurgic agriculture starts crashing, you’re highly unlikely to need natalist policies in the gameworld.
In-vitro fertilization has not been developed and I have no plans for it to be.
It should be possible to end up with a merchant-led alliance ruled by a council of citizens, yes. I suspect it will feel somewhat different coming as it does in the immediate shadow of an imperial collapse; the real Hanseatic League united cities with long-established rights and autonomy, rather than ones coming directly out of centuries of autocratic control.
Probably.
Not immortality, but significantly extended lifespans, yes.
Awesome work! Love being able to see the rivers, canals, and road networks in more detail. The geography of the Rim and South Riding being connected along the main river system makes the nationalist sentiment make a ton a sense given how disconnected it is from the metropole.
One legend question. Are the backward L icons like Brecksands forts, ruins or gates?
Edit: gates in the Wards are represented by a double line, like the two near Grand Shayard: Osterport and the Abhuman land border. Green solid shading (hard to see in this photo) is farm country, “grass” is grassland.
Folks will notice that “Laconne” appears twice. The vast forest used to span both Ridings, but its Westriding half was largely cut back for farmland or destroyed in the Scouring, leaving just a small remnant against the mountains.
The map will look slightly different from my previously shared ones, partly because of inevitable inaccuracies with freehand copying (even when using a grid) but mostly because I’ve adjusted the projection. As I said about my previous map:
The one I’ve shared today adjusts the projection to better fit the actual distances along each line of latitude, which means that all the northern stuff has gotten skinnier, and Shayard looks beefier by comparison. This version should help me make more consistent estimates of travel distances along roads, rivers, wilderness, and Theurge flightpath.
Anyway America went from a relative agricultural backwater to the imperial and technoligical powerhouse it is today in less than 250 years.