Because 2 CHA is the most powerful build by our standard metrics for measuring Uprisings (followers + victory, basically), and there’s nothing stopping us from pulling this off with 2 CHA + 1 COM as well.
Cliffnotes of that run (Compassionate/Skeptical/Cosmopolian)
Prologue
Aristo. Unfortunately, helots don’t seem to be able to pull this off because the aristos hate them.
I went with Wolfbait. You can see there’s Compassionate to spare and at least 1% buffer on every alignment: so you’re free to make any choice, basically.
Chapter 1
- Shayardene last name: don’t choose a Shayardene first name. We’re going to be using a transition from a traditional Shayardene name to an assimilated -atou name to curry support from the educated elite (aristos and merchants) while making a grand public commitment to Cosmopolitanism. But we can’t change first names, and we can’t afford the Homelander a Shayardene one would give. (As an aside, de Eremant is neat because it’s a reference to Havenstone’s old RP that helped inspire this. So that’d be my serious pick)
- Skeptical first (we can make it so that this doesn’t change at all)
- 2 CHA, 1 COM, 0 INT
Addendum (March 2024): A conversation with Healbot notified me of a particular routing advantage for stopping the Harrowing: Lunge for the Alastor standing nearest to me. → I try to inspire the crowd to rise up through an eloquent appeal. inflicts violence (fulfilling the same role as striking our father later in the run), and it avoids (accurately) declaring the Thaumatarchy’s actions lies and blasphemy, and that no Angels would bless this atrocity, This saves 500 drachems total worth of bribes during the run.
- Stop the Harrower, then We should try to disarm them and let them live whenever possible. We need to transform the Hegemony, not to alienate and terrify the people who run it.
- Run away to the woods without harming anybody. Trust Breden, because, you know.
Winter
We’re basically going to run this rebellion like it’s a shady pyramid scheme. Half rations for the healthy, healthy rations for the sick. The people will starve! But not to death, and that’s what’s important. Every mule we have is basically dedicated to buying grain, and we sell mules to merchants to fund everything. Mules that we received as pity gifts from other merchants.
The usual foundational knowledge applies. For bear hunting, you can play things absolutely safe with 70 hunters to guarantee one bear (10-11 bushels), and 110 hunters to guarantee two bears (21-22). You can try your luck with a lower number, but it’s such a hassle. For this run, all bear hunting is with 110 hunters.
Standard thresholds for efficient barley purchases: 5, 10, 16, 21, 26, 31, 36, 42, 47, 52, 57 bushels. Those are the numbers where you use 1 outlaw per mule. It’s probably fine to go over by 1 or 2 (spends a couple extra rebels); going under by 1 or 2 is usually just a waste (you’re not saving people) and only works to either avoid selling a mule when you’d otherwise have enough, or on the very last week. This is just to explain that those numbers are not arbitrary and can be considered universal guidelines (adjust as needed, ofc).
Also, standard recruitment cutoffs, e.g. you only ever need to send out 195 rebels at most per recruitment run; it’s equivalent to 200. This lets you allocate a couple rebels to hunting rabbits every week, which is about 1 extra bushel weekly. Usually that won’t make a difference. Usually.
Week 1
Deputy: Breden
Language: Koine
Mules for the Sick: 0
- It doesn’t help that I’ve been trying to avoid robbery and brigandage. This prevents the second Theurge attack in Weeks 7-9, which would otherwise kill a hundred rebels with this strategy.
- Sell all forged arms and buy 21 bushels (4 mules + 4 bandits)
- Acquire mules (Breden)
- Recruit with 141 rebels (Myself)
- Healthy diet for us (hypocrisy)
Week 2
- Sell mule, buy 26 bushels (5 mules + 5 bandits). Send Breden begging for another mule. Everybody else recruits, led by Myself.
Week 3
- Apella, 31 bushels (6 mules + 6 bandits)
- Work with local merchants → Alaine Leybridge → Respond with a joke
- Acquire more mules (Myself), everybody else recruits with Breden
Week 4
- Exile Fedrel (for Compassion)
- Sell a mule, buy 42 bushels (8 mules + 8 bandits)
- Everybody else recruits with Myself
There’ll be a Theurge scare at some point in the next couple of weeks. There won’t be enough mules for the sick; some will die. That’s unavoidable with this strategy.
Week 5
- Sell a mule, buy 36 bushels (7 mules + 7 bandits)
- Beg for mules (Myself) and then personally lead 60 helots to beg helots for food (you could send away children but I’d rather not)
- Everybody else recruits with Breden
Week 6
- Sell a mule, buy 42 bushels
- Breden begs for food from helots with a team of 60, while we recruit with everybody else.
Week 7
This is the week before the smuggling and we only have exactly 7 mules, so I used this week to stockpile on food. Buy 36 bushels, then hunt bears.
- 60 begging from helots
- Everyone else on recruitment
For this run, I went with Myself for begging and Breden for recruitment, because it lets us add on an additional begging run for mules. This trades off ~7-8 rebels for merchant relations (5 fewer enemy soldiers in the end). Actually getting mules here is RNG.
Week 8
This is the smuggling week. You might need to sell a mule and buy some barley, which is inefficient but not the end of the world. Between hunting and begging, you can get around 50ish bushels with 220 rebels. Everybody else is on recruitment.
Week 9-10
At this point, our operation should be stable enough to have 110 hunting bears, 60 begging from helots, 195 recruiting with Myself, and more to spare (all extra recruitment runs should be done by Elery). Sell mules and buy grain as needed.
Spring
- Sell every mule. If we don’t, Hector will kill every last one of them later on anyway.
- Feast, and toast that My vision is to free all four provinces, including Wiendrj, from the Thaumatarch’s tyranny.
- Pay a Diakon to visit, give him extra food and blankets, and actually pay him.
- Accept de Firiac into the band.
- Change your name to an -atou. This lets us cross the Cosmopolitan 75 threshold and our stats are basically set.
Chapter 3
Just follow @Ladd’s guide, it’s basically the same here.
EXTREMELY Important: “Overcome with rage, I strike my own father.” is necessary for this run as I’ve described it, because it’s the act of violence that diverges us from a bona fide Pacifist run, which can’t fight the army. You can choose to fight Hector instead, if you want: you can kill 10 of the 11 of them, everybody except Hector himself.
Chapter 4
Mostly follow @Ladd’s guide.
No need to send money to the helotry and yeomanry because they already love us thanks to 2 CHA; no need to buy an arms. We only need to donate 5100 to the priesthood to get the maximum relationship text (despite being a Skeptic) because of pacifism. And, ofc, inspire followers instead of leading the charge because we’re adapting this to a 2 CHA run.
And that’s all.
It’s very neat to see new strategies continuing to emerge years after release, and this one really threads a fine needle.
Hey, I just write the thing…