@Cataphrak The uneven peace could be justified through where one places the onus of guilt in the first place. And even then, betraying a peace, albeit an uneven one, would still likely procure less support for Sahra than were they to have a pretender on their side. Which is not to mention, Sahra must have some aims against Iberia to begin with, hence the border incursions; it’s likely all they seek is pretence.
@Drazen
I was working under the assumption that only the border lords of both sides were desirous of any sort of war and that the noble houses further away from the frontier were in no state to fight any kind of large-scale armed conflict (I was thinking, for example, the difference between the Reivers on the Anglo-Scottish border and the lords deeper in English/Scottish territory during the Tudor era), which seems more likely, else Sahra would have pushed for intolerable concessions themselves had they wanted a pretense for war.
@Cataphrak It’s a shame that the fog of war, as it were, obscures Sahran motivations. Conjecture can take us in any direction.
@Drazen
An occupational hazard for diplomats and foreign policy advisors alike. I guess we’ll see which one of us is right when CoC comes out.
Of course, if Juanita actually manages to churn Iberia enough to start a war, I expect to have enough of those new wands in the hands of the army that Iberia wouldn’t have much of a chance.
Teleportation is a very nice logistical enhancement, don’t get me wrong, but against an army in which every soldier is a living artillery unit with a death wand and a field medic with a life wand? I wouldn’t be betting on Iberia.
Firstly, I do have to say that it’s very fortunate that games like this can make for such spirited debating material. Just goes to show why I think all of us owe quite a bit of gratitude to CoG and its’ people to make this.For my opinion, I do have to say this was quite valuable for roleplaying and simulating a bunch of different nobles and types. The major RP I’m on at present has a(n admittedly offscreen) major power not unlike Iberia and Sahra (a sort of odd fusion vestigial one), so it’s provided no stop for thought.
Anyway, secondly for my opinion?
Honestly, I’m not bloodthirsty or a fanatic, and neither was my first character (who’s probably the closest to how I’d naturally play the game, since it was started before I got in the RP, and thus started simulating things for Valuan history and what have you). I merely wanted the Consort out of the way, not killed, and if there was some way to jury-rig a divorce whereupon Esteban gets the can but he and the Aguilar get some sort of under the table compensation, I’d have chosen that. I also talked Enrique into killing only the man directly responsible for his family’s misery, without shedding innocent blood. And if I had to choose between letting Juanita have the crown and having the Sahrans eat up the border, I’d choose the former. And if by some chance the Duquesna or Juanita were willing to come around, I’d be all too happy to embrace them with open arms and exchange mutual apologies.
That being said, there is only one reason why I didn’t kill Juanita as it is.
Because the game didn’t let me do it after killing Felix (who IMHO is the clear and present danger). If given the choice, which is why I was surprised especially by Cataphrak’s feelings on it, especially given his otherwise deeply Machiavellian/coldblooded analysis.
Felix seems rather obvious: he strikes me as being quite the rear end and so there’s no real shame in doing it, and in particular since he’s in the way of getting a viable heir to the throne I wouldn’t be able to get around it anyway. The loss of a valuable commander to the South is unfortunate, but given the fact that Enrique claims he’s treacherous, there’s no guarantee a man who won’t do that won’t betray us to the Sahrans.
Juanita’s only marginally less obvious. I can really understand why she has a grievance with my character. I really can, and I can empathize with it because I didn’t want to have her father killed even if I did want to usurp him. But at some point, enough is enough is enough.
The fact that she’s a powerful threat to my legitimacy and power is bad enough but not necessarily worth pre-emptively murdering her for unless she made it clear that she was not going to be amenable to reason. But the fact that she was willing to not just vent at *my character* but also their completely innocent *children* is something beyond what I will tolerate. In doing so, she’s saying that she’s perfectly willing to inflict the same kind of pain she went on to my children and the Queen, which is even worse because I didn’t want her father to die in the first place. The second she says that, she goes from being a bereaved rival with an understandable grudge to being a mad dog that needs to be shot, and will remain so unless she somehow proves otherwise. Given that she’s a prodigious Death Mage like my own character is means that she’s not only a political threat, she’s also a very physical one, and one I feel is understandable to target ahead of time.
I’m also not comfortable giving her to the Sahrans, since there’s the risk that she will go native and when the next war comes (and it *will* come) she will likely side with them, especially if she has inside help like House Aguilar to make it seem like she’s not betraying her country (and by extension her father), but just the rotten bastards who sent him to die (even if in more ignorance and ambition than malice). Yes, it will take time for her to get adapted to the Sahran court, but what better way to do it than by taking her anger out on the border areas?
The fact that she’s connected with the Aguilar just makes it that much worse. Again, the entire family as a whole has a legitimate grievance even I can’t dispute, but their actions do not leave me with room for charitable interpretation. I can understand their desire to resist the growing centralization and indeed proto-absolutism the royal court has been veering towards, but in denying aid to their old allies just to spite us they are tacitly admitting that the rest of the country can go to hell so long as they get to make their point, especially given how inappropriately they put it forward during a time of war, and the fact that it means when having to choose between siding with their domestic rivals or the foreign invaders they’re happy to swing towards the latter.The fact that they’re the great bastion of aristocratic opposition also means they’re an ongoing threat to me personally, and one I’m justified in opposing out of self-defense since they clearly aren’t willing to come to the table. At that point, the end-of-game revelation that they’ll probably be on the forefront against the new technological revolution (and thus claiming untold lives) just to safeguard their privledges (without investing in more legitimate ways to do so) was just the icing on the cake for me.
So yeah, I can understand their grievances, but I don’t believe they justify what they’ve done or threatened to do by a *long* shot. As it stands, I believe my position at court to be very secure already and growing by the day, given my alliance with de Vega and other nobles, the apparently growing technological revolution, my character’s own prodigious skills, and especially with the birth of a Life Mage - so pragmatism are not a deterrent for me. So if given the choice I would’ve eliminated her offhand.
As it is, I don’t have that choice; all I can do is hope that the removal to the Sahran court buys time, both to strengthen Iberia itself and maaaybe to give her a chance- in a foreign court and with a new life and surroundings- to mend her scars and be open for reconciliation even if the rest of her house isn’t and her nation will inevitably go to war again (and thus demand annexing as a whole). Not something I’m all that comfortable with, but not something I’m horrified at *yet.* Especially since I didn’t have a choice.
But as it is, I’m willing to give things a chance if she is.
@soran You do have a choice. You don’t have to kill or otherwise arrange Juanita’s death. You can even arrange for her to become heir to the throne if you choose, not that she’ll hate you any less if you do.
@Cataphrak You overestimate the protagonist’s entrenchment in the court. All it requires is the death of your youngest child to throw the line of succession into question again, something Juanita is perfectly capable of arranging if you wait for her to strike first. Your elder child’s claim to the throne is weaker than hers. And the protagonist’s power is extremely dependent on his/her spouse Augustin(a). Were Augustin(a) to die the protagonist would lose most of his/her power. It would be child’s play for an alliance of Juanita+Sahra+Aguilar, or even just Juanita+Aguilar or Juanita+Sahra, to arrange these events if given enough time.
@stsword You’re assuming the Sahrans won’t play to their strengths. If I were the Sahran King as my first command in a war I’d order my teleporting mages to teleport assault teams into the Iberian arms depots in the middle of the night to steal the new weapons, and then to teleport into the factories and destroy them. Then I’d have more of the new weapons than the Iberians do. I’d have access to death weapons, but the Iberians woulld still lack access to teleporting. This would be even easier if it was an inside job with assistance from Aguilaran mages working in the depots and factories. The advantage would then shift to Sahra.
@Turtler I entirely agree with you except on your conclusion that Felix is a greater threat than Juanita. Your younger sibling is very much in love with Felix, and Felix seems like a perfectly reasonable individual as well as a competent battle commander. Enrique is an evil scumbag and his claims against Felix are conveniently self-serving. Nobody else in the game has a bad word to say about Felix and he has done nothing to harm or threaten you or your family. Furthermore it isn’t necessary to kill Felix to have a life mage heir. It is sufficient to beat Enrique the dirtbag criminal to a pulp in a magical duel and then threaten his life with a death curse if he doesn’t comply. That frees you to instead assassinate or frame Juanita instead, which is my preferred course of action since I consider her to be the single greatest threat to the lives of my character’s children.
@Drazen You and I are in agreement on this subject.
@Havenstone Ned Stark is the poster child for being honorable to the point of stupidity. In D&D terms, he’s lawful good to such an extreme that he’s actually lawful stupid.
@P_Tigras : To clarify, I’m not saying that Felix is a bigger threat than Juanita, especially since while I’m not ready to rule him out as a threat *he hasn’t actually backstabbed you at the time you kill him.* He’s just someone I can justify killing off the most because there is literally no other way that I know of (in-universe, from the character’s POV at the time) to get a Life Mage child, and that fact trumps all.
Can you clarify overall about how you mean by Enrique being an evil scumbag? I agree his words certainly aren’t absolute proof and the reasons he was banished certainly don’t speak well for his character, and neither does the fact that he initially wants Rosa murdered. But I’ve actually cracked open the scene index after playing through just for the record, and as far as I can tell it seems to be a game of he said but he said. And if you shame him enough with a moral appeal he *does* come around to dropping the attack on Rosa, which tells me there’s probably more to his character than one dimensional demon.
On top of this, some amount of reading between the lines is probably helpful. Felix’s the Southern commander, and given his experience has been there for quite some time. I don’t think any theater-level CO could have that sort of leadership and *not* be tied to the borderlands elite and thus probably complicit in their double-dealing and banditry. That alone makes me ponder his reliability. In addition, it means he probably has ties to the Aguilar. He’s probably not an overly close ally of the House of Aguilar since he’s not involved in any major scenes, but given their mutual interests in the South I doubt he’s completely unaffiliated with them.
Thanks for the hint. Definitely will have to check that out soon on the next play through to see which I like better, and again I do agree that Juanita is the bigger threat. I just wouldn’t be so quick to assume Felix is.
screw being nice to that bi@% i just used death magic on her 
Tigras, you’re assuming several things. First of all, that the Iberian king will know about the new weapons, assuming that the stockpiles and factories won’t be guarded adequately, assuming that an Iberian can use the new weapons, and assuming that the life mages of house aquilara would have anything to do with manufacturing death magic weapons.
And not a single one of those is a given.
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@Turtler While it’s not impossible that I’ve forgotten some details in the past year or so, from what I recall Enrique Ramirez was convicted for mind-controlling others and exiled by the King on pain of death should he ever return. And he has returned in violation of his sentence. Depending upon the circumstances, this is told to you by either De Vega or Uncle Pedro and Matteo. Furthermore Ramirez himself admits that it was Felix who testified against him. Nevertheless I don’t recall Ramirez ever saying that the charge was false or that Felix lied, and Ramirez is certainly capable of mind control, because if you duel him and lose, he will mind control you to assassinate both Felix and Augustin(a). Furthermore if you negotiate with him, he’s too caught up in his desire for revenge to ask for anything else despite the fact that if you do give Augustin(a) an heir, you’d be in a position to do a lot for Ramirez. In fact he’s so obsessed with his desire for revenge that he demands the death of the entirely innocent little Rosa as well. So I consider him little more than a convicted criminal obsessed with revenge against the witness who testified against him. Furthermore, legally speaking, his life is forfeit and you are perfectly justified in carrying out his execution should you choose. I thus consider it a perfectly fair trade to overlook his violation and spare his life in return for the spell of life. That to me is a far more morally palatable trade than murdering my brother-in-law in return for the spell of life. It also incidentally frees up an action that I can then turn against Juanita.
It is only if your character offers to kill Felix alone, but not Rosa, and if your charm > 60 that --you-- start buttering Ramirez up. There is no evidence that anything you spout about the justness of his cause or the crimes Felix committed against him is/are true. This blather comes across to me as pure flattery in an attempt to butter him up and make him feel more magnanimous so he’ll give you the spell for just Felix’s life instead of both their lives. If there is anything solid against Felix I’d love to hear about it, but even Ramirez himself doesn’t give you anything other that Felix testified against him at his trial. And being a witness at a criminal’s trial is hardly a heinous act worthy of death.
Let me know how things go with forcing Ramirez to give you the spell of life. Unfortunately you can’t hear him out, refuse his demands, and then force him to cooperate. I consider that something of a bug. If you want to force him to help you then you must refuse to negotiate and simply make your demand. You must then win the ensuing battle without killing him to get the spell of life. Make sure your magic score is 70 or higher when you try it, otherwise you’ll either accidentally kill him, or if your magic score is below 40, he’ll mind control you into publicly assassinating Felix and attempting to assassinate Augustin(a). While it’s possible to spin the former to your advantage politically, the last is disastrous. There are some other decisions that can also screw you out of getting the spell of life after winning the duel, but I’ll leave you to figure them out unless you get stumped and decide to ask for help.
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On the contrary, I believe you’re still assuming that the Sahrans will foolishly choose to play the game by rules which favor the protagonist.
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If Juanita is married off to the King of Sahra then I think it’s fairly certain that Aguilar will inform her of the development of these new weapons, and she in turn is very likely to inform her husband. Juanita is the glue that can tie Sahra and Aguilar together into an alliance against your children. I would thus not count on the Sahran King remaining ignorant as Iberian factories churn out enough weapons to outfit an army.
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Even if the Sahran King does not know in advance, and I doubt very highly that you’ll be able to arm a significant number of troops with them without his spys finding out, he’ll know as soon as the first battle commences and a mage teleports back to his throne room to inform him of Iberia’s new weapons. Marching on cities takes a lot of time, teleporting troops into arms depots, or bedrooms for that matter, doesn’t. His teleporting spies can watch and wait for the right moment to achieve their objectives.
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I didn’t say that Aguilaran life mages would necessarily be making death weapons in the weapons factories, only that they could arrange to be in some of the arms depots. A bit of mind control here and there by life mages would ensure those battles would be one-sided and easy victories for the Sahrans. The Sahrans could then take those weapons and use them to assault the other arms depots as well as the factories that produce them.
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Why wouldn’t an Iberian be able to use the new weapons? Why make them otherwise?
@P_Tigras Already played through it (my stats definitely weren’t an issue given how high they were). You’ve more or less got the objective facts right, but here’s some caveats.
First and foremost, yes, he’s capable of mind control and probably guilty of it. That being said, I wouldn’t say that’s necessary a charge that means he’s a complete bastard. In case anybody hasn’t noticed, this isn’t a nice country where things can be done by the book and law will prevail. It’s a vicious shark den where it is kill or be killed. By the time the player can even get that far, they’ve already been responsible for perjury that led to the death of a (relatively) innocent man. You’re also quite capable of committing at least an equally powerful crime- from what we can guess- by using Death Magic on your rivals. We don’t know enough details to discern the truth, but the fact that Enrique can mind control and probably is guilty of the crime doesn’t necessarily mean he’s actually *evil.*
Secondly, I don’t know where you’re getting the impression the player character’s entirely buttering him up. The first excerpt is true, but after his interjection- and maybe this is just me- but it reads like a verbal beatdown. But regardless, the overt flattery goes away and it becomes a challenge, where you’re all but putting it as a demand that he grow the heck up, that he settle for only Felix, and that he take the terms you’re willing to do and like it. Now, looking at the discussion again it certainly is a lot more ambiguously worded (no *clear* indications of whether it’s meant to be soothing or demanding, like exclamation points), but that’s how I interpreted it. And no matter how you phrase it, it is *ultimately* a moral appeal. It’s demanding he do the right(er) thing, not trying to bribe him to doing so with a bunch of sappy flattery (like we see with-say- some of your more manipulative choices).
Thirdly, Ramirez specifically refers to Felix as a “treacherous worm”, which at least implies that Felix didn’t just testify, but he also had some prior knowledge or agreement that he broke. Giving testimony in a criminal trial isn’t *necessarily* something worthy of death (but again in this world we’re not dealing with clear morality and law), but at the very least the wording of it- at least to me- doesn’t imply “witness” so much as it does “opportunistic backstabber.” Again, this is all trusting Ramirez to be telling *something* of the truth, which we can both agree is dubious, but it didn’t rub off to me as someone just rambling about a witness or passerby that gave evidence.
Fourthly, yes it is true that Ramirez is so obsessed with vengeance that he doesn’t consider all that you can do for him. That doens’t make him evil so much as it makes him cynical. Cynical and tunnel visioned, stupid, or both. We’re relatively machiavellian masterminds precisely because we can see all the angles, all the ways to manipulate a situation, and the oppertunity to redo things. So much so I think we might forget that the NPCs don’t. I’d certainly not argue Ramirez is man of the year material but the fact that he’s bitter and vengeful doesn’t mean he’s a monster in and of itself (the lengths he’d go are a better argument, and it certainly doesn’t exonerate him of it) as much as he is a moron with an axe of dubious legitimacy to grind.
Fifthly, what we ultimately always go back to is the fact that we’re dealing with a situation we don’t really have much evidence about either way. The fact that at no point we actually get around to *asking Felix about WTF is up with the exiled Life Mage* means we’re hearing it from only one source on one side as opposed to getting both and figuring it out for ourselves. For all we know, Felix is one of the villains from the Count of Monte Cristo and Enrique is a righteously vengeful wreck of a man who’s taken it too far. Alternatively, Enrique could be a baby eating complete monster who blamed Felix for having the audacity to report his crimes after seeing him try to play Reaper Indoctrination on a small neighborhood. We just don’t know, and as the game stands so far we don’t have any avenues to learn more about the situation. At least until an update or III comes around.
So in the end I basically have to go back to the fact that while Enrique isn’t firing on all pistons and Felix is probably in cahoots with some corrupt bandits and border nobility, the former might actually have a point and can actually be persuaded to reason and the latter is so far a decent father, husband, and civil servant. But really, the bottom line is that the latter is the bigger threat between the two since- as your character points out- Enrique’s an outlaw with no power base and none to compete with him. Felix is a decent general with an estate, some power, and probably dubious allegiances to the Aguilar and various border warlords. The worst the former can do is *maybe* blackmail you with the conspiracy, and from the way the Iberian government is going that might not be such an issue what with things turning Absolutist at the expense of any enemies that might be capable of exploiting it.
Again, that’s just my reading of things overall. I certainly am going to be stashing multiple saves to see how all these scenarios turn out, I can tell you that…
Also, on completely unrelated notes: I’m not going to say that the technology is going to curbstomp the Sahrans by lunch. However, let’s be realistic here on a few things: there’s a difference between the Sahrans trying to play by rules that don’t favor the protagonist (which is perfectly logical) and them hacking the game to god mod their way to victory.
- Overall pretty reasonable, but still several assumptions. Firstly that the mass production and training would be happening on a scale nearly large enough to outfit an army, especially in an era prior to the invention of industrialization as we know it. More likely the “factories” we’re dealing with are little artisan shops contracted for the job, and making a strictly limited amount both due to logistical pragmatism, due to the need to enforce our dear friends’ domestic monopoly, and to avoid upsetting the social order. That you can do a *lot* quieter than mass producing these things like on a world war assemblyline. It’s also assuming the Aguilar will be involved in manufacturing or at least find out about these weapons, which I’d say is a safe assumption but not a certain one.
I do think it’s likely that they will leak the details to Juanita and the Sahrans, but even that isn’t certain.
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This comes down to the question of “How powerful is Teleproting/magic in general?” I can certainly see it cutting down on the time, but I’m not sure we’d see random magi teleporting from the battlefield to the royal palace willy-nilly, or from outside into all the arms depots. Let’s face it: If the Sahrans were capable of putting it to use on the field in such a powerful and consistent way, we’d be playing an entirely different game. There’s vast promise in using it, but I wouldn’t say it can’t be neutralized by just having tons of very alert guards on hand, like the fortresses and depots should be.
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Again, if the Aguilar were capable of such a powerful maneuver we’d probably already have far more extensive hints of it. Not the least of which being said mindrapey powers being deployed against you (not on you, though) when you start becoming a threat. We haven’t. I won’t completely rule out the possibility that such victories are capable, but I’d say they need time to plan, a good deal of coordination, and are still vulnerable to being countered by other, opposing Magi and a ton of even “muggle” guards. It’s not *useless* by any means, but it’s still a throw of the dice and far from lacking in counters. If it weren’t,t hen why wouldn’t they have done that to cement their positions when you were still the odd country Hidalgo child?
On Enrique Ramirez
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Ok, upon further reflection, I’ll concede that it isn’t certain that Ramirez is a “complete bastard”. Nevertheless, his initial demand for the death of an innocent little child with no ability to harm him brings him close in my eyes, regardless of our character’s ability to talk him down.
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While my character has certainly dirtied his hands in most of my play-throughs, it’s not necessary that the protagonist kill anyone, willfully or even accidentally, to get this far. It’s perfectly possible to get to this point in the game with Augustin(a)'s old spouse still among the living.
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It’s not entirely a buttering, it’s actually a combination of buttering -and- beatdown, or as we more commonly call it, carrot and stick. We sympathize with him, make him feel good and justified for desiring her father’s death, while simultaneously telling him what a terrible thing it is to want an innocent little girl dead. I see it as partly buttering because our character has heard no evidence, not even a bit of supposition, that any of this is true. Our character seems to be pulling it out of his/her derriere because we’re making an offer and we wish him to agree to it. We thus provide him with both logical and emotional reasons for agreeing to our offer while making him feel like a terrible person if he sticks to his initial demand. We are in effect attempting to use our charm on him, and if our charm score is over 60 or higher, then we are successful.
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Fair point on the “treacherous worm” remark. Clearly he feels betrayed. Whether it’s justified or not is unknown as you state.
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What I don’t understand is how you can go from Ramirez’s statement that Felix is a “treacherous worm” for testifying against him, and the fact that Felix is a commander on the Southern border to “Felix is probably in cahoots with some corrupt bandits and border nobility”.
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My optimal situation is to gain the spell of life without killing either Felix or Ramirez, as I see neither as a threat. In fact, due to his kindship via marriage, I see Felix as a potential strong ally by default. Why would I want to kill a likely ally without hard evidence of monstrous behavior?
On a Juanita+Sahra Marital Alliance
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I agree with you that it is unlikely that Sahra would be able to outfit its entire army any time soon. Iberia hasn’t entered the industrial revolution yet. I was replying to the assertion by someone else that soon the entire Iberian army would be outfitted with the new weapons making them undefeatable. Your point actually strengthens my argument. There wouldn’t be a whole lot of weapons that the Sahran’s would need to grab.
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Your agument can be turned around. Why aren’t the Iberians death cursing the top nobles in Sahra? What’s the limitation on death curses? Clearly a 16 year old was able to death curse the ruler of Iberia’s spouse, and five years later, the ruler’s eldest child without too much trouble. The protagonist is even capable of successfully death cursing two people back to back. There is clearly a lot that we don’t know about the limitations of magical powers in this world. I would not assume that Sahran magic is any less potent than Iberian magic. Otherwise they’d have lost long ago. Teleportation -must- somehow be able to successfully compete with the combined might of both death magic and life magic together.
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There was no alliance between Aguilar and Sahra in part 2, nor were there any of these new weapons in production, so of course such a maneuver wasn’t really an issue. Furthermore the Aguilarans were intent on blackmailing the monarch, enhancing their own power while advancing their own kinswoman as heir, not in single-handedly fomenting a revolution that knew they’d almost certainly lose against a strong and active ruler. Now a Sahran-Aguilaran alliance bound together by Juanita is an entirely different story, especially if Augustin(a) should die, perhaps via unnatural circumstances, while the legitimate heir is still wearing baby clothes. Or perhaps it’s your child whose death they’ll arrange, and then wait until Augustin(a) dies to make their move. Or perhaps they’ll go for both. There are quite a few different ways to work this.
Regarding Ramirez:
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Oh, never contesting that in the least. I’ll agree with that. No matter what the truth of the situation is, the fact that he was willing to go that far is a massive ding against him by anybody’s standards.
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Point conceded, though it’s certainly very, very difficult, and in the future you’re probably not going to be able to do that, what with the war gearing up.
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Agreed indeed, my response was more to the idea it was just buttering up overall.
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Sorry, but to clarify: Felix being in cahoots with corruption on the borderlands has nothing to do with anything Ramirez said at all. It comes from him being the military commander of the front against the Sahrans, and apparently rather experienced at that. Since we’re dealing with a very feudal world here, that would mean he’s had to have been operating in the area for quite some time. Which means he’s doubtless been exposed to the issues of the place (Sahran raids, border noble intrigues, and banditry), and I have zero doubt he’s been involved in some.
Not because he’s necessarily vile, but because that’s just how your average feudal military worked. Getting together the local levies would involve being on passable terms with the local feudal overlords, just being in the general neighborhood means he’d have to deal with the bandit situation, and the fact that he was appointed there in the first place probably means he has some patronage ties to the borderland nobles, who as we have seen are very much associates of House Aguilar. None of this mean he’s heinously corrupt or evil, but it does mean that he’s a potential threat in the war if things go wrong. And if he has somehow been in that posting and been completely unsullied with at *least* tactly accepting the ugly sides of the situation, I’ll eat my hat.
All of this is completely separate from the truth about Ramirez and whatever the heck is up with that; that’s just me drawing on my old Medieval/Renaissance military knowledge.
- This is also my stance, more or less. I’m quite capable of chopping heads and stabbing backs when I feel it’s needed, but like I said: I don’t have a taste for blood and I’ll happily avoid it so long as I can do so while obtaining my objectives. I differ in the assessment by saying I believe they are *both* threats, just only hypothetical and rather minor ones, and so worth granting some mercy to.
Truth be told, this being my first run through and with the knowledge that this is as far as the game goes for now probably influenced me to be more trigger happy regarding Felix than I’d otherwise be. But unfortunately, we don’t have that yet, so… ya.
Regarding Sahra and Juanita:
- Well, I’d argue it also weakens it. It isn’t a whole lot of weapons the Sahrans would need to grab, but the ones that are around are state secrets, and probably entrusted to the elite of the elite of the elite. Being assigned to snag *those* would be risky indeed. That said, I do figure most fighters will be engaging with conventional weapons (whatever the heck they are), and while the new tech is probably going to be powerful it’s not going to be the only thing in play (or even necessarily the decisive thing in play).
I’d also wager that the Sahrans are likely to adapt it as soon as they possibly can, as you said.
- Well, the main answer I’d say is this: “Because it’s not feasible.”* Which goes back to the point I was trying to make: not only do we have a lot we don’t know about in-verse magic, but we also can assume that the war will not end in a “cheesy” strategy where one side is able to use suddenly-available techniques (that they’ve always had) to ZOMGstomp the opposition without there being a counter. We know this conflict has broiled over for a while, and we know the two sides are roughly equal. So we can probably rule out any one side winning the war with one master stroke.
* How it isn’t feasible is less relevant. It could be a limit on power amongst some Magi, or it could be a limit on opportunity (having to have something from the target or proximity to them, etc). But whatever it is, it’s not easy for the player character to go to the chambers, go RTH KTULU FTGHN and have the entire capital city of the Sahran empire drop dead. Just like it’s probably not feasible to for the player character when they first get in to try and kill off the Consort even if it is *physically* possible.
For all we know, the teleporting Sahran magi really are quite godly, and Iberian Magi really are death-hexing Sahrans left and right. But what we really know is that *that alone isn’t enough to decisively defeat the other power.* And that’s what I was trying to get at: there’ll probably require a lot more variety and preparation than just spamming one pre-existing tactic and expecting it to work.
- Again, my issue is less with that maneuver in particular (the reasons why they wouldn’t be interested in that particular maneuver in part 2 are pretty evident, and well covered by you); it’s why if they were really that capable of decisively applying their power, why haven’t we seen them do so before? We’ve seen plenty of situations in game where such power would be helpful even in a limited capacity meant to buttress their pre-existing hold on power and advance their kin and the heir as a chokehold on Augustin(a); if nothing else the ability to mind rape a weak-minded player character would’ve saved them a lot of grief once it becomes obvious you’re the Monarch’s favorite and more serious a threat than the average courtier but before (s)he’s necessarily committed to you.
It’s less that they’re *incapable" of actions on the scale and effectiveness you proposed in your prior example, and more that such actions would be time and resource intensive to plan and carry out, and still rather risky. They wouldn’t just clap their hands and have their henchmen seize the depots in perfect synchrony, because if they could do that there’s probably plenty of other things we’d have seen them do.
Regarding Ramirez and Felix
It sounds like we actually agree on Ramirez, it is on the subject of Felix where we don’t fully see eye to eye. To condemn him just because he’s a military commander at a time when you had to pick your battles carefully in order to get your job done seems rather harsh to me. Just because Felix isn’t dumb enough to openly become the Duchess of Aguilar’s enemy doesn’t mean that he is plotting with her against you, or even in “cahoots” with her in some other way. His job is to deal with Sahra, not Aguilar. Taking on Sahra, the border lords, and Aguilar at the same time would be the height of stupidity. Dealing with Aguilar is Augustin(a)'s business, not his. Appointed officials like Felix don’t antagonize powerful people like Aguilar or her beloved niece, the princess Juanita without very careful thought. That would be suicidal and people don’t attain positions like Felix’s if they’re suicidal. Aguilar clearly has the power to sabotage his efforts to the point where it becomes almost impossible for him to succeed in his mission as demonstrated in part 2 of our story. Luckily for Felix, Aguilar’s goal wasn’t his removal, but a calculated bid of outright extortion aimed at Augustin(a). I thus don’t blame him in the least for his own continued survival politically.
Furthermore, because of his loving marriage to my younger sibling with whom I am very close, in my mental calculus, I consider him much more likely to be an ally of mine than of Aguilar. Marriages back then weren’t love matches so much as they were family alliances, and I see no reason to conclude that he won’t continue to uphold his side of the alliance. Does the remote possibility exist that he’s a truly treacherous bastard who will eventually betray me just as he supposedly did Ramirez? Certainly. Has any real evidence been present that he is? No, not that I’ve discovered, and my play-throughs have been rather exhaustive of this particular game. Neither do I consider him any more of a potential threat than any other powerful noble whose motives I am less than 100% certain, and that’s nearly everyone. All we have to go on is Ramirez’s extremely biased opinion. And if I were to kill every single person about whom I am not absolutely certain then there wouldn’t be many people left alive, and that sort of unjustified butchery tends to create far more enemies than it eliminates.
Regarding Sahra and Juanita
1a) The Iberians already seem to have a significant firepower advantage in set piece battles in which they can bring to bear a sufficiently large number of Death Mages. And yet the Sahrans appear to fully be able to counter Death Magic with Teleportation and perhaps more mundane abilities. I don’t see why the Sahrans would find it any more difficult to deal with these new weapons then they would actual Death Mages, especially given that mass production techniques did not exist in this time period and the number of these weapons that are available would be highly limited for a long time to come.
1b) There would be risk in seizing the weapons, but every attempt doesn’t have to succeed. They don’t need to obtain every last one of them for the mission to be sufficiently successful. A bit of advance spying along with the element of surprise, both assisted via teleportation magic, help the odds immensely however.
1c) Furthermore, if rulers and soldiers weren’t willing to take risks there’d never be any wars. Clearly wars do occur, so people exist who are willing to take the risks required in such dangerous assaults.
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I’m largely in agreement with you here EXCEPT that it certainly seemed “feasible” to me “for the player character when they first get in” to not only “try and kill off the consort”, but to pull it off rather easily."
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Oh I completely agree that if Ramirez can mind-control a magically weak player into attempting to assassinate Augustin(a), there is no reason why Aguilar couldn’t have arranged for one of her more potent life mages to do the same to the player or another weaker-willed courtier, but in private while no guards were around to defend Augustin(a). I certainly agree that the time, resources, and above all, the risk involved, would make such a move unlikely unless Aguilar either smelled blood or became desperate. Neither situation existed in part 2.
Regarding Felix and Enrique:
Again, I’m not willing to condemn him just because he’s a military commander, and again I’d prefer to not have to chop heads off at all. The main reason I choose to axe him is less because of anything he’s done and more because A: it’s the main way (from what your character knows) to get a life mage baby and B: there’s sufficient ambiguity to make axing him more defensible than-say- axing him and his little daughter too. Any and all threats to my power are absolutely irrelevant compared to the need to produce a heir (and even then I’d argue that my char’s position at court has become so superior that even if they hypothetically fail to do so, they are still in a position to dominate the court). That’s my main concern, and everything else is pretty secondary.
On top of that, he’ s a powerful enough player to at least make contingencies regarding. He still has the capability to be a potent threat to you, even if he never intends to become one. It’s hard to imagine
You seem to be misunderstanding a bit. The reasons why I bring up his position on the border isn’t because I’m saying he’ll play a Caesar, crush everybody, and march on the capital to impose his rule. It’s that his posting and the nature of it and Medieval military-social-political issues means that he’s had to have some ties down there that are worth being wary about.
This isn’t just some (supposedly) impartial imperial bureaucracy like a modern state has (like say the US or most/practically all of the Western world today). He’s not just a nameless bureaucrat or general there at the behest of the state, he’s an active player in his own right in a system based as much on blood and feudal agreements as it is on monarchical will. His business is to attack the Sahrans at the border, not to confront the Aguilar or their confederates on the border. But in doing so, he would be sucked into dealing with and forming bonds with the aforementioned factions just to cement campaign assurances, raise troops and funds, and what have you.
Now, this doesn’t mean he’s *necessarily* in their pocket or in their corner when it comes to troubles closer to home. Heck, I can’t really blame him for it because-like you say- it’s his job as a competent war leader in a system like this. However, that still means that he’s willing to ignore the rotting corpses in their keeps (metaphor) in order to make nice with some of the local brigands-in-chief, and he probably possesses contacts with the Aguilar that at least deserve attention even if they’re not worth worrying about now.
Again, that’s just the system: he’s got to have some level of connection with at least the friends of the Aguilar that might pull him into their corner or provide a power base for him to try whatever else. He’s got to have it because that’s how medieval societies work, and if he didn’t he wouldn’t be able to serve properly on the front. I can’t blame him too much for that, but that being said, it still means I have to take note and be suspicious.
But again- in runs where I do choose to axe him- that’s all mainly secondary in my calculus. It runs more like this:
A: I need a Life Mage Baby, and one of the more viable ways to do that is to get Enrique’s bottle in some way, either through force or through coming to terms with him.
B: Felix is- to the best of our knowledge- not just an innocent bystander like Rosa is; he’s a military leader and rich aristocrat (like myself) who is a potential threat (Granted, like just about everybody is, as you say).
C: The various other issues at play, like the Felix vs. Enrique issue and the truth, the blood ties and potential alliance with him either for or against me, and the potential risks to my plan to crush and annex Sahra coming from offing one of our predominant military leaders.
Also, another thing I feel obliged to add, since I figure it might add clarity: if possible, I’d seek to conquer and annex Sahra, so as a result I’m not just gunning for them and the Aguilar. I’m also not merely concerned with the border lords only because of their potential alliances with the Aguilar, but for their own risks.
Banditry might be a drain on royal coffers now, but it’s a political and military tool against the Sahrans and is probably hurting them a lot more than it’s hurting the Iberians. However, in the event of our annexation of Sahra the “border” suddenly ceases to exist, and that means that border banditry ceases being a tolerable tool and becomes a pure drain on the newborn Empire’s coffers. While on the other end, the more rebellious/less conciliatory border lords would probably still see it as a tool for use against an enemy, this time the centralized royal government and by extension me. Meaning that I will need to prepare to deal with them as well, and need to be worried about threats from within even without the Aguilar, and any of those who would potentially form an alliance with them (again, with or without aid from Sahra or the Aguilar).
I can’t merely plan to win the war; I also must win the peace.
Speaking of which…
Regarding Sahra and the Aguilar
1a. That’s more or less what I was trying to say, but in another way. You say you don’t see the Sahrans would find it any more difficult to deal with these things, and by and large I agree. But what I’m saying is that “as the situation stands, the Sahrans have found the situation difficult enough that they’ve been unable to win a clear- much less decisive- victory over the Iberians thus far. Meaning that they aren’t going to have an easy victory even if they’re going to have a victory at all.”
1b. Agreed overall. Especially since once word of the tech leaks out, the Sahrans will be able to start thinking up how to counter it, which means we’ll have to adapt and plan against it. That doesn’t make it worthless, or even necessarily something that the Sahrans will be able to neutralize when we’re standing there trying to stop them; it is still a risk, though.
- Perhaps I should have worded it better. I’m talking about this more as a very, very, very direct and forceful push, like the declawed Aguilar and the Sahran invasion would have to do. More or less “Waltz up to the court as a complete outsider, rip off some of the Consort’s hair, and try to start the Death Magic ritual right there.”
Physically I’m sure it’s possible. It’s just very, very, very infeasible even if it somehow succeeded. That sort of coup is something you need to build up to. I’m absolutely sure there are ways to do that and that the Sahrans and/or the Aguilar are contemplating how to do so, just that it’s not going to be *easy* and it isn’t something they can afford to do without a wider campaign to chip away at the royal power base first.
- Exactly. No contest.
Tigras, as memory serves, the new wands work for people with even “insignificant death magic,” or in the reverse “insignificant life magic” for life wands.
Saharans have neither, they have teleportation magic. Which means there is no reason to believe that saharans have any death or life magic to use the wands. They can be just as useful as binoculars to a blind person, except maybe in the hands of saharans who have the blood of a life mage or death mage in their family tree. Probably not a huge portion of their populace. And even if they did get their hands on it, how are they going to know how to make full use of their new found magical power? Do you think Juanita the teenager can teach hundreds of people all by herself?
As for having the new wands unbalancing the previous balance of power, from what we’ve seen of this world powerful magic, of either type, is concentrated in the noble bloodlines. Which means the mages the army has are going to be officers, not something the army can field in numbers.
If you manufacture enough wands to double the amount of effective death mages, you're doubling the army's heavy artillery. If you double the number of effective life mages you're doubling the medical treatment of your armed forces. And since as I've pointed out above, there's no reason to believe our mages are numerous in the first place, we could quite possibly do far more than double that.
If our country and Sahara were essentially evenly matched before, then doubling the magic which doubles our firepower and our health services leaves Sahara screwed.@stsword Your memory does serve you well, and kudos to that.
The main problem here is that you’re assuming a simple doubling of power, rather than possibly accounting for some losses here and there. Not only fro attrition, but now from internal enemies making deals with Sahra against the increasingly threatening and centralizing power of the Monarchy.
Sahra might not have that many capable of using life or death magic, but the fact that we can and do marry off Juanita or Tomas to them indicates that noble marriages aren’t unheard of, which means that we’re dealing with a *far* larger pool of potential Sahrans who can wield the rods than you’re accounting for.I doubt it would be just Juanita amongst their ranks.
On top of the fact that at this point, the nobility weren’t just the officers. They tended to kit out entire military units by their lonesomes, because they were the only ones who could afford certain types of gear. Check out Medieval II for a good idea of that.
Felix & Ramirez
I suppose the difference in our opinion lies in the rationalization that Felix’s “threat potential” is a credible additional reason to kill him. We seem to agree on the individual points, but disagree at least slightly on their applicability as a secondary reason to kill him. For me the minimum threshold has not been met. We’re starting to get repetitive on this subject, so we’ll just have to cordially disagree on the matter.
The biggest reason to kill Felix is as you’ve noted, to obtain a royal heir, although as we’ve already discussed, there is the alternate method of simply beating Ramirez to a pulp and then threatening his life. I far prefer this latter method since it doesn’t involve killing any one, nor does it require breaking your younger sibling’s heart. If that alternate method did not exist, than I grant that my character would be faced with a far tougher choice.
An additional reason to kill Felix is to gain the huge bonus to your magic score that every death curse brings you. (By that cold-blooded line of reasoning killing Felix and Rosa both is even better! No single action in the game is capable of boosting your magic score as much as killing Rosa with a death curse.) On the other hand if you want a magic bonus and you’re not willing to kill Rosa, using a death curse to kill Juanita will net you the same magic bonus as killing Felix, and take out a clear threat in the process.
Sahra, Aguilar & Juanita
Again it seems as if we’re largely in agreement on the individual points. I just want to point out that:
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Aguilar has already begun its attempts to chip away at royal power in part 2, and
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If Augustin(a) should die while your children remain very young, all bets are off.