This Is Madness 2 - Imperium Sine Fine (Interactive Mega Campaign)

[ThetrueColt]

Oh my, apparently the Blues are so full of themselves that they are oblivious to the actual enemies and struggles of the Imperium...

I'm interested to see if the Reds or Whites will get a hold of themselves so that my character might join one of them in the next session.

 

[ThrashEater]

Gaining the ally that could resist the xenoi and the rest of hostile unbelievers arm to arm with the Christiendom should be one of the major goals. The heathens are countless and the Empire manpower ain't endless. But I wonder if we can explore the map fast enough.

 

[CzokletMuss]

I wonder if we can explore the map fast enough.

This depends mainly on you (the Senators). The last of the National Ideas for the Imperium enables explorers, so sooner or later exploration will be possible. However, considering that so far Administrative and Military ideas were chosen, I would expect the Imperial Senate to choose one of Diplomatic ideas as a next, err, idea for the Imperium.

I will of course accept whatever the Senate deems to be a wise choice

 

[eliaspays]

Well, I had always wondered why we took a mil idea first with a 6 diplo 2 mil Emperor :laugh:
Now you're making us hungry as well as teasing us!

 

[Serpent]

We should pick Religious as soon as possible (which would realistically be idea group#4) to make use of the reduction in culture conversion cost. With our national ideas and both Religious and Expansion (?) to enable a policy we can get a 95% reduction in cost. That would do wonders for our income, manpower and stability and we could finally get rid of those damn Italians .

 

[Undead Martyr]

We should pick Religious as soon as possible (which would realistically be idea group#4) to make use of the reduction in culture conversion cost. With our national ideas and both Religious and Expansion (?) to enable a policy we can get a 95% reduction in cost. That would do wonders for our income, manpower and stability and we could finally get rid of those damn Italians .

***somewhere in Greece a bunch of rabid old men are frothing at the mouth***
if this isn't heresy, it should be.

 

[Zqrfmb]

***somewhere in Greece a bunch of rabid old men are frothing at the mouth***
if this isn't heresy, it should be.

So much religious zeal that the scale rolled over.

 

[Serpent]

I was mistaken. It is not a Religion/Expansion policy, but the Religion/Influence policy Cultural Unity that gives a 20% reduction in culture conversion cost. The synergy effects with our national ideas are extremely powerful and could save the Imperium tens of thousands of diplomatic points, which could then be used for whatever sinful usury the Blues set their greedy little hearts to.
It's pretty clear the next idea group will be Blue and Influence is pretty strong for a Dip idea. It's not likely to be an issue in the upcoming senate session but it's something to consider for the future.

 

[luciusmalfoy012]

There's no way we pick influence; not only is exploration bug biting harder than it ever has, it's just a poor idea group for our situation. Diplomacy is useless against the heathens! Only useful thing from it is forcelimits and money from vassals.

 

[Undead Martyr]

I daresay the Red leader will likely be particularly amenable to exploration- it is merely a question of haggling and horse trading for the next idea.
besides which from a game perspective Exploration makes sense as the first diplo idea.

 

[Serpent]

We already have explorers from events and the final national idea so there's little reason to pick Exploration. Colonisation is going to be a lot less useful in this game then usual because most of the Americas are likely already taken over by the Aztecs and Incas and we can't bring the American or west African trade to Constantinople anyway. All we can colonise are Australia and the East Indies which are either "tropical" or poor and not really worth the cost of an idea group. The Exploration casus belli will be useless in our situation. Holy War is far superior since it works against every conceivable enemy.
Influence is great for expanding by using vassals, which we are already doing in Hungary and Germany. It's about exploiting our friends, not trying to be friendly with our heathen enemies.

 

[varetta]

We already have explorers from events and the final national idea so there's little reason to pick Exploration. Colonisation is going to be a lot less useful in this game then usual because most of the Americas are likely already taken over by the Aztecs and Incas and we can't bring the American or west African trade to Constantinople anyway. All we can colonise are Australia and the East Indies which are either "tropical" or poor and not really worth the cost of an idea group. The Exploration casus belli will be useless in our situation. Holy War is far superior since it works against every conceivable enemy.
Influence is great for expanding by using vassals, which we are already doing in Hungary and Germany. It's about exploiting our friends, not trying to be friendly with our heathen enemies.

Influence is by far the worst idea we can take (with the possible exception of Espionage). Next idea should be military, given our current state of continuous conflict with ALL our neighbors.

Religion and Innovation could also be good option or, if we go with a diplomatic idea, something related with the fleet or the money. Even exploration could be acceptable to some point (because I wish to know more about the world, not because it is useful.)

 

[Serpent]

By far the worst idea? So we don't need lower AE impact? More diplomatic slots so we can have more vassals? Lower cost to annex those vassals? More diplomatic reputation to reduce the time for annexing them? Or a 50% reduction of the cost of unjustified demands? Etc. And the synergy with Religious and our National ideas that allows a 95% reduction in culture conversion cost? Without that synergy it wouldn't be that great, but with it it's outstanding.
Wrong culture provinces give +2 local unrest, -33% local tax and -33% local manpower. Wrong culture and wrong religion gives +6% local unrest, -66% local tax, -33% local manpower (plus the impact the reduced tax has on manpower), -30% goods produced (+tax impact), and the tax impact reduction in trade value... At the best of times those provinces are worth 1/3rd of a right culture/right religion province, at the worst they are a rebel spawning liability with a Local Autonomy that can't be lowered and reduces their value further.
If we pick Influence and Religion we can get rid of those penalties almost for free and if we're going to expand we will have a lot of provinces to convert. The benefits will be enormous. And, yes, Religion is the better idea group. Which is why I argued to pick it instead of Administration. But we will have a lot of diplomatic points by the time we hit the next idea group so a Dip idea is the logical choice. And Influence is the best Diplomatic idea.

 

[luciusmalfoy012]

We can't take a military idea, we have eastern tech and we cannot get too far behind. I doubt Quantity has been finished yet as well. If we didn't have ot worry about silly things like "military technology", yes a mil idea would be best but we are going to be taking a diplo idea.

Exploration will allow us to funnel trade from the far east to Constantinople, that is a lot of money.

But really, the reason we are taking exploration IS BECAUSE IT'S COOL. Czoklet has changed the far east dramatically, there's new religions and cultures and Empires to find and it will be really fun to go find those in addition to gameplay aspects. We also need to be able to strike at the heart of the enemy! Imagine Imperial Armies marching through the capital of the Xenoi!

Knowledge is power and we must gain more power.

Influence will be good for when we have a lot of unaccepted cultures, aka when we try to fufill the Angeloi ambitions. Then we can use vassals as well as culture conversion to "convert" the Aztecs of Europe. But that won't be for a while I think.

 

[Serpent]

Say for example we have 100 base tax of wrong culture provinces. The base cost to convert culture is 25 dip points per base tax so converting all of them would cost 2500 dips. Our National Ideas reduce the cost by 50% to 1250 (still pretty pricey). Religious ideas reduce it by another 25%iles for a 75% reduction to 625 (which is very good considering what you get from it). Finally the Cultural Unity policy reduces the cost by another 20% to a total of 95% and a cost of 125 dip points.
For those 125 dip points (+the cost of 1 dip/month for 10 years, which is 120) we get 33 more in taxes per month and at least 33% more manpower (the total amount you get depends on the province-specific value). That alone is pretty close to what we can get by colonisation in Africa, the East Indies and Australia (and colonisation is expensive), but it's just the beginning. We will conquer far more than that.

 

[Serpent]

But really, the reason we are taking exploration IS BECAUSE IT'S COOL. Czoklet has changed the far east dramatically, there's new religions and cultures and Empires to find and it will be really fun to go find those in addition to gameplay aspects. We also need to be able to strike at the heart of the enemy! Imagine Imperial Armies marching through the capital of the Xenoi!

But we get Explorers for free with our national ideas (and we just got one for 1200 borrowed ducats by event). We can explore the world with them without spending so much on an idea group.

 

[eliaspays]

Next idea group has to be diplo though, and tbh I think Exploration is the best choice in this situation. Influence/Diplo is far less useful with the reduced number of countries.

 

[viola]

Next idea ought to be Religious. We are the grimdark fanatic empire of the setting after all, right?

 

[Serpent]

Next idea ought to be Religious. We are the grimdark fanatic empire of the setting after all, right?

Last idea should have been Religious, but next? We have a lot of diplo points going to waste and not much to use them on. We can not afford to spend Adm points on two idea groups in a row or to spend Mil points on anything but keeping up in tech and completing Quantity ideas. The next idea group will be a diplomatic one and I have made my case for Influence. After that we should pick Religious.

 

[ThetrueColt]

Knowledge is power and we must gain more power.

Seems like something my House would greatly approve of. Just don't devalue it later on with some heretical character-killing nonsense pls


As far as idea groups are concerned, I don't think that Czoklet wants to vassal feed too much, since this is Imperium Sine Fine and not a mere uber expansion-based AAR.