Re: another night, another onslaught

From: vrylakos <vrylakos_at_...> <vrylakos_at_...>
Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 17:51:19 -0000

I'll try and do that tonight...

> >
> > So, I'm thinking I need to figure out the food problem, and then
look  

> Food problem and goods problems. Have you found the resources on
your
> tula? (iron, gems, green clay, etc)? If not, start exploring your
own
> tula (a nice low risk activity!).

I've explored it a few times. I've uncovered green clay and gems. I think I need to send another one traveling slowly. I may have uncovered another item...

Shift your crafters to work with
> those, and increase your number of crafters a little above the
number
> suggested by your ring. If you are short on farmers, recruit more.

I've been told by Trade Guy that we need more trade routes. Right now we have 5 trade partners.
I've been hesitant to shift more people to craft, as we never seem to have enough farmers...

 It
> occurs to me that you might have a very high number of children
> compared to surviving farmers, which could explain part of your food
> problem. You will annoy people, but you might want to recruit from
> vagabonds and wanderers, since they don't bring so many kids with
them.

We do have a lot of children. I think we've had bless children running via shrine for a while. I moved it over to Preserve last night, which helps a bit. Still, we had a lot of kids and then several nasty occurences that hurt our adult population.

>
> You really need to create trade routes, but you'll need an issaries
> shrine to get anywhere with that, and you are out of goods....Are
you
> still owed any favors?

Yes, a fair number. I've been calling on them for food recently.

  If so, you can collect in goods I think.
> Alternatively, how many horses do you have? If you aren't
disastrously
> short you could trade some for some goods.

I've been full-on raiding with the aid of the Earthshakers, and made off with a fair amount of horses and cattle. Then, of course, things turned around and people began to steal what I had won. Right now I think I've got 20 or so weaponthanes, and maybe a few horses extra.

  That should let you build a
> shrine to Issaries--trading, market, or silvertongue will help your
> wealth, and spare grain will help with your food situation, so it is
> all good. Once that is built, approach a clan that owes you a favor
> and doesn't dislike you to try and form a trade route. That will
start
> to bring in a little more in the way of goods.

I've got a shrine (not sure what size... smallest I think). Right now it supports Spare Grain, though usually it's set for Silvertongue.

> Once you aren't flat broke you can sacrifice to learn some of the
crops
> blessings and lock them in with a shrine, ditto with some more war
> blessings.

From memory, here's a list of all my blessings that are shrine supported. In parentheses are others I know:

Spare Grain (Silvertongue, Market?), Thunderstone, Rain, Lightning, Preserve, Bless Crops (?)(Swine Blessing, Bless Children), Vigor (Plowsong), (Earthblood, Curing, Healing, All the Wind Spirits blessings, Sureshot, Tracking)

> Sometimes you need to just focus on one thing at a time, so I'd
suggest
> get your economics fixed now.

Gotcha.  

> > Too many farmers sick,
>
> are you assigning sacred time magic to health? Even doing it every
> second year helps keep the amount of sickness down, every year is
> better, but I understand that sometimes magic is in short supply.

We usually assign two points. I think a while ago we only assigned one point.

Our usual allocations:
2 crops, 2 herds, 1 war, 2 trade, 1 mysteries, 2 health, and some left over.

Lately, it seems like when I ask my ring how much land we need for what, all they say is "Those damn farmers complain too much" and "We need more cows".  

> > I put the Excellent warleader on the ring. He's wounded now, but
our
> > raids seemed to go better.
>
> good, at least one thing starting to turn around. Now, don't raid
too
> much if you are short on farmers. Even when you win, you'll lose
some.

Right. I guess it's time to skip raiding. Maybe we should cattle raid in Dark time once a year?

> "Questing is the answer to most of our problems" one of the leaders
> sometimes tells you, and it is true....but you need to be able to
set
> up good conditions for the quest. If you are low on magic and don't
> have leaders with the right skills, it can be too risky. Certainly
the
> Ernalda quest to improve crop yields is very powerful. Any of the
> Ernalda quests can give you short term relief, so if you have only a
> marginal questor (you want good leadership, plants, and magic by the
> way, with probably that order of priority) you can do it to boost
the
> quester, and the three year general benefit will still help your
crops,
> and by then your quester should be ready to do it again.
>

Hm, I'll consider this. Maybe I need to send Randella back to the HQ? I'd just hate to lose her. She's got 3 really nice stats... unfortunately the ones requisite for the Ernalda HQ.

> I also need to explore...
>
> For sure. Treasures will make life better. Failing all else, send
out
> leaders you don't care for much with not too many thanes but a
> reasonable number of carls. Have them go slowly and not too far
into
> unknown territory and most will make it back, and you won't miss
those
> who don't (and their replacements might be more useful). Yes, it is
> callous....but it can work.

Sounds like a plan.

Sheesh, always seems like I need a few more seasons in a year.

Right now, my reputation is hovering one click above Stickpicker. Would increasing that via a HQ get people off my back? Ever since we blew that first HQ, is seems my rep has been in a tailspin...

Well, thanks for all your advice! We'll see how it goes!

Darren

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