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[Madman198237]

Cheaper Mages
No, really, just what it says on the tin. A good hard look at our mage-training practices has revealed ways to speed up the training process, such as engaging in more practical work and less theory, reducing the expense of training.

(2) Mind Link: Jilladilla, Madman
(1) Armored Spearmen: Jilladilla
(1) Cheaper Mages: Madman

(0) Save a die:
(0) Save both dice:

Thing that really doesn't matter at all, but I'm being suspicious as heck
(1) Rename the 'Bugs' rolls to 'Defects': Jilladilla
(0) Leave it as is

[Iituem]

Revision: Mind Link   [2 -2 (No Precedent) -1 (Complex) +2 (Sacrificial) = 1]

Truthfully, we aren't 100% certain you would want to use the Mind Link, but... it's there.  Our sages generally agree that trying to squeeze what is essentially a new field of magic into the space we allocate for working on revisions was not the best idea; this really merited a design.  Still, we have something.  The Mind Link spell allows the one-way transferrence of agony and disorientation from a mage suffering backlash effects to another - willing - magic user.  In the sense that it allows a one-way mental link, it's a success.  This is about the only way in which it is a success.  It doesn't actually reduce the suffering a mage has significantly, so in this case pain shared is pain doubled.  The only use it has right now is as a disciplinary measure, and since it requires the target to willingly accept the torture it's even then only useful within our own ranks.

If you really want, we could implement this, but right now it's getting consigned to the heap of 'things that need more work'.

It is now the Strategy Phase.  You have 1 die remaining.



Edit:  If people want to do a second revision, it wasn't clear, but I'll flip a coin and do one of the others if I get a yea on that.

[Iituem]

After a Discord chat, it was agreed to use up that remaining die for...

Revision: Cheaper Mages  [Cost: 1]

Unfortunately, the training process for our mages at present is pretty cut to the bone; there isn't a lot of fat to trim.  We make some adjustments to the teaching program to help smooth things along, but without a definite design for improving tuition there isn't much we can do here.

Mage training cost has been reduced to 43 from 45.


An unlucky roll, but what do you want to do with your free Strategy actions?

[Kashyyk]

Spoiler: Current Budget (click to show/hide)

League Budget

10% of League manpower from all cities is devoted to constructing and staffing ships.

Ships      5%      (Pentekonters)
Skirmishers   5%
Bowmen      -%
Hoplites   17%
Cavalry      5%
Ballistae   1%
Mages      15%      (15% Apprentices, 0% Mages)
Aphrokema   5%      National Effort
Spearmen   47%
Slaves      Excess Manpower

Okay, so we've spent the entire turn on improving our mages in some way, but we aren't producing any. If we want to have our actions this turn have any effect we will need to adjust the budget, however I don't think any of our rolls went well enough to really make it worth it, especially as it costs over two apprentices worth of training to produce a mage.

[Madman198237]

There was some discussion on Discord between Jilla and I about shifting budget around. Shifting 6.8% of budget (It was 6. something, I'll redo the math if I put up a proposal) is enough to produce three mages, and if we went a little further (I did not do the math for it) we could squeeze four mages out of ten percent with some small fraction of 10% left over.

[Jilladilla]

Alright, Kashyyk! I know you joined our team, so I'll give you a quick rundown: We're getting pushed back, slowly but surely; but we seem to be slowly turning the situation around.

The problem is, one of our towns is potentially about to be overrun, if I remember right the defenses should hold unless they did something that would shake things up majorly or devote more in the way of reinforcements there; however the loss of the town would be a massive blow to our reinforcement rates, and they could turn it into a new source of troops as well.

Now, the TLDR of what we have: We've made a decent inroads into gaining a professional army, our magic mostly revolves around equipment enchantment and illusion/mentalism (with a side helping of web). Now, against us is a complete lack of wood so we can't build any more boats for troop transport purposes, ballistae, or bowmen.

Right now, we have no dice, so we can only do free actions for the strategy phase, notably a 10% budget shift and changing where we deploy the National Effort. I think the current course was to finally recruit some mages and leave the NE where it is. So! What's your take o-..... Oh I typed this way too damn slow.


Right, so I suppose an alternative is to round out apprentice recruitment then? Neither Greatflare, it's bugfix revision, or the effort to make it cheaper went well. I suppose they do have Web, which we don't know how effective it would be.

EDIT: Oh right, when Madman says 3 mages, he means in total, iirc.

[Madman198237]

Greatflare is effectively the same as an enduring spell that takes the caster's attention til the effects are gone. It's just not as good.

[Kashyyk]

Are we more concerned about Nippi or Kydessos? I fear we may only be able to apply enough force to save one.

[Jilladilla]

Are we more concerned about Nippi or Kydessos? I fear we may only be able to apply enough force to save one.

We can't change up where our reinforcements go without a die which we don't have, besides, we're slowly killing off their swarm on that front...

Besides, it's Nippi that is besieged this turn, Kydessos is not, and it has a level 3 fort, which is 1200 Territory control iirc.

[Iituem]

If I can get a vote-box on those budget reassignments that would be helpful, just so I have a clear consensus on what to implement this turn.

[Kashyyk]

So if I understand it correctly, we are being starved for wood and are unable to get all of our manpower to the front. We are using almost no ore, and we always want more training.

My suggestion then would be to drop 10% spearmen for another 10% hoplites. Because manpower is a bottleneck we need to improve the value of each manpower unit that can make it to the front and this way 3x the ore and training are spent on each manpower unit and thus presumably makes it 3x better.

[Jilladilla]

Manpower isn't the bottleneck; We're still fielding a lot of slaves after all... Really, all that would do is make it so our actual troops would be of higher quality, but with smaller numbers. Not sure if the trade off is worth it, as we don't know the exact stats that Iituem uses behind the scenes for the troops after all... Still, might be worth it, iirc their spitters are devastating against lighter units but hoplites whether the barrage decently well... That may be due to having a mass of chaff to take the worst of it though...

I tried to push giving our spearmen a light breastplate, but it lost the coinflip. Still, with a 1 being what was rolled, that wouldn't have gone well, not at all...

[Kashyyk]

If it's just because of chaff, switching to any elites plus chaff tactic would be more efficient than an elites, chaff and more expensive chaff tactic.

[Iituem]

For the sake of completeness, I will remind you that although the Greatflare still suffers from bugs that weren't solved by the revision, both mages and apprentices now have a full complement of spells each.

[Talion]

This looks interesting. Hopefully, our luck improves. What is the long-term plan in terms of improving magic? Are we going to try for magic items or other tools to assist spell casting?