I'll n'th the awesome story bit. I have only one complaint though: why no city states?
(if you think Aristocracy saves you a lot of money on city upkeep...). Though, I'm sure the extra cash from farms didn't hurt at all.
Oh right, +25% war weariness, that might have been painful, not sure if that would have broke you though(going from 15% to 40%, ok now that I realize this, its not so clear what to do).
If you really wanted to switch out of crusade without the ww crushing you, you could have possibly done a quick nationhood/despotism swap in a golden age, but that might have killed you upkeep wise?
Is ww either capped, or multiplicative between civics(aka despotism and crusade don't give war happiness do they?
)
City States would, in theory, have been an angel from the
Heaven of Fiscal Solvency with
fifty dollar bills for feathers and a halo that acted as a
ticker tape machine. In practice, City States requires Cartography and the practice of representing geographic locations on
cold,
lifeless vellum was considered
abhorrent to the proud (and frequently lost) people of Bannor. In contrast, Code of Law (and by extension,
Aristocracy) is practically the
bread and butter of the Bannor; little children collect action figures made of their favorite
by-laws and Confessors have been known to psych themselves up before battle by reciting
section 35,
sub-clause B of "
The Right for the Judicious Use of Unnecessary Violence Against Heretics".
The Bannor were well acquainted with despotism but having absolute rule for "
as far as one can reach" doesn't work so well when your running a continent-wide
inquisition/
bar brawl. The increase in city maintenance would have caused the Bannorian economy to die even more
explosively than it was about to, prior to Sabby pulling an all-nighter.
WW benefits definitely stack though the game doesn't reward you in any way for reducing a penalty by more than 100%. Otherwise my capital would have had a negative city maintenance (
-40% from courthouse,
-40% from basilica,
-25% from five law mana). That'd entail a bureaucracy so smooth it finishes meetings
before they start and actually
PRODUCES office supplies during business hours.
I'm getting a very Warhammer 40k feel from the relentless waves of cannon fodder-based triumph of the forces of heavily-armed Good over ridiculously powerful and infinitely resourceful (apparently not so much in the terms of a good strategy, but still) Evil. A great and most inspirational story, which showcases quite nicely the sheer gritty dark fantasy epicness of this mod.
I assume that you never did get around to taking any screenshots even for the second part?
Oh, it was
VERY Imperium of Man. And really, on a good day the Sheaim are only a khorde berserker away from being
Chaos (
Tzeentch-flavored, more specifically). Heck, give the Grigori a gundam-fixation and you're just a slogan shy of the Tau ("
For the Greater Good... And Empowerment of Mortals through the Decline of Divine Interference!").
Screen shots? Nope. Sorry. Maybe next time.
Also, shouldn't Demagogues and Crusaders be switched the other way around? Order getting Demagogues and Crusade getting Crusaders?
You make a very astute observation. The actual definition of
demagogy works well for describing the unit's use in the game (as an ablative armor of
zeal and
flesh to
bludgeon your enemies with). Maybe Crusaders could become
Templars or
Hospitallers (or any other obtuse, historic reference that basically means "
one who stabs people; predominantly during a religiously motivated conflict"). But I figure Kael and Co. have other things at the top of their to-do list right now. I doubt I am alone in my
eager anticipation of those scenarios so
tantalizingly displayed in the former-espionage menu. [
wipes drool]
By the end of it all I had researched the following:
- Crafting on up to Iron Working (not touching the Masonry/Soap branch)
- Agriculture, Calendar, Animal Husbandry (though that was originally outlawed until it was explained to the confessors that it
didn't actually mean what it
sounded like...) and horseback riding
- exploration and fishing
- ancient chants, mysticism, KotE, Divination (for the sweet, sweet law mana), Sorcery
- education, warfare, Code of Law, Writing (
but only under protest)
- and all the religious "techs" from philosophy on except the evil ones and that nature one (I ended the game while researching Rage)