Lithium Flower
Arcane
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2016
- Messages
- 1,832
Autumn, 615 OIE
The Kian Ambassador suggests a treaty by which the crown may be allowed to levy price controls on Kian grain imports, in exchange for certain trade concessions and other diplomatic advantages. While supporters of the King tout the proposal as a potential means of reducing the cost of the annual grain subsidy and therefore the deficit, many—including much of the Duke of Wulfram's party—allege that accepting such a treaty would be effectively mortgaging away the Unified Kingdom's sovereignty to a foreign power.
Summer, 615 OIE
The Duke of Wulfram again presents his budget to the Cortes. This time, it almost passes, much to the consternation of the supporters of the King in the Chamber. The King is obliged to use his royal veto to quash the motion, the second time he has had to do so in his reign—something without precedent in Tierran history. Undeterred, Wulfram vows to rally his supporters and present the budget again the next year.
Driven to desperation by the increasingly dire economic situation and beyond any hope of relief, thousands turn to brigandage, roaming the countryside in armed gangs, robbing groups of travellers and looting market caravans. Certain particularly audacious groups—usually made up of former soldiers—go so far as to hold isolated communities for ransom. Overstretched and underfunded, the Intendancy struggles to reply to every local crisis.
Spring, 615 OIE
The Duke of Wulfram once again announces his plans to present a budget without the assent of the Crown in the upcoming session of the Cortes. This time, he is believed to have the support of much—if not the majority—of the chamber.
Winter, 614 OIE
Tierra suffers its hardest winter in thirty years. For the tens of thousands of homeless vagrants and and Antari refugees caught in the open, it is an almost certain death sentence. The Orders of the Blue stretch themselves to the breaking point to offer aid, but by the end of the winter, the country roads and city streets of the Unified Kingdom are choked with frozen corpses.
Autumn, 614 OIE
The Count of Leannejouwe, a veteran diplomat, arrives in Aetoria as an envoy from the Kian Emperor and his Grand Staff, with the stated mission of establishing and maintaining a permanent embassy in Tierra. Some speculate that this move is intended to counter the recent establishment of a permanent Takaran embassy, another move in the deadly game betwixt the two great powers.
Changing fashions in the capital create a sudden demand for cotton and linen, offering some relief to a Tierran textile industry hard hit by the end of the war.
Summer, 614 OIE
During the first session of the Cortes, the Duke of Wulfram proposes a budget which calls for the reduction of the King's Army, an end to war taxes, and a moratorium on spending for the next five years. He does this without the King's approval, an unheard-of act of defiance against the Crown's authority and conventions of the Cortes. It is defeated on the Cortes floor—by a narrow margin.
The first session of the Army Reform Commission meets in Aetoria. Comprised mostly of veteran army officers, the commission seeks to use the lessons learned from the War in Antar to reform the King's Army into a more effective force. Already, voices in the Cortes are denouncing it as a wasteful expenditure in a time of fiscal crisis.
Spring, 614 OIE
With the arrival of spring, many groups of Antari refugees take to the countryside in search of work. Many find themselves met with hostility by distrustful locals, who fear that their lords may evict them from their plots to replace them with the Antari.
Faced with worsening brigandage in the country, increasing poverty and unrest in the cities, and widespread political opposition to his plans for reforming the army, the King calls his Cortes to draft the year's budget and hopefully strike a compromise with the Duke of Wulfram's increasingly powerful faction.
Winter, 613 OIE
Destitute veterans and war refugees from the War in Antar become common sights on the streets of Tierran towns and cities, joining those impoverished and rendered homeless by the Crown's high taxes. Shunned by many communities, thousands freeze or starve to death through the winter. In desperation, some turn to theft or brigandage to survive.
In Tannersburg and in Aetoria, the Duke of Wulfram organises a relief programme to bring food and warm clothing to the worst affected. Despite the best of intentions, it seemingly does little to alleviate the problem.
Autumn, 613 OIE
The draft peace treaty is quickly ratified by the Cortes. The League Congress similarly agrees to the draft after a "mere" nine weeks of deliberation. The war between Tierra and Antar is finally over.
With the end of the war, the Royal Tierran Army is drawn down from wartime strength. The Houseguard regiments are disbanded into their component forces, and the permanent regiments are placed on a peacetime footing, leaving tens of thousands of officers and men without work, or on half-pay.
Displaced by the terms of the peace settlement and the vagaries of Antari politics, hundreds of thousands of Antari serfs leave (or are removed from) their homes. Many head for Tierra in hopes of rebuilding their lives.
Summer, 613 OIE
The news that the Crown's war taxes will be retained for at least another year triggers widespread demonstrations and disorder in major cities throughout the Unified Kingdom.
For his crucial role in winning the pivotal Second Battle of Kharangia, Sir Louis-Auguste d'al Palliser is awarded a victory title by the King. He is now Viscount Palliser of Kharangia.
The Tierran delegation to Antar, headed by the ailing Earl of Leoniscourt, reports that a peace agreement with terms generally in Tierra's favour has been drafted. Copies are sent to the Tierran Cortes and the Antari League Congress for ratification.
Spring, 613 OIE
Under Takaran mediation, peace negotiations betwixt the Unified Kingdom of Tierra and the League of Antar continue. A draft treaty begins to take shape.
Confident that an official end to the war is soon to be at hand, Grenadier Square begins the return of the King's Army's regiments from Antar.
Sporadic publick demonstrations against the Crown's war taxation continues in Aetoria and Tannersburg.
The Kian Ambassador suggests a treaty by which the crown may be allowed to levy price controls on Kian grain imports, in exchange for certain trade concessions and other diplomatic advantages. While supporters of the King tout the proposal as a potential means of reducing the cost of the annual grain subsidy and therefore the deficit, many—including much of the Duke of Wulfram's party—allege that accepting such a treaty would be effectively mortgaging away the Unified Kingdom's sovereignty to a foreign power.
Summer, 615 OIE
The Duke of Wulfram again presents his budget to the Cortes. This time, it almost passes, much to the consternation of the supporters of the King in the Chamber. The King is obliged to use his royal veto to quash the motion, the second time he has had to do so in his reign—something without precedent in Tierran history. Undeterred, Wulfram vows to rally his supporters and present the budget again the next year.
Driven to desperation by the increasingly dire economic situation and beyond any hope of relief, thousands turn to brigandage, roaming the countryside in armed gangs, robbing groups of travellers and looting market caravans. Certain particularly audacious groups—usually made up of former soldiers—go so far as to hold isolated communities for ransom. Overstretched and underfunded, the Intendancy struggles to reply to every local crisis.
Spring, 615 OIE
The Duke of Wulfram once again announces his plans to present a budget without the assent of the Crown in the upcoming session of the Cortes. This time, he is believed to have the support of much—if not the majority—of the chamber.
Winter, 614 OIE
Tierra suffers its hardest winter in thirty years. For the tens of thousands of homeless vagrants and and Antari refugees caught in the open, it is an almost certain death sentence. The Orders of the Blue stretch themselves to the breaking point to offer aid, but by the end of the winter, the country roads and city streets of the Unified Kingdom are choked with frozen corpses.
Autumn, 614 OIE
The Count of Leannejouwe, a veteran diplomat, arrives in Aetoria as an envoy from the Kian Emperor and his Grand Staff, with the stated mission of establishing and maintaining a permanent embassy in Tierra. Some speculate that this move is intended to counter the recent establishment of a permanent Takaran embassy, another move in the deadly game betwixt the two great powers.
Changing fashions in the capital create a sudden demand for cotton and linen, offering some relief to a Tierran textile industry hard hit by the end of the war.
Summer, 614 OIE
During the first session of the Cortes, the Duke of Wulfram proposes a budget which calls for the reduction of the King's Army, an end to war taxes, and a moratorium on spending for the next five years. He does this without the King's approval, an unheard-of act of defiance against the Crown's authority and conventions of the Cortes. It is defeated on the Cortes floor—by a narrow margin.
The first session of the Army Reform Commission meets in Aetoria. Comprised mostly of veteran army officers, the commission seeks to use the lessons learned from the War in Antar to reform the King's Army into a more effective force. Already, voices in the Cortes are denouncing it as a wasteful expenditure in a time of fiscal crisis.
Spring, 614 OIE
With the arrival of spring, many groups of Antari refugees take to the countryside in search of work. Many find themselves met with hostility by distrustful locals, who fear that their lords may evict them from their plots to replace them with the Antari.
Faced with worsening brigandage in the country, increasing poverty and unrest in the cities, and widespread political opposition to his plans for reforming the army, the King calls his Cortes to draft the year's budget and hopefully strike a compromise with the Duke of Wulfram's increasingly powerful faction.
Winter, 613 OIE
Destitute veterans and war refugees from the War in Antar become common sights on the streets of Tierran towns and cities, joining those impoverished and rendered homeless by the Crown's high taxes. Shunned by many communities, thousands freeze or starve to death through the winter. In desperation, some turn to theft or brigandage to survive.
In Tannersburg and in Aetoria, the Duke of Wulfram organises a relief programme to bring food and warm clothing to the worst affected. Despite the best of intentions, it seemingly does little to alleviate the problem.
Autumn, 613 OIE
The draft peace treaty is quickly ratified by the Cortes. The League Congress similarly agrees to the draft after a "mere" nine weeks of deliberation. The war between Tierra and Antar is finally over.
With the end of the war, the Royal Tierran Army is drawn down from wartime strength. The Houseguard regiments are disbanded into their component forces, and the permanent regiments are placed on a peacetime footing, leaving tens of thousands of officers and men without work, or on half-pay.
Displaced by the terms of the peace settlement and the vagaries of Antari politics, hundreds of thousands of Antari serfs leave (or are removed from) their homes. Many head for Tierra in hopes of rebuilding their lives.
Summer, 613 OIE
The news that the Crown's war taxes will be retained for at least another year triggers widespread demonstrations and disorder in major cities throughout the Unified Kingdom.
For his crucial role in winning the pivotal Second Battle of Kharangia, Sir Louis-Auguste d'al Palliser is awarded a victory title by the King. He is now Viscount Palliser of Kharangia.
The Tierran delegation to Antar, headed by the ailing Earl of Leoniscourt, reports that a peace agreement with terms generally in Tierra's favour has been drafted. Copies are sent to the Tierran Cortes and the Antari League Congress for ratification.
Spring, 613 OIE
Under Takaran mediation, peace negotiations betwixt the Unified Kingdom of Tierra and the League of Antar continue. A draft treaty begins to take shape.
Confident that an official end to the war is soon to be at hand, Grenadier Square begins the return of the King's Army's regiments from Antar.
Sporadic publick demonstrations against the Crown's war taxation continues in Aetoria and Tannersburg.
[Tie-roll die-roll goes to 4-roll roll roll roll vroom vrooom wvrooooosh (I'm driving a batmobile btw) vroooooooooooooom pshhh dakadakadakadakadakadaka (that's the integrated autocannon firing) vroooooooo- chk-chk kaBOOOOOOM (heat-seeking nuclear-missile rocket-bombs!) vroooooosh vrooooom, etc]
I chose wisely to avoid that viper's pit.
It seems like almost an absurdity to think that little more than a year ago, you were idly considering your prospects in Aetoria. Worse yet, for a little while, you had actually encompassed the idea of returning to the capital to take your seat in the Cortes.
There's damned little chance of that now, for sure. Given what you know regarding the conditions in the city, it would take two good teams of horses pulling in shifts to drag you back. Where some may see opportunity in the divided Cortes or a means to rise to power or influence in the buffeting currents of the current dispute betwixt Wulfram and the King, you can only see danger. True, a select few may prove smart or lucky enough, or simply unscrupulous enough to make out of that situation to their advantage, but you do not credit yourself any of those things. For one such as you to try your fortune in such a time and place is likely to serve you nothing but to lose it.
No, better to remain where you are, where you're safe from such commotions. The storm will blow itself out, the opposing parties will come to a compromise, as they always have. If such a resolution requires casualties, if the good of the realm should require that one minor lord or another be thrown to the wolves or sacrificed in the name of expediency, then so be it. You will content yourself with knowing that you will not be he.
You have more pressing matters to deal with. Winter is soon to be at hand once again, and with the harvest come in and the rents due, you must turn your attention to the management of your fief.
---
By your reckoning, your fief has attracted 7 new rent-paying households over the past six months. Unfortunately, you have also lost 5 households, who have chosen to leave your fief out of dissatisfaction with your policies and decisions.
In addition, Your fief's relatively low rents allow your tenants some measure of surplus coin, which invariably offers some small increase to prosperity and contentment. The repairs to your home are now complete as well, The broken windows have been repaired, the old staircase reinforced, and the most worn parts of the structure have been replaced entirely.
While the seat of your barony remains rather plain, it no longer carries with it the air of a dilapidated half-ruin, which will certainly do some good for your fief's respectability.
---
Ezinbrooke, a barony within the Duchy of Cunaris, possessed of 132 rent-paying households.
Respectability: 48%
Prosperity: 49%
Contentment: 38%
Manor...
…Being a country house of middling size in good condition, but of very rustic appearance. encompassed by a low stone fence in a state of much disrepair. Outbuildings include stables, coach house, and guard house, all in exceptionally poor condition.
Interior consists of eighteen rooms, including six bedrooms, a kitchen, a library, a small ballroom, a dovecote and a gun room.
Estate and Grounds...
…Being a barony of middling size, composed of a manor house, market village, and surrounding fields and hinterlands. It is located a week's ride west from the city of Fernandescourt, a journey rendered easier by the fine state of local roads.
The village of Ezinbrooke is a small hamlet, possessed of a traveller's inn, a publick house, a somewhat worn shrine to the major Saints, and an open market square. The surrounding cottages are few in number but of excellent condition, having recently been repaired and refurbished. Fields bound the village on all sides, and all available land is under cultivation.
Respectability: 48%
Prosperity: 49%
Contentment: 38%
Manor...
…Being a country house of middling size in good condition, but of very rustic appearance. encompassed by a low stone fence in a state of much disrepair. Outbuildings include stables, coach house, and guard house, all in exceptionally poor condition.
Interior consists of eighteen rooms, including six bedrooms, a kitchen, a library, a small ballroom, a dovecote and a gun room.
Estate and Grounds...
…Being a barony of middling size, composed of a manor house, market village, and surrounding fields and hinterlands. It is located a week's ride west from the city of Fernandescourt, a journey rendered easier by the fine state of local roads.
The village of Ezinbrooke is a small hamlet, possessed of a traveller's inn, a publick house, a somewhat worn shrine to the major Saints, and an open market square. The surrounding cottages are few in number but of excellent condition, having recently been repaired and refurbished. Fields bound the village on all sides, and all available land is under cultivation.
With the latest reports taken into account, your current financial situation is as follows:
Bi-Annual Revenues
Rents: 264 Crown
Personal Income: 135 Crown
Bi-Annual Expenditures
Estate Wages: 150 Crown
Food and Necessities: 75 Crown
Luxuries and Allowances: 75 Crown
Groundskeeping and Maintenance: 50 Crown
Interest Payments: 107 Crown
Special Expenses: 0 Crown
Total Net Income (Next Six Months): -58 Crown
New Loans: 0 Crown
Current Wealth: -7 Crown
Projected Wealth Next Half-Year: -65
You will incur a negative balance within the next six months. If you do not rectify this by taking a loan immediately, you will face bankruptcy.
What do you wish to do?
[Yeah okay onee-chan ufufu~ ^^, as if there is much we can do. Can't build shit (no money,) can't pay back debt (no money,) can't buy the liquor sufficient to drink ourselves into the sort of oblivion that would render us unaware of our financial plight (no money.)
Two sets of choices do present themselves, however.]
1a) I mean to ask for a modest loan; 1000 crown, perhaps?
1b) I am in need of a sizeable loan, 2500 crown or so.
1c) I shall require a great deal of money; 5000 crown, at least.
[We cannot progress without taking on a loan. Perhaps the debt-vary individuals who voted to stretch Alaric's finances in order to avoid taking on additional credit will note the irony of this whole, like, thingymabbober.
Additionally, we can still take this opportunity to plan out one of the 4 major projects available for us - as you know, building a Wonder will instantly win us the game. A game of Age of Empires, not Lords of Infinity, but that is neither here nor there. Now I'm a bit confused (to be fair, I am confused often) as to whether or not commencing this project will prevent us from building anything else until it is completed, and I'm a bit too sleepy to look that all up in present - hopefully one of your doods knows, otherwise I'll look it up after - and if (^: - I wake up.]
2a) Yo I ain't buildin' nothin' that ain't reppin' the fiddy-five, cuuuh~ ^^
[Otherwise, reference the CAT-alogue below:]
It's one thing to commit a few hundred crown and a season's labour to the improvement of a road or the expansion of your house. What you have in mind is something altogether more ambitious: a great undertaking which may well transform the shape of your entire fief and the lives of those who live within it for generations, if not centuries.
Such a project would be far from easy, of course. The material costs alone would be substantial, perhaps even overwhelming. The work of planning, organising, and finally realising such a feat would no doubt prove massively time-consuming, as well. And that's to say nothing about the way such an effort might build unrest amongst your tenants, who have more reason to resent the disruption to their lives which such a project might entail than to celebrate the potential for positive change which may not even manifest itself for years to come.
But you're committed to the idea. The costs may be great; but the potential benefits to the prosperity of your fief, the prominence of your family, and your personal fortune cannot be denied.
The only question that remains is which project, precisely, you mean to pursue.
After some thought, you manage to narrow your options down to four.
The most straightforward means of increasing the prominence of your fief would be to turn it into a local centre of commerce, and you suspect you already know how that might be achieved. The route of a major canal passes not two days' ride from your barony. If you were able to secure the funds and resources needed to extend that canal to your own lands, then you would not only allow your tenants to sell their produce further afield with much greater ease, but make your own barony the primary transshipment centre for the entire region, with the inhabitants of neighbouring villages being required to come to your fief and use your canal docks if they mean to compete with your tenants.
Alternatively, instead of making your village a centre of transport, you could just as likely render it a centre of production. A manufactory, appropriately equipped to turn locally produced raw materials into finished goods, could be precisely what your fief needs to elevate it to prominence. In addition, with so many Tierrans out of work, the prospect of employment in such an establishment would surely bring you a fresh influx of tenants—and a commensurate increase in income.
Of course, the problem with either of those two courses of action is that the costs of such an undertaking would be enormous, and that any benefit one might receive from them would surely be gradual in coming. It may take years before a canal or a factory might turn a profit, decades before they're able to make good on the vast fortune you would inevitably have to expend in their establishment.
You could certainly think of easier ways to make a profit quickly, and for less investment in time and money: your fief has a considerable amount of common land, broad expanses which aren't really being put to any organised, productive use. With permission from the Cortes, you could enclose it and use it to graze sheep or cattle, deriving substantial income from the proceeds. Of course, your tenants have long considered their access to common land as something of a right. They're unlikely to respond well to any news that you intend to enclose it.
Finally, there's the possibility of using the unique regional characteristics of your fief to some use. After all, Cunaris is well-regarded for its horses, if not necessarily famous for them. If you were to establish a stud farm, you would certainly have no trouble seeking out likely animals to populate it. With some luck, you might even be able to secure a contract to provide horses for your old regiment, especially if you introduce Thunderer's formidable Takaran bloodline into your prospective breeds. or any other which might be interested.
Ideally, had you the ability and the resources, you wouldn't have to choose at all, completing one project after the other. Alas, that is quite obviously not an option. Even one such undertaking will greatly tax the resources of your fief in its establishment and upkeep. It would be folly to embark upon a second.
Thus, you'll only be able to choose to embark upon one major project. It would be best to do so carefully…
2b) I think a canal would be the best option.
It would be easy to consider the extension of a canal not unduly different from the extension of a road, but after some thought, it becomes evident that such an assumption would be far from the truth.
While a road would only require a shallow bed to be dug and surfaced, a canal would have to be excavated to a substantial depth, to the point where many tonnes of earth would have to be moved simply to advance the whole of the route a dozen paces. That would only be the first of your concerns. Then there's the matter of lining the sides of the channel to prevent erosion, the installation of locks and weirs to control the water level, and the negotiation of the route with your neighbours—who may not necessarily approve of the idea of you digging a canal though their lands to benefit your own.
Even getting the necessary materials together would be a massive undertaking in itself: thousands of tonnes of timber and stone; implements of excavations large and small; hundreds of surveyors, diggers, and engineers. Actually finishing the project would require at least three or four years' worth of labour and thousands—perhaps tens of thousands—of crown.
But surely, such an effort would be worth it. Right?
2c) I ought to consider building a manufactory more closely.
Regardless of the particulars, building a manufactory hall and its outbuildings would surely be a considerable endeavour. Its size alone would almost certainly make it the most expensive and expansive construction project which your fief has ever seen. Once complete, you suspect that it would dwarf even your own manor.
Yet the hall itself promises to be neither the most costly nor the most important part of the whole undertaking, for a factory without the actual mechanisms of production would be little more than an empty shell. It is the machinery which will be at the heart of the project, and it will be that machinery which will almost certainly take up the lion's share of the cost: once ordered, it shall have to be painstakingly assembled in some faraway workshop, only to be shipped in pieces to the building site. Only once it is once again assembled and workers are trained in its use can even the first manufactured product be turned out.
The whole process could take three or four years to complete. Its cost would almost certainly stretch into the tens of thousands of crown. Yet a successful manufactory will not only bring you immense profit, but provide your fief's tenants with a reliable source of work and income—and elevate its stature greatly.
2d) I would like to consider enclosing my fief's common lands more closely.
In truth, enclosing your fief's common lands would almost certainly be the potential major project requiring the least expenditure of time and resources. The work of enclosing the commons itself could only be a matter of surveying and fence-building—the work of a season or two, at most. The acquisition of the needed stock to populate your new enclosures would only take another season more. Likewise, it would only take a year or two and maybe two thousand crown worth of investment for the whole enterprise to begin turning a reliable profit. Indeed, in terms of cost and benefit, enclosure has much to recommend it.
Where the problem lies is in the fact that enclosing your fief's common lands will inevitably cause great damage to your relationship with your tenants. Though they do not put the land to any real organised use, it still possesses some utility as a source of edible herbs and other plants, a playground for children, and grazing land for the small number of animals which the tenants themselves possess. Every tenant has a different, minor use for the commons, but what they all agree upon is the fact that they have an ancient right to do so. Deny them that privilege, and you'll surely arouse some substantial discontent.
Of course, that may not necessarily be so great a deterrent. The mood of the mob is fickle and ever changeable. Perhaps the proceeds from enclosure will be well worth the condemnation of your inferiors—and if things get too bad, you could always find some other way to secure their goodwill.
Right?
2e) Horse-breeding sounds like an interesting prospect.
There's little doubt at all that vast fortunes might be made through the careful and conscientious breeding of horses. After all, there's no sort of industry, cultivation, or warfare which doesn't need such animals bred to the appropriate specifications. Men will pay great sums of money to purchase the results of the finest bloodlines, or even for the right simply to introduce those lines into the inhabitants of their own stables. Succeed in an endeavour like this, and the rewards would be quite substantial, indeed.
Yet you're also well aware that such an undertaking will only lead to ruin if set in motion with too much ignorance or too little caution. Horse-breeding is a careful art, one which offers few tolerances for failure. A single oversight may well lead to the ruin of a promising bloodline, or one extinguished altogether. It may take two or three years of painstaking work and thousands of crown to establish a stud. Should you wish to set up a whole bloodline as well, it may take two or three years more.
If you succeed, you'll create a source of income which may well provide for your house for generations to come. If you fail, all of your efforts will have been for nothing.
[Will be counting these votes as set, not individually, or like you know whatever]
