Esquestria: The House of the Sun - A pony cultist experience

[ses]

If we've got ~1 turn left, it's zero value, but so is everything else. Fine.

If we've got ~2 turns left, it's very marginally worse, because maybe we have an expedition worth doing. Feels absurdly doubtful, but fine.

If we've got ~3+ turns left, I'm not entirely sure we want to just totally ditch Dodge City? In that it has potential rewards (see Tall Tale, which was smaller than this) + feels off to utterly ditch the requirements of the Lunar Bureau?

I agree it's probably more likely than not we have less than 3 turns left. But I think when weighing benefits it's worth considering both value assuming we get that far and the chance we do get that far -- and that Dodge City probably wins out on that level.

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If we have more than 3 turns left it's because Selene fixed the Daybreaker issue and therefore there will likely no longer be an extermination order for the changelings. We have confirmation that they aren't planning an attack on ponies any time soon and are trying to evacuate the country. We can slow-walk the next step on changelings for the 3 turns it takes for Daybreaker to be solved. Therefore changelings are now zero value.

"Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across."
― Sun Tzu

It seems intuitively obvious to me that if the changelings are trying to retreat and aren't planning an attack, and we very obviously can go 2-3 turns going "It's on my desk" while putting no actual effort into changeling extermination other than making mouth noises about how hard we're working on it (we delayed Tall Tale for 2 turns and nothing came of it, and we just had a big win), then therefore we should not spend our resources getting into an existential war of survival with the changelings?

Honestly I'm half-tempted into having Selene try to establish a line of communication for Velvet and the changeling leadership to coordinate how they will keep their heads down and not draw any attention to themselves until the whole "Celestia wants to genocide you" thing blows over. It's better for Velvet, the changelings, Equestria's civilian population and future-Celestia herself after she's had her Snickers for the issue to not be forced right now and for the Bureau to spend its time looting crystal skulls from ancient temples instead.

 

[Shaper47]

If Celestia pops in to ask what we are/have doing about the Changeling having Velvet's answer be not much is kinda dangerous.

I mean, she has reviewed the Bureau's actions before remember.

 

[Talon Tiger Dino]

Why do this over Investigating Windy (makes sense with us getting our hands dirty) or Dodge City follow-up? This seems a very low-value action, unless I'm missing something.

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Well sending Investigators after people is for people Velvet has a "personal problem with," and so anyone who hopes to approach him on friendlier terms will want to go about contacting him some other way.

As for the Changeling Colony by Dodge City, well, we personally know that the Changelings' grand plan is to fuck off with all possible haste, which combined with being too massive to handle leaves it less concerning and less convenient than looking for new places to loot problems coming in to take a swing at the Kingdom.

 

[Shaper47]

As for the Changeling Colony by Dodge City, well, we personally know that the Changelings' grand plan is to fuck off with all possible haste,

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Look even if you don't consider the issue of failing Celestia's test during her next review.

"I also heard of your findings in Tall Tale. As well as the attempt against your life," she says.

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"… it seems you have quite a lot on your hoofs," she finishes.

And you are not sure if this means she just does not care, or if this is yet another test to see what you will do next.

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There's still the issue that the Changelings are going to "fuck off" with their harvest. In fact they'll probably stock up on supplies before leaving.

They'll probably also come back to Equestria to raid small defenseless villages for food.

The Bureau could have morale issues from just letting that happen.

I get the feeling that the thread would have moral issues with that.

 

[spiderhellian]

I can see the future unfolding, and in it we "can't target detectives at Windy because it will scare him" and so take the much gentler action of not doing anything related to Windy instead

Hmmm...

@OurLadyOfWires Can we target our detectives at Neighnea?

 

[ses]

I can see the future unfolding, and in it we "can't target detectives at Windy because it will scare him" and so take the much gentler action of not doing anything related to Windy instead

Hmmm...

@OurLadyOfWires Can we target our detectives at Neighnea?

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Yuuuuuup. I'll post a windy and a non-windy plan when moratorium ends, so hopefully we can get the windy one off the ground without needing to take a low value detectives action instead.

I do think you're not giving expeditions enough credit though. We're probably going to have constables do an expedition every turn for the rest of the game and expeditions have given us oodles of loot each and every time.

@OurLadyOfWires not to spam you with pings, lol, but I just wanted to clear with you how you want to handle the Follower's phase vote if our plan involves summoning two MITLs via Name AP, and wanting to make sure our Cover Your Bases actions and Graverob action fall on our summoned/unintelligent followers so that Servants and Fluttershy can provide +2 Smiles each. Also do we need to be concerned about Suspicion if we volunteer our servants to Smiles?

 

[spiderhellian]

I do think you're not giving expeditions enough credit though. We're probably going to have constables do an expedition every turn for the rest of the game and expeditions have given us oodles of loot each and every time.

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We've been told that Bureau expeditions will play out differently than conventional ones, and I think this is overly-confident when we haven't seen even one unfold.

...I will also be sad if the Bureau meets the same "Time to make us [resource] again, dear!" fate as Rarity, and don't really want to plan for them to play out that way.

 

[Solace2117]

I'd ultimately like to save Mayor Mare. I don't necessarily think it's essential, but it's one of those, not lines in the sand moments, but a bit of a character influencing decision and I'd rather not sacrifice her if we don't have to. I also think a town where the Mayor is working with the Cult is better then one without.

We mostly seem committed to 2 cover your bases actions. So 6 Velvet and 7 with the social. The only for sure actions are purifying the regent and the moth sacrament. If we're not using Mareinette for the expedition, which we don't really need to, she's available for that or Cadence. That means we could potentially toss 5 at Cadence and have one left over.

I guess we could toss one at Smiles or something else, but in the grand scheme of things I doubt it matters much unless if we have to go All in quickly. We're sacrificing one random pony for quick power, narratively I like the idea of going out of our way to save another just because.

 

[Wise Wolf]

We've been told that Bureau expeditions will play out differently than conventional ones, and I think this is overly-confident when we haven't seen even one unfold.

...I will also be sad if the Bureau meets the same "Time to make us [resource] again, dear!" fate as Rarity, and don't really want to plan for them to play out that way.

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Tbf, the entire reason we might have it do expeditions every turn is that there are 2-3 turns left.

 

[Wise Wolf]

We mostly seem committed to 2 cover your bases actions. So 6 Velvet and 7 with the social. The only for sure actions are purifying the regent and the moth sacrament. If we're not using Mareinette for the expedition, which we don't really need to, she's available for that or Cadence. That means we could potentially toss 5 at Cadence and have one left over.

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If we don't save Mayor Mare, we only take one cover your bases action. That lets Rarity make us bits, Fluttershy have fun times with Smiles, and Smiles summon a MITL for future turns. So the opportunity cost of saving Mayor Mare is 100 bits, sacrificing a Mare in the Light, and not getting to read Fluttershy helping Smiles proselytize troublemaking.

That last is a sacrifice I am not prepared to make.

 

[Solace2117]

If we don't save Mayor Mare, we only take one cover your bases action. That lets Rarity make us bits, Fluttershy have fun times with Smiles, and Smiles summon a MITL for future turns. So the opportunity cost of saving Mayor Mare is 100 bits, sacrificing a Mare in the Light, and not getting to read Fluttershy helping Smiles proselytize troublemaking.

That last is a sacrifice I am not prepared to make.

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Greymere has 2 tentative plans that allow us the save her and summon a Mare in Light. How many did you plan to summon. Sure we're not as worried about suspicion now, but it seems a little unwise to summon multiple this turn. The bits are good, but we are already saving money by having the Bureau foot the bill on one expedition.

Besides you're assuming Comet would let her help Smiles, you know he'll take charge there, especially if he knows/finds out she's pregnant.

 

[ses]

Greymere has 2 tentative plans that allow us the save her and summon a Mare in Light. How many did you plan to summon. Sure we're not as worried about suspicion now, but it seems a little unwise to summon multiple this turn. The bits are good, but we are already saving money by having the Bureau foot the bill on one expedition.

Besides you're assuming Comet would let her help Smiles, you know he'll take charge there, especially if he knows/finds out she's pregnant.

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I'm highly anchored to 2 MITL summons this turn. One from Smiles saccing a Wrong Key and one from Axe. That gets us

Servants: CYB
Risen: CYB
Risen: CYB
MITL: CYB
MITL: CYB
Comet: Graverob
Rarity: Commission
Jade: Research Moth 3

Presumably we can write-in to abort the Rarity commission if one of the summonings fails? I'd like to get confirmation on that. But if so I guess it's viable, the only real cost is 4 Smiles progress, which is totally fair.

This is by far our best available use of their Name AP. It's not even close. There's nothing else Smiles can do this turn that's better than this, and Axe's only competition is Wrong Key crafting which we dont need to do this turn.