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Why don't we share stories that happened on our forsaken planets?

I'm playing the Anatid Commonwealth, a somewhat hawkish capitalistic democracy on the small Medusa planet Xevarar Sinistra. The director of the Economic Council is Chip Irving, a former scout, then rogue, then chief of the Omicron militia. He's cunning and would make a great secret service director. He's part of the Popular Union, a faction more or less in line with the regime profile, but I've not paying much attention to his personal values.

Enter the Zandbund, a theocratic major regime. As theocracies seem to be wont to, they favor meritocracy and faith (Heart). According to our first limited contacts, they seem to view the Commonwealth as a potential victim for extorsion. This does not bode well.

A few months pass, and as prime minister I receive an ultimatum from the Zandbund. We shall, they say, give them two times the amount of credits in our meager treasury or they'll invade! A crisis reunion is held, where Chip Irving states passionately that we should pay, double the amount they want, in order to « pave with our charm the way to planetary supremacy ».

I'm appalled. I refuse, of course, and he sweeps the clutter out of the reunion table onto the ground in a fit of rage.

The next season, the Zandbund has not moved. We keep a wary eye on them and go on with our lives.

Pass a few more months, and there's a news buried in the mail. A new faction has been created: the Humanist Knights. I pull the documents from the parliament to have a better look, and lo and behold, it's the creation of Chip Irving, and is agenda is more meritocracy and more faith.

Is he trying to pull a Quisling on me?

I can't say how much randomness was involved, but this turn of events quite amused me. Irving was probably inclined towards Meritocracy and Heart from the beginning, which would explain his behavior during the reunion, but I didn't notice it until after the fact.

Whether his forming his own faction was an actual mechanic or a happy coincidence, I don't know, but that's a fine example of emergent narrative in my opinion.

Now here's your turn to tell, if you will.

ORIGINAL: Jdane

Why don't we share stories that happened on our forsaken planets?

There is a dedicated Forum for that:
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tt.asp?forumid=1777

I felt the AAR section was rather dedicated to long narratives centering on a single playthrough, and less for sharing shortish anecdotes, but you may be right.

But to be fair, half of the stuff here should go to the war room, and the rest split between bug reports and suggestions.

I guess the moderation is too busy making a splendid game, which I'm very fine with! [:D]

Nice post Jdane.

I will keep this in mind with my current play through.

The game is packet with such flavour.

I bitterly recall a founder member of the "awkward squad" who sat for years in my Cabinet as head of the SHQ if I remember right in a previous play through. This individual was well paid, barely competent and resolutely opposed and grumbled about every decision the rest of the Cabinet were in favour of.

His card was marked so many times you could barely see the "Joker" image that was on it, but events always conspired to find more pressing issues so he continued to fester away with approval ratings of between 40 and 50%.

A few years went by until he found God (or more likely a fraudster guru) and joined what by then was a powerful cult.....

I should have been more careful...

A few years later I find him siphoning off money like it is going out of fashion, has become head of his own faction and seemingly on the verge of rebellion.....that was the final straw...taking a huge hit in popularity with the cult,his fellow faction members and costing me in PP I sacked him.

The same turn......in a final act of defiance he retired voluntarily due to old age .....one more bloody year and he would have gone anyway.....[:D]

I had to laugh.

I had too. [:D]
Thanks for sharing.

I am the High Lord of Skullshield (named it after the icon).

Everything goes pretty swimmingly. I have a nice bay near a big lake to start out from, I conquered some zones, made peace with others. Some Slaver gang attacked when we declined to buy slaves and a neighboring regime got a lot of very dubious 'Shadow Regiments' as secret reinforcements. Very intriguing.

I am Loved. My populace is the happiest they can be, in all my cities except the most recent conquered one (crushed the Shadow Regiments and the Regime that invited them into their ranks).

My Cabinet is very happy. Sure, there's 1 Governor and 1 Director I have to give medals and some credits once in a while, but doing that skyrockets their agreeableness from the 60s into the 90s.

But this one dude! My Secretary. He started when he was 18 years old. And he just hates my guts man. He's bad at his job. Very high Ambition. Very high Egoism. And his relation is stuck at 8.
8! Why? What does he have against me? Now *I* have become resentful.
I am just going to enjoy his misery every single time he walks up to my desk with barely withheld disgust and I am going to be friendly and polite and when he makes his move I will be ready. Will he ever though? This has been going on for so very long!

I'm ALSO just in the tail end of a decade of Corruption (35 turns) while my Democracy keeps getting hit by people wanting me to raise it (as contradictory as that may seem.. I ALSO want to raise it more and this why I decline their demands to raise it. And so it keeps falling.).

So far everyone still behaves. Except the absolute star of my cabinet: the Advisor who is my only Cap IV. He stole some money. Investigations are not roll-able.
Hmm, sudden idea: attach him to the guy who rolls these and make him complicit in his downfall (well, just returning the credits, I still like the guy)!

I have a cap V director of intelligence who has quietly murdered everyone who dares to have relations under 50, personally. I love this guy, tho if he ever rebelled I'm pretty sure I'd be toast.

I'm glad I started this and you people got on board.
Please keep it coming!

Imgur blog AAR currently detailing the start of my first major war. Will expand to cover the entire war (I've already fought it and am reviewing it using autosaves) over the weekend.

I've got to go finish a list to play some virtual 40K but I thought I would share what's does here for now.

I originally started writing this to provide a graphical illustration for disbelievers of what can be done with the logistics system even with strong constraints on truck station construction. It's kinda taken on a life of its own. Sorry for leaving the entry about my SHQ commander barely started and hanging mid-sentence. There's also an abrupt jump from the start of the war to the end. The end of war screens are still just illustrating my supply situation. I will remove them once the start of war section is done. Probably organise new galleries for each turn of the war. God that's twenty galleries. I don't know if my MCPs (metacarpophalangeal joints or knuckles) will take it. So much typing...

TBH, this is going to become more of a full AAR than this thread is intended for but it's nowhere near there yet. Might as well share the work in progress here until it's ready.

I had read the first draft you mentioned in the big logistics thread, and just saw you edited it some more. You seem to have way too much fun writing this, which is great. I suspect you're in fact an obscurely famous W40K fan fiction author.

This has gone deep in after-action report territory and would find it place over there, and indeed left the realm of amusing anecdotes which may or may not have been planned by Vic to happen, or be emergent narratives born from happy coincidences.

I've promised myself to play more of and read less about Shadow Empire, so I have not delved deeply into your story yet, but will sure do at some point.