V2: Chapter 6:

…

If I were a protagonist, things would somehow work for me in the end.

But I'm not a protagonist.

"Fuuuuucccckkkk." I let loose a curse, while looking over the reports. Progress in improving guns was deadlocked. No. Worse. We were being forced to practically restart. From how metal was being forged and formed, to how the alchemists needed to invent and relearn new ways to produce the required chemicals, just about everything needed to be redone. We were kicked back from manufacturing to R&D in a damn instant. Sometimes the rifling method made the barrel too weak and caused cracks, sometimes the new bullets didn't expand correctly and bounced along the barrel and wrecked it, and sometimes the packaging didn't hold up for the cartridges and ruined whole satchels of rounds. Sometimes the bullets wouldn't fly as far or as fast. "This is bullshit."

Now, I understood that I was making progress.

I've only been at the Academy for 1 turn, 4 months, and tech tree progress wasn't all or nothing in this world. Guns have rapidly changed from matchlock and smoothbore to percussion cap and rifling, even if it was shit at the moment. That's centuries of progress happening a few months. It was an immense amount of progress when historical context is taken into account.

But, still, I'm a gamer.

Numbers going down, events fucking me over, and things outside my control… all of it infuriated me more than I cared to admit. Doing everything right and still failing is a part of life, as a certain, bald starship captain said, but that didn't mean I had to abide by it or accept it! Devs, if you're somehow listening, fix the balancing of this game! It's hard enough without constant fuckups messing with my research progress, dammit!

I took a steadying breath and glanced around my office for a second, verifying that I was alone, before letting my head slump down and collide with the thick stack of reports on my table.

"At this rate, we're really going to be on the defensive for the next two years." Eight turns wasn't much in the grand scheme of things… in the late game. The early game was the part where you built power. The mid-game was where you proved that you had the strength to win. The late-game was where you clinched your victory. Finally, the end-game should be a victory lap or for pure style points. That was how things went if you properly followed the meta, otherwise the player is in for terrible, mind-numbing grind where they still might lose in the end. "It'll be cutting things close, but it should work."

It was all a matter of logistics and army experience.

Having gone through the output of the Citadels, taken in the populations of both the regions under my control, I could say that the early-game economy in-game was similar to what we had now. The gold coming in, the harvests we were getting, the birth rate, death rate, and manufacturing ability all resembled the simplified numbers and statistics that would otherwise just be in the upper right corner of the screen. From my estimates, and records of the bills for maintaining our current armies, if we went full-bore on army-building we could have two more full stacks in the next two years without endangering our reserves, but cutting down our input of gold by half.

Two stacks of early-game infantry isn't anything to sneeze at. Early game troops, with armor upgrades, weapon upgrades, and Champion support were chunky and dealt decent damage. With micromanagement, you could easily beat the AI's midgame armies, especially when you reinforced one army with another right beside it. The old strategy of having more men than the other side worked spectacularly… but the issue came with veterancy and opportunity cost.

If I built these armies now, the main DPS source will be mages, and those mages will need to be replaced. Sure, riflemen can be trained more quickly once I had the guns and ammo figured out, but everything that a mage killed, every battle that a mage fought, was one that a rifleman didn't. It was institutional knowledge being lost, experience that could've gone to a unit that was serviceable in the late-game, whereas mages were barely functional.

EXP was going to be wasted, therefore money was going to be wasted, and it made my blood boil.

"…Well, if it's gotta be that way, then I need to change gears." The current plan Khanrow had was exactly as I said before. Build two full armies and the logistical chain each one required to project force. Since the composition was going to be halfway filled with useless people who'll just be throwing out sub-par projectiles, instead of people who'll be throwing out excellent projectiles at six rounds a minute, I needed to put a stop to the plan. "Looks like we're building tall instead of going wide."

The supported both strategies, so naturally the forums were filled with fanatics about one side or the other. The tall strategy was the same as any other 4X game. High quality regions and Citadels, with a limited army to minimize maintenance cost, and investment of most funds into more improvements. The wide strategy was riskier than other games, since the AI were more than willing to band together and kill a budding hegemon, even in the early game. Still, tactics and methods were made to rapidly take over three or four Citadels and their regions in the early game, and pumping out armies whilst holding on against the onslaught the remaining factions brought to bear.

Though I initially planned to go wide, if I managed to get the weapons early, that wasn't happening now.

I just had to accept the truth that I wasn't going to miraculously find the Ancient Research that I wanted to find and change course before I fucked up.

"We need our own University first, then we need to turn the surrounding towns into cities. Maybe, the people we helped out will be willing to move in?" Population was rising quickly, but it wasn't rising quickly enough. There was no way in hell that we were going to reach the million mark in the next ten years, even if every woman in both regions were pregnant nonstop. Not only that, but there were less and less people coming in from the unconquered lands, because in reality, millions of people couldn't exist in a hellhole where warlords killed each other for sport and one bad crop season wiped out whole towns. Even with access to better care, better food, and safer places, our population wasn't going to skyrocket that quickly. "Quality definitely has to come first."

I needed to force certain events to happen.

Military Academy, University, and Sorcerer's School were the main buildings that had a chance of triggering them. Units could start as Veterans, could have a 5% modifier to their passive and active skills, or shoot a bit faster with the right event. The only requirement was that the building existed and the event would trigger. But each buildings' maintenance cost increased with the number of troops you had. It was a choice between lots of rabble that would be lucky to survive battles and gain EXP, or undermanned armies of great troops that could be brought together into big armies when needed.

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If you went wide, you wanted hordes that you could replace, so you don't need to build any of the buildings.

However, as I already said, population wasn't infinite in this world and by all statistics we had available… we weren't getting a millions of people to pull from in fifty years, let alone twenty.

I took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of my nose.

I didn't have a migraine, thankfully, but I was getting stressed.

"One letter to try and move our economy and strategies to the right place, then I'll get some rest." I leaned back, while fetching my quill and paper from the drawer of my desk. I longed for the days of email, hell, even a typewriter would be amazing, but I practiced enough to be legible. I could have someone scribe it for me and send it out, but Khanrow was technically dead. Therefore, I had to get messages to him by giving them to Riegert through Khanrow's spy network via dead-drops. "Here's hoping we can stall out the other faction's aggression… or that they're not stupid."

The biggest problem about playing tall in-game was that you could be perceived as weak with your half-full armies running around. The forums, despite all the efforts of the devs, were filled with mocking posts about AI being easily baited by one-unit armies and being unable to run away when that army joined up with a dozen others to crush them. It was the limitation of an electronic mind, so I hoped that the same wouldn't be the case here.

Because, if it was, I'm not sure that I can stop myself from chipping away at my enemies and going wide anyway.

Every other faction, in my eyes, wasn't doing nearly as well as they should and wasting time.

If they kept fucking around with their suboptimal bullshit, they'll get rolled over and won't even serve as ablative.

Must.

Resist.

Urge.

To.

Conquer.

Everything.

For.

Biggest.

Numbers.

Oh, and surviving, I guess.

…

Interlude: Khanrow.

…

"So, has the newest letter told you why he asked for everything short of how many men are bearded in our lands?"

I nodded as I gingerly placed the letter down.

"He has and it has been enlightening." I'd questioned the necessity of all the trivial information Jack had requested. At first, I believed that he wanted to ensure that the men we had were trustworthy, then I believed he wished to make decisions that were as well-informed as possible. However, with the newest letter sent our way, I realized the truth. "He has sent the beginnings of his plan for his kingdom for the next ten years."

Riegert nearly spit out his beer.

"I… huh… I don't know why I'm surprised." The titan scratched the back of his head and then rubbed his red beard. Over the last few years, a few gray hears sprouted upon it and his mane. In another decade, his strength will begin to fade, as mine had. "I should've expected that he'd be up to something when Ilych told me the classes barely matter to him."

"He outstrips all his peers and even his upperclassmen in theoretical studies, but this is beyond what the Academy could offer." I shook my head. The establishment of a centers for learning solely for mages, military officers, and scholars. Though I'd known the ancients had such things, I'd never considered them an option with all the threats around us. However, Jack rightly pointed out that we were strong enough to defend ourselves, but not strong enough to fight against our foes. That gave us the defensive advantage and so we must make use of it by investing into our people and elevating them as much as we were able. "He intends to revitalize the educational methods of the Ancients, instead of using our current treasury on armies. We will be maintaining and training who we already have, but besides that…"

"We use the defender's advantage and everything the Citadel gave us to hold the line, until the new blood we need comes through stronger than what we could hope to make now." Riegert, ever the scholar of ancient culture and life, brightened at the thought. "Tell me how I can help, and I'll get it done. This is the perfect way to try and bring back the glory that we've lost as a people."

"You're too important as of now to become a headmaster of your own Academy. I need referrals, not your direct aid, old friend." Riegert huffed at my words, while I gave him a shake of my head. I turned my gaze back to the plan and the information that Jack had requested. All these innocuous little details created a infallible argument for the plan Jack created. I couldn't deny that guarding what we had and becoming stronger was ideal with our current position, especially with so many watching us with care. However, there was another way to us this knowledge. "How difficult do you believe it would be to gain this information from other lands?"

Riegert paused at my words, once again scratching his beard, and spoke after taking a sip of his beer.

"Depends on the people. Some spread news with their town criers. Obituaries are common enough in small towns, and more than a few families declare the birth of their children. Things like how much gold is being spent and how much food is being gathered… that'll be more difficult."

"So, they guard their gold and food, but not their people from which both stem. Hm. We're doing the same." Information is key to all things. An errant lie can devastate a whole noble house. The truth can make a kingdom topple. More than a few of my former colleagues fell from grace from dizzying heights thanks to singular breakages in trust. Yet, now, I held at my disposal the means to interpret and plan around the populations of whole regions. "We need to begin consolidating that information as well. Let no one know how much people we truly have. It is the best way to obfuscate the truth."

"Aye, I see that now too. With the people taken into account, then the gold and food can be surmised." Riegert nodded and drew the correct conclusion as always. Numbers were always important to us both in battle. The amount of bodies needed and wealth to pay each one in a war camp was dizzying. Knowing how many people our foes had was always essential to our plans, so why should we not do the same and more now against our foes, while keeping our own secret? "I'll go through the people I can trust and find some scholars who'll be willing to work as teachers. "

"Do that, and I'll begin gathering what we need."

Riegert nodded, finished his mug, and left my sanctum.

Once more I spied the gray hairs on his beard, then I looked upon my own hands.

Every passing year, it looked thinner, more liver-spotted, and wrinkled than the last.

I am past my prime, and I should retire… but not yet.

Not yet.

There is still more that I can do even with my now feeble form.