Pre-industrial Fantasy STGOD OOC/Rules Thread:

[madd0ct0r]

I do look forward to your posts. Especially after breakfast.

[The Romulan Republic]

Just to let everyone known, I probably won't be around much until Sunday or Monday due to being busy with a real life project which I absolutely cannot neglect.

I will probably look in once this thread once a day at least. If I miss anything important, feel free to PM me.

I should get back to making story posts Sunday or Monday, hopefully.

Apologies for any delay to story lines resulting from this.

[madd0ct0r]

me and EF are still settling the battle post, in the meantime, one of my other storylines can move along a little.

[Raw Shark]

I do look forward to your posts. Especially after breakfast.

Thanks! I try to keep it fun, or at least weird...

[Eternal_Freedom]

You certainly succeed at the "weird" part.

[madd0ct0r]

Yeah. Yesterday I was starting on the naval expansion to my order of battle generator, and I got to 'CARRIERS' and I thought 'nobody will be that crazy.' Nice to be proved wrong.

[Raw Shark]

Bearing in mind that I'm only proposing support frigates attached to large fleets (so far), I will gladly stand here and hold the door to Crazy Town open for you all.

[Simon_Jester]

Phew! Glad to have that done!

Big honking post detailing a meeting of the Ohioan upper council (equivalent to a privy council in most nations; the full royal council is much larger). Louis X is a very young king, keenly aware of his own royal prerogatives and convinced that he was divinely chosen to lead his nation and govern it in every detail.

There are, and we know this to be true thanks to Raw Shark, gods in this setting with less sense of the proper pomp and majesty of their rank than Louis X has.

On the other hand, at the moment Louis' royal council includes his own mother. Also Cardinal Julia Mazzarini of the Church of the Living Stars, a chief minister whose real-life analogue was the sort of person Terry Pratchett was thinking of when he created Lord Vetinari.

So Louis still having some trouble making his government run the way he wants it to.

Anyway, the gameplay consequences are discussed at the bottom of the post and are things I've already been talking about:
-Preparations for the siege of Detroit
-Approaches to Assiniboia regarding naval cooperation
-Approaches to Orion and the Dragon Kingdoms for purchase of medium/heavy artillery pieces
-Sale of war bonds annuities to finance the war.

Note that the annuities are not a thing that costs points in gameplay terms. Ohio has the troops it needs to prosecute the campaign it plans, but in real life soldiers have to be paid, equipped, and supplied, and all of that takes money.

Also, aside from instruments specifically intended to be used during the siege, I am not spending points on the troops that will be sent to Detroit. Like real 17th century nations, Ohio depends in large part on the great princes and dukes of its territory to help raise and lead its army, and raising all those soldiers takes time. These are soldiers that are part of my military (that is, the 270000 points I haven't already allocated to the navy and the Order of the White Star).

It's just that in many cases they are assembled for war by sending an order to some noble who will rally the appropriate number of soldiers to his own banner. Only a part of the overall 270000 points is actually a true standing army, and the part raised by the nobles is in a real sense the Empire's "reserve" not already committed to garrisoning some particular front of the imperial border.

[Imperial528]

I'm an algebra teacher half the time, so having a bunch of known relationships among unknown-value variables doesn't bother me. Could you PM me a listing where the locations are named "A," "B," "C," and so on?" At least I wouldn't be staring into a vacuum on my eastern border. And who knows, I might be able to help you name things.

For the other two major states I'm thinking a Germanic one and an English one, while the minor states probably won't be mentioned in detail for now, likely when they get involved in the RP.

Yaaay! I am SO glad to have a definitive answer on that!

The Ohio Valley is a major grain exporter, and was capable of being so even before railroad infrastructure, so among other things, the odds are good that your nation hasn't had a famine in a looong time.

Also, surprisingly cheap Ohioan whiskey! We may be dumb enough to get trolled into banning chocolate, but that doesn't mean we can't have any fun.

Heh, OTL New York is also pretty big on farming. That said I'm aiming for a lower-than-expected population density, so the agricultural capacity of the Adirondack Commonwealth will be considerably under-utilized. By my last calculations at a population density of fifty people per square mile, and my estimated land area of about 107,000 square miles, the population of the Commonwealth should be around five million. Which seems rather low to me, as intended, but I've not got much of a sense of how population should scale for this time period.

What's to mutter about?

The only really critical technology needed to dig canals that isn't reliably present in a fantasy setting is gunpowder for blasting. There are lots of magical alternatives, and for that matter the technology level of the setting suggests gunpowder has been available for at least 200 years or so in principle. The Ohioans built a major canal, comparable in length though not as hard to build to the "Grand Atlantic Canal" (Ohioan name for the OTL Erie Canal Imperial528's got). And all they had was oxen, guys with shovels, and occasional uses of low-grade blasting powder.

The existence of the canal is perfectly plausible to me, magic or no magic. It sounds like the state of Davinium certainly has, and had, at least the same resources as the 1820s state of New York, which historically dug the canals.

Really, the biggest obstacle to canal-building in pre-industrial times, at least in parts of the world that aren't utterly forbidding and horrible to live in like the Sinai or the Isthmus of Panama, is just having governments stable and organized enough to oversee the construction.

Indeed, though of note are ancient canals as well, built long before powder or many medieval and later labor-enhancing innovations. Davinium preserved the engineering knowledge from Not!Rome, and invested greatly in structural engineering necessary for the construction of a city built primarily in stone, so they definitely have the ability to construct it, especially so when you consider their close relations with the mages. My thoughts on the Atlantic Canal can be summed up as Davinium constructing it piecemeal over some decades to better spread out the finances, and using each leg to aid in the construction of the next. That said I'm not well versed in the details of canal construction so it may well be that building it all in one go would be the better option.

I've gotten more stuff filled in on my map here: http://i.imgur.com/wJyOz8n.png

For Kingdom A I'm think of an Anglo-Norse sort of deal, and a Germanic culture for B. However I would like to try to keep those two as indigenous cultures, so it would be nice to know the rough cultural makeup around the Atlantic coast.
For a key, solid squares are mundane cities, empty squares are fortified towns or military bastions, and circles are mage cities. Polisaurum, the "City of Gold" (yes yes, not very creative, I know) is the Commonwealth's capital city, being the largest and most influential of the mage cities. I've some more loose thoughts I'm working on assembling, will probably dump them here in an hour or so.

[Simon_Jester]

I'm an algebra teacher half the time, so having a bunch of known relationships among unknown-value variables doesn't bother me. Could you PM me a listing where the locations are named "A," "B," "C," and so on?" At least I wouldn't be staring into a vacuum on my eastern border. And who knows, I might be able to help you name things.

For the other two major states I'm thinking a Germanic one and an English one, while the minor states probably won't be mentioned in detail for now, likely when they get involved in the RP.

I'd just like a clue as to the geography since it has direct implications for my nation's strategies.

Heh, OTL New York is also pretty big on farming. That said I'm aiming for a lower-than-expected population density, so the agricultural capacity of the Adirondack Commonwealth will be considerably under-utilized. By my last calculations at a population density of fifty people per square mile, and my estimated land area of about 107,000 square miles, the population of the Commonwealth should be around five million. Which seems rather low to me, as intended, but I've not got much of a sense of how population should scale for this time period.

Your best bet would be to try to find out how much arable land there is in those states; that's a common metric which is often available from basic reference sources if you spend ten minutes Googling. Then apply the kind of population density per square mile of arable land you'd expect from the 18th century.

One major catch is that large portions of upstate New York and New England are mountainous. Most of the 'available' land is halfway up a mountainside and/or heavily forested with thick tangles of vegetation, and actual settlement occurs only in the bottoms of valleys.

What's to mutter about?

The only really critical technology needed to dig canals that isn't reliably present in a fantasy setting is gunpowder for blasting. There are lots of magical alternatives, and for that matter the technology level of the setting suggests gunpowder has been available for at least 200 years or so in principle. The Ohioans built a major canal, comparable in length though not as hard to build to the "Grand Atlantic Canal" (Ohioan name for the OTL Erie Canal Imperial528's got). And all they had was oxen, guys with shovels, and occasional uses of low-grade blasting powder.

The existence of the canal is perfectly plausible to me, magic or no magic. It sounds like the state of Davinium certainly has, and had, at least the same resources as the 1820s state of New York, which historically dug the canals.

Really, the biggest obstacle to canal-building in pre-industrial times, at least in parts of the world that aren't utterly forbidding and horrible to live in like the Sinai or the Isthmus of Panama, is just having governments stable and organized enough to oversee the construction.

Indeed, though of note are ancient canals as well, built long before powder or many medieval and later labor-enhancing innovations. Davinium preserved the engineering knowledge from Not!Rome, and invested greatly in structural engineering necessary for the construction of a city built primarily in stone, so they definitely have the ability to construct it, especially so when you consider their close relations with the mages. My thoughts on the Atlantic Canal can be summed up as Davinium constructing it piecemeal over some decades to better spread out the finances, and using each leg to aid in the construction of the next. That said I'm not well versed in the details of canal construction so it may well be that building it all in one go would be the better option.

The problem is that having "a little bit" of the Atlantic Canal is like being "a little bit" pregnant; the canal isn't very useful unless it runs all the way from the Great Lakes to the Hudson River. No part of the canal is particularly hard to build from the point of view of someone like the Romans except maybe the task of getting the canal up the Niagara Escarpment (a sixty foot stone cliff).

But really, given the option of magic, and assuming your confederacy has controlled the relevant territory, there's no reason to assume the canal shouldn't exist if its OTL path has been under control for a long period. It'd certainly have been built by now.

That gives you a lot more freedom to bring your nation's economic and military influence to bear on Lake Erie (which Ohio would probably be dominating unless you do choose to invest considerable resources into it), and gives you access to commodities shipped from far inland to bolster your commerce and make you a more effective economic rival to Orion.

Historically, one of the biggest reasons New York became the dominant city in the northeastern part of North America, far more prominent than nearby cities like Boston or the cities of eastern Canada, is because traffic along the Erie Canal made it a major trading hub not only for its own immediate surroundings, but also for big parts of the American Midwest.

I've gotten more stuff filled in on my map here: http://i.imgur.com/wJyOz8n.png

Nice. Although my border is supposed to run more north-by-northwest, not west-by-northwest; I figure Ohio controls about one third of the southern shore of Lake Erie directly and may well have reduced some of the minor polities on the lake to dependent-ally status.

For Kingdom A I'm think of an Anglo-Norse sort of deal, and a Germanic culture for B. However I would like to try to keep those two as indigenous cultures, so it would be nice to know the rough cultural makeup around the Atlantic coast.

What do you mean by that? The culture of the Native Americans is very different from Anglo-Norse or Germanic culture.

For a key, solid squares are mundane cities, empty squares are fortified towns or military bastions, and circles are mage cities. Polisaurum, the "City of Gold" (yes yes, not very creative, I know) is the Commonwealth's capital city, being the largest and most influential of the mage cities. I've some more loose thoughts I'm working on assembling, will probably dump them here in an hour or so.

Nice. Um, question, ARE there any small entities in your confederation? It sounds like the whole thing is just three allied kingdoms.

[Imperial528]

The problem is that having "a little bit" of the Atlantic Canal is like being "a little bit" pregnant; the canal isn't very useful unless it runs all the way from the Great Lakes to the Hudson River. No part of the canal is particularly hard to build from the point of view of someone like the Romans except maybe the task of getting the canal up the Niagara Escarpment (a sixty foot stone cliff).

But really, given the option of magic, and assuming your confederacy has controlled the relevant territory, there's no reason to assume the canal shouldn't exist if its OTL path has been under control for a long period. It'd certainly have been built by now.

I figured. Then it can be assumed it was probably constructed within the span of at most two decades, though this includes planning and fundraising.

For dealing with the escarpment, I imagine the construction of a staircase lock wouldn't be out of the question.

What do you mean by that? The culture of the Native Americans is very different from Anglo-Norse or Germanic culture.

I mean similar to cultures established on the continent already in the game. I.e., if there are already Anglo-Saxons, Norse/Normans, and Germanic peoples, then ideally the ones in my nation would have come from them or adopted such culture as their own due to proximity.

For indigenous I mean that there should be a consistency of cultures. This may be a fantasy world set on North America, but it just feels wrong to say "There are Germans and Brits here" without said Germans and Brits being consistent with the peoples around them. As it is, I am assuming that the current cultural and ethnic groups in the game are, for the purposes of history, native to at least a good chunk of their lands, or at least native to SOME land on the continent, unless stated otherwise.

Nice. Um, question, ARE there any small entities in your confederation? It sounds like the whole thing is just three allied kingdoms.

Yes, mostly on inter-kingdom borders. However, they are generally subordinate to the larger kingdoms. That, and I haven't thought of them yet. My mind's image of the nation is currently too low a resolution to render them, so to speak. They are there, and I can tell you roughly where they are, but it's a bit hazy. Or very hazy, really.

[Simon_Jester]

I figured. Then it can be assumed it was probably constructed within the span of at most two decades, though this includes planning and fundraising.

That's exactly how they did it in real life.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erie_Canal

Proposed in 1807, construction began in 1817, finished in 1825.

For dealing with the escarpment, I imagine the construction of a staircase lock wouldn't be out of the question.

Well yes, that's exactly how they did it in real life. The trick is doing it without using gunpowder to blast through the comparatively large volume of rock involved, which is going to require some kind of cool technique or a lot of manual labor.

If it were Ohio doing it, I'd say gunpowder was used- but you may have a different answer to that question.

I mean similar to cultures established on the continent already in the game. I.e., if there are already Anglo-Saxons, Norse/Normans, and Germanic peoples, then ideally the ones in my nation would have come from them or adopted such culture as their own due to proximity.

Orion is Generically Western European-Ish. Ohioan culture is implied to be pretty similar to that of 1700-era France, overlaid on a star-worshipping religion that was practiced by the previous wave of civilizations in the Ohio Valley (which the modern Ohioan culture overlaid, much as Germanic invaders overlaid Roman culture in the Western Roman Empire).

For indigenous I mean that there should be a consistency of cultures. This may be a fantasy world set on North America, but it just feels wrong to say "There are Germans and Brits here" without said Germans and Brits being consistent with the peoples around them. As it is, I am assuming that the current cultural and ethnic groups in the game are, for the purposes of history, native to at least a good chunk of their lands, or at least native to SOME land on the continent, unless stated otherwise.

Since most of the players are shameless Eurocentrists, pretty much everything east of the Mississippi is populated by nations that just plain don't look that different from western Europe, except for the presence of magical or fantastic elements.

I wouldn't worry about it if I were you.

Nice. Um, question, ARE there any small entities in your confederation? It sounds like the whole thing is just three allied kingdoms.

Yes, mostly on inter-kingdom borders. However, they are generally subordinate to the larger kingdoms. That, and I haven't thought of them yet. My mind's image of the nation is currently too low a resolution to render them, so to speak. They are there, and I can tell you roughly where they are, but it's a bit hazy. Or very hazy, really.

Okay, well I'd definitely like a good sense of what the situation looks like on your western border; other things are less of a concern for me.

[Eternal_Freedom]

@Simon, having read through your post, I have had a realization regarding Orion diplomacy, namely that people will be able to negotiate with the Orion government far quicker than might be the case, since all of my Embassies have duty Telepaths.

So for a speedy response, go to our Embassy in your capital, rather than your embassy in Hephaestus.

[madd0ct0r]

ok, first run of the navy builder expansion to the order of battle generator. I have no idea what range of numbers it should be outputting - could someone who knows more about boats take a glance?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

[Simon_Jester]

Well, once again you have all this stuff about 'durability' and 'mass' and 'speed' and I honestly don't understand what it's all supposed to be for.

You can get my take on the point values of light fighting ships by looking at my entry in the Order of Battle thread, which doesn't have a complete army order of battle but does list all my ships, though not the precise locations where they all operate.

The lightest vessels which can realistically be described as a "warship" would include things like an oar-powered riverboat with a dozen or so rowers, a swivel gun, and a squad of marines. I place that at 25 points, plus or minus a few. Galleys armed with small numbers of cannon would tend upwards into the high double digits.

A ship-rigged sloop of war with 12-20 guns of medium caliber would be, I estimate, typically around 200 points. A heavy frigate with about twice the guns, a thicker hull, and probably some heavier artillery might push up to 500-600, and ships of the line could easily be worth 1000 points or so. This has the advantage that a nation with 300000 points could roughly reproduce the historical Royal Navy of the late age of sail... but only at the cost of much of their points, as Britain invested most of their points into the RN in real life.

[Simon_Jester]

@Simon, having read through your post, I have had a realization regarding Orion diplomacy, namely that people will be able to negotiate with the Orion government far quicker than might be the case, since all of my Embassies have duty Telepaths.

So for a speedy response, go to our Embassy in your capital, rather than your embassy in Hephaestus.

Ah.

By the by, though, it would be the usual Ohioan practice for an ambassador to the court of one of the great powers (minor powers don't really rate a permanent embassy) to be given plenipotentiary authority.

That is to say, there's an Ohioan ambassador present in the Assiniboine capital, and he isn't in psychic contact with home, but it doesn't matter. Because if he signs an agreement, then the honor of the monarchy is involved and they will honor that agreement unless evidence of coercion or some other gross wickedness or incompetence or other dickery comes to light. On the flip side of that, there's a good chance that the ambassador in question is the king's second cousin at any given time; people given this authority are vetted and trusted.

The Commonwealth probably has a similar arrangement in Louisville.

The only reason there's a need for long distance couriers here is because a plenipotentiary would not initiate something as far-reaching as an agreement to wage war without some kind of instructions from home.

...

However, I've just decided that while the might of Orion and the frequency of empire-to-empire correspondence and negotiations between the two powers would normally warrant it, Ohio does not have a "minister plenipotentiary" permanently detached to Orion.

Thus, the Ohioan envoy to the court in Hephaestus is a glorified functionary with no power to sign agreements that his government will consider binding; his main job is to look out for routine commercial and other such interests that require on the spot representation that cannot possibly be handled "over the phone" or by a chain of telepathic messengers.

Which also neatly removes the concern that your people will use foul mind-witchery to befuddle the poor ambassador to within an inch of his life. Or rather, it doesn't, it just makes it pointless to do so.

On the other hand, we can call you very easily, as you yourself point out- and vice versa. So it doesn't actually impede diplomatic relations between the two powers.

[Simon_Jester]

@Simon, having read through your post, I have had a realization regarding Orion diplomacy, namely that people will be able to negotiate with the Orion government far quicker than might be the case, since all of my Embassies have duty Telepaths.

So for a speedy response, go to our Embassy in your capital, rather than your embassy in Hephaestus.

Ah.

By the by, though, it would be the usual Ohioan practice for an ambassador to the court of one of the great powers (minor powers don't really rate a permanent embassy) to be given plenipotentiary authority.

That is to say, there's an Ohioan ambassador present in the Assiniboine capital, and he isn't in psychic contact with home, but it doesn't matter. Because if he signs an agreement, then the honor of the monarchy is involved and they will honor that agreement unless evidence of coercion or some other gross wickedness or incompetence or other dickery comes to light. On the flip side of that, there's a good chance that the ambassador in question is the king's second cousin at any given time; people given this authority are vetted and trusted.

The Commonwealth probably has a similar arrangement in Louisville.

The only reason there's a need for long distance couriers here is because a plenipotentiary would not initiate something as far-reaching as an agreement to wage war without some kind of instructions from home. Not that they don't have the power to do so, but because it would be grossly counterproductive for them to do so without instructions from their own central government, as this would not result in a coordinated war effort.

...

However, I've just decided that while the might of Orion and the frequency of empire-to-empire correspondence and negotiations between the two powers would normally warrant it, Ohio does not have a "minister plenipotentiary" permanently detached to Orion.

Thus, the Ohioan envoy to the court in Hephaestus is a glorified functionary with no power to sign agreements that his government will consider binding; his main job is to look out for routine commercial and other such interests that require on the spot representation that cannot possibly be handled "over the phone" or by a chain of telepathic messengers.

Which also neatly removes the concern that your people will use foul mind-witchery to befuddle the poor ambassador to within an inch of his life. Or rather, it doesn't, it just makes it pointless to do so.

On the other hand, we can call you very easily, as you yourself point out- and vice versa. So it doesn't actually impede diplomatic relations between the two powers.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I expected your Ambassadors to have plenipotentiary powers, given the setting. I can even understand why you don't retain a full Ambassador in Hephaestus (hell, given my Telepathic communications network, I would be surprised if anyone kept an Ambassador with plenipotentiary powers in my capital. This just saves time.

In that regard, my Ambassadors to foreign courts most assuredly do not hold plenipotentiary powers except under extraordinary circumstances when specifically ordered by the Emperor. They function much more like "modern" diplomats in that regard; acting as primary points of contact for foreign governments. You'll still get a speedy response, with the added bonus of knowing exactly what is available for sale/lease etc. my Embassy in Louisville would also be a way to get in touch with some of our largest banks on the war-bonds issue as well, since all businesses maintain Telepaths as well.

[Simon_Jester]

Heh.

Well, some of the annuities will be bought up by domestic moneylenders; still waiting to see how that works. As to foreign buyers, Orion is still my lender of last resort for story reasons.

Cardinal Mazzarini did her homework on this months ago, specifically foreseeing the opportunity to do an end-run around the treasurer in the interests of the state in case any major military campaigns or other new expenses arose.

So there's actually been a reasonable amount of time for negotiations to proceed on the purchase agreement. As noted, her metaphorical twin brother is the sort of person Terry Pratchett had in mind when writing Vetinari.

Mazzarini is competent- more than that, she's arguably brilliant.* They'll never find another like her to replace her, not for generations. But she's three times Louis X's age and has been effectively running Ohio with some assistance from the Empress Dowager for just about the entire time he's been alive. She just... does stuff, without even bothering to consult him, then retroactively seeks permission after the fact.

Which is why she drives Louis nuts.
___________

*I know, I know, show, don't tell, but writing brilliant diplomats and intriguers in an STGOD is tough.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I understand that, but since the idea of war-bonds is relatively new in this setting, you may not find many banks willing to offer loans at such low interest...mwahaha

[Simon_Jester]

The flip side of that is that they offer interest literally forever, and (even as modified) the buyback clause requires that the bonds be redeemed at more than face value (an amount specified in advance).

So you loan Ohio a thousand pounds, they pay back sixty pounds a year... forever... and if they ever want to stop paying, they are required to pay more than one thousand pounds to make the pain stop. From the point of view of the banks, it's win-win.

Granted, there's some risk of Louis X declaring "screw you, we're not paying," but if anything the risk of this is less than it would be with a 'traditional' medieval or Renaissance loan when interest rates were in the neighborhood of twenty percent or more.
________________

And it's not like there's much risk of the Ohioan Empire's tax receipts (their income stream) vanishing in the next ten or twenty years, the average banker would figure. Just about everyone in Ohio capable of rebelling already took their best shot, and lost, recently.

I wouldn't be surprised if Orion banks end up purchasing some of the annuities, but I also wouldn't be surprised if they wind up scattered across half the continent and traded around after the Ohioan government actually keeps paying the interest for a few years. Which, yes, they seriously intend to do.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Fair enough.

I wonder, if the Orion Central Bank purchased war bonds from a nation (not necessarily Ohio, just pondering here) and then, say, ten years later the nation has a new government/ruler that refuses to make any more payments or buy out the loan, is that sufficient cause to declare war?

[Esquire]

Guess who's got two thumbs and a story post up? This guy!

Light on plot developments, but I'm just trying to introduce my nation and one of the prime characters. Let me know what you all think!

[Raw Shark]

Sooooooo, Simon_Jester, is there a decision-making ambassador in Tenochtitlan? if so, how would Ohio react to a very large offer of slaves and/or silver, nominally extended and largely-funded by some of our most powerful Pochteca-princes, but probably originating from, or at least given the sanguinary blessings of, the Aztlan Theocracy? Funding bloodshed so far from our borders and shipping lanes will not only generate relatively-safe profits, but also please the gods. It should, however, be noted that while our silver is of top-notch quality, you won't find very good slave labor here; the strongest and most beautiful prisoners feed the gods, while those that even they don't want are put to work. The merchant envoys wear magnificent quetzal-feather hats, if that influences your decision process at all. ;]

~~~~~~~~~

Speaking of Discworld, it just occurred to me that the term "God-Botherer" probably means something very different south of the Huey-Coatl river...

"Do my eyes deceive me, or does that beggar have a full-sized horse's ass for a head?"

"Indeed. Probably a god-botherer."

[Simon_Jester]

Sooooooo, Simon_Jester, is there a decision-making ambassador in Tenochtitlan? if so, how would Ohio react to a very large offer of slaves and/or silver, nominally extended and largely-funded by some of our most powerful Pochteca-princes, but probably originating from, or at least given the sanguinary blessings of, the Aztlan Theocracy? Funding bloodshed so far from our borders and shipping lanes will not only generate relatively-safe profits, but also please the gods. It should, however, be noted that while our silver is of top-notch quality, you won't find very good slave labor here; the strongest and most beautiful prisoners feed the gods, while those that even they don't want are put to work. The merchant envoys wear magnificent quetzal-feather hats, if that influences your decision process at all. ;]

Ohioans do not practice slavery, and even stopped practicing serfdom about a couple of centuries ago, although some of their peasants are not happy about the various 'rights of the seigneur' that are still practiced.

The idea of a financial deal with the Aztecs is... hm. Interesting. The official stance of the Ohioan church is that you're devil-worshippers just as much as the Detroiters are, correction, more so than the Detroiters are; there are such a wide variety of devils out there. It's why we made chocolate illegal. It is far too yummy to be a normal food, so it is obviously a demonic trick!

I like the idea of having some of the annuities be purchased by the Aztecs, now I just need to work out how to make it work and what to do with it.

On a side note, hats definitely exert subtle influence on Ohioan decision-making. Ohioan hats are, in all their baroque glory, superior to almost any others, and Aztecs may be among the few peoples capable of giving them hat envy.