After making that giant table, I do now uncharacteristically have a potentially controversial opinion/hot take. I think splitting up voting is good actually, and we could potentially get away with doing it even harder. Minimizing the number of trivial differences between plans is good, because it reduces cognitive load when voting (albeit not necessarily when making the plan) a lot.
Not allocating specific followers to "general" tasks has helped. Just think about how horrible the table would look and how much you'd have to cross reference with the Velvet actions added in, plus some plans having trivial differences for who exactly does what.
Looking at the table, I think there is actually even more room for improvement. It might actually help if the Bureau-related actions (Detectives, Constable, Commissioner) were put into a separate plan vote, which could even happen simultaneously with the rest of the follower vote. They all don't take follower actions, and thus don't affect any math with how many actions we use. It also seems dependencies like "the detectives are doing X, therefore we must have a follower do Y" are pretty rare? You could then isolate your thinking when answering each question. And any (same follower, different bureau) combo plans would also be eliminated; you could just vote for which you want separately.
(I was hoping to suggest more things to break off, but there are a lot more dependencies after this. Turn plans are complicated.)
eh, I think there's not much of a point in splitting off even more stuff.
This vote has NOT been that complex. the "general" follower actions definitely help, in that we don't even have to worry as much for things like "who do we keep on guard, Mareinette or Axe", we just let Bird pick. (though we can easily make assumptions on who's better at what, so if he does something differently we can at least be confident he has a reason as he'd have read our arguments for specific allocations)
It's also nice that, while the second part of the vote (Velvet) is in progress, nothing stops Bird from writing some of the confidant actions that are not affected by Velvet, getting ahead.
Also, a bit of an unrelated thought, but while we're talking about followers, I hope we're considering who we want to reveal Luna/Selene to.
- Nobody. Least chance of Luna's premature discovery. Maybe a bit boring/conservative if you ask me.
- All confidantes/minions except Cadance. Makes teamwork easier, and we don't have to come up with a new cover story or explain why a filly is attending the monthly meeting. (Don't forget that Jade already knows. I forget what we told Rarity actually.)
- All confidantes/minions and Cadance. There is more that can go wrong, but would give Cadance some extra hope. She might decide to demand that we go public or something, or accidentally leak the info. But keep in mind that after the wedding, she might pretty much be in confidante territory; she trusts our judgement a great deal already. And she is very likely to understand Celestia's erratic behavior requires discretion; she experienced it and mentioned it herself. And Luna/Cadance meeting would be a cool/poignant scene for Bird to write
. The one big problem is how to explain how it happened. Introducing Cadance to the lores may be too ambitious.
EDIT: As for names, definitely leave Mareinette out of this since we don't trust her. Baldomare probably knows already without us telling her. It's been noted already that Axe will probably have a funny moment re-meeting Luna.
Jade and Rarity already knew of Selene being Luna. Fluttershy doesn't, but we might bring her in. Problem is that if we tell her we might as well tell Comet, and... well, we'll see how things go later.
Honestly Comet could make for a good "knight" if he could be trusted, for a future night guard (or the bureau).
As for Cadance... I honestly want to tell her. I'm not sure this is the right moment though.
We have a decent enough story for now (Luna contacted me, she went into her sister's dreams and found out about Daybreaker, she wants to help but doesn't know quite how yet, we want you to help). We can pass off the lores as something LUNA taught us, if we want, at least for now. A special magic she discovered during her absence hiding and recovering.
We have a strong incentive in the "Once Celestia is sane again, we can heal Shining and Twilight. We can't do it right now because "too obvious"".
and if Cadance is even just partially in the know, we can heal our wounds with her present as proof.
Also also, we could then start teaching Cadance the Lores, and that would grant us sort of "another" name-tier ally, once she's trained to her "all-4" equivalent.
If we can't get the elements on our side (best case scenario, but with Twilight's condition it's unlikely), getting multiple names, Celestia and Cadance, is at least a decent backup plan.
or, ideally, a custom ritual.
as for Axe... funny, or
funny? Silky immediately knew there was something "wrong" with Selene. Will axe sense her and assume WE did something bad to her and she's now faking?
Yeah if we weren't in such a tearing hurry I'd be cautioning learning anything from Mareinette, Name-lessons being somewhat, alarming, at times.
eh, I'm not actually worried about lessons, and only minimally worried about influence.
For lessons, they're just that. Lessons. Up to Velvet how she uses that knowledge, and a scrap is a scrap. We got plenty from experiencing
WOLF stuff, and we already got a lesson from Mareinette.
It was basically a story about how someone is born, lives, has children and dies, carried by their natural desires and wants.
Influence worries me only slightly because it has been implied that a Name can potentially be aware of everything we're doing while under an Influence, as an Influence is
quite literally "the attention of the Hours" (or in this case of the Name, presumably).
Certainly planning Mareinette's death while under one of her influences would be
beyond foolish, in particular.
Because even if we kept the reroll the DC will be raised so we may not meet it anyways and even if we do the first action could've gotten us a dangerous Velvet.
...and? The DC would be higher the following turn anyway. This does NOT make things safer at all.
If we still have the reroll, there's functionally no positive difference in delaying the second roll, unless we expect we can get more bonuses.
Which we kinda can't. Our bonuses there will be our natural SH (won't change), the influence (would be the same unless we recasted the ritual or went to baldomare), the reroll (we'd only do the third sacrament action if we still had one), and learning (won't change).
so, if delaying doesn't make things safer, we might as well do them both together (as long as we have still a reroll) and hopefully get the Sacrament immediately.
That's, of course, if we do sacrament this turn at all.
Who already knew that Selene was Luna? Baldomare and Jade for sure. Did Rarity already know? I think so, but I can't remember.
Definitively not Candance. She had to live with Celestia since Luna first disappeared, she probably holds hope that she will go back to normal if Luna returns and explaining that there is a monster inside her... it is a bit hard to believe. Like, this is Celestia.
Not Fluttershy either, mostly because I am not sure she would keep him secret from Comet Feet.
here is my counter: Luna can tell her herself, and if we do this in a dream she can SHOW her what she saw.
and if Velvet also stands by what Luna says... I think we have very good chances of convincing Cadance.
that said, I'd still wait at least until Luna completes her training, and maybe until she decides a potential approach.
No reason in telling Cadance UNLESS we need Cadance for whatever plan we come up with.
Which we might, admittedly, especially if we give a shot to "Elements of Harmony restoration plan".
if we try some kind of custom ritual (some kind of evolution/improvement of Incision?), Cadance wouldn't be needed, probably.
Same, but I'm less opposed if it's a pony we don't personally care about as much like Filthy Rich. There might be choices in his social action, but I'm hopeful they will all get us money eventually? On the other hoof, she'd be likely to cross some ethical line.
Now I wish Mareinette were there to make the decision about making Twilight our minion for us 
.
I'm willing to accept it for Filthy Rich, though I still dislike it.
Well, keyblades can also lock things I'm pretty sure, while the Frangiclave only opens. But it's got a similar conceptual weight.
Also from what I remember it can be hidden under the tongue, which implies it's much smaller.
Keyblades also do weird things with "metaphysical" hearts, and they're supreme magical foci and weapons, yeah.
Frangiclave is just "the key that only opens". but it's probably similarly good in THAT aspect to a Keyblade.
- Scrying the key and a level 6 book I strongly agree with. Name retention is quite important. I will probably support anything that shores up our roster most of the time. (I hope we get to pick Baldomare's "go have fun" option eventually though.)
maybe once we're out of NEW names to summon? They're our largest expenses after all.
That, and possibly the new expeditions we'll likely start to do more of.
That said, while Mareinette, Axe, Selene and Velvet are basically all capable of soloing simpler expeditions, Baldomare is better left on support.
That's scrying, lessons, and yes, potentially the "go have fun" action.
I'm just not sure she'd get better stuff for us than what we can get by spending the same on expeditions.
We don't have much precedents for expeditions, but Canterlot part 1 was very efficient.
CANTERLOT PART 1
It took 3 days instead of 5. I THINK it was 7 bits per day, so we payed 21 bits.
We got
1) Knock lvl 2 artifact. standard value is, I think, 100 bits. (I think artifacts go 50-100-200-400. I'm only sure of lvl 1 = 50 (we saw it with moth 1) and lvl 3 = 200 (we saw it with Heartifact 3)). EVEN if we only use it as a reagent, it's still 20 bits.
2) Heart 4 reagent. value is 80 bits.
3)A location to use AotL in. let's pretend it's worth nothing.
4)unknown book. unknown value
5)ANOTHER expedition site. It's basically worth at least a follower action in that it takes us that at least to get a new expedition site, so... half an AP?
in any case, we got conservatively 180 bits of stuff for 21 bits and an Axe action. EVEN JUST THE HEART REAGENT would have been worth it, and we used it for Mareinette's summon (119 vs 100 DC)
One thing to note though, expedition sites discovered in this fashion will certainly be recorded in the Bureau's files and likewise be remembered by the investigative teams that uncover them. Expedition sites do tend to be memorable like that. Again, we hired the incorruptible investigators, not the bribable or conveniently forgetful investigators.
This in turn might jar with attempts at, "private enterprise" shall we say, if said sites are looted before the Bureau can get to them. It'd be great if we could get to a point of equipping and advancing our Bureau in the Lores X-Com style or what have you, but for our private means we probably want to avoid such an obvious paper trail.
depending on context, and if we don't do it too often, the sites having been checked by others before the Bureau is not too unbelievable.
and of course just because the bureau discovers a site we don't HAVE to send someone to explore it.
So you know, I completely forgot that we get to pick two places when we do Mansus actions with AP. Meaning that we could totally start on looking for where to bring Outsider blood and also do the Ruined Church expedition. Or maybe we'll want to explore the Wolf-Woods twice and see if there's anything interesting left over to find. Or some combination of the two.
Some locations take more than one "half-action" worth of search, to be fair. in particular the higher up in the Mansus.
Honestly I don't think we need to search for the blood thing now, and I'd rather explore other areas.
In particular I want Heart, and I suspect we might get some Heart from wolf areas. I'd also really like to explore the Depths of the Ruined Church if we can, we're basically All-4 and there's probably interesting rewards in there. Probably a new summon too.
@Pittauro
Looking at your plan...
What do you think, how often can we skip our work by pushing it off on the constables in a timeframe before its starting to be an issue, how urgently do we need the AP and how likely are we to need it in the near future?
I don't think it's fair to call it "skipping on work".
they work for us, we're having them deal with some of our paperwork. It's our right, if not the best look.
and I really don't know how often we'll need it.
I assume that if there's negative reputational consequences, the bureau loyalty action more than makes up for it. Of course we're giving up what Constables could accomplish on their own (so changeling investigation, sending them on "expeditions", and other stuff).
What do people think about trying to finish clearing out the lower floors of the Mansus before we start looking for where to bring Outsider blood? If the Wolfening of the Woods has completely 'reset' exploration progress, we should have 3 areas to find in the Wolf-Woods, 1 in the Shattered Stairways, and the Ruined Church Part 2. If there are no further Mansus expedition (which, admittedly, I wouldn't be surprised if there were more), we could clear things out with 1 AP this turn and 1 AP next turn. Or 2 AP this turn and next turn's free Knock exploration action. Wait nevermind, I forgot that Stairways locations have had obstacles. Well, we could still clear out the Wolf-Woods and (try to clear) the Ruined Church Part 2 this turn if we wanted to. Raw Prophets would give us a Grail spirit that isn't Mareinette, and the ex-Woods might have some Wolf-flavored summons to replace the Winged Shadows (Moth summon) and Percussiponies (Heart summon).
I'm kinda wondering... if we explore the Wolf areas, might we find something left of the Master? Maybe a small grove of trees barely survived and they're there, heavily weakened. It's not impossible, and I'm kinda curious.
Honestly I'm half considering spending TWO APs on Mansus exploration, in the hope of getting those Heart scraps. We can use anything except SH anyway, so maybe we'll get closer to other sacraments instead.
