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

[Greymere]

I'm a bit new around here so maybe I'm missing something, but can you explain why optimizing Bureau Lores is a thing we should really care about? The daybreaker clock has a solid chance of firing on Turn 24 or 25, so we're probably >50% to go All-In at the end of one of those. And if not, likely the turn after.

It seems to me that levelling up our cultBureau is a longer-term investment; it's not clear to me how much it helps us in the small number of turns that probably remain.

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Potential ritual support, mainly. Even if we're willing to run the risk of doing 3-circle rituals in a barn and eating suspicion, it'd still be better for us if we could get a dedicated, unsuspicious spot to do them in and reacquire a cadre bonus.

There is, technically, also the possibility that getting the Bureau to max Lores will grant us some sort of benefit toward all in, but who knows.

 

[Pittauro]

also unless ending literally ends with Velvet being omnipotent (and even Hours are not REALLY omnipotent), presumably the state of the Wake and everything we've done and left undone will matter at least somewhat narratively.

We don't even know if Velvet will continue as the head of the Bureau or leave to live in the Mansus, or anything else. We don't know what will happen once we pass the Tricuspid at all except "there be Glory"

 

[DelightedOne]

also unless ending literally ends with Velvet being omnipotent (and even Hours are not REALLY omnipotent), presumably the state of the Wake and everything we've done and left undone will matter at least somewhat narratively.

We don't even know if Velvet will continue as the head of the Bureau or leave to live in the Mansus, or anything else. We don't know what will happen once we pass the Tricuspid at all except "there be Glory"

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Yeah, for Hours(or even the hypothetical Day, the lone god of a World and its Histories) to be omnipotent they would need to be above rules, which is not possible since Hours embody and follow rules. Their powers come with heavy and very specific limits.

That is one of the reasons I don't vibe with the scorched Equestria mentality. Not caring about what we will do while reaching a Victory because it ends the game is obviously going to have a chance of poisoning our epilogue.

And there is also the matter of the surviving Hours, all of the Corrivality ones are alive and relatively well. The only thing stopping the Lionsmith and the Colonel from jumping Velvet after she reaches Glory is their stalemate.

Assuming other possibly alive Hours are having similar troubles sounds about right, but how many of them would risk everything to go back to gatekeeping Glory is the problem.

 

[Earth-Destroyer]

Yeah, for Hours(or even the hypothetical Day, the lone god of a World and its Histories) to be omnipotent they would need to be above rules, which is not possible since Hours embody and follow rules. Their powers come with heavy and very specific limits.

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The limits on an Hours powers are the other Hours. And the other Hours are either dead, trying to die. Or locked in stalemate where sparing Velvet a moments notice means death.

Their a reason getting to the Glory means victory. Their nobody to oppose Velvet becoming the Clock.

 

[DelightedOne]

The limits on an Hours powers are the other Hours. And the other Hours are either dead, trying to die. Or locked in stalemate where sparing Velvet a moments notice means death.

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Noo? Hours are specifically said to work with limits several times, including but not limited to other Hours. But this is more of a Book of Hours thing so I get it if you don't know.

 

[ses]

Book of Hours isn't relevant to this quest even slightly.

And there's also a universe of difference between "Let's risk the entire country for the sake of mayor mare being a person whose name we know" and "scorched Equestria". Let's not pretend otherwise.

 

[DelightedOne]

Book of Hours isn't relevant to this quest even slightly.

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I said more of, there is still quite a few examples in Cultist Simulator. The Keys not being owned by Hours, the Crime of the Sky being unable to be voided even by the Sun-in-Splendor, the Wolf not being able to be killed(no matter how much he may want it) by anything less than the Second Dawn or the end of the world, there is even a argument to be made that Hours can't stop Ascensions or the birth of new Hours.

And it is not because she is a named character, it is because it is a Wolf cult taking control of Ponyville, a metaphysically important town.

 

[Shaper47]

I trust our daughters, so really there's nothing to worry about.

 

[ses]

I'd still rather have Velvet accompany the Bureau herself. She is just that strong of a force multiplier, with Level 4+ and rerolls across nearly the entire board except Heart. And we've already seen with Tall Tale that Velvet simply Being Involved with Bureau things gives her opportunities to introduce the Lores to them, and that was when she was only joining in last-minute on the raid itself rather than the whole month's worth of effort; like at the very least I would expect the same sort of "go all out, +1 Bureau Lore" that we saw at Tall Tale. The potential extra Bureau levels from studying the husk just don't matter when Velvet herself is on the expedition, providing twice the Lore levels that they'd get from having Grail/Knock introduced to them via the dissection, plus for every other Lore on top. It also means that Selene's AP would be free to do something more useful than just Calling an Influence that she's likely not even going to use next turn.

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I agree that Velvet just adds too many Beeg Numahs to pass up on, but I'm not optimistic that we'll get another lore introduction this turn by doing so? Like, it wouldn't make sense for us to get a +1 lore introduction every time we get our hoofs dirty in addition to helping with the constable/detective actions. That would just make adding +1 lore via commissioner action strictly worse than doing normal commissioner stuff. That was probably a one time thing.

Also I disagree that Selene doing a Heart influence isn't useful. That's a huge amount of Heart on average, literally over 5 lore levels. And unless this Quarry expedition is a disaster there's an extremely high chance that Selene and the Constables do another expedition next turn anyway. That's a huge amount of numbers added to hurdle checks for 30 bits and a selene AP. Plus it means we'd be able to introduce SH to the bureau this turn instead of Heart. Which would be very nice for a variety of reasons. Especially since if Tall Tale is an indication it might be "roll a separate SH check for every piece of loot other than the scried reward to see if you find it", which would diminish the power of our SH reroll as well as really incentivizing us to boost the Bureau's SH rolls by +10, while still having over +100 to heart rolls via a called influence. QM has hinted pretty heavily that Long expeditions are intended to be a giant pile of varied loot and that we just happened to scry pre-written expeditions that happened to have what we were looking for on their loot list. While it's not mandatory by any means it'll be very nice to get as much of it as possible, every bit of power picked up cheaply and non-problematically now makes it that much less likely we get painted into a corner.

Though honestly if you want to do Selene-Smiles AP we dont actually need Selene consulting for the bureau if we're doing Hoofs Dirty and sending Axe+Cherenkolt to consult. We have +100 Winter without Selene if Velvet gets her hoofs dirty (5 bureau+50 axe specialty bonus+20 velvet+25 artifacts(winter 1 noose+winter 4 cursed artifact)). And Selene's knock levels are pretty superfluous as well. We could just do 2 Smiles AP with Selene instead, the only thing she's really contributing is +20 Moth bonus and an extra Moth reroll. I like zero bureau+2 smiles and bureau+influence both a lot more than 1 ap on consult and 1 ap on smiles. I honestly was looking forward to Selene consulting though for narrative reasons, especially if we investigate windy with our detective action.

And saving mayor mare is just... we can't possibly take the risk on dropping a Help Cadance AP for it. Yes four AP is likely where we're anchored to for the "standard" amount of AP we're expected to invest, but going +1 more means we likely dont have to rely on not getting unlucky. It's too big a risk.

EDIT: Yeah I'm becoming increasingly in favor of "Soothe, Smiles, Smiles" for Selene's AP this turn. +100 winter with reroll and +90 moth with reroll is already going to sail past the relevant hurdles. It's not that it's impossible that we run into a CD 120 winter hurdle or anything but with the reroll that's still 96% chance of passing. We should just take +6 smiles progress. Axe+Cherenkolt(Grail)+Velvet is already bringing massive numbers, with +100 Winter and +90 Heart if we teach the bureau Heart with our Director action. Getting that +6 Smiles now means that we can hit 40 progress on turn 24 with 2 Selene AP, 4 Mareinette+Velvet AP, and 3 mortal ponies (Filthy/Cheerilee/Fluttershy).

 

[Wise Wolf]

And it is not because she is a named character, it is because it is a Wolf cult taking control of Ponyville, a metaphysically important town.

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Note that we already voted, and the Wolf Cult will take over ponyville. If you think that's metaphysically important, the right vote to discuss that was the Cult vote.

All that we're determining now is whether they kill Mayor Mare or use her as a puppet.

 

[DelightedOne]

Note that we already voted, and the Wolf Cult will take over ponyville. If you think that's metaphysically important, the right vote to discuss that was the Cult vote.

All that we're determining now is whether they kill Mayor Mare or use her as a puppet.

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It doesn't look like it.

-"Ponyville is growing. I would like the right hoofs to take the reins before it grows too much."
-Soft Sweeps (and through her, her congregation) will gain power and influence over Ponyville.
-Mayor Mare will be… "negatively affected" if she does not become a "Close Friend" to Velvet Covers by the end of Turn 23. (Leashing her from Friend to Close Friend is fine)
-You will tell her that you hope Ponyville turns out "the right way". And as much as it scares her to have this much responsibility, she will try her best.

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If it was a full take over I doubt we would be able to save Mayor Mare. The fact that we even can seems more like a way to minimize the damage of a bad option.

The condition of her survival being her becoming a Close Friend instead of a Confidante or a Minion makes it even clearer she is not going to become a puppet.

Influence is the way Velvet said Soft Sweeps can help her. Close Friends can help Velvet.

Close Friends can be relied to have your best interests in mind, and are honestly interested in helping you. They will not purposefully hinder an action that they are involved in, and will generally be more useful/willing to help as the narrative allows.

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Meaning the Daughter has no reason to take over Ponyville directly, instead just influencing it as it grows.

Seriously, trying to stop one of the consequences of a "pick your poison" vote that requires AP when we got into that mess in the first place by not wanting to spend AP is not as unreasonable as it seems.

 

[Wise Wolf]

It doesn't look like it.

If it was a full take over I doubt we would be able to save Mayor Mare. The fact that we even can seems more like a way to minimize the damage of a bad option.

The condition of her survival being her becoming a Close Friend instead of a Confidante or a Minion makes it even clearer she is not going to become a puppet.

Influence is the way Velvet said Soft Sweeps can help her. Close Friends can help Velvet.

Meaning the Daughter has no reason to take over Ponyville directly, instead just influencing it as it grows.

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As the vote says, and you quoted, the Daughter will gain power and influence over Ponyville.

Seriously, trying to stop one of the consequences of a "pick your poison" vote that requires AP when we got into that mess in the first place by not wanting to spend AP is not as unreasonable as it seems.

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I mean, we absolutely can do this. I just want to be clear that the negative consequence we are averting is Mayor Mare being "negatively affected", not the Daughter and her cult "gain[ing] power and influence over Ponyville."

The QM was quite explicit.

 

[Greymere]

EDIT: Yeah I'm becoming increasingly in favor of "Soothe, Smiles, Smiles" for Selene's AP this turn. +100 winter with reroll and +90 moth with reroll is already going to sail past the relevant hurdles. It's not that it's impossible that we run into a CD 120 winter hurdle or anything but with the reroll that's still 96% chance of passing. We should just take +6 smiles progress. Axe+Cherenkolt(Grail)+Velvet is already bringing massive numbers, with +100 Winter and +90 Heart if we teach the bureau Heart with our Director action. Getting that +6 Smiles now means that we can hit 40 progress on turn 24 with 2 Selene AP, 4 Mareinette+Velvet AP, and 3 mortal ponies (Filthy/Cheerilee/Fluttershy).

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If we Consult Smiles, we might want to consider having our Detectives doing this instead of Windy:

-You will have a Bureau option to "Analyse your options regarding the Changeling Colony" (can be picked by either Investigator action or Commissioner action)

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...seeing as consultation also lets the Names interact narratively with the Bureau, and the combat expert and the master engineer might have some things to say on planning an assault on a larger colony.

Either going after Windy or investigating the options re: the colony assault are unlikely to matter if we're pushed in All In at the end of T24 or T25, so I'd rather go with the one that seems more interesting narratively here.

 

[ses]

If we Consult Smiles, we might want to consider having our Detectives doing this instead of Windy:

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Why would we have Smiles consult? I meant spending Selene's AP as "Help Smiles, Help Smiles, Soothe" while having Axe+Cherenkolt+Velvet do the expedition. Smiles should summon a MITL, he's not super useful with the Bureau. And besides, we just learned that the changelings have no current plans on staging an attack. We should use the big win we got to just slow-walk the changelings and effectively ignore them for the next few turns until we either go all in or fix celestia. The changelings are no longer on my radar as a priority

 

[Greymere]

Why would we have Smiles consult? I meant spending Selene's AP as "Help Smiles, Help Smiles, Soothe" while having Axe+Cherenkolt+Velvet do the expedition. Smiles should summon a MITL, he's not super useful with the Bureau. And besides, we just learned that the changelings have no current plans on staging an attack. We should use the big win we got to just slow-walk the changelings and effectively ignore them for the next few turns until we either go all in or fix celestia. The changelings are no longer on my radar as a priority

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I think I got a little mixed up with all the mentions of Smiles.

And it's not like we're going to have much motivation or reason to deal with Windy either, when we're trying to prepare for All In. Both he and the changeling stuff only really matter to us if Selene successfully defuses things in the next couple of turns. If anything, poking the Windy might just end up creating a new problem for us. Sending in the Bureau to investigate him is pretty borderline hostile.

Could have them search for expedition sites/foreign threats instead then, on the off chance we get an extra turn for All In and can raid some more expedition sites for hopefully useful loot.

 

[Talon Tiger Dino]

I agree that sending the Bureau Investigators to look in on Windy is bound to set off Windy if they are detected; if you want to contact Windy, do it some other way than sending the things he was trying to run away from after him. Just scry him. Better yet, scry Neighnia, and send her an invitation to say hi to all the other Names we are hosting. Perhaps she would even wish to stay, or failing that, chuck a boon at us for the entertainment derived from the Name Soiree.

I admit that I am horribly biased in favor of my theory that Windy is currently with Neighnia who directed him to shove a bit of Wolf Stuff into his Palest Painting, as such is canonically a requirement of painting such a piece in Cultist Simulator.

 

[ses]

We are not going to waste Name AP on him. It's never going to happen. It just happens to be that our Detectives action doesn't have much useful to do this turn. Searching for expeditions is... okay, but we dont really have a shortage of expeditions right now and they're not even introduced to SH yet. The other main contender is "Have the detectives do literally nothing but reduce population tension" which is not useful at all, or completely waste their action on changelings that we really dont care about anymore. Fearmongering about our detectives being "too aggressive" is just silly, I dont consider it a risk. If you want to get a basic overview of what Windy is up to, this is the way to do it.

 

[Talon Tiger Dino]

Searching for expeditions is... okay, but we dont really have a shortage of expeditions right now and they're not even introduced to SH yet. The other main contender is "Have the detectives do literally nothing but reduce population tension" which is not useful at all, or completely waste their action on changelings that we really dont care about anymore. Fearmongering about our detectives being "too aggressive" is just silly, I dont consider it a risk. If you want to get a basic overview of what Windy is up to, this is the way to do it.

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How is it fearmongering to be concerned that the cultist who left town out of fear of the authorities coming down on him would be keeping an eye out for the authorities looking into him? We made the inner circle worried about this exact scenario on purpose to facilitate their fragmentation. The risk is not that our investigators will be too aggressive, it's that Windy will be too paranoid.

I'd rather have our Investigators look for expeditions since we can apparently have the Bureau hoof the bill for those now. It's honestly pretty fantastic for our budget.

 

[Arrkhon]

Assuming Windy still dreams just leaving him a message that we want to talk in Mansus is a perfectly viable approach to getting an update on him, I'm pretty sure Ash would be willing to direct him to it

 

[dcoconeo]

Assuming Windy still dreams just leaving him a message that we want to talk in Mansus is a perfectly viable approach to getting an update on him, I'm pretty sure Ash would be willing to direct him to it

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Directing him to Ash seems like asking for trouble, if he doesn't already know???