Swiss Arms 103 (Patreon)

A/N: Gamer-heavy chapter.

Swiss Arms

Chapter 103

-VB-

Hans von Fluelaberg

Two months before Christmas. That’s when the negotiation date was set. It allowed the count and I to organize ourselves before meeting up. As for the location of our meeting, it was going to take place in the Free Imperial City of Lindau. Of course, we didn’t know if the city was okay with us hosting our negotiation there, so I reached out to the Lord Mayor of Lindau.

And the Lord Mayor Rupert von Notzing happily agreed in his latest letter. 

Maybe he wanted to his city to be seen as a good place for meditation. Smaller deals like these would allow his city to rise in prominence as a center of diplomacy.

I read the final letter from the lord mayor… and then a ping rang. 

I froze in place in my solar’s chair and glanced up.

[One’s Desperate Measure is Your Opportunity] 

-Territorial Quest-

Objective:

Successfully gain the Bailiwick of Rheintal (Vogtei Rheintal)

Bonus:

*Purchase Rheintal for under 500 gold guelders or equivalent

Reward (Choose One):

*Title of Count

*1 Critical Intel (Foreign)

*1 Critical Intel (Domestic)

Bonsu Reward:

*Temporary boost to the Compact’s cohesion

*Temporary boost to the Barony of Fluelaberg’s cohesion

Accept?
Y/N

I accepted immediately. I wanted to get Rheintal anyway the moment I received that letter, so this was a bonus for me and the Compact.

… But what was this about cohesion? 

I pulled out of the Quest screen and looked through my Gamer System. After a quick look, I found it under my Character Status.

[Character Status]

Name: Hans von Fluelaberg

Age: 20

LvL: 40

HP: 700

MP: 410

ST: 350

STR: 100

END: 70

AGI: 82

DEX: 52

INT: 41

CHA: 15

Current Objective: Set up Home [11/?]

Current Quest: [One’s Desperate Measure is Your Opportunity] 

Territory: Compact (Barony of Fluelaberg)

I didn’t notice that before. Was there an update or something that I missed? Regardless of the why and how I missed it up until now, it was there. And the Compact and the (Barony of Fluelaberg) were highlighted separately. 

I pressed on the Compact. 

[The Compact]

Official Name: The Compact

Government Type: Confederation

Member States: Barony of Fluelaberg, Prince-Bishopric of Chur, County of Toggenberg, Abbey of St. Gall… (6+)

Military Power: Minor Regional

Economic Power: Major Regional

Political Power: Minor Regional

Influence: Major Regional

Technological Power: Major Regional

Stability: B+

Cohesion: C+

It was nice to see a list of the Compact’s impact upon the world, even if they could be misleading. It showed the Compact’s Influence as “Major Regional,” whatever that meant, but I could see immediately that a lot of that had to do with just four heads of states: the Prince-Bishop of Chur, Abbot of St. Gall, Count of Toggenberg, and me. Even among the four of us, the influence was not equal and not in the same field. So the Influence being “Major Regional” was not wrong but kind of misleading. 

As for Stability and Cohesion…

I clicked on those. 

[Stability]

Represents a state’s ability to whether hardship. Ranked from top to bottom, S+ to F-. Failure to maintain Stability at or below D risks collapse of the state.

So it was important. 

[Cohesion]

Represents a state’s ability to mobilize its powerbase effectively within a reasonable timeframe. Ranked from top to bottom, S+ to F-. Cohesion at or below D risks ineffective taxation, corruption, and military mobilization.

Oh. Cohesion was apparently also very important, and the Compact’s Cohesion was only C+. 

That … that didn’t bode well. 

I pressed on Cohesion again, hoping it would provide me with some more information. 

And it did! 

[Cohesion] TheCompact\ Cohesion\Data\Factors

Bureaucracy: D-

Centralization: D-

Corruption: B-

Employment: A+

Interdependence Trade: C-

Interdependence Politics: B+

Internal Networking: B

International Recognition: C

Language Cohesion: B-

Law Enforcement: C-

Legitimacy: C

Power Balance: B

Prosperity: B-

Religious Unity: A+

State vs. Community Balance: D+

(20+)

… Yeah, that’s a lot of factors counting into Cohesion. Some of it was confusing, too. Employment factor was there in place of Unemployment, and A+ Employment… I guessed that it meant most people who wanted to work got work or something like that? 

The most glaring deficiencies was the lack of bureaucracy and centralization. And it kind of made sense. It’s hard to mobilize the entirety of the Compact when we were depending on pony express mail orders to members that may or may not have the resources and manpower to participate. Bureaucracy could just mean knowing what was where. Centralization, though, was the opposite of what the Compact was. I didn’t create the Compact to make a fiefdom for myself up in the Swiss Alps; I made it so that we can all protect ourselves from invaders. 

The next worst factor was State vs Community Balance, and yeah, I don’t think I can change that. I wasn’t in an era where nationalism and loyalty to the state was a thing. At most, loyalty would be to their immediate higher-ups, God, and maybe their hometown. It made sense why that one was bringing the overall grade down. 

But having the factors affecting Cohesion laid out for me to see helped me determine what I needed to improve or delegate someone else to improve. 

Then I moved onto my personal fiefdom.

[Barony of Fluelaberg]

Official Name: Barony of Fluelaberg

Government Type: Hereditary Monarchy

Liege Lord: King of the Germans

Member Nation: Holy Roman Empire

Military Power: Minor Regional

Economic Power: Major Regional

Political Power: Minor Regional

Influence: Major Regional

Technological Power: Major Regional

Stability: A+

Cohesion: A-

Nice~. Okay, why did my barony have a higher Cohesion than the Compact? 

[Cohesion] Barony.Fluelaberg\Cohesion\Data\Factors

Bureaucracy: A-

Centralization: S-

Corruption: B+

Employment: A+

Internal Trade: A-

Internal Politics: A+

External Networking: B-

International Recognition: B

Language Cohesion: A-

Law Enforcement: B+

Legitimacy: A

Power Balance: S

Prosperity: S

Religious Unity: C

Baron vs. Community Balance: A-

(20+)

… Okay, all of those made sense. Corruption was low, and thus the grade for it was high. Religious Unity was low because I had Jews and Muslims living in my town…

Actually, no, that didn’t explain why it was that low. From the latest census, the number of Jews and Muslims combined didn’t account for more than 4% of the total population. I can accept a B, even a B-, but C? Why was it that lo-... Were there heretics living in my town? 

Ugh. That’s going to be a headache. 

Still, I now had a much better look of my own barony. I saw a few things I could improve but mostly saw that my decisions had not been wrong. 

… Wait, did this mean that I would have to worry about all of those for every single fief I got? Wouldn’t that essentially be a summary report that only I can see, thus paperwork only I could do? 

Ugh.

With a shrug, I decided that it was probably better like this than being left to figure out every little detail, and gave me something to work toward for all of the Compact. 

But first, it was time to get off of this chair and arrange my visit to Lindau.

-VB-

A/N: Free Imperial City of Lindau is situated right across Lake Constance from the coasts of Rheintal. It is also within a day’s walk of County of Heiligenberg, which is further north along Lake Constance. Historically, the entire area was not united into one entity but separated into four: Altstatten (biggest city/town in Rheintal area west of the Alpine Rhine river and north of Liechtenstein) which did not incorporate the lands west bank of the river, Lustenau (downstream of Altstatten and straddled both sides of the river), coast along Lake Constance along Rheineck and Mehrerau, and St. Margrethen (later sold to Abbey of St. Gall). The last of these used to be hounded by the robber barons of Grimmenstein Castle, which eventually pissed people enough that they tore down the castle in 1416 after two battles. 

So for clarification’s sake, Hans is not buying the entire area from the coast to where today’s Liechtenstein is. He is purchasing land centered around Altstatten but not the lands along the river banks which includes the town of Kriessern, Lustenau and its surrounding lands on both sides of the river, and Rheineck but not St. Margrethen and the land directly adjacent to it.

The total area is roughly 31 sq. miles.