Ok - the further Clockwork Empires gets the more impressed I am and the more I am enjoying it. The Developers are doing an awesome job. I get that the Developers have made a firm decision not to have slavery, and I respect their reasons for doing so even though some people hold alternative views. But can we at least have a more organised endgame for the Fishpeople? And by endgame I mean their end, obviously ... If we cannot make them do forced labour can we at least have - 1. some sort of fishsteak facility so that they can be captured and converted into a tinned export 2. some mechanism for neutralising or reducing the threat at its source, e.g. Steampunk
The way I look at it, if all you have is a single colony, you aren't ever going to be able to 'neutralize' fish people, even with depth charges. The question you have to ask is, are there other colonies up and down the coast, all on a mission of genocide? Depending on how aggressive or tenacious a particular Fish person tribe/colony/town/civilization(?) is you MIGHT be able to persuade them to move on. OR you might encourage them to organize, and bring neighboring tribes(?) in to wipe you out. Fish people, apparently are NOT simply dumb animals. Since they DO strike back when you eat their eggs/offspring even if they are not present when you do so, it means they are capable of understanding cause and effect, and consequences, and either vengeance or trying to 'teach' your settlers to leave them alone (depending on your interpretation of their behavior). Then again, colonial nations have been known to think exactly the way that you describe, and have success in driving away indigenous peoples. The 'colonies' (plural) and conquistadors and the U.S. cavalry, and so on, were capable of driving indigenous populations away, thoroughly conquering them. But if you only have one colony, that's not necessarily how things are going to turn out, ESPECIALLY when all they have to do is more their homes a mile or three down the coast, and raid your colony from that remote location. Then again, to make depth charges even be effective, wouldn't you need sonar, and the ability to identify a blip as being a group of fish people or a school of fish?
