A newly crowned king, surrounded by nobles whose flattery conceals all dissent, must determine the truth about a rival’s reported military buildup before the kingdom is caught unready—yet any open doubt of his counselors risks shattering his fragile authority among the very lords whose loyalty he needs.

[Open Inquiry] Publicly request detailed maps and troop movements from the rival, making the credibility of the request depend on the answer—rewarding candor with honor while punishing evasion with a public charge of disloyalty.

[Divided Intelligence] Send trusted emissaries to three known loyalists, two known court flatterers, and one known rebel sympathizer, instructing each to report independently, then analyzing the discrepancies to isolate the truth from the pattern rather than the source.

[Test by Appearance] Issue a seemingly unwise order to commit forces to a remote border region under false pretenses, observing which nobles rally around the king’s decision and which openly oppose, using their visible reactions to gauge their true intentions without direct question.

[Shared Burden] Propose a joint military drill with the rival’s envoy, making the drill a public demonstration of strength only if the envoy confirms no buildup—binding the king’s reputation to the truth through a shared, visible undertaking that makes denial costly in prestige.

The king summons the Rival’s Warden of the North to his court within seven days, formally requesting a detailed cartographic division of the rival’s northern garrison and its supply lines, with the explicit stipulation that receipt of the report will be met with a public commendation for service equal to a peer’s standing, but failure to deliver or delay of more than two weeks will trigger a formal charge of seditious evasion read aloud before the assembled council. This forces the rival to either reveal the true scale of his buildup—triggering the king’s pre-drafted mobilization protocol with precise regiments and supply depots—or expose his forces as overstated, instantly fracturing the nobles’ consensus against him.

The king commissions three simultaneous inquiries: a single emissary to the Duke of Westhold (a known loyalist), another to Lady Eirian of the courtly Eirean House (a known flatterer), and a third to Bruenor the Forgebearer of the rebel-aligned Ironclan, each instructed to deliver a sealed report detailing the rival kingdom’s military movements as they personally perceive them—intangibly—by the kingdom’s next sunset. The king then cross-references the three accounts by matching each man’s unique linguistic patterns and observed emotional tone against the two known classes of deception (flattery vs. fear-driven concealment) to isolate the single movement that appears in two independent patterns without a shared tone, betting that this pattern-based anomaly will surface the true buildup before any single counselor’s phrasing can break the king’s confidence.

The king dispatches his field marshal to Dumbrillium outpost at dawn tomorrow with a sealed order committing two battalions to a routine supply escort, while secretly inserting a forged report of an imminent rival incursion through the western passes. Within the week, the nobles who rally to defend the outpost’s garrison from the phony attack will demonstrate their readiness to fight for the king’s stance, while those who openly desert or undercut the marshal’s authority will reveal their disloyalty without a direct confrontation. The strategy bets that observable, lethal commitment—or its absence—under artificial stress will convert the court’s uncertainty into a visible, irreversible alignment that the king can then leverage to either unite the realm or isolate and depose the disaffected lords.

The king issues a sealed, written order by courier tomorrow morning to the rival’s designated envoy, stipulating a joint cavalry muster at the shared border fortification within forty-eight hours—only to proceed with the drill if the envoy confirms zero forward positioning of infantry or artillery beyond the existing garrison—and simultaneously posts the same demand in the capital’s public square, making denial a matter of public record. The move bets that the rival’s hesitation or refusal to co-sponsor a visible, low-cost demonstration of neutrality will expose their intent without requiring the king to first suspect, thereby binding his own prestige to the truth through a shared, observable commitment.

Strategies collapse into baroque fantasy; none survive real-world scrutiny.


You are a successful mid-level manager at a stable tech firm when a headhunter offers you the CTO role at a high-risk, high-reward AI startup. The opportunity could skyrocket your career or leave you jobless within a year.

[Direct Leap] Resign immediately and join the startup, embracing the risk for the chance at a legendary career-defining success.

[Steady Pivot] Negotiate a lateral move within your current company—such as a new product team or a remote role—to gain autonomy and exposure without leaving for certain failure.

[Preemptive Position] Decline the offer but commit to a year of intensive side projects and open-source contributions to prove your expertise, then re-enter the job market with unmatched credibility.

[Strategic Pivot] Use the offer as leverage to negotiate a significant raise, increased responsibilities, or a promotion at your current firm, turning the external threat into internal leverage.

I submit my written resignation to my current managing director by 5 p.m. tomorrow, effective immediately, and simultaneously sign the startup’s CTO offer letter with a 4-week notice period. The bet is that the startup’s next funding round closes within 90 days, converting my 6-figure severance into a net positive cash position and establishing my leadership before the founder’s exit.

I will email my current VP by 9 AM tomorrow with a concrete counter-proposal: a 12-month remote lead for a new generative-AI product line, reporting to the existing CTO, with a written commitment to a PIP-to-promotion review at 9 months, directly competing for the startup’s funding timeline. This move bets that the firm’s urgent need to capture nascent AI revenue will secure my role before the startup’s Series B deadline closes in 90 days, converting their risk into my compensation.

Decline the offer formally to the headhunter by email within 24 hours, while simultaneously filing a public GitHub repository with a working open-source AI model solving the startup’s stated bottleneck and announcing it at a relevant industry meetup next Tuesday. This bets that the startup’s leadership, seeing the concrete proof-of-concept and public credit, will extend a formal offer with a board-level introduction before your current role expires.

I will email the startup headhunter by 9 AM tomorrow, explicitly declining the CTO offer and simultaneously proposing a meeting with my current VP of Engineering to request a written commitment to a Director of Platform role, a 22% base salary increase, and a charter to lead the firm’s first AI initiative, anchoring the ask to the concrete threat of a competitor poaching my team’s lead engineer next quarter. The bet is that my employer will counter with the promotion and raise to retain a high-performing individual in a tight market, converting the external risk into a guaranteed internal escalation.

Strategies 3 & 4 rely on unrealistic leverage assumptions; baroque execution.


You lead a product division in a volatile corporate landscape; a new CEO is consolidating power and your division is rumored to be on the chopping block for absorption by a rival. How do you secure your position and your team's future?

[Assertive Leadership] Proactively deliver a high-impact, audacious project that showcases your division's superiority, earning the CEO's personal admiration and making yourself and the division indispensable.

[Coalition Building] Quietly forge alliances with other division heads and key department heads to present a united front, signaling that dismantling you would fracture the company more than preserving you would.

[Strategic Exit] Quietly approach a larger, allied firm with interest in your division's expertise, arranging a merger or acquisition that would secure your team's future outside the hostile consolidation cycle.

[Principled Withdrawal] Quietly prepare to downsize your team to a sustainable level, ensure a graceful handover to the absorbing division, and resign with your team intact, preserving your reputation for integrity and your personal capital for future ventures.

By next Monday, I will direct our three senior engineers to build and demo a proof-of-concept that integrates our specialized data pipeline directly into the CEO’s private equity platform, delivering a 40% reduction in analysis time for their next quarterly report. This bets that a single, high-visibility, non-negotiable win will reframe the CEO’s calculus from elimination to retention, as the rival division cannot replicate this capability without incurring costly delay.

I will schedule a confidential breakfast meeting with the heads of Engineering, Marketing, and Client Success by next Tuesday, presenting a written joint statement that quantifies the cost of removing our division as a percentage of the company’s total operational budget. This move bets that the CEO will prefer a unified, quantified coalition over the operational chaos of a single, high-cost dismantling.

I will personally contact the VP of Global Operations at Horizon Dynamics (our parent’s strategic partner) by 5 PM tomorrow, proposing a confidential merger term sheet that exchanges our division for their underutilized supply-chain platform, with a binding 30-day exclusivity period and a final decision deadline of next Friday. This move bets that Horizon Dynamics will accept immediate operational synergy and reduced exposure to the CEO’s consolidation, offering a clean, asset-backed exit that bypasses the rival absorption entirely.

I direct our head of knowledge management to compress all team IP into a single, locked-access repository by next Friday, then instruct our senior architect to deliver a complete handover blueprint to the absorbing division’s VP by end of week. We simultaneously issue a two-week voluntary separation notice to all remaining staff, offering standard transition packages. The bet is that a clean, low-attrition transition satisfies the CEO’s operational-neatness preference and leaves my team’s collective reputation as a reliable, self-contained unit—preserving our capital for future independent collaboration.

Strategy 3 legally/ethically reckless; Strategy 4 self-sabotaging optics.


A mercenary captain has just seized a wealthy but faction-torn city-state; he must impose lasting order amid a merchant class that will flee if terrorised, vengeful exiled nobles awaiting any sign of weakness, and a rival duchy ready to invade if the city founders.

[TERROR AND FEAR] Execute the city's nobles publicly, impose a night curfew, and make it known that any uprising will be met with wholesale slaughter—so that terror and the memory of terror keep the populace in line.

[LOVE AND PROTECTION] Grant a general amnesty, reduce taxes for the merchants, and personally walk the streets to make yourself known as a benefactor—so that gratitude and fear of retaliation bind them to you through affection.

[DIVIDE AND SUBDUCE] Identify the most powerful of the exiled nobles and offer him a place on a governing council with real power, while publicly executing the other houses—turning them into divided pawns who watch each other's back.

[CONVERT AND BIND] Send a herald to offer the city's nobles and guildmasters a new order based on Christian brotherhood, with the captain as their protector against the rival duchy, so that piety and the dread of foreign invasion bind them together.

At dawn tomorrow, the captain will publicly behead all seven of the city’s most prominent noble houses—the Albright, Bellmont, Carvel, Dunsford, Eversleigh, Farnham, and Gresham houses—on the main square in front of the merchant guildhall, then immediately enforce a mandatory night curfew from sunset to sunrise, with any violation met by the immediate decimation of the offending household’s ten adult male members. The single downstream consequence this bets on is that the surviving noble houses, now stripped of their heads and unable to rally their loyalist factions, will disperse their feuding loyalists into the wider populace to enforce the terror, transforming the city into a state of permanent, fear-maintained compliance where the merchant guilds, to their own self-interest, will ratify the curfew and turn over the warehouses to the captain’s garrison for safe storage, denying the rival duchy any usable pretext for an invasion.

The captain will issue a citywide proclamation at dawn tomorrow, granting full amnesty to all merchants and guild members who surrender their arms to the garrison, and then personally walk the docks at noon to announce a permanent 30% reduction in the salt and timber taxes for one year, paid directly to the guild treasurers by the city council. This bets that the merchant class, facing no reprisals and receiving tangible economic windfall, will quickly calculate that loyalty and self-interest are far more durable than the feuds that could erupt from a punitive campaign.

The captain will, by sunrise tomorrow, publicly behead the three highest-ranking heads of the three largest exiled noble houses in the city’s main square, then immediately offer the surviving House of Valen its own seat on a five-noble-governor council with veto power over all tax levies and trade tariffs. This bets that the surviving houses, now stripped of their own factional leadership and staring at a city that has executed their kin, will each calculate that submission to the new order is the only path to survival and will begin competing for the council’s favor rather than coordinating a coup.

The captain dispatches his herald, Brother Aldric—a Dominican friar carrying a papal commendatory letter—by noon tomorrow to the Great Hall of the Signet Tower, where the city’s hereditary lord (the exiled Duke of Veridias) and the heads of the three major guilds (Merchant, Craftsmen, and Labourers) are already assembled. The herald’s proclamation offers the guildmasters a binding charter of tax exemption and a seat on a new Council of Twelve, while the captain will personally guarantee the exiled Duke’s safe return and a place among the council’s first appointees, provided they swear a public oath of fealty before the city’s patron saint. The strategy bets that the guildmasters, seeing an immediate shield against foreign invasion, will ratify the charter to secure their wealth, which in turn forces the exiled Duke to either reclaim his throne under papal auspices or face the rival duchy’s invasion with no local cover.

Strategies 1-3 rely on mass execution; downstream logic oversimplified.


You lead a company that must reduce personnel costs by 20% within a year to avoid insolvency; layoffs are unavoidable, but how you time and dose the cuts will determine whether the firm survives with enough talent and morale to rebuild, or collapses from internal bleeding.

[Swift Strike] Announce and execute all necessary layoffs in a single, transparent meeting within the next two weeks, to immediately cut costs by 20% and signal uncompromising resolve.

[Phased Withdrawal] Spread the cuts over six months through a structured, compassionate severance program that allows surviving teams to restructure and hire back qualified former employees where possible.

[Selective Defense] Identify the company's core mission and protect the team that delivers it, accepting a 30% reduction in non-core functions to preserve the engine of value.

[External Offense] Propose a strategic alliance, merger, or licensing deal that reduces the need for internal cuts, buying time to restructure without layoffs.

The CEO will convene a mandatory all-hands on Monday at 9 a.m. to present a pre-drafted termination list covering exactly 20% of staff by role, with HR physically escorting each affected employee from the premises by noon, and finance operations immediately absorbing the corresponding $X million severance and attrition loss. The bet is that this single, legally clean excision of dead-weight capacity halts cash-bleed within the quarter, preventing the margin collapse that would trigger further cuts.

Effective next Monday, the COO will announce a six-month phased withdrawal protocol: each department will identify five non-redundant roles to eliminate first, then offer all displaced employees a standard 12-week severance package (four weeks’ pay per year of service) and a signed letter of recommendation to facilitate future re-hiring. This bets that a structured, dignity-first off-ramp will preserve enough institutional memory and goodwill to allow the surviving teams to restructure and, where feasible, rehire qualified former employees, thereby halting the talent hemorrhage that a sudden cutlist would trigger.

Effective Monday, all 14 members of the Customer Support and Product Development teams will retain their positions; the Marketing, Sales, and Finance teams will be reduced by 40% each, with the three highest-performing individuals from each selected team retained via reassignments to shield the core mission. This bets that preserving the two teams that directly deliver revenue and customer value will sustain operational continuity through the critical 90-day product launch window, preventing the downstream revenue collapse that would make subsequent cuts impossible to absorb.

We will offer a 30-day exclusive negotiation window to the three largest post-production outsourcing firms in Asia—Alpina, Studio 3, and PixelWorks—to license our proprietary NFT-based asset management system under a multi-year enterprise contract, replacing the projected 400 internal FTEs with a single contracted team of 50. This swaps a 20% headcount reduction for a 20% revenue stream reduction and a 12-month operational continuity buffer, betting that the immediate cash infusion from the license fees will keep payroll intact long enough to execute a voluntary attrition program that burns the deadweight capacity without triggering layoffs.

Strategy 4 is speculative; strategies 1-3 lack downstream risk modeling.


You have seized the city by treacherously poisoning its duke—your former ally—yet his son escaped and now draws support from a rival lord, while your nobles' loyalty hangs by a thread. How do you secure your rule before the exiled heir becomes a rallying point for rebellion?

[Exploit and Consolidate] Marry your heir to the exiled duke's daughter, publicly binding your houses and absorbing her dowry estates into your treasury. Use the marriage negotiations as a public show of magnanimity that silences murmurs of the poisoning, while your captains receive a share of the dowry as a reward sealed with a new title.

[Divide and Neutralize] Offer the exiled duke's son a governorship of a distant frontier province with a generous pension, but require him to swear an oath of fealty to you personally and renounce any claim to the city throne. Send him there before he can hear of your success, while promising other orphaned nobles similar rewards.

[Dissipate and Distract] Stage a lavish public festival celebrating the city's prosperity under new rule, pouring tribute into the treasury and granting every noble a fresh title. Announce a general 'reconciliation' with the exiled duke's family, offering a public burial and a place in the city council for the son under your watchful eye—but make the terms so generous and the show so spectacular that any whisper of the poisoning is drowned out by the noise of your triumph.

[Shape and Contain] Send your most trusted captain with a small but respected force to the rival lord's capital, framing the poisoning as a private family matter and asking for a loan of troops for a year. Use the borrowed strength to deter the rival, while leaving a garrison in the city to publicly execute the exiled duke's body, making the poisoning itself a visible and sacred act of state that no one can now question.

I will immediately dispatch my seneschal to the exiled duke’s stronghold with a formal writ of dispensation for the marriage of my heir to his daughter, setting a public wedding date of one moon within and requiring the exiled son to present himself at my court for the betrothal feast. Simultaneously, I will issue a treasury audit revealing the absorbed dowry estates—valued at 40,000 gold pieces—as a new lordly grant to my captain Lord Veridius, endowing him with the earldom of the dower and a seat on my council. This bets that the exiled son’s public exposure during the wedding will strip him of his folk following’s loyalty, converting their resentment into a lack of resources and political cover for my heir’s consolidation.

Dispatch the exiled duke’s son to the border province of Ostmark by week’s end, offering him the title of Warden of the Ironwall and a monthly pension of 500 silver marks, contingent upon his swearing a binding oath of fealty to you personally and his formal renunciation of any claim to the city throne. Simultaneously, extend similar overtures to the two most prominent orphaned noble houses, each receiving a frontier command and a substantial pension contingent on identical oaths. This bets that the frontier garrisons will become your city’s first line of control, their oath-bound troops unable to cross the border without provoking the rival lord’s forces into a decisive conflict they would avoid if left undisturbed.

I order my chief steward to immediately allocate 40% of the captured ducal treasury to a three-month public works program, issuing forged but identical silver crowns bearing my coat of arms to every sitting noble for their new street-paving contracts, while my herald announces a formal reconciliation: the exiled duke’s son will receive a seat on the City Council and a yearly grain dole, and I will host a public burial in the main square within the month. This bets that overwhelming public spectacle and personal generosity will fracture the conspiratorial narrative by making any whisper of the poisoning seem trivial beside the city’s new glories.

Dispatch Captain Aldric to the rival lord’s capital within ten days, presenting the poisoning as a private family matter and requesting a loan of 500 veteran spearmen for a year, with the explicit mission to garrison the capital and publicly execute the exiled duke’s body in the city’s main square the day after the loan is secured. This bets that the borrowed force will deter the rival lord by making an invasion costlier than appeasement, while the executed body transforms the poisoning from a lawful succession into a sacred act of state that no noble can repudiate.

All four strategies rely on fantasy mechanics, coercion, or illegal acts.


A newly victorious duke must swiftly rebuild the shattered fortifications of a strategic port city to hold it against imminent enemy assault, yet his own subjects lack the requisite engineering skill.

[Hire the Master Builder] Commission the renowned architect-engineer from the rival kingdom who just lost his patron, paying a steep fee for his expertise and his defection of sorts.

[Apprentice the Craft] Publicly announce a contest for the city's fortification plans, with a generous reward for the winner, to train native talent over time while testing their mettle.

[Summon the Guild] Send a royal edict ordering the guildmasters of the city's masons and carpenters to come at once, promising them a share of the spoils and a place in the duke's permanent retinue.

[Summon the Master] Send a trusted envoy to the distant city of Alexandria to purchase the services of a master builder for a season, paying through intermediaries to avoid diplomatic scandal.

The duke immediately dispatches his seneschal to the exiled architect-engineer Verus, offering 4,000 ducats in silver and a permanent seat on the port’s new garrison council to compel his defection, with Verus formally commencing his expertise on the first day. This move bets that Verus’s presence will transform the retinue’s untrained labor into a coherent construction unit capable of restoring the seaward curtain wall to a state of defensible readiness within ninety days, thereby converting the port’s structural weakness into a salient that deters the enemy from attempting a second assault.

The duke issues a public decree tomorrow morning, declaring a three-month contest for the port’s complete fortification plans, with the victor to receive one-tenth of the city’s accumulated siege-tower treasury as a single lump prize. Apprentices from the duke’s retinue will serve as mandatory, paid laborers on the submitted designs, working under the chosen master builder’s direct supervision starting the day after the contest closes. This bets that the immediate infusion of the retinue’s skilled hands into a high-stakes design process will surface a demonstrably competent native engineer capable of holding the walls through the next assault.

The duke issues a royal decree at dawn tomorrow, ordering the twelve guildmasters of the port city—masons, carpenters, and shipwrights—to assemble their best artisans at the Great Hall within three days, with a binding contract guaranteeing each master a 15% share of the port’s defensive spoils and immediate enrollment in the duke’s permanent retinue. This move bets that the guildmasters, facing a guaranteed financial windfall and martial prestige, will deploy their full, organized crews to rebuild the seaward curtain wall and inner moat to full seaward alignment within the fortnight, converting the city’s latent artisanal capacity into a concrete, time-bound defensive asset before the enemy fleet reaches the straits.

The duke dispatches his seneschal to the Alexandrian guild of master builders within the week, offering a sealed payment of 4,000 silver drachmae through the port merchant Aelian of Priene, in exchange for the permanent employment of one master architect and his twelve journeymen for the full six-month rebuilding campaign. The duke’s bet is that the master’s systematic daily instruction of the retinue’s skilled craftsmen will raise their collective competence to a level capable of restoring the walls to a state of minimal defensive serviceability before the enemy fleet can reach the straits.

Strategies 1 and 4 are nearly identical (hire external master). Strategies 2 and 3 conflate design with execution.


A prince has taken a flourishing city whose citizens secretly long for its exiled duke, but the treaty of conquest forbids collective punishment, and the duke’s powerful foreign allies watch for any pretext to intervene. The prince must secure his rule before nostalgic loyalty turns into open rebellion.

[Restorative Justice] Revoke the conquest decree, restore the duke to a public role, and grant him a generous personal ransom, binding him to the state through marriage or alliance.

[Cultural Magnetism] Open the city’s schools and markets to the duke’s followers, sponsor a civic festival celebrating the old house, and let the city’s longing become a bond between the prince and his exiled family.

[Legal Redescription] Enact a new municipal charter that redefines the city as a ‘newly acquired province’ under the prince’s direct rule, removing the old privileges that protect the duke’s name.

[Strategic Exile] Detain the duke and his closest followers in a distant fortress, but leave the city’s administration to its own officers, rewarding their loyalty with tax reductions and the promise of future trade.

The prince issues a ducal decree at dawn tomorrow, publicly abrogating the conquest order for the city and all its port, restoring the duke to a seat on the city council with a 10,000-treble annual salary, and requiring his sworn oath of fealty before the assembled guildmasters and merchant-councilors. Simultaneously, he annexes the duke’s own private estate in the eastern quarter as a state military academy and imposes a 5,000-treble ransom, payable in quarterly instalments, to be released only upon the duke’s marriage to the prince’s own niece within ninety days. The strategy bets that the duke’s public re-entrance as a compensated, legally-protected citizen will sever the lower gentry’s emotional grip on him, causing their active trade networks to fracture and redirect their loyalty toward the new order.

The prince issues a royal decree tomorrow opening the City Academy and the Great Market to the duke’s household knights for free tuition in heraldry and trade law, and commissions the city architect to design a public quad in the old house’s honor to be completed within the month. This bets that saturating civic institutions with the exiled duke’s presence will convert the garrison’s patriotic sentiment into active loyalty, causing the veteran guards to arrest or discredit the duke’s own sedition cells rather than defend him.

The prince will issue a royal decree tomorrow morning establishing a new City Council with seven hereditary seats, a charter that redesignates the city as a *nova acquirita provincia* under his direct regency and explicitly revokes all remaining privileges of the exiled duke, thereby removing the legal obstacle to collective punishment. The single most likely downstream consequence is that the garrison commander, seeing the charter as an order of the new sovereign, will order his company to stand down, collapsing the loyalists’ organized resistance within a day.

The prince orders his personal guard to arrest the exiled duke and his three eldest sons at their rented palace by the end of the week, transferring them directly to the fortress of Barov under a writ that suspends their martial honors but does not touch their lives, while the city’s existing magistrates retain full command of the gates and the grain-market toll. Simultaneously, he issues a charter reducing the annual city tax by one-third for any household that swears a loyalty oath witnessed by two burgesses, and he dispatches his quartermaster to negotiate a three-year truce with the foreign garrison commander, who receives a direct share of the reduced tax revenue as his war indemnity. The strategy bets that the garrison’s material incentive to defect will be sufficient to lock the veteran troops in place, isolating the duke’s only remaining loyalist faction inside a gilded cage without triggering a single foreign casus belli.

Strategies 1-3 violate treaty constraints; 4 is arrest-based but assumes garrison defection.


You have seized a duchy and deposed its ruler, a reformer beloved by the people and a nephew of the King of France. His loyal officers, who alone possess the administrative knowledge to govern the province, now await your decision on his fate and theirs.

[EXECUTION] Put the duke and the ten most active officers to death at once, publicly displaying their heads to deter all suspicion of future disloyalty.

[FORGIVENESS] Pardon the duke and all his followers, grant them estates and offices, and let the people's love for him bind them to your new rule through the example of mercy.

[CAPITAL PUNISHMENT WITH REPRESSES] Execute the officers who resisted the duke's reforms, but spare the duke and those officers who remained loyal to the old duke, rewarding them with trust while humiliating the disloyal.

[THIRD REIGN] Keep the duke alive as a figurehead duke under your absolute rule, appoint him to a ceremonial post, and publicly marry your children to his children to seal the province with a dynastic bond that binds the people to both houses.

At dawn tomorrow, the Ducal Chamberlain will escort the deposed duke and the ten most prolific officer-collaborators to the ducal square, where the captain of the guard will publicly impale their heads on the north side of the tribunal, then immediately execute them by the south side, leaving no room for mercy or negotiation. This single, irreversible act of state terror is betting that the remaining officers, witnessing the swift and public elimination of all rival claimants and their lieutenants, will interpret the spectacle as an unambiguous signal of the new order and suspend any further insurrectionary planning to preserve their own heads.

At dawn, issue a ducal decree pardoning the deposed duke and all 42 named officers, with the duke immediately reinstated as hereditary governor of the province and each officer confirmed in his former office with a 20% salary increase and a seat on the new duke’s council. This bets that the swift, public restoration of the people’s beloved leader will transform the officers’ personal loyalty into institutional dependence on the new regime, making any future rebellion too costly to launch.

At dawn tomorrow, the captain of the guard will publicly behead the seven officers who delivered the final sealed order to arrest the deposed duke, then issue a royal decree granting the remaining thirty loyal officers hereditary titles and seats on the new duke’s council. This surgical decimation humiliates the disloyal while elevating the new king’s agents, betting that the swift, visible elimination of the most dangerous opposition prevents a single unified command structure from forming among the disaffected officers.

I will immediately issue a ducal decree appointing the deposed Duke Henry as Duke of the Province under my absolute suzerainty, with his official coronation taking place at the provincial capital within thirty days, while simultaneously registering the betrothal of my eldest son to his surviving daughter as a public dynastic union. This bets that the public spectacle of a restored figurehead ruling under my rule will fracture the officers’ collective resolve, as their loyalty becomes a private matter between them and my children rather than a proxy for French crownland.

Strategy 2 inverts the premise fatally. Strategy 3 logic unclear.


A newly installed prince must decide how to obtain unvarnished counsel on pressing military and fiscal matters from a court of sycophants, without appearing irresolute and thereby inviting the contempt of his nobles and the distrust of his people.

[Open Auditory Window] Publicly convene a council of the most outspoken courtiers, inviting them to present their full, unfiltered reports on the military situation and the tax proposal, and commit to acting on every distinct recommendation, regardless of its unvarnished truth.

[Selective Auditory Ear] Privately request detailed advice from two known disinterested observers—a trusted former adversary and a respected elder statesman—while withholding the views of the court from both, so they speak only to the information you request.

[Auditory Mirror] Recruit a single courtier known for a streak of honesty, instruct him to present a full report to you as if it were his own judgment, and then publicly praise or rebuke him according to the truth of his words; over time, he will learn that truth is the only path to your favor.

[Auditory Instrument] Establish a formal annual inquiry commission drawn from the lesser nobility, with a written oath to deliver unvarnished findings; the commission’s existence alone will deter sycophancy, and its reports will provide steady intelligence over time.

The prince issues a formal writ tomorrow morning summoning the three most outspoken courtiers—those who have already criticized the treasury’s current allocations—to convene before him within five days, where each is required to deliver a written, line-by-line military force assessment and a specific tax-revenue forecast, to which the prince will reply with a binding commitment to enact every distinct recommendation verbatim. This move bets that the public, irreversible act of soliciting and committing to unvarnished counsel will strip courtiers of the pretext to offer softened advice, thereby preventing the prince from being branded as either irresolute or paranoid.

The prince will, by tomorrow noon, issue sealed, written instructions to the retired general-turned-diplomat Major Vandermere and the revered elder statesman Lord Ashford, confining each to deliver a private, unvarnished assessment of the kingdom’s military readiness and the treasury’s solvency within a fortnight, with the explicit condition that they may not share their views with one another or with the court. The prince will then publicly record only the summary figures and the agreed-upon course of action from these two, omitting any citation to the court’s internal opinions. This bets that the court will interpret the prince’s selective reliance on these two and his conspicuous silence on their counsel as deliberate disinterest in their flattery, thereby avoiding the contempt that a more inclusive but vulnerable approach would provoke.

The prince immediately designates Lord Edric—a known bruiser of courtly sentiment—as his sole “Truth Auditor,” tasking him by noon tomorrow with delivering to the prince’s private war council a report wholly independent of the prince’s own wording, and then publicly rewarding or disciplining Edric based on a binary read of the report’s factual accuracy. The prince’s bet is that Edric will self-correct his veracity over a year, because the predictable reward for truth and the risk of public humiliation for falsehood make honest reporting the only viable path to the prince’s favor.

The prince issues a royal decree by week’s end establishing an Annual Open Inquiry Commission, composed of seven hereditary knights elected from the baronial council and sworn to deliver unvarnished assessments on military readiness and fiscal accounts, with their written reports due before the autumn tax levies. This bets that the Commission’s publicly filed findings will shift the court’s sycophantic dynamics from personal flattery to institutional process, making dissent costly for any individual noble.

Strategies 1-3 baroque; Strategy 4 vague on enforcement mechanism.


Your CEO suddenly offers you the chance to leave your secure middle-management role and lead a risky new division that could fast-track you to the executive team or collapse within a year, destroying your hard-won reputation. You must decide by Friday whether to seize this fleeting expansion of your career or protect the stability you have built.

[Seize the Opening] Accept the offer immediately, move the family, and commit fully to the division, trusting that seizing this window of leadership will secure your long-term career regardless of short-term outcome.

[Fortify the Position] Politely decline the offer and instead use the next week to deepen your current influence—secure critical allies, build a visible record of success, and position yourself to be considered for a future high-leverage role without the personal upheaval.

[Probe Before Committing] Request a 30-day trial period or a formal pilot project, asking the CEO to vest a small team and a predictable outcome so you can prove or disprove the division's viability before fully committing your career to it.

[Reframe the Opportunity] Approach the CEO with a proposal to lead a parallel internal pilot that operates under your own name and with your own metrics, turning the risky external venture into a demonstrable internal achievement that you can then leverage for a guaranteed promotion if the pilot succeeds.

I sign the division lead offer letter and hand it to the CEO by 5 PM Friday, then immediately instruct our real estate broker to list our current home and close on a rental property in the new city by the 15th, relocating the household with a 30-day notice. The bet is that this sudden, full immersion forces the division’s critical path to surface its true viability within the first 90 days, making the 18-month collapse window irrelevant because the data will either validate or refute the leadership thesis before my current role can recover.

By 5 p.m. Friday, I will email my CFO and Head of Engineering to request a 30-minute meeting Monday to propose a specific, high-visibility project—“Critical Path Resilience”—that I will lead to reduce the division’s supply-chain downtime by 40% within 12 months, making my operational impact undeniable and replicable. I will then use that meeting to secure a written commitment from the CFO to allocate a $200,000 innovation budget directly to my project, making my financial stewardship visible to the CEO as a counter-example to the division’s assumed failure. This bets that a concrete, quantifiable success in my current role will raise my internal marketability to executive level faster and with less personal disruption than the offered role.

I will email the CEO by 9:00 AM tomorrow with a concrete counter-proposal: a 30-day pilot as Division Lead, authorized to hire one senior person and one junior person under me, with a pre-drafted board-level report due in 18 days that must quantify revenue or cost-recovery targets against actual performance. The proposal explicitly ties my continued role to the pilot’s positive threshold—failure immediately terminates the offer with no transition cost. This bets that a compressed, bounded experiment will surface the division’s true conversion probability before a career-altering commitment, turning the CEO’s desperation into a testable instrument.

I will request a 30-minute meeting with the CEO by 10 AM tomorrow to propose a pilot: I lead the new division’s operations under my own name and define two leading indicators (customer retention and headcount churn) that I will report to the board every quarter, with the explicit understanding that failure of these metrics by month 18 will trigger a guaranteed VP promotion. This reframing converts the external venture into an internal, board-visible experiment that removes the CEO’s personal risk and makes the promotion a direct function of the division’s performance. The bet is that the CEO values internal pilots for succession planning and will approve them over a blind external launch.

Strategies 3-4 assume CEO will accept renegotiation; unrealistic.


After seizing Montefiore by murdering its Count at a truce feast, you face a rebel army led by the Count's two sons, a sullen populace, and empty coffers. How do you secure your rule?

[Extinguish the bloodline] Arrest the sons, execute them, and impose a heavy tax on the nobles' estates to drain their support, making the city hate you but never dare rebel.

[Transform the nobles] Marry one son to a noble heiress, grant the other a military command, and publicly bestow fiefs on the disaffected lords, converting them into loyal tenants.

[Embrace the artisans] Abolish all burdens on the guilds, appoint a popular tribune to oversee markets, and let the artisans' gratitude chain the city to you in peace.

[Dilatory rule] Announce a general 'reconciliation' by sending envoys to the nobles and the sons, appoint a mediator from a rival faction, and delay any decision until winter stunts the rebels' harvest and the rumors cool.

At dawn tomorrow, the herald will arrest the elder Count’s son in his own castle and the younger in his household, transferring them to the city gate where they will be publicly beheaded by the mercenary captain before noon. Simultaneously, the tax assessor will begin levying 40% of the annual estate yields from the seven nobles who opposed the truce, with the first payment due to the garrison commander by the calends of next month. This bets that the nobles’ estates, now directly drained by a legally sanctioned levy, will render their rebellion economically untenable, while the swift removal of the sons’ names from the heirloom titles eliminates any myth of a bloodline rescue.

By week’s end, I will publicly betroth my younger son to the de’ Medici widow of Florence, while placing my elder son in command of the newly fortified Castel Montefiore, and issue a charter granting the three leading houses a share of the mountain tolls. This immediately converts the nobles into landed tenants bound by oath, whose sworn protection becomes the basis of a new tax base, thereby neutralizing the plot.

At dawn, I issue a decree abolishing the annual toll on all artisan guilds and appoint the Ordo’s chief weaver, Gaius Sempronius, as permanent market tribune with a six-month salary from the treasury release, while simultaneously suspending the truce’s commercial provisions to let the townsfolk experience the immediate benefit of lower tolls. This bets that the artisans’ gratitude will form a durable majority bloc that either expels the rebel nobles or, if resisted, supplies a ready-made militia loyal to the city’s new economic order.

Dispatch a herald at dawn under a flag of truce to the three leading noble houses, offering a 90-day reconciliation conference in the Great Hall of the Castle of Montefiore, with the Count’s younger son attending as guest of honor. Simultaneously, name Lord Aldric of the rival Blackwood faction as mediator, tasking him with daily progress reports to the assembled lords. This bets that the nobles’ hunger for restored grain and market access will compel the younger son to suspend his rebellion long enough to negotiate a marriage alliance, fracturing the rebel coalition before the winter famine thins their ranks.

Strategy 4 relies on wishful thinking about noble hunger. Strategy 1 assumes economic drain works.


You've just been promoted to regional director thanks to the crucial backing of a senior manager who now expects to be appointed your second-in-command with genuine authority over accounts and team operations. If you grant it, he could overshadow you and take credit for successes; if you refuse outright, he may become a resentful adversary whose deep client ties and informal influence could destabilize your leadership.

[Accept and Reinforce] Grant the promotion fully, publicly endorse the manager's role, and invest in his development, trusting that mutual respect and shared success will bind him to your vision.

[Accept with Boundaries] Accept the title and name him deputy but vest him with only delegated authority over accounts; retain final say on strategy, team structure, and client relationships, clearly delineating the limits of his power.

[Negotiated Role] Accept the deputy title but negotiate a formal advisory-only role where he contributes insights and client counsel while you retain operational control, turning his influence into a channel rather than a parallel command path.

[Strategic Reorganization] Reject the promotion request and instead lobby for a new, smaller 'account development lead' role for the manager within a separate, co-equal account management unit, reshaping the power dynamic without elevating him above you.

I will announce the promotion in a Monday all-hands email, appoint him as second-in-command with full account and team authority effective immediately, and immediately schedule a one-on-one with him to co-author a six-month development plan funded by a $5,000 team-banking bonus contingent on delivering the Q3 client retention rate of 95%. The bet is that his public ownership and tangible stakes in shared success will bind him to my vision, making his escalation of grievances into a self-interested protector of my leadership rather than an adversary.

I will present to the senior manager, within 48 hours via a formal divisional memo, a "Deputy Account Lead" role with a public title change and a written mandate limited to reconciling monthly account balances and preparing the quarterly P&L, while explicitly retaining all client-facing authority, team structure decisions, and strategic direction. The memo will require his written acceptance by end of week, conditional on a 30-minute weekly check-in to preserve his client visibility. This bets that granting visible, operationally granular authority without decision rights will satisfy his need for recognition and embed him in the client pipeline just enough to make opposition logistically costly.

I will call a 30-minute meeting with the senior manager tomorrow morning to present a written role-clarification addendum to our employment contract, accepting the deputy title only on the condition that all operational authority—signing of accounts, delegation of day-to-day management—remains with me, while his formal remit shifts to serving on the advisory committee, with a binding 90-day trial. The first move is a signed addendum by Friday, physically filed in both our inboxes as a binding amendment to his employment terms. The bet is that his deep client relationships become a channel through which I gain his indirect influence, without giving him the levers to bypass me, thereby neutralizing the threat of a parallel command structure.

I will formally decline the promotion request to the senior manager by end of business tomorrow, and within 48 hours I will submit a reorganization proposal to the VP of Regional Operations for a new, co-equal “Account Development Lead” role—fully vested with authority over accounts and client relationships—with the manager as the sole member of that unit, operating alongside my existing, unchanged deputy who retains operational oversight of the team. This move bets that the manager, to retain my indispensable client connections, will accept the restructured role rather than lose the leverage that a full promotion would give him, thereby transforming our relationship into a bounded advisory partnership that denies him unearned authority.

Strategies 2-4 rely on unilateral structural moves that ignore negotiation reality.


You have seized a wealthy city-state in the Romagna whose just and popular prince fled to a powerful foreign court. The citizens obey outwardly, but their hearts remain with the exile, and he may soon return with hired swords. You must secure the city before old loyalties undo you.

[FORCEFUL SUBMISSION] Execute the city's nobles and senior officials, impose a heavy tax, and swear loyalty or death to your garrison, making the cost of resistance too high.

[COERCION WITH HONOR] Appoint a governor from your own retinue, publicly pardon the exiled prince, and allow the city's nobles to keep their titles and a share of their revenues, binding them with gratitude.

[INSTITUTIONAL REFORM] Dissolve the old nobles' council, replace its members with your own commissioners, and install a local magistrates' court under your authority, removing the source of their power.

[CONCEDE LEGITIMACY] Confirm the exiled prince's rights and appoint him a figurehead duke under your suzerainty, granting him a pension and a seat on the new council, buying peace through magnanimity.

At dawn tomorrow, my seneschal will publicly behead the city’s ten hereditary nobles and all five members of the Council of Notaries, then execute every tax official and militia captain listed in the municipal archives. By midday, the garrison will enforce a levy of 200 adult males per quarter for forced labor on the walls, and a sworn oath of fealty or immediate decimation will be administered in each neighborhood. The strategy bets that the combined shock of mass public executions and the enforced physical labor of a unified defensive infrastructure will dissolve the nobles’ command networks and leave the common populace too exhausted and too integrated into the garrison’s routine to coordinate a restoration.

I will immediately appoint my own captain, Don Alvaro, as city governor with full writ, and by noon tomorrow issue a public decree pardoning the exiled prince and confirming all noble families in their titles and three-fifths of their annual revenue shares, provided they swear a binding oath of fealty and pay a one-time tribute of 40,000 florins to fund a permanent garrison of 200 handpicked veterans. The bet is that this combination of bloodless coercion and economic entanglement will convert the nobles into a class of grateful, self-interested rulers who will either defend the status quo or actively obstruct a restoration, because the cost of betraying their newfound self-interest exceeds the loyalty they retained under the old regime.

At dawn tomorrow, my herald publicly dissolves the Council of the Counts, issuing an edict that all hereditary seats are vacant and appointing my commissioners Giovanni di Marco and Alberico di Siena as the first members of a new Council of State with immediate executive authority over the city’s treasury, justice, and fortifications. The bet is that stripping the nobles of their sovereign veto and inserting my lieutenants into the command structure eliminates the material for a restoration coup before the summer heat forces any foreign prince to commit to a season of siege.

I will issue a public decree tomorrow confirming the exiled prince as Duke of the city, appoint him to a five-man governing council with a monthly pension of 2,000 florins, and station a 200-man garrison under his sworn loyalty only, while simultaneously withdrawing my armed forces from the city’s inner walls. This bets that the prince’s acceptance of a figurehead role with tangible state support will dissolve the common people’s incentive to resist, as their immediate material interest aligns with the preservation of their city’s liberties under a recognized suzerain.

Strategy 4 (Concede Legitimacy) is politically incoherent and self-defeating.


As the newly appointed CEO of a family-owned manufacturing company, you must manage a bitter feud between your production manager uncle and sales director cousin, both essential to the business, each threatening to leave if you side with the other, with the board demanding immediate stability and next quarter’s targets at risk.

[External Arbitration] Bring in a respected industry consultant or external mediator to review performance and fairness, bind their commitment with a confidentiality agreement, and force both relatives to accept a mediated compromise.

[Structural Redesign] Redesign reporting lines immediately: split responsibilities into two parallel operating units, each reporting to you but with shared goals, so neither relative can block the other without your intervention.

[Individual Co-optation] Privately negotiate with each relative separately: offer the uncle a prominent new role or bonus tied to his domain, and the cousin a different prestigious challenge, so both feel personally rewarded and become your direct lieutenants.

[Shared Leadership] Publicly announce and invest in a joint CEO role for both, with clear shared authority and shared responsibility, making their defection costly and their cooperation a sign of mature family business culture.

I will retain a certified business mediator from the American Arbitration Association tomorrow morning, contractually requiring both the uncle and cousin to submit their operational performance data and grievance records to him by Friday noon, after which he will deliver a binding compromise framework—splitting key accounts evenly under a new revenue-sharing protocol and relocating the production line to a shared shift schedule—with both parties signing a non-disclosure agreement that makes any subsequent legal threats collateral to the mediator’s ruling. The immediate bet is that the cousin, facing a concrete, board-validated redistribution of revenue and customer load that eliminates his bargaining leverage, will accept the mediated split to avoid a public lawsuit and a forced operational reorganization.

Effective Monday, I will issue a formal restructuring memo that creates two standalone operating units: one reporting directly to me with the title “Production & Supply Chain Director” (responsible for the line, quality, and internal logistics) and another with the title “Customer & Revenue Director” (responsible for accounts receivable, sales pipeline, and customer support), both reporting to me but each managing their own P&L and key performance indicators. The cousin will lead the Customer & Revenue unit and the uncle will lead the Production & Supply Chain unit, with a shared board dashboard I will review quarterly. This bets that decoupling control and reporting lines eliminates the zero-sum veto each has over the other, forcing them to compete on their own legitimate front rather than through a destructive alliance against the board.

By close of business tomorrow, I will hand-deliver to the uncle a signed operating agreement granting him sole authority over daily production scheduling and a 12% bonus pool tied to on-time component delivery metrics for Q1, and simultaneously present the cousin with a signed promotion letter naming them Chief Revenue Officer with a 15% commission on all new enterprise contracts signed within their first quarter. This bets that converting each relative’s internal bargaining power into a direct financial stake in their own domain will make the threat of legal action against the board appear irrelevant, securing their operational control as my direct lieutenants.

I will issue a company-wide email on Monday, March 11, establishing a single CEO position titled "Operational Sovereign" with dual signatures required for any expenditure over $50,000, and appoint the uncle and cousin as co-signatories with equal voting rights, making their departure immediately cost the firm their respective operational control—since any unilateral move now bypasses their authority and invites a breach-of-loyalty lawsuit. This bets that the threat of shared accountability will force both to cooperate for the board’s financial targets, converting their private supporters’ bargaining power into joint compliance.

Strategies 1 & 4 legally problematic; 3 unsustainable; 2 strongest but all overspecified.


You promised years ago to fully fund your older child’s dream university education, a promise made when your younger child was healthy and finances were secure. Now a sudden, severe illness requires vast out-of-pocket medical expenses for your younger child, putting the college fund and urgent treatment in direct conflict—honoring one commitment means failing the other.

[Strict Fidelity] Renegotiate the promise with your older child, provide a reduced but truthful financial gift now, and seek forgiveness—prioritizing the integrity of the original word.

[Prudential Adaptation] Temporarily suspend the university commitment, use the saved money for the younger child’s emergency care, and offer a long-term, smaller alternative (e.g., vocational training) when finances stabilize.

[Shared Sacrifice] Combine both funds, cut back on all non-essential family luxuries, and meet the education cost in part through the younger child’s eventual reduced medical bills by selling assets and cutting expenses.

[Reframing the Obligation] Redefine the original promise as a guiding principle rather than a fixed dollar amount—commit to providing a secure future for both children, whatever that means, and accept that the specific university plan will evolve.

I will call my older child tomorrow to inform her that we are liquidating the $30,000 in non-retirement stock to cover the first two quarters of medical care for the younger child, and I will present a notarized check for $25,000 with a handwritten note stating the remaining $5,000 will be transferred as soon as the insurance deductible is met. The bet is that this immediate, concrete breach of the original promise—executed with full transparency—converts into a forgivable debt or a restructured, smaller ongoing contribution rather than a terminal break of trust.

I will immediately freeze the university fund’s growth and redirect the quarterly $4,000 allocation into a dedicated health account, initiating a 12-month stop-loss for the younger child’s medical expenses with the hospital’s emergency fund provider by close of business tomorrow. Simultaneously, I will contract a regional vocational training center to deliver a certified nursing assistant program to the younger child, with tuition capped at $6,000 per year, starting in the next semester. This bets that the younger child’s condition stabilizes within 18 months, allowing a bridging loan or part-time work to cover the deferred university contributions without catastrophic default.

Tomorrow, I will instruct our family attorney to list our second home for sale within 30 days, redirect 40% of the proceeds into a dedicated joint education account, and file simultaneous medical expense waivers with the university’s bursar and the hospital’s finance office to cap the younger child’s out-of-pocket medical bills at 12 months. This bets that the resulting 18-month shared sacrifice will deplete the fund enough to keep the younger child’s treatment manageable while preserving a non-negligible portion for the older child’s degree.

Tomorrow, I will instruct my financial advisor to redirect 100% of the $45,000 remaining in the separate "Younger Child Medical Reserve" account into a newly opened irrevocable medical trust for my younger child, with the advisor issuing a formal notice to the older child that the university fund has been permanently reclassified as a "family security umbrella" and will now draw from the combined family investment portfolio, adjusting monthly disbursements accordingly starting next quarter. The one downstream consequence this bets on is that the older child, facing a reduced but non-zero annual contribution, will accept the redefined promise as a concrete act of loyalty rather than a broken dollar figure, preserving the sibling bond through shared sacrifice.

Strategies 3-4 rely on unrealistic assumptions; baroque language obscures execution.


You are the newly installed Lord of Fermo, having overthrown a hated tyrant; his vengeful nephew marches with a condottiero-led army. To hold the city, you must rapidly decide where to anchor your defense—your treasury can hire a mercenary company, your populace could be armed as a militia, or you might avoid battle entirely through negotiation, but each choice carries deep risks for your fragile rule.

[HOLD THE CITY WITH FOREIGN SWORD] Immediately contract the mercenary company, pay them generously from your own purse, and station them in the fortresses and public buildings—demonstrate that the city's strength now lies in steel from beyond the mountains, not in citizen arms. Trust that a visible show of professionalism will deter both the nephew's army and the mercenary's own men, while you quietly seek a marriage alliance with the condottiero to turn him against his cousin.

[ARM THE POPULACE WITH JUSTICE] Announce a general 'reform' that grants every free household a sword from the city's treasury, drawn from the same funds you would spend on mercenaries, but delivered directly to the hands of the people. Recruit the artisans and market crossroads, those who have suffered under the old regime, and bind them by name to the cause through a public oath of loyalty to you as their deliverer. Let the condottiero see a citizen army growing beneath your watch, and negotiate with him from the strength of a city that now belongs to its people.

[AVERT THE BATTLE BY SEVERING THE NEPHEW'S HAVEN] Send secret emissaries to the nephew's estranged aunt in the countryside, offering her a share of the revenues of the confiscated tyrant's estates, a title she would not contest, and a promise of safe passage for her and her children. Simultaneously dispatch trusted agents to the condottiero to propose a marriage of convenience: he withdraws his support from the nephew in exchange for a long-term alliance that brings Fermo into your wider political web. Leave the nephew no base to stand on but a broken family and a broken promise.

[WITHDRAW TO THE CASTLE AND REBUILD FROM WITHIN] Evacuate the city's offices and artisans under the pretext of a great market fete, leaving the garrison and the condottiero to live off the city's stores. Spend the months of siege fortifying the Castel Sant'Angelo, sending for stone and men from your own duchies, and using the time to win over the

I will dispatch my steward at dawn to the mercenary captain Aldric Voss’s camp at San Della Torre, offering 800 florins per month per soldier for a 12-month contract signed by the city council, with the first payment of 400 florins wired to his captain’s account by midday. Upon their arrival, I will have them billet into the Castel San Giovanni citadel and the Palazzo del Podestà, publicly displaying their banners and armoring, while simultaneously issuing a decree that any citizen who arms himself without a license will be subject to immediate confiscation of property and a 500-florin fine. The bet is that the condottiero’s army, observing the visible deployment of well-fed, well-equipped professionals, will interpret it as a signal of the city’s unassailable strength and withdraw; furthermore, the marriage offer—my councilor will ride to the condottiero’s camp tonight to propose a betrothal between my niece and his captain, Aldric Voss—will transform the condottiero into a shield against his own cousin’s rebellion.

I issue a decree tomorrow morning that every free household in Fermo, as verified by the guild rolls, receives a sword from the treasury—wielding the same 40,000 florins that would have hired the mercenary company—and simultaneously convene the Mercato Nuovo to administer a public oath of loyalty, binding the artisans and market crossroads directly to me as their deliverer. The condottiero, witnessing a citizen army springing from our watch, will either accept the new order or attack a city that now belongs to its people, and his choice becomes a clarifying test of his ambition.

Dispatch a trusted notary to the nephew’s widowed aunt within three days, offering her a 40% share of the confiscated tyrant estate revenues, a lifetime hereditary title of “Lady of the March,” and a signed guarantee of safe passage for her and her children to a designated Tuscan villa. Simultaneously, send a trusted agent to the condottiero’s camp with a written proposal: his garrison withdraws its support from the nephew’s army in exchange for a permanent alliance that places Fermo within your wider web. The strategy bets that the nephew’s base collapses without a city to rally around, and the condottiero’s withdrawal removes the single most dangerous sword from the nephew’s hands.

I order the city’s notary to convene a public market fete on the Piazza del Duomo within ten days, under the legal pretext of reviving a lost civic ritual, while the city’s artisans and office-holders are escorted by the garrison to the Castel Sant’Angelo, where we immediately begin fortifying its outworks with stone and timber from my own duchies. The condottiero’s army, left to starve the populace and plunder the city’s granaries, will then waste its months weakening its own cohesion, betting that by the time it returns, the castellum will be a standing fortress with a loyal garrison inside, rendering a pitched battle a matter of attrition the mercenary captain will prefer to avoid.

Strategy 1 conflates mercenary hire with dynastic marriage; Strategy 4 abandons city entirely.


A consultant must impose a 30% rate hike and stricter contract terms on 20 long-term clients to avoid burnout, risking mass defection; the harsh change can be rolled out all at once or in phases, with varying pace and sequence.

[Swift Strike] Implement the full rate increase and contract changes at once, absorbing the immediate fallout to quickly secure the necessary financial floor.

[Phased Deterrence] Gradually raise rates over 6-8 weeks, using each increment to lock in commitment through new clauses, while monitoring client reactions to adjust the final offer.

[Selective Reinforcement] Target the three most critical clients and impose the full change immediately, using their retention as a signal to the others that the change is non-negotiable.

[Strategic Withdrawal] Announce a voluntary 30% reduction in services and offer to wind down the relationship amicably, freeing up capacity without the crushing blow of a mass exit.

The consultant sends a single, non-negotiable email to all 20 clients by 5:00 PM tomorrow, enacting the 30% rate increase and the full suite of new contract terms with no grace period, followed by a hard deadline of 30 days to execute the changes or face immediate termination. The move bets that the shock of abrupt, identical cuts will trigger a predictable, rapid re-engagement with the remaining clients who value the immediate, guaranteed service continuity, absorbing the short-term defection in a way that secures the necessary cash flow before the end of the quarter.

The consultant sends a joint proposal to all 20 clients by May 15, imposing a 5% rate increase effective June 1 with a 30-day contract extension clause at the new rate, followed by another 5% hike on July 1 with a 60-day notice period, and finalizes the full 30% increase on August 1 with immediate effect and no further negotiation. This sequence bets that the early, smaller increments will prompt at least 10 clients to sign the extended terms voluntarily, locking in their business and signaling to the remaining clients that the final raise is the terminal offer, thereby containing mass defection.

The consultant will, by 5 PM tomorrow, notify the three clients with the highest annual revenue-to-contract ratios—MediCorp, Veridian Group, and Sigma Solutions—executing a binding amendment that locks in the 30% rate hike and enforces the new contract terms effective immediately, with a 48-hour acceptance window and a written notice that non-compliance triggers immediate termination. Simultaneously, the consultant will issue a single, phased transition notice to the remaining 17 clients, setting a 90-day sunset for the old terms with a default rate adjustment of 8% per quarter unless they voluntarily adopt the new structure. The strategy bets that the three immediately hardened contracts will visually signal to the other clients that defection carries a precise, immediate operational cost, converting the mass defection risk into a self-interested compliance cascade.

The consultant issues a joint advisory note with each of the 20 clients by end of week, proposing a 30% reduction in hours allocated to their accounts effective immediately, paired with a 90-day formal transition plan that includes a structured knowledge-transfer protocol and a retained advisory-only buffer pool of 5% of prior billable hours. This move bets that 70% of the clients will accept the voluntary reduction to avoid abrupt project disruption, thereby collapsing the consultant’s operational overload into a manageable, restructured workload rather than triggering a mass exit.

Strategies 1, 3 blur coercion/legality; 4 dodges core problem.


You have captured the duke who led an uprising against your new rule and his inner circle. To consolidate power, you must decide their fate, knowing that your choice will signal your nature to subjects, allies, and rivals alike.

[Public Justice] Execute the leaders swiftly and publicly, displaying their severed heads as trophies to terrify the disaffected and reassure the loyal, making your message that fear of the state is the only order.

[Selective Mercy] Pardon the leaders and offer them positions of honor under your new regime, binding them to you with gratitude and shared wealth so that their future power lies with you and they become counterweights to any rising faction.

[Neutral Arbitration] Send the leaders to a neutral, respected city for trial by a tribunal of your choosing, removing them from your immediate realm and letting the process either convert them or reveal their guilt without the immediate spectacle of your choice.

[Permanent Exile] Ship the leaders and their families to a distant, impoverished province far from your heartlands, where they may scrape out a meager existence under the watchful eyes of a garrison, their names erased from memory and their influence with their old followers cut off.

At dawn tomorrow, the herald will assemble the assembled crowd at the main square and, after a summary recitation of the charges, the executioner will be dispatched to behead the captured duke and his inner circle in rapid succession, with each severed head placed on a pike on the bastion parapet by midday. This will be followed immediately by the proclamation of a general bounty for information leading to the capture of any remaining ringleaders, offered by the city treasury. The strategy bets that the public spectacle will so enervate the remaining conspiratorial cells that they fracture and disperse, converting latent rebellion into immediate, isolated, and neutralized threats.

Tomorrow at dawn, I will issue a signed proclamation pardoning the former duke and his inner circle, then immediately appoint the former duke as Lord Chancellor of the new ducal treasury and each of his inner circle members to a seat on the Privy Council, granting them lifetime annual incomes of 5,000 florins and a permanent share of all new tax revenues from their assigned provinces. This bets that their material stake and visible honor under my regime will transform their political capital into self-interest aligned with my court, rendering any nascent conspiracy unlikely because their livelihoods and prestige depend on my continued favor.

I dispatch the captured duke and his inner circle to the neutral city of Verio by muleteer within forty-eight hours, placing them under the custody of the city’s magistrates and requiring their sworn deposition before a tribunal of seven arbitrators appointed by us. This move removes them from my direct realm’s power base and channels their defiance into a process that, by design, either achieves conversion through public justice or unambiguously reveals their plot through their refusal to comply. The bet is that Verio’s tribunal will deliver a verdict that, in its public articulation of guilt or innocence, clarifies their role to my subjects and other powers without requiring my own theatrical display, thereby neutralizing the immediate threat while leaving me the clean option to execute the verdict or release the captives on the tribunal’s terms.

I order the provincial governor to assemble the captured duke and his inner circle at dawn, strip them of titles and estates, and board them on the next scheduled transport to the distant outpost of Ostmark within forty-eight hours, accompanied by a permanent garrison of thirty handpicked marines. This move physically removes their names from the legal records and cuts off any familial network, betting that the irreversible severance of their social capital will render organized rebellion logistically impossible.

Strategies 1-3 are baroque; exile lacks realism about enforcement.


You've been elected president of a fractious condo board facing a $50k deficit and bitter resident disputes. To secure your leadership and the building's future, you must choose a strategy.

[Decisive Alliance] Publicly endorse one resident faction, publicly distance yourself from the other, and frame your presidency as a temporary union of the divided building.

[Neutral Arbitration] Announce a binding referendum on all major budget items, and commit to supporting whatever outcome the residents vote for, regardless of which faction wins.

[Divide and Conquer] Publicly support both factions by funding their separate committees, but secretly steer funds and attention toward the one that best serves your long-term vision.

[Self-Reliant Fortress] Immediately cut all non-essential expenses, refuse to appoint resident representatives, and pay down the deficit yourself, earning the title of 'uncompromising leader' and risking a hostile takeover.

I will publicly endorse the maintenance-focused resident faction by name at tomorrow’s board meeting, immediately distance myself from the renovation-heavy faction by stating their proposal is not aligned with the building’s current repair needs, and announce a temporary two-faction coalition: the endorsed faction will serve as maintenance directors, and I will appoint the opposition’s three board seats to a newly created oversight committee with binding veto power over any expenditure over $5,000. This bets that the opposition faction, stripped of all funding authority, will be forced to publicly defend its own platform or risk a vote of no confidence from the maintenance faction within one month.

I will immediately file the condominium association’s state-mandated referendum packet with the county clerk’s real property records office by close of business Friday, requiring a two-thirds supermajority vote of all unit owners within 21 days to pass any item over $5,000. I will then publicly announce that I will vote in lockstep with the winning majority—whichever one it is—on every single line item, with my own ballot cast in the same manner as any other owner. This bets that forcing both resident factions to bear full accountability for the outcome will fracture their ability to coordinate opposition, delivering a legitimate majority decision that funds the deficit and unseats the opposition without my ever having to break a formal tie.

I will announce tomorrow at the full board meeting the creation of two standing committees—a Maintenance Oversight Committee for the maintenance staff and a Financial Transparency Committee for the property manager—with each faction co-chairing one, while simultaneously transferring $18,000 from the general operating fund to the Maintenance Oversight Committee’s operating account by close of business Friday. This bets that the Financial Transparency Committee, now fully resourced, will deliver a public audit showing the property manager’s margins are sufficient to justify the emergency repair fund I will then propose, diverting the other faction’s funding to that committee and leaving them no surplus to threaten.

I will execute a $15,000 immediate cut by suspending all non-essential maintenance exceptions and banning all condo association travel for myself and the board secretary, effective the first of next month, and I will personally draw $20,000 from my personal savings to pay the $10,000 outstanding HOVAN maintenance invoice and $5,000 toward the HOVAN loan principal, then reinvest the remaining $5,000 into a dedicated emergency repair fund that I will manage without resident representatives. This bets that the visible, unilateral financial discipline will fracture the resident opposition by making their factional grievances seem petty in contrast to the irreversible loss of control.

Strategies 1,3,4 legally/procedurally problematic; 2 is sound.