Opening moves 2102

[Hercules]

Hiya Pirates,First turn received.

Position 52, 64

looks like landfall to the west

3 colony pods 4 movements each and a gunsloop.
1 mineral resource immediately south of colony pods.

So where to build first base and directions for other pods.

we have 24 hrs and we can take each move 1 at a time.

First base name

Also what shall I call myself Captain Hercules? (the Greek)

[johndmuller]

Cuspidore Brownbeard here.

(sorry for this long post - maybe I should be Cuspidore Blowhard instead ; there is a concrete proposition or two in here, so at least skimming through to the end is requested)

Based on the depths and shading in our little window, and the gossip of the mermaids, it is possible that there is some land just beyond our view to the SouthEast.

Methinks it's a tad unsavory to look at the gridlines to tell where the land is, but we are an unsavory lot, we Pirates, so based on our "inherent seafaring nose for land", it would seem that there are some major geological features a few days sail to the East (a definite large landmass) and a less dramatic skyline to the West, but still definite indications of elevation, also about 2 day's sail away. To the North and South, there are small ripples here and there which would suggest occasional small islands (although a large flat low-lying area could be anywhere).

My suggestion would be to cruise around the min special counterclockwise with the gunship - (51,65), (51,67), (53,67) to check out the immediate area and see whether or not there is any land to the SE. Secondly, I would take one of the SCP's and go due West with it for its full move unless land pops up or as is otherwise possible given fungus conditions. Third, move a second SCP simililarly to the east (perhaps waiting and/or deviating a little to help explore the SE in behalf of the 3rd Pod). Lastly, move the 3rd SCP to (53,65). If there is land in sight, build a base (this turn if comfortable enough with the geogrphy) in the nicest looking spot adjacent to the land, while keeping the MinSpecial within the production limits. This 3rd CP would be founding the HQ base in the general area we are in at the beginning. I imagine that Googlie salted this vicinity with good stuff he thinks the Pirates would appreciate, like monoliths (it would be great if he gave us a sea monolith), bonus tiles, rivers, rum and whatnot. (In another game he designed, he put the Borehole Complex in Pirate territory.)

There is always a trade off between cruising around scoping out the terrain to pick the best spot and getting started a few turns earlier, so I would propose adding this Law into the [u]Compleat Buccaneer's Book of Etiquette[u]: [i]No Captain Shall be made to Walk the Plank after on account of their base site selection by second-guessing in light of later terrain info. Bad decisions in the face of adequate knowledge is another matter - subject to punishments not to exceed Keel-Hauling .

If we want to divide up the turn play, I would suggest one person to move the ships (that could lso be broken down into Explore(with the gunship) and Colonize (with the SCP's) for 2 people to do) and another to operate bases. Other roles at this point could be Research director and Terraforming Crew Boss. Basically, once the 3 colonies get planted and the base productions set, there won't be much to do for the next 5 or 10 turns, unless we get some pod windfalls.

Speaking of Pods, I would suggest that we refrain from popping pods which are likely to be within a future base until that base is built, giving us the good-pop effect for those pods (although earthquakes can happen, which are fatal for ships that are too close).

As a offer to get us moving, I'm willing to move our ships this turn (according to the plan above or whatever other general plan might be recommended by a Captains' Consensus) and turn over the rest of the turn to the Base Operations Captain (assuming I founded a base, taking my chance on being keelhauled) who could then do their thing with the base's name, production, etc. I'm willing to do this role for 10 years (or thru 2110 to get/keep our shifts on even dates). After a few years, the Sea Operations Captain would essentially become the Exploration Captain (and the role would be to just pilot the gunship) while the Base Operations Captain would have most of the work. After 10 years, we could rotate jobs and have a Terraforming Captain and/or a Land Forces Captain to also join in the actual play of the turns.

[Makahlua]

*points up* What he said Seriously though, that sound like a good plan - if there's land to the east as the mermaids tell, having our base 'cling' to the isle should work well

Hey base production! I've done that before ^_^ Just as long as one of ye rough & tumbles spells me later -- a lass could get tired of nothing to do but drink rum when ther's new oceans t'be explored! *thinks* We already have rec tank equivalents, so what's the first move? An, um Brigadier unit (ScoutP) for the Port Authority to police our rowdy citizens perhaps. We won't have formers for a bit, so perhaps another Gunsloop or two after that (to make up for the one lost to Googlie Neptune

Well if we're all pirate clans I guess you can be whatever you want?

[Hercules]

Cuspidore Brownbeard, I think that's a damn good plan yi've suggested. Your years on the high seas have taught you well.

I would ask that you wait a short while to see if Capt'n Flame (Flashman) and GeminiRai chime in.

Also just before you save and exit could you save the turn as per SP and then send it to us or post it in this thread, so we can all have a look at where we're at.

Re tech search choice what are your views on Capt'n Makuhlua (Texas O' Malley) beeline proposal. Changing tech direction next turn seems to cost min, so best to decide at outset.

re playing turn yep Ok with me. But await reasonable time for other team members to contribute.

[johndmuller]

Cap'n H, I'll wait until late tonight to play the turn, unless there is something posted here to the contrary from FF or someone else.

I had planned to save off the game before exiting and post it here for Capt'n Makuhlua to tinker with the base production and whatever of the HeadQuarters Base I hope to found near our starting point or to finish off the selection of sites if I can't decide among multiple good possibilities - and for her to save it off as below. In the event that there are no credible sites nearby, I will probably just post the pre-exit save here and the post-exit-save on the main public thread or whereever it belongs.

I don't think that we will have to make a research selection until after we have some production, but I could be wrong. In any event, I posted something (indecisive) on the Chartroom thread representing my thoughts (or lack thereof) on the subject.

[Hercules]

I have just authorised Capt'n Flame. So he should be joining us soon.

[FlameFlash]

One thing I always like is establishing a base on the shoreline.

I also like having the headquarters somewhat out in the middle of everything... just make sure it's well surrounded by other ships... in simulations I've run as the Drones I can always wipe out the AI Pirates quickly thanks to my higher production and a swarm of ships.

[Hercules]

Just noticed I said West at the start, I meant East of course with the sea shelf.

If GeminiRai doesn't weigh in with something to the contrary, I think Cuspidore you have our aye ayes Cap'n

[FlameFlash]

Uh... Herc... could you e-mail me the turn? I can't seem to download it from 'poly. I'd like to take a look at what we're talking about.

[johndmuller]

Description of turn - Headline: No base founded yet

Well Maties, it turned out that there was indeed some land to the SE; in fact there is lots of land all around and quite a lot of "stuff" to look at in our neighborhood. So after stumbling into one special after another, it seemed better to use up all the movement looking around instead of founding a base too quickly and regretting the exact placement later. In fact, my initial thoughts were to put the base at (51,67), looking at a Monolith, Min and Nut specials, and an adjacent (good) pod in the base area, which is not a bad place, but the Min special I could see at that point at (52,66) has fungus (an unfungused one later turned up at (48,68), somewhat reviving the fortunes of the original site idea), and the grass started to looking very green further east. Having seen all the good stuff Googlie seeded our area with on the east, I am now favoring establishing not 1, but 2 bases in this general area instead of immediately barging in on our neighbors to the farther east, to make more with what the Googs is offering right here anad now. Ye olde parrot in the hook, versus the parakeets in the rigging.

I am currently thinking that we can use SCP #!, at (49,69), to place a base at (53,69) - on the Nut special itself to give us good nut production right off the bat - with just one worker, at the monolith, I think that it would produce 7 nuts (5 in the base tile) which should help jump start our population growth; the 2 pods within the base perimeter should give us some good stuff, perhaps another monolith, a lot of money, an extra gunboat, whatever, hopefully at least 1 enduring good thing and no earthquakes or sonar scans. There are still 5 unknown tiles in that base area too, which likely will contain a pleasant surprise or two

The potential base site at (57,63) looks just too good to pass up, with 2 Mins a Nut and an Energy special (and 4 tiles still to be revealed) and a location that also bridges the gap between two pieces of our archipelago; I am suggesting that we use SCP #3, at (58,64), to plant a base there next turn, maybe with a little more exploration while on the way to reveal those 4 unknown tiles.

SCP #2 at (49,61) is still headed west, if it can find a way out of this maze (preferably without going through fungus); there looks to be an opening through (48,60), but there will likely be more islets and temptations in that direction too. The gunship is slated to pop the pod at (50,68) sometime after the base at (53,69) is established, then to take a counterclockwise cruise around our current area and llink up with SCP #2 in the northwest somewhere unless other adventures beckon more strongly.

So, I'm proposing that we plant 2 bases next turn, at (53,69) and (57,63), and continue exploring west with the remaining SCP and in other directions with the gunship.

Meanwhile, we need to think about what items we will produce at these bases; I figured we might need to think about that a little bit too.

I'm sure that there are plenty of considerations I've overlooked in the analysis above; please explore other options and float other propositions.

Since we don't have any bases, I just finished off the turn and am posting the pre-exit-save here and the post-exit save in the turn tracking thread here.

Well blow me down, it looks like you can't attach files to posts in here; I guess I'll have to email the pre-exit saves to you'alls. Herc, please lobby whomever to allow attachments in here if possible.

[Makahlua]

Cap'n John's orders, illustrated:
Red with the East colPod indicates a possible exploration route that still leaves us sufficient moves to found the colony next turn; Pink the eventual path of the gunsloop; I hope the rest are obvious!

[Hercules]

You did well Cuspidore Brownbeard in resisting the temptation to found our first pirate base at the attractive 51,67 and your expeditionary crew have indeed uncovered wonderful assets.

I think your proposals for the location of the first two bases are right. With the emigration ship in the west, after a bit of exploration, I hope we could establish a base with access to specials. Could we afford not to build that turn. However if no specials found I suppose it would be a short sighted to build.

Can I congratulate Makahlua on the swift and excellent chart presentation of Cuspidore's exploration, to captains and crew.

[FlameFlash]

I approve of all the future movements... especially of the fact that we establish two bases in the next turn...

I think that the sea colony pod should explore first to the west (lowest green arrow) and if the lighter seas are any indication that there's land to the middle green arrow then there may also be a cove... that would be a perfect place to establish a new base, regardless of the size of the island as it would give us the ability to terraform the island without risk of any sea formers being attacked (one of our weaknesses IMHO.)

Personally, I feel that the pod should be popped first in case of an IoD being in the pod... and possibly send the foil north to pop the other pod prior to sending it out to explore.

Another build priority may be to establish a couple of 1-1-1 scout units and a transport ship to do some early shore pod popping as well as exploration...

Using our Doc Flex we could also man the scount transport ship with a 1-1-2 but that would take longer to get off the docks and we should dedicate to building more cities than to building too many pod poppers IMHO.

The supernut city will be a perfect place to build sea colony pods.

[johndmuller]

Nice graphic Maki, it pretty much illustrated my future intentions. How exactly did you get that in there - did you use the "IMG" button? If so, is it accessing your original art on your home page or whatever that is? Or does the Poly server copy it off for you so that the source wouldn't have to be on-line all the time? I suppose it would accept a file from that Poly "Upload" area, if those things are properly addressable.

Does anyone know how that upload thing works; I've never tried it, but I thought about using it to deposit the pre-exit save file, but I didn't want to pay the learning curve just then. Not that it would matter much since the game file has a password, but I wondered if ones upload area is available for browsing by anyone who cares to or if there is some security. It sounds like someone who knew what the file was called could construct a link to it unless it goes thru the trouble to only let the owner post the links.

Regarding the 3rd base, my original idea envisioned building 1 base on turn 1 and the other 2 on turn 3; it looks like we are building none on turn 1 and 2 on turn 2, which is sort of the average for those 2, so we won't have lost any time there. With infantry CP's, I always feel real guilty if I wander around with them too much, you can waste so much precious time exploring with them, especially if you pick a bad direction to go in. With these foil CP's, you can cover a decent amount of territory and having to backtrack isn't such a disaster, so the tradeoff's a little different. Still, running into a fungus patch would slow us right down. Anyway, my initial idea was to check out those 3 1000m+ minimounts you can see to the west in the gridline pattern, being open to the possibility that the Jungle might be there in all the low lying terrain and that we might be able to get a foot in someone's door there, if they happen to be starting out on the other side. That is no doubt a long-shot hope, so I would certainly be amenable to planting that base sooner if another irresistable site presents itself and/or the going gets too tough with fungus or barrier islands or if the Cap'n's Consensus prefers building the base sooner.

Regarding pod popping before or after base planting, I'm a believer in the theory that you don't get bad stuff particularly you don't get Native Life, if you pop a pod within the base perimeter. If you are on land, you can get earthquakes, which can make you wish you hadn't popped it sometimes and will kill off any boats in range, but I don't think that you get earthquakes at sea and the only other dubious things are the interdimensional gate, which would probably be fine at this point and the sonor view, which is generally just disappointing as a wast of what it could have been. If I have time later, I might start a discussion of pod popping in the Chartroom to see what everyone else thinks about them and how we should approach their popping or not popping.

[Hercules]

Didn't I read somewhere, least on land, that with the first lifeform ( worm) encountered, up to turn 2110, the faction unit wins based on the worm being given half strength in contests. Even the CP wins. If we attack we get pearls and morale boost if it attacks and we win we just get the morale boost.

Anybody else recall that.

The question remains though, if you pop it inside a base area, is there more chance of goodies.