Turns: 2104 thru 2110

[Hercules]

Obviously just missed the post. Anyhow was going to echo G's thoughts on stockpile and also moving the transport to HQ. As it (the transport) is not going to reach HQ in one turn. I was going to suggest use some of the surplus move points to explore. BUt I guess the gunsloop will do that for us soon enough.

[Makahlua]

Sorry I was away from the computer this evening! For next turn, add sloop, 'sport & CP. I would've said a CP second, but the base won't grow fast enough - you might want bring the 'sport over from HQ to pop the pod on Treasue Islet in the meantime.

G - are you saying we should stick Stockpile in the Q between each and evey item, then to get carry over energy from everything? (if that's so, I'm gonna have to start doing that in my SP games ) And I played with the sliders this turn - nothing faster than 7 turns ATM...maybe after the next base?

CP#2 would probably be great on the isle S of Tripoli & LL - if we put it on the peninsula by the bulk of the isle we can grab both energy spots & a nutrient! Provided the pink stuff doesn't interfere And might I suggest Botany Bay for the boot colony?

[Googlie]

M - when you put stockpile energy at the top of the Q, you can't add anything below it

But yes, you are correct. Only after a unit (including mindworms and probes) you get the completion minerals value, any minerals carryover (losing what you'd normally lose, ie any excess over the first row, max ten) plus you get credited the stockpile energy value for that base

Deosn't apply to faciltiies being built.

And it's in most generally accepted buglists 9as the AI doesn't do it)

G.

[Googlie]

Originally posted by Makahlua
And I played with the sliders this turn - nothing faster than 7 turns ATM...maybe after the next base?

Open 2106.

currently (at 50/0/50) you get 3ec's per turn and a new tech in 7 turns

set to 30/10/60

it drops to 2 and 6

Found new seabase

it goes to 3 ec's and next tech in 5 turns

reset sliders to 50/0/50

ec's go up to 4 perturn but the next tech goes out to 6 turns

Sure, at 30/10/60 you have a - 10% labs and a -20% econ penalty, but at 50/0/50 your labpoints are 6 per turn, and energy is 4 per year

move the research allocation from 50 to 60, and even with the 10% penalty the labpoints increase to 7 per turn (90% of 60% is greater than 100% of 50%)

ec's do drop, with the 20% penalty, and a lower allocation, but rounding (up) takes some of the sting away in those early turns

And as I've said, ec's are never a problem for the Pirates as you'll get numerous podpops that will deliver up to 200 ec's at times

Plus the impact for the pirates is marginally not so great as for the other factions, as you are starting with a -1 efficiency rating anyway, so all the penalties are being applied on a smaller base number

G.

[Makahlua]

Ooops, I didn't think of playing with the -psych- slider ....

#1 best thing about demo game - learning new tricks!

[johndmuller]

It's tough to coordinate these turns given the uncertainty of when they will arrive and dealing with RL at the same time. I don't like putting out arbitrary deadlines like 'I'm gonna do x, ,y, z unless I hear otherwise by xx o'clock', but when the turn pops up on my radar, possibly after having been out there for some hours already, then . . . I have just been trying to work it into my RL schedule as smoothly as possible and and give you'all as reasonable a time as possible to send feedback. As you will no doubt discover when you have the helm, the turn always seems to arrive at inconsiderate times.

Anyway, I've been trying to allow enough time for meaningful dialog during turns, but it ain't easy. Hopefully, nobody's felt left out of the action too much; if so, please pick one:
-(a)- I'm sorry, I'll try to do better ;
-(b)- The complaint department is right at the other end of this plank here .

[johndmuller]

from Googlie
. . . And stockpile energy at the beginning of the Q when building a unit gives you both the minerals left over plus the ec equivalent of them - putting another unit or facility in the Q (instead of stockpile energy) just gives you the leftover minerals carryforward applied to the next item in the Q without the energy addition . . .

I'm under the impression that this is against the rules (at least it is for other PBEMs AFAIK).

Regretably, this falls under the category of '. . . Don't get me started' - this 'feature' is the one I most wish I never heard of; it's almost enough to give me a MariOne style vendetta on the Firaxis programmers.

The other side of this coin is that if the queue is Empty after a build of a Facility, the "feature" kicks in; AFAIK, this occurs in the version we are playing (SMAX v2), although possibly not in the Mac and/or Unix/Linux versions. This approach is considered Legal and consequently is effectively Mandatory because if the other people are doing it, we'd be giving them a handicap if we don't. I think I suggested somewhere a little while ago that we might have to forego the queue when we start building facilities - assuming I did that, this was what I was about.

On the assumption that the rules are as in normal PBEMs (as I know them, where you can't intentionally put a Stockpile Energy into the queue after units), the use of the queue is somewhat limited, as you want to always leave the queue Empty after Facilities. I generally don't use the queue at all in PBEMs (I keep track of my future plans for each base in a game-notes file), rather than half relying on it and having to treat those bases producing facilities differently than those producing units (and remember which bases I am currently treating specially).

Of course, if the rules for this game are different - and manually adding the Stockpile Energy after Units is Legal - it would then become Mandatory to add the Stockpile Energy after Units for the same reason as leaving it Empty after Facilities above became necessary if everyone else is presumed to be doing it.

I poked around in the main Demo thread for the rules and didn't find anything beyond the Startup Parameters in the Game Parameters thread and some procedural stuff in the FAQ thread - I thought I remembered something more pertinent, but couldn't find it.

Ordinarily, I would assume that the rules are the standard ones, but since Googs all but suggested that we apply that Stockpile-Energy-after-Units gambit, right here in our private forum, he quite possibly did the same in others' private forums too. Whether he did or not, I think that there are a number of players here who have little or no PBEM experience, so this rule (and perhaps some others as well) are not necessarily familiar to them, so maybe I will start a thread in the main Democracy forum just to make sure everyone is on the same page.

Edit:
Apparently I didn't look to hard, I looked again and voila - or should I say '&^*%$@!'

from Googlie in FAQ thread
Cheats and Exploits
Allow the Stockpile Energy Bug: YES!
Allow upgrading crawlers for rush purposes: YES!
Allow retro-engineering: YES!
Allow upgrading with the Unit Workshop: YES!
Use the Googlie probe cruiser tweak: YES!

So apparently we were supposed to be using the bug; grrrrr. I guess I'll modify the build queues next time to use the exploit (i.e. put stockpile energy in the queue instead of our build list) and start a thread where we can keep track of what we think we want to do. Meanwhile, since I have issues with using this exploit, I guess I'll definitely start that thread in the main Demo forum with banning the exploit in mind (so it will be consistent with PBEM usage).

[Hercules]

Very important point.
I was under the impression that 'stockpile' was acceptable after facilities build, in most games but was up for discussion in games whether a stockpile entry, after a military unit unit build, was allowed. I'm going back to check the rules. My impression was that 'Stockpile' was allowed ebvery build.

going to check

(JDM/BrownBeard here) Apparently we cross posted here on that bit - I just checked it out and found it in the FAQ thread and edited my post above.

[johndmuller]

Turn message - 2107

OK, I put "Stockpile Energy" at the end of all the queues as it looks like my campaign to roll back the rules has not gone anywhere real fast; AFAIK, it is only strictly necessary after units, an empty queue after facilities does not need it to trigger the bug (but I don't think it hurts either, and that is easier to remember). I also created a new thread (http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...48#post2045853) - Please look into that thread - with what the Cuspidore believes the 'Official Plan' to be. Since everyone can edit any post in our private forum, the idea is for us to just edit the first post in that thread as appropriate to reflect the 'Official Position' in the "Current" and "Future Build" lines if you are the Cap'n in charge of builds (currently Cap'n Maki), or if you are not the Cap'n in charge of builds, to just add a comment bulow the official position with which you disagree (I added a sample or two of that mostly for example). The Cap'n in charge of Operations (currently yours truly Cuspidore BrownBeard, should follow the plan (assuming it remains appropriate in light of whatever may develop during play of the turn) and edit the "Official" info to reflect reality like when a build is completed. One drawback to repeatedly editing the same post is that the 'last post' thing doesn't get updated, so maybe someone can "top" that thread, and we can all try to look at it despite the posting date/time (otherwise someone will have to make dummy posts just to update the date/time).

I edited the first post of the "Terraforming" thread to suggest a similar vehicle for keeping track of terraforming operations / plans. We should probably also have a similar thread indicating what our Research priorities are going to be [b](That isssue will be coming up in 2 turns, BTW). Of course, if this approach isn't agreeable to everyone, then we can 'deep six' this mechanism and someone can develop another one. I'm not terribly fond of the color scheme, but I'm using that A/C style, so my browser's window background is black and some colors are too dark to see very well against it. The time to make style changes is sooner rather than later, as the amount of editing necessary change everything just gets greater the more bases we have.

Concerning this turn, I put temporary builds into the bases, intending to replace them after pods have been popped nearest the affected bases and/or we have the Cent Ecology tech and can build Formers - please see the Build Thread for details. I also switched the production at Liar's Lair to favor nuts over mins so it will still be possible to switch builds withouit penalty in 2109, when the CE is scheduled to arrive.

The pod adjacent to Tripoli at (54,70) yielded another min special (flat, rainy, river; worth 2-2-1 undeveloped); it looks like Tripoli is going to be a heavy duty base, with 3 min specials, a nut special and a monolith. Popping the pod revealed a landmark called "The Southern Marshes" (named by Googlie presumably, the rest of the landmarks have pirate names); one supposes that there is some significance to the name.

End-turn Save here and emailed - please tell me if you are not on the distribution list, I haven't looked at the membership lately - I am just using the last list from Cap'n Hercules.

And a "Yo Ho Ho" to you'all Maties.

[Googlie]

Originally posted by johndmuller
but since Googs all but suggested that we apply that Stockpile-Energy-after-Units gambit, right here in our private forum, he quite possibly did the same in others' private forums too.

No - Only one other faction wasn't using it - the other 3 were right from the beginning, so I brought it to your - and the other's - attention in order to establish a level playing field

G.

[Makahlua]

Uh, Cuspidore? You should pu the note -in- the bottle before you toss it... The new xenoquila should be sipped not guzzled, ye know? ^_^

(the save was empty in the email and here)

[johndmuller]

Originally posted by Makahlua
Uh, Cuspidore? You should pu the note -in- the bottle before you toss it... The new xenoquila should be sipped not guzzled, ye know? ^_^

(the save was empty in the email and here)

Just who has been guzzling what Matie? I can download the turn from Poly (even opened it to be sure), although depending on how you access it you might get less joy. I don't know whether you are supposed to right click the link and say 'save to disk' or just left click it and wait for it to ask you - it seems that sometimes one works and sometimes the other - I'm not seeing double though.

As for the email, I don't know what happened to that, if I open it in my sent mail folder, the turn is there (I also opened and checked to see if I could play from that too - hopefully I kept everything straight enough to avoid a reload message). Perhaps the attatchment didn't go out for some reason; I'll resend it (blaming you if people are getting it twice) .

Oops, I blamed Cap'n Hercules for the resend in my email - Sorry Cap'n .

[Makahlua]

Honestly - my computer & email didn't see it Let me try again here (BRB!)

Back - nope, tried again with both Opera and IE, I get the zip and it says it's a size grater than 0, but when I open it, no files are listed Could be XP hates me today If you wouldn't mind just sliding the .SAV this way -unzipped-, I'd appreciate it (with my luck everyone else probably got it fine .. )

[johndmuller]

I emailed the .sav file to you.

I have several different versions of WinZip, one on the machine I used to play the turn, version 8.0 - and perhaps a different version on the machine I use for email, although looking at it, it seems to also be version 8.0, so I guess I don't have to try to remember which machine I zipped the file on. Ah well, those machines also have other partitions with different OS's on them, maybe that's where the other versions of WinZip are. Anyway, the OS is another possibility for dysconnection - today both of those machines were running Win2K for what that's worth.

Perhaps we should lobby for allowing attachments in this forum, there seems to be less trouble accessing them than there is accessing the stuff in the upload area.

[johndmuller]

There've been some troubles here with Poly seemingly being down and/or uncooperative on and off, for me at least, so while it is smooth sailing, I'll throw out this bottle.

I have the turn and intend to play it as suggested in the last turn message, i.e. to pop a pod or two, return the Tripoli scout to Tripoli, and send the transport on its way to Liar's Lair to assist that scout in popping the pod on Treasure Islet. If Poly is cooperating, I will post the almost-ending turn later on and post the official turn on the main forum tomorrow morning (EDT) sometime - unless of course, someone has some problems with the proposed course and pipes up about it.

If I have more problems communicating with Poly (have we thought of asking Buster for a private pirate space on CGN?), I may end up skipping some of the steps, but I will take care of it somehow, barring really bad troubles, like losing my internet connection altogether. Anyway, all that is pretty unlikely as there was a "red sky at night".