Turns 2131 through 2140

[Googlie]

[Makahlua]

But can we do that and sic Miriam on Roze instead?

[Googlie]

[johndmuller]

Cap'n Herc:
--Cabin Boy and PartyPooper are OK with me; in fact, I kind of like PartyPooper - Is there still a Cruiser Probe unit called "Foil Probe"? (Do you have an improved name for that one?)
--Re the Crawler at Liars: Given the dicey nature of our b-drone situation, I would go for putting it on Treasure Islet on or adjacent to the MinSpecialForest tile (there is one of those on the Islet, isn't there?) where we could either get its nuts or the mins from the adjacent regular Forest tile as desired/necessary.

Googlie:
--My original suggestion referred to techsteal-probing Miriam (or Roze) and framing the Borg, which you supsequently agreed was legal
--As to techsteal or other 'aggressive' probing of a human-controlled faction and trying to blame another human faction, I don't believe I've ever done that and don't really know what the game does and/or what the PBEM rules are. I would think that it would be legal to (attempt to) do it in a PBEM, I just don't know for sure what would happen next; if the game brought up a decision box asking (me, the wrong person) what to do about the probe attempt, I would assume that the PBEM rules about selecting Vendetta (or cancel Pact) would apply; I would also assume that if a box didn't come up that would mean that the probe got away with it and no action was necessary. Am I on track with all/some/none of that?
--As for trying to blame the AI for a probe against a human, I don't imagine it would be desireable very often, if at all, although cascading autovendettas might conceivably come into play in a serendipitous fashion.

[Hercules]

End turn 2139 extra comments

Rushed crawlers at HMB and Liar's Lair, rushed former at Casablanca. If the former pops the pod next to Casablanca will it still deliver goodies?

Couldn't remember new name for Amphib Scout so called it Buoy Scout. What do you think better than cabin boy.

Intelligence update

The PUT have these techs: Ethical Calculus, SOHB, and Gene Splicing ( hmmm?) and are 6 years from Ecol Eng. However they are well underdeveloped and against our (my) assessment, do not have comm links with the Hive or much any one else. Techs we have to trade to them are: Progen Psych, Applied Physics and Doc:Init.

The Drones lack Doc: Mob but it can't be long before they receive it from the Hive, I would imagine.

Re Crazy notion
I am sorely tempted to pop the pod at 54, 38 with our sea colony to test Googlie's Cloning at sea theory.

[Hercules]

Cuspidore, if you copy the Registry of ships to a new thread, I think it is a thread we could Top. I was going to attempt it but it looks silly me starting a thread with your content.

Also awaiting our Combined Diplomacy thread to Top

[johndmuller]

Cap'n Hercules,

I believe that the 'good pop' rule would apply even with a former doing the popping, although if we didn't want to terraform or pass through that tile on the way to somewhere else, we would be wasting 2 or more former turns doing that.

Think I like Bouy Scout a little better.

Re Googlie's cloning thing - Assuming that you are talking about his discussion on how our ships got cloned so much in his test games that he cut back on our initial navy - I recently CMN's a game and noticed during testing that the randomness of some things seemed a bit lacking: in one test I got a lot of earthquakes form pops (really raised hell by letting my AI tough guy Yang get off his isolated continent); in another test sequence, there were a lot of Native Life pops; I think there was one with a lot of cash pops; never got one with a run of clonings, in fact I think there was only one cloning in several hundred years of turns for 6 players. I think we just happened to get a clone heavy test when the Googster was playtesting.

I posted the Registry as requested; I'll try to update it every five or ten years, or whenever I get a chance. Feel free to update the locations if they seem to be getting confusing; sooner or later I suppose we will get them mixed up, but so far I think we have been keeping them straight.

[Hercules]

Hi Maties,

Apolyton still not better for me don't know about you pirate maties.
Some report it is fast without the graphics but for me it is very, very
slow.

Anyhow mid turn report 2140.

Received Ethical Calculus from PUT
Popped the pod on one tile isle at 49,51 and got Nut special. Transport
with speeder now just of Yardarm Island.

PMS Farragut at 10,38 about to set out on journey East, found that she
was next to a PUT unity transport, direction indeterminate but would
guess is heading generally north. Still 4 Mps left but thought you would
be interested in seeing it before it disappears from our radar.

That means the Drones and the PUT now have their own partial sea maps
already.

Now a confession. In the Comm link with the Hive, they pre accepted
PACT. Having read all the comments in the poll thread and elsewhere,
although the poll wasn't finished, my view was that the proposal for
accepting tthe pact would pass and I accepted. I half thought I could
press 'end pact' when I went back after this to complete the turn but of
course that wouldn't work. It would be a cheat and would show up on
their Comm link as a Pact deal complete and then ended. I think I was
thinking of the previous incident where if I didn't accept the pre
accepted offer, the offer of Pact would disappear. Hopefully no harm
done.

The Hive as we guessed have a Pact with the Drones. Now if the PUT unity
foil meets the Drones unity foil, that will be a lost sale of comm links
for us. Thankfully we still have the Cycon comm (for a short while) to
control calling Council. The Unity transport can only move 2 Mps a turn
so that gives us a few more turns yet.

Re the Hive society and bases. Well see for yourself. Kody had posted in
the CGN general forum on a builders approach using HGP and PTS to grow
and control drones and that is the approach he ( and the Hive) used with
considerable effect. Of course it helps to have Ind Auto early.

PMs Santiago moved 4 moves southerly from that IOD. The PMS Revenge
uncovered a Nut Special at in its journey south.( more below)

PMS King Lear at 92,34 has one turn left and has revealed evidence of a
PUT base in the neighbourhood. Shall we call in, go into the fungus or
explore 90,34 or 91,35.

Transport at Liars lair transported supply crawler to Treasure Islet

Sealurk, I rushed supply crawler (to avoid it being the goodie completion from the pod pop) to be transferred by booty boat (near
Yardarm Island), to dead scout isle, almost the turn after.

Some next next steps proposals.

First build sea colony pod. In the absense of special resources, the
plan was to build at 55,43 this turn. Still can do. However with the
discovery of the Nut specials at 54, 33? ( I am guessing), next to the
Revenge and the single tile Nut island, should that plan change. It
would take another turn to get down to near the island (to be called Kew
garden), but the base would be closer to HQ. A base at 55,35 benefits
from the nut special and maybe a good outcome from the pod later but is
a good bit distant from HQ.

Against that, once we build the sea base, we can change to Eth Calc. If
we do so in the same turn will we lose the free minerals.

Current build programme is a mixture of supply crawlers and partypoopers
(but I presume we would prefer these built at a base with command
centre) and can be changed.

Finally, Miriam has as we know Non Linear, I am going to try and trade
tech for tech ( don't have enough ecs (this turn). We have Cent Ecol,
Ind Econ, Ind Auto, Doc: init and now Ethical Calc. Is there any of
these we shouldn't trade, if she makes offer or if we get the
opportunity to offer her a choice( NO but I can offer...) is Doc Init or
Eth Calc acceptable to trade.

Why I ask is that, Drogue is asking about finalising our deal (they are
within 2 turns of Doc: init.). It would be nice to have the option to
say, eh No we have that ( non Linear) could we have HEC please. Or even that pre accept Doc Init to them so we still have another Tech or ecs. Remember we
discussed that .

Anyhow comments, say 15 hours from now.

Cap'n Hercules

[johndmuller]

Quite a report, Cap'n Herc. These comments are (mostly) after reading and looking at your partial move and the above report.

Regarding accepting the pact with the Hive, for future reference, you can just exit the trade window without doing anything (I think it says "end transmission") and then come back to it later on during the turn (after you talk to the crew); since I was in favor of the pact, it only bothers me on principle, but other maties might want you to walk the plank and the rest of us would probably just have a toke of xenoweed and enjoy the show.

As to the long wandering Sea Colony Pod:
I'd be willing to take a chance on founding a base right on top of that nut special at (54,32). It looks like that landmass or archipelago or whatever it is (north of our main area and west and north of this spot) may very well be currently unclaimed and up for grabs. It seems to include or be adjacent to a few minor landmarks like the Sargasso Sea and the Fossil Field Ridge for openers (and maybe one of the major ones somewhere on the undiscovered area in the middle). Best of all though, if we are able to colonize this area, we will have a territory going pole to pole right down the middle of the map covering at least a quarter of the total area.
The above was written having read your comments, but having only looked at the original beginning-of-turn save, before I looked at the official mid-turn save; UNFORTUNATELY, Cap'n Herc, you MOVED THE &^&^% SEA COLONY POD 1 tile back toward our home area, MAKING IT IMPOSSIBLE TO FOUND THAT BASE ON THIS TURN; and it was seeming to be such a nice exciting plan; Oh why, why, why, why, why!!!!!?

Given that movement and the inability to found the base on the nut special this turn, I am not so anxious to found that base up there at this time (since I think that right on the nut special is the proper place to put it and since I also think that we need to found it this turn while we can still get the 10 free minerals and that we should indeed do Demo this turn right after founding the base so that we can undo that horrible 40% psyche and get back to normal), and should instead go to the spot I was pushing last turn, at (55,43), just SE of the Energy Special and found the base there this turn. I'm pretty sure that if we found the base first and then switch to Demo, we get (and keep) the 10 free mins in the new base. It seems that we will get a single drone, in Alexandria, with 0% psych, which I think we can live with, or rather deal with by turning it into a doctor (until we get a RecComm together there). Hopefully you will be sending the bootyboat down there forthwith in order to offload the crawler and use it to help ameliorate some of the production loss.

Well found the base at (55,43) or not, as you choose, but all things considered, I think that is better than waiting the extra turn for Demo or doing without the 10 free mins while on the way to the nut special tile.

Regarding the PUT transport at (10,36); It looks to me that it is heading south, not north, where it may run into Roze, Miriam or possibly the Borg, but not for at least 4 more turns at best - and that assuming they go right toward the DJ's without any digressions or fungus detours/slowdowns. BTW, where is the Drone foil you referred to, worrying that they might meet?

Rita: It might be advisable to build another crawler and put it at (59,63) for nuts; in fact, it might be a good idea to offload the crawler directly to there instead of taking it in the boat to drop off at the forest at (59,61). That way, the boat will have that extra 1 mp which happens to make the difference between getting Alexandria's crawler delivered to (56,72) in the minimum possible time and waiting an extra turn to be able to do it. The crawler could produce the 2 nuts at (59,63) for a few turns anyway, before going to (59,61) for the mins (or produce whichever resource is more needed at any given turn).

Your idea of visiting the PUT for repairs with the Lear is nice, but I don't see the evidence of a PUT base you are referring to, just their boundary line; there could be a base of theirs up the coast to the north or northwest, but there may not be one either. I see evidence of bases at (80,38) and (82,34), both inland, in addition to Monitoring Station, the one we can see at (78,44); there could still be one up there, but no guarantees, unless you've been piecing together their maps from looking in all their base windows.

I'll leave the deal with Drogue to you and Flubber; whatever you want to do is OK with me.

Why did you bother rushing the Former (not Crawler) at Sealurk when the boat can't get there next turn. What else did you rush; I ended up with a lot more credits in the version of the turn I played through?

Former on Bird Island: I think that given the low nut production at Rita, we should farm (59,63) for possible crawling, next, before going on to forest the rest of the island.

Similarly, the Former on Morgan's Boot at (35,67): to move down to (35,69) and farm that for crawling into Accident.

I'd think about a RecComm at Atlantis instead of the PartyPooper.

I'd rush the units at Tripoli (12 credits worth) and Alexandria (all 2 P's of E), as they are in the cheap zone.

[Hercules]

End 2140 report


Hi maties,

Just completing the report on end of turn action.

As mentioned new base, Calico Island, founded at 55,43 and right beside Nut special on Yardarm Island. Nice surprise.

Then changed SE setting to Democracy and Ec to 50% and Labs 50%. Only B drone (new is as Cuspidore predicted) at Alexandria and doctor visited.

Most other suggestions implemented.

Doc: Flex pre-accepted to Hive and
Doc: Init pre-accepted to Cycon pending negotiations regarding HEC or Non linear and restrictions. Unfortunately in the process I seem to have accepted their miserable 10ecs, though I didn't mean to.

Miriam wouldn't trade Non-linear, even for Doc: Init. However I did determine she would trade it for 125 ecs. I didn't have that amount. Hope when we do she will be willing to talk. (or trade).

Roze hadn't received Non Linear yet from Miriam.

End of term intelligence report

Hive
Pop 49, commerce 17, Income 28 per year, 0 maintenance, research breakthrough every 5 years. Doc Flex in 1

PUT
Pop 20, Commerce 12, income 35 less 7 maintenance, research breakthrough every 6 years. Ecol eng in 4

Cycon
Pop 25, commerce 5, income 21 less 3 maintenance, research breakthrough every 11 years. Doc Init in 2

Roze
Pop 59 commerce 7, income 32 less 3 maintenance, research breakthrough every 6?, next in 5 ? SOHB. She lost her coastal vessel.

Miriam
Pop 41 commerce x , income xx less x maintenance, research breakthrough every x years. Next Cent ecol in X years

Drones
Not much known by us. They have a Unity foil
Pirates
Pop 41, commerce 21, income 37 less 8 maintenance , reasearch breakthrough every 9 years, next Adapt Econ in MY2144?

We have 11 bases and in two turns will have circumnavigated the planet sea wise, around the equator.

Some other things to note

The PUT do not have Doc Loyallty. We might be able to trade it to them for SOHB

The Hive do not have Soc Pysch. Do we want Biogen? Or will we simply build pressure domes.

Also took the opportunity to leave my mark on the landscape with some seas named etc.