Turns 2141-2160

[johndmuller]

Dire straits indeed; how did we let ourselves get so vulnerable to the *(&^&%in' Borgs, of all people.

Here's a few ideas, although not having been too much in touch lately, I could be missing something important.

--Switch out of Wealth immediately (as in especially before calculating rush costs for any units we need) - this will restore our morale to a more suitable one for fighting the #&*(ers and make the new units stronger (especially sea units built with our free Naval Yards).

--Design a SynthLaser Foil (having both the level 2 weapons and armor costs the same as just either one by itself so why not?). Switch the build at 'Rita to one of these and rush it for 18 to just bareley finish or more to have something left over as a head start for the next build. Also, move that adjacent seaformer into the base to give us an additional turn to see that build through - if they attack the seaformer, it should weaken them a little more and we may even be able to destroy (or capture) their warship on the following turn.

--Switch production at Tripoli to another one of those SynthLaser foils and rush it also for 12 or more

--Cancel the former activity at (59,71) and (59,75) and move them to the West to (57,71) and (57,75) respectively and cancel Seaformer activity at (56.78) and move to (56,76) - all this to block the movement of their transport and/or landing of their troops if they plan to invade Casablanca from Alex/Athena.

--Rush the RecComm at Casablanca for 14 or more to clear the decks for another warship unless unable to complete blocking manouvers above for some reason - OTOH, the more I think about it, the more sensible it seems to retool for yet another SynthLaser Foil and rush that too for another 15 or more, but use your judgement (consider all the possible routes and landing tiles for their potential invasion).

--Continuing my obsession with the Synthlaser foils, I would cancel the Creche's and rush them also at Liars (5 P of E) and SeaLurk (free)

--If you have rushed the minimum necessary to finish all five of those foils, there should be 28 P's of E left in the treasury.

--I don't have strong opinions about Calico, Atlantis or Pamplona, but I'd be inclined to switch to land crawlers at Calico and Atlantis.

--Screw the roads at (39,69) and (39,69) - neither of those seem necessary, if you must build a road, try one at (36,68), but not right away - and move them somewhere else to build more forests, like (37,69) and/or (40,64); Lil Accident needs a sensor also at some point. In general, I'd be using these bases to generate as many mins as possible to support the war effort. I would finish building the currently ongoing crawler builds and then switch HMB to a InfProbe, then boats of one kind or another and Accident to a CmdCntr to be able to make good land units and/or defensive probes while HMB makes boats - maybe additional crawlers when the formers have made a few more forests (or mines if desired).

All this is very well and we could have a large fleet of lousy ships, but we still need to have some defensive probes to stop them from mind controlling our bases and some probeships to get some tech and/or money and to possibly kill or capture their probeships or land units - I don't know where they are going to come from in the short run, as we may need to keep building and losing the cheap boats in our core bases until we can build something better (in 22 years apparently) and sieze the offensive. Eventually we will also have some cannon fodder when our schooner fleet returns

I would suggest voting for Buster unless the Hive has offered us something or someone else has.

Please spit on the Black Spot for me before you send it off to Drogue and Maniac.

[Makahlua]

Plans look doable - now we need an answer from the Hive ASAP

[johndmuller]

I took the liberty of contacting Buster on the occasion of sending another PBEM's turn to him and told him that he could possibly end up as governor if he acted promptly (and of course was able to come to some understanding with us in the short time available). Note that he is in Europe (probably an hour ahead of GMT), so aside from our midnight GMT deadline, there is also his personal deadline if he is an early to bed early to rise type. I told him to contact Cap'n Maki (and also Cap'ns Herc and Flubber),

[Hercules]

Maki: Follow Cuspidore's advice and leave no crawler or worker unworked.

I have emailed and Pm'd the Hive and no response to date. Therefore do as Cuspidore advises.

If after all that, you still have 100ecs from pod pops, buy non linear from Miriam.

[Hercules]

As of 23.54pm, still no response from the Hive.

I am going off line now for a while. will be back 2/3 hours maybe sooner.

Maki do what you have to. You can maybe squeeze 3 hours more allowing for time zones before playing the turn as suggested by Cusp.

I will be back with Dip update if any.

[Makahlua]

Well, we've offically voted for Buster - whichi is very satisfying to me somehow; as I got the feel everyone expected us to bow to the 'glorious' Hive

I kept us in weatlh until the end of the turn because rushing stuff was cheaper that way; and saved the last 4o PoE to switch back to survival (so all the new units will have good morale). A fleet of Barques (the cuspidore's beloved synthlasers) is currently under construction; Casablanca is protoing some new Dock Patrols(synth garrison); Liar's is working on a cruiser probe (but that will be a few)

I've turned the explorer fleet around and headed them home; so far pod popping on Yardarm has just made it bigger ........ (%$($(^# earthquakes......

See the save for any other specifics - now I'm off to dinner and non computer things!

...stupid fanfic in my head that won't let me do anything other than write......

[johndmuller]

Is the deadline midnight PST, midnight GMT or midnight EST?

As Googlie pointed out, GST is not exactly a real time zone (at least not one that I know about), so which did he mean? I thought it said GMT somewhere in there (which might already have happened), but apparently Cap'n Herc (who is actually living with GMT at the moment (I think) seems to believe there are several hours to go (???). like it is supposed to be midnight EST or PST. Hopefully Cap'n Maki knows what time it is (I'm pretty sure that midnight CST isn't one of the options, but who knows?).

Anyway, Googlie, if you read this, I believe we are about to play the turn in one time zone or another - BTW, it would help if some of the people in the other factions would deign to answer PMs and/or other messages instead of leaving us holding the bag.

[Makahlua]

Postign the turn shortly so we're not too far over GMT if that's what Googs meant

GST......Galactic Standard time? But this isn't Trantor.......

[johndmuller]

I don't think that you can have it both ways - save money on rushing and end up without the morale penalty on the new units - that was why the first thing in my list was to switch out of Wealth Immediately - before doing the calculations for the rushing (which was nevertheloess affordable under the more expensive regime). I fear that changing back at the end of the turn will have left the builds short (as they will suddenly cost more and you wouldn't have been able to add more) so unless you spent extra money to get some more build-mins, they will not finish next turn (did you check the builds again after the switch?). OTOH, AFAIK, Switching out of Wealth next turn will only get us back part of the morale penalty - I think we want the whole xeno-banana if we are actually going to use these things; they're weak enough as it is without the penny-wise / pound-foolish number. Well, maybe there is something I'm missing and you have some cute way of doing this; hope so.

============

Well, I looked at the end-turn, and at least 3 boats are going to get built whatever you did, .... but unfortunately, if they know what they are doing, they still have a pretty good shot at taking Casablanca (especially if they have a spy in our midst and know the setup and our defenses) as we didn't seem to be able to move all the (sea)formers into the right places to fully block them; they will have to take some chances with Alex if they go all out to get the next base, however - let's hope they guess wrong.

[Hercules]

In the end thanks for your contributions you guys.

[Hercules]

For the record there has been no known response (as far as I am aware to our dip message).

[Makahlua]

Well it's true, they did take Tripoli - some damage to the Impact Rover, andthey lost/used up their probe team; the transport and love boat remain.

We have 2 barques still available to move from SeaLurk and 'Rita; schoonerfrom Cailco is enroute to SL, the Barque from Atlantis is headed toward the south, not sure specific destination just trying to get it near the battlezone.

They did leave Alex unguarded, however? Odd, but I guess they expect to win I can assume fromt hat they will go after Casablanca or Rita next. Or possibly Liar's now that I think on it. Casablanca just got a Dock patrol (synthgarrison) I'm thinking use the barques to sink the 'sport next time it's loaded up and worry about the love boat later.

Thoughts, anyone?

[Hercules]

A consequence of us losing Tripoli is we also lost our HQ. This gives rise to inefficiencies and therefore our income is shot to pieces.

In Tripoli they have the 4-1-2 rover the 4~1-1 unit and an infantry defence.

I would leave our SF beside Triploi where it is, this means if the want to move north they have to go around the SF.

I would move that transport from Rita into Liars Lair. ( it also acts another base unit. Their love 2-1-6 can reach Lair's Lair I think.

Re Rita: it's in Drone riots so if we want that Barque next turn we will have to change the SE balance to 30% psych.

Look at sending the Barque from Rita to 59, 69. It looks like a blind spot. It gives us the opportunity of regaining Alex. But if attacked, by the love boat or the 40% damaged Impact craft, we have veteran rating which might help us.

The Barque from SL, look at placing it on tile 54, 62 a distance of 3 mp but 4mp to Tripoli, next turn

Yes get that Barque from Atlantis to the war zone as quick as you can.

The transport with the supply crawler continue to move towards HMB and it stops on that nut square. (Now here's something I never knew before: first in HMB move the worker from the sea nut sqaure and put the worker on the empty forest tile ( near the monolith), now the supply crawler on board the transport can collect from that tile). For one turn at least.

From Casablanca (you will have to use a doctor btw, riots again), move the boy scout towards Alex Maybe just maybe.

We will have to decide where we should build a New HQ. Even if we regain Tripoli, it will have lost that status. ( I think)

[Hercules]

There's also one other thing worth a try. Contact Miriam and see if we can get a loan. It didn't work for me but I tried to trade techs first. She 's not very cooperative. I wonder if we just gave her Gene Splice, would that put her in a better mood.

There's no rush to play the turn just yet. I'd like some other's to contribute their ideas.

[foolish_icarus]

don't we have just 1 hour?

I'm not at my comp so I can't offer any specific advice. Just start building stuff. Anything that will help us survive. Colony pods, probes (steal energy), maybe we can start planning for an invasion of their home bases--burn the damn thing to the ground if we can. We're pirates damnit, if nothing else we should make sure this costs them the game.