Turn Planning/Reports

[Minute Mirage]

Originally posted by Archaic
Well then, who would like to go for the job? I've got copies of all the saves to date that I've played, and I'd imagine GT or MM has the rest.

Since I try to monitor the other factions as best as I can already, I suppose I could do it. I have all the saves from 2133 onwards, but it would useful if you could send me as many old turns as you have. (E-mail: minutemirage AT hotmail DOT com)

Originally posted by GeneralTacticus
btw, I assume we all received that email from the Hive? Any thoughts on how to reply? (Crimson Sunrise, this means you)

Actually, I don't think Crimson Sunrise even got the emails, unless they put his email address in the bcc: header. We should probably inform them who our ambassador is, so that they can send the messages to him too. For the record, here are the messages I received:

Voltaire:

On behalf of the Party and People of the Human Hive, and its Central Continuing Committee, I greet you.



We desire to establish diplomatic relations with your faction; Comrade OctavianX has been entrusted with the position of ambassador to the Planetary University of Technology. Further communications between our two factions may proceed through him. We also request that all diplomatic communiqués be sent to both me (at nerv111@shaw.ca) and Comrade Kody (PMed to him on Apolyton) for official record keeping purposes as well as in case Comrade Octavian is indisposed and unable to respond to your message (this will help diplomacy between our factions flow smoothly).



Comrade Octavian will be contacting you shortly with further official diplomatic messages. We hope that the relations between our two factions with flourish and result in our mutual prosperity.



Voltaire,

Chairman of the Central Continuing Committee of the Human Hive

Octavian X:

To the Honorable Factuly, Staff, and Students of the Planet University of
Technology:

On behalf of the glourious people of the Hive, I greet you with peace!

I am Octavian the Tenth, Magna Frater of Social Engineering, and Member of
the People's Congress of the Hiverian Solidified Socialist Republic. As you
have been informed by Comrade Chairman Voltaire, I have also recently been
appointed the Ambassador of the Human Hive to your nation.

The people of the Hive wish for the University of Technology to know that we
are committed to peace with the people of the University. Therefore, it is
my pleasure to extend to PUT an offer for a Treaty of Friendship to create a
gentle atmosphere between our factions.

In another matter, I have recently been informed by Military Intelligence
that a University team of scouts is currently atop the Shrine of Googlie.
While we respect the University's right to research as it pleases, we must
insist, for matters of Hiverian state security, that the team be removed at
once.

May the peace between our two nations last for a thousand years!

~Octavian X

We should probably reply that we accept their offer of peace, and that we are removing our scout unit from their territory. Archaic already accepted their offer of peace in-game, and started to move the scout away.

[Mr. President]

I didn't get the messages. Also, I apologize for not posting in some time.

I would be glad to do any interaction tasks we might have with the Hive.

I'd be inclined to be a little cautious with the Hive. My instinct is to keep them off our backs until we're ready.

[GeneralTacticus]

Well, we are planning to take them out at some point, so we'd better not get too close to them... but we shouldn't be overly cold either, or they'll get suspicious. We should probably bepolite and friendly with them while trying to avoid actually dealing with them as much as possible without them noticing.

[Minute Mirage]

I agree that we should not trust the Hive too much, but there's no reason why we shouldn't be friendly with them at the moment. We could even trade a tech with them (see the research thread for my beeline suggestion), but when the time is right we can forget about friendship. In the meantime, we don't want them attacking us, so let's just be nice and happy.

[Minute Mirage]

I'm copy-pasting two emails I received from Kody.

The first one:


Greetings,

I'm putting together a trade, that I believe will be mutually
beneficial. As we're going to offer drone and cycon comm links (all our
comm links), and all our techs in this trade, and some trading
restrictions on ourselves. It may take a day or two as the details are
discussed in our private forum.

Octavian will contact you with the completed offer when it's finalised.

Kody


The second one:

I have been authorised to post the CyCon statement about the PEACE affair
on this forum. If this could be posted on your forum it would be
appreciated, the "quote" marks do not work particularly well on this forum
I hope this will shed some light on the issue from our side:

"Seeing as I cannot reply on the forum page, I am trying to get this PM
passed around all the factions, since we do not have the commlinks for all
factions. This is in answer to what Flubber posted on the main forum.

A recent ruling by googlie suprised me. We had pre-accepted a tech
to the cycon with a note in the commlinks to look for a message from me. I
sent a PM to the person the cycon had listed as their ambassador, 2 to 3
days before the cycon got the turn setting out turns and stating
explicitly that the tech should not be accepted unless a deal was
reached.

I did not see this until after I had played the turn. We had mentioned in
an earlier PM that DBTS, our External Affairs Function, was not the most
active member of our faction, and to please send all communiqués to both
him and myself, so that I got them before I played the turn. We were
surprised when we got the turn to see it offered, so Maniac, our Second
Function, acting as EAF while DBTS was not online, sent a PM to Flubber
asking why they had offered it. During relations with PEACE, which have
been rocky since the start, we have had to delay our turn on 3 occasions,
and our research for a few turns, so that we could iron out a deal, with
them usually waiting until just before our time limit to ask for some
extra ec as a sweetener, or the deal wouldn.t go through. I will elaborate
later on. Knowing that if I didn.t play then, due to RL commitments, I
would not be able to play within the 48 hours, I decided that I was not
going to wait for another round of extremely stressful diplomacy, and
played the turn, accepting the tech.

( and break pact with us on the same turn but thats another story
and pretty much irrelevant except for some roleplaying to come).

This had been polled days earlier, and was already decided, before we knew
anything about them offering a tech.

They checked with googlie beforehand and googlie ruled that it
violated no rule to accept a tech in the diplobox regardless of any
conditions attached. He considered it unsavory and backstabbing behavior
but not a cheat.

We did not know of any conditions, nor did Googlie say to us it was
"unsavoury and backstabbing". Firstly, since we owed them a tech from an
earlier deal, and our next research was the tech that they asked for in
return, we thought it was a gift to get the tech they wanted earlier. We
had a few doubts, given their previous conduct, but we believed it was a
strong possibility. Secondly, since non of the CyCon are regular PBEM
players, we did not know of any unwritten rule regarding pre-accepting
techs. I believed that accepting anything in the diplo box is accepting
what is on the table, as the game mechanics is set up. Therefore I thought
both parties accepted what was on the table. If we had a deal before send
it pre-accepted, as our first deal with PEACE went, then we would have
happily held to that deal. There was no deal, nor any communication as far
as the CyCon turn players were concerned.

I have played a lot of PBEMS and never ever thought it would be
acceptable to take a tech from the commlinks and ignore any conditions
contained in the offer. Perhaps I was naive.

While I would consider this a backstab, and not a cheating, I would not
intend to do that anyway. If we had known of the conditions attached, we
would have thought twice about accepting the tech.

While I admit we were probably too hasty in accepting it without getting
confirmation, but you have to look at our past diplomacy with PEACE:

The relationship was already extremely rocky from the start, as mentioned
above. We know they are out to win, and accepted that, but still we felt
how they acted earlier was no way to treat a pact mate. However we still
saw them as allies and did not intend any harm or any backstabbing
whatsoever. Then later, in negotiations, one of their members accused me
of planting viruses on their computers, and started a personal attack
against me. As Maniac said in that thread, this stressed me enough to
seriously consider leaving the DG, and soured relations greatly. We tried
to work through this, but found both sides had lost trust too much, and
decided to reduce relations to a treaty. Then this came up. To try to sort
it out, we offered a tech, to make up for the one we accepted. However
they were obviously still angry at us, so did not mention it in their
reply.

- To be fair, it is not like we were model pact mates either. Due to an
error, when DBTS, who is not particularly active, played the turn while I
was away, and choose the wrong tech to research, meaning we could not pay
PEACE back the tech we intended to. And I will admit, after the incident
mentioned, we were less friendly, and did end up trading with another
faction once instead of PEACE, because they asked for more ec. We are far
from blameless ourselves.

I do not wish to mudsling. I admit we have done wrong, mostly without
knowing it, but I have tried to explain some of the reasoning behind our
actions. Accepting that tech could easily be considered relatively
unsportsmanlike behaviour, and it would be a commonly held belief that we
should have waited for a reply, but to be honest, with the way we feel we
have been treated by PEACE, we did not feel like being particularly
sportsmanlike.

Sorry for the long PM, but I though I needed to explain why we did what we
did.

Prime Function Drogue Beta-8"

[Archaic]

Just recieved this in my inbox.


Greetings,

It looks like I have authorisation to proceed with this trade. The hive
is
interested in ecological engineering. We know that you have already
started it, and knowing the university's tech trade it should only be a
few years before you finish.

The hive is willing to offer all the comm links it has, and all the
techs
in exchange for ecological engineering.

Cycon Comm link
Drone Comm link
Loyalty
Applied physics

This will provide you prerequsites to research High Energy Chemistry and
Intellectual Integrity. Also it will allow you to open diplomatic
relations to the remaining other human factions.

The drones and the pirates have done well off the trades we have offered
them. We hope that you will find this trade benificial for you.

We would also like to mention that the planetary council may be coming
up
in perhaps 10 years time and when it is your time to vote you will
remember your good dealings with the Hive.

[AdamTG02]

I recommend that we take the trade, as it is in our favor. Granted, it benefits the Hive significantly as well, but not disproportionately. With the Cyborg and Drone commlinks, we can begin to build allies against the Hive, and trade for technology with some powerful factions. As for the Planetary Council, I don't think there will be disagreement that we shouldn't commit ourselves to vote for the Hive. Voting for them now might bne useful as a misdirection tactic, and a way of delaying conflict, but in the end it will be in our interest to weaken the Hive, both as the dominant faction and as the holders of several SPs we would like to get our hands on.

EDIT: After having read Miute Mirage's post in the Research thread, I simply wish to emphasize that we should not accept the techs preemptively -- that is, before we have Ecological Engineering. We then lose our shot at Environmental Economics.

As far as the CyCon goes, it's clear that they at least intended to deal in good faith. My opinion has changed somewhat on the issue, and now I believe that we should politely encourage them to honor the Pirates' original terms, with the eventual (though not necessarily overt) aim of building a three-pronged coalition against the Hive.

[Minute Mirage]

I've really come to like the idea of getting both Applied Physics and Doctrine: Loyalty while we're researching Environmental Economics. This would mean that we could research Intellectual Integrity (for CDF) and then head straight to MMI. However, I'm really not fond of giving Ecological Engineering to the Hive. As we know, they are currently researching that tech, so giving it to them would give them a jump-start to their next research project. In addition to this, they would probably quickly trade EE to other factions, e.g. the Drones, with whom they have co-operated research-wise before. Notice how Kody described the trade in his first email:

As we're going to offer drone and cycon comm links (all our
comm links), and all our techs in this trade, and some trading
restrictions on ourselves.

The trading restrictions seem to be absent in the final proposal.


Now, what I'd like to do is to make two smaller trades with two factions instead of one big trade with the Hive.

With the PEACE, I'd like to get Applied Physics and possibly some of the commlinks. I think our priority should be the cyborg commlink, since the Drones are likely to be firmly pacted with the Hive. We could offer the PEACE Secrets of the Human Brain or Biogenetics. I'd also like it if the PEACE shared some of their infiltration data with us. I'd be interested in knowing how far away the Hive is from Ecological Engineering, and what their tech/turn rate is. I'd also like to know what techs the Drones have and what they are researching, so that we can be sure they won't get the Citizen's Defense Force.

With the Hive, I'd like to get Doctrine: Loyalty and possibly some comm links, if the PEACE isn't willing to part with them. We could offer them Secrets of the Human Brain and/or Social Psych.

Another possibility is that if we can get the Cyborg commlink, we can trade for Applied Physics with them.


If we could get these trades through, we would get essentially the same benefits, without strenghtening our to-be-enemy (Hive) too much.

[Minute Mirage]

Another copy-paste from an email sent by Kody:

New turn, 2143

We would perfer if you sent emails back to us rather than using the diplo box.
The diplomancy box takes 4-5 days to reach us.

Kody

Then onto the new turn, 2143. First, the Hive has finished the Command Nexus and the Cyborgs have started the Maritime Control Center. I think there's no doubt that the tech they received from the PEACE was Doctrine: Initiative. We have also received an offer from the Hive, where they are willing to give us the Drone and Cyborg commlinks as advanced payment for Ecological Engineering. The deal is not pre-accepted. Here are my suggestions for the new turn:

Mendelev College:

Hurry colony pod for 13 ECs, insert stockpile energy into queue and change doctor to worker on borehole in (85,31).

Monitoring Station:

Change production to crawler, insert stockpile energy to queue.

Mir Lab:

Change worker from (82,36) to (80,36), hurry children's creche for 18 ECs.

Koppernigk Observatory:

Change worker from (80,36) to (82,36). Hurry recreation commons for 16 ECs.

Otkrietia-Discovery:

Change production to crawler from recycling tanks for no minerals lost.

Zoloto-Gold:

Change production to crawler, insert stockpile energy to queue.

Budushii Dvor:

Change production to crawler, insert stockpile energy to queue.

Climactic Research:

Change production to recreation commons.


In my game, a forest had spread into square (77,35). Because of this, I'd do the following changes:

University Base:

Change worker from (77,37) to (77,35).

Zoloto-Gold:

Change worker from (77,33) to (77,37).


Crawlers:

Move crawler from (80,32) to borehole in (82,30) and resume convoying minerals.

Move crawler from (80,34) to Zoloto-Gold, re-home it there and then move it to (80,32) and resume convoying minerals.

Move crawler from (81,39) to (80,34) and resume convoying minerals.

Move crawler in Monitoring Station to (78,40) and start convoying minerals.

Move crawler from (76,40) to (76,42) and resume convoying minerals.

Formers:

Move former from Zoloto-Gold to (79,33) and start building a farm.

I'm not sure what were the plans for the former in (86,30). Archaic?

Others:

Move colony pod from Climactic Research to (73,31).

Move scout patrol to monolith in (13,27).

Move Unity foil west to (15,31) and then north to (15,29).


I've uploaded a savegame here, where I've done everything apart from moving the one former I wasn't sure of and the military units. I also haven't done anything in the diplomatic box, i.e. I haven't accepted the Hive's offer. We need to decide how we'll react to the offer.

[Archaic]

Everything you've done there sounds good. I'll download that save game you've got there once I know how to proceed in response to the Hive offer.

[Minute Mirage]

We should probably agree on an overall near-future plan for our bases.

My current idea is that we'll first bolster the mineral production of our bases by building lots of crawlers and planting forests. We will be immediately using the boreholes once we get Ecological Engineering, i.e. two turns from now. For that reason I started moving some of our crawlers toward the boreholes in our above plan. We probably shouldn't work the boreholes until energy restrictions are lifted, instead we should use crawlers. We should probably switch to Democracy when we plant our 11th base from the colony pod we'll be rushing this turn.

While researching Environmental Economics, we should get the basic infrastructure built in our bases, i.e. recreation commons, children's creche, recycling tanks. When we get Environmental Economics, we should start building tree farms. When they are in place, we'll begin our first pop boom by switching to planned. During this boom some of our bases should produce colony pods, so that we can fill the rest of the continent quickly.

What does this plan sound like? Any comments, especially regarding the boom?


By the way, Crimson Sunrise, have you been in any contact with the Hive yet? Have we had any diplomatic dealings with the PEACE since trading for Doctrine: Flexibility?

[Archaic]

The only difference to that plan is that I'd suggest perhaps making our Pop Boom via FM/Wealth + Psych allocation to put our bases in Golden Age, though we'd need Hologram Theaters to do that (We'd need them after we boomed anyway, even if we used Planned). Given that we may be ending up with quite a number of Treaties and/or Pacts in the near future, I believe the commerce there would serve us just as well if not better than the +1 Industry. We'd have better flexability, fewer drones (Planned will kill us with the -2 Effic, if we build any more bases, even once we're in Demo), and better research.

[Minute Mirage]

Originally posted by Archaic
The only difference to that plan is that I'd suggest perhaps making our Pop Boom via FM/Wealth + Psych allocation to put our bases in Golden Age, though we'd need Hologram Theaters to do that (We'd need them after we boomed anyway, even if we used Planned). Given that we may be ending up with quite a number of Treaties and/or Pacts in the near future, I believe the commerce there would serve us just as well if not better than the +1 Industry. We'd have better flexability, fewer drones (Planned will kill us with the -2 Effic, if we build any more bases, even once we're in Demo), and better research.

I most certainly don't deny the advantages of FM over Planned. My idea was to use Planned for a limited time to pop boom and to switch back to FM after that. You noted well the benefits of a golden age pop boom, but I do see a few problems as well:

- Bases with an odd-numbered population. Since we don't have the HGP, we can't get these into a golden age and we need another method for growing. I'm not experienced in GA pop booming, but I think we have to either let the base grow normally, or build a colony pod and add that to the base. Growing normally is slow, and adding pods is costly, since the production could be used more efficiently.

- Since the Hologram Theaters need to be built first, it takes longer to set up a pop boom.


I'm not totally convinced that a GA pop boom would be more efficient than this kind of a pop boom:

We switch to planned before building the hologram theaters. Before starting the boom, we have to ensure that every base that grows will have 10 nutrients at its disposal, through both workers and crawlers. We boom the bases all the way until size 5, at which stage we switch back to FM. We shouldn't stay more than 4 or 5 five turns in planned.

The benefit of this is that we can change the drones we created into librarians at size 5. At this stage we build the hologram theaters. We can even allow our bases to starve for some turns (turn nutrient crawlers into mineral crawlers), if we have enough nutrients in the box. The librarians, combined with the network nodes, provide a massive boost to our labs, more than offsetting the penalty we received by spending a little time in planned. Additionally, we increase our population sooner than in the GA pop boom, which could mean a lot in the upcoming elections.

[Minute Mirage]

I've run some tests concerning the demo+planned pop boom and I've gotten pretty good results. I used the single-player copy of the game I made, which allowed me to simulate the turns quite accurately.

I decided to boom as soon as possible without waiting for the tree farms. My aim was to get the most developed bases into size 5, so that they would support librarians. I chose to boom the following bases:

University Base (size 3 currently)
Monitoring Station (size 2)
Mir Lab (size 2)
Budushii Dvor (size 2)
Otkrietia-Discovery (size 2).

The current (end of 2143) statistics of our faction:

Net Income: 33 ECs
Breakthroughs: 6 turns
Tech per turn: 76.8
Population: 16
Crawlers: 12 active, 4 in production

In my test, at the end of 2151 (8 turns later):

Net Income: 48
Breakthroughs: 4 turns
Tech per turn: 180
Population: 35
Crawlers: 27 active, 1 in production


The price for this was spending three turns in Planned (switch to Planned in 2148 and back in 2151), which in my simulation delayed getting Environmental Economics with one turn.

The simulation is of course not totally accurate. The cost of the next technology is probably not the same (I'm hoping it's lower) and the b-drones can appear in different bases. Moreover, changes in commerce income cannot be measured.

Here are the first and last turns in the simulator, in case somone is interested. I have also saves from every turn in between.

2143
2151

What does this plan sound like? Archaic, do you think a GA pop boom would be better?

[Archaic]

I think I'll trust your judgement here. Did you test out the GA in your SP game though? I'd be interested in the results.

In any case, if I don't recieve any word on how to respond to the Hive offer before 6pm tonight (It's currently 2:16pm for me) I'll play the turn and send it on.