Raise sea levels?

[Maniac]

This has been discussed quite a while ago, but never polled: "Should we try to raise sea levels?"
It would be done by crawling many minerals to one base (such as Gardens Point for PUT), and as a consequence cause ecological damage, fungal pops and ultimately a sea level raise. This is a relatively longterm project - 20 years before it has its full effect - but that doesn't matter IMHO. If the Hive-Drones attack us soon, nothing can't help us anymore anyway. But if they indeed will wait until they have Fusion Power to attack us, as buster claims he will do in his mail to "Pirate Maniac", it will make a difference. So it's worth a try IMHO.

The main three advantages of a sea level raise are in my opinion:

1> Naval combat becomes more important. And since we have the Maritime Control Centre, with free naval yards and +2 movement points, we have an advantage.
2> Land and air combat becomes a bit less important. So the Hive and Drones will have less use of their Secrets Projects the Cloudbase Academy, the Command Nexus and (soon probably) the Citizen's Defence Force.
3> Drop units can't drop into sea bases! So they wouldn't be able to use the chop&drop tactic (build lots of choppers and a few drop units and blitzkrieg your way through the enemy empire) against us.

Previous discussion with other arguments was done in this thread.

[GeoModder]

I'm in favour, but if one base with an overdose of minerals is sufficient, why hasn't this happened already? We more or less now that Hive has a much higher production output then other factions and still the event hasn't occured. How can we then stimulate this? Gardens Point already has 34 minerals a year, how much more is needed then?

[Maniac]

Lots of fungal blooms are necessary to do so. The Hive has many high production bases, but IIRC they at most produce 20 minerals or so. Slight eco-damage, but not enough yet to cause many fungal pops I guess. Gardens Point caused a fungal pop last year IIRC. Don't know how many there have been before that though. The chance every year that Gardens Point gets a fungal bloom is around 25-30% IIRC, so we'll see a few more blooms there I suppose. I'd like to try and rehome as many PUT crawlers as possible to Gardens Point to increase eco-damage, and also create a high-mineral base (Logic Loop?) in CyCon to do the same there, so hopefully we'll see results soon then. (Gardens Point and Logic Loop would then also be perfect bases for building up our military btw)

[GeoModder]

O yes, that last thing occured to me immediately

Do I get my way then and may LL then have an Aerospace Complex or even a Command Center?

[Illuminatus]

Voted yes. Maniac was clear enough in the first post.

[Illuminatus]

*bump*

Another failing poll.

[Drogue]

Voted yes. Looks like fun

[Mart]

I voted no. Much of our teritory is on marsh-land, thus we loose benefits of it.

I have impression that Hive and maybe Drones too, also Believers and Data Angels are on high levels above sea. It will not affect them so much as us. Please consider it - loosing rivers, land for sensor arrays, mineral production from rocky terrain. Maybe the raising sea should occur later?

[Maniac]

Originally posted by mart7x5
I have impression that Hive and maybe Drones too, also Believers and Data Angels are on high levels above sea. It will not affect them so much as us.

I am indeed becoming increasingly worried about that. The Gods have not blessed our CC-PUT-PEACE territory, which is all lowlands. The Drone mini-map in the lower right of this screenshot -> (http://apolyton.net/upload/files/Maniac/cyc-54.jpg) shows that most of their bases are coastal, so they would probably suffer greatly from a sea level raise. However the Gods have blessed the Hive with lots of highlands, so they might remain largely untouched. A possible sea level raise needs some preparations and thus isn't yet for tomorrow though, so we still have lots of time to redecide if more information about the Hive & Drone maps would indicate a sea level raise is not in our advantage.
If a majority would vote against a sea level rise though, I would suggest instead to build a bunch of sea formers and move them to the northern PUT territory to lower the land and submerge some northern PUT bases (after they've built a pressure dome of course). Those bases will lose half their population that way (though they aren't really populated), but it at least gives them protection against drop units, which IMHO cannot be overestimated for a succesful defence against a Drone Blitzkrieg.

[Illuminatus]

Well now we are talking about extreme and inovative way of defence.

[GeoModder]

Submersing bases is indeed extreme. The same goal can be reached by building Aerospace Complexes in those 'threatened' bases. Drop units can't drop near such protected bases in my experience.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Jesus - they have the CBA as well now too? What a difference a couple of weeks makes...

Is it a given that any base that is submerged loses half its pop even if it has a Pressure Dome? That's a new one on me.

This is an interesting suggestion.... How will this affect our production etc. capacity. I know that Tidal harnesses are great for energy, but I am a little worried about production, especially with the Hive supposedly being unaffected by small-scale sealevel changes. Could we at the same time prepare to raise our lands in key areas so we don't lose our production?

[Archaic]

If it has a Dome, it won't lose pop. Submersing those bases isn't a bad idea, unless it also kills the Borehole Cluster.

[GeoModder]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
Jesus - they have the CBA as well now too? What a difference a couple of weeks makes...

Yes, and probably CF in the next few turns as well.
We think that the deal between Hive and Drones was CBA for the Hive, CF for the Drones.

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt Could we at the same time prepare to raise our lands in key areas so we don't lose our production?

Unlikely, not enough formers for that I suppose. But triggering a sealevel rise is still turns away. So time to prepare.

[Drogue]

Geo: The deal was that, but there has been tension, and they're not sure if they'll stick to it. The Drones were given the Cloning Vats too, but we need to get that first.