2154 End Turn and 2155 Discussion

[jtsisyoda]

Turn's here... must be completed by 1-2-2004 04:23 (which includes the extra 24 hours for the Holiday).

[jtsisyoda]

I started the turn. There are still some major decisions to make.

We infiltrated Zak. He has EcoEng, EnvEcon, HEC, etc. Two probes are in ZZT, set to reload the transport and steal some of those juicy techs.

We ran into a Spartan SSC Hunter, a 2-1 foil, on our coast. We have one more move left with our gator boat. I propose we subvert that bad boy. See Spartan Diplomacy for my justification. It will cost 108 ec, and we have over 300 right now. I don't want to wait to see whether they obliterate our expensive gator boat and chalk it up to violation of the Modo Doctrine.

Our southern gator boat popped a pod and auto-completed Half an SP on Wheels at Choke On This.

This is a big turn, ladies and gentleman. I'll be gone approximately 12-40 hours, but back with plenty of time to finish out the turn.

[AndiD]

Ack. With that captured Laser Foil, do we still need to build a prototype of laser weapons?
Paramiria looks closest so it will most probably get a peace drone. Doesn't matter, there is a 2 nut tile in base range or we can let it starve...

We should also cease building CPs and start investing into RecTanks everywhere (more minerals=more support), NetNodes in selected places (let's put some juice into research towards Clean as long as we can), more formers (Sensors as Rubin pointed out as well as cannon fodder in case of an invasion) and crawlers (for some more minerals and more cannon fodder).

Creches won't hurt either in regards of defense morals but I would rank them fifth.

[jtsisyoda]

Here's an end-turn file...

Using only the Uni F4 screen to view terrain and worker allocation, I was able to figure out where the Uni bases are. I did not need to use any bugs like "goto" or right clicking unexplored terrain.

Budushii Dvor (0,24)
Okretia Discovery (1,17)
Monitoring Station (83,19)

Yang's power took a steep dive. This can happen when a faction no longer has the highest weapon tech. So the Spartans must have discovered SFF.

I subverted the Spartan boat. It almost paid for itself by popping a pod for 75 ec and removing the 9 min prototype cost for our laser foil. It also popped another pod for some kelp (blah). Paramiria, the home base for the SCC Hunter, will starve down to one, and is having some mineral issues, but we can deal with that in the coming turns.

Sorry if there wasn't much input from the team on the subversion decision because of the holiday... AndiD was the only one who posted anything, and he "tended to agree". The time to act decisively was upon us. Feel free to oust me, especially since I've been trying to hand over the turn-playing. (The temporariness of my tenure did not affect my judgement, though-- I would've done the same thing had I considered my position permanent.)

My proposed message to the Spartans: "You have been found in violation of the Modo Doctrine. Your trespassing foil has been dealt with accordingly. Payments have been suspended due to the state of Vendetta you have forced upon us. If you wish for payments to resume, please negotiate a criminal settlement with any Morgan diplomat in the Embassy."

We rushed a ton of stuff with our insane 300+ reserves. We're down to 12 ec now.

[jtsisyoda]

F2 and F3...

[jtsisyoda]

F4... lots of stuff completing next turn...

[jtsisyoda]

Our bases...

[jtsisyoda]

The site of the Spartan transgression...

[jtsisyoda]

A few Hive units are moving around down south. Probably nothing to worry about yet.

[jtsisyoda]

To the West, the gaping wound Zak calls Mendelev College...

[jtsisyoda]

What do you guys think of probing Uni cities away so the Spartans can't use them for tech research? We'd have to try doing all of them at once, to try to keep all those Uni techs out of Spartan hands. We could switch to a transport at Mussels, and use two more fast probes from nearby cities. Just a thought. Not sure if I like it or not yet.

[Mead]

I'm back and looked around.

My thoughts.

It looks that we are now at war with Sparta. I see that w have:

a lot of cash income;

A number of defensive probes (it would be better if more of them were on Rover Chassis);

A couple of gator boats;

Very little else in the way of military power (our true power is our cash flow and probe actions).

I see that Sparta has:

MCC very bad for us;
CN makes their units more difficult to deal with; and
infitration of us.


My thought are:

We MUST contact the other factions.

Sparta is in danger of running away with the game we need the other factions help in containing Sparta.

It may be hard to run past Spartan Naval forces with their +2 MCC movement plus to get contact but we should try.

We are getting nothing from the Hive right now. We should consider probing them and (perhaps) trying to lay the blame on Sparta. I know that this will be harder with low morale probe units.

I don't think that we were prepared for a war right now (but then again I don't think the Spartans were as ready as the would like to be either).

We should prepare our probes for an active defense (infiltrate any captured base followed up by succesive tech aqusistions and probe purchase) to counter hostile Spartan actions that can arrive on our shores withing 2 turns.


I am relieved tht Rubin has begun to take a more active part in the game as his skills are greatly needed (I agree with his suggestions in his most recent post).


Mead

[Whoha]

The die is cast, and we will soon see why the sent that ship at us. Are they ready for conflict? what do they think of our readyness?

[AndiD]

I think this projection of strength wasn't the worst thing to do... we might not look overly war-ready from infiltration but at least they know we are alarmed, look out for potential trouble and are no wimps.

[#endgame]

A while ago I said "Show Sparta some backbone."



-- CTO #endgame