2162 End Turn and 2163 Discussion

[jtsisyoda]

The turn has arrived. Did we ever decide on #endgame or AndiD as turnplayer?

[AndiD]

I would gladly volunteer.

Can anyone check AI diplomacy (especially Zak) please without moving any units (!) - he was keen on offering a treaty for nothing the last time. [EDIT: Tech trade question removed, we probably don't want any tech trade right now except D:AP, Neural Grafting or Bio-Engineering...]

Going to take a luck a the turn now.

[AndiD]

Heh, lots of interesting things going on and lots of stuff to discuss:

- Yang researches D:AP in six years!.
RFR has to finish a Gator this year to be there in time for techstealing. We need two Gators for a sure techsteal because he has Field Modulation as extra tech and I'm pretty sure techsteal is something random. (Anyone know more on this?)

- Consequence: Our own research should be aimed towards Bio-Engineering for clean reactors ASAP, so Neural Grafting is perfect.

With D:AP and Clean, we will totally be back in business, regardless what Sparta will do by then. I'm not sure whether I would want any tech trade between now and then. The big question will be whether we survive these ~15 years but then - it takes quite a time for the industry crippled Spartans to rebuild their army and sent it to our coast.

- A Hive colony pod has appeard at Choke on This (!) - shall I try to block it?

- A transport foil with an Angel probe has appeared at our eastern coast but apparently aimed towards Uni land - not sure what I shall make of this. -> Mead, something for Angels diplomacy?

- The mindworm at the former MorInd position is gone.

- The Gaian pact is very healthy thanks to their apparent ICS.

- SE settings: I would try to drop psych to 20 but this might not work with two bases to be found this turn (-> chance of two more bases with another drone). I envision something like 20/20/60 - with still 80+ credits per turn thanks to commerce.

- Police State doesn't look overly appealing to me at the moment, for the main reason as it would delay any research by at least 4 years.

20/30/50 Dem: 96 ec/turn, new tech at 10 turns
20/30/50 PS: 75 ec/turn, new tech at 14 turns
Every other slider setting looks worse on first glance.

Looking for input.

[AndiD]

A few more things:

- The western foil can pop a pod this turn, shall I try to autocomplete another Half SP on Wheels or a Net Node at ZZT? (I hope, Choke is not nearer than ZZT)

(If I sound pretty research crazy at the moment - that is right, my mid-term goal would be Clean ASAP and keeping our mineral output up with some serious crawler producion until then)

- Another SE option would be Frontier politics, losing just a bit of ecs and tech per turn but giving back only one mineral per base. With a 40 ec hit for the switch - I have the feeling that Frontier could be the worst of both worlds Dem and PS...

[#endgame]

Don't forget that after probing a base, it gets 'high security interlocks'. You may need a 3rd probe to be safe.

AndiD, can you take the helm? I have a feeling Uni is going to develop into a lot more work very soon .

They may take our bases, but they'll never take our money!

-- CTO #endgame

[AndiD]

Can do turnplaying.

Thanks for the note with the security interlocks, but there are two bases at the northern Hive coast to choose from.

Where have we probed the Hive before if at all? Do security interlocks go away after a couple of turns or do they stay throughout the game? (= Never probe a base twice?)

[Mead]

Originally posted by AndiD
***
- A transport foil with an Angel probe has appeared at our eastern coast but apparently aimed towards Uni land - not sure what I shall make of this. -> Mead, something for Angels diplomacy?

***

Geo PM'd me this.

Apologies for the inconvenience

Boardmembers of the Corporation,

We feel an apology is in order as one of our transports seems to be obstructing one of your transport vessels on it's present course.

We hope this will not profoundly block the arrival time on it's port of origin.

Since our transport is in your territorial waters, we feel as well an explanation of it's presence there is in order.

It is so that only last turn (2161) we got confirmation on who occupied the land it was sailing to at first due to our world map exchange. We promptly decided to change it's course and let it head to the University of Planet's territory in order to let our junior students onboard have a field practice in that area of Planet.

Again, our apologies for any inconvenience

Regards,
IT GeoModder

[AndiD]

Thanks.

Sounds plausible due to where the foil is headed - and if they wanted infiltration or tech they could have agreed to _anything_ one turn ago.

[jtsisyoda]

The closest base was probed, and also the third farthest on the northern coast. So the middle one should still have normal security.

Keep in mind Sparta will patrol those waters, though. Land probes might be a better bet.

[Mead]

Diplo Notes

Wihou moving anything I tried the following:

First:
Contacted Zak

He offered Field Mod for Superconductor. I couldn't accept so I said no.

Then he demanded Supeconducter. I couldn't give it to him so I said no.

Then he offered a treaty. I think I said yes. He didn't want to talk much afterwards. I suppose I could have asked to make a furthr trade but that may have run afoul of the rules.


Second:
Contacted Lal

He offered us a copy of Sparta's map for 50 EC. As tempted as I was to say yes (to see it before the turnplayer), I said no. Then he didn't want to talk much more.

Third:
Contacted Yang
He didn't want to talk.


We are raking in 179EC per turn including all the commerce income.


Mead

[Mead]

Originally posted by AndiD
Thanks.

Sounds plausible due to where the foil is headed - and if they wanted infiltration or tech they could have agreed to _anything_ one turn ago.

I'm not so sure they didn't try to infiltrate last turn. Thier foil looks a little to far Northeast.

Any way lets make good use of it. If that Spartan ship is searching for targets it may come across thiers first if we take a southern route around the fungus.


Mead

[Mead]

General Thoughts and Observations on the Turn

It looks like we are going to rolling in cash soon. With all the treaties and Pact we are getting a lot of Commerce income - Total 179 before stockpile bug. With th stockile bug we are getting a lot more with all the stuff we can rush.

With the addtional cash we can turn a lot of doctors into workers to avoid starvation and increase mins. (includes having Agri Narnia work the farm SW of it, Micha Archivs work the forest near it)

We ought to accept Zak's treaty and Lal's offer of the map.

Thre are a few formers on te west side of mount planet. One of them was set to making road. It ought to be stop and moved up the river towards the top one square and ought to start a mine, with the other two formers SW of it coming to help out. We need to get more crawlers going



Gaia - I was surprised at looking at Gaia. They are running a very thin defense. They have very little in the way of infrusturcture but they are working it very hard.

Hive - Perhaps instead of loading our probes on the transport and heading west towards Uni we should load them and head south towards the Hive.

Sparta - I noticed their (2)-1-6 Commando Cruiser north of Yoda Soda.

Mead


PS
I am plannin an intell brief for the DA and Gaians on Spartan activities. Can someone help me out with the screenshots. I am not sure how much I want to give away.

[AndiD]

Thanks a lot Mead.

- I will offer a pre-accepted pact to the DA

- I will accept Zak's Treaty and Lal's map. I think we maybe should also trade Superconductor for Field Modulation with Zak -- so we don't need _two_ successful probes for Yang for a sure D:AP in six turns.

- The land probe backup for Yang in addition to the probe foils makes sense - I'll take a look at the details and whether we can have to use a transport foil to get past Yang's units.

- I certainly want to use the western foil for a pod pop next turn.
-> Question: This turn with no movement points left (to be faster than the Angel foil) or next turn being able to escape from a IoD. Even if we lose the foil, it is one mineral consumer less...

- I'm certainly gonna start work on mineral crawlers ASAP.

- I'll take a detailed look at formers and defense and give some screenshot suggestions.

[AndiD]

Map (and tech) trade is done - very very interesting.

Turn below. Can someone please ask Yang to withdraw from our territory? Or is that against the rules? (Shouldn't be, we don't _accept_ anything, right)

[AndiD]

Did some turnplaying in the meantime -- comments and feedback please.

- Yang withdrawing would be great in several means... please check.

- Popped a IoD with the western Gator (blah) and an Artifact with the tranny. I saw no way that this transport foil could pick up a probe and reach the Hive in time. I would use the artifact for a tech advance with a rushed Node in ZZT or RFR.

- We can use the western Gator on "Labor Network" and the southern Gator for the middle Hive base (which one is it)? I will try to pop a few pods with the western Gator on its way, making sure that it could run away from a IoD each time. A rover probe team is on its way south past Choke.

- I think we should spend our money wiser than on the Gator at RFR - any objections? Switch RFR to a crawler? Keep building the Gator for a replacement of the southern techsteal Gator?

- I virtually closed our labs for this turn and would do this for two or three turns more, meaning 200 ec/turn until we rushed sufficient crawlers and RecTanks for minerals. After that, it could be exactly the other way around, SE wise.

I know I stated something else above but I think there is no need for planning ahead 15 years (until BioEng arrives) if we will be crippled industry-wise for that time being. A rushed NetNode or two could certainly compensate for the low research output. We also have an artifact...

- Our poorly developed Eastside will be a bit neglected by me - Paramiria will build a former for some road network but that will be it for the next five turns. Since it is the coast immediately adjacent to Sparta, we could use the size 1 base as early warnings...

- Most bases do crawlers and some non-coastals even lack a garrison - this is intended and will change within two turns.

- All crawlers inlcuding the Half an SP on Wheels except one do Mineral duty. Impaler Polymers could urgently need some minerals but sacrificing 7 energy hurts...