Game Discussion, Turn 2101 - 2120

[Snoddasmannen]

We're off to a good start I think! I'm surprised that we are leaving our bases unmanned and are planning to do so for long, but I guess you guys know what you are doing Mindworms tend to eat my bases if left unattended.

Also, I've noticed that we have our energy allocations set to 10% psych, could somebody humor me and explain why?

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Snoddasmannen
but I guess you guys know what you are doing

I hope so too...
Nah seriously many veterans seem to agree that the minerals one saves by not building garrisons for all bases greatly outweigh the possible but rather unlikely downside of losing a base to a worm. So most likely we should be fine. Though there is of course a small chance we could run out of luck in this particular game. Basically it's a gamble: instead of building scouts and having a a low economic growth, we currently choose for a tactic that should normally give us a much higher economic growth, but also an increased risk of failure (however IMHO the increased benefits are much higher than the increased risks).

Also, I've noticed that we have our energy allocations set to 10% psych, could somebody humor me and explain why?

It's basically a balancing exercise. We are trying to maximize labs output without losing any credits or labs to inefficiency of energy allocations. When setting energy allocations to 50-0-50 or 40-0-60, both bases would still produce 2 labs and 2 credits, while we want them to produce 1 credit and 3 labs each. To achieve that goal, we need to set economy/credit production as low as 30%. However as you probably know, the more the credit and labs allocations diverge from 50%, the higher a percentage of credits & labs is lost to inefficiency. Currently that's -8% labs and -16% economy, but because we're producing so few credits & labs, this has no effect. But if you would for example set labs production to 100%, you'd see we'd have 40% efficiency, meaning we lose 4 of the 8 produced labs.

So to avoid having to diverge the labs allocations too much from 50%, we've set the psych production to 10% (which doesn't have any psych production as a consequence btw). But as a consequence we can set labs production to 60% instead of 70% while still maximizing labs production without inefficiency.

Anyway, I've checked what would be the results of using 30-0-70 energy allocation instead of 30-10-60, and it appears it wouldn't make a difference at all. However in many other games there would be a difference between those two settings, so I guess I just set the energy allocations to 30-10-60 out of habit without checking many other settings.

I hope this explain things. Though apparently I do have the tendency to explains things too difficult from time to time. So just say so if I'm talking nonsense.

[Snoddasmannen]

Originally posted by Maniac
[...] we currently choose for a tactic that should normally give us a much higher economic growth, but also an increased risk of failure (however IMHO the increased benefits are much higher than the increased risks).

I'll take your word for it And judging by the speed we are expanding in this game I will certainly try this myself.

It's basically a balancing exercise. We are trying to maximize labs output without losing any credits or labs to inefficiency of energy allocations.

Great explanations, thanks!

I usually don't spend energy on psych in my games unless using a free market, and certainly not when I have no base larger than 1

It doesn't make a difference in this case, but you generally get less research with a 30-10-60 than you would with a 30-0-70 setup since 70*(1-16%) is slightly larger than 60*(1-8%), and since I wasn't concerned with psych it kind of surprised me that we would invest energy in that. Of course, in this case, both options are equal.

However, in general, a 30-10-60 setup effectively uses 90.4% of all energy wheres a 30-0-70 only uses 84.0%, so I can see why you would instinctively prefer it

(PS. I had no idea what these numbers were until I just calculated them )

[Andemagne]

my 2 euro cents.

*I think we should build more Recon Rovers before building a CP. that way we could get larger are a explored, more pods popped and there would be greater possibility that one of the rovers is near a base should those evil mind worms attack. in my own games I usually build 4 recon rovers from Sparta Command before building anything else.
*Doctrine: Flexibility is just fine with me.
*IMHO next areas to be explored are that Buster's Crater and that other rover should continue towars south.
*IMHO next city sites should be: Base 3 on the shore of that body of water towards south from Sparta Command. Base 4 on that river delta. and Base 5 in somewhere Buster's Crater.
*those 3 rivers should be named.
*when we start with that secret project?


and thanks Maniac, I just learned something about SMAC.

[Googlie]

Well we have another rover just 3 turns from completion at Santiago's Citadel, so it should be able to deal with any threat coming from the northwest 3 tiles at Sparta Command (one movement point expended moving upriver 2 tiles, then can attack anything at the Sparta Command monolith tile or the next 2 southwest of it)

Questions for next turn. Do both rovers pop the pods that they are adjacent to?

Or does the R-112 Corazon Recon Vehicle move to the river mouth and see if there is a landbridge going north of that? (and if not, does it then turn southwest to skirt the oceanfront of Buster's Crater?)

Does our second rover turn northwest then east to see what that single black tile is hiding, and thus map out what that piece of shoreline looks like?

My recommendations would be to delay the podpopping and move the 2 rovers as outlined above.

G.

[Dis]

How long did you want to delay pod popping. I'm not sure how close we are to other factions. Although the good thing is no one should have rovers as we do.

And I would feel more comfortable if we could have 1 rover looking after both bases. But we can afford to go a few more turns with no garrison I'd say. But I don't like to push my luck .

[Googlie]

Ideally, delay podpopping (of these 2 pods) until they are within a base radius.

I have no problem with popping the more outlying pods, but the ability to perhaps get a facility completed for free, to me, outweighs either a tech (which we prolly couldn't use right now, such as Ind Base, as we wouldn't build synthmetal sentinels yet - and would serve to drag down our research rate as well) or, even worse, a mindworm that would just deliver 10 ec's upon our killing it

But a permanently-stationed rover in each base does make sense (moreso than a scout, as both would eventually take up 1 mineral to support, and the rover would be more versatile)

Oh - and if I understand Drogue correctly, we go through Yang to get to other factions, so we're prolly some turns away from meeting anyone yet

(but wouldn't it be nice to be trund;ling along in our rover and come across an empty base of another faction, pushing their luck like we are??)

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Googlie
Ideally, delay podpopping (of these 2 pods) until they are within a base radius.

This brings us to the question: "Where will we found our next two bases?"

If we would for example move the Sparta Command CP to (63.23), the 'Red River' source, to found a base there, the unity pod would fall within the new base radius. However if instead using the first Santiago Citadel CP to found a base on (57.21), the river tile bordering the (probable) ocean thus allowing us to build a gun foil and explore the seas, we would use the Sparta Command CP to found a base there, and use the first Santiago Citadel CP instead to push west into the Buster Crater, it could take a long long time before we have a CP to found a base near that southern unity pod.

[Zeiter]

I'd say move the R-112 CRV NW one tile to explore that land bridge, and then:

If land looks promising up there, explore up there.
If not, move SW and explore buster crater.

With the southern rover, I think we should move it NW and then W to explore that probable future base site.

As for where to put the next bases, I say the next CP from Sparta Command should go 1 tile S and 1 tile SE, and plant on that river. It would have plenty of rolling/rainy tiles to work, and we'd get it planted very quickly. The next CP from Santiago Citidel could go:

2 tiles SW, then 1 tile SE, and plant on the river with ocean access. (This is the option I am favoring).

Or

1 tile W, 1 tile NW, then plant right there where it can work either the crater tiles or a rainy/river/rolling tile to the north.

Planting our bases thus will get them built quickly. It would also set up the next stage of base expansion nicely:

2nd CP produced from Sparta Command would go 2 tiles N and plant on the river there.

2nd CP produced from Santiago Citidel could plant in whichever place described above that the previous CP wasn't planted in.

1st CP from most southwestern base could be planted 2 tiles to the W or it could follow that river NE.

1st CP from the most Southeasterly base (the one with ocean access) could either plant in the south part of the crater or plant somewhere to the SW that has yet to be explored.

[Googlie]

Maniac:

2105 is up

G.

[Maniac]

Thanks for the reminder.

A problem though is that there isn't an absolute agreement about the rover actions. For the future when things will get more complicated, this will probably happen even more, so people responsible for officializing the different orders would be useful.

I've moved R-112 CRV one tile NW. A flat & moist tile is detected to our north. Proceed to that direction as suggested?

Both Zeiter and you agreed to move the Chiron Knights one tile NW. Zeiter though wants to move it west, you east. Personally I have a slight preference for moving it east, as that would mean we end up on a rover = faster exploration. Is that ok?

Oh yeah, I've thought of something. We could again hurry scout rover production in Santiago Citadel for 7 credits, to get the rover one turn earlier than usual. Is that ok?

http://apolyton.net/upload/view.php?file=3088_ACDG3-Sparta-2105mid.zip

Edit after some consideration: Zeiter and Googlie both liked moving R-112 CRV north and Googlie and I moving the Chiron Knights east, so I guess this would have a majority. Also previous time people liked the hurrying, so I assume it would pass now too. Therefore I'll play the turn further in an hour or so unless there are negative comments.

[Zeiter]

Sounds good.

I guess we could start to set up separate threads for different tasks (rover exploration, base management, etc.) and get people in charge of each department in order to streamline things a bit and remove any confusion over what the consensus is on any given turn.

[Maniac]

Battle Report MY 2105

• R-112 CRV moved to (55.9). More rainy tiles discovered. Popbooming on this map should be very easy once we get Gene Splicing.
• Chiron Knights moved to Red River source on coordinates (64.22).
• Santagio Citadel production hurried with 3 minerals at a cost of 7 credits. As a result the scout rover should be finished next year MY 2106.

Sparta MY 2105 presend

[Dis]

hmm, I haven't downloaded stuff from Poly before. I get the option to open or save to disk. When I click save to disk nothing happens. I would like to view the save to look at base sites. Although I'm more interested in looking where to explore.

[Dis]

Disregard. I just noticed there's an updated map in the map thread

The land looks interesting. I'm still not sure where to put the next bases yet. We have some large unexplored areas that I would like to see. I would like to send a rover west into the crater. And scout out that area. Sine it will be finished next turn, that sounds like a good idea. Pluse I don't like having unexplored territory in the city radius. That always bothers me

The southern rover could go ne up the river, though that is risky with the xenofungus. Seeing as our base is undefended. But the rover should have enough movement to attack any worms.

the northern rover we can send east as well. maybe NE. We can determine the extent of the rainy tiles. Those unity pods should be okay for now. we aren't in a hurry to get those. I'm guessing there is no one to the west of us.

I'm thinking there may be more coastline to the west of us. And we are on the western edge of the continent. this is good because of the rainy tiles. And the crater will help out our minerals a bit.