2145: Pre-planning discusion and build/movement orders

[Maniac]

Googlie's inspecting the troops right now, and therefore unavaliable to post the planning thread for MY 2145. So I did it instead as you can see.

Please shoot away any suggestions you have!


I just had a look at the turn and I have two suggestions for worker replacements.

Currently working SC3 is working a 2-2-0 crater tile, and SC4 working a 2-2-1 crater tile. Problem is that extra energy of SC4's 2-2-1 tile is lost due to inefficiency. Howver it wouldn't be lost of the tile was worked by SC3! Therefore I'd like to propose to switch those workers, and gain an extra credit per year.

Also now the former on the RÃo Grande has finished farming that rolling&rainy tile. It now is a rather productive 3-1-1 tile, leading to fast growth. Seeing that Rio Grande base is only size 1, while Fort Buster is already size 2 and thus has less need to grow, may I suggest switching the 3-1-1 and 1-3-0 mineral bonus tile between the workers of those bases? Result: RG: fast growth. FB: high production.


Also, I've got a question. I see we have 3 probe teams and are building two more. What will be the missions of those probe teams?

[Maniac]

Somewhere Googlie pondered whether it would be possible to rushbuild the MCC the turn we research DocIni, ie in four years.

I haven't done any tests, but if you start from the following facts:
a) Using the two artifacts, we still need 200 minerals.
b) Our total factional mineral production (support not included) is 45 minerals per year.
So even if all bases started constructing crawlers next year, which I assume cannot be done, we'd still need at least five turns (5*45>200).

[Googlie]

Googlie calling in from the field (actually, am now in Palm Springs, but am on Dial-up for 2 days, 'cos the DSL contarct was from Nov 1 to March 31, and can't be advanced)

No problem with re-allocating the workers. I moved the RG and FB ones around to get that earlier year for the tech, but didn't think to experiment with the SC3/SC4 placements. We need to make sure, though, that we don't regress to 2149 for Doc Init

Re the probes - they're just placements right now. We might lose 1 when we try Morgan infiltration - and we do need to have Crypteia in all our bases to protect us from others' infiltration.

G (lolling around in 24 degree weather !!)

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Googlie
No problem with re-allocating the workers. I moved the RG and FB ones around to get that earlier year for the tech,

Ah I see I didn't know that.

but didn't think to experiment with the SC3/SC4 placements. We need to make sure, though, that we don't regress to 2149 for Doc Init

I just had a close look, and it appears that, while switching the RG/FB workers changes a labs to a credit, switching the SC3/SC4 workers adds an extra labs, so the end result for labs is that they remain the same, and we'll still get the tech in four years.

G (lolling around in 24 degree weather !!)

Wow, great! Here in Sparta Command, high in the mountains, it's rather cold.

[Primus Pilus]

the current pre-send will not launch on my PC, so I don't know where we stand on tactics/strategry. the world map looks good since we have sea borders, yet Yang still bothers me...as to an Morgan alliance, well you sleep with the devil. i'm inclined to covertly support the Gaians against Yang, probe Zak, and throw the PK's a little bone.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Primus Pilus
the current pre-send will not launch on my PC,

Do you mean you have succesfully unzipped the file, but SMAX is unable to open it, or are you unable to zip the file? I had the latter problem, because the file is for some reason zipped twice. To solve this, instead of "Extract to here", open the file with WinZip, then open the second file you then see with WinZip and then you'll see the unzipped save file to extract. I hope this explanation makes some sense - hard to explain without showing.

as to an Morgan alliance, well you sleep with the devil. i'm inclined to covertly support the Gaians against Yang,

Aha, a supporter of the Gaian Wing. What would you propose we do to make the Gaians more open and cooperative to us, and weaken their link with the Angels?

probe Zak, and throw the PK's a little bone.

But Lal is Zak's master, and Lal doesn't want to answer our calls.

[Maniac]

We have quite a few plans at the moment:

• Build more formers to build boreholes/farms/forests/whatever...
• Build more crawlers to harvest resources and hurry the Maritime Control Center.
• Build more probes to both defend ourselves and probe-attack others.
• Build transports and upgrade our rovers to impact to invade Zakharov. Upgrading the two 1-1-2s and the 2-1-2 would cost 170 credits. If we'd want to give them amphibious ability, it would be 30c extra for a total of 200.
• Possibly 40 energy if we'd want to switch to Fundamentalist, to easier infiltrate Morgan and invade Zakharov.

I hope I didn't forget an important plan.

In any case, we need to assign priorities to what we'll focus our resources first on. As you hopefully see, we don't have the credits or minerals to do all these things at once. For example, it would be wasteful IMO to build more probes while we don't yet have the transports to send them on missions, or build crawlers before we have decent terraformation (forests or mines) to let them harvest minerals.

[Primus Pilus]

i will try the unzip trick. it does seem to me that i've had this problem before.

i support the Gaians because they will pin-down Yang until we have Missile/Jet to successfully take him on.

if we invade Zak, are we truly prepared to take-on Lal too?

[Googlie]

Yeah - I'm getting the turn from jtsisyoda in a file within a file (called "real game saves") and sometime I forget to save midturns and endturns in my regular "firaxis saves" folder (where I save the Gaians onward-passing turn)

[Googlie]

Next turn we have a few formers needing new orders (particularly the 2 flanking OA's mine) Should they "gang-mine" for a 4 mineral mine on both (rocky tiles with a road) as originally planned, or redeploy to borehole somewhere?

Should Vladivostok's mineral special be mined or boreholed?

Should the min special tile between RG and FB be mined or forested (and with both nearby formers, or just the one?)

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Googlie
Next turn we have a few formers needing new orders (particularly the 2 flanking OA's mine) Should they "gang-mine" for a 4 mineral mine on both (rocky tiles with a road) as originally planned, or redeploy to borehole somewhere?

Personally I'd prefer a gang-mine right now.

Should Vladivostok's mineral special be mined or boreholed?

Personally I'd prefer a mine here too. Building a borehole takes very long with that little formers, making us lose lots of turn advantage.
Btw, will the former on (66.10) move one tile east next turn, and the new VV former one tile north, so that they can both start roads on their tiles; allowing the VV former, when both roads are finished, to move directly to the mineral bonus tiles and start terraforming?

Should the min special tile between RG and FB be mined or forested (and with both nearby formers, or just the one?)

A mine or forest is both ok for me on the mineral bonus tile. Though for the former currently on RÃo Grande, how would you think about first letting it plant a forest on (55.13) before moving back into the crater?


Btw, perhaps you were already planning this, but in case you were not, how about the following?

SC2 currently has a garrison unit on excess. How about moving one infantry to SC4, and then moving a SC4 garrison to FB. SC3 also will finish a hoplite. This frees both Warwag and Shinsengumi, as was your plan.
It'll take a few more turns before we have a transport in Vladivostok, so I was thinking: how about moving both rovers to (53.9)? Then MY 2146 Warwag can pop the unity pod on (54.8). If we'd get worms, Shinsengumi is immediately ready to help out Warwag.

The rovers could then proceed east to do the same with the pod on (66.16).


While looking at the turn, I also discovered a problem which may threaten us in seven-eight years. Namely SC4 & SC3 will grow to size 3 in respectively 7 & 8 years. We can only use two units per base as police, so we won't have any option to quell those drones but turn them into useless doctors.
Except building two colony pods in either SC3, SC4 and/or alternatively in SC2 and/or GH (two other size 3 bases - shrinking them would allow us to station the ogres elsewhere).

Two problems with building two CPs would of course be:
a) It means a delay in crawler production, and thus MCC construction.
b) Where would we found new bases?

[Snoddasmannen]

Originally posted by Maniac
While looking at the turn, I also discovered a problem which may threaten us in seven-eight years. Namely SC4 & SC3 will grow to size 3 in respectively 7 & 8 years. We can only use two units per base as police, so we won't have any option to quell those drones but turn them into useless doctors.
Except building two colony pods in either SC3, SC4 and/or alternatively in SC2 and/or GH (two other size 3 bases - shrinking them would allow us to station the ogres elsewhere).

Two problems with building two CPs would of course be:
a) It means a delay in crawler production, and thus MCC construction.
b) Where would we found new bases?

Is there any chance we can get a hold of IntInt and police units by then?

As far as getting techs are concerned, if we are resigning to the fact that we won't be researching much in the near future, wouldn't it be a nice idea to use one of the alien artifacts to get a free tech? We'd need more crawlers to complete the MCC, but no other faction will have the tech for some time anyway, and the MCC is probably not a priority for the builder factions is it? So am I safe to assume there is no panic?

I don't know how the game calculates just which tech you get from AA's, has there been research in this area? I assume there has It would be a dream to get IntInt from one of them.

[Googlie]

Problem with "techadvancing" via an AA is that we'd need a network node in one of the bases., thus tying up a build for a few turns. And if we got Polysoft, or Opticals, we'd be really pissed off.

We've lots of candidates for new bases - northeast of RG, southeast of Vlad (we'd identified another coastal area there, if I'm not mistaken) as well as east and south of Minas Tirith.

Then, oc course, we could always send a trannie with a CP and a Crypteia over to an uninhabited piece of the Morgan landmass ........................

[Kassiopeia]

Then, oc course, we could always send a trannie with a CP and a Crypteia over to an uninhabited piece of the Morgan landmass ........................

/me oohs

My, what a storm that'd rouse.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Snoddasmannen
We'd need more crawlers to complete the MCC, but no other faction will have the tech for some time anyway, and the MCC is probably not a priority for the builder factions is it? So am I safe to assume there is no panic?

You're probably right. It will mean our transport leading the UoP invasion will be slower and have lower morale, but that's not such a big problem indeed.

Originally posted by Googlie
We've lots of candidates for new bases - northeast of RG, southeast of Vlad (we'd identified another coastal area there, if I'm not mistaken) as well as east and south of Minas Tirith.

Then, oc course, we could always send a trannie with a CP and a Crypteia over to an uninhabited piece of the Morgan landmass ........................

Problem is, except for another base on the Rio Grande, it would take years and years before those colony pods could reach their destination.
Sending off a CP to another continent could be fun though. I'll have a go with my simulator and see if it's feasible.