2146: Pre-planning discusion and build/movement orders

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Googlie
Rats!! Never thought of putting it on a rover chassis.

Ah well, something to keep in mind for next time. Imagine: two materials pods for 150-min crawlers, and we've got a secret project for free!

(I guess, though, that we now have syntharmor prototyped)

Which means we can no longer crawler-hurry expensive units and facilities. All the more reason to go and steal HEC from Lal of course.

Still in midturn save mode - is there any advantage in rushing any unts?

The former, maybe (for that vaunted "turn advantage" but maybe not the Hoplite and the Crypteia?

I agree: the former, but not the two others. We'll need to use practically all our money reserves soon to switch to Fundy and upgrade our invasion forces.


Btw, shall we demand Zak that he withdraws his forces? In other words that scout patrol. It has the advantage that the patrol can't pop that unity pod in his turn (which it can do now), giving us another pod next year.
I consider that eartquake a lucky event by the way. Okay, Rio Grande is no longer a port, but it's easy to build another base. And on the positive side, as you say Zak can no longer meet Morgan, and we've got a river running north out of RG, which should speed up colonization of that area a lot.

[Googlie]

I don't think Zak's scout can enter the pod, as it lies in the ZoC of Shinsengumi

But I like the demand withdrawal ploy (and actually, if Zak were a human faction, he'd welcome that 'cos he doesn't have any navy at all to send to pick it up)

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Googlie
I don't think Zak's scout can enter the pod, as it lies in the ZoC of Shinsengumi

Working from memory, so I could be wrong, but:
IIRC the UoP scout patrol is NW of the pod. Shinsengumi SE of the pod. So currently those two unit are not located next to each other, and the scout patrol can freely move to wherever it wants.
If Shinsengumi would have stayed on the spot it was on the beginning of this turn - NE of the pod - then the scout patrol would have been right next to Shinsengumi, then the patrol would have been in the rover's Zone of Control and couldn't have moved on the pod.

[Googlie]

You might be right (I'll need to scenario-test that) Moot again, though - I opened the turn and called Zak, who withdrew, apologizing for the unintentional transgression. I also rushed the former, as agreed, but left the other 2 as is.

We currently have 165 ec's in the kitty, and will get another 26 in the 2 years to 2148 (assuming we renew the Morgan - Hunter deal), making 191 in total

We'll need 40 to change to Fundy, leaving 151.

If we reset the sliders in 2148 to 30:10:60 we'll net 9 ec's from our own resources, totalling 22 with the Morgan payments

Establishing the invasion force

It costs 60 ec's to upgrade a Scout Rover (1-1-2) to an unarmored Impact Speeder (4-1-2), so we'd need 180 to allow 3 upgrades. The earliest that we'd have that in treasury would be 2150

We have currently an Impact Infantryman (Spartan Kel) and will have an Impact Speeder rolling off the production lines at Santiago Citadel in 2152. Assuming we morale-boost it thru the monolith at Sparta Command, the earliest it could board a ship would be 2155

So the results of this mini-analysis is that it's prolly not worth persevering with the Impact Rover build at SC2 - we'd get another Impact Infantryman for 1/2 the price (and could rush it for 10 ec's next turn for completion in 2148 - but it wouldn't reach Vladivostok until 2151)

So the question becomes:

do we wait till 2150 and upgrade 3 rovers to Impact and then set sail?

do we change SC2's to an infantryman, and set sail in 2151 with 2 rovers and 2 infantrymen?

do we wait until 2155 and set sail with 4 impact rovers?

(actually, it looks as though the new podpopped rover could pass thru the monolith and reach Vladivostok by 2154, so that, too is an alternative - but the cost for that option is 240 in upgrades)

[Maniac]

I've also giving some thought to that. Here's what I came up with:

IIRC University Base currently has three defending units.
So we could capture that base with upgrading only one elite rover.
First the Spartan Kel land with their first move and destroy the UoP impact infantry. Secondly the upgraded elite rover lands and destroys the IIRC two remaining scout patrols. Then there are two units left in the transport to take the empty base.

So if necessary we could begin invasion with only part of our force upgraded, and upgrade the rest a few turns later when we have the money.

As for changing or keeping the SC2 rover production, it's all fine by me. We could certainly use those minerals to build something else like a former, crawler, colony pod... But if we'd decide to keep building it, it not catching the first trannie to Zakland isn't a problem as far as I can see: could our transport not simply take a second trip to Zakland, filled with for example the SC2-built rover, a probe team, the podpopped rover or a second probe team, and perhaps a colony pod from the crater area?
And if we don't want to send it to Zakland, it could safeguard our homelands: a mental reassurance against those massive Hivean hordes.

Btw, what will SNC Hermes do? Sail further east, or return west?

[Googlie]

I'd like to bring Hermes back to our coastline, to head down to La-La Land with a couple of probes and infiltrate there (and maybe infiltrate the Gaians as well) and to rescue R-112 which is trapped so long as that Gaian mindworm blocks its egress

If it continues east it will eventuaklly reach Morgan's west coast, but that'll be purely exploratory (unless we pop another pod or 2 with it, given that we don't mind losing it)

But if we do get the MCC, it'll have 5 movement points, and becomes more valuable then;

As for Pegasus, here's the plan for it:

[Googlie]

(That has the advantage that the Pegasus can pull away with its 3rd movement point, and not be visible to the Morgan base inhabitants (we'll just have to make sure that the Hunter is nowhere near!!)

If infiltration is successful with the first probe, how about stealing a tech and framing the Gaians. That way we won't have to declare vendetta, and the Morganites will accuse the G's of cheating as they won't declare V(obviously, knowing nothing about it)

(I must study the rules to see what they say on this - maybe need a special ruling from the mods)

[Googlie]

At GeoModder's request I have requested a 24 hour extension to our turn

[Googlie]

Some musings while we wait for GM's formal response.

If, at Sparta Command, we change the worker from the 2-1-0 tile on the west of the base to the 0-1-1 tile NW of the monolith, we lose 2 nuts but gain 1 energy at the base (from 3 to 4)

Then if we change this turn to Fundy, we'll still have Doc Init in 2148, but those units coming online next turn will have Fundy's morale boost (a crawler - not much benefit as its earmarked for an SP, a former and the Hoplite at Minas Tirith - which is our first defense against Yang)

Might not look like it's worth the trade-off this turn, as it'd depress Sparta Command's growth for a turn, but a hardened Hoplite versus just a disciplined one might tilt the balance.

Hmm - we can achieve the same effect by moving the worker at Fort Buster from the mineral tile (1-3-0) to the rainy river tile (2-0-1) - the base doesn't need the mineral special to complete the former next turn). This has the advantage that at Rio Grande we can move the worker onto the vacated mineral tile thus also completing the Hoplite there next turn

I'll do that anyway, as it makes sense (re-allocating the workers at FB and RG)

Thoughts on changing this turn to Fundy for those (now 2) Hoplites coming on stream next turn?

[Maniac]

The Hermes and Pegasus routes look great!

Re switching to Fundy to give the hoplite a higher morale, this is not necessary according to my morale tests.

When one for example builds a unit in a base w/ command center under Wealth SE Values, there will be a morale level lost permanently, even if you later switch out of Wealth.

The same does not count however for positive SE morale levels: those are variable, added on top of that permanent "base" morale level.

When we'll switch to Fundy, we'll notice that the next turn ALL our non-probe units will have received one extra morale level, both those built before and after switching to Fundy. For example the currently commando Shinsengumi and VV scout patrol will both become elite.

Likewise, when we'd later switch out of Fundy, all our units will decrease in morale, both those built before and during the fundamentalist period.

So the hoplite will become hardened no matter when we switch to Fundy.

[Maniac]

Ah, have been DanSed.

Originally posted by Googlie
Hmm - we can achieve the same effect by moving the worker at Fort Buster from the mineral tile (1-3-0) to the rainy river tile (2-0-1) - the base doesn't need the mineral special to complete the former next turn). This has the advantage that at Rio Grande we can move the worker onto the vacated mineral tile thus also completing the Hoplite there next turn

But switching the RG worker to the previous FB spot will delay base growth. And IIRC, even if we keep the worker on the 3-1-1 tile, it's still a few turns before the base grows, so in other words still a couple turns before we need another hoplite for garrison duty. Building it now would only cost us more support minerals.

That's why I'd prefer to keep the workers on their current tiles. Otherwise we'd lose one nut and one min (working a 2-0-1 instead of a 3-1-1) per year. Even more when you count the delayed RG growth.

Thoughts on changing this turn to Fundy for those (now 2) Hoplites coming on stream next turn?

See above.

[Googlie]

Ah - I didn't know that (the temporary nature of the +1 morale)

So how about just moving the worker at FB off the 1-3-0 mineral tile to the 2-0-1 rainy/river tile to the east? we don't need the mins to complete the former, and the extra nut helps with the base growth plus the energy (in fact, that lets us move the sliders to 40-10-50 for the same 2148 completion but instead of 0 ec's we get 3 per turn)

This one alteration done, and turn posted

[Maniac]

Ouch too late I see for another suggestion I wanted to make: upgrading the Chiron Knights this turn already. I've been playing a few turns ahead with the simulator and I've noticed that we won't have time to move our three rovers to VV and upgrade them before MY 2150. This means we'll probably have to delay capture of University Base to MY 2151 as the earliest realistic date.

[Googlie]

moved to the uni invasion thread

[Googlie]

Moved to the Uni invasion thread