2148: Pre-planning discussion and build/movement orders

[Googlie]

Some simple ones:

• Hermes pops pod
• Pegasus moves W x 3
• R-112 moves downriver to the east
• Invincible continues down the Gaian coastline in a southeasterly direction

One big question is - should the Hunter pop that pod to its east, or head north ro accompany the Pegasus?

[Maniac]

Some suggestions for next year:

IIRC if popping the pod doesn't result in a materials pod and a free supercrawler, we can crawler-hurry a cruiser transport with the OA crawler currently on the min bonus square.

That square will of course become empty then, so we would have to replace the OA forest worker to the min bonus tile. That frees up the forest tile.

I would suggest that this tile is then worked by a SC1 worker, and not a SC2 worker. Why? Because when worked by SC2, one of the two extra energy is lost due to inefficiency. This is not the case when worked by SC1. If we leave energy allocations at 10% psych though, SC1 will produce one useless psych point. To prevent that and gain an extra labs instead, we could change our energy allocations to 60-0-40. This has no other effect except giving us an extra labs.

The year after, MY 2149, may I suggest to let SC1 work the newly farmed rainy square? That way Sc1 will still grow in 3 turns.


Oh yeah, some good news! It struck me yesterday that while calculating how fast our invasion units could get to Vladivostok, I forgot to take into account that Shinsengumi would get an extra MP if we switched to Fundy. As a consequence Shinsengumi should be able to get to VV one year earlier, and we would be able to commence invasion of the University MY 2151 after all!


May I suggest to hurry CP production in SC4 with 18 credits (at least if SNC Hermes doesn't get sunk by an IoD after podpopping?


Re SCC Hunter, I'd have a slight preference for podpopping, but only MY 2149 so it can pop with full moves. Next year it would have to pop with its third move, and thus be unable to attack or flee from an IoD.


For the orders of that former now finished with planting a forest on (54,14), may I suggest it moves one tile SW and builds a road there, to be followed by a forest? There's already one former dedicated to building a road to the new rocky minerals, and that should be sufficient for now, as the first tile that needs to be roaded is flat: one former suffices to finish a road there in one turn.


A micromanaging tidbit: Next year the hoplite in Rio Grande will have finished training, and due to the extra support costs RG will only produce one min per year. This makes the base useless for production until it grows to size 2. May I therefore suggest we move the FB hoplite to RG (and move the RG hoplite to FB to compensate) and rehome it to RG? That will result in a zero-mineral production in RG, but an extra mineral in FB, where they can be better used now.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Maniac
A micromanaging tidbit: Next year the hoplite in Rio Grande will have finished training, and due to the extra support costs RG will only produce one min per year. This makes the base useless for production until it grows to size 2. May I therefore suggest we move the FB hoplite to RG (and move the RG hoplite to FB to compensate) and rehome it to RG? That will result in a zero-mineral production in RG, but an extra mineral in FB, where they can be better used now.

To further work out this point, what would you think of rehoming as many units as possible to our lowest mineral producing bases (until they produce zero mins), thereby further boosting the production of our good min bases? Examples could be - after SC1's and GH's current production are finished - rehoming the garrisons of SC2 & OA to SC1 & GH. Before we can popboom those bases (SC1 & GH) or can use crawler-hurrying, those bases will stay chronically low on minerals anyway, and thus relatively useless.

[Googlie]

Good thinking - here's the support situation at 2147:

[Maniac]

One big question is - should the Hunter pop that pod to its east, or head north ro accompany the Pegasus?

I've been thinking about your comment, and perhaps it would be safer indeed to let SCC Hunter accompany SNC Pegasus. Who knows there are lurking Morganite gun foils just beyond the probe taskforce vision. They've certainly had enough time to prepare for it.

[Googlie]

I'd wager they'll build probefoils before gunfoils. I know I would, anyway, as Morgan

[Maniac]

Hmm, that gives me an annoying thought. Would it be possible they asked for our SCC Hunter exploration information, so that they could manoeuvre their probe foils towards our bases without us knowing?

When did our five-year treaty (including exploration data) with the Morganites end again? This year?

[Googlie]

Originally posted by Maniac
When did our five-year treaty (including exploration data) with the Morganites end again? This year?

Yes - and they've asked (in the Embassy) for a five year renewal

Turn's up .................. and first impressions

Angels have built the Virtual World, so Zak has changed to the Merchant Exchange (2 turns away)

Yang is building 2 crawlers now (presumably to rush the Comamnd Nexus)

Angels sent Doc Loyalty pre-accepted, we discovered Doc Initiative started on Int Int, and spent 40 ec's to change to Fundy. Next tech is in 56 years (at 40:10:50, with 4 ec's) or in 48 years (at 30:10:60, with 1 ec)

Hermes popped 75 ec's !!!

We can build the Command Nexus at Sparta Command with 2 AA's, the supercrawler, and 62 ec's. That leaves us with 177 ec's in treasury - after the rush and the change to Fundy (and getting 14 per). We need 180 to rush our 3 scout rovers to impact speeders, so could do en masse next turn

Invincible rounded the tip of the Gaians' eastern landmass (pic attached)

(I'll post this half now, so that I can put a pic of the Hunter in the next half)

[Googlie]

Originally posted by Maniac
I've been thinking about your comment, and perhaps it would be safer indeed to let SCC Hunter accompany SNC Pegasus. Who knows there are lurking Morganite gun foils just beyond the probe taskforce vision. They've certainly had enough time to prepare for it.

Trouble with that is that we can't help but show a pic with the Hunter and Pegasus together - so they'll know that the Peg is up to no good (and may rush multiple probes to their 2 coastal bases).

I opted to keep Hunter, with the Observer on board, away from Pegasus, hugging the Hive coastline. It's primed next turn to pop a pod with its first movement point.

[Googlie]

Forgot to post the Hunter's pic

Here's a larger view with both the Hunter and the Pegasus after their moves

Morgan infiltration next turn!!

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Googlie
We can build the Command Nexus at Sparta Command with 2 AA's, the supercrawler, and 62 ec's.

Is there a danger with waiting one year to build the Command Nexus, so we could build the Command Nexus at Olympus Academy, without a need to hurry at 4c per mineral? Or do you suspect eg the Gaians would already have built the CN by then?

Anyway, need to go to the lessons now. I'll post some more comments and suggestions later.

[Maniac]

A suggestion for in case we'd want to build the CN in OA: rehome the 0-2t-1 crawler to OA (and then lt it harvest the mine again). This would allow us to complete the CN without needing to hurry a single mineral.

I had a look at the save btw.
One peculiar thing: the Angels don't have SocPsych yet. Is this expected.
I also see the Rio Grande river is once again a real river running to the sea. We do lose a few river squares though. On the other hand, the river now runs from RG base straiught to the rocky minerals square, so mining the bonus square will take a shorter time now.
Fortunately this neither forms a problem for our rovers moving east: Warwag can simply proceed eastwards, and Shinsengumi can use the river to get to Rio Grande base, and then follow our road network.

[Googlie]

Originally posted by Maniac

Is there a danger with waiting one year to build the Command Nexus, so we could build the Command Nexus at Olympus Academy, without a need to hurry at 4c per mineral? Or do you suspect eg the Gaians would already have built the CN by then?

It's more the Hive I'm worried about.

I don't see much downside to waiting a year. My only thought was that if Yang is building a couple of crawlers for rush-builfing (the AI doesn't upgrade) then maybe 2149 is his target complete date

But he's still needing 9 rows at 6 mins per row, (54) and is producing 11 mins per turn at that base (42 needed). And he only has 1 crawler that's due next turn, so even if he gets it in positiion by 2149 we can still (I think) beat out the AI even if he completes in 2150 and we complete then too (not 100% sure on that, as the Hive comes before Sparta in turn order - it's the PK's that follow us, then the year shifts to the Gaians)

[Googlie]

I hadn't realized that the river had moved - I did get both formwers downriver to the mine site, which will be completed in 5 turns. Also got Shinsengumi upriver to 58:10 from where next turn it can cross overland to join the road network at the minesite due North of OA (where Warwag has stopped for R & R)

Meanwhile Chiron Knights has reached Sparta Command, so next turn it can leave with Spartan Kel to head for Vladivostok

[Googlie]

I wonder if we sold Doc Init to the Uni if Zak would in fact change to the MCC (allowing us to capture it instead of building it when we invade?)

The downside is, of course, that he may not change to it, and secondly, it'd go tout suite to the PK's and then be ripe for plucking by probe action by all 3 of our competitors

On balance, we should just churn out the necessary crawlers to build it ourselves, and hope for a beneficial podpop that'll give us a supercrawler completion