Heart of Fire Tracking Thread #2

[Snowflake]

Turn sent to Hive

[Kody]

Okay time to catch up on that roleplay story stuff, can't keep honghu waiting on her reply.

[Kody]

Just going to refresh some of the earlier story.

“You believe the mindworms are intelligent?” I asked.

“Well they were intelligent enough to outflank us”, was the reply.

“I believe the Gaians have some interest in these mindworms perhaps we should work with them on defensive measures”, I commented.

“I don’t think that will happen.”

“Well the Gaians seemed interested in cooperating with us on mindworm research so I don’t see what’s stopping us.”

Xavier gave me a strange look, but I was too tired to think much about it.

Originally posted by HongHu
“…
Fly me to the moon
And let me play among the stars
Let me see what spring is like
On Jupiter and Mars
…”

Lady Hong sat on a rock at the bank of the river. Centauri B had just descended below the horizon and left an orange streak. There was a tiny flashing star in the eastern sky. HongHu sat patiently, waiting for the nightfall. She had always loved the nights, when she could look at the millions of sparkling stars. Many times she had tried fruitlessly, to search for a certain invisible little blue planet that was far away into the deep sky. Mindlessly hearing the water splattering against the riverbanks, Lady Hong was suddenly homesick. The air was chilly. And she felt so lonely. Yes she missed that place, that filthy and crowded place, that place filled with conflicts and hatred, that place that was her home …

A sudden sense of danger enfolded her. Lady Hong stood up and turned around sharply. There was Kody, standing right behind her.

“Kody!” Lady Hong exclaimed, a little short of breath. “You startled me.”

“It is not safe to be alone near the fungus, Lady.” Kody’s face was as rigid as usual, his eyes glancing cautiously at a couple orange wiggling tentacles sticking out of the red fungus not far away.

“Oh, that’s Lily.” HongHu smiled. “She’s little and harmless.” She extended her arms toward the fungus and a small mindworm that slowly rose above it. The mindworm flied toward them and rotated a big circle before falling back into the massive fungus field. Kody felt dizzy when the mindworm was flying around him, but he managed to stand still. Yeah, “harmless” indeed, he thought, and a “she”.

Lady Hong looked at Kody’s pale face appraisingly. He didn’t appear that he wanted to leave. She knew that this was not a man who liked to drop by and chat. “Are you here to snatch another tech by any chance?” She joked. He could stand there forever if she didn’t ask.

"I'm after your research files on the mindworms", I began "I believe the mindworms to be a threat to the security of the Spartans. In exchange for your research files I will provide you with Spartan tactical information on how to detect and combat these creatures."

I handed a data disk to Honghu before continuing. "In addition to that it also has information about the spawning positions and observations on environmental factors that attribute to the growth of boils. What we are hoping from the Gaians is biological research into the alien fungus and its inhabitants."

Lady Honghu took the disk silently looking at it curiously.

"I'm also offering you a tech trade, which our science ministers can sort that out", I trailed off.

"Earth is gone. You can't forever live in the past."

Honghu looked startled at my sudden change in the direction of the conversation. I wondering if she was telepathic and trying to find out how I knew what she was thinking of earlier. Her face remained confused so I guess she wasn't.

"It's getting late, our ministers can complete this exchange", I said backing away.

The levitating mindworm that Honghu had shown me was unnerving, the Gaians were getting more powerful and I'm not sure if they had forgiven the earlier extortion I had carried out for Santiago. Santiago had led the rover team further out in search of other factions, so there was no longer a military presence in Gaian territory. I had not heard from her for quite some time.

I paused and stared up at the dot of light that Honghu had been staring at earlier. I think everyone had checked the datalinks after the landing to find out where earth was in the night sky. I needed to follow my own advice too. Mentally shaking myself I made my way back to the transport and from there I would go back to Spartan Command.

[Kody]

That 2nd comment binTravkin highlighted is signature material I have to say. Not everyone can get famous, but infamy can be pretty cool too. I had to look up some of those words in a dictionary as I didn't know them all.

By the way I'm not teasing you as I had know I suffer some of the problems that smacksim commented on. I'm surprised I that people put up with me in the Hive, when I was on one of my cranky days. Okay, maybe I was teasing you just a little. Only a little mind you.

[Enigma_Nova]

Wrong thread, Kody.

[GeoModder]

Turn 2118 to the University.

Sorry for the delay, got tangled in quite a lot of Hive threads...

[Kody]

Nah I'd only put it in the other thread if I was critising you.

[Enigma_Nova]

Finally the turn is in.
Playing it.

[Enigma_Nova]

What in HELL's name keeps attacking my bases?
I get messages of winning an attack, but I have a 70% damaged unit (which I think was attacked) in my base.

Spore launchers won't do 7 power in one hit, and there aren't any boils around.

My plan for rebuilding my fleet:
In bases:
1 scout 1 formers in outlying bases (exploration, defence)
2 formers in inner bases
spamming Cpods after that.

With a former fleet, I can road out to new base sites and get an empire of forests, prepping for IA.
It seems, however, that Santi and HongHu have already researched IA.

Turn, of course, to Jamski.

[Kody]

Nup no IA here.

I was kindof interested in your so called beeline stuff ups. It seems you won't be able to choose IA after you finish your next tech.

[Enigma_Nova]

I KNOW I'll get IA after the next tech.

Think of it this way:
I have PlaNets and IndEcon.
The tech I'm researching is -not- IA.

My beeline stuffups:
With InfNets and CentEco in hand.
PlaNets
-(d'oh I can't research IB)-
#sometech
IB
IndEcon
-(d'oh I can't reserach IA)-
#someothertech
IA

Fortunately those #techs will help me go FM.

[Kody]

Yeah, I noticed that.

If you had researched, IE instead of PN. Your beeline would have worked. Anyway you're the university, I'm sure you'll do fine. There's enough extra tech available to the university you can afford to make a few mistakes.

Jamski is actually impressing me recently, I think I finally pieced together his master plan.

[Kody]

Enigma,

Sikander is pretty good actually. Making the comment there was as a joke, but I've learnt alot from reading about his strategies. Unlike some other people he actually thinks about the strategies carefully and gives the information that you need to figure out why they work and what their faults are too.

While the comment about him being that good was a joke he still deserves it.

[Enigma_Nova]

J's master plan?
How do you do that simply by watching the powerchart?
Do you check what techs he has researched?

Yeah, my beeline would have been better with IB. I should have tested first, right?

As for Sikander, I'm sure you made your comments for the almighty god of postcount.
Hey... wait one minute...

/me notices that it's 00:52 AM
I'll stay up longer than you will, Kody!

[Kody]

I don't know Jamski's plan from watching the powerchart. Remember I read many posts, and I'm very good at figuring out what people are thinking by seeing their comments and drawing conclusions on what other people have mentioned too. People are kindof loose tounged in PBEM threads I've noticed.

Well I assumed only me and you tested the beelines out of everyone here.

Sikander is good, I'm basing some of my new strategies on his work. Ofcourse it's a variant, but the information he gave was critical, and would have required me to play several full games to figure out.

Anyway didn't you know of the Sikander base spacing strategy. It was basically what was used in the Hive ACDG. To give credit where it was due, Jamski proposed the base spacing and I only verified it by reading Sikander's work and running the Hive simulator forward 30 years.

Enigma, if it helps you I'm going to bed in another 1 hour to 1 and a half hours. That's because I'll probably need to get up early to play the turn when Jamski does it.