OSG-28

[shallow_thought]

Question for the team: it's the T2375 vote, it's us against the Darloks, they have 10/30 votes (Sakkra voted for them), we have 6 to play with (alll the rest abstained).

Unless I'm being an idiot, this means that we can vote for them and get free happy points. This is not on the exploit list that RefSteel posted earlier (which was all about tactics), but I'm pretty sure it's considered cheesy at best (even abstaining is a little bit whiffy).

So: vote for them, wimp out and abstain or be honest and vote for ourselves?

Other than that, it's been a quiet set so far...

[shallow_thought]

While I'm paused, a more technical question. What's the view on using pop from half-full worlds (Kulthos - 48/85, Firma 50/100 and poor) to "top off" mature worlds, get that last 10-15% of pop?

I was planning to do some of this, but we've got long travel times between the source worlds and their destinations (Incedius, Tauri), where the valuable workers would be twiddling their thumbs (sub-lights will help on this, but not for a little while).

I considered trying to get clever and use Mentar and Gion as mid-points, but we're still talking six turn transits. Also trying to hand over than bit of half-completed micro seems to be asking for trouble in a SG.

[Ianus]

By all means vote for our enemy if you can get away with it. That is well within the rules until our next game when we ban all diplo...

[RefSteel]

1) Full report added to my previous post here! Sorry it took so long; uploading pictures always takes longer than I expect even when I budget for it taking longer than I expect!

2) I loved the description of first contact with the Darloks, shallow_thought! Thanks for writing it up!

3) Looks like some great turns, DaveV! I included my thoughts about the placeholder design (I use this all the time, and I was the one who designed the Theory this time around) in my report.

4) On the vote, I agree with Ianus; in fact, I voted for the Darloks when the vote came up during my turns (although we were not among those up for election). The option to vote for another race was obviously intended by the designers; it isn't exploiting a loophole or a bug. I can understand calling it cheesy, but as Ianus said, let's save the ban for a future game.

5) Using nearby worlds to "top off" mature worlds makes sense, absolutely. Using distant worlds to do so is usually more trouble than it's worth. (All that time twiddling their thumbs in space means it isn't worth much to begin with.) It isn't terrible, but you have to allow for the population growth that will happen in the meantime and I generally find it not really worth the effort.

6) It's late here. Ugh - really late - and tomorrow will be busy, but I'll look forward to the chance to read your report!

[DaveV]

Yeah, vote for the Darloks and sign a NAP with the resulting relations bump. We have a decent group of worlds, we're Psilons, and time is on our side.

[shallow_thought]

Summary
-------
Fairly quiet turnset - no wars, no new planets (sniff). I'll spoiler some of the details for length.

The big news of the turnset was the vote - we were up for election with 6 votes to Darlok's 7. Klackon's and Bulrathi had 5, Silicoids 4, Sakkra 3. This is possibly good news - we're only just behind the Bulrathi in power and production, and while I would expect the Klackons to be doing better than the bears for the same pop, I'm going to guess that none of the other powers we haven't met yet are much ahead of us. Shame about the Darloks (or not - we do want some challenge).

I take the opportunity to vote for the Darloks. They relax and I ask for a NAP, which they agree to.

On tech front, I stuck with planetology (IT+30), and started pushing propulsion (see details) as I think we have a strategic need for more range to contact the other races. IT+30 came in on the last turn, and I picked Controlled Radiated ahead of IT+40 (note that we don't get antidote...), and started working on IRC III alongside sub-lights.

Oh, and Hyper-X came in on trickle. We were offered all three at the next tier - Mass Driver, Merculites and Neutron Blaster. I went with Mass Driver as the cheapest available gun, and hoped for Fusion at the next tier. Didn't put any serious points into it this turnset though.

I didn't try any tech trades as I couldn't see anything we were desperate for. Might be worth keeping an eye on what the Bulrathi have going forward (I assume that trading with the game leader is only a good idea in very specific circumstances).

Details (spoilered for length)
------------------------------

Before playing I look around. As we have a spy with the bears, I switch espionage spend to the Darloks. Bears have Death Spores. Ugh. Both they and Darloks are allied to the Sakkra


I notice that we've got mixed production at our more mature worlds. This is not something I would usually do, but I can see some advantages. It hopefully lets us rapidly build defenses when we really need them. I leave all this as is (and indeed copy it as other planets mature).


One bit of micro that I hope I got right- I dial down terraforming back to "CLEAN" at Argus as it is still at less than half pop.

During the turns I just went around all the planets as follows:
- Any planet that was MAXing factories, I dialed down until it was only just MAXing and tweaked the extra production into tech (or defense or ships at mature worlds); any planet that still needed factories but wasn't MAXing got dialled up to as much  factory production as it could do.
- When Argus got up to half pop I turned terraforming back on, then went back to maxing factories once the capacity had maxed out
- I used some pop from Firma (the poor world)  to top up Gion (only three turns away) while Firma was at 50% pop

For tech, I kept focus on Planetology. After a few turns (about half-a-bulb), I turned it down to "just lit" and started pumping propulsion. I'm hoping this is a vaguely sensible use of "trickle", having a "current" tech and a "back up" tech. I then checked each turn and kept it "just-lit".

Turns out that the  Darloks have Death Spores, Class IV shields and Merculites, amongst other goodies.


As stated, I set tech to split between sub-lights ("just lit") and IRC III.


Current state of the empire:

Notes for next player
---------------------

At the start of this turn I have put 40BC into terraforming each of our mature worlds (Mentar, Incedius, Tauri, Gion), which I understand will get the +10 (please correct me if I'm wrong!). I left the less mature worlds alone for the moment. Propulsion tech (sub-lights) is set to just at the point the LED comes on; most of the remaining tech I've only just switched to IRC III (now that we have mature planets). All of this can be changed if desired.

We just got tech visibility on the Darloks (see spoilered details) and our spy is still hanging around with the bears, so I've turned off espionage. In foreign news, the Darloks still have an alliance with the Sakkra, the Bears don't anymore.

Edit: just got round to reading RefSteel's detailed report, and it turns out that it could be worth being precise with the amounts you put into terraforming. I went for the next available amount at or above 40BC. Next player (Ianus?) may well want to check my workings...

Also, forgot to mention that the Bulrathi turned up asking for more trade ay some point, so I said yes to the 200BC they wanted, purely for the diplo benefit.

[shallow_thought]

Oh, and the save. Duh.

[Ianus]

I've GOT IT!

A few quick thought. Our empire is in good shape, and our worlds are developing nicely. Unfortunately our tech levels are still low and our empire had been neatly boxed in by the Bears and Shifters. So much for being Pacifistic Technologists for a while. I don't think that I can take us to war on just ten turns but I will make it a priority to get us READY for war. Depending on tech it looks like taking it to the Darloks will give us some more good worlds. Plus they are ours anyway. I scouted them first!

[haphazard1]

Looks like some good turns, shallow_thought.

Voting for an opponent does seem to be intended to be an option. Recognizing that we can not win ourselves and using the vote for diplo purposes seems like a legitimate tactic.

Topping off more mature worlds from emptier worlds is useful, but does become less useful the longer the transit time. I rarely bother if the flight time for transports is more than 3 turns. The lost production from the population being in flight is not large, but it is not zero either. And the micro-management just becomes too fussy to deal with when the target will also be growing and there is risk of losing pop if you miscalculate.

Reports on bears...hmmm, personal deflectors. As if the bears need more gropo tech. Lots of gun tech, but no bombs or missiles yet. Death spores.

Reports on shifters...better rounded than the bears. Lots of computer and shield tech. And death spores. Good missiles, too, so they will have strong defenses.

I do not think we are ready to start planning for war just yet. We have a decent number of worlds, but several are still growing and maturing. Plus we should get IRC3 soon-ish and then will need to build a bunch more factories everywhere -- much better pay back on that than war spending. And if we get to Controlled Radiated we may have futher expansion options (I need to look at the latest maps).

Good luck, Ianus!

Edit: OK, read through RefSteel's detailed turnset write up. Very nice.

Darloks are xenophobic militarists. And they are our neighbors. And they have lots of worlds. What fun.

[Ianus]

A bit more regarding votes: if the player is nominated and can safely vote for the opponent then that is a huge diplo boost and should always be done when possible. When the player is NOT nominated remember that a vote for one race is a vote AGAINST the other with an associated diplo penalty. In general voting for the race you have contact with is more useful than the race you don't, but that diplo penalty carries over and could come back to bite you later.

Right now without additional range there are no extra planets to be colonized even with Controlled Radiated. There appear to be some uninhabited worlds below the 'Loks but we can't reach them yet. We are going to have to go to war really soon, even with our currently strong collection of worlds.