I am not even sure how I would cheat on those, at least not reliably.
One could, hypothetically, do the trick with rolling and then deleting roll posts if one doesn't like the results... but yes, that wouldn't be reliable because sooner or later one would get caught.
I don't see Plan AAAAAHHHHHbatement as a one-off move, though. We got very lucky last Plan with Tiberium not mutating on us, but likely before the end of this Plan it'll roll that mutation die once again. So what Plan AAAAAHHHHHbatement does it a bigger commitment this Plan to pushing out BZ territory and preparing ahead of time for when that mutation hits.
Also. There's not much differences between the two leading plans. If everything gets completed, Plan Housing, Red Zone and Consumer Goods gets us between 45-60 RpT while Plan AAAAAHHHHHbatement gets us between 40-55 RpT. So AAAHbatement is only 5 RpT less, and it gets us +8 YZ mitigation and +4 RZ mitigation as opposed to going for +6 RZ mitigation. It's a question of priorities, not compromise. And I think we need to move more towards getting our YZ mitigation up while we still can, for this turn and future turns.
In fairness, I myself have argued that Yellow Zone mitigation is more important. I think to an extent I may have become confused. Possibly by the plan names, because "AAAAHHHHbatement" is the kind of thing you call your plan when your plan involves freaking the fuck out and going all-in on abatement.
But what really colors my analysis is
@Void Stalker 's
analysis of the probable results if the respective plans complete all the actions that have a 50% chance of completing in this turn.
Crazycryodude- Plan AAAAAHHHHHbatement
+7 Cons Good
+1 Food
-7 Energy
-2 Water
-3 Labor
4 YZ Mit
1 RZ Mit
+15-30 Income
10 progress reduction to all orbital
Developmentalists - Expand Local Public Media Ops
Duqm Hydrofoil production
Missing the cut or no listed effect: Super Marv (45%) 3 RZ mit +25 RpT, Micro power gen (finishes, no effect until phase 2), Rolling Stock Plant +2 Logistics +2 Cap Good -4 Energy 23%, BZ fencing +4 YZ mit 33%, 1 security review, opens up Glacier mining phase 8 (2 dice for 60R -5 logistics +40-60 RpT +1 RZ mit)
Void Stalker- Plan Housing, Red Zone and Consumer Goods
+4 Housing
+3 Cap Good
+9 Cons Good
+1 Food
-12 Energy
-2 Water
-2 Labor
+2 Logistics
3 RZ Mit
+20-35 Income
10 progress reduction to all orbital
Duqm Hydrofoil production
Missing the cut or no listed effect: Organic textiles farms +2 Cons Good -1 Labor 28%, Super Marv (45%) 3 RZ mit +25 RpT, opens up intensification of YZ harvesting (1 dice at 15 R for +5 to 10 RpT and 1 YZ mit), opens up Glacier mining phase 8 (2 dice for 60R -5 logistics +40-60 RpT +1 RZ mit), 3 Security Reviews
Unless Void is fudging the numbers here, then
for this coming turn this plan looks pretty good. Void Stalker's plan is likely to use up a lot of our energy surplus, but he also throws dice into power plant construction to help us address that issue down the line.
None of those things are reason to vote for Housing, Red Zones, and Consumer Goods over my plan though. It contains less effective spending on consumer goods (a die less on textile farms, Edinburgh that averages 15 Resources per point of consumer goods rather than either YZ or BZ industrial sectors which average 8 and 7 Resources per point respectively).
I'm starting to move away from pure "resources per goods." Edinburgh finishes much more quickly, and is a net source of Capital Goods (if a small one) rather than a net sink. It may also reduce the cost of personal vehicle factories enough to make it something we deem worth attempting, which would be nice.
It ALSO contains more military overextension by building fortress towns without the shell plants needed to defend them, and puts the Rapier shipyard on the Indian Ocean where we have minimal presence instead of the Atlantic where the majority of our core territories and mining operations are.
Regardless of where the shipyard is, it's likely to be a fortified zone. If Nod feels ballsy enough to attack it, that's likely to turn into a set-piece action, and set-piece is our strength. It's not the kind of target Kane throws his masterstrokes at because it's not important enough in and of itself, so I'm not too worried about it.
Like, what's actually your problem with AAAAHHHHbatement, specifically on a math/dice level? Because I don't think any of those arguments apply. The main difference between AAAAHHHHbatement and HRZCG is that the latter puts a bunch of Free dice into security reviews instead of productive economic projects of some sort and I don't see you arguing vehemently for the need to do more security checks.
See above. I think Void made a compelling argument that his plan lines us up to surge capital and consumer goods this turn.
Less if we eat the YZ from both ends.
I ran the numbers. Even if we do no more mitigation (and we will be doing a bunch), at current rates the Yellow Zones won't be fully eaten up at both ends
on average until some time around... what was it...?
Ah, yes. The Yellow Zones cover roughly 30% of the planet, and they're being eaten up at an average rate of about 0.1% per quarter
from both sides. At 0.2% loss per quarter, that trend ends in something close to 150 turns (37 in-game years), some time around 2090 with the Red Zones having expanded to 70% of the planet's land area and the Blue Zones making up roughly 30% of it.
Given that the parts of the Yellow Zones we're extending into now are only a small fraction of the total, that would probably give us at least as much land area as we actually access now, and it'd be in better condition than it is now. We can and should do better, but the present situation should not be giving us cause for alarm in and of itself.
AAAHbatement goes for 12 mitigation total, compared to Plan H, RZ and CG which goes for only 6 mitigation. I think the advantage for better mitigation clearly goes to the former plan.
Starting projects that are likely to need completion next turn, but have higher
total mitigation, is not somehow "paying more attention" to mitigation than starting smaller projects that complete
this turn.
But what could possibly be more of a long-term concern than the Tiberium encroachment? While everything else are things people can wait for, their future is literally being eaten away by an alien rock.
The worst part is, as the Blue Zone shrinks further incrementally, the % of each decrease will increase in proportion to the remaining space left. For example, if 20% of Blue zone was left, and 1% was eaten away, that's 1/20, or 5% loss proportionally. But if there were now only 10% Blue zone left, and 1% is gone again, then that's 1/10, or 10% proportionally.
I don't want to wait until the Blue zone has only 5% left.
We already have enough Yellow Zone mitigation that a mathematically average dice roll for Yellow Zone expansion will result in Yellow Zones
shrinking, and the Blue Zones only shrink if the Yellow Zone tiberium rolls better than average
consistently, every turn in a row, for several turns.
For the Blue Zones to shrink to 10% of the planet as things are now, the Yellow Zone expansion would need to roll a natural 100 on the dice
ten times in a row. You know that, right?
And sure, you can project forward to tiberium mutating and partially bypassing our efforts, but that is by definition a problem that we are still building up towards. Stuff like the MARV fleets is going to continue to be useful at mitigating tiberium no matter what happens, and we can concentrate resources to protect the Blue Zones if we have to.
If people still scream for consumer goods at that point... Well, sometimes I wonder exactly what it would be like if the reins of the Treasury was simply given freely in it's entirely to everyone equally, just to see what the masses would do with the rest of their future.
There's a reason a command economy is there, because even the public knows that only a few of them are competent and fit enough to lead the rest. The Public opinions do matter, but objective truths and problems are still more important to face and solve for the benefit of all.
By essentially the same logic you're now using, we should be ignoring military spending too because what good is defeating Nod if the planet gets overrun.
It doesn't work that way, because even when existential threats exist,
multiple existential threats exist. The graveyards are full of indispensable men; Dr. Granger is no more indispensable than anyone else. Someone else could run Treasury, and someone else
will run Treasury if Treasury insists on having a sacred right to appropriate all the resources of the Earth without giving the people of Earth a say in the matter.
The correct numbers are as follows:
