[X] Enhanced Security Services
[X] Michael O'Brian
[X] Brigadier General Tali Jackson
[X] Arya Gulati
[X] Graduates
--[X] Infrastructure
--[X] Orbital
 
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[X] Enhanced Security Services
[X] Michael O'Brian
[X] Brigadier General Tali Jackson
[X] Arya Gulati
[X] Logistical Efficiency Initiatives
 
Everyone? @Ithillid ? I'm a bit concerned that "Graduates" may lose due to vote fragmentation. It's the only one of the choices that's configurable and there are several different popular configuration options. The QM may or may not think this is worth addressing, but... well.

I am looking at daishi and the logistics efficiently bonuses. No explicit commitments and cost reductions can add up. The power plant discount is going to add up quickly with how many we make. Then again aya's +10 to infrastructure could add up quickly as well.
Daishi's -1d4 PS/year cost is painful. Even if we build like eight power plant phases over the course of the Plan (which is a stupidly huge number) for +128 Energy (!!!), he only saves us 240 Progress- which is, roughly speaking, four Heavy Industry dice and 80 R.

Optimistically he's a way to trade roughly +1 Heavy Industry die for -2.5 Political Support, once a year. And that's if we use him very heavily. Not worth it.

Litvinov continues to be sus, Kane seems to genuinely like Granger and nothing seems to be on fire. Pretty good turn all in all.

As for who we recruit Sarang would be nice but her requirements/pushy attitude leave a lot to be desired in a secretary (plus we might have other priorities by the next time we change) so i'd say she's not worth it...
Space is likely to be more significant by 2066-2070, not less. Honestly I don't have a problem with Mikoyan being the next secretary. I think she'd do fine, she's good at an important part of the job and adequate elsewhere.

The Bodyguards/enhanced security are absolutely needed in my mind though, especially after the shadow team assassination we had previously.
Now, to some extent that may just be us covering ourselves where we were hit last- remember that a +5 to security rolls only lowers the rate of assassinations by 5-10% depending on how the dice mechanics work. There's a good chance it wouldn't have saved Dr. Takeda. But it's still worth considering.

Yes, this promise only applies to what you can currently see.
I am heartily in favor, then. The only one of those of questionable value is the Mastodon Mk II, and I bet those will at least be functional in that we won't actively regret building them.

So if we grab Jakson +1 mil grad slot that gives us 7 mil dice, and we could further raise that to 8 - 9 if we complete factory refits. That would certainly make doing all those mil commitments and desired projects a lot easier
Honestly, we should probably put the graduates in Orbital and Infrastructure. Those are the areas where we're really tight, in the "not sure we can finish the Plan" levels of tight or "gotta spend Free dice no matter what" levels of tight. Though with O'Brian, plus a possible reallocation, we're looking at five Orbital dice already, so we might just shrug and say "good enough."

In particular, graduates in Infrastructure synergizes very nicely with Gulati, because she grants a bonus to the die they supply. And the extra die makes it a lot easier to fulfill a promise to finish Karachi.

If I understand right, the Only benefit to recruiting her right now is getting the Lucky thing, AND it ensures that she MUST be the next one to be in charge of the Treasury. If I'm right, this is a horrible choice that is both extremely limited in effect and limits future choices of who should lead the Treasury next. No thanks.
Mikoyan isn't actually likely to make a bad next head of Treasury. Her Orbital bonuses will be very valuable at that time, especially if the Seo Treasury is serious about pivoting to space.

Also, the Lucky bonus is actually quite good. It's not inconsequential. I don't feel like going back through the rollposts and finding all the nice things we could have gotten out of it in the First and Second Four Year Plans, but it'd be very helpful to have for the Third and Fourth (and possibly Fifth) plans.

MANDATORY.

I don't care for what other choices are picked, but I do NOT want to risk multiple assassination attempts like what Dr Granger And Seo has already went through, not with the bonuses Seo is meant to have eventually. They survived by luck, and I prefer to make my own luck, as in boost the mods so high that luck is no longer a consideration.

Wow. +10 sure is nice, if it weren't locked behind by THAT much cost to be paid for. Such a pity too, but no way with all the obligations already needed to fulfill.
If Gulati sticks around for 4-5 years she pays for herself, and that's before you consider that Karachi will have real benefits of its own. Even if Karachi is theoretically a suboptimal use of dice, we still get those rewards for building the project, even if we're doing it to bribe Gulati into boosting all our other projects (and Karachi).

WOW! 2 Whole Dice! That's-

-way too expensive. NVM. Refits will work fine for that. It's just not worth it vs other more necessary and practical stuff that needs doing before investing in expensive toys.
Are you joking? Those Steel Talons projects are dirt cheap compared to getting +30 Military dice over the course of the Plan. With that many extra dice we can knock off everything the Talons want out and still have an extra 20 or so dice to play with, in this Plan alone.

Not really? 3 dev projects and 2 factories which we will want to do this plan and with 2 more mil dice a turn we can get that done for sure.
You know how Marids is about military spending.

He likes Number Go Up, not Noddies Go Boom.

We have a bunch of projects that now give PS, particularly Continuous Fusion. I think we can survive an average 1/2 PS per quarter bleed.
We can survive it, but he's not actually giving us that much unless we build an insane number of fusion phases.

Exactly how much Energy do you expect us to need over the course of the Plan?

I'm personally not sure on the Security Services, surely the rolls that +5 will actually help with are few?
To be fair, they're few, but important.

[] Sarang Mikoyan

Um. Why is no one voting for Sarang? She's giving us one of the strongest traits possible! Doubling our crits is huge. Crits can give long term bonuses that change the face of entire sectors of projects, or unique benefits we'd otherwise never be able to get otherwise. And Sarang was one of our strongest candidates for secretary. The only "downside" is giving her the office... in up to twelve years! That three entire Plans from now.

She's absolutely the strongest recruitment candidate on the list and I'm completely astounded that she hasn't had even a single vote so far. What the heck do y'all have against her?!?
There's a line in her description that says that if Initiative First won a parliamentary majority (ahaha no), that she'd "work with them."

Therefore she is sus.

[sigh]

Anyway, I think she's good at her job and deserves my own vote, though I question whether she's the strongest candidate on the list- I think that would be General Jackson.
 
[X] Enhanced Security Services
[X] Brigadier General Tali Jackson
[X] Arya Gulati
[X] Graduates
-[X] Infrastructure
-[X] Military
 
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[X] Brigadier General Tali Jackson
[X] Arya Gulati
[X] Sarang Mikoyan
[X] Graduates
-[X] Infrastructure
-[X] Military
 
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I don't like the idea of her being the next Treasurer. I'm not a fan of her political apathy, but what really gets me is her words in this update have a sour taste. The ways she is very dismissive of having ideals in politics and claims that Litvinov cannot be an idealist because she wants to make things better just rubs me the wrong way and not someone I want to have running the Treasury even if she has a shiny trait.

She might be mechanically nice, but her words in the latest update are full of narrative red flags. I also don't like how she is forcing our hand on making her the next Treasurer.
I may not like her cynicism either, but when she says:
Let this one be off the records, if you will– One does not strive to win the soul of the GDI if one does not intend to change it.
She's right. Litvinov isn't aiming to promote GDI's ideals, but rather change them. For the better, I think we all hope. So sure, she's not the nicest person. But she's not unrealistic, either. I hardly think she's "full of narrative red flags." Especially since her "Politically Flexible" trait actually means she isn't someone who would go against Litvinov. She might not agree with her, but she'd still work with her.

Besides all that, Sarang has one of the strongest traits possible. And by the time she ends up in office, not only will she have had a long time to accumulate new traits like Seo did, but we're likely to have expanded in a serious way out into space where her space qualifications will be a major boon.
 
Everyone? @Ithillid ? I'm a bit concerned that "Graduates" may lose due to vote fragmentation. It's the only one of the choices that's configurable and there are several different popular configuration options. The QM may or may not think this is worth addressing, but... well.
Yeah. I know that it is somewhat disadvantaged, but I can't think of a good way to handle it that would keep it fair for everyone else.
 
On second pass, I might switch from O'Brian to graduates. He only gives us 1 die, whereas we can get an orbital die from graduates just as easily, with only a net -4 to orbital, but an additional mil or heavy industry die. Probably a better trade off
 
[X] Enhanced Security Services
[X] Brigadier General Tali Jackson
[X] Arya Gulati
[X] Sarang Mikoyan

O'Brian is, despite looking alright, not the best investment. Graduates is mathematically better just from a free die perspective. Tali is two free die for cheap, nothing more needs to be said. I like the bonus to not dying to our hero people as explained by Illithid as functionally +20-25 so more than willing to pay the ten PS. Sarang and Arya are more controversial but I'm for Karachi and Arya is good for shaving time down on other projects as well. Sarang, well she might be a bit grouchy and flexible but this is GDI. As much as we like fixing things, having three dreamers in a row running the treasury is unlikely as hell and I like her bonus.
 
Yeah, seriously, Graduates is almost certainly superior to O'Brian. Because two dice is better than one. Even if we don't get either of those dice specifically in Orbital, it's going to free up Free dice that we can then use in Orbital.

O'Brian is, despite looking alright, not the best investment. Graduates is mathematically better just from a free die perspective.
Yeah, given that the way the vote's shaping up we're gonna get either Graduates OR O'Brian, I'm voting for Graduates and not O'Brian. Although I really, REALLY hope we get an Orbital die out of Graduates if it does get picked.

...I'm for Karachi and Arya is good for shaving time down on other projects as well.
Hell, if you actually want to complete even Karachi Phase 3, Gulati becomes a no-brainer, because the +Progress she grants us in Infrastructure more than offsets the mandatory Karachi Phase 4.

Me, I'm ambivalent on Karachi for this Plan and I'm still willing to do it for her.
 
On second pass, I might switch from O'Brian to graduates. He only gives us 1 die, whereas we can get an orbital die from graduates just as easily, with only a net -4 to orbital, but an additional mil or heavy industry die. Probably a better trade off
That's a fair point.

VOTE
[X] Sarang Mikoyan
[X] Arya Gulati
[X] Brigadier General Tali Jackson
[X] Graduates
-[X]Orbital
-[X]Tiberium
 
The suit factories are starting to seem very important. The whole plan is based on mining much more death rock while moving into more isolated and dangerous new areas. If something goes wrong , and the treasury starts getting a bunch of miners and soldiers killed because they didn't have enough gear, the fallout will probably be a nightmare.

[X] Sarang Mikoyan
[X] Graduates
[X] Brigadier General Tali Jackson
[X] Arya Gulati

Also one more vote to open the Karachi mystery box. It's right on the coast at least, so I'm guessing the Navy can support it if too many prizes fall out, especially if we get some more of their new toys built before construction starts.
 
Only thing I'm concerned about is enhanced security because it covers everything.

All of the peoples bonuses are great. But doesn't help at all if they die. So, stop them dying IMO. And if we take down some of the assassins in the bargain even better.

Narratively, with Zocom taking on protective duty, and our heavy support and investment into Zocom I like this Idea. Though, things being what they are, definitely would like to see some zone armour factory's soon if possible.

[X] Enhanced Security Services
 
[X] Graduates
-[X]Orbital
[X] Sarang Mikoyan
[X] Arya Gulati
[X] Brigadier General Tali Jackson
EDIT: Changed Hideo Daishi to Sarang Mikoyan. Turns out 99s are a lot more common than I thought.
 
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