Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition
Strunkriidiisk
THE LEGEND
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Nope. There are no listed options for hubs in either YZ-8 (Hawaii) or YZ-17 (Arabia).Isn't there supposed to be a potential spot for a hub in the Hawaiian islands? Or am I just mistaken in my memory?
Hawaii is small enough it can be handled by standard or Large Harvesters with high efficiency gathering methods, Arabias boxed in by a pair of the Hubs, but has none for itself from recollection, so is primarily passive and some active harvesting if I recall it right, maybe a couple SMARVs from each Hub bordering the Abarian Peninsula go towards there.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Thinking about it, Hawaii is a pretty silly place to put a MARV fleet. There's no one landmass large enough to merit much of a MARV's time unless said MARV is equipped with, like, water wings or something, and even the whole island chain is a tiny speck compared to the big continental Red Zones. Even if it were a solid mountain of tiberium (as opposed to, presumably, tiberium-contaminated but not too much so to permit human habitation, suggesting that whoever the local Nod warlord is has taken some pains to keep things that way)... Well, a bunch of MARVs would hoover it all up in a very short time and there wouldn't be anything left for them to do.
RZ-6 is the only place we have tiberium inhibitors going. They're bad for Red Zones, especially when stacked on top of the MARV hubs it takes to build them. Like, if we weren't already at war, I'd be strongly in favor of spending two Military dice a turn on MARVs just for the sheer potential to kick tiberium in the balls.
I mean I would guess Hawaii would be a springboard for Pacific operations and a lot of island chains. It's actually quite impressive on how much things can be left out without a base of operations to handle things more locally.
don't we have one in columbia?So I've made a map of all of our current and potential Reclamator Hubs.
- Location
- USA
Looking at it YZ 13 South would help reduce NOD ports in the Atlantic, YZ 14 and 16 would help reduce ports in the Indian Ocean. Keep in mind NOD can establish ports in red zone but doing so requires them to devote additional resources to keeping them tiberium free (without opening up enough of a gap to make it obvious) which does reduce what they can do overall. YZ 3 might not be a bad spot to start reducing NOD ports in the pacific and help secure the blue zone there. YZ-1 West would be good for when we push Karachi (and once again reduce the possible spots for NOD ports). YZ-9 would help reduce possible port areas and support a push into NOD industry in the area.
YZ 2,4 and 5 would require naval resupply and until we turn the tide on Bintang and have the sharks and cve rolling off the docks I would not want to stretch our navy. I would rather do YZ-3 and the 2 Australia YZ and RZ8 South as prep work for reducing possible Bintang ports first.
The 2 YZ 12 are useful for when we take another go at Stahl (we did inflict a defeat on him with another hub in the past, just this time around has been good rolls for him).
YZ 2,4 and 5 would require naval resupply and until we turn the tide on Bintang and have the sharks and cve rolling off the docks I would not want to stretch our navy. I would rather do YZ-3 and the 2 Australia YZ and RZ8 South as prep work for reducing possible Bintang ports first.
The 2 YZ 12 are useful for when we take another go at Stahl (we did inflict a defeat on him with another hub in the past, just this time around has been good rolls for him).
The perspective this gives is nice, I was way overestimating the network of hubs we have. Post war I'm all for getting the zone armour out to general forces (to make the hubs easier to guard in yellow/red zones), overhauling the MARV design, then just pumping them out. The fact that we have whole continents with no MARV activity sucks.So I've made a map of all of our current and potential Reclamator Hubs.
- Location
- Mobile, Alabama
Pretty much. The only added benefit would be once built? MARVs would make it very hard to impossible to conduct landing operations to retake the island it sits on.
Contrast.
I thought we had a hub in Colombia and the Amazon area was just glacier mining? I mean, that entire area looks RZ in Q1 2050 results post.
...Huh. Nope, RZ-6N is indeed on the Amazon River, situated between the glacier mining area and the sea. RZ-6S sprung up at the same time near Lima. RZ-6S's completion went so over it started another hub in Colombia that was initially designated YZ-5a (became YZ-11 in Q3 2059). Based on context, it seems to be the labeled spot. Given that the entire area seems red zone... Maybe YZ-5a got put down before RZ consumed that entire part of South America? Or Red Zone isn't completely uninhabitable.
There is a YZ-5b mentioned in Q4 2055, but in Q2 2059, it's location is given as Montevideo, Uruguay. In Q3 2059, YZ-5b becomes YZ-12 East.
The YZ on the Red Sea across from Arabia would appear to be the Eritrean glacier mining operation. Maybe the blob of YZ in Colombia is a glacier mining operation?
Okay, so I have no real idea how that northern bit of Colombia went from RZ to YZ. Tiberium Inhibitors?
...Huh. Nope, RZ-6N is indeed on the Amazon River, situated between the glacier mining area and the sea. RZ-6S sprung up at the same time near Lima. RZ-6S's completion went so over it started another hub in Colombia that was initially designated YZ-5a (became YZ-11 in Q3 2059). Based on context, it seems to be the labeled spot. Given that the entire area seems red zone... Maybe YZ-5a got put down before RZ consumed that entire part of South America? Or Red Zone isn't completely uninhabitable.
There is a YZ-5b mentioned in Q4 2055, but in Q2 2059, it's location is given as Montevideo, Uruguay. In Q3 2059, YZ-5b becomes YZ-12 East.
The YZ on the Red Sea across from Arabia would appear to be the Eritrean glacier mining operation. Maybe the blob of YZ in Colombia is a glacier mining operation?
Okay, so initial opertion south of Rome. Let's call this the Anzio mining operation. Next appears to be the Mobile mining operation (MARV hub later dropped near here).
There was an attempt to do an asiatic mining operation. It got chewed up by Marked cyborgs first quarter, got largely cleaned up second quarter. So this one is likely somewhere near BZ-7 or BZ-18?
Amazon mining operation started next. Milan followed that.
Q4 2058 a new mining operation started in the Safaga area of Eygpt pushing north. Another operation was to get started in the Sinai near the old Suez Canal, but Nod operations in the area blocked them from reaching the glaciers. (Incidentally, SOSUS line across the Bab al-Mandab and the Gulf of Aden, ASROC launchers on northern shore, and CAPTOR mines floating around. Red Sea was fairly effectively locked down against subs. Plus a pair of cruisers patrolling the area.) Sinai/Suez region glaciers did start getting mined a quarter or two later, while GDI had pushed into the Israel area and ate a nuke during the fighting. Following turn, additional mining spots started on other side of Sinai and into Israel.
There was an attempt to do an asiatic mining operation. It got chewed up by Marked cyborgs first quarter, got largely cleaned up second quarter. So this one is likely somewhere near BZ-7 or BZ-18?
Amazon mining operation started next. Milan followed that.
Q4 2058 a new mining operation started in the Safaga area of Eygpt pushing north. Another operation was to get started in the Sinai near the old Suez Canal, but Nod operations in the area blocked them from reaching the glaciers. (Incidentally, SOSUS line across the Bab al-Mandab and the Gulf of Aden, ASROC launchers on northern shore, and CAPTOR mines floating around. Red Sea was fairly effectively locked down against subs. Plus a pair of cruisers patrolling the area.) Sinai/Suez region glaciers did start getting mined a quarter or two later, while GDI had pushed into the Israel area and ate a nuke during the fighting. Following turn, additional mining spots started on other side of Sinai and into Israel.
Okay, so I have no real idea how that northern bit of Colombia went from RZ to YZ. Tiberium Inhibitors?
They're both little islands of pre-war Yellow maintained by the Brotherhood I'm pretty sure. Before the Scrin showed up and flipped the Red Zone growth switch to "sicko mode" for a few years, Africa and South America used to have massive amounts of interconnected Yellow. The modern shape of those continents with little islands of Yellow divided by a sea of Red is a new development, I believe that the western coast of the Red Sea and the northern bit of South America have been Yellow for decades and were just far enough away from the core of the Red Zones pre-war to still be clinging on today.
Strunkriidiisk
THE LEGEND
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- He/Him
That's the YZ-11 hub, just south of the land bridge. There was a weird little nugget of Yellow there that didn't make sense as anything other than a MARV operation, and I had one hub that needed placement.
- Location
- USA
So... what's everyone thinking for the next plan? Subject to change based on what happens, including negotiations.
Infrastructure.
We still need a phase of Blue Zone Arcologies. I'm kinda hoping we can renegotiate them. With the huge amount of refugees from captured territory it makes more sense to focus on Blue Zone Apartment Complexes instead.
We should probably do another phase of fortress towns regardless of what happens, just to try and lock in our gains. Maybe another rail phase as well. Not sure. Our rail network is a turn ahead of the next phase of fortress towns so the new towns might have rail connections already.
We need a phase of Suborbital Shuttle Service to start trickling supplies to the Himalaya blue zone.
And Chicago to get the possessing capacity for the plan and just finishing it for whatever capstone bonus and freeing up a spot for another planned city. Hopefully that potential one in Australia we captured last turn. Should be useful against the Indian and navel warlords.
And we're hoping to delay Karachi by some amount to buff our navy a bit.
Heavy industry.
More energy plants. And Nuuk.
Maybe a couple spare dice for industrial beam lasers and isolinear chips.
Light and chemical.
Reykjavik and Bergen?
Agriculture.
Food projects? Last phase of kudzu? Finish freeze drying even though we are trying to renegotiate that requirement?
Tiberium.
Chicago? Yellow and green zone harvesting?
Maybe a dice each on the two harvester factories? Not as effective during intense fighting but probably great when stuff cools down to ambushes and quick strikes.
Orbital.
Enterprise and slow walking mines.
Services.
Medical assistance? Hallucinogens? Hardlight interface?
Military.
So, so much...
I'm thinking at least the railgun munitions in between the wingmen and navel yards. Maybe the last phases of ablatives and missiles.
Bureaucracy.
No idea.
Infrastructure.
We still need a phase of Blue Zone Arcologies. I'm kinda hoping we can renegotiate them. With the huge amount of refugees from captured territory it makes more sense to focus on Blue Zone Apartment Complexes instead.
We should probably do another phase of fortress towns regardless of what happens, just to try and lock in our gains. Maybe another rail phase as well. Not sure. Our rail network is a turn ahead of the next phase of fortress towns so the new towns might have rail connections already.
We need a phase of Suborbital Shuttle Service to start trickling supplies to the Himalaya blue zone.
And Chicago to get the possessing capacity for the plan and just finishing it for whatever capstone bonus and freeing up a spot for another planned city. Hopefully that potential one in Australia we captured last turn. Should be useful against the Indian and navel warlords.
And we're hoping to delay Karachi by some amount to buff our navy a bit.
Heavy industry.
More energy plants. And Nuuk.
Maybe a couple spare dice for industrial beam lasers and isolinear chips.
Light and chemical.
Reykjavik and Bergen?
Agriculture.
Food projects? Last phase of kudzu? Finish freeze drying even though we are trying to renegotiate that requirement?
Tiberium.
Chicago? Yellow and green zone harvesting?
Maybe a dice each on the two harvester factories? Not as effective during intense fighting but probably great when stuff cools down to ambushes and quick strikes.
Orbital.
Enterprise and slow walking mines.
Services.
Medical assistance? Hallucinogens? Hardlight interface?
Military.
So, so much...
I'm thinking at least the railgun munitions in between the wingmen and navel yards. Maybe the last phases of ablatives and missiles.
Bureaucracy.
No idea.
- Pronouns
- He/It/Argh!
I don't really know. Hard to say when we have no idea yet how much more the military can keep up with this push.
I suspect not much. Ground Forces are likely to continue saying that they can keep marching (if we up the Ablat factories), but the Air Force and Navy are being ground down. Supply lines are ridiculously drawn out. And we can't realistically field anything new either.
I was hoping Bintang would bomb this turn, so that we would have a semi-decent naval capacity for Karachi, but I think that ship has sailed now.
We likely need to focus on consolidating gains though.
I suspect not much. Ground Forces are likely to continue saying that they can keep marching (if we up the Ablat factories), but the Air Force and Navy are being ground down. Supply lines are ridiculously drawn out. And we can't realistically field anything new either.
I was hoping Bintang would bomb this turn, so that we would have a semi-decent naval capacity for Karachi, but I think that ship has sailed now.
We likely need to focus on consolidating gains though.
IMHO, in changing the plan, it only makes sense to do Karachi and food storage later. Well, or storage is generally canceled.
Everything else we either need or we can afford. Even the Arcology, we now have enough housing that would afford sub-optimal luxury, but not enough support from politicians to piss them off.
Everything else we either need or we can afford. Even the Arcology, we now have enough housing that would afford sub-optimal luxury, but not enough support from politicians to piss them off.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Are you talking about next turn or next Four Year Plan?
Because you've got a pretty eclectic blend of "stuff we really do need this turn" and "stuff we need in a year" and "stuff we'd kind of like."
Which makes it hard to tell whether you're thinking in terms of how we spend our next six dice, or our next thirty, in any given category.
Not necessarily. Our Tiberium dice are kind of insane (average of nearly 90 Progress per die), so a giant 400-500 point project turns into something we can just say "ah fuckit" and do in a single turn.
Yeah. If we're not committed to Karachi, we have plenty of Infrastructure dice left to do arcologies in 2061 along with everything else.
Keep in mind that MARVs can be built with tib dice. And MARVs currently take less progress, don't have their progress costs continually escalate, and provide more resources than YZ harvesting. And if we have better things to spend Tib dice on than MARVs (which I believe we do), then we really shouldn't be doing more phases of YZ harvesting.
Is it really so harmful to wait for the YZ progress costs to degrade to a more reasonable level before continuing?
- Location
- USA
Mainly next turn.
I wasn't really making a actual plan or anything. Just going to each category and listing stuff we might be interested in doing in each one.
Not counting any new stuff we may have discovered or anything.
- Location
- Outside the Box
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I still want to build the last phase of Arcologies. We know doing so will unlock an automatic building project to build Housing for us without us spending dice. And I know the Apartments count as "high-quality" housing, but our population wants to live in Arcologies; it's a bad look to stop building Arcologies after we start taking in refugees.
Besides, most everyone who's properly put into long-term housing isn't living in the Yellow Zones. Going by last turn's numbers, we had +40 extra Housing, and 5 phases of YZ Fortress Towns. With each Fortress Town gives +4 Housing, that means fully half of our extra Housing isn't in a Fortress Town. Combined with the expanding BZ territory overtaking our Terminus Cities and other early YZ housing, we aren't yet at the point where refugees will be forced to live in the Yellow Zone. Only those whose jobs are there or who want to live in such areas should be doing so.
And in the long term, as we try to integrate refugees into GDI, it's going to be very important that we provably demonstrate to them that GDI is improving their lot in life to our fullest capabilities. We don't want it to look like we've got a portion of the population who live in futuristic integrated-city arcologies, while everyone else is stuck with not-so-scifi apartment blocks. Even if we don't build enough arcologies to house everyone (which we can, mind,) it'll do a lot in people's minds if they see that we're still building them continually.
I've also seen people wanting to put a couple dice on Chemical Fertilizer Plants to gain more Food that way.
Freeze Dried Food Plants give +5 Food, and it's close enough to finishing that it's not worth dropping it. One die has a coinflip's 56% completion chance, and two dice is nearly guaranteed to finish it if the first die doesn't. Even if we renegotiate to delay upgrading our food stockpile, we should still do this project just for its Food gain.
We might want to not do the next YZ harvesting phase next turn depending on what the military says. Either way, I think we should still do more GZ harvesting to better secure all the territory we've gained.
If the frontline fighting really does die down, that also means the Railgun Harvesters will be more effective at securing our backstop. At the same time, now that we've researched the Harvesting Tendrils, we can expect to see (a?) harvester refit project(s?) pop up next turn.
Between all that I don't expect us to do Chicago just yet; maybe a die or two just to get started.
We've been delaying Security Reviews during the war. We should pick those up again.
Going just by the numbers, the next phase of Yellow Zone Tiberium Harvesting now costs 174/350 progress, while a Reclamator Hub costs 0/335 progress. Presumably, YZ Harvesting will only cost more going forward. And while we need to "activate" a MARV hub with 2 Military and/or Administrative Assistance dice, we can still largely build MARV hubs using Tiberium dice. So from a dice and RpT income standpoint, a MARV hub may become more economical than a future phase of YZ Harvesting.
However, the reason YZ Harvesting is becoming so expensive isn't because we're lacking infrastructure to support it. It's because we're taking vast areas of land away from NOD. Each phase of YZ Harvesting is building the infrastructure needed for more mining. There is no supporting infrastructure project that will make more YZ Harvesting take less progress, and each phase secures much more land than any single MARV Hub could.
I thought the exact same thing. Last night, @Ithillid provided more information as to the cause of the progress requirements, and confirmed that they would actually go down in price if they were better supported.
ithillid:
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A hub in Rz2 North would probably make redzone harvesting a bit easier