- Location
- New England
Yeah, that GDI-standard breakfast cereal could use a little more kick, it's starting to get a little stale.
Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition
Yeah, that GDI-standard breakfast cereal could use a little more kick, it's starting to get a little stale.
Just put some sauce #82 on it, it'll taste great.
IIRC our demand for STUs is at the moment quite low, because we have so few of them that we only use them if we absolutely have to. As our STU supplies increase more (and more expensive) STU using projects become available. In short, doing refinery refits for more STUs is probably worth it even if we don't strictly need the STUs right now. Same with the hypothetical STU-producing planned city.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
In some cases it isn't even unambiguously about good versus bad. Is freshwater fish "worse" than chicken? Not really. Hell, is entari "worse" than chicken? Probably not. But fish and entari are common and chicken is scarce, so chicken is a sought-after prestige food and fish and entari aren't.
As far as the actual indicators go, just being able to say "this is a Consumer Goods boost from a project that produces edible food" is more than good enough, there's no need to change the underlying mechanics. It's just that it's nice to have some convenient word that isn't utterly bizarre and tortured, but which can be expressed conveniently. Instead of just saying that we need more _______ or that I favor Vertical Farms over Aquaponics Bays because the vertical farms produce more _______.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with the game mechanics here; this is a personal perception problem, not a game mechanics problem.
As far as the actual indicators go, just being able to say "this is a Consumer Goods boost from a project that produces edible food" is more than good enough, there's no need to change the underlying mechanics. It's just that it's nice to have some convenient word that isn't utterly bizarre and tortured, but which can be expressed conveniently. Instead of just saying that we need more _______ or that I favor Vertical Farms over Aquaponics Bays because the vertical farms produce more _______.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with the game mechanics here; this is a personal perception problem, not a game mechanics problem.
Nottheunmaker
Altman be praised
- Location
- USG Ishimura
Yes.
I hate fish.
Throw it all back in the water.
As for the larger... debate, I can only speak for myself. And speaking for myself, I don't care what this stuff is called. Agriculture Consumer Goods, High Quality Food, Food Diversity, Yummies, listing every projects that gives some by name, whatever. What something is called matters far less then having the thing. I'd much rather debate the merits of say, pushing out dairy farmes fast and getting butter on kitchen tables and cream for kudzu tea.
Oledoms
Friesmancer
It depends. Many Freshwater species are pretty tasty even just with minimal spices .
Milkfish, salmon are what I can remember although Tilapia needs a lot of seasoning. Freshwater shrimp, crab and crawfish is also good. It mostly depends on preparation which the community cafeteria does.
However, our people can't live on those alone. Meat like chicken and beef is not just tasty but ultimate symbol that GDI is back is business from the last two wars
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Basically, my view on that is that pushing out Dairy Ranches right this turn would need to go hand-in-hand with projects to increase bulk Food surplus. Because our Food surplus is a little thin right now, thinner than I'd like, especially if we're contemplating trade with some of the Nod factions.
By contrast, Vertical Farms provide both Food and Consumer Goods, so they're a ______ project that also addresses the other problem we have in Agriculture.
"Can," yes. "Should have to," no.
I wonder if we can make the epitomes of fictional spirits fungus/mushroom wine.🤔
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Nottheunmaker
Altman be praised
- Location
- USG Ishimura
True, but keep in mind we do have six dice to work with there. Even with one die maybe having to go to the last round of Kudzu, that still leave us with five. Three on vertical farms, two on dairy near enough guarantees more food and goodness now to soon, and has a not unreasonable chance of getting the first dairy farms started, and if they don't would only need a die to finish the turn after.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
[Shrug]
I'm not against it; I just don't see much advantage to doing that as opposed to, say, five dice on vertical farms, or three dice on dairy ranching and two on farm mechanization.
Also, I suspect dairy ranches will have a longer spool-up time to start producing usable amounts of product, compared to vertical farms. My understanding is that dairy cattle take longer to mature to where they are useful than egg-laying hens do.
BoSPaladin
The Paladin
If they take longer to mature that's an argument for doing them sooner isn't it?
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
It depends. Are you prioritizing immediately noticeable effects that will occur as soon as possible? Or are you prioritizing "set some date X turns from now and have as many things as possible by then, while deciding that you can set X to be whatever you want?"
Prioritizing the fast-rollout item is the fastest way of getting something out there to people's dinner tables.
Prioritizing the slow-rollout item gets you the slow-rollout item faster, but delays the moment when the first actual desirable products come from the overall program as a whole.
...
It's like with the naval aviation problems we had in 2060. Prioritizing the existing light carrier yards over the conversion carriers would have meant we got light carriers sooner, but it would also have meant a longer delay before any naval aviation joined the force as a whole.
...
If you're worried about immediate results and immediate popular demand or resentment of inaction (e.g. the Milk and Honey protests), then prioritizing the fast-rollout option makes sense.
If you're more interested in hitting a very distant deadline, or just aren't worried about being under political pressure to show quick results, then prioritizing the slow-rollout option makes relatively more sense.
Me, I'm at least a little interested in immediate results and fast rollouts in this case.
- Location
- Outside the Box
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Doing it this way gets both immediate benefit from vertical farms, and then more long-term benefit from dairy ranching. Plus it's just more +Consumer Goods total by doing both of them.
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KnightDisciple
Love God. Do Right. Fear No Man.
- Location
- Midwest, USA
It seems like the solution is just trying to do more than the most bare-bones minimum possible for Agriculture, but that's just me.
- Location
- Wall Gazing
This is kind of swinging back to plans but I think a split of:
Kudzu: 1 Die 10 R 100%
Vert Farms: 2 Dice 30 R 56%
Dairy Ranches: 2 Dice 40 R 26%
Politiceplant Dev: 1 Die 20 R 100%
Works for divvying up dice for such a strategy. A little bit of Development, finishing Kudzu (finally), and Vert Farms more the cancels out the Food consumed by Dairy Ranches. There is a small chance (11%) that the Dairy Ranches would finish but the Vert Farms wouldn't, but we do have a decent Food Surplus that could easily absorb that if we do not have further Food Surplus reductions from more Refugees. It also has a chance that neither Vert Farms or Dairy Ranches will finish (33%). Which while concerning, is mitigated by how Kudzu will finish.
That would be a solution, and one that is not a bad idea on the surface. However, we do need a lot of Free Dice in Orbital for the Plan Goal and to provide hope for our future existence as a species, and in Heavy Industry to continue developing our economy and our ability to provide other goods and services more effectively. So this, as ever, is a judgement call folks need to make.
But, and this may be a controversial statement, I do not see Agri Con Goods as something to drop things for, especially when Kudzu will finish this turn, assuming we but a die on it. Kudzu Phase 3 will provide 8 Agri Con Goods, more than a phase of Dairy Ranches and twice that of Vert Farms. Citizens of GDI wanting a better and more varied diet is a good thing, and as the Treasury our current Plan obligates us to provide Agri Con Goods it is something we will be rolling out in greater and greater numbers. However, the Treasury is not the Department of Agriculture, it is not the Food and Drugs Administration, it is those things plus the Department of Energy, the Department of Labor, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, it is all the various Military Industrial Complex companies, it is Space X, NASA and Amazon, it is an international mining conglomerate, even at its smallest just after reallocation it is still a third of the economy of the largest nation to ever exist.
Its primary goal has not been to make the lives of its citizens better, though that is a secondary goal that the Treasury does pursue to increase productivity and population satisfaction in order to further its primary goal. Its primary goal is to save humanity. The projects we currently have available in HI and Orbital directly contribute to the goal of getting people off Earth and protect them from the dual threats of NOD and Tib. That is our main goal.
Plus we recently increased our dice in Agriculture by 50% thanks to Bora. We have a lot more to work with in Agriculture, which I admit has historically been a neglected category, but we have taken several steps to improve the situation there. It is for those reasons, that we have other commitments and that those commitments are a higher priority, that we are still providing Agri Con Goods this turn, and that we recently increased the base dice level of Agriculture, that I believe we should not put Free Dice on Agriculture this turn.
I'm sorry if I come across a bit forcefully here. I know that no one in the thread is acting maliciously and that folks have good intentions. People can disagree and both sides can still have good points. If that wasn't the case this quest would devolve down to a number counting game, and while those pass the time, they are not particularly fun to play past the point where you figure out the formula to 'solve' them in my opinion. All this discussion is a good thing, it means not only are people engaged, but also that there is stuff to be engaged with and that is to the QM's credit. I've certainly dedicated far too much time maintaining an excel spreadsheet to keep track of everything.
- Pronouns
- He/It/Argh!
I don't know about having 'taken several steps' to get Agri going further. Other than recruiting Dr Bora, we've done what else?
One thing to consider is that with Dr Bora's expertise, Agri is likely able to start taking a bit of strain from our Industry areas once we are able to get those special crops going. But even with six dice to work with, it will take some time before we are really going to see any return on that investment.
However, if we can spare a few Free Dice to jump Agriculture forward a bit, we'll be able to get those special things from Dr Bora started earlier. After that, we'll likely be fine sitting with our six dice per turn.
One thing to consider is that with Dr Bora's expertise, Agri is likely able to start taking a bit of strain from our Industry areas once we are able to get those special crops going. But even with six dice to work with, it will take some time before we are really going to see any return on that investment.
However, if we can spare a few Free Dice to jump Agriculture forward a bit, we'll be able to get those special things from Dr Bora started earlier. After that, we'll likely be fine sitting with our six dice per turn.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Now, if I were the one saying that, it'd mean one of two things.
1) Either I'd picked a remarkably provocative way to say "use Free dice on Agriculture," or...
2) I was a time traveler from about a year ago IRL, because I've gone pretty damn far back checking for the last time we didn't activate all our Agriculture dice. I got as far back as 2059Q1, which seems to be the first turn where Ithillid put the dice rolls in the threadmarked Results post so that it was easy to tell how many we'd rolled. And that turn post was in November of last year, so it's been a long time.
I'm sure you're not intentionally going out of your way to start a pointless angry argument. And I'm sure you're not a time traveler. So I'm guessing you must mean a third thing I haven't thought of yet.
I could work with something like that. Though if it was me putting together a plan centered that way... I'd be happier, I dunno, scraping up an AA die to put on the kudzu plantations, putting off poulticeplant development for one more turn, and consolidating three dice on each of the two _________ options.
One thing that should be noted is that by your own analysis, we have eighteen dice required to fill our Agriculture Consumer Goods target. Which means three turns out of the fourteen remaining in the Four Year Plan.
I don't know what the requirements are for the reforestation initiatives, of course. I'm expecting something with a high Progress requirement and a low cost per die, since it involves a lot of actual work but not a lot of expensive capital investment to plant trees outdoors. But since those aren't even on the docket for now, we have almost nothing but the _________ projects to pursue... and we can have those out of the way in three turns.
Four turns if we bother to do anything else, like a phase of poulticeplants or spider cotton, which personally I can take or leave because I consider the _______ projects more important.
Only recruiting Dr. Bora has given us the capacity to fulfill our Plan goals for _______ within about one in-game year.
He's a big step in the right direction. What else do you think we actually need?
Since we now get six dice per turn, we'd need to spend six Free dice to accelerate Agriculture by one turn.
If you want to draw up a plan draft that spends six or more Free dice on Agriculture, go ahead.
With a plan like that, we could hit our commitment target for Consumer Goods from agriculture in two turns, instead of three!
KnightDisciple
Love God. Do Right. Fear No Man.
- Location
- Midwest, USA
I'm being admittedly snippy because I'd honestly like to see Agriculture projects get a bit more general respect than it's felt they've gotten. I'm also concerned that we're falling into a rut of spending half a Plan, or at least an entire Year (4 turns) obsessing with just INCOMMMMMMEEEEEE and then suddenly scrambling to do other things in less time.
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Strunkriidiisk
THE LEGEND
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I want to work on Agri biotech, that is my single issue right now. We've got the time and only minor obligations in the department.
Given our current dice capacity, I want to go 3/3 (+- 2 dice, depending on circumstance) on biotech and projects that give Food/ConGoods.
And for the vastly overblown and excessively vitriolic arguments about the subject, and the terminology used to refer to it, to stop. Because that is significantly contributing to my desire *not* to engage.
ACD/Luxury Food/anything else that makes it clear you are not being snide about it would be better.
And for the vastly overblown and excessively vitriolic arguments about the subject, and the terminology used to refer to it, to stop. Because that is significantly contributing to my desire *not* to engage.
Even assuming that the vitriol over calling them "yummies" was overblown, which I think it kinda was, continuing that just makes the whole mess worse.
ACD/Luxury Food/anything else that makes it clear you are not being snide about it would be better.
Why are you still doing this my man. I'm not going to engage with anyone who expects me to refer to "_______", seriously. This is a joke, it's a bad joke, and it rubs it in my face every time I see it that you got in a dumb fight over a dumb name and kept making the names dumber and dumber. The people yelling at you were in the wrong, but it was annoying to them, and to others who didn't yell at you.
Here is a list of alternatives that you can use to refer to the stuff, so we don't need to use Ƭ̵̬̊ or _______ to refer to this stuff. (Yes, I know that's not actually "Love Symbol Number 2" but you can't get it in Unicode.)
-ConAg (Consumer Agriculture)
-Luxury Foods
-Deluxe Foods
-CGA
-Plan Goal #2
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I don't actually expect the overblown arguments to ever stop, though as you read this, this is very much the last glimmer of interest I ever had in them dying.
I predict that doing what someone else- even a well-intentioned and even more exhausted someone else, such as yourself- tells me to won't help me in the long run, you see. Because some of these arguments are as much about "dammit, it's Simon saying it and I know Simon doesn't believe in it" as it is about what I actually call it. And that particular belief doesn't seem to really depend on what I actually do.
Sometimes the problem is your choice of phrasing. Sometimes, the problem is that it's you saying it.
But I'll try to at least describe it in terms that won't be visually distracting to people who aren't looking for a pretext. In fairness, visually distracting is bad, and big blanks are visually distracting.
I'm not sure what that would look like in context, unless you're comparing to a benchmark of at least several months ago. There has been considerable discussion of which of these projects to do first, which is more important, and so on.
I don't think you need to be concerned there.
We spent 2062Q1 in pure INCOMMMMMMEEEEEE maximization mode, which I hope you will agree made sense because we barely or not-at-all had the money to activate all our dice. It's tough to do 20 R/die dairy ranches on a budget of 700 RpT.
2062Q2, yes, turned out to be a turn where the push to get several dice on the alloy foundries ate up our focus, which in turn took up the discretionary budget so that we wound up focused mostly on 10 R/die projects in Agriculture. But this time was not wasted, because if we want to have dairy ranches we're going to burn through -6 to -9 Food. Keeping the actual Food baseline up to a reasonable number matters alongside of anything else we want to do to get the good stuff to the voters, because tasty but lean rations aren't necessarily a better way to win hearts and minds than bland but plentiful rations.
We got +6 Food out of Agriculture in Q2, alongside the development of everyone's (remaining) favorite science plant, the poulticeplant. Those are not inconsequential projects. There's also the caffeine thing.
Now, nearly all the constructive argument is focused around, not whether we should be making a good faith effort to make progress on projects to mass-produce it to improve people's diets, but which ones, it being taken for granted that we will be pursuing at least two entirely different types of such projects.
I am taking this seriously. Other people are taking this seriously. I don't think I can remember a single poster in the past month or two who hasn't taken this seriously.
The closest we've come to people not taking this seriously is people picking fights because they've decided someone else isn't taking this seriously and needs to be shouted at. Which wastes time and emotional bandwidth that could have been spent thinking about the issue itself.
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- Location
- MSC
Maybe scrape it anyway? Do we have anything too critical in Bureaucracy?