No no. I get that.
What I meant was are those our current goals in total, not the order in which we do them.
Like, in the orbital category, it's finish Philly, eventually finish Enterprise, do Moon mining, and some people want to do parts of Columbia.
Do we have any other active goals in orbitals or is that it for the foreseeable future?
Well, it'd be nice to get
Orbital Cleanup done so we can try (probably next Plan) launching
Low Orbit Support Satellites (which boost the military) and even
Orbital Power Stations (which would take strain off Heavy Industry).
There's also the outstanding desire to develop the
Conestoga-class gravity drive starships, follow-ons to the unique prototype
Pathfinder.
But those are optional- in the short term they're on par with
Columbia in that we didn't promise to do them, and since they're unlikely to have any massive political impact they're also behind
Columbia.
Q4 is after the monsoon season. Pakistan is not India.
Fair enough- but waiting until 2060Q4 has other complications, as well. There are reasons to want this project done sooner, rather than later, and the military
isn't weak at the present time.
We've consistently been holding our own (or better) in battles, and while there are certainly things the military wants done that we haven't done, that is a literally endless treadmill. As long as Nod continues to exist, the military will want more and better weapons of every kind, subject only to some degree of prioritization as to which kinds of weapons they want to improve
most and
first.
That would lead to us using more dice overall for the project. If we want Karachi finished by the end of Q2, we're going to want to use enough dice to get about 90%+ confidence in it finishing. But the less progress we've made beforehand, the more dice we'll need to use in Q4 to cut down on variance. Front-loading our dice in Q1 reduces the chaos and risks we'll face in finishing the project the turn after. Moreover, using more dice means more of GDI's efforts directed towards the project, and as we want to make a maximally shock-and-awe impact to take that territory, using less dice even if we finish Phase 4 in one turn still means it'll be at more risk.
Using thirteen dice is still an enormous investment, more than we've ever spent in a single turn on anything whatsoever including the stabilizer constellation. 260 RpT, the budget investment associated with that, is something in the neighborhood of 15% of GDI's gross domestic product for that quarter. Something broadly comparable to the US spending $700 billion dollars in three months, for instance.
Also, I honestly don't think it'll be a huge problem if we're doing
the last couple of dice worth of construction in 2060Q3 as long as we've got the vast supermajority of the project done in the first two turns. Among other things, because
by definition this is an infrastructure megaproject in Pakistan. By the time we've built up to Phase 4+ and are closing in on Phase 5 of the project, we've done enough infrastructure development that continuing construction work during the monsoon season will of necessity be at least
possible.
Besides, we're not going to fall behind on Orbital and Military projects. We can spend more Free Dice on them in future turns; we're likely not going to be spending any in Orbital next turn since this turn we pushed so many into getting the Philadelphia to where it is now (only needing 4 dice to complete.)
That's meaningless. We're talking about budgeting for 2060Q1 and 'Q2 when the Karachi Sprint is underway, not budgeting for 2059Q3.
In
those future turns next year, Free dice spent on Karachi are by definition Free dice not spent on Orbital or Military. By the time we reach that point, how many Free dice we spent on those categories in 2059Q3 and 'Q4 will be water under the bridge.
I sincerely think that allocating all the Free dice to the project in 2060Q1 is a case of "the perfect is the enemy of the good" in action.
I'm expecting NOD to send us a distraction that heralds an incoming MASTERSTROKE at some point. The Warlords might just be that distraction.
Maybe, but remember that Kane has every reason to refocus on his canon plan (build TCN, use it to leave Earth).
He
has other viable plans he can use, but most of them become less and less viable as GDI gets stronger, so all of them are already dicey. Remember, his Tib War One plan seems to have relied on beating GDI in a straight fight and he lost badly. In Tib War Two he seems to have had a "world altering" plan that didn't involve beating GDI in a straight fight. In Tib War Three he seems to have actively summoned something to fight GDI while maneuvering to seize a key location and barely even
caring that GDI was beating Nod forces like a drum.
I'm honestly not sure if Kane, personally, has a "masterstroke" planned that will hurt GDI, because it's not clear whether he considers it beneficial to his own interests that GDI be harmed anymore.
On the other hand, he
might actually be planning a Fourth Tiberium War in hopes of cutting GDI back far enough to force us to work with him more subserviently out of desperation (as happened in the canon timeline because of GDI's total failure to contain the spread of tiberium).
Feel like I just have to question this but why are we planning on doing the Karachi sprint, thus expanding the militaries responsibilities eating through our limited supply of consumables and stretching Zonecom even further before the Warlord gang pile which will likely hurt us somewhat anyway. I don't get why we don't build up for the incoming Gangpile and do Karachi sprint afterwards especially considering the Indian Warlord who's going to be our main opposition will have hopefully expended a considerable amount of their forces against us in the war and thus won't be able to put up as much of a fight?
1) We have "finish Karachi" as a Plan commitment.
2) Finishing Karachi would greatly strengthen our position in terms of holding the Himalayan Blue Zone, a target likely to be vulnerable to Nod attack during the Great Warlord Dogpile.
3) Having Karachi present as a major GDI base in Pakistan will refocus the Indian warlord (or warlords') attention on their own home territory, making them less able to meddle randomly elsewhere in the world in places where they'd be more likely to hurt GDI civilians or key industry.
For all these reasons, it is highly desirable to have Karachi up and running.
4) We want to avoid doing major construction work in Pakistan during Q3 of any year because of monsoons, arguably not even during Q4 though that's probably less bad. Ideally, we also don't want to have lots of unfinished construction lying around during Q3 of any year for the monsoons to tear up.
5) Once Karachi is established, the Indian Noddies will start hitting it hard, probably very soon after construction begins (like, the next turn or the turn after at the latest). This makes it risky to do the construction slowly. A
finished Karachi is a huge base with lots of good fortifications, so our troops can defend it easily. An
unfinished Karachi is much more of a problem to defend, and is in effect a bigger overextension of our military than the project would be finished.
6) Because the Great Warlord Dogpile could happen at any time, we want the military benefits of Karachi sooner rather than later, if we can get them. If it diverts the Indian Noddies' efforts into repelling an invasion threat instead of being totally free to assist other Nod warlords, that's not necessarily a bad thing; it's the kind of action that in military terms is often called a "spoiling attack." It can be very advantageous to launch an attack on the enemy's troops as they are massing and preparing for their own onslaught, because they usually won't be expecting it and it often catches them while they're more focused on prepping themselves and less focused on self-defense.
For these reasons, it is desirable to have Karachi up and running
quickly.
