3 basic leather outfits (-2%), 9 hardened leather outfits (-3%).
Meguca Micro Empire Quest (PMMM)
- Thread starter inverted_helix
- Start date
That's a good point; none of those three will be particularly prone to the mercenary point of view, since all of them are used to thinking like people in live combat operations, where everything is strictly us-versus-them. We just saw that in the last omake: even despite literally having no winning combat solution, those girls were quite close to entering combat anyway, because that's how they've been forced to think, for months if not years.
But... well, you know who wouldn't think that way? Who hasn't thought that way in years, despite being magical girls? Our business girls. The couriers, the girls running the restaurant, both in the service industry where you can't think that way or you go out of business. It's a different kind of cutthroat environment that they're dealing with, requiring a different kind of cutthroat attitude.
This negotiation isn't going to be live-fire combat; hell, the point of this negotiation is to prevent live-fire combat by developing a business relationship with the larger but less nimble organization. Most of the girls are going to look at Hino's group and see potential enemies. The business girls? They might be more inclined to see customers.
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Actually, I can think of one significant reason Mami might support this.
The fact that this seems to be standard operating procedure for the Nagoya implies that they have done this to other groups, and suggests that they might even have suspended some girls in a "gem coma" so that they don't use cubes. I (and I think Mami as well) would find that horrifying.
The faster Nagoya gets on the crop rotation method, the faster they can stop putting girls in gem comas, and the faster girls who are in gem comas can be revived. (Or if they are just starving/killing girls, the sooner they can stop doing that).
Furthermore, Mami probably thinks about this differently, in that requiring them to trade for this information is a punishment. As Mami would gladly give this information away for free if someone needed it and asked for it.
(Actually, that's another offer we could make to the Coalition girls, offer them some vets to come help them set up their own crop rotation hunting scheme).
Ah... I forgot to update the summary numbers in two places, I was wondering where that 0.5 vet came from. Okay, will fix again.
I believe that puts us at the same plan .
Actually, I was thinking that direct absorption might be easier with these girls.
I believe this is the only remaining difference between the plans.
We both have Sports Day, but my plan also buys food to go in each house, without reducing the allowance, while Kinematics reduces the allowance.
That gives my plan a higher morale boost over Kinematics, but means my plan is at roughly +$1000 monthly net income, while Kinematics is at +$4000.
Cool. Yeah, any faster than once a week would be very hard on the voters. Well, maybe not for some of the min-turns, but usually.
Which is another reason to trade with them. It will imply things about their economy. Are they money heavy? Cube heavy?
Got 3 leather armor, and 9 hard leather armor.
EDIT: Ninjad
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@Kinematics
I found a small error in your math. When I was figuring out why you changed your hunting plan. (Brilliant idea by the way to use Taya on the dispatch service, that saves 0.5 vets, and thus +1 cube, because we don't have to pay Kyubey for diplomacy help.)
However, that increases the number of hunters being transported by the teleporter, which costs 0.25 cubes per a hunter. So the cost of the teleport transport goes up from 2.3 cubes to 2.4 cubes.
Still totally worth it to pay 0.1 cubes to get 1 cube back.
As far as I can tell, after that the only remaining difference is the morale boosters (already discussed), and the fluff on the diplomacy sections:
Even if you don't want to to include the rest of the fluff, I think this one is a must:
- Refuse to meet in person, and any material parts of the trade can be exchanged via area 13.
We can not let those telepathic Nagoyains anywhere near reading our people's minds, especially Mami's.
I found a small error in your math. When I was figuring out why you changed your hunting plan. (Brilliant idea by the way to use Taya on the dispatch service, that saves 0.5 vets, and thus +1 cube, because we don't have to pay Kyubey for diplomacy help.)
However, that increases the number of hunters being transported by the teleporter, which costs 0.25 cubes per a hunter. So the cost of the teleport transport goes up from 2.3 cubes to 2.4 cubes.
Still totally worth it to pay 0.1 cubes to get 1 cube back.
As far as I can tell, after that the only remaining difference is the morale boosters (already discussed), and the fluff on the diplomacy sections:
Even if you don't want to to include the rest of the fluff, I think this one is a must:
- Refuse to meet in person, and any material parts of the trade can be exchanged via area 13.
We can not let those telepathic Nagoyains anywhere near reading our people's minds, especially Mami's.
Or a competitor that needs to be outmaneuvered.
Aranfan
Team Plasma Grunt
Hmm. This is true. We've been giving our pamphlets that contain the crop rotation details out for free to everyone else.
There has been some talk about it.
This turn we are planning to have some training on magical girl combat.
Part of the problem is that we don't have much idea yet what this will consist of, or how to deal with it. Which is why our effort is in the "Research" section.
Also, a significant part of our concern is fighting off sneak attacks.
So we probably have to spend an initial effort to figure out what the approaches are to magical girl combat.
Then develop a training program for all girls focused on escaping an ambush.
Plus possibly form a "strike team" as you suggest. We'll have to think about it, but it will almost certainly include all the stealth girls, teleporters, and probably the clairvoyants.
Heh, true. In either case, "murder-death-kill" is not going to be their first instinct; beating them "within the system" is.
One thing I'm wondering is if we can get our clairvoyants and stealth girls to train up our non-clairvoyants and non-stealth girls to be able to use those skills themselves, maybe at reduced efficiency? I'm mostly thinking about us getting extra bites at the apple in terms of piercing stealth, as that's been a particular problem for us (the only places the dice has more consistently hated us are scouting actions and poor Hainako's courier job).
So, how many omakes are we up to with Kaoru? And are any of the other girls we've recruited more recently (Seto's group, the Tokyo girls) showing an Elite spark? It would be good to have another person in that second "slot" for our next Rising Stars action.
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Oh, right, vote! Hmm, basically only difference is the stipend retcon vs. straight up purchasing food outright. In light of that:
[X] Kinematics's plan
For now the retcon is safer, but I really do want to boost that stipend soon, and we have plenty of ways to boost income enough in the very near future that we can do so:
[X] Kinematics's plan
For now the retcon is safer, but I really do want to boost that stipend soon, and we have plenty of ways to boost income enough in the very near future that we can do so:
- We still haven't completed the courier expansion into Fujinomiya; even if we have a penalty for the next time it's still likely to succeed if I'm remembering the odds right.
- There's also the possibility of franchising our courier business to Area 10, assuming we don't just absorb them outright
- Also there's the possibility of franchising to "Mitakihara South" aka "The Non-Serene" which should get us more money too.
- And then there's Area 13-14, the Nagoya Vassal and the potential Nagoya Vassal. Franchising there is a definite possibility as well; should be a good way to get our hooks into them as well, so they're more inclined to play nice with us.
Franchising won't work for smaller groups. Area 10 only has 3 girls, that's not enough to have the specialisation of labor required to have someone working a part time job, 2 vets hunting is just not enough to support someone working instead of hunting regardless of how much their being paid. Absorbing them outright is better for both us and them and they don't have anything holding them back.
We tried absorbing them once and it didn't take, though they remain favorable to us. It's depressingly likely that one of them has died since then, however: IIRC as of Turn 26 it's a 4-cube area at +8 being held by 3 greens, so in three months one of them has probably died by now (someone check my math?) which would probably induce the remainder to join with us.
If they don't, though, I'm thinking we might be able to swing one of them joining us half-time: $600 salary, in addition to free bike rental and being able to use our name and rep for their advertising, in exchange for $750 a month for us. It'd be life-changing for them: $4-500 a month can probably get you a tiny studio apartment, or maybe just a $100-150 8"-by-10" storage locker, someplace secure to sleep (though you're obviously not supposed to do that in a locker, but people do all the time) and a secure place to keep your stuff, plus a little spending money so you don't need to steal food all the time. Only $150 profit per month on our end, but the real benefit is the relationship that we'd build with them, which would make them more and more likely to just join us.
Heh, makes me wonder if we should just invite them over to eat with us, since we're spending all this money keeping our houses stocked with food. Hmm...
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Well, that's basically inviting them to join up with us, so.
Not completely, and not at first. It's more of a slippery-slope argument, with each step being logical and understandable at the time. First we start talking to each other, exchanging hunting information, rumors, etc. Then we get one of them a part time job, so they can feed themselves and have a secure place to stay. Then we find out that they're hungry a lot of the time, and we have extra food now because owning a restaurant makes getting ahold of food in bulk so easy, so why not come over for dinner once in awhile? And, as they get to know our group better, maybe make a few friends, well hell, may as well join up, right?
Going forward, this is kind of how I want to soft-sell groups, especially smaller territories, into joining. No more Iwata incidents, please.
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Remember that a recruiting attempts take a full month and several Meguca, I assume all that sort of thing gets folded into it.
While true for a place as small as Area 10, the non-Serene coalition is going to need to be handled more delicately, and over a period of many months. Coming up with things like franchising our courier business, hosting regular dinner parties, maybe setting up joint military exercises in case of a Class 3 invasion or incursion by Nagoya, joint research projects, etc is a good way to make meaningful progress every month without going straight to the Serene-Borg "You will be assimilated" join option. "Positive Daily Contact" is the term @Elder Haman used.
Thanks. Will fix that.
If they only harvested 3 cubes, DS would drop from 8 to 3 in one month, and 3 to -0.5 in the next. Risks would be +5.5% and +1.25% for those two months.
Without forecasting, dispatch, or telepathy bonuses (which they couldn't afford in cubes or meguca), 2.5 out of 3 of them could harvest 3.1 (cap at 3) using pack tactics. (Basically, the group of them spends 6 days out of 7 hunting.) They could be working at as high as a 10% casualty risk the first month, and maybe 5%-6% the second month onward. Odds are decent that they haven't been injured yet, but even with things going easier for them, they're still rolling the dice a bit. Pretty high odds that one of them will be injured within the next three months, on their way to reaching veteran. Once they reach veteran, their casualty risk drops almost to 0.
Anyway, the above gives the limits of what they can offer in non-hunting time: 0.5 units of time (basically, the group, one day per week). With that limit, they really can't do much in the way of getting their own part-time jobs. Whether we can get them interested in participating in the job expansion depends on how they normally use that time. If they're using that on training, to reduce their hunting risks, then they simply have no time to spare for the part-time job. They also can't really stagger their days off, because all three of them need to be together for the pack bonus.
Alternative, when they get DS back to 0, they could go to pair hunting with 2 of them, leaving 1 free for a full month's action. It increases their casualty risk back up to the 10% area, though.
Either way, it's going to be difficult for them to negotiate on the part time job. If they have the meguca to spare, they're going to be running a high enough hunting risk that it would seem more harmful to offer them the job than to get them to keep using pack hunting.
Just one or two in the current cycle.
None that we know of, at the moment.
If they can survive to reach vet status, then it's possible.
With 2.0 vets assigned as packs (ie: all 3 of them hunting 4 or 5 days per week), they can harvest 3.8 cubes at nearly 0 risk (need about -5% in training or gear). 3.8 cubes means they have a net positive income, while also being below the territory size, which means DS will continue to slowly drop.
Anyway, that would give the group 2-3 days per week free for other stuff, which is enough to start considering a part-time job. It's definitely not ideal, but it's marginally viable.
At least til Kyuubey recruits someone else, and their bank breaks.
This sounds like a nifty outreach program. For $750, we could feed 10 neighboring girls 1 meal per day. Or maybe make it $500 for 5 girls, and drop off a box meal per day. (Costs slightly more for the box.)
Would take a soft touch to inquire as to whether they need it, but could probably work things out through our gossipmonger, if she's good at talking with people.
I've been thinking about our meguca and their power levels. As much as @inverted_helix has said that he doesn't want to increase the granularity in this regard, we kind of already have done so, even if most of the divisions don't translate directly into demon hunting bonuses:
- We have simple, vanilla Grade 1 "Green"s.
- We have Grade 1.5 "Green +"s that have managed to luck into useful Wish magic: clairvoyants, teleporters, barrier girls, etc.
- We have Grade 2 "Veteran"s.
- We have Grade 2.5 "Veteran +"s, many of whom have leveraged their special-ness in notable ways. Examples are Taura with her telepathy, Akeno and Hainako who both make $3000 per month due to their, well, let's take a RWBY term and call them "Semblances". Maybe Nagisa could do something similar, get a little basic vet training and become a Dog Whisperer/Pet Therapist for $3000 per month? What do you think of that particular idea @Kinematics, @Elder Haman, @inverted_helix?
- We have Grade 2.75 "Veteran +, with Elite spark" like Kaoru, who even if she never becomes an Elite seems to have expanded her Semblance to cover multiple areas of specialty. I'm also wondering if, even should the third try fail, Kaoru will eventually be able to work her way back up over the course of a year or so to being eligible for Elite training again.
- Then of course you have Grade 3 "Elite"s. Elites all have Semblances, and even bonuses related to their Semblances, plus they seem to have abilities that transcend those of normal Veterans.
- I'm becoming more and more certain that Mami herself might count as a Grade 3.5 "Elite +". Her Persuasiveness bonus doesn't even seem to be particularly related to her Semblance, which as @Elder Haman noted is related to grief efficiency and may explain why she never spirals (probably her "real" Elite bonus). It seems to be related to how Mami herself is transcending the limitations of a specific Semblance and expanding into other areas, such as the way that she noted that the Ogawa "sisters" aren't really sisters, but Wished themselves to be sisters, that she is able to create stronger Barriers than even Veteran Barrier girls, that one instance of a super-powerful pale ribbon that may or may not be direct invocation of Madokami's powers, etc.
- There are rumors, confirmed now that Kyubey has mentioned them, of Grade 4 "Legendary"s. We have no idea of their capabilities or nature: although it seems likely that they have for the most part broken free of a focused Semblance into a wider world of magic, it's also likely that their Semblance is still likely to give them a massive bonus in that specific area.
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Aranfan
Team Plasma Grunt
We actually, OOC, know that Homura is one of them. And that description doesn't really apply to her.
How doesn't it? Does "magical purple bow" naturally stem from time manipulation powers?