Meguca Micro Empire Quest (PMMM)

[Asael]

The current problem we have (which I'll work on once I've found the data and decided on a candidate) is that being expansionist just isn't in the nature of Mami Tomoe. Not using force, anyway.

I'd actually be curious for a disaster. Might make the game dramatic and start testing us to our limits. Would also make expansionism look like a better ideology.

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.... Please tell me your trolling.

We really can't afford a major morale hit- our situation is only barely stable as is.

Also, expansionism is bound to be a headache if done whimsically. Basically, we have very limited force projection.

We are bound to run into another MG organization eventually, and when we do we will be hamstrung by the fact that any girls we send will not only drain more GC, but will not produce anything useful for the turn. Combined with the defensive bonuses we will be up against, conquest will look more like a long, slow siege than a stomp.

Meanwhile, our morale will almost certainly be taking hits the entire time- and since morale is life or death for our organization, prolonged conflict can kill us even if we win every battle.

Actually, the best way to deal with opposed groups is probably poaching on their turf over a long period with small teams of Elites.



Just to be clear, I am not against expansion. I would prefer a slow peaceful expansion over a fast violent one until we get more force projection under our belt however.

 

[FixerUpper]

If, on the flipside, you're still struggling to write someone with expansionist leanings, that's actually not that hard. I can write one up when I have a free moment if you want. =P

@Mecrazyfang: I realize characterization is always a bit of a bugaboo when it comes to fanfic criticism, no one quite has the same mental image of any character so it's the easiest criticism to bring to bear, but if you don't mind some focused stuff I can always crit. Just, uh, tell me if I should pull my punches or something.

I don't have much time, so no omakes for my Magic enhancements talk though I might write one later:

-How does it interact with technology? *e.g.: will wifi signals get stronger? will cars go faster? will blades be sharper?*
--probably not, you'd have to manipulate the underlying materials, but that runs into the real world problem of 'we are adding way too much complexity into the science portion of the quest'
-How does it interact with food? *e.g.: do they get tastier? more nutritious? can they promote healing/stat gains/etc.?* <== pretty dangerous experiments, I would recommend animal testing first, consulting Kyuubey
-Are they more efficient than base level physical enhancements? *e.g.: would some sort of mini-parachute, or just a cape that unfolds Batman style, or heck, a big poofy skirt, be better than some leg-strenghthening magic when it comes to taking falls?*

We probably want access to firearms too, though that'll be difficult because Japan and no timestop. A magic bullet would probably be both a force multiplier, magically efficient, and safer than what we have now. You would be trading those things for money and potential risk of discovery by both unsavory elements and cops though. We might be a small group, but getting enough guns to equip even two dozen people and ammunition to use in constant battles against the demons would quickly attract a lot of attention because it'd look like we're gearing up for a small war. Which, to be fair, we would be.

Hmmm. But if we were to get those things for elites to use when the situation is dire...

Edit: What about archery? That has to be way less restricted, right? Higher learning curve, but easier all around to procure.

 

[Carinthium]

.... Please tell me your trolling.

We really can't afford a major morale hit- our situation is only barely stable as is.

Also, expansionism is bound to be a headache if done whimsically. Basically, we have very limited force projection.

We are bound to run into another MG organization eventually, and when we do we will be hamstrung by the fact that any girls we send will not only drain more GC, but will not produce anything useful for the turn. Combined with the defensive bonuses we will be up against, conquest will look more like a long, slow siege than a stomp.

Meanwhile, our morale will almost certainly be taking hits the entire time- and since morale is life or death for our organization, prolonged conflict can kill us even if we win every battle.

Actually, the best way to deal with opposed groups is probably poaching on their turf over a long period with small teams of Elites.



Just to be clear, I am not against expansion. I would prefer a slow peaceful expansion over a fast violent one until we get more force projection under our belt however.

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I don't want the game unfairly stacked in our favour. If the GM thinks a disaster is likely he should put one in (though to be fair magical girls without territory should have as much if not more trouble most likely).

FixerUpper- That would be good. Thanks.

 

[Asael]

I don't want the game unfairly stacked in our favour. If the GM thinks a disaster is likely he should put one in (though to be fair magical girls without territory should have as much if not more trouble most likely).

FixerUpper- That would be good. Thanks.

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The game isn't stacked in our favor.

We've been lucky.

By the QM's pregame projections, we should only just now be getting back to where we started, the fact that we've reached a level of stability is do to luck alone.

If it turns out Kasamino has a rival group of near our strength?, we won't be taking it. not without an extra elite and a lot of time and luck.


our 'empire' is a speck. It does not even account for 1% of the magical girls in japan alone.

 

[Carinthium]

It is stacked in our favour in that the GM was planning disasters which didn't happen only because he thought we weren't ready for them. Arguing a disaster is unrealistic is one thing. Arguing the GM should have mercy because of where we are is another.

 

[Asael]

It is stacked in our favour in that the GM was planning disasters which didn't happen only because he thought we weren't ready for them. Arguing a disaster is unrealistic is one thing. Arguing the GM should have mercy because of where we are is another.

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Citation.

I know the QM has mentioned having a list of disasters, but I don't recall him mentioning delaying them because we weren't ready.

 

[Carinthium]

He said:
"I could throw a couple rival organizations in the ring (and it's always been my intent for those to be around), but I was more intending them to be a larger scale issue. I kind of want to wait to throw rival organizations at you until you had a much larger base to work from."

I.E- A disaster.

 

[Crow]

It is stacked in our favour in that the GM was planning disasters which didn't happen only because he thought we weren't ready for them. Arguing a disaster is unrealistic is one thing. Arguing the GM should have mercy because of where we are is another.

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It was stated before that its due to pure luck that its been roses and sunshines as you so put it, the GM did say taht if people dont rebalance the quest when its bad then he wont rebalance because we´ve been having good luck(by draining the luck out of all the other PMMM quests) i dont know about your idea of fun but empire quests where due to the dice we are always running around trying to smother the fires of the attempted actions is not the idea of fun ya know?

 

[inverted_helix]

He said:
"I could throw a couple rival organizations in the ring (and it's always been my intent for those to be around), but I was more intending them to be a larger scale issue. I kind of want to wait to throw rival organizations at you until you had a much larger base to work from."

I.E- A disaster.

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You'll note I said I always intended for them to be a larger scale thing. I haven't delayed introducing them. That sentence is in consideration of introducing them early due to how well you were doing.

Though that was actually planned. In terms of random disasters I have a table. Massive natural disaster is a 1. You don't want a tsunami in a coastal city .

Also, Elite's are hardly invincible. Any elites other than Mami will still be subject to grief spiral, for one. I can also see them being prime targets for assassination if we get into conflict with other groups.

Elites are basically strategic assets, with battles between city/state size groups generally being determined by who has the most elites. It makes sense that they should be difficult, but not impossible to get- and should be hoarded jealously when they are gotten.

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Also this is a much better grasp of their value.

 

[Carinthium]

Oh. My apologies. Didn't realise.

 

[Asael]

He said:
"I could throw a couple rival organizations in the ring (and it's always been my intent for those to be around), but I was more intending them to be a larger scale issue. I kind of want to wait to throw rival organizations at you until you had a much larger base to work from."

I.E- A disaster.

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Not really.

Disaster =/= Rival group.

Disaster means our apartment building burns down and we start having to worry about grief spirals. (that being a relatively easy one- worse would be natural disaster.)

Also, in your own quote the QM says

it's always been my intent for those to be around), but I was more intending them to be a larger scale issue

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We haven't encountered rival groups yet not because we 'aren't ready', but because it would be meaningless at our scale.

nearly 1/2 of our manpower is devoted just to upkeep, nearly all the rest are devoted to hunting- who would we send to attack?. We'd have to scrape to send five to six MG's, who will be able to accomplish very little against even one Elite.

Basically, there wouldn't be battles at our scale so much as a series of pointless skirmishes that cost everyone (both sides.) morale and gains nothing. Best case scenario is we avoid direct confrontation and try to sabotage eachothers hunting operations... which again, stands a good chance of causing both groups to collapse.



Edit: ninja'd by QM.

It's really just a basic power projection analysis. We have a hard cap on how much force we can project based on our grief cube production/supplies- to that end, no one brings more force per cube than an Elite- who's strength is outright disproportional to the amount of cubes spent sustaining her.

This system is pretty feudal that way.

 

[inverted_helix]

Basically, there wouldn't be battles at our scale so much as a series of pointless skirmishes that cost everyone (both sides.) morale and gains nothing. Best case scenario is we avoid direct confrontation and try to sabotage eachothers hunting operations... which again, stands a good chance of causing both groups to collapse.

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Very insightful. You've hit one of the core friction points that prevents groups from getting to any substantial size. Your ability to defend is always going to be disproportional to attack, and harassing their hunting efforts is a viable option, both ways. Two groups attacking each other unless the groups are massive or one has a huge force disparity results in major damage to both sides.

Pyrrhic victory where both sides are destroyed is very possible.

It's really just a basic power projection analysis. We have a hard cap on how much force we can project based on our grief cube production- to that end, no one brings more force per cube than an Elite- who's strength is outright disproportional to the amount of cubes spent sustaining her.

This system is pretty feudal that way.

Click to shrink...

That's intentional.

It's soooo nice when people see the goals behind the systems I carefully put together.

 

[notgreat]

We're growing incredibly slowly because pack hunting is just too demanding on our population base (once you add in all our support/trainers). Switching to solo hunting is imperative if we want to start expanding quickly. As soon as we do that we switch from having ~3 people free to having ~8 people free.

By the way, we can remove the pack hunting training person and still be at 0% injury chance as long as we harvest 31 or less cubes this month.

I'd also like to mention that right now Mami has a 0% chance of injury doing solo hunting, though sending her out for diplomacy is probably better. (Speaking of which, we may get extra % to diplomacy to area 6 since one of the people there died according to OOC GM info)


In terms of group combat, how you'd have to do it would be the turn before spend a ton of people building up a grief cube reserve (preferably with rotating tactics) followed by the turn after sending almost everyone to attack and just take a net loss in cubes for that turn. Attacking a group is actually a lot better in terms of ratios than attacking a small number of opponents, since the defender's advantage becomes tiny once you get above 10 or so combatants per side. Then it becomes mostly just who has the most dice. In very large scale combat an elite really is worth just 3 veterans, but in small scale combat it disproportionately favors elites.

Actually, @inverted_helix do our opponents deal with the same combat rules we do? If so then it's literally impossible for us to be attacked by a lone opponent. Is this intentional?

edit: Rough guide: if we attack with 10 elites(60d20), the enemy needs a bit over 35 veterans to fight it off (70d20) on average.

 

[cyberswordsmen]

Bah when you break it down in math like that it makes me really wish I'd used a more painful formula. It's stepped though.

The original formula was going to be based off 1/3rd saved per step rather than 1/2. I thought that would be too difficult to explain though to be honest.

Also I dare you to set it real high so the long tail just randomly wipes you out

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So the equation is actually deathrate=.5^(cubes)

So
1:.5
2:.25
3:.125
4:.0625
5:.03125
6:.015625
7:.0078125

Considering raising it from 5 to 6 only increases the survival rate by 1.5%, and the death rate then is only 1.6%, I would suggest that we don't bother with more than 5. Grief spirals are rare enough that statistically we probably won't encounter girls that needs more than 5 more than a couple of times. It is less a active threat to survival and more a minor danger like hunting grief seeds.

 

[inverted_helix]

In terms of group combat, how you'd have to do it would be the turn before spend a ton of people building up a grief cube reserve (preferably with rotating tactics) followed by the turn after sending almost everyone to attack and just take a net loss in cubes for that turn.

Click to shrink...

This is intended behavior.

Attacking a group is actually a lot better in terms of ratios than attacking a small number of opponents, since the defender's advantage becomes tiny once you get above 10 or so combatants per side.

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This isn't really. Hmm I might have to tweak it a little bit to make defender's advantage more pronounced. I want defender's advantage to be quite significant at all levels of forces because in this style of urban combat defenders are a lot stronger than attackers.

Actually, @inverted_helix do our opponents deal with the same combat rules we do? If so then it's literally impossible for us to be attacked by a lone opponent. Is this intentional?

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For the most part, basically it autoresolves as a loss in that scenario (attacking alone is suicidal against a group). Though there are some alternative rules available for specific cases. Though the most notable one is that this is the rules for just directly attacking them. A lone opponent can still decide to instead sabotage your hunting, and do a hell of a lot of damage that way.

So the equation is actually deathrate=.5^(cubes)

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No he had it right with .5/cubes. It's significantly more spendy than your chart there.
1:.5
2:.25
4:.125
8:.0625
16:.03125
32:.015625
64:.0078125

It's still much nicer than my original chart, but that chart I felt would be too annoying to explain.

Spoiler: The Horror

1/3rd of casualties eliminated per power of 2 grief cubes:
1: .6667
2: .4444
4: .2963
8: .1975
16: .1317
32: .0878
64: .0585

So you can see with that system even driving it down below 20% would cost 8 grief cubes, as opposed to 4 putting it at 12.5%

 

[Asael]

Very insightful. You've hit one of the core friction points that prevents groups from getting to any substantial size. Your ability to defend is always going to be disproportional to attack, and harassing their hunting efforts is a viable option, both ways. Two groups attacking each other unless the groups are massive or one has a huge force disparity results in major damage to both sides.

Pyrrhic victory where both sides are destroyed is very possible.

That's intentional.

It's soooo nice when people see the goals behind the systems I carefully put together.

Click to shrink...

Could we do research in identifying the XP tier of girls during scouting mission? I suspect we'd need sense types to do it.

We're growing incredibly slowly because pack hunting is just too demanding on our population base (once you add in all our support/trainers). Switching to solo hunting is imperative if we want to start expanding quickly. As soon as we do that we switch from having ~3 people free to having ~8 people free.

By the way, we can remove the pack hunting training person and still be at 0% injury chance as long as we harvest 31 or less cubes this month.

I'd also like to mention that right now Mami has a 0% chance of injury doing solo hunting, though sending her out for diplomacy is probably better. (Speaking of which, we may get extra % to diplomacy to area 6 since one of the people there died according to OOC GM info)


In terms of group combat, how you'd have to do it would be the turn before spend a ton of people building up a grief cube reserve (preferably with rotating tactics) followed by the turn after sending almost everyone to attack and just take a net loss in cubes for that turn. Attacking a group is actually a lot better in terms of ratios than attacking a small number of opponents, since the defender's advantage becomes tiny once you get above 10 or so combatants per side. Then it becomes mostly just who has the most dice. In very large scale combat an elite really is worth just 3 veterans, but in small scale combat it disproportionately favors elites.

Actually, @inverted_helix do our opponents deal with the same combat rules we do? If so then it's literally impossible for us to be attacked by a lone opponent. Is this intentional?

Click to shrink...

I was actually thinking something similar.

I will admit to ballparking my estimate, however 8 isn't much better than 6- prolonged battles are something we cannot afford. if we saved up over a few turns and went all in, however, we could potentially land a crippling blow.

Of course, bad luck there could leave us broken and ripe for picking.

Peaceful expansion really is in our best interest for the time being.

 

[notgreat]

This isn't really. Hmm I might have to tweak it a little bit to make defender's advantage more pronounced. I want defender's advantage to be quite significant at all levels of forces because in this style of urban combat defenders are a lot stronger than attackers.

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Well, it's still noticeable at a medium scale, but it definitely goes down as you add more and more people.

15 vets vs 15 vets : 31-37|32
6% is still a noticeable difference. At 2 attackers you lose 50% of your power to defender's advantage, at 10 attackers you lose 10%. At 15 it's 6.66%.
There seems to be a pretty high chance of ties though. I suppose that makes sense since large battles often take time to complete.

And yeah, this system heavily rewards diplomacy. It makes our population naturally grow with our territory and uses a lot less people.

 

[inverted_helix]

There seems to be a pretty high chance of ties though. I suppose that makes sense since large battles often take time to complete.

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There being a large number of ties at a large number of units involved is pretty much okay with me, for exactly that reason. Large scale engagements aren't going to be resolved as quickly as small ones. With truly large numbers of units deployed you can soak up a lot of casualties without any decisive results.

Also I just added options to the last update. Didn't get as much discussion of things to do with research as I'd have liked though, so still pretty bland there.

Also did some research on how much a translator like Hainako could make.

Spoiler: Hilarious math

An internet translating service costs around 5 to 10 cents a word. Hainako has wish grade internal translation so she's essentially able to translate any language instantly. So she's limited by typing speed and reading speed. 30 words per minute is a low average rate of typing. 60 minutes to an hour:
0.05*30*60 = $90 an hour, up to $180 an hour at the higher end of the range which she could easily reach due to perfect quality. That would be 15k-30k a month with a normal 40 hour work week. That would basically render all of your mundane work force free to party or something. So obviously I cut that down to 2 cents a word actually going to her and everything else going to the company, and then halved her hours to account for a school girl.

Thus 3k a week. Which is probably still enough to permanently remove her from your hunting rotation.

I thought of Hainako getting a translating job immediately, but only added it once it was suggested. To a large degree there are a bunch of ideas I've had I hold back from putting as options because I'd prefer the players come up with them. I'm essentially running a hybrid between the CKII model where the GM provides all the options and players only get to select amongst them, and a more open ended empire quest where the players decide all the actions for themselves. It's a compromise between my last quest which I felt lost player interest due to lack of guidance from me, and the CKII model which I feel relied too heavily on my own lacking creativity.

Also have another couple things that I intend to throw at you in the next update. Have a couple I originally meant to throw in the last one but ended up pushing it out without them since I'd gone 3 days without an update due to writers block and didn't want to delay more.

 

[cyberswordsmen]

Since direct combat is so dangerous offensively I imagine the most effective form of warfare is resource denial.

Quick raids to destroy, or steal their grief cube supplies.

Firebomb their homes to make living more difficult.

Covertly hunting in their territory to raise danger levels of their demons.

Causing personal problems that distract from magical girl life. (setting truant officers on them.)

Attempting to destroy them indirectly by grief spirals or demon seed starvation would be the primary tactic for destroying a group.

 

[Asael]

Since direct combat is so dangerous offensively I imagine the most effective form of warfare is resource denial.

Quick raids to destroy, or steal their grief cube supplies.

Firebomb their homes to make living more difficult.

Covertly hunting in their territory to raise danger levels of their demons.

Causing personal problems that distract from magical girl life. (setting truant officers on them.)

Attempting to destroy them indirectly by grief spirals or demon seed starvation would be the primary tactic for destroying a group.

Click to shrink...

Pretty much- but it cuts both ways.

Ideally we'd have a significant war chest saved up before anything like this even began, since hunting would be unreliable while the conflict is underway, seeing as they will most likely try to return the favor.

Also, forcing rivals to grief spiral is a pretty scummy thing to do, and will probably negatively impact our own morale unless our girls are sufficiently motivated.

if we want efficiency, targeting enemy leadership and Elites could break them up a lot easier. Without Elites, their power projection takes a serious hit. Without leadership, their organization will be crippled, preventing an organized response, damaging moral, and possibly splintering the group.

of course, we'd have to take measures to prevent them from responding in kind.

Edit: difficult part is identifying prime targets.

 

[cyberswordsmen]

Ideally you would start out with a large well hidden and dispersed supply of grief seeds.

Lead with an alpha strike to do as much damage as possible to thier moral and grief cube supply.

Then alternate with social and mental attacks on elites and leaders to attempt a grief spiral and other attacks of opportunity with skirmishes done not with the intent of winning but of forcing them to use up more magic than they can afford to replenish with grief cubes.

If we enter a fight with 4 months worth of reserve and they lose their stored supply in the alpha strike leaving them to rely on what they can hunt during the conflict they will run out quickly. We wouldn't need to kill them, they would just run out of mp.

 

[notgreat]

Shouldn't upkeep be 3 greens since Sora got upgraded and we got a new green? I'm assuming that's the case. If not just swap the vet in upkeep with the green doing diplomacy.
I'm also assuming that we'll automatically get a small loan should we go slightly into the negatives.
I'm gonna try for dispersed hunting again. 7% expected casualty rate this time.

[X] Upkeep: 9.5 Veteran, 4 Green
-[X] Remove pack hunting training

[X] Dispersed Hunting: Magical Girl will individually hunt demons throughout your territory and gather the grief cubes for the central supply. This can be dangerous. 5.5 vets+Mami = 30.75 GCs average
Cost: Variable, specify number of Meguca dedicated; Reward: 2 grief cubes per Meguca assigned. 20% base casualty (significant injury or death) chance.

[X] Purchase Bicycles: While getting bicycles for everyone is quite expensive given you have so many people and so little income; it would make your girls somewhat more mobile. You could of course have them share bicycles as well, since it's likely that you won't need them all at the same time much. (x6, $900)
Cost: $150 per bicycle, specify amount (10+6/28); Reward: More mobility

[X] Internet translator job: Starting your own internet translation business for one translator, even one really really good one probably isn't worth the effort given how hard it would be to get enough work for her. Working through some business is a lot less profitable, but a also much simpler.
Cost: Hainako (1 veteran); Reward: $3,000 a month.

[X] Improve Housing: House: Instead of a dinky apartment you could pool your resources for a small house, giving everyone a bit more room. Will still be quite a few people per bedroom, but gives more of a feeling of home.
Cost: $10,000 and 3 Veteran Meguca; Reward House (for up to 25 Meguca extra capacity), ongoing cost 4000$ per month or you get kicked out. Payable at the beginning of the month.

[X] Expand territory 6, by diplomacy: If you can convince them to join your group you may be able to safely incorporate others' territories.
Cost: 2 Veterans; Reward: Meguca from territory recruited, new territory; Chance of Success: 30% (Mami bonus applicable)
-[X] Addon, Bribery: Giving the girls some money might help them realize just how good for them cooperation could be.
Cost: $150 per girl in the territory; Reward: +1d10% success chance
30+35(scout)+5.5($$$)=70.5

[X] Training/Research: Analyze distributed hunting as we do it. Try to find a way to reduce fatalities or otherwise improve hunting methods. Give them access to up to $2000 and 2 Grief Cubes: 2x Veterans, up to $2000/2 Grief Cubes

[X] Increased Stipend: Giving the girls more money will further improve their morale a little bit.
Cost: $100 per Meguca; Reward: Maintained Morale. Chance of success: 100%


I'm going a little low on grief cubes because that lowers demon strength further, and the death rate is still existent. Since I had 2 free veterans I decided to try doing a training/research action to reduce it further, and since we're doing a new thing I figure doing analysis on what's happening as we do it could prove useful.
Getting more bicycles since 9/10 are being used by dispatch or our couriers. This gives us one free bike for everyone doing a hunting action as well, with half a bike to spare.


edit: Swapped Mami into hunting action since she can't be injured from that and I wanted one more cube, and the area 6 diplomacy has a reasonably high % even without her.
edit2: fixed obvious error in grief cube count for training/research

 

[inverted_helix]

Shouldn't upkeep be 3 greens since Sora got upgraded and we got a new green? I'm assuming that's the case. If not just swap the vet in upkeep with the green doing diplomacy.

Click to shrink...

Well the beauty of your courier business is you can switch out Sora who is now a vet with your new green. Since you're running it you don't have to worry about trying to get a job again, you can just swap them as you like.

[X] Training/Research: Analyze distributed hunting as we do it. Try to find a way to reduce fatalities or otherwise improve hunting methods. Give them access to up to $2000 and 3 Grief Cubes: 2x Veterans, up to $2000/2 Grief Cubes

Click to shrink...

I don't quite understand what this action is trying to achieve. Could you explain a bit more please.

 

[Elder Haman]

Sigh... computer hiccuped and ate my 15 minute post... I'll come back to this later in the day.
Back after finishing work and a nap. Lots of discussion since.

Wow, sudden string of posts without me updating. I've been kind of embarrassingly writers blocked on the scene with the mundane girls (which is what's holding up the update).

This is still her wish. Though currently I'm thinking she pushed Mami away due to her implosion into selfishness after her father's suicide. Though some of these are good ideas. FixerUpper's Omake is pretty accurate to my line of thinking on Kyouko at the moment.

Mami is the only one that isn't included in your normal grief spiral rolls. Because she's basically thrown her entire life into SIMP, so there's not really any external events that effect her. She can only grief spiral if SIMP starts to go bad. She could die in combat, but it's pretty unlikely given how much of a combat bonus Elites have. I mean at your current demon strength she has no chance of even being injured. Also the odds of a veteran managing to beat out her combat dice enough to kill her is pretty much negligible. So you'd need for her to either end up in combat against multiple vets on her own, or roll poorly facing off against another elite for her to even have a chance of dying.

Anything else I'm missing? I've been considering breaking things up a little with advisers in each field as Haman suggested a few pages back but I'm not totally clear on how I'd make that work yet. Thinking Akeno running the courier business, though speed is not really the best reason to be in charge though it might make sense to a bunch of adolescent girls. Keiko taking charge of any research project. Kaoru (who admittedly hasn't shown up much in the fluff) being hunting lead. Considering giving you a project to promote Kaoru to Elite in that respect, mostly because her string of 90+ rolls when she was a green was quite hilarious and fitting to the idea that Elites are the ones that were strong to begin with. But I kind of want them to be harder to acquire than that.

Click to shrink...

A string of 90% rolls are not exactly easy to get... but I agree there should be more to finding/developing an Elite. Perhaps it merely marks Kaoru as having Elite potential, and there is still other things that need to happen to unlock that potential. In the extras (PPS Game) Mami had to go through something like that, as originally she was not very strong, and only had ribbons as a weapon. Then she watched a boy get eaten by a witch after she was unable to save him, which put her on her hero path where she put herself through extra training on how to use her magical powers.

As for the turn it worked out alright. We got money and can now buy a house. Demon strength is down, so I'm more open to Solo hunting... although there are still benefits to Pack Hunting in the reduction of deaths. I think I'd prefer to keep Pack Hunting as our standard, but be capable of switching to Solo Hunting if we ever need extra girls (like for a conflict - although I think everyone is getting way ahead of themselves in the planning for that.)

We need to get the house, expand into territory 6, and continue increasing our income. We should definitely pursue the translator option.

I also think we should continue to include Ayase. My hope is that eventually we can add her as an "Associate," a group that could continue to grow so that we can assign more mundane tasks to non-magical Associates. This is more a long term effort, but one that will bear significant fruit and potentially give us an edge over more exclusive groups.

Research should be done on magic interaction with mundanes. I'm sure Ayase would love to participate. Can we temporarily grant effective telepathy (similar to what Kuybey does), or even empower muscles to respond better? Only when touching? Or when within a certain distance?

Probably the most immediate thing would be to see if we can some how make Ayase able to scout new territories while still appearing as a non-contracted girl.

Another avenue of research would be interaction with technology. How about enchanting smart phones and computers?

We also need a refreshers course in General Combat, as our bonus is decaying.

We should also rebuild our grief cube supply this month, we probably want at least 30 in our stockpile, and expect roughly 30 grief cube cost (plus any research) so I suggest we aim for 32 to 34 grief cube harvest this turn.

Oh... options got posted while I was mourning my lost post, I'll have to go look at those...

 

[notgreat]

Well the beauty of your courier business is you can switch out Sora who is now a vet with your new green. Since you're running it you don't have to worry about trying to get a job again, you can just swap them as you like.

I don't quite understand what this action is trying to achieve. Could you explain a bit more please.

Click to shrink...

All right then, swapped it back.

It does a couple things.
1) Attempts to analyze issues with distributed hunting. It's something new and some girls might not be used to it. Just a little preemptive prevention in case problems appear
2) See if we can set up a system to help evac someone if they're injured. Not sure if we have teleporters or the like, but some sort of a system to help deal with anyone having issues. (edit: one possibility would be to modify the cellphones slightly so that they can immediately call in evac if they're in trouble and not need to go through a menu, or just some training on knowing when to run away and call for backup)
3) Basically just the evolution of the solo combat training option if the above don't pan out.