Meguca Micro Empire Quest (PMMM)

[Elder Haman]

Nagoya I can understand, but why offer it to Kofu? That seems like a mistake to me.

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Well... I guess I can drop that. I just figure it's very unlikely we will get into conflict with Kofu. But that's fine, I can drop it from the Kofu deal.

EDIT: Mostly I was thinking it would be good to see if Kofu had any research they would trade with us.

 

[Aranfan]

Does that mean we'll have the manpower for the pet whisperer thing?

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@inverted_helix, to address @TheEyes concern, is our current meguca allotment for training enough to do the training we want to, or do we need more?

 

[Elder Haman]

Does that mean we'll have the manpower for the pet whisperer thing?

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No

 

[Elder Haman]

Oval/Over/Opal/Uber Protection...Nanoha style naming

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Correct

 

[Kinematics]

I'm mainly not wanting to put the tandem casting in the offer because I don't think we'd get a good deal out of it. However with Mami handling the discussions, that's probably not a valid worry. Perhaps it was a lingering worry over the GM giving us bogus offers in their first trade deal. (I really don't like to haggle, and really don't want to spend a couple days doing committee-level haggling in the thread.)

Given that they'll be aware of our work, just like we are of theirs, and that ultimately tandem casting is not very difficult to research, I'll agree that it's not unreasonable to put the tandem casting research on the trade table. However we should be open to a counteroffer of other research tech, as well as money.

Overall, I'm probably largely in alignment with Haman on the minutiae of the Nagoya trade, now. I'd prefer a better handling of the overall tone, but I'm not sure to what degree that would matter, given the type of game we're playing. What side of the dividing line between board game and social fu is this going to be?

 

[inverted_helix]

I'm mainly not wanting to put the tandem casting in the offer because I don't think we'd get a good deal out of it. However with Mami handling the discussions, that's probably not a valid worry. Perhaps it was a lingering worry over the GM giving us bogus offers in their first trade deal. (I really don't like to haggle, and really don't want to spend a couple days doing committee-level haggling in the thread.)

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Only the bit about what they give recruits was bogus, and should have been obviously so because if they give it to every recruit that means there's dozens or hundreds of copies floating around. The soul gem information would actually have been very interesting. It would have answered early that they do have a bunch of girls in gem comas, but that wasn't all it would have told you. It wasn't quite what people were speculating.

I'm continually surprised about how much minutiae this thread draws out of people. I really feel like I've hit on just a few people that really enjoy incredible attention to detail. Certainly I'd accept far less detailed plans.

I mean sure I've burned you guys a couple times on details. But most quests the players are like "we rolled bad, let's move on", you guys are instead like "We're going to be Batman from now on and never allow any possibility to slip under the radar."

@inverted_helix, to address @TheEyes concern, is our current meguca allotment for training enough to do the training we want to, or do we need more?

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It's a reasonable amount of time training, I mean in a perfect world you'd spend a whole lot more training, but you're not in a perfect world.

 

[Aranfan]

@TheEyes

GM has said our current amount of megucapower on training is fine.

 

[Kinematics]

On the akiya house, I'd just ask one question of Mami, IC: Would you be embarrassed to ask someone to live in this house (accounting for refurbishment) compared to the houses you're renting for the rest of the girls? Completely aside from the issue of its special needs (1 km distance).

Supposedly this is one of the better akiya options, but I'm still not sure how that rates.

Likewise, would the renovation of one of the village houses be something she'd be happy with? Again, I have an image of what it could be, but we also know that the village is a bit of a wreck right now.

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We do know that ultimately, we are likely to want to use the abandoned village (or at least, everyone has been so inclined in our long-term planning). At $50k per renovation per house, I expect the results to be solid, if rustic. However we also know that we cannot complete that renovation this month. And $50k is quite a squeeze, financially.

On the other hand, I know we can afford $30k for the akiya even without the research trade, so adding in a decent payout for the research, $50k for the village is entirely tenable. It just requires that campout period for Serena's group. Or an extra $10k to host them at the getaway while the village is being worked on.

$60k is 6 months' worth of time in the getaway. We aren't going to be making any significant headway on new money for at least 4 months. And if we ever plan on moving her out of the getaway, the sooner that happens the better. We are not going to be continuing the expansion of the village until after the church is purchased, which means we're probably looking at 9 months as an absolute minimum before we could progress on that, which is about two entire house renovations on rent money that's gone.

I guess basically my choice would be an evaluation of the following questions:

Would it be practical to eventually fix up the village to the standard of say a tourist hot springs village (even if we had to magically make the hot springs ourselves)? And does the renovation of each house match that quality, to be a nice place to live?

Can we convince Serena well enough of these future long-term plans as something to look forward to, over the short-term costs that would prevent us from affording that?

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If the above answers lean positively towards the village, I'd want to go for:

This month Serena stays in the getaway ($10k) while the village is acquired, and a house renovated ($50k). Next month she moves to the village. (Probably will want to assign meguca for clean-up work on the village as an intermediary action until we are back to expanding on it.)

If the answers lean negatively against the village, and if the akiya is not an embarrassment, then we can move directly to that.

If both of the above fail, simply use the getaway as a long-term location.

 

[Elder Haman]

Overall, I'm probably largely in alignment with Haman on the minutiae of the Nagoya trade, now. I'd prefer a better handling of the overall tone, but I'm not sure to what degree that would matter, given the type of game we're playing. What side of the dividing line between board game and social fu is this going to be?

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Yeah... I sort of decided to just list what we want and what we are offering, and let Mami handle the in character tone.

On the akiya house, I'd just ask one question of Mami, IC: Would you be embarrassed to ask someone to live in this house (accounting for refurbishment) compared to the houses you're renting for the rest of the girls? Completely aside from the issue of its special needs (1 km distance).

Supposedly this is one of the better akiya options, but I'm still not sure how that rates.

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I actually asked helix about this, and for the village too. As I recall, the answer I got was something along the line of:

Akiya House (after renovation): Roughly equivalent to our houses in Mitakihara (with the obvious difference of being in the middle of nowhere).

Village after rebuilding one house: Smaller, (3 bedrooms, 2 baths), but roughly same quality as the houses in Mitakihara. Except in the middle of nowhere and with a ruined village (probably filled with trash) sitting next door.

@inverted_helix Is that an accurate assessment?

We do know that ultimately, we are likely to want to use the abandoned village (or at least, everyone has been so inclined in our long-term planning). At $50k per renovation per house, I expect the results to be solid, if rustic. However we also know that we cannot complete that renovation this month. And $50k is quite a squeeze, financially.

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Actually... I've shifted towards the Getaway as our long term solution. The Akiya house allows us to avoid getting over committed on cash flow, and even saves a little money if we are in it for 4 months. As soon as we get $10,000 cash flow (or even close) we can switch to the Getaway house, which means we ought to only be in the Akiya house 4 months or so.

I don't think we can switch long term to the Village in time if we get the Akiya house. Nor do I think it very attractive in the long run as a location for Serena.

Would it be practical to eventually fix up the village to the standard of say a tourist hot springs village (even if we had to magically make the hot springs ourselves)? And does the renovation of each house match that quality, to be a nice place to live?

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That does not seem practical to me if Serena & Co. are the only ones using it.

It would mean enormous expense for limited use. Better off with just renting the Getaway house. I mean, assuming we build a house for each girls, and demolish every other house, we're probably looking at $300,000 minimum. And that would cover over 2.5 years of renting the Getaway house.

 

[Elder Haman]

... I'm starting to think again that the Getaway house is the better choice to begin with.

Especially if we make contact with Sendai and Osaka... we can probably trade them cubes, even if Nagoya is no longer buying.

 

[TheEyes]

Other considerations: How much would it cost to renovate a house to the standards of the Getaway? $150,000? $200,000? How long until we're paying more money than the house is worth? How long until that super expensive rental rots from the inside, as all Japanese houses do, and we need to move out anyway? How many 8-cube spirals are going to be living with Serena by then, and will need houses that we can't afford because we've been spending $120,000 a year renting an overpriced corporate retreat?

A super expensive rental is never a long term solution; the only question is how long until you are throwing good money after bad.

 

[Kinematics]

I actually asked helix about this, and for the village too. As I recall, the answer I got was something along the line of:

Akiya House (after renovation): Roughly equivalent to our houses in Mitakihara (with the obvious difference of being in the middle of nowhere).

Village after rebuilding one house: Smaller, (3 bedrooms, 2 baths), but roughly same quality as the houses in Mitakihara. Except in the middle of nowhere and with a ruined village (probably filled with trash) sitting next door.

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All right. Will accept that, and take it off my worry list.

Actually... I've shifted towards the Getaway as our long term solution. The Akiya house allows us to avoid getting over committed on cash flow, and even saves a little money if we are in it for 4 months. As soon as we get $10,000 cash flow (or even close) we can switch to the Getaway house, which means we ought to only be in the Akiya house 4 months or so.

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Agreed. Ultimately, the akiya is a short-term, not a long-term, solution.

That does not seem practical to me if Serena & Co. are the only ones using it.

It would mean enormous expense for limited use. Better off with just renting the Getaway house. I mean, assuming we build a house for each girls, and demolish every other house, we're probably looking at $300,000 minimum. And that would cover over 2.5 years of renting the Getaway house.

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This was largely the musings of a very long-term plan. The village with only a single house repaired is just a place to put Serena. A fully repaired village, however, is an asset, that can be used to recover the money invested in it. Build something like a little hot springs resort, maybe only open a few months per year or whatever, and if we can get the research done to negate (or at least severely dampen) the effect of Serena's aura on an area, then we have something that both makes us money, and can give Serena a bit more normal interaction.


Even before that, we can invest meguca hours in cleaning up the village so that it's no longer a wreck, even if we can't fully repair the houses. Would also be an excuse to let loose with Fun With Magic in a safe manner.

Ugh. Hate this choice. Everything has a downside: money, contact risks, or investment effort.

Ok, you know what? Plan:

1) Get the getaway for the time being.
2) Get the deed to the village. Do not begin renovations yet; just pay the taxes.
3) Once we're done clearing Tokyo and have meguca free, begin cleanup work (meguca hours) on weekends. Make the village merely "abandoned", not "a wreck".
4) Once funding is clear, begin renovations.

Basically, 5 months of time in the getaway is 1 house renovation. There's lots of houses to renovate, so just treat it as paying forward for one more house.

 

[Kinematics]

Alt: If we can assume that we can acquire the village at any time in the future, I'll leave it off the immediate acquisition list, but still have the above plan in mind.

@inverted_helix?

 

[Kinematics]

Completely stripped down the Nagoya negotiations text. Leaving the presentation details to Mami.

Negotiations - Nagoya (1 Mami): Present our concerns over the current situation, and discuss our plans for Tokyo with Nagoya. Try to leverage our commitment to this endeavor to get some good deals. See what they counteroffer in terms of research, as well as cash.
— Research available: Duration, Tandem Casting
— Cubes offered: 30
— Social: Mami should acknowledge Nagoya's strengths, and how we need their assistance, but not give the impression that we're mere supplicants, and have substantial strengths of our own to bring to bear in dealing with this.

Am leaving out Haman's info requests, as that's a tactical consideration that we can request out-of-band in prep for the next turn. The above includes discussing our plans for Tokyo, so I'll assume we'll reach a reasonable degree of depth without needing to go into specific tactics, until we're ready to move in.

 

[Kinematics]

Changed training teams to this:

- Coordinating as teams:
-- Heavy, concentrated bunker defense teams
-- Light, mobile assault teams

Should just be training the concept, and shouldn't need to rely on an exact number of girls for this or that team layout.

 

[Elder Haman]

How long until that super expensive rental rots from the inside, as all Japanese houses do, and we need to move out anyway?

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30+ years at least, if it has typical family Japanese quality.

200 years or more if it's a "big fancy house" that is either handed down throughout the generations, or is a business quality rental.

Also, if the Japanese houses do rot quickly, then that is actually a significant argument to rent and not buy.

How many 8-cube spirals are going to be living with Serena by then, and will need houses that we can't afford because we've been spending $120,000 a year renting an overpriced corporate retreat?

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Well... considering we have only had one 8 grief seed spiral in three years, considering that there are enormous research development actions we need to take to get grief spiraling girls to be affected, and considering that the Getaway house is for corporate retreats, and thus should easily handle 20+ people, and maybe even more, I doubt this will be a problem for quite awhile. And we will have plenty of time to recognize and move resources around to deal with it if we do develop more of a need.

You are imagining a problem that is not going to be an issue for years at best.

A super expensive rental is never a long term solution; the only question is how long until you are throwing good money after bad.

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This is not true, there are plenty of reasons to consider a rental as a long term solution, that's why people do it.

Now I suspect that in a few years we might want to choose a different solution, but right now the Getaway is actually very attractive. It lacks the problems of the village and the Akiya, and since we are limited more by cash on hand than future cash flow it makes sense to choose the choice that maximizes cash on hand.

Alt: If we can assume that we can acquire the village at any time in the future, I'll leave it off the immediate acquisition list, but still have the above plan in mind.

@inverted_helix?

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I think we can assume this. Not like there is a shortage of abandoned villages, or a a big demand going around snapping them up.

Am leaving out Haman's info requests, as that's a tactical consideration that we can request out-of-band in prep for the next turn. The above includes discussing our plans for Tokyo, so I'll assume we'll reach a reasonable degree of depth without needing to go into specific tactics, until we're ready to move in.

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I don't think that we can count on getting them suddenly at our request. Especially the information on the Elites in Tokyo. Also, I think we ought to clearly discuss the concern about fleeing class 3 demons and protection for Kofu.

 

[Kinematics]

Differences to resolve:

Haman wants to poke the beholder; I don't.

Haman is still putting a lot of tactical bits in his talks with the Tokyo elites, when those are not necessarily valid.

Haman is negotiating a trade deal at the same time as the Safe Passage agreement negotiation with 15/16, using the same 2 vets as would be needed for the Safe Passage alone.

Haman is working on a trade deal with Kofu, while I'm only providing information to them.

I greatly simplified the action to negotiate with Nagoya. Actual underlying details remain mostly the same, except Haman is also asking for Tokyo dossiers, which will almost certainly cost extra.

Haman is opening relations with all other organizations we've gotten contact info on, using 1 vet. I'm using 0.5 vets on each of Sendai and Niigata, for a less rushed contact with the two important groups I feel we need to make contact with.

I purchase a ton of neon-colored rubber balls for the ball trick scanning for the beholder.

I am settling on the getaway for Serena, but with the intent of aiming for the village plan outlined above. Haman is currently back on the akiya house, but his comment in a post above implies he might go back to the getaway yet again.

I'm trading 30 cubes, while Haman is trading 22.

Haman asks for more specific info from Kyuubey, while I'm just keeping the request simple, to let the GM fill out the details. Also, I'm not completely assuming that the beholder is the class 4, since that's technically just an assumption we've been making up until now.

I have 1 vet unassigned, that we can apply to any leftover action we really want to take. This could be assigned to trade with Kofu, more opening relations actions, or anything else anyone thinks we might be forgetting. It's the last, "What's actually important to work on?" vet.

I don't think that we can count on getting them suddenly at our request. Especially the information on the Elites in Tokyo. Also, I think we ought to clearly discuss the concern about fleeing class 3 demons and protection for Kofu.

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I see it mainly as a way to ease up on the pressure on the GM for the update itself, and allow him/us to deal with the minutiae on an as-needed basis. It's not that we're not talking about it at all (it's fully implied in what Mami will need to talk with them about), it's that we don't need to cram every last detail into the update itself, when the updates are already getting quite long and troublesome for the GM.

 

[Aranfan]

I have 1 vet unassigned, that we can apply to any leftover action we really want to take

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Is pet whisperer, in your opinion, a worthwhile use of the bit of manpower?

 

[Kinematics]

Is pet whisperer, in your opinion, a worthwhile use of the bit of manpower?

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The main problem I see with it is that it's a job assignment, which means it sort of locks in 1 vet next turn, when we really need to be able to pull as many vets as possible for the Tokyo operations. While it's new enough that it wouldn't be that big a deal if we dropped it for a month, the implication that this pet whisperer isn't that reliable (here a month, gone a month, then back again, etc) would also harm the value of the project.

On the other hand, I don't see a whole lot left that we truly need to do this month. There is absolutely no rush for contact with the various Osaka groups. We don't have much we could actually trade with Kofu, and at their size, they likely don't have a whole lot of money to spend, either. And I can't think of any particularly useful extra actions we could take right now that would matter too much for next month's Tokyo work.

I'm somewhat inclined to put the gossipmonger back, because I think that's useful for keeping positive relations going with all of our neighbors, and it's a little hard to pick back up again after dropping it for a month (in terms of relations, not mechanics). That would use 0.5 vets.

Do you think the preliminary work on the pet whisperer could be started at 0.5 vets? What would your schedule on it be?

 

[landcollector]

Haman wants to poke the beholder; I don't.

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The Beholder represents a rather deadly threat should it crash one of our hunts. I can see where Haman is coming from in wanting to try dealing with it as quickly as possible.

 

[Aranfan]

The main problem I see with it is that it's a job assignment, which means it sort of locks in 1 vet next turn, when we really need to be able to pull as many vets as possible for the Tokyo operations.

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It was TheEyes who came up with the action, and he priced it at 1 Nagisa Month and 1000 dollars to get the certifications to be an "animal behavioral consultant". We wouldn't actually have to have her go into business right away tho', it would just be prep work.


@TheEyes
@inverted_helix

Would .5 nagisa months be viable for this action?

 

[Kinematics]

The Beholder represents a rather deadly threat should it crash one of our hunts. I can see where Haman is coming from in wanting to try dealing with it as quickly as possible.

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"Dealing with it as quickly as possible" is an entirely separate issue from what I'm talking about. You seem to be referencing how we approach it in the turn 33 expedition to Tokyo. I'm referring to how we deal with it during Taya's scouting in turn 32.

 

[Kinematics]

It was TheEyes who came up with the action, and he priced it at 1 Nagisa Month and 1000 dollars to get the certifications to be an "animal behavioral consultant". We wouldn't actually have to have her go into business right away tho', it would just be prep work.


@TheEyes
@inverted_helix

Would .5 nagisa months be viable for this action?

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Ah, I thought there was a month prep work before the actual certification happened, doing minor demonstrations and generally getting people to be willing to vouch for her.

 

[landcollector]

"Dealing with it as quickly as possible" is an entirely separate issue from what I'm talking about. You seem to be referencing how we approach it in the turn 33 expedition to Tokyo. I'm referring to how we deal with it during Taya's scouting in turn 32.

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Ah, my mistake then.

 

[TheEyes]

It was TheEyes who came up with the action, and he priced it at 1 Nagisa Month and 1000 dollars to get the certifications to be an "animal behavioral consultant". We wouldn't actually have to have her go into business right away tho', it would just be prep work.


@TheEyes
@inverted_helix

Would .5 nagisa months be viable for this action?

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Hmm. Actually it might be a good idea if she doesn't try to earn money the same month as she takes the class and gets the certification. From what I can tell, when trying to get work as a pet trainer, the cert is mostly a prerequisite; the real determiner of how people value your skills is if you have hours of experience actually handling animals. So this month she'd take 0.5 months and take a $1,000 class, then volunteer at a shelter or something for another half or whole month, then put out a shingle on the third month. Up until she actually starts advertising for the business, the time can be split up with no loss.

Sound okay @inverted_helix?