Meguca Micro Empire Quest (PMMM)

What should I do regarding a change in system?

  • Notgreat's proposed simplification of hunting, leave rest intact.

    Votes: 5 55.6%
  • Chapter system vastly simplifying everything.

    Votes: 4 44.4%

  • Total voters
    9
  • Poll closed .
One thing though: I don't see any mention of furthering Serena's group in Japanese and our group in English like in Kinematics' plan. Communication may be hindered.

While I agree that time should be spent on this eventually, I don't think some hurried lessons from 1/3 time in a month is going to make a big difference. Better to stay focused on the actual problem of Tokyo. I'm sure that training/practice will include figuring out how to communicate in combat situations.

Even so, The list of backlog actions interests me, though I'm leery of the Heaven's Chosen and Osaka Junta groups.

I'm leery of them as well. That's why I'd like to make contact with them so we have a better idea of what they are and what they are doing.

You know, you're right about that. I figure we'd be better off looking at the magic company first, maybe even explore the area around Tokyo, before sticking our faces into the Kyoto quagmire.

Huh? What exactly do you think I'm doing in Osaka/Kyoto? I'm Opening Relations with the big groups there. That's not "sticking our faces into [a] quagmire."

Because of the way this was described (an information tree), I've been assuming we'd be starting contact with the girls we already are in contact with, and get them to find/contact others, who in turn find/contact others that they know, and so on and so forth. Some of those further contactees will have phones, and we can add them to direct contact points, but we wouldn't be handing out phones to everyone.

I thought the original description was a bit over complicated and asking for too much. I simplified it to this:

Diplomacy: Building a Tokyo Network (6 vets, up to $9000): As we begin to clear Tokyo, contact the girls in the cleared areas, especially the clairvoyants, so the Tokyo girls can call in a Serene strike on any Class 3s that wander into the cleared territory. Money is available to purchase two month cell phones for girls who agree to help (should be enough to cover 100 girls who don't have their own cellphones), with priority given to clairvoyants. Give each girl contacted a copy of the Serene History booklet so they know who we are. Secondary goals include: keeping up positive contact between Tokyo girls and the Serene, and keeping Tokyo girls appraised of which areas are clear for solo hunting so they can build up grief cube stocks and begin to raise DS out of below negative-10 territory.

That's a lot simpler than trying to setup a complicated information tree and dispatch system.
 
OK, with the confirmation that the Tokyo Sensor Net is being handled on the phone, not actively wandering the city, and the general thread desire for this action, and the confirmation that we shouldn't be taking a morale hit on the hunting numbers as long as we do well in Tokyo, I'll go ahead and change my plan to use hunting plan 1a, and work on the TSN.

I still feel that Haman's approach of only starting the TSN once he can get into the backlog will make such an activity largely useless for us. There will be a penalty on even getting it running, and the time it takes to get running will likely leave it as having little to no effect on our actions for the month.
 
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OK, with the confirmation that the Tokyo Sensor Net is being handled on the phone, not actively wandering the city, and the general thread desire for this action, and the confirmation that we shouldn't be taking a morale hit on the hunting numbers as long as we do well in Tokyo, I'll go ahead and change my plan to use hunting plan 1a, and work on the TSN.

I still feel that Haman's approach of only starting the TSN once he can get into the backlog will make such an activity largely useless for him. There will be a penalty on even getting it running, and the time it takes to get running will likely leave it as having little to no effect on our actions for the month.

Uh... what?

I don't recall any such confirmation.

You said this:

More likely, it's five girls constantly tracking down leads across the city, and then handing the phone to Mami for a bit of talking (with my split of 0.5 Mami/5.5 vets).

And helix said this:

This is essentially how I see it.

That doesn't sound like something done on the phone, that sounds like a pack of five girls walking around Tokyo looking for magical girls, and then getting Mami on the phone to close the deal. I mean, how could it be done on the phone, not all the girls have phones, and we don't even know what the phone numbers are of those that do.

@inverted_helix Can you clarify, does this Tokyo Network require entering Tokyo, or is it being done only by phone?
 
Kinematics' Plan

Elder Haman's Plan

Here are the current plans.

The real difference in plans is that Kinematics is putting girls half time on Tokyo clean up, while I put them on Tokyo fulltime with a backlog of items that they will work on if they get released early.

Advantages of Kinematics plan is that it will have slightly better impact on morale. Also it allows him to commit to non Tokyo cleanup actions and be confident they will be done. This includes Tandem Casting research.

Advantages of the backlog plan is that it will give slightly better bonuses to combat. If we manage to kill the eyeball early we can release girls early and have them work on backlog items with their remaining time in the month. The disadvantage is that some of the backlog actions take place with a DC penalty depending on how late in the month we start it. For hunting this will mean slightly lower hunting efficiency.

Functionally, with the current order I give things, this means if we kill the eyeball in the last week of the month we don't get the backlog. If we kill it in the third week we get the picnic and most of the extra hunting. If we kill it halfway through the month we get the diplomacy in Tokyo, the picnic, and some hunting.

With other items listed just in case we get lucky and kill it in the first week. Still willing to change order/list based on people's preferences.

Also, since I have a contingency in the Tokyo plan to try and enlist any Tokyo girls that join us in fighting the demons we might get some extra meguca months to work on backlog items, but that's not likely to make much of a difference.

I feel the backlog method is worth it because of the bonus to combat. The greatest risk to morale is death, and a bonus to combat makes that risk smaller, so I think that even the expected value of morale is better off with the backlog approach.

@notgreat, @boonerunner, @racnor, @FixerUpper, @Godwinson, @Sereg, @Avalanche

I would note that I worry that there is a significant misunderstanding between helix and Kinematics over the Tokyo diplomacy action. Kinematics is assuming that helix approved it as a phone call only action, but I don't see that specified anywhere in the question that helix answered.

Perhaps I'm wrong, and helix was agreeing that it was a phone call only action, but I'd like that confirmed before we call the plans solidified.
 
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Slight correction to the above: I'm no longer overhunting the south territory. I'm using minimalist hunting in order to free up enough vets to do the Tokyo Sensor Net action without dropping other activities.

While Haman figures that the extra combat training will give us a boost to prevent deaths, I'm considering that morale also factors into combat, both in the intrinsic mechanics (from what I remember of the program that was written to handle inter-meguca combat), and potentially in the effective benefit of fighting in Serena's aura (ie: reduced chance of falling to the Stupid, less chance of psychologically detrimental effect buildup, etc).

Most likely, the two approaches will be nearly the same as far as risk of death. Since the morale approach provides benefits that last beyond the immediate combat action, I think it's a better approach to use.

Beyond that, as I noted earlier, I think that the Tokyo Sensor Net is a very bad fit for the backlog style of planning. I expect it to use up meguca hours without providing any real benefit if we don't start building it right from the start of the month.

As for the contingency of enlisting Tokyo girls during fights, I'm treating that as something to be dealt with per mini-turn action. So it's not that I'm not doing it, I'm just not adding it to the general monthly plan.


As for the potential misunderstanding on the TSN, just have to wait for helix to get back on that.

~

Also hoping that the beholder takes a bit to get to, because the planning for that will likely take days of arguing, and I'd like a good run of mini-turns before we have to take another break for that.
 
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As for the potential misunderstanding on the TSN, just have to wait for helix to get back on that.
That doesn't sound like something done on the phone, that sounds like a pack of five girls walking around Tokyo looking for magical girls, and then getting Mami on the phone to close the deal. I mean, how could it be done on the phone, not all the girls have phones, and we don't even know what the phone numbers are of those that do.
This was indeed what I meant.

Also hoping that the beholder takes a bit to get to, because the planning for that will likely take days of arguing, and I'd like a good run of mini-turns before we have to take another break for that.
Oh don't worry, mwahahaha.

I'm going to start writing up the first miniturn I guess, mostly based off Haman's more precisely defined plan since you were using it before anyways and fundamentally doesn't make too much of a difference. I hadn't been saying you couldn't batman plan, just that your return on investment was really low at that degree of detail.

After the first mini-turn or two I expect you're going to end up rewriting the next phases anyways. And probably screaming about the scenario being wrong/bad/unbalanced.
 
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This was indeed what I meant.
You're falling into bad habits of ambiguous answers. :p


OK, so, the TSN is not telephone-only, and will involve time actively spent in Tokyo by any team we arrange.

If we intend to do this, it will involve some risk, though the degree of risk is uncertain. Obviously most Tokyo natives survive month-to-month, and most deaths are probably from either trying to cross the outer border, or being in the center of the city. Further, being in contact with the Tokyo locals means we can have them direct ours to the next safe location as they travel around.

So it's possible, but it would be tricky. It's also something that will be more risky at the start of the month, before we've had any chance to thin out the demon population (much less deal with the beholder).

I'm uncertain on how I want to deal with this. Would anyone else like to weigh in?
 
While Haman figures that the extra combat training will give us a boost to prevent deaths, I'm considering that morale also factors into combat, both in the intrinsic mechanics (from what I remember of the program that was written to handle inter-meguca combat), and potentially in the effective benefit of fighting in Serena's aura (ie: reduced chance of falling to the Stupid, less chance of psychologically detrimental effect buildup, etc).

Most likely, the two approaches will be nearly the same as far as risk of death. Since the morale approach provides benefits that last beyond the immediate combat action, I think it's a better approach to use.

I think that perspective ignores that very clear fact that deaths will reduce morale far faster than anything else.

Both plans start at the same level of morale. As time goes on your plan has fewer negatives on morale due to combat fatigue, and so perhaps girls will continue as higher combat effective compared to my plan which has more combat fatigue. However that assumes an equal likelihood of deaths for each plan.

My plan obviously reduces the risk of death, because we get a direct bonus to combat. If that bonus prevents deaths, and/or allows us to go longer without a death, then my plan will probably have a significant morale advantage as well.

Beyond that, as I noted earlier, I think that the Tokyo Sensor Net is a very bad fit for the backlog style of planning. I expect it to use up meguca hours without providing any real benefit if we don't start building it right from the start of the month.

Again, I think it only works with a backlog style, because it is far too dangerous to do before we clear Tokyo. I also think you are overstating the penalty quite a bit.

Sure, the penalty means it won't be as effective as if we spent all month long on it, but it will surely be a lot more effective than doing nothing. There's nothing to say we can't continue the efforts next month as well.

You're falling into bad habits of ambiguous answers. :p

Your question was rather ambiguous. You didn't refer to phone calls at all when describing what the 5 vets would be doing.

I'm uncertain on how I want to deal with this. Would anyone else like to weigh in?

I think that the Tokyo diplomacy is only possible this month with a backlog, and not on half time. It's one of the intrinsic advantages of the backlog. On the other hand with half time you can ensure a full hunt and, then you can start the Tokyo diplomacy next month.

Truthfully, I don't really expect my plan will do the Tokyo Diplomacy, as I expect it will take more than two weeks to kill the eyeball. And if we don't kill it that early we won't have the meguca power to do it.

But I figure if we don't prepare for success we won't be able to fully exploit it if we do get a good roll. So cross your fingers.
 
Also, the complete lack of response to the tagging makes me sad.
Tagging?

Though the active discussion tag I think I first saw on Aranfan's quest, and when I added it to mine was on like 3, now it's on like 22 of quests, so that did catch on.


Ooooh, when you tagged all the usual voters and no one replied, duh, now I feel silly.
 
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All the @username stuff to get people's attention in their alerts menu.

I think that the Tokyo diplomacy is only possible this month with a backlog, and not on half time. It's one of the intrinsic advantages of the backlog. On the other hand with half time you can ensure a full hunt and, then you can start the Tokyo diplomacy next month.
Given the cackling laughter from the GM screen, I suspect similarly. It may be that we just don't worry about it this month, but we can use it next month if we get far enough that we need to clear out the "leftovers".

Giving it some consideration, as much as it would be 'nice' to get all those contacts going early, we could never really execute on the promise early in the month (before the beholder is killed), and if we start later in the month, we won't have enough contacts to make the system function anyway.

It's a bright shiny that is very tempting in a lot of ways, particularly as we were frustrated in trying to come up with some way to boost interaction with the locals, but probably isn't actually useful for us at this time.
 
Beyond that, as I noted earlier, I think that the Tokyo Sensor Net is a very bad fit for the backlog style of planning. I expect it to use up meguca hours without providing any real benefit if we don't start building it right from the start of the month.
Again, I think it only works with a backlog style, because it is far too dangerous to do before we clear Tokyo. I also think you are overstating the penalty quite a bit.
I think part of the problem is that we all have very different measures of "clearing Tokyo", as a reference to the minimum level of "clearing" necessary to move to half-time hunting and start working towards the TSN. In order from most aggressive to most conservative:
  • @Kinematics and @Aranfan refer to "clear" as "the soonest we can put Serene members into a section of the city and have a reasonable chance of them having a near-0% chance of death". Under this plan, we'd never really need to have a full-time hunt at all, because we should have enough power in our Stage 1 hunt to "clear" most of Kanagawa Prefecture of Class 3s in the first 2-3 days of combat, at which point we can start organizing clairvoyants in the "cleared" areas to help us hunt down the stragglers, increase general survivability and interconnectedness among the Tokyo natives, and raise our profile. If I'm seeing your plan right, your halftime plan calls on us to start up TSN recruiting at around the time we move our clairvoyant CC to Mt. Tanzawa because we've cleared out all the roving Class 3s within easy viewing distance of Mt. Hakone.
  • I think we need to be a little more conservative about "clearing" Tokyo, but maybe not quite as conservative as @Elder Haman. I don't think we really need to wait until the eyeball is dead to start TSN, but we do need a more solid foothold than just the bare minimum of Kanagawa. As such, I think we need to be in full combat mode until we've at least "cleared" up through Mt. Odake; at that point the Class 3s must necessarily have begun to shift their tactics in response to our pressure, and we'll need to ease off anyway to prevent them from becoming truly cornered. At that point, which probably will be around two weeks in, we can transition away from full time combat and work on the TSN, because a big worry by then will be individual teleporting Class 3s jumping over our defensive line into tentatively secure parts of the city, like Kanagawa Prefecture.
  • @Elder Haman is holding out for the eyeball to be completely dead before easing off of full combat mode. I can see where he's coming from, but if we wait that long I'm concerned that our lonely tandem clairvoyants will be stretched very thin trying to cover all of Tokyo, and thus will be hard pressed to deal with the mopping up actions that we'll need to take at the end. This will draw out the endgame for an additional month or two as we have to re-secure Tokyo, and we kind of don't have a lot of time to do that before other groups start to swoop in and start snapping up Tokyo districts, while we're stuck coordinating strike teams to finish the job we started.
Anyway, that's my thought process, and why I'm starting with the backlog plan for now, even if I plan on dropping back to a halftime hunt probably before @Elder Haman would normally be comfortable with it.
 
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Well I've been pondering how to write this mini-turn for a couple days. Problem being that it's very anticlimatic and unsatisfying. It goes well and bad.

But I can't seem to come up with reasonable way to make it more interesting without compromising other points.

Something interesting to note is the situation exists independently of your actions. The enemies were drawn up before your method for dealing with them, and there were a number of routes you could have taken for various degrees of success, some total, some not.

There's definite problem with your current method, but unexciting ones.

Going to post what I have anyways just to get things rolling again. I find that when I let myself get bogged down for very long there's too much motivation loss. Better to post something terrible and move past it than just keep staring at it endlessly for improvements that won't come.
 
Attack on Tokyo 1
Attack on Tokyo 1


The first few days of the operation to save Tokyo isn't quite falling into the paths you predicted, although not exactly badly either. You've had no casualties at any rate.

You marshalled your forces and set up bases as you planned outside Gotenba and on Mt. Hakone. You asked the forces Nagoya has dispatched to help you, which ended up being only 3 squads of elites and 4 squads of vets supporting them to array themselves in a rough arc along the western edge of Tokyo. While it was a bit less than Hino had hoped to free up for you, it was still probably a stronger combat force than your whole group discounting Serena.

It feels like all the crazed planning you've done has been basically rendered pointless though.

Serena has picked off one Class 3 in each of your Lure and your Mobile base configurations. Her group is even quite capable of handling them singly without much trouble. Her aura weakens them fairly substantially, from some observation you made on one of the tries. They aren't weakened to the level of normal demons, but still less dangerous than normal. That's the only good news though.

You've proved as incapable of hunting down the teleport capable demons as Nagoya did. When Serena tries to approach one they simply run away, and the times you've attacked other demons the teleporters arrived and left immediately. Serena's aura may weaken them, but they're still apparently more than capable of teleporting out of it.

Worse still you haven't had much an impact on actually making your target area safe despite killing a couple of the 5 Class 3s in your target area at the start of the month. As far as you can tell you took out the two that couldn't teleport but the rest have just been avoiding your strong groups and teleporting in when you move on. Serena can't cover the whole area so beyond forcing them to move around a bit, her efforts haven't accomplished much. She hasn't been dogpiled, but it's mostly been frustrating traveling after demons that just run away faster than she can chase.

There's some movement of girls trying to flee the area with the demon picket compromised, though only a couple have realized so quickly. A handful of girls have appeared to link up with your attack movements, but those still willing to fight at this point aren't the ones most interested in leaving Tokyo for one reason or another. Only a single girl so far has agreed to go join up with your group.



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So basically Serena's group against single Class 3s when she's transformed is nearly autowin. Which rendered most of your plans pretty irrelevant. And makes writing it rather too bland. The problem is you never found a method for preventing teleportation, and you already knew Class 3s aren't like video game mobs in that they'll flee when they're obviously outmatched.
 
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Grr. I'm literally just about to walk out the door, and get to see this go up. Well, I'll give it some thought, and be back later tonight. We always knew the teleporting demons were going to be a problem.
 
No casualties, so everything is going fine. We need to figure out how to deal with the teleporters.


Edit:
The first idea that comes to mind is a honeytrap.

We organize an attempted mass exodus from the city, either of real girls or faked from girls that are from our group, and then have Serena teleport in at Mami's signal and have our boosted girls blast them while the demons get their bearings. It would probably need to be having us signal the porters through Kyuubey while we are in combat so that the debuff and boosts and attacks will happen quickly enough that the demons can't port away.

Although from how the Meguca teleporters seem to rely on it to dodge, that might not really be viable.
 
It's not every day that the actual results are so far above the expectations that it ends up conditionally worse than expected. Serena is now the apex predator of Tokyo, and literally no demon is willing to hang around near her if they can help it. We might actually be forced to detransform her to get a teleporter to even fight her retinue.
 
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