Find a co-QM to handle the creativity loads. Not every quest is run by one person. In fact, some of the most successful ones I've seen are collaborations. This would lead to somebody else handling the diplomacy stuff if you feel particularly alienated by it in addition to having somebody to help figure out plot threads. That said, some people are reluctant to share the quest they made, and that usually is an indicator of personality clashes waiting to happen -- and if anything kills a quest, those do.
Re-boot, try again. One thing you've touched on is an issue with growing pains with the very mechanics. That said, it can be daunting to implement an overhaul mid-stream. So, you could make a threadmark here with a link to a new thread, and start over from the beginning there with some bugfixes implemented. Has the problem of burning the world to the ground, but there's something to be said for recapturing the old magic. Can alienate players who don't care to see all their effort reset.
Quest adoption. For when you just don't think you can do it anymore. Sometimes, you're just tired. Now, this one can be hard since not everybody is okay with handing the quest over to somebody else, but there have been some great success stories where a motivated member of the fanbase steps forward to take the reigns when the QM runs out of steam. This one is basically throwing the dice on a new QM, but nobody can say you didn't do something to keep it alive.
Honestly if anyone was interested, I'd gladly turn it over. But finding someone willing to adopt a quest is hard. It's not like people generally just offer. The only one I know where that happened was Shepard quest, and that has a massive following. Even then it got juggled between like 3 different adopters.
Brute-force it. You have issues with how it's going; you're the omnipotent god of this particular universe. Make the issues not exist anymore. Just re-tool the quest to focus on the things that are fun for you. The possible problems here are obvious; the players are here for the quest as-is, after all.
The only thoughts I've had on continuing that are remotely feasible are based on this.
Honestly I've looked through a fair number of empire quests for ideas, though they seem much less common today than they were two years ago in this quest's heyday. The closest to what I had going is Splintered Circle and quite frankly that's mostly the same system just with a far more impressive QM and a larger following.
Heh I doubt I'll write anything else, though I occasionally try nothing ever manages to get even a reasonable first couple chapters plotted, the only idea I have that's even fleshed out enough to launch as a quest is a lost in space sort of thing. And I doubt I'd do that one just for fear of failure.
Now odds are with something like a 1,000 Meguca we'd have way too many girls. Even with clans of say 20 girls we'd still be looking at fifty clans to assign actions. Fortunately I have an answer to this; continual actions.
It's quite safe to assume that we aren't going to randomly close down a restaurant or stop making deliveries in an area so any clan assigned to such an action is going to keep doing it until something significant happens. If we say one clan per restaurant and for couriers one per 200km^2 (10km^2 per girl at 20 per clan) that comes to something like 27 clans right there. I don't remember the exact numbers for farming but I imagine we could lock down a significant number there as well.
I'm actually pondering this and it would maybe work, though I need to do some really ridiculous math to try to figure things out.
I need to dig down into the calculations for farming and figure out what units vs returns, then figure out the way I'd disperse things. Right now for instance if I divided you up into 8 clans I'd probably do something like: 3 hunting/farming based groups, 1-2 income based, and 3-4 flexible. Just eyeballing things based off current units spent in those actions + upkeep.
Trying to figure out best simplification of hunting into something reasonable. Currently thinking something along the lines of a hunting group per 45 territory to be farmed. 1.15x GCU per territory unit on the sustained in a vacuum (no interference). This is close to the previous levels, it is actually a tad below the absurd optimization levels, but not as much as it looks because it includes not just the time included in the original hunting allocations but also much of the support allocation time as well.
Income is annoying since with 21 directly assigned to it long term, it's a bit above a 20 person unit, but not really at a point where 2 would fit well either. Could just call it 1 and accept some slight discrepancies in size.
That would give an action slot system in effect where you'd have something along the lines of:
Or perhaps more similar to the present just
3 hunting squad +50% max territory hunted (30*1.5 territory per squad)
1 business squad +Steady Income
4 squads for allocation, and then limit things to half squad instead of half meguca.
I'd essentially abstract away the green/veteran divide, and much of the wish magic. You can just assume that each squad has a reasonable mix of necessary wish magic. I'd probably allow each squad to accumulate bonuses as well. So essentially I'd be trading individual girls for 20 girl squads and have the same amount of tracking on each squad I once did on each girl. Hunting squads could accumulate bonuses to hunting while other units would have a malus at hunting, and you could specialize skills in this fashion.
Now admittedly that sets me up for the same problem down the road as number of squads builds up. However I was fully capable of juggling 50 girls tracked individually (just not 150) so I could easily be kicking the problem another 30 turns down the road, which would be fine. At that point I could repeat the same thing and switch you from squads to battalions. (Technically 20 people would be a platoon, but I always think of sentai squads and it sounds less military than platoon therefore it is squad. Though there could be a better name but clan really just sounds weird to me in this use.)
Might also pull your elites all into one squad with a significant bonus for use as the basis for a combat squad. Though the alternative of having them as just the leaders within squads is also an option to consider.
A squad is not elite because it has elite girls on it, it also needs to make sure the girls can work together. In that case you can create normal squads and promote them to elites, and give them a +n bonus.
A problem I see is that as readership we are invested in some girls with special wish magic. The easiest solution would be to ignore them and to create a way to level them up (omakes), so that only really special girls give a bonus.
About the too many girls. Well, that does not need to be your problem. Create a penalty for "bored" girls/squads and see people squirm.
About the math. Going over the math could be time consuming and given the inherent glitchiness of quest mechanics it could just propagate mistakes. I'm going to suggest you do a Fermi approximation and make your life easier.
Hm. I have some ideas here. I'll finish up this post and then spend some time playing with numbers.
Income is annoying since with 21 directly assigned to it long term, it's a bit above a 20 person unit, but not really at a point where 2 would fit well either. Could just call it 1 and accept some slight discrepancies in size.
While we'd probably need to track it on the front page I don't see why different clans can't be different sizes. It would actually feel kinda natural to have clans grow until they reach a certain size at which point a group breaks off to form a new clan. Given that our two housing options (apartments and houses) can hold up to 25 girls I'd put that as the absolute upper limit on clan size. Would probably a good idea to have a minimum size as well for both logistical reasons and in game reasons.
Besides variable clan size is kinda necessary unless we start recruiting girls in 20 girl globs.
and then limit things to half squad instead of half meguca.
Hm. Taking into account half-squad units I'd place 25 as the maximum (clans probably wouldn't work well if they live in different buildings), 20 as the standard (things start getting a bit cramped and heated over this), and 10 as the minimum (this would basically be equivalent to a half-squad).
I'd essentially abstract away the green/veteran divide, and much of the wish magic. You can just assume that each squad has a reasonable mix of necessary wish magic. I'd probably allow each squad to accumulate bonuses as well. So essentially I'd be trading individual girls for 20 girl squads and have the same amount of tracking on each squad I once did on each girl. Hunting squads could accumulate bonuses to hunting while other units would have a malus at hunting, and you could specialize skills in this fashion.
Definitely liking this idea. It makes sense for a squad that does "X task" a lot to get progressively more skilled at "X task". Plus from a gameplay perspective such a system encourages pigeonholing squads rather then shifting them around constantly. That will help limit the amount of choices/decisions that need to be made each turn since we'd generally assign squads to keep doing the same things over and over again.
That said I'm not sure a malus is a good idea. People generally don't like them and may react poorly. The trick is to do what WoW did and just put a positive spin on it. There is no need to have a malus on normal teams hunting; just provide experienced hunters a bonus and people will, where ever possible, keep those experienced teams at it.
Now admittedly that sets me up for the same problem down the road as number of squads builds up. However I was fully capable of juggling 50 girls tracked individually (just not 150) so I could easily be kicking the problem another 30 turns down the road, which would be fine. At that point I could repeat the same thing and switch you from squads to battalions. (Technically 20 people would be a platoon, but I always think of sentai squads and it sounds less military than platoon therefore it is squad. Though there could be a better name but clan really just sounds weird to me in this use.)
That's the great thing about restructuring; it scales. Early on it makes sense for Mami to personally direct each Puella as the numbers are small enough she can keep track of everyone. As Serene grows Mami's ability to directly command people does not so she needs a layer of management. Then as Serene continues to grow more and more layers of management are required as her managers can only manage so many people at a time.
Interestingly enough some light research on the topic found that generally managers can direct between 4 and 22 people depending upon the type of work/organization. Given that we maintain a light touch and our girls are generally fairly capable of operating independently, or in small groups on their own, one person per twenty five girls would work pretty well as an upper limit. As for why Mami can handle double that number solo? Well there is a reason she was the one who started this whole venture; she's got mad skills.
So that would give the following layouts: Direct Control (50 Max):
Mami
1 to 50 Puella
Initial Clan Structure (1,250 Max):
Mami
3 to 50 Clan Heads
10 to 25 Puella per Clan
Expanded Clan Structure (31,250 Max):
Mami
3 to 50 Clan Groups
5 to 25 Clan Heads
10 to 25 Puella
There isn't really any point considering a third layer of management since at those sizes the clan structure really starts to break down and we'd probably need to consider a complete overhaul of Serene's structure.
Might also pull your elites all into one squad with a significant bonus for use as the basis for a combat squad. Though the alternative of having them as just the leaders within squads is also an option to consider.
I'd probably make them squad leaders that provide bonuses in line with their Elite ability. Something like:
Kyouko - She can lead two clans simultaneously.
Taya - Provides a significant boost to any searching relating activity her clan engages in.
Seto - Removes distance maluses from things like rural hunting or deliveries for her clan.
Miho - ???
Hmm. So now I'm wondering how morale would be handled. Would it be by clan, or would it just be by the entire Serenissima and distributed randomly among the whole organization?
Hmm. So now I'm wondering how morale would be handled. Would it be by clan, or would it just be by the entire Serenissima and distributed randomly among the whole organization?
Morale has always been a bit of an odd duck for us, one of those things that, for better and worse, have shaped the way we players interact with the Quest due to the way it's implemented.
1) One of the reasons I think we ended up spending so much time and effort on morale, so much that I get the hint that @inverted_helix has kind of gotten annoyed with us over it, is because morale is both directly tied to individual survival, including the survival of some of our irreplaceable Elites and more valuable Veterans, and yet is only tracked on an organization-wide basis, meaning that any time the newbies feel sad we run the risk of year+ veterans with valuable skills and powerful Elites, both of which we have far too few of, spiraling to death. For this reason we've been terrified every time our morale drops below a 3, and have gone to great lengths to keep it higher than, I'm fairly certain, any other group in Japan, because other groups generally don't have to worry about their core members suddenly dying of SADS because of a bad die roll.
2) On the other hand, one issue that we haven't had to deal with ever, an issue that really ought to be at the heart of every meguca group, is that of waste, fraud, abuse, and corruption. Since grief cubes are literally life, and Morale is a direct measure of how much individual meguca care about their fellows' survival, a low Morale really ought to be characterized by individual meguca deciding to "skim" off their cube harvests, or maybe overhunt in areas they aren't supposed to to squirrel away a few extra cubes as a rainy day fund, just for herself or her friends. The Serene, both because of relatively higher Morale and because they are a bunch of stat nerds who meticulously track every single cube that is ever harvested or consumed, wouldn't have to deal with this problem when they're one big happy family, but every other group ought to be bedeviled by this sort of thing, losing perhaps as much as 30-50% of every harvest to such factors, and it's something we ought to have to start worrying about when we move to this less tightly-knit clan structure.
3) This is less of a high-level issue than the first two, but I do think that part of the problem we have with being overly focused on Morale is how the system is taken out of 10, and how we're usually in the 2-3 out of 10 range. We've sort of gotten used to thinking of higher-than-zero morale as being how things are supposed to be, when we'd probably be better off if we had been trained to think of every number beyond 0 as being a bonus: +1 morale for being off the street, +1 because the girls are starting to see the benefits of living/hunting in a group, +0.5 because the organization has been around for a year and is relatively stable, +0.5 because of a 1-month Cube stockpile, -1 because a bunch of new girls are integrating into the system and having adjustment problems, etc.
2) On the other hand, one issue that we haven't had to deal with ever, an issue that really ought to be at the heart of every meguca group, is that of waste, fraud, abuse, and corruption. Since grief cubes are literally life, and Morale is a direct measure of how much individual meguca care about their fellows' survival, a low Morale really ought to be characterized by individual meguca deciding to "skim" off their cube harvests, or maybe overhunt in areas they aren't supposed to to squirrel away a few extra cubes as a rainy day fund, just for herself or her friends. The Serene, both because of relatively higher Morale and because they are a bunch of stat nerds who meticulously track every single cube that is ever harvested or consumed, wouldn't have to deal with this problem when they're one big happy family, but every other group ought to be bedeviled by this sort of thing, losing perhaps as much as 30-50% of every harvest to such factors, and it's something we ought to have to start worrying about when we move to this less tightly-knit clan structure.
Honestly I was right this minute researching corruption and how much it costs. (Assuming I ever restart things, you kind of spoiled it.)
Though honestly knowing that corruption costs around 5% of global GDP, and that theft costs around 1.5% of retailers sales in the US are basically meaningless figures to me because the circumstances or so strange.
Well I've kind of been talking about this for ages now, so this is not exactly new. Right now the Serene have essentially zero corruption because in many important aspects we have gone down the most optimized anti-corruption path possible:
We've fostered a sense of togetherness among the entire group.
We've created a mission for the group that goes beyond personal profit and embraces collective action in support of the whole.
We've refused to take the easy path of gathering funds illegally, discouraging a culture of criminality among our members.
We've instituted a fastidious record-keeping system and adopted data-driven metrics across the entire organization, and tightly integrated it into our group's culture.
So not only is corruption difficult due to the nature of our organization, but it's discouraged by our group culture.
Now, contrast what we know of Nagoya:
They've taken over the Yakuza, so it's assumed that the group will be breaking rules from top to bottom.
They've created a "core" of elite units who don't hunt and are divorced from the rest of the group's Morale, meaning there is an underclass of meguca who are considered to be less valuable and know they are considered less valuable.
They've embraced a mission of ensuring that the Class 3 outbreak that devastated their city will never happen elsewhere, and they will fight it every time it comes.
Their record-keeping efforts are far less exacting than ours, though this is changing thanks to our efforts.
So, some indicators for high corruption, and some for low. Combined with their generally lower morale, and I'd be surprised if their monthly corruption losses were less than 20%, maybe going down to 15% once they adopt our record-keeping policies throughout the entire group.
Then there's groups like the Junta, who probably are governed much like the actual junta, where corruption and graft claim an estimated 30% of the government budget.
Well, yes and no; it depends on a lot of factors, some of which we can control, many of which we cannot. We start off with a huge advantage due to our meticulous record-keeping and culture of valuing those who do the data analysis, and most of the people joining us will be doing so for virtuous reasons; after all, if they're just looking for safety at any cost they'd have already taken up Nagoya's Unconscious Collective offer. But yes, bad eggs will be a thing, and they'll be much harder to find in a clan structure.
Well, yes and no; it depends on a lot of factors, some of which we can control, many of which we cannot. We start off with a huge advantage due to our meticulous record-keeping and culture of valuing those who do the data analysis, and most of the people joining us will be doing so for virtuous reasons; after all, if they're just looking for safety at any cost they'd have already taken up Nagoya's Unconscious Collective offer. But yes, bad eggs will be a thing, and they'll be much harder to find in a clan structure.
There are so many unknowns that it's hard to say, but in the first couple of months, given that we do still have our meticulous record-keeping system and a really strong case to make that we have a mandate to change things, I'd say our corruption losses would probably top out at 10-20% and decrease as the system starts to stabilize. We really will need to work hard on indoctrination, though, probably by embedding our own girls among the Tokyo recruits and bringing some of the more mobile ones (eg. the homeless ones) back to Mitakihara to integrate; at best I'd guesstimate that it'd take up to six months to get everyone on the same page, and a year to get everyone trained up to our standards in terms of true Improved Rotating Tactics farming.
The other difficulty is that the Junta and the Queendom of Sendai are going to smell blood in the water with Tokyo suddenly being not-deadly to their PvP squads. Nagoya and our psuedo-Legendary will make them back off for awhile, but going forward we're really going to have to invest in our own standing army and new magitech to find and intercept poachers.
So I'm trying to blend together the various available bits of plans to get the next turn out. Kinematics plan was never fully completed, while Haman built a plan around attacking the beholder this month which also seemed to be desirable to the players. I'm pretty much blending the bits together and ignoring the contradictory elements for now in interest of actually writing something rather than having to redo the vote process.
There will be some peculiar bits as a result of that though.
(The perfect crit on the single most important roll... damn you Madokami, you're ruining it! Wrecking my balanced scenario that was built up through countless sacrifices and mechanics design hours.)
All actual action write-ups complete. Now need to come up with the opening and general sections. Though possibly can either post it incomplete (or not post it yet) and finish based off beholder battle.
(The perfect crit on the single most important roll... damn you Madokami, you're ruining it! Wrecking my balanced scenario that was built up through countless sacrifices and mechanics design hours.)
You have a smiley, but Madoka looking out for us and the kitten mulcher are the leading explanations for why our rolls are so good. Helix balanced the system so that we would slowly fail and fall apart under the stresses of survival, but we kept rolling way above average. IIRC it took six turns for the roll average to drop below 70.
@inverted_helix - I was just doing some math for Hunting with clans and noticed a flaw in the current system that makes creating a simplified system difficult.
With the current system for measuring DS changes of:
any Territory left unhunted for a single turn will drop by 20DS. This is highly problematic since the simplest way of doing hunting is something like:
[] Don't Hunt
[] Sustainable Hunt
-[] [Details]
[] Light Overharvest (1 Turn to restore DS)
-[] [Details]
[] Medium Overharvest (2 Turn to restore DS)
-[] [Details]
[] Heavy Overharvest (3 Turn to restore DS)
-[] [Details]
except even a Light Overharvest would automatically raise the Demon Strength to twenty which, IIRC, is enough to skip past Class 3 Demons and jump straight to Class 4 Demons.
except even a Light Overharvest would automatically raise the Demon Strength to twenty which, IIRC, is enough to skip past Class 3 Demons and jump straight to Class 4 Demons.
@inverted_helix - I was just doing some math for Hunting with clans and noticed a flaw in the current system that makes creating a simplified system difficult.
With the current system for measuring DS changes of:
any Territory left unhunted for a single turn will drop by 20DS. This is highly problematic since the simplest way of doing hunting is something like:
[] Don't Hunt
[] Sustainable Hunt
-[] [Details]
[] Light Overharvest (1 Turn to restore DS)
-[] [Details]
[] Medium Overharvest (2 Turn to restore DS)
-[] [Details]
[] Heavy Overharvest (3 Turn to restore DS)
-[] [Details]
except even a Light Overharvest would automatically raise the Demon Strength to twenty which, IIRC, is enough to skip past Class 3 Demons and jump straight to Class 4 Demons.
116.7%, actually, and that's because we have Improved Rotating Tactics lowering our overhunt modifier to 0.6. Back when we were using regular Rotating Tactics, with the 0.66 overhunt modifier, it was 112.9%.
@inverted_helix - I was just doing some math for Hunting with clans and noticed a flaw in the current system that makes creating a simplified system difficult.
You have a smiley, but Madoka looking out for us and the kitten mulcher are the leading explanations for why our rolls are so good. Helix balanced the system so that we would slowly fail and fall apart under the stresses of survival, but we kept rolling way above average. IIRC it took six turns for the roll average to drop below 70.
This is accurate. Those six turns of Madokami interference were enough to essentially shatter the cycle of destruction that was intended. The system was originally intended to keep you from ever getting on your feet. Those turns of good luck gave you time to stack up enough positive modifiers to escape the intended death spiral.
This was admittedly originally meant to be a dark quest with a lot of death and a lot of struggle. But that was based off average rolls at the beginning leading to a lot more deaths and a very different atmosphere to the whole group that would have resulted.
So not sure if posting what I have is right or not. Don't have the usual beginning section or ending section. Beginning section is usually based on the fluffy bits that people put in their plans but none of the plans had that this time, and general is usually about things like grief spirals and deaths, but haven't calculated that because I believe people wanted to do the Beholder fight in this month right? I'll post what I have so far in a spoiler. The full turn will be posted properly when completed.
Turn 36
Money Actions Purchase 2 sets of hard leather armor. $600
Done
Existing jobs: 8 vets, 11 greens, 1 associate
Somehow in spite of dire economic forecasts for Japan as a whole your jobs overall went well this month. Mitakihara has picked up more business as a whole with Tokyo flagging.
While your translators don't pull in any extra income, Kumiyo shows no signs of flagging in her dedication to be useful enough to never see combat again. Your courier business on the other hand picks up in business as they pick up some nice longer term contracts, though they're struggling to meet their hour needs. Likewise while your restaurant's dine in service seems to have stagnated with its generally student based appeal, a few offices have started placing routine takeout orders that have notably increased the bottom line of your take out service.
Nagoya quant training: 5 vets
Your quant team in Nagoya gets a lot of questions about your planned operation in Tokyo this month. Though they aren't actually privy to much of the details. In part because the details took a long time for your own side to firm up, though it was better that they didn't know that.
There is some sense of nervous energy though as the elites that Nagoya will send are selected. A resolution of the situation would be very favorable. Schedules are reworked again and again as Nagoya works to actually increase their border patrols while sending as many elites as possible to Mitakihara.
From what they can gather this is as much a political thing as any real need. Though it is a tad frustrating to them as the girls available for their territory seem to fluctuate.
In terms of goals though they still manage to start hammering in proper Serene farming techniques and returns on their field are beginning to rise above standard levels. They've also begun training their replacements for the analysis portions of your hunting methods, which were woefully inadequate before.
Though the girls are invited to a gaming night at one point by one of the middle managers in the NM, it ends up being fairly awkward as they're to a girl so soundly defeated at a Sailor Moon video game that it was just embarrassing to both sides.
Purchase: Abandoned village. Set up contractors to begin renovating 3 homes (amount that can be done at once). $150k, 1 vet, Kyubey assist
-- Assign several untrained greens to clean up the village (and church, if applicable). [10] Clean the streets, weed the gardens, trim the bushes and trees, throw out garbage, all that stuff. Make the entire village presentable, even if the construction workers are only improving a few houses.
Kyuubey arranges your takeover of the abandoned rural village with little fanfare, such places are distressingly common in Japan. You sometimes wonder if these places are a result of lack of proper coverage by magical girls, if an area isn't covered enough the human population would suffer. The humans dying or making a move to a city might result.
Hiring the contractors to begin restoring 3 homes is the far more complicated and expensive task. Many offers and quotes go into finding the right company. As the contractors begin hauling materials to and from the site you have a bunch of the refugee greens begin with the simpler things that can be done to restore someplace nature has begun reclaiming.
The streets themselves have begun crumbling, with weeds and even trees overwhelming them. They're cut down and pulled out of sight, though there's no real need to properly dispose of them. Kyuubey does have to reprimand them several times for improper displays of strength around humans though. While they can haul away trees, that doesn't mean they should. And he instructs you that you should discipline them better about such things lest he need to.
While the reprimand stings, from pictures you know that the girls did do a pretty good job, and probably did exceed the limits of human girls in how quickly they made an overgrown village presentable.
The girls themselves had a mix of reasons: others were doing it, why would it be a problem, they were just trying to do a good job for those that took them in, even if the job seemed to be make work.
Nonetheless, the contractors finished restoring three of the homes in the village to prime condition, even if their memories aren't exactly right.
3 houses in good condition, village is now open and livable. -3 GCU.
Purchase 100 cubes from Nagoya ($400k)
You ended up having to negotiate with a couple different people in the Magocracy to get such a large cube transfer. While they were willing to accept the logic, your political capital right now is quite low, you'll definitely need to deliver.
They sent a full squad to escort that many cubes to you. They might have sent lesser amounts with the trickle that was passing through to test against Serena, but this sort of shipment felt more like an armored car delivery. Their cubes were stored in foam cases packed into suitcases far more neatly and professional looking than your own habit of a closet of egg cartons.
Accept 27 refugees.
Welcome package (bike, phone, shield, misc = $250 * 27 = $6750) Add 32 apartment capacity ($250 * 32 = $8000) (1.5 vet)
You continue to take in the refugees from Tokyo, and pay out the funds needed to support bringing them properly into your group. Though even some of your own group are starting to question if you can really keep this up. The monetary costs as well as the cube costs, as well as how different the girls themselves are culturally. Even though they're Japanese as well, the difference in lives is significant.
Purchase: Kyouko's church (700k+200k)
You complete the purchase of Kyouko's church this month after several months of waiting since the last inspection. The bank pushes for more money though than five months ago, because while Japan as a whole is in recession the Mitakihara/Kasamino area is in a fantastic boom and they've had more offers in the past few months.
(Assuming you're willing to pay the increased 700k purchase +200k renovation)
Contracting work begins in earnest as a team of electricians descend upon the Church to begin rewiring everything. By the end of the month they've completed the electrical and begun the more difficult process of producing a large scale kitchen where there was only a family sized one.
Training General Training: Train the new recruits understand our procedures and tactics.
3 Vets and 13 greens
Training of the refugees you took in three months ago completed this month. Their quality in the essential roles of a magical girl matching your minimum standards quite nicely. Though only time will tell how well they integrate with your own group.
Artifact powering: Send a couple girls to train with Hiko to learn how to handle powering her artifacts.
$1,800 (for rail passes)
While you were unable to attend anymore, with far more pressing duties taking away your time the report from Keiko on the matter is quite positive. Things went quite a bit more smoothly with the additional practice and herself and two of the other three were able to finish training.
Once they could successfully get the centermost dot lit up after a week or so more practice they moved on to the second stage of the training: doing the same thing while being beaten with pillows. Their trainers told them to be glad that it wasn't Hiko training them; she trained them with rocks. Staying focused while being distracted is difficult, but after a couple weeks of that they could manage it. They wouldn't be up to the task of fighting, but they've reached the minimum acceptable level.
Keiko now suspects that the training board may not actually be not a single circuit at all, but instead each light is its own independent system. But she bemoans the fact that magical girls sense for magic is more similar in quality to smell than sight, though of course it is neither. It would be far more convenient if she could accurately see the flows of magic in an object rather than just get a feel that it's there.
Diplomacy
1 Vet, 0.5 Mami We've cleared out a sufficient number of the surrounding youma to start actively drawing the attention of the Beholder, while limiting the ability of the other youma to interfere in the fight. Unfortunately, we also have significant issues in the surrounding territories because of the fleeing refugees.
We intend to complete the strike against the Beholder in the middle of the month. For this to be as effective as possible, we ask that Nagoya provide their full assistance on this, with as many elite strike teams as they can spare, who are willing to take the risk of this fight. We will need a brief test run with them with Serena, so they'll be aware of what's going to happen.
We also recognize that they have border issues, though, so would ask Hiko help shore up any weakened areas in Nagoya's borders, or at least provide a significant border space where there will be no conflict. A truce, for the period of time needed to deal with a significantly larger threat.
While the NM and HC have tense relations, they aren't actually at war with each other by either side's claims. Though the NM do claim that Hiko's girls have sometimes covered shortfalls by poaching from their territory, and Hiko of course denies that expertly, but Japanese make a lifestyle out of lying to each other and you aren't even going to bother trying to pick who is right.
They'll keep a lid on their own squabbles for now though at least. Hopefully.
Perhaps the Magocracy does take that agreement with at least some seriousness though because they manage to funnel dozens of elites through Mitakihara over the weeks leading up to the push for testing against Serena's aura. It had to be almost every elite they have, though Yoko and Hino herself do not make appearances.
Fully 15 elites from Nagoya are prepared to join you in the battle.
Morale
Devise a mentorship program, where existing members give about 10% of their time to helping welcome and acclimate the refugee recruits, and are given a pair of disciples each (each disciple likewise has two mentors). The goal is to help them acclimate at a more personal level, and a better mental grasp of our worldview and group culture (which should also help them in their combat training). The mentors likewise gain a personal closeness to help integrate the new girls into the group.
6.5 vets (67 recruits * 10% = 6.7, rounded to nearest 0.5 meguca)
While the reports on the mentorship program are on the surface optimistic, reading beneath the optimism you've tried to instill in all of your original group the division in experiences is just so vast that they struggle to connect with many of the girls that have experienced magical girl life only from the perspective of being hunted.
For someone with only two months of experience to think those with two years' experience soft and naïve is very frustrating.
Misc mentor-based mixers. Swim day. Hiking day. Sports day. Gaming. Movie nights. Not all together, but lots of opportunities for people to mix with each other. 6 vets (2.5 exp vets, 2 non-exp vets, 1.5 greens), $2000
You start scheduling time and providing funds for mentors to try to take out their mentees either just by themselves or with other clusters. Overall it helps, though some of them have a sort of PTSD response to every flicker of demon activity. You're trying to acclimate them though.
For many of them getting out of the city where there's little chance of any demons appearing in range to sense is for the best. Though whether avoiding issues in that way is best in the long term is debatable.
Purchase personally-engraved medals for all current members, and any who died in fighting in Tokyo, as a signifier/reminder. $720, 1 vet.
You make a bulk purchase of some simple medals for everyone. It's not much, and it hardly seems a fitting tribute for their services and sacrifices. You try to keep away from thinking of them as dog tags though. So you opt for a more cheerful design than a simple rounded rectangle. Each has a name engraved and are handed out to everyone. You kind of wish, such a dangerous word, you had the time to pass them out yourself, but these days you're far too busy.
General
Hunting this month proceeded mostly as expected, but demon strength crept upwards slightly more quickly than anticipated in both territories. While there was the occasional detection of intruders, it couldn't really account for the losses, nor a number of cubes that you had collected going missing. While keeping them dispersed over each residence was convenient, it did make them rather more vulnerable than you'd like. Northern Demon strength to 6.5, southern harvest shut down early due to climbing strength to maintain limit. Total cube gain 139.8-25.1 (Lost) = 114.7
(Did 3d100 modifying max 30% loss, which would give average 15% with a strong bell curve instead of even odds.)
Rumors
Secondary hotspots of trouble have begun bursting across central Japan as Nagoya's expeditionary forces are held back. The Enlightened indicate multiple active Class 3s in Toyama, while they struggle to keep Nagano intact.
The Republic of Japan seems to be largely crumbling due to a poorly planned political system. While the original idea of scaling terms to the lesser life expectancy of a magical girl seemed reasonable originally, the changes in government each month have crippled their functionality.
Radiation levels have risen above their original background levels in the former Buenos Aries, but are still within a generally normal range. Likely a pocket of radon gas was exposed by the impact.
While the rash of strange deaths in Tokyo seems to have largely halted, the economic tailspin continues. On the other hand other cities such as Osaka, Kyoto, and Nagoya have been picking up some of the lost positions. On a whole Japan's economy is still stumbling, but there are bright spots.
This was everything in the kinematics vote. I'm not bothering with careful calculations right now as still intend to wipe out a lot of the old system. Was this post the plan people wanted for the Beholder? Also mention now if there's anything to add to T36.
I research a lot of strange things at times, like Japanese traditions about lying. Which is basically, lie always about everything. Stupid Honesty is actually a phrase.
/joking