These two arguments are to some extent acting at cross purposes to each other. When Nod eventually attacks, it is very likely that we will lose ground, or at a bare minimum that Nod will launch infiltrations and long range attacks armed with weapons of terror, tiberium weapons, and so on. Our "Green Zone" buffer territories will not be fully and truly safe; it is in the nature of a buffer to absorb attacks that would otherwise hit whatever is behind it.
If anything, we are likely to see an increase in internal migration of refugees from the Green Zones to the Blue Zones.
If Nod experiences any meaningful success on the battlefield, civilian Green Zone populations will tend to be (PARTLY) pushed back into the Blue Zones, where we will have to find places to house them in a hurry during a shooting war. If we're relying heavily on Yellow Zone arcologies to house refugees, many of those refugees will wind up back on the road again in short order.
So you can advocate relying heavily on Yellow Zone arcologies to house the current refugee waves. Or you can expect Nod to hit us hard and push against our territory hard enough to be a serious problem. Advocating the one while expecting the other leads to a contradiction that can only be resolved by trying to keep most of the civilians in the Blue Zones, away from Nod.
Fortress Towns are miserable housing and only get filled after all other housing has been, so getting refugees to settle there requires us to maintain deliberate housing scarcity in the Blue Zones (which angers Blue Zone residents), or to discriminate by refusing to settle Yellow Zone refugees in the existing Blue Zone housing (which involves giving Hideo Ozawa and Initiative First something other than a good swift kick in the pants). Neither is a good option in the long run.
Furthermore, Fortress Towns are not efficient for housing. Two phases of Blue Zone arcologies cost 1200 Progress at 15 R/die; the next four phases of Fortress Towns will cost a total of 1150 Progress at 20 R/die. And this despite the arcologies being much nicer to live in, more secure, and a source of valuable Consumer Goods.
The fortress towns are desirable to have, but it is not desirable that they be heavily populated with refugees.
The arcology commitment only requires us to spend roughly half the Plan's Infrastructure dice. Now, that's a lot, don't get me wrong- but it still leaves quite a bit of wiggle room, even enough for a megaproject in Infrastructure IF we're prepared to commit to making adjustments elsewhere in the Plan to reduce strain on Infrastructure dice.
...
Bear in mind that when we were discussing this before the Reallocation post was put out, nearly everyone was discussing this in terms of building 4-6 phases of arcologies. Because we legitimately need that much housing, and there has been no clear sign that we'll get that much housing of acceptable quality without building that many phases.
1) Yes its true they'll try.
But infiltrations and long range attacks, while painful, are not the same thing as punching into the Green Zone with armored columns of Scorpions and Avatars and physically taking towns and Arcologies away.
Furthermore, Fortress Towns are logistical nodes that support the military's efforts to push the line of confrontation farther away from longheld GDI territory by securing supply lines. That makes existing YZ accommodations more secure against Nod incursions, while also enabling the military to pressure the Brotherhood sufficiently to materially impact their ability to accumulate the forces for a sustained or successful ground offensive.
We dont rely on Fortress Towns for Housing; thats what YZ Arcologies and BZ Arcologies are for. But their contribution is welcome.
2) We remain at war. Nod and GDI are both still engaged in major military operations against each other.
Significant portions of our Harvesters engage in routine resourcing operations under the threat of military attack. One of our BZs remains under significant threat of being cut off and besieged. Again.
And Tiberium is mutating.
GDI built up its pre-TibWar3 quality of life during almost two decades of reduced Brotherhood activity and a peace dividend when they allegedly shut down 60% of their military bases worldwide by 2043. We dont have that luxury, and we're simultaneously attempting to reach out to and care for more people.
Under the circumstances, I am comfortable with a buffer of medium quality YZ Housing if its cheaper to procure, especially if we can support that with surpluses of Food, Water and Consumer Goods.
3)A significant chunk of GDI income comes from Yellow Zone resource operations. I think either Derpmind or someone else estimated it at around 30%. If we're in a situation where Nod is materially displacing us from significant parts of Green Zone territory and triggering refugee waves into the BZs, we are going to be worrying about more than Housing.
4)The point I am trying to make, is that yes, we might need, or want to build, 4-6 BZ Arcologies.
But making hard political promises to do so restricts our flexibility unnecessarily less than a year after we just demonstrated that the ability to perform radical retooling of our economic plans at a moments notice is essential.
Especially since Seo is still learning on the job, and the QM is retooling parts of the system with a new Treasury Sec.
We're the Treasury. We're the accountants and planners of a planned economy. Its our job to be conservative about what we promise, because the rest of the government and economy relies on our projections and promises to set their own baseline expectations. We should not be making hard commitments we might be forced to abandon.
I mean, I think Karachi Planned City is important enough that we should make a good faith effort to finish it this coming plan.
For both narrative and mechanical reasons, economic, political and military.
But you dont see me advocating we make a political commitment to do so, because I DON'T think we should lock ourselves down to promising an additional 2300 points of Tiberium/Industrial investment.
Not under these conditions.
Approval voting Derpmind's new plan; it addresses most of my concerns.
VOTE
[X] Plan Another Supermajority
[X] Plan Big Enough Supermajority
[X] Plan Trimmed Arcologies
