Additionally, if we don't do Chicago now, then fucking when, perchance?
I'd appreciate it if you'd take a less jump-down-my-throat tone.
Because as I've said before, I do want to work on Chicago over the next five turns before the end of the Plan... but I
don't want a binding ride-or-die commitment to finish Phase 5 at all costs at the expense of locking down most of our Tiberium dice for the entire rest of that time, because I don't see it as a problem if we have to finish the last bits in late 2062 or something.
Chicago is valuable as more than just a Tiberium processing hub - it's also our testbed for re-terraforming the territory we've managed to claw back from Tiberium infestation. Now that it's in a Blue Zone, that value is on a (presumably) very rapid deadline. If we don't complete it by the end of this plan, I would be extremely unsurprised if the capstone for Chicago changed to something else and the we have to start the "make Blue Zone from scratch" project all over again.
@Ithillid , if we're pushing up through
Chicago Phase 4+5 during this plan and just happen to not finish the fifth phase before 2061Q4, will the project disappear on us?
I do have questions on if there is a deployment/refit project for the lasers included in this new commitment as that might change the math.
I'll be very surprised if the laser project deployment costs
that much, enough to more than offset the advantages of not having to go Nuuk. If it does cost that much, it's probably going to be impactful enough that it puts us a lot closer to 'over the line' for the original Capital Goods goal.
If past projects are an example, we should be able to get a +16 auto-food storage option if we get a +32 food surplus.
That said, that's starting to get at a ridculous level of food storage for an auto-action.
The +8 Stored Food for -16 Food option explicitly says "this is you filling up the existing storehouses to the brim." There isn't any more room to go beyond that for free.
Bleh. How about we just leave the commitment as is then?
150+175+200+225+250=1000, for 5 more Strategic Food Stockpile Construction phases, then we do the Extra Large Food Stockpiles. That gives us +18.
Should be easy enough in the 5 turns remaining.
Because we'd need to rummage up +27 Food worth of surplus somewhere, and we've got a big refugee wave coming in that's got to eat. We don't know how big, so it's hard to plan around.
The problem isn't that we can't meet the target. It's that we can't be reasonably assured of meeting the target
and having enough actual day-to-day food surplus to ensure that all our refugees can eat.
Same. Deployment of these lasers needs to be cheaper than 400 progress at 20 per die for this to be a cheaper option. I can't see this alternative being much better.
A
lot of projects cost less than 400 Progress at 20 R/die.
I do think that we should be doing Chicago before the end of this Plan, but that doesn't mean we need to commit to it.
Like, if we have five dice worth of Chicago left to do after 2061Q4, I'm not going to treat it as a disaster or a defeat. Pain in the ass, yes, disaster, no.
But if we've promised to slam out the whole city in that amount of time, it
becomes a disaster... of our own making.
Since we might have a whole additional plan to do Karachi, what should we do with the navy after we finish the frigate and escort docks?
The two offensive ships?
I feel the escorts and frigates just catch us up to where we need to be.
Should we keep pushing new ships or switch to improving our tech in general. Like, anti-stealth and eccm countermeasures and so on.
Amphibious assault ships. That's going to be something we'd
love to have for Karachi (and it just might be possible if we hurry). Even if we don't have it for Karachi, having it opens up a ton of other military options all over the world. Being able to just casually take islands by rolling up with a battlegroup will do a lot to enable the Navy to cut down on Nod's ability to base minor naval threats out of random island chains in areas like the Central Pacific and the Caribbean.
Food
[ ] Increase Food Reserve by an additional 40 points by the end of next plan
This is a bad choice. Forty points of Stored Food means needing to scrape up +60 Food (above commitments to refugees) and build about 55-72 dice worth of storehouses (as per
@doruma1920 's math). Even given that your calculations are correct and we have 84 Agricultural dice to play with, we're
still going to be straining like mad bastards to get the job done. Let's just bite the bullet and take the thirty-point commitment; we can recoup +5 PS a lot more easily than we can rummage up an extra +10 Stored Food.
Karachi
[ ] Commit to completing five phases by end of next plan
[ ] Commit to completing Chicago Planned City by end of Plan, and four phases of Karachi by end of next plan
These are options I'd be in favor of initially. I mean, we mathed out funding Phase 5 Karachi in one turn, and I'd expect we could manage it with more turns next Plan. Flipside, we could do Chicago this Plan, which would slam out the processing requirement in the process, and do 4 phases of Karachi next plan. I'm okay either way, really.
The first version is much better.
The second version commits us to finishing all 1800 Progress worth of Chicago within five turns. Note that this is
not all needed to "slam out the Processing requirement;" we can do that with
600 Progress to
Chicago Phase 4 plus the refinery refits. As long as we don't take this target, there is no reason we have to panic if we're "only" halfway to
Chicago Phase 5 when the Plan ends... but there will be reason to panic if we do take the commitment.
The first version is much better because it only commits us to 1040 Progress of additional construction, and on a much more forgiving schedule. The main obstacle to clearing Karachi is just having the necessary military firepower, not building the city itself. If we can
start Karachi, we should be able to finish it.
I think just the Carriers catch us up to where we should have been by the start of 2060, so the Frigates get us to the end of 2061.
Having one of the offensive ships is certainly tempting, but I don't think we should ignore the Advanced ECCM or Stealth Disruptor at all.
Me neither, but we're looking at
specifically naval investments here. I think the
Island-class is more critical to Karachi than the
Victory-class, because Karachi's actual region is well within range of land-based air support. Having bombardment monitors parked off the coast when we already have battleship railguns, cruiser missiles, and carrier jets pounding the coast isn't as big of a deal.
If the commitment for the
Victories is on the same general scale as that of the escort carriers (noting that we don't necessarily have to have ALL the
Victory yards done in time to be knocking on Karachi's door in, say, late 2064, just hopefully 1-2 of the yards turning out the lead ships of the class in time with luck)... Well, we can try to design the ship late in this Plan and be building the yards at a reasonable pace in 2062, then hope for the best.
Of course, there may just not be time, but y'know, that's fine.
Advanced ECCM and Stealth Disruptors are going to be huge and I'm a big fan, mind you! But those are also things we can roll out faster, as refits rather than long-lead items. Whereas if we want any ships ready for Karachi even in 2064-65, we need to start
now.
