Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition
While we need to finish ASAT before the end of the plan, I fear that doing so right after a nuclear scare might send a counter-productive message to Nod. It could force their hand early, if they believe (correctly) that the only reason why we aren't continuing to press further into their territory is their nuclear deterrent, and they are about to lost a good portion of said deterrence. Turns are three months long after all, so they'll be able to react before we complete it.
If we absolutely have to invest in it on this turn to meet our plan goals, maybe we could go for a single die with no chance of completion, so that tensions can cool down just a bit first?
If we absolutely have to invest in it on this turn to meet our plan goals, maybe we could go for a single die with no chance of completion, so that tensions can cool down just a bit first?
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- Location
- New York
Isn't the next phase of ASAT merely an additional final main control station for a layer of redundancy and will not significantly increase actual defense abilities?
How do we know in-universe that Nod have a 2/3 chance of launching operational nukes when they did not actually deploy them? Did InOps pick up an increased amount of panicked Nod commanders debating widespread deployment of nukes?
Strunkriidiisk
THE LEGEND
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It's going to be noted in the results post.
- Location
- Seattle, Washington
basically yes
- Location
- Wall Gazing
Yeah the original plan before Anadyr and Pinholes came up was getting phase 3 of Bergen (our superconductor megaproject), maybe even phase 4 before the end of the Plan. For a while that was, and kinda still is, our most expensive mega project. The problem now is we have a bunch of RpD expensive projects and we can't afford to do all of them. Mostly for R reasons. It's why I support getting Harvesting Tendrils this turn, despite how expensive it is, just to get a massive infusion of income.
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It is a layer of redundancy and laying the ground work for actual expansion so the grid doesn't get overwhelmed during a major exchange.
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That would go against pretty much everything we know about NOD and India.
Ithillid has commented in the past about Indian warlords. If India was Nod's special secure home base then that implies a very different structure from the one we know Nod has, with all the warlords competing for position.
Instead it implies that whoever is in charge of India is Kane's no2 with all the other warlords feeling secure enough in this that they can trust the Indian warlord(s) to basically take them in if shit hits the fan.
Instead, we have Reynaldo heading to Italy to see Kane himself in order to negotiate for better technologies and warlords choosing to (potentially if our dice went differently) hit the strategic nukes button rather than allow GDI to get any closer. We also have the most recent war kicking off to determine which warlord deserves to be in charge
- Location
- Wall Gazing
I don't think NOD India is a secure homebase for the rest of NOD, but I do think a major attack on it (like Karachi) will likely trigger a general response from NOD. Either because India calls for aid given their apparent position as an industrial center for NOD they have good relations with most NOD warlords (the Gana that have shown up every where originated from India), or because the other NOD warlords think we are distracted by India and they can avenge what they've lost over the past year. That might include opening up with WMDs, not just nukes. Gideon's Tiberium Shard Bombs would probably be worse then a nuke in some cases.
Honestly, the biggest nuke worry we should be having isn't India. The Shah of the Atom is up in the Pakistan-ish area IIRC, and they have used nukes on GDI forces over near the Sinai earlier in the Quest. (...this might point to needing to have the disco ball point defense refits done before Karachi to potentially provide a decent degree of anti-cruise missile defense by the Navy for the operation. ... Or could we take a Predator/Mammoth, pull off the turret, and mount a disco ball and sensors on top for a land based anti-missile system?)
Also, all we've seen are the "export" Gana. We have no idea what the "domestic" versions might be like. They might not need WMD support from other warlords. Or India doesn't consider Karachi a sufficient enough line crossed to bring out the WMDs, which does seem like a feasible possibility based on an earlier discussion regarding India coastal defense/response priorities.
Also, all we've seen are the "export" Gana. We have no idea what the "domestic" versions might be like. They might not need WMD support from other warlords. Or India doesn't consider Karachi a sufficient enough line crossed to bring out the WMDs, which does seem like a feasible possibility based on an earlier discussion regarding India coastal defense/response priorities.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I'm not disagreeing with you, but I don't see how what you're saying connects to what I'm saying about prioritization of frigates versus SADN versus other things.
I don't think we should treat "we need Ground Force Zone Armor in 2061 to avoid overstretching ZOCOM in 2062" as being on the same level of "we need those frigates in the water so we can actually have secure sealanes," and certainly not at the level of "we need defenses against nuclear cruise missiles."
If I had to choose between the frigate yard and a solid, reasonable effort to work on SADN, I'd choose SADN.
But if I had to choose between the zone armor factory and the frigate yard, I'd choose the frigate yard right now, following up with the zone armor factory as soon as possible.
It means having 20 less frigates for the period starting one year after we could have finished the yard, and ending when we actually do finish the yard. That's about 1/3 of our total frigate force.
We're not nearly as desperate on land for ZOCOM as we are at sea for frigates. We've seen repeated evidence of this.
I don't think you're aware of the timeframe I have in mind.
SADN Phase 1 is small enough that we could do it within 2061.
Three phases? That's more like my target for 2063, by which time we most certainly could do it and we'd have to be marking it as a VERY low priority to think it couldn't be done in time.
It seems unlikely that any Nod warlords aside from possibly Stahl will launch massed general attacks considering there's basically no way we're sending even the majority of forces to India. We fought every warlord other than India simultaneously and beat almost all of them, we can take on India without significantly weakening our forces elsewhere (other than the navy and we're working on that)
Sure, they might send help to India if they think they can spare it but frankly their forces are a hell of a lot more beaten up than ours so I doubt they would either throw their recovering forces at GDI defences or launch strategic nuclear strikes, 2 things that are basically guaranteed to get them attacked again and after playing the strategic nuke card GDI wouldn't be stopping.
Now, none of this is to say I don't want SADN 3 in the first couple of years of the next plan, I just don't see it as critical for Karachi specifically.
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It is, however, relevant for pushing back ZA factories. We are about to enter the final year of Plan 3. If we want to kick off Plan 4 with RZ Offensives and Super Glaciers, we are going to need Zone Armour. A lot of Zone Armour.
Frankly, I'd like to drop in the ZA variants (Lancer and Defender) as well as the recon drone and backpack rocket launcher stuff, and when ZOCOM goes 'we want factories' the Treasury goes 'that is nice, we will make it part of the new factories we are building to proliferate ZA in general, deal with it.
- Location
- Wall Gazing
I must apologize Simon, as I misunderstood what you said previously. I thought, while I was writing the analysis posted up thread, that you suggested we go for all of SADN before the end of the Plan. Sorry for misconstruing your position.
It depends on when Karachi is launched. We won't be launching it this year. Launching it in 2062 is unlikely as our Tiberium dice will need to be going to increase our income. Earliest I could see us launching Karachi is in early 2063. That's at least two years of time for the various warlords to rearm and rebuild, and the longer it takes the more they will rebuild. We know Stahl is secure in his territory now, Bintang will be ready once we ships are repaired in a year or so. Reynaldo and Mehretu primarily work under infiltration and sabotage, so they are both likely to be ready far sooner then Krukov, Gideon and Mondragon, who need to rebuild their armies. I'm not particularly worried about frontal assaults, our Fortresses and forces can take the hit. What I'm worried about is a general uptick in conflict along all most of our borders, stuff that will stress our logistics and our consumables reserves while we are supporting a landing in Karachi.
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Your putting the cart in front of the horse there. We are rather egregiously overextended currently. We need the SADN and other defensive actions to be able to effectively resist all of the NOD strategic attacks they can pull out. Tiberium missiles, nukes, bioweapons, chemical weaponry.
Not really, because the RZ Offensives and RZ Super Glaciers aren't going to impact Nod territory. They are only possible because GDI has a ton of RZ/GZ interface frontage.
SADN is important, but so long as we avoid major YZ offensives for a few years Nod won't escalate to strategic beyond, you know, the usual. It's not as if GDI and Nod haven't been exchanging strategic strikes for decades now.
Anyone who says that going into the Red Zone won't impact Nod territory has obviously forgotten the time Nod dropped a nuke on GDI forces in a Red Zone to break an encirclement of Nod forces over near the Sinai years back (Q2 2058 results, Red Zone Tiberium Harvesting (Stage 10)), determined to have been Shah of the Atom that dropped the nuke by the following quarter (Q3 2058 results).
That being said, Border Offensives coming from Green Zones aren't as likely to impact Nod territory as elsewhere. Also, given that we had a Middle East Brotherhood operating in the red zone up to 2058, it seems incredibly likely that Nod forces know how to operate in a RZ. Possibly Gideon just didn't bother maintaining that capability in the face of extensive YZs to work from instead, only for the lost capability to bite him in the face of the Mobile site and substantial GDI offensives.
That being said, Border Offensives coming from Green Zones aren't as likely to impact Nod territory as elsewhere. Also, given that we had a Middle East Brotherhood operating in the red zone up to 2058, it seems incredibly likely that Nod forces know how to operate in a RZ. Possibly Gideon just didn't bother maintaining that capability in the face of extensive YZs to work from instead, only for the lost capability to bite him in the face of the Mobile site and substantial GDI offensives.
- Location
- Wall Gazing
One thing I would be interested in doing is seeing if the Border Offensives and Super Glacier Mines could create a trans-continental link from BZ 2 to BZ 11 directly across RZ 7, IE a green line from Chicago to Salt Lake City. That would be an extremely important logistical link. It is unfortunate that such a link is unlikely to form given the breadth of RZ 7.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
India may well have assets like nuclear missile submarines of its own. They may not need other warlords to take their side to be able to hit us with strategic weapons in targets half a world away.
Not all the warlords are purely localized in reach. Mehretu's greatest blow against us was struck in Japan, for instance.
I think you are overestimating the scale of what is required for the border offensives and associated mining projects.
While Nod knows how to fight in a Red Zone, fighting in a Red Zone is difficult for them. We've been explicitly told this. From the 2059Q2 battles post:
Red Zone Operations are always a challenge for the Brotherhood of Nod. While it is quite possible for them to do it, and in some ways it is easier for them than for the Initiative, it is still an expensive process. In general, any vehicle deployed must be considered lost. Beyond that, it is hard on the troops and most units are ineffective for some time unless given a chance to rest and recover. Additionally, it is logistically difficult. As the troops have to carry nearly everything they need with them, it is more of a series of dives into the Red Zone than a campaign.
Nod knows how to fight in a Red Zone, but it's difficult for them and they cannot do so continuously or easily. Furthermore, to do so requires them to have expendable reserves of vehicles, and realistically can only be undertaken by troops that have had tiberium infusions. All of this limits the warlords' capacity to act against us in the Red Zone borderlands, especially when their forces have just taken heavy casualties and will need to rebuild significantly just to be confident of holding what they have.
This is further compounded if we (as might be advisable) start our border offensives in western Australia and the western United States, areas where Nod simply no longer has any major armies on land immediately at hand to strike at us and would have to slash all the way across the Australian Red Zone.
The problem is that:
1) There is a continuous low existential risk that Nod will decide to launch major strategic strikes and cripple GDI. This could conceivably happen at any time, though it seems unlikely.
2) There is a significant risk that Nod will launch a strategic strike against a specific high-value target, such as Nuuk, Chicago, Medina-Jeddah, Reykjavik, or North Boston. GDI would be in a difficult position then, because it might be hard to retaliate effectively without drawing a full general Nod counterattack with all their strategic weapons. SADN Phase 1+2 is an important counter to this prospect.
3) The SADN system will need to be set up in advance of us doing anything that might (not will, might) trigger a Nod strategic-weapons response. We cannot read Nod's minds well enough to be sure Karachi won't trigger such a response.
- Location
- USA
We need to do like 5 or 6 capstones.
The problem is we keep reacting to stuff or doing stuff to support our forces or meet political demands.
I know we'll get them eventually. But it does feel that any spare dice we have keep getting pushed off to something or other instead of working for a big payoff later.
The problem is we keep reacting to stuff or doing stuff to support our forces or meet political demands.
I know we'll get them eventually. But it does feel that any spare dice we have keep getting pushed off to something or other instead of working for a big payoff later.
Oledoms
Friesmancer
It also means that if we do not finish The Carrier Yards this year, we could have higher demands slapped to us by the Navy for the next plan at best or at worst another hefty PS Hit that we will need to recuperate.
I know that Frigates are made fast and we could fill the sea with them but I just dont want us to end up like the last plan where the last Governor Yard ended up being finished on Q1 2058 and the same thing happens to our Carriers which unlike Frigates have hefty conditions slapped to us if we fail.
Here is my possible for the up coming Year
Q1 2061: 1 Dice Nagoya and 3-4 Dice New York and 1Dice for railgun and skywatch, 1-2 Dice Mastodon
Q2 2061 3 to 4 Dice for Dublin and 1 Dice to Zone Revision and 1 Dice for Last Frigate yard, 2 Dice SADN
Q3 2 Dice to Frigate Yard, for.completion 2 Dice to SADN 2 ,Dice 2
to 3 Dice OSRCT Station
Q4 3 Dice ASAT, 4 - 6 two ZA Factories
I Believe 2 ZA Factories should be enough for ZOCOM to be freed, also, it would be best to get the Revision before we start the Plants to reduce the cost needed for the factories.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
In real life, obsessively following through on a single project while ignoring everything else that is going on isn't necessarily the optimum strategy, even if there are rewards for having All The Everything when you reach that capstone.
Also, almost all our projects with that kind of 'capstone' are in a few specific areas: Heavy and Light Industry and Orbital. In Orbital, we are mainly focused around collecting four capstone projects with only minor stuff being done around the edges elsewhere. In Heavy Industry, the main reason we haven't beelined for the capstone on North Boston or Nuuk is that we need, y'know, electricity. It's not something we can just ignore, or that's just "a political demand to meet."
About the only area that really meets your characterization is Reykjavik. Which has been put on temporary hiatus while we handle other projects, but frankly I don't consider that a bad thing.
There is no realistic danger of the carrier yards not getting finished this year. It's not actually a problem we have.
Also, I think your dice allocation is inadequate because it doesn't budget significant dice for OSRCT/ASAT until the very last minute. Those, too, are Plan commitments! It is rather reckless to invest nothing in them until the end; we will need to start investing in OSRCT now, in 2061Q1, if we want to be sure of finishing the project without inefficient overkill that will eat the dice that could otherwise go to optional projects like Zone Armor or quasi-mandatory projects that aren't strictly Plan-required like SADN.
- Location
- Wall Gazing
Two big problems I see here is there are not nearly enough dice on OSRCT and no dice at all on URLS. We need an average of 9 dice on the former, and about 3 on the latter to complete those commitments.
My outline for the coming year is something like:
Q1 2061: 2 Dice on ASAT (45%), 2 Dice on OSRCT (2/9 median), 1 Die on Skywatch (100%), 1 Die on Railguns (100%), 1 Die Nagoya (73%), 4 Dice Seattle (64%), 1 Die on Mastodon (??)
Q2 2061: 1 Die on ASAT (finish up if not complete), 2 Dice on ORSCT (2/7 median), 2 Dice on URLS (23%), 3 Dice each on Dublin and New York (54% each), 1 Die on Mastodon (??). (Note: If dice are not needed to finish up projects they'll be used on ORSCT)
Q3 2061: 1 Die on SADN Phase 1 (1/4 median), 1 Die on Zone Defender Revision, 5 Dice on ORSCT (~77%), 1 Die on URLS (finish up if not complete), 1 Die on Hallucinogens (100%), 1 Die each on Dublin and New York (finish up if not complete), 1 Die on Mastodon (??). (Note: If dice are not needed to finish up projects they'll be used on Infernium Lasers)
Q4 2061: 4 Dice on SADN Phase 1 (~97%), 1 Die on ORSCT (finish up if not complete), 3 Dice on GFZA (~86%), 4 dice on Infernium Lasers (4/6 median to ~90% depending on how many dice were needed to clean up projects in Q3).
This outline does assume that we are investing 4 Free Dice a turn into Military.
Given most of the plans I've seen have us finishing Fertilizer and Civilian Drones in Q1, that doesn't leave anything else in LCI other than Bergen and Reykjavik, so unless LCI is where the Caloric Reprocessor ends up I think we'll be investing into Reykjavik again possibly as soon as Q2. This is because I have doubts about us being able to afford Bergen along with finishing Anadyr and Pinholes, even if we have the cash infusion from phase 1 of Harvesting Tendrils.
We have had rail links through RZs since we tied the Himalayas back into GDI's logistical system in the first Plan. The Korea-Himalaya link goes outright through a glacier. Establishing a logistical link from Chicago to the US west coast is something well within GDI's capabilities already, the Border Offensives are not needed for it.
I am not overestimating the scale of what is required for the Border Offensives and Super Glacier Mines. I simply do not believe that sticking to two factories, which would likely be enough to relieve ZOCOM of their none-RZ duties, is enough for GDI's needs, especially with Nod now so clearly proliferating Gana backed by heavy vehicles, and with power armoured infantry where necessary. ZOCOM is a relatively small component of GDI's ground forces, and they specialize in RZ duties. What I want is to let ZOCOM focus on the deeper, more dangerous RZ areas and setting up new RZ operations, while things like the RZ Border Offensives and Super Glacier Mines can be handed off to properly equipped ground forces for garrison duties once properly established.
And doing that is going to require more than just 2 ZA factories.
The only reason GDI is capable of performing the RZ Border Offensives is because GDI has secured a vast chunk of the RZ borders through intense mining operations and fortress towns to anchor the lines. If there were only YZ/RZ borders, these projects could not exist.
1) GDI and Nod are not at a notably greater risk of strategic exchange than they were previously as long as GDI does not notably press the front line. Nibbling away at the front lines to site better defenses or establish logistics links is not the same as a full on offensive to claim as much land as possible, and Nod is aware of this.
2) I am aware that Nod would love to nuke major facilities. I also agree that SADN is important. That does not mean I consider SADN more important than finishing up the CVE and frigate roll outs, boosting ZA production, developing and integrating new ZA models and supporting equipment, and finishing up and rolling out some of our developments. SADN is definitely nice to have this plan, but I'd rather do SADN early next plan if we can't squeeze it in between the CVEs, frigates, ZA and develpment rollouts on top of the still extant military goals.
3) GDI existing is a risk factor in a strategic nuclear strike. The entire Regency War having happened is a risk factor for a strategic nuclear strike. The fact that GDI hands down won that war is a risk factor for a strategic nuclear strike. The only thing that will make Nod not nuke GDI is GDI not existing.