Pretty good. This "three-turn plan" consistently makes progress on planetary infrastructure (increasing our productivity and action economy) and makes lots of progress on the magi-tech space elevator. We'd probably even finish it on turn 16, and most likely get our Yu'ri Ga'ga'rin and Ne'il Ar'mstr'ong Lizardman equivalents out there to do their thing - "Hexoatl, the Pteradon has landed." *queue approving Slann noises from Mission Control*
That's why I have Tiktaq'to assigned to the thing in Turn 16 and on, because I imagine him transitioning, for the next stage of the quest, into the astronaut corps.
Will completing the Qhyash Skink Priests early in the turn have an effect on the rest of the turn as we have 3 turns worth of research planned out? Will we just get a bunch of extra slannpower to assign freely to represent the time of slann freed up by them?
It very well might, and also completing
Theory of Engine may significantly simplify a bunch of other projects, sort of like how VEIST did. This is why I'm actually coming around in favor of voting for only
one turn of slann research at a time, because we can't plan ahead for the impact of successfully completed projects on our tech tree. I hope that doesn't go against what
@Xantalos wanted, mind you.
Edit: I've been trying to think of useful rituals, so just throwing out a suggestion; what if we had Mazdamundi - the geomancy specialist - do an extended Mag 3 ritual (or a 1.5 X cost Mag 2 ritual?) that allows for many instances of space compression/folding over the course of the turn, allowing for large amounts of resources/builders being moved very quickly to new city sites?
It sounds cool as fuck but there's so many secrets and ideas for us to learn and understand. And Mazdamundi is
really good for making sure those giant 1000-point megaproject research actions get wrapped up in a timely manner. And Xantalos tends to write the research scenes involving massed slann efforts and the Communion diving into the Warp as being cool as fuck too.
Like, a big part of the whole point of the lizardmen as a collective civilization is that the slann are supposed to be free to just meditate and figure out really esoteric mystic shit like the balance of the world while the rest of the lizardmen labor joyously to do the normal stuff that objectively needs doing to make the plan work out.
I say that having the slann constantly getting involved in construction work kind of works against that intent. Though it still produces scenes that are cool as fuck and is not a bad thing.
Orks have the nasty habit of surviving in unlikely conditions despite all the odds.
Orbital bombardment and then cleansing the land with a natural disaster increases our odds of wiping them all out we can then send some Chamaleon Skinks to clean out the stragglers.
Chameleon skinks are not good choices for cleaning out the stragglers because they have no special advantage when compared to "a bunch of saurus with guns and flamethrowers," and we have plenty of flamethrower-like options.
I know quite well that orks are good survivors; it's why I keep listing "go on killing orks if the uax yet live" as a Focus despite having put enough Focus onto Turn 15 alone that according to Xantalos'
direct, explicit words it should be enough to exterminate them outright.
Orks are survivors, but we have advantages of our own, including divination, a good theoretical understanding of how the WAAAGH! works, and the fact that the local terrain is so infertile and forbidding that even ork fungi have trouble really thriving there.
But making a big firey tornado or dropping ork cities on other ork cities is so much fun!
...ok, fine, at this point we really don't need to dedicate more slanpower towards that. even if ork busting fireworks would be fun.
Yeah, it's just not worth our time anymore, and we have sufficient hilariously powerful magic weapons in the hands of our regular lizardmen that they can sort this shit out for us without taking any slannpower. It's kind of the opposite of the situation that obtained back in, I think it was Turn 10 when we had our first war turn, where we had to mass-deploy slann as divisional support superweapons because we were objectively very badly outgunned by the orks' conventional weapons.
Now the ded stompy kickin' boot is on the other foot.
Actually to anyone who wants to get petals on oour more unique development. Do keep in mind operational security, as well as trust level we need to allowe her insight into such secretive operations. at the very least we would need her to make some preety tight vows of secrecy.
Edit: Not a fan of plans so far. making ourself dependant on Isandel does not sit well with me.
Okay, so what do you want to use petals on? Because most of the things we know she's good at (biology, divine energies) is stuff, and that we are interested in doing, is stuff that is in some sense "security" for us (spawning pools, spawning in general, lizardman soul structure, the slann's own physical and spiritual structure).
Because sure, I respect the security argument, but it'd be a real pity to waste Isendral's generosity and willingness to help us as an ally because we don't trust her to do anything actually important enough to us that we consider it worth doing.
One thing I'd like to do is get our heroes in on research instead of construction and war. Let's get feedback from the lower castes-and get a certain builder working on tier 4 infrastructure.
I think I'd like that for Turn 16 or later, it's just that in Turn 15 specifically we've got the two big slannpower projects penciled in as "
qhyash skinks" and "Theory of Engine," neither of which is likely to get much help from the hero units we have.
[] Plan Son of (Lizard)Man, A (Lizard)Man In Time You'll Be
-[] In terms of general priority for non-Slann, top is most important and goes down the list from there. Assume roughly equal proportions, redirecting Lizardpower to the next one down where applicable.
-[] (435 SP) Astral Ponderings
-[] (200 SP) Expand The Web - Wide
-[] (200 SP) Ayacmanik Tutelage + Burdens of the Young - Teach them the following:
--[] Wherever she wishes, invite Isendral to join in as a teacher. Explicitly request her to help teach the lessons on Empathy, Restraint, and Compassion, but do not push the issue.
--[] The basics of working together without screwing each other over, and without causing unnecessary messes, fights with others, and/or damage
--[] The value of Empathy, Restraint, Compassion (as both Isendral and the Slann understand it) and both knowing your limitations and being careful when trying to go beyond them.
--[] The Scientific Method as the Slann understand it, focusing on the core principles of "Question what you know", "There is no such thing as settled science" and the limitations of the method - when it is useful and when it is not
--[] A basic introduction to the Four Fuckwits of Chaos, how to safely discuss them without risking memetic infection, why they are fuckwits, and why you should kill them whenever you find them
-[] (200 SP) Unbind the Thorns w/ Isendral Included
-[] (150 SP) Geomantic Anomalies Pt. 2
-[] (100 SP) Blessed Items
-[] (100 SP) Reactive Protection Enchantments
-[] (75 SP) Hand of the Gods
-[] (75 SP) Basic Prosthetics
-[] (40 SP) Breed Concealing Armor
-[] (40 SP) Loquatl Spawning
-[] (33 SP) Excavate the Ship
-[] (15 SP) Huantzitli Spawning
This is the 1 Turn Plan, because I'm not really inclined to make a three turn plan that locks everyone in when finishing research is likely to create new options we want more. I'll add a three turn plan, but I may or may not stick an X on it.
Key points;
---I want space capabilities before any hedonistic Eldar fuckwits come screwing with us. It will also speed up construction time for more cities and such.
---More cities for more actions, I want as much of the center ring under Lizardman control as possible.
---The Ayacmanik write-in is designed for three purposes; helping them be self sufficient, and asking Isendral to cover any weak spots in our instruction, and teaching them why choosing to not be shitbags even when you can profit from it is generally a good idea. We gave them sapience, now it's our responsibility to raise them right - meaning self sufficient and not raging assholes.
---Continuing Unbind the Thorns
---Figuring out what the hell is up with Mochantia's geomancy before it potentially screws us as we expand
---And covering a lot of low-hanging fruit that each provide notable overall bonuses.
See, my issues with this are fourfold.
First, I really think it's a good idea to work on
Theory of Engine before fiddling around with a lot more lizardman tech, because I expect magical engines to make a lot of our magitech work better or be easier to develop.
Second, I really, really want to prioritize
qhyash skinks, as a development with a lot of potential to show us a path further forward into the lizardmen's own development as a people.
Third, doing 200 points of work on
Unbind the Thorns is just enough to get the attention of the fuckers who created this problem, without getting the matter resolved and out of the way. I'd rather take it slowly.
Fourth, you're greatly overcommitting slannpower to tasks that are supposed to be performed by the other lizardmen, such as "teach the Ayacmanik" which is explicitly a "one slann" thing because it only
takes one slann to explain a thing to the hive mind
once. They're a hive mind; this is literally one big person you're talking to. Likewise with
Astral Ponderings, though there at least we can clearly articulate what the slann are going to be doing.
