Moklumnue Inc. Boardroom (Community Play 2)

[contributor]

Redoubtable High Templar CdrPlatypus, Associates johndramey and tenbsmith,

While discussions have certainly been going on in the margins, it is time for the Moklume Board of Directors to convene in proper fashion.

As a first matter of business it seems only fitting that we appoint a chairman who will be primarily responsible for communicating the decisions of the board to the other members of the Quadrant Council. I nominate our colleague johndramey for this position in light of him being the first one to awaken from stasis and report for duty and because he knows more about this game than I do (as does probably tenbsmith).

[tenbsmith]

I second the nomination of johndramey. Further I empower my fellow emissaries to make decisions in my absence as business takes me out of communication from time to time.

[johndramey]

While I thank my esteemed colleagues, I sincerely feel that Clan Moklumnue be run as a direct democracy. I am more than happy to spend the time necessary to draft and submit all of our decisions to the council chambers, as I am more than aware that we are all busy and don't necessarily have the time required to deal with the morass of paper work needed to do so.

With that said, we should definitely share our opinions here, and if we differ in what we feel is right for Moklumnue then we should put it to a direct vote. If, in the future, new members join us then each member be given an equal vote, and whomever is unfortuante enough to yield his or her position will do so with grace.

Also, no need to roleplay here, haha. This can be our refuge where we can let oyr hair down.

I don't know about you two, but I plan on playing this fully. My priorities for the game are definitely

1) Clan Moklumnue
2) the Empire

So I will probably occasionally push for stuff that isn't exactly in the total game's best interest. After all, the politics system in ST sometimes royally screws the player!

[johndramey]

Also, we are being asked about scouting. I am a huge proponent of aggressive scouting, so I think we should push for sending out one ship to the east, on ship to the north, and another ship to the northeast. That way we can, over the cycle, reveal the entire north east quarter of the map.

The north and the east ships should be the templar cruisers while the northeast ship should be the exlorerer.

They should additionally have contingent orders as such; if they encounter a xeno ship they shoukd immediately break contact in a direction leading at least 90 degrees away from our core colonies until a time where they are not pursued by the xeno. At that time, they can continue their original scouting path.

Of course, just my feeling. What do my esteemed Moklumnue colleagues think?

[contributor]

Yes I think aggressive scouting is good. Does that include time for the Templar ships to repair first or do you just send them out and fix em up later. I guess early on there's not much danger of a lone (or even two) ship being able to take a templar cruiser down. I'll differ to the more experienced here, but am in favor of early scouting one way or another.

[tenbsmith]

I too believe in aggressive scouting.

Perhaps we could send the Templar Defenders on shorter early scouting circuits so they could come back and repair prior to any aggression breaking out. I like to keep some warships near my colonies at all times.


Here are a couple of potential additional contingent orders:

--Log every system and anomaly encountered by tapping it (maybe don't include this one if it seems to obvious).
--After logging a Xeno system, move away from it in an effort to not stir the Xeno up. I like to find the edge of Xeno space and then back off.

EDIT: I also like to establish a perimeter of explored space around my primes in all directions early on. This can help with expansion and give early notification when Xeno come knocking (systems on you star chart update when infested by Xeno). Then again, my rules apply to a situation where you don't know what's on the map.

[contributor]

Now that the High Templar has shown us the results of early exploration it seems like it would be good to encourage him to continue the exploration and in particular seek out the location of the xeno civilizations since that will determine a lot of how we progress and in which directions we expand. I think it's safe to say if there aren't any directly to the north than they are probably on the far sides of the asteroid belts, most likely, one on each side. Assuming that is the case how would we proceed? Obviously we want to fill up our little center-belt, but do we push quickly to establish a foothold beyond one or both of the asteroid fields or do we use them as natural buffers (which would work in both directions).

[johndramey]

I'm betting that they are on either side of us, and if that is the case then we should probably rush to establish defensive salients on each front. I always think that a good defense is a good offense, so funneling the xeno towards our defensive salient should be a top priority. That way, we can not only control how the xeno responds to us, but also concentrate our fleets in the areas where we know the xeno will push.

I agree that finding the xeno territory should be top priority.

[johndramey]

So, we got some new info and Thulun has made a proposal. Looks like we got a lot to talk about.

The new map looks like this:



and we should maybe consider what should our next expansion target be. I'm thinking the lower system or the system right above Thulun Prime might be good places for us to put down roots. It really depends on what Thulun does. If we can talk them into settling the lower right-most system then the lower system is definitely a nice, safe spot for us. If we can't talk them into settling that system, well above Thulun Prime is the best bet for us.

Thulun currently is much too passive and defensive for my tastes, I feel we should push for them to be a bit more aggressive in their expansion plans. A system to the right or left of the center of the sector would be a much nicer, juicier defensive salient for them to hold. If they expand like that, the center planets can be left for Javat and our Exalted Clan Moklumnue.

Thulun is pushing for us to cease exploration but I think I can safely say that we don't agree. contributor and I have previously agreed on the need for aggressive scouting, and I think we're probably still holding that opinion, no?

Thulun has also pushed for the construction of a single strike fighter. I could go either way on this one, so it's up to you two to decide how we feel about it. On one hand, having an extra ship for defense would be nice and help to really secure our space. On the other hand, maintenance and the loss of infrastructure might not be worth it at this time. What do you two feel?

[contributor]

Yeah, I was surprised. I didn't see Thulun coming out as the great Timid Lion. To be honest I've only played one serious game of ST 4X and that was on Hard not Crazy, so my experience may not be the best guide. My game was on a similarly large map with similar decisions and I pretty much crushed it, so hopefully I can be of some use. I guess I haven't seen the enemy come out and wage never ending war simply because of a scouting ship going through their territory. Unless that is a major feature of Crazy, I think we need to keep pushing the exploration envelope. I would ideally like to have a good idea of at least the first layer of planets on each side of the asteroid fields. That will help us later when we are planning our offensive against the xeno and will also alert us to their spread because you can see when a discovered planet has been colonized by the scum. I don't know how really different the xeno AI/MOs are but I would think it would also be important to know which one lies on which side because that might affect future decision about which one to attack first and which one we would leave for second. Honestly I think we ought to be asking the question about whether or not we shouldn't try and colonize at least one planet on the far side of one of the asteroid fields. This would serve as both to draw all of the xeno attacks to one point and also serve as an eventual jumping off point for an attack. That could be done as soon as the third round of planet colonization.

As for which planets to settle now. I will defer to others. It seems to me like the planet above Thulun would be the most likely to be attacked by the xeno, but that may not be the case. It would be helpful to have more complete planet data.

I would also say that we should urge the council not to agree to the demands to build a fighter now. Since it appears that we have ample space between us and the xeno, I don't think that we need that drain on our resources, at the moment. I don't have the economic data but ideally we should be able to subsidize a hab and a factory for each new colony. We need to build the economic/infrastructure base first. The laws of growth say that incremental gains early on lead to very large gains later in time. A single fighter might seem small now, but it could have a very large effect on our ultimate financial positions.

[contributor]

Also welcome to resistor, our newest associate.

[johndramey]

Lurker, you are a man after my own heart. I agree with pretty much everything you said, although I am willing to possibly allow the construction of the fighter if House Thulun accedes to our recommendations regarding expansion and scouting. The way I see it, we might need to give them something in order to get them to go along with our (much better) plan.

I've approached Javat in their room, strictly non-binding, and asked them to possibly back us on this. If we can get their support we might not even need to get Thulun on board since we could simply outvote them.

Also, my experiences with 4X have been exactly the same as you, Lurker. If you push early and push hard, you usually don't need to worry too much about overwhelming xeno rushes.

[En1gma]

My dear associates... I stopped by to look at your pricing scheme, to see if it made any sense to me. As I don't have the time to read the 649 pages of your legally binding contract, I'll just partake of the pastries set out.

I couldn't help but overhear your comment about Thulun being the 'tame lion'... Thulun simply underatands the difficulty of fighting a multi front war without the fleet to actually back it up.

We are poised to amass a massive, and rich (Did I mention filthy rich?) civilization, but to incite war when we neither have the money or resources sems foolhardy at best. If we can avoid detection for a few years, amass a sizeable treasury, and build a corresponding fleet, the Xeno will be hard pressed to stand against us.

You risk drawing the attention of the Xeno to our fledgling Alliance, at a time where we are farthest from ready. War will be upon us soon enough without even needing to do anything.

Consider also that cost will be a non issue for much of this game, and already we have enough funds to build and maintain a single fighter craft, without dampening our economy nearly as much as the factories both Javat and Mokk will surely be subsidizing. No Thulun colony will have any need to subsidy anything until mid game when money is no object. Let us have the fighter, the alliance needs it. Consider it an insurance policy, and remember that when the time comes, Mokklumune will be requesting funds left and right to subsidize your projects, spending far more money than our single fighter.

I bid you good day gentlemen.
/looks at the bottom of his pastry plate and chokes on his bite. '45 Credits for a croissant?!' he mutters, making for the register as he shakes his head...

[contributor]

I suppose that while you're here, you could explain your certainty that simply scouting to the west will result in open and unending war. Is that something that you have often experienced in ST 4X? Scouting now is actually good preparation for the future because it gives us more information which will be useful and it's easy to get now. You can't scout once the enemy has totally infested an area. And in regards to the possibility of establishing a colony beyond one of the asteroid belts, that may also be the most economically sound plan because that would allow us to focus our fleet in one place instead of stringing them out over a long frontier, waiting for the enemy to attack from any direction. It will certainly be economically beneficial when we go to attack the enemy because it will give us a space to refuel our ships before a short trip to launch our assault. Otherwise we will have to send our military transports across the long gap burning precious WaterFuel and possibly necessitating the building of support ships (refuelers) or more transports than would otherwise be necessary. You can be certain that we of Clan Moklumnue will operate out of the most sound economic reasoning that is available. We are not warmongers, and we are certainly not cowards, we are simply looking for the most advantageous course of action rather than running willy nilly before an enemy that has yet to show his face.

Welcome to the boardroom, you'll find us a little more frank here than in the assembly.

[contributor]

Looking over the map a bit, I think Olgavvan (sp?) is a good place for our second colony. It should have reasonably high quality that would allow it to become a real economic powerhouse in the future. In our negotiations with Thulun, I would rather see them hold off on the fighter or agree to do some more exploration than try to get Sayek. It seems like they ought to agree to give up on at least one the things they want to get.

I can't really fathom why everyone is so afraid of exploration. Do the xeno really come after you as soon as they see one of your ships in Crazy. In my mind the benefits of exploration are:

1) More anomalies to boost our early construction, research and economy when we need it most.
2) Knowledge of what planets exist beyond the belts so that we can see when they are colonized by the xeno have the best intel for our eventual strikes against them.
3) Knowing what xenos species there are early and which one we might want to fight first. This will have a big influence on which planets we would fortify and which ones we would won't fortify because the fleet will be surrounding them and the front will soon move past them.

Doesn't need to be said, but I support holding off on the fighter for awhile.

Edit: Maybe we could request that the High Templar also post information on years, economy, treasury and game turns. These numbers would all help in making decisions about building ships etc.