I agree on the AUT-10 prototypes being a moot point. Kind of a red-herring this early in the game.
I do have a question for you. Earlier, you have mentioned that "Taking the Mass 8.0 colony you find will be quite a burden...". I'm not sure I understand how adding 30,000,000 workers to your MIN, FCT, and LAB efforts would be a burden. Yes, there will be some logistical issues to overcome, but I think the benefits in population alone would outweigh the short-term inconvenience over the long run.
I understand that you were in the previous test game. How many colonies did you take over in that game? And what issues did you run into?
11-28-2013, 01:34 PM (This post was last modified: 11-28-2013, 01:35 PM by Darth Pedro.)
Dear Dread,
I don't need 30,000,000 workers at this point or any point in the near future. I'll have 30,000,000 more population of my own quicker than I can effectively harness the out-system Mass 8 colony in a nearby system.
The last test game I entered on Turn 26. I had a really LARGE position but it was wrecked thoroughly by several previous owners. It took another 20 Turns to reorganize and rescue the colonies that existed and some that could not even be setup by colonization ships with huge inventories. I recall one huge colony ship which arrived at a 40 HAB planet and was getting low on fuel. It turned out that it had NO transports or constructors to establish the colony disassembled in inventory. I had to build a large tanker transport and send it there to refuel so the colony could be established. This was the worst case of several out-systems which some which previous impetuous owners had striven (too early) to gobble up.
The winning player in that game had already established superiority and I spent a lot of effort organizing a coalition and managing a technology exchange pool which was helping all of the members catch up and surpass the encroaching "BORG". During that time I felt constant pressure from allies to build large warships and send help to others closer to the enemy frontier. As it was, I did gift a lot of hardware to others and the technology exchange got us to a level that the Borg could have been halted and eventually pushed back.
The discussion between our allies seemed to center on mass versus technology. The Borg already had MASS but we collectively had TL and were on an exponential ramp up the TL trail.
Please see the attached graph. This is derived from the TL spreadsheet tool I used to coordinate research efforts and exchange of prototypes. We eventually evolved to having guest OBC's in reciprocating home systems actually building masses of high TL items for each other in order to save individual research costs for expending just the prototypes and to save the additional 4 turns of production time.
The graph tracks the Sum of the Game Maximum TL's in RED for comparison. It was actually Turn 48 before MI and MA joined the coalition TL exchange. About that same time two (2) of our member home systems fell to the Borg assault. There were several other known players who abstained from joining the coalition and ultimately succumbed to the Borg on their own.
This graph stops at Turn 58 where I turned the responsibility over to another player (it became too burdensome and a thankless task). The game was ended by consensus on Turn 61, according to my records, due to player perception that the Borg were either destined to win or the game would at best continue forever. We all learned a lot from the experience and many changes to the game have been forthcoming during the year it took to start the current CWT2 test game.
Also see the attached spreadsheet file (IT WOULD NOT ATTACH BEING TOO LARGE) from which this graph is derived. You can see that we took a vote on Turn 52 in order to prioritize the Items to be collectively researched. there is also a tab with my own notes for tracking prototypes in my possession and exchanges with the several guest OBC's building and receiving prototypes in my system. Each member had a similar arrangement but my system was the only one that had representation of all members and so became a clearing house of sorts.
Thus my perception, accounting for changes in the rules since then and the fact that I am starting from scratch. I have made a few minor errors in this game so far but nothing unrecoverable or critical in the long run. Time will tell.
