OSG 23 - Cuban Isolationists in Space!

[RefSteel]

Many thanks, TheArchduke - not only for the compliment, but for helping to push the next picture-intensive posts onto page 2!

Also, @Maniac, since I apparently missed saying this in my previous post: Take your time on this; health comes first by a country mile. I hope you feel better soon!

 

[ToddMarshall]

For benefit of the lurkers, I am still sick. They sent me home from work today. Unfortunately, I really have a hard time thinking creatively when I feel like this. I SHOULD have it posted before Thanksgiving, but since I now have to work every day before then except for Saturday, I can't say when it will be done.

I know what direction I want to take the story in, I just can't write when I feel this crappy. Hopefully Sunday I can do it.

 

[Honkoid]

Take your time!

Finally another great OSG

 

[ToddMarshall]

Just an update. I was off today, and intended to write, but, I ended up sleeping almost the entire day, which was probably a good thing for me. I might finally be slowly getting over being sick, as for the first time in days, I did not wake up gagging and choking. Starting Thursday, I have 6 of the next 7 days off, so should be able to dedicate a couple of them to getting it done during that time, especially if we do not go to the gaming convention next weekend.

 

[Mojoqmeyvam]

Lurker...checking in.

That's a crazy number of (expensive) variants, even for hard play. Should be fun!

 

[RefSteel]

That's a crazy number of (expensive) variants, even for hard play. Should be fun!

Thanks! But as it turns out, we decided the crazy number wasn't crazy ENOUGH ... and decided to Chase the Hydra(TM)!

(What does that even mean in Orion? Heh, heh. You'll see!)

So, an update: Maniac is still feeling under the weather, but has played the turns (in fact, he may have gotten a little case of OneMoreTurnitis to go with the RL sickness) started his report, and sent the save on to me. So, I've got it, and I've looked at it, and ... ... must ... resist ... urge ... to play ... before ... Maniac's ... report ... is in....

Okay, okay. I'll at least let everyone else get a peek at what I'm seeing ... and just how crazy a variant we're playing here at this point. Using spoiler tags for an actual spoiler for once, let's play "What's wrong with this picture?"!

Spoiler :

Bear in mind, this is from after the case of OneMoreTurnitis, after the ~21 turns Maniac was scheduled to play, after my 29 to start the game. Can you spot our third world? You can't? Good! Then you're not hallucinating! But just wait until you hear the reason...

 

[Meatbalz]

the second yellow star west of Cuba is Tyr, an Ocean 65 near the heart of the galaxy

i might be MILES off, but a good way to leverage the self-imposed spying spend once you make contact is to send a LR colony ship to a central location, enabling you to make several contacts at once

 

[RefSteel]

Sorry I missed this, Meatbalz - it's a crazy time of year, I guess. (Crazy time to start an SG, right? Well, we DID warn that it would be a relaxed-pace SG!) I have it on good authority that Maniac will post something soon, at least to tide us over, but the game might continue its glacial pace at least until next year. Anyway, I'd better at least respond now that I'm here!

i might be MILES off, but a good way to leverage the self-imposed spying spend once you make contact is to send a LR colony ship to a central location, enabling you to make several contacts at once

What? On purpose?! We're ISOLATIONISTS here!

Heh-heh. Actually, though the effect isn't as powerful (read: crippling) after the first, if you look carefully at our spying rules, they still discourage making additional contacts: We can spy on our first contacts exactly as much as we wish, with no extra drain on the economy beyond the 20% we're always wasting (oops - ahem - using) post-contact on spying/security; our security slider just makes up the difference. When we meet additional races though, the only way to keep spy/sec spending at just 20% is to give up on spying completely, and just flush all 20% down the toilet of "security" (in a normal games, there may be times when it can make sense to use the security slider tactically, but doing so at all times the way we're doing here is beyond insane). If we do even one click of spying against any race, we have to either keep 20% on the slider anyway or do an equal amount of spying against every race we've met. Bear in mind as well that with our tax rate and spy/sec minimum spending, the cost of each click of spying above that minimum is about time and a half what a click would cost in a normal empire, because the cost is based on our total (gross) economy, but is taken out of our actual (net, after taxes and security, etc.) economy. Contact is bad for these Cubans. They're isolationists for a reason!

That said, it's entirely possible that the mighty Hydra will dictate policies that appear contrary to the interests of the empire, or even (remember those transports from RB1) to Isolationism itself! In spite of our two-planet empire, we may have lots of contacts sooner than we think (or would like!) - after all, I said they appear contrary ... but who are we to doubt the Hydra?!