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[Karlito]

It was with me. Sent it just now. Weekends have been a bit slower for me.

[Il Palazzo]

Vote for the most useless artefact. Holo Freud is my choice. The subterranean sensor is not far behind, though.

[Karlito]

I find all unit feat cards to be pretty much useless whether artifact or fate.

[E. Albright]

[Karlito: no worries about needing longer to get turns done. I mostly asked to make sure someone wasn't trying to steal my distinctive style of delaying things.]

Holo-Freud is very narrowly useful - it's basically the only way to improve the 6th Sense skill. If you've got someone who starts with a decent level, that's an across-the-board boost to all their skills. But again, that's really narrow, so it's probably the least useful leader card. Exosuit is the next worst; it's mostly useful for helping geriatrics stay on the job longer - although I've had a few games where it was great b/c it let my SS director assassinate underperforming leaders with virtually no risk of failure.

I've had planets where subterranean sensors aren't bad. My current SP game would fit that category. This current game would not. It's trash on this world. In general, it's a good choice for least useful zone card.

For units, I'd say wasps.

Unit fate cards are overpriced - their costs are insane for things that boost subunits of a single unit. I'd probably say chems are the least useful of them for the same reason wasps are the worst artifact ones.

[EuchreJack]

I have terrible spending habits. I know I should pause all construction projects and fanciful road building to prioritise demetalization and industry. But I keep building shit. Just one little road across the mountains. Just one more hospital.

For the Children

[Il Palazzo]

Now, is this just my recon getting better, or is there a build-up in the border regions?

[E. Albright]

Your recon is getting better. However, thanks to your strong recommendation that I let my militia people go back to their day jobs, a bunch of militia units were replaced with two new Long-Term Planning Workgroups. So the border is better defended than it had been even if there's actually fewer troops there than there were a year ago - and perhaps most relevantly to your observations, the border is more colorful than it had been.

[Il Palazzo]

New beta patch is out. Relevant to our game are some strategic AI improvements, more zone micromanagement options.


(oof, they've got lasers)

((we're gonna start fighting sometime in the future, right? ))

[E. Albright]

The addition of majors - human and otherwise - makes brinksmanship more compelling. We need to be sure we can finish what we start w/o falling prey to interlopers. I'd also say starting so close together probably helped make starting war more of a measured decision, but I'd still say it mostly feels like it's the uncertainty about outside parties.

Also, don't you be "oof"-ing us, Mr. Regional Manager sir. Your Charged Gauss doesn't require studying a new optimization tech to be state-of-the-art (and works on aircraft, unlike Lasers), you've got Battledress just like we do, and unlike us you didn't leapfrog walkers to get it so you've got those clanking around tenderizing whatever meat they meet. And while we may have a High Tech facility that you don't, your Demetalization deployment is far ahead of ours even as our well-established mines are running dry.

(All that to one side: ugh, maintaining my current system of gov't has required me to spend 10PP over 2 turns for the privilege of dropping my relationship with my Militia Chief 90 points, and I sorta expect to have to do it again next turn. I rejected giving the general populace the vote last turn, and workers this turn, so I expect the soldiers will come knocking next...)

[Il Palazzo]

Whaaat? We get to see each other's technology? I've never seen that before. I'm guessing that's the effect of having established open contact?
We should have never agreed to it. Such are the wiles of the bureaucrats.

[Karlito]

Yeah, I was surprised by the level of intel you get from open contact.

[Il Palazzo]

Ok, EA. You have to tell me. How nice of a structural design have you got on that infantry? I thought mine was pretty spiffy at 119, but despite, like, sixth iteration of the model, similar basic design and linear tech, I can't massage 780+ hitpoints out of heavy combat armour.

[E. Albright]

My structural design is just 120. The real hero here is that particular version's re-rolls for weapon & armor design - it pushed weapon from 132->158, and armor from 130->164. Since there's no particular useful intel a scout with binoculars can't just as easily determine, here's that model's design lineage:

Spoiler: Deets (click to show/hide)

By comparison, my original infantry that I maintained concurrently and gave to militia until the newer version completely eclipsed it:

Spoiler: Not nearly so good (click to show/hide)

As might be obvious, while having your predecessors' corpses stacked like cordwood is important, blind luck in the Design Council is crucial.

[Il Palazzo]

Hmm. I have 144 armour design. That 20 difference is apparently enough for an extra 100 hp.

[EuchreJack]

I never realized how important Structural Design was until now.  Thanks E. Albright!