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ahahaha, thanks, I haven't seen that video in years.
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Sep 20, 2019 19:45
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Siegkrow posted:Going by the massive mod projects I've seen coming from German areas of the internet, I'd say that RPGs are also very big. Shadowrun was big enough in Germany that we had RPG sourcebooks that were written and printed exclusively for the german market. Magni fucked around with this message at 21:25 on Sep 20, 2019 |
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Sep 20, 2019 21:22
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Just recorded the next update. Minor Seedings and colonial splinters are just not having good luck with Möglichkeit. Rest in peace, Colombians.
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Sep 21, 2019 00:58
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Sep 21, 2019 11:56
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Realignment State of INTEGR, Turn 119  Weltgeist  Kastellan  Eintracht  Weisheit  If the AI picks this trait, the only way to get a negative comment is if you're getting your spies killed.   Prime Minister Hutama's charms were wasted on Lena, but the Commonwealth-INTEGR treaty was ratified with ease by the Governing Board.   Adding even more explosives to the warhead: whoda thunk? The rocket battery quest. The alternative is +1 range to the city's anti-orbital strike radius. I've never, ever had a city perform an anti-orbital strike.   The security of water supplies was deemed a vital issue. Back to the repeat quests, sigh.  INTEGR explorers watched in horror as a kraken crashed against the NSA's capital city, heedless of the rockets and gunfire pouring from the besieged city. Though the creature was ultimately repulsed, the INTEGR Armed Forces' estimate was that thousands had died during the creature's attack. I actually stuck around to see what happened, but the Alliance killed the kraken while Deepcastle was on a tiny sliver of health.  The Ectogenesis Pod was not the largest infrastructure project Lena Ebner had oversee, but it was certainly the largest she had directed on Möglichkeit. Ectogenesis Pod posted:For centuries, the defining limit on population growth was that organic hosts were needed to incubate developing offspring. The Ectogenesis Pod removed that limit, allowing the creation of organisms without requiring developmental hosts.       The other colonial leaders were impressed.  Kavitha's also gone for Integrated.   The OSAS' relentless attitude of aggression towards the other colonies left a bitter taste in the Governing Board's mouths. Bitter enough to firmly reject Alencar's entreaties. The Brasilian supreme commander's veiled threats afterwards were regarded by most as vindication.  The allure of reproducing an Earth-like environment on Möglichkeit was deeply attractive to the growing Terraphiliac movement within the Initiative. I'll actually be making gaian wells this time, they're a Purity energy structure.  Earth was gone, killed by humanity's greed and short-sightedness. If Zweite Möglichkeit was indeed another chance, then it had a chance to be more than just another Earth. INTEGR had the chance to be better than the short-sighted, violent, greedy humans of the past. An ambitious undertaking, but compared to the journey they had already made across the stars?  Returning human pilots to control of the IAF's combat aircraft was long overdue.  The new-model infantry forces of the Armed Forces, the Sentinel brigades, enjoyed better weapons and equipment than any soldiers had had on Earth. For the most part, the change was evolutionary rather than revolutionary: assault rifles still fired bullets, armor was still made of woven synthetic fibers. What made the Sentinels special was less obvious: superior training, an egalitarian view of soldiers free of sexism and racism, superior communications equipment, a truly magnificent logistical support organization. The sum of the Sentinels' advantages made them far more than the mere sum of their parts.  The Broadside class frigates of the Initiative's navy were not dissimilar. They still fired explosive rounds out of rifled cannons, still plowed through the seas with screws. But incremental improvements to the technology of the ships were matched by incremental improvements to the men and women crewing them, and to the command and organizational structures supporting them.  Lena noticed the sea change in INTEGR's society, subtle but unmistakable. On Earth, INTEGR had pledged to try to save Earth. On Möglichkeit, they swore that this world would never need saving.  The Board of Public Health launched a new research program, seeking to establish practical bionic replacements for injuries, to be made available to all Initiative citizens. Bionics labs are a useful Purity structure, but they require resilin and I don't have any. I'm here mainly for institutes and the free tech quest for a bit of a slingshot soon.  Compulsory public service was worked into the Initiative's educational system, serving both as public duty and as on-the-job work training for INTEGR's youth.   ARC's overtures were also politely rebuffed. No real reason for this, just gently caress space megacorps.   Initiative explorers looked on as war raged between Franco-Iberia and the OSAS. Franco-Iberia took the city back the next turn.  For the moment, INTEGR's internal politics were stable. The Responsible Party remained firmly in control, marrying a cautious approach to foreign diplomacy with a firm commitment to the sciences and well-being of the Initiative's people.   Lena's thoughts exactly.   Given the value of xenomass for scientific purposes, growing the stuff artificially was of great interest to the Science Board.  New laws were quickly instituted: bionic replacements were for medical purposes only, not any dreams of transhumanism or improving over the human baseline. The prevailing argument in the Governing Board was best summed up by Siqiniq al-Gawrhi: "Until we can guarantee that such improvements can be granted equally and fairly to all men and women, the Initiative must not condone efforts to set a few apart as more or less equal than their fellows. Social inequality was the root downfall of Old Earth, and we cannot allow that root to flourish here."  Ethics were the question of the day across the board for INTEGR. I want the Xenodrome so I can get a handle on the alien pests, and this opens the door for Alien Evolution from the institute's quest - relevant for the +1 science from every farm, which is a considerable kick of science.   Defies all known science, Firaxis? It's called photosynthesis and I learned about it in elementary school.   Search and rescue efforts began on the fallen Seed lander identified previously.  Time to go shopping!   Only too late did most corporations learn that the tantalizing tax breaks in Weltgeist were a trap: the increased governmental oversight and regulations cost them, and gained INTEGR, more than the normal taxes in the outlying cities.  Hutama approves, of course.   Lena Ebner proudly reported the development of a practical cure for Down Syndrome, to be provided for free to any citizen at a gene garden. Less than a year later, a cure for cystic fibrosis followed.  The Magnasanti Effect was alive and well on Möglichkeit as it had been in the crowded cities of Germany and Austria.   Not long thereafter, the Cuban-born xenoengineer officially emigrated from ARC to INTEGR despite protests from ARC corporate officers.   The Board of Land Management announced the formation of INTEGR's first national parks on Möglichkeit, made possible by a partnership with the Kavithan Protectorate. Not great but it helps and triggers more Insightful science.    Kavitha was sanguine about the new partnership, but others were more skeptical.  The starship Bachué, Colombia's Seeding ship, had met with the same tragic fate as so many other ships on final approach to Möglichkeit: a series of micrometeor impacts during orbital insertion leading to a catastrophic landing failure. Once again, there were no survivors. Rolled a 3 on the d12 and accidentally clicked out of the pop-up again.  Lena had never met the woman on the video screen before. Al Falah and INTEGR had been allies on Earth, but Lena had been among those consistently advising against Al Falah's proposal to launch a generation ship. Al Falah had launched anyway, of course, and not only that but they'd made it to Möglichkeit in good order. Given the news about the Bachué, Al Falah's successful arrival was seen as a positive sign to most Initiative citizens. We finally meet Arshia as an AI! She's expansionist and standoffish, and while she likes to build a considerable military she's not very aggressive. But she is very territorial, and will attack first if she feels threatened.   This latest proposal was put on the back burner. Offensive operations against the aliens of Möglichkeit were deemed inadvisable for the time being.   A victory for the Agricultural Board. Cloning plant quest, I don't recall whether I showed this in Al Falah or not.  Diplomatic relations with Al Falah seemed off to a good start.  The labor and industrial boards enjoyed a fruitful collaboration.  Environmentalism had been a key part of INTEGR's platform on Earth. What environmentalism meant on this planet was still evolving. Here mostly for the Xenodrome and prereq.  Self-contained Terran ecosystems seemed a more promising option to most than any proposal to more fully adapt to Möglichkeit's ecosphere Nothing great here, but I want Purity points. State of INTEGR, Turn 148  Weltgeist  Kastellan. The submarine and cruiser near the city are escorting a new colonist and worker towards a new city site.  Eintracht  Weisheit
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Sep 21, 2019 23:36
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quote:
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Sep 22, 2019 00:07
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I am just catching up the INTGER saga, and I have to say: Having a city named Eintracht without having any named after other soccer teams would lead to literal riots in any German population.
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Sep 22, 2019 08:46
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VictualSquid posted:I am just catching up the INTGER saga, and I have to say: It's called Football
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Sep 22, 2019 13:51
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Siegkrow posted:It's called Football Blame the British. 'Soccer' began as an abbreviation for 'Association Football' that the Americans duly copied. Then the British changed their minds and called the Americans self-centered weirdos. VictualSquid posted:I am just catching up the INTGER saga, and I have to say: 'Harmony' is a rather generic team for a sports club, like most. I've recorded the next update, and the new city I'll be settling doesn't have a football club, either.
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Sep 22, 2019 14:07
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Cythereal posted:Blame the British. 'Soccer' began as an abbreviation for 'Association Football' that the Americans duly copied. Then the British changed their minds and called the Americans self-centered weirdos. seems like the americans should have been less self centred and followed our lead
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Sep 22, 2019 17:12
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Namtab posted:seems like the americans should have been less self centred and followed our lead Y'all did the same drat thing with aluminum/aluminium. Perfidious Albion indeed.
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Sep 22, 2019 17:16
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Namtab posted:seems like the americans should have been less self centred and followed our lead I think you are misunderstanding the relationship between America and your island.
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Sep 22, 2019 17:20
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Cythereal posted:Y'all did the same drat thing with aluminum/aluminium. Perfidious Albion indeed. Perfected the nomenclature for all time?
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Sep 22, 2019 17:23
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Defiance Industries posted:I think you are misunderstanding the relationship between America and your island. Disapproving parent and wayward child.
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Sep 22, 2019 17:38
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Soccer was destroyed in the Great Mistake
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Sep 22, 2019 18:11
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Look, if you want to come up with football club names for INTEGR's cities, go nuts and I might even mention it. Next update may go up tonight, and INTEGR's new city I'll be founding in this update is named Demut. I'm expecting a very stressful week at work this week, so knowing me it's fifty-fifty whether I won't update again until next weekend or if I'll be updating even more often than normal. 
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Sep 22, 2019 19:52
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Surface Tension State of INTEGR, Turn 148 Weltgeist Kastellan Eintracht Weisheit   With orbital operations as perilous as they were over Möglichkeit, any improvement to INTEGR's orbital reach was important.  Al Falah approved of INTEGR's steady naval buildup.  Demut - 'Humility' was launched in the waters north of INTEGR, much to the OSAS's displeasure. For some reason, Rejinaldo came down to the southern half of the planet to settle cities near me to the east, and regards my front yard as his. I have decided that this is his problem, not mine.  Self-contained Terran ecosystems were a promising step towards terraforming Möglichkeit beyond the lavish - and costly - terrascapes. This planet might yet become home someday.  To say that INTEGR believed in not fixing things that aren't broken would be something of a misinterpretation. What isn't broken can be improved, but you probably shouldn't change that thing's fundamental nature in the process.  An innovative new power system was at the heart of INTEGR's new destroyers, significantly improving the ships' reactive armor systems and magnetic acceleration cannons based on the ship's movement. Destroyers were not the fastest vessels ever imagined, but they were ideal for taking and holding the sea.  A similar system, on a much smaller scale, was used in the Guardian platoons. True railguns would probably never be man-portable, but the Armed Forces favored the use of magnetic acceleration technology as a smaller step of improvement to conventional firearms.  Work continued in INTEGR's biological research facilities. We don't have any algae or fungus, but adding 1 science to every bed (the sea structures used for harvesting shells and eggs) is nice considering how many shells I have round. I'm here for Vertical Farming, though.  With the OSAS' newly close range observation of INTEGR's territory, Rejinaldo tacitly admired the Initiative's commitment to civil improvement.  Yay, more money.  Lena received mixed messages from Al Falah regarding INTEGR's military. "Let's hope you don't need to use it." Thanks, Arshia.  Oh hey, Fielding built the Faraday Gyre. Took longer than I expected for the AI to snap that up.  Lena made a note to herself that adding 'xeno' to the front of a word doesn't automatically make it sound more intelligent.  A useful stepping stone in INTEGR's biological research. We have a lot of shells around, so this is +1 science for each. Can't make any biofuel plants or growlabs, though. Don't have the appropriate resources.  The real goal of this research program lay with improving the Initiative's farming processes. Again, +1 Food +1 Energy from farms may not sound like a lot, but multiply that by the number of farms you typically have...   The Xenodrome, the largest zoo/wildlife refuge ever imagined on Möglichkeit, opened to widespread acclaim.  In Demut, you can see other advantages of INTEGR's sponsor bonus. Buying buildings and units with diplomatic capital isn't generally practical. Unless you're INTEGR. I bought a recycler, autoplant, drydock, and water refinery for under 1k diplomatic capital here, getting the city off to a real nice start.  Everyone likes having some variety in their life. The Initiative government did what it could to encourage the phenomenon.  With the Xenodrome pacifying alien life to some extent, the Initiative Armed Forces set to work clearing aliens away from the cities.  INTEGR had been a strong proponent of urban vertical farming on Earth. Large-scale adaptation of the practice as standard for farming on Möglichkeit was only a question of effort. This is a much more normal time for me to get this.  Work with the Industrial Board preoccupied the Science Board next. Automation was being kept at a certain arm's length by Initiative development, but machines that could enhance human capabilities without replacing humans were much more acceptable. Purity points, mainly. I may not ever build the two things this actually gets you.   The purge of intrusive wildlife - on a sustainable level, mind - from INTEGR's borders continued. Never having to worry about aliens attacking is a neat benefit of the Xenodrome. Getting to eradicate them when they get in your way without turning them hostile is an even better perk.    Matunde Barrow was, fortunately, an extreme example. Most Initiative citizens were determined to build a better future on this world than try to return to the stigmata of humanity's past.  Lancer series tanks enjoyed the same cumulative power system designed for the destroyers. Offensively or defensively, INTEGR's military forces were equally potent as long as they carefully considered their next move.  The same was true of the new Undertaker class submarines.  Idleness and laziness had come to be seen as vices of the first order in Initiative society. You should always seek to better yourself, not rest on your past accomplishments.  Demut would also house a library, holding much of the literature and poetry brought from Old Earth.   We don't need more health, but this triggers more Insightful science and is dirt cheap because of INTEGR's unique trait.   The Commonwealth had established cooperation treaties with Franco-Iberia and Al Falah since the last round of trade negotiations.  Getting to work clearing out the aliens from Weisheit, too.  Practical large-scale servomachinery had become a reality, particularly via remote telepresence. The simple truth was, no artificial intelligence could match the ingenuity and intuition of a trained human mind, no matter the computer's advantages in simple speed or data access. Battlesuits are our first unique unit, and they're big buff dudes in huge suits of powered armor. The Benthic Auger is a sea-only production wonder.  To the people of the Initiative, things like artificial intelligence and genetically engineered superhumans had become a thing of skepticism if not ridicule. Futurists on Earth had touted them for centuries, that some transhuman utopia was right around the corner. No such utopia had ever appeared. There were no machine gods, no superhumans. Just people. And in the eyes of the Initiative, people were the sole reason for their struggle to build a better future. Not some imaginary transhumans of a future that had, despite all the promises and dreams, never yet happened.  We have better artillery.  A systematic overhaul of INTEGR's industrial processes was in order now that servomachinery and remote telepresence had become practical. State of INTEGR, Turn 175  Weltgeist  Kastellan  Football  Weisheit  Demut
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Sep 22, 2019 22:19
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There is in fact a Demut FC. It plays in the Villa Ansina local league in Uruguay, but it exists.
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Sep 23, 2019 01:24
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AJ_Impy posted:There is in fact a Demut FC. It plays in the Villa Ansina local league in Uruguay, but it exists. Duly noted, I was only searching on wikipedia for German clubs. Never would have thought to check South America. I'll probably be founding another city soon in my continuing effort to provoke ARC and/or Brasilia into going to war with me, but for once I think I'll have to change the city name. Blauwald would make sense on a fungal world due to the mainly blue/purple color palette, but for a sea city on a primordial world? Might discretely change that to something much further down INTEGR's city name list.
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Sep 23, 2019 17:12
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Cythereal posted:Duly noted, I was only searching on wikipedia for German clubs. Never would have thought to check South America. Would the names of people be acceptable? The city of Einstein seems like a fitting name for a metropolis on another world founded by a people who seek to embody the best in humanity.
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Sep 24, 2019 06:39
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Stormgear posted:Would the names of people be acceptable? The city of Einstein seems like a fitting name for a metropolis on another world founded by a people who seek to embody the best in humanity. That's a good idea, but unfortunately I already recorded the next update and went with pulling a name from further down the list. And try as I might to piss off other factions, no one's biting. 
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Sep 24, 2019 17:51
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Consolidation State of INTEGR, Turn 175 Weltgeist Kastellan Football Weisheit Demut  Explorers find a goody.  Terrascapes had become a mirror to INTEGR's soul: not simply a recreation of Old Earth, but an improvement. Honoring the past, but not worshiping it. Improving without changing the essential nature.  Machines may make machines, but only at human direction - and always with the off switch in arm's reach. More production for us between the LEV Plant, a Purity production structure, and the Crawler.  The Purity level 10 pop-up didn't fire for some reason. quote:Why waste your breath articulating a morality that was disproven with eloquence and foresight centuries ago on Old Earth?  The purge continues.  The overhaul of INTEGR's industrial practices continued. I've never seriously used carriers, but alloy foundries will help. Torpedo batteries may.  Nothing happened in the intervening four turns.  On Old Earth, carriers were known for their deep, meat cleaver hulls. She elected to take the Armed Forces at their word that the Bastion was a supercarrier to put the Americans of old to shame.  The overhaul completed, the prospects of truly large-scale planetary engineering were tantalizing. Perhaps outside INTEGR's immediate ability to effect, but a thorough grounding in what such an undertaking would require was much more practical. The big thing I'm here for is Boreholes, debate if that's a SMAC nod or not if you want. They're another Purity production structure.  This naval battle will prove to be annoying. The ARC cutter squadron is right where I want to found a city.  Happiness, excellence, wisdom - these were the fundamental goals of human life, depending on who you ask. The INTEGR government took the pursuit of 'arete' as a public virtue, to be cultivated at all levels of society.  The Crawler would be the largest planet-bound piece of industrial equipment ever constructed. Lena Ebner had somewhat mixed feelings about the project. Industrial production always had a cost, and few forms of it were truly sustainable. The Crawler would be a great asset to INTEGR, but for how long?   After some deliberation, the Governing Board voted to grant the Einstein Institute official autonomy from government direction, which the scholars were all too happy to make full use of.  Their advances in xenobiology were particularly impressive. +1 science per farm is still a huge science kicker. I'm on the fence about whether the Resurrection Device, as good as it is, fits INTEGR's fluff as Purity.  Not that relations between ARC and INTEGR had ever been warm, but in recent years a new level of unease crept into diplomatic discourse. Descriptions of INTEGR as 'solid,' 'measured,' and 'careful' gave way to 'conservative,' 'backwards,' and 'soft.' From the other direction, words like 'reckless,' 'technocratic,' and 'cold' were being used with growing frequency. ARC's success on Earth had come from efficient, technologically-minded solutions to large scale problems. ARC on Möglichkeit had begun to apply efficient, technologically-minded solutions to every perceived problem. To many INTEGR diplomats and traders, ARC employees were becoming downright unsettling with their pursuit of efficiency and results at every turn. She hasn't changed her outfit yet, but Fielding's going Supremacy hard enough to take a severe relationship penalty for us going Purity.  The mad quest continued. It wasn't until I started writing this update that I remembered this quest had happened. I'll try to get to it next update.  Please stop giving me repeat fluff, game.  Lena's inquiries as to what blue forest the nascent city council was naming their ARK for went unanswered. Can't rename outposts, only fully fledged cities. Also, I was hoping this would tick off Brasilia and/or ARC. No bites.   +2 production or +4 energy. The energy is particularly pointless as INTEGR with being able to supplement buying stuff with diplomatic capital. Also this reminds me, I'm about done with expansion. I should probably change traits away from Colonial.  As expected, serious planetary terraforming was firmly off the table for the foreseeable future. It could be done, though, just not anytime soon. Still a valuable base of knowledge, though. Generators I've built in this entire thread: 0  I want Purity points, but I have no idea why Alien Genetics would award them.   Rising Tide exclusive buildings have only one set of quest text.   ARC accused INTEGR of being locked in the past. INTEGR replied that they at least were looking before they leaped - and considered the costs and ramifications to all levels of society first.    Makara are weaker than siege worms or kraken, but this is what it takes to put one down in a single turn: an airstrike, a naval bombardment, and an infantry assault.  Unsustainable? Yes, the models agreed. But the Crawler would be productive for a century or two, with updates, and that was good enough.  Still no idea why this is Purity. Biowells are supposed to be the signature Harmony improvement, according to Firaxis, but they're bad - they're straight up inferior to farms except in fringe cases like the culture here. Then again, I not only haven't built any biowells, I haven't built any nodes or domes, either, which are supposed to be the iconic Supremacy and Purity improvements. They just plain inefficient compared to more universal stuff.  The outlawing of genetic augmentation was a landmark work of legislation for INTEGR's governing board. Genetic therapy to correct illnesses and deficiencies was one thing, but the systemic promotion of inequality was not to be permitted within the Initiative.  The development of magnetic acceleration weapons that could be mounted on combat aircraft was a significant step forward for the INTEGR Armed Forces. The latest Raider series were truly magnificent fighter-bombers, armed with weapons equally effective against air, ground, and sea targets.  It had taken decades, but power-assisted armored combat exoskeletons were finally a reality for INTEGR's infantry forces. The Centurion suit even included integrated medical systems to heal the wearer in deployments where soldiers couldn't afford to leave their suits.  INTEGR's new Cannonade class frigates were only an evolutionary improvement on the earlier Broadsides in raw technology. But training every man and woman in the crew, from captain to cook, in extensive damage control procedures gave the new frigates much greater longevity than mere technological analysis would indicate.  A significant overhaul of INTEGR's civil infrastructure followed. Purity points again, nothing here is of much value to me.    INTEGR's aggressive platform of population control for certain species of aliens won admiration from Al Falah.  For INTEGR, the importance of civil infrastructure - and the disastrous consequences of letting that infrastructure deteriorate and fail - was one of the more pressing lessons to take from the United States of America on Old Earth. Magrails are CBE's version of railroads from other Civ games, but given how this map has turned out despite me setting the game to a map type with more land, it's pointless. I wish my old Civilization: Call to Power disc still worked. That game actually had a solution to this particular problem. Oh, and Holomatrices are a satellite that grants culture to tiles in their area of effect. Yay?  Old Earth's history was a catalogue of horrors visited upon innocent people and an entire world by short-sighted men, most of them venal, greedy, and proud. Contrary to what their critics in other colonies thought, INTEGR did not worship the past. A bad example can teach just as much as a positive example, if the student is prepared to admit their failings and weaknesses.  Biotechnology as such held little interest for INTEGR's Science Board. It was the prospect of synthesizing industrial and ecological concerns that drew the latest research grants. Just here for Industrial Ecology for +1 production to farms. It's getting to be that point in the game, really.  The Huskarl suits had, thus far, never been deployed beyond a few experimental examples. But the newest version of the suits carried at last the dream of man-portable coilguns. Battlesuits are a genuinely good unit, I just haven't had any reason to build them.  The new dreadnoughts enjoyed fusion reactors almost as large as those that had powered the Seeding starships - with a much more advanced design.  Warden battalions, on the other hand, continued to improve the reciprocal energy generation technology of their predecessors. State of INTEGR, Turn 203  Weltgeist  Kastellan  Eintracht  Weisheit  Demut  The newly founded Streben ('to strive'), formerly Blauwald.
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Sep 25, 2019 02:21
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I sank 46 hours into the base game (one single Supremacy game and 3-4 mis-starts) and this LP has inspired me to give the expansion another try, especially since it's added more to do and I haven't played it in over four years.
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Sep 25, 2019 23:02
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Reinstalled last weekend thanks to this LP. Played as Polyaustralia and holy poo poo they have so many trade routes its broken as gently caress. It was fun though.
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Sep 25, 2019 23:49
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Battered eels make me think of anago tempura.
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Sep 26, 2019 00:08
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Compromises State of INTEGR, Turn 203 Weltgeist Kastellan Eintracht Weisheit Demut Streben   Geothermal power was readily available on Möglichkeit, but the new boreholes were something else entirely. For INTEGR's land-bound cities, new horizons in sustainable industry beckoned.  Lena Ebner was told that the new excavations beneath Weltgeist were to support the city's borehole operations, which she did not question. The truth was, Lena was growing elderly despite the best benefits of gene therapy, and her health was deteriorating. Though Chancellor Ebner was perhaps less inspiring and visionary on Möglichkeit than she had been on Earth, she'd been a quiet, solid presence in the Initiative's leadership since Planetfall. A steady pair of hands at the wheel of state, and there were those in the Initiative - particularly the Board of Public Health - who felt that the preservation of specific individuals was vital for continuity of leadership and direction for the Initiative. Lena Ebner, nearing two centuries of age and battling a body on the edge of exhaustion, particularly an unusual cancer of the blood not known on Earth, was to be the first beneficiary of this project. Assuming she survived to the projection's completion, that is.  Even confined to a hospital bed for several hours a day, Lena Ebner couldn't help but wish good riddance to Matunde Barrow and his followers. INTEGR was not in the habit of abandoning the goals it had set out to do.  Fortunately, Barrow's movement represented only a small minority of the Initiative. Möglichkeit would be a New Earth, many believed, built new and free from the mistakes of the past. Nostalgia was one thing, but one eye should always be kept firmly on the future.  Despite her poor health, Lena continued to make occasional public appearances in Weltgeist. The truth of how serious her condition was a closely kept secret, at her own wish for privacy. Lena's second Purity outfit.  The Armed Forces continued to expand in the meantime. The same ultra-lightweight construction methods that had improved INTEGR's pioneers finally found military applications, drastically reducing the weight of INTEGR's new hovertanks to allow a notable improvement in mobility at no cost to durability or firepower. Of note, +1 movement plays into the +10% per point of unused movement perk I took at tier 3.  INTEGR's naval forces, on the other hand, found a better use for the improved materials and construction in improving the striking range of submarine-based ordnance.  There was no denying that INTEGR had become inward-looking to some extent, more focused on learning from the past and not repeating the past's mistakes than on exploring the wild horizons of the future.  Though trade remained brisk between the Initiative and the Commonwealth, a degree of unease had undeniably begun to creep in. Both the Initiative and the Commonwealth agreed that Old Earth had been destroyed by human arrogance and greed, but their responses to that assessment had lead them in very different directions. The Initiative had decided that this world was a second chance, to build a New Earth as the old one should have been. The Commonwealth had decided to make a clean break with the past. Hutama's our first AI leader to change outfit.  Starting work on a Dome, I guess, just to show it. It's on the sea floor under the worker on the left.  I'm not sure this is physically possible.  Still shooting aliens.  An artifact result that will be really handy if I get into a war! This makes my ships all but immune to ranged attack - which includes cruisers, submarines, air strikes, and city bombardments.   The Responsible Party suffered a major defeat in that year's elections to the new but energetic Interventionist Party. As the name suggested, the Interventionists favored a rather more adventurous foreign policy. I've reached the limits of my city expansion, so since I'm constantly culling aliens from the borders, I decide to get some science out of it. However, this cancels any agreement from the Colonial trait that someone had with us...    Foreign response to the electoral upset was mixed.  The Initiative's Chief Scientific Advisor compared it to a Progenitor lava lamp. Lena Ebner asked what a lava lamp was.  Hey, one of my tank units has killed enough aliens to gain a rank of veterancy!  Ethics concerns alone ensured most applications of advanced bioengineering were stillborn. Nothing here of interest, just a prereq.  Between murdering so many Seeding missions and the wildlife, Möglichkeit might be an even nastier world than Al-Jalidia.  Sustainable industrial development had always been an important goal of INTEGR, and that goal was finally in reach. Still a huge production boon even if we won't get molecular forges.  As indicated by Hutama's outfit, the Commonwealth has Screamers now.  In truth, Lena Ebner was only one of a dozen people in INTEGR selected to be the first beneficiaries of the so-called Resurrection Device. To most, the explanation for Lena's sudden rejuvenation - that a revolutionary new gene therapy had successfully treated her cancer - was more than sufficient. Others were not satisfied, least of all Lena herself who ordered the project immediately shut down. Officially, it was. Unofficially, rumors that the Device has continued to operate in secret have never entirely abated, even centuries later...  INTEGR's mandatory public service period for adolescents expanded to include laboratory work as well. Lab apprenticeships soon became highly sought after by the Initiative's youth.  A completed Dome on the sea floor. Mainly, Domes add culture to the city.  The Battle of Banu Musa was strategically inconclusive, but tactically a disaster for the Commonwealth. Hundreds of Commonwealth sailors died during the battle from Banu Musa harbor defenses, guided by the telemetry of INTEGR's orbital satellite. Stop beating up my trade partner, Hutama! Actually, the Station Sentinel we have over Banu Musa has improved the station's defense enough that it sinks every single Screamer squadron in this screenshot. Stations cannot, however, retaliate against ranged attacks, so the Harmony cruiser here - a Triton - bombards the station at will. Ranged attacks, however, cannot destroy a station, only bring it down to 1 HP. Had the AI started by wearing Banu Musa down with the Triton, a Screamer could have simply finished off the 1 HP station. Instead, the Commonwealth loses four Screamer units.  Environmentally friendly industry? Not yet, not entirely. But INTEGR was getting there.  The Science Board announced a new investigation into theoretical mathematics. More Purity points.  The institution of an official, government-run news program was controversial to some, but the Initiative Public Netcast Service soon became a familiar fixture of INTEGR life.  Leading Initiative mathematicians believed that there was a message hidden in the numbers of reality. A signal. Deciphering this signal, if it even existed, would be a significant commitment of resources... A wonder I won't build and something relevant to the next update.  So what if INTEGR wasn't pursuing the wild flights of fancy that the technophile ARC and the eco-maniacal Commonwealth enjoyed? To many in the Initiative, INTEGR was achieving great things without needing cybernetic implants or genetic augmentation.  A-grav technology was already used on a limited basis by INTEGR's military forces, but significant hurdles lay between that first step and widespread anti-gravity technology for civil use. More Purity, and a downright bad Purity unique unit.  Early results, and continued refinement of holographic printing for military use, lead to improved artillery.  Each city network had, until now, been mostly self-contained. An improved communications infrastructure finally joined together INTEGR's networks into a single, colony-wide internet.  I have no idea what this tech is supposed to do with Purity as an ideology. We have a few Sea Wells, at least - they're the tile improvement exclusive to hydrothermal vents (though they're also called Wells, geothermal wells, petroleum wells, and xenomass wells are all separate and unique tile improvements). LEV Tanks are one of the most pointless affinity units in the game. They want to be a ranged hover-unit that can keep up with t4 hovertanks without needing to deploy, but they're unbelievably slow and lack artillery's range, not to mention eating floatstone to make.  Honestly, Purity's been frustrating as hell to write, and I think it's contributed to how my heart's not in this like it was in the Al Falah game. Purity is more about what it is not than what it is, and plays badly with the tech based affinity stuff. Most Supremacy and Harmony techs, sure I could readily imagine how they'd impact and change society. Thinking about those changes was something I really loved about the Al Falah game. But what does advanced hover tech have to do with Purity? Or ballistics? Or alien genetics? Or transcendental mathematics? I characterized Purity as being the Star Trek affinity, but the truth is that an awful lot of Star Trek is commentary on real-world issues, thinly veiled through the lens of science fiction. This is no bad thing, it's been an essential function of science fiction from the beginning, and many of Trek's best episodes like Errand of Mercy, The Drumhead, Duet, and Living Witness are about taking on real-world issues in precisely that fashion. But CBE doesn't do that, and I can think of a number of reasons why. Obviously there's Firaxis' tendency to play it safe with this game. Another is how faction-agnostic every affinity has to be. And in INTEGR's case specifically? Call me bitterly cynical and political, but I think there's been a distinct strain of video games lately being afraid to criticize so much of what is wrong with the world today. And that's part of why I find CBE's writing disappointing.  One of the major goals of the alien purge from Weltgeist's south was finally within reach: search and rescue of the human settlement deep in what had been the heart of alien wildlands. State of INTEGR, Turn 226  Weltgeist  Kastellan  Eintracht  Weisheit  Demut  Streben
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Sep 28, 2019 18:10
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Hutama this is not very cahsmoney of you
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Sep 28, 2019 21:39
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Cythereal posted:Honestly, Purity's been frustrating as hell to write, and I think it's contributed to how my heart's not in this like it was in the Al Falah game. Purity is more about what it is not than what it is, and plays badly with the tech based affinity stuff. Most Supremacy and Harmony techs, sure I could readily imagine how they'd impact and change society. Thinking about those changes was something I really loved about the Al Falah game. But what does advanced hover tech have to do with Purity? Or ballistics? Or alien genetics? Or transcendental mathematics? I characterized Purity as being the Star Trek affinity, but the truth is that an awful lot of Star Trek is commentary on real-world issues, thinly veiled through the lens of science fiction. This is no bad thing, it's been an essential function of science fiction from the beginning, and many of Trek's best episodes like Errand of Mercy, The Drumhead, Duet, and Living Witness are about taking on real-world issues in precisely that fashion. There is, I think, an echo to modern political attitudes in this, but it's only tangentially touching on how you're writing INTEGR and it doesn't come across as criticism because you're not writing them as antagonists. Positively stated: The core agreement between Supremacy and Harmony is that baseline humanity is actually insufficient to meet the challenges that it faces. Humanity was a parasite that killed its first host, Earth; if it doesn't want to do the same beyond Earth it needs to either alter its nature such that it can coexist with its host, and maybe even advance from parasite to symbiote (Harmony), or alter itself to the point that it may stand alone and treat the worlds as independent organisms that are helpful but something truly apart (Supremacy). Purity rejects this. Purity says that we just have to stop loving up. Purity says that the way you end atrocities is by not committing atrocities. There are disasters enough to cause hardship on their own. In the positively stated version of this, which both CBE and Star Trek do (and Star Control 1 & 2, while we're at it), it is generally acknowledged that this isn't something humanity just wakes up one day and does. There's some enormous disaster in the past -- a global war in Star Trek and Star Control, and the broader Mistake in CBE -- and this results in humanity as a whole getting scared onto the straight and narrow path. If your heart's not in it, perhaps you reject this vision of humanity as being able to set aside the worst of the human condition at will.  (The negatively-stated version of it, which you have not been commenting on and which CBE's entire premise kind of negates, describes political movements where maximalist adherence to their agenda is taken as the very least anybody can do, worth exactly zero credit, praise, or acknowledgement as alliance or accomplishment, and falling short of it is condemned as willful villainy. This is a no-dystopia zone, so I leave mapping that to real or fictional organizations and movements as an exercise for the reader.)
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Sep 28, 2019 22:13
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ManxomeBromide posted:If your heart's not in it, perhaps you reject this vision of humanity as being able to set aside the worst of the human condition at will. My heart's not in it because the way this game is presented and plays out, talking about the evolution into that is rather difficult and not very interesting. It's generally predicated on human society having a collective epiphany and changing for the better. Which is fine and I hope that one day we'll do that, but it's kind of hard to write this whole game about stretching out that moment.
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Sep 28, 2019 22:18
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If you're not enjoying the purity run, i dont think anyone would blame you for beelining for an endgame
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Sep 28, 2019 23:30
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Fortunately, I hit Purity 15 in this update, which meant regardless that it's time for a vote. At the Precipice Below Lena Ebner, Weltgeist retired for the evening. A city this size - and Weltgeist was the largest on Möglichkeit - never really slept, but there was a palpable change in the city's rhythms. Pedestrian and bike traffic vanished, passenger trams on the city's rail lines were replaced with freight. The expansive windows of Lena's apartment looked out over most of the city from above, perched in the slender skyscraper that had become the residence for INTEGR's most senior officials. Until quite recently, Lena wouldn't have been able to see any of it. Cataracts ran in Lena's family, and had only grown worse as she'd aged. Even gene therapy and surgery could only do so much about extreme old age. That had changed. Not for the first time, Lena wondered whether she should curse or bless the scientists of Project Enoch. They'd given her decades more... and they'd gone to such lengths only because there were responsibilities that no one else was prepared to shoulder. One of those responsibilities lay on the glass table behind Lena, which she refused to turn and look at. Why her? Why were such things for her alone to decide? Who gave her that right? The people of the Initiative, of course. It had been easy on Earth, to be a leader like that. Being a revolutionary is easy when revolution is impossible and you know that despite your rhetoric your goal is to moderate the existing regime rather than really tear everything down. How many revolutions had crumbled after their victory because they never truly expected to succeed? Winning a war was one thing. Winning peace was always another. Old age hadn't bothered Lena. She'd lived a long life, and a productive one. Not fruitful by traditional measures, she'd never started a family, scarcely even dated since arriving on Möglichkeit. Her life had been fruitful by other metrics, the fact that Project Enoch thought it necessary to pull her back from the edge of death was proof enough of that. INTEGR would continue to do well after she departed, she thought to herself as Epsilon Eridani set beyond the horizon. A night like this promised a spectacular view of Möglichkeit's rings, probably a meteor shower, too. And tomorrow, she would decide the fate of INTEGR, possibly the fate of humanity. A curious feature of INTEGR's politics, in Lena's position as Chancellor she was called upon to break completely even deadlocks in the Governing Board. One such deadlock needed to be broken, and INTEGR's fractious politics weren't stalemated because of any lack of passion. Two monumental projects were at hand, and to commit to one would put the other out of the question for the foreseeable future. On the one hand, Project Exodus. Matunde Barrow had scarcely been alone in desiring a return to Earth, but the Responsible Party had something different in mind. First, to reestablish contact with Earth. A lasercom satellite could probably establish communications with the Eye of Providence, assuming anyone was still watching. Then, physicists believed it would be possible to create a spatial distortion, a tesseract bridging the light years between Earth and Möglichkeit. All models agreed that Earth was doomed. Möglichkeit was not, thanks to INTEGR. The Initiative on Earth had been an old hand at settling refugees. Operation Exodus would be something else entirely. On the other hand, Project Nod. So named for Christian myth, the land to which Cain was exiled after killing his brother Abel in Eden. The Progenitors had been established fact since before the Seeding, the Seeding was only possible because of the Providence Discovery. But recently, INTEGR mathematicians had discovered what they believed was an intelligent signal written into the fabric of reality. Radio telescopes had confirmed a similar pattern of numbers that seemed to be broadcast towards Möglichkeit. Deciphering this signal would be just as vast an undertaking as Exodus, and the project's ambitions were just as grand: to establish contact with the Progenitors, or whatever else the Signal might be for. Lena had heard all the arguments at great length. Hopes, fears, differing beliefs on what the moral or ethical thing to do was. In so many ways, one question summed up everything: should the Initiative look forward or backward? Forward? To an unknowable future and a civilization that communication might scarcely be possible with? Backward? To a world destroyed by human folly and a people who might have become alien to the Initiative? The Exile, that's what many had come to call the colonization of Möglichkeit. Lena remained ambivalent about religion, but one speaker in the debates yesterday had captured the imagination of almost the entire Initiative when she quoted her religion's central holy work. So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed at the gate of the Garden of Eden cherubin, and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. Exodus or Contact?
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Sep 29, 2019 00:24
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Contact
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Sep 29, 2019 00:25
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Well, since we've seen Emancipation, we might as well see... Contact!
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Sep 29, 2019 00:27
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Contact
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Sep 29, 2019 00:30
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Contact seems more what Lena would choose at this point
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Sep 29, 2019 00:38
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Contact
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Sep 29, 2019 01:14
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I'm going to vote Exodus both for the historical relevance to INTEGR's remit and out of pure, personal, petty spite about making it to Earth before Matunde Barrow does.
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Sep 29, 2019 03:13
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Exodus This is the ending that really encapsulates the best elements of our Affinity choice. Looking after people, bring me your huddled masses and all that stuff. Don't focus on aliens or becoming a hive mind, at least not until you've helped the real people alive right now.
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Sep 29, 2019 03:15
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Exodus feels like the most in-character decision for INTEGR. Even though Contact is tempting for the variety, pursuing it feels counter to the ethos described over the course of this section of the LP.
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Sep 29, 2019 03:35
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EXODUS, the objectively morally good Victory Condition.
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Sep 29, 2019 04:44
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