***INCOMING TRANSMISSION - SECURITY LEVEL ALPHA***

Greetings councilors, I'm Commander Percival Mekoides (Meh-COY-dees).  Some of you may already know me and some may not.  I will, however, soon become familiar to all of you.  I have been appointed Adjutant General of the Initiative and as such will be your primary contact throughout our ongoing operations in the recently accessible portion of the galaxy now titled 2227-RADS.

  Our fleet has made planetfall and established an initial base of operations on the southern edge of the unexplored zone.  Unfortunately, our initial scans were thrown off by residual dark energy fluctuation and we've found this planet to be less promising than thought.  I'll leave the presentation of those details to our science team.  For now, please turn your attention to the galactic map. 

Cmdr Mekoides

As you can see, we've established ourselves on the central-southern edge of 2227-RADS.  A number of other forces have been detected spread out in the sector.  Having arrived before us, they may enjoy a slight advantage in their utilization of local resources.  We've also detected signals indicating that several advanced races already inhabit this sector.  Though prevented from interstellar travel by the dark energy storms, they seem to be capable of space travel and making preparations to expand their reach.  Additional information on these races will be provided as we encounter them and establish contact.

Our first course of action is to explore the surrounding systems and expand our claims. Regular updates on our progress will be posted for your consideration.  With that, I'll yield to Dr. Markus Malar, Lead Investigator of our science team.

Thank you, uh, as the Commander said, our base of operations is unremarkable, except in that it sits in an apparently uncontested region of space.  Initial tests show that residual dark energy is having very interesting effects on our equipment.  Many of our existing technologies may require . . . significant reengineering to restore full functionality.  The upside of this is that we may eventually be able to exploit these local conditions to develop entirely new technologies.  Our success in that regard may well provide the edge we need to prevail.  I recommend a robust research and development program be given priority.  We have already established laboratory facilities, with more slated for construction pending approval.

You can see our current paths of research on the viewscreen.

Dr. Markus Malar

My team has started work on improvements to our existing technologies that will allow for greater productivity.  I will update the council we progress.

Cmdr Mekoides:  That's all for now, councilors.  We await your reply.

***END TRANSMISSION***

Crippling difficulty? AAARGH! I still find "Tough" AIs enough of a challenge, although I've dabbled with including one or two Painful races. Also, is there any way you can shrink those 'character images' a little? They seem somewhat oversized compared to the text and screenshots.

In character:

Dr. Malar, I'd like a full report on the status of our planet, with particular note to any areas of high resource value.

Also, your projections indicate a 26-week research time for our planetary improvements. While I agree with your rationale for focusing on this area, I hope you've considered the lack of development in other research branches that we'll have to deal with.

Finally, in addition to our more significant rivals, what information is available on any minor races in this region of space? In other words I'd like some information on the details of your modded minors.

Hello, my name is TMS2224. I would like to formally petition the council for my entry. In other words, can I join? Please send your decision soon as I eagerly await your reply. TMS2224 Out.

Got things ready for the next update, but it's too late to make an actual post tonight.  I'll just address peoples concerns for now.

- Character portraits shrunk.  At first I thought they may lose detail, but I like the smaller ones better.  On a related note, as this is shaping up to be very pic intensive, I'm going to see what I can do about using thumbs for anything that won't show up nicely in the main forum anyway.

- Crippling difficulty.  I considered putting the question of difficulty out, but just went for broke.  I agonized a bit about it, but I have quite a bit of experience playing on tough.  I usually clean house, with the game being decided before it gets really fun.  It does occur to me now that by upping the difficulty I may be forcing myself to play a certain way, thus limiting your options.  Though a restart would be a drag, I am open to the prospect of starting again on a lower difficulty.  I leave that to the council, though I welcome the challenge.

- I have no problem at all with TMS2224 joining.  I always intended for things to be pretty open.  I assume you've read the back story, TMS2224?

Crippling is fine for me, as long as my fellow council members feel comfortable with it. For me it's still a stretch compared to the difficulty level below (painful) where I nearly always win.

Commander Mekoides and Doctor Malar, I have some concerns about our research plans. I belive, and I'm sure others agree, that we should look at our neighbors as potential enemies instead of potential friends. In other words, guilty until proven innocent. And, because I am in this state of mind, I belive that we should concentrate on weapons,defenses, and industrial improvement research. In other words, we should build up militarily before concetrating on trivial resecrch such as planetary improvements. I also think that we should grab as many planets as we can as fast as we can. I belive that the path I am proposing is one that will lead us to dominance. Please debate my comments Counsilors.

 Could you give us a notice when you colonize a planet?

Hello Councilor TMS, i'm sure you have this projects interests at heart when you talk about this subject, yet it is sill hard to belive for me that we should follow your advice.

The develpment of a good manufacturing and economic infrastructure is a necessity. Yes, we need information on our neiborghs plans but before we decide to attack or not we need to be able to risk a long battle. 

I'm thinking you belive conquering will be an easy task, but remember it might not ,  and without a healthy economy it would be impossible for us to deal with any surprises they might have, or in the worst case scenario a second war against another race.

In conclusion i believe we should develop technologies to improve our infrastructure while keeping an eye in our borders, and gathering as much information on our neiborghs. It would be a shame id they end up being hostile, yet if they are not , think of the possibilities, we could start a very healthy trade business with them and maybe even an alliance at the end of the road.

I still disagree councilor, it is necesary that before we start developing our army we need to give our colonies the tools to build those ships efficently.

Platenar improvments will increase not only our social production and research but also out military production. I think it is a great compromise, you get your military production while we get our social and research production.

Any other councilor has an opinion on the matter?

My opinion tends more towards Councilor Carlos' view; let's not forget that the 7 months are not fixed: as soon as we have additional labs built (a decision which is still pending approval if I recall correctly) this time will decrease through concurrent research efforts.

I'm glad to see that you seem to agree that we should expand first, if I read your messages correctly. At this point we are surrounded by unclaimed planets and seeing the distance between us and our closest neighbours, I would suggest to first colonize the better amongst those planets before weighing down our economy by building a military force.

We can keep an eye out for any imports or other large movements of goods associated with military production. In addition whenever we meet representatives from the other civilizations we should try and see if they offer any military technologies for trade - not because we're interested in buying but to see how advanced they are.

(I'm referring to the military graph here that we can watch as soon as we've made contact with any other races)

Commander, seeing that probably other council members will be joining, going forward you might want to move ahead without all votes having been cast on less important decisions. At least personally speaking I would have no issue whatsoever with the council taking decisions and advancing if at some point I am not available, rather than being a blocking factor in the decision process.

Welcome Master123wr, at least assuming that Tolmekian accepts but I think that's a safe assumption

I would like to suggest that my fellow councilors reserve this discussion for our next formal meeting, when we can be provided with more information about our spatial neighbors. I move that the vote on the compromise proposal be deferred until then.

For what it's worth, I personally agree with LordCarlos's recommendations. Thanks to the dark energy storms no other power is likely to pose a military threat at this moment and it would be foolhardy to delay improvements to our infrastructure over possible dangers in the distant future.

In other words, we should wait for Tolmekian's game update before making any decisions like this. I mean, it's only turn 1. Remember, this isn't just a roleplaying session, we are giving actual advice on the game. No AI is going to invade in the first three months!

Further note: While I like the back and forth discussion, I really do feel that we should wait for updates on the game before getting into the military vs social debate and its corollaries. 27 weeks is not a fatal length of time especially when the creativity ability could lead to it being researched much sooner.

Well, this sure is getting lively.  I do agree with qrtxian that the discussion can get quite ahead of the game if we aren't careful.  Actually playing 12 turns isn't much right now - in fact, I went ahead and played the 1st 12 figuring it couldn't hurt - but in the future it could take me quite some time given the size of the game.  Posting updates takes quite a bit of time itself, with screenshots and multiple characters and storytelling and all.  I don't want to curtail the discussion or politics in any way, but we may need to check ourselves as gameplay goes on.  The more information and discussion that goes on between updates, the harder it will be for me to keep track of things.

That being said, let me say that I'm liking what I see so far.  Some good spirited disagreement is healthy, I think.

I'm going to start working on my report and should have it posted tonight.  You may even see the work-in-progress post pop up as I experiment with thumbs and other things.  Let's see what the Commander has for us tonight . . .

- Master123wr, I'm fine with you joining the council.  I see you're a supporter of TMS2224.  You'll have your own little War Party going before you know it!

Edit to add - Actually, qrtxian's motion to table the issue until the next session is an excellent example of such a check.  Did I mention that I like the way this is turning out?

Argh, I guess this matter will have to wait until the first official meeting.

Of Character: Since we are doing this let me jsut state i'm part of the federalist party, even when i'm advocating for manufacturing.

We can form a part for prosperity, kind of like an union of parties. With the research party, universalists, industrialist, traders and federalists.

As a matter of fact ill do that, just give me a couple of minutes.