Bay 12 Games Forum

DRINK TEA and discuss civilly the Brexit Exit of the European Union referendum bonanza. The destiny of the country is at hand! How shall it be shaped, the decision shall likely be final!

WOOOOOOO REFERENDUM HYPE GET NAKED, GET VOTING (not necessarily in that order).

The referendum will be held on the 23rd of June in the current year of 2016
If you are a British citizen who has not spent more than 15 years off the electoral college abroad, or an Irish, Maltese, Cypriot or Commonwealth citizen with residency in the United Kingdom you will get the opportunity to vote in this once in a lifetime referendum.
SO VOTE

The world is on the cusp of a "post-antibiotic era", scientists have warned after finding bacteria resistant to drugs used when all other treatments have failed.
They identified bacteria able to shrug off the drug of last resort - colistin - in patients and livestock in China.
They said that resistance would spread around the world and raised the spectre of untreatable infections.
It is likely resistance emerged after colistin was overused in farm animals.
Bacteria becoming completely resistant to treatment - also known as the antibiotic apocalypse - could plunge medicine back into the dark ages.

Well, maybe not the dark ages, but certainly back a hundred years. Now is the time to look at cures of the last century?

Thread rules:

• Be civil
• Keep theology debates on the low

*EDIT
If you want another religion or sect on the polls you intend to vote for, don't vote just yet - post what you want so it can be added to the list.

This is Sarvesh Ochreknight.
This is not her story.

This is Cog the Drunk's story.

In the year of 1065, Cog the Drunk got into a brawl with the adventuring swordswarf Sarvesh Ochreknight. Even when blinded, Cog refused to surrender. It was then I decided to load up DFusion and play forever as Cog, the Drunk.
His skills are mediocre, his attributes are a mixed bag and he has no companions, money, food, water, alcohol, status, weapons or armour.
He also no longer has a pair of working eyes, what with his ocular introduction to a copper sword and all.

I believe in Cog.


Cog's ears, nose and hands are still very much functional. These sense weren't even given to blind adventurers of older DFs. Cog can make a name for himself in this world.



The world is 1065 years old, a huge world with all the history that goes along with that timescale. I plan to get a souvenir from every single civilization in the world, which should make for some interesting encounters. Currently starting in the bottom right Dwarven civilization (marked by the little square), going the only way currently possible - north. That way civilization lies, and bandits and bogeymen are unlikely to prey on poor Cog. Besides this one use of dfusion (a necessary evil), the whole thing will be vanilla all the way. This blind playthrough is blind, in both senses of the word. I have yet to delve into DF2014, and all of its surprises shall truly be surprises. With all that said... Cog walks to the mountainhome.

Wait, wait, wait. Why the hell do you have a raven stockpile?

THEY QUESTIONED ME

AND NOW IT IS OVER


My greatest foe, my carrion swarm who have tormented my skies and my Dwarves since time immemorial have devoured the demon legions which sought to use a pierced adamantine vein as their ticket to the surface. That's right, the undead ravens killed the entirety of the hidden fun stuff. Having not sated their infinite bloodlust however, they have begun to spill through the tube and have swarmed into hell and are ripping the denizens of the underworld alive.

NOW THE DEMONS OF THE UNDERWORLD SHALL SHARE IN MY HELL! NOTHING IS WORSE THAN A RAVEN CORPSE! NOTHING!

As an aside, it's possible that I may have driven the raven corpse population to destruction. Should this be true I can always process my domesticated eagles into eagle corpse swarms and continue to plague the underworld with horrible swarms. It won't be the same, but it will be a functional substitute. When caught between the option of colonizing hell or flooding its infinite legion with the dread wrath of the raven I shall stick with the option that is most insulting to demonkind.

On this Christmas Eve be sure to give thanks to the raven flock nearest to you, thanks for it allowing you to live.


_____________________________________________________________________________
*EDIT from the year 2015
This thread has somewhat grown to encompass all that is my Fortress.
This is Silentthunders. Please do not feed the ravens, and enjoy your stay.

So the Europol thread as it does is debating about who would win in a war, the EU or the USA. This got me thinking.

Who would actually win? So I started tallying up some numbers.



A comparison of the top 10 military powers of Europe vs the USA.

Sum total top 10:
AFP: 1,543,706
ARP: 2,034,170 (Poland and Ukraine putting in work providing 3/4 of all reserve personnel)

VS USA
AFP: 1,430,000
ARP: 850,880

It's assumed that Switzerland abandons its eternal policy of neutrality for some reason and that all of Europe has united with fanatical zeal to stop America and has dramatically reorganized all of its armed forces under one language, one command system and one military. It also assumes that Russia is playing along nicely even with Ukraine because Putin is pleased by these anti-American turn of events. Population wise, Europe can afford many more civilian casualties than America in a non-nuclear war with a much larger population, twice that of America's. These statistics also do not factor in the estimated 288,000,000 armed American civilians, so they're both roughly evenly matched for as long as Europe doesn't invade America.

Sum total top 10:
Tanks: 7,751
AFVs: 42,144
Artillery: 5,134
MLRSs: 1,456

VS USA:
Tanks: 8,325
AFVs: 25,782
Artillery: 3,725
MLRSs: 1,330

The European armies sport some really advanced tanks from the British Challenger 2 to the German Leopard 2A5 and some tanks dating all the way back to the cold war like the T-54s and T-55s used by former Soviet states, it's an evenly mixed bag with the American M1 Abrams outclassing and being outclassed pretty evenly. The deciding factor here is the abundance of European AFVs, the ability to move troops around is invaluable for just about any reason you want, mobility is a tenet of war. Point goes to Europeans.

Sum total top 10:
Fighters: 1,138
Attack craft: 1,085
Logistics aircraft: 2,251
Helicopters: 2,672
Serviceable airports: 2,275

VS USA:
Fighters: 2,271
Attack craft: 2,601
Logistics aircraft: 5,222
Helicopters: 6,926
Serviceable airports: 13,513

It doesn't matter if the Typhoon is faster and more cost efficient than the F-35 as the numbers speak for themselves. Clear American victory here. Point to America for overwhelming aerial superiority.

Sum total top 10:
Aircraft carriers: 5
Frigates: 80
Destroyers: 10
Submarines: 44
Corvettes: 23
CDC: 92
MWS: 278
MMS: 3022
Major ports: 76

VS USA:
Aircraft carriers: 10
Frigates: 15
Destroyers: 62
Corvettes: 0
Submarines: 72
CDC: 13
MWS: 13
MMS: 393
Major ports: 24

Greater quantities of carriers, destroyers and submarines means that the US navy is more than capable of threatening Europe's vast merchant navy across the world. Point to the USA for naval superiority.

Sum total top 10:
GDP: $14,075 B
Defence budget: $219 B
External Debt: $30,529 B
Reserves of Forex & Gold: $1,535 B (Swizterland's swimming in Forex and Gold with 1/3 of team Europe's Forex/Gold reserves)
PPP: $13,390 B

VS USA
GDP: $15,680 B
Defence Budget: $612B
External Debt: $15,930 B
Reserves of Forex & Gold: $150B
PPP: $15,940 B

The external debt for Europe is misleading, since it belongs more to individual countries more than others and so would affect countries like France, Germany and Britain more than say, Switzerland. Keeping in mind this is the top 10 military powers of Europe and not the top 10 Economic powers of Europe, clear winner is Europe because of the vast amounts of resources they can employ in shekel war. Point to Europe for their financial powerhouses from London to Zurich to Frankfurt.

Sum total:
450-555 warheads in addition to 600 American warheads

VS USA
4,513 (after deducting 600 warheads).

Point to USA.


Points all over the place to USA. The EU is such an awkward state trying to work with Nation states who all have their own agendas and really only Germany likes it right now, what with euroskepticism being at its highest. Pride in being European is nonexistent, nationalistic pride in individual sovereign states is sparsely dotted around the Eastern European nations, Britain, France and wherever a far-right group has wriggled their way into a European state that's suffering through a poor Eurozone. It would take something absolutely amazing to get all the European states to unanimously declare total war against the USA and mobilize all their manpower, finances and military to meet the Americans in combat and would also be in direct contradiction with the traditions of many states like Switzerland's neutrality or Britain's special relationship with the USA. An invasion of the US is impossible since the US has absolute naval superiority and its heavily armed civilian populace. The Americans clap a lot and love their flags, their nationalistic pride is Germany after the world cup all day every day. The quality of their armed forces takes back seat to the sheer volume of equipment and materiel they can field against their European counterparts in a total war, and their quality isn't even that bad. They have veterans from several wars that only France and Britain can claim to match, their navy is unmatched, their air force is unmatched, their special forces are pretty damn good (though that's an area in which the Europeans definitely win) and they have so much oil of their own whereas Europe is heavily dependent on imports. That said, I also do not see how America WOULD go about defeating the EU. Being vastly superior is one thing, but actually winning is another. I think I'll make a forum game out of that, but until then, Armchair General General! - /AGG

Question for the day, how and where would the USA land on Europe?

Alpha Centauri (and its expansion Alien Crossfire) is a 4x game, meaning you guide your faction to explore, expand, exploit and exterminate. And this is my pilot game to see if you can run a forum game through an actual game. We have a good game, a good forum full of good players - my hopes are high.
As the title suggests, this is going to be more a game of diplomacy than a quick struggle for supremacy - this is a contest to see which forumite is the most capable of leading their people to victory in a futuristic world full of strange technologies.

The rules to this forum game are quite simple to streamline rounds and make everything go quickly.

• Base production (the units and base facilities you build) will be sorted out by the AI, though you may control the production of your capital city (the base with your HQ in it) and also decide what you want the AI base governer to emphasize in production.
• All units will be automated, with an exception being that 10 units a turn can be given commands as simple as "attack nearest enemy base" or as advanced as "move through the mountains and occupy that road at this square." Probe teams and colony pods can all be given as many orders as there are probe teams and colony pods without counting to the 10 units a turn limit, and will not be automated without the wish of the owning player.
• Research will be random and automated, steal and trade from others if you urgently need their tech.
• You will be in control of your unit designs, and will be alerted when new modules present themselves.
• You start the game with 1 capital city and 10 extra colony pods. Guard them carefully, as they are the only means to construct new bases and you will not be able to build new ones. Razing bases also carry more weight - once they are gone they are gone forever.
• Declare where your 0 to 10 units are moving, new unit designs, social engineering, pacts and their like in the thread or through PMs to me if you want to be sneaky. Both are acceptable.
• Secret projects are disabled because there are a few that can make one faction overpowered.
• I'll post images and writeups of everything that has happened in a round unless it is a secret action posted via PM, in which case it will only be posted in the forums if it is discovered by a faction in game (i.e. a probe team is discovered or a hover tank that was secretly ordered to move towards an enemy base is now assaulting that base's defences).

To get started:
1] Pick a faction.
2] Pick a starting location on the map above by marking it with an x, your first base will be constructed as close as possible to the x.
3] You will be given additional decisions to make as they arise.
4] Begin diplomacy with the others. Threaten, blackmail, ally, trade and subjugate - if it is in line with your agenda, pursue it.

The game will start when there's 7 players, if a player cannot take their turn for whatever reason then their move will be open for the AI to take or a volunteer could take over. I won't be playing, as for obvious reasons I would have an unfair advantage by seeing everything if I competed. As a minor disclaimer, no knowledge of Alpha Centauri is needed as your decisions will be detailed to you, but it does help! For RP reasons, everything is in the future and in space. Humanity has sent a colonization team to Alpha Centauri due to Earth becoming increasingly more dangerous to the point where human civilization is threatened. The colonization looked to be going well until mutinies occurred, and the Captain was assassinated. The survivors all split off and banded with the factions they most agreed with, united not by nationality or ethnicity - but by ideology. Each faction will attempt to become dominant through commerce, research, conquest or diplomacy - on an alien world that wants it dead.

Let the diplomacy, begin!