August 25, 2002

Today I'll show you how to land on a previously discovered island, which has accumulated time units, with a liner that has 3000 civilians - and leave a few minutes later with a liner that has 9999 civilians. When I leave, the island will also have a fully functional economy with comfortable population levels.

When I signed on today, I got a mail notification of a liner arriving at its destination.

The destination is Petroglyph Monument, next to the capitol. Lets establish a dock and unload colonists.

The island is small, yet I'm unloading lots of civilians. Lots more than I'll need to occupy all the sectors of this island. I'm preparing to use this small island, and its accumulated time units as a civilian breeding factory. The more civilians I get on the island, the more civilians I'll breed when I update.

When I SPREAD, and make sure to say YES to "Spread in owned sectors also (Y/N)?". This picks up all the civilians I've unloaded from the liner, and deposits the remainder in sector 5,2. I designate 5,2 as a capitol.

I designate the sectors into a suitable economy. This island is focused on aircraft production. I have just one dock. Remember - use movement time, designate sectors, then update.

Before we update - to grow even more civilians, I'll unload some more civilians into the dock. If there are 400 civilians there, the sector will max out at 999 civilians when I update 50.

After my first update of 50, I load 600 civilians from the dock onto the liner, and then update another 50 time units.

Now I can load more from the dock, and GATHER the rest from the capitol which now has 9999 civilians. This every sector functional, extra civilians in the capitol, and a liner with 9999 civilians. Pretty cool.

I update another 50 time units, now the mines are producing ore. I can finish topping off the liners fuel tanks and leave with an absolutely full liner.

The steps shown above are why I try to have a faster ship out in front, establishing capitols, accumulating time, before the liner arrives. Now the island is fully developed, capable of producing PT Boats. The liner leaves with more civilians and fuel than when it arrived. This technique will be repeated again and again as my colonization ships spread further and further from the home island.

Now that I have another island with an efficient airport. It's a good idea to get a bomber out there and take a RADAR to see if we can see new undiscovered islands. I have an extra bomber on my home island.

The RADAR shows three undiscovered islands I had not seen before (#1, #22 and #56). they are all good sized islands and will make excellent additions to the National Park System.

To put them in perspective, and display (and print) a new WORLD map. The three new islands are in the upper left (northwest) corner. I can hardly wait to get there.

I display (and print) and ISLAND INDEX. Look, there are some islands on the index that I don't remember ever seeing on RADAR. Islands #34, #44, and #205 are owned by Ryrian[12], a nation I have not seen before. Someone must have revealed the island locations to me using the ISLAND LOCATION command.

I check the NEWS, and see that hostilities have broken out between Tyrian[12] and Mountainia[2]. I also notice that hostilities are underway much closer to home on island #183 between Blisstonia[20] and Iceman[27]. The Mountainia/Tyrain conflict appears to be between two large muti-island nations poking away at each other's frontiers. The Blisstonia/Iceman conflict appears to be a life and death struggle on their shared home island. We can expect one of these two nations to die, and exploration/colonization fleets to be slow in launching from the surviving nation. This could be good news because we might be able to sail right past them while they are fighting each other. It might also be bad news if the survivor feels they have nothing to loose, they might take to bombing out exploration fleet. We'll have to keep an eye on this one.

I take a quick WORLD command - looking at the entire world. You can see the cluster of islands in the center with my home island (#103) right in the middle. The Tyrian[12] islands are well to my south west (past Armageddon[3]). No need to worry about these distant activities.

Speaking of Armageddon[2], I take a quick peak at parks nearest his home island, and find he's still only on Yellowstone[#30].

It's time to send some mail to my neighbor using the POST command. I want to let them know that I see them, and there is no need to be aggressive - we can live and prosper in harmony. As the custodian of National Parks, it's clear I'll have to establish some "Park Rules" to help guide park visitors and set their expectations. I can do that later.

I don't like the island name I had chosen for my home island. I rename it Park Headquarters.

A check check on my exploration/colonization fleet shows I'll need to check in tomorrow. See you then.

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