OSG 26 - The Bearperor Returns

[Psillycyber]

Great job taking care of the situation at Cryslon, Ref! It is so satisfying to see all those Psilon transports crash and burn. I presume the same will be in store for those Sakkra ones too, eh?

'Tis a pity, though, about getting only 1 tech. I screwed up there. Should have held off on the non-aggression pacts. I didn't realize how those would affect the invasion of Cryslon. Still, ion cannons are nice.

Since we didn't get all of the Silicoid techs from this invasion, maybe we should make sure to let them stick around on at least 1 radiated world for a while until we can steal all their techs with espionage. They won't be teching hardly at all, so once Battle Computers IV comes in for us, we should have a decisive spying advantage.

[Ianus]

Ok, got it! Here we go!

[Ianus]

OSG-26 2410-2420
First an overview of my empire. Following a 20 year break from government I take up the crown of an empire in crisis. Amidst an increasingly stagnant war with the Silicoids we expand out to claim new star systems in a race with our most deadly foe, the dastardly Alkari. Our technology languishes in obsolescence while our enemies achieve technical breakthroughs our scientists can only dream of. Our war with the rock people has reached a stalemate as all of their worlds are environments we cannot even land on. All our soldiers can do is to drop bombs from orbit like cowards. Are we no better than PIGEONS leaving droppings on parked ground cars? Or are we Bulrathi! born to crush our enemies, to see them driven before us, and to hear the lamentations of their women!

2410: Overall I see that we are in very good shape. We have taken the Silicoids’ home world from them, and all that remains of them is a scattered empire of hostile worlds. Well soon enough we will control it all! We continue our expansion in the west and stand to control most of it. The damnable birds and their extreme range still threaten to expand that way, but we are doing well there. An Alkari fleet seems to be heading for Simius, a large Barren world only defended by a single Cubscout. A Moonbase is due there in 2 turns, but I have no fleet available to reinforce it in time. We are SO close to containing the Alkari in the east!

As for our enemies, EVERY, SINGLE, ONE of them has Death Spores. But not even the Sakkra have Bio Toxin Antidote, although they could get it as their next planetology tech. I with them luck! Otherwise some races have Auto Repair, which I will make a priority to obtain for myself. To that end I start Espionage spending on everyone except the Alkari, who like me and are too advanced in Computer tech to make it worthwhile. All in good time my feathery chum!

I try to do some tech trading. Redwing only offers junk in exchange for my best techs, so no dice. Tacheon will trade me Planetary Shields V, but will only take IRC3 for it, so no dice. CB-715 offers me everything he has that I don’t want, so no dice. Geode doesn’t count. I notice too that Tacheon only feels Neutral toward me, which can only mean that the voices in his head are telling naughty lies about me again. Hopefully a bit of rock breaking will help his disposition.

I basically want all techs we are currently researching, so I equalize spending ratios and end my turn.

2411: The Silicoids attach and are repulsed at Keeta. And then…

Hello! Lets try for ARS…

You have got to be kidding me! Well, thank you very much!

And then I discover Soil Enrichment. Atmospheric Terraforming is available at the next level, but first we need some planets to Atmospherically Terraform, so I pause for Controlled Radiated. I want all of those Rich worlds!

I settle Beorn, nuke Rana,

and am ranked third in production. How many more planets do I need?!
The Sakkra are now Wary of me, unfortunately. Too bad!
I design an ARS Huge, but I’d like it to have a bit more flair, so I hold off on building any for now. The birds have Warp Dissipator AND Repulsor Beam. If only…

2412:
Oh my, Tacheon has a little present for me! Just what I wanted too!

And I settle Shardik, which if I can hold it will cover the entire southwest corner of the map. My scouts fan out, but at least 2 Alkari colony fleets are already flying around down here. I may want to threaten old Redwing here at some point, but you know what they say about sleeping bears…
All of my Normal planets are now Fertile except for Vulcan which still needs two more turns.

2413: I shoot down all the Sakkra transports arriving at Cryslon and the Alkari settle Rhilus in the southwest. A lone Alkari colony ship is due at Shardik next turn, and I don’t have any population to spare to reinforce it. I think that I will just have to cut my losses down in the south. I think that I could get an Alliance with Redwing if I wanted to (I don’t) but I’d rather not jeopardize our relationship. I like being alive too much! Besides if I can grab Ajax in two more years that will pretty much be that in terms of peaceful expansion. Then the fun really starts!

2414: I blow up a bunch of Silicoids from orbit, which everyone else loves. Except Redwing, since he is now Allied (!!!!!!!!) with the rocks and at war with EVERYONE else!!!! Who is the Erratic one again?

And with his new alliance an Alkari death fleet sets off into my neck of the woods in search of new colonies. I spend some time pondering the situation, and I strongly believe that we could win the game at the 2425 election by starting a war with the birds. Or maybe even without. The Meklar and Psilons are Peaceful, and although the Sakkra are Neutral (they took that tech theft personally) we could probably increase that with some more bombing. If we can pull the Sakkra to our side we will definitely have enough votes to win.

Here is the current status if anyone wants to count pixels.

2415:
I settle Fozzie and discover that the southwest corner is pretty much full of Barren and Tundra worlds. What were the Meklar thinking not going after more early planetology? Also I bombed more Silicoids and now the Sakkra are Affable with me. If we can keep this up for another 9 turns this game is over! So how will things go wrong? Assassination event? Psilon insanity? The possibilities are endless!

2416:
Looks like I blew up too many of bird-brain’s new allies. Well nuts to you birdie! Everyone else likes it!

I trade CB-715 Soil Enrichment for Improved Space Scanner. It seemed like a better idea than Reduced Waste 60% or IRC3. I then save the game and reload to apply the new tech. A quick F8 check reveals that the only fleet currently inbound is an Alkari colony fleet coming into Fozzie which was dispatched before I colonized it. The increased scanner range is also a boon, as it reveals that the Silicoids are down to 3 planets, two of which I am currently bombing. I wish that we hadn’t bombed them out of Pollus the Toxic 10 in the nebula north of Cryslon, as that would be the perfect place to cage them, but sadly it is out of their range for now. Rather than blowing them up completely I pull my bombers back for the time being. Lets save the fun for before the election.

2417:
I scout the last unclaimed planet in the galaxy, and man are there a lot of Rich worlds out there!

I ask Geode for peace, but he is being ridiculous! I’m sorry I pulled my bombers back!

2418: Range 7 and Fusion Bombs both discovered. I choose Warp Dissipator over Range 8, and Fusion Beam over assorted junk. The empire is pretty much on autopilot at the moment. There is one Tundra planet in the southwest that no one is going for, but I don’t feel like building a colony ship and sending it all the way across the map in hopes of settling it in 10 or 15 turns. Otherwise everything is peaceful.

2419: Nothing of interest to report. The Alkari arrive at Fozzie and chase my scout away. I tell it to stick around.

2420:
I borrow some interesting technology from Tyranid, but he doesn’t seem to notice. Probably because he already has Advanced Eco too. And that is all she wrote.

Thoughts for our next emperor:
We are now in a good position to go to war (better once Fusion Beam comes in) but things are exceptionally peaceful so far. Relations are slipping a bit with the Alkari, but we are still Affable with a NAP in place, so not much is happening right now. Redwing is still scooping up a few unclaimed worlds, which is obnoxious but there isn’t much we can do about it at present.
With the election in 5 years we should be able to clinch the game if we want to. We are Peaceful with the Sakkra, Psilon and Meklar and that COULD be enough to give us a victory. I don’t know how many votes Redwing has, but it is somewhere around 1/3. If that is the case we are going to need to start plucking some chickens, which is a serious proposition as the birds are still WELL out in front technologically speaking. No one seems to have much in the way of gropo tech at least.
We are quite well consolidated but we lack significantly in missile bases, and I actually haven’t built a single Planetary Shield. Peace makes me lazy.
We still don’t have any better engines than Nuclear, but no one else does either. If we could neutralize Death Spores somehow we could easily conquer the galaxy in almost complete safety, and between the other races there are enough juicy techs to make war a tempting proposition. But I leave that to our next ruler…

[Psillycyber]

Wow, Ianus! I am amazed at how solid our empire is after your and Ref's tenures in office. I just had a look at the save, so I can say I GOT THIS! if Thrawn doesn't want to step in and have a go. I'll give him about 12 hours to claim the turnset before I start playing it.

First an overview of my empire. Following a 20 year break from government I take up the crown of an empire in crisis. Amidst an increasingly stagnant war with the Silicoids we expand out to claim new star systems in a race with our most deadly foe, the dastardly Alkari. Our technology languishes in obsolescence while our enemies achieve technical breakthroughs our scientists can only dream of. Our war with the rock people has reached a stalemate as all of their worlds are environments we cannot even land on. All our soldiers can do is to drop bombs from orbit like cowards. Are we no better than PIGEONS leaving droppings on parked ground cars? Or are we Bulrathi! born to crush our enemies, to see them driven before us, and to hear the lamentations of their women!

Well, that's one way of looking at it. Myself, I would not be so pessimistic, especially after looking at the 2420 save and seeing what you've done with the empire. That tech stealing was sweet, and I can't believe it didn't even really hurt our relations either. We are still peaceful with the Psilons, Sakkra, and Meklar, and Affable with the Alkari. Mind-boggling! Those AI players are making a big mistake. Give a human player enough time to peacefully build, and...it will be game over for them. The Alkari MIGHT have already missed their window of opportunity to kill us.

2410: Overall I see that we are in very good shape.

Yeah, that's more like it, I think.

Holy cow, is our economy rockin! Our planetary output has nearly doubled from 3500 BC to ~6700 BC since I last left office. Our population is skyrocketing. Tech is looking great. Battle Computers IV is in, I see. Could be very important against the Alkari. Controlled Radiated can't be more than a few turns away.

From what I can see, not one of the AI opponents (even the Alkari) appear to have a megafleet, at least within improved space scanner range. That's good. That leaves death spores as the main threat. This is assuming that our enemies are actually building fleets equipped with them. If not, we have nothing to worry about. And even if they do have fleets with them, as long as the fleets aren't too big, no big deal.

In particular, I want to get a battle scan of the following designs:

Psilons (since they could technically declare war on us at any moment) :

Comet
They have about ~220 of these small fighters. Still, nothing we couldn't handle with maybe ~10 scatterpack V missile bases. Still I want to get a scan on them.

Alkari (since they are the second most likely to declare war on us, even if that is looking unlikely any time soon, since they are affable with us and already fighting 3 other races. Even if they do declare on us, they probably won't be bringing their entire fleet to bear on just us bears) :

Wareagle
They have a handful of these large cruisers scattered about their empire. The only way these could really be dangerous is if they had class VI deflector shields, making our scatterpacks useless against them. If they have those shields, it doesn't really matter if they put death spores or heavy fusion beams on them, they are going to roll over our planets. However, the AI doesn't always put the latest technology on its ships, and I don't know how old these designs are (do you have any idea if this is a new design from after they got class VI deflectors, Ianus?). Still, I want to get a scan of them to see if we would be better off building missile bases or NPG fighters, or maybe even heavy ion cannon cruisers, to fight them.

Sky Hawk
They have maybe a hundred of these medium destroyers scattered around their visible empire. It is unlikely that they have class VI shields on these, but they could have death spores on them. Or, they could be completely obsolete junk

Foxbat
They have maybe 300 of these small fighters scattered around their visible empire.

As long as the Alkari aren't sporting any ships with class V or VI deflectors, and as long as they don't have a megafleet hiding somewhere, I think we can handle them defensively. They just don't seem to have the numbers that I would have expected for this stage in the game (maybe those are engaged against their other enemies). No several-thousand stacks of fighters that I've seen so far. Up to about 1000 fighters, I think it is practical to rely on our scatterpack V missile bases to deal with them (and I think we can crash-build them in enough time to deal with them, if we get some planetary shields and a few token missile bases up on our most exposed planets. In all likelihood, that will persuade the Alkari to target planets deeper behind our front lines, which will give us more time to prepare, now that we have improved space scanners (awesome steal!))

Beyond about a thousand fighters, you have to start relying on other tricks like repulsor beams or ion stream projectors.

So that's my #1 priority this turnset: get scans on these enemy ship designs. If they aren't packing anything scary, I think it will be pretty smooth sailing, regardless of whether they try to attack us in the near future or not.

[RefSteel]

In particular, I want to get a battle scan of the following designs:

Psilons (since they could technically declare war on us at any moment) :

Comet
They have about ~220 of these small fighters. Still, nothing we couldn't handle with maybe ~10 scatterpack V missile bases. Still I want to get a scan on them.

Not sure if these are the same ones I saw during my turnset, but from part 2 of my report, above:



I wouldn't count out the Alkari just yet though ... except that we can probably just win the upcoming Council vote if we want to. Granted, the three of us can probably overcome their enormous tech lead and AI production bonuses, but when our best defense against their fleet is to hope they didn't take advantage of their ability to build ships immune to our bases (especially when we have virtually no bases built, and have to get planetary shields up before we can even start any more) ... well, I wouldn't say this game is in the bag just yet. (Also of note: We can't get scans of their fleets without violating our NAP. An interesting strategic decision to make on that one...)

[Psillycyber]

OK, I'm sure that that's the same comet design, in which case we have little to worry about. A planetary shield and one missile base would completely negate those, or even a ship with heavy ion cannons like the star blazer. The Psilons will be a non-issue.

I think I would rather keep the NAP than break it just to scan the Alkari ships. But I think I will be building some planetary shields AND fleet for defense just in case.

As long as only a few large Alkari cruisers have class VI shields, then we will be OK, as long as I also have some heavy ion cannon ships on hand to deal with those few large cruisers. In that case, it would still be worth building missile bases just to deal with the swarms of small fighters that I'm sure would be tagging along as well. I cannot believe they would have any decent shield technology on them (due to space considerations).

[Ianus]

We should also discuss the upcoming election. Assuming the votes go the way I think they will and that the numbers work out do we as a team want the game to be over? Personally this large map with such slow engines is starting to drag a bit. What do y'all think?

[Psillycyber]

I don't know, I kind of want to scramble some Alkari bird brains before the end of all of this. I will feel kind of let down if we never get to the showdown with them before the end.

If others are finished with this game, I wouldn't mind recording the election win, but playing on on my own until the Alkari are buried beneath my grizzled paws and doing some minimal reporting of this denouement, just for posterity's sake.

[RefSteel]

First: I didn't get a chance to say earlier, but well played, Ianus! It looks like you put us in a great position!
Second: I'm still planning to post a detailed in-character report on the last three turns of my set, even though they're out of date now; sorry it's taken so long.
Third:

We should also discuss the upcoming election. Assuming the votes go the way I think they will and that the numbers work out do we as a team want the game to be over? Personally this large map with such slow engines is starting to drag a bit. What do y'all think?

I'll say this: If we play on, and the game gets back to me in a state other than desperation, I'll make it my business to get sublights or better, by hook or by crook.

We've not reached the point (by any means) where we can auto-pilot to a domination victory, but I think we've passed beyond the point where a diplo victory would be cheap: With the empire we've built and the players we've got, we should be able to handle anything the AI throws at us from here on out.

[Psillycyber]

Well, I'll go ahead and spoil the result for all of you: we won the 2425 diplo vote, as expected.



So we can count that as a win, provisionally. However, I'd like to go for a domination win as well, if only for my own personal satisfaction. So I abstained in the vote to allow us to play on. If need be, I'll play and report on the rest of the turns if there is little interest in continuing. The turns seem to be playing quick now that our empire is coasting in a comfortable groove ahead of most of the pack aside from the Alkari.