OSG 26 - The Bearperor Returns

[Psillycyber]

Great turnset, Ref!

Wow, who knew that the Silicoids would get ions cannons and put them on their colships! Tough luck.

Hey, even if we do lose Primodius in the short term, look at it this way:
1. We slowed down the Silicoids greatly at minimal cost to ourselves (their worlds have to be depleting of pop by now with their transports getting sent all the time to take back Primodius).
2. Primodius might be a nice target to bomb repeatedly to boost our relations with the Sakkra and Psilons (are they still at war with the Silicoids?)

Or, we could make peace with the Silicoids, and count on their 1 measly vote, plus the 1 or 2 votes of the Meklars, to help us squeeze past the Alkari in the election.

[Ianus]

Thanks Ref! I hope to get my turnset played tonight. When convenient could you post your turn log? That helps me understand more of the technical stuff.
Those Silicoids! I'm thinking of grabbing Fbombs after NPGs and then going to war in earnest. We will probably need good bombs to clean up all of thos P and R worlds. And cracking Cryslon is now our empire's top priority (after plain survival of course). I wonder if the birds have inertial stabilizers? I would probably trade a lot for that.
As for long term stratigery, it's looking like we need to reach Fusion level (fusion beams, bc5 etc). That is usually the point where I find myself truly prepared to go to war, to really start tearing down our neighbors.
My goal for this turnset will be to hold off the rocks, play nice with everyone else and continue our westward expansion while teching like crazy!

[Psillycyber]

Range 6 can't come soon enough. Celtsi needs to be colonized ASAP.

Also, will the Psilons and Sakkra still vote for the Alkari even if they are not in an alliance with them? Does the AI vote for another AI race as long as their relationship with the human player is lower, and the relationship with the AI opponent is reasonably high? (In other words, if the Sakkra and Psilons are still affable with the Alkari, we could still be having a tough time in the vote...)

We need to find a way to either raise our relations with the Sakkra and Psilons, or lower their relations with the Alkari even further. Or, just increase our pop, make peace with the Silicoids, to get a 1/3 veto block. That will not be happening as long as the Alkari have nearly twice our population.

[Psillycyber]

I just had a look at the save. Here are a few things I noticed, Ianus:

1. We now have a spy report on the Alkari, and they have all sorts of nasty stuff. Class IV deflector shields (nuclear missile bases might be useless against their ships), death spores (negating our defensive gropo advantage if they use those. We must stay out of war with the Alkari at all costs. If we lose the diplo vote, that's as good as game over in my book.

2. There is the moonbase sitting at Griswold, waiting for range 6 to colonize Celtsi. It will be three turns from Griswold, but if we were to spend 2 turns moving it forward to Dither, we could cut that to 2 turns once we get Range 6. Range 6 is at 6%, so it could pop any tme, but assuming that it does not pop next turn, it would be a good idea to move the Moonbase up to Dither.

3. You might as well rebase all but 1 of those Honeybee IIs at Dither somewhere else (maybe Porridge or Primodius?) They will do nothing to the Alkari fleets.

4. The erratic Psilons have a decent fleet at Iranha. Should we build a missile base or two at Porridge, just in case they (or the Silicoids, with their armed colony ships) want to pay a visit? Or, Fnarglo is about to max on factories. Maybe it could go over to full-time fleet production to help defend Primodius and Porridge? Tannenberg too, once it finishes the Moonbase2 intended for Denubius.

5. The population / diplo vote situation is looking a little better. I'd estimate we have maybe 3/4 of the Alkaris' population / votes. Here's how I would see the votes going down at this point:

Alkari: 10 (Alkari)
Us: 7 (Abstain)
Sakkra: 3 (Alkari)
Psilons: 1 (Alkari)
Meklar: 1 (Abstain)
Silicoids: 1 (Alkari)

Total: 23

Alkari votes: 15 (65%)

Wow, if the Meklar abstain, and we keep our pop growth up, we might just squeak by! It would be even better if we could make peace with the Silicoids or get the Psilons or Sakkra onto our side.

[Ianus]

I've got the save.
Re the above, I think that I am with Ref on not wanting to build laser fighters when NPGs are coming soon. I will probably increase weapon spending some for the time being, as I really want both that and Fusion bombs.
I was worried about the Sakkra getting Death Spores, but if the Alkari have them that is even worse! Spore ships with shields that our bases can't hit in the first place! Aah!
Also we are going to get IT+30 soon, which will help a lot in that department, although if the Alkari already have Spores they should have some pop increases too.

[RefSteel]

- Yes, the Alkari have Stabilizers (we have a spy report on them, so you can see all their stuff for now) but the AI values them highly. The Silicoids also have stabilizers (else their Sharks couldn't move two combat spaces with their Warp 1 engines).

- The Meklar, Psilons, and probably Silicoids will have 2 votes each, not 1. All an empire needs for a second vote is 101 total pop (not counting transports).

- With General Durfus no longer leading our ground troops, we may not lose Primodius any time soon: Eventually, yes, if we can't defend it, but not right away.

- When NPGs hit, I'd advise going for a missile (Mercs or Scatters or maybe Hyper-X if nothing else is on offer) so our bases will have some teeth (and so we can build 2-rack missile boats if needed) - F-Bombs are nice, but they'll be bulky until we get some miniaturization going, and we'll need better engines (or a Stabilizer) to get many of them near a planet like Cryslon safely.

- It's possible I missed something, but I was >90% sure that the trip to Celtsi takes the same amount of time whether it comes from Griswold or from Dither. (That's why the moonbase is still at Griswold.)

- In spite of the loss in research that would result, I probably should have left someplace like Sanders building a colship for Aquilae instead of teching and factory-ing; we just discovered the place on the inherited turn.

- I'll try to get a more condensed, more technical report up soonish.

[RefSteel]

Basic, detailed report and roster added to my story-report post above. Good luck, Ianus!

[Psillycyber]

Ah, didn't know exactly how votes worked. Okay, in that case, here's what we can expect:

Alkari: 12 (Alkari)
Us: 9 (Abstain) - we are at 776 pop right now. I'm assuming we can get above 800 pop before an election.
Sakkra: 5 (Alkari)
Psilons: 2 (Alkari)
Meklar: 2 (Abstain)
Silicoids: 2 (Alkari)

Total: 32

Alkari votes: 21 (65%)

It's gonna be close!

Maybe going to war with the Silicoids wasn't such a great idea after all...if we could make peace with them, I would feel much better about the vote. 2 votes would make a big difference. And now that we have Primodius and don't look to be taking Cryslon any time soon, we have nothing to lose by signing peace with them. Could we entice them into signing peace with a bribe, maybe?

[vmxa]

Lurker:

Making peace probably does not buy you anything. They are going to vote for the AI, unless they are at war with the birds. Well, if the vote is a number of turns away, they could abstain I guess.

[Psillycyber]

Last I checked, they were at war with the birds too. Poor Silicoids....