OSG 26 - The Bearperor Returns

[Ianus]

2380: I inherit an empire poised on the brink of greatness/catastrophe. Surrounded by a massive flock of birds, a swarm of lizards, some insane brains, and a few rocks which are currently dashing themselves against the walls of our empire, we balance on a knife’s edge of peace against the backdrop of an almost certainly unwinable war.
Emperor Tacheon at least has broken all of his alliances, but the runaway Alkari are allied with the Sakkra, who are also allied with the as yet unmet Meklar.

Tech-wise the Alkari are currently the most frightening of our opponents, and could do us grievous damage if they wanted to.
I immediately set out to make a few changes to my empire. I adjust tech spending slightly to emphasize Weapons and Propulsion, and set some Cubscout 2’s to set out to the west to explore those new worlds. I also move the Moonbase from Griswold, but not to Dither, but instead to the new Alkari world of Gion. It is the same 2 turns either way and puts us much closer to Celtsi. Call me crazy!

2381: The Sakkra show up at Inferno Xudax and run me off. Duraloy pops, but neither of the two I really care about. Keep on keeping on…

2382: Range 6 discovered. That’s good. Range 7 is the only tech available. That’s bad! I’m sure glad Tacheon gave me those Nuclear Engines!

The Silicoids attack at Primodius.

It goes about how you would expect.

2383: Neutron Pellet Gun pops. I really want Fusion Bombs, but Scatter Pack V is just too tempting to pass up. I settle Little Sal at the blueberry up in Alkari space. I’m nervous to be encroaching on them, but now we can keep an eye on their fleets up there. The Silicoids have also withdrawn their fleets from Primodius. I start building factories. I also start building NPG 2’s to see about the Silicoids.

2384: I discover a Dead world out in the far northwestern nebula. Once we get Aquilae it will be in range. The rocks refuse peace, and I’m not willing to pay them for it. I’m now desperately trying to build as many factories as possible before IRC3 comes in and jacks up factory prices.

2385: The rocks have a colony ship inbound to Pollus the tiny Toxic 10 north of Cryslon. And they are welcome to it! IRC3 enters the percentages, and the Psilons are amassing the beginnings of a credible fleet at Iranha. It still only has 4 bases though, so if those ships make a move I’m going to invade it. Watch yourself Emperor Tachycardia!

2386: Planets are maxing, and things are pretty quiet at the moment.

2387: I settle Beedy, the southernmost point of our empire.

And a spy has infiltrated the Silicoids. They are exactly what we need (to invade) right now. I design a nuclear bomber and start production. It might take a bit, but Cryslon shall fall!

2388: IRC3 is taking its own sweet time! Currently 33% odds.

2389:
IT+30 hits at ~10% odds, but no IRC3. I grab Soil Enrichment, although Controlled Radiated is also available. Time to get busy!

2390: A busy end to my reign.

We check in on Cryslon and its 37 missile bases (packing Hyper V’s by the way).

IRC3 hits, just as most planets finish terraforming.

And we colonize 100AcreWood in the northwest, bringing us to the second population warning. The election shouldn’t be too far off now.

Notes:
Most planets are done terraforming and I have readjusted spending to start building new factories, but Primodius, Bohemia and Fnarglo need one more turn of terraforming. Feel free to readjust sliders as necessary.
There is a Moonbase2 due at Onlyou in 2 turns, which should be sent on to Selia in the nebula south of 100AcreWood.
Paladia, Tundra 30 is 6 parsecs from Beedy but I haven’t started building a Moonbase for it yet, it was just discovered this turn.
Nuker 2’s are being built slowly at Keeta, and whenever there are enough to tangle with Cryslon go for it. The rocks have some good stuff and we should be able to steal almost all of it with a successful invasion! I would suggest that whenever Soil Enrichment comes in we get Controlled Radiated and then snuff out the rocks once they take all those hostile planets in the west. It will be quicker and easier than building colony ships.
I’m quite certain that we can get a NAP with the brains and the lizards this turn, and maybe the birds too. I think that it would be worth doing (at least with the brains) so that they won’t declare war on us right away. I’m pretty sure that they will break their NAP first, which will give us a cushion/might save us from war all together if that is the extent of their insanity.
The Alkari are starting to make inroads along the southern edge of the map. Hopefully they will meet the Meklar and get held up, but watch out for them coming up from the south. Grab everything habitable we can!

We are in absolutely fabulous shape right now, although still precariously balanced.

[RefSteel]

Great turns, Ianus! We may win this thing yet!

One thing I disagree with is the planned attack on Cryslon. Please don't slowly build bombers (especially at a single non-rich world) when we could be building placeholders instead: We can then turn them into bombers once we have the best tech we're going to get, don't pay maintenance on them in the meantime, and can call off the attack if the Silis come up with Planetary Vs, Scatters, and ECM 3 before we're ready to launch! Even if they get no new defensive tech between now and our attack, we'll still need hundreds of bombers, and the slower we build them, the more surely they'll end up going obsolete. If we want to try taking Cryslon soon, we'll have to commit to it in a serious way. That's my analysis at least. (It's probably safe to scrap the LR colship, the Honeybees, or both if we need a new design slot, though I haven't checked on the latter's assignments.)

The council is still a bit frightening, but if we can max out all our worlds on population, we may have a veto on our own! And our computer and weapons projects should go a long way toward protecting us from the Alkari (for a while) when they come through. Good luck with this one, PsillyCyber!

Roster:
Ianus - Just Played an excellent set!
Psillycyber - UP! with the empire still balanced on a knife's edge between glory and collapse!
RefSteel - On Deck
Thrawn - Perhaps still hibernating ... but getting closer and closer to spring!

[Ianus]

I see your point. I was building them at one of the rich worlds too but between terraforming and now factory construction I stopped. It does make more sense to stop building ships and focus entirely on maxing factories ASAP and then crash build bombers everywhere once we are ready to go. I'm just dying to take Cryslon as that will truly break the rocks' backs (tectonic plates?) and effectively remove them from the game.
Computers, Weapons AND next rung will show if we have Planetary V's or not. If so the only thing that threatens us is DEATH (as it now reads on AI tech screens) Spores. Have we passed Bio Toxin Antidote yet? That seems crucial if we can get it somehow!
Can you add any comments about diplomacy? If we have a NAP with Tacheon and the alignment of the planets tells him to attack us will be declare war straight out, will he break the NAP and declare war the following turn, or are breaking a NAP and declaring war completely separate dice rolls?
Also I use way too many commas in my writing and I apologize. My mother would be ashamed!

[Psillycyber]

Okay, I got the save! Whew boy, palms are getting sweaty on this turnset!

First, I need to do some voting analysis:

Population graph pixel lengths:

Us: 16
Alkari: 22
Sakkra: 10
Psilons: 2
Silicoids: 2
Meklar: (2)? - ESTIMATE

Our population: 944 (I would almost be tempted to grow population just to get this above 1000 in the next few turns. That would bump us from 10 to 11 votes).

My estimates of the other races' populations, extrapolating from pixel length ratios:

Alkari: 1.375*944 = 1298 (call it 1350, to be safe) = 14 votes (Alkari)
Us: 944 = 10 votes (Abstain)
Sakkra: .625*944 = 590 (call it 650, to be safe) = 7 votes (Alkari)
Psilons: .125*944 = 118 = 2 votes (Alkari - let's assume)
Silicoids: .125*944 = 118 = 2 votes (Alkari)
Meklar: ~118? = 2 votes (Abstain)

Total votes: 37
Alkari votes: 25 (67.56%)

Nooooo!!!!!!

What about 25/38? - 65.7% Yes!!!!!

So, my first order of business will be to use our eco sliders to get our pop above 1000 by next turn so we will get 11 votes and have a veto block with the Meklar and/or the Psilons.

[Psillycyber]

Star analysis:

There are 70 stars total. We can see that 42 of those 70 have been colonized. (60%)

Assume that the Meklar have at least 2 planets. That's 44/70 = 63%

47/70 is the magic number. (67%)

Therefore, depending on how many planets the Meklar have, we are looking at only a few more turns until the vote.

Unfortunately, I think we will be getting the vote before 2399, which means I will have to survive two nail-biting votes during this turnset. Ugh! Fortunately, the vote totals SHOULD be similar for each one. I really hope the Meklar haven't even met the Alkari, as in that case, if they have met neither of the two top candidates, they are sure to abstain...right?

[RefSteel]

I don't know a lot of details about AI diplomacy, but my recollections are:
1) In general, if you have a NAP with someone, they will dissolve the NAP before declaring war (at least one turn before). Erratic war declarations (I think) and the Diplo event (I'm sure) can both break this rule, going straight to war from NAP or even Alliance, but most wardecs by erratic leaders actually follow the regular rules; only the special "shall we randomly make war with someone this year?" roll results in going direct to war.
2) Yes, I'm pretty sure the Meks will abstain if they've met neither us nor the birds.
3) I'm guesstimating that if they don't get any tech increases and we use the current Nuker design, we'll need a little over 350 bombers to take out Cryslon's defenses, but if we use only that many, we should expect to lose nearly all of them. If the Silis get ECM3, we'll need over 550 bombers. If they instead get BC4, it would be more like 650. If they get a planetary shield up (without any computer tech) we would need over 750. If they get Scatters, even without any other tech, we'd need ... to basically just leave them alone. (Until we have Stabilizers or better engines anyway.) I haven't thought about other bomber designs, but with current tech, I don't think we can do better than Ianus's Nukers. So my guess is that we should either go hard for Cryslon ASAP or reluctantly table the project (I lean toward the latter). Of course I would love to be proven wrong!

[Waterd]

How do you calculate that ref? my major complain about moo is that i have to always very wildly guess how combats are going to play out.

[Ianus]

I favor going for it now. Nukers are obsolete for anything besides the Silicoids right now so we don't need to minimize attrition at Cryslon and the reward for victory is simply huge! Plus 400 Nukers won't take too long to produce and the rocks are focusing expansion right now rather than teching. It's up to the player of course.

[Ianus]

I will be offline until some time on Tuesday and available to play starting early Wednesday. Sorry to be difficult! Please skip me if necessary but I hope you don't as I can't wait to see how things look when I return.
Cheers!

[RefSteel]

How do you calculate that ref?

I'll try to answer in depth later this afternoon; the equation can get complex, especially later in the game, and random chance does make things unpredictable, but with large enough numbers, it can be guesstimated pretty accurately.

I favor going for it now. Nukers are obsolete for anything besides the Silicoids right now so we don't need to minimize attrition at Cryslon and the reward for victory is simply huge! Plus 400 Nukers won't take too long to produce and the rocks are focusing expansion right now rather than teching. It's up to the player of course.

Quite true. Going for it now (to me) would mean putting off infrastructure and coordinating relocs to get all the ships we need over Cryslon ASAP, to minimize the time they have to tech, but we might actually have more (or less!) margin for error than that - and delaying growth might cost us the game if the election comes too soon. Definitely some tough choices on this one: Sounds like fun!

I will be offline until some time on Tuesday and available to play starting early Wednesday. Sorry to be difficult! Please skip me if necessary but I hope you don't as I can't wait to see how things look when I return.
Cheers!

I doubt if we'll have to skip you. Wednesday isn't that far off, and we have at least two more turn sets to complete before then. Have a great time; we'll try to give you something interesting to do when you get back!