OSG 29A - The Charismatic Introverts

[Ianus]

Ok, I've got the save. I won't be able to play for a couple of hours so if anyone has advice now would be the time.
Goals for the set:
I see a Silicoid colony ship escorted by a single large ship going... somewhere. I will repel that fleet from our worlds AND defend the UR radiated world near our core. I resent the rocks poaching all of these worlds and I am eventually going to drive them out, but not yet.
We have a lot of techs about to pop, so I will choose our research in order to move toward war.

[Mardoc]

I see a Silicoid colony ship escorted by a single large ship going... somewhere.  I will repel that fleet from our worlds AND defend the UR radiated world near our core.  I resent the rocks poaching all of these worlds and I am eventually going to drive them out, but not yet.

As best I can tell from the quick glimpses during the turn roll, it's headed to Paladia.  Or at least something in line with Paladia.

We have a lot of techs about to pop, so I will choose our research in order to move toward war.

If we have a chance at Factory Controls IV, I want that. Otherwise I approve of war planning

[Ianus]

Yeah, to have any chance against that Meklar hive to the north we really need better factory controls. We shall see what I can do.

[haphazard1]

Good luck, Ianus! Hopefully you will actually get some choices in tech, and not more of "this and only this."

[Ianus]

Well if we are going to be given limited tech choices I approve of the techs we have gotten so far. Both Improved Scanners and Personal Deflector are what I would have chosen anyway. What we really need next are Planetary V's and Controlled Radiated. Then we are good to go!
Playing now!

[Ianus]

Here is my report for turns 2390-2400.
Photobucket is currently down so I can’t upload my pictures.  I will edit them in once I can get them online.
Edit: Not five minutes after uploading this report Photobucket is up again.  Pictures added.

2390: Things look great within our empire.  All planets are either maxed out or working on factories.  Bases are being built where needed and we are spending a good amount on research.  Relations are excellent with all races, so baring something unforeseen (and this means you Ambassador Whatsyername) we should be able to turn down another galactic council victory in ten years.
Following that little snafu up at Collassa the Bulrathi are playing nice.  The only threat is an incoming Silicoid colony ship and large escort moving toward Paladia.  If it bypasses Paladia (likely as we have owned that planet for a pretty long time at this point) it is going to Crypto the radiated UR world deeper within our space.  I will reroute our laser fighters there when the threat to Paladia has passed.  I really wish that the AI would respect borders between different powers, but I suppose that this is more realistic.  How can anyone hope to defend a quadrillion kilometers of empty space?  I do think that it would be a Very Bad Thing to let the Silicoids plant a colony deep in our back lines, as they would be able to hit us at will if they felt like it.  We are most certainly going to have to carry out some F-bomb diplomacy in the near future.
As for this turn, I fiddle with spending a bit to streamline all colonies.  I agree with Sullla that the best course of action is to have a given colony focus on a single objective at a time and finish it with all speed before focusing on the next.  Splitting focus between factories, bases, ships and research results in all four being done poorly.  If we don’t need it right now why do we need it at all?

2391: Personal Deflector Shields researched.  We have both Class V Planetaries and Class IV Deflectors.  I choose Planetaries.  We can always grab IV’s if Class V isn’t available in the next tier.
That Silicoid colony ship is flying right over the top of Paladia, most definitely on its way to Crypto.  I reroute our laser fighters.  They will probably beat the Rocks by three turns or so, but that will allow the pilots to fortify in place and… sorry scratch that.  I’ve been reading too many Civ6 threads!

2392: Nothing to report.  Planetology and Propulsion evade discovery.  Collassa maxes factories (it came up one factory short last year) and everyone else keeps on keeping on.

2393: Sub Light Drives discovered.  I pick Energy Pulsar over Warp Dissipator because it is cheaper.  I rarely use either special, but EP could help against the Cats and Birds.  For now though we don’t need it, so I turn off Propulsion spending and redistribute.  IT30 REALLY needs to pop.  Our UR world is adding very little to the Reserve fund.
Artemis has two bases constructed so if for some reason the Silicoids are heading there we should be able to drive them off.

2394: IT30 discovered, and catastrophic news: We do NOT have Controlled Radiated in our tree!  We do have both Soil Enrichment and Bio Toxin Antidote however.  I chose Soil Enrichment as more immediately useful.  We can always come back for Bio Toxin Antidote later if we find ourselves at risk of spore attacks.  Lacking Controlled Radiated really hurts though.  I wonder if the bears have it…
All planets set to terraform this turn.

2395: All planets terraformed.  I assign everyone to build at least some factories and ship population from Uxmai to UR Exis (two turns).  Silicoids are due at Crypto next turn.  Lets see what my laser fighters can do about that!

2396: Combat at Crypto.  The large escort ship fires a 2-rack of missiles destroying one fighter (did maneuver 2 not fit on those laser smalls? ALWAYS put maneuverability on a ship if you can fit it!) and then opens up with Gatling Lasers destroying ~20 fighters before being destroyed.  The colony ship was armed as it didn’t immediately flee, but its escort was destroyed before it could close with our forces and it retreated without firing a shot.

Here is our spy report on the Bulrathi.  No luck on Controlled Radiated, but maybe they are working on it now.  They DO have IRC4 which would be wonderful to get our hands on, but I’m not sure what luck we can expect on spying right now.  Thats everything of interest with the bears.  

2397: The Silicoid colony ships are sporting a Heavy Laser.  How do I know? Because an unescorted colony ship showed up at inferno Guradas and my scout heroically dodged two shots before retreating in order to satisfy my curiosity.  Having the rocks grab an unremarkable world to our southwest isn’t a terrible thing.
Collassa, Paladia, Sol, Exis, Darrian and Uxmai all max factories.  Hey its almost like I planned it that way!

Spy report on the Alkari.  Fusion Drives AND Inertial Stabilizer would both be REALLY nice.  Some day…

2398: Artemis and Endoria max factories.

Spy report on the Mrrshans.  Nothing interesting apart from Merculites and NPGs.  Don’t attack their ships!

2399: Rha maxes factories.  That just leaves Cygni chugging away.  It already has all the factories its population can work, and it will reach 190 factories in ~4 turns without reserve spending.

Spy report on the Meklar.  They are clearly the resident powerhouse in this game with a little bit of everything.  I can’t wait until they declare war on us!

2400: Hyper X rockets discovered.  I pick Ion Rifle for lack of a better option.  Hopefully Fusion Beams will be available in the next tier.
And now for the election: Humans vs Meklar again.
INT-986 votes 8 for itself.
Grunk votes 5 for us.
Farseer votes 2 for us.
Mirana votes 3 for us.
Carnax votes 7 for us.
We abstain with 9.
That would have been 67.647% for us and the victory.  Instead the game goes on.
Two notes about that.  One, INT-986 is surging in population, but we are also still 140 pop away from maxing out all of our planets.  I did not spend anything on growing population during my turns which cost us some production, but I wanted to keep plugging away on research.
We have Construction and Forcefields in the (low) percentages and everything else is slowly filling up.

Here is a spy report on the Silicoids.  They have IRC3 which we could hopefully grab from them in an invasion or three.  They only have 12 techs we don’t in total.

Here is the current state of the galaxy.

Here is our empire.  Our production is great in spite of our basic robotic controls due to our huge planets.  Unfortunately we are now stuck in place until we can go on the offensive, which we won’t be really ready to do for another 40 turns or so.  We can’t even build small F-bombers yet.
No one else has tried for Crypto lately, probably because the Rocks are the only ones that can land on it.  We still have our laser fighters stationed there but if the Silicoids come for it in force we will either need reinforcements or to let them have it.  One option is to make a suicide thrust against the colony ship so that they at least can’t colonize, but having fighters with more that speed 1 would make that an easier coup to pull off.  Just a thought.
Thats all for now.

Roster:
Haphazard: In the Hole
Mardoc: Waiting
Ianus: Just Played
DaveV: UP!
Sullla: On Deck

Save attached.

[DaveV]

Got it, will play in a few hours. This time I'll definitely check the thread before playing, in case anyone has advice.

[Mardoc]

(did maneuver 2 not fit on those laser smalls? ALWAYS put maneuverability on a ship if you can fit it!)

Forgot that you have to pick manueverability and engines separately   They were just fine for shooting down transports, though!

[Mardoc]

Also: we have large planets, Ion Rifles, Personal Deflector shields, and Duralloy. And most of our neighbors have at least one tech we want. This sounds like a match to me!

[Sullla]

Looks like a solid turnset - nice job fending off those Silicoid poachers. One suggestion I would make: I would have gone with the Blasters over Ion Rifle in the Weapons tree. Why? Well we already had Hand Lasers, so getting the Ion Rifle was a very minor benefit. We already had a ground weapon, a bomb, and a missile: what we were missing was a gun upgrade. We still have nothing better than lasers right now, and we're almost forced to take a gun at the next tech level. Anyway, it's not a huge deal but it's always worth thinking about what you already have and what would provide the most relative benefit.

In big picture terms, I concur that we're not ready to go on the offensive just yet. It would be different if we had control of the diplomacy, but with all ability to talk to the AI races out of our control, we're better off staying peaceful and safe for the time being. That also means avoiding spying for the most part too. I would sit back and tech for a little bit longer, until we have Planetary Shield V in place and some healthy base counts, then look to attack after that. The AI races are weak and divided, which means that we're under no pressure to take action. We can continue building up our position and then go for the jugular after that. (The Mrrshans look like a very easy first target - as usual!)