OSG 29A - The Charismatic Introverts

[Ianus]

I've GOT IT!
I expect to get my report up tomorrow morning sometime. Expect some conquest.

Ok I've actually played most of my turnset and with a vote coming up I would like to get feedback from the team on how far we want to push the game.

I've exterminated the Mrrshans.

Do we want to go for Domination (66% of the vote) or Extermination?  Thoughts?

[haphazard1]

We could have had the easy victory very early, and we could probably get a domination without fighting the Meklar. But I at least am tempteed to take them on, just to see how tough they will be and to play with lots of neat toys. I vote that there is no room in our galaxy for anyone we can't talk to. And by our variant rules, that is no one. Wipe 'em all out!

[Ianus]

It is now 2490 and I resume my role of supreme commander of the forces of humanity.  It has been quite a while since I last commanded our mighty empire, and much has changed.  

Our empire has expanded to control 14 planets and our fleet has sown chaos and destruction across the galaxy.  Our people war with the Meklar, Bulrathi, Mrrshan and Silicoid.  Our only allies are the weak and pathetic Alkari.  As things currently stand the Meklar lead the galaxy in almost every way.  Their science is so great that they have actually researched as far as the best theoretical researchers hypothesize it is possible to progress in most technologies.  Except Propulsion, funnily enough.
Wars have exploded across the galaxy and many worlds on our perimeter have become hot potatoes fought over by our neighbors.  This chaos is certainly keeping everyone occupied, but I notice that the Meklar have begun to encroach down toward the galactic core.  The machines are dangerous enough that I would like to keep them bottled up in the north if at all possible.
In terms of our own wars there has been much discussion about invasion plans.  The Bulrathi have been talked about endlessly, but unfortunately:

the bears really don’t have all that much of interest to us.  Armored Exoskeleton and Andrium Armor are certainly attractive, and Enhanced Eco would be a boon.  Maybe a couple of their more advanced weapons, but there just isn’t enough to make throwing troops into their +60 gropo advantage worth the effort.  With that being said, I have begrudged the bears their control of Tyr for the ENTIRE GAME and I am making it my top priority to regain control of that gem of a planet for our empire!

Of course this will be a challenge.  The planet has 49 bases, but fortunately only has 11 points of shielding and is not firing any advanced missiles.  I am confident that I can glass it without significant losses.  The problem is that our fleet is currently down in the south carving up the Mrrshans, and it will take three turns for it to reach Tyr.  What should I do?  Pause the Mrrshan offensive to take Tyr, or conquer the kitties first and then swing north toward Tyr?  I examine our tactical maps and decide that the best course of action is to continue our southern push to the west across the bottom of the map conquering all worlds, and then reevaluate from there.  However, that does NOT mean that I am leaving Tyr behind.  I task Collassa to begin building 159 bombers per year in order to conquer our long-lost colony.  I route one of our HBC4 dreadnoughts up to provide anti-ship support for what will be our northern fleet.  The other two will continue working in the south.
Our research is in fine shape, with several techs in the percentages.  I elect to leave things as they are.
At this point I hit Next Turn by accident, so I am unable to do every micromanagement tweak I had planned, but the important things are done.

2491: The blasted Silicoids are repopulating all of the Radiated planets that no one else can claim.  I send our venerable Hyper X fleet to deal with the problem.  Time to play -Whack-a-Rock!

2492: I gain space superiority over the Mrrshan colony of Arietis.  This pleases the Silicoids who call me up to cheer me on.

2493: Stargates discovered.  I choose High Energy Focus next.
I glass a Silicoid colony and conquer Arietis.  Spoils of war include RIW80% and Range 6.  Yay.

2494: Omega V bombs discovered, I choose Plasma Cannon next hoping that we will steal it from the Cats.

Oops!  Spoils of war are Class IV shields, Repulsor Beam (!!!), ECM2, and Graviton Beam.

Not anymore we don’t!

Everyone seems happy that I am killing the Mrrshans, but then they realize that I have done too good of a job.

Come on, its just a little genocide!

Because our bomber fleet has suffered a fair amount of attrition I design a new bomber.  I don’t think that Fusion Bombs are done quite yet!

I also design a new battleship.  This one should do a bit more damage than the old HBC 4!

2495: We get a spy hit against the Silicoids.  All fields except Weapons. I haven’t been paying attention to techs, so I choose Computers and receive IRC3.  That would have been nice to have 100 years ago!

This is why you should ALWAYS check enemy technologies!  I could have gotten Personal Absorption Shields if I had known to choose Force Fields!

2496: Armored Exoskeleton discovered.  IIT4 the only way forward.
I capture Simius from the Rocks.  No techs from the 7 factories.

2497: We steal IIT8 from the Bears.

2498: Preparing for combat.

2499: IRC5 pops.  ECM7 next.

I glass Tyr.  Thats more like it!  And the Meklar are happy about it.
The Alkari come asking for trade.  I agree to 75BC.
I set all planets to factory building except for Uxmai which I set on research to keep our projects moving forward.  And of course Simius which is only size 13.  The widespread use of bioweapons in this galaxy is making continued conquest in the contested center of the map unattractive.  We can just barely fit an Omega-V bomb on a small hull but without enough miniaturization to fit much of anything else.  

While this design will certainly mess up any planet it can get next to I would like to wait for enough miniaturization to fit at least a stabilizer on it to be able to close with a planet in two turns.  We have Force Fields and Planetology both in the percentages, so my strategy is to wait for those two techs to come in and then make a design to burn down the galaxy.  It makes me sad to think that this will be my last turn in this game!

The Meklar have just reached the top of the tech tree in Planetology to go along with their Construction mastery.  The good news is that in spite of all of their advanced techs they are quite toothless when it comes to ground combat.  If we can manage to gain space superiority over their colonies we should have no trouble conquering them at very reasonable combat odds.  If we want to get some advanced technologies that is the strategy I suggest.  They also lack planetary shields of any consequence.

The Bulrathi don’t really have much of interest to us.  There is basically no way we can invade them anyway, so glass them from orbit.

The Alkari are useless, and have only one planet left anyway.  I would have eliminated them myself but I didn’t start preparing for that event in enough time.  Besides that Altair is slightly behind our current battle front, but they can be eliminated at any time.  I don’t know what happens if you send transports to an ally’s colony, if the bases will fire on them or not.  Might be worth experimenting with when the time comes.

The Silicoids still possess some good technologies, particularly in Planetology (go figure) and our southern front is pressing up against their core in the west.  I suggest taking the time to invade and capture their toys, at least until that becomes too tedious and then we can blast them out of space with our bombers.
Ha!  I’m wrapping up my turns when I still have one more turn and a vote to get through!  Lets get to it!

2500: I repel invasion fleets from the Meklar, Silicoids and Bulrathi and maintain control of Simius as well as:

At long last Tyr is ours as it should have been from the beginning!

Its about time WE got one of these messages!
As for the vote:
Meklar 17 for themselves
Bulrathi 4 for the Meklar
Alkari 2 for us
Silicoids 8 for the Meklar
Humans abstain with 21.
I wanted to initiate Final War here just to up the difficulty of what I foresee being a by-the-numbers galactic conquest, but I went back and reread the variant instructions for OSG-29 which say that we cannot vote for the AI.  I’m pretty certain that I was the one that originally put that restriction into the variant, so I have no one to blame but myself, but I think that Final War would have increased the difficulty/tedium by a fair amount, given the state of our opponents’ technologies.  Oh well!

Following the vote the Bulrathi show up asking me to break our alliance with the Alkari. As much as I would like to see what happens when we invade an ally I agree, and also agree to peace with the bears.  We can always get back to war later once we have our bomber fleet fully operational.

And that is the end of that.  We are currently building factories on all of our worlds and standing up our newly conquered planets.  Our Hyper-X fleet has been sitting at Selia for the last 10 turns repelling Silicoid colony fleets.  They are good at that.
The only incoming fleets are all at Tyr because it was an unclaimed planet until this turn.  Our fleet there should be enough to hold it, but watch out for the Meklar.  Their ships pack a punch!  Our Megabolt battleship does good damage but lacking a 2-range weapon allows enemy ships to fire on them anyway which can be a problem.  The Meklar are fielding ships armed with Auto Blasters and Plasma Cannon which hurt.

[haphazard1]

RIP kitties. And everyone penalizes us for genocide, the hypocrites. You all hated them too!

I agree that invading the Bulrathi is not worth the effort. Maybe we can get some techs from them by spying, but if not then we can hopefully gain some from the other AIs.

I do not think we are quite to the mopping up phase yet, as powerful as the Meklar are. But with our ongoing tech advances and the worlds we are adding to our empire, things are certainly looking good.

[DaveV]

2500 - A couple planets are putting more than MAX into factories; I dial them back, putting one to work on research and the other on building planetary shields. We have five planets with no shields or missile bases, and I consider it a priority to fix that.

The Meklars are indeed coming to pay a visit at Tyr. I'm less sanguine than Ianus about our chances against this fleet, so I send the Megabolt 5 from Simius for reinforcements.



2501 - the Meklars arrive:




That's a lot of firepower. Fortunately, most of it is range 1. After many turns of running around the screen, I kill all the Meklar ships except the Ajax stack. At that point, we're at a standoff: they can't hit me, but I can't attack them because they'd kill my ship with reaction fire before I could get a shot in. Unfortunately, the planet has absorbed a lot of bioweapon and conventional attacks, so our poor incoming colonists are going to be stranded.



After I whack the D button a bunch of times, the Meklars retreat.



The Silicoids stop by, offering peace. I accept, since we appear to need to consolidate a bit before we can crank up the war machine again.



That puts us at peace with everyone but the Meklars.

I dial up a couple colony ships, to try to grab Tyr and the other hot potato world (Quayal).

2502 - Six field tech steal against the Silicoids. I believe I'm supposed to go with Force Fields.



I forgot to mention I cranked up research spending on Planetology. It was only up to about 11%, but:



Almost all research goes into Force Fields. Better shields would be very nice to have.

2503 - Backstab from the birds. I'm not scared.



Most of our planets are now Gaias.




2504 - New colonies at Quayal and Tyr, each protected by a Megabolt 5. The birds promptly drop a stack of transports and take Tyr away. The Meklars are sending their 154 Ajax cruisers against Tyr. Since my Megabolt 5 should be able to chase away the Meklars, I send a counter invasion force.

After equalizing research, Force Fields are at 24%.

2505 - Lots of Meklar ships die over Quayal and Tyr, but I still can't do anything but wait out their 154 Ajax cruisers at Tyr. This time, though, my ship retreats, even though I was already in orbit. The Meklars glass the planet. I send a colony ship, but probably will not be able to settle. More brave colonists perishing, arrgh.

Another steal against the Silicoids. Everything but Force Fields is available; I decide to go for Propulsion instead of +1 computer tech level.



Force Fields are at 26%.

2506 - Deflector 9 finishes, yay! I pick Personal Barrier Shield to advance a rung:



The Meklars retreated from Tyr, so I establish a colony and most of the colonists are able to land. Yay again.

New shields call for a new ship design:



2508 - The Meklars want peace. OK, that means I can build up my new planets and kill the Alkaris at my leisure. If we can just complete shields and a single base at the three central worlds, they'll be invulnerable to everything but bioweapons.



Everyone loves us:



And this game is pretty much won:



2509 - Newsdroid:



I've spent all my reserves, so Celtsi and Exis switch from shipbuilding to refilling the reserves.

2510 - Our spies on Altair steal a planetology tech:



Notes: I didn't do any reserve spending. The Silicoids have a colony ship on its way to Crypto. Oops.

We're spreading like some sort of blue mold:

[haphazard1]

The galaxy is just a wheel of cheese, and we are the mold.

So the "honorable" Alkari stabbed us in the back, or tried to anyway. Sad little birds. And as suspected the Meklar are dumping bio-weapons all over the place. Messy.

Hmmm, armored exoskeleton in, and we picked up personal absorption shield. Working on personal barrier shield, even. We might be able to invade a Bulrathi planet after all, although it would still be very costly. That assumes there are any Bulrathi planets left by that point, of course.

[Ianus]

To be fair to the dumb birdbrains I was the one who broke off our alliance. It was still a bad decision for them, but meh.

[haphazard1]

Ah, that makes more sense. I was surprised than an honorable personalty would do that, but if we broke the alliance first then they would see us as backstabbing good-for-nothing betrayers. Which we are.

[Sullla]

Got it, will play later today. The easiest path to a win at this point looks like running over the Silicoids and taking all their planets.

[Mardoc]

As usual, I underestimated how much Ianus could get done

Solid turnsets from both you and DaveV. Very glad to see we ended up with Repulsors before the kitties completely died.

On Ianus' question

Do we want to go for Domination (66% of the vote) or Extermination? Thoughts?

I want to go to the point where each of us has a chance to conquer a Meklar world, and then declare victory as soon as we get bored with that. I don't really care about which official victory condition we hit, I just want to be obviously the best race in the galaxy.

That said, succession game means that the distance between 'everyone gets a shot at the Meklar once we catch up on tech' and 'extermination' is likely to be less than than one rotation, so tentatively I'd aim for extermination.