Remnants Succession Game 02 - In Our Own Talons

[haphazard1]

Looks like very nice turns, RefSteel. I agree with Dp101 that the increasing amount of yellow on the galactic map is a Very Good Thing.

I believe that I would be up next. I am likely to be busy for the next 24 hours, though, so if Dp101 would like to take the save I would be fine with swapping places in the turn order. Otherwise I should be able to get to this on Tuesday some time.

[Dp101]

Think I'm too out of it rn to want to swap, so I'll leave it for you.

[RefSteel]

See, I knew I'd forgotten something! (In fact, as it turns out, at least two things!)

1) I started flagging systems again: Green flags for high-value targets (UR or Art) regardless of which aliens own them, White flags for suggested or now-actual zoo worlds (I think I just chose one each for the bugs and lizards) - and I think just one yellow flag for a "merely" Rich high-value target.

2) The Roster:
- RefSteel (just played)
- haphazard1 (Up Now!)
- Dp101 (on deck)
- Fenn
- Brian Shanahan (skip through July 12th)

[haphazard1]

Surveying the holographic displays in the office he has inherited from the previous leader, the newest leader of the Altairi shakes his head. That old bird is crazy, look at all the ships and transports going every which way around the galaxy. Still, the people have made very impressive gains in recent years. Perhaps there is method to the madness after all? Sorting out all the chaos is going to take a while....

Current priorities are the ongoing war with the lizards, and making sure our population is maximized for the upcoming council vote in 4 years. Pretty much everything else can wait, we have to avoid Dynalon getting enough votes to control the galaxy.

T171

The bugs ask for peace. They have only one planet left and we do not want a xenocide penalty, so I agree. We could have kept bombing them occasionally to improve diplo with the rocks, but I am hoping that will not be needed.
Our spies steal BC7 from the rocks.
Our spies report the Humans have developed Sub-Space Teleporters.

T172

Our forces capture Apophis from the lizards.
Our spies report that the humans have developed Ionic Pulsar.
Our scanner range now reveals the Nazlok world of Gunabad. It is a large terran artifacts planet, quite the gem. It gets flagged for future attention.

T173

Our forces capture Norruth from the lizards.
Our forces clear the ships and bases from Carinth, but the first wave of transports is not large enough. The lizards hold the planet for another year.
Our scanners reveal a couple of rock systems, one ultra-rich and one ultra-poor. Both are flagged appropriately for future status.
One of our Falcon Eye scanner ships checks out the Nazlok fleet. Missiles, lots and lots of missiles. And a couple of heavy ion cannon. Nothing all that scary.
Lots of pop shuffling has been going on, as incoming transports would have over-filled some worlds.. Transports have been sent all over the place, both for conquest and just to fill space. Some forced pop growth has also been bought, to top off planets before the upcoming council vote.

T174

The second wave of our forces easily captures Carinth from the lizards.
The lizards now have only a single world, where they can continue to exist. At least, we won't destroy them.
The galactic council meets. We and Dynalon of the brains are nominated:

The cats abstain, while everyone else votes for Dynalon. But we have enough votes to block, if only barely. We will need to make additional gains to make certain our rivals do not out-pace us with growth and improving terraforming tech.

I have run out of time for now, so I will pause and post this partial report. What does the team think we should focus on next? We can declare war on the rocks or the shifters to gain more systems. We could take 4 worlds from the shifters, including a very large artifacts planet. The rocks have more systems but would be a tougher fight. Our relations with the central alliance are not great (neutral and wary), but they do not seem likely to attack in the short term.

We have a fair bit of factory building that we could do if we want to catch up in total production, and there are a lot of defense upgrades we could build if we fear attack. The central alliance's tech is nasty. The humans in particular have ridiculous levels of shielding.

I should be able to play the rest of the turns later today or early tomorrow. Your thoughts on how to proceed would be appreciated.

[RefSteel]

Great start to the set! I think what to do next will depend partly on tactical considerations: My instinct is to just keep on rolling right through the 'loks, but when and how to do so depends e.g. on what exactly the 'loks are fielding on their ships (last I checked, they had a lot of them!) - not all missile boats are created equal, and for instance if they have a bunch of missile+bomb cruisers, that could be a concern for defending our recent acquisitions (plus the sheer number of hitpoints to eat through could be an issue with our current fleet, especially if they have good shielding and maneuverability) just because there are so ridiculously many 'lok ships: According to the graphs you posted, just five worlds struggling under the maintenance costs of the largest fleet in the galaxy!

[haphazard1]

Hi RefSteel!

The Nazloks do seem like the easiest target to go after next. Our scanner ship got a look at several of their designs. Mostly missiles, mostly 5-racks of stingers. They did have one design with a bunch of scatter pack 5s which could kill a bunch of our ships. They also had one design with some bombs on it. I will need to recheck the info for speed and shields.

Our new conquests will need some time to finish converting captured factories and doing eco stuff (soil and terraforming) before any bases could be built. So you are correct that we would need a solid ship-to-ship fleet presence to keep them safe.

Do you see any reason to maintain hostilities with the lizards now that they have only the one world? I have not checked if they would accept peace, but they probably do not want to fight us any longer.

[RefSteel]

Sure, peace with the lizards would be fine at this point: If they have any ships left that could even be slightly annoying, then peace would surely be a good thing, and it's still fine otherwise; they're not going to cause any problems for us from a single ultra-poor world. With 25 years before the next Council vote, we can take our time if we want, too: I'd say prosecute any future war with whatever timing feels right or most-comfortable for you!

[Dp101]

Current preference is to just go after the shapeshifters while spying on the rocks and preparing to hit them next. The rocks have awful computers but good missiles (at least scatter pack VII *sounds* concerning but idr how bad it actually is) but outside of that they’re our next easiest target, so we should just try to pull as far ahead as possible before turning on them. The shapeshifters seem to have nothing impressive whatsoever so it’s just free land for us. And yes, no reason not to make peace with anyone the second we can no longer safely conquer their stuff.

[haphazard1]

My apologies for the delays in continuing the game. Life has unexpectedly gotten very busy. I think I will have to hand off to the next player, because it will probably be another couple days before I could play more turns.

A (hopefully short) war with the Nazlok seems like the next step. We have a substantial fleet, but building some more ships with newer designs may be a good idea. We do have faster engines and better battle computers now, along with weapons other than NPGs if we want them.

Sorry again about the delays.

[Dp101]

It’s fine, I can pick up from here, though I’ve got no clue how many turns to play lol. I guess up to where I would have stopped anyway normally, 190?