I like the idea of trading star gates for ECM VI and Deflectors VII. The alliance will presumably share the tech with each other, so we might as well try to get something from each of them. Their central location makes star gates less useful to them than the tech is for us.
Good luck, Fenn! No rush on the turns, there is a LOT going on in the galaxy. If we can absorb most of the rocks' territory, will that get us enough votes to win? The central alliance will never vote for us, and after crushing them all the one planet remnant empires won't either. We are definitely the most hated birds in the galaxy.
Wow, impressive development, plus taking the 'loks from top military fleet strength in the galaxy to a little one-planet zoo! I have a feeling if we never fight the central alliance nor exterminate anybody, we'll fall a little short of a Conquest victory, but we'll see how that develops - and if the central AIs insist on suffering military defeats before they'll concede avian rule over the galaxy, I'm sure that can be arranged....
[EDIT: And, to keep this on the latest page:
Roster:
- Dp101 (just played) - Fenn (HAS GOT IT!)
- RefSteel (on deck)
- haphazard1
- Brian Shanahan (skip through July 12th) ]
Wasn't quite able to close out the game, but this ended up being an entertaining set of turns:
Traded Star Gates with the Humans and Mentarans for ECM VI and Class VII Deflectors, as planned. Terraforming +60 pops on turn 191, and we have the full suite to choose from - Universal Antidote, Bio Terminator and Terraforming +80 (plus Doom Virus). In the middle of war preparations against the Cryslonoids, T193 to be exact, shocking news arrives over the spacewaves: Turn 193, the Fiershans have been wiped out by the Humans! So much for that pacifism. In fact, this breaks the alliance between the Humans and the Mentarans!
This presents great opportunities for us. The Mentaran-Human alliance's combined size and technological edge made them unassailable - but alone, neither of them is a match for our vastly superior industry and population. I cancel all the old plans (including a fleet that was heading to attack a Cryslonoid world!) and begin massing forces closer to the center of the galaxy. The venerable Talon NPG fighters and their LR counterparts are finally retired at this point now that their weapons are hopelessly obsolete; they are to be replaced by a slightly improved version of our Surgeon fighter, and a new type of bomber:
The Shrike here is intended to be a stepping stone to future designs. We can't quite fit two Omega-Vs on this, but it'll only take a little more tech before we can, and in the meantime this ship will be handy for breaking through modern planetary shields.
Some time is spent building up our forces, maxing out pop and factories on colonies that need it; I have not yet decided which of the Humans or Mentarans to go after, untilI check in with the Humans diplomatically and find and to my astonishment they're more than willing to join us in war against the Mentarans for the low, low cost of Robotic Controls V!
This is an amazing deal to my eyes and I of course accept. I'm not sure how much use the Humans will be as their fleet strength is barely higher than the Mentarans', but anything helps, and a mutual military struggle should keep us in their good graces.
Our first attack comes in the northwest of the galaxy against Kepler, closest to our Rich/Ultra Rich pair of shipyards and very lightly defended.
One Mentaran ship arrives in time to defend against the onslaught, and our bombers take some losses reducing the planetary defences, but victory is nevertheless easy and our ground forces move in for the kill.
The Mentarans have only 44 defenders after the bombardment, but they also have Power Armor and that makes the invasion quite difficult; I'm glad I sent in such an overkill number of troops. Looting Kepler gains us Class XV Planetary Shields, Zeon Missiles, Terraforming +50, Impulse Engines, and last and most, Battle Computers X and XI. What a haul!
The High Council convenes on Turn 199, and unfortunately it's us vs Alexander, our war ally, instead of the Mentarans or Cryslonoids. I should perhaps have more carefully examined the population counts of the empires turn-by-turn; last I checked the Cryslonoids were in second place, but it was not to be. I of course abstain, and so does everyone else except the Humans - and the Sslaurans, who are still in a state of war with Mentar and throw us their one vote for it.
Anyway, our biggest fleet, representing all six types of combat ships in use, converges on Liebig. It takes a while to batter down the planet's 48 missile bases, and many of the Terminal Vs are shot down, but in the end the guns are silenced and the ground troops move in. From this prize we gain Reduced Waste 40%, Inter-Phased Drives, Neutron Stream Projector, Doom Virus, Ionic Pulsar, and Scatter Pack Xes. We hardly need to do our own research when the loot's this good, although the fighter mafia that maintains an iron grip on our design bureaus will see to it that most of the fancy weapons we're acquiring will never be put to use.
Still, it will lead to better designs on our small ships, which will be necessary if we want to make progress against the Mentaran core worlds. Our current ships are barely adequate for this surprise attack; the Raptors and Terminal Vs are only really seeing use because we have so many of them built up already. If the Mentarans had built up a more sizable fleet and protected their border worlds better, they probably could have stopped us cold.
In the event, this was the enemy's counterstroke: a huge swarm of transporters converging on Acanceh, equipped with Combat Teleporters to evade its defenders. I reroute all nearby fighters to the system, but 344 transports still get through, and that's obviously enough to capture the colony. They can't hold it for very long, at least, especially with the spoils from Galilei: Powered Armor, in addition to Class XX Planetary Shields, Hellfire Torpedoes, Complete Eco Restoration, Class XV Deflectors, and ECM IX.
One has to wonder at how history will treat this episode - launching an unprovoked attack against a people we've always been at peace with, and with the help of their longtime ally abruptly turning their coat, no less. Then again, it'll be the birds writing the history books, so they'll probably find a way to explain everything! What's almost more shocking is that for all their advanced technology, the Mentarans hardly used any of it - their warships are still equipped with Scatter Pack VIIs and Xes!
With all that looted tech, our currently extant ship designs have made themselves utterly obsolete. I've already penciled in an improved Shrike design, but for new fighter types the sky's the limit. We could easily go up to Hard Beams while still keeping room for the latest and greatest engines, and Gauss Autocannons are also doable if we're willing to sacrifice in other areas.
With all the excitement of gaining a half-dozen techs per planet, I didn't think too carefully about what to research next. Somehow I don't think it'll matter too much when we've established such a dominating lead, though.
The relative fear inspired by the preview compared to how things actually went truly was a masterclass in dramatic twists and turns lmao. I'm really glad things went so well! The mixed AM-omega-V design is a really neat idea, gets the best of both worlds, though I am a little sad that the possible small missile boats weren't taken as an option. They might not even be *good*, I just associate missiles with mediums so much that putting them on something smaller feels heretical in the best way possible. Looks like we've grabbed every important bit of tech that, well, basically anyone had over us! Every shield, near-top ECM, almost perfected ground combat, best battle computers.. looks like it'll be an easy ride home from here.
Oh ... wow that's a huge swing in the state of the game! Looks like a great set, with the future very much in our talons! I'm probably going to be slow to play the turns for assorted out-of-game reasons (and because I assume these late-game war turns will be time-consuming) so Haphazard, if you want to step in early, just say so! Otherwise, I'll try to post something after I get a chance to look at the save.
Looks like some great turns, Fenn. Tons of new tech, new worlds captured, and the fall of the central alliance. Very unexpected. Is this all due to that assassination event? That was the cats and humans, right? It would explain why the humans suddenly wiped out the cats, breaking their long alliance with the brains.
We are getting to some of the late game tech toys. BC 11? Ridiculous levels of shielding. And enough miniaturization to almost fit two Omega Vs on a small, with a cloaking device?
Life is still fairly busy at the moment, so no rush on playing the turns RefSteel.
No pictures this time ... and precious little gameplay. If I get my computer working again before Haphazard has time to play, I'll say so and get the save again, but in the meantime, to my intense disappointment, this is all there is:
I had ambition, once, to hold this place: To lead the people of Altair to victory with honor, that we might soar across the galaxy - across our galaxy, and one day perhaps beyond - and lead the alien peoples side by side with us into an era of prosperity, discovery, and peace. I dreamed of uncovering secrets that no one had dared before me, of inspiring futures never before imagined, of leading by example, of ... you see: A thousand hopeful dreams, far richer in ideals than in humility - for who was to lead our people there but me? I grew old, still dreaming, working toward the dreams that I could never have achieved, compromising my conscience along the way in the name of achieving this high perch, supposing that my actions here would pay for all once I got here, shutting my inward eyes to all the things did - that I told myself I had to do - that no achievement once here could ever repay. It was a long struggle and slow, and now that I'm here, old and frail and of failing health, where are the ideals I abandoned or realized must be impossible along the way? What am I but another Sovereign in the line, holding power over half the galaxy and compromising still in search of more?
Now even that is ended.
I gloried in my early opportunities, facing off against the Mentarans, vile enemies that I had convinced myself they must be, for were we not at war with them? Had they not sent over half a billion people to their deaths from across nearly their entire dictatorial Republic-in-name merely to briefly claim a world of ours? I shut my eyes to the name of the world they so briefly claimed - named after all not by our people but by the Hive in an earlier reach for power across the galaxy. I shut my eyes to the friendship we had enjoyed with the Mentarans for the better part of two centuries, and to the cynical choice by which we had chosen sides when they abandoned their Earthling one-time allies in horror and despair on witnessing the extermination by Earth forces of the helpless, harmless Fiershan kittens: Since even in the face of this unspeakable act of genocide, the Mentarans held to their pacifist ideals as long as they could, their well-funded military wing still existing only to defend their worlds against incursion, refusing to declare a war unless war was brought to them, we joined forces instead with the murderous, treacherous, turn-coat monkeys who sang the praises of pacifism while exterminating an entire sentient alien species ... by declaring a mutual war on the peaceful Mentarans, the monkeys' long-time allies killing hundreds of millions of their citizens, and looting all we could from their homes and factories. I applauded the decision - a clever one, and sure to bring us victory - as would anyone in the position ... anyone who had learned to do what was necessary to reach the position ... that I had achieved.
Perhaps now that we are the victors, clearly and unstoppably though not yet officially, over the entire galaxy, the best I can do to honor the dreams of my younger self is to write more clearly and truly than other victors are wont to of our history.
I am not proud of my actions as Sovereign, brief though they have been. I exchanged technologies, for absolutely no good reason, with the shadowy people known across the galaxy for secrecy, sabotage, and theft: Doubting that any ships they built on their lone little world would make a difference to anybody, I let our scientists teach them to build our most-advanced space drives, and in exchange for what? A black-hole generator we can never deploy on a ship, that will do us no good except, I suppose to miniaturize our cloaking devices by some insignificant degree. I didn't think about it much at the time; I just like trading, and supposed a little extra in the way of high-tech design would be a good thing, but in hindsight this was a simply awful trade, and all I can think of is that in my subconscious mind, I must have intended some insignificant recompense to them for our people's actions not many decades since, when we drove them out of every star system but the weakest they controlled: No more than we did to the Hive and the Conclave before them and the helpless, hapless kittens whose remnant population, too small to ever be restored, now consists of a handful of refugees: Former merchants, caught in Mentaran space when the Earthlings murdered the last feline on Fierias, now with no home to return to. Even these are slowly aging - if indeed any remain at all. It hasn't been long, but I can't be sure which Mentaran worlds they were on, and now there are fewer of those with any population but ours - apart from a few rock or monkey traders - every year.
The rest was predictable, dictated by the positions of our planets and our fleets. Tens of millions of soldiers set out from each of more than a dozen worlds toward Mentaran space, meeting our attack ships as they converged on isolated Darwin and on Edison, their closest true core world to our space, while a smaller fleet ensured we could recapture Acanceh without delay - but I was not content with capturing three Mentaran worlds after a single year in office: As soon as I was annointed Sovereign, I began preparing for other conquests as well, launching ships and transports that wouldn't reach my first targets in time two yet two more Mentaran core worlds, anticipating victory by what I then optimistically supposed would be the end of my second year: Glashow out near our Ixlu colony ... and Mentar itself.
A year into my reign, my plans were coming to fruition, with all three of my targets captured: In spite of Edison's forty-plus bases, our sheer numbers told, even though none of the new Nightjar bombers could arrive in time: Upgraded versions of the newest warp-8 Shrikes with a still-better battle computer and a stabilizer to boot, they would take the skies in their hundreds for the first time just that year. I still had more and better plans than that as well, and began dispatching forces - transports and ships included - to achieve my goals at Mentar and Glashow, perhaps even preparing for the conquest the following year of both remaining Mentaran worlds outside of what I intended to be their zoo.
That was when disaster struck, to the point of catastrophe - not for our growing empire, which nothing can stop now, but for me ... and for my ambitions especially.
Our robotic control technology is incredibly advanced, and we were pushing it still further when I took office: Our most-advanced robotic interface technology could enable a single bird to handle the strategic command of our galaxy-spanning empire far more easily than anything I grew up with, and I can appreciate that, certainly. Yet ... it's not what I grew up with, and I don't like the way the new technology works or the way it automates things for me ... and so I never learned to use it, but have worked all this time through a cobbled-together interface built from components to which I'm used. And after my first year in office was complete, after I'd made my initial wave of orders but before I had finalized anything, suddenly, out of nowhere, I woke to find a critical component of the giant kluge on which I relied had failed irrecoverably. Too late to learn the new devices, with no replacement for the old, and with the galactic situation evolving every day, I became - literally overnight - the wrong choice to lead our people. I can't do it, and must step down far sooner than I intended or desired. The daunting task of fixing what I lost - for I had used it for everything long before I became Sovereign - or of making do without it and finding another way was utterly crushing for me, and it only made matters worse that I hadn't even begun to achieve even the latest, most-pragmatic, least-joyous versions of my plans for the galaxy.
What it gave me, if anything, was time to reflect, and if I look upon my life as a contender for the High Perch of the Sovereign - the Requisite Sovereign of Gudavi-02, as we say - to see what I have become and to make what very little amends I can for all that I have done among the peoples of the galaxy.
Notes for the next Sovereign:
- I ... have no idea. I mean, okay, we have invasions of Mentar and Glashow in the works, and I think I'd already dispatched everything necessary to take them when I saved and quit last night? Not sure. My computer froze this morning (on opening my web browser; I didn't have the game running at the time) and when I restarted it, it couldn't find the file system. My repair attempts so far have been in vain. There are a couple more extreme measures I can try, and all my most-important work was backed up anyway - very little was lost; as you see, I even have the mid-turn save I made for this game when I quit to go to bed last night, though I barely had time to start and was only one turn in. But I don't have a computer capable of running Remnants right now (I'm writing this on an XP laptop that's almost 20 years old!) and trying and failing to fix the machine took up basically all of today, so...
- The save is attached, in case you want to play on from there. I'll let you know when/if I get my main computer back in working order. In spite of the tone of my report above (I like experimenting with tone in these) I've enjoyed playing this one with all of you; it's been a great game! (And hey, maybe I'll have a fix sooner than I fear....)
Sorry to hear about your system issues, RefSteel. I hope you manage to find a solution soon, of one sort or another. Also, nicely written interlude from a reflective bird.
OK, apparently I am now UP. I will take a look at the save and try to figure out how to move forward. Continuing our conquest of the galaxy seems to be the obvious path. I am wondering how the one-planet shifters got their hands (tentacles? paws? other?) on black hole generator tech.
Thanks, Haphazard! And I was curious about that too: I suppose they stole some kind of Force Field tech from the prior tier from the brains or apes long ago and have just been dilligently teching BHG ever since - I'm pretty sure they were the only ones who had it - but if so, I guess it shows what even a tiny AI empire can eventually do....
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Tons of new tech, new worlds captured, and the fall of the central alliance. 
Very unexpected. Is this all due to that assassination event? That was the cats and humans, right? It would explain why the humans suddenly wiped out the cats, breaking their long alliance with the brains.
I hope you manage to find a solution soon, of one sort or another. Also, nicely written interlude from a reflective bird.