Civilisation must grow to succeed, stagnation is the path to defeat. But to maintain a safe distance we need to have more planets and apparently a crowd of aliens is doing the same! I take over from my esteemed colleague who - voices say - is now in need of a relaxing period in total confinement of some years after the stress of facing the presence of so many aliens out there...
My predecessor's fame is well earned. The colleague has managed very well under such stress, the meagre resources that our civilisation has managed to propel in space. I see perhaps a small hole as Keeta, the fertile planet is only protected by a lonely scout - given the importance of this planet I decide to split the long range defence fleet and send a single one down there, also in case we are forced to retreat.
My only question is: why tundra? I would have rather started Eco Restoration, but this is not going to affect us in the immediate anyhow.
I am tempted to increase factory production in our capital but, foreseeing a mass migration, I decide to follow my colleague's instincts and keep researching.
I am also tempted to send a single long range ship to Kailis, the artefacts planet, and try our luck. But these two moves reduce the fleet strength by one third, so I finally opt to avoid this and concentrate on defence.
After signing the hyperspace orders I take a good bath in my personal underground cave. The privileges of the rank... I wonder if this will be enough to maintain mental peace or if I will also have to pass the next 15 years in total isolation to recover my mental health.
2335
A longstick sent to Keeta.
2336
Reports from Moro that our Shortstick has forced cyborg aliens into hyperspace. I pity the poor ship crew members who have to endure confinement in a small space AND the sight of others!
The new colony ship is sent to its relay at Keep Out and we increase tech research to fill our laboratories - without overcrowding them, research needs concentration. I decide to build another Longstick - research seems to need quite some time still, and I am enamoured with the Kailis gamble idea.
2337
New Longstick sent to Kailis. Resources moved again onto research, while I start building some Shortsticks to hold the planets against enemy scouts. Isolation, best sol! The fact that with this investment we can only produce three Shortsticks is quite depressing, and I spend the rest of the year in the caves.
2338
I show up at the office only to be welcomed by a report that two Meklar colony ships are again repelled from Moro. I wonder how many resources these aliens are investing in colony ships. I change the industry orders to a new colony ship of ours and return to the caves. The scientists' reports give a 4% chance of breakthrough only so I send the colony ship to a new relay point in an asteroid system.
2339
Every available Darlok on Nazin is researching, and we don't fill up our labs nevertheless. Work on the new colony ship is all but frozen. The press is openly campaigning against me, and I already fret at the idea of having to respond to a parliamentary committee, because those are done in person - the horror! Scientists report a 25% chance of success...
2340
35%. Parliament has started an investigation. I feel the crowd breathing on my tail. Our colony ship has to spend the year in Iranha, waiting.
2341
Our lonely Longstick lands in Kailis only to see it defended by six bird laser fighters, Pelicans. It's sent back making it a pointless 12 years mission, while the scientists have not yet achieved their breakthrough - now at 46%! The parliamentary questions are as shameful as you might imagine, my stress levels are through the roof. Reports of mutiny on the colony ship waiting in orbit around the asteroids don't help. I am not finding solace in the cave anymore.
2342
A Silicoid colony ship is repelled from Iraha, a new parliamentary investigation commences this time in mismanagement and embezzlement of research funds as the scientists don't achieve the breakthrough this years either. 56%.
2343
Not only we don't still have the breakthrough. To make things even worse, the Alkari have achieved long range before us. They send a mocking message talking of peace. The new investigation sees me in front of parliament in the company of security guards holding me. I am sweating furiously for the entire time, and talk of substituting me lands nowhere only for the lack of anyone willing to take my place.
We need to defend Keep Out now, or consider it lost. I decide to trust our fighter squadrons and keep pumping research - all in. The scientists report 67%, and the Alkari have three systems already.
2344
Finally the engineers manage to stabilise dotomite crystals enough to use them on production ships. I immediately give order to the fleet to leave the asteroids where they've spent the last three years. Parliament gives me some respite, but I know that the worse is yet to come.
2345
The Meklars finally repel our scout from Vega with nothing less than a large combat ship! And with one of their two colony ships they colonise it. Looking at the distances we realise that both Jinga and Yarrow, on which we had set eyes, are now at risk! We can only dispatch two Shortisticks towards the closer of these two planets, at least the Longstick that ran the luckless Kailis gamble is on its way back. We can only hope that the nebula helps us! But upon further consideration, there is one actione to be done: we fill up our colony ship with lasers, you never know...
We send 25 million inhabitants to Keep Out - they'll arrive in 3 years while our colony ship is reaching the fertile Keeta in only 2.
2346
Gorra has a formidable Mrrshan defence fleet - hopefully that'll go towards the Alkari! The Guardian kills a scout of ours on the planet north of Ursa, we need to keep this in mind.
In the meanwhile, the research performed on Keep Out goes into seeding nuclear engines. This opens up yet another parliamentary investigation as the obviously contentious choice has pros and cons, with many vouching instead for planetology. But I foresee that soon war will come with our neighbours, and if that happens we need to be able to send forces at a much higher pace than what we can now. Tundra will have to wait.
2347 About Time is founded! Threatening messages from Bulrathi (4 colonies), Meklar (5 colonies) and Mrrshan (2 colonies) make it clear to us that the rest of the galaxy gives us the same consideration that we give to them. At least the cats are close to the birds, there's hoping that they go to war.
We immediately relocate half of Keep Out's population to the new colony, with plans to do the same next year. Scouts are sent further east.
We consider setting Keep Out's meager resources to repopulation, but that would only increase the count by one. We decide to keep some research going. We seriously consider shifting Nazin to industry but we decide against this - more colony ships are needed, and while we might gain one year in colonisation, this gain would be quickly offset by having to depopulate the Capital to the new colonies in the west. This calculation would of course be ruined should the Meklar reach the western worlds first, sending their large combat ship...
Parliament has been silent for too much time, I wonder what they are up to? A lonely Meklar scout is visible on Jinga on our scanners, and I wonder if there's any link to this.
2348
An Alkari Pelican shows up on scanners apparently aiming at Iranha, we keep a Shortstick and a Longstick on both our planets around it - a single Alkari fighter might beat even our destroyer.
2349
No events. We send 19 population units towards About Time reaching its multiplication threshold without dispersing Keep Out too much. Our second colony ship starts its travel towards Jinga. After much debate we decide against sending our new colony ship to Collassa. Having a foothold would be great and we've been defending it for the last ten years, but Meklars on our backdoor so close to Nazin would really be unwelcome, and the shorter population transit would make the colony self sufficient earlier. A new colony ship is started anyway.
2350
A bit of good news: our Shortstick repels a lonely Meklar scout away from Jinga. But could that mean that more is coming? The system has several asteroid fields in orbit, which could help against missiles. Another Shortstick is on its way and should reach it at the same time as the armed colony ship...
Suddenly the door breaks open, and a team from the investigation committee arrests me. An accusation of consorting with the enemy? What craziness is this? Do they think that I wish even more social contact?!
...Yes, indeed it has been deemed that my propension is too open lately. I am for confinement. Oh well, I will enjoy finally some solitude.
Whoa, that research roll. I'm sorry for this, not that I could do much else. I hope that the Meklar don't beat us to Jinga or we'll be really cornered!
Oh man we are being squeezed hard! Are those Meklar ships threatening our western worlds? Losing those would be a Very Bad Thing™. If we manage to claim both worlds to the east and hold our back lines we should be in decent shape going forward. If not...
Great in-character reporting, Arnuz, I really enjoyed reading it!
(April 16th, 2020, 11:40)Arnuz Wrote: My only question is: why tundra? I would have rather started Eco Restoration, but this is not going to affect us in the immediate anyhow.
Because we already started and completed Improved Eco Restoration! Tundra is in the second tier of the tree (and Imp Eco in the first) and became available when Eco was complete.
Quote:n the meanwhile, the research performed on Keep Out goes into seeding nuclear engines. This opens up yet another parliamentary investigation as the obviously contentious choice has pros and cons, with many vouching instead for planetology. But I foresee that soon war will come with our neighbours, and if that happens we need to be able to send forces at a much higher pace than what we can now. Tundra will have to wait.
Engines are good, and it may have been the right move to go back for Nuclear Engines here even though they don't advance the state of the art, but do you remember what alternatives were available in our Propulsion tree? Sublight Engines would have advanced the tree (but taken longer to research) as would Dotomite Crystals (Range 7; what we got were Irridium Fuel Cells for Range 6) - which we don't really need except to advance the tree (and therefore don't need yet!
Our gamble has put us way behind the curve here in several different ways: Lots and lots of resources spent on building and maintaining a war fleet, massive early spending on range technology that could have gone into colships, planetology, and factories, and (because of all this and the colship sitting around waiting in the asteroid field for a while) long delays on starting up the excellent "back-line" worlds that we now have to scramble to claim. And we now have just 152 factories in the empire in 2350! We'll be playing catch-up for a while as a result. On Impossible, this would almost certainly be a loss, even without a variant, but we might manage to win this anyway even with our variant, since this is after all only on Possible difficulty!
I think our biggest setback so far was our neglect of Jinga and Yarrow. Two size-90 Terran worlds have been in range since Ianus finished Hydrogen tech almost 40 turns ago, and we've ignored them, pouring all the resources of our empire into worlds far beyond our reach. All that effort has paid off in the sense that those forward worlds are now not only in our reach, but in one case (for now) in our actual shapeshifting hands, but I think we'd have been better off getting the worlds we could when we could, pushing for the forward stars only with resources not needed to first claim the ones in our back lines.
Regardless of any of that though: Good luck, utwig! I'll look forward to seeing what the empire looks like in 2360!
(April 17th, 2020, 05:36)RefSteel Wrote: Our gamble has put us way behind the curve here in several different ways: Lots and lots of resources spent on building and maintaining a war fleet, massive early spending on range technology that could have gone into colships, planetology, and factories, and (because of all this and the colship sitting around waiting in the asteroid field for a while) long delays on starting up the excellent "back-line" worlds that we now have to scramble to claim. And we now have just 152 factories in the empire in 2350! We'll be playing catch-up for a while as a result. On Impossible, this would almost certainly be a loss, even without a variant, but we might manage to win this anyway even with our variant, since this is after all only on Possible difficulty!
I think our biggest setback so far was our neglect of Jinga and Yarrow. Two size-90 Terran worlds have been in range since Ianus finished Hydrogen tech almost 40 turns ago, and we've ignored them, pouring all the resources of our empire into worlds far beyond our reach. All that effort has paid off in the sense that those forward worlds are now not only in our reach, but in one case (for now) in our actual shapeshifting hands, but I think we'd have been better off getting the worlds we could when we could, pushing for the forward stars only with resources not needed to first claim the ones in our back lines.
I think this mostly goes back to the decisions I made in my turnset, although I would have to check how much Ianus had already put into Range 6. I definitely favoured pushing to grab what we could at Range 6 before heading for our backlines. It's always possible I was over-compensating for my normal, buildery, quiet play. . More seriously, I may have underestimated quite how long it would delay filling those back lines; in my mind they were "safe", so the gamble wasn't that much of a risk on Hard. If the Meklar grab them, I will feel pretty foolish (not for the first time, probably not for the last). Let's see ...
It may have looked easy, but that is because it was done correctly - Brian Moore
(April 17th, 2020, 05:36)RefSteel Wrote: Great in-character reporting, Arnuz, I really enjoyed reading it!
(April 16th, 2020, 11:40)Arnuz Wrote: My only question is: why tundra? I would have rather started Eco Restoration, but this is not going to affect us in the immediate anyhow.
Because we already started and completed Improved Eco Restoration! Tundra is in the second tier of the tree (and Imp Eco in the first) and became available when Eco was complete.
Quote:n the meanwhile, the research performed on Keep Out goes into seeding nuclear engines. This opens up yet another parliamentary investigation as the obviously contentious choice has pros and cons, with many vouching instead for planetology. But I foresee that soon war will come with our neighbours, and if that happens we need to be able to send forces at a much higher pace than what we can now. Tundra will have to wait.
Engines are good, and it may have been the right move to go back for Nuclear Engines here even though they don't advance the state of the art, but do you remember what alternatives were available in our Propulsion tree? Sublight Engines would have advanced the tree (but taken longer to research) as would Dotomite Crystals (Range 7; what we got were Irridium Fuel Cells for Range 6) - which we don't really need except to advance the tree (and therefore don't need yet!
Thanks! Glad that you like it.
I seem to remember seeing sub light engines at the bottom, but the cost seemed way excessive for our resources at the time.
Here are my observations:
Even before reading through the thread just looking at star map colonizing Jinga and Yarrow is obvious choice though snagging Collassa might be doable but holding it will be hard.
We are at war with Alkaris and Meklars and researching blody nuclear engines. While nuclear engines give huge boost in terms of ability to react and tactical combat, it will be also necessary to research some missiles, shields and computers quick after that.
![[Image: pYcBewG.png?1]](https://i.imgur.com/pYcBewG.png?1)
. More seriously, I may have underestimated quite how long it would delay filling those back lines; in my mind they were "safe", so the gamble wasn't that much of a risk on Hard. If the Meklar grab them, I will feel pretty foolish (not for the first time, probably not for the last). Let's see ...