OSG 29A - The Charismatic Introverts

[haphazard1]

Quite a bit to report, actually. Attack incoming. I am ending my set a ouple turns early. Would definitely like to get input from the team, probably go ahead and hand off to the next player so someone more experienced can deal with things if we want to continue. Will get a full report up shortly, need to edit in the pictures.

[haphazard1]

A quick look around the galaxy to start the turnset, to orient myself (and also for our readers):

Our glorious empire:

Diplomatic relations:

The balance of power in the galaxy:

My primary goals for this turnset:

- Colonize Rha and Cygni in the east (colony ships for both are already in motion, thanks to Sullla)
- Scout further north once those new worlds give us more range, where I expect to encounter the Meklar. But there may still be worlds in the far northeast the machines have not claimed, or perhaps hostile worlds they do not yet have the tech for. It is worth checking, and at the very least we will confirm the extent of the Meklar empire.
- Continue developing our newer worlds
- Research some more techs

Also, we will see what happens (if anything) with a council vote in 2375.

Looking through our worlds, everything looks pretty good. Mainly we just need most of them to grow more pop and build more factories. I do ship a batch of 8 population to hostile, slow-growing Artemis from Palladia, which has population idle without factories to work. Sullla already had some pop on their way to Artemis, but it can use a bit more to help it develop faster. I also do a bit of reserve transfer to our newest worlds to boost initial growth.

Time to see what happens next.

2371 - Humanity adds the lovely Terran 90 world of Rha to our growing empire.

Population is sent from Collassa to seed the new world. The colony ship for Cygni arrives at Collassa via RELOC, and is forwarded on its way. A scout departs from the no planet Ajax system for the blue star to the northeast, which is now in range thanks to Rha.

Force Fields is now over 50%, so I shift a couple clicks of spending to Construction while waiting for the tech to pop.

2372 - A quiet year. Force Fields is now over 70%.

2373 - The first wave of migration reaches the ultra-rich world of Exis. The planet actually grew some pop naturally despite the hostile environment, so the incoming 7 pop will exceed capacity. I transfer 1 pop to Artemis, it will take a while to get there but it is better than losing the pop point.

In the research labs back at Sol, a breakthrough is made -- we can now create force fields that are twice as strong as before. We only have one option: Personal Deflector Shield. I equalize research spending again.

Artemis can now terraform in two turns, so I set it to do that.

2374 - Humanity adds the minimally habitable world of Cygni to our empire.

This brings us into contact with the Meklar, who are not exactly welcoming.

And sure enough, the machines are erratic. Erratic expansionists, which fits perfectly with both their rapid expansion and having offended everyone else in the galaxy. They are at war with the Bulrathi, Alkari, Silicoids, and Mrrshan -- everyone but us, basically.

They already own almost all of the planets we had hoped to explore:

I do go ahead and send a scout to the one green star that is unclaimed -- perhaps it is Orion? I wish I could call back the scout heading to Anraq, as it will offend the Meklar. But I will leave their space as quickly as possible.

Our current diplomatic relations:

And the updated balance of power in the galaxy, now that we have met everyone:

Population is sent from Collassa to seed Cygni. Duralloy has reached the percentages, barely -- 1%. Artemis completes terraforming and resumes max factory construction. Exis can not quite terraform in two turns -- one more turn of factory building should get it to enough production.

2375 - The high council meets. We are nominated, along with the Meklars. 27 votes total.

The Meklars cast 6 votes for themselves, then everyone else votes for us:

Bulrathi 5 votes
Alkari 2
Mrrshan 3
Silicoids 5

So we have 15 of 27 votes from others, and 6 votes of our own. The victory is ours if we want it. Bit I abstained and continued.

First wave of migration reaches Rha. Duralloy is at 5%. The Bulrathi have a colony ship east of Tyr, going...somewhere.

2376 - The RNG exacts revenge for not taking the victory.

Palladia is now radiated, and drops greatly in size. I ship 25 colonists off world to save them from the disaster, sending them to Collassa which has room.

The Bulrathi colony ship is on its way to Collassa as well. We may find ourselves with a bear invasion force heading our way shortly, as we will not be able to stop the colony ship from gaining space superiority if it is armed (likely by this point in the game).

Rha and Exis begin terraforming, as each can now do so in two turns.

2377 -- Our scout arrives at Anraq, a Meklar world. The machines have a medium design, called Penetrator, which launches missiles at us before we hastily depart the system.

The Bulrathi colony ship is armed, and scouts Collassa.

All the waste is cleaned up at Palladia, but it is now a much smaller world. It can be terraformed some, but is now in the low 30s for size and will probably end up around size 40. It has more factories than its new max population can work with our current IRC tech.

2378 - Yep, the Bulrathi have sent their max force to Collassa. 54 bear transports are on the way. Well, good thing Palladia's now excess population is already on the way there, that will help. I shuffle some reserve spending, and Collassa can finish a defense base in 3 years. That should be in time, unless the bears have unexpectedly fast transports. I am not sure what else might be good to do here -- would ships, even popgun fighters, help shoot down transports? The bears' armed colony ship is still in orbit.

I am stopping here and posting the save, as I do not want to make mistakes here and leave the next player without any time to respond to the incoming threat at Collassa. Make sure to take a look at Palladia -- it was terraforming, but I was not sure just how much it would be able to do so spending probably needs adjustment. Rha had finished terraforming; Exis was on the last turn of terraforming. Dualloy is now well into the percentages. Some research spending may need to be shifted to reserve funding if we need more cash to spend at Collassa.

Well, we did have a victory in hand. That is worth something. Then industrial disaster and invasion, so things have certainly taken a turn for the worse.

[Mardoc]

Yikes. Are we at war with the bears or is this just a one world recon in force?

I can play in about five hours but not before, busy with housework. Ianus, if you can play now, I'm willing to swap turnsets with you, otherwise I'll get the save tonight. Advice welcome! First thought is to try to get some laser fighters up, if we have time.

[haphazard1]

There is no formal war with the bears. They are just dropping by for a chat...54 million of them.

I am not sure what is the best bet for defense here. A missile base? Laser fighters? Note that the bears have an armed colony ship in orbit at Collassa, so laser fighters may just get blown to bits by their ship.

We could also shuffle some more pop to Collassa -- I think there is time to get shipments from at least a couple nearby worlds, and Collassa has available capacity for more pop. There are 25 million or so already on the way from Palladia, refugees from the industrial waste spill there, who I think will arrive before the bears. But I don't know if that will be enough. If this was anyone but the bears, probably it would be, but with their gropo bonus?

[Sullla]

The bears are not trying to start a war with us. They're just probing around and looking for a chance to expand. This is why it's important to watch the galactic map screen between turns; the instant that an enemy ship started moving into our territory, that was the time to design a warp 2 Small laser fighter and start building them out of our larger planets. We could probably have had a few dozen of them ready to interdict that Bulrathi colony ship and shoot it down. For the Bulrathi more so that anyone else, you do not want to let them scout your planets, because they will send transports and, being the bears, they'll start taking over planets.

It's too late to stop them from scouting the planet, but not too late to stop the invaders. Collossa itself should build a missile base if it's able to do so, which it sounds like it is. The other mature planets in the area should be building warp 2 laser fighters and sending them to defend Collossa. We basically wasted 3 turns doing nothing while the Bulrathi slowly waltzed into our territory with that colony ship. Hopefully this is a good lesson: Master of Orion is not Civ4 where you can whip or draft more defenders in an emergency. This is a game where the player needs to see the threats ahead of time and plan accordingly.

Fortunately, this isn't the end of the world. Those bear transports will be crawling in at warp 1 and that should give us time to get some ships in place for defense. Just make sure we do have ships + missile base in place by the time those enemy transports arrive. 54 bears will definitely be able to kill a lot more than 54 Humans, even with +10 gropo advantage from Hand Lasers and being the defender. Hang in there - we can hold this off.

[Mardoc]

Alright, I've got it. Might go 12 turns or 7 depending on how long these take compared to my bedtime...

[haphazard1]

Good luck, Mardoc. Hopefully my mistake does not end up costing us Collassa. Wrong mindset for MoO, did not respond to the threat appropriately. Sorry.

[Mardoc]

Don't have time tonight to write a clever report, hopefully just the facts will suffice.

Inherited turn: First things first, I design a basic laser fighter.  Laser Cannon, Battle Computer 1, Nuclear Engines.  I grab Palladia, Darrian, and Sol, and set them all to mass produce and relocate fighters to Collassa.  I leave Collassa on its missile base; it should have about 40 laser fighters showing up the turn the base finishes.  If that can't kill an armed colony ship, we have issues.

It's probably overkill, but I'm going to keep these worlds on laser fighters for maybe two more turns afterward, until I see how the battle turns out.  I would much rather our fighters play turkey shoot with bear transports, than try to fight the bears on the ground.  

I do *not* send any additional population to Collassa.  Keeping my fingers crossed that space superiority is enough, plus I'm not sure I could get warp 1 transports there in time anyway.

Still have one world on research to keep from losing too much progress, and the newer colonies continue on factory production.  This doesn't seem like we need to worry about total war mode just yet.

2379:  

Assuming the bears won't be too annoyed when we slaughter their troops, this might be worthwhile in the long run.  I accept.

I take another look at Paladia, and realize it can probably be spared from laser fighter production; it's only able to make three of them per turn.  Granted, the industrial accident making it Radiated is likely to protect it from invasion, but I'm going to have it work on a missile defense base anyway.  Maybe the Silicoids would try to invade if we don't protect it.

I also ship 8 million people from Endoria (Fertile, normal) to Exis (Dead/hostile, Ultra Rich).  Even though Endoria is full on factories and Exis isn't quite, I think by the time the colonists arrive they'll have Ultra Rich factories to work, and that'll be a better use of them.  I will run the Eco slider at Endoria to regrow as soon as it's not the only world on research.

2381:  Kill the Bulrathi colony ship.  Lose a couple laser fighters because I didn't think to run; the missile base could have cleaned it up on its own.  Now we just have to hope we have enough firepower en route to Collassa to kill their troops.  Sol and Darrian go back to research; if we can get Duralloy to pop, that would help our ground pounders clean up any leakers.

2382:  Immediate crisis averted .  My screenshot didn't take, but "Bulrathi transports attempting to land on Collassa were all destroyed".

Bulrathi seem undisturbed by this and no further purple incursions are seen.

2383: Duralloy comes in, and I pick our only choice, Auto Repair.

Not sure exact date: several of our backlines planets max out.  Exis goes onto Planetary Reserve; I suspect we'll want that Ultra Rich cash to put out brushfires, not for research.

2387:  Fusion Bomb arrives.  I waffle for a bit, then decide to go for Hyper-X rockets.  I'll feel a lot better with some real firepower from our bases, even though I'm pretty sure this doesn't push up the tree.

2388: I spot a Silicoid fleet that seems like it might be heading toward Paladia.  Dump reserves into Paladia to try to get a couple missile bases finished up before they arrive, and also grab our laser fighter fleet and send it this way.  Hopefully the Silicoids are still running around with similar tech to the Bulrathi.


Also, the Mrrshans come say hi:

2389:  Battle Computers 3 comes in, and I pick our only choice, Improved Space Scanner.

2390:  Nothing new.  Still have Silicoids incoming at Paladia; hopefully my preparations turn out to be enough.  I think we'll be at 4 or 5 missile bases, plus 80-odd laser fighters.  Still firing nuclear missiles, although at least we have duralloy for the bases now.

We're basically in the same position as the start of my set, except with a handful of new techs, and most of our worlds about to max out for the time being.  Didn't lose any, didn't have any crazy events.  I don't think we'll be growing again for the moment, we need something better for space superiority first, and possibly some better engines as well.

[haphazard1]

Glad you were able to save Collassa, Mardoc. Much relieved my screw up did not cost us TOO badly.

Nice of the bears and kitties to initiate trade deals with us. By variant we can not go to them, but this lets us benefit from our racial bonus.

We do seem to be getting a lot of "only one tech available in this rung" so far this game. I think going back for the better missiles is worth it; it would have been nice if there had been a missile option that would advance the tree, but oh well.

[Mardoc]

Glad you were able to save Collassa, Mardoc. Much relieved my screw up did not cost us TOO badly.

It wasn't a huge screw up, really.  The important thing was realizing we had to react.  Mostly what we needed was enough damage output to be able to shoot down transports.

Mostly because the Bulrathi were just filibustering, not committing to war, we were able to handle it with a fairly small commitment overall.  I probably overbuilt the fighters since I couldn't find the formula for how much damage it takes per transport, but maybe the extras will come in handy against the Silicoid probe.

Nice of the bears and kitties to initiate trade deals with us. By variant we can not go to them, but this lets us benefit from our racial bonus.

Yep, the Human bonus to trade definitely helped me say yes.  I think the Bulrathi deal only cost 8 BC the first turn, much less than if we were anyone else; even if they do declare war soon we might end up with profit from them.  And of course the Mrrshan are even less likely to declare war before we get profit.  I am a little surprised we had 80 turns of radio silence and then in my set both of them hit us up.  Of course we've already been benefiting from the improved relations racial bonus, and relations will only get better with those two now.

We do seem to be getting a lot of "only one tech available in this rung" so far this game. I think going back for the better missiles is worth it; it would have been nice if there had been a missile option that would advance the tree, but oh well.

I might be overly paranoid, but watching the nuclear missiles require so many shots just to handle that one Bulrathi colony ship, and then thinking about how it would have gone if they had improved their shields at all...I really wanted an upgrade.  Don't think it will arrive in time to meet the Silicoids, though, so hopefully they're also packing ancient tech.

I decided to run tech instead of building more bases anywhere; not sure that was the right move, but nuclear missile bases just feel so anemic.  I think I left a little production on Collassa's 2nd base to make sure we didn't end up with one half-done, but other than that most planets are now on research.

Anyway, Roster:

Haphazard: Waiting
Mardoc: Just Played
Ianus: UP!  <------
DaveV: On Deck
Sullla:  Warming up