[spoilers] Centauri alpha female

[Rowain]

I think this pillage raid idea has served its purpose, without it Mardoc would have been like ~1000 hammers, several dozen worker turns and who knows how many beakers ahead.

So will you try to get peace or stay at war?

[Iskender]

Stay at war, because war is much more inconvenient for Mardoc than it is for me (it has been so far anyway).

[Iskender]

Year 2138

I sent a Sub east to get eyes on Maniac's west. It found Maniac, but quite earlier than expected:

Now this is interesting. What is he doing there? Is he hoping to get a foothold on Spartan soil with some weak ass Drop Troopers (that he's been able to train for 5 turns)? Good luck with that! My anti-infantry combat II InVitros eat Drop Troopers for breakfast. I'll see what can be done about that base once I have decent visibility of the area (= in 3 turns).

The purple line you see in the screenshot marks the end of Maniac's drop area and as you can see I put 2 units on the exposed tiles in case he tries do make drops already.


There's going to be a lot of action in the next couple dozens of turns so here's a map to give you an idea what's going on and where:

The black arrows are directions of my interest. The two split ones pointed at Mardoc represent the areas where I harass the Pirates (destroyed another Bunker this turn at the cost of one Sub). There is one arrow pointed at a white area in the south - this is the last University base, which I'm about to capture in a few turns. There's another one showing Maniac's base that I just found and yet another one pointed at Lal, whose easternmost base is as close as 3 InVitro hops from one of my bases.

[spellman]

Stay at war, because war is much more inconvenient for Mardoc than it is for me (it has been so far anyway).

War! Ugh! What is it good for?

Apparently your faction...

[Iskender]

You bet it is

Maniac's base turned out to be pretty harmless, but a patrol revealed something more interesting farther east:

That's two Maniac's Subs and two Transports. Well, one of the Transports had Irregular (= Hidden Nationality) so technically it belonged to noone, and I still have OB with Maniac so I went ahead and sunk it. I hope it was filled to the brim with Drop Troopers or at least Marines. I'm not sure what Maniac's plans are, but it'd take at the very least a dozen DTs to pose a serious threat to my core.


More action vs the Pirates:

Mardoc killed my Sub losing a Hunter. I sank one Sub and one Hunter. Also, HE'S STEALING MY SPECIAL ABILITIES!

In this case Navigation. That's a nice trait of the Pirates - whenever they win a battle they capture a special ability, the way Mimics do in FFH do (I guess). Turns out he doesn't need that many SA to start with after all. I'll try to counter that not losing a lot of subs.

I declared war on the University to deliver the coup de grace. There seems to be a bug involving Probe Teams and possibly OB because as soon as I declared, my Probe Team lurking in a Pirate base has been kicked out. This is somewhat problematic because I intend to DoW Lal, Maniac and Sareln at some point and I'd rather keep my Probes where I want them, but that can be micromanaged.

EOT: discovered airplanes.

[Iskender]

Year 2240

Maniac DoW'd, sank a Sub and fermented unhappiness in the capital. I sense more action coming from the Angels. Maniac, unlike Mardoc and Sareln so far, shows initiative, but sometimes is so proud of his espionage that he just can't shut up, i.e.:

Sareln, may I suggest canceling your open borders treaty with Iskender? You have no trade routes with him, so it wouldn't hurt you. He, on the other hand, does have lots of trade routes with you, so it would give him an economic hit, and reduce him to domestic 1-energy routes.

Which translates to:

I have enough espionage to see Iskender's bases.

Not a huge revelation by any means, but at least it prompted me to be more cautious around my bases and also gave an idea for a trap.

Not many Angel units on the radar, several Subs, the other Transport that I didn't sink and some IoDs. I'll keep my eyes open though.


On a different note: two little stacks of InVitros heading to pick the low hanging fruit:

Skirmishes with Mardoc as usual. I'm moving them to the next level though:

[Iskender]

Year 2241

More Angel transports. Near the capital:

The transport is 1 tile too far to reach the capital in Maniac's turn.


Academy Park:

I attacked the transport with an assassin Sub and lost at 80%, which makes Academy Park exposed to whatever is in this stack. In the worst case, that is if the Transport carries 4 Drop Troopers and each IoD carries a Worm the base might fall.


The first Interceptors rebased to speed up taking Lab Three, the last refuge of Zakharov.

[Iskender]

Year 2241

I'm not sure if there were DTs on Maniac's Transport (battle sequence suggest more Worms) but Academy Park did fall and so did Library of Planet, a size 2 base that had been defended by a Flame Thrower (doh) that lost to a Rotor. All in all Maniac unleashed 4 Rotors. I moved 2 InVitros to put pressure on the Rotors so at least they won't fly all over like they owned the place.

Can't do much about the former Uni lands though:

This is where Maniac has the initiative and I react.


Good news is that Mardoc, after discovering Fusion Power, focused on economy (Nuclear Reactors). If he had pushed military I would've been in a really tough spot. Sareln's military is still about half of everyone else's so hopefully there won't be any bad news from the western front.

More bad news at EOT though. A second native life spawn in a row, supposedly triggered by the low planet rating of Fort Superiority (-13 = 13% chance of spawn/turn).

That's 8 shrimp units to worry about in addition to the Rotors several tiles to the east.

Also EOT: a Great Doctor born in the capital (39% chance). I hoped for a Scientist (54%) to trigger a golden age with a Doctor from the last spawn. Next GP due in 8 turns with the chances for a Scientist around 75%.

[Iskender]

Year 2143


Maniac's Rotors:

I've got to admit, Maniac is really clever. Even with limited view he placed the Rotors out of reach of every one of my units. Compare this to Sian, who also had 4 Rotors, but blisfully crashed them into my stack gaining nothing. This is going to be a tough fight. I thought Maniac was harmless because a) he didn't really do well in terms of score and techs and b) I took his posts in the council thread for their face value i.e. that he's only interested in all that boring planet stuff like concordats and governors.

Apparently I was wrong. Well, I gotta try harder I guess. At least the Rotor near the capital was killed thanks to the old 'extend the road' trick.

I've got 10 Interceptors. They were supposed to weaken Mardoc's garrisons but not I've got Maniac and native life to worry about so I rebased the Interceptors accordingly

(and not to make Mardoc feel left out I began pillaging his sea boreholes with suicide subs)

Speaking of native life, another spawn in the same spot:

That's 12 shrimps over 3 turns.

[Iskender]

Year 2144

The defenders of Fort Survivalist (the city near the worm infestation), with the aid of Interceptors and a Bunker, killed 3 worms fortunately not losing a lot of health.

Maniac withdrawn troops from Academy Park:

Do I want to capture it? Not at this point, odds are high that he'd recapture it next turn. Anyway, a recon revealed something more interesting:

So, Maniac has Hunters. There are 6 in the screenshot. That's bad news. Good news is that the Hunters don't have Stealth nor any other dangerous special abilities. I'll keep an eye on them.


The stalemate vs Mardoc continues, involving more and more troops:

That's 7 InVitros vs 9 Drop Troopers and assorted units. I was worried that Mardoc would promote his Destroyers with Collateral and suicide them into my base opening the path for Drop Troopers. I'm not sure it'd have been worth the effort and probably so did Mardoc, so he made the Destroyers his anti-aircraft defense. So the stalemate continues, but I've got a few (three) ideas how to break it in my favour even if Mardoc gets Thunderbolts.


On a different note:

I'm looking for the Consciousness' soft underbelly. I had a plan to invade Sareln (this would involve teleporting units with Psi Gates) and probably would have in about 8 turns, but the situation with Maniac complicated things. I still might be able to pull it off so stay tuned.


EOT: 4th spawn in a row on the same plot.