OSG 29A - The Charismatic Introverts

[haphazard1]

Thanks for the bonus reporting, Sullla. Poor planet for the seecond world is always very difficult, it is such a big hit to the growth curve. Interesting that the nebula ended up helping as well as hurting; I have not had positive experiences with them so it is good to know that sometimes they are not all bad.

[DaveV]

Not to be too pedantic, but it seems like a threadjack to start posting about other games in this thread that's dedicated to the succession game. Why not start a new thread, rather than create confusion for the readers?

[Mardoc]

Got to the turn!

Inherited Turn:  Turn up espionage spending on the Mrrshans dramatically.

2482:  Lots of stuff happens!
The Bulrathi dial us up, and inform us that they've allied with the Mrrshans to kill us all.  They've got a nasty looking Huge ship inbound, as well.



At the same time, our spies report penetration of the Mrrshan network.  All six fields, looks like a good steal...I decide to gamble on Weapons directly, instead of trying for Computer and future spies.


It works!  Most vital tech is now in our hands, which will solve that incoming Bulrathi problem rather handily!  Still want the Repulsors, but this relaxes me enough to plan an invasion of the Mrrshans.  Now that we're at war with literally everyone but the birds, I feel I should do my part in cleaning up the mess.


2486:  We get another Mrrshan steal...I mistakenly think that Repulsors are a Propulsion tech and end up stealing Hydrogen Fuel Cells

In better news, we get a Mrrshan planet.  I picked the one with the fewest missile bases .  Their ships fled, while the missile bases killed some F-bombs. First volley of bombs killed all the bases (20ish), so I probably didn't have to be that careful.  I set one of our frontier planets to start working on replacement bombers, so that Ianus ought to be able to pick off another planet or three on his turnset. I thought about pressing onward, but I wanted to keep the fleet in orbit while standing up our new planet, plus I wanted to give our spies more time to work.




And Cygni has now solved their Plague problem.

Sometime in the next three turns we get two Silicoid steals.  Both times I pick Computers - if we can steal five techs in ten turns with our current computer tech, imagine how fast they'll be coming in with upgrades!



Other accomplishments during my turnset: a lot of population and factory building, and a whole bunch of science funded without yet results:

Those wacky Mars doctors, always building labs and never finishing tech .

----------

We got three Mrrshan techs during my turnset; it's only a matter of time until we get at least their Repulsor beams.  It may be possible to get a bunch of other worthwhile techs (they researched Plasma Beam sometime in the last 10 turns, for instance), or we may prefer to simply have one fewer foe on the board.  

Also had two penetrations of the Silicoids during my turn.  Not sure if that's luck or if we're ahead of them in Computer tech as well.  Spying is starting to really pay off for us, though!  For only 4.4% of our budget, we're racking up quite a few techs.  I would definitely keep pushing that against everyone.

I did not design any new ships. Our current fleet seems to be sufficient to roll over the kitties whenever our spies are done milking them dry, and we finally have a missile that can protect our worlds on its own. May be worth designing something new now, or maybe as soon as the next round of techs pop? We certainly have an abundance of targets right now.

Haphazard1
Mardoc: Just Played
Ianus: UP!  <-------
DaveV: On Deck
Sullla: Warming up

[haphazard1]

Lots of good news in that turnset, Mardoc! Pulsons, megabolt cannon, even the ECM Jammer tech is actually a nice upgrade for us. Oh, and another world, of course.

We need to think about new ship designs, as we have gotten a lot of new tech. We can build a combat speed 4 fusion bomber if we want to stick with the older bomb tech, which helps reduce attition from missile base volleys, or we can look at going for a higher-damage bomber for taking on races that have better shielding than the Mrrshan. And for gunships, we have all kinds of nice new options.

So the Bulrathi have joined the party. Well, not surprising since they were allied with our enemies. As usual invading their worlds would be difficult -- maybe go for the spying approach with them?

[DaveV]

Nice tech steals, Mardoc! Looks like we have a decent advantage over the Mrrshans in gropo techs. If we can open up a similar advantage against the bears, invasion of their worlds is not inconceivable.

[haphazard1]

I have not checked the latest info on the bears for gropo tech, but earlier they had some pretty good stuff. Plus being the bears, of course. Might have changed, but we have not gotten a lot of new gropo tech lately. We have been kind of busy with other things.

[Mardoc]

If we can open up a similar advantage against the bears, invasion of their worlds is not inconceivable.

 The bears have Armored Exoskeleton, Andrium, Personal Deflector Shield, and Hand Phasors.  We are working on Armored Exoskeleton, and also have Deflectors, but we're behind in both armor and weapons, and close enough to the end of the tree that I don't see ever having a major advantage.

I could see us catching up to the point where we can exploit the fact that we've got 16 worlds and they have three, though.  Or even better, once we have space superiority it's essentially sixteen worlds worth of population production versus one world at a time.  We can certainly invade them, it's just that it will be work and an invasion process, rather than a quick conquest.

[haphazard1]

Hand Phasors...how big is the bonus on that tech, anyway? But overall, yeah, i would be tough to hammer the bears enough to take their worlds. It could be done, but we would have to send huge amounts of pop and grind them down over multiple turns.

[Mardoc]

Hand Phasors...how big is the bonus on that tech, anyway? But overall, yeah, i would be tough to hammer the bears enough to take their worlds. It could be done, but we would have to send huge amounts of pop and grind them down over multiple turns.

I think it's +20, compared to our Ion Rifle +10.  Which puts them currently a total of +35 in tech, and another +25 inherent compared to us; exoskeletons will cut that to +40 instead of +60 when they come in.

It appears that Plasma Rifle is a gropo tech beyond phasors, and I know better personal shields and armors do exist, so it's theoretically possible to tech fast enough to beat them in a fair fight now that we're teching fast.  I'd personally rather research ship weapons and just grind the bears, or maybe even just bomb and resettle.

At the very least we ought to be able to get parity via spies and just deal with their inherent bonus.  But I don't think Ianus will be the one to get that done.  We've still got plenty of planets to take from the kitties and rocks, for a better cost/benefit ratio.

[haphazard1]

+60? Wow. We could drop the maximum 300 invaders and kill maybe 10 bears? If we were lucky?

Not sure that is worth it even to grab techs. The amount of production we would spend on eco slider, plus lost non-worked factories during each turn as pop was shipped before regrowing the next, could instead just be invested in research. And spying.

Edit: Looked up combat odds. If the source is accurate, then +60 would result in about 12:1 losses. So the maximum 300 invaders might kill 25 defending bears. For a big world, we could easily need to send 6 waves, or 1800 pop. And that assumes the Bulrathi are not growing more pop themselves each turn once we start attacking -- not sure if the AI will do so, but have to assume it could. Some natural growth might occur, at least.

I am thinking spying would be a better bet.

Although if we get armored exoskeletons and drop the edge to +40, that is only (hah) about 4:1 losses. A maximum invasion force would then likely kill about 75 defending bears, so only two or at most three such waves would be necessary. Still brutal losses, but possible.