OSG 30 - It's just a number, nothing to worry about

[shallow_thought]

Sounds good. Phasors, RC IV on the way... just a matter of getting enough minaturisation to get Omega-V on a small (OK, maybe cloaking or sub-space teleporters might be nice to go with that) and it's all gravy. Gravy full of rocks. Medium bombers will do at a pinch though.

Oh, and it's going to take me days of drinking to get the memory of the idea of "magma-be-gone thorax cream" and the reasons for it bleached from my mind  .

[RFS-81]

Just checking in to say that I've not forgotten about the game; I'll play my turnset tomorrow.

[RFS-81]

2450: The Alkari are about to go extinct, and we have to think about who's our next victim. The humans are busy fighting with both the Silicoids and Meklars (who aren't allied anymore) and would be easy prey, but I decided to leave them alone because we're guaranteed their votes as long as they are at war with the Silicoids and not with us. Also, having tech trading partners is nice! Attacking the Silicoids is the most effective route to shift the balance in the council in our favour, but they are also the strongest rivals. I settled on attacking the Silicoids, and trying to play nice with the rest of the galaxy (which turned out to be more difficult than I thought). Speaking of tech trading: I was hoping to get better IIT, since we are teching towards better robotic controls, but no luck. The Meklars were offering some obsolete terraforming tech. The humans were offering ECM4 and accepted Repulsor Beams in exchange, after which they withdrew their ambassador...our relations were still at relaxed. Even after reading the diplomacy chapter in the strategy guide, this doesn't make sense to me.

Anyway, I went on to design a new bomber with the new ECM. I went with a large design again, which is not something I do very often.

2451: As Psillicyber predicted, the battles with the Alkari were easy. Our transports continued creeping through the nebula towards the last Alkari planet.

2452: Our first wave captures Tyr! This battle kept me on the edge of my seat even though I knew we'd get it anyway on the next turn.

I usually avoid killing other empires completely in my own games. I know that there are diplomatic penalties, but I was really surprised by how large they were. The humans declared war immediately (because of their honorable personality, the diplomatic penalties are doubled, IIRC).

A small Silicoid fleet is headed to Tyr at a snail's pace.

2453: We research cloning and get some nice new options:

That's an easy choice: I think with Adv. Soil Enrichment, we have the election in the bag! To seed it properly, I switch the colonies from ship-building to research for a turn and inject reserves into our Artifact world.

2454: RC4 comes in. I pour reserves on our rich worlds which gets them to the new maximum by the next turn. For the rest, I switch a few to full industry spending, and the rest to 25%, so I still harvest the full research bonus. The choices for our next computer techs are as follows:

I choose Advanced Space Scanner. But this is not very urgent, so I dial down computer research in favour of building more factories.

I've been assembling a fleet at Tyr to defend against the incoming Silicoids and later take the battle to them at Paranar. But their attack fleet is still 5 years away. And our fleet can practically head out to Paranar and be back for dinner...let's see what we can do!

2455: Our fleet arrives at Paranar and encounters a single ship and a few missile bases (I don't remember the exact number and forgot to take screenshots). The ship has a cloaking device which gives it a much-needed boost to its defense, but that's still not enough to evade our attacks.

I take out all missile bases, at the cost of all our Drip Trays. But at least I didn't lose any of my new bombers! We find a pop-50 Inferno planet. To take the planet, I send 40 transports from Tyr. But I'm not sure if that will be enough. It would be convenient to send some additional troops from Bootis, our Artifact world. But that would be a huge drain on our research...wait a minute, we just discovered better robotic controls! Bootis can spare about 20 pop, without turning any factories idle! That should be more than enough!

2456 & 2457: Our transports arrive at Paranar.

Techs found: ECM2, T30, Cloaking Device. At least one interesting tech. I don't know if it's useful, we're doing fine for now.

As a consequence, we're now formally at war with the Silicoids. Meanwhile, the Meklars feel boxed in and cancel our NAP. The diplo screen starts feeling like a very lonely place...

A few fleets and transports are heading towards our new acquisition. ETA 3 years, so our ships at Paranar can hurry back to defend Tyr and be back at Paranar just in time to intercept them. I love having superior speed! As a side note, the humans send 3 Cruisers to Rotan. They still have very weak weapon tech, so I don't bother spending anything on defense there.

2458: Not much going on...

2459: I try to get a peace treaty with the humans, to secure their votes for the next election, but they're having none of it.

What? They've been cancelling our NAPs every few turns!

The Silicoids retreat from Tyr, so I send my fleet to Paranar.

2460: The Silicoid fleet at Paranar retreats and we shoot down the incoming transports. All five of them! The human Cruisers stand and fight, and almost scratch the paint of our missile bases. Also, our spies finally infiltrate a research center at Meklon. I thought I wouldn't see any spy successes at all! I pick Construction because if I couldn't trade for IIT, maybe I can steal it...and I get IIT6, which decreases the cost of our factories from 14 bc to 12 bc. It doesn't sound like much, but considering how many factories we still have to build, I think it will come in handy.

Map, Status and Tech:

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Roster:

• shallow_thought (up next)
  
• Ianus (on deck)
  
• haphazard1 (inactive)
  
• Psillycyber (in the hole)
  
• RFS-81 (just played)
  

Notes:

• Silicoid fieet moving to Paranar (ETA: 7 turns). With our enormous advantage in speed, we should have enough time to mass our fleets wherever the Silicoids are going to hit. Just make sure to check for planets under attack using the F8 key, and you should be fine.
  
• Everybody hates us. The Meklars are formally at peace, but have cancelled the NAP. They're also allied with the Silicoids again. The humans are still at war with the Silicoids, so if you can make peace with them, that might give us their vote next election.
  

Fun Facts:
The humans still control Imra! Also, we still have no contact with the Mrrshans. Maybe we'll win this game without ever meeting them?

[Ianus]

Beautifully done! I think that attacking the rocks is the right choice here given our near-parity in tech and the strength of our military. Why bother with the small fry when we are mort than capable of taking on the big dogs in this galaxy. 

With that being said, as relations are stressed with everyone anyway we might consider opening up a second front in the south so we can sweep through the Humans and Meklar just to really put an end to things. We have a lot of planets down there that can build ships. Just saying...

[shallow_thought]

Nice work. Tackling the only real threat - the Silicoids - head on is definitely the right move. So long as they stay at war with the "Honorable" humans, we should be able to pick up brownie points with the Apes by attacking the Rocks. Or else, we just kill everyone and take their stuff.

Bad news is that my evenings this week currently look like this: Kitchen fitter visiting; family birthday; three hour drive to branch office; three hour drive back from branch office.

At the moment I'd still like to try and get the turnset in (I may be able to avoid the trip to the branch office if things go smoothly over the next two days). I'll let you know if I think I really wont be able to do so.

[RefSteel]

Looks like you guys are swarming over the galaxy brilliantly! Great stuff!

The humans were offering ECM4 and accepted Repulsor Beams in exchange, after which they withdrew their ambassador...our relations were still at relaxed. Even after reading the diplomacy chapter in the strategy guide, this doesn't make sense to me.

Remember that this was the inherited turn. My guess is that the human ambassador had just barely come back after going into a tiff (perhaps just because of being asked a lot of questions) late in the previous player's turns.

[haphazard1]

Some very good turns there, RFS-81. Some key techs acquired, the once-mighty Alkari finished off, and our pop and economy are expanding steadily. Good stuff.

I agree with Ianus that there is really no reason not to push against the Meklar and Humans at this point. They hate us anyway, so why not hit them and take some more planets? We have enough pop to block a council loss, and if we can get advanced soil plus improved robotic controls this game is going to be over.

Poor kitties. They must have just a single planet at one of those yellows in the east. Or maybe two, but where would that leave Orion? Can Orion be a yellow star? Wonder if an AI (the kitties?) had the misfortune of sending their starting colony ship to Orion and having it chomped by the guardian?

[Psillycyber]

Good turns, steady progress. I see that Hercular Missiles are almost in. That should free up all of our fleets for offensive engagements.

We might have an easier time taking planets from the Humans and Meklar at this point. Those Silicoid pulson missiles are nasty. Their bases have high attack level, so even with our impressive ECM Bomber design, they'll be hitting about half the time, for 20-5=15 damage each time. It will take 14 missiles to take out one of our bombers. If a Silicoid world even has just 20 bases, that's 60 missiles per volley. 30 that will hit. 2 bombers gone per volley. Count on having to take 2 volleys before closing with the planet (I'm pretty sure their missile bases will have the initiative, and we can't dodge pulsons). So that's 4 bombers gone before even closing with the planet vs. only 20 missile bases.

It might actually be worth building a new design with max maneuverability+inertial stabilizer+ECM IV+cloaking (while keeping the old design as a sacrificial distraction). Sacrifice shielding on the new design if need be. That extra 5 missile defense (until the ship uncloaks, at which point it will be too late for them assuming we can take out all missile bases in two rounds of bombing) will mean the difference between half of enemy missiles hitting and only 5% of enemy missiles hitting.

[haphazard1]

The rocks' defenses are definitely nasty. I think we could still crack them, but it will take a sizable number of our big bombers and we will lose ships doing it. That could get expensive. But if we can take worlds from the rocks, that would really start shifting the balance of power in our favor.

It may be easier to go for weaker targets first (Humans and Meklar), continue building up our worlds with advanced soil and another robotic controls upgrade, and then fight the rocks.

[shallow_thought]

Have had a chance to open the save and look around properly - looks even better than I expected.

If we wanted a quick win, focusing everything on planetology and capturing Human worlds could well get us domination by 2475. However, about the only thing I could see going wrong right now is the Silicoids finally putting a decent engine on their ships (look at that propulsion tech level ...) and hitting some of our planets too fast for us to respond. I probably favour attacking them first as the best way to avoid this. I rather like Psillicyber's suggestion of a cloaked bomber to counter the Pulsons. Probably worth waiting for next construction tech (43%) to come in before replacing the Drip Trays. We can get cloak + stabilizer + BC IV + a single Omega-V on a medium, but only ECM II. Will see what the numbers look like after a little more minaturisation.

Doesn't mean our existing bombers can't try and take out a Human world or two first while a new design gets built though. 

I will need to look to defense a bit - with our enemies being in reactive mode when they declared rather than plotting against us (and being at war amongst themselves) we've not had to worry too much so far, but we've got a big deficit of shield building to do before we can react to any strikes other than with our fleet - which I want to be attacking! And we do want those Hercs to secure ourselves while we rampage.

EDIT: Ok, I guess I've got it. A quick look at ship design has turned into four turns so far.