Okay, let's get this off the ground! Here are the basics:
Race: Silicoids
Difficulty: Impossible
Galaxy Size: Medium
Opponents: Five
Color: Purple
Map Generation: Random - I just took the first map rolled and ran with it!
Events: On
Game Version: Kyrub's 1.40M patch (Since 1oom apparently doesn't have a Mac version...)
Variant: None; just avoid the known exploits - although some of them (like infinitely recharging specials) are fortunately fixed and no longer concerns in 1.40M.
Our Start:
When I saw this group of opponents on the first map I rolled, I decided to start playing it out. Then I played the first few turns and knew it was a keeper. This one could get interesting - hold onto your stalactites!
Scenario/Introduction:
- Historian's Note -
Though Silicoid lives may span centuries if not destroyed by violence or misadventure - or perhaps for that very reason - powerful, energetic Silicoid monarchs have never managed to hold their thrones for long. Inevitably, some other equally-energetic Silicoid has always managed to topple such a monarch whenever one appeared, usually within a few years of their assuming the Mountain Throne. Silicoid figure-head monarchs, by contrast, could be expected to live long and happy lives, so long as they didn't pay too much attention to the running of their nations and allowed their many advisors to more or less run the show while the monarchs themselves fulfilled important duties like speaking the words of speeches put in front of them by various advisors, listening intently to diplomatic, judicial, and political overtures, and then responding to those in the manner suggested by their key advisors too - and most importantly, looking nice in royal regalia during major parades.
Given the social and political turmoil that typically raged over Cryslon during periods when a series of self-directed monarchs held the throne, each usually perishing under the rocky appendages of their successors, it was perhaps inevitable that at the dawn of the interstellar era, faced with alternatives like a Viscous Animated Lavaflow and an Immovable Block of Sentient Marble, the constituents of the Silicoid Electoral Monarchy overwhelmingly threw their support behind another Ornamental Sandstone Guy. In the slow 40,000-year history of the High Throne of Cryslon, it was the thirty-fourth time that such a ruler had been put in place, and apart from a few hundred years here and there in which dozens of monarchs of other types had each briefly ruled and died, the OSGs accounted for the Throne's entire history. Of course, the Official Cryslon Dating System was not based on the rise of the High Throne however: The official calendar dated from the beginning of the thirty-second OSG's rule, as the latest set of violent Throne Wars that preceded it had overthrown many more robust political systems than the Silicoid calendar. The memories of those Throne Wars so scarred the Silicoid people that even two millenia later and centuries more, there was little real opposition among the people of Cryslon to the ascension of OSG-34.
As for the figurehead-monarch's chief advisors of course - the rocks who really ran the nation - they at least had to keep their power struggles within bounds of decency, paying lip service to "the service of the OSG." As it would transpire, the age of interstellar travel and discovery, which in time would lead to deadly conflict with the other races of the galaxy, united the disparate advisory factions in the Silicoid government as nothing ever had before, leading to an era of unprecedented cooperation and mutual support.
But one way or another, as fate - or the other advisors - would have it, the identity and plans of the electoral monarch's chief advisor still underwent a radical change about once every decade or so....
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Roster:
- RefSteel - RFS-81 (UP!)
- Ianus (just played, swapping with RFS-81)
- Bionic Commando (on deck)
- Guiness
Turn sets: The early game tends to go quickly, so the first player plays 20 turns, the next two play 15 turns each, taking us to 2350, and everyone takes 10 turns per set thereafter.
Succession Game Etiquette: Within 24 hours after the player before you posts the save, please either post a "Got it" message (indicating you've downloaded the save and intend to play your set within the next day or two) or ask to be skipped for a round or to swap places with another player. Within 48 hours after posting a "Got it" please finish your turns and post a save (or request a skip or swap or extension if something comes up unexpectedly).
Leave it to RefSteel to: Make really long-winded posts covering mostly stuff we probably all already know and/or telling silly stories!
Notes from the Definitely Not Reign, Just OSG-34's Chief Advisor, so Don't Worry, of RefIronOreAndCarbonExceptAlloyedForSomeReasonInsteadOfBeingUsedInTheirNaturallyAppearingRockFormsAsYouWouldExpect - hereinafter referred to as "Ref," the diminutive which the 34th Ornamental Sandstone Guy used in place of its chief advisor's preposterously long name:
First Impressions: The Year 2300
I finally have the OSG's ear, and I've already got a tough decision to make right off the starting rock - and by "I've" I mean "the monarch has" obviously, haha just one of those, um, figures of speech you hear so much about. What we've got though is two stars close enough to build a colony, and the one that looks like a better place to land, since it's a yellow star like Cryslon, is also a good deal closer to the galactic rim. This is a problem. Red stars are supposed to be okay, according to our astronomers, but "okay" isn't good enough: If we're going to spread across the galaxy, we can't afford to send our first brave colonists out into the unknown to freeze their stalactites off on some frozen snowball world or something. We need space to grow as fast as we possibly can - because, frankly, we're rocks. "As fast as we can" is still really, really slow.
So I charted out all the stars remotely in our neighborhood, with the range from Cryslon in parsecs. Here's a look at the planning display.
Those distant yellow stars just beyond the Cryslon Nebula could well harbor intelligent life, just like ours does. All the others like them are off the right edge of the screen, so even though they're mostly not all that far off, the possibility doesn't carry quite the same urgency. As for the first yellow star I mentioned, right nearby, if anything lived there that was smart enough to start space-faring anytime soon, we'd have picked up their radio signals centuries ago, so I'm not worried. Wherever alien species might dwell though, we want to try to reach them as quickly as we can - before they reach us, maybe with war fleets! The red star obviously pushes us much closer to the heart of the galaxy - and right toward the many possible sentients at the stars beyond this screen. More than that, it'll bring that green star in the nebula into colonizing range, even closer to the heart of the galaxy, where the only new colony we might be able to form with just a fuel base at the yellow star would be even further out toward the rim. In case that wasn't enough, a fuel base at the red star would bring at least as many new stars into scouting range as the yellow one, and maybe even twice as many, depending, and they're more important stars too, being closer to the core. All that, and the yellow star is further toward the so-called "Galactic Northwest," which means most likely, if we explore both stars the same year, we'll get the scouting report for the yellow star first because of the ... cosmological constant, I think? Whatever it is, it's the basis for our official royal star cataloging order. It's not guaranteed, of course; but it's most likely, and that would mean we'll be making our colonization decisions with a little extra information.
So the colonists are off to that red star by the other nebula, which brings us to our scouts. One of them's going to need to escort the colonists since they're flying blind into possible danger - what if the legendary Guardian is real, and one of those stars is Orion?! - and our other scout ship's bound for the yellow star to hopefully get us that early information. From there, the scouts can continue along our possible colonizing course to see what they can find. And especially with the nebulae where they are, the only other scouting reports that are really urgent are the ones for that red star in the heart of the Cryslon Nebula itself, in case there are other sentients at those distant yellow stars at the bottom of the screen. We'll build a new scout for that by the end of the year, but all the rest of Cryslon's workers are busy preparing new factories!
More to come... (Probably tomorrow night; right now, it's getting pretty late.)
Lets rock! And I know by now that when RefSteel says a start looks "interesting" things are bound to get terrifying entertaining.
I'm on pins and needles (or the rock equivalent, chips and cracks?) to see our early scout reports. I agree with the analysis that the red star is a much stronger expansion target than the yellow, at least from the expansion perspective. All those stars toward the galactic core will put us in a strong position if we can expand and hold our borders as far out as possible.
Just a quick edit of our starting map. I would say the we could reasonably expect to grab the area outlined in purple. As long as we expand aggressively of course. Of primary importance is getting a blockade set up at the red star circled in red to prevent the occupant of that yellow star just south from making inroads into our territory. Also those two reds in the center, although they are not under immediate pressure so that can wait a bit. A possible stretch target is the area outlined in pink. Assuming that there is an AI at the yellow circled in white (and I find it is always best to assume the worst in this game) it is possible that the line of blue and white stars will hold them off from colonizing those three greens. Even if whoever it is manages to grab some or all of the NE corner that is still a limited area where we could plan for early war against an isolated opponent.
So it looks like we could grab a decent chunk of the north while the southern half gets divided between four opponents. Whoever manages to secure the southeast with all those reds and greens will be in a strong position, but at least they will be far away from us for a while. Plan for Psilons to come bursting out of there at warp 6 in 100 turns or so. At least a true runaway looks unlikely from the distribution of yellow stars. The best case might be TWO AIs at those two yellows to our south, although that would leave the southeast open to the last two assuming that the yellow in the east is occupied.
That's enough from me for now. I'm excited to put my geology background to use for this one!
Oh and as to tech Propulsion looks to be critical. Unless we find a bunch of empty stars **glances suspiciously at RefSteel** we could probably get good results out of Hydrogen Cells to Nuclear Engines. Anyway, carry on.
(I have tried to explain my thinking rather than go completely down an in-character rabbit hole in this report, and also to suggest alternate viable - or possibly better - strategies in the form of my narrator appearing to have second thoughts about its strategy. Hopefully the result is informative ane enjoyable; who knows what format I'll decide to use when my next turn set rolls around!)
Second Guesses: 2301-2304
2302: I've barely started as chief advisor, and already I'm starting to question the decisions I made just last year. Our people, slow-growing, strong, and wise, are the heart of our future. Everything we can do to give them room to grow healthy and strong, and to nucleate the children of the future, is surely to the advantage not only of the Throne's many subjects, but of the Ornamental Sandstone Guy itself; that much remains true, and it was for that reason that I called upon the people of Cryslon last year to build laboratories and schools instead of factories, for the study of planetology, to make all our worlds ever more hospitable to us.
That was not wholly wrong, and we will certainly make use of those new labs and schools, ensuring that the scientists and professors who labor there will continue to receive the funding they require, but other advisors to the throne speak of reducing our emphasis on the planetological sciences, and I fear that their words may be wiser than my deeds: The factories we were building back in 2300, and whose construction is being hastily resumed today, are highly-efficient in design, each repaying its investment in just ten years so long as we have Silicoids enough to work there; true, they generate some unimportant by-products like clouds of impenetrable smog and rivers of glowing sludge, with attendant changes to the environment, and it would be very costly to clean them up, but this makes little difference since there is no need to do any cleaning: Our people find these changes to the environmental conditions rather pleasant and invigorating than otherwise. Our children play splash-tag in the sludge of industrial waste, and use the dense smog banks cleverly in their games of hide-and-go-seek. Unless our colonists find a small world, rich in mineral resources, and much in need of the terraforming our scientists contemplate, it would likely have been better to delay the major lab-building project I began, and instead continue to devote our energies to more factories. To make matters worse, when I calculated last year that we would probably need a new scout ship soon in order for it to explore the rimward blue and green stars by the time one of the two ships now in construction could reach the furthest of the coreward red stars, I missed an important strategic point: There was no particular need for that timing to line up! We could likely have delayed our last scout for several years, in favor of still more of our valuable factories. Still, what's done is done, and we won't go too far wrong by advancing our knowledge of planetology - and of the galaxy around us!
2304: When the reports came in at last from the yellow star of Guradas, it was a little too late, unfortunately. This time - in spite of the cosmological constant (or whatever it is) - by the time the scout bound for Guradas actually reached its destination and sent in its report, late in the year, the colonists at Whynil had missed their final landing opportunity of 2303.
Frankly, the reports were pretty grim. The reason our colonists didn't just land right away was simply that Whynil III, somewhat smaller than our homeworld, with only about 85% of its habitable surface area, appears to have all the mineral richness of an unusually filmy raincloud. When they saw just how little metal there was to be had from Whynil's soil, the colonists elected to go into a long orbit with an option to exit back to hyperspace again, fully expecting to take advantage to fly to Guradas instead. Unfortunately, when word finally arrived, it was found that the cold steppes of Guradas VI are barely any richer than the soil of Whynil III, and with so little habitable space available anywhere in the Guradas system - no more than a quarter of Cryslon's - now that their Whynil orbit has finally brought them back to an approach vector for the third planet in the system, I feel the best course is for the colonists to settle right there, to get a fuel base built and our people growing as quickly as may be.
Already delayed a full year awaiting the Guradas reports, the Whynil colony will remain far below its true potential for a long time to come, though some eleven million colonists are leaving now to join the two million already there, now that we know the system is safe at least, and one or two million more will likely join them every year for a little while - though this too is a questionable decision, once again sacrificing the much-greater productivity of which our people are capable here on Cryslon in favor of further growth across the whole of our now-interstellar empire. It is my belief that time will prove this was the wisest choice - but in the meantime, while we wait, with no means for years to come of building any further colonies, I am too well aware that moss is growing....
Discovery: 2305-2314
2306: For the second year in a row, our scouts have arrived safely at destinations deep in our neighboring nebulae: Last year, the discovery of the Moss Jungles of Zoctan II at the heart of the Cryslon Nebula thrilled our people, for they were nearly as extensive as Whynil III, but as abundant in metals and rare earths as Cryslon itself! If indeed any sentient being lives among the yellow stars beyond that nebula, they will surely be eager to steal the Zoctan jungles away from us; gaining and maintaining control of that world may well be of vital importance to our future - and the latter may prove a difficult task, since the nebula interference not only delays ships unpredictably, but is certain to prevent the operation of shields both on the planet's surface and in space!
The same might be said of the wide steppelands of Thrax IV, as cold as Guradas VI, but far more extensive, and with mineral densities comparable to Zoctan's and our homeworld's. This world may be could turn out to be a vital stepping-stone toward the heart of the galaxy, and it is here that our next wave of brave colonists would go if the choice, at that late date, is still up to me.
Also this year, the scout ship that first explored Guradas arrived at Phyco, the red star just beyond it, finding a single usable world of middling size, its environment flavored with a pleasant toxicity, much like the sludge and smog of factory waste that fills beautiful Cryslon today. With the other rimward red stars still just out of reach, and no other lifeforms likely to live anywhere nearby, our scout from Phyco has set out once more for the green star furthest from Cryslon of all those we can reach.
2309: The Cryslon Industrial Labor Board is complaining again, and I think they have a point. Certainly Zoctan may be critically important, and certainly I knew there was a chance that our scientists might be unable to develop simple hydrogen fuel, which would force us into a long research project for controlled deuterium, but I could and probably should have started a small pilot project last year or the year before just to investigate the feasibility of hydrogen fuel, so that if it turned out to be impossible, we could pour significant resources into propulsion labs only then, in response, and otherwise work on the hydrogen project at a much more liesurely pace.
As it stands, with a clear theoretical basis for hydrogen cells, and no one able to come up with even a suggestion for how to contain deuterium adequately, last year's major propulsion investment may give us access to advanced fuel cells some years before we actually have a use for them. Nevertheless, this technology will surely be needed, and the sooner it arrives, the sooner our scout ships can push forward across the galaxy - and the more it will improve the flexibility of our colonization strategy.
2311: There's been a shocking development at Darrian, the nearest red star beyond the Whynil-Thrax Nebula.
What at first appeared to be a world much like Phyco with its bouquet of pleasant toxins, far less attractive because of its tiny size, on further inspection was found to feature a surface density of metals and rare earths as far beyond our homeworld's as is ours beyond the poverty of Guradas! More than any other we have seen, Darrian Prime supports my eagerness for new discoveries in planetology: Even our first project in the field, with growing chances of a breakthrough reported every year, would double the effective habitable area of the planet's surface following a small investment in terraforming, likewise doubling our access to its vast mineral riches.
Work is progressing steadily on propulsion research too - but I can't help wondering how much closer we'd be to colonizing Thrax and Darrian if -ahem- the OSG (definitely not me of course, you understand; I'm just an advisor) had been a little less eager for all this early technology spending.
2312: With our scouts' arrival at Regulus and Talas this year - two more worlds whose unfortunate and non-sentient rocks are as impoverished of minerals as Guradas, and the nearest stars we can reach to most of our possible rivals in the galaxy - together with the completion of our Rimward Survey, our catalog of stellar and planetary information is as complete as it can be for more than a decade to come.
Two of the most important worlds in our corner of the galaxy lie deep within the nebulae that flank our present empire like the slopes of a mountain peak; the others we can reach are small or suffer from various levels of mineral poverty - none more so than our lone extra-Cryslonian colony at Whynil - with the lone exception of Keeta, the green star all the way out at the galactic rim, so isolated that even hydrogen fuel will never bring our colony ships there, no matter which other stars we claim, unless we can fit our colony ships with the massive extra fuel tanks they would require to fly as far from home as our scouts. There, at the fourth planet from the star, there orbits a planet that is almost like a miniature version of our own homeworld - though even it can support somewhat fewer of our people than Zoctan in the nebula nearest home. So at the end of our first, brief age of interstellar exploration, our place in the galaxy is beginning to look ... interesting.
2314: Excellent news from the planetology labs, where my favorite lava-hearted scientist, its surface layers as blue as the legends claim Cryslon's sky used to be before our factories really got working!
Also, from the same source, terrible news. On the one gripping appendage, we are finally ready to implement the terraforming technology toward which I have been looking forward since the second year of my ... er ... definitely not reign ... um, period of advisory ascendency! On the other gripping appendage, there seems to be no way at present to improve upon these new techniques: Only means of creating something the scientists call both "horrible" and "biological" in a classic case of emphatic redundancy. We'll have to learn about those things someday, because it's certain to lead the way toward tripling our terraforming abilities - meaning among other things that we'll be able to double Darrian Prime's then-productivity yet again - but at present the project is being moved to the back geothermal furnace. The one wayyyyyyyy in the back of the volcanic vent.
Discontent: 2315-2320
2320: There is little more to tell. In the course of these past six years, we have fully implemented our new terraforming techniques both at Cryslon and at the Whnil colony; research into hydrogen fuel has progressed almost to the point of maturity; Cryslon's factory infrastructure has kept pace with population growth, sometimes even getting ahead in anticipation of the next class of graduates to enter the workforce; and we have completed another new ship: A colony ship bearing two million eager Silicoids, already well on its way to Whynil though it was finished just last year, thanks to some good advanced planning on its relocation orders. There was no launch ceremony however - one of the corners we had to cut to get it into space at the earliest possible date. That will be performed at Whynil, and not until next year, and when the Ornamental Sandstone Guy performs the ceremony, another chief advisor will be at its side.
Only one extra scout - not counting the one at Darrian - is making its way toward the front, where a fuel base at Thrax would extend our range if the OSG elects to send our colony ship there next year. I can't tell how many will be needed, but I could certainly have sent more to the front. By last year though, the petroglyphs were already on the cliff face. There were rumblings that we could have produced two colony ships in the time it took us to produce just one if we hadn't permitted so many millions to go to Whynil, and had focused on factories and ships to the exclusion of technology. The lava flows are creeping inward. I know my days as chief advisor to the Throne are numbered, and rather than fight a losing battle, even undercover and behind the scenes, to keep my place a little while longer, in the midst of widespread discontent with the policies I implemented, I surrender it willingly. To my successor, I can say only that my advice to our Monarch was always and only what seemed at the time to be the best thing for our people's long future - as I hope that you will do what to you seems best for the same, whether you continue or though you undermine any or all of my policies.
-Chief Advisor "Ref," closed letter to its successor as Chief Advisor to the OSG.
Notes for the next emperortotally just an advisor to the throne:
- There's a colship about to arrive at Whynil next turn. I meant it to go on to Thrax, but that's up to you!
- We still have just six scouts, but also Cryslon has only about one turn of production in its next colship, so if you wanted to build a few of some other kind of ship before the next colony, you could always swap the ship to the kind you want, and reduce ship spending there if necessary to get an appropriate number of ships. Admittedly, the 13 more basic scouts you could get even with zero new ship spending would probably be overkill though.... (I'd keep going with the colship myself.)
- Cryslon managed to get its factory builds (very) slightly ahead of the maximum its people can work, but I still have it building more factories because I'm expecting it to grow two or three more pop points by next turn.
- Whynil still has zero factories, because it's ultra-poor and I've been spending on research (and/or terraforming it) at or above its maximum output continuously - so it was a choice between building super-expensive factories there while researching more at Cryslon or researching at Whynil while Cryslon builds normal-cost factories and a colship. This situation will probably continue for some time to come, but note that as Silicoids, especially once we have some decent IIT and a large enough population base on Whynil that we aren't losing too much to rounding when building factories, it can be worthwhile to build them even on an ultra-poor world - except, as has happened so far in my view, when the opportunity costs are high. Silicoids love factories because they don't care about waste; the only drawback is the need to maintain the workforce (with slow Sili population grrowth) to work the things continuously!
- I didn't micromanage the population growth formula the way Thrawn likes to do in the early years with the Silis, but short of that (and short of hamstringing Cryslon severely) I did try to focus on maximizing our population empire-wide to shore up the biggest weakness of our 'coids. You'll notice that our empire-wide population is nevertheless much lower than it would be for another race at this stage!
- We still haven't seen so much as a scout from anybody. Still, unless the other races aren't all ridiculously stunted, the ... peculiar terrain in our corner of the galaxy should make for quite an interesting game!
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Roster:
- RefSteel (just played)
- RFS-81 (up?)
- Ianus
- Bionic Commando
- Guiness
- (If othes are interested, say so! We'll find a way to fit you in!)
I listed RFS-81 next because he started the ball rolling and mentioned wanting to start here in the waning days of 2018, but the turn order isn't definite yet; whoever next has time to play, check the thread to make sure no one else has posted a "Got it!" and then post one yourself, and that'll claim your place in the roster! Whoever does go next should play 15 turns to get us to 2335; the next player after that should play 15 to 2350, and after that we'll settle into a ten-turn rotation, ending on a round-numbered year after each set. To RFS-81 or whoever goes next: Good luck!
The save is attached to this post; to load it, download the save, change its name to Save7.GAM and move it into your Orion 1.40m directory, replacing the existing Save7.GAM (the auto-save). (For some operating systems, file names are case-sensitive, in which case you might have to change the name to match whatever's actually in your directory.) Then just run the game and "Continue" from the main menu (or open it with Starmap.exe in the first place) and you can play and save as usual! New players (and not-so-new ones) feel free to post here with any questions about this or anything else about the game!
What an interesting start. I'll play some time tomorrow.
With the (ultra-)poor planets around, it probably doesn't make sense to delay industry on Chryslon. The poor planets will have excess population to ship off for some time to come. Although: On a poor planet, factories pay for themselves after 20 turns for Silicoids - that's normal for other races. On a ultra-poor it's 30 turns.
Quote:So the colonists are off to that red star by the other nebula, which brings us to our scouts. One of them's going to need to escort the colonists since they're flying blind into possible danger - what if the legendary Guardian is real, and one of those stars is Orion?!
I know that trick, but why does it work? Does the AI always target the smallest ship first?
(December 29th, 2018, 14:49)RFS-81 Wrote: With the (ultra-)poor planets around, it probably doesn't make sense to delay industry on Chryslon. The poor planets will have excess population to ship off for some time to come. Although: On a poor planet, factories pay for themselves after 20 turns for Silicoids - that's normal for other races. On a ultra-poor it's 30 turns.
I'd plan on seeding at least Zoctan's population from Cryslon; note that we have less than 100 pop across our entire empire in 2320, and in spite of being in the best part of the growth curve for both planets our pop growth will still be slow. Silicoids never have much "excess" population to ship off anywhere! I do think it's a good idea to build more factories on the homeworld, but if I were playing this solo, the first world I'd "max out" would probably be Darrian(!)
Quote:I know that trick, but why does it work? Does the AI always target the smallest ship first?
I believe it goes like this: First target is the most (generically) dangerous ship to which it can do the most damage. Since neither ship has any weapons, it considers them equally (non-)dangerous, so it just wants to do as much damage as possible. The Colship has lower defense value and more hitpoints, and anything the Guardian fires will overkill either ship, so the Guardian's massive weaponry targets the colship first! ... But that's a good thing, because on its first turn, it can only get into range to fire its billion scatter packs and plasma torps. Then it's our turn, and we give the retreat order immediately to both of our ships. On its next turn, since there are still no weapons on our fleet, the Guardian moves forward again and fires its HEF Stellar Converters - still not quite in range for its HEF Death Ray - but it sees that nine trillion missiles and torps are already on their way to massively overkill our colship, so it fires at our Scout instead (instantly destroying it of course) on the theory that the colship is already taken care of, so it should dispose of the other ship first! Then it's our turn again, and the colship retreats safely just before the initial barrage of projectiles manage to reach it.
Chronicles of the definitely-not-reign of advisor Really Fine Sediment
Years 2320 to 2325
Well, this is embarrassing: Somehow, none of my screenshots got saved. Good thing I noticed this before finishing my whole turnset. I think I can roughly reconstruct 5 turns from memory. Anyway, I kept on building the colship at Chryslon and sent our existing colship on to Thrax. The RNG was cooperative and gave me range-4 fuel cells one turn before completing the new colship, so that I could send it to Zoctan. Now we only can hope that no one shows up there with weapons in the next few turns.
I picked Nuclear Drive for the next propulsion tech (other option: Inertial Stabilizer). During the last turns, I kept thinking about how many factories we want on Chryslon, while building more to keep up with pop growth for now. Then I realized that we're going to need them to seed a new colony soon, so I decided to halt industry while the colship is en route. Our scouts are spread thin, so I ordered 5 more. Since I didn't want to build more factories, the remaining income had to go to tech, but there wasn't anything that I wanted urgently. Ultimately, I decided on the Nuclear Drive. It will be a long way off, but better engines are just great to have.
Year 2325 to 2330 (and some bits of 2331)
The main events of this period happened in the interturn after 2328: Zoctan is settled with no enemy scouts showing up. But wait, there's more: The news robot shows us a ranking of space fleet strength.
We're predictably last, but I'm surprised that humans occupy the top spot. This looks more like a militarist AI - can humans even be that? But wait, there's more: The discovery of carbon-based lifeforms blows Silicoid scientists' collective mind:
That's a rather small empire. With any luck, the green star east of them is uninhabitable for them. Maybe they're boxed in by uninhabitable worlds and the fleet strength comes from their free colony ships with no destination? The AI has the standard-for-humans honorable diplomat personality, not militarist. Honorable means that they're more likely to make deals than other AIs, but any negative action on our part will have twice the normal impact. Most importantly, it does not mean that they're above the minor undeclared frontier wars that the MOO AIs love so much. My first diplomatic action is to sign a trade pact for 25 BC.
Here's our relative status: The humans have lots of industry but are about equal in tech (for now). Even if you take into account that they have to pay for waste cleanup and their oversized fleet, that's still a big production lead. Typically for the Silicoids, we're ahead in the number of planets and behind in population.
On the interturn after 2330, scouts report an artifact planet at Bootis. We don't get any free techs which means that someone else has already scouted it, right? It seems somewhat unlikely that we can get it, but we should at least try!
I've finished a new colship this turn which I intended to send to Darrian, the rich toxic planet. Instead, I send it to the neighbouring star system Regulus which (if I eyeballed it correctly) brings Bootis into colony range. Another colship is started and ordered to RELOC to Thrax.
The last few turns were less eventful. Some more scout reports were coming in: The green star east of the humans indeed has a hostile environment and is mineral rich!
Meanwhile, the humans finally settled a third planet.
Since we haven't settled on a roster yet, the save is up for grabs. Once everybody has played once, we'll stick with that order unless something unexpected comes up. Some notes for the next definitely-not-emperor:
Colony ships are underway to Regulus and Thrax. With any luck, the second one can continue from Thrax to the artifact planet Bootis.
Thrax is halfway through terraforming, don't forget to adjust ECO spending when it's done.
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