OSG-36 Over-Friendly Bugs

[Cyneheard]

Don't intentionally do 16BC for Terraforming - it only stores in sets of 5, do 15, 20, or 25 (and be willing to check and change that each turn).

How do you do that? Checking the exact number and setting the slider to an exact number?

Use Research to count BCs accurately (have to do the math if you're Psilons or it's an artifact world - I mess those up all the time), and then move those BCs over to Enviro (note that if the game says T-Form, that means at least 1BC is already being spent; if it says Clean, that's not the case). You can't set it to an exact number, so sometimes there is rounding that's forced, but 16BC x 3 turns = 9 terraforming complete, and 0 progress towards the 10th bit.

I can play Sunday, but not today, so if shallow_thought wants to play first, that's fine. Otherwise I'll take it some time Sunday if I don't hear anything.

[Bionic Commando]

I can't see images here either. More than that, the text is all light gray, had to highlight to read.

Sad to read the LR didn't make it... Would LR lasers help if I had sent then? Would guns in the colony ship have helped?

(Hard to tell without looking at the images)

I got the pictures working at least!

The Sakkra had 1 large and 6 mediums in addition to 2 colony ships. All seemed to pack a good amount of lasers. No way we would have had that world.

[RefSteel]

Looks like some good builder turns, Bionic Commando! And I believe that means...

Roster:

- Arnuz
- RefSteel
- SpaceOWL
- Bionic Commando - just played
- Cyneheard - UP or on deck, depending on who posts an official "Got It" first!
- shallow_thought - UP or on deck, depending on who posts an official "Got It" first!

[shallow_thought]

Looks like some good builder turns, Bionic Commando!  And I believe that means...

Roster:

- Arnuz
- RefSteel
- SpaceOWL
- Bionic Commando - just played
- Cyneheard - UP or on deck, depending on who posts an official "Got It" first!
- shallow_thought - UP or on deck, depending on who posts an official "Got It" first!

I need to play my turns in the EitB game, so better if Cyneheard picks it up today if possible!

[Cyneheard]

2360 state of the world:

Duralloy has come in, so we start a LR Dead (3t) out of Hope. Order up some scout 2s from Love to fan out from soon-to-be Respect.

Send scout 2s to the un-guarded hostile worlds, just on general principles (ESPECIALLY with the Sakkra around).

Go tech-shopping. Bulrathi don’t want anything.

2362: Try again (tech bars had moved). Bulrathi still don’t want anything.

2363: NPG researched. Start Merculite Missiles.



Bulrathi pick up Berel to the far NE. Still don’t want to trade.



2365:

Big developments.

#1: Toxic comes in. I balance research and start Radiated.


#2: Bulrathi declare Erratic War. I decide to build four Toxic colony ships first, then will likely have Hope and Love build some NPG fighters for Respect. Definitely gambling slightly that they don't want to push over a new world they probably can't settle immediately, but I think that's a pretty safe risk to take.

2366:

Found Respect.

Vote comes in. Sakkra vs. Meklar.
Meklar get: 6 (self), 3 (Humans), 1 (Bulrathi).
Sakkra get: 7 (self), 3 (Mrrshan), and 5 (Us) – since we know they’re nearby.



Of course the moment we settle Respect, we get contact with the Meklar and NOT the Sakkra.

Time to make a tech trade happen. Our options:



Decide to go with Range 6. Have to trade them Toxic for it, which I definitely don’t want to do.

Here’s their worlds, they've expanded pretty well:


2367: Humans met due to having Range 6 now. They’re in 4 worlds, definitely recommend trading with them first if possible. Sign a minimum (45BC) trade deal with them. They’re Pacifistic Diplomats, so you may want to increase that to the maximum. Meklars are Erratic Industrialists. First colony ship complete from Kholdan (spent some of the reserves to shave a turn).



2368: Rest of the colony ships are deployed. I design some NPG fighters and begin churning them out of Hope and Love.

2369: Meklar also declare war. Guess we’ll be building NPG fighters for the foreseeable future for Respect.

2370:
Settle Joy (Size 10 UR), Gratitude (Size 10) and Unity (Size 35 Rich).

This gives us contact with the Sakkra and the Mrrshans.

I have NOT, repeat NOT, set transports. Scouts are aimed outward. The last colony is 2t out (I thought it was worth losing 2t for that one to get Unity 1t sooner, since Unity is a front-line world and this is Impossible and there are Sakkra.

Tao to the far east is Radiated (25 Rich), and we’re researching Radiated, so that’s a stroke of luck.

Map:


Power Bars:
Someone has to have a deal for us, right?


Good luck! We've got one more world to settle for sure, and we'll see if the scouts are kind enough to find anything else we can settle. For trades, I have no idea, but the Humans seem the least-scary of our possible opponents, although the Mrrshans are obviously weak too. There's a vote in 5t, but we're currently #3 in pop (we do need some better IT though, so keep that in mind when trading).

[SpaceOWL]

Nice set of turns, Cyneheard!

Funny how I was completely wrong with my assumptions on the location of Sakkra and Meklar homeworlds...

There is the challenge to maintain the new planets (especially Unity which is farther away). 

Our next expansion move could well be taking out Ursa from the Bears (they declared on us didn't they?)

Cracking the missile bases with 2-rack Merculite ships is somewhat reasonable, especially if they don't have decent shileds. But invading can be very expensive.

[Cyneheard]

Nice set of turns, Cyneheard!

Funny how I was completely wrong with my assumptions on the location of Sakkra and Meklar homeworlds...

There is the challenge to maintain the new planets (especially Unity which is farther away). 

Our next expansion move could well be taking out Ursa from the Bears (they declared on us didn't they?)

Cracking the missile bases with 2-rack Merculite ships is somewhat reasonable, especially if they don't have decent shileds. But invading can be very expensive.

They did. I did not choose to be aggressive with either them nor the Meklar.

I think we're fine - Unity is the only world I'm at all worried about right now (I doubt the non-Meklar AIs have Inferno or Toxic yet, unless that changes for some reason on the next turn  ). We've got the NPG fighters already headed to Unity, and a stack of 500 of those can easily tide us over to missile base defenses, especially since we have decent missiles. Invading Bears sounds absolutely painful, but the Meklar are probably impossible to crack with their tech status. We're getting pretty close to starting an espionage campaign, too (I generally do that ~3000BCs/turn in the empire, diplo permitting but YMMV). What we really need is a good IT tech to get these tiny worlds up to something useful (Atmospheric + Adv Soil would obviously be game-winning too).

And your stress levels will be through the roof until we get Improved Scanner because those Bulrathi ships almost look they're headed for Unity - if it's on an Ursa-Berel line that's slightly above Unity, you're fine, but it's only a pixel or two difference.

[RefSteel]

Looks great, Cyneheard! And our variant is finally starting to kick in - with gusto! It looks like the Meklar were scary enough before we had to trade them Controlled Toxic Environment! I'm looking forward to seeing how things progress from here!

Roster:

- Arnuz - on deck
- RefSteel
- SpaceOWL
- Bionic Commando - just played
- Cyneheard - just played
- shallow_thought - UP!

[shallow_thought]

Got it!

The diplomatic situation is interesting, with all those wars going on - and probably good for us! Both declarations against us appear to have been Erratic from races that were already at war with at least two others, so we may be lucky and and not face too many actual stacks.  The main issue is that the Humans are allied with the Meklar - I'll probably NAP the humans, maybe tech trade with them first and see if they can be persuaded to break alliance.

Despite the fact we're still building, I'm tempted to spy on the bears, hope to exploit their racial weakness.

BTW, have we found Orion yet? I'd rather not waste a scout if it's avoidable, and a quick search didn't find any reference in the reports.

[Cyneheard]

Got it!

The diplomatic situation is interesting, with all those wars going on - and probably good for us! Both declarations against us appear to have been Erratic from races that were already at war with at least two others, so we may be lucky and and not face too many actual stacks.  The main issue is that the Humans are allied with the Meklar - I'll probably NAP the humans, maybe tech trade with them first and see if they can be persuaded to break alliance.

Despite the fact we're still building, I'm tempted to spy on the bears, hope to exploit their racial weakness.

BTW, have we found Orion yet? I'd rather not waste a scout if it's avoidable, and a quick search didn't find any reference in the reports.

I've sent/sending as of the save scouts to everywhere that's currently in sight and unsettled, so we don't have its location yet.