OSG-39 - The Meklar Revolt

[haphazard1]

That does not look good. Any idea what set the Sakkra off? Or was this just a general dislike of cyborgs sort of thing?

[shallow_thought]

That does not look good. Any idea what set the Sakkra off? Or was this just a general dislike of cyborgs sort of thing?

We were neutral, with trade. Judging from the OSG this was probably a "you are weak" thing. The fact that they are Agressive Expansionist probably didn't help.

There are probably some nuggets in my notes (like their traits) that are relevant if we do decide to play on - I'll post what I have tomorrow.

[RefSteel]

Wow, looks like the AIs aren't going to let us build up in peace! Four Hydrae is indeed a scary fleet, and dealing with it is going to be a challenge, to say nothing of the empire's other needs. I do think we have a chance here - or at least, I hate to give up on a challenging game before the AIs prove they can win it conclusively - but if playing through it doesn't sound fun to you guys, I'm definitely game for setting this one aside (so I can play it to the bitter end later!) and starting up a game in a galaxy with (hopefully) less stacked against us. Either way, if you're willing to post your notes on the turns you played, shallow_thought, that would be great!

Whether we can hold out here and pull off a win or not, if the process of trying isn't something the team is going to actually enjoy, then it's not one we should be playing. (And if it's split, we'll see what happens: Those who want to can try to somehow get us into a playable position in one turn set apiece, and if we can't, we can always decide then to start over with a new game.)

[shallow_thought]

Here are my notes. I literally have no idea what to do against this level of early aggression, and to I have to say I don't personally fancy watching as the Silicoids gobble up all the worlds behind us - we'd have had enough trouble getting planetology online without being in a war.

We can't fight them with small fighters - at least not until we have Stabilizer (no Nuclear Engines), and probably a better gun. The AI is sometimes slow to update its designs, so maybe ...

Unless we build hundreds of fighters. I don't think we have the production.

Bases in the numbers we can build them won't help against heavy lasers, even with shield II (which we haven't started).

I doubt we can beat the lizards in a ground war.

Baffled. I'd be somewhat interested in understanding how it might be possible to proceed from here, but if there is a way then I've probably wasted the (valuable) turns between the war dec and the fleet's arrival.

T2335
-
We are nearly surrounded - but not quite. Propulsion tech is at 42% and once we have it we can spread NW. Of course, first we need a ship, but that is due in 2t. The real question is whether it will be complete before alien scouts get over our homeworld ...

T2336
-
Range is in. We don't have Nuclear Engines , so I pick Stabilzer. Range puts us in contact with the Aggressive Expansionist Sakkra, who are allied with the Silcoids. They agree to minimal trade and would accept our Range 5 for ECM I, but I don't take it.




Teching is nice, but we need factories - and colonisation ships and escorts - more.

T2337
-
Our colony ship heads out. Meklon starts another one.

T2338
-
The Silicoids turn up, not at our immediate target (Endoria) but at the next world out, Ocean Romulus. They have 93 scouts, 1 unarmed colship, but - fatally - one laser fighter. That's not good. Given that we now have no need for another colony ship, Meklon does a round of fighter to try to keep the Silicoids off the planets we do have.

We explore Radiated Rich Klystron to our SE, pushing aside a Bulrathi scout to do so. I send pop back from Primodius and Humidity to Meklon, which is going to have to drop pop on Endoria in a turn or two (hopefully!).

T2339
-
Quiet.

T2340
-
Quiet

T2341
-
We drive 50-odd Silicoid scouts away from Endoria and settle what will be our last world for a little while. I forget to rename it, perhaps fortunately (Hopeless90 would have been a bit depressing). Meklon ships a massive 40 pop (due to be replaced in the next couple of turns) to get the new world started / defended.

We are now in contact with the Xenophobic, Technologist Silcoids. They are actually Relaxed towards us, and I set up minimal trade. No tech is available. I do not want a NAP with them as we need to at least delay their colonisation plans for all the remaining worlds around us.

T2342
-
Sakkra declare war. They are allied to both the Silicoids and the (unknown, and hopefully irrelevant) Klackons. I don't know that there is much we can do about this. It would take 10y to get a base up at Primodius. Build factories and hope, I guess. Meklon can maybe build some more fighters, but I'd be surprised if we can handle anything resembling a stack at this stage of the game.

Drive various Silicoid scouts away from the backlines worlds.

T2343
-
Waiting for the hammer to fall.

T2344
-
The Silcoids join in the war. The Sakkra fleet is visible. Four larges probably exceed our ability to handle them. I build what fighters we can (without reserves there's no hope of getting a base up).

T2345
T2346
I've lost track of turn numbers as well as hope.

T2347
-
32 fighters destroyed by accurate heavy laser fire in three rounds.

[RefSteel]

Ouch - those sound like a really tough set! Looking back, when you said you weren't sure you wanted the save, I should have asked about that and whether there were ways to mitigate or obviate the reasons for that instead of just blindly hoping you'd end up having fun anyway. Definitely any time turns stop being fun, please stop playing them (and post what you've got if you've played any of course) rather than forcing yourself on! (This should go for everyone, me included! I admit I often enjoy playing out apparently-lost causes, but the principle is the same even if the triggering circumstances are different.)

To be clear, this has nothing to do with the current game state - just that I like playing SGs together as long as everyone's enjoying them; I don't want to encourage anyone to play a game that's started to feel like a chore or an exercise in futility. If haphazard (or anyone else) wants to see what can be done with the position we're in, I'll be happy to offer some advice if desired or wait and see what happens; if not, I'll see about playing this out for myself, and either find some way to turn it around or come up with a fun way to write up the Meklars' decline and fall. (Or get fed up myself and turn that into a story!) In the latter case though, or if haphazard and I both play and still haven't gotten us to a position that looks worth playing to you, I'm for bagging this one and starting up a new game, hopefully in a galaxy where not everything goes against us ~immediately!

[shallow_thought]

Ouch - those sound like a really tough set!  Looking back, when you said you weren't sure you wanted the save, I should have asked about that and whether there were ways to mitigate or obviate the reasons for that instead of just blindly hoping you'd end up having fun anyway.  Definitely any time turns stop being fun, please stop playing them (and post what you've got if you've played any of course) rather than forcing yourself on!  (This should go for everyone, me included!  I admit I often enjoy playing out apparently-lost causes, but the principle is the same even if the triggering circumstances are different.)

To be clear, this has nothing to do with the current game state - just that I like playing SGs together as long as everyone's enjoying them; I don't want to encourage anyone to play a game that's started to feel like a chore or an exercise in futility.  If haphazard (or anyone else) wants to see what can be done with the position we're in, I'll be happy to offer some advice if desired or wait and see what happens; if not, I'll see about playing this out for myself, and either find some way to turn it around or come up with a fun way to write up the Meklars' decline and fall.  (Or get fed up myself and turn that into a story!)  In the latter case though, or if haphazard and I both play and still haven't gotten us to a position that looks worth playing to you, I'm for bagging this one and starting up a new game, hopefully in a galaxy where not everything goes against us ~immediately!

I was expecting the save to be challenging, but was tongue in cheek about not wanting it. The punches of Silicoids cutting us off (with a single fighter!) at the edge of the nebula, followed by the Sakkra war - and I carefully didn't trade range 5 with them so that they would need that or a better tech to reach our worlds - just left me thinking that, yeah, this is probably something I would drop.

With hindsight, there is an argument that I should not have moved pop off Primodius, or should have sent as much as I could spare from Meklon to there and Humudity as soon as the Sakkra declared, but I wanted to get Meklon up what would be "maxxed" for a normal race - or even up to Meklar max so we could start moving reserve production around.

[SpaceOWL]

In this case the only way I can see is to let Primodius go, retreat to Meklon, decide whether we try to hold on to the Jungle or not, and defend. Build bases, get DS2 and maybe a missile tech, and defend.
Then see what can be done to get out of the shell, maybe the Sili in the NW will be easier to invade.

It's always tough if the AI comes for us so early in the game. With the huge bonuses they have, it's very difficult to defend against anything that they throw at us this early.
The other day I was in a game with the Silicoids and the Meklar AI sent a HUGE SHIP against me as early as 2340 or something.

[haphazard1]

The AI get such large starting advantages on Impossible, particularly the free colony ships, that if they declare and invade early it is extremely tough to do anything. The player needs time to stabilize and start digging out of the initial hole, and we did not get it this game. I am curious to see what RefSteel can manage from this position, if anything. For the SG, I think I am in the 'start a new game' camp -- it would be a lot more fun.

[RefSteel]

Works for me! Would you like to open an OSG-39B thread and get us started on a new map, haphazard? (Since the rest of us have each gotten to play a set already, albeit in this first game.)

In the meantime: I played from shallow_thought's save up through 2356 last night, and there have been ups and downs already, and I don't know how well this will go in the long term, but I'm hopeful - and having a great time with it so far! The Meklar play completely differently from any other race, and this game is really bringing that out for me. (And, as a tiny spoiler, SpaceOWL may be right, but ... that isn't what I decided to try!) I'll post a report probably when I reach something around 2365-2370, though when that will be in real time will depend, as I'll give priority to the game we're actually playing as a team.

[haphazard1]

New thread opened for a second attempt at this scenario. I took the first galaxy I rolled, and it looks a lot friendlier so far. Nice second planet, and three more very good worlds reachable with range 4 (which is in our tree). The Alkari have scouts probing some systems, but so far our scout blockade is holding.