With the nebula and also so many AIs having Fusion Bombs, I agree that Planetary Shield 5 is not going to do us a lot of good. Hopefully we can pick it up later from a conquest, rather than giving up tech for it in trade.
(May 12th, 2024, 12:40)RefSteel Wrote: Quickly, before I have a chance to look at the save:
- Looks like great turns! Thanks for setting mine up for some excitement! Let's see if I can manage an invasion in RotP!
- I should have specified in describing the value of a +1 battle computer in our circumstances: All missile bases come with the Battle Scanner special, which adds an additional +1 to attack level in addition to scanning enemy ship stats and adding a +3 additional bonus (on top of the attack level boost) to initiative. So BC3 bases get attack level 4, not 1 (and I'd definitely have put a battle computer on our new cruisers, but they'll be strong as-is).
Quote:Yes, I am running growth at a hostile world at DalBinth, with reserve spending's efficiency unaffected by its hostile nature it's just fine and it has to max somehow, pls don't touch (or at least talk before touching, lol).
- I intend to cancel any and all growth spending on every world unless and until they start sending transports off en masse. We can discuss the micro advantages and disadvantages of force-growing to max, but on the macro level, we're about to start a war, and I'll want everything I've got to support that effort immediately!
- For similar reasons, I probably won't take the deal for Planetary Vs, though I might revisit that if I think stationary defenses will be more important than I'm hoping they will be in the immediate future. They obviously will be important, but right now I think I'm going to want those BCs going into other things (especially since some of our key worlds appear to be in the nebula and therefore unable to benefit from the shields).
I'll post an actual goti-it and inherited turn report when I have a chance to check the save; in the meantime, any thoughts or suggestions would be very welcome! I know how the MoO AI defends and counter-attacks, but nothing at all about how the Modnar AI responds to war!
Fair point on the battle computer, I always think they're larger than they are, and I entirely forgot they go on bases, and it would only come at the cost of a single ion cannon.. ah well. I typically only put them on huge designs, it seems large ones also deserve them.
I mean I do just want to make sure you understand the situation at Dalbinth - it's at 61/80 pop, maxed factories, needs to build a base before it can contribute elsewhere, and the growth spending will get it maxed with a turn to spare. Going from around 75% production capacity to 100% in a single turn, for a world that still is gated behind building a base before it can contribute to the wider empire, is still something that should be cancelled because we're going to war? What's the utility of *not* maxing it, what else would it do? It'll have made back the spending in 5 turns, and I can't see having it available doing research a turn sooner will give results within that timeframe. Do you tend to use all your empire for shipbuilding when, well, building ships? Since typically I'd have smaller worlds like that one just do research, but otherwise I really don't get it - I understand your reluctance in an abstract sense of "is growth spending good" in general, but I'd have hoped for a little faith that whatever's occurring isn't completely stupid lol.
And regarding the shields trade, I'm not saying we should immediately build the shields, just that even if we don't want them immediately, we might not have the opportunity to make the trade later. Again, I'm really unsure on it myself, so I'm not going to push for it, just wanted to clarify why I'd be after it at a stage like this.
(May 12th, 2024, 17:03)Dp101 Wrote: I mean I do just want to make sure you understand the situation at Dalbinth - it's at 61/80 pop, maxed factories
Ah, I see; serves me right for making blanket statements before I've had a chance to look at the save. That said, I'm not promising to force grow anybody. I might still insist on doing something that might sound crazy with it! Or, in a little more detail...
Quote:a world that still is gated behind building a base before it can contribute to the wider empire, is still something that should be cancelled because we're going to war? What's the utility of *not* maxing it, what else would it do?
I don't know without looking at it, but: It's not gated behind building a missile base; it can contribute without one. One fun thing about SGs is learning other people's playstyles, and I've certainly enjoyed seeing and learning from all the players' here. One infuriating thing about my playstyle is that I prefer to use defensive fleets in lieu of missile bases and often build what other players would regard as horrifically, untenably few static defenses - even in Orion, where bases are cheaper, better (since the AIs build less-effective counters to them) and quicker to upgrade.
In any case, if the colony is so small that 75% of its max contribution won't meaningfully help the war effort then the other 25% of its production isn't really worth fussing over either way. If I understand where our worlds are relative to our targets, I'm definitely not putting this one on research regardless: Even if all it can contribute is some small bombers and the like, I expect to want it building ships ASAP! I might still agree that it should be growing pop first when I actually look at it, but I ... may want a lot of ships in less than 5 turns here.... More particularly:
Quote:Do you tend to use all your empire for shipbuilding when, well, building ships?
So I have a funny story about that:
(From the last turnset in OSG-26 - that's turn 161, equivalent to eleven turns from now, with well over a thousand bombers being built in one turn - you can see a few of the converging sets of relocation lines here; ships were coming from basically every planet in our vast empire toward the front worlds. I hate to spoil that game though; the whole thread is a fun read!)
But for most situations, it depends on which worlds are nearest the front, whether they're rich or poor, and a host of other factors. If I understand the geometry correctly, the planet in question is very near the front; my reluctance to grow pop here isn't because of abstract micro considerations about pop spending in general, as I said: It's about putting everything I can into readiness for the war. I expect to spend a lot on force-growing pop if all goes well - just not necessarily there or yet!
And argh:
Quote:I'd have hoped for a little faith that whatever's occurring isn't completely stupid lol.
Of course it's not stupid! I took (and am taking) it for granted that you know what you're doing - in Remnants, probably better than I do overall, though obviously we each have not-always-overlapping knowledge gaps. What I want to do with any given planet during my set isn't a reflection on the different choices you would have made (or asked me to make!) - just of my playstyle and what I want to use to kick off this exciting new phase of the game!
Quote:And regarding the shields trade, I'm not saying we should immediately build the shields, just that even if we don't want them immediately, we might not have the opportunity to make the trade later. Again, I'm really unsure on it myself, so I'm not going to push for it, just wanted to clarify why I'd be after it at a stage like this.
Good points, and they lead to a question: Does Remnants allow you to build missile bases before you have a planetary shield up once you have the tech? (In MoO, you can't.) If not, it can be something of a poison pill for planets (especially newly-conquered planets) where you want to get some kind of defenses up faster than you can build the shield and bases both. If you can still build a missile base before the shield once you have the tech, that makes the trade much more attractive (though like you, I'd still be unsure of it and would have to give it more thought).
(May 12th, 2024, 17:03)Dp101 Wrote: I mean I do just want to make sure you understand the situation at Dalbinth - it's at 61/80 pop, maxed factories
Ah, I see; serves me right for making blanket statements before I've had a chance to look at the save. That said, I'm not promising to force grow anybody. I might still insist on doing something that might sound crazy with it! Or, in a little more detail...
Quote:a world that still is gated behind building a base before it can contribute to the wider empire, is still something that should be cancelled because we're going to war? What's the utility of *not* maxing it, what else would it do?
I don't know without looking at it, but: It's not gated behind building a missile base; it can contribute without one. One fun thing about SGs is learning other people's playstyles, and I've certainly enjoyed seeing and learning from all the players' here. One infuriating thing about my playstyle is that I prefer to use defensive fleets in lieu of missile bases and often build what other players would regard as horrifically, untenably few static defenses - even in Orion, where bases are cheaper, better (since the AIs build less-effective counters to them) and quicker to upgrade.
In any case, if the colony is so small that 75% of its max contribution won't meaningfully help the war effort then the other 25% of its production isn't really worth fussing over either way. If I understand where our worlds are relative to our targets, I'm definitely not putting this one on research regardless: Even if all it can contribute is some small bombers and the like, I expect to want it building ships ASAP! I might still agree that it should be growing pop first when I actually look at it, but I ... may want a lot of ships in less than 5 turns here.... More particularly:
Quote:Do you tend to use all your empire for shipbuilding when, well, building ships?
So I have a funny story about that:
(From the last turnset in OSG-26 - that's turn 161, equivalent to eleven turns from now, with well over a thousand bombers being built in one turn - you can see a few of the converging sets of relocation lines here; ships were coming from basically every planet in our vast empire toward the front worlds. I hate to spoil that game though; the whole thread is a fun read!)
But for most situations, it depends on which worlds are nearest the front, whether they're rich or poor, and a host of other factors. If I understand the geometry correctly, the planet in question is very near the front; my reluctance to grow pop here isn't because of abstract micro considerations about pop spending in general, as I said: It's about putting everything I can into readiness for the war. I expect to spend a lot on force-growing pop if all goes well - just not necessarily there or yet!
And argh:
Quote:I'd have hoped for a little faith that whatever's occurring isn't completely stupid lol.
Of course it's not stupid! I took (and am taking) it for granted that you know what you're doing - in Remnants, probably better than I do overall, though obviously we each have not-always-overlapping knowledge gaps. What I want to do with any given planet during my set isn't a reflection on the different choices you would have made (or asked me to make!) - just of my playstyle and what I want to use to kick off this exciting new phase of the game!
Quote:And regarding the shields trade, I'm not saying we should immediately build the shields, just that even if we don't want them immediately, we might not have the opportunity to make the trade later. Again, I'm really unsure on it myself, so I'm not going to push for it, just wanted to clarify why I'd be after it at a stage like this.
Good points, and they lead to a question: Does Remnants allow you to build missile bases before you have a planetary shield up once you have the tech? (In MoO, you can't.) If not, it can be something of a poison pill for planets (especially newly-conquered planets) where you want to get some kind of defenses up faster than you can build the shield and bases both. If you can still build a missile base before the shield once you have the tech, that makes the trade much more attractive (though like you, I'd still be unsure of it and would have to give it more thought).
Apologies, think I might have gotten a bit defensive initially. I... well, currently I've run out of some of my meds and it's definitely affecting things in strange and exciting ways unfortunately. I do think getting it building small bombers would be the best use of it once it's up, and it probably doesn't need too much in the way of defences with the fleet nearby, but I'd also not been rallying stuff directly there because I wanted the fleets to get to merge together sooner rather than later. With current military tech, a single base renders it immortal to meklonar fleets, so I feel like getting a single one for absolute defence vs a fleet that has to stay there and could theoretically not be enough would be preferable. It's also just that the easiest to make stuff will be the bombers, and the bombers are going to be outdated basically after the first invasion, and the larger ships will be outdated pretty quick as well. Then again, given all that it might actually be the best place to shipbuild from, because there's the lowest latency to the front line, so it can keep making ships that'll be useful for much longer than the rest of the empire. I still want to max pop! But, I'll understand if you don't.
Anyways, yeah you're totally correct about planetary shield poison pill, and given the aforementioned invulnerability provided by our current shields, we definitely shouldn't trade for them at this juncture.
Ugh, scratch everything about base immortality in that last post, I forgot that meklonar ships can have fusion bombs.
Also something else, I noticed that our spying on the bots is currently funded at a trickle, such that it'll take 2 years to get back a spy if they're lost, as opposed to just 1 year of spending, I think this was a holdover from the last set. I prefer to get spies up instantly as to avoid having to spend continually, so I'd advise switching it to either none or enough to replenish in a turn (if the latter, up the limit for how many spies we can have there to check how many years it would take).
(May 12th, 2024, 20:27)Dp101 Wrote: Ugh, scratch everything about base immortality in that last post, I forgot that meklonar ships can have fusion bombs.
Also something else, I noticed that our spying on the bots is currently funded at a trickle, such that it'll take 2 years to get back a spy if they're lost, as opposed to just 1 year of spending, I think this was a holdover from the last set. I prefer to get spies up instantly as to avoid having to spend continually, so I'd advise switching it to either none or enough to replenish in a turn (if the latter, up the limit for how many spies we can have there to check how many years it would take).
If you set your Spy Network limit to 1 for an enemy empire, then spending for that network will stop automatically after the first network is created, and will restart automatically if that network is captured.
Theoretically, you should be able to set the number of spy networks you want against an enemy and the rate at which you're willing to spend, and then never have to adjust the spending slider again.
(May 12th, 2024, 20:27)Dp101 Wrote: Ugh, scratch everything about base immortality in that last post, I forgot that meklonar ships can have fusion bombs.
Also something else, I noticed that our spying on the bots is currently funded at a trickle, such that it'll take 2 years to get back a spy if they're lost, as opposed to just 1 year of spending, I think this was a holdover from the last set. I prefer to get spies up instantly as to avoid having to spend continually, so I'd advise switching it to either none or enough to replenish in a turn (if the latter, up the limit for how many spies we can have there to check how many years it would take).
If you set your Spy Network limit to 1 for an enemy empire, then spending for that network will stop automatically after the first network is created, and will restart automatically if that network is captured.
Theoretically, you should be able to set the number of spy networks you want against an enemy and the rate at which you're willing to spend, and then never have to adjust the spending slider again.
I know, that's what I do most of the time, I'm just saying that when doing that, I try to set the level to return to when a spy is captured to be one where it only takes a single turn to get a new spy in, and the current one is below that. However, it seems most here favour more cautious playstyles with less constantly spying on everyone at all times, which is why I said that dropping it to none would also be fine. Though this is making me notice that I failed to specify that the upping of the limit to check years to infiltrate another should be temporary, we don't want 2 spies if we're not actually stealing.
(For what it's worth you didn't sound defensive to me; I just mentioned my initial plan in too off-hand a manner, and then it took another iteration to communicate where we agreed and disagreed. Anyway, I'm planning to do way crazier things than either growing or not-growing population for the factories on a key forward colony! I do have a plan, but ... welllll ... we'll have to see what happens!) As for the rest:
(May 12th, 2024, 20:27)Dp101 Wrote: Ugh, scratch everything about base immortality in that last post, I forgot that meklonar ships can have fusion bombs.
Understood. And: I'm on it. (Insofar as I can be.)
Quote:I prefer to get spies up instantly as to avoid having to spend continually, so I'd advise switching it to either none or enough to replenish in a turn (if the latter, up the limit for how many spies we can have there to check how many years it would take).
Understood! And...
(May 12th, 2024, 23:36)Dp101 Wrote: However, it seems most here favour more cautious playstyles with less constantly spying on everyone at all times, which is why I said that dropping it to none would also be fine.
Heheheheheheheh ... cautious, yes. (Ahem)
Inherited Turn Report, T150:
Tessith Deployment Center, either 1122 or 2450 or 2449, depending on who you ask
I hate election years. The outgoing leader of our conclave is skilled and competent, and though she was preparing us for the inevitable war against the machines, she prepared wisely, with careful measures planned and executed in an effective, orderly fashion. Nobody's perfect, but with good fundamental planning like hers, victory is achievable even if there are oversights here and there. I was looking forward to another decade under leadership like hers - and instead, no doubt because of all the anti-robot sentiment resonating everywhere, we got a card-carrying loon. (The card our new leader carries, as far as I can tell, just says, "Death to Machines" in fifty-point bold-face print.)
So here we are. The drill sergeant is telling all of us to listen up, calling us a bunch of hatchlings, swearing every second word, so it can't be anything important. She says there's a war on, which is technically true: There's a war on between the Meklonar and the Hive that has nothing to do with us except for the Oviraptorians who claimed their home system when the Hive wiped out all the cyber-creatures in the colony and decided they didn't want it after all. I don't suppose that's exactly what the drill sergeant means, but if I'm right about what she does mean, then it may not be long before we and the xenophobic interstellar Hive turn out to be best buddies.
The sergeant's rate of cursing has grown to two words of every three, so this is really not important at all, and I let my mind wander again.
Of course I shouldn't be here. I'm a starship engineer, and the army's only real use for me is putting together space support ships to keep them alive while their transports are dropping into realspace and making a run for the surface of an enemy colony. Our crazy new leader's directives say we all have to go through basic training though, and I couldn't find a loop-hole to slither out through in time, so here I am, but if anybody invades us here, I'm not going to be any use to anyone fighting on the ground. If that ever happens, it'll probably be because I'm wasting time down here instead of working in the spaceyards to build better ships and keep the invasion from landing in the first place. And we need better ships. There are six active designs in space for us already, but half of them are still crawling across space at warp 2, a third of them are colony ships with nowhere to go, and one, the oldest in our fleet, is for a bunch of long-range destroyers with nothing to aboard them but a cockpit, nuclear engines, lots of fuel, and three little lasers each. So the new administration isn't doing everything wrong at least: It's sending those lasers and all the colony ships to the scrapyard, which should save us over fifty billion credits annually while more than doubling the resources we have available to help out our new ships and colonies. More importantly, as far as I'm concerned, they're clearing room for a whole new set of designs. You can understand why I want to be up in the spaceyards right now!
There's going to be a new destroyer - not to replace those laser boats, since we'd do that with a fighter hull if we did it at all - mounting a battle scanner to scope enemy fleets, but also built to stand in a fight, hitting and running in support of real combat ships. It might have been better to just stick a laser on it and let it run away as soon as it scanned an enemy fleet - or leave it unarmed if that would let it scan the enemy without ever closing to combat range - but the loon in charge of our military wanted to try out some tactical gameslizardship, so here we are. Its twin ion cannons have excellent targeting, and it can dodge like a maniac in more ways than one with its stabilizer system and maxed-out maneuverability, but it remains to be seen if that's really going to help with anything. The Tempest is someone's ridiculous dream of a warship that'll never actually be built if I have anything to say about it, just because I'm hoping for better technology before we sink any real time into something that big, but the Splitter is the real thing: An alternative to the Sweepers, designed for precision attacks, with a top-flight battle computer to outwit enemy ECM, at the cost of a higher ticket price and a smidge of maneuverability. Sweepers can hopefully go in hard in giant swarms, dodging anything the enemy throws at them, while these Splitters split the enemy's fire, take bigger risks but ultimately ripping up at least as many missile bases just by missing a whole lot less. We'll see how it works in practice; machine ships could cause some serious trouble for either of these, and especially the Splitters. We'll be counting on the Glitchers and perhaps a secondary space superiority design to handle the Dominion's fleets. These new Monitor destroyers will be critical for that purpose though: Even if they never fire a shot in anger, they're our best chance to find out what we're up against before the real battle begins! Our best chance - but not the only one, fortunately!
We still have an agent in enemy space, as well as one monitoring the birds, so our information there should already be up to date, but the new head lizard in charge, being - as mentioned - a complete lunatic, has decided to place agents everywhere else as well! Admittedly, our reports on the rocks and bugs are ten to fifteen years out of date, but the argument that "the Mentarianites are crazy anyway and the Ape creatures are weak!" - and that "We might as well try to steal from the xenophobes since they'll hate us even more if we hide" is hardly an explanation for ensuring we have an agent everywhere and trying to steal everyone's technology ... especially since, much to my chagrine (I want so much to get some new technology to help design a really state-of-the-art ship for the fleet!) nobody's doing any research anymore, except apparently at Avantador, the lone, poor world that's neither building any starships nor still terraforming.
At least the few researchers we do have are working on things that might make our designs better sometime soon, but I was hoping for a much bigger push, from most of our developed worlds, before ... before...
What even is this? Maybe whatever the drill sergeant was saying was important after all? Thank the dragons on high, I'm staying behind here at Tessith as planned, heading up to the shipyards to get to work, but more than a fifth of the population is shipping out to Barroth, directly away from the front for some reason! That planet is already fully populated, we're leaving factories idle here on Tessith, and it looks like more transports and fleets are heading out - though none of them nearly as numerous as from here - all over our part of the galaxy! This can't possibly make sense! Is the new administration just experimenting with things? Or is there some kind of a wild, ridiculous, over-stretching plan that's sure to go horribly wrong for all of us?
...
It's that one, isn't it? Oh, dear. There was a plan for our first invasion already - and it was a good one, even if the target wasn't chosen comletely for sure! What exactly is the new administration trying to do here? And what makes them think it's going to work? We may very well regret whatever this is before this is over....
Conclave Military Strategic Command Wrote:Ready on 3...
So, uh, GOT IT! I haven't hit "Next Turn" yet, but ... I apologize in advance. Remember how I said my last turn set was complicated, and it was largely my fault? Well, it's going to be another of those ... but maybe squared.
(May 13th, 2024, 01:57)RefSteel Wrote: (For what it's worth you didn't sound defensive to me; I just mentioned my initial plan in too off-hand a manner, and then it took another iteration to communicate where we agreed and disagreed. Anyway, I'm planning to do way crazier things than either growing or not-growing population for the factories on a key forward colony! I do have a plan, but ... welllll ... we'll have to see what happens!) As for the rest:
(May 12th, 2024, 20:27)Dp101 Wrote: Ugh, scratch everything about base immortality in that last post, I forgot that meklonar ships can have fusion bombs.
Understood. And: I'm on it. (Insofar as I can be.)
Quote:I prefer to get spies up instantly as to avoid having to spend continually, so I'd advise switching it to either none or enough to replenish in a turn (if the latter, up the limit for how many spies we can have there to check how many years it would take).
Understood! And...
(May 12th, 2024, 23:36)Dp101 Wrote: However, it seems most here favour more cautious playstyles with less constantly spying on everyone at all times, which is why I said that dropping it to none would also be fine.
Heheheheheheheh ... cautious, yes. (Ahem)
Inherited Turn Report, T150:
Tessith Deployment Center, either 1122 or 2450 or 2449, depending on who you ask
I hate election years. The outgoing leader of our conclave is skilled and competent, and though she was preparing us for the inevitable war against the machines, she prepared wisely, with careful measures planned and executed in an effective, orderly fashion. Nobody's perfect, but with good fundamental planning like hers, victory is achievable even if there are oversights here and there. I was looking forward to another decade under leadership like hers - and instead, no doubt because of all the anti-robot sentiment resonating everywhere, we got a card-carrying loon. (The card our new leader carries, as far as I can tell, just says, "Death to Machines" in fifty-point bold-face print.)
So here we are. The drill sergeant is telling all of us to listen up, calling us a bunch of hatchlings, swearing every second word, so it can't be anything important. She says there's a war on, which is technically true: There's a war on between the Meklonar and the Hive that has nothing to do with us except for the Oviraptorians who claimed their home system when the Hive wiped out all the cyber-creatures in the colony and decided they didn't want it after all. I don't suppose that's exactly what the drill sergeant means, but if I'm right about what she does mean, then it may not be long before we and the xenophobic interstellar Hive turn out to be best buddies.
The sergeant's rate of cursing has grown to two words of every three, so this is really not important at all, and I let my mind wander again.
Of course I shouldn't be here. I'm a starship engineer, and the army's only real use for me is putting together space support ships to keep them alive while their transports are dropping into realspace and making a run for the surface of an enemy colony. Our crazy new leader's directives say we all have to go through basic training though, and I couldn't find a loop-hole to slither out through in time, so here I am, but if anybody invades us here, I'm not going to be any use to anyone fighting on the ground. If that ever happens, it'll probably be because I'm wasting time down here instead of working in the spaceyards to build better ships and keep the invasion from landing in the first place. And we need better ships. There are six active designs in space for us already, but half of them are still crawling across space at warp 2, a third of them are colony ships with nowhere to go, and one, the oldest in our fleet, is for a bunch of long-range destroyers with nothing to aboard them but a cockpit, nuclear engines, lots of fuel, and three little lasers each. So the new administration isn't doing everything wrong at least: It's sending those lasers and all the colony ships to the scrapyard, which should save us over fifty billion credits annually while more than doubling the resources we have available to help out our new ships and colonies. More importantly, as far as I'm concerned, they're clearing room for a whole new set of designs. You can understand why I want to be up in the spaceyards right now!
There's going to be a new destroyer - not to replace those laser boats, since we'd do that with a fighter hull if we did it at all - mounting a battle scanner to scope enemy fleets, but also built to stand in a fight, hitting and running in support of real combat ships. It might have been better to just stick a laser on it and let it run away as soon as it scanned an enemy fleet - or leave it unarmed if that would let it scan the enemy without ever closing to combat range - but the loon in charge of our military wanted to try out some tactical gameslizardship, so here we are. Its twin ion cannons have excellent targeting, and it can dodge like a maniac in more ways than one with its stabilizer system and maxed-out maneuverability, but it remains to be seen if that's really going to help with anything. The Tempest is someone's ridiculous dream of a warship that'll never actually be built if I have anything to say about it, just because I'm hoping for better technology before we sink any real time into something that big, but the Splitter is the real thing: An alternative to the Sweepers, designed for precision attacks, with a top-flight battle computer to outwit enemy ECM, at the cost of a higher ticket price and a smidge of maneuverability. Sweepers can hopefully go in hard in giant swarms, dodging anything the enemy throws at them, while these Splitters split the enemy's fire, take bigger risks but ultimately ripping up at least as many missile bases just by missing a whole lot less. We'll see how it works in practice; machine ships could cause some serious trouble for either of these, and especially the Splitters. We'll be counting on the Glitchers and perhaps a secondary space superiority design to handle the Dominion's fleets. These new Monitor destroyers will be critical for that purpose though: Even if they never fire a shot in anger, they're our best chance to find out what we're up against before the real battle begins! Our best chance - but not the only one, fortunately!
We still have an agent in enemy space, as well as one monitoring the birds, so our information there should already be up to date, but the new head lizard in charge, being - as mentioned - a complete lunatic, has decided to place agents everywhere else as well! Admittedly, our reports on the rocks and bugs are ten to fifteen years out of date, but the argument that "the Mentarianites are crazy anyway and the Ape creatures are weak!" - and that "We might as well try to steal from the xenophobes since they'll hate us even more if we hide" is hardly an explanation for ensuring we have an agent everywhere and trying to steal everyone's technology ... especially since, much to my chagrine (I want so much to get some new technology to help design a really state-of-the-art ship for the fleet!) nobody's doing any research anymore, except apparently at Avantador, the lone, poor world that's neither building any starships nor still terraforming.
At least the few researchers we do have are working on things that might make our designs better sometime soon, but I was hoping for a much bigger push, from most of our developed worlds, before ... before...
What even is this? Maybe whatever the drill sergeant was saying was important after all? Thank the dragons on high, I'm staying behind here at Tessith as planned, heading up to the shipyards to get to work, but more than a fifth of the population is shipping out to Barroth, directly away from the front for some reason! That planet is already fully populated, we're leaving factories idle here on Tessith, and it looks like more transports and fleets are heading out - though none of them nearly as numerous as from here - all over our part of the galaxy! This can't possibly make sense! Is the new administration just experimenting with things? Or is there some kind of a wild, ridiculous, over-stretching plan that's sure to go horribly wrong for all of us?
...
It's that one, isn't it? Oh, dear. There was a plan for our first invasion already - and it was a good one, even if the target wasn't chosen comletely for sure! What exactly is the new administration trying to do here? And what makes them think it's going to work? We may very well regret whatever this is before this is over....
Conclave Military Strategic Command Wrote:Ready on 3...
So, uh, GOT IT! I haven't hit "Next Turn" yet, but ... I apologize in advance. Remember how I said my last turn set was complicated, and it was largely my fault? Well, it's going to be another of those ... but maybe squared.
Hey, I did say most favoured more cautious playstyles, I made no claims as to what degree that was true for individuals :P
Anyways, I very much approve of everything you're doing.... mostly, I have no idea what on earth the Bevruth plan is but I'm excited to find out! The mass spying is the kind of thing I like doing all the time in my own playthroughs, I just feel like in a SG I should be more responsible, but I'm very happy to see not everyone is as cowardly as me lol. The tempest looks neat, and the splitter is an interesting idea, and... looking at the viability of it is showing me that apparently somehow the Sweeper never ended up with the BC1 I was 100% sure I put on it??? So they're far less effective than I hoped???????????? Goddammit.. Feel free to never make another one ever again ;-;
It looks like some...interesting...preparations there, RefSteel. That screenshot with all the lines -- this is like an ink blot test, right? Everyone sees something different.
I am certainly learning a lot from seeing how other people handle things in RotP. I need to rethink how I treat spying, and also diplomacy and trading. In MOO I was very cautious about both. RotP allows for some different approaches, and I need to learn to make better use of them.
That screenshot with all the lines -- this is like an ink blot test, right? Everyone sees something different. 