Remnants Succession Game 02 - In Our Own Talons

[Fenn]

I have the save; gonna try to play and report tonight - thank you for the detailed notes RefSteel, I sometimes feel at sea loading up a save, especially later on.

[Fenn]

This turned out to be a swift ten turns, and an uneventful one apart from an incident in the southeast...

First, I check in on our diplomatic situation. The Humans are willing to sign on to 400BC trade (up from 150BC), which I agree to, but nothing else stands out - some potential tech trades, but nothing advantageous.

Controlled Dead comes in on turn 84, signaling time to switch from tech to factory refitting on our big planets (Controlled Inferno and Controlled Radiated both open - I opt for Radiated); but more distressingly:


The cats are sending another fleet our way, inbound for Katsura! Thinking quickly, I finish construction of the missile base and rush 13 NPG-armed Talon fighters into production. The Fiershan fleet arrives and...retreats without a fight. I'm going to say my making the defenses significantly more imposing helped. Not much time to relax though, the cats send another force towards Hoshina, which likewise finishes its missile base and has the NPG flotilla relocated there. This second attack fleet too retreats rather than give battle, along with a third force of Catamounts, but if nothing else they've forced us to spend more on bases and ships than we had previously.

Still, our planets are intact and that's what matters. Duralloy Armor comes in on Turn 88 and we have the full suite to choose from:

Here again I go for the more expensive option - II7. Our fleets certainly have little use for Automated Repair systems!


Here's where we stand on Turn 90. I have some transports penciled in to top off Monteverde from its sandy brother, and a colony ship from Altair will arrive at Satake next turn (I would have had it built and sent sooner, but the Fiershan problem made me flustered enough to forget about it for a turn). Currently we have 25 NPG-armed fighters split between Hoshina and Katsura, but we may want to think about the defenses at Harada as well - based on their scout movements I suspect the cats have Range 6 tech and thus have that planet in striking distance.

Roster:
- RefSteel
- Fenn (done)
- haphazard1 (up!)
- Brian Shanahan (on deck)
- Dp101

  RSG-02-T90.zip (Size: 70.82 KB / Downloads: 2)

[RefSteel]

Good turns, Fenn! Good tech choices, good progress on new technology, along with sufficient defense and a good start on factory development with RC3 finished on Yonezu and getting close on Altair! It looks like you're right about Harad too: On your last image, there appears to be a Cat fleet already past the Hoshina line, on its way either to Nishi or to something in our core! We're going to have to do something about those kitties before too long.... By any chance, did we do any spying on them?

[haphazard1]

Looks like solid turns, Fenn.

OK, I have the save and should be able to play in the next 12 hours or so. A few thoughts after looking at our position:

- Started some spying on the cats to see what they have got. We need information, but active spying is likely to make relations even worse. Once BC3 finishes we might have better odds. Should we risk it? Xenophobic races hate spies, but the cats are pushing us already anyways.
- Shuffled tech priorities a bit, putting some extra clicks into Planetology as Controlled Radiated will give us some more worlds, including a rich and an ultra rich.
- Fenn already has a colony ship almost at Satake. Nothing else is available without more tech.
- Fusion bombs are in the percentages. What do we want after that? We have a bunch of choices. Better missiles for defense? Merculites and Stingers are available, with Stingers advancing the tree. Stronger beams? Many options, some advancing the tree and some not, but what could we fit on our hulls? Mass drivers, neutron blasters, graviton beams, and hard beams are all options.

[RefSteel]

Xenophobic races are weird in RotP: They get just as mad if they catch your spies hiding as they would if the spies were trying to sabotage your stuff, but I've never gotten a complaint when my spies were set on Espionage (bearing in mind that my sample size here is only my turns in our first SG!) - even when the spies were lost. (Presumably they'd be really upset if they caught us successfully stealing something!)

For our next weapons tech, I can see arguments for Stingers, Graviton Beam, or Anti-Matter Bombs. Nothing we tech next will immediately fit on a small hull, but AMBs or Grav beams should (hopefully) fit by the time we need the upgrade and Stingers will help our bases when enemy shields and/or maneuverability make our Scatter Packs obsolete in a way that Merculites mostly won't (apart from not advancing the tree). Basically, I'd rather be 2/3rdsish of the way to Stingers than have Mercs already in hand if that's what the choice comes down to. (Neutron blasters, mass drivers, and hard beams would all take too much miniaturization to fit anytime soon, I think, unless another advanced tech from someone else helps us leapfrog up the tree again after the blasters or MDs.)

[Dp101]

Really happy it looks like we're getting Satake after all that. Would have been terrible if my controlled dead mistake gave zero worlds lol. Really wish there was an easy way to check what will fit on a hull before we unlock it and how much miniaturisation we need to change that, I feel like in a modern game there'd be an online/out of game shipbuilder set up but even as a modernisation, this doesn't have quite the community for that I think. My preference in general is I think to advance the tree, I'm wondering if we might want to do more spying than normal specifically towards weapons to push up our tech level and push down their size. Regardless, Stingers sound good to me, I'm unconvinced by the beam upgrades at this tier.

Thinking about it in general, due to power never miniaturising and getting less efficient with more advanced engines, there might be some weapons we can never fit on a small hull. Hopefully it won't be an issue, but it might be.

[Fenn]

Well, it suddenly hit me this morning - I forgot to build put a Dead Colony Base on our colony ship design, so in fact Sataka will not be getting populated next turn. Sorry about that, total brainfart on my end!

[haphazard1]

I had not spotted that when I looked at the save. Fenn is correct, the Nest 3.0 design is a regular colony ship. I will have to create a new design and build it, so we will be delayed in getting the system.

Unless we want to replay the previous turns? Not sure how far back this happened, or if Fenn has a save from that point? Just go with it? How does the team want to handle it? Definitely just a mental blip, I have done similar things before in other games.

[Fenn]

Sadly I didn't make any mid-session saves - I could replay the whole thing but that would mean different timings on techs popping, diplo interactions, etc, and I don't think Sataka is crucial enough that we need it just now, so I say we roll with it.

[RefSteel]

Aye; I've done that several times. Once, I even built a fleet of hundreds of small bombers ... after somehow designing them with no bombs! I'd be inclined to just accept the few turns' delay and lost production (just a couple hundred BC compared to building reserves). It's not game-ruining, and I'm not sure what would justify reloading to a save from several turns ago just to correct an simple mistake. (I used to do this regularly before I discovered RB; living with my mistakes and welcoming the challenge of winning despite them was one of the many things I learned from reading here!)

[EDIT: Crossposted with Fenn]