After much discussion among the members of the Sovereignty, an anxious bird finds himself unexpectedly entrusted with leadership. Critical decisions that will shape the future of the people must be made. In order to continue to expand, a bold (some would say reckless) assault half way across the galaxy must be attempted. The previous leader has prepared extensively, building war fleets and simulating possible outcomes. After reviewing the plans, the order is given: the war fleets set out to attack the single Cryslonoid world barely within extended range of our ships. More ships wills follow next year, and still more will be built and sent in years to come. Hopefully this great undertaking will succeed; failure could have dire diplomatic consequences.
This much stress is bad for any bird; prematurely molted feathers are scattered around the office. But the decision is made; now comes years of waiting to see if it pays off.
Many things begin to happen all at once. Our scientists achieve a breakthrough, improving our ability to control factories to four per assigned work group. Options for continued research include a more advanced space scanner and improved ECM Jamming tech, but even better factory controls (5 per working group) are chosen. Production is power, and this is also the only choice which will unlock additonal options for future research.
Refitting of existing factories does not begin yet; research teams believe they are close to a breakthrough which will reduce factory construction costs significantly. Hopefully the scientists are correct and this new advance is achieved soon.
Our spies are also busy this year. One particularly bold agent penetrates a Cryslonoid weapons tech facility, steaaling the (sadly obsolete) secrets of Hyper-X rockets. Still, our own scientists insist there are still things to be learned from such older technologies which will assist in miniaturizing our own weapons. So this is welcome news. Less welcome are reports from other spies that the Cyrslonoids have developed ECM Jammer IV tech, and the Mentarans Auto Blaster weapons. Our galactic rivals are already extremely dangerous; even more tech in their hands and pseudopods is not good news.
T131
More ships are dispatched to the target rock world, timed to arrive together with the bomber fleets.
Research priorities are adjusted, putting more emphasis on planetology. Advanced soil enrichment will allow us to grow our worlds larger, more easily.
T132
Our spies break into a human research lab. Many fascinating projects might be taken, but we get the soon to be obsolete Industrial Tech 8.
(The humans have Industrial Tech 5, which would have been a huge gain.) Still, tech is tech.
Our rivals continue developing worrisome new technology. The rocks develop warp dissapator; hopefully they will not have time to deploy it before our fleets arrive. The humans gains ECM Jammer IV and Auto Blaster, presumably in trade from their allies. The brains develop cloaking devices.
T133
Our spies steal Gatling Laser from the rocks. Tiny steps towards tiny weapons.
Next year our fleets will arrive at the target rock world. Will this risky attack succeed?
T134
Disaster! The rocks move a sizable fleet into orbit at the target planet.
4 Feldspars, 4 Magmas, and 23 Granites -- far beyond our ability to defeat, not even counting the two bases. Our pilots retreat without fighting. Diplomacy with the rocks will take a hit, but everyone can pretend we were not about to attack.
In better news, Industrial Tech 6 and Ion Stream Projector both complete. Armored Exoskelton is chosen over Industrial Tech 5, and Hard Beams are chosen to advance weapons research and further miniaturize less advanced weapons.
Our fleets will regroup, but this will take several years. The new factory tech will be used to build industry throughout the sovereignty. Perhaps a future leader will be able to find a way to advance the people militarily. The current effort has failed.
Our spies report the humans have developed Ion Drives, and the brains have developed Cloning.
T135
Our spies report the humans have learned advanced soil enrichment, andrium armor, and cloning. The Brains have learned anti matter torpedoes.
T136
The brains learn ion drives; the rocks learn Controlled Inferno.
T137
Disaster! A computer virus wipes out all our progress on Ion Drives research.
Thousands of BCs, lost.
Our spies manage to steal Nuclear Engines from the cats, for a little miniaturization.
T138
The brains develop Class 7 deflectors.
The bugs develop class 3 deflectors and zortrium.
Our rich and ultra rich worlds have finished maxing out the new factories. I design a new long range fighter, the Swift ER4.1. It is similar to the Swift ER4.0 but has a mark 3 BC rather than the mark 1; miniaturization is useful. We could go with two NPGs and no computer, but better accuracy seems more useful. Maybe a future leader will be able to do something with these; at least I will try to set up the possibility, rather than having rich and ultra rich worlds doing research.
The brains develop BC 7.
The humans now have advanced soil enrichment and deflectors 7.
T139
Increase our trade deal with the humans by a big step, to 1350 BC/year. Good relations are important, given how powerful they are.
T140
Our spies steal Range 5 tech (deuterium cells) from the brains. They detect the steal and are quite upset; their ambassador gives us a warning.
Our spies also steal Hard Beam from the rocks.
This allows us to choose a new project. I select Auto Blasters to advance the tree, but this can still be changed this turn.
And that is it for this turn set. We acquired some tech and built a lot of factories, but not much else.
Notes for the next leader:
We have a sizable fleet of long range fighters accumulating at our artifacts world (just for the central location) and a force of regular range ships at the asteroid field system. You can try again with the rocks, go after the bugs, hit the cats, or whatever else seems useful. If you build more bombers, it is probably a good idea to update designs first. We have gotten a fair bit of tech for miniaturization since the current design.
Some of our planets have finished maxing factories, the rest should complete soon.
Our overall situation is looking pretty dire.
We have the most pop in the galaxy, with the brains second. (They have passed the rocks.) They are shown as having twice our production somehow, despite not having better factory controls than we do and lower pop. No idea how that happens. But they and the humans are running away in tech.
Sorry things did not work out better. Good luck!