Remnants Succession Game 02 - In Our Own Talons

[Fenn]

190 or however long you feel like playing up to that, imo.

[haphazard1]

190 or however long you feel like playing up to that, imo.

Sounds good to me. I don't think a war with the shifters will take that long, but they do have a lot of ships. No idea how they can afford that fleet, with so few planets.

Good luck, Dp101! And thanks for taking over.

[RefSteel]

I'm with the rest of the team:  Playing to T190 is fine, but if you reach a point before then where you'd rather stop and hand off to the next player (whether because you feel like it's a good in-game stopping point or because real-life stuff so dictates) that'll work just as well too.

Haphazard, good luck with the real-life stuff; I hope it turns out to be a good kind of busy - and has positive outcomes completely unrelated to galactic conquest!  (Also, thanks for recognizing the situation (better than I do sometimes!) and passing the save along!)

Roster:
- haphazard1 (just played)
- Dp101 (Up Now!)
- Fenn (on deck)
- RefSteel
- Brian Shanahan (skip through July 12th)

[Dp101]

This is a partial report, up through turn 182, it'll be continued later tonight. Just had to stop for the moment, I'm still planning on playing on to 190.

---

Ok, things have been a bit hectic myself hence the radio silence, but can play now. Our empire looks lovely as expected, and by that I mean visually it's a mess, but it's a mess because we've been conquering all over the place, which I can accept. The new ion-powered toys we have, Terminal Vs with dual antimatter bombs and surgeons with mass drivers, really are a sight to behold (incidentally I go looking for opposing shield tech to evaluate whether dual NPGs would have been better and am immediately reminded of the horrifying human shielding, as it turns out mass drivers are indeed superior vs any relevant race) and it'll be fun using them to spread joy to the shapeshifters. Speaking of, their designs actually approach relevant:

Ok yes, 5 packs are awful, but BC V + scanner + the innate +3 of stingers gives them 9 attack to our 13 defence, they're might actually be going to *hit* something, amazing. A whole 10% to hit, fully twice that of what I'm used to! And there's 92 of that design around one of their worlds, though the most common ship type is the still-unknown Phantom. I send a scanner to investigate, holding off on any offence for now. I *badly* wish star gates had already popped, because with an empire that spans the galaxy, even with the new Ion engines the latency with any new ships is absurd. We are pretty close though, I shuffle some research around, even as I significantly hurt our research capacity after noticing a good chunk of our core worlds never upgraded to new factories and/or never remaxed after going gaia, our capital at least really should fix that, as at this rate our conquests are starting to outstrip our core. Not Kholdan though, as that's set to research with 83 factories.. this isn't intended as a dig at anyone, I'm just kinda shocked to see some of this. But like with a lot of economic development this game, it's just my personal style clashing with others it seems.

Still, even if some economying needs to be done, our rich worlds are fully operational and so are our cutting-edge designs, so they can just sit around making large amounts of them to send through the stargates whenever that tech arrives. I also give all our rich worlds orange flags to make them easier to find, though typically it's easy to select them by clicking fleets and sorting by whether they have rally points, but none currently do so that's ineffective. Given that they'd take 4-6 years to send without star gates, I do rally the first couple of waves across as they should arrive well before any star gates would be completed. I hit end turn, awaiting news.

T175 dawns and we get a full scan of the new designs - the Wraith has 11 scatter Vs along with a BC VI + battle scanner (and yes, they are 5-racks because of course they are) and the Phantom is largely a bomber/scanner with some scatter packs as well. These scanners seem to be present on every combat ship used by the shapeshifters, and are quite annoying. I retreat, humans want even more trade (yes please don't kill us) and it's back to relaxing peaceful economic development... ok fine, 400 new warships isn't very peaceful, but if you're not the ones being bombed then it always counts as peacetime! Even though the new designs won't be here for a while, I stage some of our current fleet closer to their rich world, as 1.5k ships should be able to achieve at least *something*, it just won't be as pretty.

My heart stops between turns, as I see the assassination event pop up and the humans are involved... but it's the poor lizards who are the victims here. A tragedy, but not our tragedy.

We steal ion cannons from the shapeshifters t180, but get caught. I don't especially care, our worlds are finishing maxing and star gates are at 15%. The first of our new generation of ships is arriving at the front lines, I'll send them off the turn after this one, starting the transports this turn.

The grabbag launches:

I really do not have a great sense for how this is going to go tbh. A large part of why I wanted to do this variant is because I always use almost entirely huge autorepair designs past the earlygame, and wanted to change that, but as a result I don't really have expectations for how easy/hard things will be. The cats were backwards and trivial, but I haven't had a military turnset since then.

Anyways, the battle. Our new bombers take out 18 of 38 bases in a single round of 2 bombing runs, while around 800 scatter pack missiles are sent after our older designs.. I do get both the old and new stack clipped by one set of missiles, but that only takes out 13 new bombers and 23 old ones, which is pretty damn sad. Still, 5% of 5 is more than 10% of 1 so they're still correct to use scatter packs over stingers, it's just awful for them either way.

What *isn't* so awful for them is the ground combat - between when I launched the invasion and when it hit they went from -10 relative ground combat to +0, and when you factor in the +5 for being the defender, it turns out I needed to send much more force than I did, and the world is left with 10 remaining troops. This'll only save them a single turn, but it's still annoying. The turn after the invasion grabs all their techs, merc missiles, a graviton beam, and a gauss autocannon? where on earth did they get that?? Anyways, those are theoretically problematic but they have insufficient accuracy for any gun to be relevant. Our scientists wake up when they realise they have competition and star gates finally pop, I decide going from range 9 to 10 is probably worse than moving the tree forward with HEF. Leaving things there for next time, as another of their worlds will fall - on schedule this time!

(slight addendum, I remember to sign peace with the lizards and somehow they're willing to tech trade, offering scatter pack VIIs for any of ion drives, IRCV, or advanced soil enrichment, I figure they can have the engines as they'll never be a threat again.)

[RefSteel]

But like with a lot of economic development this game, it's just my personal style clashing with others it seems.

I think that may have been true in the past, but in this case, I don't think it's personal style so much as a very unusual situation: When you took over the save, we'd only had RC5 for seven turns, and had been able to terraform up to our worlds' new pop caps even more recently than that - and you inherited the game immediately after an election we had known would be close and dangerous for decades! So Haphazard and I had both spent those few turns pushing population (including conquests) as hard as we could to achieve a veto - successfully, but with only one vote to spare! - which left very little opportunity to industrialize, because factories don't vote! (Also because so many birds were flying out in transports on these turns that any factories we built would have sat idle in the meantime anyway!)

I did max all four of our special-resource worlds and build facs in the Kholdan sector when immediate urgencies (mostly growing pop close to our immediate targets) didn't dictate otherwise, and I'm pretty sure Haphazard would have built even more factories than both of us combined already did if life events had permitted continuing the turns past the vote. Of course that doesn't change the fact you're right that we have different playstyles, and I hope you've enjoyed sometimes getting to play from a position you would never normally occupy in your on games as much as (in a different direction) I have!

In any case, it sounds like a great start to the set; I look forward to seeing what you can do with the rest!

[Dp101]

But like with a lot of economic development this game, it's just my personal style clashing with others it seems.

I think that may have been true in the past, but in this case, I don't think it's personal style so much as a very unusual situation: When you took over the save, we'd only had RC5 for seven turns, and had been able to terraform up to our worlds' new pop caps even more recently than that - and you inherited the game immediately after an election we had known would be close and dangerous for decades! So Haphazard and I had both spent those few turns pushing population (including conquests) as hard as we could to achieve a veto - successfully, but with only one vote to spare! - which left very little opportunity to industrialize, because factories don't vote! (Also because so many birds were flying out in transports on these turns that any factories we built would have sat idle in the meantime anyway!)

I did max all four of our special-resource worlds and build facs in the Kholdan sector when immediate urgencies (mostly growing pop close to our immediate targets) didn't dictate otherwise, and I'm pretty sure Haphazard would have built even more factories than both of us combined already did if life events had permitted continuing the turns past the vote. Of course that doesn't change the fact you're right that we have different playstyles, and I hope you've enjoyed sometimes getting to play from a position you would never normally occupy in your on games as much as (in a different direction) I have!

In any case, it sounds like a great start to the set; I look forward to seeing what you can do with the rest!

Mm, I did think the situational effects of prepping for the council were affecting things, but without seeing the turn by turn it's hard to really get my head around how/why things end up in the precise ways that they did. Basically every world is remaxed now though. And I've definitely appreciated getting to experience the game from positions I'd personally avoid.

[Dp101]

Ok, continuing turn 183. Offence is clearly working out, economy is working out, now it's just to build the stargates - the rich/UR worlds can do it in 2-3 turns but the best frontline ish one can only do 4, so I use some reserve spending to help it along. Other than that, just gotta end turn, fleets already lined up. Oh, and I back off propulsion spending now that it's on a much lower priority tech.

Adorn has a new, unknown ship orbiting it, the Shade. 4 of them launched 60 missiles for 15 missiles apiece, assuming they're Stingers as a result since that's not a lot of missile tubes and they didn't shoot, but they seem slightly too slow for that, so I guess it's a bomber. Anyways, they kill nothing, and the landing troops discover that somehow the shapeshifters acquired shiny new personal barrier shields, which they swiftly steal directly off of the still-warm corpses. The scatter pack VII deal also comes in.

I get scanners on the Shade and it's indeed running around with scatter packs, 14 of them, which is.. weird. I let this stack of 9 take a shot and once again 15 missiles come out. I wonder if it's just firing one piece of its 4/4/3/3 setup?? That would be wildly awful tactics, so I very much hope so.

I forget to send the requisite overkill to Nazin, so only 3 billion of our troops survive the conquest, but any nonzero result is good enough. We steal a biotoxin antidote, and the scientists come through with a hand phasor, offering next either disruptors, pulse phasors, or hellfire torps... the pulse phasor only takes 120 power to fit instead of 160 of the disruptor, so it seems best when it comes to theoretical usability (and don't even consider the 350 of the torpedo...) even though it's likely to never be a possibility.

Turn 186 sees troops sent to the last non-zoo shapeshifter world of Harnen, and between turns the rocks get a world irradiated, which is amusing to me given how little they theoretically care (even though by this point really no empire cares), and andrium comes in, only option to advance the tree is powered armour, so I pick it over reduced waste 20%, I figure the more direct conquest acceleration is more useful.

There's been a lack of pictures, so I figure commemorating the last meaningful battle we'll fight vs the shifters is a fine inclusion:

Anyways it's at this juncture that I realise we had an outpost in the far north (Ixlu) that I'd entirely missed out on industrialising, which is problematic since I noticed it when looking for the most critical places to build a stargate. I sign peace with the shifters, with the entire war having lasted about 6 turns (first invasion fully sent t181, peace signed t188) which seems about right for lategame warfare. I could have pushed an even more aggressive schedule, but I wanted to be sure, and now we have 4 new lovely worlds, including one that's artifacts. This would be a somewhat decent stopping point in that it's a point where the next player can pivot to the next target, but I figure whoever that is would a. have no choice but the rocks for who to go after and b. would spend the first couple turns doing what I'm about to do, pure consolidation and stargate building, so I'm going to play up to 190 to result in a bit more of a primed position. And basically nothing happens the last couple turns other than building more stuff.

Overview screenshots, one far away and another focused on the imminent theatre:

Notes:

Ixlu had been getting reserve-powered industrialisation but I switched it over to building a stargate immediately because it's definitely going to be faster this way. It's by far the best point of access to the entirety of the north.

In terms of fleet distribution, Kaxuinic happened to be the best place to build the first eastern stargate, so it's the current rally point. Remaining forces are largely split between conquered worlds that haven't built shields yet, but basically all of them are quite close to at least one rock world so the forces are effectively already usable. Harnen would be another good place for a stargate, but it'll be a few turns before that's viable. Scanners are close enough to tap Herder immediately, but I didn't want to poke the bear and immediately hand over the consequences, there's still nothing forcing you to fight them.

A huge amount of tech is in the percentages, it might not be unreasonable to design a new ship once it all comes in. We could fit 3 antimatter bombs on a small currently, and 2 omega V bombs is achievable if computers are dropped to mark III, but it's at the point where a little more miniaturisation could get just enough space to manage it, and against class 15 shields it's more damage - each antimatter bomb averages 10, and an omega V averages 20, which is pretty damn nice. I can't see a similarly bright future for our fighters though, because of how power doesn't miniaturise and beam weapons being way more power-hungry than bombs, we're still stuck at either 2 NPGs, 1 mass driver, or 1 graviton beam... or 1 2-rack stinger, which sounds quite fun. Damage output felt a bit anaemic in the last war, hence the suggestions.

Monte Arenoso could use the customary reserve help for remaxing factories, but it's not the highest priority.


Anyways, feeling good! It's very fun dancing around missiles endlessly.

[haphazard1]

Looks like nice turns, Dp101. The shifters have been restricted to a one planet empire, lots of factories and ships and stargates have been built, and new tech was acquired. Good stuff.

As RefSteel wrote, I was mostly focused on gaia upgrades and pop growth during my shortened turn set. Good to see the factories getting built, if a bit later than they might have been. Sorry about that one planet in the north, I completely missed that place.

The rocks will be a bigger project to conquer than the lizards or shifters were. But with our newer designs it should be possible. Two omega Vs on a small hull. That is a lot of miniaturization.

Good luck to Fenn with the next stage of our birds taking control of the galaxy. And hopefully Brian is having a good time during his break.

[Dp101]

Looks like nice turns, Dp101. The shifters have been restricted to a one planet empire, lots of factories and ships and stargates have been built, and new tech was acquired. Good stuff.

As RefSteel wrote, I was mostly focused on gaia upgrades and pop growth during my shortened turn set. Good to see the factories getting built, if a bit later than they might have been. Sorry about that one planet in the north, I completely missed that place.

The rocks will be a bigger project to conquer than the lizards or shifters were. But with our newer designs it should be possible. Two omega Vs on a small hull. That is a lot of miniaturization.

Good luck to Fenn with the next stage of our birds taking control of the galaxy. And hopefully Brian is having a good time during his break.

Oh to be clear, with the planet in the north, it was about the same stage of non-industrialised as 90% of the empire was, i.e. about 75% capacity. I was the one that missed it when I got all the others, not you, it wasn't exceptionally badly-off or anything when I looked at it.

Edit: Oh, one more thing, editing as to not double-post, there's some exciting tech trades around. The humans and the brains both badly want our star gates, the brains will offer any of cloaking/class VII deflectors/doom virus/terraforming +50, and the humans offer the same first 3 but ECM VI instead of terraforming. Cloaking and +60 are in the percentages so probably aren't great options, but class VII shields would be enticing - though incidentally, opening the techs to see what options we have informs me that personal barrier shield is apparently 2 whole generations beyond cloaking device, so we can see a lot of options for research, class XV planetaries or stasis field or class XIII shields. Not sure how/if that last bit changes anything regarding trades, but it sure exists. Personally I'd consider the ECM for scanning purposes and the deflectors for an immediate upgrade, but at the same time handing either of those empires star gates could be concerning. I'm glad the decision isn't up to me lol, all I have to do is leave things on the table.

[Fenn]

Got the save! I should get to this tomorrow night.

I am tempted to exchange Star Gates for ECM, because it would make future spying efforts easier and we might not have to fight the Alliance at all before the game's over. My current idea is to finish the techs in the percentages, build a new fleet and (maybe not in this order) hit the Cryslonoids and clinch a win at the council.