OSG-31: Land of the Lounge Lizards

[Ianus]

Race: Sakkra
Difficulty: Impossible
Game Version: 1.04m
Galaxy Size: Medium
Opponents: 5
Color: Green

The goal of this game is to take control of the galactic council.  As the Sakkra we are rated Excellent in Planetology meaning that we can get controlled environments sooner and grow into our colonies faster.  Our goal should be to reach a veto block of votes as soon as possible, and to use all of our political analysis skills to read galactic diplomacy and take whatever steps we can to swing the vote in our favor, or at least against our enemies.

Starting save attached.  Report for 2300-2320 to follow.

[Ianus]

Attached is a report on the first 20 turns of our game.  I think that we are in a good position, but see for yourselves.  We have decent room to expand in the early going and can then focus on building up our empire before striking out against someone feathery.  Save attached.

Proposed Roster:
Ianus (just played)
haphazard1 (up next)
Psillycyber (on deck)
shallow_thought (lounging around this week, back on Monday)

note that this order is just a suggestion, and if any changes need to be made please don't hesitate to say so!

[RefSteel]

Lurking with interest! I'd have liked to join in as well, but I need to be more realistic about my actual available game-playing time than that. Looks like the nebulae and empty space around your start, plus Radiated Phyco, should make for some interesting fronts and logistical problems. Good luck leading the lounge lizards to victory!

[Ianus]

I wish you could join us Ref! You always come up with such great narratives! I totally understand about time management though. It feels like my available time has become a lot more dear lately, and I often struggle with the things that must be done vs the things I want to do.
Anyway I hope you are well!

[haphazard1]

Looks like you have gotten us off to a very solid start, Ianus. I have the save, and will try to play in the next day or so. (Hopefully this afternoon.)

Akari as neighbors again. What is it with those annoying birds, always causing trouble for us? Hopefully they did not get anything too useful from that artifact planet. A boring ECM tech or something maybe would be good.. But we will have to see.

We certainly have some lovely planets around our start. So I think my task is pretty clear: build up our homeworld and get busy cranking out colony ships to claim more worlds. The early planetology research gives us bigger planets and will help our clean up costs, but we need to catch up on maxing our home world. I will probably not push tech much other than the already begun eco research. We do not even need to go for range for a while, at least until we claim the available worlds.

Alkari to our east, Klackons somewhere that can access the middle of the galaxy...hmmm. I think at least two, maybe three AIs in the southeast quadrant of the galaxy just from looking at the yellows. No Psilons or Silicoids in this galaxy, so we should have a good shot at grabbing the more hostile planets with our excellent planetology research.

[Ianus]

Sounds like a solid plan haphazard1! How many planets can you colonize in fifteen turns?
A couple of things I didn't put in my report: all habitable worlds we can currently see are reachable with our default range, except for the Artifact planet. I can't tell exactly because of that stupid nebula but it looks like 4 parsecs to me. Something to think about on research.
Speaking of which Controlled Tundra is our only option at the next rung of planetology. I realized last night that I didn't include that screenshot in my report and didn't mention it.
So there you go. Go grab some planets!

[haphazard1]

I had wondered about the next rung of planetology, so thanks for mentioning that we have Controlled Tundra. We do have that one barren planet, but with Tundra as the only option in the next rung I think we skip Controlled Barren even though it would be cheap.

Not sure yet how many planets I can grab in 15 turns, but hopefully several. Need to see how fast our homeworld can turn out a colony ship. And of course this early all our ships are warp 1 so travel will take a while. I will need to keep an eye on what the birds do, also. I doubt we can keep them from all of these worlds, but we certainly want the majority of them for ourselves. No nasty feathery invaders of our territory! Scales for the win!

[Psillycyber]

Nice start! With such large planets on our frontline, I don't think it will be too hard to defend against our feathered friends.

Controlled Barren might not be a bad idea to grab after Improved Eco. You'd think it would be a waste, but it's so cheap for the Sakkra (210 BC, I think? And we likely won't end up paying that much due to the research interest mechanic), and it will actually boost our planetology tech level and noticeably increase our production +0.03 per population point if I recall correctly, so if we quickly get up to 200 population, that translates into an extra 6 production per turn. Plus, controlled barren colony ships are cheaper than controlled tundra ones, so we will save credits that way when colonizing the barren planet. Let's say we research it quickly, getting minimal benefit from the research interest mechanic, and end up paying 200 BC for controlled barren. Let's say it saves 50 BC on our colony ship for the barren planet. How long to pay back that remaining 150 BC? Extra production due to the higher planetology tech level would start out at 6 BC per turn and increase as we settle new planets, so let's say 8 BC per turn. You'd be looking at a 20-turn payback period until controlled barren pays for itself. I guess I could go either way on it.

[Ianus]

To me the fact that we HAVE to research Controlled Tundra is the clincher. Even though it is cheap we would lose that time having to go for another controlled environment tech next. Still it could be the right call to get that planet a lot quicker, though if I recall it wasn't that great of a planet aside from its location. We are also falling behind in other research categories that we will need to make up before too much longer. Contact can't be too far away once we start pushing colonization...

[haphazard1]

Looking at what we currently know of the galaxy in 2320, we have multiple planets in our region of space that are habitable by lizard-kind:

Gorra - a Terran 90 to the northwest of our homeworld Sssla
Spica - a minimal 35 northeast of Sssla
Collassa - an ultra poor ocean 55 northeast of our first colony of Rayden
Laan - an artifacts minimal 40 northeast of Rayden, beyond the nebula
Thrax - an ocean 80 east-southeast of Rayden

(It is worth keeping in mind that with our early Terraforming +10 tech, all of these worlds will actually be 10 larger than stated once improved.)

There are also several planets that we can not currently settle due to the hostility of their environments. Radiated Phyco and inferno Cygni are both rich worlds, and we will certainly want them, but they will require a fair bit of research before we can think about claiming them. Potentially available much sooner (and in a strategic location) is barren Kulthos, to the east between us and the loathsome Alkari.

My primary goal for this turnset is to begin settling these worlds with our fast-breeding lizards. These worlds will form the core of the great Sakkra empire that will soon dominate the galaxy. But building colony ships for all of them will take time, so I must prioritize. Thrax will be my first target: it is a large world that will become a powerful planet, and its position in the east will make it a cornerstone of our defense against the Alkari. We do not want the feather brains getting such a nice planet on our frontier! After Thrax I would like to claim Laan, as keeping an artifacts world away from the birds would be a significant blow to them. But its position beyond the nebula and at longer range may make this impossible. We would need to settle ultra poor Collassa to have any chance of reaching Laan, and that may not be enough with our current range tech -- I can not tell for certain, because of the nebula. Still, working in that direction will be a goal. Gorra is more desirable but its position in the northwest corner of the galaxy means it should still be available for us after we claim the worlds that are more exposed to the Alkari.

Our homeworld currently has 134 factories, out of a potential 220. We need to improve our industrial capacity. A colony ship would currently take 6 turns to build, which is longer than I like. Some compromises must be made. So I shift research spending to Rayden, even though this almost eliminates any progress on factories at our colony. Rayden will just have to take a hit for the good of the empire. Its population is going to get shipped off to new worlds soon anyway. I decide to put a turn of output into more factories at Sssla and then check what that does to colony ship production times.

Before hitting end turn I check research: only one project is ongoing, Improved Eco. This will save us a lot of money on clean up costs, so we certainly want to continue this project. The bulb is about 3/4 full -- it is good to be excellent in planetology. I keep funding at the same level as Ianus left it, just over 30 RP per turn, which keeps the bulb lit for our bonus research.

I do not see anything else to do right now. Our fleet consists of 6 scouts, one of whom is still moving to an unexplored system. The rest are keeping watch over systems to our east for possible alien intrusions into our space. They can not stop armed ships, but they will turn back an unarmed force and will inform us of any alien presence. OK, finally time to hit end turn and advance the clock.

2321

Our moving scout enters a new system to our south...and encounters the Bulrathi!

Fortunately it is only a scout and the bears retreat, allowing us to explore the system. Were they just arriving, or had they been here for a while? No way to know. But this means the bear homeworld is likely the yellow in the center of the southwest quadrant of the galaxy, or possibly the western-most yellow in the south center region.

The system, Palladia, is without planets. Combined with Phyco being radiated, this empty system means there is not going to be any expansion to the south (or formal contact with the Bulrathi) for quite some time.

Expansion to the east, through the birds, appears to be our only option. I foresee war with the feather brains, sooner rather than later. But first we need to grab the habitable planets we know about.

Colony ship construction time at Sssla has dropped to 5 years. I decide to spend one more turn adding factories.

2322

Sssla maxes population. It is good to be the fast-growing lizards. Colony ship production has now dropped to 4 years, which is good enough. I begin construction, with a reloc to Rayden on the way to Thrax. I note that Improved Eco has entered the percentages at 7%.

Some quiet years pass. In 2326 the homeworld finishes the colony ship for Thrax and immediately begins another. Improved Eco also finally pops (after climbing to 37%). Our choices (as expected) are Controlled Barren and Controlled Tundra. Barren would be cheaper if we wanted to try to grab Kulthos rapidly, but it would take some time to have a colony ship ready for it anyway. So I decide to go directly to Controlled Tundra to advance the tree. If we lose Kulthos to the birds, it will not be a disaster; it is only size 40. Not bad for a hostile, but pretty crummy compared to the better worlds we have available.

In 2327 we get an announcement from GNN:

Nice to be in the lead. The Alkari are second; are we looking at a repeat of our previous OSG?

More quiet years. In 2329 Sssla finishes another colony ship which heads to Gorra, and begins another. Some spending overflow makes the next one only 3 years, nice.

At the end of 2330 our colony ship arrives at Thrax, and we add another system to our glorious empire. This brings us into contact with the Alkari:

The birds have three systems:

They also have a colonization fleet heading to (I think) Collassa.

Well, not much we can do about it -- we do not have a single armed ship! Besides, if the birds want an ultra poor planet on the border between us, they can have it. It will give them range on our core, which is not good -- we will need to think about some actual defenses. It may give them the range to reach Laan as well, but we will not know for sure until they make a move. Again, not much we can do about it right now.

Our initial relations with the Alkari are at Unease. And just for extra fun, they are erratic expansionists in this galaxy. I have not opened the diplomacy screen to see if anything could be bargained for, traded, or agreed. Our relative status:

With this new development, I decide to stop my turnset here and hand over to the next player. This will give us a chance to discuss how we want to respond, rather than locking us into a course of action that might not be the best choice. (It is 2 AM here, not a good time to be making important decisions. )

Quick summary: It is 2331. Sssla will finish another colony ship next turn, which I was planning to send to Spica. Our colony ship will arrive at Gorra next turn as well; probably send pop from the homeworld since it is nowhere near max factories and can spare the pop. I have queued up a pop transfer to Thrax from Rayden, but this can be adjusted if desired. Controlled Tundra is about half full.

How aggressive do we want to be against the birds? We could try to swamp Collassa with lizards once they settle it, although their combat ships could prove a problem. As an ultra poor they will not have any defense bases any time soon, so we can bide our time if we want. They may start sending ships to our worlds, though, so we need to think about defenses of the base or ship variety (or both).

Save is attached. Good luck to the next emperor!

Tentative Roster:

Ianus (got us started)
haphazard1 (just played)
Psillycyber (up next?)
shallow_thought (lounging around this week, back on Monday)