The Let's Play Archive

Galactic Civilizations II

by Bobbin Threadbare

Part 2: Session 1: New Beginnings



Well, fuck me. You actually voted me for president of the senate! Ha! In your face, Zarkov!


Zakharov.


Whatever. I won, baby. Woo! Oh, by the way, I've been getting all the "congratulations" you corporate-types have been sending me. Now it seems to me that a lot of you have pegged me as a man with inexpensive tastes. That's true enough, but some 'a you seem to think that makes me an easy bribe. What it really means is that nothing you can give is worth near as much to me as watching you cockmonglers squirm. Thanks to that, I had a lot more fun culling the sub-committee list than I otherwise would. So go ahead and keep up the "complementary" contributions, if you want. Just remember that I ain't doing jack nor shit for you in return. I may enjoy a good drink now and then, but when I'm up here, it's all business.


But you were rather…inebriated last night.


That was before I knew you morons were gonna elect me! Doin' this may cut into my whiskey time, but if there's one thing I love more than booze, it's humanity, so if I'm gonna have to do this, I'm gonna do it right. Now someone go switch on the projector.



There she is, our beautiful blue marble. I never get tired of this view. Anyways, if things seem a bit off, it's because this ain't a proportional display.



Here's another display for ya. You can see that there's more than a few projects already underway across the surface, like that Innovation Complex my own USA is building. It's a great big celebration of humanity, plus my government has promised that it'll contribute some of their developments to the Stellar Senate, which is us. There's a few massive factories and research labs lined up, too, along with some global entertainment and market centers to capitalize on these new warm and fuzzy togetherness feelings we been getting lately.

There's also a couple spots with some prime ancient civilization ruins to build on. We'll be holding off on putting anything there until we get something that can really boost our galactic influence.

You'll also note that we're calling Earth a Class 10. We figure that gives room for more inhospitable places like Mars in the lower numbers, plus any sorta prime real estate could get even higher than that.



Here's another view of the greater solar system. Again, this is anything but to scale. Hell, we ain't even showing half the damn planets, plus our new ships sure as shit ain't planet sized.



This is our first mining vessel, which we may use to build mining stations on otherwise unoccupied asteroids. Even our dear friend Senator Skye has no issue with exploiting such lifeless masses to their fullest. In fact, there are no less than four clusters in our own Asteroid Field which could sustain such a facility, which should keep our miner busy for several months to come. I suppose you could order the mining vessel to explore for more distant fields, but that is both unnecessary and wasteful at the moment.



There she is, the cradle in which a new colony will be nurtured. Nearly 100 million citizens have volunteered to enter the cryogenic chambers in order to await a new life among the stars.

Finding another Earth-like planet (around Class 8+) would most likely be best, but they are not going to be easy to find. We may need to settle for a more barren world, possibly even Mars itself.


Now that'd just be a goddamn waste. Like hirin' a UHaul to move next door.


I don't recall asking for your opinion, Ulrik.


And I don't recall askin' you to look like an ancient hag. Bam!



And there's my beauty, our very first scout ship. No doubt you noticed that someone has been watching way too much Star Trek lately? Anyway, this gorgeous ship has been outfitted with numerous bits of experimental technology, most of which hasn't even left the prototype phase yet. For instance, it comes equipped with our only pair of ion drives, the very first survey module for scanning anomalies, plus some advanced support to extend its range from the home planet. And since she ain't got a single weapon, that puts her under my purview.



In fact, I'm gonna name her the Nautilus. And there ain't a damn thing you can do about it, since you dumbasses made me president!



Anyways, while I'm on the topic, here's a map of some nearby stars that need surveying. I'm not too picky on where we should send the Nautilus first, but you should probably use the directions up, down, left, and right to avoid bein' too confusing. You should also say whether to track down anomalies when we see 'em. Of course, we'd get a bunch more explorin' done if the colony ship were to contribute-


Absolutely not. We should do nothing that would put our brave colonists at risk.


-but that ain't my committee.



Here's another, closer-in view of the Solar system. The thing to take away from this is that, the more habitable a planet is, the more filled-in the circle. Mars is the one on the far left there.



We call it a class four, and like I said, it'd be a damn shame if we used our first faster-than-light colony ship just to move in here.



Ah, and this is where I come in. Earth may not be in our jurisdiction, but our contributors have agreed to put up matching funds as though we were taxing 8 billion Earthlings.


Only half?


That number may improve as they come to trust our judgments. Taxation can be set to anywhere between 0-100%, but our approval rating among our backers is inversely related to that. Getting much below 50% will start to get dangerous. We also have some minor funds coming in from tourism, since anyone traveling through space now has some tolls they need to pay us.

We can also shift how much of our billions of credits we spend, and how much we save back. Right now I've set the spending to 2/3, but it can go higher or lower.

We can also shift how much is spent on which type of production, favoring ships, buildings, and/or research with our money. Up to 25% of our income can also be spent on training spies, although we know of nowhere to put them right now. I suppose we could always train them in advance, though.


Someday we will have the ability to setup trade routes between planets, but not yet. The Espionage and Leases and Maintenance tabs are also empty for now.



My own contributions are light for the time being. Someday I hope to fill up this screen with orange and blue.


Nothing much yet here, either. New governments (and our final alignment) will open up after some future research.


And over here we have our five victory conditions. They explain themselves pretty well, so I'll move on.



Welcome to the shipyard, folks! Not much to do here right now.



We only got two basic kinds of hulls…



…One engine…



…No armor or weapons, plus a few basic modules. Keepin' in mind that the attachments' size can't go over the hull's capacity, I suppose you could mix 'n match with what we got, but there's not much that our early designs don't cover for now.



If I may speak now? It is true that we are woefully unequipped for space combat, and our only saving grace is that we suspect our future enemies are in a similar state. However, something the Defense Commission can do right away is order a constructor and build a military starbase just off of Earth's orbit.


However, constructors can be used to build any kind of starbase, many of which would actually be useful right now.


Preparing for Earth's defense is always useful.


We cannot even arm starbases at the moment. The best a military installation could do is slow down enemy vessels in the area with a warp interdiction field. Plus the constructors use their own hulls in building starbases, so we cannot even use it for anything else!


Don't forget that constructors take weeks longer to build than anything else.



We could contract out to build one immediately.


Yes, and empty half the treasury on it. Better to build it for several weeks, then buy the rest; it's much cheaper that way.


Better not to build it at all. We should be sending out as many colony ships as we can sustain, not creating idle starbases.


…And we'll need scouts to find places to go. We should build a few of those; they're the only ship so small that we could finish one before meeting again in three months. We could probably buy a few without pissing off Morgan too much, too.


If we focused on military spending, though-



While my colleagues are busy bickering, I think it is time to discuss our technological future. First, I believe we should review what we already understand.








The hyperdrive is beautiful, is it not? Our biggest breakthrough came when we discovered how to contain a fusion reaction in a laser or ion beam. I cannot believe whoever sent the stargate managed to stay satisfied with magnetic containment.



As for the future, our first step towards advancing our ability to understand other beings is called Xeno Communications, as well as the Universal Translator. Unlike most other options, we have a reasonable chance of completing both projects by our next meeting, unless someone decides to cut research funding.



We might also look into New Propulsion Techniques to bring those Ion Drives out of the prototype phase.



Interstellar Warfare would please Santiago, but we also need to understand Space Militarization before we can understand armor or weapons. Since even the first step would take 20 weeks to develop, this is a massive undertaking.

However, our most promising project right now is Artificial Gravity, which will open up all sorts of possibilities regarding planetary, ship, and starbase improvements. I highly recommend looking into this, followed by Planetary Improvements.


Huh? We done now? Thank God, I've had about as much as I can put up with from you assholes. Let the session begin!

Some Reminders