Part 27: Counterattack

CounterAttack




The galaxy is getting frisky. Here's the left side, where five different empires come together. A single Darlok frigate continues to ineffectually bomb Xiphias II.




On the right, dueling invasions with the cats and rocks. That's a Silicoid battleship with several transports headed to Tais, while more Mrrshan ships continue dripping towards Umm. We don't have the scanner range to see exactly what's going on, but those two are decidedly not getting along.




Our population is still growing, but more slowly.

Labor Divison

** Total: 119M (+19M)
** Farming: 28M - 23.5%
** Industry: 52M - 43.7%
** Research: 39M - 32.8%

The need for farmers has continued to decline with the Holo-Simulators making everyone all happy and productive. Industry is still the largest field, but the bigger worlds are spending as much effort in Research as they are in the factories, feeding our technological push.




That's working well, as we appear to have decisively left the squabbling malcontents to our galactic right behind when it comes to cool toys.




That fight has decimated their militaries for the moment, leaving the Sakkra as the current power in the galaxy. Will these use that strength? And against whom? Meanwhile we are all of a sudden a credible second here.

In Buildings and the overall comparison, we are the runaway leaders with nobody above about half of our power. That's a very strong long-term indicator. Now it's time to turn that potential strength into practical benefit, and teach the galaxy that the TechnoGeeks will not be stopped. Our profit margin is down to just a third, but it is enough. I haven't been quite careful enough on limiting construction with smaller planets, and it's starting to catch up to me a bit.




It's tempting to turn and face the Darloks with the Mrrshan otherwhise occupied. But I don't think it's the wise play in the long run. They can have our outlying system for the moment. Let's not make the traditional military mistake of fighting on two fronts at once - and losing them both.




They will pay for that. Eventually.

Our next task is Genetic Engineering. It's as cheap as anything right now for us. Microbiotics is a 25% population growth boost across the board, while Telepathic Training gives 5% bonus to our spies. A couple of good benefits there.

SD 3519.6 - Darloks and Sakkra are now at war again. Good news as far as I'm concerned. Next turn, the Darloks move closer, taking Yarrow.




Terraforming is super-tempting, but our profitability continues to shrink these days. The Planetary Stock Exchange is the next step after the Spaceport, doubling revenues everywhere we have one. For a cost of course. With the military buildup wrapping up for the moment, it's a good time to snag them and level up our income.

SD 3519.9 - Peace between Darlok and Sakkra. Grrr. I'm also told that '1 settler arrived at Yarrow Prime'. Even though we don't control it anymore. I hope the Darloks were kind enough to kill them quickly.

Next turn, I'm ready to go on the attack ... but I didn't notice that Lerion is actually out of range for us. Grrr. So an Outpost Ship is worked up. Meanwhile the Antarans are back, but not for us.




Pretty cool looking building.




We're reaching the point where I pretty much want everything. In every field. But I've gotta go Terraforming next. Step by step, we can eventually transform any non-toxic world into a terran one now. If they start barren, it will take several processes, each one requiring 250 industry. So it's fairly cost-intensive, but the overall potential of the empire will skyrocket.

Setting up an outpost in nearby Qatar, the fleet heads to Lerion. Now I need a few transports to reclaim that territory. I've been building barracks here and there the past several turns; previously I only had the one on Mentar II.




Just before this, the Council met again. 60 total votes, Sakkra and us are still tied with 13 each. The Alkari cast their 3 in our favor, but everyone else still abstained. Nobody wants to elect a High Master.

Battle of Lerion


WARNING: This is almost 10 minutes long.

The Mrrshan have fortified both planets in Lerion, though there are no fleet ships about. This should be fun. Cut it off partway through, because it was already getting real boring. That whole thing about it being hard to attack planets with beam weapons is proving itself.




I approve this model terraformer.




Molecular Compression gives me multiple valuable things. Range boosts to help with offensive operations, better missiles for our defenses, and the atmospheric renewer will reduce pollution more.




It's finally time to settle the long-ignored Unuk system. I don't think anyone else can reach it. We'll eventually find out if I'm wrong.

Lerion II Invasion


Superior technology at work. We had a slight numerical advantadge going in, with the Mrrshan on the defense. Pretty even in that respect, but we took only a quarter of their casualties.




Time to cleanup a couple remaining inexpensive advances. I'd like ADC for repairing our attacking fleets.




We also colonize the Wolf system, where we discover that we've invented so much crap that the font has to be miniaturized to fit all the options in.




It'll be a pleasure to genocide you, BugFace.




Stick it where the sun don't shine, pal. And the Antarans are back, with interest - a destroyer and four frigates. They are headed to Vela, where our fleet will meet them. We don't have any defenses up there - we've gotten close a few times, but always moved the stockpiled industry into some other task. And it's Poor, which is my other excuse.




That's everybody. The Klackons aren't as big as us, but believe it or not they have better technology and rank as by far our top rival.




All the better to adorn our trophy room with. They have:

** Unification
** Uncreative
** Large/Rich HW
** +1 Food Production
** +2 Industrial Production

They will make some excellent drones ...

We've lost some territory, but the bleeding appears to have been stopped on all fronts. Mostly because nobody dares assault our fortified positions, save the Antarans. With the Mrrshan and Silicoid still locked in their destructive conflict that is going nowhere and gettin' there fast, it seems the thing to do is to continue pushing into their territory until we are stopped or we take everything we want.