Part 7: - 2380 High Council: Beginning of the End, or Merely the End of our Beginning?

2375-80
The High Council: Beginning of the End, or Merely the End of our Beginning?

Last time out, the Psilon Empire joined the galactic community, meeting the Silicoids, Alkaris, and Darloks officially. We discovered that our fleet sucks but the economy and research are hanging in there. Better than expected really.

Now the Darloks show up at Willow with a Destroyer-class ship they call a Scorpion. It chases off our Recons, but I doubt they are ready to colonize toxic worlds(green star in the lower middle of the galaxy near their territory). Still, they've got it scouted now at least.



Another system we can safely ignore.




What's all this? The High Council is basically the Galactic UN, so to speak. The first meeting is as good a time as any to mark the start of the intensified struggle. You could call it the beginning of the mid-game, but it also means the game could end at any time. Succeeding in the High Council vote wins the game. Usually it will not happen when the Council first convenes though. This body follows very specific rules:

** The first meeting occurs when two-thirds of all planets have been colonized; at that point there are very little left.

** Assuming that a 'High Master', aka Emperor, is not appointed, new votes will occur every quarter-century(2400, 2425, etc.) until one is named.

** Votes in the High Council are determined by population. This is a democratic system. The leader of each race votes, and the player has a big edge here in always voting last. The candidates are also determined by population; the top two empires are always up for the spot and nobody else qualifies.

** Empires will tend to vote for the candidate they like the most(or, dislike the least). First time I ever won on Impossible it was pretty much cheese; the Bulrathi had pissed off the whole galaxy and it was me vs. them. Everyone else voted for me because they didn't like the bears. I literally laughed at the screen.

** A two-thirds majority is required. This means that anyone with more than a third of the total galactic population essentially has veto power; anyone with more than two-thirds can vote themselves in regardless of what anyone else has to say. If you don't have that 'one-third +1' level of population though, you are always in danger of losing the vote here.

** If another empire is chosen as Emperor, you can accept the Council's decision; if so, you've just lost. Try again next time. You can also choose to Defy. That puts the galaxy in a state of Final War. It's like having the everyone in an alliance against you, only worse. Peace is totally impossible from then on, and they all share technology with each other as well. It is possible to win a Final War, but only under pretty rare circumstances. When the High Council goes against you, it's pretty much sayonara.

** The only other way to win is the 'Tyrant' path; wiping everyone else out completely.

** The High Council vote both depends on and significantly affects diplomatic relations. Empires that like you will be more likely to vote for you; voting against a candidate will upset them.




We're the top population empire, so we at least have been nominated.





Ahh, the time-honored strategy of voting for yourself. But who really doesn't want to be Emperor? Also, we can see that there are 14 total votes, meaning 10 are required to win and 5 to 'veto'.




Abstaining is the third option, after choosing one of the two nominees obviously. The Sakkra are basically saying neither candidate has proven themselves worthy. This happens more often early in the game when there isn't even official contact; it can also happen later on less frequently, and I think that occurs when the two nominees are very close.




So far 'abstain' is tied with Nazgur for the lead.





I'd hoped to get the support of the Silicoids here. As a general rule, the Darlok are a good(if rare) High Council opponent to have as a bad diplomatic race. But the rocks are not sold that we're any better, at least not yet. This guarantees that nobody will win this time.




Looking like a pattern.




And now it's down to us. Even when the ultimate outcome is already determined, our vote is still important.

ProTip: There's no point, in game terms, of voting for yourself if you can't win. Voting for the opponent will improve relations. If voting for them would put them over the top, it's best to abstain. Of course if you can win, claim your throne!




After casting our votes for Nazgur, this session ends inconclusively. This is one of the more gamey things Master of Orion allows you to do.




Here's our first spy report. Ironically it's on the Darloks. As we can see here(the white are things they have but we don't; stuff we have and they don't isn't listed) they have better computers and scanners than we do; our terraforming and range are better. The big difference though are in the weapons; they could take down any of our ships pretty easily if they have even the pellet gun, much less that neutron blaster in the field. The range limitation, so long as it lasts, will keep them from expanding any further probably though. We've almost caught up to the power pair here in production, but are fading a bit in tech the last few years; we'll get a few more done soon though, as this is the last year of our factory buildup. Since we've got our first report in, our spying budget will go down to the minimum. That'll be enough to give us an update once in a while which is plenty.




Next year, the Silicoids show up at Arietis with a colony ship. Guess it's time to find out if those Starfighters were worth it ... or not, as they retreat immediately. Well that's an answer in a sense, as they weren't even willing to test us.
They certainly think so at least; they weren't even willing to test us. They may come back with more, and we need to decide how to handle that possibility. But first ...




That will help.




New options. Battle Suits are an improvement over our protective equipment for our ground troops.





This wouldn't come in time to help with the current buildup, but we definitely need to cut factory costs eventually.





And more waste reduction as well. This would be a 25% reduction. Our ecology spending is fairly under control by now, but every little bit helps. I may regret not getting the factory-reduction, but I opt for Reduced Industrial Waste 60%.




Selia's a decent planet, and unclaimed. It's eight parsecs away though, too far for us to consider right now. The factory buildup is now finished; we've got a couple more research projects about to wrap up, and then we'll have some big choices to make.




Both of our new choices come in right away. We've got Class III Deflector Shields and Hand Lasers. In terms of Force Fields, we can keep right on going or come back for the personal shields. I don't think think they're worth it; Class IV.




We've seen all the weapons options before but that was a few years ago; now we know what we are up against. The Darloks definitely have a firepower advantage, but I think going for the mass driver here can cut into that. They've got the neutron blaster, but it's not enough better, at least not yet, to make it worth the extra cost.




Overall this looks pretty scary. The Silicoids have really boosted their fleet and population, and all we really did with our industrial buildup was keep pace. Maybe a bit more than that but not much, we're still third. It is encouraging that we've taken, quite possibly temporarily, a tiny tech lead -- but that's about it and we're nowhere close to any more breakthroughs right now. However, things are not as bad as they seem ...




We've managed to get a spy in with them now, not the Alkaris yet but we really don't care on that front. They've allied with the Humans which isn't good news. Surprised that they don't have better engines yet which I was sure they did. No waste reduction techs, but why would they -- they don't need them. No new factory controls and they're still outproducing us -- that's not good at all. They haven't advanced past lasers in their weaponry yet though. This gives us a bit of an opportunity.

If they outfit nuclear missiles or regular/gatling lasers, our new Class III shields will absorb almost all of the damage. The only thing they can use against us(and vice versa, since they've also got the same shield techs) are the heavy lasers that hit harder(7 damage vs. 4 for the others). Our Starfighters will soon be obsolete. If we upgrade to a ship based around utilizing a heavy laser, we can hold them off longer.

Zygot's goal then is to hold Arietis with a fairly minimal investment in these ships. The rest of the economy will focus on research and not the military, specifically planetology. The reason for that is if we can get to the point of landing on Radiated worlds, we can take Arietis ourselves ... and Willow ... and maybe even Selia. That's a plan worth pursuing.




Introducing the new Star Blazer! Strike craft are too small to fit a heavy laser on so this is our first destroyer-size design. I'd like to put a battle computer, better armor, etc. on -- but to do that I'd have to reduce it to one weapon instead of a pair. It'd also be more expensive. I think this is the best bang for the buck(in retrospect I think having one more accurate weapon might have been better, but it's definitely a judgement call here). It'll miss a lot but most of the weapons available to the Silicoids will just bounce off of it. Like the Starfighter, this is a stop-gap; it's not the start of a permanent starfleet or anything like that, but I'm hoping it's enough to handle the next round of escalation.