Part 105: Episode X: 2425 - 2450

Episode X: 2425-2450




Doing ok relative to the Alkari, but they just had another one of those wonderful 'fleet boosts'. I hope it didn't include beefing up their base defenses. Bulrathi production is also much higher now. I expect they and the Silicoids will continue increasing their advantadge.

The Alkari are now allied with the Meklar. We'll see how long that lasts.




Soon I'll need to send in the 'tadpoles', ready or not. We're most of the way to the biggest fleet I can usefully build. There's little point in checking research, as I'm not doing much of that.




Trax is serving as the staging point. A few more ships arrive here every year. I'm throwing in the Cyclops as cannon fodder if nothing else, and have started building a second, identical bomber design. I'm hoping that gives them more survivability by adding another target for the Alkari bases to shoot at. I expect them to prioritize the bombers. Additionally, advances have allowed me to nearly double their payload(from 6 to 10 bombs each).




2427. I didn't expect an empire of their size to not be able to handle this.




The next year. This is turning into a bad joke. Let's say I DO capture Rigel. That'll give me five. And ... then what? I surmise I will then do nothing, because I will be able to do nothing. But first things first.

It's 2428, and I'm now spending 25% on the fleet. It's go time. More than 200 ships depart Trax on a five-year journey to Rigel. I will continue to build, as I may wish to re-evaluate and strike again should this fail. I think the chances of success are pretty low given the firepower of the Alkari bases. The spy networks will focus on sabotage efforts in an attempt to take some of the bases out. Most of the time though they are just getting caught before they can get set up.




Well what do you know. The year before the fleet gets there we get a success. Without 'AI Magic' they'd never have many bases with that few factories -- but this is a very old report. We blow up three missile bases. That could well prove significant.

Meanwhile, the diplomatic report indicates the Alkari are allied with Silicoid and Meklar. I've got to break those up if I can. Being the bastard that I am, I request an audience with Farseer with the invasion fleet bearing down on him unannounced, and ask him to break those deals. After buttering him up with Improved Industrial Tech 8, of course.

They request Inertial Stabilizer tech in order to do that. Nope. If we fail here, they'll kick our behinds with that.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS4ZcCkiPeI



Well, that didn't go exactly as planned. The bombers didn't do much, but the Spirits were quite effective. So, I stop building bombers since their only purpose is to attack planets anyway. The immediate Alkari response is only to sign an alliance with the Bulrathi. They are gathering friends, and if we invade Rigel the whole galaxy may descend upon us. If we don't, we are stuck in the corner.

Screw it, let's go out in a blaze of glory. For the invasion, the Alkari have ground tech advantadge(armor) over us as well as the defensive edge. I send 125M, half the population of both Sssla and Zoctan. It'll take several years to arrive but I expect that to do the trick. It'd better. The remainder of our Spirits go in to fortify Rigel against any counter-attack.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9gAEEtx1EI



The next year the Alkari return, and put up a better fight. It's not a good enough one though. The Cyclops has now been retired -- forcefully. We definitely want to keep the Spirits flowing, having lost now about half of what we had. The Alkari declare war, to the surprise of nobody. I can only hope against hope that the Bears lose interest in that alliance before joining them.

The next year, Silicoid and Bulrathi alliances are broken!!! Meklar remain but that's a huge, unexpected break. The Alkari continue to fight us every year, and we continue to get the better of them. Meanwhile I'm rebuilding population from the transports that were sent out. If I get the chance, I'll steal their armor to increase our odds of success.

A new destroyer is commissioned, the Valkyrie. It adds an Class I Shield to the Spirit specs. Not a lot, but it's what the available space allows and should help our exchange rate a bit.




The rocks show up at Trax, one of the near Radiated worlds. It's time to kiss some serious granite.




This one must have happened through range, or maybe they are Silicoid allies. Friendly bunch. It's 2437, and our transports are three and four years out from Rigel, so we're right in the middle of some stuff. I need to take careful stock of the situation.




So basically this war between the galaxy's two worst empires is a fight to see who occupies the cellar. I'm trying to ensure we stay ahead of the Alkari and have a presence that will allow us to take advantadge of any bigger conflicts that erupt. That's pretty much it. Assuming that we win, we'll still be well behind the Meklar and the Silicoids are obviously about to become stupid-powerful. I can only hope they'll find us not big enough to be a threat, or somesuch.




Pretty safe to assume the Mrrshan, only race I haven't met, is in the upper-right. Silicoids are Aggressive Expansionists, and have renewed their Alkari alliance so they could declare war on us at any moment. Meklar are Xenophobic Industrialists with no alliances. So the rocks are the ones that concern us. And are probably about to wipe us from the galaxy.

Let the groveling commence!! We sign a 375-BC deal with the Silicoids, throw three low-level techs as them, and suggest they really should toss the birdbrains. They want ...




This is most of our reserve, but so what? Seriouly, you're pushing 30 planets, you have a freaking third of the galaxy, and you want a few hundred credits. Umm, sure? The combination of that and our 'generous gift of ECM Jammer I technology' convinces them. Whoever said 'like a rock, only dumber' never met a Silicoid. There's nothing dumber than a rock. But we'll take it. Imminent threat dealt with.

TX-1138 of the Meklars signs a 375BC trade deal and is not willing to offer any technology in trade that we are particularly interested in. We are now fully engaged in the galactic community. I feel a bit like Tom Hanks' character in Road to Perdition when he offers his services to Frank Nitti in exchange for them turning a blind eye to the revenge he intends to carry out. Just take our small contributions to your empires gents. Pay no attention to the bird behind the curtain. Our petty squabbles are none of your concern, titans of the galaxy ...

Trade deficit has gone negative again, temporarily. Spending is getting split three ways: bases(we need to be ready if anyone attacks now), research, and more Valkyries to send on to Rigel to maintain our hold there. This basically means we are getting a totally inadequate investment in all three areas, but we're kind of stuck.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lyhstqsy1f8



The first wave; Sssla's troops will finish it off. I forgot that we had Battle Suits. That basically evened it up; a slight 64-60 edge in casualties for us. We're about to take the system, and I decide to get out of shipbuilding for now. It seems clear we're going to be able to fend off the Alkari with what we have, though I'll have to monitor any attrition closely. Once I'm happy with the bases it has, I'll have Phyco build more or throw some money into the reserve.




We lost 9M more the next year and take Rigel. I can't believe this worked without starting a war with anyone else. It shouldn't have worked. I almost feel like apologizing for it. The max population here is 75 so we're in great position there. Lots of factories captured, and let's see what toys we get.




Dang our troopers are ugly. We're researching Zortrium but this will still help in the interim and with the whole miniaturization drive. Also, Class III Deflectors(we are still at II) and ECM Jammer II(we're at I). Nice.




The Alkari had no terraforming tech, so we can increase Rigel up to 105M. It's going to be a solid producer for us. That's job #1. Job #2 is refitting and maxing out the factories, then getting defenses in place. Some of those Alkari fleets are incoming, some are retreating. They find themselves without friends right now though and none of them are sizable enough to trouble us.




We get one of these with the Silicoids as well. A campaign of peace and friendship is beginning.

The Meklar then came in with an offer. Messed up taking the screenshot on this but it was absolutely hilarious. Something to the affect of 'The Meklar are awed by the wonders of Deuterium Fuel Cells(Range 5) tech? What should we give you in exchange for it?' They were only willing to offer Terraforming +10M which is useless to us ... but seriously? Almost a century and a half in and you are awed by the wonders of a first-tier tech? When your research is almost twice ours?? Okey-dokey.

2445: alliance signed by the Meklar and Alkari. Complicating this situation is the fact that if there's anyone else I'm going to be able to attack, it's the Meklar. Preferably I'd like peace with the birds now, since I can't afford to risk the genocide penalty I'd get from taking out Altair. I lose nothing really by bribing the crap out of them I suppose. After offering cash and three techs ...




I really don't want to give them this, but I don't think they can put it to use against me right now. I accept. Peace with them means peace with the Meklar, and I'm definitely not ready to fight them. They refuse a trade deal, but I'm hopeful that will change.

Ok, decision time. I'm ending this update a little bit early so I can get some input here. Normally I don't do this of course but ... I don't really have a good answer here and I expect to lose anyway, so you can all choose which way I fail. Sound like fun?? No?? DO ITANYWAY!! If you want.

First up, the latest reports as of 2446.




The reason the Meklar are on my radar is that they are the best among bad options. Bulrathi and Silicoids are so big they'll just overwhelm us. The Meklar are about the same size, but combine the AI bonuses with their production and they are killing us still, much more advanced.




We've got at least decent relations with everyone. It's the time where alliances come and go like the wind, but right now Alkari-Meklar is the only one. In general, Silicoid-Meklar-Mrrshan lining up against the Bulrathi has been the theme. War has not broken out but it can't be far away.




It's not all bad news, but most of it is. The planetary shields mean we'd need better bombs to have any chance at cracking their defenses. Missile defenses aren't great; our weaponry is basically on par with theirs. But with their production and battle computers, their fleets would rip our to shreds. They've probably got big ones with Automated Repair on them; that's a very Meklar thing. It is good that they haven't improved their robotics yet but they are still crushing us when it comes to production, and that Repulsor Beam would also force us to do hit-and-run or mount Heavy Fusion Beams. With their engines(and they have the inertial stabilizer) added in, I don't see how we would have much chance in a war with them.




The current map shows that with Rigel we can reach about a quarter of the galaxy. I've got a few recons out there but it's pretty much all claimed.

Viable Options

The term viable is a very loose one here. I see two choices, both of which carry a very low probability of success.

** Attack the Meklar. I'd finagle whatever tech trades I could to increase our capabilities, and once I can get a fleet going that can crack their Planetary Shields, probably build some cruisers to limit the effectiveness of their Scatter Packs and find a weakish target to go after. This is probably better named 'Suicide-by-Robot'.

** Spoils of War. My default tactic when behind. Get alliances with the strong races(esp. Silicoid) and prepare to try to profit when war breaks out. If we can seize a few systems in this way we might get back in it. Problems are generally how far behind we are in tech in keeping them, the fact that Meklar/Bulrathi are Xenophobic and therefore alliances with them are unlikely, and the fact that we will definitely need faster engines than we're stuck with to have any chance of this working. The endgame would be to take Orion and use that to mitigate the huge Silicoid advantage in terms of size -- but I have no idea where it is and it appears to be at least partway across the galaxy.

In either case I'm going to try to swing as many tech trades as I can, but what ones I go for may well change.