Part 150: Episode XIII: 2575
Episode XIII: 2575 -Lots of videos in this update. I really wasn't planning that, but all of them show something different. A whole lot of stuff happened to end the 26th century.
This screen finally agrees that Nermal is the greatest.
Even with the new ships being built, the developing systems that belonged to the Altair and general population growth have seen our maintenance budget improve(less than 28%, down from about 31% a few years ago).
Nothing to see here. Wouldn't shock me if we didn't research another tech until the end of the century. I expect to continue acquiring some by more aggressive means though.
I'd like to save Altair, but if not I'll just end up retaking it. Either way I'm sending troops and ships there, it'll just take time to get enough to take down those Darlok battleships. Transports are headed to Ursa as well but we don't have much population on that side of the galaxy, so it'll take a few years there. One thing the Altair situation is doing is making me divide the fleet enough to slow down moving on to Sol. Realistically that's about all they can do right now is this kind of delaying tactic.
https://youtu.be/Q_WbJMLDu6k
You don't often see the Bulrathi getting it handed to them in ground combat to this degree. It's because of the massive tech difference of course. Lost 29 to their 78, with more arriving in 2578 to finish the job. Meanwhile around half our transports to Altair got past the Darlok blockade, enough to stop their troops easily(their tech is a bit inferior to ours in ground combat) and also basically ensure we'll be able to retain it.
Next year(2577). This is too late in the struggle to matter much, but still kind of amusing that the RNG just won't leave us be to conquer. Essentially this is half of the homeworld's industry. Meanwhile the entire Bulrathi fleet(consisting of about 15 cruisers, four of them colony ships) attacked Nazin and was swatted with minimal losses.
They yielded only two archaic techs. Onward to Sol.
A year later, and our fleet has ended the suffering and destruction on the former Alkari homeworld.
https://youtu.be/wPHtvgJCBgs
We took some losses, but human defenses were overrun. After this battle I scrapped the old Bobcats(bombers) and Panthers(not seen here) to make room for a second Furball design and also because they are slow enough and we've lost enough of them that I don't think it's worth having them slow us down anymore.
The next year. Three empires genocided, and two remain.
** Industrial Tech 7
** ECM Jammer IV
** Terraforming +20M
** ECM Jammer III
** ECM Jammer II
** Graviton Beam
None of these actually are an improvement. They sure did like their ECM tech though. From here on I don't intend to be very particular. Just smash as many planets as we can as quickly as we can. Darlok, Sakkra, I couldn't care less. The fleets at the bottom of the galaxy so we'll take whatever's close and work our way up. The only significant choices are in terms of how many ships to leave in defensive positions, when to split the fleet between multiple targets and when to concentrate it, that sort of thing. Maintenance costs are at less than 24% and continuing to decline, so our expansion is now out-pacing our ability to feed it with new ships. Darloks have Robotics V, a level ahead of ours, but this is a complete non-concern. If we weren't overwhelmingly dominant at this point that would definitely not be the case.
By 'scout ships', we mean the main Mrrshan fleet of over 50 cruisers that was unopposed when it showed up. I might be able to split into multiple attacks soon, but I'm not confident enough population-supply or the fleet yet to do that. So it's one system at a time for now.
The next year the fleet moved on here. They had 13 bases, and we seem to resist them moderately well. Leopards aren't very effective against their shields, but the torpedoes on the Furballs do just fine in significant numbers. I'm definitely going to want to have concentrated force though as I take out the Darlok systems. Probably not splitting up anytime soon. It'll take a few years to capture this as most of the nearest-available troops have to come from a long distance away.
https://youtu.be/FsdcLdFYMhc
First encounter with their ground troops. We have higher-tech personal armor and weapons, and got a 2:1 kill ratio here. At least troop needs will now be minimal. Trilithium Crystals were among three captures, extending our range a bit though that's not a need right now.
Not a chance.
https://youtu.be/j3whtbAH3OY
2586. Well, that didn't go so hot. That's a sizable portion of our fleet that just got blown up, and under different circumstances it might have been a very troublesome loss. Still need more firepower to handle larger numbers of bases. The Darloks have acquired Andrium Armor, same as we have, so they now have bases at 125 HP along with shielding of 17(X Planetary, VII Deflector). So they can absorb enough damage to last a while. We can overwhelm them with sheer numbers but it'll take some time to build up that much firepower.
Sakkra defenses appear to be much more fragile. No planetary shields, weaker armor, etc. They probably have better ships, but it seems sensible to switch targets and go after Sauron while we rebuild our numbers and defend our recent acquisitions.
Literally the next year. I was actually surprised by this. They'd put up with the genocide, and we've been attacking their enemy. Still, since I'm planning to attack them anyway I don't really care. Trade income is a fairly minor loss at this point(900 BC when we've got imperial income of 12k).
This leaves the Darloks with just five systems. We'll let them keep those for the time being.
** Neutron Pellet Gun
** Gauss Autocannon
This is a step up.
** Auto Blaster
** Reduced Industrial Waste 40%
We were at 60% and not spending much on waste cleanup, but now that sliver is down a third from what it was.
https://youtu.be/SzpU_X0QSNE
2589. We beat back a Darlok attack at Dolz the same year. You may recall the Sakkra took Regulus from us some while ago. The fleet isn't in position yet, but I noticed the planet was defenseless and helped myself.
On the other hand, this is coming next year. Nice of them to attack our staging point. I'll just keep our ships around a bit longer and we'll see what their battleships have to offer.
https://youtu.be/2n1u8BJGJGA
Yeah those fighters are going to be a problem. Only having a couple bases up hurt, but the sheer damage capacity of that many missiles is an issue. Next up I basically had a choice between Scatter Pack X and the Stellar Converter. Despite what happened here we are in the offensive phase of the game, but I don't think the Converter will be as valuable to me as just keeping on with the torpedo ships. Scatter Pack it is to upgrade our defenses against exactly this kind of attack. And getting that Plasma Rifle in assures our ground troops will know no meaningful resistance from here on out.
This won't last long I don't think; not much in orbit and we have ships a year out. Nazin took heavy damage though and will be gone soon if the Sakkra want it to be. Really the problem against those Cyclops swarms are that they are basically the perfect counter to our Furballs. This is one of those games where, even though it's going well, the AI is randomly pressing a lot of the right buttons. In this case they have range to negate our repulsors, we've got no shielding and limited missile defense, and our weapons are too big. Each torpedo can only kill one ship; they're powerful enough to take out a destroyer in a single hit and a cruiser in just a few, but the limitation of the one-size-fits-all approach is clearly seen here.
An instructive comparison:
** Proton Torpedo(75 damage, 70 cost, 257 space)
** Tachyon Beam(1-25 damage, 11 cost, 44 space)
The Tachyon would be useless against ships, like their Titan, that has the Repulsor Beam. But it's one of the 'streaming' weapons, meaning no damage is ever lost; it just carries over to the next ship. Even assuming only average damage, we'd get about two ships per shot with that, one with the torpedo ... which takes up almost six times the space. 11-12 times the effectiveness, basically. But if I redesign my ships to carry only those, planetary defenses will be impenetrable. I could go with two different ships, limiting the upgrade and multi-group options along with leaving me to try and guess how many of each they will deploy so as to counter(never mind what happens when they introduce a new class) ... not a fan. I can go with a hybrid design, or just stick with what I've got and go after their economy, avoiding their fleets. If I needed to fight a primarily defensive campaign, I'd do hybrid. As big as our empire is though, combined with the need to have a lot of torpedoes to take out the Darlok defenses, I should be able to smash Sakkra worlds quick enough to bring them to their knees. So 'hit em where they ain't' it is.
I think this is a really interesting situation though. I'm in a dominant position and yet I still have to react intelligently, and there are a lot of options. Just so happens that the Sakkra/Darlok combination meshes well enough to together to be a pain right now, even with Nermal controlling a little over half the galaxy and the AI not having the capacity to try and just take out a bunch of my systems in a sustained series of alpha strikes to cut me down to size. If they had the propensity to do that, I could still be in serious trouble. I do design a new ship, the Warcat, with a small computer upgrade and extra space given to a Class III Shield. That'll take a significant bite out of their Hyper-whatever missiles. They'll still do serious damage in big numbers, but it should help in any competitive battles.
It's clear I'm going to need as many ships as I can get here as soon as I can get them, so I changed the usual even split between research and shipbuilding on most planets to favoring shipbuilding pretty heavily. There's nothing coming in that is nearly as important as just getting the fleet built up and on the attack ASAP.
They're playing this game pretty aggressively now. Meanwhile an invasion at Regulus costs us 10 million to repel 49M invaders. We've knocked out defenses at Bootis, and the fleet moves on to Seidon, with any new ships joining them as quickly as they can. I'm not even waiting for the transports to get there -- this is a blitzkrieg campaign. We'll lose some troops, even a system here or there probably, but there's no way they're going to defend in the long run.
https://youtu.be/cwZjQX4Trww
Seidon. A pretty good example of how Sakkra bases aren't enough to stop us.
No more bombing here, and they keep throwing their troops into the grinder. They'll take it soon, but temporarily. Troops are en route to Bootis and about to leave to Seidon. Lost enough ships there to pause but only for a bit, and then we'll keep pushing onwards. The numbers are most definitely not in Sauron's favor.
https://youtu.be/JxiMvDN9oNk
120 destroyers and our transports were due to arrive at Bootis the same year anyway, so sending the fleet there gave us a chance to oppose them and secure the system. With our first strike taking out over half of their Spectres, it was an easy victory. Now that we've switched targets, the Darloks inform us that 'Together our empires can fight the evil Sakkra' or something really close to that. But the next year, Nazin finally fell. Back and forth it goes. The main question then was; what will Sauron do with his ships now?
They outnumbered us 2:1, and we lost a whole 18 million. This will give us a nice staging point near the galactic centre from which to conduct future operations.
** Fusion Bomb
** Reduced Industrial Waste 20%
** Advanced Damage Control
** Class IV Deflectors
** Intergalactic Star Gates
A pretty nice haul. Waste is now even lower, ADC means we can go to the floating battlestation strat now if I feel like it, and Stargates are nice though I actually don't think I'll build them. I don't think it's worth the delay in just getting the ships out there right now.
I played around with a battleship-sized design but decided it wasn't worth it. This is what I came up with instead. Computing and shields take a step back from the Warcat, but it has a fourth torpedo in the payload, and the inertial stabilizer/anti-missile rockets combo should help defensive capabilities. I don't think I've ever used the rockets in a situation this late in the game, but they're good enough to be effective against the low-tech Sakkra salvos.
2596. In true MOO-AI fashion, the Sakkra fleet returns home. Abandoning Nazin so I can just take it over again. Meanwhile you can see our fleet orbiting Jinga here; we took significant losses from the 40 bases there but there's more ships joining the fray all the time and it's the next step at chopping down the lizard tree.
By the time we get this robotics boost it'll be too late to matter; it almost is now. We might even be finished before then.
Perhaps I should thank them for taking over Nazin, abandoning it, and then leaving these blueprints there. It was the only one, but I'll take another 20M per system. Of course it means even more micro at all planets. 30 of them now. I know I say this every time, but it REALLY gets old in these galactic-conquest finishes, which is why I don't do many of them.
After we slaughter 120 million Sakkra and take the Jinga system in 2598. The 'just win' button is readily available; just bribe the Darloks into peace and win the next Council vote in two years. But after conquering the majority of the galaxy we might as well have Nermal finish the job. 10 systems to go; five for each enemy.
The Neutronium Bomb was a nice pickup that we have no intention of using, along with a few outdated weapons systems.
As the century comes to an end, we seize orbit of Ukko(green start, top middle) and the Sakkra fleet smashes Seidon. Then the High Council, all three of us, meets again.
** Sakkra(8)
** Darloks(5) - Sauron. Really? Go suck an egg.
We have 28. Enough to win it by ourselves. Ahh, screw it ... what do we really gain by finishing this conquest? Answer; really just more annoyance on my part in terms of bashing my way through the final 10 planets, and ever-increasing amounts of micromanagement. I think I'm good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvOdn52vjbo
Video included just so people can do terrible things to the image of the shadowy Mrrshan Empress if you choose.