Part 178: Episode XVII: 2475

Episode XVII: 2475 -




Looking great on research, trailing only the Klackons and not by too much. Fleet is growing but not yet competitive, and the others are still finding a way to stay just ahead economically. The map really hasn't changed much, if at all.




It's getting harder to isolate the others; aside from the Humans, everyone's connected by alliance. And, there are no wars. We're getting along well enough with everyone that I'm not really worried about them picking a fight with me, but it would be really weird if somebody(probably the Klackons) didn't get hostile in some direction soon. It's time -- we have yet to get through two centuries without a major war breaking out in this LP. Who knows though, maybe it can be forestalled by continued manipulation. I'm curious to see what happens.




Almost everything they have that we don't is military in nature. We definitely don't want to pick a fight here yet -- but crucially, Computers is no longer the big gap it was 50-75 years ago. So we can still keep stealing from them and eventually catch up ... and get an advantage on everyone else. Meanwhile the Humans don't have anything we don't have again, but instead of cutting funding I'm acting on a suggestion from the thread and will start going for Sabotage, which I basically never do. Let's cause some revolts, just because we can.




Military spending is slowly creeping up, and trade, while still a fraction of it's potential, is becoming a significant income factor. The longer the peace lasts, the more our economy will bloom. Most of our systems are maxed-out for the time being, as of just a few years ago. Research and shipbuilding will naturally see some acceleration now.




All three of the projects that we are just starting to close in on here are significant; atmospheric terraforming, armor, and planetary shields. Our defenses should become nigh-impregnable once those come in, and we'll see our more insignificant planets boosted.




Let the parade of pilfering proceed!




Forgot to show this -- the Colonizer have been hanging out for decades, waiting for a war that hasn't come yet. I only made one version of each of the combat cruisers because I don't think we're going to have all that many of each, as I'm still going to be making new designs with advances in tech.




This is a big one -- we get to drive a bit more of a wedge between Klackons and Bulrathi, while taking the one tech that the bugs have in computing.




Same time here. I thought we'd get Robotics when this came up, but the Silicoids snagged this recently.




The only Robotics we get on our own is the last one. That's pretty hilarious, but it will constitute a 67% expansion of the economy by itself from current levels. If we do have to go to war, let's have the foundation to back it up.




Ok, so here's the deal with sabotage; we're in and need to select a planet. Right now they have three. We'll go with the remote one in the upper-left first. We're told that our spies 'incited 1 rebels. Unrest at 2%'. Grammar may not be the strong suit of the Darlok beauracracy, and that was obviously the lowest-possible amount. We need to get them to 50% in order to revolt. I don't think it goes down over time, so it's just a matter of getting it that high.




This is another nice one. Tritanium is better than the Andrium we are currently researching, and will double ship and base HP compared to the current Duralloy. Time for a new ship design, but 2484 had more for us.




Now another boost for our population. The wimpy worlds finally get to contribute now. And next up is Advanced Soil Enrichment, bypassing Terraforming 50 and Doom Virus(sorry, not sorry Guava). We hit the trifecta here and will have the capacity eventually to turn every system into a Gaia. I think this is the first time I've gotten all of them as natural researches, which is kind of amusing. Six systems benefited, a third of the empire, taking one year for the atmospheric terraforming and a second for the soil enrichment before they could expand their populations and industry.

The Bulrathi weren't pleased about our armor theft, but the long-outdated Industrial Tech 7 and Battle Suits put those concerns to rest.




King Cobra now. Why not, we had the Cobra earlier. A weak shield and better armor is added, along with our latest computer. Thought about taking off the Repulsor beam, but kept it as we don't know what the other races are actually putting on their ships.

As soon as the 2-year ecology investment was in, we got another sabotage hit(1 more rebel, up to 5% ... that's not going anywhere fast) and Planetary Shields X came in. That's enough to keep a good part of the economy occupied for a while.




2486. We now have a full four-pack set of these.




Third time we made a lot more progress.




*Yawn*




This, on the other hand, will slash our eco spending to miniscule levels. It was already around the 10-15% range, but it'll still help. By 2490 most of the new planetary shields were up, and the boosting of the hostile systems most of the way finished. We've reached the point where new advances are virtually plug-n-play, rather than taking decades to implement.




Making them dislike the Alkaris more is the main benefit here; we had this in prototype. Trilithium Crystals(Range 10) is next.




We've gotten a nice run on the Bulrathi here, and are closing in on getting everything they have.




Here we go. 2493, and it's time to build the Guardian-killers. We miss out on both missiles at the next level, so we go with the Phasor for cheap. We won't use it.




Since Wayne named it this a while back, I figured I'd use it for the last ship I'll make for this purpose. Until we miniaturize the torpedoes some I can't fit a lot of them on. The focus of the economy switches from research to shipbuilding, with only the smaller systems still doing a token amount there. It's winning time, and I'll need roughly 100 of these by previous experience to get the job done.




Next year we finally crack this from the Silicoids ... as we are prototyping the next one ourselves. So the shipbuilding will wait a bit while we do a massive expansion of industry.




And the very next turn, while we are still refitting from 4 to 6. Oh, those poor engineers ... Oracle Interface, which is cool enough I'm sad to not be able to use it, comes next.




We aren't getting as many framing opportunities now. The Bulrathi were not amused, and said it'll be war if it happens again. Relations went down to Discord, and we had to give them three techs to appease them.




Too close to the vote to help us much this time around, but I'll take the diplomatic hit.




I expect this to be no more than an annoyance.




The Darlok Tech-Sharing Consortium opened it's vaults ahead of the vote. The Silicoids are the only ones we couldn't totally win over, as we had only three things they wanted. Really weird that they wouldn't take Robotics VII and some other stuff. All they wanted was the planetology stuff like Soil Enrichment. But anyway, we handed over around 6-8 techs to each of the others, got them to dissolve any Alkari alliances, etc. Shortly afterwards ...




Uh, that wasn't supposed to happen. Split Council with the Alkari abstaining. So since I'd handed over the store no matter how valuable anything was, assuming I'd win and just wanting to get it over with, I reloaded from the year before. Those of you who wanted war might get it now, because we can't influence the Alkari to vote for us since we've never met them(I was looking forward to beating them in the vote without actually having contact, a new form of MOO perversion). I might just need to take Orion first though, since that 'encourages' the others vote for you. That should be able to happen next cycle, and we'll get another range increase as well which will increase the chances of relations with Farseer's bird-brains. So mostly I just view this as a delay.

Hold the confetti ... for now. After not doing the Bribery Tour, the High Council said thusly:




Oh. More stuff to take first. Cheaper factories would have been much more useful a few years ago, but it'll still speed things along.




And that didn't take long.




Bless these Bears! As the High Council finally votes. You see, when I did the bribery round and voted, they sided with the Klackons ... despite not being allied. If that happened again here, it would plunge us into Final War. That would have been an interesting one to try to fight, as I think I could have actually won it. I was all set to blather on about how there was really no way to tell between Alkari and Klackon nominees(Alkari aren't on the Status screen as we haven't met them, and the two have tied in number of votes with Farseer just barely coming out ahead the last two Councils). It would have been a final twist of the MOO RNG knife, with the gremlins inside the code laughing at us and our irrelevant vote on how to end the game. But having said that ... I really wasn't looking forward to the slog that would have been. The Bulrathi get me off the hook here.







Everyone else is foregone by existing alliances. Worth noting here that the Alkari numbers have stalled ...




But the bugs have decidedly not. They have emerged as the clear rival now.




Space rocks may be in the mix in the future as well. This is decidedly uncomfortable -- just three votes shy of a Klackon High Master.

We have 23 as well, tied with the bugs and two more than the Silicoids. Long ways from the 34 for a veto bloc yet. We abstain, and are warned by the Bulrathi about getting too big for our britches. The possibility of an eventual Final War still hangs over our heads, but I should be able to bribe my way out of it now that the Klackons and Silicoids have emerged as the threats. I'll need to watch the balance of population closely.