Part 25: Episode III: 2425 - 2443
Episode III: 2425-2443When I said the Mrrshan are at war with everyone, i wasn't being literal. I should have been. Absolutely everyone is at war with them. They have nothing but enemies. So we can either profit from this -- or be bystanders. A year ago I designed a new ship, the Stng Cruise.
Cruiser-size ship with the 5 2-launch racks of Stinger missiles. The Mrrshans have decent weapons tech including Scatter Pack V missiles, but no propulsion or shielding tech to speak of. Looks like another good situation for hit-and-run tactics to wear them down. They don't have advanced combat armors so our ground troops will be equipped better; they've got hand lasers but that will mean nothing compared to our Andrium armor. We should have the edge in ground battles. If we can get enough ships built, this is potentially a chance to swing the balance of power.
Current # of systems: Silicoids 19, Psilons 16, Klackons 17. Psilons have the better population though at a council vote measure of 16-15 with us at 13. Silicoids, like us, have a good amount of crappy hostile planets. Also the Psilons just got reduced waste 20% which boosted their economy to being clearly the best. Taking what we can from Mrrshan territory is better than letting others seize it. Research will be slowed while we build up enough ships to be useful, but that can't be helped. If the other races take this opportunity first, we'll be in even worse shape.
The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. For the last couple decades I think we've made up some tech ground on the Silicoids, and maybe almost kept even with the Psilons at best. They've continued losing some of their more antiquated designs as well. The news isn't all bad -- but it mostly is and things can't go well if we can't get that production comparison to go a little better for us.
All the established border worlds have between 25 and 45 missile bases; I add some more in between each wave of tech advances. Still our maintenance on them isn't bad, and trade funds are starting to roll in. Didn't re-up with the Psilons here for a while because relations were souring(down to Unease at one point), but they seem to be heading back in the right direction now. We try to do so here and they say 'You have not honored your past agreements, we see no reason to trust you now'.
Although that statement appears to be untrue, I think it's basically a standard 'we don't like something you did' thing that might be referring to us voting against them in the Council a while back.
We're definitely at the beginning of a new cycle here, and will only build the new Stng Cruise models for what is needed in the Mrrshan war. Torpedoes will be the next thing to finish most likely, and will probably gives us more bang for the buck.
Having thus decided, the Emperor ramps up ship production on all good-sized fully-developed planets except Mobas, which is forever devoted to research as our back-line artifacts planet. Time is off the essence if we are to attack the Mrrshan before others get their act in gear. Most of them can turn out a new cruiser each year; some a little more often, some less.
The next year another, small group of Psilon ships gets decimated at Escalon. Only a half-dozen cruisers and a dozen destroyers, but anything they lose for nothing is good for us.
This kind of thing is a common sight when gearing up for war in a large-ish empire. All of those lines are RELOC commands from other worlds. Guradas is our most recently colonized world, and is the closest to the Mrrshans which is why it was chosen as the rally point.
Just a few years later, in 2429, more Psilons came to Escalon. They had a single cruiser, a Star Blade, which did some damage to our bases with a much more advanced missile. It only got to fire once before being destroyed though, and once again they were defeated.
Our fleet strength after 4 years of full production and one year of just a few planets before that has our fleet up to almost halfway-respectable, as can be seen. We've got 11 cruisers at Guradas which is enough to begin probing attacks.
Shown in blue here is the Mrrshan Empire, in it's entirety. They took Antares about 20 years ago from the Bulrathi to make it this good. We can only reach Fierias and Simius right now. The former is their homeworld so we'll head for the easier target of Simius first. At Warp 3, it's a 3-year journey.
Each year afterwards, any cruisers that have arrived at Guradas are sent after them to follow and reinforce. Since you can't relocate to a system you don't control, this gets everything to a central location and allows for minimal micromanagement.
In 2432, the first group of cruisers reaches Simius.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kf0YEvFc70
Definitely a success. Given how slow their ships are, taking out the missile bases was job #1. We've got 64 of these ships by now, which require almost 9% of our income to maintain. We could build more, but it seems unnecessary at this point. I pull the plug and switch back to research. We'll also clearly have space superiority soon, and once that's done(I'd do it now but the game won't allow it on unscouted systems) we can send in ground troops. We're still among the weaker fleets, but about three-quarters of the strongest, the Psilons. That did not take long at all.
The Mrrshans delayed matters by throwing strike craft, called Ferrets, into the fray by the truckload. They had almost 1700 at one point, several hundred more elsewhere, and with only 10 total Stingers per cruiser, it takes a lot of missiles to blow up that many ships. We weren't their only problem either: a Bulrathi fleet was seen headed to Fierias. It would only be a matter of time ...
Meanwhile the whole 'enemy of my enemy' thing boosts everyone's opinion of us considerably. We are able to boost our Psilon trade deal to almost 2k ...
Also, this happened ...
That's not why we attacked the Mrrshan, but we'll take it. I figure we are more likely to end up at war with the Psilon in the long-term, and they are more powerful as well. We might just have a chance if we can keep the rocks on our side ...
After a few years, we clear out the remaining defenders at Simius. At the same time, we acquire Cloning and the Energy Pulsar. Here, advanced soil enrichment really helps out our standard planets. +50M terraforming would add 20M everywhere but overall this is better ... and we can always get a higher terraforming number later most likely.
Here's an interesting choice. Range 9 would be nice; we have 5 which is hilariously bad for this point in the game. I think the speed is more valuable, but there's always the move-up-the-ladder argument. The cost difference is negligible though, so Impulse Drives it is; Warp 5.
Simius has 93M population, 289 factories. Well-developed and I have every intention of keeping it that way. Time for invasion. I'm aiming for an even 100M here since we should have the tech edge. That'll leave some left over, in theory. The Bulrathi attack on Fierias failed, and the Mrrshan have responded by sending 1,773 Ferrets to Ursa, the nearby homeworld of the Bears. It's as though the sea is parting here now to let us invade unimpeded. Not arguing. It'll take six years for all of them to arrive. Our recently developed Cloning ability goes into work and will let us replace the population loss almost instantly.
2440 brings the Advanced Space Scanner, with ECM Jammer VI the only option for the next tier. Time for automated spam-scouting:
This is the first of a whopping 26 systems, over a third of the galaxy, that is scouted at the same time by our new toy! This includes Orion, which is in the lower-right. We may end up visiting it on purpose this game, by the way. As of now, it's still uninhabited. Meanwhile we get a useless GNN Report, and the first 23M land on Simius. They take out 35M defenders, confirming my calculations that 100M should be sufficient. That leaves 60, with 77 incoming for us. They'll grow some more, but not enough to stop us.
The Mrrshan are hilariously attacking now, sending 1k Ferrets ... and a pair of colony ships?!? ... to Escalon. Our missile bases will tear them apart, if they stick around long enough to let us. Among the useful information revealed by the scanners is that the two Mrrshan worlds further up are smallish Deserts, sizes 35 and 50M. We'll leave them with the smaller one, and if possible take the other three.
The research keeps on rolling in. The only choice for the next tier is Powered Armor. Described as high-mobility, low-grav flight capability combined with heavy armor plating. Not sure how that works out in practice but it's a whopping +30 to ground combat rolls. Naturally the Psilons already have it.
'eternal friendship and loyalty'. No, I don't believe that either. Yes, I'll take the offer. The three great powers are now allies, a bond forged in the blood of felines. It cannot last forever -- but I'll take it for now.
Here's our homeworld, for a look at how reduced waste impacts things. We still have some spending ... but almost none.
There's still quite a bit to happen in the last several years of this cycle, so that will wait till later. The struggle of the insect horde continues apace, and the Mrrshan War has proven a most valuable conflict in more ways than one ...