Part 28: Episode III: 2475 - 2499

Episode III: 2475-2499




We've unquestionably surged past the Silicoids overall. The fear here is that we might upset the Psilons enough by combination of bad-boy rep and continuing to get bigger to spark a premature war with them. Not continuing to expand though is at least as dangerous; they'll just keep consolidating. We're also about to say goodbye to almost half our trade income. Must be done though.




All of the old missile cruisers are gone, and in a few years we've got a decent group of Rangers here. I'll keep building a bit more until I'm certain we have enough firepower.




A number of systems now have 100 bases, which I've decided to cap things at as a nice round number: don't normally go nearly that high but we need the insurance with how advanced the Psilons are. I did decide to keep going and see what kind of max there is on Vega; 136 and rising.




Nothing imminent but as soon as we switch back from ships to research we should get the Gauss Autocannon and better terraforming fairly quickly. We break our Alliance, and the Silicoids respond:




37 Rangers and 35M troops are sent to Rana, just a year's journey away. It's time to begin.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUcb6l3XYfg



This is Selia, where the Silicoids still have ships; it was the last Mrrshan colony that they destroyed. It's also the only planet we don't have bases up on yet, so I started sending Rangers there.

That didn't work out so well -- we'll need to stay further away from their beam weapons or do hit-and-run.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXyYQ0PVafg



I was surprised to see their bases do some significant damage here. We did still capture the planet, capturing Stargate tech, Advanced Eco Restoration, and Battle Computer V(our best is IV at the moment). Very nice stuff.

Part of the problem is I didn't complete the design. I try again here, an updated ship called the Knight:




I'd used the same template as for the Stinger ship; this time I upgraded the armor to Andrium, adding a bit of shielding and ECM as well. These will be much less fragile.




This happened a year later. Unfortunate miscalculations here, but we should be able to press the attack still with sufficient numbers. It's just going to take more time -- and more diversion from research efforts -- than I'd hoped.




Next up, we're headed for Nyarl, then Toranor after that. The plan is to keep our ships concentrated and roll up the rocks' territory from the 'bottom up' here. The rectangular bluish thing around the fleet icon at Nyarl is a stargate: I don't remember if we capture those when taking a planet, but we'll soon find out here. That's one thing they beat us to. We aren't going to bother building our own just yet, as it isn't really worth the effort compared to getting ships built.




As we move forward, I notice that there are some planets just waiting to be settled. It looks like they used to be Sakkra and were destroyed, probably by the Silicoids. That would explain a few things. No point in letting them go to waste: we might as well seize them.

We meet the Sakkra, who give us the 'we'll do fine as long as you acknowledge our superiority' line. Yeah, we've got two dozen planets. You've got six. Be grateful if we deign to acknowledge your existence, lizardface. When we capture Nyarl, the stargate is no more. Figures.




Take a look at this. More info on what happened to Aquilae ... the Silicoids were definitely here at some point, or there wouldn't be all of this waste. Maybe they were bombed from orbit ... and the colony destroyed but not all of the toxic sludge?!? Never seen this before. Not only is it weird, but we'll have to clean it up.




Upon capturing the next system, Toranor, we are told heralds of our success.




Speaking of Toranor, it will serve as the new rally point for the fleet. We are producing more ships than we lose, but at 25-30 bases per planet, the Silicoids are extracting some cost. Less than a decade into the war, it is 2483and we've captured three planets, colonized a third, while having them destroy one. The fleet has to be divided a bit to make sure we have coverage for the new/young planets: don't want to lose what we've gained. So there's a lot of care to be taken.

In this section, Obaca is a small ultra-rich planet that will be quite nice eventually, but as it is located in a nebula the initial fight against the missile bases will be painful. There's a couple more mid-sized planets in Arietis and then Argus just off-screen to the right, after which the homeworld of Cryslon which presently has 44 bases will come. Arietis will be taken first.

Progress is also slowing simply due to distance here: troop sources are getting further and further away, requiring longer travel times.




Take a look at the base count on Vega here. 263. Apparently 255 is not the limit. I'll probably keep a save at some point to just hit End Turn and try to figure out what the limit is, if there is one -- but for now I don't want basically infinite funds going into upkeep, and scrap this down to 100.

Based on what I've seen so far though, 200 total cruisers should be plenty. I'm going to cut off shipbuilding unless we drop below that level. We're at a reasonably comfortable level, just over 15% going into ships and over 9% on bases. From here on it should be a steady, gradual takeover of the Silicoids so long as the Psilons remain peaceful.




We were almost to a number of advances; two of them came the very next year. Terraforming +60M, double what we already have, and the Gauss Autocannon. In the next group of choices here, we'll ignore the Bio Terminator and grab more terraforming, trying to keep up with the Joneses ... err Psilons ... as best we can in terms of population. Meanwhile, Hellfire Torpedoes, which do a little less damage than our current ones but hit four times each, are the only next-tier weapons option.

A year later we got the Zyro Shield, which would really increase our chances at attacking Psilon worlds. We also accidentally destroyed the Silicoid colony on Arietis by overkilling a base that was built there, so we have to send a colony ship now. Sigh. Next up we'll push forward with better deflector shields.




Finally overcame the virus and knocked out ECM Jammer VII. We did miss one level of robotics, so a chance to get tier VI is huge: a 40% production increase. We'll switch some funding out of most of the other fields to speed this along.




After finishing up Neutronium Armor, we are greeted with this. No new options. This means we've reached the top of the ladder, and can find no new options. There are procedural techs that carry things further, but first we must go back and knock out anything we skipped. Only two here.

In 2497, we finally got around to attacking Cryslon. A few missile bases had already been taken out, but now the fleet was here in force and it was time to finish the job.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3Osj9ubOrY



Lost a few more Rangers, but most of their fleet had already fled. They are no match for us, and it gets worse with each system that falls.




Back on the sidelines.




They have a long memory, as they should.





We've taken them down some, but not quite as much as I hoped.




Thankfully they didn't gain much this cycle. We're just ahead of them with 35 votes, more than a veto bloc. Finally have our insurance. We abstain, and the struggle continues.