Part 32: Episode III: 2550 - 2579
Heads-up here: a lot fewer screens for this and more videos than usual. Just seemed the way to go for the goings-on, images wouldn't really have shown it as well.Episode III: 2550-2579
Looks like the Psilons scrapped some older ships recently as well; they had a bigger fleet bar a few years back. It's pretty much that fleet that is keeping them right with us overall. Just behind in production, tech is overall very close ... we've got this if we can overcome their combat superiority. Which is a massive, massive IF.
I've thought about going lower or higher on the missile bases; their purpose right now is basically that you can't just send a few pea-shooters to destroy a world. Anything sizable will run them over though. Ultimately I decided to stick with the same approach(100 on sizable worlds, proportionally less elsewhere). The maintenance rate is very slowly declining overall as the economy grows. 56k+ in total production and growing. That's just a bit of industry. The ship maintenance of 9% is for 27 Excalibers. That means about 80 or so of them before I'd cut it off at current levels.
Two big ones about to come in. The best missile shield(Lightning Shield) and the final terraforming one shown here, which would be a 40M boost per planet.
The immediate task is the industry expansion with the final robotics tech we acquired, then smashing the two remaining minor races. After that, we'll look to take on the weakest targets we can find in Psilon territory, and escalate as warranted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMV8UarmRPc
With dozens of worlds finishing up their new factories, Lyae was the last Silicoid holdout and we swept them aside. The space rocks are history, and our insect hordes will next visit the lizards.
A modest-sized Psilon fleet was inbound to Lyae, but more than we could probably handle. No point in losing ships, even a half-dozen, over this planet. They headed for the rendezvous point far on the right side of the galaxy, Argus, where the fleet would muster to begin the next campaign.
I'd long since given up really trying and taking funding out of it, but we finally got an espionage shot at the Psilons. Generally it's best to go for computers first since that helps you in future attempts. A random tech from the chosen field is acquired:
This will boost us quite a bit in terms of TL; we don't have all the standard research done yet in Computing, much less I or II here. I decided to put some funding back in to try and steal more for a while, see if we can get anything else to break.
The next year, 2553, at Sssla(Sakkra homeworld). The Paladins had done no damage at all:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdO5kOcG4Kc
Easy button officially activated. Time to swat these bastards like the flies they are. How well the Sakkra ground troops would fight was not known, but transports were sent there and to two other systems right away.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKszaQHksM0
This was the first attack, at Bootis. 21M lost, 107M killed. They are better-equipped than the Silicoids, but not by much. A 5:1 kill ratio. We'll chew 'em up.
The next year, the Psilons finally captured Lyae. They only got the Zyro Shield and Ionic Pulsar though; no plans for anything particularly great were there. Meanwhile we took two more Sakkra planets, Sssla and Xendalla. The latter yielded a weapon for our ground troops, but more importantly Class X Planetary Shields. That'll help resist Psilon bombardments and give our bases a chance to last a bit longer, inflict a bit more damage.
Another year, and the Psilons steal Improved Space Scanner. Umm, who cares? Except that they are working on stealing our stuff of course. Still technically not at war, but we hate them, they hate us, etc. Also got Complete Terraforming, which is far more important news. Something else to invest in. The fleet buildup is being slowed by all of this, but it's going to be worth it. Planetology is the latest field to turn back for the earlier techs we skipped over, as we've reached the top of the tree there as well.
Our latest Sakkra conquest also gives us Complete Eco Restoration(20 cleaned up for 1BC, even cheaper than what we had) and Battle Computer Mark X(VIII was our best). Quite generous, those lizards, as we trample their corpses to loot their industrial centers for this stuff. Invasion forces are en route to all three remaining planets under their control. They hilariously offer a peace treaty. No, it's time to kill you all now.
This is Pollus, another good planet(over 200M pop, ship producer), in the upper left. I decided when I saw the incoming Psilon fleet that it was time to stand and fight a bit here. Most of the fleet wasn't at stargates, being in orbit over various Sakkra or recently conquered worlds. What ships I could get there in time I sent though. I thought we might have a chance with the support of the bases on the planet. I already know the 82 Dark Star cruisers will be a pain in the arse. The Sun Fire is new, so I'm curious what they've thrown on those.
2557 -- In between, we finish Lightning Shield research. Class XV Deflectors are next. That'd be a nice big boost, and they are also good and expensive. Meanwhile we slaughter another 127M Sakkra and take Dolz. Two planets left, and no more research stolen; I think that's all they have for us.
The sheer micromanagement at this point of getting 40 different planets into the optimal spending ratios for upgrading shields, industry, terraforming, etc. is rather highly tedious. It's an unusual perfect storm, but almost every planet(save the recently acquired ones) had to be adjusted every year for several turns.
Additionally, I didn't expect any new tech anytime soon. The Lightning Shield wasn't enough for me to really want to design a new ship on it's own -- but the various tech advances, particularly the big leap from the one we stole from the Psilons, helped a LOT with miniaturization. As in, the Excaliber is now a third cheaper than it was. We can pack a lot more on. So it was time.
Used my own name for this one: it gave me the Paladin again and I didn't want to go there. Aside from the better missile shield, we've also got the upgrade to the latest battle computer here. Same rough weapon distribution: more than twice the torpedoes and gauss. I've found all three weapons to be valuable in various situations so far. While I've played most of the way in this and other games with a 1-weapon design, at this point diversification definitely helps.
These are only about 11% more expensive than the Excaliber, and pack a much heavier punch.
Then it was time to fight them off at Pollus. I had more ships there than I was expecting at least ... but they simply ran. *Sigh*. I really wanted to fight them. In any case though, the Sun Fire is really a bastard. Advanced Damage Control I think heals 30% of HP per turn for any ships that survive, Neutronium Bombs, Mauler Devices -- it's a royal bastard for non-Orion tech. Didn't get a chance to see the effectiveness of an alpha strike, but I did keep the planet.
It is now 2560, and the Sakkra are no more. It's just us and the Psilons. We now have 44 planets, while they have 25. Turns out there is only one uninhabitable in this galaxy. They also stole more tech this year; the Class X Planetary Shield. I don't think that will help them, as they very likely have better.
There are reasons to wait before attacking them. We're not quite done with the latest economic buildup, to say nothing of mobilization. But I think there's just as many arguments against waiting, and at this point I basically just want to get this over with. We have a few ships still over each of the Sakkra worlds until they get defenses up and running. Since the Psilons have unlimited range, nothing they feast their eyes on is safe. The rest of the fleet will head towards relatively undefended 'frontier worlds' -- those without stargates or big base concentrations. Aside from taking territory away from the brainiacs, I want to force a battle that can be as much on our terms as possible and see how we match up. We have the numbers, so if the proton torpedoes and death rays can do enough damage to keep us from getting obliterated, we should be able to finally take these bastards down.
In other words, it's on now. Finally. This war will determine the fate of the galaxy. It is quite literally us or them. No Council vote anymore; those require at least three active races.
The first group of 29 dreadnoughts, most of them the older Excalibers, made way for Tyr -- that's the rich system in the upper right of the galaxy. We'll work right-to-left across the top there, where there are multiple potentially weak targets that are relatively recent acquisitions by the Psilons. Let's see how they respond. Right now the latest estimates give us 80-85% of their fleet strength, but 10 of the newer, more powerful Eviscerators were completed just last year as the shipbuilding is really starting to ramp up again. We should be able to rapidly throw more into the grinder over the coming years.
The next year, the Psilons seemed to have figured things out as well. They attacked Simius and destroyed it. Easily. Technically we are still at peace, but only technically. The fleet had some 78 dreadnoughts and almost 500 cruisers. Probably the bulk for them. Not ready to take that on if I have a choice.
2562 was a waiting year while the fleet moved. In the interim, we stole another tech(Advanced Computers II), and the Psilons officially declared war. "Prepare to die Klackon scum". Right back at 'ya.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXtCzgfu7X0
Then in 2563 we struck back. There were very minimal presences at Incedius and Tyr, wiped out easily. The test ground battle was another matter. They have superior shields and weapons. It looks like it's going to be best for us to bomb out most planets, but we'll definitely take any, like Tyr, that have a minimal population.
Then I saw this. 152 dreadnoughts, 690 cruisers, 223 destroyers. Heavens. We don't have enough ships for me to risk taking that on, certainly not all in one place. Zhardan is a nice artifacts planet ... make that WAS, when this arrives.
I transferred as much population as I could from there to the Tyr invasion ... and then the Psilons retreated at Zhardan. Um ... ok. Then this ...
It wasn't a big colony, but every one we eliminate is a little more stress on their core worlds. Only 11 ships in orbit. At this tech level it doesn't take much to burn a planet. And we've got lots of burning to do. Another Psilon fleet is two years away from Pollus, one of our big systems in the upper left. Less than 30 dreadnoughts, 235 of their Dark Star cruisers, but I think we can get enough ships there to at least put up a fight in that time. If they don't run.
2565: We destroy Morrig from orbit, a big terran planet, try to sneak some transports onto Lyae but a Psilon fleet arrives and shoots them down, and capture Tyr. On that last point they have transports incoming there so we'll have to hang out for a while. We captured three techs, including Industrial Waste Elimination, a state of utopia in which our factories no longer produce any pollution. It was very small as it was, but now it's zero. The primary Psilon fleet recolonized Incedius -- now it's a waiting game to see where they go.
The following video is a little longer than usual(almost three minutes), but I left it unedited/trimmed. It shows one of the sets of battles, for 2566 in this case, in it's entirety. This kind of thing went on for a number of years with multiple encounters on an annual basis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW7Mh3jUa_E
Well, our ships can definitely compete with theirs now, which is good. I'm starting to think I'm going to eventually win this. Lost a nice rich planet at Guradas, defended Pollus, won the attack on Helos and destroyed it later. It would seem to be a war of attrition now. We're going to go after some bigger fish, but the main idea is to attack more systems than they can defend, only worrying about protecting our own space when it looks like we'll have a reasonably favorable situation. Most important right now is the planet count: 43-22 in our favor.
The next year that second number went down quite a bit. Three small planets(Lyae, Incedius again, and Volantis) were eliminated, as well as Kailis. You may remember early on in the game I was disheartened when I built a massive colony ship to go across dark space to an artifacts planet, only to have them take it from me a few years later. That was Kailis, almost 200 years ago. Now it's gone in a hail of torpedoes and death rays. The tide is definitely turning in our favor. I've still got maybe a dozen planets doing some research, but that's almost irrelevant at this point. Throwing more ships into the effort of spreading out and hitting every Psilon system we can is really the only thing that matters.
The next year, four more systems went down, though they do colonize the empty planets some and one attack did fail. Also this ...
Rebellion is almost always the work of enemy spies: I'm certain it is in this case as I've seen them active blowing up the occasional group of factories or bases.
The latest chart shows they are down to 18 planets, three of which are recently re-colonized crap. I'm not even going to bother playing that wonderful game of whack-a-mole now until we've taken down all of their more productive worlds. They've got over 160 dreadnoughts now at Mentar ... while the empire crumbles around them. Smooth.
A couple years later most of it headed off ... to make a new colony on Selia. Umm, ok? By 2572, their homeworld was the only significant presence they had left, with 3-4 worlds getting glassed each year. It was time to concentrate for one final battle. The Psilons were defeated, but the paperwork had not yet been delivered. A year earlier, I started an experiment on Obaca(170M max. pop, ultra rich). With planetary transfers, it could produce 123 missile bases per year. That's a bit ... perhaps I can test the limit there?
At this point I stopped micromanaging the planets since it obviously no longer mattered, and sent literally every single ship I had from wherever towards systems close to the target. That was here:
That's ... a few ships. Their fleet strength is still larger than mine, and without the AI bonuses for Impossible they wouldn't even be able to pay for them all.
2573 -- I started researching Bio Terminator, last in the Planetology tree. Just for you, Guava!
2574 -- The Psilons blow up 17 factories on some random world, and offer me the first peace treaty in forever. How about get stuffed?
2576 -- They headed back to Selia for absolutely no good reason. Umm, ok, I'll attack now. It was really anticlimactic, but I'll show it anyway:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIA5oW4PGC4
Then it was time to divide up the fleet and hit every Psilon world. Whack-a-Mole, or Mop-Up, whatever you want to call this. Time to kill em all. There is nowhere to hide now. Three years later and about a dozen more grasshopper worlds glassed later, it was over.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZkurziCOdk
There's a couple small details different here from the 'diplomatic victory' ending. I particularly like the GNN AnchorBot(TM)'s sarcasm.
Kaxal and his forces were triumphant at last! As I mentioned once before, this was one of the more epic games I've had. Somewhat unusual right from the point of the early fighting against the Mrrshan, and I felt like I was up against pretty much the whole way, until we conquered Orion. In this case it really did prove to be the key to the galaxy. It definitely worked in my favor that the Psilons couldn't really figure out what they wanted to do for most of it, but they still had the upper hand regardless. They really are a pain.
So I'm 2-for-3 now. I decided to tackle the space rocks next: the most unique race Master of Orion offers. A preview of that challenge will be up next.