Part 84: Episode VII: 2575 - 2600

Episode VII: 2575-2600




Making progress everywhere except in terms of technology. That too will come, but we still have four systems(Nazin/Phantos/Hyades/Escalon) that are not participating and we need to keep pumping out the ships so that we can expand when opportunities present themselves and hold the undeveloped systems.




Really nothing new here but I haven't shown it in a long time. For about a century I think it's been Silicoids/Bulrathi/Humans vs. Psilons/Meklar/Darloks. The Bulrathi have no allies, which is the only thing allowing us to stay on their good side so far.




Even with a larger fleet, our expenses are much lower now thanks to the robotics-driven expansion. Bases are a relative pittance.




We'll see a wave of stuff coming in soon, with the first two(terraforming and faster engines) likely to also be the most important.




** Psilons(14, -1). The failure of the eggheads to take advantage of their superior position over the course of the past few generations is stunning. We've had some to do with it but their haphazard attacks have led to the galaxy being somewhat more competitive than it should be. Any time they decide to get their act together though, they can still crush whomever they feel like.
** Meklar(11, +3). Closing the gap, though pretty much all the recently-contested systems have now been firmly taken. Mostly by us, but if things stay stable the lure of Orion will begin to be more attractive again ...
** Bulrathi(9, +3). Bears have been active as well, filling in a few gaps.
** Silicoid(4, -1). The rocks are simply no longer a real threat.
** Human(2, -1)
** Darlok(1).

There are three players, and three empires waiting to be finished off. So long as we stay on good terms with the other two powers, I like our chances to keep improving our position.




Heh. Didn't last long. If I have to choose, I choose the Psilons.




2578. I swear we've been researching this for like 50 years. We have a fine selection of choices, but I opt for Soil Enrichment. Atmos Terraforming and Advanced Eco Restoration were also there, as well as Toxic Landings which we've never bothered to pick up.




In 2581, things get worse for the Silicoids as their homeworld is nuked from orbit. Psilons did it of course as you can see. We may as well try to sneak a colonizing force in there. The eggheads dawdle for just one year, and that's all it takes for us to get in there, once again 'winning the tie'. Another homeworld system will fit quite nicely into our empire.




Cryslon is the upper-left blue flag here, and you can see a long line of Silicoid ships below and at a slight diagonal to the right. We'll have to chase these off as they arrive; they are all en route from Neptunus, ultra-rich radiated world that has been serving as a ship source for decades for the rocks. Extended guard duty is in order, but well worth it. Once again, the most important thing isn't even that we settled this system, but that the Psilons didn't.

At the same time, they bombed out another Silicoid world off to the right, but we don't have enough ships to go everywhere and we let it be.




A key moment arrives in 2584. Escalon, the artifacts system we've been working on for some time now and the rally point for the upper galaxy, is ready to start contributing to our research. The population isn't maxed-out yet, partly because we've had to ship some out for new colonies including Cryslon just last year. It's the most-protected planet(nowhere else has more than 35 bases), and will accelerate our research significantly. Even at this unfinished state, it's contribution is more than a third of what our annual imperial research effort has been. This should help us start making a bit of progress in catching the others.

The rally point will now shift upwards to Hyades.




The next research wave begins the next year. Along with the new drives, we also land ECM Jammer MK IX. Bypassing the nice Oracle Interface for now, we will next go with Robotic Controls VII, finish off the path of maximum industrial expansion. The propulsion choice was between star gates and high-energy focus. Right now Star Gates are better for us, considering that we are using torpedoes, not beam weapons, and that the empire is large enough to benefit from faster travel.




For the first time in a long, long while we have new ships to design. Faster versions of what we already have, basically. The Tornado had to accept an inferior battle computer and no shielding in order to keep the same payload and faster engines. A trade-off well worth it though. Due to another coming development, we won't be building many of them anyway.




2588. We are now less inadequate on the armor front. We could take Tritanium next -- but opt for Reduced Industrial Waste 20%. There's still a modest waste-cleanup budget and this will cut it by a third to virtually nothing.




Only got a few Tornados out there, and you can question whether another 25% HP is worth 82 BC per ship, but nonetheless the IAM Cruiser(Ion-AntiMatter) is born. I expect this to be our next workhorse, with no improving techs coming down the line anytime soon.

Meanwhile things are looking more stable now so we may be inching towards the Orion plan, but we certainly aren't ready for it yet. I'm thinking maybe when I'm ready to retire the Ajax, it might be best to retire them in battle that way. Of course much could and probably will change. Four of our dozen systems(Nazin, Phantos, Hyades, Cryslon) don't have planetary shields up yet. So there's a lot of baby-sitting yet to do.




This game has not been humanity's finest hour. It only takes a year for them to clean up the mess though.




Rhilus is unlucky system #13 in 2591. Psilons destroyed but it never sent in a colony ship. I'm not even sure who it belonged to before that. It's had multiple owners. A small world, but we got there in time to keep Humans or Darloks from claiming it. Well over half the galaxy is either ours or the eggheads now, with each passing acquisition bringing us closer to the moment of inevitable conflict. For now, I'm just pleased to have a new system.

Nazin, the yellow star below it, finished the planetary shield the same year. Two years after starting it. Once we get industry up and running on a system that big, things happen quickly.




We have ... a lot of weapon systems here. The Pulson Missile in most recent in, replacing the Stinger which didn't see much use in this game as our bases haven't needed to do much. The Hand Phasor is a high-quality weapon for our ground troops, and we're already seen that our capabilities in that area are rather lacking. Seems the best option to me.

Silicoid and Psilon colony ships arrive at Rhilus. Too late, slackers!




The beginning of the size-related warnings. We have arrived. The Darloks have one barren system, Herculis, with 45M population. We could destroy them at will.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bksmjkyQ-JM



The Bulrathi then made their presence felt at Rhilus. We haven't fought them really much yet. Appears they are generally losing but doing ok against the Psilons.

Take most of them out, but lose the planet. Bases would have helped. How much, I don't know, but they've got Zyro Shields so not all that much I'm thinking. Definitely got the feeling we're approaching the point where bases are of minimal value and attacking is king. A costly loss, as the Psilons immediately colonize the system. At least for now, Rhilus truly is an unlucky thirteenth.

2598: we try to sneak in on another planet, but the Bulrathi-Psilon war is too much for us. We simply can't dish out enough punishment to take down the Bulrathi ships. There's another one in a different part of the galaxy that we are going to try to sneak a colonization force into, but as the third century draws to a close there is a key decision to be made now. Our current strategy of stealing the Psilon spoils has worked well. It appears that it's usefulness is fading however.

We must decide between two paths; a military-focused one and a research-focused one. The military option would go for a massive buildup at an accelerated pace, sacrificing research to do so. Once the fleet neared our top capabilities, we would strike wherever we usefully can with maximum force. There are really only two such targets right now. The Bulrathi are too strong, and it'd be insane to attack the Psilons. The Darlok would invoke the genocide penalty, and the Silicoid defenses are too strong(V Planetary Shields + IX Deflectors, 14 damage absorbed and our AM torpedoes only do 15 vs. planets). There is one nearby human planet, but the main point would be to go for Orion. By my calculations, we'd have to loose over two thousand torpedoes to kill the Guardian; it's Lightning Shield will take down over three-quarters of them, and Class IX shielding combined with 10k hp will require almost 500 to get through. We could double our current fleet without over-stressing the economy, and even at that level we could put a little less than 600 torpedoes into an alpha strike. Without losing any ships, we'd need four rounds of firing to do it. Probably would lose quite a few in the process.

On the research path, we would keep a moderate amount of the newer ships, probably dispense with the Ajax entirely soon, and work on moving up the tech tree before lashing out. The goal would be to combat primarily the Bulrathi more effectively; they've invested in anti-missile defenses so a beam weapons approach would seem optimal there. We'd also want to work on getting bombing capability; definitely moving more towards a combined-arms approach.

It's a tough choice. Despite everything that's been accomplished in the past century or two, we still trail the Psilons slighty in territory and would not want to get in a conflict with them. If they absorb a significant amount of Bulrathi systems, it probably won't take them long to turn on us. And we are nowhere near being ready for that.

Orion would give us the capacity to even the playing field more quickly with it's 'gifts' and perhaps more importantly an eventual major research center a bit later. It won't give us the broad-based development we could get in the meantime by a more conventional advancement plan though.

Ultimately this was a close-enough call that I decided to literally sleep on the decision. I went with the demobilize-and-research approach, mostly because I just hate philosophically the idea of building a massive fleet that won't be particularly useful otherwhise for the sole purpose of taking out Orion. Modernizing the fleet, filling out our capabilities, etc. will eventually result in ships that can do either job as needed. There aren't enough of the new cruisers in position to take over for the Ajax's yet. Once I do manage to get that done though, we'll get rid of those old war-horses and switch spending over to accelerating tech progression.




The Bulrathi got to that planet, a large but ultra poor terran called Incedius, a turn before we did. Unfortunate but not the end of the galaxy. Here at the next vote, we are nominated for the first time. That in itself is a herculean accomplishment given how things started. It also presents a problem, since we are at war with everyone save the Psilons. It was pretty obvious how the voting would go.


I knew this. I really did. I just didn't remember it at the time. And I paid the price.

** Silicoid(4) -- Zygot.
** Bulrathi(11) -- Zygot.
** Darlok(1) -- Zygot.
** Humans(2) -- Zygot.
** Psilons(19)

It would take 17 votes to form a veto bloc. We have 12, and lose the vote here 37-12.




Our chances in a final war with our former allies at the head are nil, and so the Meklar go down, meekly accepting the rule of Zygot. We rode the coat-tails of the mighty Psilons up from the disastrous start to become one of the two major races after them(along with the Bulrathi), and our future might have been bright had we been able to survive diplomatically. In retrospect, once it became clear that I was going to be the second nominee I should have gotten peace with some of them. That would have meant breaking the long-standing alliance with the Psilons, and if they became our enemy we would have been in dire straits. Even if they didn't, continuing to grow would have been MUCH harder, because we wouldn't have been able to feed on their leftovers anymore. It would have still given more of a chance than this though. I was so focused on the continued buildup of the empire and the Council had been stable for so long that I totally forgot to think seriously about what was going to happen until it was too late. A fatal error, but in this kind of catch-22 it may not have mattered much. I probably wouldn't have been able to withstand the eggheads' wrath if I betrayed them -- but I still definitely should have tried. A fairly amateurish mistake to be perfectly honest about it.

In other words, at the critical moment Meklar everywhere had to ask the immortal question: "TK-421, why aren't you at your post?".

It was still a heck of a thing to get back in the game after that plague early on. Hopefully we will not start out so unlucky as the last two games(it could hardly be worse) and the choices will not be so desperate for the Meklar next time. The most surprising thing about this game? Nobody, ever, researched Radiated Landings. The Silicoids had free reign on those systems for the entire three centuries.