Part 11: 2450 - 2475

Episode I: 2450-2475




A completely empty threat ... and what about the Silicoids Mr. Birdface? Again though, tensions brewing. As was alluded to before, why not just attack the Silicoids now? Well, they've got allies.




We're maintaining a small tech lead, but with the amount of effort going into the fleet that won't last. Otherwhise nobody seems to be getting the upper hand.




Holding steady at best now.





The rest of the laser-based destroyers will go away soon.




The fleet is starting to get expensive.





It's all about the terraforming. Nothing else is close and that will give us a much-needed boost.

For better or worse the Psilon Empire is almost ready for war. Not quite there yet; that'll wait until after High Council V convenes. The goal for now is to get the next round of terraforming done and modernize the fleet some more, get some more bases built, get a little more ready. The patient, long game is usually the best option but we can't really hope for more than a stalemate here. Galactic politics are against us as well. Of the three empires we can attack:

** Alkaris would be easy pickings but we'd then be dead meat in the Council. Genocide ticks everyone off.

** The Darloks are our only sort-of friend now; if we fail, they'll vote against us.

** The Silicoids always have one or two allies. Fighting them means taking on almost half the galaxy.

So there aren't a lot of great options here. If we wait longer, our carefully designed Stingers could become obsolete. The rate of tech advances really slows at this point. Hopefully something happens in the next couple decades to shake up this deadlock.

A year later the last remaining laser ships are scrapped, and the money used to fund increased studies on the research planets. I want that terraforming, and I want it now.




Takes a few more years, but we get there. Same choices as before; this was a previous tier tech. The atmospheric terraforming would really boost border worlds of Arietis and Willow; Advanced Eco Restoration has a smaller effect, but would still cut our ecology spending in half everywhere. It's pretty small right now and there's a non-trivial difference in the research cost, so I choose the Atmospheric option. We won't be seeing this anytime soon regardless.

Now we have the possibility of 30M more per planet, 180M total. The Silicoids got this about 15-20 years ago; the Darloks haven't gotten anything like it. The rich get richer. Total empire max. pop right now is 372M, so we're talking about almost increasing it by half. This is HUGE, esp. when you consider it's probably worth two extra Council votes. Per-planet cost is 120 BC, so it's an investment but not a huge one; about half of our income for a year and then waiting for the growth.




At the same time(2454), I notice this. Look who decided to come say hello. It's our good buddies the space rocks. Arietis has 10 bases and most of the fleet; still, let's put off that terraforming and build a few more while they come in. You must properly greet a Silicoid when it comes to visit, and it's been so very long since we had them over for tea ... Bunch of cruisers there along with the one capital ship. At the very least we should have a chance to scan them and see what we'd be up against in the event of a war. Everywhere else, it's terraforming time.





They're here ... and they suck, for the most part. Lots of death spores. Bombs on a colony ship?? Umm, ok. Due to the combination of speed and biologicals, we want to take out the Makos first, then Colony Ships because of the bombs, then Polaris. Whatever that big Monitor wants to do is pretty much fine. They should do limited damage if any with those lasers. Here goes nothing ...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ap_IKj883rg



Victory! But not without cost. We did lose some ships ... and learned those mass drivers don't do a whole lot in the numbers I have. Stinger missiles? Two volleys from the dozen bases took out a huge ship, and they tore those cruisers apart well. Them I like.

Those lasers are going away before too long though ... spies report they have developed the fusion beam. Honestly Zygot doesn't really care though, since we aren't going to be going toe-to-toe with them. The environmental damage was significant; Arietis is down to 5M citizens with a max of 10: 17M were killed by the death spores. The rocks are willing to risk the ire of the galaxy(biologicals upset all races) to take us out. We'll remember this. And if they'd gotten off a couple more salvos of them, the colony would have been destroyed. It was closer than it appeared. So we will terraform for a third time, with the planetary reserve featuring in the funding. And perhaps many more times to go -- as many as are necessary.

Our estimates are that this was about a third, at least a quarter, of the Silicoid fleet. I think our Sting Raids can wreak havoc on them ... and their allies are not likely to have enough tech to worry us. The drums of war are beating louder, but first we must grow our other worlds after the terraforming. Having proven themselves of little use, the first batch of Star Streaks are scrapped. They never served a purpose much greater than deterrence.




Good luck with that. Ours aren't for sale.





When it rains it pours.





And speaking of pouring .... We can only fight this war on the defensive unless we want to risk ticking everyone off by eliminating them. Between these two items, our trade income is slashed from about 300BC to 52BC per year. The Alkari part of it we aren't getting back, but we already had some more Sting Raids en route to Willow. We'll wait and see if they can make a difference against the pirates, along with the ships already there.

The Alkari have 12 cruisers(Condors) along with three more colony ships headed to Tyr. We have 8 bases there, which I'm confident can handle the situation. Aside from Fusion Bombs, their tech is ... not great.

After considering this for a year or two, in 2460, the year before we were to arrive, I decide to send the fleet to Altair. Punching them in the mouth is a good way to get peace -- and otherwhise we can just bombard them from orbit and see how their ability to wage war survives that. Of course if we accidentally destroy the colony entirely we'll be screwed, but I don't think our fleet is big enough to do that. Hopefully. It doesn't all go; 40 Sting Raids which is maybe a quarter of the total. Let's see how many ships and bases they want to lose before they decide fighting us isn't a good idea. Factories and people after that, if they persist.

That set up two battles the following year:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCrONkPF93g



Hmm. Gatling Lasers. An invasion fleet with Gatling Lasers. A single missile base could hold them off indefinitely. And our strike knocked out 10 missile bases along with the cruisers. Let's just hang around there and give them some more punishment ...

The next year almost all of the rest of Altair's bases were destroyed, but Willow's pirate problems continued. More ships were sent there as well, with only a token amount remaining at Arietis.




Another year, and we've got superiority over the Alkari homeworld. It's a simple yes/no decision as you can see here, with the population and factories listed. There is no indication of how much damage you'll cause; it would be a lot better if there was an 'estimated casualties' listed or somesuch. You just have to estimate it based on experience, something you get better at throughout the game. Bombs are the best weapons for this, beam weapons pretty much suck ... let's see how several dozen stingers do.




Not very well. They'll grow population and produce factories faster than this. All this will do is annoy them. We'll send more ships when we can.




Sooner rather than later, with this bit of concurrent good news.

We've kept up the pounding of Altair, gradually whittling away their industrial base and keeping the population around the same. They are still loathe to sign a peace agreement, calling Emperor Zygot 'dishonorable'. I'm not sure why, since that usually happens when you break an agreement and they were the ones to break one with us.




This was quite the interesting bit of news; four years before the next Council vote, we find the Silicoids without allies for the first time. They are also racking up the weapons tech, but it seems the galaxy is turning against them. It seemed to start shortly after they used the death spores against us. That might have been the match that lit the powder keg, as it were. If it wasn't so close to a vote we'd attack now -- but they probably won't find so many supporters as before, and it looks like our moment will come afterwards.




More bad news for the rocks, which is quite fine with us. As the bulletin implies, this is just a matter of moving enough ships into the system. If the comet hits, the planet is destroyed and the star marked as uninhabitable. That'd just be a shame, but I doubt they'll screw this up.




For the fourth straight time, it's Zygot and Granid doing the honors. The Darloks are neutral this time, but that's fine; we just need them to not take the other side.




Sakkras persist on the wrong side of history.




The Humans have flipped. This is about hating the Silicoids, not liking us Psilons. But whatever works; we'll take it.




The Silicoids are up to 7 votes this time, still at a full third exactly. I thought the birdbrains would stay neutral what with being at war with both parties, but apparently they really, really hate us.




We're up to 6 votes, and abstain again. As before all we need is for everyone to not be against us, and we easily met that. It's an evenly split Council.