Part 121: Episode X: 2775 - 2800

Episode X: 2775-2800




The military angle is always a lagging indicator and that's really the only thing we're waiting on. And I'm only waiting on getting ourselves closer to a higher level of mobilization(the 35% maintenance threshold); the others are going to have bugged 32k stacks from time to time, and we'll never match that. Other than the fleets, we find ourselves equals.




** Sakkra -- 22(+7).
** Bulrathi -- 21(-3). First decline they've seen in some time, and it is definitely welcomed.
** Silicoid -- 21(--)
** Mrrshan -- 1
** Alkari -- 1

I'll ignore the Mrrshan and Alkari from now on. they are irrelevant. This about as close as you can get in terms of systems controlled. We have 16 developed worlds(11 shipbuilding, 5 research), and another half-dozen in various stages of buildup. All are secure right by virtue of the fact that the Silicoids signed a treaty recently and the Bulrathi are allies.

Both of those situations are temporary, and while we haven't seen the Silicoids deploy the bomb yet I have to think that it will happen. I just haven't been able to build ships fast enough to do more than basically keep pace with the economy expanding.




I've switched to having half instead of a third of the ships we make be of the Colossus variety. I think they are going to be the more important type. Right now we're only at just over 20% in military maintenance spending, and we just need more ships. As much as I'd like to attack right away we just aren't ready yet.

Given the number of Dragons we have, esp. the old ones, I'm going to build even more of the Colossus and try to even things out some. I want to get moving ASAP.

2776: The Alkari note that 'if necessary we will save the galaxy from the Sakkra madness'. I'd like to see you try. This is the most pathetic threat/warning I've ever received. Not only aren't they relevant now, but they haven't been for at least 300 years if not longer.




Another year. Look at that nonsense. 102 capital ships among other things. They'd really like to attack Meklon, and I'm quite sure the 'grace period' is the only reason that they don't. Granid is just basically waiting for an excuse. I don't want to give him one; I'll withhold attacking until he runs out of patience, or I get planetary defenses up on these systems. They're churning out over 100 factories a year, but the process is still underway. It's quite fast at this stage but still takes some time.




2780. The Silicoids aren't in orbit here, just as Meklon and Kulthos the last few years. Still, it's another one up. 17, with five still in progress.




Kulthos also, both the next year. The truce is over. Well Granid, you made this happen. We load up and head for Klystron again. Maintenance is at 27.2%, so we're mostly mobilized. In 2783 we tried for the second time -- let's see how much better we are at taking on their fortifications.


https://youtu.be/KkG3SW960MI



Heh. I think that'll do. I wanted the Colossus 4 to reach the planet in a single turn so that's a mistake I made here. But, taking out over 50 bases in a single drop with 18 of them -- we've now passed the 'maximum fortress planet' test.

Klystron is a Dead Ultra Rich system. The Silicoids have a relief force incoming -- they don't have stargates which makes things easier on us -- but no capital ships. We should be able to handle them. I want to try some troop invasions right away, adjusting that part of the plan. We have nearly all the best equipment so we should at least be competitive in that endeavor. Won't keep all the systems and it'll go a little slower, but I still think it's worth doing for the potential quick turnaround on getting defenses of our own up, and the tech captures.




I extremely don't care. Almost all of the Silicoid reinforcements at Klystron retreat before we can destroy them.


https://youtu.be/VzETcxQbeSo



The Silicoid troops have the same thing we do, except no Powered Armor(Armored Exoskeletons instead). That's enough to give us a significant advantadge. We also pick some of the nice 'post-advance' techs, which will really improve the miniaturization and cost-reduction process, along with a few other no-longer-needed toys. And they naturally declare war.

Ok, test successful. Now it's time to kick this thing into gear. I'm going to split our fleet into three sections and send each to a different system. If it's radiated we'll have to destroy it, otherwhise I want to invade it. We won't leave any ships behind for defense: the point is to neuter the Silicoid empire and take what we can in the process. Each will have, for now, 10 Colossus variants and whatever Dragons are available. If I have enough ships for the 10 Colossus each, then I'll build more Dragons; otherwhise more Colossus(Collossi?) will be constructed. I'll try to keep the reinforcements flowing to the different task groups as best I can, but for now I just want to eliminate as many systems as I can as quickly as I can. Particularly along the right edge where the Bulrathi are unlikely to join the fray.

In general it went well. The next year we defeated opposition at Gienah and Simius, but also found there were a couple of things the Silicoids were still able to do. Our Plasma Torpedoes weren't as good against the Kraken Cruiser, a design capable of teleporting, because it moves further away to sap their strength. They also like using the Tech Nullifier on our Colossus bombers, lowering the accuracy of their payloads. I'm not sure there's a great deal we do about this other than just keep the ships coming.

Invasions at those two systems also initially failed; I understimated Silicoid resistance. They've got a lot of loyal rock formations(or whatever they use for troops) and our results weren't always quite as good as in the initial fight on Klystron. It's completely worth it, but it will take the sacrifice of many lizardfolk to dislodge them. Meanwhile initial Silicoid response was less than impressive. They sent their main fleet after Orion, a move to take out the best strategic system they could find, no doubt. Two cruisers were also sent to Klystron. TWO. We swatted both efforts like flies as they still can't crack our planetary defenses.




This will max out our exchange rate, and should help things go a lot more in our favor. It's also the last new thing we really want. All research fields are equalized, and reducing costs is the only thing left to do really.




This inferno planet and the other two were taken in the next wave. A truly stupid amount of stuff was taken. Advanced Construction Tech VI(!!). The Tech Nullifier. And ...




Sure, let's throw this log on the fire. That'll significantly boost every planet we have. Just now I'm wondering if we can get enough population, eventually, to narrowly out-vote the Bulrathi instead of fighting them. Right now they freaking love us, cause we're destroying their mortal enemy. Also:




If they ever do deploy effective bombers, we'll be thankful to have these as well. Wherever the Silicoids brought in small fleets we stayed and defended. Their major force went to Gienah, so we just left and moved on. And of course there was all the fun micromanagement of constantly reinforcing each of the three fleets with new ships, investing in the Advanced Soil Enrichment and Class XX Planetary Shields on each and every developed world, etc. But this was the last upgrade, at least in economic terms.

In the big picture, it's about chopping down the boulder. We've taken four Silicoid systems for the moment, but they possess 19 more. A long way to go before they are forced to start downsizing. Just because I can, I sign a new trade deal with the Bulrathi: 9575 BC. It was 3450. I think that's the biggest one I've signed. I think my production is close to theirs so I may not be able to get it higher, but we'll see.




In this situation, this late in the game, you end up with situations like this. 16M being cloned on Keeta with the 'leftover' from a single click of eco spending. 216 factories being built in a single year. And Whynil the center of the 'Relocation Spokes'. Just because it's tradition and I don't feel like the changing the location. It could be almost anywhere with the stargates, but it's a reasonably central location which is good for sending out ships to various locations not on the network as the three-pronged offensive gets gradually reinforced and moves on from target to target.

With how the far we've reduced sizes and costs, I could redesign the ships but right now I can't be bothered. If I have to fight the Bulrathi I'll go with a new design, but I think I just might be able to push our population high enough not to do that and win a Council vote. If I do, it'll be just barely. At any rate, that's the strategy here. I'd want a different approach to things in that event possibly anyway, but the Colossus should work just fine no matter what.

Soon the problem became merely logistical; I had to twiddle my thumbs waiting two years instead of one for transports to reach a system before clearing out relief forces and moving on. Then three. Oh, the horror. That was pretty much the only obstacle though. Once the Silicoids scrapped most of their main fleet due to it's oppressive cost, there was little to be concerned about in terms of winning the war. Multi-pronged attacks tend to shatter any vestiges of coherence in the AI. And wherever the Bulrathi took down a Silicoid world, our colony ships stood ready to sneak in and claim it for the Sakkra people.




2797. A lot less red. We've now exterminated nearly half of the Silicoids and a tough battle is now one in which we take any losses at all. A fourth task force has just been formed, and it's first target will not be Silicoid. The situation in terms of galactic population remains such that I'm not sure we'll ever have enough or not to out-vote the Bulrathi in the Council. Every world matters, and I'm willing to risk genocide. In this case, the Alkari. I figure that I can probably maintain good relations with the Bulrathi given how much hurt I'm putting on their enemy, so I'll bounce back quickly. That's the reason for doing this now.

We've ceased getting any technology acquisitions from the conquests however. That's basically stable. Our current ships are less than half the cost that they were when built, and fill less than half the available space. That's the measure of how much our capabilities have advanced. What we have now is going to bring the Silicoid Empire to it's knees in about a decade, and even attrition is pretty minimal so there is no point in building any more of them.

It's time to turn our attention to the Bulrathi eventuality. Their ships, last we saw of them, utilized the Lightning Shield and Black Hole Generator extensively. That means I want to keep the Repulsor Beam. I didn't see them using the Tech Nullifier, and I don't think they possess it. Not many holes in their collection but that's one; Robotics VII is another big one, and they've repeatedly tried to acquire it(and failed, I didn't want to hand it over). They use Displacement Devices a lot(the one that makes them shake constantly), which make all weapons(but not specials) miss a third of the time. Like the Silicoids, they also have maximum shielding capacity, and their ground troops are of course formidable per usual -- but they are at least missing personal barrier shields and perhaps more there, so we would have at least some tech edge. In terms of ship weaponry, they were very heavy on the use of missiles.

For that reason, I'm going with Battle Scanner - Repulsor Beam - Lightning Shield as our Specials, to combat their missiles as best we can. The Dragon V will switch back to beam weapons. Just as we played against the Tech Nullifier by deploying torpedoes against the Silicods, the plan is to(if necessary) play against the Lighting Shield and BHG by deploying the Repulsor Beam and, in this case, Death Rays make their return. They are cool -- that's a good enough reason.




The Stellar Converter also joins the party just for diversity; I like having the option to hit multiple destroyer/cruiser-sized vessels as well. A more offensive approach with the HEF and Oracle Interface as specials instead is also quite possible: taking the teeth out of the enemy's favored weaponry is better though in my experience. That's why I upgraded the ECM capabilities to our best.

Even with this, the cost is significantly reduced; our previous top ships were at about 5.5k when they were designed. This is still well below that. I don't see any need to continue the Colossus line; those Death Rays will chew through planetary bases just fine, atmospheric diffusion or not.

Having an all-purpose ship like this once again makes it possible to build multiple versions of it, allowing more tactical options and diversity against any unexpected enemy surprises. I don't think that's going to be necessary at this point, but it's still worth doing just in case.




You can't stop Sauron, you can only hope to contain him!!




My first misstep, if it even was one. The Silicoids have changed to attacking newly-captured colonies after my ships have left them, instead of doing so immediately. It's a rather crafty strategy, and sometimes like was probably the case here they are so close that it's a one-turn move; I don't see it coming. Such things can be no more than temporary and very minor setbacks -- unless the Bulrathi show up. I have to make sure to recolonize before that can happen.

I decide it's worth distributing the new Dragon Vs to such worlds. I'm now at the point that the economy can easily support throwing a couple capital ships above all developing systems while still pressing our attacks against the established Silicoid planets. That should nip most if not all of this nonsense in the bud.




The great Silicoid empire ain't what it used to be. Naturally they aren't happy about this .




Most votes they've ever had. We abstain with 67, just over half of the galaxy. We need two-thirds, and at the moment we fall 18 votes shy. The Silicoid war both increases and decreases the total here: all we can do is eliminate their radiated worlds, but on the other side of the coin atmospheric terraforming and soil enrichment increase the capacity of any captured systems beyond what they had when in control of them.

It remains an open question whether we will get enough. We must finish up our conquest and max out as many worlds as we can this next cycle, and then we'll see whether we get there or not. Hopefully it will be over soon, but our latest ships will ensure that we're ready to act if it is not.