Part 36: Episode IV: 2350 - 2361ish

Episode IV: 2350-2361ish

Date is within a year or two, but a bit of a guess. Lots of stuff happened in this timeframe so I split things up a bit.




Four times the territory of the bugs, yet population is about even and production is half of theirs. Tech is worse. Even when you know it's coming, this can be a little depressing. The overall showing though has actually already started getting closer. Interestingly, spies report that they have developed Deuterium Cells(range 5) ... but so far as I can tell, haven't used them. Probably could have taken Tauri, but our scout picket was enough to convince them to not even try. That's a bit strange.

Relations are up to Neutral, and under the 'upgrade only when doubling' rule, we stay at 50BC on the trade deal; their economy won't support anything higher than 75.




Scouts and transports headed anywhere; not a sign of any alien ships except around the Klackon worlds. Cryslon is sending out colony ships every which direction, and we're close to having scouted the right edge of the galaxy but not quite there yet.




The very next year, Lizards! Extreme upper-middle here. So they are out left somewhere. We chase off their scout. This was more concerning though ...




One of the better planets we've run into, and the bugs are sticking their noses in. Not that I blame them. I don't think they have the range though without tanks ...

And I was right -- just a scout. Meanwhile the other planet where we met the Sakkras(orange, for reference), is Darrian. Tundra 20M max. Big lesson here is that, while it's taken them a while, the other aliens are starting to get a little frisky. And that wasn't even all the discoveries for this turn:




Oh yes please -- and it won't be long before it's in our range. Once we get that Kakata jungle world in fact. First planet we've seen bigger than 80M.




Our latest.





Another decent standard world that we'd like to snag before others do.




2352, and time for a bit of a new approach as the latest Colonizer comes into service. We're pushing into basically every area where the Klackons aren't, esp. the middle and upper-middle here. Right now the quality of a prospective colony is almost irrelevant: extending range, pushing back the frontier, cutting off the bugs and Sakkra and whoever else from their expansion efforts, that's all that matters at the moment. We can 'fill in' later. Emphasis is still placed on standard planet types, because those are the ones the others are still going to be targeting for a while yet. The upper-right, once we get it all scouted, will be left unattended until we are cut off elsewhere.




Another step towards securing the right-side edge, and our 10th world. This gives us the range to scout the very limits of the galaxy that way. We are now ridiculously overwhelmed in terms of population transfers, and it's only going to get worse. There just aren't enough rocks to pollute all of these systems yet.




This is hilarious since we've put not a thing into Force Fields, except for getting the initial tech pick. It'll delay us eventually, but right now I couldn't care less.

2355 was a bit of a busy year. First up we knocked out the first Terraforming(10M) advance finally. Only Cryslon was ready to use it, and our only option was Death Spores. Um, super.










This one here is past Klackon territory. Chances of getting there before anyone else are not great, and it's not close to being in range at 7 parsecs. Still rather stunning that it is still available though. Yet another planet(Tao, 85M, Terran) which looks quite nice was scouted: upper right and one that we should easily secure at another time. Four in one year plus the research.

It seemed to be time to start putting a bit of effort into all the tech fields.




The usual 'focus on what you're good at' approach. Here we're goin' nowhere ... and we're getting their fast! At least until some of these toxic waste dumps get built up and start contributing.




You can never have too many artifact planets. The bugs sent another scout back to Kakata, and it was quickly sent packing.




A piece of utter crap. But, a big range-extender towards the middle of the galaxy.




2360, and a few more colonies are in the terraforming process. We've reached the point where it's useful to check up on things regularly, as others are nearing the halfway point in terms of population. Even a small amount of growth across 11 planets(at the moment) adds up.




Here, Toranor is our first planet to really get into the research business. Still shipping population all around and it's maxed out the factories for the first half. Hopefully we'll start making some progress forwards.





The bugs are finally coming out of their burrows. They sent an armed colony ship here and below to Neptunus. We had no choice but to yield.

And so the first steps towards conflict have commenced once again.