Part 47: Episode V: Revenge of the Rocks(hopefully)

Episode V
Revenge of the Rocks(hopefully)




Now, that's just not nice. Truly it isn't. Psilons and Klackons again. And Humans for good measure. Still haven't seen any Meklar. Chances of one race not showing up five games running: 1.73%. Looks like we get the lower-right, with likely a strong neighbor in the upper-right, and another in the lower-left. The final crowded quadrant in the upper-left will have at least two, quite possibly three fighting it out there. Hopefully the Psilons and Klackons are both there and will crowd each other badly. But probably not -- I'm not that lucky.

As for us, three systems in range to start. Blue and red stars are 2 parsecs away, the green one is three. That would extend our reach towards our likely closest neighbor(that yellow star to the left), and is probably the best planet. Colony ships go there, scouts to the other two.

Please not a poor planet. Pretty-please not a poor planet.







Could definitely do worse. We'll want to snag both of those. For now the scouts move on.




You've got to be kidding me. Got to be. Well, we're not landing here. The colony ship will re-route to Drakka, and we'll lose three years and a good-sized chunk of the old growth curve in the process. Played the odds ... and came up snake-eyes.

Argh. Worth thinking about the other choices. Would have been just as much a risk to go straight for either of the other systems, and if we just waited for the scouts to reach them before deciding, it would have saved only one year. Sometimes you just get unlucky.

Meanwhile I can't afford to wait any longer: Cryslon will spend about a year and a half's production to get some Recons out there. Every system matters ...




This could be an early battlefield. It won't take long for other races to get Barren landings.




Better late than never?? Let's hope so.




Yay, fertile! Oh wait, that'll do us no good. Others not having it would do us a lot of good though.

Despite the delay, we are still just short of half population on our homeworld, so we'll send just 1M at a time for now to Drakka. The colony brought just one more star into our range, which I at least managed to calculate correctly this time.

Now Emperor Granid awaits the results of the Recon Rush. There will be no hurry to extend range with propulsion tech as we have plenty of systems that can be colonized without it.




The meh is strong around here.




To the left, it's an utter crap-fest.




Biggest one we've yet seen. Question is, how soon is it going to be worth 'leap-frogging' our way out there? If that yellow star is indeed occupied(I'd be thrilled if it's not, but very unlikely), our chances at snagging Tao here are remote.




Lovely. Only yellow star in our vicinity, and it sucks.




In our backyard. Eventually we'll pick this up. It's now 2311, and we begin investing in the next Colonizer, having reached maximum factories for our current population on Cryslon -- which is still shipping citizens out, a single million at a time, to Drakka. Last time I put some funding into ecology to grow the population and factories at the same rate. This time I decide not to do that, in favor of getting an earlier start on colonizing. It'll also take the homeworld longer to get up to full capacity so it's a trade-off, but I do objectively think this is better.




Another year, and we've reached the limits of our scouting range, right in the galactic centre. And look, a welcoming committee!!

Just a scout, and we learn that this is Kakata(Inferno, 35M max).

Here's where we stand then. A solid quarter of the galaxy is known to us. In the far lower-right is one so far behind us that we can't reach it yet(8 parsecs). No uninhabitables, but nothing bigger than 70 max and only two at 50 or more. No poor planets or artifacts, and only the one smallish rich one. In most cases there isn't much to recommend one below-average location to the next.

Extending range, restricting the other races, seems an even more valuable priority than it usually is in light of this. I'm thinking the barren planet above Drakka should be next, then that rich one right by us. After that we'll need to hop over to the left unless we get better range.

In 2317, the next Colonizer is done and headed toward Drakka, using the RELOC trick to get it out to Crypto beyond that ASAP. For the past couple of years now, population transfers to Drakka have been complete. Last game I didn't even start on the colony ship till '21 with all the ecology spending. We've got a several-year head start, which should be more than worth the delay in growing Cryslon's population. Another wave of Recons follows the Colonizer, as I expect at least a couple and possibly several more systems to come within range now.




Drakka is only at about 40% population, but it'll start doing the 1M-per-year shift now to our latest acquisition. Three systems ended up coming within range: several others are a single parsec too far.

After another year, I'm calling the end of the opening at 2322. That's partly because I've got a tough choice to make, sort of right up the alley of what Wayne was talking about last game. I'll lay it out in the next post, and put it up for a vote.