Part 87: Episode VIII: 2350 - 2375

Episode VIII: 2350-2375

** Warning: A lot of stuff happened this quarter-century. Your browsers may scream in pain at the number of images here.




Half a century in, we've explored over a third of the map. No official contact and only the Psilons & Sakkra spotted, and that briefly. We still don't know where any of their systems are. Four planets for us, with two Colonizers out there and another soon to complete. GNN hasn't put in their two cents with any reports, so it's safe to say nobody else is off to a particularly fast start. It's looking really, really good right now.

I need to not screw this up.




We've just achieved getting a decent amount of population to Selia, the last system, while Meklon continues to inch ever-so-slowly upwards in terms of industry and Dolz puts a nigh-impercetible amount of effort into research.




Not shown here: we also settled Kailis the same year. For the first time this game, the settlement of Vega found me a few Recons short at the front, though more are incoming. Takes a long time to get out there.




2355, and another round of scouting begins. Where in the heck is everyone?!?




Fourth useless system.




Starting to find some of the hostiles. A colonizer is dispatched to that big terran in the middle we found a while back -- 11-year journey. Time to hurry up and wait.




The further out we get, the more crap we find.




We may literally have half the galaxy to ourselves. Not counting my chickens nearly yet, but this game could virtually be over before it begins at this rate.




Size and fertility are reasonable reasons to overlook the poverty of this system, but the most important factor is that it is the only way to extend our range in the upper-middle sector.




Meanwhile all the rich systems we've found are strikingly similar to each other.







Mu Delphi gives us first contact, 59 years in.




We are not impressed. They are erratic expansionists, which means we're going to go for a minimal trade deal here if convenient. We haven't run into many Erratics, but I never invest in long-term relations, because if they wake up on the wrong side of the bed in the morning we'll be at war. Let's hope that isn't soon.

Despite 'Unease' relations, they agree to a 25BC deal without a bribe. Good, because I didn't want to offer them one anyway.




Up 7 planets to 2, as one of the slower-starting races against one of the fastest. I'll take that. I'll also be keeping an eye on trying to cut them off from circling around us at the top of the galaxy.




Below this at Moro, we were pushed away by an escorted Psilon colony ship the next year. Then this -- which is occupied.




We have seven. What are we, chopped liver?!? Naturally though, this is the worst news we could have gotten here. The eggheads are stretching their legs and doing better than we are by a bit, despite how well we are doing. Finally the end of the rope is near.

Other than gobbling up every system in their general direction, there is little to do here. Going military would be useless due to the number of systems we have access to and the distance(at warp 1) we need to travel to get there. I'll be establishing our border as far forward as possible, and we'll see where exactly that ends up being. Should have enough Recons to cover everything already out there, with almost 40 in commission and some of the back-line systems far enough away to not need them.




A few, but not many decent systems. It's either nothing/crap or good ones.




This could be unfortunate. To reach the very top-middle, we need to get Laan, where the next Colonizer to be built will be headed. That's the red star above Mu Delphi, which is where this Sakkra colony ship appears to be headed. If it's armed, which it may well be at this point, we're in trouble.




Important moment in 2366. Biggest planet we've found and right on the emerging border with the Psilons. This should establish contact with them, giving us a better picture of things.




Lots of stuff going on here. First of all, domestically Meklon is up to 80% industrialized and first-colony Dolz has stopped sending out transports, slowly building up and increasing our very meager research effort(21-22 RP per year right now, which is less than peanuts).

The three key points circled from top to bottom are the focus of border attention:

** Laan, where the Sakkra will arrive in a year or two. We're about a decade from getting a colonizer there, so it's out of our hands.

** Uninhabitable and Guardian system in the middle. These help create an artificial barrier.

** One colonizer is a few years out from Meklon headed in the direction of the final pair. Primodius(100 max) is the yellow star, Stalaz(45 i think) the green one. I want both, and if it's still open I'll send the colonizer on to Stalaz to extend our reach, but otherwhise I'll hope to settle for Primodius which will be it's next waypoint(so it can stop there if Stalaz has been seized). These are key to setting our border as far leftward as possible in the bottom of the map.

There are eight other standard worlds behind this line, most of which we can reach. I expect us to get a lot bigger, but I'm trying to be greedy since our position allows to potentially be in the upper teens for systems by the time initial expansion is done. That would be amazing. 15 at the absolute low point here which is enough. The Psilons are still on eight which is good news. A second system pumping out Colonizers would be nice, but as our first two colonies were mid-sized Dolz and mineral-poor Rhilus, that is not going to happen.

I've been continually pushing population forward as always, and Vega, closest system, was able to send an immediate influx of 17M to Anraq to get things jump-started there. The Psilons are standard as standard can be, Honorable Technologists. They agree to a current-max 150 BC trade deal. This will slow Meklon's progress and the buildup elsewhere, but good relations here are worth their weight in gold.




Looking good in terms of territory, production, and population. The rest will come.




The Sakkra show up at Laan ... but they've got missiles! This is a good thing because they will still retreat if they run out of them. They miss once ... but the second one, which I think was the last, takes us down. Drat.




Humans. We're getting chased off all over the place here. Lost three systems this year -- but two were uninhabitable. The Sakkra colony at Laan could prove to be a thorn. Blast their marksmanship.




This is nice though. Ran into Klackons in a remote system the next year -- everyone's coming out of the woodwork now. Hopefully they're mostly content to fight amongst each other on the left side. Probably not, but one can hope.




The only hole in the Psilon border, and this is why. A lot of worthless systems; this is six of them I think.




Not a plague, but also not good news. None of my planets are maxed-out on industry, so none of them can help. Rigel is a new system with literally zero production(though population is on the way). It shouldn't take much to do the research, but you can't be too careful. Meklon will take over four years to max out at full effort, and then could begin transfers. That means suspending colonizer production, but every effort must be made. Running with nothing in the reserve is a risk, and I may pay for it here.




If we get the two above it, Lyae here will be vital in shutting off access at the bottom of the galaxy. With just one year and at most a single BC of investment, Rigel handles the solar rejuvenator crisis. That was hilariously easy, a combination of the event hitting a just-formed colony and probably a kind roll from the dice as well. Lost only a year of production and it wasn't even that much in the long run, with Meklon building 17 factories in that time.




This appears to be the most isolated system in the galaxy, but it's another good one.




2373; our second research tech is in, and it should have been 2-3 years sooner. This is welcomed naturally given the struggles we had with waste last time, and we're almost to spending half our production on ecology in some places already. The next choice comes down to Industrial Tech 8 and Durallay Armor. We'll have some systems maxed out by the time we get the cheaper factories, but that's a more inexpensive option anyway and it should be soon enough to pay dividends as we continue to expand and build up.




Worst habitable system I've seen so far. This concludes the scouting and shifting-around phase for the most part. Population is still getting sent forward but more and more systems are now able to conserve their people and focus on industrial development. There are no more systems in range and few outside of it to scout, and Meklon is now producting a Colonizer every three years instead of every four. We'll now shift research focus to Advanced Eco Restoration, which is what I should have been going after all along. I'm a moron for going for reduced waste(more expensive, less impact). Arglebarglezorzakon.

The next year, the Sakkra land 33 troop transports on Laan, which had 6M or more population already and a max of 25. So at least 14M of them died of exposure or something similar. That's just impressively stupid.