War report!
Another attempt to beat that undead demonic horse, the one with the ancient and terrible name
Perngvir'Vf'Birecevprq
DemAquCha,+1S,LRArt / -LG-Spy-GC
6 Charismatic replaces 14 Creative tech showering, and the remaining picks went into eco. (Compared to Cre = 10, I gained Charismatic and Rich.) Let's see how this goes...
Spawned at the south end of the map, a bit closer to the eastern corner. 2 crappy hostile planets in system.
Turn 15: Nice, Jarred and Yota offered to sign up in the first 15 turns. Yota being famous will help pay for Jarred, once I recover from half-buying Laboratory. Jarred being a diplomat will play nicely to my strengths.
Turn 30: Garred showed up, who is both famous AND diplomat AND megawealth. Wow, Charismatic is awesome.
Turn 36: I got Kimbuzzi. A bit more farming, I suppose it won't hurt... Does anyone know if having more leaders decreases the chance to get more offers?
Turn 44: Going for a fast tech gambit as usual, getting Labs, Factories, Holo, then Supercomputer. Got that on turn 44. Time to build 2 scouts, then grab Cloning (as a nonproduction build, can't afford a lot of baby factory colonies). Then I can focus on colonising.
Turn 48: Got an offer from Director... Neilkaz? Wow, haha. Never realized. And would still not have realized if I weren't typing this up. Well, I definitely want this guy on my side
. Operations is wonderful for a techy build, since Star Bases are hard to come by. I guess time to fire Kimbuzi to make room for more competent people.
Turn 74: Researched Atmospheric Renewer. Time to start colonizin'.
Neighbourhood looks decent. Some unguarded wet planets, one Small Rich NormalG Tundra. That's 11 pop for me, not too horrid for an early game production planet. A few monsters: an Eel, two Amoebas, a Guardian...
nice Large Ocean with Splinter Colony under the amoeba, too bad it's Ultra Poor.
Overall, decent area, but no awesome Rich Gaias.
Turn 81: First colony ship. I can build 1 per 6 turns without pollution. Planning to colonize 4 unguarded planets, then kill the Eel and get the Radiated Rich with Gem Deposits.
Turn 91: Just saw a Bulrathi ship in a system to the west, some 15 parsecs from me. I think someone just volunteered to be my slave race!
Planning on getting Ion Drive soon, to speed up everything including population transfers. Man I love that fast tech gambit.
Turn 99 and 100: Just got Director Cassandra and Captain Diablo in consecutive turns! Man, my love for Charismatic is renewed. As much as it pains me, Director Yota has to go to free up space.
Cassandra is rather lovely. Why can't the Elerian leader look like that? Would be so much better for their diplomacy.
OK, this is new to me: Building an empty BB (at my current tech) costs 800. Building a fully equipped one, 1308. Refitting the empty one into the full costs, no, not 1308-800=508. It costs 1016, exactly twice the diff. Good to know.
Turn 120: First Contact: Sakkra, who are occupying the east-southeast area. Benefit of not having Creative: you don't get Iridium cells early and don't initiate contact too fast.
In this case this isn't so much of a benefit, as these guys are non-repulsive, and I initiated trade with them immediately. Nonaggression pact not yet signed, but I'll just wait until the treaties in place work for me and ask again.
In any case, these guys are +1F +1P +100G HG Sub. And they're behind in tech compared to me. I think this might be a good slave race too. And they have a war with Darloks. Time to sound the drums of war?
Got 4 wet colonies on unguarded planets, then my 1 BB, killed an Eel and Ameba, getting me a Rich Gold Deposits Radiated and that splinter colony.
Turn 123: Contact with Bulrathi to the west. Awesome. +2F +2P +50G HG Sub. Their tech is even worse than Sakkra's, and unlike them, defeating the Bulrathi won't bring me into contact with Darloks.
I guess the road ahead is clear.
(What is our aim, you ask? Victory, victory at any price, victory no matter how hard the road may be, for without victory, there is no slavery and Humanity doesn't get to be a master race.)
Need an outpost to get to the Bears, which is both good and bad: good because they will have trouble retaliating at me, bad because my first fleet better be good enough to capture some planet on first strike.
Turn 128: Alkari contact to the northwest. Non-Agg treaty with Sakkra, trading with the other two.
Researching Zortium and Class 1 shields before I go. Sadly, Bulrathi have Ion Cannons so not getting ECM.
Turn 132: Darlok contact. Drat, I guess it was a matter of time. At least they aren't repulsive. 4 spies built asap.
Turn 138: Full treaties with everyone except Bulrathi. Darloks keep framing me with Sakkra.
Turn 145: 4 BBs built with fully modified Nukes, Battle Pods, Augmented Engines and Battle Scanner. Thought about Heavy Armor but nah.
Also got Androgena this turn. Couldda used her when I was building this fleet...
Also, Bulrathi are currently the strongest species. This'll be interesting.
Turn 150: Last minute change of plans. Attacking the Darloks, who are actually in the very southeast corner, have 4 systems, and are a threat to my relations with everyone else (framing). +2 production makes them a so-so slave race, sadly. Quickly Researched Fusion Rifles and Anti-Grav Harness, in hope of taking their planets mostly intact. They have no +Growth, after all.
Had to use an outpost to reach them. Got a planet in the edge system, and immediately afterwards GNN told me I overworked that planet from Ultra Rich to Rich. Are Darloks controlling the game engine?!
Turn 155: I then went straight for the capital, Nazin. Lost the edge system but got the homeworld next turn. Gonna sit here for a few turns getting all the planets and equipping them with Fighters. Not daring split my fleet: Darloks have Warp Dissipator.
Turn 156: Contact with Klakons. They are twice as strong on the graphs as anyone else. Fortunately not Repulsive. I am so taking down Bulrathi after this. Need a big power base.
Does anyone know the formulas for rebellions, and how Armored and Marine Barracks factor into them?
164: Declined to fight at a system with a Star Base, Missile Base, 2 BBS and some minor ships. Warp Dissipator scares me. Went to conquer an unimportant system, came back, and found the same system without the enemy armada this time. Love the stupid AI.
Then I had the same opponents at the next system. This time I just destroyed the Star Base, retreated, came back and mopped up.
EDIT: I just forgot to mention that the Fighter Base is awesome once you get Bomber Bays. A bit earlier it killed a BB and forced the remaining fleet (including another BB) to retreat.
184: Darloks eliminated.
Possible avenues:
* Bulrathi (best slave race)
* Sakkra (closer, and easier to defeat)
* Orion (will require a bit of teching up)
* Colonize a bunch of stuff around me, as there are lots of free planets still, then focus on terraforming
In the immortal words of Hamlet:
wat do
