Here's the neighborhood:
My first decision is where to send the Colony ship. Not a tough call here--head for the yellow as it has the best odds, plus its close to the red, which has the second best odds.
3 years later:
Yellow, Keeta is Barren 40
Blue, Collassa, is Toxic 30
Red, Tau Cygni is Desert 45
I picked wrong, but it only takes 1 turn to get from Keeta to Tau Cygni. Altair starts building 3 Scout 1.0's to check out the rest of the neighborhood.
2304) Found Tau Cygni, 3 scouts set forth, 2 more are ordered to cover the rest of the planets.
2305) Start trickling pop to Tau Cygni, keeping Altair at 50 of 100. After sending 9 pop over 3 turns, I let Tau Cygni grow on it's own.
2310) GNN reports the Humans have founded their 3rd planet.
2312) I now have all the scout reports back. From North to South:
Green, Hyboria, Terran 90--Klackon colony
Yellow, Toranor, Barren 45--Psilon scout
Red, Cygni, Arid 75--Psilon scout
Yellow, Uxmai, Terran 65, 4 parsecs*
Red, Paranar, Jungle 85, 5 parsecs**
*Uxmai should be our next colony, but we need range 4. I opened Propulsion research with Tau Cygni, and R4 was the only option
**Paranar is 5 parsecs away now, but only 4 from Uxmai, so we can colonize it as soon as we get Uxmai. Paranar should be out of range of anything but scouts as long as Cygni doesn't get claimed.
On a related note, if we don't get Uxmai, we're going to be DOA. In light of that, I had Altair build 4 LR Def ships and send them to Uxmai (last one will arrive next turn). That should be enough to take out a lightly armed colony ship.
After shipbuilding, Altair split between research and factories to get R4 into the %'s. Now that it is there, I put Tau Cygni back on research to maintain our ~10% chance, and put Altair back on factories. Last I checked it was 7T to build a colony ship. Start building on when R4 pops, or if the build time gets down to 5T (as R4 should pop before it finishes). Paranar's ship can be built while Uxmai's is en route.
Our next research target should be Barren bases (if we have the choice of IT+10 or Barren, take Barren first, and get IT+10 after), we have one definite Barren colony to establish, and we might be able to grab Toranor if the AIs don't have Barren in their trees. If no one's claimed it after we get Uxmai, you could send 3 of our LR Def ships to stake it out (unless you want to try for Cygni).
This is a small map, so we'll be bumping into the AI right away. Still, there are 24 stars out there, and we want our fair share. If we can grab Uxmai, Paranar, and the closest barren, that gives us 5/24, which is slightly above 1/5 (especially considering potential asteroids, and Orion). If we can nab the Arid or the second Barren we'll be in pretty good shape--at least, as far as the Alkari can expect facing the Humans, Klacks, Psilons, and Rocks.
Roster:
Olorin -- just played
ignatius -- you're up
ungy -- on deck
As usual for OSG's, please let us know that you've "got it" within 48 hours, and try to post your turn within a total of 72 hours. If you know that you won't be able to play within the three day window, let us know and we can either skip you for that round, or just have the next person switch with you.
For this first round, we'll each play 20 turns, after that, it will be 10 years at a time.
