OSG 14b - Cold Blooded Killers

[Sullla]

Good points being made about Ultra Poor planets; it's true that MOO games don't tend to last all that long on the whole. I'm much less persuaded that doing anything but factory construction on normal worlds is a good idea (and even Poor worlds, to a certain extent), but the Ultra Poors probably need to be handled differently.

Hmm, tough luck on losing Vox to the Meklar. I guess maybe we should have sent some LR ships there, but in order to be effective, I probably would have had to act on my turn. Hopefully not a big deal in the long run. (I'll also point out here that for all of the "let's prioritize research over factory construction" decision-making going on, we were still unable to get Range 6 in time to grab the one exposed planet we wanted! ) I think I'm going to give Propulsion a major emphasis, because we really could use those Warp 3 engines. Hurts to be crawling around with warp 1 ships and transports on a Large map.

I hope to play later today and report back. (Oh, and isn't Zed not supposed to be reading this thread, since he's on the other team? )

 

[Zed-F]

Oh? I thought we were not running this as a comparison game since we didn't take the same start? Or am I out to lunch there? Wouldn't be surprising as I just got back from vacation and haven't read everything that's going on super-closely.

 

[Sullla]

Not that it really matters, but I'm pretty sure we are playing the same save file. Or at least Dathon's initial post led me to believe so:

The only additional rule is that we cannot check in on team A until our game is complete. Let's go out and genocide some people!

Someone may be puffing on the incense pipe here; hopefully it's not me!

 

[dathon78]

@Zed: We are playing the same start. I just peeked at Olorin's first picture from that start, and it is the same. I only went down that far, didn't read any text, and the map had no information revealed, so I shouldn't be contaminated

@Sullla: I would emphasize planetology over propulsion. We really need Controlled Dead before the Meklar's get those southern worlds. The tech will give us three more worlds, plus make all of our existing worlds more productive (natural BC/citizen starts at 0.5, and gets a boost based on tech level). The engines can wait until we have credible technology to build ships to use them.

dathon

 

[Sullla]

(0) 2370 The good news at the moment is that we have 8 planets, and two colony ships en route to hopefully pick up the last two planets in the west. The bad news is that the Meklar have just grabbed Vox (which really would have been good to have), and may be able to reach Iranha before we can get there. I'd send some popgun fighters over there for defense, but 1) we wouldn't be able to get them there much before the colony ship en route, and 2) the Meklar fleet is so powerful it could probably plow through our popguns with ease. Let's just ride it out and see what happens over there, since frankly there's not a lot I can do right now.

Dathon said to emphasize Planetology so we can get to Controlled Dead soon, and that's not a bad idea. I do think we should have researched that tech before Death Spores (I'm being a fun-killer and not honoring the variant here), but it's a non-issue at this point. Our core worlds have maxed nicely, so I'll mostly be doing research on this turnset, with one caveat: we have ZERO bases! The Meklar could sneeze and wipe us out right now. (Seila is building bases at an 11-turn rate currently. Psaw! Either make the effort to build bases or don't! ) I'm going to make sure we have at least a couple of bases on our border worlds, so that we can fend off a probing attack, if nothing else.

(2) 2372 Our exploring scout finds Fierias (the southern one of the two yellows in the east):

Only 9 bases?! Like I said, been a while since I played on Hard, heh. Kitties don't look all that tough, if that's the best fleet they have. They might make a good first target once we go sporing.

(4) 2374 Death spores has entered the percentages for the first time, with a 6% discovery rate. Let's hope we get lucky sooner rather than later.

(5) 2375 FIRST TURN, HA!

Cold-blooded killers, comin' to getcha! I select Controlled Dead next, as planned. Controlled Inferno was available too, but at almost twice the cost. We should instead grab Controlled Dead, then +30 Terraforming (also available), and hopefully Controlled Radiated after that on the next rung of the ladder. Seems like a more effective path through the tree to me, especially since there's only one Inferno planet anywhere near us, but two Dead and one Tundra. I continue to give Planetology a major emphasis.

By the way, we have 465 space remaining on a Large design after adding a Standard colony base, and Reserve Fuel Tanks take up 470 right now. So close and yet so far! (Dathon correctly predicted that one.) We're almost done Duralloy Armor though, and that will definitely add enough miniaturization to get it done.

(7) 2377 Computer tech (Robotics III) enters the percentages at 3%. I doubt we'll get as lucky with this one, but you never know!

(8) 2378 Scout a Dead system in the far east, in the middle of Darlok space. Unlikely we'll get here first, but if we can fit a Dead base on a Large hull along with Reserve Fuel Tanks... maybe...

Stalaz will max factories next turn, and Maalor in just two more turns. Robotics III is coming in at a perfect time! (Only systems it will hurt are the new colonies, but it's worth it to add half again the number of factories at all of our core planets.) Controlled Dead is already half finished (pretty sweet being rated Excellent in Planetology).

(9) 2379 Lucky again, Robotics III hits at only 8%, ha! I tell all our planets to start working on factories, preserving our research only at the Ultra Poor world (we won't make much progress for the next 5-10 turns, but at least our investment won't decay). I get the easy choice between ECM III and Improved Space Scanner. Yay! We really could use a scanner upgrade, and F8 makes defending worlds so much easier.

(10) 2380 The gamble worked out in the west and we get to Iranha first, hooray! Desert 40, so not a top-notch world, but every one counts. I send 15 colonists from Simius, the Ultra Poor; that still leaves it with 63/80, so it should be fine. We are rated LAST in space fleet strength by GNN, hehe. We'll get around to solving that eventually. (Meklar are first, by the way.) Guess I made the right call in the west by not building any popgun fighters, although in reality I was just lucky again.

Situation: Our core worlds are now all adding factories, and should max out in about 5-6 more turns. We'll then have enough production to think about doing something offensively, although at the very least we should get Controlled Dead (to open up those additional planets) and Warp 3 engines before doing any shipbuilding. We have 9 worlds right now, and another colony ship will plant in 2 more turns.

Our planets screen; I made sure we had at least one base on each planet, although once Robotics III is done we really should stand up more of them on our borders. As our most exposed AND smallest planet, Seila did nothing but build bases my whole turn (although of course it's on factories now). Hopefully we'll never have to use those, but better safe than sorry! We also should think about upping our trade agreement with the Humans soon; I don't see us going to war with them anytime soon, and they tend to make a good friend.

Map (cursor is pointing to Fierias):

Have fun!

Dathon <<< on deck
Sullla
StuporMan <<< UP NOW

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/12069/OSG14b-2380.zip

 

[Swein Forkbeard]

Hello Sullla. You're into Master of Orion now, huh. What's happened to you with Civilization 4?

 

[dathon78]

Excellent turn set! Those were good hits on the research percentages.

I'm going to make sure we have at least a couple of bases on our border worlds

Good choice. We haven't had any bases to this point, as we really haven't been in range of anybody, but with the Meklars taking Vox, this is exactly the time to start building them.

Guess I made the right call in the west by not building any popgun fighters, although in reality I was just lucky again.

No luck involved, that was a good call I went through exactly the same analysis you did on sending some popguns when the Meklars took Vox in the middle of my turnset, and came to the same conclusion. If they were heading for Iranha, we weren't going to be able to stop them.

(Dathon correctly predicted that one.)

Thanks for the compliment, but I can't take credit for the prediction. I have a ship-building calculator in Excel that somebody else wrote ( I forget who), and used that. If there's interest, I'll post the calculator again.

dathon

 

[StuporMan]

Wow, two good turnsets.

Sulla, I do agree (and believe I stated before) in this case Dead > Spores. I knew that when I made the choice, but I chose spores to honor the variant. I do not think it will hurt us too much, the Meks are not terribly likely to have Dead even in their tree (they are worst at planetology).

Well, you guys get your turnsets done fast. It looks like I will be the slow one in the bunch. I should get it done in a couple days at the latest.

Stup

 

[Sullla]

Thanks Dathon, although it's not like I had much control over when our research popped. Getting Death Spores on the first turn was pretty nice. But seriously now, running numbers through a utility program to figure out when Reserve Tanks will fit on a colony ship? Come on. If I had to use a spreadsheet to play this game, I would have been bored of it months ago. You should know me well enough to predict that kind of reaction.

Hello Sullla. You're into Master of Orion now, huh. What's happened to you with Civilization 4?

- No Epics/Adventures at Realms Beyond.
- I've played a lot of Civ4. A LOT. Many more games than ever got reported.
- I don't like the Warlords expansion, and Firaxis has been moving in the wrong direction with the game since Alex and Jon took over for Soren.
- Too many version conflicts at the moment. Civ4 1.61 vs. Warlords 2.08 vs. Blake's AI. This is not a good situation.

That's the short list. More generally, I've accomplished everything I wanted to achieve with Civ4; I can see myself playing more games, but probably strictly for fun at this point. I have zero desire to try and find/exploit every single loophole in the game to try and win on Deity, for example. There are plenty of examples of that in the SG forum: using max aggression to steal AI workers in the early game (sucker-punching the AI), exploiting of whipping bugs, the draft, and so on.

Hopefully that makes sense, even if it isn't what you want to hear. I do have a new MOO report up, for the curious.

 

[dathon78]

But seriously now, running numbers through a utility program to figure out when Reserve Tanks will fit on a colony ship? Come on. If I had to use a spreadsheet to play this game, I would have been bored of it months ago. You should know me well enough to predict that kind of reaction.

Yes, I could predict you would not want the spreadsheets. I was mainly posting that for the benefit of any lurkers who might be interested.

:listens to the sound of chirping crickets: Erm, yeah....

It might surprise you to know that I actually don't play with much min/maxing when I do 4X games. I never tried for the whipping bug or binary science in CIV, shunned ICS in Civ 3, etc. And once games of Moo get in full swing, I will often go the easy route instead of microing (is that a word?). For instance, I rarely measure out the exact value for terraforming using Sirian's research slider trick past +30. At that point, I usually just do 3-4 clicks on each planet and leave it at that. I actually don't like much micromanagement in my 4X games, one of the reasons I didn't play much Civ 3. That said, I can't figure out why I got so bored so fast with CIV, but that's a different issue.

I generally only use these tools for the first 30 turns in MOO games. Each turn is so critical to shaping how the game goes. There isn't much going on in the first few turns anyway, so it's very little extra work to pop a tech using the best-rate method. Once I'm researching more than one tech, I go with allocations in 10% blocks for convenience. And the ship calculator lets me make an informed choice on early tech decisions. Do I need to research the next construction tech, or will the planetology tech that's about to pop push me over the edge? That can mean the difference between getting to worlds or not. I liken it to early microing (there's that word again) of your captial in CIV. I've seen you guys change the plots that are worked, sometimes every single turn, to get the combination of food/commerce/shields you want, because those early turns are so critical. These are similar actions, it's just that the math is more complicated than I want to run in my head

 

[StuporMan]

Well, I had a bit of free time and I lucked out with a quick and easy turnset. I Mainly just building factories everywhere, all except our new western worlds and the Ultra poor are now maxed.

Humans get the Mineral Depletion Event at Laan. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of

pink-skins (still haven't forgiven their poaching).

Controlled dead, Ion fell on the pentultimate turn switched to +30 and scatterpack v (over mass driver and Merculites) respectively. Dead gave us just enough to Design a LR colony. I started building it at Ssla it should be done at the end of my successors first turn. I recommend going for the long range colonies first, before the local deads. The Desert especially since it requires no tech to colonize.

Duralloy falls on the last turn! I start on Waste 60% (over IIT8). I leave it to my successor to design a LR DEAD colony ship, be aware we can now fit Spores onto the ship. Again, go for the LR Dead first, the others can be built and colonized while that one is on the way.

Stup

 

[Sullla]

I liken it to early microing (there's that word again) of your captial in CIV. I've seen you guys change the plots that are worked, sometimes every single turn, to get the combination of food/commerce/shields you want, because those early turns are so critical. These are similar actions, it's just that the math is more complicated than I want to run in my head

That actually does make a lot of sense; the difference for me is that if the math is too difficult to do in my head, then THAT'S where I skip the microing. It's not an early-game vs. late-game dichotomy for me; I still measure out my terraforming amounts manually even at the end of the game when it almost certainly makes no difference. Running a separate utility program breaks my immersion in the game, if that makes sense, which is why I never use them.

And as far as Civ microing goes, Civ4 was (is) NOTHING like Civ3. I barely need to micro at all in Civ4; usually I only have to adjust cities when they produce something or grow to a new size. In Civ3, it was not at all uncommon to micro literally every single turn. To quote from the classic T-Hawk school of micromanagement:

London fires out settlers as fast as it can. It does so every three turns: London can use the two cattle tiles and some irrigated grassland and get +10 food for a growth in one turn. Next turn I set London to +5 food. Then on the third turn, I set it to +5 food and +10 shields, rush an archer, then switch back to settler letting London build the last ten shields, and the city is back where it started. When London doesn't need the shared cattle tile, I assign it to Canterbury, keeping that city at max growth rate while it builds its granary.

Well, I had a bit of free time and I lucked out with a quick and easy turnset. I Mainly just building factories everywhere, all except our new western worlds and the Ultra poor are now maxed.

Excellent, looks good. Our tech choices are really looking nice too; with Duralloy + Scatter Pack V our bases will have some real teeth, and Terraforming +30 along with Robotics III and Reduced Waste 60&#37; will have our economy roaring along. I think we may be ready to move onto the offensive in as little as 20-25 turns from now, depending on how fast we stand up the new worlds.

The fast turnaround we're getting is pretty cool as well. This is one reason why I like small SG teams; everyone gets to have a real impact on the game, so interest level remains high and the pace is generally quick. Nothing kills a SG more than slow turnsets; if two weeks go by and I haven't seen the game, I can't remember at all what I was doing. How anyone can run a SG with 7 people is beyond me! (My preferred size is 4, but I usually run with 5 to get more people involved.) Heck, at this rate we may finish before the "A" team, despite starting later and having one fewer player!

 

[dathon78]

Running a separate utility program breaks my immersion in the game, if that makes sense, which is why I never use them.

I understand completely. Everybody's got there own standards and preferences for what they want from a game. Our "lines" just happen to be in slightly different places And that's what makes community play so much fun!

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to be the one to kill our break-neck pace; I won't be able to get to this until tomorrow, probably in the afternoon.

dathon

 

[Swein Forkbeard]

Thanks Dathon, although it's not like I had much control over when our research popped. Getting Death Spores on the first turn was pretty nice. But seriously now, running numbers through a utility program to figure out when Reserve Tanks will fit on a colony ship? Come on. If I had to use a spreadsheet to play this game, I would have been bored of it months ago. You should know me well enough to predict that kind of reaction.



- No Epics/Adventures at Realms Beyond.
- I've played a lot of Civ4. A LOT. Many more games than ever got reported.
- I don't like the Warlords expansion, and Firaxis has been moving in the wrong direction with the game since Alex and Jon took over for Soren.
- Too many version conflicts at the moment. Civ4 1.61 vs. Warlords 2.08 vs. Blake's AI. This is not a good situation.

That's the short list. More generally, I've accomplished everything I wanted to achieve with Civ4; I can see myself playing more games, but probably strictly for fun at this point. I have zero desire to try and find/exploit every single loophole in the game to try and win on Deity, for example. There are plenty of examples of that in the SG forum: using max aggression to steal AI workers in the early game (sucker-punching the AI), exploiting of whipping bugs, the draft, and so on.

Hopefully that makes sense, even if it isn't what you want to hear. I do have a new MOO report up, for the curious.

Warlords is more balanced I have to believe. Axemen FINALLY have a counter. There is also a Wonder that is like the Spiral Minaret but instead provides beakers instead of gold (religious science anybody). State Property and Emancipation now FINALLY have upkeep costs. Why DON'T you like Warlords?

 

[Sullla]

Warlords is more balanced I have to believe. Axemen FINALLY have a counter. There is also a Wonder that is like the Spiral Minaret but instead provides beakers instead of gold (religious science anybody). State Property and Emancipation now FINALLY have upkeep costs. Why DON'T you like Warlords?

This is getting a little off-topic in a Master of Orion thread, but since we probably don't have any other lurkers watching our game, and Dathon won't be playing until tomorrow, I may as well go ahead and answer your question.

Let's see... Warlords made one and ONLY one change that improved game balance, adding an attack bonus for chariots against axemen. I'd like to say that was the work of the development team, but it was actually a last-minute kludge solution thrown out by Sirian. (We had to spend most of the extremely short development cycle for Warlords testing a TERRIBLE new combat system that fortunately never saw the light of day. That's all I can say about that.) And even this change is hardly a panacea; War Chariots and Immortals are stronger than ever as a result, since the AI doesn't build enough spears to counter an early game rush.

OK, how about the steps backwards taken in Warlords? Even after two dozen testing versions and a post-release patch, vassal states are still a god-awful mess. I was leery of them from the moment I read the design sheet we'd be working on, and they simply don't work very well. Either the AI capitulates too early (in which case there's way too much of a reward for max aggression on the part of the player) or the AI capitulates too late, at which point in time you may as well just wipe them out entirely. There's not a whole lot of middle ground there. I'm confident that a vassalage system could have been done well IF it had been part of Civ4's design from the beginning, but tacking it on in a hastily-released expansion was not the way to go, and it shows.

Then we have Great Generals, which the AI has NO clue how to use whatsoever. I don't have too much of a problem with those guys, since they rarely make or break a game, but in principle I hate features that get added to games without corresponding AI functionality (this is why 95% of mods stink, because the AI is clueless on how to use the new stuff added). And I should mention that even one Medic III unit in the hands of a skilled player can really tip the balance of a sustained campaign. Great Generals are fun additions, but they aren't really particularly well balanced.

Do we need to discuss trebuchets? Because they're *SO* well balanced, right?

OK, those are the three main additions to the game. Now let's cover the various stuff that DIDN'T need to be changed but Alex and Jon felt compelled to muck around with for NO REASON WHATSOEVER. Most irritating for me is the way that Alex absolutely RAPED the civ traits for the original leaders. More than half of the leaders from the original version of Civ4 had their traits changed! MORE THAN HALF! There was absolutely no reason to do that; it was, quite frankly, merely an ego trip on his part to put more of "his" stamp on the game. For example, why did Washington go from Financial/Organized to Charismatic/Expansive? Alex's response: "because I think those traits fit better."

Rarely mentioned is the fact that six different trait combos were CUT ENTIRELY from Warlords. They're simply not in the game anymore. If you want to play a Creative/Financial civ or a Creative/Philosophical civ, tough luck buddy. No expansion should REMOVE gameplay options like that. I view it as a slap in the face of anyone who happened to like the leaders who used to have those traits.

If that were the only thing that changed, I might be able to deal with Warlords, but there were other cosmetic changes that simply shouldn't have been made. In the original version of Civ4, you can see units inside ships; in Warlords you can't. Alex simply changed it for no reason. It wouldn't have mattered if it was that way from the beginning, but something like that shouldn't be changing for ZERO reason! Or how about the swapping of the leaderhead graphic for Qin and Kublai Khan? There's NO reason to do that! Needless confusion for new players with no gain whatsoever in gameplay. I could go on with more examples, but you surely get the idea. Alex and Jon basically took Civ4 and turned into into their own private mod, making all sorts of little tweaks just because they felt like it. And frankly, as someone who worked on the game with Soren for almost nine months, that's pretty darn irritating.

Now, as for the other specific points you brought up. Sankore University is a rather pointless wonder; Spiral Minaret was marginally useful, if only because it made it easier to run 100% science and still bring in some cash, but TWO beakers for each city with your state religion? Come on. That's peanuts. I can't see myself ever wasting my time on that wonder in anything other than a variant context. State Property and Emancipation have both had "Low" upkeep cost in non-Warlords Civ4 ever since the 1.61 patch, so I have no idea what you're talking about there. Probably just mis-remembered something there, or maybe got bad advice from these forums (wouldn't be the first time).

What Warlords SHOULD have included was some further improvements to the diplomacy system (so that 80% of war declarations don't involve the player), a more robust UN, a drastic reduction in war weariness across the board (which I lobbied heavily for but didn't get), further stinginess on the part of the AI when it comes to tech trades (because there's STILL too much tech whoring in Civ4), and better AI performance in terms of city management/economic development and fighting wars. NONE of that was handled in Warlords, except for Blake's independent work on his Better AI mod. Since there was one and ONLY one patch for Warlords, his work was slapped into the game in an unfinished state; some followup patches on the part of Firaxis further refining the Better AI system would have greatly improved matters. See, Blake's new AI plays about two difficuty levels higher than the old AI, but there was NO rebalancing of the difficulty levels to reflect that fact, and as a result a lot of things are seriously out of whack now in 2.08 Warlords. And we have multiple versions of the game floating around (Better AI vs. non-Better AI) out there, which is never a good thing.

Firaxis' post-release support for Civ3 was the best I've ever seen, and the pre-release work on Civ4 was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. But it's very clear to me that once Civ4 came out and started selling like hotcakes, Firaxis stopped giving a rat's ass about improving it further. The inconsistent Civ4 patches, Warlords' incredibly short development cycle, the lack of any further patches since 2.08 - it's been shoddy work on their end for over a year now. You don't hear me singing their praises anymore, do you? It's very clear that Civ4 is just a cash cow for Firaxis right now, one they will inevitably milk with another feature-rich but poorly-balanced expansion to come. I'm willing to change my opinions again, but they are going to have to win me back at this point, and I've seen nothing promising for a very long time now. If Firaxis doesn't give a cr@p, why should I?

I hope that didn't come out too negative; I still like Civ4, but I won't be playing anything other than 1.61 unless some kind of major improvement appears. I don't even own a copy of Warlords (although my beta CD is compatible with the release version). If we ever get some Epics going at Realms Beyond again, I would still like to play in some of the games - so long as they aren't on Warlords.

Swein, if you respond to this post, please don't quote the whole thing. It's rather long.

 

[Swein Forkbeard]

For your information, Michael Soracoe, I never downloaded any of the patches or really played much of Vanilla Civ4. I never bought any of the previous games either. And I'm only 12.

And the new leaders in Warlords bring new styles of gameplay. For instance, we now FINALLY have a financial leader who (I think) builds a lot of units using the trait rather than techs with it.

The UBs also add more depth into the game. The Ikhanda can be built to keep down your maintenance costs early. The Mint has good synergy with Mansa Musa's financial trait. And so on.

Trebuchets are not insanely overpowered. Knights rip them to shreds.

I agree with you on the GGs.

Vassal States were made to make the game go faster. But I agree with you here.

You can't see units inside ships! Uh oh. I'll have to beware.

Qin Shi Huang's former leaderhead was actually Kublai's. They changed it to make it more accurate.

I guess the reasons you listed are why Warlords is only $30.

 

[Sullla]

I never downloaded any of the patches or really played much of Vanilla Civ4. I never bought any of the previous games either. And I'm only 12.

If you barely played the non-expansion version of Civ4, how can you be so sure that Warlords is better? The addition of more content in no way means that a game is improved. (I wrote an extended editorial about how the Conquests expansion was detrimental to Civ3, for example.)

Most of what you've described are simply personal preferences, which is fine. If you happen to like Warlords more, that's cool with me. Whatever's fun is all that matters. But you asked why I didn't like Warlords, and I gave you my take on the matter. Now we really probably should wrap this exchange up, because this thread isn't the best place for it.

 

[Swein Forkbeard]

Different Topic:

If I want an Empire-building game in outer space, what would I buy? Judging by what I've seen on Gamespot, I would want Galactic Civilizations II.

 

[Sullla]

Galactic Civ 2 is the best current turn-based strategy game using a space sci-fi theme, absolutely no question about it. Brad Wardell and his team at Stardock have put together a top-notch product. There are some weaknesses in the design, but (especially if you haven't played Civ3) you probably won't even notice them. (I have no idea what's good in terms of real-time strategy games right now; the last one I played using a space theme was Starcraft, which is a mite out of date now.)

Of course, if you want old, OLD school action, you could always join us with Master of Orion too. (You might even have to use DOS for the first time, heh. I feel really old now! )

 

[dathon78]

Open the save, things look pretty good. Looking at the tech screen, though, I notices that if I slammed everything but a single click to the other areas into propulsion, that put sublights at 4%. That would greatly increase our chances of getting that desert world off in the East, so I did it. Unfortunately, the dice weren't kind and it took 4 turns for the tech to pop, but the resulting ship from Proteus got there in 3 turns, so that's 3+4 = 7, still better than the 9 turns that the original warp one ship scheduled at Sssla would have done. We are now up to 14 planets, and in contact with the Xenophobic Technologist Mrrshan. They are running a 2PE in the East, and while I managed to get minimal trade, the Darlok's have them boxed in and our relations are predictably still bad.

On the tech front, I chose Warp Dissipator over Fusion Drives, and Class V Planetary over Class IV for shields. Economy wise, everybody's researching. Our ultra poor and poor planets in the West have maxed pop, and are adding some factories while we're in research mode (which I'm sure will make Sullla very happy )

Colonists have been sent to our new holdings, with the ones for Proxima in the East due in 2 and 3 turns. We should have had another colony at that Dead in Darlok space, but I forgot about the ship I RELOCed from Sssla to Proteus for two turns I always do that, no matter how many times I remind myself . Oh well, it's on the way now, though we have no forward scouts for Eastern part of the galaxy when it gets there. Maybe some warp 3 scouts are in order? New map is attached; the Bulrathi homeworld must be where the cursor is pointing, so we have the most land for now.

There's a Meklar bogey headed for the empty system in the western nebula. The borg are fielding some impressive fleets, with a mix of huge, large, and medium ships. If they can extend themselves fully into that SW corner, they could be quite the force to be reckoned with. Once those cats get the range to reach Proxima, they are going to be all over it, so we're going to need to stand up that planet pretty quick. I sent extra colonists to help with that. I probably won't be available to play over the weekend, so no huge rush on the next turns.

dathon