I got interrupted by a few things, but the turns are now played! In fact ... uh ... I kind of played a couple extra. I didn't want my successor to inherit the mess things were in at the end of 2410 (transports being juggled around everywhere with more still due to be launched in the next couple turns, etc.) so I played right up through 2412. Normally, I wouldn't do this, but I figured since my successor played 40 at the start of the game, I could make a lame joke about that if all else failed. Okay, so it wasn't the greatest plan. Hopefully the report makes up for it. But ... I do have to finish writing it first. Should be posted sometime tonight.
(Oof. Another interruption: A long (lonnnnng) phone call from family overseas, for whom it's morning. I love them very much, but on the other hand, I do need to sleep occasionally, and I fear that takes precedence over this report right now, as I don't think I can stay awake long enough to finish it. So here's the first two thirds for now. I'm off work tomorrow, so I'll post the rest when I'm awake again!)
The emperor-elect held his tongue in the edge of his beak, putting the finishing touches on his proposal for Alkari development. His work complete, he leaned back to regard the whole and check it one last time for errors, then flourished the crayon with which he'd been working and signed his name. Looking over his shoulder skeptically, Professor Catwalk frowned. "I like it," he decided, when he thought he had deciphered Ref's unspeakable crayon scrawl. "The massive research spending is a huge plus. But I'm afraid it won't be as popular with the public, or your other advisors. They might go so far as to impeach you for it. You must remember, we are in the midst of a four-front war."
Ref sighed in disappointment, gazing wistfully at his masterpiece of ... let's be generous to him ... planning. "Maybe if I propose an alternative..." He mused, then slowly brightened. "Yeah ... an alternative!" A manic look shone in his eyes. "I'll propose something so off-the-wall insane that this will look conservative by comparison! That way everyone will back my plan!"
The professor backed slowly away from him. "Um...."
"No one will realize I'm following pacifistic policies in wartime if I ... hrrrm ... hummmm.... Yes! An attack! I'll propose an attack on alien worlds! ... With warp three nuclear bombers! No one would be crazy enough to endorse that!"
He rushed out of the room in a frenzy, scattering papers and crayons in all directions, and would surely have bowled over his science advisor had Catwalk not suavely sidestepped. "I think," the professor murmured to himself, watching the mad emperor careen off a nearby wall, "...that I'll spend some quality time with my family at home for a little while."
SpoilerCentral Imperial War Room, Alkari Homeworld, 2400 :
'...and so they'll drop these NUCLEAR bombs ... SMACK! ... right on the aliens' ... um, those things that are on top of their necks!" Ref looked around the room, beaming.
"Collars?" Governor Raiddinn ventured.
"Bandanas?" Wing Commander Maniac guessed.
"Adam's apples?" wondered the Archduke of Zoctan.
"Never mind, never mind; there's probably no word for it. It's like the air; you see it so often, you don't even know it's there." Ref ploughed on regardless. "The point is, these bombers! With sublight engines! And battle computers that aren't quite state of the art! And nuclear bombs! Nukes, remember? Ancient pre-warp technology! If nobody tells me otherwise, I'm going to..."
The Archduke nodded. "That seems like a wise plan to me. We won't be able to push far with them, but one or two more planets would be an enormous boon for our empire. I say we try it!"
Governor Raiddinn slowly agreed. "You might want to try some minor alterations to the basic bomber design, but if this is the best you can manage, it looks okay."
"Yes!" The new emperor cavorted. "I'm glad you agree with me! We'll ... we ... wait a minute..."
Admiral Zed, commander-emeritus of the entire Alkari fleet, nodded his approval. "Taking a piece out of one of our weaker neighbors is probably our best move at this point." He swept the room with his eyes and nodded once more, in farewell. "I see that you have things in hand for the moment. If you need to call upon me in the future, you know where I can be reached."
"But ... but..." the emperor babbled as he watched the admiral leave.
"That's settled then," agreed the Chief of Public Relations. "I've just sent word out on my [Registered Trademark of an Alkari Wireless Communications Device Corporation] to start the ad campaign. I think the people are going to eat this up. More planets for the empire! Why, I think the news just broadcast my press release! I can hear people cheering already, all the way from here!"
Ref's beak hung open, speechless. "But ... but..." Weakly - too weakly to be heard across the distance - he informed the retreating backs of his cabinet, "...you were supposed to say it was crazy."
Sitting nearby, Maniac frowned up at him. "Of course it's crazy. I considered and rejected something just like that during my reign - admittedly with somewhat lower technology. Just don't neglect our defense forces. I don't want your crazy idea costing us planets we already have!"
Ref spluttered wordlessly as Maniac left the War Room. Then he groaned. But then suddenly he brightened, remembering: No matter what happened to the empire, no matter what course his reign might take ... he still had his rubber ducky!
2400: Emperor Ref glared at his chief starship engineer. "What's so good about these new 'Talon' fighters, anyway? Or those stupid bombers of yours? They don't even have duralloy! Raiddinn said to try duralloy!"
Having tried to explain himself seventeen times, the engineer finally gave up. "Have I shown you what the bombers are going to look like?" he asked cheerfully. "Here's a close-up of the cockpit."
Ref gaped. "Really? You mean it? All our bombers are flying into battle with that decal on their sides?"
"Absolutely," the chief engineer answered, his pinfeathers crossed behind his back. "It's totally not photoshopped on!"
"That's great!" Ref rubbed his wingtips together. "I think we can get 46 of them built in our core and have them up at Moro within a couple of years!"
"Along with say 19 Talons and a couple more missile bases?"
"Sure!"
2401: Commander Maniac watched the choppy holodisplay aboard his [url="http://www.jefflarsen.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=88&pid=1577#im=0]Gull[/url] bomber as he raced through interstellar space. The Klackon fleet at Moro include 25 of their Horseman bombers, as well as a Ranger repulsor cruiser and two Paladin destroyers he'd never seen. The signal cleared long enough for him to make out their twin neutron blasters firing helplessly on a nimble Alkari fighter fleet and hear a pilots' crackling radio chatter.
"Watch out for these; they've got stabilizers, and base says they're mounting class four CPUs! They'll have twice the chances to hit us of everything else in space!"
"So twice nothing is nothing, right Alpha Seven?" 'Cause I just iced mine cold. What've you been doing?"
Maniac shrugged. The bombers had already been dealt with before they could destroy a single base, and as the second Paladin went down in flames, the Ranger retreated. He'd trained the base personnel himself, and knew fleets like that wouldn't stand a chance against Moro's missile defenses. What worried him was the chance of Horseman bombers gathering in serious numbers. "Nothing I can do about that now though," he muttered. "Let's just get this ill-advised bombing run out of the way ASAP." He cut off the Moro playback and hit the transmitter code for the homeworld. "Emperor Ref, I assume you've seen the reports. These bombers are well and good, but they're not going to defend what we take if we're successful ... or our core worlds if we fail. I advise cutting production and going all-in on fighters."
Ref's tiny holoimage shrugged. "You're the wing commander. As long as I can increase our research budget a little bit, I don't really care what kinds of ships are getting built."
"In that case..." Maniac glanced over the galactic map on his HUD again. "The defenses at Moro seem to be holding. Could you get a flagship built up there for me? Just a destroyer, like the Falcons, but with a Battle Scanner on it. I want to know what I'm shooting at over alien colonies."
Ref nodded. "I assume you'll want me to arm the thing."
From habit, the Wing Commander explained, "The marginal cost will actually be acceptable once you deduct the cost of a scanner ship in the first place, and it'll be good to have something that can actually hit maneuverable enemies. We can get it all the way up to attack level 5 with three NPGs."
"Okay," Ref answered slowly, "...but you only get one. You can't deduct the cost of a scanner once you've already got one in the fleet."
Maniac shot a sharp look at the image as the hologram faded out. Was it possible that Ref had shown a moment of lucidity?
2402: Maniac stopped only long enough to drop off Planetary Governor Raiddinn - and to board his new flagship, the Hawkeye 3.0. "If we're going to strike, we have to go now, before they have time to build up their defenses. Ref's replacing your defense fighters from the core worlds as fast as he can; right now, I'm taking everything that flies here - and I'll join up with the Phyco fleet at our destination! Whatever can get to Guaradas is leaving now - and if I could, I'd have 'em out of here yesterday!"
The Planetary Governor watched him take off, the whole hangar shuddering with the backwash from his engines as his screamed out through the atmosphere at mind-bending speeds. Then, with a sigh, Raiddinn returned to his planetary planning chambers. He hated the years away for the inauguration ceremonies; there was always so much to catch up on when he returned. In transit, he'd even missed a critical news transmission: Apparently, after Moro's defenses wiped out another of his (uninteresting) fleets, Saurak had plead for peace with the Alkari again ... and offered another gift as incentive!
"Just cash?" he asked incredulously. "At least he offered me a tech ... even if it was a lame one. A couple thousand BC can't replace the production we'd get from a planet if we can steal one from under his nose, never mind the techs we hope to lift from them! No wonder Ref refused the big lunk. His spy networks must not be as up-to-date as I feared." With a paranoid glance around him, he added to himself, "...unless he only knows my secrets!"
2404: Maniac surveyed the battle scene with grim pleasure.
Guradas had not only failed to complete a second missile base, they hadn't even managed to upgrade the existing one with their latest shield technology(!) - and the recently-built defensive fleet consisted of a single Viper cruiser armed only with lasers and gats that basically couldn't hit anything. Even as he watched, swooping in toward the planet in the wake of the Gull bombers, the cruiser went into full retreat. Moments later, he flew through the skies of the system's lone habitable planet, taking a full surface survey, grinning when he soared above the massive crater created by the Gulls. No other sign of the planet's missile base remained: It had been overkilled in a single burst of nuclear fire from three times as many warheads as were strictly needed ... and already the hulking transports were descending through the sky, perfectly timed with the fleet's arrival.
He flew air support for the assault team along with the rest of the fleet, burning down the Darlok air force and strafing armored units from the skies, but the troopers themselves had to take the valuable factory-cities in corrdior-to-corridor fighting. Maniac watched the holotransmissions taken by helmet-mounted cameras as personal deflector shields flared white and went down on both sides, as Alkari wingtip lasers blazed through entrenched Darlok positions and Darlok rifle fire glanced off of the invaders' duralloy body armor. The combat was brutal, and millions died on both sides ... but at last, a transmission went out from the planetary headquarters on dedicated Alkari frequencies: "The planet is ours."
General alzgamer grinned as he debriefed the recon teams and flanking wings selected by his staff. All had gone according to plan: All resistance on the planet had been rooted out and destroyed ... and one of his advance units had even killed a group of Darlok troopers in the act of trying to destroy a secret lab deep beneath the governor's palace. "This is one Darlok world those Meklar won't get their hands on anyway," he told his chief of staff. "Now let's find out what they pulled out of that lab!"
"Typical of the Darloks to develop a bioplague," he growled. "I'm sure the emperor won't be using those. But these cheap factory designs will be perfect for getting this planet back on its feet - to say nothing of future conquests and improvements to robotic controls."
Maniac's image grinned at him from the holodisplay. "Better still: The miniaturization techniques that make them possible can be applied to starship design as well! I'll bet our new fighters will be obsolete before long...."
The General nodded. "Thanks for the support, Maniac. We need you up there badly. My boys will start putting a missile base together as quickly as they can, and I'm gratified to see reserve material already showing up from the homeworld, but we can't finish anything in time to deal with that Psilon cruiser." He looked up nervously at the blazing star that was the hulking Coraona, its engines trailing fire across the night sky. The emperor claims they're our friends, but..."
An emergency transmission came in on the red holophone. The General raised a brow and brought it to life. Emperor Ref stood before them, his feathers askew, clutching something small and yellow that made a cheerful squeaking sound when he convulsed his hands. "Guys, there's a huge problem! I just called Kelvan up, and he won't give me an alliance! He's going to have transports on the way any minute, and with his engine tech, they might be just two years away!"
Maniac smirked. "I figured. That's why I wanted that battle scanner on my flagship ... and that's why I brought the whole fleet. If that Coraona sticks around in violation of our treaty ... and there's anything we can do against it ... we'll force it to honor the terms."
"And as for the transports," alzgamer assured him, "if they arrive ... we'll deal with them. Although ... if you could get another ten combat transports out here ASAP, that would help a lot."
"Consider it done," he agreed, with some relief.
Maniac cleared his throat. "What I want to know is this: What have we got in range? I think this place is central enough that Deuterium will get us where we need to go from here ... mostly ... but I'm not sure; five parsecs just isn't very far."
The rubber ducky squeaked, and the emperor beamed. "Then you haven't heard? This just came in earlier this year!"
Ref regarded the tech report contentedly. "Irridium fuel! That's a 20% range upgrade, all thanks to the unwitting Meklar. Their weapons were kind of lame - Ion Cannons and anti-missile rockets - and their force fields would probably have been redundant with what we have or with our research or something. Anyway, that's what my agents said. But these cells here are pretty cool! Oh! And while I had Kelvan on the line, I traded him the plans you just sent over for factory construction. He had something almost as good himself, so I figured it was okay."
"I did get an ECM boost back for it, which is kind of our state of the art now in computer technology, so hopefully that's a good thing." He smiled blithely at Maniac. "Anyway! I'll try to get you some more fighters, in case you have to shoot down blimps, but your Gulls won't be able to help with that, and you're probably going to be tied down for a couple of years watching for transports anyway - and for more fighters to arrive - so why don't you send those bombers on a scouting expedition?"
Almost afraid to ask, Maniac ventured, "Where to?"
The emperor shrugged. "The Darlok homeworld looks nice." And dropped the connection.
Turning to alzgamer, Maniac's holoimage wondered, "Who's crazier? QX-537? Or him?!"
2405: Maniac surveyed the galactic map with chagrine. He'd had to face off against the Coaraona cruiser earlier that year, and that meant transports were definitely on the way: Kelvan followed the terms of his non-aggression pact only when it suited him. The good news was that - in spite of the Psilons' technological advantages and the ship's impressive combat speed - the Coraona itself was pure garbage.
As soon as it became clear that the Alkari were willing to fight in the planet's defense, the ship had retreated. The Sakkra had not been as wise back at Moro, and had been shredded for their trouble before the remainder of their limping fleet retreated from the eleven bases and fighter fleet defending it - nor had the Klackons at the same star, who lost a Ranger repulsor cruiser, 24 Horseman bombers, and four Paladin destroyers ... killing a whopping three Alkari fighters in exchange. The worst was to come though: The Psilons had not sent transports from the nearest star after all, but from Mentar itself. No less than 59 were incoming, and if his guess was right, they'd arrive within three years. If he and the bombers had set out together for another soft target right away, they would have had a chance to take it and return to protect Guradas in time to deal with the transports, but since he couldn't, not knowing where the transports would come from, he knew the Psilons' treachery would hold him and his fleet back at Guradas for three more years, delaying the next conquest perhaps to the point of impossibility.
2406: Maniac groaned when he got the report from the Darlok home star. 37 missile bases, backed up by a cruiser of still-unknown design - the Tarantula. Even had there been fewer bases and no fleet, an attack run would have been suicide. Ref had either miscalculated ... or simply been stark-raving mad. Maniac ordered the ships to retreat immediately, then called Emperor Ref on his private line. "Okay," he said as calmly as he possibly could, "I just ordered the bombers to retreat. They would have just gotten pasted if they'd attacked, and would barely have even killed any of the bases."
"Good," the emperor answered cheerfully. "Send them over to Centauri then. Oh. And you can go ahead and join them there. Take all the old-model Talons with you - we'll let the 3.1s defend along with the missile bases - and send the Moro fleet to meet you."
Maniac shut his eyes and counted ten so as not to scream. "Ref, there's a large Sakkra fleet in orbit there, and we have no idea what their planetary defenses are like. They may have had as much as 25 years to build them up since they conquered the place. They've got working shield 4 and - unlike the Darloks - actual ECM, and there are only about 50 bombers in our entire fleet!"
Ref smiled. "I know, I know. I made a miscalculation, and I'm ... uh ... eccentric about some things. But I know what's at Centauri. Did you notice that the fighter fleet I sent up from Centauri was one Pellet short?"
Maniac diplomatically refrained from saying what he thought Ref might well be one pellet short of, and the emperor carried on. "I gave that last fighter private orders, and sent it on a secret scouting mission back when my reign began. Its report is three years old, but good enough for me."
A lone Pellet fighter dropped out of hyperspace in deep orbit above the long-contested Centauri system, and sent an encrypted transmission back to Alkari space. "Top Secret, direct to Emperor Ref: Per your instructions, I've arrived here to scout the world. The defenders have me on scanners, and I have to get out fast, but I thought you should know right away: They've got a small fleet in orbit, but the planet only has a single missile base!"
"Oh. Another thing," Ref added. "The Sakkra have Advanced Soil now as well as cloning, and of course they're lizards, so Centauri may be a bit of a tough nut for our troopers to crack - especially with those battle suits of the enemy's. But I think we're going to have enough troopers! Check out what our espionage agents brought in!"
At last, Maniac recovered his voice. "You actually planned this whole thing!"
"Well, I had to do something between showings of Sesame Street." He smiled wistfully. "Big Bird is the greatest. If only we all could live up to his standards of curiosity and integrity."
"How..." Maniac shook his head. "How can you manage to make so much sense and so little sense at the same time?"
2407: Captain Darguosh Thulguik cursed into his microphone. "Darlok high command, come in! You swore they didn't know we were coming! You said they were only paying attention to some other attack on the Sakkra or something! There's a missile base and a whole fleet of Talon 3.1 fighters over the planet! My guns can't even penetrate that planet's shields! I'm getting out of here while the getting's good!"
2408: Professor Catwalk leaned back on his couch, watching the annual It's a Slow News Day, So We're Doing the Year In Review show with his wife. "It's sad, but they've really neglecting research in favor of this war. Well ... of course, it being Ref, not completely."
"Still, all this excitement about a few little battles, while the scientists are plodding away in their labs unnoticed...."
"It's not as if the aliens' attacks on us ever amount to anything. Although I suppose a lot of effort goes into making sure that's true."
"I noticed that even the Darlok and Meklar emperors called Ref to thank him for damaging the Sakkra war machine - apparently using scripts of speeches made by the Ancients of Orion, since they used precisely identical words."
"Of course, they never thank us for developing state-of-the-art technology for them to steal. Perhaps because now that Ref took the opportunity of making peace with the Meklar, our latest tech development came from them."
"And all the while, Ref encouraging them along the same warlike path. He could have had peace with the Darloks when the Psilons flip-flopped their war into an alliance with them ... but no, he instead brought the Psilons right back into the old war."
"One day though, he'll learn, I'm sure. And then I'll promote him to Beaker Cleaner, first class!"
Thanks, TheArchduke! I hope this part's up to standard!
2409: The call came in from Maniac just as Emperor Ref was hurrying to his most important (to his mind at least) meeting of the year. "Looks like we were right to leave the fleet up here at Centauri," the Wing Commander reported amiably. "They rebuilt their missile base right away, and even put a couple fighters in the sky. Of course the ships retreated before we could kill them, but I think there are more coming in from out-system. And the bombers proved their use again; we took out the base with no losses."
"Good; good," Ref answered distractedly. "I just hope I'm about to find out we can stop guessing about these things."
Maniac's eyes lit up. "You've got word from the techies? Didn't you say there was a chance of Merc missiles hitting this year?"
"A small one, yeah. I'll let you know when I'm out of the meeting, okay?"
Ref shut down the connection, took a deep breath, and entered Professor Catwalk's top-secret lab. The professor's officially-appointed Explaining Complex Stuff to the Emperor Officer stood before the lab's simple graphical display and reported, "We see good far now."
The emperor rolled his eyes. "Look, you overgrown canary, I used to work in this lab! I'm the one who suggested taking advantage of the Trill-Polly scattering effect to calculate the initial form of the wave from planet-based receiver stations in spite of atmospheric distortion. Did you guys find the cause of those ghost images or not?"
The overgrown canary groaned. "Well, it turned out Tweepo over in biogenics had developed a race of highly-intelligent bacteria and they were actually hacking our software and inserting the pictures of imaginary space monsters and things. Tweepo suggested putting the bacteria in charge of the project so they'd feel a sense of responsibility, but Marge got wind of the experiment before we could give it a try."
Ref nodded. "She never could abide germs in the lab. I hate to think how much antibacterial soap she used."
"Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. The boys told me you were a joke! I've seen you on the news and on..."
Ref shook his head sadly. "I think the boys were having a bit of a joke with you - and you have to learn not to believe everything you see on the news. I find it useful for people to think I'm harmless and eccentric - it makes it easier for them to laugh at my mistakes instead of prosecuting me - but I won't have this kind of insolence from the techies in my own lab. Or this kind of military gobbledigook, for that matter. Seriously? 'Sir'? So what kind of options do we have for research going forward?"
Ref rubbed his wingtips together. "Sweet! New computers when we want them, an advanced scanner ... normally I'd say to advance the state of the art ASAP, but right now, I think robotic controls is our first priority!" Sadly, he added, "Our first research priority, I mean. Stupid war. Sometimes, I do get ... uh ... a little carried away in my enthusiasm."
SpoilerImperial City, Alkari homeworld, 2410 :
The signs were going up all over the city: "One more term!" Ref secretly regarded them with embarassment, but didn't say anything until he saw the huge banner above the chanting crowd in capital square: "We Love Emperor Crazy!" He glanced at his chief of public relations.
"It ... well, we couldn't stop it; it had too much momentum ... it seems to be a term of endearment. They..."
"What I want to know," Ref told him, "Is why I even have a public relations department. I don't mean you're doing a bad job. I just mean: Public relations? Seriously? I'm running an empire here!"
"Well, it's true our department technically doesn't receive any funding, but there've been so many donations from public-spirited citizens since you started planning these attacks...."
Ref smiled tightly. "Please go away." He watched the PR chief scuttle off and smiled more naturally. "Good." His eyes grew distant though as he looked out over the crowd. "Millions died this year to no purpose - died because I miscalculated distance in space and was too eager to finish an attack by the end of my term ... and they cheer me! Millions more will die unnecessarilly for exactly the same reason ... and yet they want to re-elect me again, over the objections of our constitution. Just because I conquered Guradas and managed to hold it this long? Just because we took orbit at Centauri, where all those millions are dying? Just because of Nordia? This is madness!" He consulted the galactic map on his monocle HUD. "Still, the whole mess with Centauri is going to take some sorting out, and at least I know what's required. Explaining it to Governor Raiddinn and then asking him to execute it when he's supposed to be emperor and it isn't even his plan ... that wouldn't be fair either, would it?" He looked longingly back at the lab. "I guess I can stay in power for one ... more ... term...."
2410: General alzgamer scanned the landscape by holocam. "Pretty much as expected," he decided. "Not what I'd have prioritized, maybe, but it was worth the investment made. No wonder the people love Emperor Ref so much: The empire grew by 40% during his reign, thanks to me and my troopers - and he's set up another, better conquest too!" The Sakkra had colonized Nordia, the toxic world not far from the Alkari homeworld, within the past few years, and Ref had noticed it when he acquired toxic bases from the Psilon people.
It didn't make up for the idiocy at Centauri, where supposedly-coordinated groups of transports had been launched at the same time, their dispatchers failing to notice that they had different ETAs, but with a little closer attention, that mess too could be cleaned up over the next few years. The General climbed aboard the last transport in the new fleet from Zoctan. "If necessary," he growled, "I'll see that this invasion works myself!"
2411: Maniac shrugged as his research assistant handed him the report: Yet another Klackon fleet had hit Guradas, and the poor research assistant was all in a tizzy. "Those Cutlass smallcraft are fusion bombers!"
With a glance at the relevant entry, Maniac reassured him. "And in theory that would be scary. But the bugs forgot to include any combat speed or any battle computer to speak of on the things. With our ECM tech, there's nothing to worry about really. Well..." He frowned, knowing that with the Klackons, it was a very real possibility. "Unless they assemble thousands of the things." He looked over the report more closely. "We lost a few Talons and Falcons to lucky shots, it looks like, but we killed three of those Ranger repulsor cruisers and all the bombers that flew in with them. I'd say that's a decent exchange."
Turning a watchful eye toward the Sakkra worlds beyond the near star of Centauri, Maniac said, "I'm just waiting for the ground-pounders to take that island paradise below so we can concentrate on our next mission!"
2412: After two years tying up the legal complications of term-limit violation in court, Emperor Ref finally stepped down from the High Perch of the Alkari. The Sakkra continued to battle at Centauri, growing population at the obscene rate that only cloning-enabled Sakkra at a Gaia world can achieve ... and in 2412, assembling two missile bases in a single year!
The Alkari fleet lost one entire bomber in the course of burning the bases back down to the ocean floor. More transports were on the way though - this time with most of them actually coordinated - and if the new emperor approved those about to depart from Moro and Guradas, the paradise world of Centauri, with all its lizard factories and no doubt secret technology labs would fall to the Alkari. The lizards themselves had finally gotten a raft of transports over to Nordia, but Ref hadn't made the same mistake as they: The place was protected.
Even the Meklon fleet inbound to Zoctan could be ignored, thanks to the recent peace treaty - and any future incursions into Alkari space could be readily detected by the new Improved Scanners. Nor had other critical technologies been neglected.
Alkari ignorant of his various miscalculations and mistakes were still cheering their Emperor Crazy as he stepped down, but the ex-emperor's mind was elsewhere: "Finally," he said with a weary sigh. "Finally, I can get back to the lab!"
Okay; sorry for playing a couple extra turns; as explained above, I thought that under the circumstances, the alternative would be less courteous to the next emperor. Feel free to play a normal ten turns (to 2422) or just to 2420 if you'd prefer to get us back to round numbers. Here's basically how the turns went:
In spite of a couple of miscalculations - and especially the enormous frustration of having to commit massive resources to holding off our one friend in the galaxy from invading Guradas since their fleet happened to arrive there at exactly the same time ours did - we've conquered Guradas and toxic Nordia, developed Improved Scanners, stole two key techs in Range 6 and ECM IV, and taken Centauri's orbit. If we can hold and build up our current planets, we should have an excellent chance to win this thing. Assuming we get Centauri.
IMPORTANT: Guradas and Moro are both sending transports to Centauri right now. Those transports are very much needed; in fact, if I were playing, I would send more from wherever I could spare them to get the planet standing up ASAP once we conquer it. At this point, the planet should fall in about 2 or (more likely, given Sakkra growth rates) 3 turns, and become an incredibly valuable asset to our empire. They can build up to two missile bases in a year there though (and/or a fighter fleet) so our bombers and a decent number of space superiority ships need to remain in orbit for the time being.
Sorry to still leave you with an incomplete assault mission; at least the logistics for it are more or less complete though.
Meanwhile, our situation is definitely looking up:
We're now third (and nearing second) in technology, have enough pop that we're likely to be nominated (uh-oh?) in the next election, and are tied for third in planets ... with the Psilons!
Our empire as it stands today:
Thanks for your patience, everybody; the save is attached!
Here's how I see it: Catwalk is out till further notice, now would have been a good time for Zed to play, but he's unavailable for a week, Archdue was just doing a cameo, as he wasn't in the original rotation at all, which means technically, we're down to 3 regulars. However, I'm sure we'd all be OK if Archduke wants to take another turn either now or after you, whatever he wants.
2412, I take over the helm and spend a year getting used to being in charge again before I start breaking necks. What kind of ruler would I be if I broke someone's
neck in my first year back on the job?
2412 - I got attacked, but the enemy retreated right away when they saw our awesome space fleet. Also, I got a report that a dozen million of our people suicided on some
enemy planet somewhere with no hope of actually beating the 80 million alien inhabitants on the planet. I am starting to wonder about the coordination skills of Emperor Ref.
2413 - Automated Repair is developed and I ask what I am supposed to do with this worthless technology. I am a planetary governor, I need economic technologies. Also, didn't --> I <-- say for this to be started last time that I was in charge??? What have these brainiacs been up to that they can't complete such a useless tech in the few decades that I have been away?
Also, apparently we are spending upwards of 10% of our entire galactic resources on spies and we don't have a single username and password for any enemy network? I find myself wondering why we are spending this much for such poor results.
Nothing is coming to Guardas right this moment and stuff is coming to Moro and Centauri, so I flip a coin and send the ships to Centauri. Remind me to ask for better sit reps before I take over the empire next time.
We lost 2 tiny bomber ships against Centauri this year destroying 2 of their missile bases. I guess that is a result that I won't kill anyone over. We also lost 1 missile base defeating some 70 ships attacking our own planet. The psilon hackers blew up 6 of our factories on the same planet too. It seems like they are joining forces with the meklars against us.
We had 105ish troops land on the sakkra planet this turn and we barely beat their 70 some odd troops with our much larger force and higher tech force. Remind me that I need to ensure that our military officers recognize that when we have superior numbers and tech that we shouldn't just barely take over enemy planets, instead we should absolutely crush them. Apparently, they don't realize this.
We stole Class 3 Deflector Shields when conquering the planet. Yay. More obsolete techs. Wait a second, another military officer is running in. Somebody see what this person wants before I wring the previous officer's neck for bringing back sucky tech. Apparently the officer running up here has another tech they just found as well. Very well, what is it? Terraforming + 40? I can live with that. I won't even wring the other guy's neck now. I have been pacified for this year. Wait again... There is yet another one coming. This time I just wave him right on up to my throne. After he is done groveling in my presence he gives me schematics for an Ion Cannon weapon of some kind. I never was technically inclined so I pass him off to the galactic joint chiefs of staff so he can explain it to them. I am at least happy that he had something, though.
At this point, I am kinda waiting for the next guy to show up, and none do. Too bad. I guess that wasn't the worst year ever. Still, I would have liked to have seen Planetary Shields 5 get done this year. I remind the science boys that I am going to start killing them off if they don't get their act together, just for good measure.
2414 - The Darloks are apparently sending 5 heavy ships at the newly undefended Guardas now. I also tell Moro to put enough on missile bases to finish one off before the enemy fleet gets there in 3 years. Still no spies in any enemy networks. I leave things as is again for the time being, but I want some results soon.
Also, there are a lot of ships coming to re-conquer the newly conquered Centauri, but we have our whole galactic fleet there so I hope they can hold it while I get the planet's production started. Every planet is now spending an extra 25% of resources on building the new structure plans we just stole so we can house more people per planet and I need to get these made, people in them, and get those people in factories ASAP.
2415 - Class 5 planetary shields are finally made. I tell every planet to go in on that by +25% some planets I increase that figure for, though. Class 5 Deflector Shields are the only thing they know to make progress on now, so I tell them to just go with that. It is better than nothing. At least it is 25% better than Class 4, anyway.
Guardas is all in on shields. Centauri is getting max people and the rest shields. Moro is max people and the rest on shields. Most planets have that plan. The backwater ones are 25% shields, max people, and the rest on research.
We do have 1 hacker that broke into the Sakkra networks this year. Hopefully something will come out of that. By something, I mean soil enrichment or advanced soil enrichment.
I asked the Darloks for a peace treaty so I wouldn't have to fight a war on so many fronts, and they kindly accepted. I would imagine we will be at war with them again soon anyway, and I could use the breathing room now to get these planetary shields up and running. My advisors will probably kill me for doing this, though.
I just remembered that I forgot to put it in my notes in the past that I told the construction scientists to work on Reduced Waste 40% instead of Factory Cost 5 and some new armor for combat troops. Whenever they came to me asking, thats what I did. I kinda wonder sometimes if doing this job is taking its toll on me.
By the end of this year, Zoctan and Jinga had maxxed their population totals. They put the balance of resources into building factories to get those people working, obviously. Tech spending is way down right now, which is apparently slowing work on weapons.
2416 - We developed Merculite Missiles this year and I told the military scientists to start working on the Fusion Bomb. I figure it is pretty old tech, so it shouldn't take too long for them to make it, and it would be about 50% better than what we have now. I would like to just steal this, but I don't trust these hackers. They never give me the kind of success they give the other generals.
That being said, we are up to two names and passwords for the Sakkras and one pair for the Klackons. Let's just hope they come up with something substantial before their access gets removed.
2417 - Finally, Spies showed me some success for once. They Stole Soil Enrichment from the Sakkras and they even altered the logs to show that it was the Meklars that did it. I was thinking about reducing their funding to 0 because they were pissing me off, but I guess they might have earned their keep this year. It was probably almost done anyway, which makes me angry, but at least the scientists can work on Controlled Radiated now. It was either that or Population + 50 and I went with the one that can't ever become obsolete.
Moro made 1 tiny ship this year with spare parts, apparently and it suicided to allow our planet to get one more missile salvo off against the Sakkra force before they retreated. We killed about 50 tiny ships and about 10 medium ones before they retreated from combat.
We also got a name and password for the Meklars and Darloks this year. Maybe the hackers are worth paying all this money to after all.
I am going to let Centauri pollution build up for one year right now because I really need to get this planetary shield done AND get a missile base up because they have an assault ship within one year of attacking Centauri along with many other ships and Emperor Ref apparently opened up his golden parachute on the way out and ran off with everything in our galactic savings account.
They also have an assault ship two turns away from Nordia. I don't know what I am supposed to do about that, sadly, since we don't have anything nearly that large in that area of the galaxy. I directed everything from Centauri to go there ASAP since they can't get nearly enough defenses before that ship shows up.
2418 - Planetary shields and 1 missile base was able to stop the assault ship, even though it was able to damage the planet. Centauri is now making 1 base per turn and the rest growing the economy.
If the Planetary Shields cant even stop all the assault ship's damage, Nordia is screwed. It is a good thing I was wise enough to send the whole fleet there last turn when I rolled the dice on that course of action, because they are going to be bombing the hell out of Nordia in the year that it takes me to catch up to them.
Klackons disabled the account we were using to access their networks, but the others all still seem to be usable.
I set Homeworld to make 12x Talon 3.1 ships and send them immediately upon construction to Nordia so they will show up with the rest of the fleet. Hope that ensures the Sakkras will only have one turn to bomb it. If that assault ship defeats our entire space fleet we will be doing really really badly. That is more what I am worried about than the planet getting bombed for a whole galactic year.
2419 - Hackers stole a tech right near the end of last year from the Sakkras. They made a shallow penetration and it was going to get them caught most likely. Having to act fast they took the first thing they saw which was a propulsion tech. It turned out to be a schematic for Uridium Fuel Cells (Range 8) which is a pretty big step up from where we were before. They were able to alter the logs at the last minute and blame it on the Klackons, which should get us off scot free in terms of retaliation. At least it will help to alleviate the pain of them bombing Nordia a little bit.
They hit us for 5 million people and 24 factories on Nordia, hopefully our fleet will be able to end this ruthless attack next year.
2420 - Huge combat over Nordia. One that we won, after taking heavy losses. We killed the assault ship, though. We probably lost 40 tiny ships against it, but at least it is gone now.
Some hacker from an unknown empire was able to break into our energy networks and destroyed 6 of our factories on Jinga. I don't really care too much about it, but I figured I would make a note of it for the record books anyway.
Homeworld has a tiny fleet headed for it from the Sakkras, but it got Planetary Shields up this year so that shouldn't be a cause for concern.
Nordia has a tiny fleet coming and 115 troops at least, set to hit the planet in 3 turns. I think that between the ships in orbit and our people on the planet, we shouldn't lose it to this force, but the next ruler might want to do something to defend this planet more. Right now it is spending half on ecology and half on getting a planetary shield going.
The Klackons just sent a sizable fleet to Moro as well. Moro has its shielding active and the attack is 6 turns away which is time enough to get some sort of defense together for it, hopefully.
I want to leave this chart for the next ruler and a special note with it that they should compare it with how well that Emperor Ref was doing when he left and a further note that I am not taking anything out of the galactic savings account on my way out.
At work, so I can't open up the save, but it looks like we had a pretty solid set of turns.
Only one nit. I think I would have researched +50 since we already had Toxic, and we don't know of a single Radiated planet yet. Of course, If I'd just researched Radiated originally, as I regretted not doing after I finished my report since I figured we'd be able to steal Soil (and we were), then we'd have Soil and almost Radiated too. Oh well.
I've already told Ref, but I'll be unavailable to play for about a week starting Thursday, so I reallistically need to be able to play my next turn no later than Monday, or I can't be counted on to play again until the 9th of next month. I suggest that if Archduke can have his turn done and posted by 7PM Monday CDT (GMT-6) that he play, otherwise, I need to play next, then he can follow me. Sound good?
I like to get Radiated, because it ensures that all the options are on the table in terms of conquering. I hate getting in the situation of being right next to a completely undefended Radiated Ultra Rich planet and not being able to take it for myself.
As for the +50, Sakkras already have + 60 and even I got some decent spy success against them. We would look pretty sad if we took their +60 and we were still researching our own + 50.
Besides that, we are still trying to emerge from the last +40 and Soil Enrichment intact atm. Part of my decision was based on getting out of the economic improvement cycle and starting again on the war cycle.
The extra 40 factories per planet would be awesome, but its just more of a setback atm.
I preferred to get us back to pumping out research and war machines. For that effort,
Radiated would kill 2 birds with one stone rather than setting us back even more.
Sakkra are on track to get Gaia planets soon and it would help us more to get just one of those than it would help us to get an extra +10 people per planet, not the least of which reason is that it would cut into their power at the same time it increased ours.
Either way, that was probably one of the top 3 hardest choices I had to make during my 8 turns.
Coincidentally, Population + 40 and Soil Enrichment should guarantee us spot #2 for population and we have a huge amount of friends right now since we have been killing all these Sakkra ships.
I don't really want to take the lesser win with elections, but that option may just be open if others want to go that route.
After I peaced the Darloks, in those 5 turns or whatever I had left I think they went straight to Friendly or something high like that.
Right, I won't dispute any of that, and taken in generality and applied to a generic situation, it's all quite true. +50 is of very limited benifit in most games, and I almost never research it unless I'm jumping from +20 or less, and even then, maybe not if Atmospheric is in the tree and of reasonable usage.
The problem being that Radiated is of limited benefit in this galaxy (and none at the moment), and unless we're able to steal +60 or another advanced tech before we finish Radiated, we're going to have to research +50 anyhow, setting us back.
Now, if we DO manage to steal a tech at +50's level or higher, it'll all work out ok. All the more reason to steal and Gropo the Sakkra as much as possible right now.
One detail that I did omit is that there were two other less useful options available.
Bio Toxin Antidote is still there and more importantly so is Doom Virus.
Doom Virus might be worth getting as a way to skip + 50, if we can't steal or conquer a level 31+ Planetology tech.
Also, heaven forbid we acquire something like Gaia from them, that would be another way to skip getting +50 as well.
They are pretty poor in computers and its going to be quite a long time till Radiated gets researched anyway.
I will go ahead and put money down that we see a lvl 31 or higher Planetology tech before we have to make another research choice in Planetology (barring us stealing Radiated from someone in the short term).
Bio Toxin antidote is not un-useful at all. The Klackons have Death Spores and might decide they want to use those at some point. I agonized over researching that vs Radiated or Soil. The reason I didn't was that ONLY the Klackons have spores, and lots of races know that tech, so we can't get the uber trade value out of it. I admit Soil was a poor choice, and either of the other techs would have been better.
You mean us reseach Doom Virus? I think that'd be a waste. At least 2 of the races we're going after have the level 1 antidote already. Now if you meant others have it and we might accidentally steal it, then that's fine.
If you'd rather I not comment on anything you have to say again, just say so. There is no need to get snarky. Catwalk and I disagree about things all the time, but we don't get uncivilized about it.
I will go ahead and put money down that we see a lvl 31 or higher Planetology tech before we have to make another research choice in Planetology (barring us stealing Radiated from someone in the short term).
There's a good chance of that, yeah. There's also as good chance we could steal or trade for Radiated if we ever need to. (Actually, with only the Klackons having it, we probably won't be stealing that. That would be my 4th choice of fields from them, so I retract that notion.)
At this point, I opened up the save. OK, only the Klackons have Radiated, and looking back, at previous maps, I don't think they are inhabiting any Radiated worlds. That leaves a total of 4 worlds that could be Radiated (a fifth must be Orion). Two of them are 10 parsecs away, all others even farther. Meaning by the time all but 1 of them would realistically be colonizable by us, we'd have the game won anyhow.
Nevertheless, the Sakkra DO have three techs that all exceed the level of +50, so if we ARE able to steal from them before we research Radiated, then it WILL work out OK, especially if we get +60 that way.
Honestly, after being able to do the research from the save, I say we're both wrong, and you should have researched the Anitdote ... We're going to win anyway if the next election doesn't land us in final war... This has been a pretty poor showing by the patch AI so far.
Regarding an election victory, since we already refused that once, there is no way we should even consider taking that until we have 2/3 of the votes. Maybe wipe out everyone but one person and those friendly Psilon blokes.
If you'd rather I not comment on anything you have to say again, just say so. There is no need to get snarky. Catwalk and I disagree about things all the time, but we don't get uncivilized about it.
I wasn't sure if you were intending that to sound harsh or not, glad you weren't.
Really, I made a bad choice earlier in planetology, like I said, or it wouldn't even have been an issue. Depending on luck factors, your choice might well be just fine. If it's come across that I thought it was terrible, then that's a big overstatement. I think it was a fine choice, but I still wouldn't have made that choice because I think the odds of it helping us are less than the odds of +50 helping us, or the odds of antidote helping us, but depending on how things play out, it still COULD be better.
@TheArchduke: I had assumed you were joining the team, playing right after RaiddinnRZ in the rotation ... but I suppose that may have just been wishful thinking on my part. Was that in fact the plan? (If so, you'd be very welcome! We may have to swap turns around a bit to fit people's schedules, as Maniac notes above, but we'll see.)
@RaiddinnRZ: Great-looking turns (and played and reported way sooner than, for example, mine...) - terrific job defending our new worlds!
I read that comment as jesting frustration with espionage luck (more on which below) rather than snarking at another player - I tend to assume virtually everything online is meant less seriously and less negatively than it appears at first glance. (As another example, Maniac's comment that "This has been a pretty poor showing by the patch AI so far" could be read as a condemnation of that AI - when from talking to Maniac on other occasions about kyrub's patch - which he now plays regularly - I know it's meant as the opposite: His point was that this has been an unusually poor performance in comparison with what the patch AI normally does.)
Likewise, when "Emperor Raiddinn" makes comments about "Emperor Ref," I take those all as a fictional character with an established slave-driving/murderous personality commenting about a fictional character I've taken to calling "Emperor Crazy" - not as RaiddinnRZ commenting on my play. I'll nevertheless reply to those very comments below because I think some of them throw some interesting light on the game (this game in particular, Orion in general, or both).
Also, I got a report that a dozen million of our people suicided on some
enemy planet somewhere with no hope of actually beating the 80 million alien inhabitants on the planet. I am starting to wonder about the coordination skills of Emperor Ref.
Yeah. This was more or less the tail end of the absolute mess to which I referred; if you saw what things looked like in 2410 ... well, let's just say it was a whole lot worse. I sent the initial wave of transports in a rush, and then had to do a bunch of juggling to get Centauri taken at all and prevent the Sakkra growth rate from turning the pop I'd already sent into a dead loss. Doing so meant juggling transports and population all around the empire, with the last absolutely critical ones needing to be sent in 2412, and I decided that sending the 2410 save with detailed instructions for what I wanted done for the next two years to complete an attack I'd already begun would be worse than just playing out the next two turns.
Also, didn't --> I <-- say for this to be started last time that I was in charge??? What have these brainiacs been up to that they can't complete such a useless tech in the few decades that I have been away?
Heheh. It had been forever in real time, but "just" 30 years in game time between RaiddinnRZ's turn sets, including TheArchduke's first turns (when he heavily emphasized propulsion at the expense of other fields like this one) and my latest ones (when the Imperial budget was heavily geared toward war).
Nothing is coming to Guardas right this moment and stuff is coming to Moro and Centauri, so I flip a coin and send the ships to Centauri. Remind me to ask for better sit reps before I take over the empire next time.
Of course since Centauri wasn't in our space until after RaiddinnRZ's turn set, I had no idea what was approaching it (which is why a large percentage of our fleet was over that very world). Moro however had double-digit missile bases, and our enemies had demonstrated that they couldn't harm it with the fleets they had been sending. RaiddinnRZ clearly made the right move in sending our defensive fleet to Centauri (in spite of his joke about "Emperor Raiddinn" flipping a coin).
I would imagine we will be at war with them again soon anyway, and I could use the breathing room now to get these planetary shields up and running. My advisors will probably kill me for doing this, though.
Not this advisor. By the end of my turn set, the Darloks had class V planetary shields, for 10 layers of shielding at their homeworld. It's going to be a little while before we're ready to crack that ... although...
I told the military scientists to start working on the Fusion Bomb. I figure it is pretty old tech, so it shouldn't take too long for them to make it, and it would be about 50% better than what we have now. I would like to just steal this, but I don't trust these hackers. They never give me the kind of success they give the other generals.
...this is of course an excellent pick, as Fusion Bombs will be terrific against anyone who (unlike the Psilons, who we're not planning to fight soon/at-all anyway) lacks class X planetaries. As for the spying though, I actually got the same number of spy hits as you did, in 12 turns instead of 8! Even the rate I got, at the spending levels I used, is very much worthwhile though (especially as marginal value over the strategic advantage and cost of keeping a spy ring in place just to know an enemy's tech).
I also often feel like my success rates are frustratingly low though; I suspect the reason is twofold: First, there is a chance of success every turn, as long as you have (or are planting anew) an espionage agent in your target's space. Unless playing as the Darloks with a big computer tech advantage, it's unlikely for a spy hit to happen on any given turn, but each turn that passes is another opportunity to get frustrated by the pRNG. Second and probably more significant though, is this: Attempting a tech steal on any given year provides no return unless it succeeds. If I spend production on a tech that's already in the percentages and it doesn't come in, at least I've increased the chances of landing it the following year - but losing a spy means the production spent hiring him was "wasted" completely. In fact of course, it was worthwhile because the cumulative chance over a decent number of years yields a high return for the cost (at least when leading non-Darloks in computer tech) but the apparent value on any year when the spies don't succeed is nil ... and I'm completely at the mercy of the pRNG.
Emperor Ref apparently opened up his golden parachute on the way out and ran off with everything in our galactic savings account.
(chuckle) Yeah, in Succession Games like this one, I normally try to leave the next player with more in the planetary reserve than when I started. This time, I wasn't able to do that - the small reserve we had at the start of my turns (I think it was thirty-something BC) was spent at Guradas to get defenses up and running ASAP. Even so, I could have devoted at least some (say) research spending in the final year or two to building up some kind of treasury again. In general, I don't think the turns I played were really up to my usual standards. (Bear in mind what my usual standards are though. In spite of my mistakes, I'm pretty happy overall with my turns.)
They also have an assault ship two turns away from Nordia. I don't know what I am supposed to do about that, sadly, since we don't have anything nearly that large in that area of the galaxy.
But RaiddinnRZ was able to get the fleet there in time to save the planet - excellent! I actually would not have tried to take Nordia as soon as I did if not for the fact that a) the Sakkra didn't have the range to reach that world at the time (or during my turns) except with their LR colony ships, and b) none of the Sakkra designs we'd seen to that point (unless the Heavy Ion destroyers showed up in ridiculous numbers) posed a threat to even a single missile base. Just RaiddinnRZ's luck I guess that they obviated both during his turn set, but of course that also gave him time to get this world and the others adequately defended.
I want to leave this chart for the next ruler and a special note with it that they should compare it with how well that Emperor Ref was doing when he left
Yup. This is in part of course because RaiddinnRZ played a great set of turns! It also highlights something important about our game so far though, and part of the reason Maniac went so quickly from concern that we might lose to certainty that (if we survive the next election) we would win: The gaian ocean world of Centauri (which was in the Sakkra empire instead of ours, with most of the transports to capture it in space, where they contributed neither pop nor production nor total power to our graphs, at the end of my turns) is kind of a big deal for our empire.
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... We're going to win anyway if the next election doesn't land us in final war... This has been a pretty poor showing by the patch AI so far.
