Peace with the Psilons: I wouldn't have objected to remaining at war with them at least until they develop an SoD that can actually hurt us. Remember peace just means we are at cold war instead of hot war -- and that the AI won't attack unless it thinks it can win. In this case, getting peace doesn't really mean that much as far as whether they will attack us or not goes. The Psilons already seemed more focused on colonizing and on defending his core than on attacking us, so there was relatively little to gain from peace. I think this was a ruse on their part to buy them some more time to colonize planets, and we fell for it. If the Psilons had had a big fleet with which to smack us, accepting peace would have been the right call... but they don't. If they did, they would already have used it, and we would see it on the fleet power status graph anyway. Just because we can't hurt their core, doesn't mean we should not keep a hot war going. This is a somewhat subtle point, though, so no smoking on this one.
For instance, if we had remained at war, we could have sent some of our larges around as scouts so that we could popstorm his new colonies before they get off the ground. We might want to do this anyway, despite having taken peace -- especially since we need to win by conquest anyway. Even though we can't make much headway against their fortified worlds right now, we should not be afraid of the Psilons, and we should still be looking to take targets of opportunity away from them! Even if they retaliate by destroying those colonies, all it costs to delay them is a few pop, which are easy to regrow. Plus, as soon as they resettle the colonies, we can just start the whole deal over again, until we DO have the combat power to defend them long enough to stand them up. Even if we never get to that point, those baby colonies still contribute to the vote; better that we hold them than the Psilons.
This is a good example of a population-based war. What we are doing is sending a relatively small investment (some population which can be regrown easily) off to delay enemy expansion and force him to waste MORE resources and MORE population trying to retake those worlds. Because we have wicked ground strength relative to the AIs, this works largely in our favour. The Bulrathi and Sakkra excel at this kind of warfare, Silicoids usually are fairly vulnerable to it. We don't actually care that much about defending all these worlds we're sending pop to, until we get to the point where we have the wherewithal to do so or they are out of range of enemy attack. What we care about is denying the opportunity to expand to the AI. Taking a break to consolidate our gains is the wrong approach; as long as a fluid war is in our favour, why mess with success?
Peace with Alkari: No way. Remember, in my report I mentioned that that their SoDs of small laser-armed ships are USELESS against our larges! What do they have left other than that? Check their fleets out by clicking on them -- nothing significant. A few mediums and one or two larges. We only need a couple Gatling 2.0s to decimate their fleets! They aren't really a threat to us. Even if they were to blow Nitzer of the map, so what??? It just means that their fleet will leave, either we will resettle it or someone else will, and we can take it again with a minimal troop investment. In a population-based war, Nitzer is bait -- we can afford to lose it. Peace with Alkari is definitely sub-optimal; we will want to break this peace and soon. We can capture a couple of important techs from them if we take Altair, and we have ample force with which to do so.
Peace with Sakkra?!?
They have been sitting on one planet all game and don't have the tech to hurt us. Even if they have the best ground tech among the AIs we still hugely outclass them. Moreover, clicking on their fleets to see what they contain reveals that they are also composed largely of small ships. The Sakkra have abysmal tech; the only thing they can do with a small hull at their tech level is to build a speed 1 laser popgun with at most a MK1 computer on it! Again, we only need a couple Gatling 2.0s to decimate their fleet, and their planetary missile bases aren't much better. We should have had a fleet in orbit and troops on the way by now.
Silicoids: Again, I would have expected a fleet in orbit and troops on the way. While their fleet is composed of larges, and not smalls, they still don't have much tech to put on them, espeically in the way of computers and beam weapons; one of our Gatlings is a match for several of their ships. At least we're still nominally at war with them!
Checking the save, we have a whole bunch of Gatlings in play already. In fact we have enough to simultaneously begin campaigns against all 3 of our main targets. We should switch all ship production off of Gatlings and onto our missile boats, which we don't have any of yet. (What happened to combined arms?) Even if we have to take Gatlings away from defending the Psilon frontier (assuming there are some way out there) that's fine! The Psilons will likely not try to attack right now, unless someone draws them into the war with us, and even if they do attack, it will probably be at one of our bait worlds.
Go for the throat, Ozy!
For instance, if we had remained at war, we could have sent some of our larges around as scouts so that we could popstorm his new colonies before they get off the ground. We might want to do this anyway, despite having taken peace -- especially since we need to win by conquest anyway. Even though we can't make much headway against their fortified worlds right now, we should not be afraid of the Psilons, and we should still be looking to take targets of opportunity away from them! Even if they retaliate by destroying those colonies, all it costs to delay them is a few pop, which are easy to regrow. Plus, as soon as they resettle the colonies, we can just start the whole deal over again, until we DO have the combat power to defend them long enough to stand them up. Even if we never get to that point, those baby colonies still contribute to the vote; better that we hold them than the Psilons.
This is a good example of a population-based war. What we are doing is sending a relatively small investment (some population which can be regrown easily) off to delay enemy expansion and force him to waste MORE resources and MORE population trying to retake those worlds. Because we have wicked ground strength relative to the AIs, this works largely in our favour. The Bulrathi and Sakkra excel at this kind of warfare, Silicoids usually are fairly vulnerable to it. We don't actually care that much about defending all these worlds we're sending pop to, until we get to the point where we have the wherewithal to do so or they are out of range of enemy attack. What we care about is denying the opportunity to expand to the AI. Taking a break to consolidate our gains is the wrong approach; as long as a fluid war is in our favour, why mess with success?
Peace with Alkari: No way. Remember, in my report I mentioned that that their SoDs of small laser-armed ships are USELESS against our larges! What do they have left other than that? Check their fleets out by clicking on them -- nothing significant. A few mediums and one or two larges. We only need a couple Gatling 2.0s to decimate their fleets! They aren't really a threat to us. Even if they were to blow Nitzer of the map, so what??? It just means that their fleet will leave, either we will resettle it or someone else will, and we can take it again with a minimal troop investment. In a population-based war, Nitzer is bait -- we can afford to lose it. Peace with Alkari is definitely sub-optimal; we will want to break this peace and soon. We can capture a couple of important techs from them if we take Altair, and we have ample force with which to do so.
Peace with Sakkra?!?
They have been sitting on one planet all game and don't have the tech to hurt us. Even if they have the best ground tech among the AIs we still hugely outclass them. Moreover, clicking on their fleets to see what they contain reveals that they are also composed largely of small ships. The Sakkra have abysmal tech; the only thing they can do with a small hull at their tech level is to build a speed 1 laser popgun with at most a MK1 computer on it! Again, we only need a couple Gatling 2.0s to decimate their fleet, and their planetary missile bases aren't much better. We should have had a fleet in orbit and troops on the way by now.Silicoids: Again, I would have expected a fleet in orbit and troops on the way. While their fleet is composed of larges, and not smalls, they still don't have much tech to put on them, espeically in the way of computers and beam weapons; one of our Gatlings is a match for several of their ships. At least we're still nominally at war with them!
Checking the save, we have a whole bunch of Gatlings in play already. In fact we have enough to simultaneously begin campaigns against all 3 of our main targets. We should switch all ship production off of Gatlings and onto our missile boats, which we don't have any of yet. (What happened to combined arms?) Even if we have to take Gatlings away from defending the Psilon frontier (assuming there are some way out there) that's fine! The Psilons will likely not try to attack right now, unless someone draws them into the war with us, and even if they do attack, it will probably be at one of our bait worlds.
Go for the throat, Ozy!
As Sirian has said, it's better to be lucky than good at times.
