Turn 9: Our southern scout encounters an Ithkul scout. They actually attack us! I opt not to retreat, as I want to scout this system, not be forced to turn back. The scouts fight to a draw.
This is in a system next door to the Darlok system. Could... be... interesting...
The system itself has two Y1 worlds. Normally, these would be ignored, but one of them is very rich. That may be worth pursuing, once we've grabbed all the nearby G+
The gravity at the rich Y1 is "High", which is in the yellow range for us. That's not good. Gravity is a MAJOR factor affecting DEA efficiency. Gravity in the yellow range means only "major" loss of efficiency/production. Gravity in the red range for your race is "truly crippling" -- not enough to chase you away from G+, but certainly should be accounted for in evaluating colonial priorities. Another key factor, of course, is strategic location, and this system (Talitha) looks to be a strategic location perhaps halfway between our home system and an Ithkul home system. If you follow me. We might want to consider setting a blockade fleet here to prevent any of their colony ships from moving past this point. Too early to tell yet, but something to ponder, as this decision may need to be made before my next turn comes around. (MOO3 games move faster in the early going than the typical Civ3 game, or even MOO1/MOO2 games).
So, after finding five G+ in the first two systems, we've found none in the next four. Only this rich Y1 and the Darlok magnate world appear desirable enough to pursue.
Turn 10: A second leader joins our cause!
Also note that the first colony system ship was produced, and we'll settle the better of the two SS worlds remaining in the home system. (Better as defined by green gravity range and average minerals, vs low gravity - yellow range - and poor minerals on the other one).
Here's our new Meklar pal:
He's not the most effective leader I've seen, might even be hurting us short term, but I don't know that we want to reject him. At the very least, he provides a second target for assassins, which may spare the life of our more valuable Eoladi hireling.
Speaking of assassins, I order up a Political Spy to help protect the life of our two leaders if/when we establish official channels with the Ithkul.
Turns 11-13: The first few DEA's complete at the splinter colony in our home system. I take the time to obsolete most of our ship designs, replacing a few of them with new ones. Let's talk about ship designs a bit.
First, here's our new troop ship design.
Now, perhaps you look at that and wonder what I'm smoking. An expensive Light Cruiser just for troop transport?? However, each troop pod carries only four units. You don't invade with single divisions and expect to win vs all but the newest, smallest colonies. Troops are easy to train. (Just go in and compare the cost of even a small starship to the cost of a TEN PACK of infantry or even marines. You'll see what I mean). So... rather than build four small troop ships to carry four divisions, at a total cost of 1900AU, I've designed this single, larger ship, which costs less than 1200AU and can transport a whole Corps. Thus, we save 700AU on the cost of being able to transport up to 16 gropos, money which can be used to do other things. The only thing we don't have is the flexibility to send a single division, but I don't expect to do much of that. When it comes to troops, they are so cheap, it's better to send too many than too few. In fact, I'm going to queue up a couple batches of infantry at the splinter colony (10packs) so that they will be hanging around training, gaining experience, and we'll have them ready to go on short notice if we want to take over someone's colony. It's not like we're going to make friends with the Ithkul.
Convention Time:
When it comes to naming ship designs, I believe the most indispensible information is the warp speed. Starship engines come in various levels, with Retro Engines being Warp 1. Nuclear Engines are Warp 2, Sub-Light Drives are Warp 3. We need a reference list of the engine names and their speeds, because the game only shows the names.
EVERY ship design ought to have its warp speed number in the design name. This allows any player to identify at a glance the speed of any design, including designs made by others, so as to be able to group ships of like speeds. You don't want a sluggish design bringing a speedy task force to a crawl. The fleet moves only as fast as the slowest ship.
No other information is as vital as the warp speed. Sucky ships and obsolete designs may still have SOME value, when grouped with the right partners. They have NEGATIVE value if they bring modern TF's to a crawl.
So the number one naming convention for ship designs is to always put the warp number in the design name, and to use numbers ONLY to identify warp speeds.
Note the name of my transport ship design: Corps Trans1. This is a sterile sounding name. If they ever give us more characters to make longer names, we can improve on this, but even then the conventions remain the same. The design name should provide as much vital info about the function of the ship as possible. In this case, the ship is designed to transport a Corps size ground unit, and it has warp one engines. You get all that info in the name, at a glance, if you know how to read the convention.
If I were to design another similar transport, still with warp one engines, I should NOT name it Corps Trans2. That would indicate a warp two speed vessel, and that's not correct. So it would be named Corps Trans1A, to differentiate it from the older design.
What do you put in the name? Depends on the design and its intended use. That will be up to each designer, but for SG play at least, ship names need to convey information and reminders, so players can work together effectively. Save your flashier, role playing ship names for non-SG play.
Now here's a new scout design:
I've replaced the laser with a fighter squadron. This reduces the cost of the vessel (cheaper scouts are better scouts), while the ship may see more use long term (if scouting duties are finished) as a warp one picket offering fighter support to fleets.
NOTE: because of piracy, you never want to scrap old starships. Obsolete fleets make for great service to the empire in backwater or frontier worlds to combat piracy with permanent starship garrisons. Piracy often causes a lot of unrest on new and especially newly captured worlds, especially later in the game when population increases from heavier migration outstrip production of DEA's and facilities that combat piracy or unrest.
There's good blurb in the MOO3 readme about piracy that everyone should read.
As for the name of this design, "Ftr Recon 1" indicates that this ship carries fighters as its weapon, its mission is recon (picket is another good word for this function), and its speed is warp 1.
This IS the current scout design, so build these (they're cheap) if you want extra scouting or some cheap escort units for a possible blockade vs the Ithkul.
Finally, I designed a frigate-class carrier with more fighter squadrons, and especially with fighters that do more damage (so they aren't obsoleted as much by the advent of shield techs). This small vessel replaces the Eagle Attack as our early combat starship of choice. Again, even after its lifespan has come and gone, any of these we build can run light piracy duty, so don't be afraid to build a few IF the Ithkul give us reason to want or need some space superiority, short term.
Note the name. MiniCarrier indicates that this is a small ship, as compared to "Carrier" or "Car", which will tend to be used for our largest class super carriers of the day. And of course, the warp speed is shown in all my design names.
Humans with our research bonus and my early focus on research in our home system, should reach new ship techs faster than usual, so we may end up redesigning these vessels before we field very many of them. Don't worry about that. As far as I know, there's no limit to the number of old designs we can have. If a new tech can give us an edge, go ahead and try to get it into play faster. Just stick to the ship-naming convention, and remember to obsolete any old designs you replace, so they stop being built.
I currently have no system ship designs in place. Next player or two may want or need to change that, but at this point we can only build ships off the homeworld anyway, so I took system design all out of circulation, to have colonies focus on bases or shipyard upgrades, or gropos.
Turn 14: Our scout locates an Ithkul outpost.
Turn 15: We encounter the homeworld of a new race, at Thok, the orange star north of Rotan. Their system ships chased our scout away. We had to retreat, without making contact. This is in the opposite direction from our encounters with the harvesters.
Turn 16: The fourth good planet in our home system has been settled. Both it and the Splinter colony are Mineral Poor, so I have set them up to be research planets (mainly). This new colony is low gravity, but it has lots of fertile regions, so I set it to do a good bit of farming. Since we are strongest on research and on spying, I believe we should focus some on these strengths.
I decided to set up the DEA's for all five of our worlds.
Here's the arrangement for Balren 5 (std gravity):
2 Farming (Alluvial mtns)
2 Industry
4 Mining (mountains, average minerals)
1 Military
1 Government
2 Research (these are in Arable plains, could be replaced with farms if needed -- depends on whether we find other fertile worlds to farm)
Here's what I did for Balren 4 (poor gravity):
4 Farming (all Alluvial mtns)
1 Industry
1 Recreation
1 Government
5 Research
With poor gravity and poor minerals, mining would be a waste.
Nitzer 7 (std gravity, very rich minerals):
6 Mining (4 mtns, 2 mixed)
2 Industry
1 Government
1 Military
Obviously, this world is vulnerable to blockades at the moment.
Turn 17: We have located the Ithkul homeworld. It's at Saak, the red star south of Corona. Also, one of their scouts is coming toward our homeworld.
Turn 18: I've built a new ship: "Ftr Recon 1". This is a scout vessel.
Turn 19: That Ithkul scout blockades our only colony outside the homeworld, Nitzer 7.
Turn 20: The Ithkul ship has moved on. I built another new scout.
OK, the first MOO3 SG turn is in the books.
Galaxy map and final thoughts up next.
)
![[party]](/images/smilies/partytime.gif "Party [party]")
Our relations start at -149. Scary stuff. The Tachidi accept our TA:Res+, and offer a non-aggression pact. Why we would fight the next-largest-power, I don't know, so I accept.
removal. Check on it, would ya, Charis?)
, there may be residual 
