OSG 29B - The Socially-Awkward Diplomats

[RFS-81]

Thanks for the discussion about maxing planets! I'm learning a lot here! Is there any point at which you would think filling up planets would be the most efficient choice, for example, with high enough robotic controls tech?

[shallow_thought]

2) Sublights won't directly help much for taking on Meklar missile bases; they're mainly useful for our transports and strategic speed.  Fusion Bombs won't fit on a small for a while, but if we're going for a larger ship, they'll be a major improvement over nukes with BC3.  I wouldn't build the current-technology large ship Thrawn is talking about (unless he knows something I don't about the Meklar fleet) but if we do build it, its one and only use would be exactly what Thrawn described:  To attack Cygni as soon as it has a base up (and hopefully no new defensive technology) and prevent any more bases from getting built.  Even so, I consider that a very iffy proposition.  Maybe worth the investment in one large ship out of the UR if the diplomatic fall-out won't be too bad, but not a bet I'd make personally.  (Especially with nuclear engines; one of the things sublights are good for is getting a fleet to the front before it starts going obsolete.)

3) Improved Space Scanner, if it's in our tree.  It's hard to overstate the importance of accurate long-range intelligence about the movement of enemy fleets.  Merc missiles are good too, as are Scatters situationally, but I agree with you that new missiles should be secondary to a beam.

I agree with everything. On 2) that's exactly the use I had in mind, only we have such a ridiculously strong economy (for my warlord standards at least but you'll see for yourself in 10 turns) that 600 BC for a ship feels like nothing. Since it will be Exis producing it, we'll also get half of it back when we scrap rather than the usual quarter so it will cost only 150 BC in reserve funds. But you are right that we are close to Fusion bombs and may as well wait and use them rather than nuclear.

I'm half-way through and have a further question. Before I get to that, I'd just note that
a) Yep, the point of sub-lights is to double our transport speed and get a 50% boost on any new ship.
b) I'm doing some ship pre-building; I don't really want to finish anything before we get sub-lights. In the particular case of the Cygni-killing large, I'm therefore building it at Rha, near Cygni. If we never need it, great, Rha can turn it into something more useful. If we do need it quickly, it's right there. Less efficient than building at Exis, but speed could be important.
c) I think I'm in one of those phases where spreading tech actually works - we want so many things, a lot of them for ship designs , and most of them are not economic techs, so I'm pushing on multiple fields, trying to get max total value.
d) Planetary V was available, and I've seeded it.
e) We have Soil enrichment in.

My question was actually on what to get after Soil. We have the choice of Atmospheric at the next level, Toxic or Antidote at the current one - and the Meklars have death spores (I was a bit concerned about a random Meklar large that I thought was heading this way, but it appears to be paying the birds a friendly? visit).

While writing this post, I've pretty much convinced myself that the Atmo+Soil combination at UR Exis is too important to ignore, but we  only have two hostile worlds at the moment. The Silicoids are on the move - I think they've just grabbed the Toxic Rich near us, so I reckon we're going to be too late to get value out of Toxic. The question is whether we want Antidote for defense.

Any thoughts? If not, I'll grab Atmo when I sit down again after lunch.

Oh, and I will not have been juggling pop to max planets with top-level efficiency I'm afraid - partly because of lack of engines. Just letting natural growth and MAX factory builds do the work while I focus on tech.

[RefSteel]

Antidote is a critical defensive tech if the Meklar are actually fielding spore ships and we expect to be at war. We'll definitely want Atmo and a chance to advance the tree, but with only two worlds where it's relevant, I think I'd put it off in favor of the antidote here (without knowing what's actually on the Mek designs for sure; a spore ship with stabilizers is entirely possible, and I'd want an answer to that possibility).

Is there a plan to keep the Silis off the radiated URs around our core?

[shallow_thought]

Thanks for the replies. I'm going with Atmo on three grounds:

1) We're probably going to be at war with the Meklars before we can get Antidote - Cygni is our first target. So we're going to have to cope without anyway!
2) Ref wanted an interesting turn set (fool!)
3) We could consider trading Atmo to the rocks for something nice (IRC III, if we're lucky)

Will Silicoids use Atmo if they've got it? Can we get them to do some terraforming for us?


The plan for keeping the rocks away is
a) Get sub-lights as fast as possible; moving the Shy 1.0s off Tyr was going to be so slow I decided not to try, and I don't want to build more of them.
b) Stop and see what we can do with small fighters to delay them.

Am already trying to get scanners on the Meklar ships, but am again waiting for sub-lights before building any more.

Time to get back to the turns...

[RFS-81]

3) We could consider trading Atmo to the rocks for something nice (IRC III, if we're lucky)

Will Silicoids use Atmo if they've got it? Can we get them to do some terraforming for us?

I like this plan! Unfortunately, they'd have to ask us for it.

[shallow_thought]

3) We could consider trading Atmo to the rocks for something nice (IRC III, if we're lucky)

Will Silicoids use Atmo if they've got it? Can we get them to do some terraforming for us?

I like this plan! Unfortunately, they'd have to ask us for it.

D'oh. . Could always dangle some unprotected factories in front of them and see if they'll take the bait... .

Anyway, turns played, minor crisis trying to keep Silicoids out of our core (I was not lucky with sub-lights in the %ages), but should be OK. Fairly quiet set. Ref can look to be more violent in his, with some luck.

Report and save to follow once I've finished looking around and taking notes. My character is off to take a break.

"Good morning sir. The Lady Agatha is here to see you. Your fiancee sir, if you remember?"

"Agatha? Didn't she call it off after the ... incident?"

"No sir. She simply hasn't visited you in the last few years. This seems to have suited all parties."

For a moment, the way that his sleeve hung edged on implying that it had been a lot more convenient for him - not having to work out ways to break off an unending stream of unsuitable alliances without causing major diplomatic incidents. As I peered closer he moved and the implication vanished.

"Oh, very well then. Send her in."

Agatha had always been one of my favourite fiancees. Not only did she have the endearing habit of vanishing off to her laboratory for long periods (several years, as it turned out, in this most recent case), but holding a conversation with her was quite relaxing; once invited to get started she was perfectly capable of carrying on without any effort from the other party. I murmured a polite greeting, allowing her to launch into her speech.

"Morning dear! I know it's been a while, but look: we have all these interesting ideas and I think that - oh hang on, that one is a little too extreme - I know, have a glance at this one..."

Of course, it could get a little wearing after a while.

"Oh, you'll be pleased to know that we've finally managed to put out all the fires, resurrected one-and-a-half of the interns and Helen managed to track down most of her gerbils - even the one you teleported to Antarctica. We're still working out how you did that by the way - Helen has built a special bunker and is keen to have you over to try again when you have a chance. If you could spill your tea in exactly the same way we may be able to replicate the effect..."

I made a feeble attempt to point out that I wouldn't have spilt my tea in the first place if it hadn't been for the attack by the fanged, red-eyed horrors that Helen, Agatha's lab partner, claimed were pets. This was utterly insufficient to stop the flow.

"I know that those stuffed shirts at the soil institute think they've got something, but this is much more exciting. It has nearly twice the power of those boring old nuclear bombs. It could even cut through the new shield. Oh, had I not mentioned that? - look, here's the design spec..."

I was glad that we had sufficient budget to pursue these ideas. It was very hard to say no to Agatha. When I told her that the government would be delighted to fund these "fusion bangs" and "subble drives" she squealed, gave me a barely appropriate kiss on the check and headed for the door. I was fairly convinced that would keep her busy for at least three years.

"Oh, when I've wrapped these up, dear, we really must discuss the wedding. My mother's memory image has some wonderful ideas..."

As the door closed, my RV handed me a much needed drink.

"Perhaps a tour of the colonies sir, once your term ends, if there isn't a war on? I understand that they can be quite beautiful viewed from space."

"A private tour, no groups, robotic guide, no landings?" The RV nodded. "Right ho. War or no war - get the tickets sorted."

"Very good sir."

[shallow_thought]

Summary
------------
Mostly calm turn set, focused on teching and (post-soil) growth, albeit the teching was with an eye on setting up to take the war back to the Meklar (and anyone else in the way). Oh, and one minor and one major piece of .

Internationally, the aliens continued to burn their resources on war (hopefully - see below). The partial exception was the Silicoids, who continued their expansion; they've picked up two rich / ultra-rich planets on our borders and I've had to scramble to try and keep them away from the Ultra-Rich right in our core; we should manage this but I've not been efficient about it. I should probably have committed resources earlier to scaring them  off at Selia before they got this far.

Tech progress:
- Still working on BC III
- Still working on Duralloy
- Got PDS, PSV is now at 22%
- Soil -> Atmo
- Sub-lights -> Energy Pulsar (ugh - lack of good choices)
- Fusion Bombs -> Neutron Blaster

As for the aliens.

OK, I've managed to get as far as writing this report without noticing that we had 0% spies on all the way through the turnset. <unprintable rant>. I even turned on espionage and I was checking techs every turn - how did I not notice this?   We're currently blind...

Anyway, turn by turn report.

So, primary aim for this set is to try to start putting together a military that can sweep through four or five planets fast. This initially requires tech. The secondary aim is to set up to take - or actually take - Cygni, leaving this as late as possible for more factories and to delay the diplo impact. Trigger will be either bases appearing or PSX in the Meklar tech list.

Keeping the rocks off the hostile worlds within / near our borders is a nice-to-have.

Tech plan:
- Finish current shields
- Soil Enrichment
- Sub-lights
- PSV if we have it
- Weapons


Priorities are hard; soil is the snowball tech, and we need sub-lights to double our transport speeds and to help us link our back-lines production facilities with our frontier. I'm therefore
putting them ahead of PSV (which we may not even have!) for the moment.

Oh, and we want Duralloy, and BCIII too...

T2380
-----
I look around. A bunch of planets are currently forcing pop, which I presume means that they have just finished terraforming. I dial everything back to (just) "MAX" factories and "CLEAN/+1 pop", which leaves plenty for tech and ships. I belatedly realise that Sol had also been forcing pop and is currently under-populated, so I have probably stomped all over some lovely micro there like an oaf demanding ketchup with a Michelin star meal; I blame the interruption from my wife waking up and demanding tea and move on. We'll be going for natural growth and matching factories for a while (as Ref says, it's simpler and not bad).

Oh, and we can 1t a missile base at Tyr. Worth it to back up our Shys to avoid any feathery surprises from nearby Simius.

I design a large bomber as Thrawn suggested, that we can use to take Cygni if it starts to build bases. I'll build this at Rha for a fairly rapid response. Plan is to leave it with one turn to go until we actually need it.

Similarly, throw in a huge design as a placeholder, to be built at Endoria ® and Exis (UR). I'm going to hold off building at our larger but non-rich worlds for now.



On tech, I set Planetology to "just lit", FF stays at 25%, weapons is dialled back to trickle, and I try to get the others all seeded. Reserve spend at Sol to help this along.

T2381
-----

Realise I forgot to turn on espionage as I said I was going to. We're now trying to steal from the Borg, Birds and Bears (but sadly not the Rocks - sad because they are the ones with IRC III). LATER NOTE - oh no we're not, I'd have to have actually spent here for this to be true.

Taking a more careful look at pop levels, Artemis is going to hit the best part of its growth curve once the existing transports arrive and other growing planets have pretty much the correct level of factories for their pop. I'm not going to try to micro this any further right now, certainly not in the absence of decent engines.

In tech, keep trickle in FF (28%), carry on seeding computers and construction, with other fields left at "just lit".

T2382
-----
A scout of ours I'd not noticed arrives at Volantis, to be met by 22 Meklar bases, two huges and (I think) a colony ship. The pilot wonders why he took the job and rapidly leaves.

Meklar have a different huge (Anhilator) and large (Tornado) over Cygni. I send our Scanner ship across to see if it can get a look. Will update this design once we get sub-lights. Soooo sloooow.

Dial all tech other than planetology back to "just lit". Going to push on soil now. FF still not in.

T2383
-----
Still no FF! Planetology and weapons reach (low) %ages.

Still all quiet internationally - all the wars and alliances in place, no exciting new techs.

T2384
-----

FF are in, and PSV is available. I pick it and seed it.


There is a lone Meklar large on its way somewhere. It could be packed with death spores, so I switch to building missile bases at Tyr (its likely target). Exis and Endoria go back to reserves for bit, as we're getting low.



I start terraforming Artemis, as it's now at reasonable pop (20/45) and production (58).

T2385
-----

Soil is in. After some discusssion I choose Atmo (only choice at next tier)- see the earlier posts for background.


Silicoids turn up with a pair of armed colships at Celtsi. I don't feel I can defend their next targets - Selia and Guaradas - until sub-lights come in, so I start pushing everything bar trickles into propulsion.

The Meklar ship seems to be heading for the Altair colony of Simius? Maybe the borg want to handle the pirate situation there? There's no alliance, so could get interesting...

Given, that, can pause missile building at Tyr. Basically everywhere that can is set to do soil enrichment. This, of course, crashes our tech rate, but it's going to be a one-turn job.

Cygni still has no bases (pop 48), so no action for a little while.

T2386
-----
Fusion bombs come in at 7%! We have a choice of Ion Rifle, Mass Driver or Neutron Blaster. The gropo would be tempting if we had any beams already, but as we don't, Neutron Blaster it is (sorry, no picture).

The odd Meklar large heads straight past Simius. It must be heading for Selia, to scout.

Sub-lights are at 3%. Our tech rate is still suffering as all our newly fertile worlds build enough factories to keep up with their pop.

I'm getting a strong impression that all this warring is holding back the aliens' tech. Nothing new from them that I've noticed since the start of the set. HOLLOW LAUGHTER from future self .

T2387
-----
As expected, Silicoids grab Selia. Let's hope the Meklar bomb it out - and that my decision not to spend resources on speed-2 ships to try and slow the rocks down doesn't come back to bite us. Sub-lights at 24%.

I cream off the pop growth at a few (fertile) planets and send it to Artemis now that it has finished terraforming and is well below half-pop. This will just push it up the growth curve a little.

T2388
-----

Silicoids are on the move again - and they're not heading where I thought they would - they're either trying to take a look at Darian (unlikely), or they're heading for Crypto, the UR near Artemis. I can't get any sensible number of 1-move ships there - really needed sub-lights a turn earlier. Damn. I really thought we'd have something in place before they got range on that. Should have realised the threat last turn, but I'm not good at judging range. I'm just going to have to see what I can get there; I design a speed-2 laser fighter (Shy 2.0). I reserve build at Artemis, but normal build at Darrian - ships from the latter may not get there in time.

I leave sub-lights at 30% and start to push planetary shields.

T2389
-----

As expected, Silicoids are heading for Crypto. If the 20-odd fighers from Darian can get there (it looks close) to support the ones from Artemis we should be able to drive them off easily.

We have a lot of reserves, so I push some through Sol to boost tech. Still no sub-lights.

T2390
-----

Our Scanner ship turns up at Cygni and we get a look at a Nexus. I retreat.



We get sub-lights, followed by the unexciting choice of Energy Pulsar or Warp Dissipator. No Fusion Drives, no Range 8. I'm a little tempted to hold back and grab Range 7, but in the end go for Energy Pulsar as the less expensive tech from the next level.

The Alkari are not happy about our expansion. Bah.

Good news is that our fighter force will get to Crypto along with the Silicoids. 33 is definitely overkill to handle a lone colony ship, but we'll probably want to split the force across multiple planets immediately after the battle. Or else I've just wasted 100-200 BC (I guess we can get half of that back in scrappage; sigh).

Overall status looks OK - we've gained in pop, but Silicoid expansion is keeping them up with us in power.

End
---
Mild (very) cliff-hanger to end on. The number of ships on their way to Crypto is probably more than we need to stop one colship - the new batch of 6 out of Artemis could perhaps be sent to the Inferno to our SW to try to block the rocks one turn earlier.

I have deliberately left some planets doing odd things - please look around before hitting "Next Turn"! We have pre-builds going on at Rha, Exis, and Endoria, so I've left them visibly building ships. You probably don't want to keep these settings, particularly at Rha, which should really be building the Cygni-killing large, but would complete it next turn (I re-designed it with sub-lights and fusion bombs, feel free to scrap it).

I'd recommend scrapping the Scanner straight away - it won't get anywhere useful for several turns after its retreat. I'd have been considering scrapping our other speed-1s as well.

Oh, and fix the mess I've made of our espionage, please .

- Thrawn
- shallow_thought (just played!)
- RefSteel (UP!)
- RFS-81 (on deck!)
- TheArchduke

[RefSteel]

I see the save and will post a got it when I have a chance to open it up. Schedule's a bit rough for the next couple of days, but I should hopefully be able to fit the turns in. I loved the intro again - makes me think of a much, much more sedate re-envisioning of Jeeves and Wooster. I'll try to make comments on the turns themselves and describe my likely strategy for discussion when I have a chance - hopefully later on today.

[RefSteel]

Some quick comments on the turns and discussion of my plans:

- First of all, another great turn set; we're in very good shape here, and I definitely expect we'll win this game!

- Second, the mistakes you identified weren't catastrophic, and after all, you did catch them! I definitely will be actually spending on espionage during my set though. And yeah, I'm planning to scrap basically all of our warp-1 ships, basically right away. Partly because...

- The Nexus design you discovered is just about immune to every weapon we can field. They "only" carry one death spore rack apiece, and with no beams aboard, they'll eventually retreat if we defend correctly, but they can make a real nuisance of themselves, and we still don't know what else the Meks are fielding. I'm planning to put some effort into getting Neutron Blasters here; it looks like we basically haven't started on them.

- Just for future reference, Warp Dissipators are very, very good. In many situations, they're better than repulsor beams. I don't think I'd go back for them after Pulsar here at least until we get a better engine, but there are situations where it would be called for. The pulsar might be nice if we have to take on the Alkari (or somebody else fielding enormous stacks of fighters) so it's not a terrible choice, especially as it was cheap, but I'd rather have picked up the WD.

- Putting off building a fleet while waiting for better technology is a really common mistake, and very easy to make. Don't be afraid to build some ships you're going to end up scrapping! The cost of building a reasonable cloud of fighters at Endoria or Exis and maintaining them while they sat over Selia would have been small compared to the value of denying the Silis an Ultra-Rich world within striking range of Sol and Darrian. Better late than never, though! It looks like we'll at least be able to keep them off of Crypto for a while! I don't mind putting off the [EDIT:Cygni]-stealer though, even though we'll only get 1/4 of its production cost back when we scrap it since we're building it at Rha: I'm happy having a prebuild at a front world anyway, since we can turn it into an emergency response fleet if one is needed, even if we don't build the ship to go after Cygni.

- We currently have missile bases at exactly two worlds. Every planet in our empire apart from Uxmai and Exis is in range (or probably soon will be) for a potential enemy. We're also about to get planetary shields, which will be great, but will also delay emergency base building until the shields themselves are complete. I'll try to get at least one base up everywhere before the shield tech comes in, and get everything shielded by the end of my turns. We really, really need a couple of these upcoming techs though, so no guarantees.

- I don't think I'm going to be fighting much unless the Meklar do something crazy. But ... I mean ... the Meklar are very crazy. So ... yeah, we'll see.

Oh. Also: GOT IT!

[shallow_thought]

makes me think of a much, much more sedate re-envisioning of Jeeves and Wooster

It's basically a direct pastiche - "steal from the best", and all that.

- The Nexus design you discovered is just about immune to every weapon we can field.  They "only" carry one death spore rack apiece, and with no beams aboard, they'll eventually retreat if we defend correctly, but they can make a real nuisance of themselves, and we still don't know what else the Meks are fielding.  I'm planning to put some effort into getting Neutron Blasters here; it looks like we basically haven't started on them.

- Just for future reference, Warp Dissipators are very, very good.  In many situations, they're better than repulsor beams.  I don't think I'd go back for them after Pulsar here at least until we get a better engine, but there are situations where it would be called for.  The pulsar might be nice if we have to take on the Alkari (or somebody else fielding enormous stacks of fighters) so it's not a terrible choice, especially as it was cheap, but I'd rather have picked up the WD.

- Putting off building a fleet while waiting for better technology is a really common mistake, and very easy to make.  Don't be afraid to build some ships you're going to end up scrapping!  The cost of building a reasonable cloud of fighters at Endoria or Exis and maintaining them while they sat over Selia would have been small compared to the value of denying the Silis an Ultra-Rich world within striking range of Sol and Darrian.  Better late than never, though!  It looks like we'll at least be able to keep them off of Crypto for a while!  I don't mind putting off the [EDIT:Cygni]-stealer though, even though we'll only get 1/4 of its production cost back when we scrap it since we're building it at Rha:  I'm happy having a prebuild at a front world anyway, since we can turn it into an emergency response fleet if one is needed, even if we don't build the ship to go after Cygni.

- We currently have missile bases at exactly two worlds.  Every planet in our empire apart from Uxmai and Exis is in range (or probably soon will be) for a potential enemy.  We're also about to get planetary shields, which will be great, but will also delay emergency base building until the shields themselves are complete.  I'll try to get at least one base up everywhere before the shield tech comes in, and get everything shielded by the end of my turns.  We really, really need a couple of these upcoming techs though, so no guarantees.

I lack a feel for how early-game ships match up, which made me reluctant to spend resources that might be pure waste (either too little or far too much). Only way to learn truly learn this is to try though; I should have had a go! I still have little idea what would be on those armed colships and how many las-2 fighters it would need to drive them off.
There's basically nothing in Neutron Blasters, as I switched to pushing for engines as soon as Fusion Bombs came in rather than spending a turn seeding. Of course, the engines then came in a bit late anyway. Meh. We do need something better than lasers and Hyper-Vs ASAP.
I've never used either Energy Pulsar or Warp Dissipators - I'll bear your advice in mind in future!
Good catch on the missile bases. I'd been vaguely happy that we could fast-build on demand if we needed to, given the production of our worlds and the state of the reserves, but that won't be true for a little while once Planetary Shields are in. I also felt that the chance of a serious attack was low - everyone is busy fighting elsewhere! But it's probably time to end the farmer's gambit...