(August 15th, 2025, 01:29)RefSteel Wrote: Thanks for the positive thoughts! I've been taking what few gaming moments I can find to work on the new EitB map, but still really looking forward to getting this one moving again! The hopeful stuff is still up ahead, and (gasp!) even more exciting (to me) and with ... uh ... interesting challenges along the way ... than the circumstances of my Alkari. But fortunately with 100% less ground combat against duralloy battle suited deflector shielded ion rifle toting rocks!
What's an EitB map?
Really glad to hear that there is potentially something coming your way IRL, good news is so rare nowadays I cherish it whenever I hear it lol.
I mean 100% less ground combat means that you'll not be able to scavenge research from the wreckage of whatever your currently struggling with, so is that even ideal?
(August 15th, 2025, 03:04)WingsofMemory Wrote: What's an EitB map?
The world "map" on which the site's latest Erebus in the Balance play-by-email game will be played! EitB is a balance mod for Fall from Heaven, which in turn is a giant mod of Civilization 4, setting it in a dark fantasy universe with magic and monsters and so on. Inspired in many respects by Master of Magic, but not actually very similar to it in gameplay.
Quote:good news is so rare nowadays I cherish it whenever I hear it
No kidding. It's a lot of work and a lot of risk, but I am working on it, and that feels good at least!
Quote:I mean 100% less ground combat means that you'll not be able to scavenge research from the wreckage of whatever your currently struggling with, so is that even ideal?
Oh, man, yeah, it's like I'm playing this enormous variant where I keep insisting on self-researching stuff instead of just taking it from somebody! On the other hand, my hand laser is out of batteries and none of the things I'm struggling with would give me control of any factories if I win, so maybe I'm better off this way after all....
"It's been seventy-two Pyrean years since we put our trust in our Phoenix emperor, a leader who was supposed to come from beyond the galaxy to save us from the alien menaces out here among the stars. I'm not saying it all went wrong. We spread our wings and soared out from our lonely Pyre to claim five new stars so far. There are safe stars where some of us live, like the High Crag overlooking space that might someday be owned by the Psilons, our colony there barely habitable but at least not under threat, and then the jungle world of Overgrowth is so fertile that it's practically impossible to build anything there except with wood, since you have to dig down through a mile-thick layer of plant life and soil before you ever reach rock with even a chance of a metal deposit in it. As far as safe colonies go though, that's pretty much it. The other three are on the battle fronts: The twin colonies of Sakkra-facing Dry Thermal and Silicoid-facing Ashen Nest, while the glory of our people, our second Pyre at Blazing Sky, stands near the galactic core nebula and roughly halfway between Klackon and Psilon space, with Silicoids closing in on it recently too. The rest of our surrounding stars are circled by hostile worlds - most of them too hostile for us to survive even with our new environmental technology - but they bear the galaxy's greatest riches, and like every planet in outer space, they're open to Silicoid conquerors as soon as they arrive."
"Not yet our conquerors, at least, though they declared war against us more than two decades ago and haven't let up since: If all goes well, at one world at least, it's about to be the reverse! But the rock people we were eager to trade with before their emperor declared war have a clear path to overrun the entire galaxy. In a way, we're lucky old Igneous decided that the best use of its people's resources was to throw them into war with us - because if it had used them more carefully and a little less insanely, it might be master of more and richer star systems across the entire galaxy than even the eleven where its people already live: Almost twice our own number, with everyone else trailing even further behind!"
"The ways we aren't lucky, considering the Silicoids' advantage in numbers, ground combat technology, and technology just in general, thanks to the ancient derelict they discovered packed with weapons and shield systems for reverse-engineering, are pretty obvious already. They started on the far side of the galaxy from us, and our territories are already meeting on both sides of the core nebula, with the fiercest fighting - of this war - here between our first colony of Ashen Nest and the large, rich, barren second moon of Rayden V. Our forces have had to chip away at living rocks through advanced engineered battle suits made with materials of which our people can only dream, firing our wingtip lasers through the enemy's deflector screens while high-energy ion rifle fire comes back our way. I don't even know how many tens of millions of our troops have died trying to dig the Raydenite Silicoids out of their fortified positions even after our starfleet finally took their skies, but I know we're going in after the remnant when we drop out of hyperspace early next year: The final batallion guarding the rich planetary surface, the colony established there, and whatever secrets may still remain among its dozens of factories. This is our one chance: We simply don't have the reach to attempt another invasion as costly as this one has been with our limited engine technology. We'll give it our all and hope for the best, and win or lose, we'll at least have fought for our lives - against this enemy."
(Way back at the beginning of the game, I identified the five stars surrounding this nebula as the main battleground of the galaxy. The Klackons started with one of the five, and so far, the rest have been divided between us and the Silicoids. When I left off though, that was about to change for the better!)
"Our fleet should be able to handle the Monitor cruisers coming in; we don't know what those two are mounting, but they can't possibly be as dangerous as the giant Polaris battleship the fleet took out two years ago. We can handle the other pair of cruisers escorting their reinforcement transports too, and hopefully shoot the 'sports down in space before they can land their invincible rock batallions on the ground. The rest is up to us though, and the front keeps on expanding. The Sakkra, who recently joined the war against us thanks to Saurak, an emperor at least as homicidally insane as the Silicoids' Igneous, have at least twenty Goblin fighters on their way from their homeworld of Sssla up toward the Dry Thermal colony they ruthlessly attacked at their first opportunity, in a conflict never declared a war that started over thirty years ago and finally ended just in time to give us a brief three-year respite before the Silicoid war declaration. With just two stars to their name, trapped between us, the galactic rim, Humankind, and Orion, the Sakkra aren't nearly as threatening as their Silicoid sometime-allies ... but the same can't be said of the Klackons."
"With more stars under their control than anyone but Igneous or ourselves, with the unmatched productivity of their hivelings, and with the war their aggressive queen declared war on us, honoring an on-again, off-again alliance, just a few years after the Silicoids did, the space bugs have been sending ever-larger fleets of laser fighters to test Blazing Sky's defenses, always repelled, but always threatening - and now it seems their tactics have changed. If our scanning crews' guesses are right, the latest attack fleet from Kholdan - with almost three times as many fighters as we can see coming in from the Sakkra toward Dry Thermal - is trying to slip in behind us, toward our first interstellar colony of Ashen Nest, already embattled by Silicoid fleets. Fortunately for us, that means they're flying straight through the nebula at the heart of the galaxy, which means as a surprise lightning strike leaving the target without time to prepare, it ... isn't. The relocation orders from Blazing Sky aren't even meant to protect the colony, but to take advantage of our newfound ability to survive on dead and tundra worlds to claim another star system! That's supposed to be hush-hush for some reason, but I can't see why unless our Phoenix emperor is too embarrassed to let anyone know we're spending valuable starship parts on little back-line Aquilae in the middle of a three-front hot war. There's a lot of ship-building going on around the empire just now though as we prepare to react to known and unknown enemy fleets: Even Overgrowth is providing logistical support for the Phoenix emperor's crazy tax scheme."
(The factory counts here aren't where I'd like them to be - costs of the early Sakkra attack and the need for early expansion technology before we could get beyond two worlds - but they're better than they might look at first glance: Though our homeworld of Pyre is woefully underdeveloped for this stage of a "normal" game and no planet has maxed out yet, we have over five hundred factories across our empire ... and it's going to be close to six hundred next turn! I still want to get some worlds maxed ASAP, but we're managing without that so far; this is a rare case - for just one turn! - where the reserve slider is actually beneficial! Yes, High Crag is feeding some production to the reserve when it would rather be building its own factories, but every other star is "building reserves" as efficiently as they could have with the IND slider and max facs ... except for ultra-poor Overgrowth, which is contributing much better than it could: As well as a regular, abundant world!)
"It might look like we're facing almost 20% taxation across Alkari space - more than our espionage budget and all the maintenance costs of our entire military force combined - just to feed money into the imperial reserve, but don't be fooled: That's actually just more shipbuilding! If I understand the plan, that entire reserve will be poured into Rayden as soon as we manage to take over, in the form of portable mining facilities: We'll be taking advantage of its mineral riches to turn out more ships on the spot, just in time to meet two Silicoid cruisers and probably 25 million of their troops, in the skies Rayden V-ii! There's a huge amount of more-direct shipbuilding going on around the empire too - everywhere except the remote colonies of High Crag, still at work on its early factories, and Overgrowth, where the nearest the population can come to contributing to industry - apart from the special case of mining logistics for Rayden - is what they're doing now, finally starting - slowly for now - on the long-dreamed-of project to improve our more-industrialized worlds' robotic controls."
"So we've got some real hope here - even if a lot of it hinges on how all the ground troops like me manage next year at Rayden V-ii - especially since we do have some friends to help face off against our triple enemies: Humanity, led by honorable Emperor Durash IV, was victimized by a cascade of temporary-alliance-driven war declarations after one of the two complete crazies among our enemies decided their alliance with him would be more fun if it turned into a war instead, while pacifistic Tachaon, well aware of what the likes of Igneous, Saurak, and the aggressive Klackons do to weak-seeming empires, tries to ensure the peace with a heavy focus on military. Unsurprisingly, after consistent peace, eager and widespread trade, and friendly relations with our people, Tachaon reacted to the warlike Silicoids and their emperor's insanity by joining our side in the conflict, with the rest of the Sometimes-Alliance of Aggression and Insanity declaring war on him before their ships could even reach any of his worlds or his could get to theirs. So there should be hope ... except..."
"It's been seventy-two years since we put our trust in our Phoenix emperor - and almost immediately after setting our course, plotting a future that would take us among the stars, the Phoenix emperor disappeared - no one knew where - for a little more than a day. There were doubts and there were grumblings, but then the Phoenix emperor returned and remained among us, showing us the way, for years at a time - once for well over a decade - before disappearing again for a very little while - never much more than a day. We thought ourselves lucky and wise to follow such leadership, and mostly forgot the gaps occurred, even as they grew more frequent and sometimes longer ... until now, with all in readiness for the most critical battle we've experienced thus far, less than a year away, the Phoenix emperor who led us so well for so long disappeared again ... and more than a month later, still has not returned! Without the leader to whom we looked so fervently, how can we defeat the overwhelming production advantages of every alien people in the galaxy? Who can take up the mantle that our grand strategist left behind, gathering dust on its rack? Yet dare we blindly trust that after all this time away, our Phoenix shall return in time - or even at all? There was a parting message, yes, but cryptic, and with nothing said about how long it would be. And what in the name of Amihan on high is an "EitB"?"
Please don't blame that map for the delay here; I didn't have as much time for it as I wanted either! The real-life situation I mentioned is still ongoing and incredibly frustrating and still agonizingly hopeful at the same time, and a series of unrelated complexities have emerged in case it wasn't enough, including computer problems for which I was able to find loony work-arounds but from which I still haven't recovered properly. It's been a tough month and (checks) a third(ish) salvaged by some really great times with friends and sometimes that beacon hope in the distance. So ... am I back now? Well, I don't know how many turns I'll be able to get in per day or even per week, but I don't want this getting too stale, and I've been wanting to get back to it all this time, so ... let's see if I can get this back on track. And if anyone (as some periodically do) asks why I don't join our MP Civ (or EitB) games, maybe in the future I'll just point them to this thread, where I tried to play daily turns and keep daily updates, and ... this happened. Yes, the specific circumstances are rare, but no, I can never really commit to playing a turn every day. That said....
- 2373 -
(This is not a well-designed combat ship, and it's especially poor in the hands of an AI trying to fight the Alkari - but the AI gets enormous amounts of bonus production on this difficulty, and a giant fleet of these would be extremely difficult to stop. That's why we're fighting the Silicoids now (we could probably have gotten peace for the asking by now, I think) instead of waiting for them to build up a giant production base from which to smash us flat.)
"Our fleet needed no guidance on how to handle the Monitors: The enemy pilots took one look at our main starfleet and fled back toward Paladia. Their targeting systems are pretty good, matching our own state of the art - but not theirs. Slow and ill-equipped to handle fighters, they would only have been able to blaze away half-blindly at long range with their six heavy ion cannons, and at shorter range with their lone standard mount before our fighters closed and tore their ships to shreds. Even neutron pellet guns are hampered significantly by class-four shields like the Silicoids', and lasers would fail against them completely ... but that doesn't matter against Monitors since they forgot to mount any shield at all on those ships! We would probably have lost a fighter or two before turning the Monitors to space dust had they stayed, but that's it. We needed strategic planning to get the right fleet here, and to get our thirty-eight transport-loads of marines to the planet's surface to meet the last of its Silicoid hold-outs. But now that we're here, all we need is the weight of our numbers, such combat prowess as we can muster, our wingtip lasers, and the tactical leadership of birds like General Rueppellii!"
(Expected average losses were three or four to one, so of course we lost five. Not too big a difference with only one enemy to kill, and there's already a cause for celebration on this screen: We didn't get the worst result on the biggest set of die rolls associated with this attack!)
"And ... wow. That was fast, fiery, and furious. The last Silicoids of Rayden fought like magma-hearted demons, and Rueppellii's daring rapid-strike plan may have cost many soldiers their lives - it's not easy to know for sure amid the chaos of a ground engagement - but we rushed into the hearts of the Silicoid factory-cities so quickly, we were able to capture some of their plans intact: Secret design plans for powerful devices we'll soon be able to wield ourselves!"
(Turns out instead of the worst one-in-four, we got the good one-in-four, though not the small odds of something even better. As for the techs themselves, Battle Suits would have been a better pick-up for the same ground combat effect, and there were other techs possible with better immediate effects than either one of these - but I'll take personal deflectors and mark-3 computer gladly! The latter should even put us back ahead of all three enemies in overall computer technology, so here's hoping our spies can take advantage!)
"If we ever have to invade them again, we'll still be up against dug-in, battle-suited sentient rock with superior weaponry, but I'll feel a lot better with a deflector shield of my own to help protect me - and I'm sure our gunners and secret agents feel much the same way about the new computer technology! We carried the day, with better results than any of us expected to achieve - nothing to match our hopes, but enough to whet our appetites for greater victories! - and best of all is the capture of Rayden V-ii itself, ready to be transformed from a forward Silicoid military base to our own! Expanding this still-small, still-local victory into one that can transform the galaxy will require a lot more strategic planning than the likes of General Rueppellii can bring to bear - but secret reports from Pyre suggest that the Phoenix emperor has returned, and though we don't know for how long, even if the reports aren't even true, if someone with the vision and support to implement an effective strategic plan is established at the heart of our empire, this battle could be made into a decisive victory!"
"Either way, again, at last, here at our Rayden colony..."
"I'm home."
Not going to make any promises I can't keep (and I'm 95% sure there won't be any more turns tomorrow in any case) ... but it feels good to get this moving again!
Thanks, shallow_thought! I have to take things slow with All the Ongoing Stuff, but I'm hoping to continue tonight. There's a lot going on right now in the game too, since both we and the Silicoids are seriously over-extended around the galactic core in a classic case of pitting actual strategic planning (and our pilots' incredible nimbleness) against vastly superior production capabilities. Because ... claiming Rayden is great, and our still-limited population, slow-crawling transports, and 25(!)-point ground combat deficit when attacking Silis (after equalizing personal deflectors) make another ground attack all but impossible, but their empire is still vast and powerful in a galaxy that seems designed expressly for their use, and I'm not done taking their decades-old war back to them yet! (At least, not if I can help it!)
And, as hoped, starting slowly forward again in the hope that nothing else blindsides me....
"I've tried to gloss over the horrors of war - to avoid talking about some of the specific and personal reasons I'm hoping it's true we won't be invading Paladia or anyplace else after this - as if charging headlong into the heart of a factory-city with Silicoid thunderbolt rifles splitting the air around us was more nearly a dangerous, thrilling adventure than the nightmarish, choking slog it was, even with all the speed our wings could give us. Partly, it's the horror of the fight, but partly ... we talk sometimes about how the Silicoids aren't like the rest of the galaxy's people, how they can live anywhere with any appreciable gravity, how they don't have to - and never do - clean up the waste they generate, but we never talk much about what that means. Fighting our way in over the seas of toxic sludge surrounding every factory, through poisonous clouds defined not by where they began and ended but by where they mixed with clouds of other poisons, was reason enough to long for full battle suits of our own even without the vital protection they could offer while we were making do with just oxygen masks and what protection our paper-thin titanium body armor could afford - but it was far worse than that, going in. The Silicoids don't clean up the waste from a battle any more than from their factories, and after all the battles here on the ground at Rayden 5-ii, it seems like every third rock formation is a laser-scarred Silicoid corpse, stripped of is armor and some of its component minerals by Silicoid mining operations but still recognizable for what it is, and between them, around them, likewise stripped of titanium, lightning-charred by Silicoid weaponry, in various states of decay under the influence of the poisonous atmosphere and the hardy microbiome that's evolved to live in it..."
"We're cleaning up the waste now; it'll be gone by the end of the year, thanks in part to our highly-developed ecological restoration techniques. That's what we put in our reports back to the Pyre, where we don't describe what the waste consists of, and speak of it separately from the mass funeral in which we honor our many dead ... as though they are neatly separate, in no way deeply-entangled activities."
(Planetary build assignments were changed subsequent to this picture: All the shipbuilding planets except the two Silicoid front worlds took (at least) a turn off to finally start construction research, while Rayden itself starts building NPG fighters in addition to factories.)
"The huge influx of mining equipment from all across Alkari space, thanks to the one-year tax that ended as soon as we got here, doesn't help with the cleanup and funerals exactly - we'd be doing that anyway, and we do have the birdpower - and the same goes for our new factories, to ensure no one will be without a place to work next year. As expected, all the extra resources are going straight into shipbuilding: Enough to confidently expect to get fourteen new neutron pellet fighters into space - increasing the size of our current fleet by almost a quarter - by the time the Mako and Whale and the assault transports they're escorting show up, instead the bare one or two beyond our critical cleanup and factory projects that we might have expected to finish without the help."
"Those extra fighters will be tremendously valuable to all of us on the ground, keeping the battle in our skies as far as possible, where our extraordinary pilots can show off their skill, instead of letting them land here and - even with with time and the terrain on our side now that we've had time to dig in - expecting to kill us at a rate of nearly two to one."
"Of course, this also means we'll have great offensive cover at other worlds if necessary, but the galaxy is already looking a whole lot better this year than it ever has before."
(Psilon-Silicoid flag color contrast enhanced for clarity.)
"The Silicoids' stars still outnumber ours, but their nine to our seven looks a whole lot better than their ten to our six, especially when the one that changed owners is this one, with its mineral riches and living space for some forty-five million Alkari close to the heart of the galaxy! Better still, we still have room to grow: The arid dustball without a trace of minerals and little iceball in the "back lines" we defended from the Sakkra decades ago will take a long time to contribute much of anything to our people - which is why we haven't pushed to colonize them sooner - but they're still new worlds to live on, and we need all the Alkari we can gather in this hostile galaxy! The colony ship that might be bound for the latter is on its way up to Ashen Nest from Blazing Sky already, and ... word is that we're not limiting ourselves to back-line expansion anyway! Ships are being deployed from orbit here even as I record this: Since we're going to be defending here from now on, our bombers are being sent forward ... and I hear a bunch of transports are too, though not all the same way: Basically every unemployed Silicoid outside of this world, Blazing Sky, and our distant, still-young, still-all-out-factory-building High Crag colony!"
- 2374 -
"It's our first chance to defend ourselves against a Silicoid attack on our home: At last, after most of a century's yearning, an Alkari world!"
(We've seen these ships before, but it's good to have a reminder after all this time. They predate the Derelict event, so there's nothing really scary on them: All those gats might sound bad for our unshielded titanium fighters, but it hardly matters with just attack level 2. I could have hit "Auto" here and expected to lose no more than five ships. The Remnants AI would definitely have run away in a situation like this, and we wouldn't even have seen the battle - which is better for the particular AI that does so, and maybe for the player (depending on circumstances) but I think it's not as fun or challenging as being forced to respond to crazy, suicidal attrition attacks from time to time.)
"This may surprise you, but it seems to be an advantage to be able to fly circles around enemy ships! Here, our fleet maneuvered to force the enemy to close and the Whale to fire on our laser ships at long range before the real fighters closed in. We had just enough material up there that combining fire from our fleet had better-than-even odds of blasting their Whale to bits on the first pass - and in fact, all it took was one volley from the NPG fighters. That was enough to send the Mako to flight, and as it approached its hyperspace vector, our fighters closed on it as well."
"That turned out to be a mistake in hindsight, though the admiralty insists it was worth the risk - and in any case, at least for those of us who didn't know the pilot of the lone laser fighter the gatling laser arrays shot down, it didn't cost us much. That lone, outdated ship was the only thing we lost all through the engagement, and though the Mako managed to limp away with its armor in shreds, its hull integrity down to 10%, a little more luck would have rained that cruiser's pieces down on the already-rich surface of our world too. Considering the way our ongoing war is developing, I think I'd have made the same move!"
"That's just the space battle though; there's still the part we've been dreading and preparing for down here: The battle on the ground!"
(I admit it: This picture is out of order with the next one for narrative reasons. The give-away (even if you don't know MoO's turn-processing order) is in the sliders you see on the right: I didn't leave Rayden doing any research, so why does it seem to be doing some now? Well, our narrator will find out shortly!)
"Thankfully, there will be none! I hope we've had the last ground battle in this world's history-to-be, and our fighters blasting the incoming assault transports out of the sky like this is a great way to start toward that goal! I can breathe again now, and finally catch up on the news from our research labs!"
(First the spy hit Kholdan with a low-level penetration - no Computers, Forcefields, or Propulsion showed that clearly - and then the research option(s) came up. My spy reports said Weapons would have been Hyper-V rockets and Planetology would have been Controlled Tundra, and the bugs have incredible construction technology, so I went for it and got the cheapest result, but still a good one: We can't skip to the third rung with our finally-opened-for-the-first-time construction research the way we could have if we'd gotten a better tech from them, but reduced waste is still a good pick-up, worth something like 40 BC per turn right now - and slowly growing! - while improving miniaturization and giving me a chance to automatically reduce all Eco sliders to the minimum CLEAN, with the result I mentioned in the previous screeny. Oh - and when the game offered me the choice of who to frame, I hit the "Esc" key. I think (since it works this way on the choose-which-field-to-steal-from screen) that this exits the dialog without framing anybody, so the target doesn't notice anything was taken at all. It would have been neat to frame the Silicoids, but I'd rather not give the bugs any reason to pay attention to the risks of being infiltrated by anybody's agents ... if I can help it.)
"Oops; my mistake: It looks like the real news is from the Klackon research labs, on their homeworld - where our spy seems to have gotten some benefit from the new computer technology we picked up here! No luck improving our factory-building technology any further - neither from the Kholdan lab nor from our own - but cutting back on factory waste products, even by just a fifth, feels like it's worth a lot right now after all the grueling work we had to do here to clean up the Silicoids' mess. And in the long run, when duralloy armor is finally ready to distribute commercially, that'll be one more reason to celebrate!"
Emphasis on "slowly" with a huge amount of real-life stuff still going on, but even so...
~~ Everyone around our nebula is fighting still - also us. Red fleets from far away are Sakkra cruisers, coming home we think, from the farthest parts of the galaxy - the places they can't reach anymore. They are slow and old and it will be a long, long time, if ever, before they are home. Not so with our fleets. We stay near and strike fiercely at the enemy. We see the Silicoid cruisers circling the core and crossing it, seeking Paladia and Rayden and Berel, flying from one to another of the three. ~~
(The fighters are heading to Paladia to help cover the bombers already on their way with no immediate threats to Rayden spotted this year. The small fleet of bombers just finished at Blazing Sky are taking advantage of our observation that Berel, a comparatively new and underdeveloped world, still has no missile defenses and currently has no fleet in orbit to defend it. Apart from the two fleets due to fill up Rayden over the next couple of turns, our visible transports are all bound for Paladia; others are heading for Berel too, but from farther away.)
~~ All were their stars two years ago. Now Rayden is theirs no more. Now the Alkari fighters are flying to the other two as well: Both at once, and without mercy, faster than anything in their fleet. These are not the ruqs of legend with claws like lances, with nests woven from whole tree trunks as lesser birds weave twigs. These are swift, darting birds of prey, small enough to feast on insects, strong enough to break rocks. We watch as the fighter ships depart: The Klackon-Silicoid alliance stands, commanding attacks on the bird-enemy, does not command shared defense. Klackon fleets will find Blazing Sky soon now, more powerful than those that turned back before, and Ashen Nest some years later - how much later, none can know with the path straight through the nebula - but with the fleet well on its way. And here at Kholdan, at the heart of Klackon space, a cruiser is arriving, breaking the Klackon trend of Alkari-like fighters, imitating instead the Silicoids who own more stars than any other people of the galaxy. The Alkari flagship is far away; it will be long before it can see what the new design carries. There is change here at the heart of the galaxy. ~~
- 2375 -
~~ There is news of the Alkari and the Silicoids, and it is a reminder that the Alkari are fallible. Alkari ships are fast and very powerful for their size, and they move as if pursuing a common goal, guided by strategic and tactical planning beyond the reach of other species, but still the Alkari make mistakes. ~~
(I shouldn't have tried this. I know enemy fleets sometimes flee their worlds in the face of a large wing of bombers, especially once the bases are destroyed, but I didn't know for sure if the Silis would do that here, and not knowing, I should absolutely have waited another year. In keeping with our long-standing Realms Beyond exploit rules, it would have been okay for me to retreat and just send the bombers back again next year (not possible in RotP, but always possible in the base game) as long as they don't fire any expendable weapons. To prevent endless unstoppable harrassment attacks however, retreating after firing missiles or bombs means your ships have to leave the star system unless you win the battle. I knew that, and decided to blow up the bases anyway, hoping the enemy would retreat and leave my ships in control of the planet's orbit. Instead, they stuck around and fought, so after maneuvering around and dropping the rest of the bombs in our payload, ultimately reducing Paladia's population and factories by more than 25%, our remaining bombers had to retreat all the way back to Rayden.)
~~ The Silicoids did not win the first battle for Paladia. They lost all four of their bases and millions of soldiers and dozens of factories and destroyed less than twenty Alkari fighters. But the Alkari did not win the battle: The bombers were forced to retreat with no ammunition when most of the colony and all of the cruisers were still in place. The Paladians are weakened but not demoralized, their military presence damaged but not destroyed. This was not the Alkari hope, and it was not the Alkari plan to send so many bombers away to spend four years uselessly in space with so many Silicoids still holding their ground. The Alkari used to know better and the whole avian attack fleet at once instead of piecemeal like this, dividing their forces many different ways. One lone Alkari scout is bound for the lone uncolonized red star between Human and Klackon space that's close enough to the Silicoids for anyone to realize it must contain asteroids only. Perhaps, perhaps, the Silicoids have still failed so far to colonize the richest known world in the galaxy, also close to some of their colonies, but to expect this to hold everywhere seems more like wishful thinking than like strategy. The small fleet of bombers on the far side of the nebula and the lone colony ship hesitating over where to go seems to suggest the same thing: Is it possible that the source of the Alkari strategy, the force that allowed the avian people almost to rival the Silicoids themselves here in the early galaxy, has departed or been lost - or might this seeming unity of purpose and plan have been always illusory? Who now can say? ~~
(We actually lead the insects in Computers and Planetology, though we're both in the same tier and they're probably further toward the next in each, and since I'm still cheerfully ignoring forcefield research, I'll ignore their lead in that here too. We're close in weapons technology though, with their ion cannons showing up just recently, and embarrassingly still just behind them in our specialty of Propulsion engineering. But ... well, bugs are really good at construction, and those new cruisers of theirs have the potential to have enormous space available, including auto-repairing duralloy armor. We can beat them even if so, but it would take a lot of NPGs.)
~~ The war continues always between the soft-shelled and hard-shelled peoples: Klackons with chitin carapaces unite with stony Silicoids while the Sakkra with their many scales pretend to help in their fumbling, lizardly way against the Human and Psilon peoples with their soft, weak, easily-damaged skin and most of all against the Alkari whose down-soft feathers adorn more than protect them. Prick these peoples and they bleed; a mere casual swipe may cause them lasting injury - and yet they are holding their own against the combined might of all the hard-shelled peoples of the galaxy. Without a true leader for their side - without the likes of the legendary Phoenix whom the Ixitixl warned had returned - the "softies" with their fourteen worlds combined could never match the invincible "hardy har hars" with seventeen. And yet ... and yet three years ago, we would have spoken of thirteen "softy" worlds to the "hardy har hars'" eighteen. If the Phoenix is truly gone, then the hard-shell alliance is safe - but if not, or if the absence was temporary - it is not so great a time as some might think to be a Klackon. ~~
With naufragar touting to my report from his own look at Endless Legend 2 over in the Gaming Table subforum, I figure I should at least post something - and this game is a lot of fun to play, even without enough time, and not nearly as desperate an in-game situation as either of the ones I'm all-too-slowly "warming up for" here - so here's another one-turn side report before (hopefully) getting back to a more-regular pace! (Real life permitting....)
- 2376 -
{{ I slink, head low, eyes flitting to keep watch for danger - for higher-ranking Sakkra may strike me or rip off my tail my sport, to keep their wits and energy and morale high the better to make great discoveries far above my lowly station. Such is the law this week - the law of mighty Saurak, emperor and leader of all - and the higher-ranking-for-now Sakkra take full advantage of it while they can, knowing all too well that tomorrow or next month, they may be slaving in the salt pits or breathing the toxic fumes in the smelters where armor is made. Fear of Saurak and his deadly whims permeates every level of society here, but no one speaks against him - rather, his praises are sung loudly in the streets - perhaps because of the fear itself, or perhaps from force of habit: Every major religion on Sssla long has held that the universe is ruled by a kind of emperor - a "King of Kings" whom each religion directs its people to fear and to love, and to obey no matter what cruel things they suffer under the auspices of their all-powerful "King of Kings" in spite of all their prayers, assuring everyone that all such cruelties only serve the greater good of "His Grand Plan" - a Plan inscrutable to mere Sakkra living and suffering through it. So prepared, how could the average Sakkra question the will of an Emperor Saurak whose actions are sometimes nearly as cruel and certainly as inscrutable as those attributed to the deity? I am not the average Sakkra, but I dare not speak aloud even to others who share my filth-caste jobs with me - filth-caste for today or this decade or this week, with far less chance of advancement to follow than painful death, making room for hatchlings just out of their eggs, with Saurak's next change of whim - lest they punish me even more cruelly for doubting their emperor as they might for doubting whichever "King of Kings" is associated with their individual religious beliefs. I only keep my head down, watching silently, listening and trying not to be seen. }}
(All those transports flying everywhere, ships scrambling in different directions, from our Alkari and three different enemies, might make it look like my logistics here are a needlessly over-complicated mess, but it's actually really fun for me to plan out all the obsessive details of coordinating everything into this kind of ... needlessly overcomplicated mess. If this were a game to show off how to run an Orion empire speedily and efficiently, with just the vital strategic decision-making, without paying too-close attention to marginal-benefit overplanning, all of this would look a lot cleaner, and there would be other advantages besides. Luckily for me though, this is just a warm-up game and fun report for me, so I can do nonsense like this as much as I want!)
{{ So I witness the reports of Saurak's wisdom in dispatching a series of unconsolidated fighter fleets in little penny packets toward the Alkari Dry Thermal colony, and of the first such fleet to arrive: Fourteen Goblin laser fighters achieving a great victory by destroying one of the twenty-three little Reactor interceptors orbiting the colony before the rest of the Reactors sent all the Goblins to, presumably, the Palaces of their respective Kings of Kings, bringing them greater glory by spreading their corporeal forms in tiny, burning pieces across the vast emptiness of space. This seems to be the type of expansionism that Saurak's policies can best achieve. Another fleet will arrive next year at the same destination: Not quite half as many Goblins as in this first ex-fleet. }}
{{ For contrast, consider the Alkari fleet that reached Silicoid Paladia this year, with less than twice as many fighters as all the little Sakkra microfleets combined - nearly all of them Reacor interceptors, but including half a dozen old, obsolete laser fighters besides. They were up against half a dozen full cruisers - a third of them gatling-armed colony ships - of three different Silicoid designs, and took advantage of their tactical speed advantage to first take on the three Monitor cruisers with their long-range beams, minimizing the number of shots that would be wasted since they could concentrate all their fire on that formation while taking little or no fire from any other Silicoid ships, leading with the outdated but equally-nimble laser fighters to draw fire away from their more-dangerous ships, and after dispatching all three Monitors, moved on to wreck the Shark cruiser and its own long-range guns before engaging with the two colony ships. After the first went down like the rest, the second tried to retreat - and was permitted to do so in spite of its damaged state and the readiness of the Alkari combat fleet. In all, fewer than ten Alkari fighters were lost in the fight, and a third of those were of the old laser design. They gained control of another Silicoid world's skies - in fact two more, as a small bomber fleet reached Berel uncontested earlier this year - and blew up a significant fraction of each planet's military infrastructure and personnel from orbit - and continued to decry the error they made in separating their fleets and going through with a successful but inconclusive attack last year. The Alkari, it seems, have different criteria than Saurak for calling a military operation a victory. }}
(Both projects we were already working on, with a few hundred RP already invested in Duralloy, so maybe I should have just grabbed Stabilizer instead of gambling here, but I am in no way complaining about getting these! Note I usually take Computers when available, but this time with the Sakkra was one of the exceptions According to our spy reports, it could only have been ECM2, which at this point would have been +1 tech level, but pretty much no other effect - whereas we've been starving for terraforming all game long, and the only Planetology techs the Sakkra had (by our reports) that we lacked were this one and Terra +40! Which, for lack of the option we wanted (our planetology tree in general has not been great) is what we're teching there next.)
{{ This is what I call a victory. The Alkari agent I let into the lab through the servants' entrance was so cocky, she asked me to take her picture like this, to show the Alkari scientists back on Dry Thermal that she could do their job with her eyes shut. She even showed off what another agent was doing off in Silicoid space, collecting the formulae for production of duralloy armor while she sent all the specifications for old-fashioned class-30 terraforming techniques - it seems the newest techniques and current research were beyond her abilities for now - by encrypted tight-beam transmission to the Alkari relay station on Rayden V-ii. I did notice she didn't ask for her picture until after the transmission went through, but if I had been in her place, I would have snuck back out as quickly as I could instead of showing off that way. The Alkari do not seem afraid of anything. She didn't delete any files though, and didn't leave traps or a calling card or anything to show she had been there - anything that might lead to an investigation that could implicate me. I may never be rewarded for my service to her here, but on the other hand, I may be: The only reward I ask would be for the Alkari to end the madness and the cruelty into which the Sakkra have fallen over nearly a century: To unseat Saurak if they can, and let someone rule in his place who cares even a little about the Sakkra who yet live - even if that ruling someone is one of the Alkari! }}
{{ I don't want to help them to do the work with bombs and beams and soldiers slaughtering Sakkra military forces - at least, not more than they have already whenever we've attacked them - and overrunning the two worlds Saurak controls just to corner him. I'm helping them here, now, because there may be a peaceful way, as this year also proved! }}
(Believe it or not, this is our first Council meeting! Probably the Silicoids finally added another colony or two somewhere and they'll be even harder to stop down the road, so it's a good thing I'm making headway against them now! Note if this had happened two turns ago, we would have had two Councils in a row. As it is, the next Council won't meet until 2400, just one turn short of the maximum (and thereafter normal) delay.)
{{ The Softy Independents - none of them technically allied - proposed a peaceful solution to the conflicts of the galaxy, and the Hardshell Three accepted the invitation too, as if they were somehow aware that if the softies united without their input, the combined strength of Psilons, Humans, and Alkari could crush each opposing empire one by one. The High Council of all six galactic leaders devolved this time into a declaration of sides, with the Softies all supporting the Alkari Phoenix while the Hardshells nominated Mad Igneous to represent their side. The votes, based on population but assigned en masse to the leader of each of the galaxy's peoples, were precisely equal on each side ... except that the Alkari withheld their vote - even from their own Phoenix! - and must have known the vote would be indecisive as long as they didn't switch sides all the way. If they were trying to send a message that the two sides need not fight, and could even come together for a better galaxy ... well, I can hold onto that hope. The technology they gained with a little help from me will give them more voting power in the upcoming elections - the next one now some twenty-four years away - and perhaps if my hope proves true, will help them bring real peace to the galaxy. In the meantime though... }}
(That's a decent bankroll, and if I'd pivoted to attack someone else after taking Rayden, I would have gladly accepted the equivalent of roughly doubling the empire's net production (after waste cleanup, maintenance, etc.) for a year or a reprieve from Silicoid attack, and here they're offering both! Unfortunately, I had decided I couldn't afford to pivot; I had to press on against the Silis while I had local superiority and push for a more-favorable border at the heart of the galaxy while I could, and had deployed fleets and transports accordingly. I could have consigned them to history, but decided I'd gain more from pressing on than from accepting the terms as offered, rerouting my ships, and leaving my transports to die.)
{{ ...even those same Alkari will not leave any part of the galactic war to the other Softies - at least not peace with mad Igneous - not even for a bribe. I will not regret what I have done even if their part in that war includes conquering this, our homeworld: I have no illusions that one of the great powers in the galaxy can do that if they chose with or without our technology; in fact, if anything, learning what they can from us already, peacefully, makes them at least a little less likely to attack just to claim the rest. I only hope some peace can be reached before Saurak's ill-conceived attacks drive them or the Humans - or perhaps even the Psilons from across the galaxy - to retaliate against us all. }}
(And here we see I was wrong - twice! Three turns ago, I somehow miscounted the Silicoid stars (I had to go back to the screenshot and check; they indeed already had ten then and not just nine, even after our conquest of Rayden) - and then just now at the Council, I guessed they had settled an eleventh world ... when in fact it was the Humans taking their fourth to match the Psilons: Like the Klackons earlier, "stealing" a star system the 'coids should have had long ago!)
{{ The Softies keep getting stronger - the Humans established a daring new colony far off at the outermost rim of the galaxy, far closer to Silicoid and Klackon space than their own, and as far as they could possibly go from the other Softies. It might be too far a reach for them - they might not be able to hold it - but then with the Alkari drawing all the Hard-Shell aggression away from them, they might. The more the Softies grow - especially this way, peacefully - the greater the hope that there will be an end to wars and arbitrary rule and cultures of cruelty like the one in which I live, without more needless death. If the Softies lose and are overrun, the wars might end eventually - but not until long afterward, once Igneous and Saurak can no longer enforce wars without cause on other peoples either because one of them has exterminated every other species in the galaxy and had no one else to fight - most likely that would be Igneous, so I would not live to see that day, but Saurak would be no better, changing nothing of the life I and the other Sakkra live - or because the Klackons overcame and deposed or executed both. I do not look forward to a future like that, for me or for anyone who might hatch from my eggs. Speaking for all Sakkra who toil under Saurak's rule, I have to hope the Softies win - and that they treat us gently then. }}
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