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nweismuller
Oct 11, 2012

They say that he who dies with the most Opil wins.

I am winning.

Rappaport posted:

Invading Orion does still get you some of their technological goodies, and in MoO 2 gaia worlds are rather rare I think?

What bugs me is that a race can be repulsive and super spies at the same time, how are the Darlok infiltrating your industry and universities when it's physically nigh impossible for any Psilon to have a conversation with them? Fair enough, at least the flavour text on the Darlok means they can just morph into psilons I guess, but why are they repulsive then? And if it's any other race chassis, the Odo gambit isn't even there! None of this makes sense, game! :freep:

The fact it's possible to use espionage against Unification governments, despite the Unification spy defense bonus being stated to be because they are literally immune to treason, implies to me there are espionage methods other than cultivating sapient intelligence sources. Signals analysis and commando actions, for instance. Sneaking in covert units to storm a lab and steal documents, and hopefully not leave too much evidence.

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Olesh
Aug 4, 2008

Why did the circus close?

A long, chilling list of animal rights violations.

Rappaport posted:

Invading Orion does still get you some of their technological goodies, and in MoO 2 gaia worlds are rather rare I think?

What bugs me is that a race can be repulsive and super spies at the same time, how are the Darlok infiltrating your industry and universities when it's physically nigh impossible for any Psilon to have a conversation with them? Fair enough, at least the flavour text on the Darlok means they can just morph into psilons I guess, but why are they repulsive then? And if it's any other race chassis, the Odo gambit isn't even there! None of this makes sense, game! :freep:

Gaia worlds are the rarest biome - you can spawn a galaxy and have no gaia worlds spawn outside of Orion. You can also start a new game and have a gaia world in the same system as your home world.

Thotimx, did you consider politely asking the Darlocks to stop spying? As frustrating as the current situation is, it's not unsolvable. The more defensive agents you have, the harder it is for anyone to succeed at stealing your precious, precious technology, and if you demand that the Darlocks stop spying, they probably will - buying you precious time to build up a nice wall of a dozen+ agents. So long as you have a decent stock of defensive spies, you should be able to leverage a bit of spy technology research to keep your precious Creative surplus safe.

I've avoided talking about or mentioning the Orion technological goodies, but I will say that the technologies you get are not part of the research tree and can't be miniaturized. Claiming Orion is also a risk, because the technologies you get can be stolen from you, which can range from an annoyance to a huge hassle depending on what you got from Orion and what gets stolen.

Rappaport
Oct 2, 2013

Olesh posted:

Thotimx, did you consider politely asking the Darlocks to stop spying? As frustrating as the current situation is, it's not unsolvable. The more defensive agents you have, the harder it is for anyone to succeed at stealing your precious, precious technology, and if you demand that the Darlocks stop spying, they probably will - buying you precious time to build up a nice wall of a dozen+ agents. So long as you have a decent stock of defensive spies, you should be able to leverage a bit of spy technology research to keep your precious Creative surplus safe.

The only thing you can say to a repulsive race is that I'm declaring war on you, though.

Strategic Sage
Jan 22, 2017

And that's the way it is...
Yep, but just since I'm a smartass:




Hmm. No 'politely ask them to stop' option to be found :(. Guess I just keep building defensive spies. I honestly don't know what value of 'enough defensive spies' is sufficient - the treasury is hoping it's less than infinity - but if double-digit fellas is needed, then I'll just keep em coming.

Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 07:00 on May 4, 2019

wedgekree
Feb 20, 2013
Best way to stop the Darloks - occupation. Unfortunately, that can be a haul. MIght be worth it to see if you can break contact/communications with them just in case so they can't spy!

Olesh
Aug 4, 2008

Why did the circus close?

A long, chilling list of animal rights violations.
Huh, I completely missed that the Darlocks were Repulsive this time around, my bad.

Unfortunately, there's not exactly a good source of reliable data on how the systems in this game work, and spying is incredibly opaque. I can't provide a giant effortpost because I don't really know how it works.

Here's what I do know, though - you cannot have more than one successful spy action against a given race per turn. This leads me to the understanding that spying is some manner of opposed roll. It seems like the number of agents assigned serves two purposes - additional spies/agents provide bonuses to the spy roll (offensive or defensive), and also provide a buffer against enemy spy actions killing your spies and reducing your bonus. If you're operating at a disadvantage, not only will your spies be less likely to be successful, but you're more likely to lose spies in the process. This can make it hard to build enough spies to protect yourself, since you have to be able to build spies faster than they get killed to make any headway.

my dad
Oct 17, 2012

this shall be humorous
The one nice thing about the Darloks being repulsive is that they can't trade away anything they steal like the AI usually does. Those techs can only be stolen from them, and good loving luck to people trying to spy on Darloks.

SugarAddict
Oct 11, 2012

my dad posted:

The one nice thing about the Darloks being repulsive is that they can't trade away anything they steal like the AI usually does. Those techs can only be stolen from them, and good loving luck to people trying to spy on Darloks.

This was explained to me by some Moo2 modders, apparently the AI is programmed to trade any and all techs they have for an advantage over the player,

what I think: the AI has some advantages over the player such as "poo poo out a ship or something every so often for free" to balance out the fact they aren't a fully fleshed out AI, the same goes for spying against the player.

Every +10 or -10 is how much a spy is worth in rolls. every +10 is addional spy worth, every -10 a spy is worth half as much. Since the darloks have +30 this means every one of their spies are worth 4 of an unbonused species spies.

ulmont
Sep 15, 2010

IF I EVER MISS VOTING IN AN ELECTION (EVEN AMERICAN IDOL) ,OR HAVE UNPAID PARKING TICKETS, PLEASE TAKE AWAY MY FRANCHISE

Thotimx posted:

I honestly don't know what value of 'enough defensive spies' is sufficient - the treasury is hoping it's less than infinity - but if double-digit fellas is needed, then I'll just keep em coming.

There’s a hard cap for all spies on a given task (either assigned to one opponent or defending) of 63 spies, so you won’t get to build infinity whether you need it or not.

Torrannor
Apr 27, 2013

---FAGNER---
TEAM-MATE

Thotimx posted:

Interestingly, at least from this desc - I've been there once but don't remember it - Orion appears to not be 'double Artifact' in MOO2. But it is Ultra Rich, whereas the MOO1 version was standard for industry. Who'd want a piece of junk planet like this anyway?

So we still appear to be doing quite well, but it'd be a heck of a lot better if the Darloks would just make like a black hole and disappear.

It doesn't say so in the description, but Orion still has an Artifact bonus. I don't remember if it's the same bonus that you get throuh the artifact homeworld start, or a double bonus, but it's there.

And I mentioned before that -10 to spying is not such a small drawback, especially combined with democracy. Having the Darlocks being our first contact is a bit unlucky though.

Strategic Sage
Jan 22, 2017

And that's the way it is...

Torrannor posted:

I mentioned before that -10 to spying is not such a small drawback, especially combined with democracy.

Yes you did. Others didn't agree though so … worth seeing the consequences anyway I think, assuming they don't end up being crippling.

Thanks to all for the additional infos and theories - sounds like 15 or so spies would not be excessive, though it would rather severely tax the economy. I think I'll end up gradually working towards something like that.

Fangz
Jul 5, 2007

Oh I see! This must be the Bad Opinion Zone!
At least they are stealing and not sabotaging.

Cosmic Afro
May 23, 2011
That's coming.

It's also pretty awful luck to get THAT species as a first contact too, to be fair, especially with minus spying.

my dad
Oct 17, 2012

this shall be humorous

SugarAddict posted:

Every +10 or -10 is how much a spy is worth in rolls. every +10 is addional spy worth, every -10 a spy is worth half as much. Since the darloks have +30 this means every one of their spies are worth 4 of an unbonused species spies.

If the mechanics work the way you say they do, then the best that can be done in this situation is to beeline espionage techs. EVEN if Darloks steal every single one of them, we'd still end up at a net positive espionage-wise, especially starting in the negatives like this.

Olesh
Aug 4, 2008

Why did the circus close?

A long, chilling list of animal rights violations.

Torrannor posted:

It doesn't say so in the description, but Orion still has an Artifact bonus. I don't remember if it's the same bonus that you get throuh the artifact homeworld start, or a double bonus, but it's there.

And I mentioned before that -10 to spying is not such a small drawback, especially combined with democracy. Having the Darlocks being our first contact is a bit unlucky though.

Realistically, though, when the counter to the drawback is "you need to build more spies", that's a relatively trivial drawback. Same with -10 ground defense and having to build more transports to invade planets. They are the lightest drawbacks in the game because compensating for them only requires you to spend production.

my dad posted:

If the mechanics work the way you say they do, then the best that can be done in this situation is to beeline espionage techs. EVEN if Darloks steal every single one of them, we'd still end up at a net positive espionage-wise, especially starting in the negatives like this.

My experience is that the relative difference in spy technology is what matters - because it's an opposed roll, having -10 vs +20 should come out the same as +0 vs +30. If Thotimx researched spy techs and then they were stolen, yes it would be a net positive against everyone except the Darlocks, against whom the same situation would apply. Beelining espionage techs would help if you can guarantee that they wouldn't be immediately stolen, which as of the most recent update isn't exactly the case.

Spy success is random, but you can reduce the enemy's chance of success down by hiring enough defensive agents that it's unlikely that any incoming spies will succeed and may not survive the attempt. Somewhere at around the 10-15 spy mark is the point where it should be safe for Thotimx to invest in spy-boosting tech, at which point the combination of the existing spies and the boost to Agent effectiveness should mean there's no further need to build more. But it'll be a little painful to get to that point.

MechaCrash
Jan 1, 2013

Darloks are quite possibly the worst thing you can meet as a Creative Democracy. I am highly in favor of wiping them out as soon as possible, because the only ways to make the Darloks stop stealing your poo poo are "have nothing left for them to steal" or "have no Darloks left to do the stealing."

SugarAddict
Oct 11, 2012

MechaCrash posted:

"have no Darloks left to do the stealing."

This is why I always go repulsive, there is only one way to deal with the AI in MOO2:

Purge the xeno scum.

nweismuller
Oct 11, 2012

They say that he who dies with the most Opil wins.

I am winning.

SugarAddict posted:

This is why I always go repulsive, there is only one way to deal with the AI in MOO2:

Purge the xeno scum.

I thought there was only one way to deal with the AI: establish mutually-beneficial links of commerce and communication and solidify one's position to lay the groundwork for a new era of peace.

SugarAddict
Oct 11, 2012

nweismuller posted:

I thought there was only one way to deal with the AI: establish mutually-beneficial links of commerce and communication and solidify one's position to lay the groundwork for a new era of peace.

Fun fact, the AI can attack you without breaking an alliance, and it will spy on you even if you are it's ally.

wedgekree
Feb 20, 2013

nweismuller posted:

I thought there was only one way to deal with the AI: establish mutually-beneficial links of commerce and communication and solidify one's position to lay the groundwork for a new era of peace.

I'd consider massive infiltration of critical infrastructure tatamount to a declaration of hostilities. Presuming you engage in commerce with them and maintain that I would consdier that a violation of said agreement.

Strategic Sage
Jan 22, 2017

And that's the way it is...
The Antarans are Coming!




We begin this session with 52M citizens. I think we topped out at about 48M or so last run, so we already have more. Here's what's going on in the various systems:

** Mentar - Mentar II is still our main production planet, and is currently spitting out a new scout to replace the one the guardian took down. I think I only want one right now, to save command point space for more Raiders. Mentar I is our best incubator planet.

** Alaozar - Alaozar III is just slightly behind, with 174k growth. We get better than a citizen every three years between the two of them, and right now the natural growth between the other planets we hold combined in almost another 500k. So it's nearly at a citizen a turn (total of roughly 835k aggregate) overall. Alaozar II is trying to get defenses going, but the important economic developments are coming out too fast for a poor system to keep up. At least we have a Starbase there.

** Bogina - Bogina IV was just settled and will be building an automated factory, ignore the production there. Bogina III has a couple more colony bases to spit out to finish settling the system.

** Pund - Pund II is going to try to keep some balance in the food situation.

** Sagan - Sagan I is gradually building infrastructure, alternating between that and adding more spies.

** Vela - Vela I is just stockpiling with that Battlestation. I'm keeping all but one citizen on farming, so adding new infrastructure there is slow.

As much as I'd like to do more research, I think I need to keep most of the labor in production for now to get the stuff we've already researched built. This is so different, at least right now, from the MOO1 way of build factories and then shove everything into tech. The land-grab push has slowed down for now. There's more that we want, but nothing that seems as important as building up what we have.




SD 3512.9. The Neural Scanner chair thingy we saw last time, but that has arrived. Now I'm going for Soil Enrichment to free up some farming labor. Positronics would be huge and I don't want to wait too much longer before getting it, but this will give us more workers to build all that stuff and I probably want to grab some more low-level fields first as well.




Six spies out now and none deployed against us. I'm going to keep adding to them but things don't seem as disastrous at the moment. We appear to have had half of our tech lead stolen from us.




This is why I'm not that ticked off about it right now. Our economy is increasingly roasting that of the Darloks, so if we can even slow down their espionage much at all we should maintain a tech lead and then be able to eventually dominate them through sheer numbers. We have a 74% profit margin still as well, so while I don't like dumping more of our hard-earned into spies we can definitely afford to support them.




The next turn we get a Missile Base up on Mentar II, our first of those. I feel it's time to be gradually upgrading our defenses in between everything else. We also got a fourth frigate out, and then it's back to more colony ship fun.




A major goal is wrapped up as the Bogina system is now fully colonized!




Near Orion, right smack dab in the middle of the galaxy. With lots of unusable (for now) 'raw material' in the form of two gas giants and an asteroid belt.




SD 3513.8. Looks like these guys are back with a vengeance. We only outnumber them 7-6 right now. Time to invest more in this, even though they all disappeared the next turn. The AI seems very capricious with this kind of thing.




Why hello there. When you want money, send a Gnolam. We're basically swimming in it, but you can always use more. We now have a full set of 'domestic' Colony Leaders. Grogg will replace Crassis at Bogina, allowing him to extract more tax income while maintaining the production bonus there. For now, Crassis will go to Alaozar. Don't really have a good spot for him at the moment. I'd like somebody who boosts research or farming - I've really get Yota and three production governors. That's good to start, but I'm getting to the point where I'd like to balance things out more.

Antarans


IT.HAS.BEGUN. That brief cinematic will show up every time the Anatarans attack. This was the first one, but they will come every so often until the end of the game. As far as I know, they attack a random occupied system in the galaxy. Since we didn't see them anywhere and have no further info, it appears they attacked someone else. Which was nice of them. But I'm sure we'll get our share of their 'attentions'.

Also, I think it's really weird that something of this magnitude - a raid by a previously-unseen, exogalactic race - doesn't even merit a GNN story. Once the random events start picking up it appears that GNN is concerned with everything more important than the arrival of Tuesday, and yet here it's crickets. I'm calling a conspiracy here - that GNN robot is in cahoots with the Antarans.





Lucky jerks. Ultra-Rich homeworld.




Mostly I'm taking this for the range at the moment, it's the only thing useful pushing our empire to the right. But two Large Radiated planets will eventually be a significant addition once we get the ability to improve them.




As you might expect, these planets look decidedly inhospitable.




SD 3514.6. Took the maximum amount of time for Advanced Biology to come in, which balances out our earlier luck but was still annoying. We have had a few more research labs come online in the recent years, including pretty much all of the Bogina system. That'll boost our efforts in the short-term. Meanwhile it's time to fill in.




Everyone's so kind around here.




The cat-people just settled Anchat this turn, a cycle after we claimed Lerion. That meeting of territory facilitated first contact. Those two yellow stars below their territory are interesting to me. We may well head there next if they are useful and unoccupied, to try and head them off and maybe even swing around their holdings.




They actually have better tech than we do, though they are no better off the Darlok in the buildings category. Which seems odd to me. It does appear that they started expanding more quickly though. They just didn't get any further.




So yeah, their fleet can kill things. Aggressive Militarists, which is as classic Mrrshan as it gets. No current alliances/wars. Emperor Torfang is their leader. I offer a couple of crap techs to boost relations to calm, but he still refuses any trade deals.




The next turn. I found it amusing. Meanwhile they are sending an escorted colony ship to Lerion, presumably to take the other planet there. That could potentially get ... interesting.

Progression through the turns is definitely starting to take a lot longer now. I find it difficult to keep track of everything and avoid at least minor mistakes with the micromanagement, but I think I'm gradually getting better at keeping a handle on it. If you're wondering why I haven't gone for Quercia … I sort of cheated. I would have lost more frigates there just like in the first game, but I looked it up and read that 10-12 of them were recommended for the Hydra - or else a bigger ship to soak up damage. We aren't there yet.

Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 07:11 on May 6, 2019

wedgekree
Feb 20, 2013
According to the 'fluff' in Master of Orion 3 (take from that as you will) GNN was something left behind by the original Orions to help monitor the galaxy and put a united front against the Antarans, or failing that help minimize the damage from the internecline warfare of the younger races to minimize the damage the Antarans could exploit

Torrannor
Apr 27, 2013

---FAGNER---
TEAM-MATE
The Mrrshan being unwilling to talk to you is ominous. I fear they are preparing to attack you. Just keep on top of the military situation. As you said yourself, their ships will be better than yours if they are roughly evenly matched technology wise.

I think you have a duplicate image above "Looks like these guys are back with a vengeance." ?

Wicked Them Beats
Apr 1, 2007

Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

Torrannor posted:

The Mrrshan being unwilling to talk to you is ominous. I fear they are preparing to attack you. Just keep on top of the military situation. As you said yourself, their ships will be better than yours if they are roughly evenly matched technology wise.

I think you have a duplicate image above "Looks like these guys are back with a vengeance." ?

Them refusing to speak with you always happens if you pester them too much for trade deals or what have you. I think the reason is to stop the player from clicking TRADE WITH ME twenty times every turn.

But regardless they're definitely in a position where they'll attack at the first sign of weakness.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!
The GNN is really just like a modern news source in that they care about what gets clicks/reads. So it's huge outrage stories like "KLACKON EMPEROR LAID EGGS IN MY SPINE, SAYS INNOCENT DARLOK" on the front page and "GALAXY-DESTROYING ALIEN MARAUDERS" goes at the bottom of the back page.

Olesh
Aug 4, 2008

Why did the circus close?

A long, chilling list of animal rights violations.
The Mrrshan are potentially going to be a huge problem in an early war. They're Warlords with +50 beam attack, meaning that at a comparable level of technology/experience, they'll be sitting at a net +65 bonus to their Beam Attack.

This is problematic because it means they're actually really loving good at shooting down missiles and interceptors. Decently miniaturized Fusion Beams (for the Enveloping upgrade) could make them more or less impervious to any reasonable amounts of missile spam, the preferred early solution to wars. On top of that, they're Feudal, so any warships they crank out they get a 1/3rd discount on. With the bonus Warlord command points, they can afford to maintain a much larger fleet, which makes it harder to attrition them down.

MechaCrash
Jan 1, 2013

The Mrrshan will make powerful allies or dangerous enemies. They are someone you probably can't afford to piss off. As I recall, "aggressive" means that they will tear you apart at the first sign of weakness, but you can keep them off your rear end by not showing them weakness.

The Darloks will steal all your poo poo no matter what because that's what they do, and because they're Repulsive you can't even try asking them to knock that poo poo off. Wipe them out.

Strategic Sage
Jan 22, 2017

And that's the way it is...

wedgekree posted:

MIght be worth it to see if you can break contact/communications with them just in case so they can't spy!

Only way I could do that AFAIK is to attack Enoch, and if I was confident I could do that I'd just invade them period.

MechaCrash posted:

As I recall, "aggressive" means that they will tear you apart at the first sign of weakness, but you can keep them off your rear end by not showing them weakness.

The Darloks will steal all your poo poo no matter what because that's what they do, and because they're Repulsive you can't even try asking them to knock that poo poo off. Wipe them out.

All true, but these goals are mutually exclusive. I.e., I can't attack the Darloks right now IMO because that would leave the Mrrshan totally free to do whatever on that side of the galaxy. It seems most useful to me right now to deploy what passes for the fleet primarily against the Mrrshan and try to contain them from spreading further.

Torranor posted:

I think you have a duplicate image above "Looks like these guys are back with a vengeance." ?

Fixed. And yeah the diplomatic screen was about me pestering them about trade deals so they didn't want to talk again for a while. I just thought the message was amusing, particularly the 'Mrrshan Ambassador' at the top when there is no Mrrshan ambassador, etc.

PurpleXVI posted:

The GNN is really just like a modern news source in that they care about what gets clicks/reads. So it's huge outrage stories like "KLACKON EMPEROR LAID EGGS IN MY SPINE, SAYS INNOCENT DARLOK" on the front page and "GALAXY-DESTROYING ALIEN MARAUDERS" goes at the bottom of the back page.

I approve of this message.

Right now, particularly in light of Olesh's commentary, I think avoiding a war with the Mrrshan is of paramount importance.

Olesh
Aug 4, 2008

Why did the circus close?

A long, chilling list of animal rights violations.
I said potentially a problem!

Basically, if they reach the point where they've got Env Fusion Beams, your ability to prosecute a war with the early missile spam tactic is going to take a hit. If they have a big enough fleet that you can't wipe them out without taking substantial losses in the process, even if your missile spam is effective, you might need a bigger initial fleet (and eat the maint costs) while you do a big push to wreck their main industry - if you take and secure their homeworld, you've set them back far enough where you can then ignore them and focus on the Darloks (or infrastructure).

What you don't want to happen is to attack them and find out that you didn't bring enough ships to take down their missile bases/star bases, because the AI will take any opportunity to hit undefended systems it can reach/claim, and it's not like you've got star bases and missile bases on the frontier.

Strategic Sage
Jan 22, 2017

And that's the way it is...
I'm definitely not going to be picking a fight with them anytime soon, so I don't think there's much danger of that.

A Whole Lotta Micro Goin' On




SD 3514.7 to start this session. We're up to a dozen planets, so the ledger will increasingly not be able to show everything at once. I probably won't be using it as much in terms of the screenshots, but it is useful here to note a couple points.

** We are really socking away the funding in the treasury. I'm going to start getting more aggressive with buying stuff early, and may consider an extra ship or two above our command limit, just to put the money to work. For now at least, I don't see any reason why something close to a thousand isn't enough as a rainy-day fund.

** Lots of Robo-Miner planets and Soil Enrichment, because everywhere swamp/terran or better that doesn't have the latter is getting it to boost our food production. I considered getting Cloning Centers (+100k annual pop growth) on the incubator planets but frankly I don't think it's necessary - we're got enough population growing right now that it won't take long to fill up our systems, and the land-grab phase is going to be slowing down soon.

Labor Divison

I'm going to tabulate how many citizens we have in each sector as a general picture of the imperial economy from here on out. For present purposes, it should be useful as an accounting of just how helpful Soil Enrichment is.

** Total: 74M(includes 3M Natives)
** Farming: 34M - 45.9%
** Industry: 37M - 50%
** Research: 3M - 4.1%

** Profit Margin: 73.8%

So right now, almost half are required to feed everyone which isn't great. I've been more troubled of late that we aren't spending more on research, but it still seems more important to build the infrastructure that we do have access to than it does to acquire more and increase the backlog. As we run out of new places to colonize though, that will change. And the finances remain very healthy.




Seems certain that the Mrrshan will snag Lerion III, which leaves Unuk and Wolf as the only good options for us that we've explored. Lots of other ok-ish ones that I will want to take eventually on a when-it's-convenient basis, but the prime real estate is pretty much gone now.




Well, that's a nice little shipbuilding center for the Mrrshan on our border.




Hmm. Our first three of these come in, and the food balance jumps by over 20 per turn. After making appropriate adjustments, 9M citizens were freed to work in production, reducing the farming labor to 25M, or just over a third of the total at 33.8%. That's a major long-term gain for the economy already.




I want to knock out the three equally-inexpensive research options next, as we just got Fusion Beam in. Overall, Tachyon Physics gives the best overall set of improvements I think. Better scanning range, reduced enemy missile evasion, increased command points from our bases.

SD 3515.0 - Interestingly, the Mrrshan fleet has left Lerion, and did not take the remaining planet there. So that makes another target I'm definitely going to want to try to acquire. Perhaps the fact that it is Radiated scared them off.




A Mrrshan destroyer is close behind coming here. The other two are gas giants. This would definitely be a good one to get for the purpose of restricting their expansion, but they are much closer to it.




SD 3515.3 - Just because we can basically, and colony bases are relatively cheap. Might as well fill out the whole system with taxpayers. I also send our latest colony ship off to Lerion, which is in a direct line to Tah - I'm basically buying time to see if the Mrrshan go there instead of committing to the full 8-turn journey. And the shift to research begins on Vela, which now has soil enrichment and enough labor that not all of them are needed to build things.

SD 3515.4 - The Darlok and Sakkra war, which lasted quite a while, is over with a peace treaty. From what I can tell of Darlok territory, nothing changed.




Our latest investigation in Madira, yellow star out Mrrshan way at the very bottom of the galaxy, runs into a second Space Hydra. This time it failed its initiative roll or whatever and we got a scan of it. 500 structure points, vulnerable to missiles, three of whatever 'Plasma Breaths' are ... and I have no clue what the Energy Absorber does. So I look it up. Apparently it's a fairly high-level Power tech that takes a quarter of all damage inflicted on a ship, and allows it to be fired back in some manner at the enemy the next turn. How dastardly.

Our Recon is destroyed of course while trying to retreat.




This is what it's hiding. A lot like Quercia, although even more industrial value. Meanwhile, Bogina III finishes up a Starbase, and is going to do secondary industrial tasks like replacing the lost Recon, adding Raider frigates, etc. so Mentar II doesn't have to lose time working on that. And the Mrrshan have claimed Tah, so we'll leave that to them and take the second planet in Lerion so they can't get any closer to our core worlds. I'm ok with that trade. If we eventually get Madira, they will be well and truly cut off.




SD 3515.6 - I go for faster drives next. And having had more time to consider the matter, Emperor Torfang of the Mrrshan agrees to a trade deal.




SD 3515.7 - Unless they want to go through a Space Hydra or significantly increase their range, this is the only way for the Mrrshan to get to us.




We also got a research deal, but going for a Non-Aggression Pact was a bridge too far for the cats. So Torfang and Kelvan still stare at each other across the stars in an arrangement of uneasy peace, neither confident the other isn't about to rip it into shreds.

Mentar II, relieved of research duty by small investments in Alaozar and Vela, is going full-bore except for a few farmers on building more colony ships. Expanding our borders and increasing our fleet size are the primary initiatives right now. Willow, Yarrow, and Irra are the expansion targets. Unuk and Wolf will come eventually, but I think they can wait until we see just how big a chunk of the galaxy we can claim. You'd be able to see all of that better if I wasn't an idiot and made the map demonstrating this the one screenshot I forgot to save. So I'll try to remember to do the galaxy view thing at the start of the next session. But basically, Willow is up towards the galactic center, Yarrow is the nebula one to the upper left of our territory in the Darlok direction, Irra lower-left pushing towards that edge. Right is of course the Mrrshan so that's pretty closed off.




SD 3516.2 - Time for our last project as this general tier. More expensive choices will be considered after this.




Not long ago, Kher got a promotion as well which helps our trade deals.




SD 3516.6 - So now what? Everything costs several hundred RPs now, requiring more significant investment. Not that we aren't fully capable of that if needed. I think it's time for Positronics. The top two items will produce a significant economic boost, esp. in research.




It looks like the Darloks have stopped stealing from us because they've found someone easier to steal from. You can see how their gains flattened out and then went almost vertical again. And the Mrrshan are expanding their tech lead. That would normally bother me, but the only reason we aren't advancing faster is that we have more important things to do.




So long as our economy continues to spit on the pathetic attempts of our competition, I know I can catch up in research basically whenever I feel like it. Their fleet is still much bigger than ours, but in the combined rating we have a small, expanding edge.




SD 3516.8 - A big year for the TechnoGeek empire. We could just have done an outpost in this nebula system, but I'd prefer to make it defensible and no matter what else it can't do, more taxpayers. The expensive of getting ships is no longer prohibitive, six turns even if I don't buy them early which I'm consistently doing now. So now we'll get to see what's out more the in left-middle of the galaxy.




And also in the centre, as we expanded further that way past Pund and Orion with this the same year.




Here's where some of the mindless micro comes in. This is my starting build order on most planets these days. It's just so fun to plop the same things down repeatedly, and this will get worse late-game.

I am shocked to not get a single new first contact greeting after pushing further in multiple directions.




These black holes are at least part of why. There are four of them in this galaxy, and three in this vicinity, one not that far away up by Darlok territory. So coming from above into the galactic middle pretty much doesn't happen. I can angle from Willow to that yellow star just beside the fleet pop-up, in-between two of the singularities, and I probably will - but a lot of potential travel paths are just not possible.

Only about 20 turns or so, but a lot of stuff happened. Recons are on station at the new colonies, which get us within range of several unexplored systems. I have the sense here that the game is already strategically won. I don't want to get too cocky, but we really ought to be able to stay technologically comparable to anyone - I'd think we'd have met any major threats by now that mighit be out there - and hammer any particularly thorny issues just by building more of whatever than they can produce. Our sphere of influence is now at almost a third of the galaxy, and it doesn't appear to have stopped growing.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!
What sort of defenses are you slapping on your planets? When I had a tech lead I usually found that the static defenses like star bases, battle stations, garrisons, missile bases, etc. were effective at warding off most things the AI could toss at me unless they really had overwhelming force. I usually didn't go for a mobile force until it was time to be seriously on the offense.

Olesh
Aug 4, 2008

Why did the circus close?

A long, chilling list of animal rights violations.
Cloning centers everywhere! Cloning centers everywhere!

That +100k pop per planet is huge, because it means the moment you colonize any halfway decent planet, you can go down the line of your existing planets, swiping one pop from each, and completely populate the new planet and pretty much by the time the colonists get there, those planets have halfway replaced the population you spent, and the new planet is generating a decent profit based on its population.

You're not wrong in that you're on the strategic track to victory. But the game isn't entirely won yet - you're not immune to a loss through hubris; see the previous notes about the Bulrathi. The most likely scenario that would snatch defeat from the jaws of victory would be something like letting one of the AI take Orion (at which point, all of the Exotic techs gained would end up being stolen/traded around freely amongst the AI and out of your hands) or taking Orion yourself and having those extremely high-value technologies stolen from you.

MechaCrash
Jan 1, 2013

Step One of any good "take Orion" plan is always "make sure the Darloks can't just steal it all." You can do this by having a beefy security force, but I prefer other methods of ensuring the Darloks are never going to steal anything from you again. :black101:

Strategic Sage
Jan 22, 2017

And that's the way it is...

Olesh posted:

Cloning centers everywhere! Cloning centers everywhere!

That +100k pop per planet is huge, because it means the moment you colonize any halfway decent planet, you can go down the line of your existing planets, swiping one pop from each, and completely populate the new planet and pretty much by the time the colonists get there, those planets have halfway replaced the population you spent, and the new planet is generating a decent profit based on its population.

Counterpoint: On the other hand, that much population on the new colony isn't going to do much for a while until you get infrastructure going, and meanwhile all those Cloning Centers are sucking up money from the treasury, not to mention the extra travel time and cost in freighters for shipping them from suboptimal locations. Which is why I personally don't like using them unless I have a population problem, which I don't right now. I'm growing the population faster that I can acquire the planets to send them to, and until the end of the last update I thought I was mostly done expanding the peaceful way.

PurpleXVI posted:

What sort of defenses are you slapping on your planets?

Homeworld has a missile base/starbase, which is going to be the minimum at any planet of decent size eventually because Antarans. I've got a couple other starbases right now but that's it with several battlestations in the works. The point of the mobile fleet is deterrence (I've read and it's been stated in the thread that the AIs willingness to go to war is based on your fleet size/systems owned or somesuch) and also to take out those Hydras and the nice planets they are guarding.

Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 08:01 on May 12, 2019

Olesh
Aug 4, 2008

Why did the circus close?

A long, chilling list of animal rights violations.

Thotimx posted:

Counterpoint: On the other hand, that much population on the new colony isn't going to do much for a while until you get infrastructure going, and meanwhile all those Cloning Centers are sucking up money from the treasury, not to mention the extra travel time and cost in freighters for shipping them from suboptimal locations. Which is why I personally don't like using them unless I have a population problem, which I don't right now. I'm growing the population faster that I can acquire the planets to send them to, and until the end of the last update I thought I was mostly done expanding the peaceful way.


Homeworld has a missile base/starbase, which is going to be the minimum at any planet of decent size eventually because Antarans. I've got a couple other starbases right now but that's it with several battlestations in the works. The point of the mobile fleet is deterrence (I've read and it's been stated in the thread that the AIs willingness to go to war is based on your fleet size/systems owned or somesuch) and also to take out those Hydras and the nice planets they are guarding.

It's all about the opportunity costs. As a Democracy, leveraging your expansive BC income to jump-start colony infrastructure should be standard practice, and one of the few ways to increase your economic might is to maximize your population wherever possible. Cloning Centers aren't free - 2 BC per colony adds up - but getting your population up faster means getting everything faster - more money, more production, and more research. And you don't need to actually build them on new colonies to experience the benefits - like I said, ship population out from your existing planets with Cloning Centers, and in roughly a half dozen turns those planets are back to full population and ready to ship out more colonists. Realistically, you don't need that many cloning centers to be able to maintain a population growth faster than you can colonize new planets, so once all your planets are full up on population you can sell off any cloning centers that are no longer needed.

Strategic Sage
Jan 22, 2017

And that's the way it is...
This Neighborhood Blows




The very next turn.




Nobody likes us.




'free the galaxy from the TechnoGeeks terror'. Sure. I guess they all just waited a couple extra turns to send out their diplomats?




Anyway, here's what we are looking at. Silicoids expanded quickly per usual. Alkari are stuck on the left edge and sure look inconsequential, while the Sakkra are at the top and have five systems just like the Mrrshan. You can also see our recently-acquired systems here. Still three more rivals to fit in and not much room for them at this point.







Eventually we'd like us some Sakkra for farmers, and Silicoids for workers. Also ... three repulsive races out of five?!? That rather limits the diplomatic options.




A wider picture now has the Silcoids starting to pull ahead of us at the top, the Mrrshan in third, everyone else well behind. We're equal to the rocks in Buildings, but behind in the other two categories where they've made tremendous research gains lately. Enough that I'd be surprised if some of them weren't ... hostile.

Silicoids are Xenophobic Industrialists, Alkari Erratic Expansionists which is hilarious given their situation, and Sakkra are Ruthless Ecologists. There's a lot of 'WAR. It's fantastic!' types in this galaxy. And the Alkari refuse any treaties, so right now the Mrrshans are our only friends, and tenuous ones they are even.




Cash is coming in fast and furious. Almost half of our financial bonus and total research is courtesy of our deals with the Mrrshan.

Labor Division

** Total: 100M (+26M)
** Farming: 30M - 30%
** Industry: 67M - 67%
** Research: 3M - 3%

I had 8-9 citizens doing research at one point, but then pulled back due to needing more food and focusing in on additional expansion of the empire. As noted we are starting to fall behind in tech, so I won't be able to keep this up much longer. We have reduced the raw number of farmers slightly while growing the population by a full third since last time, a testament to the effectiveness of our freighter system and soil enrichment.




Another wormhole, and a good-sized planet alongside a gas giant, though there's no good metals here. The wormhole leads to the Mrrshan system of Carcosa. We'll leave it alone.




This one we want. It will bring us within range of the Darloks, which is probably hazardous. This is a nice farming planet of course, and it has two Medium ones. One of which has Ancient Artifacts.

SD 3517.3




The other system on the Darlok border, between them and the Alkari. Dang. So many targets, so few colony ships. I see no reason not to continue pushing them out there, that's for sure.

Also, Silicoids and Mrrshan are at war. Have fun, and let's make it a long, pointless one please.




So that's how they are doing it. Don't care about our defensive spies I guess.




Fan-freaking tastic. It is SD 3517.5, and the peace is over. I find it bizarre how easily races declare war. We had quite good relations with them prior to this, got framed once and that's it. No chance to recover/make amends/etc. We finish a Battlestation at Bogina IV the same turn, with one at Alaozar II a bit sooner. So we've got protection at some key places, but many others don't have it. Question is how hard and soon the Mrrshan will come, and how much they'll devote to fighting the Silicoids.




The combination of this unfortunate news and our continued expansion to new systems rendered the Raider-Hydra ideas moot in my opinion. We needed a new fleet option. I hoped that enough of these hesitantly-designed Interdictor-class cruisers might provide suitable resistance against the feline menace. I thought about some PD guns, but decided instead to put up the ECM Jammer and hope they aren't using fighters. The point of this design is to be able to absorb/avoid significant amount of punishments, while dealing reliable damage at range at the start of any engagement. The reliance on big, forward-mounted guns is a weakness against any swarming enemy, but I deemed it worth the initial firepower.




By the way, we still have a full dozen agents, and the Silicoids no longer have any deployed against us so what the heck evs.




Economically, Sagan has a Battlestation as well and is about to finish a Missile Base. With such necessities dispensed with, it will take over colony ship production. Mentar, Bogina, etc. will focus on getting some cruisers out there, gradually replacing our Raider frigates, who ultimately accomplished nothing apart from deterrence. One hates to waste an investment, even partially, but I'd hate getting genocided a heck of a lot more. I'm also going to shift into focusing more population into technology a bit sooner than planned. The time to turtle has passed - I must ensure that our territory is defended. Lerion would seem to be the focal point. The planets there can't defend themselves, and that won't change anytime soon.




Extending our reach to the lower-left corner.

A Bunch of Stuff At Once

We get our first look at the Antarans up close and personal. They appear to be some sort of deformed spider-race. Also, Gravitic Fields is our next tech choice because it's fairly cheap, leads to better shields, has inertial stabilizer, etc. We meet the Meklar who are similarly blustery to the others, and scout Thesbia, yet another system with a useful world for us (Swamp Rich).




They are fairly small as well, crammed into the lower-left corner. Looks like the last two will be along the right side.




They went for a small ship defense boost this time, and will of course be better for our industry than the Silicoids. I wouldn't mind smacking them into the middle of the next dimension and exploiting their labors.




We and the rocks have an almost vertical overall growth curve. The tech gap does continue to grow, but our infrastrucure is also leaving theirs behind. I'm still fairly confident in the long-term picture, but the Mrrshan war - nothing actually happening on that front yet thankfully - will complicate things.




Here's what the Antarans sent; four frigates and they are headed for recently-colonized Irra. There's no way I can defend it, but in this case I highly don't care. Just grabbed it for the range and the Meklar have everything over in the corner, so they can have it. Good example though of how, with those on, there is no such thing as a safe backwater system.

I think I played nine turns. Maybe ten. Good grief there's a lot of stuff going on.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!
Wow, this is an exceptionally hostile galaxy.

But also yes, the MoO2 AI is really capricious in general, it's rare that you can count on an ally to have your back in any sense.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









So is the idea here just to defend our turf or is there merit in picking targets for eventual destruction?

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 01:15 on May 15, 2019

Fangz
Jul 5, 2007

Oh I see! This must be the Bad Opinion Zone!
I'd build a fleet strong enough to take out a starbase and go mess up their homeworld.

Edit: first I'd take a peek at what techs the mrrshan have researched right now.

Fangz fucked around with this message at 02:05 on May 15, 2019

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Olesh
Aug 4, 2008

Why did the circus close?

A long, chilling list of animal rights violations.

sebmojo posted:

So is the idea here just to defend our turf or is there merit in picking targets for eventual destruction?

There's kind of a balancing act. When you're engaged in a war, you ideally need to be out of that war as rapidly as possible - either via capturing and destroying all enemy planets or by forcing concessions or just being able to succeed on diplomacy (usually you need a position of strength to get a peace treaty, though), because being at war makes you vulnerable and the last thing you want is every AI to decide they want a piece of your empire at once. So going full-scale production, throwing up defenses everywhere that the AI can conceivably reach and fielding the largest fleet you can manage between your command points, finances, and BC reserves while cranking out transports and replacements/refits is probably the order of the day, but there's a maximum useful fleet size - going into the negative on command points starts draining your coffers very rapidly.

Thotimx has no choice, now, but to show the Mrrshans that they hosed up.

However, technologically, he's not in a position to actually easily succeed.

My recommendation at this juncture would be for Thotimx to push out the cruisers you're already building and cap out command points, fortify any place that the Mrrshans can actually reach (rush buying Missile Bases as needed), and do a hard research push up to Class III shields and maybe another computer upgrade. This serves to both provide some credible level of durability to the ships you're fielding as well as miniaturizing Mass Drivers to provide extra punch (via the Auto Fire upgrade). Regular (non-PD) Mass Drivers can shoot down missiles and fighters, so bringing a mix of Heavy Mount and regular Mass Drivers is recommended. Once you have the upgrades you want, having existing ships you can refit is much faster than building completely new designs from scratch, and your existing ships will probably be higher level.

For a variety of reasons, Point Defense Lasers and Fusion Beams are garbage and should be avoided - PD Auto Fire Mass Drivers are okay, but unless you really need the bonus to hit chance from making weapons systems PD, you're otherwise always better off using regular weapons and manually shooting down fighters and missiles.

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