Imperium 12 Shadow, Part 3

The war is on with the runaway Psilons, more than a decade before I'm ready! I respond by ordering scouting expeditions to check out the enemy fleet, and by making some minor tech trades with my allies. Gats, Range 5, and Range 6 are all hopelessly obsolete, but they help a little with miniaturization (every little bit counts!) and the tech I give the bears and apes in exchange might help them resist the Psilon forces a little bit longer. Then I take a good, long look at the current state of the galaxy. Though research is coming along nicely in my various tech fields, nothing is about to hit, and some of it is just playing catch-up with the brains. Worse yet, by the time those techs come in, especially while I'm forced to divert resources to defending my empire from the gigantic Psilon fleets, the runaway brains will have only lengthened their lead! They're too far ahead, and they have too many excellent planets still to claim with their Controlled Toxic tech, while I can neither take any more unclaimed worlds nor terraform the ones I have already. Even just defending my planets is going to crash my research economy. My only hope of beating the Psilons is to accept the short-term crunch ... and crash their war economy!

Here we see my strategic advantage already in play. The Psilons may have chosen their techs well, but they still made serious mistakes: I had noticed that their ships were all moving around at warp 1 in spite of their superior engine technology! They had crammed all kinds of weapons aboard their ships - their fighters were soon found to carry 2-racks of Mercs! - but at the expense of fast engines. This meant I could confidently strike wherever I didn't see a fleet already present or about to arrive ... because every one of my ships (once I scrapped my last Warp 2 scouts) was fitted with Impulse Engines! The little Fuse 5.0 bombers that had glassed Altair destroyed the Psilon's Esper colony as a shot across their bow on the first turn of the war, just because the bombers couldn't help defend, whereas the place could be reached from Altair in a single year! The Fuses continued to hop from world to world while I built more advanced bombers - medium hulls with Computer 5, Battle Scanner, and 7 Fusion Bombs apiece - named for what they were meant to do to the Psilons' stock markets: Crash 5.0s. My reach colonies meanwhile kept building their factories; they would have to just think invisible thoughts, as there was nothing I could do to save them if the Psilons sent a fleet. Altair however struggled to put up a shield though its factories were far from ready. Its position was too strategically important for me to concede it ... which, knowing the MoO AI, would mean it would soon see an incoming fleet! This game's fifteen-year-old AI is surprisingly robust, no matter what I might say about my superior strategy!

Fortunately, I can play the same game. You can see here that the Psilons are now down to "only" 14 systems. My first fleet of Crashes has just burned down the lynchpin world of Stalaz, to which my cursor is pointing. With this world as a refueling base, the Psilons could reach my entire (still defenseless!) northeast core. Without it, they must fight the war at their core worlds, peripheral colonies of my choosing, and the point worlds I've most heavily defended. ... Oh. And Altair. At the former Alkari homeworld though, I have two huge advantages: Its central location (the reason I feel I must hold it in the first place in spite of its immaturity) and my warp 5 strategic speed, together with the advance warning provided by the Psilon slowpokes, all mean I can divert huge numbers of fighters and other space superiority ships there whenever it is threatened, without pulling them back too far from other critical fronts. The Brains' hundreds and hundreds of missile boats are certainly dangerous, but now that my battle scanners have told me what I'm up against, I can devise effective counter-strategies. I believe Zed once said that in Orion, there's an answer to every fleet: No design will beat the AI every time, and no AI design is invincible against you, as long as you have the tech and economy you need to pull together a response.

Oh. Except, I think he said there was an exception: If you can build good enough, fast enough bombers in sufficient numbers, you've won the game.

Take another look at that map (further up the page) from 2453. This one is from the following year. I had split my fleet of little Fuses in 2452 after clearing Obaca's bases, leaving just a few behind to finish off the world, and again in 2453 after cleaning up the Denubius bases as well. In 2454, the main fleet glassed Draconis, while the Fuses I left behind did the same to their respective worlds. The northern fleet took out distant Imra, and a fleet of Crashes fresh off the assembly line did the same at Arietis, the south-sector Psilon world nearest to my core. The Psilons' core worlds of Mentar, Kailis, and Maretta will be tougher nuts to crack, as will Tyr and Whynil in the south, but I'm accomplishing my main objective: Defending my own worlds while removing the peripheral colonies that give the Psilons access to my worlds and contribute to their fleet maintenance and research efforts. By 2457, the Psilons are down to six worlds, and I've turned the galaxy around.

The Brains still have a massive lead in fleet strength and a significant one in tech, still just edging me out in total power, but their apparent advantages are now very misleading: Their fleet is actually a good thing for me, as lots of warp 1 ships draining their planetary resources mean they won't surge ahead in tech ... and the tech lead they have already is largely due to planetology. Yes, those techs are important, but mostly for economic development. Even with all their worlds maxed out with Soil Enrichment and Terra +40, they're now well behind in population, and even with the planetology bonuses to their workers on top of their Hard AI bonuses, I now lead them in production. I've accomplished my war objectives, even retaining my reach colonies, and in spite of the Psilon death fleets still (slowly!) cruising the stars, I am going to win this game.

The year 2463 finds the Psilons down to their three-planet core, and my first two colonies at formerly-Psilon worlds (in the west, near Uxmai). I waited to start building these until I was sure I could defend them adequately. I take Kailis in 2465 and allow the Psilons to recolonize Imra so I can glass and re-establish Mentar and Maretta as well without committing actual genocide. Mentar falls in '66, and Maretta three years later. And in 2472, with the game already won, in the same interturn in which Phasors are discovered....

What is it with my luck on this map? At least it wasn't Kakata that went rich this time! (And at least it happened to little Berel almost a hundred years later in the game!)

Anyway, from 2469, I simply cruised to victory. The Bulrathi broke their alliance with me at some point in spite of Harmonious relations, and I wrapped up and re-founded all their habitable colonies with about as much trouble as it took to write this sentence. Seriously, I was paying so little attention that I was surprised when glassing (I think it was) Ursa led them to declare on me: Knowing an attack was inevitable after the breach of alliance, I'd forgotten that we weren't at war already!

I wanted to win an election victory this time through, but I'd glassed too many hostile worlds in the critical early years of the Psilon war for the Council to actually meet, and the AIs refused to go back and rebuild them. So, not long after the Bulrathi war, I finally got tired of hitting next turn, and took the extermination victory.

I had a terrific time with the replay, with lots of tension and excitement surrounding the two intense bursts of concentrated planning and action in the Klackon and Psilon wars. I'm almost sorry I didn't play this one first! Even so, I think I got too lucky in this game! Still no bad events, still a couple of good ones (though they had little effect on the outcome) ... and can you imagine what would have happened if the Psilons expanded the way they did here, but built ships like they did in my original game? Now that would have been a challenge!

_______________

Back to the Front Page

Imperium 12 Shadow, Part 2

Well, I've just made contact with the insects, and amusingly enough, as soon as I hit next turn, Ixitixl erratically declares on me ... in spite of being unable to reach any of my worlds! This puts me at war with the bugs (through no fault of mine) at about the same time in both of my games - in this case, right after first contact; in the other case, after decades of peace.

At the turn of the century, I discover still more impetus to continue the game to completion: Though Aurora, the rich world in the far south, is still available, the Psilons control both Tyr and Kailis, and have missile bases up at each! My suspicions are only confirmed in 2406, when I colonize Aurora and - before I even confirm that this gives me contact with the Brains - receive a GNN 12-planet expansion report, not about me this time, believe me! Moments later, I would confirm the report for myself:

Houston, we have Runaway Psilons! Looks like this is going to get interesting!

I did a lot of spying on the Klackons in this period, with a lot more success than in my original game: In addition to early success with ECM 1 and RW80, I snagged Inertial Stabilizer and Fusion Bomb on successive turns - 2420 and 2421 - just as my first war fleet was making its way to Kholdan! The bugs and brains had been trading Arietis back and forth, and with the Klackons briefly back in charge of the place, I hoped to snag Kholdan and Incedius (its combat screen demographics, combined with spying reports on the bugs' lack of terraforming tech, confirmed that the latter was habitable, so I wasn't just relying on prior knowledge). Things didn't work out quite as I expected, but I adapted my plans to the changing situation, and was rewarded with this message in 2426:

Having bombed the at-war-with-everyone-due-to-erraticness Klackons heavily and then allowed the brains to finish the job for me, I managed to sneak in my colony ship at Incedius after all, achieving contact and immediate Peaceful relations with the bears and birdies. I signed them both up for alliances and maximum trade agreements; I had a smaller trade package with the Psilons, but no other treaty, as I knew I would have to stop them before they took over the galaxy. This therefore is how things looked in 2430:

Notice that while I'm up to 9 worlds, the Bulrathi have the same 5 as in my previous game, and the birds have just 2 (including the far south yellow star of Gion!?). The Humans are obviously stunted this time, as the Brains' holdings are now up to 15! I'm in no position to take on Zygot ... but I'd better get ready, soon!

The following year, the Alkari broke our alliance, an unwise choice if ever I saw one. Why? Well, the year after that, I finished work on Impulse Drives! Also, Paranar went Fertile, just a decade later than it did in my original game. The pRNG is clearly insane.

Making full use of my alliances, I had already built huge numbers of warp 2 scouts and sent them out across the galaxy. As soon as their reports came back, I sent warp 5 LR ships out to colonize all the habitable worlds the AI had inexplicably neglected ... starting with Artifacts Uxmai in 2445! As it happened, that was the turn after the birds reacted to a series of ill-planned attacks on Altair (I tried to rush it, and lost a couple of fleets, taking various ships and bases with me) by declaring war on me. By the following year:

I ... uh ... no longer had contact with the birdies. Altair was no more, and Gion was just out of range.

Colonizing Altair put me in touch with the Humans, who started at Affable - they were running an OPE, and probably had been at war with the Birds, the Bugs, or both, as even Sol appeared to be strangling under the maintenance costs of their fleet. It strikes me now that Uxmai and the like may not have been "neglected" by the AI so much as "long-established Human colonies recently bombed out of existence by somebody." Lasitus agreed to an alliance, but could barely manage 25 BC of trade.

All this brought us to the council election of 2450 (the first was back in 2427). I was pleased to see that I had a veto (though with my allies, I didn't really need one anyway) and less pleased - but in no way surprised - to see that my election opponents were still the Psilons, with an even more solid veto of their own. Still, that was okay with me. I knew I'd have to take them on, and I figured I'd be ready as soon as I could stand up my reach colonies of Guradas and Artifacts Uxmai, plus the keystone world of Altair at the center of the galaxy - bringing in another set of research projects while I did so. Ready to get started down that path, I clicked through the "no winner" election screen, and saw...

Uh-oh. Emperor Zygot has other plans, it seems! We're now at war with the most powerful race in the galaxy! The Psilons lead us in every single category - fleet strength, population, tech, planets, production, total power, everything! I've got a couple allies, and yes, I bring them in on my side, but they'll be distractions at best; the only powers in this galaxy are Zygot and me! Worse still, according to my spies, the Psilons have neglected nothing in their tech trees! AIs will often work merrily along, grabbing whatever tech looks interesting, failing to notice that they have insufficient range or controlled-environment or battle computer tech or something ... but not Zygot - not this time! By 2453, he had almost caught up with me even in Computers (where the Meklar are excellent, and which I'd been emphasizing from an early year, for spying and the vain hope of RC better than 3) with Mark 5 battle computers to my mark 6s, and identical robotic controls and ECM technologies. They've got Zortium Armor to my Titanium (no early armor in my tree), 9 layers of shields at their bases to my 7, range 9 to my 7, and Stinger Missiles and Scatter Pack 7(!) while my bases can't throw anything at their ships that does more than 6 damage apiece! (No missiles in our tree but Hyper- and Scatter-V, until something insane like ... Zeons, I believe.) They've got a real gun (Ion Cannon) and a real bomb (Fusion) and are barely behind in engines, with Fusion Engines to my Impulse. And then there's planetology: Terra+40, Soil, Controlled Toxic, Advanced Eco ... you name it, they've got it in spades, while I have literally nothing. There are only two areas where I hold a clear advantage over Zygot: tactics and strategy!

_______________
Next: Cry Havoc!

Imperium 12 Shadow, Part 1

My first contribution to these RBO games last year was a Meklar challenge, in which we were backed into a corner of a dangerous galaxy, with a neighborhood that didn't look at all hopeful for our survival. In my version of that game, I introduced an incredibly risky gambit that could only hope to pay off with the Meklar. It didn't prove to be a very strong opening, but I wasn't a very strong player at the time, and with our unusual start for this game, with both colonizable stars little further from the corner than Meklon itself, I thought this would be a good time to revisit my "Meklon Gambit" and see if it could provide a potentially valuable trade-off in the right circumstances. In the end, I chickened out and played the game normally, but had such an improbable run of luck in that game, I decided to play through it again, partly to get a more representative experience of the game as Sullla intended it, partly to try out my old gambit after all. The result turned out to be very rewarding, for reasons that had nothing to do with my crazy opening.

For those of you who aren't yet familiar with my lunatic "Meklon Gambit," here's how it works: For my fist move ... I scrap my colony ship.

I told you it was risky! This move would be suicide with any other race, and it's not guaranteed to be much better for the Meklar. I'm sacrificing population, development of my second colony, and (on a normal map) critical early scouting reports and blockades for one single-minded purpose: Building early factories on Meklon! I've already cut my annual ship maintenance to zero, and by immediately plowing my new-found reserves into the homeworld, I get a huge boost to production in the critical early years. Especially since I'm nonetheless building Newscouts on the side (I'm not sure if I'd have built so many so soon if I were running my Gambit initially, but I wanted to do as much as possible the same way I did in my original game, to avoid accidentally taking advantage of knowledge I'd gained by playing it through once already) this boost won't necessarily justify the loss of that first colony ship - this isn't a Super Ultimate Trick For Winning, but a risky trade-off that often comes out behind - but with the Meklar advantage in factory controls, it at least has a chance to work out.

One thing about this gambit: If it does work out, it's going to take a while!

This image is from 2329, just before I finish my first colony ship. Yes, this means Meklon, as shown here, represents my entire empire up to this point! When I played a semi-normal opening for this game, I had already colonized Paranar and Zhardan by this date, and had another colony ship en route! On the other hand, I also had just 116 factories on Meklon; in this replay, I have 264, and still haven't maxed the planet's population (quite). A normal game of course would fall somewhere between these two extremes, probably with the first home-made colony ship en route, and Meklon and one other colony going strong, with ~200 factories on Meklon and a few more on the colony. We'll see what version comes out ahead later on, but do keep in mind that this starting set-up is unusually good for the Meklon Gambit for a couple of reasons ... and it's still looking pretty dicey on the 30th turn of the game.

A couple of decades later, things are looking up a bit, as the last colony I'll be able to grab without war or seriously advanced technology is established, a couple of years earlier than in my original game, in 2350.

Population levels are still low, and Paranar's development has been hurt by its late formation, but Meklon itself is doing pretty well under the circumstances.

Ten years later, GNN would report an event whose full impact I won't know at least until I read everyone else's reports on this Imperium. The Klackons and Psilons developed very differently here than in my original game, but I don't know how much of that was luck of the draw, and how much was a result of this:

Certainly this didn't explain everything: I couldn't have gotten the diplo event as the Klackons just did with the Brains ... because I still didn't have contact with anyone! Unlike in my original, highly improbable game, the propulsion-poor bugs did not pull in an early Range 6 tech this time through, and I was completely isolated.

It was difficult to compare my progress between the two versions of the game, as they followed very divergent paths for many decades. Tellingly however, in spite of the 2381 event in my original game that turned Kakata rich, my empire actually finished maxing out (including RC3) sooner in my Gambit game than in my original one (tech pace was similar but not identical, largely because of different priorities). It "only" took a few dozen years to pull ahead. Honestly though, a truly normal opening, - building up to 200 factories before building the first colony ship (without scrapping the one you get for free!) - would probably come out ahead of both of the loony ones I tried. We'll have to see. Someday, I might revisit this gambit again in a larger galaxy, where the faster colony ship construction rate would be most valuable, but even then, the slow-down of the population growth curve would be costly. It was fun to try though, at least!

Having played up to 2390, I could have just called it quits, having already played out the game once, and with sufficient data for a basic comparison (I have more specifics from various dates in both games if anyone's interested). The game was already looking very interesting and different though, with Psilon scouts appearing in the first half of the century - no doubt fueled by a Klackon alliance - the bugs' lack of range 6 tech, and ... you know, Kakata not going rich on me. I therefore went on, just to see how different the game would be, and wound up establishing contact with the bugs when I developed Range 7 just a few years later.

Now, this is intriguing! The Klackons are running a 2PE when I meet them in 2394, but those transports en route to the blue star mean they're invading a neighbor I haven't met - and based on that assassination event among other things, I have a feeling it means there are Brains all over my side of the galaxy! This is definitely a game I want to play out at this point!

_______________
Next: The Fun Begins

Imperium 12, Conclusion

Turn Set 15: Minister of Intelligence, Refcon AIssance

We may loathe and despise planetology tech, but I'll tell you one thing: We are masters of the interface between mechanics and biology! When I took over this mess of an empire for the first time, I didn't think I'd live to see us escape our miserable little corner of the galaxy. Yet now, thanks to Refairs nMedicine and his cybernetic longevity treatments, I'm still alive to rule the empire again one hundred and twenty five years later, with our enemies on the verge of annihilation! Frankly, this is going to be easy! No clue what Refspand was thinking (if you can call what he does "thinking" in the first place) with some of his latest decisions, but...

...yeah. It just doesn't matter anymore. I do a few things just to be able to say I did something, and prepare to end this war.

2461: Refspand oMatic apparently still likes forming new colonies regardless of their strategic importance.

Fortunately, amidst all the nonsense, there is one colony made for reasons that actually make sense: Cygni is ours, opening the way at last to Morrig in the far northwest. This is especially important because - with the glassing of Vox this year - it is the very last Bulrathi colony!

This will be the final year of our galactic war, so as minister of intelligence, please allow me to present the galactic map...

...and our up-to-date spying report on the Bulrathi empire.

Strictly for contrast purposes, I've also had my teams put together a little report on Meklar technology.

We seem to have a slight edge here, wouldn't you say? And as for our empire:

Yes, we're doing just fine, thank you. You might notice, incidentally, that we have no missile bases or shields on any of our worlds. How did we get away with this, do you ask? Pretty simple, actually: By finding ourselves in a dominant position, with isolated core worlds, slow-moving, slow-witted enemies, and a fleet that looks like...

This. There was no point when any alien ship or combination of alien ships represented the slightest threat to our Navy, and it could sit on a planet or shuttle between two nearby worlds, and ensure their complete safety from anything but fast spore ships, indefinitely. Our hundreds of swift-moving NPG fighters, continuously updated throughout our various reigns, flew circles around the enemy and dismantled them with ease. Even the spore ships could do nothing against a few dozen of these ships once the oldest generation you can still see here, the Surgeon 2.1s, came into play. We could outfly them with ease, firing on them twice before they could close with the planet, and had them thoroughly outgunned continuously. The extraordinary strategic speed of much of our later fleet, combined with heads-up redistribution by our acting heads in response to enemy attacks, meant that no alien race could mount a credible threat against us, even when they all attacked simultaneously at different planets. And of course ships like the Nukem were used to continuously roll back the line of battle, away from the worlds that the aliens thought they were attacking, by blowing enemy colonies to bits - with Landers and their predecessors to fill in the husks left behind when they were habitable at all. Of course, all this was only possible (or at least only this easy) thanks to our rich worlds' contributions to the reserve, speeding up our developing worlds, and to shipbuilding, ensuring we always had a superior fleet in space, even in light of constant redesigns of key components of our fleet. So much for the lecture. Let's move on to times of peace! Without any evil, warlike, death-spore-loving, planetology-using, hostile-world-dwelling aliens to mess things up for us!

2462: From the battle, it looks like Morrig is habitable - probably a steppe. Refspand will be so disappointed that he didn't build a too-late-anyway Lander for it!

Wow! Not only a steppe, but an Artifacts world (currently polluted down to the minimum possible size, but no doubt much larger naturally)! Oh, well. It'll be ours now eventually. We just need to get the glass cleaned up first! Say good night, Bulrathi!

...

Awwwwwwwwww. I forgot. They can't say good night - there's no more of them left in the galaxy! And you know what that means! Our planetology-free Meklon succession will continue indefinitely! For a thousand years or more, we'll rule the galaxy together, with no danger of polluters overrunning the bright, hostile worlds of the galaxy; with no threat of planets' natural environments being transformed via terraforming; with no destruction of planetary environments through death spore technology! Who says we're not environmentally friendly? Yes, the benevolent reign of the Ruling Bionic Oligarchy at last extends to the far corners of the galaxy! Who could possibly object?

Hmmph! I'll have you know, Mr. Newsdroid, you will not be serving under a ruthless tyrant! You'll be serving under a dozen of them! Starting with me!

_______________

Post-game note:
I got pretty disgustingly lucky on this one, between rich Kakata and fertile Paranar, no bad events, and mostly-stunted AI civilizations ... but I didn't realize just how lucky I got until I played the game a second time. Why'd I do that? Well, for one thing, I did feel I was just too lucky in this one, and for another ... well, have a look for yourself!

Imperium 12 - MY Galaxy!

2456: A fleet of Consuls with nothing better to do checks out the Bulrathi world of Laan. Since there are almost a hundred in the fleet, they do check it out in detail though, in spite of what it thought were its defenses. About three hundred of our fighters also deal with a Bulrathi huge at Kailis, losing nothing important. Oh, and we burn some more alien worlds to the ground, but what really matters is:

Two new colonies! Not only that, but colonies that'll extend my reach so I'll be able to (destroy and re-) build still more new colonies!

2457: Ooooh, pretty! I love watching my fleets fly all over the galaxy while everyone else's crawls around like slugs on sleeping medication. It makes expansion so much simpler and more efficient! My Navy continues to make enemy ships run away while my attack fleets pretty much do the same thing, but over alien colonies. And Refrens comes in with plans for Anti-Matter Torpedoes, which is just hilarious. We spend some time giggling together, and with Auto Blaster and Tachyon Beam as the other new possibilities, I let our scientists pretend to work on a Phasor design. I make Refcon happy by scouting the last unscouted Psilon colonies, and make everyone else happy by some glass-making work. I stop bomber production and scrap our old Surgeon 2.0s in favor of a new NPG fighter with our best computers and combat speed, superior even to the Consul, and capable of killing enemy ships before they can retreat: The Defender 5, for the protection of our lovely new colonies! And perhaps, just maybe, some slightly more aggressive assignments as well (heeheehee). I'm having way too much fun with our colonies to ever hand power off to my successor, but I'll deal with that when the time comes, and enjoy this while it lasts!

2458: Hey, Cygni has 10 bases! Exciting! It also has a cruiser in orbit, but that retreats in terror, and of our 201 Consuls, we end up losing only one for each base we destroy. We chase some Bulrathi away, kill some Psilons, and then we do the really important things:

That's Laan and Artifacts Uxmai that are now flying the Meklar flag. Hurray! You can tell you're a pretty good minister of colonial development when you get two GNN expansion reports in the course of the same reign. Oh, and we do some bombing. Nothing important, really.

The phone rings, and it's Lasitus, begging for a peace treaty. It rings again, and it's the Psilon emperor, who finally gets introduced by name - sadly, we never discovered the Alkari emperor's identiy before he was killed along with all the rest of his people - and Zygot begs for peace. Krungo is either too dumb to realize he's about to be dead, or too smart to believe we'll make peace with him. Is this what the droid calls "preparing to merge" with me? Because they can prepare all they want, but I'm not going to merge with anyone who works with (yiiiiiiiech) planetology! Or for that matter, anyone who's in the way of my new colonies!

2459: Tum-diddlety-tum. Kill some bases. Make some ships run away. Actually get a spy hit, now that I no longer care even slightly...

...especially not about Gatling Laser from the Bulrathi. Refrens proudly presents level 2 battle computers at the same time. Yipee. I finally let him work on ECM Jammer Mark VI, which will never be finished or needed. Oh, and we bomb things all over the place, but to our immense disappointment, we don't quite glass anything - I was sure I had enough to get rid of Cygni, but I missed the mark by just one million bears, and now I won't be able to colonize that world during my reign! Well, I'll send two more Landers into the sky this year to make up for it. That's all I can do, after all.

2460: Wow! The Bulrathi actually have a fleet at their homeworld! Well ... such as it is. Their 17 bases look impressive until you realize they're are all shield 2, titanium-armored, nuclear-missile-launching jokes, and as for that fleet that so impressed me ... well....

Believe it or not, that's my least lopsided victory of the year in space combat. Bulrathi luck again saves one of their colonies for a year - Vox is now down to its last million Bears - but can't save Cygni anymore. And of course the Humans' luck - at Imra and elsewhere - has just run out. But wait! I forgot to move some defenders to one of our worlds, and the Bulrathi retaliate for my attacks!

They will pay dearly for bombing that factory at Laan! Oh, how dearly they will pay!

Told you so.

Oh, and the Psilons get some attention too. In fact...

You'd think glassing someone's homeworld and exterminating two other races in the same year would make them slightly unhappy, but the Bulrathi are merely troubled. There is something deeply wrong with these planetology users. I wonder how much of their "planetology" research has gone into the development of hardy, pungent, new weeds....

All right, everything's ready for the end of this war and the completion of our expansion! I can take care of it right here! Just let me run things for two more years....

Pleeeeeeease? I set everything up so perfectly! Just two ... more.....

(Admiral Refpect drags Refspand bodily away from the control chamber)

Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease?

_______________

Next: Conclusion

Imperium 12, Expansion ... Again!

Turn Set 14: Colonial Minister Refspand oMatic

Oh, stop marveling at my miraculous recovery. There was nothing to it. Someone asked if I felt ready to take my turn as acting head of the oligarchy, and all my symptoms vanished. If only you'd have done it sooner! And no cracks about psychosomatic illnesses! Or psycho-anything cracks for that matter! Or about malingering! Confound it, we have an empire to expand!

The first thing I notice is that we don't have enough colony ships. This is already on the way to being rectified, but only as of this year, so it was probably only done as a courtesy to save me the trouble of giving the order myself. On the plus side, we have several immature colonies for me to grow! Alright! And one of them is the beautiful cloud jungle of Incedius, one of the rarest planet types known to astronomy! This is a great start! It's still just a start though: A quick review of our records shows that we had just half the votes in this year's council election! We need to expand more rapidly! And of course, at the moment, there's just one way to do that: Right through our remaining enemies!

2451: Our main attack fleet reaches Draconis. This is severe overkill, but it was right on the way to our next target. We take orbit and glass it with no losses.

2452: I seem to have accidentally sent some ships to Denubius, so I bomb it. I also sent a fleet to Obaca on purpose, so I bomb it. I also realize our Mentar Lander must have been sent elswhere accidentally, so I send a new one to take its place.

2453: Hum-de-dum, killing and chasing fleets, blowing up bases, all in a pleasant year's work. Oh - hi, Refrens! What's up? Battle Computer 3? Don't we already have something way better? Yeah, okay, I can see how that might be useful. In fact, why don't we get to work on Battle Computer Mark II, just in case? Thanks, Dr. eBook! Now, let's see; where was I? Oh, yes. (singing) Whistle while you work ... whistle while you work...

...Mentar's mine, Obaca's gone, and more apes bombed: I smirk! (/singing)

2454: Up at Draconis, another Human huge ship responds to our Navy in the usual way, with its tail between its legs. Then, with the foundation of Obaca, I get a very gratifying message from the GNN newsdroid:

Our expansion has hit eighteen systems, and it won't be long before we control the entire galaxy! Oh, he says it'll happen if we're not contained, but take my word for this one: There's no one and nothing out there that's going to contain our expansion! Not on my watch, at least!

2455: Hum - dee - doo ... chasing humans, finding ... whoa! An artifacts world in the west! How cool! That'd be a great colony - let's make it happen! Oh, and also:

We do a little bombing. Only Argus, Denubius, and Rigel are glassed though. Lasitus responds by begging for peace. I'm busy getting ready to make new colonies where his used to be, so I pretend not to hear him. And my favorite part: Kholdan is now a mature colony!

_______________

Next: MY Galaxy!

Imperium 12 - Attitude Adjustment

2446: (Millions of holographic clowns dance through the capital, honking loudly on their noses and driving around in tiny cars) ARRRGH! Enough! Refiraxis, I had to scrap the Circus; it was moving at warp 2! That is it! No more notifications of ship combat, ever! The end! I can watch the screen without the advance warning that that's what I'm supposed to do! What do you have to say to that, fellow members of the oligarchy?

...

What do you mean that's what all you guys have been doing since the beginning?

Alright, well, it's a good thing I caught on, because there's a lot going on this year, and mostly it's not worth making noise about: Just our Consul scouts retreating from alien worlds, a Psilon colony ship retreating from Arietis, and our Consuls bombing Esper into the ground. Usual run of the mill. I redistribute our forces, decide we can risk attacking Kailis with just the fleet we've got already, get some transport moving off to Sol, and that's it!

2447: Guess what! I was right about Kailis!

It's still firing nuclear missiles ... and Nukems and Consuls fly circles around nuclear missiles! We take the planet's orbit and don't lose anything! Then some Alkari Pelicans decide to attack my Consuls at Sol! Aren't aliens cute when they think they can win? They do blow up two of my Consuls. I kill all 49 Pelicans. We also bomb Kailis, but it's slow going, so we cut it out and send just about everything to Mentar instead.

2448: Okay! Here goes the battle of Mentar! And ... apparently I didn't send as many Nukems as I thought. This fleet of ours is lovely, but there's no way it's enough. It's going to have to retreat before the battle even starts. What's going on?

Ah. Apparently, what I did was to send my other bombers to Kailis. Um ... oops? Well, in that case, I ... (Doorbell Chime) AIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! WHAT DID I TELL YOU!? DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, D... Oh. It's not a combat warning; it's the holophone. Yes? Who's there? Oh, hi, Lasitus.

What? Strain on both our peoples? No, no ... I haven't noticed any special strain. Think it's just you? You know, you look tired. Are you getting enough rest? Try getting more sleep, okay? Byyyyyye!

Okay, so I ... (Doorbell Chime) Grrrr. How do you change the ring tone to "Permanent Silence"? Well? What is it, Psilon Emperor Whose Name I Don't Even Know Since We've Never Talked In Any Meaningful Fashion? You like dead Alkari, like the ones my bombers are making at Kailis? Yeah, I'll bet. Especially since they were supposed to be dead Psilons and I gave the orders wrong! Now, go away.

Alright, this time, I rearrange the fleet correctly. This year, however, for any number of reasons, correctly just means everyone goes to Kailis! One of those reasons is that I have a spy in Psilon territory, and they now have Merculite missiles. I'm still going to take Mentar, but I'm going to want a death fleet to do it.

2449: We make another Psilon fleet run away from Incedius, and... (Someone dances into the imperial command room, singing, lights flashing brightly) .... WHAT NOW?!?! Oh, it's you, Refrens. Hi. Why all the singing and dancing and carrying on?

Hey, you've figured out how to cut our factory waste by a third? Say, that is pretty cool! Why don't you go ahead and work on Improved Industrial Tech 4 to help our new colonies-to-be stand up? Okay? Great! Not that there were any other new options. Now, where was I? Oh, right. Stopping the stupid aliens from calling me on the holophone with congratulations and peace offers all the time.

There we go; that ought to do it for a little while - permanently in the case of the Alkari, of course, but even the surviving races don't seem to like it when we commit genocide. Anyway, now our forces converge on Mentar.

2450: First things first: Mentar still hasn't rebuilt its lost bases, and inexplicably fires on our Surgeons first, so....

No losses. Mentar's orbit is ours. We also kill a Psilon fleet at Sol, at the cost of an old Surgeon or two, and after seeing to it that Kailis doesn't go to waste...

...we ensure that the Psilons won't be bugging us again ... at least until we build colonies closer to their three remaining worlds! Oh, yeah, and there's an election. Everyone but me votes for Lasitus, but I control half the votes myself. Naturally, I vote for our Ruling Bionic Oligarchy of 12, and I'm sure any of you would do the same. You know what, though? These elections are starting to get annoying too. Let's not have any more, okay?

_______________

Next: Expansion? What, Again?

Imperium 12 - Coming Full Circle

Turn Set 13: Chairman Refrything SmorgasBorg

YESSSSSSSSS! I solved the puzzle! I am the Sudoku Master!!! All I needed was a little hint from Refiraxis, and I suddenly realized there was already a 7 in the top row!!! Ha! And it only took me a century and a fifth! Someone challenge me to a puzzle contest! Just try it! I dare you! No takers? I thought not! Ha! Now, what's been going on in the empire? We'd better have Zhardan by now, that's all I can say!

What the ... NO ZHARDAN!?!? I had a Lander already in the queue for it all the way back in ... wait a minute ... oops, there it is; I just had to scroll up past the top of the screen. And Meklon and Paranar seem to be doing great ... gosh that seems like a lot of factories; Refrofit must have kind of gone overboard, and ... um ... what are these other ten worlds doing here? And I don't remember Kakata being rich in neutronium; I'd have prioritized getting it a lot more than I did. And ... wait, Paranar is fertile?! ... uh ... I'm pretty sure I would have noticed something like that; it was our second world. Hang on, guys; I need to spend a little while getting up to date. I'm sure the empire can carry on in the meantime without me.

2441: Okay! All set! I think! We're the biggest empire in the universe, and we're at war with everybody! Makes perfect sense to me! So, the thing to do is to stand up our new colonies while we defend them with fleets, then absorb the Alkari since they seem to be really weak for some reason - I wonder what happened to their homeworld; I didn't have time for all the reports, and I had to kind of skim - and ... (Red alert sirens sound throughout the Capital Building) Aaaaaaaaeeiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeee!!! What? WHAT?! ... You know, they sound these things all over the capital, and it's never anything important. Who's in charge of the sound system here, anyway? I think they only turn them on because it annoys me.

Okay, so some kind of Alkari fleet retreated from our Navy - we have a ship called the Navy? - at ... Altair? What are we doing at Altair? Also ... uh ... there were a lot of big ships in that fleet. I wonder why they retreated. Does this mean we're winning? (Red alert sirens sound once more) WHA... No! No way! You can't scare me! It'll just be more retreating birds. Now TURN OFF THOSE SIRENS!!!

(Quiet, peaceful bell chimes)

Better. Now, what boring fleet is going to retreat from us this time? Humph. Just as I suspected: More Pelican fighters are at Herculis, and we outnumber them more than seven to one. Those Consuls had better not be unarmed diplomatic ships, but as long as ... wait, why is the planet firing on them? Herculis is an Alkari world? What are we doing at an Alkari world?

Oh, I see. We're blowing up all its ships and bases, is what we're doing. Still, someone might have told me. And we lost three whole fighters! Okay, so now we ... what? Do I want to do what, now?

Yeah, okay, I guess as long as we're there, we can colonize Altair - I mean, the birds obviously aren't using it anymore - and sure, we'll bomb those two worlds ... wait, did that say Sol? No, way; I must have been seeing things. And Herculis is one of those disgusting barren worlds; why did we bother going there? I guess it doesn't matter though, since we just wiped out its colony. I do notice there were some Human transports about to arrive though. Too bad for them they don't have anyplace to land anymore. Okay, so now ... now ... now ..... we ........

Um, Refpect ForceTran? Could you move our fleets around and stuff? I think I might be a little out of my depth here. Thanks! Wait, you're sending ships to Sol? Are you sure that's wise? I mean, that's the Human home star, and all these alien ships are coming to Incedius, and ... er ... well ... okay, I guess if you're sure....

I hope he did that right. As for me, I'll work on standing up our immature colonies!

2442: Hmmm. One of our immature colonies is Kholdan. Why does that name sound so familiar?

(Respectful chime sounds.)

Eh? What is it this time? Oh, we're retreating from the Humans at Laan. Something weird about that planet th... (Chime) Now what? Uh ... the Psilons are attacking our cloud jungle again. With ... three colony ships? Isn't that a lot? They're armed, and they're big! All we have is about 17 little Consuls and Surgeons and things! This is crazy! Except, I seem to recall those Consuls did okay at Herculis, and ... uh ... we lose one fighter and kill them all. Is this normal? I mean, it's almost as if someone planned it this way! Couldn't have been Refpect though; he just sent our Navy and most of our Consuls to Sol, and what use could that possibly be?

... Oh. Bye-bye, Sol. Um, those Consuls are pretty good, huh? I get the sneaking suspicion that we are winning.

Okay, I think I see what happens next. The Navy goes to Altair again, almost all the Consuls go to Incedius, and I don't care what anyone says, I'm building more of them at Kakata and having them sent down there; those Consuls are pretty neat! And a little overkill never hurt anybody.

2443: (A couple of Chimes later) Uh-oh. Maybe I should have kept more Consuls back at Sol. Now there's a Psilon colony ship. This calls for some fancy flying! Good thing we have fancy pilots! We fly circles around the enemy, and destroy it with no losses! How do you like that? I love my Consuls! What great ships! They even ... (Chime) ... (Chime) ... (Chime) ... Uh-huh. Are you chiming noises all done now? You'd better be. None of those battles look very exciting, and Refrens and one of Refspand's top advisors (Our colonial minister himself is still in the hosipital, I'm afraid) each have some great news for me!

Alright! We've got a new battle computer and a new colony! Wait, Mark Six?! Isn't that kind of advanced? Uh ... I'd better have a look at those spy reports Refcon keeps trying to give me. It's possible we might not need to spend so much time consolidating our gains right now. I tell Refrens to start work on a Battle Computer Mark III so we have more options for ship designs later on. The new ECM he proposed just didn't sound very exciting. Oh, yeah, and the new colony happens to be at the third planet in the Sol system. The Humans called it Dirt or Ground or something, but we're just calling the whole system Sol and leaving it at that.

Okay, we need more defenses in the east, so it's a good thing I built those extra Consuls. I rearrange the ones we have, and build some more, to make sure we can take care of all the enemy fleets. Also, I want you to see something really great while it's still around to see. I mean, it'll still be true, but it won't be quite as perfect after today.

There's our fleet as it stands right now! Talk about cooperation! You can see Refcreational's Tourorists, Refpect's Navy, the Refiraxis Circus design, two fleets of Surgeons that Refairs put together, and Refriendto's lovely Consuls all coexisting at the same time! I have to show you now though because we've got new engines, and we're all out of Circuses and practically all out of the Tourorists, so I'm building some new designs: The Lander 5.0 will be our new colony ship, but right now, Kakata and Aurora are ready to start building bombers! I can't figure out a good way to fit an Anti-Matter Bomb on anything, but luckily our enemies are all incredibly dumb, and don't have any shielding to speak of, so I'm just making a new nuclear bomber until we can improve our construction techniques. The bombers are called Nukem 5.0s because of the new slogan Refriendto came up with for our foreign policy: "When all else fails, just nuke 'em!"

2444: Alright, what's going on this year? I feel like there was something important. (Chime) You know, the chime is starting to get annoying too. Somebody fix that. Now, what's going on? Aha! Humans at Stalaz! They've got a Dreadnought and a Colony Ship, and they kill our Surgeon and one of our Counsels! Luckily, we have 49 more and blow both enemy ships to pieces. (Sleigh bells jingle throughout the capital building) Ummmm ... no. No sleigh bells. Try again. Also, a huge Human Dreadnought retreating from our Navy isn't that exciting. Everything retreats from our Navy. (Great tolling bells of apocalyptic doom resound through all the corridors of the capital) Grrrr! That is not what I had in mind! (The tolling continues) By Neuromancer! Someone do something about those stupid bells! What are they even tolling about anyway?

Oh, wow! For once, I'm glad I was informed! That's a pretty big death spore fleet the Psilons sent down! Of course, we do have a lot of Consuls there ... and we are destroying the enemy with virtually no losses on our side ... and they're not getting anywhere near the planet! I love my Consuls. So ... will someone please stop those stupid bells!?

Thank you. Now. Lander production begins at Kakata, and I get to start moving our ships!

2445: Whoa! Cool! My Consuls even look good! You should've seen 'em fanning out to the west at warp 5! (Trombone solo jazzes up the corridors of...) STOP IT, STOP IT, STOP IT!!! Refiraxis, can you do something with this? Please? Thanks. Okay, looks like our Consuls are going to be tested. A dozen doesn't seem like enough to kill a colony ship and a Sky Master. This is a colony interdiction mission, so we're going after the colship first.

Got it! We lost almost our whole little fleet, but we killed the colony ship! Mission accomplished, and the survivors retreat! Also, you know, there's something kind of sad about transports getting wrecked (at Sol now and at Altair a couple years back) on the way back to their own homeworld, but it's not as sad as an entire species using planetology junk like bioweapons. Besides, those are our worlds now! You know what I think, though? We're being really mean to these aliens, and they don't hate us enough anymore. We're taking over the whole galaxy, and we're killing them as they return to what they thought were their own homeworlds, and they're still just uneasy and wary and stuff like that. Let's see if I can do anything to fix that in the next few years.

_______________

Next: "Fixing" It