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hoof1
07-07-2003, 03:58 PM
My ithkul infestation spreads slowly throughout the galaxy. First the fish people, followed by the amphibians, and currently the machine people are being absorbed into the collective. My power ranking has been number one for about 100 turns now. I wonder who number two and number three are? All the border empires are rank 10 or higher. Slowly I have risen to an empire of 137 worlds with 2000 or so units of slaves/population under my control.

One of my frontier fortress systems has repelled wave after wave of enemy attacks. It has been about 30 ships a turn flung against the meat-grinder of my two-planet system, my missiles and fighters slicing up their ships like so many tasty pieces of Nommo. However, a new race has begun attacking my border world, a species of gasbags. This species is not like the gasbags I've been consuming elsewhere in my empire. These come with deadly Plasma Cannon and devastating Lightning Field Generators. My lowly Hellfire cannon short-range ships cannot compete with their LFG equipped ships up close and personal anymore. My border system buckled and almost fell under the weight of the attacks, as one devastating attack tore through my defenses and ransacked one of my fortress worlds. This leaves a gaping hole in my defences that was only filled with great difficulty and loss of precious Ithkul life.

Sure enough, contact is established with this new menace. The number two ranked empire is the source of these gasbag incursions. They have a mere 100 planets, but outtech me by five levels, and have twice my population! For the second time since initial expansion, I am fearful that my forces will not prevail. If this empire joins the others against me, we will be driven back to the core worlds. This cannot be allowed to pass.

Strangely, the relations seem to not be of initial fear and loathing between the two peoples. This species of gasbags have a mere -10 casius belli (how do you spell that?) towards us. Maybe I can make friends with them and stall the inevitable war before one of their many allies persuades them of the folly of that path. Then I can finish assimilating the weaker empires around me and with my renewed strength, enslave the gasbags for all eternity!

Moral: Just 'cause the game says you're #1 doesn't make it so :)

Ron_Lugge
07-07-2003, 05:05 PM
Originally posted by hoof1
Moral: Just 'cause the game says you're #1 doesn't make it so :)

You probably had so many planets it ranked you as #1, when they had a tech lead...

You're still number one; you just have to adjust. Try facing them down with carriers instead of SR TFs.

hoof1
07-07-2003, 05:34 PM
My stopgap defence consisted of CV/IF taskforces only (I'm pinching a Meklar empire from two sides, which is taking the bulk of my fleet, bad timing as it turns out, leaving no SR/LR ships available for the emergency situation). Mass swarms of fighters interspersed with salvos of missiles seem to have solved the being-outgunned problem for now. If their bombardment hadn't left that one Industry DEA up and running I wouldn't have had that extra Missile base to back my ships up and would've probably had to fallen back a system or two until I could muster a more substantial defence fleet.

My SR ships are suffering from a lack of heavy gun tech (although very heavy mount is on the horizon) and Hellfire weapons. Up until I ran into the enemy LFG ships, that pretty much meant they did ok by closing to point blank range. At that range they outgunned the enemy pretty well (24 Standard Hellfires on a Battleship can chew up ships fast). LFG's with their 5x autofire bonus completely cancel that. Time to see if I can get a longer-ranged SR-type weapon into my designs until I can steal Plasma cannon technology! :)

It's too bad you can't declare a planet as "ignore all attackers" or something like that. As long as there is an unfortified planet in the system, the defenders can always be drawn out and killed w/o their planet-based supporting fire. I've used this many times against the AI, and am facing that now against me (the pulverized planet will be targetted from now on, and any in-system ships will always defend that planet. This leaves me with two options: 1) don't defend the system at all with ships, leaving my heavily fortified other planet to defend by itself, or 2) attempt to hold off the attackers with ships only, without the fortified planet's defences. Neither is very appealing. Maybe I'll give the trashed planet to one of my smaller enemies to resolve the situation. I'd love to be able to sacrifice an unfortified planet in order to preserve my defence fleet for the planets that matter, without having to resort to the cheesy tactic of donating the planet to another empire.

Czaroc
07-08-2003, 11:56 AM
Very nice story

Remember gasbags like big planets, so 100 size 8-12 planets is as good as your 150 size 4-8 planets. I love the gasgags. Have fun beating them back and please add an addition to the story when you are done.