Universe: A shadows era AAR with some automation
RE: Universe: A shadows era AAR with some automation
Great read [:)] Big thanks for taking the time to write this!
RE: Universe: A shadows era AAR with some automation
Thank you both for comments. I have been afraid that this has been a very repetitive pirate spaceport bash for a while. It feels like this has been an offensive war on steroids, without the fear of attacks on colonies (not the kind of attacks that really matter).
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ehsumrell1
- Posts: 2529
- Joined: Tue Aug 17, 2010 7:53 am
- Location: The Briar Patch Nebula
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RE: Universe: A shadows era AAR with some automation
Nice job Bingeling! 
Shields are useless in "The Briar Patch"...
RE: Universe: A shadows era AAR with some automation
Maintenance and planning
We noticed no troops for pickup. For recruitment, any dhayut, sluken or mortalen troop are acceptable. Apart from that, the capital is the only one that can make armor and special forces. Or, Sipan 4 can make armored, but atuuks in the army? No way.
The booked are: 15 armored and 10 special forces on the capital. 6 normal troops on all colonies with dhayut/sluken/mortalen troops. 6 is the load of a transport. That leaves 5 or so colonies not recruiting, and the capital not recruiting normal troops, so about 9*6 = 54 troops. And 15 armor and 10 special forces. For pickup, when needed.
Also, about colonization, this is the left side colony list.
Lets colonize the lot.
Weirujum is in the capital system. 80%, a mining location of many a past pirate battle, and a prime spot for alien ships dropping out of some anomaly. A good prospect.
Dacshii 2 in the system of Ecery at the very north. 77%, no resources. Decent quality and prospect.
Xirus 3 a short stop west of the capital. A place on many pirate raids on mines. 71%, low-ish quality.
Narg 2 a short bit SE of Atuuko (and Beate). 80% decent, some resources.
Firassea 4 is new on the list. It has become our territory by the expansion of the Edop (and Grau) influence circles in the mortalen system. It is at the very edge of the circle, probably taken over from the mortalen capital circle with the improvements in Mortalu. Lets hope that it does not shift ownership as it orbits the star, or something.
Urukablis 1. At the very eastern edge of the Sipan circle. It is 59% and is rather crap, but in theory this OK mining system could be lost to the blue securans if either of their two colonies expand their influence circles by quite a lot. And we need something to urge pirates to crawl out of hiding in that area as well.
In an early expansion when colony ship feels empty and we are eager to expand, I would send a fleet ahead and stuff. Now we say "good luck", and consider buying some defense fleets for them once they are up. We do not bother to micro manage the race of the colonizer, it appears two will be mortalen and 1 securan.
Back to fighting
2175.03.17 and the struggle goes on. The aim is to make the empire a pirate free zone. And later, maybe to grab some more pirate colonies, but that could be quite a while.
Since we are preparing for new colonies and all, tidying our backyard would be a good idea. Again we see the pirate ships over the scanners in the capital area at the bottom. They appear to head for the targeted system in the upper left. The arrow is a single destroyer of the Atuuko defense fleet that will drive by and detect any pirate base if there. Then head back to its leader at Atuuko system.
If you are not stubborn about automation choices like I am, send a spy to steal the territory map of the pirate group in question.
Crusher 1 has refueled, and takes off towards the Najarca Council large spaceport nearby. We have seen them mess around in this area, and this is our local crew from the early days.
The destroyer found nothing. It heads off to three systems in the gas cloud just north. There are not that many options with hydrogen/caslon around. We also realize there is a caslon source (unused by us!) just outside our territory where those pirates are seen. That is maybe the answer. A destroyer of construction fleet heads there to find out. Construction fleet has been forgotten in the capital system with some frigates and destroyers.
2517.06.14 Crusher 1 finds a system with some ships, among them 1 fleet sitting a bit away from the spaceport. A construction ship appears to build a mining station. They attend to the spaceport and the ships around it. Those pink guys fought recently had about 3000 shields on their LSP, this one has 10620.
Lots of shields just means more grinding away. The spaceport at half shields. Once the station dies, they are told to jump at the construction ship, ignoring the other pirates for now.
They fail, the construction ship is too fast. We think these are dhayut pirates, and got our wonderful hyperdrives that way.
One cruiser is damaged with no hyperdrive and scrapped. As we watch it we notice it got a fighter bay. So that was what all the extra size was used for after getting larger build size? (this one is probably a new replacement cruiser, the old have not been retrofitted). Back to sloes van for repairs (one more is damaged), which also builds a replacement cruiser despite a warning about lacking osalia (the civilians should manage, right?).
No pirate bases around the NW area anywhere? What are they up to? Or possibly, where are they hiding?
2175.08.26 Crusher 6 is repaired at Ecery after their rought spaceport battle in the last part. The replacements are not yet finished at Sipan, but as we found no pirate base, they are told to move to Edop in the mortalu system. As a first step in finding action.
2175.10.02: Crusher 2 is refueled and ready, and launches towards the large spaceport of the sinister outlaws. Compared to the najarcan 10000 shields, the 4000 shields of this one looks like a breeze. They could hurt more, though.
Oh joy. We see the mortalen bust a pirate spaceport in their own capital system. A pirate group has taken over their minor colony in the system. It is our old buddies the lone dagger ravagers, who we have not seen moving since our attacks at their spaceports.
2176.01.03 Crusher 2 does not appear to struggle with their large, southern spaceport. They want to refuel at a gas mine at our nearest colony system, but we wonder. Wasn't there a pirate base just besides that one? They stop by there on the way just to check it out.
As we see Crusher 6 moving south, we notice that new pirate base south of Sipan. It appears like the system has quite a few bases of the B'cnus Network. Like we learned with the fire bandits, pirates that appear to cause no harm may attack at any moment. Better kill them while passing by.
Crusher 2 in the south finds no pirate base. Pirates killing pirates? They refuel at the gas mine in the colony system.
2176.03.07 6 or 7 small spaceports?! Crusher 6 has a surprise waiting for them. They did not expect all those bases to be at the same gas giant.
Crusher 6 took a beating, but we did manage to get them to finish off a damaged spaceport top right before leaving. 16 out of 31 ships make it back to Sipan for repairs. That is how you defend against empire fleets, good on those pirates!
After fumbling a bit we build 15 new ships for crusher 6 at the capital and sipan. We intended to use Ecery and Sipan, but... The east has no further targets for now, and Crusher 1 is told to refuel at sipan spaceport. It will be a delay until all of crusher 6 is ready, though.
You don't just defeat a crusher fleet and expect to be around to brag about it!
As new colonies appear, we recruit and garrison 5 troops. We make an exception and recruit 5 securan troops at Dacshii 2.
2176.06.15 A ship of the savage storm league shows up at Dila 3 and is killed by the defense fleet. We think they were in this region, and may have owned this colony. Their current known spaceports are more than 2 sectors east.
2176.07.16 Joy, we start to build an armored factory at Beate. At another colony that we will never build a troop at, but it is nice to the the maintenance bill.
2176.07.18 Crusher 2 is ready and refueled, and head for the large spaceport and colony of the sinister spaceways at the western edge. This colony was triggered by our explorer finding a sleeping chamber of securans a long time ago. The colony? Crap. 65%, max pop at 3788M. With a 14% development bonus ruin.
Invasion heads to the system SE of it, where there is nothing to be had in the form of resources, and where there should be nothing to fear at all.
A ship of the Alzuk Authority at Dila as well? Why do the old crews of this area suddenly show up after so long?
2176.09.15. A tax rebellion at the new colony Firassea 4? They are unhappy about being in dhayut empire, and complaining about no resources. One will be fixed with time, the other they have to get used to. And tax rebellion? From 30M Mortalen? We are ruined! And we should have sent a dhayut colonizer.
And as the dila fleet fight more Alzuk ships...
Crusher 2 engages the spaceport at the pirate colony, and a troop transport that is present. When they are dead, two transports of invasion fleet (in the system next doors) is sent in with a mix of armor and troops. The rest of invasion back to Edop in the Mortalu system.
Battle 7 has been sitting idly at Sipan the whole time. It is told to refuel and to head to the new colony in the west to relieve Crusher 2 which has 3 damaged. We could expect some pirate visitors at a former pirate colony, right?
The pirates had no defenders, and the second transport had to unload before we could start the pirate removal battle. Once the battle starts, invasion is ordered to load troops and the leader gets new order to move to mortalu system. We assume the new troops is a significant reason why our cashflow dropped (to a scary 179K).
The new colonists at Urukablis 1 are the same whiny mortalen as at that other colony. But these are unlikely to pay significant taxes ever. Since the whiny bastards are near the latest pirate activity at Dila 3, Ecery builds 4 destroyers, 2 cruisers and 2 carriers for a defense fleet of the system.
A construction ship tries to build in the pirate system that spanked Crusher 6. And nope, the 5 remaining spaceport has not dismantled themselves. Crusher 6 has all replacement ships built, they just need to get to sipan from the capital and refuel. Crusher 1 is ready at Sipan.
The rather poor colony of Shecetare 1 at the western edge. Near the end of the pirate battle.
2177.09.24. Crusher 1 and crusher 6 have launched at the 5 pirate spaceports. We can see a pirate ship in the dila system, doing no harm at all while the defense fleet is busy refueling at sipan.
The two crusher fleets go to work. On arrival, a securan strike force tried the same. We arrive with two crusher fleets unsure if we will succeed, they try with a strike force. They left, we do actual damage.
One spaceport is down, the fleets fight hard.
As the spaceports are down, and we finish off the last pirates (a size 806 cruiser among them!), we queue a gas mine at the site to keep eyes on things.
Crusher 1 and Crusher 6 had one damaged ship between them, a crusher 1 carrier with 1 damaged armor. If a hammer does not work, bring two. Crusher 6 heads back to refuel at Sipan to hang around in the north. Crusher 1 is told to repair at Sloes Van 6 spaceport to be ready in the east. Crusher 2 is in the west heading for the capital to repair after the arrival of Battle 7.
For now we declare that our hit list is clear. As long as pirates don't put bases too close or attack, we will sit tight for a while. If they attack? We will improvise something.
This intended inactivity does not include any pirate colonies nearby...
Two pirate colonies circled.
The top one is atuuk, and controlled by Tashtur Sinika Syndicate that are not included in the diplomacy list (a bug?). A 76% resource less continental. Polymer in the system is the slightly interesting resource.
The bottom one is owned by our old friends, the Najarca Counsil. The colony has good quality (88%) and 2300M mixed population with human as the most numerous.
For now, invasion is loading troops, and we tell the fleet leader to change course for Sipan which is between the two.
There is and has been a steady spam about attack on mines built in the Tefnyl Hive regions in the very south. We don't care.
2178.03.08. Another message about spice trade with the Secura Utopia? I thought we had that. And mining rights with the Haakonish.
As the leading invasion fleet ships are closing in on Sipan, Battle 3 moves from Ecery in the north, to the pirate system on Drumond Caas a modest distance to the west.
We realize some defense fleets are missing. We build 5 cruisers and 5 destroyers for some systems. It is nice that cruisers have 1 fighter bay, meaning that 5 of them give the same fighter cover as 1 carrier. Such fleets for
Daschii (including Ecery).
Shecetare (the one we just grabbed in the SW)
Muunos Mandil and Murillea (the two in the south)
Kurillea and Sloes Van (the two in the east)
Firassea (the new colony east of Mortalu)
For now we skip fleets for Xirus near the capital and Narg near Akkuto, since they are a bit "behind the lines". Attacks will make us change our mind if they appear. The new fleets give some freedom for battle fleets to move away from somewhat exposed targets.
This is not free, and we ignore warnings about various missing resources. We are surprised about a gold warning at the capital, for instance. We see that there is almost 2500 gold reserved at the gold mining base in the capital system, so it is probably already incoming.
2178.04.22 The talfagleu army attacks a mine in our new SW system. On to the new southern hit list with them. They have a spaceport nearby, we just need a crusher fleet.
Battle 8 is heading to the other marked pirate colony as Crusher 1 appeared at Sloes Van. They started from there, moving north.
2178.05.30: A deadly plague breaks out at Shecetare 1, the new SW former pirate colony. Such good things that one bring into the empire. It moves east to the mortalen colony a sector away...
Since we discovered the fighter bay on the cruiser design we want it. We try to retrofit Crusher 1 at Sloes Van, and that could take a while. Crusher 6 do the same at Sipan. Crusher 2 will do the same when done repairing at the capital. For sipan and the capital the new orders for defense fleets will delay things a bit.
2178.06.26 Invasion at Sipan send to transports to attack Drumond Caas 3, the pirate colony in the north. There may actually be no facility here, this colony is weird.
Battle 8 arrives in Framisc Yagin, the more southern pirate colony at the same time. They find 1 military ship, 3 construction ships, and a defensive base. They jump at the construction ship furthes from the defensive base. At the same time Invasion sends two troop transports. They are some distance away, remember.
As usual, the Najarcan Constructiors are too fast without hyper deny. The defensive base appears at half shields, is it brand new? It is an easy kill, since the cruisers focus on the jumping construction ship, we get a view of fighter power demolishing the base. None of our take more than shield damage.
-44K cashflow. At least the advisors wont ask for a large spaceport anytime soon. Bonus income is good, cash at 2,4M, no worries. We notice a massive spaceport income (558K, and that we suddenly have 190+148+85 freighters. I pondered at the low freighter count, at last status: 92+71+41.
The two pirate colonies are invaded about the same time. The same distance from Sipan indeed.
There are no facilities or forces at Drumond Caas 3. A buggy pirate group, it seems.
Drumond Caas 3 has some securans, and 61M Ikurro. The first Ikurro in the empire.
Eyost is populated with an angry bunch. 893M human, 584M Atuuk, 446M Sluken, 372M Mortalen, 257M Dhayut, 50M securan. A health mix of species. They used to live happily together, now all but the Dhayut and Sluken are forced into hard labor.
Since we are -74K cashflow and have civilians go berserk with shopping creating build queues, we buy two 5 destroyer, 5 cruiser fleets for the two conquests. 55 waiting at each spaceport! Up to 213 small freighters now, it was 190 a few lines up.
We watch the warnings about shortages with some interest.
We said we would retrofit Crusher 2, but with the current build queues, we won't. We are witing for the repair of the damaged cruiser to finish. Or not, it had damaged hyperdrive, and is a sector away, that is why it never was repaired
We order a replacement cruiser, to be delivered sometime in the far future when spaceport queues are gone. And scrap the stranded ship, of course.
2179.02.11 This leaves Crusher 2 ready for work. The Talfagleu Army entered our hit list by attacking a mine in Shecetare. We notice it is a dual small spaceport setup, no surprise this time!
2179.03.29 The sinister outlaws enter the list as one ship arrives at Murillea. Their only known base is too far for now, though.
2179.06.02 Many ships and two small spaceport for Crusher 2. Maybe we won't have to retrofit 30 ships after all?
They will lose 2 ships, including one carrier that is captured.
2179.07.09 Dread Dagger Pirates raid the new colony at Narg. Diplomacy have them at 3 ships. They must be newly spawned and we regret not checking that pirates do not respawn. We start building a defensive base on top of each of the 5 new colonies. And on the 3 former pirate ones.
Of the new colonies founded, all but the one at the top has good immigration of Dhayut and Sluken, the northern is stuck at 30M.
Ships are completed, the build queues are moving nicely, but clearing 60 ship buildqueues takes a bit of time.
Crusher 2 will try to take revenge on the annoying Sinister Outlaws. This can not be their only spaceport, but we can only hit what we see. The fleet is at the top circle, Edop. They will refuel at the southern colony, before heading for the pirate base at the very bottom. It is a small spaceport. We have refueling rights with the Tefnyl Hive, which are purple, in case we struggle with the return trip. Lets just hope the Tefnyls actually have some fuel in that case. They will wait a bit at our southern colony for their replacements that will be a bit behind.
2180.05.14 Fitting for a long trip, we research improvements to our racial hyperdrive. Speed up from 23.5k to 29k. The increased fuel consumption could be less beneficial for this trip.
2180.10.10: Crusher 2 starts on its long trip south to kill a pirate spaceport of the sinister outlaws.
2181.01.10 Dread mining attack our gas mine in Murillea and enter the hit list. Too bad we have no clue where they live. These were the guys around Sloes Van that hurt so much.
Unless otherwise mentioned, attacks are by single ships or a very small fleet.
2181.03.28: Crusher 2 finds a small spaceprot that is busy with 11 waiting for construction, and 16 waiting for docking. And that has some ships flying around. Some tefnyl hive ships are also in the system. Our ships kill a lot, and take no damage but shield damage. Enough range to refuel at home? They could refuel at the capital if wanted to (but not at Sipan). They head for the southern colony, hoping for more revenge targets to appear (Dread mining? where are you?).
Economy? -136k cashflow improving, but money is not going down unless we do some major shopping. No need to panic unless money starts tropping fast.
2181.06.30 As Crusher 2 flies north after their spaceport bust, we realize they will fly right past A Talfagleu Army spaceport (small). They did enter our annoyance list showing up at that SW colony, so why not? This could make them short on fuel, due to the fighting possibly using a lot of energy...
2181.08.17 At arrival they find the spaceport damaged, and the sinister spaceways present.
We said "don't hunt pirates", but when the Fearsome Sun Clan of no annoyance is right here?
They aim for the construction ship working outside, and seems to blow up the spaceport (lower left) as an aftertought at landing. Was it shields down already? Almost dead? Now it is dead. A Talf mine on the rock to the right disappeared right away too.
They took damage on one cruiser at the first spaceport, and heads to edop for repairs. The range was maybe reduced by half a sector, but it was two short fights downing 2 spaceports.
2181.11.01 We notice that the colony north of Sloes Van, where we knew a hidden network was being built ages ago, has turned pirate. And not just any pirates, the Dread Mining. Invasion heads for Sloes Van.
Crusher 2 will retrofit at Edop space port, after having its damaged cruiser repaired.
2182.02.16: As Invasion is closing in (on Sloes Van), Crusher 1 is told to attack the pirate colony Pismimbin 1 just to the north. Attack in case there are some structures in place, but if there were we may have seen them on the long range scanner at Sloes Van 6 spaceport.
In other news? From the image we can see that the tiny, undeserving Sloes Van 6 is at least powerful enough to have it influence circle around the Securan Harmony colony down left. If we assume no slaves arrived, we have added about 1300M dhayut and 1600M Sluken since we conquered it. Current population 4154M.
As Crusher 1 as assumed find no opposition, two transports are ordered to attack.
Right after the conquest, a defensive base is ordered, and the pirate structured attacked. Poor quality, nice resources. Minor population of Dhayut and Sluken gives hope of migrants arriving, good since enslaved species does not appear to reproduce well. The system also adds a couple of fuel sources, in an area that has lots of them already. More fuel never hurts.
Invasion fleet is told to load troops, and the leader heads north to Sipan.
It is 2182.11.16, and three pirate colonies have been added.
Status
I have been a bit distracted by helping a friend getting started in the game. And motivation here took a hit, but I guess I must try get into a nice little war.
It has been a couple of days since I played, so my "annoyed" list is a bit rusty, but pirate activity has been some weirdness at Dila (not attacks, just pirates arriving maybe looking for a base destroyed 11 years ago at least), and attacks at the new SW colony, and the small southern colony of relatively newness. The "eastern area" has not been bothered, but we just took a new colony that could trigger some.
We lost our loros fruit supply. The Haakonish wants our stuff, and has both loros and zentiba fluid. The Secura Utopia has been turning spice supplies on and off at frequent intervals. Since they can't decide, maybe we should fetch some? An idea for the future. Which may be why we did the random act of sending invasion leader to Sipan.
There are no futher pirate colonies within 2 sectors of our area.
The galaxy map, with pirates, as usual.
New pirate colony added to the empire in the SW. Another of those is the northern of the 3 we got nearest the galaxy center. And a new pirate one sitting "alone" among foreign territories north of that. And a new left of the big one at the top.
New normal colonies. In the capital system. In the top, big, system. Just west of capital. East of the hub SE of capital (east of Mortalu). Just SE of the "big" colony in the NW. And the easternmost colony near Sipan (the big circle in the middle-north).
Pirates? No annoying targets are known, there is probably something unknown in the south. One corner of the galaxy looks more tidy than the other, and the tidy corner has a red presence.
The Haakonish has -30 covetion, -4 envy and -7 angry at enslavement. And they have two ultra rares. It is hard to overcome those two negatives.
Tefnyl Hive could be an ally that may drag us into wars. It is +33 with just a -4 envy on the negative side. They mostly love our heroic repuation (+21). Feeding them an ultra rare could possibly help both their mood in general, and the trade values to increase that bonus from +4.
I suck at photo editing, so no merging of two shots to get them all. I include the "low" ones (by revenue) to give some comments about the new colonies.
The capital is now at max pop. We have no major signs of lacking ultra rares (135 development is the norm).
It is clear that people migrate to enslavement, as there are 126M naxxilians at Firassea 4. Enslaved races does not grow at all. The ones we established are:
Weirujum in the capital system. 472M Sluken, 426M Dhayut. Sluken are migrating to our colonies in good numbers. 900M is not a bad number after 5-6 years.
Firassea 4 had mortalen colonizers, and only 30M mortalen are there still. 623M sluken, 216M Naxx, 110M dhayut have migrated, or been a result of the reproduction of migrants.
Xirus 3 west of the capital. 572M sluken, 388M Dhayut. Again, a large sluken migration.
Urukablis 1 east of Sipan had mortalen colonizer. 454M dhayut are the additions.
Narg 2 SE of Beate had dhayut colonizer and has 657M dhayut. Hello sluken? We got room. They are probably dissatisfied with the distance to the colony and the desert conditions.
Dachshii 2 in the very north (at Ecery) see no migration and is stuck at 30M securan.
Pismimbind 1, the latest grab, is tiny and has room for more, but will never be very profitable or large at 65%. Drumond Caas 3 could have migration issues, and won't reproduce as all are enslaved. Eyost will be nice. 609M sluken and 442M dhayut do reproduce, the 878M humans do great as forced labor.
All the ones with growth potential should do well from migration. Unless amongst the silly species of the very north.
211 cruisers are a few, them having a fighter bay is lovely. The civilians had less than half as many freighters at the last update.
After recruiting a bunch of troops and building quite a few defensive fleets for various systems, we have found our cashflow limit. But if resort income stay at 133K we have absolutely no issues at all. 2.4M is a decent buffer in any case.
The issue with negative cashflow is that the AI does not seem to build fortified bunkers.
We noticed no troops for pickup. For recruitment, any dhayut, sluken or mortalen troop are acceptable. Apart from that, the capital is the only one that can make armor and special forces. Or, Sipan 4 can make armored, but atuuks in the army? No way.
The booked are: 15 armored and 10 special forces on the capital. 6 normal troops on all colonies with dhayut/sluken/mortalen troops. 6 is the load of a transport. That leaves 5 or so colonies not recruiting, and the capital not recruiting normal troops, so about 9*6 = 54 troops. And 15 armor and 10 special forces. For pickup, when needed.
Also, about colonization, this is the left side colony list.
Lets colonize the lot.
Weirujum is in the capital system. 80%, a mining location of many a past pirate battle, and a prime spot for alien ships dropping out of some anomaly. A good prospect.
Dacshii 2 in the system of Ecery at the very north. 77%, no resources. Decent quality and prospect.
Xirus 3 a short stop west of the capital. A place on many pirate raids on mines. 71%, low-ish quality.
Narg 2 a short bit SE of Atuuko (and Beate). 80% decent, some resources.
Firassea 4 is new on the list. It has become our territory by the expansion of the Edop (and Grau) influence circles in the mortalen system. It is at the very edge of the circle, probably taken over from the mortalen capital circle with the improvements in Mortalu. Lets hope that it does not shift ownership as it orbits the star, or something.
Urukablis 1. At the very eastern edge of the Sipan circle. It is 59% and is rather crap, but in theory this OK mining system could be lost to the blue securans if either of their two colonies expand their influence circles by quite a lot. And we need something to urge pirates to crawl out of hiding in that area as well.
In an early expansion when colony ship feels empty and we are eager to expand, I would send a fleet ahead and stuff. Now we say "good luck", and consider buying some defense fleets for them once they are up. We do not bother to micro manage the race of the colonizer, it appears two will be mortalen and 1 securan.
Back to fighting
2175.03.17 and the struggle goes on. The aim is to make the empire a pirate free zone. And later, maybe to grab some more pirate colonies, but that could be quite a while.
Since we are preparing for new colonies and all, tidying our backyard would be a good idea. Again we see the pirate ships over the scanners in the capital area at the bottom. They appear to head for the targeted system in the upper left. The arrow is a single destroyer of the Atuuko defense fleet that will drive by and detect any pirate base if there. Then head back to its leader at Atuuko system.
If you are not stubborn about automation choices like I am, send a spy to steal the territory map of the pirate group in question.
Crusher 1 has refueled, and takes off towards the Najarca Council large spaceport nearby. We have seen them mess around in this area, and this is our local crew from the early days.
The destroyer found nothing. It heads off to three systems in the gas cloud just north. There are not that many options with hydrogen/caslon around. We also realize there is a caslon source (unused by us!) just outside our territory where those pirates are seen. That is maybe the answer. A destroyer of construction fleet heads there to find out. Construction fleet has been forgotten in the capital system with some frigates and destroyers.
2517.06.14 Crusher 1 finds a system with some ships, among them 1 fleet sitting a bit away from the spaceport. A construction ship appears to build a mining station. They attend to the spaceport and the ships around it. Those pink guys fought recently had about 3000 shields on their LSP, this one has 10620.
Lots of shields just means more grinding away. The spaceport at half shields. Once the station dies, they are told to jump at the construction ship, ignoring the other pirates for now.
They fail, the construction ship is too fast. We think these are dhayut pirates, and got our wonderful hyperdrives that way.
One cruiser is damaged with no hyperdrive and scrapped. As we watch it we notice it got a fighter bay. So that was what all the extra size was used for after getting larger build size? (this one is probably a new replacement cruiser, the old have not been retrofitted). Back to sloes van for repairs (one more is damaged), which also builds a replacement cruiser despite a warning about lacking osalia (the civilians should manage, right?).
No pirate bases around the NW area anywhere? What are they up to? Or possibly, where are they hiding?
2175.08.26 Crusher 6 is repaired at Ecery after their rought spaceport battle in the last part. The replacements are not yet finished at Sipan, but as we found no pirate base, they are told to move to Edop in the mortalu system. As a first step in finding action.
2175.10.02: Crusher 2 is refueled and ready, and launches towards the large spaceport of the sinister outlaws. Compared to the najarcan 10000 shields, the 4000 shields of this one looks like a breeze. They could hurt more, though.
Oh joy. We see the mortalen bust a pirate spaceport in their own capital system. A pirate group has taken over their minor colony in the system. It is our old buddies the lone dagger ravagers, who we have not seen moving since our attacks at their spaceports.
2176.01.03 Crusher 2 does not appear to struggle with their large, southern spaceport. They want to refuel at a gas mine at our nearest colony system, but we wonder. Wasn't there a pirate base just besides that one? They stop by there on the way just to check it out.
As we see Crusher 6 moving south, we notice that new pirate base south of Sipan. It appears like the system has quite a few bases of the B'cnus Network. Like we learned with the fire bandits, pirates that appear to cause no harm may attack at any moment. Better kill them while passing by.
Crusher 2 in the south finds no pirate base. Pirates killing pirates? They refuel at the gas mine in the colony system.
2176.03.07 6 or 7 small spaceports?! Crusher 6 has a surprise waiting for them. They did not expect all those bases to be at the same gas giant.
Crusher 6 took a beating, but we did manage to get them to finish off a damaged spaceport top right before leaving. 16 out of 31 ships make it back to Sipan for repairs. That is how you defend against empire fleets, good on those pirates!
After fumbling a bit we build 15 new ships for crusher 6 at the capital and sipan. We intended to use Ecery and Sipan, but... The east has no further targets for now, and Crusher 1 is told to refuel at sipan spaceport. It will be a delay until all of crusher 6 is ready, though.
You don't just defeat a crusher fleet and expect to be around to brag about it!
As new colonies appear, we recruit and garrison 5 troops. We make an exception and recruit 5 securan troops at Dacshii 2.
2176.06.15 A ship of the savage storm league shows up at Dila 3 and is killed by the defense fleet. We think they were in this region, and may have owned this colony. Their current known spaceports are more than 2 sectors east.
2176.07.16 Joy, we start to build an armored factory at Beate. At another colony that we will never build a troop at, but it is nice to the the maintenance bill.
2176.07.18 Crusher 2 is ready and refueled, and head for the large spaceport and colony of the sinister spaceways at the western edge. This colony was triggered by our explorer finding a sleeping chamber of securans a long time ago. The colony? Crap. 65%, max pop at 3788M. With a 14% development bonus ruin.
Invasion heads to the system SE of it, where there is nothing to be had in the form of resources, and where there should be nothing to fear at all.
A ship of the Alzuk Authority at Dila as well? Why do the old crews of this area suddenly show up after so long?
2176.09.15. A tax rebellion at the new colony Firassea 4? They are unhappy about being in dhayut empire, and complaining about no resources. One will be fixed with time, the other they have to get used to. And tax rebellion? From 30M Mortalen? We are ruined! And we should have sent a dhayut colonizer.
And as the dila fleet fight more Alzuk ships...
Crusher 2 engages the spaceport at the pirate colony, and a troop transport that is present. When they are dead, two transports of invasion fleet (in the system next doors) is sent in with a mix of armor and troops. The rest of invasion back to Edop in the Mortalu system.
Battle 7 has been sitting idly at Sipan the whole time. It is told to refuel and to head to the new colony in the west to relieve Crusher 2 which has 3 damaged. We could expect some pirate visitors at a former pirate colony, right?
The pirates had no defenders, and the second transport had to unload before we could start the pirate removal battle. Once the battle starts, invasion is ordered to load troops and the leader gets new order to move to mortalu system. We assume the new troops is a significant reason why our cashflow dropped (to a scary 179K).
The new colonists at Urukablis 1 are the same whiny mortalen as at that other colony. But these are unlikely to pay significant taxes ever. Since the whiny bastards are near the latest pirate activity at Dila 3, Ecery builds 4 destroyers, 2 cruisers and 2 carriers for a defense fleet of the system.
A construction ship tries to build in the pirate system that spanked Crusher 6. And nope, the 5 remaining spaceport has not dismantled themselves. Crusher 6 has all replacement ships built, they just need to get to sipan from the capital and refuel. Crusher 1 is ready at Sipan.
The rather poor colony of Shecetare 1 at the western edge. Near the end of the pirate battle.
2177.09.24. Crusher 1 and crusher 6 have launched at the 5 pirate spaceports. We can see a pirate ship in the dila system, doing no harm at all while the defense fleet is busy refueling at sipan.
The two crusher fleets go to work. On arrival, a securan strike force tried the same. We arrive with two crusher fleets unsure if we will succeed, they try with a strike force. They left, we do actual damage.
One spaceport is down, the fleets fight hard.
As the spaceports are down, and we finish off the last pirates (a size 806 cruiser among them!), we queue a gas mine at the site to keep eyes on things.
Crusher 1 and Crusher 6 had one damaged ship between them, a crusher 1 carrier with 1 damaged armor. If a hammer does not work, bring two. Crusher 6 heads back to refuel at Sipan to hang around in the north. Crusher 1 is told to repair at Sloes Van 6 spaceport to be ready in the east. Crusher 2 is in the west heading for the capital to repair after the arrival of Battle 7.
For now we declare that our hit list is clear. As long as pirates don't put bases too close or attack, we will sit tight for a while. If they attack? We will improvise something.
This intended inactivity does not include any pirate colonies nearby...
Two pirate colonies circled.
The top one is atuuk, and controlled by Tashtur Sinika Syndicate that are not included in the diplomacy list (a bug?). A 76% resource less continental. Polymer in the system is the slightly interesting resource.
The bottom one is owned by our old friends, the Najarca Counsil. The colony has good quality (88%) and 2300M mixed population with human as the most numerous.
For now, invasion is loading troops, and we tell the fleet leader to change course for Sipan which is between the two.
There is and has been a steady spam about attack on mines built in the Tefnyl Hive regions in the very south. We don't care.
2178.03.08. Another message about spice trade with the Secura Utopia? I thought we had that. And mining rights with the Haakonish.
As the leading invasion fleet ships are closing in on Sipan, Battle 3 moves from Ecery in the north, to the pirate system on Drumond Caas a modest distance to the west.
We realize some defense fleets are missing. We build 5 cruisers and 5 destroyers for some systems. It is nice that cruisers have 1 fighter bay, meaning that 5 of them give the same fighter cover as 1 carrier. Such fleets for
Daschii (including Ecery).
Shecetare (the one we just grabbed in the SW)
Muunos Mandil and Murillea (the two in the south)
Kurillea and Sloes Van (the two in the east)
Firassea (the new colony east of Mortalu)
For now we skip fleets for Xirus near the capital and Narg near Akkuto, since they are a bit "behind the lines". Attacks will make us change our mind if they appear. The new fleets give some freedom for battle fleets to move away from somewhat exposed targets.
This is not free, and we ignore warnings about various missing resources. We are surprised about a gold warning at the capital, for instance. We see that there is almost 2500 gold reserved at the gold mining base in the capital system, so it is probably already incoming.
2178.04.22 The talfagleu army attacks a mine in our new SW system. On to the new southern hit list with them. They have a spaceport nearby, we just need a crusher fleet.
Battle 8 is heading to the other marked pirate colony as Crusher 1 appeared at Sloes Van. They started from there, moving north.
2178.05.30: A deadly plague breaks out at Shecetare 1, the new SW former pirate colony. Such good things that one bring into the empire. It moves east to the mortalen colony a sector away...
Since we discovered the fighter bay on the cruiser design we want it. We try to retrofit Crusher 1 at Sloes Van, and that could take a while. Crusher 6 do the same at Sipan. Crusher 2 will do the same when done repairing at the capital. For sipan and the capital the new orders for defense fleets will delay things a bit.
2178.06.26 Invasion at Sipan send to transports to attack Drumond Caas 3, the pirate colony in the north. There may actually be no facility here, this colony is weird.
Battle 8 arrives in Framisc Yagin, the more southern pirate colony at the same time. They find 1 military ship, 3 construction ships, and a defensive base. They jump at the construction ship furthes from the defensive base. At the same time Invasion sends two troop transports. They are some distance away, remember.
As usual, the Najarcan Constructiors are too fast without hyper deny. The defensive base appears at half shields, is it brand new? It is an easy kill, since the cruisers focus on the jumping construction ship, we get a view of fighter power demolishing the base. None of our take more than shield damage.
-44K cashflow. At least the advisors wont ask for a large spaceport anytime soon. Bonus income is good, cash at 2,4M, no worries. We notice a massive spaceport income (558K, and that we suddenly have 190+148+85 freighters. I pondered at the low freighter count, at last status: 92+71+41.
The two pirate colonies are invaded about the same time. The same distance from Sipan indeed.
There are no facilities or forces at Drumond Caas 3. A buggy pirate group, it seems.
Drumond Caas 3 has some securans, and 61M Ikurro. The first Ikurro in the empire.
Eyost is populated with an angry bunch. 893M human, 584M Atuuk, 446M Sluken, 372M Mortalen, 257M Dhayut, 50M securan. A health mix of species. They used to live happily together, now all but the Dhayut and Sluken are forced into hard labor.
Since we are -74K cashflow and have civilians go berserk with shopping creating build queues, we buy two 5 destroyer, 5 cruiser fleets for the two conquests. 55 waiting at each spaceport! Up to 213 small freighters now, it was 190 a few lines up.
We watch the warnings about shortages with some interest.
We said we would retrofit Crusher 2, but with the current build queues, we won't. We are witing for the repair of the damaged cruiser to finish. Or not, it had damaged hyperdrive, and is a sector away, that is why it never was repaired
We order a replacement cruiser, to be delivered sometime in the far future when spaceport queues are gone. And scrap the stranded ship, of course.2179.02.11 This leaves Crusher 2 ready for work. The Talfagleu Army entered our hit list by attacking a mine in Shecetare. We notice it is a dual small spaceport setup, no surprise this time!
2179.03.29 The sinister outlaws enter the list as one ship arrives at Murillea. Their only known base is too far for now, though.
2179.06.02 Many ships and two small spaceport for Crusher 2. Maybe we won't have to retrofit 30 ships after all?
They will lose 2 ships, including one carrier that is captured.
2179.07.09 Dread Dagger Pirates raid the new colony at Narg. Diplomacy have them at 3 ships. They must be newly spawned and we regret not checking that pirates do not respawn. We start building a defensive base on top of each of the 5 new colonies. And on the 3 former pirate ones.
Of the new colonies founded, all but the one at the top has good immigration of Dhayut and Sluken, the northern is stuck at 30M.
Ships are completed, the build queues are moving nicely, but clearing 60 ship buildqueues takes a bit of time.
Crusher 2 will try to take revenge on the annoying Sinister Outlaws. This can not be their only spaceport, but we can only hit what we see. The fleet is at the top circle, Edop. They will refuel at the southern colony, before heading for the pirate base at the very bottom. It is a small spaceport. We have refueling rights with the Tefnyl Hive, which are purple, in case we struggle with the return trip. Lets just hope the Tefnyls actually have some fuel in that case. They will wait a bit at our southern colony for their replacements that will be a bit behind.
2180.05.14 Fitting for a long trip, we research improvements to our racial hyperdrive. Speed up from 23.5k to 29k. The increased fuel consumption could be less beneficial for this trip.
2180.10.10: Crusher 2 starts on its long trip south to kill a pirate spaceport of the sinister outlaws.
2181.01.10 Dread mining attack our gas mine in Murillea and enter the hit list. Too bad we have no clue where they live. These were the guys around Sloes Van that hurt so much.
Unless otherwise mentioned, attacks are by single ships or a very small fleet.
2181.03.28: Crusher 2 finds a small spaceprot that is busy with 11 waiting for construction, and 16 waiting for docking. And that has some ships flying around. Some tefnyl hive ships are also in the system. Our ships kill a lot, and take no damage but shield damage. Enough range to refuel at home? They could refuel at the capital if wanted to (but not at Sipan). They head for the southern colony, hoping for more revenge targets to appear (Dread mining? where are you?).
Economy? -136k cashflow improving, but money is not going down unless we do some major shopping. No need to panic unless money starts tropping fast.
2181.06.30 As Crusher 2 flies north after their spaceport bust, we realize they will fly right past A Talfagleu Army spaceport (small). They did enter our annoyance list showing up at that SW colony, so why not? This could make them short on fuel, due to the fighting possibly using a lot of energy...
2181.08.17 At arrival they find the spaceport damaged, and the sinister spaceways present.
We said "don't hunt pirates", but when the Fearsome Sun Clan of no annoyance is right here?
They aim for the construction ship working outside, and seems to blow up the spaceport (lower left) as an aftertought at landing. Was it shields down already? Almost dead? Now it is dead. A Talf mine on the rock to the right disappeared right away too.
They took damage on one cruiser at the first spaceport, and heads to edop for repairs. The range was maybe reduced by half a sector, but it was two short fights downing 2 spaceports.
2181.11.01 We notice that the colony north of Sloes Van, where we knew a hidden network was being built ages ago, has turned pirate. And not just any pirates, the Dread Mining. Invasion heads for Sloes Van.
Crusher 2 will retrofit at Edop space port, after having its damaged cruiser repaired.
2182.02.16: As Invasion is closing in (on Sloes Van), Crusher 1 is told to attack the pirate colony Pismimbin 1 just to the north. Attack in case there are some structures in place, but if there were we may have seen them on the long range scanner at Sloes Van 6 spaceport.
In other news? From the image we can see that the tiny, undeserving Sloes Van 6 is at least powerful enough to have it influence circle around the Securan Harmony colony down left. If we assume no slaves arrived, we have added about 1300M dhayut and 1600M Sluken since we conquered it. Current population 4154M.
As Crusher 1 as assumed find no opposition, two transports are ordered to attack.
Right after the conquest, a defensive base is ordered, and the pirate structured attacked. Poor quality, nice resources. Minor population of Dhayut and Sluken gives hope of migrants arriving, good since enslaved species does not appear to reproduce well. The system also adds a couple of fuel sources, in an area that has lots of them already. More fuel never hurts.
Invasion fleet is told to load troops, and the leader heads north to Sipan.
It is 2182.11.16, and three pirate colonies have been added.
Status
I have been a bit distracted by helping a friend getting started in the game. And motivation here took a hit, but I guess I must try get into a nice little war.
It has been a couple of days since I played, so my "annoyed" list is a bit rusty, but pirate activity has been some weirdness at Dila (not attacks, just pirates arriving maybe looking for a base destroyed 11 years ago at least), and attacks at the new SW colony, and the small southern colony of relatively newness. The "eastern area" has not been bothered, but we just took a new colony that could trigger some.
We lost our loros fruit supply. The Haakonish wants our stuff, and has both loros and zentiba fluid. The Secura Utopia has been turning spice supplies on and off at frequent intervals. Since they can't decide, maybe we should fetch some? An idea for the future. Which may be why we did the random act of sending invasion leader to Sipan.
There are no futher pirate colonies within 2 sectors of our area.
The galaxy map, with pirates, as usual.
New pirate colony added to the empire in the SW. Another of those is the northern of the 3 we got nearest the galaxy center. And a new pirate one sitting "alone" among foreign territories north of that. And a new left of the big one at the top.
New normal colonies. In the capital system. In the top, big, system. Just west of capital. East of the hub SE of capital (east of Mortalu). Just SE of the "big" colony in the NW. And the easternmost colony near Sipan (the big circle in the middle-north).
Pirates? No annoying targets are known, there is probably something unknown in the south. One corner of the galaxy looks more tidy than the other, and the tidy corner has a red presence.
The Haakonish has -30 covetion, -4 envy and -7 angry at enslavement. And they have two ultra rares. It is hard to overcome those two negatives.
Tefnyl Hive could be an ally that may drag us into wars. It is +33 with just a -4 envy on the negative side. They mostly love our heroic repuation (+21). Feeding them an ultra rare could possibly help both their mood in general, and the trade values to increase that bonus from +4.
I suck at photo editing, so no merging of two shots to get them all. I include the "low" ones (by revenue) to give some comments about the new colonies.
The capital is now at max pop. We have no major signs of lacking ultra rares (135 development is the norm).
It is clear that people migrate to enslavement, as there are 126M naxxilians at Firassea 4. Enslaved races does not grow at all. The ones we established are:
Weirujum in the capital system. 472M Sluken, 426M Dhayut. Sluken are migrating to our colonies in good numbers. 900M is not a bad number after 5-6 years.
Firassea 4 had mortalen colonizers, and only 30M mortalen are there still. 623M sluken, 216M Naxx, 110M dhayut have migrated, or been a result of the reproduction of migrants.
Xirus 3 west of the capital. 572M sluken, 388M Dhayut. Again, a large sluken migration.
Urukablis 1 east of Sipan had mortalen colonizer. 454M dhayut are the additions.
Narg 2 SE of Beate had dhayut colonizer and has 657M dhayut. Hello sluken? We got room. They are probably dissatisfied with the distance to the colony and the desert conditions.
Dachshii 2 in the very north (at Ecery) see no migration and is stuck at 30M securan.
Pismimbind 1, the latest grab, is tiny and has room for more, but will never be very profitable or large at 65%. Drumond Caas 3 could have migration issues, and won't reproduce as all are enslaved. Eyost will be nice. 609M sluken and 442M dhayut do reproduce, the 878M humans do great as forced labor.
All the ones with growth potential should do well from migration. Unless amongst the silly species of the very north.
211 cruisers are a few, them having a fighter bay is lovely. The civilians had less than half as many freighters at the last update.
After recruiting a bunch of troops and building quite a few defensive fleets for various systems, we have found our cashflow limit. But if resort income stay at 133K we have absolutely no issues at all. 2.4M is a decent buffer in any case.
The issue with negative cashflow is that the AI does not seem to build fortified bunkers.
RE: Universe: A shadows era AAR with some automation
Plotting
If we are to get into a nice little war, it seems to have to declare it ourselves. Generally I am more fond of being declared war upon. Among other things, when not being prepared it is easier to forgive some less than optimal deployment.
Why am I a bit bored? With victory conditions on I would probably have "won" at this time. Why did they not declare war? Our heroic reputation gives a positive boost with all of them, it is a consequence of battling pirates. Most have that kind of reputations, but the Sluken has managed to get "dubious". Good on them. Not all are very high, but the Securan Harmony (with way of the ancients) are the only other below "normal", they are also dubious.
Two images that may help explain why I doubt anyone will declare war, at least without me being at war. They are reduced to 50% size and not meant to be very readable...
Strategic value, the overall measure of power, probably in a non-military sense. I have not bothered to figure out the formula, but probably some economy, population, that kind of stuff.
We are those red guys at the top. The 3 that follow are the Haakonish Industries, Tefnyl Hive, and Free Talfagleu Utopia. The Atuuk and Quameno are the ones struggling, in addition to the former independents. Oh, and the human empire at the very bottom may or may have been an original one, but if they are, they seem to lack a proper capital world (they could have lost it).
This is the military strength. Familiar faces at the top, the following ones are the Haakonish Industries and Free Talfagleu Utopia. An empire like the Mortalen looked "middle pack" in strategic value, but is very weak in military.
So, for plotting. Good things to achieve are ultra rares, expanded borders, and a "bigger red blob". I prefer not to hunt the very good worlds too hard, since I end up like I am now. Too powerful. I rather grab them when it makes sense due to the criteria above. I may stay off the ultra rares too, but not now.
The shot is the top left 8x8 of the galaxy. There are two more sectors at the bottom and at the right. Yellow circles are the 3 sources of ultra rares. The pink circles show my most important colonies to keep due to taxes and one case of strategic consideration.
The logical target is the closest ultra rare of the Secura Utopia. For now, I ignore their two current wars, I look at the alliances. This is seen by clicking them in the diplomacy list. Their most important ally is the Free Talfagleu Utopia. The light blue of the north. The second is the Mortalen Empire. Our struggling next doors neighbors. The third is the Naxxilian Authorithy, that live straight south of the southern colonies. We are not about to declare war right now, so this could of course change. I would prefer them to not be occupied elsewhere when I declare war.
Would the allies come? I am not convinced. We look very scary next to them. The mortalen has 6418 military strength, the naxx 9511. The Crusher 1 and 6 fleets that are done with retrofits? 6216 each.
General danger in the south? Tefnyl Hive are the strong ones, but they are our buddies. To the east? The haakonish, but they are 3 sectors away with their major colonies. South east? Ackdar and Ugnar, but they are not any closer.
The pink circles are our most valuable colonies. The top one, Ecery, is securan majority. It could get very angry in case of war with a securan empire, but the securan has a good bonus to happiness.
The Secura Utopia themselves are not very close either. If the Free Talfagleu Utopia join, they are the main challenge. And may have the best secondary targets.
But first. Retrofit all battle fleets, deploy them to protect key northern targets. Keep some south. Buy some more troop transports, load more troops, and keep some transports in the south. Invasion has left troops at a couple of recent conquests, the capital has some recruited armored troops and special forces, other colonies have normal troops to spare. All colonies should have 5 troops garrisoned, apart from maybe one or two with 4. Some have 10 or so (the more valuable ones).
Action
We order all 6 battle fleets to retrofit. Crusher 2 is still not complete with its retrofit. We order 10 troop transports, to buff the number to 25. 4 new transport to invasion, 6 to a new invasion 2. 1 destroyer from construction fleet to be fleet leader of invasion 2.
The invasion 2 leader is told to move to the Gundur system, which is north of Muunos Mandil where the southern valuable colony is. Why? Because I don't want my troop transports to hang around in systems where enemies may arrive. I don't want them to end up in combat. Invasion is already loading troops with leader heading for Sipan (the valuable that is second from the north). They will not sit here when we declare war, they may need to retrofit and refuel after loading troops. And we need time to build and load the new transports.
I target all the system defense fleets and tell them to move to the colony in the system. So that they will move with it. Before this they may have been distracted by enemy presence. Crusher 1 is sent north to the colony nearest the intended target. Crusher 6 is already at Sipan. Crusher 2 is retrofitting at edop (circled as the second from the south), and will probably remain in that general area.
A pirate arriving at the latest conquest pismimbin reminds us there is no defensive fleet. The defensive base is not complete, a troop transport loading there takes some armor damage and chases it away. We book 5 destroyers and 5 cruisers for a protection fleet at the nearby Sloes Van 6 spaceport. The battle fleet that was there left to retrofit.
An adviser want to colonize ocean stuff with our new Ackadrian. All ocean planets available are at "home" and with quality in the 60s. And would our lovely dhayut and sluken want to move there anyways? No colonization now, at least.
We can see the 68th Taffy fleet at the Atuuk capital. They are at war. It has 11 ships, with 1 cruiser and smaller ships. They don't exactly look very scary compared to our 10 ship defense fleets with 5 cruisers and 5 destroyers. The "older" colonies got less powerful fleets, though, but the good ones will have battle fleet presence.
2183.07.19. All new troop transports are built and refueled. Both invasion fleets are ordered to load troops. They may not end up full since locations may lack enough troops (and they will visit only one) but we could always load again later. Battle fleets are still retrofitting with one exception.
Pro tip: If you are to make a new invasion fleet and recruit a new leader. Do make him leader before sending him south to be the homing beacon for the rest of the fleet. The Invasion 2 fleet marker was spotted NW of Sipan...
We spot the 4th Secura Utopia fleet on scanner at Sloes Van 6 spaceport. 15 ships, 6 cruisers 1 carrier.
Battle fleets are in position and with decent fuel. Invasion fleet has some members with refuel and load orders. Invasion 2 has 24 inf and 4 special forces, a less than optimal offensive distribution (no armor), but a nice defensive one. They need some fuel and stuff. Troop transports are still not quite where they should be.
Deployments:
Crusher 1 is at the colony east of Sipan, nearest the intended target colony.
Crusher 2 is at the Mortalen system. Second circled colony from the south. Prepared for anything.
Crusher 6 is at Sipan. Prepared for a northern target.
Battle 3 is at Ecery, the northern valuable colony.
Battle 4 is at Astemai, the southern valuable colony.
Battle 5 is at Eyost. The colony sitting between foreign ones a bit SE of Sipan.
Battle 7 is at Sipan.
Battle 8 is at Sloes Van, the eastern (southern) spaceport.
Battle 9 is at Beate, the NW circled colony.
Invasion fleet is on the way to a gas mine near Crusher 1's system. Invasion 2 is scattered across the south after loading troops. The leader will draw them north of Astemai.
The capital system? 34 ships of the defense fleet, a former temporary fleet and construction fleet. 2 alien capital ships, frigates and destroyers.
More or less fleet presence in all colony systems outside these ones. If the whole galaxy jump us we could probably manage...
We figure that trying to find Secura Utopia with no war may be a challenge. They have the same defense pacts, and are at war with Qilla Domain (far east) and the Securan Harmony (orange in the north/middle). Their powerful ally the Free Talfagleu Utopia are at war with the Grand Atuuk Territory (NW) and the Haakonish Industries (large, light brown, east-center).
This does not really look all that difficult.
The first Secura Utopia War
2184.06.18: We declare war. The Ackdarian Sovereignty declare war on us. Worried? They got a tiny military and 1 colony in the far SE. Not even in the status shot at the top.
We notice -10 happiness at Ecery for being at war with Securans. The -26 for tax level give some room for the AI to sort that out. Shecetare 1, the SW colony is also securan with -10. They have -24 taxes to compensate with.
We suggest peace with the Ackdarians. They refuse. We could go destroy some stuff to make them more eager for peace, but considering where they are? No, at least not without resupply ships.
Crusher 1 is told to attack the spaceport in the system. It is medium. There are two colonies there, some mining bases, and some ships. Invasion can be seen left of Crusher, heading for one of the two gas mines seen SW of the crusher location.
They have a regional capital seen in the top right near some pirate flags. The capital system is just off the image top right, hard to see in dark blue, but the trade line heads there from that regional capital. For now, we just hit our chosen target system.
Do we sense some desperation? Hello? We just declared war?
2184.07.16: Crusher 1 launches at the spaceport. A strike fleet with some cruisers and a carrier is present. We realize that there are indeed two colonies here, and that blockading both with 1 fleet will be awkward at best. Crusher 6, at Sipan a bit west, is told to blockade the other one. We also tell invasion to move to the colony that is under assault by Crusher 1.
There are 3 and 2 defensive troops on the colonies, and there is a pirate raid ongoing at the other colony. The one that is the korabbian spice source. There is a savage storm hidden facility on the one we are focusing on. Pro pirate defenses by a somewhat powerful AI empire!
Did I mention that crusers have a fighter bay? And the carriers 5? The Crushers has 25 cruisers and 6 carriers, deploying 220 fighters. They do hurt. This battle is not harder than the average large pirate spaceport. As the spaceport dies and the fighter swarm hunts down the last ships nearby, we order crusher 1 to blockade the colony (Ihoarbuz). The fleet members jump around hunting other targets in the system (civilians, mining bases).
The reason I blockade, is that I hate transports sneaking in to strengthen defenses during battle. Unless they are mine, of course. A warning about a cruiser attacked by a pirate? Yes, in the Crusher 1 system. The Securans had everything under control.
2184.09.15. Invasion has arrived, Crusher 6 is very close to arriving at the other colony. Two transports with 11 infantry and 1 armor attack Ihoarbuz. They ought to manage the two defenders and later to kill the hidden pirate base (that is not the full strength of pirates at a pirate colony).
There is a sand slug on the spice colony, a feature of the spice being there. Crusher 6 arrives, and two transport attack, one with 6 troops. We want to leave a garrison of normal troops behind. And we need to take care of those sand slugs that are appearing.
2184.09.26 Sinister spaceways try to raid Dhayu 3, our formerly very raided colony in the south (raided during our 3 colony days). The 10 ship frigate and destroyer defense fleet of the past is not quite up to the task, this is a decent fleet attacking. They get away with tech and resources.
Crusher 2 was at edop ready for whatever, we thought maybe some Naxxilian busting or something if they dared to attack. They launch at the Sinisert Spaceways large spaceport. They have a small one near down there as well.
Distractions! How rude of them. Did they have time to call this attack after war started and tries to exploit our war status? Dhayu 3 has not been attacked for ages, and Murillea (our southern one) could be a more logical target (and has seen visitors). Not to mention the SW one we took from them not too long ago.
Our two ongoing invasions have more than 10 times the defense strength of the colonies. And Invasion fleet still has 2141K strenght loaded with 28 inf, 29 armor and an unknown number of special forces (they do not fit in the selection panel).
2184.10.12 Kal-Setu 3 is the first to fall. 72% quality is not awful, the population is low, but it is our own desert kind of world, so maybe some dhayut could be convinced to move in?
We garrison the 7 normal troops that dropped. It is a freaking spice source, of course we will defend it! We start to build a medium space port. We need to meet the transports in style, and to kill the slugs that will spawn (and hopefully not eat the spaceport before it can defend itself). Two crusher fleets could interrupt the slugs for now, anyways.
2184.11.15 A war between the Atuuks and the Free Taffy Utopia ends. We are not very worried, and if the Taffy's attack we are happy to see that their western regional capital system is no longer contested with the Atuuks owning the minor colony there.
Why is not Ihoarbuz taken? Magic? We have no troops on the ground, the two defenders are there. There was a pirate attack warning, did a pirate land and our troops were teleported to the transports or something? We again locate two transports with a good number of normal troops.
2184.11.23 An escort of the sinister outlaws tried to raid the spice colony. The colony was alone for the moment, and we can see what responded. The explosion of the pirate being vaporized can be seen in the right part of the circle.
Hm, should we move for the regional capital a bit east, or not? Details on the target are scetchy at best, apart from two colonies and some mines being in the system. Large spaceport? 4 defensive bases? How strong are the crushers compared to colony defenses? We tell crusher 6 (with more fuel) to attack the regional capital. Attention must be paid to order them to attack when they land. Attacking the smaller colony could lead to single ships jumping at some major colonies defenses at the other colony.
We can see the arrow for Crusher 6 taking off. We can also see the full extent of the enemy empire. Notice the two dark red pirate colonies at the top center of the image.
2184.12.15 We have taken control of Ihoarbuz which makes the whole system ours. Not great, 68%, a 12% development bonus from ruins. Some strategic resources. But it is in the system of the spice source, we like it! There are probably room for more population? Securan and a few atuuk are also there.
2184.12.22 Plague at the minor colony in the Free Taffy Utopia capital system (north of where we operate). That won't help them if it jumps to the capital colony, and please keep it local. They breed like rabbits, though, and can probably replace lost population fast.
The curse of the game, and of an AAR writing in particular. Crushers 2 and 6 will reach their targets at pretty much the same time. Sequential reporting, even if it happens at once, maybe?
2185.02.01 Battle 2 is a bit ahead and is first at their target. A few ships are present, and they are told to target the construction ship (we hate pirate construction ships). The spaceport? 774 firepower, 4800 probably fast recharging shield.
The construction ship is dead, they blast away at the spaceport, which is already down to 3000 shields. Crusher 6 is close to its target, and we figure that these guys manage the task.
As the spaceport blows, they have 3 damaged cruisers with 8, 17, 29 damaged modules. All are able to jump.
2185.02.14 When crusher 6 are close, we spot the contents of the system. Mining bases, a large spaceport, a strike fleet. The large spaceport has 3340 firepower. Ouch. And 7525 shields.
Our own large spaceports are 1560 firepower and 8385 shields.
We got a torpedo upgrade recently, Crusher 6 is up to 8724 firepower like the other crushers. Battle fleets are at 4920.
2185.02.24. As we fire at the spaceport above the regional capital of Gurqi 3, the securans ask for peace. We did not hear that, we got 222K negative cashflow and 11128M securans with a regional capital would do quite nicely.
As the cruisers close in for some proper shots, the spaceport is already down to about 1500 shields.
It does not take long for the spaceport to explode. With two moderately damaged (cruiser and carrier), Crusher 6 launches at the defensive base of the other colony, with a queued order to blockade the regional capital of Gurqi 3. Invasion is told to load troops, and the leader heads for Gurqi 3 (and hope the full ones follow). Gurqi 3 has about 10 troops, no fortification, and 254K strength. The other colony has only a small garrison.
The defensive base is way weaker than a large spaceport. It is at 2725/3440 shields after having only met a few stray torpedoes and the fighters of Crusher 6. It is dead before a cruiser has had time to get close.
We notice that the leader of invasion is flying alone, and order the whole fleet to move to Gurqi 3. Crusher 6 has moved in to blockade it. They will proceed to blow up mining bases on their own initiative.
A fleet of the securan harmony appear to shoot at civilians at the minor colony in the system. Won't they dare invade anything. Uh, Oh, troop transports taking aim.
Should have sent two fleet to blockade them both. They will grab the minor colony, lets make them unhappy by being near a superior one!
After having been a bit forgotten, Crusher 2 heads off to bust the small sinister spaceways spaceport as well.
When a "region grab" on the map shows 43 troops in the Gurqi system, invasion is told to attack Gurqi 3. After a short while 357K vs 1775K (+10% planet type, +25% armored breakthrough, +25% special operations, +25% spacecontrol). We notice our attack strength at about 4k as more of our troops arrive. The detailed battle report is large and annoying to show, thus no image of it.
2185.09.05 We steal the operations map of our ackdarian enemies. They are not _that_ far away from the Sloes Van 6 spaceport, and will soon attack a mine of ours in the SE with a 1 frigate fleet. Scary! We propose peace, they agree.
2185.09.09 Gurqi3 is ours. The best thing is that it is a regional capital, which removes corruption. If we had a great nearby colony it would help that as well. Gurqi 5 that the Securan Harmony took is better at 83%, but only 1800M population. Being a frontier colony and all, we garrison 9 normal troops and order a defensive base on top of it.
We could probably easily take all of this empire, but for now, we are satisfied. We propose peace, and they agree.
We start to trade spice with the Tefnyl Hive.
Both northern crusher fleets have a few ships damaged. Battle 7 from Sipan head to Kal Setu, Battle 3 from Ecery heads for Gurqi 3. When there, the crushers can repair at Sipan.
Crusher 2 is in the south, sitting at a gas giant with no pirate base, but with many civilian ships, hinting that maybe a small spaceport was here quite recently. They are told to repair (will go to edop).
We notice that we are Noble. What a bunch of good guys we are!
Alzuk Authority are at Gurqi with carriers. We have some pirate work to do up north after moving a bit east, and the pirates live very close to this colony. We discover that we only got transports in the system after accidentally telling crusher 6 to repair prematurely. The invasion ships are sent away.
Some new tech, including larger troop modules. We need to retrofit again.
Savage Storm League are at Kal Setu (where they die to Crusher 1). So many spaceports to bust. The north-eastern annoyance list is getting populated.
Sinister Outlaws at Murillea in the south. They have a large spaceport just outside Gurqi (and are there as well), but we miss at least something in the south that they launched that attack from.
Battle 3 arrive at Gurqi to chase the Alzuk away as they fire on our defensive base build. And they kill the sinister outlaws constructor trying to set up a spaceport in the system.
It is 2186.02.09, and we are at peace, with pirate bases to bust.
Status
Now, that was hard. I guess I may clean up the NW, the Atuuk and the Taffys. That should prove the point that this game is over. Cashflow is worse than ever, and cash is down a bit, but taxes should go up after the small war tiredness and annoyance of fighting the securan. Gurqi 3 needs to clear a -18 from being recently invaded.
Pirate bases highlighted. We can see the additions in the north east. The annoying pirates have the 5 bases closest to our new NE outpost. The dark brown circle in the lower right are the mighty allies we had a war with.
They don't like us all that much. It reminds us to trade spice with the yellow sluken empire too.
Gurqi 3 is not bad, and will have higher tax percentage once the disappointment over conquest is overcome. The other two are far down, but the spice world makes it a great system. We are not trading spice with many empires (for a lot of trade income), but at least we got our own supply.
Lots and lots.
Colony revenue was 864K, we are down. Money is down by 300k. If war is the reason for the drop, the AI should recover and adjust taxes. Beate is down 2% in tax, for instance.
Changes in colony governors could also make the tax income go down.
If we are to get into a nice little war, it seems to have to declare it ourselves. Generally I am more fond of being declared war upon. Among other things, when not being prepared it is easier to forgive some less than optimal deployment.
Why am I a bit bored? With victory conditions on I would probably have "won" at this time. Why did they not declare war? Our heroic reputation gives a positive boost with all of them, it is a consequence of battling pirates. Most have that kind of reputations, but the Sluken has managed to get "dubious". Good on them. Not all are very high, but the Securan Harmony (with way of the ancients) are the only other below "normal", they are also dubious.
Two images that may help explain why I doubt anyone will declare war, at least without me being at war. They are reduced to 50% size and not meant to be very readable...
Strategic value, the overall measure of power, probably in a non-military sense. I have not bothered to figure out the formula, but probably some economy, population, that kind of stuff.
We are those red guys at the top. The 3 that follow are the Haakonish Industries, Tefnyl Hive, and Free Talfagleu Utopia. The Atuuk and Quameno are the ones struggling, in addition to the former independents. Oh, and the human empire at the very bottom may or may have been an original one, but if they are, they seem to lack a proper capital world (they could have lost it).
This is the military strength. Familiar faces at the top, the following ones are the Haakonish Industries and Free Talfagleu Utopia. An empire like the Mortalen looked "middle pack" in strategic value, but is very weak in military.
So, for plotting. Good things to achieve are ultra rares, expanded borders, and a "bigger red blob". I prefer not to hunt the very good worlds too hard, since I end up like I am now. Too powerful. I rather grab them when it makes sense due to the criteria above. I may stay off the ultra rares too, but not now.
The shot is the top left 8x8 of the galaxy. There are two more sectors at the bottom and at the right. Yellow circles are the 3 sources of ultra rares. The pink circles show my most important colonies to keep due to taxes and one case of strategic consideration.
The logical target is the closest ultra rare of the Secura Utopia. For now, I ignore their two current wars, I look at the alliances. This is seen by clicking them in the diplomacy list. Their most important ally is the Free Talfagleu Utopia. The light blue of the north. The second is the Mortalen Empire. Our struggling next doors neighbors. The third is the Naxxilian Authorithy, that live straight south of the southern colonies. We are not about to declare war right now, so this could of course change. I would prefer them to not be occupied elsewhere when I declare war.
Would the allies come? I am not convinced. We look very scary next to them. The mortalen has 6418 military strength, the naxx 9511. The Crusher 1 and 6 fleets that are done with retrofits? 6216 each.
General danger in the south? Tefnyl Hive are the strong ones, but they are our buddies. To the east? The haakonish, but they are 3 sectors away with their major colonies. South east? Ackdar and Ugnar, but they are not any closer.
The pink circles are our most valuable colonies. The top one, Ecery, is securan majority. It could get very angry in case of war with a securan empire, but the securan has a good bonus to happiness.
The Secura Utopia themselves are not very close either. If the Free Talfagleu Utopia join, they are the main challenge. And may have the best secondary targets.
But first. Retrofit all battle fleets, deploy them to protect key northern targets. Keep some south. Buy some more troop transports, load more troops, and keep some transports in the south. Invasion has left troops at a couple of recent conquests, the capital has some recruited armored troops and special forces, other colonies have normal troops to spare. All colonies should have 5 troops garrisoned, apart from maybe one or two with 4. Some have 10 or so (the more valuable ones).
Action
We order all 6 battle fleets to retrofit. Crusher 2 is still not complete with its retrofit. We order 10 troop transports, to buff the number to 25. 4 new transport to invasion, 6 to a new invasion 2. 1 destroyer from construction fleet to be fleet leader of invasion 2.
The invasion 2 leader is told to move to the Gundur system, which is north of Muunos Mandil where the southern valuable colony is. Why? Because I don't want my troop transports to hang around in systems where enemies may arrive. I don't want them to end up in combat. Invasion is already loading troops with leader heading for Sipan (the valuable that is second from the north). They will not sit here when we declare war, they may need to retrofit and refuel after loading troops. And we need time to build and load the new transports.
I target all the system defense fleets and tell them to move to the colony in the system. So that they will move with it. Before this they may have been distracted by enemy presence. Crusher 1 is sent north to the colony nearest the intended target. Crusher 6 is already at Sipan. Crusher 2 is retrofitting at edop (circled as the second from the south), and will probably remain in that general area.
A pirate arriving at the latest conquest pismimbin reminds us there is no defensive fleet. The defensive base is not complete, a troop transport loading there takes some armor damage and chases it away. We book 5 destroyers and 5 cruisers for a protection fleet at the nearby Sloes Van 6 spaceport. The battle fleet that was there left to retrofit.
An adviser want to colonize ocean stuff with our new Ackadrian. All ocean planets available are at "home" and with quality in the 60s. And would our lovely dhayut and sluken want to move there anyways? No colonization now, at least.
We can see the 68th Taffy fleet at the Atuuk capital. They are at war. It has 11 ships, with 1 cruiser and smaller ships. They don't exactly look very scary compared to our 10 ship defense fleets with 5 cruisers and 5 destroyers. The "older" colonies got less powerful fleets, though, but the good ones will have battle fleet presence.
2183.07.19. All new troop transports are built and refueled. Both invasion fleets are ordered to load troops. They may not end up full since locations may lack enough troops (and they will visit only one) but we could always load again later. Battle fleets are still retrofitting with one exception.
Pro tip: If you are to make a new invasion fleet and recruit a new leader. Do make him leader before sending him south to be the homing beacon for the rest of the fleet. The Invasion 2 fleet marker was spotted NW of Sipan...
We spot the 4th Secura Utopia fleet on scanner at Sloes Van 6 spaceport. 15 ships, 6 cruisers 1 carrier.
Battle fleets are in position and with decent fuel. Invasion fleet has some members with refuel and load orders. Invasion 2 has 24 inf and 4 special forces, a less than optimal offensive distribution (no armor), but a nice defensive one. They need some fuel and stuff. Troop transports are still not quite where they should be.
Deployments:
Crusher 1 is at the colony east of Sipan, nearest the intended target colony.
Crusher 2 is at the Mortalen system. Second circled colony from the south. Prepared for anything.
Crusher 6 is at Sipan. Prepared for a northern target.
Battle 3 is at Ecery, the northern valuable colony.
Battle 4 is at Astemai, the southern valuable colony.
Battle 5 is at Eyost. The colony sitting between foreign ones a bit SE of Sipan.
Battle 7 is at Sipan.
Battle 8 is at Sloes Van, the eastern (southern) spaceport.
Battle 9 is at Beate, the NW circled colony.
Invasion fleet is on the way to a gas mine near Crusher 1's system. Invasion 2 is scattered across the south after loading troops. The leader will draw them north of Astemai.
The capital system? 34 ships of the defense fleet, a former temporary fleet and construction fleet. 2 alien capital ships, frigates and destroyers.
More or less fleet presence in all colony systems outside these ones. If the whole galaxy jump us we could probably manage...
We figure that trying to find Secura Utopia with no war may be a challenge. They have the same defense pacts, and are at war with Qilla Domain (far east) and the Securan Harmony (orange in the north/middle). Their powerful ally the Free Talfagleu Utopia are at war with the Grand Atuuk Territory (NW) and the Haakonish Industries (large, light brown, east-center).
This does not really look all that difficult.
The first Secura Utopia War
2184.06.18: We declare war. The Ackdarian Sovereignty declare war on us. Worried? They got a tiny military and 1 colony in the far SE. Not even in the status shot at the top.
We notice -10 happiness at Ecery for being at war with Securans. The -26 for tax level give some room for the AI to sort that out. Shecetare 1, the SW colony is also securan with -10. They have -24 taxes to compensate with.
We suggest peace with the Ackdarians. They refuse. We could go destroy some stuff to make them more eager for peace, but considering where they are? No, at least not without resupply ships.
Crusher 1 is told to attack the spaceport in the system. It is medium. There are two colonies there, some mining bases, and some ships. Invasion can be seen left of Crusher, heading for one of the two gas mines seen SW of the crusher location.
They have a regional capital seen in the top right near some pirate flags. The capital system is just off the image top right, hard to see in dark blue, but the trade line heads there from that regional capital. For now, we just hit our chosen target system.
Do we sense some desperation? Hello? We just declared war?
2184.07.16: Crusher 1 launches at the spaceport. A strike fleet with some cruisers and a carrier is present. We realize that there are indeed two colonies here, and that blockading both with 1 fleet will be awkward at best. Crusher 6, at Sipan a bit west, is told to blockade the other one. We also tell invasion to move to the colony that is under assault by Crusher 1.
There are 3 and 2 defensive troops on the colonies, and there is a pirate raid ongoing at the other colony. The one that is the korabbian spice source. There is a savage storm hidden facility on the one we are focusing on. Pro pirate defenses by a somewhat powerful AI empire!
Did I mention that crusers have a fighter bay? And the carriers 5? The Crushers has 25 cruisers and 6 carriers, deploying 220 fighters. They do hurt. This battle is not harder than the average large pirate spaceport. As the spaceport dies and the fighter swarm hunts down the last ships nearby, we order crusher 1 to blockade the colony (Ihoarbuz). The fleet members jump around hunting other targets in the system (civilians, mining bases).
The reason I blockade, is that I hate transports sneaking in to strengthen defenses during battle. Unless they are mine, of course. A warning about a cruiser attacked by a pirate? Yes, in the Crusher 1 system. The Securans had everything under control.
2184.09.15. Invasion has arrived, Crusher 6 is very close to arriving at the other colony. Two transports with 11 infantry and 1 armor attack Ihoarbuz. They ought to manage the two defenders and later to kill the hidden pirate base (that is not the full strength of pirates at a pirate colony).
There is a sand slug on the spice colony, a feature of the spice being there. Crusher 6 arrives, and two transport attack, one with 6 troops. We want to leave a garrison of normal troops behind. And we need to take care of those sand slugs that are appearing.
2184.09.26 Sinister spaceways try to raid Dhayu 3, our formerly very raided colony in the south (raided during our 3 colony days). The 10 ship frigate and destroyer defense fleet of the past is not quite up to the task, this is a decent fleet attacking. They get away with tech and resources.
Crusher 2 was at edop ready for whatever, we thought maybe some Naxxilian busting or something if they dared to attack. They launch at the Sinisert Spaceways large spaceport. They have a small one near down there as well.
Distractions! How rude of them. Did they have time to call this attack after war started and tries to exploit our war status? Dhayu 3 has not been attacked for ages, and Murillea (our southern one) could be a more logical target (and has seen visitors). Not to mention the SW one we took from them not too long ago.
Our two ongoing invasions have more than 10 times the defense strength of the colonies. And Invasion fleet still has 2141K strenght loaded with 28 inf, 29 armor and an unknown number of special forces (they do not fit in the selection panel).
2184.10.12 Kal-Setu 3 is the first to fall. 72% quality is not awful, the population is low, but it is our own desert kind of world, so maybe some dhayut could be convinced to move in?
We garrison the 7 normal troops that dropped. It is a freaking spice source, of course we will defend it! We start to build a medium space port. We need to meet the transports in style, and to kill the slugs that will spawn (and hopefully not eat the spaceport before it can defend itself). Two crusher fleets could interrupt the slugs for now, anyways.
2184.11.15 A war between the Atuuks and the Free Taffy Utopia ends. We are not very worried, and if the Taffy's attack we are happy to see that their western regional capital system is no longer contested with the Atuuks owning the minor colony there.
Why is not Ihoarbuz taken? Magic? We have no troops on the ground, the two defenders are there. There was a pirate attack warning, did a pirate land and our troops were teleported to the transports or something? We again locate two transports with a good number of normal troops.
2184.11.23 An escort of the sinister outlaws tried to raid the spice colony. The colony was alone for the moment, and we can see what responded. The explosion of the pirate being vaporized can be seen in the right part of the circle.
Hm, should we move for the regional capital a bit east, or not? Details on the target are scetchy at best, apart from two colonies and some mines being in the system. Large spaceport? 4 defensive bases? How strong are the crushers compared to colony defenses? We tell crusher 6 (with more fuel) to attack the regional capital. Attention must be paid to order them to attack when they land. Attacking the smaller colony could lead to single ships jumping at some major colonies defenses at the other colony.
We can see the arrow for Crusher 6 taking off. We can also see the full extent of the enemy empire. Notice the two dark red pirate colonies at the top center of the image.
2184.12.15 We have taken control of Ihoarbuz which makes the whole system ours. Not great, 68%, a 12% development bonus from ruins. Some strategic resources. But it is in the system of the spice source, we like it! There are probably room for more population? Securan and a few atuuk are also there.
2184.12.22 Plague at the minor colony in the Free Taffy Utopia capital system (north of where we operate). That won't help them if it jumps to the capital colony, and please keep it local. They breed like rabbits, though, and can probably replace lost population fast.
The curse of the game, and of an AAR writing in particular. Crushers 2 and 6 will reach their targets at pretty much the same time. Sequential reporting, even if it happens at once, maybe?
2185.02.01 Battle 2 is a bit ahead and is first at their target. A few ships are present, and they are told to target the construction ship (we hate pirate construction ships). The spaceport? 774 firepower, 4800 probably fast recharging shield.
The construction ship is dead, they blast away at the spaceport, which is already down to 3000 shields. Crusher 6 is close to its target, and we figure that these guys manage the task.
As the spaceport blows, they have 3 damaged cruisers with 8, 17, 29 damaged modules. All are able to jump.
2185.02.14 When crusher 6 are close, we spot the contents of the system. Mining bases, a large spaceport, a strike fleet. The large spaceport has 3340 firepower. Ouch. And 7525 shields.
Our own large spaceports are 1560 firepower and 8385 shields.
We got a torpedo upgrade recently, Crusher 6 is up to 8724 firepower like the other crushers. Battle fleets are at 4920.
2185.02.24. As we fire at the spaceport above the regional capital of Gurqi 3, the securans ask for peace. We did not hear that, we got 222K negative cashflow and 11128M securans with a regional capital would do quite nicely.
As the cruisers close in for some proper shots, the spaceport is already down to about 1500 shields.
It does not take long for the spaceport to explode. With two moderately damaged (cruiser and carrier), Crusher 6 launches at the defensive base of the other colony, with a queued order to blockade the regional capital of Gurqi 3. Invasion is told to load troops, and the leader heads for Gurqi 3 (and hope the full ones follow). Gurqi 3 has about 10 troops, no fortification, and 254K strength. The other colony has only a small garrison.
The defensive base is way weaker than a large spaceport. It is at 2725/3440 shields after having only met a few stray torpedoes and the fighters of Crusher 6. It is dead before a cruiser has had time to get close.
We notice that the leader of invasion is flying alone, and order the whole fleet to move to Gurqi 3. Crusher 6 has moved in to blockade it. They will proceed to blow up mining bases on their own initiative.
A fleet of the securan harmony appear to shoot at civilians at the minor colony in the system. Won't they dare invade anything. Uh, Oh, troop transports taking aim.
Should have sent two fleet to blockade them both. They will grab the minor colony, lets make them unhappy by being near a superior one!After having been a bit forgotten, Crusher 2 heads off to bust the small sinister spaceways spaceport as well.
When a "region grab" on the map shows 43 troops in the Gurqi system, invasion is told to attack Gurqi 3. After a short while 357K vs 1775K (+10% planet type, +25% armored breakthrough, +25% special operations, +25% spacecontrol). We notice our attack strength at about 4k as more of our troops arrive. The detailed battle report is large and annoying to show, thus no image of it.
2185.09.05 We steal the operations map of our ackdarian enemies. They are not _that_ far away from the Sloes Van 6 spaceport, and will soon attack a mine of ours in the SE with a 1 frigate fleet. Scary! We propose peace, they agree.
2185.09.09 Gurqi3 is ours. The best thing is that it is a regional capital, which removes corruption. If we had a great nearby colony it would help that as well. Gurqi 5 that the Securan Harmony took is better at 83%, but only 1800M population. Being a frontier colony and all, we garrison 9 normal troops and order a defensive base on top of it.
We could probably easily take all of this empire, but for now, we are satisfied. We propose peace, and they agree.
We start to trade spice with the Tefnyl Hive.
Both northern crusher fleets have a few ships damaged. Battle 7 from Sipan head to Kal Setu, Battle 3 from Ecery heads for Gurqi 3. When there, the crushers can repair at Sipan.
Crusher 2 is in the south, sitting at a gas giant with no pirate base, but with many civilian ships, hinting that maybe a small spaceport was here quite recently. They are told to repair (will go to edop).
We notice that we are Noble. What a bunch of good guys we are!
Alzuk Authority are at Gurqi with carriers. We have some pirate work to do up north after moving a bit east, and the pirates live very close to this colony. We discover that we only got transports in the system after accidentally telling crusher 6 to repair prematurely. The invasion ships are sent away.
Some new tech, including larger troop modules. We need to retrofit again.
Savage Storm League are at Kal Setu (where they die to Crusher 1). So many spaceports to bust. The north-eastern annoyance list is getting populated.
Sinister Outlaws at Murillea in the south. They have a large spaceport just outside Gurqi (and are there as well), but we miss at least something in the south that they launched that attack from.
Battle 3 arrive at Gurqi to chase the Alzuk away as they fire on our defensive base build. And they kill the sinister outlaws constructor trying to set up a spaceport in the system.
It is 2186.02.09, and we are at peace, with pirate bases to bust.
Status
Now, that was hard. I guess I may clean up the NW, the Atuuk and the Taffys. That should prove the point that this game is over. Cashflow is worse than ever, and cash is down a bit, but taxes should go up after the small war tiredness and annoyance of fighting the securan. Gurqi 3 needs to clear a -18 from being recently invaded.
Pirate bases highlighted. We can see the additions in the north east. The annoying pirates have the 5 bases closest to our new NE outpost. The dark brown circle in the lower right are the mighty allies we had a war with.
They don't like us all that much. It reminds us to trade spice with the yellow sluken empire too.
Gurqi 3 is not bad, and will have higher tax percentage once the disappointment over conquest is overcome. The other two are far down, but the spice world makes it a great system. We are not trading spice with many empires (for a lot of trade income), but at least we got our own supply.
Lots and lots.
Colony revenue was 864K, we are down. Money is down by 300k. If war is the reason for the drop, the AI should recover and adjust taxes. Beate is down 2% in tax, for instance.
Changes in colony governors could also make the tax income go down.
RE: Universe: A shadows era AAR with some automation
Operation budget balance
We are not further along since the last war than the two crusher fleets of the north repairing after the Secura Utopian war. What is clear, is that we should work on the -256k cashflow the aggressive way.
We figure that we could take the Atuuk capital, and start cleaning up the NW corner. At the same time, one crusher fleet and possibly one battle fleet can work on the pirate bases bothering our new colonies (a bit further east).
Invasion is loading troops, a good amount will probably be needed for the atuuk. It could be that we underestimate that. Or overestimate.
The two battle fleets at Sipan and Ecery left eastwards to our two new systems, but there are still some defense ships. Some time is needed to get things organized.
2186.03.16 A Savage Storm frigate raids Ihoarbuz while the battle fleet is off position. We start building a defensive base on top of the colony. They confirm their spot on the hit list.
For colonization, we can colonize volcanic with the Shandar population at Ihoarbuz. We try to colonize a 93% volcanic in the Narg system, where we already got a colony. Will some useful people move in? And when will a small-ish colony building a defensive base actually complete a colony ship?
2186.04.09. Crusher 1 is ready after repairs, and heads off for the large spaceport of the Alzuk Authority just NE of Gurqi. The screenshot is busy with trade lines, but the yellow line should be visible. The base south, and the two brown on the right are also on the hit list.
In preparation for war, we send invasion 2 to Sipan to gather more of our troops in the area. Transports of invasion move back from Sipan to Gurqi to load more troops when a load order is given.
2186.08.15 Crusher 1 has arrived and started work on the large Alzuk Authority spaceport. They down the spaceport and clear the system with two damaged. 1 with one armor damaged, another crippled with no hyperdrive. It is scrapped and a replacement is ordered at Sipan Spaceport.
Crusher 1 immediately launches for the medium spaceport of the Sinister Outlaws.
2186.10.10: The medium outlaws spaceport should be an easier task. Its less powerful shield is quickly going down. Crusher 1 takes no further damage cleaning up this system.
2186.10.27 The next target up is the large spaceport of the Savage Storm League. The twist is that there is a small spaceport beneath it, and the small spaceport is targeted with the attack order.
As they are on the move, Battle 7 and the newly complete spaceport in Kal Setu, battle a sinister outlaws fleet. If there are pirate survivors, where will they return to?
2186.12.14 Crusher 1 spreads damage on both spaceports. As the smaller spaceport explodes, the larger one has 1500 shields left, but now gets full attention. 3 cruisers are damaged, one loses its hyperdrive and is scrapped when the fighting is over. Again a replacement is ordered, of course.
Not bothered by some minor losses, Crusher 1 jumps to the small spaceport nearby.
A small spaceport is no match, even for a smaller fleet, or a crusher 1 fleet that is somewhat bruised. They also finish some 10 pirate ships in the system.
2187.03.05: After verifying that there is fuel at Gorqi, they launch at the fifth spaceport of the trip, another small one.
2187.04.08 A familiar sight, crusher 1 busting a spaceport on this trip. Another small one.
When finished, we order refuel, and queue repair. Otherwise they would run out of fuel trying to reach a spaceport. We specify the repair at Sipan 4, since we have a new medium spaceport at the spice source. The northern list of annoying pirates is empty for now.
Further south, the cruel claw pillagers attacked Pismimbin with little success. They have been quiet, but now entered the annoyance list.
We discover that one of their three spaceports are gone, and send crusher 2 to their large spaceport. They also got a small spaceport not too far from where Crusher 1 is operating.
The image above is a fake, that is why there is no pirate flag. The image is shot for illustration while writing the status. But it shows where the fighting was in relation to our empire. We think Battle 8 does a perfect re-enactment of the Crusher 2 launch, before heading back to the colony. And never mind Crusher 2 which are seen very near, they are not there at all...
The troop loading? Invasion transports are working in our southern areas, and running out of fuel in the process. Some micro management to refuel them is in place (refuel order on single ships).
2187.07.07 Crusher 2 has arrived at the Cruel Claw Pillagers spaceport. They hammer the large spaceport into submission. They take only shield damage during the attack.
They immediately turn for the small spaceport nearby. Life on our "annoyance list" is a dangerous one.
2187.09.01. Many ships are present as crusher 2 attacks the small spaceport. This include two ships of the Lone Security, one of which is the blue ship seen at the lower left.
Fighting does not die out with the spaceport dead. The Lone Security is in agreement with Crusher 2 when it comes to which side to attack. Crusher 2 does not differ between pirates, though, and kill them all.
Crusher 2 takes no damage, and heads a bit north to refuel at a gas mine near Sloes van.
As the pirate busts complete, all troop transports are at Sipan. Invasion has 2625K strength, Invasion 2 has 1575K.
Is that enough for the Atuuk home world? Time will show, we will take a look before landing them, but we would be surprised if the weak Atuuk have anything near that.
How are the Grand Atuuk Territory? 9,2K military power. Their ally is Qilla domain, who lives on the eastern edge. They have one small colony and a strike fleet quite near Sipan. Another one a bit est of Sloes Van.
The first (and only?) Grand Atuuk Territory war
2187.11.11: We order Crusher 6 to attack their capital at Kal Nattu 2, and declare war. At the same time Crusher 1 is incoming, one crusher fleet leave Sipan as another is about to arrive. The explaining photo is lost in the chaos, and unlike the southern stuff this one is not easily faked.
We do not know neither colony defenses, nor troop count. This could hurt. Troop count will be checked before dropping our troops.
2187.12.09 Crusher 6 is about halfway there, and as we are about to tell the two invasion fleets to attack, we notice we got info about the structures. We spot a rather weak large spaceport, and two defensive bases. And a lot of ships. The crusher 6 order is changed to attack the spaceport. This could hurt a bit.
The two invasion fleets are told to attack the colony, but will have time to stop if things turn ugly. By a glance the troop count did not look so bad.
2188.02.09 As crusher 6 starts the battle, we spot a 17 and a 15 ship fleet at other stations in the system.
It is a bit chaotic, but one defensive base is down. The other one in the lower right is badly damaged. The spaceport is at 2721/4550 shields, and quite a few ships in Crusher 6 have taken damage.
The enemy ships originally near the capital spread out, but many have been destroyed. Even with depleted numbers this could be bad news for the carriers at the rear. The spaceport is shields down and taking damage.
As the spaceport is down, crusher 6 is not in top form, but all are alive. Their escaping ships litter the surrounding space, but about half the fleet is fighting the ships in the system.
We tell Battle 9 at beate to the SW, to blockade the capital.
We glanced at the colony when we had the preview, and we were not scared stiff. We check it now, and the listed strength is 540K. We will have troops to do three of these at once, but will drop all.
2188.03.26 The 50th Atuuk fleet busts a mining base just north of our "capital territory". "They enter our annoyance list, and we should look for their spacepo... eh no".
2188.04.22 This is not a fair matchup. All of our troops have "landed". Fighting is still ongoing with ships and mining stations.
2188.05.02 The atuuks attack our small colony at Drumon Caas 3 (in the north). We spot only frigates in the fleet.
2188.05.17: They are bombarding Narg 2, we only got a very small and slightly antique fleet and a defensive base. The defensive base goes to half shields, and see them off, some of our ships are lost. The colony shows bombard damage and report 80% out of 80% quality. That was not so bad after all. They were more "trying to bombard Narg 2".
2188.06.03 The Sinister Company raid Shecetare 3. The defensive fleet sits outside the system and is out of fuel. The SW defenses are not in top shape. We can see that they are based at Broanee sanctuary. Thanks to the expansion planner we find the Broanee system in the NW corner of the Shecetare influence circle.
How? The "Resource targets by Galaxy Priority" should show all possible mining locations not in the space of other empires (unless we have mining rights). Sort this by name, and there are Broanee.
Crusher 2 is near Sloes Van, and is told to move to the Broanee system.
The alert reader can see that this image is taken pretty much at the same time as the Battle 8 re-enactment of the Crusher 2 launch to bust spaceports further south.
2188.06.04 We have taken over the former Atuuk capital of Kal Nattu 2. The Grand Atuuk Territory is no more and we inherit all ships and bases.
We enter the ship list, and order retire for every former Atuuk ship we can find.
- 35 non-fleeted ships. All "new" ships appear not in a fleet.
- 6 exploration ships
- 3 construction ships
- 2 colony ships
And sadly, they did not have a resupply ship or three
The new colony is not bad at all, which is no big surprise. Development is at a low 85, and they need to work of their memory of independence to get rid of a -15 happiness modifier.
Our reputation? Noble. We are such nice guys!
It is 2188.06.06 and time for status. We are at peace.
Status
One down. The plan is to do one more war in the north to capture colonies.
The source of the substantial raid on Shecetare 1 was a surprise, if the source is indeed where the "based at" for the pirates hinted at.
Again, pirate bases highlighted.
There is no more Dark Green in the upper left. The plan is to make it less "medium blue" as well.
We are not loved across the galaxy. We can see the high trade value with Tefnyl Hive after starting spice trade some time ago. Not trading spice is an extra negative modifier with the rest (apart from Sluken Conformity).
The values reflect war with the Atuuk, since things have not had time to reset. Sipan 4 and Beate both has -15 for at war with own species, explaining a lower tax percentage. Kal Nattu 2 is still -15 after conquest, and could use some luxuries. It should sit a it below Beate since it has 10% less quality and about the same population.
There are 35 military ships, 3 constructions, 2 colony ships and a bunch of exploration ships in temporary employment until they can retire.
And the extra ships give extra maintenance, and the not yet reset war state gives worse cashflow than it will be once things settle. Cashflow was closing in on -200K before the war.
We are not further along since the last war than the two crusher fleets of the north repairing after the Secura Utopian war. What is clear, is that we should work on the -256k cashflow the aggressive way.
We figure that we could take the Atuuk capital, and start cleaning up the NW corner. At the same time, one crusher fleet and possibly one battle fleet can work on the pirate bases bothering our new colonies (a bit further east).
Invasion is loading troops, a good amount will probably be needed for the atuuk. It could be that we underestimate that. Or overestimate.
The two battle fleets at Sipan and Ecery left eastwards to our two new systems, but there are still some defense ships. Some time is needed to get things organized.
2186.03.16 A Savage Storm frigate raids Ihoarbuz while the battle fleet is off position. We start building a defensive base on top of the colony. They confirm their spot on the hit list.
For colonization, we can colonize volcanic with the Shandar population at Ihoarbuz. We try to colonize a 93% volcanic in the Narg system, where we already got a colony. Will some useful people move in? And when will a small-ish colony building a defensive base actually complete a colony ship?
2186.04.09. Crusher 1 is ready after repairs, and heads off for the large spaceport of the Alzuk Authority just NE of Gurqi. The screenshot is busy with trade lines, but the yellow line should be visible. The base south, and the two brown on the right are also on the hit list.
In preparation for war, we send invasion 2 to Sipan to gather more of our troops in the area. Transports of invasion move back from Sipan to Gurqi to load more troops when a load order is given.
2186.08.15 Crusher 1 has arrived and started work on the large Alzuk Authority spaceport. They down the spaceport and clear the system with two damaged. 1 with one armor damaged, another crippled with no hyperdrive. It is scrapped and a replacement is ordered at Sipan Spaceport.
Crusher 1 immediately launches for the medium spaceport of the Sinister Outlaws.
2186.10.10: The medium outlaws spaceport should be an easier task. Its less powerful shield is quickly going down. Crusher 1 takes no further damage cleaning up this system.
2186.10.27 The next target up is the large spaceport of the Savage Storm League. The twist is that there is a small spaceport beneath it, and the small spaceport is targeted with the attack order.
As they are on the move, Battle 7 and the newly complete spaceport in Kal Setu, battle a sinister outlaws fleet. If there are pirate survivors, where will they return to?
2186.12.14 Crusher 1 spreads damage on both spaceports. As the smaller spaceport explodes, the larger one has 1500 shields left, but now gets full attention. 3 cruisers are damaged, one loses its hyperdrive and is scrapped when the fighting is over. Again a replacement is ordered, of course.
Not bothered by some minor losses, Crusher 1 jumps to the small spaceport nearby.
A small spaceport is no match, even for a smaller fleet, or a crusher 1 fleet that is somewhat bruised. They also finish some 10 pirate ships in the system.
2187.03.05: After verifying that there is fuel at Gorqi, they launch at the fifth spaceport of the trip, another small one.
2187.04.08 A familiar sight, crusher 1 busting a spaceport on this trip. Another small one.
When finished, we order refuel, and queue repair. Otherwise they would run out of fuel trying to reach a spaceport. We specify the repair at Sipan 4, since we have a new medium spaceport at the spice source. The northern list of annoying pirates is empty for now.
Further south, the cruel claw pillagers attacked Pismimbin with little success. They have been quiet, but now entered the annoyance list.
We discover that one of their three spaceports are gone, and send crusher 2 to their large spaceport. They also got a small spaceport not too far from where Crusher 1 is operating.
The image above is a fake, that is why there is no pirate flag. The image is shot for illustration while writing the status. But it shows where the fighting was in relation to our empire. We think Battle 8 does a perfect re-enactment of the Crusher 2 launch, before heading back to the colony. And never mind Crusher 2 which are seen very near, they are not there at all...
The troop loading? Invasion transports are working in our southern areas, and running out of fuel in the process. Some micro management to refuel them is in place (refuel order on single ships).
2187.07.07 Crusher 2 has arrived at the Cruel Claw Pillagers spaceport. They hammer the large spaceport into submission. They take only shield damage during the attack.
They immediately turn for the small spaceport nearby. Life on our "annoyance list" is a dangerous one.
2187.09.01. Many ships are present as crusher 2 attacks the small spaceport. This include two ships of the Lone Security, one of which is the blue ship seen at the lower left.
Fighting does not die out with the spaceport dead. The Lone Security is in agreement with Crusher 2 when it comes to which side to attack. Crusher 2 does not differ between pirates, though, and kill them all.
Crusher 2 takes no damage, and heads a bit north to refuel at a gas mine near Sloes van.
As the pirate busts complete, all troop transports are at Sipan. Invasion has 2625K strength, Invasion 2 has 1575K.
Is that enough for the Atuuk home world? Time will show, we will take a look before landing them, but we would be surprised if the weak Atuuk have anything near that.
How are the Grand Atuuk Territory? 9,2K military power. Their ally is Qilla domain, who lives on the eastern edge. They have one small colony and a strike fleet quite near Sipan. Another one a bit est of Sloes Van.
The first (and only?) Grand Atuuk Territory war
2187.11.11: We order Crusher 6 to attack their capital at Kal Nattu 2, and declare war. At the same time Crusher 1 is incoming, one crusher fleet leave Sipan as another is about to arrive. The explaining photo is lost in the chaos, and unlike the southern stuff this one is not easily faked.
We do not know neither colony defenses, nor troop count. This could hurt. Troop count will be checked before dropping our troops.
2187.12.09 Crusher 6 is about halfway there, and as we are about to tell the two invasion fleets to attack, we notice we got info about the structures. We spot a rather weak large spaceport, and two defensive bases. And a lot of ships. The crusher 6 order is changed to attack the spaceport. This could hurt a bit.
The two invasion fleets are told to attack the colony, but will have time to stop if things turn ugly. By a glance the troop count did not look so bad.
2188.02.09 As crusher 6 starts the battle, we spot a 17 and a 15 ship fleet at other stations in the system.
It is a bit chaotic, but one defensive base is down. The other one in the lower right is badly damaged. The spaceport is at 2721/4550 shields, and quite a few ships in Crusher 6 have taken damage.
The enemy ships originally near the capital spread out, but many have been destroyed. Even with depleted numbers this could be bad news for the carriers at the rear. The spaceport is shields down and taking damage.
As the spaceport is down, crusher 6 is not in top form, but all are alive. Their escaping ships litter the surrounding space, but about half the fleet is fighting the ships in the system.
We tell Battle 9 at beate to the SW, to blockade the capital.
We glanced at the colony when we had the preview, and we were not scared stiff. We check it now, and the listed strength is 540K. We will have troops to do three of these at once, but will drop all.
2188.03.26 The 50th Atuuk fleet busts a mining base just north of our "capital territory". "They enter our annoyance list, and we should look for their spacepo... eh no".
2188.04.22 This is not a fair matchup. All of our troops have "landed". Fighting is still ongoing with ships and mining stations.
2188.05.02 The atuuks attack our small colony at Drumon Caas 3 (in the north). We spot only frigates in the fleet.
2188.05.17: They are bombarding Narg 2, we only got a very small and slightly antique fleet and a defensive base. The defensive base goes to half shields, and see them off, some of our ships are lost. The colony shows bombard damage and report 80% out of 80% quality. That was not so bad after all. They were more "trying to bombard Narg 2".
2188.06.03 The Sinister Company raid Shecetare 3. The defensive fleet sits outside the system and is out of fuel. The SW defenses are not in top shape. We can see that they are based at Broanee sanctuary. Thanks to the expansion planner we find the Broanee system in the NW corner of the Shecetare influence circle.
How? The "Resource targets by Galaxy Priority" should show all possible mining locations not in the space of other empires (unless we have mining rights). Sort this by name, and there are Broanee.
Crusher 2 is near Sloes Van, and is told to move to the Broanee system.
The alert reader can see that this image is taken pretty much at the same time as the Battle 8 re-enactment of the Crusher 2 launch to bust spaceports further south.
2188.06.04 We have taken over the former Atuuk capital of Kal Nattu 2. The Grand Atuuk Territory is no more and we inherit all ships and bases.
We enter the ship list, and order retire for every former Atuuk ship we can find.
- 35 non-fleeted ships. All "new" ships appear not in a fleet.
- 6 exploration ships
- 3 construction ships
- 2 colony ships
And sadly, they did not have a resupply ship or three
The new colony is not bad at all, which is no big surprise. Development is at a low 85, and they need to work of their memory of independence to get rid of a -15 happiness modifier.
Our reputation? Noble. We are such nice guys!
It is 2188.06.06 and time for status. We are at peace.
Status
One down. The plan is to do one more war in the north to capture colonies.
The source of the substantial raid on Shecetare 1 was a surprise, if the source is indeed where the "based at" for the pirates hinted at.
Again, pirate bases highlighted.
There is no more Dark Green in the upper left. The plan is to make it less "medium blue" as well.
We are not loved across the galaxy. We can see the high trade value with Tefnyl Hive after starting spice trade some time ago. Not trading spice is an extra negative modifier with the rest (apart from Sluken Conformity).
The values reflect war with the Atuuk, since things have not had time to reset. Sipan 4 and Beate both has -15 for at war with own species, explaining a lower tax percentage. Kal Nattu 2 is still -15 after conquest, and could use some luxuries. It should sit a it below Beate since it has 10% less quality and about the same population.
There are 35 military ships, 3 constructions, 2 colony ships and a bunch of exploration ships in temporary employment until they can retire.
And the extra ships give extra maintenance, and the not yet reset war state gives worse cashflow than it will be once things settle. Cashflow was closing in on -200K before the war.
RE: Universe: A shadows era AAR with some automation
Recovering from war
It is 2188.06.07 and there is work to do to set things up after war. Crusher 2 has just startet its journey west to clean up a system assumed to have pirates in it.
The main idea is to get prepared to go to a war of conquest against the Free Talfagleu Utopia, and conquer the "corner worlds" if not their whole empire. We can see their Regional capital in the west, and their capital. Powerful large spaceport with 2-3 defensive bases. Ground strength is only at the 500-700 mark. That is way less than our invasion fleet when loaded up.
If we retrofit the transports, they should increase their troop capacity with larger troop modules, but what we dropped at Kal Nattu 2, fit in the transports in the first place. And this should be enough for another world. Thus, no rush to retrofit them.
Crusher 6 had a lot of ships damaged at Kal Nattu, but lost none. They head for the Ecery spaceport to repair (the closest one). The defense fleet of Drummon Caas that helped repel an Atuuk fleet is also on its way to Ecery to repair (and to return to base). Battle 9, told to blockade Kal Nattu 2 during the invasion, is in the system.
At Kal Nattu 2 we garrison 10 of the not very powerful, normal, conquest troops, and tell both invasion fleets to load troops. We also order a defensive base on top of Kal Nattu 2.
2188.09.21 The Secura Utopia gift us 20K. It is nice to see they got money to spare. Along with the weak Riksul Colonies they are the only current allies of the Free Talfagleu Utopia. And of course, we had a war with them recently.
Without any mention, we researched Ship Scanning a while back, and retrofitted spaceports and defensive bases. We just had our second instance of identifying smugglers of pirate factions. This reminds us to retrofit the ships at the capital, they may be of old designs.
Those messages about spotting smugglers will be very common, and if not very patient, I could look into disabling them.
2188.12.06: Crusher 2 arrived at the Broanee system, and found the expected small spaceport. They start by heading for a construction ship just outside the spaceport, but it may have initiated jump already.
The construction ship slipped away, but the small spaceport is going nowhere.
At the same time we get a message that our agent Arl Varqui on his own initiative (AI) has stolen the Free Talfagley Utopia operations map. Time to have a look!
What we see? Only Medium spaceports on the "minor colonies". Strike fleets in each system in the west. Three larger fleets around Gorqi, 2 of them have about 8 troops, the other none, and they appear to refuel, blockade, and move to the Spaceport close to Gorqi. We are not scared by what we see.
After cleaning up the system and capturing a mining station, Crusher 2 moves to Schecetare 1 to restore order in the system. Pirates are around harassing a mine. The Schecetare defense fleet has refueled its first ships at a gas mine one sector away.
2189.01.09 After picking up all troops at Kal Nattu 2, we run through the troop transports in the ship list, and release and automate those that are empty. This is done for 3 members of invasion. In preparation for multiple invasion, we recruit some more troops at the dhayut and mortalen colonies around the capital. Automated troop transports should run around to gather troops until full.
2189.05.07 Waiting for fleets to get in position, we see that our buddies the Tefnyl Hive declare war on Riksul Colonies. The Free Talfagleu Utopia and some more responds to call for allies.
It is time to strike. Their allies are the Secura Utopia and Riksul Colonies, both are at war, the Utopia are in several.
The first Taffy war
2189.06.26 We declare war. The Riksul Colonies declare war on us. They are busy with another war, and got one colony near Sloes Van.
The image shows their whole empire, the capital is the one at the map edge top right.
We are very aggressive at the start, trying to strike at their spaceports apart from the capital. Numbers on the map are fleet numbers.
Crusher 1 attacks Tasshtur Sinka a good regional capital, starting from the nearby Drumond Caas system.
Battle 9 Leaves Kal Nattu to strike at the spaceport colony at Valenaar.
Crusher 6 will leave from Ecery to strike the spaceport colony at Yogame
Battle 7 is at Kal-Setu, the spice system, and strikes at the spaceport colony at Kennagar.
Battle 3 is at Gurqi and strikes at a known spaceport at Andrumida. Known because we saw a fleet with order to move to this spaceport while having their operation map.
This leaves Kal-Setu and Gurqi without ships.
We tell the defense fleet of Urukablist to move to kal-setu, it is a short jump "up right".
Battle 5 moves from Framisc Yagin, a sector south of Kal-Setu to Gorqi.
Invasion 2 with 6 transport is at Ecery, our top, big colony. Invasion is at Kal Nattu.
The goal is to grab colonies, and cripple them by busting the spaceport ones first.
2189.07.16 Crusher 1 is the first one to find its target. At Tashtur Sinika 2 they get the order to attack the large spaceport. We see two defensive bases and a strike fleet.
The lower defensive base is fast to drop, we order the 3 closest cruisers to focus at the top one.
The defensive bases and most ships are destroyed, the spaceport is shields down and is being hammered by fighters and torpedoes. At this time we tell invasion fleet to go to the colony. They have some distance to travel.
2189.08.08 A bit south Battle 9 takes on the medium spaceport and defensive base at Varlenaar 2. The fleet is told to attack the spaceport, then the ships at the bottom are told to attack the defensive base.
At the same time Crusher 6 is at Yogame 1 further north and east, and must handle a large spaceport and a defensive base. The group at the bottom focuses on the defensive base, the rest on the spaceport.
And at the same time as the others, Battle 3 finds medium spaceport and a defensive base. The defensive base is of different design, and shoots graviton beams. Again, close cruisers target the defensive base. The 70th fleet is present, making this one a challenge, as if those nasty bases are not enough.
Battle 7 still has some way to go, and we see the enemy 68th fleet on the scanner at Kal Sutu, probably moving to Kennagar where Battle 7 is heading. Our fleet has some head start, though.
2189.09.06 Battle 7 arrives at Kennagar 1 and engage the medium spaceport and defensive base.
At this time:
Crusher 1: Is finishing off the large spaceport which has a lot of modules to destroy. They also fight some ships.
Battle 3 has little success against the weird stuff at Andrumida 3, and is told to repair. We hardly see the base shields dented, and the bases use gravtion weapons to damage modules directly.
Crusher 6 has barely started.
Battle 9 has started mopping up ships and mining bases.
Invasion 2, with 895k strength is told to attack Varlenaar 2 where we see 127k strength.
2189.10.09 Invasion is at their destination and drop about 7 transports worth of content on the regional capital, and send 1 transport to finish the single troop at the other colony.
2189.12.20. We have captured the 3 invasion targets. The Taffys attack a gas mine at Drumond Caas with their 77th fleet.
The status of our fleets at this time:
Crusher 1: From 31 to 28 ships, 6 damaged. Mopping up a strike force and stuff in "our system" since we captured both colonies.
Battle 9: Killing ships in the other of "our new system". From 18 to 16 ships, 1 damaged carrier.
Crusher 6: Mopping up ships and mines, from 31 to 29 ships.
Battle 7: From 18 to 13 ships, 3 NOT damaged. They try to finished the crippled defensive base. The enemy fleet arriving (we saw it heading here) did not help, and the spaceport and defensive bases _hurt_. They will manage to finish the defensive base.
Battle 3: Back at Kal-Setu repairing. 14 of 18 ships returned. Those bases over there seemed impenetrable and of different design.
Without counting, we order 7 cruisers and 5 carriers at Sipan Spaceport nearby. And 10 cruisers at Ecery, our northernmost spaceport.
We garrison 5 troops at Varlenaar 2, and tell Invasion 2 to load at the colony.
We garrison 3 at Tashtur Sinika 3, the small colony.
We garrion 8 at the good regional capital of Tashtur Sinika 2.
And we tell Invasion Fleet to load troops. They still had 1311K strength onboard.
We queue the repairing Battle 3 to move to Kennegar to relieve the very damaged Battle 7.
We propose an end to the war with Riksul Colonies, and they accept. One southern distraction is over with, having never been a bother for us.
2190.01.16 The enemy fleet at Drumond Caas attack the defensive base, and it does not stand much of a chance. The local fleet has been sent repairing with only 2 undamaged ships. Their 68th fleet is seen refueling at a gas mine in Endilean, the system next to Drumond Caas, and a short bit north of the Crusher 1 position. The crushers have local ships to kill, and troop transports to watch over while they load. So no fleet/mine busting.
We are happy to hear that the enemy 77th fleet aims for a mining station. They have such high ambitions
2190.01.30 Battle 9 and invasion 2 are done in their original system. Battle 9 is told to attack the colony at Had Abbadun, invasion 2 is shortly after told to move to the star of that system. The other enemy colony had that fleet refueling, and we do not feel to go there right now.
Updates on colonies?
2190.02.09 The volcanic planet Ghoom in the Narg system, orderered to be colonized by the shandard in the last update has been colonized. Will it be populated, or just have 30M Shandar slaves?
We conquered the rather nice regional capital Tashtur Sinika 2
And the not equally nice desert world of Tashtur Sinika 3.
And to the south, the promising continental of Varlenaar 2. With atuuks, how can it have such a low population? Do the Securan enslave them as well?
Battle 7 with 3/13 ships healthy is told to repair. We leave the system until the repaired Battle 3 arrives. We later find further 3 very damaged ships of battle 7, who are down to 10/18 ships after the crippled ones are scrapped.
Crusher 6 reveal 1 troop at Yogame. Invasion sends one troop transport with 2 troops and 2 armor. After ordering it to attack, we tell it to leave Invasion, and automate it. We check the troop carriers, and the 3 automated ones are full and rejoin invasion. They will of course have to fly north.
Crusher 1 refuels at Tashtur Sinika 2 at own initiative. Fighting is a drain on fuel. How nice of the Securans to leave a store for us.
2190.03.22 Battle 9 arrive at Had Abbadun and reveal 1 troop. They engage the strike force in the system. Invasion to heads for a system nearby and sends a single transport with 4 troops to attack.
When the transport drops its load, the odds are overwhelming. It is sent to Ecery and then automated.
2190.05.01 With the invasion underway and the system "clean", battle 9 is told to attack the colony in Endilean to the south. Invasion 2 heads to the star west of this system.
We see the marker of a troop transport at Varlenaar, possibly one told to load troops before we captured it.
The light blue in Tashtur Sinika is Crusher 1 moments away from finishing off the gas mine and the last few ships.
Battle 3 struggle with 2 strike forces in Kennagar. Crusher 1 noticed the queue at the Ecery space port (builds and repairs), and heads to the system to instill law and order. Invasion fleet is told to move to the system a very short distance to the west of it.
2190.06.02 Battle 9 finds a strike force and defensive base at the colony. The 17 ship 69th fleet is refueling at a gas mine in the system. They focus on defensive base, and are attacked by some ships as news about the capture of Yogame 1 arrives. Had Abbadun 1 has also fallen.
Knowing that battle 9 will struggle to gain total control, we send 1 troop transport of Invasion 2 to attack the colony of Cleesas. It it has the usual one single troop defending. When the defensive base is destroyed, we make them take on the gas stations of the system as a fleet. There is a lot of ships, they are not in prime shape, but we jump fast between targets and can destroy their gas mines in the system.
Where did that troop transport go? We did not notice it getting killed, and can not find it.
Battle 9 takes casualties when they at last attack the gas mine where the Securan fleet refuels. After killing it, they head back for repairs with 14/18 ships in working order, and very little fuel.
The enemy 78th fleet attack a gas mining station at Sipan. Our ships present are not strong, and jump to the system next doors, ready to step in if they go for the spaceport. We see no troop transports, the colony should not be in danger.
2190.08.09 With Crusher 1 arriving at Kennagar, the damaged Battle 3 heads back to Kal-Setu to repair. This should avoid queues. There is one defending troops, and invasion next doors dispatch 1 transport with 4 troops.
We garrison troops at new colonies. Crusher 6 has 5/29 damaged, and head west to Endilean to try gain control. Invasion 2 is next doors with troops, and the troop transport sent to attack is missing. Battle 3 detours from their repair to the system to their left to check that out. There are two "small" systems there we could grab if they are not well defended with space defenses.
2190.08.28 The weakened battle 3 finds 1 troop, 1 defensive base, and 1 mine. They try to take on the defensive base, but one cruiser landed in the wrong spot. Invasion 2 sends 1 troop transport with 2 armor and 2 troops. Single transports sent are queued to move to ecery, leave the fleet, and are automated.
Fighters win the day for the brave battle 3. They are told to kill the mine, and then queued to repair.
As Kennagar falls, Crusher 1 steps a short distance SW to the Pirgetur system.
2190.10.05 We see that the Securans do try the defenses at Sipan 4. The frigates and destroyers of the defense fleet are told to attack. The ships help turn the battle. One defensive base is ok, the spaceport at 2/3 shields and the second defensive base is shields down and damaged. Some newly built cruisers and carriers also arrived, although starting with 0 shields.
We notice that there are two enemy fleets in the system.
When the second fleet attacks, the stricken defensive base looks doomed. Our carriers and cruisers are brand new and have no shields to speak of. They prevail with one lost defensive base, the spaceport at 1/3 shields, and an unknown amount of ships lost for us.
Crusher 1 finds a defensive fleet, some ships at the colony, and the 16 ship 70th fleet refueling in the system. There are no troops on the colony, but it has a hidden pirate base. Invasion sends two transports to take the colony and handle the pirates.
The mystery of the transport that was sent to attack Endillean became even more confusing, as we discover Crusher 6 there and that the colony is ours. It must have made the drop after all?
We gather the new cruisers and carriers in a temporary Battle 22. It is 22 ships, and gather at Ecery. Two carriers are repairing at Sipan.
With the builds over for the now Battle 22 ships, most fleets are heading to Ecery to repair. Crusher 1 has some work still in Pirgetur.
We order a new defensive base at Sipan 4 to replace the one lost. Another visit by the 70th fleet is quickly taken care of. We notice that the 10 ship battle 7 is at Sipan. That is nice right now.
2191.05.04 Crusher 1 is on its way to repair at Ecery. Some enemy ships are in the systems of our conquered colonies. Only the capital and that painful eastern colony, and a new one right above it, remain.
2191.08.25 Repairing, refueling.. at Ecery...
2191.11.20 It is time to deal a proper blow.
With the exception of 1 carrier with refuel order.
27 ships of Crusher 1
29 ships of Crusher 6
12 ships of battle 3
14 ships of battle 9
All attack the capital planet at once, starting at Ecery. The enemy die at Sipan 4 or spend their time busting gas mining stations, while we are on a proper offensive.
2192.01.14 Secura Utopia offer a lot of contested mines (from our conquests, we assume) for declaring war on Riksul Colonies. We reject.
2192.02.08 This is how a proper attack on capital defenses can look. It is overwhelming force.
We check the capital, and find 514 troop strength.. 1685 strength of invasion are told to attack. Invasion 2 also attack, but two transport attack the minor colony of Umajika, which is recruiting 2 troops.
When the battle is over, we find 3 damaged ships in our 4 attack fleets. Battle 3 is short a ship. We tell the two crushers to bust the defensive base at Umajika, and let the rest work on the large number of mines in the system. Soon they are all doing that.
2192.04.22 With the invasion fleets closing in, and the mines dead, Crusher 1 and Crusher 6 take off for the very painful structures at Andrumida 3. 27+29 ships hopefully do better than the 18 ship battle fleet that did little damage, and got away with 1 lost and a lot damaged. Battle 3 takes off for a gas mining station we see them refuel at near Yogame. Then it is queued to repair (its one damaged ship).
2192.05.13 We have landed troops at Umajika. they recruit troops, but it is 551 vs 83.
2192.05.20 The capital itself looks like this. Not exactly an even battle..
2192.08.14 We have taken over Talfagleu 5, the former capital. We garrison some troops, and load troops with invasion.
2192.08.25 Incoming again at Sipan. We thought battle 22 was at Ecery, but they are at Sipan. That explains the rather swift clearance of the last attack wave.
At the same time, the crushers have arrived at the new capital. This time the shield of the defensive base is at least moving... They manage to blow them up without too much ceremony. There are a whole 3 troops defending.
One ship short, and with about 10 damaged, Crusher 6 jumps to the new system just north. It appears to be a new colony of Ugnari. We tell invasion to attack the new capital, and a transport with 3 armor attacks the new colony.
We notice a ruin with a huge troop "boost" at the new capital. We doubt their 100% combat bonus while defending matters too much.
2192.11.10 Our mine reveals the Cruel Claw Pillagers trying to set up a small spaceport north of Gurqi. We are not happy about this, and the protective Battle 5 launches to attack the construction ship. We can see the main combat area, with the invasion fleets incoming.
2193.01.16 The tiny colony of Zukarb 1 is conquered.
2193.01.25 Invasion has landed troops to dominate with 2420 vs 67 at the new capital.
2193.01.26 The capital is ours. The Free Talfagleu Utopia is no more.
A final status and summary
This is the end of this AAR. It was clear before declaring the wars that the game was won. With this war we wiped the empire that competed with the Haakonish for being 2nd or 3rd in strength. What made it somewhat hurtful was that we probably lagged a bit in tech compared with our enemies.
Research status:
In energy, our guys have just started on the "end game reactor" research, and has done the jump blocking at that level. Too bad we never got capitals that use the jump blocking piece...
In weapons research, we were ready for the "end game items", and almost done with researching the torpedoes. The always lagging high tech (since the colonization setbacks) is almost done with the 4th tier of techs.
About the game. It started with many, near pirates. Slow research and many independents. My dhayut had poor reproduction rate, and the two early colonies made the struggle with the pirates very long and hard. Then, as we began to gain control and downed the first large spaceport, there was Sipan sitting there, with the AI empires unable to grab it. Then there was Beate and Ecery under pirate control. Suddenly we became rich, and it was just work to grind down the pirates. By the time it could be a good idea to wage war, I was already dominant. I guess I won't try many pirates again. And for the next new games, no respawning pirates, not many independent, and maybe not allowing new empires to spawn.
Those independents benefited me a lot. If the AI managed to take the independents, and there was no "new empires" allowed to spawn, there could have been a very powerful Securan empire in the north. Instead it was 3 somewhat powerful ones. The AI also appear to suffer more from the many pirates, being unable to get rid of them. Strike fleets against pirate bases?!
The NW is prettier in red. It removes one front to protect during war. The top left colonies are very safe, and they are very profitable. We added a new regional capital that would be untouchable during war.
Still a satisfactory reputation. They don't like us that much.
The regional capital at Tashtur Sinika 2 shows its power, and it is not hit much by the war since it is only 10M securan and the rest Atuuk. Ecery has a proper penalty alongside the securan conquests (at war with own species still). 51% corruption does not help Talfagleu 5.
Pirgetur 2 already has 725M Dhayut that breed (slowly) and will be very nice with some more inhabitants.
The colonies founded when we finally colonized has reached about 3300M population and are getting there. Not enough to be on the front page, though. The newest colony of Ghoom has received 168M atuuk and 60M dhayut and would be fine with time to grow. Even the very slow starter of Dacshii 2 has 1222M now.
A lot of ships hired from the securans. That makes this a mess.
The account has not suffered much, but the income suffers from war. We gained some very good colonies, with one conquest topping the current list. We would do fine once the war effects settle down and we retire the former securan ships. Unless they have some resupply ships we can keep...
Anyways, this game will not be played again, there is nothing to achieve apart from a similar battle against the Haakonish where the struggle will be fuel without the support of resupply ships. The Taffies were handily placed, near our own spaceports. We had no fuel issues at all, except maybe a couple of ships refueling at the gas mine in the Ecery system, rather on at the spaceport.
It is 2188.06.07 and there is work to do to set things up after war. Crusher 2 has just startet its journey west to clean up a system assumed to have pirates in it.
The main idea is to get prepared to go to a war of conquest against the Free Talfagleu Utopia, and conquer the "corner worlds" if not their whole empire. We can see their Regional capital in the west, and their capital. Powerful large spaceport with 2-3 defensive bases. Ground strength is only at the 500-700 mark. That is way less than our invasion fleet when loaded up.
If we retrofit the transports, they should increase their troop capacity with larger troop modules, but what we dropped at Kal Nattu 2, fit in the transports in the first place. And this should be enough for another world. Thus, no rush to retrofit them.
Crusher 6 had a lot of ships damaged at Kal Nattu, but lost none. They head for the Ecery spaceport to repair (the closest one). The defense fleet of Drummon Caas that helped repel an Atuuk fleet is also on its way to Ecery to repair (and to return to base). Battle 9, told to blockade Kal Nattu 2 during the invasion, is in the system.
At Kal Nattu 2 we garrison 10 of the not very powerful, normal, conquest troops, and tell both invasion fleets to load troops. We also order a defensive base on top of Kal Nattu 2.
2188.09.21 The Secura Utopia gift us 20K. It is nice to see they got money to spare. Along with the weak Riksul Colonies they are the only current allies of the Free Talfagleu Utopia. And of course, we had a war with them recently.
Without any mention, we researched Ship Scanning a while back, and retrofitted spaceports and defensive bases. We just had our second instance of identifying smugglers of pirate factions. This reminds us to retrofit the ships at the capital, they may be of old designs.
Those messages about spotting smugglers will be very common, and if not very patient, I could look into disabling them.
2188.12.06: Crusher 2 arrived at the Broanee system, and found the expected small spaceport. They start by heading for a construction ship just outside the spaceport, but it may have initiated jump already.
The construction ship slipped away, but the small spaceport is going nowhere.
At the same time we get a message that our agent Arl Varqui on his own initiative (AI) has stolen the Free Talfagley Utopia operations map. Time to have a look!
What we see? Only Medium spaceports on the "minor colonies". Strike fleets in each system in the west. Three larger fleets around Gorqi, 2 of them have about 8 troops, the other none, and they appear to refuel, blockade, and move to the Spaceport close to Gorqi. We are not scared by what we see.
After cleaning up the system and capturing a mining station, Crusher 2 moves to Schecetare 1 to restore order in the system. Pirates are around harassing a mine. The Schecetare defense fleet has refueled its first ships at a gas mine one sector away.
2189.01.09 After picking up all troops at Kal Nattu 2, we run through the troop transports in the ship list, and release and automate those that are empty. This is done for 3 members of invasion. In preparation for multiple invasion, we recruit some more troops at the dhayut and mortalen colonies around the capital. Automated troop transports should run around to gather troops until full.
2189.05.07 Waiting for fleets to get in position, we see that our buddies the Tefnyl Hive declare war on Riksul Colonies. The Free Talfagleu Utopia and some more responds to call for allies.
It is time to strike. Their allies are the Secura Utopia and Riksul Colonies, both are at war, the Utopia are in several.
The first Taffy war
2189.06.26 We declare war. The Riksul Colonies declare war on us. They are busy with another war, and got one colony near Sloes Van.
The image shows their whole empire, the capital is the one at the map edge top right.
We are very aggressive at the start, trying to strike at their spaceports apart from the capital. Numbers on the map are fleet numbers.
Crusher 1 attacks Tasshtur Sinka a good regional capital, starting from the nearby Drumond Caas system.
Battle 9 Leaves Kal Nattu to strike at the spaceport colony at Valenaar.
Crusher 6 will leave from Ecery to strike the spaceport colony at Yogame
Battle 7 is at Kal-Setu, the spice system, and strikes at the spaceport colony at Kennagar.
Battle 3 is at Gurqi and strikes at a known spaceport at Andrumida. Known because we saw a fleet with order to move to this spaceport while having their operation map.
This leaves Kal-Setu and Gurqi without ships.
We tell the defense fleet of Urukablist to move to kal-setu, it is a short jump "up right".
Battle 5 moves from Framisc Yagin, a sector south of Kal-Setu to Gorqi.
Invasion 2 with 6 transport is at Ecery, our top, big colony. Invasion is at Kal Nattu.
The goal is to grab colonies, and cripple them by busting the spaceport ones first.
2189.07.16 Crusher 1 is the first one to find its target. At Tashtur Sinika 2 they get the order to attack the large spaceport. We see two defensive bases and a strike fleet.
The lower defensive base is fast to drop, we order the 3 closest cruisers to focus at the top one.
The defensive bases and most ships are destroyed, the spaceport is shields down and is being hammered by fighters and torpedoes. At this time we tell invasion fleet to go to the colony. They have some distance to travel.
2189.08.08 A bit south Battle 9 takes on the medium spaceport and defensive base at Varlenaar 2. The fleet is told to attack the spaceport, then the ships at the bottom are told to attack the defensive base.
At the same time Crusher 6 is at Yogame 1 further north and east, and must handle a large spaceport and a defensive base. The group at the bottom focuses on the defensive base, the rest on the spaceport.
And at the same time as the others, Battle 3 finds medium spaceport and a defensive base. The defensive base is of different design, and shoots graviton beams. Again, close cruisers target the defensive base. The 70th fleet is present, making this one a challenge, as if those nasty bases are not enough.
Battle 7 still has some way to go, and we see the enemy 68th fleet on the scanner at Kal Sutu, probably moving to Kennagar where Battle 7 is heading. Our fleet has some head start, though.
2189.09.06 Battle 7 arrives at Kennagar 1 and engage the medium spaceport and defensive base.
At this time:
Crusher 1: Is finishing off the large spaceport which has a lot of modules to destroy. They also fight some ships.
Battle 3 has little success against the weird stuff at Andrumida 3, and is told to repair. We hardly see the base shields dented, and the bases use gravtion weapons to damage modules directly.
Crusher 6 has barely started.
Battle 9 has started mopping up ships and mining bases.
Invasion 2, with 895k strength is told to attack Varlenaar 2 where we see 127k strength.
2189.10.09 Invasion is at their destination and drop about 7 transports worth of content on the regional capital, and send 1 transport to finish the single troop at the other colony.
2189.12.20. We have captured the 3 invasion targets. The Taffys attack a gas mine at Drumond Caas with their 77th fleet.
The status of our fleets at this time:
Crusher 1: From 31 to 28 ships, 6 damaged. Mopping up a strike force and stuff in "our system" since we captured both colonies.
Battle 9: Killing ships in the other of "our new system". From 18 to 16 ships, 1 damaged carrier.
Crusher 6: Mopping up ships and mines, from 31 to 29 ships.
Battle 7: From 18 to 13 ships, 3 NOT damaged. They try to finished the crippled defensive base. The enemy fleet arriving (we saw it heading here) did not help, and the spaceport and defensive bases _hurt_. They will manage to finish the defensive base.
Battle 3: Back at Kal-Setu repairing. 14 of 18 ships returned. Those bases over there seemed impenetrable and of different design.
Without counting, we order 7 cruisers and 5 carriers at Sipan Spaceport nearby. And 10 cruisers at Ecery, our northernmost spaceport.
We garrison 5 troops at Varlenaar 2, and tell Invasion 2 to load at the colony.
We garrison 3 at Tashtur Sinika 3, the small colony.
We garrion 8 at the good regional capital of Tashtur Sinika 2.
And we tell Invasion Fleet to load troops. They still had 1311K strength onboard.
We queue the repairing Battle 3 to move to Kennegar to relieve the very damaged Battle 7.
We propose an end to the war with Riksul Colonies, and they accept. One southern distraction is over with, having never been a bother for us.
2190.01.16 The enemy fleet at Drumond Caas attack the defensive base, and it does not stand much of a chance. The local fleet has been sent repairing with only 2 undamaged ships. Their 68th fleet is seen refueling at a gas mine in Endilean, the system next to Drumond Caas, and a short bit north of the Crusher 1 position. The crushers have local ships to kill, and troop transports to watch over while they load. So no fleet/mine busting.
We are happy to hear that the enemy 77th fleet aims for a mining station. They have such high ambitions
2190.01.30 Battle 9 and invasion 2 are done in their original system. Battle 9 is told to attack the colony at Had Abbadun, invasion 2 is shortly after told to move to the star of that system. The other enemy colony had that fleet refueling, and we do not feel to go there right now.
Updates on colonies?
2190.02.09 The volcanic planet Ghoom in the Narg system, orderered to be colonized by the shandard in the last update has been colonized. Will it be populated, or just have 30M Shandar slaves?
We conquered the rather nice regional capital Tashtur Sinika 2
And the not equally nice desert world of Tashtur Sinika 3.
And to the south, the promising continental of Varlenaar 2. With atuuks, how can it have such a low population? Do the Securan enslave them as well?
Battle 7 with 3/13 ships healthy is told to repair. We leave the system until the repaired Battle 3 arrives. We later find further 3 very damaged ships of battle 7, who are down to 10/18 ships after the crippled ones are scrapped.
Crusher 6 reveal 1 troop at Yogame. Invasion sends one troop transport with 2 troops and 2 armor. After ordering it to attack, we tell it to leave Invasion, and automate it. We check the troop carriers, and the 3 automated ones are full and rejoin invasion. They will of course have to fly north.
Crusher 1 refuels at Tashtur Sinika 2 at own initiative. Fighting is a drain on fuel. How nice of the Securans to leave a store for us.
2190.03.22 Battle 9 arrive at Had Abbadun and reveal 1 troop. They engage the strike force in the system. Invasion to heads for a system nearby and sends a single transport with 4 troops to attack.
When the transport drops its load, the odds are overwhelming. It is sent to Ecery and then automated.
2190.05.01 With the invasion underway and the system "clean", battle 9 is told to attack the colony in Endilean to the south. Invasion 2 heads to the star west of this system.
We see the marker of a troop transport at Varlenaar, possibly one told to load troops before we captured it.
The light blue in Tashtur Sinika is Crusher 1 moments away from finishing off the gas mine and the last few ships.
Battle 3 struggle with 2 strike forces in Kennagar. Crusher 1 noticed the queue at the Ecery space port (builds and repairs), and heads to the system to instill law and order. Invasion fleet is told to move to the system a very short distance to the west of it.
2190.06.02 Battle 9 finds a strike force and defensive base at the colony. The 17 ship 69th fleet is refueling at a gas mine in the system. They focus on defensive base, and are attacked by some ships as news about the capture of Yogame 1 arrives. Had Abbadun 1 has also fallen.
Knowing that battle 9 will struggle to gain total control, we send 1 troop transport of Invasion 2 to attack the colony of Cleesas. It it has the usual one single troop defending. When the defensive base is destroyed, we make them take on the gas stations of the system as a fleet. There is a lot of ships, they are not in prime shape, but we jump fast between targets and can destroy their gas mines in the system.
Where did that troop transport go? We did not notice it getting killed, and can not find it.
Battle 9 takes casualties when they at last attack the gas mine where the Securan fleet refuels. After killing it, they head back for repairs with 14/18 ships in working order, and very little fuel.
The enemy 78th fleet attack a gas mining station at Sipan. Our ships present are not strong, and jump to the system next doors, ready to step in if they go for the spaceport. We see no troop transports, the colony should not be in danger.
2190.08.09 With Crusher 1 arriving at Kennagar, the damaged Battle 3 heads back to Kal-Setu to repair. This should avoid queues. There is one defending troops, and invasion next doors dispatch 1 transport with 4 troops.
We garrison troops at new colonies. Crusher 6 has 5/29 damaged, and head west to Endilean to try gain control. Invasion 2 is next doors with troops, and the troop transport sent to attack is missing. Battle 3 detours from their repair to the system to their left to check that out. There are two "small" systems there we could grab if they are not well defended with space defenses.
2190.08.28 The weakened battle 3 finds 1 troop, 1 defensive base, and 1 mine. They try to take on the defensive base, but one cruiser landed in the wrong spot. Invasion 2 sends 1 troop transport with 2 armor and 2 troops. Single transports sent are queued to move to ecery, leave the fleet, and are automated.
Fighters win the day for the brave battle 3. They are told to kill the mine, and then queued to repair.
As Kennagar falls, Crusher 1 steps a short distance SW to the Pirgetur system.
2190.10.05 We see that the Securans do try the defenses at Sipan 4. The frigates and destroyers of the defense fleet are told to attack. The ships help turn the battle. One defensive base is ok, the spaceport at 2/3 shields and the second defensive base is shields down and damaged. Some newly built cruisers and carriers also arrived, although starting with 0 shields.
We notice that there are two enemy fleets in the system.
When the second fleet attacks, the stricken defensive base looks doomed. Our carriers and cruisers are brand new and have no shields to speak of. They prevail with one lost defensive base, the spaceport at 1/3 shields, and an unknown amount of ships lost for us.
Crusher 1 finds a defensive fleet, some ships at the colony, and the 16 ship 70th fleet refueling in the system. There are no troops on the colony, but it has a hidden pirate base. Invasion sends two transports to take the colony and handle the pirates.
The mystery of the transport that was sent to attack Endillean became even more confusing, as we discover Crusher 6 there and that the colony is ours. It must have made the drop after all?
We gather the new cruisers and carriers in a temporary Battle 22. It is 22 ships, and gather at Ecery. Two carriers are repairing at Sipan.
With the builds over for the now Battle 22 ships, most fleets are heading to Ecery to repair. Crusher 1 has some work still in Pirgetur.
We order a new defensive base at Sipan 4 to replace the one lost. Another visit by the 70th fleet is quickly taken care of. We notice that the 10 ship battle 7 is at Sipan. That is nice right now.
2191.05.04 Crusher 1 is on its way to repair at Ecery. Some enemy ships are in the systems of our conquered colonies. Only the capital and that painful eastern colony, and a new one right above it, remain.
2191.08.25 Repairing, refueling.. at Ecery...
2191.11.20 It is time to deal a proper blow.
With the exception of 1 carrier with refuel order.
27 ships of Crusher 1
29 ships of Crusher 6
12 ships of battle 3
14 ships of battle 9
All attack the capital planet at once, starting at Ecery. The enemy die at Sipan 4 or spend their time busting gas mining stations, while we are on a proper offensive.
2192.01.14 Secura Utopia offer a lot of contested mines (from our conquests, we assume) for declaring war on Riksul Colonies. We reject.
2192.02.08 This is how a proper attack on capital defenses can look. It is overwhelming force.
We check the capital, and find 514 troop strength.. 1685 strength of invasion are told to attack. Invasion 2 also attack, but two transport attack the minor colony of Umajika, which is recruiting 2 troops.
When the battle is over, we find 3 damaged ships in our 4 attack fleets. Battle 3 is short a ship. We tell the two crushers to bust the defensive base at Umajika, and let the rest work on the large number of mines in the system. Soon they are all doing that.
2192.04.22 With the invasion fleets closing in, and the mines dead, Crusher 1 and Crusher 6 take off for the very painful structures at Andrumida 3. 27+29 ships hopefully do better than the 18 ship battle fleet that did little damage, and got away with 1 lost and a lot damaged. Battle 3 takes off for a gas mining station we see them refuel at near Yogame. Then it is queued to repair (its one damaged ship).
2192.05.13 We have landed troops at Umajika. they recruit troops, but it is 551 vs 83.
2192.05.20 The capital itself looks like this. Not exactly an even battle..
2192.08.14 We have taken over Talfagleu 5, the former capital. We garrison some troops, and load troops with invasion.
2192.08.25 Incoming again at Sipan. We thought battle 22 was at Ecery, but they are at Sipan. That explains the rather swift clearance of the last attack wave.
At the same time, the crushers have arrived at the new capital. This time the shield of the defensive base is at least moving... They manage to blow them up without too much ceremony. There are a whole 3 troops defending.
One ship short, and with about 10 damaged, Crusher 6 jumps to the new system just north. It appears to be a new colony of Ugnari. We tell invasion to attack the new capital, and a transport with 3 armor attacks the new colony.
We notice a ruin with a huge troop "boost" at the new capital. We doubt their 100% combat bonus while defending matters too much.
2192.11.10 Our mine reveals the Cruel Claw Pillagers trying to set up a small spaceport north of Gurqi. We are not happy about this, and the protective Battle 5 launches to attack the construction ship. We can see the main combat area, with the invasion fleets incoming.
2193.01.16 The tiny colony of Zukarb 1 is conquered.
2193.01.25 Invasion has landed troops to dominate with 2420 vs 67 at the new capital.
2193.01.26 The capital is ours. The Free Talfagleu Utopia is no more.
A final status and summary
This is the end of this AAR. It was clear before declaring the wars that the game was won. With this war we wiped the empire that competed with the Haakonish for being 2nd or 3rd in strength. What made it somewhat hurtful was that we probably lagged a bit in tech compared with our enemies.
Research status:
In energy, our guys have just started on the "end game reactor" research, and has done the jump blocking at that level. Too bad we never got capitals that use the jump blocking piece...
In weapons research, we were ready for the "end game items", and almost done with researching the torpedoes. The always lagging high tech (since the colonization setbacks) is almost done with the 4th tier of techs.
About the game. It started with many, near pirates. Slow research and many independents. My dhayut had poor reproduction rate, and the two early colonies made the struggle with the pirates very long and hard. Then, as we began to gain control and downed the first large spaceport, there was Sipan sitting there, with the AI empires unable to grab it. Then there was Beate and Ecery under pirate control. Suddenly we became rich, and it was just work to grind down the pirates. By the time it could be a good idea to wage war, I was already dominant. I guess I won't try many pirates again. And for the next new games, no respawning pirates, not many independent, and maybe not allowing new empires to spawn.
Those independents benefited me a lot. If the AI managed to take the independents, and there was no "new empires" allowed to spawn, there could have been a very powerful Securan empire in the north. Instead it was 3 somewhat powerful ones. The AI also appear to suffer more from the many pirates, being unable to get rid of them. Strike fleets against pirate bases?!
The NW is prettier in red. It removes one front to protect during war. The top left colonies are very safe, and they are very profitable. We added a new regional capital that would be untouchable during war.
Still a satisfactory reputation. They don't like us that much.
The regional capital at Tashtur Sinika 2 shows its power, and it is not hit much by the war since it is only 10M securan and the rest Atuuk. Ecery has a proper penalty alongside the securan conquests (at war with own species still). 51% corruption does not help Talfagleu 5.
Pirgetur 2 already has 725M Dhayut that breed (slowly) and will be very nice with some more inhabitants.
The colonies founded when we finally colonized has reached about 3300M population and are getting there. Not enough to be on the front page, though. The newest colony of Ghoom has received 168M atuuk and 60M dhayut and would be fine with time to grow. Even the very slow starter of Dacshii 2 has 1222M now.
A lot of ships hired from the securans. That makes this a mess.
The account has not suffered much, but the income suffers from war. We gained some very good colonies, with one conquest topping the current list. We would do fine once the war effects settle down and we retire the former securan ships. Unless they have some resupply ships we can keep...
Anyways, this game will not be played again, there is nothing to achieve apart from a similar battle against the Haakonish where the struggle will be fuel without the support of resupply ships. The Taffies were handily placed, near our own spaceports. We had no fuel issues at all, except maybe a couple of ships refueling at the gas mine in the Ecery system, rather on at the spaceport.
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FingNewGuy
- Posts: 183
- Joined: Fri Apr 11, 2014 8:31 pm
- Location: Boulder, CO
RE: Universe: A shadows era AAR with some automation
[&o]
Awesome! Quite the read, but well worth it. Thank you for this!
Awesome! Quite the read, but well worth it. Thank you for this!
RE: Universe: A shadows era AAR with some automation
Thank you for this entertaining and informative after-action-report!
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