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The failure for the AI to understand that there is more things in life than cashflow is a small pain.

First it needs a proper cashflow estimate that includes bonus income.

Then it should estimate how much money it wants on hand... And decide how fast to spend surplus. I don't pay attention to time in this game, but...

Say 200k is a nice cash reserve. 400k in on hand. If you allow surplus to be burnt over 10 years, you could spend 40k extra each year.

It would at least be better than to see the cash steadily increasing into eternity, although the AI often seem quite broke (I guess they buy tech and move money around that way).

Not sure is I saw this feature in a game or not (maybe mtw2) but we can have settings for this, ie out of the currrent cashflow / reserve we reserve x amount for one or more purposes: expenses, building, military etc.
Come to think of it this is similar (but more granular) to the sliders in galciv2 and any other strategy game that uses sliders for expenditure; in galciv2 they were for research, social projects, military and spies.

Operation Independence

The goal: To get rid of the subjugation



Their planet is in the SW, and they have strike forces in two of my systems. They have mining bases in multiple of my systems, and a huge amount of them in the system seen in the lower part of my tradeline triangle, where I also got a red, visible research station.

They are at war with the powerful Ikurro, as are many others. My capitals are on pirate duty, and are sent back home to refuel.

We meet representatives of the Naxxilian Territory in teh Tirra system, that is our western one. Diplomacy screen say they are on the small side. A little later we meet the Shendar Renaissance in the same system, it is obviously a popular destination. Diplomacy screen hints at them being on the even smaller side.

Good things comes in threse, the Zenox Techoncracy arrive in the Tirra system. In the SE we meet the Dhayut Territory. They look so tiny that they are almost comparable to us.



Present for us!

And in the SE we meet the Ketarov Alliance.

Our forces are almost at home, and the Guardians are also at war with the Sluken. Nice.

Tirra has more visitors, this time the Tarsont Authority (Mortalen). The Mun Kalamare Collective (Boskara) is observed by a civilian ship in the SE.

We discover a 119 strength cruiser which is sent to retire.

The Guardians refuse to release our subjugation, and we declare WAR.

The 2nd Guaridian War

To test the water, we try a negotiated peace. 400K valued, against 500k cash. No deal.



Devastator has visitors at it kills mining bases in the Tirra system (ours).

Ship combat inflicts little damage to both sides, even our small fleets of self built vessels survive well. We munch some mining bases, and they accept peace. We are free!

Life goes on

We notice a colony ship on the way to Turvec 3. 1st fleets is sent as escorts. Yay. 2 seconds later they are recalled to kill pirates...

((Bah, the colonization will of course not work, our planet is Mortalen...))

We order 3 more troop transports, and scout a bit for the revenge against the Horecani.



Interesting systems are marked. Why are they interestings? They do not have a human main population. At the top is our homeworld, this is prime target, but a rebellion may work things out.
The red in the SW is Ugnar, a good planet with a Ugnari majority. The red in the center is Sleif, our colony that they stole during peace time.

The middle south that is marked is their capital system.

They have 7 times our military strength...

It is worrisome that two of our colonies (self founded at that) has a Human majority.

The 2nd Horecani War

We kill some ships trying to refuel at our base at our SE colony... The two weaker alien ships are guilty, and move on and kills a medium space port in the Ugnar System (red in the SW) while invasion fleet sets course with 20 troops. Devastator, despite its massive fire power, discovers it can not kill a medium space port alone.

8 are defenders are spotted at our former capital.

Sleif have 2 defenders, a troop transports leaves the convoy to the SW to drop its load of 5.



Who said Mortalen are unable to sweet talk? The ruin gives a 100% energy research bonus (and 19% colony development).

Sleif is again ours!

Ugnar3 quickly falls, this is the red in the SW.

Troops are picked up again, and we aim for Ireado, our former home. All 3 aliens move ahead to kill the space port.

Without mentioning... Mining bases are killed (and some are lost), the two small fleets have happy days. Every invaded system is of course emptied of bases, and space ports are killed before landing.



The war progresses...

Patulumen 1 in the west have been colonized...

We win that siege (big surprise). And we are bored and check for peace... And they agree.



The situation at the end of war. New gains in north, SW and and in the center. Two are former colonies of our own. New founded colony out west. And we see the trade line to the teekan colony which lies in the NW outside any clusters.

We set Ireado 3 as our capital again, and build regional capital at Kurillea 6 which has served us well during Ireado 3's absence.

And that pirate base has a capital ship incoming...

A few status screens:



We are not the big guys yet, but not quite as small as we used to be.



Not a huge fleet... And a colony ship!



Taxation needs tuning.



Ireado3, Ugnar 3, and Sleif were the conquests.
Turvec 3 is the teekan colony in the far NW.

Space ports are ordered on all colonies (medium on Ireado 3, small on the other ones).

Data, you can see I have not been able to grab a single continental or marshy, the native planet types. The humans gobbled all while I was busy with pirates...

For now I am without a plan, I just hope someone do something nasty to me. Oh, and there is story info now and then, I just don't mention it much.

And why was the huge Horecani so simple to beat? It helped that they had at least one other war. Going a bit further I saw a huge fleet of them kill an alien Ikurro cruiser. I just killed some 4 ship squadrons with a cruiser of two and some small prey.

If you'd also get your hands on continental / marshy planets the game will be over even quicker. The humans can gobble all they want, they'll be gobbled as well eventually.
I like how this is played with the cashflow at the limit, I may have missed it but what's the current star date? I'd need to know how far into the game you reached the current state if I'm to calibrate the next challenge [:D]

It is 2795.03.16 a little while after ending that session.

You must remember the massive tech trade I did. I was in deep trouble...

I think you have made it simpler for me by adding very many AI empires...
And I notice I always have some 125M valued trade options to declare war.

What is the aggressiveness settings in this galaxy? They all seem quite busy, and the conquest backstab from a friendly empire did not seem peaceful.

Two levels below chaos, following J's idea that on chaos they'll be so busy kiling each other that you can actually win by remaining the only one standing. So trying to get some attention from them on you....making it simpler by adding many AI empires surely confirms this.

Any suggestion for an objective? I am poor at starting wars with little to no provocation (like stealing my colonies without declaration).

Pretending that I don't know anything about the game setup and imagining what I would do (long disclaimer over) I think you should try to expand more towards the center of the map. That's always a good position to reach any other point on the map.
Expansion leads to first contact, that leads to "objectives" aka wars. And it should also imbalance your budget [:D]

I have ended up putting weight to the west. There is a lot of independents out there that I refuse to attack unless the AI tells me to.

A bad thing about letting the AI manage expenditure (here it is colonization), is that you need to keep cashflow positive. This requires a small fleet (which is fine), but also high taxes and huge amounts of cash on hand. It kind of lends itself to suicidal warfare, as the thing you can do is to build ships as long as you don't maintain them...

Anyways, I have played some peaceful time, maybe upload that part before proceeding.

Times of peace

We discover that we lack a small fleet after the war. 3 new destroyers are ordered to make one.

We stumble over an empty temple of eternal blackness. Scary...
And we kill another debris field, this time under the nose of the Ikurro...

Stupid humans beat us to colonize Nultra 2.

Purchasing 5 explorers for a total of 12, we need to get control over our surroundings.

Once war has ended, we can listen to the suggestion to send the invasion fleet against an independent Ackdarian colony out west. Time will show if it is still independent on arrival.

We find the Hidden Fortress of Holtumu which contain the techonogy needed to build some super weapon called Death Ray.

The independent has 10 defenders, and we enjoy seeing the Ancients Guardians chasing a Horicani colony ship away... A sluken fleet arrives and appear to drop the contents of a troop transport. We take control of 8206 million ackdarians. And we gained control of some Sluken Terminators...

Colonization department angers the Horicani by constructing a contested colony in the central parts of our shared home cluster. The colony rebels, and we sell it to the Horecani for 250K...

After studying papers at a destroyed pirate base, we received info of a lost colony on the far western edge. An explorer is sent to investigate, and finds Rioss 1 with 2095M Haakonish that is everjoyed to join our proud empire. (nice planet, 86% and 5 resources).

The system just outside our capital has changed hands to Ikkuro, they are stupid and don't wipe the mining bases, and jumps away from nice space battle of 19 vs 23...

We have renamed our fleets to have 3 ship fleets called Raider #.
Raider 1 survived the war. Raider 2 was created soon after. Now raider 3 and 4 has been ordered.

Our late expansion has been out west, and we discover Ackdar 4, which appears to have been a central piece of the Ackdarian empire which no appears gone. It is now Horecani territory. We'll keep this in mind in case of a new war...

Without us noticing, more spies have been hired, and the first results is research info. 5 sties are on the list, and 3 are on offensive missions.

A pirate base gives a tip of an independent teekan colony. We like those!

The Ikkuro start a blockade on a mining station, but ends soon enough. They also stop blockading a small colony we never noticed the blockade of in the first place.

We discover a source for Korabbian spice in the west. If only colonial department could send a colony ship.

The colonization department has fallen asleep. They have free funds, independent colonies, and nice colonization prospects. Nothing happens. Our invasion fleet is waiting for orders to bust an independent, but nothing happens.

We got a mine on the korabbian source, the constructor will return to build a defensive base or two.

We find a 484 strength capital at yet another Haakonish independent.
And we find the nexus of the red claw, which hides the secrets behind the Devastator Pulse.
And another 484 strength capital...

Lets sum up with some images, which have been sadly absent.




Keeping an eye on the big, bad Ikkuro is nice. The Zenox is an odd choice. They are distant, and it is the Horecani that the military advisers want to attack. The diplomats are furious towards them, I have no clue what.



Colonies sorted by value. The top is the ackdarian independent we conquered. Turvec 3 is the former Teekan independent, and we see Rioss1 the former lost colony of ours on the western edge.



We have 4 raider fleets, One has 4 ships after being a bit molested by a pirate base with lots of ships present. It would be a good idea to up all to 4 destroyers.



I am not quite sure why the cashflow is so much negative just now. I think it varies a bit. Of course, the economy is well positive with 34k bonus income and -16k cashflow.



We are no longer on the tiny side. We could have had more free trade agreements if we wanted, and the Ikurro seems to hate us for no reason (annoyed at no rare trade and they covet our colonies and resources).



The current known galaxy map. It has been downsized so it is somewhat blurry, but...

It is all about our central start cluster, and the far west. The hub in the west is our tiny Pant Colony. Up north is the teekan colony, far west is the former lost, and south among the western is the valuable ackie colony.

The yellow circle west of the ackies is the approximate location of our spice source.

Having a deep cover agent there, I wonder why I do not know the trade line between the western Ikkuro areas and the main body in the north and east.

The Ikkuro are meanies, and top dog. I can see their 6th fleet of 37 ships, and 3500 firepower, 39 troops (and no fuel). Their 3rd has 33 ships, 29 troops, 3000 firepower. The 1st fleet has 1700 firepowr and 20 ships.

My fleet has 4 ships, 1552 firepower, and should get the Devastator for 2000... But it really don't want a fair fight against any of those. But there is no war, peace in our time and so, and as long as that spy stays hidden I should be quite safe from those fleets, as they should face a decent lack of fuel if they want to come our way [8D]

[/quote]

Rioss 1 with 2095M Haakonish that is everjoyed to join our proud empire. (nice planet, 86% and 5 resources).

Sorry, my bad....have missed that in the specs

Life goes on

We sort our fleets. We increase raiders to 4 destroyers, and order one more raider in the west (busy area). Devastator working in the west will kill a pirate base before joining the Home fleet.

Plan for raider stationing is 1 up north, two in the western area, and one of the north and one of the south end of the home cluster. This should give a nice spread to respond to pirates.

The raiders are of course local defense in peace, and base busters in times of war.

The Ikkuro look scary, and are at war with many. To cull them we prepare for war and order 5 more transports to scoop up troops.



Planning for war. The big circle is the 6th fleet, of 39 ships. Mostly out of fuel. They are heading for the resupply ship at the nearest small circle.

The circle up north is my home fleet of alien ships. They can probably come first to that resupply ship...

The small circle west is another resupply ship refueling some smaller fleets.
And the circle in the south is yet another resupply ship.

Now I just lack a war...

The first Ikurro war

I am nice and declare rather than bribe some of their enememies into handing me a ton of tech to declare. The home fleet head for the eastern resupply ship with a kill order. A raiding fleet heads for a mining base to the east of this image in a gas cloud (a decent distance).

They also have 2 resupply ships in the western sector, but not much else in that area apart from a small, unhappy boskara colony and a destroyer.

Invasion fleet attacks the colony at our front step, it has quite a few troops. A raider fleet also goes to chase away military ships.



The resupply ship is in the system below the St of strike. The home fleet is faster incoming than the out of fuel 6th fleet. It will be fun!



Some ships of the 6th fleet are there, but for instance the cruiser furthest down is out of fuel.

All designs present are updated to "all waeapons" towards stronger opponents. All things not red die easily.

The rest of the big fleet heads to a non circled resupply ship just south of the red system circled in the above overview. The Home Fleet moves ahead. I could have reused the image above, but just 9 ships were present here.

Invasion fleet has just landed on Ester, the colony at our doorstep. The big mean fleet now has order to unload troops here. They have 34 troops and this would be bad.
Home fleets jumps the short way north after their kill to be a welcome committe. A raider is already there.

The enemy 6th fleet (down to 26 ships 33 troops) changes order to attack Sumuv Ret 1 mining station after assembling. Strange, as no ship got fuel...

The enemy colony far west has rebelled (I believe). No longer enemy.

Home fleet moves to kill the resupply ship west in the image above, wondering where the major enemy fleet is going. The enemy could go for the south resupply ship.

Poor attention, we lost he Devastator, but the resupply ship dies. The fleet needs to refuel.

The enemy fleet mostly got fueled, but we kill the resupply ship.

Oh, and we conquered that local colony.

The enemy target is our mining base SE of our capital.



No, they want to refuel the rest instead. Nice. Now it is just to find that ship... It is in a gas cloud towards the west cluster. Home fleet moves to kill... Home fleet easily overtake the partly out of fuel fleet.

A 4 ship strike fleet chases our Raider 3 which moves home to refuel. The stupid chasers are easily killed by a medium space port and 3 defensive bases

Their next refuel stop is the Shield of Calarba... It is in the western cluster. Home fleet.... And find 4-5 ships to kill as well.

Next stop is the Judgement of Dathumi, in the west of the west cluster... Home fleet...

After this kill the fleet needs to refuel, and heads for Rioss1.

The 6th fleet head for the Vilabre Rampage south of the West cluster.

And we can't stop that refuel, and end the war. I assume we will see more of those. The gain is a colony with 441M Humans on our capital's doorstep. Our original mining system. The bases we sold back then are now contested bases in our system and worth about 100 times more.

The war was a defensive fleet hunt, and they had a gazillion resupply ships deployed. As war end military strength is 8000 to us (space ports...) and 80000 to them. Not an even match.

They had military presence in their nearest systems, and I have only (at the end) 20 destroyers in 5 raider fleets. So no fleet to make way for an invasion. They had strike fleets of 9 ships, and multiple fleets not too different from that 6th.

Afterwards all raiders are sent to retrofit in case they miss something vital.

And the colonization department is active again. Good times.

No status screens, not too much happened. I lost a powerful, brittle capital, and gained a colony seen in the first image of this post.

Compared to the Ikkuro I am down a bit on ship quality, but they don't have self built cruisers like the humans do.
The challenge is to get a bigger fleet without destroying the cash flow.

These are the bad guys, the humans are a good number two.

Good thing to know that the AI makes such generous use of resupply ships....it would have been too easy to leave it's fleets stranded otherwise. iirc RS is one type of ship / base that the AI designs with plenty of defensive / offensive equipment but does it also use some kind of an escort fleet to guard them?

There was a small fleet around most of the times, but I think they were merely refueling. I am guessing all those big fleets run them dry. And the AI is too fond of deploying the resupply ships too far away. I like to deploy them very close to the action.

I tend to agree, why have an additional force guarding them when the "clients" are also military.
I was also considering building a gigantic RS which could supply other smaller/faster/cheaper RS. Those will go near the action while the mother queen would hang back and fill it's belly; not sure how feasible it is though.

Peace Again

For the next war we need some decent destroyer fleets able to mop resupply ships. The Home Fleet can't do everything.

We start to trade spice with 5-6 nations, including Horecani with which we have a free trade Agreement. The greens are the greater evil, and we need money!

They research area weapons, while our blasters and torpedoes lack power. Stupid people...

The Horecani colonizes the spice planet. How rude. We send the Invasion fleet to take it away in silence... They took Slief that way after all..

The Horecani don't like us anymore... We got spice (but as far as I can see we are unable to send it to our other colonies, or to get the spaceport finished, where are the freighters?).

Foselu1, a 99% continental in the far west (near our other colonies) has been colonized. Without noticing we have also gained control of Sistuueni5, a 76% swamp with 8500M Haakonish. This is also in the west.

Elernoy, a 66% desert in the west has been colonized.

We colonize Oltenoo a tiny Atuuk colony SE of the home cluster. It is contested with the Horecani and will probably etiher rebel or make a war. It took a while 10s to rebel at 2x speed.

Rudely we disband about 15 teekans and 10 ugnari war bots, that are low strength and full maintenance. Cashflow needs to be positive for colonizaiton.

Usure if this is legal or not, we sell a contested mining base to the Kiadians. Large Scale construction and officer traning for a total of 4,4 million to a minng base worth 8,7 million... We show restraint!

This makes us able to build the cruiser (current size is 462 and capacity is 500). But we wait in case the size is bumped to unupgradeable. The current design is not that nice, with 95 firepower and 2 fighter bays. I blame the design dept for using the weak but long range cuncussion missile...

The quameno inform us about an archival refuge not too far away from known areas. We send an explorer to, eh, explore.

Let me see, we find. A weird government form called Way of the Ancients. We better keep at our old feudalism.
Map of 137 nearby systems. It won't hurt!
133641 treasure. No need.
Tech:
Maximised thrust output
Advanced Research
Luxury Passenger transport
Accelerated shield recharge
Advanced ion weapons
Advanced EMP defenses
Rapid Assembly
Advanced Laser Focusing.

Most of this is "nice, the stupid research department won't waste time on this", but even larger construction is great! At least the cruiser should be safe with 650 max size. 113 firepower is about even with the Ikkuro destroyers...

A research breakthrough leads to switch to hydrogen fuel. We check that we have enough sources, and order a few more mines.

Of course I lose my fancy cruiser to a retrofit... I order 4 cruisers to strengthen the home fleet.

I want Haako1, silly colony dudes. You got money, they are Haakonish, and there is 12112M of them...

And...


The 3rd (?) Horecani War

Time to examine the field of battle...

Only twice our military strength.
No spy, I got 3 deep covers, but not one at our main rival.
I order 8 cruisers to form Battle 1.
The 4 for home fleet are almost ready (3 componets left).

I drool over Ackdar system in the west, it got a regional capital and two good ackie colonies. So, try for Ackdar, issue is to kill space ports. Do I dare send Home Fleet? And maybe clean up contested systems. Like conquering the annoying colony. We'll see about progress and how long it takes until I grow tired.

Anyways it is getting late, so a decent time for a nightly break. And to publish this simple update.

Images in the next part.

I like this situation.

We share the home cluster. They are also in the west, we are also in the west.
I don't have control with a spy. I lack control of their fleets, and don't know the strength of their main one.

Home Fleet lost a 374 cruiser converted to 113 (or whatever the size is). But adding 4 more means it is bigger than what it became after the Devastator was destroyed.

Also, the not yet constructed 8 cruiser fleet should be approx 900 strength. Maybe not enough to bust medium space ports, but I can always build more. They are built on a medium space port, so it will take time to build all (two batches). But all colonies has space ports, even if a lot in the west lack materials, so more can be built.

And the nice thing about self constructed weaker cruisers. If there is anything I can do, it is to replace lost ships. I have 2M cash. While an alien superfleet needs to be nursed carefully and is a small pain to operate.

Btw, the Horecani got 3 other wars, they are probably not at home, or lost somewhere out of fuel...

they are probably not at home

knock knock...who's there? your friendly neighbor without a current target