AAR semi In character

[Cruis.In]

Galaxy 250. Sector 10. All races, most settings normal, AI= hard/Restless. Pirates Teeming, natural disasters, no story, sand box mode, no space monsters. Every starting young.

President's Log:

Well year is 2608 and I've just been elected to lead the Vanguard Federation(cheesy name I think my first act as emperor will be to rename it). I fixed the elections btw. My advisers tell me our economy is in a rut, we have no military to speak of and basically everyone else is doing better than us according to their charts. So basically we're a shitty race of people doing shitty. It's time to chart a new exploration strategy and bribe some nearby races with money we don't have so they don't enslave us. I think this is my priority for the next five years.

5 years later:

Well things couldn't be better, even though our economy still sucks, we have enough to provide for my ego. Everyone around us loves us, who could want for better? So why does my economy still suck and why according to my advisers charts is my beloved empire nearly last on the list? I fired my last adviser, he kept ranting about a fiscal cliff. Admiral Patreus is messaging again, he wants a bigger budget for the military, suppose they attack our planets he says what will we do then? I'll give the fool five brand new frigates and hope he goes away. If not I am sure there's some scandalous accusations I could pin on him to get him to resign and get lackee Admiral in his place.

Well if you want something done you do it yourself. I have been researching old historical databases these past months, the Galactipedia volume 1 and 2 by some clown who called himself Codeforce. That's even worse than our empire name, which the stupid population voted to keep in a referendum btw, sometimes I don't know why I keep up this farce of a democracy. I think I could nuke half of the colonists on- redacted

Two Weeks Later:
Ok so if I understand this right, I need some luxury resources, some shit I've never heard of and can't pronounce. But apparently my people want it. Or there not happy and go lucky and pro-creating. No pro-creation = less taxes less commerce. I think every year throughout the empire we increase by 1 billion people. So we need to increase by 10 billion a year. So we need silk, cranberries and whatever other crap these people value.

One Week later:
Ah good news, we've found a planet to the west that is uninhabited, and has a significant amount of the crap my people want. We shall colonize this planet soon, so that my people can be happy and I can be rich and Admiral Patreus can get his ships. Amazing how our priorities are all intertwined.

Six Months later:
Admiral Patreus sent a colony ship and a small fleet to the planet. Whilst preparing to colonize, some buffoon of a spacefaring race known as the Zenox Technocracy or some vile name like that declared that this is there territory. The admiral said literally before his eyes the space turned yellow which meant it was within their sphere of influence, and to top it off some ships started to move in and build mining stations. This fool is going to ruin my schemes to get rich and make Admiral Petreus happy, and possibly any future plans I had of being a super power and ruling the galaxy and obliterating other insignificant slime nearby and nuking those colonists on - redacted

Two Weeks later:

I've just had a meeting with Patreus, the idiot thinks we can build enough ships, attack and take the system by force. Btw I've called the system Juicy Lucy. Well I could always send Patreus on the lead ship, make sure he dies and if it goes wrong blame everything on him.

Three months later:

War preparations are complete and the fleet is on its way. Troop transports are loaded and standing by to go in once Patreus secures the system. I must admit I am quite excited, this being my first war as President. The people being slaughtered are just names on a paper, and statistics for me to review, who cares, I don't see them I don't know them. Big deal, could as well be pieces on a chess board. This probably wouldn't be a good speech to my empire.

When I told the population we were going to war, they were OHH PROTEST< OCCUPY EMPIRE MOVEMENTS, sprung up all over. Then I told them it was to get some silk from some evil silk hoarders and half of them signed up to be on the first troop transport.

Two weeks later:

Fighting has been fierce, but we've all but secured the system. The enemy keeps sending fleets as if they grow like weeds. Patreus is still alive for now and leading the fortification initiative. Meanwhile I've been mulling over his replacement should he get a epsilon torpedo up his port hole. (HAHA) Yes anyway, his replacement will be that idiot Rear Admiral John Allen. He's easy to keep in line.

One Week Later:

Holy hell, this war has gone to hell in a hand basket...I've got enemy fleets raving through my empire and not enough ships to defend all positions, by the time the defense fleet arrives, they've ravished the entire system. Now I am mad, it's one thing to kill my soldiers ( who cares about them ) but when your killing my people, that means less money for me! LESS TAXES!

We manage to repel each attack and have divided up our defense forces, with less in each fleet we can cover more ground. I've ordered the fleet to defend to the last ship until the other forces arrive, we just have to keep them busy so they don't wipe out the entire infrastructure in the system.

To make matters worse, a counter attack on Juicy Lucy has broken through our lines and a HERO troop transport landed enough troops to smash my volunteers. The planet and system is almost back under the control of those Zenox fools.

One Month Later:

Reinforcements have departed and arrived at Juicy Lucy. We've taken the system again. Now to make matters worse we've received warnings from some insignificant green empire who says my mining bases are in their territory. We've had mining bases their for years and now they claim the area. The green mean menace. Well I ignored them hoping they would go away like my ex wives. But a fleet is in route to our home system and there's no way out. All our war effort is deployed at Jucy Lucy. The Home fleet is on patrol in the outer systems, they won't return in time. I called the green fools up on the tele and told them they could have the mining bases if they agreed to halt aggression. They accepted and their fleet stopped.

Three months later:

The reinforcement fleet sent to Juicy Lucy is out of fuel, damaged and needs relief which isn't forth coming. That's the bad news. In the good news, I received word that Patreus bought it. The bastard rammed an enemy carrier to his fleet could warp out. Bless you Patreus...I've replaced him with Admiral John Allen. In other terrible news, the bastards slipped a covert 5 million troops behind my lines without me noticing. Took over one of my home colonies...Well in good news I took Juicy Lucy's main resource planet and colony. Ultra bad news, I called for an end to the war when I did that (the enemy had been begging) and didn't realize my colony had been taken. Some fool forget to tell me. Anyway I held some random person responsible and threw them out the airlock.

Two Weeks Later:

I sent my troops into my former home planet and re-took it. The Zenox monkeys declared war immediately. I contacted them and offered them two star bases which I'd got from some pirates who apparently were tired of piracy. They accepted. So now I have my home colony back and I've got a resource rich and well developed colony in Juicy Lucy. Only problem is I couldn't defend it if we went to war again.

Five years later:

My advisers tell me our galactic economic status has risen. And it's on the way up more. The last five years have been peaceful. I've spent the time locked away in my palace plotting the demise of the Zenox Technocracy. They were a thorn in my side for too long, had they rolled over and died I'd not be so vindictive. I've been designing ships, preparing the battle plan myself and hoarding every ounce of space money I can find.

One week later:
Apparently a disaster in the form of a rebellion has struck, the system known as Juicy Lucy has left the empire and formed their own crappy Sluken Alliance. Joy. In better news the Zenox fools lost three colonies to rebellion. But it doesn't seemed to have weakened their military capacity.

Three Months Later:
The war has begun. John Allen is leading 50 warships and has attacked the Zenox people's colony nearest to Juicy Lucy. Initial resistance has been obliterated.

One Week Later:

Bloody Zenox fleets are marauding all over my empire. They've completely destroyed all of our stations in Zen System. They've been beaten back now. I've ordered three home defense fleets of 15 ships each to patrol our main systems. But they keep coming. Rebuilding is underway and I am confident this will only be a minor setback for Zen. At least they didn't get the time to bombard my planets before the defense fleets chased them off.

One Week Later:
Reinforcements have been sent to back up John Allen, his fleet is coming under heavy constant attack. But we need to keep the pressure up. I am fast running out of Admirals. We've also attempted to invade Juicy Lucy the system that rebelled, but we were slaughtered. Something about 100k troops vs 1million troops might have something to do with it. I tell my military people I want answers not excuses. They suggested nukes. I smiled, finally I can nuke something. Since nuking the planet in Zen who voted against me I've been so- redacted

Two Weeks later:

The war goes neither well nor bad, we've stabilized our home defense strategy, response times are up, and the major systems are protected. They are reduced to raids on out lying places, and as such I've pulled our commerce bases in tighter, and built more bases close in on available moons rather than far out. I've also had my construction manager executed. He was beamed to a gas giant. That was for building mining bases far outside our area of protection. You know? The Blue area.

One Day later:

The fleet in Zenox territory is battle weary, damaged ships, no fuel. That and three huge pirate attacks on system Zen which wiped it out again, has annoyed me greatly. Since when do pirates maraud around in fleets of 30 anyhow? I colonized or tried to, two more resource rich systems on the side furthest away from the Zenox idiots. But still their fleets managed to go through and take over the colonies. I took them back over, and we ping ponged a while. The max population was 30m so I decided to forget it.

6 Months later

My fleets have pulled back from hostile territory and the war has ended again. Time to rebuild reorg, and execute some people. I won the election again and I didn't rig it this time. I only resorted to threatening to nuke- redacted.

In looking over the battle data, I've realized that my fleets were having a hard time killing the enemy. They are firing some blue beams at us which cause a lot of hurt, and our phaser beams seem to hit everything but them. So we've been losing a significant amount of engagements even though we outnumbered the enemy. I've ordered all ships to be refitted with long range weapons. I've sent a test fleet to the enemy and they did well. Very well. I let Admiral Allen sit out that one. I can be nice some times. My researchers have told me my new nukes are ready.

Three years later:

I've build a new fleet. 40 starships are en route to Zenox territory to obliterate them one system at a time. The defense fleet is in position and ready for counter attacks, and I've built several death stars orbiting each main colony. I feel we are truly ready.

One week later:

The invasion goes well, enemy resistance tho numerous is being crushed, the defense fleets are holding the enemy off and only minimal damage is being done at home. We've bombarded and nuked two systems thus far. I figured this would be enough to slow the enemies resistance. But they still seem to pull warships out of their ass and have now stalled the invasion at the third system.

A reinforcement fleet of 40 warships was dispatched. The original fleet is damaged and out of fuel, but still intact. They will fall back to a base/colony we've established on top of the smoking ruins of the first enemy system. Which I might add is quite rich in resources. The enemy sent a 25 man fleet and attacked my main planet, but the 4 death stars made relatively short work of them, and nothing was lost that can't be repaired.

[Cruis.In]

Damn, this was a fun game and only on hard?

This was one of my first play through, and man it got me hooked on distant worlds.