Not hot enough, my lord! Let's play Emperor of the Fading Suns (40 turns are enough for most women!)

[DemoGraph]

4970 AD +++ Heroes never die

► Show Spoiler

Two techs finished in a single turn. Starports should be ready next turn. We also begin researching space fighters - it's not really necessary in SP, but more of a precaution against stray symbiots.



al-Malik aren't happy with us for some reason. Welp.


580 RP for 240 RP and cash? That's better.


Engineers: Delphi - 4

The Eye

Istakhr - al-Malik finally send a force and... well, if it continues this way we may get them before symbiots do. We, of course, capture those legendary heroes and convert them to our star crusade.
This's completely hilarious, btw - they had 75% morale, so there was ~1.5% chance to fail all three morale checks.


Kish - we jump closer to that ruin from the previous turn, so that we could run away from it on the next turn even if they rebels spawned ships.
Severus - recon jumping, nothing of interest. I don't want to get closer to rebels, because they had a lot of PTS.
Aragon and Delphi - nothing of note. I'm maneuvering spies.

Pentateuch

We land two engies from Delphi in the north. We get gems this turn, but the terrain is hard to traverse, so food would have to wait.
We could've landed them both this turn, but I would rather send lander to pick up engies for the next turn.


Ravenna

We land Eye marines on the central island. I've suspected that it's a capitol and it turned out this way. Marines perform greatly, evading PTS missile fire and routing one of the PTS platforms in the process. Enemy lacks recon (as can be seen from half of my troops not showing on combat squares) so they get additional evasion, and we get almost zero hits.
Then the Eye disappears into darkness between the stars, to let rebels recapture their stuff.


In their place another fleet of landers burns the land, evading the last shots from the missile PTS that was previously routed by imperials. Then something strange happens. A whole infantry legion disembarks, loads the missile PTS into landers... and then landers blast off into space, leaving the infantry on the swampy beach.
Well, the infantry costs 8 metal, while PTS costs 45 metal and 20 electronics. There're only two cargo slots, so somebody had to be left overboard.
I had also considered landing marines on that fort to block possible AI retaliation... but decided that interstellar logistics are more important than some meat shield.
Glory to this mark! To the heroes - glory! Your legend will live among the stars!


[Legends Never Die (ft. Against The Current) | Worlds 2017 - League of Legends]
Seeya.


In the south the Pounder kills SAM with sum difficulty. We also can see that there're 5 hidden units there.


So we land the noble and the PTS in the south instead. They would assist the future assault. We can detect only a bunch of infantry. Fifth unit could be a badass worldslayer, though probably it's just a militia.


What to do with the marines? Ravenna seems to have only two small stacks of rebels, so we should probably move them to other planet.
Both Leminkainen and Gwynneth are traditionally Hawkwood, both look kinda samey... but Leminkainen is jungle (less food), while Gwynneth probably has a bit more mountains (more metal), so we decide to send them to...

► Show Spoiler

You think I'm ******* joking? Well, how about you investigating her a bit closer? See, there, at her bottom?


The Pounder will head right between those hemispheres.

Delphi

We sell 30 gems for $9k, buy 550 food and metal for $7k, make 4 engies. Also, 2 more labs, arbo and a soon-to-be mine.



Also note yellow HP bar of a that poor freighter, he lithobraked for progress. We won't be able to support engie expansion for long in this manner. But so far we do.

Why do I build those labs on Delphi instead of Penta, you might ask. Eskatoniks on Ravenna have a slight boost to research after all.
And I'll tell you! I have not one, but two answers.
1. Because moving engies there isn't worth a loss of logistical turns for ~3-5RP per lab.
2. Because I'm terminally ********, not accustomed to playing with those sects, and my music choices are lel.
Your call!

[DemoGraph]

4971 AD +++ Song to the Eyes

► Show Spoiler

Engies: Delphi - 3, Pentateuch - 2

Two techs again! We'll be able to create planetary defense now if we need one.



What did I even do to you? Go away!
We're but simple archeologists archeologing here left and right.


The Eye

Istakhr - we've evacuated infantry successfully. They weren't attacked for some reason.


The spy tried to get closer to the ruin, stumbled upon rebels and noped out of there and into the forests.


Kish is properly polluted now. This stack has 4 (four!) vau towers! They alone could've purged the planet (if they would be mobile, not almost static, like on Aragon).


Then we jump to that other ruin we've pinged previously and get a free tech out of it. Let's hope that vau von't vind us here vor orbital bombardment.


On Aragon we've finally maneuvered safely enough to hopefully not aggro rebels and pillage that ruin. And it's a homerun - three lategame artillery units plus a relic that should increase agora supply. I don't know how exactly it works (it's one of the new ones, added in patch in ~2020), but both units and relic look great enough to warrant a special mission to pick them up. The best thing is that both units and relic belong to us, House Hawkwood, not the Eye. We'll have to keep them safe somehow until transport arrives.


Pentateuch

On Penta we've found polar aborigines (with walrus artillery), our planes had dispersed them (and their intestines) among the snowdrifts.

► Show Spoiler

Ravenna

We've captured that last well on Ravenna. The hidden unit turned out to be plain infantry and was sploshed.
Also, PTS was too slow to keep up with others and didn't participate in combat. /facepalm


Another lithobraking was a bit risky, but our invasion force casually captured the church, while en route to Gwynneth. They were joined by two tank forces on assault lander from the well.


Rebels on the capitol island don't want to move for some reason. So we bomb them with the Pounder a bit, before jumping to Gwynneth as well.
If you don't want to move, maybe your limbs will!

Of course it's a complete failure, because they're under the shield. But they should be properly aggroed now.

Gwynneth


[Song To Your Eyes - Heroes Of Chaos]

We've gathered a pretty big force here. 12 medium-to-advanced units plus a cruiser is pretty heavy 15 turns in the game.
The Eye marines would go in the first wave, clearing the capitol of the strongest rebel units, while House troops shall capture the real assets on the outskirts in the next turn.


We invade, landers evading planetary defence lasers.
Shield has a bunch of chaff, numerous, but easily dispatched. The marines enter the city with light casualties on their side.


The main action of invasion happened in ceramsteel production city.
One of the Eyes was pulverized by this evil ************. That tank was dug in inside the city walls. Those 160 armor are enough to endure orbital bombardment and tactical nukes. But marines had reorganized and returned fire so hard, they swept the medium tank retinue and then broke through all that ungodly armor, sending hover SAMs fleeing in terror.


We've lost two marines and captured the hover SAM (to the Eye).
The largest part of the capitol was captured, except for the fusorium that has few militia (who probably sat there praying for all the action to pass them by).


30% casualties for the planetary capitol... Acceptable.

Delphi

Sold 40 gems on Delphi (+$12k), bought 350 food and 220 metal (-$7.4k), 4 more engies.
We've also built a factory and a starport. Factory will be needed on that northern lake to build a well there. Starport I want for the fighters. However, both buildings are sitting idle so far, because I'm out of metal.

► Bonus

[Duet (2000) Bette Davis Eyes - Gwyneth Paltrow, 4K Up-scaling]

[DemoGraph]

4972 AD +++ Logistically constrained

► Show Spoiler

Now we'll be able to see Alexius's balls!

Also, moar cash!


Engies: Delphi - 4, Penta - 1

The Eye

Severus - Decados had built that electronics plant right on the rebels' route (as far as we can guess). That's a way to slow down their advance, I guess (no).


Kish - I've realized that I begin to forget where which rebel stacks were, so I just jumped the lander randomly to scout the planet a bit and let them disperse.

Istakhr - we're not being attacked for some reason. Maybe the rebels and symbiots mess up with al Malik plans. Or maybe they're just passive.
There's a stack nearby that probably prepares to attack us, though it's mostly composed of weaklings.


Delphi

Rebels are pestering us again.


They've crashed the fort in the capitol and managed to spawn some sec ops legions (rebels seem to spawn the units you can build).
It should've been a military coup to overthrow you, my lord.
But we've managed to rout and, very luckily, capture SPF, officer and SAM.


On the downside, and this's extremely important, I've noticed two things:
- In the Steam version (1.52) there's a message that says something like "rebels had stolen some of your resources to make their units".
- The same **** happens on 1.51! Only without the message at all! I have 72 metal left, make 170 per turn, so 100 got lost somewhere. Where? I've calculated the iron cost of units that rebelled and lo and behold it's about a hundred.
I don't remember this mechanic in vanilla (1990s version of the game). It reduces the attractiveness of skimming-but-suffering-rebellions, especially for advanced economics. As of now, we're still net positive, so we keep on skimming, but it should change in the future.

It pains me to no end, my lord, but we'll probably have to cut the tithe skim in the future, when we begin producing advanced resources.
Are you sure, D? Third of our cash income comes from Church, ah, donations.
Yes, my lord. Even now we're playing pretty thin here. That $5k income is about equal to 500 food income. If several of our farms get paralyzed for several turns because of rebellions, we won't get any profit off of it.
I see. But so far we're in the green?
Yes, my lord. So far we're in the green.
Excuse me, then. I need to make a visit to the Amalthean abbess.
A truly noble endeavour!
To ask absolution for what we've done to the leaders of those rebels, of course.
Of course, my lord.


Also I did some calculations, and we're 5k RP away from freighters. 10 labs is 800/turn max, 7 more turns, plus construction time. It won't do. I'm building 4 more labs, because I can and because we should be able to shave off 2-3 turns this way. This frees up local freighter and we move ATGs to Ravenna.

Pentateuch

Recon plane has finished killing neutrals on polar farm (walrus remains were already eaten). We've landed lander on top of it and captured it. Only 38 food, but good enough for 2 lander turns and some fighter action.

Then I've moved the lander to Delphi empty. I should've probably taken the fighter with me, because recon on Penta is finished and I was going to send fighters to Ravenna and Gwynneth (and even Delphi isn't explored properly yet). But I goofed and sent the plane away first and thought about lithobrake-capturing later.

Gwynneth

We're evacuating the Eye from the planet. Rebels are regretfully docile and don't try to recapture the cities yet. Instead we've landed the hauler with invasion force near a farm. Recon showed that there's militia there. I got scared when it turned out that there're also partisans and light tanks. I thought that our noble gets toasted. But we've rolled very well and pwned them without any losses.


But then I've remembered that we need to take those missile units from Aragon, so regretfully we shall leave the noble to marinate in that farm, while hauler jumps off en route to Aragon.

Meanwhile, there's a question - what to do with the Eye's marines? There's almost nothing left to conquer that we want to (remember, clearing out the last rebel stronghold is bad, we don't want to leave assets in the hands of the Eye).
I've considered sending them to Bannockburn (the planet to the left) we haven't yet invaded... But then I saw two cities on Gwynneth in the middle of the forest, we've landed and...
The imperial falcons raged out of the sky. Local rebels, the assortment of dirty scumbags with old and rusty anti-tank guns, had downed our hovertanks right away. Just as planned, thought the marine commander, who used that hover for a meatshield. But then there was a short-range scuffle during which the bravest marines lost two legions and ran away from gun crews armed with pistols and an occasional ****-on-a-stick.


Welp. They were so epic the last time and failed so hard now.
They did weaken the enemy, though, so we have nothing to complain about. I guess we'll bring them back to Delphi to get the troops from local fort and try to find some other target. Tethys, maybe? We should be able to get to it in 4975, so there's a change that we'll lose the Eye at that point. But at least we'll move troops away from Delphi.

Ravenna

Rebels had recaptured the fort on the capitol island. Our heroic militia is mapping local beaches (it's all swamp), doing nothing. We probably should invade it, but there're no transports to spare.

General


[Bend in the Road by Duke Miles (Star Trucker OST)]

Our expansion stagnates because of already discussed logistical deficiency. Right now I have 1 transport per (half-captured) planet. It's obviously not enough. I have several small armies on each planet, but they don't constitute a coherent whole.
This kinda creates a feeling of coming out of decline of some dark ages... but then it kinda strange for an interstellar empire to be turbo unable to build a glorified ferry!
We'll get there. Eventually.

► Game version

Unless it's not clear, I'm staying on the pre-Steam release GOG version (1.51 or whatever, I can't see it anywhere).
I got Steam version, tried it, and it's generally better. AI is probably a bit more aggressive, rebellion mechanic has changed to the better, there's that resource overlay, achievements (if you're into them), etc.
But two things infuriate me to no end:
- I can't play windowed with custom resolution (default 640*480 is too small for me now, and there's no option to upscale it x2 or x3),
- There's no way to turn off some unit being always selected.
So I'm waiting for devs to fix baby problems on the older version.

[DemoGraph]

4973 AD +++ Useless singularities

► Show Spoiler

We've invented yoga pants! We're switching to Parapsychology and then to Theurgy to be able to use that relic in some future. Only one lab is on it, more as a reminder than anything. We have more important techs to research.


(And here's music to go with those pants.)

[Singularity - Endless Space 2 Original Soundtrack]

Yay, cyclotron! It allows us to produce singularities! Think jump drives. A good side tech to yoga pants.
Not gonna build them yet, because, believe it or not, the production of the rarest and the most expensive resource in the game brings financial net loss. That is, it's cheaper to make them on your own than to buy them from the league... But you'd still lose money when you do.
I have no idea what the devs were thinking when they made it that way. Maybe it was an attempt to slow down a runaway leader? Judging by the economic system in general, I'd say that, more likely than not, it was just RNG.


Engies: Delphi - 4, Penta - 1

The Eye

The Eye on Istakhr has fought back this attack, losing a single infantry, routed two infantries and killed everyone else. The Eye badasses strike again!


The current disposition is as follows.


Two infantry in the forest are the retreated ones. We can see only one enemy unit on each square, but I suspect that there're significantly more there. We can wait and defend at the fort, until enemy overcomes us. Or we could do something. At a minimum we can try to fight our way to agora and sell those 500 food there. So we pick up everyone and move them to the hills. The plan is to go then west to search for agora and probably even capture some stray units or cities.
Then I realise that the nearest stack can still attack us (1 MP to capture fort, 3 AP to attack hills) so I divide my stack and send infantry and food separately.
The final disposition is like this. We'll see whether I messed up next turn.


The rebels had noticed my spy, so I retreat him further into wastes.


Aragon - the rebels are docile, nothing happens.
Severus - pinged ruins, lost an infantry to advanced hovers, ran away and found another Decados lab on the northern continent.



Kish - landed far away from one of the ruins. I remember that rebels from it had some PTS, but they also were moving away several turns ago, so I though that those mountains should be safe. Turns out, we've landed just outside their reach. I thought they should've been much further away. Anyway, 5 singularities are 5 jump engines. Or $30k to sell / $39k to buy. That's a fortune. We have to hide them somewhere and get back after them. We actually don't want to sell them, because, again, their market price is cheaper, than the price of their inputs.


Pentateuch

2 new arboriums has added 60/150 food this turn. We're net 270 foor and 188 metal, so we're going to expand metal now and turn it into an engie spammer as well. It actually produces about as mach raw materials as Delphi does. The only problem is that we can't supply the planet with a transport right now, so the expansion should be limited by engie speed.


Ravenna

Rebels had recaptured the fort from the Eye on the central island, so we begin amassing troops via freighter to capture it once and for all.
Also, that infantry is still exploring beaches.


Gwynneth

With some assistance from the Pounder, our noble+tank capture 2 ATGs and militia as well as minor mine.
Rebels still don't try to capture the capitol from the Eye, so we bomb them a bit as well. Maybe that will activate them.


Also I did some recon hopping before sending by the Eye's landers before sending them away, and found a 60 metal mine and an alien ruin.

Delphi

More skim rebels.
There's only a single partisan, so we send a noble and an arty on a lander to pulverize them.


4 more labs, because I couldn't find anything more useful to do with those engies. 18 labs at turn 18. We're tech rushing here, boys!


Well, actually, not. I can probably fit like 10 more. But I prefer to increase economy if I can. I have 88 cities right now. 7 are eye forts or electronics, 24 are farms or arboriums, 18 are labs. 25% of my cities are labs. So much for that dark ages thing.

Diplo business

Finally we have three proposals we cannot refuse.




Only the Hazat are the honest ones. Alexius was right to choose them.

[DemoGraph]

4974 AD +++ Unlimited power!

► Show Spoiler

The Eye

Istakhr - al Malik didn't capture the empty fort. AI is playing 4D chess here! (no)
But they did block my road. I'm pretty sure that the unknown city near the palace is the agora. I need just one hex to reveal it and then sell the food.


Gwynneth

The Pounder has bombed away ATGs on the island mine we've found previously and the noble+tank drop finished the job.


Gwynneth seems to be almost pacified for the time being. Last thing we need is to capture that fort we've tried to aggro previously.
I hope that locals are doing something. Or that we'll lose the Eye (ideally to al Malik).
The Pounder moves to Ravenna to assist in capturing it.


Ravenna

We have two problems here.
The first is that we've got a goddamn rebellion again, on the farm we can't hope to reinforce.


Another is that I've sacrificed Eye's marines and found out that palace guard is quite strong there. Well, actually, not that much, but we also don't have enough troops. I began massing forces there. If rebels won't attack, the Pounder kills those artys and we'll add a noble to the stack, we probably should win. We can't even build a militia, because rebels had stolen a little metal we had.


Pentateuch

I've razed the farm that gave us "paltry" 80/110 food (on the place of engie) and would next turn create another that would bring us ~150 (on the place of militia, as well as freeing the space for some other buildings). Short-term loss we can afford.


There's also a rebel stack... on our gem mine!1rage. It already crashed production to 1 gem due to health loss from rebellion. And rebels should capture the city next turn. We have no way to retaliate.
Well, we have two planes, that are useless, because rebels have SAMs.
We don't have a single freighter on planet.
There's an engie en route to a future mine, who shall bring a road a bit closer. We also move a small group of fast units out of the palace as well as some militia lumbering behind. We'll probably clean them up in several turns. And it's not like I was able to sell those gems any time soon. Still, a bit of a setback.


House matters

Now we're talking. Accept.



Decados actually give us more valuable tech (610 RP vs 580) for a change. Despite the name, it's an empty dummy tech that serves only as a prereq for others. Still, ok. Accept.


Engies: Delphi - 4, Penta - 2

Delphi

We've reached fusion!


It changes everything.

[CYMATICS: Science Vs. Music - Nigel Stanford]

You see, the majority of production cities in EOFS are useless. Let's see, e.g., the Chemicals city.

Their inputs cost 10 * 13 + 5 * 26 = 260 (league selling price), the output costs 10 * 35 = 350 or net $90. Add 10 food per city and it's $10 loss. If we're on 20% tax, the input is the same, the output is 8 * 35 + 200 tax = $475 or net $115, including food.
If you're completely self-sufficient and don't buy anything from the league, the net profit is $50 on 0% tax or $175 on 20% tax. (Yes, more taxes means more profit, at least sometimes, we're not libtard capitalists here.)
Electronics are completely the same.

Biochems and keramsteel are net loss, when you take food into account.
Wetware is net loss, though it may give small profit at 20% tax.
Singularities, local jump engines, are about $1k net loss. Yes, the rarest resource in the game is so rare, because it's the most shittily priced.

Remember the OP gem mine? Each gem deposit gives $1.5k cash max (or 1.2 on 20% tax).
But monopoles, monopoles give $4.4k profit on 0% tax and max output. Like 10-40 other buildings.


They're the only resource that keeps the interstellar economy together. And it means two things.
1. We're reducing taxes to 10% and skim to 5% to begin increasing loyalty of the furnaces. Even though we should lose ~$9k per turn (compared to current level), it will pay for itself in a few turns.


2. We're going to cheese the **** out of it. It's a 25 years old balance, after all, it's ideal and WAD.
Yes, I'm salty that devs cannot into math. When I began this run I kinda forgot how dumb it was. But then I did some calculations and... you know what these factory stacks near agora mean?



[Palpatine: Bobr! Unlimited KURRRWAAA!]

[Decline]

Always found it a bit strange that they decided to make a strategy game based on their tabletop RPG rather than an RPG

I find it strange that you'd rather want some RPG slop than a TBS for the ages.

[rusty_shackleford]

Always found it a bit strange that they decided to make a strategy game based on their tabletop RPG rather than an RPG

I find it strange that you'd rather want some RPG slop than a TBS for the ages.

RPG is the Ur-Genre

[Decline]

Always found it a bit strange that they decided to make a strategy game based on their tabletop RPG rather than an RPG

I find it strange that you'd rather want some RPG slop than a TBS for the ages.

RPG is the Ur-Genre

While I doubt that, you cannot deny that MOO, MOM, HOMM, this, and a lot more I forgot here are still enjoyed, (especially by people that lack vowels in their language ). And what has RPG got in that weight class? Oblivion?

[rusty_shackleford]

I find it strange that you'd rather want some RPG slop than a TBS for the ages.

RPG is the Ur-Genre

While I doubt that, you cannot deny that MOO, MOM, HOMM, this, and a lot more I forgot here are still enjoyed, (especially by people that lack vowels in their language ). And what has RPG got in that weight class? Oblivion?

All HoMM did was destroy Might and Magic.

[Decline]

RPG is the Ur-Genre

While I doubt that, you cannot deny that MOO, MOM, HOMM, this, and a lot more I forgot here are still enjoyed, (especially by people that lack vowels in their language ). And what has RPG got in that weight class? Oblivion?

All HoMM did was destroy Might and Magic.

Without HOMM nobody would even remember the MnMs!

[rusty_shackleford]

While I doubt that, you cannot deny that MOO, MOM, HOMM, this, and a lot more I forgot here are still enjoyed, (especially by people that lack vowels in their language ). And what has RPG got in that weight class? Oblivion?

All HoMM did was destroy Might and Magic.

Without HOMM nobody would even remember the MnMs!

The only people who remember HoMMs are eastern europeans that got it for free with gaming magazines they stole

[Decline]

All HoMM did was destroy Might and Magic.

Without HOMM nobody would even remember the MnMs!

The only people who remember HoMMs are eastern europeans that got it for free with gaming magazines they stole

You mean your primary source of funds?

[rusty_shackleford]

Without HOMM nobody would even remember the MnMs!

The only people who remember HoMMs are eastern europeans that got it for free with gaming magazines they stole

You mean your primary source of funds?

I have funds?

[DemoGraph]

4975 AD +++ The truth is out there

► Show Spoiler

Mulder and Scully were seen hunting sectoids.


More importantly, we're one step closer to freighters. This tech allows to turn singularities into jump drives and is a direct prereq to several ships.


Not that new, huh?


Yep. Hazat bros are almost Hasbro.


Engies: Delphi - 4, Penta - 2

We've ended the last one with $24.3k. We've began the turn with $21.7k. $2.6k negative. We've lost $9k in tax and skim, and got ~$2k back in increased production of resources. We need to hold out for several turns, until our stacks become fully operational.

The Eye and expeditions

Al Malik somehow capture our food, so we probably sacrifice that damaged infantry to capture it back. There's a chance that it's our last turn as the Eye, so I sell all the food for $5k (ministry units don't need to eat anyway).


Then I say "**** it" and we kamikaze to the lab, killing the plane and some chaff. If it was the only lab of al Malik, they would've lost all their tech. It's not that relevant vs AI, but that blietzkrig was fun by itself (note from future me: they held to their tech, so there's at least one more lab somewhere).


Goodbye, fair Aragon, you was nice.


The valiant Valiant seems to have ran out of luck. During another of its geographical endeavours it stumbled upon an unidentified cruiser!


Are these the League pirates? Are these the rogue houses? Are these the horrendous Shantor equinomorphs that somehow got the ancient human tech into their heretical hooves? Would our brave spacemen survive?!
Stay tuned to find out!

Decados space is rich with action. They seem to try to expand to Malignatius, while their capitol is contested by rebels (who could've caused that?!). Rebels have a hauler and a space base with orbital bombardment capability. Have fun, russkies!


We check their capitol, but all seems peaceful so far. Though they don't seem to expand cities that much. It might mean that AI is having trouble securing its environment and is busy massing troops instead of economy.


Also, we had finished exploring the known worlds. Only Nowhere and Symbiot planets are still not visited, but it's probably too dangerous to go there.

Pentateuch

We've landed the noble and arty on the planet, picked up both planes and sent them back to Delphi and then Ravenna, for geological survey.

Ravenna

I have finally realized that there's a shield on the capitol island that prevents orbital bombardment. Derp. So we move Pounder back to Gwynneth.
I've decided that we've massed enough troops and risked attacking. That was a mistake, because rebels had 3 infantries and should've been able to outgun us. But we've rolled well, losing only a single ATG and killing everything.
On turn 20 Ravenna is pacified (except for that rebellion, of course).


Gwynneth

We had finished capturing outlying cities, only the capitol remains. Rebels had managed to capture it back from the Eye (good, good). I don't want to capture it back right now, because the planet has no palace, church or agora, and no resource supply to produce monopols, so those cities would only eat food without contributing anything.


What we probably do want is to capture that fort. But when I tried to land, this happened.


It means that rebels had decided to move out to our farm and sit in the forest there. Our lander still has 2 AP left, so we land in the nearby hills and...


We can try to attack that arty, to defeat them piecemeal. If they rout, our peaceful farm tractors should be able to capture retreaters.
We attack, turns out, there were two infantries there, but both they and arty were killed. Then I misclick, so our tanks can't reinforce the noble and we also retreat to the forest away from that fort.

Delphi

4 electronic plants are made, to create inputs for fusoriums. We're consuming 28 per turn now and the League sends in about 60. Theoretically we could've continued buying the inputs and created more fusoriums right now. But it would've been very unsustainable. I might've risked building this way in MP (for tempo), but in SP we're not really in a hurry.
You can also see in the picture me preparing to kill all the Eye agents if we lose control of it (and worse, if it goes to al Malik).


House matters

Finally, diplo!
I'm in your lab, touching your interns, pal. Threaten someone else.


Whatever, nerd.


Sure, why not. The AI can't into economics anyway, but in this case they might become a challenge. That is, if they handle the rebellions, plague and unspeakable alien horrors that we've unleashed on them.


And with that we might consider early game to be over. Because 20 turns had passed.
We're in disgusting lead in economy and tech, despite drip feeding AI some.
We have a semi-developed capitol, 1 resource colony that we're still expanding (Pentateuch) and 2 freshly captured, but useless colonies (Ravenna and Gwynneth, they both net like +50 food and metal and a trickle of other resources).
None of the AIs had managed to pacify even their own HW (though Hazat and al Malik(!) seem to be doing better, despite our help).


But we're not any closer to winning the game than in the beginning, because we have only the default 5 scepters.
The same could be said about other powers.
I'm pretty sure that the symbiots hadn't pacified their three planets yet, because there should've been many more messages about them capturing cities. I don't know what's going on there, but they've probably spawned some rebel stacks that are kicking their cloacas.
The League has managed to gather only $30k. When they get at least $300k, the thick plottens. But we're very far from that yet.



[John Williams & Wiener Philharmoniker – "Main Title" from "Star Wars: A New Hope"]

trrrtkcht

Will our enemies get their act together and finally become a threat?
Or this LP shall end in boredom and misery?
Stay tuned to find out!

[DemoGraph]

4976 AD +++ Valiant widow

► Show Spoiler

Engines ready!


Dun, dun, dun, dun!


Gwynneth is a one wild girl! We don't even have a church there, so we're not getting ANY skim. Yet they rebel. Probably something is in the water.


And we're the Eye again... while Decados get the Fleet? Hazat are probably missed the melee, there's no other explanation.


The Eye and expeditions

Mayday, mayday! We're under attack! The hull is breached! We're losing reactor integrity!
EHEHEHEHE!
We surrender! We surrender!
Too late!


kchtttrrtkt

Today was declared the day of mourning for the fleet. Our brave sailors fought until the end against superior firepower. Transmissions show that nobody deserted their posts or was weak of heart.

trrtchkt

My lady, please have my complete and utter condolenses.
What for?
Your husband...
Didn't return home for years. The ******* got me married to himself when I was 12 and ran away for 20 years! Stars here, engines there. Probably had a ***** on every planet. And that "brave till the end", pffft. Spare me.
My lady, I understand the shock...
I'll be really shocked if he left anything to the family, besides this old moldy manor.
Ma'am?
I know why you're here. You'll drag me through all the magic lantern shows and official routs then dump me back to this backwater. Spare me your pity. I'm not your pet. I want a real life! I haven't seen the court for months!
I believe, we can change that.
What?
Well, you'll have to play the role of the hero's widow for a while. I'll arrange an apartment for you in my manor. I assure you, it's much more comfortable than this one... And it's near the palace.
The palace?
Well, there's only one palace on Delphi that I know about.
And of course you expect me to be "your lady"?
Will you?
Do you know how to put this dress off?
Yes, my lady.


[Planescape: Torment Annah's Theme]

Meanwhile on Istakhr, al Malik hadn't recaptured the lab, but they're encircling us. We can try to kamikaze a little bit more... But I'd rather prolong this conflict for shits and giggles, especially since we were granted Eye for another 10 turns. We retreat west. There're few cities there. With an access to agora we should be able to spam militia and arty now for low-tech warfare.


On Severus we can see that rebels had bitten a large chunk out of Decados's food stocks and threaten the capitol. This's what, ~$11k? No wonder they don't expand.


On Leminkainen the Eye recon hopped a bit. I don't approach the capitol in fear of PTS interceptor fire and countryside isn't that interesting so far.

Gwynneth

We've bombed and captured the fort. Enemy had a naval transport, but it ran away.


We also had a small rebellion in the mine, but it was dealth with thanks to a quick marine drop.


With that the Gwynneth is almost pacified. AFAIK there're only few militias in the capitol that are not worth defeating now.

Ravenna

We use the Eye's lander to do recon on rebels. Then we sacrifice Eye's artillery to weaken them. Meanwhile we drop the noble on that farm and steal back our food stock (200 units!) in a daring (and dashing) raid.


House matters

We accept Li Halan and Decados offers. Sorry, Hasbro, you were overbought.




On Delphi we sell 32 monopols for $15k. With 10% tax and 50% skim we've generated ~$11k income from all the other assets. I think we should be able to zero tax from now on.

[Norfleet]

RPG is the Ur-Genre

I mean, strictly speaking, TBS predates RPGs as RPGs are a direct offshoot of Strategery and Tacticool, with D&D being a direct offshoot of Chainmail.

[DemoGraph]

4977 AD +++ Leminkainen next

They tried to kill my son!

► Show Spoiler

tchtchtt

I didn't know you had a son, my lord.
What? No. At least not a legitimate one. Why?
You've said something about the assassination.
Yes! They've tried to kill my cousin! Cedrick! The noblest of us! The truest to the House's legacy!
...The most hawkwooden...
The bravest! The one who volunteered to go to that lair of scum and villainy!..
Did something happen to Cedrick?
Mother? No! Everything is all right.
Councillor?
There was an attempt on his life. He's unharmed. The bodyguard performed admirably.


Who?
We believe, al Malik are the culprits.
Bloody nuggets! Aren't they busy enough with the symbiots?
We won't stop the war until they're utterly defeated!
We'd only have to break that symbiot blockade first.

Expeditions and The Eye

We retreat west on Istakhr, capturing a farm and some chaff. Also, that 114/109 food isn't a bug - second number shows a terrain-based potential production. First number takes into account morale, religion, etc.
We immediately sell ~200 food we've captured and buy metal for arty.


In the east I've made a dash to that ruin, only to have spy ambushed by rebels. We can see only a single officer, but I'm sure there're more. Goodbye, Mr. Bond, you was useless all along.


I risk landing near one of the ruins on Severus and get a bunch of resources we have no way to move from the planet. They cost ~$6k. No way I'm spending 6+ transport turns to get them.


Ravenna

We're in a bit of a pickle with the rebels. So we do some freighter magic to both evacuate the wounded units to that farm, send a noble with power armor to Leminkainen and reshuffle units here and there. Oh, and we've landed planes to begin geographical survey of Ravenna.


Leminkainen

Invasion begins! We land both noble and power armor from Ravenna and missile arty from Aragon, damaging hauler, but capturing the farm with zero losses, despite there being that hovertank. The Eye recon hops over the planet, spotting a garrison in a nearby mine and...


...killing some naval transports in that factory as well as noticing almost a full stack of chaff on that starport before running out of there.
That's on the outskirts of the local capitol. We'll definitely need some chaff of our own to handle all that. Agents of the Eye had also captured some metal we use for low scale arty production. On the farm. Yes, those tractors are very peaceful, what of it?


Pentateuch


[Fantasy General 2 Soundtrack - Borderlands]

Since we don't have a transport here, hordes of engineers can be seen roaming among the ruins seeking employment.


A gnashing of teeth could be heard.


There're demonstrations for social security.


All in vain.
So they roam the land building roads for subsistence wage.


And their wives are ready for everything.
M-hmmm.

Delphi

Economic expansion is well underway. We're spamming electronics as if in Shenzhen. The spam is actually large enough that we're net -45 energy (barrel resource) and only +15 trace elements (rare earths that USA doesn't have anymore due to Chinese sanctions, dun-dun-dun-dun). So we're purchasing energy in bulk from agora. Monopole profit is large enough to buy all the required resources, as long as the league provides them.


Also, we've got the first space interceptor! It's quite useless now (because nobody tries to cheese invade us), but I've built it because I had a bit of spare metal and wanted to spend those spaceport production turns on something.


House matters

We're building 26 engineers at the same time. More than 6 per turn.

Sure, why not. You won't be able to compete after all.


Because soon we'll go ballistic.


Note the proportion of cities, units and tech. I'm in the lead even though I'm giving away tech left and right and haven't built an army to speak of.

[DemoGraph]

Interlude - How not to play

I usually don't comment on other people's games. But some things sadden me a lot. And if one day I'll want to play non-RP MP, I wouldn't like to win while facerolling over the keyboard. I would like to have a decent competition.
And for that I'm going to point out dumb **** internets do, because its dumbness is obviously not that obvious.

► Show Spoiler

Here's the video from a guy called Imperialus. I don't know him. But I've seen him mentioned and he was a prime result in "letsplay fading suns" on youtube. So I assume he's (one of the most) popular LPers out there and noobz are going to learn from him.

Oh, and I'm not going to criticize the guy. I'm going to criticize the game.

I didn't watch the whole series, but this single vid is informative enough.
First thing we'll see is that he's at 4976, so ~20 turn into the game - about the same as this LP is.
He plays with universal warehouse (again, resources from all the planets are pooled together) - that's the noobie setting and he's probably one.

Economy

Let's compare his vid with this LP at the end of the same year.
0:45 of the video - he is in process of building 8 engies. At 4976 I'm building 25.
1:50 he's building 4-5 military units. I'm building 2 (space fighter to show you guys and special forces, because it's cheap but long to build).
He has 5k unspent food.
7:50 He spends assault lander (AL) turns to bring infantry to capture rebel farm. Nearby there are untapped metal and trace resource bonuses. And at 9:50 an engineer spends his turn just walking around the planet.
8:00 You can see that he built a mine over energy bonuses.

So the first things are:
1. He doesn't understand how strong engineers are and how heavy he has to invest in them. So he didn't try to calculate return on engineer. It's as bad as not calculating return on settler in civilization game.
You need to know the speed that the economy allows you to expand and what resources bottleneck that expansion. You don't need to know how good all buildings in a game are. But you need to know the basic economic loop.
It's a strategy game - spend an hour in a spreadsheet if you want to be decent, FFS.
2. Trying to capture a farm while having 5k food and <100 metal shows that his resource flow is unbalanced and his priorities are as well.
Prioritise and balance your resources. Ideally, you want to spend everything you have.
If engies require equal amounts of food and metal, you want to produce an equal amount of them.
If you need metal, you don't need to spend freighter turns to send some mooks capturing another farm. You need to paradrop engie to a mining spot.

Tech

1:05 - he has 18 techs that cost ~5700 RP (3 techs at 500 RP he got from a starting perk). I have 22 techs at ~9500 RP. The difference is 43 lab-turns in 20 game-turns.
I saw him having 3 labs on HW. I have 18.

3. He lags in economy, so he lags in science as well. Like in many games, in EOFS they're directly correlated.

His techs are all over the tree - a bit of everything, including units. In this LP I'm already able to build arboriums and monopols and I'm going fast to freighters.

4. He doesn't know what to beeline to, because he doesn't know the tech tree, because he doesn't know the basis of his economic engine. Again, that's a problem of preparation and prioritization.

Armies and expansion

10:50 He put 3 space transports on orbit to "mass" units to go and capture that farm.
14:30 Half a stack of armored units is prepared to capture half a stack of basic units.
2:50 He brought a full stack to explore ruins. Those are probably not the first ruins he explored. I'm evading them completely.
4:10 and 4:55 He got a space carrier out of those ruins and a relic.
Later I see that he has 2 space cruisers, so he probably captured one in a ruin.

So, while a cruiser and a relic are useful, they're not equivalent in output to literally dozens of engineers he didn't built because he was overmassing units to go to capture ruins.
5. It's a strategy game, you have to set your priorities.

I have HW+1 planet under full control and I'm paving them with cities, 2 planets almost conquered and one being explored for future conquest.
He has HW, 1 almost conquered planet and one half-conquered.

6. He lags in economy and doesn't prioritize enough - therefore he lags in expansion.

And finally...

Tempo

21:20 He uses infantry to suicide scout that rebel farm... then loses another infantry to capture it, then at 22:40 lands 2 AL with medium troops near that same farm, unloads the troops in the middle of nowhere and sends AL empty to HW.

WHAT THE FLYING **** IS GOING ON
He could've spent AL turns to place engies. He could've sent those mobile arties he already had in them to that neighbouring planet he's capturing right now... But he went for "reinforcements", losing both unit time, engie time and freighter time. Losing tempo.

7. Tempo is important. Don't lose it.

[DemoGraph]

4978 AD +++ Freighters!

Yep!

► Show Spoiler

[Railroad Tycoon 2 Soundtrack-Freedom]

We also got Theurgy. Need to move that agora relic to Delphi now.

That's new. Symbiots seem to have built their second fleet. We're lucky they went to Nowhere, not to Bannockburn (right on our border).


Symbiot consolation fund, you say?


The more you build, the more we can capture.


The Eye and expeditions

Severus has rebels capture those biochems we've found last year. It means that they either have fast hover or moving around on the transport. Anyway, it's too risky to leave lander here in this case. We migrate the scout to Cadiz, there should be more ruins to plunder.

Pentateuch

Rebel partisan had bypassed us to capture a mine. We retaliate and kill him easily.


We had a choice between getting 75 food or 21 metal here. Yes, I value metal that much so far. We're +900 food, but only +600 metal in the galaxy.


Ravenna

We've spent freighter and lander turns to catch up the rebels.


Delphi

The planet is already two turns without agora restock.
I have no idea what the League is doing!
Yes! We need to see your manager!
...
Not right now, lady El.
But I'm all out of Twilight Dances! If my perfume won't be here next month, heads will roll!
Yes, my lady. Please, wait us at the refreshment table.
These national hero families. Surely you understand...
Yes, sire. We're doing our best.
Do better. We're paying premium on your stocks.

We're expanding fusoriums yet again.
Note that mine top right, near the river delta. I always thought there should be a farm/arbo here, such a picturesque spot... but now I had to reconsider. Iron glut only keeps getting tougher.


Our cash reserves have almost zeroed-out, so we sell all the monopols.


I told you, they're OP. We're just past debut and we'll likely never touch the tax slider again.

GNN BREAKING NEWS


[Master of Orion OST (HQ Remake) - GNN]

A galaxy-wide emergency was declared today.

► Show Spoiler

Vau are encroaching on Li Halan capitol.

Will there be war? Will humanity be obliterated?
Stay tuned to find out!

[DemoGraph]

4979 AD +++ Quadrotech!

► Show Spoiler

We're on a roll now. Yes, most of those techs are intermediaries, but we're still outputing close to 1800 RP/turn without breaking a sweat.


At this rate we should reach technological singularity soon.

trrrtchkt


[Alpha Centauri Album : 4 : University of Planet - The Theory of Everything video]

Or not, you people behind the fourth wall. Because TS is a dummy idea.

chkt ttbrrrt

Back to the talk about technological depth.

[Space rangers HD: A war apart ost 6 - Depth]

We've researched 32 techs out of ~107. Game techtree is 150k RP deep, we've completed 15-16k RP. With 18 labs I'll get ~1.8k RP/turn. Or we're ~75 turns until getting all the techs. And I'm not going to get new labs in foreseeable future.
We've researched all the necessary economic techs (bar one). All that remains now is grinding through the tech tree and getting necessary and fancy units at proper times. Yes, while vanilla tech tree is deep, it's not that complex. We won't get wonders, new abilities and other fancy things.
We can't build planetary shields yet, wetware production cities (cyber implants), combat ships, hovers, psy, advanced and specialized troops, assassins. But still, only military and utility techs remain. Though some of them can significantly alter the balance of power. Well, theoretically. If we were in MP.
OTOH, if you think a bit, early Civ games were about the same. Most of the techs had given a building or a unit and that's it. EOFS doesn't have wonders, social engineering and tech-based global modifiers, but those became really intricate only in SMAC and Civ 4.

Anyway, cash.


The Eye and expeditions

If we're to launch a proper agora-funded guerilla warfare, we need more bodies. This means more cities to build them in. So we capture one. I'm going to spam some militia for a bit then move to the western cities. It's convenient that ministry troops don't need food or wages - I can spam as long as resources allow.


This's Cadiz. Or rather its islands. Originally an advanced Decados planet, in the game it's rebel infested nothingness.
Actually, so far I had 0 (zero) positive drops from ruins. People say they get freighters or whatnot. I have only enemy spawns. I wonder is it because I play on the highest difficulty?


Since Vau are encroaching on Li Halan, it means that their ruin is empty... And its drop is actually useful. We can build palaces now. Gwynneth lacks one.
[edit. disregard that, I completely forgot that palaces don't require any tech, the description is false and the tech is useless by itself]


I use Eye's lander to haul all the metal and electronics I can from B2 to Delphi.


Leminkainen

I decide to check whether rebels decided to counterattack... and they do! That megatank is really scary. His only problem is low rank, so that the Pounder hits him first and hits twice. It's not enough to kill it.


Nevertheless, other units are manageable on full health, so we attack and wipe them out. Hawkwoods have only one ally - their space superiority.


Ravenna

We pick up almost all troops from the planet and send them as reinforcements to Lemin. Only georecon planes remain.


Delphi

More industrialization. We also build a second fort to mass produce officers in the future.
Sold 34 monopols for $16k, bought a bunch of resources for engineers.

GNN BREAKING NEWS

Vau attacked Kish so deviously and esoterically, that no sight of their aggression could be seen. Is there some nefarious plot at play?
Stay tuned to find out!

[DemoGraph]

4980 AD +++ Asslanders

We can make 'em now.

► Show Spoiler

For Uranus.


Engies: Delphi - 3, Penta - 2, Byz2 - 1
I've built an engineer on Byz2, only to discover that we can't build cities there (probably until Scramble for the Throne begins, though maybe never). I completely forgot about it. We have nothing to move him with, so he shall sit there uselessly for a time being.


[Das Schwarze Auge: Schatten über Riva - Soundtrack (OST, 12 Tracks) - Pondering In Solitude]

The Eye and expeditions

For some reason there're less symbiot units over Istakhr. It might be a graphical issue (we don't have a vision after all, so we see only the units that haven't moved yet), but maybe somebody (rebels, League?) is killing them one by one.


We've discovered that at least one of the western cities on Istakhr is rebel-held. That means we should be massing troops on the only road east in preparation for inevitable attack. I'm spamming militia for cannon fodder duty. It would be good to have a fort, but I doubt they would give us 4 turns to prepare.


We're spy hopping on Kish, nothing interesting so far. But we finally did this.

Also, I still don't see rebel vau stack anymore. They have encroached away somewhere. Insidious!

Gwynneth

I've sent militia exploring that mining island and it was super effective. We begin industrializing.


Pentateuch

The rebellion is crushed.


Leminkainen

We've rolled badly, but thanks to ortillery support from the Pounder, had managed to capture the second suburb. Only the metropolitan area remains.


Delphi

First freighter, woohoo! Look at this beauty!


We're properly interstellar now!

[KSP Build Fly Dream Trailer]

I haven't compared them to assault landers before (well, maybe I did like 10 years ago). Let's do it now.


Freighters cost about $8.5k in resources (League selling price), AL are about ~$15k for the same cargo slots and AP. They need 4 resource types to freighter's 3 (it's not that important, but still). We're unlikely to build AL soon. We can build double the number of freighters and let them repair sometimes after lithobraking and still be better off than making landers.
That free landing is way overpriced. I honestly thought that AL have more agility or something. They have nothing.
I suppose AL have that close combat support. But I can't imagine a situation when it will be really relevant. You can't use them on attack (landers can only go to/from planet, they don't travel in the atmosphere), and if you hope for them on defense, you've already lost.

Also note that I'm not hard rushing freighters - we're making them out of a single starport, though we definitely could've managed two. I'm still massing engies. Because engies are so good, even freighters can't compete. In a wargame! Politics is a continuation of economy by other means indeed.

We've delivered our first relic to Delphi. I stuck my nose in relics.dat to see what it does and it's supposed to be "galaxy-scale" league restock bonus. We definitely didn't see it working so far, League stocks are as usual. I hope that it's hardcoded to be planet-scale and so should work next turn.


Diplo matters

We also do some diplo for brownie points.

[rusty_shackleford]

I've been reading these if you were curious if anyone is

[Kalarion]

How DARE you

[asf]

i read everything

[DemoGraph]

4981 AD +++ Pulverized

► Show Spoiler

# General matters

Engies: Delphi - 3, Penta - 3, Gwy - 1

We train to fight better. These techs give +2 agility (+10% evasion chance) to all units on corresponding planets.



For some reason Russkies want to exchange maps. I agree. I don't really need their map, but diplo raise might be handy some day.


Here's their map. They've captured one farm and are running around pinging rebels. Nothing fancy.


The Eye and expeditions

Istakhr - No attack comes from al Malik. I don't know what AI is thinking about, but I'm definitely going to spam more meatshields in the meantime. Also, I've ran an infantry scout to the west and there're only rebels there. We might want to capture that mine in foreseeable future, because agora doesn't get replenished under blockade. And without metal we're screwed.


Cadiz - first ruin ping and it's an absolute shitfest. PTS and torpedo bomber to kill incoming transports, fast bombers to kill any attempts at colonizing the planet, AL to drop hovertanks at them and a plague bomb on top. Also, AFAIK that space marine looking dude can do independent orbital drops.
If it's a mobile stack (and it should be), this planet is already polluted for AI expansion for foreseeable future. Mission accomplished, Malignatius next.


On Kish I don't know what vau are up to. I don't see them capturing any cities... but all their towers are in orbit. We evaq from there faster than you can say "Criticorum". Remember, each of these things is on par with dreadnought.


We've sent the remaining frigate to Bannockburn to watch for symbiots. The logic is as follows. We know that they have a fleet over Istakhr for about a dozen turns already. They should probably have more fleets soon.
They've already sent something to Nowhere (an isolated planet west of Stigmata), but since there was only a single message about them capturing a city, it probably was a small detachment (that could've been killed by rebels).
When they get to Stigmata, they can either hold over it, trying to bomb the defenders (we're okay with it). Or they should invade some other planet. In this case they could go to:
- Istakhr again - we don't care. Have fun eating wrong humans, guys!
- Shaprut-Criticorum - the last one usually has a heavy traffic from League, Decados and Li Halan, so we should probably be safe here.
- Bannockburn-Gwynneth - in this case we're in trouble. Because we're definitely not prepared to kill 12-20 cruiser-grade ships. We'd need to build several more spaceports and switch to space fighter and bomber spam ASAP. And for that we'd need early warning.
Having a ship on Stigmata itself would've been even better. But there might already be symbiots on its orbit. It's too much risk for now.


Leminkainen

Rebel capitol invasion begins.


[Overlord - Soundtrack 04 Combat Main Theme]

The capitol area is to the south from this industrial suburb. Cities are placed sparcely for some reason. We see only a few units there (everything we saw initially is in red rectangles). We have an eskatonik AL in orbit (agi 7) that has 70% chance to evade that PTS launcher. We've tried to land it in factory, but got under covering fire and landed in the fort instead [game actually doesn't allow you to land if there're enemy units in hex].


Then landed troops saw additional enemies (blue rectangles). Power armor legion and single arty are definitely not enought to get 2 artys and field gun. But they could be enough to kill that PTS, if there're no more units there. I've checked and noticed that power armor are also eskatonik, so they have 10 agi vs 3 attack, meaning 70% chance to completely evade attack. And then he's practically guaranteed to kill that PTS. So we did that and killed that PTS flawlessly.
Then we've landed the heavy arty and a noble and killed the arties easily. Power legion got dented for 4% of hp.
Then the Pounder did an ortillery strike at that militia stack. The idea was to weaken it and also probe for counter-PTS - enemy capitol is only a few hexes below, so if there's a PTS, it would've fired back. No fire happened. We've also discovered that the enemy stack is at least 11 units large... And also has the same missile arty as we do...
But no PTS cover means that the Eye lander can pick back up the spy and then recon land in their faces there.


And that's a lot of meatshields. And another infantry stack. The Pounder oneshotted the missile arty, but detected two other hidden units.
I was about to order the general retreat into orbit... but then I looked at the stats somewhat. And I've realised that we can attack the infantry stack with missiles and noble. Missiles would act as meatshields for noble (never thought I'd say that), but they should be good. With the tech and avestite bonuses they should have 10 agility vs 4-5 enemy attack (so they should evade 75-80% of shots). At the same time they should kill or seriously weaken 1-2 enemy infantries per turn each. So we have a good chance to wipe out at least half the enemy stack with the first salvo. And if we then retreat to the spaceport, the enemy shouldn't be able to reach us, because his militia and guns are slow.
So we attacked.

Actually, mass arty is Decados tactic (Russian WW2 rip-off). My background can't be hidden, I guess. So here's the proper OST.

[What Is Love? Russian град multiple rocket launcher edition!]

That's the situation after the first volley.


It failed. Only two hits, no kills, and some hidden units. I sweated there for a bit. And then some, when enemy rolled really well in close combat, dropping one launcher to yellow hp.
First salvo missed! The enemy outmaneuvered us!
Come on, come on...
Sir! Infantry waves incoming!
Scuttle! Now!
Don't mess up now, Vladislav! Baby don't hurt me...
Who are you talking to?
Nobody, dear. I have a report from the frontline.
Are you saying that you're too busy to talk to me?
Second salvo, ready!
We can talk while I show you my...
Missile! Countermaneuver!
Sir, we've evaded them!
What's your status?
Minimal damage!
My dress!
Prepare the second volley!
Another maneuver sir! Enemy in range, counterbattery incoming!.. We've evaded!
Prepare the vehicle!
Oh, so big!
Fire!
Contact!
The second volley went all in, hitting multiple targets. The enemy was subdued and crushed and
...pulverized...

The scene above was, of course, akin to this

► Show Spoiler

Or that 80-year old War and Peace ecranisation nobody here knows about.

The tech, sect and that noble definitely saved the day. I've reloaded to check, and without him the enemy had about 50% chance to kill the arty. With him it's always victory with small to moderate damage to arties (no red hp).
For the house!
Indeed. Here's our Hitler.

Many players don't risk their nobles and some don't even use officers. They should, cautiously but constantly. Even if you have only a few units, you probably should add an officer if you have a spare one. If you have at least half a stack and it's not a militia, the officer is almost mandatory.
By default it has only 6 agi and 20 armor - squishy and not really evasive. But he has rank 8 - meaning that in most cases he would be killed only if all other meatshields were killed. So it's safe to use them if you have numerical superiority and the enemy doesn't have assassin-class units (who strike behind the lines).

Battle is over and we retreat everyone to the factory for rest and repairs. Hauler and lander go to orbit as a precaution against some unexpected counterattack (and to pick up reinforcements later).

Ravenna

Remember me mentioning frigates in the beginning? Well, speak of the devil!

My lord! We've stumbled upon an isolated monastery. Local priests have been spending all their time praying to the legal codex with IP rights on frigate construction that we've requisitioned. For benevolent reasons. What? What happened to the monastery? Don't concern yourself with petty matters, my lord. The priests found their peace.


It's the weakest jump capable combat ship. But I've checked and we would need them researched to create destroyers. And destroyers are the cheapest orbital bombardment platforms (they're weak, but good enough to kill early game units).
Here's the Decados-Fleet destroyer. The bad thing is that they need 2 singularities each (frigate needs 1), the good thing is that cruiser needs 3 and dread needs 4.


We've crashlanded two engies we've brought from Delphi on a freighter last turn, and two more we've brought this turn. These two mines would soon increase our global metal income by 20%. And there're several more new places we want to settle, some of them with metal, so I think we'll be maintaining a ponytrain from Delphi to Ravenna in the next few turns.

You can also see me moving engies on foot, to the secondary expansion places (with smaller iron income, some exotica and food - we have excess food on Ravenna for now).

Delphi

Relic works! The League slowly increases the stocks they sell. Last time they had ~250 metal for sale. Now we're getting another engie out of them with that relic.


We've sold 96 monopols for $46k. Feels good.
We can sell 50 monopols/turn or get $24k. 20% tax and 100% tithe skim would've given us $30k income. But we would've lost a bunch of resource production. Only additional trace elements and gems we're producing thanks to 0 tax net us ~$5k. So we've definitely reached a 0 tax economy already.
Deducting from that unit upkeep, generous resource purchases and construction of some money-intensive units per turn, we can safely assume that we should be able to support at least 20 labs. That is, we've stabilized our economy for a self-sustained, fast and long-term expansion.

Counting league purchases we've got 700 metal on Delphi this turn. And even though I'm tempted to build 7 engies at once, I think it would be an overkill - we won't be able to efficiently trasfer them to new locations without more cargo ships. So we can commit to building two freighters after all.
Delphian shipyards are working double shifts on our trading fleet, my lord.
And 5 engies.

[DemoGraph]

4982 AD +++ Yoga Power

► Show Spoiler

General matters


[Poinsettia]

Drugs!


Moar missiles! We can build our own rocket artillery now. Theoretically. In practice we can't do it on Istakhr and don't need to build them anywhere else. Also, it needs chemicals that we don't produce anywhere.


Trackers!


Trackers are actually pretty nice. And by that I mean that they're completely OP. They're 10 MP (!) high agi infantry that cost only 5 metal. So they're militia that can run faster than tanks. They're squishy, but thanks to high evasion they're great meatshields. Also, rank 2 means that, unlike militia, they can be partial meatshields for tanks.
They're fort only. (alas, we don't have a fort on Istakhr) But if you do have enough forts, then for the price of 1 engie you can make a full stack of them.


About their OPness. They cost 5 metal and 1 turn to build. Med tank is 40 metal, 2 turns. So 1 tank = 2 or 8 trackers. 1 tank always kills 2 trackers (sometime without getting any damage at all). But 3 trackers (15 metal, 3 turns) almost always kill that tank. 3-4 tracker stacks are enough to kill a stack of med tanks. So they're very cheap spam with low power density. They make your planets almost impervious for invasion, if you bother to make 10-20 forts to spam them and the enemy doesn't have tech superiority. Also, they're too good to counter stealth units, because you can sweep literal continents with them.
Remember me bitching that rebel partisans are good? These're the partisans you can make for a penny. They're actually so good at recon (3 range!) that I'm going to spam them on all planets that have large continents and aren't explored yet.
Also, there's never a reason to move them between planets. Consider. You may put 4 trackers on bulk hauler. Or you can put 3 engies and a bunch of metal to build 3 forts to spam 3 per turn. If you want to transport the meatshields, you move tanks or space marines.

We stole the Voice from Bene Gesserit!


Despite the coolness, it's also useless by itself. You could've thought that this tech should have more cool yoga fighters or officers, but no. It's a prereq for assassins and that's it.

Eye and expeditions

Something strange is going on on Istakhr. Al-Malik don't try to attack us. We also scout the road to agora and it's empty. So we take this opportunity to sell all the food we have and buy metal for an engie. Yes, we're going to try making a base after all. We're moving out to capture those farm and mine.


We have an AL on Criticorum that evacuated from vau threat. I decide to try recon landing and get counter-PTSed on the first try. Welp, time for this AL to evaq to B2 for pony duty.


When it gets back to orbit, we notice 2 things: damaged Li Halan cruiser... and Vau menace! That little grey square is the wartower that followed us (or Li Halan). We definitely evaq to B2.


Leminkainen

Rebels retreated from our orbital bombardment to the cover of their shield. Frustrating. Stop running, you cockteases, and die already!
We're massing troops on the outskirts.


Delphi

Something unheard of happened! We've began producing military units only 20 turns into the game!



We've also finished only a handful of engies this turn.
Delphi - 1, Penta - 2, Gwy - 0
Did I went mad? Well, in that case I at least get regular donations to help with my mental health problems. Thanks, ma, very notChristian of you.

[DemoGraph]

4983 AD +++ State of the House

► Show Spoiler

General matters

Engies built: Delphi - 5, Penta - 3, Gwy - 1, Ravenna - 1




Boats in space!


Really?


Let's check.


Nope, we're at least 30% cooler.

Well, more or less.
And hey-hey! Those other lines went up! Last turn AIs had managed to put their **** together somehow! Probably not for long, but we'll see.



I've checked and there's nothing interesting. The AI is probably busy fighting rebels.

The Eye and expeditions

Farm get! No losses. I've left some infantry on the farm to heal. Hayloft frolicking and all that.


Rebels are on the move on Malignatius. Braving the blizzards and local wildlife they trudge through wastelands on their lonely pilgrimage who knows where...
Or maybe they maphacked this lander near the north pole last turn and are rushing to intercept. We won't end the turn on the surface anyway.


Leminkainen

The enemy moved his hover stack forward for some reason. I decide that the bombardment won't be effective against them anyway, because infantry can't be hit by it at all and hovers have high evasion with additional officer bonus. We just attack them, there's an ambush by partizans, but they get luckily killed by arty. No losses from our side.


Then The Pounder hits the Church (because it's the only target unprotected by the shield) and finds an arty there to kill. Then we march to the shield and prepare to storm the remaining rebels.


The bad thing is that many of our units are damaged and out of AP.
There're several good things, though. Thanks to a timely tracker we have a very good recon on them, so I don't expect any surprises. There's only one large stack, so we should be able to kill them all, with some luck.
And there's a voting sceptre at the palace, that would let us break all voting ties in our favor. I actually don't remember any other preplaced rebel sceptre in vanilla galaxy (I think some may drop out of ruins, rarely), so this might be another mary sue freebie that Hawkwoods get.
Anyway, attack is a great success. We kill all, lose none.


Only the Church remains to be captured and there're probably only a few infantries there (famous last words), so I officially declare the planet to be captured.

Gwynneth

First engie ready! We can make a palace here now. A focal point of planetary government, a visible claim of our house over this previously uncharted borderland, a city so good that it's a planetary unique...


...shall be ignored, because it's a hovel for useless party animals. I'm sending the engie southwards to dig dirt!

Witness this and other ingenious moves! Only in this LP! Only on RPGHQ!

Delphi



Another stack sold. I think I'll stop mentioning that now. Monopole sale turned to be our single source of income. And they're enough. We're going to expand it gradually, as economy allows. We're already building some wells on Delphi to lessen the dependency on League trading for energy inputs.

State of the House


[Lords of Magic OST - Order (1997, Remastered)]

Here's the pic of Hawkwood space at turn 28.


Our domain is so large, it can't fit on the screen!!1
Our freighter fleet is so vast it can blot out the reddit moderator!
Our order is the most benevolent in history! No taxes! Only death!

BTW, I remember some newbz on official Discord bragging that they got 4-5 planets by about turn 100.
I don't consider myself to be that good of a player. But if you want to be decent in this game, you should be able to keep up with me. Meaning that the goal for turn 30 is about:
- 150 cities and/or
- 4-5 planets
- 4-5k score (on highest difficulty; you get bonus score on it)
Otherwise, U SHUD GIT GUD.

Again, this is valid for SP. In MP you'll most likely have to build more unit production cities and combat units, so you should discount it by about 30%. But still!

Also, some houses are easier for economic turtling than others.
The Hazat (red) is the ultimate turtle house - they're boxed in the corner by Church, League and B2, they have 3 planets with the small transport leg.
Al-Malik (yellow) are probably the worst, because they're open to symbiots and their only safe expansion target is Aylon. On Malignatius and Criticorum they would have to compete with Li Halan and maybe Decados, on Lemin - with Hawks.

...anyway...

GIT GUD AND JOIN ME IN THE GAME

(but not now, now I'm too busy irl)

[DemoGraph]

4984 AD +++ A sudden but inevitable betrayal

► Show Spoiler

General matters

Engies built: Delphi - 3, Penta - 3, Gwy - 1

This's a good defensive unit. Can't be moved between planets.


And useless techs.



Oh, it's elections again. Spam folder should overflow.


See?




What?


WAT


DECABROS! NOOOOOOooo...okay.

Again, some idiots have stumbled upon each other and now we are on the brink of a galaxy-spanning genocidal war.

[World of Warcraft – Arthas, My Son by Neal Acree, George Korynta – conductor, Prague Film Orchestra]

Decados deal the first proper strike. Imperial Fleet under their control kills the Eye assault lander with the spy. Rebels didn't manage to catch up with our brave agents, but the Fleet had simply evaporated their iron steed. o7


My lord! Decados are shirking on their responsibility before humanity! Last time we detected them, half of their fleet relaxed on Cadiz, pretending to protect empire against a mythical Vau threat. And the other half still degenerates at Byzantium, exchanging their duties for lukewarm embraces of capitol whores!
Really, D. It can't be th...
Not only that, my lord! They've attacked their comrades, faithful servants of the Empire! They showed their true colors! Their betrayal of the human race!
They did destroy the ship under our banner, my lord. This is a declaration of war.
Who knows, maybe Decados had converted the sailors into the heresy of Sathraism? Or worse, demon worship?
Your holyness?
...lukewarm embraces... This's actually good for a sermon...
Your holyness!
What?! Oh, yes, yes, of course! The threat to the mother church can't be ignored!
Indeed.
Indeed? Yes, indeed! We shall rally the troops and protect the human race from the sickness that pervades the abominable House Decados and their puny lackeys!
Gather my troops! Are you with me? Uncle?
Always.
Brother?
Yes, my lord.
We're moving out!
Let them feel the retribution!
Let them know the hate of House Hawkwood!
Yes, my lord.


[Ascendancy - Theme03]

The worst thing is this war didn't have to happen. I've tried reloading a few times and that random unit has about 50% chance to stumble upon the Eye's infantry.
On the other hand, there was a good chance for al-Malik to ask for peace in exchange for their votes. This would've probably gave us regency and allowed to take fleet off Decados.
I can still try to do it by buying votes. I'm pretty sure that if I throw a large enough bag of cash to the League or Church, they should agree to vote for me. Now is the last turn to do it. I might even be able to reach the regency by simply denying to vote for the Hazat - since we have 6 votes and everyone else has 5, all we need is for AI to derp out and vote for themselves.
But where's the fun in that? Fighting the Fleet 30 turns in - that's fun! Stealing it to roflstomp the AI is not.
So I've decided to vote for the Hazat. Again. Let's play desperate scraping around. After all, if something happens and the Fleet won't come, we would still have to fight full stacks of symbiots sooner or later. The ships would be useful in any case.

Also, if you recall, vanilla Alexius got brownie points for saving humanity from symbiots when Decados had moved Stigmata garrison to attack al-Malik. In EOFS there's no Stigmata fleet to move... and no Stigmata transports to move troops with... and the fleet was stationed on B2, leaving Stigmata open for an invasion or bypass, as had already happened twice... but still!
See? The game is faithful to its source! (no)

To be serious, for the first time in this LP we are in trouble. Kinda. At least we will be if election passes and Decados keep control over the Fleet. If you recall me writing it, the Fleet has 2 dreads, 2 cruisers and about a stack of smaller ships that could deal us some serious damage. If AI doesn't derp. But assuming that he acts intelligently, there're three main threats from that fleet.
First threat is blockade. We're kinda safe here. All our planets are food positive. Only two - Delphi and Penta - could be deemed averagely developed. Others are worse. Ravenna and Gwynneth can build 1 engie/turn and can kinda develop on their own. Leminkainen doesn't have any metal income at all - a blockade would paralyze it.
Second threat is a noble's best friend - orbital bombardment. We won't be able to do anything to stop it. Delphi and Ravenna have planetary shields and 1-2 PTS missiles near the capitols. Lemin and Gwynneth have shields only. Penta doesn't have anything. We're basically open to aggression. On the plus side, we don't really have the armored stacks that could be targeted. And they can bomb all our primitive arties they want. On the minus side, it's only 1 turn jump from B2 to Lemin or Penta and 2 turns to other our planets. We'll get sieged almost immediately.
Third threat - invasion - isn't there. I'm pretty sure that the rebels we've spawned on Severus had cleared the majority of Decados transports and AI definitely has no tech to replace them (I've checked their techs in diplo).

So their main threat is that they would block our development and make us vulnerable for symbiots. We don't have a decent enough industry to push them away. When Decados do come, we'll have to mass starbases and fighters on freighters and try to hit them piecemeal. I also research carriers, but they're too expensive for their use (freighter costs about $8k and has 2 cargo slots, carrier has 4 cargo and costs $29k - so we can make 3.5 freighters for the price of a carrier; fighters cost $2.25k). They become more useful lategame, when you want to cram maximum firepower in a stack.

The Eye and Expeditions

We've captured the mine on Istakhr, losing a single militia. I'm going to wait for a turn or two before issuing new build orders - to see whether we retain control of the Eye.


On Severus we turtle in the fort. With lander lost all there's to do is to get more units for diversions. Unlike on Istakhr, the agora is operating, so theoretically we could spam the enemy with chaff until he surrenders. He already seems to be preoccupied with rebels we've spawned. So a counterattack is possible.


We build trackers on Severus, Kish and Aragon - for a paltry sum of 65 creds each (for metal) they might turn out to be pretty useful if we retain control of the Eye.

General matters, again

Nothing interesting is going on so far. We're moving transports and engies in preparation for future hostilities.
Delphi had failed to produce singularities this turn. I don't know why. But the city doesn't have full HP yet, so I guess it rolled a d100 to check whether it would do something and failed. I don't really know how it works, tbh. So we've switched production to space torpedo bomber - they don't need singularities, while providing space combat capability.

[DemoGraph]

4985 AD +++ In space nobody can hear me scream

► Show Spoiler

General matters

Engies built: Delphi - 5, Penta - 4, Gwy - 1

We've became civilized enough to google pervitin.


Glory to Hazat brothers!


Now take the fleet off dem russkies! Don't trust the bear! Especially the space bear!


WAT


Oh. I've spammed so many cities on Delphi that healsluts became the dominant sect in the galaxy. It means that everyone would have 5% larger research output and faster city healing.


Basically, it means that our freshly settled cities would reach maximum health and productivity in 3 turns instead of 7. And we're making about 10 cities every turn, so this should have a noticeable economic impact.
That's a peace dividend for you. Hugs, fluffies and profits everywhere.
Dominant healsluts seems to be a nice concept...


...theoretically...


Well, let's see. The first thing the new Matriarch does is...


...declare that researching better ways to kill symbiots is eco-unfriendly.


WHY
WAAAI
UR FACE IS ODIOUS U DUMB *****


Gwynneth

Meanwhile, the tank on Gwynneth got bombed by...



[The Howie]

HOW IS IT EVEN POSSIBLE
YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO ENCROACH ON KISH

Seriously, I have never seen rebels run through several planets pursuing... something. I don't know what. I can only see that there's a single vau tower there. I don't know where're the other three (and whether they're alive at all). But it's pretty unusual.

Our tank was left with 25% HP, but it survived - I ran it back to the shield. But we'll probably lose another tank next turn. Just because I've sent them to remove a few hexes of fog of war. And these are our starting tanks, filled with veterans with 20 years of experience.

It also means that Gwynneth is blockaded at least one turn earlier than it should have been.

The Eye and expeditions

Symbies woke up and killed 3 our arties and 2 ATG on Istakhr.


They killed every non-infantry outside of the cover of PTS missiles (except one lucky arty). That's a blunder on my part. I left PTSs on the eastern farm to protect against possible attack by Al-Malik and totally forgot that that now-militia stack went out of their cover. Welp.


Meanwhile on Kish we've finished the first tracker and that allowed us to see a bit further.



Advanced rebel tanks besiege Li Halan so hard they've lost their lab. MWAHAHAHA. Take that for sending those Vau against us! Also, did you notice what's absent from that column chart below? There's no purple! It means that Li Halan had lost their only lab and they've just zeroed out on tech.

On Aragon Hazat are trying to hunt the rebels. You go, bros. I would've definitely helped you, but those vau and stuff!


Pentateuch

Today is a mighty fine day! Because today we begin enriching this pristine ecosystem with petrochem additives!


Delphi

We're expanding both energy production and food. After the expansion we're about net -40 energy and only net +20 food. So even more arboriums and wells are in order.

Agora wasn't restocked for several turns already. So I had to transport ~700 food from Penta on a passing freighter. It should be enough for 1.5 turns.

I've checked our planets, and we're going to have limited food again pretty soon, because galaxy-wide we have +1250 metal and +1100 food, but 200 of that food income is on Istakhr. We should be able to spend 300 metal/turn on freighters, when singularity production stops derping. Nominally speaking, we should be good, but I already see some food shortage for expansion due to logistical inefficiencies. Alas, maybe we'll have to reroute some of that metal to military.

What do you mean we're at war? The only war we're in is on untapped resources!

The other front

Oh, and on that as well.


Yep, that's the other one of our frigates, notValiant. He's ****** as well. I'm quite sure that Stigmata is teeming with symbies if they overflow here. And Gwynneth has that vau tower ready to penetrate us from the other side, even though we can't see it.
And since my widow quota is already full, we do the only sane thing that remains.


33% damage. Two lasers, ouch. We've eaten some shots, but they could've probably killed our ship. Hopefully symbiots would get dissuaded by the same PTSs and leave. We have maybe two turns until rebels would come to capture our ship. Then we'll risk going somewhere.


Diplomacy



Yeah-yeah, nipple-guy. Saladin had already told me that. And what does he say now?


Ha-ha, chicken! You won't get away so easily now! Prepare yourself!
To a peacedeal!
Yes, we can agree to his proposal. Not because we're threatened. But because AI seems to be stressed enough already and we'd probably want for them to distract the symbiots as much as possible.
OTOH, continuing the guerilla war might be fun by itself.
I'm actually ambivalent about this decision. But I don't have a coin.
You know what it means.

AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION TIME

You have two options.

P. Yes, spare the puny gits. Our rage shall switch from beardmen to bearmen!


D. Crush Iranians! See them driven before you!


Here's something to help you decide.

[Oi, Let’s Go! Trump the Tariff Bloke – OP]

Now we shall see how many of you read the LP for real. You have about a week.

[Kalarion]

D. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!