Year 2463 - The Invasion of Arafat

I'm in 9th place, 36 points ahead of the Archimeans, 20 behind the Falconians, 124 behind the Ninjas. I've been pushing pretty quickly ahead of the Archimeans, I'm barely gaining on the Falconians, and I've reduce the lead the Ninjas have on me by 20 points in the past 3 years.

The Wolves created almost 150 escort ships in 2461, the Tobacs built almost 100 that year and lost just as many in 2462, and the Thrakians are taking a beating having gone from about 60 to 14 in 2462. The Ninja's climb continued until 2462, but that was due to their new ships designed to protect the wormhole. (The Lothan tell me he calls them the Dispucker Mk 2.) Their incredibly steep 5-year climb now slowed. Looks like he only made about 10 instead of about 100 this year. The Tobac count continues to drop this year by about 25 more ships, while the Lothan count rises faster.

Tech Advances - This year, I got Energy tech level 10 from the invasion of Arafat (Bear Neutrino Barrier, Temp terraform 11, Laser Battery defenses).

Battles - In 2461, I attacked a Wolf contingent between Cherub and Lynx. They started with 21 Salvations and 5 Sabres (plus a Fire in Babylon scanner). I started with 10 Dispuckulators and 11 Zoinkifiers. The beta torps on the Zoinkifiers got the first couple of shots, and the Dispuckulators moved in quickly and took out 5 Salvations. But the Sabres softened up the shields and the Salvations took out 4 Dispuckulators on their first shot. The Zoinkifiers remained out of the range of the Wolf ships and continued to fire, and the remaining Dispuckulators destroyed 3 more Salvations. At this point, even the Sabres were able to destroy ships, taking out 2 Dispuckulators next and Salvations mopping up the remaining 4. As the Wolf ships chased down the Zoinkifiers, my ships continued firing, doing about 200-250 points damage per salvo, but not enough to severely damage the Wolf fleets. They did manage to destroy 1 Sabre before the beams got into range. The first shot of the Salvations removed 2 Zoinkifiers, and I responded by destroying the last 3 Sabres. Then the 13 Salvations remaining continue to beat on my Zoinkifiers until they were completely gone. I removed 13 destroyers and he killed 11, plus 10 frigates. The 13 Dispuckulators that were going to join up with my fleet (plus the 2 that were going to meet up the next year) will continued for a year, but it looked like they were heading back to Lynx, so I abandoned the chase. Now they're backing off, because of the Tobac fleet flying past Lynx. However, one Dispuckulator has split off to fly in to Lynx to get some information as to some of the new Wolf ship designs. I'd also like to see what kind of starbase they have, since it's obviously cloaked (I don't report one there at all), and thus I may not really know the size of the fleet there. At the minefield-safe speed of warp 4, it would take me 3 years, and that would give him time to meet me in space 2 years from now, so I'm chancing warp 5, which would get me there in 2 years. Even if he targets me next year, he won't catch me until I'm at the planet.

This year a fleet of 25 Tobac ships flying towards the Wolf fleet situated between Cherub and Lynx got nailed in my Cherub minefield, taking 3,125 points of damage but not destroying any ships. They're doing warp 5. There are also 8 new Tobac destroyers and 2 Maduros flying north past Lynx whose path takes them just past Hell. Looks like he's trying to draw me out, and I think I'll have to go for it, because I can't afford to have Tobac war ships behind the front lines. I have the Hell War Fleet of 12 Zoinkulators standing by to intercept once he gets close enough. The Ho Hum War Fleet that was chasing the 25-ship fleet will now divert to go after the Tobac ships flying north into my space. They may have stopped, though, in the location of the other Tobac ships that are sweeping the Ho Hum minefield. If so, I'll add the Ho Hum Zoinkulators and go after them. Another small Tobac fleet found the Cherub minefield as well, to the ENE of Lynx. It was toasted.

Observations - Quixote Colony arrived in 2461 only to find the Makisachi have already colonized it (guess I haven't been keeping a good eye on my colony destinations). Also, now that I noticed this, I also saw where Johnson has been colonized by the Lothan. I'm going to redirect Johnson colony to Sputnik, which is quite a ways from where it is now, almost at Gangtok, but it'll be closer to my other colonies that anything in Ninja/Lothan space. They'll arrive in 2471. I also sent a Zoinkifier from Arafat Colony to hang out by Libra to see if anyone goes after it. As it turns out, the Falconians already own it, so the Libra colonists have been redirected to Arafat. I worked out a deal with the Lothan to send my Quixote Colony to Johnson and colonize there. The Lothan colonized it just this year. They'll leave in trade for some tech, so I built some scout tech traders with Gatling Guns to give him Weapons 11. Hexnut will be building them and gating them to PiR2. This year I discovered that there is apparently no stargate at the Makisachi homeworld of Gangtok, so the 3 Lothan Traders will try 3 different planets for stargates; Ricketts, Graceland (both Makisachi) and Strauss (Dani, more likely to have a gate). Three more that I built this year will try going as a group to Strauss.

The Tobac are back to serious minesweeping, removing 3400 around Ho Hum in 2461 while I laid only 2700, though my Brooms did remove 3000 of theirs centered around Planet X. They continued doing about that many every year since then, though the field has shrunk down to where they are. In 2462, it looked like they were going to fly a fleet of new destroyers through the hole created by their minesweeping between Ho Hum and Hexnut. This year, however, that fleet is at the same location as the minesweepers, and the hole is closing mostly due to the increased minefield size at Hexnut. As mentioned earlier, I've done some redirecting, and I'll have some ships ready to meet any Tobac ships that pass through the minefields.

Looking at the numbers of ships lying in wait at Libra (over 100) and worrying about the fleets at Planet X, I've created a new starbase design, the Zoink-A-Mundo Deluxe. It's the Zoink-A-Mundo design plus another full bank of Kelarium and another full bank of Coloidal Phasers. It was built just on the front line planets of Ho Hum, Cherub, Hell and Eisenhower, each of them this year. Fortunately, it's a quick upgrade.

The Lothan scout that's been in orbit of Ho Hum for quite some time was scrapped this year. I heard that the Lothan were going to make room in their ship design list for new ship types, so I guess this is their way of getting rid of one of them.

To allow me to produce more warships in my outer colonies and get them to the front, I've created the Mini-Zoinkulator; a destroyer hull with 3 Coloidal Phasers, an Energy Capacitor, a Beam Deflector and Organic Armor. It's slower than some ships, but given its range that shouldn't be a problem. It's no starbase killer, but it'll work well enough with other ships that will be approaching it, so it doesn't need much speed. I'm starting to build them at Vacant and Ziggurat.

After the Danis bombed Arafat down to about 60,000 colonists, I dumped my 100,000 on there to take the planet before any installations were destroyed. My troops landed on Arafat this year and took the planet, but lost 76,000 doing so. I now control Arafat with 24,200 colonists, 18,000kT of Ironium and Boranium, 12,000 kT of Germanium, 141 mines and 157 factories. A resupply ship is currently at Vacant carrying 156,000 colonists. They'll arrive in 2 years. I'm going to offer the Danis access to the minerals in payment for their bombing efforts. And just this year, Planet X Bombers finally showed up, just barely too late to help out. The Germinator and freighters that brought the colonists are now loaded up with Germanium to be dropped off at Vacant, Staff and Siberia. This is the last rv-988212g planet, and it appears they have 1 unarmed ship floating about the universe keeping their race alive. The invasion of the planet also gave me 8,560 resources towards Energy research, giving me tech 10 in that area.

Diplomacy - The Bejavoid come to the rescue in 2461:
Just to let you know - the Triad armada at Sputnick has been destroyed. Only some scouts survived - next turn they're toast. I will keep ships stationed there in case they come back.

The Makisachi want to hold off just a bit more on an assault of Planet X:
I'd prefer not to take the destroyers now. You see, I have an uneasy peace with the Triad now. They have agreed to not attack me if I return the favor. The reason I want to wait to attack is that if I attack now, then my fleets will lose their element of surprise when we attack Planet X. If they believe that only you would target Planet X then the defenses will be lower. If I attack now, then they will upgrade their defenses to fend off two empires. Because of this, I will hold off attacking until you give the launch command for the assault on Planet X.

I agreed holding off, and the Makisachi responded:
Ok, I'll lay low for now. As for planet X, I can't get close to it. He has warships on patrol around it and my scouts always get destroyed. I didn't want to send warships and escalate this thing since relations between me and Tobac are very cool. While we have a non-interference relation, we also have a mutual destruction agreement. Any ships that belong to the other that are found in space are fair game to be destroyed. I'll try again with a scout, since I haven't done so recently (I got tired of losing them). As for warships, I have destroyers and cruisers with beta torps (I want better torps but I'm slow in research). I get back to you on the numbers and specific design after a turn or two. Later.

The Falconians explain their current strategy:
Just to let you know at this time I have taken no offensive action against any player and wonder if the Triad (quad?) know that I am with the alliance my messages so far to them have been to ask that they have no ships of war in my sphere. So therefore I leave it up to you folks to decide If it should be know that I am an alliance member. While I welcome the Ninja force to help protect the wormhole I don't know how much I can offer at this time since I am ranked 8th or 9th at this time w/ only a few warships. ( I know I suck but this is my 1st game :) ) My warship construction is starting now and I will have cruisers in 2 or 3 turns I believe. While I am building slow I do hope to have an impact in the war soon. Everyone let me know your opinions on me taking offensive action against the Triad.
As of this time I am in the process of asking any vessels in my sphere to leave and will take action if they do not. I am trying to appear like a coward up here hehehe but if you all want I will take a more active role in the war and start attacking the Triad. Right now my purpose is to build and to defend the wormhole from all ships and prepare for a large offensive.

I suggested that it would probably be best for them to lay low, not antagonizing the Triad, except to keep them out of the wormhole, but to continue to build up and prepare fleets that could be used in a war. They later replied to a message from me that they'd colonized Libra, but mentioned some problems with the Danis:
Sorry but I just colonized the world 3 turns ago.
There are worlds in Danis space I believe that could be colonized but they right now are not friendly to me. They have attacked a scout and tell me that I cannot colonize east of Sputnik. Not very friendly at this time to me.

I responded that they're just protecting their space. I also redirected Libra Colony (now named Arafat Resupply) to Arafat to drop off their colonists and Germanium there. They'll arrive in 2467.

Still, the Falcons explained their problem with the Danis:
Well to me the Danis are being overtly protective. By claiming all Space East of Sputnik I take it that after this little thing w/ the Triad they will be preparing to attack the rest of us. Makes me worry about them a lot. Especially with one email from him stating that either I had better be nice to him or the Alliance will turn against me. Good Allies I think. That sounded like a threat from someone who has not even really talked to me. 1st communication was a demand for information and then when I responded w/ the same type of questions he threatens me. So I hope you understand my feelings in this. I can forward all the conversations we have had but to me he seems very paranoid and defensive. What gets me the most is that he made demands without talking to me first and trying to establish communications. He claimed space that I have explored and found no one there then all of a sudden I get messages about no colonies east of Sputnik.. kinda like me saying no one allowed north of Telly. Or something like that.

I responded after an explanation from the Danis:
I think what the Danis were trying to say is that they didn't want yet another race competing for planets east of Sputnik, not necessarily that they claim the space as exclusively theirs. The Bejavoid and me are also throughout that space, and either we're on a planet or mining it. Further, I think the Danis asked what your intentions were and don't seem to have gotten an answer from you, at least to their satisfaction. (This far into the game, there's little time for "establishing communication"; it has to get right to the point quickly.) If you'd said you were looking for planets to colonize or mine, that would have prevented some of the misunderstanding. Since you weren't quite that forthcoming, the Danis decided they would rather keep you at arm's length. Understand there are a number of alliance members keeping you at a distance until you've shown us that you'll be a help to us. You've gone a long way in doing that, with the intelligence reports, but you just got off on the wrong foot with the Danis at least. Given the strength of the Triad, and how difficult it would be if you became a Triad ally, most of us are paranoid and defensive. :) We'll welcome you into the alliance, but we're extremely protective of our space. Here's to a fruitful alliance.

But they continued to give us intelligence reports, and send out scouts to keep an eye on the Triad:
Just to keep you updated on my contacts w/ the Tobac's I have not received any messages back from them. I expect this is because they don't believe me at all or are discussing it between the Triad. So who knows what is going to happen.
On another note I shall be sending regular scouts into the wormhole to explore the region. My first scout has been destroyed by the Minions but hopefully I should be able to keep an eye on the area and detect any fleets that might try to enter my space. And Attack the Alliance from the rear. I don't know how successful I will be but we shall see. So when I get reports from my scouts I will pass on the information to you all as I can.

Year 2464

I'm in 9th place, 38 points ahead of the Archimeans, 12 behind the Falconians, 126 behind the Ninjas. The Tobacs have gained 6 planets in the past 3 years, most likely in Archimean space.

Observations - The Lothan Traders going through Graceland and Ricketts did not make it, due to a lack of stargates at those locations. The ones at the Dani planet of Strauss did, so the rest will go through there. The distance to PiR2 is 300.27 lightyears, so I'm hoping the Danis have 300ly stargates on there. I know they have them elsewhere, but Strauss is a relatively new colony and only has a space dock in orbit.

The new Tobac destroyers did merge with the minesweeping fleet between Planet X and Ho Hum instead of continuing on behind my lines. They are now moving more towards Planet X. The fleet between Planet X and Cherub is doing the same thing. Between them, though, there are 48 ships, so the Zoinkifier fleet that was going to intercept the Tobac fleet going north will now join up with the fleet that includes the Brooms, for added protection.

My spy Dispuckulator going to Lynx survived warp 5 in their minefields, and will arrive next year. At its range of 10.5 ly, I now see the presence of a starbase, and more Wolf cruisers than I'd seen before.

The Brooms continue to work hard on the Tobac Planet X minefield. This year they swept 5,782 mines with 5 Brooms. They're going to hold position for now, as they're getting close to the edge of my minefield and getting rather close to the Tobac fleets that are merging in the area. Since the only protection they have is Zoinkifiers, even after the merge with the intercepting fleet, I'm keeping them close enough to home that I could reinforce them quickly with Zoinkulators should the need arise.

Diplomacy - The Lothans describe the new Tobac destroyers:
Well, I found out what the new class of destroyers are that the Tobac are running around with [some of you may already have encountered these]; yes I lost all those destroyers in the battle but that was expected (saved my bombers though). The "Gnarly Gnat" has: 2 Jihad missiles, 2 super computers, 1 man. jet, wp8 engine, 2 organic armor. They are also building space docks with JUST 100/250 stargate to move these things in (perhaps in dire cases). I encountered some that were already damaged so they are willing to risk shipping these in.
The Tobac also have a new highly cloaked scanning frigate - the Snipe has 2 Cheetah Scanners and 3 Super-Stealth Cloaks (80%).
For those concerned about the south (mainly Lothan and Ninja at the moment). The force at Winter has been beefed up with 16 Gnats and I'm sure more will follow soon. At least these cannot be used to take out mine fields.
The Thrakians reported their recently loses at least had some success. Two years ago (2462) they took out 100 at Sphere so, indeed this loss was not planned by the Tobac. This is positive but the Thrakians did lose their large fleet as well. There are some positive developments with negations with the Thrakians; they probably will not be switching to the Tobac side (being a warmonger race and acting like one they pretty much stayed angry with whomever takes out their ships). I will try to keep them on "our side".
Hey, anyone got Jihad .... or Armageddon missiles for sale! :-)

Given this, I set my resources-to-research to 38% to go after Jihad Missiles in 2 years. I'm also set to go into Electronics after that, to go after better scanning capability at level 10 (I'm at 8 now), but also to make jammers available.

The Triad are moving heavily against the western allies (Lothan and Ninja) and the Thrakians were responsible for the 100-ship drop of the Tobac, so there's a lot going on over there. I think I need to contribute to the splitting of their resources, and so I believe the time is imminent that the Makisachi and I move on Planet X:
I think the time has come for us to make our move on Planet X. The Triad is heavily involved over in the west and I think we need to start our attack to both drain more resources and push the front out. I'd like to shoot for 2469, 5 years away, for me to start going in, and then you begin the following year, since you're about 30 lightyears closer. My minesweeping fleet is sucking up about 6000 mines per year, so as they move in, the way will be cleared for reinforcements to rapidly approach. If you have any pull with the Bejavoid, I suggest that we make a concerted attack, perhaps even of both Planet X and Deneb. I know we don't have good intelligence on either planet, but we need to do -something- here very soon, or they'll either severely hurt the western allies or at some point be able to launch a first strike on us. Even if we don't win, I want to seriously curtail their build-up and force them into a 2-front war.
In 2 years, I will have Jihad Missiles available, so softening them up with a heavy advance fleet will make the job of any Jihad-bearing ships a little easier.
Are you ready for a fight? >smile<

Year 2466

I'm in 9th place, 48 points ahead of the Archimeans, 28 behind the Falconians, 132 behind the Ninjas. I got within 1 point of the Falcons last year but dropped back again, due to colonist reshuffling. The Thrakians, whose tech levels have been lagging behind since 2452, have been adding levels quickly this decade; 8 in the past 6 years. Mine have only gone up by 1 since 2459. The Wolves number of escort ships dropped by about 80 this year.

Tech Advances - I got Weapons 12 this year (Mini-Blaster, Jihad Missile). I returned my resource percentage to research to 0, and am researching Electronics.

Observations - Last year I dumped 156,000 colonists on Arafat, and I landed on Johnson as well, explaining my jump in resources and score this year.

The Danis have sent 12 cruisers to Ho Hum and are building more at Walla Walla. These might be used in the attack on Planet X.

The Lothan did some tests and learned that, in enough numbers, a Coloidal Phaser destroyer can beat the new Tobac Gnarly Gnats with Jihad Missiles. In anticipation of my attack on them, I put 25 in Ho Hum's queue and 20 in Cherub's queue, eyeing an attack on Lynx.

Given the Jihad missiles flying around, I've added Gorilla Delagator shielding to the Zoink-A-Mundo Deluxe to keep the missiles from doing double damage from the start on my unshielded starbases. The new starbase, the Zoink-A-Mundo Gold, will replace all Deluxe models.

I've put a Zoink-A-Mundo Gold in the queue of Arafat, below the Factory Autobuild order, so that I'll always have the most factories allowable before working on the starbase each year. This dropped the estimated time to complete from 8 years to 6 years.

Tobac and Wolf minesweeping have again pared down the Ho Hum minefield enough to create an opening in the overlap of fields around Hexnut and Cherub. A Wolf Fire in Babylon is moving through the hold with Cherub towards the Dani world of Walla Walla. I'm positioning a fleet of 5 Zoinkulators in the hole to show the Wolves I will not allow them to pass. If they continue, I think I'll be able to take out the scout in one turn, instead of having to dog him as I've had to with Beta torpedoes. And since I'm trying to phase out the obsolete Zoinkifier, I'm sending the 8 guarding Kludge to go after the scout. I'll protect Kludge with other ships as needed.

The Danis and I are going to both attack the Tobac fleet going after Sweeper 1, the minesweeping fleet between Ho Hum and Planet X. I'm sending the Brooms off by themselves towards Planet X to continue sweeping and to insure that my Ho Hum War Fleet and the Dani cruisers can safely get to the Zoinkifiers of Sweeper 1 in 1 year at warp 7. If he's going to take away his ships from the safety of the Planet X starbase, I feel I must show him the error of his ways.

We've also decided to split up the Spaceman empire, as they've contributed nothing to the alliance, and as for me, I could put his planets to better use. I'm going to take Desert and Castle, and the Danis will take Radium and Cherry. The Spaceman homeworld of Cochise will have to wait for later. I've added a Zoink-O-Mundo to the queue of Ziggurat (ready in 2468), and the Danis will beef up the starbase at Gas, both near Cochise. I will ask the Spacemen what we can expect from them as an ally in the near future, and if it isn't substantial enough, we'll plan to attack in 2469.

This is the same time as my planned attack on Planet X with the Makisachi. Therefore, I'll message the Makisachi saying I agree that we should wait a little longer, mentioning that since the Tobac are bringing their ships out from Planet X, it's easier to take them out there rather than under cover of starbase. I won't mention the reason that I now want to divert resources to the attack on the Spacemen. In order to have room for a bomber ship type, I'm scrapping the 10 Planet X Bombers (that only ever dropped bombs once, on Planet X) and will create a B-17 bomber next year.

Diplomacy - My Dispuckulator at Lynx arrived last year to certain death, but gave me some good information that I passed on to the alliance:
I've discovered some new ship designs of the Wolves that I thought you would be interested in.
The Wolf Coventry Class - A cruiser with an Alpha 8 drive, 4 Coloidal Phasers and 2 Pulsed Sappers, 3 Wolverine Diffuse Shields, and a maneuvering jet.
The Wolf 2/3 Line - A frigate with 2 mine-laying pods and 1 organic armor, plus a Ferret Scanner. I was confused as to why he'd build a mine-laying frigate with only 2 of 3 pods (which apparently inspired the ship name), but then I looked at the weight; 97kT, perfect for stargates.
The Wolf Full Moon - A starbase with 32 Delta Torps, 16 Coloidal Phasers, 16 Blackjacks, and shield/armor figures of 1920/6100. It's 72% cloaked and has, of course, a stargate.
The planet Lynx, which none of you but the Danis are near as it's on the eastern border of the universe, has a complement of 35 Coventry Classes and 10 Tobac Gnarly Gnats.

The Makisachi get cold feet:
Well, I have to think twice now. I've learned that most of the triad has jihad missiles and the like. I'm still stuck on beta torps. If you could share some of that weapons tech with me, I would be better prepared to go to war. Let me know what you think.

I understand, and share a little of, the Dani's concern that the Bejavoid & Makisachi may in fact turn against us if/when the Triad are weakened. However, I don't see that happening anytime soon, if at all, so I agreed to share weapons tech with the Makisachi, even if it the Bejavoid wind up with it. Still, I'd like a little more assurance that those two are committed to this fight:
I'll send you weapons tech; build at Hexnut, scrap at Loan Shark. It'll take two years to travel there, so if you can get up a stargate at Loan Shark, that will speed things up.
Also, if you can enlist the help of the Bejavoid, that would help as well. They have even more tech levels than I do, so I'm sure you could be helped by them. And with that higher tech, I'm sure better ships are being built by them, so if they could offer them as well, this would be even better. The problem after any destruction of Planet X would be holding it, as Deneb is so close by and the Tobac could reinforce from that Wolf world. Therefore, I'd like to perhaps look at going after that as well, or at least having a strong force at Planet X to take on any invasion. Another option might be to take Deneb -instead- of Planet X, since I used to own it, I want it back, and it might not be as protected as Planet X. I have a scout on it's way (you can see it just west of Humus) to see what the numbers look like.
The longer we wait, the harder it'll be. Jihad Missiles are on Tobac ships these days. I think we need to take a shot at it, especially since this will force the Triad to spread out thinner.
And hey, I'm ready to inflict some pain on the Triad after this long game of Chicken we've been playing with them so far.

This year, I sent a message to the Makisachi about the Tobac fleet movements from Planet X, but I copied the Bejavoid:
The Tobac seem to be sending out fleets from Planet X to hassle me, which is, actually, not a bad thing, since they must leave the cover of starbases to do this. I'd actually rather take them out piecemeal this way, but sooner or later (hopefully sooner) we have to make moves into their planets. Your allies, the Bejavoid, given their enormous resources should be able to help in this effort, I would think. Just look at the score, and you'll see how almost funny it is that you and I are teaming up against the Tobac. The addition of the Bejavoid as an active participant would serve to at least demoralize them (since the Bejavoid enjoy a significant advantage over 2 of the 3 core members of the Triad) and at most start to give them a real run for their money. Getting them involved in our area of the universe would also lessen the chance of loss by the western allies (Ninja, Lothan) as this would require the Triad to split their resources.
The addition of stargates in your space would be helpful too, for tech trade and getting ships to the front. I've checked to see if you have any when I've needed to move ships long distances, but you're short in that area it appears. What kind of tech do you need and let me know where I can help out.
The more time that goes by, the better it is for the Triad. Our playing Chicken with them gives them breathing room to hit the Ninja and Lothan hard.
[copied to the Bejavoid, and requesting your situation]

The Lothan give us pointers on how to deal with the Tobac Gnarly Gnat, and some interesting information on Wolf ship movements near Lynx:
I recently moved an old class scout through the wormhole (I'm disbanding these so can use them for suicide missions). I will be sending it back through from the Minion side in hopes they send a decent fleet after me so expect some ships of theirs on the other end next year. The Minions have a 10 ship cruiser (JR's Paw) fleet in the vicinity. This would make a great opportunity to blow them away. Even if they move back into the wormhole, your (Bejavoid, Ninja, and Falconi) ships would not have to stay on the Minion side for long. Hope you don't mind my attempts at baiting the enemy. If this works, I'd kind of like to have more scouts in the area so I can send them in again....then they would be more cautious about attacking my scouts :-)
I've learned that light destroyer ships in stacks can work well against the Tobac Jihad destroyers. My destroyers have 1 1/2 move and 3 collodial phasers (+1 energy capacitor). The beam ships will get the first shot even with all his super computers, so have enough to take out several ships in one blow; this may work well with frigates as well but more of those would be destroyed in the return fire.
Interesting; the Wolves are moving 127 ships away from Lynx -- 40 B-17 bombers and the rest destroyers. Is there significant danger for him there or is something else brewing? Any ideas?

I replied:
Thanks for the info on the Tobac Gnarly Gnats. I've created a Coloidal Phaser destroyer myself, so hopefully they will win the day.
Those Wolf ships must be cloaked, because I don't see that large a group moving from Lynx, either towards or away from me. I just see the Wolf and Tobac fleets going north towards me. Where do they appear to be going? Could some of the big drops in Triad ship counts be mass scrapping?

Year 2467

I'm still in 9th place, 37 points ahead of the Archimeans, 26 behind the Falconians, 136 behind the Ninjas.

Battles - I took out the Wolf Fire in Babylon flying between Ho Hum and Cherub with the 8 Zoinkifiers of Kludge Protector. They are returning to Kludge and I have 6 Zoinkulators now in the middle of the hole that is continuing to widen as the Tobac fleet moves in. I've also got a second Hole Patrol between Ho Hum and Hexnut, consisting of 5 Zoinkulators. They are moving to intercept another Fire in Babylon going that way.

The battle with the Tobac attack fleet from Planet X did not go very well at all. The Zoinkifiers that had been protecting Sweeper 1 still had their Chicken battle plan, which was suitable for trying to stay alive, but that wasn't the intent this time. (The Broom frigates of Sweeper 1 dove into the Tobac minefield instead of stick around, sweeping 6,555 mines from the Planet X minefield.) The Tobac had 30 Gnarly Gnats, 19 Maduros and 2 Pucker Factors. I had 16 Zoinkulators and 10 Mini-Zoinkulators (plus the 28 Chicken Zoinkifiers) and the Danis had 12 of their Delta torpedo cruisers. I blew away the Pucker Factors right at the start, but the Gnarly Gnats responded, ripping into me for 6,972 damage points and taking out 6 Zoinkulators per shot, twice. A third shot took out the 4 remaining Zoinkulators and 5 Mini-Zoinkulators. The remaining Mini-Zoinkulators were removed by the Maduros and Gnats. The Dani cruisers took out 2 Maduros, but the Gnats ripped into them, destroying 7 on their first shot at them. The remaining ones were dogged by the Maduros, losing 3 in the chase, then the Gnats closed in, taking out the last few. I had hoped the Zoinkifiers would act as a sort of chaff, taking hits while the other ships inflicted damage. I hope the Danis will forgive me. The surviving Zoinkifiers are on their way back to Ho Hum to attempt to fill that roll in the apparent upcoming attack on Ho Hum. This loss of ships and advancing of Tobac fleets may impact any timetable for an attack on the Spacemen.

I have to wonder, however, if these ships will go after the poorly protected Kludge Mining operation. The flight path of the Tobac ships takes them just barely to the east of Ho Hum, between it and Kludge, but that may be due to their targeting of my fleet this year. Kludge is just one year at warp 6 away from Ho Hum, so if the Tobac seem to be going there, I can recall the miners & freighters in the meantime.

Observations - The Tobac Maduros continue to sweep up my Ho Hum minefield, while my sweepers continue to mop up his. Space is beginning to open up. My Brooms that left the scene of the Tobac battle will continue to dive into the Tobac and Wolf minefields (the Tobac one centered around Planet X, the Wolf one centered on a spot half way between Planet X and Lynx). I also have two fleets of sweepers going into the Wolf minefield from Cherub, one of which is vectoring to go towards the Wolf minefield at Lynx. Those fleets are also hoping to draw the attention of another Maduro/Gnarly Gnat fleet moving towards Cherub from Planet X.

In order to get moving on tech levels, I've made my resource percentage 25% to research, but I'm not allowing Ho Hum to get skimmed off the top due to it's lack of ships.

The Bejavoid reply to my message to the Makisachi. They have been busy:
The Bejavoid have been making some aggressive moves into Wolf space.
A massive fleet of Minion and Wolf fleets (approx. 50 ships) at Jones (owned by Wolf) was just destroyed last turn. Another Wolf fleet of Phantom Lords in the area should be destroyed next turn.
I think the key will be to attack the Triad on several different fronts at the same time. They should be alarmed by my intrusion into Wolf space, as this has been a quiet border, until now.

I thanked them for this information, asked them if they had enough available to help out the Makisachi and I, and forwarded his message to the rest of the alliance, who've not heard from the Bejavoid in quite a while.

Year 2468 - The Triad moves in

I'm in 9th place, 36 points ahead of the Archimeans, 27 behind the Falconians and 134 behind the Ninjas.

Battles - My group of 8 Zoinkifiers that took out the Wolf scanning scout flying were themselves taken out by a 36-ship Tobac fleet. This fleet also mopped up some of my minefield, reducing the size of Ho Hum's field to a 37 ly radius.

Between Ho Hum and Hexnut, 5 of my cruisers destroyed the Wolf Fire in Babylon flying north in that hole.

Observations - The 36-ship fleet of the Tobac is now 38 lightyears from Ho Hum and looking rather threatening. In addition, there is another 36-ship fleet that appears to be chasing my lone Brooms that dove for Planet X, leaving the Zoinkifiers that defended them behind (the ones that chickened out). I'm moving my Brooms northwest into the Makisachi minefields surrounding Humus at warp 8. If the Tobac have them targeted, then either they'll be going to slow to follow them and the Brooms can whittle away at the Tobac minefield from in there, or they'll be going warp 8 as well and possibly take damage in the minefield. If not, I'm dead. If so, then while they're in the Makisachi minefield, they'll be stuck going warp 4 or so and I can get more minesweeping out of the Brooms.

35 Wolf Coventry Classes are making their move on Cherub, which seems to be in concert with other Triad incursions around the universe, and with the movement of the Tobac ships off of Planet X. These Wolf cruisers have swept the Cherub minefield just about dry; it has only a 17 ly radius. The Danis have a number of ships on my 3 close southern planets. I'm going to take all my ships from Eisenhower and put them at Cherub, and Hell will be reinforced with the 6 cruisers that were going to patrol the hole (now a gulf) between Ho Hum and Cherub. The 36-ship Tobac fleet near Ho Hum could be at any of those planets in one turn, so I have to guard against them as well. To insure the minelayers are not caught in any battle, they will be moved off-planet in between the group of planets, still laying mines in the Cherub field. The thing I worry about is that there are 10 Gnarly Gnats and 2 Maduros that are heading to Lynx, but could double back and reinforce the Wolf fleet just as I get there, and it could turn into a bloodbath.

The Tobac and Wolves are doing some serious minesweeping, but my Brooms are keeping pace and then some. From two different overlapping minefields my Brooms heading into the Makisachi minefield swept almost 9000 mines.

My mining efforts at Kludge are going to be abandoned. For one reason, the Tobac could take their 36-ship fleet near Ho Hum into there and wipe them completely out. For another reason, the Danis have been asking for that planet for a long time, since it's quite green for them. I think that the increase in their resources would be better for me in the long run than the minerals I'm getting out of it. They've also said they'll send me a large freighter of their Ironium from Walla Walla, and they'll send another large freighter to Arafat for me to fill up and they'll deliver that to Ho Hum as well. The miners will be moved to Red Giant. Also at Ho Hum, the mine layers will be moved off-planet like the Cherub ones will be, to keep them out of any attack.

There are 50 Falcon destroyers heading due east from Aquarius out of their space. I'm not sure where they intend to go, but I'll be keeping an eye on them. They're not pointing towards the wormhole.

Diplomacy - The Lothan are looking for more tech trade:
I didn't receive anything from you this year. However, I did get another level in Prop. from the Dani's. I hope to get something in Weapons soon. I will be working on electronics and will have tech 9 this year. Tech 10 will give me better cloaking but I would like to get all the way to tech 12 -- that gives me the ultra cloaks. At that time I will be able to create some highly cloaked war fleets with freighters to sneak attach the back lines of the Tobac/Minion/Archimean/Wolf worlds. I would probably go after the Tobac first. However, due to my race design it will help to have assistance in other areas (mostly weapons/construction now) so I can combat the Tobac threat on my front in the mean time.
Do I have any tech levels you could use? Mine are: 8/10/11/9/8/7.
Just checked the score - the Ninja are really investing in new tech they really jumped last year! I'd like to do that but am fighting several factors at this point. Thanks for your help.

I replied that I'm lagging behind in Propulsion, so any help there would be appreciated.

The Makisachi had been out for a week, and when they returned this year they told me that they're begging the Bejavoid for tech trading.

Year 2469 - Taking the Offensive

I'm in 9th place, 34 points ahead of the Archimeans, 22 behind the Falconians and 139 behind the Ninjas.

Tech Advances - I got Electronics tech level 9 this year (better JoaT scanners).

Battles - I had two battles with the Tobac and Wolves. Both were against Sweeper fleets, and both pit them against large (35+) enemy fleets. Either they're overkilling to insure total destruction, or they are excuses to move their fleets out on an attack mission. The larger of the fleets was the one that was moving toward Cherub earlier.

Observations - A Mystery Trader has been spotted. His path starts deep in Triad territory and takes him directly through my area of space. Normally, starting in Triad territory would mean they might not have enough time to gather the necessary minerals, but he's only doing warp 8, so I'm sure both the Wolves and the Tobacs, and perhaps even the Minions, will connect with him. This makes it even more imperative that I and the Danis do so as well. Due to the excess Boranium in the universe, I'm building 4 U-Zoinks; one at Hexnut, one at Eisenhower and two at Ho Hum. They'll be ready next year and the year after, and they'll load up to dock at Ho Hum or a point farther north. I'll probably have to escort the freighter coming from Eisenhower.

The Sweeper fleet that ducked into the Makisachi minefield survived the chase, though 9 Maduros and 5 Gnarly Gnats are still in pursuit at warp 6. My fleet will continue towards Deneb, still in the Makisachi minefield, sweeping a couple of overlapping Triad minefields.

The Cherub Mine Layers are laying mine between the three planets of Cherub, Hell and Eisenhower, but I'm splitting off 8 of 19 to position themselves between Hell and Ho Hum to create another minefield to fill in the hole made by Wolf minesweeping. This will keep large holes from developing during Triad minesweeping.

I've put a Skeleton starbase in the queue of Johnson, because the Lothan expressed a desire to do some tech trading, and Johnson is closest to him, though pretty tiny. It'll take 5 years just to build it.

The Zoink Offensive - I'm going to start making a move against the Triad. My Ho Hum War Fleet (42 Mini-Zoinkulators, 32 Zoinkifiers) will attack 21 Tobac Gnarly Gnats and an unknown Tobac frigate southwest of Ho Hum, heading northwest. I'm only going warp 8 because that would just barely take me inside the Tobac minefield, should he double back into it. Three Zoinkulators and a Gas station, coming from Hexnut, will also join the fleet next year. There are a number of Dani cruisers at Ho Hum, and I'll suggest that they leave them there, should the homeworld need a defense. They have over 25 cruisers with Delta torpedoes and 17 of another cruiser design orbiting HoHum.

I'm also sending in my Cherub War Fleet (26 Zoinkulators, 20 Mini-Zoinkulators, 3 Zoinkifiers) in to hit one of the fleets that attacked my Sweeper fleets (22 Maduros, 9 Gnarly Gnats, 3 Pucker Factors). Again, if they move into the minefield, I'll only fly through a few lightyears of it.

Diplomacy - The Makisachi let me know that Gangtok has a 150kT stargate this year, so that will help get his forces to the front.

The Lothan are pulling out. They sent this message to the Ninja, the Danis and me:
I have made some decisions in light of the amount of time this game is taking and what I believe should be important to me. I will need to work my way out. However, I would not like to just leave and I know you, Ninja, can use my planets. Here's what I propose. I will begin removing all but a few colonists from my back worlds, near your planets, and you take this worlds over. I will replace the starbases with a model with no weapons before you attack. My colonists will move further toward the "front" line to bolster those worlds (and to keep my resource near current limits), then as you are ready we can move your empire further in. I would be willing/happy to allow the Dani the same opportunity if any of my worlds would suit them (>40% when teraformed, I would say would be a good rule of thumb). As we progress to the end game for the Lothan, hopefully my race will have acquired some high tech cloaks and I can make some large landing fleets with escorts; all at or near 98% cloaking and then race to the rear of the Tobac empire and pester them a bit.
I don't know if there will be time to get to the later part of that "plan" as I would like to be out within 3 weeks or so. I know this game has gone through some changes of other players and these have caused some real headaches for the current ones and I would like to benefit my faithful alliance partners as much as possible. I cannot justify 1+ hours every night on a game and really believe I need to adjust my priorities at this time.
Please let me know your thoughts. I will begin the pull out at Demski and Devo in 3 years. Please be prepared unless you don't want me to proceed this way (please let me know before then).
FYI, The Tobac are making their move on the front towards Winky-Blinky. I will be defending as best I can.

They also discussed the weapons tech trade with me:
I've got those tech trade ships on their way to Johnson.
Your most recent trades did not work but that was possibly due to my battle at Winky-Blinky where I acquired Weap. 12 from the Tobac. I still got the Jihads so will be using them on my next star base to fight back their assault. Unfortunately, they wiped out my whole fleet and starbase but the rest of the unarmed ships survived (and they didn't have any bombers). I can thank them for giving me the Jihads anyway.
Thanks for the try....but I suppose I could only get the level from one or the other race.

They also let the entire alliance know the status of Triad incursions in the west:
Looks like the Lothan are in a bit of trouble on the southern front. The Tobac were able to wipe out a star base at Winky-Blinky though we did hold out long enough for some ships to survive and acquire a tech level from them. We will put up a good fight as we are capable of throwing up starbases in a single turn there and more fleets will be moving in to the area .... but the majority of the enemy's fleet lies only 2 years away at Hyperbole and Winter (more than 200 war ships at both planets between those 4 races)!
They are also moving strongly against the Thrakians who are in worse shape the us. Perhaps some more assistance/pressure to the North will be in order (thanks Bejavoid for helping in earlier years). I understand the Ninja are also attacking this year. It's now or never, I suppose.

Year 2470

I'm in 9th place, 26 points ahead of the Archimeans, 30 behind the Falconians and 145 behind the Ninjas.

Score Analysis - In the past decade, very little has changed in the way of scoring. The only really noticeable alteration is the fact that the Thrakians have stayed flat in the past 10 years, reflecting the Triad attacks against them.

The Tobac have increased their planetary holdings by about 5, but that number jumps up and down as the Triad uses the planetary conquest method of tech trade. I increased by 3 this decade.

The number of unarmed ships rose steeply for a number of races (Tobacs, Archimeans, Wolves) and rose steadily for the Danis. I've been told of large minelaying fleets, and this is the most likely explanation.

The Escort ship graph, on the other hand, has been very volatile. While the number of Tobac ships is just a little more than it was in 2460, they have been quite a bit higher and have fallen just as far. Also, the make-up of their fleet has changed, with the inclusion of a new cruiser I haven't done battle with. The Gnarly Gnat is now their mainstay. The Ninjas started the decade in the middle of a huge ramp-up of their ships to protect the wormhole and defend themselves, but it ends on a dramatic drop, though this still keeps them about 100 ships ahead of 2460. The Lothan, in that same area, have also had a sharp incline and decline in their numbers. I've been steadily increasing, with a significant hit this year.

The Lothans, Thrakians and Ninjas all passed me on the tech level graph this decade, since I only gained 3 levels in the past 10 years. The Falconians have gained rather significantly since 2462.

Resources have remained steady except for the Thrakians, who took a good hit this year.

Battles - Only one of my two intended battles occurred this year. The ships being chased by the Cherub War Fleet moved further west, taking them a little bit into a Triad minefield, and my ships did not follow them in. They are returning to Cherub for now. The weaker Ho Hum War Fleet (weaker because it consisted of Zoinkifiers and Mini-Zoinkulators) arrived to a fight bigger than they bargained for. The Gnarly Gnat fleet (19 ships) that was chasing my Broom fleet joined up with the smaller Maduro/Gnarly Gnat fleet, so they destroyed all but a Gas Station. I lost 3 Zoinkulators, 32 Zoinkifiers, 42 Mini-Zoinkulators and a Gas Station, while they lost 9 Maduros and 7 Gnarly Gnats. The surviving Gas Station is heading for Ho Hum to join the newly forming Ho Hum War Fleet.

Observations - The Mystery Trader has increased speed to warp 9 but has stayed on the same course.

I finally colonized Sputnik this year with 100,000 colonists and 576kT of Germanium.

The beginnings of the Hydra War Fleet (7 Mini-Zoinkulators) has arrived at Hydra, in anticipation of an attack on Spaceman planets. Others are being sent there, built by Ziggurat and Vacant.

The Hell War Fleet (40 Zoinkulators, 10 Mini-Zoinkulators) is going after a small fleet of Gnarly Gnats (10), Maduros (2) and the new Tobac cruiser (2). Unfortunately, since they're currently in the Wolf minefield, it'll take me a couple of turns to get to them (one to get to the edge of the field, one to dive in a warp 4). They'll have changed positions by them, I'm sure (even though the Gnats and Maduros are stopped), so we'll re-evaluate next year.

Year 2472

I'm in 9th place, 25 points ahead of the Archimeans, 31 behind the Falconians and 131 behind the Ninjas.

Tech Advances - In 2471 I got Electronic 10 (better JoaT scanners, Dolphin Scanner, LBU-32 bomb, Super Stealth Cloak, Jammer 20, Snooper 320X planetary scanner). This year from a major battle with the Tobac, I learn Electronics 11 (better JoaT scanners, Cheetah Scanner, Battle Super Computer). The new planetary scanners allow me to scan Planet X from Ho Hum or Cherub, but only at extreme range, and cloaks will easily affect them.

Battles - Last year the unprotected Zoinking Fielders that were stationed between Ho Hum and Cherub got nailed by the Pucker Factors that had been moving towards Ho Hum.

In 2471, the Tobac were sending out small fleets of ships for special purposes, so I split up part of the Hell War Fleet to take care of some of these ships instead of assaulting the 17-ship fleet, consisting of mostly Gnarly Gnats. The majority of the fleet went after what was (at the time) the 31-ship fleet (22 Maduros, 9 Gnarly Gnats) moving towards Ho Hum at a fleet of Brooms.

This year I had 3 battles, one major and two minor. I won the major one against the Tobac. It pitted 38 Zoinkulators and 9 Mini-Zoinkulators to his 29 Gnarly Gnats (he'd reinforced the 9) and 22 Maduros. His fleets were rather damaged due to having hit my minefield on that turn (Maduros 48%, 19 of the Gnats were 33%). The first shot was taken by a group of 34 Zoinkulators, destroying 15 Maduros. His Gnarly Gnats, though, took out 4-6 Zoinkulators on every shot. Fortunately, I had enough Zoinkulators to absorb the losses and continue to take out more ships per round than he did and I outlasted him. His entire fleet was destroyed (including 2 Dingleberry privateers), while I lost 18 Zoinkulators and no Mini-Zoinkulators. Since I won the battle, wreckage from it allowed me to learn Electronics tech level 11.

In the second battle I took out a lone Tobac Snipe (scanning frigate with 3 Super-Stealth Cloaks and a Cheetah Scanner) with a couple of Zoinkulators, and in the third 2 Tobac Space Pliers (cruiser hull, 3 super computers, 4 Jihad Missiles and a Jammer 20) removed the Brooms that were sweeping mines northwest of Planet X.

The major battle I had with the Tobac left about 2,600kT of minerals lying around, so the Danis and I are going to mop it up with large freighters.

Observations - The Spacemen are starting to build cruisers at all their planets, as they seem to be getting back into the game. This may foil my plans for the Danis and I to take over their planets, though it might help us in our fight with the Triad.

Somebody found that last remaining ship of the rv-988212g in 2471, and now all traces of them have been removed from the universe.

Due to the increasing strength of Triad ships, I've updated the Zoink-a-Mundo Gold starbase and called it the Hand of Zoink. I replaced the Delta torpedoes and half the Collodial Phasers with Jihad Missiles. With 6 computers on-board, they are 79% accurate, and the increased range insures that Tobac Jihad ships can't sit outside the Colloidal Phaser range and pummel the base. The remaining phasers will help guard against chaff that would sap up an entire missile each. They showed up in 2472 at Cherub, Eisenhower, Hell and Hexnut. Due to the Ironium and Germanium shortage at Ho Hum, it won't be built there until 2475.

There are about 2600kT of minerals at the site of the demise of Ho Hum War Fleet, so I sent in my freighters intended for the Mystery Trader out to pick it up. They arrived there this year, but just in case the Tobac had ideas, I sent the entire new Ho Hum War Fleet (17 Mini-Zoinkulators and 8 Zoinkifiers) to accompany them. Since I see a few Tobac freighters coming in to pick it up as well, I'm leaving a Mini-Zoinkulator to deal with them, should they continue towards the (former) salvage.

The 50 Falcon destroyers that flew out of their space a few years ago has now met up with a group of Bejavoid cruisers that was guarding the northern wormhole. Currently they've stopped, but I'm still keeping my eye on them.

The Tobacs are sending out a bunch of scouts in a circular pattern out from Planet X. I hear from the Danis that they have a new scout called the "M" that they're using to blanket the front and even behind their lines to keep an eye out for the Super Stealth races. There is one that is shooting for the hole in my minefields between Ho Hum and Hell, but I'm sending a Dispuckulator to deal with it.

The Danis have told me that the Lothan are divvying up their planets, and since there are a number that aren't good for either the Danis or the Ninja (those three have had a mini-alliance for a while), the Lothan suggested I might want some, since I have Johnson over there. I'm building 2 U-Zoinks at Ho Hum to fill with colonists.

Arafat built a starbase last year (Zoink-a-Mundo Gold) and tossed in some Zoinkulators that I'll shuttle down to Ho Hum via Dani stargates. This'll take 5 years, with one year shaved off when the Danis take Kludge. Arafat's minerals will also make a great place to build Jihad-armed cruisers once I get Super Computers. However, this new ship production got put on hold when...

Another Mystery Trader appeared this year in Dani space, travelling west. I'm setting up Arafat to build some freighters to meet him. The Tobac and the Wolves both jumped up about 6 tech levels or so this year, showing that the Mystery Trader down south is giving away tech levels. Since I've heard you can get many more tech levels if you give him 15,000kT, I'd like to try that. The only way I can get the Trader that many minerals is to get the balance from Arafat and use Dani stargates to get them over there. I will already have 4 filled with Boranium at Ho Hum next year, and the remaining 8 will be built at Arafat in 2 years (after the ones for the northern Trader are done). I'll fill them with Boranium and give them to the Danis, who will send them to Albemuth, Kearny, and Bach, then give them back to me. By that time my initial 4 U-Zoinks should be there, and hopefully this will be a tech bonanza for me.

Fifteen Wolf Coventry Class ships are heading to Cherub at warp 8, and though I imagine they'll slow down for the minefield, they're still 1 year out at warp 5. Fortunately, all my planets down there have the new Hand of Zoink starbase. At warp 5 they can only reach Cherub in one year, but if they do warp 6, they could be at Hell or Eisenhower next year. I can't imagine they'd really go to Cherub given the size of it's war fleet (26 Zoinkulators,

29 Mini-Zoinkulators), but Hell and Eisenhower are significantly less equipped, other than the starbase. There are also 4 Tobac cruisers of unknown type, and 16 other Wolf cruisers (10 Coventry Class, 6 unknown) coming in behind them. My problem then becomes, do I split up my forces to the three planets (giving him the perfect "divide and conquer" scenario), do I target the closest Wolf fleet now while I have an advantage in ships and take him on in deep space (out from under the protection of starbase), or do I sit tight to see what he does, given his back-up ships are a bit more than 36 lightyears out and would have to do warp 7 to make it just to Cherub in one year, risking minefield damage and being stopped? If I go after the forward fleet, the others might come in at warp 7 and catch Cherub without my main fleet there, and then I'd be doing the "divide and conquer" maneuver but without starbase back-up. What I'm going to do is sit tight at Cherub, and let him come to me. I think I could take on all the incoming fleets with just my Cherub fleet and, while I probably wouldn't win, I'd certainly make a serious dent. And now that I have Battle Super Computers, courtesy of the Tobac, I'm going to up the ante by creating the Hand of Zoink 2, which simply swaps out the Battle Computers with Super Computers. Even with the meager fleet at Eisenhower, I believe I could destroy them, and Hell is reinforced by 26 Dani cruisers. HoZ2s will be at the three planets next year, and I'll set the battle plans for my ships to Maximize Net Damage, to try to insure they get their beam weapons in close against the missile ships.

Diplomacy - It's been some time since I updated the universe view for the allies, so I sent a message to them all, asking for planet files again. The landscape has changed quite a bit since the last picture.

I sent a message to the Danis, letting them know about the developments with the Spacemen:
I'm seeing cruisers being built by the Spacemen at Cochise, Desert, Castle and Radium, so it appears they are back in the game. This will also let you know that they do indeed have star bases at the three planets near me. I'm guessing this will slow down our plans to take them over, and, depending on their strength (given they've had tons of time to develop unhindered), might just be the cavalry we need.

I also queried the Spacemen themselves:
I see you're starting to build cruisers at all your planets. Does this mean you'll be helping us out in our fight with the Triad (Tobac, Wolves, and Minions)? What sort of weapons do you have on those cruisers? And how is your research coming? Please let me know as soon as possible so we can let you know how you can use those new ships.

And they let me know what they were up to:
Absolutely right. But it's a simple model, something like your Zoinkulator. I want to build many of them and send to the south. I ask Danis may I use his stargates already.

To which I replied:
All of my planets have stargates as well (100kT, 250ly), so feel free to use them. I'm planning on a major offensive against the Tobacs on Planet X very soon, and was wondering what you might have to add to that battle. It sounds like the Bejavoid, the Makisachi and the Danis will also be helping out, so you'll have plenty of company.

The Makisachi let me know about their stargates:
Currently I have a jumpgate station at Gangtok and one will be at Clatsop in two years.

I wanted to find out a bit more about how the Makisachi were doing:
Good to hear you're getting stargates, but I'm more interested in hearing how your war machine is coming along. The Triad is moving in a big way out west, and I believe it's only a matter of time (and short time at that) until they start turning their attention to us. Out west they have 100+ fleets of destroyers/cruisers. Over here, it's not quite that bad, and though Lynx has a serious war fleet, it's still -at- Lynx, and not moving out...yet. Give me an update on what you might need so we can get things moving along. Thanks.

The Makisachi then indicated that they and the Bejavoid are ready to rumble with the Tobac, though I'm suspect about their logic:
As for my war effort, right now I'm managing to build 8-10 delta torp cruisers a year. That's about as well as I can do. Since I started out with crap planets, I've been having difficulty building a good economy. I'm still working on it. As for the situation on my border, I've worked out a non-aggression treaty with the Wolves which also includes Bejavoid. Hopefully now that my immediate southern border is a little safer, I can move more fleets into the Planet X effort. Also I've requested that Bejavoid move their fleets that were attacking Wolf positions to also help in this effort. I think we will be able to get started soon on our assault on Planet X. Since I've concluded this treaty with the Wolves I feel that I'm ready to go when you give the order. Also you might want to drop a message by the Bejavoid so that you can also let them in on the D-day.

My response, to both of them:
I'm just having a tough time believing that the Wolves will sit by as you attack an important world belonging to one of their allies. I would suggest that you not let this non-aggression treaty cause you to lighten up on your planetary garrisons in the south. If the Wolves see you going after Planet X, I'm betting you'd hear from them soon enough. If you're ready for an attack on Planet X, don't pull the forces from your defenses, is all I'm suggesting. As for a date for D-Day, it should be very soon, now that I know you two fellas are on board. I'm going to talk to the Danis and Spacemen (the latter have seemed to awake from their slumber and are building cruisers) to work out a time. I will assume that for the two of you, you're ready ASAP unless I hear otherwise. Thanks for your help.

With this, I began considering a strategy to take Planet X.

Year 2473 - Exit plans of the Lothan

I'm in 9th place, 24 points ahead of the Archimeans, 22 behind the Falconians, and 98 behind the Ninjas, whose resources took a noticeable dip this year even though they took another planet. The Tobac are building warships like crazy, having jumped by over 200 since 2470.

Tech Advances - I got Construction 10 from Dani tech trade. I also researched Propulsion 8 (Sub-Galactic Fuel Scoop)

Battles - A Tobac "M" (Fuel Mizer, Fuel Pod) scout arrived at Hell, and 2 and Eisenhower, no doubt to get a reading on my Hand of Zoink 2 starbases. All were destroyed (by either Dani delta cruisers or a Zoinkulator).

The 15 Wolf Coventry Class ships turned to the northwest, so I've decided to go ahead and throw my Cherub War Fleet at them. The 16 other Wolf cruisers turned due west, and the 4 Tobac cruisers and Dingleberry privateer are merged just to the south, so I think I'm safe enough from planetary attack now. The Coventry Class cruisers have been sweeping my Hell minefield to the point that it only has a 23ly radius. What this battle would do for the Coventry Class I think would be similar to the dispuckulation I did on the Tobac, that is, obsolete it. Since, however, he has swept so many mines, and his route takes him on a tangent to the minefield rather than through it, he may speed up and outrun me. I'm only doing warp 5 in case he dives back into his own minefield.

Observations - Trader Bait North was built this year, loaded with Ironium, and set to go to a point where the northern Trader will be. It will arrive there one year prior to the Trader. It's in open space, and I'm sending them unguarded, but it's way behind the lines, just southwest of Staff. Trader Bait South 1, the original 5,000kT of Boranium, is filled and being sent to the Dani planet of Bach, to wait on the second portion of Boranium from Arafat.

The Tobac Large Freighter fleet turned around back to Planet X, so my Ho Hum War Fleet detachment decided to take out some pesky scout ships of the Wolves. Some Fire in Babylon scanning frigates pepper the space around Planet X.

Swarms of Tobac scouts are being let loose from deep inside Triad space. Another spread of M scouts are on my scanners, seeming to come from Hal, Uranium, Springfield and Bonn, in addition to the fleets sent out from Planet X recently. I'm going to have to really defend my minefields to slow these guys down so I can remove them all.

I don't see the northern wormhole anymore, so it looks like that Triad opportunity has gone.

Diplomacy - The Makisachi told me that a stargate at Graceland would be ready by 2474. They also responded to my concerns about their defenses:
Ready and willing. Let me know when to go. As for defenses, I'll be sure that they are adequate.

I hope so. And I hope this doesn't mean that they don't have to worry about the Wolves because they are working with them.

The Lothan are now making formal preparations for their exit from the universe:
I had stated I would formally announce who would get what worlds. As I appreciate the long relationship with the Ninja and they were my first alliance partner (and they are really a western power), I would like to hand over as many lands to them as possible. However, I have already agreed to give some worlds to the others mentioned here (and have no intention to include the Bejavoid or Makisachi as they have not been strong contributors to my alliance). Note to Dani & Ninja; I have worked with the Zoinks quite a bit due their large number of battles on the frontier with the Tobac and have appreciated their remote assistance so am granting them some worlds as well.
Ninja/Dani - May I recommend to both that you accept the Zoink as a replacement ally for the Lothan. The Bejavoid/Makisachi appear to have their own little huddle and are rather cold to the Dani. The Falconi certainly don't respect/like the Dani either (they would like some planets that the Dani already own or are mining)....and we all know about the Thrakians....and, well, it's obvious the Dani's and Zoinks are already working together over in the east. My donations to their empires herewith will certainly give them a good presence in the west and with the Dani's gating capability they can come to Ninja aid rapidly (and vice versa).
Thanks to all for a great game. I'm not out yet and will keep fighting but am moving more towards the hand over stage. I have designed some new space station/space dock to replace my current orbitals. I had previously stated I would put empty Forts in orbit, however, this costs extra resources. I will instead, use empty Space Docks or Space Station hulls with a simple 100/250 stargate. The majority of my current models have the 100/250 gate so the cost is free (no minerals and no resources). By leaving the gate you will be able to gate ships in, if that is possible for you, to speed the process up.
Based on the current information, here's how I would like to break the worlds up. If/when the Tobac are subdued (yea, right!) you can squabble over these worlds later, for now, I hope my wishes will be carried out.

Ninja:
Devo (Hab 1.08/56/61)
Equuleus (Hab 1.68/32/37)
McClellan (low value - do you want this or would it be better for Dani or Zoinks; your call) (Hab 1.24/-68/69)
Bagnose (Hab 0.75/28/72)
Tiger's Tail (Hab 1.44/-52/50)
Scheherezade (Hsani home world) (Hab 1.12/32/62)
Winky-Blinky (Hab 0.69/32/33)
Green House (Hab 0.62/68/54)
Wilbury (Hab 0.92/-64/54)
Dani:
Demski (Hab 1.48/0/26)
Leo (Lothan home world) (Hab 1.08/0/50...we like it here!)
Silicon (Hab 1.00/52/42)
Hay Seed (Hab 0.92/0/44)
Zoink:
Phaeton (Hab 0.67/68/50)
PiR2 (Hab 1.44/0/50)
Up for grabs:
Poly Gone (Ninja, I didn't see any stats from you on this; is it useable by you? --Hab is 1.08/88/50)
Emerald (Hab 1.88/128/79)
Endeavor (Hab 1.60/-120/50)
Balder (Hab 5.12/40/45)
Current holdings within Lothan space:
Dani:
Planet 9
Cinnamon
Zoink:
Johnson

Notes:
* I do not hold claims to Barry, Lopsided, or Speed Bump. These worlds are either currently owned by or claimed by the Thrakians.
* I have done a lot of terraforming on these worlds in the past 20 years so, for the Ninja, these worlds will probably begin much better than indicated in their report (we have similar habs).
* I have tried to keep these worlds grouped so they can support each other for your own race; this will cause less intermingling. However, since the Ninja have been my long term ally I will allow them to negotiate Leo with the Dani's (this is a near 100 world for the Ninja). This is my home world so is rich in long term mineral production. All other deeds will stand as designated for the duration of the existence of the Lothan and any standing treaties the Lothan have with the receiving parties (hey, that's some lawyer talk). Basically the Ninja will get the majority of the worlds in the south and south west with one in the north and one in the east. The Zoink will receive a deed for the worlds in the north east. Finally, the Dani's receive a strip through the center of the Lothan empire (Demski to Hay Seed). This also enhances all current holdings within this space.
* I am building additional mine layers at Devo, Demski, and Equuleus to provide long term coverage for your colonizations.
* I will continue to terraform on worlds I own, hopefully this will not hurt you too much. This will help me later as I need to shuffle colonists around.
If you do not wish to receive one of the worlds listed, please let me know and I can choose another recipient. Again, I would like you to occupy worlds to the North and West first then move in from there (starting with Demski, Devo, and Phaeton), as this will leave the border regions less vulnerable. Occupation may begin as soon as you are ready (Phaeton still needs some freighters). I am expecting the Dani's to occupy Demski in 4 years...next year I will replace the star base.
REMINDER! These worlds will have fully operational factories (you will nearly double the output of your occupation force) and mining operations. Also, most have large mineral deposits, so you should be able to slam up a star base of your own within the first year or two.

Colonization will proceed best as follows:
1 - (time D-2) You notify me of an arriving fleet at least 2 years in advance of arriving at a currently "designated available" world (these have orbiting freighter fleets ready to remove the colonists). [These may be in orbit, just let me know 2 years prior to executing step #3, below]
2 - (time D-1) I will build an empty space dock or space station (as indicated above), if the current planet has a star gate, the star gate will remain. You may consider this in your movement plans. I may include cloaks on the starbases in orbit on border planets to protect our operation as long as possible, I will use my discretion; I will not include cloak shields as this will make my bases more difficult to remove.
3 - (time D...as in "D" day for the world) I will remove all colonists except 100 and move these to a world towards the south east. I will leave all current minerals for your use. Your fleet will arrive the same year and must have an accompanying escort ship capable of knocking out the empty starbase (space dock - 250dp; space station - 500 dp) so you can proceed with colonization. This fleet should have the battle plan: attack Lothan, primary target Starbase, secondary target None (you don't want to take out those mine layers now do you?). The Lothan will leave you designated as "friend" so all Lothan mine fields remain safe and intact.

Designated Available Worlds:
Demski (Dani)
Devo (Ninja)
Phaeton (Zoink) - needs 1 year

On to other business.
Thanks to the defeat of the Thrakians at Cosine, my mine layers are moving into orbit there this year. No mercy to the Thrakians. I noticed they have built an Ultra Station at Chunk. Odds are also good that they have been or are about to be wiped off Rickover. I see a large Archimean bomber fleet departing there and a Tobac freighter arriving -- either the Thrakians have been removed already or the Tobac plan a ground assault for next year. Bad news for the Thrakians but their doom was imminent due to their attitude.
My fleet SE of Winter was waiting for an attack and will be quickly retreating to Hay Seed -- I will have a full Space Station with Jihads up this year. This is mostly a diversionary tactic at the moment. The main portion of this fleet moved to McClellan to take on some less formidable Minion fleets ... completely defeating an enemy is better than partial defeat or a loss I say. With my 97/98 cloaking on that front they should not have noticed the move. There is also a Tobac fleet coming in from the east, attacking another small fleet; these are also running to Hay Seed. I will then have a larger contingent of Cruisers to move forward with. The Minions are approaching with a number of fleets so I wanted to work them over if possible.
Note, The Tobac have two classes of Jihad cruisers - the Pincers and the Pliers. The Pincers have 2 Jammers and 2 Super Computers and the Pliers have 1 Jammer and 3 Super Computers. The remaining composition is the same (4 Jihads, Trans-Galactic fuel scoop, 2 Bear Neutrino Barrier shields).
The Tobac fleet SE of Wilbury was previously enroute to Green House but they are wise to halt their advance (after the defeat at Winky-Blinky). I have indeed put Jihad Space Docks in orbit at both these worlds. I believe their 38 ships would be destroyed, or mostly so, if they attempted an attack.
I'm still working on Electronics. Hopefully Ninja will receive Jihads this year but I have more tech trades in the queue for you if necessary. Please let me know if this works. Danis ought to also receive some additional electronics and hopefully the Zoinks will get their desperately needed propulsion.
I have received a suggestion, at least from the non-SS races, that I build some good 98+% cloaked (massively over cloaked) vessels, a Rogue class would do well, that could be transferred before the "end". They would then be able to use this in fleets to get better cloaking of their own ships....not a bad idea.

Current Research: electronics (for 11); 2 years.
Need: 1 more energy and 1 more electronics for the Ultras.

Upon receiving this, I loaded up Lothan Colony at Ho Hum with 280,000 colonists to colonize planets that the Lothan said I could take. They will stop at Hexnut to pick up an escort and continue on. I also responded:
If Poly Gone is up for grabs, I'd like to stake a claim as it's a 74%/94% planet for me. If anyone can make it even better then I'll relinquish my claim.

Year 2474 - The Border War Escalates

I am in 10th place, in the middle of a little shakeup in the rankings. My resources dropped due to the colonists I've loaded up for Lothan territory, and the Wolves resource graph dove down past both the Lothan and Ninja, moving the Lothan into 5th place. The Minions, on the other had, had a very steep climb in their resource curve (The Lothan, this decade, have been leaving the Ninja in the dust with respect to score. While they had been neck-and-neck for a while, the Lothan have pulled ahead by about 100 points as of this year.) I'm 199 points ahead of the Makisachi, 6 behind the Archimeans, 30 behind the Falconians, and 116 behind the Ninjas. In the past 2 years, the Archimeans have put up 6 starbases. The massive jump in Tobac ships in years previous dropped by over 50 in the past two years. Those ships are probably the M class scouts, and they're probably getting removed by the alliance. The biggest thing to notice in the graphs are the arrival of Capital Ships on the scene. The Tobac built 18 this year, and two of them are in orbit of Planet X.

Tech Advances - I got Propulsion 9 from Lothan tech trade (Trans-Galactic Drive, Trans-Galactic Fuel Scoop)

Battles - The Wolves did what I thought they might do. The 15 Coventry Class cruisers, that had been going toward Cherub, turned last year to go northwest, while 16 other cruisers turned due west. The 16 were, however, still one year away at warp 7. When I targeted the 15 cruisers, I thought that the Wolves might have done a feigning maneuver to pull me into an attack; going after what I thought was just 15, but turned out to be 31. I thought they would have done it last year, but it happened this year, in spitting distance of Cherub. The unknown cruisers are now known as the "Vengence is MINE" (ViM) cruiser, with 4 Jihad missiles, 3 super computers, a Jammer 20 and (only) a Wolverine Diffuse Shield. It has Trans-Galactic drive, giving it more speed than other cruisers so far. They were pitted against my 26 Zoinkulators and 29 Mini-Zoinkulators. I got the first shot, and destroyed 3 of the ViMs right up front. I destroyed a Coventry Class ship before he started destroying my ships, starting with 2 Mini-Zoinkulators. The ship counts dwindled down rather evenly, with the tide turning now and then. The ViMs were removed about halfway into the battle, and he was left at that point with 20 Coventry Class ships against my 23 Zoinkulators and 17 Mini-Zoinkulators. The Zoinkulators had a tough time getting in range since the Coventry's put the Mini-Zoinkulators in the middle of it all, hitting them and taking out 2 ships per shot, while backing off and staying out of Zoinkulator range. The inevitable happened finally, and the Coventry's were backed against the edge, and the Coventry's damaged by the Mini's were finished off by the Zoinkulators, taking out 11 in their first shot after getting in range, and 9 ships the next round. I was left with 23 Zoinkulators (a loss of 3) at 32% damage, and 7 Mini-Zoinkulators (a loss of 22) at 59% damaged. Against Jihads, I'm less inclined to continue to build Mini-Zoinkulators at this point, though they do well softening up a fleet so the Zoinkulators can mop them up. The removal of the beamer cruisers also allowed my minefields to merge again, and there are currently no holes in my front line fields.

Another large battle took place halfway between Ho Hum and Cherub, pitting the Danis and I again the Tobacs at a location I had been guarding to collect the salvage. Participant from the Zoinks were 22 Zoinkulators, 10 Mini-Zoinkulators, and 8 Dispuckulators. There was also a U-Zoink there to pick up the salvage from a previous battle. The Danis contributed 34 Cruiser D's (Delta torp cruisers), and a large freighter for the salvage. The Tobac brought 2 Space Pliers, 11 Space Pinchers, 10 Gnarly Gnats and 2 Maduros. The Dingleberry privateer may have been there for the salvage as well, but it only has a 300kT capacity. The Pinchers took out 5 Dani ships in their first shot and the Gnarly Gnats took out 3 more. The Danis responded by destroying the two Maduros. The Tobac continued to hammer at the Danis until I got into range. Being a 3-way battle, the Tobacs were corned from the start, so they couldn't stay out of phaser range like the Wolves could in the previous battle. The Danis, though, were down to 9 ships before my fleets began firing, my first shot destroying 6 Gnarly Gnats. The Dispuckulators, all of them, were the next casualty of the Pinchers. At this point, the Tobac began targeting my fleets. My Zoinkulators were killing about the same number of ships per round as the Tobac ships were, but I was 54% damaged and the tide began turning toward the Tobac, in terms of ship kills, though the damage from all the alliance ships may have been more. We did manage to wear them down faster after that, and later on even the Mini-Zoinkulators removed a Pincher. All Tobac ships were eliminated, even the Dingleberry. The Danis were left with 8 Cruiser D's (a loss of 26), and I wound up with 6 71% damaged Zoinkulators (down 16), all my undamaged Mini-Zoinkulators and no Dispuckulators. It hurt, but we won, and now there's even more salvage to recover; over 5,000kT of minerals.

In one other battle, a fleet of 5 Brooms removed a Wolf Fire in Babylon scanning frigate.

Year 2475

I'm in 10th place, 189 ahead of the Makisachi, 41 behind the Archimeans, 64 behind the Falconians and 135 behind the Ninjas. My score has remained flat for 2 years now due to the pickup of colonists for Lothan space and shuttling them from Arafat to Sputnik. The Spacemen jumped about 5 tech levels this year, corresponding with their meeting of the northern Trader, so it looks like it'll be a tech bonanza once I've hit them both.

Tech Advances - I got Propulsion tech 10 from research (Gravity Terraform 11), and Propulsion 11 from Dani tech trade (Stargate 150/600).

Battles - One Mini-Zoinkulator took on one Wolf Fire in Babylon, and only did 150 points of damage (of 395 armor) before the Wolf ship fled, so I'm going to have to send in bigger or more guns to take them out in one battle.

I had a Broom fleet moving in at warp 5 to do some quicker minesweeping, but they got toasted this year.

The badly damaged Hell War Fleet has stayed on the large salvage location between Ho Hum and Hell, but they're heading out next year. The Tobac are sending in reinforcements, and freighters, to deal with my ships guarding the salvage. They're even bringing in 2 battleships. The salvage near Cherub is now guarded by the Eisenhower War Fleet (though that is changing this year as the Wolves move in), and freighters are moving in on that as well. Both salvages have significant mineral content, and are looking to be flash points in the Triad border war.

There is another possible explanation for the congregating of Tobac ships at this spot (near the major salvage but not on it). The southern Mystery Trader's flight path takes him almost exactly to that spot in 2 years. (He'll actually be slightly farther.) They may be planning to escort the Trader so that I can't meet him. Even though the Trader is moving at warp 9, they might risk it the damage, especially since their battleships could take it. Then it would come down to the odds of hitting mines and getting stopped in their tracks, and fall behind. It'll be interesting to see how they play this.

Lothan Colony has assembled at Hexnut and will arrive at the Lothan world of Phaeton in about 2481 with 393,000 colonists and an escort of 4 Zoinkulators, 21Mini-Zoinkulators and 5 Zoinkifiers.

My two Trader Bait South fleets were successfully given to the Danis this year at Hydra and Albemuth.

Knowing he's having to deal with Super Stealth races, the Tobac have stationed M scouts in a web throughout his territory to make sure he sees them coming. Most are stopped, so it appears that they are not destined for alliance territory.

Now that I have better stargates, I'm upgrading all Hand of Zoink 2 starbases to Gauntlet of Zoink bases, which differ only in the new stargate. I've put them in the queue of all major planets. Also, I've created the Zoink Station starbase, which is a Skeleton with just a new stargate, made specifically for Johnson, but may be used other places later on.

The Wolves are making their move. There is a fleet of Wolf ships heading out of Lynx right for Cherub. It consists of 9 ViMs, 30 Coventry Classes, 23 unknown destroyers, 50 unknown scouts (chaff, no doubt) and 40 unknown bombers. At warp 6, they'll be within spitting distance of Cherub next year. The Danis are sending in their Colloidal Phaser battleships to Cherub for next year, but the Wolves could split up their fleet and attack at two points, though with my starbases they'd get a run for their money that way. They'll probably attack en masse and we'll have to hope for the best. I'm recalling Eisenhower War Fleet from it's assignment guarding salvage, but I'm still going to send in unguarded freighters to pick some stuff up since they can make it in one year and the Wolves won't be able to respond to them before they're back home. I'm also gating in the 18 Mini-Zoinkulators from Ho Hum to Cherub. What kills me is that this could just be a diversionary tactic to get me to recall all my fleets while the Tobac suck up all the salvage minerals, and there's really nothing I can do about it; I'm outgunned.

The Falcons gave us an update on the status of the wormhole, which still exists, though not seen by me:
Intelligence update. The Wormhole has moved from where it was and is now directly above Elephant Ear and across from Aquarius. draw to lines and where they interact is where the wormhole has landed and is currently Rock Solid. On the other hand the other end of the wormhole has become slightly unstable.
Also the Wolf seem to be massing a fleet at Nada consisting of Cruisers. See many ships heading towards that planet at this time. Weather they plan on coming through the wormhole to my space or not I cannot say but all beware.

The Lothan gave the Ninja, Danis and I their latest status as well:
Dani - I've pulled out of Demski and the space dock has been downgraded to a "Junk Heap". You may colonize immediately.
(Even though this is the direction I want to go in the long run, it's still hard to pull out with all those resources there and with the problems brewing down south, but here goes....weeeee!)
Zoink - Phaeton has the necessary freighters so can be cleared when you are ready.
All - I've confirmed that the battle plan designation I recommend will work. There were some questions as to whether or not you could properly target a "friend" race this way. No doubts now.
The Tobac are moving on Wilbury and Winky-Blinky again (25+ cruisers and some destroyers). I'm jumping in a number of ships (thanks stargates) from the east, though I have problems with 3 separate Minion fleets (48, 51, and 67), though one has been chased off for the time being. I've pulled my main fleet back to make sure I hold on to McClellan and Silicon as some of those defenses are moving to assist Winky-Blinky. Oh yes, Tobac are also moving near Hay Seed but I've got a good contingent of cruisers there.
Yikes! Tobac have capital ships; I don't see any yet but have heard reports of sightings in the far east (Zoinks) of some battle ship hulls.
I didn't make Elect. 11 this year...ouch. That was a bad miscalculation as I'd hoped I'd be able to upgrade my border starbases to better computers and design some better cruisers. Hope to hold on this year. I have asked the Zoink for Energy trade (9->10) and I will continue to work on that final electronics level for the Ultra Cloaks.
Ninja-Have you received Jihads? I've been scrapping for about 3 years now. Please let me know. Also, Dani's what's the status on your electronics?

Year 2476

I'm in 10th place, 192 points ahead of the Makisachi, 7 behind the Archimeans and 72 behind the Falconians. The Danis met the Trader this year and got about 6 tech levels. Both the Ninja and Tobac are spiking their escort ship graphs. The Bejavoid resource graph is starting to level off, while the Minions and Danis catch up to him. This is, of course, impacting their score. Only 42 points separate the Bejavoid from the Danis, with the Minions in the middle.

Tech Advances - I got Weapons tech 13 from Dani tech trade (Bludgeon).

Battles - Scout Defense 1 (3 Mini-Zoinkulators, 3 Brooms) took out a Wolf Fire in Babylon this year. Only the Brooms got off shots, so I'm going to split them off as a separate fleet if I see more scouts arriving.

Observations - The Wolf fleet moving towards Cherub has slowed to warp 4 as other fleets of theirs and the Tobacs catch up. 23 Wolf destroyers and 9 ViMs have joined up, as well as 10 Tobac mini-bombers, 15 Space Pinchers and a large freighter. On the way to the fray (very quickly) are 69 Wolf Coventry Classes (that took 13,800 points of damage in my minefield), 3 more Space Pinchers (that took 3,500 points of damage and lost 22 other ships), 7 more ViMs (that took 1,400 points of mine damage), another Tobac fleet screaming out of Planet X (13 Pinchers, 26 Mini-Bombers), and possibly another large Tobac fleet including 37 Pinchers and 2 battleships.

It's possible, though, that the latter fleet is there to guard the Mystery Trader, as they are halfway to where he'll be next year. Additionally, there are 10 Space Pinchers right at the Trader. It has occurred to me that if they set course to follow him and split the fleets apart completely, some would make it and some wouldn't, and then they'd just send on those that did make it. They could continue this until they were free from minefields, though it'll be 4 years before he's clear of both my and the Danis minefields.

Because of the imminence of this attack, and the need to get the best bang for the buck in a short amount of time, all my front line planets, including Hexnut and even Ziggurat, are going full bore in building Brooms. They can gate in easily, and as chaff they'll work well, since if they do get shots off, it'll be at everyone in range. Compared to the minerals I would spend for a Zoinkulator, they might be a better bargain. The Gatling Gun is a little stronger than the Coloidal Phaser, though with range two. The Zoinkulators have double the weapons, but are over triple the cost, due to more defensive measures. I don't think adding more Zoinkulators will change the odds much, so this is as much an experiment as it is desperation. The exception is Ho Hum, because it has a surplus of Germanium at this point and Mini-Zoinkulators are heavier in Germanium than the Broom, and the southern 3 planets are using all the Germanium they mine every year. Freighters from Cherub picked up the last of the nearby salvage this year and will distribute out; Ironium and Boranium to Eisenhower and Germanium to Cherub.

The Danis are helping out in this conflict. They've stationed 5 Colloidal Phaser battleships at Cherub in anticipation of the attack. Also, they've been gating my freighters to a meeting place at Bach, where they were going to give them back to me, but when they tried to this year (the ones coming from Ho Hum), they couldn't because I had 16 ship designs already. This I found interesting, since they're the very ships I gave them before, so I thought they would not use a new slot. I've removed my tentative Jihad cruiser design to fit them in next year, and I may have to clear one more out for the ones coming from the north, even though they're the same ship design. I only have 1 of a tech trader that's no longer needed, so I deleted the design this year, losing only 1 ship in the process.

Diplomacy - The Lothan update us on their status:
Ninja - I'm assuming you have gotten Jihad missiles by now so am not sending any more ships. Thanks for assisting with my defenses. I see the extra destroyers enroute to Winky-Blinky that will help greatly (well for a little while anyway).
Dani - Have you received super computers yet (from Zoink)?
I just acquired elect. 11 this year so am upgrading all border starbase. The Tobac and Minions decided to hold off their assaults for one more year. However, their forces are massing and closing. I imagine that Wilbury will be confronted with the incoming fleet and possibly Hay Seed (though that may be one more year yet). As far as Hay Seed goes, it looks like the Tobac are planning on taking that as they are bringing bombers, freighters, colonizers, and teraforming (change of heart) ships. There are 3 Tobac fleets near hayseed with loads of cruisers. Fortunately for now they are separated, however, that may change next year.
Dani you should be able to take Demski this year (last year would have worked too -- just one decent cruiser should be able to take out an empty base and you have one in orbit).
Zoink - I'm sending some extra minerals (some of each) to Johnson; you'll get these in 2 years.
I've got a ways to go for Electronics 12 but will be getting assistance with energy 10 from the Zoinks (thanks!). Hopefully the Lothan can hold out long enough to trade off some of the planets and give away some neto cloak toys.
I am building some Jihad cruisers now that I've got the computers to go with them so that may help, at least on the eastern front where I have unlimited dock capacity.
Looks like the Bejavoid have really slowed down -- the Dani's have almost caught up in tech, resources, and points; congratulations! (However, that shows how poor they've been playing since their initial explosion at the beginning and they were our greatest possible help at one time ... too bad). This year with the acquisition of Demski the Dani's should move in really close.

The Ninja explain, among other things, why their escort number flew up this year:
Kevin - Thanks for the Jihads, I got them two turns ago, but I have not had the chance to write a confirmation. And on top of that, I missed the last turn. So things are a bit hectic. I have colonists and cruisers inbound to Devo, ETA 2 years, 1 year next turn. So if you are ready, I can take over the planet. I have my battle plan set to attack you, primary to stations, and secondary to none. That should work, I hope. As for Poly Gone, I completely missed it in my survey... even though it is right under my proverbial nose at Pickles... :-)
It is a 76% at best, and somewhat lower than that now. So maybe it is best given to the Zoinks, as they can make it a 90+ for them.
Dani - thanks for the prop tech, I am slowly getting up there. Do you need another mineral shipment? I have a huge stockpile on Pickles, so if you want, I can ship maybe 5 or 6 k of each to the nearest planet, and then you can use your gates to send where needed.
I am currently researching Elect. 10, to get jammers, and then I will build some cruisers. Time is 3 years. Kevin.. you said you need Energy 10 - I can get it in 1 year if I switch, and then maybe you can get it in another 2 or 3 with scrapping. If you have
a faster way, then you should take that, but if not, drop me a line...
I see over 220 armed ships inbound to Lothan space, I will crank out a few hundred Stingray frigates that performed so well against the Thrakians. With gates, they can arrive in 2 years in places of need. I think I can build about 30 or 40 per year, so if you can hold on for a few more years, I can have a decent force helping your defense. I should have built them sooner, but I didn't figure such a heavy commitment from the Tobac.
My current tech is 9/12/12/10/9/9. If anyone needs something, just say so...

It sounds like the Triad are making some serious moves all over the universe, and that my skirmishes are but a pale comparison to the all out war in the west. Given this, I decided to talk to the Makisachi and Bejavoid about their situation and about plans for Planet X:
As you're aware, I've not gotten back to you about an assault on Planet X. The reason for this is that the Triad has been on the move on the easternmost portion of the galaxy, launching huge fleets in the vicinity of Cherub, Hell and Eisenhower (over 200 ships in all). I have little left for any sort of offensive maneuver, let alone against a stronghold like Planet X. The time for offense has passed, it seems, for now.
However, if the Wolves or Tobac take one of my southeastern planets, would you be able to assist in its recapture? I think that even the Spacemen would be a part of anything we do, as they've "woken up" so to speak and now have Coloidal Phaser cruisers on their way south. I have stargates to aid in this, though they're still at the 100kT size limit. (I have tech for the 150kT version, but I'm cranking out ships these days, not updating starbases.)
The way I see it, we've delayed long enough and now the Triad is taking the offensive. Given the reports of their success in the west, and what they're coming at me with in the east, I have a feeling that the declaration of a winner will happen in the next 10 years if there isn't a significant turnaround. Our contribution to that turnaround could be the mass destruction of Triad ships in the southeast, but it would have to happen now. I'm aware of the distances involved, and that you might not be able to get there very quickly. The Triad ships are, however, currently slowing down to pick up reinforcements before they make their assault. If you have ships and you're willing to give the stargates a shot, let 'em go. There are 100/250 stargates at Hexnut, Ho Hum, Hell, Eisenhower and Cherub. If you do decide to join in, My suggestion would be to get what you can to Cherub, which is my more valuable planet of those three. I'll be at all three anyway.
Here we go!

I also sent a similar message to the Spacemen.

Year 2477 - Meeting the Northern Trader

I'm back in 9th place, 8 points ahead of the Archimeans, 54 behind the Falconians and 108 behind the Ninjas. The Minions are now tied with the Tobacs in number of tech levels, after meeting the southern Trader this year (which was a gutsy move given he's currently in my Ho Hum minefield; they had their minerals well guarded). The Minions took over 2nd place this year by 16 points (Bejavoid 1242, Minions 1258) while the Danis continue to close in (1223). The graph of escort ships reflects the all-out war that has broken out in the west and impending assault in the east. The Tobacs, the Ninjas, the Makisachi, the Spacemen and I have spiked our curves on this chart in the past two years. Interestingly, during the same time period the Minions have dropped, and the Wolves' total has been steadily dropping since 2468, even with the Lynx contingent appearing on Cherub's doorstep. The Bejavoid have flatlined in this area, having no gains or losses since 2461, except for one year when they dropped slightly, recovering the following year, and for 2 years ago when they rose ever so slightly.

Tech Advances - I got Propulsion tech level 12 from Lothan tech trade (Trans-Galactic Super Scoop, Overthruster). The Mystery Trader gave me Biotech levels 8, 9 and 10 (RNA Scanner, Neutron bomb) and Electronics 12 and 13 (Snooper 400X planetary scanner).

Battles - A single Tobac M scout poked in at Cherub, no doubt to get a new reading on the starbase. It almost makes me want to upgrade the stargate on there just to make them nervous.

Observations - I met the northern Mystery Trader this year. The tech levels I got were in Biotech (3) and Electronics (2). The Neutron Bomb was a nice addition to the arsenal, but I would've preferred to get those levels in something other than Biotech. The Southern Trader Bait is taking shape at Bach and should be returned to me and combined next year, 2 or 3 years before the Trader will fly by. The level in Propulsion from the Lothan was quite nice to get in addition to those.

The Tobac fleets that I thought were going to escort the southern Mystery Trader have halted and are collecting reinforcements. They may be planning on an attack of Ho Hum in concert with Cherub, or they're at least making me keep my defense fleets at Ho Hum instead of using them to assist any of the southeastern planets. In any event, I hadn't planned on abandoning Ho Hum due to all the ships that have been flying around in the space between Planet X and Ho Hum. I'm continuing to build Mini-Zoinkulators there to add to Ho Hum War Fleet.

Diplomacy - The Lothan have some bad news and some good news:
Demski remains a Lothan planet unfortunately. Hopefully the Dani's can bring in replacement colonists soon -- perhaps you can gate to Leo? Demski is 1 turn from Leo.
I am scheduling Devo for colonization by the Ninja this year so am pulling all those colonists out and replacing the space station. Please do not target the Lothan ships (as the Dani's ended up doing on Demski as well....an incorrect battle plan set on one cruiser fleet; possibly it was set to not attack the Lothan but since the other ships were doing so it apparently "decided" to do so as well). We all bungled the Demski transfer; hopefully we can do this better next time from what we've learned.
Another note: Apparently the cruisers at Demski, since they were scheduled to attack Lothan, also swept Lothan minefields. In the future it might be best to only have 1 collodial phaser cruiser for a space dock and 2 for a space station as these are enough to take out the empty hull and still not remove a lot of mine fields.
The starbase and all ships at Wilbury fell this year. However, there were no bombers in the Tobac fleets so I will be able to slam up another Jihad space dock. If no more ships arrive, this may be able to wipe out the remaining fleet (15 damaged Jihad destroyers and 5 damaged Jihad cruisers). There will be no stargate there for some time as this was too expensive to include on the replacement starbase.
Winky-Blinky may fall this coming year -- 2 Tobac fleets should arrive; one with bombers -- 22 and 59 ships. A 69 ship fleet, with bombers is headed to Green House, but will probably be 2 years getting there as I have some remaining mine field protection. Hay Seed may yet hold on one more year before the Tobac fleets attack (due to mine fields once again). I'm building Jihad cruisers at Hay Seed so these will help the defense immensely if I can get enough built in time. I am also slamming up defenses at all these planets as fast as possible (I already have slight coverage). Note - The energy 10 will help with the defense as that will also increase the coverage percentage.
On a brighter note, I was able to wipe out one of the Minion fleets to the east with little damage (I lost 2 destroyers). They have merged one fleet I missed earlier with some others at Me; these are now headed NW between PiR2 and Canis Minor (Bejavoid planet). There are 36 old JR Paw's (beta cruisers) and 136 other cruisers (unknown composition); I am attempting a detection run.
The Minions also have a 69 ship fleet in orbit at Winkle -- not much I can do about it at this time due to the incursion heading up North. Dani-I hope you have some good defenses at Planet 9; if they attempt to move in further I will be unable to stop them at this time. On the other hand; there is no nearby war fleet save for these, at this time, so I am going to attack them. I do have some decent capability in orbit at Silicon so should be able to remove them -- they probably don't want to go far away as they are trying to contain my mine field at Silicon. May as well go for it.
I'm having to really pull back on tech research, as you can imagine. Don't know if I'll make the magic elect. 12. I have realized that I can make the MT going across the north so am sending a transport fleet to meet it with Boranium (off Leo). Also, Danis, I didn't realize what was happening to Boranium on Leo so am desperately low; am sending a small fleet back to Demksi to pull some off of there -- hope you don't mind (and hope your cruisers don't attack again). Also, I'm upgrading most of my space docks to space stations so I can start turning out better war ships at all my planets (I'm losing one this year at Devo).
Take care and may the war go well with you.

The Danis did take Demski with another freighter they'd brought the same year but didn't unload, as a later Lothan message noted.

The Makisachi acknowledged my message about aid in the upcoming battle with the Tobac:
Ok, the offensive is off. I will start sending ships to your planets to help defend since it seems that Triad is leaving my space alone for now.

And the Danis let the Bejavoid and them know how to get them there:
As a reminder, the Dani have stargates that can gate any/300. From Strauss to Hydra to Walla Walla is only 3 years and from Walla Walla to any of the 3 south of there is only a one year away - that way any ships can be gated to the area in 4 years. I would not recommend gating any decent sized ship to the Zoinks planet directly - but it is only a one year hop once a ship has been gated to Walla Walla.

I sent out another universe map to alliance members who sent me their planet files. I added this to what I previously knew and came up with this map. Only the Lothan, the Makisachi, the Bejavoid and I contributed to this update.

(Click here to see the 2477 Universe Map)

(I accidentally left the red line that showed the original border that the Minions and I had informally negotiated.)

Year 2478

I'm in 9th place, 60 points ahead of the Archimeans, 61 behind the Falconians and 108 behind the Ninjas. My escort ship graph rose dramatically this year by over 100 ships. Broom construction is booming. At the same time, the Lothan lost just as many.

Battles - Another fact-finding mission was made to one of the southeastern planets. This time, it was a Wolf Fire in Babylon that was destroyed at Hell, after getting a reading on all ships and the starbase.

Observations - Trader Bait South, carrying 15,000kT of Boranium, has been successfully assembled at the Dani planet of Bach. They are on their way to a 2-year-out Trader waypoint. The Danis are at the waypoint for next year with their freighters.

The suspense continues, as the combined Tobac/Wolf fleet near Cherub slowly closes in. They are currently 15ly away, with 9 more Space Pinchers and 2 Wolf ViMs closing in. The main fleet now has 18 Space Pinchers, 3 unknown Tobac battleships, 16 Wolf ViM's, 99 Wolf Coventry Classes, 23 unknown Wolf destroyers, 10 unknown Tobac mini-bombers, 40 unknown Wolf B-17 bombers and 50 unknown Wolf scouts. At this point, they could split the fleet in 3, attack Cherub, Hell and Eisenhower together, and still take me out on all 3 planets.

Since the construction of Brooms has tapped me dry of Boranium on the southeastern planets, I've designed the Zoinkara to take advantage of all the Ironium sitting on them. It's just like the Tobac Space Pinchers, but with a faster engine (the Trans-Galactic Super Scoop that was made available by the Lothan). Cherub has so little minerals that it can't even make much of anything, so I'm going to continue to crank out Brooms there. While all this is going on, Zoinkulators and Brooms are coming in from as far away as Arafat, Vacant, Staff and Siberia, using Dani and/or my own stargates to get them in as quickly as possible. However, in the case of Arafat this could be as long as 5 years, and the Zoinkulators could get hurt arriving at my planets.

The Danis have loads of their F-stops in the area (Yakimora frigates), Delta cruisers, Colloidal Phaser cruisers, and even 12 of their Flashlight of Death Colloidal Phaser battleships. So far, they are the only outside help I have.

The Tobac fleet that was converging between Ho Hum and Hell is now complete and may be heading through the Dani and Zoink minefields. It now consists of 60 Space Pinchers, 4 Space Pliers, 2 unknown battleships, 26 unknown mini-bombers and various support ships including 3 large freighters and 6 frigates.

There are 20 Bejavas privateers very close to the current location of the northern Mystery Trader, but it looks like they didn't target him properly and missed him.

Diplomacy - The Makisachi landed on Memos, which I had been mining. This makes two planets that they have recently colonized out from under me. I've moved mining operations farther out into Makisachi space at planet K9, but this caused me to complain:
Hey there, fella. You've colonized both Red Giant and, now, Memos right underneath mining operations on both planets. Next time could you at least check before you do this? I'm trying to bulk up on ships and I need those minerals. Thanks much!

And he replied:
Sorry. I don't have any penetrating scanners in that area. If you need minerals I could fling some to you as soon as I get accelerators. In the meantime I might withdraw one of those colonies so that you still have a mining source until then. I'll scramble some transports right away.

But since I'd already set my orders to move mining operations to K9, I let him have it.

Year 2479 - Testing the Waters

I'm in 9th place, 68 points ahead of the Archimeans, 61 behind the Falconians and 62 behind the Lothan. Due to their pull-out maneuvers, the Lothan score has been dropping noticeably. I'm also 102 behind the Ninjas, closing slowly. However, the Ninja now have more escort ships than anyone, the first time since the late 2420s that a non-Triad member owned that position. It's only a 22 ship (3%) lead on the Tobacs, but it shows that the battle is raging out west and that the alliance isn't beaten just yet. The drop in Tobac ships this year (about 50) in addition to last year's drop of about 25 also testifies to that. Also, the Tobacs took their first loss of capital ships this year in a fight with the Danis and me.

Tech Advances - I got Energy tech level 11 this year. Since I was so close to getting it last year, I wanted to advance to it so that the Mystery Trader levels wouldn't give me a level in something I just needed a few hundred resources to get on my own.

Battles - An advance party of Tobac ships showed up at Cherub this year. Whether this was a mistake, or a chance to see how their ships might fare against us is unknown. However, we did beat them, but lost many Brooms in the battle.

The Tobacs brought 18 Space Pinchers, 3 Auschkeshpielken (the battleship hull I've been seeing around), 10 bombers and a large freighter. The Auschkeshpielken have 20 Jihad missiles and 3 Jammer 30s. They also have Organic armor and Bear Nutrino shields. On our side we had 16 Dani F-Stops and 6 Flashlights of Death, and my forces consisting of 34 Zoinkulators, 25 Mini-Zoinkulators, and 44 Brooms, all supported by the starbase. The first shot was by the Flashlights, doing 5,350 points of damage to the Auschkeshpielken. Return fire from the Tobac battleships took out all the F-Stops acting as chaff, and the remaining missiles did only 5% damage to the Flashlights. The Space Pinchers packed more of a hit when they fired, though. They took out 31 Brooms and 5 Zoinkulators on their first shot. The remaining Brooms were removed in the next round of firing, making them rather expensive chaff. I'd hoped they would've gotten in closer, but they never stood a chance. My remaining Zoinkulators now started taking the brunt of the Pinchers missiles. The Flashlights, however, proved very formidable, destroying 2 of the 3 Auschkeshpielken 2/3rds of the way into the battle, and 18 of my Zoinkulators finishing the job later on. The Pinchers found themselves cornered and the Flashlights and Zoinkulators finished them off, but taking heavy losses. The bombers were also destroyed, but the freighter escaped. In the end, the Dani Flashlights only had that original 5% damage, and I had 7 Zoinkulators left, 39% damaged. The Minis never got into range, and the Brooms bit it completely.

This is changing my ship-building tactics. If I build chaff, it will be the simple X-Ray Laser scout variety, and I'm going to put more into building larger ships. Already the Zoinkara is showing up on planets in the south.

The last of my Dispuckulators died this year in an attack on the large Tobac fleet nearer to Ho Hum. I was to be a fact-finding mission to discover the battleship design of the Tobacs, but I got that information as well from the Cherub battle.

Observations - The northern Trader did a 180 this year, and is speeding out the way he came in at warp 10, back through Dani space. I know the Lothan had planned to meet him, but looks like those plans will be scrapped.

Trader Bait South is now targeting the southern Trader and will meet up next year.

30 more Tobac ships left Planet X this year, heading for Ho Hum, adding 14 Space Pinchers and 7 Auschkeshpielken to the 60 Pinchers, 4 Pliers and 2 Auschkeshpielken already nearby.

12 Makisachi destroyers are at Hexnut this year, possibly on their way to the southeastern planets, and 17 more are on their way to Ho Hum. 16 Spaceman cruisers sit at the Dani planet of Hydra nearby, and the Danis themselves are cranking out Flashlights. However, the Tobac/Wolf fleet has closed to within 7 lightyears of Cherub, making Hell and Eisenhower a one-year trip at warp 5, meaning they can now relatively safely hit any of the three planets next year. With Cherub's defenses so depleted, I can bet what they're target will be. I'm building Zoinkaras at Cherub (5 next year) but I'm going to build chaff there as well. The new Zoinkette is a scout hull with Quick Jump 5 engine and an X-Ray laser. I'm building them at all the southeastern planets and Ho Hum, in their queues behind any large ships I can build first, though at Cherub I've bumped some Zoinkaras, and I have more minerals, so I can build 100 next year.

Given how close the Tobac/Wolf fleet now is, I'm predicting an attack on one of my southeastern planets (probably Cherub) next year.

Year 2480 - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The Good - I met the southern Trader and got a tech bonanza. The Bad - The battle at Cherub went poorly. The Ugly - The Tobac are moving in on Ho Hum.

I'm in 9th place, 137 ahead of the Archimeans (whose resources, and hence score, are on a steep decline), 35 behind the Lothans (who are being beaten badly, as they've lost about 250 ships in the past 3 years) and 63 behind the Falconians (who haven't been touched at all by the Triad). The Archimeans are really taking a hit in resources, planets, and starbases, while their unarmed ship graph has skyrocketed up about 175 in the past couple of years and their escort ship graph has been entirely flat this past decade. Except for the unarmed ships, one would conclude they've stopped playing and the Triad is taking them over. The Lothan's score drop is partially due to it's being absorbed by members of the alliance, but there are also some planets, like Hayseed and McClellan, that have only Triad ships in orbit, so they are being actively attacked. The Ninja ship escalation continues, as they're now almost 100 ships ahead of the Tobac. My tech level graph spiked this year due to the Trader.

Tech Advances - I met the southern Mystery Trader this year with my 15,000kT of Boranium, which generated the following tech levels: Construction 11 and 12 (Galleon hull, Neutronium), Weapons 14, 15, 16 and 17(Mark IV Blaster, Epsilon Torpedo, Cherry Bomb, Phased Sapper, LBU-74 Bomb, Heavy Blaster, Juggernaut Missile, Radiation Terraform 15), Biotech 11, Electronics 14 (better JoaT scanners, Eagle Eye Scanner) and Propulsion 13. I'd heard that the Trader gave about 10 levels if you gave him 10,000kT and thought I'd heard that 15,000kT would get you around 15 levels. Perhaps 10,000kT is the upper limit. Nonetheless, this jump makes me fourth in tech, after the Triad members.

Battles - The Challenge at Cherub: As predicted, the Tobacs and Wolves arrived at the softened-up Cherub to square up against the Danis and me. I apparently didn't have time to build as many Zoinkettes as I'd planned, but it turns out not to have mattered much.

The starting warships were: Zoinks - 10 Zoinkulators, 25 Mini-Zoinkulators, 5 Zoinkaras, 19 Zoinkettes, 1 Broom and the starbase Hand of Zoink 2. Danis - 8 Flashlights of Death, 15 Cruiser Ds, and 5 B-stops. Wolves - 18 Vengence is MINEs, 99 Coventry Classes, 23 Snipers (destroyers with 3 Delta Torpedoes and beam deflectors), and 50 S-Fighters (scouts with Fuel Mizer and X-Ray laser; standard chaff). Tobac - 9 Space Pinchers, 3 Auschkeshpielken.

The first shot was taken by the Dani Flashlights, doing 3,100 points of damage to the Coventry Class fleet; a fleet that would ultimately be the main force in the battle. The Hand of Zoink 2 added his Jihad missiles to do 4,000 dp damage and kill just one ship. The first shot by the Coventry Class fleet did 6,400 dp to the Flashlights. The first shot by the Auschkeshpielken destroyed 8 Zoinkulators. The Wolf ViMs quickly took out 2 of the Flashlights, doing 9,400 dp damage to them, with 3 more destroyed by the Coventry Classes right after that. The Tobac Space Pinchers' first shots kill my 2 remaining Zoinkulators and one more Flashlight. The Dani Cruiser Ds shot next, killing all 50 wolf S-Fighters, which is what the chaff was for, but it's ironic that the Danis intent was to get the Cruiser D's killed to open up a ship design slot. The B-stops followed with some shots, but their old-style Beta Torps didn't make much of a dent in the Coventry Classes. Shots continued to be exchanged, with the starbase taking out one more Coventry Class. Halfway into the battle, the Tobac Auschkeshpielken took out all the Zoinkettes, the Boom and 6 Mini-Zoinkulators, but the loss of the chaff merely delayed the inevitable, though it may have helped contribute to the Triad killed-ship count later on. The remaining 2 Flashlights were removed by the ViM just after that. Later on, 9 more Coventry Class ships were destroyed by the starbase, but the Tobac battleships responded by killing off 15 more Mini-Zoinkulators. The last 4 of them were destroyed by the ViM's, which meant the Minis never got a shot off. The Coventry Class ships now worked on the B-stops and the Cruiser D's, killing all the cruisers and all but 2 frigates in one shot. The 5 Zoinkara finally did some real damage at this point, killing 5 of the softened Coventry Class ships. Two-thirds of the way through the battle, as the Coventry Class fleet moved in on the Hand of Zoink 2, the starbase killed 12 more, just before the Coventry Classes hit it with the one-two punch of shield sappers (taking out all shields) then Colloidal Phasers (taking out all the armor). At this point, the only ships I had left were the 5 Zoinkaras (plus a couple of freighters and 6 Gas Stations), and the Danis were left with the two B-stops. It was all over at this point, with the Coventry Class ships finishing off the Zoinkara, the ViMs mopping up the Danis, and the Auschkeshpielken doing in my unarmed ships. The Triad now owned the orbit of Cherub.

After the battle, all Zoink and Dani ships were destroyed. Triad warship losses were: Wolf - 30 Coventry Classes, and all 50 S-Fighters. Tobac - None.

Following this, the bombing of Cherub commenced, killing 228,600 colonists.

I've started a new line of Dying Breath starbases for use at Cherub. With only a little over 500 resources there now, I'm building a starbase with 16 Juggernaut missiles, 8 Phased Sappers, and 6 Battle Super Computers. (With only 1 Electronics slot, an Orbital Fort with just one computer and 24 missiles would hit generally with less power). With all the minerals that have been dropped on Cherub, I could build a formidable Juggernaut starbase, and I could do it on one year but for the resource cost (over 1,300).

Observations - 15 Spaceman cruisers are on their way to Hell to join with 48 they have already placed there to help out in its defense. I've sent a message of thanks to them.

The Tobac Space Pincher fleet near Ho Hum continues to move in a warp 4, sweeping up all mines as it goes. There are also 14 Pinchers and 7 Auschkeshpielken on their way towards the southeastern planets to reinforce the Triad group already there.

Taking advantage of my new-found tech levels, I'm upgrading all front-line starbases to the Zoinkonian. It has two full bays of Juggernaut missiles, a full bank of Heavy Blasters and a full bank of Phased Sappers. The Armor has been upgraded to Neutronium. These will be ready next year at Hell and Eisenhower, and in 3 years at Ho Hum (just in time for the Tobac's arrival).

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