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30 Jun 06
Well that's more like it. The Humans have no intention of rolling over and playing dead. They've got full defensive rings around their planets. At least three of the five planets I've found have over twenty-five cruisers guarding the planet. That's a tough nut to crack. Needless to say many Bothans died to bring me that information.
I'm afraid I have to admit that I haven't been very aggressive. I had a couple of vulnerable colony worlds that I was trying to protect. Mostly, I was working to build up my dreadnought fleet. Dreads are incredibly expensive, but they're really hard to kill and have so many guns it makes your head spin. Hive dreads have even more guns than the rest.
Speaking of Hiver advantages, those top level gates are pretty amazing. I'd go so far as to say not only do they change the way the Hiver player is playing, but they also change everyone else's strategy. I wouldn't say it's unbalancing. It just requires that you adjust your thinking.
I am blockading one Human planet. As near as I can tell, it only has two node lines out. I have fleets on either end. It's a size ten planet so it will be the first target of the dreadnought assault. If I can take it out, that should put a dent in the Human economy.
Though there were many medium size battles defending my colonies, there was only one epic struggle. The colony at Ke'Stanz is a resource rich size six planet. It's also the point of my farthest incursion into Human space. The Humans don't want me there, and I don't want to leave. It's the perfect place for a battle.
The Humans wanted to kick me out before I could build up the planet. Satellite defenses and full batteries of planetary missiles make things much harder. They sent a few ready fleets as soon as they noticed the colony. Fortunately, I had some pretty staunch defenders there and held the planet easily. My two of my first dreadnoughts were deployed there by the time the big battle broke out. The Humans used that same time to build up a huge assault fleet.
When it arrived I admit I was shocked. The fifteen destroyers didn't bother me. It was the twenty-nine cruisers that had me upset. I had a command dreadnought and a heavy dreadnought. I had ten cruisers and a handful of torpedo boats. I also had ring of small satellites around the planet.
The initial Human charge was almost all of the destroyers. I was a bit surprised to see there were a few torpedo boats there. I was a bit more surprised to see they had fusion torpedoes. I spread out my forces to try to encourage the destroyers to go between my dreadnoughts. I kept my torpedo boats back to help defend the planet and the gate ship.
The charge went right past my cruisers only losing a couple of destroyers. As the cruisers wheeled around, the dreads opened up. The dreads had no problems engaging many targets simultaneously. It was hard to make out individual destroyers in the cloud of explosions, debris and weapons fire. Only two destroyers made it through the gauntlet. I left them to the torpedo boats and planetary defenses while I turned to face the cruisers streaking in.
The enemy can choose the order their ships come in, but they don't get to choose where. That means if you can mix it up inside their lines, you can develop a distinct advantage over holding back. The risk is you might be out of position and the enemy might have good break at the planet. In fact, that's pretty much what happened. My cruisers were able to take out the first three Human cruisers with just a little help from the dreads. After that, Human cruisers were popping in and subsequently blowing up port, starboard, fore, aft and every which way.
Then wouldn't you know that two cruisers pop in on the far ends of my lines. To make things worse, my ships were moving outwards. Even worse than that, the cruisers happened to be planetary assault ships armed with torpedoes and beam weapons. They had a clear run at the planet.
Dreadnoughts are slow. The turn very slowly. It seemed like forever as the furthest back ship, the command dreadnought, turned to try to face the new threat. The planetary defenses helped some, but before any of my ships got in range, the torpedoes and beams ripped into the planet. Tens of millions of brother bugs died right then. The dreadnought brought them quick and sure vengeance.
Time was running out at three more cruisers node jumped in. They could run the gauntlet or they could turn tail and run. They chose the latter. I sent the cruisers to give chase since the dreads had no chance of catching up. We were able to take out one node drive before time ran out.
The Humans decided to cut their losses and fled the battlefield. Next turn that left only one cruiser attacking. He was missing his node drive.
So where are the Tarka in all this? I'm not sure. I think the Humans have hunted them into near extinction. My taking three of their worlds probably didn't help. I was wrong in my assessment that the Humans and Tarka were evenly matched. That was probably true earlier, but the Humans had gained the upper hand. By my best guess, the Tarka can't hold more than two or three stars. That won't give them enough chips to stay in this game. It's even money on who gets to finish them off.
Jason
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29 Jun 06
I can feel the end coming. My push into the upper bell has been very successful. My technology is giving me the edge in battles. The Tarka have amazing speed on the battlefield. The Humans using their node drive can pop a fleet up on me with almost no warning. I, on the other hand, have more ships, more big ships, more guns, and guns that hit harder. My gates and repair ships now have shields.
I'm starting to push into upper tier technology. I'm pushing things a little. I'm still chafing at the slow speed of the Hiver expansion. I've got antimatter drives. I'm working on dreadnought hulls. Then it will be time for advanced gates. I have to say the top level gates look particularly interesting.
The Humans and Tarka seem very evenly matched for each other. I suppose I should thank them for keeping each other from getting ahead enough to be a major challenge to me. They're both heavily into speed, ballistic weapons and have some beam weapons. The bulk of their force is made up of destroyers. They're just now getting to the point where they have cruisers in numbers.
After Ke'Saddar, I only knew the location of two enemy colonies. Both Rigel and Ke'Thultan were held by the Tarka. I tried the one-two punch that had worked well on the Liir. I launch an assault force bound for Ke'Thultan. Then a few turns later I launched another for Rigel. Ke'Thultan was heavily defended. Dozens of destroyers pounded on my ships, but they couldn't punch through and take them out. I lost weapons on most of my ships. The only section I lost was the engine on an assault cruiser. Despite their speed, they didn't even have the firepower of the Liir. Unfortunately for them, my firepower was even greater.
My repair ships were working overtime. So was the gate deployment crew. Thanks to reserves and repairs, I was able to field a nearly full strength assault team to defend the gate. Once the first wave was crushed, they didn't send another. I even had time to seek out and engage some of their cruisers. The reinforcements wouldn't have much work to do when they arrived. The new colony was established two turns later right before the assault began on Rigel.
I was a little disappointed in the battle of Rigel. Obviously the Tarka had shifted forces to defend Ke'Thultan. There were only five ships left defending Rigel along with a ring of defensive satellites. Four were cruisers, but my assault force outnumbered them. In the first turn before deploying the gate, I had cleared out the fleet, cleansed most of the planet and taken out most of the satellites. The first ships to arrive weren't reinforcements. They were the new colonists.
I should point out that the Humans haven't been idle. They've been probing my defenses and sent two sizable fleets to try to capture Ke'Saddar. Yes, that's two more after the last one. I haven't even found a Human world and they're being annoying. Actually, I think one of my scouts is closing in on either a Human world or a staging area. Ke'Saddar is now the best defended planet in the empire. Perhaps I will save the honor of experiencing the first Hiver dreadnought for the Humans.
Jason
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28 Jun 06
I suppose I could try to raise the drama of the fall of the Liir, but the fact is they were down to two planets and a few dozen destroyers against my fourteen planet empire. I had a technological edge, but more importantly I could field more cruisers with more guns than they could. With a little extra armor, the Hiver cruisers could take a serious licking. Then throwing in heavily armed Gate cruisers, it just wasn't fair.
The Liir made a good run of it. They took out a couple cruisers in their initial defense of both planets, but they didn't have the ships to follow it up. Without making a serious run at my gate ships, the planets were lost practically before their close defense forces saw the first Hiver ship. Once the defense fleets were swept aside, the planets were pounded into submission. Then it was just a matter of chasing down a few rogue fleets before I got the message that the Liir were defeated.
I thought I give you a little geography lesson (or is that stellar cartography?). We're fighting in an hourglass galaxy. While it's wrong for distances, think of it as a plane shaped like an hourglass. I started in the bottom bell along the middle right. The Liir started out in the lower left of the bottom. I'm not completely sure, but I believe the Tarka started in the middle right of the top bell, and the Humans probably started in the upper left of the top.
I expanded to the middle of the bottom and worked out from there. I stopped my upwards expansion at the middle thinking it would be easier to defend and stopped my downward expansion on encountering the Liir. Since the Liir are gone, I control the whole bottom. I can't colonize every planet, but I have gates in nearly all of them. There are a couple with nasty local creeps in them that I haven't cleared out yet. Even without those, I have enough sensor coverage to see pretty much all traffic in my half.
Once I was down to mop up duty on the Liir, I made a concentrated effort to scout out the top bell. Since I'm the Hivers, this is a slow task. Thus far I've found three Tarka worlds, a couple of ice balls and one nasty creep that nearly wiped out a pretty powerful exploration fleet.
I only arrived on one Tarka world in force. Apparently it had been in a battle recently with the Humans. Ke'Saddar was a size eight planet with decent resources. It was definitely worth fighting for. The Tarka had some surprisingly fast destroyers defending it. They appeared to be using ballistic weapons to attack me. That plan didn't seem to be working too well. They were fast enough to avoid my beam weapons, but not fast enough to dodge the flying plasma. They inflicted some pretty heavy damage including destroying the mission section of my repair ship, but their fast response force was wiped out.
I had to call on my reserves and support ships to take the field to defend the gate. It wasn't the best situation, but it gave me a good mix of firepower and armor. I'm not sure the Tarka understood the importance of taking out the gate ship right away. They sent a few ships after mine, but kept most of their fleet around the planet.
Next turn the reinforcements arrived. They swept the Tarka cruisers from the skies. The Tarka cruisers could take a pretty good pounding, but they weren't giving as good as they were getting so it was only a matter of timer before the planetary assault could begin. Once the planet fell, my new advanced colonizers swept in.
Then things got dicey. A Tarka support fleet arrived. They arrived in a pretty bad mood once they realized they had become a revenge fleet en route. Fortunately for me, they sent the bulk of their forces at the gate ship. I was able to intercept the their planetary assault force before they did much damage. A few survivors managed to escape the gravity well and activate their warp engines.
Right as I was breathing a sigh of relief from serviving that, the Humans showed up to finish the job they had started before my arrival. They didn't seem to care that the previous owners had been evicted. They just wanted the planet. That's when I saw the first Human cruisers. I didn't get a chance to examine their capabilities however. Once I gained the upper hand on the Human line of destroyers, the cruisers turned and burned for the nearest node point. I had to let them go since I couldn't let the destroyers through at vulnerable planet. I lost nearly half the colony but managed to finish the destroyers. The cruisers will have to wait for another day.
Jason
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27 Jun 06
The Humans and the Tarka must be fighting. Besides the occasional scout ships, I haven't seen anything of them. I expected the Tarka to at least make an effort to take back the colony I had conquered back near our first contact, but that fleet never came. I haven't seen a Human fleet beyond two ships and a Tarka fleet beyond five. They must be dedicated in their conflict.
I can't complain as I still have unfinished business with the Liir. Taking Ololobu wasn't just a moral victory. It bit into their economy and their research. It weakened their overall fleet strength. It also gave me a forward base closer to their home worlds.
About that time my labs finished the fusion drive. That gave new fleets a little kick in range, speed and power. Hiver speed is always slow, but compared to what I was doing, the new speed was a great boon. I already had a powerful fleet headed for the Liir homeworld so I started building a new fusion fleet to avenge the lost death fleet. Given the shorter distance and greater speed, the two fleets arrived close together.
The Liir were trying a new tactic on me this time. They sent everything they had against me as soon as my fleet arrived. It was clear they wanted to break my defenses so I wouldn't have the strength to hold them off when they assaulted the gate ship. It was a good plan, but it had two flaws. One, cruisers were now at the heart of my attack fleets being lead by cruiser command and control ships that gave me more guns in the fight at once. Two, my firepower and accuracy had increased thanks to some tech advances. My fire control ships were accurate enough that high speed passes by destroyers didn't phase them. When they hit, they hit hard.
Liruuma, their homeworld, was the first up. They sent a full compliment of destroyers out to take me on. They quickly chewed through the two destroyers I had up front, but their luck changed as soon as my cruisers were in range. Their tight formation meant that even wild shots had a chance of hitting something. I had to rotate damaged cruisers to the back, as the constant fire took its toll, but I only lost one as their fleet was wiped out. Liir reinforcements came roaring in, but I kept up a line in front of my damaged cruisers to keep them alive. Time ran out as I mopped up their second wave. They had lost twenty ships to my three.
Clearly they didn't expect me to weather that storm. Their next assault on the newly deployed gate was weak. They sent all their remaining destroyers, but my patched up cruisers handled them with ease. I sent a scout force forward and saw their cruisers were hiding in the ring of defensive satellites. They were unwilling to venture out without a destroyer escort.
I was ready to start my assault on the planet next turn when something amazing happened. The Liir just abandoned the planet. The cruiser fleet just up and left. That still left a huge world firing missiles and a ring of satellites., but that wasn't a challenge compared to what I was expecting. I can only assume that with no chance of reinforcements arriving in time, they decided a living fleet was more valuable to them than a noble sacrifice. My colonists landed on the cleansed world a couple of turns later.
Fortunately for me, the running fleet was headed for Aylu. That was the same place my revenge fleet was going. I didn't see them arrive, but I was preparing a warm welcome anyway. This time I placed my destroyers in reserve and lead with a pure cruiser force. This limited my maneuverability, but increased my firepower. I wasn't planning to go searching for the enemy anyway.
Sure enough, the Liir came at me with an overwhelming destroyer force converging on me from two directions (though both from the planet). They chewed through two of my cruisers before some quick maneuvering and focused firing started to turn the tide. I was beat up pretty bad, but I lost two cruisers to their twenty destroyers. This time I had brought along an extra repair ship. It was definitely needed.
The defense of the gate ship was a repeat of the first round with slightly smaller numbers coming from the Liir. I was able to rotate my damaged cruisers enough to keep them all alive. With the gate fully activated, I was ready to assault the planet. The Liir had only a handful of destroyers left, but they were waiting to meet my charge. Right as I plowed through them, I saw three cruisers clear the planet. Since two were coming from one side and one from the other, I broke off and turned toward the single cruiser.
I soon learned why he didn't want me to prematurely engage his cruisers. They were armed with forward mounted beam weapons. The beams packed a punch, but had to be fired straight ahead. That had me doing some funky dancing as I tried to keep my ships out from in front of the beam cruiser while keeping in range with their own weapons. I managed to punch through the mission section of the cruiser before the other two cruisers could arrive. I quickly learned they were also beam cruisers.
I focused fire on the command sections of the cruisers to try to take out those beams. That resulted in the destruction of the first cruiser and the incapacitation of another. Now I had the numerical and firepower advantage. A couple of quick barrages later the last Liir cruiser exploded. Now only a handful of defensive platforms stood between me and the planet. Soon the whole planet rang with force of destruction rained down upon it.
A turn later the planet had been cleansed. I had colonists in route. The Liir were down to two planets. I started designing a few special ships to help with that mission. Time is running out for the fishes.
Jason
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26 Jun 06
I won't bore you with stories of me masterfully moving large fleets around to crush small scouting fleets. I will only note that two of those fleets surprisingly came from the Humans. I'm now officially at war with everyone. The other thing of interest is that the Tarka have managed to create cruisers. I haven't seen a human cruiser yet, but I'd venture to say we're all in the cruiser age.
After the disaster of the last death fleet, the next fleet was considerably stronger. It had repair cruisers and more assault cruisers. It had assault shuttles, armored destroyers and even a missile cruiser. It had a spare gate ship in case of trouble. Of course, there were some tankers to round out the fleet.
It was obvious it wasn't going to be easy to take Ololobu. The planet had a full ring of light defense platforms, four cruisers and twenty destroyers. There were also two relief fleets inbound on the planet when I arrive (just after an earlier relief fleet had arrived. The only good news when I got there was a pretty dense asteroid field. That would get in the way of some of their long range weapons.
I had learned from the last encounter. This time I didn't make any foolish early runs at the planet. That meant that I would have to withstand the pounding from the planetary missiles, but I wouldn't be charging into the teeth of their defense. I set up a skirmish line behind some asteroids and waited for the defenders to come out and play.
Soon enough a dozen destroyers were bearing down on me at high speed. That initial wave was the key. If they couldn't take out any of my cruisers on the first path, their steadily diminishing numbers would limit their effectiveness. I could tell which cruiser they were attacking first so I moved one of my heavier cruisers to intercept. It was a close thing, but it started absorbing some of the fire meant for weaker cruiser. Soon destroyers were popping like fireworks thanks to my plasma bursting in space.
The first four destroyers fell right after contact. Then I was able to focus fire on ship after ship. I lost a couple of ship sections on my cruisers, but only lost two destroyers to his dozen. His reinforcements were too late. The last of the first wave was exploding as the next wave reached weapons range. I turned to face them. Soon enough they were burning hulks as well. I had taken some heavy damage on my cruisers, so I pulled them back to our arrival point. The Liir couldn't get any more forces out there before the battle ended in a draw.
Of course, I deployed one of my gate ships. I looked at the damage on the repair screen. Not too bad. I could repair all but one of my cruisers. I reshuffled my fleet so that I had all my heavily armored ships out there. The next round would be pure defense of the new gate. If it survived, the horde of the swarm would be on the wing.
None of the Liir reinforcements arrived that turn, so I knew I would be facing the cruisers, the handful of surviving destroyers and whatever he had been able to build. With a fully developed planet as a resource, I knew all of his damaged ships would be repaired. It was just a matter to see if he could break through and take out my gate.
Sure enough, the first wave of destroyers came roaring in to face the rough semicircle I had placed around the gate ship. The long range missiles were firing at the destroyers as they approached. They were slightly delayed as they had to swing around a large asteroid. Their formation was somewhat broken as well. I couldn't have asked for better. My two groups each took one of the lead ships and concentrated their fire. The left went down, then the right. Three of the initial group got past my picket line, but they had to try to slow down to engage my gate ship. I was nervous as the laser fire started to lick the gate. Then my destroyers and one cruiser had reestablished themselves on the rear of the gate. The concentrated fire reduced the destroyers to dust before they had completed their deceleration burn.
Now that the destroyers were taken out, I could see the cruisers coming. It looked like they had left at least one to guard the planet. In a somewhat risky move, I ordered the fleet out to engage the approaching cruisers. I only left the repair cruiser to guard the gate. I just couldn't allow those cruisers in weapons range of the gate. I slowed down my destroyers to keep the from pulling ahead and exposing themselves. Then I turned my cruisers broadside to engage the approaching enemy.
I ordered my more accurate fire control cruisers to focus on the lead ship's command section while the rest of the fleet aimed at the larger mission section. It proved to be a winning combination as the mission section blew just before the command section. That ended their numerical advantage. Now it was my heavier ships against their lighter one. My plasma offset their more powerful lasers. They couldn't take the pounding. Soon two more Liir cruisers were burning as time ran out.
I checked the damage screen. The gate was functional and had only taken light damage. Soon the gate network was tasked to the limit with reinforcements arriving. Leading the forces were the brand new command and control cruisers. Their arrival meant more ships on the battlefield at once.
If it wasn't for the Liir reinforcements arriving, it would have been an easy mop up. As it was, the Liir were still outclassed. The reinforcing ships all had improved armor. Some had upgraded firepower as well. In short, the fleets smashed together, but I smashed harder. I took out sixteen of his ships and was able to start bombarding the planet. I didn't have any planetary assault ships so the damage inflicted on the surface was limited. The point was made, the planet was no longer safe.
Before the next turn, I didn't have the repair capacity to fix all of the damage, but I had enough reinforcements that it didn't matter. This time I came out with heavy cruisers and a small flight of assault shuttles. Right as I engaged the Liir fleet, I swung the shuttle ships around the battle to make their run for the planet. The Liir cruisers were getting pounded so hard that the destroyers couldn't give chase to my break away. Soon they were within range, I locked them on the planet and gave the order to launch the shuttles.
The launchers came around in a graceful arc as the shuttles burned for the planet. I was attacking the Liir from two sides as the surface of the planet went dark. The shuttles had done it. The planetary missiles stopped and some of the Liir bolted. Those left soon had their engines shot out before being destroyed.
The last Liir reinforcements arrived just before my colony ships. When they saw the dead planet and no fleet to reinforce, most broke for open space. The rest tried to avenge their fellow fish, but they jumped into the same plasma barbecue that had claimed their friends.
If I just keep the Tarka and Liir off my carapace, I can make some real progress in this war on Liir. The next generation of fusion ships are just coming on line. Upgrades of the gate network are next. The fish should be shaking in their bowls. The next fleet is already closing in on its target while another fleet is being built. For the Queen.
Jason
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