"Our initial forays out into the galaxy yielded little signs of other intelligent life beyond remnants of the Yuuht, an advanced pre-cursor civilisation. Then we found two different races no more than a handful of jumps from Cartel territory. The Homolog Continuum, a race of caretaker machines thousands of years more advanced than us and the Unified Uriy Suns a race of xenophobic isolationists. Whilst our military expands we will see if we can't invest in our neighbours criminal elements for our own gain."
Stardate: 22-04-2222
So here we are again after the last part which saw things start to look up for this particular campaign of Stellaris. Whilst I don't see much intentional interaction with the Homolog Continuum the Unified Uriy Suns can definitely expect some branch offices and criminal enterprises popping up on their planets soon. However I need to address two issues, the first is the complete lack of influence due to aggressive expansion, the second is going to be building up our military to match or hopefully surpass the Uriy Suns.
The lack of influence I can already start to address by declaring the Unified Uriy Suns as a rival which should give us some extra influence, I'd say it'd make them hate us but they already do, sitting at -65 opinion. They are xenophobes so, they hate alien races plus the Cartel is a criminal syndicate, well so I may as well just lean into it. They give us a threat about losing business but the Cartel doesn't need their permission to conduct business, so we shake our fuzzy orange butts at them before closing the comm-link. Now they utterly detest us and have a superior fleet power rating, I'm sure it'll be fine.
That planet we were going to colonise is going to cost a fair bit of influence to get the outposts built but afterwards we start saving up to get some branch offices set-up in the Uriy Suns space. It's at this point I notice the capital hasn't got a governor so I recruit a new one, Vopisca Laenius who increases science output will do for now, Foxes love science afterall. So, that one building slot I have is taunting me with it's emptiness so let's put something in it shall we? At this stage of the campaign given my steady flow of resources there are a few options to consider.
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| Whilst it's not colonisable yet, as many planets haven't been we at least have plenty of terraforming targets later on. |
First and most tempting is a research lab, getting some extra science rolling could give us the edge in the long run. Second is an alloy foundry, we are going to need a lot of alloys to build and maintain our military going forwards so it'd be a solid choice too. Last we have a stronghold, not only will it give our homeworld some more defence armies but it will give us extra naval capacity. It's a tough choice really, all three are solid options but I opt to go for the research lab it'll give us the most long-term benefit.
Basic combat roles finishes researching so I make sure to add it to the Cunning class corvettes design and then upgrade our existing 8 ships plus I add in our upgraded armour from last time. We also have two options for increasing research, one for orbital research stations, one increasing physics research from scientist jobs, we also have global energy management and auxiliary fire control as options. I think Zero-G labs is the best option for now though. Given most of our research is coming from orbital research stations I feel we'd get the most out of this for now.
Society research finishes next and again, not many good options, we are doing alright on food and I am not a massive fan of the gene clinics so I just choose the 20% extra society research option instead. Geothermal Fracking finishes gives us a nice boost as research finishes giving us +94 minerals a month now, without even thinking about it I grab powered exo-skeletons as the next option, bonus to minerals and army damage at once? Yes please. Given that minerals are used to make almost everything else, the more the better.
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| Come on scientists, give me some more interesting options than that please? |
Physics research finishes again so I just grab field modulation to future proof the old energy credits. Things in the Cartel seem to be ticking over nicely, the science ships surveying many more systems, the constructors following behind laying claim to what they find. Only for my prediction for the Homolog Continuum to prove false. They claim that our chances of survival will increase if we colonise Scheat II, so I go looking for this world, was it something one of my science ships found recently? No. No it was not, it was the tomb world we found years ago leaving me scratching my head. On the one hand I don't want to ignore a fallen empire sitting not far from my doorstep but on the other hand colonising that world is virtually impossible with my current tech isn't really appealing.
For reference a tomb world is a dead world and most races will generally have a habitability of zero, basically doubling pop upkeep and amenity usage. At this stage I don't think I could afford to support such a colony so I ensure the Homolog Continuum is told to get stuffed. Politely of course. I have no idea what the consequences will be but it can't be worse than colonising a world which could tank my economy. If they had asked me to colonise almost anything else I might've agreed but I think those caretaker robots are a few centuries short on maintenance, I just hope they don't do anything hostile as at this early stage even my main starbase would prove little defence against their vastly superior tech and numbers.
Whilst I sit there wondering what those crazy robots are thinking I get a distress call from one of my science ships evading some hostiles. I get a brief look at some kind of crystalline things before the ship flees the system and gets an updated survey route only to run into even more hostiles in the next system. That's two more reasons I need to start working on my fleet it seems.
Seems I always think a part is going to be boring and then a bunch of crazy stuff happens near the end. Not that I am complaining I just hope we get to parts where it's all crazy and exciting stuff but hang in there, we'll get there, Stellaris is meant to be a slow burn kind of game afterall. We now have a lot of objectives and goals forming, beyond wondering why there are no planets to colonise and why there are no other empires nearby.
First will be to claim the systems to colonise our first planet, that'll take time due to how low our influence still is and likely will be for some time. Second due to the multitude of threats around us now expanding the military is now essential rather than a luxury. I should also look into taking improving existing military technology. Third is to begin establishing branch offices in the Uriy Suns territory to not only destabilize them and make them a softer target for later but also to get us the resources we need without having to use building slots on our own planets.
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| Vast fleets of crystalline ships or creatures scare off my science ships and have the Cartel military eagerly begging for more ships (again.) |
As always thank you very much for reading I greatly appreciate you taking the time. Feedback, improvements, support all helps me keep wanting to do this and improve it and make it fun and interesting to read. Watch this space for the next part soon!
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