"Unrest had been a growing concern for many among the upper echelon's of Cartel society for some time now. It was easy to see why, for years now they had focused their efforts inwards, star-bases, the economy, scientific pursuits over conquest and militaristic goals. The simple fact of the matter was the Cartel was no longer sure of itself, despite their advantages and military ability they had yet to truly turn it into a decisive victory against the Uriy Suns. Some were even considering the possibility of allying with one of the larger powers and then turning on them later. Whatever they ended up deciding to do, the Cartel would not be complacent for much longer even if it meant sharing power or simply trying to take it. "
Stardate: 04-01-2336
Once again we find ourselves guiding the Fox Cartel to galactic criminal dominance and a healthy profit margin. The plan right now is two fold, to improve the Cartel's economy and also to continue improving our tech so that even the Cartel's fewer numbers they are still able to hold their own in a war. So current objectives as I see it are as follows:
- Ensure that every way in and way out of Cartel space is covered by a defensive star-base. This will mean the fleet is more able to be aggressive during wars.
- Improve research capability, this isn't as easy as it was in older versions of Stellaris, research labs use consumer goods as upkeep so any extra labs will need a similar increase in consumer goods production.
- Further expand the fleet, preferably including battleships in the line-up before our next aggressive push.
- Start building tall instead of wide, I could expand north but there aren't many worthwhile planets there and the Marauders are there so no thanks. Habitats and such are the way to go once terraforming options dry up.
- Look into other targets for aggressive expansion beyond the Uriy Suns, the galaxy is entering what I dub the federation phase which means unless the Cartel gets invited to one it's literally us against the galaxy.
So today's part starts off leading right into another tradition unlock, now we have finished the supremacy tree so now we need to pick a new one to pursue. All four remaining trees have their pros and cons, expansion is tempting due to the increase to admin capacity however domination seems more thematically agreeable. Adopting it is only modestly useful giving us a reduced cost on clearing tile blockers but the later unlocks will help, such as increased governor level cap, extra housing, worker resource output etc.
The engineering department finishes improving our corvettes build speed and reducing their cost so let's improve them further by giving them an extra 100 hit-points with the next tech. I set the constructor ships to work rebuilding the mining bases the pirates trashed on their little romp and pretty much just let things tick over.
The Alvothari again shut down a branch office, seriously they get shut-down so fast I almost wonder if they are worth the resources. So a little scouting around from our criminal network and we find a few more places to set-down illicit roots, let's hope these actually last longer than a year.
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| The Galactic Ymacera Assembly a vast sprawling empire.. With only one colonised planet..What? |
It's during this little manual scouting that I realise for all the Ymacera Assembly's size they don't seem to have many planets, in fact they only have one, seriously? They own all that space but have only one planet, perhaps they aren't as big a threat as I first thought. Yet despite all that, they still kicked the crap out of the Prossnakan Star Hunters, true they did have help but even so.
The Husko raiders now try to extort us too, for now I just pay them off as the first fleet isn't back to full strength and the raiders generally are a lot stronger than me right now. Also I am not sure if they can bypass the border status of other empires to get to me so better safe than sorry for now.
Our society division finishes their research further improving the Cartel's naval capacity, so I opt to unlock some starbase modules to improve our fleets further. Every improvement we can make to our ships is a win if you ask me right now. It's at this point something odd is noted on Cartel sensors, Fiiral TransStellar, another mega-corporation has territory to my north despite their main territory being in the galactic south, that's, unusual to say the least. It is noted to keep an eye on them meanwhile.
The engineering division further improves our corvettes with extra hitpoints, next up is flak-cannons, I prefer them usually to the pure point defences as they can at least target other ships as well. This is followed almost as quickly by the physics division unlocking further upgraded research labs for us, so I set them to researching plasma cannons next as the plasma throwers are our fleets mainstay weaponry for now.
And then for many years, not a lot seems to happen, the Cartel's worlds slowly grow upgrading buildings, laying down more districts and slowly but surely improving their economic and scientific output. Though the sheer rate of population growth has actually stunted food income so that is something that gets worked on too, dropping down a hydroponic farm on Hades and a few farming districts on the urban worlds should take care of it for now until we get the tech to further improve our food situation.
More society research this time aimed at 'refit standards' which makes retrofitting ships cheaper and reduces overall ship upkeep, can't argue with that. For now though the Cartel seems stuck in a rut with the only real option to be to try to once again to take on the Uriy Suns.
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| All kinds of technology! |
In order to stop the unwashed masses from rioting due to what is perceived by many to be growing complacency the first fleet, now mostly reinforced does a parade fly-by past the capital of Vulpinus (or in other words I wasn't finding much interesting to make screenshots of.) Taking something of a risk I decide it is best to throw some rivalries out something I haven't been doing, let's see if we can stir up some trouble before the Cartel starts blowing each other up.
Oddly enough whilst figuring out who would make the best rivals I discover much to my surprise that the Alvothari Hegemony would actually accept us into their federation which is, actually an oddly tempting prospect given how limited the Cartel's options are at present, being stuck in an awkward position galacticaly with the way the hyper-lane network is laid out.
That decision will have to wait until next time however, will the Cartel decide to play nice or will they continue their attempt at conquering the galaxy all by themselves?
Thank you for reading, I do know the building up parts are a little stale but hopefully with some directed poking and shaking up of things we can get back to the space battles, wars and ancient mysteries, til next time fox fans!
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| The first fleet does a fly-by of the homeworld to raise spirits. |
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