Trani - Feb 28 12:00 - Tick 170 Cycle 7

Halfway through this Cycle and the Galaxy is progressing well. Ktoc responded to mine and Darrow's (uncoordinated) joint-attack by attacking Darrow which is interesting and helpful. I'm making progress on both fronts and I have secured and fortified the Asteroid Field at Chothi. 

Darrow will struggle to take it from me now and hopefully he won't even try. He should though. I have every intention of going to war with Darrow as soon as Ktoc falls and I don't feel at all guilty about this - he hasn't replied to a single message I've sent him all game (I've sent him 5) so we're not allies even if our diplomacy setting is set as allies. I'm not quite sure why Darrow is so uncommunicative.

Strategic

• I'm now the economy and ship production leader and I'll be the ship total leader in a few cycles. I'm the Science leader individually but Gilgamesz ability to trade with me and Anita makes him the de-facto Science leader.
• As soon as Ktoc/Dust fall I'll be splitting my forces and stars into two groups - Northern Command (all of Ktoc and Dust's territory) will prepare for war with Darrow. Southern Command (all of my initial territory) will feed around 50% of ship production to Northern Command but will also start to create a (secret, deep within my territory) contingency against Gilgamesz. Gilgamesz has met every agreement and been a good ally so far but as an alliance starts to near achieving it's goals members start to question their next steps. I'm not planning to stab Gilgamesz but I am planning and aiming to win this game. I believe I can do that by simply capturing territory and consolidating faster. If I can't and Gilgamesz is the clear leader then I'll be willing to accept 2nd place, GG and congrats. I will not be willing to accept 3rd place behind Anita though.

Diplomatic

• Inerz and Anita have a non-aggression pact, which is interesting. I've told Gilgamesz this.
• I'm cultivating a diplomatic off-ramp from Gilgamesz with Inerz. I don't actually want to flip but I like to have my options open. 
• Gilgamesz traded me Experimentation 5 when he could have traded me Experimentation 6. A mistake or is he intentionally trying to keep me behind him? Either way not to concerned about this since I think he's over-estimating the importance of Experimentation at this stage anyway. An extra 50 experimentation points is less than 2 ticks worth of science.

Tactical

• War with Ktoc is going well. Darrows arrival on the battlefield has distracted him and I now have an overwhelming advantage on every metric. I am pressing that advantage. My ship production is around 2x his and we have equal Weapons tech so I can afford to trade ships at 2:1.
• The Byormi Asteroid Field has a huge amount of Industry and Science on it that the Dust AI is building and it's only going to keep getting stronger. It's not time to capture this yet but I'm looking forward to capturing it when I can.