Vespae VI - Tick 204 Cycle 8

Time progresses, and it's looking near certain I'm going to win this game. I think I've been fortunate because my alliance with Innoble brought in Vik Ia which I hadn't really intended (an early decision being whether to go with Innoble, Vik Ia or LimitingFactor) and the three of us are now super strong.

Strategic

• The only strategic scenario I'm investigating significant effort preparing for is the Innoble/Vik Ia v Necria 2v1 once our enemies are defeated. The way to win this war is to conquer MiniMe/CRISPR and then push up into LimitingFactor's west whilst slowly reinforcing enough on Innoble's border to discourage it from ever happening. That doesn't need to be a lot of ships, it just needs to be enough that he weighs it up as a lost battle before it begins.

Diplomatic

• No change. It's a bit of a shame this game is so diplomatically - dead. Innoble and Vik Ia are both really solid allies and I wouldn't consider breaking ranks against either of them but I'd like someone on the other side to try. It feels like the diplomatic war was won without a fight.
• Innoble created a second group chat with the three of us just to put Tech research to avoid it being lost in the wider discussion. This is a really great idea I'll replicate in future games.

Tactical

• In the southern front, I'm probing away, depleting ships whilst continuing to build my infrastructure and letting the industry do the heavy lifting. I'm still way outproducing MiniMe and can afford to take 3:1 losses if needed. Long term this would be problematic though so I'm happy with everything up to 3:2. My big hope with my current set of attacks is to provoke more specialist use from MiniMe, I'd rather he committed his specialists so I could plan around them. I'm intentionally retaining my own tokens to spend on big hitters (Saboteurs/Destroyers/Cowards)

• On the northern front (which I think I should have called the eastern front, but too late..) I'm continuing probing attacks. The aim here isn't to capture stars it's to deplete forces. This is why all my current attacks are fairly small. I'd prefer he spend his tokens on the southern front since I already have specialists here (a general popping up on the southern front would immediately be met by me sending my colonel/infriltrator on the northern front into an attack)