Vespae VI - Tick 72, Cycle 3

Another end of Cycle and I couldn't be happier with how the game is progressing at this stage. I have a lead in stars and should have considerable influence over the outcome of the game.

With that said there was a major scare that could have caught me unaware that I'll cover in the Tactical section.

Strategic

• The most interesting part of the game now as all the loose stars are captured or about to be captured. I expect the following
  1) Bubblegum to collapse
  2) LimitingFactor to attack MiniMe
  3) Innoble and I to attack CRISPR
• My plan is based on the above assumptions and runs broadly like this. I'll attack CRISPR about tick 100 with Innoble (we've loosely discussed this timeline) Innoble may or may not go sooner than this, I think I'd be tempted to in his position. That's fine by me as I'd prefer to launch second since I'm not looking for majority territory game from that battle - it's primarily to build the alliance with Innoble, help my ally strengthen, and remove a player from the gamepool. By the time this war has wrapped up I expect LimitingFactor/MiniMe to be at war and I hope I don't have to do anything up North, but I might. Either way as soon as CRISPR is beaten I pivot back westward and I attack through what I expect to be a weakened/losing MiniMe up directly into LimitingFactor, joined by Innoble from the East. Win that war, and the game will likely be won by someone in our alliance. I'll be in a good position.
• One of my main aims from this game (aside from winning) and another turn-based I'm playing is to try to improve my logistics play. I'm finding that in the mid-late game I've generally got very good logistics but it's achieved with a tonne of carriers. I do believe that spending 'warp gate money' on carriers is the better way to go but I think it can be done more efficiently, pumping that unspent money into extra infrastructure - so I'm trying to be very diligent about where my carriers are going and what they're doing and asking myself strictly 'do I really need this carrier yet?' before buying. Even delayed purchases allow money to be spent on economy first.

Diplomatic

• Within scan range for Innoble now and we've begun trading. I've sent him Scan 2 and he'll send me Terraforming 3 next turn. This alliance is working well. Vik Ia also being allied with us both is a bit of a wildcard for the endgame but in principle it should allow us to control the game.
• I've asked MiniMe what LimitingFactor is up to on his border. This should help me understand both of their intentions.

Tactical

• On tick 63 a huge MiniMe fleet representing 50% of his total ships at the time turned up on my border unexpectedly and unannounced. The star layout makes this a strange ship movement unless he a) expected to attack b) expected me to attack. Me and MiniMe were trading back at tick 42 and none of my own fleet movements indicate a desire to attack so my feeling here is he DID intend to attack me but whilst the ships were in transit something up north from LimitingFactor took his attention and he abandoned the plan.

• As a follow on, I am considering the possibility of the ships reverse course again and come back south. In that case, I would have to withdraw most of my forces from the north, hoping the players up there were apprehensive about attacking the north end of the northward wormhole and likely use my specialist token reserve (3) to deal with attacks. I think I'd beat MiniMe in a war but it would be a dangerous time to have one.