The Void - Tick 528 Cycle 24

 A dangerous information war is ongoing

So after Tube-Pipe offered the surrender that conversation continued a bit. We discussed amongst ourselves and none of us feel the game is over or want to quit (even though I think I'd be RTQ'ing into first place at the moment.) all of his alliance and some of the others are now RTQ though. This is dangerous because we want to keep pressing the war but don't want the entire galaxy united against us.

Who is 'us' anyway? Well, here is how I see alliances.

Layering the onion my core alliance team is me, TdT and HelloThere. I've been working with those guys all game very actively and we coordinated together the inclusion of Uy Scuti and Dieste. 

I've also got a favorable relationship Holy Roman Empire. We haven't been coordinating on attacks or working together but we have a lasting peace. I don't have any plans to attack him and I'd consider defending him but I wouldn't say we're allies. It's still likely we may end up fighting eventually.

What's this look like at an alliance level? Well here's how I see it. Neither side is a 'mega alliance' but there are relationships and crossovers. 

The biggest diplo worry I have right now is the Northern Alliance turning on us. We have to really play up the fact that they're being pressured to do that. I think they are to an extent. Make no mistake, if they did actually turn on us now (meaning basically the entire galaxy against 6-people) we'd lose hard.

War

Politicking aside. I have my hands full actually fighting the enemy alliance. The bridgehead is still established but a good defensive move killed my smuggler and lost me 1000 ships. Reinforcements are inbound but you can see the ships facing me are starting to build up now.

I threw up a couple of gates to move some reinforcements closer and try to catch his Coward but I didn't succeed. The last couple of turns have improved their position here so I need to be cautious.

I think both gates have to go back down really. That's the first move. Now only Tooini and Bacre (the stars I'm willing to lose) can be hit before I can respond. I have 12 tokens to respond to other threats.

I think I'm going to attempt to reinforce Tooini with a further 450 ships. I think Tube-Pipe will be wary with his Coward and won't risk it attacking a fairly low-value star.  If I can reinforce it gives that star some more staying power. Other than that, I think it's a case of sitting tight for now and responding. 

I've looked at whether they can attack my landing star from Kraela but because only TheBorg can hire speed specs from there and because he only has ~800 ships on the star I think it's safe for now. His weapons level is still level 4, so even if he went up to 5 and attacked with a coward it'd be 5 vs 8 next turn when my weapons go up and I'll have enough ships to defend.

Comparison of techs between me and Tube-Pipe. He's ahead right now.