The Void - Tick 492 Cycle 22

I'm launching an audacious attack.

TdT and HelloThere are in hot conflict with Corn, Beez and Major Tom out west. Their strategic reports are positive but I'm worried that we're now losing the war. The pivoting from E to W for them and back again is hard to do and I don't think myself and Dieste have made the progress required to minimize the threat from TheBorg and Tube-Pipe who are pushing in the east. It sounds like TdT and HelloThere will manage the western attack, but I believe they might lose the east in doing it. I think the coordination between the core group of enemies in the east and their affiliates in the west is poor but even uncoordinated they are combining to cause issues.

I discussed in the last post the options that the new Telescope Array gives me and now it's time to go on the front foot and act. Here's my tactical thought process.

I get weapons 6 in 10 turns and hyperspace 7 in 16 turns. I have 10 tokens and I'll have 13 by the end of this cycle when the attack lands. I want to be conservative with how I use them because I don't want this to be a hit and run. A hit and run will be psychologically shocking and cause lasting positive effects but I don't think it's game winning. It needs to be a bridgehead to do that and to do that I will need token flexibility.  That means I need to make compromises, I can go heavy on the initial attack (new smugglers/cowards etc) or I can take risks on the initial attack and have a lot of options when I land.

The attack on the Nebula Asteroid Field (Attack point A in the diagram) where I've been watching a stationary General/Explorer for a while now will be an effective W5 vs W8 (W5 vs W11 if that Explorer moves...) but I believe now that it's lightly defended. I can take those ratios for a short time as long as 2K+ ships break through. This attack is simple, just throw a smuggler down his throat timing it to land on the turn for maximum flexibility. I have a smuggler that can get into range in time so this won't cost me any tokens. If successful, I seize the black hole asteroid field and I have a healthy ship count on it. He will be under a lot of pressure to re-take it but I don't plan to keep my ships there long.

After landing, my Smuggler will run north east taking 4 ticks to hit the star at point B. I will have ALREADY launched a pathfinder with 2k ships down from the north. Infact, I'm launching it this turn. This pathfinder will be out of the scan range of the Black Hole at point A for the first 6 ticks of its journey (34 ticks remaining) and then the next turn I will seize the Black hole (28 ticks remaining) The turn after I will hit point B with my smuggler capturing it (22 ticks remaining) all of this time the Pathfinder should not be in scan visibility. Borg will think he's dealing with a single smuggler attack. I'll then throw up a warp gate on point B and the turn after my pathfinder will have just 4 ticks remaining to land, or 2 with the warp gates. At this point he will see it but it'll be too late to act.

It's a risky attack. If the Explorer moves and the Nebula is well defended I will tank a lot of ships. if I never capture the Nebula I'm sending the pathfinder fleet to its doom. I'd lose 5K ships, the element of surprise that the Telescope Array bought me and I'll leave Hello/TdT in big trouble. However, if I break through I'll do so with 12 tokens in my pocket and the potential to cause mayhem.

I'll then begin actively reinforcing point B (I'm going to re-work my supply lines to do this and the Hyper 7 will enable me to reinforce without specialists) stretching the front line and causing what I believe will be a decisive breakthrough against TheBorg (Kip) he will need to drop multiple rear warp gates in response to the threat of my smuggler when it hits point A and the logistics damage will be severe. This is also beyond their General front lines (A is defended by a General, the other stars are not)

FAQ - Why not just launch all the ships at point A.

Partly this is ship location. But also I think putting such a large force on my star there will cause ripples and might lead to conservative behaviour. The pathfinder attack is cute, and the sort of over-complicated attack I normally don't like, but in this unique circumstance I think will be nice. I also think the effect of those extra 2k ships arriving will be so harmful, Kip will be reeling from the first blow and just as he's potentially come up with plans to deal with it a second wave will arrive. His brain will immediately jump to WHERE ARE THESE SHIPS COMING FROM? And he'll be dealing with not only the two attacks that exist but ghost attacks that don't exist. 

In Solaris one of the main things you really really want to do is make your enemy lose their spirit and hope. If you can make them do that with some overwhelming sudden or emotionally charged attack that can turn a long drawn out war into a short one.

The Void - Tick 480 Cycle 21

An option not taken

We will always wonder. My gut says that star is VERY lightly defended based on the fleet movements, but I'll only get one shot at the surprise warp gate attack and need to make it count.

I can also warp in another 2K from the north soon (8 tick jump and I need 2 more hyperspace levels) but they're not in position yet so it makes sense to take time to make this attack REALLY count.

Necria — Today at 20:34

What you reckon here

I can hit this warp gate, he doesn't know I can see it. He has a general, an explorer (neither of which moved) and he's moved ships on last turn. It could have absolutely nothing on it or could be stacked

We'll lose some of my element of surprise but could be promising right?

Or I could just watch it a few more turns, there's potentially no urgency here

The window of opportunity should be open for a while

They have weapons 6 and I'd have Weapons 5 so it'd be effectively 4v6 in their favour.

Maul — Today at 20:36

Depends how urgently we need to shake things up. I think the other front is doing fine so maybe wait to watch the movements for a bit

Are you working on weapons 6?

Necria — Today at 20:39

Not currently but I could get it in 4 turns, it's currently 25 ticks to get it. I'd be able to bring that down if I wanted

I'll wait but maybe move to get W6 now

CRISPR — Today at 20:42

Will check thx

It’s an option necria but my instinct is to have you come down mid and push where they have long supply lines

And we have short jumps to attack

I could give you a star as a launch point

Maul — Today at 20:44

I think both is an option honestly. With your spear tip manufacturing line you can move south with current ships and the next wave can coward in

Necria — Today at 20:46

I think there's potential there to collapse Kips north and catch him way behind his expected lines but I agree it's a little high risk this turn. I'll reconsider when I'll have weapons 6.

I'll get another fleet to sweep around to the south via your stars

The Void - Tick 474 Cycle 21

 A telescope array reveals new information

My attack on Kraela was unsuccessful and with Weapons 5 vs Weapons 9 I took a more unfavourable ratio than even my greater industry can account for. This led to a little bit of a back to the drawing board analysis of how to attack. My initial thought was to load up a smuggler and run down through HelloThere into TdT looking for some weak point on the border, possibly swap a star with an ally and then launch a concerted attack with heavy specialists. I might still do this.

However, I then thought whether I can use that black hole binary I have to my south to see more of TheBorg, and the more I thought about this the more appealing it was. It took me to 7 (from 13) tokens but I was rewarded with visibility on an additional 4 stars.

The first revelation is that TheBorg has been playing with me (probably) they have a Nebula just beyond where I can see and I think are drip feeding the requisite amount of ships to Kraela to hold off the defense whilst making it look like this defense is marginal. This encourages more attacks and lets them fight me at ratios which are very beneficial for the defender but enticing to me if I see each attack only narrowly be defeated. Very clever, and a technique I know is in LeDazz's playbook, but lesson learned.

Now I have the advantage though because I see one of their warp gates and I can hit it any time I want without notice and they don't know I have this option up my sleeve. The problem is, because the star is a Nebula (and an Asteroid Field) I have no idea how well defended it is (I see a General but also an Explorer that negates it but I don't know how mobile these are.) Additionally, I have a couple of interesting alternate attack vectors. Option C is really interesting to me because of TheBorgs scanning arcs. Although it's a 25 tick jump even on a coward if I timed it right he might have as little as 12 ticks warning.

A further option is launch an attack as I have been at Kraela that I know will fail, but time a smuggler attack from up north on the turn when he would empty the nebula to defend it. He would have very little time to respond to the new threat.

I am immediately moving some ships to a staging area at the binary black hole. You just never know when Borg might add a warp gate somewhere. I'll need to think about how to subtly (or just very quickly) raise up to 3 hyperspace levels.

There's other things going on but I don't have much time so a summary

• TdT and HelloThere have shifted most of their new ship production to defend against Western attacks from Beez and Corn. 
• Amogus is associated with Sea Serpent who is under attack from HRE. This is a delicate situation. Long term we want both Amogus and Sea Serpent dead, but Amogus is being useful at the moment. Can't allow HRE to get more allies down there either though and it sounds like he and Amogus are negotiating. The northern alliance could yet become a problem.

The Void - Tick 444 Cycle 20

 A star reclaimed and new attacks on the cards.

I've retaken the star Evian with Major Tom withdrawing his fleets defending the star and retreating. 

I had a few options here notably a warp gate attack (Siege breaker or smuggler) or a smuggler to attack the east star. I've opted to do a more conventional attack on the easternmost star which should bring some good scan visibility if I can capture it. Reports from my allies suggest TheBorg and Tube-Pipe are throwing everything they have at TdT so they may not have adequate rear reserves.

I have more reinforcements arriving and the Colonel I'll be leaving at Evian will provide some good defence as I intend to keep that warp gate up and active. There's a southbound Infiltrator that previously was fighting Grievous 20 ticks away that can also help with that defence. 

Elsewhere, my allies continue to launch attacks. TdT (CRISPR) is now counter-attacking and Battery is reportedly pushing further south. Batterys efforts are admirable because he's punching against a bigger stronger enemy and he's very exposed (long front line, versus my narrow front line by comparison) We're exerting pressure along the full length of the front line. 

The force at Novy is a problem defensively, but I think HelloThere will be able to deal with that in time. He has the ships to match it it's more a case of rallying them into a unified attack and preventing counter attacking threats. If I can help disrupt the supply lines that will help.

Maps via CRISPR for what he sees. Front lines further south

The TdT/Tube-Pipe front

The Dieste/tube-pipe front. Selfishly I want Battery to be pushing here much more than he is. Even at unfavourable trades he can cause major issues. From his perspective though, I think he's likely playing it well.

We're winning the war and all it should take now is continuing to attack.

The Void - Tick 432 - Cycle 19

My attack against Major Tom failed (3.3K ships including a smuggler, lieutenant and infiltrator lost) but enabled HelloThere (Maul) to breakthrough and claim a star. That's a success. 

I've launched a second wave.

So my own previous attack was a loss. I took a fairly damaging 3 vs 6 ship ratio because of a mix-up with waypoints (I was meant to wait a turn then attack, but I attacked right away) but it was fine because HelloThere punched through and our aim was to win the star at all costs. I also lost the (always doomed) Inf+Leiutenant attack on Evian that aimed to pin ships down there, and did.

As quick as I could, I've mustered another 2K ships (I'm producing 94 per tick now, so this is only 20 ticks production, but it's nice to see how fast I'm able to get that level of flow to the front lines) and I'm attacking Evian again and this time I expect to take it. 

If I do, I'll assess the situation but will likely throw up a warp gate and rush reinforcements in as a bridgehead. I'm fairly confident we outpower our opponents but I'm worried we need to break through quickly before something, somewhere, goes against us diplomatically. There are a lot of low/medium level risks. TdT (CRISPR) continues to defend ruggedly and is taking the full force of Tube-Pipe (LeDazz) with marginal defenses. So I need to start to relieve that. Battery also took a star in the south. The plan remains to pressure from both sides. 

At an alliance/galaxy level we're tracking a few situations

• I now know Holy Roman Empire is allied with Ragnar, has a NAP with Coobykins, and Coobykins and Ragnar are allied. It seems very likely this is now a full on northern alliance. HRE and Ragnar have gone to war this past turn with Sea Serpent attacking through the wormhole close to my northern border.
• Uy Scuti (Royluc) continues to brawl with multiple smaller opponents in the west and accounts from both sides report he is outplaying and outmatching them despite the number of foes. This could still all turn south though as the west seems to have lots of shifting alliances (this might be just my lack of real knowledge from being so far away)
• Amogus who is affiliated with Dieste (Battery), so a similar relation to me and HRE, is moving fleets towards him that are supposedly bound north to join the Royluc war on our side. The movement looks dubious though and both Dieste (Battery) and TdT (CRISPR) are paying attention and making some adjustments (dropping warp gates, changing waypoints)
• Aogami (Falken) has weapons 6 out west which is a whole level above me (I recently got 5) which is concerning. I think the rest of his tech is less developed though

As a note, I've thought through a few contingencies. If we start to lose the main southern war for any reason or if HelloThere/TdT are defeated or look likely to be defeated, I'll vie hard to join the northern alliance properly. That's my back up plan I hope to never need to use. 

The Void - Tick 408 Cycle 18

 The war continues with the southern alliance whilst scheming abounds in the far west.

Okay, so a rundown of what has happened since the last update

• Ragnar and HRE are moving to the wormhole with what I hear is a mammoth fleet of several thousand ships. I don't see Ragnar's super fleet yet but you can bet I'll be watching it closely. I've reached out to him to strike positive relations and he's sent me an ally request which I can't accept at the moment because I have three allies. Promising
• I did get somewhat spooked AGAIN by Holy Roman Empire charging a 900 ship smuggler at me. Enough to cancel a few loop orders and look at contingencies. Again, the smuggler ended up going elsewhere. I've opted to trust him so far and it's worked out fine so far but I do wonder sometimes if he's desensitizing me and one day there will be a real stab.
• Dieste (Battery) made a strange 900 ship move toward TdT (CRISPR) at the same time as he didn't take up some opportunities to attack Tube-Pipe. This led to some speculation between HelloThere,TdT and me that he had been flipped. At this stage it now looks like this isn't true.
• Royluc is in big trouble out west but is doing phenomenally, by all accounts. He has attracted the attention of a whole alliance and is single handedly fighting them back off though it sounds hit and miss.
• I managed to ID Tzeenach (Zachsmack) who is way out south west I think and is on favourable terms (not allied, they don't even see each other) with my ally CRISPR. He isn't in a position to help us and it sounds like he couldn't be further away from me but it's one more picture of the puzzle in terms of alliances.

The war

Even after all this time, my net star change in the war with the southern alliance is -2. 

The front lines haven't changed much. The southern alliance are bombarding TdT and HelloThere in the center. TdT is barely holding on. Meanwhile they have been building forces up against me and HelloThere, I think with a defensive posture. We've however launched our own attacks to try and break through and relieve the pressure on TdT in the centre. We're hoping Dieste (Battery) launches his attack from the south soon, as that could result in the breakthrough we need.

Because of my scanning, you can't see HelloThere's ships attacking Kina, but he has gone in with a Seige Breaker. The hope is that his attack combined by mine is enough. My other attack with a Leiutenant and Infiltrator on Evian is purely to tie those ships down and stop them jumping across. Honestly, I expect both attacks to fail (just) but if we remove the buildup of fleets there the next attacks have good chances and the aim of the game at the moment is sapping their attention.

We just need one good breakthrough somewhere down the line. Dieste has the best prospects as he faces the smallest resistance.

The picture further south shows Tube-Pipe (LeDazz) sending heavy blows against TdT which he is barely blocking. We've been pushing Dieste (Battery) to punish Tube-Pipe's over extending and hit him back before he can rally a proper defense. He says he's attacking with an 800 ship fleet and infiltrator

The Void - Tick 354 - Cycle 15

Hot war in the south and... trouble in the north?

It's been 40 turns since the last update and we've had a number of big set backs in the south.

• Crab/Lobster guy allowed the southern alliance to capture his Cryo Chamber. I'd been warning for some time this was a major liability so close to their front lines and it proved true. We should have forcibly taken that Cryo from him soon as he was starting to fail and glassed it.
• HelloThere had a failed attack on a key logistics star on a turn where the enemy dropped the warp gate, allowing them to win a decisive battle. In HelloThere (Maul)'s defence, he was wary of the attack and only encouraged into it by me and CRISPR after we'd seen the warp gate stay up a turn more than we would have left it.
• I've lost one star and I'm about to lose another. However they were outpost stars 0-1-0 on infra for the one lost and 2-1-0 for the one I'm about to lose. No big deal. 
• Additionally, far out west - UyScuti (Royluc) is being attacked by Corn/Athos. He says  Aogami, Meoworion, Corn, Athos and Mar are all loosely allied. This could be a problem because just as Royluc is not geographically best placed to help us fight the SE, we will find it difficult/impossible to materially help him. He's on his own.

There have however been some positive developments.

• GeneralKenobi is all but defeated. I just see one remaining star. 
• Despite losing a star (2 soon) I am stars 81, so net +3 since my last blog. 
• I made some important logistics updates and now have some beautiful logistics lines bringing my ships to the fronts.
• Dieste looks likely to support us and is preparing for war
• I think I'm in a good position game wise. Back against a wall, a sort of reliable peace north of me*(let's see) and my industry and power base flowing south. It'll be interesting to see how things look at the end of the game and how everyone was doing about this time but my guess is I'm in the top three players and might even be in leaderboard #1 right now.

The War

I'm seeing some nice coordination from Major Tom, TheBorg and Tube-Pipe - kudos to them. Let's see how well this group work together over the long run. I know Tube-Pipe (LeDazz) won't tire but I don't yet know the quality of his allies. Hopefully none of them are Zorg/Karmadrome. 

A note on a discarded plan. 

I've had to do some calculating for what will happen over the next 6-12 turns as there is a chance they have the potential to try an audacious snipe of my super binary which currently has a warp gate up. I have enough front line ships in place/arriving now to defend once I consolidate but there's a window here where I'm still a bit vulnerable because I will have the 836 in retreat north for several turns. That opens up possibilities to strike at the super binary but only if my opponents have a black hole with some sort of orbital array/telescope on to see (they can reach it via hyperspace) I've decided not to buy the specs necessary to defend against this attack.

Further south this is the situation as CRISPR/Maul see it.

TdT (CRISPR)

Ok here’s my front line for posterity. My overall strategy is defense and ramp for now, as I have no good strategic openings. I’ll wait for your northern numbers to show and for my generals to spread the front lines. My one stab is down on lobstah territory where I think I drive into an open gap for ledazz

And then the front lines from HelloThere's perspective.

We all need to start getting 200-300 carrier fleets onto each others stars to help with war hero attacks in the future. I also want to expand my scouting operation to give me better visibility. 

The war is fun! It's started out with some losses but I'm hopeful the tide will turn soon.

'Trouble'? in the north

HRE has long been a source of puzzlement for me and this is the latest confusion. We're marked as allies in the Diplomacy tab so he can't attack me but he has thundered 600 ships onto one of my stars last turn with no advanced warning and no clear reason why. However, elsewhere he has moved 150 ships AWAY from my border and I am not seeing anything elsewhere on the front that suggests he has decided to attack me (I'd expect to see a spike in carriers moving south even within his space) and we're still allies on diplo. I'm just going to ignore it and keep trying to persuade him to attack Sea Serpent, which he might infact have done as his end of the wormhole looks empty. 

Frankly, I can't afford a war with HRE. If he starts one next turn because he forgot to turn alliance off this turn then I will be sitting round the diplomacy table with him. I do not want a split front fight. So I'm just going to assume it's not going to happen and work on that basis.

Update: a few hours later but before the next tick. Had some discussion with HRE and fairly confident he's not trying anything funky.