Big Things Have Small Beginnings

Last time saw the end of a war, the founding of the Galactic Community, and the creation of the Genco Pura Olive Oil Company. We transitioned Salorim Cove to a research capital and founded our third colony.

Traditions and Tech

Our major accomplishment this session was finishing the biogenesis situation. I decided to pick cloning, purity, and cloning as my flexible traditions. I’m really not sure if this was the best choice overall but I want to see what will happen when I overload a planet with cloning vats each generating an extra 10% trade value.

I also started down the politics route and used some unity to build Arc Furnaces and Dyson Spheres. With only two choices remaining I’ll select between Statecraft, Harmony, and Subterfuge. I typically take Harmony on every run and I’ve played a pretty tall game so far with only three colonies.

From a tech perspective I noted after my last game that I was far, far behind the rest of the galaxy with a plan to increase my scientific output. Part of those goals are being met and I just unlocked volatile motes, exotic gases, and rare crystals and have started buying them on the open market. With the bonuses I get from the the Genomic Research Facilities I’ve quickly made progress and have unlocked my third civic. As of yet I haven’t selected it but want to pick the Mutagenic spas so I get additional traders for each corporate health clinic I open up. However, the hit to amenities and happiness isn’t something I’m prepared to deal with right now. I might just pick something like private prospectors, free traders, or brand loyalty for a few years.

Colony Overview

The session this morning was almost exclusively focused on internal development and I thought I’d take a minute to update everyone on the colonies. I’ve tried a new strategy with consumer goods and alloys that relies almost exclusively on converting trade to those resources. First, our capital –

With 8K in population Salorim Cove is 100% the engine of my empire and built around research. Despite this I have a great number of traders coming from all of the branch offices (illicit and approved) that I’ve been spreading throughout the universe. Once I’m able to open more branch offices I’ll just continue to grow the available jobs on this planet. After all of the expansions from Hyrocentric and orbital rings I’ll have a lot of jellyfish on this planet.

My second colony, Galleon’s Landing, was a size 25 ocean world that I settle pretty early with the intention of turning it into a trade/urban world. Over the past few years it has grown and added many traders that are generating unity, consumer goods, and trade for the empire. The alure of mutagenic spas is that it would double the number of traders I’m looking for in an instant.

Both of the other worlds shown are smaller (size 10 and 11) planets that I haven’t bothered to settle yet but would also become trade planets in a sector completely devoted to ocean-based commerce. My entire economy is built on trading for consumer goods and alloys as I don’t have any dedicated alloy production in my entire

Starwharf is a technology world located in the same sector as Salorim Cove and is a big reason why I converted the mixed industry of my capital world to research. There are a few smaller planets that could become research world but until I get all of the cloning facilities up and running I”m in no rush to expand.

The Hydroactive Eggs bonus caused me to make my first research facility a society research facility. I’m not sure if three worlds are enough to prepare me for the lategame crisis factions but having two science and two trade planets on three worlds is a good start.

After I get enough research to build specialized research facilities and clone labs I’m going to see an explosion in output and might need to expand beyond the three additional planets in my sector of space. This presents problems as the red box, kindly blocked by a pirate fleet, has larger planets compared to all of the uncolonized planets in my sector. One solution is war, but both my neighbors are friendly at this time. Another would be to set up habitats and take the voidborne trait.

Friends and Neighbors

All has been quiet and peaceful as we focused inward on our species accension. With that pause I wanted to focus on three situations in the universe that could become trouble in the near future and one positive outcome.

The Empire of Wethir

While I haven’t introduced The Empire of Wethir they are the first potential situation. They are located directly to the north of our federation mate the Triech Polity. Much like my fights with the Space Nazi’s the Triech Polity has fought with the Empire of Wethir. They are fanatical militarists and materialists. Even more concerning is that the narrow band of planets between them and my rat people servants contain at least 5 habitable worlds. I have not brought them the life giving drugs my jellyfish love to push and provide to the universe.

The second situation is the peacock people that are nominal vassals to the Triech Polity. They have become much more powerful as vassals and I think are almost as powerful as the Triech Polity. I fully expect them to rebel after receiving a good bit of encouragement and weaken my ally, the most powerful empire in the galaxy.

The third situation is less a situation and more a question of what is going on. While we do have some space racists near us we haven’t found any fanatical purifiers or other aggressive empires hellbent on galactic destruction. As shown below my entire southern area is not well know. Our jellyfish are suspicious jellyfish and won’t trust those empty spaces. It could be nothing but even if it is that’s a lot of territory that our rival corporation, the Fellnoll Incorporated, has and it will be hard to seize all of the branch offices they have.

On a more positive foreign policy we have stopped our rivalry with the Uva-Xavanian Star State. These mutagenic spa loving birds did shut down a branch office that we have opened up but we are willing to make peace with them and even consider a trade partnership to bring our profitable businesses out in the open. Each world they have with a mutagenic spa is a great world for us to open a corporate center.

Next Steps

Our next steps are going to be looking at if we need to create more colonies, expand, and setting up our cloning vats. Hopefully our relative power in the galaxy improves and we can start getting ready to subjugate our neighbors.