Man, how long has it been since I've played MoO2? I'm going to say... three years. At least.
We research fusion rifles, since we already stole the (largely useless) beams from the Mrrshan. That ought to buff up our soldiers a bit for when we get attacked.
Our scouts pick up Commander Hawk in the Tarazad system. Of course I will completely forget about him and not put him in any of my space ships.
The Tarazad system, if you were wondering what it looked like. Not a place we'll be colonizing any time soon.
Battle Scanners are stolen by our wonderful spies. I think I'll go more towards beam weaponry this game, so it's a welcome addition to our tech arsenal.
Now we j-
What the hell? I don't remember skipping any diplomacy messages or anything. Meh, either way we're at war with the Mrrshan, I guess.
We're also really weak on military tech. Luckily the Mrrshan are also weak as well, but we're not going to get much done without MIRV'd nuclear missiles.
Fun fact: I have no clue what the hell the Mrrshan were doing. Their ships just dicked around in our space and then retreated after I attacked.
Also I discovered that their scouts were commanded by a spider-guy, but meh. He'll die soon enough.
We also research Cloning Centers because
I forgot to change the research because extra population equals more workers, soldiers and ships.
The Bulrathi and Mrrshan declare war on each other for all of one turn. I wish I was kidding.
In response to the Mrrshan dicking around our planets, we decide to do the same for Sarwa.
Except this time we're dicking around with nuclear bombs.
Sweet, sweet nuclear bombs.
The Mrrshan decide to respond in kind against Arkham.
Pictured: The horrible devastation they caused. That's right, they did absolutely no damage, and we even managed to complete our Supercomputer in time.
May T'bbhaug bless Gnolamistan.
With all the fancy new ships and transports we're building, I've had to bump up the tax rate. It's going to fluctuate up and down throughout the rest of the update, but you folks don't have to worry about all that.
We research Merculites, though I'm not entirely sure if we'll switch to beam ships before we get a chance to MIRV them. Still, better to have them and not need them than the other way around.
I set up an outpost in Dunwich (née Sarwa) to help us strike of the Mrrshan.
And of course I forgot to check the distances between systems. Doh!
Since pollution is starting to be a big problem, I've researched Atmospheric Renewer. That ought to boost our industry and get us one step closer to MIRV'd Merculites.
I'm not entirely sure if the AI now builds better ships with the patch. Though if they do, I now have something to help against their missiles.
Also something for their beams as well.
Telum gets its own little outpost, allowing us to strike at the Mrrshan (finally).
The Antarans also jump into our dimension, but they decide to give someone else a bad day.
To help with out little CP problem, we research better communications.
Which is good, as we definitively do not have the firepower to deal with a Star Base right now. *sigh*
Adding injury to insult, Kadath II (our largest industrial colony) gets a massive earthquake and loses a lot of important buildings. It'll be a while before they recover, but thankfully we don't need their services right now.
The Bulrathi, having enjoyed their previous five-second war against the Mrrshan, decide to go for broke and declare war again. This time the war manages to last more than a turn.
I kinda forgot to keep some defenders in Telum, so that outpost will have to be rebuilt. Yay.
We manage to get some more techs in the meantime, however. Everyone on Gnol II is researching, so we're getting tons of RP and powering through the bottom part of the tech tree.
This time I remember about my officers, and put Galis to work in Gnol, helping out with our money situation.
The Antarans, hearing about how wonderfully awesome we are, decide to come and ruin our stuff.
Hello...
The Antaran fleet (all two of them) decide to go after Arkham. However we do have enough money to hurry a missile base...
Let's do this.
The star base (and the lovely CP it provides) goes down quickly.
However swarms of Merculites quickly down the Antaran frigates without much further damage. Perfect. I'm not entirely sure at what point Missile Bases become worthless against the Antarans, but hopefully that's far, far into the future.
More research get. I think I'll actually take a closer look at the tech tree for the next update, to rush for some awesome/amazing techs instead of getting anything that catches my eye. Still, can't complain about Inertial Stabilizer. More beam defence and faster turning is nothing to sneeze at.
Anyways, I haven't been dicking around too much during this update. While the Antarans were attacking Arkham, I've been refitting our Goblins and Gremlins with MIRV'd nuclear missiles. Sharru V now has a Missile Base, but at the very least we can smash the Star Base to pieces and come back later to finish the job.
...
Scratch that, I overestimated how strong Star Bases are.
The base goes down without much fuss.
Unfortunately, due to size constraints, our missiles aren't very fast and we lose a couple ships due to counter-battery fire.
Luckily our counter-counter-battery fire proves to be effective, and smushes the Missile Base into paste.
The only problem is that I didn't bring my transports over since I thought I'd have to make a second run at this. Whoops.
With the Mrrshan having no ships to speak of, the Bulrathi come charging into their systems.
Our transports manage to reach Sharru just in time though.
Is it just me, or does it look like our soldiers are old-timey (American) football players?
...