Turn 188The Ferengi bribe the Cardassians into a peace. It is a stunning fall from grace for an empire that could roll over the Cardassians twenty turns ago.
Their capital of Ferenginar has now been fully assimilated by the Borg, who don’t seem to have another Cube (or maybe we can’t see it).
Turn 189With the trading routes to Ferenginar gone, our scout fleet switches to raiding Solarion.
The Ferengi decide it’s our turn to get a peace treaty offer. I’m tempted to refuse so the raiding can continue, but 1445 credits now is a lot better than 37 credits per turn. Also, there’s a force of 14 War Cruisers still bumming around somewhere in Klingon space, and I’d hate to get backstabbed when our fleets are in the north.
In the meantime, our scout fleet sets out further north to Narenda, which has mysteriously halved its population in the last turn. The Federation news agencies are keeping quiet, but everyone knows it was only a matter of time until the Borg came.
Turn 190The Klingons sign a peace treaty with the Federation, and our treaty with the Ferengi comes into effect.
Over the conquered Cardassian colony of Adelphous, Starfleet has assembled an invasion fleet. The Strike Cruiser adds a lot of punch, but we doubt one troop transport is enough to take the system. There’s no sign of other Federation ships anywhere – even the Blue Horizon outpost only hosts a lone troop transport.
In the south, I send Force 1 to catch a trio of Klingon Destroyers, and Force 2 south towards Ullia. Southeast of the Ekos Outpost, that’s the 14 Ferengi War Cruisers remaining.
Turn 191Force 1 runs into a little more than expected, though – three Klingon Battle Cruiser IIs, upgraded versions of the previous. They are slightly superior to our Cruiser IIs in defense and carry much more weapons.
Regardless, we decloak and destroy one immediately, while crippling another.
The other two go down as well, but not before striking us in return. The illustrious history of the first Romulan Scout, the RNS Darkfeather A, comes to an end here. Force 1 is now operating blind.
Three Battle Cruiser IIs for a Scout isn’t a bad trade, though. We manage to spin the loss of the Darkfeather into a greater narrative of heroism.
Force 1 will proceed on to Metalline (hopefully there isn’t a fleet waiting), while Force 2 continues to Ullia, where there is an Outpost and another Battle Cruiser II.
The Borg Cube continues to assimilate Narenda and should be done next turn. Looks like it wasn’t such a good idea to recolonize it after all. Also, the Feds liberated Adelphous and Sarona last turn. We can’t see their forces over Sarona, though.
Since Starfleet isn’t making an appearance anytime soon, looks like it’s up to us to stop the Borg. I buy the rest of our last Cruiser II.
Turn 192Force 2 takes down the Ullia Outpost with little fanfare. The Battle Cruiser II fled before we arrived.
The Federation and Ferengi sign a peace treaty, which was initiated by the Federation side. The Alliance is now at peace with everybody.
We get a breakthrough in Biotech. The upgraded version of the Colony Ship starts you off with 20 population and a free factory, getting new colonies off the ground quicker. We don’t have any colony ships currently, so that’s a moot point. The Scout II upgrade, however, is applied to our current 9 Scouts, 8 in the fleet and 1 with Force 2. Scout IIs have double the defenses and triple the weapons of a normal scout, and move at 2 sectors per turn.
The Borg have got another Cube. The new one is designated Cube 234; the original Cube 265 is still over Narenda, probably moving next turn.
Time to get moving. The RNS Raptor, ninth and final cruiser of the Second Fleet, is completed at Romulus. The Second Fleet will head for Malcor.
In the south, Force 1 and 2 will return to join the Strike Fleet at Mintaka, and from there proceed on to Malcor as well. To the north of Metaline, there’s another trio of Klingon Battle Cruiser IIs, but they should move off next turn.
At Romulus, shipyards are retooled to crank out more troop transports. We’ll see why in a few turns.
Turn 193By the way, the Klingon Battle Cruiser IIs can move 2 sectors a turn. Here they intercept Force 2 just outside of Ullia, but due to some evasive flying, we don’t lose the scout like last time.
We really ought to thank the Borg. That’s Cube 265 attacking Sol. Cube 234 is still hanging around where it was last turn. Also, there’s a Federation fleet of 14 ships at Blue Horizon, including some heavy hitters like their Command and Strike Cruisers.
Turn 194The other Cube is poking around the depopulated Ferengi star cluster. Let’s hope they go to Solarion. The Federation’s fleet of 4 Light Cruiser IIs, while strong, isn’t likely to beat a Borg Cube.
Turn 195We ‘defeat’ Gomtuu again and get a morale boost.
He seems to have disappeared for good, though. The combined ships at Mintaka head for Malcor and will arrive a turn after the Second Fleet.
Turn 196Well, if the Ferengi want to take on the Cardassians, that’s to our advantage.
The Federation has assembled another fleet against the Borg. The four Light Cruiser IIs from earlier have disappeared, seemingly indicating the Federation are hurling their ships piecemeal at the Borg.
Turn 197Our fleets will head to just south of Sol. We’ve lost sight of the other Cube, but presumably it’s still somewhere in the ex-Ferengi systems.
Turn 198Hmmm. Apparently the Malcorians were spooked by our fleets massing over their homeworld; they’ve petitioned to join the Ferengi Alliance. This gives them diplomatic immunity just like the Mintakans, but we’re not interested in invading them right now.
Turn 199The Borg are almost done with Sol, just a few isolated pockets of resistance remain. In the Ferengi east, the colony of Solarion also appears to be under attack by the other unseen Cube.
Turn 200The Borg celebrate Turn 200 by crushing the last bastions of resistance on Sol. In an amusing visual glitch, Pluto has been pushed offscreen by the other planets expanding.
The Federation colonize the system of Bryma, foolishly close to where Solarion is being assimilated. The Klingons also swoop in on the system on Sarthong, just south of Trill.
A decision is made to head to the system of Minos Korva, one of two under threat by the Borg next turn. Otar is also adjacent to Sol, but Minos Korva is likely the more tempting target due to its higher population.
Turn 201The Borg pull a bit of reverse psychology and go for Otar instead. The loss of the outpost there is worrying, as it cuts off our access to hunt down the other Cube.
Regardless, we can still take down this Cube. Note that the scout fleet has to be micromanaged a bit, otherwise it’ll outspeed the others and engage the Borg alone.
Turn 202The Cardassians sign (another) non-aggression treaty with the Ferengi, ending that short-lived war.
We’re set to engage the Borg next turn. Starfleet has rustled up another fleet of 11 ships, presumably also to engage the Borg.
Turn 203However, they’re nowhere to be seen. Cowards!
A single Cube dwarfs the entire bulk of our combined fleets. For all of our captains, this is the first time they’ve seen a Cube up close.
There is only one command to be given. All ships: open fire!
The first torpedoes start to fly.
It quickly grows into a veritable blizzard of them. The Cruisers concentrate fire on a single point, hoping to overwhelm the Cube’s formidable shielding.
There is a sudden, final flickering as the shields fail. For a moment, nothing happens – then a slow, massive explosion ripples through the outer shell. The exterior buckles and burns away under continuous phaser fire.
Titanic cracks rip through the hull as the explosions ring out. The Cube is splitting almost in half.
There is a fine cloud of debris left, but the Cube is no more.
We are victorious.
However, there’s still the other Cube to worry about. Solarion has been ravaged by the Borg, who might head to Bryma next. Unfortunately, we can’t reach Bryma since the outpost over Otar was destroyed, shortening our ship ranges. Our fleets will wait over Otar for a while to see if the Borg come.
Turn 204Another turn, another peace treaty. Both sides are in no shape to fight any war.
And we’ve reacquired the other Borg Cube, which hopped back to Narenda. The scout fleet can’t see any more, so it’ll double back to rejoin the main fleet in Otar.
Turn 205We prepare for round 2 with the Borg.
It goes about the same as the first.
The upgrade to our current 8 troop transports gives them more defense and more ground combat strength, but not much else.
Now that the Borg threat is ended, it’s time to get back to our favorite galactic pastime: war! Let’s have a look at our forces: We have 2 cruiser forces, the Strike Fleet and the Second Fleet at Otar. The Scout Fleet will be disbanded (sorry Maldevious) for orbital battery engagement. One of those scouts, the RNS Dark Comet, is assigned to replace the lost Darkfeather in Force 1, leaving 7 free scouts. At Romulus, we have 8 troop transports.
In accordance with Senate opinion, the Federation is our target. They are weak after losing their capital of Sol, but will quickly expand into ex-Ferengi territory if given the chance to recover. There are four Fed systems that our analysts suggest we strike first.
Ariannus:
85 million population,
1 orbital battery. We need 1 scout for the Battery and 2 troop transports should take the system.
Blue Horizon:
80 million population, no orbital batteries,
an outpost and 14 Federation ships guarding it. The fleet should move off soon, but we’ll need some ships to take down the outpost. One of the Cruiser forces should do it, with 2 troop transports to take the system.
Those two systems are still in range of our ships when we cancel the affiliation treaty. This means we can ‘wait’ a turn to keep our troop transports out of the initial space battle. Turn D-1, we send in a war declaration and our ships, turn D we fight and take down any ships and the outpost, turn D+1, our troop transports arrive unopposed and order the invasion, turn D+2 we (hopefully) conquer the system. However, there’s also:
Otar:
27 million population and absolutely
no defenses, one troop transport can take the system.
Minos Korva:
100 million population,
2 orbital batteries, and an Outpost. We’ll need 3 troop transports, 2 scouts to engage the Batteries, and a Cruiser force for the outpost. Crucially, we need to send in the troop transports in the initial battle, or they’ll be stranded in the middle of nowhere. We’ll assign a detail of additional (uncloaked) scouts to screen them in the battle.
The completed orders map. It’s a bit of a mess, but rest assured everyone should be going where they’re needed. Having nothing for the Strike and Second Fleet to do, they’ll hang out in the middle between Blue Horizon and everywhere else, to combat the Federation fleets.
Turn 206I changed the orders for the troop transports bound for Blue Horizon/Ariannus to wait just south of the system. We have the luxury of not having to send them in immediately.
Turn 207The Ferengi terminate the peace treaty. This doesn’t mean they’ll declare war immediately, but it’s worrying nonetheless. They’ve got a force of 6 War Cruisers still in Klingon space near the Mintakan border.
Turn 208Starfleet is on the move. They appear to be shifting all ships to the system of Tama, with 7 slower ships here and 7 faster ships (scouts and destroyers) ahead of them. We still need another turn to get our ships in position. The Strike Fleet will head over to assist in the assault on the Ariannus outpost, which we just saw. The Second Fleet will go to Sarpeidon to interrupt any reinforcements the Federation could send to Ariannus from Tama.
I also redirect a scout from the fleet over Minos Korva to Otar. It’s still a bit risky to try taking a system unsupported.
Turn 209We go over the fiscal cliff, and are now 91 credits in debt. It’s actually quite serious, because NO PRODUCTION at all takes place while there’s a credit deficit. All industry everywhere is wasted, but we can alleviate this by conquest, which gives us more taxpayers, as well as ‘decommissions’ some of our scouts.
This is really weird. The Federation, despite looking like they were heading for Tama earlier, suddenly moved all their ships eastwards. At the Tama-Canopus axis, they’ve only got a pair of Tamarian Defenders and a Troop Transport.
I decide to uncloak the ships making an assault on Otar and Minos Korva. The troop transports, should they survive the battle next turn, will immediately order invasion and I’d like to have orbital fire support, which only uncloaked ships can do. Taking on an outpost should still be easy without cloak, anyway. Also, the Second Fleet heads back to the center.
The Federations’s attitude to us has grown ‘icy’, no doubt due to all the military movement. It won’t matter soon anyway.
A look at the galactic map on our last turn of peace.
Turn 210The Empire returns to its natural state.
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Topic: Let's Play Star Trek: Birth of the Federation! (Read 32004 times)