Gal-Civ 2

I decided to sort of write up some of my Galciv2 games in some way here.

Being the only admiral so far across the republic to defeat the Dreadlords in any cluster, President McInnis of the United States of Terra has sent me here to this centrally located cluster near the Galactic core. The UST only has a single neglected colony in this area with only a Starport. We recieved reports from our latest allies, the Iconians, that the Dreadlords have a large concentration of starship construction colonies here. Upwards of 3 planets total. We cannot let them gain such a strong foothold this much closer to the homeworld of the UST.

As I approach Outpost 3 I notice the much lower technology of this area of space. It looks like I’ll have to build it up from near ground level again, with a much lower budget. The UST is spread a bit thin now.

I quickly call the people on the ground and tell them to contact Galactic Manufacturing Corp. to get a factory built ASAP. They charge an arm and a leg, but at least we can get the infrastructure started out quickly. I also ordered them to start building new colony ships. We’re going to need some bases of operation closer to the Dreadlords homeworlds.

Over the next few months we colonized 6 more planets in the margin sectors of the edge of the cluster. We picked up Iversonia 1, a mere 2 sectors away from the Dreadlord home cluster. There were two more planets nearby but it was decided to let our allies pick those up. Knowing Dreadlord tactics from the last round, I helped design the RapidZapper MkI class fighter. 3 impulse engines and one Laser-4. With 7 speed it’s the perfect ship to dart in and take out troopships then duck back out before their escorts catch us. We construct 3 of these and send these to picket the Iversonia sector.

Our allies have been busy too. The Altarians colonized Iversonia 2 and set up shop there. An unallied race, the Drath, also setup shop on Florin 1, the only other planet close to Dreadlord space.

Sure enough, not long after these two planets are colonized, Iversonia 2 falls to the might of the Dread Lords. It only takes 10 dread lord troops to demolish a population of nearly a billion. My rapid response fighter net was not positioned such to see the troopship as it arrived. I repositioned the net and hired GMC to build an invasion transport.

A few weeks later I send a billion of my own troops to attack Iversonia 2. The Dreadlord’s massive soldiering advantage is drastically cut when they’re on the defensive and I take Iversonia 2. I see another troopship try and dart in, and quickly take it out with one of my rapid response fighters. The escort ships don’t appear to be looking for any trouble and retreat back to their cluster. Not long after though, I discover that Florin 1 has fallen to the Dreadlords. Apparently the second attack on Iversonia 2 was a feint to pull my network off center.

I prepare another troopship, but have to play cat and mouse with the two escorts as they continue to hover near the planet. Finally I retake Florin 1. The dreadlords in the intervening weeks had produced two very impressive industrial complexes on the planet. Their technology and ability to quickly construct massive buildings continues to amaze.

The Dreadlords continue to send the occasional troopship to both Florin and Iversonia 2. None of them make it through. My network of RapidZapper ships keep dragging the Dreadlord’s large ships away and the Escorts continue to only snipe around the edges of my network. Soon I have something like 15 of these beam ships clustered around the dreadlord planets.

Meanwhile, my new RapidNuker MkI class is finished. They have more sensor range along with twice the firepower and use Missiles instead of lasers. I switch my entire production over to these new ships. Meanwhile, I start consolidating my RapidZappers into fleets of 4 ships.

Two RapidNukers are completed before technology quickly makes them obsolete as well. Smaller and cheaper warp drives allow me a little extra room to put both a missile bay and a laser-5 on giving me the RapidDuo MkI class ship. Production is again swapped over.

The first two RapidZapper fleets zoom in and manage to catch one escort unaware. The first fleet of 4 ships knocks 2/3rds of the escorts armor away before being destroyed. Fleet 2 sweeps in and cleans up the rest then makes its escape. This is the first battle in this cluster where we destroyed something larger than a Troopship. It’s a far cry from being able to deal with the 3 Dreadnoughts and 1 battleship, but it’s something.

Fleet 3 forms from 3 leftover zappers that had been picketing the enemy. Meanwhile, Fleet 4 forms up with two Zappers and two Nukers and starts journeying up to join the battle.

Not liking what they see, one of the remaining escorts zooms up and attacks Fleet 3. They dealt with a mere ¼th of the enemies armor before being destroyed. Fleet 2 rushes into the battle with the same escort and miraculously destroy it while only losing a single ship. The last dreadlord escort rushes back to Gladstone IV in their cluster for its own protection.

With the Dreadnoughts closing in from the other side, fleet 4 and fleet 2 close on the final escort. Fleet 4 dives in first but is unable to destroy the escort alone even with their missiles. In fact, the ships with the missiles were targetted first by the escort. Our planners think that more homogeneous fleets might allow our more powerful ships to live longer…

Fleet 2 soon drops in and deals the final blow that destroys the Dreadlord’s final escort. With 4 huge Dreadlord ships blocking every other path, the members of Fleet 2 decide that if they’re going to die, at least they can gather some intelligence on the home cluster of the dreadlords. They dive straight through the middle and are shocked to discover not 3, but 4 high quality planets in the cluster. Not only that, but they’re 2-3 points higher than anything else seen in the cluster so far. The second shock came from the ships orbiting those planets. They only had 1 Defender class ship each! The Flight of Fleet 2 (Link Dead)

Miraculously, Fleet 2 escapes the dreadlord ships and zooms off to rendezvous with the final other remaining RapidZapper fighter. They mourn their lost comrades, but at least this will be one to tell the grand kids, if they survive this campaign…