Gears of War
Requiem for Galactic Resistance
Since the start of the campaign, we have worked very hard at putting ourselves beyond the possibility of defeat and I think Sun Tzu would be proud of our accomplishments, so far. After all, it was he who wrote, "Only seek battle after victory is already won."
As we continue from where we left off, you can see in the image to the left that we have 3 planets that are unhappy and two that are unhealthy. We'll let those planets finish out their current build orders of "Recycling Centers" and "Sports Arenas", but there is no sense in trying to keep up with these social problems, because our star systems are growing so fast that it would take, at least, 50 turns before we would pull far enough ahead of the issues, to allow us to work on building a military.
Instead, we are going to switch gears and go all out war, taking our lead from Sun Tzu once again who said, "One defends when his strength is inadequate and attacks when it is abundant." With that in mind, we need only to look at the power and production graphs from the last session to see that it is NOW that we must press the advantage and unleash our devastating might on the galaxy.
Three Million Channels and Nothing to Watch
Two Turns later, we finished researching "Synthetic Composites" and I did not adopt the "Technocracy" civic, since it would only increase our research rate and our current government provides a production boost which we need more. I chose "Terrestrial Networking" next, because this technology allows us to build "Commercial Satellites" and "Stardocks". The former grants +1 influence growth and +2 commerce and the later grants +1 influence growth and +50% trade route yield to the planets they are built on. Since we are going to building a military, we will need economic technologies to help support it.
Cold Wars to Star Wars
A couple of turns later, New Earth finished building it's "Recycling center, so I put her to work on a "Training Compound", which will grant any ships built in this star system +2 experience as soon as they are created. More importantly, I directed New Tokyo to build wealth for two turns, so we finally have enough credits to create our first "Starbase"!
The starbase has two main benefits: One, it provides an immediate cultural border expansion surrounding the structure. Two, it creates an unlimited supply of anti-ship missiles to protect the territory inside it's range. Careful consideration should be taken when deciding where to place such a structure, so as to maximize it's usefulness. Usually, placing a "Starbase" near resource extraction facilities is a good idea, but an equally important use would be to place the structure near a particularly valuable asset, such as our home star system.
Extreme Boot Camp
On the next turn, New Tokyo finished building it's "Sports Arena", so I put her to work on the "School of Zealots", which provides +2 experience points to all ships built in this system. This structure is only available to systems with the "Power" value present and New Tokyo was the founder, so it automatically qualified. It would have been wise to spread all three of our values, this one in particular, to our entire empire in the beginning, but things got going and I did not remember to do it. I admit that the mistake was mine and I apologize.
On the same turn, New Paris finished it's "Sports Arena", so I put her to work on a "Capital Shipyard", which allows us to build battleships.
More Training
A few turns later, New Dubai finished building it's "Sports Arena", so I put her to work on a "Banking System" since it is such a small colony and would not be able to build ships very quickly. Nonetheless, we need to keep the economy strong during the military build up, so this system will be perfect as a wealth generator.
One turn later, New Tokyo finished building it's "School of Zealots", so I put her to work on a "Training Compound".
On the next turn, New Earth finished building it's "Training Compound", so I put her to work on our first battleship! On the same turn, New London finished building it's "Sports Arena", so I put her to work on a "Training Compound". Still on the same turn, New Paris finished building it's "Capital Shipyard", so I put her to work on a "Training Compound", as well.
The Treasure is Ours!
On the next turn we finished researching "Terrestrial Networking", so I decided to research "Mechanized Labor", because this research path allows the construction of "One-Shot Delta Anti-Ship Missiles", which may come in handy. Still on the same turn, New Berlin finished building an "Interplanetary Beacon", so I put her to work on building wealth. Also on the same turn, we finished the construction of our first starbase and now that it is complete, our cultural borders now encompass the gold resource, so we will finally be able to build an extraction facility! It's a shame that our natural border expansion did not allow us to build it earlier, because we sure could have used the income!
The Degeneracy of our Neighbor
Unexpectedly, still on the same turn, Lukas came begging for a technology that would allow him to build battleships! Ut oh! Maybe we waited too long to start building our military. Naturally, I told him to take a hike, but that may be reason enough for him to declare war on us before we are ready, since our relationship is already in the basement and refusing to help only made it worse. We shall see!
With this new startling event at the fold, I bumped our espionage up to 20% for a couple of turns, so that we could gain insight on his intentions.
Industrial Revolution and Capital Ship Focus
Two turns later, New Tokyo and New Paris finished building their "Training Compounds", so I put them both to work on a "Factory" (adds +15% production) because it's construction will shave several turns off battleship build times. It will take four turns to build the factory but it will nearly pay itself off on it's first use. There is a drawback, however. Each factory adds +1 unhealthy to the system it is built in. Regardless, we need to start building battleships fast!
On the next turn, New London finished building it's "Training Compound", so I put her to work on a factory, as well. On the same turn, we finished researching "Mechanized Labor" (+10% production in all cities and +1 unhappiness in 4 largest cities), but I temporarily declined the adoption of this civic and chose "Capital Ship Focus" (-20% cost of battleships) to research next, which will take 5 turns to complete. We will adopt new civics and government when this research is complete. The reason for waiting is because if we do it all at once, we will only have to go through one revolution instead of several.