A close friend of mine became rather addicted to Neptune’s Pride 2: Triton in the early months of this year, after I introduced it to him. Part of his addiction has led to the playing of many games, far more than I’ve ever played, and in his time he even managed to secure a place in the group stages of the Neptune’s Pride 2 World Championship back in July (3 games of 6 people). Due to the importance of the game to himself and to the community of Neptune’s Pride, I persuaded Sam to keep a log of the major events and he went a step further to keep a detailed and entertaining diary. I will post the diary in short segments for you reading pleasure! Here are the previous entries: Days 1-3, Days 4-7.
Day 8
Not a lot happened today. We have been rebuilding our forces after the sore defeat at Giedi yesterday – the Space Bears are still #1 in ship numbers, but it will be a while before our superior industry can take us back to the distant lead we had before.
Like us, our two allies are defending against aggressors – Lord Kfix has repulsed Kirk’s Blue army and Lord Boru has a fairly fluid border with Cyan, who attacked first. Well… I say “like us” – the snail monsters didn’t technically attack first, but they did make themselves look irresistibly delicious so that our hungry bears wouldn’t be able to resist flying off to eat them, which is a kind of aggression. So yes, we’re all defending against aggressors.
Speaking of the slugs, they have acquired hyperspace 3, which seems at first to be a strange choice for them to research. The only new stars that this puts within their reach are the three that we most recently acquired, to the North of them. This can be their only plan then (unless they decided to research it because they got an experimentation bonus or something), which means I must divert some of my reinforcements, which had been earmarked for an invasion of Yellow planets, to the defence of these three exposed stars. It might not have been his intention, but by doing this Uppercut has delayed my invasion of his snail worlds.
So, the tense peace goes on. We walk a fine line – attack the slugs too soon, and it will be repulsed and wasted, but wait too long, and the other two wars might have their deadlocks suddenly broken, and a great power will arise in the galaxy that wipes out our industrial lead. Damn these snail beasts and their weapons 3…
The galaxy at end of day 8…
Day 9
We spent proportionally more on industry today than is usual for the bears, but since our economic lead is now so vast, we may as well start putting it to good use – if the others start to catch up we will focus on economy again.
Lord Boru seems to becoming rather frustrated with the galactic deadlock – ‘a series of 1v1s’ he called it. While his observation is accurate, the deadlock is ideal for us. We alone have the strength to break it, and it is far better that our deadlock breaks while our allies’ continues. He seemed to want me to send another army south to break the two Blue factions, but this is out of the question. Lord Kfix and Lord Kirk would benefit immensely from this, but it would be of very little use to us.
Meanwhile, in the struggle with the slugs, the loss of the 90 ships which went to defend the newly exposed Northern stars briefly left Uppercut with enough ships at Giedi to take our stars briefly. Fortunately he didn’t take advantage of it – he will not get another such advantage.
The galaxy at the end of Day 9…
Day 10
This was not a good day.
It started out very well. We decided we would attack the slugs from the South, taking the star of Nashira from them using the two large fleets we had in the centre zone (see below). It was timed so that we would acquire weapons 4 en route, making its capture a certainty. To our very great fury, the slugs again acquired a weapons upgrade shortly afterward – they got it midway through a tick so it was obviously given to them, but from whom?! Who supplied it to them?
Anyway Nashira still fell, but shortly before it did, an unsettling development occurred. Lord Boru ominously moved 156 ships away from the Cyan border, and toward the border with us, for no apparent reason. We cursed our folly for having left Val Ursii, the jewel of our empire, so embarrassingly undefended…
The fleet stayed there for some hours, and we began to feel genuine relief. No doubt this was just some weird mind game he was playing with the Cyan fox, we were foolish to have become so paranoid…
Except we weren’t. Three hours before the cycle ended, they set sail for Val Ursii, with a second fleet of 200 ships behind them. Space bears everywhere wept at this awful betrayal. How could he have done this to us?? He sent a message saying he was gonna take it to ‘break the deadlock’ but it would have broken on its own with our superior stats. And now – chaos. The Green fool.
In desperation, we sought out the Cyan fox, hoping to take him up on his earlier offer. Our space hearts leapt when we saw 90 Cyan ships sailing for Kajam, but the awful truth soon hit us – he will use Kajam as a stepping stone to get to us, just as we did to get to Kirk, all those days ago…
Our situation is dire. Val Ursii will certainly fall, and it looks as though the diamond of Val Habhabora, Tania, Sasin, and The Gorgornahath will also be lost at this rate, to say nothing of the newly acquired Nashira. The admirable and noble Lord Kfix expressed sympathy, and promised military aid, but I fear he will need his ships just as sorely as I – he should not have to throw away his ship advantage over Kirk for the sake of we foolhardy old bears.
The bears face destruction. Our only hope is that we are due to acquire weapons 5 in 24 hours, surely long before these other barbaric beasts get their claws on it. We must pray to the Bear Gods now…
End of Day 10:
Day 11
Val Ursii fell. The fighter bears garrisoned there were overwhelmed, and the peace loving Space Bears of the once mighty star were put to death in an orgy of brutality and space violence. This crime was a stab to the space heart of good bears everywhere.
While the star formerly known as Val Ursii was being reinforced by the treacherous, murdering Green beasts, the Cyan army attacked… Kfix. Instead of attacking our border as expected, they turned on Kfix’s red army, taking the star of Muphrid, the second of the two outposts that Lord kfix and I had picked, so long ago…
Hope died, as it seemed to us that Lord Kfix and I were facing an unwinnable 4v2 war. I sent Lord Kfix a message, wondering if we might be able to entice the horrific snail things on to our side now Boru is distracted, as he might listen to Kfix (he probably won’t listen to me, what with all those hundreds of hungry bears in tanks I sent to his stars to eat his people). It sickens us to even contemplate a union with such hideous and foul tasting monsters, but if the alternative is death for the Space Bears, we have little choice. Kfix said he would do what he could.
As Red ships streamed to the new front against Cyan, the diabolical Lord Kirk the Blue reported to Kfix that he too was under attack from Cyan. Hope stirred again – if Kirk throws his blue army in with our Red and Orange armies, we could be back to a 3v3. Kfix expressed suspicion of Kirk’s true motives, but if it’s true…
As the day ended, Boru’s green army took Val Habhabora, giving him a narrow industrial advantage. At the same time, 200 ferocious vengeance-hungry space bears arrived at the front to garrison Tania and The Gorgornahath. We cannot say how this will turn out, but the bears will not go down without a struggle. We must somehow take advantage of the chaos in the galaxy, and use our still superior science advantage (weapons 5 will be here 2 hours after the new cycle starts).
The galaxy at the end of day 11…
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