The Space Bears Neptune’s Pride 2 diary – Days 12 to 14 – Fighting Fang and Claw

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, Days 8-11.

Day 12

The mighty red army managed to retake one of the stars they had lost to the Cyan invaders, but Murphid remains in the hands of the Fox. He had some bad news however, it seems Kirk is still firmly allied to Fox, no matter what he might pretend and, even worse, the despicable Yellow molluscs have spurned Lord Kirk’s offer of a triple alliance, citing grossly exaggerated stories of ‘bear aggression.’ Accusing the peace loving Space bears of being aggressive is actually aggression in itself, I think we can all agree. Damn slugs.

Nashira, the one star we had taken from the slugs in that foolish attack that started this whole mess, fell to Boru’s Green army. Pleasingly, the first wave failed due to the acquisition of weapons 5 while they were en route, leaving one solitary warrior bear at the end (the things he must have seen…). Boru launched a second fleet to take it, but I suppose we might take some comfort at the frustration caused.

A bleak future was staring the once mighty bears in the snout, of defending star after star as we slowly ceded them to our many enemies. It occurred to me that I had been rather timid with attacks up until then, always assuming the enemy had hidden reinforcements that would scupper my armies. But it was now or never time. 176 ships were hurled at Val Habhabora, reinforced by a further 88 later on.

Kirk and Fox gained weapons 5 on the way, but fortunately neither gave it to Boru. Val Habhabora was retaken, despite Green reinforcements sent to reclaim it.

With Val Habhabora back in bear paws, the space bears could look up at the night sky and see Val Ursii shining above them in the distance, calling out to be retaken from the opressors currently squatting there. But that isn’t happening any time soon. As it stands, we will be lucky to hold the Diamond of Sasin, The Gorgornahath, Tania, and Val Habhabora.

The galaxy at the end of the twelfth day…

 

Day 13

The Diamond came under attack once again. This time it was the lightly defended Gorgornahath that was targeted by the terrible Green army. Reinforcements were wearily sent to defend it, but it will still fall. Maybe it will be retaken afterward.

The isolated three stars to the far North, where we had sent those reinforcements once the slugs gained hyperspace, was suddenly and unexpectedly attacked by said slugs. They couldn’t see what they were attacking so they had just sent 350 ships at it. It was enough – Rastaban (the greatest of the three) was taken and fell under the oppression of its new slug masters, though they were left with only 37 ships.

This looked suspiciously like the death knell for the once mighty bear empire. Another science point lost – two more stars left helpless before the slugs, and a worsening situation in the centre. Prince Rupert said he had a dream in which our home world was covered in huge slugs, with bears drowning in slug juice, and an enormous slug king perched on the mighty Space bear palace. We shudder that this might come to pass.

Though maybe not. One of the slug commanders evidently made a disastrous mistake, and instead of sending one ship from Giedi to pick up reinforcements, sent all 560 ships away from the star, leaving their front completely exposed. How could we resist? Eager to avenge the fall of Rastaban, 350 warrior bears set sail for the amusingly abandoned front line snail star. This could be the perfect opportunity to run riot through the slugs hinterland stars, destroying their economic infrastructure, or maybe even star hop down to the frontier with Green and catch him unawares…

 

The only other news today was that I sent a message to Lord Fox, trying to convince him to attack Boru from the South, on the pretext that if the Bears were wiped out it would make the Green-Yellow alliance unstoppable. He is yet to reply…

End of Day 13…

 

Day 14

We took the sluggish star, and found there was little we could really do after that. We could go on a rampage yes, but the slugs who abandoned the star were still nearby, and they would only do the same in our far superior rear stars. So, we set up camp on the new star – trying feverishly to remove the awful stench of the giant snails who had once dwelt there and make it fit for young space bears to settle there.

 

Lord Kfix seems as morose as I when it comes to our prospects. He did have a plan for striking at Kirk where his defences might be lower, but he would need new hyperspace technology. I offered to research this after weapons 6, as there had been a recent experimentation boost on that front. We could make use of this too, to claim the last two empty stars of the galaxy at our extreme Western border.

The Cyan Fox did reply to yesterday’s message – he said he would love to help, but he is fighting Lord Kfix (he used more colourful language) and cannot attack Boru anytime soon. I offered to broker peace between Red and Cyan, but again, no reply to that. Kfix said he would be up for a ceasefire, but was suspicious of Fox’s motives. Why would he throw away his Blue-Cyan alliance with Kirk, he said. He may be right.

Nothing else to report. The Gorgornahath was retaken, and there have been no fresh attempts to take any Diamond stars. No doubt an attack is coming. Or maybe he is worried about growing too large – he is already #1, maybe he doesn’t’ want to attract too much fear from neighbouring powers? If only…

We are now at the end of Day 14. Two space weeks since the struggle for mastery began, and one space week since I boasted that the Space Bears were supreme. It seems a lot longer ago than that…