Early in 2013 me and my friends played a closed game of Neptune’s Pride 2: Triton, before even the glorious saga that was the war of the Space Bears. During the surprisingly brief, two-week-long, game I once again kept a journal of the exploits of my Empire in a rise and fall of epic proportions. Despite it now being two years later, I kept all my materials and have finally decided that the time is ripe to post the story. This journal log is the final part of four, but you can read the previous entries here, here and here
Emperor of Eleryo, His Royal Highness Snekenj the Magnificent- Journal Log 4
Stardate: 01/05/20013 (Galactic Cycle 14)
Strength is a funny thing, it is only in comparison to others that something can be considered strong. We are strong, the second largest civilisation in the cluster, we have the strength to (in some cases easily) crush all of those who were our neighbours. Our comfortable lead was assured by the simple fact that we, somehow, out-expanded every other one of our close neighbours. In this Game of Stars, it always comes down to the fact that the more systems held by your Empire, the stronger you are. But, even with our strength in mind, when you consider that the Docco Swarm which encroaches upon the Galaxy has double the amount of science, production, economy and ships that we possess then you might understand that we no longer have any hope of victory, nor do we possess any inclination to really try.
Ali spent all of one cycle sending his ships back to defend against James and then when it became clear he was outnumbered 2 to 1 he gave up too and sent everything he had at Kendo. With absolutely no effect either. Stupid really. For all his brave talk at the beginning of the game his plans were naught but a hindrance for us.
He now has one system, one measly edge-star which Docco granted him in order to witness the destruction of the rest of the Galaxy. This is cause for amusement on its own, but then to rub salt into the wound, Tim decided that he would take Ali’s final remaining system from him. Tim has always been an expert at exacting vengeance, and while his peoples never directly engaged Ali’s, the alliance with us left those vicious green bastards wanting to enact some form of retribution on the dark blues for their perceived crimes against the Herbian Conglomerate. Truly, the greens are a heartless species. We heard only the screams of those who had once been our friends as the Herbians glassed the planet, a hindrance they may have been but nobody deserves a fate like that.
Our one slim hope of any form of success in the war, that Jamroll would engage Docco and help us win but hitting the swarm in his homeworlds while his fleets engaged us, was ruined when it became suddenly and abundantly clear that they had actually been allies this entire time. In fact I think Jamroll has every cycle merely been sending his entire income to Docco, which would explain why he has not bought any infrastructure for at least seven cycles. Honestly we don’t really know how we did not spot this any sooner as Docco was always ahead of the Jamrollians and yet never steamrolled into his territory, or indeed ever even took so much as a single system.
And now, the cherry on the cake, Jamroll’s systems have suddenly, and with an air of grim finality, been taken over by an apathetic and uncaring AI government. And so Docco is finally swallowing up the Pink territories too. This, combined with the territories taken from Ali means that whatever hope of fighting against Docco died almost with the believed death of all of the Jamrollian peoples.
In short, despite what I said in my first entry, Jamroll is a right fucker.
Docco pushed into CJ’s territory with all the unstoppable might of the Zerg. CJ’s people were weak and poorly defended, he never had truly recovered from Tim’s strike into his systems mentioned in the previous entry. He MIGHT have regained some foothold and power if he had struck against Tim with us. After all, you have to spend forces to gain forces. Instead though, he had a direct hand in the worst military disaster of our game. Our brave Captain, the same who had so easily repelled the vile Tim Dreadfleet from our worlds, went flying with his 60 ships into Tim’s territory dealing a vast amount of damage and weakening further Tim’s already weakened empire. It was a suicide mission, one we knew would fail but we also knew that fighting off the fleet would all but cripple Tim’s reserve fleets, allowing CJ to capitalise and finish off the Green bastard. And then, just as the anvil was hottest, CJ’s fleet turned away. He did not take advantage of the weakness and Tim, SOMEHOW, managed to survive what should have been a death knell.
Even if CJ had managed to repel any of the swarm, which I don’t believe he did, Docco could afford to lose fleets in the hundreds and so he simply munched CJ. It gets worse for my erstwhile ally as simultaneously to the battle with Docco’s forces, Tim once again struck from the North. Allowed to simmer for a whole 7 cycles as CJ withdrew from the border, Tim’s rage was vast and unfathomable and so he struck without mercy at CJ even as he dealt the final blow to Ali. And so, in order to try and hold my position in second, I too have turned and taken a planet from CJ. I should have done it a long time ago…
Elsewhere, Ford appears to be slowly pushing into Kendo in the bottom end of the cluster, thanks to his upgraded Hyperdrives he is now able to skirt around our own systems in order to directly attack the yellow morons. His 160 ships also struck a rather excellent blow against Kendo, the hammer fell, stars were flamed and planets glassed. We can still hear the Kendorian screams… Music to our ears. All of this is good because it means Kendo hasn’t attacked me in almost 7 cycles now, since our last journal entry in fact when we were rushing to and fro in defence. A most pleasing situation. I can only wish Ford well with his endeavour.
Frankly though, saying I fear now for my Empire is a lie, I now have absolutely no hope of victory or even survival. I know Docco and Tim are trading tech still, and I would bet money that Kendo is in on it as well (it would explain how his inferior species lasted so long at least). With me right in the middle of the three of them this means one thing: We. Are. Fucked. We could obliterate Kendo. We could win out against Tim. But against Docco We don’t stand a chance, even if he didn’t have allies.
Our hopes of achieving a meagre, but we believe well-earned, second place was also stolen from us. We were outnumbered and outgunned, and both Tim and Docco hammered into is with all the might of the great Bear Gods. As our ships was blown apart and we retreated, consolidated and retreated again, and then even Ford launched his own ships at our systems, sensing an end to our glorious Empire. This in turn allowed the despicable Kendorians to finally capitalise on the faltering of the civilisation which could have brought light to the stars. In the end, the hotly contested Thuban and Samakah systems, which we held out of their slimy yellow hands for so long, fell to the Kendorians, never again to be retaken.
Thus it was that with enemies on all sides, our Empire dwindled and we were pushed from second into a dismal third place, a third place behind the Herbians, who somehow survived near destruction only to rally and recover to become greater than we had ever been. We could almost admire them if it didn’t hurt so much.
Here is where I made mistakes: I should have attacked Ford at the start of the game instead of being too merciful and conscientious. If I’d blasted him into the darkest pits of oblivion at the start I would probably be in Docco’s place right now. Another mistake: Ali and CJ shouldn’t have pussied out against Kendo (repeatedly!). If all three of us had struck we would have taken him. And they didn’t. Another one: CJ should have continued his assault on Tim when my fleet fell. Instead he was quite content to simply sit there and watch as Tim came back from the brink.
In short, while I sort of blame myself. In reality I really blame everyone else more.
Fuck this game.
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