Wrapping up previous war
After carving off a geographically convenient chunk of the NE empire, the balance of power shifted a bit. Some empires rivalled each others. Others (or the same ones?) signed defensive pacts. Most of them became too weak for me to count as official rivals so I lost the influence gain.
The bit I freed started off with closed borders to me which was a little shock, as the original empire has to have a 'war truce' with open borders to let all fleets go home, but the ones in the *liberated* empire were abruptly turfed out.
They did re-open them quickly, though.
And a bit later, I realised the original empire started fighting the liberated bit -- I hadn't realised that not accepting them into the federation meant I didn't have a way of defending them.
I was cautious accepting them into the federation as I'd hoped to absorb them peacefully later and I can't if they're in the federation.
Also, I like the idea of a large federation of small empires (and I get a small bonus for it), but not if it means that one veto can prevent... basically anything happening. Also if it means that they each get to be president (I think if they're small enough they don't, but I'm not sure where the cut off is).
The War
Then I turned my attention to gobbling up the SSW empire, because it was the only one I could currently attack. I went for a vassalisation war, as they were weak enough that I could, and it was the best compromise between outright claiming their territory (which I couldn't easily as pacifist, and also not sure I had enough influence to claim ALL their systems) and letting them run around loose.
Mostly, this all went incredibly smoothly. I had several large fleets, enough to stand up to anything they had, and was able to attack from several directions at once, systematically conquering all their planetary systems and defeating their fleets, then splitting up and grabbing the rest of their systems.
There were a few hitches, like not having quite big enough armies. I need to have sufficient reserves I never run short. And needing to run around mole-whacking the stragglers of their military fleets.
My ally adjacent to them did a bit of the work, and got all the border systems they claimed.
Several small things were very aggravating though. I eventually twigged to the "system icon has spiky bit on = is fully occupied including any planet" system I'd previous been a bit confused by. But I missed one planet -- the very first one my ally invaded, and one of my spare fleets joined in bombarding. I'd assumed it was one of the planets my ally would actually conquer as it was right on their border. But no. It got bombarded so long its armies were completely defeated from orbit. But then I had to scramble to find a single army to actually *land* on it, when I thought I'd cleared that volume of space.
It was very satisfactory to see all the systems taken over by me :)
But sadly, unlike my previous war, apparently "defeat every fleet, conquer every system and every planet" wasn't enough to make them submit as vassals. Their acceptance slowly ticked up, but apparently the way war exhaustion works, mine grew faster (because I didn't manage to take their planets without army losses), and them being entirely ground into the dust didn't significantly contribute. Their value for acceptance had gone up from minus several hundred to zero, on the very day my war exhaustion plus timer ran out and I had to accept a status quo. But if I'd known it was like that, I could have accepted a status quo earlier. Or focused more on keeping my own exhaustion down -- I assumed conquering everything would obviate that.
That meant, apparently, their entire territory except their homeworld was released as a new empire as my vassal.
Next war
I am unfortunately running into more weird restrictions like that where the restrictions aren't entirely obvious. My next task is to mop up the NNE and NE empires. I have more than enough strength to take them on -- in the previous wars, they've sometimes come in due to a defensive pact. And that hasn't let me take any of their systems (since I can't claim as a pacifist), but I've comprehensively stomped a lot of their military along the way.
But apparently there are lots of restrictions, I can't easily just fight them both at once. In a more balanced galaxy that would make sense. But there's no option for "I'm stronger than everyone else put together, let me just fight them and if allies and neutrals don't like it, tough."
If I want to vassalise them, first I need to 'demand' their vassalisation, then when they refuse, go to war. But I can't demand vassalisation while I'm *at* war. And the empires keep jumping in to defend each other, which means I can attack them, but I can't declare war on them themselves until we've been at peace for a timeout of 5 or 10 years... And I might have accidentally liberated their system which borders mine, which means I can't easily attack them.
I should probably aim to build up to face the fallen empires and then grab the other existing empires when I have a convenient chance. That will be more of a challenge. But I'd hoped to absorb everyone else first.
Economy
Several things changed. I got a perk that let me add a characteristic to my government. I needed to spend influence to change my government at all. I stayed with an oligarchy, though I wasn't sure, but traded in some of my starting perks (traders = bonus to energy from starbases, and energy-costing colony ships not mineral-costing ones which was GREAT early on), and shadow government (the ability to force elections), for several which just give me a bonus to what seems most useful now, especially minerals.
I tore down several of my power planets to build as much minerals as possible, because I have much more things that need minerals. And because I can get energy from starbases. Although I need to build up enough energy income to support the military fleet I'll need shortly.
This brought me up to +1000 minerals which let me build a lot of stuff fairly easily. And another achievement :) And hopefully enough to support a reasonable fleet. I need to start quoting total mineral income plus separately fleet upkeep cost. I think my fleet upkeep is about half that again.
My economy looked even rosier *during* the war when I temporarily had all the space systems I'd occupied. Including several relevant special strategic resources. I guess I can't just leave them like that :) But that does mean, if I want those resources, I need to absorb my vassal properly (or intensively educate their science until they figure out how to exploit them -- they can't trade them until then, sadly).
Misc
When the war finished, I got a rush of refugees from planets conquered by my 'ally'. The one who's got more sinister, but I just have to hope will turn out ok. So now I have even more species.
One of the systems controlled by the fungus empire rebelled. It was populated mostly by birds -- apparently each empire needs a "main" species to name itself after? I hadn't even noticed how evident that was until I saw one not the way I expected.
It was the first "democratic crusaders" I'd seen -- i.e. egalitarian but militarist. Alas, it seems I can't help them in any way, I just need to wait to see if the funguses re-conquer them or not.
I checked out the strength of the major remaining powers. Sanctuary has 50k in defensive platforms. I hope to be able to take that on soon, which gains me a ringworld (or rather I gain oversight of a pre-space species which gains a ringworld). The fallen empires each seem to have *several* 50k fleets. But maybe I can manouver to take those on one at a time.
I never did figure out the 'nun aliens' in the NE empire territory. I drove a science ship all round them.
I did manage to take advantage of the war truce to sneak a construction ship and a colony ship up to an uncolonised spur in the top right of the galaxy and take the three planets there.
I'm slowly closing in on "enough planets" :) There are 145 total. 38 in my empire plus vassals. 31 in other federation members. And the rest spread between: our associate-member-but-not-real-member of the federation; the two remaining hostile empires; and fallen empires. And the vast majority of those are already colonised.
After carving off a geographically convenient chunk of the NE empire, the balance of power shifted a bit. Some empires rivalled each others. Others (or the same ones?) signed defensive pacts. Most of them became too weak for me to count as official rivals so I lost the influence gain.
The bit I freed started off with closed borders to me which was a little shock, as the original empire has to have a 'war truce' with open borders to let all fleets go home, but the ones in the *liberated* empire were abruptly turfed out.
They did re-open them quickly, though.
And a bit later, I realised the original empire started fighting the liberated bit -- I hadn't realised that not accepting them into the federation meant I didn't have a way of defending them.
I was cautious accepting them into the federation as I'd hoped to absorb them peacefully later and I can't if they're in the federation.
Also, I like the idea of a large federation of small empires (and I get a small bonus for it), but not if it means that one veto can prevent... basically anything happening. Also if it means that they each get to be president (I think if they're small enough they don't, but I'm not sure where the cut off is).
The War
Then I turned my attention to gobbling up the SSW empire, because it was the only one I could currently attack. I went for a vassalisation war, as they were weak enough that I could, and it was the best compromise between outright claiming their territory (which I couldn't easily as pacifist, and also not sure I had enough influence to claim ALL their systems) and letting them run around loose.
Mostly, this all went incredibly smoothly. I had several large fleets, enough to stand up to anything they had, and was able to attack from several directions at once, systematically conquering all their planetary systems and defeating their fleets, then splitting up and grabbing the rest of their systems.
There were a few hitches, like not having quite big enough armies. I need to have sufficient reserves I never run short. And needing to run around mole-whacking the stragglers of their military fleets.
My ally adjacent to them did a bit of the work, and got all the border systems they claimed.
Several small things were very aggravating though. I eventually twigged to the "system icon has spiky bit on = is fully occupied including any planet" system I'd previous been a bit confused by. But I missed one planet -- the very first one my ally invaded, and one of my spare fleets joined in bombarding. I'd assumed it was one of the planets my ally would actually conquer as it was right on their border. But no. It got bombarded so long its armies were completely defeated from orbit. But then I had to scramble to find a single army to actually *land* on it, when I thought I'd cleared that volume of space.
It was very satisfactory to see all the systems taken over by me :)
But sadly, unlike my previous war, apparently "defeat every fleet, conquer every system and every planet" wasn't enough to make them submit as vassals. Their acceptance slowly ticked up, but apparently the way war exhaustion works, mine grew faster (because I didn't manage to take their planets without army losses), and them being entirely ground into the dust didn't significantly contribute. Their value for acceptance had gone up from minus several hundred to zero, on the very day my war exhaustion plus timer ran out and I had to accept a status quo. But if I'd known it was like that, I could have accepted a status quo earlier. Or focused more on keeping my own exhaustion down -- I assumed conquering everything would obviate that.
That meant, apparently, their entire territory except their homeworld was released as a new empire as my vassal.
Next war
I am unfortunately running into more weird restrictions like that where the restrictions aren't entirely obvious. My next task is to mop up the NNE and NE empires. I have more than enough strength to take them on -- in the previous wars, they've sometimes come in due to a defensive pact. And that hasn't let me take any of their systems (since I can't claim as a pacifist), but I've comprehensively stomped a lot of their military along the way.
But apparently there are lots of restrictions, I can't easily just fight them both at once. In a more balanced galaxy that would make sense. But there's no option for "I'm stronger than everyone else put together, let me just fight them and if allies and neutrals don't like it, tough."
If I want to vassalise them, first I need to 'demand' their vassalisation, then when they refuse, go to war. But I can't demand vassalisation while I'm *at* war. And the empires keep jumping in to defend each other, which means I can attack them, but I can't declare war on them themselves until we've been at peace for a timeout of 5 or 10 years... And I might have accidentally liberated their system which borders mine, which means I can't easily attack them.
I should probably aim to build up to face the fallen empires and then grab the other existing empires when I have a convenient chance. That will be more of a challenge. But I'd hoped to absorb everyone else first.
Economy
Several things changed. I got a perk that let me add a characteristic to my government. I needed to spend influence to change my government at all. I stayed with an oligarchy, though I wasn't sure, but traded in some of my starting perks (traders = bonus to energy from starbases, and energy-costing colony ships not mineral-costing ones which was GREAT early on), and shadow government (the ability to force elections), for several which just give me a bonus to what seems most useful now, especially minerals.
I tore down several of my power planets to build as much minerals as possible, because I have much more things that need minerals. And because I can get energy from starbases. Although I need to build up enough energy income to support the military fleet I'll need shortly.
This brought me up to +1000 minerals which let me build a lot of stuff fairly easily. And another achievement :) And hopefully enough to support a reasonable fleet. I need to start quoting total mineral income plus separately fleet upkeep cost. I think my fleet upkeep is about half that again.
My economy looked even rosier *during* the war when I temporarily had all the space systems I'd occupied. Including several relevant special strategic resources. I guess I can't just leave them like that :) But that does mean, if I want those resources, I need to absorb my vassal properly (or intensively educate their science until they figure out how to exploit them -- they can't trade them until then, sadly).
Misc
When the war finished, I got a rush of refugees from planets conquered by my 'ally'. The one who's got more sinister, but I just have to hope will turn out ok. So now I have even more species.
One of the systems controlled by the fungus empire rebelled. It was populated mostly by birds -- apparently each empire needs a "main" species to name itself after? I hadn't even noticed how evident that was until I saw one not the way I expected.
It was the first "democratic crusaders" I'd seen -- i.e. egalitarian but militarist. Alas, it seems I can't help them in any way, I just need to wait to see if the funguses re-conquer them or not.
I checked out the strength of the major remaining powers. Sanctuary has 50k in defensive platforms. I hope to be able to take that on soon, which gains me a ringworld (or rather I gain oversight of a pre-space species which gains a ringworld). The fallen empires each seem to have *several* 50k fleets. But maybe I can manouver to take those on one at a time.
I never did figure out the 'nun aliens' in the NE empire territory. I drove a science ship all round them.
I did manage to take advantage of the war truce to sneak a construction ship and a colony ship up to an uncolonised spur in the top right of the galaxy and take the three planets there.
I'm slowly closing in on "enough planets" :) There are 145 total. 38 in my empire plus vassals. 31 in other federation members. And the rest spread between: our associate-member-but-not-real-member of the federation; the two remaining hostile empires; and fallen empires. And the vast majority of those are already colonised.