Smokeys War -Playing the Sulak on 25/75 ISG version 1.6.1

Prelude to War Turn 150:
The Draguul have been licking their wounds for a while and doubtless preparing for their revenge...

The Sulak have also been busy, Espionage is booming and four new leaders have joined the Empire. Mickey at Zrit, K at Lodora, Wingman with the fleet and Blackwood as a leader influencer on a mission against the Draguul, this means there are now 3 such leaders all expert targeting the Draguul leader pool... and with the new Intelligence HQ at Aberon missions take a mere 5-6 turns.

The Kaek and Cerric Sentinal have also been discovered and its clear the Moltar are at the end of the southern arm, though have not yet been discovered, its not clear where the Palaceans are but far east or north beyond the Federation seem likely...

The Fleet has only grown slightly and now consists of 2 Cruisers, 2 Destroyers and 5 Frigates all fairly modest ships, the main ship building has been concentrated on Support and Colony ships, and there will soon be 10+ support ships mostly at Gladus, the goal is 5-8 at Gladus and at least one ship in each of the other systems...
As a result Gladus can now produce ships fairly quickly though it still takes some 6-7 turns to build a cruiser, destroyers and frigates take 2-3 turns, a new cruiser the "Irn Bru" with combat jump and the Ion Discharger as well as a destroyer are currently in the build list,

The Fleet has been busy exploring and is currently mostly in the region around Lodora, all known monsters have also been cleared...

However the Draguul are restless and recently sent a fleet which seemed likely to attack Relmion taken from them during the First war, rather then let another war happen the Sulak gifted the asteroid belt to the Draguul, the same thing will happen in a few turns at Uipra and finally a larger fleet will appear and head towards Weacef with clear intent... But this is where the Sulak draw the line.

Map Turn 150:




Next: The Second Draguul War...

 

But first the Second Big Mistake...
The Sulak are a low Gravity species and most of the worlds they occupy are medium/heavy gravity which creates problems for them in production and population growth, correcting this would be a BIG bonus...
Although the Sulak have researched micro gravity generators this is only really good when a population is low, so basically recently colonised worlds, as its cheap to build...
To alleviate the problem of gravity its necesary to research the much higher tek planetary anti gravity generator... and this takes a good deal of time and expense, inexplicably the research scientists decide to take a different approach (or pressed the wrong button somewhere) and ended up researching the Planetary Gravity Generators, unfortunatly the error wasn't caught untill the research was completed...

Now this may not seem like a big thing but this is useless tek for the Sulak and would effect both Prodction and Population for many turns to come, eventually they would get the Anti-Gravity tek...

The Lesson... Double check your research and dont get distracted

The Second Draguul War Turn 160-183:
The Draguul are showing signs of aggression and have targeted two astroid belts and are now on their way to attack a third at Weacef, up untill now war has been avoided by simply giving them the systems before they reached them, and for a few turns all was peacefull...
But now they are approaching Weacef with a fleet as big if not bigger then the entire Sulak fleet (not difficult) and clearly intend mischief, well this is too close for the Sulak and there's no way they can allow this to continue, or the enemys strength to increase...
So its time to do or die and the Sulak who have gathered what forces they have at Gladus, attack the Draguul who have a Battleship but are otherwise similar in number.

The Battleship is targeted by missiles from most of the Sulak fleet, the rest being fired at enemy destroyers in the hope of reducing the odds, this is succefull and eventually all the enemy are destroyed or disabled, The draguul Battleship is captured by literally the last marine available and the Sulak breath a sigh of relief...

Its then that they realise (spy in the enemy camp) that hidden in the depths of impenetrable space lie several other such fleets who also now have numbers of assault ships...
The Draguul pause at the apparant disrespect of their might and this is enough for the Sulak to gain the initiative...
The war is stiil long and difficult as the Sulak have no bombers or assault ships and are still heavily outnumbered, but never the less the Draguul are whittled down till few remain... in the process the Sulak fleet grows with captured Draguul ships, another Battleship, more cruisers and destroyers join the ranks, these are sent back to Gladus and other bases to be refitted, the Cruisers as bombers, which return to the Draguul worlds razing them one by one...

Only Lau and Cre survive though heavily damaged, the Draguul are Furious but Surrender...


Next: Another War...

 

The Draguul will never recover from their ignominious defeat... but in the meantime the Cerric Sentinal have been showing signs of aggression, on turn 179 they attack...

The War with the Sentinals Turn 179 - 189:

The build up of CS forces has not gone unnoticed and Smokey directs a small number of Sulak ships to Lodora to defend that system, this now includes a refitted Draguul BS, 3 CRS including a bomber, 2 DSs and a FR... almost half the Sulak fleet.

The Battleship arrives just in time to take part in repulsing the first attack at Lodora, where a large CS Fleet including a BS attacks on Turn 179 declaring war in the process... the CS Fleet is damaged and the remainder retreats, the Sulak follow up and destroy the rest....
5 Sulak Ships most of those available are sent direct via an unknown system to attack the CS homeworld at Arbitros, in the meantime only The Condor and 1 FR are left behind to counter CS attacks on Lodora and the surrounding systems...

Map Turn 181:




On arrival at Phee (the unknown system) the main fleet splits to counter strong opposition directed at outflanking the Sulak by attacking the outpost at Hokt, this attack is defeated the survivors heading for Arbitros...

At this point the Draguul offer Surrender and its decided to accept, so the assault fleet originally intended to attack the remaining Draguul Colonys can be directed at Arbitros instead, it has 6 assaut ships... these rendezvous with the fleet at Hokt.

Skirmishes continue but the main strength of the CS Fleet has been drained and they are rapidly loosing the war, the Sulak again direct their main attack at Arbitros...

Map Turn 183:



By Turn 185 the Fleet has arrived at Arbitros but its population is too large for a succesfull assault though the system colonys are damaged by bombing, the Sulak Fleet is again split with a force being sent to attack Sobyria, reinforcements are on the way...

Turn 189 The CS Surrender:

Over several turns Arbitros is bombed and the CS in fear of loosing their homeworld offer surrender, the Sulak now control 3 Homeworlds...

Overview Map Turn 189:



Next: The Sulak look towards the North and south...

 

Consolidation...

Overview map Turn 210:

The Sulak are now dominating their area of space, have achieved many of their goals in terraforming and planet construction and have been busy building new worlds and exploring...
The Moltar have been identiied and are engaged in a protracted war against the Kaek, both are limited in their expansion possibilitys due to the large expanse of empty space seperating them from the galaxy hub, but this wont last forever.
The Federation would seem like more of a threat but are benign, friendly and engaged in their own war with the Nova to the North, who themselves have many treaties with the Sulak and are no longer considered any threat at all...

So for the Sulak peace reigns, at least on the surface as espionage is ongoing by the many operatives of the Sulak Empire...
Invariably the results of which are influencing the other factions, sabotaging, Stealing tek and influencing leaders.

But what of the Palaceans, it seems they are likely situated in the northern arm to the North of the Federation, and likely that the Feds are at war with them (or have been)...
In any case they have been unable to break out, but this could change...




The Sulak are about to colonise the Hokt sytem as it has five potential planets, several of the Sulak colony's are building outpost ships to claim systems and resources that otherwise might fall into the hands of their enemies, but the main object of this is to prevent the spread of the other factions into what the Sulak consider to be their territory and expand their own influence in the process.

Militarily the Sulak have not expanded their fleet to any extent since the Draguul War, but it now consists of 2 BS, 8 CS, 7 DS and 7 FR, though these ships are modest they are capable and have been upgraded to current specs (including the Condor).

The Aim is now to explore to the Northeast, which is currently unoccupied, with the goal of colonising one or two systems as bases and identifying the Palaceans in the N/NW and their intentions...

Next: Palaceans Enemies or Allies...

 

Turn 230:

The Sulak have established outpost Colonys to the Northeast at Gidurn and Rasadnyk as well as Hokt where construction is well under way...

Jumpgates have been researched and will soon be built to ensure security of all outlying Sulak systems.

Several new Warships have been built or aquired during exploration of the NE, including two new BS's, but main ship construction is concentrated in Civilians ships which now include 48 support ships spread thoughout the Colonys and 15 outpost ships with more on the way...

Exploration continues... some Palacean worlds have been identified to the N/NW...

Overview map Turn 230:

 

Contact...

With the Colonisation of Teanno to the North just outside of Nova Space full contact is finally made with the Palaceans, and a spy is despatched to find out more about them, in the meantime several small Sulak fleets investigate the region being carefull not to confront the Palacean fleets... but this proves to no avail and the Palaceans attack at Oyassic with a large fleet including a Titan, the Sulak (1CR, 2DS) engage destroying several smaller ships but decide the odds are against them and retreat to Galerius...



Map Palacean Space Turn 249:



Next: The Palacean War...

 

Turn 250: “It is possible that even the war itself has been only one further move, in some greater game.”

The Sulak are not amused, the initial fleet attack by the Palaceans at Oyaissic was unimpressive... the Palaceans ships are slow and poorly armed having mainly lasers and missiles, the Sulak ships are more then capable of defeating them one to one and capable of outrunning pursuing fleets, this is proven quiet swiftly when the 3CRs at Lithios attack the newly completed Palacean Titan at Zlet, disabling and capturing it easily.

The 3 sulak ships initially retreating to Galerius change course and instead head for Saiph capturing two enemy ships in the process, the main Palacean fleet is unable to intercept... despite having instigated the war the Palaceans have instantly lost the initiative, they will never regain it...

Map Turn 250:



Next: The Palaceans surrender...

 

Turn 251-264 The Palacean War...

The Palaceans do Not want to surrender and are very quickly building more Warships...
The Sulak fleet is not that Large but will soon grow to more then double its size, some from construction but many from the Palaceans themselves as captured and refitted vessels, allowing the Sulak to dominate Palacean space very quickly...

However the Palaeans have large populations and their colonys are protected by defensive shields and air defence systems, so it takes a large number of assault ships combined with a suitable number of bombers for the Sulak to make an impression, colonys are either destroyed and recolonised or captured whole by the assault fleet, at which point reinforcments will jump into the system, a new fleet is then formed and sent on its way to a new target...

In this way the Sulak rampage through the Palaceans worlds annihilating them one by one, first Klersoak then Oyaissic,Abroay Chuxuter and finally Zlet are captured or recolonised with Vrue Umia and Gau reduced to ashes never to rise again.
As the Fleet approaches Triobah the Palaceans though furious have a change of Heart and offer surrender, the Sulak accept with good grace...they now control 4 homeworlds...

Map Turn 264:



The End...

The Sulak Fleet Regroups and smokey casts his gaze towards the next aggressor...

As the Palacean War was ongoing the Federation have been busy building their fleets and attacking the Nova causing them serious damage, eventually they also attack the Cerric Sentinals, Sulak Vassels... this the Sulak will not tolerate.

On turn 268 they attack Sol what follows is a blitzkreig on the Federation, by turn 274 the Federation ceases to Exist... however Victory is achieved on turn 269 with the capture of Sol...

 

Conclusions...
Its become apparant that despite the restrictions on research that this makes little to no difference as the Sulak can compensate by other means, in particular by stealing tek from the other factions... but paying for it also balances the deficit out, this is aided by the pop growth...

Due to the long term stategy used, in particular CIV6 and the terraforming and building of worlds, the Sulak reach a breakthrough point usually about mid game.
This typically happens on these settings around turn 150-180 depending on the initial circumstances, beyond this point the game is not in doubt
and the Sulak will eventually succeed, though there are a lot of things that contribute to this...
In this particular game the turning point occured around the end of the second Draguul war turn 179... probarbly because CIV6 was being completed (or had been) on multiple worlds... this despite the weak Sulak Fleet.

The final game in this series will use increased setting for all factions with significant bonuses for the AI factions...