Are you MAN ENOUGH to CONQUER THE GALAXY? Let's Play Space Empires V!

[Geminex]

Space... the final frontier.
Only not really. It's final, yes, but it's less of an unexplored, mysterious frontier and more a very large battleground. Well, ok, there's politics and economics and attempts to maintain a good relationship with 14 different races, but primarily space (or our galaxy, anyway) is just a very large, very empty stage, ready for any race which so wishes to rise up and conquer it. It's not something to be explored, it's just a vacuum, waiting to be filled with power struggles and ambition and battleships exploding after being strafed by a vast fleet of fighter-bombers.

It is in such a galaxy that Space Empires deposits us into. We control a planet, populated by a race with several traits and our task is to colonize planets, travel between solar systems via very convenient warp points, do research and develop new technologies, spy on our foes, build fleets, enter into treaties, invade our enemies and in the end subjugate them 'neath our mighty military, metaphoric, but nonetheless unpleasant jackboot of power.
Basically all the things that the Empire would have been doing had Palpatine not been overcompensating for something.

Yes, the narrative will be full to the brim with pop-culture references, but seriously, what do I have to work with?

I've already got the initial post written up, but before we start I'd like to give our participants some starting choices...

We'll start as humans, on earth, probably with a fairly socialist government. However, we can also choose a couple of other traits and abilities that are unique to our race, and influence our proficiencies and abilities. I won't let you choose every single trait, but I'll give you a few choices...

Shall we be highly militarised? A society of berserkers, whose sole purpose is battle? We look down on research or covert operations, seeking only success in battle, seeing the clash of warship against warship as the highest form of art? Basically Spartans, only with spaceships. And there's a lot more than 300 of them. We'd be fairly expansionary and agressive, I think, without too much theoretical research.

Or how about a sneaky, backstabbing, covert empire? Our intelligence complexes would allow us to sabotage, spy, and entirely screw up our foolishly honorable foes' empires. We would retreat from combat, the brute, barbaric option, preferring mines and remote controlled drones to do our bidding while we sit and watch our enemies despair. The closest analog I can come up with is the Hutts, though we'd be considerably more handsome.

Or, of course, there's the empire of intellectual researchers. Planet upon planet, filled with research complexes, allowing us to access the greatest of technologies. Chemistry, Physics, none would keep their secrets from us! We have a galaxy worth of knowledge at our disposal, we would merely have to use it!
We'd be military minimalists, lacking in agression... Though of course, eventually there would be conflict... and then we would see whether the secrets of nature and science wouldn't also make for quite effective guns...


Personally, I'd go for the first or the last... But it's your decision. Whatever you decide will also influence the decisions we make, whether to ally or fight, whether to invade or retreat, whether to sacrifice one ship in favor of saving the fleet...

The game takes place in one-month increments, starting at 2400 AD, but I'll be posting events, not as time passes. I'm not sure how frequently I update, but I'll try to stop this thread from sinking beneath the murky depths of the games forum. I'll usually post in-character, as Geminex, lord of the UFNUN (to be explained), and I will have a council to assist me in managing our great empire, helping me make those great decisions that may lead us to greatness or doom us all. Use this responsibility wisely. Or not, whichever you’d prefer. I’ll control our tactical situations myself, but I’ll turn to you whenever I feel a strategic issue has come up... I’ll also let you decide what research we undertake. Should be fun.

The AI isn’t too great in this game, so I’ll be playing with a series of self-imposed limits, mostly regarding what mechanics I can and can’t use to make life easier for us. But regardless of that...

Gentlemen... (And, of course, those ladies among you which deem themselves man enough)...
This struggle won’t be easy. We’ll lose a few battles. Take setbacks. Perhaps, if the AI’s really been improved since the last patch, even come close to defeat. But we shall persevere, and we shall triumph, and we shall watch our enemies strongholds burn ‘neath our orbiting fleet.
Ladies and Gentlemen...
Let’s Conquer.
Let’s Play.