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.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Alpha Centurai taught me that science factions are broken as shit so we should do the opposite- savage berserkers.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

I feel a cross between options 1 and 3 would be suitably awesome. Yes, we will charge headlong into battle and crush our foes with overwhelming might, backed up with technology created by the greatest minds in the Empire. Basically I want Space Marines ala 40K.

Cries of "For the Emperor!", are mandatory.

[Corel]

This is like the argument of who would win in a fight; astronauts or cavemen?

No diplomacy, just primal rage.

[Krylo]

MORE DAKKA!

[Vauron]

The University shall stand triumphant, bestriding the cosmos over the broken corpses of what had once been mighty star empires. Find some way to weaponise black holes and in general focus on a strategic scale damage. (I.e. obilterate their worlds, and their ships will eventually break down without support)

[Ravashak]

Go covert, steal what you can, manipulate where needed, and run like a little girl when they send a little fighter at your Titan size warship xD

[Geminex]

Sad thing is, the fighter would probably win. Fighters in this game have huge evasion and quite a lot of damage. Plus, half of all weapons can't be aimed at them. I'm thinking of going without fighters entirely, but that'd cause me to lose out on an all your base reference... So I'll probably just go without giving them armor. But anyway...

@Vauron: It actually is possible to do that! Unfortunately the research cost for that shit is so high that you'd need a galaxy full of high-level research complexes churning away for a year before you get anything useful. Still, we could do something along the lines of "sabotage enemy infrastructure".

It's possible, using intelligence, to incite enemy planets into revolt and make them switch sides. Align with you, even. I've never done it, but it's happened to me, and it's really annoying, since you get no resources from the planet and need to land ground troops to retake it.
Alternately, it's possible to give ships stealth modules. Makes them hard to detect. Put that on a transport ship, maybe add a cruiser for escort and you have an invasion fleet that can capture or glass (bombard from space, killing everyone) planets behind the enemy lines.
...
Of course, should our enemy have built weapons platforms we'd be screwed, since we'd almost definetly be shot out of the sky.

Anyway, I'm inclined to go with the highly militarised empire. We'd have some (read: probably quite a lot, depending on how many planets we colonize) ability in research and intelligence of course, just we wouldn't focus on either and use them more to support our military conquests than making them the focus of our empire.
And, of course, we'd declare war on anyone and everyone.

[Melfice]

Equal military, research and intelligence.
I'd tip the scale toward research, actually, but just slightly.

Be aggressive in the beginning to settle in, then make the statement "alliance or death" (I know that's not really possible, but you know. Offer it, and if they refuse, you wage war).

All ship-classes to be named after the nations of Earth? Sound good?
Unless we're not playing humans. Or custom-create humans, at least.
... wait, shit. Are humans even in this game? It's been aeons since I last played.

EDIT: And with everything near equality, of course I mean you only research the military stuff to install on our armadas.

[CABAL49]

Originally Posted by Smarty McBarrelpants

Alpha Centurai taught me that science factions are broken as shit so we should do the opposite- savage berserkers.

This.