It's the beggining of a new Dawn for the Galaxy. We, humans, have decided to share our new discovery of the hyperdrive to all, only to see that everybody wants now to abuse it, in order to dominate it's neighboors...
We send a few billion peoples away in colony ships, and take some planets here and there, within range of Earth. However, a benevolent race named the Iconians colonized Mars before we had the time to take it. It's simply a big rock, so no great loss... However, that big rock is right on the doorstep of our Homeworld. We take a strategic world that is at the exact center of the 4 Iconian Worlds.. but since our new friends aren't a threat, why plan an invasion?
Because the real treath is out there. Quickly, ships of incredibly high technology spawns and attack our bases, our ships, our peoples. Iconians tells us they are called the Dread Lords. As highly developped they are, we can exploit a major flaw: their ships aren't protected, and they work in solo (for now). 5 of our ships can destroy 1 of theirs, but with heavy losses...
We meet the Thalan and the Arcean, and begin to trade with our 3 good and gentles neighboors. The Arceans are right on the doorsteps of the Dread Lords, and they try to survive. Even if they regulary take a beating, their technological prowesses are incredible compared to the rest of the galaxy... Except us. But we don't try to develop new weapons as much as everybody else... Our civilian infrastructure makes our people happy and rich, so why bother...?
After some time, and some Dread Lord attacks, we begin to fall behind in term of production. We focused too much on technology and money, and we can't work on as many ships as we would like to resist the Dread Lords...
Our intelligence Agents tells us the Iconians Homeworld (strangely named "new" Iconia) is producing as much as our ENTIRE Empire combined. It would be a good way to regain some standing among the rest of the Galaxy.. and unite them to beat the Dread Lords...
The Basic Fighter M5 is way cheaper than it's predecessor, the B4. And these 2 were much, much quicker and more powerful than their ancestors, the B1, G2 and B3. The M5 is much more powerful than the Iconian's standard fighter, equipped with shields and beam weaponry. M5 stands for "Missile- 5th fighter generation", so our fleet can pierce their defences quite easily. But their fleet outnumber ours by 4-1. Even, in the precedent Dread Lord attack, the Iconian moved it's fleet to defend Mars, so half of their troops is REALLY near Earth and our other Core Worlds...
Our engineers creates the Guardian M-B 1. It's a powerful Frigate, equipped with Subspace Repulsor, a shield technology our.. ethician came up with. With 2 Harpoon Battery (graciously bought from the Drengins), our analyst predicted it could resist much, much, much firepower from the Iconians.
Where our strategiy against the Dread Lords was to build all-attack fighters (with 110 beam attack rating, you don't try to defend!), the Iconians had ships with only 2 or 3 or 4 beam attack rating, so the Guardian will prevail...
Our first Guardian is fielded, and while nearly all our attack fleet (10 fighters + 2 Basic Transports) (save the 5-fighter Garnison protecting a Dread-Lord target) is in position to strike directly at New Iconia, in order to capture all that mighty Production Power, our Core Worlds are left defenceless, save the Guardian + 2 fighters. 3 Ships against.. 25...
We plan to delay the Iconian's attack fleet while our 10 fighters try to capture New Iconia. Since they haven't fielded any transport, the plan might work... Might..
All will be ready in 3 weeks. We simply have to wait for the last fleet to be in position... When our supersensors detect something INCREDIBLE:
ALL of the Iconian fleets near Mars are put into refit. 25 ships are SITTING DUCK! It's an opportunity that will only show up once, and we send the Guardian + 2xFighters in, declaring and official state of war...
The Guardian is the only ship escaping from this rampage... In 1 week, 3 ships destroyed half of the Iconian's fleet...
Luckily for us, because the 10 fighters we fielded to attack the Iconian Homeworld failed to pierce their defence. However, we vanquished nearly 20 fighters before our last ship exploded. Our transports retreat..
At this time, only the Guardian stands before an all-out attack from the Iconians. Our good Merchants won't let our empire down. After meetings, market evaluation and NPV analysts, we sell a quarter of our technologies to alien species. Most of these are soldering techs, that will probably put to good use against the Dread Lords, and economic or PQ techs.
We gather 10 000 BC, which we invest 80% to private corportations in order to build 5 Guardians PRESTO.. Now, our Guardian has a powerful 7-1 kill ratio... Even more when grouped.
After 3 more months, the Iconian Refugees surrender to us. But we haven'T heard of the Dread Lords in a while... We put our Guardians in garnison, and begin to rebuild our Fighter fleet, the only thing useful against these Technological Titans..
(For those who doubted the value of defencive techs!)
(I am playing this game on a Large galaxy, "Dread Lords on Parade", sandbox game. There are anomalies I noticed:
- The Iconian gets angry when I gather fleet near Earth, which is also near one of his own planet, Mars. He should understand that I want to protect myself, no?
- The Akilians signed a peace treaty with the Dread Lords, WTF?
- The Iconian should not have refitted ALL their fleet at once. Especially when they haven't protected them...)
