I didn't lose the last game, but the writing was on the wall.  So I conceded defeat.

Awww, was looking forward to a final stand with Kona. Oh well, version 2.0 may develop just as well!

I dunno, he seemed to be outclassed - in technology, weapons, hulls, manufacturing, everything.  When you've squat and Lord Kona holds everything, you may as well pull the plug.

The Hyadea system, discovered by my survey ship here, is a particularly good system with a class 10 and 11.

Yggdradill I is finally colonised:

Damn that's a difficult name to wrap my head around.  It's a good things I can rename my colonies to whatever I like.

Anyway, it's not very remarkable as you can see, but the tiles are going to come in handy, and I need it to colonise the other planets in the system.

I also make contact with the LMT Corporate, who have snuck a colony onto one of the worlds in Iconian space:

It's only a class 5 so at the moment it's not exactly much of a steal for them.

I have now made contact with both the Thalans and Korx, although without the UT we may as well be saying ooble bibble bobbletoph to each other.

In light of the number of viable planets, I have increased military spending for a bit so that Earth can produce a colony ship every three turns.  I'm running a loss of 49 bc per week, which will increase by roughly 10bc per colony settled, plus any expenses (like building colony ships for in-system colonisation).  Taxes are currently set at 29% in order to facilitate growth, and there isn't really a lot of point in increasing them until I have a population to tax.

Oh yeah and another thing.  That wasn't Iconian space I was exploring, it was the Korx's.  Just disovered their homeworld:

Poseidon I is an even better place to set up a research outpost:

One of my scouts finds another system with multiple habitable words, one of which is extreme environment:

I have a colony ship available at Earth to go right now, so I send it to the class 11 and brace myself for another ethical choice.

As I colonise Angulus II (I renamed the system that because it's stuck in a corner) I have to make another ethical choice:

Talk about underwhelming.  A Precursor workshop that only offers a 5% production bonus at best?  No thanks.

Angulus II has a manufacturing bonus tile, and a farming bonus tile, so it's not too shabby:

Also, because there's a moon in orbit, I get a 10% bonus to manufacturing anyway.

The cost of all my colonies makes it impossible to keep going like I have been.  I dial back production to a very low rate so that I can recover:

I also make contact with the Altarians and discover Torian space:

Given that you're still losing money, I question whether dialing back production was a smart idea, particularly when it slows down the research of an economy tech.

Looks like the Arceans are once again the last race to show themselves.

Edit: Never mind, didn't see the last post.

In the second week of 2228, I make contact with the Akilians as my survey ship explores Torian space:

Since I've only encountered one of their scout ships, I should try and look for their homeworld.

Actually I find the Dark Yor instead:

For some reason they don't feel like contacting me.  Maybe it's because they think I'm really stupid for not having invented Universal Translator during my first whole year of running an interstellar empire.  Or perhaps they're too busy plotting evil things to notice my survey ship as it flies by.

My exploration of Yor space eventually reveals their homeworld:

Colonisation of Angulus II is free of ethical dilemmas:

Although the planet has no fancy bonus tiles, it has a bit of potential for improvement.

New Iconian, home of the Iconian Refuge, is hemmed in by my empire, the Drengin, the Torians and Thalans:

Definitely not a position I would like to be in, anyway.

I'm finally able to afford to put some decent funding in research:

I will need to get some economic structures up and running as well, but I'm going to wait until I at least have Xeno Research done, then I can put some funding in Social and get the labs done at the same time as the Adv. Market Centres.

The second meeting of the United Planets puts to a vote the issue of starbase taxation in foreign sectors:

Although I'm not the only one to vote for taxation, the majority of the vote is against tax.  I think it was quite close.

The Iconians and Thalans are first to develop their military might.  I receive messages from Emperor Iso the Wise regarding payment for peacekeeping.  I flatly decline, since what he's asking for is actually beyond my ability to give.  I've had no such communication from Hithesius, but it's probably going to be any day now.

In the interests of peace, I open up a trade route with the Iconians, and this improves our relations:

I don't know how long things will stay that way, but I always have the option of purchasing ships like I did last time.

The reason I didn't just do that right away?  Ah, well one of the reasons I haven't been flying up the tech tree is because I've been putting a bit of effort into building this:

Now that I have the Diplomatic Translators, I'll have a bit more of an edge at the negotiating table, which is always handy when buying military hardware.

Having brought spending back to 1M:49S:50R, the colony output looks like this:

Because Poseidon I has the best and juiciest research tiles, I'm going to build my Tech Capital there.

I've managed to establish three trade routes so far:

They're not especially lucrative, but I've been able to avoid passing them through those empires that are likely to declare war on me.

I've also started to fund the recruitment of spies, so that I'll be able to stay informed about how the other races are doing.

Also for those of you posting AARs or thinking about doing so, having taken a look at how much memory Firefox eats while I have this topic open and still playing the game, I've used some of the tips posted here to keep my RAM usage down.  Especially the Trim on Minimise one.  It's a pretty old article, but it worked so, not complaining.

It's another exciting random event:

When I read this, for sure I thought that one of my colonies would have signed up.  My approval isn't as low as it got in my last game, but I'm lacking any kind of morale resource.  Fortunately, none of my colonies joined the I-League.

Following the completion of Xeno Entertainment, I have the choice of going for Xeno Industrial Theory, or Soil Enhancement:

While it's tempting to just ignore XIT and keep going along the trunk, it does unlock mining starbase modules, and thanks to my constructor rush, I have managed to secure four galactic resources - two influence, one research, and one economy resource.  I would be passing up some ability points that I could really use at this early stage of the game!

Meanwhile, I'm going to start building Xeno Farms and Multimedia Centres where I need them.

I face another ethical dilemma:

If I trade these stolen goods for their freedom, they're just going to go back to what they've been doing.  However, if my interrogators can get the information out of them so that the stolen goods can be located and returned, I'm sure the other empires will be very grateful.  So I have even more reason to learn this information, but no reason at all to let them go.

Intelligence reports have come back on the Drengin and Arcean empires:

Interestingly enough, it seems that the Arceans are no longer using the War Party that I set them up with, but are instead run by an Industrialist government now.

The Drengin will be one to watch out for again.  With a 50% bonus to weapons (I don't know how they got that while only gaining a small bonus to Defence) they will have an advantage over many of the races.