Pride & Neptune & Me

The continuing adventures of Cliff flailing around in space and trying desperately not to be the first bastard to die!

Let’s take a look at the map, which isn’t really markedly different from last time.

Dark blue, now under AI control, is expanding East. Shit. Hopefully it’s expanding stupidly and not defending itself. Purple hasn’t actually moved in on me, I’ve just moved right up against it. I think shit’s about to get real in the South, where Orange, Yellow and Red are almost at a point where any further expansion is going to have to come through one another.

As for my position, my economic investment is really paying off. I had significantly more capital to re-invest back in to Industry and more Economy this round, plus build a couple of carriers to help sweep reinforcements to the front lines, and to the North. Also, Red sent me some Range tech this round, and that helped immensely. Being able to make a long trip in one jump in 20 hours, instead of moving waypoint to waypoint to waypoint in 3 days, is a huge bonus.

I’m consolidating my defence to meaningful stars that I’ve actually developed. There’s no point using up a fleet of 18 ships as just a picket force for a star with virtually no resources, and that has no value at all to anyone (including me).

Actually, I’m not doing too badly. Orange is clearly in the lead with 37 stars, but I’m in 2nd with 20. If I can smack down Dark Blue or Purple in the near future, I’m in good shape. However, I am purposely keeping the brakes on enough that I’m not the prime concern for those South of me. If they start thinking I’m the Big Bad in this universe, I’m screwed.

I have enough forces to form a solid defence against attack from the South and West, and also to continue expanding in the North, and to possibly attack Purple in the Northeast (my focus is still Dark Blue straight North, though. Let Dark Red expend forces going through Purple before he comes to me).

Oh, both Brad (Qikdraw) and the infamous Tim Brown (via Twitter) have expressed an interest in playing this at some point in the future. Anyone else interested? What I can do is set up a time when you guys can be waiting, then create a public game, and hopefully we can all pile in before it fills up.

One of the benefits to paying in is the ability to set up Private games. I’m actually enjoying this enough that I may consider it if the price is reasonable. I’ll be looking in to that tonight.