Hey, you got your Neptune in my Pride!

Already grasping for title straws…this does not bode well.

So, an interesting turn today! Here’s the map.

Really, that doesn’t tell much. However, the message I received earlier today does.

Orange…good ol’ Orange…sent me a note. It seems that Yellow has attacked him with, in his words, ‘sizable forces’. He’s wondering if I can render assistance. He also wants Weapons tech.

I explained that I’m not in position to attack in the South for the moment (more on my immediate plans in a bit). Honestly, since he can see my forces arrayed against him in defensive positions, he knows that I’m playing pure D in the South, so I’m not exactly lying for the moment.

I’m not without anything I can use, though. Honestly, if throwing Yellow aside means that I can concentrate on the North while everyone in the South slaps the shit out of each other, that’s to my benefit. So I’ve sent a message to Red, telling him that Yellow probably doesn’t have much in the way of reserves at the moment, so he should seize the opportunity to strike out. He has no other way to grow at this point, and he needs more resources if he’s going to hold up against Orange in the future. I also dangled the carrot of further tech exchanges to him if he were to need added firepower.

I’m also willing to sell guns to Orange. Since he can see my fleets, he knows that I have reserves (he will have noticed the carriers constantly reinforcing front line positions, and large ship fleets moving away from the border). He and I can’t fight each other because we’d be set upon by Yellow and Red the instant we did so. So I’ll sell him the guns…but he has to make it worth my while. If he sends me research first, cool. If he sends me a shitload of cash, even better…that’s money he can’t invest in Industry and Economy. If I see nothing, he gets nothing.

I switched my research over to Scanning, which let me see a bit further out in to the ether, including the Blue home star

70 SHIPS?! 70! And with an Industry rating of 6! Motherfucker. Of course, since he has a grand total of 109 ships, that means the rest of his empire will easily be ground in to dust, but…DAMN. One other sector has caught my attention.

That’s on my South eastern border. 28 ships across two stars with a combined 7 points of Industry? That’s a problem. Sure, he’s moved on Orange for now, but I don’t like a rival having that much shipbuilding capacity that close to my border. Sadatoni is going to need to be reinforced a bit. I could care less about Rrrog aside from its amusing name.

So yes, I shall let these three smack each other around for awhile while I consolidate and (hopefully) remove Dark Blue. I’d love to have his home star of Alshat. I don’t know if I mentioned this before, but if you take a star you take all of its developments as well. So having that much Industry and Economy added to the fold would not suck.

For this turn, I’m rushing two fleets North to commence the attacks towards Alshat. I’m also continuing to reinforce. There is a particular star in the East with almost as many Resource points as my home star, so I want that. I spent most of my money this round on Science…I need faster tech research. I’m going to need a sizable Weapons advantage to take down Dark Blue. Besides, arms dealers need good arms.