By Brandon “Kushan” Johnson, July 17, 2014

Disclaimer: This part contains story spoilers.

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And right at the start I run into the Yirphunea Supremacy whose primary race is the insectoid Dhayut. These guys don’t like me very much. I currently have several advantages over the Yirphunea Supremacy:  I have five colonies to their two, a population of 18 million to their 10 million, and a higher military strength.

And another empire is contacted, the Ancient Guardians. Naturally they like me, but they warn me not to enter their home system of Horcecani. Like I have any clue where it’s located….

the Ancient Guardians have a warning for me…..

Stay away from unknown monuments? Like that’s going to happen.

An independent planet who is friendly towards me. I don’t currently have the resources to build a colony ship to claim it , but I’ll make it a priority. Colonizing, or invading, independent planets offers a much quicker return on investment than colonizing a planet with no population.

Didn’t the Ancient Guardians warn me against investigating unknown ruins?

They did warn me.

I get the unfortunate survey ship out of the system, and   send it off to the next system on the list. I’ll bring it back later and hopefully the pirates will have moved on.

A bug fleet admiral? Not much help at the moment since my entire combat fleet consists of three ships.

I’m going to start running out of resources if I don’t get mining stations built soon. I could have pirates smuggle it in for me, but with a negative cash flow I’m going to hold off for the moment. To get bases up and running quicker, I’ve decided to overrule the AI automation and build a second construction ship.

While on this screen I also notice the AI has already assigned colony ships to both the independent Ugnari planet and another uninhabited planet. With only three ships in my fleet and facing possible resource shortages, I wish the AI had put colonization as a lower priority, but I’m not going to overrule it.

It’s a very rare luxury resource. Unfortunately the planet is way outside my sphere of influence. After I get my required resource bases established, this becomes a top priority.

Next time: more base building, more exploring, and maybe some successful spy action.

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