That is not dead which can eternal lie (Strellaris AAR)

[Jynks]

While we are waiting for our fleet to upgrade we finally colonise Cipux. This again takes us over out core world limit and it is time to set up a new sector. This time we are going to make it a sector to pump out Research and it will be known as The Great Hall Of Celeano. In the sector creation I also add a few more planets to The Great Bird Cage. Now due to the opaque nature of how sectors handle influence for now I have chosen to leave out of Celeano the 2nd influence draining outpost Vijimar. This might not be necessary but I want to make sure I am not draining to much influence from the sector, so I usually aim for 1 outpost per sector if I can. At the time of Stellaris v1.03 (4816) some people consider spamming outposts in sectors to be an exploit but I think this influence drain is the reason why many people think the sector AI is broken, as a sector can not upgrade properly without influence to spend.

We have had some idle time on our core world development as well as our construction ships as I want some decent funds to drop into the sector to aid with its development.

Unfortunately we are at our total leader cap. Krang only has reduction in cost and time for removing blockers. This can be a big help in late game but we nearly have no block remove techs. So what we are going to do here is fire this guy and try to get either a bonus research governor or a bonus slave output governor. I have a pool of near 330 influence and will be willing to hire and fire a few times to get the right guy.

Should be noted btw that the Sector Governor no XP gain bug is with us, as Krang is still zero xp : (

We fire Krang and our first set of Governors are all useless, luckily 2 of them are eager and 33% cheaper to hire. I hire and then immediately fire Othuyeg.

Othuyeg is replaced by Ghatanothoa. He has a good trait, the + food production and -cost on food tiles. The thing is though that we have a 3 star governor with this trait and there is still a 33% cheaper eager guy we can hire and fire and hope we get someone good.

With Sebek gone we finally get a good governor turn up. He has the build trait and this will really help with getting the sector up and running for a lot less minerals. So we snap him up.

Just out of curiosity we see who is next, if it had been a slave driver we may have gotten him regardless of the cost, but it is just another block clearer. What we started with when we first started the hiring process.

We add Zoth to The Great Hall Of Celeano and Nctolhu, who has been on homeworld this whole time to The Great Bird Cage.

1st, of course making sure that the removal of the food bonus from homeworld dosn't trigger a famine.

As before we set it to ignore tile icons and put it to full tax as well as dumping a sizeable development fund for the sector to get off the ground. The sector will focus on Research.

 

[Jynks]

While quing the Hall Of Celeano's orbital constructions I notice that there is a Pre-Warp civilisation at Nicanda.

I want to have direct control of this race as we uplift it over the course of the game, so I remove its star from The Great Hall as well as placing down a Observation Outpost.

I also move my main fleet into strike range.

Once our fleet is in position we send out demands. I've decided to enslave these guys as well.

We leap in and go for their warp gate

We meet little resistance. This usually means they are entering our space somewhere.

Sure enough a 1K stack has entered Thun space (our vassals). I'm assuming they will try to defend their own territory but they will need help.

I split my fleet and send the Servents of Glaaki to help. While putting the the Tendril of Nyogtha around the planet.

The Resh are waiting for this and quickly move their stack back to defend the bombardment. I still have my own 1K fleet but The Servants of Glaaki are about 1/2 way to Thun when they get the call to turn around and head back.

The Servants of Glaaki are still 1 jump from us when the battle commences.

Even with a even fleet stack, we are hopelessly out matched and by the time the Servants of Glaaki are back to reinforce the Tendril of Nyogtha we have lost nearly 700 power.

At the very last moments the Servents of Glaaki strike hard pulling much of the focus form the Tendril of Nyogtha. I watch the battle closely with the Tendril of Nyogtha selected, ready to hit that retreat button if needed.

We manage to win fairly cleanly once the Servants of Glaaki arrived with the survivors of the Thun fleets, along with some reinforcements form our shipyards that have been in constant production the entire time.

We bombard the planet and when the defences are lowered invade.

After consolidating the fleets under the Tendril of Nyogtha and after sending the most injured home for repair we move to the next system....

.... but before we can engage the surrender comes through.

During the war we also made contact with a few new species. I've marked them on the map and placed a dot of the same colour on their dialogue screen. The red mark is the newly acquired territory.

 

[Jynks]

We are forced to make a new sector to hold the newly acquired planets. We are going to enslave these guys and the guys below it as well, creating a large slaver belt that covers the entire lower side of our main empire. This will make the entire right side of the map buffered. Even if they revolt or are freed by another alliance there is plenty of room for us to respond before they get to our more important sectors. It will also mean that there is a bit of space we can expand into below that will take us to the edge of the galaxy which we can be 100% certain that we will not run into anyone.

The sector is called "The Temple of Ig" and this is going to be a slave sector as well so we set the focus to minerals but due the fact we are so low on resources after the war that we do not have the funds to input into the sector economy to get the thing up and running. So for now we set it to 0 Tax.

We are still maxed out on leaders, badly needing the increased leader capacity tech. We basically have 2 choices if we want to get a new sector commander. Either remove a scientist and therefore a science ship, or remove one of the Admirals and switch to a more DoomStack orientated fleet setup.

Deciding to retire Admril Ghatnothoa or Science Officer Yorith is a hard choice, but ultimately I think the Admiral is more expandable. Yorith has the Survey speed increase skill and there is still a ton of that to be done. Meanwhile we know that occasionally we get Admirals being promoted from within the navy. So in a way they are easier to replace. Also after the next war there will be a prolonged period of peace as I get everything back into order. The reduction to fleet upkeep will be a major factor as we will have to greatly invest in out fleet due to our horrid slavery practices.

Through another sequence (like before) of hiring and immediately firing all the available "cheaper" leaders we find Rhan-tegoth. He is a slaver and provides a +15% to slaver mineral and food output. Score. We move him to The Great Bird Cage and put the displaced Nctolhu in charge of the new sector. We really want a double slaver for these areas.,

It turns out that uplifting a race is not allowed by our ethics type, so instead I switch to aggressive study and then add this area to the Great Hall Of Celeano.

Also boarder range has extended us out a little more so we add a some those newly acquired planets to their respective sectors.

Finally we split the main fleet sending all the wounded back for repairs, while at the same time consolidating all the ready units in a single stack. Then we send the Tendril of Nyogtha down to Hiamit ready for the final expansionist push for a while.

Once we build our Star Gate and also assemble the fleet, after repairs... we are ready to add the last set of slaves for the time being to our empire.

The Cynn United Nations has allied with the the United Celimy of Planets. Even so I do not think this will perlong the war to much.

We move directly to the Cynn homeworld. Our tactics remain the same as the last two invasions.

We take out their space station and Star Gate and then begin bombardment.

The war is quickly done with....

The new slaves are divided between out slave sectors....

Finally we need to grab these guys... but we will vassal them. The problem is we have a non-aggression treaty with them for now.

 

[Jynks]

I'll be having some trouble updating this post for a while.... sorry guys.

 

[BPM]

No Worries Jynks. This is great by the way!
Good luck fixing whatever it is that needs fixing

 

[CorruptedSanity]

I thought this was a particularly strange research window, what with 7 static tech that will not go way.

Hah, that looked normal to me for a moment... Then I realized that I'm used to playing an Illuminated Technocracy with +2 research alternatives.