Does Miriam suck?

[bvanevery]

I cash in an Artifact at Free Drone Central.  This will make things easier.

I captured my 1st mindworm.  It's in Domai's southern continent.

Another one of Morgan's cities fell.

[bvanevery]

I research Fusion Power.  I also obtain Unified Field Theory from an Artifact.  Next turn I'll start The Theory of Everything in my capitol.  Most of my cities are building Fusion Labs.  When they finish, they will make offensive and garrison speeder fusion units.  Lal is so dead.  I won't make additional Formers as I have a pretty large fleet of them already.  But it may take some time for rails construction to catch up with my land invasion of Lal.

I also built a nuke.  I could cash it on The Theory of Everything, but I've noticed that if I run out of unit design slots and I don't have a nuke, then the game forgets that I ever made one.  Then when I go to Quantum or Singularity drives, I have to build one all over again.  I guess I have to keep a historical archive of nukes.  I'll call this one "Fat Boy".

I will keep a Build focus for now as Super Formers could be useful.  Then I think I'll switch to Discover to get The Living Refinery.

[bvanevery]

For some reason I'm capturing more mindworms now.  I've had +2 Planet for a number of turns.

[bvanevery]

I obtained 2 Artifacts way up north.  It will be a challenge to get them home safely.  I will need 2 more cities if I do so.

I keep getting more mindworms, including my 1st Isle of the Deep now.

[bvanevery]

A 3rd Artifact obtained.  More mindworms.  Sheesh!

[bvanevery]

MORE!  Now need 4 cities.

[bvanevery]

Lal produced a Cruiser from nowhere and sank one of my Transports with an Artifact.  This is the 1st time I've seen him with any ships in the water really, and it's not within ready reach of his sea bases.  Gotta wonder about cheating.

And yet I find another Artifact!  AAAARGGH!!

I also want to call attention to an extraordinary escape from Certain Mindworm Death, by an Elite Trance Synthmetal Garrison.  He captured a mindworm as he attempted to fight his way out of the ring.  Due to the Xenoempathy Dome, he was able to move 3 squares north of the center of the ring, and has the captured mindworm as a shield against further attacks.  Pretty sweet.

I had a research breakthrough and got Organic Superlubricant.  Not sure how many turns that saved me.

[bvanevery]

Another Artifact.

The idea of a long rail to Lal's city is nice, but it's not getting done.  Every time I found a new city to cash in an Artifact, I have to use Formers to work its lands.  I started to make a bunch of Trained Gas Tachyon Speeders this turn, but I'm realizing it'll be tedious to manually push them all the way to Lal.  I can either push lots of Formers or push lots of Speeders.  It might as well be Formers until a rail is actually done.

Domai figured out Fusion Power.  I'm working on new garrison units for the field, and I'm about to finish the land bridge to my continent.  I will put 1 additional city out there to secure my border.  To be honest I've toyed with him.  I wiped out his units as best I could with my Copters until he had too many AAA units.  I lost a couple of Copters as a result.  I had a few of his cities vacant but I didn't want them.  Nor am I willing to commit atroicities against humans.

[bvanevery]

Morgan strafed my new Artifact.  I don't think the area was as dangerous when I first came to it.  I wish Morgan would spend more time defending his cities that are getting destroyed in the Monsoon Jungle.  At least I've extracted more Artifacts than I've lost.

I've completed my land bridge to Free Drone Central.  I don't have a full rail or a new city built yet though.

[bvanevery]

Sunspots ended.

Domai still wants money!  At least he's stronger than he used to be, but I'm still messing up his offensive units with mere fission Choppers.  Haven't even tried to fight him.  However I do need tougher picket units against his fusion R-Laser speeders.

Notice the completed land bridge and land claim city, left of Domai's dialog box.  Free Drone Central is underneath the dialog box.

An artifact yielded N-Matter Compression.  I've started a Tectonic Fusion Missile.

Morgan and I signed a Truce.  Then I stole my Artifact back from him!  Isn't that cool?  I thought it would have been destroyed by his air attack.

[bvanevery]

Using a convoy of 4 ships, I bring 2 Artifacts from the waters between Santiago and Lal, to my home port.  And remarkably, I've got a 3rd Artifact coming.  Chained Transport movement can be very fast.

I pop them both.  Time to switch to Discover!  I begin the Pholus Mutagen.

[bvanevery]

Founding the next base needed for an Artifact, I got a Bureaucracy warning.  I'm already at +4 Efficiency.  I can't do any better without Cybernetic becoming available.  I don't need new cities if I gain The Universal Translator, or if I pop every pod on the map.

[bvanevery]

Morgan goes back to war with me.  That didn't last very long.

Using another multi-ship convoy, I pop another Artifact and gain Photon armor.

[bvanevery]

I research Hovertanks.  9 years until my next research, with a 50% research budget.  Yes, for a faction of my power, I do lag technologically.

[bvanevery]

I complete the rail to the Manifold Nexus and finally begin serious work on the rail to Lal.  Boy this has taken awhile!  I've got Hovertank Super Formers coming imminently.  Plus they come off the assembly line Elite.