My second opponent has made their appearance.

These guys expand well in the early game so I tend to meet them earlier on.

This changes the strategic calculus a lot. I am obviously going to try and keep the Klocks as sweet as possible and leave them room to expand (if they ever get around to it) to the west. We’re on the south border and the Silicoids are to the north.

So it’s a land grab northwards (hopefully without pissing off the Silicoids. Any war is deadly for me) and expansion eastwards until I meet up with whoever is out there.

Year 3487

The Klocks have doubled their world count to six after trading for Irridium Fuel Cells with me. What worries me is I have enough worlds now to start getting the penalty for “Their empire is too large” with both my opponents.

Year 3497

It seems I’m going to hit a point I have to ask myself – do I stop expanding solely because the AI’s are going to have too big a diplomatic penalty ? I don’t want to do that, nor do I see a victory path that includes that kind of tactic. I don’t know.

Year 3509

The Psilons make their appearance. They are at least as big as the Silicoid empire..

Year 3520

Everything but the East is closed off to me. I’m very confident some empire is lurking just a few systems away.

Year 3530

Irradiated Colony is finally discovered, waiting a few turns for about half the colony ships to arrive at stars and will scrap the remainder.

Year 3536

I scrap my colonizers and my scouts, leaving the outdated fighters. Time to fill in the last few worlds and keep moving east – the east nebulas are making that pretty difficult.

So – what happened to getting my butt kicked ?