And the bad times continue to roll for the humans. They're only hope is to jump to the other side of a warp point and try to stage an ambush.
What are the chances that the Rehorish and D'Bringi call it good and block off the jump point from their end with super heavy minefields and dedicated weapons platforms?
Their original goal was to break into the Solar System and conquer Earth. Earth, with its very large population, is the prize they both want. However, it is becoming increasingly clear to me that the limitations I have placed on this game are having some unexpected effects. I have reduced population growth, the rate of tech advancement, and shipyard construction speeds. This has reduced the rate of increase of fleet sizes and forced caution on the races, because heavy losses are hard to replace. I expected that. However, most of the races in the game started with fortifications in their home system but no where else, and since fortifications, and the capability to build them outside your home system, are time consuming to build, that hasn't changed for the most part. The result is that most race's home systems are fortified, and given their reluctance to suffer serious losses, there is a natural reluctance to initiate an assault into a warp point known to be relatively heavily defended. This kind of naturally results in a situation exactly like the D'Bringi-Human war, where the allied alien races rampage throughout the human's colonial areas, but are reluctant to attack the human's home system. I suspect that should the situation be reversed, and the humans manage to reach the D'Bringi home system, that they will be in a similar situation.
It should be noted that the decrease in pop growth also means that the home systems still produce the lion's share of the race's income even though it is turn 115. For example, the USSR's current income is approximately 55% that of the Coalition, which sounds bad, but when you remember that they have been effectively reduced to the Solar System, they aren't that bad off. Over time it would be disastrous, of course, but for the short term they can rebuild and come back with an income like that, especially when their enemies are at the end of a long supply line. All of the races in the game are like that, with their home systems producing 50-75% of their total income. No race in the game has a colony with over 250 PU's. For those that don't know, a medium population of 400 or more population units is considered necessary to do all sorts of things. Anything smaller than that is considered a small population and is limited in the actions it can take.
The upshot is, the alien alliance want the Solar System badly, but committing to an assault against suspected heavy defenses is a big move, and they will certainly suffer serious losses. Such a move has to be approved by the home world by both major allies. In the alternative, cutting off the human's home world is certainly an option, however, it will take time to prefab fixed defenses and get mobile construction units to the Duril system to begin emplacing them.
This war has exposed weaknesses on all sides. Those that survive will be moving to remedy those weaknesses. Dedicated assault ships, and minesweepers, will be a big priority. Empire-wide communications networks as well, along with repair ships that can support the mobile fleets. The ability to place fortifications in forward positions, as needed. All of the pre-war fleets focused solely on building warships and ignored all of that stuff.
Kurt
