Currently, one squad of Marines and one of Rangers. Aristos Achaion can recruit another squad of either in three turns, Dirus Ulixes in four, and Kuombi Saleh in five.

We also have energy reserves to recruit and equip two outright, but our economy is about to explode from our focus in Energy as we solidify economic relations with the four independent stations we are trading with. In three months, we'll have an income that could buy outright one new squad every three months - and only a quarter of that income would be threatened by war, as the other three are over oceans or through the Sea of Ares.

Also forgot an option:

MINOR DEFENSIVE - AIR SUPPORT, AKA PROJECT KENNY LOGGINS: Eight months spent researching Robotics would allow us to build aircraft that can be based in our cities or on carriers that PROJECT FORD gave us the ability to build. Each wing of aircraft would take the same amount of resources to construct as an infantry squad, carriers half again more. Nb: Robotics is also the first step of PROJECT TERMINATOR.

These wings would lose in a one-on-one fight with a squad of Marines or Combat Rovers (both of which the Africans have, from what we've seen) but let us choose our battles with impunity (as long as it's within range of a city or carrier) and the combined efforts of two wings would take down anything we've seen thus far.

Raw combat strength put to numbers:

Marines: 14
Rangers: 8 at range, 3 up close
Rovers: 12
Aircraft: 10
Gunboat: 16 at range

Our capital: Currently 31
Other cities: Currently ~21

PROJECT TOMAHAWK would increase city strength by 28, PROJECT STAR WARS by an additional 20.

 

It's name will be Oceanus - after Iskander's dream, after the ocean we conquered to make to where the end result of HEART OF DARKNESS stands.

I say we plant our standard and keep the ground we have taken. I balk at the thought of being cowed by the imagined claims of our adversaries on land they were obviously too slow to claim.

Possession is nine tenths of the law, and is the fact that Oceanus stands not proof that we possess it?

It's time to grow our fangs, gentlemen.

KENNY LOGGINS > PROJECT TERMINATOR > STAR WARS.

The greatest strength is always found in being well-balanced. With this plan, which grows organically from one into another, we will have forces in air, land and sea.

Additionally, research should begin towards COMPUTING when we have the time. That we do not know whether the Africans plan to attack is proof that it is high time to start work towards a Spy Agency.

 

Ares Marcotechnology is now officially on a war footing. Squad after squad of veterans of Earth wars are being unfrozen and equipped for combat, and our scientists have mothballed their current projects in favour of ones with more direct military applications.

April 2609: Military forces are spotted on our borders once more. This time, however, it's PAC's forces that are worryingly close, with squads seen south of Dirus Ulixes and Aristos Achaion.



May 2609: The leader of the PAC has approached us to negotiate military access. Naturally, we refused.



Oceanus has become a full-fledged city in it's own right, and once PROJECT KENNY LOGGINS is completed it will play host to our air force.

June 2609: The Africans have approached us, also asking for military access. At this point, my paranoia knows no bounds, and they too were denied.

We have made our first major foray back into space, with the launch of a satellite to clear the miasma in our territory. Our scientists predict the complete elimination of the substance within the year. We have also finalized improved trade relations with the independent stations, tripling our energy surplus in a stroke.

October 2609: PAC's forces continue to be a constant lurking presence on our borders, but they remain non-hostile. Africa too remains idle. As per the Senator's suggestion, we shall begin work on an intelligence agency to get to the bottom of this mystery once we complete PROJECT KENNY LOGGINS.

November 2609: PROJECT KENNY LOGGINS is completed, and construction has begun on our air force.

PAC's forced on our southern border have been reinforced with combat rovers.

January 2610: Our first aircraft have been built and have taken their maiden flights across the Sea of Ares. Possibly in the nick of time, as African forces have once again been sighted lurking just outside our borders.

March 2610: For the first time in known history, non-Ares military forces have entered the Sea of Ares. Work is continuing around the clock on the expansion of our air force.



April 2610: Tension continues to mount as PAC forces start to lurk on our northern border as well. I am beginning to suspect an alliance between the African and PAC forces.



May 2610: At last, a declaration of war! ...between the Kavithans and ARC. Still nothing but extremely worrying troop movements on our continent.

Construction of our intelligence agency has begun, as has PROJECT TERMINATOR.

June 2610: Despite our current plans to embrace cybernetics, our populace continues to embrace Earth culture, as the opening of a third Old Earth Museum leads to greater awareness of our heritage. While someone frustrating that they are not turning their attention to the future, this will allow us to use our past research into Genetic Design (part of PROJECT BREADBASKET) to open clinics dedicated to perfecting the human genome, stamping out a number of hereditary diseases among our employees and possibly solving the health issues that have been caused by our current overextension.

August 2610: Our intelligence agency has come online, and our spies have been dispatched to the capitals of the PAC and the African Union. We have also begun construction of a navy based in the Sea of Ares to provide fire support in case of any attack on Oceanus or Artistos Achaion.

October 2610: Reports of combat rovers lurking on the borders of Oceanus were almost discarded as business as usual before I noticed that they were Franco-Iberian. If somebody doesn't declare war soon I may snap.



December 2610: Once more PAC has sought military access to our lands, and once more have they been rebuffed.

February 2611: Our spy in PAC's capital is reporting a great deal of military activity near their capital.

March 2611: PAC's military is once again gracing our borders with their presence, and Franco-Iberia's has been parked in place for so long they're starting to grow roots. Fanfuckingtastic.

April 2611: Our magrail network now stretches the entire length of the Styx and beyond to Dirus Ulixes, greatly increasing our industrial output for the WAR THAT IS FOREVER COMING BUT NEVER QUITE ARRIVING.

May 2611: DO IT YOU FUCKS. DO IT. DO IT. DO IT ALREADY. IT'S BEEN TWO FUCKING YEARS. EITHER DECLARE WAR OR GET THE FUCK OFF MY LAWN.

July 2611: FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-



DECISION: Do we go back to a peace footing before the CEO loses his goddamn mind?

Current ETA on PROJECT TERMINATOR: Three years, though this will be reduced downwards upon the completion of the vast computer networks that were made possible by the same research that enabled our spy agency.

Current military: Two squads of marines, four of rangers, seven wings of tacjets, three gunboats.

Current intelligence: Africa continues to expand their military with the construction of additional combat rovers. The PAC is building a gunboat.



Author's note: So, what the fuck is going on?

From my experience with Civ 5 and this game, the AI has a two-step process for going to war. First, they internally decide to go to war and move forces to the target's border. Once their forces are in place, they re-assess before taking the final plunge. If their target's military has grown enough to tip the scales against war, or their neighbours are being threatening, or someone else looks like an easier target, or any one of a number of other factors, they may then decide not to declare war.

However, it's not a binary yes-or-no. If they decide against war, but there's no other pressing concern for their military to attend to, a lot of the time they'll keep their military right where it is just in case enough factors change for them to decide once more that they want to go to war.

 

I think it may be smart to stop the current military expansion and continue our expansion, maybe with a restart of plans Normandy or Brave New world. If we keep most of our soldiers stationed at the border we should be able to project enough military power to prevent hasty decisions on the AI part.

 

What are the build times for more units? Based on what you've seen of their forces, how many more would you need to be able to defend Oceanus against that potential assault while warring with PAC?

It looks like those tacjets and the squad of marines is enough for that - are four more tacjets, one squad of marines, and four squads of rangers enough to handle them? It looks like the tacjets are out of range, so I'm assuming no.

 

At this point I am confident we could win a defensive war against all three of Franco-Iberia, PAC, and the African Union. The Sea of Ares is an overwhelming advantage for us, as it allows us to bombard their units with our gunboats and rotate damaged tacjets to Kuombi Saleh to repair. Dirus Ulixes doesn't have the Sea of Ares advantage, but the canyons in the area create a pair of bottlenecks that would be trivial to fortify, especially since the magrails mean we can bring reinforcements from our capital damn near instantly.

Offensive war would be a whole other story if we kicked it off without further advancing our military, either through PROJECT TERMINATOR or through further advances along the path of Supremacy. Our military technology is more or less at parity with PAC's, meaning that on the offensive we'd have to overwhelm them with pure numbers - and without air support, as their cities would be outside the range of tacjets based in our cities, and I do not feel confident in being able to win a naval war when we'd only have the output of Dirus Ulixes to match against their capital and secondary city, especially since intelligence reports show they are currently expanding their fleet. I would estimate three to four years of total war, or two to three plus completely exhausting our energy reserves, before any of PAC's cities would start to fall.

Build times for all units are currently two to three turns in our capital, three to five elsewhere.

 

Alright then, fuck it. Erandil has it right - if Knight Errant's current forces can secure our borders that well, just bunker down and switch away from military production for now.


There is money to be made.

 

Agreed. We should switch our focus to improving the frankly deplorable health of our citizens. A pharmalab and cytonursery in each city should alleviate our problems quite nicely.

 

The problem isn't a lack of medical infrastructure - everywhere except Oceanus already has all known medical infrastructure. The problem is our focus on agrisciences has lead to a frankly insane population explosion, and currently the population of Aristos Achaion is greater than the population of every non-Ares city on our continent combined*. Though our knowledge of the other continent is incomplete, at this point I feel confident in stating that more people on this planet are employees of Ares Macrotechnology than not.

We've built a series of Gene Gardens across most of our cities recently, and once Oceanus finishes it's one we'll be sitting at a relatively tolerable -6. However, at that point we'll have reached the limits of medical technology and our population is just going to keep on growing, especially since board members are once more turning their eye to land acquisitions.

The solution to the health problem will most likely be cultural, rather than scientific - in around three years, our culture will have embraced the urban psychosis known as Magnasanti. To break character completely for a moment, this is a virtue on the very bottom of the Industry tree that gives +0.2 health for every building, which would bring us into positive health.

 

Okay, after a little thought and some research, I've determined that we should push for Cognition + Collaborative Thought. Those two techs give us a Science building, a Culture building and a Wonder that gives us some nice bonuses against any enemies in our territory. Collaborative Thought will also advance us along the Supremacy path quite nicely. In the time it takes to research them we should focus on building any of the miscellaneous buildings we've missed (which will pave the way for Magnasanti to solve our health problems).

Settle back into a defensive posture for the time being and plan around there not being a war. If worst comes to worst we have enough units to fight off any invasion force that comes knocking so I'm not too worried about them. Get our internal affairs in order, then we can focus on our third wave of expansion.

 

The ringing was disjointed, but powerful enough to pierce the water. I ripped my body upwards in a spray, and snatched my phone off the toilet. A text message stared back at me, ripping me all up inside.

You're invited to a night at the opera, it said. A GPS coordinate followed. I frowned, staring at it for a moment. A drop of water fell off my hair and splattered across the screen, and I remembered. It was where I'd left the tanker.

Fuck.

---


Rabbit was waiting downstairs by the time I'd dried off and gotten dressed. She seemed excited. I sighed, shook my head, and snatched my coat off the couch. There really wasn't much use telling her not to break into my house at this point, all things considered, but I always had to ask if it was worth it to talk about horrible things a few seconds earlier.

Still, it kept me company, and she watched the news. She filled me in about the advance of an African Union army group as we walked down to the truck, and had a lot of vile speculation. I lit a cigarette as I pretended not to listen, mostly to piss her off.

Waiting to die was so much more fun that way...

---


Denialist fuckery continued until we drew upon the tanker I'd left behind. It had changed. I'd venture to say it had changed for the worse in Trahj's hands.

Mostly, it was the smell that made me think that-- It reeked of death and copper. I had to ask my boss what the fuck he did as I got out of the cab.

"We stole a bunch of cows fresh out of the cloning vats, ground 'em up, and squirted 'em into that tank!" he said with a smile and a jerk of his thumb, and I immediately regretted that decision. Nevertheless, I soldiered onward, and asked why.

"We want to kill a bunch of African Union soldiers with an alien!" he said, his smile never wavering. I opened my mouth to ask another stupid question, paused, and decided to make better use of my time.

"Why are we standing under a crane?" I asked.

---

The boss didn't respond. He just opened an umbrella as the crane released the payload of chunky cow bits it was holding. On the bright side, the umbrella didn't do him much good, as meat falling from a great height can rip straight through nylon.

Still, undeterred, he bulled forwards against our discomfort.

"You're gonna get chased by that alien!" He said, still grinning and showing teeth. A chunk of raw, hairy cow flopped onto his lower lip, and I gagged in sympathy for something he apparently didn't feel.

"Fuck figuring foul shit like this out ourselves." His words were staccato and angry in a flash. "That's up to the Board. All we can do is try to lend a hand."

Rabbit let out a small, sarcastic cheer to mock him. Trahj apparently didn't get it, and tossed me the keys to the ignition, straightfaced.

"Go north. I'll send you better directions as you're leaving town. I've got an aide drawing up a route now. As a side note-- Both of you have a linguasoft for Hekima Station, right?"

He was greeted by a couple of blank stares, and promptly sighed.

"...Check the passenger's seat." He said before walking way.

---

Rabbit shared a glance with me, and we both grinned, momentarily forgetting the blood and offal we were covered in. We'd disgusted our boss enough to give for him us free reign for a few hours. Which, if you've ever actually worked for a living, is the time when you get the shit done that absolutely needs to happen.

I checked out the tanker before getting in, and frowned. The muffler had been removed, and the suspension seemed a bit fucked. Still, it had a full tank of gas, and a quick diagnostic showed the autopilot to be in working order. I smiled, hopped in, and started out of town.

----

Old earth vehicles were a joy to drive. Mostly because they had a steering wheel. The fucking tanker, on the other hand, had a joystick and an autopilot.

On the bright side, it was a lot easier to kick back and read when driving didn't actually involve, well, driving. It's always compromises. For instance, the moment I actually relaxed and got in the flow of reading about the horrible fucking creatures that could eat my face, Rabbit buzzed me over the radio.

"Hey, did you know that Siege Worms need to eat one third of their body weight per day to survive, and see by vibration and smell?"

I frowned, because I did know that. It had been the chapter I'd just finished reading. "...Yes?" I responded, hesitantly and unsure.

"Oh, good!" She said, cheerfully. "Then you might want to look in your rearview mirror."
---

"How the shit does something that big move... that fast?" I asked, frowning and gesturing at the alien on our tail.

"Specialized chemoreceptors and acid glands! They--" I tossed the radio aside, and it promptly knocked the linguasoft under the seat, then fell on the transmit button. I didn't particularly care, as I was busy doing my best to corner a tanker truck full of cow guts as hard as possible without flipping it.

Mind you, I did a damn good job, but I found out that day that worms could corner far better than trucks. Which, in retrospect, seems obvious.

"Okay, time for plan B..." I muttered, then shouted so that the radio could pick me up. "Rabbit! Come in close on the left and match speed! Always wanted to do this!"

I grinned and unbuckled myself, and tried to roll down the window.

No go. Right. We were outside of the city, and it had automatically pressurized. So I popped a chemical rebreather into my mouth and bashed out the window with my elbow, set the autopilot for straight foreward, then clambered out onto the ledge. Rabbit was already there. I smiled. Good girl.

Immediately after that, I regretted not wearing goggles, because the wind felt like knives in my eyes. Still, I had other shit to focus on-- Namely the highly delicate task of arming a grenade with half a window scraping my tailbone. I wedged it between my chest and the cab ceiling to compress the lever, ripped out the pin, and poked it until it fell into the cab. Then I awkwardly flopped to my left, and cracked a rib on the roof of Rabbit's Toyota. Still, I managed to grab the frame and push myself back into the bed.

A window opened up on the cab, and Rabbit stuck her head out, looking past me. "...It's still following us, y'know. Not the truck."

I just smiled calmly as the grenade I'd dropped ripped apart the cab. That said, the bigger explosion came from the resulting loss of control and crash. An instant later, the worm was upon it, swallowing the tanker whole. It paused for a moment, then began to pick around at the pieces of meat flung to the surroundings.

We drove onwards in silence.

She did get the last laugh, though, when we got to Hekima Station. After all, she knew Japanese, and a fucking alien had eaten the charred remains of my linguasoft...

----

(Author's Note: Well, better late than never. This one's for in case you ever wondered why we got a chance to reassess in the first place, and why the African Union is so shitscared of actually pulling the trigger.)

 

INTERLUDE: THREE YEARS OF HURRY UP AND WAIT

At first, people were champing at the bit. They weren't just ready for war, they were eager, and when the Board made the war footing official there were more volunteers for the Marine and Ranger wings of Knight Errant than the collective industrial output of all three cities could arm and equip in a year. Recordings of a seige-worm attack on the African military became a favourite, and rumour had it that when the Africans finally brought it down, a small team of Shadowrunners retrieved the skeleton and brought it back to Oceanus to be entombed within the foundation of the city.

As time wore on without a formal declaration of war, people got tense - especially as worries about PAC percolated down to the general populace. The Humanities department got to work, and a movie about an attack on Dirus Ulixes from the south (from a massive swarm of wolf beetles, though the subtext was clear) became a major hit, lingering as it did on the extreme defensability of the few navigable paths through the canyons. When news was leaked about PROJECT KENNY LOGGINS, the people rejoiced, and the maiden flight across the Sea of Ares became a de facto public holiday as celebrations spilled into the streets.

Over time, people grew weary of the war, especially as the climbing population and the reinforcement of Oceanus put more and more strain on medical infrastructure. As the sociologists worked to inject cybernetics and transhumanism into the public psyche to pave the way for PROJECT TERMINATOR, they were met with a passive backlash in the form of a sense of melancholy for Earth and a renewed sense of pride in the human form. While the sociologists were able to make lemonade of these lemons in the form of using this sense of pride to slip genetic tinkering into the mainstream mindset, which did much to shore up the ailing health system, the delay to PROJECT TERMINATOR was immensely frustrating to the few that knew of it.

The possibility of a Franco-Iberian attack barely filtered through the ennui, and the launch of a defensive navy into the Sea of Ares got next to no response. Volunteers for military duty slumped dramatically for all branches save the air force, and the general public became more and more xenophobic. On the bright side, this period finally mended the rift that had formed early on between the Sino-Ganaian settlers of Kuombi Saleh and the ever-expanding populace of the capital, as a grand magrail line was built along the length of the Styx and connected the three cities west of the Sea of Ares.

Towards the end of the military build-up, confidence in leadership plummeted to record lows thanks largely to a leaked video of the CEO screaming hysterically from his balcony in the general direction of Franco-Iberia, though the commercial release of 'Do It You Fucks: Dubstep Remix' slightly mitigated the drop. Strengthened economic ties with the stations around the Sea of Ares and the Western Continent did much to undo the earlier xenophobia, as Hekima Station acted as a neutral third party for trade with and travel to and from the Africans and the Franco-Iberians.

Three years after the first enemy soldier rattled his metaphorical saber on the border of Oceanus, rumour continued to spread that the military build-up was coming to an end. Some said that the Third Wave of expansion was upon us, and the early dreams of Corinth were finally going to be realized, while others were turning their eyes to the islands to the south. The general sentiment towards war had largely become 'Que Sera, Sera' - if anyone wanted to sacrifice themselves to the combined arms of rockets, railguns, autocannons and naval artillery, then Knight Errant would be ready for them. The Board itself was largely split between those that wanted to finish PROJECT TERMINATOR and force the matter, while others intended to shelf the project and turn their eye back to weather satellites or AI research. All agreed, however, that the days of hunkering down and preparing for enemies to march on Ares were over.

-Excerpt from 'The Secret History of Ares' - historical documents written to bring new members of Ares' infamous Board up to date on what was really happening.


Author's note: The current peace mandate remains PROJECT SAGAN 2 for weather-control satellites, but if others agree with Aekiel we'll go Cognition instead. Also if the Board wants to continue expanding, there's three general options dusted off from previous updates plus one shiny new one:

OPERATION CORINTH: It'd mean bulldozing our trade buddies New Babylon, but omelettes, eggs, etc.

OPERATION NORMANDY: I'd really worry about going this without having Corinth as if PAC goes to war it'd mean they'd have the overwhelming naval advantage. Still, we've got the economy to just buy a navy if it comes to that.

OPERATION TURNABOUT: Quyen's borders still haven't expanded so we may still be able to nab the largest Firaxite deposit of nine units before they do, as it's three tiles from their city. From our spy in their capital, my general impression is that their culture game is kinda weak, and Quyen is cut off from internal trade so they'd take a while to build any cultural buildings. Still, it'd take about ten turns for a colonist to arrive and about six for it to grow into an actual city, so it'd take them a while.



OPERATION TURNABOUT 2: Or, alternately, we could build a city two tiles to the west of where the station used to be. While not coastal and having less Firaxite than the original version, this would still be able to gobble up the huge chunk of Firaxite, be closer to our current cities and thus quicker to found, would be easier to connect to the magrail network, and would have a bunch of delicious floodplains to build on instead of bloody tundra - as well as xenomass, which is always useful even if you don't go Harmony. But it would have less usable tiles overall, since most of it's radius would be useless mountains, craters and canyons.

 

Operation Turnabout 2. The loss of it being coastal is annoying, but we plan on connecting via magrail anyways. Less usable tiles overall isn't a big deal - even if our pop gets that high (fed by our booming internal trade network and excess food), our economy is very strong. Besides, those citizens can still be used as specialists. Also, moar farms.


Cognition would be nice, but we don't actually have the improved Firaxite to make use of those buildings. I don't think we have the spare tiles to really make much use of the Academy either. The Precog project would be handy, but our defenses are currently sufficient and that's a lot of production/research that could go elsewhere.

Also, weather control satellites bitches. Fuck Mother Nature, we run this shit now.

 

Okay, we'll continue with SAGAN 2 and then go cog+precog after TURNABOUT 2, since at that point we'll have three cities with improved Firaxite.

 

I'm going to agree with VanRopen here. Operation Turnabout 2 combined with Weather Control Satellites mean that we would more or less cement our domination over the food supply. At that point...

Well. Then the true fuckery can commence, gentlemen.

 

July 2611: The return to a peace footing has been marked with the commission of the latest colony tank of Ares Macrotechnology. That this will likely provoke PAC even more is not lost on our citizens, who still retain an element of disdain for the other factions even as they celebrate the end of the recent tensions.

August 2611: Our navy has sighted skirmishes around our trade partner of Hekima Station, as Slavic forces conduct small-scale assaults on their walls, being beaten back with minimal damage done to the station itself. Our forces will continue to monitor the situation, but for now it seems no intervention is necessary.

January 2612: With the opening of a series of manufactories, Dirus Ulixes has officially outstripped our capital in raw production capabilities despite having only a fraction of the population.

April 2612: Peaceful development continues to reign over Ares Macrotechnology. The entire length of the Styx is being farmed, Aristos Achaion's population exceeds four million and the miasmic fogs have been entirely eliminated everywhere in our territory save the frontier that is our latest city. Dirus Ulixes has taken it upon themselves to eliminate the substance entirely on our half of the continent, and considering their industrial output they may just accomplish it. Already entire artificial constellations of satellites are wiping out the fog in the vast canyon complex that renders much of the nearby land unusable.



July 2612: OPERATION TURNABOUT 2 has finished as the city became self-sustaining and immediately laid claim to the area bordering PAC's city. Considering the geopolitical implications, a streak of dark humour in our citizenry has lead the new city to be named Lebensraum.



August 2612: Naturally, PAC has objected strongly to our recent border expansion. Considering this is only an issue because they built Quyen in the first place, our official stance was 'suck it up, cupcake'.



April 2613: Our research into climate control is completed and work has begun on our ultimate expression of dominance over this planet.

June 2613: Our first two weather-control satellites have been sent into orbit, where they will remain for the next five years before their orbit decays. Projected harvests are already breaking all previous records.

August 2613: Our magnum opus of cultural manipulation is completed: the Magnasanti project. After a heavy bombardment of subliminal encouragement, where once people longed to escape the crush of city, they now take comfort in it - incredibly useful, considering our capital has grown to five million employees. This has done wonders for employee morale and mental health.

April 2614: Our research into cognition has revealed new and interesting ways to take advantage of the Firaxite. Facilities allowing direct brain-computer interfaces will have to wait a while longer while our culture continues to grow accustomed to such technology, but hologram entertainment is a much easier sell. Holosuites are being constructed in Oceanus and Kuombi Saleh to take advantage of local Firaxite sources, and they will be followed by Neurolabs once our people are ready for the concept. Additionally, plans are being drawn up for a vast metropolises... metropoli... big-ass cities made up entirely of research campuses to be built surrounding Oceanus, to take even further advantage of Firaxite.

September 2614: Our research into collaborative thought is completed, revolutionising our knowledge of biological computing once more and gently introducing our society to the concept of brain-computer interfaces.

Our society has embraced cybernetics like never before as brain-computer interfaces become more and more common. Even our architecture has been affected by the adaption, as huge, almost monolithic server farms are constructed on the outskirts of our cities.




The Board's mandate is once more completed. What paths shall we embark upon, as we stand on the brink of revolutionizing human existence?

PATH OF ARTIFICIAL THOUGHT: Once more the possibility exists to give birth to and embrace a new race of brother-beings: sentient life within computer networks. Two years.

PATH OF UNASSAILABILITY: We went to great lengths to dissuade attack during that unfortunate period not too long ago. Shall we put the final nail in the coffin of those fears, and make ourselves truly invulnerable by investing in massive superprojects of defensive infrastructure? One year.

PATH OF INFINITE GROWTH: We have almost entirely unfrozen the colonists that came with us, and at this point our monumental growth is mostly sustained due to a new generation reaching adulthood and immigration (both voluntary and... encouraged) from other nations, as well as the first generation of cloned humans coming out of the Ectogenesis Pods. Logically, we don't need to increase our food surplus further. But then again, logic can suck it. Let's revolutionize farming for the... uh... fourth time? Fifth? I've honestly lost track. 1.5 years.

PATH OF MARTIAL DOMINANCE: Robot armies. They're almost within our grasp. 0.5 years.

PATH OF BODILY PURITY: Health has been a bugbear for us for over a decade. Every time we think we have solved it, our population surges again and puts ever more strain on our resources. But this time. This time for sure. Improved genetic modification facilities and immortality drugs, anyone? 2.5 years.

PATH OF ORBITAL DEATH LASERS: You heard me. 2 years.

Author's note: We don't have enough affinity points to embark upon an end-game that isn't 'stomp the fuck out of everyone else', even if we picked up all we could from research. So we need to kill some time while we wait for quests to pop so we can get within reach of the Supremacy victory, which requires 13 Supremacy affinity. We currently have four.

 

PATH OF INFINITE GROWTH followed by PATH OF ORBITAL DEATH LASERS.

Lets populate this planet with loyal citzens and thus ensure our dominance.
For the death lasers.. While probably not the smartest idea from a gameplay perspective I have played too much C&C Tiberium Wars to not want my own Ion cannons.

 

Robot Dominance and Infinite Growth. No reason not to get robot armies if they take only half a year.

 

Path of Artificial Thought.

We've done the domination victory before. I want to see if we can manage a Supremacy victory and the best way to do that is to upgrade our science facilities first so that we can research all the techs we need quicker than the other guys.