This is just for prosperity really.
For the first time in months I have enough free time to play this game and I am loving it!
Because stuff like this happens.
The Battle for Elushia
The war has already been a struggle. The galaxy looks like someones twisted idea of a maze and the last remains of humanity are pressed into a dead end. Our backs are up against the wall in more ways than one.
Our first liberation took forty-five minutes to complete. The AI's must have known we could one day strike back and had set up at Class IV system as our one and only neighbor. Fortunately our Cloaked Spire Battleships were able to fight a long and bloody guerrilla campaign to free the system, and luck smiled upon us again when the follow up planets in our corner were not heavily defended. Still, the first planet had slowed us down and when our scouts first reported the discovery of the Elushia, a Class III system, I was not happy. It already had three hundred class 3 ships in, while our fighters could match their best, we were sorely lacking in all other respects. The AI defenders included a Carrier guardian, a Fortress and something I had never seen, a Super Fortress. I about to learn to fear it.
The Elushia system had to be taken. Research had almost come to a standstill, with 1500 saved up and only another 500 still to go. Small probing attacks soon revealed that the Superfortress had immense range and our military was not up to the task of fighting the rest of this war via deep strikes. The only other way out of the system I was in, (called Freedom) was a system we had already liberated for little gain called Harmony. I knew from my training that to leave a system to build up it's forces would in the long run lead to defeat, it needed to be taken now. I came up with a plan that would have done Kerigan proud, hundreds would die for this one system, but it was a price I would pay to save the human race.
My first wave went into the Elushia system full of confidence, several hundred strong, all of my class I and II fighters, bombers and frigates. They burst onto the other side of the wormhole and were met with a hail of fire from the defenders and that damned Superfortress. They lasted less than twenty seconds. I was reminded of a moment in the film Waterloo when an aid told the Duke of Wellington 'We're committing murder you grace.”
I ordered the last handful of ships to withdraw. Barely twenty made it back but by now the entire Elushia defense force was on high alert. I watched them head towards the wormhole and then turn around. My heart sank for a instant until, for god knows why, they all turned back to the wormhole. In the Freedom system the rebuilt level-1 and 2 ships were starting to come through from my homeworld, but there were no where near enough of them. The Elushia defenders, including the Carrier regrouped and launched a counter attack.
Waiting for them were forty tractors beams and 80 miscellaneous short ranged turrets which made up the first defensive line. The second line, a little further further back was 8 MK 2 Ion Cannons and 2 MK 1's, (the former courtesy of the last of our research) while behind them a final defensive line of 3 more Mk1 Beam turrets, sniper turrets and a military base protected the wormhole towards the rest of our liberated space. It was as one famous admiral had once said, a trap.
The AI ships plowed through the first defensive line even before the rest of the trap closed around them. From west uncloaked 10 Spirecraft Stealthed Battleships's (MKI's and 2) while from the east, out of the Harmony wormhole appeared 3 Spirecraft Siege Towers and our 78 MK3 Fighters. They inflicted heavy casualties on the AI's, the Siege Ships acted as a mobile reserve, rushing from threatened breakthrough to hotspot as quickly as they could while other vessels were ordered to hit the enemy wherever they could. The defenses were almost breached and the base's force field was knocked down to 60%, but it held and the attack was driven off. The cost had been heavy, the first Defensive line had gone, the second only contained three turrets.
It now became a race to see who could rebuild their forces faster. I ignored the turrets and within a few minutes had a force of two hundred battle hardened ships lead by the spire craft and, thinking that it would all be over soon I ordered them to liberate Elushia.
Somehow, whether by accident or designed the enemy had rebuilt just as many ships as I had, and his were still far better. To make matters worse only the best of my craft could stand up for more than a few seconds to the Superfortress. I watched in horror as my fleet melted away. In a desperate gamble I ordered my remaining ships to attack the systems warpgate and command center, hoping that if those were taken out it would not be able to be reinforced. Despite being under the heaviest bombardment the war had yet seen my forces achieved this small gain, but not a single ship made it back to the Freedom system. The same could not be said for the enemy fleet. If they suspected a second trap or not I do not know, all I do know was that the Freedom system had almost nothing. I ordered rebuilders and engineers built everywhere and pulled together every single ship I had. More Spire vessels, including Spire Ion (beam?) Cannons came to our rescue.
This time there was no way to control the battle, ships were given one order. Survive until reinforcements arrive. They fought hard and gave their lives only when needed. They covered the rebuilders and engineers as they rebuilt the defenses, they fought against the odds for three long minutes, knowing all they had to do was hold on.
They held. Reinforcements arrived in time and the system was saved, but Elusha had not fallen yet and my economy was in ruins. It could not keep producing replacements for the losses we were taking for this one single system. However for the first time the system no longer had a terrifying garrison. I decided to rebuild the turrets just in case and scraped together a small force of bombers and a bomber starships to attack the Superfortress.
It was a war of attrition, but one the Superfortress could not win. If nothing else this period gave me a chance to sort out my logistics and bring in more Spire siege towers. The AI tried to save the system, sending in one or two new vessels every few seconds only for them to be picked off a solitary mercenary bomber. Slowly the Superfortresses hull was stripped away. At about 33% remaining I received warning that a wave of AI fighters and AI frigates were incoming, almost three hundred more ships in total. The problem was no one knew where they would strike. The read out just said
. Still, my fleet had been rebuilt somewhat and I was able to position it in a central location of my systems, ready to respond where ever the AI's appeared. The time and the Superfortresses health ticked down, when the time reached 0 the health was at around 2%. I flicked to the galaxy map expecting to see one of my systems under attack but instead everything was tranquil. Not wanting to miss the destruction of the Superfortress I switched back to Elusha only to see that suddenly my scout were reporting that over three hundred ships were in the system.
The fighters arrived first and made a bee-line for the hundred or so bombers still pounding away at the Superfortress. It was like the first attack all over again, even the mercenary fighter died in a hail of enemy fire. Only 15 bombers made it back to the Freedom system.
But the Superfortress was now a expanding cloud of debris.
I counter attacked with my rebuilt fleet, Spire Siege Ships leading the way and then retreating to Freedom once their damage was to high. Other ships just stayed and fought till they died. The AI's fought hard, but for once it was they who were outnumbered and outmatched. The system was almost mine after fifty minutes of combat, but there still remained one more fortress. A new bomber task force was sent in, the rest of my fleet moved to guard the systems second and third wormholes while they did so. A colony ship arrived in the system and set up a new base. Finally, I thought, we had this one system. Victory had been achieved and the loss of so many ships had not been in vain.
The twenty or so cloaked AI Etherjets that appeared the second after I had placed by new base had different ideas and they destroyed it in one volley. The retribution from my fleet was swift and total but the damage had been done. The second colony ship was protected by a Spire shield craft and a close escort of Spire Siege Towers. Call me paranoid if you must, it saved the ship as half way through it's deployment a Neinzul enclave craft appeared and began spewing hostile ships at my fleet. The craft itself almost escaped to Freedom but was intercepted by the Spirecraft Siege Towers. A minute later and the fortress finally fell. Soon Elushia's mining bases were established and I was even surprised when the warning came in of another wave. A mere hundred and fifty bombers trying to retake the system. This time however it was the last gasp of a defeated admiral and they were destroyed without loss.
The capture of Elushia took almost 55 minutes and was one of the bloodiest and most exhilarating campaigns I have ever had the honor to command. And there are still another 74 systems to go. It remains to be seen if the AI has given up all designs on the system, but we will fortify it well and, god willing, it will never fall to the enemy again.
It has, in honor of all those fallen, been renamed Remembrance.
Tomorrow, we will push on, but for now my men rest while the AI waits for our next more. All three wormholes leading out of Remembrance go to Level III systems.
(Oh my, this game is awesome.)
(Names fixed (I think) , thanks for pointing it out Ranakastrasz)
