5032 AD now, Church and League are at war with pretty much everyone (including each oher) and have conquered Cadavus and Criticorum respectively. I have conquered Bannockburn from the League and Nowhere from the Imperial Guard (though the Symbiot hives and rebel armies are proving a bit troublesome to track down and destroy). Also, I just took the palace on Absolution, a world which was actually reasonably intact despite the early Symbiot madness. It has plenty of ruins, several little tropical islands that to my eye look mighty pleasant, and the planet itself will of course be a nice additional staging point for the upcoming crusade against Chernobog.
Byzantium Secundus is still relatively peaceful (albeit heavily fortified), but I have been using spies to slowly eliminate my enemies. Sadly, my grand scheme to take over the Cathedral was foiled by the Patriarch's fighter planes. Turns out that giant stacks of spies don't fare too well against air units, and cyber-fighters do not count as stealth units so there is no way I can see to obtain parity.
Here is the stack just north of the Hawkwood fort. Knights are pretty damn sweet and actually earn you money, as can be seen by their negative maintenance. The concept is really quite clever, and I think ought to be expanded by allowing units such as Starbases to generate greater amounts of income, and so forth.
Oh, also, this particular Knight Retinue has been enhanced with cyberware, which is one out of two ways to train knighs and nobles to become more hardy and efficient. The other is psionics, but it takes longer, and I put off researching the required techs for quite some time.
The sekhrut symbiuth force was pretty much obliterated in an unsuccessful attempt to conquer Australia (Brother Battle and Inquisitors are very tough opponents!) but I am rebuilding and supplementing it with captured units from Nowhere and more lab-produced Xyll Warbeasts.
Delphi has grown rather nicely, but my overambitious expansion has unfortunately resulted in a massive energy shortfall. My stockpiles are all but depleted, and all those shiny factories will operate at zero efficiency until I secure some more.
Luckily, I know just where to get some! NPC factions such as the League seem to grow obscenely rich in terms of resources, so pillaging their cities often yield massive rewards, especially this late in the game.
ITZ coming!
Massive lootan! This will easily allow my industry to operate at full efficiency for at least a decade, perhaps even two if you factor in construction (and conquest) of new energy wells.
The second one doesn't disappoint either, it actually contains even more than the first! Praise the Lord for Kwanza-style oil wars.
Meanwhile, arrogant Li Halan tries to ship their troopas to Absolution and Daishan, no doubt to steal my ruins. Obviously, it is time to once again perform a sneak attack and crush their fleet. Wish they would bring escorts, really. As it is, it is far too easy to keep them down.
On the plus side, you might notice some weird-looking ships in orbit around Shaprut:
House Al Malik has managed to research the Alien Psychology and Vau techs to allow them to recruit Vau mercenary ships. They now seem to produce them rather than those blasted charioteer transports, and the ships in question are actually not too shabby, so it will be interesting to see how things go when I take them on.
Well, that is, as soon as I manage to get past the most recent save corruption issue. I can't seem to get past 5033 AD without getting corrupted saves, so I suspect I might have to backtrack a few years and play on like before, praying that whatever it is that sometimes opts to screw up the game decides to be merciful.
Dude, that looks awesomely complex and fun. What game is this?
