Pushing and Pulling

Since yesterday, I've had some bumps and bruises but at the moment, things are going relatively slowly. Here's a map of the galaxy in full to give you an idea how all the spare stars have been gobbled up:

As I mentioned in my last post, I beat dark red to one of the stars between us and claimed the star, well it happened again. This time it was with my most southerly star. If you notice, it's a long way from any of his other stars. What happened here is that light red must of come up behind him and gobbled up the star that he flew from. Where he thought he was gaining 2 stars, turns out he lost them both and his carrier with 5 ships.

What's ironic about that situation, is that I've just done the exact same thing. My most north-westerly star, right next to 2 yellows was sent out when neither of the two yellows were captured. Well because of the distance my carrier needed to travel to capture it, by the time it got there, the yellow guy had taken them all. The difference here being the fact that when I arrived at the star, there were no yellow fleets; they'd already set off to capture another star. Well I got a message from him saying that it was his star and if I retreated my ships immediately, no harm done. I could've stayed there and stood my ground but I decided to send him a very pleasant message back informing him that my ships would do an about turn. I decided this would be the best option because pleasantries might form the basis of some sort of basic temporary alliance. Besides, if he did want to cause hostilities, he wouldn't be able to follow me back anyway as his jump range is not as far as mine.

I was also waiting for the techs to come through and I'm pleased to say that all three of my "Allies" came through for me. That gives me the most tech in the game at the moment. Buying research facilities is very expensive but in order to keep up with the leaders, I've decided to up my science to 3 buildings. This is so I'll always have a tech to trade.

With all these factors taken into account my sights are set on the dark red bloke, ironically enough called Leeroy Jenkins! When you have ships doing nothing, you might as well use them for gain! I'm hoping my display of peace towards light red and yellows will prevent them from attacking in the near future. I've sent a quick message to the red fellow mentioning how it looked like he could use a few more stars and one less border to worry about and if he'd care to send some ships towards Leeroy himself. I've been a little careful, not to mention how big my fleet is so he's less likely to think about double crossing me when my ships are all tied up in battles on the other side of the galaxy.

One last thing, when comparing my stats to others in the galaxy, I have to remind myself that other skirmishes and alliances are going on all over the place at the exact same time. Having 10 people all scheming and plotting independently makes things very interesting. I've asked them all to make notes of their experiences so hopefully when all this is finished, I'll be able to link their accounts.