CBF Campaign Ongoing AAR

[patyrn]

Not sure if it should be called an "AAR" since it's far from over, but there you have it.

I'll start with some brief recap, and have some more thorough turn documentation and battle AARs as we go forward.

The 3 empires are:

The Delphinian's
This confederation of aquatic species lead by dolphins is invested in Tech advancement as its main strategy, as well as having the fastest drives in the known universe. It will be destroyed.

The Ur
These diminutive space gremlins spread like Tribbles and are already rapidly ahead in population growth. Good thing they suck at building starships. They will be destroyed.

The Terrans
An empire ruled by a variety of squabbling noble houses. They have a strong trade economy and have a fleet consisting of elite crews and incompetent strategic commanders. Truly, their victory is assured.

Here's an overview of the region of the galaxy in question. This is a tool I wrote to help us with much of the book keeping involved as well as allow hidden fleets and planets without having a Campaign Moderator.



We are currently on year 2, month 1.

An overview of important happenings:

All empires sent out small scout fleets in all directions in order to provide early warning of incoming hostiles. A few minor single ship squabbles were played out.

The terran empire, struggling under the financial burden of maintaining a purely defensive force decided to attack the Delphinians without provocation.

In preparation for invasion the Aquila class DD armed with grapeshot successfully destroyed the Delphinian Pistol Shrimp class DD armed with ASGMs in the Bortna system.

With the Delphinians now blind to approaching fleets through the Bortna system, Defense Fleet Beta bravely advanced into Bortna. Unfortunately for the Terrans a small squadron of DDs had been sent to destroy the righteous Aquila who had so recently dined on Calamari.

The small squadron was easily destroyed, but it provided enough warning for the entire Delphinian military to hasten to Aegina.

I wish I had an AAR of the battle that ensued, but in summary the large part of the Delphinian fleet started on the table, with a small detachment of DDs and a moderate force of a BB and more DDs coming in as reinforcements. All told the Delphinians consisted of 4 BBs and dozens of DDs weighing in at ~3500 tons.

Defense fleet beta weighed in at approximately 2500 tons and consisted of 5 CAs, a BC, a handful of CLs, and a half dozen or so DDs.

Due to some serious tactical blunders all delphinian BBs were lost with all hands, along with all but 11 of the destroyers. At the end of the battle only 2 destroyers and and a 500 ton ASGM armed flag ship remained to to fight 11 enemy destroyers. Unfortunately every ship remaining was armed with ASGMs, and was out of ammo. The battle would have to be resumed on the next turn.

Due to the resounding victory by the smaller force a boatload of experience was earned, and many fine officers joined the fleet. There was just one problem...

The following turn the Praetorian class flagship and its remaining escorts fled the system knowing that 11 DDs with 2 ASGM launchers each were death incarnate for a ship with so few escorts. Unfortunately there was no escape to be had. 3 more enemy DDs were lost in the last act of the flagship as it was hit by over a dozen ASGMs simultaneously.

In a fit of rage over my lost officers I committed my entire wartime economy to rapidly building up a follow up force. Knowing the enemies love of stealthed ASGM destroyers a new class of cheap CL screen ship was commissioned equiped with 4 grapeshot launchers each.

Armed with a swarm of destroyers and screenships the newly minted Defense Fleet Omega headed straight for Aegina where they managed to defeat a slightly smaller force consisting entirely of Pistol Shrimp IIs. The heavy investment in destroyers and the new screen ship design functioned as expected and protected enough of the big ships long enough to carry the day.

Here is a picture of that second battle that I snapped: The dragons and little Aquan destroyers are the delphinians (he hasn't painted his ships yet).



The real hero of this battle was the small CL you see at the top of the table, laying out grapeshot to sweep up that line of destroyers and single handedly destroy all 5.

In all this the Ur mostly sat on their haunches and watched us weaken eachother. Time will tell if their cowardly nature will eventually be overcome.

Next turn the bombardment of the civilian population of Aegina begins, and I will try to structure the turn reports better from now on.

[TheDreadnought]

This report=awesome. This is exactly the kind of campaign that I'd hoped people would play with the system when I wrote it. Keep us coming with updates!

[warchariot]

Nice map, great paint job, and well done report, thanks

[hamilton]

Very nice work on the campaign interface. I look forward to seeing this progress.

[ocnar]

First, one thing should be made clear: the peace-loving Delphinians did nothing to incite the aggression of our friends the Terrans! We are a welcoming race, and have many times offered trade and research alliances that would benefit both our peoples!

While the firebombing of Aegina Prime cannot be classified as genocide under the Gracca Convention (as the damage inflicted was so pitiful that not a single Dolphin reported a disturbance), it was clearly an unprovoked Act of War, and the Pan-Aquatic Council has officially furrowed its brow at the Terran Empire!

Now, a correction:

Due to some serious tactical blunders Terran treachery all delphinian BBs were lost with all hands fins

Our Defense Minister, Mr. Figgy Figaro (a delightfully adorable puffer fish), has acknowledged that perhaps equipping every Leatherback class Battleship with nothing but Anti-Proton Torpedoes when facing an opponent armed with dozens of Mag Cannons and ASGMs may not have been precisely the ideal strategy. Additionally, not once using our many Destroyers to protect said Battleships from missiles was certainly an unfortunate oversight, which has since been traced back to incorrect translation between the language of the Lobster squadron leaders and that of the Blue Whales in command of the battleships.

The hearts of our people go out to the families of all those innocent creatures so callously murdered in the Massacre Above Aegina.

In unrelated news, our most eminent scientists have discovered incontrovertible proof that Humans are soulless animals with no capacity for love or morality, and are in fact dumber than plankton. As such, the only response a reasonable being would take is burn their cities to the ground, depopulate their worlds, and fill their oceans with beautiful life-loving Cetaceans.

Joyfully Yours,
William B. Beluga
Secretary of Kindness
Delphinian Utopia

[captainquirk]

Go, Dolphins!

[regan555]

Great map, I have one just like it. Can I ask how you printed it out in one piece and how much it cost to do so? I had to print at home and glue it together in about 40 pieces and the cut lines are a little distracting. Very tempted to get a Hotz space map to use instead but if you've got any suggestions I'd love to hear them.

[samulus]

Would you mind sharing the program which you've made for this? Looks like fun!