“Our understanding of the Aristocrat's war capabilites are not well understood, your Majesty. We know their military is greatly inferior to ours, based on all metrics, but most of the casualities of the war will be far after the conflict. Bioweapons, contamination, and aysemmetrical warfare. After all, you'd be fighting an enemy whose own biosphere is trying to protect them, and remove the invaders like a body's immune system.”
”Preciesely. Which is why I also have no intention of occupying them either. No, we're going to hit the Aristocrats where it hurts the most... their pride. Every faction has their own ethos. The Consortium will commit and endure the most underhanded tricks and cost of life in war, but will always be willing to come to the table for trade. The Esaal praise individual honor and skill; as long as you give their warriors a fair chance to prove themselves, the worst war crimes are easily permitted. The Aristocrats instead only care about their apperance and culture. That's what we'll target. We'll destroy their art. I've been studying them. Their society is fuedal, but unlike any legitimate nobility, like the Hegemony's own elite, their nobles have no noblesse oblige. Instead of resources and wealth flowing up from the bottom of the pyramid, and power & land flowing down, the Aristocrat nobles only give culture, experience, art to those beneath them, in exchange for wealth and power and “stars” and protection and all that. What a useless caste of parasites. I'll humiliate them, that's what I'll do. I'll make them look weak and stupid. I'll make them put up statues praising the Hegemony's warriors and send us tribute; boiled, frozen, and then irridated so strongly not even an Aristocrat tardigrade can survive it; just to rub it in further. Along with the Consortium, this will be our second rival in space defeated by the Hegemony!”
“A lofty goal, your Majesty. I believe achievable.”
”Two more things, Threes. I need you to add this to our strategic objectives. We need to get Farro Val back from Ully'Andule. And... I need a new life machine. Do you understand?”
“Understood. I am creating the combat model now.”

RULES
In order to win, you must capture and hold at least FOUR capital planets, one of which being Ully'Andule's planet, whose banner has the golden borders.
Every round, you may allocate ships from your attack fleet to attack a planet or orbital body. You may only attack planets in the closest sectors (yellow, red, blue) or sectors which you have at least one unit of strength of your fleet remaining. The pink numbers represent the Aristocrat defense forces or resistance to bombing; which must be depleted for that planet to be fully defeated. If every planet within a sector is defeated, it will reduce enemy Reinforcmenets by the amount written in that sector's color.