Continuation

More than a dozen Inner Circle Alliances each possessed territory spanning two hundred star systems. Added together, that was an extremely considerable figure—not only larger than the Epoch Clan's territory, but far greater than the Zerg's holdings in this starfield as well.

But these territories had been developed for hundreds of thousands of years, and many resources had long since been exhausted. Aside from the Epoch Clan, they bordered highly developed leading Mid-Ring Civilizations, whose territories were in much the same state. Trying to scavenge a little from them yielded very little.

Nor did the Inner Circle Alliances possess the vast number of overseas factories that the Epoch Clan did. Even including the ones later captured by the Zerg, they had only around thirty Star Gates leading overseas, making them utterly incomparable to the Epoch Clan.

At the same time, their warships could not be highly automated and still required large numbers of personnel to operate. While they could recruit troops from those Mid-Ring Civilizations, there were other factors they had to consider.

If they went too far, those neighboring Mid-Ring Civilizations might ordinarily amount to little, but if they launched attacks from the other side while the Inner Circle Alliances were facing off against the Epoch Clan, it would still leave the alliances in a very uncomfortable position.

Thus, they could only squeeze the civilizations connected by those few Star Gates to the absolute limit, but that was still no long-term solution.

The Zerg held the smallest territory comparatively speaking. After all, they had not developed in this starfield for many years, and because they bordered the Star Sea Alliance, they could not expand in every direction without restraint.

However, Zerg troop types were cheap to produce, and in the later stages they only needed to bask near a