Imperium 17 - Tyranid Torments Timmy

[timmy827]

Just wrapped up today, Conquest victory in 2625. Was quite difficult; the Sakkras fought me a good amount and were also runaways for a while (fortunately the overlap in those times was not too much, or else I very well could have lost!). Report will be up in a couple of days once I have time to sort through the pictures/notes.

[timmy827]

Of course, building factories to start on this horrid world is a waste of time. Idea is to settle the best surrounding world and ship most of my pop there immediately.

Arid size 60 wasn't as good as I hoped, but would have to do. I decided to send one batch of colonists only filling the world halfway up for more overall pop growth; however Fierias still wound up filling before first colony ship was ready so maybe I should've sent more. Fierias went all Eco first few turns then started research; only the mostly useless Controlled Barren in 1st tier planetology (Tundra next). RIW80 and Range 4 both popped in 2333, 2nd world was ready to being colony ships finally also. Went all-out for IIT8 next.

A few turns later, Sakkras met at Helos (green just SE of the center of map), they have a colony there. They also have Stalaz, just 7 parsecs west of my homeworld! Could get ugly.

2348- Meet the darlok. They soon decide that my homeworld isn't quite poor enough.

I realize I've made a big mistake - I had assumed they were at the SE yellow (from meeting a scout super early in that direction) and never even scouted it!


Sakkra are the ones to get planets in the SE and invade Kakata too. Unfortunately they already have PDS (they got the derelict event, is this what it does?) and early skirmishes are really rough.

I take Nordia from under their nose but Vulcan (in the far SE corner) is ridiculous - I keep sending more and more small nukers to bomb it, and they can't kill faster than their boosted spawning rate!

Eventually I do take it, but things are going very wrong. I had been at war with the Darloks for a while, and they had totally laughable threats, then I see a Huge incoming with this:

I had been relying on single-base defense for too long and it cost me dearly; got three bases up but they were not quite enough to take this thing down. For one turn, I could rebuild factories as fast as they got pulverized, but gave up when I saw a 2nd on the way and frantically fortified other worlds (all production into Eco staved off one invasion; I knew I would lose the world but hoped to buy time for the others). Yet another King Cobra went to Kakata; the small size 15 world had zero chance of getting to the 4 bases needed to have a shot at winning. Both Tao and Kakata fell to invasions in 2409 after being bombed down to almost nothing. And terrible luck with that:

Well, there goes any chance of attacking Darlok worlds for the next 50 years.

Somewhere in this mayhem, I finished Inferno and found still no + options (chose Soil Enrichment, but gonna take forever to get there). Traded Tundra to Sakkra for +10.

Darloks sent the pair of huges to Artemis:

I again was just short (but at least got one of the bastards). The third one went away to the west and I decided that now my best shot was to retake my worlds, thereby putting the King Cobra at Artemis out of range:

Kakata falls easily, but just before my waves reach Tao the Darloks reinforce with both ships and colonists; a total of some 78 million Mrrshans die in utter vain. I have to write off Artemis as hopeless and Morrig, the backline world, furiously starts missile bases (I was fortunate enough to draw the Mining-Rich event here; although it would have been even better at my homeworld...). The Sakkras also DOWd, but they were at war with the Meklars and Psilons, seemed to be no threat. Fortunately, Artemis also resists a first invasion and does not fall until 2422, buying precious time to build up defenses and inch my way towards scatter pack V. Somehow, despite losing three worlds plus my failed invasion, I was still nominated in 2425:

Mixed news over the next period. Good was a daring raid on Xudax, capturing it before the Sakkra's colonist wave arrived, then using a bunch of obsolete laser fighters to shoot down most of the transports and keep it. Bad was a late discovery of Celtsi, a habitable 90 size world in the NE; I got a colony ship there finally but retreated as an unbeatable Sakkra fleet was about to show up. This was really bad; I think that world had been within range for a long time and I was too busy surviving to claim it or even think of that corner of the map.

I really should have built a single base at Fierias:

Not that it was a big loss at this point (had never built any factories there)
Bad news not having planetary shield V in the tree, was hoping to turtle for a long time. However, I was able to get peace with both antagonists, only having to give the Darloks a modest 425BC tribute.

2450 election was a huge wakeup call, the Sakkras had 13 votes, and I was still nominated but had only 5...Although the other 3 races were at war with the lizards most of the time, they and the Darloks were threatening to have a winning vote.

Despite my continued weakness, the peace lasted a very long time as both were busy fighting the other 3 AIs (still no official contact). I had to go all the way to Advanced Eco to get cleanup relief, and was angered at no RC4 in the tech tree either.

Peace was interrupted by a huge Darlok fleet pasting Xudax, nothing I could do (they did not DOW and refrained from attacking anywhere else for a while). For some reason they didn't claim it despite having Inferno tech and colony ships in their fleet and the Sakkra wound up with it. Sakkra proposed a NAP and broke it after 1 turn, but thankfully never attacked.
After finally getting Graviton, Fusion Bomb, IS, and Sublights I could start a buildup of mediums with the beams and smalls with the bombs. During this long period of construction I finished Fusion Rifle, and traded with the Sakkra (got +40 and PDS for Adv. Eco and IS). The speed 3 smalls could dodge all but 1 scatter pack shot from Darlok bases and waste them in one bombing salvo, and I was now slightly ahead on gropo so I could take back some old worlds, starting with my unofficial capital at Artemis. Tech haul was very nice, especiallly in the computers department - RC3, ISS, BC6. I abused speed to blunt their counterattacks; their huge missile design would waste most of its shots at my frigates (who were fast enough to dodge all of them). In the battle below their huge could have easily blasted the bases with its missiles.

Psilons briefly showed up and made a ludicrous trade in my favor - Planet Sheild X for Fusion Rifle! Any world with this would be completely safe, and with some reserve spending I was able to get one up on Artemis which had come back under siege. The game decided that it was getting too easy and threw supernova and plague at me, which consumed my reserve spending for many turns. Darloks futilely threw their fleets at sheilded planets, while I attacked their core; if they kept their ships on defense they could have slowed me down a lot. This is one peculiar weakness of the AI - in the tactical screen, they are often smart enough to retreat if they have no prospect of beating the missile bases (of course, you can offer a few sacrificial ships to get them to take some salvos), but don't realize that sending their fleets there in the first place is hopeless.

I had some luck as the longstanding Sakkra-Darlok alliance stopped for a while, giving me a free hand for most of my war against the latter. (Especially since the lizards had a buggy fleet of 32000 frigates running around for a while). When the Sakkra finally redeclared, I thought I was safe as the only weapon that could get through my shields were their Herculars which were not deployed on any ships for a while. But they gave me trouble with Death Spores - I was still at scatter pack V's which were completely blocked by their shields, and they exterminated Gion, one of my best worlds, and caused major causalties at Artemis before running out of shots. Thankfully I had begun the next generation of scatter packs and one I finished them any developed world could handle the spore ships. I found that small bombers were still best against their Hercular bases; I could now fit multiple Fusion Bombs on small which were devasting against the lizard worlds without planetary shields and default armor. Once I got a stack of a few hundred it was easy to attack, I would lose a fair number on the approach but one bomb release destroyed any number of bases. The lizards had enough ships to turn me back occasionally but I wrested several worlds from them.

I did decide to kill off the Darloks, counting on everyone being at war with the Sakkra to keep relations up. A long war followed, leading to this map:

I should have won this election:

Bears abstained with 6 votes despite being amiable. Game was pretty much over, so I blasted the Sakkras into obscurity, leaving them with a couple worlds. I had cloning and all of the lizards tech so I burned and rebuilt worlds from here on researching to +100 terraforming and triggering the 1/2 worlds controlled message, so it was no surprise to have an overwhelming share of the vote at the next interval:

I probably could have Exterminated in fewer game turns (would've needed to backtrack to Omega-V's to hit the well shielded brains) but this was quicker in real life time, and I had no desire to kill the AI's that had valiantly distracted my main foes forever.
Thanks to Sulla for the game, was quite a bit harder than I expected, although that may have had more to do with early aggression by the neighbors and a lot gaps in the economic techs more than the variant and race. All told I probably had nearly as rough a time as with the Alkari Impossible game, and (relative to map size) took equal time to come back from behind and win.

[sargon0]

Great come from behind victory, timmy.

Tough start, Sakkra at Stalaz, ouch! Was there anywhere you didn't lose? Terrific to stay in there and avenge your early losses. Derelict gives all weapons and force field technologies on your limited research list that are up to 10 tech levels higher than your current in those sectors. I have speculated it doesn't happen early because it can be too good (when did it happen?). Certainly it is rough to play against this advantage in the earlier stages.

Sakkra were strong in my game also but not this aggressive! To still be elected and survive was quite something but like my game the Sakkra/Darlok alliance was not universally loved. I think you win the endurance record! Great fun if you can still believe you can overcome the difficulties and a good example, I think, of what the scenario was intended to offer.

[RefSteel]

What a thrilling game! Way to overcome multiple crippling disadvantages -- my game would not have gone smoothly had my early Mining event at the keystone world of my empire been a Derelict event for the most powerful AI leader instead! As Sargon said, this game played out a lot more as I think the scenario was intended than mine or his did; I'm glad you got to experience that, and it was great to read about it!

It's interesting that all three of us decided not to build any factories at Fierias. I think it would be a valid strategy to do so -- they'll break even after "just" 60 years (and sooner once reduced waste comes in, if you wait for IIT8, etc.) which isn't completely insane -- but the value of getting research done early can not be discounted. If we had IIT9 and IER in our trees, building factories at Fierias would probably have been a more attractive option.

[timmy827]

Thanks for the comments. Unfortunately I can't recall when the Sakkras got their freebie but it was early, probably the first event of the game. I noted that I had gotten a mining event also at Morrig, but in my report I did not mention when - also fairly early, I think right after the initial expansion was done.