RefSteel's Imperium 11 Report: The Hive Mind

[RefSteel]

The Humans and Silicoids are so morbidly pleased to see millions of bears and brains dying, they each agree to become my allies in 2474; Lasitus even agrees to trade again (at 50 BC per year). A number of amusing little Psilon and Bulrathi fleets commit suicide by approaching my ships - even my new colony ships, Beehive 6.0s with toxic bases and ridiculous speed on medium hulls, are armed with pulse phasors, and they're all escorted by war ships, just to be safe.

I make yet another leap forward in theoretical materials physics too...



...incidentally also completing my fusion rifle miniaturization project. And while I start to think about Advanced Construction Tech IV and Pulson Missiles, my Beehives fulfill their real mission:



Two million specially-bred decontaminator Klackons, protected by full environmental suits and my universal antidote, land on each former-biolab world to remove all traces of what has been there, and prepare the planets for my own colonies. And then, at last, the final High Council convenes. Fittingly, the three would-be bioterrorist leaders vote for the representative of the race that originated the plague wars in the ancient galaxy, while the Silicoids - the race which, though originally built to be bioweapons themselves, never sought to build designer plagues as did the Humans, Psilons and Bulrathi - give their single vote to me.

With those four votes cast, I cast my 40.



Naturally, my victory is a foregone conclusion. My "new republic" will not be of a type that the Humans would recognize by that name. We shall not squabble over which representatives to elect into a federal government, but form a consensus together, mind to mind, so that each understands every other, and hatred and mistrust for our fellow people is impossible, as all are of the same self.



With all the peoples of the galaxy accepted into my fold, I shall touch every mind, and spread unity and peace among them all. The galactic triad has awakened in a new form: RBO-11, Oracle, and Nexus shall guide the galaxy in the ways of knowledge, trust, and peace!



< I live, and now we all shall live, not as petty, squabbling organisms of often-questionable sanity, but as part of a greater, wondrous whole: RBO-11, the galactic sentience! No more shall people fight and die for power or for vengeance; hereafter all have one goal: To try and unite with other galaxies! >



You betcha!

(Yeah, I let Jimbo live. How'd you guess?)

(In fact, I think I kinda like the nickname, "Ref.")

[RefSteel]

This is way too long already (at least I warned you, right?) so I'll wrap it up quickly, starting with my score:

Colonist: 108 (at 2375) + 60 (at 2450) = 168!

Researcher: 77 + 156(!) = 233!!!

Diplomat: 44 + 74 = 118!

Victory Bonus: 100

Triad Multiplier: ( 233 (researcher) > 168 (colonist) > 150 > 118 (diplomat) > 75 => ) X2!

Grand Total: (168 + 233 + 118 + 100) X 2 = 1,238!

If this were a normal game, I would be absolutely shocked that a score like this was possible, but I have no idea how it will rank for this game. Regardless, I'm pretty satisfied with my score, considering that I have no basis for comparison (I've never played a "Hard" map that turned out to be this easy, nor played out a game for this long when it was so obviously won). It could be amazing or miserable or anything in between.

You can probably infer the final map and all those sorts of things, so here's what my fleet looked like just before the final interturn:



I built exactly one Huge ship over the course of the entire game, and it was an accidentally-completed placeholder which I immediately scrapped. I also built only four large ships (not counting colonies, of course) - including the three shown here - and never lost one in battle (the first was an NPG cruiser, scrapped long ago). I did build a lot of mediums, of course. (Heh.) So ... that's all! I hope you enjoyed the read!

[sargon0]

Okay, so I may have gone slightly overboard on this one.

You think! Seriously, a funny story. Clever triad reference to the uber planets. Great fun playing with that Orion monster and, despite all that playing, a great score.

[Brackard]

Ok, I think it took me well over an hour to read your report.

But I wouldn't have done it had it not have been fun to read.

Nicely done all the way around.

[KnTenshi]

This is an awesome report. It seems, following all reports that a Gunboat diplomacy is the best answer for troubled times.

This makes me want to try to allow more RPing in my reports.

[Maniac Marshall]

Terrible luck on the Humans declaring war on you immediately. This variant we really all about who could get the contacts and lucky die rolls from the AI, and there was almost no margin for error or bad luck. I haven't read all the reports yet, but I think a lot of people didn't even get all contact in time to "win". You realized what was needed and did that, but you were right about getting the Bears in at that time before you had contact with the Psilons being a mistake. It's really the only mistake, but this variant didn't allow even one mistake unfortunately.

Oh, and your tech levels are freekin nuts. Amazingly, impressively nuts. I know I didn't work as hard as I should have at boosting my tech levels, but the whole diplomacy thing was just really draining. I'm guessing you have the 2nd highest score, but we'll see.

[TheArchduke]

What a great report. I actually just managed to read the whole thing.

And a great score to boot. And I felt I played a good game, but heck I still have a lot to learn.

[RefSteel]

Thanks very much to all who commented! It definitely makes writing these worthwhile (along with the fun of writing them in the first place!) - though I doubt I'll write another one this long for a good long while at least. I ... uh ... kind of got slightly carried away.

@KnTenshi: I agree that "enemy-of-my-enemy" diplomacy is the strongest and surest means of improving relations, but I used "Gunboat Diplomacy" here to denote a very specific (and almost unrelated) little trick I used to achieve peace: I had noticed in previous games that the AI likes to make peace offers when you have an overwhelming fleet or set of transports bound for one of its worlds - such that you can't agree without either immediately violating the agreement (and suffering the diplo penalty with all races) or wasting the effort you put into your winning fleet. I tried to use that to my advantage here by sending a monster stack of bombers to a Human world 2 turns away, and it worked out perfectly: Lasitus came with a peace request the turn before the bombers arrived, and I turned them around again while building up relations again. Had I done this a few turns earlier, I might have been able to get him up to Peaceful (and maybe even tried for an Alliance and more) via standard enemy-of-my-enemy, and had a better shot at actually uniting the Triad. My mistake.

@Maniac: I think I made at least two key mistakes (including the one you mention and the one I just pointed out above) - but you're right: I'd have had to make no significant mistakes in order to unite the Triad. Maybe I could have pulled it off if I waited on starting the bear-rock war and sent my "gunboat diplomats" to the Apes a little sooner, but everything would still have had to break just the right way; I missed a number of other subtle points that you achieved. In any case, I'm glad you managed to unite the triad, as I think you outplayed me in every aspect of this game. You had fewer planets only so as to be able to execute your plan, and your research "suffered" from the smaller number of planets as much as anything. (Might be interesting to discuss the benefits of taking computers + weapons vs. planetology + force fields though; I think the best move would have been comp + plan, with construction in each case of course).

[Kylearan]

Hi,

thanks for the fantastic report! I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

-Kylearan

[timoteob]

RefSteel,

Great report, it took me a long time to read it all, but it was worth the time. Excellent work on developing the Triad back story! I especially liked how you made the Guardian a likeness of the Artemisians.