Imperium 9 - Megafrost's late game report

[Megafrost]

Hi guys, sorry this is late. Been very busy.

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First things first, send the colony ship to the one planet in colony range and build enough scouts to blockade every system in reach. Given this really weird corner start and that my second colony will not bring any new systems into scouting range, that means I have to build a grand total of 2 scouts. I also put one click into research so I can immediately open up the planetology and propulsion fields. Second turn I put full spending into research. Third turn I start building factories again, but keeping research at a strong 30 RP per turn.

After colonizing Denubius, I decide to send only 10 colonists. Given the late start, I want to avoid slowing down Ursa. But then I find that the yellow star of Darrian to the south, the only planet within 4 parsecs, has an inferno planet. During the previous imperium, I had gotten myself trapped for a long time by relying on technology to miniaturize my components so I could fit extended fuel tanks on a large colony ship.

Not this time. I went ahead and let range 4 pop so I could see what was in the next tier. With range 6 missing, I decided to go for the huge ship. In 2344 the Mrrshan became the first empire to six systems. In 2352 I colonized my third colony (Spica), roughly 20 years earlier than in the previous imperium. Denubius finished building factories in 2359 and started building colony ships alongside Ursa. I managed to colonize in 2366, bringing me contact with my first alien race.



How I managed to get Klystron is beyond me. The kitties had spread far from their homeworld, having grabbed 7 worlds at this point. I couldn't spread any further to the east. The cats were already spreading south and fast, so I built more colony ships to go on one world while using the other world to build laser ships.

I grabbed Rotan in 2371. In 2374 the first galactic election happened, with Mrrshan versus Darloks and every race abstaining. 2375 brought a bit of a surprise with the Alkari voting in favor of the kitties. I settled Imra in 2376, bringing me in contact with the Darlok.



I planted a flag on Uxmai in 2383. The same year, a Silicoid colony ship came zooming out of nowhere, destroyed my scout at Yarrow and planted their flag there.



I was glad to have contact with them though. The Mrrshan had alliances all over the place and I worried that they would be powerful enough to win the elections without intervention. I grabbed Quayal in 2384. I had initially given up on Talas since it was a poor planet at range 6, but when I ran out of planets down south, I built another long range ship and colonized Talas in 2392.

Using their alliance with the Mrrshan, the Alkari sent a colony ship to my world of Quayal. Having some laser ships nearby, I sent them to the world to drive off the colony ship and deal with the impending invasion.

In 2396, I began getting edgy. I was getting enough population to overtake the Darloks, and with the Mrrshan having alliance with the Darloks and two other races, I thought the next election would end badly for me. So I broke the rules and tried to initiate a spectator war between the Darloks and the Mrrshan. It didn't work, but a couple turns later the Darloks broke the alliance of their own accord. Interestingly enough, I found that the Mrrshan weren't my election opponent at all; it was the Klackons. They grabbed Dunatis in 2408, bringing me first contact with them.

Silicoids declared war in 2429. Frustratingly, the other races refused to help me out at all, and after finally researching radiated planets and settling Darrian, the Mrrshan declared war on me in 2439. Here's a look at the galaxy.



Not a bad land grab for starting 20 years late. Thankfully none of my opponents are runaway. The silicoids started testing my defenses, managing to get a fleet in orbit of newly-found Darrian. I managed to get a fleet of bombers over Yarrow, bomb out their missile bases and invade it, cutting off their fleet at Darrian from supplies.

The 2450 election was close. Very close.



Only with Darlok support was I able to narrowly avoid disaster. I wanted to invade more worlds, but the Mrrshan were using their superior accuracy and graviton beams to make my small fighter ships totally ineffective. So, unusually for myself, I started building some large ships.

At some point, both the Darlok and the Klackons declared war on me. When the Alkari colonized the glass world of Dolz and established contact for the first time, they declared war as well just a couple of turns later. Thankfully, the Mrrshan and Silicoids were tired of war and I was able to make peace with them.

I invaded the worlds of Dolz and Incedius. However, the Klackons sent a huge stack to my rich planet of Yarrow. I destroyed nearly the entire fleet, but lost all my missile bases to it and they had a bigger fleet right behind it.

When 2475 came around, I found that I had 22 out of 39 votes with Mrrshan and Silicolid support. The Darlok worlds of Nazin and Xudak proved to be difficult to attack with their scatter pack missiles taking down my fleets, but with my economy in very good shape I built a large fleet of small bombers and overwhelmed their defenses, allowing me to invade them and loot anti-matter bombs. I then took my fleet of bombers and, despite being against Stinger missiles and planets with class 12 shields, managed to invade and take the Klackon world of Dunatis. I followed that up with an invasion of Paladia. In about 2498, the Klackons took the Darlok's last world, destroying the shape-shifters once and for all.

The 2500 elections came and went. I had 24 out of 37 votes with rock and kitty support.

Since I knew my opponents could no longer stand up to me, I started pounding on the Klackon worlds, managing to invade and hold 6 of their worlds. I then glassed two of the bird worlds before the 2525 election, where I found I no longer had any support and did not have enough population to win by myself.

So I started invading every world in sight and managed to steal nearly all of the Mrrshan and Silicoid worlds. Fleets regularly came by to glass the worlds I'd taken, but eventually I invaded so many worlds that their fleets were cut off from fuel supplies. When 2550 came around, I had 53 votes out of a possible 60, so I was able to elect myself emperor.



Here's what the galaxy looked like the turn before.



Right on the last turn, the Klackons had destroyed the last Silicoid world. I find it interesting that they genocided 2 races this game. Usually genocides only happen when I make them happen.

The Mrrshan were surprisingly powerful this game. They were fielding huge fleets with the latest technology, and even during the mop-up phase I could not stand up to them directly, even with thousands of small ships. But once again, the computer just cannot deal with large fleets of bomber ships. As soon as I could break through the toughest Kholdan world, I was rampaging across the entire galaxy.

I didn't feel that the variant really added too much to the game. Since the home world was still building factories during those 20 turns, it really only felt like I lost maybe 5.

[RefSteel]

Thanks for the report! In the game description, I wrote, "this variant is based entirely on responding to game situation in the starting save." Apart from leaving out a "the," this was correct: I expected the situation in the starting save, including our weak propulsion and planetology trees and the distance and natures of the nearest stars, to make for an interesting game, while enhancing the impact of the 20 turn delay. I imagine a huge colony ship with reserve tanks does not see a lot of use in most games, in spite of its popularity here! In any case, I hope you enjoyed the game, even if the variant didn't have a large impact beyond requiring that early monster colony.

Your point about bomber fleets is a good one too. Hmmmmmmmm.....