So in this Imperium, the variant is that you can only strike planets with bioweapons, nothing else (no missiles, lasers, black hole generators, etc.). You also can't do orbital bombardment.
Strategically, to take out planets, you need to have use bioweapon ships that can survive the planet's missile attacks long enough to reach the planet and then dispense with their weapons, until the planet's population drops to 0. You can use whatever regular methods to take out other ships, however.
When you eradicate a planet's population, however, the missile bases will continue firing. Since you can't do anything about them directly, your ships are forced to retreat, after which the bases disappear when the colony is destroyed. Because of this, for this game I didn't follow one of the exploit rules, the one that says ships with limited ammunition (such as missiles, bombs, and bioweapons) if retreating from a battle, must return to one of your colonies to "recharge" to take away from the somewhat game-breaking ability to just fire a volley of missiles, retreat from battle, and stay at an enemy colony and repeat this every turn until they die. For this variant, because the bases still continue firing even after the colony itself died, I instead allowed an exception for if the retreat was after all enemy ships had either been destroyed or fled, and the colony was dead (and only the bases were still around), then my fleet was allowed to continue on without returning home first.
As Silicoids, the overall strategy is to expand early since that's where your advantages are the greatest (since you don't have waste taking away from your productivity and you can colonize hostile planets right away). So that's what I did more or less. Since the objective was to exterminate everyone as early as possible, I also wanted to make huge death spore ships early on -- with enough HP to survive the initial weak missiles, hopefully before the computer are able to get really good missiles. But more on that later.
An animated gif of the map each year is below. Other than the usual fights and conquests, starting in 2365 you can see my long line of transports toward the eastern Vulcan, and another line of transports to the southern Draconis starting 2380. I basically kept my colonies at a certain percentage of max population (say 60%), and sent any troops that were above that amount to new colonies, meaning each transport was basically 1 or 2 troops each.
Early Game
There were two stars from the beginning, to the SW and the SE. Since the SW star was closer to the central of the map, I sent my colony ship there, but held off on colonizing it until my scout reached the SE star, just in case the SE star would be better. It wasn't, so I wasted a few turns on this. Oh well. So I colonized the SW star, Kakata, at the end of 2303. At this point, Darlok scouts were already nearby, and I saw Mrrshan scouts a few turns later, so I would need to scout-block early on this map. Oh yeah, it's a small map, not a medium map huh, so everyone's somewhat closer to everyone else. Oops.
I started my colony ship in 2306, which was pretty early, but was because as Silicoids my initial production was naturally high, and I wanted to get Reticuli, a nice big 90-pop star to my SW. I also later found that Darlok's homeworld, Nazin, was directly south of it, and later on, Mrrshan's homeworld was also not far away. The ship is built in 2314 and sent over to Reticuli, which I colonized at the end of 2317. I was the first to 3 systems.
I then started researching planetology and propulsion, to make colony ships cheaper. The two technologies that I could research were terraform 10 and range 5, so I focused on terra 10 first unless something good ended up being in range 5. The reason was I was hoping to avoid contact with Darlok and Mrrshan early on so I couldn't get drawn into stupid early wars if possible. In 2326, though, I explored Nitzer, a dead ultra rich at the center of the map. This was just about ideal; dead means they couldn't take it over, and ultra rich of course means lots and lots of production. So at this point I changed my research to focus on getting range 5, with only the minimum needed for the research bonus on terra 10. I also switched Cryslon from making colony ships to teching, then back to making ships once I was waiting for the tech advance to occur.
In 2333 I got terra 10 and started death spores, and in 2335 I got range 5 and started on nuclear engines, and formally met the Darloks. From here, I was hoping for a quick deep space scanner to see approaching ships, but I soon found I couldn't get it, so I stopped that and focused on construction instead for indus 9 for cheaper factories.
In 2338 GNN said the Alkari had 6 star systems, so obviously they've been busy. I also formally met them, and it turned out that they were to the west. They had taken over most of the west side of the nebula. I set up a trade agreement with them for 25 BC (the minimum) to hopefully keep me in their good graces, since it looked like they'll be the leading computer in this game. I also noticed that they were allied with Mrrshan. Somehow, computer Alkari and Mrrshan always seem to be allied.
In 2338, Darlok also declared war on me out of the blue. So now, my focus is on getting auto repair (assuming I can get it), death spores, and nuclear engines, and then making a huge ship to take them out.
In 2342 or so (not sure on exact year), we had our first council. It was between the Alkari and Mrrshan, each having 3 votes, with Darlok having 1 vote and 2 votes from me. This was nice because the computers split the votes so I didn't have to worry about a cheesy early diplomatic loss. But it meant that the stars were being rapidly filled up. I ended up voting for the Alkari for a nice diplomatic boost, since I hadn't met the Mrrshan yet.
In 2344, I colonized Nitzer, which is what I'll be relying on for my production, and formally encountered the Mrrshan. I also set up a trade agreement with the Mrrshan to decrease their likelihood of declaring war on me. The next year, I noticed the Alkari about to arrive at Nitzer. In theory it didn't matter if they explored it since they likely didn't have dead tech so they couldn't send troops to it anyway, but I didn't want them hanging around it and destroying factories and incoming transports. So I threatened the Alkari and fortunately, they retreated and gave me 125 BC. I put it all into developing Nitzer quickly.
In 2354, I got indus 8, and started on auto repair -- yay! In 2357, I got nuclear engines, and started inertial stabilizer, even though it was in the same tier and I could've done the next tier's sub-light drives. The reasoning was that my planet destroyer ship would need to reach the planet quickly, and nuclear engines was enough to make it speed 2, while inertial stabilizer would make it speed 3, so my ships could reach the planet more quickly and hopefully, not die in the process. In retrospect, I should've done inertial stabilizer then sub-light drives (or if I didn't get sub-light drives, then back to nuclear engines), if I had thought it through. Oh well. At least this meant that my ships could be moving at warp 2 earlier; I made use of this to colonize the planet to the far east, which was another nice 90-pop monster.
I got death spores in 2368, 2 shields in 2370, and auto repair in 2372, so my huge death ship was about ready. I only needed to get inertial stabilizer. However, around this time (forgot which year), the Darloks asked for peace, so I accepted, which meant the ship didn't need to be made. Oh well. In 2372, Reticuli became fertile; I'm not sure if the Silicoids get the 1.5x population growth bonus, but hey I'll take the additional max pop (which does increase the growth rate). In 2373, I colonized Draconis, a radiated rich to the southwest, to help pump up Nitzer's production later on once Draconis itself was established. And in 2374, I got inertial stabilizer, so all the elements of my huge ship were there now.
At the 2374 council, it was between me and the Alkari. They had 4 votes, Darlok had 1 vote but abstained, Mrrshan had 3 votes and voted for Alkari, and I had 4 votes and abstained, for a total of 12 votes. So this vote very nearly triggered the final war, if Darlok had voted for the Alkari. So I better get going with my end-game soon. Sure enough, I got an overexpand warning from Alkari in 2381, and in 2385, both the Darlok and Mrrshan declared war on me out of the blue. At this point, it was time to start my end-game process of eradicating everyone, ready or not. I was hoping to tech up a bit more before it but it looks like I won't have the time. Prior to this, Nitzer was pumping extra resources into itself first (for extra production) and then extras beyond that on the teching colonies, but now, it would switch to making ships.
Mid Game
In 2386, I gave indus 9 to Alkari, and got them to declare war on Mrrshan and Darlok. I sent scouts over to the Mrrshan and Darlok colonies to scope them out; even though my scouts didn't have battle scanner, I could still at least see how many missile bases each planet had and based on the missiles' speed, a guess of what missile tech they had. (I was also slowly spying on each race through skimming the fractions of a percent when available, but this was a slow process and not very up-to-date.)
I also started my huge ship. Because I was about to get sub-light, I waited until sub-light completed, to fit more onto my huge ship, even though it would only use nuclear engines. I got sub-light in 2389 and so the huge ship was completed in 2391. It was called "29 spores" because other than a single set of nuclear missiles for maneuvering (by turning it off at the beginning of combat, the ship would still be able to maneuver even after all its other weapons had been used), it had 29 sets of death spores for the planet. It didn't have any armament against ships -- it was purely a planet-killer, with shields and auto repair to keep it alive until it did its job.
The huge ship headed for Mrrshan's Rigel because it only had a few missile bases, so this would be a good proving ground. And it did its job admirably, easily dispatching Rigel in 2392. The Mrrshan were only using nuclear missiles so I could easily take them on. I got a warning from Alkari about using bioweapons but surprisingly, not much of a diplomatic hit. I guess the bioweapons diplomatic hit isn't actually that bad.
In 2393 or so, I finished researching 3 shields, so my next huge ship had only 26 death spores, but 3 shields. This meant that it would only take half the damage that the previous planet killer would take from nuclear missiles. In 2394, I easily destroyed Mrrshan Seidon, and colonized it in 2395.
Now, Mrrshan had taken Talas down in the southeast. This was the only colony of Mrrshan or Darlok that I had successfully explored with my scouts prior to them getting missiles, so this was my only way of taking techs from others through conquest. Otherwise, the colonies that I destroy would simply be obliterated by death spores, and although when I colonized them they would have lots of factories, I wouldn't get any techs from that. So I started researching personal deflector shield after 3 shields and made plans to colonize the far southeast star (Collassa) with an extended range colony ship, so that Talas would be in range for a troop invasion.
Around this time, though, I realized that this strategy was all wrong. I realized that as soon as I destroyed a colony, the computer would launch colony ships to it right away to recolonize it, which would leave the colony with 2 troops and lots of factories -- and no missile bases. Mrrshan did this with Rigel. So what I really should be doing was to destroy a colony, then invade it as soon as they recolonized it, so I could take their techs without missile bases getting in the way. I couldn't do this with Darlok since they only had 1 colony (Nazin), but I could do it with the Mrrshan and later, with the Alkari.
So in 2398, my troops took over Mrrshan's rebuilt Rigel, and I took their robotics 3 and ion cannon techs. The Mrrshan wanted peace after that, but I declined. GNN also gave me the "nearly majority" message at this point.
In 2399, I destroyed Nazin and exterminated the Darloks, but of course, GNN reported it as the Darloks exterminating the Darloks.
End Game
At the 2399 council, both Alkari and I had 5 votes each, while the Mrrshan had 1 vote and voted for Alkari. In 2400, since I got personal deflector shield, I redid my tech sliders; I would be going for improved space scanner (assuming I could get it), zortium armor, 4 shields, warp dissipator, and neutron blaster, and set the sliders so that they should all go into percentages at about the same time. After they complete, I would build my final set of planet killers versus the Alkari.
Also, I would start a bunch of invasions, so I set most of the eastern colonies to be at 60% of their max population for a good balance between their tech output and their population gain, and they would constantly be sending troops to Reticuli which would accumulate the troops and send them off to invade colonies as needed. Having Reticuli be the accumulator actually isn't the best because it's the one that should be kept at 60% since it had the best population growth, but Nazin wasn't up yet and it'll be my accumulator later. In fact, I colonized Nazin at the end of 2400.
In 2402, I realized I would be exterminating the Mrrshan soon and thus be in final war with the Alkari. Thus, I threatened the Alkari to hopefully get a free tech, then wait for enough time to pass for them to be back in contact and then do it again right before exterminating the Mrrshan, so that the Alkari would be in retreat mode when I moved my ships in on them. Well, the Alkari was having none of it. They declared war on me over it. Oops. So I sent my death ships toward Alkari's northern colonies, with the premise of building newer ones to finish off Mrrshan (if needed) and move into Alkari's primary colonies.
Also, GNN reported that my Rigel would be going nova in 9 years -- and not soon after I had conquered it either. I hastily sent a bunch of troops over to it and kept its production on doubled status every turn to ensure that it would be able to find a research solution in time.
In 2404, I noticed Alkari had a colony ship fleet heading to Fierias after I had destroyed in 2397. So I'll let them take it, and use it to get some Alkari techs, since they had the best techs anyway (including impulse drives).
I also noticed that Talas, Mrrshan's only remaining colony, already had 4 missile bases on it now. That seemed like I would lose a lot of troops if I invaded it, so I would let Mrrshan take over my Seidon since I noticed they had troops heading for it, so that I could destroy Talas, let them (or Alkari) rebuild it, then take it and get techs, then take over Seidon and get some more techs. I know, I know, what a convoluted plan.
In 2405, my planet killer ships arrived at Alkari Tao and summarily killed everyone there. The next year, Mrrshan captured my Seidon, and took sub-light drives, hyper-x missiles, and battle computer 2 from me. But in 2405, I destroyed Alkari Antares, and captured Alkari Fierias, taking range 7, improved scanner, duralloy armor, and impulse drives. With duralloy armor and impulse drives now, my transports should be able to get onto Talas with only minimal casualties from its bases, so I decided to just take it and Seidon over rather than wait around for Talas to be rebuilt. I would take a heavy diplomatic hit for exterminating the Mrrshan, but it would be final war anyway so it wouldn't matter.
With the new techs, I started a new top-of-the-line planet killer ship. It would survive on speed alone, so it would have impulse drives with inertial stabilizer so that it could move 4 squares in combat -- enough to reach the planet in 2 moves. It would also have 0 shields, base titanium armor, and no auto repair, with the hope that it could maneuver if needed to dodge missiles. Going purely offense meant that it could fit 39 death spores, a substantial increase from previous versions.
In 2408, GNN announced that Rigel was safe from nova. Yay. In 2409, I switched my transports to go to my Uxmai instead to take over the Alkari north colonies when they go to rebuild them, while my newly made planet killer ship (another identical 26 spore ship) would go for the Alkari main colonies to try them out. I destroyed Alkari Primodius to the north and Alkari Thrax to the south, while the Alkari captured Mrrshan's Seidon. It turns out that destroying Thrax was easier than I thought; although the Alkari had Hyper-X missiles, they didn't have enough in the face of my 3 shields and auto-repair with 600 HP. So I should've been moving in on Alkari all along once I could make the death spore ships, rather than waiting around for the next generation of ships. Oh well. I moved my southern ship toward Altair to try it out and see if I could take it out solo, even though Altair undoubtedly had a lot of bases.
In 2410 I captured Mrrshan Talas and exterminated them. I only got range 4 out of it though. The next year, I destroyed Altair Cygni, and found out that no, I couldn't kill Altair with just a 26 spore ship. My new top-of-the-line ship was also built at this time. The original plan was to use it to take out Altair. However, at this point I was already considering how to finish every colony off and end the game. The plan was that my original two planet killer ships (the 29 spore and a 26 spore) would hit Altair together, and hopefully split the damage between them long enough to kill Altair. They would also kill Rana, north of Altair, along the way. The 26 spore ship that just hit Altair, having fled from a still-live colony, was still heading back to my nearest colony so it would be out of the ending sequence. My new planet killer would be using its speed to kill Altair's rebuilt Primodius quickly instead of hitting Altair. I would also be sending troops to capture Alkari Seidon, as well as troops from Nitzer to capture Alkari's rebuilt Cygni. Yes Nitzer is my ultra rich and you shouldn't really decrease the production of your ultra rich planets, but it was the end of the game anyway so it wouldn't matter.
So in 2413, the planet killer duo killed Alkari Rana on their way to Altair. I also captured Alkari's rebuilt Tao, and got neutron blaster and ion rifle in the process, the latter of which would definitely be helpful. In 2414, I captured Alkari's Seidon. And finally, in 2415, I destroyed Alkari's rebuilt Primodius to the north with my new fast planet killer, captured Alkari Cygni with troops from Nitzer, and also destroyed Altair. For this final fight, I had one of my large warships move forward first to attract the first volley of missiles, then my huge ships moved in after that. But I found that Altair only had 30 population to kill -- it had probably just sent out transports bound for another now extinct colony.
So win by extermination in 2415.
Strategic Notes
Once Nitzer maxed out on factories and I got death spores + nuclear engines + inertial stabilizer + auto repair, I could have started the end game right there. A huge ship this early on with auto repair would have been nearly indestructible, and two or three together even more so. Nitzer could've just started pumping out such huge ships every couple of turns, with some large warships to take out ships that were trying to rebuild colonies, or conquer the rebuilt colonies with transports. So I could've started the end game in 2374 (when I got inertial stabilizer), rather than waiting until 2385 when Mrrshan and Darlok declared war on me. It would've ended the game a decade or two earlier.
Also, I should have followed more of a "scorched earth" strategy. Although waiting for them to rebuild colonies would allow me to steal techs, it basically just slowed me down. Sure, it was important for the first few, to get improved scanner and impulse drives in particular, but the other stuff weren't really necessary to my strategy.
It seems like I didn't get as big of a diplomatic hit with bioweapons as I had thought. Maybe I should use it more often in regular games, since it seemed to be really effective -- especially in taking over colonies with minimum resistance yet lots of factories for stealing techs.
And as you can see, I never did get that "next generation" planet killed with zortium armor, 4 shields, and a warp dissipator for ships. I didn't need it. Sometimes better is the enemy of good enough; I did just fine with the current technology, and waiting around for the next generation technology would've just delayed my win, and given the computers a chance to catch up.
The ships that I made throughout this game are below. I had a "5 hlas 1" which was identical to the shown "5 hlas 2" but scrapped to make space once I got ion cannon. I also made some colony ships and scouts but they're not really important. But basically, for warships, a lot of them lasted until the end of the game, including my initial huge planet killer ships.
Strategically, to take out planets, you need to have use bioweapon ships that can survive the planet's missile attacks long enough to reach the planet and then dispense with their weapons, until the planet's population drops to 0. You can use whatever regular methods to take out other ships, however.
When you eradicate a planet's population, however, the missile bases will continue firing. Since you can't do anything about them directly, your ships are forced to retreat, after which the bases disappear when the colony is destroyed. Because of this, for this game I didn't follow one of the exploit rules, the one that says ships with limited ammunition (such as missiles, bombs, and bioweapons) if retreating from a battle, must return to one of your colonies to "recharge" to take away from the somewhat game-breaking ability to just fire a volley of missiles, retreat from battle, and stay at an enemy colony and repeat this every turn until they die. For this variant, because the bases still continue firing even after the colony itself died, I instead allowed an exception for if the retreat was after all enemy ships had either been destroyed or fled, and the colony was dead (and only the bases were still around), then my fleet was allowed to continue on without returning home first.
As Silicoids, the overall strategy is to expand early since that's where your advantages are the greatest (since you don't have waste taking away from your productivity and you can colonize hostile planets right away). So that's what I did more or less. Since the objective was to exterminate everyone as early as possible, I also wanted to make huge death spore ships early on -- with enough HP to survive the initial weak missiles, hopefully before the computer are able to get really good missiles. But more on that later.
An animated gif of the map each year is below. Other than the usual fights and conquests, starting in 2365 you can see my long line of transports toward the eastern Vulcan, and another line of transports to the southern Draconis starting 2380. I basically kept my colonies at a certain percentage of max population (say 60%), and sent any troops that were above that amount to new colonies, meaning each transport was basically 1 or 2 troops each.
Early Game
There were two stars from the beginning, to the SW and the SE. Since the SW star was closer to the central of the map, I sent my colony ship there, but held off on colonizing it until my scout reached the SE star, just in case the SE star would be better. It wasn't, so I wasted a few turns on this. Oh well. So I colonized the SW star, Kakata, at the end of 2303. At this point, Darlok scouts were already nearby, and I saw Mrrshan scouts a few turns later, so I would need to scout-block early on this map. Oh yeah, it's a small map, not a medium map huh, so everyone's somewhat closer to everyone else. Oops.
I started my colony ship in 2306, which was pretty early, but was because as Silicoids my initial production was naturally high, and I wanted to get Reticuli, a nice big 90-pop star to my SW. I also later found that Darlok's homeworld, Nazin, was directly south of it, and later on, Mrrshan's homeworld was also not far away. The ship is built in 2314 and sent over to Reticuli, which I colonized at the end of 2317. I was the first to 3 systems.
I then started researching planetology and propulsion, to make colony ships cheaper. The two technologies that I could research were terraform 10 and range 5, so I focused on terra 10 first unless something good ended up being in range 5. The reason was I was hoping to avoid contact with Darlok and Mrrshan early on so I couldn't get drawn into stupid early wars if possible. In 2326, though, I explored Nitzer, a dead ultra rich at the center of the map. This was just about ideal; dead means they couldn't take it over, and ultra rich of course means lots and lots of production. So at this point I changed my research to focus on getting range 5, with only the minimum needed for the research bonus on terra 10. I also switched Cryslon from making colony ships to teching, then back to making ships once I was waiting for the tech advance to occur.
In 2333 I got terra 10 and started death spores, and in 2335 I got range 5 and started on nuclear engines, and formally met the Darloks. From here, I was hoping for a quick deep space scanner to see approaching ships, but I soon found I couldn't get it, so I stopped that and focused on construction instead for indus 9 for cheaper factories.
In 2338 GNN said the Alkari had 6 star systems, so obviously they've been busy. I also formally met them, and it turned out that they were to the west. They had taken over most of the west side of the nebula. I set up a trade agreement with them for 25 BC (the minimum) to hopefully keep me in their good graces, since it looked like they'll be the leading computer in this game. I also noticed that they were allied with Mrrshan. Somehow, computer Alkari and Mrrshan always seem to be allied.
In 2338, Darlok also declared war on me out of the blue. So now, my focus is on getting auto repair (assuming I can get it), death spores, and nuclear engines, and then making a huge ship to take them out.
In 2342 or so (not sure on exact year), we had our first council. It was between the Alkari and Mrrshan, each having 3 votes, with Darlok having 1 vote and 2 votes from me. This was nice because the computers split the votes so I didn't have to worry about a cheesy early diplomatic loss. But it meant that the stars were being rapidly filled up. I ended up voting for the Alkari for a nice diplomatic boost, since I hadn't met the Mrrshan yet.
In 2344, I colonized Nitzer, which is what I'll be relying on for my production, and formally encountered the Mrrshan. I also set up a trade agreement with the Mrrshan to decrease their likelihood of declaring war on me. The next year, I noticed the Alkari about to arrive at Nitzer. In theory it didn't matter if they explored it since they likely didn't have dead tech so they couldn't send troops to it anyway, but I didn't want them hanging around it and destroying factories and incoming transports. So I threatened the Alkari and fortunately, they retreated and gave me 125 BC. I put it all into developing Nitzer quickly.
In 2354, I got indus 8, and started on auto repair -- yay! In 2357, I got nuclear engines, and started inertial stabilizer, even though it was in the same tier and I could've done the next tier's sub-light drives. The reasoning was that my planet destroyer ship would need to reach the planet quickly, and nuclear engines was enough to make it speed 2, while inertial stabilizer would make it speed 3, so my ships could reach the planet more quickly and hopefully, not die in the process. In retrospect, I should've done inertial stabilizer then sub-light drives (or if I didn't get sub-light drives, then back to nuclear engines), if I had thought it through. Oh well. At least this meant that my ships could be moving at warp 2 earlier; I made use of this to colonize the planet to the far east, which was another nice 90-pop monster.
I got death spores in 2368, 2 shields in 2370, and auto repair in 2372, so my huge death ship was about ready. I only needed to get inertial stabilizer. However, around this time (forgot which year), the Darloks asked for peace, so I accepted, which meant the ship didn't need to be made. Oh well. In 2372, Reticuli became fertile; I'm not sure if the Silicoids get the 1.5x population growth bonus, but hey I'll take the additional max pop (which does increase the growth rate). In 2373, I colonized Draconis, a radiated rich to the southwest, to help pump up Nitzer's production later on once Draconis itself was established. And in 2374, I got inertial stabilizer, so all the elements of my huge ship were there now.
At the 2374 council, it was between me and the Alkari. They had 4 votes, Darlok had 1 vote but abstained, Mrrshan had 3 votes and voted for Alkari, and I had 4 votes and abstained, for a total of 12 votes. So this vote very nearly triggered the final war, if Darlok had voted for the Alkari. So I better get going with my end-game soon. Sure enough, I got an overexpand warning from Alkari in 2381, and in 2385, both the Darlok and Mrrshan declared war on me out of the blue. At this point, it was time to start my end-game process of eradicating everyone, ready or not. I was hoping to tech up a bit more before it but it looks like I won't have the time. Prior to this, Nitzer was pumping extra resources into itself first (for extra production) and then extras beyond that on the teching colonies, but now, it would switch to making ships.
Mid Game
In 2386, I gave indus 9 to Alkari, and got them to declare war on Mrrshan and Darlok. I sent scouts over to the Mrrshan and Darlok colonies to scope them out; even though my scouts didn't have battle scanner, I could still at least see how many missile bases each planet had and based on the missiles' speed, a guess of what missile tech they had. (I was also slowly spying on each race through skimming the fractions of a percent when available, but this was a slow process and not very up-to-date.)
I also started my huge ship. Because I was about to get sub-light, I waited until sub-light completed, to fit more onto my huge ship, even though it would only use nuclear engines. I got sub-light in 2389 and so the huge ship was completed in 2391. It was called "29 spores" because other than a single set of nuclear missiles for maneuvering (by turning it off at the beginning of combat, the ship would still be able to maneuver even after all its other weapons had been used), it had 29 sets of death spores for the planet. It didn't have any armament against ships -- it was purely a planet-killer, with shields and auto repair to keep it alive until it did its job.
The huge ship headed for Mrrshan's Rigel because it only had a few missile bases, so this would be a good proving ground. And it did its job admirably, easily dispatching Rigel in 2392. The Mrrshan were only using nuclear missiles so I could easily take them on. I got a warning from Alkari about using bioweapons but surprisingly, not much of a diplomatic hit. I guess the bioweapons diplomatic hit isn't actually that bad.
In 2393 or so, I finished researching 3 shields, so my next huge ship had only 26 death spores, but 3 shields. This meant that it would only take half the damage that the previous planet killer would take from nuclear missiles. In 2394, I easily destroyed Mrrshan Seidon, and colonized it in 2395.
Now, Mrrshan had taken Talas down in the southeast. This was the only colony of Mrrshan or Darlok that I had successfully explored with my scouts prior to them getting missiles, so this was my only way of taking techs from others through conquest. Otherwise, the colonies that I destroy would simply be obliterated by death spores, and although when I colonized them they would have lots of factories, I wouldn't get any techs from that. So I started researching personal deflector shield after 3 shields and made plans to colonize the far southeast star (Collassa) with an extended range colony ship, so that Talas would be in range for a troop invasion.
Around this time, though, I realized that this strategy was all wrong. I realized that as soon as I destroyed a colony, the computer would launch colony ships to it right away to recolonize it, which would leave the colony with 2 troops and lots of factories -- and no missile bases. Mrrshan did this with Rigel. So what I really should be doing was to destroy a colony, then invade it as soon as they recolonized it, so I could take their techs without missile bases getting in the way. I couldn't do this with Darlok since they only had 1 colony (Nazin), but I could do it with the Mrrshan and later, with the Alkari.
So in 2398, my troops took over Mrrshan's rebuilt Rigel, and I took their robotics 3 and ion cannon techs. The Mrrshan wanted peace after that, but I declined. GNN also gave me the "nearly majority" message at this point.
In 2399, I destroyed Nazin and exterminated the Darloks, but of course, GNN reported it as the Darloks exterminating the Darloks.
End Game
At the 2399 council, both Alkari and I had 5 votes each, while the Mrrshan had 1 vote and voted for Alkari. In 2400, since I got personal deflector shield, I redid my tech sliders; I would be going for improved space scanner (assuming I could get it), zortium armor, 4 shields, warp dissipator, and neutron blaster, and set the sliders so that they should all go into percentages at about the same time. After they complete, I would build my final set of planet killers versus the Alkari.
Also, I would start a bunch of invasions, so I set most of the eastern colonies to be at 60% of their max population for a good balance between their tech output and their population gain, and they would constantly be sending troops to Reticuli which would accumulate the troops and send them off to invade colonies as needed. Having Reticuli be the accumulator actually isn't the best because it's the one that should be kept at 60% since it had the best population growth, but Nazin wasn't up yet and it'll be my accumulator later. In fact, I colonized Nazin at the end of 2400.
In 2402, I realized I would be exterminating the Mrrshan soon and thus be in final war with the Alkari. Thus, I threatened the Alkari to hopefully get a free tech, then wait for enough time to pass for them to be back in contact and then do it again right before exterminating the Mrrshan, so that the Alkari would be in retreat mode when I moved my ships in on them. Well, the Alkari was having none of it. They declared war on me over it. Oops. So I sent my death ships toward Alkari's northern colonies, with the premise of building newer ones to finish off Mrrshan (if needed) and move into Alkari's primary colonies.
Also, GNN reported that my Rigel would be going nova in 9 years -- and not soon after I had conquered it either. I hastily sent a bunch of troops over to it and kept its production on doubled status every turn to ensure that it would be able to find a research solution in time.
In 2404, I noticed Alkari had a colony ship fleet heading to Fierias after I had destroyed in 2397. So I'll let them take it, and use it to get some Alkari techs, since they had the best techs anyway (including impulse drives).
I also noticed that Talas, Mrrshan's only remaining colony, already had 4 missile bases on it now. That seemed like I would lose a lot of troops if I invaded it, so I would let Mrrshan take over my Seidon since I noticed they had troops heading for it, so that I could destroy Talas, let them (or Alkari) rebuild it, then take it and get techs, then take over Seidon and get some more techs. I know, I know, what a convoluted plan.
In 2405, my planet killer ships arrived at Alkari Tao and summarily killed everyone there. The next year, Mrrshan captured my Seidon, and took sub-light drives, hyper-x missiles, and battle computer 2 from me. But in 2405, I destroyed Alkari Antares, and captured Alkari Fierias, taking range 7, improved scanner, duralloy armor, and impulse drives. With duralloy armor and impulse drives now, my transports should be able to get onto Talas with only minimal casualties from its bases, so I decided to just take it and Seidon over rather than wait around for Talas to be rebuilt. I would take a heavy diplomatic hit for exterminating the Mrrshan, but it would be final war anyway so it wouldn't matter.
With the new techs, I started a new top-of-the-line planet killer ship. It would survive on speed alone, so it would have impulse drives with inertial stabilizer so that it could move 4 squares in combat -- enough to reach the planet in 2 moves. It would also have 0 shields, base titanium armor, and no auto repair, with the hope that it could maneuver if needed to dodge missiles. Going purely offense meant that it could fit 39 death spores, a substantial increase from previous versions.
In 2408, GNN announced that Rigel was safe from nova. Yay. In 2409, I switched my transports to go to my Uxmai instead to take over the Alkari north colonies when they go to rebuild them, while my newly made planet killer ship (another identical 26 spore ship) would go for the Alkari main colonies to try them out. I destroyed Alkari Primodius to the north and Alkari Thrax to the south, while the Alkari captured Mrrshan's Seidon. It turns out that destroying Thrax was easier than I thought; although the Alkari had Hyper-X missiles, they didn't have enough in the face of my 3 shields and auto-repair with 600 HP. So I should've been moving in on Alkari all along once I could make the death spore ships, rather than waiting around for the next generation of ships. Oh well. I moved my southern ship toward Altair to try it out and see if I could take it out solo, even though Altair undoubtedly had a lot of bases.
In 2410 I captured Mrrshan Talas and exterminated them. I only got range 4 out of it though. The next year, I destroyed Altair Cygni, and found out that no, I couldn't kill Altair with just a 26 spore ship. My new top-of-the-line ship was also built at this time. The original plan was to use it to take out Altair. However, at this point I was already considering how to finish every colony off and end the game. The plan was that my original two planet killer ships (the 29 spore and a 26 spore) would hit Altair together, and hopefully split the damage between them long enough to kill Altair. They would also kill Rana, north of Altair, along the way. The 26 spore ship that just hit Altair, having fled from a still-live colony, was still heading back to my nearest colony so it would be out of the ending sequence. My new planet killer would be using its speed to kill Altair's rebuilt Primodius quickly instead of hitting Altair. I would also be sending troops to capture Alkari Seidon, as well as troops from Nitzer to capture Alkari's rebuilt Cygni. Yes Nitzer is my ultra rich and you shouldn't really decrease the production of your ultra rich planets, but it was the end of the game anyway so it wouldn't matter.
So in 2413, the planet killer duo killed Alkari Rana on their way to Altair. I also captured Alkari's rebuilt Tao, and got neutron blaster and ion rifle in the process, the latter of which would definitely be helpful. In 2414, I captured Alkari's Seidon. And finally, in 2415, I destroyed Alkari's rebuilt Primodius to the north with my new fast planet killer, captured Alkari Cygni with troops from Nitzer, and also destroyed Altair. For this final fight, I had one of my large warships move forward first to attract the first volley of missiles, then my huge ships moved in after that. But I found that Altair only had 30 population to kill -- it had probably just sent out transports bound for another now extinct colony.
So win by extermination in 2415.
Strategic Notes
Once Nitzer maxed out on factories and I got death spores + nuclear engines + inertial stabilizer + auto repair, I could have started the end game right there. A huge ship this early on with auto repair would have been nearly indestructible, and two or three together even more so. Nitzer could've just started pumping out such huge ships every couple of turns, with some large warships to take out ships that were trying to rebuild colonies, or conquer the rebuilt colonies with transports. So I could've started the end game in 2374 (when I got inertial stabilizer), rather than waiting until 2385 when Mrrshan and Darlok declared war on me. It would've ended the game a decade or two earlier.
Also, I should have followed more of a "scorched earth" strategy. Although waiting for them to rebuild colonies would allow me to steal techs, it basically just slowed me down. Sure, it was important for the first few, to get improved scanner and impulse drives in particular, but the other stuff weren't really necessary to my strategy.
It seems like I didn't get as big of a diplomatic hit with bioweapons as I had thought. Maybe I should use it more often in regular games, since it seemed to be really effective -- especially in taking over colonies with minimum resistance yet lots of factories for stealing techs.
And as you can see, I never did get that "next generation" planet killed with zortium armor, 4 shields, and a warp dissipator for ships. I didn't need it. Sometimes better is the enemy of good enough; I did just fine with the current technology, and waiting around for the next generation technology would've just delayed my win, and given the computers a chance to catch up.
The ships that I made throughout this game are below. I had a "5 hlas 1" which was identical to the shown "5 hlas 2" but scrapped to make space once I got ion cannon. I also made some colony ships and scouts but they're not really important. But basically, for warships, a lot of them lasted until the end of the game, including my initial huge planet killer ships.