Seeing as I was the one to set up this Imperium, I cannot submit an "official" entry, but I would like to explain my thought process behind making this start into an Imperium and how my original playthrough of this save (that inspired this imperium) went.
...if newbs want a doable opportunity to learn how to play with the Silicoids on impossible, this is one of the gentlest introductions that you are going to find. (So, even if you didn't get a chance to submit a report before the deadline, try playing a shadow game of this save, and see how it goes!)
In my original playthrough, I sent my initial colony ship south to colonize what turned out to be that small, size-20 rich world (quickly boosted to size-30 with an early research of IT+10). Looking back, it would be interesting to see whether colonizing the much larger terran world to the left of Cryslon would have been more optimal with my initial colony ship. Because as it turned out, I was able to use my rich world and homeworld to both crank out a ridiculous number of colony ships and get a ridiculous landgrab (eventually managing to peacefully colonize over half of the galaxy's stars before having to go to war!), but getting the new planets filled with pop turned out to be an EXTREME bottleneck. I was often lucky to see my new planets with maybe 5 extra pop each, and it took probably about 75+ turns before they were anywhere near full (having to daisy-chain transports to the even more far-flung planets on the frontier was another factor that kept most of my planets' populations low for so long).
I did manage to scout one of the two nearby artifact worlds (the one closer to the Bulrathi; the Mrrshans beat me to the other one closer to them), and I was lucky enough to pop nuclear engines from that! That accelerated my ridiculous colonization sprint even more, but did nothing to help my pop grow faster or my transports go faster, so if anything it caused me to be spread even more thinly for a long time. Good thing the AIs started so far away on this map! (This is why I suspected that, despite being on impossible difficulty, this map would be quite feasible for newbs to tackle—even ones not already familiar with the Silicoids' unique gameplay).
Therefore, I had a funny situation in the very first council vote around 2390 where I had almost half of the galaxy's planets colonized, but still nowhere near enough pop for a veto bloc. Thankfully, the AI were not consolidated into any cheesy alliances, and I was only at war with the 3-planet Mrrshans at that point, so I was able to survive that first council. Soon after, I had achieved a veto bloc, and just kept growing from there. With like 30 planets, my empire-wide population grow each turn got to be ridiculous. Once my Silicoid empire hit its stride around 2400, I was adding like 40 pop per turn (+1 and +2 population growth at every little planet adds up!), and so I was gaining like an extra council vote every 2 or 3 turns!
Shortly after the 2400 council vote, all of the AIs started to turn on me, but by then it was too late. I was already running away with the game just from peaceful expansion alone. I had IRC4, tons of pop, good computer tech, decent missile tech, decent shield tech, even biotoxin antidote. I was able to self-research all of it. When you're pulling in 10000+ BC per turn by 2400, it's not so hard to keep up with the AI tech rate.
The Bulrathi and Psilons put together some decent attacks on my western flank, but having that size-50 ultra-rich radiated planet in that sector (which eventually got up to size-100 with just improved terraforming!) made defending that sector a cinch, even with just nuclear engine ships. Eventually around 2425, I was able to spy-steal impulse drives from the Psilons and pulson missiles from the Bulrathi, and was able to research Omega-V bombs and go on the offensive by about 2430, mainly targeting the Meklar and Mrrshans first. At my handful of huge ultra-rich worlds, I was 3-turn-building huge ARS dreadnoughts against which the AI had no answer. Victory was in 2449 after wiping out the Mrrshans and Meklar, and glassing a bunch of Bulrathi and Psilon worlds just for fun (I probably would have had more than 2/3rd pop by that point anyways). Funny enough, the Darloks remained quiet the whole game, confined to a pitiful 2 planets! I guess if I had been playing this game for a score, it would have been:
10 starting points
+1 for scouting one of the artifact worlds
+2 for colonizing both of those easy-to-reach artifact worlds
-3 for allowing 3 council votes to elapse.
=10 total.
Theoretically, if I had been playing for an official Imperium score, I could have prolonged the game another 25 turns by abstaining from another council vote (-1 point), but which would have also allowed me to scout and colonize Orion +2 points), which would have left me with 11. But I was getting bored with this playthrough by that point and wasn't playing for points anyways, so I just wrapped it up. As it turns out, it looks like Ianus still would have beaten me in score via his clever strategy of postponing colonizing some of the trashier planets (and preventing the AI from colonizing some of theirs) so as to delay the council vote. Even if I had been playing for an Imperium score, I wouldn't have chanced such a strategy, as I (like Ianus) would have had no idea ahead of time how much breathing room this map was going to give me, and knowing my thought process, I would have (unlike Ianus) wanted to make sure to win at all costs, first and foremost, and would have not wanted to chance that win with score-oriented gambits (I learned my lesson about that the hard way with Imperium 43). So, well played, Ianus!
My one regret about how I set up this Imperium was the choice of a large map, as that might have daunted more players from starting or finishing the game. But, the fact that this map was large and gave the human player so much breathing room early on was what made this map distinctive and why I thought, and still think, that...
I did manage to scout one of the two nearby artifact worlds (the one closer to the Bulrathi; the Mrrshans beat me to the other one closer to them), and I was lucky enough to pop nuclear engines from that! That accelerated my ridiculous colonization sprint even more, but did nothing to help my pop grow faster or my transports go faster, so if anything it caused me to be spread even more thinly for a long time. Good thing the AIs started so far away on this map! (This is why I suspected that, despite being on impossible difficulty, this map would be quite feasible for newbs to tackle—even ones not already familiar with the Silicoids' unique gameplay).
Therefore, I had a funny situation in the very first council vote around 2390 where I had almost half of the galaxy's planets colonized, but still nowhere near enough pop for a veto bloc. Thankfully, the AI were not consolidated into any cheesy alliances, and I was only at war with the 3-planet Mrrshans at that point, so I was able to survive that first council. Soon after, I had achieved a veto bloc, and just kept growing from there. With like 30 planets, my empire-wide population grow each turn got to be ridiculous. Once my Silicoid empire hit its stride around 2400, I was adding like 40 pop per turn (+1 and +2 population growth at every little planet adds up!), and so I was gaining like an extra council vote every 2 or 3 turns!
Shortly after the 2400 council vote, all of the AIs started to turn on me, but by then it was too late. I was already running away with the game just from peaceful expansion alone. I had IRC4, tons of pop, good computer tech, decent missile tech, decent shield tech, even biotoxin antidote. I was able to self-research all of it. When you're pulling in 10000+ BC per turn by 2400, it's not so hard to keep up with the AI tech rate.
The Bulrathi and Psilons put together some decent attacks on my western flank, but having that size-50 ultra-rich radiated planet in that sector (which eventually got up to size-100 with just improved terraforming!) made defending that sector a cinch, even with just nuclear engine ships. Eventually around 2425, I was able to spy-steal impulse drives from the Psilons and pulson missiles from the Bulrathi, and was able to research Omega-V bombs and go on the offensive by about 2430, mainly targeting the Meklar and Mrrshans first. At my handful of huge ultra-rich worlds, I was 3-turn-building huge ARS dreadnoughts against which the AI had no answer. Victory was in 2449 after wiping out the Mrrshans and Meklar, and glassing a bunch of Bulrathi and Psilon worlds just for fun (I probably would have had more than 2/3rd pop by that point anyways). Funny enough, the Darloks remained quiet the whole game, confined to a pitiful 2 planets! I guess if I had been playing this game for a score, it would have been:
10 starting points
+1 for scouting one of the artifact worlds
+2 for colonizing both of those easy-to-reach artifact worlds
-3 for allowing 3 council votes to elapse.
=10 total.
Theoretically, if I had been playing for an official Imperium score, I could have prolonged the game another 25 turns by abstaining from another council vote (-1 point), but which would have also allowed me to scout and colonize Orion +2 points), which would have left me with 11. But I was getting bored with this playthrough by that point and wasn't playing for points anyways, so I just wrapped it up. As it turns out, it looks like Ianus still would have beaten me in score via his clever strategy of postponing colonizing some of the trashier planets (and preventing the AI from colonizing some of theirs) so as to delay the council vote. Even if I had been playing for an Imperium score, I wouldn't have chanced such a strategy, as I (like Ianus) would have had no idea ahead of time how much breathing room this map was going to give me, and knowing my thought process, I would have (unlike Ianus) wanted to make sure to win at all costs, first and foremost, and would have not wanted to chance that win with score-oriented gambits (I learned my lesson about that the hard way with Imperium 43). So, well played, Ianus!
My one regret about how I set up this Imperium was the choice of a large map, as that might have daunted more players from starting or finishing the game. But, the fact that this map was large and gave the human player so much breathing room early on was what made this map distinctive and why I thought, and still think, that...
...if newbs want a doable opportunity to learn how to play with the Silicoids on impossible, this is one of the gentlest introductions that you are going to find. (So, even if you didn't get a chance to submit a report before the deadline, try playing a shadow game of this save, and see how it goes!)
Small, yes, but that meant less pop was needed to get it up to speed. With an early IT+10 it wasn't that bad, and the ability to crank out colony ship after colony ship proved to be extremely useful.