OSG 29A - The Charismatic Introverts

[Ianus]

I agree with that. Particularly given that we can now fit Omega bombs on a small hill (!!!!!!!!!!) there isn't much that even the Meklar will be able to do, particularly given the lack of Scatter Pack missiles this game. A couple thousand Omega bombers should wrap this up in short order!

[Sullla]

Turn 0 (2510): We are in a dominant position in this galaxy, way ahead of everyone but the Meklar, and roughly equal in technology to them. We're about to take the lead in Total Power, which is almost always the sign that a game on Impossible has reached a winning position. I check on diplomacy first, and it seems that we're on good terms with the Silicoids and Bulrathi (and Meklar, interestingly) while the Alkari don't like us much. The Silicoids and Meklar have an alliance, and if we attack one of them, we'll likely end up attacking both. I think that I'll try to keep the Bulrathi as an ally while going after the Alkari and Silicoids. The Meklar will join them at some point, but we should be OK to deal with them.

Our spy spending doesn't make a lot of sense. We have 1 tick going to "Espionage" against the Meklar, who are way ahead of us in Computer tech. That's a complete waste; we'll never get anything from them. I set the spy to "Hide" to keep track of their techs and otherwise do nothing. If we want to steal something from the Meklar, we'll need to make a bigger investment than one tick on the slider. I stop spending on the birds at all, since we'll soon take them over and get the rest of their techs. Similarly, we can loot the techs that we want from Silicoid planets. I'll keep one tick going there to watch what they have via the "Hide" option, and devote three ticks of spy spending to "Espionage" against the Bulrathi in the hopes of getting some of their excellent Weapons tech. We'll be bombing the Alkari and Silicoids, who are their enemies, and that will keep relations with the bears in the happy range.

We appear to have almost every planet on research right now, which feels like a bit of a strange decision to me. There isn't anything that we especially need right now in terms of technology; we already have more than enough on hand to crush all of the non-Meklar races, it's a matter of doing the tactical execution to make it so. We also have Star Gate technology, but we have no star gates finished thus far, and none under current construction. For those of you who are new to Master of Orion, you have to build the star gates like this:



They show up as another build option on the planetary screen like ships do, and yes, it's kind of a weird place on the interface to have them appear. Still, we have them and it will help our planets in the southeast corner rally ships instantly to the front lines once completed, so I go ahead and start them on our top production planets: Sol, Exis, Darrian, Uxmai, Rha, and Collossa. I'm building more missile bases along the front lines in the west, which will allow our navy to go forward more aggressively in their wake. Simius, Quayal, and Tyr are all recently captured and will need some time to continue being built up before they can defend themselves. Fierias is in good shape and will be our strongest point on the front lines for the immediate future.

Our fleet is a bit scattered at the moment. I'm going to concentrate it at Fierias with the hopes of going after the Silicoids next and rolling up their western planets in a clockwise circling movement. Our Huge gunships are mostly holding in the Quayal/Simius/Tyr region to protect those planets while they build some defenses for themselves. I also really dislike the new Pulson gunship that we put together; 22 Heavy Blasters on a ship in 2510 is a ship that lacks any kind of punch whatsoever. Adding 20 Pulson missiles to a Huge Autorepair gunship also creates a mixed design that doesn't serve any one purpose. I won't scrap the ship since we already built two of them, but don't expect me to build any more. I'll build stargates for now and then come up with something once they start finishing.

Turn 1 (2511): Mostly building stargates and factories. We have a Bulrathi fleet incoming against Proteus, where we already have 7 missile bases ready to meet the threat, and the Silicoids are continue to try and plant colonies on those Radiated planets deep in our core. Pushing them back continues to be annoying. Unfortunately, they have Range 9 tech and can reach those worlds without much trouble. We should probably destroy Gienah again just to push those planets out of range.

Turn 2 (2512): We get a scan of the incoming Bulrathi ships:



Nothing too dangerous given that we have 19 points of shielding at the moment for our planets. Even Fusion Bombs are basically useless at this point against us. They retreat without offering battle. I bomb out one of the Silicoid colonies at the Radiated planets in our core, and they immediately declare war on us. That was expected, and we'll see what we can do to capture some of their planets before my turnset is over. For the moment, I'll go blow up Gienah since we can't capture it as a Radiated planet.

First stargate is done at Exis, our Ultra Rich planet. I scrap our ancient Hyper-X missile boats to open up a design slot, and put this together:



This Autorepair gunship has significantly more firepower, replacing those Heavy Blasters with about twice as many Megabolt Cannons. The latter gun is one of my favorites in the whole game, with the damage being higher than the numbers suggest due to the +3 to attack level. Instead of Pulson missiles, I've also outfitted this ship with 20 Omega-V bombs, which will allow it to take out planetary defenses in its own right without having to build a separate bomber. (I looked at creating a Small Omega-V bomber, and while we could indeed build them, I would rather minimize attrition at this point by using one Huge design, especially because we still have 1000+ of the Small Fusion bombers.) Instead of using two-range weapons and a Repulsor Beam, this setup can freeze enemy ships with the Warp Dissipator, then back off to heal via Autorepair, and go back for more fighting. I've found the Warp Dissipator to be a more powerful special in most situations than the Repulsor Beam, and it also lets us stop using those ancient two-range weapons. I plan to use this as the core of the fleet for the time being, routed through stargates immediately to the front lines at Fierias.

Turn 3 (2513): Gienah destroyed from the Silicoids; there were no missile bases and few defending ships. Stupid Radiated planets. We'll need to keep playing whack a mole with the rocks, but we might as well do that and stop them from settling in at any of these places. There is an Alkari fleet incoming to Tyr which we should be able to fend off without any trouble.

Turn 4 (2514): The Alkari "fleet" was a single Large ship with outdated junk, not worth worrying about. Then we get this event, and OUCH on that cost:



That was our nearly-completed research into tech, and now we have to start from scratch again. Fortunately this game is almost over and this doesn't come at a critical moment. Very painful nonetheless. Elsewhere, we chase off more Silicoid poachers at the Radiated planets. The old HBC4 ships are holding position over those planets to keep the rocks away. A whole bunch of stargates finish, and I began new Huge gunship construction. A whole of those ships finish in 4 turns, so I'll plan an attack to hit the Silicoids in 5 turns at Aquilae.

Turn 6 (2516): The Alkari ask for peace, which I'm willing to grant for the moment while we're focused on the Meklars. The Bulrathi also warn us about our population being too large, which we can ignore because they hate the Silicoids, who we are repeatedly bombing. I'm continuing to send huge amounts of population to the Silicoid planet of Aquilae well in advance (thanks Advance Space Scanner!) for our planned attack in three turns.



Turn 7 (2517): We get a tech steal from the Bulrathi; I go for Weapons since that's where they have the best stuff, and we pull Fusion Beam. If anyone wants to create a two-range weapon design, at least we can go with the Heavy Fusion Beams now. First of the new Huge gunship designs is finished and instantly gets routed to Fierias via the stargate with no travel time. There are a whole bunch more finishing next turn. Continue to send population forward for the upcoming attack. Our developing planets in the northwest (Quayal/Simius/Tyr) are continuing to get more reserve money poured into them to stand up factories faster.

Turn 8 (2518): Five of our new Huge gunship complete and appear at Fierias via stargate. I send them forward on the attack. We also have a Silicoid attack incoming against Quayal, which I should be able to defend with our previous generation of Huge gunships. I've kept almost all of them in that border region in the northwest since those planets don't have any defenses of their own yet. Still building factories right now, especially Quayal (which has been terraformed but still lacks any factories).

Turn 9 (2519): Silicoids retreat from Quayal without a fight. Aquilae is the main battle:



45 missile bases packing Pulsons; Impossible difficulty is no joke. This looks dicey as those Pulson bases fire on our stack of Fusion bombers... right up until my new Autorepair Huge design closes with the planet. One round of fire drops 120 Omega V bombs, and that takes out 30 of the defending bases immediately. Well, so much for that challenge, heh. I told you guys that this design would work well. And it's not just a dedicated bomber either, we can gain space superiority with the 40 Megabolt Cannons on the ship too. Anyway, we take out the remaining bases with only minimal losses, one volley of Pulsons hitting our Fusion 5 bomber design. Mid-invasion, we then get the option to steal technology from the Bulrathi, in one of those weird Master of Orion turn processing order things. This is a low-level penetration with only Computers and Planetology available, and thus I take Computers to improve our future spying efforts. We get Deep Space Scanner, a low-level tech as expected.

Our forces land at Aquilae:



We end up with 245 pop against their 109 pop; with exactly the same gropo tech, they end up with a bonus of +5 for being the defender. That means this was a bit on the overkill side, but that's OK. Extra pop just lets you stand up the planet faster post-capture. I've also played way too many games on Impossible where I had to invade with a crippling gropo disadvantage, and even the full 300 pop wasn't enough. Just this weekend, my private Sakkra game had me trying to capture a planet with a disadvantage of 40 points in gropo tech, and I ended up needing to send about 1000 pop across half a dozen turns to capture the planet in question. Anyway, we take Aquilae with 112 Humans remaining, capturing 305 factories. Techs discovered are: Antimatter Torpedoes (nice - that was the top Silicoid Weapons tech), Battle Computer VI (a step up from our current BC V), Improved Industrial 7, and Ion Drives (the big one: allows combat speed of 4 and speeds up our transports). Very nice haul all things considered. I would design a new Huge Autorepair gunship to take advantage of the warp 6 engines, but I'll leave that to the next player since my turn is nearly done. I start setting up population transfers for an invasion of Cryslon in 3 turns, due on 2522.

Turn 10 (2520): We get the option to steal tech from the Bulrathi again, and this time it's a deep penetration, a hit in all six fields. I go for their nice Weapons tech and get an excellent result: Hand Phasors! Very nice indeed. Now we'll get an additional +15 to our gropo rolls (going from +10 to +25). The bears call us up to complain, but we keep bombing Silicoid planets every turn, and that's keeping them "Neutral" for now. It might be worthwhile to stop spying now that we've picked up one of their best Weapons techs, but I'll leave that to the next player. The rest of this turn consisted of moving lots of population around and otherwise not much of interest.



Notes for the next player:

* There is an attack planned for Cryslon in 2 turns (2522). I have lots of population heading there at the moment. You will need to order the fleet forward next turn and any additional population that you want to send, although with that Hand Phasor tech, we should have enough with what's already heading there.

* The attacking fleet is located at the most recently conquered planet, Aquilae. Our older ships are still protecting the Quayal/Simius/Tyr trio in the northwest, although they are finally getting closer to being able to defend themselves. I have most of our top production worlds working on more of the Huge Autorepair gunships, routed to Fierias via stargates. We'll definitely want a stargate in Cryslon after it's captured. I had our Rich and Ultra Rich planets mostly feeding the Reserve, which I used heavily for standing up our immature worlds.

* The old Huge ships are fending off the Silicoid attempts to colonize the Radiated planets. We are bombing Crypto every turn and slowly wearing down the little colony. Hopefully the Silicoids will soon be out of range of these locations.

Not too much more to say. Keep sweeping up the Silicoids for now, and their planets plus a vote from the Bulrathi will probably be enough to win. If you guys want to take on the Meklar, I'm sure we can do that too. The Meklar have Complete Terraforming, which adds +120 population on every world. That's the only reason we don't have enough population to win in the Council already. If we can get that tech away from them via planetary invasion, then all we have to do is grow another 70 pop on every planet and the game will end.



Here's the savegame file. Good luck!

[haphazard1]

Lots of very nice tech gains, Sullla. Plus some conquest. Nasty virus event, costing us all that research, but fortunately not that critical a set back at this point in the game.

I believe I am up next, so this is a got it on the save. Should be able to play sometime tomorrow. The rocks continue to be annoying constantly trying to grab those radiated worlds , so further attacks on them seems to be the immediate goal. Our newer worlds will continue development until they can defend themselves, freeing up our fleet for further advances.

[Mardoc]

Yay for steady progress!

Haphazard, no rush, my weeknights tend to be busy.

One nitpick:

Instead of Pulson missiles, I've also outfitted this ship with 20 Omega-V bombs, which will allow it to take out planetary defenses in its own right without having to build a separate bomber. (I looked at creating a Small Omega-V bomber, and while we could indeed build them, I would rather minimize attrition at this point by using one Huge design, especially because we still have 1000+ of the Small Fusion bombers.)

If my math is right, one volley of Pulsons or better from a planet with at least 35 missile bases will kill this ship, no chance for auto-repair. We still need to bring along a stack of Smalls to look scary and soak up missiles. Would rather lose 135 Smalls at ~20 BC each than a 4100 BC Megabolt battleship.

It seems like a solid design for other purposes, particularly in being fast enough to get next to the planet quickly and end the battle, but I don't see it minimizing attrition. But I would suggest either the next design have ECM, or we should build Small bombers to bring alongside anyway.

[DaveV]

I've found the Warp Dissipator to be a more powerful special in most situations than the Repulsor Beam, and it also lets us stop using those ancient two-range weapons.

This is the second time I've seen someone speak favorably of the Warp Dissipator, so I must be missing something. My take: with only a 50% chance to reduce one enemy stack's movement by one move, this device only works for me when I have it on at least three different ships on the tactical screen, and when I'm facing a small and slow enemy fleet. Even then, it's too dependent on good luck with the RNG for my taste - I hate spending precious space on something that may well accomplish exactly nothing.

[haphazard1]

Haphazard, no rush, my weeknights tend to be busy.

Just as well, since I did not get to the turnset today as i had planned. Got slammed at work with a bunch of tasks, then afterwards I got dragooned by younger family members into a game of Lord of the Rings Monopoly. Two strongholds on Mount Doom is just nastily expensive. As you have likely already guessed, I did not win.

On ship design, with the new engines we should be able to get combat speed 4 (using Inertial Stabilizer). This does let us get to the planet very quickly to drop our bomb payload, which should help minimize attrition. But would the team prefer smaller bombers or large? And what existing designs do we want to keep and which to scrap?

[Mardoc]

I think you can manage either type of bomber. If you go with Huges, make sure to find room for ECM, shields, and mobility - that should cut the missile hit rate enough to make them survivable (as long as they don't take too many volleys). Smalls guarantee attrition, but limit losses to one bomber per missile; I think we can work with that too.

I think scrapping decisions are up to you as well. First guess would be to scrap the oldest stuff first, but maybe some of them are already gone.

[haphazard1]

It looks like I am not going to be able to get to the save today either. So I think I had better request a skip and hand over to the the next player. Sorry for holding things up.

[Mardoc]

Noted. I'm not perfectly certain when I'll be able to play either, so consider it yours until I manage to post an actual 'got it'.

[Mardoc]

Alright, I've got it.  Played the first three turns, but I'm bushed.  They take a lot longer than earlier!  Will try to finish up tomorrow.

The attack on Cryslon went smoothly, and we basically cleaned the rocks out of tech.  Got everything except Bio-Terminator; six techs in all including terraforming and Cloning.