Patch 1.40m.
Small galaxy.
Hard difficulty.
Alkari race.
5 opponents (1 left).
Early stages of expansion, 13 planets (14th radiated soon) vs 6 enemy.
Meklars are ahead in technology, while Alkaris were expanding and genociding 4 other reaces.
I cannot win it.
Tried: walling off with missile bases, harrassing Meklar with small bombers, making huge/medium beam ships, offering technology for peace. But he goes to war and takes all my planets one by one.
It's a shame you never get very far along in the tech tree, that's where the weapons and tech are more interesting imo. When I was seven I never cared about winning as fast as possible, it was always teching up to auto blasters + high energy focus as fast as possible, and then killing the AI. Bonus points if I could do it in a massive stack of medium ships. Man I loved high energy focus.
I always try to win as quickly as possible. My favorite guns are the Fusion Beam and the Megabolt Cannon, which both arrive right around the time I normally start to go on the offensive. I rarely see the lategame stuff very often, because I don't see much of a point in sitting around going through more techs when the game is already finished as a competitive event. It makes the rare occasions where I have to climb the entire tech tree to chase down a runaway AI empire more interesting.
In this game, I could have sat around running max tech rate (5000+ RP) for 25 turns and then built invincible fleets to kill the Meklar. But... what's the point? I could already kill the Meklar. There's no reason to drag things out another 25 turns. That's how I normally approach things.
I think (in my guess) what tyrmith was more trying to refer to is:
For me, there's a lot of ship combat strategy in-of-itself, it'd be fun / hard to have the computer high up or fully researched in the tech tree, along with you, so you can-get to plan-research this strategy aspect of the game, or even better-harder, to play against another human in this ship combat part of the game. As, a more fullly researched tech tree does give you more "toys-goodies" (ship designs), options, strategies, tactics, and etc to duel (test) out in an advanced 1v1 "chess or go" game. As opposed to in regards to (winning) the MoO Game (as quickly-soon-efficiently-dominantly-superiorly as you can).
Sullla, I think you're missing an "un" prefix here.
Quote:I never bomb out the AI homeworlds unless it's absolutely avoidable
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
Okay, that was fun. I'll have to report what happened when I can get all the pictures together. Played on kyrub's patch 1.40M since that's how YellowPsi started it, and ... um, with a small variant.
I hadn't read Sullla's report yet - I'm doing so now, and it's hilarious and wonderful as expected - but I suspected (correctly of course) that he'd put on a clinic for how to completely dismantle the AI from the position we're left in the save. Since that had been done already, I wanted to experience something closer to the game YellowPsi did himself ... only without the losing, hopefully! There had to be some reason this game appeared unwinnable when our Alkari owned two thirds of the galaxy!
So the first thing I noticed was the tech. The Meklar were way out ahead - two generations up on us in most fields, including Planetology (at which they're poor) and Propulsion (at which our Alkari are excellent) even though those two should have been among our top priorities since the early game. Don't even ask about computers (at which the Meks are excellent). So that could be a fun hurdle to overcome.
The next thing I noticed was their fleet. When I saw their ships moving across the screen on the interturn and then sent a scanner ship for a look, I discovered some of the best designs I've ever seen on an AI fleet: Everything had Warp 5 engines or better and combat speed of at least 3. They were equipped with their best bombs and enough heavy beams to pose a threat to just about anything! No, they weren't very focused designs, and not as good as what someone like Sullla or I could put together with that technology, but they were an absolutely legitimate threat ... if I didn't just blitz them with bombers and destroy their empire before they had a chance to do anything. The wise course of action would of course be to take advantage of their weaknesses and either take them out immediately with an all-out bomber blitz (their base defenses were atrocious) or quickly build up the economy and then wipe them out with a doom fleet while they were still deciding whether or not to do anything.
I decided to give them a little more time than that.
Variant rule: I may not launch an attack on any of the worlds the Meklar owned in the inherited turn until I achieve tech parity.
That means, while I can try to reclaim my worlds if they get conquered or bombed out and replaced by the 'chines, the Meklar core remains untouched until my "tech" bar passes the Meklars' on the status screen. Until then, I can send ships to Meklar worlds only in order to scan their fleet ... and I have to achieve tech parity while fighting off any attacks they decide to make with their monster dreadnoughts!
It turned out to be a bit of an epic game. Report to come.
Man I loved high energy focus.
