Imperium 12: RefSteel's Improbable Oligarchy

[RefSteel]

We may loathe and despise planetology tech, but I'll tell you one thing: We are masters of the interface between mechanics and biology! When I took over this mess of an empire for the first time, I didn't think I'd live to see us escape our miserable little corner of the galaxy. Now however, thanks to Refairs nMedicine and his cybernetic longevity treatments, I'm still alive to rule the empire again one hundred and twenty five years later, with our enemies on the verge of annihilation! Frankly, this is going to be easy! No clue what Refspand was thinking (if you can call what he does "thinking" in the first place) with some of his latest decisions, but...



...yeah. It just doesn't matter anymore. I do a few things just to be able to say I did something, and prepare to end this war.

2461: Refspand oMatic apparently still likes forming new colonies regardless of their strategic importance.



Fortunately, amidst all the nonsense, there is one colony made for reasons that actually make sense: Cygni is ours, opening the way at last to Morrig in the far northwest. This is especially important because - with the glassing of Vox this year - it is the very last Bulrathi colony!

This will be the final year of our galactic war, so as minister of intelligence, please allow me to present the galactic map...



...and our up-to-date spying report on the Bulrathi empire.



Strictly for contrast purposes, I've also had my teams put together a little report on Meklar technology.



We seem to have a slight edge here, wouldn't you say? And as for our empire:



We seem to be doing just fine, thank you. You might notice, incidentally, that we have no missile bases or shields on any of our worlds. How did we get away with this, do you ask? Pretty simple, actually: By finding ourselves in a dominant position, with isolated core worlds, slow-moving, slow-witted enemies, and a fleet that looks like...



This. There was no point when any alien ship or combination of alien ships represented the slightest threat to our Navy, and it could sit on a planet or shuttle between two nearby worlds, and ensure their complete safety from anything but fast spore ships, indefinitely. Our hundreds of swift-moving NPG fighters, continuously updated throughout our various reigns, flew circles around the enemy and dismantled them with ease. Even the spore ships could do nothing against a few dozen of these ships once the oldest generation you can still see here, the Surgeon 2.1s, came into play. We could outfly them with ease, firing on them twice before they could close with the planet, and had them thoroughly outgunned continuously. The extraordinary strategic speed of much of our later fleet, combined with heads-up redistribution by our acting heads in response to enemy attacks, meant that no alien race could mount a credible threat against us, even when they all attacked simultaneously at different planets. And of course ships like the Nukem were used to continuously roll back the line of battle, away from the worlds that the aliens thought they were attacking, by blowing enemy colonies to bits - with Landers and their predecessors to fill in the husks left behind when they were habitable at all. Of course, all this was only possible (or at least only this easy) thanks to our rich worlds' contributions to the reserve, speeding up our developing worlds, and to shipbuilding, ensuring we always had a superior fleet in space, even in light of constant redesigns of key components of our fleet. So much for the lecture. Let's move on to times of peace! Without any evil, warlike, death-spore-loving, planetology-using, hostile-world-dwelling aliens to mess things up for us!

2462: From the battle, it looks like Morrig is habitable - probably a steppe. Refspand will be so disappointed that he didn't build a too-late-anyway Lander for it!



Wow! Not only a steppe, but an Artifacts world (currently polluted down to the minimum possible size, but no doubt much larger naturally)! Oh, well. It'll be ours now eventually. We just need to get the glass cleaned up first! Say good night, Bulrathi!

...

Awwwwwwwwww. I forgot. They can't say good night - there's no more of them left in the galaxy! And you know what that means! Our planetology-free Meklon succession will continue indefinitely! For a thousand years or more, we'll rule the galaxy together, with no danger of polluters overrunning the bright, hostile worlds of the galaxy; with no threat of planets' natural environments being transformed via terraforming; with no destruction of planetary environments through death spore technology! Who says we're not environmentally friendly? Yes, the benevolent reign of the Ruling Bionic Oligarchy at last extends to the far corners of the galaxy! Who could possibly object?



Hmmph! I'll have you know, Mr. Newsdroid, you will not be serving under a ruthless tyrant! You'll be serving under a dozen of them! Starting with me!

[RefSteel]

Well, I got pretty disgustingly lucky on this one, between rich Kakata and fertile Paranar, no bad events, and mostly-stunted AI civilizations ... but I didn't realize just how lucky I got until I played the game a second time. Why'd I do that? Well, for one thing, I did feel I was just too lucky in this one, and for another ... well, I've put up my report on the other one (fortunately a much, much shorter report) ... so you can look for yourself if you'd like! The replay report is here: http://meklongambit.blogspot.com/2008/09...art-1.html

[kjn]

Regarding your stunted Psilons: it seems everyone but Dathon and me ended up with stunted Psilons in this game.

Since they started quite close to the Alkari and Humans, I think early development was quite important here. Eg, I can imagine how the AIs ended up sending their colony ships and scouts on the first turn to play a very large role in later developments.

[pkrcel]

Count me in, my full report will be finished today and I have no other AI to speak of in my game tha Brains....Bears, Birds and Ant were laughably weak, while Psilons did the only real threat.

Anywa, an entertaning report as usual RefSteel ( also known as Yeep-Neep, judging by the avatar)and a GREAT BIG WONDERFUL thanks for the "press ESC key not to steal anything" tip you gave us...I got the dreaded "planetology only" screen a gazillion times when I was after Bugs' ARS in my espionage attempts....I won't thanks you enough in a gazillion years for it.

[meatbalz]

a GREAT BIG WONDERFUL thanks for the "press ESC key not to steal anything" tip you gave us...I got the dreaded "planetology only" screen a gazillion times when I was after Bugs' ARS in my espionage attempts....I won't thanks you enough in a gazillion years for it.

seconded. thanks for the very useful tip and for yet another entertaining report.

since we're on the subject of useful tips, can anyone confirm what Megafrost stated in his report, ie an AI cannot start at any planet within initial scouting range? I spent the first 15 or so turns in a panic as I thought the Klackons were at the N of the two yellows to the S of the starting position!

[pkrcel]

sorry for the OT, if needed we could move this into the generalò MOO forum.

Anyway, I had only one game at Average in which I started 6 parsec from Fierias.

Actually one of the cats' scouts came to my Homeworld and two turns later they were *invading*. I checked in later the initial save (I alway keep the initial save) and checked with a scout to fierias at turn 0...said 6 turns = 6 pscs distance at warp 1
I reported this once a long time ago on an italian fan forum (no longer online) cause of two things:

- first, I believed in what Megafrost says, but that proved the contrary

- second, EVEN if their second colony was closer than 6, they would need the range for it, and in that case we would have been in contact.
This happened dalso in my RBO10, where Klackons sent an invading force at me at 7 parsecs distance with only Hydrogen cells at hand.

I so came at the conclusion that AI can Invade at extended range, and that it MAY happne that you find an enemy AI into the initial 6 pscs.

On the other hand, I played a gazillion games ever since that episode and it did NEVER get back ever again, at any difficulty factor.

[RefSteel]

@kjn: Actually, my understanding is that the AIs' initial tech choices and their initial ship destinations are all pre-established in the opening save. The biggest determining factors for different AI expansion on the same map are therefore generation of colony ships, destinations of colony ships other than the first, and development of the necessary technologies (and acquistion of appropriate alliances) to reach more distant or hostile planets. In any case, seeing stunted Psilons three games in a row is unusual, to say the least! You're probably right that their crowded start contributed to their limitations in this game. In fact, based on their colonies' locations, I would guess that they were unable to colonize anything until new range or environmental tech - and/or an alliance - came in.

@pkrcel: Thanks and you're welcome and ... Yrraaawk! Did ye see the look in those bright black eyes when the Shofixti learned we must leave them, when the false queen gave the order to retreat...? (Heh.)


@meatbalz: Another thanks for the compliment and you're welcome for the tip! Sirian wrote in his Imperium 1(!) report: "Share the knowledge, compete on execution." I agree with him 100%. As for your question: I don't think I've ever actually seen an AI start within initial scouting distance, and I've heard that it will never happen if there is any other option - i.e. enough yellow stars in the galaxy outside of scouting range to support the required number of AIs - but it's tough to confirm a negative, and I know some people (like pkrcel above) have seen it happen on occasion. (Maybe when there would otherwise not have been enough yellow stars to go around? I'm not sure...) I usually assume that the chance of having an AI within 6 parsecs is extremely low, and plan on that basis ... but extremely low isn't the same thing as zero.

@Everybody: Okay, I've gone ahead and put up my replay (shadow) report on outside webspace, and updated my report above with links to it and to a copy of the report from this thread - only with more reliable pictures - on the same site. I hope you like it!

[Megafrost]

Very entertaining report! Your oligarchy seemed almost as disfunctional as a real political body! Yet they managed to conquer the galaxy. The other races must have been worse!

It looked to me like most of us got the "mineral rich" event. I think the RNG was really friendly in this game, although some of us needed all the help we could get.

Regarding the AIs homeworld being outside of scouting distance, I wasn't entirely sure that it was always the case, but I'd never seen an AI home right on my door-step like that. It should be noted that I nearly always play on medium galaxies. The rule might change on smaller or larger galaxies. I should look into that sometime (but don't expect me to).

[sargon0]

NPG the mega-weapon strikes again! My Auto-Blaster designs took several more years to clean-up the galaxy. Nicely played.

Regarding starting distances the guide suggests homeworlds are at least 7 parsecs apart but only the human player seems to benefit. As mentioned, it seems it can be less on very rare occassions, so I assumed nearest yellow wasn't an AI homeworld.

[RefSteel]

Your oligarchy seemed almost as disfunctional as a real political body! Yet they managed to conquer the galaxy. The other races must have been worse!

This gives me a terrific idea for a future Imperium report! To be honest though, the dissent within my oligarchy was mostly just role-playing. The differences between rulers weren't nearly as extreme as I made them out to be, as many of the "changes" were just tentative plans at the end of a "turn set" getting "vetoed" when I returned to the game. (I actually have all the save games from the "hand-offs," by the way....) The foolish decision to start colony ships too early was real though; not sure what I was thinking.

It looked to me like most of us got the "mineral rich" event. I think the RNG was really friendly in this game, although some of us needed all the help we could get.

It does seem that way. I don't think anyone got it as early as I did though, especially on a size-95 world! A couple of decades make an enormous difference, especially at that stage in the game.

NPG the mega-weapon strikes again!

Heh. I actually do like NPGs on Impossible (though there's a lot to be said for Hyper-X in certain circumstances) ... but mainly for mobile-defense fighters to deal with probes or transports at poor or immature worlds until I can get bases up and a real weapon into play. You won't often see me going to war with nuke bombers and NPGs on Impossible - never mind trying to use the NPG fighters as bombers, as I did here against non-Psilon races!