Dathon's Imperium 12

[dathon]

The Meklar have always been one of my favorite races. Their proficiency in computers makes them excellent spies. I've always been partial to building Huge behemoth ships (strictly from a "I like big ships" standpoint, not actual gameplay), and their extra factories often facilitate that. But of course, their one glaring weakness is Planetology, and this Imperium is going to take that to the extreme. With terraforming off the table, owning planets is going to be even more critical than normal. Range tech will also be vital to get past those uninhabitable hostile worlds. Speaking of those inhospitable worlds, the danger from a council loss is actually going to be reduced in this game, I think. Without the Silicoids and the Player to grab the hostile planets, I'm predicting that most games won't see votes until very late, and hopefully Player will have had a chance to expand enough by then.

There's actually a second variant here as well, one that by itself would be rather difficult, and that's the prohibition on invasions. One of the best ways to make up for a tech gap is through pointy-stick research. If Player falls behind, then it's going to be very difficult to catch up. IIT tech will actually be very important this game, as each military acquisition is going to have to grow from scratch.

Like the last game, I think the best strategy is to expand hot-and-heavy right out of the gate. I won't be running a Farmer's Gambit this time (hopefully), but I would much rather colonize vs invade here. Plus, with the Klackons and Psilon, I'm sure to fall behind to one (or both!) of them eventually, but getting a decent empire going quickly could mitigate that somewhat.

Early Going
Right out of the gate, we have a tough decision. There are two red stars within range. So, do we gamble on one, or wait for scouts? Well, let's look at the stars themselves first. The N star potentially opens two worlds, and is a parsec closer. I don't think the SE star will open the red to Meklon's SW, but it will the red below it. However, I don't think that that southern Red is within range of the yellow, so we're going to need range tech to get to the center of the map. Given that, I think that the N red star is preferrable. Now, do we send the colony ship, or wait on the scouts? Assuming that the N star does NOT hold a habitable, what do we lose? Sending scouts first will colonize SE red in 5 turns. I'm guessing those reds are 4 parsecs apart, so sending the col ship first will result in SE red being founded in 6 turns. Well, gambling one turn on the SE red vs two turns on the N red is worth it. Col ship sent. Whew! That was a lot of analysis, just for the first move! I sent the scouts to the red and yellow to our SW; we have got to claim the middle to have a shot here.

Woot! The gamble paid off as Paranar is founded. And in other good news, that Red SW of Meklon is habitable. Unfortunately, the turn after we scout it, a Klackon scout shows up! Uh oh; that means they have to be at the southern of the two yellow stars. Could... get... ugly! To those who whined about the Impossible start, careful what you ask for! The difficulty here just shot up a bit. Thankfully the northern yellow holds an inferno world, so that ought to hold the bugs off for awhile.

Ok, so my scouts have all reported back, and the situation is interesting to say the least. There are 4 more habitables in range, and 3 of those are pretty large. However, we are completely boxed in to the N by hostile planets and Orion. After those two nice worlds to the S, we've got a blue star, then open space. So the only way to expand is going to be right through the Klackons! I'm not a huge fan of early warfare, but that may be our only option here. Given the apparent buffer between us and the bugs, I'm going to go ahead and take Meklon to 200 factories before building colony ships. I did pause to open the tech fields to find IIT9 and Range 4, and trickle-researched the latter once Paranar got to 2 factories/turn.

A Bulrathi scout revealed where the Bears were in 2313. Well, I definitely won't be going west peacefully; by the time I get the necessary range, they'll be established over there. In hindsight, I should have researched IIT9 before Range 4; I ended up getting the Range tech far before I could use it in 2324. Minor mistake, but in an extreme game like this, there isn't room for many of those. I took Nuke Engines next. IIT9 popped in 2335, and I of course took IIT8.

My settling order was Jinga (2334), Kakata (2341), Berel (2344), and Zhardan (2349). We were surprisingly the first to 6 systems. I don't expect that lead to last for long, though. While this was happening, I trickle-researched ECM I. Say what? Yep, -10% To-Hit on all my missile bases is worth 80RP, and it revealed what I wanted to see next, which was RCIII. RC tech is going to be the only way to grow our economy. That got immediately started at Meklon once Zhardan's col ship had been built. I went half factories, half research, after an initial shot at the beginning to get the research tripling going faster.

As predicted, the Bugs are indeed in the center, and they've also colonized that green in the middle too, which appears to be a size 70 planet. After RCIII came in, I had another tought choice. Keep climbing the tree with ISS, or pause to grab BCIII. I ultimately chose the computers. If I'm going to take it to the Bugs early, I'm gonna need computers. Plus, I'm hoping RC IV is in the rung after ISS, and I'd rather pause here then there. Meklon came fully online with 500 factories in 2360. The lack of clean-up tech was REALLY hurting though; almost half of that production was being flushed down the tubes! I put emphasis on IIT8 to both aid my planets' development, and hopefully reveal RW60%, which it did

My own brand of event luck continued in 2368 when Jinga rebelled. Oh well, 25 troops from Kakata, 25 from Meklon to deal with this setback. In better news, GNN reported us #1 in population in 2370, and that was with 50 troops in space, plus 37 rebels not counted. The fight did not go well on Jinga, though, as I lost 48 of 50 troops killing 37 rebels. Oh well, at least Hyper V's came in; I took the cheap NPG's, probably the best early fighter beam next. Of course, if Range 7 isn't in my tree, early warfare isn't going to be possible, but I'd like to keep the option open. On a side note, I found it funny that PDS was our only choice for the second shield rung, given the restriction. What's ironic is that I like researching that tech there, but the one time I didn't, I had to

Paranar came online in 2375. Nuke engines came in 3 turns later, revealing that we did indeed have Range 7! : That would get priority once RW60%, which was almost full by that time, was done. Well, bad rolls kept RW60% from popping until 2389, but oh what a difference it made! Kakata and Jinga were online by then, with Zhardan and Berel to follow in a couple turns. I stopped for Auto Repair on the Construction Ladder, and took Scatter Pack V's on the next rung in Weapons. I would rather have had Neutron Blaster or Merculite's, but so it goes. Shields was a tough choice, Class V planetary over Class IV. I wasn't in any pressing need of defense now, but with the Klackons on your doorstep, you never know. Class IV + Auto Repair would mean the option of Huge ships, which seemed attractive, especially for defending newly acquired planets. However, I needed better armor and a 2-space gun for that to be viable, and both would have to wait at least one more rung, so I went with the Planetary shields. 2392 saw my empire come online at full capactiy. I built bases at Berel, some NPG fighters out of Jinga, and everything else went to research. The faster I could get a tech lead on my opponenets, the faster I could expand.

2398 saw Range 7 come in, and contact with the Erratic Klackons. Despite their Expansionist trait, they only had three words, Incedus, Kholdan, and Arietis forming a triangle in the center of the map. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I was quite a bit ahead of them in technology. I didn't see much of a use for peace with the bugs, so I decided to forgo trade in favor of a spy. I was a little worried about an alliance the Bugs had with the Alkari, but I figured the birds were probably too far away to matter. Without other contacts, I wasn't going to be helping the diplomatic situation much anyways.

2400 saw Scatter Pack's come in, and revealed the all-important Anti-Matter Bombs. Well, that sealed it; I would be going after the Klackons, and sooner rather than later. 2405 rolls around, and GREAT, ANOTHER event hits. Fabulous. Well, what do I have to deal with this time...



:2dance: Ho. Ly. Cow!!!!! That's awesome! After so many games of bad events happening at the most inconvienent moments, FINALLY I catch a break!! And my spies bring back the first reports of Klackon tehnology. The Klackon's don't have much, frankly. No engines, Class II shields, and their only beams are lasers. What they do have are Fusion Bombs and Scatter Pack V's. They also have 258 of a medium class design. That could easily be bombs or missiles. So I built a scanner ship, and sent it out for a little recon. In the mean time, my spies showed that they were good for more than intel, stealing Fusion Bombs in 2408.

The first election finally happened in 2410, us versus the Psilon. The results: Klackons(3) abstain, Humans(2) vote Psilon, Bulrathi(2) abstain, Psilon(5) vote for themselves, Alkari(5) vote Psilon, us(5) abstain. Now, that's a troubling result. If I go to war with the Klackons, and nothing else changes, I'm going to lose the next election. Even if I bomb and destroy Kholdan, and that eliminates a Klackon vote, I will STILL lose 14/21. So much for a diplomatic loss being reduced Basically, to ensure success, I need to take over both Kholdan and Incedius between 2425 and 2450, and pray that the Klackons and Psilon don't sign an alliance. So, I sent my spies into hiding, and dialed up minimal trade, to try and reduce the risk of war from the Klackons.

My scanner reached Incedius the turn after the elections, and this is what I found:



Well, not too many scatter pack's to worry about, especially when Class V shields come online. I am, however, worried about those bombers. If they decide to come for Kakata or Berel, I don't have an answer for that many medium ships. Even worse, Anti-Matter bombs come in to reveal Torpedoes and Fusion Rifle. Argh, no beams! You just can't hold a fledging world with missile boats. I actually decided to go back and buy the Ion Cannons.

With Anti-Matter bombs in, it was time to design some ships. Here's what I came up with to look at:



Also under consideration was an NPG fighter, Nuclear Engines, Mark III computer, cost 16BC. Basically, I needed a bomber ship and an offensive ship. On the bomber side, I could have about 30 of the medium bombers for the Huge. Given the Klackon's lack of shielding, the mediums would do more damage, have 3 times as many hitpoints, and be almost impossible to hit, given the bugs had no computers. So I went with those. Now I had to decide between Scatter Pack missile boats and NPG fighters. I could have 19 fighters for every three missile boats. 19 NPG fighters would do 66.5 damage per volley, while three boats would do 90. However, I could only fire the missiles 5 times, then I'd have to run. Plus, two stacks of Ion fighters meant that the bugs would have to choose what to target, and even though I've only got Nuclear engines, I still might be able to do some hit and run. So I went with the fighters.

The Psilon colonized Imra in 2413, and Stalaz and Darrian the following year, making them first to 12 planets. I went straight to maximum trade. If the the bugs decided to cozy up to the brains, I needed to be able to break that Alliance ASAP. I actually wasn't too far behind the Psilon on the tech bar graphs, and equal in productivitiy, so I figured all I had to do was avoid a council loss before I could conquor the Klackons, and I'd be in a stable position.

2420 saw my diplomatic position worsen dramatically. Out of nowhere, the Psilon went from no allies, to alliances with the Humans, Bulrathi, AND Klackons! I immediately dialed up the bugs and asked them to declare war, and for 825BC, they agreed. Psilon weapon's technology was actually way behind; they had gatling lasers, fusion bombs, and no missiles. They had Class V + V shields, but nothing I couldn't handle with my Anti-Matter bombers. Good news if I have to attack them after gaining control of Klackon territory after this next election. That's right; I've decided to ride the next election out, and hope I don't lose diplomatically. I couldn't make enough of a dent in the Psilon to matter anyway if the Alkari decide not to stay neutral, as their big planets are on the other side of the galaxy.

2425, and the elections are the Psilon... vs the Alkari! Klackons(3) vote Alkari, Humans(1) vote Alkari, Bulrathi(3) vote Psilon, Psilon(7) vote Psilon, Alkari(6) vote Alkari, and we(5) vote Psilon for the diplomatic boost. Whew!

Decison Time

And now it's decision time. Let's look at military first. I have about 500 of my new NPG Fighters, split in two stacks. I have about 220 older NPG fighters (no computers, but with Class I shields), again in two stacks. And I have 103 of those medium bombers, all at Berel. The Klackons have scrapped their medium Fusion bomb design, but they now have 160 of the Scatter Pack boats, and over 450 of the laser fighters. At least the missile boats are split into two stacks of 110 and 50 right now. They have no computers, so I shouldn't suffer too many losses from either the bases or missile boats. I think that my NPG fighters can hold planets in time to get them colonized, especially with those bombers scrapped, but I'm not certain. I can build a Huge Ion ship that would more than do the job, but it's 6 turns to build it at Meklon, 2 turns to Berel, then 5 turns to get to either Kholdan or Incedius. I think that's reasonable, as the Psilon only have lasers to attack with, and no major fleets close by that I can see. So militarily, I think I'm ok.

The real question is, will going to military cost me the game diplomatically? There were 25 votes in the last election. If I take either Kholdan or Incedius, I might be nominated again, and that's certain to happen if I manage to take both. The Klackons will hate me, and surely vote against me. I have 450 people now. The Klackons have +30, so I will pick up at least 170, at most 230 population by taking both Incedius and Kholdan, though I doubt I can have both at full population by the next vote. Even that would only net me two votes, two shy of a blocking vote. If the Psilon manage to sign a slew of alliances again, I'm toast.

Debating back and forth, another factor occurred to me. I've started a war between the Psilon and Klackons. Both have Fusion bombs, and can get past each other's shielding. I'm not at ALL certain how that will play out. I think the Klackons might be able to take and hold Tyr in the South; that planet was definitely a stretch for the Psilon. That would not be good, as it would strengthen them. I could also see the Psilon taking Incedius. Again, not good for me.

Ultimately, I decided to press the attack. Turtling will only see my opponents getting stronger. I have an advantage right now; if I don't press it, I might not get another. Yes I'm putting a loss to diplomacy in play, but I think the risk is necessary. To that end, my plan is to strike at Incedius. Fewer missile bases, in case my math is off, and hopefully that will put me in contact with the Bulrathi and somebody else to get some intergalactic conflict started. I'm also going to play populating my new colony by ear; I may try to keep myself below 500 for the next vote. We'll see.

Putting the Plan in Action

I had to wait three turns for Meklon to build a colony ship and send it to Berel. I was hoping that the bugs would move their SoD, which was currently parked at Incedius, in the mean time. They didn't, however, and two turns later, I found out why: 91 Psilon medium, incoming. Let's hope there aren't Fusion bombs on those puppies, or I might lose Incedius anyway. I click next turn and... phew! The bugs still hold the world. In fact, the Psilon have done me a huge favor by destroying 30 odd Lancers, and more than half the laser fighters. The stack of 140 Lancers at Kholdan will probably remain there, so I should be able to take Incedius with minimal losses.

In the three turns it took my fleet to get to Incedius, the diplomatically suave Psilon managed to bring in at least the Bulrathi and Humans against the bugs. Overkill much, guys? Now I know I made the right choice; I need to be snatching Klackon worlds before the AI does! 2431 was D-Day at Incedius. I did manage to take out the planet, but lost a LOT more bombers than I thought I would, almost 80, leaving me with only 23. Hmmm, looks like I'm going to need either a new design, or a LOT more to take out Kholdan. Given that Class V was almost full, I decided to hold off on producing any more of my current bomber; I'd replace it with a Huge sporting those shields to nullify the Scatter Packs. I lost almost no fighters in the attack, while destroying all of the Klackon's.

Taking Incedius did indeed put me in contact with the Bulrathi, and the Alkari as well. The Bears and Brains were both sent to Affable by my glassing of Inceduis, while the Alkari remained at neutral, indicating there was at least one species who didn't want to squash the bugs. I was ahead in technology compared to both of them. I went ahead and signed max trade agreements with both; I didn't know who I was going to be pitting against who, and I wanted my options to be as open as possible. Nobody had any ships incoming to Incedius, so it looked like the planet would be mine. The Bugs had indeed terraformed the planet, and I decided that I needed to fill it ASAP to get some defenses going. That turned out to be remarkably painful, as both Jinga and Kakata were 9 turns away with my Nuke engine transports. Here's the galaxy at this point:



The Human's must be pulling some OPE action, I'm guessing in the center of the map. Looks like my best bet would be to start a war between the Alkari and Brains, but I'd like to know just how far behind the Birds are in tech; I wouldn't want them collapsing just yet! I had been targetting the Klackons with spies since 2425, but didn't get a hit until 2439, stealing Deep Space Scanner. I'd love to lift Duralloy Armor, but that would be a long shot.

A New Tactic is Discovered

2440 brought another interesting choice. The Psilon decided to target Arietis next, and sent quite a few large ships its way. This prompted the Bugs to send their large stack of Lancers from Kholdan. I only had 50 bombers, though, probably not enough to take the planet. But what the hell, I was going to scrap them anyway, why not make a play for it? Maybe my NPG fighters could wittle enough of the bases down to win. Turns out I was right about the bombers, and I only managed to take out two bases, but didn't lose any fighters. I also got to see first-hand the Klacon's new weapon: a medium sporting a Fusion Bomb and a Death Spore! That could be trouble in numbers. The action did apparently do enough damage to drive the Alkari to calm (they were at war? that's new), the Bulrathi to Peaceful, and the Psilon to Affable.

Unfortunately, instead of wisely keeping their stack of Lancers at Arietis to counter the incoming Psilon threat, the bugs stupidly decided to send them on a vain, failed raid of Incedius. The did manaage to kill about 150 Ion fighters, but lost half their Lancers in the process, and let the Psilon gain air superiority over Arietis, and consequently lost the planet. To punish them for their mistake, my spies scored a major penetration. I took Construction, and SCORE!! Duralloy armor With it, I designed a new toy:



This picture actually came from late in the game; I must have misplaced the one I originally shot. I had chosen Repulsor Beams when Class V shields came in (tough choice, actually, but I really wanted an ARS design for defending new worlds) so those weren't available, but this ship would still be pretty tough. Immune to lasers, all but immune to scatter pack's, bombs and beams for both glassing worlds and holding them afterwards. It was a great design that found utility all the way to the end.

My spies weren't finished with the Klackons, managing to score again the very next turn. Hmmm, do I take Inertial Stabilizer of Class III? Stabilizers won out. The Alkari came calling for a NAP in 2447, which I agreed to. Speaking of the Birds, they had Class V planetary's, but only Hyper-V missles. That wouldn't be enough to destroy the large and huge ships the Psilon were fielding. Now I was in a quandry. My population bar and the bird's were both nearly equal. I had 514 citizens, enough to give me 6 votes. I didn't think that would push me into a nomination, but I couldn't be sure. So I hit upon a unique solution. When 2449 rolled around, I had 519. So I swapped 15 colonists each from Meklon and Paranar! Population in transports isn't counted. Sure enough, that dropped me to only 5 votes, enough to stay out of the running! Here's how the election broke down:

For the Alkari:
Klackons(1)
Bulrathi(4)
Alkari(6)

For the Psilon:
Psilon(9)

Abstained:
Humans(1)
Us(5)

Ha! It worked! The diplomatic loss was avoided. Even better, I could always assure that this happened by transferring whatever I needed at election time between two planets. This tactic could also be exteneded by including more planets in the swap. Sure it meant some lost production, but that's better than losing the game! Actually, I'm amazed that with all the brilliant people playing this game for this many years, that this tactic for avoiding early council losses hasn't been tried sooner. It's definitely going into my bag of tricks for the future.

My first Nemesis rolled into Berel right before the election. I did not want the diplomatic penalty for eliminating the Klackons, but I did want Kholdan. Here's the thing: the Klackon managed to secure airspace over Arietis when their Lancers returned, and transports are on the way, arriving in two turns. But a Psilon fleet with 97 mediums and 15 large's will get there first. If the bugs win, however, that would give me the opening I needed to take Kholdan. So I sent in my behemoth with a col ship, due to arrive in 3 turns. Unfortunately, the bugs did indeed fail, and lost all their fleet. I held off on glassing Kholdan, sending the Nemesis to Incedius, to join one on the way from Meklon. They would hang out there, on the off chance that the Klackons could take a world and hold it for a turn. I then paused to fill the reserves, which I had been using to get Incedius up and running faster.

[dathon]

Timing is Everything

My chance came when the Klackons decided to make a play for Arietis in 2458 with 60 of their medium bomber/spore ships and some colony ships. They actually managed to catch the Psilon with their pants down, no fleets in orbit, and none on the way. The Psilon might not have any bases up, considering they've only had the planet for 10 turns. So I waited until the Klackon fleet was a turn away from Arietis, then sent my own fleet into Kholdan. Ah, air superiority is mine, and the bugs wiped Arietis off the map, and they'll re-colonize it... wait a minute, where's the flag... oh you've GOT to be kidding me! They're not going to take the world, just destory it!? Ah there we go, just took them a turn. Now I'll take the planet, and I'll have nabbed two big worlds... what's that, news from Incedius... bases and shields coming along well?

Industrial Accident. Crap.

Incedius is halved in size. *sigh* The event-generator giveth, and the event generator taketh away. At least I got 11 bases and the shield up before it happened. Unfortunately, that planet isn't going to add much to my empire production, but oh well. Bombing Kholdan to dust gave me enough of a diplomatic boost to sign the Alkari to an alliance. The Bulrathi wanted one as well, but given they were probably my next target, I declined. The Psilon's had a blocking vote in the Council, and an alliance with the Humans, so I wasn't going to be pulling a diplomatic coup any time soon anyway.

The Psilon made short work of the Klackons in 2468, nuking Arietis to oblivion. I actually managed to steal every non-planetlogy tech the Bugs had, except Fusion Beams (which I really wanted, but oh well) to up my tech levels. I also made a play for Arietis, managing to hold off a few Merculite Missile boats from the Psilon, only to find out the world was Barren. *sigh* Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

2475 rolled around, and I sent 25 troops each from Jinga and Kakata to fill up Kholdan, bringing me from 541 to 491. But it wasn't enough

For the Psilon:
Humans(1)
Psilon(11) !!!
Meklar(6)

For the Meklar:
Bulrathi(4)
Alkari(6)

Abstained:
None

I checked the next turn, and I had 501 pop. I had underestimated how much would grow back between turns. Whew! That was close.

Stopping a Freight Train

So I had managed to survive to 2475, and had executed a near perfect, if lengthy conquest of Klackon space, nabbing their habitiable worlds whilst avoiding the stain of eliminating them, and improving my standing in the galaxy considerably. The question was, now what do I do? The Psilon are running away with the game at a frightening pace. They have RCIV, Fusion Drives, Fusion Beams, Megabolt Cannons, Stinger Missiles, Class VII shields, Class V Planetary, and at least +30, if not +40, terraforming tech (can't tell, environ bug). The Bulrathi are hopelessly backwards, running around with NPG's and Hyper-V rockets. The Alkari are little better; they do have Class IV + V and Neutron Blasters, but still only Hyper-V rockets, and no bombs. They'd fold in 50 or so turns, maybe less, if the Psilon came for them, and I'm in no position to help them. Hell, once the Psilon start fielding Huge ships with Class VI or VII shields, I won't be able to defend myself. If Pulson's are missing from the next rung as well, I'm going to REALLY be hurting. BCVI, Class X, Impulse Drives, and Torpedoes are all in the percentages, so I will have a tech boost shortly.

The way I see it, I've got two choices. Option 1 is to go after the Bulrathi, then Alkari like I did the Klackons. Then I would hopefully be in position to duke it out with the Psilon mano e mano. While the actual fighting with the Alkari and Bulrathi would be a breeze, it would take a LOT of time to take and re-found each world. Probably two election cycles at least. In the mean time, the Psilon will get even stronger, and I'll have to juggle relations to make sure everybody stays friendly while I take over the galaxy. I would probably lose the western-most Bulrathi worlds, and a couple Alkari as well to the Psilon in the process.

Option 2 is to try and get a diplomatic win against the Psilon opponent. Last election, they had 11/28 votes, while I had 16. When my planets max out, I'll have 630 pop, making that 12/29 for them, 17/29 for me. Without planetology tech to up my own votes, the only way to pull this off would be to bomb enough Psilon colonies to set them back. Thing is, I would need to knock off at least 3 votes from them, and gain 2 for my team to do that, making the election 9 to 19 out of 28. Bombing enough worlds to kill 300 of their pop, and taking 170 for myself, all while holding the Psilon off from taking anything from me, the Bulrathi, or Alkari does not seem likely. So I would basically have to build up a huge fleet of bombers, and take out a ton of Psilon worlds all in one fell swoop right before an election, plus have a couple col ships and transports right behind them to gain the needed votes. Building that will take time too, probably as much time as Option 1, especially since I'm nowhere near a good small-size bomber yet.

I hit Next Turn once, and both Impulse Drives and Torpedoes hit. Range 10, and no Pulson's (I took Phasors). Blah and blah. I couldn't quite design a small bomber I'd like (Mk I only vs the Psilon's ECM IV), but should once computer tech hits (4%). Neither option looked good to me, so I decided to stop there and think on it for a night. It occured to me that if I wait another level in all my techs, I should be able to build a nice small Anti-Matter bomber. This will open up a third option: win by extermination! The AI is not very adept at countering swarms of small glasser's, striking multiple targets at once. In fact, the AI tendancy to gather giant stacks of ships makes this an incredibly effective tactic.

This brought me to the conclustion that the Bulrathi were useless to me. Yes they gave me 4 votes in the Council, but they will fold in no time once war comes. I think I would be better off annexing their worlds and giving up a vote or two for the extra production. As long as I can keep the Alkari from voting for the Psilon, I'll be fine.

The problem is, I may not have the option of waiting until I can implement Option 3. The Alkari and Psilon are sparring over Arietis. In fact, the Alkari have an SoD in orbit while the Psilon have troops on the way. If they get into hot war, that will all but force my hand. I'll have to chose on the spot whether to side with the Alkari, trying to take advantage of multiple fronts to land some Psilon planets, or side with the Psilon, trying to take as much Alkari territory as possible before the big showdown.

So here's what I'm going to do. I can take Ursa, Whynil, and Laan with my current Nemesis ships. I can't hold them if the Psilon decide they really want them, but relations are good; let's hope they just keep dueling with the Alkari for awhile over Arietis. In the mean time, I'm going to build a fleet of medium or Huge bombers at Meklon, in case war with the Psilon comes early. Without the ability to invade, taking a lot of Alkari territory is unlikely. So if war did come, I decided I would throw my hat in the ring on the side of the birds, and hope to inflict enough damage on the Psilon to keep them from taking over the galaxy. Maybe I could hot-potato enough hostile worlds near me to keep them busy.

Advancing Through Hardship

The Alkari did manage to take Arietis in a couple turns, and it did not touch off a war. One bullet dodged. However, I was wrong about the computer tech; I was still one space (one!) short of being able to fit a Mk III computer on a small anti-matter bomber. So I compared a medium and a Huge:



I could have nearly 35 of the mediums, or 70 bombs for one of the Huge's. The Huge ships could heal 135 damage, or the output of about 4.5 missile bases per turn. That's not very good, actually. I could also have a Repulsor Beam for the Battle Computer and 3 of the bombs, but that didn't seem worth the loss of initiative. This bomber's mission will be to strike where there aren't a lot of defenses, burning down worlds on the fringes to create chaos. So I went with the medium desgin.

My Ursa task force entered orbit in 2481, with the Whynil force following two turns later. I asked the Alkari to declare on the Bulrathi in 2480, and they agreed for some pocket change. They were actually allied with the Psilon now (eep!), so that pulled them in as well. Things went very well in my attack on Ursa and Whynil, so of course the game decided to punish me with a Nova. At Meklon. Right in the middle of my invasion. Screw you game!!

I have another problem too. One side effect I didn't forsee is that bombing a colony leaves it open for a year. Sure enough, I've founded Ursa, but there are both Alkari and Psilon fleets incoming. The Alkari are at Harmony alliance, but I can't repel that Psilon fleet! So I actually signed an Alliance with the Brains to allow me to keep the planet.

I found out in 2484 that it's going to take 6605 RP over 7 turns to fix the Nova at Meklon. That's going to require eating my entire reserve, and spending a couple turns from my larger planets to fix this. Argh, what a mess!! I don't need this setback right now, the game is close enough! Now I can't speed up the growth of Ursa and Whynil, I have to slow my own research to pump reserves from some of my other worlds, plus I'm not going to be able to build my contingcy fleet at Meklon!

Anyway, in better news, the Alkari actually picked up Laan instead of the Psilon. Those two are still Allied, however, so I think I'm going to have to foment war there. We'll see when 2499 rolls around. Then, an odd thing happened. I had a colony ship in orbit above Laan. Suddenly, in 2490, I got the option to colonize it! What I think happened is that the Bulrathi came back, bombed out the planet while it was in Alkari hands, and I somehow got first dibs, even though the birds had a col ship in orbit. Weird. Well, that put me in contact with the Humans, who immediately jumped into an alliance with me. And I kept the planet! What a coup! Turns out the Bulrathi have a medium spore ship, which is probably what smoked the colony via the spore bug.

So 2499 rolls around, and I seem to have caught a break on the diplomatic side. The Psilon are not aligned with either the Humans, or Alkari. I don't know if they can sign deals between turns, but I'm going to risk it. The results:

For the Psilon:
Bulrathi(2)
Psilon(12)

For the Meklar:
Humans(2)
Alkari(6)

Abstained:
Meklar(9)

A Bold Plan

With the last election behind me, it's time to take stock. Ursa and Whynil are completely up and running, and Laan should be in about 10 turns, though it's only size 25. So I'll be at 835 pop shortly. The most I could probably get off of the Bulrathi is one more planet, so the most votes I'm looking at is 10. Tech-wise, IIT4 just came in, Range 10 is half done, ECMVI and Phasors are in percentages, and the cloaking device soon will be as well. Fleet-wise, I didn't get my contingency fleet built with the Nova at Meklon; thankfully, I didn't need it. I'm now waiting on the tech for that small glasser. The Psilon discovered Advanced Soil a few years before the election, which seals my fate. The diplomatic option is gone. They have 12/31 now, and they'll be a LOT bigger by the next election. So I have to fight the behemoth. I've already decided that I'm going to hold to the variant rules to the end, even if it means losing the game. That's the hand we're supposed to be playing, so I'll play it.

My final plan here is going to be to see what kind of a small bomber I can design when the computers/weapons comes in, and have my empire start churning. Hopefully, I can snag Uxmai in the mean time. When the time comes, I'll bring the Alkari and Humans into one last, desparate war with the Psilon. If I can win, I'll hopefully be in a position to land a diplomatic win. If not, then I can easily burn down the rest of the galaxy with my bomber swarms.

I traded the Alkari Class X Planetary for Hand Lasers, and Class V shields for Class IV, so they'd hopefully have a chance to stand up some defenses before the storm. Unfortunately, I couldn't trade any tech with the Humans, they were just too backwards. The Psilon were willing to trade me Merculite's for IIT6, which I took to give my bases SOME usefulness. They're up to Hercular's. Range 10 put me back in contact with the Bulrathi, just as my ships arrived at Uxmai to take the planet. Man, I wish this was RBO11:



90 diplomacy points! So here's what I came up with, ship-wise:



Little bombers to burn Psilon worlds. Cheap to manufacture and replace, two stacks to help with attrition. I don't know if I'll build any of the Huge ARS ships or not. The Psilon's best beams are the Megabolt Cannon and Auto Blaster, both one-space, so this will nullify those, as well as bombers and spore ships. If they come with large numbers of missiles, however, there won't be much I can do. We'll see. I'm going to start with the bombers, and if I get a large enough fleet, might build a few of the Huge ships to try and hold Tyr/Gion if I think that's possible/useful. It will more likely come to a boxing match; can I burn down their worlds before they burn down mine. We'll see. I can build about 60 a turn out of Meklon, 40 out of Kholdan, so I should have a good fleet in about 20 or so turns.

Actually, it didn't take all that long. I decided that more tech wasn't very useful, so I had Ursa, Kakata, and Paranar join in the ship building effort. By 2521, I had nearly 1800 bombers, evenly split. I needed to make sure that I could take out enough Psilon worlds before 2525 to make sure they couldn't win if the Alkari decided to abandon me. So I drew up a battle plan:



Red Force consisted of 180 of each bomber, 80 at Berel, 100 at Meklon. The 100 at Meklon would destroy Darrian (44), then rendezvous with the 80 from Berel to take out Stalaz (35) and then Imra(40), for a total of 119 casualties.

Purple Force, with 250 of each bomber at Ursa, would take out Argus(64), Cygni(78 ), and Draconis(63) for 205 casualties.

Green Force was the biggest, with 300 of each bomber stationed at Incedius. Their task was to eliminate Mentar(140) then Maretta(130) for 270 casualties.

Cyan Force, the smallest at 150, would strike from Whynil and glass Tyr(91), then Gion(60), and finally Exis(35) for 186 casualties. Exis could be skipped to reinforce Green Force in taking out Maretta, if necessary.

I had my two Nemesis Huge ships at Uxmai, ready to eliminate the Bulrathi at Helos.

All told, if my plan worked, the Psilon would lose 780 population, which combined with the elimination of the Bulrathi, would mean the loss of 8, probably 9 votes in the Council. Amazingly, no Psilon planets in sensor range were Gaia, even Mentar, so that would be plenty. I also planned to continue to build bombers, and hoped to take out Zoctan, Xengara, and maybe Aurora as well. The Psilon had two major SoD's at Kailis and Ursa (yellow circles). I actually didn't know what would happen when I declared war; would the fleet at Ursa get to attack, or would it have to retreat? Depending on the composition, that fleet was beatable with 79 Large and 10 Huge ships. The one at Kailis wasn't, period. 260 Large, 42 Huge, and 58 medium ships. My hope was that the Psilon would send them to re-colonize one of the spuds I'd be creating, as each had colony ships as well.

[dathon]

Blitzkrieg, Turn 0

I dialed up the Psilon first.

"We will not allow you to take over the galaxy. We will save the universe from the Psilon madness"

Then I dialed up the Human and Alkari.

"We must elminate the Psilon while we still can, or be crushed beneath their boots for all time. Together, we can form a new Republic, where Human, Bird, and Cyborg can co-exist peacefully, without the threat of extinction. Are you with me??"

They were Of course, they didn't realize that I fully intended to stab them in the back after I was done with the Brains

Blitzkrieg, Turn 1

Turns out the Psilon fleets at Laan and Ursa did get to strike. And unfortunately for me, one of their Large designs had 4 spores on it. Laan was spored out of existence, and Ursa was brought down to 11 population. Fortunately, Ursa didn't lose any bases, so I could grow some pop back there, but I had basically lost two votes. Not good.

However, the other fronts had much better results. Argus and Darrian were flattened. Tyr was reduced to 22 pop; while the only ships in orbit were spore ships, I didn't have quite enough on hand to take care of it from the combat screen, and the ships didn't retreat. It would be destroyed next turn, though. The major SoD at Kailis was directed towards Altair, and wouldn't arrive until after the election. In fact, I decided to use the last turn's bomber production to take out Zoctan, and then destroy Kailis instead of Xengara.

Blitzkrieg, Turn 2

Tyr, Stalaz, Cygni, Vox, and Mentar were destroyed as planned.

:catapult:

Something interesting happened on the interturn, though. The Bulrathi called, congratulating me on attacking the Psilon. That's right! I don't have to destroy them quite yet, I can flip them, adding a vote to my side as well as taking one away! I'll wait until the next turn for that, though; I don't want the Humans or Alkari demanding I go back to war with them.

Blitzkrieg, Turn 3

Draconis, Imra, and Gion have fallen. The Psilon are now a distant third in the population graphs. Looks like I have more than enough for a voting bloc, even if the Humans decide to vote Alkari.

Blitzkrieg, Turn 4

The Psilon were still using Kailis as a rallying point, so I wasn't able to bomb that world. I did, however, eliminate Kulthos, Exis, and Maretta.

The Election of 2525

... didn't happen. Hmm, I guess the 3/4 rule applies at ALL times, and the vote can stop when the galaxy drops below the threshold. Never seen that before. Oh well, I'll just have to take out everybody. I designed a Huge, LR bomber for reaching the back of Alkari space while I continued to slaughter the Psilon. Five turns later:



I cannot tell you how immensely satisfying seeing that screen was. The Psilon had been looming over me all game long, always threatening to overwhelm me. This is the classic case to prove that the AI is just not equipped to handle the Player's speed in the late game. Much like getting railroads in Civ3 or the Sirian Doctrine in CIV, once Player can fit a good bomb on a small with engines, the AI's SoD mentality just cannot cope. The Psilon had huge advantages in tech, production, and fleet strength. All for naught. I slaughtered them in 9 turns, losing only one small planet in the process.

:sin02:

Now began the clean-up phase. It actually pained me to declare war on the Alkari and Humans, even though that had been my plan all along. They had been steadfast allies, and I generally tend to play honorably. But it was the only way to end the game. They only had tundra tech, so it was unlikely we'd reach the 3/4 threshold again, at least not for a very long time. So I maneuvered all of my bombers into orbit around Alkari worlds, then called up their leader and informed him of his people's fate. His only consolation was that the Humans and Bulrathi would be joining him shortly in the afterlife. They led me on a bit of a merry chase, sneaking some col ships around where I couldn't see, but all it did was prolong the inevitable:



Extermination victory in 2541.

Wrap-Up

This is, without a doubt, one of the best games of MOO I've ever played, both from a fun and performance standpoints. I'm especially proud of my diplomatic game, avoiding council losses and manipulating wars and alliances to further my empire. Looking back, it's interesting to me that I was never in any real danger from direct military threat. I completely outclassed the Klackon and Bulrathi, and managed to avoid war with the Alkari and Psilon until I could deal with them. Aside from the attacks on Laan and Ursa caused by breaking the alliance, I never saw real combat over any of my worlds. However, I was always feeling like the game was setting on the edge of a knife. A little push here, a spark here, and the tidal wave would come crumbling down. It was just really intense, trying to plot and scheme to stay one step ahead of everybody else and manipulate the galaxy to keep myself alive. A grand scenario, and a grand game!

dathon

[Kylearan]

Hi,

wow, that was a long and exciting report! Thanks for the great read, and congrats on dancing around the diplo loss.

A question from a lurker: What are the "environ bug" and the "spore bug"?

-Kylearan

[dathon]

A question from a lurker: What are the "environ bug" and the "spore bug"?

The "environ bug" is a display error on the tech screen. When you look at the Planetology techs of another race from a spy report, sometimes the phrase "environ" will replace some of the tech. So you'll see "Terraforming Environ" instead of "Terraforming +30." I don't think there is any fix for this bug once it occurs, and it is permanent.

The "spore bug" has to do with attacking ships carrying death spores. I don't remember the exact mechanics, but basically just having spores in orbit can cause them to be used on the planet, independent of bombing or the combat screen. I can't remember off the top of my head the exact situations where this can occur. The effect is that the ships get to destroy the planet without getting to the planet on the combat screen, or gaining orbit for bombardment.

dathon

[sargon0]

Great read Dathon. I struggle with diplo in close situations so it was good to see you handle it so successfully. Nothing better than eliminating runaway Psilons!

[RefSteel]

Thanks for the great report - and of course your play was outstanding; reading between the lines, I believe your opening did in fact put you in a better position than either of mine (the sub-optimal one I played first of course, but also the gambit shadow). I'm often so caught up in my stories that I neglect to describe the reasoning and strategies behind my moves in any detail ("because Minister Refrofit was annoying me" doesn't count!) so it's great to see yours in your reports. The early election tactic you described is also very intriguing; it could potentially save a really exciting game (like this one!) from a premature end. (One doesn't always have time - and it's not often even possible, at least on Impossible difficulty - to win a Final War).

[Sullla]

Ha! It worked! The diplomatic loss was avoided. Even better, I could always assure that this happened by transferring whatever I needed at election time between two planets. This tactic could also be exteneded by including more planets in the swap. Sure it meant some lost production, but that's better than losing the game! Actually, I'm amazed that with all the brilliant people playing this game for this many years, that this tactic for avoiding early council losses hasn't been tried sooner. It's definitely going into my bag of tricks for the future.

I thought everyone knew about this? I've been using it for years.

Great game, and a good writeup to boot. Glad to see you landed a good event for a change! Meklon going Rich more than cancelled out the other bad events.