Imperium Thirteen: Race Across the Stars

[Megafrost]

After the long drawn-out game that I had for Imperium 12 and my inability to terraform my planets or invade the AI, it's good to have a "normal" game again, even if it is on Impossible.

I'm okay with playing the Alkari. I like their defense bonuses for early brush wars and their low cost of propulsion tech. Fast engines are some of the most important technologies. In ship-to-ship combat, lack of force fields shouldn't bother me too much as I generally prefer to have fast, unshielded small designs anyways (although planet defense will be quite a bit tougher). As far as racial relations go, our eternal enemies the Mrrshan are not in this galaxy. Darloks and Sakkra will have unease relations, but it's much easier to make up for those.

So, let's take a look at our surroundings.



The numbers represent distance from the homeworld in parsecs.

Let's see, should I send my colony ship east to the green star with a high chance of a habitable planet, or west to the white star with a very poor chance of a habitable planet and in the middle of a nebula?

Take a good guess which I did.

As for scouts, I sent one to the other star in colony range just in case. The other one should of course go towards blockading a planet, the one most likely to be useful and most likely to be under threat by an AI. The two yellow stars to the north shouldn't have any AIs. The one 5 parsecs away is way too close (and probably empty), and the one in the corner is too isolated to be of much threat. I would be able to blockade any world near there long before they get the range to spread.

The yellow to the east could be a threat, but I can't reach any worlds near it. So instead I look at the yellow to the south. Several worlds are close to it and within scouting range. I decided to send my scout to the one most likely to have a habitable planet, the green star 6 parsecs away. The rest of the stars don't look like they're under *that* much threat, so I decide to build factories over scouts.



The circled stars are the ones I expect to bring into scouting range if I settle.

The planet is habitable, but it's a pretty poor second planet. For a while I was wondering if I should wait for my scout report of the white star. Then I decided that colonizing here would at least extend my scouting range coreward and that my second planet generally doesn't do much except to carry the research load or seed new planets with population. I settle here. Extended scouting range doesn't do much without scouts, so I have Altair start building scouts so I can blockade every star nearby. After Altair grew past 50 pop, I have it ship each pop unit above 50 to the new colony for 4 turns (shipping a total of 9 colonists).

My scouts fan out and I get a better picture of my immediate surroundings.



Not the greatest of surroundings. I won't be able to spread anywhere without Controlled Tundra or Range 4. I wait until one click from Altair will give me exactly 4 research points, and then open up planetology and propulsion.



Hardest choices ever!

These are technologies that I'm glad to have been stuck with. I need range 5 to reach some planets, and it also seems really cheap thanks to my propulsion expertise. Improved Eco is an extremely valuable economic tech that I dislike skipping, but most of the time I'll grab Terraforming +10 so I can quickly scale the tree and grab hostile environment techs. That's not an option here.

I split my research about 60-40 planetology to propulsion and have Altair spend the first turn doing nothing but research (70 rp) and on subsequent turns have enough clicks on research to match 7.5% of the invested total. In 2322 I have Esper ship 8 population back to Altair to max out the population. In 2328 Altair constructs its final factory. Shortly afterwards, I get some pretty bad news.



Uh oh. They're spreading very quickly! I only have 2 systems! An earlier GNN report had told me that the Sakkra were leading in production, so I guess this naturally follows from that. On the bright side, I'd rather have runaway Sakkra than runaway... well, Meklar or Psilons. In fact, I prefer the Sakkra over the Darloks and Bulrathi as well since spying is ineffective against Darloks and so too ground invasions against Bulrathi.

Then I get even worse news. The Sakkra are right on my doorstep.



Unarmed, but they'll be back. Range 5 pops in the same turn, so I have Altair finish off the colony ship it is working on while Esper starts building some laser ships (small with a shield). One turn later Improved Eco pops. My only options for advancement are Controlled Tundra and Inertial Stabilizer. I decide to open up the rest of the fields.



Bummer in the computer field. I'm stuck with something I probably won't use (but at least it's cheap). Since I already have Improved Eco, I choose IIT9 over RW80. Both the initial weapons techs are useful, but I go for the hand lasers. Cheap, useful, plus the enemy is already on my doorstep and I won't have much in the way of missile bases.

After settling Firma, contact is established.



Well, hopefully their pacifistic personality will give them a glass jaw and encourage them to leave me alone. I make a trade treaty to try and improve relations. They're up to 10 planets now, but hopefully they won't get too many more than that. They're approaching the yellow stars in the southeastern corner. They're already sending some fighter ships up into my territory to try and scout things out, but thankfully I already have laser ships guarding that system. Their second colony ship was unescorted.

Their third, however, had escort.



Eep! Ordinarily, I would consider this a battle lost and run to conserve my forces. However, with my Alkari defensive bonus... I stick it out and manage to take out all 6 of their mediums, losing only 4 of my own smalls. Thus I claim Drakka for my own.

Eastern scouts arrived at a few systems and chased off some Darlok scouts. I open up the galaxy map again.



Every other yellow star is accounted for. The remaining AI homeworlds have to be the one in the northeast and the 3-star cluster in the southeast. I need to spread eastward as quickly as possible because the Sakkra are trying to cut me off. Then the dreaded GNN news bot comes along. It's late enough into the game that random events will start popping up, so prepared for the worst...



I find myself pleasantly surprised. There sure are an awful lot of fertile planets around my part of the galaxy! I've colonized Vox, scouted Xengara, and now this. I'm also keeping an eye on the Sakkra, who have managed to get themselves into war with the Meklar and Bulrathi. That's fine with me, the less support they have in the elections the better.

When I first met the Sakkra, I put one click into spying to find out what technologies they have. 25 years later and...



That is scary. Death spores and fusion bombs already? Class 4 shields?! My basic missiles have already been rendered ineffective and I haven't even gotten my first weapon tech yet! And all those gropo techs with their massive population growth rate... that could be scary.

They're trying to grab Incedius and Rotan. Their colony ship at Rotan ran away, but the one approaching Incedius has 8 medium escorts. I don't really want to give up any planets if I don't have to, so given their pacifistic nature and the decent relations we've gotten through trade, as well as their current two wars, I decide to threaten them. They show some backbone. I'm forced to let tham have Incedius. On the bright side, they still want to be friends.



They're still a *very* dangerous threat though. I prefer Sakkra over Psilons, but any run-away can be serious trouble.



They already have controlled toxic and sub-light drives! I still haven't gotten much of any technology with my huge focus on spreading. Controlled tundra finally pops in 2381 after being at 20% for several years. I'm not happy to see that Enhanced Eco is my only option for advancement. That means that my only other hostile environment, if any, is radiated. And there's still no terraforming in site. I dedicate 50% of tech spending to planetology as I really need to know what's in the next planetology tier.

After grabbing my 11th planet, I establish contact with another race.



Apparently they're in the lower right, not the upper right as I suspected. And they're running some 2-planet empire action! As Sirian says, it's usually a bad sign when a race is stunted because another jumps in to fill the gaps. 5 medium-strength empires are easier to fight than one super-power. They rejected my offer for a trade treaty, but it doesn't matter because one turn later, the Meklar contact me.



The Meklar took Klystron from the Darloks. So there's one planet for the Darloks and three for the Meklars. Then there are all those stars in the northeast, virtually untouched because of their hostile environments. Looks to me like everyone is stunted except the Sakkra and myself. Whatever the case, I figured there was no reason to establish trade treaties with the Meklar since they were xenophobic and we were in contact only because of Klystron.

Then a quake hits Drakka. ARGH! It destroys nearly all the factories on the planet. On the bright side, at least I have a missile base up already. In 2390 my colony of Ajax maxes factories and population and, being much closer to the eastern front than Altair, I shift colony ship production to there. I've also gotten a spying report on the Meklar, who with their 3-planet status don't scare me nearly so much with their technology. They still have death spores though. Then I realize that they've managed to fortify and hold Klystron, so we'll be in contact for a while. I don't want them declaring war on me.



But then the random number generator decides a few turns later to make all trade treaties forever useless.



Yes. The Orion system. Any player powerful enough to take out the guardian can already walk over the AIs with ease. Unless this game drags out especially long, this event is never going to end.

I saw a Sakkra colony ship with a LOT of armed escort flying in the direction of my systems. Afraid they were attacking, I threaten them and they cave in.



Oops, nope, their ships went past my system. They're going for Selia in my territory. Damn. I could've sworn they were heading directly for Drakka. But the threat holds long enough that when their ships arrive they turn around. It may not matter though. I've finished researching enhanced eco.



This is a pretty crappy planetology tree. No terraforming, no hostile environments above tundra. At least I've got soil enrichment and bio toxin antidote here. I picked the latter as the AI already has death spores and I want to make them useless as soon as possible. In the meantime, the only way I'm going to get more hostile planets is to trade or steal the tech, and nobody is trading.

I've confirmed that the race that started in the northeast is the Psilons.



The trade treaty is merely a token gesture. I'm hoping that even with the pirate event, I can at least get a little bit of a relationship boost. My Psilons have only 4 planets. However, they're isolated enough that I can see them potentially being a huge powerhouse. I wouldn't want to be whoever is unlucky enough to face Psilons as the dominant empire. I'm glad that they're at war with the Sakkra. The only AI race not at war with them are the Darloks, who were at one-planet last time I checked. As for me, I'm not done expanding...



I was half-expecting a council vote at this time, but apparently not enough systems have been colonized. I dial up the Sakkra again to see if they're willing to give me any controlled hostile environment. Shockingly, they're willing to trade toxic for inertial stabilizer! I shoot for it and then tell my spies to hide. The lizards try one last time to grab Selia, but they don't bring a very threatening force.



Yeah. They turn tail and run. But if they wanted to, they could gather a stack of doom and take out any of my planets. They don't, and so long as they don't, I'm completely safe. After colonizing my 19th planet, the council meets for the first time.



The good news is that I almost have a blocking vote by myself (and a definite block with 3 AIs supporting me). The bad news is that the Sakkra have 44% of the total voting power by themselves.

Virus hits me in 2418 and wipes out my weapons research progress, but I just find myself saying "Good thing it wasn't planetology, computers or propulsion." In 2423 range 7 pops, and I'm very disappointed to find that range 8 is my only option for advancement. This is the worst propulsion tree ever! I may as well be playing as the Klackons for all the options I've gotten here.

The same turn I meet the Bulrathi.



The Darloks have managed to grab a planet and resume contact with me. Now that I'm in contact with every race, let's take another look at the galaxy map:



I don't know how I did it, but I've got a whopping 25 planets. The Sakkra have 17 planets and are allied with the Darloks who have 2. Psilons have 4 planets, Meklar have 3 and Bulrathi have 2, and they are pretty much allied with each other. The galaxy is in a state of war, with bots, brains and bears on one side, shifters and lizards on the other. Oddly enough, I'm not at war at all. I may have to join soon though.

The landgrab phase is over. The planets near me are radiated and I can't possibly reach the planets in the lower right. The only way I'll get any more is to take them from the other races, which means I have to choose a side.

The Sakkra are powerful enough that I may not be able to take them on yet. But I will have to take them on eventually since they hold a blocking veto. I could be better off trying to annex the other races into my empire instead. But I don't really want to turn them against me too early. The Sakkra have a planet inside a nebula though, and I think I can take it if I build the right fleet. I'm going to be prepared for the possibility of choosing a different target though. The Bulrathi are erratic and you all know what that means.

Before I go to war, I'm missing some key technologies. I still don't have any terraforming, I don't have any ship engines, I don't have a decent battle computer and my weapons tree was missing fusion bomb. I'm trying to steal from the Sakkra, but I should probably trade for the technology I need. So, I trade Range 7, Enhanced Eco and Class 3 shields to the Psilons for Battle Computer 3, Sub-light Drives and Battle Computer 2, respectively.

The 2425 election is no different from the previous, except that the Sakkra and I each get 1 more vote. 12/35 votes isn't quite enough for me to have a solid veto (have I told you how much not having any terraforming hurts?)

When it becomes obvious that no other race has fusion bombs, I trade enhanced eco to the Sakkra for them. They already had complete eco, so they didn't gain a lot from the trade. Bio toxin antidote pops in 2431 revealing Cloning and Advanced Eco (I go back for soil enrichment). So I trade the Sakkra for battle suits, and the other AI races for everything they'll give me. I didn't see any reason not to prop up the other races a little since they weren't much of a threat to me, and I didn't see any reason not to trade the antidote since I wasn't planning to use death spores.

Eventually, the Darloks nominate themselves as my first target. I ask the Psilons to break their alliance so that they don't start coming after me too.



But then I realize that if they can't really do anything to me, they won't do much if I send spies to pick apart their tech trees. My fleet-building slows down as I steal robotics controls 3 from the Meklar. In 2443 I manage to grab a little inferno planet behind Mentar, triggering the 3/8 GNN message. I threw together two ship designs to throw at my opponents.



I send about 200 of each to Nazin and easily manage to wipe out the defenses. The 2450 elections roll around while transports are in transit and I find that I have 15/42, a definite veto. Immediately after the election, I order a large number of my planets to send transports to Incedius (as the Sakkra have a gropo advantage on me) and send 300 of each of my ship designs to attack. But then I find out this is a mistake, as my bombers aren't powerful or numerous enough to bomb all the Sakkra worlds, I have no hope of beating them in ground combat, and now they are at war with me.

Spies manage to steal Terraforming +40 from the Sakkra. Very shortly afterwards, the RNG punishes me by giving me the supernova event at Selia and only 7 years to resolve it while my planets are in the middle of upgrading. And the Sakkra are sending an SoD there as well. Fortunately, my rich planets manage to max factories fast enough to allow for the reserve-spending needed to save the planet. I successfully invaded the Psilon world of Ukko, but they retaliated by glassing Darrian and invading Morrig. In an attempt to get the Psilons and Sakkra off my back, I glass the Meklar worlds of Klystron, Meklon, and then wait until the Sakkra's stacks of dooms are one turn away from my planets before dialing up both of my biggest foes.



Ouch! Hefty prices for both of them. I accepted though. I seriously needed some time to finish upgrading my economy, and if I didn't make peace with the Psilons as well they would've brough the Sakkra back to war. During the brief period of respite I grab up as many of the worlds in the lower east as I can, settling unoccupied worlds and invading Meklar worlds. Unfortunately for me, two Sakkra SoDs that had already been heading towards Selia and Paranar arrived 7 turns later and I lose both worlds. Thankfully, I've managed to fit BC3 on a small fusion bomber and built up enough to send them to Geinah and glass it.

2475 elections rolls around.



The current state of the galaxy. I've been suffering some setbacks on the frontlines, but otherwise I should be able to wrap this game up. I had much more voting power in this election than I did the previous. The best thing I can do to make sure I win the next vote is to reduce the Sakkra's voting power. With impulse drives having been recently researched and my planets about to max out with terraforming +40, soil enrichment and improved robotics 4, I'll be able to build bombers and glass Sakkra worlds like crazy. So I do. This catches the attention of the Bulrathi and Meklar, who I gladly sign alliances with. I manage to invade Mentar and then, seeing no further use for the Psilons, I genocide them in 2488. I settle their former planets, triggering the last GNN message.



At this point I'd already glassed nearly all the Sakkra worlds. They resettled of course, which I let them do since I wanted to be certain that the council would meet again. So at this point I just waited until 2500.



Reduced to a mere 10 votes, the Sakkra are helpless to prevent me from taking my conquest victory with a whopping 73% of the total vote. Here is the state of my empire immediately before the election:



Definitely an interesting game. The early part of it was a little bit nerve-wracking, what with having the Sakkra on top of me almost immediately and having to race them across the galaxy to settle planets. I never imagined that I'd successfully grab more land than they did. But because I did, I was never in any real danger of losing the game (although the war did set me back a bit). My biggest mistake was definitely to go after the Sakkra too early. I need to hit myself over the head because I did the same thing in Imperium 10.

The Sakkra definitely seemed to be the major threat, but I wouldn't doubt it if someone had a weird game where the Psilons managed to spread outside their hostile corner. I hope no one had to deal with something like that.

[sargon0]

Nice handling of the runaway lizards and good expansion to the east. Sakkra were the biggest threat in this game, after the dodgy tech tree! Nice peace brokering and trading to fill the gaps. Well played.

[timmy827]

Geez, I feel lucky after reading your report. The Sakkra were strong in my game, but the bears got a row of planets along the southern edge and stayed at war long enough to prevent the lizards from completely bowling me over. Well done.

[Megafrost]

I grabbed way more land though. Despite my wartime difficulties, I didn't really lose anything significant. Your Darloks cut you off early, forcing you to do more with less and pushing your frontlines much closer to home.

[RefSteel]

Great game, and I loved the report! Those Sakkra sure are lucky their emperor caved to your threat: They'd have been in real trouble if you sat there and did nothing at them! Makes me shiver just thinking about it!

Hmmm ... also: Do you happen to still have a save from this one available? Any time after the Orion Pirate event would do; I'd like to test something on it if I can.

[sargon0]

@RefSteel: If you want to experiment with Pirates at Orion create them! Pick a savegame where you have what you need and Orion is close then for Pirates event set occurred flag, set active flag, set planetary index to Orion and set hit points. The game will automatically play it out whether it happened before or not. Post/send a save and I will set it up.

[Megafrost]

Yeah, you'll have to do that. I saved over my game. Sorry.

[RefSteel]

@Megafrost: No problem; an edited game should be just as good for my purpose anyway. Speaking of which....

@Sargon: Great; thanks! I figure my final save from this Imperium should do the trick (see attached) - would you be willing to create two edits though, one with the pirates at Vega, the other at Orion? I do hope to download a hex editor and figure out how to make these kinds of edits myself someday (thanks to your detailed descriptions!) but in the meantime, I'm very grateful for your help!

[sargon0]

No problem, happy to help anytime. Pirates ahoy!

vic-Orion.zip

vic-Vega.zip