Imperium Fourteen: Death for a Noble Cause

[Megafrost]

I have to post this a little bit early since I won't have access to my notes and images for a few days.

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Bulrathi are my #2 favorite race. I love stealing technology from the AI, since not only do I get technology that I may not have gotten otherwise, I get it for a low cost compared to the amount I would pay for research. Since ground combat and spying are the only ways to steal technology, that puts Bulrathi and Darloks as my two favorite races. Bears are lower because I like spying a little bit more than I like ground combat, and because computer is my favorite research field.

Our lovable bears love archaeology so much that we refuse to bomb out planets for fear of damaging potential digging sites. So we cannot do orbital bombardment, and during ship combat we cannot attack planets. Ever. So I have to invade worlds that will still have intact missile bases or I have to take out those missile bases with my spies (not so promising with poor computer research). So I'll have to emphasize computer tech, armor and ship engines if I'm going to stand a shot at invading these worlds.



I open up my game file to find two worlds in colony range. I send my colony ship towards one, a scout towards another (just in case) and my second scout to the green star south, which I'm guessing will be the star most valuable and most under threat. There are only 6 other stars in scouting range and I'm not likely to have more when I settle my second colony, so I better blockade them earlier rather than later. Building scouts for two turns gets me the six I need. On the third my colony ship arrives at its initial destination.



Looks like the odds played against me a little on this one. Both planets are the same, but Spica is closer to the front lines, and so more likely to be under threat and more likely to bring planets into range. Zoctan is still decent, so I colonized it rather than to delay my second colony by three turns. Once I've built scouts, I won't do anything else except build factories and transport population units until I've gotten a complete picture of my surroundings. While I was sending population from Ursa to Zoctan each turn (enough to put Ursa down to 50 pop), my scouts fanned out.



I looked at the map very carefully. Measuring the length pixel by pixel, I figured that the distance from Spica to Geinah was slightly less than the distance from Ursa to Zoctan, so I wouldn't need extra range to settle there. I would need additional fuel cells to get anywhere else. Range 4 would allow me to get to Phantos, but I didn't think it would allow me to get to the yellow star west of it, nor would it allow me to get from Geinah to Selia. I also needed to keep in mind that quite a few of the planets around me were hostile and I needed to be sure to go up the planetology tree fairly quickly to grab them, especially since the Silicoids were in this galaxy.

I waited until Ursa could get 4 RP from one click before I opened up the two research fields.



Not what I was hoping for in planetology, but beggars can't be choosers. I did have a choice in propulsion, and given my analysis above I went for range 5. I didn't want to get range 4 and then waste a lot of time trying to get something better. Besides, Phantos wasn't under threat right now. I had time.

I had Ursa go all research for one turn, and then had it on only one click while it built up factories. I made no effort to try and match popping research and maxing factories since I did have two planets to grab. In 2323 I had Zoctan send some population back to Ursa so that factories wouldn't go unused and in 2327 Ursa maxed factories and population. Ursa churned out 2 colony ships as Zoctan slowed down factory construction to take on the research load.

In 2336 GNN reported that the Darloks were the first to 6 systems. I hoped they wouldn't be my primary opponents, I wanted sabotage to be a viable option. While I waited for the research to finish, I had Ursa build some ships to back up my scouts.



In 2341 Improved Eco popped, leaving me with every second-tier option save Controlled Tundra. I selected Controlled Dead. The very next year Range 5 popped and I gladly chose my only second-tier option, Nuclear Engines. Range 5 brought another race into contact.



Uh oh, they are their usual ruthless militaristic selves and it looks like they were dealt some bad terrain. If I I'm not careful they're going to come after me very soon. I initiated a trade treaty of 25 BC/year and then, out of curiousity, asked them if they wanted to exchange technology. They didn't. Since their tech bar is higher than mine, I have to be careful of the possibility that they might have range 5.

Because of the high possibility of war, I figured that it would be suicide not to open the other fields now.



Okay, the only choice here is the obvious one for Hyper-V rockets. Planetology was still my highest priority, so I didn't think I'd see any of this technology for a while.

Apart from me grabbing every planet I could, nothing happened for a while. Then I spotted a Silicoid colony ship at Celtsi, the yellow star west of Phantos. That wasn't a good sign. My expansion south had already been halted by the Mrrshan, and now my expansion west is in danger of being halted by the Silicoids. Lucky for me, the colony ship retreated, and I didn't think I was in danger of losing the planet since I had 4 laser ships there already.

Then one year later, the first random event happens.



Oh! Yay! Lucky me! I just settled that planet the previous turn. That makes two rich planets for me.

After I finished building colony ships to settle the planets to the west, I started churning out some laser ships. Small, laser, shield 1. I figured on building 20 or so to protect the western planets, and then building some more long range ships to guard the planets to the south that the Mrrshan had failed to grab. Despite what I'd though, practically every planet around Fierias is habitable. Why did the kitties not spread? It's almost as if they're deliberately trying to be stupid.

After grabbing Celtsi, I got in contact with the Silicoids.



My expansion is definitely about to stall for now. There won't be anything more to the west. In fact, I may lose the planets I've just acquisitioned.



The one heading towards Celtsi has 41 mantas, and there's no way I can fight off a force like that. So I call up the Silicoids and threaten them to back off... score! They gave me 450 BC and agreed to turn around! I'll distribute that money so that those planets can stand up more quickly and perhaps defend themselves.

Hyper-V rockets pop in 2371. Between Ion Cannons and Hyper-X Rockets, I choose the rockets since I won't use the Ion Cannons until they miniaturize a bit. Controlled Dead pops in 2372, showing only Controlled Inferno in the third tier. So I go for that. I'm still beelining planetology since I want to see if I have Controlled Radiated and with the Silicoids close by, the infernos near me are still at risk. In fact, I'm hoping I can poach Tau Cygni from right under their noses.

After colonizing Uxmai in 2380, the council met for the first time.



Nobody likes my opponents, the Darloks. Of course, nobody likes me either. That's fine with me. I throw my votes towards the Darloks to get some brownie points. One turn later I colonize Xengara in my territory and poach Dolz from kitty territory. This is important for two reasons. The first:



It's never a bad sign when you trigger those GNN messages, especially when the Silicoids, Sakkra or Klackons are your rivals. The second reason:



Not surprisingly the Meklar have few worlds. Of course one should never underestimate the Meklar, as they get way more out of those few worlds than any other race ever will. Double-checking the bar graphs reveals that, of all the races I've met, they're leading in fleet strength and technology. That won't be good for me if they decide that they want those kitty worlds.

Silicoids asked for a non-aggression pact in 2393. I highly considered it, but then I remembered that there were a few hostile systems around me and I didn't want them using the pact to poach them from under me. I declined. Controlled Inferno popped in 2394... Rats! No Controlled Radiated! Oh well, that means I can't grab those planets. But that doesn't mean I have to let the Silicoids have them. I decided to keep running blockades and force them to bring out a stack of doom to get their planet. Besides, maybe I'll get lucky and one of the other races will research it for me. I went back for Terraforming +20.

Lots of important things happened in 2400.



In additon, the Mrrshan asked me for a non-aggression pact. Really? They wanted to be friends? I had completely boxed them in. Still, I decided it was definitely a good idea to take them up on their offer. In order for the Silicoids to win the elections they needed universal support. So now that I was reasonably certain that I would not be losing the elections and that my planets had been secured, I wanted to take the offensive. See if I can take out the Silicoids. I dialed up my spying and set them to sabotage. Their nearest planet to me had only 5 missile bases, but the rocks had grabbed a lot of gropo technologies, nullifying my bulrathi advantage. I wanted to make my invasions count.

I grabbed two more planets in the southeast corner. It was time to take another look at the galaxy.



Quite a huge land grab, I say! Because the rocks and kitties were too slow, I managed to grab 20 planets, which is about 41.6% of the entire galaxy! With my biggest rivals the Silicoids having only 8 planets, it was obvious that I was going develop a huge tech lead without the need for stealing. But sitting back and just waiting to out-tech the AIs is no fun now, is it? I wanted to take the offense.

First things first, I wanted to remove the Silicoid gropo advantage. Really now, the Silicoids having a bigger bonus than me? That just can't be. The Meklar were willing to trade Hand Lasers for IIT8. Expensive, but I wanted all the help I could get. But then they turned right around and decided they wanted some of my planets.



Argh! Dolz was doomed and there was nothing I could do about it. I'd threatened them and they responded by declaring war. They glassed it, and they didn't bother colonizing it. But they'd sent another stack of ships to Incedius, destroyed its missile bases and then sent forces to invade it. Their first force didn't even come close, but I had no doubt they'd send more.

In the meantime, sub-light engines pop. With my transports finally at warp 2, I order my 5 worlds near the Silicoids to send invasion forces. Unfortunately my transports just can't break through. So that settled it. I did not have the tech to go on the offensive. I'd have to wait it out.

At long last the Meklar finally gave up on invading Incedius and glassed it. I hoped I wouldn't lose all my southern worlds to them. I did not like having those digsites damaged. The 2425 elections roll around and I find I have a definite veto. Maybe someday I'd be able to turn things around. The Meklar had proven themselves to be dangerous and reckless foes, and I vowed that one day I would destroy them to the last factory. The fool have no respect for history!

After they finally moved their fleets away from Incedius and Dolz, I invaded both, both to make it more difficult for them to attack my other planets, and to do what I could to preserve the digsites on those planets. I almost had a new shield technology (class 4) that would hopefully prevent further damage. To my pleasant surprise, I found that Dolz had a fair number of intact factories.



These technologies allowed me to throw together a new design: small, ion cannon, computer 1 and warp 3. The Meklar appeared to be fighting over Vulcan with the Silicoids, so I built 200 of these and managed to hold onto Incedius and Dolz. Once again the AI could've had those worlds, but didn't have the discipline to keep guard with their fleets.

The Mrrshan finally decided to strike me at the colony of Imra. But they'd been choking on heavy fleet maintenance and waste had been building up on their planets, so their technology was pathetic. They still managed to take out the missile bases, but lost most of their fleet doing it and couldn't do anything to the planet afterwards.

A particularly note-worthy random event occurs.



That'll make that planet easier to take, but harder to hold. 2450 rolls around and I have 16/34 votes. Otherwise nothing much happens there.

I try again to invade Rha. What I find is that from the nearby planets, only Celtsi can get past the missile bases. It sucks that each group of transports gets shot down individually. But... I can make this work! 22 of my troops had gotten through and destroyed 32 of theirs. If Celtsi could send a full group of 65 for several turns straight, the planet would be mine... I have a plan! Transport troops from other planets to Celtsi so that it regrows to full population every turn, and have it send the full 65 each turn. It works!



Inspired by my success, I coordinate an invasion of the Mrrshan world of Paladia in the same manner and manage to take it, as well as invading Dolz again and taking it back (the Meklar had managed to invade it). This puts me at a grand total of 22 planets, triggering the "merging" message.



I go ahead and invade Fierias, successfully genociding the Mrrshan. The next few years are spent building up all my worlds and making sure they're at full capacity before I strike at my opponents. Besides, the only one I can see is the Darlok world of Klystron. I need successful sabotage infiltrations to attack anywhere else. I didn't get any, so I went ahead and coordinated an invasion of Klystron. The plan was to send my ship fleets ahead and try to destroy any ships at the world, and then have Paladia, Dolz and Celtsi send 60 transports apiece.



Well yay me, I managed to loot every Darlok tech except for one: Robotic Controls 3. So after sabotage-scouting Rhilus, I invaded that and looted it. And to insure that Rhilus would not come under any harm, I dialed up the Darloks and asked for peace. They accepted for the price of merculite missiles.

After those invasions, sabotages started occuring very often and I managed to scout out most of my opponents' empires. I started invading world after world, targetting Meklar whenever I could. Eventually I found myself invading the last Meklar world and I awaited the inevitable GNN report.



Oops! That's not the one I was looking for.



Yeah, my destruction of a single comet is more important news than the genocide of an entire race. I promised the Meklar I'd pay them back, and now no one even cares about it. After invading Nazin in 2496 I *finally* got in contact with the Sakkra. Unfortunately they didn't have Controlled Radiated. I'd been hoping to go for an extermination victory, but the Silicoids prevent that by having worlds I can't invade.

So rather than to drag this out, I'll bail and take my conquest victory.



There's nothing scarier than to be invaded by bears with toys. Yeowch! Of course it doesn't help that I managed to grab a huge amount of land. I seem to be doing that a lot. The only imperium that has short-changed me on land has been imperium 12. All the rest have seen me grabbing so much land that I hold an overwhelming veto block in the elections, making defeat practically impossible. I must be getting really lucky.

[timmy827]

Yeah, maybe you are lucky; in my game the cats were not abysmal at expansion and got the whole SE corner. You also managed to peacefully settle some worlds I took from the rocks in early invasions.

I did not know that each load of transports got fired at separately by the missile bases; in my game I frequently used 3 or 4 different worlds to invade, which I guess cost me needlessly.

Excellent report, as usual

[RefSteel]

Great report; your composite images are incredible, and really gave a strong sense of the progress of the game (i.e. what stage of absolutely trouncing the AI you had reached)! I'll try and incorporate some of the ideas you used for them into my own future reports if you'll accept my imitation as just a sincere form of flattery.

[sargon0]

Convincing crush. Nice surrounding of the cats. Land (or planets) is king and you showed why. Great report and pictures.

[KnTenshi]

Wow. You slaughtered them, and quickly too.