jmas's now-shadow game

[jmas]

Clarification: This is the thread for my (late) Imperium 14 report.

Rats. I've only gotten a little over 50 turns in. There's been a lot going on IRL (In Real Life). I'm still playing unspoilered so I'll post a shadow report of some kind if I can wrap up the game in the near future.

[jmas]

Title: Running of the Buls

In my mind this pun refers to (besides the Spanish custom of "running of the bulls"), our Bulrathi snagging a lot of colonies in expansion, and then getting up close and personal in ground combat with other races, a la the "running game" in American football, often taking losses from missile bases to do so.

I know this report is really late, but I did play and enjoy this game. I did play unspoilered.

Result: Domination win in 2499, with nary a shot fired upon the archaeological heritage of the galaxy (by us, anyway).

I opened Construction almost immediately to see if IIT9 was available at reduced Bulrathi cost, but it wasn't, as you know if you played (RIW 80% only).

I colonized Spica first. On opening Propulsion I saw that both Range 4 and Range 5 were available. Seeing that Range 4 cost about 35% of Range 5 and there were 3 systems within Range 4 (not to mention one within Range 3), I opted to go for it first. Later I saw this as a possible misstep.

I seeded Range 4. Pretty soon I opened planetology and lo and behold, Improved Eco was available. I seeded that tech too, keeping careful track of my investments in the two techs so I could maximize interest. I also built factories, more aggressively than usual for me I believe.

IER popped in 2324, though it cost me 160% of the base cost by my reckoning (but with 60% of the total being interest earned). Went for IT+20 next--I think I forgot about Dead Uxmai, but might have made that choice anyway. Started building a colship for Gienah.

In 2327 GNN announces the Darloks (!) control 6 systems.

In 2332 Range 4 popped, and I went for Range 5. I was last in the GNN tech rankings. 2333, colonize Gienah.

2337, "census rankings": Dar, Bul, Sakk, Mrr, Mek, Sili, and I colonize Phantos. Gee, it is nice to be able to crank out colships, and IER sure helps!

2339 Get Range 5, go for Nuke Engines; meet Mrrshan, who give me an unfriendly greeting, are at Unease in relations, Ruthless Militarist.

2340 Opening comps shows BC 2 only option, no hand lasers, I go for Hyper-V. I scout Imra, I don't know why the Mrrshan haven't colonized it, but I'll be happy to do so given a chance.

2344 Meet the Silis after they chase off my scout and colonize Celtsi. They're allied to the Meklar. I see that the Sili have just ONE FIGHTER at Celtsi! If I'd had _any_ armed ships maybe I could have held them off at least a while..

2348 I colonize Selia and scout Paladia by luck while Mrrshan ships are away.

2350, reach Orion.

2351 Interesting space geometry in MOO as Sargon has pointed out. It's 12 turns directly from Ursa to a red star (later found to be Berel), but 6 from Ursa to Selia and 5 from Selia to Berel for total of 11. I decide to gamble a newly-built colship on there being a habitable at Berel, since it will open up the southwest.

2353 Chase Darlok scout from Berel. It's not habitable (Inferno), so I end up scrapping the colship, which is committed to too long of a trip to redirect to Zoctan.

2355 Colonize Ryoun.

2356 Chase a Mek colship from Ryoun. Open force fields for Class 2. Scout Dolz, chase away Darlok scout. It's a Terran 85; "I want to go to there," as Tina Fey says on the TV show 30 Rock.

2357 I decide to try to trade for Range 6 to reach Dolz, but the Mrrshan and Sili reject the idea of exchanging tech. Colonize Zoctan.

In 2362 I scout Rich Incedius and UP Helos. Boy do I want to get to that southwest (for Dolz, Incedius, and maybe Mobas, not so much Helos). I'm still last in GNN's tech rankings, disappointingly. I think it was around this time that Gienah became Fertile through the random event--which was helpful to me as it meant I could ship out pop from there to developing planets (or better-established ones closer to the actual developing planets) and get it back faster.

2364, IT+20 pops, go for Inferno. Ursa and Selia max factories--that's quick for me! I start building LR colships. I thought to seize the planets around the sluggish Mrrshan, who still only had Fierias and Paladia, and then steamroll their civ, but just at this time, they get on the move, as evidenced by...

2366 The Mrrshan chase me from Mobas and colonize it, followed by Imra the next turn, triggering first Council vote.

20 votes, Darloks (!) have 5, I have 4, Sili 4, Sakk 2, Mrr 2, Meklar 3. Like everyone else (except of course the Darloks), I abstain, seems cheesy to vote for my opponent when I'm not even in trouble (yet).

2372 Mrrshan colonize Helos. I meet the Darloks, who have 7 planets. Not bad for the Darloks--I'm not used to them being strong!

2374, I colonize Dolz. Council: 23 votes; Sili nominated, they have 5 votes, as do I; Meklar 3 for Sili; everyone else abstains including me, and only the Mrrshan added a vote (besides me and the Sili). Meet Meklars. The Mrrshan's fleet strength has dropped suddenly (probably scrapped ships). Should I try to invade them? But their being Militarist, their fleet strength came back in force and remained ludicrously elevated for the rest of the game.

2376 I colonize Firma.

2378 Get class 2 shields, go for Personal. 2379, Mrrs colonize Rich Incedius--darn. I get Inferno and go for Soil Enrichment. I think Rana was the first Inferno planet I colonized (it was Ultra Rich, after all), but I didn't write down exactly when I colonized it.

In 2380 I lose control of the orbit of Firma to the Sili. In 81 I defeat an armed Mrrshan colship at Dolz.

2383 The Sili capture Firma from me and GNN announces they have 12 systems. Then colonists I already had going to Firma recapture it, earning me a DOW from the Sili.

2387, get Hyper-V, go for Hyper-X.

2389, spy report shows Sili have several techs I don't: hand lasers, IS, Personal DS, IIT8, ARS, Deep Space Scanner. The Darloks arrive at Ryoun with ships mounting a lot of Hyper-Vs and take out my missile base. They start "bombing," (no actual bombs) with relatively little impact. I colonize Xengara.

2391, The Sili have left Celtsi unprotected, I send an invasion force. I colonize Uxmai and Berel. Get Nuke Engines, go for Warp 3.

2395 Capture Celtsi from Sili with 129 factories, and I had just 1 troop left!



I loot DSS and IS, which both turned out to be VERY helpful, as I could see fleets coming, and design fighters with IS and therefore high defense. I get 900 BC from the Merchant event.

2396 Our bears hold off Sili invaders at Firma, but only 3 bears remain at the end.

2398 IIT8 pops, go for ARS.

2399 Lose control of Dolz' orbit to Mrrshan (who had a very large fleet, including a Huge hull), and the Sili capture Firma from me (again). Council: 26 votes. Everyone but the Mrrshan lines up behind the Sili: Sili 5, Sakk 2, Meklar 2 (lost a vote), Darlok 5, for a total of 14, while the Mrrshan (4 votes) and I (8 votes) abstain. If the Mrrs had voted for the Sili they would have won the election. Time to make some (more) plays.

2400 Meklars declare on me. 2401, get ECM 2, go for ECM 3.

2402 I colonize Tao.

In 2404 I break the 15-turn Darlok siege at Ryoun with fighters (with not much time to spare; we'd beaten some small invasion forces, but they had 40 transports en route which would have won), and the Personal DS pops; Class 5 Planetary not available unfortunately, class 4 ship/base shields next.

2405



The Sili, the Dars, and our Buls are all very close in Total Power, interestingly. Sadly enough, only 9 Darlok troops (out of 40) make it to the surface of Ryoun, and are defeated.

2408



All the races we have contact with (everyone but the Sakkra) and us are nearly even in production! Very unusual. And look at the strength of the Meklars' tech bar in conjunction with their tiny population!

2410 The Sili offer me peace; but I declined, hoping to recapture Firma and/or take Rha. In 2412, they leave Rha poorly defended with just its Nuclear missile bases, so I send forces. GNN's tech standings are now: Dar, Mek, Sili, Sakk, Bul, Mrr. I've moved up one position!

Galaxy map:



In 2412 our ships engage the Sili at Rha; they've built a large ship, and a bigger problem is that they now have Merc missiles, having either researched them, gotten them from another race (would be a smart move) or been "gifted" them by the game in the last few turns. Get Hyper-X, go for Scatter Pack 5.

2414 Defeat the Mrrshan fleet (including two huges ) at Dolz with 299 laser fighters, breaking another 15-turn siege.



All the factories are gone now, but we held the planet. On the Sili front, only 13 of our troops, of at least 51 , make it to Rha, and lose.

I'll continue this later; I worked night shift last night so I do feel a break would be in order. Fortunately I already know most of what I will be posting.

[jmas]

Got some more typed up...

2416 I decide it's time to pump up my population as much as possible before the next Council vote. I offer peace to the 'Coids and they accept.

2417 Get Soil, go for Bio Toxin Antidote since at least two races have spores.

2418 Get Class 4 shields (go for Repulsor) and Warp 3 (go for Warp 4). I seed computers so I can try to pull in ECM 3 and see if RC 4 is available.

2421 I get a message saying the Sili stole Hyper-X rockets.



If I recall correctly, I checked my spy reports on the Darloks shortly after and they didn't have Hyper-X, so it actually could have been the Sili, even though we recently signed a peace treaty (and even though the guide says that AI spies will go into hiding for the duration the AI considers the peace treaty to be binding, always at least 7 turns IIRC). Plague event occurs at Xengara.

2422 The Darloks offer 75 BC/turn in trade, even though they're Xenophobic. I accept.

2424 In the last eight turns I added 171 pop and lost 11 or so to plague.

Council: 33 votes; Sili have 7, plus the votes of the Sakkra (2), Meklar (3), and Darloks (5); the Mrrshan (4) abstain, as do I (12 votes, up 4 from last time). Now I have a veto.

The Silis declare on me. Well, that didn't last long.

2425 I offer peace to the Meklar but they want Inferno; I refuse to give it. The Darloks reject my invitation to break alliance with the Sili.

2426 Get ECM 3, go for BC 5; RC 4 not available.

2427 Get ARS, go for Zortrium Armor.

2428 Get Scatter Pack 5, I go for Neutron Blaster, since I could get it without too much trouble and I was thinking I'd be able to mount it on small ships, replacing my laser-armed fighters and skipping over Ion Cannon. Little did I know..

And the Darloks declare on me. Guess they either didn't like my trade goods after all or liked them a little too well.

2429 Meks offer peace, I accept.

2430 The Mrrshan reject my invitation to break alliance with the Darloks, and then declare on me after I hit "next turn."

2435 Meks threaten me--"cease expanding."

2436 Ha, the Meklars have no fleet strength at the moment (probably scrapped). I repel the Darloks at Berel. The plague finally ends (must have been on the high end of RP it can take to solve; I spent a lot of reserve money there to speed up the cure). Well, at least it probably kept the event probability at 0 in the meantime..

2439 Defeat Darloks' attack at Uxmai, get Neutron Blaster, Stinger Missiles next. Unfortunately I find the Neutron Blaster isn't even close to fitting on a small ship, and larger ships are difficult to produce efficiently when you don't have any improved robotic controls.

According to GNN I've moved up another place in the tech rankings, now ahead of the still-unknown Sakkra. Meks threaten me again.

2441 I finally get a spy penetration, against the Sili, taking out all 3 bases at Rha.

2442 Apparently in response, the Sili send their ships in the area towards Rha...which leaves Firma undefended!

2443 I send troops toward Firma. I finally notice that the robot-torso-thumping Meklar can't even reach me, as they only have range 4.

Then I'm reminded of RefSteel's comment about AIs offering peace when they see a superior invasion force coming--the Sili offer peace, which of course I refuse.

2444 Repel Darloks again at Berel and Uxmai. Re-re-capture Firma from Sili with 27 bears left; capture BC 5 (blah; I had almost finished researching it) and hand lasers (our first gropo weapon). Go for ECM 5 next.

2446 Get Zortrium, go for Exoskeleton next.

2448 Repulsor Beam pops, go for Class 6 shields. Personal Absorption and Class X Planetary not available; our bases still have only shields of 4. Our spies destroy all the bases (4) at Mrrshan Mobas.

2449 Get the Bio Toxin Antidote, go for Cloning.

Council: 34 votes; Sili have 6, plus the votes of the Sakkra (2), Meklar (3), Darloks (5), and the Mrrshan (5), but I have 13, veto power.

Uh-oh. I was a little complacent after all those easy battles with the Darloks. Now they have a fleet coming to either Berel or Dolz (turned out to be Dolz) with 51 large ships, 41 of which mount Stinger missiles. That might be a little more than I can handle.

After some debate I decide to offer peace. Which would seem like it would let me off the hook (at least for the time being), whether one would consider that a good thing or a bad thing. However, they declined, not surprisingly, since they are xenophobic.

Time to go, I work again tonight, so might not post again for a little while.

[RefSteel]

Following with interest! It sounds quite exciting so far ... and you ended on a cliff-hanger! Arrgh!!

I'm guessing the "Silicoid" theft of Hyper-X was actually the Meklar (with whom you were at war at the time, I believe, and who tend to have quite high computer tech levels, especially in this game, with their ART world to speed research overall).

My favorite part so far, by the way:

Guess they either didn't like my trade goods after all or liked them a little too well.

I can just hear Narzina hissing, "We have tasted your goods, and now we want them ALL!!!"

[sargon0]

The guide has peace treaties lasting between 8 & 15 turns. I have not looked into this in detail but I believe I have seen recorded peace treaties as high as 19 and as low as 6. It would not surprise me if you had a 5-turn (or less!) peace treaty. Of course a frame may also be possible.

Good account so far, looking forward to the conclusion.

[jmas]

Thank you Ref and Sargon, glad you are interested!

@RefSteel: Sorry for the cliffhanger, I was hoping to post again a little sooner. I'll check on that Meklar possibility--I'm not at home right now.

My favorite part so far, by the way: I can just hear Narzina hissing, "We have tasted your goods, and now we want them ALL!!!"

Exactly.

@sargon: You're right about 8-15 turns in the guide. I couldn't find my guide when I was writing that part about 7. When you say "recorded peace treaties", do you mean there is some flag recorded in the game data that one can refer to, or simply that you've seen other signs of war after 6 turns or peace after (18 or?) 19, such as an attack or DOW after 6 turns, or a fleet turning around after 18/19?

[jmas]

I have time on my hands on this (night) shift, but since I'm not at home, I don't have my screenies. Will try to edit them in (hopefully today, but sometime AFTER sleep & a possible appointment). [EDIT: Screenies added]

2450 (continued from when the Dars declined my peace offer) In the "easier races to fight" category, my (currently) 6 bases at Dolz easily destroy 20 Mrrshan larges.

2452 Battle at Dolz with Darloks, here's the beginning:



Dolz has Missile Def 4, Shield 4, Attack Lvl 6, 100 hits per base, Scatter Pack V.

The Darlok fleet details:



My ships:



So basically, it's me with 12 bases plus 358 (laser) fighters in 2 stacks, my scanner-only mediums (I retreated them), 2 neutron blaster-armed mediums (hey, cannon fodder), versus 41 larges (Cobras) with 2 Stingers plus a mostly irrelevant Neutron Blaster, 17 mediums with decent beams and BC, dangerous to my fighters. The Vipers' attack level is only 2 so wasn't too worried about those.

The thick of it; see the missiles fly!



It's the Stingers that are the problem since every one that hits does a guaranteed 11 damage, but I prevail by drawing the missile fire with my fighters (which I had guessed correctly was my one chance). It seems the AI preference (not to say "fetish") for destroying ships before bases is even stronger than I thought; my fighters couldn't even inflict very much damage because of their low battle computer level, plus the fact that they were packing LASERS.

I did lose 241 fighters, but kept the bases. And almost unbelievably, after using up all 5 of their missile shots (firing at the fighters), the Darlok Cobras STAYED in battle to shoot Neutron Blasters at the bases until I had destroyed 32 of the original 41 Cobra ships (and they failed to destroy even a single base for their trouble).

So basically my defense consisted of maximizing the number of bases on Dolz and then making sure there were a lot of ships on hand to draw the missile fire. I suppose that could be considered exploitative, given that from a mathematical perspective the battle was totally lost for me with "proper" play (i.e. destroying missile bases first).

However, I will mention that I didn't know if this would work (I had been tempted to just give up on winning the battle, even before the Darlok fleet arrived). And with few options, this is "where I was at" in my mind at the time.

[EDIT] I just played the battle again after going to it to take another screenie. I hit AUTO to save time. Interestingly, the AI basically took my same approach, except it kept the Paws in their starting location until the Darlok missiles were used up. And since it doesn't retreat ships for you on AUTO, it never retreated them (unlike me), so the Darlok Cobras were enticed into staying until their _total_ destruction.

2453 I see the Mrrshan are at war with the Sili and the Sakkra. How can they be at war with the Sakkra if they can't reach them? Could they have been asked to declare? Can AIs, unlike the player, ask other AIs to declare on a race that the asked race doesn't have contact with?

The Sili offer me peace; I refuse.

2454 Stingers come in at 2% on the tech screen and never looked so good. I go for the Ion Cannon, hoping it will fit better than the Neutron Blaster on my ship designs.

2456 Our spies destroy three bases at Sili Rha. Launch an invasion.

[jmas]

2457 Here's a screenie of the latest incarnation of the big fleet strengths I've been facing in this game.



I can't help feeling that the AIs want to beat my fleet strength. But let's look at the actual quality of my ships-- are they mounting some fearsome weapons?



Survey says, not so much.

2458 Get Warp 4, go for Warp 5, which according to the guide reduces from 9 to 5 the amount of volleys that missile bases get to fire at incoming transports.

We also get Ion Cannon and go for Gatling Laser for a cheap weapons tech level. Ion Cannon does fit on smalls, soon leading to the building of what I called the "Ion Swarmer", my first Ion fighter, much more capable of dealing with shielded ships than Laser fighters.

67 Bul troops make it to Rha and defeat 80 Sili with 28 bears remaining. We capture Merculite Missiles, range 7, death spores, Class 5 Planetary (!!), and BC 3. Boy am I glad to get that shield.

I lead in tech on the stats screen for the first time.

2360



The Mrrshan just moved their fleet away from Mobas. Hmm, what should we do?

We get Gatling, Anti-Matter Torpedoes next, this is the second time that's been the only way to advance in recent Imperia as I recall.

Capture Mobas but no technology.

[jmas]

2461 I now see that the Mrrshan are at war with everyone--mystifying. Besides the Sakkra, even the Meklar appear to be out of their contact range (both Mrr & Mek have Range 4).

[EDIT: It occurred to me that the Mrr and Mek war might have started before I drove a wedge between them by capturing Mobas and Incedius, though I'm not sure that that's what happened. If the Mrrshan can get into a war "by mail" with the Sakkra, then surely the same thing could have happened with the Meklar. ]

Quake at Zoctan--30 colonists, 156 factories lost.

2462 Launch an attack on Incedius, and capture it, netting Barren, fusion bomb, and the coveted RC 3. GNN announces that we control 18 systems.

2464 Comet event at Incedius, 10 years away.

2466 More difficult battles with the Darloks. At Uxmai, it was very close. I don't have much record of the battle, but I did have a save, and on replaying I could only win by again drawing missile fire with fighters, which is something I do recall doing in the "official" battle as well. Again, not my proudest moment in the game. At Berel, we won more comfortably.

2467 Comet destroyed.

2469 I notice the Darloks are at war with the Sakkra, in addition to the Mrrshan. More division in the AI ranks? "Excellent" [to be said in the voice of Mr. Burns on The Simpsons].

2471 Mrrs offer peace, I refuse, Meks threaten me.

2472 Seeing the strength of my position, here I decided to henceforth avoid a couple of things to try to keep some challenge in the game:
-No funding the reserve from our UR planet or Rich planets, only slider tax or regular planets.
-No using reserve money toward ship/def/ind on UR or Rich planets (though now it seems to me that for monies amassed (from regular planets) after a while of using these restrictions, it wouldn't necessarily be unreasonable to spend them for those categories on Rich planets, at least that's 1:1 for each BC as opposed to getting even higher return).

I thought here I could declare a New Chapter in the story: "A Rising Tide Lifts All Bears" * (as we prepare to swarm with mass invasions**)

* pun on "Boats" for anyone who hasn't heard the expression

** (this sounded better before I got the impression, later (post-game) reinforced from RefSteel's comment on timmy's report, that missile bases get to take on each incoming, simultaneously-arriving group of transports individually, else we really would have swamped the galaxy)

Our spies destroy 4 bases at Paladia.

2473 Our spies fail at Meklar Vulcan, but we see it to be an Arid Artifacts 70 planet.

2474 Destroy 2 bases at Vulcan and frame the Sili.

Council: 36 votes; Sili have 8, plus the votes of the other races: Sakkra 2, Meklar 2 (down 1 for some reason), Darloks 5, and Mrrshan 4; I have 13.

2475 Destroy 3 bases at Sili Tyr, scouting it, and another 2 at Vulcan.

2476 Destroy 1 base at Sili Rhilus & 5 at Mrr Paladia. Meks issue me a DOW.

2478 Get ECM 5, hallelujah, RC 5 is available, we go for that.

2479 116 of 135 bears land on Paladia and win with 90 left. Capture Mass Driver, IT+30, BC 4, and IIT7. That's all the Mrrshan tech. With their big fleet, lots of waste accumulated on their remaining planets and I felt it would be a little unsporting to keep beating up on them as opposed to the other (not to say "viable") races.

2480 Discover Exoskeleton, Andrium next.

2481 Design the Ion 2.0 with +1 BC and +1 combat speed (and that's +2 initiative!)

2482 I observe how slow my progress in planetology discoveries has been: Soil in 2417, Bio Toxin Antidote in 2449. Time to get Cloning already.

2483 Sili, Meks, and Sakk at war with the Darloks. But the Sili were soon allied to them again.

2485 We're finally pulling away in Total Power.



We penetrate the Darlok empire but on clicking Bases (at Klystron), we fail--d'oh!

Get Cloning and Warp 5, Advanced Soil and Warp Dissipator next. Arrange invasion of Vulcan from 3 planets. Maybe all or most of the transports would have been shot down, but in 2486 we destroy another 3 bases there.

Population could now be easily restored and invasion forces sent out with chilling regularity, leading me to believe I could refer to this part of the game (or entitle the report) as the Bulrathi "Clone Wars", but getting troops to successfully land was another matter..

[jmas]

splitting these up b/c I'm not sure how many screenies I'll use...

2488 We easily take out a Meklar Auto-Repair Huge at Vulcan with Ion Swarmers and Ion 2.0s. Some 85 to 90 (out of 108 ) Buls land and 64 survive. Capture Ion Rifle, Class 3 shields, IIT9, ECM 4.

2489 Eliminate security spending (I instituted it around the discovery of Soil Enrichment, decreasing it as our comp tech increased)--seems like even stealing Soil wouldn't save the AIs now.

2492 Of 131 transports sent to Klystron, just 29 troops land; but they still capture the planet with 17 left. We get the excellent techs Megabolt Cannon, NPG, and Radiated, the decent IIT6, and the "filler" ECM 1 and Tundra. Thank you Darloks--that was quite satisfying to chip away at your unusually strong empire, bristling with anti-spy activity, and get most of your good techs!

2493 Launch invasion on Sili Draconis (Rich).

2495 I scrutinize a spy report on the Dars and fail to see why so many transports were destroyed. I think it occurred to me here that each transport group may have been fired on separately.

There are no Sili ships at Draconis, but I think Darlok ships were here by then--they certainly were in 2497, plus the Sili have 10 bases. So of 132 transports, NINE troops land, but they reduce the Sili population to 9.

2497 I'd been thinking it would take until the 2524 vote to win, but here I saw that my position was strong enough to satisfy me and that I had a shot at winning the election with others' support. I made peace with the Meklar and Mrrshan; I believe they were both still at war with the Sili, so that's guaranteed votes if the status quo holds.

Here was the clincher for bases vs. transports: getting the message "Your transports were all destroyed" regarding Draconis, then having 7 troops land (from the other group, no doubt). We win with 3 left, looting IT+10, IIT5, Battle Suits, and RC 4. GNN announces I "nearly control a majority" of the galaxy. I meet the Sakkra, finally, and hope to get their votes too; they're at war with the Sili.

2498 The "Pacifistic" Sakkra declare on me on this 2nd turn of our relationship. Thanks, guys.