Imperium 38 - toddestan's game

[toddestan]

Ahh, the rules are simple here. Do what it takes to win! I can't possibly screw this one up, can I? Well, lets see how I do.

Note: I'm playing with Kyrub's 1.40m patch here.

2300 – Someone has dispatched my scouts for me and found me some death spores. Somehow, my scientists have managed to take this advanced piece of weaponry and used it to make my colony ships cheaper. Oh joy!

2303 – I see I have two planets scouted. Incidentally, these are the only two planets within the three parsec range. I briefly debate where to send my colony ship. I can secure the smaller artifacts world, or the larger poor world, which may prove more useful for seeding population to other new worlds.

Wait, what am I thinking? I send my colony ship to the artifacts world. I order up some more scouts.

2305 – Vox (artifacts world) founded.

2312 – Bounce away Klackon scout at Keeta (50 Steppe planet to the north of Vox). I order up some bone stock Fighters to defend the planet.

2317 – Chase away Silicoid scout at Herculis (50 Steppe poor to the east)

2318 – Chase away two(!) Klackon colony ships at the strangely named water-world Hyades to the north and one colony ship at Dunatis (Tundra 35). I order some LR Lasers to defend Hyades.

2322 – I chase away the Klackons at Hyades again.

2326 – Chase away three (!!!) colony ships at Hyades. The Klackons must really want this world. It's a good thing that they haven't figured out... I dunno... putting guns on their colony ships.

2327 – My first colony ship built. From the neighborhood it looks like I'll be busy with lots of non-hostile worlds to add to my empire. I decide to open up Planetology and Propulsion fields. I open up Planetology hoping to score a cheap tech to further cut down the cost of my colony ships and maybe boost my planets (+10 terraforming would be ideal) and propulsion because it looks like some fuel cells may be in order to grab the juicy Terran planet to the west. I take the cheap controlled barren and range 4 because it looks like with range 4 I can hopscotch my way over to that terran planet. After the one turn big investment in Sol I have Vox trickle a few RP into the fields.

This turn I also chase the Silicoids away from Mobas (50 Minimal) to the north.

2330 – Silicoids control 6 systems . Chase Klackons away from Hyades, again.


2331 – Found Keeta. Order up some more scouts for the planets that have come into range.

2332 – Second colony ship built and dispatched to Hyades using the redirect trick to first send it to Vox. It will be six turns for it to get there.

2333 – Three unarmed Klackon colony ships show up at Hyades and run. The Klackons really seem to want this world.

2334 – Meklars send an escorted colony ship to Hyades. It's escorted with an unarmed scout which turns its tail and runs.

2335 – Silicoids chase me away from Herculis with an armed scout (no colony ship though). I hadn't really made an effort to secure this world being that it is mineral poor. However, the Silicoids are now number 1 in production. Given that they already have 6+ systems now I'm a bit worried. Sol also maxes this turn so it can concentrate on cranking out colony ships.


2338 – Fight for Hyades. The Klackons send an escorted colony ship with two medium designs. One appears to be a 2-shot nuclear missile design, and the other a heavy laser design of some sort. I dodge the missiles and my fighters and LR Lasers take care of the heavy laser ship. The colony ships and the ammo-expended nuclear missile ship flee.


Galaxy map. In case you don't know where Kholdan, my mouse cursor is pointing at it.


2339 - Bulrathis show up at Hyades. They run at the sight of my ships. My colony ship arrives and I found the colony. As expected, this puts me into contact with the Klackons, but the Darloks as well. Both are rocking a one-planet empire. No wonder the Klackons want Haydes so bad as it looks like the only avenue for expansion (at least until they get controlled Tundra, then they could go for Dunatis to their south).

I strike up minimal trade with both races. Oh wait, I'm the humans - I meant maximum trade.

Galaxy map, showing the totally fearsome Klackon and Darlok empires.


2340 – I found Kronos, which is another one of the ocean worlds to the north. Size 70.

2341 – One of my scouts finds Meklon, and promptly flees with a gazillion missiles on its tail.

This is a bit concerning, as I have three opponents all to the west, closely packed in. Evidence is that the Bulrathi's are also in the same neighborhood. That means whole the east and north part of the map is open for the Silicoid's taking unless I can stop them. This could be bad.

Klackons send a fleet to Hyades, and catch me with my pants down. They wipe out my defenses which consisted of some fighters and the LR Lasers. I honestly should have seen this one coming, as it's not like the Klackons have any other place to go and the computers love building warships with early tech. Great, this means the inevitable transports will be coming, and Haydes is far enough away from Sol for any defenses to arrive in time.


2342 – Found Rhilus, the poor ocean world next to Sol. At this, I've expanded as far as I can to the north for the moment (I haven't founded Seidon, the other 70 ocean world yet, but a colony ship is on the way) so it's time to start filling in the back worlds.

2343 – I threaten the Klackons, hoping they'll leave Haydes alone. They laugh at me.

2344 – Found Seidon. This puts me into contact with Silicoids. As I feared, they have themselves are pretty good sized empire out to the east. I strike up maximum trade.


2345 – I Found Vega (arid ultra-poor world to the south), Klackon transports arrive at Hyades and take the planet. Klackons! This puts me out of contact with the Darloks.

2349 – Despite chasing me away from Herculis earlier, the Silicoids hadn't founded a colony yet. I guess I can't blame them as they probably have a lot of better worlds to grab than some medium sized poor planet so close to Human space. I have a colony ship on the way, but naturally a few turns before it arrives the Silicoid colony ship arrives. This pushes them over the 12 threshold which makes the news.


2352 – Klackon threaten me. The past few turns I have been bombing Haydes with my laser-equipped ships to soften it up. This obviously started to ...uhh... bug the Klackons.


Umm... yeah... lets not forget that you're the ones that started this...

2358 – My transports arrive at Hyades. Fail to take planet but it's enough that the Klackons finally declare war.

2359 – Vega rolls the nova event, threatening to turn the already ultra-poor planet into a tiny radiated husk, making it into the uncontested lousiest planet in the galaxy. I dump all the young colony's meager resources into research and throw some people its way and we'll see if it's enough.


2361 – I retake Hyades, but the Klackon master fleet is incoming. Found Firma, the arid world on the far south of the map with the colony ship redirected from Herculis.


2362 - Lose Hyades to the Klackons.

2365 – Two years left until Vega goes nova, and I need exactly 104 RP for the solar rejuvenation system according to GNN. Vega won't make it on it's own, but it can make it with some reserve spending. I implement some tax and spend policies for the next two turns on the Planets screen to save Vega.

2368 – Range 5 pops. Make contact with Meklars, who are also rocking a one-planet empire. This map just shows how lame my non silicon-based opponents are in this game, with the possible exception the Klackons who have managed to carve out a two-planet empire by taking one of my worlds.


Range 5 will finally allow me to grab that juicy terran planet to the west (range 4 was not enough... oops! ). There are also some other planets to the south west that are waiting to be grabbed up so colony ship production goes back to maximum.

2371- Found Beta Ceti, the juicy 100 terran planet.

2375 – Found Rigel, the steppe world in the south west.

2380 – First council. The Silicoids control 8 of the 21 votes, which is big enough block to veto me getting voted in should the stars have aligned with all the other races. Though no one votes for me anyway. The Klackons, vote for the Silicoids and everyone else abstains.

2386 – Found Celtsi, the arid world in the south west. This puts me into contact with the Bulrathi who have managed to grab a line of planets down the extreme west side of the map.

2391 – The Bulrathi obviously wanted Celtsi too, and get a colony ship in orbit around Celtsi, and naturally send transports. . The whole cold war/planet stealing thing the AI's does in the early game does get tiring after a while.

2392 – The Bulrathi must have heard me swearing all the way from Sol, and decide to formally declare a hot war to make it better. I put some clicks into espionage to see what happens.

2396 – Bulrathis take Celtsi. I had chased off their colony ship at this point with some laser fighters, but they sent plenty of transports so they easily took the planet despite me shooting a few down. I commence bombing the planet to soften it up while my transports arrive.

2398 – My spies come through on the Bulrathi, and since computers are available I automatically take it even though it nets me ECM Jammer I. I even get to blame Klackons for it.

2399 – The Klackons want peace. They still have Haydes which will be a temporary situation if I have anything say about it, but I'm busy at the moment with the Bulrathi, so I accept. Their time will come.

2400 – The council meets again. It's me versus Silicoids. I have 8 votes. Silicoids pull in 14 with some help from the minor players.


2402 – Around this time I manage to research controlled inferno base, and a new round of colony ship building commences. My transports barely fail to take back Celtsi, so a new round of transports are sent. Bombing continues in the hope of reducing the population to a handful of bears to deal with.

2404 – Get another espionage hit on the Bulrathi. I manage to snag class 2 shields, and get to blame the Klackons again. Silicoids get absolutely creamed by the virus event:

9473 RP! Glad it wasn't me .

2405 – Found Tyr, the rich inferno planet to the north near Meklon.

2406 – My space marines in the fleet around Celtsi must have been hot this turn, as they somehow manage to completely glass Celtsi. Uhh... whoops. I get the “too big” warning from Klackons, which means that I must be doing something right.

2407 – Found Dunatis, the tundra world right under the Klackon's nose. They don't seem to be anywhere near the required controlled tundra base so they should, hopefully, leave it alone for the time being .

2408 – Tech ranking. Steal Ion Cannon from Bulrathi.


2409 – Steal Battle Computer 2 from Klackons. I give the Bulrathi the blame.

Something odd happened here, as transports going to Celtsi show up on the galaxy map, even though Celtsi has been a smoking ruin now for a few turns. I'm not sure if this is a glitch (AI sending transports to an empty world) or if they had managed to be in flight the last few turns (but they should be further from Ursa then, unless they came from another world?). Not sure what's going on. I have a colony ship ready to re-colonize Celtsi, but I'll have to park it at Rigel until 26 million bears get to die of thirst on Celtsi.


In the meantime, no one has made a pass at Whynil, the far north Tundra 50 world. I now have the tech, so I start working on an extended range colony ship to see if I can grab it.

2415 – Get to steal IIT9 from Bulrathi. Blame the Klackons, again.

2417 – Now that the mystery transports are gone, I refound Celtsi.

2419 – I get the neutronium deposits event at Firma. Nothing like a suddenly non-hostile rich world to enhance my core planets.



2421 – Found Whynil in the north. Send a scout to the far north star which is uninhabited. Klackons declare war.

Klackons make a pass at Kronos. They have a pretty decent fleet, though not a SOD. Not bad for a two planet empire.

Luckily I have enough missile bases to take care of large ships, and the fighters have no choice but flee.

2424 – Bulrathi want peace. I accept as I have better things to do that wrangle the mineral poor Jinga from them. The Meklars whine about how large I'm getting. You would think they would be more concerned about the Silicoids to the east. I dunno. Maybe they haven't made contact yet?

In preparation for this vote, I've renegotiated trade agreements with the Silicoids and Meklar. I'm already at max possible trade with the Darloks. The bears reject my wheeling and dealing, and go hide in the woods.

2425 – Important council vote. I control have 11 votes out of 33, which means I almost have veto power should I need it. I get some support from the smaller players too, for a total of 15 votes..


I have the following trade agreements:
975 BC/year – Silicoids.
700 BC/year – Meklar.
125 BC/year – Darloks.

My trade income is 353 BC/year.

[toddestan]

2429 – A few turns back I managed to research toxic colony base, which means more colony ships to be built. I found Neptunus, the smallish toxic world to the south of Beta Ceti this turn.


2432 – Found Draconis, the dead world to the north of Whynil.

At this point, I have been gathering ships at Keeta, in preparation for “Operation Orkin”. Here's what my fleet looks like. Basically I have a few variations of fighters, with the older versions sporting lasers and the newer ones packing quite a punch with their neutron-pellet guns and faster engines. I have two bomber classes. The older design I built for the Bulrathi war (but never used) and the newer Bomber2 was made specifically for running across the battle screen and destroying missile bases once I got better engines. Both sport my absolute best bomb technology, which is... umm... nuclear bombs I guess.


2435 – I retake Haydes from the Klackons.

2436 – I guess I'm getting too large or something, as I get whining from the Darloks and the Silicoids.


2440 – Operation Orkin Part II commences. Remember, bugs will come back if you don't deal with the source, which only means one thing.



This also puts me at 18 planets, which also makes the news:


The Silicons don't like this, and declare war.


Galaxy map:


At this point, I have no planetary shield technology, as apparently Class V was not in my tree. Class X is, and I had been researching it at a pretty standard pace. Given the technology that my spies tell me the Silicoids have, this is not a good situation. I tell my scientists that they now need to get that shield tech out, ASAP and adjust spending accordingly.

2442 – A few turns back, I had noticed something, well, odd scrolling around the galaxy map. Drakka, a smallish toxic world in the south east was unoccupied. I would have thought that the Silicoids would have grabbed a world like this up some time ago, but here it is, sitting wide open. I should have grabbed it some 15 turns back or so, but honestly I wasn't expecting it to be there for the taking so I wasn't paying attention to what was going on in that corner of the galaxy. In any case, once I had noticed it open I quickly built a colony ship and dispatched it. I managed to colonize Drakka this turn unopposed. I'll be curious to see if this same thing plays out in other people's games, as the Silicoids completely ignored my colony here for the remainder of the game.

2445 – Incoming at Seidon!


2446 – Battle at Seidon. Silicoids win, though it wasn't the crushing defeat that it could have been. I managed to destroy a good number of their ships, as the Silicoids seemed to concentrate on trying to destroy my rather large stack of Fighter5's, which their large, heavy beam designs weren't very effective at. Meanwhile, my missile bases were taking out their ships with help from the fighters until their stacks got whittled down. It was a good fight, but it wasn't enough.

Other good news is that once I have Class X shields around my planets, those designs should be mostly ineffective versus my planets, except maybe watch out for that Shark-class.

2447 – Nevertheless, the Silicoids glass Seidon. Darloks declare war. Class X pops. I tell my planets to get working on building the new shields, pronto.

2450 – The council meets. I have 14 votes, which is enough to block a win if all the opponents had decided to….uhh... rock the vote.


2452 – Silicoids score the derelict event. Not sure what they got exactly, but I notice they now have Class XV planetary shields and Scatter Pack VII. That's just great.



The Darloks, for whatever reason, decide to attack Draconis, which is the world all the way to the north of the map. Granted, it isn't well defended, but neither is, say, Dunatis which a heckuva lot closer to Nazin. They send enough ships to be annoying as Draconis isn't well developed yet, but not really a threat once I can get some Fighter5's up there.


2454 – The Bulrathi declare war.

2455 – To complete the dogpiling, the Meklars also declare war. It's now me against the entire map.

And... I have a big problem at the moment. My best bomb technology is still nuclear bombs. Apparently fusion bombs and antimatter bombs are not in my tech tree, and I haven't manage to acquire them by other means. What I want to do at this point in the game is take some Meklar/Bulrathi/Darlok worlds to build up strength before I face the Silicoids. However, even the Darlok at this point have Class V planetary shields, and combined with their other shield tech means my Bomber2's are pretty much obsolete for going after core worlds of any of my opponents, and I have nothing to replace them. I need to expand, but I can't, and if I just sit on my hands I'll just fall further behind the Silicoids. I contemplate bio weapons, as I do obviously have death spores. However, I really want to capture the Meklar/Bulrathi/Darlok worlds mostly intact, and at this point I'm not ready to go scorch-earth on the 'coids either (and besides any potential bio-bomber design would probably take heavy losses against their missile bases anyway). So I tell my scientists to concentrate most of their research efforts on weapons.

2456 – I manage to steal Battle Computer IV from Meklar, which while isn't the best computer tech they have, it's a nice addition to my tech tree and will help with future espionage efforts.

2461 – The Silicoids finally colonize Siedon, and then leave. I can't really hold Siedon against the Silicoids, so I show up, glass it, and leave.

2463 – The Silicoids have recolonized Seidon again, so I glass it again, and leave, again.

2465 – While the Darloks were a nuisance, the Meklars not so much, as they sneak-capture Draconis. On the upsides, I steal the obsolete Hyper-X rockets from the Bulrathi this turn.

2466 – I Steal the ECM Jammer II tech from the Silicoids. Darloks offer peace. I accept.

2468 – Silicoids want peace. I accept too. I now have a bone to pick with my cyborg friends.

2470 – I take back Draconis. In the meantime, the Meklars also colonized Seidon. Perfect.

2471 – Meklars want peace. Since my transports are on the way to Seidon, I reject.

2473 – I take Siedon from the Meklar.

2474 – I steal steal ECM Jammer IV from Meklar. While not the best computer tech, this isn't a bad development as I don't have ECM Jammer III and my missile bases will benefit.

2475 – Council meeting. The Silicoids must have been building up their worlds, and being on the bad side with the other opponents, the Silicoids manage 22/37 votes which is bit on the uncomfortable side.


2476 – Rhilus rebels, which if you recall is a rather large, mineral poor world. Great. Well, I have to retake it.

2477 – I take back Rhilus.

2482 – Darloks declare war again. Bulrathi, Meklars want peace. Accepted

2483 – Weapons research pops, netting me some mass drivers. I find Omega-V bomb is in my tree. Finally. .

2484 – Silicoids declare war.

2486 – I manage to steal gatling lasers from the Darloks (not taking espionage seriously against them, I have never spent more than one click). Pew-pew-pew. Good for miniaturization I guess.

2491 – Steal Advanced Space Scanner from Silicoids, which is a pretty big score. This allows me to scan most of the galaxy that I had not been able to scout. Man, there are a lot of artifacts world around!

2493 – Omega V bomb pops. I immediately commission the Bomber3, which is a large ship equipped with all my newest shiny toys. I commence building significant quantities of them.

2495 – Meklars actually one-up me, and come to me with trade (I have been pretty regularly trying to get trade agreements with whoever I'm not currently at war with). Accept.

2498 – Steal Stinger missles from 'coids. Nice.

2499 – Silicoids want peace. There hasn't been much going on except spy wars. Anyhow, accept as I'm not taking on the 'coids quite yet and would prefer not getting into a major shooting war with them yet.

2500 – Council. I manage 28/43 votes... So close! Game might have ended here if I had managed to butter up the shapeshifters enough to get them to vote for me instead of abstaining.

2501 – Meklars declare war, even though they just voted for me . Secretly erratic Meklars? .
Meklars start probing my defenses with huge, auto-repairing ships. The ships aren't a huge threat to my planets, but they are seriously annoying when I have to fight them ship-to-ship. My best at this point are large cruisers sporting mass drivers.


2506 – Darloks want peace. Accept. By this time, I have a pretty decent number of Bomber3's, and it's time to go on the rampage and the Meklar are in the crosshairs. I choose Trax as my target for Operation Ctrl-Alt-Del.

2508 – Warnings from Silicoid/Bulrathi about being too large, despite my empire more or less not growing now for something like 30 turns. Hey, I must still be doing something right.

Tech report:


While I have upgraded my bomb technology, another huge hole in my tech tree has been gropo technology. This is now becoming a big problem, as the Meklars have Ion Rifles and Powered Armor, whereas my grunts apparently have sticks and stones. It looks like I'll be able to take Trax, but at a cost as I'm having to sending waves of transports to wear down the population. With any luck, I'll get some gropo tech out of this.

2511 – Bulrathi's get quake event.



2513 – Steal auto-repair from Meklars. Now I can make my own obnoxious auto-repairing ships if I want.

2514 – Meklars want peace. Rejected, as I almost have Trax under my control.

Disaster strikes. Operation Ctrl-Alt-Del is a failure! With three population left on Trax and plenty of transports on the way, Trax pops out a missile base which throws me into the battle screen. This has happened before on my siege of Trax, and I send my Bomber3's across the screen to take out the missile base, and I get the dreaded “Colony Was Destroyed” message. All this effort, all those juicy Meklar factories, to waste! (probably should have retreated, as that single missile base probably wouldn't have destroyed enough transports to matter. Oh well, live and learn..).

Well, I abandon Trax, and reboot Operation Ctrl-Alt-Del against the next most logical Meklar target, Meklon.

While the large number of missile bases fall quickly, I'm throwing massive numbers of grunts to die at the hands of cyborg weaponry while the nearby planets pour money into Eco spending to grow more cannon-fodder. I see a few screens like this:

Followed by ones like this a few turns later:

Eventually I'll wear them down.

2523 - Steal anti-matter torpedoes from the Meklar.

2524 – Steal Battle Computer Mark VII from the Meklar, which is one of their better computer techs.

2525 – Council meets. My number of votes is down, as the population of my worlds is also down thanks to Operation Ctrl-Alt-Del Rebooted. I no longer have a blocking vote, but luckily I get the support of the Bulrathis and Darloks against the Silicoids.

[toddestan]

2529 – Finally captured Meklon. About time. Besides a conveniently located large terran planet, I get:
Controlled Dead
Tachyon beam
Energy Pulsar
Armored Exoskeleton
Cloaking Device
Enhanced Eco Restoration.

The Tachyon Beam is good for a new design of the Cruiser class (which is still getting by with mass drivers), and the Armored Exoskeleton should be good for future ground battles. Too bad I didn't get Ion Rifle (or even Hand lasers, for Orion's sake).

2530 – The very next turn, my spies finally come through and steal Ion Rifle from the Meklar. Uhh.... guys. Also Scatter VII pops the very same turn. I quickly redesign the Cruiser3 to take advantage of the miniaturization, as none have actually been constructed yet.

2531 – Darloks declare war. Big mistake shapeshifters.

2533 – Population report.

Apparently there are still more rocks than warm bodies in this galaxy. Silicoids are common as... dirt?

2537 - Darloks wiped out. I capture Nazin and get a small pile of obsolete technology. Better luck next game, shapeshifters.


Galaxy map:


2542 – Bulrathi want non-aggression pact. Uhh, whatever. I'm going to attack the Meklar again anyway, and courting the Bulrathi vote in the council can't hurt anyway.

2543 – Bulrathi immediately break the non-aggression pact. Guys?

My next Meklar target is Helos, which is an artifacts world in the northwest. With my newly acquired gropo tech, it goes down a lot easier than Meklon (though it still took a couple of waves of transports).

Here's the phat loot:
Hyperspace Communications (which I used a grand total of once before the end of the game)
Controlled Radiated Environment
Ion Drives
Class XI Shields
Powered Armor
Reduced Industrial Waste 20%
Not a bad haul here. Powered Armor will be a big help in the future, plus some decent shields, Controlled Radiated which I had skipped over, and some better engines. Controlled Radiated will be good for when I go after the Silicoids, as their easiest-captured world looks to be Argus, which is radiated.

[note: The strategy guide mentions that the AI's do not use Hyperspace Communications, and suggests trading/tributing it to the AI's to take advantage of this. This seems to be a bit of a cheat. Would this be a banned tactic per imperium rules? I didn't trade/tribute it myself in this game, just asking.]

With the council meeting again, I try to make peace with the Meklar to court their vote.

Umm... how about no?

Well, if the Meklar aren't with me, they must be against me. I decide to add Klystron (northwest corner star) to my belt before the elections. This triggers the majority of the galaxy message from GNN:


2450 – Council meets again. Emporer Granid manages 20/49 votes, so this game ain't over yet.


2552 – Silicoids give me sad faces again. Hey, Granid, you still have a pretty decent sized empire, unlike, say the Meklars:

So quit yer whining!

2553 – The Meklar want peace, and I accept.

2554 – The Space Crystal shows up.


It's in the north part of the map, kind of between Klystron and Draconis.

2557 – Bulrathi declare war. Okay you guys are getting it as soon as I'm done with Lore's friend in the north. The space crystal starts heading towards Draconis. This is better as it has a few more bases than Klystron at this point.

2558 - Space Crystal at Draconis. The Cruiser3's take some losses, but between them and the 25 missile bases the space crystal is shattered.



2563 – Bulrathi's, it's your turn, and I decide to add to my growing homeworld collection. Ursa falls this turn. Meklar declare war. Uhh, okay whatever guys.

2564 – Steal Zortium Armor from the Meklar. Research Advanced damage control on the same turn. I also get my all-time favorite weapon, the gauss autocannon. I commission the Cruiser4. No advanced damage control included, but inertial stabilizer, battle scanner, auto-repair (for some reason I don't remember why), and packed with gauss autocannons. No high energy focus yet, so there will be a Cruiser5 if I get my hands on that tech. I start cranking these guys out.

2571 – I haven't mentioned it, but the Silicoids have been periodically probing my defenses for decades now with stuff like this:

This has been more of a nuisance than a threat. However, they now have some new designs in play with proton torpedoes and mauler devices which can hit my planets through the shielding. They aren't terribly effective, but would be dangerous given sufficient numbers. I could try to tech up my planets' shielding, or I could take the fight to them. I decide that it's going to be the latter.

2572 – I Capture Zoctan from the Bulrathi.


2575 – The council meets. I now control slightly over half the votes myself. Unfortunately, Granid controls most of the rest himself (since the Meklar and Bulrathi are pretty much irrelevant at this point). The game goes on.


2576 – Granid throws a temper-tantrum, and ends the trade agreement I had going on.

Note that I had not actually been spying on the 'coids either (maybe I was framed? I dunno). I'd been at “peace” with Silicoids for 70-some turns at this point, so the dough had to be rolling in for both sides. Oh well Granid, your number is coming up!

2577 – Take Collassa from the Bulrathi.

Only 24 max population. Bioweapons in play?

I consider taking Xudax, the large ultra-poor world the Bulrathi own. The population could make a difference in the next election, as it would be good for at least one vote for sure. Ah, forget it. I'm ready to rock!

2580 – My first target in the Silicoid empire for Operation Gravel Pit is the previously mentioned, conveniently located, Argus, a centrally located radiated world located near several of my colonies. Naturally, the Silicoids declare war once I land my troops.

I manage to get out of the invasion:
Cloning
Universal Antidote

Good. I've been wanting cloning for some time now.

At this point, I realize that my Bomber3, which is an 80+ turn-old design(!), is no longer cutting the mustard. It served well against the Meklar/Bulrathi/Darloks. They've been in production for a long time so I have a pretty good sized stack of them, but they taking heavy losses against Silicoid missile bases. I commission the Bomber4, still equipped with Omega-V's (my still current best bomb tech) but a lot more of them due to miniaturization as well as upgraded engines and computers. Oh, and a cloaking device too.

2584 – I roll the industrial accident on Ursa.


Net result is a 10 loss population to the world size when all is said and done.

2586 – Fleet strength report from GNN.

Number one! Number one!

2590 - I manage to steal Personal Absorption Shield. My next target is Arietis, the ultra-rich planet located to to the north of Argus and Seidon. I had my eye on this planet before, but my plans got cut short when the Silicoids glassed Seidon back in the day.

Incidentally, the turn I ordered my fleet away from Argus the Silicoids decide to sneak attack it, and since the planet wasn't as built up as it might have been, the Silicoids were able to knock the missile bases down and bomb the planet (luckily they managed to not glass it). It was two turns to Arietis from Argus, and the one and only time in the game where I used Hyperspace Communications was to turn my fleet around and send them back to Argus to chase away the Silicoids. As it turned out, the new ships I had sent from Tyr (my current rally point) to join the fight were enough to take out the defenses the next turn at Arietis so the ships at Argus were not even needed. Whew!

2592 – I capture Arietis.

I manage to capture:
Tritanium Armor
Improved Terraforming +10

The armor is nice.

Operation Gravel Pit against the Silicoids hasn't gone unnoticed in the far west edge of the galaxy, as both the Meklar and Bulrathi are giving me major kudos for my rock-smashing efforts (and for not wiping their pathetic empires off the face of the galaxy, I suppose). I guess the Silicoids haven't been making a lot friends lately. I manage to negotiate peace with both the Meklar and Bulrathi, who I'm still at war with. I immediately start up trade with both empires.

2596 - My next target is Trax, which the Silicoids gobbled up after I abandoned it in the Meklar campaign. I take the planet, and get Terraforming +60. This is actually a big deal, as I only had Terraforming +40 at this point. With the election coming up, I tell everyone to 'get busy' and spend heavily in Eco to get the extra +20 population on all my worlds by 2600.

2600 – Council meets, and I win with 40/56 votes. I get both the Meklar and Bulrathi votes, for what it counts. I accept the ruling (no trade during final war anyway ).


A look at the state of the game preceding the election:



I guess the lone surviving Fighter3 was kept around for nostalgic reasons. I actually was pretty lax about redesigning my ships this game, as the Meklar/Darlok/Bulrathi were pretty backwards tech-wise, so I was able to keep using old designs against them for a long period of turns.

Final trade agreements:

Bulrathi: 350BC/year
Meklar: 250BC/year


Final trade income is 47 BC/year:

Scoring (as I understand it):
353 BC/Year at 2425 + 43 BC/Year at 2599 = 396 score. (thanks Kyrub for allowing me to so easily go back in time to get these numbers, as I initially thought that the scoring variant was the size of the trade agreements and not the actual income per the planets screen )

Overall, exciting game, especially since I'm not that good at impossible, so it's nice to win one for a change. It's a bit too bad that I didn't clench the game a 100 turns earlier, as I was close at the 2500 council elections (may have had more trade income too), but rather the game lingered on for a bit but that's how it goes.

A few notes that made this game somewhat different. First, there was the homeworld placement, which put the Klackons, Bulrathi, and Darloks right on top of each other. This pretty much stunted the growth of all three races, especially the Darloks who I don't think ever got off of Nazin. I'm sure it didn't help that Orion and the only (!) asteroids star in the galaxy helped box them in. In addition, the Meklars and the player were not far away either from this mess either, leaving the east side of the map a big Silicoid party zone. Certainly an unusual galaxy generation. I seriously thought that the Silicoids would end up running away with it, but they never really got out of control.

The holes in the tech tree also threw a wrench into things. No bombs until Omega-V put me into a tense situation for a while, and the lack of the gropo tech also put me a hole that I had to climb out of. Finally, for games that go this long I'm used to growing my planets to large sizes, but it seems that I had no soil enrichment technologies, or terraforming technologies between +40 and complete terraforming (which I never actually obtained). Usually, the ability to massively grow planets in the later stages of the game puts the Silicoids at a disadvantage, but given that I was living with just +40 terraforming until the last few turns meant I never gained that advantage over the rocks.

I'll be curious to see what other people score. I didn't try too hard to maximize my score, as I was concentrated more on simply winning the game. Obviously to maximize the score the goal shouldn't be to end the game at war with the largest remaining empire while at the same time marginalizing the other players. I suppose if I was bored I could go back and abstain the 2600 election, and try to make peace with the Silicoids with the hope of having a juicy trade agreement in place with them by 2625. If executed right, I could net me a score of 706. It's also good for that this scoring variant doesn't knock me each time I lose a world .

Also, is there a way to get around the message length/maximum number of images for forum posts? :P

[RefSteel]

Wow - all kinds of twists and turns in this one, from trying to invade Bears before researching any gropo tech(!!) to an early elimination of the Klackons to defeating the Space Crystal and finally a Conquest victory! Congratulations on the Impossible-level win!

I suspect that a lot of the AI's anger at you originated from your early attacks on the bugs (causing them to declare war, probably later bringing in allies) and then from exterminating them. (Killing the last of any race tends to make other races mistrust you for the rest of the game.) The vote-for-you-one-turn-DoW-the-next behavior was of course rather silly, but the Ais are influenced at Council by your racial bonus, and if they were at war with your election opponent, they'd have voted for you (while not yet at war) no matter how much they hated you.

note: The strategy guide mentions that the AI's do not use Hyperspace Communications, and suggests trading/tributing it to the AI's to take advantage of this. This seems to be a bit of a cheat. Would this be a banned tactic per imperium rules? I didn't trade/tribute it myself in this game, just asking.]

Hmmm. I don't think this specific case comes up often enough to warrant a specific exploit rule, but trading techs to Ais who value them far above their real utility (e.g. soil enrichment to Silis) is generally frowned upon, and should probably be noted somewhere in that exploits thread, at least as something to avoid relying upon. (Sorta like "empty" threats and the like, it's hard to define this very clearly.)

Thanks for writing such a detailed, funny, exciting report of what sounds like a great, exciting game!

[Zieman]

Wow, what an epic game - pretty much an opposite of mine .
And I usually get my games to last looooooong...

[toddestan]

Thanks for the comments. Given that it was impossible, I had decided that I wasn't really going to try to maximize my score and instead just play it "my way". As it turned out, I actually did things a bit differently than how I usually play. I pretty much never eliminate other races due to the diplomatic penalty, and besides, keeping even 1PE's around can be good for filling holes in the tech tree or getting a vote in the council. I also pretty much never start early wars, as they can be incredibly draining on a growing economy and fighting wars at warp 1-2 can be tedious. But when a 1PE manages to expand by taking one of my worlds, well... I'm just not going to stand for that . Even if it is the Klackons.

It was a fun exciting game and I'm glad that the report was enjoyable.