During the initial discussion of the concept for this Imperium, I posted:
We did keep the initial colony ship, and played on Hard rather than impossible. But my concerns turned out to be correct, at least for my attempt at conquering the galaxy.
I grabbed the neighboring system at 1 LY with the starting colony ship, and it was a decently large planet. But from that point no further expansion was possible until one of the AIs colonized Thrax to the west; with Orion to the south there was little hope of gaining any close neighbors to invade in that direction for a long time. I developed my two planets and started researching with an emphasis on propulsion for better range tech. But as more and more years passed with no sign of any AIs at Thrax, my worries grew.
More years passed, and GNN reported the Psilons expanding to more systems. Not good.
Still more years passed, and then more. Still no sign of any AIs.
The galactic council met for the first time
and I knew this game was not going to end well. My two planets and the empty systems in the northeast corner of the galaxy that my scouts could reach meant the AIs had almost everything else...with the Psilons having a big chunk of territory. Doom was becoming apparent.
Finally an Alkari scout approached Thrax, followed the next year by a Mrrshan scout. But still no AI colony ships; not enough range yet. Finally Thrax was colonized by the Psilons, and I launched my doomed invasion force. Bear infantry took the planet easily enough, but Psilon larges carrying death spores counter-attacked immediately and wiped out the fledgling colony.
Then the spore ships came for the Bear core worlds....
I am curious to see how other players' games went. Did the AIs show up and colonize worlds close enough for invasion earlier, allowing for some expansion? Or did someone manage to actually win this from such an isolated start, two planets against an entire galaxy? Hopefully most games went better than mine. I still think this was a neat concept for an Imperium, but my worries about an isolated start turned out to be all too accurate, at least for my attempt.
(June 26th, 2018, 20:23)haphazard1 Wrote: I think the starting colony ship would be needed, or else the start rolled needs to have a close neighbor or two so conquest can begin early. An isolated start would mean the player is stuck at one (or two) planets for some time while the AIs expand out to mulitple worlds; not sure that big a starting deficit could be overcome on impossible.
We did keep the initial colony ship, and played on Hard rather than impossible. But my concerns turned out to be correct, at least for my attempt at conquering the galaxy.
I grabbed the neighboring system at 1 LY with the starting colony ship, and it was a decently large planet. But from that point no further expansion was possible until one of the AIs colonized Thrax to the west; with Orion to the south there was little hope of gaining any close neighbors to invade in that direction for a long time. I developed my two planets and started researching with an emphasis on propulsion for better range tech. But as more and more years passed with no sign of any AIs at Thrax, my worries grew.
More years passed, and GNN reported the Psilons expanding to more systems. Not good.
Still more years passed, and then more. Still no sign of any AIs.
The galactic council met for the first time
and I knew this game was not going to end well. My two planets and the empty systems in the northeast corner of the galaxy that my scouts could reach meant the AIs had almost everything else...with the Psilons having a big chunk of territory. Doom was becoming apparent.Finally an Alkari scout approached Thrax, followed the next year by a Mrrshan scout. But still no AI colony ships; not enough range yet. Finally Thrax was colonized by the Psilons, and I launched my doomed invasion force. Bear infantry took the planet easily enough, but Psilon larges carrying death spores counter-attacked immediately and wiped out the fledgling colony.
Then the spore ships came for the Bear core worlds....I am curious to see how other players' games went. Did the AIs show up and colonize worlds close enough for invasion earlier, allowing for some expansion? Or did someone manage to actually win this from such an isolated start, two planets against an entire galaxy? Hopefully most games went better than mine. I still think this was a neat concept for an Imperium, but my worries about an isolated start turned out to be all too accurate, at least for my attempt.
This sounds like a variant where the RNG can really screw you over. I didn't even try, but I tend to have more fun with SGs than with Imperia anyway. On the bright side, if yours is the only non-shadow report, do you win by default?
). The Psilons finally got around to colonizing Thrax in 2369; the galactic council had already met several years earlier. I tried to make a move to expand at that point, but the Psilons had grown too strong and had multiple larges with death spores; they wiped out Thrax the turn after I conquered it.