Dathon's Imperium 13

[dathon]

So Sullla has thrown this Imperium out there to give players a chance at their first Impossible win. Large maps definitely play easier than medium maps. We have the the Alkari, who don't get any production bonuses, but arguably the best combat bonus. This map layout could prove to be interesting, though. Looks like we'll be getting pressure both from the SE and direct E, with not a lot of territory nearby. Our hated adversary, the Mrrshan, are absent, but relations will not be rosey with the Sakkra, Bulrathi, or Darlok. Having the Psilon present is always dangerous. So all-in-all, could be quite a challenge.

Since I've been playing on Impossible for awhile now, I wanted to take another variant rule for some spice. The first that came to mind was to forbid weapons on hulls larger than medium. That plays to the strat guide's recommendation for Alkari players. I actually don't agree with that wholesale; I think that ship design should fit the strategic/tactical situation best, and while the Alkari +3 defense does favor smaller ships, it should be just another factor for consideration rather than a driving component. But I think I rely on Huge ships a little too much, so some practice with smaller designs would do me good. For clarification, I'm forbidding weapons on large/huge designs, not specials, so repulsor beams/dissipator/scanners will still be available. Damaging specials like Pulsars and Black Hole will be off the table. I will also be playing with the events off. Big surprise there

Opening
First thing to look at is the terrain, and it's frankly not that great. We've got two stars close by, and everything else at least Range 5 away. Worse, neither star will open a path without Range tech. Lots of blue stars in the vicinity too; glad the Silicoids aren't in the game. I think getting out of the corner is going to be critical in this game. That's probably going to mean heading for that cluster of reds in the center, or possibly down the Western edge.

So I started with my colony ship to the green star, and the scouts to the yellow to the NE and the blue to the SE. Esper is only size 30? Ugh, not good. Scouting report was mixed as well. Nice size 80 up North, and we've got a path to the center through that blue star. Orion is in a rather inconvienent location, though, and a lot of these worlds are TINY. At least that Tundra UR looks nice.

My initial tech choices were: RW80%, Improved Eco, and Range 5. Glad that last one was there, as we're not getting past Firma without it. I went ahead and took Altair to full production before branching out, though I did trickle research half of Range 5 out of Esper. That planet was just too small to do much with. I was amazed when 2330 rolled around, and I still hadn't seen any AI scouts. Range 5 complete in 2333, and I already had a col ship standing by at Esper for Firma. That's right, I'm putting off colonizing that size 80 up N for the moment to get a better position.

Met the Sakkra when Firma was colonized in 2337. They were already out to 7 planets, including all of those yellow's down there. I'm glad I decided to go for Firma and Drakka first; otherwise, I might not have gotten them! In fact, I had to chase 2 unarmed Sakkra col ships from Drakka. Scouting reports from the North told me I didn't want to wait long, however. Five habitable planets up there, including two Fertile and over 100!! Holy cow!

Drakka was founded in 2344, Artemis 3 turns later. I had been using Esper to reserach Improved Eco, deeming that more useful than factories there. The extra production at Altair would speed the colonization of the N, and I wanted to see if Tundra was in my tree with the Ecologist Sakkra right next door. I did NOT want them having that UR planet! Well, the tech didn't pop until 2349, but Tundra was indeed in the tree, so I seeded it from Altair, and let it simmer with Esper's meager production and Altair's bits of leftover until col ships for Vox, Tyr, and Paranar had been built. I was quite annoyed that Xengara was 6 parsecs from Artemis, and that we'd missed Range 6 in the tree. So the planet would have to wait until I could build an LR col ship, and THAT would have to wait until either a second-tier construction or third-tier planetology tech.

I planted my flag on Vox in 2356, Tyr in 2360, and Paranar in 2366. Paranar's col ship completed the same year Vox was colonized, and I made the painful decision to send 40 birds from Altair to seed Vox. Esper was just too small to serve as a seed, and those big planets would grow way too slowly on their own. I had Altair finish Controlled Tundra while it re-grew, half research half pop pop-growth. That would also let Esper finally get some more factories going. But when I found Ajax three turns later, Altair went back to ship-building, and Esper back on research. Tundra was at 8%, and would pop 2368.

Unfortunately, the Sakkra made it to Incedius and Misha, and springboarded to Ajax before my col ship could get there, and Phantos was 6 parsecs away, so I missed out on both worlds. The Sakkra inexplicably made a play for Hyades before Vega, the UR. I chased them off with popguns from Altair, and scored both worlds! BTW, the AI impressed me by asking for a NAP when it realized I would have fighters waiting at Hyades. Not sure if it was coding or dumb luck, but a pretty shrewd move! Not that it worked, mind you

After RW80% popped in 2377, I crash-researched IIT8 to get the LR col ship into play to nab Xengara. I got contact with the Meklar in the same year when they commandeered Ajax from the birds. That was only their fourth planet; looks like they aren't going to be a major player this game. Here's the galaxy from 2381:



We have a respectable 10 planets, which will be 11 when IIT8 finishes. The Sakkra managed to rather efficiently lockdown the SW corner, though I did nab the best prize in Vega. Firma and Drakka were maxed at this point, and adding some bases for defense. Yes the Lizards are Pacifistic, but that will go right out the window when they run out of room to expand. The Meklar took Phantos the next year, brining their total to 5 planets.

2390 saw most of my empire come online; Paranar, Tyr, and Hyades would need a little more work. Now I had to play catch-up; the Sakkra tech bar was nearly 4 times longer than mine! Plus, it didn't help that our tech tree seemed to absolutetly SUCK. No terraforming +10, +20, or +30? No Controlled Dead, Inferno or Toxic? Only ECM tech in the first two computer rungs? Stabilizer the only choice in the second propulsion rung? OUCH!! I took Hyper X over NPG's for my second weapon's tech; we were NOT going on offense any time soon! I also upped our trade and signed a NAP with the Sakkra, hoping to keep them from choosing me to go through first.

Xengara was finally colonized in 2395, and got a healthy shot of reserves from Vega to help it grow fast. The Sakkra were sending an endless stream of ships from their core to Ajax, making me very nervous. It would be impossible to tell if any were bound for Drakka until ISS came in.

The next 10 or so years were pretty uneventful. I researched out of my core, while Firma, Drakka, and Vega built bases to deter the Sakkra, especially after the Sakkra dissolved our NAP in 2405. What my spies revealed in 2412 made me even more worried:



Wow, do they every outclass me! RCIV? Controlled Radiated? +30? Atmospheric Terraforming? Fusion Bombs and Neutron Blasters? Wow. The only saving grace I saw is that they continued to duel with the Meklar over Phantos and Ajax. Hopefully that would keep them busy until I could catch up, because if they came for me now, I was finished, period. I was about on par tech-wise with the Meklar by this point, though, so they wouldn't keep the Sakkra occupied for long.

I'd had a col ship standing by at Paranar for when Range 7 completed, and that allowed me to nab Beta Ceti in 2418. The tech tree continues to be wretched, however, as Range 8 is the only choice next Xengara had come fully online the turn before. Scatter Pack's came in the next turn, allowing me to breathe a small sigh of relief. Now I had to decide what to do next. I decided to backup for the cheap NPG's before researching the AMB's. They just miniaturize so nicely onto fighters. I had stupidly chosen Auto Repair over Battle Suits when Construction came up several decades ago, forgetting my additional variant rule. Oh well, at least I'd have it on hand if I decided to break with that.

I decided to trade the Meklar Controlled Dead for Enhanced Eco in 2421. Yes a very lopsided trade, but without Controlled Radiated in the tree, I had no way to get any of the planets near me. I used the tech to snag Guradas. I also traded Stabilizers to the Sakkra for Class IV, making up for my deficiency in shield tech. Man, no Class V planetary though? OUCHIE!! At least the trade let me bypass a rung and go directly to Repulsors from Class III. Got ISS in 2423, and saw with some relief that RCIV was in the tree. I was already researching Soil Enrichment, so if I could just keep everybody peaceful for awhile, I'd be alright. To that end, I thought I'd see if the Sakkra would agree to an Alliance. Imagine my surprise when they gave me this response:



The only treaty between us that had been broken was the NAP, which they dissolved. That gives ME an oath-breaker penalty? Well that sucks. They did, however, trade me Controlled Inferno for Enhanced Eco. Another bad trade, but what could I do? If I wanted more planets, I needed habitability tech. I did end up ultimately snagging Selia and Darrain with the tech.

Finally got the chance at an engine when Range 8 came in to reveal Impulse Drives. Meanwhile the Darlok, with their usual diplomatic flair, had managed to get themselves at war with the Sakkra, Meklar, and probably Bulrathi as well. No word yet from the Psilon. The founding of Darrain in 2442 changed that. Here's the map from this point:



OPE Psilons again, huh? Well, that's a welcome sight in lieu of my last game. The Bulrathi weren't doing too hot either, 6 planets including two deep in Sakkra space. They were indeed at war with the Darlok. The scary part is that I was now in second place in tech and population for the known galaxy, and the Sakkra were allied with both the Meklar and Bulrathi. That easily gave them 2/3 on the pop graphs the way I saw it. The Darlok would vote against them, but I didn't know what their population was like. Probably depleted after fighting three other races. Thing is, if I asked the Meklar to fight the Sakkra, they would wrap-up the Borg easily, as the robots had no missiles, planetary shields, bombs, and their best beam was Mass Driver. I held off for the moment.

Contact with the Darlok came the next turn, when they momentarily took control of Dunatis. Their only other world than that one was their homeworld. Well that sealed it. Next council vote, I was losing. Big time. So I dialed up the Bulrathi. They had +30 for trade! And only wanted Stabilizers for it! Cha-ching! Factory construction went on hold for terraforming. I terraformed and bought pop to fill up my worlds immediately; the council vote could come at any moment. The Sakkra came calling for a NAP in 2448, which I happily signed. They weren't trading environment tech, so I couldn't get those last hostile worlds anyway. My crash course on pop growth brought me almost even with the Lizards, eliminating the threat of a council loss. I also went ahead and signed max trade with everbody else to improve relations. I was once again running with little military, but this time I at least had lots of bases on my borders to deter aggression.

That next round of tech saw AMB's, Advanced Eco, Impulse Drive, Repulsors, and Zortium Armor come in. I chose Megabolts, +50, Star Gates, Absorbtion Shields, and RW40%. Probably should have taken Class VI over the personnel shields, but oh well. The Psilon declared phoney war in 2466. The only planet they could reach of mine was Darrian, and they only had Controlled Dead. I did turn up spying to see if I could nab Neutron Blaster or Ion Cannons. Got Hyper-V's my first opportunity, then Ion cannons. Should have taken BCIII over the weapons tech, but oh well; got the opportunity to rectify that pretty quickly.

I noticed that Bears were the only race with Class V Planetary shields, so I dialed them up and traded them Advanced Eco for it. Yeah that's an advanced tech, but the Bulrathi aren't going to be doing much this game. I wanted those shields to improve my planets' survivability chances when war came. Oh yes; I'm under no illusions that I'm going to get out of this without going up against the Sakkra.

I discovered in 2471 that there was a size 50 UR clear on the other side of the galaxy, SE of Mentar. Well, I certainly wanted that planet! What's funny is the turn after I scouted it, the Psilon sent their entire fleet from Mentar, just to chase my scout away from the world. I had a col ship standing by at Darrian to nab the planet when they left.

[dathon]

The first Council vote FINALLY happened in 2472. The results:

For the Alkari:
Darlok (1)

For the Sakkra:
Sakkra (18 )
Bulrathi (6)
Psilon (1)

Abstain:
Meklar (4)
Us (15)

Well, that was a little closer than I would have liked. I think the pop bar graph isn't exactly linear. Check it out:



I barely had a 1/3 bloc in the council. But by the looks of things, I easily have more than 1/3 the vote. So I did a little test; I took a bitmap picture, copied the Bulrathi bar to the pixel, and placed 3 copies next to both my and the Sakkra bars. Here's the result:



According to the last election, 3 Bulrathi bars should be equal to the Sakkra. From the picture, though, they are clearly not. In fact, you could put a fourth Bulrathi bar up there, and it still wouldn't be as long as the Sakkra by a couple pixels! I always wondered why I had such a hard time gauging Council votes by the charts; now I know why. Looks like large populations are inflated compared to small ones.

Well then. That result revealed to me that the Psilon were worthless to me. If everybody was going to vote against me anyway, I might as well just take Mentar for myself. So I designed me some ships to do it:



They had 13 large ships, 3 Huge, and 1 medium, and Hyper-V bases. I wanted Ion's over NPG's, but couldn't fit a BCIII on with them. The election of 2475 went off just like 2473. I also discovered the Tundra next to Mentar about this time, and Helos was colonized in 2478. This royally pissed off the Meklar, who had been snapping up Hostile planets in the NE, so they declared war. Well, I should be alright; the only thing they have that can hurt me are Stinger's, and those will only do 6 dmg vs my bases. They were Allied with the Bulrathi, though, and I didn't want a dogpile just yet, so I called up the Bears and asked them to join us instead, which they did.

While I waited to accumulate enough ships to take out Mentar, I had my bombers glass some of the Meklar recent acquisitions, including Crypto, Dunatis, and Argus. By 2482, I decided that I had enough to take and hold Mentar. +50 came in that turn as well, so I upgraded my empire while the fleet maneuvered into position. My glorious fleet entered orbit around Mentar in 2487. Their fleet was heading back to Herculis, which I had recently colonized, so I took the planet without a scratch after the bases stupdily fired at my fighters. Now, I was wondering why the Psilons hadn't colonized either Helos or Herculis. They had Controlled Dead, but no col ships. Well, here's what I found when I got to Mentar:





THAT is truly a sorry state of affairs. I've seen this before, actually. When you spy on the computer, and it catches you, I believe it turns up its own internal security spending in response. That's why it gets harder and harder to spy on the same race. Well, if it goes high enough, it can also bankrupt the empire, and I think that's what happened here. I sent 25 troops from Beta Ceti, filling with 20 from Vox, and in 2490, the Psilon were no more.

About this time, Star Gates were up over most of my empire. My strategy was obvious; I was going to do exactly what I did last game, build a fleet of small bombers, and blast the Sakkra, just like I did the Psilon. The difference here is that I hoped to get out of this with a domination, rather than conquest win, so I'd have to be careful about destroying too many worlds. I wasn't going to do it by the 2500 election, so I shot for 2525.

An interesting thing happened in 2499. After watching Crypto get nuked for the fourth or fifth time, the Meklar came begging for peace. I actually accepted; if I could just turn them on the Sakkra, a council win would be that much easier. Here's how the 2500 election played out:

For the Sakkra:
Darlok (1)
Sakkra (19)

For the Alkari:

Abstain:
Bulrathi (6)
Meklar (4)
Alkari (20)

Why did the Darlok vote against me? They declared back in 2490-something. That was actually a good thing, as it allowed me to poach Proxima off them in 2500. So let's take stock. Here's the galaxy at this point:



As you can see, I've managed to colonzie the eniter NE corner. Once those planets get terraformed and filled up, I'll have 2,320 million, for a total of 24 votes out of 54. I'll have +60 by then, which will add 10 pop to each world for 2 more votes. If I can get the Bulrathi and Meklar to vote for me, that would be 36/54. That right there would be enough, actually. So all I need to do is get the Meklar and Bulrathi at war with the Sakkra, and bomb a couple lizard worlds for insurance. I started building bombers out of just about all my worlds. I could only fit a Mk III computer on with the stabilizer, but they had missile def of 9, and I could build a LOT of them.

:minfac:

I stirred the pot immediately, asking the Sakkra to declare on the Meklar (which they did for 1800 BC) and the Bulrathi to declare on the Sakkra (which they did for free). The Sakkra broke our NAP in 2505, and I responded in kind by nuking Ajax off the face of the galaxy. The Sakkra made 2 plays for Vox to counter, but they were fielding mostly graviton beam fighters and a few large torpedo boats. I distracted them with NPG fighters, and wittled down both fleets, losing only 1 base in the second fight. In the mean time, I took out the fledging colonies of Xudax and Crypto.

The Bulrathi were up to Affable and Alliance, but the Meklar were still at Unease, so I went ahead and nuked Stalaz aned Incedius out of existence as well, which brough them up to Neutral. The Sakkra had one fleet I knew I probably couldn't beat. It had 123 large torpedo boats, 13 Huge's, 465 Mediums, and 370 of their graviton fighters. And they sent it on the all important mission... of obliterating Esper, the least useful planet in my core They made lesser plays for Selia and Beta Ceti, both of which were rebuffed handily.

[dathon]

So 2519 rolls around, and the Sakkra death fleet rolls into Esper. Based on what I'd seen in previous battles, I made the decision to fight with my NPG's. I wanted to re-design my fighters anyway, so I squared off against them. My strategy was simple... take advantage of the fact that the AI is an idiot 8). Here we are ~10 rounds in



Those Huge ships have Death Spores, so they got targetted first; they are down to 6 out of 13. The mediums and smalls have graviton beams only, no threat to the planet. The AI is stupidly whittling down my smaller stack, while I pelt it with missile from afar, and keep my bigger stack of fighters intact. It is so single minded, it can't even send that stack of 400 mediums after my other fighters; they just danced around the corner, waiting for an opportunity to get in . After the Huge stack was eliminated, we settled into a game of cat and mouse



I'm out-running the torpedos from the ships, whittling down their fleet slowly but surely, waiting out the clock. Those medium ships would get a shot in every once in awhile, and were slowly whittling me down, but ultimately, I prevailed. They had to retreat after 50 rounds, leaving me with 280 fighters. I got to keep Esper, and the remains of that fleet are bound for a planet they won't reach until after the election. What a coup! Plus, the destruction of the Sakkra fleet finally brings the Meklar up to peaceful, and an Alliance.

Now on the side of things, I haven't pushed hard enough on +60. It's 2519, and the tech is just now at 11%. Luckily, I managed to poach Argus on the other side of the map, and I also colonized Xudax after destroying it. Hopefully the tech will pop, and the combination of the two will give me enough.

2520... 20%, I've got everything going to this tech.
2521... 29%, come on!
2522... YES!!!! Terraforming starts everywhere, full bore, everything to it. I need to terraform and grow 10 colonists at each planet in 3 turns.

In between turns, my spies FINALLY make a hit on the Sakkra. They scored one at the war's beginning, but got Death Spores. I choose Planetology again, and bingo:



I won't be able to fully do it in two turns, but I'll get some peeps out of it. And then, on the same turn, I get a message from the Bulrathi. "The conjunction of planets has decided that we must eradicate the Alkari." WHAT!?!?! I was so upset, I forgot to snap a pic. You mean they are going to break their alliance and switch teams NOW, 2 turns before the election!? :thumbsdow

Well, let's see if we can minimize the damage. My Brainbusters at Argus can reach Ukko in a turn. That's 70 million Bears destroyed. Now, Moro or Zoctan. Well, I don't have intel on either, so I'll go for the green star at Zoctan. Everybody is terraformed, and building pop as fast as they can. My core worlds are already done, of course. It's going to be a toss up, though.

Zoctan turned out to be a size 80 planet, so hopefully that knocked down two Bulrathi votes. The Sakkra had a lot of transports in space too, so I was hopeful going into the election. The results:

For the Alkari:
Meklar (3)
Alkari (30)

For the Sakkra:
Sakkra (18 )
Bulrathi (4)
Darlok (1)

Stupid Bears! If they hadn't turned on me, I would have won with 39/58. I'm also rather surprised that the Sakkra had 18 votes. Guess they atmos terraformed for quite a bit. So now I need to re-group and re-assess. I had been counting on the game to end with that election, so my empire is in a bit of disarray. My new acquisitions in the East have no defenses. There's a Sakkra fleet incoming to Argus that's going to destroy that planet in 4 turns. I don't have enough range, even with fuel tanks, to reach all of Sakkra territory. Plus, I don't have the technology to design a fleet that can hold new worlds against a Sakkra fleet of any magnitude, with their technology advantage. I still can't even design a Megabolt fighter. So I came up with a different ship design to help the situation:



This ship will function like combat engineers in Civ. I'm going to found every planet I glass, but send no troops. Hopefully, I'll be able to keep enough of them active to reach the bottom of the map, just as combat engineers build roads to advance through enemy territory. My current bomber design is sufficient; I can't really get much of an upgrade at this point. One other thing. Committing to destorying the Sakkra this way means I'm going to have to destroy everyone this way. Once again, the diplomatic option is off the table. I'm PISSED and EVERYBODY is going to die!! :nuke:

It actually took a LONG time to get enough bombers going to eliminate the competition. The Sakkra had a LOT of ships, and pretty heavy shielding in their core; a decent size planet needed ~4000 bombers to take out in 5 rounds. The "combat engineer" idea worked very well, though. Took me until 2551 to eliminate the Sakkra. Here's the galaxy at that point:



Sorry I don't have more play-by-play of the war, but it actually wasn't all that interesting. Fly bombers to a new planet. Run if a large fleet was there; otherwise glass it and move on, leaving a combat engineer to colonize. The Sakkra developed a new torpedo ship with Class IX shields. I had espionage up with both the Sakkra and Meklar to try and steal a missle, and while I got several hits, I never did get one. As such, I lost both Drakka and Beta Ceti. Not too bad, all things considered. Three turns later, those red flags were eliminated as well, and the Meklar met their demise in 2557.


Post-game Wrap-up

I had a pretty good time with this game. I'm guessing this was rather difficult for players attempting Impossible for the first time. That tech tree is one of the worst I've ever seen, and I'm betting those who didn't trade for habitability/terraforming tech got snowed under. I'm also betting there will also be some galaxies where the Meklar are the runaway, which would be even harder to deal with than the Sakkra. Those who had runaway Sakkra that decided to come for them probably had a pretty rough go of it too. Those who did score their first Impossible win on this map can be proud! We'll see come reporting day!

[Megafrost]

Ouch! I knew erratic races were prone to declaring war on you for no reason, but they'll do it even when you have good relations and are in a full alliance? Sheesh. Erratic AIs suck.

That said, nicely played game! It's amazing how much longevity NPGs have. Fending off a huge Sakkra stack of doom with a bunch of NPG ships is no small feat!

[RefSteel]

Excellent game and report as always, with lots of intriguing points. I was amazed to see the AI fleet swarming your NPG fighters - in my game, any ship with spores did everything it could to attack my planets, even targeting them in lieu of my fighters with heavy beams. My only guesses are that your shielded bases deterred this behavior, causing the AI to go after your "more vulnerable" fleets, and/or that the ships you were facing were more balanced ship-to-ship vs. bombs/spores than the "oh, and I guess we'll stick on a couple heavy lasers too" planet-busters that attacked me.

The first Council vote FINALLY happened in 2472.

Holy Toledo! This in spite of the Sakkra (and perhaps others) having Radiated by 2412? (No one ever developed Rad bases in my game...) There must have been an insane amount of glassing going on out there!

I wanted Ion's over NPG's, but couldn't fit a BCIII on with them.

Together with the low research cost and long shelf life, this is why I love NPGs for fighter fleets. Even during the window when Ions provide more damage per unit space, the limited total space on a fighter often means NPG + computer beating out Ion Cannon alone, or 2 NPGs beating out (1.5, meaning) 1 Ion Cannon. On a larger ship of course, the Ions can come out ahead, especially since they include the option for the heavy 2-space version. I did build some Ion fighters in my game, but primarily for nebula duty, where shield halving is obviously pointless. Okay, I know you're well aware of all this, dathon; I just thought I'd highlight it here for others who might be reading.

Re: Mentar's 90(!) units of waste: Security spending may well contribute, but I'm pretty sure that (like the player's) theirs is capped at ~10% of Imperial production. Rounding errors make this a bit worse, but not enough to strangle their economy this thoroughly; I'm pretty sure fleet maintenance is the culprit in cases like this, as the AI merrily builds its death fleet (or fails to scrap it upon losing critical worlds) and eventually can't even pay for pollution cleanup after security spending and fleet (and base) maintenance.

[dathon]

The first Council vote FINALLY happened in 2472.

This surprised me too. My only guess is that the Sakkra and Meklar were too busy fighting over Ajax and Paranar to colonize the galaxy. The fight seemed to take most of the Meklar resources, and the Sakkra only had Range 6, limiting their other options.

As for Mentar, I think it's a case of the straw that broke the camel's back. The AI builds huge fleets, and that probably pushes their budget close to the line where they can finance that and their waste cleanup. The extra 10% security spending then pushes them over that line, and they can no longer afford to clean up all the waste. From there, it's a quick downward spiral, because as the waste builds up, people die, production slumps, more waste builds up, more people die, etc. If the problem were solely caused by fleet maintenance, we'd see this phenomenon with every race, especially the Militaristic ones, every game. I only see it rarely, and only on races that I've spied heavily on. It's probably as simple as a logic bug where the AI doesn't know to check its budget when it turns up spending as a result of spying.

dathon

[RefSteel]

You make good points re: Mentar's pollution, plus I expressed my thoughts poorly, leaving out the primary context of my limited experience: I had seen the pollution issue only in very small empires, usually those that had been rendered small by myself or other AIs. It looked to me like the AI built a huge fleet, supported by their full-sized empire, lost key production worlds without losing/scrapping enough of the fleet, and choked on the resulting maintenance. In this case, unless the Psilons once had a second world that got glassed by another AI before you met them, your "last straw" spying theory makes a lot more sense.