Imperium 14, a galaxy of picnic baskets

[timmy827]

Well, when I started this game, I played the first session without recording much of anything, thinking "I'll get it next time". Then life intervened, as well as the need to playtest my own Imperium idea, and two weeks later I found myself wishing I wrote something down!

Here's the situation upon resumption, in 2368:

The easternmost Silicoid colony was just settled; I had gone range 4->Nukes before range 5 (which I still don't have, but finished enough other tech to allow a LR colony ship) which cost me it. Knowing that taking planets with missile bases would be really hard, I resolve to fight as soon as I can for this and the world to the NW (which is also fairly new, no bases yet.)

Next few turns are very eventful. I settle a Rich world near the middle of the map, which triggers a vote, the Darloks are my opponent and I can vote for them (although we are not in contact yet. Also due to the year a 2nd vote was held immediately afterwards with the same result). I pop range 5 which meets the Mrrshans formally, and the Silicoids steal the northern yellow star with an armed colony ship. It's on! I crack hyper-V boats from most worlds. Yes, I'm invading worlds at warp 1, with nothing but first-gen missile tech.

The turn before first transports arrive I get a spy with the rocks - and cry. They have PDS and hand lasers, together with the defender advantage it evens out ground pounding completely! No fair! But yet, my first invasion wave wins despite 29 vs. 42 odds. Maybe the math is wrong?

Anyways, I take Firma with an invasion as well. In bad news, the Silicoids settle the UR radiated a few turns later just before I got some missile boats to blockade - major thorn in my side, although I was able to keep ships in orbit to shoot down colonists which slowed the development. I did smoke a colony ship heading for the UR inferno. I was at a crossroads as Rha had built one missile base, but decided to go for it. 36 boats charge in, destroy 1 large and 2 mediums at the cost of a couple boats before retreating. 34 of my 43 transports make it through, giving even numbers on the ground, but this time I don't get lucky and fail; a second wave is just short as well. At this point the Silicoids have reinforcements (both transports and a new Large design) en route so I stop trying; maybe I will have another go when I finish sublight.

Aside - here's my warp 2 boats after one turn of motion (left from Celtsi). Sargon's discovery of bonus movement in a pure N-S direction certain seems to apply here.

For a while, the rocks have a big fleet guarding Rha, then everything comes together - they move out to relieve their Radiated world, and I have gotten sublights and can mount another invasion that barely succeeds (they had a 2nd missile base).

Prizes:

That artwork is wonderfully ridiculous.

I had somewhat stunted the development of these new acquisitions by burning so much population in invasions, but the rich minimal reserve pumping allowed bases to be put up quickly, and a close eye let my faster missile boats meet every attack. The silicoids would not sign peace, but I was secure from further attack, and had colonized all of the dead/inferno worlds on my side of the map. I didn't record a lot of deatil in these turns due to tiredness, but they were an absolute blast; never really went for this kind of an early war before.

Also, I dodged a bullet with events, getting Plague at a newly founded world with 3 pop on it. That was easy to clean up once the colonists arrived.

So now we go into a building mode. I think the rest of the galaxy is pretty well settled besides some Radiated worlds that I don't have the tech for (and I know I won't unless I can take it from an AI race), so more invasions counting only 1-2 bases not being enough to shoot down my transports are out. How else can we expand?

-Tech enough so transports can avoid missile bases. This is dicey as they can never get shields.
-Sabotage enough missile bases. I have no experience doing this, according to the manual weapons tech helps destroy more (of course computer tech is going to be vital too). In particular, I have no idea if I will be able to focus my spies on a particular world and strip all the bases away.
-Watch any inter-AI wars like a hawk and be ready to pounce on any worlds that are bombed out.

Information is going to be key to all of these, I really hope Adv Space Scanner is obtainable.

Silicoids keep refusing peace but can't hurt me, their worst is a pair of Huges with 40(!) hvy lasers and a few death sporres, but I lose only a few obsolete missile boats and one base (I had gotten scatter pack V at this point). In 2425 I finally had to abstain from a vote, but was in a blocking position thanks to Soil Enrichment. A while later the rocks finally agreed to peace, then the same turn the Meklar get angry as I was framed for spying. I was also getting "you're too big" penalties, and needlessly angered the Mrrshans when I sent a ship to scan their fleet (didn't realize that doing that with a nonaggression pact caused so much anger).

Not too much later, Darloks and Silicoids declared war. Neither posed any threat but I didn't feel ready to make my own moves yet. The computer tech choices were terrible - all BC and ECM, no RC or scanners. I got big luck when just a couple turns of active epionage on the Meklars got me improved scanners.

In 2475 I get the chance for a Diplomatic victory:

The Mrrshans and someone else voted for me (quite possibly the Sakkra, who I have never met); I was so surprised that don't remember for sure. I sure didn't feel like I earned this, and wanted the chance to take some worlds in late-game style.

At this point I have Adv. Soil; soon will be done with RCV (finally, an upgrade there) and +60 which will kick my economy way past any AI. Hopefully I can steal Atmospheric from the Meklars too (and Radiated from the Darloks). But there is one major snag - no one has gotten Adv. Space Scanner yet. Without that, I can't invade most worlds unless I get every last missile base.

Luck strikes as Vulcan is destroyed, I don't get a ship there in time (it was chased off by a large Darlok fleet) but when they rebuild I see it was spored out:

Kind of cheesy to get a load of free techs (5 total, IIT6, Shield V, and Radiated (!) were the important ones) but hey, the variant says I must abuse this! I do get some comuppeance as a virus takes out over 10K research on fusion drives. I shoot down Darlok transports and drive off a few minor raids with some hasitly assembled ion gunships, but a Meklar fleet of mediums with ion cannons lays waste before I can get a planet shield and missile bases up; rought as just 1 or 2 bases would equal total safety against then. The good news is that they bomb it just short of oblivion and invade, I need to stay in contact with them to steal Atmo!

Disaster strieks as Meklon is taken over by the Darloks and the Mrrshans bomb out Vulcan, breaking contact. I think they are down to one system, had two recent Planetology steals but didn't get the thing I really wanted. A round of new techs let me build my first Dreadnoughts, with andrium, maneuver 4, and 60 grav beams, although I build large versions initially as I need to act quickly. Vulcan is invaded from the Mrrshans, and the space crystal eats one of my worlds! While I have contact again with the borgs, I go to max espionage spending (fearing their being wiped out) and successfully pilfer Atmo. The borgs also take their homeworld back by a thread and I am more than happy to lift it off of them.

Space crystal was very interesting, had never seen this before. The blasted thing doesn't get picked up by F8 and so I had completely forgotten about it until it showed up at a world with only a few bases and smoked it. Weird how you keep ownership of the colony with 0 population, also weird how it stays there for a few turns - if you send warships no fight breaks out, but it zaps any attempt to repopulate the world. Even stranger is that I came out ahead in the long run; when the worlds were resettled it appeared to do soil enrichment again, and the size was increased to more than before the attack! For round two I got 25 or so of my gravbeam larges, but still not close to enough; they could knock off a few hundred of the 6000 HP in a round, but the crystal could destroy 10 in one shot. My scatter pack V's (which were still plenty to defend against any AI attacks) were useless against the crystals 5 shields and anti-missile special. In round 3 the crystal teamed with the Mrrshans, irradiating Tao a couple turns before a Mrrshan fleet showed up. I had a new dreadnought on hand stationed there after the crystal hit, but the kitties had a formidable fleet; I was able to win but had to do some abusive running around the battle map, using superior combat speed to give my autorepair time to heal the damage. During this process a few shots hit the planet, probably doing only 30 points of damage, but the pinprick was enough destroy the world! Fortunately most factores were still there when I refounded, so that didn't really cost me any more than standing up the other worlds.

Then everything fell into place - it headed for Selia, the rich world. Earlier in the game I had set it to build bases and forgot to change production after an AI threat was repulsed, and it had gotten to well over 100. Normally this would be useless, but here the crystal's slow speed allowed me to research scatter VII's before round 4. These made all the difference, could do 5 damage instead of 1, and each missles had 2.5 better chances to get through the lightning shield. Two volleys were enough to kill the crystal.

Overview in 2533:

Crystal is smashed, scatter pack VII's, HEF, and Gauss Autocannon mean that I should never lack superioirty this game. Although then I realize that like its single-shot counterparts, the GA is way overpriced and I'd be better off with pulse phasor.

At this point I saved, and about 7 turns into my next play session I found that Selia was still on base construction, up to 250

Decided to hit the kitties now. One turn of sabotage gets 2 missile bases at Fierias. Not fast enough, so I use my huges:

They only have hyper-Vs so my ships with 5 shields and autorepair can shrug off anything short of triple digit base counts. The annoying thing is that I have to click "Done" 50 times or so (they had ships in orbit and I hoped that not retreating would get more transports through. Unfortunately the cats had weak shields that my gravbeams could get through; otherwise I would happily let my ships fire blanks on auto at the planet. Keep the spirit of the variant if not the letter and spare a lot of tedium. But after this battle I realize it doesn't work anyways, my ships are still in retreat and theirs aren't). How do my transports do?

Enough to take the planet easily, and I loot the kitties Fusion Rifle which will make the future contests a total slaughter; a couple turns later I only lose 10 bears post-landing taking Fierias. Unfortunately I'm stuck then; I haven't scouted the other worlds and can't since I can't destroy the bases, so no invasions. Any further gains will have to wait on me taking out all the bases on one world with sabotage. Then I make yet another discovery, the first sabotage scouts the world, so invasions can proceed. I take two more cat worlds using this, and turn espionage on the other races; I had also captured two Radiated worlds in the south from the silicoids.

Next vote (2550) I'm ready to call it; I'm nearly at Conquest and some minor support is enough.


I have warp 7 engines, weapons up the wazoo, and am going for combat transporters, but the Silicoids and Mrrshans were so weak that I didn't need a new design to take and defend worlds. The Darloks would be hard to conquer as they are hard to spy on (they have the best computer tech of all the AI's on top of their racial bonus) but the other races would clearly go down limited only by how long it would take to get the first sabotage in on each world.

Well, I do play a couple more turns - have unfinished business with the amoeba, which (like the crystal) destroyed a backline world with no bases, mostly becuase it doesn't show up on F8 and I forgot about it. Once I gauged its next target, it was easy to stand up 100 bases with reserve spending; the amoeba is weaker than the crystal and I smoked it easily. On the other hand, it does more damage to a world, destoying the colony completely and reducing the size to minimum.

I would like to thank the Sakkra, who voted for me in nearly every election; I met them for about two turns near the end then lost contact as the Darloks took their homeworld. Thanks to RefSteel also, very neat variant idea. Running the early war gambits against the Silicoids was a lot of fun.

[RefSteel]

I'm glad you had such a great time with this one! Not knowing that missile bases get to fire on each incoming stack was definitely a handicap for this game, but it looks like you didn't let the likes of that slow you down! Very well played!

That artwork is wonderfully ridiculous.

I absolutely agree; that's one of the things I love about Orion (and its successor MoO2, which I played for a long time before this one). The graphics are kind of cute and kind of cheesy and very silly, and for this kind of computer game, I think that's a very good thing. I like games that don't take themselves too seriously.

[sargon0]

The turn before first transports arrive I get a spy with the rocks - and cry. They have PDS and hand lasers, together with the defender advantage it evens out ground pounding completely! No fair! But yet, my first invasion wave wins despite 29 vs. 42 odds. Maybe the math is wrong?

The game guide corrects/clarifies the game manual by saying Bears have +25 gropo (not +20) so you still had a 5 point edge worth 5 to 4 ... but, with these numbers, you were a little lucky!

Aside - here's my warp 2 boats after one turn of motion (left from Celtsi). Sargon's discovery of bonus movement in a pure N-S direction certain seems to apply here.

Yes, Celtsi to Firma was purse N-S although at 36 points in 4 turns the overall flight time was not a bonus but, as you show, the distance travelled per parsec (11) is impressive (ship is also slighly NW of actual location). Rana to Ursa was pure W-E and 38 points in 4 turns is even better but the killer is Rana to Uxmai which is pure N-S and 32 points in 3 turns, reduced due to the slipstream (a bug)!

Nice game and report; you seem to have fit everything in, even space monsters!