Just a quick overview, sorry I've been lazy, both with no pictures and delaying writing this until I forgot potentially interesting details. It was an interesting idea for a game but mine went very uneventfully.
Think I got 7 worlds in the intial settlement wave, and intentionally didn't try hard for Helos (the nebula world in the middle) since it would be hard to defend. Had good luck with the AI's leaving me alone a lot, and having good planetary shields when I did (plus the poor/UP worlds being in the backlines and never bothered at all). Don't think I ever had close calls on my developed worlds. Getting to Radiated first was a big boon netting 2 rich and 1 UR. Eventually I was able to research some invasion techs and have a fleet not big enough to challenge the AI head on, but good enough to bomb out some worlds while their fleets had their strings pulled. Sadly the Darloks were weak and eliminated under a dogpile before I could really do anything about it.
Took Helos and a world in the NE corner from the Klackons first (they were already at war when I was ready to advance). Wanted to take each homeworld, to give myself a feeling of dominance without triggering the 18-world GNN message. Set my sights on Ursa next, Bulrathi were fighting other wars and I had better gropo equipment. But that seemed to work poorly - I think they should have been at +15 combat on me, but I was frequently losing at 2:1 casualty rates which seemed harsh. So it took more waves than I initially planned and I did not have enough pop there to rush defenses before their fleets started to return. I lost my whole non-bomber fleet trying to take down a Huge. I was not quick enough to snap a picture, but I swear I knocked it down to exactly 1/1200 HP before losing - geez! Bears retook the world and I decided they were not going to be worth the trouble.
So the other races were generally easier marks; I also made sure to over-invade from now on (had Cloning, so why not, regrowing people is cheap). Focused on the homeworlds plus a few other large ones, big enough that once I invaded I could always use reserve to make them pretty safe in 1 turn (strong planet shield + a couple bases) and effectively invincible in a few more. The Sakkra were quite weak after I took Sssla, and I did spend some time guarding their last world with my fleet and eventually assisting them in taking a Psilon world for insurance. Here I did get lucky and the stronger AI's mostly fought each other instead of going for the 2nd genocide.
I stopped invading at 16 worlds, intending to take Orion for myself as 17, and thus avoiding the GNN message for scoring penalty. I made one try at the Guardian with a crapload of Stinger boats, only to have them rendered largely impotent by the Zyro shield I stupidly forgot about (sigh, I sacrificed a brave battle-scanner ship earlier, and then didn't use the information they sent back! Poor bastards). So I had to wait until I could build a horde of larges with HEF and Plasma Cannons which worked pretty well (2 volleys to win, losing something like 8 out of more than 140 - guess after being spanked once I overreacted). This buildup gave me time to polish off the planetology techs and none of the AI's had more than +40 or so, thus I was able to vote myself winner with my limited world count. Sorry I was disorganized enough not to even remember the vote year or if any AI's voted for me.
One other note - there was a bug where one of the monsters (think it was the crystal) showed up and first went for non-planet system in the SW corner, and actually created a new Radiated world! Since that would ruin one of the main points, I never settled it and curiously enough the AIs were all blind to it.
Score
+10 base (if you want to mark me down for my "report" quality, I can't really argue
)
+5 council ending
+1 me voted emperor
-1 Darloks extinct
15 total
Think I got 7 worlds in the intial settlement wave, and intentionally didn't try hard for Helos (the nebula world in the middle) since it would be hard to defend. Had good luck with the AI's leaving me alone a lot, and having good planetary shields when I did (plus the poor/UP worlds being in the backlines and never bothered at all). Don't think I ever had close calls on my developed worlds. Getting to Radiated first was a big boon netting 2 rich and 1 UR. Eventually I was able to research some invasion techs and have a fleet not big enough to challenge the AI head on, but good enough to bomb out some worlds while their fleets had their strings pulled. Sadly the Darloks were weak and eliminated under a dogpile before I could really do anything about it.
Took Helos and a world in the NE corner from the Klackons first (they were already at war when I was ready to advance). Wanted to take each homeworld, to give myself a feeling of dominance without triggering the 18-world GNN message. Set my sights on Ursa next, Bulrathi were fighting other wars and I had better gropo equipment. But that seemed to work poorly - I think they should have been at +15 combat on me, but I was frequently losing at 2:1 casualty rates which seemed harsh. So it took more waves than I initially planned and I did not have enough pop there to rush defenses before their fleets started to return. I lost my whole non-bomber fleet trying to take down a Huge. I was not quick enough to snap a picture, but I swear I knocked it down to exactly 1/1200 HP before losing - geez! Bears retook the world and I decided they were not going to be worth the trouble.
So the other races were generally easier marks; I also made sure to over-invade from now on (had Cloning, so why not, regrowing people is cheap). Focused on the homeworlds plus a few other large ones, big enough that once I invaded I could always use reserve to make them pretty safe in 1 turn (strong planet shield + a couple bases) and effectively invincible in a few more. The Sakkra were quite weak after I took Sssla, and I did spend some time guarding their last world with my fleet and eventually assisting them in taking a Psilon world for insurance. Here I did get lucky and the stronger AI's mostly fought each other instead of going for the 2nd genocide.
I stopped invading at 16 worlds, intending to take Orion for myself as 17, and thus avoiding the GNN message for scoring penalty. I made one try at the Guardian with a crapload of Stinger boats, only to have them rendered largely impotent by the Zyro shield I stupidly forgot about (sigh, I sacrificed a brave battle-scanner ship earlier, and then didn't use the information they sent back! Poor bastards). So I had to wait until I could build a horde of larges with HEF and Plasma Cannons which worked pretty well (2 volleys to win, losing something like 8 out of more than 140 - guess after being spanked once I overreacted). This buildup gave me time to polish off the planetology techs and none of the AI's had more than +40 or so, thus I was able to vote myself winner with my limited world count. Sorry I was disorganized enough not to even remember the vote year or if any AI's voted for me.
One other note - there was a bug where one of the monsters (think it was the crystal) showed up and first went for non-planet system in the SW corner, and actually created a new Radiated world! Since that would ruin one of the main points, I never settled it and curiously enough the AIs were all blind to it.
Score
+10 base (if you want to mark me down for my "report" quality, I can't really argue
)+5 council ending
+1 me voted emperor
-1 Darloks extinct
15 total
