Timmy's long hibernation

[timmy827]

Pregam thoughts - well, I will probably play this one (I have a better participation record in the Imperiums than Civ4 events, partially because I don't have other MOO activities whereas I am in a couple of SG's and a PBEM now, and partially since MOO goes much faster usually.) But I'm not expecting too much challenge, as long as I avoid my trademark "lose the first vote" that seems to happen on most Hard-with-variant games. Yeah, it stinks that our pop has not grown as much as it could have and that we've paid maintenance on the initial colship for 20 extra turns, but still the game mechanics are such that we shouldn't be all that far behind; certainly better off than Spain or Japan in the Civ4 "stagnation" scenarios. Now if Ref had put all our first 20 years of production into researching BCII and Gatling Laser...

The big problem was not the "hibernation" variant but the local terrain and tech tree. We had a very nice 2nd planet (105, fertile) and then nothing else within range, had only Barren of the early environment and nothing between range 4 and 7. Had to go with several Huge-Reserve Tank ships to break out of this.

Elections 1st in 2392. Both that and 2400 have a lot of abstention, so I can vote twice for my new Darlok neighbors, hopefully adding time to build up the southern worlds.

Landgrab not done until 2440, rather late:

Despite the early challenges, the game turned out to be very easy because the AI races fought each other a lot and left me completely alone besides swiping one Poor world a few turns before my colship arrived. You could say we semi-hibernated for another 150 years Also making it easy was a large area to peacefully colonize once the inital hurdles were leapt. (Those Darlok colonies in the SW were well-established when I found them; must have been AI range bug that left the other habitables in the region to me). Was nominated each vote but the abstentions continued, was able to suck up to my opponent most of the time.

Finally in 2471, Warp5 is in (no engines before this!) and I can think about attacking. Darloks draw the short stick as they are already getting dogpiled; Nazin has been destroyed by a big Klackon fleet. Go with autorepair huge with gravbeams, plus small fast 2-fusion bombers. Ground combat was a bit unbalanced:

That yielded a 10-1 ratio.
In short order I've wiped them out (Klackons got the blame though); first offensive against the bugs takes Yarrow (rich tundra world on my side, lost because of no planetology options between barren and radiated) and the spud of Nazin.

Mrsshans now loved me, so I signed alliance and went to war against the remaining races. By 2500 it's all but over:

I've taken Cryslon and Kholdan; AI's can't really do anything to respond. Fortunately the Alkaris are the highest pop (voting was interesting, the opponent varied almost every election) so Jasana can give me the win:


Thanks to RefSteel. Even though this one was not difficult I appreciated having it to play; I'm pretty busy in RL and often it's easier to squeeze in MOO games than Civ4. (A shame that I'm not going to be able to even start Adv. 45 before it's due).

[RefSteel]

I'm glad you enjoyed this one; your report was lots of fun to read, and you were exactly right with your pre-game thoughts: If we'd started "from scratch" 20 turns in, that would have been a very difficult variant, but the map and the tech tree contributed as much to our delayed expansion here as the 20 turn wait. Great game!

I'm pretty busy in RL and often it's easier to squeeze in MOO games than Civ4. (A shame that I'm not going to be able to even start Adv. 45 before it's due).

No kidding. If you had to build "worker ships" in MoO and micromanage them through the specialization of individual worlds, or if the time from achieving a winning position to achieving an in-game victory were comparable to cIV's ... well, then I doubt people would still be playing MoO almost two decades after its release!