Well, I wanted to play the gentle one as warmup and then to move on to the extreme version, but unfortunately I ran out of time to finish the extreme one...
Gentle map
The game played our fairly easy although I messed up at the very beginning (forgot to invest the reserve in Meklon, didn't build any scouts for a while and hence didn't stop AIs expansion). I expanded heavily to the west as the whole Northern part of the map was open. I stumbled over the Eastern artefact planet Kulthos and was able to pull off controlled radiated (thanks a lot for the Easter egg, Ref!). Acquiring that tech was the gamechanging point - I am not sure whether radiated was in our tree at all.
The Alkaris emerged as the dominant force, but I was able to grab a lot of hostile planets even deep in the southeast. The first council vote around 2440 was Birdies against us with no decisive result. Soon the Birdies declared war on us and I started to invade their empire. Somehow the Birdies did not care about building any defenses. I stopped after I had reached a winning position.
Extreme map
The second time I was eager to not repeating my mistakes, but I guess the self-burned polish vodka from the night before blocked my synapses.
I wondered whether another Easter egg would be hidden on this map. As usual just short notes on anual basis:
First turns - Maxing Meklon and sending out a couple of scouts (two juicy planets where in immediate range)
2329 - Settling Rana
2334 - First contact with Silis on their UP Maretta (no envy here). At this point I decided to block the Sili's expansion by gambling on Nizer, a middle-sized desert planet north of Maretta. By colonizing that one we may prevent the rocks to move north where a couple of hostile planets were located.
2338 - Opening techs (took range 5 over range 4 and barren before improved eco restoration)
2340 - Settling Helos and got into official contact with the 4 planets Silis (as suspected they would be blocked if we could only take Nizer). Now I learned that Nizer is still 4 parsecs away and not in range which was a shame! I sent even more LR Laser to this critical location.
2353 - Finally popping range 5 and selected nuclear
2354 - Popping RIW80, IIT8 next
2355 - Galactic news, the Sakkra were up to 8 planets!
2356 - Our first scout arrives at this game's Easter egg, the artefact planet Collossa. I crossed my fingers, but pulled BC3. A decent tech, but I preferred the controlled radiated from the other game.
2360 - Popping controlled barren, tundra in the tree, but went for IER first
2362 - The Sakkra checked Klystron in the south, another critical planet which would become the hot potato of this game... I wasn't playing concentrated enough, otherwise I would have ordered a decent orbit patrol to Klystron.
2363 - Colonizing Nizer (way too late, just bad management on my side)
2366 - The Darloks show up at Collassa and defeat my small orbit patrol. Grrr! Another strategic mistake, of course a colony ship was on its way... At the same turn the Sakkra show up at Klystron with a decent fleet. You know: Another planet, the same misery. So I lost two very important planets in one turn due to bad galactic managent. An annoying observation: The Sakkra went straigt north from the southern starting postion to grab "our" planet. Once again, grrr!
2367 - Colonizing Berel and first contact with the shifters. They were strong in tech terms, but ignorable in other respects.
2373 - Popping IER, tundra next.
At this point I knew that I was in for a rough ride due to my bad management of the early expansion phase. I only had one hour playing time left and thus skipped the detailed notes. I was able to hold off the Sakkra and grab all dead/tundra/inferno planets in range. Meanwhile I traded techs like crazy with the Silis and Shifters, because both were non-factions in this game. I also had a lot of spying success especially on the Lizards after I had cleared their computer field.
The Sakkra started to convert their population and production advantage into a major tech lead. They reached planetary XX and shields XI fairly quickly. Our cold war warmed up and they destroyed our southern boundary planet. I took some planets from the Silis and stripped the Alkaris (vegetating somewhere in the south) for all their techs. But due to the heavy shielding and tech lead I was unable to invade even a small Sakkra planet (hundreds over hundreds of Meklar Billions were killed in the war). Likewise they were unable to hit my planetary defenses after I had stolen both advanced shield techs from them.
In the late 24th century our empires were almost equal in terms of pop size and tech level so I was close to reaching a winning position. Unfortunately I had no time left (I played yesterday evening) and suffered from my hangover, hence
OFFICIAL RESULT: Retired as a pseudo-winner after turn 2480.
Gentle map
The game played our fairly easy although I messed up at the very beginning (forgot to invest the reserve in Meklon, didn't build any scouts for a while and hence didn't stop AIs expansion). I expanded heavily to the west as the whole Northern part of the map was open. I stumbled over the Eastern artefact planet Kulthos and was able to pull off controlled radiated (thanks a lot for the Easter egg, Ref!). Acquiring that tech was the gamechanging point - I am not sure whether radiated was in our tree at all.
The Alkaris emerged as the dominant force, but I was able to grab a lot of hostile planets even deep in the southeast. The first council vote around 2440 was Birdies against us with no decisive result. Soon the Birdies declared war on us and I started to invade their empire. Somehow the Birdies did not care about building any defenses. I stopped after I had reached a winning position.
Extreme map
The second time I was eager to not repeating my mistakes, but I guess the self-burned polish vodka from the night before blocked my synapses.
I wondered whether another Easter egg would be hidden on this map. As usual just short notes on anual basis:First turns - Maxing Meklon and sending out a couple of scouts (two juicy planets where in immediate range)
2329 - Settling Rana
2334 - First contact with Silis on their UP Maretta (no envy here). At this point I decided to block the Sili's expansion by gambling on Nizer, a middle-sized desert planet north of Maretta. By colonizing that one we may prevent the rocks to move north where a couple of hostile planets were located.
2338 - Opening techs (took range 5 over range 4 and barren before improved eco restoration)
2340 - Settling Helos and got into official contact with the 4 planets Silis (as suspected they would be blocked if we could only take Nizer). Now I learned that Nizer is still 4 parsecs away and not in range which was a shame! I sent even more LR Laser to this critical location.
2353 - Finally popping range 5 and selected nuclear
2354 - Popping RIW80, IIT8 next
2355 - Galactic news, the Sakkra were up to 8 planets!
2356 - Our first scout arrives at this game's Easter egg, the artefact planet Collossa. I crossed my fingers, but pulled BC3. A decent tech, but I preferred the controlled radiated from the other game.
2360 - Popping controlled barren, tundra in the tree, but went for IER first
2362 - The Sakkra checked Klystron in the south, another critical planet which would become the hot potato of this game... I wasn't playing concentrated enough, otherwise I would have ordered a decent orbit patrol to Klystron.
2363 - Colonizing Nizer (way too late, just bad management on my side)
2366 - The Darloks show up at Collassa and defeat my small orbit patrol. Grrr! Another strategic mistake, of course a colony ship was on its way... At the same turn the Sakkra show up at Klystron with a decent fleet. You know: Another planet, the same misery. So I lost two very important planets in one turn due to bad galactic managent. An annoying observation: The Sakkra went straigt north from the southern starting postion to grab "our" planet. Once again, grrr!
2367 - Colonizing Berel and first contact with the shifters. They were strong in tech terms, but ignorable in other respects.
2373 - Popping IER, tundra next.
At this point I knew that I was in for a rough ride due to my bad management of the early expansion phase. I only had one hour playing time left and thus skipped the detailed notes. I was able to hold off the Sakkra and grab all dead/tundra/inferno planets in range. Meanwhile I traded techs like crazy with the Silis and Shifters, because both were non-factions in this game. I also had a lot of spying success especially on the Lizards after I had cleared their computer field.
The Sakkra started to convert their population and production advantage into a major tech lead. They reached planetary XX and shields XI fairly quickly. Our cold war warmed up and they destroyed our southern boundary planet. I took some planets from the Silis and stripped the Alkaris (vegetating somewhere in the south) for all their techs. But due to the heavy shielding and tech lead I was unable to invade even a small Sakkra planet (hundreds over hundreds of Meklar Billions were killed in the war). Likewise they were unable to hit my planetary defenses after I had stolen both advanced shield techs from them.
In the late 24th century our empires were almost equal in terms of pop size and tech level so I was close to reaching a winning position. Unfortunately I had no time left (I played yesterday evening) and suffered from my hangover, hence
OFFICIAL RESULT: Retired as a pseudo-winner after turn 2480.
It would be great if you could merge the two difficulty options in one game, both in terms of comparability and game design efficiency!