Imperium 40 - Zieman's report

[Zieman]

RBO 40 – Zieman

Oo-kay, sending the Colony ship to the closest star, green one straight south of Fierias. Designed a scoutship, Sunracer, with as much offensive capability as we could muster in such small frame.


Crypto colonized and a couple of Sunracers built in the same year (2302). Scouts sent to northeast big red star & southwest green star. Aaugh – impossible Psilons, Klackons, Silicoids & Meklars to contend with – this one will be short! Still, one has to try ? Sending a trickle of colonists to Crypto.

Northeast (Kulthos) turns out to be Toxic, on to next red star northwest of Kulthos. Next turn we see that the southwest planet (Uxmai) is habitable & fertile, but mineral poor. Sent the scout to southeastern red star.

Building a new batch (5) of Sunracers, to speed up scouting of the neighbourhood.
On 2311 a Klackon Scout is detected heading for the red star due north of Fierias.


Next year we meet them at Celtsi (Barren, Rich), but the cowards run away before we have chance to test our weaponry on them. That Sunracer is stationed at Celtsi for now.

Big red star northwest of Fierias houses a Dead planet (Kronos), one Sunracer stays there awaiting further orders. That southeastern red star has an Inferno Rich planet (Maretta), scout moving westward to the other southern red star. Orbiting big blue star northwest is a Minimal planet, Beta Ceti. Sunracer chased away a Klackon Scout from there too, stays stationed to delay their expansion. Designed Colony 1 with Reserve Fuel Tanks & Mark 1 computers – if nothing better turns up soon, we’ll try to grab Beta Ceti.

On 2314 started pumping colonists back from Crypto. Toxic Maalor & Rich Tundra Proteus scouted next year, Scrapping Colony 1 (none built) & designing Tundra 1 (just switched Tundra Base in place of Standard colony Base), start building Tundra 1 with trickle funding.

2316: Yay, 100 factories on Fierias. Decrease factory building to ~5 factories/turn, rest of available resources allocated to building Tundra 1.

Southwest red = Dead. No new reachable stars, so the Sunracer stays there.
In 2326 Fierias at 100 pop. 2 years later, GNN tells we have most population in the Galaxy! Tundra 1 ready & dispatched to colonize Celtsi (Barren Rich straight north). Colony 2 designed (Standard Colony Base, BC 1 & Shields 1) and construction started on trickle funds.

Colonizing Celtsi in 2333 brings us in contact with the Meklar. Klackon homeworld revealed on the map too. Establish one more colony or start war immediately, hmmm?

Apparently war is not an option yet.

In 2340 Fierias is at max factory capacity, “opening” research for computers, planetology & propulsion with a whopping 227 RPs. Going for BC2, Dead landings & Nuclear Engines. Beta Ceti colonized next year. Hopefully we can stand these new colonies up before Meklars try to grab either of them – two early huge ships should slow down their economy a bit? Erm, make that four in 2348! Argus, Terran 100 scouted next year. Hope we get the new engines & BCs soon, both in percentages already…

Oh well, bugs are on war footing in 2351, let’s build some Wasps! Interesting, Nazin spotted northwest of Meklon. Nasty three-way pileup there, Klackons getting a couple of extra planets and the others none.

In 2356 we’re second last in GNN production report – no surprise there. Mbots have scrapped their behemoths though. Klackons’ fleet is already scary.

With range 6, what’s keeping them – ah, they have not yet Barren landings, and Beta Ceti is too far away for them. But wait! Bugs are allied with Mbots, hellpp! And of course, Meklars join the fray.

2357 – Oh well, Darloks grab Argus, and after Dead landings only options are Inferno or Toxic, I take Toxic. Building a batch of Darts for defending my border colonies.

2370 - Nice.

Now we’re doomed. Anyway, building Colony 3 (BC 1, Shields 2) for the Poor Fertile planet, and using that as a stepping stone, Tundra 4 (BC 2, Shields 2) for the Rich tundra planet. And Meklars took Argus from the shapeshifters, with ease.

What a crap techtree! After Range 6 the only option for advancement is Range 7 ?. In 2378 we finally form a colony on Proteus, the Rich Tundra planet (bringing Darlok Spica colony within range…).

In 2385 the bugs finally make their move, let’s see if Celtsi can be saved… Nope, not against that much firepower and no Planetary Shields yet.
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2393: Revenge is sweet, even if it is inflicted upon the other enemy.


But:
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AAAUUUGGGHHH!! Psilons pretty much control the Galaxy. Byebye Kitties, not much time left.

Klackons grow tired of war, we gladly accept peace. Now constructing Tundra 5 (BC 4 & Shields 1) to reclaim Celtsi, neither bug or bots have colonized it. 75 BC trade pact with the brains signed.

In 2410 we have the first vote. RBO 40 vs. Meson. Phwew, bugs vote for us & rocks abstain – game continues !

2425 Another vote, this time a tie with Sedimin & Meson. Captured & lost Spica – really bad dice for me this time, I had better gropo tech & was the defender, still losses were 1:2 in AI’s favor ?.

Frantic shipbuilding & trying to stand up Celtsi &Morrig (Rich Dead) which we colonized with Dead 6 (BC 4 & Shields 2). Also was going to capture Spica and/or Phantos, but brains got there first.

2458 – And now Celtsi goes Poor – this game has something against me.

2470 – Now the damn Silicoids declare war! Ok, we take some of them.


BUT, 2475: So long and thanks for the fish!


2516: After glassing a couple of my planets, the brains ask for peace. I accept, and they still give Gauss Autocannon to us!

Next vote – Psilon leader elected as Galactic Ruler. Mrrshans do not yield to foreign governance -> final War!
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Around 2560 with Fierias already in spy-incited rebellion, presumably last colony under my control goes to revolt too on same turn as the other one gets glassed. Diplomatic defeat / killed in Final War rebellion.
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[Catwalk]

Rough game Ziemann, you went down swinging How much did you focus on expansion to the south west?

[Zygot]

Empathy for you, brother!

[toddestan]

Hey, you made it longer than I did . Interesting that the Silicoids weren't a big factor in your game. With their racial bonus, it's unusual to see them get stunted. Of course, that probably was a factor contributing to you getting into the election and the final war.

[RefSteel]

Nice write-up! I actually think you played pretty well too, but you could have gained more through peaceful expansion and been in a better position to win (either your wars or the game) by delaying a few turns for a few dozen more factories and prioritizing expansion techs. (In this game, Computers and Forcefields held the main early expansion techs. I should note in passing that these are not war techs until much later in the game; as Mrrshans with our crazy starting bonuses, there's just one war tech that matters for a long time, and it's in Propulsion....)

Of course, there were some other difficulties too that were completely beyond your control. If you don't mind, I'll use this as an excuse/illustration for describing some things I should have noticed before the game started:

Bugs are allied with Mbots, hellpp! And of course, Meklars join the fray.

1) We were permitted no defense against AI cheese alliances in a game meant to encourage early aggression. (In my experience, even with a huge computer tech advantage, spy framing is completely ineffective, and attempts are usually counterproductive for the purpose). So one war, whether caused by ill luck or by our decision to attack, was likely to quickly escalate into perpetual multi-front war.

2370 - Nice.

Now we’re doomed.

2) The Psilon core was far enough away that we had no practical way to prevent them from becoming runaways until it was too late (especially without knowing in advance that they would do so, or where they were). And as your game demonstrates, even without kyrub's patch, they (usually!) ran away quickly! While I couldn't have known this without spoilers, I should have realized something like it could happen in a colship-restriction game in a large galaxy.

What a crap techtree! After Range 6 the only option for advancement is Range 7 ?

3) Yeah. Our settling restriction and the layout and size of the galaxy made it really painful to wait for warp-1 transports to get around. Beelining Fusion Drives would eventually have gotten around this, but that would mean fewer colonies early and no terraforming for ages (another hole in our early tree) ... and of course we didn't know at first that we had Fusion Drives available - only that Nuclear Engines were present and Sublights were not. Again, this was another consequence of the intended game settings that I completely missed before the game began.

2393: Revenge is sweet, even if it is inflicted upon the other enemy.

4) The colony restrictions (like some of the diplo restrictions) make early war - and indeed all war - less appealing, because glassing a planet like this provides no benefit to the empire, losing one (whether by conquest or bombardment) is crippling, and as for conquering planets for ourselves ... see point #3. (It's even worse in the case of truly early war, because our mountain of free tech renders "New Tech Found" unimportant until the AIs finally climb out of the hole they started in).

2458 – And now Celtsi goes Poor – this game has something against me.

5) It's been too long since we had an Imperium! I used to always turn off (at least certain) events when we had a colony restriction, because a single-planet event could have a huge impact on the game. When we were setting this one up, it didn't even occur to me.

In any case, I should be clear here, since I'm worried my comments may come across as critical of Catwalk's variant and map choice, especially in light of my own abandoned game. I'm actually delighted that he came up with this, especially since so many people (winning or losing!) enjoyed the game! In fact, repeating myself from Catwalk's thread, I'm pretty sure I'd have finished it too - and enjoyed the endgame as much as I did the early game (a lot!) if not for issues that were totally unrelated to the game. (For that matter, the biggest reason there was frustration for the pain to exacerbate was my miscalculation of the force I'd need to take the Guardian. Teching along and then building a fleet over the course of a few game decades would probably have been fun ... if I hadn't erroneously supposed that the end was much closer, built a plan I really liked around it, and suddenly realized shortly thereafter that I was off by an order of magnitude in my planning....) I'm noting all these unintended(?) consequences mostly to remind myself of things to keep in mind for future Imperia. I don't think the game played out quite as expected, but I do think it turned out to be a great game!

Anyway, back to your report, with an actual game observation!

Around 2560 with Fierias already in spy-incited rebellion, presumably last colony under my control goes to revolt too on same turn as the other one gets glassed. Diplomatic defeat / killed in Final War rebellion.

I believe you actually lose to rebellion whenever half or more of your planets are in revolt. Thus, with Fierias controlled by rebels and your third colony glassed, your empire fell into civil war and was destroyed. (If I understand the mechanics correctly....)

[Catwalk]

Yeah, I didn't even think about events In my own game, I've had a poor planet turn Rich instead!

I'm surprised at how many people seem to not make a habit of sniping the Guardian as soon as possible. Maybe it's because I play kitties so often, but I often find that I can take it out before it's too late to matter. Mrrshans are awesome Guardian hunters, as attack level is a big problem. I'm surprised that timmy was able to take out the Guardian with BC mk 1, that's only level 7 with the Mrrshan bonus and the Megabolt bonus.

And I still disagree that early warfare wasn't beneficial Even if you glass a planet, it's super easy to let it be resettled and poach it immediately after with a few million soldiers. That's the strategy I've switched to in my game, and it's saving me a lot of logistical problems and lost revenue. I do agree that missing speed 3 hurts some, but we do have nuclear engines for good early warships.

[timmy827]

Yeah, I didn't even think about events In my own game, I've had a poor planet turn Rich instead!

I'm surprised at how many people seem to not make a habit of sniping the Guardian as soon as possible. Maybe it's because I play kitties so often, but I often find that I can take it out before it's too late to matter. Mrrshans are awesome Guardian hunters, as attack level is a big problem. I'm surprised that timmy was able to take out the Guardian with BC mk 1, that's only level 7 with the Mrrshan bonus and the Megabolt bonus.

And I still disagree that early warfare wasn't beneficial Even if you glass a planet, it's super easy to let it be resettled and poach it immediately after with a few million soldiers. That's the strategy I've switched to in my game, and it's saving me a lot of logistical problems and lost revenue. I do agree that missing speed 3 hurts some, but we do have nuclear engines for good early warships.

BC Mark 6, not 1. But agreed, guardian is sort of an unique problem of lots of HP, shields, AND defense level; Mrrshan +4 is indeed pretty useful at the last bit.

[Catwalk]

My bad, it was Ianus who managed it with BC mk1. Don't Mrrshans get +3, though? Megabolt cannon is pretty much the only cost effective way to take it out at Impossible, and attack level tends to be the main bottleneck. If you go up to Medium instead you suffer crazy losses, and it's not cost effective to destroy him in one shot either IMO.

[Zieman]

Rough game Ziemann, you went down swinging How much did you focus on expansion to the south west?

Thanks.
Expansion to the south west - not enough, went north first. Maybe trying to go northwest (beeline to Orion) might have worked better by going southwest first, instead of north...?

[Zieman]

And BIG thank you to RefSteel for the detailed analysis! And big thanks to anyone commenting, feedback is great to get - MOO is still a learning experience after two decades, brilliant!