OSG 26 - The Bearperor Returns

[RefSteel]

Settings:

Difficulty: Impossible
Galaxy size: Large
Race: Bulrathi
Opponents: 5, with the toughest opponents Ianus could find on short notice
Patch: 1.40M
Variant: None; standard Exploit List restrictions only

Roster:
- Ianus - Playing!
- Psillycyber - Up next
- RefSteel - Just played
- Thrawn - Still hibernating (skipped until his schedule clears up)
- Space still open for anyone who wants to join!

Standard (I think) SG Rules:

- First player plays 20 turns; the next two play 15 each; after that, everyone gets 10 apiece. Exceptions can be made in extenuating circumstances obviously.
- After each set of turns, the player posts a report on what was done and the state of the galaxy, (so that team members and lurkers can follow along) preferably with some reasoning (so that other players can learn why we each play the way we do) and optionally with "extraneous" stuff like roleplaying, but put the stress on OPTIONALLY! Screenshots are always excellent of course; a picture is worth a thousand words. And most importantly, remember to attach the save!
- Once a save is posted, the next player has up to 24 hours to post a "Got it!" or request a skip or swap in turn order with another player (if the turns come around at a bad RL time). After a "Got it!" post, you have 48 hours to play and report. This rule is important to keep the game moving and keep everyone involved, which is also another reason for...
- Between-turnsets discussion among team members is encouraged and a great way to learn about each other's take on the game; on rare occasions, a turnplayer will also ask for advice in mid-turn, but this is neither necessary nor the norm. What to actually do in the course of a turn-set is entirely the turn-player's call, though courtesy to other players means in practice some moves won't be made without discussion (e.g. intentionally triggering Final War).

In an SG, you're always - briefly - inheriting an empire built mostly by other emperors with different styles. You sometimes inherit a complete mess and have to dig your way out, or inherit a set of ships or techs with which you're not used to playing, and have to adapt. That's part of the fun, but another big part is following the development of your empire under other players' hands and planning together for how to deal with emergencies.

Traditionally, in the past, we've hosted our SG threads over at the Civilization Fanatics Forum (under Other Games: Master of Orion.) That sometimes draws extra lurkers, although it's been a long time since I've checked the site over there. I'm happy to go back to that or just link to this thread (or a new thread if we start one here) from there.

Thoughts, clarifications or requests for them, and especially sign-ups are welcome! What do you think?

[Ianus]

I'm looking forward to it! I am happy to accept any interesting races in lieu of the Power 5; I suggested it mostly because folks were complaining about how hard they found the bears to play.
As for variant rules I favor a bare (bear) bones approach. I dislike the complicated rule sets some others seem to require. I think that the existing Exploit List is great and coupled with 1.40M will make the game plenty challenging. I hate to give up threats but as we saw in the last Imperium they can make a HUGE difference. I do like requiring armed scouts though...
I think I have an account at CivFanatics but I've never posted there. I favor keeping the thread here but am flexible either way.
Bring it on!

[Psillycyber]

I would be interested in playing a turnset. I am a relatively new-ish player (I have only won three games on impossible so far (with the humans, psilons, and meklar), and lost about a dozen, I'd say, so maybe one of the later turnsets would be suitable for me once it is clear that my actions won't disproportionately derail the whole game.

[Ianus]

You are killing me here! I haven't played all that much over the last year and I'm ready to dive back in. Maybe we could run another game over the next two weeks until Thrawn is available again? Who else wants to sign up?

[RefSteel]

I'm looking forward to it! I am happy to accept any interesting races in lieu of the Power 5; I suggested it mostly because folks were complaining about how hard they found the bears to play.

Sounds good; we can aim for a map with a challenging opponent set but won't insist on all five then.

As for variant rules I favor a bare (bear) bones approach. I dislike the complicated rule sets some others seem to require. I think that the existing Exploit List is great and coupled with 1.40M will make the game plenty challenging.

This makes sense to me, and looks like the consensus of players so far. If this goes well, we can always add more variants (and/or completely forbid e.g. threats and unarmed scouting) in the next game.

I would be interested in playing a turnset. I am a relatively new-ish player (I have only won three games on impossible so far (with the humans, psilons, and meklar), and lost about a dozen, I'd say, so maybe one of the later turnsets would be suitable for me once it is clear that my actions won't disproportionately derail the whole game. :mischief:

Excellent; welcome aboard! SGs are terrific opportunities to learn, and to accidentally (or intentionally - the legendary Charis loved doing this) derail a game and try to turn the resulting chaos into victory, so don't be afraid to jump in with both feet! If you'd like, I'll slot you in just before me in the turn order (so last in the rotation if I start us off) - just because I love adapting to new situations after someone with a very different playstyle from mine and/or less experience with the game has played.

I checked my schedule and won't be able to play or even participate in the next 2 weeks, but from there on can book daily time for the game and will certainly be present. If you don't mind waiting let's start then, otherwise start without me and I'll join later.

Best to start things ASAP I think; one of us can start things off, and you can catch up when you have time again - you can always lead off in the next SG!

Re the script to choose opponents, is it a simple matter of editing the race bytes according to sargon's spreadsheet? I'll be able to write a program that does it but not in the next week. If we roll maps without a program it's 1 in 126 chance to get specific 5 opponents so it's not so bad but may take an hour of rolling.

Yeah; I've already written a program to switch the race bytes as you described, but there's more to it than that: Names of leaders and homworlds are just an aesthetic difference that I could probably fix anyway given a little more fiddling, but I'm not sure how much of the tech tree is set in stone when the map is rolled. Changing to or from Psilons would definitely be a special case, but if we change Alkari to Meklar, will they have cheap tech costs for Computers or Propulsion? (Same question for e.g. diplomacy....)

In any case, rerolling maps for an hour or more doesn't sound like any fun; we'll probably just take the first map that looks ... interesting.

CivFanatics is cool if it will get more attention - you decide, I'm fine either way too.

I'll definitely post something over there at least, and if a bunch of lurkers and/or new players there want the game on that forum, we can switch over. Otherwise, we may as well keep the thread here and post the link and periodic updates on CF.

More sign-ups are welcome! In the past, we've sometimes even had people joining in mid-game. On the note of "starting ASAP," if anyone wants to roll a map and start us off, go for it! (Just post that you're doing so first so we don't duplicate effort.) Otherwise, I'll see what I can put together in the next day or so.

[Ianus]

I was just over at CivFanatics and it looks like they have rearranged their forums. There is no longer a dedicated MoO forum, although the current "Other Games" forum seems primarily dedicated to MoO2. I'm in favor of keeping the game forum here and just posting announcements/updates over there.

I'll try to roll a map tonight and play the first turns unless someone else beats me to it. If I can pull it off I'll post when I start and then the report ASAP after that.
if anyone wants to make changes to any aspect of the game please do so now.

[Psillycyber]

Yeah, let's just keep the main game thread here on RB.

Sounds good!

[Ianus]

Map rolled. Commencing play.

[Ianus]

OSG-26 Part 1 - 2300 to 2320
2300: I’m not used to playing on Large maps. There are a LOT of stars out there.

This is the very first map I rolled, and it already has 3 of the 5 proposed races: Psilon, Meklar and Silicoid. Plus the Sakkra to offset our ability to effectively invade, and my own personal arch-nemesis the Alkari. I enjoy playing AS the Alkari, but I hate Hate HATE playing against them. I just don’t like their attitude I guess. It will be so sweet when we cook those birds once and for all! Anyway on to the game:
First off, yellow star analysis. By my count there are 11 other yellows on the map. The western edge of the galaxy is wide open to whoever can claim it first. In my experience that is classic Runaway AI territory, so count on the Psilons getting over there somehow. Ursa is located in the center of a large area of nice colorful stars, but then my corner is in turn surrounded by yellows. To the north is a large band of mostly red stars, so I think that getting up there will be important as a back line. Expanding south will be difficult with that big empty hole below the first ring of stars, and depending on how many of the southern yellows are inhabited things could get tight down there. Aggressive scouting is certainly called for.

As for my immediate neighborhood the green to the northwest and the red to the south are both in colonization range. After dithering over the choice for FAR too long I decide to take the unusual (for me) step of sending my two scouts to the two colonize-able stars. Both of them seem desirable; the southern red extends my range into a likely more contested area, while the green leads into my back lines. Conversely the red leads to more potentially hostile stars which could block expansion in the short term, while the green leads away from the center of the map.
Not counting the two stars 3 parsecs away there are 9 other stars in scouting range. Ursa says that it can build 2 Scouts, but it will actually build 3 with population growth. Normally on a Large map I would not bother with scouts right away but the ring of yellow stars surrounding me is making me nervous.

2301: 3 Scouts are produced at Ursa, and I send them to the red, white and purple stars to my southwest. I plan to send my two original Scouts on to stars at longer range in two turns once they tell me which star I should colonize first, thus saving some time. Ursa starts building factories.

2302: Nothing interesting to report. My ships fan out and production increases.

2303:
Hmmm, which planet should I colonize? Good thing I sent out the scouts first! Now I only need to wait 3 turns instead of the 5 it would take me to travel from Artemis to Keeta if I had sent the colony ship there initially. This is going to make it difficult to expand to the south though. On further inspection of the map I notice that Keeta will bring one of the red stars to the north to 3 parsecs, so depending on whats at that star I may not need additional range. I allocate to build one Scout at Ursa to explore to the north.

2304: Back to full factory production. This single Scout will be enough to reveal the north, which don’t look to be in too much danger unless the Silicoids are at the yellow in the NE corner.

2305: My scouts find Jungle 85 Talas, Dead Rich 20 Gienah and Dead 30 Dunatis. Sadly Talas is range 4 and will stay that way even when I colonize Keeta next turn.

2306: NO! NOT THERE! ITS TOO GREEN!

Also: SURPRISE! The Alkari are at the yellow star to the southeast of Ursa. There is nowhere else this scout could have come from on turn 6. I send 10 million bears to Keeta and tell Ursa to build a Scout to cover Artemis.

2307: Fantastic! When it rains it pours. So now I have birds to the east and rocks to the west. I suspect that the rocks are at the topmost yellow star almost due west of Ursa. My scouts also discovers Dead Rich 55 Proxima, which along with Dunatis and Gienah form a barrier of Dead worlds blocking expansion to the south. I hope that Dead is in my tech tree! On the positive that will keep the Alkari from bothering me for a while.
I spend a while wondering how much population to send up to Keeta. My usual target is 1/3 of total pop, but given that Keeta is Fertile I will send much less. For this turn I send 3 more.

2308: 3 more pop to Keeta.

2309: Oh my! I hope that the rest of the worlds up there are as nice! I also discover Barren 35 Primodius over near what is most likely Chryslon. With the arrival of my first 10 colonists the population explodes to 14 and will continue to grow nicely, so I am not going to send any more from Ursa. I send my northern Scout off to another nearby world.

2310: 3 more colonists arrive on Keeta, and two more grow, bringing the total to 19.

2311: You have got to be kidding me! This corner of the map is shaping up to be prime bear habitat. The northern Scout moves east and my planets continue to grow. Just wait until I can build colony ships! To that end I trickle 11RP into research to see what my options are.

2312: My tech choices are: ECM1 over DSS, RIW80% only choice, ClassII Shields only choice (duh), IT+10 over Controlled Barren AND Improved Eco (for now), Range 4 only choice, and Hand Lasers over Hyper V’s. The only choice I struggled with was Planetology, so let me explain my thinking. There are currently two barren worlds in my neck of the woods: Artemis at range 3 and newly discovered Primodius over near the Silicoids. I want to stop the rocks from expanding from Primodius into all of those rich dead worlds to my south, but to colonize Primodius I need both Range 4 AND Controlled Barren. Now I have both of those techs available, but they will take a long time to build. On the other hand if I put up token resistance at Primodius and go straight for Range 4 I can colonize Talas that much sooner and cut the Silicoids off from the Dead worlds until I can (hopefully claim them myself. And once I have Controlled Dead I can take Primodius away from the rocks with minimal effort. But for now I turn off research and get back to factory building.

2313: Nothing to report.

2314: The Silicoids arrive at Primodius with an unarmed, unescorted Colony Ship. My Scout runs it off, but I’m sure it will be back with some friends really soon.

2315: And the habitable planets just keep on coming! I really can’t wait to start building Colony Ships. Anticipating range 4 I start building additional scouts to have in position when additional range comes in.

2316-2317: New Scouts are dispatched, planets continue to build.

2318: The Silicoids are back at Primodius with 2 Colony Ships, but still no weapons. Won’t be long now.
Also the entire top of my territory is habitable, and claimable without the need for any additional range. Wow.

2319: Pretty quiet. I consider switching Keeta over to research to push for Range 4 but decide against it. Keeta currently produces 40BC or 40RP per turn. It will take 9 turns to build up the 360RP needed to even reach the percentages for Range 4. On the other hand if I spend those 9 turns building more factories I will have more than doubled Keeta’s factories (not even counting the turn-by-turn increases to the planet’s production), and at that point I will be able to generate 360RP in only 4 turns. So Keeta stays on factories for now.

2320: And my turns end quietly. Here is what we know about the galaxy so far. Also the Alkari are HERE: and the Silicoids are HERE: . No sign of any other races so far.

Thoughts for the long term: we are just about to start our expansion phase into the back lines to the north, potentially reaching around and down to the east to clean up the northeastern corner of the map. If there is an AI at the yellow star in the corner they are being very quiet.
My inclination is to keep the Silicoids out of the Dead systems to our south. I realize that we are the Bulrathi and as such are a pretty good foil to the Silicoids’ slow growth, but I don’t like the idea of turning the rocks loose that close to our core, particularly given that there are two rich worlds down there. However I can certainly see a viable strategy in letting the rocks take those worlds while we settle in the north, then researching Controlled Dead (or similar) and clearing the Silicoid infestation out of the region.
Overall of course we need to expand. Right now we only have 6 (7 if the rocks cooperate) colonize-able worlds available to us. If we can manage to get past the Silicoids in the north the western edge of the map looks to have a lot of available space. Otherwise I think our best bet in the short term is to expand down through the Alkari and hopefully snap up as much of the east as we can, before we sweep to the west like the Mongols from the steppes, putting all before us to the claw!

Roster:
- Psillycyber - Ready to rumble up to 2335!
- RefSteel - Up next, bearly able to wait to take us to 2350!
- Plenty of porridge still available for other hungry bears!
- Ianus - Slumbering soundly until Spring!
- Thrawn - Still hibernating

[Psillycyber]

OSG-26 Part 2 - 2320 to 2335

As Bearperor Psillycyber took the oath of office for running the fledgling Bulrathi Empire, he gave the air an inquisitive sniff. "Something smells fishy here." He surmised. "Naturally, being bears, that is a good thing! It must be those salmon delicacies shipped over from our fertile colony of Keeta." Psillycyber said, licking his lips and eagerly rubbing his paws together.

He quickly met with his foreign policy advisors. "Well, I think it's a no brainer. Birdies are much tastier than rocks! Let's eat!" His advisors were puzzled at first, doubting the mental capacities of their new leader, until one of them realized that the brief Psillycyber had been given had a typo on the front cover. "Oh, uh, that memo should read "Foreign Policy Threats," not "Foreign Policy Treats."" an advisor hastened to add. "Someone, you see...one of our cub scout interns, perhaps, must have left out the "h". No, we are not in a position to dine on either of our neighbors as of yet. They are still much too strong for us."

"Yes, especially the rocks must be watched carefully." Psillycyber concluded. "I have heard that their colony ships have been skirting around near Primodius. We shall have to watch that sector closely...."

With that, their meeting was adjourned, and Bearperor Psillycyber got down to the serious business of running the growing empire. Here are the notes from his logbook:

2320: Planets were busy building factories. Scouts were in place as far as they could go. So thankfully there were not too many tough decisions to make. (I have to say, Ianus did a great job with the first turnset!)



The main decisions this turnset were when to turn on the research, when to start building colony ships, and whether to build any fleet to help block the silicoids if they should colonize Primodius. Because even if we grab Talas early, I bet the Silicoids will have at least the range 5 to grab the rich dead Gienah world, which is not something we would like to allow if possible. (Thankfully, as you will see, the silicoids failed to colonize Primodius during this whole turnset. What luck!)

2321: The scout at Primodius had to chase away 2 more unarmed Silicoid colony ships.



(I got used to seeing this screen a lot, as you will see...)

2322: Nothing to report. Still building factories.

2323: Nothing to report. Ursa will max on factories (that it can work with current population) this turn. Will go over to colony ship production next turn at 5 years / ship.

2324: Chased away yet 2 more unarmed Silicoid colony ships without escort at Primodius. Boy, have we been dodging a bullet here that they haven't been smart enough to bring even a minimal escort!

I started building a colony ship at Ursa. I can do it in 5 turns with everything devoted to it, or I can set it to build in 6 turns and continue building factories with a sliver of production, and about halfway through I can switch it all back to colony ship production and shave it back down to the original 5 turns while getting some factory production thrown in as well, thanks to the power of exponential growth!



2325: Nothing new to report.

2326: We chased away yet 2 more unarmed Silicoid colony ships without escort at Primodius for the FIFTH time!

2327: After readjusting production at Ursa, 2 more turns on the colony ship, as planned. (It will have produced in 5 turns rather than 6, even with the factory production added).

2328: Keeta is up to 88 prod/turn. Next turn I will switch it over to research. And Ursa will have its colony ship ready next turn, destined for Beta Ceti, which I might rename.

2329: Our colony ship heads off for Beta Ceti, and Keeta goes over to research. Another is queued up to finish in 5 turns (I set it at 7 for now to get some factory production in, but I will make sure it finishes in 5).

2330: Our scouts at Primodius chase away 2 more Silicoid colony ships for the SIXTH time now.

2331: Nothing to report.

2332: The Galactic News Network airs breaking news that the Alkari Empire is now up to 8 star systems.



Yikes! And yet...our bears have smelled nary a trace of the bird brains down on the southern front....

Also, with range 4 in the percentages, I dialed research way back to 21 RP/turn and put the rest into factory construction at Keeta.

I do not feel particularly frantic to get range 4 to colonize Talas, what with the Silicoids not having even gotten to land on Primodius yet. So the plan instead is to colonize the very nice fertile jungle world Rigel up north of Beta Ceti first. It is a strictly better planet than Talas (size 105 and fertile vs. size 85), so why not?

I can send the next (3rd) colony ship to Talas in another 4 turns. Or, if worst-case scenario comes to pass and the Silicoids leapfrog past Primodius with Range 5 tech and snatch Talas, we could always invade their new colony quite easily. Yes, that would mean an early war with the Silicoids, but one where they would not be able to reach Keeta or any of our established worlds with factories, so at worst they bomb down a little bit of population...and good luck trying to invade, suckers!

Plus, what I can do to hedge our bets is relocate the colony ship from Ursa to Keeta (2 turns). From there, it can go to Rigel (4 turns) or Talas (4 turns) if it is deemed by the next turnset player as really imperative. Going straight from Ursa to Rigel, it still would have been 6 turns anyways.

2333: Our scouts in the Primodius sector chase off Silicoid colony pods for the SEVENTH time!

2334: Our colony ship starts relocating to Keeta. Beta Ceti is founded. I promptly rename it "Medved," which means "honey" in Bulrathese (hope the team doesn't mind!). Other names our cub scouts came up with were "Griswold," "Tannenberg," and "Bjorno," but those can wait for later if the Bulrathi senate agrees.



Keeta relocates 28 million adventurous cub scouts to the new planet.



(I would usually send 18 million to get the new planet up to 1/3rd, but since Keeta is fertile, it might as well shoulder more of the load for getting Medved up and running. Keeta can definitely spare the bears).

2335: As I pass off the Bulrathi Empire to the next Bear, here are a few things to keep in mind:

1. We have a colony ship being relocated to Keeta in 1 turn.



This should probably get rerouted to Rigel next turn, unless you really think that Talas needs to be colonized ASAP.

2. We have another colony ship due in 4 turns from Ursa (it says "5", but it should max out with factories this turn and get trimmed down to 3 next turn). That colony ship should be able to go to Talas, because....

3. Range 4 tech should be coming in any turn now. It is at 20%.

4. The next turn player might consider switching on research for all of the fields. I thought about doing that, but instead I put excess production into building factories in Keeta instead. But next turn Ursa should be maxed out, and it should have a little sliver of production left over from what will be needed to build colony pods, such that putting that into building nest eggs on our tech points might be a good idea.



5. Still no peep (or should I say "chirp") from the Alkaris. They must be busy down there...

6. It is only a matter of time before the Silicoids finally bring an escort to Primodius. We will figure out what we will need to do about the Silicoids pretty soon (thankfully, I did not really face any tough decisions about that on my watch).

7. Edit: I also just remembered that there will be scouts to send forward as soon as we get Range 4 tech. I already sent one scout forward from Rigel after settling Medved.

Roster:
- RefSteel - You're up! Lead the Bulrathi Empire to a glorious 2350!
- Ianus - Slumbering soundly until Spring!
- Thrawn - Still hibernating