Imperium 45: Mulligan's Luck

[shallow_thought]

Welcome to Imperium 45 - "Mulligan's luck"

Sorry, no fun, in-character introduction .

Imperium 45 Settings and Scoring

Race:  Humans
Difficulty:  Impossible
Map Size:  Medium
Opponents:  5
Events:  On
Note:  playing with kyrub's 1.4 patch is recommended.

Scoring:  

+10 base starting points
-1 point for each special other than battle scanners, extended range or a colony base that is used in a design
+1 point for never building a design that uses battle scanners
+1 point for never building a design using extended range, other than the initial scout design
+1 point for never building a colony ship that uses Barren, Tundra or Dead
+1 point for never building a colony ship that uses Inferno, Toxic or Radiated
-5 points if the player wins a council vote without oneself already having at least 50% of the votes (cheap early council cheese wins discouraged).  

The exception is that you may produce one design during the game, which must be called "THEMULLIGAN", which does not affect the scoring. This design can have any specials that you like on it.

Clarifications:
- Costs are per-design; building 1000 small bombers of a single design with Stabilizer (for example) still costs just one point.
- Multiple specials on a design (other than those excluded) each cost a point; a huge design with ARS, Repulsor and Ion Stream costs 3 points.
- Two identical designs each cost points.

Players have until 11:59 GMT on Monday, December 11th to submit a score and (optionally) a game report.  

The save and starting map are attached.  

Important: to avoid early disappointment, Orion is marked on the map. It's the green to the North-East of Sol, only 3 parsecs away (hence the warning).

Good luck!

[haphazard1]

Thanks for sponsoring another Imperium for all of us to (hopefully!) enjoy, shallow_thought!

And thanks for warning us about Orion. Losing the starting colony ship would not be a happy development.

A question: Can we build more ships using the initial scout design, or would that cost a point? We have the starting two available to use without penalty, correct?

[RefSteel]

Thanks for sponsoring this, shallow_thought! It looks like fun! Also...

Welcome to Imperium 45 - "Mulligan's luck"

Sorry, no fun, in-character introduction

Ahem.

Following the destruction of Earth's first interstellar mission in what came to be known as the Orion Catastrophe, the human urge to explore the stars suffered a severe case of cold feet. More than a century would pass before the mad genius Donal Mulligan would spark it again with his eccentric spacecraft designs and predictions of a future for humankind among the stars. A starship engineer by trade - responsible for many of the freighters that plied the spacelanes between Earth and Mars - Mulligan had gotten enormously rich in the planetary stock market after building a gigantic nest egg by winning a pick-9 lottery, and developed a reputation as a prognosticator extraordinaire - whereas in fact, as Mulligan himself would be the first to proclaim - he had merely been exceptionally lucky. When he publicly predicted that human spacecraft would be able to reach the stars in safety "so long as we don't send any more to that God-forsaken green star straight to rimward,"* human feelings toward the interstellar space program began to thaw. When he invested in the construction of a small interstellar fleet of his own design for purposes of exploration and colonization, he was even able to find enough people willing to take the risk of signing on as passengers and crew. By the year 2300, a hopeful Earth was cautiously optimistic again about the humans' place in the galaxy.

Donal Mulligan attended the launch ceremony himself, shouting, "Just don't you go to that green star where the Orion Catastrophe happened, mind! Stay away from that star, and you'll be fine!" He beamed as he watched his ships disappear into the sky - and then he disappeared himself after one final speech, to the Federated Starship Engineers of Sol 3: "You take it from here, everybody! I've got my own work cut out for me, but just you design some good, basic, simple ships, and don't try to cram in any of your fancy bells and whistles, and you'll take over the galaxy yet! Me, I'm not much longer for this world, but I've got one more ship design in me before I go, and it's going to be a doozy!"

What exactly Mulligan meant by "your fancy bells and whistles" would be hotly debated among starship engineers for decades, but just to be on the safe side, they avoided including any kind of special system at all on any of their new designs - even the systems Mulligan had used on his "Scout" and "Colony Ship" blueprints - as far as they possibly could. As for Mulligan himself, he apparently had no such compunctions: His last and greatest design - or at any rate his most eccentric - was about as special as it was possible for any human starship to be. His new design, based on technology that did not yet exist as he created it, but that he believed Humankind would one day achieve, would be his namesake - "TheMulligan Class" - and would end up filling such a critical need for the Terran empire as to represent the greatest triumph yet of his prognosticating abilities ... or, as Donal himself would have had it, of Mulligan's luck!

[EDIT: In case it isn't obvious, the "spoiler tags" do not contain any spoilers. They're only there so people don't have to scroll past a long post.]

[haphazard1]

Thanks for the fun and amusing backstory, RefSteel!

[shallow_thought]

Thanks for sponsoring another Imperium for all of us to (hopefully!) enjoy, shallow_thought!

And thanks for warning us about Orion. Losing the starting colony ship would not be a happy development.

A question: Can we build more ships using the initial scout design, or would that cost a point? We have the starting two available to use without penalty, correct?

You get the starting design for free, and can build as many as you want. Build any other design with extended range and you lose out on the +1.

@RefSteel - Oooh, nice pick up of the dropped ball there .

[shallow_thought]

Quick reminder that reports are due in on Monday.

[haphazard1]

Hmmmm, not seeing anything so far. Maybe we can bargain for more time? Busy time of year and all.....

[shallow_thought]

Hmmmm, not seeing anything so far. Maybe we can bargain for more time? Busy time of year and all.....

I'm in no position to rush anyone . So I'm just keeping quiet and see what happens...

[RFS-81]

I'm not really motivated to write a full report. I've got off to a really good start, didn't lose the election this time, but got rolled over by runaway Psilons. I came within four votes of the 50% threshold...I could have just eaten the -5 points, or take over a weak neighbour.

[haphazard1]

I am considering trying this game again and posting a shadow report, after Jan 1st probably due to time constraints. Misplayed the opening rather badly, and got crunched early on by aggressive cyborgs.