I did play the Average game to a winning position (quickly, few notes and no pictures)
What I recall was lots of fertile planets for the variant made it pretty easy; think I did need to buy my way out of one or two potential vote losses (Average means it's easy to be top 2 in pop, but the variant meant it took a while (and some burning) to get over 1/3rd.
The Psilons expanded the most of the AI and were quite aways in tech for a while, but failed to do much with the tech lead or build too large a fleet. After taking the green worlds from the weaker AIs, a modest military buildup let me glass half of the Psilon developed worlds without coming close to losing any of my own. OK, time to move to real difficulty:

EXTREME MODE

After early scouting, decided to go with a Huge Extra-Range colship for Rayden (the nonpoor far green)
2321: Sssla pauses factories, 2 2 LRLasers to Rayden , LR Col started. IT+10 has been in a few turns and applied; heading towards IER (popped 2329, very nice) and still trickling into IIT9. Huge ship done 2335 and I did get it:

However the Meklars obviously blocked further east (two of their worlds in that vertical line were green-star.)
Poor Tyr was 4 from Rayden; I remember Range4 took an annoyingly long time to pop but was able to get Tyr. The SW green was 8 parsecs away, I traded Bulrathi IER for Range5 (felt comfortable since the bears were weak) though had to wait a long time for enough tech to get a Large Extra-Range colship. So I was at 5 worlds.

I was able to have some success in delaying AI colonization of worlds offlimits to me by the variant. Largely gave up in 2367 after an intefrace bug let the Meklars finally plant at Rigel (the yellow right between us). One one turn in ~2360, I chased an unarmed Meklar colship and had to retreat from a Human superior fleet (but without colship). The human fleet poofed - must have lost the range due to breaking alliance - but the #$%# Meklar ship meant I couldn't select my fleet on the map and tell it not to retreat. I flew some replacements but couldn't return the stronger deterrent force before an armed colship bested my single LR-laser. Maybe would have beaten it had I still those popguns...

As a general question, anyone know how to do this? After a 3way encounter, both your fleet and one AI's is in the 'moving away from planet' spot and you can't select your own fleet to change its path?

In votes the elections were always Humans vs. Silicoids. I feared angering one more than I anticipated friending the other, so I always abstained. However it generally felt like the Meklar were the overall strongest AI in tech/production/fleet. So I don't know why the game felt like smacking me around:

Of course, as you might guess this was immediately after founding, and basically zero-cost since colonists en route killed the lone (erm, lone million rebels). I wonder what that trip was like - 'you may have thought you were like Pilgrims on the Mayflower, but actually we need to guys to become Redcoats, only do better and actually crush the colonial uprising. Oh and by the way, this is brutal MOO warfare; you can't rout their militia but must actually kill half the colonists before they'll quit'.

More detrimental was that the Meklars sent an armed colony ship to Drakka after I settled it. I had fighters in orbit and blew it up; they declare war. Sigh, are you supposed to retreat and let the AI invade in this case? Wish they were only touchy about fleet-to-fleet losses if you send ships to their worlds...

The Meklars were scary, but seemed to be at war with everyone basically the entire time (though for some time they were too far to fight the weaker birds and bears). I did get a fair number of attacks, as well as plenty of tussles between Meklars and other races in the non-green worlds on my quadrant of the map. Here is a good sample of what I had to deal with:


This set up a very weird sequence. I had Merculite missiles but no planet shielding, and quickly discovered that bases were pretty useless. I could 'win' each battle as I amassed some laser fighters, and they had almost zero ship-to-ship power....but they would drop 10 rounds of fusion bombs on my worlds and cause pretty significant pop/factory damage just from the tactical screen (my laser fighters couldn't really dent a Ajax with shields and auto repair). I traded for Ion Cannon which allowed stronger fighters, and Improved Scanner came in ~2410 allowed better shifting of them in response; this helped at least shoot down some ships but was still spending a lot of production on rebuilding factories. Poor Tyr was nearly destroyed from the tactical screen in a particularly bad case!

Round 1 of this war ended in 2420. A big trade came through as Alkari gave me Fusion drives for RIW60%. Eventually sent them Soil Enrichment for Range 8, which gave me enough to target their green world Crypto. I was worried for a while - though birds backwards in all but Propulsion, they had some pretty big stacks of unhittable fighters. But I was able to war them on the cheap - at some point they had a world bombed out by the Meklar, which range-poofed 500 fighters. Crypto itself was an easy target, only 10 nuke bases and even gropo tech; rather surprsingly the Alkari didn't even declare war after bombing out the bases, waited until my invasion succeeded. That was all I could take from them, but got a lot of tech as well (spying was pretty easy, they had bad computers)...nothing huge but good for clearing out a lot of the low tiers if I ever got to the other races.

However my position didn't really improve - Meklar came back and added a design with 6 sheilds, cloaking and Hard Beams, a stack of those drove away my fighters from Tyr and it was glasses by their accompanying bomber ships. Fortunately they didn't send a major stack of those to any other of my worlds...
I had always hoped that with the Meklar so hated and owning green planets, they would be my path to victory...certainly a tall order to invade a few of their worlds but thought their was a reasonable chance that it would get me into 2nd place pop and get enough brownie points to squeak out a Diplo win. With the Meklar fighting other AIs as usual, I made one serious go at an invasion target:

I have two different stacks of fusion bombers (the newer ones had enough miniturization for IS+Fusion, combat speed 4 -> reach planet and bomb on 2nd turn). But this was nowhere near enough. Those bases are Scatter Pack V's, and (as expected) they were smashing ~200 of my ships per turn. But I was surprised that my bombers were weak, in this pic one stack had already fired and only gotten 2 bases. I knocked it down to about 25 bases before retreating with 1/2 my ships

I think (but forgot to check) that they got an armor upgrade soon before this battle - I had previous scanned the planet at 75HP bases, and think they were up to 125HP - but even without that I just didn't have enough. And that huge, while lacking many beam weapons, had Repulsor + Auto-Repair so I almost certainly couldn't kill it with fighters. So, I went back to teching, finishing IT+40 and fusion beams and some others, but wasn't sure how to proceed. Was able to grab Tyr back at some point (didn't bother building factories, just get what tech I can out of it, as long as my fighter swarms can repulse the minor AI attacks), and eventually lost it.

Although I have occasionally been able to glass a new Meklar plant on a nearby non-green, it didn't seem to help too much in terms of AI relations. (Of course it was frustrating as Alkari+Bulrathi were often allied with Humans and/or Rocks, and they refused to sign peace for very long times despite a total inability to hurt me). Eventually the Silicoids declared war on me (now fighting all but Humans); probed one of their worlds for an invasion but also looked very unlikely.


At this point I decide to throw in the towel. Being able to pull some tech trades with the AI-prized Soil Enrichment, RCIV, and (brokered) IS has kept me from falling too far behind despite small empire. In particular, being up to 16 points of sheiding meant that I could profitably build bases again, and be pretty safe from the Meklar Fusion Bomb ships (and Silicoid Pulson-boats, though I gave up for now before they sent any real effort against me). I had ~15 on the non poor worlds and ~5 on Crypto (it's far from Meklars, so seemed enough for the moment).

But aside from taking Crypto off the Alkari, it just seems very unlikely I'll be able to push hard enough on Meklar or Silicoids to take a green world, my potential targets are like
44 Pulson, 150 HP, 11-shield bases
OR
38 SP-V, 125HP, 16-sheild bases
and I can only spam about 110 small fusion bombers per turn - I'd need something like 35 turns allout production at that rate to even attempt, and who knows if the the AI would get even better defenses... (The bears have Zhardan in the north, but it's too far, and in a nebula anyways so would be very hard to defend and profit from.)
And of course without the variant I would have been able to take Altair, other Alkari worlds in my corner, and mostly likely Ursa which I think would be enough to move up the 'ladder' (eat the weak AIs, use their worlds to power up enough to fight the next strongest, etc).
The counterpart to this is that the developed Human/Silicoid/Meklar worlds have been stable for the whole game, and it seemed unlikley that any of the 3 AIs had a chance of eating another one or assembling a winning vote. Both those races have Cloaking Device and other goodies which makes ship-to-ship fights look pretty hard as well.
Also being at war with all but the humans, I was getting major factory sabotage almost every turn, which while not lethal gave the feeling that I would be treading water for LONG time.

Unfortunately my day job blew up with about a week left and so while part of me wanted to follow the RB "where there's life, there's hope" to the end, I couldn't really justify spending the time.

So official result: retired in 2492. Did enjoy playing again, and hope to do another Imperium or try to finish this at some point in the future.

Hi everyone!

Decided to try this "Imperium" thingy, hope this report isn't too dull and doesn't break any rule.

Played the A or gentle version, didn't have time for another go with the B or extreme variant.

I took alot of screengrabs, DOSbox is great for that, unfortunaly didn't have time to upload them anywhere.

Here goes nothing:

2300: Sent the colony ship to northeast green star, hoping for it to be ok.
2303: Turned out I was right, Terran 90 . Thanks to Sakkra reproduction, sending 16 colonists there dropped Sssla only to 49 pop. One Scout went on area denial mission to near big yellow star, no early AI poaching of that Terran 95 planet.
2304: The other Scout went first to that red star next to Vulcan, Tundra 15 - time to move on.
2307: Whoa, the northwest green was Minimal 10, definitely seems lucky call that first colony now. Orion is the red star west of Sssla.
2309: The secong big yellow is a Terran 100! Would've been really juicy start if yellow star colonization had been allowed too...
Beta Ceti & Laan 4 parsecs away, Laan also Tundra, so only colonisable planet left is Ukko - a Minimal 10. Hmm, should I tech a bit and colonise Beta Ceti first...?
2310: Chased away a Darlok Scout from Kronos, guessing that Nazin is the yellow star SSW from Kronos.
2323: Sssla maxed, time to open some tech with 145 RP. Put about 35/65 to Planetology/Propulsion.
2324: Terraform +10 & IER available, took the übercheap T+10 - at 10% right away. Prop gives range 4 & 5, took the cheaper one for quicker grabbing of Beta Ceti.
2326: Ouch, T+10 opens the possibility for Tundra Colonization. Took IER anyway. Changed to trickle research, to get a Col 1 or two launcd asap. Terraforming alo underway.
2327: Range 4 pops at 10%, opening Nuclear Engines & Inertial Stabilizer. Range 5 or speed 2, went for Nuclear Engines.
2334: Both Sssla & Vulcan maxed again, Vulcan doing research.
2336: Beta Ceti colonized and Col 1 sent to Ukko, back on full research.
2339: Ukko colonized. IER & Nuclear Engines on percentages.
2341: Both techs pop, Tundra bases & Range 5 next (Inertial Stabilizer & Range 7 too expensive at this stage). Time to open Computers & Construction.
2342: Deep Space Scanner and Reduced Waste 80% targeted first. Not much choice there, BC 2 not so urgent now.
2343: Ouch, Psilons have already 6 planets against my 4.
2344: Tau Cygni, Desert 55 scouted.
2346: Deep Space Scanner pops, making ECM 2, Improved Robotic Control 3 and BC 3 available. We go for more factories as Waste Reduction is already on percentages, as is Tundra Colonization.
2347: Nice! Vulcan is now Rich.
2349: Controlled Tundra Environment pops, making T+30 available as the only choice. Time to open Force Fields & Weapons, in anticipation of upcoming contact with other races.
2350: Meh, Class 2 Deflectors & Gatling Laser forced.
2352: Vulcan built Tundra 2 and sent it to colonize Laan. WR80% pops finally, opens IIT8 and Duralloy Armour. Taking IIT8 first, to help with IRC3.
2356: Laan colonized, revealing that those pesky apes (Hunams) have taken two out of three green star systems south of us! Still, have to play nice at least at first - they agreet to trade 100 BC/year with us, but had no tech to trade.
2357: Got Class 2 shields, opening Personal Deflector Shield.
2360: Gatling Laser pops, giving Neutron Pellet Gun, Fusion Bomb and Ion Cannon to choose from. I go for the Bomb first. The third southern green between Sol & Sssla turns out to be Proteus, Tundra 40. Got to get it ASAP, Darloks & Psilons sniffing around there too.
2361: Ach, Darloks & Hunams both really intending to take Kronos (Terran 100). Can't stop either, and maybe I don't even want to - hopefully they'll squabble over the planet for a long time... Have to build some kind of fleet to prevent AIs poaching any other planets that are juicy, but denied for us. Hmm, looks like we figured out Range 5 Fuel Cells and are researching Inertial Stabilizer now, when did that happen?
2367: Proteus colonized.
2368: Robot control 3 pops opening lots of new possibilities, like Improved Space Scanner. Going to grab BC 2 first though. Oh dear. Darloks are allied with the apes. Got a couple of level 1 techs from them and a 75 BC trade agrement.
2372: IT+30 pops, letting me to choose between Soil Enrichment & IT+40. Soil Enrichment it is. Gotta hope that Psilons don't cheese a diplo victory at 2375 election...
2373: IIT8 pops, opening Automaed Repair Uit and Reduced Waste 60%. I take Duralloy before either of them.
2376: Hehe, no election on 2375. Psilons took Kronos by surprise (stupid me, should've seen that lone Colony ship coming & blocked it with small el cheapo lazzah ships, but no, I had to buila a couple of large ones, 2 turns too late). Got 150 BC trade agreement and Hand Lasers from them. Hunams parted with Hyper-V Rockets, in exchange for IIT8.
2380: Most populous empire is the Sakkra Imperium, yay!
2386: BC2, Inertial Sabilizer and Fusion Bomb pop. Going for Improved Space Scanner, Range 7 & Ion Cannon.
2394: Caramba! Psilons are the runaway AI here, and they managed to beat me to the north green and sneak grab of the Poor Jungle 80 on my back yard! Well, I do the same to the apes by colonising that southern green Barren 45, Zoctan. Soil Enrichment pops, Atmospheric Terraforming next (over Cloning & IT+40).
2396: Some idiot gives lotsa money to the apes!
2397: My colonising Zoctan triggers first election. I have 7 votes, so has the Psilon emperor. 16-0 (of 28) for the brainiacs. Surprisingly only the apes abstained in addition to us, all others voted for the blasted brainiacs. Hope next election goes no worse, it is due already in 3 turns.
2400: Exact same votes. Gotta build some defenses and start on the offensive.
2403: Dotomite Crystals bring contact with Mrrshan, who seem to be a minor player on the field again. Propulsion research on Fusion Drives next.
2404: Crazy kitties declare war on the next turn. Maybe they hope to drag their ally, the brainiacs along to this war. If that happens, we'll have an opportunity to dogpile on the brainiacs... Got Ion Cannons, Merculite Missiles next.
2411: Got Improved Space Scanners a bit earlier, researching BC4. Planetary Shield 5 pops, next is Deflectors 4. Atmospheric Terraforming pops also, going for Advanced Soil Enrichment now.
2414: Merculite Missiles ready for action! Very conveniently, as the brainiacs declare war. Neutron Blaster next. BC4 & Fusion drive quite soon, then it is war time.
2415: Lo and behold! Hunams & Darloks agree to aid me in stopping the Psilon menace, Inertial Stabilizer and Robot Controls 3 were small price to pay for help in these circumstances.
2419: BC4 researched last turn and Fusion Drive now, IRC4 & Energy Pulsar next.
2421: Now the shapeshifters go crazy too, we're at war. Luckily the apes are not difficult to persuade, they will help us also in this war.
2425: This year's election is much better for me, I lose only 14-18 with no one abstaining. Got automated repair unit finally, now it's time to kick some brainiac & shapeshifter butt!
2436: Have bombed two big and two just started Psilon colonies to dust, now trying to stop anyone colonizing them again. The brainiacs have already sued for peace twice, I'll agree once I capture the northern green planet.
2437: Class 4 Deflectors & Neutron Blaster pop. Dull weapons available, I pick Graviton Beam. Repulsor Beam the only choice in Force Fields. Sending two huge battleships & 102 small Fusion bombers to north green planet.
2439: Humans take Nordia (right next to Sssla), a former Psilon strong(weak)hold. North greem, Iranha, is Poor but I send troops there anyway. Darloks ask for peace, I graciously agree.
2440: Robot Controls 4 and Energy Pulsar pop. Someone frames me for espionaga against the apes. Goind for Advance Space Scanner & Range 8 next.
2441: Poor kitties, Fierias going nova... Yes, let's peace .
2444: Iranha is mine! Lousy gropos only found the prints for Fusion Rifle. Ok, that was not bad. Made peace with the brainiacs and traded for Antimatter Bomb & Fusion Beam with them. Not too cheap, had to give Reduced Waste 60% & Atmospheric Terraforming in exchange.
2447: Nordia has become a disputed system, yay for that! And the kitties were lucky.
2450: Was only two votes short of victory.
2452: Again the Psilons declare war.
2457: Advanced Soil Enrichment researched, T+40 next. Got Graviton Beam, opened a lot of new options, taking Megabolt Cannon first. New batch of Fusion Beam and Antimatter Bomb armed ships is coming online. Bombed a small brainiac colony to oblivion.
2460: Repulsor Beam pops. Personal Absorption Shield next.
2465: Humans really wanted to colonise Primodius (Jungle 80), but I said: "No."
2466: Got Range 8, only option is Range 9. First contact with the Bulrathi. 75 BC trade, and an exchange of obsolete techs.
2469: Ajax & Neptunus colonies destroyed - the brainiacs are losing.
2474: Psilons have nasty advantage in ground combat, it's going to take a long grind to capture Rigel.
2475: Now it is Bladrov & me. Unsurprisingly I have to abstain for a draw (17-3 for the hominid).
2476: IT+40, yay. Cloning next.
2484: Finally captured Rigel & got a bunch of tech, most notable were Andrium Armor and Class 5 deflectors.
2486: Now the apes go crazy and declare war, time to grab a couple of their planets.
2491: Bad luck for the apes, hehe. Finally got Personal Absorption Shield, slightly narrowing the gap between my and brainiacs' gropo tech.
2493: And now comes Armored Exoskeleton. Reduced Waste 40% next.
2495: Conquered Berel, got lots of goodies this time . And Darloks want to play war games again, blah. Only three green stars remain in wrong appendages.
2500: The election was tight, 21-12 for me, still a draw. Took some goodies from apes along with a planet...
2502: Year 2502 sees Mobas liberated from the filthy primates and fledgling Vega colony erased. Nw only the teddie's green world remains to be taken, after that we have no doubt that the Galactic Council will see our superiority and I become the new Emperor of the United Galaxy.
2503: The hominids sue for peace, I graciously agree.
2506: Megabolt Cannon pops. I go for Gauss Autocannon (one of my favourite weapons in MOO), but I very much doubt it will be needed, or even get researched. For now, heavy Ion Cannons and Fusion Beams are more than enough.
2509: BC 7 pops, going for some ECMs I skipped earlier.
2513: RW40%, Waste Elimination next.
2515: Rhilus is mine, and teddies agree to peace. Darloks grow also weary of senseless destruction.
2516: Complete Eco Reastoration pops, Universal Antidote next. Kitties want to play again.
2517: Hunams want a bloody nose again.
2519: High Energy Focus pops, Star Gates next. Cloaking Device & Gaus Autocannon in the percentages. Once I get those, it is time to roll out a new generation of Huge dreadnoughts and Large batteships to repel too eager Psilon colony fleets.
2520: And yes, Cloaking device pops, making Class 9 Deflectors available.
2521: Oh yeah, Gauss Autocannon ready for production! Looks like I was (again) wrong earlier . Uh-oh, bad accident on Rhilus. Oh well, pour in some reserve money & see if the planet becomes a bit bigger (now pop 165 Gaia % T+40).
2522: Weird bug, Rhilus sudenly at zero population.
2524: Rhilus "founded" again. Let's see how goes the vote.
2525: Blah, kitties & apes rally for brainiacs while teddies & cloakmasters abstain -> 22-13 for me. Next time the others will not have enough votes to stall me.
2530: Omega-V Bomb pops, Scatter Pack 7 next.
2532: Univers Antidote ready, Terraforming +100 next.
2538: Star Gates pops, nothing useful available.
2539: Got Class 9 Deflectors, Class 11 next.
2542: T+100 and Scatter-pack 7 pop on same turn. Going for Complete Terraforming & Phasors next. 50 % to terraforming everywhere .
2544: Kitties & apes make peace with me, brainiacs declare war :D.
2549: Several Psilon colonies eliminated. Domination, here we come.
2550: Nope, I had only 63 % of the votes (31 of 49). Apes went with brainiacs, all others voted for me => I quess it counts as a diplomatic victory (39-10) on 2550 election.

2549 save attached.

Attached Files

  Zieman_RBO35_SAVE6.zip (Size: 12.3 KB / Downloads: 1)

So from watching March Madness, I was (once again) interested in a college basketball "text sim". I guess this is what they call the genre of games that is more focused on the General Managering / coaching of the program, versus more of the live game-playing.

I used to play NCAA Basketball 07 on my PS2, and would focus on recruiting and building up a team, and usually just sim out the game rather than playing it.

I remember that a group of people were running an SG for a soccer / football game here, which I think sounds similar.

I was looking at a game called Fast Break College Basketball

http://www.greydogsoftware.com/fbcb/

I downloaded the demo which was pretty fun but only lets you do one season worth. Anyone ever played that or any similar games?

Back in the saddle! Fortunately I couldn't mess with the first colony ship in this one.

2302 Settling Morrig and sending out the usual scouts
2306 Opened planetology after scout report on Spica came in (seeding +10)

So far, so bad ehm good (When I learned that Tyr was poor I got a really bad feeling about this game):
   

2317 Hitting +10 (bad luck), seeded eeco
2318 Assembling LR Laser
2323 Hitting IIT9 / seeding range 4 (way too late, I guess)
2326 Chasing away Meklar colony ship at Rigel (first contact - lovin' Meklars as neighbors)
2329 Humans have 6 systems (what?!)
2331 Maxed Sssla (once again some lag due to early research), eer and range4 in percentages
2332 Hitting r4, r6 in tree - seeding it and enlarging scout radius
2334 Meklars checking rayden with colony ship, chased them away and hit eer (selecting +20)
2335 Humans checking Tyr
2340 Silis checking Jinga with colony ship
2341 Morrig maxed, r6 almost bulped, seeding +20
2346 hitting r6, going back to nuclear, spreading scout radius (still no contacts yet)
2348 Sending colony ship from Sssla to Rayden, seeding nuclear
2350 Sending colony ship from Morrig to Tyr
2351 Humans checking Tyr with small armed fleet (critical turn), was able to defeat them
2352 still no contacts, +20 in percentages
2353 Hitting + 20 / only crappy choices left / settling rayden and meeting Humans + Meklars (lovin' erratic Meklars even more)
2355 Settling Tyr, Council vote Humans against Meklars, 10/19 for the Humas, I wisely abstain

Let's have I look an the strategic situation. So far I was able to hold the enemies back, but see yourself:
   
   

2357 Defeating large Meklar fleet at Rayden
2361 Defeating large Bear fleet at Tyr (first indirect contact - lovin' bears as neighbors ) / Popping Nuclear engines
2373 Still trying desperately to hold all unsettled systems / Popping durally and design LR colony for Drakka
2375 Council vote Silis against Humans: 12 vs. 9 for Humans (voted for them to improve relations)
2379 Settling Drakka in the southwest
2382 Meklars finally grab Rigel
2391 Popping inferno and went for soil enrichement
2393 Humans at 12 systems! No planetary shields in the tree / researching on improved space scanners
2399 Major spy success on Bears: Planetary V, but still no decent missiles in sight (waiting for a Meklar SOD every turn)
2400 Council vote - Humans against Meklars
2401 Popping soil, only relevant coice is cloning *grrr, this game really seems unwinnable*
2425 Council Silis vs. Humans without winner
2438 The Meklars finally send a SOD to Morrig and destroy our planet with ease. At this point I had no fleet to speak of, was falling behind in Tech, had no spy success at all and tried desperately to win back Morrig.
2448 Meklars take down Sssla (of course without being at war with us), so we were down to three planets. I decided to give up, because all hope was lost ehm my headache worsened.

The final screenshot:
   

Hey guys,

it's a pleasure to see all your incoming reports!

Well, I hadn't played MOO for more than a year, so I thought about warming up with the gentle map and then switch to the extreme one. I played with kyrub's latest patch. Unfortunately, I suffered from a serious headache on the playing day, so deduct 5 - 10 % from my original playing strength.

Well, I kept the pre-game analysis short. At first I thought about entirely focussing on planetology in order to outbreed our enemies, but with only few planets available that didn't sound reasonable. Let's jump straight into the game:

2300 First gamble - sending the colony ship to the left green planet, started to flag all surrounding systems with scouts
2303 Well, wrong decision (size 10 planet to colonize), finally sending the col ship to Vulcan
2305 Opening up techs - selecting waste-80% and seeding +10 terra
2306 Seeding range4 (deciding for the short-term advantage)
2309 Settling Vulcan (the loss of time hurt despite my headache)
2310 Popping +10, cheering on tundra in the tree, but took eeco first
My mighty empire was setup:
   
2321 Hitting range4 (had bad luck) / going for nuclear and started assembling laser 1
2328 Hitting eeco / seeding tundra
2333 Settling Beta Ceti
2336 Maxed Sssla ("wasted" a couple of turns on early research) / seeding scanners
2337 Psilons have 6 systems (lovin' runaway Psilons)
2338 Popping tundra / seeding +30
2344 Settling Laan (tundra world to the south)/ Meeting Humans
2348 Settling Ukko
2354 Landing nucear engines / assembling laser 2 for Proteus (greenstar south of Laan)
2356 Darloks settle Kronos - coudn't hold it any longer and start a desperate spying attempt
2357 Beta Ceti turns fertile!
2358 Settling Proteus / receiving expansion warning from Humans
2665 Popping +30 / soil in tree
2373 Popping irc3
2384 First council vote: rbo35 against Humans
2390 Meeting the mighty Psilons
2393 Assembling npg 2 and popping merculites
2395 Popping soil / seeding atmospheric
2400 Routine Council vote: 19/29 for Humans (that was close!)

Meanwhile I had ordered our generals to prepare an attack fleet. We were in good shape and ready to go to war against the Humans!
   
2440 Invading Mobas with major tech grab
2446 Invading Omicron and stripping the Humans
   
At this point I had produced a large bomber fleet (grabbed am bomb) and even had a couple of huge hulls with ARS, heavy blast canons and repulsor beam. Basicly I felt safe and was preparing for a massive assault on the Psilon Empire, but the game had something different in mind:
2449 Council vote against Psilons, everyone loved them and of course hated us. Psilons won the election and I wasn't in the mood to fight a final war against runaway Brains, hence I accepted...

So I lost the gentle Imp35, but that shouldn't be a bad omen for the extreme one, right?

This is a shadow report of Imperium 35, which can be found here:

http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?tid=5835

It is not an official report because I didn't fully follow the Imperium rules found here:

http://www.realmsbeyond.net/orion/imprules.html

Specifically, the rule I broke most often is the "no reloads" rule, since I sometimes reloaded or improvised a several-turn "alternate universe" test to figure out some game mechanics and strategies, since I haven't played the game in a while and was a bit rusty with how the game went. I typically didn't reload due to strategic errors (though there were many!) or random events but I did sometimes reload due to a battle not going the "right" way (i.e. the way I expected), usually because I didn't really understand how the order of combat worked.

I didn't really take screenshots, so it'll be largely text. I played the Extreme version of the Imperium. I used Kyrub's 1.40m version, which can be found here:

http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?tid=2996

Playstyle
I largely followed the no-exploit list found here:

http://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showt...p?tid=3403

1. If my fleet retreated from battle over an enemy colony (or over an uncolonized star), then it would have to return to one of my colonies before it could fight again. This follows the options available to the AI (i.e. either win or go home). This avoids using the missiles exploit (#5); strategically, it meant my attacking fleets were at most only half as effective as if they just kept hanging around over an enemy planet.
2. I threatened to attack an AI quite a bit to get them to retreat from a star that I'd otherwise be in no way able to hold. This was mostly with the Meklar. However, if they responded by declaring war on me or called my bluff, then I'd have to eat it (exploit #6).
3. During a single turn, I reloaded quite a bit to optimize my resources. I wanted the minimum resources spent on ecology most of the time, so i would set the ecology slider to below the minimum (where it said "waste"), and then save and reload, which automatically set the slider to the minimum needed to keep the ecology at "clean". I don't think this violates any rules but just noting this because I haven't really seen this quirk of the game documented in many places.

Overall strategic notes
The imperium restricts the stars that the players may colonize to only green stars. This meant that the player could only colonize 1/4 of the stars, spread throughout the map -- in essence, the player would have to hold larger amounts of territory but wouldn't be able to use most of the resources in it, or have extremely mixed-up borders with other races. Using Sakkra as the player race was interesting because their chief advantage is that they can colonize quickly -- but the Imperium rules nullified this because the player could only colonize very few stars in the player's effective control. Also, the player could not send troops to enemy planets unless the enemy planet was green, which meant that it was difficult to use the Sakkra growth advantage militaristically. This made the map challenging because the player couldn't really take advantage of some of the major benefits of being Sakkra. A race like Meklar for example probably would've made it easier since they excel at having fewer but more powerful planets. Of course, the Imperia are not about making it easy.

The map basically looked like this, including the stars that I'll mention:

   

Early game
I didn't really keep notes on the progress of the game early on, so some of it is missing/from memory. I started off by colonizing the obvious colony (Morrig), but the first big decision after this was how to colonize the next two planets (Tyr and Rayden), since they were 6 parsecs away. I elected to tech up until I could fit both reserve fuel tanks and colony base onto a large ship (which was one of the places where "alternate universe" reloading was used, since I didn't remember how much I'd have to tech up to be able to do this, or which tech areas were needed).

Since this was going to be about denying territory, I also elected to make a bunch of scouts to get rid of the computer explorers and prevent them from colonizing. Unfortunately, I went pretty overboard with them, making over 20 scouts, looking at a then-empty map and thinking that I might end needing up them all. I think I ended up only needing like half of them. This somewhat affected my resources early on, since I basically had a bunch of extra scouts that weren't really used.

After colonizing Tyr and Rayden, I went to go after Collassa, only to find that the Meklars had already colonized it. At this point, I decided to try to conquer it, so I researched space range 5 for this. I didn't have any warships yet, but thought this would be easy because when I explored Collassa, they didn't have that many colonists. Well, this was one part of the game that I forgot about -- that once you are no longer in range of a star, it doesn't update with the star's current population details, but that information is outdated. So I thought it would be an easy takeover, but to my surprise, when my scout arrived the turn before the troops did, I found that the colony was much bigger, and had several missile bases to boot. Fortunately, my philosophy with conquering is to send so many troops that not only do they overwhelm the natives, but have enough left over so that the colony is large and can get going right away (rather than be very tiny and subject to capture/destruction several turns afterward). The missile bases took out about 1/3 of my arriving troops, but fortunately, the invasion survived with exactly 1 troop of my force remaining. That was one of the big breaks for me early on in the game.

Unfortunately, when I went to try to do the same thing with Kronos, I realized I had never explored it early on before the Meklars put up missile bases (not that I didn't try, but they always had ships when my scouts visited), so although they were reeling from the initial defeat, I couldn't press on and secure the colony because though I had plenty of troops, I couldn't actually send them to the planet. Booooo.

The Meklars inscrutably declared war on me for taking over their colony, so I made it a top priority to research Hyper-V rockets to shore up my missile bases. I also realized at this point that I could see many computer ships milling about, but it was too nerve-wracking because I couldn't really keep track of where they were going and prepare for that. So I made it my next priority to tech up for improved space scanners.

I also expanded to Drakka in the SW corner of the map, as a "safe" colony. So these were the 6 colonies (Sssla, Morrig, Tyr, Rayden, Collassa, and Drakka) that I would have for the rest of the game. For me, the expansion phase of the game had ended here.

Mid-Game
Throughout this time, I had been using scouts to deny nearby ships with a good amount of success. At this point, however, colony ships started arriving that had weapons on them, and the computer started sending out colony ships with escorts, so they were starting to colonize the stars around me. To an extent I was able to use this to my advantage; the Meklars colonized Rigel which I wasn't able to prevent, but I kept harassing that colony until they sued for peace, so that the drama from when I took over Collassa ended. But the Silicoid and Bulrathi started colonizing the stars around me too.

Silicoids declared war on me for destroying Rha, so now I was at war. In retrospect, I should have waited a few more turns after they colonized it before destroying it, so that they'd have troops on the way that'd end up going to a non-existent colony and freezing to death, but also to give me more time to prepare for war. Similarly, because the Bulrathi also started expanding nearby, they also declared war on me. The Alkari were nowhere to be seen, and the Humans were busy in their quadrant of the map and didn't really try to send anything toward my area of space.

At this point, I realized I needed more "punch" at the beginning of a fight to cut down on the enemy ships before my lasers got into "melee range", so I made Hyper-V missile carriers. I made them the 5-type, so that they could fire more, but in retrospect this was a big mistake. 5-type Hyper-V rockets only have a range of 5, so an enemy ship normally needs to be within 3 squares of my missile carriers so that they don't retreat back out of missile range. However, at this point, some of their melee ships had inertial stabilizers, which meant that I'd have to be right next to them to prevent them from retreating out of range. I should have used 2-type Hyper-V rockets instead so that I could still hit them while they were 3 squares away. This meant that the missile carriers I had invested so much in were not useful for a good number of fights.

Throughout this time, although I was at peace with Meklar, I kept them at bay by periodically threatening them when they sent colonizing troops to my area of space so they'd retreat when they met my forces, specifically at Toranor. I had a trade pact with them more to keep them at bay with me than for the profit (which was dubious, at best). However, in 2443, they finally didn't back down but laughed off my threats. So they were able to expand. Also, the Humans finished expanding into their area of space and started expanding into mine. Eventually, in 2471, they rebuffed my threats and when I tried to engage their colonizing forces, destroyed much of my fleet and colonized Firma. Fortunately for me, the Meklar arrived there one turn later and destroyed the Human colony, and then left, allowing me to regain control over denying it from other races. The Humans also expanded to Vox, but it was also destroyed by another race (Meklar, I think).

In fact, the map was pretty much dominated by the Meklar vs Human war, with the other minor races either allied with one or the other (Silicoid with Meklar, Bulrathi with Human), or at war with everyone (Alkari, which I couldn't see but just about all the races said they were at war with). To my distain though, the Meklar and Humans rarely actually attacked each other, or at least, I didn't see any of their established colonies actually get taken over. Instead, they would fight their battles over the unsettled stars near me. I was hoping that they'd attack each other directly since they were right next to each other, but they didn't.

Throughout this time, I was slowly building up my forces and my technology. Since I was at war with the Silicoids and Bulrathi, I tried to steal their techs whenever I could. I consider stealing techs to be a relatively cheap way to tech up, albeit highly unpredictable and obviously offensive to the other races. They kept me somewhat busy, but since they were relatively minor races in this game I could keep them at bay. I was planning on glassing them as soon as I had built up my forces, so I kept the wars "open" and rejected their offers for peace when they offered it.

I also found that the Alkari only had 2 stars: Altair and Crypto. The latter was a green star, so I made plans to try to conquer it. This would allow me to expand into the northeast part of the map relatively safely, since I didn't have much trouble with the minor races, although the Humans (in the northeast) and the Meklar (in the southeast) outmatched my forces. I started stealing from the Alkari regularly; they fueled quite a few of my tech advances, including impulse drives (warp 5).

Finally, in 2492, the Meklar declared war on me for threatening them one too many times. Also, in 2516, the Humans declared war on me for destroying some of their fleet over Firma. And eventually, the Alkari declared war on me in 2519 for stealing their planetary shield technology. At this point, I was at war with everybody, but there were lots of other wars because of the longstanding Meklar-Human war. I was in a pretty good spot because I had gotten some good weapon techs and was steadily building my attacking "radioactive glass" fleet, to use on the Meklar.

Why the Meklar, when I previously said Alkari? Well, Crypto, the Alkari green colony, was too far away; at 8 parsecs away, my colony-destroying missile fleet would only hit them once every 4 turns. If I went after the Meklar, I could hit them with my missile fleet every other turn. Also, since the Meklar were one of the dominating forces, I figured that I could cut them down a bit, rather than concentrating on the Alkari and ending up with a runaway Meklar. The Meklar were the most dangerous since they relied on huge ships which were difficult to destroy, while the Alkari larged used small/medium/large ships. Furthermore, the Meklar had Kronos just outside of Collassa, so I figured I could score an "easy" green expansion, compared to the faraway Crypto. Kronos was also already set up with fertile while Crypto was poor.

When I initially went to the Meklar, I found that my missiles didn't do anything. I had invested in *more* missiles (such as the scatter pack 7) to fend off ships more effectively, but not *better* missiles, so I couldn't overcome the planetary shields. It took some time for me to research better missiles, and at this point, I had Hercular missiles and a fleet of some 27 large missile carriers, each with 11 2-type Hercular missiles, as well as several huge heavy fusion beam ships with warp dissipators to stop enemy ships and then destroy them out of their attack range.

Unfortunately, at council in 2525, the vote was between Meklar and me, and everyone voted for Meklar. I was shocked by this because the Humans had just declared war with me less than a decade ago -- didn't their long-running feud with the Meklar count for anything? Also, on the other side of the spectrum, the Silicoid and Bulrathi had been at war with me for a long time, but only recently did they declare war on the Meklar. Yet they elected to side with the Meklar. So I lost the council vote, but decided to press on into final war.

   

End Game
I actually haven't played in final war much, because my past games typically ended up me dominating everyone, or me losing early on. So I wasn't familiar with what final war meant, other than that everyone would gang up against me. I couldn't find much online about strategies to use in final war, or I didn't really look hard enough.

Initially I didn't find that things were very different. I had a couple of fleets patrolling my territory in the southwest quadrant, destroying colonies whenever they sprung up. I also had a fleet that was halfway through destroying the missile bases on Toranor, as well as a small fleet that was working on Kronos for eventual capture. This was because my "industrial" center was largely Sssla and Morrig, while Rayden and Collassa made some forces for contingencies in their part of the map but I decided to send them out to soften up Kronos before my main fleet destroyed the lower Meklar colonies and reached Kronos. My colonies were largely just making ships, with Drakka in the southwest corner and Tyr which was poor doing research instead. I was also still spying each of the races, spending around 7-10% of my overall resources doing that, so occasionally getting tech upgrades from that.

However, I found the pace of destroying the colonies to be very slow. Toranor itself took over a decade. In retrospect, splitting up my forces was a bad strategic move. Sure, I needed to split a certain amount off to take care of the weeds, but by simultaneously going after both Toranor and Kronos, I was just ensuring that Meklar had two colonies absorbing the punishment and rebuilding bases between each fight, rather than just one. If I had concentrated them at one colony then it would've gone down faster and I could've moved on more quickly.

So rather than constantly pouring out ships, I changed my colonies over to teching for neutronium bombs. I also stole subspace teleporters from the Humans, which would make neutronium bombs very useful. The strongest bombs I had at the time were fusion bombs. Although I kept attacking the computer, my attacking fleet slowly suffered from attrition, and my weed-clearing fleet slowly did as well, though not as much.

Sometime after, though, I noticed that I was taking quite a few losses to getting my factories and missile bases destroyed from spies. I also noticed I had quite a few rebels in my colonies -- my actual production was around 8% less than what they were "supposed" to be. So I had to spend some resources on internal security, as well as rebuilding my factories and bases, and shuttling around colonists for production.

However, at this point, maybe because I was no longer harassing them as much, the computers started coming at me with overwhelming forces. They had ships equipped with both subspace teleporters and black hole generators, meaning they would just teleport next to my ships and bases and destroy a good portion of them before I had a chance to fight. Although I spied on the computer races regularly, the techs that I stole were typically stuff like propulsion or weapons, rather than computer, and at this point they had a pretty big computer advantage over me, meaning they always had the first move even when I had subspace teleporters. I hadn't really kept up with computer battle techs, mostly spending my computer techs researching robotics controls and space scanners, so all the way to the end game I was still sputtering along with battle computer 5.

Unfortunately, it took me so long to tech up to neutronium bombs that they were more or less obsolete by the time they came online. When my huge ship outfitted with 100 neutronium bombs finally got to the closest Meklar base, it only did about 200 damage per volley. At this point, the base already had 33 shields, and missile def 11 (do bombs use missile def as the defender's defense rating?), which mean that it wasn't doing very much. Meanwhile, the computer was teleporting to my bases and using their black hole generators, taking out a good portion of my bases even before my missiles reached any of them (since they get 2 shots off before even being hit with any of my missiles).

So that's as far as I got into the game. I haven't played it to its logical conclusion but at this point I don't really see any way out of it, so it's effectively a loss at final war.

Overall, there were a lot of things that I think I would do differently, probably because I hadn't played this game in a while. Some take-aways/things I learned:
* At the beginning, yes it's good to build scouts, but no need to overdo it. 1 scout is as good as 10 scouts at denying territory to the computer races.
* Try to scout any planets that you might colonize as early as possible, so that you are allowed to send troops to them later on.
* For Hyper-V, I should have used the 2-type instead of the 5-type so that I could destroy ships that move 2 squares per turn.
* Rather than keeping an unnecessary war open, so that I can invade them in the future, I should've "closed" off wars when they requested it. I had kept the wars open so that I could steal techs openly from them, but what would it have mattered if I weren't at war and stole from them anyway? Also keeping the war open was because I was planning on taking them over eventually, but if that isn't an immediate thing (i.e. with a fleet already up and ready to be on the move) then I shouldn't leave the wars open. Who knows, if I were at peace with them they might have voted for me over the Meklar whom they were at war with.
* I should concentrate on only one front at a time, when warring with someone. Splitting my forces between two well-entrenched colonies at the same time was a mistake unless I had overwhelming numbers, which I didn't in this case.
* I was also war-oriented for too long. My lack of emphasis on planetology hurt me in the long run by not having enough production to keep up at the end.
* Other than production, strategically I was too focused on the long term and not on the here-and-now. I kept waiting for the next big thing around the corner that would give me a decisive advantage, when things were going decently (though not spectacularly) now. When that big thing finally arrived, it was already obsoleted by advances the computers had made in the meantime. If I had pressed whatever advantages I currently had, I think there were several opportunities that I could've used, rather than letting them slip away while waiting for the next big thing.
* For Imperium reporting, I should probably be taking screenshots as I play. I knew that Kyrub's game version saves a new savefile every turn so "in theory" I could go back and reconstruct what happened, but that ended up being too much work to try to find the right file, etc.

I think this map is winnable if the player adopts a good strategy. I think I was simply somewhat rusty at it, not to mention had not played a map with this kind of restriction before, which made the map very interesting. I definitely will go back and play this map under a variety of different ways. For example, right before the final war, if I had transported half my colonists to each other, I would have been under the population amount and then it'd have been the Meklar vs the Humans up for council vote, with them thus splitting their votes and not resulting in a final war. I will likely play that as an alternate scenario, as well as replaying this map from the beginning since MoO games tend to be different every time, and I think this map was very well balanced for this scenario -- difficult but not impossible. Kudos to RefSteel for this choice of map and Toddestan for coming up with this idea, and I look forward to the next Imperium!

Well, my first Imperium. This should be interesting, as it will be essentially the first time I've played this game with any other rules other than win by any means possible (well I do mostly avoid the exploits which I generally I consider most of those cheats even if the game allows them). If Master Of Orion is good at anything though, it's throwing up unexpected surprises at you. Well, lets see how I do. I should note that I'm using Kyrub's patch for this game.

2300 - The first question of any new game - do I scout first or do I gamble by sending my colony ship out the first turn? There are two suitable green stars within range, and since I always try to expand inwards my hunch is grab the one to the top left of Sssla, as they are both defacto mine anyway. Well, I decide to wait it out and send my two scouts to the green worlds and see what's out there first.

I also order up some more scouts. I figure I can still do some scout blocking and hopefully keep the AI's away for a bit, plus it's still good to take a look around the neighborhood.

2303 - I'm glad I waited that out, as the top left world, Ukko, is a 10 minimal, whereas the other green world, Vulcan, is a terran. I dispatch my colony ship to Vulcan.

2305 - Vulcan founded.

2308 - The Gaurdian toasts one of my scouts. Orion is not green, so that's out if I get to that point. I also scout Beta Ceti to my right, which should be mine once I grab some range tech.

2311 - I scout Laan, a green tundra star below Sssla. Laan is the gateway to three green stars below it. Tundra Base will be an important tech in this game.

Around this time I dumped a turn's worth of research into opening the tech tree. I choose Improved Terraforming +10 and for some reason Range 5 fuel cells.

2314 - I chase a Darlok scout away from Kronos. Looks like I have company.

2318 - Improved terraforming pops. I immediately dump resources into Tundra Base and into Deuterium fuel cells.


2326 - GNN reports that I'm the #1 population in the galaxy. Go team Sakkra!

2328 - The Darloks send an escorted colony ship to Kronos and chase away my scout.

2329 - Second colony ship completed and dispatched to Ukko. I order up some Medium LR Lasers to defend Laan from poachers.

2330 - GNN reports that the Darloks now have six systems! Could they be the dominate power in this galaxy?


2332 - Ukko founded. I send out a scout to the green star on the other side of the nebula to my top left.

2333 - By this time I have four LR Lasers built. Hope it will be enough. Switch over to mostly research and finishing building up Vulcan, while trickle-building a third colony ship.

2338 - Range 5 pops. This brings me into formal contact with the Darloks. Great. I turn on my spy defenses and strike up minimal trade. I dispatch some scouts to see what's now within my range.


2339 - I scout Tau Cygni, a desert planet that I hope I'll be able to grab above the nebula. I'll either need some more range tech or otherwise tech up to the point where I can build a LR colony ship.

2340 - Tundra Base pops. I immediately order up a Colony2 and switch Sssla over to the new design.

2342 - First Colony2 built and dispatched to Laan. I order up another standard colony ship for Beta Ceti.

2344 - My scout reaches Omicron, the left of the green stars below Laan, which is defended by some laser fighters so I can't scout it. Looks like a terran from the battle screen though. A nice world bathed in green light that should be mine!

2345 - The Darloks chase away my scout from Nordia with an escorted colony ship. A fine addition to their growing empire that puts them uncomfortably close to my worlds.

The Darloks immediately send their escorts out towards some of my worlds. At this point in the tech tree I can't tell if they are heading towards Ukko and Vulcan or to the uncolonized worlds past them. Since I know if they can get into orbit around my undefended worlds they will try to invade I quickly order up some popcorn fighters for defense.

2346 - Found Laan. This puts me into contact with the Humans. Humans have also colonized Nobas, the middle green star. I dispatch some LR Lasers to Proteus, the rightmost green star.


2350 - I found Beta Ceti, chase away a Darlok scout on Proteus. I immediately order up a Colony2 for Proteus. The popcorn fighters turned out to be unnecessary as the Darlok ships fly past my worlds.

2351 - I chase away a Psilon scout from Proteus. Popular place.

2356 - Colony2 is finished and dispatched to Proteus. I order up some more LR Lasers to send to Tau Cygni.

2370 - First council vote. It's the Humans versus Darloks. Everyone except the Humans and Darloks abstain, including myself.

2373 - Improved Industrial 8 tech pops, which means I can now cram extended fuel cells into a large hull with a colony base. I order up a Colony3 and put Sssla to work on one.

2375 - Second council vote, which goes more or less like the first one.

2376 - Colony3 is completed, and dispatched to Tau Cygni. I fitted the ship with Nuclear Engines which turn out to not so useful as it has to fly through a Nebula to get to Tau Cygni. Oh well.

2381 - Psilons arrive at Tau Cygni with a Colony Ship sporting some spiffy Ion Cannons and a Heavy Blast Cannon, just beating my ship by 2 turns. Despite my pilot's best efforts, the four LR Lasers I have stationed there are no match for this kind of advanced tech and the Psilon's nab themselves Tau Cygni.

This effectively ends the colonization stage of this game for me, as there are effectively no unclaimed worlds left that I can colonize beyond the six worlds I now control. At this point to expand I'll have to go through someone else. This will probably have be the Humans with their two juicy green worlds below Laan. I could battle the Psilons for Tau Cygni but that would require some range tech. While I share most of my border with the Darlok empire there are no border green worlds under their control that I could grab from them, so no point in picking a fight with them.

At this point in the game I decide to build up my worlds and get me some tech for the eventual fight.

2391 - The Psilons now have 12 worlds according to GNN. This is not a good sign.


2394 - The Darloks get the merchant event.

2400 - Third council vote, and I'm in versus the Darloks. No one votes for me, but no one particularly likes the idea of the shapeshifters ruling the galaxy either.

Around this time, I notice that the Psilons, Humans, and Darloks all have managed to ally with each other. This is a bit worrisome as I could get dogpiled if I go to war with any one of them and they call upon their alliance. Especially since I'd probably be attacking the very diplomatic Humans.

As an aside, this happened during the Darlok/Psilon alliance:

Probably due to Retro-engined powered transports finally reaching their destination long after the alliance had been forged. Those AI can be so silly!

Around this time I've started on my fleet. I have two medium designs, one a gunner with neutron pellet guns, and the second a bomber with fusion bombs. I'm building them at about a 1:2 ratio of gunners to bombers, and gathering them up at Laan.

Unfortunately, the humans have their master fleet parked at Nobas, and they aren't moving it, and it keeps on growing.

I'd much rather deal with that fleet on my turf instead of theirs.

2418 - The Darloks start probing my defences, starting at Ukko. Their ships are space junk with Lasers and Gatling Lasers and they retreat them as they are no match for my Class V shield.

2419 - Soil Enrichment pops. Yay! I decide it's time to maybe start something with the humans. I turn up my spying and lets see what happens.

2420 - My spies make quick work of the Human's defense network. I generally always go for computers if available while spying so I nab ECM Jammer I. The humans warn me.

2421 - My spies get in again, and I go for computers again. This time I get ECM Jammer II, and it's war!


2425 - The council meets again. This time it's the Darloks versus the Psilons, and as the usual case with AI vs. AI there is no winner.

2426 - My spies strike again, and since I've picked the Human's computer tree clean I decide to see what the galactic propulsion experts have been up to and pick propulsion. This nets me Sublight drives (yay!). My scientists come up with Range 7 tech the same turn. Normally this would mean a redesign of my fleet, however, after checking my research screen and seeing that weapons, computers, force fields, and construction are nearing a breakthrough I decide to stick with the old designs a few more turns.

2427 - The Darloks join in the fun. So far the human fleet has not budged from Nobas, so I send my master fleet to the Darlok world of Nordia for some, uhh, practice. I also order a few bombers at Vulcan and send them to Nitzer (which is under Darlok control and is undefended) just to be annoying.

2428 - The Bulrathi's draw up the plague event.

2430 - My fleet arrives at Nordia, and makes quick work of the Darlok defenses. I steal Irridium fuel cells from the humans, and put the blame on the Psilons.

My techs have popped and I update my designs. Same basic designs, just with upgraded engines and shields. The Gunner2 also gets a battle computer.

2431 - Nordia is glassed. I send my master fleet to Kronos for some more practice.

2432 - The Human's master fleet is on it's way to Laan. My fleet won't be able to make it in time, but Laan has a Class V planetary shield and several missile bases, plus what new ships that have been built since I started my campaign against the Darloks. It's a sizable fleet, but I'm not too worried. I turn up the defense budget to get a few more bases in, just in case.


2435 - I steal Hydrogen Fuel cells from the humans. Oh, and that fleet the humans sent to Laan? They are NOT messing around.

Luckily for me, that except for the two designs with the 2c missles, they don't have anything that can attack my defending ships. So the good news is that I'll win the fight as they'll have no choice but retreat from neutron pellet equipped ships. But they decide to empty their entire payload on my poor planet first, while I can only pick away at their fleet. Laan survives, but all my missle bases are destroyed and they did some damage to population, ecology, and factories in the process.

2436 - The humans ask for peace. I agree as I have some rebuilding to do.

2438 - The Bulrathi cure their plague problem.

2439 - The Psilons now have 18 systems according to GNN. This is partially my fault, as they have been following my fleet around with colony ships picking up the ex-Darlok worlds that I've glassed. This is not good.

2441 - I glass Nitzer. The Psilons promptly chase away my small fleet and get #19.

2446 - I get a spy success against the Humans again. Oops, did I forget to turn off espionage? I nab Class X Planetary Shields, which puts me at war again. I go to work at building the new shields.

2449 - Humans make a move at Sssla. With my newly built Class X shield I turn them away.

2450. The council meets again, and I'm in? It's me versus the Psilons, and between the Psilon's large empire and the fact I've I'm not exactly on good terms with the AI #2 and AI #3 means I'm not in a good position, and I don't have nearly enough votes to block what's coming.


That's pretty much all she wrote. I played for a few more turns, but with everyone now in possession of the Psilon's tech I was way behind (the next time the Darloks probed my defenses they had upgraded from lasers straight to Megabolt cannons). I threw my master fleet at Nobas to see what happened and and I knocked out two missile bases (out of about 13) before they shredded my fleet. The game may still have been winnable (it was only average difficulty) but I've never actually gotten very far in a final war situation.

Anyhow, here's some thoughts on what I should have done differently:
1. Be more aggressive in the colonization stage. I probably could have gotten two out of the three green worlds that were within range, and maybe all three. That would probably have been another 50% population in my empire.
2. Don't glass planets that I can't colonize just because I can - I should be mindful of who might pick them up. The Psilons had three additional worlds that would have been less harmful in the hands of the Darloks.
3. Not be scared of the Human's master fleet and attack. Granted, I didn't know their designs were all bombers at the time but I could have thrown a battle scanner into a quick design and checked them out.
4. Alternatively, I could have just turtled a bit and attacked a bit later. There is also the possibility that the Psilons could have started stepping on other AI's toes and I could have clenched the "not that guy" cheesy council win instead of the Psilons. This is exactly how I managed my second ever impossible game win, as the Sakkras in a galaxy with the the Psilons as the #1 AI, without firing a single shot the entire game. So there's precedent.

Anyway, it was fun and thanks to RefSteel for the work he put into this. I look forward to trying again in the next Imperium!

FLAVOR:

So, I've had a game called The Resistance for a while now in real life, it's a social deduction game similar to Werewolf. I've wanted to share it on here before, but it really doesn't translate well to playing how we do our Werewolf games.

Until today, where I found an IRC channel setup with a bot specifically to play this game. I've played a few games on there today, and it's gone very well, so I want to share that here for anyone else that might want to play.

Game Summary:

GAME SETUP: When the game starts, everyone will be assigned to be a member of the Resistance (Village) or a Spy (Wolf). If you are a Spy, it will also tell you who the other Spies are. The number of Spies is dependent on the total number of players. (5 & 6 players: 2 spies; 7 - 9 players: 3 spies; 10 players: 4 spies).

HOW TO WIN: There will be up to 5 Missions. If you are a member of the Resistance, you and the rest of the Resistance will win if 3 Missions Pass. If you are a Spy, you and the other Spies will win if 3 Missions Fail. The game is over as soon as one of those conditions is met. There is another win condition for the Spies, explained below.

HOW TO PLAY: The Team Leader for the round will Propose a Team to go on the Mission. The Team size changes from Mission to Mission, and Team sizes for the game are dependent on the number of players. Everyone then Votes whether they want to approve the Proposed Team to go on the Mission or not. Votes are made in secret, but how players Voted will be publicly revealed after all Votes are in. This is a majority Vote, and a tie means the Proposed Team will not go on the Mission.

List of team sizes per mission by # of players:

Hello, I just picked up moo1+2 from the gog.com sale this weekend. I played a bit of MoO2 over a decade ago, but am interested in learning MoO1. I was wondering if there are any other new people around. I've tried to do some reading before I get started but I'm sure there will be questions.

I was thinking of starting off really easy like psilon on easy in a medium galaxy. What would you suggest? I looked at the exploits sticky and will try to avoid them and to not save scum.