Ahoy, there. I have been lurking these fora since September, and actually joined last month. I was not ever expecting to play in an Adventure or Epic, as I have yet to master Prince difficulty without crazy variants. But when I saw Sullla post this adventure I thought, "Hey, maybe I can have my dreadful debacle become legendary foddor for jokes years from now!" And from that came this report.

I have never posted a report before, obviously, so if I did something wrong please tell me. As of this posting, there are no pictures, but if I decide to get off my lazy bum and set up a photobucket account, there might be. If you don't give a crap about the journey, just skip straight the the section titled "Reflections".

Thoughts on the game:
The main doozy for this game is that you cannot build tile improvements. This means workers are essentially useless except for chopping jungles; chopping forests doesn't seem worth the permanent -1 in production. This variant is actually pretty suited for me though, as I consistently suck at worker micromanagement anyway! Also, as a side effect, early religion becomes much more attractive without the need for early worker techs.

I decided pretty early on while thinking about this game that I wouldn't try to do an early attack on the AIs. Why? Because they can build tile improvements, and consequently can best be attacked mid-way into the game or later for a good amount of land improvement. So I came up with a preliminary plan:
1. Go Polytheism->Preisthood, snagging Hinduism along the way.
2. Oracle Aesthetics, then go Literature for Great Library.
3. 1st great person will either be a scientist or a prophet; scientist=early academy, prophet=early shrine, either of which will help my research.
4. Expand and turtle, defending with hwachas+longbows.
5. Tech along the Paper-Edu-Lib line; this is useful because
-Paper allows me to build University of Sankore, which jives with my religious buildings and boosts the tech rate.
-Edu allows me to build Seowans [and Oxford in my academy city], which even further boosts my tech rate.
-Lib allows me to get Nationalism, for drafting... [foreboding laugh]

After this, I wanted to draft out an advanced army and eat an AI. But... rifles or grenadiers/cannon? I selected the latter, because Printing Press/Replaceable Parts will matter less because I cannot choose my improvements. As for ultimate victory, I was unsure. Culture and Time were already both pretty much out, and Conquest isn't really my style. This left Domination/Backdoor Domination [okay, technically known as the U.N.], which I could feasibly accomplish with my technologically advanced position, and Space, which I would probably have the tech lead and land to do pretty easily. I decided to decide later, as I had already planned and speculated enough. Now, I was to see how much I could screw my plan up!

What Actually Happened:
I scouted around a bit with the warrior and settler [those roads were a massive help], and decided that it wasn't worth giving up those grassland cottages for a silk, so I settled in place, naming my cap Alpha. My plan began to fall apart right away. Hinduism was founded on TURN 5 [!], so I [in a fit of weed] tried to research Meditation, and predictably, Buddhism was founded midway through researching the tech. Surprise, surprise. I finished Polytheism and researched Priesthood while cranking out a settler for a city 1 W of the city ruins in the NW, which I named Beta [I have such creative naming themes]. After that, I made a run at Judaism, which I fortunately landed.

By this time I had found Charlemagne to my west and discovered with the aid of roads that I was pretty much on a peninsula. Knowing that Charlemagne expands like an explosion, I began to engage in Operation:Expand-West-Aggressively. I realized this was going to tick him off a little, but I was already planning to make him a Jew because the only other AIs I'd met were Buddhist [Justinian] and Hindu [Brennus].

The game continues pretty smoothly for a while... Charlemagne converts, I oracle Aesthetics and build the Great Library successfully [I also build the Parthenon, just for kicks]. I do have some issues with road-traveling barbs, but nothing major happens. My first Great Person is a Scientist, at only ~10% odds; I use him for an academy in Alpha.

Then, on Turn 78, Brennus and Asoka up and declare war on me! Asoka doesn't send a stack in [they're both Hindu, so he was probably bribed], but Brennus sends a mini-stack of 3 gallic warriors and two axeman at my city Gamma, which I placed 1 E of the marble by the lake to the SW. The city is defended by... 1 warrior. I rush out two archers, but to no avail. I send all my spare forces to gather at my city Delta [4 W of Alpha], and I bribe Charlemagne into war with Brennus for Alphabet; that pretty much cut Brennus off from me completely, though Charlemagne refused to close borders with Asoka. So I whipped out some axeman and some hwacha, and that was that. Charlemagne apparently took the brunt of the combat, as I saw one city change hands a few times.

Now... at this point I decided to take a break and unfortunately, one thing led to another and soon several weeks had past. I only had three days to play the game, so I became a bit rushed but... my planning skillz were never excelsior anyway. The worse thing was that I had no idea at all whatsoever what I had been doing; it was like playing a succession game with myself. So I regrouped and decided to assess my situation.

It was not that good. I was in the middle of the pack in most categories, although I was pretty good in GNP and had a tech lead on all AIs... EXCEPT for Justinian, who was somehow kicking everyone's asses in everything! And I did not even know where he was. Expansion in the near future would be difficult, as except for one filler city north and one city east of the cap I had no more room; Charlemagne took it all [and I wasn't about to backstab my only ally]. At this point, decided that my lib/nationalism beeline would need take on a new importance; why? Because at this point it was obvious I could not out-tech or out-build the AI; I needed to kill and conquer [and some AI-improved land would be nice, mwa-ha]. I could not decide who to attack, because I had not been good about scouting that much outside my borders. Paper would help me with that. First, unfortunately, I would have to get Civil Service for Buraucracy, and Feudalism for Longbows, and some other basic techs... but then, straight to Liberalism, I swear!

However, twas not to be so easy. For a scouting axeman noticed several Byzantine units trickling up towards Gamma [in the meantime, I found Justinian in the south... in a spot that would be relatively easy to expand into... hmm...]. I also discovered a Celtic assault division moving up [I had made peace with Asoka, but was still at war with Brennus], although it seemed to be heading towards Charlemagne. Sure enough, next turn [200 BC] Justinian declared, and moved his mighty stack into play... a chariot and a sword. Against my four axes, and one spear, hwacha, and archer each, I was underwhelmed. However, I did know that more units would be coming through [I tried to get Charlemagne to cancel deals in order to have some Screwy Teleporter Fun [TM], but apparently Cautious relations are enough to be a close friend of Charlemagne's].

And then nothing much happens... I have fun with Justinian's warrior that snuck behind my lines a millennium ago and manages to kill a worker AND a missionary because I don't notice that it is woody II... Brennus refuses to take peace [he wants Gamma] and Justinian refuses to talk at all... I found my seventh and eighth cities, making me have the highest city count [except maybe for Justinian]... I realize that I never met the sixth AI [right now I only know Brennameister, Asok, Justinian, Charlie, and Ramesses]... But all is not well in the world...

That Celtic mini-stack I saw in the south earlier must have had back-up, because it tore through two of Charlemagne's cities... straight towards me! In response, I crank up the hwachas from Beta [which has built the Heroic Epic in the meantime], and slave out some L-bows. Apparently, though, the Celts decide to do... nothing, because I don't see anymore combat units than a random Horse Archer. In other new, most people would die for a Great Scientist over a Prophet... but after my FOURTH scientist in my cap [which has National Epic], I kind of get desperate for a prophet to use for the Jewish shrine and hire a priest. Meanwhile, I finally manage to get a map trade with Charlie and discover that I own significantly more land compared to the AIs than I previously thought [also, the sixth AI is on another landmass?! Is this a Terra map?]... things are looking up!

Justinian sends out another mini-stack, of mostly mounted units; I have a bit of trouble taking it out with my force of mostly axes, but it works out. I manage to build University of Sankore, speeding my path towards Edu... And after that, I saved a scientist special for bulbing Liberalism, only to find that he wants to discover the wonders of compasses. Oh well, that is what Golden Ages are for... [just in time for Seowan production, yeah!]

At this point, I am doing _significantly_ better. I am top in pop, land, GNP, production, and food, although my GA somewhat inflates this. I have a fairly good tech lead on the AIs, with the only major hole in my tech tree being Metal Casting/Machinery/Engineering, while the AIs lack lib-enabling techs. Then I look at the year. IT IS ONLY 375 AD! It looks like those pre-built improvements really screwed everything up. Oh, and I also finally get a Prophet, building the shrine for a cool 12 or so gpt [geez, looks like Charlemagne didn't bother to spread Judaism about at all].

Not much happens for a bit... I crank out Ankor Wat, kill some piecemeal Justinian/Brennus units [I would make peace, but both ask for ridiculous terms]. I also discover the Lost Island Of The Barbs, with FOUR warriors on one tile alone, many more walking around. In BS news, a Celtic war elephant attacks a fortified Combat II spear, and DOESN'T EVEN TAKE A SCRATCH! Oh, and I crank out the Taj for another Golden Age, while beelining towards MilScience/Steel...

I finally get Justinian to make peace and give me 20 gold, so I decide to put together a small task force to take back some of Charlemagne's cities from Brennus [and not give them back, natch]. In the meanwhile, the Apostolic Palace causes Asoka and Ramesses to close borders, hurting my economy... but by that time I am 1 turn from discovering Steel, and researching MilScience should take only 6 turns. I upgrade one City Raider II trebuchet to a cannon, but somehow it gets killed by a cat and a crossbow. Oh well. I manage to take the Celtic city of Vienne [right on the borders of Gamma], but I am quickly forced to retreat after another stack shows up to kill my ragtag survivors.

MilScience is discovered, and I go to draft out an army of grenadiers... and discover that that is physically impossible. After smacking my head, I begin the fest o' whippin. Brennus sends a stack at me, which I shred with cannons, and Ramesses and Asoka DOW Charlemagne, probably due to the AP. I finally begin to gather a sizable force, and press forward into Brennus [who, notably, I have been at war with continuously from 950 BCE, when it is currently 1100 AD]. Charlemagne comes asking for my support against the Evil Indians, and I agree, since I was already planning on attacking that region. The more, the merrier!

Vienne falls without a stumble, while Charlemagne captures one of his other cities, causing Brennus and Charlie to make peace. I almost immediately move my forces in on an isolated Indian city on the east coast, and on Brennus's next city to the south. Unfortunately, 1 tile away from the Indian city, due to a misclick in the AP voting I make peace with Asoka [meant to defy resolution, argh]. At least this lets me press further on into Justinian. Speaking of which, just 2 turns later, Justinian DOWs Brennus... and captures a city from under me. You know what this means.

Summary of the war effort for the next few turns: I grind through the AI. Interesting side note: when I capture the city Nuremburg, I notice it has FIVE different nationalities in it: the HRE founded it, the Celts captured it, the Indians culturally sandwiched it, the Byzantines conquered it, and then so did the Koreans [huzzah!]. All the while, I was building banks and other infrastructure in my cities as I teched... Rifling. I WAS going to utilize the draft. So my plan, as my grenadier-cannon army marched through Byzantium, was to draft out a bunch of rifles while building cannon, and use it against India. Then disaster strikes: my new city Nuremburg is surrounded by Indian culture, cutting it and the rest of my army off! And my peace treaty with India doesn't expire for several turns. Blarg.

Just so you know: as far as my enemies go, Asoka is the most dangerous, with the best economy and tech. Brennus and Justinian are okay tech-wise, but caught up in wars with each other [and me]. Same with Ramesses and Charlie. And I still haven't even met the last AI, who is probably crippled from isolation. However, 1 turn later I get a fantastic deal for peace with Brennus [The 2170 year war is over!] and discover via his world map that there is another island, with Hammurabi on it! There also appear to be several other landmasses, but I think I can get some sort of Domination simply by killing India, Celtia, and Byzantium.

Things then promptly take a turn for the worst. Justinian slams my stacks in the south with cataphracts and trebs, and I have no choice but to withdraw. There is still no way to get down reinforcements because of stupid Indian border.

Finally, when the treaty ends, I swoop into action! A detachment marches on the isolated city while I gather rifles to push into the Indian core. And in the meanwhile, Hammurabi manages to get a caravel to me; he has Optics despite not knowing basic techs like Calender or Code of Laws! Techwise, I decided to go to Communism for State Property, though it would hurt to lose out on the Great Library and all the monestaries. However, after I got SciMethod and looked at my oil spots, I realized there WAS NO WAY TO CONNECT THEM! My dreams of tanks were ruined, and I realized Domination might not be so easy. But I had another option: Charlemagne would certainly vote for me in the U.N., so I still had a chance if I conquered fast enough. On the southern front, however, it was not going spectacular; Justinian kept sending stacks of cataphracts at me, and Asoka's first core city was a slog; it took three turns total to bombard the defenses and kill everyone inside. Since India had contemporary units, and a lot of them, I elected to make peace and focus on Byzantium for now. The Celts would also be a target, but not yet.

After some skirmishing and conquering, I notice something bad: the Byzantines discovered Rifling, which would stall my advance seriously. I resolved to take Constantinople [settled near the floodplains] in order to turn the front with Byzantium into a one-city one, and then turn towards Brennus, who had neither rifles or grenadiers.

My plan was executed flawlessly [not counting the several mis-clicks and mistakes I made, along with the inherent flaws in my plan], and by 1500 AD I was at peace with everyone for the first time since... 985 BCE! My first period of war was finally over, and after it, I was top of score, soldiers, pop, territory, GNP, production, and food. I was going to win this game barring some cataclysmic event, so now I just had to rush it to the finish [I say rush, because this was only a couple of hours before I was supposed to leave on vacation]. First, I planned to take several Celtic border cities to consolidate my hold on the area; then, I would finish off the Byzantine scum. The Celts would follow, and finally, I would sweep north and kill India. Simultaneously, I would research up to infantry and artillery to maintain my military advantage, and then go for the U.N. I expect Asoka to be my opponent, and thus I hope that Charlie and I can elect myself the winner of the game with Justinian's and Brennus's population before I am forced to kill India.

Of course, the turn after I DOW on Brennus, Asoka does the same to me. I retreat from the captured city to regroup for a counter-attack against his stack of mostly cuirassiers and grenadiers. Of course, I forgot about the idiotic “re-pop all your defenses and borders” feature, so this becomes more difficult than I thought. After some back-and-forth, I finally take a few border cities on both ends, and make peace. In order to slow Asoka [who is researching Steel] and prevent him from DOWing me again, I get Charlemagne [who just made peace with Ramesses after reducing him to one random island city] to attack India, while I go to finish off the Byzantines. Hopefully, this will largely be done by the time I finish research on Assembly Line, allowing for a massive troop upgrade.

Sure enough, I take Justinian's cap and one of his border cities, and then do a massive upgrade before making another push. Then I notice a galleon... which he loads a settler onto and sails off. I take a look at his city count and realize that Justinian already has one city on the island to the west, and is building more. Gah, those islands are making getting the land count high enough a pain. Oh, and somehow despite his tech advantage Asoka is getting annihilated by Charlemagne, which means that Charlie will be my opponent in the U.N. Great.

With the help of infantry and a dozen cannon, Justinian's core fell quickly, and he was left with only two cities on the island; I made peace, and prepared to destroy Brennus, which I did. Mid-way through the campaign I even began upgrading my cannons to artillery, and soon enough the Celtic core had fallen. Of course, Brennus somehow managed to escape to an island somewhere, so I had to make peace with him, too.

India, all of its forces dead or tied up in Holy Roman lands, was a cakewalk, and I even eliminated Ramesses [trapped in a desert city with a single rifle] while I was at it. And then I discovered a miracle: it was Hammurabi, with his vast island cities, who was the U.N. opponent! Plus, it turned out that I had some 70% of the world population and could vote myself victor anyway; I was sure to win with Charlemagne's extra ~10%!

So I made peace with India after taking the last core city [he was now stranded on an island, too], and rushed towards Mass Media, cranked out the U.N., elected myself secretary [and it was something like ~590 votes out of ~670!], and...

...

There is NO OPTION TO HOLD A DIPLO VICTORY VOTE.
I don't know why, but the option DID NOT SHOW UP, even after I had an oppurtunity for a resolution FIVE DIFFERENT TIMES!
Suffice to say, I was pretty pissed, and since my vacation beckoned, I gave up on the whole thing. So there you have it: had the game not prevented me, I would have won a Diplomatic Victory in 1830. However, I technically never finished the game, so I will leave it up to the sponsor as to how my game will be sorted.

Reflections:
This game was actually a lot of fun, despite the stupid lack-of-a-victory at the end. I enjoyed liberation from constantly having to move around workers and build improvements, as it allowed me to focus more on warfare. That said, I actually got quite a lot of use out of the one random worker I built, as he chopped some 6 or 7 forests I couldn't work anyway. This game taught me quite a lot on industrial warfare, as I had to conquer several enemies with near-equal units.

The map itself was pretty interesting. The number of religious zealots [Asoka, Charlemagne, Brennus, and Justinian] all made it difficult for my religious plan to work [as I suspect it was planned], and it lead to very interesting diplomacy in my game, with several small blocks forming: the Buddhists [Justinian], the Confucists [Ramesses], the Hindus [Asoka and Brennus], and the Jews [Me and Charlemagne]. Hammurabi kind of just floated around irelevently, converting the Christianity eventually [I think?]; I never really paid attention to him, as he was to far behind in tech to matter to me. That said, the worst part of the map, in my opinion, was all the extra landmasses hanging about. They could never really be leveraged by the player because of their unimproved state, and consequently simply existed to give the AIs a refuge and raise the land count [I suppose one could wait until the AI developed the land and then took it, but that could only have occured very late in the game]. I could have easily won a Domination victory without those landmasses.

On my decision-making and play in general in this game, I actually did better then I was expecting. After the flubbed-beginning, I managed to do quite well, and had the game essentially won by 1500 [a first for me on Prince]. My best decision, easily, in the entire game, was to convert Charlemagne. It secured my western flank forever, so that I only ever needed a military presence in the southwest, and Charlemagne took a lot of the beating that would have otherwise been directed at me. He was at war for me almost continuously ever since that fateful first war with Brennus and Asoka; he attacked Brennus, and eventually Asoka, and eventually Ramesses, on-and-off the whole game [I think he was even at war with all three, for quite some time]. Of course, this prevented me from ever having a tech partner, which slowed me considerably, but it was definitely worth it. Frankly, I fail to see how India failed to destroy Holy Rome, as for quite some time Asoka had a secured south via fellow Hindu Brennus, and had large amounts of cuirassiers to fight Charlemagne's macemen and longbows. The only time India ever came close to a major victory was near the end of the game when their cavalry and trebuchets marched right up to the HRE cap [Berlin], which was still defended by longbows; however, I had a number of infantry in the area who destroyed the stack. This was because, due to pillaging barbs in the earlier years, Charlemagne had a MUCH better road network than I did, and so many of my units went through him. Pillaging was actually one of the biggest problems I had in this game; barbs or enemies would come out of the fog all of a sudden on the pre-existing roads and pillage my improvements, with nothing I could do to stop them. So my roads in the west eventually came to be single lines of roads, guarded preciously by my sentries. Ultimately, I atribute my success in the wars that plagued this game to the fact that I always had a stream of units funneling south from my cities Alpha [the cap], Beta [Heroic Epic/Wall Street for Jewish Shrine], and Eta [a city 1N from the southeast corner with Moai/Ironworks] producing cannon and grenadiers [and later infantry and artillery] for literally the entire rest of the game as soon as I discovered Steel.

So anyway, that was my game! I suspect that many of the more experienced players easily have done better [I have not read any other reports yet], considering even an inexperienced player like myself could get to Liberalism around 500 AD [I don't remember the exact date, but I know it was Turn 136]. Here are some brief stats:

Victory: Somewhat [see my note above]
Victory Type If I Had Won: Diplomatic
Theoretical Victory Date: 1830
Number Of Cities: 32 [8 self-founded, 1 barb-founded, 2 HRE-founded, 8 Indian-founded, 1 Egyptian-founded, 5 Celtic-founded, and 7 Byzantine-founded]
Enemies Defeated: Ramesses
Enemies Exiled To Offshore Islands: Justinian, Asoka, Brennus
Most Awesome Unit Ever: Combat II, City Raider II, Pinch Rifleman [KIA in the India Campaign]
Runner-Up: Medic Explorer [KIA in the India Campaign; stupid mis-clicks!]
My Rating Of This Variant: Pretty cool! It made the game significantly easier, but I definitely thought that it made things interesting.

Thanks for reading to the end!
And if anyone could shed some light as to why I was unable to select a Diplo victory option, I would be most grateful.

Adventure 46 is now open for reporting. Please post reports in the Tournament Discussions subforum.

Don't know if this was already mentioned by someone...

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=361727

Sorry I'm late again, I'm pretty bad at this. I don't really have time right now to do a full report, but I'll post a few notes and my score.

I started out by playing a few impossible games with the same settings as the Sakkra, just to see if I might have a chance at winning without using any reserves. I haven't played much with the lizards before. I lost a few very quickly, but eventually won a game... but not easily enough to think I could have done it without reserves. So, I decided that I would put reserves into my homeworld on turn 0 and go from there. It ended up making the game pretty easy; it could have turned hard at any time if the Klackons had turned on me (though my defenses were developed well enough after the expansion phase that I'm pretty sure I still could have won if they attacked later than that. But I allied with them very early, and despite their erratic trait, we remained allied the entire game, down to the final vote in 2500.

I expanded as much as I could as quickly as possible, the speed of which almost rivaled impossible AI expansion thanks to the favorable map and doubled production of Hoard. I got to 12 planets before anyone else, in 2366, and already had over 1/3 of the votes. I should have started swallowing up the cats and shifters soon after, but as usual I dilly dallied and waited a while to build up my military. I forgot to take a screen shot of my 2400 reserves, but I had not intentionally put anything into them and was only up to 9800489 BC. I finally start attacking in 2425 or so, and have basically eliminated the Mrrshan, Darloks, and Meklar (leaving them each with one world) by 2485. IT +100 comes in at this point, locking down my victory in 2500 for sure. I'm still not really paying attention, though, and it's not until 2497 that I really buckle down and scrap all my ships, bases, and stop spying and put everything into reserves. My last time I could check reserves before winning was 2499, where I was only up to 9960828 BC, not very impressive. I did a poor job of putting more reserves in because I was focusing a little too much on winning more. I could have gone a lot easier on ships and research at the end of the game.

So, my final score was 19761317. Not too great, but could have been worse.

[EDIT: The full report is now posted in the usual spot! [EDIT 2: Uhhhh ... the site itself IS fully updated to reflect the report's presence, and has been for weeks, but I neglected to update that information here for approximately ever. Also: Thanks for the compliments, Seyar!] ]

I'm still putting the pieces together in my attempt to restore my computer to full functionality, though (so far) the results look promising. I'll get a full report up when I'm able to do so, but in the meantime, since I doubt I'll manage that by Thursday, here's a summary of my own results, along with some notes from the sponsor:

Result:
Extermination Victory, 2551

Score:
Treasury at 2400: 10000126
Treasury at 2500: 10004597
Final Treasury: 10013043
TOTAL: 10000126 (2400) + 10004597 (2500 < Final) = 20,004,723

That number is certainly beatable - I made a number of important mistakes in my game - but this definitely had the potential to be a difficult galaxy for an Impossible game, especially with a "variant rule" that makes things a lot harder than it might at first appear. Adding a click of reserves to the homeworld on turn 0 would change the entire complexion of the game, reducing the effective difficulty level significantly, especially if the reserve was used at other worlds as well later on. It would be a little difficult to judge the actual difficulty from my game however; I can't wait to finally be able to post my full report (for which this is a placeholder) and show you what I was up against!

Just a teaser: I lost track (I'll have to count them up) of the number of times my colonies were conquered or destroyed. I don't think even one of my planets escaped without combat losses to civillian population. I think I only had three planets in the whole course of the game that were never glassed or made into alien colonies. There were two different occasions when I had to stop playing for the night just to take some time away from the game and think about how to respond to a seemingly-unbeatable alien threat. I was even tempted on at least one occasion to spend reserves from the treasury. I never did, of course, and somehow managed to nevertheless win the game.

On the scoring system: I've been a bit enamored of the idea of running games that can be equally fun for grizzled veterans and newcomers to the game, with scoring-based optional variants for the vets, and the option for those who don't feel comfortable at the same difficulty to play an easier, lower-scoring or unscored-by-choice game. The reality is though that newer players are probably less motivated to play a scored game where their score (reported or otherwise) is pretty much guaranteed to be much lower than other participants', and this means that probably everyone either tried to play the game without reserve spending or decided, "I won't win this one without spending anything from the treasury, so I'll pass on this one."
In any case, I think I've learned my lesson, though somewhat belatedly. From here out, scoring will be scoring, variant rules will be variant rules, and they won't masquerade as one another. That's the plan at least.

There was another scoring issue too: If you could survive through 2500 with a good score, you could technically spend scads of reserves all over the empire in 2501, soon enough take an overwhelming lead with your severely boosted production, wipe out the entire galaxy except for a single small planet for a single alien race, build enough missile bases to not care what they build for a fleet, research up through Complete Terraforming and IRC7 (or whatever the best in our tree was - I only got as far as RC5 myself, if I remember correctly) and then just pour everything into reserves for a zillion turns unitl you were back above your 2500 level. I assume nobody tried this anyway because it would be pretty silly, but it IS a loophole in the system.

FINALLY: Did I mention that this wasn't an easy galaxy? Our erratic Klackon neighbors had plenty of room to expand, and we were hemmed in by them to one side, and a pair of xenophobic militarists on the other. Our own part of the galaxy was pretty solid, but infested with nebulae that slowed rapid-response defense fleets and prevented Anraq from shielding its bases. Our lack of early range tech led to further troubles, as it so often does. All that, and the game was on Impossible difficulty, with a de-facto variant that's more significant than it seems. I don't think this is a BAD thing - it's good to have *some* really challenging Imperium games. Nevertheless, unless I hear a clamor for another major challenge right away, the next game I sponsor will be much less difficult to win. (No promises for the next one after that though!)

I started this one at almost a month ago, took a long break, and only finished it today. It was a grind. It soon became apparent that my plans to build a mighty empire and grow the dragon-emperor's hoard had to be scrapped in favor of a less ambitious “not getting exterminated” plan. I was so busy executing the revised plan that I couldn't be bothered to take a lot of screenshots.

Early expansion went well. I grabbed some decent planets around the homeworld and everything looked good. Then a huge Klackon empire (Erratic, Technologist) showed up in the south, and I was too intimidated to challenge them when they colonized nearby planets I had my eye on, including Maalor, a rich barren world.

My first war was with the Meklar. I had no chance at beating them in space. Still. Sakkra... I started hurling ground forces at their closest planet.

“When in doubt, throw more warriors at the enemy. It's not like we'll run out.” -- Famous Sakkra general.

(2364)

My luck wasn't quite as bad as in the previous Imperium game, where a generation of Bulratrhi died by Mrrshan lasers without ever coming to grips with the enemy. However, I never managed to conquer Iranha in that war. 8 million meklar left at the end of the battle. 1 million Meklar left. 3 million Meklar left... In short, I'd kill most of the Meklar, and they'd send more just in time to face the next invasion force to get through. In the end the war sort of fizzled out with no gains on either side. (Though I think they razed one of my planets, forcing me to resettle and rebuild.)

For the rest of the game I got into wars with everyone at some point or another, but my main enemy bar none was the Klackon.


(2448 )


They almost wiped me out twice. I had no chance whatsoever against their fleets. My missile bases barely scratched their paint. My planetary shields might as well have been wet toilet paper. At one point I was down to a single fully developed planet.

I only survived thanks to stubborn resettlement of scorched planets, bribes, grovelling, foul treachery, and merciless application of bioweapons (codename: “foggers”). I though I had them for while when I got the tech to put death spores on Small ships, but they got hold of the antidote before my fleet was sufficiently large to launch an attack. In the end I managed to crack a few of their planets with doom virus armed Medium ships. They resettled. I sent invasion forces. I stole a lot of tech. The last Klackon worlds fell to swarms of Small ships, each with two doom virus bombs. After that the senate vote was a cakewalk.


(2624)

Score:
10 000 405 (2400) + 9 993 416 (2500) = 19 993 821

I never transferred any money from the treasury, but some peace offers were just too tempting and I agreed to give the AI money. Somehow I don't think this is the best score.

Quote:To be successful, keep looking tanned, live in an elegant building (even if you're in the cellar), be seen in smart restaurants (even if you only nurse one drink) and if you borrow, borrow big.
--- Aristoteles Onassis

My web server is down right now, so no full report or pictures uploaded until that gets fixed. And it's just about midnight, so here is a report with the highlights. This was pretty much the Klackon Show from turn one.

I did not touch the planetary reserve all game, in keeping with the theme. I play enough vanilla Impossible games that I wanted the extra challenge, and I got it, all right!

I founded early colonies at Rigel, Reticuli, Anraq, Mu Delphi (the Terran 100 to the left) and Beta Ceti (the Terran 100 to the right). I teched LR large hull colships with RIW 80%, IER, IT+20 and nuclear engines.

I made two of the LR colships, one for Beta Ceti and one for Exis (the Arid 70 in the south). The Erratic Klackons, however, beat me to Exis in 2361, with my colship just two turns away. They already had nine planets. This established contact with the bugs -- they had range 6; I traded on contact for both Controlled Barren and range 5 (giving warp 2 and RIW 80%). This immediately gave me the technology for settling Rich Maalor and Iranha (in the east). The range also got me in contact with the Meklars, who were running a two planet empire in the east.

The colony at Beta Ceti introduced me to the Darloks; I traded warp 2 for hand lasers to skip the first weapons tier.

I successfully founded both Maalor and Iranha, finishing the early landgrab.

The next few decades were dedicated to improving my tech situation; I quickly researched ECM I, traded for BC 2, and stole BC 3 from the bugs. ECM 2 came in 2378, Personal Deflectors in 2379, and Toxic and NPG in 2380. Stole Duralloy from bots and researched warp 3 in 2383. Stole ISS from the bugs in 2389. The same turn, I met the cats, and gave them Nuclear Engines for Deep Space Scanner.

The pivotal point of the game came in 2390 -- 2390, mind you -- when my spies lifted Advanced Soil Enrichment -- that's Advanced Soil Enrichment -- from the Klackons. In 2390. That's how grim things were. It's been a while since I've seen a non-Psilon non-Sakkra race pull Advanced Soil Enrichment that early, even on Impossible. In any case, gaia-izing every non-hostile colony by the end of the first century feels pretty good, or would feel pretty good except when your Erratic rival is running away with the game.

Built a fleet of NPG fighters starting in the 2380s to defend the eastern colonies in Darlok and Meklar border skirmishes. For the next thirty turns they would continuously send fleets or invasion forces. My superior gropo tech and fast population growth meant these attacks were a waste of time, even when I didn't have the fighters in orbit.

Class V planetaries in 2393, and RIW 60% in 2397.

In 2400, I managed only 10,001,941 BC in the reserve, an increase of less than two thousand BC. I felt pretty glad just to be alive at this point, though. The Klackons had Tachyon Beam, Stinger Missiles, RIW 40%, IIT 6 and Class X Planetaries. Despite having lots of bugs they never were close to winning in the council vote (thanks to being erratic and only being friends with the weak Alkaris.)

The twenty-fifth century was insanely dangerous, as the Klackons were at war with me almost the entire time. Despite out-teching and out-producing me, for years and years they never attacked, only seizing the puny Toxic planet at Imra from me in a single early strike. I would find out that the Klackons' huge military at this point was still made up primarily of obsolete heavy laser and ion cannon boats, and they were extremely slow at scrapping old ships and building new ships. Despite their crazy tech wizardry, they never got bombs. They would have slaughtered me early if they simply kept a more up-to-date navy.

In 2408 I established contact with the Alkaris, and received Battle Suits for RIW 60%. I also traded RIW 60% to the Meklars for Ion Rifle. This extra gropo tech proved important as the Meklars would spend decades throwing invasion forces futilely at Iranha.

Tech progression: ARS stolen from Meklars in 2403, Class IV deflectors obtained from the cats for RIW 60%, Merculites researched in 2406, IT+40 in 2407, Zortium stolen from the borg in 2408. IRC 3 stolen from the bugs in 2411, IIT 9 traded from the bugs for Class V planetaries same turn, BC 4 popped 2412, Controlled Dead from the shifters for Ion Rifle in 2420, IIT 6 researched 2425, Range 8 in 2428. Class V deflectors pop in 2429, Atmospheric Terraforming (yay!) in 2430.

The Klackons captured Imra in 2430. This was the only offensive the bugs mounted against me for decades, although they were officially at war with me for most of the century.

I colonized Rich Inferno 30 Ukko in 2428, although that went back and forth a few times before I held it for good.

Neutron Blaster stolen 2431, IRC 4 researched 2435, Fusion Bomb and Inertial Stabilizer traded from kitty in 2437 and 2442, respectively. Spies lifted ECM 5 and BC 7 (!) from Klackons in 2443-2444. Repulsor stolen from birds in 2446. Personal Absorption Shield popped next turn. AMR stolen from bugs in 2448. Armored Exoskeleton and Ion Stream Projector researched in 2449.

This allowed me to design an NPG/repulsor/ARS/ISP battleship that was the (ex-Klackon) terror of space for decades, conquering many bird, 'bot and pussy cat planets.

By 2450 the Klackons have Black Hole Generator, Class XV planetaries, Gauss Autocannon, IT+80, Tritanium Armor and Industrial Waste Elimination. Again, if they had put together a meaningful force they could have eliminated me five times over this game.

I went to war on the birds starting in the 2450s. Altair was captured in 2457, yielding Controlled Radiated, Graviton Beam, Bio Toxin Antidote (important as the shifters were fond of spores this game), range 7, Megabolt Cannon and Hyper-X Rockets. Zhardan fell in 2461, Whynil in 2468, Omicron in 2470. I made peace afterwards leaving the birds with one planet.

Impulse Drives teched 2453, Personal Barrier Shield (!) stolen from bugs in 2456. Class X planetaries stolen from Mrrshans 2459. Advanced Space Scanner pops 2460, Complete Eco Restoration next turn. Gatling Laser captured from birds in 2461. Hard Beam stolen from cats in 2462. Death Spores from Darloks for Repulsor Beam, also Merculites for IIT 7, in 2464. Auto Blaster researched 2468. Class VII deflectors 2469. IIT 4 and Ion Drives 2475. Universal Antidote 2477. IRC 5 2478.

By 2480 I had reached a tipping point. I was larger than everybody, including the bugs, was more productive than everybody else, including the bugs, and was reaching a level of tech competitive with the bugs (and simply miles above everybody besides the bugs). I was by now the Computer tech leader, meaning that none of the Klackons' secrets were safe from me.

2480 was also the year the Klackons finally, finally attacked me with a somewhat modern force. Sadly, it was not an effective modern force. They were large pulse phasor boats, medium pulse phasor/Stinger boats, and large pulse phasor/anti-matter torp/Stinger boats. At this time they also still had thousands of ships with nothing but death spores or heavy lasers, many decades obsolete.

At this point I realized the game was won, but it wasn't very satisfying. I hadn't done much to deserve a victory -- the only reason I hadn't lost, in fact, was that the bugs didn't scrap their crappy old ships and build better ones decades sooner. If they had brought ships, even ships as lame as those phasor boats, and even as late as 2440 or 2450, they could have run me over -- to say nothing of what they could have done with decent designs. But in 2480, it was too little, too late. My defenses were sufficient at this point to make their immense navy nearly ineffective, instead of the formidable formic force they would have been just twenty or thirty turns earlier. And of course, I got a couple of immense breaks with the Advanced Soil Enrichment steal and the bugs being bereft of bombs.

I continued playing until the end of the century, taking Meklar and Mrrshan worlds, advancing my tech, solidifying a winning position, and could easily finish the game out with a big war against the Klackons. However, the outcome would not really be in doubt, and as I indicated, this game was lost outright early on except for especially egregrious AI stupidity.

I get the feeling that this map would have been too easy with the reserve spending, although it was certainly a nail-biter with the restriction. It was a good game, I hope other people had fun with this one as well.

Outcome: retired 2500. In 2400 I had a reserve of 10001941 BC.

Hmmm. So, I notice it's getting toward the end of Tuesday (and past it in some parts of the world) with no reports posted for Imperium 29. I mentioned the computer problems that have prevented me from getting my report online thus far, but I noticed another poster indicating a hope that he'd be able to finish and report the game in time. So, rather than post my results now while working on turning out my full report, I figured I'd ask: Is there interest in this imperium competing against a lack of time? Would it be useful to extend the deadline by (say) a couple of weeks?

If you *have* finished your game and are ready to post a report, please feel free; those who haven't finished can just make sure not to read it (and/or I can just take that as a vote to carry on with the stated closing day). Just putting the idea out there.

Thoughts or suggestions, as always, would be appreciated.

It's that time again! Reports can be posted in the Tournament Reports and Discussion Forum as always. If you're new to the forums but would like to post a report, try just posting a reply (in this thread for instance) and then creating the thread for your report.