Impossible Psilon, medium map, 4 opponents.

[Seyar]

I've been having a lot of trouble lately with Impossible, so I'll try to go for a Psilon Medium 4 opponents.

Here's the start, we have 2 reds and a white at range 3, 2 blues and a white at range 4, my opponents are the cats, birds, lizards and bears.

Send the colony to the coreward red.

2303 Wow! Paladia is a 90 jungle, GREAT second colony. Second red is an ocean 70 and the white is an arid 70... This is too good to last Send in 14 from Mentar.

2308 By now i've sent enough to get Paladia to a third, I put Mentar on a few Newscouts and start maxing it.

2313 More scouting, Arid 55, Arid 60, Barren Rich 70, if I lose this one, I deserve to be shot at dawn. I need 6 more Newscouts and make them in Mentar.

2314 Ouch, ocean 70... This is gonna be HARD! I start sending people from half filled Paladia, keeping it at half and helping Mentar with the extra pop.

2315 First inferno 20 scouted
The yellow star at the corner is a terran fertile 115, red to the east is a desert 40, yellow northwest is minimal 50, yellow southwest is jungle 80... If I get half those stars i'll win by a landslide.
Attack the guardian with my last scout. It's the blue in the center, star to its north has no planet.

2326 Mentar is fully populated, it will max factories next year, I micro it to start on a new colony design. When Paladia hits 90 factories i'll put it on research.

2330 Paladia at 87 factories, I micro it to get to 90 next year and put the rest on research. This I split evenly on propulsion, planetology and construction.

2331 Colony ship done. RW80%, Imp Eco, Range 4 (chosen) and Range 5 are the techs. Send the colony west to Mu Delphi ocean 70, if I had relocated to Paladia I'd have preferred to go to Darrian in the north, settle closer to the core. Although the prudent thing to do is to turtle up, in my opinion. Put Paladia on full research, since I hit 90 factories.
Cats try to scout the northern yellow minimal, denied by the mighty Newscout.

2334 Mu Delphi colonized, send it 23 from Paladia.

2339 Range 4 hits, nuclear engines (chosen) and Inertial stabilizer are the choices. At the same time, a colony ship is done, send it to the southern arid 60 to get in range of the jungle 80

2340 Darrian colonized, send it 23 from Paladia, should get there fast since it's right next door. Range 4 didn't get any other stars in range, so no need for more scouts yet.

2343 Collassa colonized, new colony ship sent south again to the Arid 70 to put the Fertile 110 in range 4. Paladia sends 17 to Collassa

2346 Drakka colonized, we get the 6 system warning, still no alien contact, send Drakka 6 from Mu Delphi, 16 from Paladia, 5 from Darrian. I'll need 4 more colony ships from Mentar, and I'm not sure if I should seed them or not.

2347 RIW80% comes in, auto rearrange spending, and get IIT8 (yes) and Duralloy. Next 2 Colony ships will go for the farthest stars in my backyard, to give some time to grow colonists.

2351 Improved eco comes in, Tundra (yes) and Dead come in. I don't have anything but 1 Barren so I go for the cheap one. One more Colony comes in

2353 Draconis created, all the other colonies except Mentar send enough to get to half pop. Micro the sliders so no waste goes uncleaned.

2356 Last colony ship done and sent north to the Arid 55, we'll need Tundra or more miniaturization to expand more...

2358 Seidon Jungle 80 colonized. Send it 35 from neighboring colonies, leaving half pop everywhere I transfer from.

2359 Firma Desert 40 colonized, Mu Delphi sends 13, no more is needed.

2360 Volantis arid 55 is colonized, nuclear engines come in, Sublight is the only new choice, I take it for faster transports. Darrian sends 16 and Paladia sends 6. I design a faster scout to get to the new places opened up by all my colonization. I'll need 9 of them.

2364 Controlled Tundra comes in, enhanced eco, IT30 (yes) and toxic come in. Since I had both clean up techs in the first level, I take terraforming 30.

2365 Kakata gets the bad weather random event, phew! The fertility gods still love me.

2366 Retreat from a cat armed colship in the north. Meet and retreat from 3 missile bases and 21 fighters and get IIT8 Battle suits (yes) and ARS are the new tech choices, I take Battle Suits to protect myself and hope for a newer armor than Duralloy. I equalize techs now, I think I'm late. Design and start building Colony T2 in Mentar, to get the rich Barren in my borders. The minimal 50 that's out of reach can now be reached by the new LR Colony2, same as the jungle 80 way to the west which is to be produced before the Colony T2, while other colonies start preparing some LR Beam2 mediums for defense.

2369 Selia up north taken by an armed colony ship, the LR produced gets sent to the far west, along with a couple of LR Beam2. Set Mentar on Colony T2 for my rich world.

2370 Deep space scanner, shields2, Hand lasers, Gatling lasers and HyperV rockets (yes) are the new techs.

2372 Colonize the Rich world, get hit by a nice virus who only took 245 RP from shields, whew! Drakka maxes factories, spend a little on pop growth here to max it faster.

2374 Settle Phantos, the 80 jungle to the west, and we get the 12 system warning. More planets max out.

2377 Scanner and HyperV come in, ECM2, RB3 (yes), BC3, NPG, Ion Cannon (yes)

2378 Shields2 come in, PDS (yes) and Shields3 new choices. Propulsion is at 9%

2380 Impulse drives come in, Energy Pulsar (yes), Range8 and Warp Dissipator are the new choices. I chose Pulsar because the Cats are ranked first in fleet strength and I see a lot of smalls around.

2382 Scout Celtsi, a new Terran 80 south west, and I can now reach it with a LR COlony2. Set Seidon to make 1

2384 RC3 comes in, Improved scanner (yes) and BC4 are the new choices. All planets start refitting their factories, except Seidon who has to make a colony ship first.

2385 Seidon finishes and takes over research until other planets get maxed.

2386 Battle Suits come in, Zortium and IIT6 come in, take Zortium since I don't have armor and IIT6 won't come in before the next round of factory making anyway.

2389 Celtsi, Terran 80 gets colonized and I send half of Seidon's population. Still no AI contact. Micro all colonies due to max next turn to do so and put the rest on research, freeing Seidon to work on pop and factories.

2390 PDS and Ion cannon come in. Planet 5 is the only new choice, which I gladly take. Mass driver, Merculite (yes) and Neutron blaster are the weapon choices.

2391 IT30 comes in, all stars start upgrading. Soil and IT40 new choices, I go for soil.

2396 Most planets are working on Terraforming, get a scout chased away from a star and finally contact, with the cats.
They even beat us in Tech! Only planets are our strong point. I start trading 525 BC to get better relations, and start putting up a few bases on border worlds.

2403 Planet shield comes in, Repulsor and shields5 (yes) are the choices. We get a spy in catland, I stop spying and see this tree... Their bombs worry me a little.

ISS energy pulsar and merculites all hit ECM4 (yes) RC4, Range9, Impulse drives(yes), Stinger, Hard Beams, Fusion Beams (yes) come in.

Shield building goes everywhere, Zortium comes in, IIT5 (yes), Exoskeleton new choices.

2411 Soil enrichment comes in, cloning, atmospheric terraforming (would be insulting to my good luck), advanced eco (yes) are the choices. Up the trade with cats to 1100.

2417 Remaxing planets, ECM4 hits, Adv scanner, BC6 are the new ones, go back to RC4.

2418 Shield5 comes in, new choices are planetary10 (yes) and shield6. Cats threaten us not to expand, weird, we haven't been.

2422 Fusion beam is in and all planets are now shielded, those on the frontier have a few bases. Ion stream projector, Anti matter torpedos and Megabolt cannon (yes) are the new choices.

2423 IIT5 comes in (nice, before RC4) and the only new choice is Andrium armor, which I take.

2425 Impulse drives come in, range9 and ion drives are the new techs, but I go back to range8 since I feel like taking some cat worlds. I send a tundra colony to a forgotten tundra 30 in my borders. Tsk tsk tsk. Computers are at 10%.

2427 Advanced eco and RC4 hit on the same turn, I take the new scanner and the new planetology techs are IT50, Doom virus, and Gaia (yes). Colonize Dolz the tundra 30 and send it 15 from celtsi, all planets refitting.

2429 Cats threaten again for expansion... My new tundra scared them.

2430 Plague hits Paladia. Set it on research and send some reserves.

2431 Meet the lizards, start some trade with them, to the tune of 250 BC

We penetrate computers, planetology, construction and weapon on the cats, I take computers since it helps future espionnage, get ECM mark 1, heh.

2434 Planet10 megabolt hit, get class 7 shields as the only upgrade, auto blaster, pulson missile (yes) tachyon beam.

Range 8 hits, we take Ion drives, and the plague is finally over. We meet the bears.

2438 Andrium hits IIT3 tritanium and reduced waste 20% (yes) pop up. Now the lizards threaten for expansion. 200 BC area agreed upon as trade deals with the bears.

Best space scanner comes in, ECM6 RC5 BC7 (yes), my bases need to have some computer.

2441 Gaia comes in, IT60 (yes) complete eco are the new choices.

Ion drives, pulson come in. High energy focus is the only new one, Gauss autocannon for weapons.

Shields7 come in, Zyro shield, planet15 (yes) Shields9.

2452 Mid level penetration on bears, we take Fusion bomb and set up the cats.

2453 Bears declare war, BC7 comes in, go back to RC5, I design a small bomber, Bomber 6.0. Hyades my rich barren has been on Reserves since it maxed, only leaving to upgrade shields and factories, I put it on a few bombers to get some fleet rating, maybe it'll impress the neighbors.

The bears are pretty weak technologically, so I think I can take them on the ground, all they have are lasers and duralloy. I have Andrium battle suits, PDS. I'll need to send big fleets. I make a Beam 6.0 Medium to go with my bomber fleets, and put Hyades and a few other colonies on them. 1 starts making the bombers and I relocate all to the closest ursa border. Bears are a 1 PE with an alliance with cats and lizards... Either wiping them out is gonna get all the heat on me (I think I can take it) or remove the alliance pressure to declare on me as well.


2454 We steal construction from bears and blame the cats, reduced waste 20% comes in, auto allocate sliders. We have advanced damage control and powered armor (yes) as new techs.

2455 Steal another construction tech and blame cats again, who are having trouble with their now poor Kakata colony.

2456 Lizards want to play, I send the Ursa intended transports to Ssla, ships will follow next turn to get there together, check and find that cats have no more alliances, and won't declare on lizards for less than energy pulsars, which I don't give them.

2457 IT60 comes in, I stop shipbuilding to remax all planets. Universal antidote, IT80 and bio terminator are new, I choose atmospheric terraforming because I seem to be the only one who has it and my rich star is Barren, also, it's cheap.

2458 Steal IS from bears, lose a few bombers to take Ssla, the ground troops take the battle with 19 remaining. Hand lasers, controlled dead, ARS, controlled inferno (nice) are the spoils. Cats threaten expansion, we meet the Alkari and lose contact with lizards (massive incoming fleet). Put Ssla on defense and send it reserves.

2459 Steal IT10 from bears, blame cats, withstand an attack, our beamers are making quick work of the enemy larges.

2460 trade 22 BC with Alakari, beat off another attack on Ssla, still no shield or bases. Send 50 more pop from Phantos and put it on full pop regrowth.

2462 Gauss autocannon comes in, particle beam and hercular missiles (yes) are the new choices. Make a Colony I2 at Darrian, no need for a faster engine since it's that close to Gorra, Inferno 20.

2464 Time for the bears to go bye bye, I am annoyed at their fleets running around, and all they have is 1 planet... I'll take it and face whatever comes my way.

2465 High energy comes in, anti matter drives (yes) and Ionic pulsar are the new choices. Settle Gorra after killing the cat colony ship over it. Bears try to sue for peace... Yeah, right.

2466 RC 5 Atmospheric TF, planetary shield 15 all come in, I put everyone except the hostiles on factories. we beat the bear world and the troops land. Hyperspace comm (yes) BC8, ECM7 are the choices. Stasis, PBS (yes) and Shields11 are the FF techs, go for IT80 next. 184 vs 102 bears we had Andrium and pds on them and they still survived with 2! Send a lot more, to stand the colony up fast, and adjust some sliders.

4 Bulrathi kill 14 brains and I capture 298 factories, not bad, buh bye bears. Death Spores, Neutron Blaster, Anti missile rockets are the spoils.

2469 Plenty of planets max out again, some on pop other on factories, Ursa is fertilized, going on gaia now. First vote comes in, I have 25/41, cats 14/41, not enough to win, I abstain.

Powered armor comes in, industrial waste elimination is new and chosen.

Hercular comes in, Disruptor and Pulse phasor (yes) are the new choices.

2475 Second vote comes in, I win... Very very easy try for impossible... but I'd like your analysis anyway.

For those who'd like to play an over easy Impossible Psilon game, I attached the save, just rename the .zip to .gam, don't try to open it in a zip manager, it's not zipped.

[kjn]

I haven't looked at the save yet, but I can make a few comments:

I think you opened research far too late. Using a open-seed-trickle approach (open with 2 RP/tech, seed with max research, go for 7.5% of seed and slowly increase research spending) I find I can get critical techs like IER around 2330 - just about when the home world is starting to max out. Sargon0 has some very detailed information about optimal early research.

You made some decent but not great research choices (hyper-V over hand lasers, going back for RC 4 instead of choosing BC 6) but I can't say they hurt your game noticably. Going for range 4 over range 5 obviously hurt your game, but it's harder to say it's a mistake, since it's a strategic crapshoot. However, generally I prefer to take range 5, if available. Range 4 is quite limited, and I think it's only worth it if you need very rapid early expansion due to neighbours and extra range immediately.

Your big mistake, however, was the same one I have a tendency to make: quitting expansion early. This is especially clear from the first council vote being held in 2469. On a medium map you can easily expect the vote to come 100 turns earlier (in fact, in the previous Imperia, on hard, I got the first council in the 2340's!). Don't stop expanding until you're forced to!

I wouldn't put any stock into the cats being better at tech when you first met them. First, a single high-level (comparatively) tech can easily switch the ranking. Second, you sunk all your BCs into expansion, not research. Third, it's on impossible level.

ETA: wrote the year for the first council wrong!

[dathon]

Well, that was certainly a dream start! Still, any victory on Impossible is an achievement.

Looking at your early game, I would say the biggest area for improvement is expansion management. Optimizing your empire's growth curve is penultimate in this game, especially on Impossible. That includes managing individual planet growth, as well as empire expansion. In the early going, you basically want to grow as fast as possible while grabbing as many planets as possible before the AI does. So let's look at a couple things:

*You didn't start building scouts until 2308? And didn't build enough to scout everything you could immediately? This is probably your biggest mistake right here. Scouts are the only resource you have in the beginning to secure territory. Once the AI has scouted a planet, they will go for it with all their might. Your isolated start protected you here, but in a normal game you'll lose planets if you don't protect them with scouts. It usually advisable to build scouts after founding your first planet, and build enough to hit everything you can reach (with your new planet included) and send them off IMMEDIATELY. I downloaded your save file, and building nothing but scouts out of Mentar for 3 turns from 2303-2305 saw all stars within range scouted by 2313. In particular, I scouted Selia (the minimal 50 in the center) in 2311, four turns before you did.

*Likewise I noticed a gap in col ship production. First ship in 2331, and the second in 2339? Now, it's possible you neglected to mention one in the interim, and if so, disregard this. But if not, then what was the homeworld doing that it took 8 turns for your second col ship?

*I think that diversifying tech from the outset is a mistake. The best route, usually, is to get whatever first-tier range tech is needed to secure the most critical worlds, then go for a planetology tech to grow your economy/see what's in the next tier. Of course, this is situation-dependent. If it's clear that LR col ships are necessary, Construction might be given priority. If a great planet is at Range 6, that would of course be your second tech. In this case, with 5 worlds reachable with Range 3, I think the strongest route would have been to push Improved Eco as fast as possible. That would speed the production of all future colony ships and research, giving your growth curve a huge boost.

*In a similar vein, I usually don't open techs until I get all my scouting reports back. And seeing that Selia needed Range 5 to reach, I would have chosen that instead of Range 4, and made getting the world a priority. So, my tech order would have been Improved Eco -> Range 5, colonizing the surrounding planets while Range 5 researched. Given its central location, I probably would have had a col ship standing by at the green NW of Paladia for when the tech hit. It's a bit of a stretch, but I bet you could have had it.

I can't emphasize enough that expansion is the key to victory on the higher difficulties in this game. The AI will expand like rabbits, and if you want a shot at your fair share, you've got to act quickly. That can include grabbing smaller border worlds before larger ones in the back, though you don't want to put off colonizing a nice large planet too long; it's a balancing act.

This map is actually good to practice on. You got to ten worlds by 2372. So try the start again, but build some early scouts and take Improved Eco -> Range 5 -> Controlled Tundra as your tech choices, researching them one at a time in that order from Paladia. Mentar should build nothing but col ships after maxing out, except maybe to "seed" each tech for 1 turn when it starts. I'm betting that you'll be able to land Selia and all the worlds around your core by an earlier date.

dathon

[RefSteel]

Not much to add to dathon's excellent pointers; I'll just reiterate the importance of getting scouts out to all possible stars ASAP; when yellow star positions suggest there may be contested worlds nearby, it is not unusual for me to build a handful of Newscouts even before my second colony ship lands, and once the second colony exists, such scouts are generally my top priority. Also, though it's not as critical, the importance of scouting does not end with the early game; it's best to have some extra scouts already in position at the far reaches of your empire to take advantage of new range (from tech or colonies) before it comes in, even if you end up producing more than you turn out to need. Scouts are cheap.

I also noticed you were building LR laser destroyers in the mid/late 2360s. I wouldn't bother with such ships this late in the game, as a couple of LR destroyers isn't going to deter an Impossible AI after 60+ turns of development. If you want mobile military at this stage, you need legitimate clouds of fighters or full-sized combat ships. Even if you're desperate to hold a world and have no other way to claim it, there's no point in sending destroyers at this stage if you're only building two.

EDIT: On tech spending, this can be a matter of individual preference (up to a point) but my tendency is similar to what kjn describes (I'm a student of the Sargon school of tech allocation). In terms of timing, I tend to open Planetology as soon as I know what tech to select from the first tier: Usually Improved Eco if available, but an important Barren world (large UR or ART, or in a key position) would change this, as might a variant or other unusual situation (I wanted IT+10 in Imperium 11, for instance, because of Maalor). I then open propulsion as soon as I know whether range 5 will be needed for early expansion. In practice, this usually means opening both fields as soon as all initial scouting reports are in. I almost never open Construction until I at least know if I'm researching Imp Eco, and even then usually delay starting Construction until around the time I open all fields (always with exceptions, such as when playing the Meklar or expecting to need LR colony ships to expand adequately). Note that this is really just a variation on what dathon was describing - I open Planetology earlier on the theory that it will make my colony ships cheaper and my workers more productive, especially in the case of Imp Eco, or when/because an early Planetology tech is necessary. Finally, note that when kjn wrote, "Second, you sunk all your BCs into expansion, not research," the point isn't entirely that you didn't start research early; as the player, spending BCs on expansion is a Good Thing - as you may have noticed, even my recommendations for early tech are those that will help with expansion!