Meklar Matrixlords Challenge

[Psillycyber]

Seeing as how my Darlok Hackers Challenge was such a success, I figured I would try the same challenge with the Meklar:

• No researching anything other than computer technologies until after I have killed the Guardian and colonized Orion.
  

Things allowed:

• Stealing technologies through espionage.
  
• Stealing technologies through ground invasions.
  
• Trading for technologies.
  

The settings are: medium galaxy, 5 opponents, impossible difficulty (naturally).

Here is the start of the first map that I rolled. The save is attached below.



Here's just a little hint: I can already tell that this challenge is going to be waaaaay more difficult than my run with the Darloks. If you don't plan on playing, you can have a look at the spoilers below for my run so far up to the year 2410:

So it begins, here at soon-to-be glorious Meklotron, machine-world capital of the Meklar.



The first thing I do is queue up 3 scouts to be built on the first turn.

There was only one planet within 3 parsecs range, so I sent the colony ship there. Thankfully, it is habitable!



It is just going to be these two worlds for quite a while...despite the fact that, if only we could just research range 4 tech, we could grab so many juicy jungle worlds right beyond our borders....

But sadly, we Meklar matrixlords have not figured out how to research anything other than our own cybernetic circuits. However, it is rumored that there is a planet with the ruins of an ancient superintelligence, technologically far advanced beyond us, somewhere out there in the galaxy. If only we could investigate these ruins...then perhaps we robots could...learn...to...love...things other than computer tech.

It is also rumored that there exist other intelligent races out there in the galaxy. Perhaps we could steal, er, I mean, perpetually borrow some of their research...

Nevertheless, we research what we can, getting busy with research on ECM1 in 2304. Ten years later, with an initial investment of ~30 RP and a trickle of research, ECM1 is in and we start on...ECM2.



Don't worry, we are definitely interested in Improved Robotics Controls III, but our planets are nowhere close to finishing our first round of factory construction, and we would not like to pay the increased factory construction cost this early. (Although now INT-766, our science advisor, that the Meklar always pay a base rate of 10 BC per factory (then modified by Improved Industrial construction tech level as usual)...so, if that is true, then that was a bit of a waste. Oh well...it will be more trade-bait later on.

As we work on factory construction and ECM2, the GNN news droid (a traitor to the machine intelligence race, by the way, but that's another story...) interrupts our peaceful buildering to give us alarming news: a race known as the Silicoids already has colonized 6 planets as of 2329!



In better news, by 2331 (after an initial investment of 1 turn, then a trickle of interest-boosted research while our planets built factories, then back to factory building after getting it solidly in the percentages), ECM2 was finished, and we were on to...ECM3.



Yes, yes, I know this is getting repetitive, but I'm actually happy to be able to pick the ECM techs. They are the cheapest ones at each level, and they will let us leap up the tech ladder the fastest. I am holding off on going back to IRC3 just yet until I see if IRC4 is available at the next level...



...and it is not. So, it's back to IRC3, which we will thankfully be able to finish very quickly now that our planets are maxed out on their first round of factories.

We do finish IRC3 by 2360 (less quickly than I was hoping, but once our scientists got to about a 25% chance of breakthrough I dialed back the research spending and put it into the reserves so that we might speed factory construction and research at the next level. It took a few more turns after that for the tech to pop). Onto ECM4!



In 2368, we meet those famed Silicoids and exchange galactic map information.



Yikes! After some spying, we also get a look at their techs the turn after:



We also meet a bird race known as the Alkari in 2369:



Three planets...much more manageable.

That Alkari colonization also triggered the (very early) first council vote in 2369:



Already we are having some close calls with the Silicoids almost having enough votes.

The turn after, I got a look at the Alkari techs:



We naturally started trying to hack into both the Alkari and Silicoid matrix networks, aiming for propulsion tech so that we might colonize (or at least snipe right after colonization) some of the neighboring jungle worlds.

Just 4 years later we were already on schedule for another council vote.



This time, the vote was more evenly-divided, and I was able to vote for the Silicoids and get some diplo cred with them (hi friendly neighborino! ).

That next year (2375), we finished with ECM4 to move onto...ECM5. Getting bored yet, folks?



But: to liven up the mood in the Meklar technology headquarters, our spies were also able to snag this from the Silicoids this turn:



Thankfully, the Silicoids did not protest. They just kept trucking right along. We heard from the GNN news droid again in 2378...



Our spies got a very important tech from the Alkari in 2379:



We met the Psilons in 2382:



And the following year, we got a spy report:



Sadly, I don't think we will be stealing many techs from the Psilons in this game any time soon with that computer tech of theirs.

In other news: the Alkari had the gall to snipe our neighboring jungle worlds, so transports were queued up now that we had range 5 tech, and the capture of poor, size-85 Primodius in year 2385 was a success!



And a few turns later our laser fleet made quick work of the Alkari reinforcements.



Sadly, neighboring Tau Cygni, which was also briefly colonized by the Alkari, was sniped by the Silicoids before we could get to it (12 transports of ours were shot down by a Silicoid cruiser that appeared just before the arrival of our transports, and then the Silicoids sent ground troops before we could get our laser fleet up there to intervene). And I am NOT going to war with the Silicoids just yet over 1 little planet. Maybe I will wait until the Silicoids have built up some factories on there (but before they get any missile bases), and in the meantime my planets need more work before they can support another invasion.

Several years went by, and our spying against the Alkari and Silicoids was having no further luck. There were some techs floating around out there that I needed BADLY, so in 2388 I pulled the trigger on these trades, trading away our lower-level ECM junk:





A few years later (2392), we were finally able to infiltrate the Alkari computer networks again:



In 2396, ECM5 finished, and now I have a tech that I am actually looking forward to researching for reasons other than just speeding us up the computer tech ladder:



Here are the Meklar planets as of year 2400:



Primodius is getting its factory construction boosted by reserve spending each turn.

The map as of 2400:



The 2400 council vote was once again evenly split, allowing me to vote for the Silicoids and boost our relations with them up to calm.

In 2401, the Alkari suddenly wanted peace.



Great! Because, just that same turn, the Psilons declared war on me.

I traded some slightly higher-level ECM junk for this stuff...





...so that I can go after the neighboring Psilon worlds.

In 2409 we met the Darloks:



I brokered to them some of the same ECM junk that I had already traded to others in order to snag this insurance policy:



...Which is good because the Psilons started sending fleets against our machine-capital of Meklotron. Just a trickle at first:



But then in slightly larger groups of 4 or 5. The class V planetary shields will make us quite impervious to such attacks.

Meanwhile, we captured the ultra-poor size-110 terran planet in the bottom-right corner from the Psilons:



Their incoming transport reinforcements will be easily shot down by our laser fighters.

So, here's where we are as of 2410:





(The Silicoids have sublight drives and inertial stabilizer, which I'd LOOOOVE to steal. That's the only reason why I'm spying on them too while still trying to make friends with them. They don't seem to mind any of my spying so far....)





My techs as of 2410:

Computers:

• ECM1 (researched)
  
• ECM2 (researched)
  
• IRC3 (researched)
  
• ECM3 (researched)
  
• ECM4 (researched)
  
• ECM5 (researched)
  
• Working on IRC5 (researching)
  

Construction:

• Reduced Waste 80% (traded)
  
• IIR8 (traded)
  

Force fields:

• Class II deflectors (traded)
  
• Class V planetary (traded)
  

Planetology:

• IT+10 (stolen)
  
• IER (traded)
  

Propulsion:

• Range 5 (stolen)
  
• Nuclear Engines (traded)
  
• Range 6 (traded)
  

Weapons:

• Hand lasers (stolen)
  
• Hyper-X rockets (traded)
  

The success with spying is noticeably less than with the Darloks. I'm really hoping that it gets better after I finish IRC5. My computer tech level should be about 28 after that. So far, I've gotten more techs from trading ECM junk than from spying.

[Psillycyber]

Well, I don't think it can be done, at least on this map. My reasons in spoilers below:

I've played on a bit further and...I am just not getting any hits with the techstealing. Only 3 so far this entire game, and on low-level techs at that. Where I've left off, I'm on a 30+ year techstealing dry spell in the game with significant funding each turn going down the drain into fruitless spying efforts. I never had to deal with anything like that in the Darlok game. In that game, I was getting hits every 5 turns on average (and sometimes even more frequently).

Part of the problem is, the other races are actually keeping up in computer tech (I've finished improved robotics 5. Others have finished things like improved robotics 4 or advanced space scanner). I am noticing that a slim computer tech lead, while it is more than sufficient as the Darloks, just does not cut it for the other races. Yeah, you might be able to snag a tech here or there...but you can't rely on it with anyone other than the Darloks or a race that has already gotten to a solid position through conventional means. (It's possible that I would be having more success if I had a bigger economy and could afford more spies, but I don't see how I could have expanded more aggressively than I have tried to do in this game).

My plan B of trying to catch up a bit in tech by invading the Alkari world of Collassa has fallen apart. I was able to bomb the missile bases just fine, but I can't deal with the opposing Alkari fleet. The other races are...well...racing ahead in tech, and I still don't have anything better than lasers and hyper-X rockets in weapons. I tried building some large missile boats with 8 hyper-X rockets each and attack level 4 to use against the Alkari fleet, but the results were...disappointing, to say the least. I was able to kill 1 of their half a dozen large cruisers at the cost of 1 of my large missile boats before running out of missiles. And that's not even counting the small neutron pellet fighters of theirs that I'd have to deal with too. I guess the Alkari evade is just too good. I could put my two starting planets on missile boat construction duty, pretty much give up on teching, and still it would probably take 15+ years to amass a fleet of 25+ large missile boats to deal with the Alkari ships. I mean, eventually I could probably grind the Alkari down and take that planet, but in the meantime the Psilons have megabolt cannons and class VI shields and probably more goodies on the way with my name on it. Not to mention the runaway Silicoids, who have huge ships buzzing around my poor jungle planet that happens to be safe for now only because of my non-aggression pact with them. The AI doesn't keep those pacts forever...

It's quickly getting to the stage where I won't be able to damage enemy fleets at all, and where most races will have stuff that can get through my planetary shields. I could, I suppose, make some stop-gap trades for some better missile tech or weapons, but that would mean trading away IRC5, which would just be setting myself up for bigger troubles down the road. I feel like I've hit the downward spiral.

[Psillycyber]

So, I've re-thought the strategic approach that I'd take if I were to try this challenge again on impossible. Here's what I would change:

• Always choose robotic controls if available. Apparently the Meklar pay no penalty for having more advanced robotic controls early on. I wasted about ~1000 early game beakers last game going for ECM2 and then backtracking for IRC3.
  
• Don't waste production on spying early on, unless for some odd reason there is a minimum of 15 computer tech levels of difference between your tech level and that of an AI. Otherwise it's just a waste of production. Last game I plowed probably many thousands of production into spying over the course of 60-something turns and came away with only 3 low-level techs that would have cost me about a thousand RP to research them on my own. Not cost-efficient.
  
• That said, certain economic techs are a necessity. So, instead of relying on uncertain spying for them, trade whatever junk computer tech that you can (preferably not the good stuff unless in dire need) as early as you can to backfill essential economic techs (IER, Improved Terraforming, range techs, IIR9/8, Reduced Waste).
  
• Only trade for military techs if absolutely necessary. Save techs for trading for economic techs. Try to find one backward AI likely to be lagging in computer tech, and focus on spying on that AI alone, and don't trade computer techs at all with that AI.
  
• Try to make nice with everyone else and get trade agreements going early.
  
• Try to trade for range / planetology tech as soon as possible in order to colonize additional worlds peacefully. Try to avoid early wars. Even though the temptation is there when trying to make up for the constrained start and come from behind by sniping undefended neighboring colonies and thus saving the cost of building a colony ship yourself, it might work out better in the long run to hurry your own colony ship there first and try to keep things peaceful. In my Darlok game, if I had let the Sakkra colonize all of my backline and then tried to snipe it off of them, I might have saved on the cost of colony ships, but I would have had a tough early war on my hands, and I don't think that game would have turned out as well.
  
• Even given all of the above, I think the human player still needs a fair amount of luck. Namely, Improved Robotics techs in the tree, a good, high-pop, non-poor 2nd planet, preferably a nice, non-poor backline planet or two to expand to immediately once range tech is traded for upon first contact with an AI. My last game was not an optimal roll with the map and tech tree. Runaway Silicoids, Alkari neighbors, a poor 3rd planet and an ultra-poor 4th planet, no IRC4. Plus, battle computer, and scanner tech would have been nice. All ECM tech makes for quick progress through the tech ladder, but it doesn't do much for well-rounded effective gameplay. Before I was thinking that advancing tech levels for better spying was paramount, but now I see that you can't count on early spying as the Meklar, so it might be better to just go for techs that are useful in their own right at each rung.
  
• It might tilt things in the human player's favor to play on a small map rather than a medium one. Even if you get stuck with 2 planets, you can keep up economically as the Meklar well into the mid-game if other races are limited to only 4 or 5. Hard to compete in a medium or large galaxy with only 2 starting planets when others have 12+ planets. Plus, you get earlier contact, which would probably be beneficial for tech trade purposes.
  

So, with these considerations in mind, I'm thinking of rolling a new start (this time on small to make things just a bit easier on myself) and seeing how I do the 2nd time....

[Psillycyber]

Wow, thrawn! You are a god.

Such inventive strategies! Using huge ships with a colony base + reserve tanks never would have occurred to me. Did you max out Meklon's factories before starting on this huge colony ship construction?

I agree that Endoria would indeed be worth colonizing just for the population for invasions. That seems to be one of the trickiest things about these starts where your early expansion is constrained due to lack of self-researching range and planetology tech. It would be very easy to end up with 2 or 3 good planets, but then have a hard time conquering tech from any other planets due to insufficient population / ground combat tech.

Plus, setting up those planets for recapture was a ballsy move, but it sounds like it really paid off! I'm curious, about how many factories had you built up on those planets before they were captured and recaptured? What kind of enemy fleet did you have to clear out to recapture them? It was probably slightly fortunate that you had to recapture those planets from the Psilons rather than the Alkari.

Heh, I just realized that one advantage of not researching any techs at all is that the AI won't get anything off of you even if they capture a planet with factories. Not a situation you run into every day!

Amazing strategies! I think, as long as one didn't fall asleep at the wheel at the next couple of council votes, that your game as of 2412 is perfectly set up for eventual victory.

[Psillycyber]

Interesting report, Thrawn! I am tempted to try to play out your save to a victorious conclusion just to prove without a doubt that, with godly play, it can be done even on this map.

But first, I have a run on a small map that I started that I need to finish. It is going much better than my playthrough above. More later....

[Psillycyber]

Here is my successful playthrough of this challenge on a small map. Sadly, I forgot to keep a starting 2300 save but I did take plenty of screenshots.

Here was the starting position:



Silicoids and Darloks AGAIN. The Silicoids are frustrating because they colonize everything, and you can't steal or trade IER and Reduced Waste from them. The Darloks are obviously frustrating because you can't really spy techs off of them. Oh well. Let's see how it goes....

The 2nd planet is promising enough!



On this small map, even having 2 good planets will keep us competitive with most of the races.

The year after, we get started on tech. Sadly, we can only choose the most expensive tech for tier 1:



(Although little did I know that I would end up relying on this tech for my best battle computers for a long time into the game).

2324: BC2 is finished, no improved robotics III available, on to ECM2.



Unbelievably, we get a SUPER early council vote in 2324 as well. The Silicoids are at it again!



2337: ECM2 finished, on to researching Improved Space Scanners.

2343: We meet the expanding Silicoids:



We swing this trade immediately in order to colonize the rich size-50 desert world of Rigel in the Nebula to our southeast (see below).



2349: I am surprised to find that we are not nominated for the council vote (not complaining though!) The Sakkra are instead. Makes sense. I would be perfectly happy to keep it this way for the foreseeable future.



2352: We finish Improved Space Scanners, on to...Improved Robotics IV. Yeah baby!



2353: We colonize Rigel, but we find out that the Silicoids already have a fleet en route:



We WILL hold Rigel! I have a plan....

Thankfully, the Silicoids chose to forego a turn of bombardment of the new colony and immediately sent warp-1 transports instead, which will get slowed down through the nebula even more.

2356: We swing this trade as soon as it's available:



2359: We design a medium destroyer with 5 lasers on it. We send 13 of those to challenge the 2 Silicoid cruisers. Not sure what the Silicoids had on these cruisers, but probably just lasers and maybe some shielding that was made irrelevant by the nebula. Anyways, we win the battle with 8 of our medium destroyers remaining. Thankfully, that was enough:



2364: Colonizing Rigel also put us in range to leapfrog to another planet: size-40 minimal Aquilae. (So you see how essential getting a hold of Rigel was!)



Sadly, Aquilae was a bridge too far as of it. It was only 5 parsecs from the Alkari homeworld, and the Alkari sent an early deathfleet that we had no hope of challenging:



But we will RETURN! Mark my words!

On the brightside, we did get to meet the Alkari. And we briefly met the Humans while we held Aquilae, which let us trade for Improved Eco Restoration, if I recall correctly. That was big.

At some point in here we finished IRC4, and went on to ECM5, and then finished that and started on IRC5. I forgot to take screenies of those, so not sure about the exact years either.

2381: We get a YUUUGE stroke of luck with our machine-world capital, Ex Machina, going fertile.



Now it will be size 135 instead of size 110, will single-handedly support a whopping 945 factories rather than 770, and will be our go-to planet for sending population to colonize and takeover new planets.

Here's the situation as of 2410:





This population graph had me worried that I would be losing the next council vote, but thankfully the Sakkra also had more population than me (they had to be hiding on some planets in the Southeast corner of the map), and so they kept getting nominated and splitting the vote easily. (The AI will always vote for themselves, and then if I vote for the AI with the lower vote total or abstain, that almost guarantees a veto bloc).

Plus, the Silicoids were about to plunge into a war with just about everyone in the galaxy, other than the Darloks who were their allies.



You can see that I'm doing better in this game than in the first one in this thread. 1700+ production by 2410 (rich Rigel helped with that!) rather than 1100+, and the AIs were not as far ahead either due to having fewer planets. In terms of tech, I had just finished IRC5. A better situation all-around.

Here was my plan as of 2410:



I was going to finish building up Rigel with the new round of factories, and then start on a huge-ass behemoth ship to deal with the Alkari at Aquilae and take that planet back, hopefully with some factories and tech in tow as well.

2423: Success!



The 2424 vote: The Sakkra still had more pop than me, so no worries there.



In the meantime, I had been trade-brokering and even stealing the occasional tech. Once IRC5 came in around 2410, which put us at a tech level of about 35 when most of the AI were still at about 15 or so (thanks to the slower tech pace on the small map), spying success increased dramatically. I was able to snag good stuff from the Alkari in particular (who were stuck on ECM Jammer III for the longest time if I recall correctly) like sub-light drives, inertial stabilizer, auto repair, ion cannons, and merculite missiles. I think I also stole Improved Industrial Construction 8 from the Alkari during the re-conquest of Aquilae, which didn't hurt either.



That sort of spying luck was just what I needed to kick this game into high gear. A few techs makes a world of difference. Also because, the more techs you steal, the more you have to leverage into further tech brokering. So, for example, when I re-established contact with the Humans after capturing Aquilae, I was able to trade merc missiles (if I recall correctly) for fusion bombs.

I was ready to go on the offensive.

2430: At first I tried going after the Darloks because everyone hated them and because they were an annoying thorn in my side too (a race that was completely useless as a target to spy on). But their homeworld, the only planet within reach, was a bit too heavily defended.



The Devastator design was indestructible with auto repair (not shown for some reason) and ECM5, which put the "miss" in "missiles" and caused the ship to take less than 100 damage each round when it was targeted. The problem was, the rest of my fleet was getting shredded, and the Devastators didn't have enough bombs to take out even half of the missile bases. So, I had to back off....

Funny enough, the Darloks didn't even declare war on me for this little bombing raid where I killed about 10 of their missile bases. And when the Silicoids a few turns later declared war on me, the lesson was simple: start picking off the smaller, weaker Silicoid planets.



The Silicoids were a particularly juicy target due to their obsolete Hyper-V missile tech. They would never end up getting any better missile tech, which meant that only the ship-to-ship combat with them was dangerous.

Around this time I was also able to research hyperspace communications. At first I was just aiming to get higher computer tech levels and get to the next rung, but the tech itself actually proved to be very useful. Especially in the early to mid-game, when your ships only have sublight drives and retreating back to your planets takes so much time, hyperspace communications is great. If I wasn't able to finish bombing out all of the missile bases with my Devastators on one turn, I could swing right back the next turn (this IS within RB rules if you have hyperspace communications, correct? We can imagine that supply ships are coming to re-supply the combat ships with bombs in that interim year, no?)

Also, you can do some funny things with transports, such as get a big conga-line going towards a planet, and then redirect the ones in front to other planets before they reach the target destination and basically accumulate a big buzzing swarm of transports circling the target planet until you are ready to have them all converge on the same turn.

Once I conquered advanced space scanner from the Silicoids, this transport strategy was even more effective. Fertile Ex Machina was put on constant population transport duty, sending them even to worlds I hadn't secured yet, and I'd have the transports redirect and swarm about, building up their numbers until the landing was clear.

I imagine that if MoO was ever made into a multiplayer game, then hyperspace transport swarms circling opposing planets at the ready would be an effective deterrent strategy to have on hand against an enemy player attack.

The 2449 council vote: The Sakkra STILL had more pop than me, and with only 4 planets! But I was catching up quick!



2450: Here was a tricky battle defending our new conquest at the former Silicoid colony of Rana.



Warp dissipator (spied off of the Alkari, naturally) was worth its weight in gold here. The Shark design originally had a speed of 3, and 17 of them would have worn down my auto-repair dreadnought quickly if they had been allowed to close the distance.

Also notice that I went with the Duralloy II armor on the Nemesis here. It actually made some difference in this battle. Having that much more health and auto-repair each turn made a big difference! Once I got their ships locked down with warp dissipator, it was only a matter of time before they would die. I could afford to sacrifice some firepower for staying-power.

2454: Here's a look at the situation on the Silicoid frontier. We are about to capture Endoria here, and with it the last of the Silicoid tech that they have up on us.



You can also see some Silicoid transports trying to get back to just-captured Phyco that are about to be shot down by my fleet in orbit.

2455: After the capture of Silicoid Phyco, we got our hands on Range 9 fuel cells and finally make contact with the Sakkra. HERE'S why they have been 2nd in population the whole game with only 4 planets!





You can see that, with the conquests from the Silicoids, we are catching up in everything:



2456: The Silicoids made a desperate gamble at the rich nebula world of Rigel (which they tried to snipe from us at the beginning of the game).



Their counter-attack was unsuccessful. We left no survivors.

A few years later the Darloks also showed up there and decided that they wanted to play.



Bad move.

Let's skip ahead a bit. The next two decades were just mopping up the Silicoids. Here's our fleet in 2474:



Those Devastators remained the workhorses throughout the entire Silicoid campaign. Their ECM and auto-repair made them indestructible. The 2 Nemesis ships and the Tornado provided ship-to-ship cover and defense of new conquests, with the penetrators helping out as needed (you can see that they are sporting the shiny new Mark IX Battle Computers!)

Here's a sample battle defending newly-conquered Xengara from the Sakkra to demonstrate:



You can also see my planned ships for taking out the other races: the Blackjack to do the bulk of the bombing, and the Squarehead (a strange ship with few conventional weapons, but with the ion stream projector and indestructible defense with auto-repair and ECM6) for support.

Planet stats as of 2474:



Map as of 2474, with the cursor pointing to Orion (yes, we will be conquering Orion this game, just for fun, before we claim victory) :



Getting ready to finish off the Silicoids at Draconis that same year:



Bar graphs: We didn't have quite enough pop to win yet, but victory is inevitable at this point.





Tech levels as of 2474:



In the fields other than computer tech, I'd say throughout the game that about a quarter were stolen from the Alkari, almost a quarter traded for, maybe a few here or there stolen from the Humans through spying, and the other half conquered from the Silicoids. With the enemy computer tech levels not zipping by as quickly on this small map, spying was definitely more lucrative than in the first attempt in this thread.

Next year (2475) :



In 2485, the annoying Darloks were next:



Then the Humans. Here you see reinforcements streaming into orbit around Sol.



The Alkari were next. After all they did for me with providing me with free techs, I can't believe that I forgot to take a screenshot of their demise. Oh well...

Of course, we HAD to go after the Guardian. Before finishing off the Sakkra. Why not?



That 1400+ stack of medium ships had ion drives, inertial stabilizer (5 moves), Battle Computer X, Battle Scanner (attack level 11), and 1 hard beam each. They got the job done. We pulled the Death Ray, Oracle Interface, the Gauss Autocannon, and Improved terraforming +40 off of Orion.

AND, we got to open up our other research fields for the first time in the game! Sadly, the only things that we missed out on that would have been useful were: cloaking device, anti-matter bombs, scatterpack V's, and maybe fusion beams.

The Sakkra were a tough nut to crack, with Sssla having 250 pop, class X planetary shields, and 83 hercular missile bases. But it wasn't anything that 600+ blackjack bombers couldn't handle.

And so here we are at 2512, on the eve of galactic domination:



Thus concludes finally a successful run (on a small map, admittedly!) of the Meklar Matrixlords challenge.

[Tiltowait]

I won't play with Silicoids. I restart if they're in the game. I like borders restricted by range and planet environments restricted by tech and the Silicoids break both of those.

If you're playing kyrub's mod (and you should be) there is a save of every turn including the first one right there in the game directory.

Wow, homeworld going fertile. That's awesome. That's why I love random events.

[Psillycyber]

Yes, I do play with Kyrub's patch, but unfortunately, I have started another game since then, so I'd imagine that the autosave has been overwritten. Thank you for the tip, though!