(May 21st, 2013, 03:02)Nad Wrote: This could become a nice one - challenge accepted! I know that the Kittycats are difficult to play, but somehow do like them. I just played (and won) three Imperia training games on impossible with the weakest races (Bears, Birds and Cats), let's see whether I have learned from those lessons.
BTW, I drew up a comparably depressing start with the Birds which I originally turned down, but would like to offer. Of course, both Ocean worlds are poor:
Birdies and Kitties are bond together. The save is attached...
That's a tough one. The tech trees didn't do me any favors, and I had the Meklars run away with it.
I am pleased to hear that you gave the map a try! So did you surrender or somehow solve the map, Toddestan? Sometimes runaway Meklars can be defeated...
(May 30th, 2013, 02:39)Nad Wrote: I am pleased to hear that you gave the map a try! So did you surrender or somehow solve the map, Toddestan? Sometimes runaway Meklars can be defeated...
Spoiler tags just in case:
I'll preface this by saying I am no expert at playing MOO at impossible.
Here's what the map looked like when I threw in the towel:
I'm down to four worlds. I had seven at one point - almost eight but the Meklar just beat me to an inferno world (admittedly deep in their territory) by the time I could get a extended range colony ship out. The Meklar later decided they wanted Neptunus (the Ocean/Poor to the North) and Quayal (the nice Terran system to the north of Neptunus) and basically took them from me. There was nothing I could do about it as I could hardly scratch the Meklar's ships and even when they left their new colonies undefended (as the AI tends to do) I couldn't even get close to taking them back as I am completely outclassed in gropo tech.
To add insult to injury, I lost Hyboria (Minimal planet to the east, near the cursor) by the comet event.
So far, I've only made contact with the Meklar and the Klackon. The Klackon are solidly in second place at this point. The Meklar have already wiped out the Darlok, and judging by their one vote in the council the Mrrshans are almost certainly rocking a 1PE somewhere out there. I assume most of the worlds to the northwest without flags on them belong to the Sakkra. Speaking of the council the Meklar controlled 19/39 votes in 2450.
I have good relations with the Klackons, though that apparently doesn't stop them from probing my defenses with auto-repairing large ships equipped with bioweapons.
I suppose the game technically isn't lost yet, but being boxed in with little prospects for expansion it doesn't look promising.
Well, given the terrible starting location and both Meklars and Klacks as direct neighbours, the game may be lost or even unwinnable from the very beginning. Four mostly weak planets at this point of the game are too less to hold pace, especially with the production races. Perhaps I give the game a try soon and post some notes...
I gave the game a try until the middle of the 24th Century.
I was able to claim 9 planets (heavy expanding to the North and grabbing all the nearby hostile ones), so I almost won the 2424 council vote (17/29 votes), but than the Meklars declared war on me. I had planetary V and Scatter V online, but their SOD just crushed my defenses (max. 20 bases). I surrendered four decades later after losing 3 planets and wasting hundred of billions birdies life, because of the Meklars huge groppo advantage. I even recapured one of the world once (solid tech grab) and lost two close ground battles with 1 and 2 Meklars remaining.
So definitely not winnable for my playing strength, but maybe Sulla or Ref could win the map?
On a second thought I have to correct myself: I should have won the game. I lost the vote because the Darloks voted against me (and for the Meklars) with their 3 votes. Earlier, I declared war on them after they destroyed my young colony at the south-west dead planet in order to secure the planet. They also took the three tundra planets deep in the enemy's space (one of them rich) which I had eyed on. I overestimated my production capacity (2 poor planets, the rest being mostly small ones) and was unable to throw a decent fleet at the shifters (NPG 3 small Alkari ships are deadly at this point of the game). As usual the Darloks were allied with the Meklars and got them to declare on me later. Basicly, the (erratic) Meklars and I had a fantastic relationship due to constant trading and me voting for them thrice before the almost-decisive 2424 council.
My experience is that one faces a terrible start from time to time leading to a supreme AI race. But if that race is not the Humans and you play a flawless game, the player gets the chance to steal a council vote, because the other AI races suffer from the supreme one as well. Unfortunately I missed my chance in exchange for a short-term advantage (one more system which does not contribute until decades later). And yes, the tech tree was terrible. I haven't seen so many holes in a while. Luckily I was able to steal IRC III quite early and improved scanners later...
I've gone back to the point where I hastily declared war on the Shifters:
As guessed it was a game changing decision. Of course I was unable to win the 2424 council (this time 18/29 for me), but the Shifters didn't drag the Meklars into a war. Later they declared war on me, but now I was able to stand ground and even more importantly to capture a couple of bionized worlds (our former colonies...) where most of the factories were left intact. I almost stripped the Meklars for all their super-advanced techs at a certain point. I continued to play until mid 25th century after I conquered most of the Mrrshans' empire and finally had the potential to take on the Meklars. I even gained a groupo advantage over them (absorbation shield vs. personal deflectors and fusion rifle over ion rifle, not to mention that we had reached the end of the tech tree with neutronium, powered amour etc.). Additonally, I researched planetary XV which helped our defenses immensively.
I stopped because the clean up phase is just annoying. So my point is proven, definitely winnable, but terribly challenging. Overall the tech tree in connection with the starting position could be called a small catastrophe. Especially compared with the juicy start of the Meklars (core artefact world and so on)... Pleae find screenshots and final save attached.
Wow.... Meklars with Improved Robotic Controls VII and that level of terraforming tech? Their core worlds must have had just ungodly numbers of factories.
The save is attached...
![[Image: orion_089.png]](http://toddestan.homeip.net/moo/orion_089.png)
Their core worlds must have had just ungodly numbers of factories.