OSG-28

[shallow_thought]

I was a bit surprised to hear the war drums, but I guess that sitting back risks either a bad vote beyond our control or a bio-weapon equipped Darlok death stack appearing at a time it suits them... (and that's assuming that we could simply out-tech the Darloks if everyone stayed peaceful). And attacking the bears to pick up tech is a mugs game (maybe OK if you're Sakkra and can just swamp them).

This is the sort of decision you don't usually have to make on hard (certainly as the Psilons). Does this mean delaying IRC so as to focus on military tech? Or do we want the improved production base in order to launch a war? In either case, whatmiltary  techs do we need (I hope mass driver will be useful)? I'm very used to just waiting for huge+ARS+a gun+a bomb and grinding things out, but I assume Ianus is suggesting something we could build a little faster than that...

I get the impression that the difference between adequate and good play comes down to:
- understanding the mechanics in detail
- having the attention to detail to exploit the mechanics
- understanding how to wage war from a superficially disadvantageous position
- understanding when to wage war from a superficially disadvantageous position

Glad that this game is giving a chance to explore all of them!

[haphazard1]

Ground invasions against the bears (with added gropo tech!) does not seem useful, no. Although their defenses would be weaker, with less advanced missiles than the Darloks. If we want techs from the bears, spying might be better than invasion. But we could also just research more tech, without risking a war.

I think IRC3 before war would be helpful. This would slow build up of our newer worlds somewhat. But we would get a big benefit in our developed core worlds, and they are going to have to carry the majority of the load for any fleet building anyway. So the extra production would be very helpful.

[Ianus]

I think it was Sirian who said "Expand or Die" and that is very true. We could certainly consolidate our 8 worlds and tech at a pace comparable to the AI even here on Impossible. But I can tell you that before this game I played a Small Impossible Psilon game and taking on well established empires at the top of the tech tree is a tedious process. So yes I would rather go on the offensive now and steamroll to dominance. Besides if we move fast before planetary shields come online we can proceed with Nuke Bombs rather than having to wait for more advanced weaponry. And of course in an ideal world ARS Huge hulls would be great, but I know we can do a lot without waiting that long. It is important to keep our options open and proceed as we can.

[haphazard1]

Expanding would be good, if we can manage it. But the Darloks are not going to be easy targets, with improved missiles for their bases. We will need a substantial force to crack their defenses, and will take losses doing it.

Would it be worth attacking the bears instead? No invasions, so no tech captures, but just wiping their worlds out from orbit and then settling them? Their missile bases should be a lot weaker than the Darloks' (less shields, weaker missiles). While attacking the greater threat might be preferable, taking some worlds from an easier opponent would help our relative position.

[RFS-81]

Nice reports!

If we're going to war, would it make sense to try and ally with one of our neighbours against the other? I don't really know how active AI allies are when you call on them to declare war.

...we can get the place 70% terraformed and do all the pollution cleanup we need, with no production wasted!  I mean ... okay, it's a little thing.  Like I said, it's not Transylvanian.  But like, it turns out that terraforming is really finnicky?  Like, if you don't put exact multiples of five billion credits into pushing each stage forward, the planet just reverts toward its natural state and the extra one to four billion credits' worth of work are lost?  I mean, hopefully someday we'll have better terraforming and it'll be multiples of 4 or whatever instead, but you know what I mean. And then, you know, The Mind thinks better on each of our planets when it doesn't have to multi-task too hard, so you're usually losing a billion credits here or there just by splitting efforts and...

Okay, so it's really minor.  There's kind of not much point in this, compared to just doing big pushes for a lot of terraforming at once when you have the production available.  But, you know, when I'm not feeling very transcribed or whatever, which is totally not all the time in every way, it's a little thing I like that's fun for me.  But don't tell anybody!

Today I learned! Why does it track 0.1s everywhere else, but not here?

Okay, so remember how I thought I was being all clever and stuff?  I was actually just getting way too cute for my own good!  The chances of the techs I wanted coming in that turn were pretty small, but even if they had, it was a complete mistake to delay the first colony ship.  The savings from miniaturization pales in comparison to the value of getting a strong new colony started one year sooner.  The colony ship for Argus could have been half way to Gion right now, and instead it's just sitting in the shipyard, almost-but-not-quite completed!

Don't feel bad...I didn't think of pre-building ships, or sending one ahead to Gion. I just saw that the journey to Firma would take six turns, so I set things up to get the next ship ready by then.

[haphazard1]

Today I learned! Why does it track 0.1s everywhere else, but not here?

This is also new info for me. SGs are great for learning more about the game.

On alliances, I do not know if it would be useful to try. And I thought there was something about asking AIs to declare war on the exploit list, as being too easy/cheap relative to the diplomatic effects it has?

Really, with the Darloks being the Darloks, plus being xenophobic militarists, I expect they and the Bulrathi will be at odds fairly soon anyway.

[RefSteel]

Thanks RFS-81! And don't worry: I don't feel bad about the silly colship dance I did. I like to point out my mistakes (the ones I notice, at least!) partly to demonstrate that I'm far from perfect at the game, but also because that way other players can learn from my mistakes too!

Why does it track 0.1s everywhere else, but not here?

I think because - even though you can't spend BCs on pop growth when Terraforming is a possibility - population growth and terraforming happen simultaneously. So they're tracking tenths of a pop or whatever, but terraforming would need to progress along a whole different track. The game could use the same "bucket" it fills up for soil enrichment, since those don't happen simultaneously with each other, but the designers probably just didn't bother since it's never a matter of more than 4 lost BC ... at a time. Factories, by contrast, can theoretically cost as much as 35 BC apiece! (If you somehow get as far as RC7 with no Improved Industrial technology...)

Strategic stuff:

One nice thing about going after the Darloks is that they have an Ultra-Poor world right on the border. It won't have missile bases for a long time, still less a shield even if they tech planetaries, and if we wait for it to get a decent collection of factories, it could be a relatively easy way to collect some new technology. Of course, we wouldn't be able to hold it any more than they could unless we press our attack to better-defended worlds....

My experience with AI war allies is that they're usually more trouble than they're worth. They're much more likely to try to poach enemy worlds after I've cleared the defenses than to actually provide a useful distraction in a timely manner. The exploit is the case of "Let's you and him fight," in which you arrange for two powerful opponents to waste resources on each other while you stand on the sidelines with basically pom-poms, cheering on the carnage.

[RefSteel]

My thoughts on a couple of other questions people raised:

- I'd want to have a lot more factories (especially at Argus and Paranar) before IRC3. That does fall into the category of "preparing for war" though, at least according to me!

- You always want to terraform every world as soon as you can afford to do so, even if its population is very low: Doing so always speeds up population growth, if only by a very little. If it's low enough though, and has few enough factories, you probably can't afford to do a lot of terraforming anyway; with IT30, spending ~60 BC plus cleanup for a couple of turns is a good way to go, or 50 BC for two turns with IT20. If you can't afford that much and the planet isn't Poor, it's probably fine to just build factories. (I basically never build factories on poor worlds. The very first factory - now the first two with waste reduction technology - will recover its costs in time, but the payback horizon for any factories beyond that is just too far away when the planet could be putting the same resources into technology.)

- I think I still haven't explained my tech spending strategy adequately, possibly because it involves looking a little too far ahead. Broadly though, it's less about manipulating the sliders on the tech screen than about deciding the focus of the empire from one turn to the next: When I commit a lot of resources to seeding (a particular) tech, and when (barring contact with the enemy forcing my hand) I commit production to other priorities instead - like prebuild huges, missile bases, terraforming, or factories. For me, as a rule, even as non-Psilons, tech isn't a pool where I put left-over BC after planets spend on more important things (like building factories to "max" etc.) but one of the main driving forces determining how I allocate spending empire-wide. I'll spend on the empire's most-critical non-tech needs first, then check the tech screen to see how many BC I can spare from research (if any) while still spending adequately on the techs I think I'll need, and then decide how to allocate those "extra" BCs.

Note mine definitely isn't the only way to handle this! It's really a question of where you set your priorities, and e.g. what I call "unfocused" research might be equally described as "more balanced than Ref's lunacy." The main thing isn't the micro or the detail, but the idea of having a definite strategy and pursuing it as best you can.

So for instance, Ianus feels we should attack the Darloks as soon as possible. To that end, because he's really good at this game, I'm guessing he's going to identify the techs, production centers (whether they're all already built up or whether some are still waiting to be) and eventually (if we get that far within ten turns) actual starships he thinks we need in order for the attack to be effective, and then he'll work on getting all of that stuff ready. He won't necessarily have all of it by the end of his turn set (or he might; depends on a lot of different things) and the plan might have to change because that's what happens when you have contact with the enemy, but it can and will be adapted. Likewise, individual plans can almost never be executed to the complete exclusion of everything else except in the absolute end-game. But in general I find that, much more than detailed micro, Master of Orion rewards forming and executing effective strategies.

To take an example from my turns, I had a plan to colonize Yarrow that got turned into "colonize Argus and Paranar" (my fallback for the Yarrow colony push from the beginning; it's good to have fall-backs exactly because of the whole contact-with-the-enemy thing!) with just a little bit of a silly hiccup in between. I considered that more important than further research spending at the time - a consideration which naturally changed once II8 was available to be "seeded" with more terraforming and factories done and the colony ships already on the way.

[Ianus]

2380-2390

2380: First a look around our empire.  I really don’t like the idea of trickling production into ships and bases that we don’t need.  We have Non-Agression Pacts with both of our neighbors, and I know from experience that the AI will break a NAP when sending an invasion force.  Mentar can already build a missile base per turn with dedicated spending, so my higher priority is to get our worlds to the point that they can be defended easily as needed.  To that end I assign all worlds to terraform as soon as they possibly can which is next turn in a lot of cases.  From there I devote the rest of each planet’s production to building factories, which will max our core next turn aside from a few population points.  This slows our tech spending to exactly 111 RP, but that number will explode next turn.  I will readjust our tech spending next turn, but for now I leave things as they are.

While scanning the map I spot this unescorted Silicoid colony ship passing through the border between Bulrathi and Darlok space.  Neither race is currently allied with the Rocks, but that has never stopped the AI before.  I will keep an eye on that ship between turns, but the only place it can reasonably be heading is to the stars along the southern border of the map below the Darloks.  That means we will have some new neighbors before too much longer.

Speaking of our opponents I am ashamed of our tech situation! Are we the Psilons or not?  I know that I have been beating the war drums lately, but given our current technological backwardness I can’t see any way to go to war at the moment.  I think that a much better strategy will be to consolidate our empire (our eight planets will have crazy production once IRC3 can be implemented) and then tech up to the Fusion tech tier (Fusion Drives, Fusion Beams, BC5 and Shields 5 along with Auto Repair and Repulsor Beams) and then crush all who stand before us.  To that end I will do everything that I can to get us moving technologically.

I will be sad to give up such nice allies, but on the positive they shouldn’t give us too much trouble while we advance.  

The Bears will trade us quite a few things, but will only accept Inertial Stabilizers for the good ones.  I hold off on trading for now.

The Darloks will also trade us some interesting techs including two that I would very much like.  NPGs are my favorite early gun, and Personal Deflectors would be great.  The only problem is that they will only accept IT30(!!!) for either one.  Sorry you cowled thieves, no dice!

2381: As I thought that Silicoid ship is heading down toward the southeastern corner.  I predict that Controlled Radiated tech will come in handy some time in the near future.
Incedius, Mentar and Tauri all max pop and factories and go on full Research.  Gion will max factories next turn and all other worlds besides Paranar finish terraforming and go on full factory builds.  As a result our research jumps from 111 RP to 1120 RP.  That is more like it!  I increase our research focus on IRC3 by a significant amount, as that infrastructure push is the most critical thing, while our war techs can wait for now.
I sign the cowardly thieves to a 400BC trade deal in the hopes that they will be happy to leave us alone for now.

2382: Nothing significant to report this turn.  IRC3 is in the percentages and I think that we are at a good point for it to come in.

The Darloks have a decent fleet at nearby Proteus.  I hope that they have other things to do with it besides mess with us.

2383: Bingo!

BC4 is next.  Time to build some more factories!  With that key tech out of the way I equalize tech spending.  Its time to prepare for war!  

And probably a good thing too as relations with the Darloks are dropping fast.  We are still at Relaxed but the slider has dropped two or three bars down the green in just the last three turns.  In the spirit of aggression I renew spying on the Bulrathi and start espionage.  I would really love to get my hands on their Personal Deflector Shields.

2384:

I realize that this is technically a bad trade but I got such a kick out of it that I accepted anyway.
“Oooh, scanners!”

2385:

As if our empire wasn’t ridiculous enough already!  That will help with the war effort.

2386: Nothing to report.

2387: Mentar maxes factories.  It is now producing 493 RP all by itself.

2388:

At least we are doing well on with our population front.

2389: Incedius, Gion and Tauri all max factories.  We are now generating 1813 RP.

2390: As one final hurrah for my turn set:

I select Fusion Drives for our next research project.

And so I hand off our empire to the next ruler.  Our production is spiking as our planets come online with extra factories.  Our four core worlds are maxed, Kulthos should max in the next turn or two and Argus, Paranar and Firma are still some turns out.
As far as I can see our best course of action is to tech for a stretch and reach a point where we can build a powerful navy.  Of course that plan is open to change.  Good luck!

Roster:
Ianus (just played)
haphazard1 (up)
RFS-81 (on deck)
RefSteel (in the hole)
shallow_thought
DaveV

Save:

[DaveV]

Roster:
Ianus (just played)
haphazard1 (up)
RFS-81 (on deck)
RefSteel (in the hole)
shallow_thought
DaveV

Should be:
Ianus (just played)
haphazard1 (up)
RFS-81 (on deck)
RefSteel (in the hole)
DaveV
shallow_thought

... unless I've been demoted.

As far as the game: I always cringe when I have to spend production in a 1:1 field when there's the potential for 3:1 or 2:1 (e.g. research spending on the newly Rich Mentar, or building ships on a Poor planet). Is this just my penny-pinching nature, do I misunderstand the mechanics, or are we wasting money by putting most of Mentar's resources into an unenhanced category?