jmas shops "Sakks Fifth Avenue" :)

[jmas]

"Pre-ramble": I'm feeling a little frustrated with images right now.. Mine appear to be thumbnail-size whether I use the RB site or ImageShack. Maybe they really are that size? but then why are other people's images larger? I know my version of DosBox is not the most current, maybe that's the difference. Well, I don't want to keep wrangling with images, I want to get posting! So please bear with me for a report that uses just a few (but illustrative, I think) images..

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"Sakks Fifth Avenue"
or
"Sakkra in the Sack"

I spend a little while looking at the map. Maybe I'm just really used to playing on small maps, but I am struck by the number of stars within fairly short range of Sssla. There are 30 stars within 10 parsecs. The number of stars within five parsecs (9 stars) is more in line with other recent games of mine. But within our initial range we have no less than four stars, all of different colors: yellow, red, green, and white. I decide to scout them all before moving my colony ship.

Looking for where AIs might be, I also observe the cluster of yellow stars to the southwest and the yellow star east of Sssla.

Seeing how much scouting we're going to have to do, I design the Scout 2 on the first turn and arrange for one to be built each turn.

2301 Scout Arietis (artifact planet, Desert 35). What luck: we get IT + 20, a lovely tech to have in the early game (especially for free), not only for terraforming planets but also making colony ships much cheaper, plus the fact that it's a level 8 tech means I will be able to see the planetology options up to level 15 when I open the field.

2302 Scout Romulas (Jungle 80-nice size!)

2303: Scout Beta Ceti (Desert 45)

2304 Scout Antares (no planets)

2305 Decide to colonize Arietis before Romulas, in case there is an AI in the southwest. I see a Psilon scout coming to Beta Ceti.

2307 Colonize Arietis. Send 2 million population (2M) from Sssla. Scout Kronos (desert 40), Mu Delphi (Arid 65), and Trax (Barren 50).

2308 Send another 2M to Arietis. I probably kept this trickle going but didn’t write it down. Our scout reaches Klackon-controlled Argus and is chased away. Scout Vulcan (Dead 25).

2309 Scout Crius (Tundra 20) and Simius (Barren 50).

2310 We encounter a Darlok scout in the north. We scout Proteus (Minimal 50), where there is a Klackon colony, and Lyae (Terran 85).

2312 I put funding into tech to open planetology and propulsion. I decide to again defer colonizing Romulas, this time in favor of Beta Ceti , due to the proximity of the Psilons to Beta Ceti. A Klackon fighter chases my scout from Lyae. (The fighter later left and I was able to send a scout back). In planetology, I choose Controlled Dead environment over Improved Eco Restoration. In propulsion, range 4 is the only option; and for once, we don't even need a range greater than three yet! A Klackon scout arrives at and retreats from Kronos.

2313 We colonize Beta Ceti.

2314 Send 3M to Beta Ceti. I think I kept a trickle going over the next few turns.

2316 Scout Centauri (Terran 80 in south). Ooh, we want that one.

2317 6M to Beta Ceti. We reach Maretta (Barren 35 at 6 parsecs)
and encounter a Bulrathi scout. At this point, I thought the Buls could be in the North or the Northeast (of course, it turned out they were in the Northeast). A Klackon colship and scout arrive at Lyae but apparently have no weapons, since they retreat.

2318 Colship produced, RELOC to Beta Ceti so we can try to snag Mu Delphi, on the Psilons ' doorstep! Scout Cygni (Inferno 10).

2319 Open Construction, choose IIT9 over RW 80%. Scout Rigel--Radiated 30 @ 6 parsecs.

2320 Route colship to Mu Delphi.

2321 Send 3M to Beta Ceti. Scout Willow--Tundra 20 @ 6 parsecs. Meet the Klackons (Ruthless Diplomat); they have four planets.

2322 Colonize Mu Delphi. Klacks show up with armed escorts and colonize Lyae.

2324 Klacks refuse a trade agreement.

2325 Colonize Romulas--we were finally out of other non-hostile worlds to colonize! Scout Yarrow and chase off Psilon scout there. We also chase off a Psilon colship from Paranar (UR Toxic at 5 parsecs); the ship didn’t have a toxic base.
2328 I notice we can’t reach Kronos yet because it’s 4 parsecs away. Divert funding to tech and reopen propulsion. Klacks again refuse a trade agreement.

2329 We chase away a Darlok scout at Vulcan.

2331 Chase away Klack scouts arriving at Simius.

2334 Klacks again refuse a trade agreement. Range 4 pops, go to Range 6. We meet the Psilons (Honorable Technologist); they are a one-planet empire! I look at the planets and stats screens and see that even though we fast-breeding Sakkras have 283 pop on our 5 planets, the Klacks (who also have 5 planets now) have a longer population bar! Don’t know how they pulled that off.

2335 I see I have just 75 factories at Sssla due to churning out colships. I initiate trade with the Psilons at 75 BC/year. A scout of mine reaches Orion in the east. A Psilon scout comes to Cygni.
2337 Klacks finally accept a trade agreement of 100 BC/year. They refuse to exchange tech. We encounter their scouts at Nitzer (Tundra 20).

2338 I open force fields & weapons. Choose Hyper-V over Hand Lasers (for now), and of course, Class II shields. I don’t see in my notes when I got Hyper-V, but I know I chose Hyper-X next. I was very keen to get some respectable tech for missile bases to protect Arietis from the Klackons.

2339 Encounter Bulrathi ships at Rayden (no planets). Colonize Kronos and trigger GNN message—we’re first to 6 colonies. Meet Humans (Honorable Diplomat); they control, besides Sol, Thrax, Quayal and Stalaz. They must have range 5 since we don’t and we’re 5 parsecs from Sol.

2340 I see the Humans are in alliance with the Darloks.

2341 Produce another colship, start Sssla on building more factories, open Computers. (BC II—only choice as I recall).

Here I was thinking that I would have to develop range tech to colonize the Barren planets and use one of them (Simius) as a stepping stone to Terran Centauri (not seeing that Range 6 would actually put me within reach of Centauri without any stepping stones). Only later I realized, Controlled Dead and Construction tech could make it possible to put reserve tanks on a colship with a standard base.

Chase Psilon scout from Gion, Dead 35; scout Exis, Arid Poor 55.

2345 Get Controlled Dead, choose Improved Eco.

2347 Colonize Yarrow, meet Bulrathi (Aggressive Expansionist).

2348 The Buls have Ursa, Hyboria, and Gienah. I initiate trade with them at 25 BC/year. I see that we can colonize Maretta now.

Here I saw that Range 6 would make it possible to get to Centauri, but still did not yet realize it would be easier to get RIW 80% and put reserve tanks on a colship.

2354 Scout Klystron (no planets) and Spica (Desert 35)

2355 Sssla now has 132 factories—still a ways to go. Finally I see the RIW 80% option for LR colships. We have close to 500 population. RIW 80% pops, Duralloy next. Colonize Trax.

2359 Buls come calling, want 100BC/year trade; I accept.

2362 BC II and Improved Eco pop. Go for ECM II and, after some debating, Controlled Toxic (to get Ultra Rich Paranar) over IT + 30.

2363 Increase trade with Klacks to 200 BC/year (at their request, I think). Class II shields pop, Class III next.

2364 Colonize Maretta and Centauri (woot!) . Meet Darloks (Xeno Diplomat).

2368 I see that we have taken a slight lead in Production. Buls destroy my scout at Spica and colonize the planet.

2370 A planet of mine (Beta Ceti) maxes factories (gasp!).

2372 Scout Rhilus (Toxic 20), Colonize Simius, Sssla finally maxes factories, “a few” turns after Sullla did it . Both of our approaches seem to have worked, though I was concerned for a while about how long it would take to get factories built and decrease missile base build times.

I see in my notes from these years that I was paying a lot of attention to how much max pop we could have on our planets (and therefore how many Council votes we would get once the first vote came up, since I saw that 2/3 of the galaxy would soon be colonized).

2373 Psilons show up to colonize Exis. The Buls declare on me for no readily apparent reason.

2375 Get Hyper-X, choose Hand Lasers for gropo. Scout Dolz (Desert 50). The Psilons declare on me, also for no readily apparent reason (maybe because they’ve decided they need to expand at my expense and are Honorable, therefore they declare before attacking?); I don’t think they could have had contact with the Buls.
I don’t recall the exact sequence of events after the Psilon DOW; I think they attacked Mu Delphi with most of their ships and my missile bases destroyed them all. Anyway, somehow I noticed that the Psilons were in such a weak position that I could attack their homeworld even though I didn’t have much tech myself (notably, no improved engines or bombs).

2376 Get ECM II, choose BC IV. The (Ruthless) Klackons offer me a nonaggression pact! I accept.

Somewhere around here I designed a medium ship to take on the Psilons. This is from the battle in 2389 so it's not my whole fleet (just most of it )



This is an unusual ship for me, having missiles, beams, and bombs. Somehow the math just worked out that way. Also, I can hardly remember the last time I designed a ship for offense with a combat speed (and warp speed) of 1. I started all the worlds near the Psilons building these and sending them to Mu Delphi.

2377 Get Controlled Toxic & Hand Lasers. I choose IT+30 and NPG next.

2378 Get Duralloy, choose IIT7.

2380 Scout Galos (no planets) and Tyr (Rich Toxic 25)

2385 Get NPG, go for Merculites.

2386 Colonize Paranar, the Ultra Rich. GNN says I’m first to 12 colonies. The Council meets; in my desire to have Paranar in my empire, I had momentarily forgotten how close we were to having 2/3 of the galaxy colonized. I hold my breath…

Alexander of the Humans gets ALL the AI votes (3 Bul, 2 Dar, 5 Human, 4 Klack, 2 Psi = 16 votes). I have 9 votes—just enough for a veto. Whew!

2387 Psilons show up at Dolz with most of their remaining fleet, to colonize it.

2389 Divert research to IT+30 so we can increase our pop and Council votes.

Claim orbit over Mentar:



I believe my ships are behind the box showing info on Mentar. I lost a few of my 22 Spirit mediums but got rid of those bases (the ships were easy). The Psilons' Nuclear missiles couldn't hold me off.

The Buls offer peace (I don’t think they even had enough range to reach me); I accept. The Darloks declare on me.

2390 Send lots of troops—at warp 1 (doh!) to Mentar. Get IT+30, go for Radiated (only choice I think?) The Humans declare on me. I destroy a Psilon Large bomber & colony ship at Mu Delphi. Get Class III shields, Class V Planetary is the only choice.

2391 The Psis managed to build a Large ship at Mentar; we destroy it. They offer peace; we have 146 transports on the way. Declined!

2393 All the Psilons’ remaining ships reach Mentar, having returned from Dolz. We destroy them all.

2394 First landing on Mentar, 42 Sakkras vs. 86 Psilons. 35 Psis survive.

2395 70 more troops land on Mentar and capture it with 204 factories. We get IT+10, ECM I, Nuclear engines (yay!), Range 5, Ion cannon, and fusion bomb. Pretty good haul!

2396 Repel Darloks from Maretta.

2397 Colonize Vulcan.

2399 Get IIT7; Choose IIT6 (the only option in the next tier). The Psilons had sent transports in a desperate-looking effort to retake Mentar, but all the transports were destroyed. Earthquake hits the Darloks at Nyarl. Council: The Humans have 6 votes now, but we picked up a vote at the Psilons’ expense and added another 2 votes with our terraforming and colonizing. The Bulrathi abstain with their 3 votes this time, so Alexander has 13 votes, I have 12.

2400 I lost a save from 2403 because it was in the “Continue Game” slot (7) and I loaded an earlier save to look at something and the game saved the just-loaded game to slot 7. I play over from 2400 as close to my original play as possible. Colonize Gion. Send troops toward Psilon Dolz.

2401 Colonize Willow.

2402 My revenue from trading with the Klackons has reached a respectable 132 BC/year out of 200; I increase the agreement to 275 and revenue falls to 27, a drop of 105 BC/year. Ouch! Discover Radiated, choose Advanced Eco.

2403 Get BC IV, go for RC IV.

2405 Get Merculites, choose Fusion Beam. Land at Dolz and capture it with 1 factory, no tech from that for some reason. Now the Psilons only have mineral-poor Exis.

Not sure when I started doing it, but sometime after finishing development on Paranar, I started pumping the reserve and doubling production at Arietis to take advantage of Artifacts.

2406 Repel weak Human and Darlok attacks in the northwest. They kept sending the same fleets over and over and retreating every time, so I stopped making note of it.

2407 Class V Planetary pops, Repulsor Beam next. Psis offer peace, I accept.

2408 Range 7 pops, Energy Pulsar next.

2412 I am amused to see the Psilons ranked 5th in tech. I was 1st by this time.

2414 IIT6 pops, choose Exoskeleton.

Here's a map from around this time. The Klackons picked up a couple of worlds north of their core.



2416 Advanced Eco pops, Advanced Soil Enrichment next. Buckle your seatbelts, Sakkra economists! I started thinking maybe I could win by 2425 if I got Soil very fast and added all the pop, but then realized that I couldn’t use it on my many Hostile planets yet.

2420 Humans offer peace. Decline, we’ll attack them sooner or later (turned out to be later).

2424 Advanced Soil Enrichment pops, IT+50 next. In the Council, the AIs all vote for Alexander, but out of all of them, only the Klackons have acquired another vote since 2399, so the AIs have 17, while I have 14.

2426 Fusion Beam pops, choose Omega-V bomb.

2427 Energy Pulsar pops, finally there is a drive tech in our tree: Impulse, which of course I go for, we’ll want that before going on offense again.

2430 We get IT+50, Atmospheric T-forming next.

2433 We get Repulsor Beam, go for Personal Absorption.

2435 I see we are up to 51% on Atmospheric, then it pops, go for Complete Eco, I think it was the only choice to move forward.

2438 Psilons colonize Nitzer. Klackon spies destroy 5 factories at Arietis—guess they’re not all peace and love after all (unless they were really Darlok spies). Darloks offer peace-decline.

2440 Having completed all my Atmospheric T-forming, Advanced Soil Enrichment, and IT+50, and built all the factories the increased pop allows us (to take advantage of the cheap cost), I finally get RC IV. It will allow us to get 4550 more factories, but that will cost 54600 BC! We start chipping away at it; I never did quite finish everywhere. I choose Advanced Scanner next and dial up spying on all the other races. The Humans and Klacks have some techs I don’t, but nothing huge; I will be mindful of the Human Scatter Pack Vs and Klack Stinger Missiles though.

2442 Impulse Drives pop, go for Trilithium, not that we need it.

2443 Exoskeleton pops, choose Andrium armor over IIT4.

2445 Personal Absorption pops, choose Cloaking Device.

2447 Omega-V pops, choose Scatter Pack VII. Psilons threaten me—ha!
I think it was right after getting Omega-V that I designed a new bomber: medium, combat speed 3, BC 4, Missile Defense 8, Duralloy, Shield 2, 1 Omega-V. I also built the “Hornet” beam ship: medium, Defense 6, BC 4, combat speed 3, Duralloy, 3 Fusion Beams.

2448 GNN announces impending comet at Klackon Kailis.

2449 Steal RC III from the Buls. Darn, would’ve been nice to steal that earlier and build some factories for 9 BC each instead of 12.
In the Council, the AIs have the same total number of votes (17) between them, but the Klackons abstain with their 5. I have 23 votes (having added 9!) out of 40.

2450 Advanced Scanner pops, RC V next; the only new choice. We won’t be getting it soon (or, as it turned out, ever), since we’re paying enough to build factories as it is.
Complete Eco pops, IT+80 next.
With the scanner I notice the Dars and Buls have no terraforming (poor guys), and see that the Klackons have two Ultra Poor planets—Jinga and Argus.

2453 Having amassed Hornets and bombers, I send them to Sol to do battle.



Our bombers (with the green wingtips) have a missile defense 3 higher than the Humans’ bases' attack level, but our beam ships (the yellow ships--Hornets) have a defense only 1 higher. The AI adopted the reasonable tactic of firing its missiles at the Hornets. I had to keep them in battle or I wouldn’t have had anything to fight the Human ships with. Fortunately my bombers were able to take out the bases in short order, and the Hornets could then take out the ships.
The Humans offer peace; fat chance ; decline.

2455 Klackons stop the Comet event. I capture Sol with 210 factories and get Inertial Stabilizer, Scatter Pack V, BC III. Here I was thinking that Mr. Popularity, Alexander, might not be nominated anymore, but little did I realize (more later).
Sometime around here I designed my “Beam II” ship (“Beam I” being the Hornet), a medium with Beam/Missile Defense of 8/10, BC 4, Duralloy, Combat speed 4, and 2 Fusion Beams.

2457 Just to be a _polite_ warmonger , I break my NAP with the Klackons. They colonize Cygni.

2458 The Klackons have about 40 larges and about 100 mediums at Kailis in the north by the Human worlds; I decide to see how my Hornets at Sol fare against them. I also attack Lyae.

2459 After defeating the Klackon ships and bases at Lyae, I withdraw, wanting to beat their big fleet before capturing planets. Unfortunately, even with a beam defense of 6 vs. the attack level of 3 on the large Klackon ships at Kailis, my unshielded Hornets get blown away by the massive number of Gatling lasers they’re fielding (9 on each large, 360 total!). I get IT+80, IT+100 next. Dolz rebels.

2460 I design the medium “Beam III” to take on that Klackon fleet: Defense 8, BC 4, Duralloy, Combat speed 4, Shield of 3 (very important), Fusion Beam & Ion Cannon. Get Andrium, Trilithium, and Scatter Pack VII, choose RIW 20%, High Energy Focus of course, and go back for Graviton Beam, with an eye on taking on the Klackon ships (the Dars also have lots of little guys).

2461 The big Klack fleet is moving to Jinga with an ETA of several turns; I prepare to meet them there and also decide to capture Lyae in the meantime. Steal ECM III from Buls, capture Lyae with 297 factories and “acquire” sub-light drive, Spores, Stingers, Ion Rifle, Personal Deflector. Recapture Dolz from rebels.

2462 Defeat a Klackon fleet at Kronos. Sabotage a Human missile base at Thrax and frame the Darloks. Get Graviton Beam & choose Auto Blaster.

2463 I design a missile boat with a Scatter Pack VII, but end up not building any. I design another medium class of ship with defenses of 8, BC V, Andrium armor, Combat speed 4, Shield 1, 2 Graviton Beams, 1 Omega-V, and 1 Fusion Bomb. Seeing that I’ve created a fighter/bomber that should far outclass any ships or bases the AIs have, I give it the name “Doom”. I did build this one (263 of them by 2474), and thought of bombing all the AI planets with it, but thought it might take until 2475 (or almost) anyway and possibly require running after AI colony ships desperately trying to re-found colonies…and it just didn’t sound like something I would enjoy, seeing as I knew the AIs wouldn’t stand a chance.

I took the orbit of Thrax with my older ships.

2464 Send troops to Thrax. I had send some bombers to the Klackon systems Kailis and Crius thinking I would bomb them. I did defeat the bases, losing 2 bombers at Kailis and 9 at Crius. I bombed the colonies once but then decided not to bomb anymore and withdrew the next turn. My troops arrived at Thrax and captured it with 215 factories, picking up Class V shields for me. Somewhere around here I also destroyed the bases at Kholdan but then withdrew, waiting for the showdown with the big Klackon fleet.

Continued..

[jmas]

2466 I destroy a bunch of Human ships at Thrax. 18 of the Doom class (remember, they’re Mediums! ) defeat about 90 Darlok smalls and 18 missile bases at Nazin. 70+ Dooms arrive at Ursa and I decide that is serious overkill and retreat, bringing in a smaller number instead.
At last I get to engage the big Klackon fleet with the ships I’ve prepared for the occasion, upon their arrival at Jinga. I had 17 Dooms, 59 Beam IIs and 162 Beam IIIs.



They have:



We destroy about half the Klackon Rangers (large ships) before they can shoot at my ships. At the end, we’ve lost 7 medium ships; they lost the 83 Horseman mediums and all 38 larges.

After the battle, the stats screen shows me leading in Fleet Strength. Since I generally have a small fleet compared to AIs, that’s usually a sign of the “end times.”

2467 I move on defenseless Kholdan with troops, and capture it, picking up Gatling Laser, Class IV shields, Inferno, and Barren.

2468 Destroy a bunch of Bul larges before they retreat from Maretta, plus Darlok ships that arrive on the same turn. Capture Nazin (getting Tundra and IIT8 ) and Ursa (getting nothing; the Buls have no tech I don’t have), and trigger the GNN message that the Sakkra empire “nearly controls a majority of the galaxy”. Heh-in fact, with the 2 planets just captured, it is a majority—there are only 44 planets counting Orion, and we control 23.

2469 I see we’ve beaten everyone’s fleet, captured all homeworlds (as well as the second best colonies of the Klackons, Humans, and Psilons), and captured all techs except a couple the Klackons have (Auto repair, Zortrium). The game is over in all but name.

2470-71 Building up population on conquered planets. Get IT+100, go all-out for Complete Terraforming, and get Cloaking Device, choose Class XV planetary. GNN announces “census” ranking of population—with the Humans in second place ahead of the Klackons, though I can see with my scanners that the K’s actually have more pop. My guess is that since they have an equal number of Council votes, they are listed in their player order, and the Humans are listed before the Klackons on the Map screen.

2472 I’m gunning for that Complete Terraforming. Mentar’s and Sssla’s production look good doubled (2552 and 2534 respectively; they never quite finished the RC IV buildup)

2473 Pop maxes everywhere it wasn’t maxed already. All Darlok ships arriving at Nazin, except a colship that retreats, are destroyed without loss of a single Doom. Complete Terraforming does not come in.

2474 Ready for the Council..

As if to taunt me, Complete Terraforming comes in, now that there is no time to implement it.

Alexander is nominated again, by the same magic that showed his population higher on the “census” than the Klackons, no doubt. The AIs all vote for him, but that’s only 12 votes; I have 46, having doubled my representation since 2449 (mostly by adding 18 votes to the total number of Council votes!) Game , set, match. I could have had an additional 5 votes if I’d been able to take advantage of Complete Terraforming.

At the end of the game, out of 40 colonized planets, I had 23, just 57.5%, yet I had 79.3% of the Council votes. Thank you terraforming, Atmospheric Terraforming , and Advanced Soil Enrichment! Even before getting Complete Terraforming, my Planetology tech level was 53; that’s 17 to 25 levels higher than my tech levels in other fields. I almost always feel I’m getting my money’s worth with Planetology, but with the Sakkras’ being rated Excellent in the field (thereby paying only 60% of the regular cost) and having a great set of choices in this game, the payoff was humongous.

I’m glad I was able to block Alexander in that first Council vote. If our race hadn’t been the Sakkra, maybe I wouldn’t have had enough pop to do it!

It was very unusual for me to capture a homeworld (Mentar, no less) before 2400, and that was about the end of the Psilons’ prospects in this game. I wonder how the game would have gone if they had colonized Mu Delphi (which was only 4 parsecs from Mentar! What were they thinking? Though, since they developed Range 5 instead of 4, maybe they didn’t have the range tech by 2322 when I colonized it). Still, if I had been in the Psilons’ shoes, I would have started fighting the Sakkras much earlier for Mu Delphi, while if I had been the Klackons, I would have fought for Arietis instead of offering, and then honoring, a nonaggression pact. I see that others also saw underwhelming performances by the Psilons and unusually congenial behavior from the purportedly "Ruthless" Klackons. I think I'm going to see whether it's possible to see the Psilons sending out their colship using Alt-Galaxy. If their initial setup led them to send it to Orion in every game...that would help explain what happened in their case. As for the :kisskiss: Klackons some of us saw, I don't know...

By the way, well played all! This was fun for me. Thank you for your engaging reports.

[jmas]

I want to add an acknowledgement that getting IT +20 from Arietis was a really big boon. Out of what's been posted so far, I think I like IT+20 and Range 5 the most among the free techs, contributing the most to covering planets with lizards.

I sure do like scatter packs though, so Megafrost made out pretty well too..

By the way, I think the strategy guide says the odds are 75% of finding a free tech...so that would be 25% of no free tech at Arietis? That would be a bummer.

[jmas]

I forgot to put "Imperium Ten" in my thread title.. could someone with "1337 mod powerz" do that please?

[Megafrost]

Regarding the images, mine came in that size too. I just simply resized them. Well, most of them (forgot one and won't be able to fix it for a couple weeks).

Nice job keeping those pesky Humans from achieving a winning vote! That first election seemed like one of the closest shaves any of us had.

[dathon]

If their initial setup led them to send it to Orion in every game...that would help explain what happened in their case.

I too noted the poor performance of the Psilons in my game, and I see that it's pretty much universal. I hadn't even considered that, though. So of course, I had to investigate I got the original save, and loaded it up 10 times to watch what happened.

The results were VERY interesting. First off, EVERY race did the same thing from the outset. The Psilons sent their Col ship to the Tundra to their North, and scouts to Beta Ceti and North. The Klackons always scouted NW, and colonized ARgus first. Humans scouted N and W, and founded Thrax. The Darloks scouted N, but left their col ship at Nazin. The Bulrathi did the same. I took a few games several turns in, and the brains never sent ANY ships to Orion, making me believe that the AI is hard-coded to know Orion's location and avoid it.

I think the Psilons got stymied by not having the range/environment tech to break out of their little corner. The Average difficulty certainly played a factor as well; they would have been on the move on Impossible. I think the game would have been a lot different too if the planet on the NE side of "south cluster" had not been inferno, or the planet south of Mentar toxic.

Oh, and good game and report, BTW 8)

dathon

[jmas]

Thank you Megafrost and dathon. @Megafrost: Yes, that first council could have cost me the game, though I would have tried Final War. Thank you for the tip about resizing.

@dathon: I also loaded the game (twice, I think) and observed mostly the Psilons and saw their colship wind up at Paranar, where I encountered it in the game, but I didn't grasp the larger picture of ALL the same moves being made by ALL the AIs, so thank you for pointing that out. What you describe makes me think they definitely know Orion, and probably know about habitable planets within their initial range before they even send out their ships. For all I know, it could be that they know all planets' environments and the ONLY purpose of them doing any scouting is that they are subject to the rule that they must "scout" planets before they can send colonists/troops to them later in the game. I think you are right that it would have been different for the Psilons on Impossible or with a different planet environment around.

[haphazard1]

Nice game and report, jmas. Close call on the first council vote.

Thanks for the interesting discussion on the AI starting moves. I had really wondered if they sent the col ship to Orion, but apparently they know to avoid that.

[RefSteel]

Wow ... Terra+20 on turn 2 ... I think my advisors are drooling again. I don't think there's any way your colonizing could have kept pace with those of us who maxed Sssla first if not for its miniaturization effects. 75 facs at the homeworld in 2335?! Yikes!

In any case, thanks for another good read and more fodder for comparisons!

[Maniac Marshall]

Good report, glad you had fun.

IT 20 was one heck of a good tech to pull right off the bat. I see two things different in this game compared to most other.

1) You built an effective fleet that wasn't huge hull.

2) Those yellow flags in the north, especially that one at Kailis... those look SO WRONG