Archduke´s first Imperium

[TheArchduke]

Finally another Imperium and I can play it. Quite happy I load up the game. We are in the center of the galaxy, I scout the yellow star with my colony ship/1st scout and the red star with my 2nd scout.

The yellow stars is Romulas, 80 pop jungle. Colonized.

Arietis host artifacts, I only get Fuel Cells 4, what a disappointment, anything else would have been better.

2327 I colonize Arietis, I wish I would have looked southwest earlier. I make contact with the Klackons who settled 5 planets to the southwest quick and early.

2334 Beta Ceti is colonized. Our immeadite neighbours are Xenophobic Darloks and Ruthless Klackons. Thankfully the difficulty is medium.

Mu Delphi is colonized soon later, the Psilons make contact and the Darloks have 6 planets.

Initial expansion:


I try to make a bid for the southern terran and the eastern minimal planet which means getting some LR Laser ships out, which I haven´t build so far.

2354

Yarrow is colonized and we contact the Bulrathis. I update my range at this time, recognizing that no good engine is in sight in the propulsion tree. Always annyoing.

News come up, we are 3rd in production. 2360 also sees a first LR Las in preparation for our Dead Enviroment, which I immeaditly pursue after IT +20. Perhaps a mistake? I still think I was quick enough to get quite some planets.

Hyper-X Rockets come in and I decide to ignore all the small choices for merculite rockets, as being in the middle rockets will be crucial. A good defence is even more important in such a position. The tech tree hurts even more as there is no low tier Robotics Controls in sight.

Centauri to the south is colonized and most now habitable (thanks to dead enviroment) planets in the south are ready to be colonized and watched over by a laser frigate. Those 5 planets added to our 7 would mean a quick end to this game, so production of many colony ships commences..

At Vulcan I am shortly worried as the Humans are smart enough to equip their colony ship with a laser, chasing me away, although they can´t colonize the dead planet due to lacking tech.


2381 My reckless expansion soon brings us into contact with the humans and voting starts with Morfane the Darkloks taking a nice share of the votes and us getting none.

Stats and map:

[TheArchduke]

In 2385 I get the first warning that I will soon take over the galaxy. So soon later things start to get messy. Though nothing what my super breeders can´t prevent.



2 circles the soon to be colonies. My two border worlds get immeadite reserve support to get the newly researched planetary shields constructed so base building can commence.

At Mu Delphi the psilons start bombing an undefended core world. Cold war at its best. With the size of my empire a quick strike force is out of the question, so I will build bases with this game. Mu Delphi is actually invaded as 2 bases can´t shoot all the transports.



Another round of voting where the Psilons who wage a cold war on me actually vote me and the humans abstain. Everyone else votes the Darloks. I have more then 1/3 of the votes, 9 out of 26, which would be a close call.

4 bases are finished on Yarrow when a huge Bulrathi ship comes in, I am ahead in tech so it turns away.

Soon later the Darloks dow. The Bulrathis lack the bombs to attack my planets, though many large ships come. They manage to bomb the northern planets, I wait for more research in weapons till I build ships. Things are getting really messy now.



Crius is unsaveable, as Vulcan is probably as well. But the newly discovered fusion beams give us the opportunity to build serious large ships. I hope.

Crius is conquered without lost tech, Maretta and Vulcan soon under the same threat, Yarrow heavily industrialised early, holds itself with some bases.

I ask the Humans to dow the Darloks trying to take some of their fleets away. It costs me IT +30. Normally this is for free, as this is a real war, I should be okay with the rules. After flying fruitless to Yarrow for years, the Bears make peace. Excellent.

Maretta is able to squeeze shields and a base out before the Darloks arrive and Vulcan is not taken by their troops.


My new large design:


2418 After beating the few Darlok ships, I go on the counter-offensive. Robotic Controls IV comes in and the Klackons cancel the NAP. Nevermind this game is soon won.

My ally the humans turn to war against me thanks to an assasination event in 2419. I make a NAP with the Psilons so I don´t have to fight the whole galaxy.

Kronos the Desert Planet so near my core worlds has 3 bases, though with Hyper-X. They hurt, though my auto repair prevents any losses to my 2 large ships by a small margin. Crius is taken over by the Humans.

Kronos is conquered with Tundra and Toxic under the spoils, Crius soon follows, only IT +10 is found, no luck with pointy stick research.

Vulcan beats a Huge of the Darloks with 2 bases and one large but barely. Medium is not that easy.

The Bears dow, making the whole galaxy hostile towards me except the Brains. Well I guess someone else will have an easy diplomacy win, I won´t.

And after the next fuel cells, impulse drives (5) come up. Finally, most of my research is poured into it immeaditly. The Klackons attack with a nasty fleet, until I see their best weapon is a laser. Phew, it is medium after all.

My reckless expansion brings the Psilons to be disappointed with me. I am in an unoffical final war mode. The defenses of Sol prove impregnable to my fleet, 12 bases are too much for my slow large ships.

2438

As I only try to hold Crius and Kronos, the next years fly by peacefully, as both sides are too entrenched for an offensive.

2442

Thanks to my overexpansion, relations with everyone are down. My first huge is designed: Doom 5.0, I decide upon more weapons instead of the deadly warp dissipator/repulsor beam combination.

Romulas turns poor. With 110 Population is was an important production world.

2448

The Darloks steal 4 range fuel cells, not a big problem, but I up security. The Galactic elections are now 31 with 12 votes held by me. Noone votes for me, though. Doom 5.0 is enroute to Sol when the Klackons dow. I am sure someone else has treated more diplomatically.

Thrax and Sol are soon under siege and attack. Both huge terran planets, a nice start. From there it is pretty much a smooth ride as Auto-Repair, quick huges are unbeatable to the medium AI.

2470

Unable to stand up against my huge design, the humans are conquered.

2474

Unable to stand up against my huge design, the darloks are conquered and the next voting round is won by the Sakkra Empire. A fun imperium, though an easy one as I am used to higher difficulty.

[TheArchduke]

Thanks for a great map, Sulla. The position was difficult, so medium was perfectly justified to get back into the game. Though if one beelined to range and planetology techs, the game soon became quite easy, as the southern worlds and dead worlds proved sufficient expansion room.

[haphazard1]

Nice game, Archduke.

Your Darloks were surprisingly powerful. That shot from 2381 with six Darlok planets -- they must have gotten an early alliance with the humans and then grabbed those worlds from under the apes' noses. Most games they never got those worlds, and stayed a much smaller factor.

Also, it seems like almost everyone played a much more warlike game than I did. I did the usual things to boost relations: trade agreements which were upped regularly, no spying against anyone not at war with me. But I am not sure if it was that or just luck that avoided significant wars. There was plenty of cold war, brush war kind of action, and even some declarations, but nothing ever really threatened to break through my bases.

[RefSteel]

I think this is the first time I've seen one of your game reports since my Meklar Challenge last year; great to see you playing and reporting again! I just have one complaint.

I only get Fuel Cells 4, what a disappointment, anything else would have been better.

Heheh. Some of us might beg to differ!

[pkrcel]

I do for sure, my IIT9 sure beats this to the ground.

[TheArchduke]

IT9 that early is actually not that bad.

@ Refsteel:

Yeah, a Challenge as tough as the Meklar one would be awesome to have again.

@ Hapzard:

I gotta admit as the difficulty was medium I was not too worried about diplomacy. Especially my quick expansion gave me too many diplomatic mali with my neighbours.

[Sullla]

I'll echo the comments about a surprising strong Darlok empire. I don't think I've seen them nominated for the Council vote in any other games. And they almost won too! You just managed to sneak out of there and prolong the game by one vote. Nice work.

I do have one question - why so few scouts? The map from 2380 looks surprisingly empty, with a lot of worlds lying unclaimed by your ships. You might have been able to deny the Darloks some of those planets in the north with a few more scouts running blockade duty.

Yeah, a Challenge as tough as the Meklar one would be awesome to have again.

Oh, I wouldn't worry about that. The variant in Imperium Twelve is going to be a doozy...

[TheArchduke]

I'll echo the comments about a surprising strong Darlok empire. I don't think I've seen them nominated for the Council vote in any other games. And they almost won too! You just managed to sneak out of there and prolong the game by one vote. Nice work.

I do have one question - why so few scouts? The map from 2380 looks surprisingly empty, with a lot of worlds lying unclaimed by your ships. You might have been able to deny the Darloks some of those planets in the north with a few more scouts running blockade duty.

You saw it right. I was extremely lazy and didn´t build and send out LR Laser Frigates to claim planets until I recognzied the worth of the southern range. I won´t make that mistake again.

Oh, I wouldn't worry about that. The variant in Imperium Twelve is going to be a doozy...

I am already looking forward to it. Imperium Ten drawed a great number of reports.

[timoteob]

TheArchduke,

I enjoyed reading your report, very concise.

2360 also sees a first LR Las in preparation for our Dead Enviroment, which I immeaditly pursue after IT +20. Perhaps a mistake? I still think I was quick enough to get quite some planets.

My preference is to take controlled environment tech over terraforming tech as long as there are planets in my vicinity that will become habitable as a result. Although, this strategy does carry the risk of losing an early election. Like most things with MOO, it depends on your situation. For this game I went all the way to Toxic before researching terraforming and it almost cost me the game!