Imperium Ten - Pkrcel's overtime duty.

[pkrcel]

So here we go, my first try ever at a MOO imperium.....n00b alert

I have only a small amount of time so I'll put a very summarized report hoping to get the time to have a much more detailed one in later today or tomorrow (depending on how I come out an hospital visit I have to do)

A little BG here, I am a long itme MOO fan (as well as CIV series and RRTycoon, and many others) but I am definitely NOT a good player...I can take my games at hard...sometimes I win, and I can manage an Average Medium...or at least I think SO.

Well, let's get started...every one should have seen this



4 stars in range, the Yellow at 3, red 3 and green at 2...white I don't care.
Well, let's get to the non-obvious path..I chose the green star for my colship and bound the scouts to the others.

WOW, I draw the good one this time, and Ariteis is an artifacts planet....err..well maybe not the best of the techs I got.



but will help nontheless.....even thou seeing the other reports...I MAY get a bit envious of those scatter-V or Deuterium....whatever, my Liz did a good job finding ANYTHING at all.
(y'know, we don't pack those scouts with the sharpest tools in the box... )

Anyway I get my share and have a second colony, sent pop form sssla and I follow the usual path of maxing the HW while colony carries research (opened all fileds on turn 9), in this case it's an artifact world so it's all but logical.

Here's what I got around 2308-2310 or so....



I found Ants...and a bit later I fend off some Brains scout on the East at Mu Delphi and Beta Ceti in the following years...I'm close to two of the 3 big boys out there (as per Sirian's classification of the strong races).

Things go on with me churning off colships to the East even thou I have to skip the big jungle globe in the north (Romulas) just to get those two habitable off brains Hands.
In the meantime I chase bears off Yarrow, a Minimal 30 N of what I found to be Mentar, the only possible location for Psilons.
Given my scout reports, Psi are stranded with OPE, but they also COULD be having a nice breeze in the SE corner.

Made contact with Ants on turn 23, NOT due to my range research so....they got (at least) Hydro cells....



wow, friendly ants, I'm sure we'll dofine as long as you keep come under our feets..I mean , paws, I mean whatever e have as grappling edges

I woudl ike to keep Lyae the big terran close to their borders (too close), so I fent off a gazillion Klakon Colships, even with scout escorts....but at in turn 24 I encointer their medsize Milssileboat.



Okay, I CAN outrun those volleys, and such I do, obliging the ants to hold off.

Here's the first blooper in my game, I should have gone for Controlled Dead
just after getting ImpEco, I THEN could either desing an LR colship in a large desing OR get Trax and Then Lyae....it Ends up that I get Terraforming+20 due to a misclick. To my great dismay I did play the following turns CONVINCED that I could get to Lyae in a matter of some turn and devoted some LR fighter ships to cover the planet, subtracitng resources to the colships thet sholu dhave gotten Romulas and Yarrow, not mentioning I delayed Range4 research.

In the mean time I got both Mu delphi and Beta Ceti, I scout the eastern planet on the southern cluster and find one more reason to get Lyae...it woudl definitely cut off the ant and stick them in the corner giving me room to get Centauri (the big Ocean in the southern cluster) and spread S from there.

More to come in a bit....

[pkrcel]

I could hold back the ants for a while, since they did not have Proteus (the Y star W of Lyae) and I and unarmed blockade for ages there, but eventually they got Lucky (:P) with a missile and colonized there.

I had some Lnog Range Lasers bound to Lyae in these turns but things got wrong from here. I research Controlled Dead once I found I got IT+20 (blah! what was I thinking?) and now understand that this could be a fatal mistake.
On turn 38, the first warning ensues.....Humans are the first with 6 planets.

Now the weirdness:



EXCUSE me?!? are these the Ants, or the Alkari in another outfit? Weird to say the least.

In the meantime, I make contact with bears, which get Yarrow, the M30 that I delayed colonizing....aggresive expansioninst....uhm.

Two consecutie GNNs say that I am the most populated empire, but in these turns There are humans 2nd, anf then Bears 2nd....so they seem to evenly match population.

I'm nice with bears and begin to trade...they will got relaxed in a matter of turns in fact.

On turn 45 an Ants scout lands at Romulas (Gstar north of ssla, recently colnized)
...a turn later TRANSPORTS take off form argus.....hey wait a minute..... Argus->Romulas is a 7 parsec trip!! WTF?!?!?


On the other hand, Humans get in contact since they get Kronos, the Desert Wstar at Range4 that due to my dumb research and cocky sticking to try to get Lyae I delayed so much.
I am beaing niuce to apes and trading....we got to Amiable in a matter of a handful of turns.

Finally, Dead environment comes in, the very same turn, I lose Trax to the Ants, due to my popgun fighters havign bad luck....the colship and it's escort
are almost swattled, the colshpi wins with 2/100 HP!!!!!



And the very next turn they get Lyae, due to my DUMB move of sending the LRs to cover for Trax since I saw no fleet incoming.

This meant WAR, I invaded successfully Trax, but dropped Lyae for good.
(Ants decied to declare after my invasion of Trax).

This makes it in turn 60, when I finally decide to get range 4 and meet the Brain's OPE, with which i begin a pathetic 50BC trade.



SO I begin on spying the Ants, and tr to improve my relatonships with everyone.
In this very moment Bears, Darloks and Apes are allied together.

I continue to expand as possible claming Vulcan Maretta and Willoow, all hostiles.

The Sakkra empire is a huge "Y"...

Spying on ants works wonders, I get in only 6 or 7 turn Nuke Engines(!), Robocontrols 3 (!) and BC2(!!).
In this meantme I found Centauri, the gem of Ocean world in the southern cluster, and I am about to get controlled Toxic Env (I pushed a bit hard on planetology eh?)

On turn 75 itself, I colonize Crius, thus triggering the council vote.
I did just check, Humans and Bears are amiable or relaxed, Psilons are Neutral, Ants HATE me.....no contact with 'loks.

But then the disaster incomes, cause some fraky Psilon scientis must have given LSD to their diplomats.

Votes are as following, it's me vs Alex, leader of the humans:

Bears vote Alex (3/22)
Darloks -> Alex (5/22)
Alex votes himself (10/22) -> these were allies, so understandable

Ants vote Alex (14/22) -> okay, they hate me SO much.

BRAINS VOTE ALEX? (16/22)


Stupid stupid stupid brains, what the hell?!? why so? Am I THAT ugly for you?

So....



but...



And that makes it, it's OVERTIME DUTY!

Ye shall pay sssstupid brainssss....

[Doug.Lefelhocz]

To paraphrase Charlton Heston "THOSE DAMN DIRTY APES!"

[pkrcel]

They will get their share, I went final war...stay tuned...now as I said I'm going to the hospital...will be back in some hours and then there will be the last part of my report

[pkrcel]

Okay, got back safe from the Hospital, maybe a bit hurting...but able to put down the last part of my report (apologize for this triple-post report, but in these last weeks after finishing this imperium I had been quite busy).

So here we go, "I defy the council rule, so be it, let the bugger come and pay visit to the lizards."

This was no joke, I was Teching badly, the ants were so much overproducing and overteching the rest of th galaxy that the tech sharing my foes got from the final war alliance is really hurting.

And BTW, I forgot to mention that Ursa went nova a turn before the elections or something like that, THAT may have changed my luck in the elections...



anyway I begin my struggle, first off, I had some military, but really a pity compared to the Ants weaponry

Also, my northern front was rather new colonies (Crius just founded, Maretta and Vulcan just developing..) so they would be perfect targets (even thou I had already some bases at Maretta and one on Vulcan) for the APes & Bears (not to mention the 'loks).

I decided to go full ECO spending there, to try to preserve most of my Planetology tech (of which I was undoubtly leader) in case of the most likely invasion.

One thing I can say, is that I do NOT normally fight the final war, but I felt REALLY REALLY cheated by the brains, which had NO reaosn to vote Alex...except stuffin' it to me of course.

SO my plan was to obliterate the Psilons and try to get tech from the ground loot...I had a bit of gropo edge at the time, but was unable to go after mentar but in a few turns.

I phased in Espionage, put it to maxiium on the Apes and a single tick every other just to be sure to have at least one updated report (they all have the same techs).



In the same turn, I send a garrison of my medium laser ships to Kronos, the Desert the apes "stole" under my nose to probe them, while their Warp1 fleet comes to crius (on which I parked some ships).

I continue my expansion on the SE quadrant and got Simius.

I triple checked, and could coordinate an invasion on Kronos, but.....the turn before I land (darn slow transports), the apes (AIs) get TWO gropo techs the didn't have since that very turn (I was watching this closely)

Anyway, they got Duralloy and Personal Deflector (I guess by combined Ants+Apes breakthroughs)...and slap me.

On turn 83, you can see my orignal note in the log:

Turn 83
- Stolen BC3 from Apes, good -> going BC4
- Stolen Deep Space scanner from Brains, very good.

TWO stolen computer techs, that is bound to help nonetheless.

But I was prepared to be beaten at least a bit, and in fact I could intercept an Ant fleet at Trax (SW of my empire), and a Psilon fleet over Willow (the tundra they had N of Mentar all the time).

I cannot stand them and lose both planets, good enuff, I didn't develop them too much, and they got nothing from them.

so I'm still hurting in Tech, but I have some useful ones, except the VITAL gropo techs I need to overcome the gap.

Well, nontheless I got controlled Toxic, so while I baited the DUMB Psilon on Exis (the arid poor south of the galaxy, go and tak'em sirs...we were JUST leaving ) I am about to colonize Paranar, the Toxic Ultrarich they were so much drooling at...it will become a PowerHouse in no time, you betcha!
(I almost had IT+30, so that toxic will become enuff big for shipbuilding)
In the same turns, GNN reports ME as the first to reach 12 Planets, and for some reason Humans tell me they won't stand behind my rapid growth.
(I laughed a lot)

For all this time, I've seen a huge number of Laser and Hyper-V Missile Boats form the AIs, which had Neutron Blasters all the way.

this is roughly what goes till 2434
- Going Graviton after ion Rifle (i chose previously the rifle for GroPo edge)
- Stolen Tundra Env from Apes.
- Got terraforming +30 nice, then controlled Radiated.
- Stolen IIT7 (apes, who else?), niiice.
- Stolen Class 5 planetary shield (GREAT)

- Got Autorepair, (only large designs now!), and Graviton Beam...
....now all (but psilons) should reconsider their huge stacks of tiny ships
and now Going RW60% and Omega-V

When in, I'll desing two huge designs to deal with enemy bases.

- Stolen Personal deflector shield. (keep'em coming!)
- Got BC4 -> I have ROBOCONTROLS 4 in tree!
I'm pushing hard for this...year is 2433, I'm using the URICH->Artifacts resource bridge to get most out of my two only peculiar planets.

I'm halfway through RoboControls 4 when the situation looks like this:

[pkrcel]

And now it begin the part in which I take the corner down the road, Psilon did field a huge desing that was invulnerable (due to shielding+autrepair) to my missiles, but nevertheless, had only fusion beams (no bombs!) and was unable to wipe the defenses in ANY of my planets....usually going over max turns...having only 3 planets (now, with one poor I left them), they did not support a notable fleet at any time.

That was about the time I flattened their gropo edge STEALING Zortrium Armor.
Now was time to get a bit bold, so I captured Cygni, which I let the Apes colonize just to send there all the excess lizards that populated the southern islands...on the same wave I recapture the bait-world exis, but got no tech, Psilons did not build but 3 factories (!!), and Dolz, the SE corner world...that had only 2 factories as well.
All invasion are successful but, y'know, I just did this with a 3:1 ratio against those Apes and Psilons.

I continue Stealing Techs, notably, Computers and SUBLIGHT DRIVES.

I can concentrate and go full-steam research while being on the defensive, I continuously put a large design in place (in the 20-30 numbers), which mostly come out of Sssla (Paranar being "away" and reserving for Arietis), while by the time we face 2497 (ugh! already 120 turns of war!), we are in this shape



So there is some light out of the tunnel....I got advance space scanner, and have Robocontrol 5 in tree (they were stuck to Robo3), along with ANDRIUM, and Exoskeleton.
Once in, along with Repulsor Beam, and Fusion Cannons, I will counterattack.

In the meantime, I steal Absorption shield and Merculites, now those huges will get their share if they dare close to my bases.

It's 2503 when I begin my counterattack, I fielded a huge design packing Fusion Cannons and Repulsor Beam, and concentrate on Mentar and Rigel (the small radiated world in the mid south of the galaxy, In the Islands region, the only world that was not mine, and that if captured would let the ants (& friends) OFF the area (with their range 8, only 3 planets of the islands were within their reach).

Both invasions succeed, easy when you're Sakkra!
Here's a shot of Mentar's ruins



I got:
- Jammer 4, Shield 5, BC 5, IIT6, Uridium, Mass Dirver from Mentar
- Death spores, ion cannon, advanced eco from rigel!

Buh-bye Brains, next time PLEASE RECONSIDER YOUR VOTE

Nice loot, but now was time go after the Ants on Trax, that was rightfully MY planet since the beginning
When I RE-captured trax, after such a long time, I got
- reajax 2 (range 11) , FUSION DRIVES, cloacker, inferno base and inertial stabilizer, scatter pack V.

Thus I almost covered the Tech Edge, and NOW it' sonly a matter of mop-up the rest of the galaxy.



I obliterated the Ants, and then moved on to glass everything I could.

In the beginning of this slaughter Alex seem to play the "we're mighty" card to me...



Amazing show-off, but the galaxy was looking like this at the time



And....

[pkrcel]

And one last screenie, year is 2579, and this was the last of the Human Colonies



and only one comment is significant.



So that's all folks, Extermination Victory in overtime fun, year 2579.
A wondrous 200+ years of galactic war. Longest EVER in my experience.


A bit of aftermath:

- Lyae was definitely doable even not popping any majot tech in Arietis, you should know that those 15 laser fighters defending trax could have been 2 or 3 times more..for some reason, there was the small ship gfx of the "original" scout still available when I designed the laser popgun fighter, and build 30+ of them INSTEAD of the fighter...if I had those more fighters, Trax woudl have been toast, and Lyae would have been invaded at worst.
STILL it was a strategic mistake I should have avoided.

- AIs are definitely not that aggresive, in the fianl war I fought only a small amount of decisive battles, while the most part (which I ditched from the report) were brushing and probing here and there...to my surprise, the most aggressive in the final war were the psilons, maybe because I folded them in with my empire and had nowhere else to go...but If those dumb AIs packed together and slapped me, I woudl have been toast loooong before 2500.....

- Here0s my glorius Huge designs pack



and my beautiful face



And that's all, I had a ton of fun getting my revenge against those stupid Psilons....now I know why they were running a pathetic OPE...

[Doug.Lefelhocz]

Good to see that someone had one of these "loss-victory" games.

[haphazard1]

Nice game, pkrcel! Excellent work, pushing through to victory despite the Humans getting a cheesy early alliance diplo vote.

[RefSteel]

Great comeback from "defeat" to victory! My Psilons also voted for the Monkeys at the first opportunity, when they couldn't even have had contact, and had good-to-decent, non-war relations with me. I came within a hair of being forced to try the same thing you pulled off so effectively, so I'm especially glad to hear that you succeeded!