Victory! We win the council vote in 2475 with 65% for us alone plus votes from the Humans and Mrrshans to clinch the win.
A brief summary:
I blew up three Silicoid planets (including Cryslon) after we conquered Sol which was enough to hand us the victory. Although the rocks have strong missile bases they are no match for our bombers, so the game is a foregone conclusion at this point. I've attached the 2474 save file in case anyone wants to play around mopping up the galaxy.
Detailed report is attached.
Nice work bringing this one to a successful close, Ianus. Our hive rules the galaxy, as it should.
Edit: OK, read the detailed report. Poor kitties. That tech screen would be sad for 2375, much less 2475. They really got shafted this game. The last minute derelict event helped them a bit, but not in any way that would stop us. Those techs would have been a nice grab 100 turns earlier, though.
Hmmmm, lots of artifact worlds in this galaxy. The Alkari gained a lot from theirs, and it looks like the rocks got a significant boost from two of them. Wonder what techs they pulled from them, and how critical those were to their early success?
Can the rocks actually benefit from Atmospheric Terraforming? I don't remember if they can still get some planet size benefit from it, since they already do not care about hostile environments.
This has been a fun game, and I have enjoyed playing with all of you. Our early struggle with the Alkari was tough, but we kept hammering at them and eventually took their worlds and tech. That was the key step towards victory, I think, although our own very good early expansion was also a big factor.
I think the key step was beating the Alkari to the colonization of Rotan and Mu Delphi, despite these planets being closer (if I recall correctly) to the Alkari homeworld than to ours! Those big Terran worlds built themselves up quickly and provided needed pop and ships to invade Celtsi and then the other Alkari worlds in the first wave of conquest. If the Alkari had gotten those worlds and if we had needed to conquer Rotan and Mu Delphi first, Kholdan itself and a few lesser planets would have needed to shoulder the load, and it would have been MUCH slower going! Actually, I don't know if we would have even had the pop to take on a size ~100 planet through invasions at that point. Even to invade lesser Celtsi (~75 pop), I had to halfway empty Rotan and Mu Delphi.
No the rocks cannot use Atmospheric Terraforming, and I think in 1.4 you can't trade it to them under normal circumstances. This must be a loophole that hadn't been closed yet. I remember from our last Silicoid game that as the rocks one cannot even steal those techs through invasion of espionage. I got a kick out of them asking for it as the price of peace.
I agree that the birds were the turning point in this game. Hemmed in to the east as we were by that gulf of empty space we were forced to push to the north. It was just bad luck that we were pushing into a superpower, but we did what we had to do to make gains and also cripple the birds before they got too strong for us. All in all a very well executed expansion push all the way to victory. We were also very good at reading the changing landscape of the game and reacting accordingly, whether it was in reading what force was required to continue cooking geese or keeping abreast of our tech situation and anticipating what we would need (we did this REALLY well in this game).
Well played everyone! It was a pleasure and we should do it again soon!
Nice work everyone! I might load up the T2470 save and head into a final war for giggles, but - as people have been saying - it was beating the Alkari that won this. I think that took really solid turnsets from the whole team during the opening and early middle game.
Good to see the rocks getting a bit of a beating before the end. Never occurred to me to start building stargates after capturing Firma though - I think I was too focused on trying to grab Sol before the end of my turnset.
It may have looked easy, but that is because it was done correctly - Brian Moore
For what it's worth, taking things in a relaxed manner I was able to win Final War in 2512. I suspect that someone with an actual plan might have been able to shave a few decades off that .
As expected, even in Final War our position was totally dominant. Before the end our best weapon tech was a clear tier above anything the opposition was fielding, and I don't think we ever actually stole a tier-gaining weapons tech during the game, so that's pure research (Mrrshans didn't live to get derelict in this timeline ).
The Meklar were actually more trouble than the Silicoids, fielding ships with some interesting combinations; despite what the screenshot says, both of these designs had both teleporter and stream projector, capable of doing massive damage in a first strike - they also produced a cloaked huge with 53 Plasma Cannon before the end. The Rocks kept running around with designs with warp 2 for some reason, although they did finally get round to putting Omega-V on some cloaked huges.
As Ianus noted, being able to get Omega-V on a cloaked small (later a teleporter small) was game over. But the design that won my heart was the HG-PUL-4A. The Meklar had actually managed to push a fleet escorted by the elderly Psillycoids off a planet, but getting Pulsed Phasors + HEF + ARS on a design meant never being at serious risk of losing a huge ship again, let alone a fleet battle. It ripped through opposing squadrons, which the enemy couldn't afford to replace. The 7A is an improvement but barely saw action.
After two fairly straightforward personal turnsets I had to go back to read the reports and remind myself exactly how hard it had been in the early phases, even as Klackons with a Rich Minimal in the back lines. Fun game.
It may have looked easy, but that is because it was done correctly - Brian Moore
Our early position was pretty good, and we were Klackons. But the birds really were very strong early on, and were expanding rapidly. I do wonder about the tech they pulled from the artifact world; is there any way to find out?
Congratulations, guys! A thorough and impressive victory!
(September 7th, 2017, 18:37)haphazard1 Wrote: I do wonder about the tech they pulled from the artifact world; is there any way to find out?
It might be possible to infer it by digging in an early savefile. Even in 2320, if the savefile shows someone with one tech way out ahead of the others, that might be the one they lifted!
Also, though I'm late to say so: I'm glad the combination of your quick action and a little good luck helped you get safely through the hurricane with relatively little lost! I wonder how many RBers are bracing for Irma now....
Our hive rules the galaxy, as it should. 
That tech screen would be sad for 2375, much less 2475. They really got shafted this game. The last minute derelict event helped them a bit, but not in any way that would stop us. Those techs would have been a nice grab 100 turns earlier, though.
I didn't expect the humans to vote for us.
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![[Image: FugewnA.png]](https://i.imgur.com/FugewnA.png)
