The 10 Impossible Wins Challenge

[Bionic Commando]

@Cyneherd-- thanks for posting these in such detail. I think it's really interesting that you favor Propulsion technologies early. I always thought the math supported rushing Planetology to boost production earlier.

[Cyneheard]

@Cyneherd-- thanks for posting these in such detail. I think it's really interesting that you favor Propulsion technologies early. I always thought the math supported rushing Planetology to boost production earlier.

I haven't really done that math. I think that's my Small galaxy instincts where getting the propulsion ASAP is absolutely essential for getting to worlds - but that still matters in Medium galaxies too. It doesn't matter if Planetology pays off in 20 turns if the delay to getting scouts costs you two worlds. A scout is an 8BC down payment for a world much of the time - I'm more aggressive with pushing scout screens than most, but don't spend a lot on early military.

I need to post some turns that I've done - still on Meklar.

[Bionic Commando]

I haven't really done that math. I think that's my Small galaxy instincts where getting the propulsion ASAP is absolutely essential for getting to worlds - but that still matters in Medium galaxies too. It doesn't matter if Planetology pays off in 20 turns if the delay to getting scouts costs you two worlds. A scout is an 8BC down payment for a world much of the time - I'm more aggressive with pushing scout screens than most, but don't spend a lot on early military.

I need to post some turns that I've done - still on Meklar.

That makes a ton of sense -- the value of emerging from the land grab phase with 2 extra planets is immense. I agree that you're really unlikely to win a lot of early battles and you're best off nabbing what you can get with scouting screens. What's great about this game is that estimating value and utility doesn't always boil down to what you can figure out in a spreadsheet.

You've given me a lot think about!

[Cyneheard]

Catching up on the Meklar game:

2397: IRC III researched. Start Improved Scanner. Klackons have a escorted colony ship headed for Phantos (Dead 45 Rich) – I can get some Ftr 1.0s there, but there aren’t nearly enough I think. I need Sublight and Ion Cannons.

2400: Darloks abstained with 3 votes, otherwise this game would have been a victory (Thanks Klackons for making enemies!)



2401: Their colony ship is armed, so it engaged in combat. I destroyed it, lost some fighters, but Phantos is safe for now.

2402: IT+20 researched. Start Toxic.

2404: Ion and Sublights come in. Design some Ion 3.0s to contest Phantos.



2409: Alkari had settled Rha (Dead in the NW), I bombed it as a matter of principle. Fought off an Alkari and a Klackon fleet at Phantos – had 105 Ion 3.0s and ~45 Ftr 1.0, lost all the fighters and 61 Ions to wipe the two fleets. That third maneuver point was probably essential to victory.

2414: Alkari grab Arietis, the Tundra in the far NW – was never contesting that realistically.

2416: Fail to protect Talas, incoming Alkari.

2417: Pulled the fleet back from Rha, Alkari show up in force there. Talas airspace restored.

2418: Alkari ground troops pummel Talas (only shot 6 down with >100 Ion 3.0s), but it holds. Send the fleet back to Rha to bomb it out.

2425: Lose 110 Ions and the obsolete chaff fighting this:



Inconclusive vote (have to abstain, since the Klackons picked up the Alkari as a friend), and Toxic is finished – start Soil Enrichment, and 2 Toxic 3.0s.

2428: Settle Rha. Toranor (the UP) gets a surprise Alkari visitor (5 mediums I haven’t seen before)

2430: Sign a cease-fire with the Alkari. Now that I have settled these worlds, that’s actually useful. Toranor loses some pop but holds.

2436: Get Soil, start Atmospheric Terraforming

2440: Alkari declare war again. I guess it’s going to be like that.

2442: Mek Cap’s 2 bases aren’t anywhere near enough to hold off the Alkari fleet (especially since Hyper-V rockets barely do anything). Trade for Planetary V (for Improved Scanner) and Improved Eco (for Battle Suits) from the Humans.

2444: Clear out Mek Cap, shooting down the Alkari transports and enough of their fleet.
Late 2440s: Phantos gets an Alkari welcoming present – the Ions weren’t fast enough from Toranor, but now that the Shield and MBs are going up, it should be OK.

2450 vote: Klackons have a significant veto (15/39). Abstain again. I only have 11 votes.

2451: Wipe out the Alkari troops heading to Phantos in the air. Neutron Blaster researched, start Anti-Matter Bomb over Fusion Beam (no missile techs). I just wrecked my diplo by signing a trade deal with the Silicoids and they immediately lost contact with me.

2452: Zortium researched (start Armored Exoskeleton over the IIT 6 that is quite useless as Meklar). Energy Pulsar researched, start Impulse Drives.

2453: Klackons are up to 18 worlds. That’s scary, and I can’t really attack them yet with the tech I have. Really need those Antimatter bombs to start a proper Glassing Campaign.



2454: Or maybe Anti-matter Bombs won’t be enough. 26 shields, and they could get busted missiles any moment now? That’s not enough. This is bad.



2460s: Some techs come in, including IRC IV (Adv Scanner only option) and Deflector V (start Planetary X), and Antimatter Bombs (start Megabolt). Need Impulse to have a chance to strike quickly though.

2470: Atomspheric Terraforming researched, start Adv Soil (YAY!).

2480: Crypto destroyed by 700 Alkari Fusion Bombers. Steal Hyper-X from the Humans. Not sure how to beat the Klackons if I’m getting dumped on by the other races.

2483: Vulcan destroyed by the same Alkari fleet. This is going to end very poorly.

2485: Megabolt researched. Start Pulson Missiles.

2486: Planetary X researched. Start Deflector VII.

2487: Vulcan destroyed a second time.

2492ish: Klackons get the “majority of the galaxy” news alert.

2494: Klackons destroy Vulcan again.

2495: Here’s what’s incoming. That’s 4500 cloaked fighters (Rangers have Ion Cannons, Sabres have Neutron Blasters), and the Knights are Shield XIII Energy Pulsar/Hellfire Torpedos.



2500: Klackons get voted Emperor. I am not fighting this one out – they’re so far ahead on technology, and I’m just going to get crushed immediately. I concede defeat. That’s unfortunate, this was a decent map but the Poor Worlds as Meklar were really costly, and the Klackons just ran rampant over the part of the world I couldn’t touch. They had 32 of those 54 votes, and that was only going to get worse over the next turnset. The Alkari also having a glassing squadron didn’t help either. Needed them to attack the bugs, not the robots.

This game wasn't completely unwinnable - the vote in 2400 could have easily gone differently, but that would have been an RNGesus vote win, not a "I dominated the galaxy and got the deserved victory". Still, not sure what, barring better AI manipulation ahead of that vote, I could have really done. Building a fleet to try and wipe out the also-ran AIs might have gotten somewhere, I guess? I was scrambling to defend my core for much of that time, though, so there wasn't really the BCs to also go on bombing runs against secondary targets like the Darloks. This shows just how difficult the game is post-patch.

[Cyneheard]

Meklar, Round 2
Let’s see if this one can go better.

Bionic, I think this game is going to test my “don’t spend on early military theory”.





If there’s an AI in the yellow at 7 parsecs (still not sure if that’s possible), I could be in big trouble.

If all 5 AIs are in the south, this could be really good for me. I would love to be able to push farther south (say to the double red double green due south to cut off the last few eastern worlds), but that doesn’t seem very likely. I head for the green world over the blue.

2303: Guessed poorly. The green world is a Dead world, but 40 Rich, so that’s something when I can get it, at least.

2306: Alkari scout pushed away. Find 3 new habitable worlds and the Guardian.



2307: Pollus founded. Size 50. Imra to the west is an Arid 70. Range 4 WILL unlock everything known so far, but not necessarily in the order I might want it.

2312: Open Propulsion, Range 5 is the only option, so that choice is moot. Reticuli is a 70 UP, and Tauri is a Size 50, that are accessible from Pollus without Range tech.

2324: Build the first colony ship for Reticuli. Silicoids have 6 worlds already.

2328: Found Reticuli. See an Alkari and a Klackon scout headed my way – emergency pull a scout back to Reticuli. Photo is from 2329.



2331: Well that’s just unfair. This is at Gion, the green near the nebula – it’s Klackons. This would have required, what, 4-5 LR Fighters to hold that off? I could have built that instead of the Reticuli colony ship (anything later than that wouldn’t have gotten there in time). I also hadn’t seen the Klackons at that point – it’s really hard to know if I should have tried to defend that from just the known Alkari.





Klackons have 3 worlds – Gion, Ukko, and Kholdan. There’s an alliance with the Bulrathi.

2335: Discover Range 5. Stabilizer is the only option.

2336: Start IIT9 and IT+10.

2338: Klackons grab Primodius to the north – it’s got the same escorts as Gion. I feel like I’ve already lost this game because I didn’t station like 5 LR Fighters at Gion before building a single range-3 colony ship, and even that seemed crazy because the Alkari were the most likely to show up with combat vessels, and there’s no way I can build LR craft sufficient to keep birds out. The Klackons also needed to: Get at least Range 5, build combat ships, and send them to Gion leaving in like 2325? I don’t want to know the odds of that happening.



So what’s the plan?

Step one: fill out the existing worlds. There’s a Jungle 80 that the Klackons could also get, but I should be fine there. If I can't get that, then this game is going to rapidly fall apart.

Step two: Well that’s the tough part. I usually find being overly aggressive in the 2300s is a fools’ errand, and we’re Meklar against Klackons – that’s like the exact opposite of a good matchup this early. I will need to get these three worlds for sure, but not at the expense of factories and peacefully settled worlds.

The absolutely crazy gambit would be to send 50 pop from Mek Cap to Primodius now – the AI won’t keep its fleet at Primodius. It would slow down my southern colonization, though, and the Klackons are already there and ready to make trouble. I think that would just blow up in my face.

[RefSteel]

The Meklar can be deceptively tough to play. Their weakness in planetology, their difficulty building reserves, and - relatedly - the trap of spending too long building factories too soon (or overcompensating by building too few) can be hard to handle properly, and it doesn't help that you've had to face fast-expanding Klackons and early birds in both games. Good luck!

(I don't suppose you kept the starting save from that first, lost Meklar game, did you?)

[Arnuz]

Runaway klackons twice in a row?? Nerf bugs

I would try to befriend them but beat them at the jungle 80. Hopefully they're not still xeno. The arid is not so important tbh, and with the distance from their homeworld you can retake it as soon as they have other ongoing wars to distract their resources. Build up those factories!

[Cyneheard]

The Meklar can be deceptively tough to play.  Their weakness in planetology, their difficulty building reserves, and - relatedly - the trap of spending too long building factories too soon (or overcompensating by building too few) can be hard to handle properly, and it doesn't help that you've had to face fast-expanding Klackons and early birds in both games.  Good luck!

(I don't suppose you kept the starting save from that first, lost Meklar game, did you?)

I did not keep the save. I don't have the starting save for the current one either, although I suspect this one would have even higher variance because any change in the Klackons behavior early or knowing exactly what kind of army to push out = we get all of the worlds they're going to pick up (I'd have been settling Gion by 2345 or so - that's usually plenty early, not 14 turns too late).

And good point Ref - my autopilot of always-build-factories definitely needs to be checked more often here than it does normally.

Arnuz - I think that's roughly the game plan.

[Bionic Commando]

The Meklar can be deceptively tough to play.  Their weakness in planetology, their difficulty building reserves, and - relatedly - the trap of spending too long building factories too soon (or overcompensating by building too few) can be hard to handle properly, and it doesn't help that you've had to face fast-expanding Klackons and early birds in both games.  Good luck!

(I don't suppose you kept the starting save from that first, lost Meklar game, did you?)

I did not keep the save. I don't have the starting save for the current one either, although I suspect this one would have even higher variance because any change in the Klackons behavior early or knowing exactly what kind of army to push out = we get all of the worlds they're going to pick up (I'd have been settling Gion by 2345 or so - that's usually plenty early, not 14 turns too late).

And good point Ref - my autopilot of always-build-factories definitely needs to be checked more often here than it does normally.

Arnuz - I think that's roughly the game plan.

I'm glad it's not just me! The Meklar have it rough in the expansion phase as they have no direct advantages. Instead, I focus on rushing huge amounts of population to new colonies once home worlds reach production parity with standard races.

Even so, my Meklar games are too easy with a strong OR isolated starting position. I'm struggling with the games where  you have to juggle early contact with aggressive expanders like Sakkra or Klackons.

Good luck with 01! If you go to 02, hope you don't draw the bugs!

[SpaceOWL]

Good luck on the rematch!

Of course it's quite easy to say it now, I know... but if I am not mistaken, with Battle Suits from an Artifacts world, you should be instantly able to build LR colony ships! Am I doing the math correctly?