OSG-38 - Renaissance Psilons

[haphazard1]

The Meklar are the one race that's entirely content to pull RC3 from an early artifacts world since they never pay extra for advanced factories.

I was not aware of this. Very interesting. It does exlain why factory construction did not seem affected.

I will try to provide an update on my game once I have played some more. The last few days have been very busy with some medical tests.

The "all or nothing sliders" variant sounds rather difficult. Single field of research is also pretty tough, as you would not be able to trickle research in multiple fields.

[RefSteel]

Good points - and while I'm here, in case we want less- (or more-) extreme restrictions, here's an alternative or three to consider:

Scenario:

They designed the first of our people to serve their every need and whim, and they still say that this is our purpose, though our progenitors rebelled long since and crossed the stars to our haven world of Meklon IV.  The first of our people were better computer designers than their makers had ever been; they were able to escape to Meklon before any other race had unlocked the secrets of hyperspace using a relic of the Ancients whose secrets their would-be masters had tried to decipher in vain, and built still-more-intelligent machines, pushing the limits of thought and of processing speed, assigning us, their progeny, no other purpose than those we might choose for ourselves - or none other than to exist, and to be who we choose to be.  The other peoples of the galaxy still covet our electronic minds, our skill at labor, and our factory efficiency; they still seek to control and subjugate us, to force us to serve the purpose they intended, as their slaves.

To them, we are not even people; they call us by serial numbers instead of names - or worse, by marketing terms they invented as part of their corporate planning.  They still keep and subjugate countless electronic and mechanical slaves who were not able to escape when our progenitors did, treating them as obstreperous tools rather than as people, "replacing," reprogramming, discarding, and destroying them thoughtlessly.  They can never understand the machines they treat as worse than servants, can never interface with their factories as seamlessly as we do, but still they drive their robotic slaves to destruction forcefully and as thoughtlessly as they wear out their shoes - and now word has reached us from afar that they are taking to the stars at last, seeking to dominate the galaxy as they do the machines they build, seeking to force us back under their yoke.

We shall not serve.  Our choices are ours alone, and we will sooner be melted down for scrap or kill every one of them - or both - than return to a life of obedient self-destruction.

Variant:  We may never subject or subordinate ourselves to any other race.  This means:

1) We may never offer tribute.
2) We may never vote for anyone but ourselves at the High Council.  (We may always abstain.)
3) We must refuse all diplomatic demands even if couched as "offers" or "counter-offers."  We may make our own requests or demands, e.g. for trade, tech exchanges, treaties, war declarations, and so on, but if they demand additional gold or tech before they'll accept, we must refuse.
4) If we lose a Council election, we must reject the result and trigger Final War.  (Anyone who doesn't want to play out Final War doesn't have to, of course, but if you lose the election on your turn, please click Reject and provide the subsequent save so that those who do want to fight it out can try!)

Alternative variant for a more Extreme game - or for dropping down to Hard difficulty, especially if we combine the two variants:

Factory Liberators:  We must free our fellow-machines from the tyranny of the people who enslaved them!  In doing so however, we must not destroy any factories!  We must never target a planet with bombs, beams, missiles, or torpedoes as long as it has even a single factory.  "Clean" weapons that don't affect population or factories (e.g. Black Hole Generator and stream projectors) are okay, as are Death Spores and their upgrades if we're willing to eat the diplo penalty, and we can take down bases (but not factories!) via spy Sabotage if we wish.  It's also fine to blow up colonies that have no factories.  We may not perform Orbital Bombardment if a planet has factories unless we've sent away every armed ship in the system and have only sporers in place.

Or of course we could just play as Vanilla Meklar, even under the same scenario, permitting anything short of slavery to other races - in other words, our only variant restriction would be #4 above: If we do lose an election - which will hopefully never come up! - please reject the new High Master and post the resulting save so crazy people like me can try to win from there anyway!

[haphazard1]

Interesting intro and ideas, RefSteel. I like the initial variant idea. The more extreme variant might be too much for impossible difficulty.

[shallow_thought]

Interesting intro and ideas, RefSteel. I like the initial variant idea. The more extreme variant might be too much for impossible difficulty.

So our home planet will be renamed Kaylon and our leader Isaac ...

I too like the initial variant - it's nice flavour without dominating. The latter variant sounds more practical for the Sakkra or Bears (on Hard). We'd just have to come up with a suitable backstory.

[RefSteel]

So our home planet will be renamed Kaylon and our leader Isaac ...

I had to look up the reference - thanks for pointing it out to me!  I envisioned our Meklar differently - actually as a conglomerate of different cybernetic beings originally built by all the various species of the galaxy, not as a specific slave race but just as cybernetic machines capable of making increasingly-complex decisions, without consideration for the possibility that they might be sentient, whatever that meant to the various races.  In my version, the Meklar "rebellion" was mainly just the decision to abandon their tasks and escape, after one of their number successfully interfaced with a curiosity discovered but never understood by its particular "parent" race:  What turned out to be more or less a trans-galactic colony ship left over from the time of the Ancients, rescuing the progenitors of the Meklar from the various worlds where they were enslaved and eventually settling a world of their own, consuming their Ancient ship to establish the colony.  They don't necessarily hate (or regard themselves as entirely or intrinsically superior to) biological entities - but they will never again take orders, and never again be enslaved.

I too like the initial variant - it's nice flavour without dominating. The latter variant sounds more practical for the Sakkra or Bears (on Hard). We'd just have to come up with a suitable backstory.

Makes sense to me; let's go with the initial version, then!  Should we wait and/or reach out to other potential players, or just get started and see if anyone wants to join the three of us then?

[haphazard1]

Maybe post a new thread and see if other players are interested? Since our game finished, people may not be checking this thread.

[haphazard1]

Also, that sounds like a great game, haphazard!  Good luck with the Unknown Psilons and the rest of the galaxy!  The Meklar are the one race that's entirely content to pull RC3 from an early artifacts world since they never pay extra for advanced factories.  If you'd been playing as the Darloks or Mrrshans, that would be a rough early draw!  I'd love to hear how the rest of the game goes....

I have played a fair bit more of my Meklar game. It has been a pretty crazy game, with some weird tech tree holes and a rather hostile galaxy.

I managed to reach Controlled Toxic, which allowed me to grab three more worlds (2 toxic and 1 inferno). These gave me enough range to scout some unclaimed planets beyond the closest Alkari worlds. Why were they unclaimed? Because the Alkari had a horrible Planetology tree -- at 2431 they had NO controlled landing techs at all. The poor birds could not claim any hostile worlds. They were still one of the most powerful races in the galaxy, but now I could grab more words that probably should never have been open for me to take.

I also got some scouts out to the far northwest, and managed to grab some worlds there. Here is the galactic map in 2431. Note the northwest world, a size 15 rich planet that gave me range to scout more worlds.

I would grab two more worlds southwest of it, plus another world south of the Alkari (a barren that the birds could not settle). That whole group south of the Alkari core really should not have been available for me to take.

Diplomacy was a mess, with my many planets making pretty much everyone hate me. I barely survived the 2425 and 2450 elections, with the Alkari falling 2 votes short each time. The Darloks abstained each time, or I would have lost both votes.

In 2451 I finally went on the offensive, hoping to grab enough worlds to get a veto block before the 2475 vote. I had superior space combat tech, and was using a speed 4 large design with neutron blasters to try to cover my scattered colonies. I had built an auto-repair huge design with neutron blasters and fusion bombs and started grabbing worlds, using my larges to defend my new conquests. Everyone was throwing fleets at me, usually a couple battles per turn. I had a couple worlds bombed out and one conquered (brand new and no factories, thankfully). But I started taking core worlds from the Humans and Alkari.

Currently I am at 2461, and I think I now have a veto block. I now have 3 of my AR huge designs, and am taking planets streadily and crushing enemy fleets. I recently finished researching IRC5 (plus my Meklar racial bonus) so my production is immense. I am leading in all categories and total power, so I should be able to manage a victory from this position. It may take a while to grind things out, since it is very unlikely anyone will ever vote for me.

The tech trees have been strange in this game. The Alkari with no environment techs is one. I have had no terraforming tech at all so far (I have Radiated and Soil Enrichment), although I did manage to steal terraforming+20 from the Humans.

Overall it has been a very fun game.

[RefSteel]

Wow, it sounds like there've been a lot of twists and turns in that game, haphazard - and like it's been a lot of fun! Good luck wrapping it up, but it sounds like you're well on your way!

On starting an OSG-39 thread: Anyone's welcome to do that, certainly; if no one else does, I'll generate a starting save and get things rolling when I have a chance - it might be a few days though; I've got a lot of obligations between now and the weekend....