Remnants of the Precursors Succession Game?

[Brian Shanahan]

Have the save now, will catch up on two days reading before looking at it and will play tomorrow after work.

[shallow_thought]

Also, somewhat offtopic but related to prior discussions, I just realised that the bugs getting doubled population-based production is probably significantly stronger than I thought thanks to said production scaling with planetology, they probably fall off much less than I thought.

Yeah, in original MOO the Klackons outscale the Meklar per-pop by the end of the tech tree.

Enjoying the thread.

[RefSteel]

Is it weird that the part of the turnset I'm happiest about is successfully predicting the exact turn controlled toxic would pop based on maths done during my last set?

Ha - I'm no judge of weirdness, but if it is weird, I'd say it's of a fun and cool variety! There are enough random factors to make guessing the exact turn a real challenge (um, and I'm counting my own unpredictable research allocation decisions among the "random factors" here!) - so it's pretty neat when it happens to land right on your guess anyway!

(Here I would glare at the imaginary planetologists and tell them, "beating that prediction would have been appreciated," but we were lucky enough with a couple of other techs this set to make up for the rolls on the one I wanted most! Getting contact with the Psilons and Humans and scouting a world of theirs apiece was a great set of results from irridium research completing as soon as it did.)

quietly terrified of the brains lol - hopefully it'll simply magically be Fine™ and we won't have to fight them.

You and me both! They do still have a ways to go, and we still have a lot of unrealized potential ourselves, even without counting possible war gains, but if they control this much of the galaxy before turning on tech ... well, let's just say I'm a bit worried.

Also, somewhat offtopic but related to prior discussions, I just realised that the bugs getting doubled population-based production is probably significantly stronger than I thought thanks to said production scaling with planetology, they probably fall off much less than I thought.

Very true, as shallow_thought said. MoO's AI doesn't know how to play the bugs very well - if it did, they'd be scarier than runaway Psilons - and they have pretty poor diplomacy (and poor propulsion research is a major handicap) in comparison with the Humans and Psilons. Here in RotP, where there doesn't seem to be any built-in species prejudice (at least with the Modnar or Xilmil AIs) propulsion seems to be the only weakness the bugs still have to compensate their towering strength.

Brains with lots of planets is not good news, but erratic brains that are likely to do something crazy is potentially worse. How they are doing so poorly in tech is a mystery. I guess they have been spending every BC they can scrape together on more colony ships.

That's my read too, but note they currently (or at least last I checked) also have the galaxy's biggest starfleet. It might just be their erratic tendencies going a little nuts, or it might be they've been involved in a hot war with runaway Silicoids on the far side of the galaxy or something. There's still just a lot we don't know!

Have the save now, will catch up on two days reading before looking at it and will play tomorrow after work.

Good luck, Brian! I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with our position. Have fun with the upcoming turns!

[Brian Shanahan]

Looking at the turn report a few good sets were had. Some nice wheller dealing and use of LR large designs (that I probably could have sized up towards the end of my last set given how many techs I got the chance to pop). On strategy going forward, I think my set will be mostly filling out the Toxic worlds now open to us and spotting any colonisation opportunities further afield. After we've set up the new worlds would be a good time to look at the international situation and maybe go a conquering.

[Brian Shanahan]

Hi all, played six turns of the game so far. Main points colonised five planets, should have been six, but the Melkonar smuggled in an armed ship to Apophis when I wasn't looking. Found an Ultra-rich size 35 (45 after terraforming) right in the core of the galaxy


I meet the Cryslonid who are Xenophobic and Expansionist. They refuse to set up a trade treaty (wonder would it be a good idea to bribe them?) And finally the council will meet in a few turns. They've a colony at the unexplored yellow star just above the dialogue box for Bevurth.

It's taken an hour of very hard thinking to get these six turns down so I'll hold the save to tomorrow and get it up then. I haven't touched espionage all set, mainly because I'm microing what I'm doing between pop transfers, building ships and factories and keeping some research going.

[Dp101]

They refuse to set up a trade treaty (wonder would it be a good idea to bribe them?)

I’ve literally never seen this. Do they hate us from first contact or something??? Sounds good so far though!

[RefSteel]

Sounds good! We should (still assuming MoO-like miniaturization) be able to build a long-range Toxic colony ship for Bevurth, too!

I would definitely say no bribe. When you say they refuse to set up a trade treaty - did you offer and they said no? (And if so, did you offer a large or small deal?) If so, we can afford to wait a few years to see if they've cooled down some from the everyone-hates-you-on-first-contact diplomatic "incident" and maybe try a smaller trade package at first. If they're anything like the MoO AI, if they're close to accepting a deal, they would ask for whatever bribe would put them over the top, and if we offer them a bribe unconnected with a desired deal, they'll just take it for free and still not make the deal we want. (Besides, a few more years of Just Another Trade Agreement can hardly be worth making likely-hyperexpanded Silicoids even stronger.)

Of course, someone more familiar with Remnants might correct me on this. (I would still say not to pay any bribe on principle, but that's just my opinion!)

[haphazard1]

More colonies -> more lizards -> more goodness in the galaxy. Sounds good, Brian Shanahan.

That ultra rich world is quite the prize. Size 35 base is pretty large for an ultra rich planet. Hopefully we can prevent the rocks from grabbing it.

I agree with RefSteel that bribes are probably not worth it. First contact with xenophobix races produces a negative diplo effect, but it will (I think) slowly fade with time and relations will drift back towards the default for our races. Check the diplo screen for the rocks and see if that initial contact negative slowly shrinks; if it does then we should eventually be able to get a trade deal going.

[Brian Shanahan]

They refuse to set up a trade treaty (wonder would it be a good idea to bribe them?)

I’ve literally never seen this. Do they hate us from first contact or something??? Sounds good so far though!

I had a minus 30 diplo malus from meeting and they also hate our expansion by about -3.

@RefSteel there was only one offer available IIRC 300bc which was flat out rejected.

PS on diplomacy generally, from this game and my trial game at lower levels to familiarise myself with the game, it looks like upping trade on a periodic basis is good for diplo as it gives a bump in relations every time you up the trade independent of the trade maturing into profit. I believe in this game it's a good idea to be regularly dialling up the AIs unless you're conquering them.

[Ray F]

They refuse to set up a trade treaty (wonder would it be a good idea to bribe them?)

I’ve literally never seen this. Do they hate us from first contact or something??? Sounds good so far though!

There's a concept on ROTP of being in "economic range" where one empire needs to be close enough to reach one of your planets with a ship before trade can be established.

This is opposed to diplomatic contact being made with two scout ships bump into each other even though you can't reach any of their systems.