Decide to send colship to the yellow to the south and the scouts in that direction based on the funky map shape. I think this was best even though I had "only" a size 95 normal as 2nd world instead of 85 fertile, having the range to park scouts at Ryoun bought precious time as Humans kept retreating unarmed colships. At the time, I thought it unlikely I would landgrab that far south, but it would give me time to get the closer worlds, however Ryoun turned out to be the pivotal world.
Got +10 in 2318 through seed-trickle; this may have been a mistake in this game only, when everything seems to hinge on getting worlds to the south ASAP. Oh well.
Bulrathi get 6th system in 2321! Welcome to Deity Impossible!
Worried about getting squeezed out, I start colships when Meklon is at about 200 production total, earlier than usual. I also build 6 LR lasers, get lucky with no armed colships or escorts showing up until they are guarding Ryoun. Then I make a terrible mistake - just before my colship arrives, I move some scouts along planning to scout the north-center, as I'm finally grabbing the Fertile world north of Meklon which will allow those to go. And I accidentally move my LR lasers, and the Psilons show up right then!!! I would have reloaded if MOO kept more than the current turn. The result:
![[Image: 2348Map.png]](http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff82/timmy827/imp%2023/2348Map.png)
Well, Psilons are Honorable, but not close, I gambled that force will work here. They move their fleet away, so step 1 is easy, invade before their first load of colonists arrives and use popguns to shoot down most of them. Repulse one ship attack, then lose all of my ships against a single large (only 8/150 hp left, dang. Should have retreated and come back to fight with a missile base when it was clear that the battle was iffy, building one base was not enough as the large's missiles made short work of it). More back and forth - 55 brains barely lose to my 70 colonists, then the brains ask for peace right before my cavalry popguns show up - great, but more invaders are still on the way and those don't get recalled the way ships do. I make another wish-I-could reload mistake; had been building a base to near completion intending to finish it when my fleet showed only to not finish it due to accidentally clicking next turn before I was done. That may have cost me the world, popguns shoot down a good number of the invaders but it's still enough. I invade again, and loot BCII in the process, but get another DOW.
Humans take UP Maretta - was so focused on Ryoun and the Psilons that I couldn't spare ships to defend it, sad as there attack fleet was super weak. In fact I shipped as much as I could to Ryoun. Humans also got a fleet in orbit at Klystron, but a base and some scrambled popguns chased that away and shot down all their transports. Fortunately, Psilons do not come back to Ryoun until I have over 100 popguns and base, which is enough to defend against their ships.
Did not take detailed notes on tech, but by 2389 I have popped PDS and start full speed on planet sheild V. Then I pop tundra and find toxic is available - great, there are two of those, and I have them pretty well defended with popguns, should be able to keep those open long enough. But in 2400 the Imperium gets a little more Extreme:
![[Image: Loss.png]](http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff82/timmy827/imp%2023/Loss.png)
The Silicoids had DOW'd just a few turns ago which sealed my fate (kind of sucky that it can lose you the game, even if they don't even yet try to attack you. But that was the consequence of fighting the brains, they were allied with the rocks and since the rocks didn't attack right away I'm pretty sure they were bribed in).
Good news is that planet shield V pops just afterwards and I am able to get them all up on my 6 remaining worlds before anything else comes my way. Fusion bomb is out there so they aren't invicible but the AI generally does poorly at prioritizing bombing designs. I thought this was a good sign and decided to make an attempt at playing out (also, hadn't formally met Bulrathi or Mrrshans, so hoping they might not really fight me until later, although the AI tech sharing might have given them contact range right away). However, this was one instance where the AI did a good job with bombers; humans made a shielded large with all fusion bombs. They gained orbit over Klystron for a turn; their anti-ship weaponry was feeble and scrambled fighters chased them away but one turn was all they needed for a transport wave. My fighters could only get a few of the transports tricked out with engines/armor/shields all two generations ahead, and the gropo tech was similarly unbalanced. After that loss I resigned, pretty sure that I would never be able to really gain ground (previous experience at AW in Imp 18 also said that victory was really unlikely).
It seemed quite conceivable that if I hadn't screwed up with misclicks I could have taken Ryoun and avoided any wars to that point, which would be a promising though not yet strong position. I was tempted to start over and run a shadow attempt, but during the past few weeks a move, the restart of all my music groups, and weekends of football tailgates all destroyed my gaming time. The map does look pretty good, not an easy setup but some nice local terraing and no obvious runaway AI so suspect that some players will win. Thanks to RefSteel, sorry that my bungling may well have robbed everyone of a more interesting read.
Got +10 in 2318 through seed-trickle; this may have been a mistake in this game only, when everything seems to hinge on getting worlds to the south ASAP. Oh well.
Bulrathi get 6th system in 2321! Welcome to Deity Impossible!
Worried about getting squeezed out, I start colships when Meklon is at about 200 production total, earlier than usual. I also build 6 LR lasers, get lucky with no armed colships or escorts showing up until they are guarding Ryoun. Then I make a terrible mistake - just before my colship arrives, I move some scouts along planning to scout the north-center, as I'm finally grabbing the Fertile world north of Meklon which will allow those to go. And I accidentally move my LR lasers, and the Psilons show up right then!!! I would have reloaded if MOO kept more than the current turn. The result:
Well, Psilons are Honorable, but not close, I gambled that force will work here. They move their fleet away, so step 1 is easy, invade before their first load of colonists arrives and use popguns to shoot down most of them. Repulse one ship attack, then lose all of my ships against a single large (only 8/150 hp left, dang. Should have retreated and come back to fight with a missile base when it was clear that the battle was iffy, building one base was not enough as the large's missiles made short work of it). More back and forth - 55 brains barely lose to my 70 colonists, then the brains ask for peace right before my cavalry popguns show up - great, but more invaders are still on the way and those don't get recalled the way ships do. I make another wish-I-could reload mistake; had been building a base to near completion intending to finish it when my fleet showed only to not finish it due to accidentally clicking next turn before I was done. That may have cost me the world, popguns shoot down a good number of the invaders but it's still enough. I invade again, and loot BCII in the process, but get another DOW.
Humans take UP Maretta - was so focused on Ryoun and the Psilons that I couldn't spare ships to defend it, sad as there attack fleet was super weak. In fact I shipped as much as I could to Ryoun. Humans also got a fleet in orbit at Klystron, but a base and some scrambled popguns chased that away and shot down all their transports. Fortunately, Psilons do not come back to Ryoun until I have over 100 popguns and base, which is enough to defend against their ships.
Did not take detailed notes on tech, but by 2389 I have popped PDS and start full speed on planet sheild V. Then I pop tundra and find toxic is available - great, there are two of those, and I have them pretty well defended with popguns, should be able to keep those open long enough. But in 2400 the Imperium gets a little more Extreme:
The Silicoids had DOW'd just a few turns ago which sealed my fate (kind of sucky that it can lose you the game, even if they don't even yet try to attack you. But that was the consequence of fighting the brains, they were allied with the rocks and since the rocks didn't attack right away I'm pretty sure they were bribed in).
Good news is that planet shield V pops just afterwards and I am able to get them all up on my 6 remaining worlds before anything else comes my way. Fusion bomb is out there so they aren't invicible but the AI generally does poorly at prioritizing bombing designs. I thought this was a good sign and decided to make an attempt at playing out (also, hadn't formally met Bulrathi or Mrrshans, so hoping they might not really fight me until later, although the AI tech sharing might have given them contact range right away). However, this was one instance where the AI did a good job with bombers; humans made a shielded large with all fusion bombs. They gained orbit over Klystron for a turn; their anti-ship weaponry was feeble and scrambled fighters chased them away but one turn was all they needed for a transport wave. My fighters could only get a few of the transports tricked out with engines/armor/shields all two generations ahead, and the gropo tech was similarly unbalanced. After that loss I resigned, pretty sure that I would never be able to really gain ground (previous experience at AW in Imp 18 also said that victory was really unlikely).
It seemed quite conceivable that if I hadn't screwed up with misclicks I could have taken Ryoun and avoided any wars to that point, which would be a promising though not yet strong position. I was tempted to start over and run a shadow attempt, but during the past few weeks a move, the restart of all my music groups, and weekends of football tailgates all destroyed my gaming time. The map does look pretty good, not an easy setup but some nice local terraing and no obvious runaway AI so suspect that some players will win. Thanks to RefSteel, sorry that my bungling may well have robbed everyone of a more interesting read.
