Hi!
I just finished a duel with Drengin in tiny universe. Main purpose was to test the new 1.1 beta AI. Game settings: tiny universe, all abundant, no tech trade, no minors, slow tech, blind exploration, masochistic AI, started at war and kept it so. My race was Yor with +30% econ and +70% growth, party Populists.
I genned several universes to get proper position and a good HW with a +300% production tile and +100% morale tile (just didn't want to be stomped realy early). I started in the upper left edge (sector [1,2]), Drengin in the lower left edge (sector [0,1]). Each had about the same number of solar systems close:
2
1 2
1 2 1
2 0
2
I bought only the first factory on the HW, the rest was built – not hard with 300% bonus production from the first factory. Next thing to build was a second factory, the third one a morale building on the bonus tile. I put in queue some labs, but after the second factory was built I changed the spending slider to ~90% military, rest social, 0 research. This allowed me to build a colonizer each second turn, and still have some spending in social. I didn't realize how important was that until that Entertainment Network was built and the approval on my HW went up to 100% (it was held above 75%). Because of that my pop export rate increased from ~160M to almost 400M per colonizer without decreasing the amount of pop on the HW.
I designed two types of colonizers: one with speed of 4 and one range-extender (enough for tiny universe and a colony in the middle sector), the second one with 4 engines - speed 5. My goal was to take as much planets as possible, with best planets first, so my first colonizer went towards center of the universe scouting for planets, while Explorer went after anomalies in direction to Drengins. As the uni was tiny, it also served as a scout and has found some quite good planets in the drengin's starting sector.
The race for planets was not really a race. Drengins had taken those close planets, but then they ran out of funds and ceased producing colonizers for a while. But I've been relentlessly producing those speed-5 colonizers that followed the first two speed-4+range ones, that were searching for good planets at the edge of their range. This tactics worked out excellently. When first drengin's scouts arrived in the center of the universe, I already took ALL planets there, and two of my colonizers were half-way to the last two smaller planets in sector [1,0].
But my Explorer discovered also some resources. Two were quite close to the drengin's space, so I decided to take them for me. I put in queue on three biggest colonies in the center a shipyard, and queued there constructors for reinforcing future starbases with weapons. The main wave of constructors should come from my HW. Just when the second one constructor was built, I noticed a drengins' second wave of colonizers closing. I counted still unsettled planets and realized I'll come too short to settle everything and take all 5 known resources at the same time. But I've seen only colonizers, so I switched two constructors in queues to colonizers, and at the farthest good planet bought a shipyard, and in the next turn a colonizer. That was the only colonizer I bought in the whole game. Despite my efforts Drengin beated me for a class-4 planet in my backyard (sector [2,2], and a class-5 planet in [0,1]. So at the end of a planet-grab I held 2/3 of the universe and 4 of 6 resources, for the last two there were colonizers en-route.
My next two goals become reinforcing those resources, and getting a tech edge. I changed the sliders to about 50 social, 40 ships, and just so much research to get those low level techs in 1-2 turns. Some colonies already built all factories, so I put there in queue a stardock and focused them to production of constructors.
Meanwhile Drengin skyrocketed with production and economy. They started fielding more and more fighters and heavy fighters, most of them with level 1 missiles and speed 2, so I had hard time with reinforcing my starbases. Anyway I managed to do it, and used one of them as a parking place for my Explorer. In no time Drengin literarily flooded the universe with warships, so I lost my only heavy fighter quite fast, and also two of three Raiders (cargo hull, 3 engines, 1 laser, rest sensors). Drengin obviously decided 5 resources are too much for me, and started attacking the first one I got (the closest one to them). Ship after ship was destroyed by my starbase, but its hitpoints started vanishing rapidly, so I decided to reinforce it with defenses. Fortunately Drengin »discovered« also another one in the center, so their forces split, and that allowed me to put up defenses on both, before their hitpoints become critical. The base in the center (parking place of my Explorer) was hit by wave after wave of bigger and bigger fleets – 2, 3, 4 heavy fighters were destroyed, but defenses held. The average damage through 5 shields and 5 point-defenses was about 1 point, and it also repaired by about 1 point each second turn, so IMO it should be pretty safe for next 50 turns or so.
That was enough for me to get my target tech: medium hull, Plasma weapons, Shields, enhanced minaturization. I just couldn't match by quantity their production of fighters, so I (as usually) opted for quality. I completely left all space to Drengin, just watched carefully what tech they're researching.
At one time they realized attacking those heavily reinforced starbases was pointless, and the »death train« stopped. They went into improving planets, and more tech. They bought Habitat Improvement (and built Aphrodisiacs), several levels of miniaturization, and lots of logistics, just some better missiles (Stinger II), but no Planetary invasion, so my unprotected planets were (still) safe. In short time I managed to collect enough of tech to build what's usual the second level of my attackers: 5 Plasmas, 2 Shields, warp II engine for 10 beam attack, 4 beam defense, speed 6. And drengins' fighters were still at attack-1, no defense. Interesting thing was Drengin switched to fielding mass-drivers in that time. Maybe because all my bases got point defenses first, and beam defense as second, without armor. I put my attackers in production on 18 planets, and kept only smallest ones to continue producing constructors. Next techs: Advanced Logistics, and all of Planetary Invasion.
The rest of the game was just mop-up. My single attacker easily wiped away two fleets of 5-7 ships (mix small and tiny hulls) with average taken damage par battle ~5. When I produced enough of them, and most ships of Drengin in my space were destroyed, I put them in fleets of 2 first, 3 therafter, established a front, and started pushing Drengin back towards their planets. Soon their »outposts« were blocaded, and just waited for my troop transports to come from production. I kept pushing invasion techs up, put on the last green tile on my HW Tir-quan Training, completely forgetting I don't need to preserve planets, as there's no other opponent to crush.
At about the time Drengin lost their outposts, I saw their first transports. With speed 6 they breached the front, but were picked up by my damaged attackers that were held back on border planets to heal and to patrol on the second line. Those drengin's troop transports came out late, waaaay too late. Most of my planets were producing troop transports, most drengins' planets were blocaded. What remained out of my reach was just two systems in sector [0,0], but when their core planets fell, my fleets closed for the final kill and when they started destroying ships over the outmost planet, they surrended.
End result: I lost ~10 ships, Drengin ~480. They still had higher score in economy, an their infuence was unmatched (~120% of mine). However I had a clear path to my victory, and they wandered too much around.
AI behaviour
IMO they bought too many colonizers in the first few turns, so their funds ran out just when the second wave should be built. Anyway, they had BIG advantage in econ: their 5B planet with only 4 factories was producing about 150% of money my 9B planet with 2 trade centers did. So lack of money was not a problem for them for a long time, just enough to allow me to grab most planets.
They also have built very soon very big fleet, despite there was no opposition on my side (but that single one heavy fighter with 3 lasers, and 3 cargo hulls with one laser). I know Drengin tend to have the biggest military all the time, but they had it, and kept building. If I'd play them, I'd build enough of them to assure space supremacy, and when I'd get it, I'd immediately switch to planet-taking tech to collect fruits of the earlier success (complete control over opponetn's space and orbits). I'd also keep a fleet close to every enemy's star system in reach to pick newly built ships separately, before they'd form a much dangerous fleet.
They researched various techs. The Habitat Improvement was IMO a very good decision, as with Aphrodisiacs they got a big boost to their growth. I've also noticed they had Stingers-II, but haven't seen ANY ship equipped with that missile, and that's pitty, as my ships had only 2 defenses against missiles. Well, in late game I actually haven't checked their designs in orbits, just fleets in space, as my attackers in fleets of 4 wiped every single ship away with their first shot of 48 beam attack (two starbases mining military resources). However they didn't focus on one weapon's field and pushed it high. I've seen that behaviour in another 1.1 beta game on various other races, when they abandoned the missile branch, and went into other, lower level fields. Maybe they calculated the missile branch is to expensive, and they can get more levels in cheaper mass-drivers field. IMO Drengin should stay on missliles, because only two levels up are Harpoons, that offer the best early firepower per space used, and I also didn't have proper defenses for them.
Their fighters were mostly speed 4, but I've noticed they use too many range-extenders on them (usually there were two, with one engine). Since it was tiny universe, was that IMO an overkill. I rather use a starbase to extend the range of my attackers, and put on them only warfaring stuff.
On my race
IMO Yor had with its 25% miniaturization a distinctive advantage in early phase of the game, and I used it to its full extent. The new 1.1 version with slowed-down growth gives BIG bonus to the race that can grow lots of pop quickly, and +70% PGR is really cheap for 5 points, when compared to +30% for 3 points. Especially now, when the econ is calculated by the square root of pop one can get a nice econ bonus, when colonizing with 400M pop instead with 120M. If I could chose, I'd rather take +50 for 4 points, and put the remaining point in bonus production, or morale. So my race didn't have any bonuses, but the Populist give them and additional boost in econ with ability to tax pop more, and in games with more players the bonus in Diplomacy, that should help a bit with relations, in whose the Yor as evil already have problems. Looking back I should probably take the industrialists for the duel, as I had all the time enough money, and not enough production to spend it.
Anyway, the first experience with masochistic settings was nice. I enjoyed this ver.1.1 game, that was over in two afternoons. The other one, the huge, drags for the second week now. I'm in very good position, but Drengins are in even better, so that one is still far from over, and I'm alrady staring to feel game-fatigue. Will seriously reconsider starting another huge maso game.
BR, Iztok
