Hi!

I've just finished another masochistic game with the 1.1 beta 3-4A. This game was set in huge universe, with occasional everything, normal tech, disabled minors, blind exploration and allowed tech trade. I also randomized AI intelligence, and number of AIs. I used modified Thalans: +30% economy, +70% growth, Industrialist party. For a change I wanted to play as a good race, to see if that makes some difference.



Start

When the first uni was generated, my race started in dead corner, with only one star close, and a big empty gap to the center. The second gen was a pefect one: upper left edge, with lots of stars with planets around, a HW with a 300% production bonus tile and 300% research tile, and a class 13 planet visible to SE.



Opening moves were standard: spending to 100%, taxes down to get HW to 100% approval to double the growth, sending starting colonizer to group of stars with most planets, flagship into another direction to find more planets, bought factory on bonus tile, researched a level in propulsion to get smaller engine (to build a colonizer with speed 4 and a range extender). Flagship has checked 3 other close stars and found another class 9 planet. That was enough for a good start, and I set him to autosurvey duty. On the HW the second factory was built, and I queued a Xeno lab, an entertainment center (to raise taxes and keep HW on 100% approval), and first newly designed colonizer. I tinkered with the sliders until I got them so, that each second turn the HW will produce one, while still researching and producing buildings. In research I finished space militarization (10% bonus to mil. production), and queued planetary improvements (10% bonus to everything).



First decisions

When the first colonizer was produced, I had over 6B pop on HW, so I lifted 500M and then dillema started: shall I colonize the class-13 one, or could it wait a bit more, and I send colonizer(s) to stars, that are closer to (yet unknown) opponents? Despite the uni was huge, I decided to play safe, and colonized it, but the class-9 close to the edge shall wait a bit, until I get some more colonizers moving to distant stars. Meanwhile the flagship found some money in anomalies, some small bonuses in repair, loyality and espionage, and also some more stars, but without habitable planets. The initiall colonizer and two more also visited many stars, but found no usable planets. The uni was really non-hospitable: in 33 known planets only three were habitable, so I considered restarting the game. But the neighbours I met (Korx to the west, Humans to the NE, Yor in center, and Arceans and Torians somewhere in the south also had only few (4-6), so I decided to keep playing, and see if being neutral/good will help me to survive. Having HW and the class-13 planet with 2 yellow tiles also added to that decison, as my HW was even without terraforming the biggest planet in known universe, and class-13 the second one. That helped me big time with building necessary "wonders" without sacrificing existing installations. I also had 2 morale resources taken, and a research one. Pitty I missed the mil one on the very edge of the uni between me and Humans.



The monster nearby

So I continued. Checking regularly graphs I discovered something scarry: every few turns the econ of Yor jumped up ~10%. Not much one'd say, but that 10% was about 50% of MY total econ! 8( How's that possible? After counting their planets I realized that each jump was probably a new planet settled, or a new econ resource taken. Indeed they had really high econ bonuses: IIRC after planet grab was over, thier was at 80% (my race at 30%), not counting maso bonus. And they didn't like me!



Time to change that. I went after trade, and started building very long range trade ships, that would do two tasks: to explore new worlds and find new civilzation, to boldly go where no m...erm... Thalan has gone before, and to establish trade routes with them, that should with time bring LOTS of money, consequently made them happier with my race. OFC the first trade ship hit the Iconia, and the effect was instantly visible - a ++ in relations for trade probably kept my race out of war through those early days, when I was without warships.



Mid game starts

But despite I had trade routes with most neighbours established, they weren't happy with my low mil stats, and started demanding money. Esp. Arceans as the second toughest race needed it, as they were in the war with both Torians and Yor. Since they were far away, I declined their demand, but when Yor demanded it, I didn't want to take the risk and have given them those modest 200BC they wanted. However that has told me it's time to build some "defenders", whose main purpose would be only to present my race stronger, and never to fight. Since I knew ships in orbit got bonus attack, I designed the cheapest one small hull with two different 1-attack weapons. Once produced, they displayed attack-2 for each, and so artificially increasing my mil power to much higher evel than it actually was. Nevertheless it worked. With only 8 produced I became the strongest in the known universe! What a joke!



My trade ships did and excellent job. Visiting each star system they revealed the strenght of other players. To my disapointment the Yor had mostly good planets around class 10 with only 1 class-5 and one class-4. A big potential, esp. with 10 planets settled, and BIG maso bonus everywhere. To let you know how big the bonus was: Iconia IV, class-4 planet with 2.5B pop, initiall colony, starport, 2 Research Academies and without any starbase bonus was producing 130BC taxes, and 15/1/36 resources. Ouch! To my knowledge they had controll over 2 econ resources, 1 mil and 1 influence. Only later I found out they had another econ resource, a research one and a morale one. There was nothing I could do against them at that time, not with only 3 planets. Time to change that! Please note the game was 1.1 beta3, so without ganging on the conqueror.



The first conquest

Who'll be my first victim? I had onyl 2 options: Korx with 3 good planets to my left, and Humans with 7 planets a bit further to my NE. Since I intended to play as good I decided to take out Korx, esp. because they had quite low weapons tech and outdated ships, and control over 2 research resources. Also, taking them out would open me the path to Torians further south, that had their intelligence only at genius (randomizing intelligence did that - will disable it in new games - Torians were just too weak compared to other AIs at incredible), so better I'd take them out, before others'd do that.



Taking out Korx was easy. The 4 medium ships with 2 harpoons (6 missile attack), 4 point defences and 1 shield just walked through their small ships with average 2 missile attack. The worst damage was from their mil starbase I had to take out in order to lower the damage on my ships. 8 transports with 1B troops and movement 9 took out their home system in one turn, and their third planet in next. I also got lucky with finding tech on their planets: advanced factories was the one I appreciated the most. But there were only 2 transports left, so bringing war to Torians was out of question. They also weren't at war, so my priority switched to reconfiguring those new planets, reinforcing mining starbases, and undermining Yor.



Diplomacy at work

The first and second tasks were easy, but Yor were hard. They were winning the war with Arceans. No wonder, as Arceans had less planets, half the economy and production, and only basic weaponry, while Yor were brandishing fleets with plasma weapons, and researching phasors. At that time I couldn't do anything to them, without getting myself killed. I just haven't had the proper tech to survive the war with Yor. But Humans as the second had. They had climbed really high in mass-driver tech. Some of their ships used attack-5 weapons, and they were usig fleets with attack 50+! Time to use my high diplo bonus from Diplomatic Translators and making them help the Arceans.



Huh? How am I less skilled than Humans? What about my advantage in diplo tech like Alliances, Republic, Translators? Even when giving them all my money and tech they didn't want to go to war with Yor. Well, let's try another side. Yor were more willing. For one tech they went to war with Humans. A two-sided war should hamper them a bit. I also swithched to "vulture" mode, sending constructors to mining starbases in warzone in hope I'll grab some resources, that will be under destroyed starbases. Unfortunately I was lucky with only 2 of them, but one was an influence resource very close to Yor's starting planets. That resource got the highest priority and every enhancement possible (but scanner), as it was the gate to invading yor's main production centers.



War with the Humans should help, but didn't. Humans actually haven't sent anything to attack Yor or starbases they had close, and Yor ignored those mining starbases of Humans I'd like to take. Yor moved into humans' space, blocaded one of their planets, and tried to invade with single transport. Humans tried to break that blocade with small fleet, lost all ships to one of Yor, and that was all. Those big-attack fleets of Humans didn't move, despite having weaker yor's fleets two turns away. Grrrr! So much of relying on otheres to do my job!



The third and fourth X

Well, I was still too small to attack Yor, so I decided to take 4 torians' planets along the SW edge first. I quickly produced 5 more transports, and sent them toward their space. The 4 mediums should do the fighting, even unmodified and half a year old were way over what Torians had. Just when I positioned my ships to attack the closest two planets, Arceans with remaining 3 planets surrended to Humans. OK, that should made their war a bit more vivid. Let me take the out Torians, then I'll see who's next. I were quite high on the shield defense tree, but sill not enough to match yor's average heavy fighter with beam attack 16, and 10-12 of those fighters in a fleet. I needed better tech.



So combined with the attack on Torians I also went on tech-trading offensive with the main goal - making ships to easily match Yor's. There were many tech to buy, but weapons were not on sale, at least not at Humans (mass drivers) and Yor (beams). Drengin on the SE edge with only 2 planets were pursuing missiles as I did, and were willing to trade them, so I let them research that branch and went after defensive tech by myslef. Torians were of no use (too low econ), and Altarians in the very south corner also not. So where to get better defenses quickly? Xeno ethics should give good civ better defenses. Let's try for the first time that alignment!



The Xeno Ethics opened new branches in defensive tech, and EACH level in them offered an additional bonus in defense, or hitpoints. There was (probably, 've never seen it as neutral or evil) also an addition to starbse shielding in beams - a mighty +25 defense in the exact area I needed.



The surrendering Arceans also left free mil resouce on my border with Humans, and I quickly dedicated one planet for providing constructors just for that resource. So slowly, piece by piece, my ability to successfully attack Yor grew.



Meanwhile the attack on Torians started well. I quickly took two medium planets, when sudenly they surrenderd to Humans! Cowards!!! They deprived me of my earned big prize - their homeworld, that again went to those lazy Humans!



Just the fourth X

Now there were only 5 races of 8 remaining: Yor with 14 planets, Humans with 12, my Thalans with 8, and mini-civs Altarians and Drengin. I got enough tech to actually kill those fleets of Yor without losing much of my ships, I got enough production capacity to produce those ships in reasonable time, I had strong outpost close to their starting planets, a fleet of experienced ships at their new conquests, 500BC nett income, 5 trade routes to Humans, 2 to Altarians, one to Yor and Drengin, and 12000BC cash. Enough to start the war I've been preparing for in the last two years.



The working horse of my first attack wave was a medium hull with 3 photon torpedos, 2 warp engines, and 14 shields. With all bonuses a ship had missile attack about 21, 21 beam defenses, and costed about 600BC. My troops had the best tech and training in the universe, but were just on pair with yor's troops, so high was their soldiering bonus.


Yor's mainstay was still the heavy fighter with 5 plasma weapons, and speed 8, so I should have an easy job. However they started fielding first frigates with some armor defenses - probably a counter to mass-drivers of Humans. Anyway, when some FFs rolled out from my production centers I felt safe enough to start the war.



I upgraded my existing 4 medium ships in the far south, and attacked the latest yor's conquest: small Toria III planet they recently took from Humans. My 4 experienced medium ships against their 8 small. Their beams barely scratched my ships, while their ships died two or three per round. Total victory! Without a ship lost! Now the invasion. Also a success, with first transport and using minisoldiers. And the bonus was sweet: Phasors II. Let's keep rolling until I had transports! Next fleet was thougher, they managed to score some strong hits on the previously damaged ship, but it was only at a half of its 35 hit points, so I kept pressing on the second planet to take. The battle for it was not nice. The defending fleet was able to score two really hard hits (16 and 10), and one of my ships was destroyed. Yeah, not enough firepower on my side, to kill them quickly. A lesson for the future, but not listened here and now, when they had only defenders on their planets, and I still 3 transports to use. Keep going! was the motto. The land battle for the second planet was hard. I rolled bad numbers with the first transport, so I had to use the second one to barely take the planet. With the last tansport I tried to take Arcea, and despite using mass-drivers, failed. They just had too many pop there, and their mil training was too good.



In near south I collected enough ships to start the attack on their main production centers. But Yor decided my reinforced starbase mining influence resource was superfluous, and attacked it with their biggest fleets. Awww! They miscalculated the odds. My base had +32 protection in beams, and +7 in other two fields. They lost two fleets of ~10 heavy fighters, but the base was still alive, despite barely. That was the opportunity I shouldn't miss - their main fleets in the area destroyed, and nothing to oppose my 5 FFs! I immediately attacked the closest planet, destroyed defenders, moved to the next, destroying everything in orbit, moving to the third one, and repeating the process. This way they weren't able to produce anything seizable that would endanger my fleet there, so my transports had a safe path to take those planets.



Battles for those planets were the hardest I ever fought. Despite I had ALL soldiering tech, but planet defense 2 and 3, AND Tir-quan training, I was just on pair with them, so using mass-drivers with the first invading transport was almost mandatory, sometimes also with the second. On average I used about 1B troops to take out 2 of theirs. Despite such bad odds I never ran out of pop - the 70% bonus growth, and 2 morale-mining starbases, that kept most of my planets at 100% approval, did their job perfectly. I actually had grown MORE pop than I could put on transports, because the biggest planets were producing warships. Only after I had produced about 24 (3 fleets of 8) of them I switched their production to constructors and troops.



Meanwhile the war in far south went badly. Yor had payed the Drenging to enter the war. Despite being small, Drengin had built two formidable fleets. Mainly mediums, speed 10, with 25 missile attack, just some small shields, 8 of ships in a fleet. If they'd get the first shot, I'd lose many ships. I weighted my odds (they were really puny), and pulled back my three remaining mediums. Drengin started destroying my mining starbases I took when Arceans and Torians surrendered, but when they turned to the center toward the damaged morale-mining starbase, I sued for peace. Surprisingly they were more than willing to accept, and I managed to get their Photons IV for peace. Well, at that time I already had more ships they had, and my mil stat was at about twice of theirs.



Yor also asked for peace, and at the first request I seriously considered their offer. I already took their home system and a class 13 planet in the center, and 2 planets in far south, so it might be wise to reinforce the gain in peace. But then I checked the graphs (they were still stronger in EVERY field but pop), counted the ships, and realized I have enough transports en-route to take another 3 big planets, and enough warships to destroy anything they currently could throw at me, so I rejected. If I'd give them time to regroup, they could build LOTS of really nasty warships. The first signs were already visible: Yor started fielding frigates with missiles (stingers) and basic point defenses. If they'd start producing and grouping such battleships, I'd have much more problems defeating them. A basic lesson from Stars! poped up: if you have him down, keep him there until he's no more. And I wanted them down, for 3 or more game years! So no mercy for Yor.



Since 2 races were now using missiles, I changed the defenses in my new medium ships - I kept only 6 shields, and added 10 point defenses. With a fully upgraded mil. mining starbase that would yield about 9/16, and with movement of 9 and missile attack 25 still enough to kill anything they'd sent. Just out of curiosity I designed the battleship (large hull). A really nasty design with 5 Photons, about 20 shields and PDs and 2 hyperwarp engines. Also expensive (about 1000 BC), I proved it as but worth every BC. Has filled nicely the last two points of 34 logistic I hadn't used previously with 8 frigates in a fleet.



Another design was a simple tiny hull with just 2 hyperwarp engines and a laser, called "defender". Its main purpose was to remove fog of war, to take out soft targets: constructors, transports, unarmed starbases, scouts, and to sit in the orbit defending planet against unarmed transports. A really cheap, but effective design.



To make the long story about taking out Yor short: I used every advantage I had, took out everything I could, just to weaken them. They struggled, produced powerfull battleships, but I kept my ships in two big fleets patrolling their space, so they couldn't collect enough of them to become dangerous. In less than a year their big empire collapsed. I especially remember their last effort of hurting me: in the far south I missed to intercept one of their last bigger fleets, that was heading to the econ starbase, that was supporting the first two planets I took from Torians. I just couldn't intercept it with anything, so they took out that starbase, and I took their last planet. Kudos to them, they fought till the end, and didn't surrender to the Humans as other races did.



Victory?

With the Yor gone, I started to ponder how to end the game. Take out everybody as I usualy did? Hrmmm...? Humans with mass-drivers, me only with weak armor... Drengin with their missile-heavy fleets? Worthless vultures Altarians, that were the main trading partner to Yor and took all galactic resources I lost in war? Hrm...?



Well, my race was good. So let's end the good way: aliance victory. But as first to pay back the Drengin for their attack on me. I left one fleet close to human's space, moved the second to the Altarians, and the third - a newer one with missile defenses, to attack Drengin. With my big speed I was able to attack and destroy their outer fleet without much damage on my side. The heavy damaged FF I split and sent back to a close planet for repairs. After they lost a fully equiped mil resource mining starbase, they lost a lot on strenght, so the inner fleet was much easier, and taking out defenders a piece of cake. Two transports on Drengi and one on Kona did the rest.



Now let's convince Humans to ally. I had all but two trade lines to them, had not a single minus in relations, but they were all the game just on friendly. WTH? I tried to make relations better, I relly did. Gave them tech, gave them money, gave them trade goods, to no avail. They just didn't want to get to "close". Ugh!?! Stubborn Humans, they really don't know what's good for them!



Victory!

Well, okay, then the hard way. I moved one fleet close to one of their bigger fleets, another one, that took out Drengin, to their southern planets, and the newest battleship with 20 Arnorian battle armor to their HW in north, all ships supported with some backup FFs and lots of transports. When I attacked, it was a carnage. I lost one of the oldest FFs with the beam-only defenses in the first battle, and that was all I lost. The battleship heading for the Earth alone took out all defenders there, and a supporting fleet of 4 FFs, and still had ~30 hitpoints. Humans lost all planets but Mars in less than 5 turns, and Mars defected soon after. And since the Altarians didn't want to ally, they too followed quickly.



Conclusion

I admit I had mixed feelings after I won that game. On one hand I felt satisfaction when removing stubborn Humans and Altarians, that supported the Yor and Drengin instead of other "good" players. OTOH being "good" implies some manners, whose I broke. But heck, it was a game in which I removed the main badass, and for me it was over. When others didn't want to understand that, was that their problem.



Anyway, It was a good game, where I had to use lots of skills and patience to finish it successfuly. With the new addition to the AI (ganging on the conqueror) would my task likely be much harder, as I too would be marked as one, and would probably had more problems with other races.



Some observations

- The best weapon tech to research are IMO missiles. Just comparing the tech investments for the gained firepower gives them quite an advantage. Also the space they require per damage is very good. Now combine those two and you get the strongest early and mid-game ships, that have up to 20% higher firepower from the same hull for about the same costs. Also, defenses against missiles are the weakest, and gain ability the slowest in game. They are the smallest though, but that means one needs to put them more for the same amount of protection, so ships are again more expensive.



- Currently I have open a 1.1 beta 4B game with crippling AI (all on genius, no randomization), and I can tell there is a BIIIIG difference in difficulty. IMO too big for just the next step in difficulty. In previous two masochistic games I had to work to survive, in this game it's almost a cake-walk. I grabbed lots of planets, some almost from the front yard of opponents, I grabbed EVERY resource (11) in the universe but one, which already had a starbase on it when I found it. IMO there should be a level between crippling and maso, or the maso nerfed by 20-30 percent. Since there are two more levels above it (obscene and suicidal), that could be done, to give those players, that want to try something stronger than crippling, less harsh conditions.



- This game keeps getting better and better. I can only agree with a rewiever, who wrote in our game maganzine: MoO can now finaly rest in peace.



BR, Iztok