Spore Rush

So, the beta's got maybe a week left before we get the release, I don't know what will happen to the Spore rush, but it sure was fun while it lasted. If you've got a few hours to play beta before it's gone, you may want to try it, cause it's fun. My last game I played small galaxy, 4 aliens, 2 minors on Suicidal, and basically I was at war with the whole galaxy the whole game. I started it.

The basic rundown of my strategy:

1) Choose Korath, and +50% military.
2) Do your normal starting strategy, buying factories, colony rushing, etc.. But don't sweat it. You only need enough planets to get some reasonable research capacity, and you have access to the Toxic planets. Other races don't.
3) Now for your REAL "colony rush": research Spore. Muahahahahahhahaa. When you do that depends on what size galaxy you're playing. On a small galaxy, do it when the colony rush is pretty much over. On larger galaxies, you'll have to do it earlier or the other races will start orbiting ships. Spore Rush means sporing their planets before they orbit anything.
4) Build spore ships, but also be sure and have some extra colony ships lying around. You'll need them to seed your new Toxic planets with population. Have them tag-team your spore ships.
5) Take out any nearby minors. But first, trade all your tech for all their techs and money. Then, that same turn, take them out before they have the chance to trade. Congratulations--you just "colonized" your first class-15, well developed planet.
6) Go and "colonize" your neighbors' home worlds. Once they lose that, you have effectively neutralized the race. If you time it right, you can get their manufacturing capital in addition to your own.
7) Continue with your "colony rush". Take whatever worlds you wish; you just may want to be careful & choose you enemies wisely on larger galaxies. You should be able to use the weapons techs you traded from the minors to build some fighters. They'll help take out orbiters and those starbases you decided you want for yourself.
8) By this time you should have a pretty decent number of planets. Use them to reseach your way to Interstellar Republic, Economics, Xeno Entertainment, etc.. Turn your economy around as you normally would.
9) Research Xeno Ethics, but don't choose Evil. Why? You've already got +75% military, and you don't need free invasion tactics. It's between Good and Neutral. (In my book, it depends on what alien races are left and how many yellow starbase resources you've got--if you have 2 of them, choose Good. If not, choose Neutral). Yeah yeah yeah, you just poisoned billions of people, you're not Good. Who cares, good is a relative term. Those aliens didn't need to breathe anyway. Pay your 10bc/turn in indulgences and redeem yourself.
10) Go to war some more. It's not like you have to burn billions of population invading planets, you know? The entire line of Planetary Invasion is optional (although you can still invade stragglers to steal some techs).


Any others have their Spore rush strats?
11,053 views 19 replies
Reply #1 Top
Any others have their Spore rush strats?


Wait and see
Reply #2 Top
Wow, talk about evil...
Im eager to see Kryo's score to see the effects of such a strategy?
Reply #3 Top
Nice to see that Dark Avatar works in the metaverse .

Reply #4 Top

I can win in 8 moves in a tiny galaxy in 1 on 1. Hardest level.

What MAY happen on the Metaverse is that only maps we select can be used for the Metaverse (or possibly only maps of a certain size).

 

Reply #5 Top
I can win in 8 moves in a tiny galaxy in 1 on 1. Hardest level.


I could see that. Pick Creativity, start out researching Spore, then Mitrosoft a Spore ship.... Reminds me of the final Dread Lords scenario.
Reply #6 Top

Yep. That's basically what I do to do it.  I used to have the AI build ships with no attack or defense which thwarted that kind of rush. But people here kept calling it a "bug" or saying how "stupid" the AI was for building ships that didn't have defenses on it so I took it out which leaves it vulnerable to this kind of thing.

It's one of the things in the post-release I'm going to try to do. 

Reply #7 Top
Even with unarmed defenders though, it's not a problem. I use +20% research and Technologists myself, along with a the fastest tech setting. I can have Spore Tech, Impulse 3, and Lasers before week 12, and proceed to wipe out the enemy for a 10-minute win.
Reply #8 Top
I can win in 8 moves in a tiny galaxy in 1 on 1. Hardest level.


Just when I thought that (eventually) I might be able to match this, along comes Kryo with his:
10-minute win.


Aargh! I foresee much wailing and gnashing of teeth in my future.
Reply #9 Top
My tactic would be to arm the spore ship with the cheapest weapon you could get. A particle beam would be enough to clear away that pesky colonyship.
Reply #10 Top
You can build a reusable tiny fighter on a lesser planet, for about 76bc. Why stick a weapon on a transport which goes away? Did the UP make you do it?
Reply #11 Top
NO! If you slap some cheap laser on the side of a cargoship...and if the enemy has no weapon techs, it doesn't matter what kind of stats a ship has, they have no defense against that ship. So you don't need a cheap fighter!
Reply #12 Top
When the game is going to end as soon as you spore all the AI's planets, there's really no need to worry about making the ships reusable. It just needs to be enough to clear colony and scout ships out of orbit so you can spore them.
Reply #13 Top
I'm thinking about larger maps. Tiny map + fast tech isn't much of a game.
Reply #14 Top

Yea, and one other thing I should point out, I've been working on more AI updates. I just couldn't get them in for the "release" game. But every time I play the game, it's in the debugger so I'm always adding new stuff.

But I've yet to come up with a defense against spore rushing on a tiny map. It's the classic "rush" issue on a tiny map in an RTS.

Reply #15 Top
But I've yet to come up with a defense against spore rushing on a tiny map.


Perhaps it's just too powerful then. Increasing cost to get spore tech might be the answer or cost on ship.

Reply #16 Top
That's what I did but it only delays it a short amount.  Unless you make the tech cost ridiculous amounts which would make the pace of the game for people who aren't out to cheese it less fun, it's always going to be an issue.
Reply #17 Top
Could it be percentile based?
The first level of spore would have say a 20% of working, and the chance of the spore ship working on a planet would increase as you research along the spore techs?

This way you get the best of both worlds. early spore rushing, but an "increase" in research costs to do it effectively.
Reply #18 Top
I think that would be good. You can't expect a nation be able to completely decimate a planet like that on their first try every time.
Reply #19 Top
I don't think Spore is overpowered at all. Just on Tiny maps. On larger maps it gets you a head start, but certainly isn't a game-ender. I can't get ALL of the aliens' planets before they start orbiting ships (on Suicidal), and then I'm left with being at war with all these races. Kinda sucks being at war with the whole galaxy. They don't want to trade with you.

That's why I'm curious what other people's strats are. Looks like the last Spore thread on this forum is dated over a month ago. I guess people have been preoccupied with Super Diplomat and Super Hive strategies.