That's something to think about.  Maybe using just a couple of fast huge hulled beasts and upgrading them as time goes on.  I'm thinking the experience upgrades should make them legendary after they single handedly take on entire empires.  That would make for a rather long game, but the resulting ships would be incredible.

Maybe I should start them with psionic beams and go from there.  For a change, I'll put some decent defense on them.

I should probably name the ships as well, since they'll be there for the whole game.  At least I hope so.  Imagine losing the Enterprise along with Kirk, Spock, Sulu, etc.  That would hurt.

I've always liked Achilles and Agamemnon as ship names.  Yeah, that's the ticket.

I'll have to discipline myself into not building any more warships other than troop transports.  Getting from one end of the galaxy to where a war is going on and then getting a distraction from another area could be challenging.  Maybe I'll build some defensive ships without engines to protect the planets as needed, but only use my two mobile ships for projected combat.  This might even be a good game to take advantage of the defensive structures that we usually dismiss.  I might even scrap the small fighters I took in trade to purposefully lower my military level.

Thanks for the idea, Neilo.   +1k   

I don't need planet defense at all. The AI has thrown some transports at me, but none with more than 1k troops, and since just about every planet is at 13B, they don't have a hope. i just let them come and in a turn or two, i have regrown the loss pop.

SS, not at all keen to join in on some straight up gaming are you? Be nice to have someone else join the game chat and have another game going we can hear about?!

I'd love to; KP was starting in on these as well when his system died.  But I've got a project in GC2 at the moment, plus an RL project that's taking precedence even over that and may well tie me up for the next several months.

-

Thing is, having already played The Most Epic Game Ever™, in which I had to fight off 3+ incarnations of the Dread Lords, Peacekeepers with fleets of 20-strong huge hulls with 700 attack/1400 defense per ship, in addition to the Jagged Knife and at least one appearance of the I-League, while in 500 million bc of debt because the AI couldn't handle it themselves, without knowing about the focus in debt bug and without having had a fleet built or weapons research done when the 500 million debt bug hit...

Well, what's left?

And while playing straight up, no gimmicks is certainly more ethereally satisfying, I'm almost too good at it to even enjoy it anymore.  If you'll recall, back when (nearly?) everyone else had moved up to Suicidal and diplomafied their way through it, I was still hanging back on Tough, out colonizing the AIs individually 9-to-1 (that is, all AIs combined).  And I didn't even know then what I know now.

Then again my playstyle has always been about high research values early on; more akin to a ZYW-style game even if not quite at that ridiculous level of spending.  And the hidden bonus to a player's research higher than Tough makes it easy for me to wipe the floor with the AIs.  I've only ever lost one Suicidal game-my first-and that was in a Tiny galaxy.

But if either of those two qualifies as a gimmick-and while I maintained for a long time that the second did, there isn't anything that can really be done about it-then I suppose I need to go back to the drawing board.

The real question is, how badly must I handicap myself?  What's fair?  What's fun?

And the answer is, I don't know anymore.  Suggestions are welcome, of course, but as per above, it may be some time before I can do anything but spectate.

So, I should never research anything...

Sounds fun!

Actually, I've been playing Europa Universalis III off and on for several months, and I've gotten to the point where I pretty much only play as nations that are supposed to be doomed from the outset-South American pagan tribal nations, Albania (one province minor) at war with the Ottomans at the fall of Byzantium, etc.

But there's really no parallel to that in GC2, aside from playing a minor race maybe, which I'm not even sure how to manage.

There was a weird bug in DA 1.7 where the game lost track of how much money you had when you were rush buying things, and wound up setting your money to a few hundred million in debt.

Fortunately there was also a weird bug in DA 1.7 where once you researched Xeno Ethics if you didn't have enough to switch ethical alignment your cash was set to 0 even if you were in debt, so I got out of it eventually.

But with no research it took me a great deal of time, and I didn't even know about the second bug until it happened.

My understanding is the first bug was fixed when the second bug was fixed, though, as I haven't seen it happen again yet.

And getting yourself into 500 million bc of debt is hardly an exploit   It certainly doesn't help you!

Motti, my brain works differently; it always defaults to the math.

I really think the only way to make it remotely challenging is to never research a tech myself.  This means relying on the AI to research -everything-, so I don't have tech superiority over all of them, although I might have tech superiority over one or two targets.  It also means I'll need to make enough money from my planets in order to buy techs in the first place.

I guess it's debatable whether research treaties should be allowed.

That's about as old-fashioned colony rush as it gets, I think. 

As Motti mentioned, the lore of the game to me means alot. Mess with the AI and give them a different flavor and create a race for yourself with some kind of story to it. Perhaps a race devoid of all technological achievement, so they must scavenge for tech. i could see where espionage might actually be meaningful in this kind of game.

Create a custom Krynn race perhaps, heavy on econ and morale.

Gee, i might even be tempted to try a game like this myself!!

We set up some odd galaxy settings and fire away......

Ohh and uhmm..*cough*...err *NAZI*...*cough*.....excuse me...



I got plenty to do around the house today, so i might not get much game in. the Ildrians are down to about 25 planets, and are no threat, though they did start producing transports with 3k troops. Good thing they have little to no, invasion or soldiering tech.
I'm ready to hit the Torians and should take them out within 1 or two turns. Then it will be the Drath and Korx at the same time. My econ is an out of control locomotive now, ~75k per turn and increasing. I did start going though all my planets and buying Stock Exchanges, but meh...i really could not be bothered, so each planet has one Industrial Sector and they build out on their own accord, ever so slowly ofc..

It's early year 4, i have just under 400 planets, and if i really wanted to, i could probably end the game by years end. But i want to see if i can take everyone out with just the capital ships i have atm...
i have in all about 15 large hulls (as the above pics) all over lvl 10, and about 10 huge hulls, spread over to differing designs.

"hyperian thingamajig's" coming to a store new you!!!!

@Neilo, you  are right. I enjoy reading about how your games are going and how I can change and learn in my own games. This last game I just did was special      party at my Empire thread because I didn't lease buy any ships or most buildings under 10,000 credits. When I took out all the races except for Krynn in the first year but it ended (accidentally culture flip) in the second year because I forgot to place a Re-education building on New Iconia II V when I made a peace treaty with Krynn to trade their home planet for (PQ3) New Iconia II V. After that I set up trade and Econ Star bases started making a little money.

We are looking for players to join to become aggressive Admirals to lead your fleets across the Galaxy!

Empress Saint Mina of Ophelia VII of Order of the Bloody Rose of Orders Militant of Adepta Sororitas

I'm well mate, or, as well as not being a multi-millionaire can be...

Great to see you drop by mate!

Hi....I'd love to join this Tyranny of Evil...but the homepage is down and the AltMeta page says you don't exist.....A little help is all I'm asking(Probably in the wrong place) but i do have goodEVIL qualities and can produce a number of Evil based technologies for the Empire to exploit, one such being a Life Force Re-cycler(uses an old, broken improvement locked in the game files) that drains the life from a old civilian, and forces it into a younger one, thus making long lasting citizens of the empire! Alternatively is could be used for making slaves last 2-3x longer.

My custom race, The Akzard, can access evil, neutral AND good techs all at one!(Custom tech tree)

Let me know if i'm accepted into this black cloud of evil people....

yeah, i know, i just remembered that beforeyour edits.

i joined the empire and would like to ask.....what tech focus should i use?

Weapons

Improvements

Defenses

Propulsion

Biology

Etc...?

when i asked what i should focus on, i meant in producing techs for YOU guys to use, im getting rather good at it(besides balance).

If you give me a tech type to make, like Weapons, then please give me a type of that tech(if there is any), like Beams.

If anyone would like to see it, here is my FlagShip(not default):

Nice Camera, that has brilliant resolution! What size it mate? Iv'e thinking about getting a cam i can mount on my RC cars (they are 1/8th scale) to make some vids of the off roading and track work i do with them. something like that might be perfect!
Oh...by the way...girls girls girls, nice choice! the V8 revving gave it away straight away! love Motley Crue!