This time I decided to increase the difficulty to Painful. I wanted to try using all-lab builds to tech rush the AI. My settings are similar to my Altarian Afterthought AAR, except that I am using a custom race called the "Xenovians". They are the "Bringers of the Oblivion Node" (I stayed up too late last night working on a Physics idea, and I woke up this morning and it popped into my head. Wierd).

+10 morale
+30 economics
+20 economics (federalist)
+50 military prod.
+50 social prod.
+25 luck
Super Breeder ability



I've got a good starting position that should limit my contact (ie, war) with too many races for awhile. I've got a nice sphere of stars around me with about a 1 sector gap to the rest of the galaxy. I immediately build several colony ships with speed 3 (took ion drive tech to start) on long-term lease so I wouldn't deplete the treasury.



I found an economic and morale resource, which is very useful for my setup. Still, no matter how much money I pull in, it is slow building labs and I have to buy ships because of my lack of production. I'm only keeping up with the AI by doing this.



6 AIs declare war at about the same time, most citing having been paid off by someone (Drath?). I rush some weapon and engine techs, but I have no real infrastructure to build them. I'm back to buying ships which is only possible because of my massive population and number of stock markets on each planet. Neutral has allowed me to maximize small planets (PQ 1-4) immediately. The AI also presents no threat to me at this time as I have researched all invasion techs, and my populations grow so fast that their 1K transports are worthless.



I abuse the Terrans because they have weak ships. Rush-building my higher tech ships with shields has allowed me near-invincibility against the weaker races. The AIs are ignoring me for the most part, so I am free to concentrate my firepower.



Several dozen PQ 0 planets become PQ 14 planets due to a special event. The AI doesn't even make a move for them because it's distracted, so I take most of them (75%). Good, because my population was beginning to level out. Unfortunately, I'm still not able to make more than 1-2 NLCs on each planet due to their high cost and labs not making good factories.



I max out my tech, and designed the "Aurora" to counter Korath missile frigates. I have too many planets to manage, so I start using a building pattern: 1 Factory (bought), 1 Farm, Starport, Rest Stock Markets. I am now buying everything because I don't have production where I need it (new colonies), but pulling in massive credits. Once I match the Korath military, they back off and no one attacks me again. The Drath are taken down because of their weakness and alliance with the Terrans. The Iconians provide a weak target near the edge of the map. I have several Influence Resources, combining with my high population to flip 1-5 planets each turn. Victory is inevitable, and I only attack the Krynn in a surgical strike; all others simply flip to my side (the Korath deep worlds with a few influence starbases).

Summary:

The Super Breeder ability was incredible on a large map, helping both my economy and influence climb rapidly (59% tax rate allowed max growth up to 13B, my standard size planet, with average morale of 95%). Also, it made me nearly invincible against the AI troop transports; I was only afraid of the Korath because of their spore ships, so I had to buy a little defender on each world to prevent surprise attacks. In the end, their high-tech missile ships were useless because they could not maintain their fleet once their worlds started to flip (military started to drop). I am noticing in my games that the Korath are the most irritating AI and usually have a competitive military. At least they were on the other side of the map this time.

I am used to being Evil for the MCC bonus, but I can't flip planets easily. Playing Neutral to get NLCs (which I didn't even use extensively) showed me that flipping planets is far more convenient late-game than building massive transport fleets (which takes 15-20 min to move to my attack point). If the MCC were fixed to actually make flipping planets easier, I might play Evil just for that purpose. I think it would still be fairly balanced even without the MCC "economy bonus bug" - although Good perhaps needs some new tricks. The Thalans and the Yor both resisted flipping for a long time, as is indicated by their descriptions and abilities (even at 100-200x influence).

Regarding the all-lab build, it sucked. I can understand people using it on smaller maps with tech trading on and Super Diplomat, but I don't use those settings. It's very likely that I could have out-produced AND out-teched myself with a factory build, without having to spend so much money on buying ships/buildings. I also noted that getting +40 research to supplement the factory build is a waste of abilities, since a single research resource can deliver the same bonus, and there are other ways to boost it. Economy seems a better option. The lab-build also requires frequent switching of the sliders, since focused production simply isn't enough (even to build new labs!); I cannot remain competitive with the AI on higher levels this way.

Quick Summary:

Flipping Planets - Good. Fun. Fast map cleanup.
Super Breeder - Completely Awesome. Complements many strategies.
All-Labs - Inadequate. Slow and Frustrating. Unsustainable.

Score: ~140,000 pts (I think that's good).
Killed 1200+ ships, only lost 18. Not bad.

Next on the agenda: All-Factory Builds

I would like to compare customized Thalans with a Custom Race setup. I only think for my settings that Super Breeder, Super Hive, and Super Annihilator are useful, and in that order by most useful to least useful. The Thalans are the only stock race to fit my criteria for super abilities and normal abilities, since I am development-oriented rather than combat-oriented (unless I am attacking to retaliate, or to absorb a weaker race). I can do better than the Torians with a Custom Race in terms of points. It's really just Super Breeder/Mass Producer/Custom vs. Super Hive/Mass Producer/Thalan. They get a large homeworld and extra points in areas that I put points into anyway. It should be interesting as I raise the difficulty level and refine my strategies.