False Alliances & Cultural Conquest

An unusual but fun way to win

Hi! I haven't posted here much of the past month, but I haven't stopped playing GC2. I only stopped visiting this place because the massive TA advertisements were freaking me out. I know I can't get TA before March, so the more advertising I read, the more it stings. Anyway, here's the AAR of a game I played over the last 2 days and completed today. The screenshots are still on my laptop, so I'll just be posting text today.

Settings:

GC2: Dark Avatar v1.80G with...

Huge Galaxy
Rare Stars
Rare Planets
Rare Habitable Planets
Abundant Asteroids
Occasional Anomalies
8 Minor Races
Conquest and Technological Victory enabled
Mega Events and Super Abilities enabled

Civ: Altarian Republic - The Altarian Resistance with it's old name from DL
Leader: 'Twix Nor' - A leader based on the philosopher-like Altarian portrait
Party: Technologists
Bonuses:
Luck - 1 pt
Creativity - 1 pt(just tasting)
Research - 3 pt
Econ - 4 pt
Pop Growth - 1 pt
+ Altarian inherent bonuses

Opponents:
Terran Alliance - Painful
Drengin Empire - Painful
Arcean Empire - Painful
Yor Collective - Painful
Dominion of the Korx - Painful
Exploitrons Corporation - Crippling(This is my toughest custom race, & use Super Warrior)
Iconian Refuge - Masochistic
Thalan Empire - Crippling
Torian Confederation - Crippling

So, I got a good start. My homeworld, Altaria, had a Precursor Library and 2 100%-Manufacturing tiles on it. I bought a factory, built another one, and then built a lab on the obvious tiles. I colonized Wisp, but it had nothing special on it so I just built a lab there and queued a factory. I was in the center of the galaxy, but thanks to the settings, there were no habitable worlds. At least, until I found some odd ones later. I also kept up 100% Approval, whatever the cost, so my population rose fast.

After this, I went on a research spree and grabbed several techs, including Xeno Economics & prereqs, Impulse Drive & prereqs, Research Centers & prereqs, Xeno Industrial Theory, Alliances & prereqs, Advanced Diplomacy, Xeno Entertainment and Trade, among a few others. During this time, I met some of the other races. The Drengin were at the eastern rim, the Exploitrons far north, the Arceans directly west, the Korx to the northwest. I also met some minor races, like the Snathi, Dark Yor, Akilians and Jessuins, who lived ~2 sectors south of the Exploitrons home system. After I got the proper building techs, I built my homeworld with one Research Center(on the Prec' Library), 2 Factories(on 100% bonuses), one Economic Capital, and 6 Advanced Market Centers.

But by now, keeping approval at 100% was causing me to lower taxes below 10%. Even with my econ buildings, high pop and econ bonuses, my tax income was obviously negligible. Thankfully, I made more than sufficient money from anomalies and the large-scale sale of old tech to minor races.

When my population on Altaria maxed out at 16 billion, I cranked up taxes and brought Approval down to 30% on Altaria. Anywhere below that, and the planet was risking rebellion. In order to keep control of the senate, I pushed Approval up to 70% just before election day, without fail.

Wisp remained with a relatively high Approval thanks to it's low pop'. I also aligned Neutral and paid for it by selling the Space Mining tech to all the minor races. The minor races also sent me lots of freighters, which resulted in a delightfully high trade income.

Over the rest of the year and half of the next year, I researched further, built even better buildings(Research Academies, Enhanced Factories and Banking Centers), and met more races. The Iconians were several sectors south of me, the Yor directly west of them, the Terrans in the southwest corner, the Torians in the southeast corner and the Thalans in the middle of the western edge. I also discovered an untaken Class 6 world - which was radioactive - and a Class 7 world - which the Yor had taken way back when. I also grabbed a Research Resource near Wisp, and built more research buildings on newly unlocked tiles. I also got myself an RCC on Altaria, but kept my Manufacturing and Technology Capitals unbuilt.

I was obviously superior in tech to everyone - except the Iconians. I looked at their Class 15 homeworld and Class 6 second world using a spy. They had Industrial Sectors(!), Banking Centers, Research Academies, whopping diplomacy skills, and the best economy(I was second). Thankfully, they weren't giving a damn to weapons research, and though they had a military, it contained crappy ships no better than anyone else. I had no military, but I bribed enough wars using tech to keep relations high(Cool and above). With each major AI race tied up in 2-3 wars, they wouldn't get themselves stuck in yet more. All of them were using Mass Drivers and Armor, with only the Drengin using Missiles. The Thalans also outfitted lasers as secondary weapons on their gun-armed ships.

Now with my economy and research running smoothly, I decided to take out my toughest rival, the aforementioned Iconian Refuge. I bought Stinger 2 and Starship Defenses from a minor race, and them researched my way up to Photonic Torpedo 2 and Superior Duranthium. During this time, the Yor, Arceans and Drengin were keeping the Iconians busy, but their heavy-fighter fleets kept getting beaten back by fleets of poorly-armed Iconian frigates. A small wonder-race also started, with the Thalans building Restaurant of Eternity, the Iconians taking Micro Repair Bots, and me building Harmony Crystals. By the second quarter of the third year, I was ready to attack.

My force was spearheaded by ANS Horizun, a frigate with 8 Missile Attack , 21 Armor Defense and a speed of 7pc/wk(using a Warp Drive Mk.2). It was superior to the Iconian frigates, which had 6 Mass Driver attack(using Singularity Drivers), 4-6 Armor, and a 4pc/wk speed. For the invasion, I had 2 custom Transports, containing 1000 Troops each instead of 2000 due to some freak bug in the Advanced Troops Modules of a saved design. Since my ships didn't have the Life Support range to reach New Iconia, I brought a Constructor to supply them instead. The enemy resistance consisted of 4-5 of the said frigates, several fighter swarms, and 16 billion people on New Iconia, backed by 2 transports and 6 billion people on New Iconia 5.

This was just the first third of the game, the rest I will post tomorrow. Following this was the short Iconian war, more turtling, the Yor conquest, and my eventual path to a grand galactic alliance, topped off by overthrowing those same alien leaders who had allied with me.

aars

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Well, after looking at that first post, I guess the in-depth turtling section was way too deep. Anyway, here's the continuation:

I held ANS Horizun from attacking until all my Transports had arrived. Along with my transports, a pair of Arcean heavy-fighter fleets and two Yor fleets also arrived. In accordance to a UP law, I declared war and waited a turn while the Arcean fleets launched a suicide attack against an economy starbase and the Yor fleets took out a frigate before getting destroyed by the same starbase. Next turn, my warship wiped out all the orbiting defenders at New Iconia, and I used a wave-attack invasion. The first transport, with 1000 troops, bombarded New Iconia with Mass Drivers, and killed 11600 of the 16000 Iconian troops. The approval rating of New Iconia remained at a surprisingly low 48% even after the invasion, so my second transport(also with 1000 troops) used Information Warfare. I won the planet with 1.5 billion people left and no damage.

The following turn, ANS Horizun got attacked by a frigate and 2 heavy-fighters, which got destroyed. I then had the ship attack New Iconia 5, and began building another transport with the stored production in the New Iconia starport. After my turn, the Iconians attempted to launch a re-invasion with a new transport, but they didn't make it and lost 1000 troops in space. The next turn started, and New Iconia 5 just flipped into my hands, with it's 5-billion population intact. I used my new transport to shuttle 4 billion people to New Iconia, and renamed my new star system to Santraginus, with New Iconia becoming Santraginus 5 and NI5 becoming Santraginus 1.

The Iconian ships, who had all turned into pirates, got wiped out, leaving no trace of that civilization in the galaxy. The Iconians had built only 1 lab, which was a Research Academy on a Precursor Mine at Santraginus 5. They also had an Econ and Manufacturing Capital on Santraginus 5, and the rest of their buildings were Industrial Sectors, Banking Centers, and of course Starports.

After modifying and improving the build of my 2 new planets, I continued to research hard and soon built a Spin Control Center on Santraginus 5, and my Hyperion Shrinker at Santraginus 1. But 1 warship was still not enough, and the Yor and Drengin kept demanding tribute which I never paid. Nevertheless, the wars I had started kept raging, and the few peace treaties that cropped up were short lived as the AI races just reloaded their weapons and went back to beating each other up. The AI races also unanimously outvoted me in that year's United Planets Council and enacted a 'Neutral Ground' law to stop surprise attacks.

Sorry, got to go today, but I'll post the rest of this tomorrow. This was the prelude to my war with the Yor.

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Continued:

Eventually, the Yor's incessant tribute demands irritated me to the point that I began preparing for war with them. I could tell that they were also doing the same thing, as they had planted a fleet of heavy fighters in my territory and dropped relations to wary. Of course, they weren't in a position to attack me since they were stuck in 3 wars already. So I built a Tech Capital on Santraginus 5 and the Eyes of the Universe on Santraginus 1.

With a Precursor Mine, a 100% Research tile(on which the Iconians had built a factory!), an RCC, and a Tech Capital, Santraginus 5 became my best research world, more than doubling my output. I used my now-unmatched and massive research capacity to research all the way to Zero-Point Armor, the perfect defense against the Mass-Driver-obsessed galaxy.

For the Yor war, I built 4 new medium-range Transports with the Advanced Troop Module now working, a new Horizun 2 warship, and a Constructor to snatch their Morale resource. I had made a terrible mistake in that when I was upgrading the Horizun design to the new Horizun 2, I forgot to remove all the Superior Duranthium! As a result, that obsolete armor was still hanging on my ships, and my defense rating was ~80 instead of ~180. I only realized this after the war had ended, BTW.

Still, this was more than enough armor required to beat the Yor ships. By now, the Yor were churning out dozens of frigates with 22 Mass Driver Attack and ~10 Armor Defense. My botched-up Horizun 2 had 12 Missile Attack, and 80-something Armor Defense. I think it was 87, but I forgot to take a screenshot. I placed my older ANS Horizun(now upgraded) and 3 Transports(6 billion troops in total) on the Yor border, kept a new Horizun 2(the ANS Vista) to defend Santraginus, and sent another loaded Transport to investigate the Class 7 Yor colony in the Lentz system. I also built a zippy little survey ship on a tiny hull to ease up the load on my Flagship, which was still poking around the galaxy and participating in minor races with other flagships when anomalies surfaced.

At this time, a Xenophobes event occurred. Cultural borders shrunk. This was good news, for I could now move by fleet closer to Iconia. While I was getting everything into place, I also noticed several stars with free asteroid fields near them, which used to be in my territory but were now in neutral ground because of the Xenophobes. More good news, as this attracted waves of Space Miners from all over the galaxy, in a race to dig for gold... er, MPs, that would eventually become mine once the Xenophobes fall away. And 2 turns later, they did. By now, the asteroids were already being dug into, but my war advantage was nullified. I declared anyway and retreated back to the old border. Thanks to 'Neutral Ground', the Yors' fleet was kicked out of my territory. Next turn, my fleet drove into the Super Isolationist zone and managed to take down 2 frigate fleets before getting bogged down, from 9pc/wk to 3pc/wk.

More tomorrow, this is all for tonight.

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An interessting aar, can't wait to read more.

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I have to admit I’ve never done a turtle/tech strategy before, but in a rare-everything galaxy that may just make the most sense.

I noticed the level of the AIs is different. Any reason? Did you observe any difference in how the AIs worked?

Also, I’ve only occasionally starting wars between others, but it is a powerful too.

Hydro

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Freeman43

Join Date 11/2007

+12

nice

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