HydroAC

Join Date 05/2003

Iconian AAR

Iconian AAR

I picked up GalCiv 2 after an 8 month hiatus when I got an e-mail from Stardock on the upcoming expansion Twilight of Arnor. ToA looks fantastic, and just thinking about how much fun GC2:DA has been was enough to pique my interest again. So I got online, upgraded DA to 1.8g, and off I went to get reacquainted with the game.

After playing a few games with the Krynn I recalled how much fun the AARs were so I decided to continue the effort. I went through the list of my AARs: Korath, Terrans, Getz (Super Breeder - Torians equivalents), Krynn, Altarians, Yor and Thalans. All were fun and I learned a lot, but there are a few missing: Drath, Drengin, Arceans, Iconians and Korx. Well, the Drengin leave me cold and I’d have to do some serious thought to use the Super Dominator ability properly (I’m not wildly aggressive as a rule – blood does not make my grass grow). I don’t quite get the Korx (evil traders? What?), so that leaves the Iconians, Drath and Arceans. The Iconians were one of my favorite races in vanilla GC2 so it is high time I give them a go.

Before I started I gave some thought to the Iconians. I’ve played them a bit in the early days of DA and liked the idea of the race, mainly for the interesting back history (I’m a sucker for an interesting story). The forums seem to pan the Iconians as being a weak race with relatively low stats (likely true) and a less than worthy Super Ability. The argument goes that the Iconian Super Adapter ability to colonize toxic and aquatic worlds plays out after the colonization phase is done. What I think is missed is that the colonies are long term assets that keep on producing value. After all, if at the end of the colony rush you have 20 percent more colonies and they are more developed then that is a net benefit that continues to yield profit. Of course there are other ways to gain colonies – industrial potential, research, military conquest. The key, then, is to try to augment this SA to see what it will do.

So, how to make the most of the Super Adapter? For me the two keys are getting to the colonies and keeping a front-end colonization economy from imploding. I tried a few quickie games and found that the Iconians were pretty darn slow (spd 2, later 3 with Ion) and races with better production (Thalans) or movement (Yor with miniaturization or Ion to start) had a real edge. So, 5 of my 7 pt race picks will be for +1 speed. The remaining 2 measly points will go to economy for +10 percent to help me pull out of the Early Colonization Economic Death Spiral. Federalist round out the eco picks.

With this mix my abilities are:
• Espionage +50% (race ability)
• Economy 10% (picks) +20% (Federalists) = 30%
• Speed +1 (picks)
• Morale +20% (race)

The lack of industry and growth will be a problem, and I’ve gotten sadly used to the Krynn 50% morale kick. I’ll adjust, or die.

Other standard techniques I’ll use are:
• Early race to sensors, and cheap survey ships on a cargo hull. These cheap and fast ships will allow me to snag lots of anomalies for cash and race bonuses. When the anomaly collection is over the ships are great to finish exploring the galaxy, fleet scouts or edge-of-empire sentinels.
• Early trade routes to help my neighbors like me and generate cash
• Fairly early construction of attack 2 destroyers (small hull). Nothing invites an early attack by a neighbor than having a military rating less than 100. Getting a few of these paper tigers out early will fend off the vultures. I’ve also observed that a high military rating makes people like you more, but I could be wrong. Also, it is nice to have a ready-to-go hull for a quick upgrade if difficulties arise.
• Try to bump my diplomatic rating to ease tensions and avoid early conflicts when I’ll be especially vulnerable.
• 100% morale to get 2x (or is it 4x?) population growth. This is absolutely huge when you have a larger number of colonies than your neighbor, and with Super Adapter this will hopefully be the case with the Iconians. More population also generates more taxes so high growth colonies pay for themselves earlier. My problem is that the Iconians don’t have much or any morale bonuses, so keeping 100% morale will be very costly to my economy. By contrast, the Krynn are easy with their huge morale bonus. I’ll have to invest in morale techs for the empire wide bump and morale facilities at larger pop planets.
• I’ll be running deficits for quite a while so I’ll need to hold off rush buying too much infrastructure and I’ll need to get lucky with anomalies and my survey ships. As a rule I don’t rush buy ships. Rather, I’ll increase military allocation or focus a planet.

So, here’s the setup:
• Large galaxy, common habitable planets but uncommon planets and stars to keep the number of planets to a modest level – the common setting produces so many planets that managing the empire is a chore. I like each planet to count.
• 5 random opponents, 4 minor races
• Painful difficulty
• Tech trading off – I HATE AI group research, which invariably happens when the incestuous AIs can trade tech with each other. They’ll almost never trade with me except under the least favorable circumstances even when they’re friendly and I have a diplomatic rating that blows them away. This ‘feature’ is decidedly un-fun for me, and I don’t have the patience to attempt to turn this to my advantage.
• All victory conditions enabled.

I did Control-N twice before getting a decent setup where I’m not completely boxed in. So here we go!

*~*~*~*

January 2226

Looking at the galactic map I have some formidable opponents. The Korath may be right adjacent to me, and the only way he can expand is through my territory. That is not the recipe for a good relationship, not that I would expect one, of course. The Korath will have to go, and if I play my cards right I’ll be able to dominate him with production and keep him penned in. Another neighbor is the Drengin, and other aggressive and unpleasant neighbor. Further afield are the hyper productive Thalans and what may be the Krynn (the Korath and Krynn empire colors are pretty similar). The poor Torians are squished in the far corner.

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Image 1: Galaxy at the Start

In the middle is a wide expanse of territory that most of the races can rush into, expect perhaps the boxed Korath and Torians. My Iconians have as good a chance as any and I’ll use my speed bonus to good advantage. What I like about the speed bonus is that it costs nothing in production like miniaturization and Ion engines do. This is good since I have no production bonuses

My home planet is decent. I’d forgotten that I have 15 sectors instead of the normal 12, and I’ll put that to good use. I have a two 100% industrial bonuses and one 300% lab bonus squares, which is great since I have no industrial or research bonuses. My capital will be doing all of my production and research for quite a while.

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Image 2: Iconian Homeworld on January 2226

I’m setting my sliders to 60/20/20 ind/soc/research. I’ll purchase my first three factories and let the rest build normally. I have to conserve my money if I’m going to avoid economic implosion. My colony ship production is 7 turns, which will improve as the industry comes on line. I hope it will get to 3 or 4 turns at the outside. Unless something strange happens my tech progression is xeno labs, engines to Ion, planetary improvements for the production bonuses, then sensor so I can build cargo survey ships, and yellow techs through Trade. We’ll see what happens after that point. My research rate will be pretty low with a 20% allocation, but I need to get those colony ships up and running.

From a strategic point of view I think I need to be neutral. I don’t expect the Torians to do well, and the Krynn and Thalans are generally neutral – so that may be the way to go. My alignment is 99%, so I’ll have to take a bunch of evil choice to move that downward. It may become irrelevant with wars breaking out all over regardless of alignment, and in that case neutral is likely better anyway.

As a bit of good fortune I see a PQ9 world between me and the Korath. I’m grabbing that puppy since it is a good world and for denial. I’m not going to bother colonizing my PQ3 world in my home system. It isn’t really worth all that much and I hope the Korath will colonize it for me. Between my capital and the PQ9 world I expect it to revolt after he has invested in infrastructure. Hehe!

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January 2227

Boy, the turns seem to slip by. Of course, I’m only shoving colony ships around. My little fleet of 5 survey ships is on auto and they’re busy snagging all the anomalies they can. So far they’ve done a terrific job of supplementing my treasury and, of course, the occasional increase in my racial abilities. I haven’t been keeping track, but it will add up even if it is only 1% at a time. I love anomalies that speed research, particularly if I have a project with a long lead time. The bonuses that add hit points to my ships are generally useless since all but my flagship are on a cargo hull. Ah, well – it’s better that I get them than the AI empires!

I managed to snag a true gem in the nearby Hatch system – a PQ17 world! It has no specials on it and it will be a terrific eco world. My other planets I’ve gotten are nothing special, though, and only one has been an extreme environment (PQ8 aquatic). I have colony ships flying all over the place, typically to no avail. I’m avoiding the very low PQ worlds since I can’t afford the maintenance. I’m running a 188/turn deficit with my morale at 97%. But my taxes are a crippling 22%, which is a real problem. All sliders are set at 33% and I’m starting to build freighters to augment my flagging economy.

The first part of the colony race is over and I’m disappointed that I am not doing as well as I’d thought I do. Here is the rundown:

Iconians – 6 planets, 23B pop, and 47 research
Krynn – 4 planets, 16B pop, and 27 research
Drengin – 6 planets, 21B pop, and 82 research
Thalans – 4 planets, 22B pop, and 65 research
Torians – 2 planets, 20B pop, and 28 research
Korath – 8 planets, 16B pop, and 35 research

I threw my colony ships into the Big Void in the hopes of collecting good planets. I got Hatch (PQ17) right away, but the rest have been little PQ5 and 6 worlds, and then only a few of those. I was wondering why I saw no colony ships out and about. At first I thought it was because all the AI’s economies except the Drengin imploded around July 2226. With their production crippled there were no more colony or other ships produced, which I think is a good thing. But as I got further out I found the true reason– there are no habitable planets there at all! It truly is a Big Void. Now my survey ships are busy running around snagging anomalies and looking around. I’ve found and claimed a morale resource and have seen 2 research resources. A few constructors are on the way and I wonder if I’ll get there before the AI’s do. The AIs and minor races are very good at getting resources and they are quite far away. . So now my colony ships have been recalled to add population to my little worlds, or to stand ready to snag some juicy extreme colony sites.

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Image 3: Galactic Resources to Claim

I have spotted two juicy extreme planets I hope to get: a PQ14 rad world in Gladstone system and a PQ11 world in the Artemis system. These are by far the best worlds left so I’m researching extreme colonization and with a bit of luck I’ll get them before the AI.

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Image 4: PQ 14 and PQ 11 Extreme Worlds in the Gladstone and Artemis systems

But, this could be a problem since it puts me between the Drengin and Thalans, and there’s a Korath world thrown in to boot! This area may get pretty messy since even if I get them the worlds will be a bit of a challenge to defend. The Drengin is pretty close, and a few planets that close to the Thalans may annoy them. I also noticed the Drengin are quickly building a military. I’ll have to follow suit, so I’m constructing a bunch of attack 2 destroyers. They are paper tigers, but they’re cheap and fast to produce – which counts for a lot. If I keep my military rating up perhaps the Drengin and other vultures will leave me alone while I build. I’ll probably have to move them from my capital system since the worlds will be very vulnerable and have no industry for quite a while. This will become moot if the AI beats me to them!

*~*~*~*

July 2227

Well, things are looking up. I was able to snag the PQ 14 and 11 planets in the Gladstone and Artemis systems. And the small planet in my home system that the Krynn colonized revolted and joined my empire! Yes, that was a small victory but a welcome one. I was also able to get the 2 research resources as well as 2 combat resources that were tucked far away in the corner of the Big Void. I have 5 resources or 33% of the total if the info prompts are to be believed.

My high morale has lead to a high growth rate so I have the highest population, which is a good omen of things to come. I’m keeping my approval at 100% at my smaller planets, but have increased my tax rate to 39%. Still, I’m running a deficit of 108/turn, which I can fund with my 3800 bankroll. The anomalies are almost gone so I won’t be able to use that as a crutch any longer. My military buildup has kept away the vultures so far. Here are the stats:

Iconians – 10 planets, 40B pop, 117 research, 154 military
Krynn – 3 planets, 21B pop, 45 research, 77 military
Drengin – 7 planets, 34B pop, 79 research, 196 military
Thalan – 4 planets, 29B pop, 29 research, 98 military
Torians – 2 planets, 22B pop, 34 research, 0 military
Korath – 8 planets, 26B pop, 52 research, 98 military

I’ve also found a few more good extreme planets – a PQ9 and 4 barren in the Kerchen system. So, I’m ramping up my research again (sliders at 17/17/66) to get barren before the AI does. Strangely, these planets will do a good job of rounding out my two new planets in the Gladstone and Artemis systems, and they’ll form a cordon around my economic planet Hatch III. Having exposed planets is generally not a good idea, but this should give me some ability to defend myself with a bit of depth. Both Artemis and Gladstone are likely to be the front line, to be supported form Hatch and Kerchen. That will be a while since only Hatch can produce anything!

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Image 5: Cordon of Iconian Planets – in the making, that is

I’m moving a fleet of destroyers (small hulls) from my home system to both Gladstone and Artemis. Right now I only have laser 2, and I’ll have to fix that soon. The Drengin (in particular) will keep building ships so I can’t let my guard down.

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Makes me want to play. Keep going!

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M - thanks! More to come.

Hydro

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November 2227

My colonization is done and there are only a few low PQ planets left, and even if I wanted them they are far from home and would be difficult to defend. Now my task is to defend what I’ve got and develop my advantage. With more planets and galactic resources I have an advantage that will only get bigger as time continues.

The economy world Hatch is starting to kick into gear, and will do even better with a farm and upgrades to advanced markets.

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Image 6: My Economy Planet Hatch is Developing Nicely

My capital will have a manufacturing capital in two turns and then I’ll start upgrading both my markets and research. I’ll hold off on industrial upgrades for while since my economy is still running a deficit of -52/turn, but with a bank of 2600 bc this isn’t a problem. Trade is 47/bc a week with only 4 routes to the Thalans and Scotlingins, so I’ll have to go for advance trade soon to bump that up a bit. Trade is good.

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Image 7: Iconian Capital in November 2227

My developing planets will Focus on social improvements. My allocation is 17/17/66 for research, and the planets produce almost no research anyway. Plus, they need to get their industrial base up and running. A few that can have a sector I can spare will build a farm to pump population, and therefore taxes (and sources for troops). I’ll avoid building morale buildings if I can.

I did a little poking around to see what the AI’s were doing and it was instructive:

Iconians – 12 planets, 51B pop, 116 research, 119 military, researching advance computing
Krynn – 3 planets, 24B pop, 43 research, 84 military, xenofactory
Drengin – 7 planets, 42B pop, 53 research, 147 military, planetary bombardment
Thalans – 5 planets, 31B pop, 111 research, 105 military, industrial sector
Torians – 2 planets, 22B pop, 9 research, 35 military, beam weaponry
Korath – 8 planets, 36B pop, 108 research, 105 military, spoor weapons (!!)

Notice a trend? It seems the bad guys are heading for war. Imagine that? Well, I’ve researched through laser 5. With two sets of improvements queued up (markets and research) I’ll blitz through planetary invasion techs and then work on weaponry for a while. I don’t want to be caught napping when the galaxy finally goes to war.

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July 2228

War has arrived. The Korath declared war on the hapless Torians. I did a quick check and almost all Korath planets have one or more spoor ships! Worse, both the Korath and Drengin how are hostile to me. I don’t think it will be long before the Drengin (and maybe the Korath) declare war on the Iconians and/or the Thalians.

With that in mind I’m going to research through plasma and then medium hulls, and at that point I’m going to crank up the military building. All the ship building by all the races has slowly degraded my military standing so I’ll need to bring it to a new level.

Iconians – 12 planets, 78B pop, 164 res, 98 military, plasma weapons
Krynn – 3 planets, 25B pop, 44 res, 84 mil, adv hull
Drengin – 8 planets, 57B pop, 185 res, 161 mil, space mining
Thalans – 6 planets, 34B pop, 90 res, 105 mil, soil enrichment
Torians – 2 planets, 22B pop, 21 research, 35 mil, manufacturing centers
Korath – 8 planets, 58 pop, 172 research, 112 mil, singularity drivers

I’ve long since exchanged research treaties with the Thalans, and I gave my eco treaty to the Torians for their research treaty. This has boosted us all, but not as much as the Drengin-Korath who exchanged both research and econ treaties. Evil sticks together, apparently.

My economy has long since turned around with a good trade income (156bc/turn) and good general economic performance with a surplus of 161/turn. Upgraded markets and a switch to a Republic helped. I’m using the extra cash to buy improvements on my extreme colonies to get them up to speed and productive, or at least as productive they can be with a 50% penalty. My factories are upgrading.

The Iconian ethos took a hit when I chose the evil options for two events – asteroid in Iconia and ancient bug weapons. I want to get to neutral, but I may not get there before I end up researching ethos. Right now I have other research priorities.

Many of my planets have maxed pop and I’ve built a few transports and heavy transports to either move population around or remove it and store it in orbit while the planet rebuilds. When I do go to war I don’t want to decimate my population, so sucking them off as my planets get to max seems like a good idea.

So now I need to get to plasma 3 medium hulls and then switch to major military production. I’ll get some defense too if I can, but right now my military needs a bump. As I see it I’ll need to build at my main production areas and rush them to the likely front – the Gladstone and Artemis systems. Both are near Drengin home territory, and also near a Korath planet with a spoor launcher.

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Image 8: Anticipated Battle Plan

I’m using my old survey cruisers to keep an eye on the Korath and especially the Drengin – just in case.

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July 2229

It’s been a busy year in the Galaxy of Death.

There were a number of events, such as the gratuitous declaration of war by the Drengin on the Torians – likely to get Dominator ships. I paid the Thalans 1200BC to declare war on the Drengin when he was on his way to the Torians and in the middle of Thalan space. It worked pretty well since a number of Drengin fleets got wacked. The Thalan military rating hasn’t gone down too much, either. There was also another Ethos Event, and I chose Evil. My ethos rating slipped a bit more, but not enough to get me out of Leaning Good. Lastly, a Galactic Council meeting resolved to impose Imperial governments on everyone. I was Republic, so I lost a bit of income from the 10% econ bonus and the time to research that tech. I’ll see if I can turn back soon.

We had an economic boom for a few months, and I was raking in almost 900bc/turn. That allowed me to fund my bribe to the Thalans and to buy the Tir Quan – vital in my soldiering if I’m going to have any hope of taking out the Drengin. We also had a xenophobia event, which is bad since my influence and tourism income went down. That wasn’t too serious, though, since tourism income was nominal.

The big news in the past year is that two races have been eliminated: the Torians and Krynn.

The Torians succumbed to the Korath in May 2229. Their two planets now have 6M and ~8M (not billion, but million) population, respectively. Unless the Korath send some transports with population they will never grow and will be a major drain on his economy, even if he does have a good production base. Now the Korath will likely turn his malign attentions to the Scottlingas, who don’t stand a chance. A trade route and my economy for research treaty died with the Torians. I’ll see if I can get the Thalans to agree to an eco treaty and get another freighter to them. The Thalan and also my planets are pretty darn close to the Korath. All we need is a few spoor launchers to slip through and – poof, the planet is toast.

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Image 9: Torian Worlds Captured by Korath

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Image 10: Next Korath Targets – the Scotlingas and then the Thalans – and Iconians!

I conquered the Krynn in June 2229. It took only a few turns, and my investment in ground combat techs and the Tir Quan center (ground combat rating of 98%) helped quite a bit. I’d been stockpiling transports for a while so my population didn’t take a big hit. However, all the extra production from the Krynn planets has taken a big bite out of my flagging economy and I’m running 83BC deficit at turn. This isn’t too serious since I’m upgrading my markets to banks, so the economy problem should work itself out soon. Part of the booty from conquering the Krynn was capturing a military and economic resource. Of course I had constructors ready to claim them. With these I have three combat, 2 research, a morale, and economic galactic resources, which is likely half or more of what is in the galaxy. I have two planets that are far away from the front working on constructors while the rest are working on combat ships. Who knows, I may even be able to defend them!

Now, the relative strengths of our combat ships is where I’m likely in deep doo-doo. The Drengin – blast their evil hearts – have combat ships with an attack of 27!!! ACK! How do they do that? My best cruiser (medium hull) has a rating of 12 (plasma3) after adjustments! One of my fleets (logistics of 16) can get up to 27 attack, which is equal to one Drengin ship. Now, most of the Drengin are their Dominator ships, which aren’t very scary anymore. I’ve researched though PD so even my little destroyers (small hull) have 4pts of missile defense. In fact, my destroyers are likely going to kill most of the Drengin ships. My only hope is that the stupid Drengin will pair their Uber Ships with their puny Dominators, diluting their firepower.

Now what do I do? As I see it I’m at the tipping point. The Korath and Drengin each have 10 planets and are likely to get few more. The Thalans and I will have to resist them, and between us we have 21 planets – an even match. Right now our populations are a match, with 150B on my side and 170B on the Korath-Drengin side. To that end, I can’t let the Thalans keep taking the brunt of the Drengin and likely the Korath. I simply have to get involved. To that end I’ll be shipping my 4 transports to near the Korath and will try to take at least 2 planets in one fell swoop. Fortunately I have medium infiltration of the Drengin and can see that we’re pretty equally matched.

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Image 11: The Attack Plan – take out the Drengin

My initial thought is as follows: Focus my planets to get the Advanced Market to Bank upgrade done, have my planets mostly produce DDs (spd 2 small hull, 6-0-0/ 0-0-4) and CAs (spd 5 medium, 10-0-0/ 0-0-6). They’ll do very well against Dominators, but will need to be in fleets to take on his big boys. If my economy gets going I could upgrade my older ships, but that is pretty expensive at ~600bc/each. My bankroll is 3000 so I have options, but I’d rather not squander it all to upgrade 5 DDs.

Resource sliders are 55/10/35 military/social/research. I need to get my military up to shape, and the few planets that need social upgrades will Focus (as mentioned above). I don’t like dropping research any lower. I toyed with going for Phasers, but that will be 14 turns. I’m going for Adv Miniaturization (7 turns) instead for the 15% bump in ship size. I considered Planetary Improvements (7 turns) but I don’t think I can afford it. Plus, I have lots of banks upgrading now so more improvements are redundant.

I’ll need a bit of luck to pull off a good strike against the Drengin. If it stalls I’m dead. Likewise, if the Thalans are taken out or surrender I’m dead. The Drengin and Korath have Eco-Research treaties, and all alone I’m going to be out produced with few bonuses. Frankly, I’m pretty nervous.

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Good job Hydro. I have always loved your AARs. In fact, you inspired me to do my first one.

Keep up the good work!
~ Wyndstar

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Nice read. I especially like the battle plan screenshots.

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Thanks gents!

And now...the saga continues!!!

*~*~*~*

August 2230

My attack on the Drengin was successful but quickly bogged down. It took half a year to get full transports and some cruisers that could take on the Drengin ships into position. I decided to take out a PQ6 world near my sphere of influence and a PQ11 world with LOTS of manufacturing and research bonuses. The attack resulted in trading cruiser-for-cruiser. The hard part was the ground combat. We’re evenly matched so I used Information Warfare to even the odds. I like this option for worlds that don’t have mediocre to poor morale (resulting in more of their population fighting for m) and since it doesn’t damage the improvements. Their pop that comes over to my side effectively counts as double – I gain troops and he loses troops. In a ground combat against the Drengin that counts for a lot.

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Image 12: Battle lines on the Drengin front

The problem is that Information Warfare ground combat is expensive – 800 bc each time you use it. At the time of the attack I was running mild deficit but had a decent bankroll of 2400 BC. That evaporated after forking out 1600 BC for the two information warfare during the ground attacks. The two worlds also added to the problem since when their production came on line my weekly balance went starkly negative.

I couldn’t sustain the attack since there was no end in sight to the red ink. So, I had to find a way to improve my economy ASAP. Therefore, I researched Banks and another notch of planetary improvement, most of which were completed as banks. I also got Advanced Trade to set up a few more trade routes with the Thalan (which will help us both). The economic galactic resource I got from the demise of the Krynn was maxed out at 24% and given some basic defenses in case some Drengin Dominators showed up. Lastly, I set up an economic starbases in my capital system to boost trade income. Many of my other galactic resources are maxed, so diverting them seemed to be a worthwhile effort. The efforts worked. I had been at 90% capacity, which I increased to 100% with a 211 BC/turn surplus. My bank is up to 1900, so now I can continue the war.

As part of the war I destroyed all the Korath economic and influence starbases I could, then moved my fleets into his territory. Along the way I destroyed dozens of Dominator fleets. This had a minor effect on the Drengin’s military standing, but since most of it is from high attack cruisers it didn’t bother him too much. What I didn’t want was to have gazillion fleets of Dominators wandering around and taking out a transport or scout. Plus, the fleets get some experience whacking the defenseless Dominators, which is good.

My aggressive actions have had an effect on the Drengin’s actions, too. He got a peace treaty with the Thalans, which is very good. Indeed, that was one of my priorities - keep the Thalan in the war. Otherwise I’m facing the Drengin and Korath alone, and that is daunting. Moreover, the Drengin ships are not forming fleets but are instead hunkering down at his worlds. This is something of a problem since in close orbit his attack 30 cruisers get the 50% defense bonus, and attack 47 defender means one of my cruisers dies in the attack. Worse, if I don’t use a fleet then his ship may not even die.

The other concern is that the remaining worlds I want to take out have high populations. I could take on a world with 6B population with three transports and ~5-6B troops, but I can’t do that and have any hope of winning against his capital with 16B population. Therefore, I’m about to finish Advanced Logistics. The nine point bump in my logistics rating will take my fleet size to 25, which will be 5 transports or between 10B and 12.5B troops per transport fleet. That along with Info Warfare should do the job.

Next on line is continuing Phasers. I currently have Phaser 1, but I’d like to push it down the line a bit to up the offense of my ships. Likewise for missile defense. My 3 combat galactic resources are coming in mighty handy since together they give me a 62% offense and defense bonus. One of the resources isn’t quite maxed, and when it is I’ll be at 72%. This seems like a great deal since my firepower and defense goes up on all ships like magic, which I sorely need against the Drengin. My current spd 5 cruisers are built as 18/0/0 offense and 0/6/0 defense, but on the map they are 25/0/0 attack and 0/14/0 defense. Sweet, or it would be if they didn’t die like stuck pigs in combat with the Drengin regardless of their combat stats. A fleet of 5 cruisers that a logistics of 25 allows may help to limit losses, but I’m not holding my breath.

The nasty Drengin offset his losses by taking out 2 minor races: the Lintzandians and Akilians. This more than offsets the planets he lost, but frankly I’m a bit surprised he didn’t take them out earlier. The Linzlandians were almost adjacent to his capital, and the Akilians were within easy striking distance. Worse, when I finally get around to liberating them I’ll have to take a high population world. Yuk. Still, it’s worth it due to the infrastructure and influence. They’ll be a priority.

All of my diverted energy to infrastructure and economy has taken the wind out of my military building, with predictable results. The Drengin took a hit when I attacked, but now that I’ve been playing with myself for 6 months to get my economy back in order he’s completely rebuilt – and more. I’ll need to keep some of my planets that are far in the rear producing constructors to bump the freighter income at my capital, and maybe production too. Speed 5 is pretty darn slow and by the time they ships get to the front they’re almost obsolete.

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Image 13: Relative Military Standing

The good news is that the Thalans seem to be holding their own against the Korath. Both of their militaries are static. The bugs are definitely the small man on the field and they could succumb at any time.

Taking the Drengin capital will be difficult since they have ~16B pop and the largest number I can likely get in a single invasion is ~10B or so. I could use destructive means to take the planet, but there seems to be little point in that. If Info Warfare doesn’t result in 2B or more switching then I’ll likely select more destructive methods. If that fails I’ll have a few more transports to finish the job.

My sliders are set at 40/16/44 military/social/research. Here’s the standing as of August 2230.

Iconians – 18 planets, 143B pop, 222 research, 1987BC/turn income, 145 military
Drengin – 10 planets, 75B pop, 188 research, 1278BC/turn income, 190 military
Thalan – 5 planets, 38B pop, 141 research, 806BC/turn income, 40 military
Korath – 13 planets, 73B pop, 191 research, 1347BC/turn income, 105 military

Lastly, I was surprised when I noticed there are still a few anomalies out there. I saw this when I zoomed out and saw them lurking – white rad symbols. My old survey ships are busy being scouts (I don’t like fleets with an attack rating of 120 catching me at unawares) so I’ll build a very fast survey ship to see if I can snag the rest. I wonder why I got a message that there were no more anomalies? Many of them that I can see were within my supply range. Maybe the spontaneously generate? Hmmm…a mystery.

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March 2231

I’ve had to be very careful with all the high firepower Drengin ships floating around, but I’ve captured the Drengin capital (Aug 2230), two former minor worlds (November 2230 and March 2231) and a PQ11 world (March 2231). Each of his high firepower ships in orbit took out one of mine, but since I was in a fleet during the attack his ship died. Still, that is a hard trade, and 2 to 4 cruisers died to take each world. The ground combat wasn’t as bad as I’d thought. Granted I generally had 10B troops with information warfare, but that was another reason to be careful.

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Image 14: Drengin front

What is terrific is that these high influence planets have essentially erased Drengin influence from the galaxy! I’d previously built the Restaurant of Eternity, but otherwise have very little by way of influence techs – I’ve been much too focused on getting critical development and military techs to putz around with finesse techs . Two of his planets near his capital and the former minor world are close to revolt. It is pretty difficult to attack them when they’re on the planet since they get a 50% defense bonus. So I’m going to wait them out. The planets will revolt and my ships will be ready to eliminate them when it does. The added benefit is that I don’t have to use ground combat and will be the planets for ‘free’. It will take longer and I may run out of patience.

The other good news is that my military has finally pulled ahead of the Drengin. Although I’ve taken losses he has taken more or, more accurately, I’ve replace my losses and he hasn’t – net loss for the Drengin. Combine that with my vastly superior manufacturing potential and economy and the nasty Drengin must be feeling pretty cold right now.

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Image 15: Military Status in March 2231

Not that I’m out of the woods. He still has lots of ships, any of which can take at least one of my ships out, especially if it is older or is alone and making its way to the front. There may also be problems with roving transports, but since my planets generally have defenders this shouldn’t be too much of a problem. So the war continues but I’m more confidence I can apply maximum firepower to take out one enemy at a time. That is, until I expand to take out the Korath, too.

In other news, the last of the four minor races fell to the Korath. Almost directly after that the Korath declared war on the Thalans again (they’d had a truce). This could be a real problem for the Thalans, so all new ships are going to form a few squads so I can take out the Korath. He has a very low ground combat and some of his planets have a pitifully low population. This will support the Thalans, who are now down to 4 planets. Fortunately they’ve kept their capital. Otherwise they’d be dead.

My economy – a huge problem in this game – seems to have recovered and is doing very well. The eco starbases, banks, and trade routes seem to have done the trick. The greatly expanded influence and tourism helps, too. I’m running a surplus of 250bc per turn, and that’s after absorbing the Drengin capital and the high production at the two minor worlds. My sliders are still set at 40/16/44 for military/social/research spending.

Here’s the status in March 2231. I suspect the Drengin’s economy will tank since it is much reduced and has to support a lot of ships. But don’t worry – I’ll destroy them and take them off his maintenance roles! I’m such a nice guy. I’ll try to restrain the urge to cackle with glee.

Iconian – 23 planets, 188B pop, 332 research, 2798 income, military 205
Drengin – 6 planets, 38B pop, 78 research, 727 income, 140 military
Thalan – 4 planets, 30B pop, 182 research, 1146 income (much of which comes from our eco treaty), 50 military
Korath – 15 planets (included 1 that revolted from the Drengin), 83B pop, 148 research, 1471 income, 100 military

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Poor Thalans.

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October 2231

Per the plan I got to phaser 3, set military production to 60%, and then stood back as swarms of CAs and transports flowed across the galaxy. New construction headed to the Korath. I declared war on the Korath shortly after March 2231 and started cleaning up the few planets he had peppered in Drengin space.

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Image 16: Massive Iconian Military Buildup, and Collapse of the Drengin

As expected, the two planets near the former Drengin capital did revolt and ejected their defenders. My waiting fleets promptly eliminated them. I lost a few ships, but nothing near what would have happened if I would have gone for a more direct tactic. Even better, the transports I would have expended were sent to the Korath front – waiting for deployment.

A few Drengin and Korath ships got through the lines, but noting too serious and no significant damage was done. I had enough ships coming up to eliminate the enemy tasks forces or single ships fairly quickly. More than anything else my deployment was like a wave of ships that were converging toward the Korath front, and taking everything in front of them. I had two primary staging areas, where ships and transports formed fleets up to 25 logistics and then deployed.

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Image 17: Massive Iconian Military Buildup

There is a penalty for this massive buildup – a strapped economy. Yet again I got in over my head, but this time all I had to do was turn off the spigot and switch production. I cranked up the tax rate, started developing a few newly liberated morale and economy resources, added population to newly captured planets to let the grow a bit, and Focused social building on economy assets.

What is interesting is that the destruction of ships as I attacked ships that were dug in at the planets actually helps me. I have WAY too many ships now, so having a few pruned is not a bad thing at all. I have long since eclipsed the Drengin and am now chewing on the Korath. The Iconian military is more than big enough.

Now it’s just a matter of cleaning up. I’ll may need a few more transports, but I only have a total of 10 Korath and Drengin planets to capture and the game’s done. I may be able to do it with what I’ve got since the Korath are relative pushovers for ground combat, compared to the Drengin, that is.

I’ll likely go for an influence victory. I’ll research Alliance just in case the Thalan does, but very few AIs go down that part of the tech tree. I think I’ve only see the Terran and Drath work on yellow techs to any significant degree. And of course since I’ve turned off tech trading I can’t give the Alliance tech to the Thalan and then ask for an Alliance Our relationship is Close, as might be expected since I saved his chitinous exoskeleton.

The stats for October 2231 are:

Iconian – 34 planets, 235B pop, 484 research, 3596BC income, military 315
Drengin – 2 planets (in Korath space), 12B pop, 23 research, 282BC income, military 40 (my how the mighty have fallen)
Thalan – 4 planets, 32B pop, 184 research, 940BC income, military 65
Korath – 8 planets, 60B pop, 145 research, 977BC income, 75 military

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August 2232

Just as I was coasting to victory when GC2:DA threw me for a loop.

The Drengin surrendered in November 2231 and the Korath in early January 2232. I promptly got a message that an Influence victory was pending in 10 turns. So I cleaned up and prepared to hit TURN 10 times.

On January 15, 2232 I got the Xenophobia Event. Ack! It was like the AI was trying to thwart me! After a moment of reflection I realized it didn’t matter since I still had more than enough influence to maintain my standing for 10 turns. So I sent my ships to home base, sent the transports to the nearest planet that could use the population and continued tidying up (I’m kind of anal retentive in case you haven’t noticed).

Then another Event: Jagged Knife! 14 planets, including 13 of mine, went over to the Jagged Knife, including the core planets in the former Krynn, Drengin and Torian home systems – literally on the four corners of the map! Now, this is irritating. After a moment of stunned disbelief I realized this isn’t a problem since minor races don’t count in victory conditions and also have no effect on influence.

Still, it is vexing – like a white whale and a certain insane captain. I did an inventory of my transports and assigned them to go after planets to take them out. Those were MY PLANETS, darn it! I know the clock is still running on my influence victory, but if possible I’ll bring them back into the fold. I set my sliders to 100/0/0 military/social/research to get a few transports near defected planets. I made sure I’ll have lots of $$ to buy ground assault options, if possible.

So I declared war and started shoving my transports around. I took one planet after another and slowly but surely ground down the undefended JA planets that were all over the map. The planets that were far from the front took the longest to get to.

Then I was wondering why wasn’t the Influence Victory triggered? About April 2232 it hit me – I was at war with the Jagged Knife, and one of the pre-conditions for an Influence Victory is peace. Oops.

Well, I’m committed. On June 1 2232 the last JA planet fell. In the meantime the Vegans showed up, so I sent two of the dozens of transports their way and took them out just because.

In August 2232 and Influence victory was mine. Finally!

*~*~*~*

Final reflections

I have to say the Iconians seemed harder than other races I’ve played. I’ve played the Krynn most in the recent past, and they are kind of fun with high morale – good for a high income empire. Playing the Iconians felt like I had to work so hard for my money, and for a very long time I was fighting insolvency and pending financial implosion. And just when I got my financial house in order I went on a wild ship building spree and sank myself again. Oh, it felt good to finally have swarms of ships like the Drengin but it left my economy in tatters.

I’m not sure how the AI managed to field so many high maintenance ships, especially when they are so much smaller than I am. Perhaps the warlike races get some sort of bonus. Or maybe the AI is simply more skilled than I am! I did notice that the AI’s economy seems to periodically tank, crippling production. That happened many times to the poor Thalan, Krynn, and Torian, and a lesser degree to the Korath. The Drengin just kept cranking out the ships like no tomorrow.

Perhaps it was bad luck, but the Super Adapter got me only one or two worlds, so it didn’t turn out to be as critical as I’d thought. Of course, I may have a different response if I’d been a bit luckier and tagged a few juicy high PQ aquatic or toxic world. As it turned out I think I got a single PQ8 aquatic world in the first go. The other good extreme worlds were rad and barren, which I had to research.

If I had to do it over again I’d get to Neutral much earlier to avoid spending all the time terraforming. As I recall I seemed to need ever turn to keep my head above water militarily and economically, but not having to terraform all those sectors would have saved LOTS of production time. Plus, those ignored PQ1 worlds are instantly useful if you have one or two levels of terraforming under your belt. This would have helped my development markedly.

As to being a war monger, I might have taken out the Krynn sooner. Going for the minor races is a piece of cake, but there were none anywhere near me. Against a major race I’m pretty conservative and want to have advanced ground combat (at least a 65% bonus) to reduce the number of transports, which in the end saves time and production. I want 1500M troops or more on each transport, otherwise I’m really wasting my time building the and sending them for 5-10 turns to their target. A group of 3 heavy transports (logistics 15) can take out most minor races, major race’s 6B pop planets, and have a shot at a major race’s home system (with some special ground combat options).

Also, my ship weaponry was at a level to keep the wolves away but I wasn’t really in a position to make aggressive moves. My military ship building was definitely quantity over quality, which seems to be at odds with many who post on the boards.

I also need to improve my level of aggressiveness and tactical shrewdness. As I said, I tend to want things all in order before I make a move – conservative and predictable. I had a friend who was first rate tactical and strategic thinker who made an art of doing more with less. That in combination with a stunning aggressiveness was almost always decisive. He saw options and opportunity where others are fixed by linear thinking. It was small wonder he won at almost all his Star Fleet Battles, Moo2, chess, or any other strategic game he came upon. That is perhaps what I’m missing, but I’m willing to learn – and read the boards here.

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I'm surprised that you used Troop Transport fleets for your invasions.

Wave Invasion is much better.

Send 1 or 2 transports to the high-pop target world and bombard it with Mass Drivers. 500 troops would do the trick for a 6-billion world, 1000 troops for a 9-12 billion world, and 1500-2000 troops for a 16 billion world, with variations depending on soldiering abilities.

The initial Mass Driver attack must be made to purposely fail. If it succeeds, the planet takes the beating as well, which isn't the point. Your troops will of course get killed as per plan, but the enemy will lose 70-90% of their population. Then you can rumble in with a conventional invasion using conventional tactics and roll over the pitiful remains of your opponent while not damaging the planet or losing too many troops.

If the planet was a low-morale world, then you can even use Info War AFTER the Mass Driver bombardment because the morale rating will not update until you hit the Turn button.

I used Wave Invasion to take over New Iconia in my Altarian AAR, which I didn't complete.
I never finish anyth...

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Wait - doesn't mass driver wreck the planet even if it fails? Or are you saying this is a freebee to eliminate hordes of enemy population with no loss of the improvements at the planet (assuming you lose)?

Also, you're using two transports for your invasion - the failed attempt and then the real attempt. Even if they're very inexpensive transports with only one standard troop module (0.5B troops) on it there is still the specter of having to build another and get it to the front.

Even though I'm attacking with a fleet of 3 to 5 heavy transports I rarely if ever lose more than one, and that is the transport that disbands to secure the planet (exception –high pop planets from races with a good ground combat ability). The odds are simply overwhelming, and the one disbanded transport gives me 1-2+B population. The rest of the transports can then park on the planet to increase population unless they have other targets to mix it up with.

But I can see the value in an early attack. My method assumes you don’t do much attacking until mid game since you need high ground combat, advanced troop modules, and enough population to put on the transports. A quick one-two punch could be much more economical, and deadly if the AI minor or major race hasn’t had a chance to get established.

Hydro

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The Mass Driver bombardment doesn't wreck the planet if the invasion fails. It just kills off lots of population. Stardock made it like this so that people couldn't go around bombing planets into hell with empty transports, but they activated this exploit in the process.

I don't care too much about saving transports. If I do need another one, I used the stored production in captured starports to build another transport and drive on.

I finished my first ever Masochistic game yesterday(DA 1.8G). I was the Yor. The Iconians were set to Godlike(Obscene) difficulty, and everyone else(Terrans, Drengin, Arceans, Torians, Altarians, Korx, Thalans and the custom-race 'Lentzic Uprising') were set to Incredible(Maso) difficulty.

[off topic] The game revolved around a long face-off with the Iconians, and my campaign to form a coalition against them. It ended in an awesome last 20 turns after their Altarian allies fell to the Arceans. The Iconians were fortified at New Iconia with a Tir-Quan center, an Omega Defense System and an OFM, where they held their last stand, besieged by fleets from the Yor(me), Drengin, Korx, Thalans, and Lentzics. The Iconian battleships pounded the Drengin and Thalans, but the Korx managed to take them down one-for-one until they themselves fell to attrition. The last defenses were taken out by my cruisers and I used the wave-invasion tactic. Their fortification fell. Their Tir-Quan center and Precursor Library tile were now mine. The remaining Iconian companion world fell with ease, and I won a diplomatic victory thanks to my huge alliance. [/off topic]

I won't AAR it though, since it was a largely simple game with me having excess money(thank you Mind Control Center!), having superior technology(a Precursor Library on my homeworld), having warm/friendly relations with everyone, conquering the Torians in a perfectly planned and very short war, and generally keeping all the AIs at war with each other all the time. Most of the game time was spent bribing wars and researching stuff as fast as I possibly could. The only action was my early-game war against the Iconians, which made me set out for vengeance, and of course the endgame war. Masochistic/Obscene AIs, it turns out, make decisions as stupidly as an average Tough-level AI.

I never saw any of this AI 'group research'. The only techs that looked like they had spread too fast were the Industrial Sector tech, space mining techs and early-game beam/shield(Laser 5s and Superior Deflectors) technologies that everyone seemed to have by the end of the first year. Once the AIs got embroiled in the inferno of constant war(caused by me and my beloved Mind Control Center economy), they simply didn't have the option to trade tech with each other - so no group research. And without tech trading, I would've had to pay a lot more in order to start those proxy wars. I instead kept throwing some junk like Stinger 3 or Titanium Armor 2 into the deal and slicing a good 500-1000 bc off the price(which usually varied between 1000-5000 bc without techs).

The AIs eventually grew to distrust each other and began declaring wars without a catalyst. They had totally smashed each others' militaries by late mid-game and my small but high-tech military took top spot on the charts. The AIs(barring Iconians) had never fought a war against me(+1 in relations for 'Our Historic Friendship') and now that I had a stronger military, they got Close and I allied with them. I let the wars cool for a while and then struck the Iconians in totality.

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Fantastic AAR, thanks a lot for sharing.

As a newer player, I learned a ton from this thread.

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MrRadical,

I’m pleased you found the AAR to be instructive! I always learn a lot and they are fun to write, even if they take a bit of time.

I wrote a number of other AARs along the same line for other races back in February and March. If you’re interested they’re summarized in the collection of AARs and stories at the Nov 17th thread by Stormweaver.

Cheers!
Hydro

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