Galefury

Join Date 08/2007

Those damn Torians

I only started playing again recently (because of ToA), and only played the smaller galaxy sizes since then. I played some large games about a year ago (and lost them due to economic problems). Since I won the last few games I played pretty easily (Crippling, Medium Galaxy, 4 enemies, medium tech rate) I decided to try something different this time. Still Crippling, Immense, 9 enemies, slow tech rate. I'm playing the Iconians. Stats are:
30 Econ
20 Morale
100 Espionage
10 Hit Points
25 Creativity
25 Luck

Everything went pretty well at the start. Good starting position, right in the middle of the map with lots of stars around me. I ran my economy into the ground after I had colonized about 8 planets, but managed to pull myself back up by quickly researching their two econ buildings, the refinery and that sweet one per planet 50% econ building. Then I kept on colonizing. I didn't find anything higher than PQ 12 though (well, one far off PQ 16 I only have 50% production on due to toxic). It's the middle of the third year now, and I'm in the process of getting all those low PQs in my area of influence and finally starting to get some military. Slow research is slow. Slow me is slow too.

Now to the problems. Those damn Torians. They have 38 planets, I have 26. They have twice my population. They have the strongest military by a very large margin, a huge tech lead on everyone, and they don't like me because they decided to expand in my direction. Actually they expanded in every direction, but well, close borders, my weak military, and that obsure "militaristic" thing are apparently all worse for me than for everyone else next to them. The good news are, at least I'm second best in almost everything. I also got Diplomatic Translators, Nano Recorders and Eyes of the Universe. Only two resources though, moral and research. I'm not overly afraid since the Torians are a pretty peaceful bunch, but the Drath might make them attack me, or they might come to the aid of the Altarians when I decide to wipe them out. Or they might just decide to actually use that military and not be peaceful.

I left diplomatic victory on, so I guess I could try to ally with them, then wipe out everyone else. I'm currently setting up trade with the Torians to improve my relations, and I could pretty easily further my diplomatic advantage. I cant easily get around the weak military and the close borders though. I could get a mutual research treaty if I give them a bunch of techs, and probably econ a little later when my relations are better. Both would be good deals because they have twice my econ and research. And I could attack some other guys while doing all that too. Most have techs I don't have, so it wouldn't be just for the planets. The main problems are close borders and weak military, and I want to go evil. Currently I'm right on the neutral mark because I'm afraid of the Torians.

The other option is attacking them asap. All those juicy techs from conquering planets sure would help. Their military rating is about 15 times higher than mine atm, and they have twice the econ and 30% more production, so it would be a hell of a war. I guess I would pay all their neighbors to attack them a few months before I do so myself. I would get my fleets in position and buy some conquered planets until I'm ready. Problem with that is that my economy right now isn't as solid as I would like. Those Iconian buildings are awesomely maintenance efficient, but still cost so much that my economy is just barely staying positive. Plus there are still about 10 more planets I would like to colonize, and I have a short war against two minor races on my agenda. One is pissing me off because someone paid them to attack me at the start. The other controls three resources. So when I say attacking the Torians asap, asap is still pretty far off in the distance.

What should I do? Attack them and sic everyone else on them, then mop up the remains? Or try to ally and kill everyone else?

I hope someone actually plowed through that wall of text. :/

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Difficult situation. Perhaps the offense is the best defense in this situation. First of all get the Torians in war with other races and buy or grap some planets and resources that come available. But make sure you have some friends left if everything goes wrong. In addition keep growing your economy and get some ships fitted against the worst possible enemy.

Good Luck! Keep us informed.

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Also, while spinning up your military for an attack, remember to have a nice pile of troop transports handy. You'll want to steal those planets from them ASAP.

Once you get a planet, toss a building that'll up your pop growth rate and thats it. You don't want the cost of rebuilding a world you may not be able to hold. Just worry about getting your population up and thus your income.

Try to storm through and take out as many high PQ planets that you can...bee-lining to Toria. Take out Toria. Don't worry too much about the majority of their navy. If you got your 'buddies' fighting them, part of their military will be busy there, others will be sitting in planets. You only want to focus on the planetary aspect of them. Pull their purse-strings from them.

If things look like they are about to fold and you see a swarm of troop ships coming your way to undefended planets, either buy a tiny 1 attack ship on each, or self-destruct those puppies. Scorched Earth policy those frogs. Your next attack wave should go quicker. You may need to keep a few planets alive for them to take/sell for peace just so you got life support range for the next attack.

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Thanks for the advice. So war it is!

I kept playing for a while after reading this, it's now the beginning of the fourth year. I colonized most planets I want and bought some I didn't get to in time. There are just some far off uncolonized worlds left, I'll probably also catch some of those. And I finally went evil. The effect on diplomatic relations is far smaller than I had feared, and I already got the Mind Control Center (which is working in this version). Artificial slaves are done next turn, the Temple is still pretty far off. So my evil powers are coming along nicely. MCC will definitely be very useful once I grab a few influence resources (2 close ones).

For some reason

nobody wants to attack the Torians. The Torians however really love attacking everybody else, so I just paid them to do it instead of all the other races. Me and the Yor (who really don't matter at all) are currently the only races they are not at war with.

By trickery and sabotage I managed to keep the Torian population down a little. Disabling food buildings for a turn sure is nice. Now they only have 40% more population than me, and while they only got one more colony (39 now), I now have 40. I'm finally matching their industry and research too. If only my econ was a little better I would be ready for full scale war. Problem on the horizon: the Terrans who are closely behind me in almost everything.

I've also been able to get some one-sided treaties with other races, which is always nice. I'll probably finally get those two minor races done now and then join the anti-Torian crusade. No peace in our time!

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Nice read, keep the stories coming!

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Freeman43

Join Date 11/2007

+12

I've also been able to get some one-sided treaties with other races, which is always nice. I'll probably finally get those two minor races done now and then join the anti-Torian crusade. No peace in our time!

ya probley after this go for the anti-Terran crusade after you finesh off the torians.

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You are now seeing the big downfall of the Torians, at least if you have tech trading off.

Their mid->end game research is very lacking. They explode early in the colony rush phase and thus can hold their own for a while afterward due to mass number of planets, but once the other races get up their tech trees, the Torians flounder.

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Tech trading is on, but I'm still seeing their downfall.

Turn 108 now, so if galciv2 isn't weird this should be 4 years. The war has finally started and is going fine. Toria and some other planets are down, I'm at a bit of a standstill right now because I have to wait for reinforcements to kill the ships guarding some other planets. But overall things are nice. I'm at 77 planets now, the Torians have 20. Funny thing: as I was gathering my armies the Torians declared war on me (all in the name of peace of course). Unfortunately for them the galactic law that stops the aggressor from attacking for the first week of the war is in effect, so all they managed to do was giving me the first strike.

The power of the Torians hasn't really been increasing for a while before the war, so I see what you mean with the weak lategame. I guess the slow tech rate prolonged their strong phase quite a bit, though.

I guess I pretty much won this already, finishing the game will still take a while though. Playing on Immense is an interesting new experience for me, but I don't think I will repeat this very soon. The large distances slow things down too much for my taste, and the planet management is already getting annoying. What makes this worse is that I prefer the autodesigned ships for general combat because they are usually a lot stronger than anything I can fit into the same hull. And those autodesigned ships are pretty slow until late in the game.

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Turn 108 now, so if galciv2 isn't weird this should be 4 years.

48 week(turn) years in galciv2. Simplified 28 day months and all...

So you have 2.25 years under your belt. BTW remember that TA starts at a later year than DL or DA.

That AI-created ships are pretty much my sole source for ships unless I want something super-specialized. For general use, they work great.

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Actually typo, turn 208.

Also I accidentally found the cause for my econ problems. I loaded a slightly older save when I wanted to save my game, and suddenly I'm making 5000 credits a month instead of barely staying positive. Seems like the game only recalculates some stuff on loading...

Edit: false alarm, I got fooled by a super econ event that didn't happen when I played those turns before. Also, I wont be playing for a few days.

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I'm getting slowed down by the large distances, otherwise the war is still going well. There was a pirate super event, which sucks, but oh well. It will be dealt with, and most likely dealt with better by me than by the other races. So its all good I guess, although somewhat annoying.

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On the bright side with that event and your current situation.

Build transports decked out in engines and enough life support to get to where your going (sometimes none is needed) and blitz their empty planets that the pirates made. Finish a turn off outside of a pirate ship/fleet's range and those puppies will skate their way to glory.

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The first good effect of the pirate attack: the frogs surrendered. To me. I guess their remaining fleet getting killed by pirates destroyed their last shred of self esteem.

Also, everyone else's military got completely wrecked. Mine took quite a hit, but my production is more than keeping up now. After I have cleaned up my own territory it's time for a few more wars. It's not like they will get back on their feet anytime soon.

Yay, lots of new starbases soon. Boo, no more old starbases.

It's an interesting event overall, but I think the pirates are still a bit too strong. Not as utterly ridiculous as they once were, but too strong.

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Wars with pirates around are actually pretty cool. My own territory is mostly clean, just the new provinces are still infested. The Altarians who foolishly attacked me surrendered. The Thalans who not so foolishly got attacked by me surrendered. Also the Arceans surrendered to the Drath, and the Drengin to the Yor. This leaves the political landscape a lot simpler than before, just four more races to unite under my reign, who all love me due to my immense military. Immense compared to the remains of their fleets at least. I'm currently working on the Terrans. With transports of course.

Anyway, wars with pirates. Most enemy planets are undefended. My freshly conquered planets are defended by pirates who kill all enemy transports. Sneaking in my own transports can be tricky, but works pretty often. Cleaning up all the pirate fleets is annoying, but not as bad as I thought. The Iconian regeneration tech is a wonderful wonderful thing. Psionic Beams too. The only problem is building up mining starbases. I cant do it without completely clearing the area, which really is a pity because Iconians with tech trading on make crazy nice mining bases (two additional +8 modules).

Pirates not attacking minor races is weird. :/

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Win on turn 293, 71400 points. Also 1635 ships destroyed, 75 lost. Take that, pirates!

Killed the Terrans, killed the Korx and almost the Yor, and started working on the Drath. Now the Drath are apparently assholes, so they surrendered to the Yor one turn before I would have conquered those. They even told me it was out of spite. The Drath still had some territory left, which then became Yor territory. And as I'm sure everyone knows flying through Yor space is not fun. So that took a while. Eventually I got the Yor too though. And that's that.

As I said before, no more Immense games anytime soon for me. They just draw out too much. It's fun while you can still lose, but wrapping the game up once you know you have won takes just horribly long. The pirate attack added some spice in this game, but it still got really boring towards the end. This was common stars, planets, habitables BTW. Maybe I will play some large or huge games with lots of planets. I'd still get to build a super powerful empire, but the flight times would be much lower.

One of the most fun things I saw in this game was an influence Domino effect. I bought Drengi from the Yor, and over a time of about 10 turns the whole former Drengin empire defected to my side. Similar stuff happened a few more times, but not as dramatic as that one.

Thanks to everyone who gave advice, it was very helpful!

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Fun story! I hope that you keep writing these in the near future.

How often did you bribe races to go to war with eachother or to sign peace?

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Never to sign peace, around 12 times to go to war. I also bought around 25 planets I think. With around 250 planets in the galaxy I think that's a lot.

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