HydroAC

January 2230 The Altarians had fallen in December 2229. There was no surrender; only a pointless fight to the bitter end. Now to the crux of the matter: The Krynn. A diplomatic channel was opened, and an offer made. The Krynn had told the Hive Master in no uncertain terms that they were not interested in an alliance. Hive Master Hithesius clicked her mandibles. It was so illogical, especially when the Krynn could see the five heavy transports with 10 billion troops an

1 Nov 2229 Hive Master Hithesius was satisfied and pleased. The Korath had finally succumbed to an invasion of their last 3 worlds in August. Now the only two Drath worlds had been taken, and all that was needed to secure victory over the Altarans was a few more transports. That would not be a problem due to the recent galactic wormhole that was somehow increasing the fertility of the Drones. [URL=http://imageshack.us]<img src="http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/104/13drathandko

1 August 2229 The back of the Korath Empire is broken. In one week four of their core planets – Jessiuns III, Gladstone III, Gladstone IV, and Gladstone V – had been captured. The Korath had made this stunningly easy since all the Gladstone worlds had less than 50 million inhabitants, and a single transport with two billion soldiers made quick work of them. All the planets had a planet quality of 8 to 14, and the remaining Korath worlds range from a PQ of 4 to 5, and most of those were

8 May 2229 Hithesius mused that the Korath decision to declare war on the Thalian Hive did simplify a few issues. Apparently they objected to the Hive taking the Drath economic resource starbase adjacent to their capital, establishing a Thalian starbase,and using it as a fortified staging area with two squadrons of cruisers and transports. Well, so be it. Additional transports had been called from the planets in the Akilian system and the Korath capital was taken. This immedia

7 January 2229 It seems…inconceivable. Why would the Altarans and Drath, who were friendly for so long with the Thalian Hive, suddenly band together and declare war? Is this what being ‘good’ means? The situation is altogether perplexing, but not all that threatening. The Altarans and Drath have 2 and 3 planets, respectively. Although their technology is adequate their production base is woefully deficient. And, looking at the situation objectively, there is little way for eit

1 January 2229 Hithesius was pleased. Within a three week period the Thalian Hive declared war on the Jagged Edge and the Akilians. Saren III and Skowbo II were liberated, and the loyal Drones and Hive Queen on those planets were cleansed and returned to their rightful castes. The assembled heavy transports carried 2 billion troops each, and over 6 billion troops took part in each of the three assaults. There were losses, but they were well within acceptable limits. The staging and form

May 2228 Disaster! A group calling itself the Jagged Knife has taken control of nine planets, including three from the Thalian Hive! [URL=http://imageshack.us] [/URL] Image 6: Two of the Thalian planets that defected to the Jagged Knife Hithesius grieves for the Thalians who are put under such a stain. It is a blot on the honor of all Thalians. Penance must be exacted

8 March 2228 Battle lines had been drawn. The Krynn, against all better judgment, had declared war on the powerful Korath. Hithesius looked from her perch to see three Krynn systems arrayed against eight Korath systems, and a wide disparity in military power – none to the Krynn’s advantage. Hithesius’ gaze strayed toward Drath space. The Drath preached the same illogical mantra of ‘goodness’ as the Altarans, but they were decidedly underhanded; manipulators in the extreme. Was

April 1, 2227 Hithesius felt deflated. Her gamble had failed, and 16 weeks of research had come to nothing. Research on extreme aquatic world colonization was still eight weeks away and the Krynn had beaten them to one of the last high-quality planets left in the galaxy, an aquatic world with a quality index of 12. The fact that the Krynn, who were a small empire that now consisted of 3 worlds, had done this was infuriating. How? The answer was obvious, and vexing. Based on th

AAR: The Thalian Hive The purpose of this AAR for me was to explore the Thalians – or, rather, the Super Thalians. They got a boost as the Hive in GC2: DA, and I wanted to take it one step further by making them even more productive by applying their remaining points toward additional production and growth bonuses. A second purpose was to provide a semi-visual forum for demonstrating various planet development, race-specific, and general strategies. While recollections of a co

I had the same problem when playing on Painful: some of the AIs didn't expand, stockpiled cash, didn't improve their planets. Brad helpfully mentioned that the AI probably wasn't what I thought it was. When I checked the non-expanding AI it turned out (surprise!) that he was right - it was set to Fool. It seems that I had fiddled with the AI settings and that these changes had stuck when I set up the next game. As has already been mentioned, go to Diplomacy and check under Re

Well, Brad was right. I checked each of the test games and – low and behold – all the AIs that didn’t expand were set to Fool. The others were Gifted, which is appropriate for Painful. As to how this happened, I can only guess that I fiddled with the settings at some time and they stayed that way, regardless of how I set the difficulty level (randomize AI intelligence was off, btw). The only odd thing is that the AIs intelligence between games changed even though each test game was a ditto of th

I’ve had a strange problem with GC2 DL (Dark Avatar will have to arrive in the mail since the download didn’t work). Some races seem to NEVER expand from their home planet and the one colony from their starting colony ship. In the last half dozen or so games the Yor, Drengin, Iconians, and Thalians didn’t expand at all. My setup was painful, 7 random AIs, huge galaxy, common habitable planets, abundant planets and stars with loose clusters. When this first dawned on me I recorded the s