MOOniversity of Kholdan: My Introduction to playing Impossible with the Klackons

I imagine Tiny / Hard / Meklar is harder than Huge / Impossible / Klackons.

The Meklar have a bit of an advantage with a Tiny Galaxy and fewer Colonies to make them count for more, but I understand them to be a moderate race compared to Klackons and Psilons.

I still have yet to lose a Colony Ship to Orion so early in the game. That would suck!

 

I generated an insteresting tiny hard Meklar game.

Your first Colony is 15 Minimal and your nearby neighboars are Klackons on Kholdan. You will have to research and defend before you can expand through Klackons and do it before they become too strong. Planetology techs are not in the tree, I got to barren and stole tundra very late from Sakkra. Thus vote will take place very late in the game.

I tried choking Klackons by building medium bomber with reserve fuel tanks and nuclear bombs before any scouts and dispatched it to Kholdan. Soon it was joined by long range 2-laser reserve fuel tanks fighter, then another bomber. Each turn I destroyed 1-2 factories.

Overall once I parked 2 neutron blaster dreadnoughts in Kholdan's orbit it was all over for Klackons and once I took 2-3 of their former colonies I was in winning position. I researched eco restoration, +10 terraforming, robotic controls 3. Propulsion and weapons after that. Then I started building dreadnoughts.

Midway through the game Space Crystal entered the galaxy for which I just reloaded as my fleet was in no position to destroy it and it wiped out Meklon.

 

I can't get your Klackon save going. I have 1.3 version of game (where you can't redirect ships after retrat).

 

I wonder if that is the issue. I shamelessly redirect my ships after retreating.

 

An interesting early tactics I discovered: If you start close to race you know will be problematic such as Bulrathi, Silicoid, Sakkra choke them early.

Design medium Long Range bomber and LR fighter with 2 lasers or 3 nuclear bombs. After settling your first Colony Ships start building LR Bombers and fighters and sending them to the home world of the enemy. You can bomb 1 factory/turn with one bomber and with 3 bombers you can start killing population. This way you can keep them deindustrialized and their production low. Once you discover range you can send in regular fighters and bombers and troop transports from your two initial planets.