OSG 11 -- UnderKittens Story

[OlorinStormcrow]

We've been discussing options over at Realms Beyond, and decided on our idea for OSG-11.

We are playing as the Mrrshan against the Psilon and Klackon empires. They are the two best races, we are one of the worst. We're definitely the underdogs (or underkittens in our case) in this 3 race galaxy.

Difficulty level is set to Impossible, Galaxy size is Medium.

Liquidated was kind enough to restart games with 2 opponents, impossible, medium galaxy until he came up with a game that had the Psilons and Klacks as our opponents.

Our roster so far is:
Olorin
Zed
Stup
Liq

Please let us know if you're interested in joining.

 

[OlorinStormcrow]

First turnset.

I check the map. There is only one world within three parsecs, and then 4 more at 4 parsecs. One of these is a yellow, probably not an opponent at that range.

Here is that map at the end of my turn:

Dolz and Hyboria are Toxic (sorry about using T for both Terran and Toxic in map). Red circle should be the Klackon homeworld, due to a scout encounter. The green circle nearby is a world that is 6 parsecs range that I missed on my initial scouting run. One of the newer scouts is en route. The grey circles are stars that are at Range 7, and can now be scouted. Scouts are en route to intermediate worlds for each of those targets.

Activity report:
Colony shipped dispatched to blue star because nothing else is in range. Scouts ent to explore other stars.

Colony ship reports no habitable planets at Tau Cygni. Ship is scrapped to save on upkeep, and the BCs gained are used to pay for overtime shifts on Fieras.

Seven new scout ships are built in 2305 and dispatched to explore anything in range. 6RP is diverted to propulsion research, as habitable planets are started to be found.

Scientists present plans for research into Hydrogen Fuel cells, which will extend our range to four parsecs. Funding is continued at minimal levels, because the priority is building up our industrial base.

Our scoutship arriving at Dolz reports contact with a Klackons scout in 2308.

In 2310, the remnants of an alien civilization are discovered on Paladia.

2317: Research at 4%
2318: 5 more scouts built in anticipation of range tech. They are sent towards intermediate targets to speed journey.
2319: Hydrogen fuel cells are online. Next up is either nuclear engines or inertial stabilizers. I choose engines. Tech funding stopped for now.

Here I had a choice; either start building a new ship, or keep going with factories. A redesigned colony costs 567 BC. Fieras is producing 107 BC/turn after cleanup (found by throwing excess into tech to measure it). That's 5.3 turns for a colony ship. A production of 114 BC/turn is needed to get it to under 5 years. Putting the 107 BC into factories instead will give us 10.7 new factories, which, after subtracting for cleanup, should give us enough. So I go for factories.

2320: Usuable production is now exactly 114 BC/turn. I set Fieras to colony ship production, ETA 5 turns. Zed can change this if he wishes.

Summary:

Having only a No planets star in range set us back. On the bright side, Rana and Yarrow are two nice Terrans that are now in range. Antares is also in Range, a poor Ocean 65, that will get us to Stalaz. Kulthos and Paladia will be harder to reach. We won't get any new range until after nuclear engines, so a LR colony to Kulthos may be the fastest way to colonize in that direction.

Hopefully the rest of the stars in our corner are habitable.

I made two mistakes during my round. First I redesigned the scout to save 2BCs, but then built the older models by mistake. My second round of building scouts I stayed with the same model because now the 2 BC difference doesn't seem worth tying up another design slot. The other error was that I missed the green star at 6 parsecs near the Klacks. I noticed it after the second round of scouts, and sent one that way. It probably won't make a huge difference, as that world looks to be in the Klacks first ring, and I don't think we could have ever contested it.

Zed is now up. It's early, so go for 20 years this round.

Here's the save

 

[Yuri2356]

So, no variant rules at all?

I'm in either way.

 

[Liquidated]

wow no habitable planets at all within 3 range of home? I've never seen that with the patched version. One game the PC obviously was forcing a minimal planet on a purple star that was the only 3 parsec destination.

Well this should be a challenge indeed.

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[vmxa]

I can't be sure, but I do think I had that happen once to me and I have played something like 2000 games over the past 13 years.

 

[Zed-F]

Yuri: Nope, no variant rules. Impossible with 2 opponents and no starting colony should be hard enough not to need them, at least unless the AIs don't bother to expand.

I'll put dathon's name in for joining since he indicated interest over on the RB forums. I think Stuporman did as well.

vmxa, if you want to join in, then we'd have enough for 2 teams of four. You, dathon, stuporman, and yuri would be the second team. You guys could start a second thread from Olorin's save and go from there. Whadda ya say?

 

[vmxa]

I am starting a new job Monday and I have not worked in over 5 years, so I am going to stay out any SG's or PBEM's, until I see how things shake out.

I have 1 SG and one Demo going now (civ3 and civ4) and I am not sure if I can handle that much. At least until I see how I fair getting up and working for a whole day.

This week is 8-4:30 for training, but after that I am not sure what hours I will have. Looks likely it will be 1PM to 10PM. With those hours, it will be a bugger to play much.

 

[Zed-F]

Scout command reports:
- To the east, near the Klackon homeworld, we discover Paranar (Inferno 30), Neptunus (Barren 35), Galos (Tundra 50)
- To the west, in our backyard, we discover Helos (Barren 40), Denubius (Terran 85), Volantis (Tundra 45)
- It would be nice if Tundra bases were in our tree... or Dead bases to make LR colships easier to get to. We will need them to reach most of the better planets we've discovered so far.
- There is another unscouted world in range 7 to the far SE, near Neptunus. It is a klackon colony and was defended by 11 laser fighters.

Colony command reports:
- We've colonized two worlds, Rana (Terran 90) and Yarrow (Terran 85). Both have significant population and are growing nicely. We had to force-grow about 30 pop points on the homeworld to get factories back in production due to sending enough pop points to each to get them into the good growth range.
- We are building a colony ship for Antares (Ocean Poor 60) which will then let us reach Stalaz (Steppe 40). You will probably be able to take population from Rana and Yarrow to get Antares started, or else you could chain that pop through Fierias. Antares should concentrate mostly on technology and not factories.
- Further colonies will almost certainly require LR colships.

Research command reports:
- We started research on Construction and Planetology technologies while we were force-growing population on the homeworld (once we had our two priority colonies settled.) In construction we are researching IIT9, and in Planetology Improved Eco Restoration, both our only options.

The save: http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=140007&stc=1&d=1160313052

 

[dathon78]

checking in, I'd like to play

 

[Liquidated]

hmm interesting map to be sure..

the west is pretty well clustered yet spaced just out of our reach while the east is seperated by that wall of hostiles from dolz on down. If that green west of bugland is hostile too we have a very good head start - er nm guess it's a colony. well it gives the bugs no real head start on getting to kulthos.

A rich toxic and an artifact planet is great one-two punch if we can concentate on advancing planetology enough to populate those hostiles. That yarrow 85 terran and rana 90 terran are right there and growing is fantastic. Both are protected for a long time by distance alone meaning less time wasted early on defence.

bodes very well that another terran 85 in denubus is a mere 5 parsecs west from yarrow, Between the 3 terrans we have over 2.5 additional homeworld class planets that are all far from the front lines that have yet to be drawn.

IMO snapping up kulthose to the north east of home is crucial as its the key to keeping the bugs out of the west. Control it asap and build it up so it can defend itself sooner rather than later.

Needless to say, a ton of expanding to do.

If we can manage to steer the bugs east, may be a long time before we see the brains.... knock on wood.

btw can use an updated roster, stup is up next for sure tho.

yet another edit to keep my bloated post count down... never noticed the battle cats had armored battle tails to go with.

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[StuporMan]

Checking in, and picking up the save I guess. Do not expect a quick turnaround, I have a Numerical Analysis exam on Tuesday. All available effort going in that direction (those who have had the class know why all to well). Expect my turnset on Monday night at the earliest.

StuporMan

 

[OlorinStormcrow]

Roster:

Olorin
Zed <<just played
Stup <<up now
Liq <<on deck
Yuri
dathon

We're waiting to hear from piR8. If we get to 8 players, we'll be able to split into two teams of 4, so if anyone is lurking and would like to join, please sign up.

 

[StuporMan]

Just when you thought I was dead (well brain is a little overcooked after that Numerical exam), I surprise everyone by presenting my turnset! And I don't think I even screwed up tech choices this time

start: Nothing to do, but I send a scout to see if the Klacks left their colony undefended.
2344: Col ship done, headed to Antares. Continue colship production.
2348: Scout arrives at Rayden (40/17), still defended by 11 fighters (drat), Antares Founded. Transfer 17 from Fieras (maximum that allows full factory) and 10 each from our other 2 colonies.
2349: Rana starts building over 5 factories per turn, Rana now has 1 click into research (I usually contribute to research from early colonies when they reach this point, as 5 factories is faster than pop growth and helps get those all important early techs in faster, I have no math to back up this decision though).

2351: Incedius scouted, yet another NPS. Col Ship built. Since no colonizable planets in range, I stop building Col ships and switch production to research and getting Fieras up to factory capacity. Construction and Planetology at 1% and 3% respectively.
2355: Klackons chase scout from Neptunis with Col ship and mini death fleet. Umm, after tech pops I may design a fighter. Speaking of, your both around 30%. Curse our paws, we keep dropping the beakers! On the bright side, Stalaz founded. 24 from Antares should be more than adequate for starting a size 40 back line (I hope) world.
2357: IIT9 pops, IIT8 only option. Planetology at 38%. Maybe we should research beaker holders next.
2358: My snide comment improves research and Reduced comes in. We have controlled dead, that should prove useful, well at this point moreso than +20 or Death Spores. We need to claim some territory before the Klacks do. Rana pulls even in research and factory points. I will let it coast at this level to boost production (we are going to need defenses soon). I design an 18 bc popgun complete with BC1 and leather interior (I don't build any because we haven't made contact yet and since we can trade, we shouldn't start war immediately). Also, since we have not encountered a Psilon scout yet (good news they haven't got to Thorium yet!), I am willing to bet they are in the Yellow star at the far corner of the Galaxy. Putting the Klacks in sandwich position. This can be good and bad as it makes early votes more tenuous, but at least we are not hemmed in.
2360: Fieras maxes factories.

Well we look in pretty good shape right now. I left us a little light on defense, but since the Klacks are a good 6 parsecs away I don't think it was urgent to start defenses. More important are we have 1 fully loaded planet, 2 up and runnings, a starter, and a spu.... er research colony. The bulbs are still pretty dim (stupid-not-having-beaker-holders-in-construction-tech-list), but once they light up we should be able to get some LR colony ships out there. Hopefully we can beat the Klacks to the Artifact and Rich planets.

StuporMan

 

[OlorinStormcrow]

Roster:

Olorin
Zed
Stup <<just played
Liq <<up now
Yuri <<on deck
dathon

All Hail Emperor Liq

Looks like we're getting up to speed, despite our starting out of range of any potential colony planets. Hopefully we won't have to worry about losing to an early vote as much this time, since with only 3 races, none of them Silicoid, it will take quite a while to settle 2/3rds of the stars (especially with all the hostiles and no planets we're seeing).

 

[Liquidated]

yay dead tech is exactly what we want for LR colony. Having +20 as a future choice is good too just in case we don;t get +30 40 50. Controlled Dead now is what we needed though hands down, good move stup.

I'll play turns in a few... looks like a simple whack turn end part of the way at least. Having 3 terran 85+ planets is godsent as rana can fend for itself leaving the other terrans to fund expansion. That there's a 4th terran safely to the west is even better.

mission is to nab those ne planets asap.

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[Liquidated]

preturn: ok open up moo generic saved txt and nice, already says 2361 just gotta add another 10 turns now.. all hail cut n' paste. Not a whole lot to do other than await the klacks to kick us off Galos if the bugs got tundra over barren. This is good and bad as I see it.

It's bad because klacks will be only 6 parsecs from rana etc yada yada
It's good because we can start working on klack relations now, maybe even before the brains can. Also we will get to see how far east and north the bugs have made it, They may just be sandwiched into a really bad place if they are settling hostiles already.

Needless to say a whole lotta whacking turn end here waiting on something to break.

Kudos to stup also for his really nice 'spud to stalaz' population hop that netted 28 pop on stalaz and 33 on spud.. erm I mean Antares.

[1]2361 AD nada

[2]2362 AD Start forcing population on rana can max it this turn, yarrow waits.

[3]2363 AD rhilus in the ort cloud to the north is empty as well.... man we may need super long range colonys here. I'm going to insert a major map screen in here sooner or later. As expected, rana is finished population, important to slam in those last few population points else they take a long time.

[4]2364 AD ooo Something broke!
Get a message saying the brains have 6 planets... We have 5 think and well I know darn well 2 of them beat whatever the psilons have.

The klacks are in a bad spot prolly meaning they are not claimng much to the east.

[5]2365 AD disaster strikes...

Psilons just colonized the artifact planet north east of us, that means the klacks are effed and we must expand north.

Also find an ultrarish barran 50 in Centauri at 7 parsecs, we honestly have no chance at this as we'd need a long range dead....

This is bad, very bad. we have a runaway brains.

[6]2366 AD quiz comes up and it's a shark, how I remember that no idea.

[7]2367 AD psilons say hi meaning they have 6 range now, they live in the north west and well here's the map, our expansion phase is about over.

open the highest trade we can get at 175 BC we need the good will and a higher trade means less likely to break.

[8]2368 AD Planetology is 5% geting there, con is full bulb. I put in a colony ship at home to build right away. I maxed out yarrows eco to get last 5 population.

[9]2369 AD psilons take kulthos, the minimal ne of us finally, took a while.

[10]2370 AD Ahh planetology came in and we have
terriforming 20
death spores
controlled inferno
enhanced eco

We need the +20 sooner and it's cheaper than eco so go for +20.

Rana maxes factories is all filled up and gtg.

We are 53 spaces short on LR colony 5% on Construction as all research is going towards getting LR colony going.

[11]2371 AD wowow and construction comes in yay. makes up for stups 40% I guess.
Go for 60% waste reduction, forgot the other tech. I spread tech out even, we need other areas now.

Home puts 100% into building our new colony ship in 2 and rana will make a dead for volantis first in 7 turns.

I sadly see only one target for our longrange colony now... that's the terran west.

[12]2372 AD
Computer tech is seeded
battle computer2 or Improved robots 3.... robots it is.
Shields 2 is out only choice in Force
HyperV and gatling lasers are in weapon... I go rockets just so we have something marginally useful.

[13]2373 AD LR colony builds and home starts on a dead yarrow is full up population and factories. it's gtg.

rana and home both have 5 turns left on colony dead denubis will take 7 turns so will send rana colony over to Ajax, the purple in the south to cut some turns off colonizing Helos.

[14]2374 AD wow nothing to report, sweet.

[15]2375 AD nada

[16]2376 AD

[17]2377 AD no news is good news. weapons 12% already. Staltz is gtg full up.

[18]2378 AD weapons comes in and we have
gatlings
neutron pellet gun
fusion bomb
ion cannon

I go with pellet guns because they are cheap as all heck and make boffo pop gun toys. No missle techs so glad I at least got hyper V.

Our two dead colonys are born and I send them on their way... ranas boat is headed to a lay over spot when it arrives in 3 turns it will have a path to the bottom west red.

I put a click into spying on the psilons in hide mode... just to give us an idea their tech, their relations hit relaxed.


[19]2379 AD yawn

[20]2380 AD and Debubis the terran is founded, just in time as spud hits max population. Spud sends over the max population over to denubis.

Force fields are at 22% prop is 3/4 bulb

Key here is that next turn rana ded colony hits purple...

shuttle it off to the red star circled in blue. The founding of denubis put it in range.

Do not strip population from yarrow or rana!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! treat each of them as a homeworld as they are 90% there and getting closer every beaker our cats don't drop. Denubis has 32 pop arriving in 5 turns, sending 8-10 from there is prolly best course with a second shipment from spud going to volan west of stalaz. IMO getting deubis up and running far more important than the two hostiles.

well the psilons are running away with the game but at least we have a solid core. they are at relaxed and are an honorable militarist. Don;t expect them to back stab us any time.

Still haven;t met the bugs btw...

And for the nth time, nay, CFC doesn;t take .rar files, bad liq bad, put the nyquil down and step away from the cat.


Cheers!
-Liq

 

[OlorinStormcrow]

Roster:

Olorin
Zed
Stup
Liq <<just played
Yuri <<up now
dathon <<on deck

Long live Emperor Yuri

Yuri: I think we should switch to 10 year turns now. It looks like the expansion phase is winding down. Hopefully there's another range tech in our tree soon.

Liq: Not good news about Paladia. Just what the Psilons need, a research planet. On the positive side, getting ECM1 from our scout is what let us skip BC2 and go straight for RC3.

Looks like we're plunking down colonies nicely. Hopefully having all those Terrans in our quadrant will help keep us in this game. The RC3 and IT20 will help give our economy a major boost, and we'll need every bit of it.

 

[Liquidated]

We really need a range better than 4. as it is now we have our hands completely tied seeing as we are surrounded by toxics at best and space the rest.

Again must stress how important trade agreements are in this game, we have the brains at relaxed without even trying. Their personality is never one to break treaties willy nilly.

We may need to annex the bugs sooner rather than later. Least we have a solid core with 4 terrans, 3 marginals and the spud.

oh btw we can prolly sign a non agression with the brains at this point. Personally I would wait until all avenues of expansion are gone. If we want to make a serious effort to get that barren ultrarich up north (pipe) dream, a non agression pact would be unwise.


Cheers!
-Liq

 

[OlorinStormcrow]

I would suggest waiting on a NAP as well. The Psilons are not likely to break the trade agreement to attack us while there are still plenty of unclaimed planets out there.

Once we run out of possible expansion routes, or if the Psilons appear to have run out of room, then we should get the NAP.

 

[StuporMan]

I agree on NAP, unless we get the assasination event we should not see an attack from the Psilons. We might also try for some trades with the Psilons as well if they have useful tech. Bad new is that they are militaristic (large fleets) instead of the usual Pacifistic.

Also if you start war with the bugs, don't ask for help from the brains. The brains are already runaways, we don't need to give them an excuse to expand further.

I am pleased to see a runaway this game, as the scenario is going as intended. I would have preferred a Bug infestation rather than brains, but whatchagonnado.

At some point we are likely to need to invade and capture a Psilon world to even up the tech scenario. Try not to pass up any gropo techs unless absolutely necessary.

We may need to design a LR Laser ship to try and keep the Brains off the Ultra Rich. It isn't likely to work, but a fleet with teeth (small tho it may be) may be enough to delay until we can secure it. They already have a Artifacts planet to make their research just insane, we don't need them to be able to crank out fleets of their super advanced ships. Also remember the diplo win is still an option, it is not likely as we are a bit stuck in the corner but you never know.

StuporMan