OlorinStormcrow
Warlord
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- Jul 18, 2006
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Well, it appears that I3rian's internet is still giving him problems. I'll declare a skip, and take the turn.
--Olorin
--Olorin
OSG 15b - Profound Psilons
- Thread starter Zed-F
- Start date
OlorinStormcrow
Warlord
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2006
- Messages
- 204
Pre-turn: I tried designing a Huge LR colony, but it would take 9 years to build at Mentar, which would otherwise generate 2700 BCs of research. We are only 14 space away from fitting a LR colony on a Large hull, so I'll wait for a tech to pop instead. Obaca is a potential target for the Bears, so I send the Tyr defense to protect it. I also send some pop from Paranar to speed its growth.
2360-64: Next turn, play with sliders.
2365: PDS and Hyper-X hit, next are FF3 and Fus. Bombs. GNN comes on to tell me that Paranar has rebelled. 15 rebels hold the planet (I'm glad I sent some pop to Obaca earlier, or it would have been more). I have Maretta send all it can, 22, to quell the rebellion. I also shuffle 12 from Mentar to Maretta to get the artifact planet back up faster.
'66 and '67: Next turn
'68: IS comes in, R7 is only one in next tier--finally some range
Prop tech allows the LR Col to fit, so I start building at Mentar. Also, the 15 rebels meet the 22 Imperial troops
'70: IIT8 to IIT7, ARS and RW60% are next in line. Bulrathi send a probe to Obaca; I'll have a missile base waiting to greet them.
'71: LR colony finished. IT+20 comes in, Dead next. I rearrange all the planets to start terraforming, leaving a little bit of research going on Mentar to hold our investments. It also builds a LR Def 1.1 to defend Ajax. Here is the upcoming list of planet techs:
'72: Here come the Bears:
Our missile base greets them
'73: Next up for the Bears:
Now we have two bases. The Bears are
'75: Voting time! Sakkra (6) vs. Silicoid (5). The Humans (3), Bears (4), Alkari (2) all side with the Rocks, giving them 14 of 24. We (4) abstain, having not met either race.
Bears are currently at war with the Sakkra and Humans along with us.
'76: Rha is founded
Finally 
We meet the Sakkra and Humans, both of whom are glad to sign minimal trades with us.
'77-'80: Lots of slider management as planets max out. The Bears decide on another offensive, this time with 2 Huges and a colony ship. I throw everything I can into crashing up more bases, Obaca has 3, can build 2 more if you leave the eco slider in waste (where I left it), so it can have 5 bases ready for them next turn. Given that their colony ship packs only spores, you might have to just let it hit us while you take out the Huges. We only have shield 2, so they are likely to be able to take out our bases if we don't drop them quick. Plus they have another Huge coming right behind this attack, so we need our bases intact for round 2.
You can see by the map that we don't really have any expansion room. There is Ajax (dead) that I've got a ship covering, and maybe some of those unknown ones will be hostiles we can eventually get (once we have the range to scout them). Other than that, Kakata doesn't look too bad, it's Poor and the Bears don't have many bases there. Of course, we would first need much better ships. I've started up some spying, but didn't get them in place yet for a peek at the AI tech. Remember to check them the first few turns, and turn off spying once we've had our peek.
Mentar should finish maxxing next turn. We might want to build more ships, either to defend Rha as it gets stood up, or to shuffle over to Obaca to help deal with the Bear attacks. I put the first LR defense at Klystron to ward off possible Silicoid ships, but given the map, it seems unlikely that they'll get there without an alliance.
Just make sure you design a new ship before producing any new ones. The LR Def 1.1 is only needed at Ajax, all the other places for ships are within range, and the Ext Fuel can be traded for lots of shiny weaponry.
2360-64: Next turn, play with sliders.
2365: PDS and Hyper-X hit, next are FF3 and Fus. Bombs. GNN comes on to tell me that Paranar has rebelled. 15 rebels hold the planet (I'm glad I sent some pop to Obaca earlier, or it would have been more). I have Maretta send all it can, 22, to quell the rebellion. I also shuffle 12 from Mentar to Maretta to get the artifact planet back up faster.
'66 and '67: Next turn
'68: IS comes in, R7 is only one in next tier--finally some range
Prop tech allows the LR Col to fit, so I start building at Mentar. Also, the 15 rebels meet the 22 Imperial troops
'70: IIT8 to IIT7, ARS and RW60% are next in line. Bulrathi send a probe to Obaca; I'll have a missile base waiting to greet them.
'71: LR colony finished. IT+20 comes in, Dead next. I rearrange all the planets to start terraforming, leaving a little bit of research going on Mentar to hold our investments. It also builds a LR Def 1.1 to defend Ajax. Here is the upcoming list of planet techs:
'72: Here come the Bears:
Our missile base greets them
'73: Next up for the Bears:
Now we have two bases. The Bears are
'75: Voting time! Sakkra (6) vs. Silicoid (5). The Humans (3), Bears (4), Alkari (2) all side with the Rocks, giving them 14 of 24. We (4) abstain, having not met either race.
Bears are currently at war with the Sakkra and Humans along with us.
'76: Rha is founded
Finally We meet the Sakkra and Humans, both of whom are glad to sign minimal trades with us.
'77-'80: Lots of slider management as planets max out. The Bears decide on another offensive, this time with 2 Huges and a colony ship. I throw everything I can into crashing up more bases, Obaca has 3, can build 2 more if you leave the eco slider in waste (where I left it), so it can have 5 bases ready for them next turn. Given that their colony ship packs only spores, you might have to just let it hit us while you take out the Huges. We only have shield 2, so they are likely to be able to take out our bases if we don't drop them quick. Plus they have another Huge coming right behind this attack, so we need our bases intact for round 2.
You can see by the map that we don't really have any expansion room. There is Ajax (dead) that I've got a ship covering, and maybe some of those unknown ones will be hostiles we can eventually get (once we have the range to scout them). Other than that, Kakata doesn't look too bad, it's Poor and the Bears don't have many bases there. Of course, we would first need much better ships. I've started up some spying, but didn't get them in place yet for a peek at the AI tech. Remember to check them the first few turns, and turn off spying once we've had our peek.
Mentar should finish maxxing next turn. We might want to build more ships, either to defend Rha as it gets stood up, or to shuffle over to Obaca to help deal with the Bear attacks. I put the first LR defense at Klystron to ward off possible Silicoid ships, but given the map, it seems unlikely that they'll get there without an alliance.
Just make sure you design a new ship before producing any new ones. The LR Def 1.1 is only needed at Ajax, all the other places for ships are within range, and the Ext Fuel can be traded for lots of shiny weaponry.
OlorinStormcrow
Warlord
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- Jul 18, 2006
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Blake is now up, Archduke on deck. I3rian, if you're out there, let us know, and we can fit you in.
It's getting to the point where we normally switch from 20 years to 10 years per turn. Blake, I'll leave it up to you. If the first 10 turns take you awhile, stop there and we'll go 10 from here on out, if you're sailing through, go ahead to 2400, and then we'll make the switch.
This is turning into a challenging game. The battle at Obaca is going to be critical. If we lose our second homeworld, we'll really be behind the eight ball. On the other hand, if we can hold the Bears, and get Rha stood up, we should be in a solid 3rd pop-wise, and we can probably outgrow the Rocks, especially if we're able to hold onto Ajax long enough for Dead bases to pop.
The tech hasn't been doing much since terraforming came in, but now that it's done, we are back to major research, and we have Range 7 and Dead bases being worked on. Computers has been in the low %s for the last 10 years (do we have RC3 in our tree?). FF3 is the next FF tech, and then I think is PS5, which will help our defense a lot.
On the negative side, there's a ton of planetology to go through to get to IT+30, and we would have been better off missing at least one of the first 4 cleanup techs. ARS also won't be stellar on Large hulls, especially since we have no armor tech. Our lack of engines is also killing us.
It's getting to the point where we normally switch from 20 years to 10 years per turn. Blake, I'll leave it up to you. If the first 10 turns take you awhile, stop there and we'll go 10 from here on out, if you're sailing through, go ahead to 2400, and then we'll make the switch.
This is turning into a challenging game. The battle at Obaca is going to be critical. If we lose our second homeworld, we'll really be behind the eight ball. On the other hand, if we can hold the Bears, and get Rha stood up, we should be in a solid 3rd pop-wise, and we can probably outgrow the Rocks, especially if we're able to hold onto Ajax long enough for Dead bases to pop.
The tech hasn't been doing much since terraforming came in, but now that it's done, we are back to major research, and we have Range 7 and Dead bases being worked on. Computers has been in the low %s for the last 10 years (do we have RC3 in our tree?). FF3 is the next FF tech, and then I think is PS5, which will help our defense a lot.
On the negative side, there's a ton of planetology to go through to get to IT+30, and we would have been better off missing at least one of the first 4 cleanup techs. ARS also won't be stellar on Large hulls, especially since we have no armor tech. Our lack of engines is also killing us.
TheArchduke
Feeling at home..
Hmm, the more I think about it, the more we should thank our luck that we found Scatter V on the artifacts planet. Without it I doubt we could stand up to the bears. If only our engines were better I would rather build some mobile large scatter V ships as defence forces instead of bases, but for now, bases have to do the trick.
I am not too worried about Obaca, just keep building new bases. Scatter packs are terribly unbalanced.
I am not too worried about Obaca, just keep building new bases. Scatter packs are terribly unbalanced.
Wow I'm really tired at the moment. And I just upgraded to Vista and was having some problems with Dosbox. I don't feel like playing it now, I will tommorow though.
I did however take a look. The Humans will trade us Robotic Controls III for Internal Stabilizer. RCIII is in our tech tree, but this'll get us it a lot faster so it seems like a killer deal. Also the Sakkras, for Inertial Stabilizer will give us RCIII, Range 5, Ion Cannon or Controlled Toxic.
Now RCIII is our next tech but trading for it will get it a bunch of turns faster and let us skip over to BCIII and beyond, my instinct says to make that trade with the humans.
As for the lizards, I'm not sure. Scatterpacks are a pretty good weapon and we may not need ions and again it's our next tech (After fusion bomb)... Controlled Toxic will let us colonize the dead world immediately, but yet again controlled dead is our current tech (bulb barely starting to fill).
Neither Sakkra trade seems THAT good, but the fear would be that the humans will just go ahead and broker IS anyway.
Thoughts?
I did however take a look. The Humans will trade us Robotic Controls III for Internal Stabilizer. RCIII is in our tech tree, but this'll get us it a lot faster so it seems like a killer deal. Also the Sakkras, for Inertial Stabilizer will give us RCIII, Range 5, Ion Cannon or Controlled Toxic.
Now RCIII is our next tech but trading for it will get it a bunch of turns faster and let us skip over to BCIII and beyond, my instinct says to make that trade with the humans.
As for the lizards, I'm not sure. Scatterpacks are a pretty good weapon and we may not need ions and again it's our next tech (After fusion bomb)... Controlled Toxic will let us colonize the dead world immediately, but yet again controlled dead is our current tech (bulb barely starting to fill).
Neither Sakkra trade seems THAT good, but the fear would be that the humans will just go ahead and broker IS anyway.
Thoughts?
OlorinStormcrow
Warlord
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- Jul 18, 2006
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- 204
dathon said:
I clipped this from the RB thread where we were discussing the variant. While I realize that we did not specifically rule out tech trading, it seems to violate the spirit of the variant.
While I realize that a few key trades could make our lives much easier, I think I'd rather go with a no-trades philosophy--it will make overcoming our lack of engines, etc. that much more challenging.
If you disagree, then by all means, do some trades. It isn't banned by the variant. As to the current situation, I'd be against these deals even if there were no issues with the variant. RC3 as you said is our next computer tech, we'll get it soon enough ourselves. We're already working on Dead base, and Toxic isn't any better at the moment. And Ion cannon is not a great trade because a) we are up to get it ourselves next, and b) without engines, we can't put together an effective beam ship anyway.
The other issue on RC3 is that it would slow down our tech pace in the near term. During my turn, the techs were coming at a good pace until I got IT+20 and had to deal with expanding all our planets. RC3 will similarly cause a massive slowdown until the factories get built. Of course, in the long run, we come out ahead with our increased production, but I think that getting Dead bases and colonizing Ajax is probably more important in the short term. R7 is also due in soon. Computers are already in %'s, and then RC3 is next, so I'd expect that you'll get RC3 by the end of your turn. We are talking about a delay of less than 10 years, and hopefully Dead will pop in the meantime, and you can get a colony ship off to Ajax.
Now if someone was offering warp 3 engines for IS, or controlled radiated, that would be a different story. Plus, I think if we are going to trade, I'd rather do it for techs that are NOT in our tree, rather than using trades to trim the list that we have to work through (which is one of the challenges of the variant).
TheArchduke
Feeling at home..
I would get controlled toxic. Looking forward to your turn.
Ok.
2 Incoming huges. That's 600 hp each, 1200 hp total. Our scatter bases deal 6 per hitpoint, MIRV to 5. A base has 3 missiles... meaning each base should deal... 90 damage to an unshielded target, 60 damage to a target with 2 shield. However our comp tech is still bad, so I think some will miss. We might be looking at as little as 40 damage per volley per base.
So with 4 missile bases, 160 damage per round, that means the huges hold out for ~8 rounds with all missile bases intact....
Each base only has 50 hp and our shielding is crap and so is our defense and they are bears... what is the chance that their ships deal crap damage? ANd they are using spores too?
Despite the imba of scatters I'm not sure that this battle is going to be a pushover, 2 Huges are a serious threat to unshielded bases.
I note that by eating some toxic waste I can force Obacca to build 2 missile bases, giving us a total of 5 for the battle, might be enough to knock out a huge in 3 rounds.
Oh grizzlyplops! This is worse than my worst case estimate, not only is the ship shield2 and move2, it's also jammer2! That gives it equal missile defense to our planets attack.
What's worse - 17(!) Heavy Ion Cannons! When that thing gets close it's going to cause some pain!
And there's two of them... cripes...
It's only through the power of "Yoyo" tactics with the Scatter twinpacks on the Tyr, that we get through the battle unscathed. Without the yoyo tactics we would have lost the planet for sure because those huges would close into range in 2 rounds (the bases dealt only 176 damage a volley, meaning 4 rounds to kill a ship) and drop a defense base per turn... it's an exploit I absolutely hate to use but I guess it beats losing... this does remind me how much DARN EASIER the game is when using the yoyo exploit.
(I usually have a policy of not firing missiles unless the target is unable to evade them)
Jammer II comes in and next up is RCIII.
The next couple of turns we eat a bear huge per turn, also Fusion Bomb comes in, next up, Ion Cannon.
On the 5IBT turn, the bears tire of feeding huges into Obacca and offer a peace treaty. I accept.
I also go to the espionage screen and turn off fudning since we have intel on everyone now. Sakkra have T40 and Cloning
, combine that with RCIII and they are going to be running away!
However I also notice that the humans and bears now have Interial Stabalizer (I decided not to make those trades). The Sakkras don't. They will offer T40 for it, which I accept. Didn't seem to be much reason not to, they'll just trade for it anyway.
I'm not sure what the best way is to upgrade with terraforming. What I did was something i often do, set every planet except the artifact planet to maxing population and factories, with the artifact planet only investing in the minimal terraforming to max to allow pop growth. Then once every other planet has completed it's factories and resumed research, the artifacts planet is set to maxing factories. This keeps some research going and increases empire-wide production more optimally than maxing out the artifact world first would. Do the players with more experience or who have done more analysis agree with this "minmax" strategy of using artifacts worlds for research during a construction boom?
Class III shields come in. Next up, Class V Planetary, that is most heartening.
RCIII comes in, next is BCIII.
Agan I use the strategy of setting every world except the artifacts world to maxing out factories.
Controlled Dead comes in, and Death Spores time. Here is the long range forecast:
Controlled Radiated is ok but otherwise it's not a terribly impressive lineup. No soil enichment. I'm pleased I traded for T40.
Event: A Sakkra start is going to pop! Hahah! It's not their homeworld though.
Ind7 comes in and next up is Automated Repair.
I also decide to max out our trade agreement with the humans (to 475/turn) since they are honorable. The others being erratic, I don't bother.
The last turn is an election. Lizards vs Rocks. The Lizards get 16/31 votes, with our 6 votes I abstain.
As you can see I went for 20 turns since most of it was hitting enter, especially since the bear war ended. The last 10 turns consisted of nothing more than the T40 upgrade then the RCIII upgrade.
In all the excitement of the last couple of turns I actually forgot to design and send out a LR Dead Colony ship, but I don't think it matters. The humans are streaming a pile of **** towards Ajax including colony ships and warships. You can train a LR dead and send it out if you think our LR Def 1.0 has a chance. I honestly didn't think it'd stay available for this long with both Sakkras and Humans having tech to colonize it. Probably just the fact that both those races are also afflicted by range 1 drives.
2 Incoming huges. That's 600 hp each, 1200 hp total. Our scatter bases deal 6 per hitpoint, MIRV to 5. A base has 3 missiles... meaning each base should deal... 90 damage to an unshielded target, 60 damage to a target with 2 shield. However our comp tech is still bad, so I think some will miss. We might be looking at as little as 40 damage per volley per base.
So with 4 missile bases, 160 damage per round, that means the huges hold out for ~8 rounds with all missile bases intact....
Each base only has 50 hp and our shielding is crap and so is our defense and they are bears... what is the chance that their ships deal crap damage? ANd they are using spores too?
Despite the imba of scatters I'm not sure that this battle is going to be a pushover, 2 Huges are a serious threat to unshielded bases.
I note that by eating some toxic waste I can force Obacca to build 2 missile bases, giving us a total of 5 for the battle, might be enough to knock out a huge in 3 rounds.
Oh grizzlyplops! This is worse than my worst case estimate, not only is the ship shield2 and move2, it's also jammer2! That gives it equal missile defense to our planets attack.
What's worse - 17(!) Heavy Ion Cannons! When that thing gets close it's going to cause some pain!
And there's two of them... cripes...
It's only through the power of "Yoyo" tactics with the Scatter twinpacks on the Tyr, that we get through the battle unscathed. Without the yoyo tactics we would have lost the planet for sure because those huges would close into range in 2 rounds (the bases dealt only 176 damage a volley, meaning 4 rounds to kill a ship) and drop a defense base per turn... it's an exploit I absolutely hate to use but I guess it beats losing... this does remind me how much DARN EASIER the game is when using the yoyo exploit.
(I usually have a policy of not firing missiles unless the target is unable to evade them)
Jammer II comes in and next up is RCIII.
The next couple of turns we eat a bear huge per turn, also Fusion Bomb comes in, next up, Ion Cannon.
On the 5IBT turn, the bears tire of feeding huges into Obacca and offer a peace treaty. I accept.
I also go to the espionage screen and turn off fudning since we have intel on everyone now. Sakkra have T40 and Cloning
, combine that with RCIII and they are going to be running away!However I also notice that the humans and bears now have Interial Stabalizer (I decided not to make those trades). The Sakkras don't. They will offer T40 for it, which I accept. Didn't seem to be much reason not to, they'll just trade for it anyway.
I'm not sure what the best way is to upgrade with terraforming. What I did was something i often do, set every planet except the artifact planet to maxing population and factories, with the artifact planet only investing in the minimal terraforming to max to allow pop growth. Then once every other planet has completed it's factories and resumed research, the artifacts planet is set to maxing factories. This keeps some research going and increases empire-wide production more optimally than maxing out the artifact world first would. Do the players with more experience or who have done more analysis agree with this "minmax" strategy of using artifacts worlds for research during a construction boom?
Class III shields come in. Next up, Class V Planetary, that is most heartening.
RCIII comes in, next is BCIII.
Agan I use the strategy of setting every world except the artifacts world to maxing out factories.
Controlled Dead comes in, and Death Spores time. Here is the long range forecast:
Controlled Radiated is ok but otherwise it's not a terribly impressive lineup. No soil enichment. I'm pleased I traded for T40.
Event: A Sakkra start is going to pop! Hahah! It's not their homeworld though.
Ind7 comes in and next up is Automated Repair.
I also decide to max out our trade agreement with the humans (to 475/turn) since they are honorable. The others being erratic, I don't bother.
The last turn is an election. Lizards vs Rocks. The Lizards get 16/31 votes, with our 6 votes I abstain.
As you can see I went for 20 turns since most of it was hitting enter, especially since the bear war ended. The last 10 turns consisted of nothing more than the T40 upgrade then the RCIII upgrade.
In all the excitement of the last couple of turns I actually forgot to design and send out a LR Dead Colony ship, but I don't think it matters. The humans are streaming a pile of **** towards Ajax including colony ships and warships. You can train a LR dead and send it out if you think our LR Def 1.0 has a chance. I honestly didn't think it'd stay available for this long with both Sakkras and Humans having tech to colonize it. Probably just the fact that both those races are also afflicted by range 1 drives.
OlorinStormcrow
Warlord
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2006
- Messages
- 204
If the Humans have a respectable fleet going to Ajax, one LR Def is not going to hold it. It was meant to turn back an unescorted colony or two, or perhaps one with a small escort. It's too bad we couldn't get there first, as the Honorable Humans would probably have respected our claim (especially if we got them into a NAP).
That Radiated is in our tree is great news. That UR world would be a very useful addition to the empire. Too bad we have to go through so many other techs to get to it.
I normally do something similar when upgrading terraforming or factories. Usually, I have a Poor world keep the tech funding alive while the rest of my worlds upgrade. As we don't have one this game, you have to pick another world to keep the tech going. I would probably pick one of our smallest backline worlds to hold the tech, and let the artifact planet upgrade in the first round (as its production is equal to normal planets, and upgrading it first will result in higher tech outputs).
For a larger game, I might have several Poor or small worlds wait on upgrading, while I concentrate on getting the Rich, Artifact, and large worlds upgraded right away.
It was a good call to trade for +40, it would have been quite awhile until we got that on our own.
I played the battle with the 2 Bulrathi huges after my turn (only one more year till they arrived). I had the same experience as you. I tried to hold off on firing the Tyr's missiles at the Bulrathi until they were in range, but at the same time, I wanted to fire before they were close enough to advance and take it out with their heavy ions. In restrospect, I should have built more bases when I saw the first Huge flying around Bulrathi space. Then again, if they had only sent one, the 5 bases would have been plenty.
Good luck Archduke!
That Radiated is in our tree is great news. That UR world would be a very useful addition to the empire. Too bad we have to go through so many other techs to get to it.
I normally do something similar when upgrading terraforming or factories. Usually, I have a Poor world keep the tech funding alive while the rest of my worlds upgrade. As we don't have one this game, you have to pick another world to keep the tech going. I would probably pick one of our smallest backline worlds to hold the tech, and let the artifact planet upgrade in the first round (as its production is equal to normal planets, and upgrading it first will result in higher tech outputs).
For a larger game, I might have several Poor or small worlds wait on upgrading, while I concentrate on getting the Rich, Artifact, and large worlds upgraded right away.
It was a good call to trade for +40, it would have been quite awhile until we got that on our own.
I played the battle with the 2 Bulrathi huges after my turn (only one more year till they arrived). I had the same experience as you. I tried to hold off on firing the Tyr's missiles at the Bulrathi until they were in range, but at the same time, I wanted to fire before they were close enough to advance and take it out with their heavy ions. In restrospect, I should have built more bases when I saw the first Huge flying around Bulrathi space. Then again, if they had only sent one, the 5 bases would have been plenty.
Good luck Archduke!
Another factor when upgrading, it would seem, is how ripe techs are. If a bunch of techs are nearly ripe, but not yet in percents, it would seem to be wise to continue a significant investment. On the other hand, if a bunch of techs are already in percents or bulbs are not particularly full, you need only a minimal token investment to give the pop chance / avoid decay.
TheArchduke
Feeling at home..
I am going to play my 10 turns now if noone objects, quite early in the morning and nothing else to do.
Apologies for no screenies in my reports, seems like I can´t use my old print -> irfanview in MoO..
Apologies for no screenies in my reports, seems like I can´t use my old print -> irfanview in MoO..
TheArchduke
Feeling at home..
The Bears have nuclear engines and only demand the fusion bomb for it, and so because they already have Death Spores and we are researching Planetary Shields I take them for a much needed boost to our speed. I immeaditly setup a new Defense Ship taking advantage of this.
Turn 2
Nothing happens, though Ajax is definetly lost, I am not pissing off honourable humans as they could be our only reliable friends.
Turn 3
Ajax is still not colonized by the humans, I start production on a dead colony ship
Turn 4
New fuel cells come in, work started on Energy Pulsar, a tech I normally don´t bother with. And the Sakkra world doesn´t blow up. And shields come in.
Turn 5
Colony ship finished.
Turn 6
enter
Turn 7
A Sakkra Huge bothers with our scout at Galos, the asteroid field, My colony ships closes in to Ajax.
Turn 8
Sakkras dow me!
I brought them into a war with the Humans, and they are at war with the whole galaxy, and now this? I start to emphasize defense on our southern world.
The bears are willing to part with mass driver, but demand RCIII or T+40 for it, no chance.
Turn 9
My bad call to retreat our LR Defense in the south to the north hurts, as we have no defense, but I immeaditly build a new one in the south before going to bases.
Turn 10
My dead colony ship arrives but I decide not to settle Ajax.. The reason? 100 something Sakkra medium sized ships are closing in and I don´t want to waste our colony ship for nothing. My new defense design I built in Mentar with faster engines comes in and starts for Rha.
Turn 11
I decide to play for one more turn to finish up the new defense ship on Mentar and order defenses on our southern world.Now on some interesting news, whilst engaging the Sakkra fleet in orbit around Ajax, the 110 medium ships RETREATED one turn into the battle, not so their colony ship which seems to be equipped with Ions when shooting at my colony ship before I retreated. Which means Bombs or worse Death Spores.
What´s even worse 110 of those babies are closing in to our southern planet Rha, which is why I decided to endure some waste and use our measly reserves to build more bases, and I hope my new defense ship arrives in time.
So, all in all. I hope I didn´t make a bad call getting nuclears from the Sakkras when I could. I also decided to make trade agreements with the bears as every bit helps.
Similarily I ordered every world to build a shield, as I like to have those ready before I need them on every world, rather then try for an emergency build lateron when you then lack the bases.
I decided to play one extra turn to actually see what the Sakkra fleet has got on board for a better analysis of our situation. And as always, I hope I didn´t screw up too badly, but it seems I attract declarations of war from other species.
Turn 2
Nothing happens, though Ajax is definetly lost, I am not pissing off honourable humans as they could be our only reliable friends.
Turn 3
Ajax is still not colonized by the humans, I start production on a dead colony ship
Turn 4
New fuel cells come in, work started on Energy Pulsar, a tech I normally don´t bother with. And the Sakkra world doesn´t blow up. And shields come in.
Turn 5
Colony ship finished.
Turn 6
enter
Turn 7
A Sakkra Huge bothers with our scout at Galos, the asteroid field, My colony ships closes in to Ajax.
Turn 8
Sakkras dow me!
I brought them into a war with the Humans, and they are at war with the whole galaxy, and now this? I start to emphasize defense on our southern world.
The bears are willing to part with mass driver, but demand RCIII or T+40 for it, no chance.
Turn 9
My bad call to retreat our LR Defense in the south to the north hurts, as we have no defense, but I immeaditly build a new one in the south before going to bases.
Turn 10
My dead colony ship arrives but I decide not to settle Ajax.. The reason? 100 something Sakkra medium sized ships are closing in and I don´t want to waste our colony ship for nothing. My new defense design I built in Mentar with faster engines comes in and starts for Rha.
Turn 11
I decide to play for one more turn to finish up the new defense ship on Mentar and order defenses on our southern world.Now on some interesting news, whilst engaging the Sakkra fleet in orbit around Ajax, the 110 medium ships RETREATED one turn into the battle, not so their colony ship which seems to be equipped with Ions when shooting at my colony ship before I retreated. Which means Bombs or worse Death Spores.
What´s even worse 110 of those babies are closing in to our southern planet Rha, which is why I decided to endure some waste and use our measly reserves to build more bases, and I hope my new defense ship arrives in time.
So, all in all. I hope I didn´t make a bad call getting nuclears from the Sakkras when I could. I also decided to make trade agreements with the bears as every bit helps.
Similarily I ordered every world to build a shield, as I like to have those ready before I need them on every world, rather then try for an emergency build lateron when you then lack the bases.
I decided to play one extra turn to actually see what the Sakkra fleet has got on board for a better analysis of our situation. And as always, I hope I didn´t screw up too badly, but it seems I attract declarations of war from other species.
TheArchduke
Feeling at home..
I would suggest that as Blake before the next player tries to build 2 bases this turn and maybe with another round of eating waste another 2 next turn. Coupled with 2 Large hulls, we might be able to keep Rha.
OlorinStormcrow
Warlord
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2006
- Messages
- 204
I ran through 9 years quickly.
First off, I set Mentar to get a shield, along with another defense ship, and set Obaca to produce some reserves to feed to Rha.
2412) Obaca got hit by the quake event. Set to rebuild and repop. Reserves sent to Rha, it can get 2 more bases this year for a total of 4. We will also have 2 large hulls to defend.
2413) Battle is joined. It's the Sakkra:
vs. the Psilons:
(and 4 bases)
There's not a whole lot to tell about this battle. The bases sent every one of their volleys into the spore ships, while I used the large hulls to take out the colony ships (two rounds of missiles and some beams did the job). Once the colony ships were out of the way, the larges helped whittle down the spore ships with their remaining missiles, and beam weapons. None of the spore ships survived to reach orbit.
After the battle, we meet the Silicoids:
2413) Another defense ship is produced at Mentar, bound for Rha. I decide to stop building them, given that the Sakkra's slow, unshielded spore ships do not pose a threat to a planet with sufficient bases.
2415) ARS arrives, next is RW60%. After that comes Zortrium armor. All of our planets are now shielded.
2416) Rha maxes factories. I set it mostly to tech, but keep building bases every 2 years to bolster defense (Sakkras have a couple of Huge hulls wandering around).
2417) News flash: Sakkra get a donation. Spies report that the Bulrathi have Radiated bases now! Good thing I sent both the large hulls from Obaca down to Kulthos, not that they could beat a Bear Huge.
2418) Bears take Xengara from the Humans, cutting off contact with our only sane neighbors.
2419) Mass drivers. Next up is Neutron blaster (AM bombs, Stingers, and Hard beams after that).
2420) Inferno bases. Enhanced Eco next. GNN reports that the Silicoids now have 12 systems (they may have taken one from the Alkari).
We have 2 techs in %s, comps and FF. Propulsion is almost full. Once those three come in, we might consider building an offensively oriented ship. We don't have the firepower yet to try to take a planet and defend it vs. Huge hulls, but we could build ships capable of hitting either the Bears or the Sakkra while their fleets are away, and burn down a few of their worlds. The Bears still only have 3 bases at Kakata (Poor), and they just took Xengara (Artifacts) from the Humans. They used spores there, and it will take them awhile to get that planet stood back up.
We have no intel on the Sakkra planets, but we are at war with them. We could probably at least hit Ajax, since it's fairly new. We can load a ship up with fusion bombs to go after enemy planets, and our scatter pack ships can do some damage to bases where they don't have PS5 yet.
A couple of thoughts on ship design: Don't use ARS. Our large hulls only have 100 hits, and 15 regen per turn is not worth the cost and space. Maybe when Zortrium armor comes in, but not now. Also don't use the Energy pulsars that are about to come in. They would be great against small hulls, but the smallest ships we are seeing are the Sakkra spore ships, which are too slow to pose a threat to missile bases, and have no other weapons to be a threat when we attack their systems. Be cautious about Mass Drivers. They can do more damage vs. shielded ships than Ion cannons, but at this level of tech, we can probably fit 4 Ion cannons into the same space as on Mass driver. Plus, we haven't seen many ships with really strong shields yet (and for those, a Heavy Ion is still smaller than a MD).
It's a bummer that we have so much chaff in the Planetology field. If we could get to Radiated bases, we can add two planets to our empire, and the UR would be a real boost (25 base + 40 terraforming would give us a 65 UR, and after Rad bases comes Atm. Terraforming, which will raise it's pop more). Klystron is not as juicy of a planet, but we need to try to defend it if only to keep the Silicoids and Bears out of range of the UR.
The other issue is the upcoming vote in 2425. It looks like the Silicoids and Sakkra are 1 and 2 in pop, and I'm a bit worried about the Silicoids winning the vote. The Sakkra are at war with everyone, while the Rocks are allied with the Bears (who also have large pop base). The Bears are guaranteed to vote for the Rocks, and the Humans and Alkari might vote for them because of their war with the Lizards. Hopefully, the Sakkra + Us = > 1/3 of the votes, otherwise we could get unlucky.
A couple of ideas to prevent this: a) Goad the Bears to declare on the Rocks, putting them at war with both candidates, hopefully to abstain. b) Get some bombers together and burn down Kakata and Xengara to reduce the Bulrathi vote--not as attractive (tough to pull off in 5 years, and it would put us into a 2-front war). c) At the very least, don't burn down any Sakkra worlds until after the vote.
Still no word from I3rian, so it's back to Blake, then Archduke.
First off, I set Mentar to get a shield, along with another defense ship, and set Obaca to produce some reserves to feed to Rha.
2412) Obaca got hit by the quake event. Set to rebuild and repop. Reserves sent to Rha, it can get 2 more bases this year for a total of 4. We will also have 2 large hulls to defend.
2413) Battle is joined. It's the Sakkra:
vs. the Psilons:
(and 4 bases)
There's not a whole lot to tell about this battle. The bases sent every one of their volleys into the spore ships, while I used the large hulls to take out the colony ships (two rounds of missiles and some beams did the job). Once the colony ships were out of the way, the larges helped whittle down the spore ships with their remaining missiles, and beam weapons. None of the spore ships survived to reach orbit.
After the battle, we meet the Silicoids:
2413) Another defense ship is produced at Mentar, bound for Rha. I decide to stop building them, given that the Sakkra's slow, unshielded spore ships do not pose a threat to a planet with sufficient bases.
2415) ARS arrives, next is RW60%. After that comes Zortrium armor. All of our planets are now shielded.
2416) Rha maxes factories. I set it mostly to tech, but keep building bases every 2 years to bolster defense (Sakkras have a couple of Huge hulls wandering around).
2417) News flash: Sakkra get a donation. Spies report that the Bulrathi have Radiated bases now! Good thing I sent both the large hulls from Obaca down to Kulthos, not that they could beat a Bear Huge.
2418) Bears take Xengara from the Humans, cutting off contact with our only sane neighbors.
2419) Mass drivers. Next up is Neutron blaster (AM bombs, Stingers, and Hard beams after that).
2420) Inferno bases. Enhanced Eco next. GNN reports that the Silicoids now have 12 systems (they may have taken one from the Alkari).
We have 2 techs in %s, comps and FF. Propulsion is almost full. Once those three come in, we might consider building an offensively oriented ship. We don't have the firepower yet to try to take a planet and defend it vs. Huge hulls, but we could build ships capable of hitting either the Bears or the Sakkra while their fleets are away, and burn down a few of their worlds. The Bears still only have 3 bases at Kakata (Poor), and they just took Xengara (Artifacts) from the Humans. They used spores there, and it will take them awhile to get that planet stood back up.
We have no intel on the Sakkra planets, but we are at war with them. We could probably at least hit Ajax, since it's fairly new. We can load a ship up with fusion bombs to go after enemy planets, and our scatter pack ships can do some damage to bases where they don't have PS5 yet.
A couple of thoughts on ship design: Don't use ARS. Our large hulls only have 100 hits, and 15 regen per turn is not worth the cost and space. Maybe when Zortrium armor comes in, but not now. Also don't use the Energy pulsars that are about to come in. They would be great against small hulls, but the smallest ships we are seeing are the Sakkra spore ships, which are too slow to pose a threat to missile bases, and have no other weapons to be a threat when we attack their systems. Be cautious about Mass Drivers. They can do more damage vs. shielded ships than Ion cannons, but at this level of tech, we can probably fit 4 Ion cannons into the same space as on Mass driver. Plus, we haven't seen many ships with really strong shields yet (and for those, a Heavy Ion is still smaller than a MD).
It's a bummer that we have so much chaff in the Planetology field. If we could get to Radiated bases, we can add two planets to our empire, and the UR would be a real boost (25 base + 40 terraforming would give us a 65 UR, and after Rad bases comes Atm. Terraforming, which will raise it's pop more). Klystron is not as juicy of a planet, but we need to try to defend it if only to keep the Silicoids and Bears out of range of the UR.
The other issue is the upcoming vote in 2425. It looks like the Silicoids and Sakkra are 1 and 2 in pop, and I'm a bit worried about the Silicoids winning the vote. The Sakkra are at war with everyone, while the Rocks are allied with the Bears (who also have large pop base). The Bears are guaranteed to vote for the Rocks, and the Humans and Alkari might vote for them because of their war with the Lizards. Hopefully, the Sakkra + Us = > 1/3 of the votes, otherwise we could get unlucky.
A couple of ideas to prevent this: a) Goad the Bears to declare on the Rocks, putting them at war with both candidates, hopefully to abstain. b) Get some bombers together and burn down Kakata and Xengara to reduce the Bulrathi vote--not as attractive (tough to pull off in 5 years, and it would put us into a 2-front war). c) At the very least, don't burn down any Sakkra worlds until after the vote.
Still no word from I3rian, so it's back to Blake, then Archduke.
I'm awake and alert, seems to be no reason not to play it now. I'm really interested in gearing up for an offense. It's probably good that spores are being tossed around, makes it more likely that we can claim some worlds with factories relatively intact.
I take a look around. Bears seem pretty pleased with us, I'm not sure about making that trade agreement though, it's still in negatives (-55/turn) and those erratic brutes are going to come for us again soon...
Bears best shield is still II, Sakkra best shield is only III, our scatter ships can bring down their worlds. Both best missile are only lasers, once Shield IV pops we will be impervious to their worlds.
I end turn, hoping for a tech pop, and both Jammer III and Shield IV pop, then something unexpected, Energy pulsar popped too! That was at 1%, and it was only at 1% because I dialed down the defense funding at most worlds. Um yikes... that was a 1/10000 tech pop event.
Jammer III -> Improved Scanner
Shield IV -> Repulsar Beam
Good call on trading for nuclears! This has got to be the crappiest engine lineup I have EVER seen. First engine impulse?!!! And for our variant it doesn't help that we have to chew through 4 techs to get to it, yikes.
Anyway with all the techs popped and all techs now barely full it seems like the PERFECT time to build some design and build some weapons of mass destruction.
Hopefully my taste in designing ships is not quite so bad as my taste in naming them. I may not have bothered with bombs on a missile tug except the bases can't really hurt the ship anyway.
The fusion bombs are really a little insurance against the enemy getting Planetary V, well still be able to do something to the planets with a large enough stack of ships.
I set all of our worlds except the artifacts world and Obacca (still rebuilding) to constructing our new baby food factories.
While this building goes on it's vote time. It's the (evil) Sakkra's vs the Rocks. Everyone except the bears vote for the Sakkra's (ok the rocks voted for themselves too). With the vote so effectively split, and in favor of our enemy, I'm free to give our vote to the rocks.
The Sakkra then calls up to ***** at me for voting against them. I wonder what they'll think about the little present heading to one of their worlds...
This is the Lizards fleet:
My 4 WMD 2.0's could do little to the large stack with heavy beams, the Banshee with it's 0 Atk is not a threat.
I did figure out the tactics vs the move 2 range 2 beamer:
Move about 3/5th's of the way across the screen, fire a rack at the beamer.
It will retreat.
Advance more and unload 3 racks, staying just out of range (At the end of each round) so that it still can't hit you when it moves forward 2 then fires at range 2.
This way about 3/5 racks should hit the beamer while it's being pinned down by the first volley.
Obviously we are going to need A LOT more ships to deal with the Sakkra fleet, but once we have a stack of ~20 large scatterships we should be able to decimate their main fleet. For now our ships move through space twice as fast so we should be able to dance between their worlds cutting them down to size.
Our technology isn't exactly optimal for fighting, but I don't think it's going to get any better either. If we leave it to wait for some better tech then it's far more likely that the Lizards will pick up stingers or something and that'll crimp our style a lot worse than fighting with slightly subpar weapons. Still feel free to design another new ship we could probably use a second design for more optimal pinning down of their ships.
Bears best shield is still II, Sakkra best shield is only III, our scatter ships can bring down their worlds. Both best missile are only lasers, once Shield IV pops we will be impervious to their worlds.
I end turn, hoping for a tech pop, and both Jammer III and Shield IV pop, then something unexpected, Energy pulsar popped too! That was at 1%, and it was only at 1% because I dialed down the defense funding at most worlds. Um yikes... that was a 1/10000 tech pop event.
Jammer III -> Improved Scanner
Shield IV -> Repulsar Beam
Good call on trading for nuclears! This has got to be the crappiest engine lineup I have EVER seen. First engine impulse?!!! And for our variant it doesn't help that we have to chew through 4 techs to get to it, yikes.
Anyway with all the techs popped and all techs now barely full it seems like the PERFECT time to build some design and build some weapons of mass destruction.
Hopefully my taste in designing ships is not quite so bad as my taste in naming them. I may not have bothered with bombs on a missile tug except the bases can't really hurt the ship anyway.
The fusion bombs are really a little insurance against the enemy getting Planetary V, well still be able to do something to the planets with a large enough stack of ships.
I set all of our worlds except the artifacts world and Obacca (still rebuilding) to constructing our new baby food factories.
While this building goes on it's vote time. It's the (evil) Sakkra's vs the Rocks. Everyone except the bears vote for the Sakkra's (ok the rocks voted for themselves too). With the vote so effectively split, and in favor of our enemy, I'm free to give our vote to the rocks.
The Sakkra then calls up to ***** at me for voting against them. I wonder what they'll think about the little present heading to one of their worlds...
This is the Lizards fleet:
My 4 WMD 2.0's could do little to the large stack with heavy beams, the Banshee with it's 0 Atk is not a threat.
I did figure out the tactics vs the move 2 range 2 beamer:
Move about 3/5th's of the way across the screen, fire a rack at the beamer.
It will retreat.
Advance more and unload 3 racks, staying just out of range (At the end of each round) so that it still can't hit you when it moves forward 2 then fires at range 2.
This way about 3/5 racks should hit the beamer while it's being pinned down by the first volley.
Obviously we are going to need A LOT more ships to deal with the Sakkra fleet, but once we have a stack of ~20 large scatterships we should be able to decimate their main fleet. For now our ships move through space twice as fast so we should be able to dance between their worlds cutting them down to size.
Our technology isn't exactly optimal for fighting, but I don't think it's going to get any better either. If we leave it to wait for some better tech then it's far more likely that the Lizards will pick up stingers or something and that'll crimp our style a lot worse than fighting with slightly subpar weapons. Still feel free to design another new ship we could probably use a second design for more optimal pinning down of their ships.
OlorinStormcrow
Warlord
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2006
- Messages
- 204
Sounds like a productive turn! Good work on getting us a fleet, and great news about the triple tech pop.
Hopefully we can use our better engines to hit a Sakkra world that has no fleet (or only the Juggernauts). If we could actually find a small Sakkra world and pull off an invasion, we might even pick up some techs. Their counterattack would likely involve massive numbers of spore ships, resulting in the planet getting wiped, denying them the opportunity to steal some of our tech.
The scary thing I saw were those Hydras! They have move 2, shield 3, and 2 death spores. Those could cause a lot of damage at Rha. The scatters will only hit for half damage vs. the shields. One missile base could at maximum do 3 x 5 warheads x 3 damage = 45 damage/base. It would take over 3 bases to kill one Hydra (150 hp). That is not accounting for misses. Move two gets them to the planet in 4 turns, giving us 3 rounds of missiles. So we need approximately the same number of bases as they have Hydras if they attack (or a combination of bases and ships).
Moral of the story; if the Sakkra head for Rha, go all out building bases, and recall our fleet to defend.
Another consideration is that we may want to put more into research again soon. Once we have enough ships for effective hit and runs on the Sakkra, we might want to put Paranar back on tech, and probably Obaca as well when it gets done rebuilding from that quake. We've still got a lot of research to do before we'll be able to field a fleet that can take and hold planets for us.
Hopefully we can use our better engines to hit a Sakkra world that has no fleet (or only the Juggernauts). If we could actually find a small Sakkra world and pull off an invasion, we might even pick up some techs. Their counterattack would likely involve massive numbers of spore ships, resulting in the planet getting wiped, denying them the opportunity to steal some of our tech.
The scary thing I saw were those Hydras! They have move 2, shield 3, and 2 death spores. Those could cause a lot of damage at Rha. The scatters will only hit for half damage vs. the shields. One missile base could at maximum do 3 x 5 warheads x 3 damage = 45 damage/base. It would take over 3 bases to kill one Hydra (150 hp). That is not accounting for misses. Move two gets them to the planet in 4 turns, giving us 3 rounds of missiles. So we need approximately the same number of bases as they have Hydras if they attack (or a combination of bases and ships).
Moral of the story; if the Sakkra head for Rha, go all out building bases, and recall our fleet to defend.
Another consideration is that we may want to put more into research again soon. Once we have enough ships for effective hit and runs on the Sakkra, we might want to put Paranar back on tech, and probably Obaca as well when it gets done rebuilding from that quake. We've still got a lot of research to do before we'll be able to field a fleet that can take and hold planets for us.
OlorinStormcrow
Warlord
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2006
- Messages
- 204
Archduke is up again, I'm on deck.
Kudos to us for getting through an entire round in one day
Kudos to us for getting through an entire round in one day
