TheArchduke
Feeling at home..
Got the save, I will consider all things but yet against, I have a nice amount of time to play now, so why not?
OSG 15b - Profound Psilons
- Thread starter Zed-F
- Start date
TheArchduke
Feeling at home..
Turn 1
No exchanges possible it seems. So I hit turn and prepare for battle. First one is one WMD against a big Sakkra fleet, I try Blake´s tactic, but the Hydra doesn´t retreat against my sole ship so I am show down, yeah..
Second battle, 4 WMD against 14 Hydras, ok I better not screw this one, and I manage not to, by shooting BEFORE I advance each time, so the sakkras retreat. They are hit by 3/5 of our racks whilst hiding and the other 2 whilst I retreat.
Turn 2
Ok I learnt my lesson, even against 3 huges I don´t sustain any losses, but I need to at least shoot once at them to keep them at distance, so only one Hydra dies. Both fleets retreat. I upgrade our trade treaties with the Rocks and Humans.
Turn 3
Another stack of WMD is sent south, to unite with my fleet and attack. Sakkras steal IT9..
The Silicoids offer a NAP by themselves I accept.
Turn 4
I bring the Humans into war with the Bulrathis, again to occupy the bears.
Turn 5
Hit turn
Turn 6
15 WMD sent of to Ajax. And I send 44 people off with them.
Turn 7
Contact breaks off with the human empire, I send 2 WMDs to another world. The Sakkra SOD moves to intercept me. 6 bases at Rha are not enough for my taste though, so I build some more.
Turn 8
Turn
Turn 9
RedWaste60% comes in, Zortrium next, yay. I think we don´t need a ship design till we have
that armor in. We scare 2 ships away from Ajax. And I destroy 8 ships and 2 bases at the
southern world, a MUCH better invasion target I fear, more factories there.
The SOD seems to miss us.
Turn 10
Another bombing of the southern world, and our armies are victorious but closely, so. The Sakkras got Duralloy and Hand Lasers on us, so we have higher losses, still a new world is a new world, and I would recommend to press the attack as our ships are invulnerable to their bases.
And enhanced eco restore comes in, and we must research +30Terra, yay.
A short analysis. The Sakkras seem intent to press their attacks against the humans, so atm we can actually hold Ajax and attack both southern world at once. Our only problem are our far off population bases and our meager attack skills. We might consider trading with other races for vital ground fighting techs.
No exchanges possible it seems. So I hit turn and prepare for battle. First one is one WMD against a big Sakkra fleet, I try Blake´s tactic, but the Hydra doesn´t retreat against my sole ship so I am show down, yeah..
Second battle, 4 WMD against 14 Hydras, ok I better not screw this one, and I manage not to, by shooting BEFORE I advance each time, so the sakkras retreat. They are hit by 3/5 of our racks whilst hiding and the other 2 whilst I retreat.
Turn 2
Ok I learnt my lesson, even against 3 huges I don´t sustain any losses, but I need to at least shoot once at them to keep them at distance, so only one Hydra dies. Both fleets retreat. I upgrade our trade treaties with the Rocks and Humans.
Turn 3
Another stack of WMD is sent south, to unite with my fleet and attack. Sakkras steal IT9..
The Silicoids offer a NAP by themselves I accept.
Turn 4
I bring the Humans into war with the Bulrathis, again to occupy the bears.
Turn 5
Hit turn
Turn 6
15 WMD sent of to Ajax. And I send 44 people off with them.
Turn 7
Contact breaks off with the human empire, I send 2 WMDs to another world. The Sakkra SOD moves to intercept me. 6 bases at Rha are not enough for my taste though, so I build some more.
Turn 8
Turn
Turn 9
RedWaste60% comes in, Zortrium next, yay. I think we don´t need a ship design till we have
that armor in. We scare 2 ships away from Ajax. And I destroy 8 ships and 2 bases at the
southern world, a MUCH better invasion target I fear, more factories there.
The SOD seems to miss us.
Turn 10
Another bombing of the southern world, and our armies are victorious but closely, so. The Sakkras got Duralloy and Hand Lasers on us, so we have higher losses, still a new world is a new world, and I would recommend to press the attack as our ships are invulnerable to their bases.
And enhanced eco restore comes in, and we must research +30Terra, yay.
A short analysis. The Sakkras seem intent to press their attacks against the humans, so atm we can actually hold Ajax and attack both southern world at once. Our only problem are our far off population bases and our meager attack skills. We might consider trading with other races for vital ground fighting techs.
OlorinStormcrow
Warlord
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2006
- Messages
- 204
I take a look around.
I immediately dial up the Silicoids and break our NAP. I don't want them to take Klystron and then that UR Radiated out from under us.
I also see a Sakkra SoD only 1-2 turns from Rha (we have a Col 2 and one old defense ship backed up by 9 bases there). I can build one more base this turn, and I set Mentar to reserve pumping. All our WMD's are at least 3 turns away.
2441) Sakkra stack almost here. Reinforcements are 2 turns away. I can eeke out 2 bases, making 12.
2442) Sakkra attack:
Our bases can only kill 2-3 Hydras per turn. The Col 2 and the defense ship are able to take out their colony ship, but the planet never stood a chance. On the upside, the Hydra stack stuck around after the planet was empty and tried to kill our bases. They actually whittled one away before the last 4 Hydras packed up and went home.
I start working on another Col 2 at Mentar to refound Rha.
Also, a Silicoid colony ship arrives at Klystron and gets chased off. I'm glad that I broke that NAP, so I could just chase away their ship, rather than be forced to glass a new colony. Relations with them are improving due to our bombing of Tauri and taking out Sakkra ships.
The rest of the turn involved defending Ajax from a series of attacks, including this one by the Silicoids:
Those Huge ships stuck around for a few turns, but decided to flee since their Gats couldn't hurt our WMDs.
Rha was refounded in 2447, 100% to terraforming (all factories are still intact). I slung 20 pop from Mentar that way, hopefully the terraforming will open up enough space for them by the time they arrive...
I lost some WMDs to Sakkra attacks at both Rha and Ajax, but finally glassed Tauri in 2448 and sent those ships to Rha and Ajax to defend.
Finally in '49 we got some good news. GNN reported that Obaca became Fertile!! It's set to grow pop and factories now.
The vote: Rocks (8) vs. Liz (9). Only the Humans (4) and us (6) side with the Rocks, while the Bears (5) and Alkari (2) vote with the Lizards. We are fairly safe from the vote at the moment because between the two nominees and us, we can ensure a lockout. The tricky part will be to ensure that when we take over 2nd place, we don't see everyone else lined up behind the other candidate.
We got Neutron Blaster (AM bombs) and ISS (BC4) during my turn. Repulsor beams are about to pop, at which point, we should probably build a repulsor ship (max out shields and load up on 2 space weapons). They would come in handy vs. spore carriers.
Early in my turn the Sakkra got Merculites, so there bases are no longer toothless. If they restart Tauri, we should go glass it again before it gets stood up. When Rha and Ajax get some bases to back up their defenses, we might be able to send a Colony ship and make a play for it. Just don't trust a small number of bases to hold, even with repulsor ships. They wouldn't have helped in my battle at Rha since the Hydra had enough Heavy Blasters to take it out a few in one turn. I'd aim for around 20 bases at each of our front-line worlds. Once we get Stingers we'll be a little better off vs. shielded ships, but all 3 of the biggest races have Huge hulls flying around.
There are Sakkra, Human, and Silicoid all inbound to Rha. We should have 9 WMDs ready for them. The Silicoid Huge is one of their Bomber designs, it only had Gats for ship to ship. We should have enough WMDs to either take it out or scare it off before it gets to the planet.
I'd also advise that we bump up our base count on Obaca to around 20 when it finishes it's new factories. Losing Rha set us back quite a few turns, but losing Obaca might be a knockout blow.
Good luck Blake.
I immediately dial up the Silicoids and break our NAP. I don't want them to take Klystron and then that UR Radiated out from under us.
I also see a Sakkra SoD only 1-2 turns from Rha (we have a Col 2 and one old defense ship backed up by 9 bases there). I can build one more base this turn, and I set Mentar to reserve pumping. All our WMD's are at least 3 turns away.
2441) Sakkra stack almost here. Reinforcements are 2 turns away. I can eeke out 2 bases, making 12.
2442) Sakkra attack:
Our bases can only kill 2-3 Hydras per turn. The Col 2 and the defense ship are able to take out their colony ship, but the planet never stood a chance. On the upside, the Hydra stack stuck around after the planet was empty and tried to kill our bases. They actually whittled one away before the last 4 Hydras packed up and went home.
I start working on another Col 2 at Mentar to refound Rha.
Also, a Silicoid colony ship arrives at Klystron and gets chased off. I'm glad that I broke that NAP, so I could just chase away their ship, rather than be forced to glass a new colony. Relations with them are improving due to our bombing of Tauri and taking out Sakkra ships.
The rest of the turn involved defending Ajax from a series of attacks, including this one by the Silicoids:
Those Huge ships stuck around for a few turns, but decided to flee since their Gats couldn't hurt our WMDs.
Rha was refounded in 2447, 100% to terraforming (all factories are still intact). I slung 20 pop from Mentar that way, hopefully the terraforming will open up enough space for them by the time they arrive...
I lost some WMDs to Sakkra attacks at both Rha and Ajax, but finally glassed Tauri in 2448 and sent those ships to Rha and Ajax to defend.
Finally in '49 we got some good news. GNN reported that Obaca became Fertile!! It's set to grow pop and factories now.
The vote: Rocks (8) vs. Liz (9). Only the Humans (4) and us (6) side with the Rocks, while the Bears (5) and Alkari (2) vote with the Lizards. We are fairly safe from the vote at the moment because between the two nominees and us, we can ensure a lockout. The tricky part will be to ensure that when we take over 2nd place, we don't see everyone else lined up behind the other candidate.
We got Neutron Blaster (AM bombs) and ISS (BC4) during my turn. Repulsor beams are about to pop, at which point, we should probably build a repulsor ship (max out shields and load up on 2 space weapons). They would come in handy vs. spore carriers.
Early in my turn the Sakkra got Merculites, so there bases are no longer toothless. If they restart Tauri, we should go glass it again before it gets stood up. When Rha and Ajax get some bases to back up their defenses, we might be able to send a Colony ship and make a play for it. Just don't trust a small number of bases to hold, even with repulsor ships. They wouldn't have helped in my battle at Rha since the Hydra had enough Heavy Blasters to take it out a few in one turn. I'd aim for around 20 bases at each of our front-line worlds. Once we get Stingers we'll be a little better off vs. shielded ships, but all 3 of the biggest races have Huge hulls flying around.
There are Sakkra, Human, and Silicoid all inbound to Rha. We should have 9 WMDs ready for them. The Silicoid Huge is one of their Bomber designs, it only had Gats for ship to ship. We should have enough WMDs to either take it out or scare it off before it gets to the planet.
I'd also advise that we bump up our base count on Obaca to around 20 when it finishes it's new factories. Losing Rha set us back quite a few turns, but losing Obaca might be a knockout blow.
Good luck Blake.
TheArchduke
Feeling at home..
A bad call on my side to attack too early? I guess I should have waited a lot longer before leaving Rha, and built some more bases. Well at least the factories are still there.
Good call on breaking the NAP with the Silicoids, I don´t know what I was smocking there.
OlorinStormcrow
Warlord
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2006
- Messages
- 204
A couple things would have helped at Rha. 1. After sending troops to take Ajax, up the eco slider to regrow them (when I started, the planet was still quite a ways from full--meaning less production, less missile base building). 2. Leaving some of the WMDs at Rha to defend. We had 5 of them sitting at Mentar, 1 turn to far to be of use, and 20 more between Ajax and Tauri. If you had seen the Sakkra fleet coming, you could have forwarded whatever was at Mentar, and recalled part of the Ajax fleet to help defend. Of course, if we had ISS then, you would have seen them coming a long way off, and known exactly when they would arrive.
Then again, 50 Hydras really is a SoD at this stage of the game. They are heavily armored and shielded, have move 2, and death spores bypass our shields (their beams were pretty ineffective vs. our bases). Even if we had 20 bases, that would only mean 4-5 destroyed per turn, so we'd need 10 turns to take them all out. By then, they would have unloaded all their spores. I guess what we really needed was to stumble upon Antidote tech while they were en route.
Also, the end result wasn't a total loss. We were able to restart the planet with all factories intact, and we killed 46 of those Hydras. In the meantime, we took out Tauri (including the factories), and the Lizards still haven't restarted it.
Then again, 50 Hydras really is a SoD at this stage of the game. They are heavily armored and shielded, have move 2, and death spores bypass our shields (their beams were pretty ineffective vs. our bases). Even if we had 20 bases, that would only mean 4-5 destroyed per turn, so we'd need 10 turns to take them all out. By then, they would have unloaded all their spores. I guess what we really needed was to stumble upon Antidote tech while they were en route.
Also, the end result wasn't a total loss. We were able to restart the planet with all factories intact, and we killed 46 of those Hydras. In the meantime, we took out Tauri (including the factories), and the Lizards still haven't restarted it.
Turn 0:
18% spending on ships. Crikey. I decide to switch our ship building planet to reserves.
Repsular Beam comes in on about turn 3. Shield V.
About turn 5 and the voices in the bears head start playing up, and it's to war! Good thing Obacca just maxed out.
Actually the cited reason for the war was "The conjunction of the planets", it was in the horoscopes huh?
"A new year brings new challenges. But lets face it, you can't handle those challenges. So take out your frustration by beating up some nerds"
The bears are still slow, with only nuclear engines. Their shield tech is still ABYSMAL. They do however have merculites. They have no ships in the immediate area, so I don't bother with any additional weapon buildup, beyond increasing our missile base count on the less-defended world from 1 to 5ish.
Range 8 comes in and next up (sigh) Warp Dissipater. Then it's range 9, then FINALLY a real engine!
We also lose contact with the Humans.
The Bears send a big SoD of Claws (50 ships) to the radiated world where it is met by 5 WMD's, about a dozen fall before running out of missiles.
Zortium Armor comes in! Woo! -> Ind5
Antimatter Bombs -> Stingers!!!
On my final turn, BCIV comes in -> ECM IV, next up after that, RC IV
The lizards also have a parting gift for me. A peace treaty? Don't mind if I do!
State of the Empire and such:
There's a nice spud-farm in the middle of the map. This seems to be keeping the AI's pretty busy.
We are at war with the bears only. The bears weapons are pretty bad and their shields are terrible.
Rha now has a shield and missile base up. Ajax doesn't, but it is nearly ready to start pumping resources into defenses.
We can now design a Zortium and Repulsar Beam large. Unfortunately, it still must be nuclear powered.
I haven't designed a ship, I'll leave that for the next player (preferably with some discussion) but here is a tentative design to give some idea of space and component availability:
Given the power of the neutron blaster and the low shield tech, it doesn't seem needed to have bombs. The bears in particular will get badly abused by beamers.
Unfortunately pretty much everyone is using range 2 beamers so the repulsar beam doesn't do MUCH for us, but it will do some, like keeping spore ships and ion cannon stacks at bay. There will nearly always be SOMETHING which wants to get up close and personal.
The missile rack serves an obvious and exploitive purpose, it's just filling the gap. We could fill the gap with a bomb, but the ability to use yoyo tactics will have a much greater impact.
I think our goal should be to take Ursa and stand it up. Given all the bioweapons flying around and our already prohibitive fleet spending, the investment to stand up a planet is huge, so we only want the best. Also although we are +5 in Gropo over the bears, they are still +20 over us, so we probably have to nuke them from orbit and start over. Then again we do have Obacca on hand for very large pop deliveries and the possibility of using bioweapons to prune bear worlds down to size. Bioweapons should possibly not be overlooked here - altough we don't need the shield-ignoring ability (bears have no shields), we could benefit from getting the factories intact. I'd be leery of using the tech-stealing exploit here (seems contrary to the variant) - as in, we can choose to bioweapon them, but in that case we annihilate the population and start over. If we want to try and take tech, we have to do it the expensive way.
We can build a deathspore brick (all defensive toys) with 15 spores, against the bears it should have a good 80% tohit, meaning a single large can take out 60 bears per combat. Or getting 10 in range will instantly annihilate the population. These ships wont work against the lizards (antidote) but the investment may well be small enough to justify using them just to neutralize the bears and make their territory habitable for us.
Oh the save? I knew I was forgetting something...
18% spending on ships. Crikey. I decide to switch our ship building planet to reserves.
Repsular Beam comes in on about turn 3. Shield V.
About turn 5 and the voices in the bears head start playing up, and it's to war! Good thing Obacca just maxed out.
Actually the cited reason for the war was "The conjunction of the planets", it was in the horoscopes huh?
"A new year brings new challenges. But lets face it, you can't handle those challenges. So take out your frustration by beating up some nerds"
The bears are still slow, with only nuclear engines. Their shield tech is still ABYSMAL. They do however have merculites. They have no ships in the immediate area, so I don't bother with any additional weapon buildup, beyond increasing our missile base count on the less-defended world from 1 to 5ish.
Range 8 comes in and next up (sigh) Warp Dissipater. Then it's range 9, then FINALLY a real engine!
We also lose contact with the Humans.
The Bears send a big SoD of Claws (50 ships) to the radiated world where it is met by 5 WMD's, about a dozen fall before running out of missiles.
Zortium Armor comes in! Woo! -> Ind5
Antimatter Bombs -> Stingers!!!
On my final turn, BCIV comes in -> ECM IV, next up after that, RC IV
The lizards also have a parting gift for me. A peace treaty? Don't mind if I do!
State of the Empire and such:
There's a nice spud-farm in the middle of the map. This seems to be keeping the AI's pretty busy.
We are at war with the bears only. The bears weapons are pretty bad and their shields are terrible.
Rha now has a shield and missile base up. Ajax doesn't, but it is nearly ready to start pumping resources into defenses.
We can now design a Zortium and Repulsar Beam large. Unfortunately, it still must be nuclear powered.
I haven't designed a ship, I'll leave that for the next player (preferably with some discussion) but here is a tentative design to give some idea of space and component availability:
Given the power of the neutron blaster and the low shield tech, it doesn't seem needed to have bombs. The bears in particular will get badly abused by beamers.
Unfortunately pretty much everyone is using range 2 beamers so the repulsar beam doesn't do MUCH for us, but it will do some, like keeping spore ships and ion cannon stacks at bay. There will nearly always be SOMETHING which wants to get up close and personal.
The missile rack serves an obvious and exploitive purpose, it's just filling the gap. We could fill the gap with a bomb, but the ability to use yoyo tactics will have a much greater impact.
I think our goal should be to take Ursa and stand it up. Given all the bioweapons flying around and our already prohibitive fleet spending, the investment to stand up a planet is huge, so we only want the best. Also although we are +5 in Gropo over the bears, they are still +20 over us, so we probably have to nuke them from orbit and start over. Then again we do have Obacca on hand for very large pop deliveries and the possibility of using bioweapons to prune bear worlds down to size. Bioweapons should possibly not be overlooked here - altough we don't need the shield-ignoring ability (bears have no shields), we could benefit from getting the factories intact. I'd be leery of using the tech-stealing exploit here (seems contrary to the variant) - as in, we can choose to bioweapon them, but in that case we annihilate the population and start over. If we want to try and take tech, we have to do it the expensive way.
We can build a deathspore brick (all defensive toys) with 15 spores, against the bears it should have a good 80% tohit, meaning a single large can take out 60 bears per combat. Or getting 10 in range will instantly annihilate the population. These ships wont work against the lizards (antidote) but the investment may well be small enough to justify using them just to neutralize the bears and make their territory habitable for us.
Oh the save? I knew I was forgetting something...
OlorinStormcrow
Warlord
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2006
- Messages
- 204
I really hope that was a typo, and that you meant you went from ship-building to tech, not reserves...
Taking Ursa would be a bold stroke...I think I might like it. It would be really tough getting enough boots on the ground to take out the Bears though. We could send half of Mentar, and have half of Obaca meet them en route, and perhaps send another round from Obaca to either finish the assault, or pop up the planet. Just how big is Ursa?
As to ship design, I'd advise keeping the repulsor design strictly in a defensive role (build enough to station a couple at each front line world, but don't use them for offense). That means a bomb is unnecessary, and perhaps instead of a missile, we could add in some heavy ions for extra firepower.
Another ship design that might come in handy would be a large with manuever 2 and IS to give it speed 3, and then loaded to the max with fusion bombs. Add some of those to an assault on Ursa, and it will accomplish one of two things: a) Ursa has lots of bases, and shoots down the bombers before they get in range...but the WMDs have a few free turns to unload their missiles before coming under fire. b) Some of the bombers reach orbit and put a large hurt on the Bear bases (fusion bombs vs. poor shields? ouch)
Part a) is crucial to the success of taking Ursa, as we need enough ships to survive the fight to fight off the rest of the Bear fleet. Also, given the slow speed of our troop transports, and the Bear innate ground advantage, plus the 5 point defender bonus, I would shoot for at least a 3 to 1 ratio of our troops to theirs. We not only need to win, but have enough pop left to stand the planet up fast (the 3:1 ratio need not all arrive on the same turn).
Archduke, since your up next, if you want to go for Ursa, you'll have to set it up for me (as it will take more than 10 turns to get troops to Ursa from our core). What I need is some info on the strength of the Bear bases and fleet by pounding Kakata (which will also serve as a good rally point for our fleet). I also need you to send one ship over to Ursa and have them get a count of the missile bases and population so we know how many ships and troops will be needed.
If trying to take Ursa sounds too risky, we can also look at the situation at Tauri. Have the Sakkra restarted it? If we can get there before them and colonize it, our peace treaty should give us enough breathing room to stand it up (as I don't think any other races can reach it). If you go this route for your turn, see if you can still glass Kakata and scout Ursa in the meantime, so I have enough intel to decide if it's worth the massive investment to try and take it.
--Olorin
Taking Ursa would be a bold stroke...I think I might like it. It would be really tough getting enough boots on the ground to take out the Bears though. We could send half of Mentar, and have half of Obaca meet them en route, and perhaps send another round from Obaca to either finish the assault, or pop up the planet. Just how big is Ursa?
As to ship design, I'd advise keeping the repulsor design strictly in a defensive role (build enough to station a couple at each front line world, but don't use them for offense). That means a bomb is unnecessary, and perhaps instead of a missile, we could add in some heavy ions for extra firepower.
Another ship design that might come in handy would be a large with manuever 2 and IS to give it speed 3, and then loaded to the max with fusion bombs. Add some of those to an assault on Ursa, and it will accomplish one of two things: a) Ursa has lots of bases, and shoots down the bombers before they get in range...but the WMDs have a few free turns to unload their missiles before coming under fire. b) Some of the bombers reach orbit and put a large hurt on the Bear bases (fusion bombs vs. poor shields? ouch)
Part a) is crucial to the success of taking Ursa, as we need enough ships to survive the fight to fight off the rest of the Bear fleet. Also, given the slow speed of our troop transports, and the Bear innate ground advantage, plus the 5 point defender bonus, I would shoot for at least a 3 to 1 ratio of our troops to theirs. We not only need to win, but have enough pop left to stand the planet up fast (the 3:1 ratio need not all arrive on the same turn).
Archduke, since your up next, if you want to go for Ursa, you'll have to set it up for me (as it will take more than 10 turns to get troops to Ursa from our core). What I need is some info on the strength of the Bear bases and fleet by pounding Kakata (which will also serve as a good rally point for our fleet). I also need you to send one ship over to Ursa and have them get a count of the missile bases and population so we know how many ships and troops will be needed.
If trying to take Ursa sounds too risky, we can also look at the situation at Tauri. Have the Sakkra restarted it? If we can get there before them and colonize it, our peace treaty should give us enough breathing room to stand it up (as I don't think any other races can reach it). If you go this route for your turn, see if you can still glass Kakata and scout Ursa in the meantime, so I have enough intel to decide if it's worth the massive investment to try and take it.
--Olorin
At the time Mentar was the only planet building ships (Obacca was still building up from being fertilized) so that's what shifting from "ship-building to reserves" entailed. I put about 5 turns of production from Mentar into reserves, all dumped immediately into Rha or Ajax.
OlorinStormcrow
Warlord
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2006
- Messages
- 204
That explains it. I had nightmares of half our planets pumping the reserves for some unknown future use. Having Mentar help stand up the new colonies was a good use of reserves, as the Sakkra were still at war at the time.
TheArchduke
Feeling at home..
I am very inclined to try to spore Ursa down and recolonize it immeaditily with a colony ship on our own, instead of trying for an actual ground fight.
Imo, also against badly shielded Bears Blast Cannons, especially heavy would be a waste. I would opt for nicely shielded/anti-missile fast larges with Ion Cannons, 1-2 Scatters as support with 1-2 Spores equipped.
Or split our production between a spore design and one Ion cannon design. I am very inclined to try a stab at Ursa, too, maybe using the Artifact World of the Bears as a staging point and taking it whilst on our way on Ursa?
A ground assault with a 3:1 loss ration imo, never ever pays off, especially not as our core world need to pay much in ecology to reproduce. Add that assaulting the world is a HUGE gamble, much can go wrong, whilst sporing in the worst case, puts the bears back heavily. Also, we can use a nicely timed 40 pop transport together with a spore/colonize attack to have a world setup.
Normally I am against Spores, but against our ruthless, always war neighbours? We shouldn´t care.
Waiting for some more discussion before I play today.
P.S.: Playing with Dosbox here on the country, damn Moo has an iffy sound.
Imo, also against badly shielded Bears Blast Cannons, especially heavy would be a waste. I would opt for nicely shielded/anti-missile fast larges with Ion Cannons, 1-2 Scatters as support with 1-2 Spores equipped.
Or split our production between a spore design and one Ion cannon design. I am very inclined to try a stab at Ursa, too, maybe using the Artifact World of the Bears as a staging point and taking it whilst on our way on Ursa?
A ground assault with a 3:1 loss ration imo, never ever pays off, especially not as our core world need to pay much in ecology to reproduce. Add that assaulting the world is a HUGE gamble, much can go wrong, whilst sporing in the worst case, puts the bears back heavily. Also, we can use a nicely timed 40 pop transport together with a spore/colonize attack to have a world setup.
Normally I am against Spores, but against our ruthless, always war neighbours? We shouldn´t care.
Waiting for some more discussion before I play today.
P.S.: Playing with Dosbox here on the country, damn Moo has an iffy sound.
OlorinStormcrow
Warlord
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2006
- Messages
- 204
I turn off the music in DosBox, and just use the sound fx.
If we are going to go the spore first route (which is fine by me), then I would be inclined to take that artifact world first, stand it up, and then move on to Ursa. It would keep us from establishing an outpost in the middle of enemy territory. Along the way, you could spore out Kakata, and leave it empty, and maybe even poach Tauri from the Sakkra in the South.
On my turn, I can finish setting up the Artifact planet, and look at either mounting a spore/colonize attack on Ursa, or perhaps just take out a couple of enemy worlds, and turn them into tiny spuds.
It would probably depend on how close Radiated bases and RC4 are in the tech tree. Radiated will give us two new worlds to colonize (one UR!), while RC4 would mean a full round of factory construction--in either case, I'd leave Ursa for later, and use the fleet either to do some hit and run attacks, or to defend the new radiateds, depending on the situation.
So my advice would be to hold off on Ursa, given that it would cost us a lot of ships to get past their bases, and we are coming up on two techs that will require significant investments at home, so we don't want to incur heavy losses in the near term. After the RC4 and Radiateds are taking care off, we'll be able to afford the upkeep on a bigger fleet, and hopefully, those engines will be available by then.
By then we should be able to field multiple fleets that can take and hold planets, and will have more pop available (and faster transports) to pull off some ground assaults (though maybe the Sakkra will be a better target by then).
If we are going to go the spore first route (which is fine by me), then I would be inclined to take that artifact world first, stand it up, and then move on to Ursa. It would keep us from establishing an outpost in the middle of enemy territory. Along the way, you could spore out Kakata, and leave it empty, and maybe even poach Tauri from the Sakkra in the South.
On my turn, I can finish setting up the Artifact planet, and look at either mounting a spore/colonize attack on Ursa, or perhaps just take out a couple of enemy worlds, and turn them into tiny spuds.
It would probably depend on how close Radiated bases and RC4 are in the tech tree. Radiated will give us two new worlds to colonize (one UR!), while RC4 would mean a full round of factory construction--in either case, I'd leave Ursa for later, and use the fleet either to do some hit and run attacks, or to defend the new radiateds, depending on the situation.
So my advice would be to hold off on Ursa, given that it would cost us a lot of ships to get past their bases, and we are coming up on two techs that will require significant investments at home, so we don't want to incur heavy losses in the near term. After the RC4 and Radiateds are taking care off, we'll be able to afford the upkeep on a bigger fleet, and hopefully, those engines will be available by then.
By then we should be able to field multiple fleets that can take and hold planets, and will have more pop available (and faster transports) to pull off some ground assaults (though maybe the Sakkra will be a better target by then).
If we are going to go the spore route I would suggest cultivating a spud farm. In other words, take a stack or two capable of gassing a planet in a single turn and fly around systematically exterminating the bear worlds. Gas ALL their worlds, or at least all the worlds we can reach. They'll be forced to disband their fleet, and unable to stand up any new worlds. What's more, there will be so many worlds up for the taking (spuds') that we will be able to stand up a few choice worlds relatively unmolested.
The success of this strategy will really depend on how few ships we can lose to gas each bear world. Given their lack of shields we have two possible tacts in taking out their worlds - fly the beamers/bombers up and pulverize the defenses, or spore them out and retreat, leaving the bases intact (only to die along with the colony). The other stack can give the missiles the run-around. And again the main reason to use sporers is so that we get the factories intact. I think that it's worth sacrificing about 3-4 large ships per intact world - factories ARE getting pretty cheap but a new world's development is so much faster with an existing factory base (so I'd say that it's fine to spend ~2x the BC in ships built at mature worlds as what it takes to rebuild the factories).
For ship design / fleet composition we could go with a large number of beam/bomb ships, destroy the bases then slowly spore them out with a small spore stack (2-3 ships), or have a large spore stack (~10 ships) which instantly eliminates the entirely pop and can then retreat. The large spore stack will be quicker and generally cleaner, but it will be less future-proof, our next campaign will likely be against the lizards and only beam/bomb will be effective there.
The success of this strategy will really depend on how few ships we can lose to gas each bear world. Given their lack of shields we have two possible tacts in taking out their worlds - fly the beamers/bombers up and pulverize the defenses, or spore them out and retreat, leaving the bases intact (only to die along with the colony). The other stack can give the missiles the run-around. And again the main reason to use sporers is so that we get the factories intact. I think that it's worth sacrificing about 3-4 large ships per intact world - factories ARE getting pretty cheap but a new world's development is so much faster with an existing factory base (so I'd say that it's fine to spend ~2x the BC in ships built at mature worlds as what it takes to rebuild the factories).
For ship design / fleet composition we could go with a large number of beam/bomb ships, destroy the bases then slowly spore them out with a small spore stack (2-3 ships), or have a large spore stack (~10 ships) which instantly eliminates the entirely pop and can then retreat. The large spore stack will be quicker and generally cleaner, but it will be less future-proof, our next campaign will likely be against the lizards and only beam/bomb will be effective there.
TheArchduke
Feeling at home..
Ok, I will try my hands at a new Beams/Bombs design and one Spore/1-2 Scatter V design. I try to take the artifact planet and prepare for an assault on Ursa for the next player.
TheArchduke
Feeling at home..
Turn 1
I design Spore 1.0 with Spores/Scatter/Beams and a bit heavier Beams/Scatter/Bomb ship named Ion 1.0 as support. I leave 5 WMD on each southern planet as defence and try to gather a fleet up in the north.
Turn 2
Silicoid Colony ship scared away. Sakkras steal Hyver-V Rockets (Ouch, well no nuclear from now on) and Terra +30 comes in. Bio Toxin Antidote comes next.
Turn 3
Hit turn.
Turn 4
Not much happens.
Turn 5
Not much happens.
Turn 6
Ajax is maxed out, I immeaditly order shields and bases. I assemble the fleet and attack Xengara and Kataka as the Bulrathi fleet just sailed away.
Turn 7
Ajax finishes shield. Kataka is nearly glassed but I got 2 WMD losses as the Bears got MERCULITEs.. That´s not good. Xengara is occupied by my fleet, transports incoming.
Turn 8
Big suprise, biological weapons are bad. My fleet goes back to Xengara as the Bears go there.
Turn 9
Turn
Turn 10
Bear fleet fought off, Xengara should be ours in 2 turns. Bears lost one huge and some large, we lost one spore ship.
I design Spore 1.0 with Spores/Scatter/Beams and a bit heavier Beams/Scatter/Bomb ship named Ion 1.0 as support. I leave 5 WMD on each southern planet as defence and try to gather a fleet up in the north.
Turn 2
Silicoid Colony ship scared away. Sakkras steal Hyver-V Rockets (Ouch, well no nuclear from now on) and Terra +30 comes in. Bio Toxin Antidote comes next.
Turn 3
Hit turn.
Turn 4
Not much happens.
Turn 5
Not much happens.
Turn 6
Ajax is maxed out, I immeaditly order shields and bases. I assemble the fleet and attack Xengara and Kataka as the Bulrathi fleet just sailed away.
Turn 7
Ajax finishes shield. Kataka is nearly glassed but I got 2 WMD losses as the Bears got MERCULITEs.. That´s not good. Xengara is occupied by my fleet, transports incoming.
Turn 8
Big suprise, biological weapons are bad. My fleet goes back to Xengara as the Bears go there.
Turn 9
Turn
Turn 10
Bear fleet fought off, Xengara should be ours in 2 turns. Bears lost one huge and some large, we lost one spore ship.
OlorinStormcrow
Warlord
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2006
- Messages
- 204
Pre-turn: Somehow the save is from 2471, so I only have 9 turns to play, oh well.
I see that Rha now has 22 bases, so I switch to tech (Sakkra at peaceful at the moment). I move some ships from Obaca to Kakata to destroy it. I see we have 50 troops inbound to Xengara.
2472: Bad luck at Xengara. Bears had 18 pop, 4 factories and I didn't know how much our bombers would hit for, so I didn't bombard. Our 50 troops only killed 17 of the Bears. They won with a single pop point left! This was with exactly equal tech, but they had racial and defender bonus.
I order Obaca to build a Col 2, and to send some more pop to Xengara. I also allocate some eco spending, because pop was not being regrown from last assault
Since the transports take 6 turns, I can build the Col 2, glass Xengara, and then get the Col 2 there and establish it before our transports arrive (thus speeding up the pop transfer to new colony). I only send 17 because the spores have reduced the planet to 21 max.
2473: Fleet at Xengara kills both a Bulrathi and a Silicoid Huge.
2473: More Silicoid and Sakkra ships repelled at Xengara (this happened every couple of turns for awhile). My small task force arrives to glass Kakata, after which the Bears offer peace. I accept because we need time to stand up Xengara, and I've already destroyed Kakata, which was my other goal. Ursa has too many Merculite bases to be worth going after now.
I check the planet screen and notice that ship upkeep is 20.6%. I scrap the two old def designs, and the 6 spore ships that we built (no offense for awhile, and scrapping the first two barely dented upkeep). Upkeep is down to 16.9%, I need both the Ions and WMDs to guard Xengara and the radiateds. At least the Col 2 will be gone soon
2475: FF5 arrives, Personal Absorb next.
The vote is well split--Sakkra (11) get Bears (3) while Silicoids (8) get Humans (4). The Alkari (1) and we (7) abstain. As long as we stay in third place, no one can win.
2476: Xengara is founded, and we meet the Alkari (1PE) I get a min trade with them, though they already like us (probably from hurting the Bears).
2477: Warp dissipator and Stingers pop, Range 9 (then Warp 5!!!) and Hard Beams (Omega V, Fus. Rifle, and Megabolt coming). I don't worry about designing a Stinger ship, as our maintenance is already high. I leave most of our efforts on teching.
2478: Colonists arrive on Xengara and begin terraforming. I give them a slug of the reserves to help them out.
2479: 12 of the more advanced Sakkra larges arrive at Xengara. They are packing Hvy and standard Fusion beams, along with Merc missiles. We lose 5 ships taking all of them out (upkeep drops to 12.9%
) I check the Human tech, and decide to trade them Warp Dissipator for Adv. Scanners. This will let us look at all the nearby worlds to check their pop and base counts.
2480: IIT5 comes in, armored exo next (then Andrium). ECM4 and Antidote are overdue (around 20%
)
We get a look at lots of planets. The Sakkra are obviously in 1st due to their Adv Soil Enrich. Vega is particularly attractive as a future target; a Gaia Ultra-Rich
Post-turn: Comps and Planetology should pop right away, and the next techs in those fields are RC4 and Radiated bases!! We should keep firmly invested in tech for the next few decades to bring in those two techs. We are also researching Range 9, and Warp 5 engines are next. I'm going to advise we wait to do anymore ship building (besides RadCols) until we tech up to those engines. In the meantime, we have an Artifact planet to stand up, and we can even consider popping out a Col 2 and getting Kakata (we control airspace, not much in terms of AI fleets inbound). If you take Kakata, just don't build any factories (it's Poor). Use it as a population grower, and defend it with ships. If someone does attack it, with no factories, they can't steal tech. But since we are at peace (for the moment) with everyone, we might be able to hold it and fill it with pop (then factories might be worthwhile, or it can contribute to tech). Once we have the new engines, a full Kakata would be a great benefit when we take some more of the Bulrathi worlds.
We now have Antidotes, but Sakkras have upgraded to Terminators, which can still kill 1M past the Antidote. And the Rocks are packing the Doom Virus!! So don't get complacent if bio-weapons are brought against us.
I think that our long term strategy should be to wait for the RC4 to increase our production, the Radiated bases to give us two new worlds (more pop and production). Then the Warp 5 engines will allow us to design ships with combat speed 4, which mean reaching the planet on turn 2. A large with spd 4 and Omega V or AM bombs would be able to put the hurt on AI planets, but take minimal losses because they could destroy the bases on turn 2 (if we can get our initiative, comp level + battle scanner, higher than the missile bases' inititative, that means only 1 volley of planetary missile to have to eat). With good bombers, and some good missile/beam ships to take out enemy ships, we can go on a major offensive. Take out most of the planets we can reach (esp. the Sakkra ones), then move the fleet to the juiciest targets (like Vega), and take it and fortify it before the next round of destruction. Actually, if we can get a few of the AIs to join us in a war with the Sakkra, we can bomb out as many of them as we can reach, take their better planets for ourselves, and then win by election. We won't be there yet by 2500 (we'll hopefully be finishing up our factory upgrade and setting up those Rad planets around then). 2525 might be possible, if we get the engine tech in time.
I see that Rha now has 22 bases, so I switch to tech (Sakkra at peaceful at the moment). I move some ships from Obaca to Kakata to destroy it. I see we have 50 troops inbound to Xengara.
2472: Bad luck at Xengara. Bears had 18 pop, 4 factories and I didn't know how much our bombers would hit for, so I didn't bombard. Our 50 troops only killed 17 of the Bears. They won with a single pop point left! This was with exactly equal tech, but they had racial and defender bonus.
I order Obaca to build a Col 2, and to send some more pop to Xengara. I also allocate some eco spending, because pop was not being regrown from last assault
Since the transports take 6 turns, I can build the Col 2, glass Xengara, and then get the Col 2 there and establish it before our transports arrive (thus speeding up the pop transfer to new colony). I only send 17 because the spores have reduced the planet to 21 max.
2473: Fleet at Xengara kills both a Bulrathi and a Silicoid Huge.
2473: More Silicoid and Sakkra ships repelled at Xengara (this happened every couple of turns for awhile). My small task force arrives to glass Kakata, after which the Bears offer peace. I accept because we need time to stand up Xengara, and I've already destroyed Kakata, which was my other goal. Ursa has too many Merculite bases to be worth going after now.
I check the planet screen and notice that ship upkeep is 20.6%. I scrap the two old def designs, and the 6 spore ships that we built (no offense for awhile, and scrapping the first two barely dented upkeep). Upkeep is down to 16.9%, I need both the Ions and WMDs to guard Xengara and the radiateds. At least the Col 2 will be gone soon
2475: FF5 arrives, Personal Absorb next.
The vote is well split--Sakkra (11) get Bears (3) while Silicoids (8) get Humans (4). The Alkari (1) and we (7) abstain. As long as we stay in third place, no one can win.
2476: Xengara is founded, and we meet the Alkari (1PE) I get a min trade with them, though they already like us (probably from hurting the Bears).
2477: Warp dissipator and Stingers pop, Range 9 (then Warp 5!!!) and Hard Beams (Omega V, Fus. Rifle, and Megabolt coming). I don't worry about designing a Stinger ship, as our maintenance is already high. I leave most of our efforts on teching.
2478: Colonists arrive on Xengara and begin terraforming. I give them a slug of the reserves to help them out.
2479: 12 of the more advanced Sakkra larges arrive at Xengara. They are packing Hvy and standard Fusion beams, along with Merc missiles. We lose 5 ships taking all of them out (upkeep drops to 12.9%
) I check the Human tech, and decide to trade them Warp Dissipator for Adv. Scanners. This will let us look at all the nearby worlds to check their pop and base counts.2480: IIT5 comes in, armored exo next (then Andrium). ECM4 and Antidote are overdue (around 20%
)We get a look at lots of planets. The Sakkra are obviously in 1st due to their Adv Soil Enrich. Vega is particularly attractive as a future target; a Gaia Ultra-Rich
Post-turn: Comps and Planetology should pop right away, and the next techs in those fields are RC4 and Radiated bases!! We should keep firmly invested in tech for the next few decades to bring in those two techs. We are also researching Range 9, and Warp 5 engines are next. I'm going to advise we wait to do anymore ship building (besides RadCols) until we tech up to those engines. In the meantime, we have an Artifact planet to stand up, and we can even consider popping out a Col 2 and getting Kakata (we control airspace, not much in terms of AI fleets inbound). If you take Kakata, just don't build any factories (it's Poor). Use it as a population grower, and defend it with ships. If someone does attack it, with no factories, they can't steal tech. But since we are at peace (for the moment) with everyone, we might be able to hold it and fill it with pop (then factories might be worthwhile, or it can contribute to tech). Once we have the new engines, a full Kakata would be a great benefit when we take some more of the Bulrathi worlds.
We now have Antidotes, but Sakkras have upgraded to Terminators, which can still kill 1M past the Antidote. And the Rocks are packing the Doom Virus!! So don't get complacent if bio-weapons are brought against us.
I think that our long term strategy should be to wait for the RC4 to increase our production, the Radiated bases to give us two new worlds (more pop and production). Then the Warp 5 engines will allow us to design ships with combat speed 4, which mean reaching the planet on turn 2. A large with spd 4 and Omega V or AM bombs would be able to put the hurt on AI planets, but take minimal losses because they could destroy the bases on turn 2 (if we can get our initiative, comp level + battle scanner, higher than the missile bases' inititative, that means only 1 volley of planetary missile to have to eat). With good bombers, and some good missile/beam ships to take out enemy ships, we can go on a major offensive. Take out most of the planets we can reach (esp. the Sakkra ones), then move the fleet to the juiciest targets (like Vega), and take it and fortify it before the next round of destruction. Actually, if we can get a few of the AIs to join us in a war with the Sakkra, we can bomb out as many of them as we can reach, take their better planets for ourselves, and then win by election. We won't be there yet by 2500 (we'll hopefully be finishing up our factory upgrade and setting up those Rad planets around then). 2525 might be possible, if we get the engine tech in time.
TheArchduke
Feeling at home..
Nice work. Shame about the Spore Ships, were they badly designed or was upkeep really killing us?
In any case, with a second artificat planet and radiated soon in, I think we should turtle up for those engines, too. All other AIs are very slow, so this would give us a huge advantage..
In any case, with a second artificat planet and radiated soon in, I think we should turtle up for those engines, too. All other AIs are very slow, so this would give us a huge advantage..
OlorinStormcrow
Warlord
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2006
- Messages
- 204
The spores were a decent design, but the upkeep was killing our economy, and they were the least useful for defense. Since the plan is to turtle for awhile, we didn't need them anymore (if we want to make a bombing run on a lightly defended world in the meantime, the ions have AM bombs, which should get the job done).
Meanwhile in the universe of Us getting Pwned.
Human have Planetary Shield X and Shield VII :boggle:
THe Sakkra's have added RCV to their arsenal of economic techs. Thank god they aren't trading tech with the humans! Their shields are still the suck.
I'm pretty sure I could take down the bears with stingers.
Turn 1:
The Sakkras call and say "To quote a famous Sakkra author, 'Cry Havoc, and let slip the dogs of war!'". Unfortunately it is not in fact poetry night, and we are now at war with the Lizards.
I take another look at Sakkra tech, I note that their Gropo is better than ours, but it wont be once we have Personal Absorption Shield and Armored Exoskeleton. Otherwise their shields are crappy and their weapons are nearly as crappy, but not quite. I fear however that with their rocking economic techs what they lack in quality they'll make up for in quantity...
I note that the humans will trade Repuslar beam for Planetary X shield. However I pass on this trade since our shields are already good enough. I will however keep a look out for the humans getting a more attractive tech...
I call up the Rocks and they are willing to offer... Ion Rifle, for... Industrial 5, or other potentially more dangerous techs. I figure the deal wont go anywhere so I hold off on it, but we might want to make that trade before our next gropo engagement.
Considering that humans are flying around with shields which our current designs can't hurt, I'm sorely tempted to design a ship which CAN hurt human ships.
In fact I go ahead and do that. Designing a beast of pure Heavy Blasters and Stingers. Designed to put holes in things which are resistant to being holed.
ECM IV -> RC IV
Humans attack at the poor:
Our Ions are NOT a good match for the shield 5 design, and it was only the humans lack of armor and computer which enabled our 5 Ion's to beat the attack off, losing only 2 ions. I'm definitely making a ship with more punch, wont mass produce them, just get a few as insurance against human attacks. The Humans CAN design much worse, if they want to.
biotoxin comes in -> Radiated.
I found th colony on Kataka and deliver some pop from Obacca.
I notice that Altair is going to get glassed, soon. We might be able to ninja that once it becomes a spud... (doing the glassing ourselves would seem to be unwise).
Speaking of human ships, the humans declare war on us.. citing insufferable acts of terrorism. Listen budd we don't have any Weapons of Mass Destruction. They are flying canned tuna factories!
I notice a Dead Ultra Rich sitting vacant! We can ninja that! I scrounge together a fleet we can ill afford to NOT have sitting around on defensive duty, but hey, ultra rich up for the taking... I can only hope we can get on it when the Rocks aren't.
The Bears call up to decalre war on us. Citing interference, possibly alien mind control. Whatever the latest irrational kooky craze is.
On my second to last turn, the Birds call up and declare war! I'm a popular guy!
Final Turn:
Bulrathi's turn up at Kataka with 2 Huges. Staring down the barrels of 28 Heavy Fusion Beams backed by lvl5 Attack, I have my ships retreat! Our WMD's can handle bears huges no problem, but oopsies, no WMD's at Kataka!
So we lose Kataka... Too bad. But a poor world was not to be anyway.
I feel we do though have a shot at getting Toranor the Dead Ultra Rich!
Here's the deal:
On the right side are our military assets.
But incoming is a big ass stack of Lizards. Now that's one of their warp-1 specials, so what I suggest doing is just hanging in orbit (retreat but waypoint back) and settle the world once it's gone away. It'll take a good 10 turns to get back and by then we should have some bases up.
Also the ships which retreated from Kataka have been directed to Toranor.
Okay here's the deal on tactics:
WMD's are still the best ship against bears, the bears have poor shields and wicked firepower. You want to pin down bear ships and blow them up with scatters. Bears are the only ones with nuclear engines, everyone else is still being all retro.
The Sting's are mostly to deal with the low-damage high-defense human specials, the humans have large stacks of the defense 5 design, and they could potentially design things which are completely immune to WMD's and nearly immune to Ions. Stings also have autorepair making them not bad for eating missiles.
Cross a Human ship with a Bear ship and you get a Rock ship. Rocks have Megabolt in addition to Fusion Beams and nearly as much shielding as humans. As soon as we get our radiated worlds colonized we should sign a NAP with the rocks. We also need to keep an eye out for them allying with one of our enemies (anyone else...).
The Lizards military tech is basically bad, but they do have a fearsomely strong economy... according to status they have the strongest fleet, but it's likely in real power the rocks and probably bears are actually stronger because the Sakkra military tech just sucks. But still, sheer numbers can achieve a lot.
In happy news we'll soon have a total of +30 extra Gropo over what we have now. That'll enable us to bring the beatdown to pretty much any race, even going toe to toe with the bears, we should be about +5 up on them. The best bang for buck however will be found on the lizard worlds, with their high level of Robotic Controls we'll only have to take a couple of worlds to get nearly all their tech, once we have Advanced Soil Enrichment it's all over. We'll have ~ +15 gropo over them so it wont be too hard. Do try and make that Ion Rifle trade with the rocks if/when it shows up again. That'll give us +25 over the lizards.
Another note, I have one world on Reserves, that world is Paranar the size 90 Minimal. I neglected to feed Xengara the last couple of turns, probably do that also I suggest immediately getting the defenses up on Xengara, it's big enough now that with reserves it'll get a shield and a base up in 2-3 turns and that'll help a lot. It may be the only chance the world has against a shield 7 human attack, or a bear attack, or a lizard SoD attack.
Once(/if?) Toranor is founded it'll want to be babysat with reserve pumpage and a stream of pop from X, in the hope of standing it up before an unbeatable SoD turns up, start building defenses at I dunno, about 30 population w/ factories, being Ultra Rich that's the same as a maxed size 90 world. Whether we can get Toranor up is pretty iffy, if the AI turns up with a fleet containing 100+ Heavy Guns, then nothing will save the world, that much firepower does 1000 damage a volley once it gets in range, erasing our entire fleet in just a few rounds, if such a fleet turns up just retreat. But we might get lucky and get some bases up (especially since our enemies are mostly moving at warp 1 still). It'll only take a few turns to get like 30 bases up on an ultra rich w/ reserves so it's definitely worth a shot and that UR will help a lot more than any other potential world.
One other thing I might reccomend is designing a repulsar beam ship and sending one to each of our lizard frontline worlds. Having a full complement of 5 designs is not a bad idea since it makes it easy to block death ships. I probably should have made the Sting a repulsar ship but oh well. Once we have real engines we'll want to scrap pretty much everything (besides shield tech rapidly obsoleting them) so I don't think making a few of a new design is a big deal. If a repulsar ship is the difference between getting Toranor up or not then it's well worth it.
(Corr! This took long enough considering the instructions I received were basically "End turn and wait for tech to come in", but I wasn't about to do that with the opportunity to gain new worlds ).
Mostly, Good Luck! With some of that we can get Toranor up, and even without luck the tech on the horizon should enable us to bust out.
Human have Planetary Shield X and Shield VII :boggle:
THe Sakkra's have added RCV to their arsenal of economic techs. Thank god they aren't trading tech with the humans! Their shields are still the suck.
I'm pretty sure I could take down the bears with stingers.
Turn 1:
The Sakkras call and say "To quote a famous Sakkra author, 'Cry Havoc, and let slip the dogs of war!'". Unfortunately it is not in fact poetry night, and we are now at war with the Lizards.
I take another look at Sakkra tech, I note that their Gropo is better than ours, but it wont be once we have Personal Absorption Shield and Armored Exoskeleton. Otherwise their shields are crappy and their weapons are nearly as crappy, but not quite. I fear however that with their rocking economic techs what they lack in quality they'll make up for in quantity...
I note that the humans will trade Repuslar beam for Planetary X shield. However I pass on this trade since our shields are already good enough. I will however keep a look out for the humans getting a more attractive tech...
I call up the Rocks and they are willing to offer... Ion Rifle, for... Industrial 5, or other potentially more dangerous techs. I figure the deal wont go anywhere so I hold off on it, but we might want to make that trade before our next gropo engagement.
Considering that humans are flying around with shields which our current designs can't hurt, I'm sorely tempted to design a ship which CAN hurt human ships.
In fact I go ahead and do that. Designing a beast of pure Heavy Blasters and Stingers. Designed to put holes in things which are resistant to being holed.
ECM IV -> RC IV
Humans attack at the poor:
Our Ions are NOT a good match for the shield 5 design, and it was only the humans lack of armor and computer which enabled our 5 Ion's to beat the attack off, losing only 2 ions. I'm definitely making a ship with more punch, wont mass produce them, just get a few as insurance against human attacks. The Humans CAN design much worse, if they want to.
biotoxin comes in -> Radiated.
I found th colony on Kataka and deliver some pop from Obacca.
I notice that Altair is going to get glassed, soon. We might be able to ninja that once it becomes a spud... (doing the glassing ourselves would seem to be unwise).
Speaking of human ships, the humans declare war on us.. citing insufferable acts of terrorism. Listen budd we don't have any Weapons of Mass Destruction. They are flying canned tuna factories!
I notice a Dead Ultra Rich sitting vacant! We can ninja that! I scrounge together a fleet we can ill afford to NOT have sitting around on defensive duty, but hey, ultra rich up for the taking... I can only hope we can get on it when the Rocks aren't.
The Bears call up to decalre war on us. Citing interference, possibly alien mind control. Whatever the latest irrational kooky craze is.
On my second to last turn, the Birds call up and declare war! I'm a popular guy!
Final Turn:
Bulrathi's turn up at Kataka with 2 Huges. Staring down the barrels of 28 Heavy Fusion Beams backed by lvl5 Attack, I have my ships retreat! Our WMD's can handle bears huges no problem, but oopsies, no WMD's at Kataka!
So we lose Kataka... Too bad. But a poor world was not to be anyway.
I feel we do though have a shot at getting Toranor the Dead Ultra Rich!
Here's the deal:
On the right side are our military assets.
But incoming is a big ass stack of Lizards. Now that's one of their warp-1 specials, so what I suggest doing is just hanging in orbit (retreat but waypoint back) and settle the world once it's gone away. It'll take a good 10 turns to get back and by then we should have some bases up.
Also the ships which retreated from Kataka have been directed to Toranor.
Okay here's the deal on tactics:
WMD's are still the best ship against bears, the bears have poor shields and wicked firepower. You want to pin down bear ships and blow them up with scatters. Bears are the only ones with nuclear engines, everyone else is still being all retro.
The Sting's are mostly to deal with the low-damage high-defense human specials, the humans have large stacks of the defense 5 design, and they could potentially design things which are completely immune to WMD's and nearly immune to Ions. Stings also have autorepair making them not bad for eating missiles.
Cross a Human ship with a Bear ship and you get a Rock ship. Rocks have Megabolt in addition to Fusion Beams and nearly as much shielding as humans. As soon as we get our radiated worlds colonized we should sign a NAP with the rocks. We also need to keep an eye out for them allying with one of our enemies (anyone else...).
The Lizards military tech is basically bad, but they do have a fearsomely strong economy... according to status they have the strongest fleet, but it's likely in real power the rocks and probably bears are actually stronger because the Sakkra military tech just sucks. But still, sheer numbers can achieve a lot.
In happy news we'll soon have a total of +30 extra Gropo over what we have now. That'll enable us to bring the beatdown to pretty much any race, even going toe to toe with the bears, we should be about +5 up on them. The best bang for buck however will be found on the lizard worlds, with their high level of Robotic Controls we'll only have to take a couple of worlds to get nearly all their tech, once we have Advanced Soil Enrichment it's all over. We'll have ~ +15 gropo over them so it wont be too hard. Do try and make that Ion Rifle trade with the rocks if/when it shows up again. That'll give us +25 over the lizards
.Another note, I have one world on Reserves, that world is Paranar the size 90 Minimal. I neglected to feed Xengara the last couple of turns, probably do that also I suggest immediately getting the defenses up on Xengara, it's big enough now that with reserves it'll get a shield and a base up in 2-3 turns and that'll help a lot. It may be the only chance the world has against a shield 7 human attack, or a bear attack, or a lizard SoD attack.
Once(/if?) Toranor is founded it'll want to be babysat with reserve pumpage and a stream of pop from X, in the hope of standing it up before an unbeatable SoD turns up, start building defenses at I dunno, about 30 population w/ factories, being Ultra Rich that's the same as a maxed size 90 world. Whether we can get Toranor up is pretty iffy, if the AI turns up with a fleet containing 100+ Heavy Guns, then nothing will save the world, that much firepower does 1000 damage a volley once it gets in range, erasing our entire fleet in just a few rounds, if such a fleet turns up just retreat. But we might get lucky and get some bases up (especially since our enemies are mostly moving at warp 1 still). It'll only take a few turns to get like 30 bases up on an ultra rich w/ reserves so it's definitely worth a shot and that UR will help a lot more than any other potential world.
One other thing I might reccomend is designing a repulsar beam ship and sending one to each of our lizard frontline worlds. Having a full complement of 5 designs is not a bad idea since it makes it easy to block death ships. I probably should have made the Sting a repulsar ship but oh well. Once we have real engines we'll want to scrap pretty much everything (besides shield tech rapidly obsoleting them) so I don't think making a few of a new design is a big deal. If a repulsar ship is the difference between getting Toranor up or not then it's well worth it.
(Corr! This took long enough considering the instructions I received were basically "End turn and wait for tech to come in", but I wasn't about to do that with the opportunity to gain new worlds
).Mostly, Good Luck! With some of that we can get Toranor up, and even without luck the tech on the horizon should enable us to bust out.
TheArchduke
Feeling at home..
Let me see. Especially my writeup will be a bit more elaborate this time.
