OSG 16 - Training Day

[dathon78]

Zed pretty much summed up what I would have said regarding the planetology decision. The only thing that I would add is that extra techs, even if not used, do give a benefit. The amount of BC per worker starts at 1, and increases based on planetology level. I don't have the exact equation handy, but I know that it doubles for every 25 levels of planetology tech. He have roughly 700 people in our empire at the end of my turn, and that's only going to grow, so having Dead on hand to boost planetology tech by a level would be about 28/BC per turn from those people to the end of the game, and that will go up as tech level increases. So in reality, while the upgrade that a given tech provides may obsolete, having researched it does carry a game-long benefit, either in increased production or miniaturization, yet another brilliant feature of the MOO tech system.

Oh, and one more note, I was pretty tired last night when I left comments for Azoth. Putting LR tanks on the col ships was absolutely the right thing to do. It let us get them en route faster, and will help us in colonizing the north. Sorry for the on my part!

Alright, opening the save file, things look pretty good. Sssla can finish it's colony ship in 1 turn, and put some to research. I kept Escalon on full ship building to get carry-over for another ship for Arietis. We'll get Ryoun 4 turns sooner by sending Escalon's colony ship there, so that's what I set up. Yarrow will be colonized by the ship from Hyades.

Regulus and Toranor were both colonized in 2383, setting up the first election:

The Klacons (4), Humans (3), and Bulrathi (4) abstained, while the rocks (4), Mrrshan (3), and we (7) voted for the Silicoids. We don't quite have nenough for a 1/3 bloc, but we have a shot at that before the next election in 2400.

Toranor was seeded from Sssla (25) and Helos (15), while Anraq sent a full contingent of 23 to get Regulus up and running ASAP. After Escalon built it's ship for Arietis, I kept it on col ship building. There are a lot of stars coming into reach, and chances are very good that at least one will be toxic or better and unclaimed. Turns out, we found two worlds in the north:

This is the map from the end of my turnset. The Arid world is a size 60 UP (hey, more pop = more votes and troops), and the Barren is size 50. We have a colony ship on the way to the UP (it was scouted first), and Escalon is a turn away from completing another. A scout will reach the planet between them next turn as well, so if it's better than a 50 Barren we can nab it first.

Founding Ryoun brought us contact with the Aggessive Silicoids and Klackons, and minimum trade was established with both. However, the Pirates event popped at Rayden (a Silicoid world), so the effects of that will be tempered. Our core is maxed out, Toranor will complete terraforming next turn, Regulus in 3, and troops are scheduled to depart from Anraq to Ryoun next turn.

RW60% popped, greatly helping our economy, and I took Zortium armor, the only option. Now that we have some mature worlds, it's time to spread out research. Different people have different strategies when it comes to this. I notice that Zed tends to go with mostly equal in all categories. Sirian plays by allocating research in 10% chunks (5 clicks), with at least 10% in each category. I've found this works pretty well, so that's what I do as well. There are pros and cons to both ways. The equal method ensures that all tech levels keep growing at a pretty good clip. The block method can be used to emphasize critical techs to pop them sooner, but requires more management to run the sliders, and keep all the tech levels advancing. So I allocated 10% each to computers, weapons, and shields (which are all in percentages), 20% to construction and propulsion, and 30% to planetology to get +40 going sooner rather than later.

Alright, we're up and running, and in pretty good shape here. The Silicoids and Klackons have cut off expansion to the east, but it looks like we can grab the northeast, especially if we can grab that UP. However, I wouldn't leave our new holdings in the middle of the map unguarded to try and get them. We're in a race with the Silicoids, and we'll grab what we'll grab. Once shields and Hyper V's hit, we'll want a base each on Hyades and Denubius, and perhaps one more at Escalon.

Keep us expanding Snaproll!

dathon

 

[ignatius]

Don't forget to include the benefits getting those Tundra and Dead colonies started and growing sooner gives in terms of how much production you get out of them in the long term and in terms of how much they can help support further expansion.

Certainly much less than what we gain alone by being able to settle Toranor (a rich 75, after all) at least 10 turns earlier than we otherwise would have been able to. Sorry, but when it's purely about economic growth (and its indirect effect on expansion rather than the risk of getting the disputed planets in the first place, which might be debatable), then going straight for toxic is hands down the better choice - in fact it's not even close:

• We save the cost for researching dead
• We will be able to settle Toranor (and hopfully Arietis) at least 10 turn earlier
• We can start to research the urgently needed IW60% at least 10 turns earlier
• We enjoy the planetology production bonus for the 6 TL difference between dead and toxic which amounts to an additional 14.4 bc/turn waste free production per 100 pop or the equialent of 2/7 factories per pop.
• We have the long term benefit of having advanced the tech tree

Most of the above effects are by itsself alone enough to offset the economic penalty of founding our 3 tundra/dead planets (at most) 5 turns later. In combination, they easily suffice to make up the 5 turns by increased reserve spending during buildup, if we set our mind to it (although this might not be the best possible use of those additional ressources then).

As for what we wind up getting, hindsight is always 20/20.

Sure, and that's why I stated the possible outcomes beforhand. To consider the first two possibilities (losing two planets disputed or more b/c we are 5 turns late) to be considerably more likely than the latter two (us getting at least two of the 3 disputed planets) is really the only argument against going for toxic first (and a very important one at that, that would trump the considerable economical benefits I mentioned above).

I would agree to this evaluation iff this would really have meant a 10 turns delay, but I hope I have convicingly demonstrated that the delay is at most 5 turns. If you or dathon still think that our chances are that dim, I respect this, as both of you of course have much more experience than me. But if you think this is the case, then please say so! My personal rating for the 4 outcomes would be somewhere along 10:30:30:30, but this is really not much more than a guess.

ignatius

 

[ignatius]

Great turnset dathon - I'm glad that everything worked out well so far!

As for the planetology production bonus, the manual says 0.5 bc/pop at the beginning and 2 bc/pop at TL 50. While I assumed a linear relation in my estimates in the above post, an exponential growth with doubling every 25 TL makes much more sense (and is also more elegant mathematically).

ignatius

ps (for Snap):

After having checked the save, maybe you should consider to double our contingent from Anraq to Ryoun (not yet underway but scheduled to leave next turn) from 18 to 36, so that Arietis can be seeded from there, saving us three turns. (Have an eye on planet size prior to arrival, though - a pair of love happy Sakkras left alone might not leave enough room for them after 5 turns ...)

 

[Snaproll]

Ok I've got it, but I've spent the day hugging the porcelain statue, so I might not get to it until tomorrow morning.

 

[dathon78]

Snaproll - No hurry, I'm going to be pretty busy this weekend, and mh is out until Monday, so take all the time you need.

ignatius - Thanks for catching my mistake on the BC/pop thing; it does start at 0.5BC/pop, not 1 as I stated. The actual equation is:

((pl_tech_lvl*3) + 50)/100

So, it is linear. Starts at 0.5, raises at .03 per tech level. The "halving every 25 turns" is another nugget I picked up from the boards a long time ago, I think from Zed, actually

As for getting to colonies faster... I really can't speak for Zed, but I'm coming from a lot of games on upper difficulty where the AI is RABID about expansion. Especially with the Silicoids on the map, hostile worlds like that are in jeopardy fast. Now, it turns out that the Rocks are sequestered behind the Mrrshan, but at the time we couldn't know that. If Cryslon was where Kholdan is, things might have gone very differently. Likewise, the Klackons are often the fastest expanding race in the game, due to their production bonus. They could easily have gotten to Controlled Dead and come for that world before us, especially if Ryoun had turned out to be of normal habitability. I would definitely say that at the time of deciding the tech, our chances of losing the Dead were much higher than 10%.

The extra turns on the Dead UR are also not trivial. If it's even 5 turns as you suggest, at our current level of terraforming (+20, putting the planet at 45), and planetology tech (~1 BC per pop), that's still

5 x ((90*3) + 45) = 1575 BC

That right there pays for having the tech ahead of time, greatly reducing the risk of losing a very good planet, and our only peaceful way out of the corner. And frankly, securing planets is worth sacrificing a lot of early production for. Size = power, and the more we grab initially, the better position we will be in to defend ourselves, and not lose to early council decisions.

Regarding extra troops from Anraq to seed Arietis, I like that idea.

dathon

 

[Snaproll]

Pre-game

Ok, I've just finished reading up on the game, and I'll admit things really are looking good. I double the contingent moving to Ryoun as all suggested. I agree that as soon as the next couple techs come in we should probably get some minimal base construction going on all our outer rim planets... if someone decided to attack us right now it would be quite an interesting day.

Actually, I notice that we still aren't doing "find out what they have" espionage. I would normally put a click into each race to try and figure that out at this point. I feel that if (or rather, when) the wars start to break out it is very important to hae a feeling of the enemy capabilites. What do you all think?

In any case, I'll leave it alone for now. Nothing to do but press next turn...

Turn 1 - Deep Space Scanner comes in, and all three possible techs in computers are available, ECM Jammer II, Robotic Controls III, Battle Computer III. Now, I'd normally pick Robotic Controls without a second thought, but se are still expanding rapidly and I know the increased cost of the new factories can actually inhibit the spin-up time for new colonies. So, I pick BCIII. I'm sure I'll get some feedback on this one - was this the right decision! I sure hope so... Also, Hyper-V comes in and we have Hyper-X, Fusion Bombs, and Ion Cannons. I don't expect to go on the offensive quite yet, so both Hyper-X and Ion Cannons could be useful. I choose Hyper-X.

So, the planet in the north that we were hoping would hold a better world than Barren 50 turns out to be... asteroids. Sigh. At least that makes the decision about the new colony ship easy.

Yarrow is settled, the Tundra world down south. I seed in from Anraq, keeping it half full for max growth. Toranor finishes terraforming, set to max factories. I send the new Colony ship to Uxmai (the 50 Barren) and set Escalon back to research.

After lots of thought, I decide to change the tech sliders just a bit. I though very hard about taking 10% out of construction and putting it on computers. I want to leave planetology and propulsion where they are since we desperately need new engines, and +40 terraform we need for obvious reasons. However, I'm having 2nd thoughts about getting BCIII instead of Robot Controls, so I think taking 10% out of construction (Zortium Armor) to get the computers finished up sounds like a good idea... In fact that's what I do.

One point of note - both the Klackons and the Silicoids are making a play for Arietis:

The Silicoids have a single large ship while the Klackons have 15 small ships and a colony ship. I don't think there's anything I can do but hope that our defense ship is a match for both of those fleets... There are still 3 turns until our colony ship gets there. I set Denubis to build a single base.

Turn 2 - Shields 2 comes in, both personal and shields 3 are available. I shoose personal so that we can see about planetary shields earlier.

Seems I was wrong about the silicoid fleet, it was going the other direction. Whoops.

Turn 3 - Ok, I was wrong about the Klackon fleet too - it flies right on by... Well, that makes things easy. It's a really quiet turn... Just researching away and waiting for all our colony ships to arrive.

Turn 4 - We settle Arietas, the Ultra Rich Inferno planet. This triggers the 12 star system report - seems we are far outstripping the other races. However, the Klackons showed up with a warship at Selia (the Ultra Poor) and chased away our two scouts there, meaning that they will be coming for it, I assume. Our colony ship is still 8 turns away, which means it's entirely possible the Klackons could actually beat us to it.

We could move the LR Laser ships from either Ryoun or Arietas, but those worlds would be totally undefended at that point. Frankly, they are both musch more important than the Ultra Poor. However, when looking around to see if I can find the colony ship of the Klackons, I see this:

Umm, I'm going to take a break here and get some advice. We are completely unprepared to deal with a stack like this. It looks like it is moving to Mu Delphi, but that's still awful close.

If they attack, we are sure to lose Arietis, and possibly Ryoun. Have we pushed too far? What should our strategy be?

Help!

 

[ignatius]

Umm, I'm going to take a break here and get some advice. We are completely unprepared to deal with a stack like this. It looks like it is moving to Mu Delphi, but that's still awful close.

Just keep cool. There's nothing we can possibly do about such a SoD for several years to come. This is in fact not unusual - the Klackons are by far the strongest AI in prduction - plus they ran out of expansion space (so more BC for the fleet). We are not at war with them and it does not necessarily mean that an attack is immanent - in fact it's quite a normal situation for this stage of the game.

Just play your best game. Even if they DO take a col or two from us, this is not the end of the world. Most of the few things you CAN do now, you already did (going for bc3 and hyper-X) or suggested (turning on minimal spying to see what they have). The best overall counterstrategy at this stage is simply to keep expanding and building up, as we already considerably outnumber them in planets and pop.

ignatius

ps: A trick that has worked fine in my own games: Even a small contribution from the reserve (say 50 to 100 bc) can go a long way in speeding up the buildup of a planet (esp. a rich or UR) if it's transfered right after the colony is founded (i.e. even before the seed pop arrived). Since the growth is mostly exponential, this can easily reduce the time to stand up a colony by two or three turns, while the same spending will usually buy less then a turn when applied to a more mature colony later.

 

[dathon78]

ignatius definitely has the right idea. If they are coming for Arietis, it is toast. Period. The only thing that would turn them back is a threat, and that is dicey. While we could fight a war right now, we'd definitely be at a disadvantage. My guess is they're moving for Mu Delphi anyway.

I'll withhold my other comments until your turn is finished

dathon

 

[IamI3rian]

Sorry everyone, looks like the problem was my router AND my ethernet cord. Eitherway, I'm back in business, and hope to catch up with what's happened both here and in the two osg15 games. Training day seems like a great idea, and I will eagerly lurk this thread.

 

[Snaproll]

Sorry I wasn't able to play my turns last night - I'll do it tonight the instant I get home from work.

 

[Snaproll]

OK I finally got back to this. I decide not to move the LR def ships - while they wouldn't hold up against the klackons, they are not worth sending to an Ultra Poor. So, we'll see what happens...

Turn 5 - The big SOD is indeed headed to Mu Delphi. I still think they must be coming for us - there is a small chance they are planning on going after Ursa, but I doubt it. I try dialing them up to see if I can possibly get a non-aggression pact, but no such luck. I seed Arietas from the newly-arrived quantites of colonists that arrived at Ryoun this turn. I don't see much else to do this turn - we have all the colony ships we need enroute and most of our planets are still building factories (on the periphery) or researching. Sssla is still building LR DEF 1.0 ships, which we could certainly use a few more of. Once some of our rich worlds get up to speed we should probably shift ship production to them.

Turn 6 - Ok, so back to the problem at the Ultra Poor. There is a single, lone warhip at Selia, and the colony ship is 6 turns away. That warship isn't going anywhere, so I make a bold decision to send the LR DEF 1.0 at Ryoun there (timed to arrive with the colony ship) and I send the newly constructed ship from Sssla to replace it. At this point, I put Sssla on research. We just absolutely have to get better engines and more tech. LR DEF 1.0s moving around at warp one just aren't going to cut it, in my estimation. Propulsion is at 14% now (for inertial stabilizers), and I usually wait until it gets at about 20% before dialing it down.

There is no doubt the Klackons are planning something:

Turn 7 - Not a single event happened between turns, and the Klackon fleet is still staying put. The Mrrshans still won't sign a trade agreement. I forgot to to this last time, so I put a click of spying into each race to try to get a handle of what they have. (What is the consensus on this? Good idea?). Actually, scratch that, I only put a click into the Klackons - they are by far the most worrisome opponent.

All the planets are STILL building factories and / or researching. I don't change a thing. Toranor (the RICH in our backlines) shows MAX, but I keep it on max factories since any BP that go into the reserve aren't wasted since it's rich. Propulsion at 20% now.

Turn 8 - Klackons are still sitting still. Propulsion does NOT come in (sigh). It's at 26% so I take it down 5 clicks and put it into weapons - I would really like to have Hyper-X's for bases if the feces hits the prop. Ryoun begins terraforming. Regulus (our other Ultra Rich) is at MAX. I leave it on max factories as per my earlier discussion about Toranor.

Turn 9 - Regulus and Toranor both max out on factories. I put both to maximum reserve spending, with the intention of transferring reserves to the front lines to speed up base building and possibly some to the Artifacts planet.

Propulsion STILL does not come in at 27%. BC III is at 7%, Terraforming +40 is at 4%, and Hyper-X is at 3%. I dial propulsion down to minimum (that's what I should do, right?) and put it into construction. Arietas begins terraforming (aided by reserve spending). I also dump reserve spending into Ryoun to help it spin up.

Turn 10 - Galactic Council! It's between us and the Silicoids

Humans - abstain w/ three votes
Silicoids - Silicoids w/ six votes
Klackon - Silicoids w/ four votes
Mrrshans - abstain w/ three votes
Bulrathis - abstain w/ two votes

we have 8 votes and therefore must abstain.

And that's it. No tech, no attacks, no nothing. That was quite a quiet set of turns after all the hype.

Good luck MH!

P.S. I haven't gone through the planets and checked everything this turn MH, so if you see any weed, that's why.

Roster:
dathon
Snaproll <---- Just Played
mostly_harmless <--- Up Now
Zed-F <--- On Deck
ignatious
Azoth

The Save

 

[Zed-F]

While it's a good idea to keep an eye on SoDs like that one, as they do have the potential to attack and cause problems... the AI does like to move large fleets around its empires for no apparent reason at times, doing a grand tour. So a large stack like that at Mu Delphi doesn't necessarily mean anything. Even if they do have a lot of ships, a stack of sufficiently well-shielded bases could rebuff them in any case. If those are laser fighters, and they likely are unless the klackons are a lot more technologically advanced than us, then a single shield 2 base makes them all irrelevant.

When to start spying to see what other races have: I usually don't do it too early since it's a pretty good bet what the first few techs a race will get are. Now's a reasonable time to update our intel, especially for races we're worried might attack us. But the only time it's really critical to update intel is (a) when someone declares war on us or starts making cold war attacks on our planets, or (b) when we are ready to go on the offensive ourselves and need to target our designs against an opponent's weaknesses. Still, updating intel is inexpensive enough that it's worth doing every 25-50 years or so just on general principles, though again, for the first 50-100 years there's not much point as you generally can guess what they will have.

 

[ignatius]

Good turnset, Snap! Some minor remarks:

I seed Arietas from the newly-arrived quantites of colonists that arrived at Ryoun this turn.

Checking from the save, you seem to have no reserve spending up at Arietis. (btw: you can pump funds for several turns at once; if you transfer more than can be used in one turn, the excess is not lost but will get used in the following year or years). This might be debateable with a standard or poor planet; with an UR, it's a mistake, as reserve spending is an overall win: while putting into the reserve means a 50% cut, the planet, being ultra rich, boosts the reamining 50% to 150% if the money goes into factories or defenses. This is even more so, if there are mature rich or UR planets available to replace the spent money afterwards. One debatable exploit is to feed an UR its own money back, and thereby boosting its industry output from 3 bc/factory to effectivly 4 bc/factory (if you account for waste cleanup, the improvement is even more significant).

I forgot to to this last time, so I put a click of spying into each race to try to get a handle of what they have. (What is the consensus on this? Good idea?).

Definitely! We've come to a stage where we will need the intelligence, and it can take quite a few turns to place a spy.

Arietas begins terraforming (aided by reserve spending).

With rich/UR planets it's usually better to go for factories first until you can do the terraforming in a single turn as eco spending does not enjoy the R/UR production bonus. Since we are the Sakkras (and only pay half for growing pop), it usually pays to outright buy the remaining pop once you left the fatter parts of the bell curve, esp. if you need the pop to man the factories.

Toranor (the RICH in our backlines) shows MAX, but I keep it on max factories since any BP that go into the reserve aren't wasted since it's rich.

If it says MAX, the money first goes into new factories (which might stay idle for a few turns); only a possible spillover goes into the reserve. It's usually better to put this excess production into eco or bases, if either is needed. If you want to really finetune things, then you can try to put the ind slider just far enough beyond MAX that the excess factories produced are just enough to employ the pop grown at the next turn. (Doesn't make much of a difference with rich/UR planets, so the remark is mostly informative)

ignatius

 

[mostly-harmless]

Got it. Will play tomorrow morning (my time: GMT+1).
mh

 

[dathon78]

Looking good!

Zed already made comments on intel and the Klackon fleet, and as I agree with his sentiments, I'll just leave it at that

Now, the first thing you asked about was BCIII vs RCIII. That's a tough call, without a clear cut answer; there are pros and cons to both. RCIII obviously boosts our production, but as you pointed out, stunts the growth of border worlds, and leaves us without a good battle computer for possibly a long time, especially if the essential ISS tech is in the next rung. On the other hand, BCIII gives us a better computer if war breaks out, but we're going to want RCIII so our computer advancement will slow, and if BCIV is the only option in the next rung, the upgrade will largely be redundant. My personal call would have been for RCIII. State-of-the-art computers are very expensive to put on ships, especially early on. It's often better to forego them, and make back the to-hit simply by adding more guns, or building larger quantities of cheaper ships. Two of our border worlds are ultra rich, so the extra factory cost really won't hurt them, and they can pump reserves to help out the rest of the worlds.

Looking at the save file, it looks like the Klackons have already colonized Selia (the northern UP). It's not worth a war to take it from them either. Once I found out that the Klackons had scouted the UP, I would have sent the LR def to Uxmai (50 Barren) instead. That planet is much more important than the UP. Not only will it be a bigger producer, but it is the key to securing the upper NE corner, which has the potential to have some really good planets. We need to get that corner scouted and settle ASAP, lest the Humans or Klackons grab it. I would build some LR col ships, and send them directly to the 4 stars. Yes that's expensive, but I don't think we can afford the time it would take to scout and then send ships with our slow warp 1 ships. Regulus is in a good position, and can build a ship in 3 years, thus having almost two ships built by the time Uxmai is colonized. We're not done expanding yet!

As to the state of our empire, things look pretty good except for one thing; our ultra rich planets are not full of pop! Letting Ultra Rich planets max pop naturally is incredibly wasteful, especially since they are generally hostile and slow to grow anyway. Toranor can max out its pop NEXT TURN and still put 25% into the reserves. We're wasting 7/BC per turn per citizen there, and it's going to take at least 15 turns to grow up naturally. Likewise Regulus should be maxed out next turn as well, which will help it build those colony ships faster.

Alright mh, let's get that corner going; otherwise, it's steady as she goes. We're looking good!

dathon

 

[Zed-F]

I agree on RC III. What I usually do if I've got RC III up next but am not quite ready for it as I'm still expanding, is to go ahead and research RC III anyway but dial down spending on computer tech and dial up spending on construction tech instead to get that next level of IIT technology to offset the RC costs. Or you can put it in planetology instead as bigger planets always helps, and at the beginning of the game when the RC costs hurt the most, so does cleanup tech.

If there's still more vacant space to expand into, by all means we should not stop production of ships which will let us claim more space, whether that's colships, scouts or escorts. As with most other 4X games, maximizing expansion is almost always the key to victory in MOO. You should only wait for better engines if you're *real* close to getting them -- like the tech is in the &#37;ages.

 

[mostly-harmless]

Looking around and:
- spend one click into spying for each race.
- push the Toranor eco slider to force population growth
- same for Regulus

And next turn.

2241:

Terraforming +40 comes in and I go for Controlled Radiated. (Cloning, Atmospheric Terraforming & Advanced Eco Restoration were opened up) My reasoning is, that we have the Silicoids around and a radiated in our midst with more possibly to come in the corner.
I set all our maxed out worlds to terraforming.

2242:
We retreat from Selia.
Meet officially the Bulrathi (Erratic but only one planet).
Our spy with the Klackons finished. They are ahead everywhere, especially in force fields and weapons, but also with higher range and faster engines.
There is a lone silicoid colony ship seemingly headed for The Corner.

2243:
Inertial Stabilizer come in. (sub light warp 3 and dotomite range 7 are opened up). Hhhm. Nuclear engines are still available cheaply for just 1200BC or so, while sub light cost four times that much. Our LR colony ships can profit from warp 2 almost immediately. I go for that. Will be interested in opinions of our pros on that. Should I have gone for warp 3 instead?
Go all out on propulsion (with minimum in the other fields) to get the nuclear engines asap.

Ack, Hyades gets quaked. 20M dead 105 factories in ruins.

Form a minimal trade treaty with the bears. Probably not worth it as they are erratic.

2404:
not much, hold LR Col build in Regulus to wait for Nuclear Engines.

2405:
The Silicoid col ship scares away our scout guarding the asteroids around Paranar.
Personal Defelctor Shields come in. (Shield III & Planetary Shield V & Shield IV are opened up) I pick Planetary Shield V.
Nuclear Engines come in and I pick the Dototmite Range 7 for opening up better tech.

Settled Uxmai. The red star north off Paranar is held by three Klackon small ships.
The UP planet is sending pop to Uxmai.
Design warp two toxic colony ship and switch Regulus to build it. Launch next turn.
Toranor UR is pumping reserves, which I spend on building up our border world Ryoun.

2406:
The Battle Computer III comes in, as do the Hyper X rockets.
I pick Robotic Controls III next. As for the weapons, I dunno. Fusion bomb, Ion Cannon, Mass driver & Merculit missiles are open. I pick the cheap Fusion bomb. Will be finished soon and it's always good to have something to throw around.
GNN reports Pirates in Rayden.

Since Iwant to scout that Klackon guarded planet to the north I design a large ship with Hyper X missiles and Heavy lasers. I am pretty sure that design will be ripped apart by the player to follow my turn, but then again I want to be enlightened in these things.

2407:
not much, a bit micro here and there.

2408:
nothing.

2409:
First Corner planet Phyco is a Dead 20.

2410:
We scout and found Lyae 60 north of the Humans.
I send a large contigent to Lyae from the Ultra Poor world for seeding all the Corner planets.
We have three col ships with toxic bases headed for the Corner. A LR Def 1.5 is on a mission to scout the northern system held by the Klackons.
My next steps would be to start missile bases at least in the UR and artifact worlds and the planetary shields, once they come in.
I would also try to attack the Humans sooner or later.

Awaiting comments and good luck for the next player.
(btw. no chance getting a trade treaty with the Mrshans. Also no tech trading done.)

mh

 

[ignatius]

Good turnset MH - looks like you secured us the corner. If we also manage to get the red in the north, then we are in excellent strategic shape vs. the Ants as the isolated UP in the nebula is impossible to defend. If war breaks out, we can simply destroy it and immediately secure our entire northern flank.

Terraforming +40 comes in and I go for Controlled Radiated. (Cloning, Atmospheric Terraforming & Advanced Eco Restoration were opened up) My reasoning is, that we have the Silicoids around and a radiated in our midst with more possibly to come in the corner.

While we do have a radiated in our core, both Atmospheric Terraforming and Advanced Eco Restoration are must-have technologies. Since we missed out on both impr. and enh. eco we are deperate for better cleanup tech and adv. eco would increase our economic output by more than one third litterally overnight.

Nuclear engines are still available cheaply for just 1200BC or so, while sub light cost four times that much. Our LR colony ships can profit from warp 2 almost immediately. I go for that. Will be interested in opinions of our pros on that. Should I have gone for warp 3 instead?

I like your choice as I would have preferred nuke->range7->fusion over IS->sublights->range8 in the first place. At 1200 bc, a crash program is also easily affordable. One drawback of warp2 is that it doesn't increase our transport speed, so if we miss out on fusions, we might end up having to research sublights anyway (which again are only 25% of impulse engines), but this is a reasonable risk to take.

Go all out on propulsion (with minimum in the other fields) to get the nuclear engines asap.

When you open a new field, tech spending is quatered for the first turn, so it would have been better to wait 1 year before going all-out on propulsion.

I pick Robotic Controls III next. As for the weapons, I dunno. Fusion bomb, Ion Cannon, Mass driver & Merculit missiles are open. I pick the cheap Fusion bomb.

You didn't advance the tree with both choices. There is nothing wrong with that, esp. with RC3 (although the options would have been interesting), but as we do not need fusion bombs right now, I'd rather have gone for mass drivers now, as we will have to do them anyway (we could always come back for fusions later if necessary, with the bonus that by then, they will probably be miniaturized enough to fit on a small hull)

Since I want to scout that Klackon guarded planet to the north I design a large ship with Hyper X missiles and Heavy lasers.

Good call! As for the design, it's pointless to allocate the same missles on multiple slots as they will always fire simultaniously, as they hit after, not during the turn. It would have been better to spread out the beams instead. btw: the "w.n" postfix of units names is usually meant to designate warp speed and modell number, so "LR Def 2.0" would have been a better designation.

cu

ignatius

 

[dathon78]

Looks like a fairly solid turnset.

Terraforming +40 comes in and I go for Controlled Radiated. (Cloning, Atmospheric Terraforming & Advanced Eco Restoration were opened up)

I would definitely have chosen Atmospheric Terraforming or Advanced Eco here, probably Eco then Atmos. There is only one radiated in our range, it is size 10, and is 11 parsecs from the nearest Silicoid planet, which is likely to be out of their range forever. Both of the other techs give us a major economic push; Eco stops the cash burn, and we have a lot of hostile planets, including two ultra riches, making Atmos very attractive.

Nuclear engines are still available cheaply for just 1200BC or so, while sub light cost four times that much

I like your choice as I would have preferred nuke->range7->fusion over IS->sublights->range8 in the first place.

I have to disagree with both of these assessments. Researching a tech for one colony ship, and delaying our advancement in the tech tree, is not very efficient. Sure sublights cost more, but we've pretty well secured the corner; the colony ship didn't really need it. That 1200 BC would have gone a long way towards sublights, especially with interest. IS + sublights is just as fast as fusion drives, and we're not likely to need range 8 on this map, especially having secured Arietis. The next rung of the tech tree has both dissipators and energy pulsar. The pulsar in particular will be useful here against the Klackons.

I would have gone directly from IS to sublights, and traded IS for better range tech. For example, right now the Klackons will trade Range 6 for IS, and that's probably all we'll ever need. The tree advances, we get the needed range, we can have ships with maneuver 4, we have speed 2 transports, and we can research either dissipators or pulsar next rung. For what it's worth, the Humans will also trade Ion Cannon for IS, giving us a decent beam weapon, and I'm willing to bet the cats will trade Class III or Improved Eco for IS as well. Never overlook the trade value of those Stabilizers!

Good choices on RCIII and Fusion Bombs. RCIII will obviously boost our economy significantly, and though it doesn't advance the tree, I like the choice of fusion bombs here. We're at the point where we can go on offense, and the obvious target is the isolated, stunted Humans. They are nice and weak, and should be picked off before they can amass a better fleet/technology. With their shield proclivity, they're likely to have Class V planetary any time now, and the bombs are going to be the best way through that. I would actually take some of the planetology spending and pump weapons and construction so we can design a decent bomber and get Toranor going on that ASAP.

Now, as for that LR Def 1.5, I don't like this ship at all! If you wanted to scout the northern Klackon world, our current LR Def 1.0 design was more than adequate, and is cheaper to boot. Heck, even the Laser 1 you have moving to the area will take care of those popguns! Three Hyper X racks won't accomplish any more than 17 lasers will; in fact, I think this design will be a little bit less effective. We're going to have to scrap that slot anyway to design an offensive ship to go after the Humans. Missiles, especially this early in the game, are better placed on a medium ship so you can build more of them.

And as per last time, since Zed is up next, I'll let him decide what he's going to do He's usually more aggressive than I am, so I'm sure he'll be starting down the war path with the apes... Speaking of that, I think this is going to be the last round with the "veterans" playing. We're off to a good start with a very solid position. Besides, that should give us even more to comment on

dathon

 

[Zed-F]

Ok, now that I'm done OSG15a, I'll get this next.