OSG20 - Bearly In Motion

[dathon78]

Alright, things are looking pretty good. Minor efficiency changes:

*Vox is pumping reserves? Change that to research. 800BC is enough for now, and if we need more, it's more efficient to take Misha off ship building for a couple turns.
*Jinga doesn't need to upgrade its defense, especially with our lines pushing forward.
*Misha wasn't maxed out on factories? Big no-no
*Drakka is building our oldest repulsor model. We'll be scrapping that soon.

Now, as for ships, I don't like the comet-busters either. The Repulse 5.2, with its strength 7 shields, is the proper answer to the Hyper-V swarms. Plus, in my experience, 2-rack missiles are next to worthless. It just never seems to be enough shots to matter. I don't like the speed on that ship, though, so I won't be building any more. I also don't like the advanced bomber. We have enough miniturization now to fit two Omega-V's on a single medium ship. Frankly I'd rather have the other bomb that the extra maneuver and ECM that it costs to get it. So the advbomber is scrapped, as are the cometbusters. We're not at war right now, and we've got a few turns of peace with the Psilons to consolidate our position, so I'll see about re-building the fleet once Andrium armor pops (I can push it into percentages now)

2543(Turn 3): Psilons steal BC IV.

2545(Turn 5): Andrium finally pops. Tritanium is the only choice. Weapons, propulsion, and shields are also in the percentages, so I hold off on new designs for the moment.

2546(Turn 6): Star Gates pop, choose the almighty HEF. All big worlds immediately go on Star Gate production.

2547(Turn 7): Controlled Radiated pops, as do the Particle Beams. I take +60, and Disruptors over Pulse Phasors and Neutronium Bomb. Psilons declare war yet again. For a race of brainiacs, sometimes they aren't too smart

Now, it's time for some new ship design:

I made three models:
*An upgraded Huge ARS (the nuclear missile rack allows for fire than move, turn missile off with this ship each battle to use it)
*A Pulson missile boat. The ARS ships don't have very much offensive punch, so we might need a group of missile boats for really large fleets.
*A new bomber, with 3 bombs aboard.

2548(Turn 8): Ha! Stole a tech from the Darloks. I chose Construction to boost the tech level; got IIT8. Not much of a gain, but I always like stealing from the shifters It did allow me to add an extra Fusion Beam to our ARS ship. Psilons seem too busy dueling with the Meklar over Tauri to send anything after us.

2550(Turn 10): BC VI pops, take RCVI over BC IX. Election time! This time we're up against the Meklar. Everybody but the cats vote for the borg, who get 20 out of 38. We have 16/38, still a comfortable bloc.

And that's it. Quiet consolidation turns. BTW, I turned up spying against the Psilons a little. Who knows, we might get lucky. Feel free to veto. Fleet is currently massing at Ukko, but Crius might be the next best target; it would put us in striking distance of Mentar. Or we could flank around the back, but that would leave a lot of planets exposed at once. Drakka, Ursa, Firma, and Nordia will all finish their gates in the next two turns; we should have enough to strike by the end of Sullla's turnset.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/52773/osg20c_2550.zip

dathon

 

[TheArchduke]

Normally I am also for 2 bombs against 1 on bomber designs, but the looses against the Psilon bases were dreadful to say the least. I thought some more missile defense couldn´t hurt. But if in doubt, go for quantity.

In my opinion the next emperor should go on the offensive as the Psilons shouldn´t really have an answer to our fleets yet. Just take the 73 AMRBomber as a bomber support to the new nifty Omega 5.3 and we should be able to snatch another planet, or two.

 

[Sullla]

2550 (Turn 0) And the breakneck SG pace continues, as I have the free time to leap in and play my turns this afternoon.

Overall, our position is outstanding. I've never lost from a position this strong before, and I can't see any possible way it would happen in this game. We've got stargates getting ready to pop on our major shipbuilding worlds, and we just hit in pretty much every field technologically (except Force Fields). A big offensive push seems ready for my turn. The Psilons are paper tigers; their shielding is weak and their missiles laughably outdated. The time to strike is now, before they discover more technology! I'll see what I can do on my turns.

I take note of jmas' suggestion and modernize our bases where appropriate, to take advantage of the new shields and Battle Computers. Now one thing I don't like is dathon's new ARS 5.3 design; love the defenses, but it doesn't have enough firepower. I'm going to hold off on building them and try to redesign it (with additional looted Psilon tech) later on in my round. I also think we have enough tech now to dispense with a separate bomber and go purely with the Huge ARS + bombs design that covers all situations. I've used that design to win more games than I can count, just varying the beam weapon and bomb in question.

2551 (Turn 1) Firma and Ursa finish stargates. Dial down defensive spending everywhere now that our defenses are modernized. I'm going to have Berel add a stargate; not because it's a fleet building world, but purely for strategic reasons, in case we need to move our fleet rapidly to the southwest corner of our territory.

I launch the first marines in our attack against Crius, ETA of 3 turns. Our fleet will take two turns to land, and it launches next turn.

2552 (Turn 2) Drakka and Nordia finish up our final stargates. Launch the attack on Crius:

We're going to have to spend heavily to regrow population and Ukko and Obaca... but who cares? We're the Bulrathi! Invading is what we do best!

There's an attack heading for Obaca, but it will take 6 turns to get there, easily enough to mass defenses and beat it off. Predictable AI! If only it knew how to utilize speed, it would be a lot tougher.

2553 (Turn 3) Battle at Crius! They have 34 bases... but nothing better than Scatter Pack Vs to send against us. The only ships present are 3 Star Blades, which carry nothing but bombs. Yeah, so not a threat in THIS battle, but dang! Look at this ship design:

FIVE NEUTRONIUM BOMBS!!! Not to mention Class VII shields, and a Zyro shield on top of that. Dear Lord! The danger level to our own planets from this Star Blade is off the charts. Be extremely careful with these ships!

In the actual battle at Crius, the Star Blades immediately retreat. I dance around the planetary missiles using our fast bombers, and take out the bases without any losses. Even combat speed 3 is enough to outrun Scatter Pack Vs.

The invasion is 120 Bulrathis vs. 72 Psilons, with us getting +20 to combat even before our racial bonus is applied (+40 overall). Well, you can guess how that went:

72 to 17, better than 4:1 casualties. Gotta love pounding those nerds!

With that many factories, we'll land the full six techs for sure. We pick up Megabolt Cannon, Reduced Waste 60%, ECM II, Range 8, Zyro Shield, and Improved Industrial 4. Not the greatest tech haul, but Megabolt Cannon and II4 are both improvements for us. I'm a particularly big fan of the Megabolt Cannon, which miniaturizes well and gets that sweet +3 boost to attack.

Using our new toys, I draw up a new Huge design to maximize firepower and bombing strength:

With this ship, we don't need to have a separate bomber design. The principle advantage here is that we avoid the heavy losses than an unshielded speciality bomber always suffers. The Megabolts provide enormously more firepower than our now-outdated Fusion Beams, and the heavy shielding + armor + ARS special makes the ship almost invulnerable. Attrition will be essentially non-existant. I continue producing a trickle of Pulsons (missile boats come in handy in a lot of situations) but the bulk of our fleet production goes over to this new design.

The Psilons are attacking at Crius, but not very impressively. Their main supply lines run further south.

2554 (Turn 4) Psilon attack against Crius is a dud, as expected. The planet will max factories + population next turn, and can then start working on its shield + bases. (The planet is size 125, so it's a pretty good world!) I'm already scouting out the next attack on Seidon, using our first new Megabolt design.

2556 (Turn 6) Shoot up some more Psilon ships. Then our spies hit in all fields against the brains - must be a deep penetration! They had several more nice weapons, so I choose to grab that category. Unfortunately we get a dud, and land Fusion Bomb. Ah well, better luck next time!

Thanks to reserve pumping, Crius will complete a shield and 2 bases next turn; there are no more Psilon fleets incoming, and it's essentially safe. I'll probably add a starbase there once it gets into the double digit base numbers. Fleet moves forward to Seidon, an unscouted world; if there are too many bases there, I'll just back out and retreat.

2557 (Turn 7) Seidon only has 20 bases - ha! That's a piece of cake:

Even though we only have a single Megabolt design, it rules the battlefield, blowing up two dozen of the Psilon Star Streak design with each shot, and killing 8 bases per round. (Not to mention, it's 100% invincible against the planetary Scatter Pack Vs!) We suffer some minor casualties to the bombers and missile boats, but destroy every Psilon ship and establish orbital supremacy. Marines are ordered to occupy the planet, ETA of 2 turns.

What's this? The Darloks are signaling their peaceful intents, as it seems they don't like the Psilons much either. Well tough luck, guys. You declared war on us, and we're going to make you pay - just as soon as we get the range to reach you!

2558 (Turn 8) A large Psilon fleet is attempting to retake Seidon, 27 Larges and over 1500 of those little Comet ships. Let's see if I can finagle the battle so our enormously outnumbered fleet manages to win...

Well, the good news is that I held onto Seidon. The bad news is that we lost a significant portion of our fleet, including all of our older Huge designs. Fortunately, there are several more Megabolts rolling off the assembly line, to reinforce our position.

The Space Amoeba has appeared in the extreme northwest, and looks like it's going to head for one of our planets. We should have enough shielding + missiles to be OK, but I'll add some more bases anyway to be safe.

2559 (Turn 9) Start by easily fending off a Psilon attack at Obaca. The brains then come after Seidon again, fortunately with a much smaller fleet. I send them away without losses. 80 troops land on Seidon against 51, and the slaughter is again repeated. We only lose 10 to kill them off, better than 5:1! Tech prizes include Class VI shield, Warp Dissipator, Neutronium Bomb , Reduced Waste 40%, Controlled Toxic, and Battle Computer II. If we ever need a bomb upgrade, now we've got the best ones in the game!

2 Megabolt designs were produced this turn, and can reach Seidon in two more turns. I just have to hold out for this turn there... looks like I can do it. Obviously throwing reserve money at Seidon to stand it up ASAP. Brains definitely want that world back:

Too bad they're not going to get it!

2560 (Turn 10) Shoot up more Psilon ships at Seidon, no losses. That Comet design isn't very good, to be honest; too slow, and very easy to dodge around the missiles with decent combat speed. Two more of the new Huge Megabolt designs roll off the assembly lines and are routed to the front lines. jmas will have the fun of sending them against Mentar, as soon as we finish standing up Seidon in a couple more turns.

There are more Psilon attacks incoming at various worlds in the next 3-4 turns; feel free to add bases as necessary. The only ship that can even scratch our bases is the Star Base design; everything else is pretty much irrelevant. We may as well finish crushing the Psilons over the next 20 or so turns, then we can decide whether to cash out with a victory or move on to the Meklar. Note: the Meklar have Advanced Soil Enrichment, which we desperately want. Maybe dial up the spying on them and try to filch it?

dathon78
Sullla
jmas <<< UP NOW
TheArchduke <<< on deck

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/12069/OSG20-2560s.zip

 

[jmas]

I'm planning to play tomorrow.

 

[jmas]

2560: I start preparing our worlds in the NW to fight the space amoeba. The strategy guide points out that 25 Pulson missile bases are required just to deal an amount of damage per turn equal to what the amoeba can regenerate. Base counts in the area were below that, so I start using a lot of reserve money, figuring it’s an investment in not having the amoeba mess up one of our planets. Switch to espionage against Meklar, hoping to get advanced soil enrichment as Sulla mentioned.

IBT Chase away Psilon Coraona from one of our colonies. Cloaking device pops. We leapfrogged in Force Field tech by pointy-sticking Zyro Shield, so I choose Class XI shields over Stasis Field (those were the 2 options to continue advancing).

2561 and 2562, I spend mostly focused on building up bases in the NW and building and sending over our Pulson missile boats to help out against the amoeba.

IBT Chase Psilons away from Firma and Seidon.

2563: Seidon maxes factories. I send ships to Mentar.

IBT We take out the 51 bases on Mentar and the Psilons ask for peace. Declined!

2564 Finish preparations in the NW; the amoeba is heading for Proteus, the poor world. Good thing I used reserve money at Proteus. Send marines to Mentar from Seidon (so they can arrive in one turn).

IBT Destroy Space Amoeba at Proteus, easily repel Psilons from Paladia, and capture Mentar with 494 factories. GNN announces we control 18 star systems. We snag Auto Baster, Controlled Tundra, Class IV shields, Range 9, High Energy Focus, and Range 4. I choose Anti-Matter Drives over Ionic Pulsars.

2565: I restore our economy to “normal” after the frenzy of defense-building in the NW and start routing missile boats I’ve built to the front lines with the Psilons. Our tech bar now surpasses that of the Psilons. Increase trade with Meklars to 2050 BC (profit was maxed out). Interestingly, the Mrrshan now show up on the Races screen, but haven’t called to say hello yet. I thought maybe there had been contact with them I wasn’t aware of, but then they said “hello” after I clicked Next Turn.

IBT Fight off Psilons at Mentar; Mrrshans greet us.

2566: Move population to bring up the pop count at Mentar.

IBT Another day, another Psilon fleet destroyed at Mentar.

2567 and 2568: Fortify Mentar, fight off more Psilons, re-max pop at planets that shipped it out.

2569 Prepare Mentar defenses–more bases and I leave some ships, since the dangerous Star Blade ships are approaching. But, I send 2 of our Huge Megabolt designs along with bombers and a few Pulson boats to Vulcan, deeming the defenses at Mentar sufficient.

IBT We destroy all Star Blades at Mentar plus a bunch of other ships. At Vulcan, we destroy all bases and a few ships and take orbit. WE infiltrate a Meklar base and select Planetology, but, alas, get Death Spores, not advanced soil enrichment. The Meklars express their displeasure–relations are now at Neutral. The Darloks give us an “atta boy” for attacking the Psilons.

2570 Vulcan is a 135 Ocean. I arrange for 127 marines to invade from Mentar and Obaca, ETA 2 turns. Most of the Psilons’ fleet is trickling in from the west to Mentar, where we have many ships and bases. They have few ships at their remaining worlds, which are looking like they are available for the taking. Clicking on their various fleets, I see only 10 Star Blades total, split up in several fleets. All of the Darlok planets are now within our range of 9 parsecs. Remember that Nazin became rich during this game. The “also-ran” Mrrshans appear to pose no threat. Of their planets, only Fierias is currently within range 9. I also sent our spies working against the Meklars into hiding.

The Meklars may or may not vote for us at the council. It looks like it could be interesting to fight them. The Psilons don’t seem to have much fight left, so the Meks would be the “go-to” race for a fight at this point. So if we fight the Meklar and win with as much ease as against the Psilons, then whom would this smiley most accurately represent: ? Guess we'll find out, if others want to continue the fighting.

Next: Archduke, then dathon, then Sulla.

 

[jmas]

Oh, I forgot to mention, the Mrrshans issued a DOW one turn after meeting us. They didn't even get to know us first! I haven't gotten a spy in their empire yet but their tech bar looks underwhelming.

 

[Sullla]

Hey jmas, looks like a nice advance there against the Psilons. One question though: what's with all the research? You've got literally EVERY single planet doing research; even our Rich world is conducting research! What happened to our shipbuilding efforts? We've got the best weapons, shields, and speed in the galaxy - the only thing left to do is build a navy and mop the floor with these AI turkeys!

By the way, when Tritanium armor pops in the near future, Archduke or dathon can design a seriously sweet Huge ship. They may even want to do so right away, as a replacement to our Megabolt design. I was able to fit 50 Autoblasters and 30 Omega V bombs on a Huge design with the usual maxed defenses, plus Battle Scanner/Autorepair/High Energy Focus specials. Now that's a fleetkiller and planetbuster rolled into one!

 

[TheArchduke]

Turn 1

Looking very good here, the Psilons are broken, but I will still proceed with caution. One planet after another. The two rich planets are immeaditly back to shipbuilding, hopefully soon finishing a new tritanium armor design. So let´s roll.

Turn 2

We land on Vulcan, and it is a massacre, 53 of 75 Bulrathis survive against 100 odd Psilons. We scavenge Fuel Cells 6, Advanced Space Scanner (finally Space exploration!), Inertial Stabilizer, IT +30, BCV and Hyperspace Communications.

I LOVE pointy stick research. The next turn we explore the Psilon planets by far away, and then for the final offensive.

Turn 3

Stealthy bear-spies are hitting the Darloks and we get BCIII. We are getting a nice collection of Battle Computers by now. Love that picture!

Now with the Scanners we finally have a galaxymap. There are 3 rich planets in Meklar hands, and one Artifacts and Rich one in Darlok hands to the southeast. So let´s see what I can snatch! I order Assault supported by 1 Megabolt on the laughable behind tech wise Darloks and the offensive continues against the Psilons.

Turn 4

The first "serious" counter-attack on Mentar, with one Star Blade. Ends in many downed ships of the Psilons. 2 Megabolt Huges are enough to defend it. My attack on Volantis goes smooth, only 4 ancient AMRBombers are lost. The Darloks dial us up and congratulate us for the strikes against Brainkind. Sure, guys, ehrm, we are not moving against you, as well.

Turn 5

A busy turn. First Kailis, the Darlok artifacts world is pulverized. Their ancient rockets can´t even scratch our Huge! Next Nazin, the rich homeworld of the Darloks, with quite some defence assembled. See Screenie.

Apart from the AutoBlast King Cobra, hopelessly outdated. The whole! fleet turns back and leaves the 47 bases alone. End of story for Nazin.

Next up in the turn, we hit the Darloks, espionagewise. Our vigilant spies manage to get Hand Lasers. Phew, am I glad.

Volantins: 46 Bulrathis loose 20 of their own and kill 100 Psilons.
Kailis: 57 Bulrathis loose 36 of their own and kill 110 Darloks.
Nazin: 50 Bulrathis loose 41 of their own and kill 120 Darloks.

Now, this was a turn of bears in action. Next we get the message that we control a majority of the galaxy and other leaders are planning to merge with us.

Onto the tech haul:

Barren enviroment, Bio Toxin Antidote, Plasma Cannon, Trilithium Crystals (Range 10), Sub Light Drives, Neutron Pellet Gun, Zortrium Armor, IT +20, Improved Eco Restoration. The Darloks dial us up for peace, no way.

And guess what, the Psilons who we slaughter by the dozens are glad over our actions against the shapeshifters.

There is no psilon/darlok tech this turn we don´t know.

Turn 6

Moro is taken.
Crypto´s bases are gone.

Voting time:

33 Votes are up, 20 are ours, and everyone votes for the Meklars, no suprise there. But I guess the next emperor may call it a win, or for a challenge fight the industrious Meklars.

Turn 7

Crypto is taken. Nazin already builds a shield and 3 bases next turn. A nicely situated rich world indeed. I make a tech trade as well, for Fusion Rifle from the Meklars for Bio Toxin Antidote to enhance our gropo. New toys for the bears.

Turn 8

Our planets have to regrow considerably, as we despite the one-sided battles lost a lot of bears. I can´t bear not to take Fieras as well, and order an attack on that world. The Psilons and the Darloks are close to extinction, but I leave that for the next emperor to decide.

Turn 9

On Mentar the heaviest battle is fought so far. Meaning, I come close to loosing the Huge during the defence, but not quite. Hundreds of ships are downed.

Turn 10

Fierias is taken.

And Tritanium Armor still doesn´t pop! Mind you, only if the Meklars have a defence against our Megabolt design, we actually might need it. Everyone else is totally helpless against the Bears atm.

dathon78 <<< UP NOW
Sullla <<< on deck
jmas
TheArchduke <<< just played

 

[dathon78]

Ok, let's see what we've got here. Sullla is right; we are doing WAY too much research for this stage in the game. I'm going to pop disruptors and Tritanium, then the research is getting set to a trickle. We also don't need any more territory. All systems are now in range, so we're going on a glassing mission I'm going to make two glassers, a small bomber for swarms, and a few large bruisers to take on the Meklar fleet and their possible energy pulsars. I also shut off spying with everybody but the Meklar, which I turn up to keep trying for Advanced Soil. The other's are too insignificant to matter any more.

2581(Turn 1): Tritanium comes in first turn! I would love to take advanced damage, but as per the rules, I choose Powered Armor. Another peace bid from the brains. Fogetaboutit!

2582(Turn 2): Disruptors pop Getting lucky on the tech pops. And again, I take Plasma Rifle over Scatter Pack X as per the rules. Not that it's going to matter anyway... Shifters make a peace bid. As if!

Alright, time to take a crack at some design. Here's what I came up with for the Huge:

Our best shields, computer, armor, and engines. Meklar planetary shields are only at level 12, so we shouldn't need too many bombs. The rack of Megabolt cannons is for the large number of medium ships the borg are fielding. One less range compared to the disruptors, but they should do more damage vs. a large stack of maneuverable ships. And for the small bomber:

Fast, hard to hit, this ship is meant for taking on unprotected worlds, and for bombing re-founded colonies. I thought about making two designs for two stacks, but I just don't think that will be necessary.

Everybody but Jinga (Poor) and Kailis (Artifacts) is set to produce one of these two designs. I'll use the Pulson and Megabolt boats to pursue the offsensive vs. everybody but the Meklar.

2584(Turn 4): Ok, I can't resist this. The Meklar left Antares WIDE OPEN with no fleets on the way. Troops sent from Mentar and Seidon to take it.

2586(Turn 6): The invasion of Antares. We lost 45 to their 68, so gropo advantage is ~1.5:1 us. That is, until we picked up Personal Absorbtion Shields in the invasion

2587(Turn 7): Kronos (size 30 rich in the south) is the first to feel the wrath of the Omega bombers:

By the way, that was done in one single round, ON THE COMBAT SCREEN. Oh yeah, the Borg are going down HARD.

2588(Turn 8): Next up, is Kholdan. Borg busters see their first use at Tauri, which they flatten into a pancake.

2589(Turn 9): I decide to make this war personal and evil, for absolutely no reason whatsoever:

Except that it was hellacious fun Rha and Paranar also bit the dust.

2590(Turn 10): The Psilons didn't even put up a fight at their last world against our 7 Megabolts, choosing to run like cowards instead. They got their just rewards.

And now that we're done with invasions, we manage to steal Cloning from the Meklar

2591(Turn 11): Darloks exit stage left, but I forgot to grab the screenie. This, however, was just too rich:

Words of peace indeed! I keep waiting to see where the main Meklar fleet at Tau Cygni will go, but the borg are just letting it sit there. C'mon, I want to try those Borg Busters out in some real combat!

2592(Turn 12): Armored exoskelton stolen from the Meklar Oh yeah, and this little tidbit:

Unreal; the Borg decided to send their last, biggest, brightest-hope-for-the-future fleet on the all-important mission .... of re-colonizing Paranar, a size 65 world Dammit, I want to use those new ships! I actually concentrated my fleet at Berel, next door, and waited the eight turns it took the fleet to get there. In the mean time, I amused myself by cleaning up all of the smaller fleets that the Meklar had running around. The Megabolt rack on the Borg Busters definitely did more damage than the disruptors against the medium missile boats. And finally it came, the last battle:

Unfortunately, looks like the Borg were forced to scrap their Huge design due to lack of upkeep. Their only remaining world, Tau Cygni, was a cess pool of toxic waste, only capable of supporting 10m at this point.
Here's the play-by-play: Turn one saw the stack of 58 advance right into my Borg Busters, with only one survivor. Next the buster got to move, killing over 400 missile boats with only 1 loss. The megabolts then took the stack of 38 larges down to one. Round 2 saw the remaining larges, and all but 450 of the missile boats destroyed. Round 3, the Meklar tried to retreat, but only the col ships got away. Each shot of the disruptor cannons took out ~100 missile boats, the mega bolts took out ~150. Not bad, especially considering you can't even get 10 disruptors for the space of 25 megabolts.

And that was that. The same turn, 2400 Omega bombers dealt 35301 dmg to Tau Cygni to put the Meklar out of their miserable existence.

Third time's the charm!

 

[jmas]

Thank you dathon for the report and a good conclusion to the game. Congratulations to all. The early game was challenging (I think of dathon's stand at Misha), but we made it through and gradually built up an advantage until a "tipping point" was reached--the usual way of MOO games.

Yes, I was investing a lot in research. We actually had two rich worlds, Misha and Ukko. Misha was pumping the reserve, Ukko was researching. Factors I considered were the high percentage of our budget paying for upkeep of our ships already built, the seeming invulnerability of our Megabolt Huges, wanting to wait long enough that our construction and miniaturization would be enough to build significantly better ships, and that we seemed to be reaching a &#8220;plateau&#8221; in tech, by which I mean long waits necessary to accrue the very large number of research points needed on Impossible at high tech levels. I do see that Archduke and dathon very efficiently used what we had (plus what we picked up on their turns) to win the game. In the future I will be a little less conservative about keeping the tech budget high as much as possible.

 

[jmas]

By the way, how do you-all get those screenies in the body of your message post as opposed to being attached as thumbnails at the bottom of your message?

 

[Sullla]

Well done indeed, even if the game didn't get back around to me again. To those watching/reading this game (if any), dathon demonstrated how to put things away once you've reached a dominant position: load up some bombs on a Small design, and bomb the living daylights out of EVERY enemy planet. On a Standard map, you can usually clense the map in as little as a dozen turns. Game, set, and match.

The start in this game was on the tough side as far as habitability goes. We had a couple of major factors working for us, however:

1) Isolation - all of the major AIs started on the other side of the map. The only one in our neighborhood was the Klackons, a weak and easily bullied power.

2) Balance of Power - two dominant AIs (Psilons and Meklar), both of whom hated one another. I've found that that's usually a pretty easy scenario for the player to work with; ally with the weaker of the two, and then switch sides when/if needed.

3) Psilons - the brains never got out of control in this game, and were handled without too much trouble. Dathon's stand at Misha was the best move in any round we played. We were helped out by the fact that the Psilons showed up as Erratic, of all personalities, which I had never seen before. (I actually thought that they couldn't show up as Erratic?) Those dice roll declarations of war caused everyone to hate the brains, and prevented them from carrying out their usual teching strategy.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed seeing the different playstyles from each individual. What's the plan for the next MOO succession game?

PS jmas, you can embed images in your posts by using the "Upload File" feature, which is at the extreme bottom of the page. Upload the image from your computer, then cut and paste the link it gives you into your post. It's actually pretty easy to do now; the old system (back in 2002-04) was much more complicated.

 

[dathon78]

(I actually thought that they couldn't show up as Erratic?)

I seem to remember hearing somewhere that any race has a small chance of showing up as erratic. But I could easily be mistaken on that. What's fun is when the Humans show up as erratic, making and breaking alliances at a whim

As for the next plan, I know my availability this month is limited, and I'm probably not the only one, so perhaps we should wait until after the holidays? If everybody is gung-ho I might be able to swing the time, but if not, I'll bow out of the next game.

As for scenario ideas, the only one I can come up with at the moment is to take a hard game with the Mrrshan, but only use the "sub-optimal" weapons, such as torpedoes, graviton beams, shield-halving beams, etc. Who knows, we might actually find a good use for some of them

dathon

 

[sargon0]

Entertaining & instructive read, well played everyone.

As for Erratic personalities, every race has a 20% chance except the normally erratic Meklar or the Xenophobic Klackon, Silicoid or Mrrshan.

 

[RefSteel]

As for Erratic personalities, every race has a 20% chance except the normally erratic Meklar or the Xenophobic Klackon, Silicoid or Mrrshan.

I'm just a newbie (and a lurker until now) but I could swear I've seen erratic Klackons ... in fact, weren't there some in an early OSG? (Hard Rock Cafe, I think...)

 

[TheArchduke]

Was a blast, I am glad that the Moo SGs are back as neither GalCiv2 or SEV are fullfilling.

 

[IamJohn]

PS jmas, you can embed images in your posts by using the "Upload File" feature, which is at the extreme bottom of the page. Upload the image from your computer, then cut and paste the link it gives you into your post. It's actually pretty easy to do now; the old system (back in 2002-04) was much more complicated.

Also remember that you can upload the images to sites like imageshack.us or photobucket.com, that way there's no need to delete them and future generations of emperors can hear of your glorious conquest.

 

[sargon0]

I'm just a newbie (and a lurker until now) but I could swear I've seen erratic Klackons ... in fact, weren't there some in an early OSG? (Hard Rock Cafe, I think...)

I was quoting the official documented options but I think players have reported seeing other options and you are right that OSG3 included an erratic Klackon. It is not clear that Assassination or Overthrow of an AI leader will stick to the normal options but, in any case, it appears there are possible variations from the documented list!

 

[vmxa]

Well done indeed, even if the game didn't get back around to me again. To those watching/reading this game (if any), dathon demonstrated how to put things away once you've reached a dominant position: load up some bombs on a Small design, and bomb the living daylights out of EVERY enemy planet. On a Standard map, you can usually clense the map in as little as a dozen turns. Game, set, and match.

Looks like some lurkers for sure and I read all Moo post sooner or later. Especially SG's.

 

[jmas]

Thank you Sullla and IAmJohn for the replies about posting screenies, and others for the 411 on Erratic personalities. I'm not sure about playing again right away, as I have some other matters to attend to.. on the other hand, RefSteel posted that Meklar scenario which I may look into at least by myself..