OSG20 - Bearly In Motion

[sargon0]

Rich & Ultra-rich worlds get the production bonus for the RESERVE so instead of 50% you get 100% or 150% of your BC placed in reserve. This allows you to spend those BC where and when you need them most and is essential if you have Artifacts, Orion or Ultra-rich worlds to feed.
Research in a field will lose 10% current investment if no BC are invested in a turn so, except very early on, you normally keep an allocation to each field and sufficient investment in research to ensure each allocation generates at least 1 BC. Ultra-poor & Poor worlds are good candidates for maintaining research investment, Rich & Ultra-rich are poor candidates.

 

[jmas]

These turns were pretty quiet; they consisted mostly of adjusting spending bars for our planets (and occasionally spying). I’m pretty sure I played my full 10 turns last time..

2480: All is well.

IBT We get IIT6. Unfortunately, IIT5 is the only option for our next discovery.

2481: Earlier it looked like only 120 Klackon smalls were headed to Nordia, but now I see a fleet with 93 mediums and 443 smalls. Fortunately they later retreat (almost certainly because of the peace treaty). Move 10 million to Nordia. I continually move money from the reserve to Nordia; I won’t be announcing it for each turn.

2482: Repulsor Beam at 21%. Another 10M to Nordia.

IBT Psilons retreat from Paladia after losing some smalls. Meklars colonize Kronos (radiated).

2483: I withdraw our ships from Kronos since we have a NAP with the Meklar. Since Misha is about to finish a dummy ship, I move its funding to research to get that darn repulsor beam. Yes, I know it could put money in the reserve without overhead instead, but tech funding earns interest and I thought the Beam would come in quickly, maybe in the next turn.

2484: 5M to Nordia–I was waiting to see where it would max out terraforming, and didn’t realize this turn that I probably could have figured that out using the Eco bar. Repulsor at 29%.

2485: Vox finishes shield. More colonists to Nordia–pop max is 85. Ursa switches to research as it is about to finish its dummy ship. Repulsor at 34% (!)

IBT: Repulsor Beam arrives. Choices: Class IV, Class X Planetary, or Class VI shields. Meklar transports all destroyed at Nordia thanks to the fleet Sulla sent there to protect it. The Darloks threaten us.

2486: Redesign our huge ship to use the repulsor beam. It can also fit more heavy fusion beams since we pulled in a construction tech. Unfortunately its Missile Defense is only 1.
I arrange for RELOC of the ships about to be built at Ursa, Paladia, and Misha to Nordia. The Klackons agree to my proposal to trade 75 BC per year (they earlier refused a higher trade amount).

2487: Repulsor-equipped ships on their way to Nordia. Klackons are approaching Nordia again. I ask the Meklars to break their treaty with the Darloks, in case the Darloks decide to declare war on us. Unfortunately, the Meks decline.

2488: Klackons turn back without fighting at Nordia. Atmospheric terraforming at 4%.

2489: Nordia is almost done building a shield.

2490: Nordia will have both a shield and a base next turn. Its production won’t go any higher this turn but it will be able to use more money from the reserve next turn. Small Psilon fleets are inbound to Misha and Paladia–nothing we can’t handle. Misha’s spending is currently divided between the reserve and building another huge ship (since it has advantages for both of these functions)–the next emperor may want to pick one of these items or at least shift the balance a little more toward one of them.

Sulla’s suggestion of taking Kholdan (shortly after a council vote) would be good for the economy. The only problem with our Repulsor ships is the missile defense of 1. The Klackons now have BC IV. I believe missile bases always have +1 attack level relative to what a ship with your best BC would have; and the Hyper-X rocket also has +1 attack level. That gives them attack level 6 to our missile defense of 1, and they would then score a hit on a roll of 0 or higher, i.e. they would have a 100% hit rate. 33 Hyper-X-equipped bases launch 99 missiles for 495 points of damage per turn after the effect of our Class III shields, while Auto Repair can repair only 90 points per turn. Our ships will move 2 tiles per combat round, so will take 2 turns to reach firing range of the planet (Kholdan). The Klackon bases have total shielding of 9, so our heavy fusion beams will hit for 0 to 21 each, and there are 13 beams on each ship. Our minimum to-hit roll is 20. Assuming our rolls average around 50, I think the average damage per hit should be around 6 points, after the effect of shields, so the 13 beams on each ship would do about 78 points, taking out one of their Duralloy-armored bases per turn. So we are going to need either 1) more of our current huge ships, 2) some ECM to put on a new huge design, or 3) Omega-V bombs with an appropriate design (maybe another Repulsor-equipped huge, which would also have poor defense but would divide Klackon fire). It would probably be worth sending a scanner-equipped ship to reconnoiter and see what is on the Klackon mediums–hopefully not a heavy beam weapon; though it seems unlikely they would have one on there, it would make things more complicated.

The thumbnails show the Status screen (our fleet bar jumped up tremendously with the construction of the three huge ships) and Nordia about to build its first base (along with shield).

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

 

[TheArchduke]

2490

All looks good, i decide to build a 4th huge on Misha. I put a tiny percentage into spying on to Klackons as bad relations won´t hurt us in any case. Norda builds a shield and a base and I up factory production to the point where I still get 1base/year. I exchange the pretty much worthless Ion cannon tech for Anti-Missile Rockets from the Meklars. For ECM III they demand a worthwhile tech, so I decline.

The only problem is that AMR take too much space on the Huge design and would only allow for 9 fusion beams. A medium design could work but we have no bombs and default fusion beams are too weak. Higher speed would help as well, but higher maneuver on huges is costly.

2491

So with no chance at taking out those bases without a ridiculous cost, I soldier on. Or in other words, we need bombs. 500 small and 100 medium ships attack Nordia which thankfully has 2 bases and a shield. The 101 medium ships have spores, so without our repulsor design we would be toast.

2492

And after beating the attack on Nordia - 10 fighters were lost and the Klackons lost nearly all Spores - the Klackons declare war.

2493

Uneventful.

2494

The Klackons kill their last spore ships on our defence and Omega-V Bomb pops, yay. I decide on Pulson missiles next to advance through the tech tree and we have no gropo tech or decent beams which interest me as we got the Fusion Beam already.

I design a medium bomber which hopefully survives long enough thanks to AMR to bring his payload on Kholdan. I didn´t see much sense in putting it on a Huge/Large/Small design, hopefully I won´t be corrected. I commence production of the AMRBomber on 4 planets.

2495

Another day, another unnecessary massacre of Psilon troops on Paladia.

2496

Atmos Terraforming pops, one of my favourite techs. I invest 50% in it, to get in online asap. I go for IT +50 next as my interest in the Doom Virus is rather low.

2497

Another psilon suicide run and IRC IV pops, another yay. I have the choice of BCV, BCVI or ECM III. I do think we should invest in some ECM but I don´t like backtracking too much either. So BC VI it is. And it seems the Meklars have decided to wipe out the Klackons themselves. A nasty psilon fleet is en route to Paladia.

2498

Nothing this turn except massive investments into planetary development thanks to Improved Robotics and Terraforming.

2499

Another battle at Misha where the Psilon Huges actually get into shooting Range of the planet. But they can´t overcome our shields. And thanks to the kind soul who saved a colony ship on Nordia, we colonize Kholdan. This is even better as expected, the Meklars did the dirty work for us.

And the Darloks declare war on us.

2500

Engagement at Kholdan, our 3 huge designs encounter a massive Meklar fleet which is underequipped. The Large design has 58 Hyper-V launchers and our disadvantage at ECM hurts BIG time. The colony is destroyed and for the loss of 2 Huges I destroy 1 Huge. I shouldn´t have gambled on the Hyper-Vs not hitting me once before I could shoot at the Huge Meklars.

Voting time, the Meklars colonized Kholdan. There was no way I could have hold onto it but I (had?) to try.

Psilons vs Us, they get 12 votes and we 8, so I have to abstain.

I am not sure if should have not tried for Kholdan, the massive escort fleet for the Meklar colony ship was perhaps 1-2 turns to quick and we might have snatched the planet. I shouldn´t have fooled around but escaped immeaditly but I am not used to having ZERO missile defence.

 

[Sullla]

Even if we failed to get Kholdan, we DID secure Nordia. Looks like that scrambling we tried earlier paid off. More importantly, this past turnset saw the arrival of Atmospheric Terraforming and Robotics IV. With those in hand, we're in seriously good shape in terms of economics.

Losing 2 of our 3 Huge designs in an impossible fight was definitely a misstep. Those ships could serve as escorts for our Omega-V bombers. In any case though, we can recover and soldier on. I say either the Psilons or Darloks are our next opponent. I'm sure dathon can find some opportunities for future expansion on his turnset.

 

[dathon78]

2500(Turn 0): Wow, things sure look different since the last time I looked at this game Our empire looks pretty secure, for now. As far as expanding, the Meklar are our buddies right now, so I'm not inclined to attack them just yet. That leaves the Psilons. We can attack at Tauri, Crius, or Obaca. We'd get nothing out of Tauri, as it's a spud. Crius is their current rally point, and has 30 bases. But Obaca in the N has only 17 bases, and is being terraformed higher for us. I think we should strike here next, and hopefully pick up some nice tech. So I direct all of our fleet resources in the south to Ursa; we'll wait here in case another opportunity opens up.

Ok, nitpicking time. Misha is pumping reserves, which is ok, but we need ships right now! Especially those Huge's, which are the only way we are actually going to hold planets we capture. As for our hostile worlds, it's better to terraform those ASAP; the sooner they go un-hostile, the faster they will grow, and the less pop we'll have to buy to max them out. Sullla is generally right; it's better to bend all production at a world to a single goal. Think of it this way: the opportunity cost of the world not being at max factories/pop almost always outweighs the research you put in while splitting growth. We've done the math in previous SG's. All of our NE worlds have more than enough defense; if the fight gets there at this point, we've already lost.

Alright, let's get this party started!

2501(Turn 1): Easily hold Paladia.

2504(Turn 4): Disaster strikes! The Psilons have a new ship, large, with plasma cannons and level 6 shielding, rendering our missile useless Found this out at Misha, where an incoming fleet was smoked, except for those damn Dark Stars. After securing orbit, they bomb out 2/3 of the pop and 80% of the factories. With another fleet incoming, this world is toast. Even worse, we have NO ANSWER to this threat! We only have one repulsor ship, and it's at Paladia, where it will (hopefully) be able to handle the fleet coming there. ALL research, except for a trickle, goes to Pulson rockets. I also make this trade:

I hate giving away repulsor's, but there are fleets heading for both Paladia and Ursa with significant numbers of those Dark Stars in them.

2505(Turn 5): Misha destroyed I was so upset, I forgot to take a screenie. On the plus side, after wiping Misha off the map, the brains finally agree to a peace treaty, so Ursa and Paladia will be safe. I hate to do that, but I don't want to risk our core, and I'm not at all sure that 20 some bases are enough to destroy the number of incoming Dark Stars.. Relations are at Relaxed, so we should be able to hold out until Pulsons come on the scene. All ship building is halted; we'll be able to design better models when we're ready to go back on the offensive.

2509(Turn 9): Time for more AI cheese. I managed to land a col ship on Misha the turn before the Psilon's got their fleet there. Even though they could have easily wiped and replaced, they honor the treaty and let us keep the planet. 60 colonists sent from Firma to get the planet back ASAP.

And that, as they say, is that. All things considered, we dodged a MAJOR bullet here. The only thing we lost was production at Misha; thanks to the idiot AI, we were still be able to keep the planet. Pulson's are in the percentages, and Class X is ~ 80% done, so we should be fine when the brains come calling again. Ursa and Paladia have a large number of ship credits built up. All worlds are maxed and researching, except Nordia, which is maxed and building up its defenses. The trade was a tough decision, but the brains were not accepting peace at that point, so I still feel it was the right move.

dathon

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/52773/osg20c_2510.zip

 

[TheArchduke]

Nice work getting Misha back, we don´t want that world in Psilon hands.

In any case, whilst the weapon tech of the Psilons is impressive, the Meklar tech is very low and there are no bases on Kholdan and a neighbouring planet yet, perhaps there is an oppurtunity there, or am I crazy?

 

[Sullla]

Whew! That had disaster written all over it, dathon. Nice job securing peace, and even taking advantage of AI cluelessness to sneak in and regrab Misha! That deserves a double thumbsup smiley: I have to admit, I was worried a bit about us riding out Scatter Pack Vs as late as 2500...

By the way, what exactly did we get in return for Repulsors? I'm assuming it was some sort of missile tech, but you never actually explained.

Archduke, the Meklar are our only real friend in this galaxy. I wouldn't go tossing them under the bridge so long as we have other foes to fight. The Psilons should definitely be the next target, as soon as we can deploy three things:

1) Pulson missile tech (for defensive bases)
2) Class X shields
3) A large fleet of Omega-V bombers

Figure another 15-20 turns to marshall those three things, and we should be ready to go on the offensive in earnest. I'll see if I can make a start in that regard on my turns, tonight hopefully.

 

[dathon78]

By the way, what exactly did we get in return for Repulsors?

Yeah, well, I was a little busy, ya know? It was Merculite missiles, enough to punch through the shields of the Dark Stars, but just barely. I wasn't sure that 20 some bases could take out the stacks of 15-20 Dark stars that were part of the incoming fleets, plus the those Huge Star Fury's. I did manage to build 4 bases at Misha the turn before it died, after the bombardment and after the trade, and they were only able to take out 1 ship before dying.

dathon

 

[Sullla]

2510 (Turn 0) OK, overall I have to say that things look really good. All of our planets have finished Atmospheric Terraforming and adding additional factories from Robotics IV. We're a hop, skip, and jump away from total security with Pulson missiles and Planetary Shield X. The latest Psilon threat has been turned back, and if we can stand up Rich Misha quickly, we'll have avoided a major loss in the north.

I have only one nit: we have nothing in the Reserve to start my turns! Only a little over 100BC. (Granted, dathon was probably spending that, and rightly so.) I'm going to need it to rebuild Misha, so I dump two of our backline planets onto feeding the reserve. And even though we have 61 colonists heading back to Misha, that's not enough for my tastes, so another 12m are dispatched from nearby Firma. I also put two clicks into spying, since we need an update on what the other races have.

Otherwise, dathon's management of our empire looks great. Unlike the vast majority of the succession games I've played, our defenses actually are in really solid shape!

2511 (Turn 1) Ye gods, those Rich planets are hot commodities! We have zero factories at Misha, but can produce 22 this turn with reserve spending. Yowza. We need 360 factories to max out the planet, and I bet we can do it in a dozen turns.

Elsewhere, things are quiet, waiting on techs to pop (when I'll kick fleet building into high gear again). I note with pleasure that Nordia, my bold gamble from 30 turns ago, is now maxed out and up into the double-digits in base count - a safe and valued part of our empire!

2512 (Turn 2) Misha: 35 factories/turn

2513 (Turn 3) Drakka rebels, another "bad" random event. Fortunately we're late enough in the game that this is a fairly minimal issue. I coordinate an invasion from several nearby planets, timed to land in 2 turns.

The Darloks have signed an alliance with the Meklars. That could bring the borgs into the war against us. I asked the Meklar to declare war on the Darloks, but they wanted Robotics III, and that was too high of a price. I'll try asking again in a couple of turns. (They soon broke the alliance on their own; no harm done.)

Misha: 47 factories/turn, population maxed at 90

2514 (Turn 4) Misha: 60 factories/turn. It can already build a base + shield in a single turn!

2515 (Turn 5) Improved Industrial 5 pops, yay! We only have one choice, but it's a good one: Andrium Armor. Gropo tech AND more hit points for our ships + bases, we'll take it! Still waiting on Pulsons, however...

Drakka is easily retaken:

Misha: 93 factories/turn

2516 (Turn 6) Pulsons finally come due at 17%! To move forward we can select from Particle Beam, Hercular Missiles, or Plasma Cannon. Since we just discovered Pulsons, that makes the Hercular missiles a lot less attractive. After considering the other two, I decide to go with the Particle Beam because 1) it's cheaper yet will still move us up the ladder 2) we don't have any of those shield-halving weapons currently. Feel free to critique and revisit this choice later:

I rebalance research now that we have the needed defensive tech, start fleet building at our top three worlds (Ursa, Paladia, Firma). Misha will remax NEXT TURN and should be part of the fleet buildup in just a couple more turns. Wow. Love those Rich planets!

2517 (Turn 7) Spying on the Psilons reveal that they have weak shielding and missiles, but they do have one very nasty toy: NEUTRONIUM bombs! Methinks that we'd better start taking them out before they can deploy that on some bombers!

2519 (Turn 9) There's a major Psilon fleet coming after Misha in 4 turns. I'll just keep stacking up the bases there for the next few turns. Shouldn't be in any real danger.

2520 (Turn 10) And nothing too crazy to end my turn. We'll probably want to redesign our Huge ship in a couple of turns after discovering Force Field (12%) and Propulsion (7%) techs. As soon as the Psilon attack is beat off, we can probably go on the offensive against them. (Just make sure not to waste our ships defensively if our bases along can cut it!) I don't think their world of Obaca can possibly stand against even the ships we have now, not to mention what we'll have ready in another 5-10 turns. Good luck!

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

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/12069/OSG20-2520s.zip

 

[dathon78]

we have nothing in the Reserve to start my turns!

The reserves got dumped at Paladia (for bases) and Ursa (for a Repulsor ship) before peace was signed. My wing-and-a-prayer plan was to delay the Dark Stars for a couple turns with the Repulsor Huge, and hope the bases could do enough damage.

dathon

 

[dathon78]

I decide to go with the Particle Beam ... Feel free to critique and revisit this choice later

How could I resist a prompt like that?

Looking strictly at the weapons for the moment, Particle Beams do 10-20 (avg 15) while Plasma cannon does 6-30 (avg 18). Particle Beams halve shields, which seems nice, but unfortunately fall victim to the same problem which plagues all of the shield-halving beams: they are HUGE! Plasma cannons are size 30, while the particle beams are size 90! So let's look at some math:

Looking at a single weapon, plasma cannons are as good or better than the particle beams until shield strength is 7 or higher. This assumes that the halving effect is truncated, which I believe is the case. So at shield 7, plasma's do 0-23, for an avg of 11.5, and particle's do 7-17, for an avg of 12. But the real kicker is that we can get 3 plasma cannons for the space of one particle beam. Taking that into consideration, the particles don't draw even until a shield level of 28 And by then, the average damage is only 3 per shot, so not really worth using anyway. Plus, the larger size means it is much longer before a fighter-class ship can be made using particle beams over plasma cannons, further reducing their usefulness. BTW, if I'm wrong, and value are rounded UP instead, the particle beams never have an advantage over the plasma cannons. So as far as the weapons by themselves, plasma cannons win hands down.

Now, that being said, I do think that taking the particle beams over plasma beams is a better call; however, I think Hercular missiles would have been best. We have a great beam already in Fusion's, which are still useful against the technology levels we're seeing. Further, since we're flying Huge ARS ships, we won't be using one-space beam weapons for quite some time. Plus, the next rung on the ladder has two awesome beam techs (Disruptors and Pulse Phasors) that beat both the choices at this level, and being good in weapons, we have a very good chance that one of them is in the tree. Given that we're not using either beam, the cheaper one is the best, since it advances us quicker. However, for only 2680 RP more, which is only 6%, we could have had an incremental upgrade to all of our missile bases. 5 dmg doesn't sound like much, but when you have 25 bases, and 3 shots per base, that's 375 more damage per shot. That's enough to take out an additional large ship (or two with poor armor) in a stack. And the +1 to-hit and speed bonus doesn't hurt either.

So all in all, I'd have to go with Hercular missiles here. It's certainly not a big deal; the upgrade is incremental, and I'm sure that the Pulson's will hold us for quite some time to come. I just don't think that we will be using the particle beams at all, and I always like to see SOME advantage from the techs researched, even if it is marginal.

dathon

 

[Zed-F]

Just as a general point... the shield halving weapons are generally good weapons to skip when you come across them, and come back to later when you are much higher tech level. They tend to take relatively little power but lots of space, which means they miniaturize very well, but they are so huge they require a lot of miniaturization. The fact that they halve shields also helps extend their usefulness in the late game, but is not so meaningful earlier on when shield values are lower.

 

[jmas]

Thank you to everyone for that recent discussion of techs, I found it enlightening.

2520: I can’t see the incoming Psilon fleet due to a fleet they have orbiting another star. Seeing that we can put more weapons on a Huge ship design now, I design the Repulsor II class, with 4 more heavy fusion beams plus 3 Merculite launchers (5-shot) for only a couple hundred BC more than the old class.

IBT We get Class X Planetary. Going with intuition, I opt for Cloaking Device, over Class 7 shields. Let me know what you think of the Cloaking Device so I will know for future games. It seems to me it could be useful to us, and hopefully we can pointy-stick better shields than our current Class 3s.

2521: Nothing special..

IBT Psilon fleet is still 1 turn out of Firma. The Psilons issue a DOW.

2522: Ready at Misha...bring ‘em on!

IBT All 3 Psilon (Huge) Star Furies, all Dark Stars, and 113 of 145 Star Blazers destroyed without casualty to us. The remaining ships flee, of course.

2523: Ursa now has a Psilon fleet inbound; nothing we can’t handle, though I do switch spending there to Defense. I send our ships at Misha toward Obaca.

IBT Meklar spies destroy 13 factories at Proteus. Impulse Drives arrive; choose Star Gates over Range 10. Again, I think we’ll be able to pointy-stick better range tech than we have right now. Though, now that I’ve finished my turns, it seems like it would be a welcome “easy job” to capture the nearest Darlok world.

2524: Not much, I’m spoiling for the fight at Obaca.

IBT The Psilons are using Scatter-V Rockets. We lose almost exactly half of the AMR Bombers, but take out the 17 bases with one shot from what’s left. By the way, the effects of the Heavy Fusion Beams on the Huges against the bases were not very good.

Council: Darloks, 4 votes for the Psilons, guess they hate them less than they hate us.
Meklars, 7 for us.
Psilons, 8, for themselves.
Mrrshans, 2 for us.
Us, 13 votes, enough to make the Psilons win, but not ourselves, this time around. We abstain.

2525 Ready for the fight at Ursa. Send troops toward Obaca.

IBT I thought I had looked at all the Psilon fleets near Obaca, but I missed this one, a biggie with a lot of Hyper-V-mounted Comets (smalls). Our fleet there has no chance, so I retreat it.

GNN: Production rankings: Us, Psilon, Meklar, Mrrshan, Darlok

2526 Seeing the problem posed by the Comets, I design the Cometbustr (see thumbnail). If only we had a streaming weapon! But the ship will perform well, I think, with superior Attack and Defense Power relative to the Comet, a Fusion Beam, Anti-Missiles, and a Merc Missile (2 shots), because it fit. It is pricey for a medium though.

IBT Of two transport fleets I sent to Obaca, one is wiped out, the other lands 8 troops who take out at least 9 Psilons, who have only Ion Rifle for gropo. Factoring in our equipment and racial bonus and their defensive bonus, we have +20% in gropo battles.

2527 The big Psilon fleet moves from Obaca, but there are many Comets at Crius. I only later realize that it looks like the Comets may only have warp 1 engines, which gives us advantage for outwitting the AI. But here in 2527, I bide my time, building Cometbustrs.

2528: Psilons shipped out 571 Comets for a futile attack on Drakka.

IBT One of several Psilon fleets inbound to Drakka runs away.

2529: Debate over sending our fleet from Misha to Obaca again since most of the brains’ fleet is away. I decide against it in favor of giving the AI a chance to do what it has been doing: sending Comets away from the area for pointless attacks. 535 Comets will arrive at Crius in two turns–if that many (or more) then ship out for a long haul, it will be good for us. I realize that we could try to take Obaca (and anything we can pointy-stick) at any cost, but I decide to leave that for the next turn and next emperor to ponder. I’m not sure of the likelihood of the AI glassing the planet (which would be fine for us) versus invading and possibly getting our gropo tech or Pulson Missiles (not such a good outcome, were it to happen).

2530: All looks well. Drakka alone has inbound fleets, none that can harm it. By the way if you use the Pulsons, you can hit some Comets before they flee. Vox alone has not yet built a Class X shield–it hasn’t come under attack so far, so it’s putting a trickle in Def. I just noticed that Paladia, Ursa, and Misha have sufficiently high base counts that some bases could be scrapped to save the upkeep money for tech research. Jinga and Tao have low base counts and are spending in Def to build some more.

Sorry for misjudging the situation at Obaca..though we did come within one turn of capturing a Psilon colony and probably getting two or more techs. I hope we do capture a colony soon and start catching up in tech.

I have to get up in about 6 hours, so I'm going to stop writing now and let the team move forward. Go Bears!

 

[TheArchduke]

Turn 1

Everything looks fine. And Obaca has no bases and some industry, I am definetly trying for it. Firma and Misha both need 2 turns to send marines, so naturally Firma sends them.

Turn 2

Obaca has established 2 bases, nothing we can´t handle. The important thing is that the Psilon fleet seem engaged with the Meklars at Crius. Controlled radiated enviroment is my next choice after IT +50 pops. It is a bit of backtracking, but I think we should finally be able to land in any enviroment and the next choice is an expensive IT +60.

And in other good news: Nordia becomes fertile.

Turn 3

An attack on Drakka occurs, nothing we can´t handle, though.
Now onto Obaca. It is protected by 2! bases and 3! medium sized ships and has 158 factories, nice. I snatch a screenie whilst hoping for some decent tech. We get BCVII, the Ion Rifle putting us on an even better place for groundfighting and Class V and Class VII Shields.

Not bad, we didn´t get Auto Blaster or Plasma Cannons, but it could have been worse. I update our Huge design with new CPUs and Shields and commence construction on several planets.

Let´s see if we can hold onto Obaca, I invest a bit of our reserve into it. And as we got no serious opposition enroute to Obaca as far as I can see I decide to visit Ukko. Also I stop building the Cometbuster as we need Bombers or Huge ships in my opinion.

Turn 4

Another minor assault on Drakka. Battle at Ukko commences, 12 bases, tough, I am not sure if I have enough AMRBombers and the cometbusters and the Huges can´t do too much damage, I retreat for now.

From Obaca I know that 2 bases managed to kill 12 AMRBombers so we need a bit more support. Some planets max size this turn and I adjust our industry spending to accomodate them.

Turn 5

Another senseless assault on Drakka and the first counter-attack on Obaca by 9 larges, no chance for the Brains, still. I send 32 AMR Bombers from Misha to rendevous with our fleet near Ukko. Factories are finished this turn on several planets.

Turn 6

No attack at all.

Turn 7

Another assault on Drakka, yawn. This turn I assault Ukko with some more bombers and I decide to risk it. 21 bombers arrive on the planet and bomb it down to 2 bases, whilst 5 bombers survive. Ouch, but we are getting through. The last base is destroyed by our Fusion beams and guess what: Ukko is RICH!

Although Obaca has no shields atm I decide to make a run for Ukko with some more pop enroute from Firma to Ukko.

Turn 8

Ukko is ours. Advanced Eco Restoration, BCVIII, Hard Beam, Graviton beam and our first ECM III fall into our hands. And to top it the Psilons come asking for peace, I accept of course so we can stand up our two new world asap. I redesign the

Bombers to get better chances against bases by putting the ECM on them. Also some of the newly arrived pop in Obaca go to Ukko. Obaca has now 3 bases.

TUrn 9

The nasty counter-attacks on both Obaca and Ukko turn away.

Turn 10 (2540)

I give the save back to the team. Both Obaca and Ukko are equipped with a shield and are close to maxing pop as well as industry. We should then be able to decide if we press on against the Psilons as soon as we get more bombers in (Please build more off those, Ukko was too damn close for my liking.)

As we got unlucky with Fuel Cells, the small Darloks are still outside of our range though. Quite an eventful round, I think and we closed the gap with the Psilons and the Meklars, but I still think the game is not at all won. I hope I didn´t dare too much (again) but at least this time my exploits weren´t glassed although a 100 bombers might have been a high price for Ukko.

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

 

[jmas]

(Deleted obsolete message)

 

[TheArchduke]

Ehrm, jmas, I think everything worked fine, as I already got your save, played my turn and posted it one post before your second report.

 

[dathon78]

Wow, you guys are fast

I'll see if I can rustle some time up this afternoon.

dathon

 

[Sullla]

We ARE surprisingly fast. But I've always preferred that to succession games that sit and drag out for weeks and weeks.

A couple quick things for jmas:

2520: I can’t see the incoming Psilon fleet due to a fleet they have orbiting another star.

You can always see incoming fleets by using F8. That's possibly the single most important hotkey in the game.

IBT We get Class X Planetary. Going with intuition, I opt for Cloaking Device, over Class 7 shields. Let me know what you think of the Cloaking Device so I will know for future games. It seems to me it could be useful to us, and hopefully we can pointy-stick better shields than our current Class 3s.

I personally don't find the Cloaking Device to be very useful; picking it over Class VII shields, when we had nothing better than Class III, would ordinarily rate as a poor choice. HOWEVER, avoiding Class VII shields in the expectation that we would loot them from the Psilons is a different matter, and a much better decision. As it turns out, TheArchduke did exactly that. So overall, this wasn't really a bad choice. (Of course, if our offensive had failed, it might be a different story! )

I totally agree with picking Star Gates over Range 10. I can't remember who said it, but you should never research a range tech past 6 or 7 unless you have no other choice. The AI loves those techs, and they are easy to grab via invasions.

Not sending transports along with the fleet to Obaca was a mistake. We had already scouted the planet, so there was no reason not to time the marines to land with the invasion. TheArchduke got the planet on his turn, so no harm done, just pointing it out for use in future games.

I have to say, I'm not a huge fan of the Anticomet design. I usually design ships for a specific purpose: gunship, missile boat, point defense, bomber, etc. I'm just not exactly sure what the goal of this ship is supposed to be. Is it a gunship? That would suggest either a swarm of (Small) fighters or a Huge Autorepair juggernaut. Is it a missle boat? If so, ditch the Fusion Beam and add our best missile (Pulsons) instead. That Comet design is slow as molasses, so I would probably respond to it by simply trying to doge its Hyper-Vs, or go with the Pulson missile boat and strike first on initiative. Anyway, some food for thought in any case.

Archduke captured us some awesome techs in his turn; if we can grab an improved gun (esp. the Auto Blaster) and/or those Neutronium Bombs from the Psilons, we can put this game away in the next few turnsets. Good luck dathon!

 

[jmas]

I'm glad that my message somehow got posted last night when/before the server went offline. Thank you Archduke for pointing that out. Good turns. Thanks also to Sulla, I think your points are valid. The only other things I would point out are that:

--I didn't know how the AMR Bombers would perform in their first battle--heck, I didn't even know what missiles the Psilons were using (though I was guessing something low-level) since no missiles were visible on the Report screen for them.

--The Comets are of course useless against our planetary shields. My concern was that they would show up in the few turns before we could get shields up. At first I assumed they could move at the 3-4 parsec speed other Psilon ships seem to use. If they had been able to do that, and/or were not under the control of an AI making, shall we say, less-than-perfect tactical choices , glassing (which of course would have been OK) or losing the colony with its industry (potentially a real headache) would have been our fate there. Your points about ships are valid. At the time I just couldn't see how to deal with the hordes of these annoying ships, so the primary purpose really was to handle the Comets, with any use against other ships being a nice fringe benefit. We have more options now with higher tech levels and an ECM device, so I think we can probably design ships with less narrow purposes than the Cometbuster.

 

[jmas]

Looking at the save from Archduke, it looks like we are in great shape. I just want to point out that there is significant "debt" (i.e., retroactive upgrade costs) owed on our missile bases for upgrades to BC VIII and Shield VII, such that even Rich Misha would have to use most of its spending for one turn to pay it off. Not a big deal, but something to think about if anyone has occasion to build more bases on our developed worlds.