OSG21 - Big Brother
- Thread starter dathon78
- Start date
First thing I notice is that our ship maintenance budget is already at 11%. Despite the prebuilds underway at virtually every planet in our empire, we really can't afford to do a lot more shipbuilding at this point. I generally don't like to go above 15% and definitely not 20% on ship maintenance. IMHO we need to concentrate more on quality, and less on quantity. Fortunately, as Psilons, we are well-qualified to do that... but it does mean we need to be placing more of an emphasis on additional research than we are right now, so I turn off the prebuilds at Rayden and Rotan. I also equalize tech since Trilithium is well into percentages and should pop on its own relatively soon. At this point we need more tech across the board to improve our economy so we can afford more ships/research, and to miniaturize and otherwise improve our existing warships.
2440: Trade the kitties Fusion Rifle for Jammer III. I want to be able to trade for their Fusion Beams next turn, before we build some real warships. Send most of our fleet at Proteus to Kailis. We wipe out the defenders and bombard, killing most of the pop and destroying the factories. Hopefully the kitties will be around soon to mop up. We repel a couple small fleets elsewhere. On the interturn, we learn Trilithium and I pick HEF; also the Kitties colonize Altair. That'll learn them birds!
2441: Give the cats Impulse drive for Fusion Beams. Now we have a real gun.
Well we had Neutron guns, I suppose, but having more options doesn't hurt. Send the bulk of the fleet to attack the birds at Volantis, though it's getting spread out more as we defend more planets for the kitties.
I have some choices to make for ship design. Here are some options:
1) Small Bomber: I can make a warp 5 bomber with stabilizers, Mark III computers, and 2 fusion bombs. This should be a pretty decent glassmaker.
2) Small Fighter: Warp 5 with a Neutron Beam, stabilizers, and Mark II computers. I have to give up too much if I try to fit on a fusion beam. Although, I could upgrade to BC III if I switch to dual NPGs instead of the neutron gun. What kinds of shields and maneuver are we going up against with the Meks and Bears, I wonder? On the other hand, our existing NPG fighters have only one NPG but attack level 5... so redesigning them now would not afford a big improvement.
3) ARS Huge: Tempting but we can only be in one place at a time and they have very large maintenance. I don't think they will be flexible enough with our limited economy.
4) ARS Large: Might be a better option than ARS huge, need more info on Bear and Mek weapons though. Or perhaps just go with non-repairing larges and strap on more guns.
5) Missile boats: Actually we have lots of good tools to make this viable. We could even make a small with merculite 2-racks if we wanted, though I would probably go with a medium or large design instead.
Bottom line is I need more intel on Bears and Meks before I can decide what I need to build. So I make a few spoiler attacks to get some intel. I send one large to coordinate an attack on the Meks at Rhilus with the cats. Not sure if it will do much good, but if not we can always retreat, and it should get specs on the Mek bases. Similarly I make an attack at Omicron in bear space.
Results: We wipe out the bases at Volantis without losing a ship; we nearly lost one though, as I've had to split off a lot of the attackers. We find that the bears have 2 bases at Omicron with Mk I computers(!), ECM II, Hyper-V rockets, Titanium armour, and Shield 2. Pathetic. We wipe out the base and scout the planet with our 1 ship, destroying a small number of factories. At Rhilus we encounter bases with Mk IV computers, ECM IV, Hyper-V rockets, Shield IV, and Duralloy armour. Not a lot better. The weak point of both the Bears and the Meks appears to be lack of decent missiles, which suggests a strategy revolving around larges with our best shields (Class VI) should work well. Small bombers will work well against the bears, and should work ok against the Meks due to their slow (hence dodgeable) missiles; however, putting a few bombs on larger platforms should work as well.
2442: I design Fusion 5.0, a large with ARS and Class VI shields, 10 fusion beams and 8 fusion bombs. We can build 13 this turn, which comes close to doubling our current fleet. Hopefully this won't put us too far into the red as far as maintenance costs go. We attack at Obaca and shuffle fleets around to try and defend against various threats. I'm starting to think it might be better to play zone defense a bit more now that the Alkari are not much of a threat.
Results: We wipe out the birds at Obaca and finish bombing out the factories at Volantis. I wonder whether it might not be better to leave the birds with one or two undeveloped planets. We don't want to annoy the cats by genociding the birds, after all.
2443: We build a bunch of Fusion 5.0s and wait one more turn to build a couple more. Our ship maintenance budget jumps to 15.9%. Reposition ships.
2444: Move out our 15 Fusion 5.0s to the front, reposition ships. Meklar Toranor ship is a fusion bomber with not much offense other than that. It does have good computers, though.
2445: Bear navy is pathetic. We encounter 6 larges at Omicron where our one ship has been bombing for the last several turns. This turn it's reinforced by several more ships from Alkari space and makes short work of the bear fleet. We nearly glass Omicron. We also spot a Meklar huge heading for Maalor, which we will hopefully have enough forces to smack. The bears did some smacking of their own at Proteus, which we haven't had a chance to fight back against for some reason. Not sure what's up with that.
2446: Drive off the Meks at Primordius, who retreat to Rhilus, which is now in kitty hands. Apparently their invasion attempt succeeded, due to the Meks not having any ships there. Of course it's an ultrapoor world, but still. We smack the bears at Ukko, dropping the defenses there and bombing out the factories. Our new fleet will defend Primodius against some transports this turn and move into Mek space next turn.
2447: Rhilus appears to have been destroyed; the Meks came back with a large fleet including a couple huges and drove our NPG fighters and single NPG large off. Also the Bears have gotten Class V planetary shields so our NPG groups fighting over in that direction have been stymied for the moment. We will need some Fusion 5.0s to make a dent up there, but I have the feeling we'll need all 15 of them on the Meklar front. Somehow the Meks are again able to avoid our defenders, this time at Maalor, with a bunch of those Tornado bombers. We'll see what comes of that. Send our new fleet to Jinga, which will take 2 turns.
2448: Pirates at Obaca. Annoying since we actually have some decent trade going with the cats. Hopefully our fighters stationed in the area can take care of it.
Our new fleet arrives at Jinga and smacks the planet; the Meks have a huge in the fight which could hurt our stack but they are too scared to fight when we bomb out all the bases and run away. Then we bomb the planet, wiping it out. We also wipe out Omicron, finally, with the guys that had gone off to Ursa and met stiff shielding, before coming back there. We'll wipe Ukko next.
2449: We send our Fusions off to Meklon while our Omicron fleet goes to Ukko.
Interturn, we destroy Meklon and nearly wipe out Ukko, leaving just 2 pop. The Mrrshan genocide the Alkari by taking their last planet in a ground invasion. In the vote, the Mrrshan have 10 votes, and get the Meklar and Bear vote for a total of 15, out of 25. I suppose I should have mounted an attack on the bugs too, since they voted for us. With the bug vote, the Mrrshan would have won.
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I saw 3 Meklar Huge designs in my turns but I really don't think it matters much now. We will take the northernmost Meklar planet out next turn with the orders I've left in the save for the next player, which will leave the Meks with one planet (that we know of.) They'll pretty much have to scrap their navy at that point. Still the designs they did have were reasonably potent, and could in theory pose a threat if they somehow stuck around and made a counter-attack.
As far as what the kitties were doing in all this time goes... well to be honest, not much. A lot of flying around between random planets in their empire, for the most part. We are clearing out planets for them far faster than they are resettling or invading, and that's without being extremely quick on the attack on our part. I could have built up more of our fusion bombers... but why? If we were doing the invading and resettling ourselves it would be a different matter, but to be honest, at the rate at which the kitties are backfilling our conquests, we don't need more forces than we have on hand now.
2440: Trade the kitties Fusion Rifle for Jammer III. I want to be able to trade for their Fusion Beams next turn, before we build some real warships. Send most of our fleet at Proteus to Kailis. We wipe out the defenders and bombard, killing most of the pop and destroying the factories. Hopefully the kitties will be around soon to mop up. We repel a couple small fleets elsewhere. On the interturn, we learn Trilithium and I pick HEF; also the Kitties colonize Altair. That'll learn them birds!
2441: Give the cats Impulse drive for Fusion Beams. Now we have a real gun.
Well we had Neutron guns, I suppose, but having more options doesn't hurt. Send the bulk of the fleet to attack the birds at Volantis, though it's getting spread out more as we defend more planets for the kitties.I have some choices to make for ship design. Here are some options:
1) Small Bomber: I can make a warp 5 bomber with stabilizers, Mark III computers, and 2 fusion bombs. This should be a pretty decent glassmaker.
2) Small Fighter: Warp 5 with a Neutron Beam, stabilizers, and Mark II computers. I have to give up too much if I try to fit on a fusion beam. Although, I could upgrade to BC III if I switch to dual NPGs instead of the neutron gun. What kinds of shields and maneuver are we going up against with the Meks and Bears, I wonder? On the other hand, our existing NPG fighters have only one NPG but attack level 5... so redesigning them now would not afford a big improvement.
3) ARS Huge: Tempting but we can only be in one place at a time and they have very large maintenance. I don't think they will be flexible enough with our limited economy.
4) ARS Large: Might be a better option than ARS huge, need more info on Bear and Mek weapons though. Or perhaps just go with non-repairing larges and strap on more guns.
5) Missile boats: Actually we have lots of good tools to make this viable. We could even make a small with merculite 2-racks if we wanted, though I would probably go with a medium or large design instead.
Bottom line is I need more intel on Bears and Meks before I can decide what I need to build. So I make a few spoiler attacks to get some intel. I send one large to coordinate an attack on the Meks at Rhilus with the cats. Not sure if it will do much good, but if not we can always retreat, and it should get specs on the Mek bases. Similarly I make an attack at Omicron in bear space.
Results: We wipe out the bases at Volantis without losing a ship; we nearly lost one though, as I've had to split off a lot of the attackers. We find that the bears have 2 bases at Omicron with Mk I computers(!), ECM II, Hyper-V rockets, Titanium armour, and Shield 2. Pathetic. We wipe out the base and scout the planet with our 1 ship, destroying a small number of factories. At Rhilus we encounter bases with Mk IV computers, ECM IV, Hyper-V rockets, Shield IV, and Duralloy armour. Not a lot better. The weak point of both the Bears and the Meks appears to be lack of decent missiles, which suggests a strategy revolving around larges with our best shields (Class VI) should work well. Small bombers will work well against the bears, and should work ok against the Meks due to their slow (hence dodgeable) missiles; however, putting a few bombs on larger platforms should work as well.
2442: I design Fusion 5.0, a large with ARS and Class VI shields, 10 fusion beams and 8 fusion bombs. We can build 13 this turn, which comes close to doubling our current fleet. Hopefully this won't put us too far into the red as far as maintenance costs go. We attack at Obaca and shuffle fleets around to try and defend against various threats. I'm starting to think it might be better to play zone defense a bit more now that the Alkari are not much of a threat.
Results: We wipe out the birds at Obaca and finish bombing out the factories at Volantis. I wonder whether it might not be better to leave the birds with one or two undeveloped planets. We don't want to annoy the cats by genociding the birds, after all.
2443: We build a bunch of Fusion 5.0s and wait one more turn to build a couple more. Our ship maintenance budget jumps to 15.9%. Reposition ships.
2444: Move out our 15 Fusion 5.0s to the front, reposition ships. Meklar Toranor ship is a fusion bomber with not much offense other than that. It does have good computers, though.
2445: Bear navy is pathetic. We encounter 6 larges at Omicron where our one ship has been bombing for the last several turns. This turn it's reinforced by several more ships from Alkari space and makes short work of the bear fleet. We nearly glass Omicron. We also spot a Meklar huge heading for Maalor, which we will hopefully have enough forces to smack. The bears did some smacking of their own at Proteus, which we haven't had a chance to fight back against for some reason. Not sure what's up with that.
2446: Drive off the Meks at Primordius, who retreat to Rhilus, which is now in kitty hands. Apparently their invasion attempt succeeded, due to the Meks not having any ships there. Of course it's an ultrapoor world, but still. We smack the bears at Ukko, dropping the defenses there and bombing out the factories. Our new fleet will defend Primodius against some transports this turn and move into Mek space next turn.
2447: Rhilus appears to have been destroyed; the Meks came back with a large fleet including a couple huges and drove our NPG fighters and single NPG large off. Also the Bears have gotten Class V planetary shields so our NPG groups fighting over in that direction have been stymied for the moment. We will need some Fusion 5.0s to make a dent up there, but I have the feeling we'll need all 15 of them on the Meklar front. Somehow the Meks are again able to avoid our defenders, this time at Maalor, with a bunch of those Tornado bombers. We'll see what comes of that. Send our new fleet to Jinga, which will take 2 turns.
2448: Pirates at Obaca. Annoying since we actually have some decent trade going with the cats. Hopefully our fighters stationed in the area can take care of it.
Our new fleet arrives at Jinga and smacks the planet; the Meks have a huge in the fight which could hurt our stack but they are too scared to fight when we bomb out all the bases and run away. Then we bomb the planet, wiping it out. We also wipe out Omicron, finally, with the guys that had gone off to Ursa and met stiff shielding, before coming back there. We'll wipe Ukko next.
2449: We send our Fusions off to Meklon while our Omicron fleet goes to Ukko.
Interturn, we destroy Meklon and nearly wipe out Ukko, leaving just 2 pop. The Mrrshan genocide the Alkari by taking their last planet in a ground invasion. In the vote, the Mrrshan have 10 votes, and get the Meklar and Bear vote for a total of 15, out of 25. I suppose I should have mounted an attack on the bugs too, since they voted for us. With the bug vote, the Mrrshan would have won.
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I saw 3 Meklar Huge designs in my turns but I really don't think it matters much now. We will take the northernmost Meklar planet out next turn with the orders I've left in the save for the next player, which will leave the Meks with one planet (that we know of.) They'll pretty much have to scrap their navy at that point. Still the designs they did have were reasonably potent, and could in theory pose a threat if they somehow stuck around and made a counter-attack.
As far as what the kitties were doing in all this time goes... well to be honest, not much. A lot of flying around between random planets in their empire, for the most part. We are clearing out planets for them far faster than they are resettling or invading, and that's without being extremely quick on the attack on our part. I could have built up more of our fusion bombers... but why? If we were doing the invading and resettling ourselves it would be a different matter, but to be honest, at the rate at which the kitties are backfilling our conquests, we don't need more forces than we have on hand now.
Nice work on the birds, bears and borg;
I see you left me the bugs. I decide to build a few more Fusion 5’s to hopefully finish resistance till next vote in 2475. I just continued the strategy of glassing planets since, if we may not be able to defend our ally’s planets, we can remove their enemies ability to support large fleets. Tech was left level throughout and we did discover BC6, Armoured Exo & Cloaking Device. I gifted cats Armoured Exo, Deflector Shield VI, Trilithium & Fusion Bomb early on.
Meklar: Main fleet glassed their 3 planets - Incedius (Minimal 70 Rich), Phyco (Jungle 120) and Exis (Arid 65) - after letting them re-settle Romulas.
Still, in 2460, they have 3 Huge and 1 Colony ship in transit supported by 5 pop!
I assume the ships will be scrapped on arrival at destination.
Klackon: Main fleet had no trouble with the few ships and hyper-X bases at Firma (Arid 75 Ultra Rich!) but this was waiting at Kholdan:
With Kholdan (& Firma) in a Nebula, shields were useless so apart from the hundreds of heavy Ion mediums, even the swarm of laser popguns pose a real threat!
I was prepared to retreat but, with a sizeable attack & defence advantage, I decided to try a couple of turns to see if I could split their firepower and get lucky with the Warp Dissipator. It took a few hits (and some lame manoeuvres by the AI) but I managed to get both the Horseman and the Cutlass frozen away from the planet so I could blast it out of existence on the tactical screen.
I lost a few Fusion 5’s in the battle but it was worth it. Bugs are left with Aquilae & Klystron in North West corner.
Bulrathi: Ukko finished off and Ursa down to 19 pop which leaves only Iranha in North. We can finish Ursa next turn but note cats have 14 transports due in 1 turn (with a noticeable gropo edge!).
I have built a few more Fusion 5’s to replace the losses with 6 new ones 2 turns out from Ursa. A few AI colony ships are on the prowl and note there are large NPG 5’s at Obaca, Omicron & Phyco which can intercept if desired. Cats have been quiet up till sending a fleet and then troops to besieged Ursa.
Savegame: http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/117018/osg21_2460_SAVE3.GAM.zip
I see you left me the bugs. I decide to build a few more Fusion 5’s to hopefully finish resistance till next vote in 2475. I just continued the strategy of glassing planets since, if we may not be able to defend our ally’s planets, we can remove their enemies ability to support large fleets. Tech was left level throughout and we did discover BC6, Armoured Exo & Cloaking Device. I gifted cats Armoured Exo, Deflector Shield VI, Trilithium & Fusion Bomb early on.Meklar: Main fleet glassed their 3 planets - Incedius (Minimal 70 Rich), Phyco (Jungle 120) and Exis (Arid 65) - after letting them re-settle Romulas.
Still, in 2460, they have 3 Huge and 1 Colony ship in transit supported by 5 pop! I assume the ships will be scrapped on arrival at destination.Klackon: Main fleet had no trouble with the few ships and hyper-X bases at Firma (Arid 75 Ultra Rich!) but this was waiting at Kholdan:
With Kholdan (& Firma) in a Nebula, shields were useless so apart from the hundreds of heavy Ion mediums, even the swarm of laser popguns pose a real threat!
I was prepared to retreat but, with a sizeable attack & defence advantage, I decided to try a couple of turns to see if I could split their firepower and get lucky with the Warp Dissipator. It took a few hits (and some lame manoeuvres by the AI) but I managed to get both the Horseman and the Cutlass frozen away from the planet so I could blast it out of existence on the tactical screen. I lost a few Fusion 5’s in the battle but it was worth it. Bugs are left with Aquilae & Klystron in North West corner.Bulrathi: Ukko finished off and Ursa down to 19 pop which leaves only Iranha in North. We can finish Ursa next turn but note cats have 14 transports due in 1 turn (with a noticeable gropo edge!).
I have built a few more Fusion 5’s to replace the losses with 6 new ones 2 turns out from Ursa. A few AI colony ships are on the prowl and note there are large NPG 5’s at Obaca, Omicron & Phyco which can intercept if desired. Cats have been quiet up till sending a fleet and then troops to besieged Ursa.
Savegame: http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/117018/osg21_2460_SAVE3.GAM.zip
RefSteel
Pacifistic Technologist
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2007
- Messages
- 257
Catching up...
So, I guess that leaves us with....
Roster:
dathon78 --> UP NOW
RefSteel --> On Deck
Zed-F
Sargon0 --> Just Played
Thanks for the compliment -- but thanks also for your turnset, which set us up to attack!dathon78 said:Excellent turns RefSteel
I'll have to remember that. I normally like to use every bit of data I can get my hands on (hence my insanely long reports) but I'd never developed a good rule of thumb for ship maintenance or base maintenance numbers, or really much of any way to make use of the information.Zed-F said:
Looks like you did a great job at it too -- to say nothing of putting the enemy on the defensive and keeping Mrrshan core worlds out of their effective range!sargon0 said:
So, I guess that leaves us with....
Roster:
dathon78 --> UP NOW
RefSteel --> On Deck
Zed-F
Sargon0 --> Just Played
Ok, well the galaxy is pretty much empty, so I did a lot of clicking next turn and forcing Meklar/Klackon/Bulrathi fleets to run around the map while the cats grew. Advanced Soil popped in 2470, traded it to the cats for Energy Pulsar, though they never used the tech. Final vote had the cats at 15 votes themselves, with 4 votes among the surviving races:
I actually found another possible AI exploit. I was able to lock up the Klackon fleet with just two fighters by running them back and forth between their two remaining planets in the NW. I would retreat each time, and set the destination to the other planet, and sure enough the entire Klackon fleet would follow me to push those dangerous two fighters away
I don't know if the AI would do that in every situation, but it's something to watch for.
Thoughts:
Well, the concept is obviously winnable. I still think it is highly map dependent, though. If the Mrrshan and Alkari starts had been swapped, I'm sure the game would have been a LOT harder. It's also disappointing how inconsistent the game mechanics seem to be for our ships defending Mrrshan worlds. I would love to find out the rules for this, but that's going to take extensive testing time that I don't have It's actually not mentioned at all in the MOO strat guide or manual, at least that I could find.
As for replay value, I don't think the game felt much different from a standard conquest-domination game. We basically stomped out the enemies, then instead of colonizing ourselves, let a proxy do it; very little in the actual game play changed, except to draw it out. This game would have been over 25-50 turns ago if we had been playing standard. I'm sure it would be more challenging on Impossible, but without the ability to consistently defend, the best strategy is still going to be to pound the Alliance enemies into the ground, then wait for our ally to back-fill.
All-in-all, fun to do once, I'm not sure how much mileage we'd have to do it again, even on higher difficulty.
dathon
I actually found another possible AI exploit. I was able to lock up the Klackon fleet with just two fighters by running them back and forth between their two remaining planets in the NW. I would retreat each time, and set the destination to the other planet, and sure enough the entire Klackon fleet would follow me to push those dangerous two fighters away
I don't know if the AI would do that in every situation, but it's something to watch for.Thoughts:
Well, the concept is obviously winnable. I still think it is highly map dependent, though. If the Mrrshan and Alkari starts had been swapped, I'm sure the game would have been a LOT harder. It's also disappointing how inconsistent the game mechanics seem to be for our ships defending Mrrshan worlds. I would love to find out the rules for this, but that's going to take extensive testing time that I don't have
It's actually not mentioned at all in the MOO strat guide or manual, at least that I could find. As for replay value, I don't think the game felt much different from a standard conquest-domination game. We basically stomped out the enemies, then instead of colonizing ourselves, let a proxy do it; very little in the actual game play changed, except to draw it out. This game would have been over 25-50 turns ago if we had been playing standard. I'm sure it would be more challenging on Impossible, but without the ability to consistently defend, the best strategy is still going to be to pound the Alliance enemies into the ground, then wait for our ally to back-fill.
All-in-all, fun to do once, I'm not sure how much mileage we'd have to do it again, even on higher difficulty.
dathon
I think we'd need more tools in our toolkit for propping up the Mrrshan in order to make it more in the spirit of the game. The fact that we can't even defend Mrrshan worlds for them consistently is really a problem for this variant, but even worse is that there is no way to give the Mrrshan any kind of suggestions as to how to use their fleet.
I mean instead of building everything ourselves, we could sit there and plow almost everything into tech and reserves, and gift the Mrrshan tech and cash like crazy. But given that even so, they won't do anything effective with it... makes it a bit of a waste of effort.
*shrug* Perhaps we'll try this one again, and perhaps not. Good to do once, regardless! Congrats everyone on the win.
I mean instead of building everything ourselves, we could sit there and plow almost everything into tech and reserves, and gift the Mrrshan tech and cash like crazy. But given that even so, they won't do anything effective with it... makes it a bit of a waste of effort.
*shrug* Perhaps we'll try this one again, and perhaps not. Good to do once, regardless! Congrats everyone on the win.
Yes, congrats everyone on a successful try for the variant.
It is a shame the win could not be more in keeping with the theme but the game does not recognise the situation and accomplishing it at all can be a serious challenge. Still a good idea from RefSteel and probably worth another try sometime in the future - in the right conditions maybe a joint effort is possible but you may need a lot of patience!
It is a shame the win could not be more in keeping with the theme but the game does not recognise the situation and accomplishing it at all can be a serious challenge. Still a good idea from RefSteel and probably worth another try sometime in the future - in the right conditions maybe a joint effort is possible but you may need a lot of patience!
RefSteel
Pacifistic Technologist
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2007
- Messages
- 257
Congratulations on the win - great job bringing us home, dathon!
I agree this was probably a one-time variant; though I might eventually try and complete it as an Impossible Darlok 5PE on my own, I'm now convinced that wouldn't work for an OSG - there'll be too much waiting around for the cats (as others have pointed out already). So the question becomes ... what shall we try next? (Assuming enough of us have time for another OSG....)
I posted a few other suggestions when I first created this thread at Realms Beyond, but I'm up for pretty much anything.
I agree this was probably a one-time variant; though I might eventually try and complete it as an Impossible Darlok 5PE on my own, I'm now convinced that wouldn't work for an OSG - there'll be too much waiting around for the cats (as others have pointed out already). So the question becomes ... what shall we try next? (Assuming enough of us have time for another OSG....)
I posted a few other suggestions when I first created this thread at Realms Beyond, but I'm up for pretty much anything.
From your list RefSteel, the Vanilla Impossible Mrrshan and the Silicoids Hostile world only options sound fun. Other races not featured recently in OSG's include Darloks and Meklar. Would probably want some restriction for Meklar but not so much for Darloks (assuming Impossible).
Let's see who else is interested and any preferences or alternative suggestions.
Let's see who else is interested and any preferences or alternative suggestions.
Mrrshan could be fun, they are tricky to win with on impossible (although alkari are the only race I have never ever won with.)
Darlocks are my favourite race, but might need some restrictions to make it a challenge. Maybe only invade worlds which are under revolt?
Silicoids hostile only sounds interesting, since we will have a hard time preventing other races from intermingling in our empire. Perhaps allying with someone to occupy our "normal" worlds would be sensible.
I had an interesting idea (although probably far far too easy) edit the starting save and give all races every single tech in the game (other than advanced tech.) Would probably make the meklar and klackons rather overpowered though with their much faster rates of factory building compared to everyone else. Mrrshan might do well though, with their initiative bonus. We could play as silicoids for maximum handicap!
Darlocks are my favourite race, but might need some restrictions to make it a challenge. Maybe only invade worlds which are under revolt?
Silicoids hostile only sounds interesting, since we will have a hard time preventing other races from intermingling in our empire. Perhaps allying with someone to occupy our "normal" worlds would be sensible.
I had an interesting idea (although probably far far too easy) edit the starting save and give all races every single tech in the game (other than advanced tech.) Would probably make the meklar and klackons rather overpowered though with their much faster rates of factory building compared to everyone else. Mrrshan might do well though, with their initiative bonus. We could play as silicoids for maximum handicap!
Before you get too tech happy, note you can only have up to 3 techs in each tech quadrant. Also the AI races have already chosen their first tier techs in every field before the first save. Still, perhaps just for fun, not an SG.
Darloks only invading revolting planets is interesting, although sounds tough to me.
Darloks only invading revolting planets is interesting, although sounds tough to me.
I don't mean give them all the techs for researching, I mean give them literally all the techs. So you start with 2BC factory costs and +120 terraforming with advanced soil enrichment and neutronium bombs.
You can build fighters with colony bases at this point I think too, so expansion would be very quick!
(Darlocks could still bomb a planet down low with bio weapons, incite revolt in the small pop and then send in the troops to cap the factories.)
You can build fighters with colony bases at this point I think too, so expansion would be very quick!
(Darlocks could still bomb a planet down low with bio weapons, incite revolt in the small pop and then send in the troops to cap the factories.)
Yes, you still have advanced tech to research, which gets you benefits (fit a death ray onto a medium) but mostly relegates tech to ships.
It wouldn't be like a normal game, just a "fun" game, probably far too easy since the AI has problems defending against hyperspace communications.
It wouldn't be like a normal game, just a "fun" game, probably far too easy since the AI has problems defending against hyperspace communications.
I'd like to suggest a large or huge galaxy SG simply because we don't play them very often. Especially a huge mrrshan impossible sounds appealing.
Many of the recent SGs seem to have been "got fusion bombs, will make glass" and it would be nice to see a bit higher up the tree for variety.
Many of the recent SGs seem to have been "got fusion bombs, will make glass" and it would be nice to see a bit higher up the tree for variety.
RefSteel
Pacifistic Technologist
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2007
- Messages
- 257
Though I'd be willing to give one a try, I think large/huge galaxy OSGs are unattractive just because they take so long: More turnsets, meaning more handovers, and more real time needed at the beginning of each to figure out the state of the galaxy. If we want to eliminate an early Fusion Bomb Victory, we might try a variant like this one:
-Lovers of Subtlety: Explosive devices with no guidance systems? How crude! The Darloks will find more cunning ways to conquer the galaxy!
Variant rules: We may not build ships with bombs of any kind.
To further ensure advancing up the tech tree, we could try something more extreme:
-Tree-Hugging Lizards: Lovers of galactic ecology, the Sakkra people refuse to risk collateral damage to the fragile ecosystems of their enemies' worlds. Variant rules: No orbital bombardment. No targeting planets in the combat screen. In order to take planets, we must invade right through their missile bases (possibly softened up by sabotage - thus, the Darloks might be a good alternative choice for this variant).
-Lovers of Subtlety: Explosive devices with no guidance systems? How crude! The Darloks will find more cunning ways to conquer the galaxy!
Variant rules: We may not build ships with bombs of any kind.
To further ensure advancing up the tech tree, we could try something more extreme:
-Tree-Hugging Lizards: Lovers of galactic ecology, the Sakkra people refuse to risk collateral damage to the fragile ecosystems of their enemies' worlds. Variant rules: No orbital bombardment. No targeting planets in the combat screen. In order to take planets, we must invade right through their missile bases (possibly softened up by sabotage - thus, the Darloks might be a good alternative choice for this variant).
Ouch! the way the game works, applying all defenders to shoot at EACH incoming transport stack means that you can't even rush past defence with 1,000 transports arriving on the same turn from all your colonies, since the bases will kill each stack of 100 in the same turn. Also combat transporters don't seem to bypass bases so they won't work etiher.
Sabotaging their bases as Darlocks might work fine, or killing the bases with missiles/beams. Just no bombs allowed. (which will only give us some slim windows of opportunity to attack bases, until we get DeathRays.)
Sabotaging their bases as Darlocks might work fine, or killing the bases with missiles/beams. Just no bombs allowed. (which will only give us some slim windows of opportunity to attack bases, until we get DeathRays.)
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