RB OSG8 - Vanilla Impossible

[Zed-F]

Here's our start:

Vanilla Impossible Darloks

Race: Darlok
Difficulty: Impossible
Size: Small
Opponents: 5
Colour: Purple
Minimum Victory: Diplomacy

Variant Rules: None!

Here is the save and our start position: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/osg8_2300ad.zip

So far we have the following signups:
Zed << 30 turns
Dathon << 20 turns
Liquidated < 10 thereafter
Maksim
?
?

Additional players welcome!

 

[Zed-F]

Map recon tells us that we have a significant amount of empty space to expand into, but so do our neighbors to the south and the southwest. Our three neighbors to the northwest are likely to be cramped. This accounts for all 5 of our neighbors.

We start growing and scouting. Our two nearest planets are Ryoun (Desert 35) and Maalor (Minimal 70), the latter of which we settle as it allows more expansion opportunities and is larger. The other two nearby planets are hostile; there is Klystron (Inferno 20 Rich) in the far north, and Cygni (Tundra 40) to our west.

We start trickle research in Planetology and Propulsion, giving us the following options:

Meanwhile our scouts continue to explore southward now that Maalor is colonized:

Note the Sakkra scout we chased away from Barren Gienah. I think we want to make a play for this planet since we have Barren in our tree, need to claim some expansion room, and may well need the votes to stave off an early human election fiasco. Or maybe, a Meklar steamroller...

Terraforming +10 comes in, and I start on Barren bases, with options for Tundra bases, Terraforming +20, and Dead bases. No sign of enemy scouts at Gienah yet. Barren is cheap and will be done quickly, so my thought is Barren -> Improved Eco Environment -> Tundra.

I designed a ship to protect Gienah while we finish research and build a colony ship (and to defend against subsequent Sakkra poaching.) It's basically a heavy armed scout. I skimped on expensive electronics and substitued in a relatively cheap battle scanner instead, so it costs about the same as 5 medium armed scouts would (but is considerably more effective.) My plan here was to get that built and on its way, then work on a colony ship for Ryoun. At some point we'll need a few more scouts for when Deuterium Cells come in but at the moment it's not a priority.

The save:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/osg8_2330ad.zip

Dathon is up!

 

[Maksim]

I designed a ship to protect Gienah while we finish research and build a colony ship (and to defend against subsequent Sakkra poaching.) It's basically a heavy armed scout. I skimped on expensive electronics and substitued in a relatively cheap battle scanner instead, so it costs about the same as 5 medium armed scouts would (but is considerably more effective.)

Zed, could you explain this a bit, please? Is this ship's purpose to guard systems we haven't settled yet, and defeat any small fighters/armed colony ships the AI will send?

Do we need one per each system thus guarded?

 

[Zed-F]

You've understood the purpose of the ship correctly, and we will want one for each such system we intend to guard. However, not all systems necessarily need to be guarded with one of these, at least not immediately. Certainly our backline systems don't need one as the AIs shouldn't be able to reach them, and any really hostile worlds don't need protection unless Silicoid scouts are spotted in the area. For most systems not in danger of near-term AI colonization, keeping an unarmed scout in orbit is sufficient to deter enemy scouting.

These ships are about 2/3 as expensive as a colony ship, so only systems that will be under threat of being colonized in the near future (right now, Barren and maybe Tundra systems) will need one... so after the colony ship for Ryoun, and a few more small unarmed scouts, we'll probably want a LR DEF for Cygni.

 

[dathon78]

Checking in. Looks like this could be interesting. Wish I could get to this today Too many things happening, it's going to be tomorrow before I can play.

dathon

 

[dathon78]

2330:
*Situation looks pretty good. I agree with Zed's fleet assessment, so no need to re-explain that here.
*Note that 5 transports are about to land on Nazin, and we only have 3 pop spaces left. Check with the eco slider, Nazin won't grow this turn, so 2 transports sent to Maalor. Nitpicking? Yeah, probably. Sue me

2331: nada

2332: zip

2333:
*LR Def completes, colony ship started; due to complete in 3 years. Tech coming along nicely.

2334: zilch

2335: nothing

2336:
*Ryoun's col ship completes.
*Nazin will build 5 scout from leftover ship credits, which is just about right, so I switch it over to all research for a turn and Maalor to factories to give it a little shot in the arm.
*Controlled Barren @ 20%, Range 5 is at full bulb.

IBT:
*Barren pops, in addition to Eco and Tundra, we have Dead and +20. As we've seen no activity at Cygni yet, to my knowledge, I go ahead and take Eco.

2337:
*In spite of what I just said, I decide to build a guard for Cygni before Gienah's col ship. What can I say, I'm paranoid
*Scouts dispatched to Maalor to await their new fuel cells.

2338: zero

IBT:
*Ryoun founded.

2339:
*10 pop from Maalor to Ryoun.

IBT:
*Range 5 pops. Only option is Nuclear.

2340:
*Research shifted 100% to planetology.
*Gienah's col ship will complete in 3 years.
*Scouts dispatched to the final frontier

2341: opposite of something

2342: absence of substance

2343:
*Gienah's col ship completes.
*Nazin shifted to pure research, Maalor to pure factories.
*Improved Eco is at half bulb.

2344: empty

2345: blank

2346: devoid

IBT:
*First scouting reports come in.

The first shot on the left is from the green star in the south. That's a Sakkras planet. The second is from the green star directly west of Nazin. And that
is a Human colony.

*Improved Eco pops, start on Tundra.

2347:
*Oops, just realized I left Gienah's col ship at Maalor two turns That happens way more than it should when I RELOC ships.

IBT:
*Scout the three remaining stars in the south.

I placed them in order, left to right. And yes, our scout at Sssla decided that self-preservation was more important than journalistic integrity
On a more important note, we chased a Melar scout away from Antares, confirming they are in the souternmost yellow in the west.

*GNN reports on space fleet strengths

ph3ar the mighty LR Def ship

2348: nothing to see here

IBT:
*Humans chase our scout at Moro with 2 fighters.
*Bulrathi run from our scout at Antares. Must be some early alliance action going on here.

2349:
*Our scout was able to stay at Moro.

2350:
*Maalor maxes factories.

Still in fairly good shape, I'd say. Controlled Tundra is at about 75%. Cygni will be the limit of our expansion in the short term, so we'll probably want
to give some thought to defense to secure our gains after that.

The Save

 

[Liquidated]

ok see the thread lol.

Let me study turns.

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[Liquidated]

Preturn:

Ok seems our expansion is just waiting on tech.

Tweak Maalor just a wee bit to Force that last 3 population. doesn;t take much eco.

Nice tech choices.. improved eco is one the major early techs.

rare to see such an isolated start on a small map.

[1]2351 AD

Maalor caps 80/80 pop will send pop over to

Tundra is 3% into bulb so next turn I'll start building the tundra col.

[2]2352 AD
Tundra comes in!!!!! and for some reason windows will NOT take a screenshot.

ok well choices are
terra 20 2560BC
Dead who cares
terra 30 7840 BC
Toxic 9000BC

terra 30 is out of the question too costly.

terra 20 is cheap and is useful and may open the door to radiated

The 3 planets we have are the
Rich inferno to the north
Rich rad to the SW
Normal tox next door to ssra in SW.

The riches are the prize not the tox and the north planet is well out of range of everyone.

I go terra 20 for the peek if rad is around. if not, then going tox. Since we'll have 3 hostile planets with 3 more possible, the extra 10 cap on population will be more useful than if we had a bunch of jungle + planets.

Gienah is settled, for the life of me I couldn;t get a screen shot of my desktop... no idea why.

ok got this a few turns later... not sure why screens so picky.

Contact ssra and they are.... uneasy! whoda thunk! I open a 25 BC trade with them. Their only tech for trade was range 4.

woo got a screen after ending my turns. nice combo on personality traits there.

Send a crippling 20 population to gienah from maalor, need to get that planet going faster rather than slower. max out eco on maalor and stay 100% planetology on tech.

nazin starts on tun col in 5 turns keeping 91 in research

[3]2353 AD
4 more turns on pop from maalor

[4]2354 AD
ssra is U neutral with us now..
maalor is nearly max population again.

[5]2355 AD
maalor max pop.. 100% into research

[6]2356 AD
Tweak ryoun to max terraforming to speed natural growth.

[7]2357 AD
Tundra col is built send it west to Cygni in 5 turns.
Pop lands on gienah leave it on factories

[8]2358 AD
um hi

[9]2359 AD
3% on terra 20!

[10]2360 AD
10% on terra 20

only items in transit are tun colony due in 2 turns to cygni, don;t forget to scout with the new range that colony provides.

No sign of any ship movement on the part of ssra outside of his system.

For some reason screens refuse to take. not sure WTH is going on..

Ssra still only has 2 planets and only techs up for trade are hyper 5 rockets and range 4.

Didn;t bother to place a scout spy yet as I was trying to rush terra 20.

Sakkras are at T neutral so they are improving. I love trash BC trades. WE are very fortunate to be so isolated.

Check out what the planetary techs give, a rad would be sweet to grab that rich, if not, the tox is good.

we DO need to research the rest of the tech fields eventually but lots of land to grab.


The Save


Cheers!
-Liq

 

[Maksim]

Aaargh!

Unfortunately, today I am going for a long weekend, and will not be able to play until Sunday or Monday evening, UK time.

Please skip me.

 

[Zed-F]

Initial Overview: We won't be able to tell if Radiated is in our tree on the basis of Terraforming+20 because it's in the same level as Tundra and Dead bases; we'd have to reach Terraforming+30 or Toxic bases to see if Radiated is in our tree. I'd probably have picked Toxic bases, but Terraforming+20 is not a bad choice. I do think we want to start researching other fields than planetology, however; I spread research more-or-less evenly with slight favouritism to Planetology and Computer tech. It's a shame that we haven't even opened Construction yet, as any tech there would help our initial build more than Terraforming +20 (due to it being much cheaper and easily picked up while still building lots of factories.) I also build a few more scouts from Nazin.

2361: Tech choices come up, and we don't have a lot to choose from. I pick Scanner, IIT9, Shield II, and Hand Laser. We settle Cygni and the first Senate vote happens, us against the Meklars, each with 3 votes. Everyone abstains but them, so I vote for them. We also get contact with the 3PE Honorable Diplomat Humans and start trade at 30 BC/annum.

2362: We send 2 scouts from Cygni out to (probably occupied) stars. Ship over 18 pop from Maalor.

2364: Hand Lasers come in, our only option is Ion Cannon. We do have Hyper-V in our tree but I am hoping for a missle at the next level, and Hyper-V isn't all that useful.

2367: Terraforming+20 still has yet to pop, despite being in %ages since the beginning of my turn. We get a spy in Sakkra territory to see what they have, and I turn of spying there. We are lucky they are pacifistic since they have a big fleet (being militaristic.) Mostly laser fighters though. They have some nice tech we would like to get off them later, including Stabilizers and Fusion Bombs. They also have Spores.

2369: We get Scanners, IIT9, Shield 2, and start RC3, IIT8, and Personal Deflector. Still no Terraforming. Our scouts bounce off two Meklar worlds, one protected by a huge ship and the other with 7 bases. We get a spy in Human territory and I turn off spying. They have Class V planetary shields, RC3, and Spores, so I doubt we'll be attacking them soon.

2370: Terraforming+20 finally pops and we start Toxic. As I expected, no option for Radiated or any other next-tier techs yet. Most planets (all other than Cygni) start terraforming.

Watch for the Humans potentially poaching some of our hostile worlds. They would need Range 7 and Inferno or better bases, neither of which they have, but they are 1 tech away from each.

The save: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/osg8_2370_save4.zip

 

[dathon78]

Got it, will try to play this afternoon but it might be tomorrow.

dathon

 

[Liquidated]

wow what a problematic teraforming =/

as for tech choices I pretty much had to flip a coin on them, though wasn;t expecting plaentology to take 20 turns.

keep in mind the darloks gets a steep bonus to computers upon which spying is based. Get a lead in computers and we can "research" the other areas the old fashion way... stealing them.

As for the layout, that huge buffer we have is nice in that it has kept us safe for a long time.

My bad about the rad/terma thing, I'm a bit rusty on estimating techlevels still.

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[Zed-F]

My bad about the rad/terma thing, I'm a bit rusty on estimating techlevels still.

You can always just look them up in the manual. There's a copy online at Jon Sullivan's site, along with anything else you might want for MOO: http://www.jonsullivan.com/misc/moo.php3

 

[dathon78]

I didn't do my usual detailed turn log this time due to time constraints. First, let's do the mundane stuff:

*Nazin, Ryoun, and Maalor are maxed out, and Cygni has been fully terraformed. Gienah is still working on it, more on that in a minute.
*Managed to scout the NE green star in the Meklar cluster, it is an 85 Ultra Poor.
*Elections of 2375 saw the Bulrathi and Humans voting for the Meklar, so I had to abstain. We have 4 votes.

Now for the interesting event. Chugging along jsut fine, 2373 comes up, and then I see this:

Um, yeah. They should be there in 2-3 turns, I can't build a base in that time, and 1 large ain't gonna cut it here. So I pull the only ace in the hole I have:

Thank goodness they're pacifistic. Fleet heads home, several more little fleets come and go over my turns. Looks like the Lizards are in cold war mode (seems a little much for brush war, as they are STILL sending fleets). With some reserves, I managed to put up 2 bases at Gienah, but we're going to need some real defenses soon. I increased Nuke engine spending after the initial threat, and they popped right before my last full turn. Designed a warp 2 pop gun fighter and built 10, but defense will really be up to the next leader. BTW, that big fleet is heading back, 1-2 turns away. Good luck!

Oh, and these guys showed up in 2378 as well:

That's a Human system, so not much we can do there.

The Save

 

[Zed-F]

That 1 large did its job, though. We got to the planet first. And it's still somewhat useful as a scanner. It can probably go to the nearby toxic world now that Gienah has some bases. Do you know what weapons those mediums mount? If they are missles or bombs, the only way we can avoid getting toasted by that fleet is to threaten them again.

Long-term, we are going to want to absorb the Sakkra anyway, I am thinking. If they are in cold war poaching mode anyway, we're probably their only likely possibility for expansion, so we don't need to worry about keeping good relations with them. Maybe start espionage so we have a decent chance of getting all their techs when we capture their worlds.

From a diplomacy point of view, I'm more concerned about driving a wedge between the Humans and the Meklars so we don't take a vote defeat. However, since we only have contact with the former, I don't think we have many options in that regard. Maybe if we settle that Toxic on the edge of Sakkra space we'll get contact? Or else we need more range tech.

 

[dathon78]

I don't know what was on the mediums, as they turned around without a battle scene after the threat. So far, all of the fleets (~1 turn) have turned around without a battle. Is there a "grace period" after a threat whereby the threatened race will always retreat? And I wasn't criticizing your large Just noting that it wasn't going to be able to defend against a 300+ fleet I'm actually a little surprised that the pacifistic Sakkra are being this aggressive. As for contact with the Meklar, the toxic is 7 parsecs from their nearest planet that I know of, unless they have something in the south. Cygni is 6 parsecs from Hyboria (the 85 UP), so if we want contact ASAP, we should get Range 7.

dathon

 

[Zed-F]

Yes, I think there is a certain grace period after a threat where ships will turn around automatically. I'm not sure how long that is, though.

Liq, you're up!

 

[Liquidated]

ok well I got it, expect turns tonight.

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[vmxa]

I don't know about any grace period, but anything in route would be recalled. That is to say when it gets to the planet they had intend to attack, it goes back. If they had Hyperspace they could turn around immediately.

Anything coming out after the "threat" would not be affected. If it also turns around, I would expect it is because they decided that it was not worth it. Maybe the bases combined with the trait of pacifist?

 

[dathon78]

The later fleets definitely weren't in route when the threats were given. The funny thing is though, they retreated without a battle. So if they weren't "turned around" by the threat, how did they get away with not initiating a battle?