RBO OSG7: Always War Hard

[Catwalk]

True, I completely forgot about the pop requirement. If pop isn't a concern, do you agree that it'd be better to build factories first and then switch to colony ships?

From what Marshall says, it looks like peaceful expansion is too lucrative for this to be a real AW variant. I still think harsh means of hampering expansion and encouraging conquest are necessary.

 

[Zed-F]

If you haven't got enough factories to employ your current pop, then generally speaking it's better to build factories than colony ships until you have a fully employed populace (though there are rare exception cases.)

I agree we'd like to encourage conquest. I don't agree that we want to do so by hampering peaceful expansion at the start of the game while we're trying to carve out a viable empire. Peaceful expansion is needed at the beginning of the game in order to get (a) enough shipbuilding capacity and (b) enough population for troops to make conquest a realistic possibility. It's especially nonsensical (from a perspective of pure AW, without adding in other variants) to hamper expansion before we've even made contact with any other races. I'd like to find another method that will work better to the purpose of encouraging conquest.

The problem here is, (a) this map has a nice start that's well-suited to peaceful expansion and (b) unless we do something more to annoy them than what we have so far, there seems to be little risk of the Silicoids getting annoyed enough with us to attack, as espionage alone doesn't seem to be cutting it. Slowing down our expansion wouldn't really change this much. Logically, unless we changed some other factor, we would still try to be as prepared as possible before we make our move.

So, perhaps a better idea would be to add a new variant rule designed to provoke the AIs even more than we are already doing. Require us to threaten to attack constantly? This would at least get the relations going on a downward trend, and thereby hopefully bring a war declaration sooner rather than later, forcing us to be prepared to defend ourselves. Of course we could just wind up getting a lot of free techs if we were significantly stronger than the race we're threatening.

Alternatively, we could try to institute a rule about trying to maintain a bomber of some sort over enemy colonies. Not sure how well that would work out.

In any case... let's play out the first round of turns and re-evaluate. If we get to the beginning of the rotation and still think the game is a lock, we have another start we can work from. We can make some adjustments and begin again.

 

[ToddMarshall]

You know, its REALLY easy to get somone to declare war. You don't even need a ship with a weapon. Just keep turning a scout arround over one of their planets. I can almost guarantee a declaration within 10 turns. I thought about doing this intentionally at one of their planets that had ships but no bases, but decided against it since the scenareo stated we wouldn't do anything out of the ordinary to get a declaration. Anyway, im fixing to write the report.

- Maniac

 

[ToddMarshall]

Appologies in advance. Sometimes the creative mood hits me, sometimes it doesn't. Here's a rather bland report:

OK, I opened this up, looked it over, closed it down.

I went to play my Civ SG, found out the wrong save was up, opened the game back up, looked it over, closed it down.

I went out to eat, came home, opened it up, looked it over, and..... those scout ships to explore the south still aren't there... (I'm just giving you a hard time Zed I'm just a scoutaholic since RBO3)

Guess I'll have to make them.. erm, no, I can't do that either. Well, I COULD, but no way am I delaying production of the next colony ship for anything, and the UP makes them so hideously slow (1 per 2 turns) that's not a good option.

So I decide to do something I rarely ever do. I go with an "empty backfield" by sending the scouts off our starting planets and off the radiated planet.... by the time we could colonize that planet I'd hope it wouldn't matter much who else had scouted it. It seems to be safely away from the silicoids also.

The micromanagment with the factories.... that's something I do all the time with the silicoids, but it works best when you keep a couple turns ahead of the game instead of a couple turns behind the game... In THIS case, however, all I care about is that I'll get the colony ship as fast as possible, so I'll continue on with the plan.

I add 1 tick to spying. I find 1 tick usually seems to do nothing, where 2 ticks is more effective at planting a spy occasionally. Either that, or it's just me being a loon. I also adjust the pop being sent to our new planet from 33...28 to get it to 30/90. Yeah, thats just me being anal most likely, but I like to get to exactly 1/3 early.

Zed says settle Retculi and leave the poor planet alone.... Well, I agree with settle Retculi FIRST. I'll see how it goes as far as the Poor planet.

OK, 4 hours after first looking at it, I click next turn

2330 - Tabby "Maniac" Mrrsha, the far too pacifistic takes over as Emperess

2331 - (Tabby has her nails/claws done)

2332 - Scouts arrive at the Silicoid planet of Denubius and find.... a size "32" Barren.

2333 - (Tabby takes a cat nap)

2334 - Scouts find Cygni. A size 40 Rich Toxic in the southeast. The colony ship for Retculi completes. The home plaet finishes terraforming. Who says the factory trickle thing doesn't work? We've managed to build just enough that I can now get annother colony ship in 3 years by going 100% on shipbuilding, which I do. I'm going to try to grab that poor planet. What the heck, it'll make a nice source of marines OR make a nice place for the silicoids to suicide their people. Remember, these are SILICOID people. Trading pop for pop with them is like a 2 for 1 in our favor As long as we don't build factories here, I can't see how claiming this rock isn't in our interest. If we get beat here, we just send the colony ship elsewhere.

2335 - Alkari found living at Phantos, the red planet almost directly south of the homeworld. Its got a lot of pop and factories so they've owned it a while. vmxa's Fav (formerly Collassa/110 Terran) founded!!! Woe to any leader who loses this planet The colony ship heads for Retculi. I send 24 million from the UP and 6 million from Anraq to our new prize. I'll trickle some more over the next few turns.

2336 - Our scout arrives at Crypto, but gets chased off by 4 silicoid mediums. I trickle 5 million more toward vmxa's Fav

2337 - The white planet in the south, Rana, is a size 20 Dead. Scout runs again from crypto. We get this message:



The colony ship for the poor completes. Ok, now seems the right time to build more scouts. I could build 16 more, but I know I'll need 8 at least... well, I have to build 9 to get 8.... so I build that many and put the rest towards factories.

2338 - The scout flees Crypto again. Well I had hoped they'd pull out, but I'm probably just pressing my luck here, so I recall the scout Scouts find Vulcan, a system where not even the Silicoids can live at whe white star SW of Cryslon. Retculi founded. The blue star in the SW edge of scouting range is called Xendalla. It's a size 45 Minimal which is still uninhabited! (not that we can get it tho). I trickle pop towards Reticuli. Now that the urgency of colships isnt as great, I set about maxing Fieras.

 

[ToddMarshall]

2339 - (Tabby says: Have a mice day )

2340 - At the Red star north of Silicoid space, scouts find a really, REALLY crappy planet called Centauri. It's a size 45 Ultra Poor. It's not the worst planet I've ever seen, but it's up there. The mineral boys can have that one. The fact that Crypto didn't have any bases makes me wonder if its poor. The silicoids might have drawn a short straw. Looks like their planets are all small/poor, and their homeworld is in a nebula. Fieras is maxed and cranking Colships now I send a final trikle to Reticuli

2341 - Teh red SW of Cryslon, Stalaz, is inhabited by Bulrathi. Recently too as it only has 4 million... Only a colship and a scout in orbit, so I chase em off. OMG its a size 55 ULTRA POOR!!! What a lot of Poors there are!

2342 - Holy cow, the instant our spy with the silicoids plants, he gets a theft opportunity. We can only pick CPU and force field... This is a tough one actually. I'm guessing its either Jammer I or Class II that its a choice between. While CPU is a good thing to steal usually, Jammer I doesnt excite me as much as being laser proof does, so I take force fields and get



I go look at their techs... yepp Jammer I and Range 5 are their only techs as of now. A colony ship completes, I send it to the size 90 Ocean... How we're going to populate that planet, I really don't know It feels more like WERE the silicoids right now.

2343 - (Tabby watches reruns of Tom and Jerry)

2344 - Improved 9 hits. Our choices are Duralloy or Improved 9. I select the armor. Hyborea, the Size 90 Poor, is founded. I shift all our research (all 25 BC of it ) to getting the cleanup tech now. I send what pop I can spare from vmxa and cygni to start off the Poor planet.

2345 - Scouts arrive at the yellow down by the recently discovered Bulrathi planet, and find annother Bulrathi planet with just scouts and a colship defending it. This planet is called Ryoun, and its a Size 75 ARTIFACTS planet!! The planet in our back corner is Darconis a size 15 Barren *yawn* We settle Thrax, the size 90 near the homeworld. The last colship completes at Fieras. I debate for a while, then do something I rarely ever do. With almost every planet at 35% or less of being full, I send the pop off the home planet to fill up Thrax and order Fieras to regrow the pop, which it can do in 2 turns. I hate having to do it, but it seemed the least of many evils. Everywhere else was just too small or way too far

 

[ToddMarshall]

2346 - (Tabby is fascinated by the moving fish )

2347 - With The breakthrough on cleanup imminent, and with Fieras remaxed, I decide to open up all areas of research. Lets see what we get. I also start terraforming practically everywhere.

2348 - We chase bulrathi off Stalaz again. We chase the Silicoids off the Minimal down by the Alkari.
Our "choices" (all per force)
CPU = DSS
FF = PDS
Weap = HL

We settle Ukko, the Artifacts planet. We send pop from the homeworld and UP to get it started. (8 mill each)

We find Primordius, a size 10 Radiated in the center of the universe.

2349 - An actual warship shows up at stalaz. We run. The homeworld remaxes....

2350 -
Hand Lasers hits:
EGADS!
Neither of the "fighter" beams are in our tree!
Choices are ARM and Hyper-X. AMR is nice on bombers, but, I don't see us ready to build bombers. I rarely ever research Hyper-X, but I do so this time.

Improved Ecco comes in: Choices are:

Controlled Barren - Tempting because it would let us settle the last back yard planet, and because it is cheap
Controlled Dead - It would let us finish off the Silicoids, as they have no planet beyond tundra. It's a kind of expensive and doesn't lead forward tho
Death Spores --- If you wana piss somone off, THIS would do it
Enhanced Ecco --- This would have been my pick instead of Improved simply because it lead forward and would have revealed the presence/absence of Radiated in the tree.
Terraforming +30 --- Not so tempting. The extra 10 pop wont make that much diffrence. If we didn't have +20, then it would be tempting

Controlled Toxic --- Well, my first thought is, this is a huge waste of research if radiated is in the tree. There are at least 3 radiated planets in the universe, one in our back yard. But then I decide that, in the grand scheme of things, this doesn't matter. We can just glass the radiated planets. The only way this will be a bad choice will be if Radiated is the only tech at the next tier, which is unlikely. So I start research on this.

Here is a look at the universe as we know it



Key Dark Blue = UR, Lt. Blue = Rich, Green = Artifacts, White = Poor, Red = UP

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/OSG7_2350.zip

 

[Zed-F]

You said you started terraforming just about everywhere, but the planets were still needing a lot of facs, right? I usually wait until I have at least half of my facs (or more) built before I start thinking about terraforming. Did you have any particular reason to start so early?

Regarding the Eco tech to choose, I think Barren would have been the best choice, since that would let us get started on our war with the Silicoids soonest. We could go for Enhanced Eco or Toxic bases afterwards (I would have probably picked Enhanced Eco next.) Their one barren world could have acted as a gateway to the rest of their empire, and we could afford to leave them the one Tundra world left over.

Good call on Hyper-X though. I will often value that over a fighter beam if I'm playing a defensive game plan and didn't get Hyper-V. Having bases with at least modest teeth is a good thing. Here I agree a fighter beam would have been nice, but at least as Mrrshan we have an extended lease on life for laser weapons, due to our to-hit bonus. And I bet we can count on someone else researching a nice fighter beam for us.

Also, now that you've emptied our backfield of scouts, we probably want to re-fill it again once we get a chance. Later on those enemy races might snag a range tech and decide to go exploring, so we shouldn't give them any ideas.

Otherwise, a pretty solid if not-too-warlike set of turns.

 

[ToddMarshall]

About terraforming. I usually do it when planets reach about half their pop and can do it in a couple turns. It saves me from forgetting to do it later when the planet starts getting full and thus slowing the pop growth and delaying the planet maxing its pop. I suppose, this bein a SG and me not being arround for 40 years to forget, I probably shouldn't have done it.

"Practically everywhere" turns out to be 4 planets, one of them a poor planet thats just growing pop anyway. It's done at 2 of the 3 other planets allready. I've not done it at the 2 newest planets because they'd take forever right now.

About ecology: I spent half an hour thinking about it and came down to picking Enhanced, Barren, or Toxic. Don't ask me why, but I never thought about the stepping stone issue with the Silicoids.

I would have skiped Improved Ecco and gone straight for Enhanced. Sure you lose some BC in the short run, but you get better cleanup without researching 2 cleanups, and it leads forward.

I was in a situation there I don't usually get in to. It seemed odd to go for barren when the silicoid homeworld is only 5 parsects from one of our planets allready. I also didn't think we were thinking of conquesting them with warp 1 laser fighters, or warp 1 Heavy Laser mediums. I assumed we'd have toxic by the time we had any kind of conquering fleet. Maybe we're thinking of building Nuke bombing Larges??? Of course, we aren't researching range 6, so it may be eons before we can invade there. I probably chose unwisely

Since I sent us down this path, I think now is a good time to beeline for toxic. Once we have that, we can wipe everyone out anywhere. We're leading the Silicoids in tech, so there's no rush.

About the "empty backfield" It's completely full now. Thats what most of those 9 scouts I created did.

 

[Zed-F]

Since Improved Eco is about 1/5 the cost of Enhanced Eco (IIRC) and since having to spend to cleanup pollution at 2/1 is so painful, I thought the expense of researching 2 cleanup techs was justified. If it weren't such a cheap tech, and a near-essential one, I wouldn't have done it that way. YMMV.

 

[ToddMarshall]

Eh, you are probably right. I'm sure somone could produce math to show that my way isn't optimal. AS I said, I screwed up. It's why I don't usually play when I'm tired, but I wasn't going to have time at any other point. I probably set our war effort back a few decades by doing something stupid on the last turn. I guess I should appologize to everyone for being an idiot about it

 

[Catwalk]

I agree about terraforming and cheap eco tech. I think I can show some math to strongly suggest IER being the better choice

 

[ToddMarshall]

Since it seems like I managed to ruin our chances this game, why don't I just withdraw from the roster. I'm exhausted trying to keep up with everything going on right now, but I'm so upset over screwing every thing up for everyone I can't even sleep

 

[Zed-F]

Hey, no worries, I didn't say you were an idiot, nor did I mean to imply it. Choosing to research Toxic isn't the end of the world! Like you said, you were tired, no big deal. It's not like we're going to lose the game as a result or anything! Just means we'll have to spend a bit longer researching.

Now, you were probably just being facetious, but IMHO there's no way you should withdraw from the roster over something like this. So get some sleep, and buck up!

Zed-F
Maniac
catwalk << UP NOW
dathon < On Deck
vxma < In the bullpen

Catwalk, since you were the one complaining about lack of military, you get the job of building up our navy and ticking off the Silicoids. Fierias should be able to concentrate on our navy now that our colships are complete. Of course you'll still need to figure out some way to keep the RPs flowing while you build up our other colonies... will UP Anraq and P Hyboria be sufficient for that? I'll leave it to you to decide.

 

[Catwalk]

Lighten up Marshall, we're discussing details here. Wait until you see how I'm going to torment our military buildup and you'll see REAL reasons to complain

Due to my inane procrastination I'm now in charge of both games, but I should be able to get both down tonight.

 

[vmxa]

I am only starting to read the log, but for sure no one is going to get excited about out comes. If we can't make mistakes, there woud soon be no one left to play.

 

[vmxa]

I agree we'd like to encourage conquest. I don't agree that we want to do so by hampering peaceful expansion at the start of the game while we're trying to carve out a viable empire. Peaceful expansion is needed at the beginning of the game in order to get (a) enough shipbuilding capacity and (b) enough population for troops to make conquest a realistic possibility. It's especially nonsensical (from a perspective of pure AW, without adding in other variants) to hamper expansion before we've even made contact with any other races. I'd like to find another method that will work better to the purpose of encouraging conquest.

The problem here is, (a) this map has a nice start that's well-suited to peaceful expansion and (b) unless we do something more to annoy them than what we have so far, there seems to be little risk of the Silicoids getting annoyed enough with us to attack, as espionage alone doesn't seem to be cutting it. Slowing down our expansion wouldn't really change this much. Logically, unless we changed some other factor, we would still try to be as prepared as possible before we make our move.

The real problem is this map is medium size. That mean lots of planets and often no quick contact.

The AI will not want to war with lots of planets to settle. Now if it was small, then we could expect them to get mad real soon.

 

[vmxa]

I have to agree with Zed. I like to get a good missile asap as it will often be the difference and I am not fond of making ships early in the game. At not beam ships.

I aslo would go with one of the lower planetology techs as it will take too long to do toxic. Remember that worker productivity increase with Planetology techs. So getting any of them could benefit us, not as much as it does the Klacs, but still.

 

[vmxa]

Since it seems like I managed to ruin our chances this game, why don't I just withdraw from the roster. I'm exhausted trying to keep up with everything going on right now, but I'm so upset over screwing every thing up for everyone I can't even sleep

Ok I have read it all the way though now and since I do not know you well I have no idea if this is just pulling our leg or what. I hope it is, because even if those are mistakes they are not monumental and we are going to win anyway.

Lots of choices could be done another way and more than one of them would be justified. Me I am a paranoid player and would not send pop of planets I do not want to put at risk, no mater how good an idea it was. I will wait till they are all the way up.

I would want to push to get them up and safe and not care about the impact on marginal planets.

Pop before factories is pobably best for Klacs. At RC2 and no polloution, pop is a better deal for them than factories. For us that is not the case. So I would terraform only if it would get me a vote level break. IOW go to 100+ from less than 100.

At this stage it does not matter a great deal as we are going to have time for these early planets to get both done. Later front line planets are another story.

So I hope you just forget any real or imagined mistakes, no one will remember by the time it is over, nor care.

I think you and Zed have been pushing to get the interest up and that is good. Coming down on ourselves or others will only scare of lukers.

 

[Catwalk]

I'm done with the Alkari game, will be tending to this game now.

 

[ToddMarshall]

Alright. Sorry. I've got a lot going on right now. And I'm my own worst enemy sometimes (nearly allways).

I got to sleep till noon today so maybe that will help I'm just exhausted from trying to move, trying to get ready for Christmass, working out of town, and 8 days in a row of work I guess. I'm also really worried about my gf having surgery... etc. (Its minor surgery, but still I worry)

I'm a perfectionist One resason I like moo v civ is there is no dotmaping. I don't have to hunt for hours to find the perfect city placement, only to have the AI come in and mess it up with one of their own cities. Charis used to tell me I was way too hard on myself with regularity. I suspect he was right =/

Sorry, I guess I was tired, stressed, and brought the problem here last night when I couldn't sleep.

Last word (at least from me) on the subject of tech.

Being fairly awake now, I wish that I had researched Barren. I nearly did....

In retrospect, Improved probably was the way to go. Its so rare to have the choice of 2 cleanups (I usually go +10, then improved, then tundra/dead), that I hadn't looked at the subject much. It was my thought that the 2nd tech was more in the range of 3x the first not 5x.

Also lost in mental imparement was the fact that we were researching at like 25BC/turn off the UP to get the stuff we have now.

That being said, I stand by toxic as the 2nd best choice (unless we are forced to research Radiated). After we get it, we won't have to worry about landings techs anymore, and can concentrate on the terraforming/soil enrichments, and, hopefully, the 3rd tier cleanup, which i find to be the one that really makes a huge diffrence after the first.

Sorry to all again.

-Maniac