Frustrating challenge...

[Ashenai]

I'm trying a new challenge, and it's awfully difficult. If anyone has ever tried something like this, I'd appreciate your experiences and input.

The point of the challenge is to play imp huge pre-warp 8 players with a custom race that picks 10 points of disadvantages and no advantages at all.

My custom race is Low-Gravity, -10 Spying, -10 Ground Combat. I experimented with -10 Ship Attack -1/2 Farming instead of Low Grav for a while, but I think Low Grav is better. Any thoughts on this, or other possible alternatives?

Anyway, I've been killed every time. I'm severely outmatched at pretty much every stage of the game. I've gotten to the point where I can build Doom Stars several times (took lots of diplomacy and bribing), but by the time I get there, one opponent invariably descends on me with crippling power, a force orders of magnitude beyond my own fleet.

Should I try an early assault? It's rather difficult to do so in a Huge universe, though, and my early development tends to be rather slow, due to my crappy race.

Has anyone tried this? How would you play this challenge? A normal (no challenge) imp game is usually trivially easy for me, so I can't be that bad a player.

Thanks in advance.

[Whoha]

the key to win is to not have the random number generator **** you. Any xenophobes in the game will attack you no matter what eventually, if you start near one you are screwed, or if the other ai's don't keep the xenophobes in check you can be screwed(started on the other side of the galaxy from the Sillicoids one game, but they conquered their way to me through several ais...). Also you need a decent start far enough away from the other ai's that you have some breathing room. For negatives try -pop(which is eliminated with housing) -money and -ship defense.

not having tolerant +prod or unification really hurts production, so build destroyers early to dissuade the non-xenophobe ais from attacking you. Eventually though you can win, once you have enough tech(when you get heavy auto fire disruptors with hef,structural analyzers,achilles targeting,hyper-X capacitors the game is in the bag) just conquer enough, or attack Antares.

[vmxa1]

I have not tried it on impossible, but I have on Hard. It is the only way to make a max score.
Some ideas that may work for you. I like Rep and Fuedal in this game as they don't hurt as much as the others.
Cheap ships to get on to the nearby race. Rep cost you nothing except you can not trade or extort. I dislike trading and I prefer not to extort as it is too easy.

[Iasius]

I just tried a game like that. Fortunately no sakkra and no silicoids, might have been more difficult then. I played 375 turns, I hadn't lost a colony till then, although only the Trilarians attacked me in force once with 25 battleships with mainly bombers. The Humans also declared war, but were far away.
I picked Low-g, -spy, -ground. Actually I never captured another planet. I would have went off to do that at 375, but the game was decided so I just attacked the antarans.
I guess this game has been a bit easy, early silicoids or sakkras probably would have killed me, as I had a slow start. Actually I was never really threatened.
I attached the last savegame if you want to have a look.
For much increased difficulty, try repulsive,-growth. BTW as I was not repulsive I did demand a couple of techs (no saving the game up front, that is just lame ) though I got the most from trading. I never used spying except defensively.

[Whoha]

pick the silicoid picture. I just started a game, Silicoids started in the middle of the map, and now they control about a third of the galaxy, and needless to say, as soon as they saw my outposts near their colonies they blasted them apart. This game ended before it started, but ill play it out, maybe Ill even give my ships 100 autofire death rays and just burn silicoid worlds down before restarting(Corion 2 is awesome by the way).

[Ashenai]

Thanks, everyone! Two specific responses:

Iasius: checked out your savegame. If we ignore Antares, it's still not _quite_ a done deal, in my opinion - there's a pretty nasty Psilon fleet out there with impressive firepower, a bunch of Black Hole generators, a _huge_ swarm of fighters, etc. First time I loaded your game, they declared war in 2 turns (honoring an alliance with I forget whom), and destroyed me. Then again, I used auto-combat, and it was fairly close, so I'd imagine they could be beaten with manual combat. The second time I loaded, they stayed peaceful. Anyway, it's a win, fair and square Congrats. Now I know it's possible... just have to do it myself.

Whoha: Picking the Silicoid picture is a neat idea... I didn't think of that. The Silicoids are always the biggest problem early- and mid-game, and the Psilons are invariably the late-game powerhouses, so picking one of those two could make sense.

[Iasius]

Hmm, I checked to see if I called the game to early, so I loaded up that savegame again and immediately declared war on the psilons. 5 or 6 turns later I destroyed nearly their entire fleet and didn't lose a single ship. Then again, I don't use auto combat.
For that fight I built 4 or 5 additional titans and refitted them all to 14 HV,AF,SP phasors and 12 AF,SP phasors and I also added the high energy focus.
The fight was over pretty soon, me destroying all 3 doom stars and 13 of 14 titans (and a couple of BB also) before they fired a shot. They managed to capture a ship of mine, but I got that back. After 1.5 rounds the fight was over. Having initiative is fun.
The psilons do produce lots of ships after that, but not enough to make a difference. The other races are even less of a threat. So I was right, I had won.

[da_hal]

i've done it with -6, avg tech. the key is trading, and just pump chemistry. comp players love chemistry. helps to have psilons somewhere too. repulsive is too hard, imho, if you are playing for score.

[bakalov]

Actully the hardest game is not with -10. Just try: Prewarp, 8 opponents, impossible with the following race:

Cybernetic (+4)
-1 Production (-3)
-1 Food (-3)
-1 Science (-3)
Poor Home World (-1)

This race is only a -6 picks race but as you see you can't do anything with it, except to lose :-)

[Iasius]

Add a -growth or feudal to that and there's no chance of winning.

[bakalov]

you cannot add anything because the penalties allowed are limited to -10 total - and that race already has -10. You cannot make a race with -14 and +4 .... Anyway that +4 is the trick :-)

[Iasius]

Hmm, I didn't read it right, just saw the -6 at the end and didn't bother to use my head after that.
You start with zero production and 4 research. Yep, you'd lose before you start.

[Whoha]

you can make it -14 or -18 with corion2 ;P though it will be buggy when you get to evolutionary mutation, but... thats not too likely.

[Ashenai]

DID IT! Woohoo!

Funny thing is, I started right next to Silicoids, but they never once declared war. In fact, the only two races to declare war on me were non-repulsive, and pathetically weak. They poked at me with single Battleships, and were repelled by my weakest, single-Star Base colonies. Other than that, nothing really interesting happened. I made a bunch of beamboats and destroyed Antares.

I'll have to try Bakalov's Cybernetic challenge now... now that looks _really_ hard

[Ashenai]

Tried the -Food, -Prod, -Sci, Poor Home World, Cybernetic challenge, and failed... but I'm pretty sure it _can_ be done. Here's the way to start, IMO:

Sell Star Base for 200. Put 2 guys in Production, 2 in Industry, and 4 in Science. This'll give you a population growth of -77k and a production of 0, but you'll have a research of 8, which is vital at this point. Research Electronic Computer -> Research Lab, buy it (you still don't have any production). Then research Reinforced Hull -> Automated Factories, and buy that too.

At this point, you'll have a functioning colony... though it might be too late to salvage the game. With just a little luck, though, you can get one of the cheap Megawealth or Researcher leaders early on, which'll speed you up a whole lot. You'll want to expand as fast as possible, bribe all your neighbours into Trade and Research treaties and Non-Agression Pacts, get Autolabs quickly, then try to make up for lost time.

Looks interesting. In my first game, the Mrrshan wiped me out when I only had four colonies in two star systems, and no fleet. But with more effective diplomacy and a lot of luck, I wouldn't be surprised if it were doable.

[bakalov]

hm, if you put your population to starve on the second turn you will not have 8 research, because you will have only 7 colonists available ....

[bakalov]

Anyway there is a chance to play it but without save/load you must have tons of luck :-)

[Ashenai]

I never use save/load, and we'll see :-)

You have to take the starving colonists off Food or Industry, not off Research. That way, your colony will be bleeding away at a steady -73k, and you'll have 8 research until the number of colonists goes below 4 (or until you get Automated Factories, which will hopefully be sooner than that).

[bakalov]

I'll have to try it myself but it sounds too masochistic :-)

[The Mad Monk]

I would go for factories before labs, especially if there are other exploitable worlds in system.

One 'hidden' advantage of cybernetic is that you can colonize without freighters.