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 After game thoughts Outcome: Extermination Victory, 2798 This was a very, very diplomatic game. I set out wanting it to be a diplomatic challenge, and it absolutely was; it had to be, really. I didn't have the wherewithal to win by brute force until the end. I didn't feel like I was managing one empire, I felt like I was managing four (everybody except the Mrrshans, whom I never came into contact with). There was a lot of micromanaging -- I had to check the tech and race screens almost every turn, and be very careful with the sliders to squeeze out every last resource point, especially early on -- but with only one planet it was a lot easier than it would be with a lot more.
Silly Mistakes I Made! Some moves, reading through this account afterwards, make me wonder what I was thinking. I am not sure how the Alkari defeated my bombers in 2512, for instance. Could I not have simply pressed "retreat"? (Although where would they retreat to, I wonder?) That was obviously very late at night. In general, I am obviously really, really rusty on the ship tactical combat. In the last war, I kept teleporting my bombers directly next to the planet on the first combat round to take out the bases. That was insane. The much better move would have been to stay on the left part of the screen for a couple of turns to lure the ships away from the planet, THEN teleport to the planet and take out the bases (and the population) without facing retaliation from the ships. I would have to be careful doing this -- my rivals had the High Energy Focus and good manueverability -- but done correctly I would have lost a lot fewer bombers (quite possibly, none) if I had done this rather than simply go in all kamikaze. What can I say, it was late and I was racing to get the game over before it closed. What a bush move. There were only a couple of planets guarded by fleets of meaningful size, so this did not hurt me too much, and the game was pretty much over anyway, but there was no reason to take as many casualties as I did in combat. The abortive bombing attack in the 2510s and 2520s was roughly as necessary as it was effective. Although I was rightly concerned about the council vote and wanted to knock the birds down a peg or two it would have been better to just do what I did eventually (gift around terraforming techs). Or, if I had started sabotage earlier and whittled down the missile bases FIRST, or built missile boats to beat down the bases, it might have worked. In the end it was not too costly (Emperor Farseer saw to that himself) but still an error. I did well on the diplomatic front this game, but I made a lot of combat mistakes. I'm a lover, not a fighter. Fortunately, as Galactic Emperor, I do not have to strip my rank of Fleet Admiral/General/Grand Poobah. Quite to the contrary, I think I'll promote myself. Once I come up with a better title. Also, IT+50 before Advanced Eco would have made sense if I didn't have IT+30 already. If IT+50 was much cheaper than AER it also would have made sense (I would get the extra 20 colonists and their production sooner). But the cost difference is actually something like 10%, not enough. I spent a lot of research on Reduced Industrial Waste 60% early on when I already had the cheap RIW 80% tech; another 20% is good but that tech took a long time to pay for itself. This hurts doubly because, had I waited until I was built up a little more, I would have been able to easily research it at a time when that additional 20% was worth more, OR I would have been able to steal it in espionage at absolutely no research cost to me! Ugh. In 2469, I dialed down Force Fields spending dramatically when my choice was Repulsor Beam, reasoning that the Alkari had that already and I could easily steal it, which would advance me (hopefully) to Class X Planetaries as my next research choice. This was the correct move, but then I took my sweet time targeting Force Field espionage against the birds -- I had opportunities in 2473, 2509, 2510, and 2533 to sneak an Alkari Force Field tech away, and I selected another field. I took until 2536 to steal it. I SHOULD have gotten Repulsor Beam in 2509-2510 at the latest, so this delayed my Class X Planetaries by 20-30 turns easily. It turns out this wasn't actually pivotal -- neither the birds nor bears ever amassed a fleet that was a significant danger to Meklon and its aleph-null missile bases, with or without class ten planetary shields -- but it was certainly a strange move on my part. Things I Did Right! I liked Alkari neighbors for their Propulsion tech and gave them Paranar. This was probably the first indication that I knew what I was doing. If I had not sent a scout to Paranar and the Darlok got the colony, or I had left the scout there, chasing the Alkari scout/unarmed colship away, and a Darlok colship came in with armed escort, I would have had neighbors strong against my espionage efforts and with uneasy relations. Considering it might be a long time before I came into contact with a second race (as it was, the Alkari were my only neighbors for over 100 turns), that would be really bad. The cats or birds or bears would have been acceptable, but the 'loks next door would have made this game a lot more difficult. Gifting/trading the planetology techs was a good move. This kept the bears and Darloks in the running -- the Alkari had far more planets. It took them a while to actually use the techs, but once they did utilize my gifts the vote was a little less than 1/3rd for each of the three enemy powers, and there was no way for me to lose a council vote. This worked out as I expected, although it took a little longer than I would have liked for the AIs to equalize, but once they did I was home clear. I would have done the gifting sooner except I didn't know if the bears or shifters were going to pull far ahead against the birds. Without the sabotage from 2601 to 2617, I would have lost the council vote of 2625. I had to keep constant track of who was friends with who and count votes scrupulously almost all game. The bombing in the 2640s, although expensive, was necessary to win. I took out Regulus and Endoria, resulting in a hot war with the Alkari, and my friends the Darloks took out a couple other bird worlds after I dragged them in. This cost the birds certainly 2 and maybe 3 votes from their own population plus the 4 votes from the shifters (who, remember, were allied with the Alkari before the birds declared on me). The birds were coasting to an easy 2650 council victory. The amount of espionage choices involving some fields like Construction and Weapons might have seemed excessive -- I used hardly any of the weapons techs I obtained, for example -- but I needed the miniaturization. I was just able to fit a sub space teleporter on a small hull when I stole the tech. If I could only fit it on a medium hulled bomber, I would have either had to wait another 50-100 turns either for better miniaturization or to build a huge fleet of medium hull bombers (and in the latter case, SUPPORT a huge fleet of medium bombers from my one planet.) I would have won without SST, but it would have required many more bombers, and probably missile boat strikes or sabotage to weaken the planetary missile bases. I was really happy to see that the birds had it. I, of course, fine tuned my spying expenditures according to who had what I wanted (and who trusted me enough to not do a spy sweep every couple of turns). I could have fine tuned the tech spending a bit better but there is only so far I will take micromanaging. Other Random Notes Holes in the tree were sometimes very irritating. Missing Class V planetaries was bad, but stealing them from the Alkari was simple. If other players had other neighbors the game might have gone very differently. Beelining to Class X would have been possible, but costly. Shields seemed weak for everybody this game. Wouldn't be surprised if somebody much better than me wins with Fusion Bomb generation technology. Speaking of which, bombs were a little scarce this game as well. I was delighted to find that the birds had Omega-Vs in their tree. Planetology was frustratingly weak, although playing the Meklar that is to be expected. The birds did not fare much better, fortunately. I was scared of the Bulrathi's Energy Pulsar at the end -- they were the only race that had it, I think -- but they didn't field any against me, and that saved me some pain. If they were using them I would have designed six identical Omega-V bombers and sent multiple stacks, of course, but it would delay things. I think this message from 2381 (about 400 turns before the end of the game) is awesome:
 ...Now, I would like to take some time at this point to thank my espionage agents, without whom this game would not be possible.
Boris And Natasha's Sneaky Science!
That's 53 stolen research projects, in total, a nice haul indeed. Thirty came from the Birds alone; they were my first contact and only contact for about a century, they also had the weakest Computers levels throughout the game. Also, they had the Propulsion technologies I desired. I had little espionage spending against the Darloks this game. There were three reasons for this. First, they were the hardest targets to spy against (much stronger Computers tech than the birds or bears and the +20 racial bonus versus spies). Second, they did not have anything I was particularly interested in for most of the game. Their strength was Computers research and they badly trailed me in that field. They rarely had even a low-level Computer tech that I did not. Third, and most importantly, I did not want to anger them but rather keep them at good relations and play them against the birds and bears. The Darlok were the only faction with which I was in contact but never at war (until the end). We were on amiable terms right until the final war. I even got a decent boost to my economy by maintaining a healthy trade contract with them, the entire time we were in contact. Even with little spy spending, they still most generously contributed 4 projects of their own. Research-by-espionage is a lot more efficient than research-by-research, at least when you have 20 or 30 levels on your opponents in Computers and there are plenty of techs to steal. My friends Boris and Natasha assure me that dirty tricks are the best kinds. In this game, if I were an AI, I would have been: Pacifistic Diplomat, definitely. A Pacifistic Diplomat with an Extermination Victory. The race personalities were a little out of character this game; I was expecting Ecologist bears, for instance, although Technologists might actually have served me better. The absence of an Erratic leader was welcome. The Votes There were 17 votes in this game, by far the most votes I've had in a MoO game without being nominated once. I survived them despite never having more than 2 votes. I voted for each of my surviving opponents (the Mrrshan died in the cradle, alas) at least once:
I am sure there was a 2800 council vote, at which 2 votes were cast unanimously for me. Win by diplomatic acclimation! If you've actually read this far, you must like this game as much as I do! Thank you to RealmsBeyond and to Horist, the game sponsor, for such an entertaining scenario, it was great fun and made for a pleasant weekend. - Codehappy |
