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Episode IV: 2361-2374 Continuing our treck across towards the left side of the galaxy.   Right by one of them that they stole out from under us ...  And a key prime piece of real estate on the right.  Good to know that we are the biggest kid on the block, at least so far.  Shockingly polite ...  Upper left, as I figured. They are Pacifistic Ecologists, which suits me fine. A 150BC trade deal is struck, and the Klackons re-up to 150 as well.  Lizards are definitely the most powerful enemy so far. When you have the early lead in population as Silicoids though, you're doing something right. I still really like where we are at this stage. Production's not too bad, and the tech will come. Eventually.  Right on the Sakkra border are two key systems that I want. Ajax here is a decent artifact planet. Firma, the blue star at the top middle of the screen, is smaller but ultra-rich. One colony ship is already headed here, and the second one will be underway in a couple of years. However, it takes over a decade to get out this far, and anything can happen in that timeframe. For the first time I consider throwing out some combat ships, laser fighters or whatever, but that's really not something that is worth it I don't think. Huge galaxies really argue against that approach IMO. Better to just keep spamming the colony ships: no one world is worth the effort. Smaller galaxies are different as each system is worth more, relatively speaking.  I've known this was coming for a while. I've been slowly expanding down the right side but we don't have the range to reach Xudax yet. Another weaponized colony ship, and we had to surrender another system to the bugs.  This is the other nebula system, a stepping-stone to give us the range to reach Firma. A highly crappy planet on it's own merits though.  Well, snap. We're still several years away with the colonizer for this. The Sakkra did the same colony ship weaponization routine, and we were forced back again.  2369, and our ship is still about four years away. This time they had escorts too. So I lose both systems I was hoping to get. Much closer to their homeworld than mine, but I want to be as greedy as possible, and now that ship will have to waste time eventually redirecting somewhere else. 2372: Deep Space Scanner comes in, and Battle Computer MK III is the only available choice. It's easy to pick from a selection of one, but also rather boring. Also ..  Our first new colony in a while, but we have four other ships out there and another one that just got built. They're in the pipeline, but the distances are vast. This helps secure the lower right area. A few 'border' worlds have become developed enough that I'm starting to work on a bit of initial defense in the form of missile bases.  This is dead center of the galaxy, circa 2373. Things have not gone our way here. You can see Ajax, and our colony ship just made it there, retreating and re-routing to Tyr. However it looks like the Sakkra are going to make it there first. We'd have it by now if I chose that planet as the initial target. The red ship at the bottom is a Psilon colony ship, so they are out there lurking about as well. We've repeatedly tried to scout the yellow star in that vicinity, but been chased off by both bugs and lizards several times. The red star at the bottom, right of center is a Toxic world that I think we're going to get, but that may be all here. 3-4 empires intersect here, and it looks we're the ones being crowded out more than anyone else. I hate being right: the Sakkra took Tyr the next year. We did at least get Hand Lasers, and a new choice:  Hyper-Vs are part of the first tier. I was hoping for Hyper-Xs here but didn't get them. Anti-Missile Rockets are by far the cheapest option to keep the ladder moving.  Just in time to close this chapter, it's our good ole buddies, the Psilons. They are 'Honorable' Industrialists(really?) and allied with Klackons and Bulrathi. They also agree to an immediate 225BC trade deal.
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Aug 11, 2017 03:12
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Things regress to the mean. A good early game leads to a worse later game. Of course, you have a good foundation, so hopefully it'll get you going in the right direction once you shore up your territory.
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Aug 11, 2017 04:38
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It's something of a logical consequence of being so aggressive with your own colony ships though. Trading the cost of a couple of those ships would have given him a few dozen fighters to act as actual claim fleets on these worlds that he could have used to repulse the armed colony ships, and likely he would have been able to win more of these contested worlds. Of course, pursuing that strategy would have meant that he would not have a filled out core and would be on significantly worse terms with his neighbors due to the border skirmishes - like he said in the update, if you are winning early on in population with the drat Silicoids, you're doing something very right.
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Aug 11, 2017 06:00
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Not only that, but I wouldn't have even had the range to reach those worlds with military ships without the colonizing push.
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Aug 13, 2017 20:37
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Episode IV: 2375-2399 Well, crap on a stick. The galaxy is taking shape, but that's a lot of red. They most recently took that yellow star in the middle nobody would let us look at, Esper, bringing us in contact. Unfortunately it's looking a lot like deja vu all over again vis a vis the last game and our long struggle with them. Current planet counts are Silicoid 15, Psilon 14, Sakkra 11, Klackon 7. We are shifting tacks a bit here and filling in the 'backwater' systems in the upper right, as we've been cut off elsewhere for the time being. Most of the colonies now have a decent level of population, and what little surplus there is heads that way to balance things out.  Not really looking that good from any perspective except for territory. We should be able to add several more to hit 20+ planets, but it doesn't look like that's going to be enough to challenge the eggheads. Playing from behind again here.  Nobody else would offer more than 225BC either in trade, so we stand pat. Definitely looks like the bugs are our best shot at a friend. Once we seal off the border with them, I may go for a Non-Aggression Pact.  Another near-worthless spheroid to occupy.  Last one in our corner to be explored. We'll eventually snag this, but it's another piece of junk.  2380. This should be a good ship-producer in time.  Another decent one, same year.  A possibility for pushing down the right edge, but it's 6 parsecs away. Not anytime soon. 2383, two years afterwards, was a big year. We've finally got all the Colonizers out and en route that we need. 5 more systems are expected to be settled, starting next year. That would brings us to a total of 23. Sounds like a lot, but it's less than a quarter of the galaxy and honestly a bare minimum, if that. Cryslon is nowhere near anyone's range, so it has switched over to industrial spending to shunt resources into the Planetary Reserve for a while. Better late than never for this, and it should be enough to help get a jump-start. Unfortunately most of the empire is still below the halfway point of industrial buildup. Industrial Tech 9 and Class II Deflectors come in the next year.  While the default position is to go with the cheapest option available, Duralloy Armor will be most helpful in the event of a surprise invasion.  Here we'll help the ground troops again, only because it's the cheaper option and we just upgraded the other deflectors.  And our next addition.  Lovely. Galos is a Sakkra colony beyond our reach, so we can't do anything about this. It's up to the lizards. As of right now we have a positive +23 BC trade balance.  This basically seals off the map on the Klackon front.  Trade deals with the Sakkra and Klackons are upped from 150 to 275 BC: not quite doubling, but close. Non-Aggression Pacts are also signed with both races. Hopefully these deals will keep them in a favorable frame of mind, esp. when it becomes time to start voting(soon, I'd imagine). As you can see, the Psilons are not in such a friendly mood. I also stopped transferring population from most planets at this point: we've got enough critical mass where it needs to be to feed the last remaining new colonies. The 'citizens' can stay where they are and grow their own worlds now.  This here is the most useless piece of crap I've yet found in this game.  This figures to be an important world, figuring to be our third-largest behind Cryslon and Volantis. 2392: Battle Computer Mk. III and Anti-Missile Rockets come in. ECM Jammer III is the only computers choice.  Weapons was another matter. Bottom three are all from the next tier, and given our decrepit state of tech in general, I went cheap with the Ion Rifle. Only partly by design, we're getting a lot of early ground combat stuff here, which hopefully will help preserve our precious population.  The Sakkra appear to be doing basically nothing. We're at a mere +9 on our trade balance right now. Also, Cryslon has finally 'caught up' with reserve spending: that is, we've building up a balance there instead of sending it all out each turn. Nuclear engines came in 2395. I wanted more range, but the only option was Sub-light drives(warp 3).  2397, and another lousy inferno world completes the expansion to 23 planets. The others have mostly run out of places to settle. The Psilons are at 15, Sakkra 12, Klackon 9. Our planets are worse on average, but at least we've got a good lead in sheer territory. Until the need for reserve transfers abates, efforts continue to be focused on building up the industrial base, with any surplus going to either tech or missile-base defense, as appropriate. We were really close though, and a year later I decided it was time to start moving resources away from the transfers. Only three planets still needed them. Boosting research more was one option: there were two planets we could reach with a massive colony ship that included reserve tanks as the other. The proposed ship would move at Warp 2 and would require 7-8 years each. It's also possible that colonizing the two available worlds would open up other possibilities. On the other hand, we could increase tech investment by about 50%(269 BC) over that time-frame. Usually I side with going for the land-grab, but the research was really tempting. The chance to grab systems that other empires were still ignoring had too strong an allure to ignore though.  Better. Looks like the Sakkra are starting to get things under control now. And with that, the first century of the Silicoid Experience(tm) comes to an end ...
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Aug 15, 2017 02:46
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the worst part about the pirates event is that the news absolutely will not shut the gently caress up about it.
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Aug 15, 2017 05:58
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Yes, especially as you usually can't do anything about the pirates because they're half the galaxy sway. I think your position is pretty good, as long as the AI doesn't start dragging you into wars. How do the Klakons like you when you have so many planets? I always wonder if it's worth settling those little planets, but I always do, because I'm greedy.
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Aug 15, 2017 08:43
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BurningStone posted:How do the Klakons like you when you have so many planets? I always wonder if it's worth settling those little planets, but I always do, because I'm greedy. I apologize for another too-long hiatus. I think they liked us a little more than the others did because they were a bit smaller and they weren't ready to tick off a big neighbor. It may not be worth settling the little planets, though any little bit helps, in the short run. In the long-run though, since terraforming has an equalizing effect, it's definitely worth it. Even the crappiest planet can have a pop well over 100M by late in the game.
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Aug 23, 2017 01:38
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Episode IV: 2400-24?? To start off the 25th century, we get some good news ...  Mobas was a 70M planet; now it's 100M. It's still mineral-poor, but it basically just went from being a fairly good research planet in development, to being a quite good one.  No High Council yet, but when it does form it appears that it'll be us and Psilons vying for the top population, somewhat ahead of the Sakkra and Klackon. We're gaining on them in production, at least over the past decade or so. If we can at least equalize there ... we will still fall behind further and further in technology. But at least we'll fall behind at a slower rate!  Another round of diplomatic efforts demonstrated a couple things. Our economy has grown to the point where more trade is possible: we increase deals to 600 BC across the board -- they were 225 to 275 BC previously. Tried to get the Klackons to agree to an alliance; they declined. We did get a Non-Aggression Pact with the Psilons though. A bit risky while we are still looking to expand, but being on their good side is worth it and we have missile bases up at a good proportion of the border systems now. We're on quite good, and basically equivalent, terms with everyone now. A couple years ago they were all allied with each other, but right now there's nothing going on. Tensions will probably start to rise before long, but Pax Galactica reigns at the moment.  The military empires, Alkari and Bulrathi, we have not seen any sign of. Not even ships. It appears unlikely that they are large though, based on the available territory. I'd be surprised if either has 10+ systems. Multiple wild-cards, but it looks like Rocks vs. Eggheads from opposite corners -- or a heck of a lot like the last game with the bugs. If it plays out that way, I'm hoping to go for Orion earlier and play that trump card while it can be even more decisive. But it's way too early for that. The two stars we are presently aiming for with the new super-colonizers are Mu Delphi(red star in the galactic center, a Toxic world) and Darrian(blue, halfway down the extreme right edge). Mu Delphi is first for strategic reasons of potentially allowing further growth. We're completely blocked off everywhere else; these are the only options that don't require better range, which would be really nice.  This is the Klackon border, the area basically just to the right of the galactic center. Here is where our defenses are most developed. Toranor is safe: the others you see all have at least 1 missile base. Quayal has I think 7, on it's way to at least 9. That's our artifacts planet, which ironically is not doing any research lately so that it can be well-protected. To the right and above defenses are not in place yet, but working in that direction. Approximately half our colonies are border systems(i.e., potentially within range of enemy fleets). The other half can concern themselves soley with more economic matters of industry and research.  The Nuc Recons here are recently built and on their way to all border systems and those near them, though we needn't bother with the upper-right section. Once they are in position, the original Recons will be decommisioned. And the decidedly strange-looking Colony XT is our new mammoth long-range colony ship of course.  And finally, a look at research, where Personal Deflectors are expected fairly soon, along with Death Spores(who cares). In reality, we aren't studying a single thing that I'm going to be excited to acquire: it's all just about pushing the scientific process forwards in general. Thus ends the briefing: onward! 2401: Pirates are finally gone. Took way too long, but that's dealt with. 2405: The first Colony XT left Cryslon for Mu Delphi -- which was claimed by the Klackons that same year. Well, so much for that idea. It'll re-route to Darrian as soon as it can. We lose 35 BC every year it's out there in maintenance, so the bug bastards cost us more than just a potential system. A little surprised to see them able to colonize Toxic worlds. A year later, and we got the first of the next set of research projects: ECM Jammer III.  Battle Computers are important enough that I'll go that route instead of staying cheap, even though it's about a third more expensive than another ECM. It would be really nice to get some sort of Robotics advance though ... In 2408, Personal Deflectors come in. Only choice to move forward is Class IV Shields, which would double the effectiveness of our current IIs. No planetary shields yet which blows. Also ...  Carnax vs. Zygot. Us vs. the Psilons. Yay. This vote ... is not a good sign.   The birdies have little to say, being wimpy.  Bears suck even more.  Eeek. Everyone we've met likes the Psilons more. The other two are irrelevant. Super-Great. We have 12 votes and abstain, ending this vote indecisively. Barely. 31 votes needed for the Psilons to win ... and they were two short. This almost got ugly right away. Also, 13 for the Psilons, 8 each for the bugs and salamanders ... we're just behind the eggheads in total votes here. Looks like they've gotten enough planetology to improve themselves, or else merely filled up all their planets(believe it or not we actually aren't quite there on most of ours). Or both. Simple answer on why the Psilons got their support: the alliances are back on. All are stuck at 'amiable' with us. I try to join the fun ... all three turn down my offers. I may know why -- I wonder if fleet strength has an impact. Given the rather lackluster state of ours ... as in, we have yet to design a combat ship ... they may just not regard us as having the firepower to help. Which they'd be correct in. Might explain why I have better luck getting allies later in games. Not like I can afford a fleet buildup right now anyway, but ... Bottom line is our dozen votes is four shy of a veto bloc. Seems unlikely we can bridge that gap in the 17 years before the High Council meets again, but if we at least stay close and the minor races stay on the sidelines(likely IMO), we could hang on here. Short update in terms of years, but quite a bit happened and a fair bit of info thrown back into the fray.
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Aug 23, 2017 01:45
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Glad you're back. I was worried for a bit that the LP might be over.
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Aug 23, 2017 07:11
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Nah, If I was going to quit I'd try to have the decency to at least say so.
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Aug 24, 2017 01:47
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Episode IV: 2408-2424 Duralloy Armor was next to hit, with Automated Repair System another only-choice selection. Getting a lot of those. Yay crappy research! 2412 brings Death Spores: +30M Terraforming(20M better than what we have) is, you guessed it, the only choice. It's also time for another round of base-building. The average border world has 3-4 missile bases; I'll up that to around 5-6. Of course it won't matter all THAT much if we don't get a better missile to shoot soon. Currently, we are still using the same nuclear missiles we had over a century ago. That's pretty epic lameness.  Now, just because I couldn't think of anything better to put in a screenshot and I wanted to break up my random blathering on, pay attention to Kakata and Volantis here. The Sakkra are up to 7-parsec range, Klackons at 6 according to intelligence. We are of course still at a pathetic 4 ... but both of those systems are sizable and will be in range of the bugs soon it looks like, probably just outside of it right now. Too close for comfort, and I'll add them to the list of planets needing defense. All of this means a required reduction in research for a bit. Ended up being just over half of our normal tech output getting the axe. Meanwhile, Darrian is still clear -- the Psilons sent one cruiser decades ago and have not returned, for reasons unknown -- and our settlement task force is five years out. On queue, the next year brought a low-probability breakthrough(1 in 16 chance) of the Ion Rifle. Yay. And for weapons ...  STILL no new missile options. That's bloody freaking superb. I've half a mind to go back and get crappy Hyper-Vs. And yeah, I'm gonna do just that. If it's a waste of time, it's a waste of not much since they cost less than a tenth of our new choices and do 50% more damage than the nuclears. Of course that only makes them a third less hideously inaccurate ... but it's the choice we have. Incidentally, this means we missed out on Hyper-X, Scatter Pack V, Merculite, and my favored Stingers. Four straight missile options not available. Go stagnant moronic Silicoids! Then the choice will be between the last two there and there isn't much cost difference. Might as well snag the Graviton Beam, can always come back for bombs down the road if I need them but that could prove useful in a future combat. 2416, and Sublight Drives arrive. This brings up an actual choice:  There aren't a lot of systems left, and there will be even fewer by the time we would get the fuel cells here. The range would be quite helpful though. I decide it's worth the expense, though the Energy Pulsar is well worth considering at about 70% the cost.  I'm not sure why this was still available. All that really matters is that it is though. Our first new acquisition in decades. The red and blue stars directly below it are within scouting range now. The red one has a Sakkra destroyer in orbit -- that won't stop us settling it with a NAP, but clearly they are expressing some manner of interest here. We can now build colony ships with reserve tanks on a cruiser hull, so I figured it was best to get a couple of them with our latest Warp 3 engines going just in case we could snag either of those. Most of the bases are up and running, and research is the focus once again. A couple years later, Battle Computer V came in. We had options for another one or ECM, and went the Jammer route as it was cheaper. Then this ...  An actual decent planet. If we can get there first, we're definitely taking it. Time to start shifting some extra population to Drakka in advance of that.  Small for now, but in a century or so with the right terraforming this could be a big producer. Then, the year before the next vote, an ominous portent ...  Not only are we not going to withdraw, but we are nearly to the first new system. There are fleets from multiple races around those planets, but it looks like we are winning the race here as everyone scrambles to grab up the remaining bits. Relations have been slightly declining despite our agreements with all three rivals ... tensions are definitely on the rise. They just decided to put it in words first.  Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, eggheads! Of course they could take it any time they drat well please, which hopefully they don't until we can get some defenses in place.  The High Council returns with eight more votes this time around. The bugs got two of the increase, and sided with Zygot once more.  +3 to 16 for the Psilons.  That's not good. The birdbrains may have just handed this over to our mortal enemy.  Really?  Yep. Everyone unified against us, and it's enough to put them over the top. Defiantly Carnax uses his 14 votes to select himself. 5 short of what we needed for a veto.  In terms of the LP, this actually works out well, because there's only one ending type we haven't yet seen. When the vote went against us before(first Klackon game, Ep. II), I accepting the ruling and the defeat that came with it. This time, we say NO.  'The wrath of the New Republic.' In case you didn't get the memo here, it's not looking real good for the home team.
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Aug 27, 2017 03:25
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Hahaha holy poo poo the eggheads pulled a Dumb Human Trick
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Aug 27, 2017 03:30
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And this is how I usually lose. I'm not very good at diplomacy, and I'm not even sure if I'm doing something wrong, or if it's so tilted against the player than you're fighting uphill all the time.
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Aug 27, 2017 04:26
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Woo. Now we get to watch you try to dig yourself out of the hole that you're in. This should be fun.
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Aug 27, 2017 05:50
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BurningStone posted:And this is how I usually lose. I'm not very good at diplomacy, and I'm not even sure if I'm doing something wrong, or if it's so tilted against the player than you're fighting uphill all the time. the thing to diplomacy in MoO1 is that it functions largely like actual diplomacy. there's no being good at it or being bad at it on a grand scale, you either make the choice to do things that will cost you diplomatic relations, or you don't (which will typically cost you in other ways). you can sign trade agreements and treaties, but these things are more the rewards for diplomatic momentum rather than the means to good diplomatic relations in the first place. beyond that, you take your opportunities as they come up. in this particular case there's really not a lot the OP could have done. as we saw last game, the pslions are absolutely horrifying if they run away and the klackons are no less so. in an ideal world the bugs and the eggheads would have gotten into a border dispute and there would have been an opportunity to poison relations between the two to the point that the veto bloc would have held. but as it stands the only thing that he could have done different is keep a much closer eye on diplomatic realities and stopped colonizing earlier - which may have meant that the other powers soured on each other enough to not unite behind the eggheads, or may have just meant that we would have seen this exact situation another 100 years down the road and have fewer resources to meet it with.
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Aug 27, 2017 07:33
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I'm sorry if this is a dumb question, I've never played MoO 1 on the hardest difficulty, but is there some game-mechanical reason you're not using spies to help the Silicoid's lovely research, or are you waiting to show it off in the Darlok run?
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Aug 27, 2017 09:11
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Spies aren't very effective, even the Darlok ones. The alliance in this game doesn't bother me. It's when the AIs make them so fast they must have come shortly after first contact, something I've never been able to do.
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Aug 27, 2017 18:58
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spies do their job pretty well, the problem is that they're insanely expensive.
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Aug 27, 2017 20:23
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BurningStone posted:Spies aren't very effective, even the Darlok ones. Spying is a lot more viable in this game as compared to MOO2, but it's still not great. With no relations to worry about though, there should be some espionage going on now if we have any hope of winning.
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Aug 28, 2017 01:56
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i really like that the game's manual outright tells Darlok players to focus on one or two areas of research (usually Computers due to the associated spying bonuses that gives you) and just outright steal the rest
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Aug 28, 2017 02:51
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Coolguye posted:as it stands the only thing that he could have done different is keep a much closer eye on diplomatic realities and stopped colonizing earlier - which may have meant that the other powers soured on each other enough to not unite behind the eggheads, or may have just meant that we would have seen this exact situation another 100 years down the road and have fewer resources to meet it with. I've found that staying smaller to keep people happy is basically never worth it. I could have put more into building some kind of fleet and then possibly done something that way, but I really think that would have been a losing move long-term also. I was surprised to see everyone side with the Psilons as quickly as they did, but stuff happens. Rappaport posted:but is there some game-mechanical reason you're not using spies to help the Silicoid's lovely research, or are you waiting to show it off in the Darlok run? 1. It ticks off the other races and makes going to war more likely(which doesn't matter now, of course). 2. Computer tech level has a significant impact on your effectiveness in espionage. Being this far behind in research still means that it's hard to get anything that way. GeneralRevil posted:Now we get to watch you try to dig yourself out of the hole that you're in. This should be fun. I don't fancy my chances, but it's not over yet.
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Aug 28, 2017 21:49
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Man, the AI in this really doesn't have any shame. I just had two separate empires greet me politely, accept big old trade deals, and then promptly send huge transport fleets in an unsuccessful bid to conquer my border planets. They spent years sitting at "neutral" and still sending bombers and stuff to try to kill all of my little ant mans. See how fuckin' polite they are when I conquer all their homeworlds, relegating them all to a single lovely backwater planet each 
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Aug 29, 2017 00:15
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the thing that always left me quietly stunned at this game is that's exactly what a human player would do in the same situation be nice, take the deals, smile broadly, and then slap their balls or ball analogues on the table.
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Aug 29, 2017 00:50
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So....deathspores?
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Aug 29, 2017 01:53
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I hope we see murderrocks using biological weapons to eradicate the meaty menaces.
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Aug 29, 2017 16:45
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I want to see how hard you can cheese the game, Thotimx. And a great big "gently caress you" to these rear end in a top hat AIs is the perfect time to do it (if you can.)  Edit: For the record, I hate diplomatic victories. Then again, I tend to play 4x games for the slog more than anything else.
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Aug 29, 2017 16:49
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Angry Diplomat posted:Man, the AI in this really doesn't have any shame. I just had two separate empires greet me politely, accept big old trade deals, and then promptly send huge transport fleets in an unsuccessful bid to conquer my border planets. They spent years sitting at "neutral" and still sending bombers and stuff to try to kill all of my little ant mans. I love the cold war mechanic in this game where you and an AI can skirmish over a border world without a full on war breaking out. It makes the settlement phase of the game a lot more interesting than other empire building games where war is a binary thing.
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Aug 29, 2017 18:33
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TheLoquid posted:I love the cold war mechanic in this game where you and an AI can skirmish over a border world without a full on war breaking out. It makes the settlement phase of the game a lot more interesting than other empire building games where war is a binary thing. I kind of like the way Endless Legend handles it - if you actually venture into someone's territory and attack their troops or cities, congratulations, you just started a war. But outside of that - in neutral territory or a third faction's territory - absolutely anything goes. Other factions will get a little wary of you for briefly trespassing on their land or skirmishing with their units out in the wilderness, but they're usually willing to consider trade deals and other peaceable interactions as long as you respect their sovereignty and don't do anything to really piss them off. I do think "cold war" is a good mechanic that more 4X games should embrace. Putting everything in a rigid binary between "magnanimous peace" and "total warfare" is clunky and annoying. I like that feeling of uneasy peace and carefully eyeing one another up before making a decision one way or the other. e: Wow, mass drivers are the poo poo. Mass produce some speedy, reasonably affordable fighters with mass drivers and decent targeting computers and you can kill just about anything except a ridiculous endgame hell dreadnought just by brute-forcing it with enough ships. Angry Diplomat fucked around with this message at 22:06 on Aug 29, 2017 |
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Aug 29, 2017 18:55
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Kanthulhu posted:I hope we see murderrocks using biological weapons to eradicate the meaty menaces. I think you and others are unfortunately going to be disappointed after my last play session. Episode IV: 2425-2449 As noted, if the High Council votes against you and you reject the ruling, the resulting state of things is known as Final War. The New Republic and the Silicioids will be in a state of war until one side or the other is destroyed.  Note the technology bars here. In Final War the New Republic empires share technology with each other. So they are all ridiculously advanced now compared to us. There is a bit of 'grace period' here; they will need to build ships with the new toys and it'll be a while before we see them. But the gap is big enough that obviously we are in serious trouble.  Everyone hates us and will continue to hate us. There is no possibility of peace -- the Audience button is even disabled. I've upped internal security to help combat any sabotage efforts that are almost certain to come our way. Keeping just a bit of spying effort on the Sakkra so we can see what they've researched if need be. Right now that's kind of pointless.  Realistically speaking, we have almost no chance of surviving this. Winning a Final War is not impossible, but when the galaxy unites against you the odds aren't good. When they were more advanced to begin with, they're worse. The only possible chance I see here is to fortify the borders and hold out until we get enough tech in to make a play for Orion. I'm going to up the normal number of missile bases I'd have by about half, while steamrolling research as much as possible. Building combat ships is absolutely pointless with this kind of tech deficit. Our pathetic state of missile research makes things even more dire, and there isn't a single possible advance in the next tier of Weapons, so we need at least [b]two[b] before improving. If we can't accomplish that before they start aggressively attacking, it's going to get very bad, very quickly. Current standard of Hyper-V Rockets is a TL-4 advance. We missed out on Hyper-X(TL8), Scatter Pack V(11), Merculite Missiles(14), and Stinger Missiles(18). Four in a row. Two tiers from now, there are two possibilities: Scatter Pack VII and Pulson. Any substantial defense from our bases depends on getting one of those. Without them, I think our chances drop from small to absolute nil.  Accordingly, I've shifted tech efforts to make Weapons a much more significant priority. Our current level there is TL-13, and the advances I'm talking about are upper-20s. It really is quite a desperate situation. Meanwhile at present the overhead for bases is 8% -- that's going to go up considerably, and we'll have a period where research will suffer. There is little choice in the matter. If our bases don't scare them away, we might as well raise the white flag of surrender immediately. The very next year, the Psilons took over Gienah, our just-founded colony. This was no surprise, but I thought they might wait a bit. 24 planets left. We're going to lose more, you can mark it down. Our colony ships are pointless, so those got scrapped as well. That's a measly 25 BC a year saved, or less than 1% of our annual production. But every little bit ... I also start pumping reserve spending into our artifact system at Quayal. Sooner we can get bases built up there and back on research, better off we'll be. I also funnel funds similarly into Volantis, the largest of our border systems. Can't overfund everyone, as the reserve would quickly be drained in that event.  2427, another year later. Let the games begin. In 2430, they blow up another 15 on Whynil, one of the poor nebula planets. I honestly could almost care less about that. They haven't attacked further, even though one colony(Drakka) has no defenses yet. We also just got in Class IV Deflector shields, with an upgrade to V the only further option. That'll help our bases a bit, but they really need the planetary shields that we still don't have. And Volantis also switched over to research, up to it's current allotment of 19 bases. It was a busy year. Within a couple of years, other systems started switching back from base construction to research.  Yeah, we get the point. We're just going to rebuild them anyway. Probably costs them more to do the spying here, but right now it's just an annoyance more than anything. Also a bug here; keeps listing planetary pop as 20M max on these reports, even though it's bigger than that. Dunno why, and it only happens some of the time. Another action-packed year as ECM Jammer V(yawn) and Automated Repair(also irrelevant atm) come in.  Finally improved Robotics! This would more than double productivity for us. An obvious big priority. On the Construction front, Zortrium Armor was the only choice. By 2434, Quayal and most other worlds were back into the tech business full-time. The cost of our bases was up to over 13% though, so that was taking more of a bite out of the economy. The year is 2437, and after what's mostly been a decade-plus of cold war, we get our first attack against an established world.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aejM-PmMVU0 122 strike craft with ion cannons. Their shields proved of little use in this case. If we still had nuclear missiles, they would have done better ... but they were slow enough that we could pick them off easily, and they didn't have the firepower to get through our shielding anyway. Thank you for letting us clear out some stone-age ships for you. And screw you lizards for that bit at the end. Mobas only had 9 bases to start, so 6 is most of them ... and on a poor planet it'll take a good while to rebuild them. That's one of our better research worlds. Jerks. Also, our newest colony Drakka is starting to build it's first missile base, so it won't be defenseless unless they hit it soon. Two years later, and the Klackons were back with another 72 Sabres. The result was identical. They'd literally have been better off scrapping them.  Another couple of cycles and it's 2441. Two long-awaited advances come in late in the prototype phase: +30M Terraforming and the Graviton Beam. These are both important for different reasons. Terraforming will obviously give our economy a boost. The other just moves forward the Weapons tree. Here we'll go for the Antidote, not because I particularly want it, but it is cheaper. On the weapons side, we had two options and the Omega-V bomb was slightly cheaper than a torpedo offering. We've got a number of crappy planets in the 20-30M range. When this is done they'll eventually grow to 40-50M, doubling or close to it. They're about to become considerably less inadequate, and our size will matter a little more. Just because I can, I ran the numbers and this will bump our imperial population maximum to just over 1.9 billion, an increase of almost exactly a third over the current level. The bugs eventually returned to Reticuli ... but they were a little more serious about things this time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCUGMbODj1M Well, that was a little depressing. They soon bombed the colony into dust, but we did at least get a first stolen tech from them. Pretty clear they are going to roll us up though unless we can get improved shields or missiles, or both. We've got Robotics V coming before long, but now we can expand the economy with IV right away, which is still an eventual 80% boost in output.  2448 now, and we basically don't care about this. AT least we now we'll have good range when we need it. If ever. More range(Reajax II cells, up to 9 parsecs) was the only option for the next tier.  They hit Phyco again, knocking out nine bases. More ships are massing at Reticuli, but this is another border world where I'm not thrilled to see almost all of our defenses goes up in smoke. Not that it really matters of course until we improve their capabilities, which is why I'm focused on the industry buildup and not adding more paperweight missile silos. Looks like they are really stepping up the sabotage campaign. 27 factories on Tao are incinerated the next year, bringing us to 2450. The New Republic has only taken two systems in it's first-gen, Gienah and Reticuli. They aren't coming as aggressively as I expected, but it's painfully obvious that if they do there's not a drat thing we can do to stop them. If I get another chance, I will probably take a weapons tech on the espionage front, on the off chance we get a helpful missile upgrade. If not ... we probably continue to shrink at whatever pace they feel like shrinking us.
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Aug 30, 2017 02:45
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Don't worry, some day they'll make a movie about this and call it "Downfall."
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Aug 30, 2017 05:14
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The Downfall Continues as I try to fight off a healthy head cold. Tis' the season ... Episode IV: 2450-2474  I try not to look at this screen much. It's depressing, and there's nothing I can do about it right now.  We've had only one espionage success, but we've been at it less than a decade.  Going nowhere and getting there fast until we complete the factory buildup, then we'll finish up the next robotics and do another, smaller expansion. We need more time to complete that process, time we may or may not be given. Weapons research is nowhere close, and won't get any further in the interim. Three years straight. Next cycle they take three bases on Kakata. The next year we get a reprieve, and Tau Cygni, our one rich planet, finishes it's buildup and starts funneling cash into the reserve. Our more productive planets will get an influx from this and hopefully wrap up soon. Another shot at Klackon tech ... we nab the Neutron Pellet Gun. Dang it. I decide to alternate between Computers(improving our success rate in theory) and Weapons(the missiles we need) until we die or get what we need. Interestingly there were a couple fields where they didn't have anything we could steal. Not sure how that's possible, but whatever. 2454, and we have met the Bulrathi! Met is an exaggeration. No first contact greeting, not even to inform us they will be obliterating our subatomic particles in due time.  Note how they have no territory and are still much stronger than us. Yay.  Most important part about this is giving us someone else to potentially steal tech from. 1 in 12 credits goes to that effort empire-wide, which may be too much, and it may be not enough.  Apparently they were gifted Gienah on the right side. In unrelated news, after just two years of massive transfers the planetary reserve has been drained. We'll funnel a bit from year to year into Quayal, but that's all that can be done now. It helped, and Cryslon for example is only a few years away from maxing out.  Sometimes you must stand up and applaud. Normally the AI targets border systems as we've seen, but this is a backwater. And an important one, our only Rich world as I've mentioned and as such, the one that's funneling money into the reserve. Every once in a while, you see a really nice touch like this with some clear thinking behind it. And then you swear at the dozens of millions of citizens who will be required to put down this threat, citizens you will take freaking decades to replace.  And the galaxy continues ...  2457. Latest pilfer, once again from the bugs who seem to be our only successful mark. It'll help give us earlier warning, along with the computing benefits. Oh, and they blew up two bases on Drakka. The only two it has. Yawn. But we did recapture Tau Cygni -- and sent too many troops so some of them are going back. Better safe than sorry though, and the reserve work can commence once more. Probably just as importantly, Cryslon has maxed out on factories and a couple others should follow shortly. Research efforts should slowly ramp up here ... and it's been very quiet in terms of direct attacks. I've been in a lot of Final Wars before where a lot of the territory was gone by now. We aren't complaining, but it is unusual.  Note: they really don't like Tau Cygni. I got the memo a long time ago, guys. No, really. Volantis is next to finish up their industrial expansion meanwhile.  This lizard fleet is six years out from Zhardan, a mid-sized border system. First time they've bothered attacking us. Here's the thing; we have that long to steal a better missile or say good-bye to another colony. We also might steal said missile and still say good-bye to it, but at least we'd put up more of a fight. That's pretty much the thing here.  Ditto with this bug fleet which includes obscene amount of strike craft to Rana. Been nice knowing ya. Another year, and Tao joins the research queue. Tick-tock. A few dozen Sakkra destroyers are headed for the small system of Darrian, which only has four bases. I almost don't care who wins that, but it looks like the New Republic might be finally picking up the pace here. 2461, and we've now reached critical mass with five more systems finishing their run of factories. It won't last long with the new robotics having just entered the prototype phase:  Starting to make progress on some other projects as well but none of them are going to help much. Weapons continues to crawl along; we need more massive investment to make that go anywhere. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HDgfBoK1T8 Ah! It speaks!! Note that there is actually no in-game surrender option. The most absurd tech situation I think I've ever seen though; shooting Hyper-V Rockets at ships with neutronium bombs and a freaking cloaking device. It's like trying to hit a stealth bomber with a bow and arrow or a rock from a slingshot. How pathetic. How truly utterly appalling. It's where we are.  The beginning of the end has arrived. The Klackons are coming for Quayal, our research center. Then the Sakkra decide to blow up 21 more factories on Tau Cygni, just because they can. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDx_lOy6vPk This is 2465: a heavy blow here. Three planets destroyed, three dozen factories blown up on two other worlds. The Psilons entreat us to 'Surrender to the New Republic and save yourselves anymore suffering'. 19 systems remain. Another two years, in 2467, we nab Robotics V and the Omega-V Bomb.  ECM Jammer VII is the only one to move things forward. Once again we get nothing that can be fired by our missile bases. This basically eliminates what little hope remained. That's six consecutive missile techs that we haven't gotten. There's five weapons in the next tier and we have only the Tachyon Beam as a choice. The most expensive of the five. Superb. Another cycle, and Tauri is destroyed. And just to add to the joy, factories are now costing well over 20 BC each due to our lack of the construction tech and the robotic controls required. We haven't been able to improve the costs much either.  2471 here. Sure, why not -- you've hit me just about everywhere else. The next year, the first several planets max out again and it's time to divert to building more paper-weight-quality bases or research, depending on location. The attacks have stopped for the moment, though the other races have pretty much occupied all the systems where our holdings were destroyed. I get the feeling another wave is coming, and we're not close to being to put up any more resistance. The Silicoid Empire has all the appearance of a terminally ill patient simply waiting to be euthanized ...
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Sep 4, 2017 03:03
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One update in and already fighting off the overpowering urge to play this again. It really never has been topped and I just don't understand why.
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Sep 4, 2017 17:34
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This match is explaining very well why the silicoids suck.
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Sep 4, 2017 18:56
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I think the reason it took so long for them to come for you in force is because of the whole "they entered Final War against you, shared all their tech with each other, and immediately redesigned everything in the face of all these new advancements" thing. Now that they have their ships designed and have had time to build up a fleet, they're coming for you. As for the "dial back your expansion because it's pissing us off" thing, it's kind of an ugly situation. If you keep expanding, they go "we warned you, now we're going to war." If you stop expanding and restrain yourself, there's a good chance they'll go "hey, we can't help but notice that we're bigger and stronger than you, so we're going to dunk on you now."
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Sep 4, 2017 23:17
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There's definitely something to be said for tamping down the expansion and starting to ignore the garbage planets to "settle in" a little earlier than Thotimx did. I actually like war in these games, so it's more fun to start building up as a neighbor moves in and decide whether to start a war over the turf (which can totally cripple them and remove them from being a factor later) or just let it go and go after someone else. Classic "triangle" (or "Civ" ) diplomacy ensues, where you can either jump on a war if one's already going on, or start one and pick a friend to like you more than your victim. It usually only takes one "flip" to avoid an early Council loss. Basically, the galaxy is a hugbox if nobody has a reason to hate anybody else. So give 'em one.  I've played a lot of games of MOO1 (not as many as 2, but still) and almost never lose an early vote like that. But then I've only played the Sillies once too, and they do seem to be the most vulnerable to it with that low population problem.Coolguye posted:i really like that the game's manual outright tells Darlok players to focus on one or two areas of research (usually Computers due to the associated spying bonuses that gives you) and just outright steal the rest Yeah, there was a guy from Realms Beyond who put up a "Darlok Hackers" series up on YouTube where he only ever put points in Computers and stole everything else. I never went all-in like that (for one thing, I like micro and that means adjusting the science sliders as you get into "lightbulb" range to avoid wasted RP) but spying is absolutely viable for catching up, and unless you get busted by someone Honorable or who already hates you, you'll almost always get a warning for getting caught, and you can switch spies to someone else and wait for the heat to wear off. Coolguye posted:the thing that always left me quietly stunned at this game is that's exactly what a human player would do in the same situation Hey, some of us would at least have the decency to declare war "Whoops, my pseudopod slipped and I sent 150 million marines to your planet! I'm sure you didn't mind."Kanthulhu posted:This match is explaining very well why the silicoids suck. More than any other race, Silicoids are map dependent. Hostile worlds still have a lower population cap, even though you do get to settle them sooner, so you really need to get some mineral-rich ones to make it worthwhile. If you don't, you might barely be better off than a normal race with fewer but better worlds, and if most of your local stars have fertile worlds, you're actually worse off. And those worlds have to be close, too-- by the lategame any race can research everything the Sillies start with, but the low population growth and tech weakness never goes away. But if you do get those 50 pop Ultra Rich radiated stars next door....
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Sep 5, 2017 04:24
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I'll definitely need to pay more attention to that transition next time Wayne. It's a moot point at the moment ... Episode IV: 2475-2499  I've never reached this point in a game before without building any kind of fleet. It's not for lack of trying -- there's just been no point in the struggle where our capabilities have been high enough to make it even marginally useful. We still need a different weapon system to have any chance of taking on the Guardian(computing is probably high enough now, but nothing we have can consistently damage a ship through a Class IX Shield). Could use the Graviton Beam against some of the smaller enemy ships, but there's no way we'd be able to take on their bigger ones so they'd just get blown up anyway.  Nothing we are close to finishing will make more than the most marginal difference.  This kind of thing, in the very next year, has become the most regular reminder of the passage of time. We get multiple hits per decade, while our spies have done nothing in about 20 years. Zortrium Armor also came in. Now that we are nearly done with the industrial buildup, we'll start on Industrial Tech 5(currently at 9, so this will nearly cut factory costs in half). It's the only option to move forward. Doing great this game at getting things way after they are needed and nearly obsolete.  And they are also up to stuff like this. Fomenting revolutions takes a lot of work -- this is only the second one of those, and is a relatively minor system.  2481 now. Here's another reason why it sucks to not have a fleet. Question here is whether or not it's even worth trying to stop this. The effort to build ships that may or may not be able to do this on an average planet ... it's a tough call here honestly. Starting from nothing, I figure it's probably unlikely that we can get enough firepower there in time. I transfer some pop out to a nearby planet that can use it, disband all the bases, and we'll just get whatever research we can out of Phyco until it is no more. I would later discover that apparently bases can help with the comet and I should have left them in place(they destroyed 1 percent of it before I disbanded them). Still wouldn't have been enough though.  Good heavens. They aren't playing around. We're catching like 10 spies a year by the way -- these are only the ones we don't catch. 7 bases on Argus went boom at the same time. Class V Deflectors come in soon; Class VI is the only option. We're getting lots of ship shields and nothing else -- still have yet to see our first Planetary Shield option. The spies are coming hard and heavy now. The new high is 119 factories on Volantis, but several worlds are now rebuilding industry.  Having acquired the irrelevant Bio-Toxin Antidote, we are required to take an advance next that is of no use whatsoever. Advanced Eco Restoration, cleaning up waste faster, which as Silicoids we don't do. But it's the only way forward. In 2488, while we got Drakka back from the rebels a few years previous, the Phyco colony was destroyed by the comet. It is now an uninhabitable system.  ECM Jammer VII is in; more Robotics are up next.  Here, finally, is the first attack we've endured in decades. Good news is we have time -- bad news is it's headed for our homeworld of Cryslon, thought to be out of enemy range. We'll have a sizable amount of bases there by the time it shows up, but I'm not sure that it will matter. With just ten cruisers coming though, maybe there's a chance. Just maybe. Three other systems had fleets en route a year later. Looks like it's time for another rock-kicking expedition in force. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIeXAgudJJc The lizards arrived sooner than expected. ETAs can be off when going by the edge of a nebula, and that hurt us here. Otherwhise worthy of note is the fact that their Class XI shields rendered the Sakkra ships completely impervious to our bases. I could have had 2 million of them and it wouldn't have mattered. Cryslon and Exis were destroyed by orbital bombardment. The Silicoid homeworld has fallen. 15 planets remain. The next year we discovered that Bulrathi ships aren't as powerful. We could just barely damage them at Mobas, but not enough to matter. Each year new incoming fleets are spotted on the scanners. It appears the New Republic has finally decided to win the game. Good news about that is it hastens the time when I can try again.
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Sep 9, 2017 05:34
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Soon the Silicoids shall be melted down and serve as the computers of the New Republic.
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Sep 9, 2017 06:46
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yeah that's game, even if you somehow start holding ground there is no way you're going to get enough traction to start launching attacks and turning the tide. the rampant spy activity will keep you just off balance enough to keep you from building momentum.
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Sep 9, 2017 23:36
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I would have just restarted a long time ago by this point.
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Sep 10, 2017 00:29
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