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V. Illych L.
Apr 11, 2008

ASK ME ABOUT LUMBER

GuavaMoment posted:

I've been waiting over a year for this, man.

yeah let guava have his moment

kill them all with atrocities

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V. Illych L.
Apr 11, 2008

ASK ME ABOUT LUMBER

on a side note, i do enjoy how the darloks are effectively functioning as a galaxy-wide tech-sharing consortium this go around

puppets freak me out
Dec 18, 2015

V. Illych L. posted:

yeah let guava have his moment

kill them all with atrocities

Hell yeah, guava the hell out of everyone.

Blast every enemy with unimaginable quantities of disease, and glass everything else.

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:

puppets freak me out posted:

Hell yeah, guava the hell out of everyone.

Blast every enemy with unimaginable quantities of disease, and glass everything else.

And frame the Aklari

Strategic Sage
Jan 22, 2017

And that's the way it is...

GuavaMoment posted:

I've been waiting over a year for this, man


But … I did it with the Sakkra. Does that not count for some reason? Another problem with the biowarfare thing is that it's a super-late-game thing by nature(because you need BioTerminators and you need them to be quite miniaturized in order to make it happen). Other than computing, we're at mid-game tech here.

GuavaMoment
Aug 13, 2006

YouTube dude

Thotimx posted:

But … I did it with the Sakkra. Does that not count for some reason? Another problem with the biowarfare thing is that it's a super-late-game thing by nature(because you need BioTerminators and you need them to be quite miniaturized in order to make it happen). Other than computing, we're at mid-game tech here.

I got a thing going on here, facts be damned. :) Murder everyone!

Strategic Sage
Jan 22, 2017

And that's the way it is...

thetruegentleman posted:

'm curious: has your success in spying this game changed your view of the Darloks?

A little, but not much. To go back to what I said before, I'd have to play more games with them to really lock in what I think of them. I have been more successful spying than I thought I would, but at the same time with the starting situation and opponents as they are I'd like to think I'd do reasonably well with any race. It's just been in general a good map, and I'd fancy my chances of winning it with anyone. Whereas, in a tougher situation like we've seen in several other games, I might well have not done well enough economically to be this successful on the spying front. Can't really say from this vantage point. So this is sort of a 'verdict demanding more evidence' kind of thing.

rchandra
Apr 30, 2013


Thotimx posted:

But … I did it with the Sakkra. Does that not count for some reason? Another problem with the biowarfare thing is that it's a super-late-game thing by nature(because you need BioTerminators and you need them to be quite miniaturized in order to make it happen). Other than computing, we're at mid-game tech here.

At some point the OP (or followups) could use links to each race's game(s).

War. I feel like the Darloks are willing to play the long con, doing business while never forgiving for being initially disliked. Someday you'll show them all!

Xarn
Jun 26, 2015
Darloks just beg for ending the game by depopulating everyone with a sneaky dispersal of bio weapons, so... Biological Warfare

LordSloth
Mar 7, 2008

Disgruntled (IT) Employee
The Darlok war doctrine involves sabotage. If that even puts a dent in impossible and huge maps. Bonus points if you can weasel someone into doing the fight for you before you go in for the backstab.

LordSloth fucked around with this message at 08:22 on Sep 29, 2018

Cuazl
Mar 19, 2009
There's one subtle advantage to all the obsolete and redundant tech you end up pinching as the ringwraiths - your numerical tech level ends up being higher than normal, so you can fit more stuff on your ships than races you're ostensibly at parity with.

Doesn't count for much, of course, but it'd be a shame not to show off a bit for the last game. Call it an extended victory lap. Besides, surely you're not going to let the rocks actually keep that ultra rich world, right?

War, but no genocide. Confine each of them to one world and then overthrow their governments until you get one that knows its place.

Angry Diplomat
Nov 7, 2009

Winner of the TSR Memorial Award for Excellence In Grogging
Seize Orion, murder huge numbers of people with bioweapons, get everyone pissed as gently caress at you and then elect yourself Emperor anyway

Lynneth
Sep 13, 2011
Bribe everybody.

inflatablefish
Oct 24, 2010
Bribery sounds more like the Darlok way, but with this being (hopefully!) the final run, I do think you should make sure you take Orion first, one last time.

Randalor
Sep 4, 2011



Take Orion, then bribe everyone with the technology before the council vote. If we win the vote, great! If we don't, then we gave everyone WMDs and can sabotage all relations between everyone while throwing open the blood gates.

Martian
May 29, 2005

Grimey Drawer

Angry Diplomat posted:

Seize Orion, murder huge numbers of people with bioweapons, get everyone pissed as gently caress at you and then elect yourself Emperor anyway
:emptyquote:

Deathwind
Mar 3, 2013

Orion into Guava

a computing pun
Jan 1, 2013
Bribery. There's something incredibly satisfying about the idea of winning by selling everyone's own technologies back to them in return for votes.

inscrutable horse
May 20, 2010

Parsing sage, rotating time



a computing pun posted:

Bribery. There's something incredibly satisfying about the idea of winning by selling everyone's own technologies back to them in return for votes.

This is the true Darlok way

Strategic Sage
Jan 22, 2017

And that's the way it is...
Close vote so far, which is interesting. At the moment, by my preliminary count, I've got 11 for War in some form and 9 for Bribery. Looks like there's definitely a consensus for the bio-weapon option(which may not even be possible, we'd have to see what everyone researches) if we do go the war route. I'll wait another day before making a decision.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Bribery

Kurgarra Queen
Jun 11, 2008

GIVE ME MORE
SUPER BOWL
WINS
Bribery. War seems like it would be a horrible slog on a map this huge.

idhrendur
Aug 20, 2016

Bribery.

Gatac
Apr 22, 2008

Fifty Cent's next biopic.
Although it may regrettably become necessary to prosecute war in the future, for now I don't see why we can't spy and bribe our way to the top. Spybery? Well, Bribery, I suppose, since we're gonna spy anyway.

wedgekree
Feb 20, 2013
total war on a Huge map involves dozens upon dozens of planetary attacks because you have to be able to attain sufficient population to get a council supremacy vote on your -own- since presumably everyone you're at warw ith votes agaisnt you. It will be hundreds of turns of go to planet, bombard/invade, ensure enemy does not slip colonizer back there, repeat. While you are in rough technological parity or inferiority with most races.

Xarn
Jun 26, 2015
That's why we sneak attack with bioweapons :v:

wedgekree
Feb 20, 2013

Xarn posted:

That's why we sneak attack with bioweapons :v:

You have to do that to dozens of planets, break thorugh thier missile bases, thier shields, and then have a bioweapon that's higher level than thier tech to be able to effect the populace, or it does less damage than orbital bombardment - less sometimes as it doesn't do damage to factories and population can grow faster than it can hit them. And bioweapons are space inefficient so loadout for them takes more than it does for bombs.

Without even the diplomatic hit of aggro'ing the entire galaxy against you, they don't even WORK really well. By the point you're advanced enough to have bioweapons that can majorly put a hurt on someone and have enough of a tech lead, bombing them to the stone age is far, far more cost effective. If you're going to cull-murder-genocide, you can at least do it WELL.

Do you want to spend 10-20 turns around a planet trying to lower the population by 5-6% a turn at best if you're on a tech par with someone? Bioweapons are about that level.

If you're going for crass overkill to a nonsensical level, Stellar Converter is where it's at. FULLY ARMED AND OPERATIONAL BATTLE STATION

Spoil-tagged as not sure if tat's come up yet or not.

Omobono
Feb 19, 2013

That's it! No more hiding in tomato crates! It's time to show that idiota Germany how a real nation fights!

For pasta~! CHARGE!

Is the spoiler a thing in this game? I don't really recall it; then again, last time I played Original MoO was a long time ago.

ulmont
Sep 15, 2010

IF I EVER MISS VOTING IN AN ELECTION (EVEN AMERICAN IDOL) ,OR HAVE UNPAID PARKING TICKETS, PLEASE TAKE AWAY MY FRANCHISE

Omobono posted:

Is the spoiler a thing in this game? I don't really recall it; then again, last time I played Original MoO was a long time ago.

It’s in this game but it works completely differently and not like the spoiler would imply at all.

inflatablefish
Oct 24, 2010

Omobono posted:

Is the spoiler a thing in this game? I don't really recall it; then again, last time I played Original MoO was a long time ago.

Not in this game. There's a weapon called the Stellar Convertor but it's just a big gun, it can't blow up planets like in MoO2.

Sunfall
Aug 31, 2018
Along with FrankZP's DW3 LP, this and your Creeper World 3 LPs got me to finally make an account here. So, first: thanks.

Second: bribery. We're the goddamn Darloks.

Sunfall fucked around with this message at 18:47 on Sep 30, 2018

Strategic Sage
Jan 22, 2017

And that's the way it is...
The final vote is 14 to 11, with Bribery winning. There also seems to be significant interest in going after Orion first, so I'll try to work that in. That number of votes means that way too many people are still reading this thread, so thanks for that!

wedgekree posted:

Do you want to spend 10-20 turns around a planet trying to lower the population by 5-6% a turn at best if you're on a tech par with someone? Bioweapons are about that level.

True, unless we did it the Guava way and put on enough to wipe out the entire empire at once.

inflatablefish posted:

Not in this game. There's a weapon called the Stellar Convertor but it's just a big gun, it can't blow up planets like in MoO2.

Yep. I'm thinking we were getting confused with the Moo2 version a bit there.

rchandra posted:

At some point the OP (or followups) could use links to each race's game(s).

Yep, that's overdue. I talked about doing it a few weeks ago -- and then didn't.

Sunfall posted:

Along with FrankZP's DW3 LP, this and your Creeper World 3 LPs got me to finally make an account here. So, first: thanks.

Glad to have you along!

wedgekree
Feb 20, 2013
Thanks, forgot the Stellar Converter didn't work the same way. My bad.

Dong Quixote
Oct 3, 2015

Fun Shoe

Thotimx posted:

That number of votes means that way too many people are still reading this thread, so thanks for that!

This thread has definitely been scratching that itch I've had for 25 years when I'd think back to playing this after school for months with friends, of "what would this favorite childhood game have been like if we didn't suck."

Truth Serum
Feb 8, 2012

Thotimx posted:

That number of votes means that way too many people are still reading this thread, so thanks for that!

You have at least one lurker who has enjoyed every post, but felt like they had nothing to contribute to the conversation. I completely missed out on MoO, so I appreciate all the effort!

GladRagKraken
Mar 27, 2010

Thotimx posted:

That number of votes means that way too many people are still reading this thread, so thanks for that!

Chiming in to mention that I've been following closely, even though I didn't vote. I loved this game in middle school. Thanks for taking me back.

Strategic Sage
Jan 22, 2017

And that's the way it is...
Episode XVII: 2475 -




Looking great on research, trailing only the Klackons and not by too much. Fleet is growing but not yet competitive, and the others are still finding a way to stay just ahead economically. The map really hasn't changed much, if at all.




It's getting harder to isolate the others; aside from the Humans, everyone's connected by alliance. And, there are no wars. We're getting along well enough with everyone that I'm not really worried about them picking a fight with me, but it would be really weird if somebody(probably the Klackons) didn't get hostile in some direction soon. It's time -- we have yet to get through two centuries without a major war breaking out in this LP. Who knows though, maybe it can be forestalled by continued manipulation. I'm curious to see what happens.




Almost everything they have that we don't is military in nature. We definitely don't want to pick a fight here yet -- but crucially, Computers is no longer the big gap it was 50-75 years ago. So we can still keep stealing from them and eventually catch up ... and get an advantage on everyone else. Meanwhile the Humans don't have anything we don't have again, but instead of cutting funding I'm acting on a suggestion from the thread and will start going for Sabotage, which I basically never do. Let's cause some revolts, just because we can.




Military spending is slowly creeping up, and trade, while still a fraction of it's potential, is becoming a significant income factor. The longer the peace lasts, the more our economy will bloom. Most of our systems are maxed-out for the time being, as of just a few years ago. Research and shipbuilding will naturally see some acceleration now.




All three of the projects that we are just starting to close in on here are significant; atmospheric terraforming, armor, and planetary shields. Our defenses should become nigh-impregnable once those come in, and we'll see our more insignificant planets boosted.




Let the parade of pilfering proceed!




Forgot to show this -- the Colonizer have been hanging out for decades, waiting for a war that hasn't come yet. I only made one version of each of the combat cruisers because I don't think we're going to have all that many of each, as I'm still going to be making new designs with advances in tech.




This is a big one -- we get to drive a bit more of a wedge between Klackons and Bulrathi, while taking the one tech that the bugs have in computing.




Same time here. I thought we'd get Robotics when this came up, but the Silicoids snagged this recently.




The only Robotics we get on our own is the last one. That's pretty hilarious, but it will constitute a 67% expansion of the economy by itself from current levels. If we do have to go to war, let's have the foundation to back it up.




Ok, so here's the deal with sabotage; we're in and need to select a planet. Right now they have three. We'll go with the remote one in the upper-left first. We're told that our spies 'incited 1 rebels. Unrest at 2%'. Grammar may not be the strong suit of the Darlok beauracracy, and that was obviously the lowest-possible amount. We need to get them to 50% in order to revolt. I don't think it goes down over time, so it's just a matter of getting it that high.




This is another nice one. Tritanium is better than the Andrium we are currently researching, and will double ship and base HP compared to the current Duralloy. Time for a new ship design, but 2484 had more for us.




Now another boost for our population. The wimpy worlds finally get to contribute now. And next up is Advanced Soil Enrichment, bypassing Terraforming 50 and Doom Virus(sorry, not sorry Guava). We hit the trifecta here and will have the capacity eventually to turn every system into a Gaia. I think this is the first time I've gotten all of them as natural researches, which is kind of amusing. Six systems benefited, a third of the empire, taking one year for the atmospheric terraforming and a second for the soil enrichment before they could expand their populations and industry.

The Bulrathi weren't pleased about our armor theft, but the long-outdated Industrial Tech 7 and Battle Suits put those concerns to rest.




King Cobra now. Why not, we had the Cobra earlier. A weak shield and better armor is added, along with our latest computer. Thought about taking off the Repulsor beam, but kept it as we don't know what the other races are actually putting on their ships.

As soon as the 2-year ecology investment was in, we got another sabotage hit(1 more rebel, up to 5% ... that's not going anywhere fast) and Planetary Shields X came in. That's enough to keep a good part of the economy occupied for a while.




2486. We now have a full four-pack set of these.




Third time we made a lot more progress.




*Yawn*




This, on the other hand, will slash our eco spending to miniscule levels. It was already around the 10-15% range, but it'll still help. By 2490 most of the new planetary shields were up, and the boosting of the hostile systems most of the way finished. We've reached the point where new advances are virtually plug-n-play, rather than taking decades to implement.




Making them dislike the Alkaris more is the main benefit here; we had this in prototype. Trilithium Crystals(Range 10) is next.




We've gotten a nice run on the Bulrathi here, and are closing in on getting everything they have.




Here we go. 2493, and it's time to build the Guardian-killers. We miss out on both missiles at the next level, so we go with the Phasor for cheap. We won't use it.




Since Wayne named it this a while back, I figured I'd use it for the last ship I'll make for this purpose. Until we miniaturize the torpedoes some I can't fit a lot of them on. The focus of the economy switches from research to shipbuilding, with only the smaller systems still doing a token amount there. It's winning time, and I'll need roughly 100 of these by previous experience to get the job done.




Next year we finally crack this from the Silicoids ... as we are prototyping the next one ourselves. So the shipbuilding will wait a bit while we do a massive expansion of industry.




And the very next turn, while we are still refitting from 4 to 6. Oh, those poor engineers ... Oracle Interface, which is cool enough I'm sad to not be able to use it, comes next.




We aren't getting as many framing opportunities now. The Bulrathi were not amused, and said it'll be war if it happens again. Relations went down to Discord, and we had to give them three techs to appease them.




Too close to the vote to help us much this time around, but I'll take the diplomatic hit.




I expect this to be no more than an annoyance.




The Darlok Tech-Sharing Consortium opened it's vaults ahead of the vote. The Silicoids are the only ones we couldn't totally win over, as we had only three things they wanted. Really weird that they wouldn't take Robotics VII and some other stuff. All they wanted was the planetology stuff like Soil Enrichment. But anyway, we handed over around 6-8 techs to each of the others, got them to dissolve any Alkari alliances, etc. Shortly afterwards ...




Uh, that wasn't supposed to happen. Split Council with the Alkari abstaining. So since I'd handed over the store no matter how valuable anything was, assuming I'd win and just wanting to get it over with, I reloaded from the year before. Those of you who wanted war might get it now, because we can't influence the Alkari to vote for us since we've never met them(I was looking forward to beating them in the vote without actually having contact, a new form of MOO perversion). I might just need to take Orion first though, since that 'encourages' the others vote for you. That should be able to happen next cycle, and we'll get another range increase as well which will increase the chances of relations with Farseer's bird-brains. So mostly I just view this as a delay.

Hold the confetti ... for now. After not doing the Bribery Tour, the High Council said thusly:




Oh. More stuff to take first. Cheaper factories would have been much more useful a few years ago, but it'll still speed things along.




And that didn't take long.




Bless these Bears! As the High Council finally votes. You see, when I did the bribery round and voted, they sided with the Klackons ... despite not being allied. If that happened again here, it would plunge us into Final War. That would have been an interesting one to try to fight, as I think I could have actually won it. I was all set to blather on about how there was really no way to tell between Alkari and Klackon nominees(Alkari aren't on the Status screen as we haven't met them, and the two have tied in number of votes with Farseer just barely coming out ahead the last two Councils). It would have been a final twist of the MOO RNG knife, with the gremlins inside the code laughing at us and our irrelevant vote on how to end the game. But having said that ... I really wasn't looking forward to the slog that would have been. The Bulrathi get me off the hook here.







Everyone else is foregone by existing alliances. Worth noting here that the Alkari numbers have stalled ...




But the bugs have decidedly not. They have emerged as the clear rival now.




Space rocks may be in the mix in the future as well. This is decidedly uncomfortable -- just three votes shy of a Klackon High Master.

We have 23 as well, tied with the bugs and two more than the Silicoids. Long ways from the 34 for a veto bloc yet. We abstain, and are warned by the Bulrathi about getting too big for our britches. The possibility of an eventual Final War still hangs over our heads, but I should be able to bribe my way out of it now that the Klackons and Silicoids have emerged as the threats. I'll need to watch the balance of population closely.

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!
huh. aren't the bugs Ruthless? i'm surprised they haven't flown off the handle at someone yet.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!
Yeah, I'm amazed none of that framing has triggered any warfare so far.

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Decoy Badger
May 16, 2009
This has definitely been one of the calmest games so far. Everyone's happy as long as the tech keeps flowing in I guess.

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