I hope everyone enjoyed this game as much as I did. It seemed a rather interesting galaxy to me. I also did playtest it a bunch after completing my game, partly to make sure various openings could work if executed effectively, partly to make sure of two things I wanted to see in the game: Though I won without ever having to worry about it (and didn't really even need the Advanced Space Scanner that I decided at the start of the game must be in some race's tree - the Meklar had it, so I didn't check beyond that), there were two techs of which I wanted to make sure: First, Controlled Radiated Environment had to be available somewhere, somehow. Fortunately, the Darloks turned out not only to have it, but to research it pretty consistently. I didn't think of using an editor to make sure, but it looks like it might be their only option at that level in their tree; thus (like advanced scanner) it would at some point be available via espionage, trade, or the pointy stick, as long as the shifters weren't eliminated too early. Finally, I wanted to be sure we had Combat Transporters ... and yes, they're in our tree. We had absolutely horrible computer tech options, but I figured that's okay: I thought it was kind of appropriate to actually play a race whose tree actually reflects its technological weakness for a change!
Of course, all that was stuff I looked for after playing the game. This was actually the first map I started playing, but it was about the 10th or so that I rolled up for the game, and about the fifth I considered after looking at the equivilants of the teaser images but nothing else. I wanted a corner start if possible, with a mix of opponents we hadn't seen in recent Imperia - no Psilons for preference (they'd been in every other double-digit Imperium, and usually stunted for inexplicable reasons) and Mrrshans if possible (this is their first appearance) - and at least one (preferably two) of Klackons, Sakkra, Darloks, or Alkari. This one looked the most promising (I played a few decades into some of the others after finishing this one just to be sure, and my other maps seemed to call for more one-dimensional strategy) so I went with it, and really liked it. I hope the others who played in this galaxy agree!
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