When Not the Tao went rich, it pretty much threw the whole game out of balance. I suppose it might have been even more overpowering if it had been Gion that went rich (more unbuilt factories would benefit, and it would have more total production in the end) but it was still pretty extreme. If Fierias itself had gone rich, I could have pretended it never happened, and just kept using the planet for research only anyway, thereby continuing the game as it had been intended - but I couldn't afford to abandon Not the Tao's industry. I later came up with variants that would have limited Not the Tao's strength without crippling it or my empire entirely, but I didn't think of them at the time. The variant I did apply from then on made things interesting in a number of ways, but just wasn't limiting enough to overcome my rich terran world's advantages in the end. What I take from this - apart from a nonetheless very enjoyable game! - is a resolution for any Imperia that I might sponsor in the future, should I have time to create them: Events will be turned off every time, pretty much guaranteed. This is the second time (the first being Imperium 12) when a strong world turning rich made a good challenge suddenly easy. I just don't want to see that happen again.
Every one of these ships was built at a rich or ultra-rich world. The Griffons were designed to replace the Griffins (heh) once fusion bombs would fit on a small, but Kelvan never managed to finish his planetary shields in time to save his planets even from my nuclear bomber swarms. The Openness is just a placeholder, of course.
Oh: I just noticed that I left something out of my report, by the way: A plague broke out on Kakata in 2448. I of course set the planet to do what it could about the problem, but there wasn't time to fix it by the end of the game. Naturally, of course, under Raiju's new galactic government, it was taken care of easily.
Anyway, here's what the map looked like in 2450 (I loaded the save and replayed the interturn, abstaining from the vote, to get a snapshot).
And perhaps my favorite part of my entire Imperium 17 game: I believe this is a new record, and one that will stand for a long time to come - perhaps indefinitely. The most laughable, hopeless backwater of a starting world in the history of Master of Orion victories!
Yup: Planet size is under 100 (had I accepted the 2425 diplomatic victory, it would have been at 65!) with 13 population and 22 factories - hostile, radiated, and ultra-poor! I didn't try to do this (else I wouldn't have terraformed it to +40!) but it was always feeding people to other worlds, even after it went hostile, just because it was better to have cats working factories than sitting on their hands. I never built a factory there, and eight were destroyed by spies around the turn of the century.
So: One last thing. How long after Raiju's reign was my history written? Is a galaxy-wide republic truly the answer, or was there some other factor keeping people in line and making sure everything ran smoothly for a generation or two after her ninth life ended? Maybe the republic did work out, but until it was established, can one ruler really hold a whole galaxy together? Or was there something else going on behind the scenes? It wasn't Rrref Steelclaw: Raiju's chief advisor retired from government to start a career as a writer in 2450. Still, it seems like there must be somebody keeping things running smoothly.
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