"O. V. E. R."
"Human scientists developed ion rifles (at "49%" odds...) moments before the election, selecting Anti-Matter Bomb as a future target still without any sign of missiles in the range of possibility. Then, at the council meeting itself, Nazgur even went so far as to vote for humanity. Of course, by then, it was an empty gesture; without firing a shot except in defense of their Centauri colony, the Humans had already conquered the galaxy."
"Holding 25 of 34 votes meant no need of support from anybody, and so the era of imperial squabbling ended."
"Let us join together in a future without strife ... sort of the way the past century has been for like 99% of human beings. Let us unite peace and learning, so that the excitement we all crave need not come from war, but can be drawn from ever-greater discoveries about the nature of our universe and our galaxy!"Ssoriad added, "And above all, let us study the records of the peaceful Human rise to power, so that we can emulate them should we happen to have the opportunity to control an entire ultra-rich world with minimal effort - and more importantly, so that we can all score well on our unit tests, show them off proudly to our parents, and thereby continue to receive money from home to fund more wild off-campus parties." He smiled indulgently, and let his eyes drift to Ythistra's, bright ruby lines of laughter she seemed to share especially with him. One day, Ssoriad hoped, she would truly emulate humanity, and rise to greatness in the galaxy ... and when she did, he hoped that she would remember and acknowledge what she had learned from her professor of history.
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Scoring: To be honest, I think I could have scored a lot higher if I abstained in the election and played the game out all the way to 2500 ... but that would have stopped being fun very quickly! Thus, my final score turns out to depend on whether you count my last-turn tech trades and/or discovery of Ion Rifle on the final interturn. With none of them, (see tech screenshot above) I've got:
(8 in Computers + 8 in Construction + 12 in Force Fields + 18 in Planetology + 13 in Propulsion + 7 in Weapons) / 6 = 11.
If you do count either the Ion Rifle and the last-minute tech trades, then that brings us to:
(8 Comp + 9 Const + 12 FF + 20 Plan + 13 Prop + 12 Weap) / 6 = 12 1/3, which rounds to 12. Counting just one or the other has the same result: (8+9+12+20+13+7)/6 = 11 1/2, which rounds up to 12, as does (8+8+12+18+13+12)/6=11 5/6.
My early-finish bonus for the 2500 score date is 10, since I won the 2400 election (100 years early) so my total score is either 11 + (11+10) = 32 or 12 + (12+10) = 34, depending on whether the last-turn tech is counted. My tie-breaker score is 18 (Planetology, my highest tech level) if we neglect the last-minute tech trades, 20 if we include them. And of course my double-tie-breaker finish date is 2400, with a bloodless Conquest victory! I don't expect to have the highest score - I scored more than one point per decade in the first century, so doing the same in the second, with 26+ developed and increasingly terraformed and RC'ed worlds would be cake - but you never can tell with these things.
Overall, a very interesting game for me, as one-field-only tech spending not only affected the way I handled research spending empire-wide, but forced me to make decisions about which tech I would want next in each field well before I would ever begin research on it. It was also fun balancing my desire to climb the tree as fast as possible (for maximum scoring) against the need for certain important techs to speed the development of my empire. Thanks to the sponsor for a relaxed, intriguing, and thoroughly enjoyable game - and one in which I could play a real Pacifistic Technologist, finally!
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