Imperium 12 Shadow, Part 3

The war is on with the runaway Psilons, more than a decade before I'm ready! I respond by ordering scouting expeditions to check out the enemy fleet, and by making some minor tech trades with my allies. Gats, Range 5, and Range 6 are all hopelessly obsolete, but they help a little with miniaturization (every little bit counts!) and the tech I give the bears and apes in exchange might help them resist the Psilon forces a little bit longer. Then I take a good, long look at the current state of the galaxy. Though research is coming along nicely in my various tech fields, nothing is about to hit, and some of it is just playing catch-up with the brains. Worse yet, by the time those techs come in, especially while I'm forced to divert resources to defending my empire from the gigantic Psilon fleets, the runaway brains will have only lengthened their lead! They're too far ahead, and they have too many excellent planets still to claim with their Controlled Toxic tech, while I can neither take any more unclaimed worlds nor terraform the ones I have already. Even just defending my planets is going to crash my research economy. My only hope of beating the Psilons is to accept the short-term crunch ... and crash their war economy!

Here we see my strategic advantage already in play. The Psilons may have chosen their techs well, but they still made serious mistakes: I had noticed that their ships were all moving around at warp 1 in spite of their superior engine technology! They had crammed all kinds of weapons aboard their ships - their fighters were soon found to carry 2-racks of Mercs! - but at the expense of fast engines. This meant I could confidently strike wherever I didn't see a fleet already present or about to arrive ... because every one of my ships (once I scrapped my last Warp 2 scouts) was fitted with Impulse Engines! The little Fuse 5.0 bombers that had glassed Altair destroyed the Psilon's Esper colony as a shot across their bow on the first turn of the war, just because the bombers couldn't help defend, whereas the place could be reached from Altair in a single year! The Fuses continued to hop from world to world while I built more advanced bombers - medium hulls with Computer 5, Battle Scanner, and 7 Fusion Bombs apiece - named for what they were meant to do to the Psilons' stock markets: Crash 5.0s. My reach colonies meanwhile kept building their factories; they would have to just think invisible thoughts, as there was nothing I could do to save them if the Psilons sent a fleet. Altair however struggled to put up a shield though its factories were far from ready. Its position was too strategically important for me to concede it ... which, knowing the MoO AI, would mean it would soon see an incoming fleet! This game's fifteen-year-old AI is surprisingly robust, no matter what I might say about my superior strategy!

Fortunately, I can play the same game. You can see here that the Psilons are now down to "only" 14 systems. My first fleet of Crashes has just burned down the lynchpin world of Stalaz, to which my cursor is pointing. With this world as a refueling base, the Psilons could reach my entire (still defenseless!) northeast core. Without it, they must fight the war at their core worlds, peripheral colonies of my choosing, and the point worlds I've most heavily defended. ... Oh. And Altair. At the former Alkari homeworld though, I have two huge advantages: Its central location (the reason I feel I must hold it in the first place in spite of its immaturity) and my warp 5 strategic speed, together with the advance warning provided by the Psilon slowpokes, all mean I can divert huge numbers of fighters and other space superiority ships there whenever it is threatened, without pulling them back too far from other critical fronts. The Brains' hundreds and hundreds of missile boats are certainly dangerous, but now that my battle scanners have told me what I'm up against, I can devise effective counter-strategies. I believe Zed once said that in Orion, there's an answer to every fleet: No design will beat the AI every time, and no AI design is invincible against you, as long as you have the tech and economy you need to pull together a response.

Oh. Except, I think he said there was an exception: If you can build good enough, fast enough bombers in sufficient numbers, you've won the game.

Take another look at that map (further up the page) from 2453. This one is from the following year. I had split my fleet of little Fuses in 2452 after clearing Obaca's bases, leaving just a few behind to finish off the world, and again in 2453 after cleaning up the Denubius bases as well. In 2454, the main fleet glassed Draconis, while the Fuses I left behind did the same to their respective worlds. The northern fleet took out distant Imra, and a fleet of Crashes fresh off the assembly line did the same at Arietis, the south-sector Psilon world nearest to my core. The Psilons' core worlds of Mentar, Kailis, and Maretta will be tougher nuts to crack, as will Tyr and Whynil in the south, but I'm accomplishing my main objective: Defending my own worlds while removing the peripheral colonies that give the Psilons access to my worlds and contribute to their fleet maintenance and research efforts. By 2457, the Psilons are down to six worlds, and I've turned the galaxy around.

The Brains still have a massive lead in fleet strength and a significant one in tech, still just edging me out in total power, but their apparent advantages are now very misleading: Their fleet is actually a good thing for me, as lots of warp 1 ships draining their planetary resources mean they won't surge ahead in tech ... and the tech lead they have already is largely due to planetology. Yes, those techs are important, but mostly for economic development. Even with all their worlds maxed out with Soil Enrichment and Terra +40, they're now well behind in population, and even with the planetology bonuses to their workers on top of their Hard AI bonuses, I now lead them in production. I've accomplished my war objectives, even retaining my reach colonies, and in spite of the Psilon death fleets still (slowly!) cruising the stars, I am going to win this game.

The year 2463 finds the Psilons down to their three-planet core, and my first two colonies at formerly-Psilon worlds (in the west, near Uxmai). I waited to start building these until I was sure I could defend them adequately. I take Kailis in 2465 and allow the Psilons to recolonize Imra so I can glass and re-establish Mentar and Maretta as well without committing actual genocide. Mentar falls in '66, and Maretta three years later. And in 2472, with the game already won, in the same interturn in which Phasors are discovered....

What is it with my luck on this map? At least it wasn't Kakata that went rich this time! (And at least it happened to little Berel almost a hundred years later in the game!)

Anyway, from 2469, I simply cruised to victory. The Bulrathi broke their alliance with me at some point in spite of Harmonious relations, and I wrapped up and re-founded all their habitable colonies with about as much trouble as it took to write this sentence. Seriously, I was paying so little attention that I was surprised when glassing (I think it was) Ursa led them to declare on me: Knowing an attack was inevitable after the breach of alliance, I'd forgotten that we weren't at war already!

I wanted to win an election victory this time through, but I'd glassed too many hostile worlds in the critical early years of the Psilon war for the Council to actually meet, and the AIs refused to go back and rebuild them. So, not long after the Bulrathi war, I finally got tired of hitting next turn, and took the extermination victory.

I had a terrific time with the replay, with lots of tension and excitement surrounding the two intense bursts of concentrated planning and action in the Klackon and Psilon wars. I'm almost sorry I didn't play this one first! Even so, I think I got too lucky in this game! Still no bad events, still a couple of good ones (though they had little effect on the outcome) ... and can you imagine what would have happened if the Psilons expanded the way they did here, but built ships like they did in my original game? Now that would have been a challenge!

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Imperium 12 Shadow, Part 2

Well, I've just made contact with the insects, and amusingly enough, as soon as I hit next turn, Ixitixl erratically declares on me ... in spite of being unable to reach any of my worlds! This puts me at war with the bugs (through no fault of mine) at about the same time in both of my games - in this case, right after first contact; in the other case, after decades of peace.

At the turn of the century, I discover still more impetus to continue the game to completion: Though Aurora, the rich world in the far south, is still available, the Psilons control both Tyr and Kailis, and have missile bases up at each! My suspicions are only confirmed in 2406, when I colonize Aurora and - before I even confirm that this gives me contact with the Brains - receive a GNN 12-planet expansion report, not about me this time, believe me! Moments later, I would confirm the report for myself:

Houston, we have Runaway Psilons! Looks like this is going to get interesting!

I did a lot of spying on the Klackons in this period, with a lot more success than in my original game: In addition to early success with ECM 1 and RW80, I snagged Inertial Stabilizer and Fusion Bomb on successive turns - 2420 and 2421 - just as my first war fleet was making its way to Kholdan! The bugs and brains had been trading Arietis back and forth, and with the Klackons briefly back in charge of the place, I hoped to snag Kholdan and Incedius (its combat screen demographics, combined with spying reports on the bugs' lack of terraforming tech, confirmed that the latter was habitable, so I wasn't just relying on prior knowledge). Things didn't work out quite as I expected, but I adapted my plans to the changing situation, and was rewarded with this message in 2426:

Having bombed the at-war-with-everyone-due-to-erraticness Klackons heavily and then allowed the brains to finish the job for me, I managed to sneak in my colony ship at Incedius after all, achieving contact and immediate Peaceful relations with the bears and birdies. I signed them both up for alliances and maximum trade agreements; I had a smaller trade package with the Psilons, but no other treaty, as I knew I would have to stop them before they took over the galaxy. This therefore is how things looked in 2430:

Notice that while I'm up to 9 worlds, the Bulrathi have the same 5 as in my previous game, and the birds have just 2 (including the far south yellow star of Gion!?). The Humans are obviously stunted this time, as the Brains' holdings are now up to 15! I'm in no position to take on Zygot ... but I'd better get ready, soon!

The following year, the Alkari broke our alliance, an unwise choice if ever I saw one. Why? Well, the year after that, I finished work on Impulse Drives! Also, Paranar went Fertile, just a decade later than it did in my original game. The pRNG is clearly insane.

Making full use of my alliances, I had already built huge numbers of warp 2 scouts and sent them out across the galaxy. As soon as their reports came back, I sent warp 5 LR ships out to colonize all the habitable worlds the AI had inexplicably neglected ... starting with Artifacts Uxmai in 2445! As it happened, that was the turn after the birds reacted to a series of ill-planned attacks on Altair (I tried to rush it, and lost a couple of fleets, taking various ships and bases with me) by declaring war on me. By the following year:

I ... uh ... no longer had contact with the birdies. Altair was no more, and Gion was just out of range.

Colonizing Altair put me in touch with the Humans, who started at Affable - they were running an OPE, and probably had been at war with the Birds, the Bugs, or both, as even Sol appeared to be strangling under the maintenance costs of their fleet. It strikes me now that Uxmai and the like may not have been "neglected" by the AI so much as "long-established Human colonies recently bombed out of existence by somebody." Lasitus agreed to an alliance, but could barely manage 25 BC of trade.

All this brought us to the council election of 2450 (the first was back in 2427). I was pleased to see that I had a veto (though with my allies, I didn't really need one anyway) and less pleased - but in no way surprised - to see that my election opponents were still the Psilons, with an even more solid veto of their own. Still, that was okay with me. I knew I'd have to take them on, and I figured I'd be ready as soon as I could stand up my reach colonies of Guradas and Artifacts Uxmai, plus the keystone world of Altair at the center of the galaxy - bringing in another set of research projects while I did so. Ready to get started down that path, I clicked through the "no winner" election screen, and saw...

Uh-oh. Emperor Zygot has other plans, it seems! We're now at war with the most powerful race in the galaxy! The Psilons lead us in every single category - fleet strength, population, tech, planets, production, total power, everything! I've got a couple allies, and yes, I bring them in on my side, but they'll be distractions at best; the only powers in this galaxy are Zygot and me! Worse still, according to my spies, the Psilons have neglected nothing in their tech trees! AIs will often work merrily along, grabbing whatever tech looks interesting, failing to notice that they have insufficient range or controlled-environment or battle computer tech or something ... but not Zygot - not this time! By 2453, he had almost caught up with me even in Computers (where the Meklar are excellent, and which I'd been emphasizing from an early year, for spying and the vain hope of RC better than 3) with Mark 5 battle computers to my mark 6s, and identical robotic controls and ECM technologies. They've got Zortium Armor to my Titanium (no early armor in my tree), 9 layers of shields at their bases to my 7, range 9 to my 7, and Stinger Missiles and Scatter Pack 7(!) while my bases can't throw anything at their ships that does more than 6 damage apiece! (No missiles in our tree but Hyper- and Scatter-V, until something insane like ... Zeons, I believe.) They've got a real gun (Ion Cannon) and a real bomb (Fusion) and are barely behind in engines, with Fusion Engines to my Impulse. And then there's planetology: Terra+40, Soil, Controlled Toxic, Advanced Eco ... you name it, they've got it in spades, while I have literally nothing. There are only two areas where I hold a clear advantage over Zygot: tactics and strategy!

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Next: Cry Havoc!

Imperium 12 Shadow, Part 1

My first contribution to these RBO games last year was a Meklar challenge, in which we were backed into a corner of a dangerous galaxy, with a neighborhood that didn't look at all hopeful for our survival. In my version of that game, I introduced an incredibly risky gambit that could only hope to pay off with the Meklar. It didn't prove to be a very strong opening, but I wasn't a very strong player at the time, and with our unusual start for this game, with both colonizable stars little further from the corner than Meklon itself, I thought this would be a good time to revisit my "Meklon Gambit" and see if it could provide a potentially valuable trade-off in the right circumstances. In the end, I chickened out and played the game normally, but had such an improbable run of luck in that game, I decided to play through it again, partly to get a more representative experience of the game as Sullla intended it, partly to try out my old gambit after all. The result turned out to be very rewarding, for reasons that had nothing to do with my crazy opening.

For those of you who aren't yet familiar with my lunatic "Meklon Gambit," here's how it works: For my fist move ... I scrap my colony ship.

I told you it was risky! This move would be suicide with any other race, and it's not guaranteed to be much better for the Meklar. I'm sacrificing population, development of my second colony, and (on a normal map) critical early scouting reports and blockades for one single-minded purpose: Building early factories on Meklon! I've already cut my annual ship maintenance to zero, and by immediately plowing my new-found reserves into the homeworld, I get a huge boost to production in the critical early years. Especially since I'm nonetheless building Newscouts on the side (I'm not sure if I'd have built so many so soon if I were running my Gambit initially, but I wanted to do as much as possible the same way I did in my original game, to avoid accidentally taking advantage of knowledge I'd gained by playing it through once already) this boost won't necessarily justify the loss of that first colony ship - this isn't a Super Ultimate Trick For Winning, but a risky trade-off that often comes out behind - but with the Meklar advantage in factory controls, it at least has a chance to work out.

One thing about this gambit: If it does work out, it's going to take a while!

This image is from 2329, just before I finish my first colony ship. Yes, this means Meklon, as shown here, represents my entire empire up to this point! When I played a semi-normal opening for this game, I had already colonized Paranar and Zhardan by this date, and had another colony ship en route! On the other hand, I also had just 116 factories on Meklon; in this replay, I have 264, and still haven't maxed the planet's population (quite). A normal game of course would fall somewhere between these two extremes, probably with the first home-made colony ship en route, and Meklon and one other colony going strong, with ~200 factories on Meklon and a few more on the colony. We'll see what version comes out ahead later on, but do keep in mind that this starting set-up is unusually good for the Meklon Gambit for a couple of reasons ... and it's still looking pretty dicey on the 30th turn of the game.

A couple of decades later, things are looking up a bit, as the last colony I'll be able to grab without war or seriously advanced technology is established, a couple of years earlier than in my original game, in 2350.

Population levels are still low, and Paranar's development has been hurt by its late formation, but Meklon itself is doing pretty well under the circumstances.

Ten years later, GNN would report an event whose full impact I won't know at least until I read everyone else's reports on this Imperium. The Klackons and Psilons developed very differently here than in my original game, but I don't know how much of that was luck of the draw, and how much was a result of this:

Certainly this didn't explain everything: I couldn't have gotten the diplo event as the Klackons just did with the Brains ... because I still didn't have contact with anyone! Unlike in my original, highly improbable game, the propulsion-poor bugs did not pull in an early Range 6 tech this time through, and I was completely isolated.

It was difficult to compare my progress between the two versions of the game, as they followed very divergent paths for many decades. Tellingly however, in spite of the 2381 event in my original game that turned Kakata rich, my empire actually finished maxing out (including RC3) sooner in my Gambit game than in my original one (tech pace was similar but not identical, largely because of different priorities). It "only" took a few dozen years to pull ahead. Honestly though, a truly normal opening, - building up to 200 factories before building the first colony ship (without scrapping the one you get for free!) - would probably come out ahead of both of the loony ones I tried. We'll have to see. Someday, I might revisit this gambit again in a larger galaxy, where the faster colony ship construction rate would be most valuable, but even then, the slow-down of the population growth curve would be costly. It was fun to try though, at least!

Having played up to 2390, I could have just called it quits, having already played out the game once, and with sufficient data for a basic comparison (I have more specifics from various dates in both games if anyone's interested). The game was already looking very interesting and different though, with Psilon scouts appearing in the first half of the century - no doubt fueled by a Klackon alliance - the bugs' lack of range 6 tech, and ... you know, Kakata not going rich on me. I therefore went on, just to see how different the game would be, and wound up establishing contact with the bugs when I developed Range 7 just a few years later.

Now, this is intriguing! The Klackons are running a 2PE when I meet them in 2394, but those transports en route to the blue star mean they're invading a neighbor I haven't met - and based on that assassination event among other things, I have a feeling it means there are Brains all over my side of the galaxy! This is definitely a game I want to play out at this point!

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Next: The Fun Begins