Axs001

[Sarxis]

Smack- I didn't start this as an ironman game. Since we are not in competition with each other, I felt there was no need.

As far as the current turn lengths are concerned- if you don't want to play 20 turns, then don't; just pass the game along, stating that you decided not to play a full twenty. However, do not play more than 20, even if a player before you decided to short change him/herself, UNLESS they explicitly let you have their turns. In that event, just let us know what has transpired, and all will be well.

When I see the game again, I will see how big our civ has become, and make a suggestion on shortening the turns thereafter.

<--- Paul Shaffer?

[Walt]

Sounds good. I did in fact play 20 turns. It didn't seem like too much. Managed to complete the PTS, the Energy Grid, and the Thing-that-Gives-You-Perimeter-Defenses. The Ascetic Virtues is set to complete at the beginning of 2221. I elected not to use the upgrade trick.

It's 2221, and we still haven't pop boomed. I'll leave that for someone else. Turn to SITS shortly.

[Tau Ceti]

Originally posted by The Commodore
Did you manage to make him a pet, or what?

And here I was thinking it was to late for a rover rush...

It almost was, especially as we did not have even Applied Physics yet at the start and he had a Perimeter Defense in University Base. But as he defended it with two scout rovers and one recon rover, it looked takable. So I went straight for Impact weapons and built a couple of probes - he was just too tempting a target with a large empire, on our continent, with 6 or more techs we did not have.

About two turns before I had originally intended to attack, he left UB completely undefended. That was an offer I could not resist. After that he went quickly downhill (though I had to sabotage every facility in one other city to get the Perimeter Defense there, and bought a couple of other cities). The war was over in 9 turns. He refused to surrender, though.

One event that helped immensely was Deirdre's building of the Empath Guild, followed immediately by our being elected Governor. Got probably 8 new techs and two pacts in the trading sessions afterwards.

[SITS]

Sent on to Anunikobe end of MY 2239.

Here is a bit of a report...

2221 - The Ascetic Virtues
Eco damage in Temple of Sol - switched production to Hybrid Forest
2224 - Started Maritime Control Centre - Built IOD to go pod hunting netted 100 credits
2225 - Netted 200 credits from IOD
2226 - Netted 50 Credits from IOD
2227 - Tidal wave and 100 credits
2228 - Built Data Aquisition
2230 - Hive kicking Miriam's ass - Maritine Centre built
2232 - Managed by building Hybrid Forests etc to take all the supply crawlers off boreholes. SC's waste a lot of the boreholes resources whereas a worker can get both minerals and energy
2233 - Mind controlled a Gaian city - Velvetgrass Point - and got away with it. Gives us a good foothold on their island. Got a transport from a pod.
2235 - At war with Gaians - maybe it wasn't such a good idea to steal their base!
2236 - Minerals -1 for 10 turns at University base.
2238 - Struggling to hold on to Velvetgrass. Re-enforcements might come too late. Changed to Green - worried about Deirdre's MW's.

Velvetgrass was probably a bridge too far. I suspect it won't last much longer. Sorry!

There is a small island to the south of us - it might be an idea to get some colony pods on there.

Lots of boreholes and Supply crawlers around. Might want to switch back to freemarket once we lose Velvetgrass.

All in all not looking too bad....

[Sarxis]

Just sent out AXS001 turn 2260. Would have sent it sooner, but my ISP was down.

Here is an update of what I have done:

Tsiolkovsky Institute has been used as a military depot. Even though I have established peace with both Deirdre and Yang, I have built many grounds units, and have them standing by for transport.

Yang is a problem, but not now. Deirdre offered us a truce after I reclaimed Velvetgrass Point (wise decision on her part).

I had started building an energy park in the northwest quadrant of our mainland. All that was done was some fungus clearing and some land raising. There is also some nutrient rich land in that area, which would be good for crawler farms.

Pacted with Morgan. He is too weak to be a threat, so I figured I would just leave him alone.

The jungle is open, and ready for colonization to the south of our mainland.

CIU- Counter Intelligence Unit (infantry chassis Probe unit for probe defense actions; just in case you were wondering).

Built up a small navy, since we have the maritime controller, and many of our enemy's bases are in the sea.

Needljets are scattered throughout the world for patrols and fast/first strike capability.



Besides these, our empire is a prosperous in all ways- good job everyone involved! Next time, though, I think we shall go with Transcend difficulty, to make it more challenging.

And, I think it is time that we consider shortening the number of turns we each take. 20 turns is a lot of work at this stage of the game. And besides that, I would like to at least see the game once more before it is over!

I suggest 12 turns for now.

[johndmuller]

I'm back in town and able to play my next turn (presumably following the Commodore as in the original list).

As far as shortening the turns, its fine with me; I wonder even, if they should start out smaller, say at 10 or 15 years, or if only the first 2 or three players should play 20 (perhaps 15 for the rest of the first round, then 10 for round 2....)

[Walt]

Might I suggest that we send every turn iteration to all players, just so everyone can see how we're doing, not necessarily to play it?

[Scipio Centaurus]

12 turns played and game turn 2272 sent on to The Commodore.

**************

My! How our fledgling empire has grown.

Sent some war 'materials' south from Loaves & Fishes (renamed U.N. Seabase #3) to pay a social call on Sister Miriam at He Walks on Water... Ran into some Gaian units on R&R there, and since we had a truce with the Tree Lady I decided not to complete the conquest. Meanwhile, Brother Yang of the Hive took advantage of our troop deployment from U.N. Seabase #3 to launch a sneak attack and managed to capture the base. However, I liberated our beautiful sea outpost from this maniacal despot the very next turn. (I do not regard U.N. Seabase #3 as defensible against determined opposition, but I did not see that during my most recent administration).

Had a lovely chat with Dierdre about this same time and persuaded her to renew our truce by gifting her with Silksteel Armor technology. Tried to arrange a treaty with her, but was unwilling to pay her bribe - Pre-Sentient Algorithms. The very next year she launched a surprise attack at Velvetgrass (renamed U.N. Exploitation Agency). The attack failed and we still hold that (indefensible) outpost. Noticed some green air units moving into a blue base about this time - though I did not catch any message about an agreement to combine forces against us.

We had plenty of ECs saved up so I switched us to Dem/Planned/Power for rapid pop growth and a better war footing.

A couple of years later Santiago launched a surprise attack at U.N. Seabase #3, so we are now at vendetta with everyone except out dear Pact Brothers Zak and Morgan - who BTW, have generously pledged their support to us in our war efforts!

Energy park development proceeding apace with several tiles at max altitude and a couple of crawlers already suckling at the solar collectors.

Got into a 4 way race for the HSA and paid 820 ec at U.N. Headquarters to ensure our victory. Diedre was pounding U.N. Exploitation Agency with probes on an annual basis. Decided not to use crawlers to buy the SP... So natuarally about a dozen Locust swarms flew in from nowhere, destroyed a couple of crawlers and completely emptied U.N. Headquarters. Luckily there were no Locust swarms left to invade the base. I managed to restock the garrisons and save our HQ from depopulation. Curiously, the Locust attacks happened right after I brought the SP to within 1 year of completion, so if the base had lost population the SP might not have been completed. The Hive had 16 years to go for the HSA and over 4000 ec... probably enough to rush build it - which was exactly why I rush built it first.

I was working on a long term plan to beef up our frontier garrisons - a Chaos Tactical NJ (Chopper when we get MMI), Trance (maybe empath would be better?) Chaos Skimship and AAA Silksteel Sentinels assigned to every frontier outpost w/ the NJ and gunboat on alert. We should also place several tactical air units on alert near our energy park, because Locusts and enemy penetrators seems to thrive on crawlers.

One base is working up a conventional missile design. AAA Silksteel Sentinels and Trance Chaos Skimships are already built. I don't think there are any other units that need to be prototyped. Didn't design a PB, but that deficiency could be corrected at any time. ;> It would be wise to get some Orbital Defense Pods launched ASAP, as most of our opponents have access to PBs by now.

We just acquired fusion, but the others won't be far behind.

We could stand to put some more coastal seabases in a ring around our main continent. Closely spaced seabases (overlapping production zones) cut down on a lot of nonsense with enemy troops landing by transport and wreaking havoc on the countryside.

U.N. Commerce Commitee has been on infinite rover production with units being passed off to other random bases for support and then released on full auto-pilot. Might be a good idea to grab some of these and assign 'em to coastal patrol duty, especially on the west end of our main landmass.

Several bases have pop boomed near the end of my turn and most core bases now have Hab Complexes. I also placed Pressure Domes in many bases in case our cruel exploitation of Planet's resources triggers biblical flooding.

I glimpsed a green unit attacking a blue unit right near the end of my administration.

A volcano erupted circa 2268 extending the western end of the central landmass - and making it difficult for us to provide naval reinforcement at U.N. Seabase #3, BTW.

If our opponents continue their timid bahaviour it might be OK to switch back to wealth accumulation to take advantage of our 2 Pacts.

Zak and Morgan may have finally completed their latest techs so courtesy calls to investigate tech trades may be in order as well. Might be worth our effort to gift these boys with some energy credits from time-to-time just to help out their research rate.

Good luck to my successor!

- Scipio

[Walt]

FYI: I'll be gone until Wednesday. If the turn gets to me way before then, skip me. If it doesn't reach me 'til Tuesday, though, just send it normally and I'll play it first chance I get when I return.

Ciao, guys. Have a good weekend.

Walt

[The Commodore]

Just FYI: I'm going to be done sometime this evening. I'm sorry, I was really busy yesterday.

[The Commodore]

Turn 2277 on to john. Sorry it took so long, but you'll find a MUCH bigger navy.

[johndmuller]

MY 2185 to Tau Ceti (I cc'ed it to Walt so that he could get ready).

We have a decent beachhead on Gaian trerritory and they seem to be unable to put up much of a defense (which is just as well, because we are a little overextended down there). We're rediculously far ahead on the charts, but haven't really engaged the Hive or the Spartans yet. There is too much to do in our main territory, but otherwise there are no problems.

The Commodore and I only took 7 or 8 turns each - there is a lot of MM going on, especially when one has to figure out the previous players system first.

We might want to start thinking about starting another game.

[Tau Ceti]

Sorry about the delay here, guys. There were some delivery problems which meant I did not get the game until today, and I just had the infamous interceptor crash wipe out a couple of turns (and they take quite long to play at the moment). I do have a save from a few years back, and will redo the turns tomorrow - it is getting late here.

What type of victory are we going for? We have easily enough votes for a diplomatic any time we choose, and if things go as they did before the crash, we whould be in Cybernetic at a rate of slightly more than 1 tech/turn at the end of my reign, so Transcendence should not be too distant either.

[johndmuller]

Tau Ceti, unless you made a point of turning it off (or unless it is some kind of local-machine option) there should be an auto save file because I made a point of turning it on after getting a big scare on my first round when I couldn't find the manual save file at first. If it is there, it might save you an hour or two.

[The Commodore]

Funny, but I haven't seen my turns autosaving either. Bug?