1st Masochistic Challenge - AARs and discussion

[Ellestar]

WARNING!

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[Airwreck]

Originally posted on Gal Civ board...

Exterminated April 2185. Metaverse score would have been 84.

One key observation is that the computer opponents all seemed to have some type of PQ ability which gets magnified with the Abundant setting. Meanwhile, I wasted resources I shouldn't have on PQ 14 planets. Doubt that tipped the balance of my starfighters to their battleships. I actually don't use a tech tree when I play. That might have helped a bit more so that I could have built a better navy sooner. Not that it would have made a difference.

Additional comments...

The Abundant setting can really through things for a loop. I generally play around the Uncommon setting. Bigger the map, the less micromanagement I personally want to deal with. I may be about to win my first Large map with the most recent update. Started out with only 4 stars, but I kept the closest empire from going hostile... until I exterminated them myself.

[AIL]

My AAR:

To not totally fall behind in tech I decided to go with 80-0-20 spendings in the beginning. And started expanding as fast as I could. Since the the number of yellow stars was abundant, Most of my colonyships immediately succeeded to find a PQ 15+ planet in the system they flew to.

Very soon after starting the colonization of the galaxy I ran into the Drengin who seemed to have the very same thing in mind. Short time after that a Yor Survey Ship passed through my space and made up contact with em.

From now on it should only be a few planets I could colonize before meeting the torians in the south and so seeing, that there was no way out. I sent the rest of my colonyships to the closest planets to get my people a new home and started to think what to do now... However, things looked very bad for me. Drengin and Torians were about the same size as I while the Yor were even bigger. At least I could always choose the evil events because there was no good guy who would care about me beeing evil aswell.

The Torians Influence was soon getting to big to handle and the first planet defected.

The Drengin demanded a lump sum of ~1000 BC to maintain peace. I paid them.

The Yor wanted 500, I declined.

The Torians only wanted 200, that I also paid.

When I got back to >-500 the Drengin asked again but this time I had to decline. The Drengin were not amused and declared war.

The Yor demanded Sol... I declined and so came to a second war...

Meanwhile I also had contact with the Altarians (which were a bit smaller than the 3 surrounding races) and the Arceans who were stuck with 3 planets.

Further planets defected to the torians superior cultural power, my defenders were smashed by Cruisers, Frigates and finally Battleships. My planets were relatively equally shared between Yor, Drengin and Torians... The mess ended in November 2185, when the Yor invaded my last planet...

I also noticed, that when the Torians colonized planets, that formarly were known as size 17 turned into size 20.

However, I have absolutely no clue, how I would have prevented that defeat! I had no chance in keeping up with tech and could not have payed the tributes from 3 races at once, especially not my home system! I had no chance to resist the torians cultural power, even if there was no war with the Yor and Drengin...

Okay, time for me to sit back and wait for further AAR's to learn from.

[Snuis]

I barely lost the race with the Drengin to their two most east systems (wouldn't have helped me a bit though). Scraped to Shields before the world declared war. From that moment on it was 100-0-0 producing battleaxes, i held out quite a while.
When i had 1 system left (NE corner) the Drengin and the Yor went to war with each other so they left me alone for some time. Few turns before the star cultureflipped the Torians surrendered to me . One of their planets was within 0 months of completing the Propaganda Machine. That planet was captured by the Yor the same turn .
In june 2189 the Yor conquered my last system. When i loaded the save to see if i had saved the correct moment (bit annoying to save every turn, easy to forget), the Altarians surrendered to me! In the real game they surrendered to the Drengin i think. I have loaded the endsave three times now and they always surrendered to me . It doesn't add too many turns though, the Yor are very powerful (little test: may 2190).

In retrospect, it's very hard to see how you can win this game. Although i'm sure Staffa will have some tricks on his sleeves. It seems you have to concentrate on an early war with the hp bonus. You'll need some corvettes from rocks or some +attack anomalies for your surveyship to keep at least the Drengin busy. The Yor will be very hard to beat though.

I think the AI has a hp bonus as well on masochistic, i was surprised to see their battle cruisers take out my axes so easily. (I have my save game open now and a Yor battle axe has 61 hp (compared to 30 basic), some of which can be accredited to Tri-Strontium Steel and tech but still).

AIL and Airwreck: On masochistic the AI has a PQ bonus of 20% or something. Earth is 28 in my save game.

All in all an interesting game to play. I've never micromanaged so much (and so in vein). But i think after one wardeclaration by the Yor the game is over.

[Staffa]

I give up, traded up the butt with the drengin, had
5 trade routes and was tributing them planets and
tons of money but they still declared war.

Considering the 2 others were already at war with me
that was pretty much the game. Managed to take out
the Torians though and had 24% of the systems at
my height.

Viscious little game

[Staffa]

I had a plan, and it might have worked if drengin hadnt
been so near.

My plan was an all out assault on the nearest AI(the
torians as it turns out) while doing an all out trade with
the next nearest(drengin)

Looked for weapons upgrades for my hero or corvettes
from debri, got neither. Ended up trading for corvettes
from another Ai with tech. Used those corvettes to
clear about 3 torian systems of their 5 defenses as I
landed transports and captured them. The first
system I captured was about 10% from finishing
galatic stock exchange, I finished it with an outright
purchase for 900 credits, tanked my econ for 3 turns.
Almost got ultraspices from the 2nd one, but some
other civ built it before I could get positive credits to
purchase it.

The yor and alterians declared war on me

The carnoids built diplo translaters, boon for me as I
traded for it quickly.

Someone else built grav acceleraters(was a major)
got that in trade as well.

UN council then voted to share tech, again boon for me
this is how I got frigates among many other techs.

The yor were an immediate pain as they were
neighbors of the Torians and pretty much slaughtered
my fleet of frigates, I managed to take the 4th
torian world right next to the yor before my fleet
died. My 5th transport targeted for the remaining
torian world gave up, turned around and
went back to the carnoid world.

Quickly got 5 trade routes up with the drengin as I
specificly targeted trade techs.

The drengins still hovered on hostile and I started
donating mucho credits with them. The 4th system
I had captured from the torians I donated to the
drengins as it was about to fall to the yor anyway.

This unfortantly did not cause a war between the
Yor and drengin, but hopefully it kept the drengin
happy for awhile, it didnt

Meanwhile the Yor and alterians were emphatic about
their war with me and eventually the alterians captured
two planets while the yor decimated my trade route
with the drengin.

Losing those 2 planets wasnt actually that bad as I
captured them both back within 2 turns and got
BATTLESHIPS from one of them(a couple had
dreadnoughts though)

Things were actually looking up as the alterians finally
asked for peace but then the drengins finally declared
war.

40% of my economy disappeared and the 2 strongest(
drengin and yor) were both at war with me, right
next to me with dreadnoughts against my small force
of frigates, though at least I could build battleships now,
though of course 40% of my econ just disappeared).

I conceeded with 24% of the galaxy under my
control.

[LDiCesare]

I made a small strategic mistake at the beginning of the game. USed to playing with rare planets, I thought every planet was important, so I shot a Drengin colony ship in order to get mine on a nice yellow star nearby.
I later realized that the Drengins were, by far, the most powerful race in the galaxy.
I later tried to buffer myself from the Drengins (who had a huge cultural influence) by selling the planets on the verge of flipping to Altarians and Torians, and managed to get perhaps 3bc out of each planet. That didn't prevent the Torians from declaring war against me. The Drengins just smashed me out of existence.