First Masochistic Victory -- A Long Report
from 
Stardock Forums
Stardock Forums
I won my first game on masochistic last night and wanted to share it with y'all. Boy was it difficult! It wasn't anything like playing on the lower skill levels. The game outlines a rather interesting defect in the computer AI as well, something the programmers might want to address. (Jump to the end if for a discussion on that flaw).
I started in the "northeast" area of the board on a huge universe. Being a big fan of luck, I played as the Universalists with options for +2 speed, +10 diplomacy, and +25 luck. I can't imagine how anyone can play masochistic without the +2 speed. I couldn't have expanded half as much as I did at the beginning without it, and even then I was out-expanded by most computer opponents. I aimed to play good instead of evil. I usually select neutral options until I can see what my neighbors are, but in this case I decided to aim for good. Good thing too (no pun intended), as the Yors, Drengens, and Altarians all turned out to be good. (I play alignment random).
Anyway, as you might expect on masochistic, all of the computer players out-expanded me. Except the Altarians. They started with a bad stroke of luck in the north-east corner and never expanded beyond their home system. I'm not entirely sure why, although a detailed study of the map might have found it. My guess is that they had little to expand into and I grabbed what was there before they did. It didn't help there was a minor race in that area of the board too. Minor races, however handy they can be, have the bad habit of sucking up perfectly good systems to colonize.
So I cranked up military production to 100%, raised the tax rate to 50%, and set the government spending slider for 100%. I had never done this before and boy was I impressed--it really ran colony ships off the assembly line fast! Even my starting colonies could crank 'em out.
We aggressively expanded as much as we could. That turned out not to be as much as I'd hoped. We ran into the Torians fairly quickly. And the Yor not long after that. A good hundred turns or so into the game I discovered a handful o' systems that the Yor hadn't colonized. I rushed production on colony ships and zooomed 'em out there (had to build a starbase so they could get there). I wound up getting 2 of the 4 systems. That turned out not to be good enough as their massive influence bonus (the masochistic +50 plus a bunch of racial bonuses I think) overwhelmed the sectory. One of my two planets flipped in short order. I destroyed the other colony rather than let them have it for free. Scorched Earth, y'know. Even when it's not Earth.
This interaction with the Yor wound up characterizing my entire relationship with them. Anything I could do they could do better. Right from the start they not only went exponentially more powerful than me, they went that much more powerful than everyone else. Their population, economy, military, and manfacturing and technological spending was waaaayyyyyyyy (!!!! x3) higher than everyone else. I only survived because:
- I traded techs with everyone else but, once the game really was going, not them. I figured I'd let them research what everyone else could get by spending.
- I gave them techs and little gifts to keep them happy with me. (Wasn't difficult - we were both good so they liked me).
- I set up all my trade routes with them.
- I gave them gifts to get them to declare war on their other trading partners. And against anyone with a military that I eventually wanted to take on. Or really anyone for that matter. Just so long as they were fighting guys elsewhere.
So I gave up on taking them head-on. I built a bunch of starbases instead. Figured resources were the next best thing to systems. The Yor had the last laugh though - the UP Council had a motion on limiting the number of starbase modules. The Yor had over 50% of the vote and they voted to limit them at two! AAARRRGGHHHHH!
So I was stymied on the path towards a cultural victory, but I at least knew the Yor weren't coming after me right away. So I built myself a military of battle cruisers (everyone else had battleships at that point. The Yors were on the verge of dreadnaughts) and went after the Altarians. Actually I bought most of the ships. I was raking in the trade dough and figured I might as well use money and techs to get ships. Good plan too, although it took a while to get to me.
Unfortunately, I made the mistake of buying a battleship from the Altarians, the folks I was going to invade. This caused their military ratio to change with the various folks they were at war with. All of a sudden they surrender to the Arcenas. Very annoying since I was 1-2 months away from invading one of their system and 2-3 months away from taking both!
The Arcenas were way on the southewest corner of the board and had the expontentially-more powerful Yor breathing down their neck so I decided to seize the two planets anyway. My income took a hit, first because the Altarian trade routes had vanished when they surrendered to the Arcenas, and second because the Arcean routes vanished when I invaded. I wanted those worlds though. A hit in income is fair for a 25% increase in my number of systems.
So the two systems fell with a whimper. I immediately headed on and took out the minor race in the corner. Figured I'd live without the trade income and take his system as well. I also didn't want another player getting them later and having an influence foothold on my back doorstep. I was being creamed with culture as it was.
From there we regrouped. I sent my ships back to the other side of my "empire". Our economy stabalized and I was about to invade the Torians (who had a whopping 4 systems). I was sending my first two fleets at them when suddenly they surrendered to me! Apparently the Yor had been beating up on them. So I acquired several more systems without having to fire a shot. Handy!
I pumped up social production to get all my systems up to the most modern stuff and headed those fleets down at a couple of minor races. One was just off the border of the now-defunct Torians. They fell quite quickly and gave me 5 systems. The other took a while longer as it was way in the southeast corner.
So here's the scene at mid-game:
Winning: The Yor. Hands-down they're exponentially more powerful than anyone else. The only thing saving everyone is that the computer is so bad at fighting wars. They can destroy ships galore, but can't manage to invade systems. With the destruction of the Torians the Yor are sending all of their military might against the Arcenas. There's quite a bit of space between them but if the Yor can take even a single planet to get a foothold in their empire then the Arceans will fall.
Lesser races: Drengins, Arceans, Humans. Drengens in the East - they're going to be my next target. Arceans in the Southwest - they're trying to fight off the Yor. And me in the northeast and center - tentacles expanding in all directors.
Minor races: Alexians in the southeast corner - I've got a fleet headed at them to take them out. They haven't had military warfare with anyone so they've cluttered up their homeworlds with lots of starfighters and battle axes. My newly-purchased battleships from the Drengen will overrun them.
The I-league got a few systems from Drengen rebellions, but they're all but extinct now. I overran most of those former Drengen planets. They have one system left on the border of Drengen space. I don't bother taking it because the Drengen have a planet in the same sector. They'd just flip it back with culture. I attempted to help the I-league by pumping destablization into the Drengen for 20 turns or so but it didn't seem to have an effect. I stopped it and spent the money elsewhere.
Back to the game. I started gathering my armies against the Drengen when I noticed something horrible--they had managed to ally with the Yor! If I took them on then the Yor would presumably jump into the fight. Their military was about 10-15x higher on the chart than mine and I had no interest in a fight with them. Especially since we shared so much border space. And I had several exposed starbases in their space. Only with two modules because of the dang council vote, but I still didn't want them destroyed.
Once the Alexians in the southeast corner were conquered (a very short and bloody war--all of the blood being theirs), I actually stopped the game for a couple of hours to debate my strategy. To win I had to...
Make Allies - I could do that, but an alliance victory was, in my opinion, a last-resort victory. I figured I'd play on and see if I could win elsewise. If not, I'd try to win this way.
Dominate Culture - No can do. The two-module limit on starbases throws this one off. If the law is ever changed in another vote then I'd try for this. But the chances of it coming up in another vote were slim.
Military dominate - Virtually impossible. I had grown more powerful but the Yor were still years ahead of me in technology. Their population was 6-8x mine, and their exonomy and manufacturing ability was way beyond anything I could muster. Making matters worse was their alliance with the Drengen. If the Drengen, Arcenas, and I all worked together against the Yor we might (big might) be able to take them on.
The only other way to take them on would be to absorb the Arceans and Drengens and then to fight it out. Again, their alliance would make it difficult. I'd have to launch a lightning war to conquer the Drengen before Yor could reach me. Not easy since our militaries were about on par.
Or...
Win technologically - If I can't win any way else, this has to be my goal. This was how I won my last two games so I wasn't looking to do this, but hey, it's better than being dragged in front of the N-1 the Yor in chains!
So after a couple hours of puttering around my house I came up with this strategy. I would...
1 - Try to win technologically.
2 - Attack the Arceans. The Yor were decimating their fleet (obvious from the number of unguarded systems) so I didn't anticipate this being difficult. It would take time though because they are so far away from me.
3 - Once the Arceans were conquered, study the feasability of a lightning war to take on the Drengens.
So I gathered a fleet, sent it towards the Arceans, and again enjoyed the spoils of an aborted war. The Arceans, who now only had about three guarded systems (out of 10 or so), up and surrendered to me! Part two of my plan had been completely accomplished faster than anything I could have hoped for.
This gave me an immediate choice of building a military to go after the Drengen in my lightning war, or go for the technological victory. I figured I'd do the latter. So I did everything I could to put money into research and started hitting the next button. Doing so was far preferable to taking on their overlord ships all over the place.
This made for an interesting form of warfare. The Yor were ahead of me in research. They were about 2-3 techs closer to the tech win than me. We both had a ways to go, but I was going to need to put more into research to catch up. Or hope they'd spend time researching other stuff like Excalibur or the various late-game espionage and diplomacy techs that no one researches.
I was able to get my reseearch up to the point where I was ahead of them. I did this by shutting down military production completely, lowering social to 40 or so, and cranking up my tax rate to a point where my subjects were not thrilled but weren't too unhappy. And putting as much as I could into government spending. The few ships I bought were freighters to establish trade routes.
I also dismantled extra ships to save on maintenance costs. This lowered my military power a bit, but who cares? There was no way in hell I could take on the Yor in a real fight.
This went well and I was researching Near Omnipotence (they were doing the same) went the galactic economy crashed. This hit the Yor worse than me because they had such a large military. I decided to make this more interesting and hit a big research starbase of theirs. This was giving them a +43% (or so) research bonus, as it had been built before the 2-module limit had been put in place. My thought was that a war would:
A - Cause them to shift their research spending into military production.
B - Kill off all of our trade routes. This was 4000 credits per turn worth. This would destroy both of our economies, but, I figured, would hit them worse.
C - The war would wipe out what little fleet I had. That would free up more money for research spending. The Yor, meanwhile, would be building more ships to suck up their money.
D - Buy me time. They'd go after systems which weren't important. Sure, every system made research, but I could afford to lose a bit.
E - Not be a risk to me. If worse came to worse, I'd buy a peace treaty by giving them a couple of systems. I hoped I wouldn't have to do that, as if they went back on a research frenzy they'd have an edge on me they didn't have before.
F - Be fun. I figured I could win without the war, as I was spending a little more on research than them and I didn't think the computer's military focus could resist trying to get Excalibur Technology.
So I attacked. The combination recession and trade route loss devastated both of our economies. I was able to recover faster than the computer though, and I limped on towards a technological victory.
Sure enough, the Yor came down on me like a Biblical plague. They wiped out my "fleet" in short order. No matter--they were expendable. What use of a fleet would we have when we reached godhood?
The newly limited economy did slow everything down before. What might have taken 8 turns to research suddenly took 40. I could raise that a bit with economic rejiggering (putting social production to 0--most of my planets had built everything useful anyway), but it still took a long time.
The Yor swarmed all over my planets destroying the various guardian ships (often BattleAxes). Who cares? Their research spending had dropped to 50% of mine. And I was able to get ahead in technological spending.
The computer's ineptness at invading systems didn't even cost me a single system. Here's a computer player easily 50x more powerful than I am, and he still can't take over a single planet. I'd call that one hell of a flaw in their AI. A few transports (and later combat transports) reached my systems. I think we fought 10-12 ground battles and I won them all easily. There was no coordination to their efforts.
Eventually victory was realized. The Terrans achieved scientific godhood and the scourge that was the Yor, however saintly they may be, was cleansed from the universe. The Drengens, who had never joined in the war (perhaps the Yor figured they didn't need to call them to fulfill their alliance?), would be allowed to exist as a vassal race. We never traded blows the entire game, after all. For that they deserve to exist in at least a galactic zoo. : )
And thus I achieved a 20,000 point victory on masochistic level--my first victory at that skill. Woo hoo!
--Aaron
PS, Note to the programmers: You can probably power down the computer's advantages on the higher skill levels by giving them a higher priority on ground invasions. They really don't need all their bonuses if they can even semi-intelligently engage in ground warfare. There is absolutely no excuse for the Yor never managing to take over a single system through military force during the entire game.
I started in the "northeast" area of the board on a huge universe. Being a big fan of luck, I played as the Universalists with options for +2 speed, +10 diplomacy, and +25 luck. I can't imagine how anyone can play masochistic without the +2 speed. I couldn't have expanded half as much as I did at the beginning without it, and even then I was out-expanded by most computer opponents. I aimed to play good instead of evil. I usually select neutral options until I can see what my neighbors are, but in this case I decided to aim for good. Good thing too (no pun intended), as the Yors, Drengens, and Altarians all turned out to be good. (I play alignment random).
Anyway, as you might expect on masochistic, all of the computer players out-expanded me. Except the Altarians. They started with a bad stroke of luck in the north-east corner and never expanded beyond their home system. I'm not entirely sure why, although a detailed study of the map might have found it. My guess is that they had little to expand into and I grabbed what was there before they did. It didn't help there was a minor race in that area of the board too. Minor races, however handy they can be, have the bad habit of sucking up perfectly good systems to colonize.
So I cranked up military production to 100%, raised the tax rate to 50%, and set the government spending slider for 100%. I had never done this before and boy was I impressed--it really ran colony ships off the assembly line fast! Even my starting colonies could crank 'em out.
We aggressively expanded as much as we could. That turned out not to be as much as I'd hoped. We ran into the Torians fairly quickly. And the Yor not long after that. A good hundred turns or so into the game I discovered a handful o' systems that the Yor hadn't colonized. I rushed production on colony ships and zooomed 'em out there (had to build a starbase so they could get there). I wound up getting 2 of the 4 systems. That turned out not to be good enough as their massive influence bonus (the masochistic +50 plus a bunch of racial bonuses I think) overwhelmed the sectory. One of my two planets flipped in short order. I destroyed the other colony rather than let them have it for free. Scorched Earth, y'know. Even when it's not Earth.
This interaction with the Yor wound up characterizing my entire relationship with them. Anything I could do they could do better. Right from the start they not only went exponentially more powerful than me, they went that much more powerful than everyone else. Their population, economy, military, and manfacturing and technological spending was waaaayyyyyyyy (!!!! x3) higher than everyone else. I only survived because:
- I traded techs with everyone else but, once the game really was going, not them. I figured I'd let them research what everyone else could get by spending.
- I gave them techs and little gifts to keep them happy with me. (Wasn't difficult - we were both good so they liked me).
- I set up all my trade routes with them.
- I gave them gifts to get them to declare war on their other trading partners. And against anyone with a military that I eventually wanted to take on. Or really anyone for that matter. Just so long as they were fighting guys elsewhere.
So I gave up on taking them head-on. I built a bunch of starbases instead. Figured resources were the next best thing to systems. The Yor had the last laugh though - the UP Council had a motion on limiting the number of starbase modules. The Yor had over 50% of the vote and they voted to limit them at two! AAARRRGGHHHHH!
So I was stymied on the path towards a cultural victory, but I at least knew the Yor weren't coming after me right away. So I built myself a military of battle cruisers (everyone else had battleships at that point. The Yors were on the verge of dreadnaughts) and went after the Altarians. Actually I bought most of the ships. I was raking in the trade dough and figured I might as well use money and techs to get ships. Good plan too, although it took a while to get to me.
Unfortunately, I made the mistake of buying a battleship from the Altarians, the folks I was going to invade. This caused their military ratio to change with the various folks they were at war with. All of a sudden they surrender to the Arcenas. Very annoying since I was 1-2 months away from invading one of their system and 2-3 months away from taking both!
The Arcenas were way on the southewest corner of the board and had the expontentially-more powerful Yor breathing down their neck so I decided to seize the two planets anyway. My income took a hit, first because the Altarian trade routes had vanished when they surrendered to the Arcenas, and second because the Arcean routes vanished when I invaded. I wanted those worlds though. A hit in income is fair for a 25% increase in my number of systems.
So the two systems fell with a whimper. I immediately headed on and took out the minor race in the corner. Figured I'd live without the trade income and take his system as well. I also didn't want another player getting them later and having an influence foothold on my back doorstep. I was being creamed with culture as it was.
From there we regrouped. I sent my ships back to the other side of my "empire". Our economy stabalized and I was about to invade the Torians (who had a whopping 4 systems). I was sending my first two fleets at them when suddenly they surrendered to me! Apparently the Yor had been beating up on them. So I acquired several more systems without having to fire a shot. Handy!
I pumped up social production to get all my systems up to the most modern stuff and headed those fleets down at a couple of minor races. One was just off the border of the now-defunct Torians. They fell quite quickly and gave me 5 systems. The other took a while longer as it was way in the southeast corner.
So here's the scene at mid-game:
Winning: The Yor. Hands-down they're exponentially more powerful than anyone else. The only thing saving everyone is that the computer is so bad at fighting wars. They can destroy ships galore, but can't manage to invade systems. With the destruction of the Torians the Yor are sending all of their military might against the Arcenas. There's quite a bit of space between them but if the Yor can take even a single planet to get a foothold in their empire then the Arceans will fall.
Lesser races: Drengins, Arceans, Humans. Drengens in the East - they're going to be my next target. Arceans in the Southwest - they're trying to fight off the Yor. And me in the northeast and center - tentacles expanding in all directors.
Minor races: Alexians in the southeast corner - I've got a fleet headed at them to take them out. They haven't had military warfare with anyone so they've cluttered up their homeworlds with lots of starfighters and battle axes. My newly-purchased battleships from the Drengen will overrun them.
The I-league got a few systems from Drengen rebellions, but they're all but extinct now. I overran most of those former Drengen planets. They have one system left on the border of Drengen space. I don't bother taking it because the Drengen have a planet in the same sector. They'd just flip it back with culture. I attempted to help the I-league by pumping destablization into the Drengen for 20 turns or so but it didn't seem to have an effect. I stopped it and spent the money elsewhere.
Back to the game. I started gathering my armies against the Drengen when I noticed something horrible--they had managed to ally with the Yor! If I took them on then the Yor would presumably jump into the fight. Their military was about 10-15x higher on the chart than mine and I had no interest in a fight with them. Especially since we shared so much border space. And I had several exposed starbases in their space. Only with two modules because of the dang council vote, but I still didn't want them destroyed.
Once the Alexians in the southeast corner were conquered (a very short and bloody war--all of the blood being theirs), I actually stopped the game for a couple of hours to debate my strategy. To win I had to...
Make Allies - I could do that, but an alliance victory was, in my opinion, a last-resort victory. I figured I'd play on and see if I could win elsewise. If not, I'd try to win this way.
Dominate Culture - No can do. The two-module limit on starbases throws this one off. If the law is ever changed in another vote then I'd try for this. But the chances of it coming up in another vote were slim.
Military dominate - Virtually impossible. I had grown more powerful but the Yor were still years ahead of me in technology. Their population was 6-8x mine, and their exonomy and manufacturing ability was way beyond anything I could muster. Making matters worse was their alliance with the Drengen. If the Drengen, Arcenas, and I all worked together against the Yor we might (big might) be able to take them on.
The only other way to take them on would be to absorb the Arceans and Drengens and then to fight it out. Again, their alliance would make it difficult. I'd have to launch a lightning war to conquer the Drengen before Yor could reach me. Not easy since our militaries were about on par.
Or...
Win technologically - If I can't win any way else, this has to be my goal. This was how I won my last two games so I wasn't looking to do this, but hey, it's better than being dragged in front of the N-1 the Yor in chains!
So after a couple hours of puttering around my house I came up with this strategy. I would...
1 - Try to win technologically.
2 - Attack the Arceans. The Yor were decimating their fleet (obvious from the number of unguarded systems) so I didn't anticipate this being difficult. It would take time though because they are so far away from me.
3 - Once the Arceans were conquered, study the feasability of a lightning war to take on the Drengens.
So I gathered a fleet, sent it towards the Arceans, and again enjoyed the spoils of an aborted war. The Arceans, who now only had about three guarded systems (out of 10 or so), up and surrendered to me! Part two of my plan had been completely accomplished faster than anything I could have hoped for.
This gave me an immediate choice of building a military to go after the Drengen in my lightning war, or go for the technological victory. I figured I'd do the latter. So I did everything I could to put money into research and started hitting the next button. Doing so was far preferable to taking on their overlord ships all over the place.
This made for an interesting form of warfare. The Yor were ahead of me in research. They were about 2-3 techs closer to the tech win than me. We both had a ways to go, but I was going to need to put more into research to catch up. Or hope they'd spend time researching other stuff like Excalibur or the various late-game espionage and diplomacy techs that no one researches.
I was able to get my reseearch up to the point where I was ahead of them. I did this by shutting down military production completely, lowering social to 40 or so, and cranking up my tax rate to a point where my subjects were not thrilled but weren't too unhappy. And putting as much as I could into government spending. The few ships I bought were freighters to establish trade routes.
I also dismantled extra ships to save on maintenance costs. This lowered my military power a bit, but who cares? There was no way in hell I could take on the Yor in a real fight.
This went well and I was researching Near Omnipotence (they were doing the same) went the galactic economy crashed. This hit the Yor worse than me because they had such a large military. I decided to make this more interesting and hit a big research starbase of theirs. This was giving them a +43% (or so) research bonus, as it had been built before the 2-module limit had been put in place. My thought was that a war would:
A - Cause them to shift their research spending into military production.
B - Kill off all of our trade routes. This was 4000 credits per turn worth. This would destroy both of our economies, but, I figured, would hit them worse.
C - The war would wipe out what little fleet I had. That would free up more money for research spending. The Yor, meanwhile, would be building more ships to suck up their money.
D - Buy me time. They'd go after systems which weren't important. Sure, every system made research, but I could afford to lose a bit.
E - Not be a risk to me. If worse came to worse, I'd buy a peace treaty by giving them a couple of systems. I hoped I wouldn't have to do that, as if they went back on a research frenzy they'd have an edge on me they didn't have before.
F - Be fun. I figured I could win without the war, as I was spending a little more on research than them and I didn't think the computer's military focus could resist trying to get Excalibur Technology.
So I attacked. The combination recession and trade route loss devastated both of our economies. I was able to recover faster than the computer though, and I limped on towards a technological victory.
Sure enough, the Yor came down on me like a Biblical plague. They wiped out my "fleet" in short order. No matter--they were expendable. What use of a fleet would we have when we reached godhood?
The newly limited economy did slow everything down before. What might have taken 8 turns to research suddenly took 40. I could raise that a bit with economic rejiggering (putting social production to 0--most of my planets had built everything useful anyway), but it still took a long time.
The Yor swarmed all over my planets destroying the various guardian ships (often BattleAxes). Who cares? Their research spending had dropped to 50% of mine. And I was able to get ahead in technological spending.
The computer's ineptness at invading systems didn't even cost me a single system. Here's a computer player easily 50x more powerful than I am, and he still can't take over a single planet. I'd call that one hell of a flaw in their AI. A few transports (and later combat transports) reached my systems. I think we fought 10-12 ground battles and I won them all easily. There was no coordination to their efforts.
Eventually victory was realized. The Terrans achieved scientific godhood and the scourge that was the Yor, however saintly they may be, was cleansed from the universe. The Drengens, who had never joined in the war (perhaps the Yor figured they didn't need to call them to fulfill their alliance?), would be allowed to exist as a vassal race. We never traded blows the entire game, after all. For that they deserve to exist in at least a galactic zoo. : )
And thus I achieved a 20,000 point victory on masochistic level--my first victory at that skill. Woo hoo!
--Aaron
PS, Note to the programmers: You can probably power down the computer's advantages on the higher skill levels by giving them a higher priority on ground invasions. They really don't need all their bonuses if they can even semi-intelligently engage in ground warfare. There is absolutely no excuse for the Yor never managing to take over a single system through military force during the entire game.
