The long and winding (tech) road: an AAR
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Wheeew...
Just finished a marathon game. The AI is pretty impressive, as this AAR will show:
This will be my third full game. I won the 1st game; cultural victory. For my 2nd game, I wanted to win via a research victory and learn the tech tree in preparation for the harder levels of the game. I had upped the intelligence of my opponents for this game since the 1st game went fairly easily. And paid the price: the Drengin destroyed me. So, for my third game: no Drengin. All remaining opponents are sub-normal. I switched the Arceans to evil: they can keep company
with the Yor. Small map. I am of the Technologist's party, modified to get +50 in research.
I do OK in the rush to colonize and I get positioned mainly in the center of the map. The Yor are in trouble as they have one star system up in one corner of the map. The lower half of the map is shared by the Altarians, Arceans and the Torians. There are two star systems up in another corner 'behind' me, but I don't have enough range to get to them and neither can anybody else. So, there is a little race at the beginning of the game to colonize that corner, which I win. Quite the
little drama.
As the middle part of the game gets going, I'm comfortably in front with the Altarians quite a ways back in 2nd. I'm leading in all categories but production, so I settle in to walk my way through the tech tree. I watch with some amusement as the Arceans and the Altarians fight over their measly quadrant of space; they're barely worthy of my notice. I
have more important affairs to attend to, like cruising through the tech tree to the 'final frontier'.
But wait. The Altarians have captured some planets from both the Arceans and the Torians and are moving in on the poor Yor in their lonely corner. The Altarians have managed to squeeze the Torians into another corner. It looks like the Torians are doomed. The Altarians are rapidly gaining on me on almost all fronts and they have more star systems than
I do now. I better do something, and quick. One lesson that the Drengin taught me in the last game: don't let an opponent gain too much momentum or you'll be facing quick defeat. So, I concentrate a good part of my starfleet and snatch a star system from the Altarians, almost cutting his empire in half. I also destroy some of his star bases, one of which was sitting on a research resource. THAT took some wind from his sails.
Fast forward a bit. The Yor are history, as are the Arceans. The Altarians did most of the conquering, although I obtained an Arcean star system after it was all said and done. I'm still comfortably in front both in military affairs and in the research department, although the Altarians are not that far behind. They definitely bear close watching. The Torians are kind of in a corner with two major star systems and a little bitty one. I'm spending a decent amount of my treasury on
maintaining a major star fleet just in case those pesky Altarians rise up again. One of my planets has been a major contributor to this effort: early on I decided to make this planet a major manufacturing powerhouse. That planet has been able to build a fair number of 'wonders', some of which have boosted its manufacturing might. Its now my major capital ship builder. This seems like a very good strategy; hopefully it works as well in future games.
Many years go by in this uneasy state. My god, this is a huge tech tree. When am I going to get to the end of it? ...hey, what's this? Planet Weber 1 is going to defect? What are those Altarians up to now? ....Weber 1 is going to defect to the TORIANS??? How did THEY get so influential?!! PANIC! I've got no time to lose... Send some ships into that star system! Rush build a star base in that sector! Jam it chock full with cultural improvements! OK, disaster averted. Studying map...
How did the Torians do this? There was no warning build up of culture pushing star bases. They don't have a lot of star systems. Hmmm. Oh, no! The United Planets are in session, and the Torians have a lot of influence... Gack! They outvoted me (I don't remember what the resolution was about, but I do remember that I didn't like the results). These guys have become a pain in the **s. OK, smack down time! What? Oh, jeez, they're allied with the Altarians. Now I gotta fight 'em both. The senate's nervous, the combined might of these two turkeys is equivalent to our military might. Well, we'll see...
So I took 'em down a notch. Took out a lot of their Rangers and some star bases (I did get to field one Overlord in this war). I did lose some star bases in the conflict, but I was able to re-build them. When I finally squeezed the Torians for the peace treaty, I didn't take their lousy money, I took 500+ influence points, thank you very much!
That pretty much put the Torians in their place. I had no more trouble with them nor with the Altarians. The march to the 'final frontier' took quite a few more years, but nothing of very much interest occurred. The ending movie sequence was pretty neat; I liked it.
What amazed me about the AI was that I could never take them for granted. They always seem ready to pop back up again. They never did take me on directly as I was way too powerfull. The first Altarian run-up would have likely resulted in a direct attack on me, but I didn't let the Altarians get that far. As I had learned in an earlier game, its not wise to let the AI get a head of steam up. I almost learned it again in this game, as I had not noticed the Torians building up a culture/influence rush; it had already built up quite a lot of momentum by the time I noticed it. I was very fortunate that I could build a very powerfull culture star base in that sector in a short period of time. And all of this at 'simple' difficulty level!
BTW, it probably took about 20 hours to play this game! On a small map! Of course, I could have ended the game much earlier via my military, but I did want to win the tech race and also learn more about the techs.
~SDC~
Just finished a marathon game. The AI is pretty impressive, as this AAR will show:
This will be my third full game. I won the 1st game; cultural victory. For my 2nd game, I wanted to win via a research victory and learn the tech tree in preparation for the harder levels of the game. I had upped the intelligence of my opponents for this game since the 1st game went fairly easily. And paid the price: the Drengin destroyed me. So, for my third game: no Drengin. All remaining opponents are sub-normal. I switched the Arceans to evil: they can keep company
with the Yor. Small map. I am of the Technologist's party, modified to get +50 in research.
I do OK in the rush to colonize and I get positioned mainly in the center of the map. The Yor are in trouble as they have one star system up in one corner of the map. The lower half of the map is shared by the Altarians, Arceans and the Torians. There are two star systems up in another corner 'behind' me, but I don't have enough range to get to them and neither can anybody else. So, there is a little race at the beginning of the game to colonize that corner, which I win. Quite the
little drama.
As the middle part of the game gets going, I'm comfortably in front with the Altarians quite a ways back in 2nd. I'm leading in all categories but production, so I settle in to walk my way through the tech tree. I watch with some amusement as the Arceans and the Altarians fight over their measly quadrant of space; they're barely worthy of my notice. I
have more important affairs to attend to, like cruising through the tech tree to the 'final frontier'.
But wait. The Altarians have captured some planets from both the Arceans and the Torians and are moving in on the poor Yor in their lonely corner. The Altarians have managed to squeeze the Torians into another corner. It looks like the Torians are doomed. The Altarians are rapidly gaining on me on almost all fronts and they have more star systems than
I do now. I better do something, and quick. One lesson that the Drengin taught me in the last game: don't let an opponent gain too much momentum or you'll be facing quick defeat. So, I concentrate a good part of my starfleet and snatch a star system from the Altarians, almost cutting his empire in half. I also destroy some of his star bases, one of which was sitting on a research resource. THAT took some wind from his sails.
Fast forward a bit. The Yor are history, as are the Arceans. The Altarians did most of the conquering, although I obtained an Arcean star system after it was all said and done. I'm still comfortably in front both in military affairs and in the research department, although the Altarians are not that far behind. They definitely bear close watching. The Torians are kind of in a corner with two major star systems and a little bitty one. I'm spending a decent amount of my treasury on
maintaining a major star fleet just in case those pesky Altarians rise up again. One of my planets has been a major contributor to this effort: early on I decided to make this planet a major manufacturing powerhouse. That planet has been able to build a fair number of 'wonders', some of which have boosted its manufacturing might. Its now my major capital ship builder. This seems like a very good strategy; hopefully it works as well in future games.
Many years go by in this uneasy state. My god, this is a huge tech tree. When am I going to get to the end of it? ...hey, what's this? Planet Weber 1 is going to defect? What are those Altarians up to now? ....Weber 1 is going to defect to the TORIANS??? How did THEY get so influential?!! PANIC! I've got no time to lose... Send some ships into that star system! Rush build a star base in that sector! Jam it chock full with cultural improvements! OK, disaster averted. Studying map...
How did the Torians do this? There was no warning build up of culture pushing star bases. They don't have a lot of star systems. Hmmm. Oh, no! The United Planets are in session, and the Torians have a lot of influence... Gack! They outvoted me (I don't remember what the resolution was about, but I do remember that I didn't like the results). These guys have become a pain in the **s. OK, smack down time! What? Oh, jeez, they're allied with the Altarians. Now I gotta fight 'em both. The senate's nervous, the combined might of these two turkeys is equivalent to our military might. Well, we'll see...
So I took 'em down a notch. Took out a lot of their Rangers and some star bases (I did get to field one Overlord in this war). I did lose some star bases in the conflict, but I was able to re-build them. When I finally squeezed the Torians for the peace treaty, I didn't take their lousy money, I took 500+ influence points, thank you very much!
That pretty much put the Torians in their place. I had no more trouble with them nor with the Altarians. The march to the 'final frontier' took quite a few more years, but nothing of very much interest occurred. The ending movie sequence was pretty neat; I liked it.
What amazed me about the AI was that I could never take them for granted. They always seem ready to pop back up again. They never did take me on directly as I was way too powerfull. The first Altarian run-up would have likely resulted in a direct attack on me, but I didn't let the Altarians get that far. As I had learned in an earlier game, its not wise to let the AI get a head of steam up. I almost learned it again in this game, as I had not noticed the Torians building up a culture/influence rush; it had already built up quite a lot of momentum by the time I noticed it. I was very fortunate that I could build a very powerfull culture star base in that sector in a short period of time. And all of this at 'simple' difficulty level!
BTW, it probably took about 20 hours to play this game! On a small map! Of course, I could have ended the game much earlier via my military, but I did want to win the tech race and also learn more about the techs.
~SDC~
