Strange Game...

Ok, most recent game had some real unusual occurances for me that I thought I'd bring up.

First, the new "surrender" routine. Wow. One game is not a sufficient sample but both the Arceans and Yor surrendered...to me. Perhaps Brad should not have updated the AI with those strategies from the French army manual...

The Arceans had a crudy starting position and only had about 5 star systems to everyone elses 10+. They were in a low grade war with the Altarians. I say low grade, because no planets changed hands after a good couple of years, although various star bases were destroyed. Apparently the Arceans had ground their society into the ground in order to defend themselves, because they were so unhappy they lost 2 systems to the I-League. Then with 3 system left (their three best) they announced their surrender to me. I've never picked up 3 systems that easy.

The Yor like me, a good bit actually. But they were evil and I was going for good, and more importantly they had beat me by 1 turn and 2 turns to 2 seperate Military Resource bases I had coveted for my self...and they wouldn't sell them to me for all the tech in China. They were also at war with the Torians who weakened their bases enough to allow me to declare war and capture both bases. Now the Tor had a much higher economy than the Yor, but militarily had only starfighters and corvettes and a handful of frigates. I had battle ships at that point and was clearly superior to the Yor, but after conquering only 2 planets, the Yor surrendered...to me. I don't remember the exact count but it was probably around 6 starsystems, some with a couple planets each...talk about merry christmas.

Also this was the first game I actually became good...so the first time I saw the goody goody UI. I bit the bullet and actually passed up alot of nice things. Its a HECK of alot harder to be good than evil...2 or 3 events choosing evil I'd have been practically demonic. It took nearly a dozen events choosing good to be good. This I think is probably quite appropriate...but a pain in the ass. I think the Good Only tech, should be ramped up significantly to compensate (actually I think it should be easier to win on "Beyond Human" if you manage to do it as a good power).

But that's beside the point. The second wierd thing is this.

I was good, the Torians were good, the Altarians were good. The Altarians had loved me from the beginning being the first nation to be friendly towards me when the Tor were still neutral. I had my trade routes split between the Tor and the Altarians and the Tor quickly ramped up to Close and allied with me.

The Altarians would NOT go above Friendly...ever.

I killed all my Tor routes and opened all 10 routes with the Altarians. I GAVE them tech, trade goods, ships, cash turn after turn...Nothing...the arrow didn't even budge to show it was improving.

Then...after having beend Friendly with me the entire game, after having received gifts fit for a king...they announce "We've decided we'd better deal with you before you deal with us" and go to WAR with me...WITH ME!!!!.

Fortuneately the Tor (who were also allied with them) decided to stick with me and together we mopped the floor with the Altarians. They managed to destroy a couple of the starbases I'd built up after stealing them from the Drengin...but I pretty much marched through them and conquered them.

I did manage to get my all time first Alliance win in the same game I got my first Good win...but I can't for the life of me figure out why the Altarians attacked.

I was superior to them in every category.
My military dwarfed theirs.
We had the same tech only because I gave them most of mine
We had been on Friendly terms since we first encountered each other.
We had worked together to eliminate the Drengin.
We were both allied to the Tor.
There was no one left in the galaxy but the three of us. It could have been a 3 way alliance.
Surely that would have been the better alternative to genocide...