vincible, I used a grovelling strategy (give techs, give all money when extorted, trade techs for techs, trade goods for techs, tehn techs for techs) and managed a victory on a medium map. I must confess that until I managed to lock all of the ai's into war one against the other, I wasn't very proud...
I noted that all minors except the two who appeared first (maybe all those who appear initially on larger maps) would happily give me all their money for my trade goods before I conquered their planet.
On a medium map, I also reaped huge rewards when the Yor surrendered to me (I gave their planet to the Arceans, in exchange of war against Torians + a half dozen techs or so).
I'm pretty sure I could have won culturally if I had bothered to, since I had almost all resources by the end game (waited for the ai to kill their bases, or bought them outright).

I also had a nice show of the ai ineptitude, even at that level: A Torian planet (actually, one I had given them so they'd stop pestering me and make war with the Drengins instead), was at a time surrounded wholly by Drengin ships. There were stacks of 6 and 12 Drengin ships (including battelships and dreadnoughts) in each of the eight surrounding squares. The Drengin never managed to land!
Admittedly, the planet had a skull and the sector was under Drengin influence for a long while, but it flipped to my side after I collected the remnants of the Drengin's starbase on a nearby cultural resource.

Alright, my turn to contribute some Maso Strats.

1. Speed is king. Take at least +1 spd at startup. Make sure you get Grav Accelerators and if you are good, Hyper Warp. The AI's huge capital ships can do nothing to you if they can't touch you. Remember, only transports can hurt you so take them out with your speedy ships.

2. Diplomacy is queen. I picked Populists, +1spd and +50diplo. +70 diplo works wonders with tech trade and bribery. Minors will worship you.

3. Bribe majors to war constantly. Be wary of good AIs cuddling up quickly with trade. Get them into wars before they cuddle. Diplo helps alot here. If you can't get them to fight each other, get them to war against minors.

4. Frigates are the Masochist's weapon of choice. Fast, excellent range and strong. Able to take out defenders and battleaxes. Competent ships even in the capital ship era.

5. Once you get frigates, target the biggest and meanest AI within range of your frigates. If you succeed in taking it out, you win the game. If not, you don't waste too much time on this Maso game. Make sure they are at war. I've not done a thorough research but some AIs are poorer defenders than others. Arceans for one love to defend their systems with Defenders and Colony ships even during the capital ship era. Take out as many of their systems as you can in one simultaneous attack. You will find capital ships - battleships, dreads, rangers, etc in the captured systems' production line. Crank them out to aid in the clean up of that Incredible AI.

6. Once you have taken out one AI, look for opportunities to take out smaller weaker Incredibles if the opportunity presents itself. Else go for influence wonders/TGs/resources. Culture bomb all the rest of the Incredibles into submission.

Interesting, those are my starting picks too. Everything else I do (except 2 and 3) is completely different though

Addendum

My preferred culture bomb style involves colonising planets in the Incredible's home sectors. Minimal risk and cheap if you can colonise PQ10 and above.

I avoid party palaces if I can, they require too much micromangement.

OK, the culture experiment now over. This culture strategy was played on Tiny/5xI/Rare map.

We landed centrally with 3 star systems just in reach, plus the Carinoids visible. The AIs got 1-2 planets each. Great map for our experiment, allowing for much easier time at the Maso level.

Early on, rush for planets but not for star bases. AI will most likely beat you to them all, plus they are too expensive for you to build and maintain in the first years anyway. You'll have perfect chances capturing them later after the wars break out.

Build everything dont lease. The only expection for paying cash for something is when it is nearly completed already (200% influence and then interesting things finally start to happen

Yor was our first flip, but we still had to invade their second planet. The Altarians were again just about demolishing them too.

After this, we were finally in powerful position, had reached CultMax, and everybody was in peace too. Building 3-4 suitably strong influence bases in the neighbouring sector did the job, each time, all AI capitals included. However, in the end, this campaign took TWELVE whole years to finish. I dont think it could be done much quicker either, culturally. However, the same map can be won militarily a whole FIVE years earlier!

It would perhaps be nice if there was some other earlier way to culture rush. How about a second generation Trade Ship?! The idea is, this ship would also boost your influence over your trading partner.

PS. For some odd reason, our modest score for this game is not displaying yet in the etaverse... hopefully later..working on it!

Just twelve years...all of 144 turns?? And here I thought I was doing good to finish a game in three hours.

I'll have to try that diplomatic approach.

Well, tomorrow I take the plunge...wish me luck. Hopefully all the great strategies posted here will see me through to the end, hopefully with a victory!

Good luck! Let us know how it turns out.

You are progressing rapidly through the difficulties, Robert. A level a day is impressive.

Good luck with Maso.

Three hours right!! I must be a complete control freak and so all my games have honestly taken ages to play so far. For twelve years read days and days of intense real time effort. Just have to control every single bit of action out there.



Sorry my long posting was cut off short there, maybe some tag trouble. Anyway, wanted to add that with Cult strategy focusing on PRODUCTION and RELATIONS really seemed to play off well. Even with reasonable 20-50% military spend, we were still completing one, two, even three constructors each turn at them power houses. Thats got to make a difference when the AIs just had 1 or 2 planets to work from.

The other point was that the only time we payed cash for social or military project was when it was due to complete next turn anyway (with 20bc or less remaining) and we needed that planet to start on something else right away.

PS. Sniff but my score wont perhaps appear after all
I was silly enough to rename my player without paying enough attention to those submit rules. Watch out for that one before thinking to rename your player!

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Ray, first time I played this game I got corned and was getting my butt kicked on cakewalk. But ever since changing to Populist and using +Speed I've never had a problem, since I can always beat the other races to the planets. Also, on all the tiny/rare/tight maps I have played I keep using ctrl-n until I get a system that has at least two systems I can colonize. There are two other strategies that have been working WAY TO GOOD (before crippling at least). Culture flipping is one, the other which seems to worked all the time is sending a fleet near a target planet then bribing that race to go to war. As mentioned before the AI is all too willing to move all offensive ships off the planet in a war, and so I use that to my advantage. The combination between starting location, speed, and "cheese" has likened everything to a cakewalk to so far. Last night's crippling game (which I didn't mean to finish, but only start) was the first time the AI got pissed off by my culture starbases, plut I ran up against alliances. Though I made peace with the race I attacked, the Altarians refused to back off. I was also lucky in the fact that all but the Altarian's were penned up in one system. I forgot to mention that I tech whore everything, even if I only get 5bc a month for it. This has enabled me to run at 100% spending most of the game-fun fun fun. I did make one small change in my racial picks. I stuck with populist but I dropped PQ, so I had 80% Diplomacy, 20% Morale and +1 Speed. Though I must say, even with 80% Diplomacy and Diplomatic Translators, the most I could get for techs from close races was around 20bc/24mths.

One thing that at first ticked me off, but later amused me was in the Painful game the Drengin and I were racing for a planet from opposite directions. He got to it first so I reloaded and retraced the path manually and was able to get to the planet with the Drengin's colony ship sitting right next to it. Seems the computer doesn't always take the quickest path to a planet.

Now if only I can keep that freaking event out of my masochistic game that gives a race extreme power I may have a chance. That event just screws up all prior planning since it puts you on a war path. Do the other races also go out of their way to eliminate them? I've never noticed.

Well, this post went entirely way to long and I have to get back to work (well, actually I'll just be looking at other posts in the forum while the boss thinks I'm working)

I forgot to ask, how did you get 200% in under 12 years?

Tech wise, we ignored all the research heavy military paths (Interstellar, Battleship, etc), and rushed only for Economy, Influence and more Research powers. Oh, we also picked up the first Soldiering +10% - very key for those early quick invasions. Didnt spend any money on any other military ships at all.

After Carinoids were gone, we had four planets in our home sector. Built three bases there, with maximum productivity and economy bonuses.

I just checked and CultMax was reached by turn 87-7...:) If anybody is interested in more detail, I actually have a sketchy timeline (acquired and researched tech) stored away too.

Initial picks Federalist, +50 Mil Prod, +20 Diplo, +5 PQ, +10 Social production. My general approach is to pick those abilities that you have no direct way of improving much throughout the game. If you check the Stats page, your overall Mil and Social production stay where they are at the game start. Of course your mileage may vary at planet level. Our best planet was at +485% production when the game was over....

Didnt go for Speed this time as it was a Tiny map. I agree with everybody though; Speed is a great pick and well worth taking on any larger map. Maybe even on Tiny if you are military oriented. Got GravAcc from Altarians soon enough in this game though.

What next?.....try if that LUCK+CREATIVITY combo will turn out a Ranger in the first year?! Maybe add some Soldiering to kick it off nicely. That would be a real killer for quick finish, right?!!
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::Raises his hand:: I'm interested

Also, do you know of anyplace where I can get streamlined tech trees for just morale and influence techs?

Also, what did your initial rushes consist of? In the crippling game I just played all of the AI's had defenders on their planets within first year.

OK, here's the initial rush fairly close in terms of deals.
78-6 Got UT - can talk
78-9 Carinoids: 131bc for Cold Fusion
78-9 Alexians: CF+23bc for Trade
78-12 Carinoids: Trade for Impulse+10bc
(note: Could now attack Minors with Transports! Survey ship has ATT+1)
79-4 Alexians: trade MedTh for ArtGrav+10bc
79-7 Carinoids: MedTh for IndTh+7bc
79-7 Torians: BEC+IndTh for ContrGrav
79-7 Alexians: BEC+CT+IT for DiploTrans TG!!
79-10: Yor: IndTh+MedTh for Phasers+7
80-3 Altarians: NanoEl+MedT+IndT for Shields+9bc
80-3 Carinoids: Shields for NanoMetComp+2x14bc
80-5 Got starbase in sector 1+1 (AIs warring)
80-6 Got second SB in sector 1+1 (AIs warring)
81-3 Alexians: IEC+Phaser+NMC for Aphro TG+406i
81-6 Arceans: IEC+Phaser+MT for IB+153i
81-6 Drengin: IB for Warp+376i
81-7 Carinoids: ZGR for SpaceMil+193i
81-7 Drengin: SpaceMil for ZGM+168i
81-9 Alexians: Warp for AdvTr+EC+202i
82-1 Torians: AdvTr for IntRef+2x14bc
82-6 Carinoids captured by single Transport. Class 25 planet!
82-6 Arceans: IntMrkt for SM+82i
82-10 Arceans: Sensor+172i for IntCap
My detail notes stop at this point. Just some highlights follow now:
83-5 Torians: traded plenty tech for GravAccel TG
84-6 Drengin captured by one Transport.
87-7 CultMax blast starts
88-6 Yor is the first to flip. Their second system invaded.
88-11 Altarians flip. Arceans and Torians left.
90-12 Its all over.

The recently updated and published Orion Strategy guide has some specific technology paths that could also be useful when trying something like this.

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I'm dense, I admit it..what is 172i? and how does that differ from say "80-3 Altarians: NanoEl+MedT+IndT for Shields+9bc"

Sometimes it takes hitting me in the back of the head with the book for me to get it.

Very sorry its my short hand notation only. Read "i" for influence points. Early in the game, we went for money to top the deals off evenly, but later tried to gain some influence points there too. So, row like
80-3 Altarians: NanoEl+MedT+IndT for Shields+9bc
translates roughly to:
March 80, we spoke with Altarians and traded Nano electronics+Med theory+Industrial theory for Shields+9bc.

And why go for Shields then...we only did this to enable the NanoMetalComposition deal (production boost) with Carinoids during the same turn.
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::slams head against desk::

I keep forgetting that I can trade away influence points!

::SLAM SLAM SLAM::

Yet another question, takes awhile for them to percolate up through my thick skull. I've seen the term CultMax thrown around alot but how do I determine I've reached Cultural max?
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I think he's referring to the tech Cultural Maximizing and the associated starbase modules.

jn64, would you mind providing your racial picks and politcal party and how you had your sliders in the beginning. Did you do 100% military till all colonized then 100% research. What I've been doing lately in the beginning is doing 100% military till the ship has 0 time left, then I nudge up the research bar until just before it goes to one. That way at least I get some research done while the ship is being finished.

I know I'm getting into the way of a very good discussion here. But Robert, have I asked you before regarding joining the Fellowship?

We would love to have another aspiring Masochist in our team.

Robert, I did that for a while too (getting research done while building the colony ship). I think it's probably the best thing to do at the beginning of the game. I don't have the patience for it these days though.

Yes I was. Based on that game, I also drew the premature conclusion that in Maso games CultMax is absolutely required for any flips to happen. But...wait a minute!! Going Pacifist and picking Maximum Influence points, perhaps selecting Abundant (?) too, and I think you would actually have great chances for cultural snow balling much earlier. Especially if happy expoiting the planet cheese. Maybe going Scattered too and you would have a more even and vulnerable set of target planets out there. Not 100% sure of that one though because you will probably have harder time colonizing your own planets too (further to travel).

This is definitely worth another experiment. Note you get 60% influence to start with. Yes, some of your other abilities will be compromised, but a good concerted effort should pay that back. It also seems that if your cultural takeover is not hostile (your starbases are working from adjacent sectors?) then you get the planet in good form and not scorched.

Any takers? I have a feeling there is perhaps a much faster way to cultural victory here. Just note it will be marked military conquest because of the year 90 minimum requirement for cultural conquests.
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