Vincible: the sub-15 giveaway turned out to be a two-edged sword. I believe it did help, and in a game where I needed a ton of help, perhaps without that move I wouldn't have won. Yet the sub-15's were much easier for the Torian's enemies to capture, and once one had been captured, others started to fall slowly to flips. Player can destroy his own colonies if they present a dire flip risk. You can't take back one of these giveaways, though. So this move has more risks than rewards, I'd say. There seemed to be more ways for it to go wrong than to go right.
On the other hand, it may also be exploitable that way. Settle an open star the AI's won't touch, near an enemy, and give it away to an ally with stronger influence (especially if they have 2+ influence resources fully mined), and let the flips begin. Ugh. I don't like the smell of that possibility. IMHO, it is flat out a strategic weakness that the AI's ignore PQ14. I never do. I settle all 13's and 14's available to me, and in so doing, always gain an edge. If not for that, I'd be losing a lot more. Then again, it takes some real skill and prioritizing to make those 13's worth anything. The AI follows the capital ship line up the tech tree, and I don't. I prioritize the morale and growth techs in the midgame, which usually leaves my sub-15's worth a lot more than theirs would be, since they are busy building dreads and rangers while I am building teleporters and stadiums. If the AI settled even more worlds, perhaps Maso would be TOO hard and lose some of its luster. Or perhaps the way the AI's play, those sub-15's would only be a curse after all, except on Maso.
kasualkid: I wouldn't say that Maso is "one misstep and it's over". I've made missteps in all of my wins. And some of my wins are wins on replay: losing the game, or ending up in a losing position, and then going back, either to the beginning, or to before I made what turned out to be a strategic mistake, and trying again. The Metaverse guidelines say, "If you think you can do better", try one replay. Half of my Maso wins fall into that category: won on the second try. My first Crippling game was a total military defeat, played out to the last battle and submitted as a loss. But then I tried again, went for a different alignment, made a different set of friends and enemies, and survived, resubmitting a win. This game was one shot, though. And if I had lost, I could have gone back to the point in time where the Altarians were turning evil and I had overlooked it, and instead of pushing my civ from 80 to 100 morality, drop it back down to 60. That would have made a huge difference, and probably let me cruise to research win sooner. In fact, perhaps I should try it and see, as that might raise my score on this submission.
I'll think about it. It was such a grueling game, though, I'm not sure I want to relive any part of it.
It was a wild ride, but I had felt from the beginning that I was on borrowed time and likely to lose, since the initial situation was so bleak. So almost expecting to lose, I had nothing TO lose. I just kept plugging away.
One advantage player has on larger maps is that the ship speeds remain the same, so it takes longer in the earlier phases of the game for an enemy to reach you. That can buy you time to pull some rabbits out of the hat. On smaller maps, there is no such cushion. War means hot war, and right on top of you, rather than phony wars or delayed reactions. Of course, on smaller maps you can almost always get trade ships to most neighbors before the opening grace period of peace runs out. Larger maps not so.
The key for me in winning most of the Maso games I have started has been diplomacy. Allies. If you have capable allies you are in the game. The default setup leaves you the chance to make a few friends no matter which way you slant your alignment. Canned recipes for alignment game plans will only work if the facts on the ground support them. Correctly identifying whom you would be best advantaged to befriend (and thus which direction and degree to tilt your alignment for best advantage on a given map) could be worth as much as 20% to 25% increase in your Maso victory ratio. Of course, some maps/situations are simply Kobaiyashi Maru: the no-win scenario. Nobody is going to win every Maso map they are handed.
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