Scorched Earth - Another Game Report
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Hey folks -
Another game report for y'all. One with a major emphasis on scorched earth battle tactics. Gotta love treating life as meaningless. (At least in a game!)
Someone responded to my last report saying they played a (very!!!) masochistic game with no picks on a medium map. I'm not ready for that sorta challenge, but I did find his talk about the map to be very interesting. I have been playing Gigantic maps. While fun, they lack a lot in the way of tactics. You win by outplaying the enemy on a large scale. Leading a couple of ships away from a system does not a victory make. Not to mention it's impossible to micromanage everything going on battlewise.
So I thought I'd try the other extreme--a tiny map. Not having any idea what games on a tiny map are like I decided to go "easy" by playing on crippling level. I'll go back up to masochistic at some point. Not quite ready for that yet though.
So I played...
- On a tiny map
- Crippling difficulty (computers set to genius)
- Random alignments. I prefer being surprised.
- As the war party (I guessed it would degenerate into a big fight fast)
- With these abilities: +50 weapons, +40(?) defense, +10 soldiering
- Abundant habitable planets. I figured a tiny map would need 'em.
And with that I was ready to begin.
Now tiny maps are only 4x4. The game compensates for this by lowering the research cost of techs as well as slowing down the speed of ships. At least I think it slows down ships--I could just be used to the +2 speed I usually take. My ships certainly seemed to crawl on this map, at least at first.
Sol began with two useful planets on the west side of the board (just below the northwest corner). Earth, a PQ18, and Sol V, a PQ15 or so. There was another habitable world in the sector with a PQ16 or so. I colonized that first (to prevent anyone from grabbing it) and came back later to get the PQ15. To my surprise I got the "evil artifact demands human life" option. I jumped at the chance of playing evil (I like it) and increasing my planet a whopping 43(?)%. Immediately the planet jumped to PQ22. Gotta love it. That went up to PQ24 or 25 when I got the two basic terraforming techs going.
Unfortunately expansion didn't come easily after this. I can't draw you a map, but I can say that I only had one sector next to me with a planet in it. I tried to get it but the Torians grabbed it first. There was one other system in my sector with two PQ14 planets. I colonized one for the hell of it. Figured I'd see if it gave me a chance to increase the PQ. It didn't, and my planet spent the game lagging behind the rest. Oh well.
Having exhausted my initial colonization options I immediately went into research mode. Step 1 was to get myself a universal translator. Step 2 was to go for weapons technologies. The Drengens were two sectors to my south with two systems. I decided to make them my first victims.
I quickly researched up to Corvette technology and the gravity tech necessary for transports. I put most all of my economy into military and quickly pumped out four corvettes and two transports. Actually it was two corvettes at first, but the other two came later. The transport was only able to move at one space per turn (AAARGH!! SLOW!!!) so the 'vettes could catch up easily.
While the task force went at their one space per turn movement towards the Drengen worlds 16 or so spaces away, I turned my energy back to tech and social spending. Being the nerdy liberal that I am that emphasis particularly appealed to me.
I got quite a few techs and began trading them with the computer. That's nice about a small universe - it's easy to research techs fast. Especially when you put 50-60% of your energy into it. Even weapons techs come fast. I focused mostly on +10% weapon techs, although I managed to get battle cruisers pretty fast. I figured enough +10% weapon bonuses along with my racial +50% would equal out the battleship technology the computer would inevitably get to before me.
While the fleet headed south I surveyed the universe. I had pretty well mapped it out by this time. On the board were...
Drengen - southwest corner, awaiting my fleet. I saw they had defenders in their systems. I figured I could take 'em easily with my souped-up corvettes.
Arceans - North/Northwest - They had two systems and were having trouble expanding. They didn't like me for some reason (don't remember their alignment) and I saw their opinion of me falling fast. Perhaps they'd have to be my next victim.
Yor - A single system in the center-east. At least I think it was one. I vaguely remember seeing two once, but when I really looked it was only one. Perhaps they lost one to a minor race. I didn't know they invaded though. The Torians were after the Yor and the Yor were in trouble.
Torians - They were the most advanced race. They had the south and south-center area of the board. They had managed to grab a system with four good planets in it, two of which were really good. As a result they were really expanding fast influence-wise, technologically, and militarily. I figured they'd be my primary oposition.
Altharians (sp?) - Can't remember their racial name--the guys that look like tattooed humans. Anyway, they had a stroke of bad luck early in the game. Besides starting next to two minor races sucking up badly needed systems, A space shark was located near their homeworld. A scout ship of mine happened to be in the neighborhood. I watched it eat the survey ship that had found it and then go on to eat every ship the altharians had guarding their only system. It then went on to attack a nearby starbase (Drengin, I think--they really went starbase crazy early in the game) and get killed.
Minor races:
Alexians - Center-east next to the Altharians (wish I could remember their actual name--I'm totally blanking).
C... Egads, Colonoids? Whatever those things are. You know the race I'm talking about - They started in the center-northeast area. They had two systems. Can't recall if they took one from the Yor or if that was just my imagination.
Back to the battle.
My fleet entered Drengin space. They immediately sent me a nasty note. Their paltry attempt at diplomacy was met with an invasion fleet hitting the smaller of their two systems. It fell quickly and left one of my transports intact.
We went to their other system and attacked. This was a tougher battle. The other system had just a defender in it and it died fast. This had a battleaxe and a defender. We took it out with our four corvettes (one of which was damanged). They managed to kill two corvettes though and damage the other two.
We then attacked. As I said a while back, these were good planets. They had 9.2 billion population. I had 1 billion attackers. No way I could win normally. I attacked with Core... Core... Core-somethings. It lowered down their 2 defense to just 1. Cost me 700 or so credits though along with damage to their PQ and buildings if I win. Well, I won. Barely. We took 'em out at a better than 9:1 ratio. (That's why I picked the core weapon. Figured I'd kill more of them that way).
Actually I hadn't thought I would win. I thought that they'd win and I'd damage the planet. I was wrong on two counts. First, I won. Second, as I learned in a later battle, you only damage the planet if you win. I don't believe and planet or building damage is occurred if the defenders win. Bummer, as that would be a fun tactic long-term.
And so the Terrans dragged Lord Kona in chains before Emporer Aaron Lawrence before his inevitable execution.
The corvettes went back up to the Sol system and we began gathering another fleet. The Arceans' opinion of me had dropped to hostile so war was inevitable.
Meanwhile the Altharians (wish I could remember their name!) finally succumbed to the ravages of the Toreans. It was becoming clear that it was going to be a Torean vs. Terran matchup in time. He was more powerful than me though so I hoped that I could stave off the fight until I was ready for it.
Having assembled a fleet (a battle cruiser, four corvettes, and two transports), we headed for Arcean space. We had picked up a few +speed techs so we were going faster now. Two spaces per turn if I remember.
While they headed up there I looked over the board. Having finished off the Altharians the Toreans were after the Yor. I had more systems with the Toreans but their systems were more developed. And they had a really awesome system in one case. The Yor wouldn't survive long it was clear. I just hoped they'd last for a little while. I tried to get the Toreans to go after one of the minor races but they wouldn't hear of it.
I took the first Arcean planet easily. I didn't have the troops to take the second so I made a peace treaty with them. Figured I'd take it in a few turns when I was ready. That was when they got a random event raising the PQ of their remaining planet to 35. Wowie! That was too good of an opportunity to pass up, so I headed my fleet for it. We attacked and I used core detonators (that's the word! Detonators!). Their defense dropped to one and I proceeded to wipe them off the face of the Earth. Well, not Earth, but you get the idea.
Thus the Arceans were vanquished from the galaxy. No loss. The War Party sheds no tears on such occasions.
The planet was damaged during the battle, but at PQ35 it could afford a loss. I think it dropped to PQ26 or so.
A few turns later the Yor were vanquished. I was hoping to grab their remaining system but I didn't have time. I'd have to settle for the minor races instead.
I spent a few turns researching battleship technology (the Toreans had dreadnaughts by now) and dispatched a small fleet to take out the Alexian planet. I figured I'd need as many planets as I could to take on the Toreans. I got close only to have the planet flip to the Toreans from culture. I was surprised--I didn't relize minor races ever flipped. It did though, and thus the Alexians became part of the Torean empire.
Suddenly I received a message from the Toreans saying they were going to eradicate me from the game. They certainly had the ability to do it--higher influence, greater population, larger economy, bigger military, better technology, and more tech spending. A good way to begin a war on their account.
We made changes. I shut down research production, set social to 15%, and put military at 85%. We turned all of our production to combat transports and battleships, with the exception of two planets to crank out constructors. We had a military resource near the Drengen planets and I wanted to add some defense to it. I succeded in getting +7 more defense on it before the Torean dreadnaughts showed up.
They failed to realize they were up against the War Party though. A quick glance at their systems revealed their biggest colony (the one with four planets) was also the closest to my home world. So I quickly built a troop transport, grabbed my only battleship and a few corvettes to serve as an escort, and sent it towards their system. I figured we'd attack and see if we could damage the worlds. (Not knowing yet that you don't damage a world unless you win).
We arrived in short order and went to battle. They were bringing their fleet up, but it was on the far side of the planet by a few spaces. I had time to attack.
And what an attack it was--we won! We used mass drivers in an attempt to do as much damage the planets as possible. It worked--they went down to PQ15 and 16 (perfect for my purposes). I was amazed that we won the combat though. 5 billion of our guys took on some 26-28 billion of theirs. Pretty good for not having any of the +soldier techs.
Having started the first battles of our war by taking their chief planets, I knew the war was going to go well for me. It would be bloody, but I figured I could win. The key was to cripple their economy and keep the war on their fronts.
I'd need money to do that. I sold several techs to the minor races along with diplomatic translators. I received about 2000 credits for it - enough for two mass driver attacks. If the attacks succeeded though then I may not need to do any more.
I had a random event about now giving me the chance to make money selling the "delicacy" that comes from the sores of plague victims. I needed the cash of 300-something credits so I chose the evil path. This switched me over to evil. Oh well!
Now my little fleet that was going after the Alexian homeworld had turned around to go home. They turned back around again and went back to it (now a Torean system). We took out the two battleaxe defenders with our corvettes and battle cruiser and proceeded to attack. There was a combat transport of theirs just a space away from the planet so I knew we wouldn't be able to hold anything I took. So we used mass drivers in an attempt to make the system unliveable. It worked--PQ's of the two planets went down to 10 and 13 respectively. Their transport moved away next time leaving me more than 4 billion unhappy people on two planets.
Now I was evil in this game but not heartless. I wouldn't dream of letting my people suffer. Especially since they would drag down the overall approval rating of my empire with it. I didn't need the system for strategic purposes and it wasn't going to be producing very much with 1% morale. So I destroyed the colony to put them out of their misery.
(I'm thinking of running for governor of California, incidentially. Wait until you see my plan for disaster relief after earthquakes! Guaranteed it'll take care of the survivor problem. Also works great for those pesky forest fires.)
The Toreans were not amused by losing two systems and struck back harshly. Their dreadnaughts showed up in virtually all of my systems. They hit my planets and wiped out most of the battleaxes defending it. They found the starbase on the military resource and destroyed it. Dang!
They did take a few casualities though. Not of their dreadnaughts--those were too tough. But they had a few death knights wandering around. And from time to time a combat transport. We were able to take out the latter types of ships. They had a few frigates that fell easily too. Our +50% hit points, +50% weapons, and +40% defense were clearly coming in handy. Not enough to prevent our ships from dying, but enough to take them with us on occasion.
They couldn't be everywhere at once though. Our build was continuing on unabated. Whenever I had a couple of battleships and a combat transport I'd put them in a fleet and head them to their planets by whatever route I thought would avoid the dreadnaughts. I pulled out whatever surviving battleaxes I had to join them. Smart move, too. Often we'd get caught halfway to their system and the battleships would die while the battleaxes and the combat transports continued on. Sometimes they caught up with that too, but not often enough.
The Toreans had three systems left. Their homeworld (south side), the Yor homeworld (center-right), and the Altharian homeworld (right).
We hit the Yor homeworld first. We came in guns blazing and took the system. I didn't even bother using mass drivers. I figured if I saw any combat transports coming I'd destroy the colonies first. I had to do that a few turns later. Wham! Four billion or so of my colonists destroyed. But they didn't take the system back.
Then we hit their homeworld. We yanked out the mass drivers and soon we were planting our flag in the rubble that was their planet. Lowered it to a PQ15 but we took it in spite of their superior numbers (and dreadnaughts hot on the tails of my attack fleet--they caught my escort ships two turns later and massacred them).
It was just mopping up at that point. I asked the C-whatever race (can't remember their name. I keep wanting to say Carboidas but I know that's not it) to join in the war. They did gleefully. (Now they join! I'd been asking them for years and they had refused. sigh...)
They had nothing that could take on a dreadnaught but they did have a ton of battleaxes, corvettes, and the like. Enough of those and they can even drag down bigger ships. And if nothing else, they give the enemy more targets to go after instead of responding to my fleets.
A few turns later it was all over. We took the Yor homeworld and finally the Altharian homeworld.
And it was over. For the first time I ever I won by military victory. It was on crippling victory so it wasn't truly an amazing accomplishment, but it was my first game on a tiny map. It was VERY different than a huge map and I had a lot of fun playing it. I highly encourage you to play on a tiny map if you want a very different game.
--Aaron
PS, Got 9000+ points for this victory. Bumped me up to 387th place.
Another game report for y'all. One with a major emphasis on scorched earth battle tactics. Gotta love treating life as meaningless. (At least in a game!)
Someone responded to my last report saying they played a (very!!!) masochistic game with no picks on a medium map. I'm not ready for that sorta challenge, but I did find his talk about the map to be very interesting. I have been playing Gigantic maps. While fun, they lack a lot in the way of tactics. You win by outplaying the enemy on a large scale. Leading a couple of ships away from a system does not a victory make. Not to mention it's impossible to micromanage everything going on battlewise.
So I thought I'd try the other extreme--a tiny map. Not having any idea what games on a tiny map are like I decided to go "easy" by playing on crippling level. I'll go back up to masochistic at some point. Not quite ready for that yet though.
So I played...
- On a tiny map
- Crippling difficulty (computers set to genius)
- Random alignments. I prefer being surprised.
- As the war party (I guessed it would degenerate into a big fight fast)
- With these abilities: +50 weapons, +40(?) defense, +10 soldiering
- Abundant habitable planets. I figured a tiny map would need 'em.
And with that I was ready to begin.
Now tiny maps are only 4x4. The game compensates for this by lowering the research cost of techs as well as slowing down the speed of ships. At least I think it slows down ships--I could just be used to the +2 speed I usually take. My ships certainly seemed to crawl on this map, at least at first.
Sol began with two useful planets on the west side of the board (just below the northwest corner). Earth, a PQ18, and Sol V, a PQ15 or so. There was another habitable world in the sector with a PQ16 or so. I colonized that first (to prevent anyone from grabbing it) and came back later to get the PQ15. To my surprise I got the "evil artifact demands human life" option. I jumped at the chance of playing evil (I like it) and increasing my planet a whopping 43(?)%. Immediately the planet jumped to PQ22. Gotta love it. That went up to PQ24 or 25 when I got the two basic terraforming techs going.
Unfortunately expansion didn't come easily after this. I can't draw you a map, but I can say that I only had one sector next to me with a planet in it. I tried to get it but the Torians grabbed it first. There was one other system in my sector with two PQ14 planets. I colonized one for the hell of it. Figured I'd see if it gave me a chance to increase the PQ. It didn't, and my planet spent the game lagging behind the rest. Oh well.
Having exhausted my initial colonization options I immediately went into research mode. Step 1 was to get myself a universal translator. Step 2 was to go for weapons technologies. The Drengens were two sectors to my south with two systems. I decided to make them my first victims.
I quickly researched up to Corvette technology and the gravity tech necessary for transports. I put most all of my economy into military and quickly pumped out four corvettes and two transports. Actually it was two corvettes at first, but the other two came later. The transport was only able to move at one space per turn (AAARGH!! SLOW!!!) so the 'vettes could catch up easily.
While the task force went at their one space per turn movement towards the Drengen worlds 16 or so spaces away, I turned my energy back to tech and social spending. Being the nerdy liberal that I am that emphasis particularly appealed to me.
I got quite a few techs and began trading them with the computer. That's nice about a small universe - it's easy to research techs fast. Especially when you put 50-60% of your energy into it. Even weapons techs come fast. I focused mostly on +10% weapon techs, although I managed to get battle cruisers pretty fast. I figured enough +10% weapon bonuses along with my racial +50% would equal out the battleship technology the computer would inevitably get to before me.
While the fleet headed south I surveyed the universe. I had pretty well mapped it out by this time. On the board were...
Drengen - southwest corner, awaiting my fleet. I saw they had defenders in their systems. I figured I could take 'em easily with my souped-up corvettes.
Arceans - North/Northwest - They had two systems and were having trouble expanding. They didn't like me for some reason (don't remember their alignment) and I saw their opinion of me falling fast. Perhaps they'd have to be my next victim.
Yor - A single system in the center-east. At least I think it was one. I vaguely remember seeing two once, but when I really looked it was only one. Perhaps they lost one to a minor race. I didn't know they invaded though. The Torians were after the Yor and the Yor were in trouble.
Torians - They were the most advanced race. They had the south and south-center area of the board. They had managed to grab a system with four good planets in it, two of which were really good. As a result they were really expanding fast influence-wise, technologically, and militarily. I figured they'd be my primary oposition.
Altharians (sp?) - Can't remember their racial name--the guys that look like tattooed humans. Anyway, they had a stroke of bad luck early in the game. Besides starting next to two minor races sucking up badly needed systems, A space shark was located near their homeworld. A scout ship of mine happened to be in the neighborhood. I watched it eat the survey ship that had found it and then go on to eat every ship the altharians had guarding their only system. It then went on to attack a nearby starbase (Drengin, I think--they really went starbase crazy early in the game) and get killed.
Minor races:
Alexians - Center-east next to the Altharians (wish I could remember their actual name--I'm totally blanking).
C... Egads, Colonoids? Whatever those things are. You know the race I'm talking about - They started in the center-northeast area. They had two systems. Can't recall if they took one from the Yor or if that was just my imagination.
Back to the battle.
My fleet entered Drengin space. They immediately sent me a nasty note. Their paltry attempt at diplomacy was met with an invasion fleet hitting the smaller of their two systems. It fell quickly and left one of my transports intact.
We went to their other system and attacked. This was a tougher battle. The other system had just a defender in it and it died fast. This had a battleaxe and a defender. We took it out with our four corvettes (one of which was damanged). They managed to kill two corvettes though and damage the other two.
We then attacked. As I said a while back, these were good planets. They had 9.2 billion population. I had 1 billion attackers. No way I could win normally. I attacked with Core... Core... Core-somethings. It lowered down their 2 defense to just 1. Cost me 700 or so credits though along with damage to their PQ and buildings if I win. Well, I won. Barely. We took 'em out at a better than 9:1 ratio. (That's why I picked the core weapon. Figured I'd kill more of them that way).
Actually I hadn't thought I would win. I thought that they'd win and I'd damage the planet. I was wrong on two counts. First, I won. Second, as I learned in a later battle, you only damage the planet if you win. I don't believe and planet or building damage is occurred if the defenders win. Bummer, as that would be a fun tactic long-term.
And so the Terrans dragged Lord Kona in chains before Emporer Aaron Lawrence before his inevitable execution.
The corvettes went back up to the Sol system and we began gathering another fleet. The Arceans' opinion of me had dropped to hostile so war was inevitable.
Meanwhile the Altharians (wish I could remember their name!) finally succumbed to the ravages of the Toreans. It was becoming clear that it was going to be a Torean vs. Terran matchup in time. He was more powerful than me though so I hoped that I could stave off the fight until I was ready for it.
Having assembled a fleet (a battle cruiser, four corvettes, and two transports), we headed for Arcean space. We had picked up a few +speed techs so we were going faster now. Two spaces per turn if I remember.
While they headed up there I looked over the board. Having finished off the Altharians the Toreans were after the Yor. I had more systems with the Toreans but their systems were more developed. And they had a really awesome system in one case. The Yor wouldn't survive long it was clear. I just hoped they'd last for a little while. I tried to get the Toreans to go after one of the minor races but they wouldn't hear of it.
I took the first Arcean planet easily. I didn't have the troops to take the second so I made a peace treaty with them. Figured I'd take it in a few turns when I was ready. That was when they got a random event raising the PQ of their remaining planet to 35. Wowie! That was too good of an opportunity to pass up, so I headed my fleet for it. We attacked and I used core detonators (that's the word! Detonators!). Their defense dropped to one and I proceeded to wipe them off the face of the Earth. Well, not Earth, but you get the idea.
Thus the Arceans were vanquished from the galaxy. No loss. The War Party sheds no tears on such occasions.
The planet was damaged during the battle, but at PQ35 it could afford a loss. I think it dropped to PQ26 or so.
A few turns later the Yor were vanquished. I was hoping to grab their remaining system but I didn't have time. I'd have to settle for the minor races instead.
I spent a few turns researching battleship technology (the Toreans had dreadnaughts by now) and dispatched a small fleet to take out the Alexian planet. I figured I'd need as many planets as I could to take on the Toreans. I got close only to have the planet flip to the Toreans from culture. I was surprised--I didn't relize minor races ever flipped. It did though, and thus the Alexians became part of the Torean empire.
Suddenly I received a message from the Toreans saying they were going to eradicate me from the game. They certainly had the ability to do it--higher influence, greater population, larger economy, bigger military, better technology, and more tech spending. A good way to begin a war on their account.
We made changes. I shut down research production, set social to 15%, and put military at 85%. We turned all of our production to combat transports and battleships, with the exception of two planets to crank out constructors. We had a military resource near the Drengen planets and I wanted to add some defense to it. I succeded in getting +7 more defense on it before the Torean dreadnaughts showed up.
They failed to realize they were up against the War Party though. A quick glance at their systems revealed their biggest colony (the one with four planets) was also the closest to my home world. So I quickly built a troop transport, grabbed my only battleship and a few corvettes to serve as an escort, and sent it towards their system. I figured we'd attack and see if we could damage the worlds. (Not knowing yet that you don't damage a world unless you win).
We arrived in short order and went to battle. They were bringing their fleet up, but it was on the far side of the planet by a few spaces. I had time to attack.
And what an attack it was--we won! We used mass drivers in an attempt to do as much damage the planets as possible. It worked--they went down to PQ15 and 16 (perfect for my purposes). I was amazed that we won the combat though. 5 billion of our guys took on some 26-28 billion of theirs. Pretty good for not having any of the +soldier techs.
Having started the first battles of our war by taking their chief planets, I knew the war was going to go well for me. It would be bloody, but I figured I could win. The key was to cripple their economy and keep the war on their fronts.
I'd need money to do that. I sold several techs to the minor races along with diplomatic translators. I received about 2000 credits for it - enough for two mass driver attacks. If the attacks succeeded though then I may not need to do any more.
I had a random event about now giving me the chance to make money selling the "delicacy" that comes from the sores of plague victims. I needed the cash of 300-something credits so I chose the evil path. This switched me over to evil. Oh well!
Now my little fleet that was going after the Alexian homeworld had turned around to go home. They turned back around again and went back to it (now a Torean system). We took out the two battleaxe defenders with our corvettes and battle cruiser and proceeded to attack. There was a combat transport of theirs just a space away from the planet so I knew we wouldn't be able to hold anything I took. So we used mass drivers in an attempt to make the system unliveable. It worked--PQ's of the two planets went down to 10 and 13 respectively. Their transport moved away next time leaving me more than 4 billion unhappy people on two planets.
Now I was evil in this game but not heartless. I wouldn't dream of letting my people suffer. Especially since they would drag down the overall approval rating of my empire with it. I didn't need the system for strategic purposes and it wasn't going to be producing very much with 1% morale. So I destroyed the colony to put them out of their misery.
(I'm thinking of running for governor of California, incidentially. Wait until you see my plan for disaster relief after earthquakes! Guaranteed it'll take care of the survivor problem. Also works great for those pesky forest fires.)
The Toreans were not amused by losing two systems and struck back harshly. Their dreadnaughts showed up in virtually all of my systems. They hit my planets and wiped out most of the battleaxes defending it. They found the starbase on the military resource and destroyed it. Dang!
They did take a few casualities though. Not of their dreadnaughts--those were too tough. But they had a few death knights wandering around. And from time to time a combat transport. We were able to take out the latter types of ships. They had a few frigates that fell easily too. Our +50% hit points, +50% weapons, and +40% defense were clearly coming in handy. Not enough to prevent our ships from dying, but enough to take them with us on occasion.
They couldn't be everywhere at once though. Our build was continuing on unabated. Whenever I had a couple of battleships and a combat transport I'd put them in a fleet and head them to their planets by whatever route I thought would avoid the dreadnaughts. I pulled out whatever surviving battleaxes I had to join them. Smart move, too. Often we'd get caught halfway to their system and the battleships would die while the battleaxes and the combat transports continued on. Sometimes they caught up with that too, but not often enough.
The Toreans had three systems left. Their homeworld (south side), the Yor homeworld (center-right), and the Altharian homeworld (right).
We hit the Yor homeworld first. We came in guns blazing and took the system. I didn't even bother using mass drivers. I figured if I saw any combat transports coming I'd destroy the colonies first. I had to do that a few turns later. Wham! Four billion or so of my colonists destroyed. But they didn't take the system back.
Then we hit their homeworld. We yanked out the mass drivers and soon we were planting our flag in the rubble that was their planet. Lowered it to a PQ15 but we took it in spite of their superior numbers (and dreadnaughts hot on the tails of my attack fleet--they caught my escort ships two turns later and massacred them).
It was just mopping up at that point. I asked the C-whatever race (can't remember their name. I keep wanting to say Carboidas but I know that's not it) to join in the war. They did gleefully. (Now they join! I'd been asking them for years and they had refused. sigh...)
They had nothing that could take on a dreadnaught but they did have a ton of battleaxes, corvettes, and the like. Enough of those and they can even drag down bigger ships. And if nothing else, they give the enemy more targets to go after instead of responding to my fleets.
A few turns later it was all over. We took the Yor homeworld and finally the Altharian homeworld.
And it was over. For the first time I ever I won by military victory. It was on crippling victory so it wasn't truly an amazing accomplishment, but it was my first game on a tiny map. It was VERY different than a huge map and I had a lot of fun playing it. I highly encourage you to play on a tiny map if you want a very different game.
--Aaron
PS, Got 9000+ points for this victory. Bumped me up to 387th place.
