Early July GotM Discussion Thread

I had a somewhat difficult time with this one, but I still won and never really felt too much in danger.

I took out the Drengin during the frigate era. Next came the Torians and Yor with Battleships, and much, much later the Arceans and Altarians.

I was aided immensely by the military resources out there. By game's end, my obsolescent Dreadnoughts were taking out Avatars, and my Overloads were practically invincible.

That said, conquest of the Altarians and Arceans was extremely difficult. Terror Stars were banned very early in the game. The Altarians and Arceans were allied, and I found it impossible to get the two Saintly aligned races out of bed with each other; to top it off the Arceans beat me to Tir-Quan training and promptly shared it with the Altarians. My troops routinely faced poor odds. (Say, 20 to 14 in their favor.)

I was only able to break the impasse when I finally withdrew from the UP. (By the way, that's the first time I've EVER needed to do this in GalCiv.)

Two terror stars were promptly online, and my chaotic good civilization went on a xenocide spree, finally ending the game in 2221.

I had a relatively easy win after some good luck at the start. I was able to take out everyone with battleships. Below is the play by play.


Colonization phase:

I set spending to 100% with 80% military and 25% research. Tax rate was set to 50%. There are two other yellow stars in the starting sector. I colonize the closest on turn one. Earth builds colony ships. The new system builds a scout. My survey ship scouts north. When the scout ship is completed I send it south east

I find two good stars in the next sector north and one in the sector to the north west. Here is where I got lucky. You don't know the alignments of the aliens so you don't know which alignment is best. I started getting planet quality bonuses which were too good to resist, so I took the evil path. After the initial colonization I had 2 class 20, 3 class 18, 1 class 17 and a few lower class planets. I had six stars in 3 sectors. I checked my morality and it was 1. Soon it would be zero. I wasn't kidding when I said I played evil.


Meet the aliens:

As it turns out going evil works out well with how the alignment and placement of the aliens is in this game. The first race I meet is the Torians to the south east who are neutral. Next I find the Drengin to the north who I demonic. I can see that they will be boxed in by the Yor and will not be a threat. I can immediately see that they will be the perfect trading partner for the rest of the game. Here's why.

- Our alignments match.
- They only have a few planets and will not be a threat. I'll take them out last.
- There is an empty sector between my planets and theirs so they won't get accidentally absorbed through culture.
- I build all my freighters on Sol IV and send them to the closest Drengin system three sectors north. I'll be building production star bases in these two sectors anyway so it will be easy to add trade modules.

I meet are the Yor on Nov 2179 who are neutral. They are east of the Drengin and are not that powerful.

East of the Yor are the Altarians who I meet in Aug 2180. They hold most of the north east quarter of the map and are the strongest of the aliens. They also hate me since they are saintly.

I meet the first minor race on Nov 2181. I sell them all my techs (7) except diplomacy for 159 for 20 months. This allows me to put spending back to 100 and still have a surplus. I put all my spending into social and am able to get every trade good. I only sell these to the Drengin and other minors. Money is not a problem for the rest of the game.

I meet the Arcean Empire on Dec 2181. They are also saintly and naturally hate me. They hold the south east corner of the map and are the second strongest alien behind the Altarians.


Conquest

The Altarians declare war on me a few times during the Corvette phase, but they're two far away to get to me. I build some corvettes and later frigates to keep my military rating up. After building trade goods I go 100% research and get battleships in a few turns. I set my top four planets to build battleships and get ready to conquer the galaxy.

At this point the my relationship to the Drengin is close. This is not surprising since they have all my trade. The Yor and Torians are neutral towards me. The Altarians and Arcean are hostile.

The Yor are the first to go. They were already at war with the Altarians and are easy pickings. Next I take out the Altarians who are no match for my battleships.

At this point my military rating is more than twice anyone else. I decide to take out the Arcean next. They are also at war with the Torians and fall quickly. What takes the longest is waiting for my combat transports to reach their planets on the other side of the galaxy.

The Torians will go next, but since they've been nice to me the whole game I decide to take them out with culture. I own the sectors all around them and all the influence resources. Soon all their planets convert to me except for two planets all by themselves in the south west corner. I take those out with a couple of battleships.

I have so much influence that the Drengin systems have also started to convert. For some reason their last system takes about year to flip. It finally does on Apr 2194 and I win.

Hey great game Bhazel ... I've learned a few things from you just in reading your message here LOL

I just finished my game also in Jan 2203, not as good as yours unfortuneately (:(

I made a running AAR as I played, will try and condense/summarize it and post it here as well.

My game followed more along the lines of Michaels game, taking out the AI in similar order and with similar tactics....

ImperialGuard,

Did you play evil, good or neutral?

Good summary Bhazel. Very interesting. I wonder if I might've been able to finish a lot earlier if I'd stuck with Battleships? When I saw that the Altarians and Arceans got Dreadnoughts I quickly retooled and researched it myself.

In retrospect, maybe I didn't need to and should've just tried to capture the technology.

I stayed neutral. I did not receive many events in my game, and the ones I did receive were not very useful, couple of BC's, production etc..

Hi guys, I didn't really take notes for my game but generally pushed very hard militarily to win fast.

Took out the Tors with Starfighters early on. Ditto for Dregs except that I left them one planet because of the battleaxe parked there. On hindsight, it is probably better not to kill races off as they could fund my conquest through tech purchases. The Dreg latter surrendered to me.

The Tors had a great time colonising. They also grabbed the 2 planets in the south west corner (i took the PQ16 one above them). They had 10 systems and battleaxes so I had to tech up to frigate to crush them. Left them 3 systems as I was running out of transports and the enemy pops are getting large.

I moved my forces to tackle the Alts while I tech up to battleship. Again took out about 1/2 their planets before securing peace. Another good thing about not killing them is that they get attacked by other races due to their low military and that helps me.

Moved for Arcs which also had about 10 systems. By then my combat transports are there and I took out selective systems. This is because I had in mind culture assimilation to mop up the rest.

I had maxed out 3 influence resources and sure enough the systems start flipping. Hurried up the process by some more invading and completed the conquest ended by Mar 2189.

Very fast! 2189 will be the time to beat, no doubt about it...

Trying to drum up some support in the Fellowship thread for the GOTM, Mike. Let's hope more participate.

BTW, saw that I've got a typo in my AAR. I took out the Yors with SFs not Tors.

@Michael Casey: I've E-Mailed you my AAR, I don't have it here so I can't post it.

I know it's an AAR of a loss but maybe someone's interested in what you have to do to loose this one!

May you please post it?

Ray: Great! It'd be wonderful if this becomes semi-popular on the forum here, and it's likely good for the community as a whole.

AIL: Sure. I'll post it the next time I update the site, when the Late July game is coming out.

And Ray: I wonder what Staffa could do with this map?

Here's the AAR of my game, I wrote this while playinng the game and edited it later.


Jan 2178 - Game Begins : Starting position doesn't look bad

Central West Position with Torian influence to East

Deciding to go evil

Start
100% spending
40% taxing
80/0/20

Survey ship heads north, Colony ship takes multiple colony star system and builds a scout

Couple huge PQ and starship bonuses!

See Dregins in North too.

Jan 2179

Five start systems settled: plan for attack against Torian to West
Trade a few techs.

Building some PQ improvements, only up to soil enhancements for every planet.

Jan 2180

Makes contact with the Altarians, they have nothing but deflectors to give me, and I don't take it.

Finally meet the Alexians, I get deals for about 3000 bc over 15 turns.

Have multiple transports, but Torians have a Battle Axe. Tried to trade for it, but I don't have enough. But my hero is picking up lots of +1 weapons and is strong enough to take it out.

Converting military production to survey ships, a couple constructors.

Jan 2181

Taking a break I look around and realize I need gravity mastering to reach Torians with my Transports.

Go 100% researh for Grav Mastering

Somehow my range increases! WTF. I researched grav mastering anyways.

Interstellar tactics, all my survey ship production gets converted into frigates. 100% military spend and I have a ton.

Constructors out, I take the weapons resource.

Notice 3 planets in the south east corner. I send colony ships over, but not really putting effort into it.

Jan 2182

Frigate takes out Battle Axe on Torian planet, and the war begins.

Two wars with Torian, with two months of peace in between. I blitz through the first time, and leave planets behind for my mop up crew (second war).

Another two constructors, I take the moral and the weapons resources.

Dregins build Grav Accelerators! I trade for it with lots of tech.

Bribing the (next) strongest Altarians to war with the Yor and Arcean. Dregins get dragged in on the side of the Yor.

A bits of cheese here, suing for peace when I realy wanted to continue the war.

Finished colonizing three systems to the south.

Military dominating everyone completely, but seeing money problems with supporting such a large army.

Jan 2183

Torians eliminated to one system, will take care of later. Next target Altarians.

Also converted back to infrastructure construction, need to pump population for war.
Late 2183 switch over to teching to organic pearcings and improved environment.

Four Altarian systems fall, two of the five remaining have huge populations.

Notes dregins aren't really growing population anymore, but Arceans are pumping their pop really fast, I decide to take out a few Arcean transports and start harrassing them.

Arceans have no real military and I just beat up on them, but the war is really pointless since I don't have enough transports to take out a planet.

Jan 2184

Intermittent war with Altarians and Arceans.

Back to military pumping.

Jan 2185

Intermittent war with everyone except for the Yors and Torians.

Take 2 planets from dregins, and declare peace. Sue for a lot of money to power the military machine.

Take 2 planets by diplomacy from the Arceans use these planets to pump out transports.

Population growth is so fast, transport production can't keep up.

Jan 2186

Fast researching molecular medicine. Need that soldiering bonus. Would have been really nice if I had a soldiering pick instead of the military production.

I have around 20 transports on their way to the Yor planets.
One planet takes out six of them! I should have waited until I finished researching MM.

Finished researching MM, I take last Torian planet easily.

Arceans still have a ton of population on two star systems. I unleash mass drivers on one system, and go into the red. I end up saving one transport from being destroyed. One more Archean planet, and I only have two full transports nearby.

I'm running into money trouble and low on full transports, switching to 0% spending and saving up for a couple mass driver attacks.

Sell a whole bunch of tech to the two minors, I finally have a large positive cash flow.

I reach a positive bc balance and purchase a transport immediately. If the attack against the last Archean planet fails, I don't want to be sitting around without anything to attack it with.

Jan 2187

Two planets left. Yor planet falls Jan. Arcean planet falls Feb. Information Warfare population bug evident in the endgame save.


Reflections:

Since beginning of war with Torians in 2182, I was rarely at peace. There were two months in between the two Torian wars. There was four months between the end of Torian wars and the attack on Altarians. I was either at war with Arceans or Altarians, and before I finished with Arceans, I was at war with the Dregins. Total peace time in 2184 and 2185 was less than 3 months. Before the attack against the Yors, I spent about 3 months in peace. Add it all up and in the 60 or so turns between the start and finish of military activity, I had at most 12 months of peace.

Needless to say, I was not making freighter routes at all.
[Message Edited]

Left out quite a lot of detail: from my graphs, it looks like:

2184
Acquired 1 Altarian planet through diplo.
Take 2 Altarian planets, 1 Arcean.

Early 2185
Take 1 Altarian planet

Late 2185
Take last two dregin planets, last Altarian planet, and 1 Arcean planet.

Late 2186
5 Yor planets left, 3 Arcean planets.
Take 3 Yor planets and 1 Arcean planet easily.

Others required mass drivers/information warfare.

And some other things I didn't explain completely:
All wars were fought entirely with frigates with CV and SF support. Several fortune sensor drones were extremely helpful.
I enlisted both minor races in my war against the Arceans.
[Message Edited]

Nice, detailed report Gengsta.

I don't think anyone's going to beat your score.

Good Morning!
I finished my game in Nov 2196, so here´s my story:

I was very satisfied with my colonization phase. Nice PQ bonuses forced me to the evil path soon.
I was able to secure all systems around and above Sol, so the Drengins were caught in the upper left corner beween the Yor and my empire with nowhere to go. Their only purpose till extermination was to be my trade buddies with three maxed out trade starbases along the routes.
I also grabbed the two stars in the lower left corner just before the Torians arrived. All resources in the vicinity of my systems were in my possession as well.

Around 2183, the Altarians were the strongest force and declared war after I refused to pay them for a few times. Since they were far away, I did not feel threatened by them.
Unfortunately I made a mistake then: I decided to conquer the Altarians and their Arcean Allies first, which meant I had to drive my frigate fleets all the way through the galaxy to reach their systems - and that did cost a lot of time! I didn´t want to fight my Torian and Yor neighbours at that point, because they have sent a large bunch of freighters to my worlds, and I had not much money at hand.
By 2187, the game was military won! The Altarians had lost half of their worlds to me, the Arceans were weak anyway, and since the alien empires didn´t unite against my mighty battleship/frigate battle groups, I was unstoppable.
The rest of the game was simply a mopping up through the galaxy, which ended in Nov 2196 by taking the last Drengin world in the upper left corner.