Hi,
I used to play this game long ago and tryed it again last few weeks, trying out different settings. It turns out I like the quick action of smaller galaxy above the long attrition game at larger maps. Ive been slowly moving up my difficulty settings and yesterday won my first attempt at obscene difficulty. This game was incredible challenging and fun. I considered doing few more obscene games but trying suicidal is very tempting.
I was wondering if anyone would be interested if I would keep a technical log of my game here with explanations why I make various decisions. I expect both to maybe give some usefull tips, as receive usefull tips of the community about what I do wrong.
The game setting will be:
tiny map9x ultimate random opponentsnormal tech rateno tech tradingno surrendersall other settings randomI will play Altarians, technologists, creativity, 30 economics, 20 research, 10 morale.all factories strategie.
Especially early game I will make a turn by turn explanation of my actions, offcourse with screenshots.
I'm always interested in how others play. Count me in.
It will be way over my head, but I may learn something. Go for it.
Ok. Let's do it. In the meantime I discovered how to make screenshots, by searching this forums. I will very likely spend way more time writing here as actual playing.
Pregame: Settings and explanation of settings.
So some small information about why I take these settings, while going all factories. With an all factories game, the main weakness is slow research, however, focused research does get amplified by any research bonuses, this is why I go with maximum research bonus for a total of 65%, this makes sure that my research throughout the whole game will be on par with the other civilizations. I also take creativity, which I think is pretty overpowered in ToA, for an extra research bonus. Creativity can proc as long as you have at minimum 1 research point going on. The economic and morale bonus are pretty standard.
The combination of +1 sensors and +1 speed makes more then up for missing stellar cartography.
The big disadvantage of altarian is the logistics, it is the only race with only 5 logistics. 8 with basic logistics and 14 with enhanced logistics. This is really a disadvantage with small and medium sized hulls.
Gameplan:
Early game I make use of my 65% research bonus going for 100% research and taking all the techs that benefit my industry and economy. From experience I know I need about 800-1500 bc in my pocket leftover after colonizing to stay positive until my economy starts to be selfsustaining. At this point I switch to 100% social production, with a little research, trying to proc creativity at xeno ethics, while building up my industry.
A bit later, the early wars start and I am happy if an evil race starts right next to me and declares war to me. This way I can perfectly make use of the altarian superability. The good races will destroy my neighbor and I will take its planets. If this succeeds I’m positive to finish the game successfully.
Some more info about all factories:
Like I said, all research bonuses are calculated in after focus making technological capital and research coordination centre excellent buildings. However some (I have to find out which), manufacturing bonuses apply before focus, like the manufacturing capital.
For example, a planet with 100 base production, a manufacturing capital and technological capital and no further bonuses would produce 200 industry points, then after focus it becomes 150 industry points and 45 research points, and then because of the technological capital it becomes 150 industry and 90 research points. (I’m not sure focus transfers 25% production and gives 10% penalty, the calculation is just an example)
So the strategy is to make one big industry capital with both the manufacturing and technological capital. Altaria is an excellent planet for this, mainly because of the asteroids next to it, but it is possible to find even better colonies to use for it. Another reason to want one big industry capital with the altarian is the doomsdaygenerator. Wisp will generally be used to make tradegoods and some research, while other colonies will mainly be used to produce income.
If I fail to colonize any planets besides wisp, I will have to greatly adapt my strategy, making altaria a mixed industry/economy capital or going for some early invasion, or maybe setup a lot of tradelines as economic drive. I don’t think I will be successful if this happens.
Focus transfers 25% from the other areas, and then applies a 25% penalty. For example, if you have a base production of 100 and use focus on research, you will produce 75 industrial points and 18 research points.Bonuses from buildings (Tech/Manu Capital, Power Plants, Research Coordinator) are applied first and will get transferred when using focus. Using the previous example, and adding the Manu Capital and a Quantum Power Plant, you will produce 163 ip. Using the focus, this will change to 122 ip and 30 rp.Other bonuses (racial abilities, rings/moons, starbases, events) are applied last and don't get transferred when using focus. If the example planet also had the Tech Capital, and you have a +10% bonus to your Research ability, the amount of research produced would be 66 rp ((30*2)*1.1).One last important thing regarding the calculation is, that the game rounds down in most cases (17.99 = 17).
While looking at the screenshot of the Galaxy Setup, I noticed that you are missing some options (Disable Tech Brokering, Number of Extreme Planets, and Likelihood of Random Events). Please make sure that you are using the latest version (2.04).
Cool, thanks for the clear explanation, I couldn’t find this exact info anywhere at the forums. I had no idea about my game not being up to date. Ill check it out.
Time to start my first suicidal game
Chapter 1: Colonisation, early tech developement and the race for good food!
1 jan 2227
Turn 1 is in my opinion the most important and fun of a game, the decisions in this turn, make how the game will work out, in this screenshot I orbited all my ships and entered and exited my surveyship at each site of altaria to scout for resources and anomalies, I read that tip in these forums.
This looks like a great start! Altaria doesn’t have any usefull tiles, but the solar system south of me has 1 habitable planet (you can see this info by clicking at a star), I could try to scout the solar system next to the drengin with my colonyship, but it is likely that I will be to late anyhow, and I don’t feel like making such risky play, since I already have 1 colony south of me. I decide not to change my miner into a colonyship, but just start mining. I will rushbuy the cheapest form of colony ship in 1st turn to take wisp before arcean get it and cheapest form of constructor in 2nd turn for the resource. There are a lot of anomalies it seems, so I can expect some extra cash from these. Especially since I don’t really have any scouting to do, so I can immediately start with surveying.
The ethic balance seems pretty good. There are 3 evil races, 4 neutral races and 2 good races (torian and drath) The evil drengin are surrounded by good races, and I feel very hopefull at destroying them early game. Also the Arcean might be an easy target if the korath decide to attack them, which is more likely as that they will attack yor.
My neighbours Drengin and Arcean are both low influence races, so that is nice, I will be able to get quit nice funding from tourism. Obviously my 3rd neighbour (Krynn) are a very high influence species. If they catch some planet at the solar system between the drengin and them, then their influence might have some serious impact at mine.
The missing races are korx and Iconian. Korx start with the trade tech, so are allways fast with the restaurant of eternity. Now there are no korx present in the universe, I feel confident to try and build this tradegood myself.
I move my colonyship with a long route (to scout as much as possible) to the closest asteroid, survey some anomalies with my surveyship and move my colonyship towards sander 1, which turns out to be have a moon and PQ11! Normally I would start a factory at Altaria, but since Sander has the potential to be a better industry planet with the right tiles and right ethic choices, I decide not to build anything yet at altaria and save up some cash. I allways end my turn at the economy page, setting my taxes and spendings. In this case there goes just enough to research to finish artificial gravity and the rest to social projects, which is nothing , considering I dont have any social projects.
8 jan 2227
Wisp and Sander 1 get colonized. Both have 0 usefull tiles, 0 base influence and also no ethical decisions had to be made. Altaria will be my industry capital, Sander my economy capital and at wisp I will make restaurant of eternity. So I start building social matrix at Sander and a factory at both altarian planets. At Wisp I put focus at social projects to finish my restaurant as fast as I can.
The second technology will be planetary improvements, the only tech for altarean that increases research even more.
My survey ship does incredible good work. He finds 1000 bc, finishes 25% of my current research and discovers a military resource between the drengin and me, where I will send my first constructor. Even though it is likely to fall in the expected war between me and Drengin. The research bonus makes it possible to research planetary improvements in 1 single turn!
With the extra cash, I considered to rushbuy a second constructor for the influence resource, but decide this would be a bad idea. I could build one in the next few turns, but this will delay my research and restaurant of eternity pretty much. Mmm, I have to make my first important decision next turn.
15 jan 2227
The decision is made to go for the military resource. Even though this resource is likely to die in the first war, it will for now expand my influence towards the drengin and so increasing my tourism income (and decreasing theirs). I will now focus the next 2 turns at the 2 techs that increase my social production: Industrial revolution and interstellar construction+xeno engineering (which can be learned together in 1 turn). Also the interstellar construction will allow me to build a cheaper constructor in a small hull. So if I find more cash with my survey (there are a lot of anomalies north of Altaria), I can decide later to buy a cheap constructor, the resource is within 1 turn from altaria, thanks to the altarian speedbonus. In the far corner is an anomaly that could possible give me 25% tech again.
Strangely I can move my tax to 19% this turn, while I needed 18% last turn for 100% approval.
22 jan 2227
Interstellar construction and xeno engineering finished. Since I didn’t know exactly how much research was needed to finish both together, I researched a bit much and some went into space mining 1 tech, which is ok, since I like to take this tech early game around the time my miner finished the initial mines.
The new constructor costs 1056 bc, which is very tempting. However I really don’t want cash to be an issue in my early development and still decide against buying it.
1 and 8 feb 2227
The next techs will be intersteallar warfare and space militarization, for both the military production bonus and the recruit center. I was exactly able to get industrial revolution in 1 turn, so I produce 200 research, while these techs cost 300 together. I decide to put focus at altaria at military production to start building a bit of constructor, so I can instant buy it cheaper as soon as I see an opponent’s constructor come in 2 turn range. Wisp still focuses social production and sander nothing.
15 feb 2227
Except for space militarization, all cheap techs with industrial bonuses are researched now. I would also like the moral and economy buffing techs like temples and xeno economics, but it is time to work my way towards trade, so I can start building my restaurant as soon as the xeno factory at wisp is finished.
22 feb 2227
The surveyship finds a civilization anomaly next to Arcea and finishes planetary invasion by 25%!
After this anomaly I head back to the civilization anomaly in the far corner. Since the communication and translater techs are cheap, I’m making good progress at my social projects and constructor.
1 mar 2227
Both the xeno factory at wisp and trade will be finished in 2 weeks, what a perfect timing! Building the factory went fast when I could put some money towards social projects thanks to the help of the asteroid. There are still no foreign constructors sighted and Altaria keeps happily building at our constructor.
15 Mar 2227
Breaking news:
Trade Tech finished and factory finished, as you can see the constructor is almost halfway, and can be bought for around 600 bc now. A Yor collective flagship is trying to beat me to the likely last anomaly of the map, but will beat the dust vs my 5 speed flagship. All races still have neutral stance towards me and are to busy to risk war.
So far so good!
Wow, thanks for that huge reply and the cool morale calculation. And you exactly answered a question I had. I was wondering if creativity was capped at 25 or if researching creative good is usefull.
I can unlock 3 tiles at Wisp with soil enhancement.
I did exact as you suggested and went for xeno ethics, more about that here in chapter 2, which I was just about to post if imageshack wouldnt have been down for maintenance, so I cant upload my screenies.
Meanwhile another question about dark energy lab: I think the ship quality bonus from it is global, but the production and economy bonus is local to the planet. Is this true?
In other words, at galactopedia:
-increment> planet bonus-ability>global bonus
?
Chapter 2: The race for good food (part2), finishing the tech rush, the hope for creativity and our first combat ship!
15 Mar 2227 (part 2)
We started building restaurant of eternity. And now it is time to start focusing heavily at social production instead of research. However before doing so I decide to research 3 more techs: Space weapons (for the military production bonus), Temples (morale bonus) and Xeno Mysticism (prereq of xeno ethics, which I would like to proc with creativity during the focus at social production). I will start with this last Tech, so the anomaly that possibly is a 25% tech increase can trigger at xeno ethics.
22 Mar 2227
Social matrix finished at Sander, next will be recruiting center before I start building the economy capital. I switch from plan again and take planetary invasion instead of xeno ethics for picking up the anomaly, since that research is more expensive, and what is the point of getting 25% research from a research that you plan to proc with creativity? The anomaly indeed gave 25% tech improvement, so PI is finished by 50% now. Auto survey does not detect any new anomalies so it is time for exploration with my flagship, until I notice the flagships around altaria start moving towards a respawned anomaly, in which case my 5 speed flagship will compete .
1 apr 2227
Drengin Constructor with 4 speed detected at 12 range from the influence resource. In theory I could wait 1 more turn before buying my constructor, but that scares me and I buy it now for 366 bc. Focus at military production is deactivated at altaria. Space weapons is completed.
8 and 15 apr 2227
I know I promised to switch from research to production this turn, but since my miner is finished in 3 weeks, I decide to finish space mining 1 first, which will take 2 weeks. I got 2 options for a new job at the starport: A defender to raise my diplomacy vs all races or a freighter to raise my diplomacy vs 1 race and increase my economy. I opt for the custom made freighter: no engine, 4 basic support modules. And put focus at Altaria at military production again. I also make a big change in my taxes. Instead of keeping Altaria at 100% approval, I will from now on keep Sander at 100% approval. Tax is raised to 36%. I got the single highest population of the universe:
22 apr 2227
Finally focusing Social production! 95% social production, 5% research, still the same focuses. Restaurant of eternity will be finished in 12 weeks like this and Xeno ethics in 678 weeks .
1 may 2227
The drengin got a 3rd planet: Westerfeld 5 (PQ9). They also got an amazing amount of 5 colonyships orbited and the start of 2 economy starbases. Relations are still unchanged. The poor Thalan have serious Influence trouble. Im afraid they failed to colonise a second planet. They likely did send their first colonyship towards mars instead of the extra solar system because of which Terran got both. I dislike fighting vs the Terran a lot since they tend to go deep in the engine techs early so their ships and transporters come from nowhere.
8 may 2227
Since the recruiting centre is finished at Saner and Im not in a hurry to finish economy capital, I put focus at sander towards research now. This means I can put 100% expenses towards social production now, while still being able to proc creativity. Restaurant of Eternity will be finished in 8 weeks and Manufacturing capital in 13. My first freighter in 4 weeks. I find an economy resource owned by the Drath between the Torian and Drengin. This is good news, since it will surely fall during the expected good vs evil war, so I can pick it up if I manage to get some constructor unharmed through the Drengin empire.
15 may 2227
I underestimated the ultimate AI. I really thought I could research soil enhancement and advanced hulls and pick up the xinathium hull plating trade good at wisp after this restaurant, however, the arcean have completed this already at turn 19 of the game , lets hope they dont share it with other races, that would be horrible:
The 2 games I practiced this strategy at obscene difficulty, I had xinathium hull plating myself and this helps a lot. Well, in any case, we must keep an eye at the arcean, because their strength might explode, also their planets became even more interesting targets.
8 july 2227
Some weeks later:
Succesfull! . Wisp can now focus at research and the asteroids will be redirected towards altaria, until the next big project. Still no luck with creativity. It turns out the Terran only have mars as colony. I checked the stats and all races have 2 colonies, except Thalan only has 1 and drengin and me have 3. That is great news and puts me in a very good position, especially since I’m not afraid at all from the drengin.
Arcean, Terran, Torian and Thalan changed their relation to warm, while drengin changed their relation towards cool. The drengin are wary towards Torian and Thalan.
15 july 2227
Economical capital finished and I start building a drathian temple now at a research bonus tile that later will be replaced by shrine of mithrylar. Economically, Im fine. I got 270 bc, make -20 bc each turn and now got 2.4b civilians at Sander. The Terran have a research resource and are also leading in research.
1 aug 2227
The Korath and Drengin build their first warships. Actually I missed them doing this the previous week. Drengin went for missile technology. After my first 2 freighters I opt for making 3 low maintenance defenders as response to these fighters.
8 aug 2227
This week will be remembered as a big day for the Altarian race, lets sum up what happened: -creativity proced and the altarean race will become a good race for now and forever, this opens up many new techs. -Manufactory Capital finished at Altaria, increasing our income and outcome -Drathian temple finished at Sander, the taxes will be raised further -The first defender making use of space weapon technology completed
With 260 bc leftover, this is also the first day we make a positive income, thanks to the bonuses from Xeno ethics. At the minimap you see 1 freigther heading for Thalan and 1 for drath. I read in this forum they make more money from high population planets which is new to me, so the drath ship will go to its capital instead of the slightly further colony.
There are lots and lots of techs I would like to research now, but first I need to make sure to have new social projects for wisp and sander. For wisp, I need soil enhancement, for sander I need either xeno economics, xeno farms or shrine of mitrhilar. I go for soil enhancement, since I can also do this at Sander. At altaria I will build a temple before I continue building factories, since despite this glorious week, the morale at altaria is dropped hard due to tax raises and population.
Ye I could bribe the drengin, but I dont think that is needed. First of all it is mroe likely they will declare war to torian or drath then towards me, and if they declare war to me then torian and drath declare war to them. Drengin are going to land either in a 1vs 3 or 1 vs 2 war anyway, which I should be able to profit from. So im not going to "waste" bc at bribing them.
Im playing all factories strategy, that is why I put the shrine at research tile, in case I casually put some into research to prevent overspending in military and social, or to get just that little extra research needed.
I thought about how to locate my shrines and concluded shrine of tandis+political capital at altaris (which also greatly benefits from the influence bonus at both improvements) and shrine of mithrilar + 2 xeno farms at sander.
But I hope that by the time Im about to replace temple of drath by political capital, I own Drengi and will place the political capital at drengi.
Chapter 3: Building some infrastructure, the first galactic war and preparing for our own wars.
15 aug 2227It took some time to get through the York influence zone, but the flagship arrived at korath, they are also using missiles, like the drengin. Since 8 aug I switched the research slider to 0 and have focus at research at each planet now, playing with the military and social bar to exactly complete either a ship or social project. I will likely run my sliders like this for the rest of the game.
8 sept 22273 defenders and soil enhancement finished. Now all my 3 planets are working on social projects again, Im slowly losing bc with 39% tax (still 100% approval at sander). Im researching shrine of mythraldir now and after that I will pump up the taxes to likely 49%. I switch the asteroids back to wisp to finish harmony crystals asap. It will take 9 weeks. Research is very slow now, because of focusing social project at Wisp for harmony crystals and focusing military projects at Altaria for the freighters which I want to have finished asap.
22 sep 2227Ok, remember I putted 4 support modules at my custom freighter? This is the result:
I decide to upgrade a 5th basic support for 54 bc since I don’t want to help the Terran with extra cash and don’t want to research basic life support. Wow upgrading takes 5 weeks this far away from home, I thought it was capped at 2 weeks .
1 okt 2227Wow im lucky with these creativity procs :
Awesome timing again, exactly at the turn that soil enhancement was finished at Sander. According to the quarterly report I am the 3 most powerfull civ behind Drengin and Korath, I guess it is because of our MMR’s. I have a technological rating of 25. The Torian have starting building constructors with missile weapons attached to them.
8 nov 2227 All 4 freighters are competed now. 1 to Thalan, 1 to Torian and 2 to Drath. Focus at Altaria goes back to research. So I stopped producing any ships for now. I also take a break in researching creative good, I was just hoping to proc creativity at it and start researchin xeno research and advanced computing so I can start my technological capital. Somewhere in december.
22 nov 2227 Harmony crystals finished:
I can raise taxes to 59% now and still have pretty nice morale. I also get a not so usefull creativity proc this time at advanced computing, it saves me 1 week.
1 jan 2228 1 year has passed since the start of the game. I just finished my technological capital and the research of shrine of tandis is also completed. 4 tradeline are setup and I got a positive economy. Dreging and korath are still cool towards me, the other races are all from neutral to friendly. I now have the number 1 population. Qua research im pretty serious behind, but Ill make that good soon with my tech capital. The social production at Altaris is almost complete. After that I can start building some starbases before I start making a military power. 3 out of 3 races have chosen missile weapons so far, so I will likely focus at getting the good only missile defense and some lasers or guns.
15 jan 2228 After finishing the temple it is time for a screenie of altaris:
This is with 58% military production and 42% spcial production, so I finish a constructor each turn. The empty tile will be filled with dark energy lab and the recruiting centre replaced by the biomodule, which adds 3 tiles that get filled with 2 factories and doomsdaygenerator. Temple of drath can be replaced by anti spy centre or political capital.
I finished researching xeno farms and started researching sensors so I can build nano recorders soon to enhance my research output further. And the eye of the universe ofcourse. Relation from drengin to Torian changed to hostile. If they get in war now I won’t be able to help yet and the torian will lose badly. It is important that im ready for war by the time drengin get planetary invasion.
22 jan 2228 Arcean also start building military ships with missile weapons. So I absolutely need missile defense since that is the best answer to arcean super warrior ability.
8 feb 2228 Korath demand Sander, Obviously I refuse and both drengin and korath immediately change their stance from cool>hostile, skipping wary. A war declaration from the korath is a scary thought considering the good races are so far away from them and their sporeships can easily take my planets. I will need atleast until 2229 to get ready for war.
15 feb 2228 Meanwhile I finished sensors 3 and finally xeno economics. I’m making 60 bc each turn now and start building some spies. Creative good is next research, will be followed by some techs in the mysticism tree and republic to enhance my diplomacy some since many races reported my low diplomacy. Then it is time to get the needed military techs. Yor also starts ships with missile weapons, and change from neutral to cool.
1 apr 2228 Drengin and Torian both start building troop transports, wow they are fast! I builded 3 economy star bases north of altaria to make the route for sporeships to altaria 1 tile longer.
8 apr 2228 I get hit by 2 spies, luckily I have 3 to nullify them, more shocking news is the fact that the arcean finished a large scale ship with 75 hitpoints:
They changed from warm to neutral to me and are hostile towards the drengin and korath.
1 may 2228 The first war is a fact! Yor declare war to the Torian, my freighters will keep me up to date most of the time if there is any action. The drengin are surprisingly hostile towards the Korath. I lower my spionage spendings and start saving some bc so I could potentially bribe them into a war.
22 may 2228 Arcean feel confident with their battlseship vs no warships at all and declare war to the krynn. As you can see at the minimap, my influence starts to be pretty impressive. I discovered a moral resource owned by the krynn at arcean territory, quickly bring a constructor. I need to research some logistics to be able to make military starbases around my base to slow down incoming attacks.
15 jun 2228 Altaria got somewhat stronger after some improvements and produces a constructor each turn now with 1%, 99%, 0% settings. I’m currently the 3rd civ on technology, only Torian and Terran doing more research, which is pretty impressive with 0 labs at suicidal difficulty .
Drengin and korath are still hostile towards me and Drengin is the number 1 race at many fronts. The Yor changed back to neutral again (thanks to their tradeline), but the arcean now became cool to me, and I’m very scared of them. I also take back not being scared of Drengin . I absolutely need to get mediumhull ships with telephatic defense before the wars become more serious. Since I want to spend as little as possible time at researching weapons, I think I’ll research missile weapon technology and rail guns, then equip my ships with 1 rail gun and put all 3 types of weapon buffs at my military bases, which I have 2, almost 3. Then after this defense ship is completed I’m going to have a new look at the weapon techs, or maybe upgrade some other techs first like my factories.
If anyone is interested in specific screenies or thinks I completely forgot to explain some strategy I'm using or thinks that I write way to much standard boring decisions, then please tell me and I'll try to adapt future chapters to your comments.
Here is a screenie of Wisp:
After the starport is finished, Wisp can take over the function from altaria of building non-combat ships, like constructors, transports, freighters and empty hulls like you suggested. This way Altaria with the future doomsday generator can fully focus at building warships. I will likely soon replace the recruitment centre with eyes of the universe and if things go well and I manage to take over soem planet then I might tech habitat improvement and build aphrodisiac. The altarean dont have the best pop growth techs, so pumping out transports can really hurt the economy aswell, if you only have 3 planets.
For now I keep sander at 12 billion civilians. Xeno farming 2 is not a cheap tech. If I learn xeno farming 2, then I will likely replace 1 farm by an economic structure and stay at 14b population.
You were right that without morale resource, the morale at altaria is going to drop deeply with 59% tax, I think it will become something like 43% once I got 16b civilians, maybe 45% with the spionagecenter. But if I fill up a transport ship every now and then, it will stay around 50% and that combined with the high morale at sander, I dont risk losing to many votes at the senate I think. Wisp might also get in morale problems, if I dont send out to many transports.
Do you think it is better to lower tax to 49% and go for 20b pop cap at sanders?
Chapter 4: Preparing for war and the start of our first war!
22 juni 2228Enhanced logistics finished with the help of creativity, but building an 8th starbase still costs over 500 bc, so I can’t do that at this point of the game. I don’t know exactly from which date we can start trading treaties with eachother, but just in case I learn the diplomatic relations tech just before going for the military techs. Extra diplomacy cant hurt.
1 jul 2228 According to the quarter report I am no longer in the top 7 most powerfull civ’s. The terran finally builded their first warship and are using gun technology. Drath have some military rating, but I cant find any ship. Krynn still has an MMR of 0.
8 jul 2228 In 2 weeks my constructor might witness the first active galactic warfare:
22 jull 2228 The starbase gets destroyed and I pick it up. Thank you arcean! It seems like they do not agree with it and demand me to give away Wisp to them. I refuse and their relationship lowers to wary, mostly because of our low military rating.
8 sep 2228 Out of nowhere the Terran suddenly start complaining about our close borders and they seem to know what we are doing, relation>hostile
I got the techs to add +4 damage to my weapons with my starbases and getting close to completing telepathic defense. Sadly I don’t have the financial support to upgrade my starbases. I might design a small hull ship to build while researching medium hulls, because I really really need some military rating.
1 okt 2228 Proudly I present our first design that is designed to keep Altaria safe:
The krynn also showed off having missile attacks. Thalan and Drath are still unknown, Terran have gun attacks and the rest missile attack. Our starport will be able to produce one of these defenseships each 2 weeks.
8 okt 2228 The terran declare war at the thalan empire, and I noticed the torian taking their war with the yor seriously sending some of their fighters over. Im afraid there is nothing that can be done to save the Thalan. They have been weak all game and never builded any lab to get their research going. Thala is going to make Terran very very strong, not the kind of enemy I would like to have. I am considering to build a transportship with 5 supportmodules to try and take thala myself, but flying such ship over would make the whole galaxy declare war to me I guess and chance of success is very small.
22 nov 2228 All wars except the war between terran and thalan are resolved. The war between arcean and krynn was very good for me. It did not only give me the morale resource, but also did the arcean destroy several influence starbases, located near my corner. My tourism income went from somewhere around 50 to 67. My military rating is now similar to all other races and it is time to focus a bit at my economy and production. I will first research xeno trade centers, so sander can continue slowly building up (there is no factory at sander) and then work my way towards the doomsdaygenerator.
22 dec 2228 Terran declare war to korath and the first anomaly of the game respawns at korath solar system, so my survey ship is going to check it out.
1 jan 2229 We vote that from now on, evil races can only uses a maximuk of 3 trade routes, since the korx are not in the game, not much of a gamechanger:
However, the breaking news tells us a gamechanger:
The arcean declare war to me! That was kinda unexpected. 6 months ago they went from neutral to wary and now they went from wary to war. However it is not a bad timing now I started building military ships.
I just invested about 1500 bc in the military starbase between arcea and me, it will make sure that all my ships have +4 attack and +3 defense and it will lower the enemy ship’s speed by 1. My first priority now is to defend that starbase vs the arcean, which means I need to destroy the battleship, which has 78 hitpoints by now, thanks to gaining experience from destroying Krynn starbases. I have also seen 1 arcean frigate and 1 arcean defender.
If defense is successful, then transportships will follow up, because a capital planet with stellar forge and xynathium hull plating is a very very nice target:
It is a mystery why exactly they started this war with us, maybe the Drath had something to do with it:
Chapter 5: 6 months of war with the Arcean.
1 jan 2229 (part2) A new ship is designed to take out the battleship, it is similar to our primary defender, but has more defense and more hitpoints in order to be able to survive strong attacks. It is also three times more expensive:
8 jan 2229 The arcean frigate with 34 hitpoints is on it’s way to attack my military starbase. However, it only has 1 speed and a fleet of defenders is coming to intercept:
Bit to the south, the arcean flagship gets destroyed by one of my early game defenders:
15 jan 2229 The arcean have a 2nd frigate and a 2nd battleship and launch it to destroy my morale starbase. My defender fleet destroys the 1st frigate, taking 4 damage at one of the defenders. Also an economystarbase is destroyed. The krynn and torian both show up with fleets and this war goes fast. I abandon my plan to research the doomsdaygenerator and continue with planetary invasion. One brave constructor is on a journey to evade the slow battleship and replace the morale starbase that is surely going to fall.
Yor, Korath, Drenging and Terran are all still hostile to me and will attack if I lose ot much military rating, so I return the wounded defender back to wisp.
22 jan 2229 I’m still not able to make treaties. The drenging finally declare war: They choose the drath as prey. As far as I know, the drath do not have any militaristic ships. I really want to help the drath in this fight but don’t know how, I cant fight the arcean and drengin at the same time with my limited amount of ships. The drengin still have higher military rating as I do.
I abandon my research of planetary invasion this time to get life support techs, so my constructor can reach the economy resource that is going to fall:
The Torian are not only sending warships, but also landtroops to Arcea. I better hurry up researching.
1 feb 2229 Just basic life support seemed to be sufficient, so it only costed me 1 week extra. Finally I know at which week the ai is willing to share treaties: 1 feb 2229. None of them have traded yet so I have free choice, however nobody is really willing to trade. I end up giving both my economic and research treatie to the torian in trade for research treatie + 100bc. The torian have had a great tech rating all game, so I think it will help me.
8 feb 2229 The thalan build their first warship. A frigate with laserattack. Even if it would be enough to stop 20 fighters from the Terran, the Yor also decide to declare war to Thalan. Arcean surprisingly avoided my morale resource killing all kind of other starbases around it. 1 battleship sits at 22/55 HP orbited at Hammer and the other one at 78/78 HP and is orbited at arcea.
8 mar 2229 The torian succesfull invade Hammer planet from the arcean. The Yor also declare war to the Arcean. Im still busy building my first troopship. The drengin took 2 ascension crystals. I managed to get the economy resource next to the Drengin.
15 mar 2229 The arcean build another battleship. This one has 33 missileattack while outside orbit, but is lowered to 55 HP due to attacking a torian fleet. I decided to attack and see how it goes. The battleship goes down to 15 hitpoints and I lost 4 defenders and 50% of my military rating. I feel sorry now and I’m afraid other races might declare war next week.
15 apr 2229 The krynn kill the 33 damage battleship and drop the old battleship to 40 hitpoints. Hammer deflects back to arcea, but torian still has troopships around. I builded warships after losing those defenders, so still don’t have troopships. The drath finaly have warships, with gunattack. Drengin got a 3rd ascension crystal.
22 apr 2229 Torian take Hammer again and also send an attackfleet at Arcea. My first troopship is on its way with 2000 troops.
1 may 2229
The drengin start sending troopships to dratha! O I really feel sorry about that situation. The drengin are the only real dangerous AI at the moment, their ships have massive attack. Because of the economy base, I do have the range to do something about it, but first I need to finish the war with arcea.
8 may 2229 The yor declare war to me and again not only the Torian and Drath, but also the Krynn decide to go to war with them. I check out the Krynn, and they are leaning neutral. Strange that they seem to be affected by my superability. Quick view at treaties makes you really consider the power of altarean superability.
Yor has a lot of warships, but I haven’t seen any above 9 attack, so I don’t worry much about this war. I kill the Yor starbases around my base and will ignore the war for now. The drath problems have higher priority for me. Arcea has 12k population left after the first Torian invasion. In have 2k troops ready to invade and 2k is on its way. That should do it.
I am in some financial trouble due to taking 4k population away from Altaria, while I could just have taken them from wisp. Made a mistake here.
22 may 2229 Stellar marines Tech is finished and I start Tir quan training at Wisp. Next week I’ll invade Arcea! Dratha has only 5b population left and it looks good for the Drengi. I don’t have any bc to bribe or ship to do something about it.
1 jun 2229 Galactic event:
This event is absolutely in my disadvantage. Now all AI can send their troopships from anywhere, and on top of that, the -2 speed defense of my military starbases becomes kinda useless. At the time I write this, I haven’t invaded yet. I just putted a spy at the morale boost improvement in case I opt for informatic attack. If I succeed then I hope to get some high end missile weapon tech or large hulls
Beautifull! I am at -700 BC now, but got arcea with 1 single invasion, so I can sand my other troopship to Dratha. I got Stinger 1 Technology.
Arcean are the first race to lose.
Nice job! Only eight more to go.
Great AAR Paljar! Wow, the action is really fast on suicidal/tiny, I want to try this sometime.
And nice job taking out Arcea, hopefully you can get on even footing against the Drengin.
Anyways, very nicely done...looking forward to see how this turns out
Thanks a lot kichijoji!
I havent played any galciv since my last post. I wanted to play several times but the amount of work to write this AAR held me back, and since I game for fun and not for work. I wil stop continueing this AAR, but obviously will tell the final result here once the game is finished.
If you have read the total AAR I wrote down here and then read back the gameplan of post 2, then you see I did exactly according to plan. research>production>war preparation>neighbour declares war and gets destroyed by the good races>I take neighbours capital planet.
All races except drengin are far much weaker as I am now I have 2 capital planets. Soon I will be the strongest of the galaxy. Remember I also controll almost all galactic resources, only missing the research resource. The Ai will soon notice my strength and start the spybombarbment, so the anti spyware will quickly be the next research.
All I have to do now is defend arcea until I have proper weapon technology to fight outside military starbase range and take over all other races without making mistakes. It is likely that half the galaxy will be very close to me making this a pretty easy job, just fighting whoever has lowest relation to me to prevent getting in multiple wars. And each time I picked my target I can make them declare war to me by putting transporters next to their planets, so the good races will continue to help me with my fights, keeping them and my enemy weak.
I did some thinking about the doomsdaygenerator. The smartest reason would be to build it at altaria for many reasons, mostly because this planet is well defended by military starbases and has massive production.
But I decided I am going to build at at Arcea, I allways wanted to have doomsdaygenerator and stellar forge together at 1 and the same planet for completely imbalanced warships and this is my chance. Funny that I finally achieve this "fun" achievement at my first suicidal game.
Short term challenge is likely to take over drath with the transporter+warships that I did send over before drengin takes Drath. Currently it has 4b population and 1 unarmed ship. Also build eye of the universe and aphrodisiac, that will both be of great help finishing this game quickly.
march year 2230
I defeated the yor and drengin, the Terran defeated the Thalan. The Drath suddenly developed into a very strong race thanks to their war profiteering (I didnt take their planet, but instead attacked drengin). I also got a new planet: mercury at the solar system, thanks to my huge influence, so I could outvote everyone at the council. Also I have every single galactic resource now (2x influence, 1x of any other.)
With the stolen missile technology from defeating the drengin, and antispycentre at each planet and aphrodisiac finished, the only question is how fast I can build troop transports to take over the rest of the galaxy. Arcea builds warships, all other planets build troop transports. My economy is huge making about 500 bc each turn, so I can nicely spam informatic attack, so my newly taken planets imediately have a nice amount of population to fill new transports.
Well done. You have saved/dominated the galaxy once again!
Mercury changed into a habitable world? But it's way too close to the sun!
Joking aside, nice work! I was worried a little, when you stopped posting updates.
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