OSG-28

[Ianus]

This is the first map I rolled using our agreed upon parameters:
Race: Psilon
Difficulty: Impossible
Galaxy Size: Medium
Races: 5
Variants: None

I’ll attach the starting save along with the Turn 20 save below.

Spoiler’d for length.

2300:
And here we go, off to the races!

Our starting neighborhood looks promising with lots of friendly star colors visible.

The only star in range is this one, so I send our colony ship there.

Our scouts depart for the two stars I deem to be most in danger of enemy encroachment.  I will hold off on building more scouts until our colony ship is used up and our production improves.

Here is the galactic map.  And look who we get to share the game with, a veritable  who’s who of MoO powerhouses.  Klackons to rush into a dominant position early, Sakkra to grow massive population numbers and battle for the council, Silicoids to settle every available piece of real estate on the map, Bulrathi to… have lots of picnics and look silly, and Darloks to mess up everyone’s diplomacy.  In truth I don’t have a lot of respect for the Bulrathi unless they are invading my planets looking for new picnic spots, but I’m confident that we can avoid that.  Otherwise this game looks to be decently challenging, particularly looking at the distribution of yellow stars.  Unless someone gets smashed into that corner directly above us all races should have plenty of room to expand.  We shall see how that plays out.
As far as infrastructure builds I toy with the idea of starting trickle research into Range 4 (hopefully) on the first turn, but Mentar can only produce 34RP, and that would slow down our factory construction more than I like, so for now I leave things as they are.  It looks like we could have a nice little core of 4 worlds south of Mentar reachable without increased range anyway, and Hydrogen Fuel Cells are really cheap anyway.

2301:
Nothing major to report.  Pop grows by 2, 2 factories built, ships move 1 parsec each.

2302:
All quiet.  Pop and factories increase by 3 and our colony ship will arrive next turn.  I decide that I can’t wait anymore and dump 42RP into Propulsion.

2303:

This move pays off as Range 4 is the only tech available.  

Well, I guess I can settle for this world if I have to.  As I expected the red and green stars to the south are both 3 parsecs away from Tauri, so I will start building more scouts, along with trickling 3RP into our research.  I should have four or 5 new Scouts next turn to start playing around with.  Mentar is currently at 47 population, and I will hold of on sending transports to Tauri until next turn so that it can reach an even 50 and I can be sure that the population won’t fluctuate as I start sending transports.

2304:

Incedius is a very nice world, and at only 4 parsecs I am already glad that I have started researching increased range.  I also have 4 new Scouts that I fan out to every star in range that isn’t the two directly south of Tauri.  I’ll build one more to check those two out.  Mentar grew to 51 pop, so I send 4 off to Tauri.  Even after our discussion during OSG-27 I find that I don’t understand population growth very well.  I guess that I just can’t get my head around those formulas.

2305:
Three more pop sent to Tauri, and our Propulsion lightbulb is almost 1/3 full already.  Trickle research is awesome!

2306:

Well this will be a nice world in about 100 years when it finishes building factories.  I hope very much that this corner is uninhabited which would allow us to grab the entire eastern edge of the map.  Fingers crossed!  I haven’t seen a single enemy ship yet so I hope that we are alone over here.
Tauri grew a pop point all by itself, and four more are due to arrive next turn.

2307:
Tauri has 8 pop already with more incoming.  I plan to send ~30 total before I let Mentar finish building so I can start my colonization push.  More scouting reports should start coming in next turn, and I hope that we get more good news!  I can see that we will need 4 more Scouts once Range 4 is discovered, and I all start building them in a few turns as our tech bulb fills more.  Mentar still only has 44 factories so I deem factory construction a higher priority for now.

2308:

Wow, these planets!  We are 4 for 4 on habitability so far with more worlds still to discover.  Yay!

2309:
Range 4 is ~3/4 full so I will start building a Scout per turn until I have enough for exploration.  Then we will need more colony ships to expand range further.

2310:

Well they can’t all be winners, but at least that one can’t be poached by the rocks.  And Kulthos is still a really solid planet.  We are going to be building colony ships for a really long time!  The other bit of positive news from this is that I have an extra Scout available, and already in place to explore the blue star directly north of the Obaca asteroid field once our research finishes.  That cuts down on my scout builds by a turn.

And at the halfway point of my turn set here is the galaxy so far.  Looking awfully green around here!
I send three more colonists toward Tauri, and that should do it for Tauri.  Counting those three Tauri has 29 pop either on board or incoming, and with natural pop growth it should be right around 1/3 full in about 3 turns, just where I want it.

2311:

Well I guess I need an extra scout after all…
I always like to check for the Guardian’s 10,000hp just to reassure myself that I am playing on Impossible.

Propulsion research should hit the percentages next turn and all scouts will be in position in 5 turns.  Just about perfect!

2312:

Ok, can we at least make this a BIT of a challenge?  At this rate we won’t need to research ANY planetology tech for a long time.  Range 4 is already at 9%.  I wish that I had kept a running tally of exactly how much RP I actually invested, but I didn’t think of it.  Colony ships are still 12 turns to build, so we have a way to go yet.

2313:
The last population transport arrives at Tauri bringing the population total to 37/95.  I definitely could have sent at least three fewer and been fine which slows down Mentar’s development by a bit, but we are going to need a LOT of transports in the near future for all of these big worlds.

2314: A quiet turn.

2315:

And there it is, hitting at 19% odds.  Wonderful!  Inertial Stabilizer is our only option forward which means that we are going to have to grab all of these worlds at warp 1.  Nuts!

Other good news is that this yellow star which is 7 parsecs from our core does not hold a home world, otherwise we would be in contact right now.  So we should have a really strong claim to most of this edge of the galaxy.  Now lets just hold onto it!  I still haven’t seen a single enemy ship yet.

In terms of research we are still a long way away from devoting ourselves to a strong research effort, so I split research equally between Construction and Planetology and give them both a decent shot of RP.  It isn’t anywhere near what I could give, but I don’t have a lot of spare production to devote to research right now, so I want to trickle enough to get our first tiers finished in a reasonable amount of time.  Thats my thinking anyway.

2316:

I take IIT9 over Reduced Waste 80% simply based on cost (280 vs 800).  It might be worth getting both since we lack Improved Eco.  Since we have no need for Controlled Barren I take IT10.

We also discover the worst planet so far, and even that one will be a good world whenever it finally finishes building its factories.

2317:
Nothing to report this turn.  The only thing that I will say is that Mentar has 68 pop and only 76 factories.  This is the single drawback to all of the extra spending I have been doing, although having to send all of those colonists off to Tauri didn’t help matters either.  Still colony ships are still a 10 turn build, so no colonization yet.

2318:

It looks like someone got a little carried away with a Stellar Converter during the fall of the Orion Empire up in this sector of space.

2319:

Well this is terrible news!  A well established Bear Den right next door.  That puts Incedius under intense pressure!  Looks like laser fighters are the order of the day!

Sadly I can only build 5 at a time at Mentar, but I will start building up a fleet to protect Incedius, and our next emperor can decide how far to take our build-up.  At this rate Tauri might be a better option to build colony ships…
I send the Scout at Toranor up to the Obaca asteroid field for lack of better options.  Best not to poke sleeping bears, at least until we have a bigger stick.

2320:
And so ends the benevolent reign of Ianus the first, first ruler of what will hopefully come to be known as the Psilon Empire.  I took the liberty of rerouting our newly produced Bear Spray fighters over to Incedius.  Of course that can be changed, but there really isn’t anything else to do with them.  Other than that we are still building infrastructure, and our trickle research is trickling along.  I’m ashamed that I didn’t manage to scout every single planet in range, but the last two scouting reports are due next turn.

Important Issues to be address in the near future:
- Obviously colonization is the most pressing issue.  There are a lot Lot LOT of incredible worlds out there either in range or ready to be brought in range once we start colonizing.
- A related issue is the presence of the Bulrathi to our immediate west.  I STILL haven’t seen a single ship in flight or encountered any at a planet, but they are there.  We really need to hold them off at Incedius to keep them out of our eastern margin until we can start our own colonization efforts.  Mentar is currently building laser fighters, but it is still in the middle of its factory construction and can only build 5 per turn.  And obviously every turn spent building fighters is another turn delaying infrastructure.
- Another issue related to colonization is continued scouting.  There are two extra scouts currently sitting on the two asteroid fields up in the northwest, but we don’t have any other scouts available to explore as all we currently have are holding blockade duty at our prospective colony worlds.  When it comes time to begin expanding we will need scouts to go along with our colony ships to continue exploration.

[haphazard1]

Thanks for getting us started, Ianus!

Hmmm, some very tasty looking planets in our region of space. We will certainly be cranking out colony ships for some time to come, and trying to come up with enough population to start filling all these worlds.

Bears nearby, with bugs and rocks out there somewhere. Lizards and shfters too, but I worry less about therm. And with so many habitable worlds already found, I worry less about the rocks claiming everything before we can get to them; we already have enough worlds for a very strong core if we can claim what we can see. We will need to keep the bears in check, hopefully keep them from getting range on our worlds so they can't send transports as easily.

I usually do keep scouts at no planet systems, to maintain blockade and stay informed about who visits. But that is lower priority compared to scouting additional systems and covering our own worlds, of course. And we are very pressed for production right now. Need to get Mentar's infrastructure built up ASAP.

Nice to see Terraforming +10 in our tree, give us a cheap early boost. And not needing a bunch of planetology to settle worlds early makes that even better. I also like IIT9, since we are going to have a lot of factories to build on all these worlds. We probably will want to grab the clean up pretty quickly after.

[haphazard1]

Loaded the save and took a look around. A few thoughts:

- Incedius will be a key planet to control to keep the bears from approaching our core worlds. Fortunately it is a decent planet.
- Gion to the north will open access to Kulthos (northeast) and Firma (poor further north), with Firma opening the way to those two yellows in the northeast. If no one is up there, that could be a great grab for us. (But see below.)
- Wish we had scouted the star southeast of Tauri. At only 3 parsecs away, we do not even need the range tech if it is a useful world. It should be safe enough for now, but we need to get a scout there.
- Yellow star gazing:

Obviously the Bears are at one of those three yellows in the center, most likely the closest one. Figure one in the northwest, one in the southwest or south, and one in the northeast. Last could be south center or in the middle with the bears. So I think it is likely there is someone in the northeast, and we should push northward to Gion promptly once we grab Incedius. If we have to have a border to the north, let whoever it is have the poor Firma as their border wold to defend.

[shallow_thought]

Huh. That's a fun mix of races to share the galaxy with. At least no stinking dirty apes to to steal an early vote. And it doesn't look like  a rock-friendly galaxy. But the lizards would love all those big worlds to fill, bugs are always tricky if they can get off their starting world promptly and at least two of my attempts to move to impossible have died on the claws of nearby bears... time to get those brains pulsing.

[Ianus]

That unscouted star is Orion. Good luck getting a scout into orbit.

[haphazard1]

That unscouted star is Orion. Good luck getting a scout into orbit.

Ah, right. I didn't make the connection from your report, thought that was further west for some reason. So yes, definitely not a threat to be taken by our rivals any time soon.

[RefSteel]

Thanks for starting us up, Ianus! Looks like we're off to a roaring start - hopefully with the kind of roar that's louder than those bears'!

Also, welcome aboard, shallow_thought! I'm definitely in favor of bringing everybody possible aboard; if we find the rotation going too slowly, we can do play in smaller groups next time and/or get another Imperium going!

And haphazard, is that a "got it" I hear? (Or in case that's a no, who wants the next save?)

Note I'm planning to slot myself in at roughly fourth, to spread out our most-experienced Impossible players in the turn order. Playing second should be fun though - there's still work to do before the first colony push, but you'll hopefully have a chance to get our first self-built colships off the ground!

[RefSteel]

And since the question came up in the other thread: Here's a link to our Imperium exploit list. Note that at least one of these are bugs fixed by kyrub's patch: As long as we're playing the patched game, it's safe to use the "wait" button no matter what equipment your ship has.

As for threats: The best rule of thumb for avoiding the semi-exploit is to ask yourself, "What am I threatening to actually do?" and then, "Would the emperor I'm threatening really have reason to be afraid of that?" If you think the answer to the second question is "Yes," and you don't threaten very often, you're within the margin the exploit rules allow. I never use threats myself anymore, but I'm not going to hold the whole team to that, and a game when at least half of us are still getting used to Impossible isn't the time to add more restrictions to ourselves.

FINALLY: If anyone is hesitant to take the save this early, please, please give it a try anyway! If you hit a situation where you don't know what to do, you can always ask for advice here in the thread, and often the best way to learn is to jump right in! Especially if you report in detail on what you did, even clear-cut mistakes can be salvaged while giving you an opportunity to learn from them!

[haphazard1]

Thanks, RefSteel. Definitely hesitant to take the save, but decided after the encouraging words to give it a try anyway. Got it!

[haphazard1]

Looking at our situation, I see several key goals:

- Try to prevent the bears from expanding into our space
- Develop our worlds a bit more, as we are nowhere near full pop and industrialization at Mentar much less our second planet
- Get a colony ship built for more expansion
- Continue trickle research

All of these compete for our very limited production, of course. Well, I think we need to push development for a few turns before we try to build a colony ship. Not maxing pop and factories at Mentar will cost us in terms of our growth curve, but pressure from the bears means we need to grab at least Incedius quickly. So full max will probably have to wait, but we need to build up our homeworld at least a bit. So I stop ship production and go for factories, except for continuing the trickle of research towards IIT9 and Range 4 that Ianus started. Our one group of BearSprays will hopefully be enough to stop minor incursions at Incedius for a little while.

I also do some small pop shuffling back to Mentar from our second planet, since it is in the middle of the growth curve and has few factories yet. Let's try to get Mentar maxed out as quickly as we can, while still working towards our other priorities. So I trickle a couple turns worth of pop growth back to the homeworld.

More scouting reports come in, and our region of space is just amazingly lush and welcoming.

Wow, two more decent-sized habitable worlds. Range is an issue, though, at 7 parsecs for Proteus. Plus:

The bears are already there with a colony ship. They have range from their colony, I guess? Fortunately the colony ship is still unarmed, and retreats from our scout. But that paper-thin blockade will not last long. Do we build some long range fighters and try to hold this system? If the bears grab it, they will almost certainly then also take Paladia.

I stopped here after 5 turns, because I am unsure what to do next and want to discuss with the team. Our current state of development:

Mentar should be at max pop next turn; I slightly misjudged the trickle back from Tauri so a couple pop are being shipped from Mentar to Tauri this turn to avoid losses. Small loss from the unneeded transfers.

Range4 tech is in the single-digit percentages. Mentar would currently need 7 turns to produce a colony ship.

Save is attached.