Imperium Three - Head of the Class

[Selentine]

This being my sixth full game, and first on Hard, I know I have a lot to learn

That's the spirit. Welcome aboard!
You do the right thing plenty often, won't go into them all.

I choose Hyper V's.

If shielded enemy ships are en route and you're stuck with Nuclear Missiles, it might be worth spending RP on Hyper-V's. One game out of ten or twenty maybe. Whereas Hand Lasers are always good; they're a 5:4 combat advantage. If you send twenty troops and five survive because of the lasers, they've paid for themselves. They're also the fastest route to useful beams. </troop tech evangelism>

I selected Inertial Stabilizer.

If you're Alkari, Stabilizers are almost worth the space. Reducing the enemy to-hit from 30 to 10, or 20 to 5 is useful. Reducing it from 60 to 40 is not very useful if you're reducing your offense by one-third or more. If you're building dedicated small bombers, Stabilizers may be worth the space, though I tend to prefer Anti-Missile Rockets.

I will go back and take Stabilizers later once I have Fusion Drives or something in that block. I think it's usually a mistake to choose them early, including here.

Bases continue to be raised along the border.

I don't believe in building bases when my shield and missile techs are crap. As I said in That Other Forum, bases cost 200-250 in the early game when that's 2-5 years production, and ~150 when I get belligerent when that's 2-5/turn. 200-250 early can pay off a lot more than 150 down the road. And when your shields are so poor you can't stop hit-and-run Hyper-Xers from destroying your bases, there's no point in building them. At least that I see. I didn't build more than 2-3 bases on a planet in Imp3, and I doubt I built ten total the entire game. It takes more mental energy to defend with ships, but ships are more efficient until either you get good shields (Shield 3 at least, higher if anything serious is attacking) or good missiles (Scatter Packs or Stingers) so you can just hit A and relax.

I'm getting a waste reduction from Construction, and I really want that Toxic U Rich, so I go Controlled Toxic and will backtrack for +30.

You lost, frankly, because you didn't have enough voters. Aside from that you were doing very well, particularly considering your limited experience. It's unfortunate that you had to make this decision seconds before learning how many votes the other empires had.

You either need 1/3 of the votes before going to war, or you need to go to war right here to get them. Final War, with Psilons, on Possible, with the start you had might have been winnable--for Zed or another veteran--but I wouldn't recommend it just yet.

Aside from that, with 60% and 2/1, you're losing 30% of each factory's production. With 100% and 5/1, you're losing 20%. 5/1 wins. And it wins so dramatically--you must have close to 2000 factories at this point--that it will pay itself off inside six turns. (400 waste instead of 1000, vs ~3150 BC to get 4730 RP (more to get a good %, less because of interest)). I was gagging until getting 5/1 in 2405 and I would never have passed it up with 3/1 unavailable.

5/1 and 60% are kind of redundant. If you'd anticipated 5/1 on the horizon, Auto Repair might have been a better choice (though with no other reduction tech, 60% first looks correct).

Meklars still won't trade.

They're MEKLARS. Even if you have a trade agreement with you, they will attack you and invade. I'm not big on diplomacy in general (note that you didn't need the relations boost with the Humans and Darloks since it came to no good anyway), but courting favor with the Meklars is a waste of breath.

Fusion, Range 8 and Dissipator available. I Choose Range 8.

Do I sound preachy yet? Fusion drives are very good because they make your transports faster and allow Speed 3 Warships. Dissipators are sick because they can annihilate fleets. A heavy beam, speed 2, a dissipator, and something dumb like a turned-off Nuclear Missile can freeze a stack then advance-shoot-retreat indefinitely. Or, at your own planet, freeze a stack and then done-done-done until timeout. Ships can't retreat once dissipated, though (re: whomever upthread) if you dissipate them with your free swing right before they hyperjump, they will still escape.

Range 8 is totally unimportant if you have Range 6. Just stepping-stone, there's always a planet within 6. If it's colonizing a hostile you're worried about, strap on Reserve Tanks. I would never pay for range above 6 on a medium map.

Energy Pulsars, also in this block, stink because even if you're being plagued by unshielded Titanium smalls, once you build EP ships the computer will scrap the (usually obsolete and expensive to maintain) stacks the EP threatens.

If you can get either Fusion Drives or Warp Dissipators out of this block, don't fall for one of the red herrings.

*2416: Terra +30 comes in, empire set to grow (where appropriate aka not new colonies). Soil next.
*2417: Mass factory building.

Here you need to be breeding. You don't give the vote totals, but I imagine given the size of your empire if you terraformed and then went +3 POP for the next seven turns, you'd be able to block the 2424 vote. If the year was 2407, you'd have time to max out naturally, but you need to rush now.

Oh my gosh, Klackons and Darloks declare war out of the blue. WTF???

Welcome to MoO. Enjoy your stay.

what mistake(s) did I make, or did I just get monumentally unlucky?

Getting depleted and nova'd was moderately unlucky.

I'd say you made several subpar tech choices (where noted, most of them were fine), burned kilogigacredits on trade to suck up to aliens who were going to stab your back anyway, and (having played only five games) did not prepare for such treachery by maxing your population before the vote. How close was it anyway? If you look at the Imp1 reports, a lot of us came close to losing a vote. I think you built up a very good position and if you'd blocked the 2424 vote you'd have whipped anyone stupid enough to declare on you. Practice some with the Meklars and you should succeed in Imp4.

Selentine

[Zed-F]

Whereas Hand Lasers are always good

Agreed. If you don't have Hyper-X in your tree and you need missiles now, you can always go back to Hyper-V after hand lasers with minimal delay.

If you're Alkari, Stabilizers are almost worth the space. Reducing the enemy to-hit from 30 to 10, or 20 to 5 is useful. Reducing it from 60 to 40 is not very useful if you're reducing your offense by one-third or more. If you're building dedicated small bombers, Stabilizers may be worth the space, though I tend to prefer Anti-Missile Rockets.

The main advantage to stabilizers early (e.g. after warp 2 engines) is movement speed for small bombers if you plan a rush attack. This lets you evade enemy missile fire more easily and drop bombs sooner with fewer casualties on the way in. I like it better than anti-missiles for that reason. I don't generally rush that early, so I tend to wait to research it until after I have the main engine that I want to use on my offensive ships (typically Warp3-4.)

I don't believe in building bases when my shield and missile techs are crap.

This one is a matter of personal preference. I don't like to rely overmuch on fleets for defense until I have the tools necessary to build fleets that can react to threats reasonably quickly and with minimal combat losses, and preferably also Improved Space Scanner so I know where to send them. At least if I make a reasonable investment in bases early on, that investment won't become obsolete, and I can be sure to get a couple bases up before I discover planetary shields.

Fusion drives are very good because they make your transports faster and allow Speed 3 Warships.

Absolutely, these are the possibly the best warship drives in the game for small and medium maps, with Ion drives being better on larger maps. You're also correct that it is very rare that you ever need more than range 6 tech. Usually I will pick range 6 as my 2nd propulsion tech if the opportunity presents (though I didn't this time around), which frees me from needing to ever research a range tech again unless I am forced to.

Also good notes on maximizing population before an election. I rarely allow population to grow purely naturally except in the earliest parts of the game; it's just too slow. When I get terraforming tech, I often grow pop first or in conjunction with factories, if I can build pop reasonably quickly; it's marginally less efficient but saves on micromanagement (eco will automatically dump to industry when pop maxed), makes sure that whatever new factories I build are staffed, pads my vote, and gives me more options if I need troops.

[Justus_II]

Originally posted by Brackard@Jun 22 2004, 08:39 PM
One of things I was really curious about this game was the effect of which way everyone settled. So I took a look at all the reports posted so far, and this is what I've got:

Harris: Rigel, yr 9 (redirected), conquest victory 2425
Sinhat: Rigel, yr 6 (wait for scouts), elimination 2657
Zed: Rigel, yr 9 (redirect), conquest 2450
Factoid: Rigel yr 6 (waited), diplo 2475
Maniac: Rigel yr 6 (waited), extermination 2516

Justus: Escalon yr 3, Diplo 2450
Dave: Escalon yr 3, diplo 2425
Patroc: Escalon yr 3, ext 2450
Brackard: Escalon yr 3, diplo 2550

(The type of victory may be off a bit, but it was close)

End result? There doesn't look to be THAT much of a difference between which planet you took first.

Interesting, I was somewhat wondering that myself. But I think the reason is, even those who went south first got Rigel eventually, so long-term, it added to their production base. If it had been a disputable system, where missing it early meant an AI got it, it might have been more significant. Also, as great as it was, the fact there were multiple other rich worlds meant that proportionally, by midgame, we were going to be a powerhouse regardless.

[dathon]

Thanks for taking the time to point out my mistakes. I've since completed two games on Hard, one with the Psilons and one with the Klakons, and landed a victory in each case. Wish I could be playing more often, but my company has decided it is in its best interests to conduct massive layoffs soon :axe: , so I've decided it is in my best interest to be looking for another job. Sirian has promised that Imperium 4 will be an Impossible game... hmmm... maybe I'd better go get somemore practice :blink:

[Brackard]

Wow, I learned something here. I didn't realize you actually 'lost' production researching with ultra-rich. Learned something new. Thanks Zed.

[Brackard]

I'm amazed at how many people were able to grab Rama before the bears took it. I was scrambling for Centauri and Gorra while it looks like you took Rama even after redirecting your colony ship to Rigel? (couldn't quite tell from your report).

I guess I still play entirely too conservatively.

[Erick the Red]

I did redirect the colony ship back to Rigel. I took another look at my turn log, and it looks like I started building additional scouts on turn 1. My reasoning in the opening was that I wanted to send the colony ship coreward, and a scout to the other system within range 3 so I could choose to redirect the colony ship. My second scout was sent to the NE to check if there were planets to contest there.

With a galaxy size of medium, I made it a priority to send additional scouts in the direction of planets that might be contested. This would have been Zhardan, Centauri, Rana, and Gorra. In 2308 my scout met a Bulrathi colony ship at Rana, so it was critical to send a scout there in the first few turns. That would have been the key aggressive move.

I was curious, and compared my expansion with Zed's. I tend to start producing colony ships a little earlier than others, around when my home can produce a ship in 5 turns, instead of waiting for the colony to max out. I also transfered a lot of population to Rigel. Anyway, my notes indicate that Mental and Rigel each produced a colony ship at 2328. 5 turns later Mentar would have produced a second, and Rigel produced colony ships for the other systems. For reference, it looks like Zed started producing ships at Mentar at 2329. I colonized Rana at 2339, while he did at 2345.

I don't think my slightly earlier colonization makes much if any difference though. Had the Bulrathi shown up with a fleet a few turns after I colonized Rana I wouldn't have been able to do anything about it and would have lost the planet. Sending scouts to potential border systems early and parking them there makes a big difference though.

[Factoid]

Hi all, Zed-F,

(Zed-F @ Jun 24 2004, 02:50 AM)

(eco will automatically dump to industry when pop maxed)

Do you mean "dump to research"? I'll go and check since it's easy to check... there are some many things I don't know, how to quote properly is one of them. :rolleyes:

I appreciate all the comments from the experienced people, correcting my misunderstandings and also showing the variety of different ways they handle the same game.

It is clear to me that there was huge variation in the behaviour of the AIs between games, and this had a larger effect on the outcome of MY game than random events, since I played so passively. Meklars and Bulrathis were allied very early on (2314?) and both came looking north (Meklars came to Rana with a colony ship and a fighter in 2320, must have scouted before I got there a scout there in 2308). There was no war in my game until 2444. I should have got out there and bribed races to break alliance and then declare wars on each other.

Going somewhat off topic (but staying with what I don't know), I have posted Moo1: What techs are you guaranteed to get? at CivFanatics, a game where I neither have Controlled Toxic nor Radiated technology available for research. I thought you always got one or the other?

Cheers,
Factoid.

[dathon]

That's the spirit. Welcome aboard!

Thanks for the warm welcome! :D I agree with most of your assessment, being that I made poor tech choices and neglected population growth too much. I don't remember the exact vote, but I do know it was close, like within 3 or less votes. But hey, I'm still learning. I've been playing empire/tactical/logistics based games for awhile, but still finding the ins and outs of this one.

Another note on events, I'm playing a medium, Hard map guiding the Sakkra's, and my largest planet within 12 parsecs (excluding Fieras ) is a Poor 70. So I've got a bunch of mostly small (55-35 native pop) planets, and the games goes and hits me with the industrial disaster event. At Sssla. And several turns after that, the Psilons got the enhanced planet event. At Mentar. And then, just as I assemble a respectable fleet over many turns from all over my empire to go and take Fieras, right as my fleet leaves... I get the Comet event at another world on the other side of my territory I wouldn't be minding these events if it didn't seem like I was being hit so hard at such inapprotune times. I'm beginning to think that the events are a little too random, and too strong, rendering luck a bigger factor than I'd like. Comments?

dathon

[Zed-F]

Eco will dump to industry if you have factories left to build, otherwise it will dump to research. Hence, if you are terraforming a mature world, and are not concerned about pinching pennies, you can dump as much as you want to eco and just let it ride there with no further micromanagement, and the planet will max out quickly with no hassles. Alternatively and slightly more efficiently, you can put some in factories and some in eco. But stopping eco spending after you have terraformed your mature world but before you have remaxed the pop is not efficient, as you are near the edge of the growth curve and it will take a considerable amount of time to regrow the pop, so that if you do max facs they will be sitting idle for some number of turns.

Putting funds only in factories and letting natural growth fill your colony up is only a viable approach for new colonies, not for re-maxing an already mature colony once a new terraforming tech is learned. Even then, if you found a new colony once your core is already mature, it's usually more efficient in the long run to send a large wad of pop from your mature colonies to a new colony and use eco spending to regrow the pop in your core, rather than only sending a small wad of pop and letting the colony grow up from there. By sending a large wad of pop (and transferring cash from reserves) you can stand up the new colony much faster.

Note that you don't need to bribe, as in giving gifts to butter them up. Just ask. If they want something in exchange for the war declaration, they will tell you. I would always give up cash in exchange for a war declaration (another reason to keep a reasonable amount in your reserves.) I would in general not give up a tech that gave a new capability in exchange for a war declaration -- I'd just try again later, or ask the other guy. But, I have been known to make exceptions depending on how urgently I want the war to start. OTOH, I will sometimes give up a tech that improves on an existing capability if it doesn't do so too dramatically (e.g. giving up BC IV when the other guy already has BC III, for instance.)