OSG-37 - 1ooming Lizards

[DaveV]

Progress report: the council didn't trigger in 2475 (probably because the Psilons were the only remaining race besides our lizard empire). I'm at least a couple of turns from eliminating them, but should be able to do it within my turn set. I beg the court for a little more time.

[RefSteel]

Progress report: the council didn't trigger in 2475 (probably because the Psilons were the only remaining race besides our lizard empire). I'm at least a couple of turns from eliminating them, but should be able to do it within my turn set. I beg the court for a little more time.

Thanks for the update! I hope they've been some fun turns - they certainly sound eventful! You're correct about the reason there was no High Council meeting: It only meets when (at least two thirds of the galaxy's stars have colonies and) at least three total races remain alive in the galaxy. Cleaning out the whole galaxy during your set would be impressive - a testament to your play and to the powerful empire the whole team has built up over the course of the game! I'll look forward to reading your report when it's ready!

[DaveV]

Cleaning out the whole galaxy during your set would be impressive - a testament to your play and to the powerful empire the whole team has built up over the course of the game!

Much more the latter than the former. These turns were played pretty sloppily, but our tech advantage was so overwhelming that it didn't matter.

On opening the save, it was clear that this game was very much over.



As I think haphazard said earlier, once the human player gains a lead in total power, and especially in technology, a win is pretty much a foregone conclusion. We are roughly double the total power of any other race, with an enormous lead in planets and population.

Current political status:



We're at war with the bears and birds, at peace with the bugs and brains. We have bomber fleets that cleared missile bases from three Alkari worlds. Conveniently enough, I can send those fleets to the remaining three Alkari worlds in a single turn. Although Ref was diligent about sending troops to incorporate the aliens' worlds into our empire, I think the game has reached the stage where it's more efficient to bomb the worlds down to zero population (especially since we can't send troops to most of the remaining worlds until we have a fleet in orbit). The exception is the one remaining Bulrathi world, which we have scouted and has no missile bases. I need to chase away the remnants of the Bulrathi fleet, though, and my nearest space superiority ships are two turns away.

I set up the invasion forces, and hit next turn. Alkari missile bases manage to kill a few of our bombers, but are overwhelmed in the end.









The genocide hurts our relations with the bugs and brains, but I don't care. The Omicron fleet can reach the Klackon homeworld next turn, and the other fleets can reach the Psilon worlds in a few turns. So, next turn again.

The space marines arrive at Gienah, the last Bulrathi world:



I guess I should have sent a few more.

Meanwhile, at the Klackon homeworld, their ships just stood around and watched while I dumped all ten racks of bombs, then retreated:



I didn't get a screenshot of the always-amusing "Klackons are destroyed by Klackons" announcement, sorry.

But I did grab this one:



The Psilons are clearly smart enough to see which way the wind is blowing:



I'm sure the logistics could have been managed better against the Psilons, but it was the same story of them picking off a few bombers while we slagged their planets. I destroyed one of their planets in 2474, but didn't grab a screenie. In 2475, I took out their homeworld:



The next domino fell in 2478:



And the last one in 2479:





Good game, team. This set was pretty easy because our bombers were so much better than the AI missile bases, and our space superiority ships were able to clear out the AI chaff ships.

[haphazard1]

Nice work finishing off the galaxy, DaveV! And great work, team!

I am surprised our relations were that good at the start of the final turns, given how powerful we had become. The AI usually really hates you for being stronger than they are. Is there some kind of "fear your strength" diplomatic effect when you get hugely powerful, like there is in Civ IV?

Thanks for a fun game, everyone. I am still a bit iffy on the planetary governors, but 1oom has some very useful features otherwise. I would rate the experiment as 'mostly successful.'

[RefSteel]

Wow, great job finishing it off, DaveV - where by "it," I mean "every non-Sakkra in the galaxy!" I'm surprised the Psilons went down so quickly - you certainly made it sound easy. Did you build a lot more bombers, tech Neutronium bombs and go in with those, or just use our existing fleets? And if the latter, did the Psilons forget to build out their planetary shields like the Bulrathi did, or did I underestimate our 'Phracts?

Regardless, I had a lot of fun playing with you guys again - and with jez9999 for the first time! I hope all of you had a good time with the turns and reports as well!

[DaveV]

Wow, great job finishing it off, DaveV - where by "it," I mean "every non-Sakkra in the galaxy!"  I'm surprised the Psilons went down so quickly - you certainly made it sound easy.  Did you build a lot more bombers, tech Neutronium bombs and go in with those, or just use our existing fleets?  And if the latter, did the Psilons forget to build out their planetary shields like the Bulrathi did, or did I underestimate our 'Phracts?

I built a few more of the Phract bombers, but mostly used the existing ones. The Psilon shielding was pretty tough to penetrate; I could strip off ~4 bases per round with several stacks of hundreds of bombers. On their turn, their missile bases would kill a handful of bombers (I think the scanners reported them as firing Hyper V missiles). If they'd had a bunch more worlds, the attrition would have required large numbers of replacement bombers; as it was, I had enough to finish the job. We lost dozens of bombers, but in the words of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer (and Sinfield?):

Their graves need no flowers;
The tapes have recorded their names.

I'm sure Ref would have had lower losses, but I still haven't mastered missile dodging, despite a literal clinic in this very thread.

[RefSteel]

Oh, wow. Yeah, I had forgotten just how bad the Psilons' missile base tech was apart from their shields. Looking back at my recent spy report, each of our Phract 5.4s would have averaged just 1 point of damage per turn (the 5.3s would averaged about 0.75 and the 5.2s half of that) - but I had thought it would be even less than that, since I thought they had better ECM, and with hundreds of bombers against just duralloy armor, that's plenty.

Their graves need no flowers;
The tapes have recorded their names.

And their brood shall live forever on Gaian, completely terraformed worlds!

I'm sure Ref would have had lower losses, but I still haven't mastered missile dodging, despite a literal clinic in this very thread.

Eh, I still (as also demonstrated earlier in this thread) don't dodge missiles perfectly; one of the things I think doesn't come through very well in video playthroughs or sometimes even in our reports is that - although good tactical play does help incrementally, and can feel really important at the time, this is absolutely a strategy game. A well-conceived strategy might be delayed when executed with "poor" micro - including poor space combat moves - but unless a lot of those details are atrocious, it's still going to win out in the end, whereas perfectly-executed micro will absolutely lose if not in service of a good strategy for the particular situation and the galaxy you're in. It's just that it's easy to identify something being done "right" or "wrong" in the micro, and harder to keep the focus on the way everything being done is supporting your grand strategy. Admittedly, by the end there, the grand strategy was basically, "We have an overwhelming force advantage. Use it to destroy all enemies" - but it got to that point because of the way we played the rest of the game!