MottiKhan MottiKhan

Technically Evil

Technically Evil

I never thought I'd do one of these, but some questions came from league play and I thought I’d share some of my strategies. I’m not a story teller, so this will be a technical account of an ongoing game as it unfolds.

First, some ground rules.

The game will strictly adhere to the Metaverse League’s Round 1 rules.

I’m taking an evil alignment and outlook, so treachery will be the flavor of the day. Narrow minded ideologies such as morality and honor have no place in this game. If this offends you, my work here is done.   

Shameless plugs of the glorious and wonderful "Tyranny of Evil" empire will not be tolerated. At no point will I try to convince you to join us, nor condone others from such an awesome empire to recruit you, even though it just makes sense. You already want to join anyway. You know you do.   

Here’s a quote of the rules…


We are shooting for a Technological Victory in a Medium Galaxy with 4 opponent's with these settings,

Abundant Habitable Planets
Random Number of Planets
Uncommon Number of Stars
Scattered Star Density
Occasional Anomalies
Common Asteroids (DA Only)
Slow Tech Rate
Random Minors

Enable Tech Trading
Disable Blind Exploration
Disable Mega Events
Enable Super Abilities (DA Only)
Enable All Victory Conditions

Players may see fit to play with the intensive cpu algorithms and whatever race settings they like. Play with your normal difficulty or higher.


I’ll be playing for 20k points as a specific goal.

With this in mind, a modified "all factories" strategy will work best, since research can be totally shut down at will and more effort can go into economy and military. My own research abilities are somewhat unimportant, because I’ll be trading for or stealing my opponent’s techs and will take them out militarily if they get too close to a win.

The number of habitable planets will likely be small for a medium map due to uncommon stars. Occasional anomalies means not much money from my survey ship. No need to build surveyors and speed won’t be much of an advantage. From this, I know that the Thalans are the race to choose with Planet Quality and Economy as the abilities. Morale will take up the extra slack.

Having only 4 opponents will be difficult. From the rules, it says we can play with whatever race settings we like, so I’ll be careful with the opponent choices. I’ll need opponents that have good tech abilities and an alignment that will make them predisposed to want to attack me once I choose my alignment. I want their abilities to compliment mine and war is essential. I won’t go as far as to choose abilities and politics for my opponents, even though that would be within the rules. If I did do that, I’d give them extra research abilities and technologists for gov. Too much time and effort involved with that one though.

Suicidal difficulty, Tech trading on and all victory conditions enabled are pretty standard, so no extra thoughts there.

I play DL, so the other settings are not applicable.

Time to enter the Metaverse and set up the game.
104,598 views 32 replies
Reply #27 Top
Thanks, folks.   

How you have the patience for all that micromanagement is beyond me.


There are so many aspects to the game besides just dominating the AI. I look at individual parts of it as seperate games within the game and set myself some mini goals along the way. Keeps it interesting.   
Reply #28 Top
Timing really IS everything!
Bravo Motti!

It's important on Tech Victories to set the final research to end on December 15th instead of December 22nd. The Tech will finish, but the game will continue past that point for one more turn. Waiting until December 22nd will cause the score to drop.


I especially like this detail. I would have completely forgotten this crucial "points getter" tactic.

I look at individual parts of it as seperate games within the game and set myself some mini goals along the way. Keeps it interesting.


Such a convoluted yet finely focused strategy compared to my almost one dimensional/linear strategies.

True insight into a truly evil mind . I can only hope to aspire to such evil heights one day (tips hat).

Wonderfully documented! Thanks for taking the time to post this Motti.

Reply #30 Top
P.S. Forgot to drink beer to your accomplishment. ( doing it now   )
Reply #31 Top
Your evil ways are tempting - I think I am going to try out evil too in my next game.
Reply #32 Top
Whoa, very impressive and extremely interesting/entertaining to read, thanks!

Though it is a bit of a perversion that because of scoring, people have to avoid 1 type of victory (influence, anyone?) to go for another