First Game - The Altarian Resurgance

Nice. Although its not ever wise to build a fighter with the first military tech you have.

I didn't build it. I just designed it. Anyway, I managed to put in a couple of more turns.

I put up a Basic Spore Bomber on queue, instead of the cargo fighter. Meanwhile, my Freighter discovered that what I thought to be Arcea is actually the Paulos home world! That means the Arceans have only 1 planet - Hammer 2. Then I realized that Hammer 2 was orbiting a star called Athol. Whoops... Either they renamed it or it's a bug.

Anyway, the Paulos have a weak AI, weak research and no diplomacy. Once the Basic Spore Bomber is done, I'll have a target for it. Meanwhile, swarms of Terran and Arcean Scout Ships have been buzzing around, irritatingly spying on my actions. It looks like an easy invasion won't be feasible against anyone except maybe the Paulos. I'll just upgrade my Spore Bomber with a cheap weapon if they put up some unarmed defenses at the last moment.

If they do research some weapons, I'll take them and sell them to someone else.

Also, I've made first contact with the Terran Alliance. Bradley here thinks he can 'crush me like a bug'. My, his big blue chair is awesome...

Now to get that Freighter to Ar... ehem, Hammer 2, and try to get that Spore Bomber built and take over Paulos.

Wait, that gives me a better idea! I'll just cancel the Spore Bomber(Good thing I haven't hit the turn button yet) and build an empty cargo hull. Then I'll launch that cargo hull and upgrade it! It'll definitely be cheaper than the Purchase option and will definitely take less time than just building the ship. That means the Paulos have less of a chance to get weapons before I come knocking.

One remark, keep in mind that upgrades take longer if you're far away from your planets, so make sure it's actually faster than building the ship from scratch, at least so much faster it's worth the buy/lease cost...

Thanks for the advice, Noctilucus.

Anyway, my plan went perfectly. I built and launched an empty cargo hull with a pair of Ion Drives and flew that empty ship over to a square next to Paulos 4, the Paulos' Class 15 home world. The Paulos had an unarmed orbital defense of 1 Constructor, so when I upgraded my cargo hull, I bolted on a railgun too. I shot down the Constructor, and right clicked on Paulos 4. Next moment, I was suddenly seeing this:



Wow. That was instant. Too bad I didn't manage to steal any tech.

Then, I began developing my new planet. The Paulos had only used 4 of their 15 tiles. Stupid minor race. I also established 2 trade routes between New Altaria and Hammer 2, and got Friendly relations with the Arceans. I also launched one trade route between Paulos 4 and Paulos 1(a Class 9 owned by the Resistance) just to keep the Resistance happy - Mue was getting irritated by my sudden, alarming influence chopping chunks out of Arcean and Altarian space. An Arcean Space Miner also emerged from an asteroid field, and upon finding that the field was now in my space, the AI miner got stuck and left 3 other fields for my manually-controlled Space Miner to take over. Also, my Diplomatic Translators got finished and I now had an upper-hand in diplomacy against everyone but the Terrans, who were still angry at me for no reason.

Meanwhile, my Flagship jumped through a wormhole and arrived at the Korx home system. I met the Korx and through trading with them, I realized something:



Those two free Toxic Atmosphere Reductor techs I had gotten with Super Annihilator were viewed by the AI as extremely valuable. I now knew I could use these whenever I needed some good cash or really wanted an AI tech. And the Korx had pretty decent diplomacy. I also met the Krynn when they sent a Scout Ship to me and I met the Korath while my Flagship was trekking home. Now only the Yor remain unknown, and the Snathi are somewhere but I don't know where.

I also discovered the source of the Terrans' influence - a Mining Starbase on a juicy economic resource. I wanted that resource, so I sent up another empty cargo hull. This time, I upgraded the cargo hull into an armed constructor, tore apart that starbase, and established my own. This resource, combined with the establishment of several Advanced Market Centers on my planets, pushed my economy into the green. At least when I was set to 100% Spending with 100% Social or Military production. When at max research capacity, however, I was still in the yellow.

While most of the races were now putting 2-attack Defenders and Heavy Fighters into orbit, the Terrans had no military. So they declared war on me, but did nothing. I tried to ask peace from them 3 times over the next couple of turns. All 3 times, they insulted me. And they still had no military, and had retreated all their scouts from my territory. I sent my Flagship to the Solar System to track them, while I turned up research all the way and began frantically researching all the techs I would need for a decent warship. The resulting ship: the SilverWing, a 9-attack, 4-speed, 299 bc medium hull, the first medium in the game. Everyone else was still using 2-attack Defenders & Heavy Fighters, and the Drengin and Korath were churning out good amounts of these primitive ships. The Capital Ship intro screen was awesome when my first SilverWing was complete, it's as if my first true warship was being welcomed into the galaxy.

Anyway, I had Paulos 4 build a pair of simple, unarmed Spore Bombers and sent them behind my SilverWing. The Terrans had retreated their scouts and were now fully focused on building Economic Starbases, so they didn't see me coming. I researched Warp Drive and now my SilverWing could cruise at 5pc/wk. The AI's Defenders and Heavy Fighters were all devoid of engines and moved at 1 to 2 pc/wk depending on their tech level. Only their Scout Ships were having one engine and moved at 2 to 3 pc/wk.

Around this time, the UP held it's first meeting. The voting was to be done for a 3-year law on the minimum speed of Constructors'. The result was 'No Change'. Also, my growing population on the Class 15 Paulos 4 had been able to woo over the unhappy Altarians on the Class 9 Paulos 1. So I flipped the world. Paulos 1 was a nice medium-sized world covered in upgradeable tiles. So more of the Altarian race stopped worrying about the Spore Weapons and joined the Resurgance over the Resistance.

And so, back to the war with the Terrans, I struck and wiped out 7 Terran Scout Ships and one unarmed Terran Defender in orbit around Earth, and then took down the Constructor and Colony Ship orbiting Mars, all with my one SilverWing. The Terrans begged for peace, but I turned Bradley down. They began buying a Defender every week, armed with a pair of Railguns and nothing else. My SilverWing kept shooting them down and either took no damage or was barely scratched.

Then my first Spore Bomber arrived and took Earth, stealing Impulse Drive 2 and one Terran Heavy Fighter in the process. I attacked one of the Terrans' Econ SBs with my SilverWing while I was waiting for the second Spore Bomber to arrive. The unarmed SB went down, so without thinking I attacked another one. Big mistake. It was armed, and it chopped my SilverWing's hit points to just 4. I had to spend a turn repairing it on Earth. The Terrans had bought yet another Defender, so I used my stolen Heavy Fighter to attack it. The Heavy Fighter cut the Defender to just 1 hp but lost the battle. No problem. My SilverWing still had enough hp to kill that wrecked Defender. The second Spore Ship arrived. This was the end for the Terrans.



I managed to steal Chaff technology from the capture of Mars. Now my SilverWing has gained a level, and has a max of 21 hp on the main screen, despite the Intel Report showing just 20.



My 6 planets severely overshadow the other races, who have 2 each. They've stopped insulting me. Kralax of the Korx even gifted me 42 bc 'in admiration or my greatness'. Woot! Also, my 1 combat ship, the SilverWing, alone gives me half the military rating of the Drengins, who have at least 7-8 Heavy Fighters, and several tiny Fighters.

Now I shall check out how the other races have been doing and act accordingly. I saved and quit just after the fall of Mars, so I'm yet to see the condition of the other races. GNN hasn't said anything, so I guess they're still progressing slowly. Now that the Super Diplomat is gone, I'm king in diplomacy again.

Any suggestions?

OK, moving on. After destroying the Terrans, I built 3 'Shuttles' fitted with nothing but engines and 2 colony modules. Each Shuttle can carry 1 billion people. SO I used these Shuttles to populate Earth and generally built stuff up until Earth was in profit and Mars was churning out Constructors. I also met the Yor when their Scout Ships found me, and got my first ethical event on New Altaria: the wildlife creatures event, where Good got a -1 morale penalty, Evil got a +5 morale bonus, and Neutral did nothing. So I chose Neutral.

After researching some better engine and weapon techs, I decided to upgrade SilverWing Frigate 847 and renamed it 'The SilverWing'. I also built another ship of the same class called 'SilverWing 2'. Now, I didn't want the most high-tech ships in the galaxy to just sit around doing nothing, so I built two Spore Bombers and sent them all off towards the Korath, who had the highest military rating and had tried several times to get tribute out of me(which I constantly rejected since the Resistance and Krynn separated us).

So The SilverWing arrived at Kora, wiped out the Defenders and Heavy Fighters, and held ground while spies(2 of mine and 2 unknown) pinned down their manufacturing capability. The Korath never built another ship. My first Spore Bomber arrived and took Kora. Kora 2 flipped under my influence, so no need to use up my second Spore Bomber. And flipping is better than sporing since you get free population. So once again, I sent in my Shuttles to populate Kora with 3 billion people, and picked up the Korath's research and military resources with Constructors from Mars and Earth.



Kora, Earth, Paulos 4, and New Altaria were now money planets with a good amount of population and lots of Stock Markets, along with a few Research Academies and Enhanced Factories. Mars, Earth, and Kora 2 were churning out Constructors to set up Economic Starbases and upgrade my 3 Mining Starbases. Paulos 1 was building wonders and trade goods. Nuova Wisp was simply researching. My DeepSpace Miners were now upgrading my Mining Bases everywhere, and I had set up 4 trade routes with the Arceans and another 4 with the Krynn. The UP passed the Starbases-help-Allies law. The Arceans, Krynn, and Torians had all sent Freighters to set up trade routes with me. I also completed Galactic Bazaar and Xinathium Hull Plating around this time.



Meanwhile, I sent my second Spore Bomber, The SilverWing, and my Flagship to check out the two Minor Races I had found, the Snathi and the Dark Yor. So I guess I had set Minor Races to 3 upon setting up the game. Anyway, the Dark Yor soon fell to me and I took their Class 15 home world, Dark Yor 3, as well. Shuttles in, Social Production up, wash-rinse repeat: This had become my world-capturing routine. Dark YOr 3 also had a neighbor world: the Aquatic Class 8 Dark Yor 2, which belonged to the Korx and was in the risk of flipping. The Korx set up an Influence Starbase to save it, but I set up an Influence Starbase too to beat the one the Korx had built. The destruction of the Dark Yor had given me a minus in relations with everyone due to my 'tendency to conquer others'.

I now upgraded my two SilverWings with ECM 3 and Photon Torpedoes and put them together in a fleet at Dark Yor 3. I built another Spore Bomber and did the same thing for the Snathi, grabbing their world, Snathi 3. Meanwhile, Dark Yor 2 flipped to me and brought along it's population of 2 billion. Since DY2 was an aquatic world and was largely useless, I sent my Shuttles to take it's population over to Snathi. While Snathi 3 and Dark Yor 3 had become profitable new worlds, Dark Yor 2 was just a waste that sucked up 18 bc every month in maintainance every month and produced a whopping 2 research points and 2 bc of income. But I didn't destroy it, since I'll buy Aquatic World Colonization from the Korx sometime later.

Now my two trade arrays were coming to life, my population was growing despite low approval, and I was going well above 10,000 bc in treasury and getting an overall revenue of 150-400 bc every week, and had been constantly running at 100% spending ever since Earth had gone into profit. I was Warm with all the Good races despite having no alignment, and was Friendly with the Arceans. The Drengin and Yor were Cool with me and the Korx were Wary.

Around this time, wars broke out. The Dominion of the Korx declared war on the Altarian Resistance, the Torian Confederation declared war on the Dominion of the Korx and the Drengin Empire declared war on the Torian Confederation. The Altarian-Korx war was largely a stalemate with neither side doing much harm to each other, but the Torian-Drengin war wasn't so. The Torians were being beaten back by several fleets of Drengin Heavy Fighters and Super Dominator Corvettes, all flying through my territory to get there. Then the Drengins began sending Transports, and I decided to pull a 'We know what you're doing...' on them: I attacked them. The startled Drengins couldn't pull back their pathetic fleets of 3-attack Heavy Fighters and their even more pathetic fleets of 2-attack Super Dominator Corvettes were their only defense. My 2 SilverWings rolled over them and my Spore Bombers snatched up Drengi and Kona. However, the Yor declared war on me in the name of helping the Drengins, and the several surviving Drengin fleets became Pirates. I pulled back my two third-gen SilverWings to Snathi 3 and sent my Flagship to check out the Yor military.

Then a random 'UltraDrive' event happened and the speed of all ships in the galaxy was boosted by 50%. But it didn't work against Super Isolationist. The Yor had several fleets of Heavy Fighters, and although they only moved at 1pc/wk, they were being boosted by 2 military starbases and 1 military resource to magnify their power within their own territory.

I sent my two SilverWings in a fleet, along with 1 Spore Bomber flying alone, to attack the Yor. They immediately got bogged down by Isolationist. The SilverWings managed to kill a Yor fleet containing 3 4-attack Heavy Fighters and destroyed 1 Military Starbase, but they were running out of hit points and weren't fast enough to hit Iconia, which had 5 Heavy Fighters defending it. I had to retreat my SilverWings back to Snathi for an upgrade, and I had already pulled my Spore Bomber and Flagship back out of Yor territory. On the way back to Snathi, I managed to destroyed the Yor's Mining Starbase with my SilverWings and took their Military Resource with a Constructor.

Now another random event happened. "Your Cultural Influence has increased". Now my border with the Yor got pushed back towards Iconia, which meant less Isolationist territory to deal with. I upgraded my SilverWings to a new fourth-gen design and went for another attack. Elsewhere, my fleet of 3 Shuttles, carrying a total of 3 billion people to Drengi, got stuck in an asteroid field and a Pirate-controlled Super Dominator Corvette shot them down. These 3 ships and 3 billion people were my first losses ever. Damn those Pirates.

Also, another ethical event occurred: A volcano is about to erupt on Dark Yor 3.
Good Option: -249 bc.
Neutral Option: -338 bc, -200 million population.
Evil Option: -1 billion population.

Obviously, the Good Option was the best here.

Back to the war, while I had been retreating, the Yor launched an offensive. A fleet containing 3 Yor Heavy Fighters, each moving at 1pc/wk and armed with 1 Stinger4, led a fleet of 2 Transports, and they were in turn backed up by another fleet of 1 Yor Escort(1pc/wk, 2 missile attack) and 1 more Transport. Another pair of lousy 2-attack Yor Escorts followed up the entire strike group from behind.

My newly-upgraded SilverWings, each having 36 missile attack, 5 point defense, and 12 movement points, easily crushed the Yor offensive. Then they attacked Iconia and cleared out it's defenses. I dropped 4 spies on the planet and pinned it down. 1 of them got nullified, but a Spore Bomber arrived and took the planet.



However, another 3 Yor Transports flew out of Korx territory, appearing out of nowhere with 2 Escorts, traveling towards Paulos 1 at 3pc/wk, far off to the north!!! The only way to defend in time was to buy another SilverWing, which dropped my treasury from around 19000 bc to just over 13000 bc. The third SilverWing then destroyed the escaped Yor ships and I kept it up north just in case more appeared.

The remaining Yor forces retreated back to Iconia 5, where they had a military starbase. No problem. The orbital defenses got destroyed, with the SB going down soon after. 1 more Spore Bomber arrived and the Yor were gone.



The capture of Iconia gave me a great asset. The planet has a Precursor Mine, and I've built a Manufacturing Center there. The Yor had also built a Manufacturing Capital there, and I stole Planetary Invasion upon sporing the planet. Great. With the rest of the tiles getting covered by Stock Markets, 2 Research Academies, and Galactic Privateer under construction, this Class 11 will be one of my best planets once I populate it.

Now, I control 59% of the galaxy. I have 14 planets, and the Krynn and Arceans are now my Allies. The Altarian Resistance and Torian Confederation have Warm relations with me. I still top the charts in everything except Popularity and Approval. Only the Korx stand against me now, with Cool relations. I've effectively won. Now it's time to mop up(basically, get rid of the Korx and/or ally with the Resistance and Torians).



Here's the wonders I've built:
Trade Goods: Diplomatic Translators, Xinathium Hull Plating, Micro Repair Bots, Nano Recorders.
Galactic Achievements: Galactic Bazaar, Restaurant of Eternity

And my most powerful ship yet:



Here's what equipment and buildings the galaxy is using right now, in December 2229:

My Factories - Manufacturing Centers
AI Factories - Enhanced Factories
My Labs - Research Academies
AI Labs - Research Academies or Research Centers(depending on civ)
My Banks - Stock Markets
AI Banks - Trade Centers or Advanced Market Centers(depending on civ)
My Weapons - Photon Torpedo 2 and almost completed Photon Torpedo 3
AI Weapons - Plasma 2 and Singularity Driver 3
My Defenses - Point Defense 2 and Superior Deflectors
AI Defenses - ECM 3 and Superior Deflectors

All the AIs are Bright and difficulty is Challenging. I guess the AI just didn't adapt well to low resources.

My next post will be once I finally win this, which won't be long from my current position.

Soon after I last left off, the United Planets met.



With 60% of the galaxy, the UP was completely under my control. Having shot down the neutral ground proposal, I sent my Flagship and my fleet of 3 SilverWings into Korx territory to assess their military.

As it turns out, several Yor ships had survived by hiding behind the Korx, and had now turned into pirates who were ripping the Korx up. All but 2 of the Korx's trade routes were destroyed. They had decently strong Defenders with 10 Gun Attack + 2 Point Defense and Heavy Fighters with 15 Gun Attack, but they kept most of them in orbit and deployed only a single Defender to destroy a pair of pirates and then retreated it to orbit as well. It came as quite a surprise to see Defenders with 10 Gun Attack and 2 Point Defense after having fought Defenders with just 2 Attack all game long. Then I checked the Starship Intelligence Report and got their secret: they were using Nano Rippers.

Now I finally decided to choose an alignment: I went Good. I had been planning to do so. Now I began to research defenses and weaponry tech as fast as I could while my fleet of SilverWings autopiloted their way back to Snathi 3 for their 5th gen upgrade. Good Alignment enabled me to get a superb piece of armor powerful enough to totally rebound the power of the Nano Ripper: Arnorian Battle Armor.



Meanwhile, a Yor Heavy Fighter pirate appeared around Iconia and destroyed another one of my Shuttles! Good thing that the Shuttle had already populated Iconia and was returning to Dark Yor 3 empty, so I didn't lose any population. Having researched Anti-Matter Torpedo, I upgraded my SilverWings and quickly built 2 Spore Bombers. Then I sent the entire strike package off to Korx.

Around the time my strike group arrived in Korx territory, the Korx declared war on the Altarian Resistance! Great, now I didn't have to declare war on them at all: I could use Super Organizer as an excuse to vanquish the last surviving Evil race in the galaxy. Next turn, my shiny new fleet of 3 5th-gen anti-Korx optimized SilverWings, called Quantum Squadron, arrived and destroyed the 5 ships defending Korx. Korx fell on the same turn. Then the next turn after that, Quantum Squadron trashed the 2 Heavy Fighters at Korx 2 and the Korx were mine. Now I controlled 77% of the galaxy and just had to wait 10 turns until I got my Influence Victory. I also took the Korx's Morale Resource with a Constructor a few turns later.

Then, on the last turn before my win, a random event popped up: The reign of the Xenophiles has ended! Gaaargh! Now my influence plunged to just 70% and my waiting time got reset! But then I checked the foreign relations screen: All of a sudden, for reasons I don't know, the Torians and Altarian Resistance had become Close! I quickly formed Alliances with them. Then I clicked Turn and:



So I won my first game. Here's some stats:









The spike in influence was the result of the Xenophiles event. The spike in military occurred when Quantum Squadron was formed.



Any comments? Nobody has said anything so far.
Now I'm off to play the Thalans or a Super Hive custom race.

Heh, looks like you've done your homework; very nice first game! My only real comment is that it seemed to easy for you, you might want to try upping the difficulty level a bit to get more out of the game!

Here's what I've been doing after this game:

First I tried the Thalan game. It... went slowly. No wars, no diplomatic stuff, no trade. I just researched and built stuff. Since planets and stars were set to rare, I never found another world outside of Thala. So I did this for two game years and it got so effing tedious that I quit.

Then I tried the Dread Lords Campaign. After two missions of having that Beam Weapon junk stuffed in my face and then getting reverted back to the beginning of the 'tree, I saved that and left it as it is.

Then I tried a Dark Avatar Scenario - Dread Lords on Parade, with my usual settings. I did well in my first year, building up my 2 planets Earth and Mars. And then a Dread Lords Scout Ship powered by a 'Dread Drive' engine slashed right through my territory, scanned Earth, and flew away before I could respond. I've saved it right there and will resume that game some time later. I just realized that... I had no idea how to win when the Dreads suddenly got tossed into the galactic mix.
Use Diplomacy and form a galactic anti-Dread coalition? No, that's ridiculous. Thew Evil civs will never agree without me giving them more than I can afford.
Influence? No. The Dreads can't be influenced.
Conquer the Dreads? Quite hard, seeing as they'll be conquering other races by the time I can reach them.
Research? With 2 planets, again, no. The Dreads will be killing everyone on the other side of the galaxy and I can't just sit around researching while they get stronger and stronger.

So now I'm doing a normal Terran Alliance sandbox with the same galaxy stats I had here, but I started the game with Team relations to the Arceans and Altarians and Hostile with the Drengins and Korx. So far, so good, and the Drengin & Korx relations have only improved. First-year development has gone well as usual, and now, I have to figure out what to do with my Thalan neighbors. I could get a military running, destroy the Thalans, and set up a trade array with the Arceans, OR I could set up a trade array with the Thalans, convince them to join my team, and go around conquering the galaxy with my coalition. The Thalans have largely been sitting around on Thala doing nothing much so far, just as I had done in my game when I was playing as them. It seems that their one Class 15 planet just can't match the Class 10 + Class 4 solar systems the other races get. Once I've completed this game, I'll post it as a separate AAR.