ahh, sorry.

SB array refers to a score tactic using 24 military starbases to boost the military rating. In the high score games many of us old timers focused on this was a crucial tactic. You would park some many thousands of ships under the Area Of Effect of 24 Military starbases and then upgrade those ships to maxed out weapon platforms.
A cheese tactic to inflate your mil score to astronomical amounts. This tactic was crucial in the early 1Mill + games.

S4P (Sue for Peace) refers to another tactic that is still cheese but if not exploited too much can be used in any game.
You tech rush to get the SCC (Total Majesty), a huge diplo advantage (inc Diplo Translators)some good min, and psonic beams and then load up a cargo hull with as many psonics as you can fit under it. Park as many as those ships as you can build under the SCC. Do this early game, by sacrificing just about every other aspect of the game and you can get a military rating so high in comparison to the AI, that if you were to declare war on them, use the load/reload trick, and then offer that AI peace, you could get tens of planets for that peace.
Do this with all 9 AI and rinse and repeat, and within year 0 you can have hundreds of planets, without doing anything else. This along with the Sb array gains you very high scores. But, to play them out properly (and i have only touched on the tricks of the trade used in these types of games) you would spend an awful long time in one game and do nothing but micro.

I gave up on this style of play to focus on more fun games.

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Variations on the S4P was to trade small fighters to the AI for planets. You could trade 3 or 4 2att/1def fighters per planet. But you need to do this very early in the game before the AI gets any form of military.

The variation i use still, is to go all lab and with huge diplo advantage tech rush and then trade tech for planets. You can do this on March 1 of year zero (provided you set all relations to friendly) and the AI will trade many planets for high end tech. Each AI will trade 1 planet for Master Trade alone.
So in the first few months of the game you can net, say..5 or 6 planets from the AI, each.

It's a tactic i use little, since i don't want to exploit the AI anymore, but it does help your econ out, especially if your using Super Breeder and with good morale. You grab those new planets, set taxes so morale is 100% and watch your population grow. After a few turns you tax income is very high, and it's still month 2 or three in the game.

This is what the galaxy looked like before the Jagged Knife struck - North is the top right corner.

Post Knifing, the galaxy breaks down as follows:

Jagged Knife: 120 colonies, centered mid, west, and southwest with stragglers in the east and south. They have begun producing some beefy heavy fighters using my stolen beam tech, but are mainly focusing on upgrading their worlds and building the economy required to run such a massive empire. They are no pushovers in ground combat either, only my terror drones keep me at parity in the soldiering department.

Korath Clan: 42 colonies, centered mid-south with outlier toxic worlds west, north, and east. Lost 20 colonies to the Knife, which included the heart of their empire (even Kora II!) and the prong that bordered Korx space. They are at war with all the good races and holding their own, but do not appear to have researched invasion tech yet. Korath planets are spitting out ships like crazy, and they have many 18 attack fleets split between missiles and guns (super dominator corvettes). However, they keep suiciding these fleets into a massively fortified Torian mining starbase in their territory. Once it gets to around 1/4 hp, I'll have to send a constructor over there to steal their efforts. They are also in possession of at least three influence resources, which makes me very glad of my 100% loyalty bonus.

Torian Confederation: 46 colonies, split between east and west, with stragglers mid and northwest. Lost a full 30 worlds to the Knife, completing the split I began by taking their home area. Still the economic leader, but desperately trying to catch up militarily. They have realized that 14 ship fleets are not impressive if your ships are crappy, and are finally producing heavy fighters. My fighters now have to repair more often, but my frigates don't care. They also have figured out they are no match for my robot armies on the ground, and are building planetary defense structures everywhere. This is doubly irritating, as my preferred invasion tactic against them was to spy-bomb the target planet's morale structures, then brainwash the populace into fighting for me. Those who survived were given the honor of uploading their minds into superior Yor chassis. Not only do planetary defense structures actually work in the mod, but they give a morale bonus and cannot be disabled by spies. Damn. Fortunately for me, I have MANY robot legions.

Yor Collective: 44 colonies, centered galactic north with outliers far north, mid and northwest. Lost 23 planets to the shanking, including all my mid-galaxy Torian acquisitions. While this has seriously set back my efforts at conquest, all is not lost. I am about to clean those bug-eyed meatsacks out of my space in the northwest, and their long period of military ineptitude has given my warship crews considerable experience in tactics, strategy... and hitpoints. (some of my tiny fighters have 35-40 hp!) I have declared unending conflict with the Jagged Knife, and on my first reconquest gained something potentially empire-changing. Fear me, knifelings, for I have stolen your concept of transferable value tokens! The Yor Collective will now be constructing Trade Centers for the exchange of these value tokens in an inevitably superior manner to your crude fleshbag trading. Cue mechanical cackling (h4h4h4).

Altarian Resistance: 38 colonies, centered midwest with many scattered extreme worlds. Lost only 15 worlds to the Knife, but many of their scattered worlds are in Korath space, under siege, and slowly succumbing to Korath cultural power. Despite this, they are in a relatively strong position with their core worlds intact, solid research, and generally good relations with other races plus a treaty with the Drengin of all people.

Iconian Refuge: 23 colonies, centered mid-south with a some outliers mid, south, and southwest. Expansion sharply curtailed by the Jagged Knife, who took all but two of their worlds bordering the Korx and all their eastern extreme worlds. Technically at war with the Korath, but the few weak fleets they have sent have been quickly swatted. They are lucky the Korath hate starbases with an unholy passion. If they manage to culturally absorb the several Thalan worlds in their influence they may become a more major player.

Dominion of Korx: 14 colonies, centered southwest. Despite the Jagged Knife homeworld being Korx II, only lost 6 worlds while everyone near them was mugged. They are solidly neutral super diplomats, and everyone loves the Korx (and Korx-brand cola!). Yor scouts have reported sightings of Korx troop transports, and if they take advantage of the windfall of undefended Jagged Knife planets surrounding them they could come out substantially stronger than they were.

Arcean Empire: 16 colonies, centered galactic west. Lost a good 7 world chunk of their eastern border with the Korx to the Jagged Knife. Do not appear to have built a military yet, but they also don't seem to need one. From the limited information available from Yor data tapping, they have decent economic and productive capability but would need to go to war to become a major power.

Drengin Empire: 14 colonies, galactic far west. Lost 7 worlds, a full third of their empire, to the thugs. Oddly, they do not yet have a military and appear to be on surprisingly good terms with the rest of the galaxy, including Altarian and Thalan treaties. Not much else going on there, I've only just gotten a scout over to that part of the galaxy.

Thalan Empire: 12 colonies, galactic far south with outliers to the north in Iconian space. The Knife picked off the few outlying worlds they had that bordered the Korx, along with an entire three planet system in their core cluster. I have no idea how they managed that. The Thalans' only hope is that the Korath turn their attention to the Iconians soon so they can scavenge some of the scraps before the Iconians absorb them. However, with no military and meager economic power this seems unlikely.

The Meklar: 10 colonies, galactic mid east. This not-so-minor minor was the recipient of all Torian technology relatively recently. As they are good-aligned, they are at war with the Korath, but they are not in any real danger because they are in the middle of Torian territory. Meklar fighter craft are half decent, and they have a good number of troop transports - they may end up picking off some of the more isolated Korath worlds.

The Silicoid: 8 colonies, scattered mid galaxy. These little rock bastards snatched a few too many barren worlds from under the probes of Yor colony ships. There will be a reckoning as soon as I have sufficient robot legions - and they have yet to research weapons, unaware of the impending metal fury. Also, doom - lots of doom.

The Elerian: 5 colonies, galactic southwest. Also stole all the Torian's tech - those water schools must not be very secure. Located slightly south between the Korx and Arceans, they have the same opportunity as the Korx to pick off undefended Knife worlds. I suspect they are less likely to do so, however. Despite their small size they are an unappealing target due to their technological prowess.

The Bulrathi: 7 colonies, scattered galactic east. This minor holds many of the high grav worlds in the east, and has no weapons yet. A potential target of opportunity, but low priority.

The Drath Legion: 4 colonies, galactic mid east. Lost two of their already scarce worlds to the Jagged Knife. Choked out of early expansion by the Bulrathi and Meklar, the few outlying colonies they managed to secure were quickly surrounded and culturally absorbed by the Torians. They are now evil due to an event, and despite their having the worst position in the game (including minors!) I think I will let them live for a while to see if they can bootstrap back into it.

The Alkari and Tolmekian Federation: conquered by the Yor Collective, who only communicate by laser (not the intelligible way).

 

congrats if you made it through all that

 

TL,DR: pretty pictures of what the galaxy looks like afterwards - so many orange dots!

Wow, and i thought my game was epic!!!

This thread is really picking up steam!!! I love it!

You know, it would make an amazing story if you managed to conquer most, if not all, of the Jagged Knife planets like I have in one game.

*cracks up!*

You, sir, win.  I love it when people get into the role of their characters/Civs.  Transferable value tokens....XD  That's awesome.

I'm gonna try to do an AAR/transcript of my next match and get into my character's role.  Not doing that for the current game, I get the feeling it would only annoy the hell out of people, given my custom race I'm playing as.

Lovely write-up.  I made every planetary defense type improvement immune from spying to prevent a sneaky player from simply using agents to nullify the PD bonus.  I didn't even consider the morale aspect.  It does warm my heart to see the AI fortifying their worlds with Planetary Defense and the Omega Defense System, though.  With the improved farming techs and structures in v3.1, it becomes much more difficult to conquer high-pop fortified planets.

Glad you're enjoying it and cranking out epic stories for us.

Well, my peaceful cultural takeover is at an end.

After I ended my little misunderstanding with the Korath, peace broke out across the Galaxy.  I passed a UP resolution to basically end all wars.

And then I started bombarding the Korath with my culture beams.  They soon had literally NO influence left.  A few more fully upgraded stations later, and I was on my way to victory...

Strangely, it was as if the Galaxy was apathetic to my takeover.  Rather than stand up and deny my victory, they decided to go out with a whimper.  The Korath, the Koopa, the Seekers, not one even bothered to try to stop me.

Well, the seekers did start a war with a minor race right on the final turn, but I gave them a stern talking to, and a nice little chunk of my VAST fortune to cut it out.

The Krynn tech tree was surprisingly fun.  I'd like to try it out again with a more military/aggressive mindset.

 

----

Once my exams are over I'll get a start on a bigger game, and make an "in-character" report on it.

Anything you guys want to see?  Chuck some ideas at me and I'll consider them!

 

Considering:

Possibly going to be playing a militant psychic race (undecided morality with Krynn tech tree), or Korx (liked their super high economy style in that other game), or a purely aggressive one (I want to try out super dominator and that spore pod ship!).  If you have any other suggestions, pass 'em along!

Chucking the Kingdom of Celestia (ie, ponies), and the Koopas in as opponents again for the funny factor.  Plus, the ponies were great enemies in a previous game, and with Tolmekian's mod, the koopas were kinda scary in this last match.  Also, Probably going to throw the Drath in too.  As much as their manipulation angers me, it's fun to see and plan against.

Stuff I don't wanna do:

I'm NOT using the Thalans as enemies.  I tried that twice.  Both times they colony rushed my territory to the point where I had no planets to colonize, AND my "mars" was refusing to flip to my control.  Oh, and then they declared war on me just to crush me.  ...This was in the early game, TWICE.  >_<  I hated that.

Ascension victories:  I won my first game that way.  I spawned RIGHT next to one of the crystals.  Aside from a lack of colonies int he midgame, I had absolutely no trouble winning that game.  It was boring.  Also, I don't want to lose just because the AI got lucky like that too.  It's too much of a dice roll IMO...I turn this victory off.

Glad you liked my robot ramblings - they sure amused me while I was writing them.

The Thalan colony rush is strong, but their combination of slow pop growth and bad diplomacy renders them vulnerable to the player simply buying their worlds (with super diplomat, you can even do it for influence alone). This usually will stifle their expansion enough to blunt the threat they pose long term.

I'll throw my vote in for the Korx - I'd be interested to see if/how your playstyle with them differs from mine.

 

Yeah, robot races are fun to role play in games like this.  I remember when I played a neutral robotic race at one point, another race did something to really piss me off (I forget what, I think it might have been the kagged knife stealing my main research world) and my thought process was this:  "I closed the vid screen and walked away from my desk, puzzled.   What WAS this new emotion?  It wasn't frustration, I remembered how that made my processors feel every time those torians pestered me.  No, this was something else.  ...Was this was those squishy races called 'anger'?  Hmm.  Whatever it was, it made me motivated.  Motivated to make the biggest baddest battleship in history and sic it on them.  That stack process made me feel better.  But not as good as actually doing it.  I got to work, finally beginning to understand how those inefficient fleshy things got ANYTHING done.".

I've started up a new game (TA, Immense galaxy), playing as a Torian variant called the Free Torians. Essentially, they're fugitives from the second Drengin conquest of Toria (in the Dread Lords campaign) who have reemerged with the conclusion of the Dread Lords war to restart Torian civilization. I'm up against 9 AIs and an assortment of "smart" minors, including minor versions of the Drath and Korx.

Things are pretty early, but they've already picked up fast, as the Korath have declared war on both me and the Iconians. From what I can tell so far, they're nowhere nearby, but as the possessor of the game's strongest military so far they're going to be a lurking menace "out there" for a long while yet. I've also been set back by starting in a tiny cluster of just four planets, so we'll see how that turns out.

Here's the galaxy so far. As you can see, it's largely still a mystery.

 

The large cluster that I've been settling to the "east" is crawling with minor races - including the Scottlingas, Dark Yor, Lentzlandians, and the Korx remnants - as well as a previously unknown major civilization, the Shylen Alliance (custom race of evil-aligned Super Manipulators). They're suspected of having instigated the Korath War, but seem to be quite weak themselves with only 7 planets.

The cluster to my north has been colonized by myself and the Iconians, though their homeworld is probably elsewhere. Serving as a buffer between us are the surviving Drath, with 5 planets and decent technology among the most formidable of the "minors".

I've also encountered two separate clusters settled by the hated Drengin - who, unfortunately, appear to be among the leading powers of the galaxy - and a survey ship sent through a wormhole has discovered the borders of Terran space, though no contact has been made so far. The remaining four major races are a total mystery at present (I think they're the Thalan, Altarians, Yor, and Krynn, but I'm not actually sure).

More to come soon - I have a feeling this won't be a quiet game.

Looks interesting. I love making custom races out of the AI, glad to see many here do the same!!

My game is in the shitter. The Torians declared on me but i was ready and was able to take many of their worlds, and to stem their influence spamming. The tide turned when i grabbed Toria and it's Political Capital and Restaurant of Eternity. they came looking for peace soon after.
But by then my attentions were turned to the Arceans, who, out of no where (our relations were neutral) declared war on me. They were by far the strongest in the game, and i was number 7. I managed to run my ships around the map to avoid their fleets of 1000/1000 att/def until i could get something to counter them built.

But then, i got the report they had researched Beyond Mortality, and even though i aggressively sought their high tech worlds and did manage to sortie a few huge hulled ships to match them, they were able to secure a tech victory.

I feel so unsatisfied.

Restarting from my safe save file on turn 1. They won't slide under my radar this time.

Is the Jagged knife event pretty much assumed to happen in TA?  Seems pretty common from the write-ups.  

I love Chainsaw's "robot ramblings"!    

@Neilo - The thought that a game could be lost is a relatively new concept, isn't it?  We had taken for granted that we'd be the victors in any scenario for so long.  The possibility of losing makes it a much more interesting ride.  Good luck on your retake.

Losing my Iconian game not once, but twice, was pretty cool. But as they say, third time's a charm.

Attacking the Drengin was the key to winning for my Iconian game.  Not that it's over, but I'm now on top for everything except military.  I no longer need the SCC, so I've abandoned it and taken my ships into the fray.  The Drengin took some time to subdue, but chasing my small fleets around was their undoing.  They landed a few punches and when they did, it took my fleets down wholesale.  Most of the time, they missed and I built up while taking their planets.

I gave them peace for some tech when they were no longer a threat and went to war with the Krynn.  That lasted a while, but they eventually succumbed.  I gave them peace for free once they were down to 2 planets.  They still had a sizable navy out there, but finances would force them to downsize.

I allied with the relatively weak Drath.  The Drath went to war with the Drengin and dragged me back in.  By that time, the Drengin were just an annoyance and I wiped them out in a few weeks.  Sometime in all of that, the Korx took the Torians out.

The Drath went to war with the Krynn and Korx at the same time.  Of course, I honored my alliance and declared war as well.  The Krynn had lost one of their planets along the way and I sent a transport to their last one, quickly ending that one.

The Korx are another story.  Their area is pretty big and their military looks great on paper.  My fleets are all huge hulled missile beasts with one blank huge hull in each fleet to absorb experience.  (I'll eventually use the blanks as single ship hunter-killers.)  I have 9 fleets of 7 ships each.  More are being built back on New Iconia.

The Korx have yet to kill even one of my ships.  I've zoomed around their empire and engaged them at will.  I'm a little surprised that even though they have beam stats of > 1000, not one of my ships has fallen to them.  The Drengin and Krynn were usually taking a ship per contact, even at their weakest.

I've just taken the Korx Hyperian Logistics and Shrinker worlds.  A little reorganizing/upgrading will be in order soon.

I'm looking forward to using my hunter-killers in the coming Thalan war.  They're the top military power and have been for a long time.  Relations have been stuck at hostile, but they haven't pulled the trigger on me yet.  If they hold off until the Korx are no longer a threat, I'll send my fleets to their border and start it up. 

 

It's not guaranteed - I actually hadn't encountered them for a long time until my recent game - but when they turn up it's a big deal as they're so formidable. Possibly we're all playing with more frequent random events in order to make these games more interesting

The one I keep hoping for but never getting is the Dread Lords, who I used to encounter quite frequently in DA but haven't encountered at all since I restarted playing. Although prehaps they're the cause of the occasional random crash.

Current game, almost finished, is another test of various balancing mod changes and has been entertaining for the fact that it was dominated by the Iconians (yes, seriously). I hadn't meant to make extreme worlds particularly common, but they made up about half of the galaxy, and the Iconians and Yor took full advantage of this to spread out. I was playing Terrans and had the vague goal of playing around with some of the fleet modules that I don't normally bother to research - trying to build worthwhile support ships and pseudo-carriers.

I had disabled Alliance, Tech and Influence victories because they're too easy with Terrans - and indeed, my influence now covers most of the galaxy (large map) and I have influence-flipped dozens of planets without ever building an influence starbase. In fact I was trying to be militaristic, but I got into a cultural arms-race with the Korx and Iconians (both of whom I tend to set up with strong culture to offset the Korx's poor loyalty and the Iconians' tendency to colonize deep into enemy territory). I had given back the Iconians a number of techs they lost in TA (Xeno Business and Interstellar Republic/Democracy/Federation), and they embraced them joyously, it was actually rather endearing. The Yor also got back the government techs, but they're not allowed them until they finish their economics research like good little deathbots.

Not much on the major events front, apart from a Plague that everyone researched the cure for embarassingly quickly, but I did spice things up with modded anomalies - some of which I'll have to tone down in the future as respawning super-anomalies plus only the player knowing how to build more survey ships equals major advantage.

Major events so far include:

Terrans buying half the Drengin Empire after a poor initial colonization. -20 to Diplomacy is a heavy cross to bear.

Terrans deciding, after failing to save the Elerian minor race, to keep every race alive until we're ready to ascend to a higher plane of existence (if not through ascnsion crystals, then through sheer smugness).

The Yor and Korx forming a rock-solid Axis of Evil that never faltered (and no, they wouldn't let the Drengin into their club), while the ostensibly Good Iconians and Drath immediately fell to tearing each other apart like ferrets in a sack.

Everyone going to war with the Drengin Empire, some even without bribes from the Terran Alliance.

The Drengin Starfleet mounting a valiant defense against this aggression, totally undermined by the know-nothing bureaucrats insisting that they could get by with only four research structures in their Empire.

The Yor deciding to one-up the Drengin's self-imposed challenge that they were going to go the entire game without researching Interstellar Construction - until the Terrans called up the Yor and forcibly gifted it to them.

As the Drengin are driven to the far edge of the Galaxy, Terran diplomacy ends all the wars against them in exhange for ruinous reparations, including all their known technologies. Soon after, rumours begin that not all the Drengin Artificial Slave Pods have been accounted for - and that a number of planets are reporting inexpicably high levels of production.

The Drath Legion being almost annihilated by the Yor, Korx and Iconians, forcing further Terran diplomatic efforts to save them from extinction - buying back their planets, brokening peace, and gifting the Drath some specially-built Korx Hunter battleships.

The Drath Legion promptly using their anti-Korx defense fleet to launch an all-out assault against the remains of the Drengin Empire.

The Terrans failing in their mission to keep every race in the game after getting a bit carried away with the old influence. Kralax of Korx last seen in a freighter headed out of the galaxy, looking for less crowded markets. Scenes of jubilation were reported from the bazaars of New Iconia to the floors of the stock exchanges on Korx itself.

The Yor inexplicably selling the Terrans the planet with their Mind Control Center, partly responsible for the above.

An urgent report from Medecins Sans Frontieres informing the Terran Alliance that, in fact, the Drengin had not researched the Plague Cure and were slowly going extinct in the distant corner of the galaxy to which they had been driven. Despite many saying that this was no bad thing, the Terran Alliance made the cure available to the few billion Drengin not yet dead.

Holy cow.  That's insane.

Really good read! 

We are the Adepta Sororitas, the Underdog Empire and we are here to stay and have fun playing! I use two different Styles of Tactics, the one I will be talking about is ship designs tactics that takes one or two days for each turn because of designing new ships for each new part researched. My set up starts off like this in a ToA game (I use DA for my other Style of Tactics)

 

 

 

 

We are looking for players to join to become aggressive Admirals to lead your fleets across the Galaxy!

Empress Saint Mina of Ophelia VII of Order of the Bloody Rose of Orders Militant of Adepta Sororitas

Well, the Free Torians game has turned out interesting, all right... but not for the reasons I was expecting.

See, the whole Korath War thing turned out to be pretty much a no-show. They continued to be manipulated into attacking other races (most of which I had never met), presumably by the Shylen. But my Torians never saw any trace of them, and it soon became clear that my speculation they were far away was correct. And so things were just rolling along smoothly...

...until April 2229, when some disgruntled worker gunned down Lord Kona at a routine trade conference.

Now, as a Torian, I can't say I wholly disapproved of this. But the end result - a declaration of war from the Drengin Empire, the most powerful civilization in the galaxy? That I wasn't happy about. And if things weren't bad enough, a few weeks down the line I got a message from the hitherto-unknown Krynn - as it turns out, the second most powerful civilization in the galaxy - saying that I was at war with their friends and needed to be dealt with.

It's now three years into the war, and the Krynn remain a total mystery. I have yet to see any trace of their ships or planets, and I can't even place race-wide spies on them (makes sense, I guess). All I've heard from them is various threats about their continual research of manufacturing techs. The Drengin are another story, though. Thus far we've mainly skirmished at various outposts and outlying ships. They blew up one of my defenseless colony ships as it flew through the edge of their territory (fiends!) I retaliated by blockading their trade routes to the Shylen homeworld. That sort of thing. Recently, though, the fighting has picked up (but more on that below).

The rest of the galaxy hasn't been peaceful in the meantime. I've made contact with most everyone besides the Thalan and Altarians, and most of them are busy with wars of their own. Worst off are the miserable Yor Collective, now at war with five races and still counting. It started off as a mere dispute with the Terrans, but more and more have joined the dogpile for reasons of their own: the Iconians, out to settle an old score; the Drengi-Kryseth Axis, out to carve off their own piece of a dying civilization; the Thalan, out to... get whatever it is that time-traveling space bugs want (obviously, it would help if I knew anything about their civilization). The Yor are still fighting, but their odds aren't good.

Meanwhile, the Minor Race Cluster to the "east" of New Toria has dissolved into an orgy of violence. The Shylen, who turned out to be tough customers after all, are in the process of rolling up the Dark Yor and Scottlingas. The Dark Yor are already all but destroyed; the Scottlingas are putting up more of a fight but have lost one planet and their mobile fleet. The Lentzlandians, meanwhile, have joined me in the war against the Drengin, though with just twelve ships in their fleet I fear their contributions will be few. The only ones staying out of this mess are the Korx, who, true to their nature, are trading quietly amid the violence. They might also be egging it on, if their construction of a Mercenary Academy and the fact that someone paid off the Shylen to attack the Iconians mean anything. I can't help but feel a grudging respect for the faceless scoundrels - they've managed to establish themselves far better off then major race Korx usually do in my games - and have followed their lead in, thanks to trading, building my own Mercenary Academy and Fortified Freighter Command.

As for my Torians, we've secured an economic treaty and alliance with the Iconians, and are also "Close" with the Terrans, though the monkeys' backwards nature and habit of demanding tribute have made me much less willing to sign an alliance with them. We still control just 10 planets, but now possess the third-best research ability (trailing the Iconians and Krynn) and second-best manufacturing (trailing the Krynn) in the galaxy.

But things may be about to take a worse turn. Recent weeks have seen a number of successes against the Drengin, as Torian fleets wiped out one of their "Vengeances" from the earlier assassination event and thwarted their attempt to ascend (rumors of similar efforts by the Krynn remain unconfirmed), while our own long-range starbase repulsed a Drengin squadron. But a month ago, a fleet of raiders heading up the Drengin-Shylen trade route spotted an armada of 54 Super Dominator Corvettes en route to the Lentzlandians Homeworld. Once they're through with the Lentzlandians defenses (which undoubtedly won't take long), it's no mystery who they'll be heading for next, and I've got no solid way of stopping them.

Stay tuned, Torian-fans...

^

Wow ChainsawSchmalz, the Jagged Knife are evil aligned rebels right?

 

Does that kind of galactic wide revolution happen often in the expansions? It would be an interesting challenge to fight against!

Oh those Korx...I remember that feeling too.  Seeing all the other races declare was on each other, making me applaud happily and say "YAY!  More money for me!  Mercenary bonus go!".

Which would make a Drath-Korx alliance insane if it ever happened...

Well, my Iconian game became a slog after the Korx war.  My economy was so strong that nothing could touch my territory.

I had given up on spending down to below the 20k mark and let my economy take the penalty.  Even so, I had over a million gold when I downgraded my entire navy to unarmed hulls.  Once I did that, the Thalans declared war on me.

I upgraded my navy back to warships and went after the Thalans.  My first attack on them took their hyperion logistics planet.  That lowered their fleet capability to 6 huge hulls each and increased mine to 9.  I never even used my "Hunter-Killer" ships since even my rookie fleets could take on anything on the map.  The Thalans were everywhere so I built ships wherever I needed them.  I wiped them out before the game would let me speak to them again.

I then downgraded my navy back to unarmed hulls and baited the Altarians with transports parked close to most of their planets.  I tried to extort money from them, but I'm not sure if that counts in diplo.  The extortion attempts were never completed.  I set up a trade embargo and waited for them to declare war.  It took a few turns, but they finally did.

My transports were close, so it didn't take long to clear them out.  It was just the 1 week to upgrade my navy back to fighters, erase their fleets and send the troops in.  

The Drath were my ally and were the last empire left.  I know it's just an AI, but it was still distasteful to me to end the alliance and attack. I might turn the alliance victory back on for my next game to avoid that.

Here's the resulting metaverse submission...

After a break, I might try my hand at "good" alignment for a change.  I might reset an old character for that or set up a new one.

The Yor game continues: why talk to fleshbags when you can shoot them?

The galaxy now looks like this:

Yor: The conquest of the Jagged Knife is going well - we have retaken all our worlds, plus the Knife planets that used to be the center of the Korath empire. In doing so, the kinetic assault brigades have gained great renown throughout the Yor collective for their ruthless efficiency. These small groups of elite Yor soldiers descend upon their hapless target on the backs of mobilized asteroids, capitalizing on the fear and panic engendered by a potentially world killing impact to decimate even the most heavily fortified positions. The broken, scattered remnants of the defending army are then easily crushed by the following wave of robotic legions (now upgraded with reverse engineered Tir-Quan protocols). The armored memory core embedded in the asteroid is then retrieved, along with the minds of the kinetic assault brigade able to upload before their chassis were destroyed. These veterans are given first priority for re-embodiment, and the option to settle on the world which they helped conquer. A growing number, however, rejoin the Collective armed forces to continue honing the combat skills to which they are optimized.

The Jagged Knife was foolish enough to build a Stellar Forge on one of our worlds that already had a bonus to starship quality. The Yor Collective heartily mocks whatever meatsack thought we would abandon our planets simply due to their organic infestation, but we can appreciate the increase in military might this Forge will give us.

Other notable structures we have acquired include the Benevolent Research Center, the Empathic Tactical Center, and the Temple of Righteousness. We are unsure of these structures' intended use, but the Yor Collective has derived benefits from their possession anyway. Our best understanding of benevolence is 'deliberate inefficiency', but the extensive research facilities and captured data have progressed our technological understanding greatly. The concept of 'empathy' in particular is contralogical at best - however the mapping of organic neural circuitry has allowed us to refine our predictive evasion algorithms, making meat gunners look even more incompetent. Why one would make a temple celebrating an empty concept is totally beyond us: there exists only acceptable and error, nothing more. On further analysis of this, we have uncovered a flaw in organic species we had not previously considered possible. They have no basic firewalls to protect their thought processes. It continues to astound us that they survive more than a few cycles past spawning. In any case, given our taps into the galactic network it was trivial to introduce some subtle programming that will lead to their value tokens coming under Yor control.

We now control more than 100 worlds, and have exterminated the Torians from the center and west of the galaxy. We have also kicked them off all their resources and ascension crystals and taken them for ourselves - if we do not conquer the galaxy before then, we shall leave this hopelessly error-ridden plane in 132 weeks.

The Silicoids have all but fallen to our might, having only one planet remaining to call their own. Do not mistake this for mercy - it would simply be suboptimal to exterminate them, as their last world is surrounded by highly influential Korath planets. We presume they dread the day we decide to finish what was started by their foolish claim to worlds clearly best optimized for Yor existence.

 

Korath: The Korath's strategy of superior culture backed by military force has been dealt a mortal blow by the Jagged Knife's theft of their core worlds. In fairness, it was working pretty well before they showed up, but the Korath let their arrogance blind them and have continued behaving as though they have no equal. They have completely ignored further military advancements in favor of infrastructure research, despite the fact that fighting a one vs five war without invasion troops is difficult. Though they have a 500+ ship navy, the Korath have enemies on three sides and their ships are dangerously dispersed due to attacks on three fronts. The Torians have even managed to capture 3-4 outlying Korath worlds that were within Torian territory. We grudgingly admire Korath efforts to emulate us using meat - their clone mining complexes are remarkably efficient for fleshlings (+18 mining from one module...this experience is entirely unlike our accustomed contempt). Despite the three influence resources they control, however, Kora is cut off by Yor planets (formerly Jagged Knife planets) and in danger of succumbing to Yor mental reprogramming.

Jagged Knife: They have finally mobilized forces against us from their strongholds in the southwestern portion of the galaxy, and Knife fleets and transports are closing on our forces. A typical Knife combat fleet looks like this, and is three times as powerful as what the Korath or Torians can field:

After a few cycles of deliberation, the Yor Collective have researched shielding technology and produced a rebuttal:

We reject overkill as a concept: there is either sufficient or insufficient firepower.

Our current target area is the Alshain-Haber cluster just west of Altarian space. We anticipate full assimilation shortly - the Knife exchange of 'econom' (whatever that is) with the Korath will not save them.

 

Torian: Since we have all their resources and the Jagged Knife are a higher priority process, we have temporarily suspended aggressive restructuring of Torian physical systems. Since their warship crews are no longer in immediate danger of forcible vacuum exposure (seriously, what kind of pathetic species can't handle a little vacuum?) they have been able to form fleets and take the fight to the Korath. They retain a strong core of worlds in the galactic east, with good economy and research.

Altarian, Iconian, Elerian, Meklar: These four races are all at war with the Korath, and in combination with the Torians have been able to provide enough attrition of the Korath fleets that it looks possible that they may eventually win the war. All of them have transports - though the Altarians do not have enough logistics to escort them yet - and it looks like only a matter of time before far-flung Korath planets begin to fall. The Iconians are of particular interest to us, and many in the Collective advocate their destruction before they even think about asserting themselves our 'masters' once again.

Drengin, Korx, Arcean: These races have been building stockpiles of transports and constructors, but have still not developed any military. Their window of opportunity for attacking the Jagged Knife has closed, and they seem poised on the brink of insignificance.

Thalan: They are slowly losing their worlds to Iconian influence - where the previous races were poised on the brink, the Thalans have jumped.

Drath, Bulrathi: They appear to be embracing the strategy of remaining as inoffensive as possible, and are entirely superfluous to the greater powers of the galaxy. The Drath do have the largest stockpile of value tokens in the galaxy, though we are unsure what they might do with them...

 

They are a 'collection of outcasts from the good races' somewhat like a Galactic mafia - definitely evil aligned. I haven't played all that many TA games, but I do have events set to frequent - I like me the random.

I am definitely keeping the training ship trick in my repertoire, but why do this instead of just declaring war?

Though not usually a Torian fan (silly ET-rabbits, planets are for me!), I'm pulling for ya on this one. Sounds like you have your work cut out for you.

Wow, the Jagged Knife are actually doing stuff?

The one time I let them live (they took only two low-PQ planets, which resulted in them forming a buffer between me and the hostile Drengin and Torians), they eventually started sending me freighters, but fleets? I find myself impressed.

The robot roleplaying is still awesome.

Seeing as you're the only person who made a suggestion, Korx it is!

Also this game has ponies as an enemy race.  Fair warning.

 

Here are my settings:

Note:  I'm playing on Normal difficulty (since I'm not confident in my ability to hold a Gigantic galaxy yet), but I set the Kingdom of Celestia to "bright" to offset the fact that their slider is almost all the way on pacifistic.  I don't want them to get wiped out too fast.  In fact, I'm hoping for another great rivalry like the last time they were my enemies.

opponents:

Good:  Kingdom of Celestia, Drath, Altarians
Evil:  Koopas, Yor, Drengin
Neutral:  Tekk imperative (robot race), Terrans
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As the new CEO-king of the Korx, my first order of business was to utilize this new hyperdrive technology that I had intercepted from the terrans to colonize.  To my aggravation, there were two WONDERFUL planets nearby (12 and 14 respectively), and yet my colonists refused to land there, saying something about it being too barren to colonize, the ungrateful twats.  I had to settle for some other half decent worlds farther away.

As for the diplomatic side, the first suckers-I mean customers I ran into were....Oh dear.  The Drath.  Too start things off on nice terms, I gave them 100bc.  Everyone likes money as much as the korx do, right?  I mean, if someone were to give ME 100bc, I'd be overjoyed!

Still, I'm not stupid.  There was a less-than-stellar planet not too far from them, and I didn't want them to get their hands on it.  Also, it was called Ireland.  Total justification for landing there.  Although it turns out the primitive...ahh..."Irishmen" covered a great deal of the planet.  The head colonist asked us what to do...I told him to treat them just like all the other Korx.  IE, make them work for their money!  They can climb the social ladder from the bottom (ie slavery) just like everybody else.  Am I not merciful?

Then my vid-screen was assaulted by this horned and candy colored confection claiming to be the ruler of the kingdom of Celestia.  I gave it 100bc as a gift, just to be polite and start things off on the right foot.  And then I got a message in the mail inviting me to to some united planets thingy that the pony creatures must have suggested.  As useless as I felt this meeting would be, I attended.

I nearly died of shock as I realized their ruse.  Turns out they weren't as soft and stupid as I had assumed.  Through some...black market witchcraft, they controlled over half the seats in the place!  The bill proposed some kind of "united celebration" thing...I felt that 500 BC was more than enough to satisfy the lower castes, and the Drath were quite in agreement.  ...That odd horned creature seemed to think that this wasn't enough, however, costing us a steep 1000bc of taxpayer dollars.  I immediately filed them away in my mind under "manipulative, sneaky and bothersome".  Still, at least it kept the taxpayers happy enough to breed like rabbits, so I guess it wasn't all that bad.

I think I played too much today....

 

REPORT 2:  Korx

Here's my map for the current game, complete with labels so you know who is where:

 

I ran into the humans, meh.  Ran into the Yor...Ahhh, these guys are more my speed.  They are ambitious and straight to the point.  "we have claimed this plane-...no, this start sys-...Umm...Galaxy.  Yes, we have claimed this entire galaxy!" indeed.  Not sneaky like those drath or ponies.  I like them.

And it seems like when my back was turned, my spies gave ALL the terran techs to some minor race on my fringes.  Why they didn't just wire them to ME, I will never understand.  And those Jessuins REFUSED to bargain with me.

And then I colonized ALL the barren worlds in sight.

And then...My scientists, in some kind of dare, I assume...Researched ZOMBIES for crying out loud.  Actual.  Freakin.  ZOMBIES.  Apparently there was some sort of poofy moral problem some scientists had with the zombies, saying that their lives would be full of suffering or something.  Well, I read the damn owner's manual, and right there under c2.28 ("do not leave with small children"), I read that zombies cannot think.  Ergo, they cannot suffer.  Ergo, those flimsy contradictory scientists need to shut up and get me some more zombies!  Revive ALL the Zombies!  And the zombies of our enemies too!  We'll make that puny Terran "umbrella corp" look like amateurs!  ALL THE ZOMBIES!!

Then...The Tekk imperative started to scare me.  They grabbed a 25 CLASS WORLD.  With high gravity.  And then, just a few turns before I could get to it, they got a Restaurant of Eternity.  Why robots need a restaurant I do not understand, but either way, it boosted their influence to terrifying levels.  Combined with a sudden spike in Xenophilia...Some of my worlds looked VERY vulnerable indeed.  So I bought all the embassies money could buy, and tried to fight the encroaching cultural bombardment.  On the other hand...They are friendly towards me, and they are right next to both the ponies and the drath (the drath hate me for some reason), so they could be useful allies, or useful tools of war in the future.  I was going to research weapons at this point.....but considering that these machine people are eating up more TV time than my commercials...I think I need influence, STAT...

At our annual UP meeting, it was proposed to share technologies among all the races.  I thought 2 would be more than enough.  ...everyone else wanted 3.  I got assaulted with an ENDLESS barrage of new tech.  On one hand I was not amused, since I was now forced to choose my alignment (evil), when I really wanted to postpone that until later so I could continue to milk my citizens under the guise of "free market" and "economic freedom" and be able to say "Well, we're not ACTUALLY evil!  Look!  We haven't decided yet!".  On the plus side, though, I got up to laser 4 for free, AND republic tech (my morale is at 100% somehow, so why the heck not?), PLUS medium class ships, PLUS planetary invasion and bombardment, AND a ton of colonizing tech (including barren worlds 2).  ....I think this was a great deal for me.

Oh, and apparently the Altarians have pre-judged me.  They suddenly popped up on the screen going "HAH!  TAKE THAT!  WE HAVE SECRET POLICE!".  So I offer them 150 BC, more than anyone else, since I'm in such a good mood.  Then, my military advisor came running in going "WHY ARE YOU GIVING MONEY TO OUR ENEMIES!"  To which I replied with a very sincere "I beg your pardon?  And stop dirtying my carpet, it's terran made, you know".  And then I looked at the foreign relations screen, and Yes, apparently, the Altarians have been at war with us since BEFORE we met.  Why am I the last one to know these kinds of things?  I mean...REALLY?

I got a call from the york, asking for "peacekeeping money".  I knew it was probably to pay for their war against the ponies (I think the Drath put them up to it.   They just announced that someone VERY powerful had asked them to clean up the Yor and Drengin), and since I don't like the drath and the amount was very funny (777), I gave it to them.  ...And then I decided to offer them an economic treaty, and got their econ treaty AND research treaty AND 800-somthing bc for it.  Honestly, not too bad.  On later reflection, I think I should have shared my econ treaty for the Tekk to win them over more.....But the tekk are VERY scary right now, so...I don't know.

Oh, and the koopa finally came calling......and the first thing out of their mouth is "You're puny.  Give us Korx 2 and we won't squash you.  Are we not merciful?".  ...There is a difference between being ambitious, and being rude.  I did NOT give them my world, nor did I give them any gift money.  I haven't even run into their influence zone yet, so they're probably REALLY far away.  They don't scare me yet.

Lastly, I started improving worlds and preparing some ships in case of trouble.  The drath are looking punier by the second, and as soon as I get some half decent engines, and get my one pony-vulnerable world well defended, I think I might bribe the Tekk to fight the ponies, distracting them as I go in and start a war-...I mean...Uhh..."aggressively purchase" some of the Drath worlds.

---

Ok, out game mode here...I tried REALLY colony rushing for the first time and HOLY COW.  I was a bit in trouble for a while in terms of morale...but now I have tons of worlds, tons of tax money, and 100% morale.  And despite a low tax rate and only 3-4 trade routes, I am raking it over 400 BC a turn.  Just...WOW.  I had no idea it was that effective.

My korx game is still puttering along.

---

I'm getting rather tired of all the threats my enemies are heaping on me.  And the drath are becoming more and more of an eyesore.  they only have about 5 planets that I can see, and I kinda want them.  So I'm racing ahead on the weapons tech tree, and towards large hulls so I can just crush anything that's in my way.

The thing is, if I attack the drath, I KNOW I'll end up fighting the ponies.  And considering hos MANY worlds they have.....Yeah, I'm not quite sure I'm ready to undertake that kind of endeavor just yet.  I need a more efficient solution.

I finally finished my race to my advanced weapons, and juuuust as I cranked my military production up to maximum....

All hell broke loose.  The Ponies.  The Drath.  The Altarians.  All the good races.  They ALL declared war on the Tekk at the same time.  And the Tekk are sandwiched between all of them.  For a moment I considered attacking the Drath from behind while they were occupied.....But then it hit me.  This was my chance.

All the races I wanted to take out (the tekk, the drath, the ponies) were at war.  All of them were distracted.  So I cranked research up to 11 and began working towards my anti-pony solution.

And then the Drengin came on, apparently utterly crushed by the koopas.  ....Who apparently have THE biggest military, despite me never seeing them.  I have officially put these guys on my list of threats.

And a good thing too, because a few turns later, one of my random worker guys killed King Bowser.  Let me repeat that.  SOME.  RANDOM.  WORKER.  KILLED.  BOWSER.  I have no idea how he managed that, but I have immediately put him on the nearest warship.  This guy is GOOD.  In the meantime, I have one world and one wayward starbase that I know the koopa can hit.  Otherwise, I don't think they have the range to hit my main empire.  Thank goodness for that.  I know the starbase is beyond saving, it's too far to upgrade with weapons.  And I'm buying tons of my new large class ships tha tlook like CD players on my vulnerable world.  ...Oh, and for some weird reason, the next ruler of the koopas looks EXACTLY like bowser, but is named Azurelas.  0_o  Weird.

 

EDIT:  And here are my ship designs, now that I've gotten into making ships:

May I present...The Jammin' Bummblebee?  (look at the description for added chuckles)


And here is my Large class ship.  The Mega rocker Extreme.  Designed to not only scream through space at top speed and do massive damage, but it also plays "Highway star" at full volume across all enemy comm channels for added pestering.