**Spoilers** Game of the Month #1 - Progress updates

[Tcby]

For those of you playing this game at home, remember that this thread will be full of spoilers.

Anyway, fire away I won't be back here until I reach the five year mark.

[Icemania]

Tcby, you might want be put *** SPOILERS *** in the thread title just so it's clear.

Icemania: 5 Year Report

Map Exploration is almost complete. I ended up building 40 Explorers, also shared some Galaxy Maps with friendly races, and there is now just a little of the North-East corner left to explore. Most Explorers are now on Auto.

Way of the Ancients was found after about 2 Years and Devastator Pulse after about 3 Years. I used the discovered Colony Ships to colonise the Energy Engineering Facility (+50% Energy Research), a Super Luxury Planet and the nearest Independent Colony. I don't normally colonise Research bonus planets this early (as I normally build the Research wonders) but due to the slow research of this race, seems like the way to go.

I have 30 mines in Operation (in just a couple of locations so they are more defensible against Pirates) which provide plenty of Strategic Resources and about half of the normal Luxury Resources. I have a Super Luxury mine complete, another Super Luxury mine almost complete, with ships on the way to build a third Super Luxury Mine (so will soon have 4 Super Luxury sources including the Colony) so expecting this will soon help provide more income.

I now have 12 Construction ships and will keep building more. For the moment they are building mines, Starbases, and a Weapons research facility (30% bonus location) but eventually will switch to repair debris fields ships (which will then be retired).

With Fleets, I currently have 6 small defence fleets (2-4 ships). Just retrofitting my first attack fleet (20 ships) which will start on Pirate bases but I expect some ship losses until technology improves (will focus on nearby Smaller Spaceports for the moment).

The original Leader was replaced and unfortunately the new Leader has no income bonus. I did just spawn a new Colony Governor (don't know his percentages yet) but he includes an income bonus (transferring to homeworld at the moment).

With Weapons Research I'm now focused on Torpedo research and have started building up Armoured Forces on my homeworld.

With High Tech Research Biological Workshop research is almost finished. I'm still in two minds about doing some Colonisation research or heading to Traders Bazaar next ... maybe just Marshy Swamp for the moment.

Energy Research is currently Component Prefabrication for Size 400 ships. Deucalios shields were recently completed and are currently in deployment via upgrades.

Intelligence Agent is currently on an 80%+ success rate steal research mission.

The Empires around the map are an interesting mix. I have 5 Free Trade Agreements running with all the Friendly races but the 3 Insect races and 2 Keskudon Empires (with Way of Darkness!) are a pretty unhappy bunch. No wars declared yet but I'm sure they are coming. The map has a Freedom Alliance versus Shakturi Axis feel to it. The strategy going forward will be to keep building relationships with the friendly races and invade the nearest Insert race the Paratis Collective.

Interested in seeing what will happen for those that adopt different strategies e.g. more aggressive colonisation, different technology paths etc.

[Icemania]

Icemania: 8.5 Year Report

The Zenox took the fourth Super Luxury just before my Construction ship got there. They probably only knew where it was because I shared Maps ... I knew being friendly to my allies was a bad idea! Plenty of income from the other 3 Super Luxuries though.

I had forgotten how weak Classic mode Pirates are, it's already very quiet on Pirate attacks, so it looks like I've way overbuild defences.

I now have 16 Construction ships that are mainly on debris field ship repair duties. That's probably enough ships on this map.

Advanced Medicomplex was built and I'm currently growing my homeworld to maximum population at 0% tax. Open Trade Network research to get access to Traders Bazaar is well underway and prior to that finished Marshy Swamp and Continental Colonisation research (that is the earliest I've done that for a while and now building a few colony ships). Bakuras Shipyards is almost built on my homeworld. Ships are now Size 400, now researching stronger shields and torpedoes.

The main focus though is building Armour. I'm at about half the troop strength needed to successfully invade the Paratis Collective homeworld. The Tairoshan Armour is also weak so this is taking a while and trying to build what Armour I can at other Colonies (Ortain, Keskudon). The Paratis are colonising plenty of nearby planets, that's okay, they won't be a threat for decades, so easy pickings later ... and may help encourage them to declare war which would add some interest to the game. Brings up an interesting question for Universe ... would invading increase reputation rather than decrease it? They are Insectoids after all!

[CyclopsSlayer]

Year 5 Report (end);

Only explored about 60% of the map, 25 Explorers in service. No major finds so far, Lost Ships a plenty, several debris fields including one World Destroyer. Certainly no Govt or Super Tech.

Built 18 Constructors as I had 2 immediately adjacent debris fields. Concentrated on repairing the smaller and more intact ships first then retired them.
Retirement has gained me so far Adv Quantum Reactors, Imp Deucalos Shields, Basic Kaldos and Imp CalDista and Imp Equinox FTL, Adv Maneuvering, and a slew of partial techs. The Construction ships have MORE than paid for themselves.

Characters been very very bad to me... 1 Scientist (Foreign Spy, Demoralizing), NO Intelligence agents at all, 4 Generals, Ambassador, various ship Capt/Admirals. Leader replaced in the election by a dweeb that looks to be close to useless.
Empire discovered so far run the gamut. Have 5 Free trades and 1 War I am not positioned to capitalize on yet.

Conquered 4 Independents(2 Ice, 1 Volc, 1 Desert), colonized the Happiness bonus planet with a discovered Colony ship. second Colony ship lost in flight as the colony target turned out to be a Pirate Base system.

Personal choice, I hate the R&D bases and deleted the designs. Redesigned the Med SP to have 10 of each lab and said good enough as that got me to capacity in each category in a more defensible package. Redesigned the Freighters and Explorers to 300+ Boarding strength to make them nearly pirate immune. Redesigned the Mine bases to have 3 extractors, only 2 Energy Collectors and 300+ Boarding.

Energy - Have 400sz ships and Boskara yards built. working on larger Hulls.
High Tech - Open Trade Networks under construction, Countermeasures, LRS, working on Colonization techs.
Weaponry - Grabbed Logistics, Imp Off/Def and Armor for Ground. Have Starfighters up through Carriers. Have Imp Episilon Torps, working on Shockwave.

EDIT:

Year 8 - The little pocket empire to my South East that kept declaring War finally pissed me off so I turned to crush them. Built up a fairly heavy Fleet/Troop wave. Took 1 of their worlds fairly easy and the damned Paratis to my immediate North declared war. 2 smaller Paratis fleets started sniping Mines, while their main fleet hit my home world. They walked through a reinforced Med SP, DefBase, and 10 defending Cruiser/Carriers with WAY too much ease, sigh...
By the time my fleets returned they had dropped 996K in troops versus my 446K on the ground, and Apalla was theirs. I could endeavor to fight on, but my economy is in near total collapse. Would have to scrap most of the fleets to reach tax parity.



Med SP - 30 Imp Deuc Shlds, 20 Imp Epsilon Torps, 20 Fighter Bays, 80 Armor
DefBase - 30 Imp Deuc Shlds, 30 Imp Epsilon Torps, 20 Fighter bays, 120 Armor
Home Fleet - 4x 750sz Carriers, 6x 400sz Cruisers. (was to be built up into Assault 3)
Assault 1 - 4x Carrier (750), 6x Cap (500)anti-ship, 6x Cruiser (500)limited anti-ship, strong Ground attack, 6x Troop Ships (400)5 Troop bays. Force had 6 Armored and 24 Infantry and a General.
Assault 2 - same as above

@Icemania - There must be some randomizers to Pirate Personality. One of the Independents I captured late game was the site of some of the biggest battles I saw all game as 3 Pirate empires fought over control of the skies. One had at least two Capital ships sweeping through, another a Resupply with a repaired World Destroyer. All-in-all the 3 pirates seemed to have 20-30 ships between them pretty constantly in that system.

[Haree78]

I don't mean to be mean but it is nice to hear the AI still gets the better of us at times! (and not just against me anyway! [:D])

[CyclopsSlayer]

ORIGINAL: Haree78

I don't mean to be mean but it is nice to hear the AI still gets the better of us at times! (and not just against me anyway! [:D])

Not mean at all, if I won every game I would stop playing. [:D]
If you kick all the sliders to the max setting it rapidly shifts to the 'almost sure loss' category. Finding the right difficulty for a challenge while maintaining the fun is half the game. [;)]

[Icemania]

Wow CyclopsSlayer, I never would have picked that at Year 8 after your Year 5 report, sounds like you went on the offensive a bit too early! I vote that you reload at Year 5 and try again ...

I’m playing a quiet builders game until I'm ready to wipe out the Paratis. The combination of Way of the Ancients, Traders Bazaar and a Maximum Population Homeworld will provide plenty of funds for the offensive. I notice there is a “minimum time at war” victory condition so I'm thinking about invading all of their worlds simultaneously ... Cylon like ... after all I’m a Battlestar Galactica fan (well except for the last hour of the Ron Moore finale which sucked). Fleets will be on defensive duty only because any Paratis ship I destroy is a ship lost when their Empire surrenders ... so it’s expendable troop ships only.

With Pirates I only have one independent colonised at the moment and between Year 5 and 8 my 20 ship attack fleet wiped all the Pirate Spaceports nearby. My colony defence fleets sniped Pirate ships every time they were strong enough to do so (don’t get me wrong early on there were plenty of temporary Protection Agreements). I’m not sure if this explains the difference? I’m tempted to attack Pirate bases further away but I’m going to hold off so there are still some Pirate around to recover reputation after I invade the Paratis.

[Cauldyth]

Indeed, part of the fun of DW is that two different games at the same difficulty setting can play out wildly differently, all based on the randomization. Sorry to hear about the enslavement of the Tairoshan race, CyclopsSlayer! [;)]

[CyclopsSlayer]

Yeah, I was too aggressive and too expansionist, my reputation sucked as I kept conquering my neighbors cousins and family...

I had all the Tech in the world, but there were too many non-productive colonies draining resources.
So while I had the 'best' Ships and Bases, I lacked the economy to support having enough of them. The Bases and 3 fleets had my economy balanced at just barely positive. ie. < +1000 CR

At the time of the final war I was at the end of the Tairoshan growth phase, had dropped the HW tax to 00% which gave me +58% growth, +15% after growth ended. I was at 12.8 Billion pop and could have 'soon' shifted the HW to a 60% tax rate. Which was when I was planning to go kick the damned Bugs into the stone age.
=-=-=-=-=-=-

Will restore from the older save and go forward more cautiously, but knowing what was the future kinda takes the heart out of it. [:(]

[Icemania]

Icemania: 16.5 Year Report

Well the Cylon attack plan won't be tried again! Sounded cool at the time ... it took a lot of extra time to build sufficient troop strength to invade all their worlds simultaneously and while I was fiddling around with that ... the Boskara Collective attacked the Paratis and took some worlds from right under my nose.

Ended up going back to the normal plan and took their homeworld and after that the colonies so the Paratis are no more. As a result have hit the front in score / victory conditions. But this could have been done way earlier ... and it's all Ron Moore's fault! [:'(]

Building a Regional capital on the conquered homeworld at the moment, some consolidation and then the Boskara Collective will be next.

I have small fleets at the 2 World Destroyer sites and repairing them while Construction ships are otherwise at the more distant debris fields.

A few recent research setbacks unfortunately, will shortly start research on Plasma Torpedoes and Meridium Shields, while researching for other Wonders. Research is so slow with this race!

Otherwise it is quiet, the Pirate factions have a total of 23 military ships ...

[Icemania]

Icemania: 21 Year Report

At 66% on Victory conditions (20% lead over the next race the Ruunadan) with 31 colonies. The Boskara Collective has just been defeated so time to consolidate again. The Boskara declared war shortly after defeating the Paratis which was good of them to help me save reputation given there are negligible Pirates.

Almost all debris field ships are retired so it's pretty much just the World Destroyers left which are at about 75% completion.

Did I say Research is slow with this race? Still waiting on Meridium Shields and Plasma Torpedoes! No Scientists have spawned at all either. Might slow down expanding now and do more crash research before taking on more Insectoids.

Trying to build all the Wonders (there are still plenty of high tier wonders to build) but did miss one to the Zenox.

[Grotius]

I didn't read any post beyond the first, because I've finished only about a year and a half, but I was eager to post what I know so far. Er, what I know is that I have three neighbors who are Angry with me for specious reasons. I just signed a protection deal with a pirate faction, and now I realize it's too pricy, so it's time to improve my military and provoke a fight with those scofflaws. In the meantime, I've just found an independent colony of my fellow beings to the southwest of my starting planet. So far it's the only candidate for a second colony I've found, but I'll have to deal with my pirate problem first, as they seem to be swarming nearby.

I haven't played DW in a while, and it's great fun to get back into it. Anyway, here's a picture of my current situation.

[Tcby]

GAH, it's so hard not reading these updates! I'm still stuck at the three year mark, thanks to a sudden change in my uni assessment timetable. I can't wait to join you guys here

[Icemania]

ORIGINAL: Tcby
GAH, it's so hard not reading these updates! I'm still stuck at the three year mark, thanks to a sudden change in my uni assessment timetable. I can't wait to join you guys here

Good luck with Uni Tcby, keep the focus, and thanks for setting this up. I'll be time constrained through much of April due to family holidays so playing while I can.

[Icemania]

Icemania: 29 Year Report

Well I tried to play a peaceful game for a while then the Keskudon decided to attack, I've now conquered both Keskudon homeworlds and the Keskeduon Realm has just been completely defeated. It's essentially the Nibu Nation left amongst the 5 starting Insectoids, the Aquareous have just a few colonies left.

The Zenox will be trouble before long since they are coveting my colonies and envious. However, I'm still friendly with the other non-Insectoid races.

Meridium Shields and Plasma Torpedoes are now on all Ports and Starbases but now need to upgrade my fleets after the recent campaign, and recover due to Serious War Weariness.

Both World Destroyers are repaired and relaxing safely near my homeworld, I'm not going to retire them ... because they are cool ... isn't that enough?

Some Legendary Pirates showed up a few years back, destroyed their base but there a few ships left to hunt down now. I haven't bothered fitting Long Range Scanners yet due to so few Pirates.

Status is 76% on Victory conditions (26% lead over the next race the Ruunadan) with 46 colonies and Score is about 1M (no tricks e.g. putting excessive weapons on structures). I would like to slaughter the Shakturi again but that might be a while given how slow the research is. Still no Scientists!

[Icemania]

Victory ... playing on ... how long to wait for the Shakturi?

[Icemania]

Icemania: 38 Year Report

The Nibu Nation and Aquareous have been defeated and just took the Zenox Homeworld (for the 1 Wonder built by another Empire).

Recently finished Trade Guild and doing some late tier Colonisation research.

The Beacon of Shaktur is now on the map so have sent an Exploration Ship to Explore. Looking at save games it actually appeared in Year 35 but I was clearly asleep at the wheel!

Status is 85% on Victory conditions (32% lead over the next race the Ruunadan) with 69 colonies and Score is about 1.8M.

[Icemania]

Shakturi War Final Battle

[Icemania]

Revenge of the Iceturi on the Shakturi Homeworld!

The Shakturi had built the Merkidor Planetary Fortress ...

[elanaahova]

You blew up their world?