AAR: Humans (Flaviusx challenge)

[bubicus]

I played as the Human Union, using the settings for the Flaviusx challenge:

500 turns, 24 factions (default factions), 250x250 map, play as humans

INITIAL STRATEGY:

On a large map such as 250x250, it is important to recognize the major threats: Hoon Yon/Fork and Walden/Walden II. These four factions have no bureaucracy penalty, so they can colonize as much as they want. They needed to be taken out as soon as possible.

Bureaucracy would be a problem for the humans on a large map. In addition to the standard bureaucracy penalty, humans get an additional -2 popularity penalty, so it becomes difficult to continue expanding. I decided to colonize only the ideal and habitable planets unless a planet had lots of resources (rich/very rich/asteroid/oort). I would allow other races to colonize the worse planets, and I would try to add as many trade missions as possible.

In order to support happiness centers, which would increase my victory points and allow further expansion by improving popularity, I needed lots of trade missions. This has the unfortunate side effect of requiring me to choose certain races to NOT exterminate, since I would need the trade income in order to operate the happiness centers. Hopefully, I would become so important to their economies that they would choose not to declare war on me.

INITIAL EXPANSION:

I started in the center of the map. Earth was a standard ideal planet with no other bonuses. I decided to use it as a breeding ground and transfer population to the far superior barren/very rich/asteroid/oort planet (Athens) and a nearby habitable/rich planet (Mycenae). There was also an ideal/poor planet (Sparta) that I later seeded as another breeding ground. Everything else was dead, irradiated, or empty, so I ignored those systems.

I built two shipyards at Mycenae and three shipyards at Athens, with the expectation that I would need to mobilize quickly as soon as I found an enemy.

I explored downward and discovered the Fork. Since they're one of my priority targets, I built some corvettes, declared war, and exterminated their closest colonies, then planted my own colonies. I took another habitable/rich planet (Tiryons), then flooded the Fork with corvettes and destroyers from Tiryons, Mycenae, and Athens.

The Thinkers and Teyes moved in from the right, but they were relatively peaceful, so I chose to make a bunch of trade missions with them. They would remain peaceful for the rest of the game.

In one of the truce periods with the Fork, I expanded left, ran into the Klurgu, and got into a war. I took four planets from them, then made peace and started trading with them. They would also remain peaceful for the rest of the game. More importantly, I took enough of the Klurgu's territory that I reached one edge of the map, so I felt more secure.

PART II:

At this point (turn 200), I became very concerned about the Walden. I had not yet found them, and they had over twice my VP. I had a pretty large fleet, and I was having trouble setting up relay station treaties, so as soon as Mother Arks had been researched, I decided to explore for them myself. I was finally able to trade for map information from the Thinkers around turn 210, so I found out where the Walden were by their colony names (French cities).

The Fork were suppressed enough that I wasn't worried about their VP anymore. Between me and their continued hostilities with the AROM, they wouldn't pose a threat to me while I fought the Walden.

Around turn 225, I began my assault on the Walden. At this time, I finished researching Surrender (despite the -20% human penalty on psychic research), so I was able to take the planets once I destroyed the defenses. Unfortunately, I did not have a good fleet formation against their defenses.

This was my first game where I played beyond turn 200, so I had never encountered a Sun Beam before. I learned that Sun Beams are devastating against support ships (transports, carriers, missile carriers, arks, and survey ships). The attacks come from behind, so the support ships get hit first. After losing all of my carriers, missile cruisers, survey ships, and a mother ark in the first planet attack, I adjusted my tactics so the support ships would sit in deep space (thanks to Precise Location) while destroyers, corvettes, cruisers, and dreadnaughts attacked. I took two more planets, then took a ten-turn truce to rebuild my main fleet.

I was so focused on the Walden that I had not paid attention to the Klurgu Trade Collective. I had not considered that anyone besides the Walden/Walden II or Hoon Yon/Fork would be a threat. However, the KTC earned VP from both their population and from dividends. Their population was big, but 20% of their points had come from dividends as well. Even worse, I had no idea where they were! I decided to reduce the Walden population enough that they could not win, then look for the KTC.

By turn 285, I owned 29 planets. I had 8 Walden planets that were full of population, and 6 of them were ideal or habitable, so their happiness was high, which meant I would earn lots of points from them.

...Then I made a mistake, although I didn't know it at the time!

For a long time, I had a bureaucracy penalty to popularity of -3. It seemed that -3 was the maximum popularity penalty possible, since I kept taking planets and it wasn't getting worse. Flaviusx had not seen it go lower, so I assumed it wouldn't. I built a bunch of happiness centers and did a lot of terraforming and weather control, so happiness helped counteract the bureaucracy penalty.

So, this was my mistake: I took another planet from the Walden. On the next few turns, I saw more unrest and rioting. I discovered that the bureaucracy penalty goes to -4 once a civilization has 30 planets!!! ARRRGH!!! I assumed it would also affect the bureacracy penalty to income as well.

I decided to note the point values at turn 293, then play several more turns to see what would happen. I noted the point values again at turn 301, then calculated projections for the points at turn 500, assuming the VP rates for all races remained constant.

I would be #2. I would lose to the GTC by 55,777 points unless I intervened. The Fork would be #3, even though I had smashed them up a long time ago. The Walden would be #6, having been passed by the Teyes and Qa Qa II.

I already had -12,569 from bureaucracy by turn 301, causing my total income to become 568/turn (on revenue of 35,455), so I could support only two more happiness centers.

I decided to quit playing, since the next 199 turns would be very boring. I'd have to spend more money on happiness centers to control the -4 bureaucracy problem, so I'd probably start losing too much money. I pretty much ruined my enjoyment of the scenario by taking that 30th planet.

I'm confident I would have successfully achieved the challenge if I had continued playing, though. If I sold off just one of the bad planets in my empire, I would recover a lot of income and popularity, so I could afford more happiness centers and still exterminate the KTC. (I think I would have been safe in attacking them, since they didn't seem to have any defensive alliances, because they were at war with eight other races...)

So, Flaviusx, did I win? [:D]

LESSONS AND REVISED STRATEGY:

If I ever tried the Flaviusx challenge again, I would:

- keep close track of my planet count, making sure it does not reach 30.

- fully exterminate the Fork/Hoon Yon, rather than just weakening them. They appear to get technology points even if the population is small, so if they're not completely eliminated, they can earn too many points to keep up with.

- build missile cruisers and carriers only for defensive fleets, where they excel. In the late game, sun beams rip them apart.

- build a few more research facilities to maximize at least one or two technologies ASAP, so they can be scrapped to get back the upkeep costs for supporting more happiness centers.

I learned these strategies in this game:

- I found that having about 30-40% of my fleet as corvettes was very effective against the AI. They'd absorb the first few salvos, allowing my capital ships to fire at and destroy the AI's capital ships or heavy ground defenses.

- I learned in an earlier game how valuable the Cryokon are to the humans for points (since they can be happy on icy planets, it's easier to get happiness point bonuses from them, so they're more resistant to the bureaucracy penalties). I didn't get a chance to conquer them, so I would hope to do so in the next game.

- Restricting humans to habitable/ideal planets helped A LOT. Let others colonize the bad planets... it makes them weaker, and I can still make trade missions to those planets and earn some money.

- Precise Location with Mother Arks means you can travel anywhere in relative safety. Mother Ark was easy to research, since I was already researching Construction heavily because of the weather control techs, but I had never done a lot of research in Information before. Now I know better.

- I don't seem to have to research Weapons as much as I thought. Defense seemed a lot better for humans, since dreadnaughts seemed to be my main offensive weapon and light/heavy missiles deterred most attacks. I did research enough Weapons tech to get guardian stations, corvette IIIs, and destroyer IIs, though.

- Teleports are required on the 250x250 map!

- A very rich/asteroid/oort planet is a MONSTER for production and income. Everything costs 47% of normal cost to build (Dreadnaught II: 247 credits!! Corvette III: 76 credits!!!). I had three huge shipyards there, and I would've built a fourth if I had space.