Yes I tend not to surrender except if the situation is really bad, but I was surprised as well when Loser and especially Deccan offered surrender as well in other games. I guess you don't see the hardships of the other Empire when everything is bright on your side.
I thought of building weapon platforms, but my goal was to go on the offensive rather than waiting for you to attack. I know I wouldn't stand a chance if I didn't try to take advantage of my technological lead, given your skills and my smaller share of the galaxy. Thus my attacks, but I counted on my cloaked ships as well and the riot aftershock. It seems like you had the same thing in mind, but unlike you I didn't have sensors Online in every system so I failed to see your ships.
You have to know as well my economy was always flirting with the red line, as I believe I had fewer facilities than you. I spent most of the time with 5,000 minerals in storage and an income of... +10 to +1000 in this resource. The same thing went true for radioactives, PPB does cost a lot of these. So I couldn't afford to build both a fleet and weapon platforms while colonizing and developing my five or six huge, breathable gas giants. (Nor the time for that matter) The destruction of my first fleet of DUC Carriers was actually somewhat a blessing as well, as it helped my economy by reducing my upkeep costs by 5,000 minerals. But I would have preferred to destroy your shipyards before.
If you don't mind answering this question (perhaps by e-mail?), could you tell me how do you handle training? That is, where do you build these facilities and when do you send your ships to training? I had such facilities, but given the poor lifespan of my ships, they weren't that useful. At this rate I will take Psychic just to have System-Wide training abilities, thus solving this problem. *Grumbles*
So yes, you would have won sooner or later, the best I could do was to hold down my two major systems in the eastern end of the galaxy with weapon platforms and other niceties, and I might even have survived, but not for long, especially as my homeworld was the only planet suitable for building quite a few weapon platforms (while having enough population to hold for a while in a fight) And of course, I will now check twice at least before each battle my default strategies.
(You would expect ships with guns to have a Optimal Firing Range strategy, wouldn't you?) Good luck with your next games as well.
[ November 25, 2003, 16:49: Message edited by: Alneyan ]