The neutral challenge

[WhiteHojo]

Ok - an observation on the N.C.(Nuetral Challenge - tired of spelling it out)...

It seems that if left alone for 150-190 turns I seem to be able to obtain 1st or 2nd place out of 13 races w/o building any warships at all. W/tech cost on Med and low tech start, if left alone, most players should be able to maximize colonize your home system (max pops/fac on all planets).

My tactic is start as GG race and concentrate research on anything that will increase your research output - computers, applied research, etc. Build nothing but Reas Fac w/the occasional Storage fac & resource prod fac when needed. After est. a nice Reas output, start on colony techs and planet utilization techs.

I don't know what the impact of early discovery might be w/this strat b/c I haven't ever been discovered in this pattern.

My desire w/this scenerio is to find myself in the position of the underdog in the galaxy - to paraphrase Ming the Merciless in Flash Gordon, "Hurling myself in the Void w/o the faintest notion of what lies beyond".. all w/o the physical hurling of my pathetic little empire untill found.

So I started a new N.C. w/computer bonus on Low - 30 turns into it and I'm still in 12th place (Last), by a fairly large margin. So maybe I'll get my wish this time.

A side question - Low computer bonus gives the AI a 2X bonus in all areas, but when looking at the scores of all races, are the computers numbers before the bonus is applied or after the bonus is applied? (ex - if race 1 is showing 24.0K Research points per turn, is it producing 12K per turn bumped to 24K or is it actually producing 24K but using 48K?

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Character is best defined as that which you do when you believe nobody is watching.