Devnull AAR

[Oversway]

I'll try an AAR

The setup:

devnull 1.71
simultaneous turns

2000 point game
medium tech cost
1 good planet start
low technology start

FQM WPM Paradise Galaxy
Medium (but I'll generate one that has a good amount of systems)
No ruins


AIs

cue cappa
drushocka
fazrah
praetorian
norak
xi'chung

No neutrals
No space monsters this time around
Hard AI Difficulty (of course)
Medium AI Bonus (I'd like them ahead of me but not too far ahead, wish there was an x4)


To make things more challenging for an AI game, I did the following:

Change atmosphere of everyone to oxygen (AI not good at race management and too easy to steal ai ships)
Also use all rock planet types, for an added twist
No Trade (but surrender allowed)
Tweaked some of the weaker AI designs (Praetorian and Fazrah)


My Empire:
str 80
int 112
cunning 82
env resist 80
reproduction 110
happiness 105
aggressiveness 112
defensiveness 107
political savvy 50
mining 105
farming 90
refining 90
construction 120
repair 80
maint 110

Merchants
Organic
Advanced Storage Techniques

Plan to min-max to an extent, but not too much so it'll be more of a challenge.

Cosmetics:
Shadri shipset, but change the race picture to use ur-quan.
Not planning to act like ur-quan in the game, just enjoy the picture.

I don't plan on any involved story here, this will be more of a gameplay AAR.


Plan for early turns:

Build three base space yards
Retrofit space yards with a few storage components, siphon off some population for filling colonizers

Have space yards building colonizers
Homeworld will build colonizers, then small transports with sat launchers

What other worlds build will depend on what I find

Research (general idea, I'll try to list the exact order I research during updates)
Base Intel projects (of course), Propulsion to 3
Organic Tech, Organic Weapons 2
External Mounted Missiles (for sats to guard warp points on borders)
Fighters, Small Weapons 2

[Oversway]

2400.0

Home system has a med and large non breather, plus two huge ice and gas, some assorted moons, 1 star.
It has 3 warp points and is at the lower middle left edge of the map.

---

built bsy, which built another bsy
built colonizer
colonize large non breather in system, build mineral storage (for now)

---

2401.0 - Explored 3 systems. One of them (two away from homesystem) has a huge and large breathable,
another has medium and tiny breather, 3rd has no breathers.
Will colonize huge and large breathers to develop resources, and tiny breather for storage (it is moon of huge oxy gas, so later on it will be protected even if it has space port on it).
Other planets in the system I plan to back fill later.

2402.0 - Colonized many (9) breathable with 2 more on the way. Most are large or bigger. Building space yards on some, while others I'm building research and mining. I think I'll start balancing development a little higher than exploration. The way the system branches out, there is only one area where further exploration won't cause me to have to split my (non existant) warp point defenses.



research:
basic intel
human intel
propulsion 2
external missles 1
propulsion 3 (completed 2400.5)
organic engineering (completed 2401.1)
repair (just something quick so I can get to ...)
organic weapons 1 (completed 2401.6)
ship construction 2
organic weaspon 2 (completed 2402.2)
small weapons 1
construction


No contact yet. I have a couple space yards coming online, I will probably build colonizers with those and fill in the systems. My homeworld is building small transports with satelite deployers. I think I'll switch to a smaller hull because I'm not building sats that fast. But the smaller transports double as pop transports, which will be helpful.

I'm building sats with 7 external missles (seeking parasite II). These are ok for wp defense, but definitely need to be supplemented (they can be on the wrong side of a warp point and not be able to hit the enemies). I'm hoping to get fighters researched reasonably soon to help them out.

[Oversway]

2403.0

No contact yet. I'm a little suprised, but happy as it gives me more time to build up. I'm starting to get ships headed to lay sats at wps, but
nothing is up yet. Two turns to fighters as well. Pumping out colonizers to fill in systems - FQM paradise gives a lot of planets!



2404.0

Still no contact. It will be embarresing if I screwed something up and the AIs arn't active. I have all but two warp points covered with at least some defense, and those two have ships enroute.
Since I have breathing room, and I'm swimming in resources currently, I'll start developing a monolith economy.

research

basic intel
human intel
propulsion 2
external missles 1
propulsion 3 (2400.5)
organic engineering (2401.1)
repair (just something quick so I can get to ...)
organic weapons 1 (2401.6)
ship construction
organic weaspon 2 (2402.2)
small weapons 1
construction
small weapons 2
fighters (completed 2403.2)
Military Science
Ship Construction 3
Point-Defense Weapons 1
Combat Support
Point-Defense Weapons 2
Ship Construction 4
Point-Defense Weapons 3
Organic Technology 1
Monolithic Construction 1
Propulsion 4
Cargo 2
Propulsion 5
Organic Weapons 3
Smaller Weapons 3
Propulsion 6

[Suicide Junkie]

Check your F2->players screen. Make sure the AIs aren't all neutrals.

(You can tell a neutral because their flags are nothing but a smoothly blended colour stripe with no symbols or anything)

[Oversway]

I looked at some of the screens but they did not show anything for races until you've encountered them. I'll try the f2 one just to be sure. At any rate, I'm sure they are not neutrals since I added them manually.

I logged in as one of the AIs (praetorian) and it had expanded some, so they are out there. Luckily that AI wasn't close to seeing its position shouldn't ruin the suspense


More Research:


Organic Technology 2
Physics
Repair 2
Shields 1
Sensors 1
Engine Overloading Weapons 1
Deep Space Mining 1
Shield 2
Engine Overloading Weapons 2
Industry
Shields 3
Engine Overloading Weapons 3
Applied Research 1
Computers 1
Point Defense Weapons 4
Shields 4

I've had over 50 turns of build up. I'm starting to build LC en masse. I wonder how close to MEE I'm getting...

[Oversway]

I played about twenty more turns and still no contact. After that I gave up and logged in as the computer players. Turns out they were fairly bunched up on the other side of the map and I'd easily cover a 3rd of the quadrant before making contact. That would be fairly boring so I started over. This time and AI and I had homeworlds right next to each other I don't want to play a game like that either.

Am I doing something wrong with the "Evenly Spread Players Across The Quadrant" setting? The last thing I do is generate the map (so I don't get ruins), do I need to add AIs after I generate the map so they get placed evenly?

Anyways I'll try some more games and once I have something reasonable, I'll restart this AAR.

[Hunpecked]

*sigh* I sympathize. The quest for The Perfect Game is a long and arduous one. I'm on my ninth experiment against the AIs; never got past turn 100 before deciding to try again with altered parameters. Yet each failure brings us a step closer to ultimate success, Grasshopper.

[Oversway]

I will try some more tonight

[Oversway]

Here are the new settings I am playing with. I may have the numbers for my race slightly off, I changed them alot. I also did some min/max'd all the AIs (nothing really extreme).

Turn Based

wpm standard paradise

1 good planet start
3000 point races

praetorian
norak
fazrah
xi'chung
drushocka
cue cappa
toltayan


Advanced Storage Tech
Organic

str 80
int 120
cunning 82
env resist 80
reproduction 110
happiness 110
aggressiveness 112
defensiveness 107
political savvy 50

mining 110
farming 100
refining 100
construction 120
repair 80
maint 110

---


First contact - fazrah on 2401.3. The xi'chung showed up a little bit later. Both have declared war on me. The fazrah have glassed a couple of small planets, but I'm beating them back using frigates armed with seeking parasite II. It is fun trying to fight a war and expand this early on. My main priority now is to get some missile sats at the warp points to give me a little breathing room.


Research

Basic Intel 1
Human Intel 1
Propulsion 2
External Mount Missile Weapons 1
Propulsion 3
Organic Engineering
Ship Construction 2
Organic Weapons 1
Repair 1
Organic Weapons 2
Military Science 1

[Oversway]

The AI beat me I was doing a decent job of fighting off the fazrah, but then the Xi'Chung came at me in force, and that finished me off. So, I've started a new game, which is going better.

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Turn Based (I like tactical combat a lot, although the 'everyone moves at once' part of Simultaneous is definitely cool)

wpm standard paradise

1 good planet start
3000 point races

praetorian
fazrah
xi'chung
drushocka
cue cappa
toltayan
norak


Advanced Storage Tech
Organic

str 80
int 120
cunning 82
env resist 80
reproduction 110
happiness 110
aggressiveness 112
defensiveness 107
political savvy 50

mining 110
farming 100
refining 100
construction 120
repair 80
maint 110

--

encountered Xi'Chung early on. They were fielding frigates with capitol missile 1. Not much fighting but they had some succesful intel attacks (ship bomb, cargo bomb). I get a kick out of taunting them with various demands and threats in the diplomacy screens


encountered praetorian shortly after Xi'Chung. they wanted a treaty but I'm not interested. they refused to fight the Xi'Chung for me as well. they mostly fly a ship or two between one of my systems. I plan to put up sats on the wp top stop this.


Put up missile sats on the wp the Xi'Chung were using, but by this time they seemed focused on intel - I havn't seen a ship of theirs for awhile.
I Have decent development in 2 systems, and starting development in 3 others.


Encountered toltayan. I declared war, since I may want to expand in that direction. So far we have left each other alone.

About to complete fighters, I sent a colony ship through the toltayan border, and see a fazrah ship. I wonder if they are at war.
I've found the Xi'Chung homeworld, a few systems below mine. I may decide to expand that way instead. I currently have six systems fairly well developed.

2405.0 - I forgot to write dates down earlier. Still have six systems, but developing a seventh. Mass producing fighters to fortify warp point defenses, as well as an invasion.
Xi'Chung broke through one of my warp points with a carrier. The carrier was destroyed by missile sattelites but it managed to release 2 groups of 10 fighters that destroyed the sats.
However, I have been successful in containing the system using my own fighters, and am about to take the warp point back.
In prepartion for invasion I am building a fleet of carriers, but I also need to build support ships with pdc (for mines) and supply - I'd like some solar panels.



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Research:

Basic Intel 1
Human Intel 1
Propulsion 2
External Mount Missile Weapons 1
Propulsion 3
Organic Engineering
Ship Construction 2
Organic Weapons 1
Repair 1
Organic Weapons 2
Military Science 1
Planetary Weapons 1
Small Weapons 1
Point-Defense Weapons 1
Small Weapons 2
Point-Defense Weapons 2
Combat Support 1
Construction