Aki's rematch

[bvanevery]

My start last game was piss poor.  Tiny island, only worth putting 3 cities on it, crammed 6 in there.  No minerals, Pirates showed up to toast my sea bases once I finally did get off the island.  This time, same starting conditions.  Huge map, average settings, random opponents.  Once again I'm on a tiny island, large enough for 3 cities but I put 4 on it.  This time at least my capitol was well located initially, on the coast with good agricultural land, plus got a Monolith and a minerals deposit on rainy ground.  Got another Monolith and a landlocked energy resource which I put a base on top of.  My other 2 cities are just filler.

Initial exploration shows a larger island to the southwest, and an island to the north containing the Uranium Flats.  Guess who's squatting off the coast of the northern island?  The bloody Pirates!  Aaargh.  He didn't declare war immediately but he's Quarrelsome.  So now I'm building unarmored Laser skimships.  I didn't even ask him if he wants peace, I'm going to wipe him out as soon as I get the excuse.

One mistake I made last game, was not paying enough attention to who else was in the game with me.  I'm making that mistake less this game, although I don't think I should have to care on Turn 1.  The Pirates were the biggest threat last game and turn out to be the same this game.  I've been focused on Discover and I've got probe teams to show for it.  Might be nice to get some artillery too, and I can't remember if Zhakarov already got Secrets of the Human Brain or not.  I need to switch to Conquer real soon now.

There's a chance that popping pods will trigger an Earthquake, ruin the Uranium Flats, and put the Pirates on that land mass.  Right now I feel like taking the risk.  It's only the Flats, it's not the Monsoon Jungle or even the Garland Crater.  Cry me a river if I don't get slightly improved energy, which I won't even be able to fully utilize until I discover Environmental Economics.

All the factions in the game are human.  So, wiping out some neighbors and getting big should be enough to declare Diplomatic Victory.  We'll see how it goes.  I don't quite recall everyone in the game, but I remember seeing the Spartans, the Hive, and the University on the graph.

[bvanevery]

I built The Human Genome Project using 3 Artifacts.  I built The Virtual World merely with production in my capitol and money collected from fishing pods.  I have 1 Artifact remaining, but it's not on my main island as I've lacked the transports to move it.

I've spread out to several surrounding islands.  I've maintained an uneasy truce with the Pirates.  We even traded techs once, nothing terribly important.  He still has Plasma armor and I don't, but I contacted and allied with Santiago, who traded me Nonlinear Mathematics.  Santiago is a sad case, she started on some small island and only managed to have 1 city last I looked.

Roze built The Weather Paradigm and The Merchant Exchange.  Nobody has started The Command Nexus, which I guess means Yang isn't doing great.  I'm still focused on Discover.  I can't remember whether Zhakarov got Secrets of The Human Brain already, and I haven't met him.  I did get Polymorphic Software, so in not too long, Svensgaard won't be able to do anything to me.  In the present though, my outlying settlements are weak and don't have real troops in them yet.

I met Morgan a distance to the northwest.  I've infiltrated and of course he doesn't like my Planned economy, but we haven't come to blows. 

Roze is far to the west, and immediately declared war on me when I contacted her.  I'll have her infilitrated any turn now, as I was exploring westwards with a skimship probe team when someone gave me her frequency.  I passed her Santiago's frequency before she declared war, and Santiago got a map out of her.  It's often a good idea not to require one's allies to go to war right away, because they can get maps out of people.  She's got a decent piece of land with a fair number of cities on it, and also the Manifold Nexus.  She could be a long term problem.

Only now have I discovered that the large island west of me contains The Monsoon Jungle.  My eastern end of the island is scraggly, rough, dry, and has a lot of fungus.  Svensgaard put a coastal sea base next to the Jungle, not far west of my coastal land base.  He can't actually use most of the land because I have the land claim.  If I put 1 more city inland he won't be able to use any of the Jungle at all.

I'm even on the power graph with the other top 2 players, so I guess I didn't start too badly.  Right now I'm building a lot of Network Nodes.  I've got 1 city with a Command Center that has build some stronger Synthmetal Garrisons on my main island.  I'm lacking the boats to push them to my peripheral islands, and I don't want to build Command Centers until I know the fate of The Command Nexus.

[bvanevery]

Belatedly I realized that Svensgaard had Secrets of the Human Brain, so either Zhakarov or Roze must have traded it to him.  So, no point in focusing on Discover anymore.  I switched to Conquer.  Wish I had better memory for previous game events, that was a bit of a mistake on my part.  But as you will soon see, it worked out ok.

Anyways I did not want to talk to Svensgaard about trading techs.  Indeed, I didn't want any interaction with him at all, as I was trying to get an Artifact back home on a transport.  I tried hard to avoid one of his cities in my way, but he had a ship.  Fortunately that didn't trigger a dialogue between us, and it looks like I'll get home unscathed.  Soon I'll have my 2 Artifacts back on my main island.

Roze sunk my skimship probe team 1 square away from target.  That's annoying.  I had hoped that she either didn't have ships yet, or hadn't bothered to make them, but no such luck.

I get a notice that Santiago and Yang are fighting.  I don't contact Santiago, because I don't want to be dragged into a war that I know nothing about yet.  I figure she won't crab at me just yet about it.  Next turn, Santiago's been eradicated!  Well she only had 1 base.  She did escape in a colony pod somewhere, since it's so early, but nobody has any idea where.  So, that left me free to contact Yang eventually, without having to immediatley worry about allies and war.

I had 2nd skimship probe team circumnavigating the southern coast of the island containing The Monsoon Jungle.  I sent it west towards Roze.  On the way I had a strange experience.  I met Zhakarov to the west, on a small island southeast of Roze.  We traded techs and signed a Pact.  He had the comm frequency for Yang, and maybe he was at war with him?  I didn't look.  I got the frequency and contacted Yang.  Yang was seething but nevertheless was willing to trade tech.  He traded Optical Computers for Doctrine:Loyalty!  Big mistake Yang!  Talk about a giveaway.  We parted on bad terms but at least it's a Truce.  Maybe I'll tell Zhakarov to make peace, maybe I won't.  I'm remembering that although I can do a Police State, it has consequences for my growth.  I can't afford to be Planned at the same time as that, and going Green pretty much cripples Aki with the lack of growth.

Very soon I'll have 2 Artifacts to help The Command Nexus along.  I plan to chuck it out in my capitol as fast as possible.  I really need reinforcement against Svensgaard, on all of my scattered islands.

Maybe I should switch to Explore now.  See if I can nail The Empath Guild.  I won't bother with Build because Morgan will do it, and he's close enough that I can steal and/or invade.

[bvanevery]

A combo of my research and popping a lot of Artifacts, yielded The Empath Guild, The Planetary Energy Grid, The Neural Amplifier, and The Citizen's Defense force.  I'm working on The Longevity Vaccine.  I was Democratic Planned Power for a time, but that didn't stop Svensgaard from finally declaring war on me.  I had so many SPs to build that I switched to Wealth.  I've built a lot of Impact Artillery to keep him at bay.  It works: he shoots at my clearly superior walled cities and gets his ships all banged up.  I take not much in the way of wounds in such exchanges, even with mediocre troops.  As he limps away,  I finally finish 1 or 2 of his ships off.

In the northeast, I was exploring 2 small islands next to 2 of Svensgaard's sea bases.  I popped a pod and it set off an Earthquake, destroying my transport and raising both of his bases onto land.  I had a scout and a recon rover.  I left the scout to block his use of the newly created Monolith, and it killed a colony pod trying to move out of the city.  My rover, I sent north over some fungus, trying to get nearer to another pod up north.  In the course of this, Svensgaard left his other city wide open for inexplicable reasons.  He aslo had an Artifact walking unescorted, possibly popped from the very pod I was trying to reach.  Using a river, I took the base and his Artifact in the same turn.  Then it was a question of getting the base secure enough to build a Network Node, without his troops from the other base intervening.  I sacrificed my scout to keep an impact rover busy.  I built a Trance ECM 3-Pulse unit to garrison the base, then disbanded the rover to speed the Network Node along.  Cashed the Artifact and got Bioadaptive Resonance for my trouble.  I don't think anyone else has that yet.

Yang is still at war with me, but we're too far apart to actually fight.  He of course hates my Democracy.  Zhakarov broke our pact, hating both my Power and my Wealth.  Roze and I had a Truce for awhile, but she just declared war on me, even though I've been a Democracy for a long time.  Guess she's just evil.  Well hey I am the most powerful on the graph, with Svensgaard a close 2nd.  He's also Governor.  He got elected before I researched Centauri Empathy.  Well he'll get his comeuppance next election.

I rediscovered Santiago.  She doesn't like me but I think we're still in a Pact.  I haven't wished to talk to her.  I'm happy to switch back to Power once I've got The Longevity Vaccine finished, and maybe a Research Hospital, and a Biology Lab....  Everyone is building Biology Labs now, as I have enough artillery.

I'm not sure I've got enough food to expand my cities much more, other than in my capitol, so I might go Police State soon.  Wiping out Svensgaard is definitely on the TODO list.

[bvanevery]

I had my tech advantages but everyone else had theirs.  Like Fusion Power, Planetary Economics, and Environmental Economics.  And a seeming willingness to trade and ally with factions that should be enemies, like Roze and Yang getting cozy.

It took some doing to steal Fusion Power, as Svensgaard was awfully spammy.  He has this nasty habit of capturing my ships.  However my Explore focus finally paid off and I got The Maritime Control Center.  With Gas Plasma Missile Marines on the way, I shouldn't have so much trouble with my ships getting boarded.  He tends to make the mistake of putting cities on my coast, which makes it trivial to run up some Marines from land and take over the sea base.  Sorry dude, can't pirate me on land!

Almost everyone's got an excuse to hate me now.  I have Treaties with Santiago and Zhakarov, everyone else is at war.  Factions with the same politics as myself, hate me because they've been hating me, and because I'm powerful.  I'm slightly ahead of everyone else.  While I'm busy with Svensgaard, other factions are coughing up SPs and there's not much I can do about it.  Once I rid myself of Svensgaard in my home waters, perhaps I'll invade Morgan and take his SPs.  It'll be troublesome though as Roze completed The Hunter-Seeker Algorithm.

Yeah having Svensgaard right in the middle of my empire is a pain in the butt.  I'd be in a more dominant position if it weren't for that. 

I'm currently Police State Green Power.  Perhaps I'll go back to Democratic Planned Something after I've got Svensgaard out of my core.

[bvanevery]

Skipping over details, I did clear Svensgaard out of my core.  But I'm quitting this game.  Why?  Because I'm not really ahead of other factions.  Considering how long I've been playing this game, I find that annoying.  Like, I got MMI before everyone else, yet Roze is going to complete The Cloudbase Academy before I can do anything about it?  She snuck up on me during a blackout.  We have a race to produce that, The Cyborg Factory, and The Theory of Everything.  She basically got to sit back the whole game on the other side of the board and be powerful on good land.  I got a crappy island start and had Svensgaard stressing me out for a long time.  Yes I could win this game, but why bother?