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LDiCesare
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La Ferté sous Jouarre France
Jan 2001
time: 05:27
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I finally managed to win against 5 genius ais on tiny map (crippling). I was lucky in the sense I used something cheesy, but that could have been won without. Maybe.
Here is what I did:
Colonize nearest star, find nearest colonized stars (one minor race, one altarian). Have 100% production set to research, in order to get transports fast. Roam with the survey ship, getting one nice +1 to attack and a mighty defender.
As soon as transports are available, build some. Rise military production to 100%.
I attacked both the minor civ and the altarians and took two worlds. The altarians was a good pick because they happened to be the most populous of the galaxy.
Then I switched back to 100% tech. Trade with someone north of me with noone in between so the freights won't be attacked (Arcean here). Bully everyone a bit because I had a mighty corvette and a defender found by my survey ship while they had nothing. That gave about 500bc.
Then the altarians sue for peace. They were willing to give all their techs and their money. The important point is to take all their money but on 5-10 turns. That way, when they have say 1000, you can ask for 300 for 10 turns. They are desperate enough to accept. Not only do you get three times as much money, they will be stuck deep in an economic marasm because they have to pay you.
Now with all that money, I got some techs, lowered the taxes so population would grow, built more ships, transports, and took out the altarians. My tech choice was: Go straight for the frigates, then build some. With frigates and transports, I took one altarian planet, they sued for peace, went bankrupt for 5 turns, which was the time I needed to move my other transport to their last world.
HAving gotten rid of the biggest civ in the galaxy, I felt cool. However, the Torians were powerful and hated me. I got both the Arceans and a powerful minor race to help me in the fight. They gave me some ships. Drengin and Yor were pitiful. I took out the Drengin, extorting money by smashing their defenses, then asking for tribute. When they have no defense left on thier only world, they are usually quite willing to give you many bc.
The cheesy thing I did was an event: A vote for freighters to become invulnerable. Noone could attack them so I built a lot of these and used them to prevent the Torians from reaching me. I only lost one system by miscalculating. The ai was quite pitiful, as it couldn't see what I did with the freighters. Since it was a genius ai and had many turns to manage the thing, I am afraid it is a bit of a shortcoming.
I also used the fact that a few sectors were void of stars, so I sent my dreadnoughts and battle transports that way, avoiding Torians ships by circling them, and struck their worlds from the flank. I didn't take them at once, but on a small map, if you send mass drivers and lose, you lose 5 billion, and they lose 20 or 30. Using that technique, I ruined the economy of the Torians. It took me a lot of attacks to get rid of them, but I finallymanaged to. They also sued for peace once, and I bled them like I had bled the Altarians. In both cases it was interesting because the ai had more techs than I (since I had been busy building those ships to overtake them).
So I was a bit lucky with the freighter abuse, but I couldn't know the ai wouldn't be able to see the potential of these. I promise I won't do it again. Anyway, in the start it is very important not to build a colony ship if this would get lost. Build transports instead and trust the ai to settle some juicy stars. I even suspect that might work better on small maps, since you could crank your transports, send them near yellow stars waiting for the ai to come there, and bash them as soon as they land. It is also very important to keep a good trading partner all game long. On small maps, you can pick an isolated race, and deal with them. Since they cannot expand and you can give them some ships once in a while, you can protect them, trust them not to grow too powerful, and make them more dependent of you than you depend on them.
Note also on a tiny map, even though I chose all the evil options, I was still neutral by the end of the game. On small, that means you will probably stay neutral for a long time, which should make relations with Altarians and Torians easier than on a big map if you choose the dark side (though Altarians are always bad tempered if you make the evil choice).
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15-04-2003 22:45
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