Gameplay Example: The ironic defeat

Not quite what I had in mind...

Published on September 13, 2006 By Draginol In GalCiv Journals

The year is 2225. The galaxy is on the verge of civil war. The Drengin Empire and Yor are becoming increasingly menacing in the galaxy. The Terran Alliance and their friends, the Altarian Republic struggle to build friendships with other civilizations to keep the mighty Drengin at bay. But only time will tell how events ultimately shape up.

The Terran Alliance homeworld, Earth sits in the center. The mighty Drengin Empire and the Altarian Republic are our immediate neighbors with neutrals scattered.

My first job is to build more colonies and expand my influence. Then I will build my relations with my neighbors in an effort to fend off the Drengin Empire.

To that end, I design a faster colony ship -- the advanced colony ship -- to get my people out there, faster. (I still love designing ships I admit!).

The Drengin let me know what they think of my colonization efforts...

The consolidation of the galaxy

As the colonization phase ends and each civilization has its own territory marked, things start to get interesting. The technology rate (set by me) has been set to the the very slowest one so that technology comes very slowly. This means that players who get weapons first will be building ships for a long time versus players who go other routes (for instance, I have went for trade first and so am the only one with it).

As President of the Terran Alliance, my job is to ensure the survival of our species. That means making some tough choices.

Akilian III is a class 15 planet. To have any chance against the power of the Drengin Empire, I will need to take that world. And in terms of using trade as a weapon, I am also going to have some trade with the Drengin Empire. We're not openly at war yet and I am hoping they will put their adventures elsewhere while I build up.

My first offensive ship is the F-1 Wisp. It has a single laser canon on the bottom. It is quite primitive. It's little more than a space shuttle with a single weapon.

Pride. I have none. I give in to their demand.

What has me concerned is this. The Drengin Empire (red line) are doing almost twice as much research as I am. In fact, I'm now in last place. This is something I must correct or I'm doomed.

The Altarians and I make some deals.

The United Planets makes a deal with regards to how starbases operating outside their sphere of influence should be treated.

The sparks become fire

With the first real war now underway, I have an opportunity to study the Drengin Empire's military hardware.

The Akilians and I are not at war. They do not know about our long-term goals. But their successful stealing of Drengin technology makes them interesting for now.

The evil Drengin get theirs finally. Well, not really. But they are distracted.

Meanwhile, the Torians have put out their latest hardware, the Mark II fighter.

It's basically the same as my fighters except they have better engines.

While they are distracted, I begin my move against the Akilians. But I must be delicate because it's a huge military build up right in the Drengin's backyard.

The Drath are crushed by the Drengin Empire.

Time to bribe the Drengin Empire.

The Akilians notice my move! Is it too late?

Out in the fog of war, the Akilians had a ship. A ship that is now rampaging. It destroyed all 5 of my transports! Ack! One freaking ship. Just didn't see it parked out there.

My invasion is thwarted.

And my long-term strategy is in ruins...

The Drengin Empire are steamrolling over all its opponents. My successful sucking up has kept me out for now. But the Drengin have control of much of the galaxy and the Altarians are going down. And I can't even take out a freaking neutral!

I quickly send in the F-2 Warrior. It's still basically a shuttle but now it has two laser canons instead of 1. The problem is, the Akilians have the Drengin technologies they stole and so their ships are quite nasty.

And so now the Altarians are gone too.

The fat lady is warming up...

The very next week after the Altarian Republic was destroyed (not surrendered but annihilated by the Drengin Empire) I get:

This is bad. My trade routes wiped out (Altarians and Drengin). I'm doomed.

I sell my soul to the other civilizations to get some technologies so that I can design a next generation fighter years early.

And with that I build the F-3 Vigil.

3 advanced laser canons. I also make peace with the Akilians since I can't spread my forces between them. The other ship, the one I combined both human and alien technology to design is the F-4 Condor. 4 attack. Will it be enough?

Homeland Magazine has a devastating article. The Drengin Empire have a military rating of 664 and ours is only 96. They massively outpower us.

My fleets are a joke compared to theirs. Their three sips average an attack of 6. Mine average an attack of 1. Worse, my fighters are no match for their frigates.

Florin I is now gone. I have two worlds left.

One of the few times we're evenly matched in a battle. And my first military victory against the Drengin Empire.

Not that I should get too excited because they have more where that came from.

There would be no peace. The next week Cordelia III was taken by the Drengin.

In a final bit of irony, the Akilians declare war on me, the minor race I sought to destroy is invading Earth.

In the end, I'm conquered by the Akilians. So ironic that the minor race I sought to destroy would ultimately defeat me. Not a proud moment for the human race.

Yes. I'm dead.

The Drengin would go on to conquer the galaxy. What would be done with the survivors would ultimately be up to them. As for the Akilians, even as I write this, they and their Drengin friends are sitting in a chair in a pub in Plymouth Michigan laughing at the foolishness of humans. A human skull acts as their mug.

So...how did I lose?

I read on-line how people find the game "too easy". Which makes me wonder if they're playing the same game I am. I'm a pretty good strategy game player. I don't see how I could have won this particular game.

Here were my settings:

All players on Intelligent except for Drengin who were on Gifted
Occasional good planets
All players in
Medium sized galaxy
Technology rate changed to be very slow

I went for Trade early on then moved to military while I built up trade routes. I had plenty of money and was able to buy lots of ships (especially thanks to the trade). I built starbases to improve my economy and trade and production. Overall, it was a pretty decent strategy I thought.

If I had to do it over again, I would have gone for military first, got minit, and taken out the Akilians much earlier so that I could then build up a much better world (none of us had any really high quality planets).

Comments (Page 2)

Frogboy

on Sep 14, 2006

You sent out unarmed transports Akilian III without an armed escort! With what were you going to take out their planetary defender? The only time I send troop transports alone it when they have 15 sensor range thanks to EotU and enough speed to out run any enemy armed ships.

I had ships at the panet and was just following up with transports. I thought the way was cleared.

ubertaco

on Sep 14, 2006

"Out in the fog of war, the Akilians had a ship. A ship that is now rampaging. It destroyed all 5 of my transports! Ack! One freaking ship. Just didn't see it parked out there."

Well that explains it doesn't it?

Perhaps its no wonder the AIs do the same

You always leave your transports covered, or out of range (that is within your sensor area). You never leave them unprotected unless you don't care about what happens to them.

Anyway, I think you also got it right about it being a mistake to push for trade first. Trade can be useful, but its not as good as either military or simply pushing up your own ability to be self reliant (through ethos, governments, or industry/econ/research branches). I've also noted that trade with the Evils isn't of much use (to disuade them from declaring on you), unless you manage to get a large% of their economy from you. If they arn't also establishing routes with you this will not happen (often) unless you are neutral and get your 10+ routes with them.

I suppose I'm glad to see that you lost, in the sense that it shows the AIs are getting more competent all the time, however, I'm still seeing enough suboptimal behavior with transports and fleet operations generally that are too easy to overcome with FAST interceptor type ships. Then again, I usually rush up to warp engines and at some point rush out the Eyes so coverage of my sectors is really good and I can happily ignore their war fleets while just picking off the transports until I have the proper counter to the war fleets.

Perhaps this game example will pursuade you to code the AIs to not launch transports unless they have covering FLEETS (not just an escort ship or two) and to keep the invasion fleets stacked with the war fleets, even if the speed difference is noticable.

All in all though I have to say 1.3A is really nice, you've done tremendous work in getting the AIs economies and plantary builds to be better, now if you can just find the trick to getting their military operations a bit more focused...

pdesrivieres@yahoo.com

on Sep 14, 2006

Gigantic and tiny maps are the two easiest ways to win. Tiny because of rushing and Gigantic because you can usually control the flow of battle. For a real challenge, play on medium. We're probably going to update the Metaverse scoring so that there's a general set of bonuses as you approach medium.

Meglobob

on Sep 14, 2006

For a real challenge, play on medium. We're probably going to update the Metaverse scoring so that there's a general set of bonuses as you approach medium.

Excellent, I like playing medium maps. U could be correct about medium being harder, I certainly have had my most interesting games on medium maps. Can still beat it on suicidal thou...

Can not really get my head around anyone being knocked out by a minor race...

they only survive in my galaxies as my loyal allied pets.

pdesrivieres@yahoo.com

on Sep 14, 2006

I get "Access Denied - You do not have access to the requested area/page. Please create an account or login if you already have one." when I try to edit my post above. Here is the edit:

I play metaverse games against 9 genius opponents, gigantic map, everything abundant, and very fast research (makes the AI more aggressive early on when I'm playing catch up) because they make for higher scoring games.

On gigantic maps, when taking over an AI player, you need to:
(1) destroy and rebuild (with weapons, defenses, and all mining modules) his mining resources (especially military)
(2) destroy all other starbases (especially military)
(3) destroy all fleets and transports that would threaten any of my existing planets or about to be conquered planets
(4) invade all his 10+ planets (10-50 in my games depending how late in the game it is and if the AI has conquered other players)
in a single turn!
Protecting dozens of transports and newly conquered planets (you have to be careful to spot transports that pop up the next turn on the AI's remaining planets next to your new ones). Once I have all his good planets, he either surrenders or I make peace and let the remaining planets culture flip.

I think medium maps would be more fun, as managing 200+ planets plus around 10-20 ships built each turn involves a lot of micro-mangement.

volkram

on Sep 14, 2006

Gigantic and tiny maps are the two easiest ways to win.

Tiny because of rushing and Gigantic because you can usually control the flow of battle.

For a real challenge, play on medium. We're probably going to update the Metaverse scoring so that there's a general set of bonuses as you approach medium.

That's fantastic, I always play medium crippling games, very slow research.

I could use the boost

Mark

pdesrivieres@yahoo.com

on Sep 14, 2006

We're probably going to update the Metaverse scoring so that there's a general set of bonuses as you approach medium.

I play Metaverse games against 9 genius opponents, gigantic map, everything abundant, and very fast research (makes the AI more aggressive early on when I'm playing catch up) because they make for higher scoring games. However, they also make for very long games. It took all of May and June for my first Metaverse game and I'm nearing the end of my 2nd which I started in early July (I have very limited time to play the game)! Playing against AIs on genius on gigantic maps requires lots of micro-management; in the early game you need to get the most possible out of each turn! Please, take that into consideration when making any scoring adjustments!

The Night Hawk

on Sep 14, 2006

Out in the fog of war, the Akilians had a ship. A ship that is now rampaging. It destroyed all 5 of my transports! Ack! One freaking ship. Just didn't see it parked out there

I always send a few ships(the ones I can afford to lose)to scout it out before I go
sending in my Invasion force, for which I sucked up(the drengin lapdog)for countless months and spent so many times as much just buying time

ignuss

on Sep 14, 2006

Gigantic and tiny maps are the two easiest ways to win.

Tiny because of rushing and Gigantic because you can usually control the flow of battle.

For a real challenge, play on medium. We're probably going to update the Metaverse scoring so that there's a general set of bonuses as you approach medium.

I don't know if this was directed at me. If it was, I thought I made it very clear that I had no way of controlling the flow of battle with four AIs sending all the fleets they could at me simultaneosly.

I was at war with all 9 races at the same time, they all wanted to kill me simply because I had conquered 3 minors and attacked the Terrans. All 8 of them declared war on me before I had conquered the Terrans which meant that I had to fight a multi-front war against all of them. The 4 closest races sent masses of fleets at me and they all had a larger military rating than me. The Drengin had the best attack rating per ship of all races. Heck, even some of there transports had 40 in attack.

Sure, gigantic maps might be easy in general. But generally doesn't mean always as I'm sure you know. I have probably never been this challenged before on any map-size.
I would probably be dead now if it wasn't for three things:
1) I'm Yor.
2) I built the Mind Control Center.
3) I took advantage of the fact that Drengin used beams, and all the other races used missiles. They countered my guns very badly, they have begun to countering them now but now it's too late.

I have also noted that nearly all AIs are friendly with each other but none of them are close to any other, none of them have any alliances. Shouldn't some of them try to form alliances?

ignuss

on Sep 14, 2006

I remembered another one (and I can't edit my above post for some reason):

4) The Drengin has a planet with a 700% prod.tile and they haven't built a factory on it. In fact, they haven't any factories at all on that planet and I have played at least 5 years now. I posted some more information about this a few days ago in the official bug thread.

7th Circle

on Sep 14, 2006

Ok, having played your settings a bit (random for those you don't list)...

So...how did I lose?

(Of course, IMO applies throughout)

There were both problems in some general strategic areas and in terms of specific strategy for the scenario (although you also got some bad luck). I'll give three examples of each.

In terms of scenario specific stuff,

1) One of the Terran's strength is, of course, their diplomacy. One of the positives about having an heavily loaded map (i.e., all civs in a medium map) is that there is lots of opportunity for diplomatic trading of techs and the like. From the sounds of it, you only traded with the Altarian. Personally, I would trade a lot under this scenario so that my tech research can be focussed on whatever (e.g., planetary invasion techs - more on that lately). This seems particularly important with very slow technology as, if you are missing something you need, you can't quickly research it even at 100% science. (Note that I am not talking about researching any diplomacy techs earlier...other than universal translator...)

2) Things happen faster in a heavily loaded map. "Let's trade and build up" is a very risky strategy especially given the costs of buying ships. No offence but personally I thought going for a trade in such a map was just asking for trouble - the galaxy you were playing in is too dangerous a place.

3) I could be wrong here but did you research techs before designing your improved colony ships? The reason I ask if that with slow techs and a crowded map, I think it is more important to get the colony ships out as the research takes too long - this can be different with faster tech and/or a less crowded map.

In terms of general stuff.

1) I never need 5 transports to take a planet (admittedly, my transports usually have 1000 troops on board because I pretty much always research advanced troop mod before building them). The fact that it is early in the game (i.e., the first planet you are trying to conquer) and a minor only adds to this. I find that the effort is better spent researching invasion techs than building lots of transports; they give you the increased advantage factor and the option of better strategies.

2) Especially since the 1.3 Betas, Drengins love to colonise heaps of planets. Such a strategy (assuming it is successfully executed) means that are a danger unless they are attacked early (either by you or an AI). Ironically, their early expansion means that they are often quite vulnerable to such an attack.

3) Getting lots of colonies (or at least good colonies) is very important in the long run. If am being outclassed in the colonisation war, then an early proper war is a pretty good idea (after getting (some) invasion techs).

ignuss

on Sep 15, 2006

1) I never need 5 transports to take a planet (admittedly, my transports usually have 1000 troops on board because I pretty much always research advanced troop mod before building them).

Huh, what did you say?
I always have 1000 troops on my first transports with regular troop pods. Once I get advanced I usually have 2500 per transport. Having less than 1000 troops on any transport is IMO pointless.

Martimus

on Sep 15, 2006

The biggest problem was that you acted too late. Like you said you waited too long before making your move, and even if you had taken Akilia, The drengin had already grown more powerful than you.

Athanasius

on Sep 28, 2006

I notice you had the Drengin set at a higher difficulty level than any of the other races. Is a game harder, maybe, when you do that? One would think it would be harder to play with ALL enemies at that harder level, but if just ONE enemy has that advantage (and if he's aggressive, like the Drengin are), maybe the other computer powers don't do as good a job of containing him? He conquers them with that intelligence edge, and then overpowers you with the extra planets?

Misaniovent

on Oct 01, 2006

Good God, I'm in the same situation right now. Medium painful, all opponents.

I have the AI all on gifted, yet the Drengin have taken almost total control of the galaxy. The Terrans, Yor, Altarians, and Drath (me) are all relatively strong powers, but we're not standing together, and I cannot coax any alliances.

The Drengin are probably twice as strong as all of us combined. I'm in better shape than you seem to have been, and I have "friendly" relations, but I don't expect that to hold out.

My military is strong, but I'm basically waiting for the inevitable. Also, I have to point out that I've noticed them placing very high level ships in fleets together and then parking them at borders. I don't recall them doing that before 1.31, but it's a scary tactic and I've got to hand it to you for it.

I can't possibly defeat a battleship with 90 HP when it's flanked by several frigates that have 60.

Why do I think you lost?

Hmm. I usually play with "slow" or "normal" research, and I have some trouble balancing my budget, but if I were you, I probably would've gone for weapons prior to trade. Balancing military development and managing an invasion force probably was difficult, but oh well. I think you would've lasted a lot longer if not for that escort fighter! It's the little things, really.

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