A shame this game gets so little attention ): I picked it up last night and only got 2 hours of sleep. There's a crapton of overwhelming detail, which put me off AI war, but I decided to just ignore it and see what happened. Went better than expected.
Of course in retrospect and after reading some other player accounts (all from 2014...) I got really lucky. I'll try to be brief...
Started at the Acutian world (evil capitalist robots). Recognizing them as the ones that shattered my planet, I fought them instead of playing at all nice. Then I think the Andros (pacifist utopic robots) uplifted themselves, and gave me the cold shoulder. I was pretty worried at this point, so I uplifted the Peltians (fuzzy commie suicide owls) and... the Skylaxians (honorable reticulan diplomat-scientists).
The Skylaxians, as I've since heard, are kinda crazy late-game due to their decent combat and massive technology rate. Short term, I was just glad these two races were being nice to me! So I was nice to them back, and pretty soon realized I could form the Federation with them.
(The owls did absolutely jack shit all game. The Skylaxians...)
I could have included the pacifist-robots for a starting trifecta, but I kinda flubbed the controls and they didn't like me anyway. I was getting antsy, wondering what sort of time pressure there was, particular since another race was about to uplift itself... The Burlust (Klingons. Except demonic-looking and honorless).
Getting savvy, I uplifted them shortly before they would have done it anyway
I got slightly detected, but at this stage the other races were just a little annoyed (for the last couple races the penalties are humongous). The not-Klingons were suitably grateful, and I was interested in their rather unique "government". Every race has its own idiosyncracies of course, but these guys especially. So I welcomed them to space by duelling their leader to the death.
They *loved* me for that, plus I had significant "leverage" on the successor. But, not nearly enough to make them join the Federation. I spent some time catching up on research with the Skylaxians, thinking about what to do next...
Okay long story needs to get shorter. The bad robots murdered the good robots all of a sudden, so I sicked the klingons on them. This worked amazingly, and suddenly the bad robots were actually willing to join my Federation so I would save them from these evil Klingons who I had no official tie to (they won't join if the Federation attacks, but they will seek protection from a """third party"""). I laughed as they died... Stupid moon-slinging planet (and pacifist) murderers.
That worked well for a while, then the Boars (sorry, "BoarINE") arrived. Let me just quote their blurb...
Solitary, beastly loners. Good in a fight, but their solitary nature leads to rather thin populations. Usually not one of the major players in the solar system, but if you can convince them of the virtues of a federation, they can be a good way to backdoor in other races.
We got along pretty well, but there's a screwy thing about these guys. Their matriarchs have "moods" which completely shut down certain lines of diplomacy. To discuss joining the Federation, you practically have to guide her into a specific solar-unification mood first... And I didn't know how to do that. (Apparently it mostly involves solving her world's problems so she focuses on higher pursuits).
It's all good though. Skylaxians, in addition to being the best researchers, can also convince races to join the Federation without a specific reason. It just takes an extraordinarily high rapport between the Skylaxians and that race (even works if the race hates your guts, which is nice). The pacifist robots can do this too, which I think makes more sense... but anyway, I had a plan.
So then the
Darloks Evuck (sneaky hooded... tentacle kangaroos?) arrive. Apparently they killed five nines of my race with a high-tech virus, the high-v moon just... nearly finished the job |:
Oh whatever. So they killed my race, at least they didn't blow up the freaking planet. And we were a race of evil despotic dragons. Let's let bygones be bygones. Particularly since they're don't have a bunch of weird conditions for joining like the Klingons do. *here have a ton of technology and a smile* *sure we'll join* (:
That's when things got messy.
The isolationist boars (who love me) and the bloodthirsty klingons (who love me) notice that the Federation (led by that guy they love) has half the planets in the system. "OH SHIT" they say. "WE'RE UNCOMFORTABLE WITH THIS". Okay okay that's fair enough, I'd be worried too. "HEY CUDCHEWERS" say the Klingons. "YES, MURDEROUS MORONS?" "WE SHOULD MAKE OUR OWN CLUB" "WE HATE YOU AND EVERYTHING YOU STAND FOR, OKAY!"
I'm exaggerating a bit, it really did make sense
Though they were at -60 with each other and had nothing in common besides being intimidated by my peaceful alliance of fat owls and friendly scientists (and... sociopathic plaguemakers in cowls who steal everything...)
I do think it's funny that when the
Rachni Aliens Genestealers Klackons no fuck it the Klackons arrived, the "Union of Independent Worlds" or whatever wanted nothing to do with them
So the endgame was basically glassing the Klingon and Klackon planets while waiting for the Skylaxians to send enough troops. The not-Klackons get *insane* melee bonuses such that it took a while, even with constant orbital bombardment and a huge tech lead. Almost made me wish I'd kept the evil robots around, with their clever tactic of tying engines to moons (a secret they somehow developed before inventing interplanetary vessels... uh)
The best part though? The boars didn't give a
fuck about their Klingon allies. Didn't even technically declare war. They were by far the most powerful single race, too, with 3/8 planets. They just didn't care. Once the Klingons were all dead (Actually! Many survivors lived on as pirates in the asteroid belt, or in my hold as shock troops) the UIP dissolved. "Sooo... want to join our alliance now?" "Nah I'm focusing on my people right now."
*jump cut about an in-game year of me convincing the Skylaxians and Boarians that they're 300pt soulmates instead of being mildly antagonistic*
"Hey Skylaxians, recruit them." "Yeah sure"
A WINNER IS ME
Casualties:
wow all the evil races, funny how that works.
Not counting the Evuck, but they're technically neutral and... I mean, I bombed a lot of civilians in this game...
ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL
Bulrathi as the Burlust
Mentar as the Skylaxian (Though there's a lot of Human too...)
Klackon as the Thoraxians (I wonder if there's any Thoraxian/Skylaxian connection?)
Human as the Andor (A stunning performance... No invading ever!)
Darlok as the Evuck
And the Alpha Centauran as the Last Hydral (it's like MoO3 backwards and not crap!)
Some interesting teamwork in:
Gnolams and Meklars as the Acutian
And finally:
Boarine and Peltian as themselves! Quite original.