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[Moron]

Not quite, but it is pretty hard. I don't think I've ever managed to beat it without using the creative trait which is overpowered on any other level. Part of the difficulty comes from how hard diplomacy is - it's very unlikely that you will get any trade treaties with other races, which makes them more likely to declare war on you early before you have any way to deal with it.

Also, the AI likes to dogpile the weakest race, which on harder levels is most likely to be you for much of the early game.

I just played a game on average as humans and won through a diplomatic vote before I'd even had time to build my fleet. 

[LordBucket]

I was just trying out impossible difficulty with a tech focused custom humans.  I run into the silicoids and they have
effing plasma blasters around the time me and the rest of the galaxy have shield three.  Impossible is effing impossible.

I've won on impossible many times. It just requires specific strategies. In particular, research turtling doesn't work on impossible. Try to be more expansionist. It's much faster to take planets from others than to build them from scratch.

[EuchreJack]

Not quite, but it is pretty hard. I don't think I've ever managed to beat it without using the creative trait which is overpowered on any other level. Part of the difficulty comes from how hard diplomacy is - it's very unlikely that you will get any trade treaties with other races, which makes them more likely to declare war on you early before you have any way to deal with it.

The key, I've found, is to remember that the AI has limited patience.  You'll probably only get a research treaty on the first meeting.  Then you can get the trade treaty later.  At that point, you can trade techs with the AI.

[USEC_OFFICER]

Spoiler: It's Been too Long (click to show/hide)

One out of one forum goers agree: EU3 is f!$#%ing amazing. But that doesn't matter, since I've got an update to pump out.


Anyways with the Alkari being so damn advanced, let's swarm them with our spies. Ideally we'd get terraforming so that we can have maximum insect/rock fury, but I'd accept some of the other things as well.

Anyways let's build a couple more space ships and then attack the Psilon-


Bwahahahaha, just kidding. We're going to be consolidating our conquests for the update. I'm just not terribly aggressive and prefer not to attack people until I obviously have an overwhelming superiority. Welp. Just assume that I have tons of screenshots about so-and-so building stuff in my recycling bin.


Oh, and we'll be making lots of spies to send after the Alkari, obviously.


We also meet the Bulrathi, though I already knew about their exist from a GNN report that I didn't bother showing. We can safely ignore them for now, since they're around the same as us technology-wise. Also our territories are separated by Udara, that completely empty system, so they'd either need better fuel technologies or to colonize another planet to reach us.


With 7 systems we're the largest empire that we currently know of. Pretty snazzy, I must say.


Bay I gets colonized, mostly because our capital doesn't have much else to do right now.


Also, this happens... Oh, and our ships are too far away to intercept the amoeba. Luckily we can easily save most of the population, but losing a colony is going to hurt.


On the research front we've got Soil Enrichment. It was either that or Cloning Centers for more Silicoids, but we could probably use the extra food. The other tech we could have gotten was Death Spores, which is useless when you have MIND CONTROL.


Bye bye Behemoth.


Unfortunately taking a screenshot skipped what surely would have been an amazing video of a space amoeba attacking my colony. Oh well.


Ugh. At least it wasn't a major colony.




We do some scouting, but nothing really catches my eye, to be honest.


Fusion rifles are researched. The alternative was Fusion Beams, but we're not really using beam weapons due to anti-missile rockets, and we'll get better weapons soon enough. Though to be honest I'm mostly researching this to get it out of the way.


Captain Grum offers his skills to us. Unless I'm mistaken, security helps protects against all the agents that aren't spying on us, and commando protects his personal ship against boarding actions. Next.


The Meklar decide to contact us. They're about on par with us, with their systems clustered in the upper-right part of the map. However we can't really attack them, since all of their colonies are outside of our ships' range (except for one tiny little one, of course).



I've decided that it's time to modernize our fleet a bit. Our armour and shield tech has advanced a bit, and we can also fit in more missiles and rockets. Best to do it now before we find ourselves at war or something.


To help us along, we manage to research Robo-Miners, making our rocks even more productive. Really, really productive.



We also colonize another planet, and return to Behemoth.


Things are going along so swimmingly that I've set Crylson Prime to research, more than doubling the amount of RP we're getting. To be honest I should probably have more scientists at this point, but we're not doing too bad tech-wise anyways.





More colonizing, more exploration etc. We may be at peace, but that doesn't mean we can't expand, damn it.


Crap. When you're repulsive other races only call you up for two reasons: To waste your time or declare war.


And it turns out that the Meklar are declaring war on us. In a very round-about way, of course. But we're at war none the less.

Spoiler: Could Use a Dramatic Interlude (click to show/hide)

With all the Command Points I've gained over the past several turns, I've decided to splurge and make this, our first battleship. It's probably not the most elegant or efficient of ships, but at 25 missiles a volley it does pack a punch. It's also, er, quite expensive to make. Cryslon Prime, our most productive colony, takes a whole 6 turns to make this bad-boy.


Everyone else is going to be making the second generation of Spider. I probably could have gotten rid of the reinforced hull for more rockets, but it's definitively a step up from the Spider I.


Err... Why am I sending agents against the Alkari again?


There we go. That's much better.




Much better. The Alkari gave us jack squat, while the Meklar almost seem to want to give tech away.



We also get a couple techs the regular way. Space Academy is the only tech on its level, while Supercomputer shares its space with Holo Simulator (which we can't get because we're Unification and don't have morale) and Positronic Computer (which we won't get because a minor increase in beam attack can't compare with tons more RP).


While we've been teching up, I've sent our ships against the only Meklar colony we can reach: Pax.


Given that it's only defence is a tiny little scout, not even the Great Space Squid can save the colony from:


MIND CONTROL.


To be honest I'm not sure whether MIND CONTROL was worth it in this instance. The Meklar get +2 to industry, but they're not tolerant so our Silicoids make much better workers unless we get super pollution control tech. Plus the Meklar are cyborgs, so they'll literally eat away at our production if we keep them around. Any ideas on what to do with them, Bay12? I'm hovering between keeping them and, uh, 'dealing' with them.


Anyways, here's the current state of the universe circa 3513. We'll have to colonize another planet to get at the Meklar, but it shouldn't take too long to call one up. Also note that the Psilons are also at war with the Meklar, hence why they have Benat (I assume...). We'll either have to deal with them sooner or later at this rate, and I'm leaning towards sooner.

[Iituem]

I think it's time for a spot of... Termination. 

[USEC_OFFICER]

Once you're sufficiently comfortable with the tech tree, playing with uncreative can be quite fun. You can still get most techs through trade, war and espionage, but it makes things a bit more interesting if you're used to taking the "best" tech at every decision point.

If we I decide not to play on impossible difficulty next game, I will definitively go Uncreative. At the very least I'll get to fiddle around with some different technologies.

*later* Holy carp the missing 'of' in the title is bothering me to no end. 8(

Sorry about that, but we can't master of Orion, yeah? Though now that you've mentioned it, it's starting to bug me too.

And of course for being annoying, nothing beats the Darloks.

Oh boy, are you in for a treat. We haven't met them yet, but a quick glance at the races reveals that they're at war with the Alkari. They'll probably be crushed before we meet them, but you never know.

I just played a game on average as humans and won through a diplomatic vote before I'd even had time to build my fleet. 

To be honest I have no-

I think it's time for a spot of... Termination. 

...

Hell. Yes.

[Parsely]

*later* Holy carp the missing 'of' in the title is bothering me to no end. 8(

Sorry about that, but we can't master of Orion, yeah? Though now that you've mentioned it, it's starting to bug me too.

Well it could just be Let's Master Orion without the II and it'd look better. I didn't notice that it didn't say play.

[LordBucket]

With all the Command Points I've gained over the past several turns, I've decided to splurge and make this, our first battleship.

Careful. if you're not already, you may be fast approaching the point where everything is immune to nuclear missiles.

the only Meklar colony we can reach: Pax.

...however, the scout in that screenshot has NO shields at all. Send an outpost ship to that blue star north of Pax, then take Alacast, Meklar and Padus. If they have no shield tech you should be able to absorb them with little difficulty.

Also check race stats to see what Bulrathi shield tech is like. They only have three planets, so it might be low. If they have no shields, absorb them too.

Do these things simultaneously, not one after the other. Haste is important.

Oh, and we'll be making lots of spies to send after the Alkari, obviously.

I wouldn't bother. Put them on defense and forgot about them for a while. A planet churning out outpost ships 24/7 would be far more useful to you than spies. Or trade goods to support a larger fleet without taxation. Or population farming. Or...just about anything, really.

To be honest I'm not sure whether MIND CONTROL was worth it in this instance. The Meklar get +2 to industry, but they're not tolerant so our Silicoids make much better workers unless we get super pollution control tech.

Any ideas on what to do with them, Bay12?

In my experience it's rarely worth the time and effort to micromanage these things, but if you want to get rid of him, send the race you want to the planet, and send the race you don't want to a planet that's already at full population.

Problem solved.

[NRDL]

I think it's time for a spot of... Termination. 

+1

[Parsely]

I think it's time for a spot of... Termination. 

+1

[Mephansteras]

I remember once using Meklar as farmers because they only ate half the food themselves. Maybe it was a good farming planet with some sort of auto factory to 'feed' them production? Can't remember. Was handy, though.

[USEC_OFFICER]

Spoiler: A Conquering We Will Go (click to show/hide)

According to LordBucket I'm behind on my conquering quota, so let's get right to it.



Being an equal-opportunity galactic insect horde, I've set up a couple of outposts in two lovely systems called Char and Shi. Char is simply a stepping stone, so that I can set up another outpost that can actually strike at the Bulrathi.



In the midst of getting the outposts set up, we research Fast Missile Racks and ECM Jammer. Fast Missile Racks will allow our ships to spam their payloads faster, making it more useful than instant damage repair after a battle, or boarding craft full of marines. ECM Jammer helps to protect our ships from missiles. The only reason we got it is because we already had the other technologies.


With an outpost set up at Vagn, we can finally strike at the Bulrathi. And yes, they don't have anything better than Class I shields. Actually nobody has Class III shields yet. We might even be the first ones to get it.



Huh. I'm kinda surprised that the Bulrathi didn't declare war on us.


Let's fix that, shall we?


On the Meklar front our ships manage to reach Padus. The Psilons were there before us, but luckily their frigates were stopped by Padus's Star Base.


Our ships were not.


Everybody say it with me: MIND CONTROL.


We get Hydroponic Farms from the colony. To be honest I'm surprised we didn't get it earlier, considering how basic a tech it is.


We also research Merculite Missile, since we already have Pollution Processor.


Since we don't have many ships to spare and we have positive income from trade goods, I buy a star base in Padus. Just in case.


I... I should probably be more concerned that the Meklars stole some tech from us.





But then again...

Spoiler: Dramatic Interlude (click to show/hide)

: Hey Joe.

: Oh, hey Bob! Lunch time already?

: You know it! Want to check out that new burrito place over on Lake street?

: *Bzzzt* Attention all personnel: An unknown interloper has been spotted in the facility. The laboratory is now in lockdown. I repeat, the lab is now on lockdown. That is all. *Bzzzt*

: Shit.

: We always get the worse timing, huh?

: Yeah. Well, I better get back to my post and-

: Kekekeke ke! Ke ke!

: ...!

: Ke!

: ...

: *Bzzzt* Alert! Alert! Trespassers are known to be hostile! All units have permission to- Damn it! Open fire! *Bang* *Bang* *Bang* *Bzzzt*

: ...

: *Bzzzt* Attention personnel: Everything is fine. The base is no longer on lockdown. Please enjoy your lunch. Ke. Ke. Ke. *Bzzzt*

: ...

: Burritos?

: Duh.

Spoiler: Nothing Like a Good War (click to show/hide)

I'm not going to lie: I goofed up hard with the Bularthi. You know the outpost in Vagn and the only colony that can reach the Bulrathi? Yeah, I kinda left it undefended... So much for that front.


In brighter news we've researched Tachyon communications, which increases the Command Points from bases. We're still in the negative, but not as much. The alternatives were Battle Scanners, which we have, and Tachyon Scanner, which allows us to see further. Given our current situation, more CP is definitively worth it (you can never have too much CP after all).





Alacast falls quickly to missile spam and MIND CONTROL, with the colony of Kakari II joining us shortly afterwards.


Well, I guess we know who the eighth empire is. I doubt that they'd be able to stop us though.


Especially not with Pulson Missiles!

...

Alright, I probably should have gotten Iridium Fuel Cells instead, but I got really missile happy and decided that we needed more missiles. Sorry about that.


In a nice change of pace the Meklar have decided to defend their home system with some ships.


Admittedly it's just two frigates, but it's a start!


And also an end. Obviously the two frigates couldn't stand up against missile spam.


Unfortunately the star base could. Well, we did deal enough damage to kill it, but the Meklar are cybernetic, so they managed to repair the base faster than we could destroy it.


You win this round, INT-986!


We finish researching Augmented Engines afterwards. It increases the in-combat movement of our ships, which is good because they're bloody slow right now. It also helps to protect us against beam weapons, since mobility/speed affects beam defence. The alternatives were a new type of bomb and a new type of drive which will be replaced soon anyways.


Ah, much better. Given the distances involved, it doesn't take us long to smack that star base in Meklon.


MIND CONTROL! Given the amount of Meklar on the planet, I expect lots of production from them. Well, when we eliminate some pollution, that is.


Shit. I probably don't have to introduce these fellows to you, but for those who don't know these guys are bad news. Hopefully they're going after some other poor sap.


With Ion Drives our ships can finally move at a snails pace. Ion Pulse Cannon was an alternative, but as a weapon it has a shorter shelf life than our nuclear missiles, so no thanks. I also suspect that we'll pick up Shield Capacitors (3x shield recharge rate) soon enough, given how prevalent it is among the galaxy.


The good news is that with Ion Drives our ships can race to Alacast and beat the Meklar there.


The bad news is that the Antarans are heading towards Pax. Oh well, we barely knew you.

t
I'm quite surprised to see the Meklar pull a battleship out of nowhere. They must have finished right before we took over their homeworld.


And there it goes, as quickly as it came. What a shame.


For some bloody stupid reason our outpost ship has decided not to head to it's destination so that we can reach Proxima and crush the Meklar. Instead it has decided to go on a joyride to Saak or some other godless Alkari colony.


And guess who's at war with the Alkari? Yep, the Bulrathi. I'm going to guess that the Alkari are the aggressors in this instance, though I could care less either way. We just gained a link to the Bulrathi empire.


The only ships guarding the colony are two Wolverines and two scouts.



Things go exactly how you'd expect.


*Obligatory MIND CONTROL image*


Meanwhile the Antarans reach Pax.


At least the colony managed to survive, so it shouldn't take long for it to get back to it's former glory. We did it when Behemoth was bombarded by a space amoeba, and we can sure as hell do it here!


Keeping the initiative, we head to Ursa. Unless I'm mistaken this is the Bulrathi homeworld, so taking it should cripple them and win us the war.


The system is defended by a lone Wolverine.


Correction: Was defended.


Unfortunately we can't do enough damage to the Star Base to destroy it. Not because it has Class III shields, but because it managed to shoot down enough missiles in time.


Well, it looks like we have to skeddle again. Another sortie should be enough to finish the job, unless some more defenders pop out of the woodwork or something.


And that would be the 'or something'. Unfortunately the text didn't show up, but currently the galaxy is under space flux. Luckily it's not Space Dysentery, but unfortunately no ships can enter hyperspace. The ships in transit will still reach their destinations however, so hopefully we'll get that outpost set up to strike at the Meklar before it ends.


Also: We are awesome. Remember that.


Oh, and the Psilons now hate our guts. It does strike me as kinda stupid to declare war when your ships can't actually reach the enemy though. Still, what do I know? At least now we have time to create a new generation of battleships and stomp the Psilons into paste. Tasty tasty paste.


Here's the galaxy as it currently stands. I have no clue why or how the Bulrathi took over the last Alkari colony in Vagn, but I ain't complaining. I'll be ours soon enough.

[Mephansteras]

You should smack those monsters around and take the opportunity to take the nice colonies. Not that you need them, of course, but...bragging rights.

Also, I love the most recent dramatic interlude!

[USEC_OFFICER]

Whew. I'm glad somebody else enjoys them.

I'll probably start smacking monsters around when I defeat the Psilons or Bulrathi. We don't really have the ships to spare at this point and, as LordBucket said, it's quicker to take colonies than to develop them from scratch.

[Mephansteras]

Well, I had to try very hard not to bust up laughing at work while reading it. So...hopefully that makes them worth the effort?