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[Felius]

"Give me a tech or I'll crush you like a bug"
Me (looking at the overwhelming force on my border): "OK"
"Give me *another* tech or I'll crush you like a bug"
Me: "Oh ****! OK"
"Sucker! I'll crush you anyway!"

The first time Miriam did this to me I was actually impressed. Annoyed, but impressed.

The expansion was fun, but I get the impression it was not as well thought out. Wasn't there a bug where the spy specialist faction could get their spying so high that it hit an overflow bug and caused every mission to auto-fail?

Ahhnn, Miriam. I love (crushing) that crazy bitch. She generally is one of my most dependable allies (after I crush her and make her capitulate completely and permanently).

[EuchreJack]

The Xpac factions were either exagerated versions of old factions
Drones - Yang
Prophet - Elves
Cyborgs - University

Old factions with some twist

Pirates - Spartans

Mary sues.

Aliens

Or a actually original faction for a change.

Data angels - Morganites

Sorry, I have to disagree with you there, especially since most strategy guides I've read on Morganites basically go: "Probe Team AWAY!"

[Sonlirain]

Sorry, I have to disagree with you there, especially since most strategy guides I've read on Morganites basically go: "Probe Team AWAY!"

Yeah but Sure they can probe team everything and everyone but their general theme and and talents lie in generating stupid ammounts of money/energy and they don't get a probing bonus. Sure thay can fund extra probing due to the ammount of energy they get but it's like saying Santiago is a good researcher because she can stomp Zakharov and force him into giving her tech.

[Sharp]

Ahhnn, Miriam. I love (crushing) that crazy bitch. She generally is one of my most dependable allies (after I crush her and make her capitulate completely and permanently).

Oh god yes, if you manage to get her to submit while still having a nice few bases all you have to do is give her tech and she will produce swarms of cutting edge armies, it's a good thing that once they are submissive they stay that way (unless you probe team them or buster em). The only problem then is trying to get her to use them on your enemies. I couldn't get her to stop fighting Yang even though he was another pact brother of mine and in the end she destroyed him and I was like "meh, now please attack the damn Morgans!"

[Catastrophic lolcats]

So I had a nice little LAN game with my room mate last night. I was University while he was Gaia. It was a random medium map.
It had been ages since I've played and I had completely forgot how to play, not to mention the different techs and units.

Spoiler because it's pretty much a tome.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I got off to a great start as I was on a decently sized island. A couple settlements into the game I came into contact with Yang who was apparently a few titles south of my starting location. We enjoy a rather tense peace for a few years where he did the usual thing and tried to bully me but I polity asked him to stop and he complied. A few pods and a some good tech advances got me Planned Economy which allowed me to sprawl much faster and I was soon climbing the dominate faction list. 
Yang moved a couple colony spawners into my territory after he exhausted his land and I asked him to redraw them with sparked a vendetta. Yang was completely wrecked by my higher economic and over all population dominance and was reduced to a few low level cities in a few turns. He was then placated when my rovers marched onto his capital and he agreed to me my vassal. I was now the most dominate faction in the game with my military tech, land, population, wealth and military size unsuppressed. I located my room mate while colonising another island and we traded world maps and com links.

My room had grown extremely well and was the second most powerful since he had been playing the game since it's release. He would have been ahead of me if he wasn't sandwiched between both the Morganites and the Spartans who were always breaking truces to raid his lands. Having to build up a military he neglected a lot of his green techs. I became the leader of the planet council due to my superiority and Hive vassal and used the opportunity to look for a weak faction to steal land off since it was starting to become a premium. I settled on the U.N. who started completely alone on a nice decent northern island who was neglecting his army due to a lack of threats. Having superior naval and land units the U.N. was crushed and vassalised in a few turns.
My dominance was again complete but I knew I could still be outplayed by my room mate just by his shear experience alone. I slowly drip-fed Sparta and Morgan techs and crystals since Gaia was started to get the upper-hand. It worked and Gaia was forced into a prolonged warring stalemate which started to chip away at their economy and growth.   

My room mate proposed an alliance against the Morganites so I jumped at the opportunity since I could steal some rich cities and have a nice little landing base against the Gaians when the final battle would commence. The Morgan battle lasted longer than I expected mostly due to my slower transport foils meeting their end to Isles of the Deeps. I was able to wreck his defending units with boats but bringing over an army proved troublesome. 
I managed to finally get some units over and steal his capital and a whole bunch of other rich cities and I was about to offer him vassalisation when he declared fealty to Gaia who was busy attacking the Spartans and wasn't even attacking Morgan. This extremely annoying turn of events lead to a mini-cold war where my room mate wanted me to back down from completely destroying the Morganites since they were his pets. I left my units next to his bases and chocked his supplies, prepared to strike. Things got really tense and I was expecting an all out war with my room mate when Morgan finally folded and paid me his whole energy crystal collection and some minor techs for a truce. I packed up and went home and things went back to a troubled peace.

Wanting to expand once again I spied the Fundies to the North East who had built their small empire on an Archipelago and a Volcano. Apparently they had originally started next to the Gaia and had ownership of the Unity wreckage and had fled with their helicopter after the Gaians had wiped the floor with them. Their exodus had been fairly kind on them and their area was decently rich. With my new upgraded ships I was able to transport my armies extremely quick and claimed their Archipelago empire again in a few short turns and they became my vassal when I marched onto their Volcano. The only free faction left being the Spartans who were reduced to a very small amount of cities and things started to heat up. There was a long period of inactivity where we both knew there was going to be a final battle and we spent the time building up our armies.
Tech flew by and I was soon building planet busters in a whole bunch of my cities. Gaia was still lagging behind in tech but their army was impressive. My room mate of course knew the game better than me and was focusing on air units and missles which I had no idea how to counter. My strategy was lifted from my Freeciv games which was a grand army of battleships to shell coastal cities and a dedicated army of marines to mob up what ever remains before sending in the rovers to take out the inland cities.

It was in this time that both the Morganites and the Spartans were destroyed. The Morganites broke their truce and destroyed one of my roads which I took offence so I wiped them off the map. The Spartans were destroyed surprisely by the Believers rather than the Gaians as we were all expecting.

I soon had a decent amount of Planet busters and I spyed a city which Gaia was storing the majority of their army. I could easily launch my nukes and take out their capital, a whole set of mega-cities and their main army/producing base. I called a council meeting and voted to allow nukes expecting my vassals to agree with me which they didn't. I had played my cards to my room mate and he know knew I wanted to nuke him off the Planet. Annoyed I had to wait another 20 years to call another council meeting I spent my time bribing my vassals to vote yes and constructing more nukes. It was in this 20 year gap that Gaia had built their first planet buster. Luckily they had not been dedicating their cities to production and it would take them a decent amount of years to build more.
Gaia attempted to move the nuke to a much better spot to attack my main nuke producing cities via using transport ships. An isle of the deep out of no-where came up and swallowed one of the transport ships which forced to nuke to crash into Yang which sparked an international war with my vassals and Gaia. Not wanting to join the war until I could nuke their doom stacks I waited it out which caused a few loses for my vassals. To combat this I put a few units in each of their bases which made my room mate extremely angry who then attempted to choke the cities.

It was one more turn to allow nukes and I was poised to attack, my nukes all ready. Gaia hadn't manged to construct another nuke in this period which meant I could completely dominate their forces without expecting any kind of lose. We were both sure that the game was over at that point when mother-fucking sunspot activity delayed the council again giving Gaia time to build their nuke. A few turns in Gaia was sitting on a decent amount of money and I was worried they were going to hurry nukes. The Random Number God favoured me and caused a stock market crash, I could hear my room mate swearing in the other room.
Finally the time had come and the council voted to allow nukes. My planet busters launched and it looked like the ending of Doctor Strangelove. His cities were flattened, his armies were crushed I even managed to hit a city where he held his own planet buster. We both knew he could still out maneuver in the tactics department but my alliances and I could win by shear attrition alone. The die was cast and he declared fealty to me making me the supreme overlord of Planet. GGs allround.

[beorn080]

At the point you were at, you should have just used the nukes without trying to repeal the charter, especially at the end there. If after the first time, he knew you were going to wait for a repeal before using them, you should have just done it without waiting. Simply demanded your vassals bases to weaken them, set up hovertanks/rover/helicopter squads to fan out and capture everything when/if they turn, then launched them and wiped your room mate off the face of the map.

[Catastrophic lolcats]

Yeah I considered that but I was trying to play the good guy so it was an even greater victory over my room mate. As a rule I generally avoid launching nukes/unconventional weapons in games unless everyone has agreed to use them. Just an odd quirk I've developed.

[EuchreJack]

I think using nukes and playing the good guys are incompatable.   

I think your roommate was wrong to let you build up that supply of nukes.  From what I gather, waiting out University is a losing proposition.

Good job though.  It was a nice read.

[Catastrophic lolcats]

Cheers for reading it. I've edited it since there was a whole bunch of spelling and grammar mistakes. I was waiting for FTL to download when I started writing it and I was really excited to start playing so I rushed the writing a little.

As for why my room mate decided not to attack me when I was building up my nukes I really don't know. I suppose he knew that it was going to be a very long battle and he'd rather go out in thermonuclear blaze. He also assumed I was only building the one nuke but I changed some focuses from minor wonders to nukes/rushing which I guess took him by surprise. He could in theory easily survive two or three nukes and still have a decent army which he could try and out-tactic me with, although it wouldn't be a pretty war.

I'm going to try and see if we can start up another game sometime over the weekend. I think we'll go into an alliance from the start and turn on alliance victory and bump up the AI strength. Having two human players always looking for a chance to stab each other in the back really slows down the game. If it's an interesting match I might write up a little story again. 

EDIT: I might beg him to go Sparta and allow me to play as the Pirates. That should be an interesting little alliance.

[Sharp]

What is surprising is that as Gaiain he didn't get Planetery Governer. Getting that election is game winning for all the power it brings you. Gaian's are normally the number one contender unless UN has decent start with their double voting powers.

Never trade comlinks unless you are sure you are going to win it, it's really not worth the paltry amount of credits offered.

Still has given me a hunger to play multiplayer but PBE isn't fun and my roommates aren't interested in Alpha Centauri, the barbarians!

[Tellemurius]

I think using nukes and playing the good guys are incompatable.   

Somebody obviously never fought against ghandi then.

[Catastrophic lolcats]

So here's an interesting little question. If you had to pick one of the [old] factions to live/toil in which would it be?

I suppose the obvious would be the U.N. since they're often the most democratic but they're also often the first ones to be scrapped off the map. 

University would be the one I would lean towards the most since as a responsibly educated man a society where knowledge and learning are the most important aspect of life is appealing. Not to mention some of the no-doubt amazing things Planet has to offer would make my inner Biologist scream in joy. Firing some missiles at the Fundies from the comfort of my concrete bunker is also appealing.

Gaia sounds interesting mostly because they're really just a personfied Gaia Hypothesis. I've always liked the Gaia Hypothesis, it's not something I've ever believed but it's rather nice on a "romantic" level. Not having my mind imploded by worms every few days would be a nice advantage even if I have to go and live in some trees like a common Elf.

Doubt I would fit in all that well with the Spartans either, not being all that much of military man. I've always seen the Spartans more like their historical counter-part as a federation of military clans loosely united under one tribal despot rather than the modern "romantic militarism" of the Napoleon period and later. I've seen both sides debated though and the Spartans haven't quite been as "pinned down" as the rest of the factions.

The less said about the Belivers the better.

Doubt I could enjoy the Hive or Morganites at all. Either dystopian Capitalism/Communism is my idea of hell on Earth Planet. Although if I had to choose I guess I would go for Morgan since there's the chance he might go a little democratic while Yang is crazy all the time.

[Twiggie]

ptw.

[Sonlirain]

University - Mad scientists that have little to no morals.
I assume living there as a non researcher would probably mean you run the risk of being abducted mutated fed with fungus and dissected.
They don't get those extra pissed drones for nothing.

Gaia - Elves... sadly in this case they are right. Probably one of the safest factions to be in.

Morgan - They seem to be a extension of the curent world order and a supplier of goods people just want and are used to.
If any faction made MMO games soap and ramen it'd be the Morganites the remnant of the 20's (as year 2020).
Most likely a decent place to live by planetary (crapsack) standards.

UN - Humanitarian faction. They might not have a lot to offer but whoever you are you will most likely be treated humanely... at least for Alpha Centauri standards. I'd say same as morganites.

Spartaaaaaaaaa - North Korea redux.

Believers - I'd call them religious nutcases but they are actually onto something in here. The tech progressing in this game becomes increasingly creepy to the point even i feel distaste. The cloning vats are a great example especially if you know the inner workings of the machine in the video.
The machine in the cinematic seperates females from males.
The females are grown to lay more eggs while males get thrown away and minced alive and used as feed.

Hive - A well working faction but not something a present day human would want to consider living in. Unless you'd like to get a partial lobotomy and being turned into human cattle.

[Tellemurius]

I love playing as the Drones, socialist all the way!