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Aroddo -> After action report #2: QaQa (11/18/2009 6:01:58 PM)
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Another game in the same beta and the same scenario as the first one.
This was also the first version of the game I could lay my hands on and I was quite surprised how stable and fun it was for a testing version.
Game 2:
Race: QaQa
Difficulty: Normal
Scenario: Twelve Races
Version: Beta 2
Having learned from the previous game I took the lazy coward's way and didn't try to improve my strategy but looked for a race that solved my problems without me having to exert too much brainpower. Big empires have problems sending fleets to where they are needed, so I needed faster ships. I also got fed up with those rioting colonists, so I needed a less disorderly race.
Enter the QuaQua. They have a level 3 bonus in Hyperspace Research, which I intended to exploit in this game. They also have the disadvantage of a low growth race.
Now, the Hyperspace tech-tree is a special one because it contains a couple of decent fast warships AND useful, game changing other techs: Wormholes and teleports. Exactly what I needed.
So, this time I started right next to my former race - the humans - which I eliminated by turn 70 using roughly the same approach as I did before. Only this time I focused very strongly on hyperspace tech and barely anything else. I build up a small fleet of corvettes and took the minimum amount of ground forces in assault ships and helped myself to the terran systems without much of a fuss.
The next to go were the Xpectrada west of me, which got to admire a mixed fleet of corvettes, Merlins and a Falcon. Merlins are slightly more powerful than Corvettes while Falcons are slightly stronger than Cruisers and Destroyers combined. And both are twice as fast, which is pretty convenient. From then on my rich systems went on to produce the fast ships exclusively, while normal systems were promoted to mining sites for commerce and poor ones to research centers. You can see I spent a tiny bit of thought into colony management, too.
Determined not to overextend myself again, I stopped conquest and became the loveable neighbourhood QuaQua and brought up my colonies up to par as fast as possible, while steadily hoarding a mix of fast battleships, which after a time included Battlecruisers and Merlin/Falcon IIs. I barely had time to finish a queued order of ships before the next hyperspace tech was available ... you really notice the QuaQua affinity for hypertech.
Unfortunatle not everyone bought my peaceloving act and even more unfortunately I was not the only one who researched hyperspace. I noticed that by a huge fleet of Walden ships bursting through a wormhole right next to my capital system (which was relatively unimportant when compared to my shipyard systems). Of course my ships were stationed at exactly the wrong place. However, my fleet was fast enough to arrive within 3 turns and the Walden didn't go for my capital but some dead (but colonized) planet on the opposite side of the wormhole. Thank god I didn't share maps with those hugger trees. My planet's stationary defenses held (barely) for a turn and the fleet arrived in time to utterly destroy it.
While en route to the Walden invasion force, the Hoon Yon decided to join in the fun and attacked an unimportant - and thus barely defended - fringe system and conquered it over the course of 3 turns. Once I dealt with the Walden Forest, I made short work of the small HoonYon invasion with my only slightly diminished super fast battle fleet. But these incidents prompted my to fortify vital systems next to unsafe wormholes and all yard systems. But now it was time for revenge and I warped from one Walden system to the next, destroying defenses, fleets and occasionally the forests.
The slower assault ships carrying my ground forces were on their way alone without an escort which wasn't too bad since I researched the tech to change orders mid flight. This is very helpful in case you send an expensive but weak fleet to some formerly safe system. Without it that fleet would sail to it's doom, but with it, I can save them with a course correction.
I also conquered some research centers specialized on bio-tech, which gave me space squids - inexpensive and strong system defense ships - soon enough for the next Walden invasion.
I pulled back my main fleet, arrived in time to defend a lighty fortified and squidified system ... and saw a Hoon Yon fleet 4 times the size of mine bursting out of the wormhole ... ulp.
No chance to win that one, squid or no squid, so I opened the diplomacy screen and bought myself some peace for a pretty hefty sum. Saved, phew.
The Walden were free game, though, and half my fleet (about 20 ships with at least 5 battlecruisers) stood at their home system which I attacked. Only a couple of ships and some orbital lasers ... or so I thought. One of the orbital lasers was a freaking orbital Guardian and boy, those things are tough. This thing took out my entire fleet (the heavy missiles did their part, too), which made me consider a peaceful course again.
By this time I maxed hyperspace and construction research and got huge parts of the bio tech tree, freeing up resources for new scientific endeavours.
A couple of turns later all the important stuff of the information tree was mine and the galaxy was open to me, my speedy ships and my mother arks. I settled system after system, shuffled the conquered aliens to the new planets (my own race is rather slow in growth) and built up most rich systems into major shipyards, complete with teleports. I maintain a quite large squiddy fleet - after all, they teleport in one turn to any planet that matters, while my speedy attack fleet grows.
And finally, the AROM were dumb enough to attack me, which gave me the opportunity to try out my new playthings: Roid Rollers. Throwing asteroids on a planet surface sounds like it could do some damage, no?
And sure enough, they are slow slow ships - especially when compared to my speed fleet - but man, when they get to the target, the ground defenses are gone! Awesome!
So I zip to systems, destroy mobile defenses while the roid rollers and assault ships lumber behind me and when they finally arrive, the systems are mine.
It's turn 200, things are looking good, core systems are developed and protected by guardians and weapon development is on route to NDomitables. The economy is largely stable and the population is mostly content. Every now and then a wave of discontent sweeps over my empire when the bureaucratic load annoys my subjects, but it's largely managable.
This game went rather well. Hypertech is good, the ships are strong but not overpowering. The speed factor is very advantageous both in offense and defense. I even learned to use formations somewhat effectively by letting some tough ships circle in the front row and let the others shoot from behind. Works wonders against overwhelming corvette fleets.
Roid rollers are fun and their attack run is short, almost guaranteeing that they get through. (only almost, though. Dense heavy missile clusters even break up incoming asteroids.)
The lack of the humans' "disorderly 2" trait makes all the difference, though. I can delay happiness building production long enough to turn a system into something useful before I have to finally divert production to terraformers and other stuff.
All in all another fun game ... and more successful. :)
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