Hot posts in thread: Smokeys War -Playing the Sulak on 25/75 ISG version 1.6.1

Conclusions...
Its become apparant that despite the restrictions on research that this makes little to no difference as the Sulak can compensate by other means, in particular by stealing tek from the other factions... but paying for it also balances the deficit out, this is aided by the pop growth...

Due to the long term stategy used, in particular CIV6 and the terraforming and building of worlds, the Sulak reach a breakthrough point usually about mid game.
This typically happens on these settings around turn 150-180 depending on the initial circumstances, beyond this point the game is not in doubt
and the Sulak will eventually succeed, though there are a lot of things that contribute to this...
In this particular game the turning point occured around the end of the second Draguul war turn 179... probarbly because CIV6 was being completed (or had been) on multiple worlds... this despite the weak Sulak Fleet.

The final game in this series will use increased setting for all factions with significant bonuses for the AI factions...

 

Turn 251-264 The Palacean War...

The Palaceans do Not want to surrender and are very quickly building more Warships...
The Sulak fleet is not that Large but will soon grow to more then double its size, some from construction but many from the Palaceans themselves as captured and refitted vessels, allowing the Sulak to dominate Palacean space very quickly...

However the Palaeans have large populations and their colonys are protected by defensive shields and air defence systems, so it takes a large number of assault ships combined with a suitable number of bombers for the Sulak to make an impression, colonys are either destroyed and recolonised or captured whole by the assault fleet, at which point reinforcments will jump into the system, a new fleet is then formed and sent on its way to a new target...

In this way the Sulak rampage through the Palaceans worlds annihilating them one by one, first Klersoak then Oyaissic,Abroay Chuxuter and finally Zlet are captured or recolonised with Vrue Umia and Gau reduced to ashes never to rise again.
As the Fleet approaches Triobah the Palaceans though furious have a change of Heart and offer surrender, the Sulak accept with good grace...they now control 4 homeworlds...

Map Turn 264:



The End...

The Sulak Fleet Regroups and smokey casts his gaze towards the next aggressor...

As the Palacean War was ongoing the Federation have been busy building their fleets and attacking the Nova causing them serious damage, eventually they also attack the Cerric Sentinals, Sulak Vassels... this the Sulak will not tolerate.

On turn 268 they attack Sol what follows is a blitzkreig on the Federation, by turn 274 the Federation ceases to Exist... however Victory is achieved on turn 269 with the capture of Sol...

 

Turn 250: “It is possible that even the war itself has been only one further move, in some greater game.”

The Sulak are not amused, the initial fleet attack by the Palaceans at Oyaissic was unimpressive... the Palaceans ships are slow and poorly armed having mainly lasers and missiles, the Sulak ships are more then capable of defeating them one to one and capable of outrunning pursuing fleets, this is proven quiet swiftly when the 3CRs at Lithios attack the newly completed Palacean Titan at Zlet, disabling and capturing it easily.

The 3 sulak ships initially retreating to Galerius change course and instead head for Saiph capturing two enemy ships in the process, the main Palacean fleet is unable to intercept... despite having instigated the war the Palaceans have instantly lost the initiative, they will never regain it...

Map Turn 250:



Next: The Palaceans surrender...

 

Contact...

With the Colonisation of Teanno to the North just outside of Nova Space full contact is finally made with the Palaceans, and a spy is despatched to find out more about them, in the meantime several small Sulak fleets investigate the region being carefull not to confront the Palacean fleets... but this proves to no avail and the Palaceans attack at Oyassic with a large fleet including a Titan, the Sulak (1CR, 2DS) engage destroying several smaller ships but decide the odds are against them and retreat to Galerius...



Map Palacean Space Turn 249:



Next: The Palacean War...

 

Turn 230:

The Sulak have established outpost Colonys to the Northeast at Gidurn and Rasadnyk as well as Hokt where construction is well under way...

Jumpgates have been researched and will soon be built to ensure security of all outlying Sulak systems.

Several new Warships have been built or aquired during exploration of the NE, including two new BS's, but main ship construction is concentrated in Civilians ships which now include 48 support ships spread thoughout the Colonys and 15 outpost ships with more on the way...

Exploration continues... some Palacean worlds have been identified to the N/NW...

Overview map Turn 230:

 

Consolidation...

Overview map Turn 210:

The Sulak are now dominating their area of space, have achieved many of their goals in terraforming and planet construction and have been busy building new worlds and exploring...
The Moltar have been identiied and are engaged in a protracted war against the Kaek, both are limited in their expansion possibilitys due to the large expanse of empty space seperating them from the galaxy hub, but this wont last forever.
The Federation would seem like more of a threat but are benign, friendly and engaged in their own war with the Nova to the North, who themselves have many treaties with the Sulak and are no longer considered any threat at all...

So for the Sulak peace reigns, at least on the surface as espionage is ongoing by the many operatives of the Sulak Empire...
Invariably the results of which are influencing the other factions, sabotaging, Stealing tek and influencing leaders.

But what of the Palaceans, it seems they are likely situated in the northern arm to the North of the Federation, and likely that the Feds are at war with them (or have been)...
In any case they have been unable to break out, but this could change...




The Sulak are about to colonise the Hokt sytem as it has five potential planets, several of the Sulak colony's are building outpost ships to claim systems and resources that otherwise might fall into the hands of their enemies, but the main object of this is to prevent the spread of the other factions into what the Sulak consider to be their territory and expand their own influence in the process.

Militarily the Sulak have not expanded their fleet to any extent since the Draguul War, but it now consists of 2 BS, 8 CS, 7 DS and 7 FR, though these ships are modest they are capable and have been upgraded to current specs (including the Condor).

The Aim is now to explore to the Northeast, which is currently unoccupied, with the goal of colonising one or two systems as bases and identifying the Palaceans in the N/NW and their intentions...

Next: Palaceans Enemies or Allies...

 

I'm enjoying your tale my friend, I've also noticed the overall improvement in composing your narrative. You deserve to know that.

Well done.

 

The Draguul will never recover from their ignominious defeat... but in the meantime the Cerric Sentinal have been showing signs of aggression, on turn 179 they attack...

The War with the Sentinals Turn 179 - 189:

The build up of CS forces has not gone unnoticed and Smokey directs a small number of Sulak ships to Lodora to defend that system, this now includes a refitted Draguul BS, 3 CRS including a bomber, 2 DSs and a FR... almost half the Sulak fleet.

The Battleship arrives just in time to take part in repulsing the first attack at Lodora, where a large CS Fleet including a BS attacks on Turn 179 declaring war in the process... the CS Fleet is damaged and the remainder retreats, the Sulak follow up and destroy the rest....
5 Sulak Ships most of those available are sent direct via an unknown system to attack the CS homeworld at Arbitros, in the meantime only The Condor and 1 FR are left behind to counter CS attacks on Lodora and the surrounding systems...

Map Turn 181:




On arrival at Phee (the unknown system) the main fleet splits to counter strong opposition directed at outflanking the Sulak by attacking the outpost at Hokt, this attack is defeated the survivors heading for Arbitros...

At this point the Draguul offer Surrender and its decided to accept, so the assault fleet originally intended to attack the remaining Draguul Colonys can be directed at Arbitros instead, it has 6 assaut ships... these rendezvous with the fleet at Hokt.

Skirmishes continue but the main strength of the CS Fleet has been drained and they are rapidly loosing the war, the Sulak again direct their main attack at Arbitros...

Map Turn 183:



By Turn 185 the Fleet has arrived at Arbitros but its population is too large for a succesfull assault though the system colonys are damaged by bombing, the Sulak Fleet is again split with a force being sent to attack Sobyria, reinforcements are on the way...

Turn 189 The CS Surrender:

Over several turns Arbitros is bombed and the CS in fear of loosing their homeworld offer surrender, the Sulak now control 3 Homeworlds...

Overview Map Turn 189:



Next: The Sulak look towards the North and south...

 

But first the Second Big Mistake...
The Sulak are a low Gravity species and most of the worlds they occupy are medium/heavy gravity which creates problems for them in production and population growth, correcting this would be a BIG bonus...
Although the Sulak have researched micro gravity generators this is only really good when a population is low, so basically recently colonised worlds, as its cheap to build...
To alleviate the problem of gravity its necesary to research the much higher tek planetary anti gravity generator... and this takes a good deal of time and expense, inexplicably the research scientists decide to take a different approach (or pressed the wrong button somewhere) and ended up researching the Planetary Gravity Generators, unfortunatly the error wasn't caught untill the research was completed...

Now this may not seem like a big thing but this is useless tek for the Sulak and would effect both Prodction and Population for many turns to come, eventually they would get the Anti-Gravity tek...

The Lesson... Double check your research and dont get distracted

The Second Draguul War Turn 160-183:
The Draguul are showing signs of aggression and have targeted two astroid belts and are now on their way to attack a third at Weacef, up untill now war has been avoided by simply giving them the systems before they reached them, and for a few turns all was peacefull...
But now they are approaching Weacef with a fleet as big if not bigger then the entire Sulak fleet (not difficult) and clearly intend mischief, well this is too close for the Sulak and there's no way they can allow this to continue, or the enemys strength to increase...
So its time to do or die and the Sulak who have gathered what forces they have at Gladus, attack the Draguul who have a Battleship but are otherwise similar in number.

The Battleship is targeted by missiles from most of the Sulak fleet, the rest being fired at enemy destroyers in the hope of reducing the odds, this is succefull and eventually all the enemy are destroyed or disabled, The draguul Battleship is captured by literally the last marine available and the Sulak breath a sigh of relief...

Its then that they realise (spy in the enemy camp) that hidden in the depths of impenetrable space lie several other such fleets who also now have numbers of assault ships...
The Draguul pause at the apparant disrespect of their might and this is enough for the Sulak to gain the initiative...
The war is stiil long and difficult as the Sulak have no bombers or assault ships and are still heavily outnumbered, but never the less the Draguul are whittled down till few remain... in the process the Sulak fleet grows with captured Draguul ships, another Battleship, more cruisers and destroyers join the ranks, these are sent back to Gladus and other bases to be refitted, the Cruisers as bombers, which return to the Draguul worlds razing them one by one...

Only Lau and Cre survive though heavily damaged, the Draguul are Furious but Surrender...


Next: Another War...

 

Prelude to War Turn 150:
The Draguul have been licking their wounds for a while and doubtless preparing for their revenge...

The Sulak have also been busy, Espionage is booming and four new leaders have joined the Empire. Mickey at Zrit, K at Lodora, Wingman with the fleet and Blackwood as a leader influencer on a mission against the Draguul, this means there are now 3 such leaders all expert targeting the Draguul leader pool... and with the new Intelligence HQ at Aberon missions take a mere 5-6 turns.

The Kaek and Cerric Sentinal have also been discovered and its clear the Moltar are at the end of the southern arm, though have not yet been discovered, its not clear where the Palaceans are but far east or north beyond the Federation seem likely...

The Fleet has only grown slightly and now consists of 2 Cruisers, 2 Destroyers and 5 Frigates all fairly modest ships, the main ship building has been concentrated on Support and Colony ships, and there will soon be 10+ support ships mostly at Gladus, the goal is 5-8 at Gladus and at least one ship in each of the other systems...
As a result Gladus can now produce ships fairly quickly though it still takes some 6-7 turns to build a cruiser, destroyers and frigates take 2-3 turns, a new cruiser the "Irn Bru" with combat jump and the Ion Discharger as well as a destroyer are currently in the build list,

The Fleet has been busy exploring and is currently mostly in the region around Lodora, all known monsters have also been cleared...

However the Draguul are restless and recently sent a fleet which seemed likely to attack Relmion taken from them during the First war, rather then let another war happen the Sulak gifted the asteroid belt to the Draguul, the same thing will happen in a few turns at Uipra and finally a larger fleet will appear and head towards Weacef with clear intent... But this is where the Sulak draw the line.

Map Turn 150:




Next: The Second Draguul War...

 

Indeed, low-tech settings endow these ships with more significance than normal. Protect her my friend, she'll be useful for quite some time.

 

"Gaining Hyperdrive on these settings is a huge plus by the way."

It was quite fortunate that hyperdrive tek turned up before the war, as it did give an advantage in intercepting aggresive movements by the Draguul and really allowed the Sulak to pick and choose what to counter next.
The Condor for once with its battery of missiles was probarbly the most powerful ship on either side... but as expected the Draguul had 4star crews and better defences making up for their reliance on Tungsten guns, battles frequently ended up in melee where the PD weapons of the Sulak were the only thing left to fight with...
The Draguul fought to the death... and truth be told they love it!

The Illusion of Strength...

Its easy to be fooled by the ranking status particularly when it comes to fleets, as this seems to include All ships and in the Sulaks case this includes 4 support ships recently built, which accounts for the apparant rise in fleet strength, but in points value the Civilian ships of the Sulak fleet outnumber the military by 3 to 1, which means the Sulak are heavily outnumbered by the Draguul likely by a similar proportion so its a good thing that they didn't combine this fleet for a mass attack...

Fleet Strength Turn 109, the steep rise seems to be support ships not military:



In any case the Sulak have exactly 6 points worth of warships...

Espionage:

Ever since the Draguul appeared followed by the Feds and Nova, Bashfull and Dexana have been working to undermine them...
New tek has been stolen and leaders influenced as well as framing them or the other factions whenever possible, anything to cause disharmony and draw the attention away from the Sulak...
Since most of the stolen teks is military it means the Sulak can concentrate on researching other things...

The Ultimate Goal...
Well the road too it at least, the plan is to terraform and build new worlds and this is a way off yet, so the Sulak plod on in there endeavours and brace themselves fot the next War...

More to follow...

 

Nice going old friend, I hope you find the challenge you were looking for.

Gaining Hyperdrive on these settings is a huge plus by the way. Speed and range are just as important as raw firepower.

 

The first Draguul war was difficult enough and I thought when it started that this might be the beginning of the end... for the Sulak, simply because the Sulak Fleet was so small, but having good leaders and superior speed turned the tide, and though not without loss all the leaders survived.

But before I go into the Second Draguul war I'm going to give some background on whats happening behind the scenes as ISG is much more then simply building ships and combat...

Colony Infrastructure:

Normally I go for Civil engineering 6 as this has a direct effect on constuction on ALL other colonys, as you can see this isnt the case with Gladus which because of its starting infrastructure as the Sulak Homeworld (3 Aerospace) is best built as a Fleet Base with the full 6 Aerospace Engineering infrastructure perks, this is because this will give a bonus to ship building in all other colonys.
That said its only average for resources and will itself only be a fairly average ship building base, unless its gets other bonuses ie production from Building, asteroid belts and support ships...
Failing that as in this case its best to build all 3 of a particular infrastructure type, "Ultimate Civil Planners" (no building maintainance cost) and "Master Ship Builder" (+40% ship Construction), the Colony is more usefull for CIvilian ship building and this is primarily what its used for, its also at this stage used to build the entire military fleet but it will only produce low quality crews (good ship leaders will offset this), which do effect combat however these crews will get better with experience.
Later in the game I prefer to have Military ship building done on Rich worlds with all 6 Aerospace perks/infastructure :



All other Colonys at present are in the process of building Civil Engineering 6, this is a slow business but once completed will increase construction on new colonys by an order of magnitude...


To be Continued...

 

Turn 105: The Nova have recently been contacted via a wormhole at Alem, but as they have only a small fleet are not considered a threat but plans are laid to send a colony ship to Alem as soon as possible...

Otherwise things are ominously quite...


Overview Turn 105:




Turn 109-120+: The First Draguul War... "It needs but one foe to breed a war, and those without swords can still die upon them"

Whilst the Sulak fleet is exploring west of Aberon, the Draguuls treacherously break their treatys and attack the asteroid belt at Uipra.. what follows is a long war of skirmishing, strike and counterstrike as the Draguuls have no assault ships yet...
However the Sulak have obtained Hyperdrive tek and the Draguul have underestimated the Lillipution Sulak Fleet which after a quick upgrade of the handfull of Frigates (the Sulak have 3 starbases close by) led by Yang aboard "The Condor", intercept and drive back the redoubtable Draguul fleet in desperate battles of annihilation....

OverviewTurn 120:




The Draguul eventually accept a peace treaty and slink back to Lau to plan their next moves...


Next: The Second Draguul War...

 

Turn 100: The Human Federation has been discovered largely because they moved into Sulak space and settled a system close to the Draguul at Glea, Both the Draguul and Humans have greater production but the Sulak is catching up and have recently colonised Plei +2 pop.
In theory the Sulak are No1 but this is an illusion created by their superior cultural level, in almost every way they are weaker then their opponents, with the fleet being the weakest by far and this will need to be rectified.
But for the immediate future civ eng/research projects and support ships rather then warships at the top of the list.

The Draguul are growing stronger and have a fleet easily capable of defeating the Sulak, with any luck the Humans at Glea will distract them, plans are already afoot to cause problems via espionage and it wont take much as the Humans are already annoyed with the Draguul...

Overview Turn 100:



More to follow...

 

Turn 50:

Not much has changed on the map though Culture is now at 114 points a turn, a new outpost ship has been built as well as aquiring a Survey ship via Culture, this took only 9 turns not the 21 it seemed it might take in turn 40 and this is entirely due to concentrating on culture rather then research bonuses...

Two new leaders are in the process of joining the Empire, "Chili" and "Scholar" who is currently on her way to govern Aberon and will boost research a bit.

Research is also about to be completed on the Star Base and additional infrastructor is being built on Gladus, Iforas is concentrating on pop and Aberon building the Space Elevator...

Turn 71 The Draguul are discovered:
This is really the situation you dont want to find yourself in, an aggresive faction like the Draguul only respect strength.... Warships are the one thing the Sulak dont have as the Fleet still consists of only two puny Frigates, though the Star Base at gladus has been built and there is a new ship about to be completed...
Still at this stage its possible to make a trade deal with them and use the Sulak Serenity ability to keep the situation calm but once this runs out expect fireworks!
There is also what appears to be a Moltar ship travelling down a wormhole from the east...

However it could be worse... it could be the Palaceans!

The Minor Civ at Iforas has been identified on turn 67 as the Arkulla +2 Logistical Range -25% Survey Ship Construction cost.

Two new leaders have joined the Empire depleting cash reserves, Santini who is now on her way to govern Gladus and Dexana an excellent spy on a mission to steal tek from the Draguul, Bashfull has now left Gladus and is on a mission to influence Draguul leaders...

Research is concentrating on Support Ships to boost production... with research its important to go to the next level as this will reduce lesser tek costs, unfortunatly this is not what the Sulak did instead researching the Core Mine which takes way to long to research and build at this stage...
Potentially the first error of the game, still in tek the Sulak have surpassed the Draguul by an order of magnitude.

Culture has increased and is now at 6 bonuses with a 7th soon to follow.

Overview Turn 71:




Turn 85: Finances have stabilized, ancient ruins have been found on 3 systems as well as another minor civ but it seems likely this system has a monster...
Much needed reinforcements "The Condor" DS and Ion Discharger has been found on Thutania, though the latter is not usefull at present and will require battle pod Tek.

Currently research is aimed at Advanced Colonisation as the Sulak need worlds and Population to combat the Draguul, other tek is in the process of being stolen from them but is a slow process, who although still just 2nd have have made some quite rapid advances.

The fleet now consists of 1DS and 4X weak FRs armed mostly with missiles, and is still not strong enough to chance taking out the monsters, the Draguul have many more ships and will be more experienced crews...

And time is running out for the Sulak...

On the bright side... well their Not the Palaceans...

Overview Turn 85:




Next: To be or not to be...

 

This game I think was much more interesting then the first one was for a number of reasons , one was the location that the Sulak found themselves in, under ideal circumstances its better to be a bit out of the way towards the edge of the galaxy where theres no possibility of being mobbed by multiple aggressors and where you can find a little peace at least for a time to set your empire on the right path...

But this was not to be, as the Sulak, a somewhat secretive race, found themselves rather closer to the center of the galaxy then they would like to be...



Sulak Space Turn 40:

By now the Sulak have inhabited three Systems, only one of which has more then a single world Iforas, but at least one tiny planet has a minor civilisation so will be less usefull, there are also 3 monsters inhabiting systems close by with the subsequent problems they pose...
Gladus and the other colonys are now building CECs and these should be completed in a few turns which will more then double Culture. Research on the Space Elevator and Star base will follow and should be completed in about 12 turns, but will take some time to build the bases to get rid of the current Monster problems...



Four leaders have joined the empire "Bashfull" an espionage specialist is currently Governor of Gladus (for experience) but his role will be head honcho of the SIA later on, also Blossom, Dorlani and Yang...




Total empire income is 126BC per turn with 50% currently being spent on research.
Several civ ship projects are ongoing due to bonuses from culture...

 

Smokey's War on Impossible...

There is only one Victory condition, control 5 Homeworlds for a Domination Victory...

As before to add to this no research facilitys will be built nor will any reseach bonuses be sought, instead the emphasis will be on Culture and Credits, essentially research will rely on cash and population, unless unavoidable...
ie capturing or obtaining teK that results in a colony leader asking for a building with research bonuses in their system, this only applys to the Technical capital and Galactic Museum, other technology may be captured as its unavoidable but Super computers must not be built, nor should asteroid belts be used for research, cultural research bonuses should be avoided if there is another choice...

Culture is Random.

Setting are as follows Sulak 50% Research 75% Production, everyone else 50% Research 100% Production, this was cos I didn't feel the AI could cope with very low research percentages and didnt want the game to go beyond around 300 turns...

The Sulak are the vanilla game variety...

 

Analysis of turn 177 and what has gone before:

This is really the turning point of the game a nexus point, it is possible to get the Palaceans to make peace and even a trade deal (with a bribe) in the same turn, but the victory conditions require total conquest and since they refused to surrender it was best to take Triobah by force, although this would take some time as no assault ships were available and the Palacean Pop was pretty large...
There were other advantages as well to continued war as other Palacean colonys and all the outposted sytems would also become part of the Sulak empire in the course of time...
So there was no real advantage to peace at this time, so the war continued.

TEK: the Sulak have aquired 50 technologies including Hyperdrive and the Ion Discharger (though only one ship is equipped with it), of the other 48 teks 20 were aquired by other means, starting teks, but mostly by theft. a few from battle with the Palaceans and 3 from culture, and it would continue to climb..

As can be seen here the Sulak have far surpassed the factions currently identified, though the Nova who havn't yet been discovered were No1 by far at least untill turn 230 or so and had been since early in the game as a result of Evolution:



Reseaching "Research" seems to have no advantage in the short term because of the massive -75% on research points, and this means valuable time spent on research for little reward, despite their advantages this of course is also a problem for the Non player factions, if not more so...
It seems better to keep researching the next tek level as this will lower the lesser teks research cost, and of course steal as much as you can.


CULTURE: Every Colony has a Cultural Exchange Complex built as soon as possible and this resulted in a quick growth in Cultural levels, but as can be seen from this turn and turn 203 not much has changed so there is a limit, so expanding the empire to include more colonys with CECs and more population is very important for continued growth...



Just what a difference it makes bettween the factions can be seen here, its likely the only faction who could compete with this were the Moltar No2 (not yet dicovered) but they were very much limited in their expansion as a result of being at the end of the SE spiral arm:





THE VICTORY CONDITIONS: During this and the follow up games that I played testing this, it became apparant that the Galatic Council Vote is the most important Victory condition for the AI, as such should allways be included as the primary Victory Condition.
It was never the case that despite changing settings the AI was ever capable of completing any of the other conditions even when they had superior advantages and lowered conditions, except on one occasion where the Draguul may have been able to achieve a Domination Victory when set to 5 Homeworlds by Surrender/Conquest.

But more on that later...

Game 2: Smokeys War on Impossible...