Most Pear Shaped Game Ever

So how does 'pear shaped' come into the picture?

Pear shaped = when things go horribly awry.

That sounds rather unfair to a very good tasting fruit.

Don't blame me, blame the English.

Don't you have any games that have gone horribly wrong?

Got me some Lemon game the other day, wanna hear about it?
Arceans - all over the place! And no escaping from their wrath.

- Zyxpsilon.

Huge galaxy but I only have my homeworld, my dinky homeworld neighbor, and a PQ 12 after colony rush. Yor up north. Drengin east. Korath south. Rush researched Aquatic worlds and picked up a 6 and a 9. It's rough, but I think I'm going to see if I can scrap my way out of this one

Yes, please Zyxspilon!

ob1; Yes, I hate just quitting when things look hopeless. I've managed to pull games out of the fire before. Sometimes you win, sometimes not. It's more fun that way.

Hi!

There's simply NO comparisson between +40% PQ event in GC-1 and GC-2. In GC-2 it's just some more tiles, but planet's still hindered by the same rules as every other planet. In GC-1 going from class-18 to class-25 means on such a small map a difference between victory and defeat, because that planet will end around class-30 with basic two terra techs! In GC-1 class-30 will virtually NEVER go below 100% approval (maybe with 40B pop) while generating huge amounts of everything.


That's why you have autosaves. Sometimes I'd like to have such a thing also in RL.

BR, Iztok

Heh, yes. I didn't go back and use the autosave - at that point I wanted to finish the game through sheer bloody-mindedness. I didn't start reloading to bypass annoying events until much later.

And yes, I would say that planet was the primary reason the Arceans didn't manage to just wipe out my empire.

Oh, in my current game - immense, 9 opponents - the Arceans got that "will become gods" event again, so I paid four empires to go to war with them, forcing them to surrender. That felt soooo good.


... why yes, I do still carry a grudge about that game.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I have no bonus tiles on any of my planets besides an influence tile on my homeworld. Battled the Yor for quite some time last night. I held my own and took two of their planets but they took out a key economic resource and a few economy starbases, which hurt. Now their ships outclass mine and the Drengin and Krynn have both declared war on me. I had to save and quit at that moment... just to roll up the sleeves and try again tonight >

Kay, Phaedyme, here's the low-down report on the essentials of the Lemon-Game... all of this from short-term memory though since i keep on testing miscellaneous contexts very often while i develop the X-Worlds Mod.


SETUP;
Galaxy; Small, Abundant/Planets, Occasional/Habitable, Scattered/Stars, etc.
AIs; 6 Majors (AE-YC-TA-TE-DK-IR... mostly random picks), & 4 Minors.
Me; As a Custom race from XW -- the all omnipotent and quite strong "Magnetics" from TFTD, so i thought at first.

PS; Here are the Magnetic figures to somehow prove a point...
Super-Dominator, Eco/10, SoP/30, Def/20, Wea/10, MiP/20, Cre/25 &
Governed by the Illusionist party (customized as; Inf/30, DiP/20, Esp/15, Luk/5).
** Which means a relatively good spread of key-items, making it a versatile race. So i thought too.

COLONY RUSH:

Well, T'leth(16) + M-Earth(22) + IoM(9) + Mercury(3) was basicly a fairly strong starting-system. Bought the colony-ships and started to slowly stack Factories & Research while keeping economy/happiness at reasonable levels with a few buildings on the biggies. So, i thought.
Managed to grab 6 more planets close enough and a last (gasp) 14PQ far away by luck.

Within some 25/30 turns, all was gobbled up... with the AE having a quantity edge (the darn boys had an 18-plus empire in no time!) and a 30+ influence territory with mine hovering around 15%.

(PS... i normally GO for the Influence victory, call me lazy.)

DEVELOP PHASE:

Spoon fed the Minors with High-techs for Money (in a matter of about 50 turns to some 50,000Bcs treasury, and a chart yellow line peeking waaaay above anybody else, and my military rating low enough for good defensive numbers), only to realize my techno-edge was slowly eroding since the damned Minors found a way to give all of this superiority factor directly to Arceans for peanuts, it seems.
I got rich, fast. But the kinky Lemons were not far behind in all aspects just because they had most Minors right under their thumbs.
Everybody had strengthen their fleets and starbases networks (Lucky me, i was able to pull off a lonely Morale-resource, began to econo/boost my local but small region, tried to strip the remaining black space with inFluence/Bases).

Everything was ready and willing for a quick re-organization of the living beings still weak enough to invade.

ATTACK & DESTROY - the right ones:

In a matter of about 150 turns, YC & TE had just about wiped out IR/TA/DK, AE was still getting stronger and me, well, i screwed away at all but THREE minor systems.
Current status; AE/40%, YC/20%, TE/15%, Magnetic/25%... weeeeew, time for another round of invasions. The targets? TE, then YC and then AE (at the remaining 5/10% missing for the all elusive 75% Inf/minimum). So i thought.

STRATEGY DEAD:

In a swooping twilight type of processing anomaly... the stupid TE surrendered to AE only to be followed soon after by YC (which really puzzled me since they were plenty ahead in a number of areas). I begin to suspect conspiracy, even build-up paranoia scenarios in my mind and realized one important fact about war; please, carefully watch the ratios, unless you HAVE actual obvious superiority. So i thought.

BANG:

Suddenly... all i could see is a nicely drawn lemony mini-map.
With me, still stuck dead-smack middle of nowhere. Bazillions in the bank, but not enough (or even strong) ships to compete against the fast yellow gizmos all over the place.

CONCLUSION:
Surrendering sucks. So much in fact, it's the legendary lemon pie sliced unfairly.

Yup, a really amazing Lemon game.


- Zyxpsilon.

My mouth is puckering after reading that

Those damned Arceans!

Going to try again without so much tech trading?

Yup, i've got me a couple of "saved" games which i really want to return to... just for kicks.
Thing is, it doesn't change the fact that i was terribly bad at a certain point during that Lemon peeling rollercoaster. And swore never to miss-check the no-surrender box in predictable game-types since eventually cowards DO all they can to backstab the non-ai side of the force.
Friggin' weird.

One save i keep like a gold-mine for thorough digging later is a total wacko job made by JK on a medium map... i know i WILL step up to the challenge but such situations is sooooo geared at concentration and highly complex thoughts, i'd need to be in full control of the mindset - to make it, enjoyable enough.

Selling almost any techs to Minors during early turns is a sort of "pet-peeve" of mine - although i might stop relatively sooner in any further games. I find the gamble to be worth plenty over the risks in hard-cash. And, 25000BCs/spare to quickly build a fleet of Large/Hulled/Attackers 10-25% stronger than anything out there is always key to wipe clean a few enemy planets ready to receive Advanced transports packed with Marines.

Knowing random events may screw me up again and more is just a wreck/treck/deck stacked puzzle i'd skip if i could.

Bof, it's okay - where would the real fun be otherwise.

All of this, while i'm fine-tuning the triple set of Invasion/Tactics for X-Worlds... a tight group of 12 variations (VERY costly, btw) for each theme.

- Zyxpsilon.

Hi!

Why just to minors, when you can sell it to EVERYONE?! If you don't, minors will. So better you make the profit.

BR, Iztok

All of them get their fair share, in due time - when "necessary". True.
The profitable tactic is a double-edge knife though since eventually, somebody gets soooooo high (hopefully within reach!) in the tech-tree it lowers the amount of money everyone is willing to hand-over & similarly, increases the odd that they may be perceived more as a threat to defeat or control instead of a source of indirect research growth by quick cash means.
This is mostly why i almost like "Diplo" enhancing abilities/techs. 15% more here, 20% more there... one can rapidly gain a whole stack of BCs to use if & when.
Besides, enforced bad taxing ratios and eventdriven-recession conditions should/would rip apart any mogul's treasury. Booming economics is a solution i prefer to macro-managing supplemental and/or newly conquered planets, unless the loot MUST be grabbed fast through swift invasion(s).

- Zyxpsilon.

Alright, since you shared so much Zyxpsilon and since the post is about raw deals, I'm going to throw this out. In the game I mentioned earlier I fought back from a crappy colony rush, took the two planets from the Yor, and then the two of us continued to pound the crap out of each other until Peace was finally struck. We were both taking heavy losses and neither of us was gaining any ground. Besides, the Drengin and Krynn (whom I have not seen yet) have both declared war on me.

Some event happened that turned the Drengin into peace-loving hippies so I made peace with them (silly hippies). They weren't really engaging me in war at all so why bother. Besides, I had starbases and infrastructure to rebuild.

So I rebuild. I'm humming along. The Korath have pissed off everybody so they are fighting a losing war. I'm in tight with the Arceans, Torians, and Iconians. The Arceans keep bugging me about the growing might of the Krynn but I've never even seen a single ship, despite being at war with them for who knows how long.

Then a notice a few gray ships show up. And then a few more. And these ships are armed to the teeth! They wipe out my starbases and then they grind out my fleet. I have a few ships running around my space hunting for transports and leading the Krynn battle groups around like a deadly game of cat and mouse. Thankfully they have not grouped any ships with their transports... yet.

I researched a few diplo techs and tried to reason with them to no avail. I offered them all my money, my infuence, my techs, my planets, and my ships for peace (just to see what they wanted) and I never got the green in the diplo screen. Yipes! I tried to convince someone, anyone, to go to war against them. Only the Snathi gave me the option and nothing I could give them could convince them.

So here's what I'm thinking. I'm going to continue hunting for transports with the few remaining ships I have and leading the killer fleets around. I'm going to turn all research on defenses and once I have something better than Chaff, sell *A LOT* of techs to everyone and crank out a fleet that will, as Monty Python puts it, "snuff out thine enemy".

Is this a good idea or am I just delaying the inevitable? BTW, I'm playing on Tough with Random intelligence (and assume Krynn roled the higher). Thanks (and sorry to hijack your thread, Phaedyme)!

It sounds like it just might work. You just have to hold them off long enough to get your Krynn-killing fleet. What are the other races' diplomatic relations with the Krynn?

And no threadjacking there, you're describing the kind of stuff I was talking about at the start of this thread.

Well, it mostly worked! I had three fleets of two medium ships apiece. All of them were hunting and being chased. One was being chased by *four* fleets of Krynn ships. I set Research to 100% and ran up the Missile Defense tech tree until I hit PD Combo. Then I started cranking out my Krynn-killers - medium hulled ship with 4 Plasma IIs and 2 PD Combos (8 off/6 def).

In the meantime, unfortunately, the Krynn started grouping transports with escorts and my three measly fleets were taking some damage. I performed a sweet move where two fleets met and I swapped out a damaged ship from each fleet to create a very healthy fleet. The damaged one went home for repairs.

The Krynn started sending *better* ships. And my aforementioned healthy fleet met its demise. It appeared that the war was turning sour when all of the sudden, "A secret meeting was held..." and the Drengin, Arcean, and Torian all declared war on the Krynn. At that same moment, I bought as many of my Krynn-killers as I could and grouped them with the few that had already come off the line. I cleared out my immediate space with only one loss. And the oncoming Krynn actually reversed course!!

The Krynn eventually made peace with everyone but me. But I have space superiority in my own area of influence. And there are no Krynn vessels in sight. Now, remember those Yor to the North of me? Their fleets are sporting offensive values in the 50s now and our relations have dwindled from Wary to Hostile. Here we go again...

I know that the Yor are not well-liked. I'm going to start a proxy war and build a couple of military bases along our border to beef up my fleets - just a bit. The Krynn, however, still have the Strongest military and the Strongest economy so I fear ending my war with them will never happen. We'll see what I can do over the weekend.

It sounds like you'll be able to finish the Krynn off, though. I mean, the Yor might be rattling sabers at you which would complicate things, but you have that proxy war and build up in mind already.

But seriously, kill those bastard Krynn. They'll just build up and punch you in the face again if you don't.

I still don't even know where the Krynn are but you're right, I really need to stick it to them. Maybe I'll go conquer those silly squirrels, the Snathi, and use their world as a staging base. I'm almost positive that the Krynn lie beyond their space. Besides, I can use some extra production planets and I'm not ready to start two wars by attempting to bully the Yor. I'll let you know how it goes

Lesson being to never, ever lag behind in military skills - just in case.

You said, Snathi... right?
Then, let me share a few thoughts on available growth for stable and fair expenses;

- Whatever bears the name Minor in any of my games... never last long enough to become an indirect threat or annoyance. Which constantly happens just after Colony Rush or IF someone Major wants to rattle my cage too much by mosquito-biting at territorial assets.
- Most is not all planets are invaluable resources, the Minis enjoy that much exclusively? No way. Sooner or later, an AI would pick up that contract. Better me.
- Planetary invasions skills and soldiers must be top-of-the-line.
- Minor-ously yours stops interfering cuz they're conquered, finally. Bye... so long. The Universe belongs to meiiieeyyyee and nobody else.
- Stepping stones for further tactical moves in variable but, by luck or on purpose, key areas.

About 5000 to 10000BCs worth of slicky-fasty transports for more or less than 25 turns worth of modernized techs AHEAD of the enemy(ies). Why wait when true victory is near?

- Zyxpsilon.

I prefer mangos and Pink Lady apples.  

General, is your name a Homestar Runner reference, or just a coincidence?

Zyx, yeah. Minors are a resource to be exploited, not a nuisance to be tolerated.

I remember starting up a huge map with rare planets, rare habitable, rare systems, and 8 minors. They were a major reason I was able to expand past the four worlds I colonized at the start.

"General, is your name a Homestar Runner reference, or just a coincidence?"

Definately a Homestar reference. Wave O' Babies!