Part 1 - The Beginning: Flirting with Economic Meltdown

Turn 1:

This race was created with one overall goal in mind: Expand, expand, and expand some more. So my first turn is spent toward those aims. Since I'm using the Altarian tech tree, my first priority is to beat any true Altarians that might be on the map to getting the Social Matrix galactic achievement, so that's the first thing I set on my homeworld to build.

Toying with the idea of buying the social matrix outright, I decide against it and instead purchase a colony ship outright. This may hurt my home planet's population somewhat, but given their 50% total population growth bonus, I don't think it's going to matter much in the long run. It will give me the ability to colonize 2 planets early, as well, capitalizing on my race's strength of population growth over all else.

Taking advantage of my 'naturally joyous' people, I raise the tax rate to 49% and set production to 100%, and to further get an early technological edge over the computer opponents, I set research to 40% and split the other 60% between social and military production. At this point, I'm making a profit per turn of 16bc. Knowing my empire is going to quickly be on the fast track to economic meltdown, I throw my first research at Planetary Improvements, with the plan to head down the Economic and Morale research paths as soon as possible. It has a long research time (41 weeks), but if I'm lucky I'll have a Creative event happen to cut that time down significantly.

I landed on the edge of a star cluster, with a smaller cluster to the south and the main cluster of star clusters to the north. It will be necessary to absorb my star cluster as soon as possible to make sure nobody else gets a foothold in it. I'll also have to see if the smaller cluster to the south is occupied. If it is, that just makes it even more necessary to get a foothold in it quickly and weaken whoever's already there.

I set my space miner to automated, send the scout ship toward the nearest star in my cluster, and send my first colony ship (after landing to fill up the rest of its hold with colonists) in its wake. Nothing really left to do, so I end my turn here.

Current approval: 61%. Treasury: 1654bc

Turn 2:

Not much to report here, I had my bought colony ship come off the assembly line and sent it toward another nearby star.

Turn 3:

Nothing happened. The colony and scout ships are en route.

Turn 4:

The scout ship got a good look at the Thuban star system. A class 10 and a class 11 planet waiting to be colonized, and I point my closest colony ship toward the class 11. There are a couple of anomolies nearby, which my scout ship snatches up before heading off to scout the next star.

Turn 7:

My colony ship arrives and colonizes Thuban V. This turned out to have a nice +100% manufacturing tile, which I immediately put to use. The scout ship arrived at the next star, Migor. Migor I turned out to be a habitable class 14, but the class 11 Migor II is, disappointingly, a barren planet. I diverted my remaining colony ship from its path to colonize Migor I.

Turn 8:

On its way through the Spica system headed toward Migor I, the colony ship spotted Spica II, which turned out to be class 17. It was immediately colonized. It will still be some dozen turns before the next colony ship comes off the production line, but I'm in no hurry; Migor I isn't going anywhere soon. My home planet finished its social matrix on this turn, allaying any worries I had about not being able to finish it before the Altarians.

Turn 16:

My colony ship came off the production line, 5 turns earlier than expected. It seems my home planet finished its first factory on the 100% tile, and that just about halved the time until the next ship was finished. I sent it off after Migor I

Turn 23:

Planetary Improvements finished researching. My next research will be Xeno Economics. I'm not in any economic danger right now, but I'm already taking a loss per turn of 20bc, with the newly colonized Migor I. My next colony ship has come off the assembly line, and I steered it toward the Class 11 Spica III

At this point, I think to myself that stopping the production of new colony ships would perhaps be in my best interests, to avoid economic meltdown. Then I laugh at myself and call myself a wuss for even entertaining the thought of slowing down my colonization. Let the space bunnies spread and grow!

Current approval: 66%. Treasury: 1654bc

Turn 26:

My scout ship spots another class 17 planet, Altros V. It's a little ways away, but I divert my most recent colony ship away from its path toward Spica III to go colonize it instead. Another ship off the line can get Spica III.

Turn 34:

Another ship has since come off the line, and colonized Spica III. It turned out to have natives, which I resettled (neutral) not wanting the population penalty. What the planet lacks in PQ, it turned out to more than make up for in specials, having a 300% manufacturing, a 100% and a 300% research, a 100% Influence, and a 100% Food production bonus tile. NICE.

I'm taking a per-turn loss of 46bc now, and I haven't even begun to slow down building colony ships. In fact, I've started to speed up, they're coming off the line faster.

Current Approval: 69%. Treasury: 1386bc

Turn 37:

Finally finished researching Xeno Economics. I set the Adv. Market Center to build next in all of my colonies. That part of my mind that's screaming at me that I need to do something about the impending economic crash is somewhat mollified by this. Next: Temples.

Turn 45:

Me: Er, why are we researching a propulsion upgrade?

Me: So I can make faster colony ships.

Me: Why do we want faster colony ships? We're already having an economic crisis from how fast we're colonizing.

Me: It is NOT an economic crisis.

Me: We're losing 39bc per turn now, even after all our colonies built their adv. market centers.

Me: So?

Me: We're down to less than 1000 in our treasury!

Me: So?

Me: So do something about this!

Me: Ok, fine. We'll raise taxes some more.

Me: Wait, what? No! That's not going to solve the problem!

Current Approval: 51%. Treasury: 855bc. Net Income: -8bc

Me: See! It didn't fix the problem!

Me: Oh, pipe down, will ya? It was enough for now.

Turn 49:

Me: *screams*

Me: What? What happened?

Me: We're STILL colonizing!

Me: Of course. We don't want to slow down our expansion.

Me: We're going into economic meltdown!

Me: No we're not.

Me: We're in denial.

Me: No we're not.

Me: We HAVE to fix this! We're losing...

Current Approval: 51%. Treasury: 776bc. Net Income: 14bc

Me: Uh...

Me: See? We're doing fine. Don't worry so much.

Me: *sulk*

Me: Oh, grow up.

Ok, so how did this happen? A combination of factors, really. I've been building Temples in place of the entertainment network on all my planets, and some of my less populated planets have started to reach a high enough population that their higher morale started to count more heavily against my home planet's overcrowding morale. A second temple at my home planet also offset this, so I was able to tax my people more heavily. That made the difference between losing income per turn and gaining income per turn, and I'm happy enough as long as the current approval rating is 51% or higher.

With the economy well in hand, the next few dozen turns will be more of the same, colonizing and expanding at an unwise pace.

That is a long time to go without meeting anyone.

You may want to give this thing another try.

Part 4 - The Thalan Threat

Turn 270:

The Torians surrender to the Thalans last turn. This turn marks a considerable shift in the balance of power on the map, as the Torians were overall 4th and the Thalans were overall 2nd. Now the Thalans are still not 1st overall or in population (I still hold those honors), but have the 1st in production, influence, economy, and research. Moreover, the star cluster they were sharing with the Torians, and I assume they still share with the Iconians, has easily a higher number of star systems than the territory I own does.

At this point I have to make a decision of what to do about the Thalans. I can leave them alone, and they'll eventually start crawling across my southern border... my territory marks the bridge between the southern supercluster and the northern clusters. I can attack them now, and start a war of attrition with them that will probably never end, considering how long it will take for any reinforcements I send into their territory or they send into mine to arrive.

One thing is clear, the Torians have a whole supercluster to themselves (once they cast off the Iconians), and there's not much I can do about it right now; I can't get a foothold down there at this point. So in order to be able to combat them later, I need to absorb the territories of the Arceans and the Drath now. With their territories added to my own, my empire will be about the size of the southern supercluster, and I'll be in a better position to hold off the Thalans once they turn their pincers my direction. Time to give the Arceans and the Drath a big culture hug.

Turn 296:

After I spent so many turns researching the life support branch, a mega-event makes all life-support redundant. Yes, all ship ranges are now unlimited. This is a real game-changer, as the Thalans will no longer have to go through me to get to the rest of the universe. This is NOT a good thing. We'll see how this plays out, but I suspect this means I'm going to have to hit the Thalans earlier than I planned.

Turn 303:

A mega-event causes the Arceans and Drath to go to war with the Yor. This will be a good distraction for the two of them while I continue to set up my culture starbases. Before either of them know what's happening, I will own most of their planets. Then I'll deal with the Yor myself. The Yor are currently the #2 military power in the universe, with the Thalans as the #1.

In the midst of all this war declaration, the Altarian Resistance surrenders... to me? I've never even met them, but they give me all their planets. Well, that works for me, and gives me a foothold in another region of the universe. This also put me in contact with the Terrans. It's going to be a headache converting their colonies to my build standards, but it'll be worth it. The Altarians still had their home planet, so I get the benefit of their class 17 planet with its civilization capital base still intact.

Turn 304:

The Iconians surrendered to the Yor, and the Thalans declared war on me.

You know what? Okay, fine. It's fairly obvious that the game wants me to take care of the Thalans. Distance is no longer a problem, for them or for me, so fine. You wanted a #1 vs. #2 war game? You got it. I'm going to kick the Thalans right out of that supercluster they're sharing with the Yor now.

I hope...

Turn 309:

The Drath surrender to the Arceans, and the Terrans, the same turn the Thalans declare war, surrender to them. Majors are dropping like flies, and the Thalans remain the biggest threat, as I'm still culturally absorbing the Arcean and former Drath worlds.

Turn 352:

I noticed the Silicoids have built up a nice little empire for themselves, right in the middle of Yor space. The Yor remain at war with both the Thalans and the Arceans. The Arceans remain distracted by the war with the Yor, as their colonies fall like dominoes to my cultural starbases. The Thalans have, for the most part, left me alone, concentrating more on their war with the Yor. With the rapid surrenderings over the last 50 turns or so, the Thalans are now overall first, with me second, Yor third, and Arceans fourth.

The fight against the Thalans, when I can be bothered to fight it, is going to be a long, bloody affair. *sigh*

Turn 382:

The Arceans and the Yor settle their differences, and both immediately focus on the Thalans, who they are both at war with. I'm still taking chunks out of the Arceans culturally, so their distraction with what matters most suits me just fine. And if they manage to do any decent damage to the thalans, more the better. At this point, I'm seriously considering forming a three way alliance, an axis of good since the Yor had a shift in ethics, against the Thalans. It might be the only hope the universe has of not becoming a hegemony of the Thalans. The Thalans are already a majority in the UP by themselves.

I could just go to war with the Arceans, who wouldn't be able to put up any kind of resistance against me. The problem is they might just surrender to the Thalans, which I can't risk. The Thalans haven't been able to do much to me thus far, their ships falling to my defenders without really doing much damage to me. I still have the technological edge, even now. But I don't know how much longer that is going to last. The Thalans have a significant advantage in research at this point.

Turn 392:

I saw something the last few turns that I never would have believed if I hadn't seen it myself. A large scale Minor attack on the Thalans that ended with the Thalan loss of at least 3 planets. Note to self: Do NOT underestimate Minors in this mod. *shudder*

Turn 407:

I think it was around this turn that the game became unplayable. Not from a strategic standpoint, but from a standpoint of "Every time I hit the turn button the game freezes." I've had autosave going every turn, and it hasn't helped here; I load, and it just freezes again. I think between the Silicoid (minor, but with a huge military), Thalans, Arceans, Yor, and myself, there are just too many ships moving around, too many battles going on. There's still the other half dozen minors too, doing their thing, and I think it all just became too much for my computer when the Thalans, who I'd bought off the minors' backs some turns ago (except the Silicoids, who were actually kicking butt), suddenly declared war on all of them at the same time.

It's been an interesting game, and I'd hoped to finish it... but it's a mutual loss on all sides because the universe imploded.

Aw, that sucks. I liked this. Maybe your computer's RAM should be upgraded.