Interesting game - Influence Wars and Rangers! My first full game
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In my first game I was playing on sub-normal in a large galaxy with 5 opponents, the Drath, Terrans, Drengin, Yor and Altarians. I had a bottom corner of the galaxy and quickly grew to 7 planets. At the end of the second year I discovered a Ranger class ship, which I used to make war on the Yor because the Terrans had them on the ropes and I wanted the class 17 world they had in their possession.
Quickly crushing the Yor and securing the planet I then settled back down into securing my borders with influence starbases and military starbases to cope with any agression. The Altarians and the Terrans would have sporadic wars with the Drengin and the Yor respectively. The game quickly degenerated into an influence war between three major powers, myself, the Terrans and the Altarians with the other three powers marginalised (the Drath didn't even have any influence in the galaxy at all at this point - there planets were all under Altarian influence!). The galaxy was completely at peace except for some limited warfare that I wasn't even involved in.
I didn't have any allies, but every race counted me as their friend - thus I was being bothered by every race for help in their wars. The Drengin against the Terrans, and the Yor against the Altarians and to prevent them from being crushed I would send both evil races ships from time to time to keep the attentions of the human races on them instead of on me!
All in all both the Yor and Drengin got 4 top of the line frigates and a half dozen fighters each. I even went so far as to building the Yor a top of the line military starbase with all the trimmings. While I was doing this I was pumping out influence starbases and the voice of my people was magnified by the maximum possible influence modules on every starbase. This annoyed my nearest neighbours the Altarians because I was gobbling up their territory, but in reality there was nothing they could do about it. By now I had found four Rangers and had a capable defense fleet. They only had 3 - and their secondary fleet was technologically less capable than me.
The alliances came into play in the final war - the Altarians had alliances with the Drath and the Yor and the Terrans with the Drengin. I was friends with all but had no binding agreements with any other race. When the Terrans declared war on the Yor yet again, their buddies the Altarians declared war on the Terrans in response! Soon the war between both sides degenerated into stalemate.The Terrans had a huge fleet but that was quickly being torn apart by the three Rangers the Altarians had found. It was here that I spotted my opportunity to break the influence deadlock.
I would attack the Altarians!
Rangers in mid-game are a bit like kings in checkers. If you are the only person who has them you have a huge advantage but if its one on one then you have a problem. I timed my assault on the Altarians so that my first blow would be against the pride of his fleet - his two remaining Rangers (I assume somehow the Terrans had managed to blow one up because the game reported he had three but I only ever saw two).
With the Rangers taken down the Altarians stood no chance. In revenge for my surprise attack they did manage to destroy one of my powerful influence starbases but within the year I had conquered Altaria itself and eliminated all of their starbases - especially their uber powerful military bases which had given their ships up to 8 additional offense points even on small fighters!
With the fall of Altaria the Altarians surrendered their worlds to the Drath soon after. But of course the Drath had no influence left so speak of, so all of their space and the space formally occupied by the Altarians went by and large to me (thanks to my uber influence starbases).
Shockingly this gave me control of 75% of the galaxy in a single stroke. 10 turns after the Altarian surrender, I had won my first game with an influence victory!
Quickly crushing the Yor and securing the planet I then settled back down into securing my borders with influence starbases and military starbases to cope with any agression. The Altarians and the Terrans would have sporadic wars with the Drengin and the Yor respectively. The game quickly degenerated into an influence war between three major powers, myself, the Terrans and the Altarians with the other three powers marginalised (the Drath didn't even have any influence in the galaxy at all at this point - there planets were all under Altarian influence!). The galaxy was completely at peace except for some limited warfare that I wasn't even involved in.
I didn't have any allies, but every race counted me as their friend - thus I was being bothered by every race for help in their wars. The Drengin against the Terrans, and the Yor against the Altarians and to prevent them from being crushed I would send both evil races ships from time to time to keep the attentions of the human races on them instead of on me!
All in all both the Yor and Drengin got 4 top of the line frigates and a half dozen fighters each. I even went so far as to building the Yor a top of the line military starbase with all the trimmings. While I was doing this I was pumping out influence starbases and the voice of my people was magnified by the maximum possible influence modules on every starbase. This annoyed my nearest neighbours the Altarians because I was gobbling up their territory, but in reality there was nothing they could do about it. By now I had found four Rangers and had a capable defense fleet. They only had 3 - and their secondary fleet was technologically less capable than me.
The alliances came into play in the final war - the Altarians had alliances with the Drath and the Yor and the Terrans with the Drengin. I was friends with all but had no binding agreements with any other race. When the Terrans declared war on the Yor yet again, their buddies the Altarians declared war on the Terrans in response! Soon the war between both sides degenerated into stalemate.The Terrans had a huge fleet but that was quickly being torn apart by the three Rangers the Altarians had found. It was here that I spotted my opportunity to break the influence deadlock.
I would attack the Altarians!
Rangers in mid-game are a bit like kings in checkers. If you are the only person who has them you have a huge advantage but if its one on one then you have a problem. I timed my assault on the Altarians so that my first blow would be against the pride of his fleet - his two remaining Rangers (I assume somehow the Terrans had managed to blow one up because the game reported he had three but I only ever saw two).
With the Rangers taken down the Altarians stood no chance. In revenge for my surprise attack they did manage to destroy one of my powerful influence starbases but within the year I had conquered Altaria itself and eliminated all of their starbases - especially their uber powerful military bases which had given their ships up to 8 additional offense points even on small fighters!
With the fall of Altaria the Altarians surrendered their worlds to the Drath soon after. But of course the Drath had no influence left so speak of, so all of their space and the space formally occupied by the Altarians went by and large to me (thanks to my uber influence starbases).
Shockingly this gave me control of 75% of the galaxy in a single stroke. 10 turns after the Altarian surrender, I had won my first game with an influence victory!
Killed the Drengin then got 90% of the galaxy just for me