250K on a tiny!

Amazing.

Would you be willing to say whether that was with rare or abundant settings?

I'm still trying to close out my current game. I had forgotten how long a single turn can take. I'm at August 1st with 300 planets and 150 colony ships but the speed issue is a major PITA. I'm thinking of going back and delaying a bit so that I both get more planets as well as have a faster colony ship. In fact I'm pretty certain that's the right thing to do.

Another record-shattering score Maiden!  We stand suitably awed and humbled!

Sentient species taste better...

First of all my apologies for not knowing how to actually post a screenshot on here...but I swear I just joined the ZYW club as of my posting today. I only have one character so it should be easy enough to confirm my statements. I'd be happy to post a screenshot with a little guidance from you guys...

Either way, Tiny Galaxy, Crippling, Korath...cant remember the score, 15000ish- I tried for a ZYW on a whim, wanting to take a break from my other game. Probably just beginner's luck but I managed to do this on my first try without having to even hit crt-n. Sent flagship to find the other race and pretty much just lease-bought labs on every square avaliable. Hit enough to get a 1 weapon ship and lease-bought it. Got to planetary invasion and lease bought two transports (one on each planet I had) By this time my economy was just on the verge of tanking...I had about 238 and was draining something near 180 at full tax...Quick switched tech research to communications/translator and snagged them in one turn, then sold anything non-military to my opponent, the Yor. Got me to around a surplus of 1900. Rush bought two transports and game ended with economy completely trashed but my ship count was perfect...only 1 fighter and flagship remained at the end (actually, big mistake thinking back on it...the miner remained...should have just uprgraded instead of automate and forget...)

So, as I said, most likely beginner's luck, but I must say it was incredibly enjoyable to be on the verge of tanking teh economy at every second. The only thing that was odd is that I never managed more than one anomoly for 500bc, could have drastically changed my game with a few more. At the same time though...creativity bumped me 3 times on the soldiering techs...taking the homeworld could have needed another transport without that luck and I just wouldn't have had it in me. Just a bit further...are most of your games also against only one opponent (and probably not the Yor, I chose random, that slowdown nearly killed me)?

Sorry if I somehow gave away some secrets...just blind luck on my part.

--Scanian8

Well, actually I wanted to ask you why you used Korath AND still researched Planetary Invasion, but when I took a look @ Mumble's pics I think you're going for your racial medal, isn't it?

BTW, your secrets are kept confidential in our realm   and here's one for you:

ZYW's are *most* easy on Suicidal, plus they net more score then.

Mumble nice score - you are now second on first try in an expansion that is new to you.... the real outplay would have surely crossed 300k by far. I have no doubts you'll cross 400k in your new game. Did you start out with a PreCursLib? 

Your games-score will actually reflect your research-output. Once you go -500bcs irreversibly it's about time to end the game. You may want to mitigate range by building a base, or colonize a planet - that's usually more efficient than racial range - although sometimes it's called for both methods simultaneously.

On Suicidal you can do the fastest research, and get the best score-multiplier.

You seem to learn pretty quick. Impressive.

Yep, in a Gigantic all-rare game against max AI/ Minors. Was very meticulous to find a map.... but those 70k bcs to burn on research brought 224k score.

However, with 9 AI's you can't hope for good research-bonus tiles on your HW - and that's where your score comes from. 4 enemies is my minimum choice these days - however, I guess I do things totally different as you....

There's two basic guidelines to follow in a standard ZYW:

1) make your choices so you can end the game in time (not before 8th April)

2) try to put everything into research as long as it doesn't hinder the above rule.

Yes, isn't that pretty much required?

My problem was that I used up my money fairly effectively getting to March 1st but by August 1st I had about 7K BC's on hand. In this case money not spent is a bad thing and I could and should have increased research levels between March and August both for the benefit that increased early tech spending has on your score plus the benefit of having more useful techs earlier.

It was annoying to have 300 planets and 150 small hull colony ships on August 1st but have those colony ships limited to a speed of 5 and still not have gotten Eyes of the Universe so that I couldn't really see where to send all those ships. That's why I punted on spending much time finishing it up and only landed 30 or so of the colony ships before decommissioning them and clicking end turn for another 4 months before finishing off the Iconians.

I just wondered if it was common knowledge how to avoid having your conquered enemies ships turn pirate. If I hadn't figured out how to do this I would have had to chase about 100 pirates all over the map and that would have been annoying.

We're playing an entirely different style of game here. Keep in mind I don't have nearly the ready cash that you have and therefore can't get through the tech tree nearly as fast as you do.

I use small hulls because other than cargo hulls that's the only hull I have and they're cheaper. Basically I'm getting all of my colonizers free out of the queued up shipbuilding from a large percentage of the close to 300 planets that I "swindled".

Actually swindle is KP's term but KP didn't invent or discover the process and neither did I. However I was far closer to the source than KP was since it was discovered by Purge in DL and shared among the Diplomats. At some point I did a writeup that intentionally gave so many hints as to how this was done that it became obvious to most everyone.

But I digress. Overflow is the right word to use and I have not particularly taken advantage of it primarily because I cannot at all points afford to do so. I tend to figure out what is the maximum techs I can research in a given turn and then turn down my research to the point that I accomplish that amount of research but with no "overflow". I do this merely to make my limited money last.

I also don't allow the AI to have any military ships prior to the "swindle". I trade for all their military ships prior to declaring war. However remember I'm not trading peace for only one or two planets, I'm trading peace for close to 40 planets per AI and it's required to add in up to perhaps ten 2/1 "fodder" trade ships to get all those planets. It's those ships used as trade fodder that later become pirates, unless of course you found some other way to swindle 40 planets from an AI or have some other method of preventing them from turning pirate. I've simply discovered one method of keeping them from turning pirate.

It's reasonable to assume that using DL opponents that this doesn't happen, however I would have thought you would have seen this in previous games against breeders unless you've only played all abundant galaxies against multiple DL opponents and your previous experience against breeders was in rare setups.

The thing I worry about using DL as opponents is that it seems like it would be a micromanagement nightmare whereas against breeders you may not have nearly as much cash and therefore can't do nearly as much research but all you need to do is to sit back and let the AI do your colonization for you and then "swindle" them out of their planets at the appropriate time.

Also I can only guess about the details of your negative balance approach but I think I can make a few reasonable guesses. And while I do see definite advantages for your method such as being willing to upgrade to very expensive but fast colonizers to be able to finish up the last wave of colonization, I also see disadvantages in having to (I assume) build ships (or at least the hulls of the ships) for your array while bankrupt by using focus from research and therefore having to forgo a good number of stock exchanges that instead need to be research buildings.

Again these are just choices to focus on one thing while giving up something from another. Which way is really better can only be determined by how well they perform. To me the 687K ZYW is interesting but not really important. The 2.2M final game is what's important and I do want to give my methods a chance at trying to reach those levels before I simply give up on them.

Yeah, you can prevent this with the right AI ethics; and trade for your ships again.

Sure I use tiny as well but even fewer engines on them. But they're perfect for colonizing the rest of the system once you've already got a toe hold.

As far as miniaturization I make expert min a priority because it seems to be highly valued for trade by the AI and of course I want to encourage everyone to build a shrinker.

However engine research usually lags. I go to Impulse II early but never seem to have a chance to get back to it, This is where I need more than just a precusor mine and my tech cap to get through it faster.

Actually I try to stay away from draining the majors cash. I've found that it can make a big difference in how many planets they can colonize for you. It can make the difference between them colonizing 150 planets by 8/1 versus colonizing 350. The minors are free game and in the last game I still hadn't met 3 minors even after owning 300 of the 350 colonized planets in the galaxy. But you're right I need to and can do a better job of getting and spending money.

Agreed. But I always max out the AI's and give them <AIAbilities>100, <CPUUsage>100 and <FinancialResources>200. The only thing I leave normal is <Aggression>50. I do this on the basis that the stronger the AI is the faster they can colonize my eventual planets for me, however I've never gotten anything near 30K from a single trading round. The max is usually 5-6K per round but I do usually get 2 planets from each AI in the first round, more later, as well as most of their ships other than colony ships. Perhaps I'll try detuning them somewhat but then if it makes the difference between getting 400 planets and 200 planets then that's a problem. Of course in the DL case you have to do all your own colonization which sure seems to be a lot of work and I assume is all rush bought from all this cash but still I think there has to be some benefit of gaining the pop growth from 10 super breeder races versus that from just one.

Yes you certainly can do this however again you will get far fewer planets out of the AI in return. Where the best balance point is uncertain but in DL I would wait until the AI's had colonized the entire galaxy and then swindled the whole galaxy without ever colonizing a single planet other than my starting system. While that is probably not the most efficient place to be it is the least work and least tedium on my part and sooner or later you're ability to deal with the tedium of the game becomes a faactor in you're willingness to play.

I've heard rumors of this but I never seemed to be able to do it. Supposedly after getting all their planets and peace you should get another opportunity to trade for the ships you just gave them but I've never seen that but I guess that's because I've been evil and I've set the AI to good. However the only reason I did so was to reduce pirates in the first place. I'll check it out and if I can get your system to work I'll tell you how I do it. It's actually not as good a method as gettting back your own trade fodder.

Purge did discover the process in DL and in that case you did not even need to add ships. You could do 3 rounds in a single turn and usually close out most AI. If an AI lasted more than 3 rounds you usually had to wait another 2 or 3 months before you could attempt it again with the same AI. Anyway we called this process "planets for peace".

Then DethAdder discovered that it wouldn't quite work out in DA (or even in small galaxy DL games) but that you could add low value fodder ships and take all their planets at once. I actually used this technique in the small galaxy games in the MV league where I was still playing DL. In this case we modified it to "planets for ships". However I do agree that the single word "swindle" is probably a better term and certainly a shorter way to talk about the process.

Affirmative.

With the DL ARC you can skip this entirely. I never managed to get them to build one, although in the "Altaria's Last Stand" tournament they did - at some time I got this message "DL's build a HS". Although it might have been Tournament-specific, or occurs very rarely. There were a few other oddities in said game (one DL Troop Transport had 1000b soldiers - 50X the pop of their HW) so I don't count the occurance of this game to be standards of any kind.

In all matter having HS or not doesn't hurt the Tiny Hull MSBA approach at all, but with Huge Hulls it surely does. You might want to take a mixed DL/Stock ARC into consideration - although it can never be known if all Stocks will turn to build HS at all, or when. Still, they might take a bit colonization-micro from your shoulders.

I'd go for the same setup if I'd take your approach, although still the danger is there that they will rush-buy Galactic Wonders that serve no usefull purpose at all....

It's vice versa. On 22nd12thy0 all my planets held a pop of 11.973T. The AI's can never play such efficient as the human player. They simply lack the right strats to do so, e.g. they will not ferry pop around in order to achieve the best possible growth rate; they'll keep ColonyShips in space (which will reduce their Econ-income) or launch ColShips from a low-pop planet. Further, they don't design their planetary build-up queue to support a 100% moral everywhere.... etc pp. Of course that's alot of micro, but there's no real alternative.

From all I know personally of the All-Econ approach is that it is staggering early on to get a 1on1-rate on all planets. At the time you'll have sustained that you've missed the opportunities to grind easy points in y0 - and you'll never be able to get them back in any way, quite easily because no matter what you do, or, said better, whatever you'll leave out early on won't give you the ability to quadruple any of the 4 increments of score later on, and that would be required to even your loss. 

Except in research, which, point-wise, is nothing but a big black hole in which to toss bc's that are irreversibly lost exept on that very turn where they are burned.

Generally yes. But the bonus is not that great. Depending on the current level of Min a HS will give only 1 extra ZPA, 2 at best. Multiplied with racial stats that's an average 60 points of ship-bonus, which isn't really much compared to the bonus a tiny will get from the MSBA. The 'Tiny Hull'-approach always focuses on the MSBA-support as premier contribution to MR - last game only had one. At some point of the game it (after having built 50k ships) it even became neglegtable to NOT instantly upgrade anymore, as their +400 points per ships bonus wasn't even good enough to compensate for the general loss of MR due to increased depreciation. And here we've reached the heart of the matter, which the following of your quotes does belong also.

The point is that the greater one of the four increments of score get - the more it will scale down (ie the lesser it will be worth if seen from a constant-/linear approach). That is, having Tiny Hulls sitting under a MSBA with or without Shrinker support won't matter much on score; although what *could* matter is having a few additional DL's into the game (which could be used to support initial research much greater). This all leads to "trade-offs" between advantageous/disadvantageous between the 4 increments of score, and as strategies change they must be evaluated every time new, although this is the hard part. For example, at a certain early stage of the game I'll check what each new round of research still brings me to score - and reload, do a mass-shipupgrade and compare the two different gains to one another. Although in the last game this pointed well into the research-direction (w/o MSBA Tiny's are pointless) I went for the upgrade as I don't know what the initial research-output will still bee worth at the end of the game, whereas my ships stayed to contribute throughout the rest of the game. But there are simply too many variables here in order to make a definite assessment of what's best, and, like you said, the game's score itself will finally testify on behalf of that.  

Actually sad he's gone. I'd like to get to know how this could work, although usually my patience for those lame Minors is small. Could it be that they lack the ability to "rushbuy" structures/ships?

I concur, I see no way in DA. Even if you abandon your own Shrinker planet (which will be destroyed then) you can't re-built it, although it's not in the game at all anymore.

BTW the 'Freighter SB'-bug doesn't work (in DA) either, the SB isn't moving, so there's no chance to circumvent the 4-per-sector limitation.

In a way, yes. Let's assume the optimal szenario: You use the DL's very effectively and are able to lease-buy 1 planetary structure and one Hull on all your planets on any turn, from 1st March on until throughout the whole game.... which is pretty much was I did, with a small 2 turns delay of Hull-production on a freshly colonized planet during NB (which is a one-time per planet situation).

So you would have then to upgrade your Hulls to 1/1 max engines to hurry them under the MSBA, but they wouldn't match my MR as my ships get the same MSBA support but are fully upgraded already. And this szenario will be prolonged until you finally bunkrupt yourself with the mass-ship upgrade - and the question is if you think that your better *late* MR will outweigh my better *early* MR? Furthermore, you'll additionally have the problem to bring up money to support research, planetary improvement-leasecosts, all sorts of maintenances, ColonyShips, and keeping taxes low to support pop-growth.

Posted a ZYW against 3 suicidal opponents that netted 30100...Be afraid Maiden...be afraid...

I guess just a few questions now that I am starting to look at score/increasing opponents-

1.Is it better to attack the old fashioned way via planetary invasion techs, thus saving population, or is it better to go right for the spore ships? The loss in time to research normal techs against too many opponents may lead to resistance that could drag the game into year 1, but the loss of population could seriously hinder the score.

2.Is my negative economy impacting my score heavily? This most recent game (the 30100 point game) I held my credit treasury at around 300bc by the end of the game. In my normal games I am at least -800bc or beyond...Is this draining the score or can I run at negative credit forever, increasing score in other areas?

3.Would there be any point in attempting a crash-and-burn type strategy with labs... I am thinking along the lines of pumping out all necessary labs to reach invasion/spore, then decomissioning every lab on every planet in order to recover the economy for a long term approach at score building.

Sorry if some of these are mind-numbingly obvious...I'm more of a gut player than number cruncher.

-Scanian8

This was in a way my plan on the first game...I kept morale at 100% for as long as I could and then raised taxes as high as I could. After a few more of these games I have found that I am actually able to keep things rolling and to hold my morale at 100%. This is why I am starting to wonder about the spore vs. PI...I actually might be able to raise pop for a while. Then again, after reading all these posts I am starting to realize I have a very different strategy compared to most.

PS- Up to 5 suicidal opponents now, but this is only starting to hurt my score (More entertaining though...).