May Challenge
Introduction
I am generally peaceful and passive. So the vast destruction wrought in this game was a surprise for me.
After the initial star grab...In the beginning... Give me allies to fight against! The Last Galactic War If the Torians are with us, who can be against us? Conclusion Other Good AARs
I made some yellow star grabs. The Arceans were the biggest threat it appeared, but they seemed to like me right off the bat, although their influence dominated my sectors. The Drengins were wimpy in this game, having only two or three stars. Peaceably trading to both sides with one or two routes each. The Yor were nowhere to be seen. Neither were the Altarians. I never even saw a Yor planet in this game. Soon I discovered why: the Torians were kicking ass and taking names. The Altarians were bottled up in two corners. The Torians were mightily in the center, dwarfing everyone in military, pop, tech, etc. with only a few stars. I only managed to grab an influence and research resource, all the others were grabbed by the other races. But I gobbled most of the space anomalies, which was useful as there were quite a few soldier ability increases that helped me later.
Sucking up to the Torians with trade routes
A quarter of the way through the Torians extorted cash out of me. I felt if I refused they would have crushed me so I swallowed my pride. This got me thinking though: since I was less in goodness now(one neutral, one good choice) I might be able to get them to ally with me in a little bit. Together we could rule the galaxy! So I sent my freighters off to the Torians. At first I had given the Arceans more and more trade routes since they were big and close to me but now I carefully reduced the number of routes to them and sent all my new trade to the Torians.
At one point I was "close" to the Torians but without alliance tech which I was researching. By the time I got it, my relations had gone down. So I simply threw cash at them. Eventually I got them to agree. They still insulted me with the "you're amused by the red bouncing ball" message but since they were the superpower, I didn't tell them where to get off. Amusingly, the Arceans kept telling me that the Torians were dangerous and would rule the galaxy unless we worked together.
Using earth to build Battleaxes and Constructors in other planets, my military grew but it was defensive. I had no hitting power other than the firepower from my few maxed out attack starbases and two battleships. I used my planets to build wonders and trade goods (except the population increasing ones). The Arceans had massive influence but I nullified that advantage with influence trade goods, techs, embassies, and mining my influence resource. Eventually I went from two or three blue sectors to about six.
Torians sweep out (mass of green lines) and protect the new trade routes after the Terran freighters run away from Altarian an planet (dotted blue line upper left). Initial attacks by the Arceans fail (yellow arrows). Except for a border planet I took from the Altarians which switched hands a few times (blue and cyan arrows) no human planet ever fell. Human and Torian attacks crush the Arceans but it is the Humans who get down and dirty by invading the Arcean worlds (blue arrows). Note the final flight of the USS Hero (blue arrow right). Altarians fall soon after the destruction of the Arceans.
I tried to ally with the Altarians the same way as the Torians but I didn't notice till quite a while later they were allied with the Arceans. As my trade routes were reduced to the Arceans my relations cooled with them. And with my relationship to the Arceans cooling the same happened with the Altarians, despite massive cash gifts, spare trade routes, trade goods, and extra techs I was giving them. Eventually the Arceans declared war with me because my influence was starting to take over their planets. The Altarians followed suit. The Torians weighed in with me. Thus began the Last Galactic War.
I had spare freighters hanging around the Altarian world where I was still trying to get more routes to improve relations (I kept the routes with the Torians but did not add any new ones). With the Arcean and Altarian trade routes canceled I had to send them into the Torians sectors and make routes there. Luckily they had the speed to escape. The breaking off of trade routes with the Arceans and Altarians was the cause of a massive deficit in my economy that caused me to set research to zero and government spending to 40%. I had a huge financial reserve but at -130bc per turn that went down fast.
The war was epic. Freighters went up in smoke in many areas. USS Hero did some damage behind the Altarian lines (it was far off exploring anomalies when war broke out). Eventually taken out when an Altarian Dreadnaught attacked it instead of a damaged Torian Dreadnaught that was closer. I had gotten Dreadnaught tech only recently and did not have any to begin with. I took over a lightly defended Altarian planet that was in the middle of building a Dreadnaught and managed to get one built ASAP. It was useful in defending against Altarian invaders.
I converted all Constructor production towards Dreadnaughts. It was cutting it close but the Arceans could not break all my Battleaxe defenses till my Dreads were coming off the assembly lines. They beat back the Arceans. Even though the Arceans and Altarians had a few Precursor Ranger vessel finds, I never saw them. The Torians must have cut them to bits. At a far flung border a sector away I lost the newly captured Altarian planet, then took it back, and took another one.
Final military power graph. Hey Altarians, maybe that Precursor fleet of corvettes (small bump under where blue and green graphs meet) will stop our fleets of Dreadnaughts...Not!
While all this was happening the Torians were showing off who was the almighty power of the universe. They cleared out all the starbases of the Arceans and their planetary ship garrisons. That helped me since they had a military resource that made it hard to beat them before. They made the space lanes safe for our freighters which saved our economies. and they annihiliated the Drengin empire. In the middle of this a random event made all the planets within a sector of some Arcean star increase their PQ rating by 14. I didn't even know where it was so I didn't realize this till I noticed some Torian colonies on green stars. I quickly sent out some colony ships to colonize the other good planets. When some Torian colonies flipped over to me, I sent them back to the Torians to keep them on my good side. Got some tech out of it too. Eventually I got bored with the flipping and kept them.
But the job of digging out the entrenched Arceans fell to me and my legions. Combat transports were coming out more often than Dreadnaughts at the end. My military was getting too big for my economy so I just had the transports sent out escorted by my one or two large fleet of Dreads. There were few defenses for the Arceans so it was simply a matter of using tidal wave invasion tactics to crush the enemy. My troops went out after each system systematically. While I was crushing the Arceans the Torians made peace with them. Which was just as well since there were no Arcean targets for the Torians ships to shoot at.
Only invading their planets remained. After the invasions the Torians stopped the damned "red ball" insult greeting. At this point in the war the human and Torians power graphs were almost touching although they were ahead. Damn right you stop insulting me, you reptile sons of bitches.
First the Arceans fell, then onto the Altarians who were at the far corners of the galaxy, literally. They had one in the upper left and a few in the upper right. The superior Torians military had simply crushed all resistance. My ships found a total of one corvette defending the Altarian worlds. Only this, even after a Precursor corvette fleet find by the Altarians. Still, billions died as I simply sent more and more taxpayers out to fight. The draft age must have been 16 on some worlds.
The Altarians went to the bargaining table begging for peace but I was po'ed by the fact that I sent them so much crap and they had attacked me. I took out the leftmost planet then sent waves of combat transports on a long trip to the planets in the right corner. That was that.
I credit my victory to my decision to ally with the Torians. To get there I had made "good" moral choices to bring my alignment closer to theirs, made trade routes with them, and offered massive cash infusions. Plus, I caved to their extensive extortion efforts. They had the massive Dreadnaught navy that kept the trade routes open, beat the Arcean and Altarian planet garrisons to dust, and prevented the Arceans from getting sufficient force to destroy more than one of my starbases and a few of my Battleaxes. Not one Terran planet was invaded by the Arceans, while the Altarians were only able to invade one border world that used to be theirs. But in the end my military increased and I had a mighty economy going. The game ended with us victorious.
For an interesting AAR to compare/contrast with mine, try dikdirk's May GOTM AAR. I like how in many places I was in the exact opposite situation he was.
LawTard's AAR - Another good AAR, written from the point of view of the Terran President. Extra points for storytelling ability.
brab_alan's AAR - Lots of screenies here! Not action packed but an excellent accout of how and why he did what he did.