Ship attack and defense bonuses are straightforward extra accuracy and evasion (see Alkari and Bulrathi articles for more info). Telepathic gives a few ordinary bonuses, +10 to espionage and +25% to diplomacy (whatever that means), but the best thing is the mind control ability. After a successful space battle cruisers and larger ships can mind control planets to side with the attacker. Such planets do not suffer from conquered penalty and don't revolt. There is a small space battle effect too, when telepathic race successfully captures a ship, they can use it during the same battle. All in all it's great trait for rushing because early conquest doesn't require building and deploying troop ships and conquered planets are developed sooner. Trait cost is quite high, 6 points. Omniscient on the other hand is cheaper mind magic, for 3 points it reveals the details of all star systems as if they have been scouted and reveals all opponent ships, no matter how well they are hidden. Great for planning your game from the start and it's kind of counter for stealthy ships. Feudalism is a government type and a negative one. It costs -4 points, lowers morale for -20% on colonies without barracks and has -50% penalty to research. There is slight bonus, starships cost 2/3 of normal cost. If you didn't get enough incentive to blitz your opponents with telepathy, feudalism would be screaming "rush or die" at you. Imperium, the advanced form of feudalism has lower research penalty (-25%) and ship cost reduced to 1/3 of the normal price which is awesome if one can live long enough to research it. On the surface Elerians look like disaster, overcommited to rushing from turn 1 when you don't really weapons for breaking early starbases but I'm looking forward to the challenge.
Before doing any move, I observed the map. Systems around me were mostly poor with minerals, while some of them are tundras and ocean I wouldn't gain much by expanding and would lose time. By exploiting wormhole placement and extended range on colony ship I could have reached Darloks very quickly. Either by colonizing Ras system without escort or by colonizing Rhilus system and making outpost at Ras. Both systems had a medium tundra planet but I thought about going with the safer option and use Rhilus later for launching attack on Trilarians. Next question was how to take down star bases? Six command points is barely enough for big enough fleet of missile boats but a friend gave me a different suggestion: heavy lasers. Beam ships are not limited with ammo and heavy mount would provide the range for shooting while staying away from most of opponent's weaponry. Fleet composition was third question, there had to be one cruiser in order to use mind control on planets and the question was what to do with remaining three command points. After some time playing in the ship designer I've decided to simply go with 3 frigates, I could build them much faster (plus I could speed things up by refitting scouts) then a single cruiser or destroyer and frigate and they would be packing similar amount of firepower. I've never played with unminiaturized lasers before and my final ship designs where something unique: frigate design had only a single heavy mount laser (much like A-10 airplane, a cannon with wings and engines) and cruiser had one heavy laser and 20 PD (defensive) lasers. The idea was to have a cruiser provide anti-missile defense while frigates do the heavy lifting.
When I've finally pressed "end turn" button I saw Darloks sending colony ship to Ras. That was great for me because I could mind control it and get fuel range to Nazin instead of having to build and deploy an outpost ship. My colony ship was on the way to Rhilus and homeworld was refitting scouts with a heavy lasers and building the cruiser. On turn 22 the invasion fleet was complete and three turns later positioned at Rhilus system, ready for war. Instead of outright declaring the war on Darloks I've tried provoking it by demanding anti-missile rockets technology from them. In either case I would win something. They refused, got so angry they declared war on me and I had "justification" for moving through wormhole and taking Ras system next turn. On turn 28 Nazin fell and Darloks no longer owned anything. The battle at Nazin was straight forward, a starbase was launching missiles at the cruiser which was happy to shoot them all down. Occasionally a heavy laser would scratch the cruiser but not often enough to make significant damage. It took some time but starbase armor and structure was slowly worn down and I got to double my empire's population.
Next on my hit list were Trilarians. I've built an outpost ship and sent it to Praxis, hired commander Hawk and assigned him to the cruiser. His bonuses were not ground breaking, +5 to beam defense was not that impressive but navigation skill was actually good one. +1 to galaxy speed was nice (huge bonus considering the base value is 2) and secondary effect, no slowdown in nebula, was the best part. Both Trilar and Cryslon had a nebula in the way and being able to travel through with full speed was very useful. By the turn 39 I've established contact with Trilarians and had fleet ready in the Praxis system. I've tried again to provoke the war by demanding a technology but this time AI agreed. I got my self fusion beam but not the the war, now what? I've asked for research treaty and again they agreed. I sighed and decided to spare them for a while.
I thought about attacking Silicoids last but given the situation it was actually not bad idea to deal with them before they spread too much. I did a bit of research and development on my new colonies and then ordered a new outpost ship. Administrator Garron offered his service and I've hired him. All of his bonuses would be useful in some way, +10 diplomacy might give me some better deal with Trilarians, fame bonus would reduce the price of later leaders and megawealth (10 BC/turn) alone would justify hiring him. On turn 50 I've researched my first very own technology: research labs. The feudalism really makes researching early technologies feel like huge achievement. I've traded lab with Trilarians for hydroponic farms because they would help me a bit with food and Trilarians wouldn't live long enough to make good use of labs anyway. Few turns later Silicoids got lucky, they've uncovered a wreckage of an ancient ship and got a fusion beam technology. Then they've lended me a hand by colonizing Dendo system. Once I've made outpost in Honte system I was one system away from having a continious path to all Silicoid systems. Dendo fell on turn 63, but they were able to destroy two of my frigates so I took me some time until I attacked them again. My research was producing results and by turn 67 I had reinforced hull and automated factories and traded factories for space academy. I've built my second cruiser on turn 82, some time after researching fusion rifles so it had a bit more advanced weaponry, it sported AP NR (armor penetrating, no range dissipation) heavy laser. Too bad it was built one turn before I advanced physics field again. I've decided it was worthy to lose time refitting so I've sent it to meet with an old fleet at new outpost in Oba system. New physics technology was tachyon communications which gives an extra command point per starbase. I usually pick battle scanner for more beam accuracy but this time I figured I have good enough accuracy and bigger fleet was more important. And again I traded my new technology with Trilarians but this time for planetary missile base, an excellent planetary defense which can repel most early game fleets, including Antarans.
Fortunately Antarans were asleep whole game and by turn 92 I've mind controlled the last Silicoid colony. AP laser performed well, it was crippling starbase weaponry as it was destroying it, reducing the threat level considerably faster but it was not that great damage wise. The problem was I had mix of no-AP weapons which had to drill through armor so in the end it took almost the same amount of turns. Silicoids are awesome race for to have. They don't need food and they don't produce pollution which translates to almost quadruple industrial output. And on top of that they have higher population limit on hostile planets. Did I mention they don't eat food? Yeah they can spread like weed and bacteria combined. Once I've conquered them their former homeworld was capable of outproducing my whole empire. There should be no surprise if I tell you I made it my main shipyard.
As I was preparing for Trilarians I was concerned about missile bases. Would 20 PD lasers be enough? At the time I had enough command points for 3 cruiser so I've figured 3 times 20 should be enough. I was lazy to run the numbers but knowing how stuff works under the hood I estimated NR modifier would trick fraction rounding into effectively double PD damage, "autofire" modifier would increase actual number of shoots and "continuous" modifier would compensate for autofire accuracy penalty. While refitting the fleet my scientist have researched battle pods so I had even more firepower at my disposal and there was no worry about Trilarian defenses. Final cruiser design was 4 heavy and 9 PD lasers all with aforementioned modifiers. That's very powerful for turn 105 and there were few defensive improvements as well, tritanium armor and fusion drive I got from Trilarians while trying to provoke war. This time I just declared war after failed provocation, there was no more reason to let lone AI live. Trilar fell on turn 112 and missile base wasn't so hard, partially because the system was in nebula so their shields were not working and partially because their ships were busy bombarding my outpost at Praxis. The real battle with Trilarians happened at Kae system, they had a battleship with captain Mukirr, a destroyer with captain Altos, two frigates, a starbase, a missile base and defensive structures were shielded with class I shields. My cruisers were swift at destroying defensive structures, despite the shields, but their ships were good at evading my shots. Extra accuracy on PD lasers helped a lot, something I was scarcely aware it was there. While I was trying to land enough shoots on their titanium plates they managed to cripple and capture one of my ships. Few moments later there were fireworks, one of their ships exploded so hard that my captured cruiser got destroyed along with and Trilarian frigate. Last Trilarian system Yad was undefended and it fell one turn after Kae, concluding the game.
Well that was an interesting game. I've expected a disaster and got exhilarating roller coaster ride. I felt so powerful taking a whole race before turn 30 and defeating everybody else with lasers. Elerians are weird race to play with, as if they are playing a different game then everybody else. Rushing so early feels like cheating but that is the case in all games, not just Master of Orion. Limiting their research capabilities is actually nice touch since it balances out the fact that successful rush would double the empire and it really made me appreciate every single technology I got.
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