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zesuila
07-12-2003, 03:24 PM
I don't know why so many people speaks against the Ithkul and are afraid that they take over their empire. This is a wrong concept(Or bad play).

In my empire(Tachidi, Normal difficulty, Large galaxy 2 arms) i have plenty of races(Cynoids, Nommo, Darlok, Alkari, Psilon, Elder Race, Silicoid) and i have the Ithkul too. They don't ever come to any planet with no empty regions and they even go where i tell them!

I use them to colonize worlds that are good for them just like any other races and they don't go to other planets to eat all the pop. Here is what i do for colonization purposes:

You need a lot of colony ships of different races so you can colonize most kind of planet. I create Squads(4 ships) of colony TF to send to a planet. I generally use 2 squads of the same race to colonize a planet(8 colony ships). What i do when i want to colonize more than 1 planet in a system is that i send enough squads to colonize every planet at the same time. Then i do not activate the migration button until the race on the planet has taken all the regions. Then i activate it so that others of that race will migrate to this planet.

Generally speaking, it takes 3-5 turns for the race to fill in the empty regions of the planet and that is faster than the time it takes for any race to find your planet interesting and migrate there on their own(ithkul also).

So i colonize whole system in the same turn even with Ithkul colony ships and they keep to their own world.

So you see, my empire has plenty of races and the Ithkul are just another race who do not eat the others.

Of course, you need to be big enough to produce colony ships like there is no tomorrow, but it works just fine. So people fearing the Ithkul and glassing their planets or giving them away just don't know how to use them effectively.

When you start your game and you do not have a big empire, then Ithkul can be a problem because you do not fill the regions on a planet fast enough, but the problem go away by itself when you are big enough(I would say with 15-20 planets and more).

Beamup
07-12-2003, 04:03 PM
A lot of the people who glass all Harvesters do so for flavor reasons. "I won't have any Harvesters in MY empire, I don't care whether I can do it safely or not!"

Da_Blade
07-12-2003, 04:18 PM
Originally posted by zesuila
What i do when i want to colonize more than 1 planet in a system is that i send enough squads to colonize every planet at the same time.

Just a little piece of advice; do not colonize a whole system in one time, or post a fleet there for semi-permanent stationary. I did a few whole-system colonizations a few times, and ended up with ridiculous piracy unrest due to the fact the undeveloped planets had all regions inhabited in no time.

DavidByron
07-13-2003, 10:54 AM
Is there a problem with just letting the Harvesters get on with eating other races?

NaVieX
07-13-2003, 02:55 PM
i dont see a big problem with it.. its not like its a huge plague and in 10 turns your race is gone. Its a very slow thing and not a big deal i think. Except for the unrest it causes is kind of annoying.

Buggerthis
07-13-2003, 11:55 PM
1) Piracy 'problem' - Not really, simply dump a TF of whatever size is required in the system until the planets can get around to building defenses to deal with the piracy.

2) I'm beginning to think that Ithkul are not a real problem or really not any worse than any other race. In fact, there may be a benefit in that the tiny bit of unrest caused by both harvesting and no food count as an extra push factor to get population out to new planets using freebie colonization. OTOH, I do like the 'flavor' of killing the scum when I'm not Ithkul myself.

3) The only problem I see with the one shot system colonization method is the time it takes to kick up that many colony ships. Frankly, I rarely build a colony ship after the initial lunge for territory, freebie outposts end up filling my internals Anyway, doing the all at once thing loses you the time you would have had if you had built the planets up one by one. Personally, I prefer to have my production building military items, much easier to conquer than to colonize. :haha:

Stochastic
07-15-2003, 05:40 AM
Originally posted by DavidByron
Is there a problem with just letting the Harvesters get on with eating other races?

I see two problems.

1) The need for more hosts will sometimes compel the Harvesters to move to partially colonized worlds that are badly suited for them. The result is that you go from having (say) Psilons on a Green 1, green gravity world to having Harvesters on a Red 2, red gravity world.

2) Even when the worlds that they take over are well suited to them, I usually wish they had just stayed put. When I customize my race at the beginning of the game, I selected abilities optimal to my strategy. A world on which my native race has been supplanted by the Harvesters is probably on longer exactly what I wanted anymore. Sure, the Harvesters might provide other, different advantages over my main race, but that may have not been a trade that I was willing to make.

The main issue is with control. Logically, the government wouldn't allow parasitic murderers to freely travel about the nation and kill and devour its own citizens. Harvesters should only be allowed to enter occupied worlds if the government (ie player) specifically allows it. This is both for logical consistency and for game-play reasons.

Da_Blade
07-15-2003, 06:38 AM
Originally posted by Stochastic
I see two problems.

1) ... The result is that you go from having (say) Psilons on a Green 1, green gravity world to having Harvesters on a Red 2, red gravity world.


Actually psilons and harvesters share the same gravity preference ;)

herknav
07-15-2003, 07:32 AM
Originally posted by Stochastic
(snip)
The main issue is with control. Logically, the government wouldn't allow parasitic murderers to freely travel about the nation and kill and devour its own citizens. Harvesters should only be allowed to enter occupied worlds if the government (ie player) specifically allows it. This is both for logical consistency and for game-play reasons.

Logically, if you have Harvs in your empire, what are tha chances that some of the management decsions are being made by them?

I have no problem with the harvs in my empire... all are welcome... and they BETTER fight... :)

Kralizec!
07-15-2003, 10:04 AM
Da_Blade wrote:
Actually psilons and harvesters share the same gravity preference

I keep forgetting that was changed in the patch. IIRC, Harvesters stayed high-grav troops, right? I think the Darlok troops are mismatched as well ...

SnowFox5
07-15-2003, 11:10 AM
Harv's aren't out to hurt you, they just like to suck up....:D

RobNelson
07-15-2003, 03:09 PM
Logically, if you have Harvs in your empire, what are tha chances that some of the management decsions are being made by them?

LOL. :D

OK, Council Members, we're voting on legislation to destroy all Ithkul in the Empire. So far, it's been 99 in favor, 1 opposed. Then we took a coffee break and it was 95 in favor, 5 opposed. Now, after 3 days of negotiations, I notice that I'm the only one without a massively oversized trenchcoat, and the vote is 1 in favor, 99 opposed.

Next item of business was just proposed by Errrgrathicatix (previously called Bob) which will require all persons without a parasite to be, "Bound up, properly seasoned, and sent off to cooking school." Hmmm, before we vote on this, I'm announcing my resignation and transfer to a foreign government.