The Advanced level

[EricLarsen]

I played a few games this weekend at the advanced level and that sure is a switch from intermediate. My first game didn't go too well as I had turned off the random events and left the pirates as challenging. I found 1 wisdom artifact and was stuck in the atomic age for over 300 years. I ended up having to build 15 gunboats and had to run them in pairs just to keep the pirates from going ape all over me. Early on their ships were getting better stuff than I had and it only got worse. I was so engrossed in dealing with pirates that I didn't bother to try contacting the aliens. When I did there was one federation headed by those untrustworthy Mirrshi at the antimatter age and several little endians also in the anitamatter age. I tried to get nice with the Mirrshi and was at war with the other little endians when one of them decided to visit one of my worlds. Even though I had about 6 gunboats patrolling the world they were little match for the corvettes, frigates, and destroyers that came in with guns blazing. I also found that there were 13 wisdom artifacts spread around the galaxy, but only one near me. Little consolation that I found the planet killer.

So I gave that game up as lost and tried another advanced game with less challenging pirates. This time I found 4 wisdom artifacts in my easter egg hunt and the dreaded planet killer. This time I was able to get to the fusion age in about 200 years and have 2 nice colony worlds. I was lucky to get some instant research and instant population artifacts this game and those helped with the new tech and the new colonies. So far I haven't seen one pirate to blow up or to ask info from. That's not less challenging, that's no challenge from the pirates. While it was nice to not have to waste all my money building ships and chasing pirates all the time it is a bit overboard the other way. I had expected some pirates and am surprised to not see any. At least I got the Frashkins to declare war on me and reveal their capitol world so I could place spies and informants. Now I have to train up my security and navy on my worlds to counter spies and attacks. Hopefully I'm about on par with the other aliens as far as tech goes and my war with the Frashkins won't be as lopsided as last game.
Eric Larsen