Three Cycles later and Blue is SMASHED plus I’m starting to take out Red … so this game will only last another cycle or two before it’s over as the combo of Weapons tech and Warp Gates (plus focused moves) will overwhelm the more than double the numbers of ships the AI’s have.
BTW, if you analyze the screenshot below, you’ll see that I’ve been “making friends” with the remaining AI’s by sending 'em cash (and occasionally Weapons tech) … it’s not cheap though!
Great work Hulk =)
Thanks Myk - just finished defeating the Robots - 21 cycles/520 ticks - anyone want to try to do faster?
I actually took a couple extra turns because I wanted to wipe out Red completely … which I did except for two residual carriers that will get crushed. Going to take a break on Solo versus Robot games as hopefully my NP addiction is at least temporarily satisfied … 
So I was cleaning up my game list … and saw I still had the “ultimate” game but starting with 9 stars as seen in the very first post. So I said what the heck, lets completely OD on NP and try that!
Ended up being a bit easier since I can build more infrastructure at the beginning which is a nice headstart. I figured I’d try the same approach as before - go after the player on my left, and then work my way around counter-clockwise. So first up was Yellow - I didn’t get any lucky experimentation hits, but after massing my forces on his border, I put the HULK SMASH on him. While taking out his core stars, I was careful not to take over the #1 position in order to be stay friendly with the other AI’s - didn’t want them to invade me plus nice to trade tech with 'em. I was hoping the AI’s would beat up on each other, but I didn’t see much of that.
So at Tick 144, I was in decent shape … so I then go full-on Weapons for tech and then it becomes a mad dash to see if I can start taking out the AI’s on a counter-clockwise loop while keeping the others all surrounding me at bay. I basically kept paying off Pink so he wouldn’t be my enemy (but that wasn’t cheap!) and tried to keep enough forces against the other AI’s so they wouldn’t attack me. But it became quite a challenge as Blue decided to go after me as I was working on Red … and then Orange … and then Cyan all pig-piled on me. Fortunately by that time I had a Weapons advantage and because they didn’t go all-in, I was able to defend - got easier at the end when I had enough funds to start building Warp Gates.
Starting Map
Cycle 6, Tick 144 - taking down Yellow, but haven’t taken the lead so still friendly with everyone else
Cycle 12, Tick 280 - no doubt I’m going to win now even though everyone except pink is attacking
Cycle 15, Tick 360 just before winning - was trying to make sure Orange got wiped out at the end
Here’s the “WIN” screenshot - 15 cycles, 368 ticks … and all 4 AI’s all wiped out.
As a followup/reference, I created a 2nd layer of cluster’ed AI around that 1st cluster.
More info at the “nightmare mode” thread.
