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Anime Reference posted:Nice work! That looked like a pretty insurmountable lead the Psilons had built up. Once you get to the end game the AI's weaknesses in ship design and strategic decision making really start to show.
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Jul 31, 2017 03:42
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Dang. Well done. I was not expecting you to be able to pull that out, but there it is. Silicoids was always my favorite race back in the day, so I'll look forward to this next run!
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Jul 31, 2017 04:45
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Nicely played finale!
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Jul 31, 2017 08:01
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Just fired up a game as the Silicoids and had a great start, taking over like a third of the galaxy right off the bat. Then my second colony had its star go supernova; in spite of the valiant efforts of my scientists, they couldn't find a solution in time, and in the end I had to desperately evacuate as many colonists as I could. Of the 30 million remaining silicoid citizens, 10 million died; the remaining 20 million calmly returned to work the next day despite the fact that their sun just loving exploded. This game owns.
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Jul 31, 2017 16:49
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Well done! The Silicoids ought to be an interesting game.
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Jul 31, 2017 22:13
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Looking forward to this! Maybe there will be neither Psilons nor Humans this time? 
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Jul 31, 2017 23:44
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Never played this game before, but while I really liked MoO2 I hated the shitton of tedious micro. It's like an inherent plague that is impossible for 4Xs to avoid.
Palladium fucked around with this message at 04:24 on Aug 1, 2017 |
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Aug 1, 2017 04:19
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Palladium posted:Never played this game before, but while I really liked MoO2 I hated the shitton of tedious micro. It's like an inherent plague that is impossible for 4Xs to avoid. The thing that makes 4X's great is their ability to invest and build up worlds and tech and toys. Much like with RL though, the pram eventually gets pretty full. AI governors would be the thing that saves the late game from this, but that can pretty easily go off the rails--see *cough* MOO3 *cough*
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Aug 1, 2017 04:29
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OAquinas posted:The thing that makes 4X's great is their ability to invest and build up worlds and tech and toys. Much like with RL though, the pram eventually gets pretty full. AI governors would be the thing that saves the late game from this, but that can pretty easily go off the rails--see *cough* MOO3 *cough* down with automation, up with abstraction imo. having your 50th city/planet/whatever be as complicated as your first one, but with an AI governor you can activate (assuming you don't immediately turn it off when it inevitably sucks), doesn't make any sense. just make the actual mechanics of later settlements simpler so that managing 50 of them isn't 50 times as many decisions as managing one
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Aug 1, 2017 05:47
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Jeb Bush 2012 posted:down with automation, up with abstraction imo. having your 50th city/planet/whatever be as complicated as your first one, but with an AI governor you can activate (assuming you don't immediately turn it off when it inevitably sucks), doesn't make any sense. just make the actual mechanics of later settlements simpler so that managing 50 of them isn't 50 times as many decisions as managing one I mentioned something like that earlier in the thread, and I got this response. my dad posted:Sounds a bit like Imperium Galactica to me, except it's more like "you start as the commander of a small fleet, and get promoted until you become the supreme commander of humanity" I played a little bit of it, but didn't get a chance to delve deep into it, and probably won't.
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Aug 1, 2017 07:14
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General Revil posted:I mentioned something like that earlier in the thread, and I got this response. I don't mean the spore kind of thing (that could be interesting but it's kind of a different genre), I mean something where, say, your first five settlements are full-complexity but then subsequent ones have much simpler mechanics.
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Aug 1, 2017 07:33
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I think a better way to handle that would be for all development decisions to be made on an imperial level and simply have extra settlements provide extra resources or population (which could still be interesting depending on how you handle it). Like instead of building a factory you pass a factory law. That makes more sense to me than arbitrarily making later settlements less complicated.
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Aug 1, 2017 08:02
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Clarste posted:I think a better way to handle that would be for all development decisions to be made on an imperial level and simply have extra settlements provide extra resources or population (which could still be interesting depending on how you handle it). Like instead of building a factory you pass a factory law. That makes more sense to me than arbitrarily making later settlements less complicated. I don't think it's that arbitrary (you can justify it as direct rule v. provinces), and people like developing individual settlements, but I like this idea too
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Aug 1, 2017 08:22
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Sounds like Imperialism 1 & 2. In that series you only micromanage your capital city's buildings and population. Your conquered provinces only exist on the strategic map and your job is connecting their resources back to your capital city. It's a high level of abstraction that says a lot about the relation between commerce and war. Especially compared to MoO where trade is the "good" choice and war is the "evil" choice.
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Aug 1, 2017 14:00
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Jeb Bush 2012 posted:I don't think it's that arbitrary (you can justify it as direct rule v. provinces), and people like developing individual settlements, but I like this idea too Stellaris tried something like that and everyone hates it with the fury of a thousand suns. In the end it just feels like you're not being allowed to control your stuff which makes the player feel frustrated. Even if the alternative would be even worse.
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Aug 1, 2017 20:55
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The only 4x I really ever liked micromangementwise was Sword of the Stars, mostly because colonies were just a couple sliders, not too unlike MoO I guess.
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Aug 1, 2017 20:59
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Clarste posted:Stellaris tried something like that and everyone hates it with the fury of a thousand suns. In the end it just feels like you're not being allowed to control your stuff which makes the player feel frustrated. Even if the alternative would be even worse. That's a completely different system. People hate the sector AI because watching an AI mismanage your stuff is frustrating, and because there are strong incentives to only give sectors fully developed worlds, so it doesn't even reduce micro. That's exactly why replacing automation with abstraction is a good idea.
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Aug 1, 2017 21:16
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Clarste posted:Stellaris tried something like that and everyone hates it with the fury of a thousand suns. In the end it just feels like you're not being allowed to control your stuff which makes the player feel frustrated. Even if the alternative would be even worse. It's not so much that it's a bad concept, it's just that it's terribly executed and essentially forces you to micromanage the AI anyway(for too many reasons to list), so you kind of get the worst of both worlds, a stupid AI you have to keep watching and a bloated empire you have to micromanage. Aside from that it's also just... executed in the lamest way possible. Your provinces are literally just automated factories, they're not potential hotbeds of separatism or anything. Like, it'd be great if the subsectors of your empire were more productive due to more local management, but then rather than managing their fine details to keep them efficient, you had to manage their politics to keep them loyal. Settling border disputes between them, assisting them in science and industry, helping them crack down on their own rebels and pirates with your fleets, etc.
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Aug 1, 2017 21:30
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AnimeReference posted:Nice work! That looked like a pretty insurmountable lead the Psilons had built up. GeneralRevil posted:Complete anihilation. ManxomeBromide posted:Dang. Well done. I was not expecting you to be able to pull that out, but there it is. Thanks! Definitely was one of the more enjoyable ones I've played. idhrendur posted:Well done! The Silicoids ought to be an interesting game. Aescelpia posted:Looking forward to this! Maybe there will be neither Psilons nor Humans this time? Or maybe both! Grrr. We shall see. It will definitely be a bit different style; we'll see what happens. AngryDiplomat posted:fired up a game as the Silicoids and had a great start, taking over like a third of the galaxy right off the bat. Then my second colony had its star go supernova; in spite of the valiant efforts of my scientists, they couldn't find a solution in time, and in the end I had to desperately evacuate as many colonists as I could. Of the 30 million remaining silicoid citizens, 10 million died; the remaining 20 million calmly returned to work the next day despite the fact that their sun just loving exploded. LOL. I thought if you failed to do the research in time(pretty much have to transfer in extra funds for that), the planet would be destroyed. That's hilarious. Re: the micromanagement discussion, I basically agree on Stellaris. Decent idea horribly implemented. For example, demesne in CKII is not nearly as hated. What I would like to see is conditional orders. In a game like MOO, the option to set profiles for planets(all poor ones would follow a certain path, rich a different one, etc.). Then you'd only need to tweak instead of checking everything all the time. Galaga Galaxian posted:The only 4x I really ever liked micromangementwise was Sword of the Stars, mostly because colonies were just a couple sliders, not too unlike MoO I guess Yep. Re: the comment about MOO2, it had a lot more options for the planetary stuff but it all really boiled down to the same thing. You would want to build things in the same order on almost every planet, so going through and queing up the same 15 or so items every time you got a new colony was less than enjoyable. Being able to ship food around was nice as was having to worry about doing so, but I don't remember anything else that added to the experience as opposed to just making things more busywork.
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Aug 2, 2017 00:17
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Silicoid Preview We've seen the Silicoids play an important role in both games that we've won -- they weren't around for the second one which was a defeat. They have the most unique playstyle of any Master of Orion Race, with big advantages and also significant disadvantages. ** Diplomacy -- Pretty good. They start out at Relaxed with not just the humans, but also the Meklar and Klackons. Only the Darloks, as always, are mistrusted. ** Economics -- This is where things get weird. The Silicoids have only half the normal population growth, effectively treating all planet types as Hostile. Managing the population is of absolutely paramount importance when playing them. However they make up that and then some with their bonuses. They can land on any Hostile planet type from the start of the game, and also get off to a faster start industrially because they completely ignore planetary waste. These two factors allow them to do the quick land grab that we've seen. As other races get hostile environment techs, improve their waste management, and so on, these advantages decrease. In the late game, the Silicoids will actually be at a disadvantage, because they can't transform their planets to fertile/gaia for example -- those techs are simply not available to them. ** Military -- No strengths or weaknesses ** Research -- The worst there is. Good in Computers, Poor in everything else. This is mitigated a bit by the very limited Planetology options ... there simply aren't as many things that need to be researched ... but the space rocks have a society that is as stagnant as their physical form. That is reflected here. Approach The Silicoid have an ability and an imperative to expand as fast as possible. Gain a numerical advantage or you will lose, it's pretty much as simple as that. A Silicoid Empire is either large, or fairly easily defeated.
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Aug 2, 2017 00:19
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In my experience, Silicoid success has a 1:1 relationship with the number of hostile rich and ultra rich planets you can snap up in the early game. God help you if you start out near a bunch of large poor worlds.
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Aug 2, 2017 14:41
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Episode IV: Silicoid Start. 2300-2328 So here we go with the opening. White theme this time, and Cryslon of course as our homeworld. Emperor Carnax leads the space rocks. We're back down to the normal starting production amount, but as mentioned no ecology spending so we can still get more factories going right away. There are two stars in range here, the blue and green to the left.  As far as the map itself goes, we're in the upper right here. Biggest question is whether we have any rivals in that stretch of yellow stars along the right edge. To the left, the other direction, it looks like we'll have room to expand for quite a while. One scout will head to that green star below and to the right, to give us a better heads-up on what's out that way; the other heads to the blue star on the left. The green one is the clear best choice for our colony ship. Now we can land almost anywhere, but it's more likely to be a better planet and also will be a little better for extending range. Huge is ... well, huge. 40 parsecs corner-to-corner, give or take. Travel times are going to immense early on, and attention to detail when scouting will be more vital then ever. Our rivals will also be given their greatest freedom to expand ... but contact will wait longer, giving us more time. That can be good, or bad. We'll see. The draw of other empires is definitely the toughest we've seen. Both power rivals, Psilons and Klackons, and the others are capable of being trouble if they get off to a good start. Still 2300 and I'm feeling the pressure already. Hopefully the big shots will meet with unfortunate circumstances early on. Also, no Meklars for the 4th straight time! Odds of that are just 4%.  TheLoquid posted:God help you if you start out near a bunch of large poor worlds. You were saying?! That's not encouraging -- Vega isn't the powerhouse it was last time. It's better than the alternative though, which ended up being a 25M max. Dead world.  \Nine Recons are needed for our initial wave, which will take at least a year. Also, we're already a few million population behind where we'd normally be. The homeworld will only be able to spare 1M a year at best for the moment, so Vega will grow slowly. There's nothing to be done about this, it's just all part of the Silicoid Experience(tm). New colonies grow excruciatingly slow without an influx of rockpower, and we'll need to keep that always in mind.  A bit of good news here as we reach that star off to the right. An unimpressive desert environ, but no sign of any other empires out this way yet.  This would be a rough starting position if we weren't Silicoids. Toranor is the second of two hostile worlds within range. We'll colonize both of them, but I think everything else is going to be 4 parsecs or more away so we'll have to research once we get to that point. Won't get much out of either one of them right now, but we'll take what we can get.  It's 2311, and we've found mostly crap. One barren rich planet(40M), a couple jungle planets and one of them poor. Kakata here is the best thing we've run into, and the bugs show up the year after we scout it. Looks like they are over on that right side somewhere, which means either they run over us or we have a chance to maybe close them in. It's just the usual scout chase, but then this:  Fertile + Artifacts? Very nice. We get nothing, which means somebody else has already been here. Must be from that yellow star directly below. We've got a handle on where two enemies are, and we could be boxed in except for the left flank.  On the homeworld, it's time for accelerated breeding ... or crystal growing? Whatever you want to call it, we've got enough factories for the current population but Vega needs more population still, so the industrial buildup has to be sidetracked for a bit. Expensive, but there's no good options. A year later, I use a bit of the overflow, because why not, to get a look at our initial tech options. Options is a kind word: Deep Space Scanner, Industrial Tech 9, Class II Deflectors, +10M Terraforming, and Hydrogen Fuel Cells(range 4) are all forced choices. Part of that is because reduced industrial waste, eco restoration, etc. are not part of our tech ladder at all.  Here's our one and only real choice, and Hand Lasers will get the ball rolling. After a few years, Cryslon can begin growing again ... but not in the normal, natural way.  Spending is balanced between industry and ecology, so that enough factories are built for the population but some workforce increase is also funded. The exact mix changes each year a bit. It's an open question when the best time is to switch over from that to building colonizers and just let the population grow the last bit on it's own. I decide to do that when it reaches about three-quarters, 75M pop, which is about 190 BC; a third of the price of a ship. We hit that mark in 2321, by which time as Klackons we'd already have one finished, but a few years before other races would have started. By 2328, both colony ships are on their way and attention has turned to fuel cells research.  Vega will do what little it can to assist, but mostly Cryslon is going to have to do the heavy lifting. And so the opening has concluded. The planets off the the right require more range than we are going to be able to get. We'll be pushing downwards as much as we can but mostly expanding to the left it appears. It remains to be seen how that'll go. We'll see how that fares, and get a better picture of how that the galaxy shapes up, in the next couple of decades.
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Aug 2, 2017 21:54
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Silicoids can't learn how to upgrade planet environments naturally, but if they find a fertile world, do they get any benefit from it? Alternately, if they can acquire the relevant technology, can they use and benefit from it? Or is "make planet less lovely" just not a thing they can ever do, short of "deliberately let enemies take and terraform planet, then steal it back"?
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Aug 2, 2017 23:40
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MechaCrash posted:Silicoids can't learn how to upgrade planet environments naturally, but if they find a fertile world, do they get any benefit from it? Alternately, if they can acquire the relevant technology, can they use and benefit from it? Or is "make planet less lovely" just not a thing they can ever do, short of "deliberately let enemies take and terraform planet, then steal it back"? They do get the additional pop cap. Not sure if they get the growth benefit though; though if they do it's probably still relative to their low base growth.
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Aug 2, 2017 23:56
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Hah sorry I cursed your game. That stretch of blue and white stars along the top of the map looks pretty promising though. That star distribution is a bit worrying though. If that top left yellow star is a home planet that race will have a lot of room to spread out. If they're not, whoever snatches up that corner is gonna be scary. TheLoquid fucked around with this message at 04:17 on Aug 3, 2017 |
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Aug 3, 2017 04:14
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Episode IV: 2328-2349 2329: our third world here. Vega will start dripping in more population this way, bit by bit. Brings three more systems within our scouting range that we don't have the ships to explore yet. More importantly, it appears that I miscalculated: the big artifact world on Quayal(red star below and to the left) is just 3 parsecs out now, in range. Cryslon will rush a colony ship that way ASAP. I thought it would still be 4 parsecs. From there we also could have more possibilities -- bottom line is the research push is on hold. Vega will still put some effort into tech, but most of the spending gets shunted into building the recon ships we need to scout further.  Both colonies will send their ships on to Toranor via the RELOC option, as that's the direction that all this excitement is happening in right now.  2331, and we add a 4th to the growing empire. Now Vega will shift gears a bit. 5M have been sent to Toranor. The focus will switch to Yarrow, then transfers will alternate until they've got enough to hit the 1/3rd threshold. The next year, Vega switches to put some effort into industry, having built four Recons in three years to get our numbers back up to where they are needed. Then ...  Nothing exciting but another world we can colonize without extending range: once we are in place on Quayal that is. It will take a ship eight years to get here from our homeworld, even using the reloc trick via Toranor. The distances are starting to grow, but all that can be done is to get ships in the pipeline and headed this way as fast as we can.  Note the location of the cursor here. That green star is Reticuli; as mentioned Quayal above and to the left comes first. There's a red and green pair to the right, and we should be able to grab one of those hopefully: this would potentially bring the string of systems that we have picketed already on the right side within range -- a couple of them at least. We may be able to follow this around like a string. At least, that's the plan. 2335: Both of our latest colonies have reached their population allotment, but Vega will continue sending anything above the midpoint there on to Toranor; that will facilitate getting colonists to our new prospective worlds more rapidly.  This looks like our next victim. Looks better than most of the crap we've scouted, and of course it would be a decent world for other races -- if we permitted such insolence. A year later, Quayal is settled, and ...  Not as valuable as Tauri, but we'll add it to the list all the same.  Yippee. Shoe is on the other foot now.  But they only have two planets! Hopefully we can keep them that way, but this is a major bit of good news -- at least for now. The Psilons and the others are still out there somewhere, but the bugs won't be a runaway threat. It looks like the only other planet within range for them is the green one directly above them ... which is an inferno planet. They probably scouted it and ignored it as uninhabitable, and lack the base to develop better range so far. This is a great example of how the Klackon weakness in propulsion can really bite them in the behind.  Things don't look so hot for us now, but with a 5:2 edge in planets that could well grow, they'll eventually improve. Quayal did give us the range to scout more off to the left, but just two systems as it's a lot of dark space that way. It'll be several years to reach that pair as it is. Below us are just the Klackon planets, so we didn't really get a whole lot there. In terms of population, Toranor doesn't have enough yet so I'll only send a single transport each year until it can grow a little more. Vega will shift back to getting more Recons going for a few years. Constant little tweaks. It's costly having a Poor planet doing that work, but the only other option is diverting resources from pumping out colonizers on Cryslon, and that's just not going to happen. Relations with the Klackons looked dicey as they started out fairly distrustful(Unease), and we have literally nothing to offer as tribute(nothing in the reserve, no tech advances). Fortunately they were willing to sign on to a 50BC trade deal, which can go either way in such circumstances. They are Aggressive Diplomats, which seems like a contradiction in terms.  The Igneous Cookie Monster ... I mean, our scientists ... knocked out a range boost the next year. Nuclear Engines were the only option for the next tier. Right now I think we're better served by just growing, growing growing, so I thought about just terminating what minimal funding was going to research. Getting the cheap 10M terraforming seemed worth the effort though, esp. with it coming from Vega, which wouldn't make very effective use of the investment elsewhere.  2343, and we're up to six. I've sent a recent colony ship to left(into that small nebula). Mobas(Poor, max. 70M) looked like a big enough planet despite the bad production to settle, and I also just want to grow in multiple directions here. The next couple at least will be back to heading in the lower-right direction. This is close enough for our scanners to see the ships in orbit of Kholdan ...  Four colony ships just hanging out, eating up all their resources. This kind of thing really hamstrings AIs that start out in a bad position. Toranor is now in the position that Vega was a decade or two ago: alternating population transfers between two startup colonies. Fortunately it's just gotten up to the midpoint in it's own right, and drips keep coming in from Vega, so the situation isn't too sparse.  Nothing special; the most important piece of information here is that it hasn't been occupied yet. We grab Tauri at the same time. Now Toranor has three colonies to feed.  Well, if we want them later on, the riches are in our neck of the woods. Much later on, of course.  More unclaimed territory in the center.  Staking our claim to the nebula. Three more systems come within range: scouts were ready to head out to two of them, but one was a surprise. I still get caught by that too often. Vega will divert it's excess population for Mobas for a bit; Toranor will be on it's own. Then, in 2348, our homeworld reaches max. population. Took almost half a century. That's ... glacial.  That could be pretty darn fine in time. 50 years in, we've got 8 colonies, 3 ships out to settle new ones, and have met only the Klackons with their two-planet 'empire'. If someone -- we all know who is likely -- isn't blowing up on the other side of the galaxy as well, this could end up looking quite favorable. We've only got information on 21 of 108 planets, so there is much that is not yet known.
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Aug 5, 2017 18:01
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That terrible placement for the Klackon is a seriously lucky break. They seem doomed.
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Aug 5, 2017 18:09
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Time to colonize literally everything.
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Aug 5, 2017 18:14
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That's a lot of poor planets. At least there's that one ultra-rich planet.
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Aug 5, 2017 23:03
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General Revil posted:That's a lot of poor planets. At least there's that one ultra-rich planet. That's nothing. Just started a Sakkra game, and literally 1/3 the huge galaxy must be poor or ultra poor. Decided to pop the see all cheat and see WTF...and yeah--not too far off. 
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Aug 5, 2017 23:40
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OAquinas posted:That's nothing. Just started a Sakkra game, and literally 1/3 the huge galaxy must be poor or ultra poor. Yeah this can definitely happen though that galaxy looked particularly crappy in parts -- good amount of rich worlds though as well. PurpleXVI posted:Time to colonize literally everything. With Vega being poor and the next couple of planets small, that slowed down this process. Huge galaxies give you enough time that a second colony ship-producing world can be useful. The rocks were given no such luxuries here though. Cryslon does a little better than 1 per 3 years, but it's gotta do all the lifting on it's own.
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Aug 6, 2017 19:25
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With the Psilons and klackons, I know it's a bad idea to spend on pop gains. Does that hold true for Silicoids as well, or is it worth spending money on pop growth? Edit: Wow, I dropped an entire clause there. Fixed now. General Revil fucked around with this message at 04:15 on Aug 8, 2017 |
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Aug 7, 2017 04:54
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It can be, since growth from Ecology isn't penalized by the silicoids' racial penalty or a planet being mineral poor. I still usually don't do it, since silicoids are guaranteed some of the terraforming techs, and by increasing your max population they also extend the "sweet spot" growth curve, and you want to transfer out civilians when the planet is there. You can also drop Industry completely if you know a planet won't actually be growing (if you can't staff a factory, then naturally it gives no BCs), and put that into research or ships. Thotimx posted:Four colony ships just hanging out, eating up all their resources. This kind of thing really hamstrings AIs that start out in a bad position. Yeah, I remember bringing that up earlier. If anybody can get out of that hole it's the Klackons, but that definitely sets them back. Really, I think that's one of my biggest problems with MOO1, it doesn't seem to have any "failsafes" in map generation than that the player's star can't be put closer than I think 7 parsecs to the nearest AI, and every homeworld has at least 1 star within 3. But that's it. If it's uninhabitable (or Orion  ), sucks to be you!I think the worst example is this one, from a recent game:  That's Orion to the AIs' right, hostile junk at that green and red, and yes, that "AN" on the top left is from "Kholdan." Pretty easy to pull this off with Mrrshan when the game packs your enemies next to each other! 
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Aug 7, 2017 22:17
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General Revil posted:Does that hold true for Silicoids as well, or is it worth spending money on pop growth? I did some of this on the homeworld in the opening, and it's worth considering elsewhere depending on the circumstances. Getting a rich planet up and running more quickly, for instance. Not something I do regularly though, because it's still very inefficient and usually I have something I'd rather spend the production on -- dumping it into research, if nothing else. Wayne posted:I think that's one of my biggest problems with MOO1, it doesn't seem to have any "failsafes" in map generation than that the player's star can't be put closer than I think 7 parsecs to the nearest AI, and every homeworld has at least 1 star within 3. But that's it. If it's uninhabitable (or Orion ), sucks to be you! Haven't seen it yet in this thread, but the player can get put in some pretty crappy situations as well. I've had times where there was only one bad planet within the initial range, making it real hard to expand.
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Aug 7, 2017 23:13
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Episode IV: 2350-2361ish Date is within a year or two, but a bit of a guess. Lots of stuff happened in this timeframe so I split things up a bit.  Four times the territory of the bugs, yet population is about even and production is half of theirs. Tech is worse. Even when you know it's coming, this can be a little depressing. The overall showing though has actually already started getting closer. Interestingly, spies report that they have developed Deuterium Cells(range 5) ... but so far as I can tell, haven't used them. Probably could have taken Tauri, but our scout picket was enough to convince them to not even try. That's a bit strange. Relations are up to Neutral, and under the 'upgrade only when doubling' rule, we stay at 50BC on the trade deal; their economy won't support anything higher than 75.  Scouts and transports headed anywhere; not a sign of any alien ships except around the Klackon worlds. Cryslon is sending out colony ships every which direction, and we're close to having scouted the right edge of the galaxy but not quite there yet.  The very next year, Lizards! Extreme upper-middle here. So they are out left somewhere. We chase off their scout. This was more concerning though ...  One of the better planets we've run into, and the bugs are sticking their noses in. Not that I blame them. I don't think they have the range though without tanks ... And I was right -- just a scout. Meanwhile the other planet where we met the Sakkras(orange, for reference), is Darrian. Tundra 20M max. Big lesson here is that, while it's taken them a while, the other aliens are starting to get a little frisky. And that wasn't even all the discoveries for this turn:  Oh yes please -- and it won't be long before it's in our range. Once we get that Kakata jungle world in fact. First planet we've seen bigger than 80M.  Our latest.  Another decent standard world that we'd like to snag before others do.  2352, and time for a bit of a new approach as the latest Colonizer comes into service. We're pushing into basically every area where the Klackons aren't, esp. the middle and upper-middle here. Right now the quality of a prospective colony is almost irrelevant: extending range, pushing back the frontier, cutting off the bugs and Sakkra and whoever else from their expansion efforts, that's all that matters at the moment. We can 'fill in' later. Emphasis is still placed on standard planet types, because those are the ones the others are still going to be targeting for a while yet. The upper-right, once we get it all scouted, will be left unattended until we are cut off elsewhere.  Another step towards securing the right-side edge, and our 10th world. This gives us the range to scout the very limits of the galaxy that way. We are now ridiculously overwhelmed in terms of population transfers, and it's only going to get worse. There just aren't enough rocks to pollute all of these systems yet.  This is hilarious since we've put not a thing into Force Fields, except for getting the initial tech pick. It'll delay us eventually, but right now I couldn't care less. 2355 was a bit of a busy year. First up we knocked out the first Terraforming(10M) advance finally. Only Cryslon was ready to use it, and our only option was Death Spores. Um, super.    This one here is past Klackon territory. Chances of getting there before anyone else are not great, and it's not close to being in range at 7 parsecs. Still rather stunning that it is still available though. Yet another planet(Tao, 85M, Terran) which looks quite nice was scouted: upper right and one that we should easily secure at another time. Four in one year plus the research. It seemed to be time to start putting a bit of effort into all the tech fields.  The usual 'focus on what you're good at' approach. Here we're goin' nowhere ... and we're getting their fast! At least until some of these toxic waste dumps get built up and start contributing.  You can never have too many artifact planets. The bugs sent another scout back to Kakata, and it was quickly sent packing.  A piece of utter crap. But, a big range-extender towards the middle of the galaxy.  2360, and a few more colonies are in the terraforming process. We've reached the point where it's useful to check up on things regularly, as others are nearing the halfway point in terms of population. Even a small amount of growth across 11 planets(at the moment) adds up.  Here, Toranor is our first planet to really get into the research business. Still shipping population all around and it's maxed out the factories for the first half. Hopefully we'll start making some progress forwards.  The bugs are finally coming out of their burrows. They sent an armed colony ship here and below to Neptunus. We had no choice but to yield. And so the first steps towards conflict have commenced once again.
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Aug 8, 2017 05:13
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Ugh, the amount of micromanagement you need to do to stay on top of all that must be overwhelming.
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Aug 8, 2017 09:38
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Okay, so, out of curiosity. There's a diplomatic genocide penalty for eradicating another species. But what if you eradicate a species before you've made contact with any others? Would it still apply to them?
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Aug 9, 2017 06:00
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PurpleXVI posted:Okay, so, out of curiosity. There's a diplomatic genocide penalty for eradicating another species. But what if you eradicate a species before you've made contact with any others? Would it still apply to them? Probably as I'm guessing this game probably doesn't have the ability to separate effects related tos pecies which haven't encountered one another yet in the engine.
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Aug 9, 2017 09:04
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Yep, exactly. Whenever you do something that provokes a diplomatic modifier, the game applies it even if you and the other party aren't aware of each other. Nothing quite like making first contact with someone who's already furious at you because you were bombing their friends! Look at all that.  Screenshots like this have to be the reason the biggest factor in an AI attacking you in MOO2 is your fleet strength : settled systems ratio.
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Aug 9, 2017 18:19
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PurpleXVI posted:what if you eradicate a species before you've made contact with any others? Would it still apply to them? Probably as the others have said -- but also practically speaking, it doesn't really matter much. Anybody you haven't met by the time you're strong enough to destroy another race probably isn't big enough to care about. Wayne posted:Look at all that. But that's not even one of the busy parts :P.
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Aug 11, 2017 03:10
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