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potentially. a genocide causes some pretty serious diplomacy penalties, but the psilons have been vacillating in and out of alliances with the other big powers and their diplomacy defaults are neutral across the board - which, if it's not second to the humans, it's drat far up the list. so the galaxy may just forgive them because they're generally chill dudes otherwise. there's certainly no guarantee that it'll cause serious problems.
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Feb 2, 2018 09:56
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Episode IX: 2450-2475 'At least we lasted longer than the vile Mrrshan' isn't much of a rallying cry. We are dead last among the remaining races in every single category, with no likely path to changing that. I don't even know where Orion is, so it must be on the opposite side of the galaxy. Not that I could make a play for it if I could with only four systems. There are only the most remote of chances for the Sakkra now. I am the mercy of how the rising Psilon and the sizable Human/Alkari interact -- who the Bulrathi side with may prove important. We are an insignficant speck beneath their notice.  ** Psilons(13) -- Once they get things sorted out, it's just a matter of who they want to kill first. ** Alkari(10) -- Finally grabbed those upper-right systems. ** Human(8) -- Could be on the decline if their diplomatic skill doesn't save them. ** Bulrathi(6) ** Sakkra(4)  We do at least have a few more things getting close. Looks like Atmospheric Terraforming will be first. That'll basically give us another 20M(I think) on Ryoun, our only hostile world. I watch the diplomatic situation pretty closely, and basically everybody stays friendly. Nobody wants another war right away. That whole idea of the genocide making the Psilons unpopular doesn't materialize in this case.  2458. Next we'll go for +50M Terraforming, which will be a much bigger benefit: 40M everywhere. We also get the wealthy merchant event, a donation 1.5k. The only thing I can do with it though is get a research boost for a while.  The atmos terraforming didn't even improve Ryoun's max at all -- just the growth rate. So that was pretty much useless. Getting Zortium Armor in will improve our ground troops, and now it'll be on to cheaper factories.  Stinger missiles arrive a few years later, upgrading our defensive capabilities. While the Ion Stream Projector is cheaper, I think we will need all the ground combat help we can get. Fusion Rifle.  2469. Class V Deflectors are in. I think it's time to go back for the Repulsor Beam, just in case we need it. Meanwhile there have been a couple of GNN reminders that we suck -- nothing I can't see in Status at this point anytime I want to. The galactic love-in remarkably continues. We get a NAP with the Alkaris, and ...  The more of this we can do, the better our(poor) chances of gaining territory whenever war does break out again.  ECM V or Battle Computer Mk VI are the next choices. We need an ECM upgrade just in case, and it's the cheaper alternative anyway.  Showing the vote in detail this time since I didn't do anything but research a bunch of stuff. Humans vs. Alkari again; either the Psilon planets really suck(most likely) or they have some other sort of weird problem going on. I can think of no other rational explanation why they wouldn't be a nominee again by now. I noted here that if everyone else sides with the Humans, they will just make it this time. 9 for the Alkaris plus presumably still 3 for us is 12 -- exactly one-third, leaving Bladrov II just enough. IF he has everyone else on his side ... but the probably will. Bulrathi are the wild-cards.  Third in planets, yet the most populous race. They really picked the spots this time.  This probably seals it.  A long-standing alliance between these two. 24 votes. It's over.  Another sub-200 year game ... but this one didn't go the way I would have preferred. Notable here is that I've never seen the Psilons with this many planets(about 30% of the galaxy), yet playing second fiddle to the winners. The last nearly 30 years of 'Pax Humana' is pretty unprecedented too. Usually everyone gets antsy and somebody, even if it's the erratic Bulrathi, starts something. Nope. Total peace everywhere, leading to Bladrov II's triumph. Ultimately that clash between us and the Mrrshan at the beginning hurt our growth too much. Additionally, the early Bulrathi alliance allowed them to reach planets that would have been ours, we didn't get Radiated tech despite being galactic Planetology experts(two more systems there), and late in the colonization game we 'lost the tie' in getting to Guradas. One more year sooner and that would have been ours. Then the diplomatic problems, as we had to give away the store and even that wasn't enough for peace, leading to the loss of Thrax. If the Bulrathi hadn't taken that, we'd have had the extra vote needed to prolong things in the Council, even with nothing else. I don't think this was an unwinnable game, it was just that too many things went against us and a couple of fairly minor mistakes assisted that. Give us those two radiated systems even, or something else going our way earlier, and we had a chance. Now I slip to 5-4 overall. I've only found victory at first try with the Psilons and Humans, suffering a defeat with the Klackons, Silicoids, Meklar, and Sakkra. Let's see if we can maintain the perfect record of bouncing back with victory in the next attempt.
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Feb 3, 2018 17:40
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Better luck next try. If you just won with all races on the first try it would give us the wrong impression that this game is easy or fair.
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Feb 3, 2018 18:01
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Thotimx posted:Ultimately that clash between us and the Mrrshan at the beginning hurt our growth too much. Additionally, the early Bulrathi alliance allowed them to reach planets that would have been ours, we didn't get Radiated tech despite being galactic Planetology experts(two more systems there), Can't forget too that the Mrrshan war was one of those rare instances of the AI range cheating actually being decisive; they shouldn't have been able to reach you. But yeah, a very early war just drags both of you down since that's credits going into military instead of growth when it's most important. I think there's also some kind of law where you only get gatling lasers in your tree if there's nobody nearby, and Hyper-V rockets when you really need guns. Also, I can't remember if we talked about it in the thread yet or not, but a race's tech rating doesn't actually give you more or fewer choices, it only affects the cost. The game has to give you one choice per tier, but other than that it's a coinflip. Psilons get a 75% chance per tech instead of 50%. The Civ4 thread makes me wonder, Thot: have you considered putting up your start-of-game autosave when you start a series? I'd like to get more practice on games with early conflict and I tend to not roll those very often, whereas you end up with stuff like the Mrrshan crashing your welcome party.  Plus when you start doing videos, it might be fun to play along and see how things differ.
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Feb 3, 2018 18:59
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Yea, this was pretty much hopeless for a while (though you did have that previous miracle game). I find that early expansion has to at least reach the number of planets to trigger the GNN size milestone (you don't have to trigger the milestone by being first to reach it, but you have to reach it). I think that would be six for this map? If I can't, then it's crazy gamble time. I am the type who'd rather lose fast than get ground down and lose slow, however.
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Feb 3, 2018 22:17
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Kanthulhu posted:If you just won with all races on the first try it would give us the wrong impression that this game is easy or fair. No danger of that here. Wayne posted:a race's tech rating doesn't actually give you more or fewer choices, it only affects the cost. The game has to give you one choice per tier, but other than that it's a coinflip. Psilons get a 75% chance per tech instead of 50%. Interesting. I've heard strong players(including Sulla) claim otherwhise, but I don't know of a definitive source for some of the more esoteric stuff like this. Wayne posted:Thot: have you considered putting up your start-of-game autosave when you start a series? I could do that, so long as people don't spoil stuff about the galaxy that I haven't gotten to yet(planet/empire locations, etc.) BurningStone posted:I find that early expansion has to at least reach the number of planets to trigger the GNN size milestone (you don't have to trigger the milestone by being first to reach it, but you have to reach it). That's not a bad rule of thumb. Six is correct for the medium size. My goal is to have a fifth of the galaxy(so eventually ten planets on medium). I never got above half that. Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 16:53 on Feb 5, 2018 |
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Feb 5, 2018 16:51
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I had some sound difficulties in the first couple episodes here. I'll probably do the future videos at a more appropriate resolution instead of widescreen -- definitely still working out some technical issues here. Episode X: Sakkra Opening  https://youtu.be/rNtG6JUJ5Eg  We start in the upper-left corner. A very promising selection of rivals, nearly optimal. No Psilons, Klackons, or Humans. Silicoids, Meklars, and the military races to deal with. At least some will be on the other side, but there's a band of yellow stars not far away. A lot will depend on how many homeworlds are hosted there.  The green and red stars to the right are the options for our first colony. I go for extending to the middle of the galaxy here; the red one's more likely to be hostilke but better for that purpose.  Looks like I may have chosen ... poorly ...  Yes, indeed I did. Calculated risk fail here. So now the colony ship will lose a few years re-routing to Zoctan, which will at least be a good first colony. And having a rich world nearby could be good, if we eventually get the tech for it. Still having the colony ship maintenance as overhead slowed down the initial recon rush, but we didn't need to build many of them. That's not actually a good thing, as it limits our reach.  No problems yet as we arrive a few years later, 2306, to Zoctan. Growth on the homeworld is high enough that I send an unusually high first wave of colonists: 19M. In this kind of situation you can also make an argument for just sending 2-3M per year so that you don't have that many idle at once(obviously while in transport they don't produce anything), but I prefer to just get them moving and bootstrap the second colony faster.  The birds are nearby, but we run them off; just a scout run-in.  Another radiated system. Beyond the two red radiateds, you can see that there's a significant 'dark space' gap. Expanding that way is very unlikely now , which is one reason why it's unfortunate that we had to start with Zoctan heading out that way.  Yet another hostile system. I'm not getting a good vibe from this game either -- for the second galaxy in a row, the Sakkra desire to spread our wings quickly is(aside from Zoctan being a nice-sized world) being stifled.  More evidence of the negative kind. The Bulrathi are spotted here soon, which means there are two rival homeworlds nearby; probably both in that upper-left band of yellow stars. If so, we could be cut off quite quickly.  Another scout is sent on it's way, and we have another rich, hostile planet here. That seals it; nothing remotely near us remains that we can land on. We'll need both range and environment techs just to expand beyond our initial pair of systems. The first tech pull comes our way in about 2322. ** Computers -- ECM Jammer I ** Construction -- Industrial Tech 9 and Reduced Waste 80%. ** Force Fields -- Class II Shields ** Planetology -- Controlled Barren Environments, Improved Eco Restoration ** Propulsion -- Hydrogen Fuel Cells ** Weapons -- Hyper-V Rockets, Gatling Laser For the choices here, I opt for Reduced Waste 80%, then Barren landings in Planetology. There is little choice; it's the only way to expand. I also invariably select the rockets over the Gatling laser. Sssla is maxed out, so the opening ends in 2323. The fuel cells and barren landings, when acquired, will allow us to get to Hyades. That's the next goal, but so far the galaxy is not being very hospitable. Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 17:40 on Feb 5, 2018 |
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Feb 5, 2018 17:33
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drat, that looks like a tough start. Did you change something with your screenshots? In the last update they seem less sharp. I'm really enjoying this LP. Keep up the good work.
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Feb 5, 2018 17:40
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Glad you're enjoying it. Two things going on with screenshots: one, I'm taking them from the video recording rather than the game itself, which is unavoidable if I'm going to do the video thing. Two, as I mentioned I messed up the aspect ratio so they're more stretched horizontally. I'm not sure doing both video/screens will work well quality-wise. If not, I may just go back to only doing screenshots after 2375(current spot where I stopped recording).
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Feb 5, 2018 17:47
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Savegame link per Wayne's suggestion: https://www.dropbox.com/s/f6v03dy2n0u78ks/SAVE1.GAM?dl=0
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Feb 5, 2018 18:05
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I enjoyed the video more than I thought; it went by rather quickly for its length. I've never seen the game in motion, so I was pleasantly surprised that there is actually less slider fiddlery (at least once you know what you're doing) and more "Next Turn hammering" than I assumed. However, I think you could improve some things. Your commentary is slow and ponderous and that's generally fine, because you explain things well and the game lends itself to this pace. There were moments though where you were dwelling on for example the save screen which didn't really add anything; I personally don't care about your reloading policy and I don't feel like you need to explain or defend yourself in any way, accidents always happen and the save feature was obviously put there for a reason. Especially true after a BUNCH of updates in this thread already, even though this is the first video of course. Another example: in the end, you say "okay that does it for the opening phase and the first video of this game", but there's three minutes remaining in the video. I found that jarring, and I think you could have done with a shorter "next time, probably this, this and this, see you then" summary.
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Feb 5, 2018 18:22
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Thotimx posted:one, I'm taking them from the video recording rather than the game itself, which is unavoidable if I'm going to do the video thing. You need to turn the bitrate way up (like, at least one additional zero) if you're going to pull screenshots from video, or you'll end up with crappy screenshots.
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Feb 5, 2018 18:30
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Thotimx posted:Savegame link per Wayne's suggestion: Sweet, thanks!  I'll probably wait a couple updates to read anything else, maybe to turn 100 (if you make it, heh), then play and see how things shook out differently. It definitely seems like one of the roughest maps I've seen so far, 2 AIs in close proximity and only the 1 habitable planet!Simply Simon posted:However, I think you could improve some things. Definitely, but not bad for your first time doing something like this. It's hard to keep commentary interesting during a strategy game, both due to the concentration it takes on the player and the pace of the game itself. I think you did OK, really, Simon hit the only things I would've addressed too. In particular, discussing your save/reload policy is good "filler" while you're doing some micromanagement and there's nothing interesting to talk about in the game itself, because different people feel differently about that stuff and it can be something to think about to pass the time. Also I mentally pronounced the name "thought-imks."  Edit: Whoops, almost forgot. You left the video Unlisted, was that intentional? Wayne fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Feb 5, 2018 |
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Feb 5, 2018 21:02
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Wayne posted:In particular, discussing your save/reload policy is good "filler" while you're doing some micromanagement and there's nothing interesting to talk about in the game itself, because different people feel differently about that stuff and it can be something to think about to pass the time.
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Feb 5, 2018 21:14
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When you showed the initial map I thought “oh no.” And the rest of the update showed all the worries coming true. Maybe that planetology boost gets you hostile landings first?
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Feb 5, 2018 23:58
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One more vote for the 'Videos are actually pretty good, please continue!' pile.
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Feb 6, 2018 05:05
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Thotimx posted:Glad you're enjoying it. Two things going on with screenshots: one, I'm taking them from the video recording rather than the game itself, which is unavoidable if I'm going to do the video thing. Two, as I mentioned I messed up the aspect ratio so they're more stretched horizontally. I'm not sure doing both video/screens will work well quality-wise. If not, I may just go back to only doing screenshots after 2375(current spot where I stopped recording). the latter is why they seem off. if you maintain the aspect ratio they'll look fine. you're doing everything else right; you're at 898 pixels wide and 900 is the general recommendation, but do note that's a guideline. nobody will care if you have to go up to like 920 or whatever to maintain ratio. e: also, you can still get the widescreen resolutions on youtube by simply uploading a resolution that has a height of more than 1080p. the actual aspect ratio does not matter. you don't need to crowbar your video into a widescreen aspect ratio if it wasn't made for it. i'm happy to provide specifics in PM or whatever if you'd like to run your setup past someone who's been around the block once or twice. Coolguye fucked around with this message at 07:09 on Feb 6, 2018 |
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Feb 6, 2018 07:00
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Technical update time: TL:DR first. I think we're looking at two more updates of subpar screenshots, but they should be at least as good if not better than before after that. Long Version: I don't think I can record in good enough quality for screenshots with the native dosbox function for video. That's the bad news; I used that because nothing else I had would work. Good news is that I was able to get OBS to work, and I was able to get that to function(probably, I'm not done testing it out yet). In the process of futzing about I changed one of the dosbox settings which I think make things look better than they did before. Overall this should allow me to keep doing what I want to do(both video and screenshots) while not lowering the quality of this LP. 'Other thread comments' section proceeds: Aerdan posted:You need to turn the bitrate way up (like, at least one additional zero) if you're going to pull screenshots from video, or you'll end up with crappy screenshots. Thanks, I'm finding this to be true. DTurtle posted:drat, that looks like a tough start. It is -- we're in as much danger as I've ever been of suffering consecutive losses. I was hoping not to have that happen until I got to the combat races. Though, it's still early so hope definitely remains. Wayne posted:You left the video Unlisted, was that intentional? Yes it was, but thanks for asking. Basically the reason is that if I was going to start a new public LP on the channel for whatever I'd want to go through some tutorial stuff for people not familiar with game, blah blah blah etc., and we're way past that in the thread so I didn't want to subject ya'll to that. Maybe I'll make this stuff public at some point in the future but for now I thought it best to keep it just for the SA thread -- cause that's who it's really for anyway in this case. SimplySimon posted:I was pleasantly surprised that there is actually less slider fiddlery (at least once you know what you're doing) and more "Next Turn hammering" than I assumed. In longer games or better starts where there's room to expand, there will be more of this. It's kind of limited at the beginning. So don't get too optimistic there. SimplySimon posted:However, I think you could improve some things. Thanks. I appreciate and agree with all of your points. So far as post-commentary is concerned; I've considered that but it's hard to match it up to the video in a lot of cases(i.e., how to know how long to film a particular screen that I'm talking about or whatever). Really what I think is needed the most for me to get better at the commentary side of things is practice; lots and lots of it. I expect it to take quite a while for me to get comfortable with it -- I had a fair amount of nervous energy going on which was apparent to me for example in the way I kept checking sliders for planets even early on when I knew they were fine ... I didn't need to do that for any game purpose but I was basically just giving myself something mindless to do in the game while I was formulating thoughts on what to say next. It's not something I was doing in that kind of situation when doing the screenshot-only updates. And of course, even longer for me to become 'good' at the process, whatever that ends up meaning for me, just like any acquired skill. . BurningStone posted:Maybe that planetology boost gets you hostile landings first? That's really my only hope in this start IMO. coolguye posted:you can still get the widescreen resolutions on youtube by simply uploading a resolution that has a height of more than 1080p Thanks for the helpfulness. Do you mean more than 1080 pixels high here? Otherwhise, I think I'm set at the moment if OBS works out as I hope it will -- if not I'll let you know.
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Feb 6, 2018 23:06
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Thotimx posted:Thanks. I appreciate and agree with all of your points. So far as post-commentary is concerned; I've considered that but it's hard to match it up to the video in a lot of cases(i.e., how to know how long to film a particular screen that I'm talking about or whatever). Really what I think is needed the most for me to get better at the commentary side of things is practice; lots and lots of it. I expect it to take quite a while for me to get comfortable with it -- I had a fair amount of nervous energy going on which was apparent to me for example in the way I kept checking sliders for planets even early on when I knew they were fine ... I didn't need to do that for any game purpose but I was basically just giving myself something mindless to do in the game while I was formulating thoughts on what to say next. It's not something I was doing in that kind of situation when doing the screenshot-only updates. And of course, even longer for me to become 'good' at the process, whatever that ends up meaning for me, just like any acquired skill. One thing you can actually do, though, and what I used as a technique a few times: if you're dissatisfied with your live recording, then scrap it and use the video of the live recording regardless. Speak over it in post-commentary and try to repeat about the same points you made when playing it, if you do this right after the live recording, it shouldn't be a problem at all. You'll notice that there are some points where you don't do anything in your live video and your post-commentary has, because you don't need to focus on the game at the same time, already said everything that's needed to be said. So you'll have some moments of silence where nothing happens on screen and you don't say anything in post. Cut those parts. Ta-daa, better-paced video that still contains everything you wanted to say!
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Feb 6, 2018 23:57
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Thotimx posted:Thanks for the helpfulness. Do you mean more than 1080 pixels high here? Otherwhise, I think I'm set at the moment if OBS works out as I hope it will -- if not I'll let you know. Coolguye fucked around with this message at 00:19 on Feb 7, 2018 |
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Feb 7, 2018 00:17
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For upscaling purposes, I'd recommend just recording at a high bitrate in native resolution, then using a nearest-neighbor integer scale factor that will give you >= 1080 vertical pixels in the resultant file.
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Feb 7, 2018 00:52
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Episode X: 2325-2350 https://youtu.be/4LaRE3J9tsk The next thing to be done was the research to allow us to get the barren planet Hyades. Two things this time were needed; Barren Landings and Hydrogen Fuel Cells. The barren tech had to come first, then the shipbulding could coincide with the range research. I pondered whether to have Zoctan join the research effort(it could boost it by about 30%) but decidedly it was ultimately better to have the system keep going on industry and join the effort later.  I was a fair bit shocked by this. Tops in population despite not being able to expand much. Maybe we're doing better than I thought.  After barren comes in, our next choice arises. Tundra is pointless here as Dead landings would include it. Almost every time I would go for Improved Eco in this kind of situation, but there is that Dead rich planet out there and we are highly lacking options, so Dead Landings it is. Everything now gets shifted into propulsion research on Zoctan, while the new barren-capable colonizer is designed and built on Sssla. One year before the ship is done, the fuel cells come in -- and Inertial Stabilizer is the only choice now. In 2332 the new colonizer is on its way. More recons are commissioned as well, but now it's just back into research as this whole operation only is going to net us one planet.  Three is better than two, that's about all I can say for this. Reseach proceeded to quickly snag Reduced Industrial Waste 80% from construction, then switched over to the much more expensive Dead Landings.  Just a scout, but they continue to poke around over here.  This is a bit more information -- a handful of small Alkari ships were here at Rigel(75M max). Seven of them, but all scouts so they ran anyway, amusingly. 50M and 4 factories currently so they've definitely shipped in a good amount of people.  Reduced Waste comes in shortly afterwards, and this is another obvious choice; the more modern option.  That's ... not good. We're at three and will stay there for some time. Looks like we are well off the pace. In all fairness though, eight systems 40 years in is a lot. Perhaps the space rocks are just off to a superb start. The Meklars come visit Trax soon afterwards, so they are in the vicinity too. Good grief. Three empires closing us in. This is just getting better and better. If they, the Alkari, and the Bulrathi are all in this nearby band of yellow stars, then the Silicoids and Mrrshan essentially have most of the galaxy to themselves potentially. We could have a bad case of the Runaway Silicoids on our hands. A very bad case.  This couldn't come soon enough.  Toxic is in our tree, but Radiated is yet to be determined. That will be important. For now though, crash-researching Improved Eco Restoration will help the productivity of our quite limited economy, and terraforming figures to follow. The new dead-capable Colonizer is finished right at 2350, leaving our path clear. It'll head out to what is hopefully our next acquisition and first rich planet, while freshly-built Recons join it to push the boundaries of our knowledge further.
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Feb 8, 2018 02:20
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Still loving the videos! Man, you really seem to be stuck in the corner a lot.
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Feb 8, 2018 04:12
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berryjon posted:Man, you really seem to be stuck in the corner a lot. True. Can be a blessing if you can seal off enough territory with a minimum of border worlds, which has also happened a couple times, but in this case it's just too small of a pocket. Simply Simon posted:I didn't actually know (or didn't remember reading it) that this is your first time ever doing this. Not first time ever, but first time in a few years and I didn't do much then either(never really finished anything).
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Feb 10, 2018 01:19
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There could be more of a delay until the next update after this. I want to make sure I do enough testing to make sure all the technical issues are worked out before proceeding further. Episode X: 2350-2375 https://youtu.be/Fn0cxClPXuc  This came in right away, and the two main choices were still Toxic Landings and +30 Terraforming; sticking with Terraforming as planned.  It seemed to time to go to 'normal' research distribution here.  Given how little territory we have and the total, 100%, complete lack of other options, it seems a good time to go for some early(for me at least) military buildup. The two red-star radiated systems, Trax and Seidon, will be guarded to prevent anyone else from snagging them. This may be a wasted effort since we might not get the Radiated tech -- but if that happens I'm not sure anything is going to matter.  The Cyclops here is generally your basic laser fighter, but with a twist; enough space to thrown on a Mark I battle computer as well will help. The initial plan is to build 50, 25 for each system.  2355, and we finally have a fourth planet. At least Phyco is rich.  Courteous and friendly as ever.  When the bears are expanding twice as fast as you are, it's not going well.  So going 'down' isn't going to work. The Recons are headed that way but they won't accomplish anything. This is a rather horrific development since there is that big dark-space gap to the right(can't get anywhere past the radiated systems even with reserve tanks) ... and well, there aren't any other directions to consider. They have seven, we have four, and I'm betting their odds for expansion are better than our almost non-existent ones.  ECM Jammer I arrives, and I take the clear choice of Robotics III here. Cyclops production continues for a few more years, and I also belatedly sign a 150BC trade deal with Smurch. Also during this time-frame some transfers to Phyco boost the growth curve there.  New deflectors are the latest first-tier project to be finished. Personal Deflectors or Class III Shields are next ... I elect the personal one for no good reason really, though they are a bit cheaper.  And slightly less crappy missiles. I have a feeling we may have to fight sooner rather than later, which informs a fairly rare choice(though I did it as Meklar also) of going for the Ion Cannon next. Fusion Bombs were probably also worth considering; Hyper-X Rockets would have been fairly redundant.  This is a particularly nasty blow, wiping out all of our robotics progress. Not a hospitable galaxy. It's 2372, and current imperial research amounts to 393 RP per year; less than a quarter of what we just lost.  Industrial Tech 8 comes the next cycle. Battle Suits is just over half the price of the waste reduction, which would only reduce current costs by a quarter. Cheaper research wins out again. Phyco has started building bases as our point-defense system aimed at the Bulrathi; one is finished and another about to be. The computer virus was really a tough blow on top of the other unpleasantness. What little chance is left hinges on getting radiated landings, and soon.
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Feb 10, 2018 04:06
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Honestly at this point your best bet is crash researching planetology and propulsion.
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Feb 10, 2018 06:24
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Wow, that was a low blow, game. Maybe the Bears will be belligerent to someone else for a while??
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Feb 10, 2018 19:35
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Episode X: 2375-2400 https://youtu.be/PFs7idhF7oo I'm pretty sure I've got all the technical issues sorted; I like how things look now and hope that my loyal readers can say the same. So let's get to it.  Bulrathi are big. We're not. Not much else to learn from this.  Trade is nearly up to even, and only Phyco still has room(and not much) to grow. At least the reserve is pretty healthy.  The suggestion about crashing planetology and propulsion was considered, but ultimately rejected. We're pretty close on both but more to the point, I think this far into the game we really need both those techs and those from the other fields. I.e. it doesn't really matter if I get more planets if I can't do much with them. An argument can certainly be made for desperate times provoking desperate measures, I just usually find they don't really help in the long run.  The very next turn. Normally having almost a full quarter-century to deal with whatever happens in the first Council vote before the second one is great. When you have less than 6% of the galaxy and said vote arrives though, you're in trouble. ** Silicoids(7) ** Alkari(2) -- Abstain ** Bulrathi(7) ** Mrrshan(7) -- Granid I'm shocked by the Mrrshan here. Since when did they get delusions of grandeur? It's early, but the kitties are a serious player here, nearly a nominee! ** Meklar(3) -- Granid. Lots of love for the space rocks. 17-7 Granid leads it over Smurch, a total of 29 possible votes, as it comes to our three. A clear division of the haves and have-nots. We're as good as anyone in the irrelevant category, and abstain.  Bad news once terraforming comes in; Controlled Radiated Environment is not in our tree. IMO this makes this the worst starting galaxy I've had in the ten games (not counting RNG events to happen later). With the starting situation of being boxed-in, this means that there was no chance of us getting beyond our current four systems. It's going to take something extreme to avoid another loss. Bio Toxin Antidote was the pick here, in retrospect probably a mistake. Getting Toxic Landings just in case we have a chance to go after a hostile world somehow would have been better. +40 Terraforming wouldn't add that much. And then it was time for the micro as we boost populations on all worlds. All four of them.  Once that's done, I do a major shift into propulsion research. It's probably too late to matter, and I'm not abandoning other fields, but our only chance at natural expansion is crossing dark space to the right at the top of the map.  In 2384, I try for a trade deal increase but can only buff it by 50%; not really worth it. However I do swing what might be my first-ever Tech Trade of this LP. The Bulrathi are willing to part with Range 5 fuel cells, +1 compared to what I currently have. Reduced Waste 80% is given in exchange. Interesting fact; I still can't move my ships after this, as it requires the next turn to process before I can distribute the necessary infrastructure and protocols(or whatever technobabble gobbledygook you want to imagine). I also start the first sliver of 'just-because' spying.  We have the Inertial Stabilizer now. That might well be useful if we have to fight. If so though, we're probably up a creek without a paddle anyway. But at least we got a better range tech. Once Dotomite comes in, there are a couple more systems we'll be able to reach. I don't think it'll matter -- but if they are hostile, just maybe we could do something. After all, only one would be needed to get a further foothold ...  Yep. Them and the Mrrshan(Silicoids especially) absolutely blowing up on the other side of the galaxy. The only good news is they aren't Psilons. At this size though, the difference probably won't matter much.  One system came into range with the Bulrathi fuel cells. We've now arrived at it. Shockingly, a nearby yellow star is not unoccupied.  Heh. The Alkari homeworld. Even though the birdies suck so far this game(the only race with fewer votes than us in the first vote) I don't fancy taking them on.  Finally. Thanks a lot, virus. But at least we can upgrade the economy. Improved Space Scanner next.  Wow. Look at that. Up from 29 to 45 total votes; the galactic voting pool has increased more than 50%. And the space rocks' tally has almost doubled. It's been a booming period -- we just had no way to take part in it. ** Alkari(2) -- Smurch. Same nominees, and something got the fencepole out of the butts of the fowl. ** Bulrathi(13) -- Sheesh. ** Mrrshan(9) -- Granid. Time has passed them by; now in solid #3 position. ** Meklar(5) -- Growing as well, they stay with the space rocks. We are up to four votes. That places us 5th overall. So tempting to just vote for Granid and go for the quick ending; they are up 26-15 so we have just enough to win it for them. But we'll take the longer, slower death. Abstain. Just for fun, I intend to explore the complete pointlessness of going for some kind of military solution to our problems at the start of the next century.
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Feb 13, 2018 04:44
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Aesclepia posted:Maybe the Bears will be belligerent to someone else for a while?? Either that or this will end as quickly as the first Klackon game did.
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Feb 13, 2018 04:46
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I prefer the old screenshots as they look much sharper.
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Feb 13, 2018 05:22
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Palladium posted:I prefer the old screenshots as they look much sharper. My vision is somewhere between horrible and godawful, so I can't tell the difference. Really enjoying the LP!
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Feb 13, 2018 05:28
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You're pretty much screwed.Palladium posted:I prefer the old screenshots as they look much sharper. Yeah, they look better than for the past few updates, but they're still not as sharp as the original screenshots.
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Feb 13, 2018 05:31
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Good lord. You're hosed.
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Feb 13, 2018 06:07
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Thotimx posted:IMO this makes this the worst starting galaxy I've had in the ten games (not counting RNG events to happen later). Absolutely. Man, when I ask for your save to try a "hard map," you freaking deliver. Without spoiling anything not shown yet (and it gets worse!), here's what we have going against us:Idea: We need to expand. We have 2 Radiated planets we could theoretically get to peacefully if-- Problem: That tech isn't in our tree. Luckily we're the Sakkra so beelining Planetology to find that out doesn't set us back too far. I: OK, well, we'll just attack the nearest neighbor. A good stack of nuclear bombers to clear the bases, then we'll use Baby Lizard Strats to take advantage of how overpowered invasions are in MOO1 and steal all their tech! P:  I: Then if we can't beat them, we join them! Form a cheese alliance of our own to use their empire to get the range to invade someone else! P:  I: Can we incite some wars (knowing that at least the Alkari are close) and try to poach bombed-out planets like Thot does sometimes? P: We need engines to get the colony ships there quickly enough (and we're missing at least the first 2 upgrades), and Propulsion techs and the ships to use them can be expensive, and all for nothing if it doesn't pan out (and it hasn't had the best track record). I: Can we just tech peacefully until we can make it to Orion? P: We have to find it, reach it, and get the tech and the numbers to make a viable fleet on the economy of 4 planets (don't forget maintenance!), before somebody with 4 times our numbers kills us or votes themselves space president. Not impossible, but extremely unlikely. So looking at all that, what do we have going for us? * Other than missing Radiated and engines, we have a solid tech tree, like hitting the grand slam of early economic techs (Robotics 3 / Improved Eco / Reduced Waste / Terraforming +30 or more). We may only have 4 planets, but they're worth twice as much as anybody's who doesn't have all that. * We got bombs, beams, and missiles in Weapons. We're not stuck hurling nukes from our bases or not being able to crack Planetary + Deflector 5 shields. * Of our 4 planets, none are Poor and 1 is actually Rich. Not UR, but even a single Rich planet is great for getting ships out or feeding the reserve to dump into teching worlds. * We're the Sakkra, we're 2nd only to the Klackons in turning around a new planet and getting it self-sufficient. Once we have a viable target we can expand quickly. * There's a big one about the other AIs, but since Thot hasn't met them we'll come back to this later. It's super bad, but not impossible. That being said, I'd be comfortable betting against anyone winning this on their first try. I'm in a solid (but by no means guaranteed) position on my 3rd go at it, and pretty much all the "conventional wisdom" ideas don't work. Reminded me of this bit from Looney Tunes. And sometimes AI development beyond your control makes it impossible. I broke out taking Rigel from the Alkari (which I assume was what Thot meant by his "military solution"), but on my first run, first contact with the Bulrathi looked like this:  That's twice as many stars as when Thot met them! Speaking of the Bulrathi, Thot, that's my criticism with your play this update. I voted for them every chance I could, because it's game over if they attack, and they're Xenophobic, so it's hard to raise diplo with them conventionally. Getting them Relaxed or higher is really useful for raising their trade threshold and getting them to declare war on someone else. And speaking of trading, that's the other one. I got Industrial Tech 9 for Reduced Waste 80% and Deep Space Scanner for Controlled Dead. (Or maybe the other way around?) Construction and Computers are good fields to get "just cuz" techs in because they add to your ship size and spy rolls respectively, and IT9 helps make Robotics 3 get going faster, as opposed to waiting for Tech 8 to come in when we have so many more pressing things to research. Range 5 doesn't really do us any good, and if Inertial Stabilizer was that close to coming in, I would've waited to see if we had a better range on deck first. Other than that (and that, yeah, the screens are still a little blurry), good update as always, and good luck! This is the hardest map I've ever done that wasn't out-and-out unwinnable (like Psilons getting half the galaxy to themselves or something). Edit: Watching the video, a few more notes. After Terraforming came in, I would've had Sssla ship population to fill your other planets, and take advantage of the "sweet spot" growth curve to get it back to full in turn. It would've been much faster than slow-growing like you did, and having full planets and factories finished sooner means you'd get more RP quicker, even though you spent some turns on Industry and not Research. Likewise, once I saw Robotics 3 come up, I dropped everything to 1 tick (to prevent RP decay; don't drop to 0RP in your empire for the same reason, either, put at least a tick in a few planets in there) and rushed it after Terraforming, since getting more factories is the classic "invest in making more money" and it'll speed up researching everything else. As for Phyco, I had it start putting production into a "BC sink" Huge ship, to have production in the bank to quickly turn out a real battleship once I had the techs and was ready to attack; instead of having it do any research.
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Feb 13, 2018 09:01
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A heads up to anyone enjoying the videos, Thotmx a Motosport Manager LP on his channel in the same style. I’m enjoying it quite a bit.
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Feb 13, 2018 11:18
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I don't notice a difference in screenshots, either? Good grief, this galaxy! At least we can hope to do this well when we're the kitties???
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Feb 13, 2018 13:30
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Ok so I need to do a brief bit of venting here, and also an explanation bit. I'll get to Wayne's comments later. ** After some of the additional feedback on the screenshots I went about trying to improve things more. I wasn't even getting things to look like the original ones that generally seem to be preferred in-game, much less in recording or whatever. I tried changing some more settings and seemed to only succeed in making things worse. ** At one point I backed up the savegames and just reinstalled the whole darn thing to reset to 'default' settings and try again. At this point a couple of things that should be impossible occurred. First, my previous settings were retaind(despite the entire directory being completely deleted). Also, after reinstalling it won't recognize my old saves no matter what. To show I'm not insane, here's the relevant part of the directory:  Save1 was created after reinstalling. The others were backed up and restored to the directory, but the game only recognizes Save1, not 2-6. Why, I have no idea. But it just won't read them, even though I did nothing to them but back them up and put them back in place. So unless I resolve this, I have no choice but to forfeit the current Sakkra game. I'll report back once I think I've gotten the technical side as well sorted as I'm able, however and whenever that is. At present I really have no ETA on that. Apologies for the delay that's going to come here; I'm sure there's a fairly simple solution to this stuff but from my perspective it seems my MOO is possessed.
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Feb 13, 2018 13:56
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To be honest, forfeiting that particular game won't be the biggest deal... Take your time.
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Feb 13, 2018 14:46
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Thotimx posted:** At one point I backed up the savegames and just reinstalled the whole darn thing to reset to 'default' settings and try again. At this point a couple of things that should be impossible occurred. First, my previous settings were retaind(despite the entire directory being completely deleted). Also, after reinstalling it won't recognize my old saves no matter what. To show I'm not insane, here's the relevant part of the directory: If your settings didn't vanish and only the new save is available in-game, that means the game is looking for settings and saves in a different place from where you think it is. An easy way to test that would be to download the save file you posted here, save it to Save1, open that save and see if it's your new game or the Sakkra one.
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Feb 13, 2018 16:22
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Silicoids won. The end. Start another game. Edit: We can safely say you were stuck between a rock and a hard place on that one.
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Feb 13, 2018 16:27
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