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PurpleXVI posted:Is it "safe" to spend this long not building any missile bases? I know I'd have beelined for them right away, but then again my instinct in 4X games is always to first have some sort of static defense against an initial rush/accident, then focus outwards. The right time to build them is very situational. When the enemy can't reach you there's no risk of an initial rush, so building them right away really just sabotages your growth curve. Usually it wouldn't be safe to wait this long, but being as isolated as I've been here I decided that it was ok. that might have been a little risky. It's one of those things that you just get a sense of when it can potentially start to become dangerous, but the best rule of thumb is when you are in range of their ships, you need some protection. QuickSilver6 posted:I love this game so much but am just so, so bad at it. It'll be nice to see what a win looks like. It looks a lot better than losing :P ... although you'll see that plenty in this LP I'm sure too!
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May 1, 2017 18:28
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Episode I, Part VI(2370-2375) A short hop in terms of in-game years, but there's a lot that happens and even more exposition  Next year. You freaking BASTARDS! I swear they read my mind. Our Colonizer is on on its way ... but they probably are armed by this point.  Only a colony ship ... but it's armed. I know that because it instantly moves towards me. By the way, this is initiative in action; I've been able to move first in the past; they've got something, most likely a basic battle computer, giving them the edge. They have the planet unless they only have missiles and I can outrun their supply and have them all miss. Unlikely. This is one of two videos that I screwed up and deleted before uploading somehow, but basically I tried to figure out what was going on and got the Recon blown up by a laser from their colony ship. Crap on a stick. Welp, post-mortem time; what could I have done differently? I could have built some destroyers with reserve fuel tanks and some kind of weapon to guard Kronos. The Starfighters wouldn't have done it because they don't have the range, so destroyer-class would be the minimum size for that job. I couldn't afford such an expense back when I built the Starfighters, but during the research kick the last 15 or so years I could have. I didn't even know the Silicoids had already scouted Kronos; I put all my eggs in the Arietis basket. Also worth noting that if I did that, it would have taken longer to get the colony ship going due to the resource diversion and maybe I would have fought off the colony ship, but they could have returned with escorts in that time. So no guarantee at all I could have prevented them taking it. Sometimes there's just nothing you can do about things. I'm not sure if that's the case here. Beat me by four years. drat YOU, MYSTERIOUS SPACE ROCKS!! Ok. Emperor Zygot must compose himself. What to do now? Well, we'll soon get that propulsion tech but we aren't in a hot hurry for it anymore. Might eventually scrap the Colonizer D but not just yet. A lot is going to happen once we get the fuel cells; should put us contact with three races including these ... these ... these maddening purple crystals, these interlopers!! It was a three-eyed, rock-faced, flying purple Psilon Eater! Three-eyed, rock-faced .... I digress. We need more information and we'll get it, but for now we need to keep working on the factories so that we are in the best possible position to respond. But we are pissed. Oh how pissed we are. If we can justify it, war with the Silicoids is very much on the table. All that work setting up ... destroyed. At least we only lost a few million citizens from the waste snafu, all on Imra. Could have been worse.  A year later. In plenty of time, in fact ahead of time, for a plan that is no longer relevant. I'd already shifted the tech ratios back to their normal even propulsion/planetology distribution.  Ok, those too. Cool. I'm still pissed, but slightly less now.  Huge upgrade over our starting Retro engines obviously. If conflict is headed our way, getting a move on will be vital.  More range is always good. One parsec further is no match for going 3x as fast though. Sub-light Drives here, no contest.  Lots more choices. The Mass Driver here is definitely worth considering, another particle weapon but packs almost twice the punch of the pellet gun we bypassed.  Another missile upgrade chance; these are almost twice as strong as our Hyper-Vs, along with being faster and more accurate.  Oh yes. Basically triple the damage of the laser, a third-generation weapon of the same type(we didn't get a shot at the second-gen ion cannon). Honestly the answer here is 'it depends'. Does our military need to be offensive? Defensive? Invade? Hold key positions? Wear down a superior opponent? I tend towards beam weapons all other factors being equal, but I'd rather wait a bit to decide. I think we're about to find out what's what in the galaxy. And I can actually do just that. I choose none of the above and go back to the beginning with Hand Lasers. A boost for our ground troops as we haven't come across a better weapon for them yet, and a quick project as a delay tactic. Win. Then came the expected first contact wave. This would have been shown with associated musical effects in another short video, which was lost the same way. Not the end of the world; that kind of thing can be shown at a different time. First contact always goes the same way; an initial greeting anywhere from friendly to highly aggressive. The tone of the statements will indicate what type of leadership they have. More on that soon. Now we have a whole bunch more crapola to do. Time to go see that Races screen and deal with foreign policy, the final unseen column in this Master of Orion expose.  The Races display gives an overview of our relations with other empires we are in contact with. That just went from zero to three; we still have not met the Humans or Sakkra. Looking at the Darlok in the upper left, here's the list of things we can discover: ** Treaty Status -- This can be some form of War, No Treaty like now, Non-Aggression Pact, or Alliance. The first two are exactly what they sound like. Non-Aggression Pacts prevent conflict in unowned systems, allowing both races' ships to co-exist peacefully in orbit. Sending a fleet to their colonies will still result in a battle. An Alliance is the most cooperative form of relations. Allied empires will never fight, and can use each others systems for refueling. They are also expected to go to war with each others' enemies. ** Trade Agreements -- Trade requires an initial investment on the part of both empires, but can be very profitable eventually. They start at -30% of the pact amount, which can be as high as a set percentage of the smaller economy of the two empries involved, and increase over time to +100%. Trade Agreements, Non-Aggression Pacts, and Alliances require increasingly high levels of relations to start, and also increase relations over time. ** Relations Bar -- Red bad, Green good basically. The pointer underneath and also the one-word description provide an evaluation of what they think of us. Psilons are a neutral race overall diplomatically, and that's where we start with the Silicoid and Alkari, though the Darloks are set to Unease because nobody with a pair of brain cells to rub together trusts them. These are not just starting states; various actions will improve or degrade these, but they will always tend to drift back towards these levels over time. So for now, we know that we'll have a solid chance at decent relations with the Silicoids and Alkaris, while having a harder time of it with the Darloks, all other things being equal. All other things are never equal of course, but this is the baseline. ** Spying Slider -- If we choose, we can invest on spying now ... and they can do so with us. This costs money which is taken directly out of our production. I think I mentioned this before but it's always proportional: that is, a planet with 200 production will get 4x as much taken out as a planet with 50 production. Spies that HIDE are just gathering information on what tech a race currently has and/or waiting for the right time to strike; ESPIONAGE and SABOTAGE are more likely to get them caught but will also offer opportunities for stealing tech or being directly subversive(specifically, they can incite revolts, blow up factories, or blow up missile bases with the latter option). Hiding doubles the base chance(from 30 to 60%) that a spy will not be discovered -- the nail that doesn't stick up doesn't get hammered and all that. If you choose ESPIONAGE or SABOTAGE and are caught -- well, the game doesn't go into detail but the spy is always gone when they are caught. It is assumed they are eliminated in a rather 'uncivilized' manner with what one might call an 'intense and unpleasant' final debriefing by their captors before their execution by various grotesque means. There's another type of being caught, and that's when you actually steal something or blow something up and they know who did it. This will generally hurt relations considerably, so you take a risk of pissing them off if you do this. There's also a chance of framing another race, and it can be really unpleasant to have a long-time decent relationship spoiled because you got framed and put in a war because of it. This will happen. The cost of a spy network is 25 BC + twice the Computers TL of the target empire. That's the first one; it's doubled for each additional spy. Computers are the relevant tech level when it comes to spying; hacking and whatnot. The side with better Computer tech will find it easier to both spy on others and catch enemy spies. And our Darlok friends here to massive bonuses to everything in this part of the game. We can pretty much bet that they are going to steal most of what we have that they don't, blow up poo poo if we're not on good terms with them, and trying to steal from them is a colossal waste of time. That's pretty much that for each individual race here. In the lower right we can set additional spending to boost internal security to catch more enemy spies. The manual recommends to set this to the maximum once in a while to catch a bunch of them: I've found this to be ineffective in limited testing but one of the things I'm going to do in this LP is check into that more. The maximum you can spend on internal security is 20% of empire production, which boosts security 40%. How much you should spend really depends: it'll be nothing for the next few years because it would take them some time to set up their networks if they are even going to bother. After that it's sort of a thing that you don't need to worry about until they really start using it. You can also spend up to 10% of empire production on setting up spy networks for each race, so you could ultimately spend almost everything you make if you chose -- but that would be a really, really bad idea in almost any imaginable situation. From here we can also do three other things: STATUS, REPORT, and AUDIENCE from the lower right. Ok takes you back to the main Control screen.  This is the Report screen, which gives us more detail on a specific race. There's the tech fields covering most of the screen on the right ... but it says just starting tech in all fields. If there were any in white, they would be things they have that we don't. That's valuable information to know -- but that's the stuff it's talking about when it says on the left that this report is "72 years old". In other words, this is what they had when the game started. And we already knew that, because it's exactly what we had in 2300 as well. All that's required to get a fully accurate update here is a single active spy, who can be doing anything, even hiding. One spy giving us a full technological readout of an entire empire on an annual basis is pretty darned efficient if you ask me. It's usually a good idea to invest in spying at some level just to get this information. Everything else on the left side is 'public knowledge'. This includes details on the empire's Emperor, Alliances, and Wars. There are no secret campaigns in Master of Orion. If you are going to ally with somebody or fight them, others will find out about it. The Darloks have no alliances or wars, so that's useful to know. Also quite important is the emperor description at the top, "Xenophobic Ecologist". This will always be two words; a personality followed by an objective. Xenophobic tells us that the Darloks will react twice as strongly to negative diplomatic actions and half as much to positive ones. In other words, not only do we start on subpar terms with them but it'll take a lot more work to change that. Ecologists means they want large worlds and will focus on construction and planetology in their research. Ecologists can tend to be less warmongering in general, so that could be a positive thing. Awesome. To save what would be relatively pointless shots at the moment, neither the Silicoid or Alkaris have any active Alliances or Wars either. This is very rare at this point in the game. The Silicoids are Aggressive Expansionists: they want as much territory as possible and will attack whenever they have the advantage. Alkaris are Xenophobic Expansionists, so they are pretty much going to be pissed off at the galaxy given how they started. Not that we really care because they are going to be pretty irrelevant it would seem. All of these Personality/Objective combos have a racial preference that they gravitate toward, but they can be different from game to game. Alkaris are usually Militarists for example, which means they like to maintain a large fleet and focus on weapons tech. But not in this game. It's a weighted distribution; the further away a personality or objective is from a race's default, the less likely you are to see it. From a replayability and predictability standpoint, I really like the way this was designed as well. Next up, we'll go back and look at the STATUS screen.  This is the best one-stop-shopping, how-are-we-doing display. It's also the only place in the game that you can always go to see what year it is, which I think is a definite oversight. Our empire will always be here and always listed on top; the others will be filled in as we gain or lose contact with them. Before this year it was a pretty boring screen. Now we have a lot more info. Fleet Strength is based on the cost of all your ships. You can build a bunch of colony ships or whatever and it'll add to the value here, even if they have no weapons to fire whatsoever. As you can see, we're not looking real hot here. We're competitive in technology(total number of advances IIRC) and production, though behind the Darloks and just behind the Silicoids in both. By the way, the current status of those is great with a capital G for an Impossible game 70 years or so in. It means we've almost equalized for the bonuses the get, which usually takes a lot longer to do. It's always better to be ahead, but things could be and often will be a lot worse at this stage of the game. We've got a solid Population lead, and are equal for that in Planets. Running a competitive third in Total Power, which is just an amalgamation of the other five. This is mostly encouraging; we're doing pretty well economically but definitely aren't ready for a war. That's the takeaway here. Before we do any talking, let's look at the map because there is more info there as well.  Now we can see for sure what these three empires have instead of guessing at it. The Darloks haven't expanded as far as I'd feared; the Silicoids are basically where I thought they'd be though I was wrong about that white star, which they'd probably have grabbed if it was habitable. They've got 5-parsec range or they wouldn't have been able to reach Kronos from where their other planets were(if they had 6 like us, they'd have made contact when they got the planet, not a year later when we got the range tech). As far as the Humans and Sakkra, they're in the uppper corners for sure; no other yellow stars to even be possible. Since we saw that one Human scout, it would seem Sol has to be in the upper right and based on the map I don't see how they'll ever even leave it. The Sakkra are probably stuck in the corner too but they might have managed to reach one of those green stars by now. Probably not. That quartet of stars in the upper left though(2 green, 1 blue, 1 white) is the only real frontier of the galaxy though. It's hard to avoid the what-ifs surrounding Kronos here. If we'd managed to snag it and hold it, the Silicoids would be stuck at 3 and wouldn't be able to expand much. We'd have 5 and would basically be in a good position to overtake the Darloks as the top dogs. Still can't get over the fact that in the first game the Darloks are the #1 power in the galaxy. That's just all kinds of bizarre. As it is, it's a three-way competition and right now we're trailing the pack. It will get better for us as we have a good shot at taking the production lead or at least equalizing once we get our current run of factories finished. That should be enough to let us gradually take the lead on technology with our skill there. We will need to mobilize now, and whether we can do that in time to form a competitive fleet is up for debate. Shield tech is ok, we're about to boost it again and get better armor, but we haven't advanced our engines or battle computers and only have very basic improvements in ECM and weaponry with the Hyper-V missiles. We'd love to take back Kronos; in a ground war of attrition we've got the population to stomp the slow-growing Silicoids. We can't compete with their fleet though. It's got to be more defensive, at least for now. Stopping them here is an absolute must though, we can't afford to lose more ground. That makes Arietis the key. Still have those 50 Starfighters there, but they are either obsolete or will be before long. That's in range of the Silicoid's colony ships, and if they take it then Imra and Tyr will be. It won't be long before the Darloks and Silicoids develop the range to reach at least Tyr anyway. We need to prepare to defend ourselves, including getting missile bases up there as it's our point planet in both directions. The bottom line here is we appear to have a decent chance at becoming the supreme power in the galaxy, but we're definitely in a fight and we must choose our direction wisely. Mistakes are very easy to make at this stage of the game and will prove costly if we make them. So, how to handle our various possiblities on the Races screen? ** Security -- No investment at least for now. ** Spying -- A minimal amount for the Alkari, a hair more for the Silicoid and Darlok. That adds up to 2% of income spent here. I think it's worthwhile to see what they have. Looking at their tech will give us an idea how to best design ships to counter it, how effective our missile bases might be, whether we want to try to trade for something they have, etc. You can't effective counteract something if you don't know what it is. Knowledge is Power. ** Trade -- Despite the initial hit, it's pretty much always a good idea to trade with anyone you expect to be able to maintain peace with. They'll get the same hit as well, so it tends to equalize things. You can offer tribute(BC or tech), esp. if relations get too low for a trade deal, but as long as we're on reasonably good terms it both offers the promise of long-term profit and the best way to improve relations. Right now we don't want to be in a war anytime soon, so all signs point that way. Here's how the negotiations went ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-C1nSzadhVY That first one was basically to show off some of the submenus like threatening and tribute etc., but also makes another point; don't even poke around in something you don't plan on using. It annoys rival empires(slightly) to propose something and then change your mind. At the end where they said 'We go now' -- that's their way of saying 'we're sick of talking to you; come back when you're serious'. Note that I couldn't even get a trade agreement here. On reloading, here's how it turned out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha5e5Uh03Kk A couple points of interest: I gave the Silicoids ECM Jammer I because it's a very basic technology and I wanted to butter them up for the Non-Aggression Pact. I didn't expect them to take me up on it, and they didn't, but it was a fairly small price to pay in order to try. They shouldn't either by the way; they are acting intelligently in their own self-interest. The diplomatic AI is usually quite good at doing that, though some weird things do happen. Also, I took the minimal trade agreement with the Alkari because I don't care as much whether they like us. We can up the amount with them later. Note that their high limit was 125 BC while both of the other empires gave us 225 BC; that's because of how much wimpier the Alkari are -- their economy can't support a larger deal.  Did a couple of other things before this, scrapping our scout which we have covered by one of the Recons now(the second one was blown up by the Guardian), and also getting rid of the Colonizer D. Kronos is the only planet we could reach with it and that won't be happening anytime soon, so it's basically so much space scrap. No point in continuing to maintain it. Throwing good money after bad is never a good plan. So now we've got some minimal expenses in ship maintenance and spying, a small amount in the reserve from the scrapped ships, and look at that trade number. Do the math and over 15%, almost a sixth, of our production is going to set up trade routes. That's steep ... but quite possibly necessary. We'll want to re-up over time but we'll definitely wait until that balance improves, which it gradually will. Made a few adjustments to the planets in spending; Tyr will not be doing any research for now, focusing soley on factories and then I'll want to get a few missile bases up there just in case. The others are doing mostly factories as well with a token research effort; growing the economy with the new factory controls will be the foundation of everything that comes afterwards. If you look closely, you'll see a bit of bad news as we hit the 2375 mark ...  Maybe the Silicoids got new robotic controls or something, but they've increased their production and fleet strength, taking the overall lead from the Darloks and putting us further behind. Over these three years, our trade balance improved from -141 to -122. So it still sucks, but it's going in the right direction. Slowly. As I said, long-term investment. Relations are already up to Neutral across the board, and 'high Neutral' for the rocks. So the trade is helping there. So what's up next for the Psilon Empire? Can they halt the Silicoid Surge at Kronos, or will the Purple Psilon Eaters prevail? Will we ever see another Human ship, or any evidence of the Sakkra? Who will take those stars in the frontier on the opposite side of the galaxy? And what in the world does a shape-shifting ecologist really know about galactic domination anyway? These and other equally irrelevant questions abound as these misadventures continue.
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May 3, 2017 03:03
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Will the AI break trade agreements to declare war on you?
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May 3, 2017 15:04
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Kanthulhu posted:Will the AI break trade agreements to declare war on you? Oh yes. So very much.
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May 3, 2017 15:52
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Kanthulhu posted:Will the AI break trade agreements to declare war on you? It's a 4x game--so of course! There are so many reasons the AI will declare war on you, from expanding too close to their borders, to you being framed for espionage, to you being too strong(!), it being a tuesday. Seriously--I might be thinking of a different game but I think the AI spends the start of each turn spinning a RNG to decide how it will regard you.
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May 3, 2017 15:54
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OAquinas posted:It's a 4x game--so of course! That is certainly how Master of Magic worked: Reiska gave a summary in nweismuller's MoM LP. You can see Orion's bones in the mechanics feeding in, but I don't know how much was new for it.
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May 3, 2017 18:00
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Kanthulhu posted:Will the AI break trade agreements to declare war on you? As everyone else said, they sure will. By boosting your relations, they give you a buffer of goodwill though. One wrong move is much less likely to trigger war rather than a warning, but there's no way to just sit around the galactic campfire and sing Kumbaya for centuries on end. War is eventually coming, one way or another. Delaying it until you are ready for it, or being able to manipulate the timing and circumstances, is the best that can really be hoped for. Being too strong is a negative factor as mentioned and eventually you can get big enough that no amount of positive diplomatic actions will maintain peace. OAquinas posted:There are so many reasons the AI will declare war on you, from expanding too close to their borders, to you being framed for espionage, to you being too strong(!), it being a tuesday. Seriously--I might be thinking of a different game but I think the AI spends the start of each turn spinning a RNG to decide how it will regard you. I don't think the AI is quite that capricious except for the Erratic personalities, which can be both frustrating and hilarious. Suffice to say that when going up against an Erratic, you don't want to invest anything in in relying up on them in any fashion. I generally do the minimum 25 BC trade agreements to get some chance of peace for a bit longer but that's it. They don't need a reason even as good as it being a Tuesday  . One of my favorite messages from them will basically say that they are so very sorry, but one of their goddesses appeared in a vision and declared that your empire must be destroyed -- followed by an immediate declaration of war. You literally get the idea that every day is a new experience for these empires; they wake up in the morning with no idea how they are going to behave, until they figure out if there is a cosmic convergence or their coffee was slightly too strong or they just feel like wiping somebody out and decided you're the one that gets the privilege. The other personalities generally behave more or less sensibly though. In this game the two Xenophobes(Alkari and Darloks) will probably be the first to go off the rails. The good thing is that the Silicoids will probably stay at least neutral for longer if we can do well enough to avoid them considering us an easy target. Aggressive Expansionists are among the best AI personalities, arguably the best period: they'll go after whoever the weakest link is most of the time. Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 23:58 on May 3, 2017 |
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May 3, 2017 23:56
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2375-80 The High Council: Beginning of the End, or Merely the End of our Beginning? Last time out, the Psilon Empire joined the galactic community, meeting the Silicoids, Alkaris, and Darloks officially. We discovered that our fleet sucks but the economy and research are hanging in there. Better than expected really. Now the Darloks show up at Willow with a Destroyer-class ship they call a Scorpion. It chases off our Recons, but I doubt they are ready to colonize toxic worlds(green star in the lower middle of the galaxy near their territory). Still, they've got it scouted now at least.  Another system we can safely ignore.  What's all this? The High Council is basically the Galactic UN, so to speak. The first meeting is as good a time as any to mark the start of the intensified struggle. You could call it the beginning of the mid-game, but it also means the game could end at any time. Succeeding in the High Council vote wins the game. Usually it will not happen when the Council first convenes though. This body follows very specific rules: ** The first meeting occurs when two-thirds of all planets have been colonized; at that point there are very little left. ** Assuming that a 'High Master', aka Emperor, is not appointed, new votes will occur every quarter-century(2400, 2425, etc.) until one is named. ** Votes in the High Council are determined by population. This is a democratic system. The leader of each race votes, and the player has a big edge here in always voting last. The candidates are also determined by population; the top two empires are always up for the spot and nobody else qualifies. ** Empires will tend to vote for the candidate they like the most(or, dislike the least). First time I ever won on Impossible it was pretty much cheese; the Bulrathi had pissed off the whole galaxy and it was me vs. them. Everyone else voted for me because they didn't like the bears. I literally laughed at the screen. ** A two-thirds majority is required. This means that anyone with more than a third of the total galactic population essentially has veto power; anyone with more than two-thirds can vote themselves in regardless of what anyone else has to say. If you don't have that 'one-third +1' level of population though, you are always in danger of losing the vote here. ** If another empire is chosen as Emperor, you can accept the Council's decision; if so, you've just lost. Try again next time. You can also choose to Defy. That puts the galaxy in a state of Final War. It's like having the everyone in an alliance against you, only worse. Peace is totally impossible from then on, and they all share technology with each other as well. It is possible to win a Final War, but only under pretty rare circumstances. When the High Council goes against you, it's pretty much sayonara. ** The only other way to win is the 'Tyrant' path; wiping everyone else out completely. ** The High Council vote both depends on and significantly affects diplomatic relations. Empires that like you will be more likely to vote for you; voting against a candidate will upset them.  We're the top population empire, so we at least have been nominated.  Ahh, the time-honored strategy of voting for yourself. But who really doesn't want to be Emperor? Also, we can see that there are 14 total votes, meaning 10 are required to win and 5 to 'veto'.  Abstaining is the third option, after choosing one of the two nominees obviously. The Sakkra are basically saying neither candidate has proven themselves worthy. This happens more often early in the game when there isn't even official contact; it can also happen later on less frequently, and I think that occurs when the two nominees are very close.  So far 'abstain' is tied with Nazgur for the lead.  I'd hoped to get the support of the Silicoids here. As a general rule, the Darlok are a good(if rare) High Council opponent to have as a bad diplomatic race. But the rocks are not sold that we're any better, at least not yet. This guarantees that nobody will win this time.  Looking like a pattern.  And now it's down to us. Even when the ultimate outcome is already determined, our vote is still important. ProTip: There's no point, in game terms, of voting for yourself if you can't win. Voting for the opponent will improve relations. If voting for them would put them over the top, it's best to abstain. Of course if you can win, claim your throne!  After casting our votes for Nazgur, this session ends inconclusively. This is one of the more gamey things Master of Orion allows you to do.  Here's our first spy report. Ironically it's on the Darloks. As we can see here(the white are things they have but we don't; stuff we have and they don't isn't listed) they have better computers and scanners than we do; our terraforming and range are better. The big difference though are in the weapons; they could take down any of our ships pretty easily if they have even the pellet gun, much less that neutron blaster in the field. The range limitation, so long as it lasts, will keep them from expanding any further probably though. We've almost caught up to the power pair here in production, but are fading a bit in tech the last few years; we'll get a few more done soon though, as this is the last year of our factory buildup. Since we've got our first report in, our spying budget will go down to the minimum. That'll be enough to give us an update once in a while which is plenty.  Next year, the Silicoids show up at Arietis with a colony ship. Guess it's time to find out if those Starfighters were worth it ... or not, as they retreat immediately. Well that's an answer in a sense, as they weren't even willing to test us. They certainly think so at least; they weren't even willing to test us. They may come back with more, and we need to decide how to handle that possibility. But first ...  That will help.  New options. Battle Suits are an improvement over our protective equipment for our ground troops.  This wouldn't come in time to help with the current buildup, but we definitely need to cut factory costs eventually.  And more waste reduction as well. This would be a 25% reduction. Our ecology spending is fairly under control by now, but every little bit helps. I may regret not getting the factory-reduction, but I opt for Reduced Industrial Waste 60%.  Selia's a decent planet, and unclaimed. It's eight parsecs away though, too far for us to consider right now. The factory buildup is now finished; we've got a couple more research projects about to wrap up, and then we'll have some big choices to make.  Both of our new choices come in right away. We've got Class III Deflector Shields and Hand Lasers. In terms of Force Fields, we can keep right on going or come back for the personal shields. I don't think think they're worth it; Class IV.  We've seen all the weapons options before but that was a few years ago; now we know what we are up against. The Darloks definitely have a firepower advantage, but I think going for the mass driver here can cut into that. They've got the neutron blaster, but it's not enough better, at least not yet, to make it worth the extra cost.  Overall this looks pretty scary. The Silicoids have really boosted their fleet and population, and all we really did with our industrial buildup was keep pace. Maybe a bit more than that but not much, we're still third. It is encouraging that we've taken, quite possibly temporarily, a tiny tech lead -- but that's about it and we're nowhere close to any more breakthroughs right now. However, things are not as bad as they seem ...  We've managed to get a spy in with them now, not the Alkaris yet but we really don't care on that front. They've allied with the Humans which isn't good news. Surprised that they don't have better engines yet which I was sure they did. No waste reduction techs, but why would they -- they don't need them. No new factory controls and they're still outproducing us -- that's not good at all. They haven't advanced past lasers in their weaponry yet though. This gives us a bit of an opportunity. If they outfit nuclear missiles or regular/gatling lasers, our new Class III shields will absorb almost all of the damage. The only thing they can use against us(and vice versa, since they've also got the same shield techs) are the heavy lasers that hit harder(7 damage vs. 4 for the others). Our Starfighters will soon be obsolete. If we upgrade to a ship based around utilizing a heavy laser, we can hold them off longer. Zygot's goal then is to hold Arietis with a fairly minimal investment in these ships. The rest of the economy will focus on research and not the military, specifically planetology. The reason for that is if we can get to the point of landing on Radiated worlds, we can take Arietis ourselves ... and Willow ... and maybe even Selia. That's a plan worth pursuing.  Introducing the new Star Blazer! Strike craft are too small to fit a heavy laser on so this is our first destroyer-size design. I'd like to put a battle computer, better armor, etc. on -- but to do that I'd have to reduce it to one weapon instead of a pair. It'd also be more expensive. I think this is the best bang for the buck(in retrospect I think having one more accurate weapon might have been better, but it's definitely a judgement call here). It'll miss a lot but most of the weapons available to the Silicoids will just bounce off of it. Like the Starfighter, this is a stop-gap; it's not the start of a permanent starfleet or anything like that, but I'm hoping it's enough to handle the next round of escalation.
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May 5, 2017 00:44
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Are the Silicoids likely to deploy those Inertial Stabilizers they have? Because wouldn't that make your ship design miss even more?
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May 5, 2017 00:54
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Do missile bases count for "fleet strength" reports?
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May 5, 2017 14:50
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Mzbundifund posted:Are the Silicoids likely to deploy those Inertial Stabilizers they have? Because wouldn't that make your ship design miss even more? Yes they are, and yes it will. AI ship design isn't great, but it's not terrible either; anything that gives them that much of an edge will be used. It is a big advantage they have right now because nothing we have can counteract it; even putting the Mk I Battle Computer on would only get us partway there. Building relatively small, cheap ships seems to be our only real option at the moment(at least from my POV). PurpleXVI posted:Do missile bases count for "fleet strength" reports? No it doesn't. It is possible to destroy missile bases if you've built too many -- I need to remember to eventually show how. This will have no effect on your Fleet Strength display. Scrap ships though and you'll see that immediately.
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May 6, 2017 00:15
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Do you have to refit your ships to take advantages of improved technologies (things like armour)? Do techs that you choose to put off ever go away, or can you always get them later? I assume that when you have two versions of the same thing (like Improved Industrial Tech above), you don't need to get both of them. Enjoying this. I liked poking at MoO2 over the years, but was never good at it.
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May 6, 2017 19:33
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rchandra posted:Do techs that you choose to put off ever go away, or can you always get them later? I assume that when you have two versions of the same thing (like Improved Industrial Tech above), you don't need to get both of them. It looks like the techs he's skipping over are staying on until he gets around to them. Which is distinctly unlike MoO2 where every tech gained from a given branch moves you up a step and permanently locks you out of those you skipped, unless you steal or trade for them later. Unless you're playing the Psilons, of course, who have a ridiculous advantage in being able to research a full tier of each branch at once, the cheating bastards.  In this case I kind of prefer MoO2 since it makes each choice much more hard-set. You can't just put something off until later, unless you know there's someone you can get it from, and your choices affect your tech layout much more drastically.
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May 6, 2017 19:38
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rchandra posted:Do you have to refit your ships to take advantages of improved technologies (things like armour)? There is no refit mechanic in this game. The closest you get is scrapping the ship in orbit (returning a quarter of its build cost to the reserve) then redesigning it with the new tech and giving the producing planet a bit of a kick with the reserve points. Obviously, suboptimal. So you want new armor on your fleet? Gotta build a new fleet. The only things that get immediate upgrades are missile bases (Armor/missile, but NOT planetary shields) and ground troops.
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May 6, 2017 20:06
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PurpleXVI posted:It looks like the techs he's skipping over are staying on until he gets around to them. Which is distinctly unlike MoO2 where every tech gained from a given branch moves you up a step and permanently locks you out of those you skipped, unless you steal or trade for them later. Unless you're playing the Psilons, of course, who have a ridiculous advantage in being able to research a full tier of each branch at once, the cheating bastards. I'm not a fan of psilons in this series in general. The lifeblood of just about every 4X game is science, and I've never seen a 4X race/faction whose hat is being much better at science than everyone not being the best race in the game or very close to it barring weird overpowered special factions.
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May 6, 2017 20:10
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Cythereal posted:I'm not a fan of psilons in this series in general. The lifeblood of just about every 4X game is science, and I've never seen a 4X race/faction whose hat is being much better at science than everyone not being the best race in the game or very close to it barring weird overpowered special factions. I don't disagree in general, but I can think of two exceptions offhand:
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May 7, 2017 00:01
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rchandra posted:Do techs that you choose to put off ever go away, or can you always get them later? I assume that when you have two versions of the same thing (like Improved Industrial Tech above), you don't need to get both of them. You can always get them later. You don't need the lesser versions of stuff like Industrial Tech; the only benefit they would give is the small boost to your tech level(and the miniaturization/cost bonus that goes with it). PurpleXVI posted:In this case I kind of prefer MoO2 since it makes each choice much more hard-set. You can't just put something off until later, unless you know there's someone you can get it from, and your choices affect your tech layout much more drastically. Different strokes for different folks, but in Moo2 the differences I would point out are: ** You can always trade for pretty much anything, with almost anything, which makes this quite trivial IMO and ** You can always choose the same techs every time, there's never anything 'randomly missing'. I would say your choices in Moo2 affect your tech layout less and I don't think it's close -- but that's why some people think it was a great sequel and upgrade and others like myself give it a decided 'meh'.
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May 7, 2017 00:08
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Thotimx posted:Different strokes for different folks, but in Moo2 the differences I would point out are: Well, you could always play the Klackons or another Uncreative race if you wanna play Hard Mode with the techs. Cythereal posted:I'm not a fan of psilons in this series in general. The lifeblood of just about every 4X game is science, and I've never seen a 4X race/faction whose hat is being much better at science than everyone not being the best race in the game or very close to it barring weird overpowered special factions. This is mostly true for MoO2, with a couple of exceptions as some species have abilities that can't be replicated through superior tech. For instance the Silicoids can steal a march on everyone by colonizing everything, and can have a powerhouse industry since they don't need to devote any population to working agriculture. But yeah, barring some of those races pushing their starting advantages hard and killing the Psilons in the cradle after rolling up a homeworld right next to them, they'll be winners in the hands of most competent players.
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May 7, 2017 00:46
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I have to say, having originally missed both MoO1 and 2 releases, and getting them both around the same time, I really like the both of them a whole lot for different reasons. MoO1's relative simplicity and quick play are quite a stark contrast to the deeper micromanagement of planets and ship combat of MoO2. Kind of an Apples to Oranges thing, both are good in their own ways, and making a direct comparison is tough, with MoO1's much bigger focus on the overall strategy and big decisions based on what you can get, and MoO2's focus on the little details and optimal builds. At least that's how I feel about it, never was really good enough to comfortably play strategy games on something other than the "normal" difficulty, really. Even to the point of almost always playing MoO2 with creative custom races, due to having to pick techs. Strangely enough when it's enforced like in MoO1 or Sword of the Stars 1, I don't mind the missing techs that much, since it's due to external factors, rather than my own choices... although ending up missing a vital tech can suck real hard. But then you can usually steal or trade them, so that mitigates it a lot. As for the LP, it'll be interesting to see how brutal the highest difficulty is here. I had a few games of my own, where even on normal the Psilons sometimes just ran off with a massive lead and took over two thirds the galaxy. So far I have only had one such similar time on MoO2, when the Sakkra expanded explosively, having more than half the galaxy by the time I was done taking over my neighbouring Darloks. But then MoO2 games are much bigger time investments for me, so I probably ended up with far more MoO1 games total.
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May 7, 2017 17:04
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Episode I: 2380-2400 Last time we were nominated in the initial High Council, which ended inconclusively as most empires chose not to pick a side. We also discovered, unsurprisingly, that we are way behind the curve in fleet strength: the new Star Blazer was designed to try to keep us from getting overrun, packing a bigger punch with the Heavy Laser. Onwards now:  I've mentioned missile bases in passing; as our 'point planet', Tyr is going to build up just a few of them here(DEF category). Already we have 1 in position. They're quite a bit cheaper than ships for planetary defense, but of course cannot be moved. Each base comes with a supply of your best available missiles, have 50 HP to start(that's between destroyer and cruiser size on the ships) and uses your best available shielding. I hope we don't need to use them, but it's best to be prepared. This will be very short-term spending, as nobody can reach Tyr quite yet. Meanwhile Mentar is able to knock out nearly three Star Blazers a year, so in a few years a decent force to replace the Starfighters should be on it's way.  Definitely taking a risk here by pushing planetology at the expense of the other fields. I don't even know if we're going to have Radiated as an option, but from this vantage point it looks like our best chance at a decisive advantage. A couple of years later, the Silicoids take Selia, that distant Tundra planet. They now have five. It's even more vital now for us to match them ... I also notice that their on-again, off-again alliance with the Humans is over. Another option is to take Kronos while it is off and try to tip the scales that way. It's risky though: I don't think we have the fleet to do it without a bunch of Star Blazers. We'll push for this first. By 2385 we've got 14 of the new ships, and I call it good. All in on the research now.  Just two years later. Jackasses aren't screwing around, and they're really putting the Psilons to a tough decision here. Essentially this is a 'fight-or-flight' situation; we can try to fight them now, or we can turtle and try to fight them later, hopefully with friends.  Here's our latest empire comparison. Our fleet sucks; even the Alkaris are building up. Clearly we remain #3 overall, with the Silicoids taking the lead in almost everything. They're threatening to stampede the galaxy and basically daring us to do anything about it. Going for a Non-Aggression Pact at this point would just make things easier; they won't even have to fight us for control of Arietis, they'd just colonize it.  There's nowhere else really for them to go other than Arietis, so I'm expecting them to come and come hard, soon. The two planets in the upper left are Sakkras, and the only other options are all either taken/uninhabitable as well. So we can either try to fight them now, or turtle up and wait for them to send enough ships to take Arietis from us, hoping to strike back at them later, presumably with friends. I don't particularly like either option, but I don't see a door #3 here. Turtling can work, particularly as Psilons, but in this case they'd have at least 7 planets to our 4. That's too much of an edge to give up in my opinion, particularly to an Aggressive opponent who is likely to just decide to attack us once it has built up. Fighting them doesn't have to mean a hot war though, continuing our 'cold war' is an option. Either way we need to keep shipbuilding. Mentar goes back into Star Blazer production; research continues everywhere else. Hopefully we can knock out enough to keep them from taking Arietis ... but it will also slow down us getting there ourselves. We've got to get a competitive fleet though. 2390, and the Silicoids are back!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZy1F2Urw8A Well that was our first real fight. They went after our Starfighters which was fine by me. Took out the Colony Ship first because they tend to have weaker defenses(due to packing on the colony base). Wasn't doing much damage to the Whale compared to the number of weapons firing, probably due to shielding and I think it's got an Inertial Stabilizer which makes it harder to hit. On the other hand we've got numbers. Could be a battle of attrition if they send more of them next time. Even so, losing two cruiser-size ships is much worse for them compared to what we lost(eight strike craft). Definitely a victory. Meanwhile our trade balance is almost up to break-even, so I decide to re-up. It probably will seem weird to many that we are increasing trade even as we are blowing up each others' ships, and anticipate blowing up even more of them -- but it actually makes sense in game terms. Essentially it helps balance out things, we'll take a relations hit for the combat losses but the more trade we do, the more positivity we'll get. New amounts are 275 each for the Darloks and Silicoids(up from 225) and 125 for the Alkaris(up from 25).  Haven't showed the planets/ledger in a while. With the new deals we have a sizable trade deficit again(-11 or 12%), but it'll recover once more. Also, our ship maintenance is creeping up as you can see, and we are paying a small amount for the 3 missile bases on Tyr and our minimal spying efforts. Our fleet strength is growing compared to everyone except the Silicoids: they are building ships like it's going out of style, which forces us to keep going as well. I don't want or need a fleet as big as theirs; it just needs to be vaguely competitive, and we aren't there yet.  The new eco restoration tech is here ... but that's not the best news. Bio Toxin Antidote protects against biological attacks, essentially neutralizing Death Spores; terraforming is always good; but all that can wait until we snag Controlled Radiated Environment. We've got it!! It'll take a while to research ... I also start build a new ship, with identical specs to the Star Blazer, called the Star Wing. Another 'strange' decision but it has a purpose in the game mechanics. Individual ships can't be scrapped; only designs. If I only want to get rid of some of them, but not all of them, at a point in the future, having duplicates allows for that. With only six designs, sometimes you can't afford to do this though -- it's a situational thing.  Here they come again ... but just the lone Colony Ship this time. We'll handle it easily. Actually didn't even have to, since they retreated immediately. I keep a sharp eye on the Status screen, hoping to see our fleet strength get close enough to the Silicoids for us to stop building. The goal here is to have a fleet big enough to win the border disputes, but not an overall better or even that close to equal one to fight a war with. That'd be a waste of resources right now. But they keep on building, and so the arms race continues. The biggest beneficiary of it are the Darloks. The Silicoids return to Arietis in 2398 ... again with just a colony ship, and they retreat. We seem to be almost maintaining the status quo -- but not quite. Slowly, sometimes almost imperceptibly, slipping further behind in tech and production. That's not sustainable indefinitely of course, but we don't need it to be; it just needs to last until we can add a couple planets. 2399, and it looks like we're good to suspend shipbuilding at least for now. Even one year of Mentar researching could produce dividends.  This is a big one information-wise.  Definitely going to snag the Battle Computer Mk. V here. That's a big hole to be filled.  The 24th century is over, and the High Council meets a second time. The Silicoids have replaced the Darloks as our opposition. I messed up taking the shots of the voting here: the Darloks started things off by abstaining(3 votes), and the Sakkras did the same(2 votes).  Humanity does the same with it's single vote, failing to buck the trend. Once again we've locked in no Emperor being chosen. Note there are 16 votes here instead of 14; the number of votes isn't limited, but will grow with population. Huge galaxies can result in the total reaching around 100. Everybody's guaranteed at least 1 vote, but that's it.  Of course.  All hail Emperor Nobody, the clear choice of the High Council!!  We once again cast our four votes for the opponent. It's really looking like it's going to come down, assuming our current plans succeed, to a Psilons vs. Silicoids situation. The Darloks were off to the early lead, but relatively crappy planets(as can be seen by their stable and fairly low population) and limited range stunted their growth. They'll still be a factor, but it's the brainiacs against the rocks basically here. So far nobody else has chosen a side. If either we or the Silicoids can get the smaller races to come our way, it could be a decisive factor.
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May 7, 2017 20:25
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What are the odds of actually snagging an Alliance with someone in an Impossible game? Are the AI more likely to work together against you? Or are they just better at managing their empires and lead their diplomacy pretty much as usual?
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May 7, 2017 21:50
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Good questions. I don't think it's actually any more difficult to get alliances per se; it's harder to have an empire they would want to ally with due to the bonuses they get though, if that makes sense. Get yourself in the right position and they'll do it just as easily though. On all difficulty levels the AI allies with other empires much more quickly than it will with the player, for reasons unknown. That's one of the bigger flaws in the game in my opinion. They are mostly just better at managing their empires. There isn't a 'gang up on the player' approach: even on the harder difficulties you can get into situations where you are basically just sitting back and building up while a couple of them slug it out. They act in their own self-interest and you're just another opponent to them.
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May 8, 2017 18:42
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This was right on the borderline between one big or two small updates: I decided to just cram it into one, so it's pretty long. Episode I: 2400-2425  At the start of a new century, we appear to be holding in there ... mostly. Fleet is about what I want it to be or a bit high, definitely competitive. We're staying close in technology, but the Silicoids are starting to run away production-wise, mostly because they just have more territory. The Darloks have dipped recently and I'm not sure why. We've almost caught them for the #2 spot but there's an increasing threat that the rocks are just going to run away with this.  As can be seen we managed to get a small increase in trade to 300 BC with the Darloks and Silicoids; also a Non-Aggression pact with the former. Tried to get one of those with the Alkaris but they refused. Basically just doing everything I can to get them potentially on my side against the Silicoids. The Darlok relations are pretty stagnant, due to them naturally gravitating towards Unease and the fact that they are Xenophobic. Still a little above the middle, but boy is it a slow process. The latest reports we have are all within the last decade, most more recent. The Alkaris have developed the Fusion Bomb, which is a lot more powerful than the starting Nuclear variety. Other than that they don't have much. The Darloks and Silicoids both surprisingly have limited range still. The Darloks have added Class IV Deflector Shields and Robotic Controls IV. That last one could get them back in the game, at least for a while. They never got level III so they were behind in the production game but now they should see a major boost. The Silioids have notably gotten Automated Repair System, which could make it quite hard to take down their large ships. They also have acquired Sublight Drives, which we are currently almost to as well.  The Map shows a couple things here; the latest Silicoid planet is the red one on the far left. They are up to seven planets now. That's dangerous territory. Also, we can see fleets all over the place which is the main reason for showing this. That's courtesy of our new and improved scanners.  Here we can see the other new feature of these scanners; we know where they are headed, and how long they will take to get there. Also note that this Kraken is the first capital, or Huge-sized ship, that we have seen. If they've put automated repair on this thing that could be trouble, though it's pretty unlikely they've gotten a ship that big built since they picked up repair capability. Even with basic armor, that means we'd need to do 90 damage/turn just to equalize with the repair capability(15% per turn, times 600 HP). I have no idea what they have on the ship, but ... Kronos has a couple Colony Ships, 6 Whales, this is headed there, and there's another cruiser-size ship called the Polaris going there as well. They seem to be massing there, and it's either for defense or, more likely, to make a bigger push at Arietis.  We'll need some more bases soon but the cost there is minimal; the fleet is taking a bit of a bite now though. Much higher and I'd start getting a little more worried. The trade deficit's still there and healthy but it is trending upwards and we're maxed out on all the deals.  The Psilon Fleet, such as it is. I'd scrap the Starfighters but we're paying very little for them and they still make for good targets to soak up damage. One way or another though they are eventually going away.  We're closing in on a few more advances. Looks like Sublight Drives will be first, Weapons is the Mass Driver, and Force Fields the Class IV Deflectors. I definitely won't be building any more ships until those come in; they'll take our combat abilities considerably. Construction is another reduced-waste tech, and we've got a while to go on the vital Radiated Colonization but making progress there.  2404, and the new engines come in.  The last three here are new. Fusion drives would increase our speed from Warp 3 to Warp 4; range is always beneficial but I'm ok with where we are at range 6; and the Warp Dissipator is a special that decreases the speed of enemy ships, eventually rendering them immobile. Good, but generally not worth it in my opinion. Also worth considering is backpedaling for the Inertial Stabilizer at a fraction of the cost. Fusion Drives are good enough, and the cheapest option that pushes us up the ladder. We've also got the Mass Driver now, got lucky as we had a pretty low shot at it this early.  The bottom three are all new. The most interesting is the Graviton Beam, first we've seen of its type. This is a 'streaming' weapon, described as a tractor-repulsor beam that literally rips ships apart. The streaming part is what matters though; it carries 'extra' damage over from one ship to the next. Most weapons can only kill one target; no matter how powerful a weapon is, it can only take out one ship, no matter how small. Not so with streaming weapons, making them quite good against smaller ships. Since we're mostly going up against the Silicoids here and they are going big, that's not a real major concern. The Alkaris and Darloks have mostly small ships though, so it'd be more useful against them ... or us. If the Silicoids get a weapon like this? That'd be real bad for us. The others are pretty straightforward upgrades, the Stinger Missile and the Fusion Beam. I'm taking the missiles here: it's going to be important to have better missile bases soon. Also, we've now got a small chance(6% this year) of popping the Radiated tech ... and the Silicoids have moved most of their ships away from us. Looks like we are going to win this round of brinksmanship. The Darloks are building a lot of ships, and with good reason: a Human-Silicoid-Alkari alliance has formed. Sigh. We've got to get the Darloks on our side eventually or this could go bad for us anyway. Solve one problem, and another takes its place. But first things first.  What's all this? The Alkari have sortied basically their whole bloody fleet ... to Tyr. Guess they've improved their range. The red line is how the game indicates a rival fleet incoming. The function keys can cycle through planets and fleets, etc; F8 and F9 cycle forwards or backwards through planets that have incoming fleets, which can be quite useful. We're not at war with the Alkari, but a non-aggression pact wouldn't even help here(since it's one of our colonies). Pretty sure they haven't even scouted it yet. They're just getting desperate I think what with nowhere to expand and can finally reach other systems now ... but they are allied with the Silicoids still. Maybe I can get them to break that off. I ask the Silicoids first but they 'do not consider my offer a fair one'. The Alkaris say that they 'have considered our offer, and rejected it'. Super. They've got 125 strike craft, 3 large ships, and a colony ship. Moving the fleet there is a waste of time I think: we'll take heavy losses at best. I should be able to crank out another couple of missile bases before they get here. This looks like an invasion but they'll usually declare those beforehand. Here it seems to just be a desperate colonization effort ... and we're in the way. Superb.  Reduced Industrial Waste 60% has come in. Zortrium Armor boosts protection by 100%, another 50% on top of what we get from Duralloy. That'd be good ... but we're about to hopefully get a couple new planets before long and our factories are still very expensive. Reducing those costs will accelerate growth there tremendously. Improved Industrial Tech 6 is the choice here. It's now 2407. Two years after the Silicoids refused to abolish their alliance with the Alkaris, they did it of their own accord, grabbing one with the Sakkras. One thing that is not great about the Master of Orion diplomatic AI is the way they switch around alliances faster than most people change socks, esp. before things really heat up. In this case it's in our favor, but it still makes you scratch your head.  Sweet!! Although there are still things that could blow it up, as happened with the Kronos Plan, it's great to see a plan come to fruition.  Last three are all new. Cloning cuts the cost of growing extra population in half(10 BC from 20 BC per); Atmospheric Terraforming turns hostile planets into standard ones, increasing both size and population growth; and Advanced Eco Restoration slashes the waste cleanup to 10/BC, which is half what we are currently paying. The last two are both very good, but I elect to take a step back instead and get Terraforming +40M. Since our initial 10M we haven't grabbed any of these. The waste budget is pretty small right now so we can afford to wait on the Eco Restoration. Probably Atmospheric Terraforming comes next, but the flat-rate increase will boost all of our planets, not just the hostile ones we want to grab.  Now we've got a new ship for this last land grab, the Colonizer R. Notice it's got Warp 3 due to Sublight Drives. Warp Engines are pretty cheap to build, a strange design decision if you ask me. It would cost only 11 BC less, 674 BC, to build a slow Retro version. So why not get there faster? We'll build one of these each at Imra and Mentar. Also, our research spending will go back to being mostly equalized with a bit extra in computers, like it was before this push for radiated base. Meanwhile we've got the weakest fleet in the known galaxy as everyone seems to be on another shipbuilding kick, but we've taken the lead in technology. Lots going on, and the Alkari fleet is just two years away ... A year later, a second fleet is following it now. What the heck are birdbrains(literally) doing?!? The answer better not be 'kicking our arse' ... Here they come. It's 2410.  Planets come with their own Battle Scanners, so we can see what they have here. Nothing special except for those Wareagles. Given that we still have weak Hyper-V missiles, they are probably going to tear us a new one. Could have brought the fleet here to take them out ... but that would have meant leaving Arietis. Six missile bases isn't bad, but almost certainly not enough here. Let's see what transpires. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns5fTIgRdYU&feature=youtu.be That was ... shocking. I thought their bombs would do a lot more damage. The lasers couldn't do a darned thing, which is why the smaller ships retreated ... they were useless. Two cruisers for two missile bases. More ships incoming so we'll keep building them, but I'm quite pleasantly surprised at that outcome. In retrospect, one reason is probably the computer tech; they don't have any battle computers developed, so their aim sucks(even when bombing). That must have been what saved us, because those fusion bombs can cause ... problems. Still surprised they didn't do more damage than that however. Didn't stop me from giving the Alkari ambassador a piece of my mind though. In response to my threats, they deliver this message from Emperor Skylord:  That'll do. Let's just toss that right in our fund for building up the new planets we're about to acquire. Also, if they can hit Tyr they can hit Imra, so I get going on some bases there as well. The Silicoids are back at Arietis ... with another lone colony ship. Srsly? GTFO. Also, we pick up our latest shields.  Two new ones here. The Class V shields are self-evident, but I love me some Repulsor Beam and that's where we are going. Basically anything that only has a range of 1 is useless against a ship that has one; it'll just push them away before they can fire. That can make them incredibly annoying to go up against. The Alkari fleet that just showed up would have been nearly useless if we had these; their Gatling and standard Lasers would have been completely nullified, though the Heavy ones still can reach you. Of course if your enemy relies on missiles or something then it doesn't matter, so a lot depends on the enemy.  We made it!! First new planet in over half a century.  And then I discover that they've done it to us again. A Silicoid ship is headed to Willow, and they're going to get there before any of my ships can. It's far enough that they must have strapped reserve tanks on the thing. Damnit. It isn't a great planet ... but still. We transfer a few million from Tyr to Arietis to boost stuff there. The Alkari bribe will be used to accelerate development, and it's time for a new stage of things.  We've got a solid tech lead but nothing new coming soon. I like where we are sitting except for the Silicoids, but I still think we have a decent shot at taking them. Eventually. The main thing right now, aside from building up Arietis, is to balance research and a military buildup. It's time to get serious about adding missile bases. We also need a new general-purpose defensive ship with our new toys. Oh, and the Darloks have the freaking Graviton Beam. Jerks. Time for a new ship: the Star Streak. I stick with the Destroyer size because we don't really have a reason to go bigger from what I can see. No need for Anti-Missile Rockets unless we are attacking bases which this isn't for; nobody has advanced missile tech at all right now. Darloks and us are the best with the Hyper-Vs which we've had forever; it's really sad frankly. We could have a huge edge there once we get our Stingers. Compared to our last design, it's faster, has more armor, better at pretty much everything. The Mass Driver should do at least as much damage as a pair of Heavy Lasers, if not more. Only a Mk. I Battle Computer on there, since that's all we have right now. Also has our best duralloy armor and new sublight engines of course, with Class II shields. Which I forgot to screencap, but anyway this figures to be the workhorse for the next while. Time to get rid of the Starfighters finally. Also check out the trade agreements again but I can't increase those right now as they are still maxed. Believe it or not we have a surplus in trade! 37 BC and rising. They pay off ... it just takes a long time.  For the time being, Tyr is still cranking out the missile bases. Denubius is research-focused, and Mentar/Imra will split like this between the two. Once each has a few bases, they'll alternate with one building Star Streaks to get some out there and the other doing bases. There are lots of ways to deal with a situation like this; I'm just trying to find a balance. Need to make sure we aren't defenseless and that we start to gear up, but I'm not building an invasion fleet just yet. Gotta keep investing enough in research to at least maintain equality if not better at the same time. Roffle. The Silicoid colony ship shows up at Willow ... unarmed. They sacrificed the weapons for the tanks I guess ... so it turns around and runs away from our Recons. Hmm. I guess we get to go colonize it anyway. I just had myself in the mindset of assuming they are armed; I don't think I've seen this before where they had armed them, then went for the distance and took off the guns. Learning a lot of new things this game. In 2414 the second Alkari fleet reaches Tyr ... and turns around immediately without attacking. This is a function of our successful threat. They'll lay low for a while. Spies as well. That wasn't the goal really, but I'll take it. Tyr will hold where it is for the moment -- 8 bases -- and switch to research. Another year, and first-in colonists reach Willow.  We've got the foundation for success here. Gotta build up our defenses, continue working on the fleet which must constantly be modernized, along with pushing the progress of Willow & Arietis forward constantly. Every planet in the galaxy that can be colonized has been, and war of the hot variety is coming before long whether we would choose it or not. Tyr and Mentar combine to send a starter-pack of 8M colonists to Willow. The lion's share of the fleet will remain at Arietis, but 8 destroyers make their way there as well. Neither colony will be able to produce bases anytime soon, so the fleet must protect them. ProTip: The AI tends to ignore planets it can't land on though -- if you can't colonize a planet type, neither can you send troops there. They could destroy them from orbit, but usually they won't. That makes Willow a lot safer than Arietis which could be under threat if the Silicoids get frisky. A couple years later GNN updates empire production, but I didn't show that since it doesn't tell us anything we don't already know.  Here come the Alkaris again, this time to Imra. They'll find it better-defended than Tyr was when they show up in four years.  In 2420, exactly a decade after it was founded, the Arietis colony is set to terraform! That's a perfect storm of it being a Rich planet, small, trade income boosting it, and of course regular transfer payments from the Planetary Reserve. Willow on the other hand has just three factories; things will take a lot longer there. Trade deals are upped to 325 BC with both of the other major powers. That almost knocks us down to even, but not quite; still a small surplus. In recent tech news, the Darloks have added Automated Repair, while the Silicoids are the first to get Class V Shielding. We're not to the halfway point on anything new yet. 2422; the Alkaris arrive at Imra, then turn around and go back. Apparently our boisterous rhetoric still carries weight with them.  High Council III convenes to end the next quarter-century, and once again it's us and the Silicoids. Could well stay that way to the end here. Once again the Darloks don't register an opinion. With 18 total votes the veto threshold is up to 7.  Lizards either. We've seen this movie before; I figured some of these might break one way or the other by now, but that could well wait until open war breaks out.  The Silicoids get the support of the Humans, which is enough for a veto block even if everyone else had sided with us.  Birds as well. This could be a result of threatening them having tipped the balance over to the other side. Regardless, the politics of this are not favorable. They have half the galaxy on their side.  We have four votes again, and abstain; if we voted for the Silicoids they would have won. It also would only have taken the Darloks' support to give them the crown, and there would have been nothing we could have done about it. This is a dangerous time. Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 22:20 on May 8, 2017 |
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May 8, 2017 22:18
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Can you break down the trade again? I had always thought that if you upped a 300 BC deal to a 325 BC deal that you started over in terms of making a profit, so that you should never increase a deal unless you could basically double the amount of trade.
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May 8, 2017 22:49
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I think you should be considering an offensive against the rocks soon.
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May 8, 2017 23:14
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Do Missile Bases require a sizeable amount of credits to maintain? Or are they free once built? And is there a max # of bases per planet?
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May 8, 2017 23:32
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PurpleXVI posted:Do Missile Bases require a sizeable amount of credits to maintain? Or are they free once built? And is there a max # of bases per planet? Bases require upkeep like fleets, but it basically just eats a portion of your production ability. So it's all but impossible to build too many bases and go negative--your ability to build more drops to zero once you have too many ships/bases/etc. That said, if you had a ton on a poor planet and you lose a bunch of other systems I guess you'd be left with a net negative situation. I suspect the max number might be 255 bases, but tbh I've never tried building that many.
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May 8, 2017 23:47
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OAquinas is correct once again. Only thing I'd add in terms of the bases(I don't know what the max is either), is that it's sort of a moot point since they become gradually less effective over time. As a whole, largely due to speed, defense rules in the early game and slowly gives way to offense. At first when you can only move one parsec/space per turn, you have to deal with several missile salvos to just get to the planet to attack it. Well before reaching the top tech levels that will become only two turns required to get there, so there just isn't as much time, your weapons other than bombs have longer range, etc. ulmont posted:Can you break down the trade again? I had always thought that if you upped a 300 BC deal to a 325 BC deal that you started over in terms of making a profit, so that you should never increase a deal unless you could basically double the amount of trade. Sure. Trade starts at -30% of the deal amount and increases by 0-5% per year. That means on average it will take about 50 years or a little more to max out with no changes being made. When you re-up a deal though, you do not start over. The % return is the average of -30% and what your current return is. So for a specific example; say there's 100 BC on the deal and you are at 50% return(50 BC per year). If you add 25BC to it, the new deal with 125BC at a 10% return(50% + -30% divided by 2). So you're down to 13BC but still maintaining a profit -- you don't go back down to -30% on the full amount. . Of course in this case my primary goal wasn't profit anyway, though it certainly helps; the bigger a deal is, the more positive effect it has on relations, and that was more important to me. It still might have been better to wait until I could increase it a little more once our relations were reasonably positive though.
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May 9, 2017 14:38
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Thotimx posted:Sure. Trade starts at -30% of the deal amount and increases by 0-5% per year. That means on average it will take about 50 years or a little more to max out with no changes being made. When you re-up a deal though, you do not start over. The % return is the average of -30% and what your current return is. So for a specific example; say there's 100 BC on the deal and you are at 50% return(50 BC per year). If you add 25BC to it, the new deal with 125BC at a 10% return(50% + -30% divided by 2). So you're down to 13BC but still maintaining a profit -- you don't go back down to -30% on the full amount. . That would explain the advice I had seen to never increase unless you can double. Taking your 100 BC and 50% return - since you're always going to be averaging -30% and 50%, you'd take an extra hit over the real weighted average unless you double the trade amount (you of course take less than an extra hit if you increase more than double, but at double is when you get the real average). I take your point about the relations effect though. ulmont fucked around with this message at 21:32 on May 9, 2017 |
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May 9, 2017 16:16
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Makes sense ulmont: that's something else to add in to my thought process, though mostly for future games as I don't see trade increasing much more in this one. Kanthulu posted:I think you should be considering an offensive against the rocks soon. This was the point where I started first seriously considering it, but we didn't really have any ships that could do anything against missile bases, so it wasn't an option quite yet. It was also complicated by them constantly having allies.
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May 9, 2017 21:30
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Episode I: 2425-2450 Still definitely trailing in fleet and production, but population is the biggest concern at the moment. There's way too many rocks out there, they clearly have some good planets.  Even the Darloks are in a more friendly mood. They're not quite ready for an alliance yet, but I'm still hoping to get there eventually.  Slowly but surely getting our latest Star Streaks built up. Once we have defenses built up on all the planets, we'll get rid of the obsolete Recons. They've seen a full century of service at this point.  Generally speaking the military maintenance(ships + bases) I like to keep at about a third in wartime and as low as I can manage in peacetime. 20+% ships, 10% bases. Just a general rule, but definitely want to keep gradually improving and modernizing the fleet from here on out. Can't afford not to. And Arietis/Willow will be adding bases before we put any more on the established worlds.  Roughly midway through the latest round of research, with new battle computers a little closer than the others to finishing. Two years later, we got the 'industrial accident' event. On Arietis. That's hilariously good bad news. It irradiates the entire planet ... but Arietis is already radiated. Anywhere else the max. population would have been permanently reduced. As it was, a minimal amount of cleanup(2 waste was generated and that's it, I think a random factor plus planet size is used). This might be the best negative event I've ever endured. The rival fleets are blowing up. We're at about half of the Darloks now with the Silicoids close behind. I've got little choice but to accelerate shipbuilding on Mentar and Imra. It'll slow down our research, but we're going to get overrun here otherwhise. I decide to risk holding off until we get our next round of research finished ... then we can catch up with more modern toys.  2 million were still killed, and the max. population cut in half. Basically we have to re-terraform the thing now. Willow's ready to terraform also.  2430, and here's Arietis fully terraformed. Previously the max. was 25M, so it did still take a hit. I guess it went from Radiated to "Even More Radiated"? That kind of sucks but doesn't matter much in the grand scheme.  We got quite lucky and finished Battle Computer V very early, in 2432. A few more choices; more computers and jammers and another scanner. I think we need the jammer more(Mk. V), having just learned that the Silicoids have discovered Merculite missiles. We'll definitely want the scanner eventually, but don't need it quite yet.  This is the big one I've been waiting for. I don't think anyone else has it yet, and it will give us a big edge against anyone without heavy weapons or missiles.  New options here, but the Planetary Shield is the only choice. We were missing the first one, Class V, which is one of the most important early options. They are pricey, but well worth it, absorbing a lot of damage from all attacks. They also combine with the regular shields on missile bases. Once we get this, we'll absorb 14 from all attacks, which at this point of the game means only bombs are going to get through. Everything else just bounces off. It's been an even playing field so far with nobody else having planetary shields either ... so this could be a real game-changer. Improved Industrial Tech 6 was next; we take Armored Exoskeleton, another toy for our ground troops who haven't gotten all that much yet. Darlok and Silicoid trade deals are bumped up to 350 each as well.  Another year, and we snag both Fusion Drives and Stinger Missiles. Had an 8% shot at each, so a very small chance of getting both. But I'm not arguing. Our high-level options are things we don't really need; range and the Warp Dissipator. The Reajax II Fuel Cells would move us to the next level, but I think it's time to go backwards and grab that Inertial Stabilizer. Past time, perhaps.  This right here is a wealth of riches. The Ion Stream Projector is great at damaging enemy ships ... but can't kill them outright. It's really good for wearing down large enemies. The Omega-V will decimate any bases at this tech level, and torpedoes do a lot of damage(30 each in this case) but can only be fired every other turn. Unlike missiles, they don't have limited ammunition. I go with the torpedoes; once we get them, they should be a versatile solution to a variety of combat problems for a while. I was planning on a ship redesign here, but I'm going to wait a bit longer. Shipbuilding will go on pause while we arrange a crash-course for the stabilizer. That'll make our efforts a lot more effective, and remove one of our weaknesses.  This should do the job; raided most of the other fields by half, and we ought to be able to get this done within a decade or less. I left Planetology alone because that terraforming will be huge as well. Took four years -- even less than I hoped. We hop on the fuel cells to move things forward after that, and restore the usual ratios. Ahead of the ship design, I did a quick comparison of the best combat tech the three powers have: ** Battle Computers: Mk V. Darloks are at III, the Silicoids, astonishingly, have none. Sucks to be them. Advantage Psilons. ** Shields: Mk. IV. Darloks have the same, Silicoids have V so they get a slight edge here. Nobody has planetarys yet as mentioned. ** ECM: Mk. I. Same all the way around. Missiles figure to be an effective tool right now. ** Armor: Duralloy. Darloks are still stuck with Titanium, but the Silicoids recently acquired Zortrium, the next step up. Advantage Rocks. ** Engines: Sublight(Warp 3). Darloks are STILL stuck on warp 1 retros, while the Silicoids have sublight as well. ** Beams: Mass Driver. Darloks have the Graviton Beam and Neutron Blaster; Silicoids hilariously have nothing better than the Gatling Laser. Big edge to the shapeshifters here. ** Missiles: Stingers. Darloks are in the stone age with the Hyper-V, Silicoids have Merculite. We're top dogs in this. ** Bombs: Nuclear. Darloks are still there as well. Silicoids have the Fusion Bomb. The absence of planetary shields makes this less of an issue, but it's still a definite plus for the Silicoids. ** Specials: Everyone has stabilizers now. Darloks got the Repulsor Beam at the same time we did(probably stole it), both of them have Automated Repair. Edge to the Darloks but it's not a big one. On the attack I think we'll do best with hit-and-run missile ships; the lack of ECM and our Stingers should be a strong combo. Those don't do well for system defense. Will have to rely on missile bases there. Any darlok ship will probably crush our mass drivers, and we don't have any weapon worth having with the range to use with a repulsor beam. We'll probably want some bombers also. I've already sent a single mass driver destroyer, the Star Streaks, to any planets that need a picket. It's time to say goodbye to the Recons. And hello to this:  The Sting Raid will be built in relatively obscene quantities, the better to be effective. I don't normally do missile boats, but making it a Destroyer was really the only option. Cruiser-size was just less efficient no matter the design. The idea is to get as 2-pack shots off(they also come in 5-pack launchers) as possible, then get out. Reload the missiles, lather-rinse-repeat. One hit from a Stinger will do 10 damage against the best shields anyone has. No shields, ECM, or armor because we aren't planning on hanging around long enough to get hit. The six worlds of the Psilon Empire are now divided into three categories. Imra/Mentar are on Sting Raid construction, Denubius/Tyr will ensure that we continue doing some research, though at less than half our previous investment, and Arietis/Willow are working towards having a decent level of missile-base protection. The Silicoid and Darlok worlds I can see have about 20-25 bases each, so they are well ahead of us when it comes to that. Ours are better with the Stingers but we'll also have to rely on them more; I'm thinking at least 12-15 on the border planets is where I'd like to be(each has three missile launchers so that's a lot of Stingers). With this approach we can build about 6 ships a year. As the numbers increase, I'll eventually want to scrap our Heavy Laser Destroyers, which are quite obsolete now.  This is another positive event; the Humans will receive multiple tech advances from this. If they weren't stuck on Sol that'd be a real problem for us. After a few years of building, I try some more diplomacy. A Non-Aggression Pact is signed with the Alkari, but my attempt at getting an Alliance with the Darloks is met with a blank stare. They 'do not consider your offer a fair one.' I haven't seen them at war or in an alliance yet. Still, if I can get the birds back on the fence potentially with the new agreement there, I'll take it. Tension is definitely rising; even the maxed-out agreements with the Silicoids and Darloks are only able to keep things where they are. Pleasant, but not enough to forge stronger ties. The next yeaer, 2444, GNN informs us our fleet is dead last. Thanks for the reminder, although we are closing the gap; about 80% of the three races we know. We're in an arms race.  I happened to notice the Alkari had a big fleet headed for Kronos. They lost ... badly, though I think they took out some Silicoid ships at the same time. Fine by me. Their fleet is almost down to nothing though. Not sure what prompted this, and they aren't officially at war, but it could well tilt them away from the rocks with a vote coming up soon.  Well, this is something -- they are off the fence, at least for now.  The Silicoids maintain allies, the lizards stay with them.  Same thing with these dorks.  After the Silicoids predictably choose themselves, the Alkaris at least were neutral this time around.  We abstain and are safe again. Granid was two votes away from winning, but if we keep the Darlok on our side we've got a veto bloc.
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May 11, 2017 04:05
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Isn't it dangerous to have the Alkari fleet knocked down that hard? Doesn't that make them ripe for conquest by someone else, since you've got a NAP with them?
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May 11, 2017 10:07
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At this stage missile bases are very good deterrents. Plus the computer opponents build back up quickly. The silicoids having fusion bombs could be a problem, but unless they strike immediately the Alkari will probably bounce back--possibly with a more modern fleet (since the old ones got cleared out).
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May 11, 2017 18:27
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Yep. Plus if the Silicoids take them out everyone will be pissed at them: Altair is basically a 'poisoned pawn' because of the diplomatic penalty for genocide if somebody wipes them out.
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May 11, 2017 21:25
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Thotimx posted:Yep. Plus if the Silicoids take them out everyone will be pissed at them: Altair is basically a 'poisoned pawn' because of the diplomatic penalty for genocide if somebody wipes them out. Wait, so there's a diplomatic penalty for completely defeating another species?
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May 11, 2017 22:38
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PurpleXVI posted:Wait, so there's a diplomatic penalty for completely defeating another species? The only kind of war in this game is war of extermination. You don't conquer other populations, you kill their every single last man, woman, and child equivalent and replace them with your own. So yeah.
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May 11, 2017 22:45
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Yup. You invade planets by shipping an equal population of your own people over, and *everybody* fights. That's how you can tell this game was made by Klingons.
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May 11, 2017 23:09
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Genociding one race gives you a diplomacy penalty, but if you genocide every other race, it fixes all your diplomacy penalties. Also, I had two really strange runs on simple and normal. The planets had a large number of inhospitable worlds, and distances that made it hard for everybody to make it beyond their homeworld. On the simple run, the humans managed to get four planets, everyone else was stuck at 1 or 2. On the normal run, I managed to block every other race from even getting a third planet.
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May 12, 2017 09:15
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I like your approach to diplomacy
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May 12, 2017 15:12
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The weekend was a bit crazy, but I should have the next update up later today. GeneralRevil posted:Genociding one race gives you a diplomacy penalty, but if you genocide every other race, it fixes all your diplomacy penalties. Heh ... I guess that's one way to look at it  . Races getting stuck can happen -- last time I played on Average I ended up with 25 planets at one point, nobody else had more than three. But those kinds of things do tend to be the exception.
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May 17, 2017 12:48
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