Search the Community

We start as Hivers, a bug-like race that is better at building stuff than research. But that statistical difference is by far the only thing that differentiates us from others. Those soft skinned, scaled, furry or even feathery creatures may hold the key to faster than light travel and we may crawl among the stars. But once we get there, we are the only ones to hold the knowledge of instantaneous travel among our gates! Those are our true treasure and will never be known to others. https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0010-1.jpg This is our known part of a galaxy: It is a 100 star map and we are in a corner. One could be thinking; cool, we have our back covered! But there isn't a real "backyard" in SotS. At least not for long. When speeds and power sources pick up everything is within reach. What this starting position brings to our empire is VERY limited expansion. Moving STL only before setting up the gate means that the galaxy will be explored before our second exploration wave is finished. From there on it is a slow and painful expansion and if you are unable to make a large gate network, you're finished. Being able to move in a turn is a blessing, but if three cruisers are all you can move that isn't much of a help. Expanding in all directions would be a great bonus for us because it would mean a lot of gates and that would help in defence even if we would have to fight on multiple fronts. The game was started with 6 players on normal difficulty and AIs have one colony extra. Because of this they start with everything half better than me. Production, research... So I need to catch up. Lets explore our neighbourhood first. https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0001-1.jpg Our slow interstellar speed makes long-range scouts useless in the beginning. We need gates and fast. Also when we find a good planet we can't wait another 10 or more turns before our gate would get there. So our exploration fleets are made of a tanker and a gate. Very expensive exploration but time is of the essence. Soon we meet Human colonizers. https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0003.jpg But their escorts don't show any respect. https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0006-1.jpg Soon our two empires fight mercilessly. https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0008-1.jpg Humans aren't our only neighbours. There is also a Morrigi empire. When we visit one of their worlds we trigger a menace; the swarm. Their planet was infested and after we retreat in a hurry, the planet is their only target... https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0016-1.jpg https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0019-1.jpg I hope Morrigi won't blame us, they should have cleansed the system sooner.

As I'm sure all members of our forums keep a keen eye on this part of the forums, finally we have something new to post. On the space strategy that, IMO, has yet been surpassed to date. Not much but better than nothing. It has been known for quite a long time that Kerberos is thinking about a SotS HD remake. They are having a hard time gathering the funds and have been creating several smaller projects, hoping to get to the point of tackling the remake. You can contribute in this regard by, say, buying The Pit: Infinity, which is a nice dungeon crawling FPS, set in the SotS universe. Anyway, as Martin Cirulis, Kerberos CEO, stated, they'd be ready to start a campaign if fans gathered 30k people, interested in the game. A fan took him seriously and started a petition we can sign. Even if we don't gather 30k, perhaps we get enough to show an interest in the game, large enough to persuade Kerberos to go ahead with the project. Tell your brother, mother, sister, father and grandparents. Oh, and your children, to spread the word in kindergartens and schools.

Kerberos is thinking about releasing an HD version of SotS Prime. They are also asking us fans what would such a hypothetical release mean to us, what would our expectations be and so forth.

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/Liir.jpg The shame. Shame and disgust. My own and that of others, blinding emotions running through my sanity. Whether I would endure or break was uncertain. But the pain was even worse. I felt every wound and heard every scream of my kind, battling across the expanses of the galaxy, leaving frozen water of Muur scattered among the debris of machines of war. War. My mind was filled with shame of my brothers, sowing death upon living creatures, risking their own reason in the cries. But finally I had to admit their actions are patches sewn over the Song, preventing it from falling silent. Still I kept my ears shut to the growing disharmony for as long as I could. Then the murmur of life upset started to invade my song, too. I couldn't bear it any more, listening and doing nothing to heal the chords. Elder at my age, others expected me to teach the young, sing and await my own end in meditation. Disharmony and silence take my age! So I cloaked myself in shame of my people and took the exile. Swimming in the black sea, the machines I once loathed carry me around. I give the orders to take lives and bear the weight of consequences. I take as much responsibility for pain we cause as I can to make life of my fellow Black Swimmers a fraction easier. They care for me, too. Our song takes us through murky waters, each battle won adds to the harmony of life. We will win and be reborn or die trying.

Why not make it 3 AAR at the same time? I finally decided to give this AAR thing a try as I've never done it before. Welcome to my Hiver AAR! I'll try to play the same game setup as SV and Silencer. http://i.imgur.com/IeZRel.png One opponent of each race and 2 random to make things interesting. http://i.imgur.com/Ah3NAl.png This is our starting location. We are at the edge of the map. http://i.imgur.com/ZULszl.png I don't have some grand research plan so I pick tech that I think I'll need most at the moment. http://i.imgur.com/WKHQFl.png As you can see, we are exploring our cluster + 1 gate is going to cluster right of us. We have discoverend 2 nice planets (they were colonized immediately). http://i.imgur.com/8Rq4el.png Next tech to research is Cruiser construction. You can see all tech we have researched until now as well (Of course in 3 cases we went overbudget). http://i.imgur.com/7ZI4ml.png And our first random encounter! What did we encounter? Dreaded swarm or maybe formidable Asteroid monitor? http://i.imgur.com/e3bJ7l.png Neither! It's Alien derelict. http://i.imgur.com/QGlfQl.png As you can see, we have a new colony and we have scouted a nice planet. Planet with Alien derelict is not so nice. http://i.imgur.com/m1PUbl.png We have a new colony. 3 more planets are scouted. Only 1 is good and 1 has Alien derelict. http://i.imgur.com/Li5Ryl.png We have a new colony and Alien derelict is dealt with. http://i.imgur.com/zFVL1l.png We have cruisers now! Now lets make them easier to build. http://i.imgur.com/QpcLJl.png We have scouted 2 nice planets which are immediately colonized. And our gate is halfway to the other cluster. http://i.imgur.com/trnDll.png Some more research completed (and on time for a change!) http://i.imgur.com/ffnAal.png We have scouted a nice planet. But of course, this had to happen. Frankly I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner. http://i.imgur.com/JsKqFl.png And we start to research fusion. http://i.imgur.com/A4HsQl.png

I should start with some poetry introduction. Well I ain't poetry guy so you will not get it. If you want poetry you can ask him. This here gents AAR is inspired by latest master piece (still in creation) made by great chief himself SV. I will be playing as Humans in contrary to his Liir swimmers. Why Humans? Because I like them a lot. During recent games and AARs my hatred for Tarka and Liir grew very large. The map will be the same, the general setting also will be the same I will only adjust battle timer to my preferences. This ain't any competition to prove who is better but a mere test of skills (my skills). So without any further blabbering.... This is the setup screen. And that is how the map presents for us. Our initial start isn't that great. Other colonies are very small size 2 and 4. Because we will be fighting loosing battle we will need to breed faster. Humans aren't masters at anything but their more of jack of all trades meaning I have equal chance to get every tech (except race specific). Our scientific branch isn't that great as Liir but they manage to surprise us on occasions. Our initial starting research will be Waldo Units. We need that cheaper ships to begin with, then we focus on our biological weakness. If you compare my result with SV's I could never achieve Waldo Units in 1 turn. Maybe if I had size 10 other colonies ? But we are fortunate to be on time with it. Having gotten that Waldo Units we design our first exploration units. Szpieg (Spy) is based on Extended Range mission with Hammerhead mission. It's armament are red lasers and we build just enough to cover every possible path we can take. While our scouts take time our research team goes crazy. Our initial scouting's aren't very optimistic for us. Both planet sizes and their environments are over our current limits. For now we aren't touching this Monitor because the planet he is guarding is rubbish. One of our exploration units went into contact with some kind of derelict. Cleverly navigating he stripped the carcass with it's guns. And I don't know how to distinguish this derelict with AM torpedo tube and this without one but clearly I was lucky as it had plenty of guns. Unfortunately the planet he was at was barren rock not very suitable for us. I am afraid that now our scientists will drink harder and work less. Enough with the biology next tech is too much for our eggheads. We need that manufacturing power pronto.

Some of you waiting for this with great anticipation. Now this wait is over. It took me many hours to bring you this third attempt of Morrigi battle in SotS. In the meantime I was forcing myself to play SotS2 but failed to have fun at all. So without any further delays. Let's get started. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYgti3MKCDg&fmt=18[/media] This is our galaxy. As you can see I've up'ed the planets to 300 and raised encounters to 200%. So will the challenge increase? We will find out. I didn't disable to possibility to encounter those damned fish so everything is up to random generator. In the initial stage I've created 15 or 20 scout's to check the surroundings. My of course never ending luck brought me planets either inhabitable or with CH above 400 and planet size ranging from 1 to 4. Our first encounter with unknown force This first derelict had Anti-matter torpedo luncher so my scout had never chance of disabling it. But that is just the beginning. Next we find swarm And another derelict. This time he wasn't so dangerous so I proceed with disarming procedure. Another swarm. Our research was initially dedicated in improvement of our infrastructure with waldo units, orbital foundries, expert systems. Then I went through green and uv lasers. After a while derelict is ours and the boost is highly welcome One of our few early colonies that I could inhabit without any investiture in bio-tech was attacked by this annoyance. Our scouts again discover unusual things Our first uv laser destroyers engage one of the swarm locations. After that UV lasers I put my efforts entirely to bio-tech including bio-domes, so that means I even go for cruiser construction. That asteroid monitor was captured just in time And we welcome our first opponent. Though this is Tarka - he strangely resembles as human.

"Did it crash?" "Nope. You saw it decelerate, didn't you? But it must have been quite a rough landing." He thought about what they have seen for a moment. "That was a rocket engine as far as I can tell, this thing must be from space." "What is it?" she asked. Marwen asked this question even though she was well aware that Ted wouldn't be able to answer it. Being farmers on Tau Ceti's most agricultural world for all of their lives hasn't given them much insight into space-faring technology. Marwen took a step closer to the half-buried object. "Are you sure it didn't crash? It looks so beaten!" "Yeah, looks like something I'd weld together. But I see no holes in it. At least not from here." "When did you learn to weld?" "I didn't." Ted unholstered his gun and moved toward the smouldering heap of metal. "Wait, do you think it might be dangerous?!", Marwen interfered. Ted scowled, somewhat annoyed: "How should I know? That's why I want my gun in my hands!". The couple got a bit closer to what seemed to be some sort of makeshift pod. They circled the pod at a distance. "Look, the top is open!", Marwen whispered. An animal, looking like what Marwen thought a rat should look like, crawled out of the pod and looked at them, showing its teeth and squealing. "Ted, we need to call the authorities. If this is not the only rat the whole planet's income might be endangered, especially if a quarantine is enacted! Kill it, than call officer Darless and report the incident. How did these creatures get onto a space ship?!" "Just a sec, honey, just a sec…" Ted brought out his communicator and searched the database for a rat. "That is no rat, Darwen. Look. This creature's head is way too big and teeth are not those of rodents." "Than what is it?" Ted raised his gun; "I have no bloody idea but I as sure as hell am not going to wait to fin…" "You will not touch my spawn, food", a voice in Ted's head echoed, unbearably loud. "Why don't you shoot it, Ted? It's gonna flee!" Ted realized Marwen did not hear the voice. And he could not move his arm. Two more creatures crawled out of the pod and all three started to descend. "Shoot, Ted, shoot!" Marwen looked at Ted and saw him turning towards her, bringing the gun to bear. She could see the horror in his eyes. "Ted…" A bullet through her eye stopped the words. Ted was screaming, but on the outside nobody would have known. His face was motionless and as blank as a rock. Only his unseeing eyes might hint of the anguish inside him. His body turned back to the pod for him to see creatures approach. First one jumped, biting into the thigh. With a jerk it tore a piece of meat off. Ted was still standing, despite the incredible pain in his leg. He wanted to fall but couldn't. Then something else climbed out of the pod. It was unlike the three around him but relation was clear. Fairytales his grandmother told him when he was young rushed through his mind. Myths from Earth itself she said. This is what a werewolf should look like. It was not supposed to be real. Its eyes seemed to be glowing. Ted knew this stuff of nightmares was controlling his body, ravaging through his mind. Two other two younglings tore more flesh from him. Legs gave way and he fell into the dirt. "Why…" he thought. "Don't ask questions you can't understand an answer to, food. We are the Zuul, the Chosen Ones. Our arrival marks your departure."

Ok, it is no secret that AARs are the hot thing here at StrategyCore. In an attempt to lure people to this godforsaken part of the forum I'll start one as well! This time there is no voting, we owe Human race enough as it is. Also this is how the Antiquarians scenario is meant to be played. Why this scenario? It came in the latest 1.8.0 ANY update and it shows a piece of SotS][ in several ways. I want to show you all that there is to see I'm going to play a normal difficulty game, I don't have the nerves for a hard game and loosing several times after all this time of gaming inactivity. Let's set the game up. Mind you, you can shift to HD if you want to read the scenario description easier. And see better in every way, naturally.

Ok, so the update 1.7.2 is out and installed. I have finished Stalker and feel the strategy deprivation. I will start a new AAR in the near future and have no bloody idea on which race to pick (again). We've seen Morrigi and Hivers so far. There are Humans, Liir, Zuul and Tarka left. I am not at home so I can't really tell what ANY brought to them, so only what I can think of the top of my head for now; Humans... I have no idea. Zuul... Devourer - a DN ship that chews on leftovers and is capable of DE production IIRC. Liir... Protectorate ship - a DN fleet-wide shield projector or something Tarka... Hunter carrier - a DN carrier that carries three hunters; non-FTL manned (lizarded), heavy armed and armoured cruisers. Any wishes?

I was thinking about starting a game that I'd give you reports about. Story+pics, naturally. So if there are any special wishes based on reviews, do tell. My idea was to start with a Morrigi empire on normal AI and some role-playing (concentrating on drones and other long-range weaponry). Like... 50 star galaxy.