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the A.I is weird in this game, they start hating you if you have ships in their territory, but they seemingly don't mind spamming your territory with everything.

 

Also refusing to make a ceasefire or peace treaty even if they are on the god damn edge of total extincion without no hope of salvation

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the A.I is weird in this game, they start hating you if you have ships in their territory, but they seemingly don't mind spamming your territory with everything.

 

Also refusing to make a ceasefire or peace treaty even if they are on the god damn edge of total extincion without no hope of salvation

I'm not sure I can competently respond to this as it does seem this way from time to time. Especially the first part. You do have a chance to tell them to bugger off from a colony but they may not see the point in that...

 

The second part could be more complicated... Perhaps a comparison could help here. For the sake of the argument let's say US and Russia get into a war. No nukes used or there is little to talk about. :laugh: And - loving your AAR - let's say Russia beats the hell out of US.

 

After destroying everything except... Texas?... the Russians decide to offer US a ceasefire. What exactly is the point of agreeing to it? Will that make you any less defeated and let you walk with your head up high? How to trust this "pact"? What to expect from it? Not to say that nobody would see the point of offering. With interspecies relations that could make it even weirder. If they surrendered they would be extinct soon.

 

IMO that is the point of Xeno research in this game - it lets other races coexist on your colonies. Not exactly something to be proud of but surrendering after knowing the survival of your species is assured is far more likely to happen...

 

I'm not saying this is necessarily the only way to look at it, I'm just trying to find a rational explanation to what you are seeing. Because it does happen in game.

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Some pretty impactor flowers.

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0001-47.jpg

 

This pic was taken at the defence of Morrigi HW:

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0002-41.jpg

 

Basically we lined our cruisers far from action and let them pound the Hiver dreads from safe distance. After helping for two turns we move our fleets from Morrigi worlds. You can also see the weapon damage info from Morrigi HW defence.

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0005-35.jpg

 

Impactor stats are really big but I didn't expect beams to come this close to it! Our biggest problem is survivability of our ships as all enemies have AM era weapons of all sorts, cannons, heavy cannons, beams... You name it. Our only AM era weapon are impactors. I haven't explored beams as they are very expensive but if nothing else comes along...

 

And our ships are shielded by polysilicates only! Especially fusion era ships have become completely obsolete against all but Liir that still don't have DNs (BTW, Morrigi don't have them either). With magnoceramics we will try to go for impactor DNs with heavy combat lasers and whatnot and face the enemy, right now we are mounting them on CRs to keep them mobile enough to get out of the way. When Hiver AM torpedoes reach them though... They go like popcorn.

 

That too is the reason for Bessieres tragedy.

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0004-40.jpg

 

As said, we need to research magnoceramics fast! Our scientists disagree.

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0006-27.jpg

 

This research is not only crucial for the extra defence it gives but also it could let us salvage further armour that others might have. Salvaging it now is impossible as we don't have the prerequisites researched.

 

Liir provide some extra cash.

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0009-21.jpg

 

One of our biggest gripes in the war against Hivers is the distribution of nodelines.

 

This is "top-down" view of the map. In red you see "node highways", a generalized view of node network on a 2D projection.

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0012_2.jpg

 

It can't present the third dimension and actual distances through nodelines (and they go "up and down" a lot) but it shows how divided into halves the map is. And while Hiver worlds are very close to us the trip to them takes time. We will have to create a base of operations (read: a world with good production) closer to their worlds. Right now it takes less time for our fleets to travel from former Tarka HW than our own. Even though our HW is in farcaster reach (10 ly) and former Tarka HW is on the south pole of the map!

 

BTW, don't let the projection fool you, as video updates show Morrigi HW is far on the north and not close to our HW at all. That reminds me, I should do another video update.

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TRUE, TRUE... Definitely ten. :laugh:

 

This is why Thorondor class Armada CnC gets a facelift.

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0006-28.jpg

 

And we start production on a completely new class of dreadnoughts.

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0007-32.jpg

 

Both use magnoceramic armour plating, naturally.

 

If we are to use impactors, we might as well project all we can into the front as this is not a dread you would want to retreat from battle - it won't have the time. So it will stay in place and pound the enemy until the end. Whatever end that is.

So Thorondor also got an assault command section, increasing its firepower, armour and cost considerably.

 

A new fleet is put into production at Sol.

 

Research update:

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0001-48.jpg

 

First we finished the Morrigi Xenotech. Than we continued with techs that will increase our CnC capacity - allow us to field more ships in combat. You can also see that special projects multiply. They are demanding a considerable portion of our income. We have to see then through though, there must be a lot of useful techs we see fielded by others.

 

Morrigi are now welcome at our worlds. Also we are allied with them. AND our climate hazard is VERY similar, the difference being 69. When you find a new world with a CH of 69 you can consider it to be Eden...

 

I'll use this AAR as a test bed for the usefulness of Xenotechs - other than for a demand for surrender and keeping indigenous population, which is worth the cost of research in itself. The thing that I wonder about (and have never tested) is whether a xenopopulation can take the place of overpopulation or not. And this is an ideal case for inviting Morrigi.

 

Our worlds have two climate hazard ratings.

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0023-18.jpg

Vast majority is terraformed to our ideal CH (player's ideal CH is always 0) and a few were left tarkaformed at CH approximately 201. These are the worlds that surrendered without a fight and we wanted to keep all Tarka alive. Human population is growing pretty poorly there.

 

Full of hope overpopulation is cancelled and projected civilian populations are maxed with Tarka and Morrigi. We leave far more "space" for Morrigi as we hope they will populate our worlds that much faster.

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0025-12.jpg

On the right is an example of a world with a large Tarka population and on the left is a world without one.

 

That is enough about population. We continue with depopulation...

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0009-22.jpg

 

This was to be expected. Our new fleet with FullAuto is almost complete. I wish we didn't need to test it at our homeworld. I also wish I didn't forget to send the fleet to meet Hivers in deep space and prevent as much damage as possible.

 

Our gate cleaning fleet is ready to take the world that sent us "the gift" out. We are serious about Sirius.

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0012-20.jpg

 

BTW, the Zuul are still alive. As they started to send out fleets again, one of our fleets makes a short detour to take two of their worlds out.

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0010-25.jpg

 

Our homeworld is saved. But it sure paid the price in millions. Of people.

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0014-20.jpg

Pic contains pre-battle screen and post-battle info.

 

Sirius is punished for this.

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0015-14.jpg

 

No more gate, no more colony.

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I'm wondering the same thing : what do I gain if I leave alien population? The only benefit I see is not having to terraform a planet.

 

In my game I simply reduce alien civilian population to 0 (I move the slider to 0).

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I'm wondering the same thing : what do I gain if I leave alien population? The only benefit I see is not having to terraform a planet.

 

In my game I simply reduce alien civilian population to 0 (I move the slider to 0).

More income! They pay taxes and count for trade routes just like your civilian population! For every 100 million of aliens you get a new trade route IIRC.

 

It is not a question whether it is good to leave them on a planet - the answer is yes. I'm wondering if they grow fast enough to take place of overpopulation (which I hope you are using as it gives MONEY).

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More income! They pay taxes and count for trade routes just like your civilian population! For every 100 million of aliens you get a new trade route IIRC.

 

It is not a question whether it is good to leave them on a planet - the answer is yes. I'm wondering if they grow fast enough to take place of overpopulation (which I hope you are using as it gives MONEY).

I'm not using overpopulation as it's lowering resources on the planet. I keep my population at 50% of planet capacity. Do alien populations add to that number without overharvest?

 

P.S. What happens when planet resources are reduced to 0?

 

P.P.S.

I see you have Impactors in your AAR so here's a nice SS of them in futile action. :laugh:

https://img138.imageshack.us/img138/3194/impactorsvsdeflector.th.png

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I'm not using overpopulation as it's lowering resources on the planet. I keep my population at 50% of planet capacity. Do alien populations add to that number without overharvest?

Yes they do. I completely understand your standpoint in not using overharvest and I did post a suggestion to reduce the significance of overpopulation long ago. Right now it is very powerful and if you play on hard it is very advisable. I limit my use of it to worlds with more than 3000 resources.

 

What happens when planet resources are reduced to 0?

Frankly I have only seen this happen once, playing a large map game as Zuul, where you have constant overharvest. Your income from that world is lowered but not at all 0. Also your trade routes from this colony would falter, each trade route demands some resources but I can't remember how much - 100, 150? As Zull you don't really care about that as you don't have any trade...

 

I see you have Impactors in your AAR so here's a nice SS of them in futile action. :laugh:

Do...

 

...NOT...

 

...tell Hivers! https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/Smiley/fear.gif

 

But yes, I'll have to invest into research of other types of weaponry, too!

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This is a wish I will NOT grant.

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0030-3.jpg

 

We can sadly not win as an alliance, which means it is VERY likely we will end the game at war. I don't want a Morrigi colony at my doorstep.

 

Research update

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0031-4.jpg

 

We can go further up the beams tree but going for PD phasers was necessary. Everybody is fielding damn AM torpedoes.

 

Morrigi asked for help in the defence of their HW.

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0035-3.jpg

 

See the satellites rings? Morrigi finally have dreadnoughts! I'm concerned about them much less now.

 

Our forces will not assist them... Bastardly? Depends how you look at it. If Hivers manage to destroy their HW and our fleet jumps in to clean up Hivers - we can take all the arifacts without going to war with Morrigi!

 

BTW, the artifact we got at Gamma Pavonis, former Tarka HW, is on a repair and salvage cruiser, accompanied by a refinery and a jammer DE. It is still located in the formerly Tarka region and is evading Morrigi scouts. Should they somehow acquire it we go to war immediately or we loose the scenario.

 

Yep, dreads.

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0036-3.jpg

 

This is neither of the two fleets shown earlier. This is a Hiver fleet currently besieging Morrigi HW and I have a Kritje there to act as a scout. I thought it would also make a battle worth filming but Hivers lost CnC ships earlier so it turned out to be a bug stomp. I'll wait for new fleets to arrive for some pretty sights. Meanwhile we'll position our fleet nearby to jump in at the right time if an opportunity presents itself.

 

Our distant world without nodelines is facing imminent attack. Well, not really imminent but we have to prepare for it nevertheless. :laugh: The world will have to build a defence for itself though.

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0037-2.jpg

 

I tried to present the fastest route from our HW to Sirius. The much longer route is teh way through nodes, the shorter one is through deep space. The longer one takes 5 turns (with AM naturally), the shorter one takes 13!

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0042.jpg

 

Morrigi seem to have really stepped on Hivers' toes...

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0045-1.jpg

 

We will only assist them in the defence of their world closest to our "northern capital". We'll see about the rest. Our fleet in that region is being upgraded with FullAutos and additional Thorondors.

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Well, I can only say that these damn Hivers aren't exactly doing all they can... They bring 6 DNs and no CnC?! Twice?!

 

It seems as though we'll need to take the artifacts ourselves.

 

Things are definitely picking up momentum.

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0001-49.jpg

 

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0002-42.jpg

 

Our colonizers trying to destroy a Hiver station. Until it turned out not to be completely defenceless...

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0009-23.jpg

 

The age of DNless Liir is over.

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0012-21.jpg

This one reminded me that the fleet fighting Liir is a fusion era fleet. We loose quite some ships... The rest are sent to be decommissioned and a much more powerful fleet is sent from the northern capital. And new one with N-pathing engines is being built for possible Morrigi intervention.

 

We remove all Hiver gates from farcaster range. A colonizing trick is used to clean the Hiver population from the world in between to prevent them from going independent.

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0018-12.jpg

 

Our income is pretty big now and research is fast!

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0036-4.jpg

 

Liir colonies start to surrender.

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0040-1.jpg

 

A view of Liir constructor.

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0048-1.jpg

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Liir ship designs are quite cool aren't they? Too bad we have to "re-arrange" their look from time to time...

It's a burden we have to live with. :oh:

 

What bothers me most about Liir is that their ships dance like happy little ponies... :laugh: Not just the "roundabout" they do, they move to the left and right, making them harder to hit. So not easy to point your heavy combat lasers at them when they get closer...

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A lot of research in a relatively short time.

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0002-43.jpg

 

Hmmm... I hope these are trade ships.

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0003-42.jpg

 

The answer;

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0008-31.jpg

This is what I call profit!

 

Liir empire starts to topple and their worlds surrender. This is a usual colony setting for their former colonies. No Liir is killed.

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0014-21.jpg

 

We are BIG.

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0018-13.jpg

 

And Liir realized it.

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0015-15.jpg

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0021-15.jpg

 

Some more research is done, than we stop it all. There is little use of it now. We have capacitors, high end beams and Flagship CnC. And money to use it all.

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0031-5.jpg

 

And this is the result.

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0032-4.jpg

 

You can say this is a Leviathan, it also resembles the Leviathan from the SotS][ teaser... So this too is a taste of things to come. It is loaded with toys of destruction and... you know, when you have the means, you better use them or they are just a burden.

 

Hivers are the enemy but we have them cornered. They can't do a thing we can not predict or reply to. Why bother with them when we can go for the ultimate prize?

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0035-4.jpg

 

Our insurance is in place.

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0038-2.jpg

Just as an interesting info; I did test what happens if I took it to Morrigi and the game is not lost, all five of them sit there and wait to be taken...

 

Now THIS is the biggest fleet I have ever seen. All the fleets have gathered under Flagship command and await the order.

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0043-1.jpg

 

The final showdown.

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0044.jpg

 

We both have the leading number of dreadnoughts starting with 2. Our is followed by 8. Their number 2 is not followed. :laugh:

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I expect our new toys should make for an interesting display in battle, though. :cool:

Ok, this isn't really a heated battle, more of a Flagship presentation and a view of the artifacts at the end. Previous turn was more interesting in terms of weapons exchange but the filmed result was not viewable.

 

 

After the filmed battle we are still unable to take the artifacts.

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0001-50.jpg

 

In the next turn the opposition is next to non-existent, so the battle is autoresolved.

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0002-44.jpg

 

It is time to go.

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0003-43.jpg

 

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0004-41.jpg

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The fleet arrived! It is THE END! https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/Smiley/woodoo.gif

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0002-45.jpg

 

Ok, it is NOT the end yet! ARGH! https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/Smiley/joystick.gif

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0005-36.jpg

 

We can wait... https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/Smiley/popcorn.gif

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0006-29.jpg

 

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/Smiley/onfire.gif

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/screen0008-32.jpg

 

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/Smiley/fear.gif

 

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/Smiley/topicclosed.gif

 

 

 

 

Kidding, the topic is not closed. :) The delay before posting this last update was not due to need to add suspense, it was due to a lot of problems with video encoding... You can still see the blue "ghosts" in the vid, those are not originally there. It may be a result of me updating MediaCoder and overwriting all settings OR it is all due to .bik files SotS uses. I was unable to film the vid in-game - with filming it came huge stutter and the vid was trash. So I went through a lot of trouble to convert and encode the original video file. If I can make it better, I'll update the file.

 

 

Oh, I owe you info on Xenopopulation growth, too!

 

Starting turn, xeno sliders adjusted:

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/_testranjerastiprebivalstva1.jpg

 

Ending turn:

https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/SotS%20TAR/_testranjerastiprebivalstva4.jpg

 

So 66 turns of game and ideal CH brought a lot of Xeno population. 66 turns is a LONG time though. My opinion is that in terms of populating your worlds and profiting from that in reasonable time overpopulation is a lot more powerful. In a hard AI or MP I wouldn't try that except on worlds that I wouldn't want overpopulation on in the first place. That would be "forge" worlds where you don't want to loose any resources to keep production as high as possible and worlds with so little resources I didn't go for OP in the first place.

These two kinds of worlds will definitely benefit from added population.

 

One could go for a little investment and xenoform all colonies (at least those where your own race is at a desired level already) to a target race's ideal CH, making them grow much faster and this tactics more viable.

 

Or one could opt for a lot of micromanagement and slowly replace your own race on OP colonies with xenopopulation.

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