RBSotS1 SG2

[Mardoc]

Save is attached. Good luck spellman! I anticipate you should have some very quiet builder turns, working on our trade net and building stations, so it ought to be a nice gentle introduction to the game. Just keep an eye on the diplomatic arrows on the race screen; if we start to see them dropping instead of rising, then we will know things are starting to heat up a bit.

Yeah, sounds like our goals for now should be to keep on Megafreightering and building stations, and researching the Addict techs, Antimatter, Farcasters, and in the unlikely event you get that far, add in Quark Resonators and something fun from the ballistics tree.

[spellman]

T260 (inherited) - Wait, we have negative savings???? Zed-F, you're crazy at optimal spending.
Checked around to familiarize myself, everything looks good.

T261 - Begin Trade Station on Ke'Pranum. Considered turning it into a Forge World w/ Repair.
And oh my goodness the freighter spam. Seriously. Now I know where all that money went. You queued up freighters EVERYWHERE!

T262-263 - MORE FREIGHTERS AND TRADE STATIONS. Seriously just shoveling around frieghters to the slower building regions.

T264 - Joint for Sensor Jammer comes in.

T265 - Breakthrough on Anti-Matter. MORE BUILDING. and ONWARD TO FARCASTERS.

In other news, we have access to Shields Mk.3, yay!

T262-268 zzzzzzz

T269 - Farcaster overbudget.

T270 - Farcasters in, Tarka want an alliance, so I accept. And the Far Hivers also accept into the alliance. DING!

Man that was boring. And tedious to keep micro-ing the freighters.

Dropping the Save here in case someone wants to break alliance and go stomping on everyone.

[haphazard1]

T270 - Farcasters in, Tarka want an alliance, so I accept. And the Far Hivers also accept into the alliance. DING!

Woohoo! The galaxy is ours! (And our friends', as well, of course.)

Taking the save and stomping the remaining AIs could be an interesting exercise, just to play with some of the really advanced toys. But I think that can be done by those who want to as personal gaming. We met our primary goals of becoming the strongest power in the galaxy, with huge internal growth and obviously a fair bit of horizontal growth as well.

Maybe tomorrow I will have time to load up some of the later saves from the Tarka and far Hiver POV, to get a better idea exactly what we would have faced if we went for all-out war. I am very curious about just how advanced they are and what kind of economy they have.

And yes, our freighter spam was rather frightening by the end, wasn't it? Must...have...MOAR!!!

Great job, everyone! I really enjoyed playing this SG with you all, and hope we can perhaps take on fresh challenges soon. Is it time to try playing as the Zuul? Or maybe try being total tech freaks and explore energy weapons more as Liir? Other?

[Zed-F]

Heh, lucky that we were able to get both to join at once! Note that if you press end turn and formalize the alliance (remembering alliances take one turn to take effect) then you get the victory screen, but the Tarka immediately leave the alliance. And if we are allied with the Far Hivers, the Tarka won't join at all and remain at NAP instead!






Look at that cruiser count and realize that:
- Almost all of the ones that are still around are megafreighters
- Most of the ones that we no longer have were biomes
That's a lot of economy-buffing ships!

Man that was boring. And tedious to keep micro-ing the freighters.

Sorry there wasn't much action in your turnset, on the plus side the dice rolls for alliance finally turned in our favour. Certainly there will be more action in the next game.

It sounded like you were moving freighters around from sector to sector -- it can help with the tedium factor if you don't bother to do that too much unless you're opening up a new trade sector. I generally just use the trade screen and build freighters where I need them (again other than when reallocating leftover DD freighters to a new trade sector.) I did notice that we got a number of new routes during your turns via population growth, but you didn't staff them. Were you just building freighters at the build screen rather than using the trade screen build freighter button? The latter cuts down on the micro considerably.

Fortunately for SotS2 I expect trade to require less micro as it was one of the more common complaints in SotS1.

Great job, everyone! I really enjoyed playing this SG with you all, and hope we can perhaps take on fresh challenges soon. Is it time to try playing as the Zuul? Or maybe try being total tech freaks and explore energy weapons more as Liir? Other?

Glad you had fun Haphazard and I hope everyone else did too!

If everyone who wants to play is feeling ready to tackle the Zuul, we can certainly do that. I'll start a new thread and we can see who is interested.

Incidentally -- you guys asked for a small surprise for this game, and it was this: Hivers had 0% chance of PD and 0% chance of light emitters, but 100% chance of deflectors. Sometimes you have to make do with the game throwing technological curve balls your way, so I wanted to give everyone a taste of that. As you can see, there is usually a work-around. Lacking PD and emitters for a long time slowed but did not stop our progress toward victory.

[Mardoc]

Nicely done spellman! I didn't think that was going to turn out to be possible, honestly.

Incidentally -- you guys asked for a small surprise for this game, and it was this: Hivers had 0% chance of PD and 0% chance of light emitters, but 100% chance of deflectors. Sometimes you have to make do with the game throwing technological curve balls your way, so I wanted to give everyone a taste of that. As you can see, there is usually a work-around. Lacking PD and emitters for a long time slowed but did not stop our progress toward victory.

Ah, I see. I honestly attributed that to just random luck, since neither is certain. But it was an interesting twist to deal with, and it certainly emphasized how much we needed PD, not having it as an option for a while.

[haphazard1]

Incidentally -- you guys asked for a small surprise for this game, and it was this: Hivers had 0% chance of PD and 0% chance of light emitters, but 100% chance of deflectors. Sometimes you have to make do with the game throwing technological curve balls your way, so I wanted to give everyone a taste of that. As you can see, there is usually a work-around. Lacking PD and emitters for a long time slowed but did not stop our progress toward victory.

I had wondered about that. But like Mardoc, I just guessed it was poor luck on the tech tree rolls. Also, when you say "Hivers" does this mean just us or also the far Hivers? That would go a long way to explaining why the far Tarka ended up owning roughly twice as many systems as the far Hivers.

I like the concept of a variable tech tree, but I am not sure SotS handles this as well as it might. It feels like things should be even more variable (similar to MoO) or perhaps less. The current mix of core techs and non-core seems a bit off, although obviously my total experience with the game is still very limited. But there are some non-core techs like PD and Biomes which make a huge difference in the game -- huge enough that leaving it up to an RNG roll is very questionable, IMHO.

[spellman]

It sounded like you were moving freighters around from sector to sector -- it can help with the tedium factor if you don't bother to do that too much unless you're opening up a new trade sector. I generally just use the trade screen and build freighters where I need them (again other than when reallocating leftover DD freighters to a new trade sector.) I did notice that we got a number of new routes during your turns via population growth, but you didn't staff them. Were you just building freighters at the build screen rather than using the trade screen build freighter button? The latter cuts down on the micro considerably.

Fortunately for SotS2 I expect trade to require less micro as it was one of the more common complaints in SotS1.

It was more I opened up the Trade screen and first thing I did was make sure any sectors with less CR freighters than cap got at least a 2 Turn queue of more freighters. Then I mossied around to some of the powerhouse planets and built excess freighters so I could funnel them into the few sectors that were severely understaffed and couldn't produce enough (I think Sector 16 comes to mind, 2 planets each with horrid I/O). So, doing my micro I may have not accounted properly for pop growth and messed that up. The last 2 turns I actually spent most of the money on new trade stations.

Also, since we didn't have any wars going on, I didn't revise any ship designs. Figured when we ramped into fighting mode we could apply the 2 or 3 major tech advances we got then (new engines, the joint science for jammers came in, and Resonaters were 3 turns out).

But yeah, probably was trying to be especially anal about the freighter micro, and perhaps by a little too much. That and I had a friend over who wanted to play SC2.

[Zed-F]

I had wondered about that. But like Mardoc, I just guessed it was poor luck on the tech tree rolls. Also, when you say "Hivers" does this mean just us or also the far Hivers? That would go a long way to explaining why the far Tarka ended up owning roughly twice as many systems as the far Hivers.

Yes, it applied to all Hivers, but no, that's not why the Far Tarka wound up owning so much more. That was purely positioning; the Far Tarka simply had much better access to the major portion of the galaxy than the Far Hivers did, having started closer to the center of the map. They just blocked the Far Hivers off from ever having much opportunity to grab stuff until it was too late. I doubt the Far Hivers ever got involved in a lot of combat that didn't involve trying to establish gates; they tend not to be as aggressive as the Tarka in any case.

I like the concept of a variable tech tree, but I am not sure SotS handles this as well as it might. It feels like things should be even more variable (similar to MoO) or perhaps less. The current mix of core techs and non-core seems a bit off, although obviously my total experience with the game is still very limited. But there are some non-core techs like PD and Biomes which make a huge difference in the game -- huge enough that leaving it up to an RNG roll is very questionable, IMHO.

And yet, we did without PD this time around, and did just fine. Biomes are very nice to get, but mega-stripmining can be a nice substitute in a pinch. There really are very few techs that one can absolutely not do without in the game. Even some core techs are not entirely necessary. In fact, I have a TAR over at the Kerberos forums of a game where I removed all random techs from my tree, in addition to other handicaps. Did not having access to ANY random techs slow me down? Absolutely. Did it stop me from making progress toward victory? Not for a moment.

The SotS philosophy with respect to random techs is that there are a lot of them, so odds are good that you'll miss a favourite tech and have to adapt, but odds are even better that you will not get completely screwed out of adaptation possibilities across the board. Moreover, remember that this applies to your opponents, as well as to yourself. Even if you do get a very unlucky tech draw, there's always next game, so just take the challenge in stride and see how well you can do without. Oftentimes, if you keep an open mind and a positive attitude, it'll be better than you think. There won't be less randomness in the tech tree in SotS2; if anything there will be more.

But yeah, probably was trying to be especially anal about the freighter micro, and perhaps by a little too much. That and I had a friend over who wanted to play SC2.

Hopefully it didn't curb your interest in continuing for the third installment.

[haphazard1]

I loaded the final save from T270 as the other Hivers and as the far Tarka, just to see what the AI empires were doing. Interesting stuff, overall.

The other Hivers had a total per-turn income of just under 2.5 million, compared to our 15.5+ million. They did have a solid treasury of about 12 million. They were spending about 1.3 million per turn on fleet costs, compared to our ~3.7 million (mostly mega freighters). They had only DE freighters, but had maxed out all their available routes except one (at their newest world in our end of the galaxy), which was in process of building more freighters. Just over 250 DE freighters total. So they had a lot less trade income (just under 1 million per turn) but also never spent the money and IO (and ongoing ship support costs) to build 900 mega-freighters as we did. That is a lot of cash freed up to spend on research.

Or on stations. The other Hivers had a repair station ('R' is a repair station, correct? With 'Sc' being Science, 'T' as trade, I guess 'C' as command?) at every world except that newest one, which had a science (??) station. That is 13 stations, representing at least 25-30 million in spending. Of course, we were building quite a few stations ourselves at the end and had a similar total number, although ours were mostly trade.

They had 37 DNs in service, along with small (compared to us) numbers of CRs and very few DEs. They had Armada CnC, AM drives, PSA for armor (MC not in their tree, apparently), with Fusion Canon and Heavy Stormers as some of their top weapons. PD Missiles was their eventual anti-missile solution. In fact, they had some all-missile DN designs along with a lot of missile techs (the micro-fusion engines, warhead boosters, etc.). Those could have been nasty even with our PD.

Overall they had a ton of tech -- I guess spending all that money on tech instead of mega freighters worked pretty well. Although Zed-F is correct that with our much larger economy we could have fought a war of attrition and easily come out ahead. AM, Farcasters, Mega Freighters (they had the tech just didn't use it?). They had only level 1 xenotech for all but the Tarka, where they had level 2. In Bio they had only GeneMod -- Suspended Animation was in their tree but they never researched it. They had Atmo Adaptation but also never researched it. Odd, but I guess they claimed most of their planets early and then didn't have much need for more development techs?

The other Hivers had a gate network capacity of a bit over 400, compared to ours at 534.

The far Tarka had per-turn income of about 4.7 million, so a bit less than 1/3 of ours (and almost twice the other Hivers). They had a treasury of over 20 million. They were spending a surprisingly small 1.2 million per turn on fleet costs. Like the other Hivers they had only DE freighters active, with just under 500 total in service. They were still working on maxing out their TRs, and had a certain distance to go.

The Tarka had 12 stations, a wide mix of types unlike the other Hivers. Pretty similar total investment, however. They had only 5 DNs in service, but significantly larger numbers of CRs and DEs than the other Hivers. Their CR and DE levels were maybe a bit lower than ours, but not by a lot. Their latest ships had MC armor, IRF, and a mix of weapons such as Heavy Stormers, AM Torpedoes, and missiles.

The far Tarka had similar tech to the other Hivers: Armada CnC, AM, top-level engine tech (Warp Drive for Tarka, so they would have been fast), Heavy Stormers, etc. They were a bit more advanced in torpedoes, with AM Torps and overbudget on Detonating AM Torps (ouch!) rather than Fusion Cannon, but again with lots of missile tech. They had more Bio than the other Hivers, up through Grav Adaptation, but again had SA in their tree but never researched it. They had PD, as well as missile PD, so missiles were probably not ever a big deal for them.

A war with the other Hivers would have certainly been winnable, especially if we manage a solid initial strike. Their DNs would have taken some work to destroy, but with our fresh construction sporting QR armor to their PSA I think we would have done quite well. Our gates were better spread in their territory than they had managed in ours, and with our 6-to-1 income advantage we would have been able to pour in additional ships while they would have struggled to replace losses.

A war with the Tarka would have been a much trickier matter. We would have had an armor edge with our new construction (QR vs MC), but improved AM torpedoes could have been a serious problem. And their AM warp drive speed (12 LY per turn) would have enabled them to planet hop in a single turn, negating much of the defensive advantage of our gate network. Worse, their planets scattered through our space would have disrupted many of our trade sectors, dropping our income advantage from 3.5-to-1 to maybe 2-to-1 (guessing here). If we managed a successful mass initial strike on their worlds in our territory, to re-secure those trade sectors, then after 8-10 turns we would probably have gotten back up to a 4-to-1 income advantage and slowly worn them down. But their fast ships and commerce raiding (they did have that tech researched) would have made for a messy struggle.

Anyway, it was very interesting -- if occasionally puzzling, like with SA -- to see what the AI was doing.

[Zed-F]

They had only DE freighters, but had maxed out all their available routes except one (at their newest world in our end of the galaxy), which was in process of building more freighters. Just over 250 DE freighters total. So they had a lot less trade income (just under 1 million per turn) but also never spent the money and IO (and ongoing ship support costs) to build 900 mega-freighters as we did. That is a lot of cash freed up to spend on research.

I don't recall ever having seen an AI empire design a megafreighter; it seems like they start with one DD freighter design and just stick with it. I'm not sure whether this is a bug or a deliberate omission, though.

Or on stations. The other Hivers had a repair station ('R' is a repair station, correct? With 'Sc' being Science, 'T' as trade, I guess 'C' as command?) at every world except that newest one, which had a science (??) station. That is 13 stations, representing at least 25-30 million in spending. Of course, we were building quite a few stations ourselves at the end and had a similar total number, although ours were mostly trade.

Yep, the AI does like to spend a lot of money on stations that could probably be better spent doing other things.

They had 37 DNs in service, along with small (compared to us) numbers of CRs and very few DEs. They had Armada CnC, AM drives, PSA for armor (MC not in their tree, apparently), with Fusion Canon and Heavy Stormers as some of their top weapons. PD Missiles was their eventual anti-missile solution. In fact, they had some all-missile DN designs along with a lot of missile techs (the micro-fusion engines, warhead boosters, etc.). Those could have been nasty even with our PD.

Not really, all missiles is pretty wasteful on a DN since they have poor DPS and generally can't kite effectively. I'm pretty sure if most of their DNs were all missiles, we would have been able to beat them easily, especially with a few deflector cruisers added to our fleets. Note that PD missiles in SotS1 are great versus torpedoes and drones, but useless against missiles; they won't even fire as it's too hard to intercept.

In Bio they had only GeneMod -- Suspended Animation was in their tree but they never researched it. They had Atmo Adaptation but also never researched it. Odd, but I guess they claimed most of their planets early and then didn't have much need for more development techs?

Not sure about this one. I'm pretty sure Hivers have a 100% for suspended animation, so I couldn't tell you why they didn't grab it this time. That said, the AI doesn't follow a set tech path and instead has something like a different tech preference personality every game. In some games they will rocket up the industry and bio trees, in other games they will focus on weapons, etc. None of this stuff is set in stone either as the AI will try to adapt to what other races are using against it. It's a complicated system, and it certainly doesn't always prioritize things in the way a human player would... but it's more designed to provide a fun challenge than to be perfect, anyway. At higher difficulty levels, the AI compensates for not always researching stuff in the best order with just plain researching a *lot* of techs.

The far Tarka had per-turn income of about 4.7 million, so a bit less than 1/3 of ours (and almost twice the other Hivers). They had a treasury of over 20 million. They were spending a surprisingly small 1.2 million per turn on fleet costs. Like the other Hivers they had only DE freighters active, with just under 500 total in service. They were still working on maxing out their TRs, and had a certain distance to go.

A lot of their colonies were relatively recent, claimed just around the time the Morrigi were being wiped out, so that helps account for the fact that they were still working on their trade net.

They had more Bio than the other Hivers, up through Grav Adaptation, but again had SA in their tree but never researched it. They had PD, as well as missile PD, so missiles were probably not ever a big deal for them.

They never researched it because I only offered it to them as a special project after they had run out of places to settle; prior to that they didn't have it in their tree at all.

A war with the Tarka would have been a much trickier matter. We would have had an armor edge with our new construction (QR vs MC), but improved AM torpedoes could have been a serious problem. And their AM warp drive speed (12 LY per turn) would have enabled them to planet hop in a single turn, negating much of the defensive advantage of our gate network.

Remember though, what a live player would do with a 12LY speed and what an AI player would do with a 12 LY speed are very different things! Most of the Tarka's ship construction capability is back in their side of the barbell; we strip-mined most of the worlds they settled out near our side of the map. So in many cases their fleets would be moving more than 12LY to get to their targets, and the AI wouldn't necessarily think to planet hop to their own worlds first.

Moreover, the AI is also notorious for including older ships in modern attack fleets, at least until such time as those older ships are destroyed or scrapped. That would slow down their effective fleet speed for a significant amount of time until they could build fleets with entirely new construction. And recall that the AI didn't have the economy to build large new-construction fleets on a moment's notice to the degree we could.

Further, the AI as I said before tends to be pretty deliberate about how it attacks. Even with 12LY speed for the Tarka, we were not far away from Farcasters ourselves and more than capable of massive parallelism in our own attack plans, thus keeping the Tarka firmly on the defensive and rendering their speed advantage largely moot.

So, overall we might have taken some damage, but I would have been quite confident going up against the Tarka empire if it had come to that.

Worse, their planets scattered through our space would have disrupted many of our trade sectors, dropping our income advantage from 3.5-to-1 to maybe 2-to-1 (guessing here).

Nope, a single enemy world in our trade sector does not disrupt trade there, as I recall (though at one point, it did.) They would need to have a control of a majority of worlds in the trade sector in order to disrupt trade; our income would barely drop at all from a war declaration with the Tarka. And it would be trivially easy to wipe out those low-resource Tarka worlds in our space anyway.