Remnants of the Precursors - Initial thoughts

[haphazard1]

I am creating a thread for thoughts on Remnants of the Precursors, as I play though my initial game. It seemed more polite than continuing to clutter up Dp101's thread with things not related to the showcase game Dp101 is very kindly reporting on. I have not been taking screenshots of my game, so this will not be a game report but just a collection of random thoughts as I encounter things. I may include some screenshots to illustrate specific points.

I am playing as the lizards, the Ssslauren in RotP naming. I drew a start at the far southwest edge of the galaxy, pretty isolated. I had two stars within range -- I love the easy visibility of what is in range (both regular and with reserve tanks), plus the ability to turn on distance markers on the map centered on any selected world. No more guessing if a system is going to be within range or not. Unfortunately both were parallel along the rim of the galaxy, rather than towards the center and more stars. I was clearly going to need more range tech early in this game.

Both were red stars, so it was a coin flip. I sent my colony ship south and sent my scouts north and east. I found a desert 35 for my second world -- not great. The other star was a poor minimal 50, though, so at least I got the better of the two. The usual factory building followed after I sent some pop, with plans for another col ship once the build time at Sssla was 6 turns or so.

Scouting revealed a large terran planet beyond the poor world, so maybe I did not get the better option for my second world. Oh well. I will just have to build another col ship immediately. The star to my east (towards the center of the galaxy) had a toxic world, so I would not be getting to the denser areas of the galaxy any time soon. At least I should not have to worry about neighbors for some time.

Pretty typical development of the second world and maxing of the homeworld followed, and I got the poor world and the very nice terran settled. A trickle of science was started to open fields, and I did not have range 4; this would slow me down. Some poor options elsewhere also hurt; no clean up, no terrforming. Oh well, I'll just have to deal. I did have controlled barren and there was a barren 50 that would be reachable.

The game lets you display the turn on the main map, either as turn number or year number. For some reason the year number is not based from 2300 like MOO, but is 978? No idea what is going on with that. Turn number works well enough, but it would be nice to be able to have the years based from 2300. At turn 50 I get a diplomatic intro screen for the bugs, the Kholdan Hive. (I like the naming of the races in the game, different for legal reasons but obvious who they are.) Weirdly, there is no sign of the bugs anywhere, and the races screen reports they are out of range and cannot be contacted or spied upon. So why was I notified of their existence? Maybe one of their ships passed within range of one of my scouts and then went back out of range? I am a bit confused by this. Unlike MOO, you can not tell who else is in the galaxy from the start. So this semi-contact is useful information. I just am not sure why it happened. Maybe the bugs have longer range tech than I do?

Anyway, the bugs are their usual xenophobic selves so I am sure they will be trouble in the future. The diplo system helpfully tells me (Civ4 style) that I have a very large negative modifier with them for first contact. Being hated just for existing is always such fun.

[RefSteel]

Cool - thanks for sharing your thoughts on the game! As for the weird date, there's actually a different weird date for each different race: Remnants includes a little story of how each race developed and went to the stars, with their own arbitrary calendar. You probably clicked right through the screen, as I would, because the stories we tell ourselves about the game are a thousand times better than anything baked in, but RayF hired a writer to write up an official story for each of them, plus dialog appropriate to his vision for what each race would be like.

[rgp151]

What's the deal with Scouting? In MoO I find blocking with Scout to be essential to success. If you can't do that in this game, how does that affect the opening? Are there other changes that make blocking with Scouts less necessary? What exactly are the differences between RotP and MoO in terms of the mechanics? MoO obviously relies heavily on giving resources and bonuses to the AI on impossible. Does RotP do this as well?

[Dp101]

What's the deal with Scouting? In MoO I find blocking with Scout to be essential to success. If you can't do that in this game, how does that affect the opening? Are there other changes that make blocking with Scouts less necessary? What exactly are the differences between RotP and MoO in terms of the mechanics? MoO obviously relies heavily on giving resources and bonuses to the AI on impossible. Does RotP do this as well?

I give a brief overview of the changes in this post. Unfortunately the documentation is vague as to specifics of the production bonuses on harder difficulties, beyond just that it still exists. But when using the alternative AI scripts that are more optimised, frankly they barely need the help.

[Dp101]

I am creating a thread for thoughts on Remnants of the Precursors, as I play though my initial game. It seemed more polite than continuing to clutter up Dp101's thread with things not related to the showcase game Dp101 is very kindly reporting on. I have not been taking screenshots of my game, so this will not be a game report but just a collection of random thoughts as I encounter things. I may include some screenshots to illustrate specific points.

I am playing as the lizards, the Ssslauren in RotP naming. I drew a start at the far southwest edge of the galaxy, pretty isolated. I had two stars within range -- I love the easy visibility of what is in range (both regular and with reserve tanks), plus the ability to turn on distance markers on the map centered on any selected world. No more guessing if a system is going to be within range or not. Unfortunately both were parallel along the rim of the galaxy, rather than towards the center and more stars. I was clearly going to need more range tech early in this game.

Both were red stars, so it was a coin flip. I sent my colony ship south and sent my scouts north and east. I found a desert 35 for my second world -- not great. The other star was a poor minimal 50, though, so at least I got the better of the two. The usual factory building followed after I sent some pop, with plans for another col ship once the build time at Sssla was 6 turns or so.

Scouting revealed a large terran planet beyond the poor world, so maybe I did not get the better option for my second world. Oh well. I will just have to build another col ship immediately. The star to my east (towards the center of the galaxy) had a toxic world, so I would not be getting to the denser areas of the galaxy any time soon. At least I should not have to worry about neighbors for some time.

Pretty typical development of the second world and maxing of the homeworld followed, and I got the poor world and the very nice terran settled. A trickle of science was started to open fields, and I did not have range 4; this would slow me down. Some poor options elsewhere also hurt; no clean up, no terrforming. Oh well, I'll just have to deal. I did have controlled barren and there was a barren 50 that would be reachable.

The game lets you display the turn on the main map, either as turn number or year number. For some reason the year number is not based from 2300 like MOO, but is 978? No idea what is going on with that. Turn number works well enough, but it would be nice to be able to have the years based from 2300. At turn 50 I get a diplomatic intro screen for the bugs, the Kholdan Hive. (I like the naming of the races in the game, different for legal reasons but obvious who they are.) Weirdly, there is no sign of the bugs anywhere, and the races screen reports they are out of range and cannot be contacted or spied upon. So why was I notified of their existence? Maybe one of their ships passed within range of one of my scouts and then went back out of range? I am a bit confused by this. Unlike MOO, you can not tell who else is in the galaxy from the start. So this semi-contact is useful information. I just am not sure why it happened. Maybe the bugs have longer range tech than I do?

Anyway, the bugs are their usual xenophobic selves so I am sure they will be trouble in the future. The diplo system helpfully tells me (Civ4 style) that I have a very large negative modifier with them for first contact. Being hated just for existing is always such fun.

That kind of out-of-range contact is always scouts intersecting, yeah. It seems like only one side needs to have sufficient range for full diplo to go into effect, so given that you don't have that, a scout intersection is basically the only possibility. Looking forward to hearing about your further adventures!

[haphazard1]

That kind of out-of-range contact is always scouts intersecting, yeah. It seems like only one side needs to have sufficient range for full diplo to go into effect, so given that you don't have that, a scout intersection is basically the only possibility. Looking forward to hearing about your further adventures!

I did think of one other scenario that might explain it: If the bugs settled/conquered a world, then lost it to another AI the same turn before I got my turn. But scouts passing in the night seems more reasonable, especially since I have a scout heading northeast to the limit of my reserve tanks range right now.

With such a small second world and a poor third world, my only real production is from Sssla. And it has been tied up building colony ships. So I have not managed very much research yet. I could really use some clean up tech, as I did not get anything in the first two rungs of Construction and Planetology. Hopefully I can find some time to play more turns. I will try to remember to take a few screen shots.

[rgp151]

What's the story with missile bases? I'm trying this out now, but can't quite figure out how I'm supposed to manage missile bases.

I classic MoO what I like to do is keep missile basses producing all game long, once a planet is established (and beyond the initial phase when you hold off building them for a bit). I usually put about 1 to 3 clicks into misisle bases so they build like 1 every few turns, and then just leave it at that so they are always upgraded and there is a steady increase.

It seems like in this game once planet development finishes it will try to max out missile, which is apparently why they put that cap on, so when it finishes those it will stop. I don't really like this approach. Also, sometimes it says RESERVE even though its set to 4/5, so why doesn't it build the 5th before saying reserve?

In traditional, I like to have really as many bases as possible, but I generally managed them into the 20-50 base range. Do you use fewer bases in this game?

[rgp151]

So... I started a game. Given the upgrades to Spying I figured I'd try Darloks. Well.... so I've met the Silicoids. Turns out they have 45 planets! I have 12. Looks like all 4 other opponents were clustered right around me. I came into contact with them early. The Silis have about about half the map to themselves! I don't recall anything like this happening in MoO. Oh, this is Medium Map, Hard difficulty.

Also, Spying doesn't seem to be nearly as effective as in the original game, which may be warranted. But so far I've been caught every single time I spy.

[Dp101]

What's the story with missile bases? I'm trying this out now, but can't quite figure out how I'm supposed to manage missile bases.

I classic MoO what I like to do is keep missile basses producing all game long, once a planet is established (and beyond the initial phase when you hold off building them for a bit). I usually put about 1 to 3 clicks into misisle bases so they build like 1 every few turns, and then just leave it at that so they are always upgraded and there is a steady increase.

It seems like in this game once planet development finishes it will try to max out missile, which is apparently why they put that cap on, so when it finishes those it will stop. I don't really like this approach. Also, sometimes it says RESERVE even though its set to 4/5, so why doesn't it build the 5th before saying reserve?

In traditional, I like to have really as many bases as possible, but I generally managed them into the 20-50 base range. Do you use fewer bases in this game?

It says reserve because there's more production invested than is needed to finish the last base. Rarely will it *not* say Reserve because that would require spending to equal exactly enough to finish the base and that's rare. I've never used as many bases as you do, but if you want to adjust it more easily you can change the default max base count in new colonies with yourself selected on the military tab of the races screen (will have to adjust current planets manually) and just set the limit super high and then do what you currently do with just putting a couple ticks into base production. You'll have to reset the sliders every time the governor does upon finishing factories/terraforming/shield, but that shouldn't be too irritating.

[Dp101]

So... I started a game. Given the upgrades to Spying I figured I'd try Darloks. Well.... so I've met the Silicoids. Turns out they have 45 planets! I have 12. Looks like all 4 other opponents were clustered right around me. I came into contact with them early. The Silis have about about half the map to themselves! I don't recall anything like this happening in MoO. Oh, this is Medium Map, Hard difficulty.

Also, Spying doesn't seem to be nearly as effective as in the original game, which may be warranted. But so far I've been caught every single time I spy.

This does tend to happen with the map sizes in this game being larger, sometimes the rocks get to take full advantage of that and proceed to colonise every world they can get their hands on. Just another bit of variance. I can't speak as to the spying changes though, haven't noticed a difference myself.