Anthropoid
Posts: 3107
Joined: 2/22/2005
From: Secret Underground Lair
Status: offline
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I guess I've pretty much figured out the basics for playing this game, which as usual I've accomplished by starting and restarting new games and experimenting to see how things work and what settings I like. I think I've finally got a match that I'll enjoy.
Back when this game first came out it was really quite amazing how much activity there was on this forum. Unfortunately for me, I just didn't get into at the time. There were a couple key features of the game when it first came out that sort of turned me off. If I recall, the Economy was broken in that it was basically impossible to not be filthy rich; also the inability to adjust things like Pirate intensity and not being able to turn off the space monsters . . .
no, no I don't believe that 'creatures' will ever be found to 'live' in outerspace and eat rocks and gas clouds and space ships . . . Are furry cat people who are good with technology possible? Sure. But flying space octupii? No, I draw the line just this side of flying space Krakens . . .  )
. . . but I digress . . .
Well as with many of these great games in the making, if you just wait for a few patches (I'm playing patched up Stock DW without any expansions and it is a great game, i.e., you do not HAVE to have the expansions to 'get your money's worth!), because this is now a really great game. The real beauty of games like these is of course the ability to create your own game of sorts. Want a cake walk where you evolve to a beyond a consciousness singularity in mere months? You can probably adjust the settings to make it so. Prefer to have a fairly peaceful mercantile competitive Empire: also no problem, you just got to set up your starting game approprately. Want a white-knuckle 'underdog' expeirence where the survival of your very species is at question? Also probably doable as long as you are not too expert at the game.
So I like to set up these types of games so that they will play on and on interminably, sort of like real life. However, WITH victory conditions that are fairly attainable, just so the AI keeps on its toes and strives to beat ya. Generally I rarely finish such thing; I'll just play them for many hours till it gets to a point where the outcome is a foregone conclusion and lose interest. But it is lots of fun in the process!
In my current game it is 7 Jan 2764. My Home planet is Calaan 1. My intent with this post, is to explain what has happened in the few in-game years so far, the settings that I used to set the game in motion, reflect on what I've learned and maybe provoke some old players who have got inactive to come back to play the game some more. I'm still learning a lot about the game so I'd benefit if I manage to get some of you guys playing it again 
Galaxy Settings
Huge Spiral Galaxy
Planet Quality Very High
Aliens: Normal
Expansion: Start
Aggressiion: Restless
Research Speed: Normal
Space Creatures: NONE
Pirates: Normal
My Empire
"Terran Federation" (Humans obviously). Outer Core starting location with EXCELLENT Home world (four continentals all >95% quality in my home system  ). Size at Starting level; Tech at Basic Level; Corruption at Low. Government Republic
Other Empires
Eight Empires selected by name, all with Starting/Basic size/Tech and Normal home systems
1 Mortalen, Military Dictatorship, Avg distance from me
2 Sluken Hive Mind, Random dist
3 Boskara Hive , Nearby (has proven to be a good/interest producing choice so far!)
4 Dhayut, Feudal, Avg dist
5 Ketarov, Monarchy, Rand dist
6 Haakonish, Mercantile Guild, Distant
7 Ikkuro, Republic, Distant
8 Securan, Utopian, Random
Plus one "mystery Empire"
9 Random, Despotism, Random Size and Tech level, Excellent Home System, and Random Distance
So basically I can be confident of a few things:
A. I'm not hopelessly outmatched by a bunch of Empires that have way more tech or size than me
B. I have good starting location to build from, but will probably face some serious challenges that get more intense as time goes on and I keep encountering those various 'bady guy' bug people who are at Avg or Random distance from me
C. There are a few potential ally 'good guy' aliens tossed in, but two of them (Ketarov and Securan) I have on idea where they are, and one is Distant. So I'm not sure if I'm gonna have many friends for the earlyor mid-phase of the game.
D. By putting the Boskara _Nearby_ I've more or else insured that, as soon as I get a reasonable young Empire set up, I'm going to be having to deal with aggressive neighbors.
So far I'd say it has worked out perfectly. Like I said, nine in-game years have passed. So far the only Alien Empire with which I've made contact is the Boskara and I have not actually managed to find their homeworld yet. Here is what has happened so far
First I got a handful of scouts out, and a few fleets of three Destroyers going so I could respond to pirates. The first pirate base was pretty close and I managed to find it and destroy it quickly and then my economy boomed for a good long while. I filled in four of the continentals in my home system and started setting up some peripheral Caslon fueling points as my scouts kept the map info coming in. I've settled four additional systems with high quality planets all of which are about 1 sector away from the home system. Just as I was getting ready to colonize my fourth system is when I met the Boskara, and then I started having some serious pirate troubles. They kept ambushing my gas mining outposts and it took me quite a while to spot their base hidden in a gas cloud.
Just as I was assembling a couple fleets of three to take out the pirate base, here come the Boskara!
Not sure what the AI was doing, maybe trying to provoke aggression I guess. But basically just as I had my fleets redeployed to deal with the pirates, I discovered second pirate base that must be down toward the Boskara sovereign area (still haven't found them yet), and then here comes a fleet of 10 Boskara mostly destroyers but a few transports and frigs! Along with a train of passenger ships, freighters, etc. I was rather surprised to see this, so I postponed my attack on the second pirate base and redeployed all of my military ships outside my home system and ready to counterattack.
The Boskara fleet flies to my home planet and then just sits there, surrounding it but never firing a shot!
Once I had my forces assembled and felt ready to respond to aggression, I imposed sanctions, but a few weeks passed and now they seem to be just withdrawing. Weird.
It would certainly seem that the AI was following some sort of 'provocation' algorithm and I can't say I've ever seen anything quite like that in a game like this. Will be interesting to see how things turn out.
I'm not sure why, probably the pirates I guess?, but my economy has gone from going gangbusters to being in the total tank. At peak I had about 100K in my treasury and avg of +11K (whatever that means, montly, weekly or whatever). But now I'm at 4k in treasury and -53k in the red. This is one thing about the game I still don't get: what does that +/- number unde the treasury actually mean and how does it relate to the balance sheet in the Empire screen? Also, I have no idea what caused my economy to tank, nothing really changed except that the pirates blew up a couple mines and then got blown up themselves.
Does the mere threat of pirates cause economic turn down until such time as you destroy their base?
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