Zenox Ascendancy- A RetreatUE AAR

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Zenox Ascendancy- A RetreatUE AAR - 7/8/2016 1:04:52 AM

Twigster

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I have the summer before I move to another state and begin work on my master's degree. I am retired military with plenty of time. I'll see how well I can do on this one.

Huge galaxy, 1400 stars, 15x15 sectors, Aggression: Chaos, Difficulty: Extreme, Very Expensive Research (999k), Space Creatures: Normal, Many Pirates at Distant Proximity, Strength: Strong, Destroyed Pirates do not respawn, Colony Prevalence and Independent Life: Normal, Zenox Technocracy, Home System: Excellent, Size: Starting, Tech-level: Pre-Warp, Corruption: Normal, Auto- generated 11 staring empires, Independent colonies allowed to form empires, All victory conditions and Threshold set to 100%, All Story Events enabled, No Tech Trading, Giant Kaltors allowed at start, Automation: Expert.

Screen shots and story to begin being posted tomorrow.

Post #: 1

RE: Zenox Ascendancy- A RetreatUE AAR - 7/8/2016 3:08:16 PM

Damiac

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Good luck, sounds interesting!

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Post #: 2

RE: Zenox Ascendancy- A RetreatUE AAR - 7/8/2016 5:50:30 PM

Retreat1970

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I was going to start my 2nd AAR, but you're doing what I was going to do. I'll watch yours instead. Good luck.

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Post #: 3

RE: Zenox Ascendancy- A RetreatUE AAR - 7/8/2016 6:21:55 PM

Twigster

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Thanks to you both. Please don't be shy during the course of it if you should have suggestions.

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Post #: 4

RE: Zenox Ascendancy- A RetreatUE AAR - 7/8/2016 6:26:23 PM

Twigster

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The burnt orange military ships are Black Prowler ships that escaped from the battles in the Astra system, mostly troop transports and escorts plus a couple of carriers. The 10 heavy cruisers of 2nd Fleet warped into Astra; 1 was captured, 3 destroyed and all but 2 were damaged heavily. A Constructor is en route to begin repairs. The other Zenox forces in the area are refueling in preparation to attack other pirate bases.

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RE: Zenox Ascendancy- A RetreatUE AAR - 7/8/2016 6:29:23 PM

Twigster

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This is my most powerful ship at the moment. It has 2-3 times the firepower of the Pirate ships and other empire ships that I am currently aware of and approx. 40% stronger shields than all but the Pirate carriers. I am working on researching Velocity Shard Torpedoes and on getting my max ship size up to 1200. I jumped right into point-blank range of the Pirate forces at Astra. Enemy ships in general have much longer ranges than I do right now.

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< Message edited by Twigster -- 7/9/2016 7:06:01 PM >

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RE: Zenox Ascendancy- A RetreatUE AAR - 7/8/2016 6:30:41 PM

Twigster

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10 of my heavy cruisers produced these casualties. Several skirmishes killed maybe 20 more dead Pirate ships.

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Post #: 7

RE: Zenox Ascendancy- A RetreatUE AAR - 7/8/2016 6:32:22 PM

Twigster

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RE: Zenox Ascendancy- A RetreatUE AAR - 7/8/2016 6:33:33 PM

Twigster

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The Pirate bases that I know of at present. I was just able to reach and fight at Astra with my current ship ranges. The Astra system is in Sector J11.

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< Message edited by Twigster -- 7/8/2016 6:54:50 PM >

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Post #: 9

RE: Zenox Ascendancy- A RetreatUE AAR - 7/8/2016 6:38:11 PM

Twigster

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My tax policy has been as follows: from start I held to 5% rate, increasing to 10% in order to support my MSP, scouts and constructors in-system prior to warp capability. I stayed at 10% until population max on the home world. Consequently my fleet was relatively small, with just enough destroyers to fight off the pirates after I had shields, armor and decent firepower. An added benefit was naturally to grow the civilian sector economy. At population max I increased to 40%, instead of growing my fleet I funneled massive amounts of cash into crash research programs. Along with stealing large amounts of technology early on with a super-spy (which has since unfortunately died) I noticed that I had a nice lead on tech against the pirates and most other empires I early came into contact with. That lead is unfortunately gradually closing as AI empires grow. I was not beyond buying information on other empires and stealing tech from the pirates.

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RE: Zenox Ascendancy- A RetreatUE AAR - 7/8/2016 6:42:18 PM

Twigster

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With Pre-Warp starts I don't see a good reason not to keep taxes low early on and grow my population to max as soon as possible. I have never seen the AI do the same, it generally taking much longer for AI pops to reach max.

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RE: Zenox Ascendancy- A RetreatUE AAR - 7/8/2016 6:43:37 PM

Twigster

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The Tuula Prima Territory is a Human empire with a Way of Darkness government- fortunately they are on the far side of the galaxy, currently well out of reach.

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RE: Zenox Ascendancy- A RetreatUE AAR - 7/8/2016 6:45:39 PM

Twigster

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I am in the process of slowly increasing my fleet size in order to fight the hundreds of pirate vessels relatively nearby.I am also keeping a close watch on how the nearby Banosserit military develops. This naturally has the effect of greatly slowing my research. I am on a push to achieve the Sentient Computer Core Wonder- perhaps after that I�ll go for Warp Gates.

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Post #: 13

RE: Zenox Ascendancy- A RetreatUE AAR - 7/8/2016 6:47:34 PM

Twigster

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My Leader and Colony Governor on Vrilya combined are providing a +78% to Colony Happiness which is a big help and will allow me to squeeze out more in taxes shortly. I have however already lost one Leader to a coup� I like to keep my newer colonies at 0% tax for as long as possible.

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RE: Zenox Ascendancy- A RetreatUE AAR - 7/8/2016 6:49:23 PM

Twigster

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The next couple of shots illustrate some of the bigger Pirate threats.

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RE: Zenox Ascendancy- A RetreatUE AAR - 7/8/2016 6:50:14 PM

Twigster

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The Dirty Raiders have destroyed 357 ships!?

I am not looking forward to mixing it up with them as of yet... but I am going to have to.

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< Message edited by Twigster -- 7/9/2016 7:18:20 PM >

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Post #: 16

Review - 7/8/2016 7:00:49 PM

Twigster

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One of the techs I stole was the Banoserit Far Sight Center (stolen from a Pirate faction actually)- I have placed that on my military and mining bases as well as on scouts and constructors. One primary reason for that decision was that so I could see any Pirate (or other) refueling bases that would facilitate attacks against me. I have taken such bases out when discovered. Even though I am nearly century into the game, at 999k Very Expensive Tech research, it takes time to get to decent techs. I really like that, because combined with a relatively un-crowded map, it forces me to better appreciate the techs I have and to live with the decisions made in the tech tree. As Colonization gets better researched by all entities and the map begins to become more crowded with colonies, those hard decisions will become even more critical. My incidence of stealing techs has dropped off a cliff because the spies I have are just not up to the task any more. I am having to adjust to no longer being ahead of the tech curve as I was for the first 75 years or so of this game.

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Post #: 17

RE: Review - 7/9/2016 6:29:57 AM

AVN

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Interesting

I bought this game 2 months ago and I'm still struggling with it on hard difficulty, but it's interesting to read how an expert is handling this game on extreme difficulty.

It's a pity your top tech stealing spy died/was neutralized. I'm sure he could have helped you a lot more.

Good luck in the continuation of this game

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Post #: 18

RE: Review - 7/9/2016 4:31:54 PM

Damiac

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What do you do to train up intel agents to be able to steal research effectively?

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RE: Review - 7/9/2016 7:11:03 PM

Twigster

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quote:

What do you do to train up intel agents to be able to steal research effectively?

It is mostly luck of the draw as far as Agent abilities go... although you can always try a low-probability mission and hope that if successful the skills will improve markedly.

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Post #: 20

RE: Review - 7/9/2016 7:20:12 PM

Twigster

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Yeah, that spy was pulling Steal Research missions with a 96% chance... sadly it ran out off luck eventually. Right now I have a super-CI agent- which is really good as the Pirates and increasingly some other empires are hitting me quite hard trying to steal my research. Thanks, I am nearly to the point of being a bad guy and taking several nearby Banoserit empire colonies.

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Post #: 21

RE: Review - 7/11/2016 9:52:00 PM

Retreat1970

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quote:

With Pre-Warp starts I don't see a good reason not to keep taxes low early on and grow my population to max as soon as possible. I have never seen the AI do the same, it generally taking much longer for AI pops to reach max.

It's a limitation of the AI. The AI will (and should) set a high tax rate at 2B pop. It's too bad it wasn't higher, but 2B pop is what the AI considers a large colony. So in RetreatUE, all AI's follow a tax policy of 0, 0, 3. Small colony=0 tax, Med colony=0 tax. Large colony=3 high tax. It's the best you can do.

I might be wrong about large colonies starting at 2B, it could be 1B. I'd have to play a game to be sure, but either way it's still a small number.

< Message edited by Retreat1970 -- 7/11/2016 10:17:11 PM >

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Post #: 22

RE: Review - 7/11/2016 10:20:13 PM

Twigster

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OK, cool and thanks. That does explain what I always see. However, I hasten to point out that this limitation does not really AI too much later in bigger games.

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Post #: 23

RE: Review - 7/11/2016 10:23:18 PM

Twigster

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Since the last update, all (known) Pirate bases within 2.5 sectors of the Zenox home planet have been eliminated, this resulting in the destruction of 6 more Zenox heavy cruisers. This view shows the beginning of the next major phase of Zenox operations the war against the Banoserit. There are four separate Banoserit empires quite close to the Zenox sphere of influence, and with the Pirate threats handled for the moment (not including the at least SIX mining and gas mining stations that have been destroyed by-presumably- Pirate espionage agents) it has been decided to move against the Banoserit empires before they become any stronger than they already are. As of this screenshot, war has yet to be declared.
TF-A (task force-alpha) will jump into the Othares system and eliminate enemy forces present there simultaneous with the main attack against NIlgaemon 1. 1st Fleet will enter the NIlgaemon system and eliminate the enemy fleet and orbital defense presence, to be followed by the ground assault. NIlgaemon 1 has 40 infantry battalions garrisoning it; Invasion fleet will land 112 infantry battalions. While it is not disputed that the Zenox re more powerful and technologically advanced than the immediate enemy, the complicating factors will be how the other Banoserit empires will respond to the coming unprovoked attack. The gaggle of burnt-orange military ships seen in the upper left corner ( in the Beta Kapola Arm) are some of the survivors of the battles in the Astra system some years ago, falling back without fuel to an unknown Pirate base.

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RE: Review - 7/11/2016 10:24:28 PM

Twigster

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As can be seen here, the growth of the Zenox military has shrunk the State cash flow- indeed, the only reasons the cash flow is positive currently are that I recently stopped all protection payments to Pirates and just finished Enhanced Logistics. Otherwise, the economy is coming along nicely.

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RE: Review - 7/11/2016 10:25:42 PM

Twigster

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Nugdra 4 is in Sector I10 and was colonized normally. There can be seen a Hidden Pirate Base that needs to be taken care of- it is at 60% and is the second attempt by Pirates to establish a presence here since it was colonized. Note that Vrilya�s tax is still at 40% and the smaller colonies are still at 0%.