Old Empire, pre-warp

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Old Empire, pre-warp - 10/30/2020 1:22:10 AM

RogerBacon

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Lately I've been playing with everyone set to old empire and starting tech except myself. I set my empiire to old empire, pre-warp. It's been a lot of fun trying to keep all my planets and rush to develop warp tech as quickly as possible. Has anyone else tried this combination? I bet a lot of people never even thought of pre-warp and anything other than starting empire combination before.

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RE: Old Empire, pre-warp - 10/30/2020 1:41:45 AM

Retreat1970

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Yes. I've challenged myself many times setting the AI to higher tech levels while I'm pre warp. With varying success of course. Depends upon how long I can be left alone.

For fun I played a short game where all AI's started tech 7 and I was pre warp. Just to see. I died. Not because I was invaded. I couldn't get anything built with mega ships parked on me. I watched my planet orbit the sun a few times then gave up.

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RE: Old Empire, pre-warp - 10/30/2020 1:36:46 PM

RogerBacon

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I thinkI wasn't clear in my setup explanation. I wasn't emphasizing the fact that I was pre-warp and others weren't, although that was true. I was emphasizing the fact that I was an old empire and pre-warp. I, and the AI players, start with about 13-20 colonies. The only difference is that I am pre-warp so its like controlling 13 separate empires until i can get warp tech to unite them. Before trying this I never thought of anything other than "Starting" setting when setting tech level to "Pre-Warp".

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RE: Old Empire, pre-warp - 10/30/2020 5:55:03 PM

Retreat1970

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I wasn't clear either lol but yeah I've tried that too.

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RE: Old Empire, pre-warp - 10/31/2020 5:08:48 PM

Aeson

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I have also tried out old empire / prewarp starts a couple of times.

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RE: Old Empire, pre-warp - 11/1/2020 8:13:04 AM

Retreat1970

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Wb Aeson.

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RE: Old Empire, pre-warp - 11/1/2020 4:31:22 PM

Kingah

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Haven't really tried your setup but have had quite a few games doing the opposite, where I just don't research warp speed. Usually make tech super expensive so that the other empires don't research too high speed and reach me too quickly.

If you have a nice spawn where you have all the strategic resources nearby (home or two/three closest systems) it's quite possible to survive even though you have such a strategic weakness. Strategically placed fortress fleets and orbital bastions protecting each planet in your tiny empire.

You should try it. It's a really different game. Works especially well with the bacon mod with asterioid colonies and the gravity well as the enemy fleets will have to fight with you on even field once they're inside of the system. Feels sort of like playing earth inSpace Battleship Yamato 2199.

You just have to be ready to sacrifice a few billion people to the asteroid gods ;P

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RE: Old Empire, pre-warp - 11/17/2020 10:57:32 PM

Retreat1970

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This is the greatest session I've played maybe ever:

2000 stars packed in a 4x4. Small in size, big in spirit. Others have done this but I had to try and it was a blast.

Sub-light to the nearest star!

< Message edited by Retreat1970 -- 11/17/2020 10:58:03 PM >

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RE: Old Empire, pre-warp - 11/19/2020 12:29:11 PM

BlindOne

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That kind of setup makes me wish there was a slower progression from sublight > warp bubble > full blown hyperdrive in the game. It would be very interesting to see empires go through more meaningful eras of hyperdrive evolution as technology improves. These should be represented as epochs or eras in the technology tree imho that could represent significant investment and achievement in the overall development of an empire. .

Especially in the standard version on normal research speed it is almost jarringly easy to go to a hyperdrive empire. Rushing towards hyperdrive as soon as you are capable of getting it is the no-brainer tech choice as well. Warp bubble feels like a novel idea but isn't really capitalized on very well in terms of implementation. Though I do like the role play aspect of it in that it gives you the idea that your civilization is prototyping the first hyperdrive. As such I usually only build a few exploration ships or a constructor ship with bubble tech. Sadly I often find myself not even wanting to build ship designs for them as hyperdrive is just around the corner and getting stuck with annoying slow freighter ships built in the small time frame that warp bubble is available is annoying as hell when I have to wait for a freighter that got assigned with critical construction resources to take months before it reaches its destination simply because it refused to refit with the new hyperdrive tech.

Warp bubble has a speed of 2000 which is a game changer especially compared to sublight speeds but is dwarfed with the first proper hyperdrive which starts at a whopping 12500 a 6 fold increase in speed and a massive range boost. The tech lines that follow barely really improve meaningfully on the speed with a maximum of 30000 or roughly a two fold increase at max tech. One could make an argument that each of the hyperdrive lines has a specific niche that it fills but on most maps where you have spaced out your forces properly, a faster jump initiation is superior in my opinion both tactically as well as strategically.

The Kaidos warp drive (the one with lowest hyper initiation I believe) is as such by far the superior choice for war ships since it allows ships which are in danger of getting annihilated to withdraw in timely fashion as well as allow civilian ships to jump to hyperdrive before they can get snuffed out by enemy forces. As such I usually rush towards it as well as it will significantly improve performance of the empire with little actual investment in tech cost compared to the previous hyperdrive tech. I rush towards this tech and then just let hyperdrive development sit still for ages while I do the rest of the tech tree.

The efficient hyperdrives (calista-dal) may be a good choice for freighters as they allow a ship to be built with only 1 reactor to supply its energy needs, however this makes them very vulnerable to enemy attacks and doesn't improve overall efficiency as much as the faster hyperdrives would for only a tiny cost increase of 1 reactor. It is therefore the most useless hyperdrive tech.

The speedy hyperdrives (equinox) are the 2nd best choice and become better the more spaced out the map is even though they are energy hogs. That is because most warpships will require extra energy to fuel weapon systems anyway and since these are unused in times of hyperdrive travel the energy hogging of this hyperdrive line never actually becomes a problem for warships in particular. For civilian ships it means putting in at least 2 reactors on it but that's pretty much standard unless you want to go with the least useful hyperdrive with little benefit to it.

The efficient hyperdrives might be more ideal as a choice if they provided much better operational range improvement over the other techs but it is barely worth it when compared to the equinox. By far the worst choice therefore.

One particular thing which I think is somewhat jarringly left out in the hyperdrive tech is the fact that hyperdrives don't take into account the size of the warship it is fitted on. A single hyperdrive component on a small ship works just as well as on a much larger ship. Ideally you'd want a bigger hyperdrive component for larger ships to provide the same movement it would on smaller ships. I hope they think of something interesting in DW2.

Okay I am done ranting now ...

Oh yeah and one of my funnest games I played was while on very expensive tech and having to build up my empire through sublight colonization of my inner planets and having multiple heavily colonized planets before I even developed warp bubble or hyperdrive tech. It just felt more epic when my tiny single star system empire finally developed that first big jump into hyperspace after decades of having to see ships slowly crawl their way to the next colony or mining station.

< Message edited by BlindOne -- 11/19/2020 12:30:45 PM >

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