Civilization IN SPACE!

[Manco Capac]

Turn done.
To Kanji Takeno.
First Power in da world. AstroTech Corp. will reign over the world. Fear me or seduce me with good business propositions.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

First Power in da world. AstroTech Corp. will reign over the world. Fear me or seduce me with good business propositions.

If you don´t conquer someone soon enough the Avower and Paradise will outresearch you, New Earth will outexpand you and I will outproduce you. I wouldn´t really be writing home about being first in power when everyone´s got about 2 or 3 ships each anyway.

 

[Tigranes]

Isolation is a terrible depressant, people have to brag about something! Plus, Earth was probably destroyed, there is no home to speak of, sadly!

Having a bonus trade route wont really help if you have nobody to trade with. And even then no trade will be possible without roads, since there is no rivers or coast trade in space. *scratches head* why did I pick Crossroads?

 

[Manco Capac]

Earth is destroyed.

Spoiler :

If I recall correctly, it was about the creation of a black hole...or am I messing with SMAC scenario?

-----

If you don´t conquer someone soon enough the Avower and Paradise will outresearch you, New Earth will outexpand you and I will outproduce you. I wouldn´t really be writing home about being first in power when everyone´s got about 2 or 3 ships each anyway.

I tend to spot fast strong parts of a mod, thus I'll outwit all of ya just like the good businessman Colombo should do!

why did I pick Crossroads?

Already I see some people feel like making mistakes... (wow santa hat really doesn't get well with evil smiley. What were they thinking?)

 

[Manco Capac]

Isolation is a terrible depressant, people have to brag about something!

And the thing compared to PAE, which also has its great dose of isolation, is there is almost nothing interesting in space. At least, PAE has variety of terrains, animal scourge, etc. It's action packed. Intersideral vacuum is unentertaining.

 

[Eclipse4449]

Spoiler :

or am I messing with SMAC scenario?

Do you have an unmodified version? Do you have Alien Crossfire?

 

[gpcii]

Sorry for my delays. Played and sent.

 

[Manco Capac]

Do you have an unmodified version? Do you have Alien Crossfire?

Unmodified version of FF?
==

Yes, I have both SMAC and SMAX. Those games are awesome, but stopped to play these because the AIs are god-awful as much as some mechanics (like attack is infinitely favored over defense while it should be the inverse). The game atmosphere is awesome, but the challenge is none.

 

[Manco Capac]

Sorry for my delays. Played and sent.

You shouldn't be sorry. Family first, then the weirdo strangers we are.

 

[Nighthawk419]

Apparently there are currently precisely six Scouts in the universe. The BUG (or was it BULL?) naming system does have some quirks in multiplayer.

Anyway The Forge has put all of her hammers to good use and finished the first scout pair of her own production. They shall be known as Labor and Work and their first mission is to salvage the recently discovered Wreckage "north" of our star system.

Eridanus & Isis meanwhile continue their path that leads them straight between two super novae.



Ah yes, and you thought Nuclear Plants in the base game were bad.

Just a joke, stars don´t actually go nova, they are pre-existing terrain features. Let´s talk (by which I mean I am going to monologue) about those:

The only base terrain is Space, everything else you see is a Feature, with the one acting most like their counterparts in BtS being Asteroids. Similar to forests they give +50% defense, slow you down and block your sight. However they can not be destroyed (no features can, although come to think of it wouldn´t it make sense to be able to "harvest" them for resources which gives a number of hammers to the closest city similar to chopping forest in the base game? Get on it God-Emperor!) and all space based resources are found in them.
Black Holes you should avoid at all costs, every unit that enters their center tile is destroyed and when a unit ends its turn in its gravity field it takes 10% damage and gets pulled closer to the center.
Wormholes look similar to Black Holes but they don´t do damage, rather they transport any unit entering it to its counterpart. You see, wormholes always come in pairs, and any unit entering one exits the other. Depending on the "geographical" make-up of the map they can make for very nice shortcuts.
Nebula is impassable except for improved Construction and Colony Ships later on, think of them as Peaks.
Radiation Clouds damage ships ending their turn in them.
Solar Systems are where you found cities.
Supernovae are similar to Black Holes in that they kill anyone entering their center tile, however they don´t pull you in but the damage zone surrounding it damages units ending their turn on them by 75%.

Thanks for all this info Knoedel. No one is saying much, but having absolutely ZERO experience with this mod, I appreciate learning anything I can!

sent on

 

[Hercules90]

Echo that, thanks Imp. Knoedel.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

This turn´s lesson... uh... I´ve got nothing. Any questions?

 

[Eclipse4449]

Unmodified version of FF?
==

Yes, I have both SMAC and SMAX. Those games are awesome, but stopped to play these because the AIs are god-awful as much as some mechanics (like attack is infinitely favored over defense while it should be the inverse). The game atmosphere is awesome, but the challenge is none.

No I mean SMAC and SMAX, I would be playing this in PBEM still but the community or what is left of it has moved on, I regarded AI players (if I had any) as expansion areas. I preferred the alien crossfire's faction except the Pirates, I liked H'Minee the alien the best.

I never really noticed the lack of defense because I was generally aggressive and with that you generally lose some units in the fights.
Anyway I have a Planet Fall game filled and starting soon, I can't wait!

Ok on to this game. Many thanks to Imp Knoedel for the time he took explaining THIS game, that will help significantly

 

[Eclipse4449]

Posted to Tracker to Tachywaxon

 

[Hercules90]

gps and on to gpcii

 

[Nighthawk419]

on again

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Labor and Work have salvaged a still usable Scout pair, which shall henceforth be known as Fortune and Discovery.

Today's lesson: If it's 22:35 and you absolutely must upload a paper at 23:59 that day at the latest to pass a course, maybe your PBEM turns can wait another two hours.

...

Maybe I should heed my own advice.

 

[Manco Capac]

Nighthawk left on PBEMtracker a mysterious message...

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Nighthawk left on PBEMtracker a mysterious message...

For the first time ever I now logged into the Tracker from my iPad since you made me curious, and I learned three things:

1.: Tigranes, not Nighthawk, is the one who sent that message.
2.: He apparently founded the Survival value*
3.: I can see the leaderheads on my tablet while they have been buggy for a while when I took a look from the PC.

Also I'm still not sure what your French message some weeks ago was about.

*Come and sit down y'all, for it is time for another one of uncle Knoedel's lessons:

This mod's equivalent of religions is called 'values', and while I'd say they are more similar to religions than corporations there are some differences nevertheless. The similarities are quickly explained: They are founded by researching certain techs (e.g. Shield Generation for Power, Survivalism for Survival) and spread either naturally from their 'holy city' or manually via advocates (think missionaries). You can adopt a state value and get extra happiness from that while losing the culture of all other values, exactly as in BtS. Each value has a unique building and a Shrine, and here's where things are differing: Since there are no Great People the Shrines have to be constructed manually in the holy city, and the unique buildings all give different flavorful effects as opposed to the more standardized temples or monasteries of the base game. The School of Zealots (Power) gives extra XP, the Survival Dome (Survival, duh) extra health, the Stellar Market (Wealth) extra Gold etc..
The five values and their shticks are

Religion - Happiness
Knowledge - Research
Survival - Health
Wealth - Gold
Power - XP

. Of course certain factions have better synergy with some values than others, but nevertheless every single one is beneficial to you so unless you fear about your rivals receiving too much gold via their shrines you want every value in every star system, or at the very least Religion and Survival, with Knowledge/Wealth and Power going to specialized commerce and military cities respectively.
Since there is no specialized religion civics column and in this game no AIs to please adopting a state value is actually unnecessary and if suffering anarchy for it downright detrimental unless you vastly prefer the happiness over the extra influence from other values. The only civic slightly improving with a state value is Planned Economy, and that one comes very late in the game.

/lecture

On an aside note I wonder why Tigranes went for Survivalism anyway, AFAIK Red Syndicate doesn't start with Space Exploration which is its prerequisite and one would think Halis or Paradise would go for it first. Maybe he got it from a wreckage or he has purposefully mapped out a path to found every single value to acquire a monopole of shrine income, which would be quite business minded actually...

 

[Tigranes]

We just want to survive, that's it. Space is a dangerous place!