I’m going to start by throwing some credit to @SirWhiskers, (a question was posed on the impact Evolutions has on reduced research which inspired me to do a little digging) So I admit it, I spent time again this weekend playing ISG, I suppose I should feel guilty about it with everything that’s on my table these days…but I don’t. With that out of the way, I was playing some sessions, and tinkering with others…and then it happened, a perfect storm. I colonized a planet early that had the +1 research perk, found a minor civ quickly that gave me +6% research in all fields, got a minor leader with superb science skills and found Wan in ruins. By turn 90 I already had technology that normally takes me 150-160 turns to acquire, it was a perfect storm and in my favor. I wondered then, what other types of storms were possible, and quite frankly I came up with several possibilities. Some could even be helped along by player action, just take your evolutions pick as quickly as possible and seek to leverage it to the max. A human for example could wind up with an army of android leaders that under the right circumstances can be leveled up swiftly. The Palacean could gather an overwhelming force with their pick chosen early as well, and other possibilities exist. Is it a bad thing though? No. I managed to churn out quite a few sessions over the weekend and while a perfect storm is possible, it isn’t probable at all. It can happen, but most likely won’t. And this by the way goes not only for the player, but the AIs as well. (Yes, a player could set Monsters to max for example and then take the evolutions pick needed to use them…but in doing so the game will get easy. That is not the game at fault. IMO the chance of a weird confluence of events, (occurring naturally), and creating an “extreme” type of session only increases the replay value of the game. Yes strange things can happen, or not, but there are no guarantees, and each session will be different due to numerous factors. Personally, that keeps me from getting bored. After all, it’s like Forrest Gump (almost) said, “ISG is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get”.
