Rock Lobster

Yeah I know, another AAR, big surprise huh? Well gents, the thing is that the current version of ISG (1.2.3), along with the Natural Law DLC, is a far more complete experience than any of its predecessors. It is also a bit harder judging from the few test runs I’ve played.

The title of the AAR? Well, part of that is a tribute to the Palacean assembly, and part an ode to the 80s…which were kind of weird from what I remember.

I recreated the race from my last AAR (where I almost got my butt kicked), with slight modifications to their unique abilities. Take a look, they are a well balanced all the way around but suffer from a huge population growth penalty. This race cannot really compete in overall growth, but they are quite potent in battle, (provided they survive long enough that is).




Next I set the game parameters to my liking and mirroring the ones from my last AAR. The star spread is at 1.25 to compensate for the extra logistical range afforded to basic tech and the number of total races is set at eight, (I have removed the stock humans, replacing them with my custom race). Note the map size is not at maximum. This choice is influenced by my liking to be able to see the entire map at a glance. I believe that due to the remote exploration underlay, ISG cannot really let the player zoom all the way out on the largest map, but perhaps a mini-map could be introduced at some point in the far future as an alternative.

Notice also that I have slowed the game down as regards research and production. Contrary to many players that feel the game, (especially early on), is too slow, I don’t. That said, all the AI factions have received a bonus in relation to my own research/production rates.




Here is turn one then, a good starting location for me as I’m off in the corner but with several systems nearby. Off course, we all know that this could be meaningless as we don’t know what those systems hold or what aliens are nearby. I’ve sent the starting Frigates to start poking around and hope they find something promising, we’ll see.



Oh yes, lest I forget, here is my research queue for the very early game. I know everyone has different preferences here, but this is very standard for me and works with my play style

 

Nothing, I found hostile worlds all around me, and most of them barren at that! The sole exception is at Zilia, at the edge of my logistical range. That system contains a normal gravity, medium sized swamp world, and a heavy G large desert world. I left one of my Frigates in the system as I have no choice but to set my first colony there, hopefully no-one else shows up before I can do that.

Remote exploration revealed two sources of Dark matter, with one of those outside my current range, the other looks very promising though, as there is also a large asteroid belt there (at Zerentia). The goal then is to set up an asteroid mine to get more production on Earth quickly.

My two cultural advancements so far have yielded over-mining (it’s more of a long term gain), and an extra colony ship. I don’t really need the colony ship, but it can be scrapped if I need quick cash. I also hired Morb to govern the Sol system, perhaps not the best of governors, but every little bit helps, plus he offsets some of my low population growth with his skills.

Zilia was colonized and I also grabbed the free survey ship on the same turn. (I love the resilient settlers unique ability, it allows me to skip researching some techs and focus elsewhere). The survey ship is on the way to Zilla now, where Anthony Young is also set to arrive aboard the Frigate stationed there. Once this happens, I’ll set out and re-explore the systems within range, hopefully I’ll find some ruins or other specials to aid me.

Ka has also showed up looking for work, I will hire him for his research skills and send him to govern my new colony, but only after Morb asks for an econ capital to be built. The plan then will be to research the building I want Ka to ask for. (A research capital, makes sense huh?)

 

My first encounter with an Alien faction occurred a few turns later, I ran into the Nova but they weren’t positioned in a way to cause me immediate worry. I continued exploring with my survey ship and discovered that the Lava world at Vruac had a time dilation special present. (While this world was classified as hostile, I expected to colonize it next).

A star is born fired, and the ham in me went for it, (actually I pressed the wrong choice by mistake but decided to ride with it). Anthony Yang scored a huge amount of credits in some ruins found at Nypso, very nice that. I want to talk about Anthony for a second, he starts out cheap, but he levels up so fast that, that if you’re not careful, he can bankrupt you. Already he has gained a few levels and I had to turn down his Merit raise request to keep him reasonably priced. He went in the red, but not by much, be careful with this guy.

Shortly after that, on turn 60 to be exact, I hired Pike and encountered the Sulak through a wormhole at Pheon. These guys were far enough away that I completely dismissed their presence for the time being. I continued exploring and building up my Empire while ignoring my military. Constantine and the Kaek were next to make on appearance, both on turn 87, I hired the leader and noted that the Kaek also did not pose a threat.

This brings me to the current screen shot. I’ve just encountered the Palacean due South and also finished my econ Cap on Earth, which now has a decent amount of production thanks to a few asteroid mines feeding it. In summary, I have three colonies, and three outposts active with a fourth on the way. I’ve explored my immediate neighborhood, encountered four alien factions… but have neglected my military. This will change, I’m no longer living in my own private Idaho, the Crustaceans are close and previous test sessions have shown them to be a consistently strong adversary. It’s time to gear up the war machine.

 

I behaved myself going forward and tried to build up my strength. I made nice with everyone I met and accepted trade treaties from anyone that offered. Things were going well until an event fired that forced me to choose either an exclusive agreement with the Crustaceans or a big diplomatic hit. The choice was obvious, the Palacean were the biggest threat to me, they were close and powerful. I ended all my trade treaties and gave them exclusivity, they were pleased.

Anthony Yang continued to gain levels and eventually became an expert explorer. This allowed me to do another search of ruins, and much to my delight, I gained the Starhammer and Punisher. Excellent, these two ships were far more advanced than my own Laser and Nuclear missile armed boats. Wan also showed up looking for a job, it seems someone else discovered him but did not bother to hire him. Ok, no worries, I grabbed him and sent him to govern Vruac.

My realm now consisted of seven outposts and four colonies, my fleet had also grown, and while it still wasn’t a formidable force, I started to feel as if I could defend myself if needed. I also began construction of the Galactic industrial conglomerate on my home world, and felt reasonably sure I could complete it before anyone else could.

The greatest concern I had at this point were the Lobsters, you can see how they are encircling my Empire…I don’t go for that sort of stuff, this won’t end well.

It was at this point that I met everyone else, right before the first galactic vote, and while I’m lagging behind the front-runners, I am also not dead last in the rankings.

 

What a fascinating session, I scored a trifecta and just finished a five turn war!

Actually, it’s even more interesting than that, let me explain.

I continued building up my military and pressed some further expansion of my realm. An event fired that netted me Hyperdrive and a new system was discovered at Acriu with some ruins present. I searched the ruins and found Adamantium armor. Nice! But it gets better, the sleeper ship fired very late and I grabbed a cruiser, you can see it in the first screenshot, it is quite advanced compared to my existing designs. To top things off, I went to war with the Palacean and grabbed class V shields from one of my invasions.

Think about it, Hyperdrive, Adamantium armor, and Class V shields all within a matter of turns, what a bonanza for me. My goal now is to go heavy on the weapons research so I can design a new class of warships that will incorporate all these goodies.

About that five turn war. The Palacean continued to surround my territory through their own expansion, and this worried me. (See first screen shot). I had excellent relations with them, but eventually I snapped and struck. Within five turns I grabbed two of their colonies and evicted them from two other systems. I noticed that even though we were at war, relations were still good between us, so I offered peace. They accepted!

While this is great for me, perhaps the diplomatic hit when someone pulls a surprise attack, (attacking without first declaring war), should be more severe.

Now by looking at the second screenshot, you can see I’m better off, but will probably get into it with the Palacean again in the future. My immediate goal now is to stay at peace long enough so that I can design more advanced ships and have time to upgrade my existing fleet.

The situation before the five turn war



And here is the map at the conclusion of our brief fisticuffs. (Of course, Pike asked for shore leave...what a lazy bum, he was only in one fight)



Edit. I almost forgot, some commentary on the Palacean ships. The war between us saw few casualties as there were just a handful of skirmishes and battles. That said, there was one particular battle of interest, a duel between a single Palacean Cruiser and the Punisher. I won the battle, destroying the enemy Cruiser in the process, but almost lost the Punisher and Constantine who was on board. The battle was extremely close and a great indication of how potent the enemy ships were. Had it not been for the bomber squadron, I would have lost.

 

I strove for peace over the next few dozen turns. (What??? you don’t believe me?, each game plays out differently you know). I even went so far as to vote for the Palacean in the council vote…precisely one turn before they attacked me! Ah, but I get ahead of myself.

I kept up my research with the goal being to design second generation warships while also trying to keep good relations with everyone, I assimilated the conquered systems and consolidated my realm. Then, exactly one turn before I would reach the final tech needed for my new designs, I noticed a sizable Palacean force heading towards my outpost at Ocriacs on turn 236. I’ve played this game long enough to know that if that force arrived there, and no defenders were in place, the Palacean would grab my outpost and usher in a war before I could upgrade a single ship.

My response was obvious, I sent a large force of my own to Ocriacs, set to arrive at the same time as the Lobsters. Usually, this deters the AI from launching sneak attacks, especially when met by superior force. Well it was not to be. The crusty Crustaceans attacked me on sight and were slaughtered by my larger fleet, they lost 2 DD and a single CA, I suffered no casualties.

With war having come before I could prepare, I decided to go on the offensive. I engaged my containment racial ability and locked down a large force of the enemy (2 CA, 3 DD, and 4 FF) at Bleis. I then sent a slightly superior force to attack the system ( 1BB, 2CA, 2DD, and 4FF). The battle was a disaster for my enemies, I not only destroyed 3 FF and 2 DD, I also captured intact, 2 Cruisers, 1 Destroyer, and 1 Frigate! (Of course, Pike asked for shore leave again...this time he was denied, I could ill afford to temporarily lose the SSP he granted).

I proceeded to raze the outpost in that system and blockaded the colony, I split my fleet and deployed to both lock down Bleis, and defend key outposts. Some units were also diverted towards Earth in order to be upgraded.

As an aside, I was totally amused by this turn of events. The truth is that had they allow me to refit my fleet, I would have attcked them in the near future, the fact that they got the jump on me was surprising and pleasant.

 

The Palacean were having a hard time of it, I on the other hand was engaged in a cake walk. They were bully boys you see, (a role I normally hold), and had gotten into numerous wars with their neighbors. As a result, when they attacked me, the Nova, (who I have excellent relations with and am seriously considering as allies), instantly declared war on them. A short time later, the Moltar, (who I am friendly with), also declared war on them. This then dramatically altered the strategic balance. It didn’t matter much that I was using a mix of outdated ships, found ships, captured ships, and a handful of upgraded ones, every battle we fought saw me having a numerical advantage. The Palacean didn’t stand a chance.

To their credit, they attempted some counter-strikes, and due to their excellent drive tech I had to garrison several systems, but the end result was that I easily parried them.

In short order

I captured one of their Battleships at Draiphab, invaded Seigser, invaded Nypso, destroyed a Battle-station and Destroyer at Bleis, invaded Bleis, destroyed a Battleship and captured another at Zerentia, invaded Munugantu, invaded a newly established colony at Galerius, captured the oupost at Madinela …and all without suffering losses.

My Empire now had grown to 13 colonies and 18 outposts, I was fast becoming a major power. I would end the war now if I could as my objectives have all been met and I am no longer encircled, I intend to offer peace, but I doubt they will accept. If this is so, and I am correct, I will have no choice but to eliminate them entirely, either through conquest or annihilation, most likely a mix of both.

 

Thank you sir, but I don't know if I have the stamina for that. This way I can play a bit, stop, write some text, and come back another day to continue. Perhaps one day I will do one, there are some podcasts out there already I think, but I would love to show my "style" of play... it might even be a good way to introduce some alternative helpful hints to beginners.

 

I re-deployed my fleet and continued to upgrade my ships one at a time, carefully drawing a unit back from one location, sending another unit out to replace it. (At times like this I envy the AI, who can make these calculations faster and without being distracted). Many peace offers were made to my enemy, but as I predicted to no avail. For their part they continued some raids, but withdrew each time I met them, these guys were definitely not suicidal.

As my peace offers were all rejected, I reluctantly prepared to renew the offensive. I engaged another containment, this time at Acriu, trapping several Palacean ships there. My first strike at that system targeted an asteroid base, thus isolating their war ships from a Battle-station present in one of the two colonies there. The outnumbered Palacean forces crumbled. My second strike in that system isolated 8 assault ships and destroyed them as well. A few turns later, the entire system was mine.



The palacean for some reason kept attempting to establish a colony at Omig, an isolated location for them that could not be easily supported. They escorted their colony ship with a single Cruiser and I chased them off. The strategy behind this wasn’t a bad idea if they could pull it off and hold it, but they didn’t seem to have enough forces to do that, (even though they had signed a peace with the Nova). Eventually, I decided it was best to let them colonize the system and then promptly invaded it.

In other news the vote fired again and the Moltar were now running against the Sulak, the Palacean had fallen sharply from their previous ranking which had them first. Of course this means that the Moltar were now a threat to be watched, they had the number one fleet and were encroaching in my sphere of influence. But that was still far in the future, for the time being we enjoyed excellent relation and they even gifted me a Cruiser.




Finally, for some inexplicable reason, the Kaek attempted a sneak attack at Ijub… I was stunned by this as we were on friendly terms…and I felt I could could squash them like bugs easily, but lo and behold, we are now at war. I chased off their attack force of three Cruisers back to their base at Cups and destroyed one of their two outposts there. Unfortunately, I had to leave the other outpost intact (for the time being) and pull back to Ijub, as they were attempting yet another strike.

 

I would need considerably longer than an hour to present a full game session, especially with the settings I use. Normally I play over a course of days, sometimes weeks if the session goes long and has lots of actions. (My Previous AAR would probably total 20+ hours of un-interrupted play)
Maybe if I were to do this, I would have to look at a multipart podcast. I will give it some serious thought.

 

Amusing, very amusing. It took me almost two dozen turns of carefully and constantly re-deploying my ships to finally reach a point where the very last one was being upgraded…at exactly the same time I attained threshold technology which allowed me to design 3rd generations ships. In other words, prior to upgrading the last ship in my fleet… the designs were already obsolete. Lol. Oh well, there was no need to re-upgrade ships now anyway, at least not as a priority, my existing builds were effective enough.

War continued but I made little headway. The Enemy, both the Palacean and Kaek, kept up their raids and I kept chasing them off. I would then conduct counter-raids and destroy some outposts, only to see my foes re-build them. And so we engaged in cat and mouse games over multiple turns. There were some exceptions though.

A Palacean outpost at Piei was very problematic. The enemy presence there was strong and they conducted many raids from that base. Additionally, their mere presence in that position meant I had to retain sizable forces on the North-East section of my Empire for protection. In time, I gathered a potent fleet at Omig and took the outpost. I then engaged another containment and trapped many Palacean ships at Pivenia, destroying them all, and razing the outpost there.

My fleet, though upgraded, had not really grown much due to my most productive world being tied down by those upgrades. This wasn’t entirely a bad thing though, as I amassed a nice surplus of SSP. The next step is obvious. I will expand the fleet and build three Titans as command ships for my leaders. Once that is done, a serious offensive should follow.

 

Can I be honest here? I've never done one before, I may need some help and suggestions, though I guess I could Google the process and go from there. Still, if you or anyone else wants to recommend any software/procedures I should be looking at, I am all ears. Actually, any advice at all is most welcome.

Yes that's very true. This is an area though that ISG holds a clear advantage over some of its peers. For example, in MoO2 obsolete ships quickly became worthless. I never really upgraded ships playing that game, I simply scrapped older designs and built new. Older ship designs in ISG diminish in effectiveness but do not really become useless, especially not as quickly or totally as what I saw from other games. So I figure I can still keep them in the field and gradually upgrade them without disrupting my operations and game flow. I was just amused at the timing of it all, upgrade the last ship, just as new designs become available, it's never happened to me before.

 

This is sound overall advice, much appreciated.

From the look of things I will have a three week window of time coming up where I could possibly do this. The thing is, there are many variables that concern me.

First I’m not sure that I can expect aid from the devs, (though I would like it), they have plenty on their plate as is. And apart from technical questions, I would want to discuss other matters related to doing a proper podcast.

Another issue is that similar to Adam, who likes to get things in the game as perfect as possible, I would be treating a podcast the same way. It would be an awesome opportunity to not only showcase the game, but actually explain many aspects of it first hand and step by step, meaning I would want to show how fun and deep the game is while also offering a solid but subtle tutorial as well. And that creates additional concerns.

If I were to focus more on game play, then you could expect to see a game with the settings I prefer, it would be fun to watch, but perhaps not much value to a new player or someone that is still considering buying it. If on the other hand I focus more on the podcast acting as a tutorial, then it would make sense to show a game with a stock race on normal difficulty. As a tutorial, this would be far more informative, but it would also not be as exciting, and it would make the game look far less challenging than it is and shallower.

So that would be the first decision I need to make, (settings), and something I would want feedback on. It is important that I strike the right balance and show the game in the best light possible.

The other issue that concerns me is that I am, or rather was, a very mobile guy, constantly on the move and stopped using desktops after relocating across the globe several times, I play on a laptop. The RAM and processor both handle the game quite well, but the integrated graphics card means I set the quality low. I would hate then to make the game and is graphics look poor.

Of course knowing what software to use and any other advice I could get from someone that’s already done one is a must.

As far as chatting away, don’t worry, it would be my intent to explain every move, (and alternative), quickly and concisely as I believe that would benefit players. (eg, Cultural advancement, explain the choices and reasoning behind each option, as they become available, before making a selection and briefly explaining why it makes sense at that particular time but may not in a different setting).