What I have seen so far

First a bit about my background. I have played many sessions of MoO2 and came back frequently to it over the years, playing on hard difficulty (you never need fleets larger than 20 ships). It's simply still the best 4X TBS around (along with Heroes III) because it has competent AI that makes the game challenging even for a seasoned veteran. And on hard difficulty it really depends on your starting position whether you can win the game.

All these years we had attempts to replicate MoO2 gameplay but nothing really succeeded at this.

With ISG we have a new challenger. ISG is much smarter than previous attempts because the devs had the courage and insight to replicate MoO2's features closely and top it off with some smart innovations.

Let's see.

After reading the quickstart guide and watching the intro, selecting a new game brings you to the game setup. It seems the devs recommend to start the game on an easy setting. But being an MoO2 veteran, that just doesn't work for me, so I chose to play on viceroy with the AI opponents set to average. I also chose to play a huge map with six factions because this way you have more time to develop your empire and see how the game works.

Naturally, how challenging the game will be depends largely on how efficient the AI develops their factions. It may be that you will encounter quite tough opponents if you meet them the first time, if you don't nurture and grow your empire as efficiently as you can. MoO2 had this great feature that the AI didn't cheat, but on higher difficulties the AI factions received more points for their race picks, in effect giving them random additional traits, which could be quite powerful. Seeing that IGS's devs had the wisdom to use the same system, I hold up the hope that they took a similar approach.

Here is my first question for the devs, does the AI in IGS cheat?

After the game started properly, I had the pleasure to see an MoO2 reminiscent map in HD, which is cool. After a first inspection it seems the map has more detailed nebula and special phenomena. The game put my empire in the bottom right corner. In MoO2 this tended to be an advantage if you can develop your empire at a steady pace to drive expansion.

I spent my first two sessions (typically 2 hours) simply examing the game (without doing anything), studying the map, exploring your home system and colony plus all the features the UI offers you, to get a grasp of how the different game elements interact with each other and to get an idea where the best synergies are. I read the entire tech tree (what appeared important at least) to see where the game leads to and to develop a plan how to grow my faction (humans).

It's in principle straightforward to identify a logical order for research, but in practice there are many interdependencies that stem from the needs of your empire. How many resources are availabe? What tradeoffs do you have to make for boosting research? Often, it is better to boost production and population growth first, because these in turn will lead to a much stronger boost of research once they flourish.

From looking at what you can do with your empire and in your systems and colonies, I gathered that support ships can play a powerful role. From the reviews I read and bits on the forums, I also gathered that exploring anomalies and ruins can also be a major route to empower your empire. Intriguing.

It is also clear that developing the colonies' infrastructure and space culture give you powerful perks, plus there are synergies between these and what your support ships do. The same is possibly true for exploration and survey ships.

In general IGS offers many more features than MoO2 which gives it more of a sandbox feeling than a pure strategy game. That can be good thing or not. But so far I am enjoying a lot to simply view and consider the tools at my disposal. As IGS leans more to a sandbox gameplay, a lot will depend on the AI.

(to be continued)

Recommendations (and bug fixes)

The intro video is choppy, it loads in-between and omits the voice over and vid during this time.

Clicking on an interface element (e.g. opening the infrastructure view) should work as a toggle. If you click on it while it is open it should close the window instead of resetting it. A small touch, but this time of polish applied across the board (more recommendations to come) will make the game experience way more polished.

A resume button for the game menu that simply loads the latest savegame. If the user quits a game, simply make a autosave for the current state, instead of asking for confirmation.

There is lots to say about how the research trees are represented (more on that later).

 

I seriously doubt this. I have a fair number of Unity games that also use video, but none of them has this bug.

The more likely cause is something chipset-related, and my guess is memory. Microsoft has a few methods to determine the amount of availabe RAM, but some report wrong values on some PCs. It's technically a Microsoft OS bug, but it is caused by the chipset and/or memory chips used (I know this for certain from another project). Whether that is the cause of the choppy video is fortunately straightforward to figure out. Simply report the amount of RAM that ISG detects in the game version string or the game settings, then the users will know if there is something amiss. If the same users who reported choppy video performance report wrong memory detection, you will know.

A lot of devs think of the UI and ergonomics as a technical requirement. But it is much more. Heroes III is a good example, it has one of the most userfriendly UIs around. Things like you get the details of your heroes, creatures, towns and many more stuff directly by clicking on these wherever they are (ISG has this as well, good!), no remembering what menu to navigate. These are all small touches, but the thing is if you (as the user) can simply forget thinking about the interface, your game becomes more immersive. Everything that the interface does that is not intuitive, takes you a moment out of the game. How you interact provides a texture, a tactile experience how you play, and in the case of Heroes III it felt like a breeze, it makes you come back to the game simply because you remember a great experience, even if a large part of this is subconscious. Don't underestimate the power of an excellent and polished UI.

Very commendable. I'd even go as far as to say that is a design that will make the game live a very long time. I played Stars in Shadow, GalCiv and Civ and what ultimately makes me stop playing these games is having learned what the AI can do, and if the gameplay is assymetric because of cheats it becomes uninteresting/tiresome at some point.

I need to see more of ISG to judge whether the starting boni keep the game balanced in the mid and late game. If the AI is not able to hold up against the human players, the game might suffer. So far I encountered only a single AI faction, the Moltar. Comparing the traits my faction has (a few) with the Moltar it somehow seemed that the list of their traits is very long and contains items like +2 RP/pop. Now, MoO2 did something similar with their trait point buy system giving the AI a few boni depending on difficulty. I need to see more of the gameplay to learn whether ISG keeps things balanced or overreachs.

Ideally you want an AI that can defeat the human players without boni. ISG is interesting in the way it uses synergies. There are a lot of synergies, for example between support ships and infrastructure, between production and infrastructure, also with leaders, exploration, techs and events, that go way beyond linear progression and offer sometimes exponential benefits. That's no criticism, it's good. So as a player you have tools at your disposal that let you reverse highly unfavourable positions. But proper AI design for it is very hard to do. If the AI would employ all these systems effectively to its advantage, it would truly be challenging. I will need to see more of the game, but for now I assume that the advantage is on the human side. At any rate exploring a game with such rich mechanics that are sensibly integrated is a lot of fun.

(to be continued with a report of my game)

 

Let's start in chronological order.

After throroughly examining what the game allows me to do before my first turn, I figured that researching robotic factory and asteroid exploitation would be logical first steps. In hindsight, considering that production is multiplied by population and infrastructure, there are most likely more efficient strategies that take into account all options at your disposal. But that is part of the fun to figure this out. There are also quite significant synergies that you learn as the game progresses, how significant the perks of leaders are, synergies between tech and strategic resources, boosts from tech that require you to have certain buildings like the starbase and so on.

In general, what the best strategy for your given position is depends a lot on the topology of the map. As my faction started in a corner with only two stars in range, the logical strategy is to dispatch your two frigates to see what's out there and build up your home system while doing your best on research. The initial space culture adventure picks are strong, but I decided against getting the free ships because the speed boost and other perk are worth much more in the long run.

The means that ISG offers you to grow your colonies (and home system) are way more involved than what MoO2 had to offer, which basically was to micromanage your colonists and food supply. It's good that ISG doesn't bog you down with food supplies but involves you immediately in developing a more in-depth grasp requiring you to get the most of many systems that have synergies. Compared to MoO2 the growth curve is much more steep, going from a few dozen production points initially to more than one thousand in a single colony in turn 150. The building cost of the items you want to build reflect this, which in turn means you will need to develop your colonies patiently by frequently hitting next turn without something happening.

That said, the pacing is enjoyable. If people complain about the pacing, it's most likely due to the interface and presentation, not so much the gameplay, which is solid.

Back to the game, the initial exploration my frigates did yielded only very limited options.



As you can see, the better of the two systems in range was guarded by a crystal entity, prompting me to send out my one available colony ship to the other system without waiting for full exploration.

The strategy now changed to make the most of these two systems, including boosting your research and space culture, to extend the range of your ships and to explore further. This is the hallmark of a good 4X strategy game that you constantly have to adapt your strategic goals.

While you play you learn to keep some cash on hand to make the most of galactic events that happen randomly and for leaders when they appear. I ignored the first ship leaders that approached my faction, but when a good colony leader appeared I taxed my production to a maximum to hire the leader as fast as possible. The skills and the perks the leader offers to your colony and empire are worth it.

Galactic events are more than simply choose your reward or mitigate a disaster. In one event I did forgo the free cruiser or free support ship offered by a xenophobic militia. The thing is, if you are a veteran of 4X games you look out for a game that is more involved, in which your choices have meaning. And ISG promises at least a bit of that by telling you that your leaders react to what you do. I like to play ethically anyway, so I was just glad to see that my leaders frequently developed a philantrophic trait and that I can imagine they did that because of my leadership.



As you can see, after researching the tech that boosted my ships range, the situation didn't improve much. The crystal entities are way to tough to consider building up my fleet to make progress on that front. So I have to continue a bit longer with my current strategy, with the added consideration to research the colonization tech required for the one system in range. Although this colony would be less then ideal, it makes sense to claim this system for the added range and exploration options.

Building a colony ship early on is a sizeable task, but if you consider your options it makes sense. The picture that emerged after colonizing the Glea system, can't be called a breakthrough though.



My "empire" is under serious threat to be boxed in, and it requires now a creative effort to advance exploration at least to carve out a niche in which my faction can thrive.

The first aliens I encountered, the Moltar, are presented well and give you a first hint at an assymetric faction design that has different factions desire different planets and environments. The Moltar are quite at the opposite end of the spectrum from humans, as they are seemingly crystalline and living on lava planets (similar to the Silicoids in MoO2). ISG lets you examine your standing compared to the factions you have encountered in the fields of technology, production, population, culture and fleets, to give you an idea of the leverage. What I have seen so far of the diplomacy system seems like standard 4X fare, but it is noteworthy that the AI factions seem less belligerent than in most other 4X games, which is a nice touch and can make the game way more enjoyable for those with a pacifist or builder mentality. The game also doesn't penalize you for your fleets passing through other empires, and the diplomacy system has options to allow other factions to mine (i.e. building outposts) in each others territory. It favours cooperation.

(to be continued)

 

In order to carve out a niche for my faction I finally commissioned a survey ship and another colony ship to settle the one unoccupied system nearby. I also have two support ships boosting the development of my second system, Zloas. So far in general ISG strikes a nice balance between what requires attention, your colonies, your empire management and your space ships.

It is good that you can dispatch your ships without worrying about empire borders. To be on the safe side I avoided visiting other empire's colonies so far, but otherwise you can send your ships through the influence zone of other empires and their outposts without causing trouble.

My faction didn't get an exploration leader (not even after building the Galactic Relic Wonder) and so my exploration of ancient ruins is not optimal. While my survey ship can get around quickly enough with the speed perk from the space culture development, up to this point it hadn't any luck searching ancient ruins except of a minor thing. If I remember correctly it was a full scan of three random systems. At least the game was graceful to select settled rival systems, so that it provided me with some knowledge where other factions might be located. That seems to be true in general, whether it is with galactic events or leaders or exploration, the game rewards you with something more often than not. Good.

After dispatching my new colony ship nearly thirty turns later (this gives you an idea of the effective initial development speed) after the target system came into range, the newly settled colony extended the range of my ships further and brought contact with the next faction.



The Draguul are also presented well. ISG gives you just enough lore and background that you can form a picture of the alien faction, without being excessive. Fitting with the asymetric faction design, the Draguul prefer another environment, swamp planets. There was already a hint that the map was set up this way, as the system with the second crystal entity was kind of a mirror to the system nearby my homeworld, only that instead of terran worlds it has swamp worlds.

The Draguul also seem reasonable, which sets a more peaceful tone for this game. In terms of development the two other factions have no advantage, except that the Moltar lead me in tech research, which is not surprising because of their +2 RP/pop research bonus plus their additional breakthrough chance. The breakthrough chance is designed as a percentage, which in effect works like a direct research boost (e.g. 20% breakthrough chance means 20% boosted research speed).

If you look at the map you would naturally conclude that further expansion is difficult.

In order to expand further in this situation, the logical plan is to extend your range further (researching better logistics), to build an outpost further out, and then hope to gain access to a good colonizable system further out.

In principle ISG made it easy. Researching is straightforward enough. Always prioritize this, as in a 4X space game like ISG, tech normally yields so many advantages that it is usually way more valuable than other assets. Naturally, you also need to get your production up, as this affects the pace of your expansion, which in turn determines your population and research output. So, there are recursive dependencies, which allows for a variety of strategies. However, from my experience tech research is what gives you the best options.

Building the outpost was much more easy than expected. Apart from the regular solar systems, ISG features other types of astronomic objects that are not suitable for colonization but offer valuable resources for mining. The biggest prize in these systems is normally at the center, often yielding a strategic resource. Either by intent, or oversight, the AI often leaves the biggest prize for you, so I could build an outpost in the Zrais system's center. The same goes for mining in asteroid belts. Somehow the AI selects the smaller asteroids first, which is illogical. All things done, the Zrais system boosts income and range for my faction.

Going for what seemed a desperate plunge, I settled a colonizable system at the far edge of my range. This brought into range two more factions.



As you can see the empire is slowly growing. It is noteworthy that my colonies are only weakly defended, but the other factions don't seem to be aggressive at this stage, which is fair.

It should also be noted that ISG's leader system, governors for your colonies and captain for your fleets, is neatly integrated into the overall network of synergies and empower your empire considerably. In addition to that, the desires of my leader on Sol prompted me to colonize Mars by giving me additional incentives and making this effort worthwhile at this stage. This said, leaders are good to have and add to the game.

The two newly encountered factions fit into the asymetric faction design. They also have different traits, the Kaek are like a hive and the Sulak a bit like rogues. They seem like the spy masters in MoO2, the Darlok, which you were always glad not to encounter before the mid/late game because they could steal every tech you researched too easily before you could afford suitable counter espionage.

Two turns later my survey ship stumbled upon an ancient battleship in an ancient ruin. It completely shifted the power in the game.



This is a very huge advantage. In principle you could obliterate the home systems of all the factions you encountered and easily win the game. On the other hand I am aware that other factions could make a similar catch, and sabotage could cause you to loose the advantage just as easily. But realistically it is nearly a wild card for you to win the game.

As I do not like to play a militaristic ruler and rather prefer an ethically sound approach, I settled on simply using the advantage passively. With this level of military advantage, I could simply leave my colonies and outposts unprotected as no one would challenge these militarily.

The other big advantage this gives you is that you can defeat the space monsters relatively early in the game, which gives you another huge advantage and access to the assets they protect: valuable star systems and more ancient ruins.

This means it is possible to simply win the game by churning out colony ships and outposts.

Thirty turns later the advantage slowly materializes, for veterans of the 4X genre it is too obvious already.



It is noteworthy that the other factions (with their current AI) can simply not uphold the pace of development. I don't think it's only due to the military advantage, though they may divert resources to military spending or research. The more likely cause is that they simply don't develop as efficiently as a human player, who can use synergies much more smartly.

Additionally, the exploration of my now empowered survey fleet yielded further access to ancient ruins, which gave my faction also Adamantium armor, a highly powerful defense tech.

As I didn't like to slaughter the nearly helpless space monsters (compared to the ancient battleship), I looked for another way. Indeed ISG allows you to raid and capture immobilized opposition and also the space monsters. Good. But in this case it only adds to my already too powerful fleet. Plus my explorers discovered another battleship. The first is called The Punisher and the second The Mothership.

The balance of power looks now like this.



You can also see that the human faction now leads in most areas. In the turns that followed it also got the lead in population and is now very close to overtaking the Moltar in tech research.

I am seriously considering to simply regard this game as won, as the Moltar are the number two overall faction and also my allies, and to begin a new one with possibly the hardest difficulty setting. However, it's hard to do as I have become quite attached to my leaders and my space empire in general.

So, my question, is there still something that can derail victory or is there something that I need to see in my first game before trying the hardest difficulty?

Recommendations (and bugs)

The engagement screen that is always displayed when you visit a location with an installation or ship from another faction, even your allies, is hasslesome. It takes you out of the game with its double confirmation. This needs to be done better.

One of my starting frigates seems to have had its crew experience reset. While one frigate developed normally, the other has green crew again. Anthony Yang had been assigned to it, before I transferred him to another ship.

Anthony Yang also did ask for a merit raise, which I fulfilled, but ten turns or so later a message popped up that it had been failed. I loaded the autosave from the previous turn and the bug didn't appear again.

The combat report is truly counterintuitive. You always have to search for the information. This could be done much more easily and intuitively by showing the surving and destroyed ships visually in respective sections.

The Epocholon event spoils the results of your choices.

(to be continued with a more indepth analysis and recommendations)

 

Correct. For better clarity the event is the one in which you have to decide what to do with the dusted casing once your scientists report an active data core.

Viceroy and average AIs.

Considering that the setup in the corner with two factions boxing you in would usually be difficult to beat, but that there was no challenge at all, the recommendation for all players to start their first game on easy should be reviewed.

@Adam Solo
Regarding your update on Steam, don't change the speed of building colony ships. That's the one thing that truly works. That people feel the game is slow has to do with its presentation. I will give more detailed feedback later.

 

Konstantine, thanks for your answer.

Don't get me wrong, I like the combat in MoO2, it's the meat of the game. It's totally exhilarating to defend an important colony with your last ship standing against overwhelming opposition. And these many turns over against different invaders, by getting your reinforcements just right in time. Tech matters, speed matters, strategies matter.

It is a bit sad having seen nothing of this in ISG so far. I selected the difficulty mostly because the game recommended even weaker settings for any players new to ISG. A shame really, as we would have witnessed how 1.0.3 could have put up a fight. It might have made a difference if the Moltar and Draguul would have had 50 turns more advancement and claimed more colonies.

What I have heard so far, e.g. puny invasion fleets and low aggressivity (it's nice but the AI should adapt situationally to strategic requirements), leads me to the conclusion, just like @aReclusiveMind suggested, to try a game on hardest difficulty after the 1.0.4 patch.

 

I checked out your AAR. It seems you have an entirely different playing style. For me strategy is like maths and art and should be efficient and elegant. Hence learning to make best use of every tool the game offers you is quite good fun for me, even if it turns out that the AI cannot hold up its own in the end.

We will see ... and maybe we can compare notes once we have 1.0.4. Should be fun.

 

Let's get started with a more indepth analysis. I will do my best to make it useful for the devs and players.

First let's have a look at what means ISG offers to develop your empire:

1. Production. It's needed for almost everything your empire puts on the map. Base production is per population (pop) and multiplied by infrastructure level (the number of infrastructure improvements) and morale (1.0 has no effect, but it can be lower and higher). Infrastructure improvements and buildings can also improve your production. The environment (gravity) can affect your production. Strategic resources can add to your production through buildings which depend on your researched tech. Support ships add to production of the colonies in the system where they are stationed. Asteroid belts from outposts anywhere on the map can add to a colony's production. Leaders can boost production if they govern a system. Empire and galactic achievements (unique buildings) can boost production as well as space culture perks (SCP).
   
2. Population (pop). You don't need to sustain your population with food or otherwise, so you will always want to max out your population. Pops generate production, research, space culture (SCP) and income.
3. Morale. Satisfaction of your population is measured in morale. It depends on the environment, gravity, biome, and other more situational factors. It can be boosted by buildings and biome. For example a 40% (0.4) morale increase boosts everything (!) your pops generate by 1.0 + 0.4 = 1.4.
4. Infrastructure. It can boost the living conditions on a colony by boosting planetary engineering which affects morale and population growth and capacity. Alternatively infrastructure can boost the production of buildings and ships. You have to choose whether an infrastructure improvement boost planetary engineering, building production or ship production. The improvements are significant. Additionally infrastructure improvements give moderate boosts to different types of research. Completing all infrastructure improvements of one type gives a flat empire-wide bonus to planetary engineering, building or ship production respectively. Completed infrastructure improvements, counted empire-wide, also add to your support ship output which in turn boosts colonies. But the most significant gain from infrastructure is as a factor (number of improvements) that is applied to production in the colony.
   
5. Research. It is generated by pops, buildings, research outposts and leaders. The research generated per pop can be boosted by space culture perks, buildings and leaders. Infrastructure, leaders and events can also give you a flat bonus for research in a specific discipline (e.g. defense). Research is also boosted by breakthrough chance. This is significant as e.g. a 10% breakthrough chance adds effectively a 10% research boost. Tech research in general is a powerful tool to develop your empire, as techs can boost any area of development. Recommendation: read the tech tree before you make your first turn and plan your development.
   
6. Space Culture. This works similar to research but is accumulated from a different source, space culture points. The perks that it offers are powerful. Usually you have to choose between two perks of which you only can get one. Choose wisely!
7. BC. Billion credits, effectively money that allows you to hurry production, which is expensive, hire leaders and pay the costs of some options in galactic events. As you do not know when leaders show up and galactic events could happen anytime, you may choose to have a cash reserve at hand. Money can also be used to boost research and SCP, which is useful initially for finetuning, like getting the research for robotic factory done a turn earlier.
8. Buildings. Initially you have none or very limited options to choose a building for production. Tech research unlocks buildings for your colonies. Pay special attention to the two buildings that boost production early on, the robotic factory and the deep core mine. Which is the better choice depends on your colony.
9. Support ships. These boost production and planetary engineering in the system where they are stationed. The size of the boost depends on the infrastructure improvements in your empire.
10. Survey ships. These don't boost anything directly but allow you to research ancient ruins, which may yield exceptionally powerful boosts for your empire. If you have an exploration leader the chances of finding something valuable improve.
11. Outpost and outpost ships. Allow you gather production and research boosts as well as access to strategic resources.
    
12. Leaders. These come in two classes, governors who boost all colonies in a system they are assigned to, and ship captains. The governor's most important primary skill is to boost labor, i.e. production. All leaders have traits and secondary skills. Often these are more important than their primary skills. The genius trait is highly valuable, as this allows you to increase primary skills, e.g. labor, twice as fast. Leaders with the general research secondary skill boost your empire-wide research. Research breakthrough chance is highly significant, as this boosts effectively your entire research.
13. Treaties. Later on you can agree diplomatic treaties with other empires. These can boost your income, research and mining (outpost) rights.

As you can see there are a ton of interdependencies between all the tools at your disposal. Knowing these gives you access to a variety of development strategies.

(to be continued)

 

The beauty of a 4X game like ISG is that the wealth of tools to shape your colonies and empire lets you adapt the way you play and approach challenges appearing on the horizon as you see fit. It is hugely empowering.

Adapt you need. Each situation, your location on the map, the location of your rivals, your colonies, systems in range, is different. Not only that it also changes dynamically as you play, posing new challenges, and requiring you to adapt your strategic goals.

If you want to meet the challenges successfully, that is if you want to meet the expectations and the bar you uphold for yourself and not just casually play the game as you go, then you need to know the tools at your disposal intimatedly, not just what they are but also their quantitative impact. Numbers are abstract but applied they mean something, and you get to experience their impact while you steer your empire.

In the previous post we discussed what the means are to develop your empire. Dependencies and synergies matter a lot. To get on our way, we need to identify what we have to focus on initially to make your first colonies into a powerful base that lets you expand into space. Ideally faster than your rivals.

As this is a strategy game, developing your empire is only a part of your entire task. Your empire is a tool. Eventually you will need to develop leverage that enables you to successfully compete for the resources that can be claimed by any empire. Naturally the most important resource are star systems and their colonies. The tools that give you leverage against your rivals are not only your fleet, just as important is your ability to use what you already own, to adapt and produce, but also to exchange -- which is typcially limited in a 4X game.

We will look at how to conduct military campaigns and successful defensive strategies later, but you have always to be aware that this gameplay layer, because it is used as ultimate leverage, drives your strategic outlook. If you have a potentially aggressive neighbor, you cannot afford to leave yourself vulnerable to an attack that you cannot defend against. Though there are many strategies that allow you to forgo to build a substantial fleet, if you have the means available to repel an attack ultimately, by whatever means.

Your colonies are the footprint of your empire in the galaxy, so the first thing we need to do is to get a firm grasp how to claim new star systems and colonies and expand your empire. The colony ship is the tool that allows you to claim new colonies and take ownership of a star system. That means the production effort to produce a new colony ship and the time it needs to travel to its target is a key metric that determines the expansion phase of the game, i.e. until mostly all valuable colonies are claimed. Everything else needs to be seen in relation to this key metric. For the devs this means, don't change this key metric unless you want to rebalance everything. For the player it means the production capacity on your early colonies and the speed and range with which your ships travel are important keys.

We are now ready to have a more meaningful look at the tools at our disposal and to develop strategies how to grow our empire, depending on the situation it faces.

But before we do that we should have a look at two key concepts that don't shape your empire directly, but which shape the way you play the game.

Balance. As you go to examine the means at your disposal to shape your empire (ideally before you commit the first turn of your game) you will notice that not every tool is equally significant, and equally important its value may change depending on the situation. If you look at the long list of dependencies between the different tools at your disposal, e.g. between population, production, infrastructure, morale, leaders, tech, support ships and so on, you will notice that everything seen together is so complex that it is next to impossible to say what the best route is. So your initial task is to identify those tools that are essential and easily enough to grasp that you can develop a plan. Production is such a key tool. It gives you a measure how long it takes to build an item and you can envision a long string of colony ships leaving your space yard one after the other. But you will also note that production depends on population and infrastructure and morale. Plus what you can build depends on your researched tech. And some buildings like the robotic factory and deep core mine boost your production significantly. Your choice of infrastructure matters as well.

Balance as a key concept that shapes the way how you play the game means that your first task is to identify those tools that give you the biggest impact for the effort spent. Production grows exponentially if you act wisely, because you can boost population growth, infrastructure improvements, morale, and build production boosting buildings. It is more than cubic. The better players identify what matters quickly and always learn.

AI. Just as it is important to grasp the balance between the means at your disposal, you should be aware that your rival empires struggle similarly to make best use of their tools. If they would be fully aware of how everything works, they would be formidable opponents. But the reality in a game is more often that they have more difficulties than you. So make intelligent guesses, as you go and discover the synergies between the tools at your disposal, where you believe that you can excel and perform truly strongly, and in which areas you expect to beat your AI rivals. Tech research is fairly often a means to outperform the AI. Identify tech that enhances your leverage, ideally by maximising synergies, go for it and gain a leverage. But there are many other possibilities that you can discover for unique synergies and strategies, for example support ships are very powerful in this game. Enjoy the search for great synergies and see your empire blossom.

(to be continued)

 

Let's have a look at ISG at its highest difficulty setting, now that patch 1.0.4 is out.


If you are up for a challenge, attached is the savegame before the game starts. It's mostly vanilla rules, except that your race is customized heavily to cope with the expected difficulty.

The start looks like this:



I will most likely play slower than you, as I am typcially only play a bit at dinner, so you can check for my notes without expecting spoilers. If you record your match in the AAR subforum we can compare notes and performance.

 

Fan fiction can enhance your game nicely. I like these great story arcs where a bit of additional knowledge from the past can change your outlook of today significantly. With all these history rewrites, you also loose your identity.

Regarding the game setup, well, the idea is to test what ISG can handle in its current state. From my first glance at the starting position, it seems that there may be a bug that the game doesn't account for your subterranean trait. Because the homeworld is large it should show a pop cap of 24 with subterranean, but it only says 16. That would be another huge penalty if you loose 4 race pick points that way. But I think I will go with this game setup regardless because your starting position on the map seems viable, with the north not having major stars. Naturally a lot will depend on where the other factions are located.

Regarding the AARs, it is better to record these in separate threads. This way more players can join the fray, if they like to. If you do, simply notify us with posting the link to your AAR here.

I will mention the turns covered in each update right at the top of each post, so that you have a guidance. Eventually our games will fork anyway because different random events may happen and our choices likely will be different. Should be fun.