Once again I find myself playing a session of ISG. This time it's not a marathon type sitting, but one I come back to for a few turns of gameplay every other day or so. Take a look below, I absolutely love this. Keep in mind my fleet is also dwarfed by the Nova. Were I playing MoO2 this would be game over, there was no coming back from such a disparity in power and numbers. In ISG though, this is exactly the kind of challenge I want to face. Yes, I'll probably lose, but there is a small chance I will not. With the map set at maximum, (280 MoO2 type star systems), I have the strategic depth needed to fight my way out of this state of affairs; and hope that my application of tactics is enough to defeat a dominant foe. This is almost unique in a 4X game, it's one of the many factors that has turned ISG into one of my all-time favorites. The replay value is truly exemplary. I'm not going to chronicle this playthrough as an AAR, but perhaps, (time permitting), I may update the situation from time to time. At the very least, I'll let you know if I managed to pull out a win.
I would be interested to see the culture for the Nova, since on paper they appear to be the most powerfull faction, if they've chosen the path of Spiritual Awakening there's no way they can conquer you by force... Your likely in danger more from the other factions because of your apparent weakness in this situation, but of course it depends on the Victory conditions... Galactic Council would be a bummer... My goal would be to rob the Nova of any tech I could as quickly as possible to make what fleet is available unbeatable, I dont think fleet 5 is terrible as at least some factions would not consider making war... You definatly need some good spys to cope.
Well my friend, they won the galactic vote one turn after that shot, lol. I refused it, and everyone declared war at once against me. Here's what happened. The Nova are far away with I think four vassals, so I sprung into action against the Palacean, Cerrix and Moltar as they are near by. I was able to make short work of their fleets, even taking some worlds and they asked for peace. At that time Nova ships started to show up, they had hyperdrive and adamantium armor with high tech weaponry. The fight against them is difficult. Also, the fleet rankings look the same as the over-all rankings above, meaning my fleet is tiny compared to theirs. (And this raises another issue. I have the industry available to produce ships, but the SSP cap is holding me in check. So @Adam Solo how about a new empire type building (meaning one per empire like the econ cap) that grants some SSP? It could be either related to colonies/bases or a flat bonus if easier. I think the game can handle that). Spying is a good option my friend, have the best spy available sitting safely behind the lines, it's time for some skullduggery I think. Now another interesting note. I played a similar game where I was defeated, but back then, the vassalage mechanic did not exist. So after I refused the vote, my opponent kept gobbling up planets from other powers as well and held most of the galaxy. Here I'm hoping that the Nova will not/can not attack their own vassals and grow in power. If I'm correct, it will be their vassalage of those other powers that will come back and bite them in their skinny Nova ass. We'll see.
If you get a Spy with Deep Cover into the Nova or one of the other factions you may find minor civs with SSP bonuses, Capture Enemy worlds with good ship facilitys preferably the full 6, research bigger orbital bases and Always make sure your leaders are capable of supporting the ship their in even at the cost of the big three, normally 4 points 8 SSP for my leaders... this should go some way towards it at least but requires planing from the start... Usually I sacrifice ship infrastructor bonuses for CIV Eng bonuses on colonised worlds so I'm always on the SSP limit... Adamantium is I think overated largely because of this: The Jump tek and Wurtzite AP cannons are the most important part as you can jump behind an enemy ship and cause catastrophic damage and with a small amount of neutronium + neutronium shells can be very effective. You can get away with much lower structure armour and shields as the object is to avoid enemy attacks, enough speed to spin on the spot is more important... use these ships for guerilla tactics destroy what you can and retreat if it looks like you might be overwhelmed, they should be good for at least one attack before they can be targeted... This one was created specifically to combat the moltar in a recent game at 25% research 75% production, the Palaceans get a minus 50% for weapons reseach as well (by the end of the game they had a massive -1066 points handicap for weapon research), plus no tech building bonuses were used or H3 enhancments (from turn 269), most palacean weapon tek was stolen or obtained by other means then research... The Cannons do around 200 points damage total per round. The Moltar had max structure Adamantium, HV Phasers with SP/AP mostly and Chaos Chain, they never got a shot off... or at least not one that counted...
Well I only have Tritanium, so Adamantium is problematic. It's also the most likely cause of why the Nova came to dominate the other AI Empires. But I'm no AI. I used my spies in more direct and brutal tasks, namely taking out some Nova ships. I've also deftly countered their strikes by massing forces quickly where they're needed. Now it's a race as to who can take more territory from neutrals, and I'm winning that race...though it's slow. P.S. They are not attacking their vassals and that's huge. It keeps territory out of their more capable hands.
Well the point is Adamantium is only usefull if your in a head to head fight with no way to avoid being hit by the enemy, jump tek allows you to attack in such a way that the enemy have to manouever simply to bring your ship within their arcs of fire... this is relatively rare I find, so the only thing you really have to be concerned about is concentrated missile attacks, decent PD defence will usually negate this, and if you really do feel threatened you can jump away taking cover under the PD defences of your other ships (or Retreat). Adamantium will make the enemy harder to destroy as the structure will be greater but being able to penetrate it levels the playing field. If the AI factions used Jump tek (which they rarely seems to happen) the game would be much harder... Just my thoughts not written stone...
No my friend, it would not, players would simply counter. You like that tech and I understand why, but it would be largely useless against my ship designs, more so if I allocated some space to extended firing arcs. I don't use it myself as it would sacrifice space. My ship designs are what I consider balanced. Perhaps they do not excel in one area, but they have no glaring vulnerabilities either. When working in tandem with one another, they are extremely potent.
Talk of the Devil... In a recent game I ended up where the main protanganist the Draguul, who were at war with everyone pretty much, started to produce Jump Ships... It didn't last and few were produced, later the Draguul suprisingly Surrendered before a single "Draguul" Colony had been captured by the Sulak, though they did loose non Draguul pop'd worlds... I'll detail this game in future posts on the Sulak thread, perhaps its most interesting in that the Moltar had a massive 100% advantage in research on the Sulak... the thing was I never realised this when I was playing the game till it became obvious, and later realised I hadn't set the Moltar research to a more "reasonable" level... the next highest the Nova had a 50% advantage, but this was deliberate. The Reason why I really like the game, or at least one, is that when I picked it up I found it to be largely Intuitive... I've never read a manual, on line posts, or tips to play the game... at least untill I found this Forum, and my thanks go out to the design team for producing such a Gem, Its always a challenge and always Fun to play.
Indeed. I'm playing a game now where the Cerrix are using Combat Jump Displacement on numerous ships, especially their Titans (I have no ships of that class by the way). My regular designs are holding up well. The enemy jumps in, and immediately gets swatted by overwhelming missile salvoes. After that my direct fire weapons mop them up. At point-blank range they are doing me a favor.
