Outer Rim Federation: Bring order to Chaos

[dragoongfa]

Hello everybody, first post and first attempt at an AAR with distant worlds, bear in mind that English is not my mother tongue so please forgive any grammatical or spelling errors.

First of all I would like to ask the mods if I should upload 1900 x 1200 screen shots, I didn't see any rules regarding image size but I know that many people frown at images of that size.

Galaxy settings:

Type: Spiral
Size: 1400 systems
Independent Life: Teeming
Expansion: Starting
Aggression: Chaos
Research: Normal
Creatures: Many
Pirates: Many

Empire Settings:

Name: Outer Rim Federation
Race: Human
Size: Young
Tech: Enhanced
Government: Democracy
Location: Far Regions

Opponent Settings:

13 opponents
Races: Random
Size: Starting
Tech level: Basic
Government: Random
Home System: Normal
Location: Half of them distant and the other half average.

Victory conditions: Sandbox
Personal Goal: Bring order to chaos (will explain immediately)

This is my sixth or seventh start and I feel confident with my grasp of gameplay mechanics and the economic model, as most people will see I chose the most hostile settings available for the galaxy, diplomatic relations will be a nightmare while pirates and creatures will be a constant thorn at my side. With the teeming setting for independent life all empires should have numerous species and abilities. As always a proper 4X game should start at the earliest possible stage. My empire settings may seem a little helpful but notice that I have located myself at the far regions, a location with few systems and thus fewer expansion opportunities and with the hostile galaxy any advantage I get from my higher population and slight head start at the technology race I can safely say that by mid it should disappear.

As for my personal goal, my main goal is to pacify the galaxy or at least the greatest part of it, no pirates, no creatures and most empires brought under control, one way or the other.

Ah yes forgot to mention that I may roleplay a little .


The Tasareq system of sector C2, once the furthest colony of the Terran Federation suddenly found itself isolated and detached, no one knows what exactly transpired, what we know is that suddenly all contact with the federation was lost, no transmissions, no ships, nothing reached this far flung system, every ship that was sent to investigate simply disappeared without even a distress signal, so the colonists decided to wait. It has been a century since that time and the people of Tasareq are tired of waiting, after a long time in isolation the people have spoken, we must know what happened to Earth and the Federation, the two colonies of Tasareq, Tasareq 2 and 3 founded the Outer Rim Federation, Tasareq 3 was made the capital of this new federation and its name was changed to Neo Terra.

The new government quickly went to work and its first ever mandate was to name Tasareq 2 'New Ireland', in order to honor the first settlers of that particular planet. The people of New Ireland quickly perked up with their new name and immediately renamed their famous Rephidium ale from Tasareq ale to New Guinness, some people saw it as an insult to the ancient Guinness beer but they were the same people that never tasted the New Guinness.

After this the government went onto more serious matters, the terraforming of the planets Tasareq 1 and 4 was finally complete, thus the order was given for two new colony ships to be built and sent to colonize the two now habitable planets but in the meantime there were far more pressing matters to attend to.

The reorganization of the fleet had the highest priority, the fleet was more than adequate to protect the current holdings of the Federation but the future plans of the federation demanded much more than that. As it is the current fleet still uses the same ship designs of the Terran Federation, these ship designs although proven with time may not be sufficient to protect the Federation and as such a refit project must be launched.

The first ship design to be upgraded is the Colonizer, most people have asked why a ship that transports millions of people is not shielded or even armored. The decision was made to install 6 shield emitters and 11 armor layers, making the colony ship the second best protected ship of the federationg, right after the mothership class ressuply ship, the colony ship did not receive any armament because its mission does not require it to have while it fleet doctrine to always escort this class of ships.

The next ship design to be upgraded is the Explorer class, lightly shielded, unarmored and unarmed the Explorer is not meant for combat but who knows what the brave explorers will run into and as such the decision was made to have a total of 3 shield emitters, 9 armor layers, 4 directional thrusters and 8 fuel cells bringing this ship to the 200 size range. With enough shields and armor to have a good chance of surviving an ambush or a space creature while engaging the hyperdrive this class has not received any armaments.

The 2 next classes to be upgraded are to be the backbone of the fleet, the escorts and the frigates, both of this classes of ship saw an increase in armaments, armor, fuel cells and shields; increasing the size class to 160 for the escorts and to 200 for the frigates, the frigates may receive a further upgrade bringing the size to 230 when the technology level permits it.

The current fleet amounts to the following:

15 Escorts
18 Frigates
3 Destroyers
4 Explorers
3 Constructors

The escorts are to be left with police and escort duties while the frigates and the destroyers are to be organized into 2 fleets, the 1st fleet will be comprise of 3 Destroyers and 8 Frigates and the 2nd will be comprised of the 10 remaining Frigates. With the make up of each fleet it should be easy to see what the mission for each fleet will be, the 1st is to be an attack fleet while the 2nd is to be a defense fleet.

Each fleet got to see action almost simultaneously, the 1st fleet was tasked to kill a giant kaltor that threatened a gas mining station at a nearby system, while the 2nd fleet was tasked to protect a mining station that came under attack from 2 pirate Frigates, normally it would fall to the escorts to dispatch such threats but the entire escort fleet had been ordered for refit at the Neo Terra shipyard, along with the 4 explorers. Without much fuss and with only minor damage to a destroyer, both engagements ended in favor of the Federation boosting morale for the new fleet.

It wasn't long that pirates made an other attack on an outlying mining station that was under construction, the 2nd fleet was quickly dispatched but it arrived only a few seconds after the station was destroyed and the pirates jumped to hyperspace, thankfully there was no loss of life due to the actions of the constructor crew but the loss of equipment was a blow.

Soon after that the pirates, calling themselves the 'star buccaneers' made a proposal "Pay 5054 credits and you will be 'protected' against all threats in our territory", "The federation does not negotiate with terrorists" was our immediate response and the pirates made a remark about us looking for trouble. What the pirates did not know was that the Federation had launched its upgraded Explorer fleet with the mission to explore all nearby stars and nebula looking and report any pirate activity, we can safely say that our answer was received a minute before the 1st fleet arrived at the base and blew it to smithereens.

The shipyards of Neo Terra and New Ireland managed to complete the 2 colony ships (although New Ireland took its sweet time, something to do about Saint Patrick's day) and thus Tasareq 1 and 4 were immediately colonized, Tasareq 1 was name New Tibet because of the Buddhist sanctuary (known as the Sanctuary of Tasareq 1, it also gave a 32% development bonus) that was there from the first colonization of Tasareq and Tasareq 4 was named Hephaestus after the ancient smith god due to its high amount of minerals.

Meanwhile the Explorers had made several interesting discoveries:

A star system near Tasareq has two marshy swamp planers, our scientists believe that it is possible for humans to colonize such planets and the only thing that is needed is some specialized colonization equipment, the catch was that we don't have such equipment at the time but if we invest all of our research resources into crash research for habitation we should be able to have what we need to colonize these planets within an year or two.

An explorer actually managed to chart a black hole in sector E1, researchers say that any lab built in its vicinity would benefit by its gravity well thus boosting research by 600%, several tourist agencies have also shown interest in building a resort star base near the event horizon of the black hole, apparently people find the prospect of being near a singularity and its atom crushing charisma a good time passer.

The same explorer also managed to find an independent colony of Dhayut at the Dhayu system, with hindsight it was proven that it really is their home system although what happened to their home planet and why this colony was on a moon that orbited the furthest gas giant of their home system is still a mystery, the Dhayuts shared with us a story about the ancestors, supposedly a great civilization that once ruled the galaxy and was lost during a time known as the great forgetting, beyond that the Dhayuts proved hostile to humans, even going as far to attack the away team of the explorer.

Although some members of the government disapproved of such action, the 1st fleet was quickly mobilized and dispatched with three divisions to bring the Dhayuts into the federation, it proved that it was exactly what the Dhayuts needed, as a species they respect strength and violence, no amount of diplomacy would ever sway them for Federation membership.

After that their colony was named Dhayut garden and its luxury resources proved quite a hit with the human populace at the colonies.

It wasn't long after that that the Federation made contact with two alien empires.

The Byblus Nation, an single species empire of Quamenos and the Naxxilian Domain with Naxxilians being the only species. Both of these empires are hostile to the federation, their excuse is that we have a dubious reputation but our diplomats say that they are very jealous of our colossal strength and power, since both have only one planet with limited economic and military resources.

With the first contact firmly behind us and the obvious hostility of these two empires the federation decided that it is time to create a secret service to be used against any and all threats of the federation. The secret service at this time has two goals, the first is to defend against any intelligence infiltration and the second is to gather as much intelligence about these two empire as it is possible.

For the time being our goal is to bring these two empires in federation control, as such our advisers feel that we have to invest in bigger ship designs in order to create a planetary assault class of ship.

The pirate threat so far is minimal, with attacks against targets of opportunity they are less than a nuisance but with proper funding they could prove either an asset or a threat to the federation.

Time will tell.

[HsojVvad]

Very good dragoongfa. I am looking to see how this enfolds for you. Do you have any pics? It would be interesting to see how the battles unfold.

[dragoongfa]

I have taken several screen shots but since I play at 1900 x 1200 they are quite big, I may have to cut them or make them smaller which is the main reason why I asked if I should post them directly.

[HsojVvad]

I like when people post them and we can see them as we read it. Now that we have the "image" option, I don't like linking to somewhere else. I guess I have gotten lazy now. [;)]

[dragoongfa]

The Federation is on a good start

The Economy is strong:



We are expanding:



But on the diplomatic level things are not going well



Our Explorers have been busy, several potential colony planets have been discovered and some colony ships have already been sent, the most interesting planet so far to be discovered is a second Dhayut colony.



Even with the Dhayut in the federation it looks like that this Dhayut population is very hostile, the 1st fleet may be sent to show them the strength of the Federation, then as our previous experience with the Dhayuts we can expect to see a more positive outlook by this Dhayut population towards the Federation.

The 1st Fleet is occupied at the moment though, one of the exploration ships reported seeing an abandoned ship in a remote star but it could not investigate because a Giant Kaltor took an interest in it, so the 1st fleet was quickly dispatched to secure the ship in question.



The Giant Kaltor died so quickly that no one managed to get a photo of it but the ship has been secured, as it turns out the ship in question is Colony ship with millions of Ugnari onboard on stasis, the Ugnari being grateful for their rescue asked for Federation membership. Seeing that the Ugnari are very talented miners and that they thrive on the hostile ice worlds Federation officials granted them the right of citizenship and colonization within out territory.

The Ugnari immediately went to work:



With the Dhayuts and the Ugnari being part of the Federation several new potential colonies have been considered giving rise to the total potential colonies by a fair number, desert and ice worlds are more important now than we could ever imagine.

In the meantime an Exploration ship made an interesting discovery in a distant world, in the ruins of a long lost civilization we uncovered navigational data that points to the middle of sector E7 at the other side of the galaxy, although several members of the government have expressed doubt of the returns of such an endeavor a new cruiser size class of exploration ship has been designed and the prototype is currently under construction, this ship will have the fuel to explore every last part of the galaxy with the first mission being the exploration of that point in space, the ultimate mission of the ship is the rediscovery of Sol and to find answers to what happened a century ago.

But long before this mission will start we are brought back to the grim reality of today. Pirates have made an appearance in force.



These two escorts valiantly protect this remote mining station from the attack of two pirate frigates, the pirates clearly thought that they had the upper hand against what it seemed like an inferior force but the two escorts are more than a much for these two. The pirates seem to be more of a threat that we originally thought though, a whole pirate fleet suddenly emerged from hyperspace and the escorts had to retreat or face destruction, the second fleet was ordered to intervene.



Although they got there as fast as they could the pirates had already made short work to the mining station, the 2nd fleet quickly destroyed a lone frigate that had the bad luck of being right at the middle of the hyperspace exit point of half the fleet and a battle was soon joined; the pirates normally run when faced with a superior force but this time they felt comfortable with their odds, several frigates and a destroyer vs a fleet that was comprised only of frigates. The battle was more one sided that the pirates would hope, these frigates have firepower and shielding that matches that of a destroyer and thus the outcome was clear.



From a fleet of 7 frigates and a destroyer only a single frigate managed to escape destruction, normally the 2nd fleet would savor this great victory but the cost was high as the civilian station had been destroyed but soon the fleet would have its rematch.



This time the fleet got there in time, destroying the pirates while ensuring the safety of the station.

After these incidents it was decided that steps would have to be taken to counter this heightened pirate threat, the 3rd fleet was formed, a fleet once again comprised mainly of frigates with the same mission with the 2nd fleet, to protect our holdings from any threat, thus ensuring that thee 1st fleet will be free to attack and destroy the pirate hideouts whenever and wherever they are found.

On the diplomatic level things are going well, our recent victories against the pirates seem to have swayed the opinion of the two alien states:



But plans are still drawn to bring them into the federation, our advisers are positive that the pirates could not have gotten so many ships without funding and their few victories cannot explain their heightened numbers thus one or maybe both of these states may be responsible for this increase in pirate activities.

The increased spending in defense is straying the government budget but the economy is still healthy:



The plans to double the escort fleet have been put on hold for the time being, the budget would not be able to afford their maintenance. On the other hand it seems that our colonies are starting to be successful:



While our territory is expanding:



Soon sectors C1, C2, D1 and D2 will become part of our Federation.

EDIT: Fixed.

[Sarissofoi]

Nice.

BTW Democracy looks little overpowerd by me. I mean -25% coruption? Get real people:). This should be +25% to corruption. Yeah you get more income due to aproval and trade but all cost you more.

Simply asking: make goverments modable.

[dragoongfa]

This is one of the main reasons why I picked the teeming setting for independent life.

Already the Dhayut offset war weariness to 5% and once their population reaches the 2 billion mark I will see a -20% war weariness. The Naxxilians, once they get in, they will bring a -40% at troop maintenance.

Also I am gunning to get the 'way of the ancients' style of government, thus the cruiser sized exploration ship.

[monsterfurby]

Cool AAR. Interestingly, your guys have exactly the same logo as my Core Union (also Humans). Must be something about that thing and colour combination that shouts "Generic Human Democracy!"

[dragoongfa]

Thanks.

Imo the logos lack the standard human emblems, what I wouldn't give for an eagle banner.

[Gertjan]

Nice screenshots and good writing!

[dragoongfa]

The Federation may be technologically advanced but its populace and leadership still suffer from a few minor religious quirks; for a couple of days no decisions and no progress was made because the priest of Dev prophesied that a new age was coming, the 1.03 divine age, supposedly this new age will offer better stability to the universe but we will see.

When the officials of the ministry of colonization select the next colonization prospect there are always 3 criteria that weight their decisions:

1)Location Potential.
2)Resources
3)Security

Planet Desmanu Major 3 has the first 2 but its ruins have not been investigated by the exploration ship that mapped the system, so the 3rd fleet was ordered to investigate the ruins before any colonization attempt was taken. It was later proved to be a wise choice.



4 pirate frigates suddenly appeared and a message was quickly received.



No one knows how quickly the "Shove it up your ***" answer was given by the 3rd fleet commander but everyone knows that the firefight that ensued ended in mere seconds.



Meanwhile the 2nd Fleet was moving in to destroy a pirate hideout.



The 2nd Fleet quickly proved its Pirate killing skills once again.




It was later proven that this pirate base was not related to the gang that 'ambushed' the 3rd fleet but any dead pirate is a victory on its own.

The 1st fleet would normally be the one to dispatch pirate bases but it was busy at the moment, something about a candidacy of a Dhayut colony for federation membership.



After some time we received a trade offer from the Byblus nation:



They have a weird sense of humor.

The Federation Intelligence Bureau has finally managed to gain some concrete evidence of Naxxilian and Bylbus activities, namely their operation maps.

The Byblus Nation seems to be going through some rough times, with only 2 destroyes, 1 frigate and some escorts accounted, its military assets are hopelessly inadequate.

The most worrisome reports come from the Naxxilian domain, it seems that the Naxxilians have a similar idea to us about intelligence gathering, a monitoring station has been built near Tasareq system, this monitoring station is surely used to track Federation fleet movements but since it is in an unclaimed system its presence is legal.



A more troubling discovery is the disposition of the Naxxilian Fleet.



Their Fleet includes several destroyers and a single capital ship, although our advisers agree that our fleets should be able to take that beast out it is agreed that casualties would be heavy, measures must be taken to counter this threat. It seems though that the Bylbus nation and the Naxxilian Domain share a strained relationship.



This lone Naxxilian escort attacked a Byblus escort right on top the Byblus main spaceport, suffice to say that the Naxxilians were breathing vacuum far sooner that someone could say 'suffocating dinosaur'.

On the exploration front things are not going so well, one of our explorers while investigating some ruins at a distant star system unleashed an entire Kaltor swarm.



Unfortunately the explorer was lost with all hand on board and their families have been notified and given compensation. An other explorer was attacked by a Sand Slug, one of the most peculiar space creatures since it can live both in the atmosphere of Desert worlds and Space, fortunately the 3rd fleet was able to intervene in time.



These events involving space creatures have forced the Federation government to issue a shoot on sight order for every space creature sighted, to the dismay of the space ecology party.



Fleet officials later commented on the foolish attempt by a small civilian yacht, owned by a renowned econologist, to stop military ships from killing a giant kaltor 'It seems than some people don't realize that Giant Kaltors can eat through shields', the funeral for the 10 man crew of that yacht will be done with empty caskets.

The increased government tax income has allowed for the construction of 4 research station at the Wretched Vortex Black hole, upon completion the research output has reached unprecedented levels, with a lot of expansion potential, especially with the Quameno immigrants from the Bylbus nation.



Relations between the Federation and the Naxxilian domain are worsening by the day, attacks on Federation civilian ships have begun and are becoming routine, in the latest incident a federation freighter was destroyed by a Naxxilian destroyer.



Diplomatic protests have only resulted in a mere 'we won't do it again' response by the Naxxilian government, seeing no other solution the Federation is gearing for war, troop recruitment has been relegated to planetary officials, thus a huge recruitment drive has been launched on numerous federation planets, planets Neo Terra, Dhayut Garden and Catacha are the center of this recruitment drive, each of this planets is expected to produce 10 marine divisions.

The Catacha space port, the space port nearest to Naxxilian territory is being retrofitted to a medium sized space port with the latest in defense technologies.

The entire research sector has been tasked to improve our ship building capabilities, we will need bigger and better ships, plans are set in motion for the creation of 4th fleet, complemented with Cruisers this fleet along with the 1st, once retrofitted, will be the fighting arm of the federation.

Once preparations are ready an aggressive campaign of trade sanctions will begin, the Naxxilian psyche guarantees that their only response to a blockade is war.

The economy is strong enough to support a war:



The Byblus nation have petitioned us to declare trade sactions to the Naxxilians but he had to decline for the time being, simply put we ain't ready for war yet but we have given them our promise for financial help, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.




The clouds of war are gathering over us.



EDIT: Clarifications and Corrections.

[Gertjan]

Cool. I like how you focus on expansion, combat and diplomacy. Thanks for doing this![&o]

[Erik Rutins]

Great AAR so far, good luck with the Naxxilians.

[Tycow]

Hey dragoongfa, nice story so far

You come over from the X forums? (If so, my thread over there did some good! Woohoo!)

[dragoongfa]

Yep, suffice to say that I was intrigued enough to buy it [:'(].

[dragoongfa]

In order to best prepare for this war we must minimize or even eliminate all other fronts our empire faces.

The first front that we will have to deal with is the diplomatic one, the Byblus nation, although it has a military that is literally a joke still offers an opportunity to divert some Naxxilian attention, thus an economic aid package of about 15.000cr has been sent but federation officials deem that it is to early for a Free trade agreement. We will have to monitor the Byblus-Naxxilian war which as far as we can tell goes badly for the Byblus nation.



Thanks to the outstanding successes of our anti piracy operations pirate activity in Federation space has been ceased, with only one pirate raid in an entire year and our outstanding research output our plans regarding the fleet disposition have been altered.

With careful planning and funding at the research front the maximum ship size rose from 330 to 500 in a mere month, if we add the crash research that is planned for shields, weapons, reactors and thrusters (everything else is considered adequate) projections sow that in six months a major refit project will have to be launched. Thus the new plans regarding fleet disposition are as follow:

The 1st and 2nd fleet will comprise of 10 frigates, 4 destroyers, 3 cruisers and 1 capital ship as flagship. The 3rd fleet will receive some frigate reinforcements and will be the fleet reserve.

The newly formed 4th fleet will be comprised of our troop transports, its job is to get the ground pounders into the fight.

Going back into the diplomatic front the Byblus-Naxxilian war seems to have come to an end, the terms are unclear, it seems that the Byblus nation had to pay a small tribute but it managed to impress the Naxxilians to not push for a subjugated dominion, our diplomatic missions however payed up, in a way.



Although we have had these coordinates for years, in fact our long range explorer actually nears that point in space



The gesture is that counts.

Soon afterwards our explorer reached the coordinates finding a long abandoned space station, boarding it and bringing its mainframe online we have found something interesting.



Hmm, if the Terran Federation was part of that freedom alliance it means that we have begun to unravel what happened more than a century ago, this Shaktur Axis may be responsible; Anyway we now have one new space station.



Shiny.

Going back to Federation space, all colonizable worlds in sectors C1,C2,D1 and D2 have been colonized and integrated into the Federation, thus our next explansion steps have to be planned, sectors E1, E2 and E3 on our eastern frontier hold a decent amount of systems.

Sector E1 has only a couple of solar systems but Sector E2



Has numerous thus its the next logical step for expansion, right next to federation space

While sector E3



Has the potential of being the gateway in the galactic outer core, being right below the Kamuri arm nebula formations.

Sector D3 on the other hand houses a single Naxxilian colony and is relatively close to Naxxilian territory.



But it also house numerous colonizable planets, thus it also falls into our expansion territory, in fact the 1st fleet already moves in to remove a pirate base.

With our crash research projects finished it is time to introduce the new fleet designs, starting with the backbone of our fleet, the frigate class:



Strong enough to go toe to toe with destroyers.

The destroyer class is also impressive:



Yep it is supposed to take on a cruiser.

Getting a first glimpse of the new heavy hitters of the Federation fleet, the cruiser class:



With Hyper deny technology these beast guarantee that no one will run from death.

Our new flagship is equally as impressive:



Although somewhat smaller than other capital ships it will be upgraded once our shipbuilding techniques allow it.

Construction of these new designs and retrofitting is in full swing, soon we will have a definite advantage against any known threat but a war must also be fought on the ground:



Heavily shielded, armored but completely unarmed the troop transport has one mission, to deliver.

But before the delivery of these new ships some good news, the Ugnari have finally hit the 2 billion mark:



Giving a further substantial boost in mining and morale.

Our long range explorer has also been busy, discovering the Pozdac weapons testing site:




Hmm, from the looks of things, it went badly for the Freedom Alliance.

This Capital ship though can be a lot of help in the coming war but its advanced technologies could give a substantial boost to our research, seeing that our new Serenity class capital ship easily fills that role this advanced ship is sent for reverse engineering and soon we have our results:



Experts say that thanks to this we have jumped forward two generations in the reactor tech area.

The Naxxilians did not fail to notice our military buildup.



We don't know if they have a sense of humor or they are that stupid.

Well it seems that all they wanted to do was to provoke us:



With the fleet in full strength and with morale high the Federation parliament unanimously approved the trade sactions bill against the Naxxilian Domain and the 2nd fleet soon found itself at the first blockade of this campaign:



A small fleet comprised of 3 destroyers and 2 escorts jumped out of hyperspace and attempted to break the blockade and was destroyed, thus the war with the Naxxilian domain started. The first full scale attack of the war was launched by the Federation against the known monitoring station near Tasareq.



These 3 ships reduced the station to rubble long before the rest of the 1st fleet arrived.

The Naxxilians soon launched a counter attack.



What the Naxxilians did not expect was the quick arrival of the 1st fleet, that was in the area by chance going to relieve the 2nd fleet from its blockade duties.



The Hyperdeny weapon systems quickly showed the Naxxilians the true meaning of the maxim 'nothing left to do but to die'.



All in all the Naxxilian destroyer fleet was decimated it a single battle.

It was at this time that the Federation made 1st contact with a new empire.



The guys that messed with Captain Pike.

The Kiadians are a proud people and from what we have uncovered from our history they were allies with the Terran Federation, forming the Freedom alliance. As such it is our duty to have good diplomatic relationships with them, after some lengthy negotiations a Free Trade Agreement was signed.

The war with the Naxxilians goes extremely well so far, with little resistance we managed to capture their colony in sector D3 but that is not the most important, what is important is what was found near that colony



It is unknown how or why the Naxxilians failed to investigate this are but what we have found is very interesting:



If the information here is correct we were extremely lucky to be the first to arrive here, a small fleet and a star base waiting to be claimed:



We will do so when time permits though, we may have to send a constructor but there doesn't seem to be any damage with the station or the other ships(Question to the developers: Am I supposed to be able to get control of this base or not? Is this a bug?)

The 1st fleet has also been busy, running an attack sortie against the Naxxilian home system:



Destroying a weapons platform before jumping away with no casualties, the Naxxilian population must have realized the hopeless odds they are faced with:



Victory is certain and it was certain from the very beginning.

[bigbaba]

outstanding AAR. it realy "reads" like a good SF book.

congratulations about your destruction of the Naxxilians battlefleet and also the defence system of their home planet! your fleets are realy the rulers of the skies.

[dragoongfa]

ORIGINAL: bigbaba

outstanding AAR. it realy "reads" like a good SF book.

congratulations about your destruction of the Naxxilians battlefleet and also the defence system of their home planet! your fleets are realy the rulers of the skies.

The problem is that I may have frakked down the difficulty of this game a bit (or a lot), I am racing ahead in research (I think that the 600% bonus in research is to blame, nerf in the near future perhaps ?), the economy is getting stronger thanks to my numerous colonies, I remember that I chose the far regions to have limited colonies and resources when compared with the core region empires, while every empire I have met so far (2 more since the last update) is far weaker and also located in the far regions; the Naxxilians and the Bylbus were weak because I grabbed most of their potential colonies from the get go but why are the other ones so weak, with limited resources and colonies that are spread out?.

Suffice to say that I expected to fight tooth and claw to survive and I am getting bored.

Will try to update when RL permits (I am an accountant and its the mid of the tax report season [:'(])

[bigbaba]

so you can make the game more difficult by change the setting at start? i mean not allowing the AI to cheat alot like in other turn based SF games. just give them more stuff at the beginning and limitate your own ressources&co?

[dragoongfa]

Yep, thats what I tried to do.

I located myself at the far regions of a spiral galaxy and as such I should have had numerous sectors with only a handful of systems each, thus limiting my resources, colonies while spreading my fleets thin, the empires that would be based in the galactic arms would have hundreds of systems in the span of a couple of sectors thus they would have the advantage of better location, numerous colonies and resources.

I gave myself an advantage with an excellent home system, young age and enhanced tech level, the age means a higher population at my capital and one colony (the population would be gained easily with low taxes and a colony costs only as much as the colony ship), the enhanced level only gave me a handful of technologies extra than the basic start.

I fully expected that my home system would be the only safe haven in my empire for quite some time, with the rampaging pirates and number of space creatures.

I think that my main mistake is the number of empires that I chose for this galaxy, 14 empires (including my own) are not enough to fully populate a 1400 system galaxy, 18 to 20 should be sufficient to provide a live diplomatic and military arena.