A Legends induced squeeze

[Jim D Burns]

I started my most recent game as the Terran Republic deep in the core of an eliptical 15 x 15 1400 star map. Things were going pretty well and within about 12-14 years I was well on my way to outstripping any of the AI powers I had so far run into. I was actually contemplating tossing in the towel on this game and starting anew since I had around 50 colonies and only about one third of the aliens I’ve encountered so far were anywhere near my size clocking in at around 28-30 colonies. That is until the past few years in game.

Recently the Dread Wraiths appeared in game and began raiding the southern one third of my empire. Initially I was able to cause them some damage with my attack fleet which was made up entirely of advanced ships my explorers had managed to find and board, though I never actually won any decisive engagements with them.

Slowly but surely they have managed to destroy most of my advanced ships (2 dead admirals lost in the fighting as well), and I only have one recently repaired capital ship, 2 destroyers and 1 frigate left in the fleet. So their strength has been steadily increasing (I think they build more stuff as they kill your stuff, as it seems they’ve gotten very large now) as they roam from system to system smashing any kind of base or defense fleet I throw in their way. The ships I build simply don’t have the punch to deal with them at this stage due to their huge tech advantage and the fact they now have two different fleets roaming the map.

Needless to say the game has been a lot more interesting and I was happily getting my butt kicked by the pirates when suddenly I get a report of Silvermist destroying one of my merchant ships. No problem I thought, it must be far away on a long trading mission somewhere else in the galaxy.

A quick check shows a huge 1000+ sized silvermist in the Nar Shaddos system a very short distance away from the north edge of my empire. I’m not sure what size they have to be before they split, but I’m sure it’s close to splitting if it hasn’t already as that system used to house a sizable alien planet and bases.

Thankfully it’s not close to the heart of my empire yet, as that would be disastrous since I lack sufficient ships or bases to really have any hope of killing a Silvermist yet. The problem is my guess is none of the other empires can deal with one yet either, so there will soon be a plague of them all over the north edge of my empire as it consumes one low tech system after another.

So a game I was about to throw in the towel on has now become a game I wonder if I can even survive now thanks to all the awesome additions Legends has brought to the table. So a big thank you to Codeforce and Matrix for the continued efforts to make this game better and better.

I posted this in the AAR section as I’ll probably post updates of the developing struggle as it progresses. Below are some screenshots of some of what is happening in game now. Silvermist in the north, Pirates in the south, I have a feeling I’m about to get squeezed into oblivion.


Here are the victory settings I’ve used for the game:




Below are a couple of the game setup screens to give an idea of what parameters I used for the game:






This is one of the two big Pirate fleets raiding my colonies. This one is centered on a powerful carrier, I lost three advanced ships simply trying to close with it in my most recent fight. Once my capital ship went down, the rest of the ships fled. I’ve recently attached a newly repaired capital ship to the fleet, but it is weaker than the strongest one they managed to destroy early in the fighting, so I think I’ll hold off attacking again until I can get another 4-8 additional advanced ships to add to the now tiny fleet of just 4 ships left in the fleet.

Once my advanced ships were gone, the fleet destroyed two gas mining stations and a medium star port in this system. This was my strongest system in the south. I have a few bases elsewhere trying to build but gas is all but gone down south and merchants flee all the time so deliveries are slow.




A mining ship stumbled upon the pirate home base about 3 months ago. This is all I can see of the system now with no ships present, but at the time there were well over 30 pirate vessels there, including many powerful cruisers and another carrier.




Here’s a map of my empire with some notations added for reference.
http://img853.imageshack.us/img853/3243/mapgz.jpg



This is the best ship I can currently build. I have just put the ability to construct larger ships at the head of my research, but given that I’m playing with very expensive tech, it’ll be a while before I can build anything bigger than this.

I currently have 180 of these empire wide and no other types as I scrapped all my escorts and frigates due to the fact the pirates were all but one-shotting them. These destroyers can manage to kill about one pirate for the cost of 2 – 4 of these if there aren’t a lot of pirate ships. But the two big fleets I’ve seen simply put out too much firepower, these guys can’t even kill half a shield before they all die.




This is the recently repaired capital ship. Unfortunately it was way down south and all but out of fuel, so I’m hoping it gets a chance to refuel before it gets jumped in the system it is heading for.



Jim

[Grotius]

Hey Jim, great to see you in this forum. Fun AAR! Glad to see you finding fun in a game that is not a certain win. I just finished an AAR of a game I had like that. I had a disastrous early start, was just about ready to give up, but passed a morale check and played on. I'm very glad I did. It was a terrific gaming experience.

Legends tells a great story, what with the characters, the events, the story arcs, the living galaxy. I really think the DW series has come into its own with this expansion.

[Jim D Burns]

Hi Grotius,

Your AAR is what inspired me to post this. I enjoyed every minute of it, thanks for taking the time. I hope this one can come close to being as much fun, but with the threat of Silvermist so close and the fact it’ll probably duplicate many times over very soon, I think I’m doomed.

I think in the future if I do old starts, I’ll do tech level 1 or 2, things happen fast in an old start and starting tech simply can’t deal with some of it.

I recently allied with the Kadians and Securans, so I’ve done some tech trading the past 5 or 6 months, before that I was fighting with Naxos (or is it Maxos?) blasters still lol.

Jim

[Grotius]

Oh, glad you enjoyed my AAR! I was kinda hoping it would inspire people to "hang in there" even after bad starts.

I don't think I ever saw Silvermist in my game, and I had all the event options "on". Maybe it showed up and I was just too oblivious to notice? Sounds like it was hard for you not to notice, lol.

Anyway, I'm delighted that you're posting this. More, please!

[Nedrear]

I can't say I will continue reading this AAR... your pictures are way to big for my 1024x768 window mode.

[Keston]

Not just the pictures, but the text width when zoomed out enough to fit on screen is so tiny that it is like reading the back of a used car sales agreement - about half the size of the text I like to read. Apologies for any typos since I can make out the words by shape but can't distinguish all the letters on this screen.

But I do find it interesting.

[feelotraveller]

I am another potential reader you have lost since everything is about 2 screens wide. [:(]

[Jim D Burns]

Sorry about the image size guys, the best I can do is post the map as a link instead of imbedding it on the page. Hope that helps.

Jim

[Jim D Burns]

So after a bit of thought, the plan I come up with is to do a quick re-design of my unused Frigate hull and create an Ion equipped vessel with as many engines as I can afford to put on her. While not heavily armed for normal combat, 2 phasers should give it sufficient firepower for use vs. normal non-elite pirates.

I queue up 24 ships which will pretty much zero out my current net of about 35k income, so I’ll hold off building anymore unless massive waves of Silvermist begin descending. Here’s a shot of the new design:




I’ve ordered the fleet to assemble a bit south of the sighting at the Roorea Prime system. Once fully assembled and fueled I’ll send it north to either engage any active Silvermist contacts or to base out of the closest system to the recent sighting.


Jim

[Jim D Burns]

Ugh! Sometimes the auto-upgrade feature in game can really get annoying. Here we see two of the 4 ships in my advanced fleet have been scheduled to retrofit to a lower tech build due to a recent tech upgrade that prompted me to reply yes to upgrading my ships and bases. Had I known this could happen I would have been able to prevent this, but alas I discovered this too late.

Their fleet had been on manual with attack anywhere orders and no home base assigned. Luckily I spotted the other destroyer which was on its way to get refitted as well, so I managed to save it, but these two are locked into the refit process, nothing I could do could change their orders now.



It’s only been about a year in game and my just completed Ion armed fleet is headed into port to upgrade, once that’s done I’ll send it to my northern perimeter. So far no Silvermist has appeared in the northern territories of my empire yet. But the original system it was sighted in has been re-colonized by the AI twice and destroyed both times, so it is obviously still there.

Jim

[Jim D Burns]

I figured while I was out of the game I’d give a quick overview of the diplomatic situation. I’ve decided to aggressively attempt to form alliances with any race that has any level of ‘dependable’ listed as a racial trait. The only high valued resource I have is Zentabia fluid, which I have traded with all dependable races I’ve met as soon as contact was made.

Once relations reach the level of a trade agreement, I immediately grant them mining and fuel rights to help foster continued good relations with them. Even with a chaotic game, I’ve still managed to sign two defensive alliances and 6 trade agreements using this system.

Those races listed as unreliable will eventually be subjugated or conquered, though I will sign trade agreements with them if they offer them, I will not trade any strategic resources or tech with them.



I’ve managed to get an additional two ambassadors to add to the one I started the game with. While none of them are remarkable yet, one has reached the low 50s in his diplomatic skill. I am keeping an eye on my newest ambassador Loras Jaksun.

As you can see from the below screenshot, he is a miserable diplomat, but he may well turn out to be a very nice counter-intelligence asset to send to any race that is currently trying to send spies into my empire. Right now his traits are undeveloped, but I’m hoping he gets a lot of nice intelligence traits as the game progresses.



Here is the current summary page. As you can see even though I only built 24 frigates to add maintenance of 32k to my existing fleet, income has gone negative 50-60k recently. I can only assume it has something to do with commodity price drops or something. Thankfully Resort and trade income is enough to counter the recent hit to the economy.


Jim

[Jim D Burns]

A little over a year after the first sighting, and my first colony is about to go down to a Silvermist attack. This Silvermist is size 640. This Silvermist must have seen recent combat as its health is listed as 787 out of 1137. My Ion fleet is still in refit yards, I need to get it headed north ASAP before a more valuable colony gets hit.

It’s heartening to know the local area AI fleets have managed to take a sizable chunk out of the Silvermist’s health. With all the recent tech trading going on, I think our ships are becoming effective enough to hopefully stop this menace before it grows out of control.

Atalgoy is a recently colonized world, and it appears it’s been consumed before due to its quality being 84 out of a max of 87, so I guess it once belonged to someone else. In the below screenshot, Atalgoy’s system is on the right edge of the screenshot, and the system with the pink ring around it on the bottom left edge is where the first Silvermist sighting occurred, so it has spread a pretty good ways away.



Jim

[feelotraveller]

That works just fine. [:)] Thanks Jim. Guess I have to go back and slog through the first few posts to repay your dedication now...

[feelotraveller]

Oh dear, you do have some nano-tech problems. (Hope they ate the mad scientist who invented them first. [;)] )

You can probably snag Ikkuro and Wekkarus into trade agreements. The latter although slightly untrustworthy tend to stick to themselves quite a lot, are a long way away from you and seem to have some Mortalen problems anyways. Just a thought.

Stock up on the Ion Cannons you're gonna need heaps. [;)]

[Jim D Burns]

4 years after the first sighting of Silvermist and my second colony is about to go down. This is the original system where the mist was first sighted. A few seconds after this attack, a colony ship of mine arrived to re-colonize Atalgoy and was attacked by 3 Silvermist’s in that system, so that is 4 known mists now.



I also recently built my first wonder, the Rusan Tech institute was built on my capitol world. So that’s a nice fat 100% boost to research.



There has been a ton of tech trading going on recently, and soon after that, I completed research on size 500 ships, thus opening up Cruiser construction. I immediately edited the default cruiser taking out the troop module and designed a max size 500 cruiser with lots of mixed firepower. I wasn’t sure what the pirate ships were good at countering, so I mixed things up in the hopes we can finally put some hurt on their ships.



I have added 21 of these cruisers to my Attack fleet along with a newly repaired advanced cruiser. All 24 ships just refueled along the edge of the area the pirates have been raiding and are about 3-5 months away from my first attempt at hitting the pirate home system down south.

Carriers just came online, but I didn’t want to wait to build a bunch of those before heading south to try and deal with the pirate menace. These guys have kept me from building anything in the south one third of my empire and I want some payback.

To top off matters, the insectoid races have formed a coalition alliance and just attacked my allies the Securans, so I answered the call to join in the fray. The Sluken Consciousness, Gizurean Conformity and the Great Yenkurr Hive (Boskara’s) are all at war with the Terran Republic, Securan Paradise and Quameno Territory (Kiadians). The Dhayut Sovereignty is not yet fully allied with all the insectoid races only being allied with the Gizureans right now, so as yet are only at war with the Securans.

The military power levels of the races are:

Terran Republic: 44074
Securan Paradise: 5928
Quameno Territory: 22456

Sluken Consciousness: 25101
Gizurean Conformity: 8918
Great Yenkurr Hive: 6969
Dhayut Sovereignty: 9188

We have a definite advantage in military power, but more than half of my power comes from all the recent cruisers I’ve built, and most/all of those may die soon while fighting the pirates. The main risk to me is the fact I have no real military presence in the south. Both the Great Yenkurr Hive and the Dhayut Sovereignty are in the southwest portion of the map, so all I have to resist them with down there is my ground troops.

My colony of Varunat Prime 1 is the southernmost colony in my empire far south of the area I’ve been battling the pirates in. It has one measly 8100 strength Shandar protector ground unit and a small Monitoring Station for defense (built this to defend a mining station early in game before I could colonize volcanic planets). The small space port is still missing 58 units, so I doubt it’ll get completed before an attack comes.

Varunat Prime 1 is my source of Zentabia fluid, which has been of such a help in establishing all my treaties with the dependable races. I fully expect to lose this colony very early in the war.



Anyway looks like the next few years are going to be busy.

Jim

[Ares106]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns


To top off matters, the insectoid races have formed a coalition alliance and just attacked my allies the Securans, so I answered the call to join in the fray. The Sluken Consciousness, Gizurean Conformity and the Great Yenkurr Hive (Boskara’s) are all at war with the Terran Republic, Securan Paradise and Quameno Territory (Kiadians). The Dhayut Sovereignty is not yet fully allied with all the insectoid races only being allied with the Gizureans right now, so as yet are only at war with the Securans.

We have a definite advantage in military power, but more than half of my power comes from all the recent cruisers I’ve built, and most/all of those may die soon while fighting the pirates. The main risk to me is the fact I have no real military presence in the south. Both the Great Yenkurr Hive and the Dhayut Sovereignty are in the southwest portion of the map, so all I have to resist them with down there is my ground troops.

My colony of Varunat Prime 1 is the southernmost colony in my empire far south of the area I’ve been battling the pirates in. It has one measly 8100 strength Shandar protector ground unit and a small Monitoring Station for defense (built this to defend a mining station early in game before I could colonize volcanic planets). The small space port is still missing 58 units, so I doubt it’ll get completed before an attack comes.

Varunat Prime 1 is my source of Zentabia fluid, which has been of such a help in establishing all my treaties with the dependable races. I fully expect to lose this colony very early in the war.

Very cool almost reminds me of the roman empire, you thought you won the game, then a million problems arise and your technological and military power is too stretched to handle everything.

since you also enabled the ROTS story line, it should not be long before the space Mongols invade.

[Erik Rutins]

A great read so far Jim, looking forward to further updates!

Regards,

- Erik

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: Ares106
Very cool almost reminds me of the roman empire, you thought you won the game, then a million problems arise and your technological and military power is too stretched to handle everything.

LOL, yes it is becoming more and more hectic in game. The feeling of "easy win" has been replaced by desperate concern.

ORIGINAL: Ares106
since you also enabled the ROTS story line, it should not be long before the space Mongols invade.

Aargh! You've jinxed me for sure. If you say it, it will happen. I can see it now, they'll appear, ally with the bugs and proceed to smash into me before I can even manage to successfully deal with any of my current threats.

Jim

[Jim D Burns]

At Nar Shaddos the system I first spotted Silvermist in, my Ion equipped fleet of frigates encounters a small silvermist. One of my recently built cruisers had just engaged the mist prior to the arrival of the frigates and had caused about 25% damage to the mist before fleeing.

The frigates were not in an ideal spot for the engagement, I tried to consolidate them together, but the mist attacked before they could all converge, and three frigates who were unsupported by the rest of the fleet were quickly consumed. The main body of the fleet then arrived and was able to destroy the mist with only one of the remaining ships suffering some damage.

Were this a full sized (size 600-800) mist with no previous health damage, I estimate I would have probably lost about 8 – 10 ships. Not ideal but workable none the less. Once repairs are completed the fleet will continue jumping through all the empty systems up north and hunt for the rest of the silvermist swarms.



A short time later, my main Attack fleet arrived in the pirate home system and I was amazed to see only two small ships stationed on defense. The only thing I can think of is the Free Shandar Utopia which has systems a short distance to the west of the pirate base must have been sending in fleets to clear the system of pirate ships.



Regardless of what has happened to the 30+ ships I observed there a few years back, I quickly order an attack. The bases went down quick and 4 of my ships suffer heavy damage, but none are destroyed. I’ve ordered the cruisers to guard the Arlease colony in the Mortalu system where a large space port has been ordered to be constructed. This is the system the Pirate carrier fleet shown in my first post was in, so I suspect any remaining pirate vessels will show up there to try and kill the space port.

As reward for the destruction of the pirate bases I receive the following:







Shortly thereafter one of my destroyers investigates a pulsing blue ring on the map and finds this:



Suddenly I’m feeling a lot better. But while I was distracted by all these events, I didn’t pay close attention to my allies. They have all signed peace agreements with the bugs, leaving me the sole power at war with them. And when I go to the summary screen to change governments, I see this:


It would actually be kind of fun if my empire suddenly erupts into civil war and splits in two due to the massive war weariness. I’m not even sure if this can happen, but it’d definitely be exciting if it does. Man this game just keeps throwing unexpected stuff my way, lol.

Jim

[martok]

Your AAR is a blast to read, Jim.  Thanks for taking the time & effort to post it! 


Congrats on completing the destruction of the pirates (and the subsequent rewards derived)! 


Also:  Wow!  Between all the star maps, the WOTA government, the treasure, and (especially) all the tech advances, that's gotta be the biggest haul I've yet seen from an abandoned base.  That's just crazy, although it seems like it couldn't have come at a better time for you!