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26 May 06
Now that the story's over I wanted to wrap up with a few thoughts. First, I welcome feedback. Please don't hesitate to tell me what you thought of the story and what you'd like to see in the future. If you'd like it more personal, say from the point of view of a single character or if you'd like more pure war story without embellishments, let me know.
I have to say I had fun with the game. The AI did a lot of interesting things and kept me on my toes. I'm sure the developers will have the bugs worked out by release. If the enemies had effectively combined the neat tricks I saw, I would have been in serious trouble. I'm also sure once the higher difficulties are implemented, the game will challenge better gamers than me.
Personally, I felt the four minute combat was about right. Most reasonable battles could be fought in that time. Epic battles took longer, but they should. I think the 150 stars for four players was a bit big for my tastes. The game built nicely, but toward the end, even with great engines, there was just too much room. Perhaps that just a function of my limited available gaming time.
I really enjoyed the random tech tree. Even at times when it seemed to make sense to scale back research to increase my armies, something new would pop up that I just had to have. It wasn't until the end when I was catching up on items I had skipped over that research funding was scaled back. There was a point in the middle where it seemed like I was kicking out new ship revisions for most of the fleet every few turns that seemed like too much, but overall very fun. I would say the most noticeable technology missing from that game's tree was shield technology. Obviously it wasn't crippling.
Finally, I know I promised some new screenshots and movies. What wasn't that screenshot enough for you? Ok, I have more, but need to get them cleaned up and posted. I should have time over the long weekend. We'll see about the movies. I can't believe the headaches I've had trying to work on them. Mostly it's caused by my own ineptitude, but software problems and incompatibilities have worked in there too. If I can get them to work and if I have the patience to finish (remember I'm already tested to the limit by a toddler), I'll post them.
Next week, it will be back to normal around here. That means me rambling on gaming in general, begging for story submissions and regular news posts. I'm also working on getting some more interviews lined up. Let me know if there are any games you're interested in. If you were just here for the SotS story, thanks for visiting. Check back sometime.
Jason
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25 May 06
It's over. I can't say it was very fair at the end. The combined might of over one hundred worlds bearing down on the last seven Human planets. I am impressed though. With only one exception they never made it easy. Let's get that one out of the way first. With only a handful of planets left, I expected to fight tooth and nail for each one. When my dreadnought battle fleet arrived at Beowulf, I was looking for an epic battle. I found a fully developed size 10 world with plenty of resources left completely unguarded. I fixed that problem for them.
Most of the final battles were my dreadnoughts and escorts overwhelming a half dozen cruisers, destroying the partially developed defense rings and taking out the planet. The last epic battle was at Barnard's Star. Most of my attacks were as close to simultaneous as I could make them. I wanted him spread thin trying to defend everything. One consequence of this meant that not all the attack fleets were equal.
The plan was to have a ready torpedo boat fleet available to back up any fleet that got into trouble. That would give them some firepower backup and the ability to spread fire over multiple targets. I had two of those fleets, but needed one to hit as many planets as possible. Of course, the one torpedo boat fleet attack jumps right into the teeth of Barnard's Star. It had two full defense rings, over thirty ships defending it about half cruisers and half destroyers but lead by a dreadnought. My boats fought valiantly, but were over matched. They took out eight destroyers right away, but lost as many of their own. They got a few shots off on the planet, but had to withdraw. I immediately launched the backup boats to go to their aid. Unfortunately, the initial group couldn't survive the next battle. I hadn't even seen the dreadnought yet.
The second group arrived right after that. They took out the remaining destroyers and some of the defense rings before taking heavy casualties. I knew I needed a dreadnought group there soon. After that round ended, I sent one of the victorious battle groups even though they hadn't had much chance to patch up yet. The torpedo boats tried to hold out for relief, but couldn't last once the dreadnought appeared on the scene. The relief fleet had just turned into a revenge fleet. It was time to deploy the staplers.
When they arrived, the fleet only had some minor damage left over on the dreadnought, but it was still in the green. This fleet had a little of everything, a few torpedo boats, staplers, cloaked assault ships, repair ships and even a refinery to produce fuel if they ran short. A couple of the cloaked ships flashed forward to start pounding on the remaining planetary defenses. Everyone else focused on the Human dreadnought. The earlier torpedo boats must have done some damage as soon plasma was venting all along the length of the ship. Then a pair of torpedoes slammed into igniting the whole ship in a fireball. The cheers went up as it broke apart. I noticed the Human fleet remnants fleeing as the fleet turned toward the planet. Willingly or not, we were welcomed as liberators.
I admit I was a bit surprised that I didn't get the message the Humans were defeated. I tracked down the remnants on a neutral star, but still nothing. Then I noticed some ships on the long range scans. I sent a couple cruisers to investigate. One was just a scout trying to limp home, but I learned where he was going. The Humans had done something pretty clever.
There was a standard ploy the Humans used when fighting. They'd send an assault group right at my ships, but use one or two flanking groups going off to the side. The thing was you never knew if they were retreating back to the node point, breaking for another node point or just trying to get around behind you. One of those groups had done that enough to find a distant planet exactly where I wasn't looking. It was set up as a base of last resort.
As I organized fleets to take out this unexpected find, I sent the cruisers on to take care of the other ship on the scopes. They intercepted the ship limping to the refuge, but it wasn't just one ship. It was a whole battle fleet lead by two dreadnoughts. Fortunately, my cruisers had cloaking technology or they would have been wiped out. They were able to do some minor damage to the fleet, but needed help. I now had to organize two major battle groups.
I had wondered earlier why the Humans had been harassing one of my further back planets. The existence of their refuge explained it. The up side for me was there were disproportionate defenses there. I was able to reassign the defense fleet to take care of this new 'lost fleet' threat while the assault fleet for the refuge was getting into position.
The planetary assault happened first. My planet killer fleet warped in. The defenses weren't fully in place yet. My cruisers were able to sweep away the initial fleet response and charge into the teeth of the platforms. They gave much better than they took as the planet killer roared into position. The first shot made it clear the Humans on the planet had no chance. My cruisers went off to mop up the rest of the defenses and a couple of fleeing ships. The second salvo left only a sliver of life on the refuge planet. The Human's last hope faded as the planet went dark.
That just left the dual dreadnought fleet. I sent in my fleet with a command dreadnought, an assault dreadnought and a half dozen cloaked assault cruisers. The cruisers were sent to deal with the smaller ships while the big boys slugged it out. Using my speed advantage, I maneuvered my dreads at an angle to position on slightly behind the other. That meant that my two dreads both had clear firing on the front Human dread, but the rear would have to move around to fire freely on my ships.
The plan worked well. By the time the rear ship had cleared, the first was nearly gone. The final beams cut through the Human dread and actually did a little damage on the big node drive of the second. Though he was hardly damaged, it was now two against one. The simultaneous beams of all the dreadnoughts lit up the surrounding space, but the Human ship couldn't take the beating for long and exploded. My cruisers had finished off the remaining ships. The battle was won.
Once again I looked for the announcement of Human defeat, but was disappointed. It seems one cruiser had escaped the carnage of the dreadnought battle. It was trying to limp somewhere sub light. The battle was over almost as soon as the intercept course was plotted. Finally, I got both the Humans defeated message and the victory celebration.
The final stats showed 900 destroyers killed to 127 lost, 416 cruisers killed to 66 lost and 29 dreadnoughts killed to 3 lost.
Jason
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23-24 May 06
How to describe all that's happened? Dozens of dreadnoughts leading hundreds of cruisers and destroyers streaming destruction across whole arms of the galaxy. Perhaps it's the confusion sown by my cloaked assault fleets. Maybe it's the twenty straight turns where I had three or more battles each time. Maybe it's hard because despite the endless blur of battles, it still isn't over.
I should clarify. The humans are down to a small cluster of less than 10 planets. The Liir have been defeated. It's too bad for the Liir since they finally figured out an effective tactic against me. They put a high powered beam on spinal mount destroyers. Then they sent like 20 of them after my dreadnought. They were able to keep moving so their losses were slowed to the rate that they cut up the big dread. It still wasn't enough when the planet killer follow up fleet arrived. The lights went out on their last planet just like all the rest.
I've tried everything to speed up the end. I even sent out a fleet of torpedo boats to take out a small planet. Losses weren't that high and the planet fell. Actually, I didn't try everything. If I really wanted to speed things up, I would have simulated some battles. I suppose it's a testament to the game both that I haven't come across many battles one sided enough to warrant automatic simulation and that I have enough fun fighting all the other battles that I don't simulate them.
I'm sorry I only have a couple highlights for you. One surprising victory for the humans came during the assault of Zytocot. He was able to converge two groups of cruisers on my dread as it was taking out the planet. They got enough firepower on it that it spun out of control as it was turning to face one of the groups. It spun into two of my cruisers knocking both out of control. This all happened near the planet. I watch as they burn full engines trying to regain control, but one after the other crashes into the planet and burns in the atmosphere. Too bad everyone on the planet was gone or it probably would have been a sight to see.
The last big assault from the Humans came after I wiped out Fornax and started a new colony there. While the repair ships were busy fixing the fleet, the Human revenge force arrived. My dreadnought, seven cruisers and a torpedo boat tried to defend the little world from twenty-two enemy ships lead by a Human dreadnought. The Human destroyers must have had new engines because they closed faster than I had seen them thus far. They executed a perfect little pivot maneuver that allowed three destroyers to break through the lines. At the same time, the torpedo boat exploded in a fireball. I had to give chase with a couple of cruisers while the rest held off the Human dreadnought.
Normally, three destroyers wouldn't be much of a threat, but without defense platforms, they could easily destroy the fledgling colony. The cruisers were taking forever to turn and give chase. If they even had a speed advantage over the destroyers, it wasn't much. Then things got really weird when the Human dread tried to smash past my dreadnought. It was almost head to head ramming. That's why I have the reinforced armor on my ships. The Human ship remained bottled up as the heavy guns of my ships tore into it. Right about the time the Human dreadnought started to break apart, I heard the screams of the colony dying. I crushed the rest of their fleet, but the 'victory' felt hollow. New colonists arrived shortly and the front pressed on.
Almost every Human world I find now has built up defenses and a ton of destroyers. I haven't seen a Human dreadnought for a while. I'm sure the money's pretty tight there. The final blows will come tomorrow, but I don't know if there will be anything dramatic in the finale. So many forces are closing in now. It's like the tide coming in. It might be slow, but it can't be stopped.
Jason
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22 May 06
I can't quite report total victory yet. I think that will be coming tomorrow. In fact, I'll do a full wrap up of all the late action once it's over. There are just a couple of things I want to go over today. First, I finally realized that the reason the Humans suddenly turned on me was not just tactical. The Liir had offered them an alliance. That explains the Human actions as well as the sudden increase in effectiveness of both enemies. They weren't diluting any of their efforts fighting each other, and they were coordinating attacks on me. I figured this out when I attacked a key Human world and found not only a dreadnought lead human fleet, but a full (and fully cloaked) Liir fleet lead by the first Liir dreadnought I had seen. Fun battle.
My attack plan was simple and straightforward. With technology, money and numbers on my side, I was going to sweep through the enemy, deny them resources and crush their resistance. However, if I was on the other side, trying to counter that plan, I'd realize that though it was already mostly lost, I could make it slower and more painful. It would go something like this:
1. Mass most of my dreadnoughts around key planets that I have to defend. Build up defense platforms around those planets. Make sure any attempt to take them is both determined and costly.
2. Attack all vulnerable Tarka colonies within easy reach. This will help keep him on the defensive and keep ships off the front lines. If he's willing to give up any of those colonies, immediately follow up with a strong force and colonizers.
3. For the Humans, repeatedly attack key planets to keep space lanes open. Make him choose to either tie down a massive force or surrender the right of way to you.
4. If the Tarka use their 'stapling' enslavement technology, scuttle the planet, leave and return with a high speed kamikaze force to wipe out the new slaves.
5. For both, but especially the Liir, strike deep in his 'safe' territory to try to open up new fronts and keep more units on protective duty.
Well, I'm impressed to say, that except for the last one, the AI did all of the above. Honestly, I wouldn't have thought of the kamikaze bit myself. It taught me that one. None of this has stopped me, but it has slowed me down.
Finally, I was asked why I didn't describe more of my losing efforts. There are a couple reasons. I try not to throw my troops into the meat grinder. Usually, there's not much point in engaging if my forces are outclassed. I'll evade and call the retreat. The game calls that a loss, but I don't. On the flip side, I've fought battles where it said I won by defeating all the ships or forcing a retreat, but since I lost the colony I was defending, I count that as a loss. Admittedly, a couple of times, the Humans sacrificed a dreadnought to take out a vulnerable border colony. Overall that's a win for me.
I'll give you one recent loss though. I have the two types of heavy fleets I mentioned, the planet killers and the staplers. I also created some cruiser strength fast attack groups armed with WMD's. One of these cruiser groups had six cruisers (though two were support) and five destroyers (one support). I get the combat screen when the arrive at an uncharted enemy planet. It's a size 9, fully developed, two rings of 10 defense platforms, twenty destroyers, eight cruisers and two dreadnoughts. It's in the middle of my slate of battles. I remember thinking, I should probably just run on that one, but I might try a high speed, WMD bombing run.
Once the battle comes up, I was angry after some unnecessary losses in the previous battle (just torpedo destroyers, but it's the principle of the thing). So I forget about running away and start a full charge in. I flip to sensors and see a huge dreadnought in my path. I never even flip back as I see streams of missiles just pouring in my direction. My ships have momentum built up now, so they couldn't turn quickly enough to avoid that first wave, but if they could just survive it, I'd be in range to launch the WMD's. No, the destroyers pop like so much popcorn then, like someone lit a fuse, my cruisers blow one by one. They didn't fire a single shot on the planet. Needless to say, the revenge fleet on that one was huge, but that battle still rages so I have to get back to it.
Jason
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