Quick and nasty: a Securan story (SPOILERS)

[Grotius]

Here's a scene I see every five or ten minutes now. A second empire has declared war on me, and they and the shrimp take turns landing troops on my homeworld. I then rebuff them, and my two troop generals gain experience and skill -- plus my troops gain experience. I wouldn't have understood why my troops are getting stronger had I not watched das's collaborative videos. For a paltry 10K a year, my troops are pretty tough! I'm building more at a steady clip now.

[Grotius]

I have two construction ships, but they steadfastly refuse to build me a steel mine. Why?

Also, my trading partners are busily selling me polymer now -- yay -- but while I see ships carrying steel, I never see anyone sell it to me. Galaxy-wide supply of steel and polymer exceeds demand, so why am I getting one but not the other?

Also, I do have several hundred polymer in stock now, but the strategic planning screen says I have zero. Maybe it rounds down til I get to 1000?

[Grotius]

Finally, you may wonder: why do I press on with this sad, sad state of affairs? Well, partly because having a tiny empire is a great way to learn the mechanics of DW, heh. I watch freighters come and go, watch the AI invade me with troops, watch as I gain generals and XP, try to figure out how to stockpile steel and polymer, etc. And I'm learning how crucial it is to have a spaceport.

Beyond that, there is the off chance that my two nemeses will turn on each other and destroy each other. Right? Hehe. Although even the occasional peace treaty doesn't help me. I just can't get any danged steel -- ever. Without steel, no spaceport. Without spaceport, no fighting ships, no exploration ships, no colony ships -- right?

Here's the current victory screen. I will play on a while longer, just to see what happens. It's fun in a weird sorta way.

[sveint]

Don't spend money on pirates and gifts. Better to build your own military and civilian fleet (mining stations).

Research a weapon type early (any one will do) and design a max size ship (destroyers or cruisers) with good shields and build 3 or 4. Those can defend the home world and respond to threats.

And thanks for a good read! Please do more.

[sveint]

Oh and colony ships and constructors are build on planets, not spaceports.

[Theluin]

Great AAR, I hope we'll get an update soon.

ORIGINAL: Grotius
Also, I do have several hundred polymer in stock now, but the strategic planning screen says I have zero. Maybe it rounds down til I get to 1000?

The strategic planner's your stock column doesn't show how much of a resource there is on planets, bases or ships but how much of it there is to mine on your colonies and planets or gas clouds with your mining stations. Conversely the galaxy stock column shows the total amount of the resource in the galaxy.

[Seraphim_slith]

Nice to see you kept on playing after that start, hope you manage to turn it around but if not, well atleast you picked up a few things for the next game. [;)]

[Grotius]

Oh and colony ships and constructors are build on planets, not spaceports.

Oh! Well what the hell, I'll try making a colony somewhere. But how do I find new potential colonies if I don't have explorer ships? Can I put explorer modules or some such in a colony ship or constructor chassis? (Or maybe I can buy such info from pirates.)

Great AAR, I hope we'll get an update soon.

Thanks! I hope to have time to update the AAR tonight. I'm still alive and kicking, and now I want to try making some colony ships.

[Theluin]

Yes you can put resource profile sensors on any ship you want. Some races even have the RPS as a default component in colony ships. However I think you'll have to manually order such a ship to move from planet to planet, because the explore command is available only for explorer type ships as far as I know

[Ares106]

Immagine if you mannage to turn this around, it would be a pretty amazing aar, from the ashes of your homeworld to galactic superpower.

if it gets too tedious though perhaps you can play with the editor and create a state of war between your enemies. I feel at this point since you invested so much into it, its better then just starting a new game.

[Data]

There was a dream some of us had, to take the only remaining colony ship from a destroyed empire and rebuild it far away....only to come back and destroy all. A type of Battlestar Galactica AAR; but obviously that would be just as painful and time consuming as the actual BG [:D]

[Grotius]

There was a dream some of us had, to take the only remaining colony ship from a destroyed empire and rebuild it far away....only to come back and destroy all. A type of Battlestar Galactica AAR; but obviously that would be just as painful and time consuming as the actual BG

Well, this game is starting to feel like that! It's really been fun, hunted and on the run, but refusing to die. The shrimp blockade my one and only colony, and I have exactly two ships -- construction vessels that can't construct anything, presumably because they have nothing in their cargo bays. I don't even have private-sector ships; I survive on trade from other nations' freighters. But while the shrimp regularly invade me with a land army, I regularly repulse them, and I add troops every year. And so, for decades, I survive like this, surrounded by the bugs.

[Grotius]

But, at long last, my dream comes true. The shrimp -- er, the Gizurean Consciousness -- falls into war with an even stronger neighbor, the Vurean Federation. The Gizurean offer me peace, and I rush to hit the "accept" button. They warp out of my system, and suddenly I'm alone. I start building a star port. I'm feeling greedy, so I make it a Large Star Port.

[Grotius]

Mirabile dictu, I finish the star port, still at peace with the Gizureans. I rush to build military ships, exploration ships, planetary defense, and a colony ship (with an exploration module added, so that it can explore for itself). It seems to take forever, but at last I start to launch my new fleet of ships.

One thing I wasn't sure of: how to get these new ships fuel. I do have Caslon at the star port, but the ships mostly seemed to want to refuel at my one and only gas-mining installation, northeast of home. I grudgingly let them go.

[Grotius]

Pretty soon I had a whole stream of warships, explorers, and freighters riding that route to my refueling station. I did order my two construction ships to build a second refueling station closer to home (and further from the shrimp), but those projects take time.

As I churned out cruisers and destroyers, I kept glancing at my military rating. Still less than 1000, while the shrimp are at 6000. It doesn't help that my weapons tech has been stalled for decades, as I had only one research lab -- an energy lab. With no starport, I had zero weapons research, zero high-tech.

The upshot is that I'm not exactly scaring my neighbors. Here's a brush-off from one of them.

[Grotius]

Alas, the Gizurean make peace with their neighbors. I pump out more warships, but I know I don't have much longer. Just as I'm thinking of sending them a gift to delay the inevitable, the shrimp ambassador pays me a visit and declares war -- again.

The enemy swoops in on my homeworld just as my ships are trickling back from their refueling jaunt to the northeast. At first my guys put up a decent fight.

[Grotius]

But the bugs simply have more firepower, and my defenses start to wilt.

Amusingly, in the middle of this rather spectacular battle, I get a popup about a rare fruit. I thought there was something incongruous about this image of a peaceful pear juxtaposed with the carnage around Almas-3.

[Grotius]

In short order, I've got only a couple of destroyers left, and the bugs focus fire on my planetary defense base and then on the starbase. Quite the swarm.

[Grotius]

With the situation hopeless, I order my remaining ships to avoid the area. In particular, I'm careful to plot courses for my exploration ships, and my sole colony/exploration ship, far away from the bugs. They scatter in all directions, while Almas-3's spaceport explodes.

Fortunately, the bugs aren't as good at massing their troops as they are at massing their warships. They've never brought near enough to dislodge me. So we're back to the status quo ante bellum -- except that now I have a colony ship exploring the galaxy, looking for a second home, and I've got two explorers heading for the Securan "family" race to the northwest.

Here's the victory screen after the fall of the space port. In the background, you can see my remaining ships scattering, like the refugees in Battlestar Galactica.

[Grotius]

A wider shot. If you look closely, you can see vectors of two explorers heading northwest to Securan family territory; one heading east to the safe haven there; and a couple (including my colony/explorer) heading south, toward the small friendly empire there. Any port in a storm.

One UI question. What does the dotted circular ring represent? Is it the fuel range of the selected ship? I hope so -- I'd been wondering how I could see that on-screen. Is it on by default?