Alia Latinus Titulus: A Birth of the Federation AAR

Started by BanzaiCat, January 18, 2014, 03:33:59 PM

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airboy

Weird - no alien encounters yet?  Any way to, you know, take a cheat peek to see if they are out there at all?  Or is this just a vast empty space where you will build an empire that nobody can ever, ever leave?

BanzaiCat

#46
Good question, airboy.

I think I kind of screwed myself by choosing to do the large map; every time I fire this up to write some more of the AAR, I regret not having done that, though not enough to pull the plug on this and start over (kind of hard to do that as it's on the front page...were this just in the forums I wouldn't hesitate, LOL).

I've probably not explored 20% of the 'tiles' on this map, yet. I'll try to start the next installment with a full Galactic Map so you guys can see.

I also think the game started me in the lower corner of a Spiral-type galaxy (I chose the spiral galaxy, but the game of course chose where to drop Sol in that mess). As I'm in the lower right corner, I'm pretty sure most of the real estate to my Galactic East is empty space.

The longer it takes me to meet the others, the more powerful they become. I usually play BotF with as few ships as possible to build up some major bank, so once I do come into contact with hostiles I can churn out ships and kick butt. As the Feds, though, my kick-butt options are more limited to defensive wars. I think the Feds are hardest to play out of all five factions because of their peacenik-BS hippy ways. :)

I'm REALLY surprised I haven't met any minor races yet - I believe I set that to "Many" in the game options screen. I would have expected to run into at least one by now. This worries me a lot, since if the other four factions are running into them, they might be recruiting them. My best bet is my large bank account, which I could use to bribe any of these away.

We shall see. Hopefully I run into someone soon because this is getting difficult to keep interesting. As long as you guys are enjoying it though I'll keep it up. I imagine it'll get much better once I run into aliens.

EDIT: To answer your question about cheating, (a) I don't know if there is a way to cheat-reveal the map, (b) I'm sure there IS a way to cheat-reveal the map, and (c) I don't want to do that as it would spoil the game for me and would cause me to artificially change my strategy based on what it reveals. I'd rather avoid that. If I get caught flat-footed it might make for much more interesting gaming.

besilarius

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Martok

Quote from: airboy on February 19, 2015, 09:56:26 PM
Weird - no alien encounters yet? 
On these super-large maps, it can take a very long time to meet the other major powers.  In my own experience, it typically takes 150-200 turns before I meet even one of them, let alone more than one.  Given that the last screenshot in BC's most recent entry showed turn 155, I'm guessing it's going to be 1-2 more sessions before he runs into anyone. 



Quote from: airboy on February 19, 2015, 09:56:26 PM
Any way to, you know, take a cheat peek to see if they are out there at all? 
Yes, there is a cheat to reveal the entire map.  I pretty much never use it, however, as there are two drawbacks to it: 


1.)  Once the cheat is used, you can't "un-reveal" the map; it remains revealed for the rest of the game. 

2.)  Once the entire map is revealed, you also automatically have diplomatic contact with every major and minor race in the game, which tends to significantly alter how you play your campaign (of course, knowing where everything is obviously does that as well!). 





Quote from: Banzai_Cat on February 20, 2015, 07:35:02 AM
I think I kind of screwed myself by choosing to do the large map; every time I fire this up to write some more of the AAR, I regret not having done that, though not enough to pull the plug on this and start over (kind of hard to do that as it's on the front page...were this just in the forums I wouldn't hesitate, LOL).
Yeah, if I do another BOTF AAR here, I definitely plan to go with the medium-sized map (assuming I'm playing one of the mods -- the "medium" map in the vanilla game is laughably small for my tastes).  Still large enough to feel epic, but it won't take nearly so bloody long to meet the other major factions. 



Quote from: Banzai_Cat on February 20, 2015, 07:35:02 AM
I also think the game started me in the lower corner of a Spiral-type galaxy (I chose the spiral galaxy, but the game of course chose where to drop Sol in that mess). As I'm in the lower right corner, I'm pretty sure most of the real estate to my Galactic East is empty space.
A tip:  Try playing in an Elliptical or Irregular galaxy.  They tend to have less empty/boring space, especially the latter.  Spiral galaxies are too predictable in my experience. 



Quote from: Banzai_Cat on February 20, 2015, 07:35:02 AM
I'm REALLY surprised I haven't met any minor races yet - I believe I set that to "Many" in the game options screen. I would have expected to run into at least one by now. This worries me a lot, since if the other four factions are running into them, they might be recruiting them. My best bet is my large bank account, which I could use to bribe any of these away.
On these super-large maps, there is a known bug (which the modders can't fix because they don't have access to the hard-coded stuff) that sometimes causes minor races to be mostly "seeded" onto either the eastern or western half of the galaxy. 

Of course, it's too early to say if that's the scenario here.  You may just be a victim of very bad luck; I've seen it before (remember there's only thirty minors to distribute over the entire map).  It *is* a possibility, however.  :-\ 



Quote from: Banzai_Cat on February 20, 2015, 07:35:02 AM
We shall see. Hopefully I run into someone soon because this is getting difficult to keep interesting. As long as you guys are enjoying it though I'll keep it up. I imagine it'll get much better once I run into aliens.
We're still entertained, so keep it coming.  8) 

"Like we need an excuse to drink to anything..." - Banzai_Cat
"I like to think of it not as an excuse but more like Pavlovian Response." - Sir Slash

"At our ages, they all look like jailbait." - mirth

"If we had lines here that would have crossed all of them. For the 1,077,986th time." - Gusington

"Government is so expensive that it should at least be entertaining." - airboy

"As long as there's bacon, everything will be all right." - Toonces

bayonetbrant

Back after a hiatus...  and back on the MYTHICAL FRONT PAGE™, where it'll need it's own expedition to be discovered...
The key to surviving this site is to not say something which ends up as someone's tag line - Steelgrave

"their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of 'rights'...and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure." Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers

Martok

#50
<Finds the MYTHICAL FRONT PAGE™>  Huzzah! 


I must admit, you are indeed more OCD about building outposts than I am BC.  Or rather, I'm OCD about them in a different way:  I refuse to build outposts/starbases in empty sectors. 

Instead, I generally only build them in star systems that I deem important enough to be worth defending, *and* are near enough to the limits of my ship range that constructing an outpost/starbase there will expand my ship range to a reasonable degree.  I don't like building them willy-nilly all over the place (which is probably not the most effective strategy, but there you go :-\ ). 




Oh, and in response to this: 
Quote
Two things I'd REALLY like to see in a BotF mod (and if these are a thing, please let me know):

    Being able to zoom out with the mouse wheel. The two levels of zoom are a giant pain in the tribble's butt.
    An indicator that shows whether a ship icon is moving or stationary. I hate having to click on every single icon JUST to be sure I'm not ignoring my ships.

Rest assured, the BOTF community in general would like to see these as well.  ;)  Unfortunately, neither is currently possible given the current limits of the game engine/knowledge of the modders. 

"Like we need an excuse to drink to anything..." - Banzai_Cat
"I like to think of it not as an excuse but more like Pavlovian Response." - Sir Slash

"At our ages, they all look like jailbait." - mirth

"If we had lines here that would have crossed all of them. For the 1,077,986th time." - Gusington

"Government is so expensive that it should at least be entertaining." - airboy

"As long as there's bacon, everything will be all right." - Toonces

bayonetbrant

The key to surviving this site is to not say something which ends up as someone's tag line - Steelgrave

"their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of 'rights'...and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure." Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers

BanzaiCat

I'm VERY OCD about building outposts, though they do make nice fat targets. I'm always worried the AI will outflank me and start destroying outposts, messing up my starships' range. I've never played on the Large Map before...at least not for this long.

bayonetbrant

The key to surviving this site is to not say something which ends up as someone's tag line - Steelgrave

"their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of 'rights'...and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure." Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers

bayonetbrant

The key to surviving this site is to not say something which ends up as someone's tag line - Steelgrave

"their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of 'rights'...and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure." Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers

Martok

Two minor races at practically the same time!  (And one of them's the Edo!)  Nice. 

Interesting to see the Xindi replace the Pakleds.  And that they're *not* inherently hostile towards Terrans... 

"Like we need an excuse to drink to anything..." - Banzai_Cat
"I like to think of it not as an excuse but more like Pavlovian Response." - Sir Slash

"At our ages, they all look like jailbait." - mirth

"If we had lines here that would have crossed all of them. For the 1,077,986th time." - Gusington

"Government is so expensive that it should at least be entertaining." - airboy

"As long as there's bacon, everything will be all right." - Toonces

BanzaiCat

Welcome back, Martok!

And yeah, those insects are right bastards, but they're strangely nice. A few thousand credits and they'll be willing cannon fodder allies of the Federation. MUWAHAHAHAHAHA


bayonetbrant

The key to surviving this site is to not say something which ends up as someone's tag line - Steelgrave

"their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of 'rights'...and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure." Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers

Martok

Ah yes, the Echo Papa combat drone.  Annoying little bastard.  :knuppel2:  I don't know that you'll need a large fleet to take it out (depends on your definition of "large"), but you probably will want a full task force of 9 cruisers and/or battleships to eliminate it with no/minimal losses. 

Amusing that the Xindi are your affiliates already.  The irony is delicious.  ;D 

"Like we need an excuse to drink to anything..." - Banzai_Cat
"I like to think of it not as an excuse but more like Pavlovian Response." - Sir Slash

"At our ages, they all look like jailbait." - mirth

"If we had lines here that would have crossed all of them. For the 1,077,986th time." - Gusington

"Government is so expensive that it should at least be entertaining." - airboy

"As long as there's bacon, everything will be all right." - Toonces