Well I'm hooked on FO again, finally started a game with 0.5.0.1 and chose some different settings this time. Instead of 30 systems/player I went for something very close to the MOO 1 standard of 12/player. 75 systems for 5 sides, all rest random. As with MOO 1 that does cause aborted starts when at times you get slaughtered early. But all in all a more compact and manageable setting it seems. The systems are valuable, not just rows of colonies to manage. As said that can cause imbalances with fewer chances for the dice to equal out. But more fun.
The other thing I'm trying new is my science strategy. Now I got the George (first time! I'm mostly still a newbie) so they were well behind but well supplied with old tech armadas which is OK in the early going. What I am trying now is instead of always picking the cheapest techs first I studied the fields and see there are 9 (not 6 like in MOO 1) categories. I picked 1 from each field and added all to queue (cheapest first). When I get one I replace it with another from the same field, always keeping 1 from each of the 9 in the queue. Choices are also made on what seems useful rather than cheapest. This has tremendously slowed ship weapon research (those are all the cheap early techs) and at turn 125 or so I've still got Mass Driver 4 ships. Just gained Fighters 1 but I already have diamond armour. Organic & Robo Hulls just came online too. Most of the fleet is Cruiser Mz. Large fleet though. : )
Anyways, just reporting on this experiment. Fun so far and dominating my neighbours but the ones I'm not in contact with seem to have gained on me, mostly in tech advantage (which even my weak neighbours have but 1 Robo ship with lasers is no match for a dozen Cruiser Mz : ) so that will be a problem. Guess I was lucky to conquer Chato/Happybirthdays who are ramping up the RP now.
One major trouble is the lack of Regional Admin's (not sure where that tech hides, usually I get that early) and a map with few systems so everything is quite isolated. Monsters seem low as do specials. Starlanes look average. Shape appears to be a ring galaxy. Lots of chokepoints!
Oh and obviously the inspiration for the tech research method I'm using here is to simulate the MOO 1 system. : )
So far it seems a lot of fun. Guess you can't go wrong imitating the classic.
Oh and also hoping to finish this smaller game. I have some old saved games from last year with 100-200 systems and after hundreds of turns they were becoming a grind. Still plan to finish them of course.
The other thing I'm trying new is my science strategy. Now I got the George (first time! I'm mostly still a newbie) so they were well behind but well supplied with old tech armadas which is OK in the early going. What I am trying now is instead of always picking the cheapest techs first I studied the fields and see there are 9 (not 6 like in MOO 1) categories. I picked 1 from each field and added all to queue (cheapest first). When I get one I replace it with another from the same field, always keeping 1 from each of the 9 in the queue. Choices are also made on what seems useful rather than cheapest. This has tremendously slowed ship weapon research (those are all the cheap early techs) and at turn 125 or so I've still got Mass Driver 4 ships. Just gained Fighters 1 but I already have diamond armour. Organic & Robo Hulls just came online too. Most of the fleet is Cruiser Mz. Large fleet though. : )
Anyways, just reporting on this experiment. Fun so far and dominating my neighbours but the ones I'm not in contact with seem to have gained on me, mostly in tech advantage (which even my weak neighbours have but 1 Robo ship with lasers is no match for a dozen Cruiser Mz : ) so that will be a problem. Guess I was lucky to conquer Chato/Happybirthdays who are ramping up the RP now.
One major trouble is the lack of Regional Admin's (not sure where that tech hides, usually I get that early) and a map with few systems so everything is quite isolated. Monsters seem low as do specials. Starlanes look average. Shape appears to be a ring galaxy. Lots of chokepoints!
Oh and obviously the inspiration for the tech research method I'm using here is to simulate the MOO 1 system. : )
So far it seems a lot of fun. Guess you can't go wrong imitating the classic.
Oh and also hoping to finish this smaller game. I have some old saved games from last year with 100-200 systems and after hundreds of turns they were becoming a grind. Still plan to finish them of course.
Statistics: Posted by Atreides — Sun Jun 16, 2024 3:35 pm