This is a game set up to provide the max challenge ISG currently offers. You find a savegame for turn 1 (before the game starts) attached. More details, and if you dare special victory conditions for our AAR challenge, are here. If you like a good challenge but are still learning how ISG differs from MoO2 for example, feel free to try out our last challenge. It is a bit easier because you play against the stock races only and your own race is optimized to kick butt, especially in terms of tech research. You find the savegame attached as well. This game here is considerably harder. Your own race is solid, but not optimized. On the other hand, your opponents have stronger traits and are no longer technophobic. Together with their favourable starting position, they have a significant advantage over you from the get-go. The map is fairly harsh, with an unfavourable starting position and close-by rivals. If you don't like spoilers but still wish to tag along, I preface every post with the turns covered, so that you get an idea how far the game has developed.
Turn 1 to turn 38 The only event I encountered so far: The systems in your immediate surroundings do not offer ideal targets for colonization. Thus I decided to hold back my sole colonyship for now. In turn 19 I had sent my survey ship out, which brought contact with the Nova. The Nova seem to be doing well. By turn 25 I had finally identified a suitable first colony. Its settlement brought ... Contact with the Sulak and Draguul. As both the Draguul and the Sulak are considerably more advanced in mostly all areas, particularly fleet and tech, the colony at Dant is strategically not tenable. So I will try to get something out of it still while not investing into it. It will be harder without an early first colony to support you, thus a sound strategic plan seems to build up a strong base around my homeworld to withstand pressure from the nearby rivals. I also need to replace that colonyship.
Talk about the AI knowing who it's playing against... I see Wan has come to you early again... while I hang out with the likes of "Maniac"
Well, you have Ka, not to be sniffed at. Anyway, I haven't found an answer to that yet, how do I launch fighters?
Ahh, I'm sorry, I negected to answer you. In battle, you must click on the Fighter special button. Once you do so, the option to select a target should come on-line. Place the target icon on the ship you want attacked and click, the fighters should launch. If this does not work out this way, we have a bug.
The last time I tried this with The Mothership I couldn't get it to work, not once during my AAR game.
Possibly a bug. Let me see if I understand correctly. You found the Mothership and it had fighters aboard. Did you have the tech researched yourself? Did you try and build a fighter carrying ship yourself? I don't normally use them except for testing purposes as I do not care for how they are portrayed in ISG ( 1 fighter bay maximum per ship), but I can create a fighter equieped ship as I go deeper into my own AAR and see what is going on.
No to both questions. I can't remember whether I received the tech for free later on, possibly. Here are a couple of saves. Maybe you can reproduce the bug.
I have used fighters extensively. They definately work. I can't speak for the Mothership specifically though. To use them, you click on the icon in the special system area and then on a target. Are they fighters or bombers? Are you perhaps trying to launch bombers without having any missle tech researched? You should have access to at least PD lasers, so fighters should be usable.
That's what I tried. I clicked the special, then I used the target reticle on an enemy ship, but all that happened was that my other weapons fired. The next turn I disabled all other weapons and clicked on the fighter special again, it didn't produce any discernible action. If there was the reticle again, it didn't work on another ship. The next time I tried it on a ship in boarding distance of The Mothership, maybe the distance was too high I thought, but again nothing.
Seems to be a bug with the Mothership itself. I built a cruiser with fighter bays using your save and was able to launch them. With the Mothership, I was not.
Turn 38 to turn 90 A new survey event. That's a good find. But it will only be useful a good while later, after I have built a battlestation and have enough production capacity to begin building battleships without halting other development. Maybe it could be used with a cruiser as well. The first galactic event: Not to be scoffed at, although at this time it has only a small impact, as my population count is low and culture already fairly advanced. I decided to build a colony at the nearby white dwarf system, the most promising one in terms of building a long term powerhouse, although none of its planets are that attractive right now. It will take a while before it will be useful, but it would be part of the base for a good defense strategy along with my home system, if things would get rough. Simply two powerful systems that are close to each other and each can have 4+ powerful colonies. Then happened what I rather wished it would not. Nominally the Sulak have a fleet many times the size of the my faction's, so with a smart AI they would be a serious threat. But with what I have seen from them thus far, I doubt it, which means it will only bog me down with the required micromanagement. The next survey event: My first outpost further afield ... brought contact with the Humans. The situation on the front with the Sulak so far is this: I have only my two starting frigates and a starting destroyer, i.e. 5 lasers, minimum armor, no shields, which I built to fulfil a leader's defense desire. The Sulak are technologically much further ahead, have more production capacity and a bigger fleet. I don't wish to go into detail here, but the Sulak seemed to be attracted by the nearby accretion disk with a triple neutronium resource (sounds familiar?), so I brought my stock destroyer and two stock frigates there. There is a small increment you see in my fleet power graph. I have now two additional frigates, courtesy of the Sulak, two Hunter FR equipped with more weaponry, better armor and even a shield. If those Sulak admirals would be part of my empire, they certainly would face courtmartial. You can also see on this graph that the Sulak build (or found) something bigger. Keep in mind my tech research is still very slow and the Sulak are more high-tech. It was time for my now reinforced fleet to move back to my homeworld to fulful Wan Ironshard's defense desire and to guard for building my first capital ship. Recommendations (and bugs) The Sulak occupy the neutron star system Chemoria but don't bother to capture my asteroid production exploition or the science/resource output. They captured the exploition on their first arrival, but right now they are just sitting there.
Turn 90 to turn 117 First we have a colonization event: With my small fleet fulfilling Wan Ironshard's defense desire, I left the Chemoria neutron star unguarded. The Sulak occupied the system but didn't bother to seize the large asteroid production exploitation, which added with boni 150+ production points to my battleship construction. Two turns from fulfilling Wan's defense desire and a few turns before the completion of my battleship, the Sulak send a fleet towards my capital colony. If they would do so much as to take down one of my frigates, I wouldn't fulfil Wan's desire in time, but the much bigger threat would be if they simply go for the battlestation, with its meagre armor, it would end the construction of my battleship. What arrived was: Note their ship support penalties. They must have around 20 ships at this point. As my home system was the only valuable target at this front, they should expect some defenses. No? Only a single destroyer arrived which was put on duty to serve in my fleet after battle. At the very least, if the AI realizes that it can't put a dent into my ships, it should retreat and not gift me another ship. In turn 99 I tested their defenses for the first time. Note their fleets north of Phei, I have no clue what they are doing there at this time, while their core worlds are under serious threat. The war was already decided after this battle, their defense fleet wiped out, all that remained was to build assault ships. In hindsight, it would have been better to build my battleship not with the chaos chain. I used it maybe four times in the entire war. It would have been better to design the battleship with particle accelerators as this would have allowed me a finer control of the fire to immobilize and disable enemy ships for capture. While the battleship was still useful to soak up enemy fire, I am pretty sure the same campaign could have been conducted without it entirely. With the Sulak on the verge of defeat, the Draguul want a piece of the pie. The Nova gift me a system. Apparently they can look past the repulsive race trait. By turn 117 the war is over. All that remains is to capture the remaining Sulak ships. Mind you that was a vastly more powerful empire, with favourable start, much further developed tech and production capacity and a huge fleet many times the size of mine. In general I wished this didn't happen, it felt more like busy work, and it is difficult to fathom that the remaining computer empires constitute a credible challenge. But maybe, while watching what @Konstantine does, I may play a bit further. Fantasy General II is beckoning, but I guess I can resist it a while longer.
I understand your feelings, though it is more difficult in my time line, the Sulak are not proving much of a challenge. I do see the Kaek though have grown ridiculously powerful, so I must continue mine for a while as the threat of losing the vote and having to fight them all at the same time is a possibility. I also suspect that the longer the AI is left alone, the more potent its forces, (obviously not true for the Moltar or Draguul in my case, but the others are all very healthy). As for Fantasy general 2, I got the e-mail from Slitherine yesterday and it is only a mater of time before I succumb to the siren call...
Seems my original victory condition was spot on. You would have had a tough fight to get the Zilia system from them and keep them at bay while you develop the colonies to max. Or maybe something smart, let them develop the system to max and strike just to complete your victory. I will say a bit more in your thread. As it has a campaign it is not so suitable for doing an AAR. But maybe we find something else suitable for a similar remote co-op in time.
I don't doubt that... they were not my personal preference though, you know it's like toppings on Pizza Even still, there is no way that I will not be going to war with them, the only question being if it will be at a time and place of my choosing, or as is looking likely, a time and place of their choosing
