On Distant Worlds: #1. The Start of the Glorious Kiadian Collective!

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EDIT: Pictures too small? Clicky-clicky on them to make them bigger! (Warning: All Distant Worlds screenshots are in a 1920 x 1200 resolution; which translates to an average of just under 750 KB a screenshot. Those of us with limited bandwidth beware!)

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Looks like I WILL be doing a Distant Worlds AAR (After Action Report). Huzzah! Expect updates to come in haphazardly though, as real life continues to make blogging ever more difficult (especially with exam and research presentation time come next month). Humbug!

I have finally figured out how to take good screenshots in Distant Worlds without tabbing between the game and the GIMP. CodeForce was awesome enough to incorporate a simple screenshot function (without the mouse pointer getting in the way, too!) with the game; all you have to do is hit the 0 (zero) key on your Numpad. Note that this only works within a game and not with the menus, so I had to GIMP up most of the screenshots for this post.

The next few pictures will show what settings I used to generate my own tiny galaxy.

This first screen lets you play with the galaxy itself by using easy-to-understand to specify how large the galaxy should be (yes, the slider ranges from 100 stars to 1400 stars, where each star might have its own set of planets and anomalies; that be a lot of objects to play with), the developmental cycle of the galaxy and how well-structured it is (this also effects how well developed independent colonies are), the political 'tension' of the galaxy (this dictates how an AI will react when they first meet you; setting it like I have on 'Chaos' implies me and the other AI ain't gonna be the best of bosom buddies) as well as the existence of habitable worlds, pirates and space creatures! There's also a few preset types of galaxies available; I went with a ring structure because... well... umm... Oh I know! The other three, more epic rounds of Distant Worlds I'm playing are all of a Spiral galaxy shape and I wanted to try something different! It was most certainly NOT because I watched someone else play Halo 3 a lot recently... most certainly not!

Screen #2: On who and how awesome your empire'll be! You can specify where your empire will be located in the galaxy (based on the Ring galaxy selected from the last screen, you can choose whether your homeworld will appear in the center or on the outer rim), your empire's flag colors and symbol, the size of your empire (I chose the smallest here, though if you're not a fan of exploration you can always try putting it to the maximum setting!) as well as its tech level. Finally, you can choose your system of government as well as your race and give 'em all a good awesome name! For this game, I selected the ultra-trustworthy humanoid Kiadian who benefit from a very high research bonus and a moderate ship maintenance bonus.

But wait, you cry out, why are you picking a brainy race for a small galaxy where superior firepower will determine the victor? Because... I can! And because losing is fun! ... Sometimes.

Anyway...

Screen #3: Choose your Opponent(s). You can either tell Distant Worlds to generate up to twenty opponents for your to fight against (would be a bit messy for a small galaxy) or specify their characteristics themselves. The options here are quite similar to your own empire's screen and you can even specify how far (or close) you want the aliens to be from your own empire. What would Star Wars have been like if the tiny Rebel Alliance had been parked right next to the monstrously huge and technologically superior (sans the unshielded Tie Fighters, of course) Galactic Empire? In Distant Worlds, you can 'simulate' that!

Screen #4: The only winning move is to keep one of these checkboxes marked. Of course, winning in any 4X game is usually determined by the player, and Distant Worlds is awesome enough such that, even if you win or lose, you can keep on playing the game (or until your entire empire goes *poof*, though I have yet to fail that miserably).

A quick note about this screen, the victory function for all the options is a bit funky in that it looks at how you're doing versus all other empires as opposed to the galaxy as a whole. Not sure what I mean? Well, suppose we left the territory requirement to 75%. In a game with 100 habitable systems, you'd imagine that means the first to 75 planets (by colonization or conquest) wins the game, right? Not quite... In Distant Worlds, the game calculates this number based on the current number of colonized systems.

Let's continue this example by looking at the current game; me versus one other empire. Suppose at the start we own one planet (the homeworld) each. The number of colonized systems is simply two. I own one of those planets. That means I (and, by symmetry, my opponent) have a territory rating of 50%! Not quite the same thing eh? I can win the game by colonizing 2 more planets before my opponent can grab any as I would own three out of the four total planets which is 75%! Pretty lame, eh?

Clearly this system hands out victories based on short-term noise (colonizing one or two planets at the get-go should NOT be a clear win; this isn't Starcraft!). If only we can take advantage of the Law of Large Numbers...

But, what's this on the 4th screen? The last option allows the player to delay when victory conditions take effect by a user-defined number of years. Here, I put 20 years (though I'm not sure the game will take that long); more then enough time for me and my opponent to grab most of the galaxy, at which time the game will actually base the victory calculations on my own ability to capture planets from my foe.

Enough stats talk! I'll wrap up this AAR with a screenshot of my homeworld after a few months into the game (taken at the same time where I introduced Distant Worlds to this blog).

Lots of activity on Zenox Prime. You'll notice a few constructor ships (the large crab-looking ships; one of which is flying to the planet from the top-left) placing some orbital defense platforms in anticipation of first contact with the still-unknown enemy. A few resource transports (part of my Private sector that helps maintain a sound economy for my empire, though they are out of my direct control) are milling about as they wait for my gas collectors within the system to mine enough resources to warrant a freight run.

My early aggressive exploration policy has paid off; one of my scouts discovered a cruiser (the long ship below the south-east-most orbital platform) abandoned from a long-forgotten conflict that contained knowledge of the Way of Darkness (an ancient form of government only found in exploration that gives high bonuses to attributes that best suit a militaristic state, like mine!). Additionally, the cruiser has a lot of high tech on board, which I could allow my researchers to dissect for a tech gain. However, as the Kiadian's are already good at research, I opt to keep the ship around for guard duty instead.

Clicking on the planet, I note a sizable population of Zenox, intelligent and happy rodent/feline (don't ask) like creatures on my homeworld! It seems that my Kiadian subjects have a symbiotic relationship with the furry Zenox; the Kiadian's long hours of research benefits the State while the Zenox keep them entertained (not so much 'entertained' as kept from being outraged by the massacres and alien genocide that will characterize the soon-to-be-epic war with my mysterious foe) with glorious tales about th' galactic yore o' old. So deep is this mutualism that the Zenox have managed to flourish; there are two Kiadians to each Zenox on my homeworld, for a total of 4.75 billion inhabitants in all.

Kiadians and Zenox sitting in a tree! G-e-t-t-i-n-g r-i-d-i-c-u-l-o-u-s-l-y b-u-s-y!

A true Collective this is, indeed! Next time, I'll show you what secrets my scouts have discovered to date.

EDIT: Pictures too small? Clicky-clicky on them to make them bigger! (Warning: All Distant Worlds screenshots are in a 1920 x 1200 resolution; which translates to an average of just under 750 KB a screenshot. Those of us with limited bandwidth beware!)