On the end of the semester and the start of exams!

Hey all,

As I've written in a few past blog posts, the end of the semester has come nigh and hither! Woohoo! Alas, the examinations I will be sitting for has not yet passed, nor has the interviews for certain jobs that I am expecting to hope to be able to fulfill this summer. As such, my gaming has come to a relatively complete stop.

Distant Worlders, I have much love for y'all BUT my schedule does not. I've gotten exactly one hour of play since my last AAR and... frankly... not a lot happened to justify a good AAR update like the ones before (the Kiadians are STILL looking for a good planet to colonize; seeing waaay too many volcanic and ocean world planets for such a small galaxy, it's like one of those statistical anomalies you know can happen but never ever expect to see). I'm hoping that after the 19th I'll be somewhat more free.

In terms of gaming, I... Well, what I mean... I'm trying to say that... Meh, mayhaps I shouldn't have started a gaming blog in mid-April; a month before exams were supposed to start. Hehe...

Don't worry though, this is not the end of On the Optimization of Electronic Play; though it will most likely be a very quiet 2 weeks. And before you all go, ZOMG YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT YOUR PERSONAL LIFE AND NOT VIDEO GAMES ALL THE TIME. Well, yes, I am; it keeps things fresh!

On Distant Worlds: #2. Kiadians don't see exploration as a 'bold' thing to do...

Though the Kiadians are technologically basic, they're doing much better than us humans are doing in the first decade of the 21st century; they have recently unveiled a line of FTL hyperdrive units capable of transporting metallic hulks (with people and goods in them, we should hope) across the stars.

What secrets will the universe unveil? I currently have a fleet heading to the 'west' to take care of some pesky pirate varmits! The first, and currently only, fleet of the Collective is already busy in the galaxy playing clean-up with the space monsters and pirate pests.

Not even 20% of the galaxy has been unraveled and the Kiadians have already made the greatest of discoveries; a Zenox historian aboard the Lonesome Victory, a run-down exploration ship, managed to reconstruct the records found in a temple located in the Rindula sector of an extremely powerful, if not diabolical, form of government!

The infamous Rindula system. The blue diamond is the position of the Lonesome Victory; currently performing sensor readings on a few other planets in the system to find precious resources for the Collective. The white triangles are abandoned ships from a previous era; a constructor will be sent there as soon as the space monsters are taken care of! The three white dots that form a triangle shows the position of an explored ruin...

The Galactopedia article for the Way of Darkness. To the left of the entry is the current location of the Temple of Doom©; a sinister and foreboding monument found on a volcanic planet in the Rindula system. It is here that this superior (in the Galactic Empire sort of superior) form of government was found.

The Way of Darkness, as it was once known, is a way of life centered around glorifying the military power of the state while placing the rights of the individual in last. This form of government, in terms of gameplay stats, is quite superior to a Monarchy (the previous form of government). As we speak, the Kiadian royal family has fled from Zenox Prime, though 'suppression' agents (the few Kiadians who were rejected from the Zenox Prime Scientific Academy) are already on the hunt. Such a brutal but efficient system!

Also in the Rindula system are a number of abandoned ships (the grey triangles) from a previous age. They appear quite technologically advanced though retrieval will be difficult since the system is rife with space monsters! As if the lack of habitable systems was bad enough...

The Kiadians grow restless for more living space. Thus far, the 6 exploration ships commissioned by the state to acquire more resources for the expected huge war bill have failed to find anything worth colonizing (alas, the Kiadians are sensitive to temperatures and will not bear the stinging cold of Ice Planets, nor the heat of Volcanic Planets. The Zenox, not surprisingly, are also picky about planetary conditions). A few gas planets here and there, a few resource rich nebulae sure, but they don't bring the tax money now do they?

The initial six scouts of the Kiadian Collective; none have fallen prey to space monsters yet!

And with that, you are now up to speed with this AAR. From now on, I'll be covering future developments as I actually play this darn game!

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!)

On Distant Worlds: The 4X that Masters of Orion 3 should have been

What? Talking about (or advertising) some obscure game that's NOT available on Steam for my first game-talk-about? But of course! Well, to be honest, Distant World's exposure to the public is a bit lackluster right now, which is a darn right shame considering how much depth is in the game. Code Force, the New Zealand-based developer and Matrix Games are the guys behind this little gem which manages to strike a pretty good balance between depth and ease of use. Sure the game's interface is based on the .NET Framework 3.5 (which makes the game feel a little, umm... Windows-y), but it works well as an homage to the good ol' days of strategy gaming (think of the MOO series, XCOM and what-not).

The game has a small but vibrant following over at the Matrix Games forums for Distant Worlds which you can find here. Thanks to them, the game is constantly being updated and new features are being added (recently, the ability to retrofit entire fleets of ships is now enabled, where before you had to single-click through every ship to upgrade them. Yay!). While this blogthor will be using up a few blog posts to give my two cents about the game, you definitely can't go wrong with seeking a few more opinions from OTHER people who've also played the game.

I might even do an AAR (After Action Report) on this blog post! Won't that be exciting?

Anyhow... The big reason why I enjoy Distant Worlds is because it has a very flexible learning curve. Flexible learning curve, you ask? Yes, you can, through the options menu, tell the game which aspects of your galactic empire you'd like it to handle, to give suggestions about, or to leave entirely to your own grubby micro-managing hands. In essence, you can make the game as simple or as difficult as you want to and focus on whatever it is about 4Xs you enjoy. Like the colonization and exploration part of the game (for which Distant Worlds provides a lot of stars and planets and moons to explore; the largest setting has an astounding 1,400 stars for you and your rivals to play with)? Then tell the computer to bugger off while you take care of your exploration and colonization ships, snuggling them into the bosom of the stars and habitable planets of the galaxy. Life in the space navy more your thing? Then let the computer handle all the wishy-washy economy stuff (which it does fantastically well) while you move your ships all over creation.

I can get into a lot more great things about the game like the ease-of-use of the Galactopedia in explaining all the somewhat-complex game components, the interplay between your empire's state ships (your exploration, colonization, construction and military ships) and the private sector (the transports, mining ships and things that make your economy tick), as well as the epic overarching exploration story that can change every time you play (though it's usually along the lines of Mass Effect's Prothean-Reapers-esque conflict, still interesting to have in a 4x though!).

Here's a few screenshots of a game I'm currently playing. It's a small one, with only (only, hah!) 100 stars with me and another faction in a very restless and pirate-y galaxy.

Here's a screenshot with most of the galaxy shown. It's close to the start of the game and I still only have a few planets in my home sector, though you can see a bunch of ships flying out everywhere. The diamonds on the outer rim are my explorer ships, while the circular ones private sector freighters couriering resources between my gas planet mines and my home sector. Despite the fact that this is about half an hour into the start of the game, there's already a bit of action going on here!