Played a DA game right up to the victory screen, just for the heck of it. This is not a full-blown AAR, just a summary, and some thoughts.
GAME OVERVIEW
GAME THOUGHTS
BIGGEST PAIN POINTS
GAME OVERVIEW
- Started on the edge of the galaxy, and my starting sector had one exit, which turned out to be blocked by some alien empire.
- I colonised the five planets i had access to and started building a fleet.
- First war of assimilation ended in a stalemate. We fought each to a standstill and I was forced into a white peace.
- Built more ships.
- Second war of assimilation went much better, I took several star systems and two colonised planets before being forced into a white peace.
- Having to resettle MEs to the newly acquired planets, and spread their pops around my planets for assimilation was a pain. If it had needed influence to do so, I would have been screwed.
- Third war of assimilation I wiped them out, and was up to 14 planets.
- I was contained by two empires, both more powerful than me (18 and 22 planets respectively), and in a federation to boot. I would have to take them both on to expand. Fortunately, I had only two border planets, one with each empire.
- I built a bastion on one border, with some defending ships to assist, and an assault fleet on the other border, and went to war.
- Fourth war of assimilation saw me take 12 planets from the aliens to the East, while fending off successive attacks from the more powerful aliens on the West. War eventually ends in a white peace, and I am now up to a total of nearly 30 planets.
- I consolidate for 10 years (resettling, building infrastructure, building fleet, adding tech).
- The game year is about 2280.
- I find the two empire federation that is containing me is now 'pathetic' with respect to me (surprising), so I DoW them, only to find that I can't attack them. Turns out, they lost a war to a bunch of spiritual fanatics to the North, who is overwhelming to me. Worse though, is that the spiritual empire has captured the star systems on my border, and closed borders with me, so I cant get out.
- Stuff it ... I DoW the spiritualists as well, take their food from them, and then after a few ding dong battles destroy their fleet, and take their planets too.
- The game year is about 2340, I have about 70-80 planets, and have built some gateways, captured a Mega Art project (being restored), and a Strategic Coordination Centre (being restored),and somewhere along the way killed the Great Khan.
- Barring the two Fallen Empires, I am now the most powerful empire in the galaxy.
- I spend a few years consolidating infrastructure, building fleet, and start a mega shipyard and a ringworld, then DoW the fallen empire (Guardians of something - surrounded by some nice Gaia planets).
- I assimilate the FE, gain their techs (dark matter shields, dark matter drive, etc.), and colonise all the gaia planets.
- Game year is about 2370, i have four mega structures of my own, gateways everywhere, and am now by far the most powerful empire in the galaxy, with some 120 planets.
- I consider cashing it in there, as I usually do. I rarely take a game past this point. Nothing much else to do. However, boredom gets the better of me, and I decide to clear out the L-cluster and assimilate the second FE (DAAR Continuum).
- The bloody Terminus gateway is a pain, and everybody and their uncle is using it to drop fleets all over the galaxy, including the DAAR. Playing whack-a-mole is a pain, so it takes a few years, and on the way I DoW everybody because their systems are in the way and blocking my free movement.
- The year is now 2420, I own about 70% of the galaxy, have a dyson sphere, matter decompressor, and all the captured ringworlds from the DAAR (they were sitting on 3 bloody ringworlds! I can only restore two segments at a time). The biggest problem is influence .... I cant build enough gateways.
- To finish off the game, I set about capturing every possible star system in the galaxy and take over the entire galaxy.
- Victory Screen in 2448 after I capture the last enemy planet.
- Never saw any End Game crisis.
GAME THOUGHTS
- Towards end game, I couldn't keep up with the planet management and the pop resettlement so I gave in and activated GtOS and automated all my sectors.
- I would just do a pass on all the planets every few years to clean up whatever crap the AI had built.
- For the last 30 or 40 years of the game, I had like 2200/4000 fleet, all my resources were yellow despite building Silos everywhere, and I had an alloy income of something like 7k per month.
- I had 9 full fleets (Titans and battleships) plus a few fleets of destroyers and corvettes for mopping up. Didnt bother building more.
- GtOS also caused me some issues ... it would often resettle pops OFF the planet i was building, closiing up building slots beefore I could fill the queue. Grrrrr. Had to pause the game to avoid that.
- Planet hab was meaningless (ME).
- About 50% of my planets were Machine worlds (mostly pure energy and research)
- Didn't bother building more than 3 or 4 habitats on crucial border worlds, needed the influence for gateways and mega projects.
BIGGEST PAIN POINTS
- The lack of garrison troops on captured planets. Despite building sentinels, fortresses, etc NONE of my captured planets spawned garrisons, which was quite painful as they were subject to easy re-capture if any fleets slipped through a wormhole or terminus egress.
- Babysitting all my transport fleets. Capturing 100s of planets with 10 invasion fleets that kept running themselves into enemy fleets or starbases was irritating to say the least.
- Resettlement of my primary species to stabilise captured planets was a pain. Thank goodness it doesn't cost influence yet. Also, resettling captured pops to spread the assimilation was a pain. I stopped bothering at some point.
- Planet Construction. At some point (about 30-40 planets in), I would just queue up the whole damn planet in one go. as far as pops would allow. Babysitting production queues is ridiculous, and I don't like automation. Can we just have build templates please?
- Strategic resources were trivial. Besides queuing up strategic resource buildings everywhere, i would just buy what i needed on the market. It was a pain, and did not provide any strategic game shaping.
