ok, I just can't play this. I'm too dumb, or too weak to endure the endless turns when nothing happens.
tried cheating, tried conventional, tried with spoilers, tried without. it is just... that this seems a great storytelling device, if you manually set up the right conditions, but it rarely if seldom generates those interesting situations by itself.
fun just never comes to fruition. I'll wait 6.0 and give another try, given that it will have a better management interface and hopefully more design options
in the meanwhile, I'll need some space combat fix: any other 4x game that have detailed ship design and combat where ship doesn't just have a 'health bar' and can actually survive long engagements (I can set for something like star ruler, but I'm also looking new stuff, specially because star ruler doesn't work on mac)
That's why I found it more compelling to play with others. Aurora started as an assistant to Starfire Tabletop Game after all.
When I play singe payer game, I'm always set NPR generation rate as high as 100% to ensure I had someone to play with although the AI was pretty much easy to guess. In my last single player game, The New United Nation of Earth and Mars (NUNEM) was facing enemy that was much more faster, much more bigger, and had bigger guns. The Earth and Mars desperately producing ships, missiles, fighters (suicidal one, no more hangar capable ships), and PDCs to keep the enemy from entering entering Sol. But it was a losing batte. In 2039, 14 years after human start exploring the stars (conventional start), the enemy jumped into Sol. Only 3 ~30.000-ton sized Cruiser. But it decimated the stationed picket fleets. Destroy mining colonies across Jupiter's moons. (Saturn was spared, thank God!). Picking CMCs between Jupiter and Mars (how the he can they detect those CMC? it was only EM 5 for Xenu sake.) Mars destroyed several months after fired with numerous Plasma Torpedoes. The Earth try to strike them with all nuclear missile arsenal that the Earth had, but it only killing one. Crippled (but not disabled) the other one. It was a desperate move. Although I keep producing and firing missiles as fast as I can, it changed nothing. My industry capabilities are decimated, mass drivers are gone, I got gallicite and duranium shortage, it was over. Finally Earth was fallen one year later.
That's why boys and girls, NEVER jump into strange star before your ready.
Only Mining Colony at Titan survived. I was losing epicly. It is not in nature of human to surrender easily so I SM-ing some Construction Factories on Titan. The Human Union of Titan will avenge their fallen comrade on Earth and Mars! As the Titan only had 4m people that reside on Orbital Habitats, no ships except OH-tugships. I SM-ing that Pop into 100m (the peope are breeding like rabbits? no, it is extra-uterus birth), I assuming the date are now 2140 (even when the game still display it as 2040), 100 years after the Fall of Earth. I Fast-OOB the new generation engine ship. And armed them with very extra long drone carrying missile that shoot smaller missiles to overwhelm the enemy by sheer missile numbers. Only one problem remains. How can I direct those ships while keeping the Titan colony existance hidden. And that the whole stories so far.
You see, Aurora had potential to create epic stories, just keep trying, keep looking, and keep imagining things even when it didn't exist...
For those interested:
It was a spoiler race that come beyond the stable wormhole