Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Deon]

Greetings folks!

I am in a dire need to practice my spoken english. I have had a big problem with my work because I forgot to make some really important stuff last month, so now I change my job. And I really need a good spoken english here.

So I start a let's play. It's part fun, part necessity. I need to practice my pronounciation, and I don't feel like talking to myself near a mirror .

So here you get it. My first video is being uploaded. You will have a link soon.

I start a game in a Large galaxy on Impossible difficulty with a custom race. You can critisize my english, my game decisions but not my family status .

See you around and wait for a link!

> Watch it. <

[Dwarf]

Yaaay.

[Deon]

Okay, here's the link. Please enjoy .

[Deadmeat1471]

Watching!

[The Merchant Of Menace]

Posting to watch :3

[Deon]

Can you even understand what am I saying?

[The Merchant Of Menace]

That accent is just amazing X3 You seem clear enough to me.

[Deon]

Good to hear.

I will also use modded graphics, so you can request your ship designs. However there are only 5 leaders, so some of you may be lesser ships. And the amount of graphical designs is limited.

Here's what I use for a scout:

[Il Palazzo]

Regarding your English: watch out for words with "i" letter. As a rule of thumb, in true English words(i.e.not borrowed from other languages, like French or Latin) it's never pronounced as you do - e.g. your ship sounds like sheep, because you treat "i" as if it was the equivalent of Russian "и", while it is closer to your "Ы"(if not exactly the same - check the pronounciation in these links of words like bit - but not beat,  fit - but not feet, ship - but not sheep).
As far as I can tell, it's a common problem among the native speakers of Slavic languages learning English.

Any chance of eliminating the background noise? It makes it harder to focus on what you're saying.

Also, I call dibs on the Bulrathi ship commander, if you ever come across him. Board these ships, arrrr!

[Deon]

Great, I've never actually tried to board anything. It should be fun to try to work on a special boarding ship.

Thanks for the suggestion, it's really hard for me to say sheep and ship differently when I don't pay attention specifically to it . While I try to practice it, we will be playing a space herding game with sheep everywhere .

The noise probably comes from my bad microphone, but I will make a few tests and adjustments to make it clearer.

[Il Palazzo]

Just so that it's clear - it's not just "ship", also e.g."rich"(yours sounds like "reach"), "is"(sounds like "ease"), "big"(sounds like "beak" - make sure to voice the "g". I don't know about Russian, but it's possible that you're doing the so called "final-word-devoicing", which turns the last voiced consonant into an unvoiced equivalent, so "g"->"k". This works in e.g. Polish, and quite likely also in Russian, but it doesn't exist in English), "insects", "still"(sounds like "steal"), "lizard", and maybe a few more that I missed.

Also, if you're into British pronounciation, rather than American, you can safely forget all "r"s that come before consonants, or are the last letter in a word. So you don't have to pronounce "r" in "word" or "star" at all etc.


Regarding the game - I'm sorry to hear that you're taking Psilons as the base of your custom race. There's nothing like beating the shit out of the AI with Bulrathis.(although, 9 times out of 10, you're going to lose to less-than-perfect rng etc. Still, don't be taking Creative, please?)

ed: typos

[Vector]

Vector here!  Help with pronunciation when I have an opportunity to actually listen to this stuff.

Neat idea, by the way =)

[Deon]

Just so that it's clear - it's not just "ship", also e.g."rich"(yours sounds like "reach"), "is"(sounds like "ease"), "big"(sounds like "beak" - make sure to voice the "g". I don't know about Russian, but it's possible that you're doing the so called "final-word-devoicing", which turns the last voiced consonant into an unvoiced equivalent, so "g"->"k". This works in e.g. Polish, and quite likely also in Russian, but it doesn't exist in English), "insects", "still"(sounds like "steal"), "lizard", and maybe a few more that I missed.

Also, if you're into British pronounciation, rather than American, you can safely forger all "r"s that come before consonants, or are the last letter in a word. So you don't have to pronounce "r" in "word" or "star" at all etc.


Regarding the game - I'm sorry to hear that you're taking Psilons as the base of your custom race. There's nothing like beating the shit out of the AI with Bulrathis.(although, 9 times out of 10, you're going to lose to less-than-perfect rng etc. Still, don't be taking Creative, please?)

Eh, I am creative aquatic . There's no real way to get many needed techs on Impossible without picking creative or really high spying skills .

I plan not to make it too long, and I am not a pro player (I only had 2 moo2 games after a long break) so expect to see some fail and plunder of my colonies . I will be aggressive to AI though. I mainly like Creative because during a midgame I like to rush research and depend on battle stations, and with Creative they rock against AI ships because of all the additions coming from otherwise useless techs.

Also I don't want to play rocket valley + retreat + tough scouts surviving shaeningans, so I will need those techs .

Bulrathi are only good at envading. You still have to kill those 10+ titans somehow, that's where you need Achilles with the best beam weapons.


I may make an impossible Uncreative run after that though. I just want to clearly win this time.

P.S. And yeah, I tend to "eat" the last letters of words in russian, so I see where the problem comes from. I will try to work on it!

[Il Palazzo]

Heh. Let me tell you about Bulrathi(or, rather, the custom race focused on ground attack bonuses).

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You need subterranean, to take as much of an advantage of the few planets you're going to colonize as you can.
Charismatic is often a life-saver, as it makes it easier to keep the other races pleased with you and not attack too early.
-50% growth is one of your main sources of design points.
Feudal -50% research penalty can be countered with research labs bonus, and sometimes a random officer with rp skill.
High gravity and ground combat bonuses are your main focus.

What you do, domestically, is go for cloning tech, to fix your atrocious growth rate, and maybe some few other low-level techs(exploration and the like).

Spreading to a few(three? four?) sytems is very helpful, as it heightens the chance of being invaded by Antarans.

Then you NEED tractor beams. Augumented Engines are handy. Troop Pods unnecessary(you're going to kill everything with what you've got anyway). Good engines tech for faster ships and high initiative. Any ground combat improvements that you can get.

You build ships equipped with tractor beams and defensive equipment(shields, heavy armour, etc.). No offensive weapons needed.

At some point, you're bound to being attacked. Your ships are fast, and can get to the enemy line in max two turns. They immobilize a target, and board it, winning almost by default, not only lowering enemy numbers, but also increasing your own - more targets, of likely high tech, high defense kind.
A few of your boarding ships should be able to neutralize more than twice as many enemies.
What you're left after a battle, is a large fleet, composed of ships full of techs that you don't know.
Scrap them! Suddenly you're gaining all the top-level technologies, which you can use to refit your boarding ships. The combat tech problem is solved(also extra cash).

Once you get to the Plasma Cannons, you can start building the "real" combat ships, as these are so effective, that it's just silly not to use them.

Then you start invading other planets, and gaining domestic techs from conquest.

Of course, as I said, most of the time you're going to lose badly, because e.g. you couldn't get to tractor beams on time etc.

Still, I believe that there actually is "a way to get many needed techs" other than spying or creative.
(boy I spent way too much time with this game when I was younger)

But I digress. Awaiting your next video.

[Knick]

Sign me up for this.

Last game I played was Impossible Creative Demo with plus one research.  I had a poor homeworld, -1 infantry, -1 spy, -1 ship defence.  Fortunately, no Psilons.

I was able to put off major wars until the end, the produced SP Phaser-armed ships, with Achilles and Structural Analyser.  One of my Doomstars could slice through ten of my opponents.