Space Empires IV: Carrier Battles Let's Play
After a friend on a different forum
announced a very similar LP I picked the mod up myself and have been really enjoying it, so I've decided to have a go at it myself.
Space Empires IV is a rather graphically simplistic, but interesting 4X game released by Malfador Games in 2000.
I won't be running the vanilla game, but rather the Carrier Battles mod, which completely overhauls ship design and combat. The best part of this is that it actually makes fighters an important component of your fleets.
Additionally, it allows far better customization of your empire, allowing you to play anything from Brainiacs with the most advanced technology to Hive civilizations which overwhelm their enemies by power of number.
So what do I ask of you? Firstly, to vote on the starting settings. After the LP has started I will often stop to ask what course of action I should take in certain situations, and allow a lot of naming to be done (a LOT of things can be named in this game, so there is plenty of room for fun stuff)
So, let us start:
Galaxy Type
Example Galaxy MapRight, first we have to decide on the Galaxy type we'll be using. The Galaxy in Space Empires consists of a number of systems connected by warp routes. What Galaxy type we chose decides the content of these systems and in what kind of structure they're connected.
We've got the following options:
Paradise - Contains a lot of high resource planets, with little annoying (or exciting?) stellar phenomena.
Mid Life - The average galaxy type.
Cluster - Systems are organised into clusters, with only limited connections between clusters. Makes defending easier since it allows for choke-points.
Galactic Edge - Lots of stellar phenomena, for the rest similar to Mid Life.
Spiral Arm - Systems are organised in a semi-spiral pattern. Density is higher towards the center.
Grid - Very boring square pattern.
Ancient - A lot of dead systems without planets, black holes and other fun stuff. Might give the AI some problems, so should probably be avoided.
EventsThe interesting stuff. Random events happen at a chosen frequency and severity. They range from a ships engine failing to a star going supernova. They can also be positive in Carrier Battles.
Frequency:
NoneLow (every 100ish turns.)
Medium (every 50ish turns.)
High (every 20ish turns.)
Severity:
Low (Engine failure.)
Medium (Rifts in space and time. Ships get warped all over the galaxy.)
High (Planets collapsing.)
Catastrophic (Stars going supernova.)
Appearance1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9 - OMG BATTLESTAR GALACTICA!
10
We can chose from several culture options. These will primarily determine the strengths and weaknesses of our empire.
Neutral - No bonuses or penalties. The boring one.
Pacifists - Receive great bonuses to resource production, happiness, trade and research. Suffer severe penalties in combat to compensate.
Traders - Suffer slightly on production, combat and research but make up for it with a huge trade and spying bonus.
Berzerkers - Suffer in production and maintenance of their fleets, but make it for it with a nice combat bonus.
Preservationists - If something works, don't fix it. They have a huge maintenance bonus, rendering their fleets almost free to maintain, but produce new things very slowly.
Efficient Workers - Production bonuses but are slow to come up with new things. (Research penalty.)
Disposable Society - The opposite of Preservationists. Quantity over quality, things are produced at tremendous rate, but cost a lot to maintain and can't be upgraded. Their vessels are in essence throw-away after use.
Brainiacs - Research bonus, with penalties in ground combat, construction and production.
DemeanourWhat kind of people we are. Determines what makes our guys happy and what makes em sad. (And overthrow you.)
Peaceful - We enjoy building things, setting up alliances and ships guarding our citizens. War in general makes us unhappy.
Bloodthirsty - Winning or losing, they don't care, they just want to fight. They don't like ships around, since that means they're not fighting.
Provincial - We just want to be left alone. We don't mind what others do, as long as they don't bother us. If they do though, they will meet our fiery wrath.
Masochistic - Ehmm, these guys actually likes losing, which doesn't make for a very effective combat doctrine.
NameWe'll still need a name for our fledgling empire. I'll come up with something myself if needed, but you're always free to make suggestions.
This thread is running parallel on two forums
Bay 12:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=77403.0Zettabyte:
http://zettabyte.ws/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=661
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Topic: Lets Play Space Empires IV: Carrier Battles (Read 7241 times)