Yes, I'm a fan of the series and I thought it was an appropriate name for a game with the wheel map type. Lots of new stuff has been added to the game ever since I last played it, mostly in favor of the AI it seems. So I'm curious to find out whether I can still beat a 7/7 game or not. Also, I kind of enjoy writing AAR's, even though I don't always finish them. Who knows, they might be helpful to someone (my 9/9 crosshatch game got over 2000 views so far :O) so here goes.
Normal Role (no Champions)
Difficulty 7/7
Random all/Random all
Random all/Random all
Wheel Map type
Map Seed 1335434441
100 planets
Available ships on Complex
Normal ship caps
Extra Fog of War
Show unexplored wormholes OFF
5 AIP per 30 minutes
Minor Factions (4/10 for all of them):
Resistance fighters
Marauders
Traders
Miners
Dyson Sphere
Fallen Spire
Golems Moderate
Spirecraft Hard
Botnet Moderate
Showdown Devices
AI Plots (all for both AI's and on 4/10)
Avenger
Hunter
Shark A
Shark B
Starting with Tackle Drone launchers (never used them before) and we're ready to roll.
Homeworld is called Poseidon (awesome RNG roll) and I facepalm when I look at which AI types I got. First AI has Entrenched Homeworlder/Neinzul Nester and second AI has Vanilla/Raid Engine. Somehow I always seem to end up against Raid Engine. It's like the RNG knows that I enjoy playing against him, despite his crazy difficulty. Though I had hoped I wouldn't have to face him with my first dual AI type game, but I guess it's inevitable. I always play with whatever the RNG gives me.
So considering I already got the achievements for Vanilla and Raid Engine on dif 7, that leaves 8-9 achievements to get upon completion of this game, depending on what I do with the Fallen Spire Campaign.
I start with building a few extra science labs and engineers, and I start with some initial scouting. Turns out I started right next to the center of the Wheel. Wolfkin Cub has 15 wormhole exits. Other than the obvious disadvantages, this has 1 serious advantage. Because Raid Engines can not be seeded within a certain amount of hops from your homeworld (3 or 4), I will have a lot less RE's to deal with in my galaxy than if I started further away from the center.
I notice the AI has Snipers and Tractor Platforms. Awesome.
New Unlocks:
Metal Harvester mk II+III
Crystal Harvester mk II+III
Scout mk II
Advanced Warp Sensor
Grav Turret mk I
Scout Starship mk II
besides the scout starship, these are pretty much always my first unlocks. They've always served me well. With 14 wormholes to explore from just the center world alone, I figured scout starships would be useful. I was right.
Initial scouting reports:
Captive Settlements (from Entrenched Homeworlder) on Guardian Ball, Wild Wolf, Aka manah, Sea Dragon, Blitz, Core and Rock Golem
Data Centers on Druj, Aqua Hydra, Numb Ant, Gentleman, Core and Convict (6 already so far, wow)
Co-Processors on Mad Demon and Angel Commander (angels and demons, funny)
SuperTerminal on Sentinel (only 3 hops away)
Mk V Spider Turret Fab on Rock Golem
ARS on Minicoid
Cursed Golem on Smog
Black Widow Golems on Specter and Core
Botnet Golem on Convict
Raid Engines on Dragon, Aqua Hydra, Gentleman, Druj, Ktugachling, Bandit, Sky Dragon and Ruffian
Lots of goodies, but that's 8 bloody Raid Engines so far. Botnet is inaccessible for now because it's surrounded by them.
My playstyle involves taking a lot of planets, all of them connected to eachother. While that helps me a lot with properly defending my empire, it also makes the AIP skyrocket and it occasionally prevents me from going a certain direction. In this case it prevents me from going anywhere but 1 direction: The part of the wheel that I'm already in. The ARS on the other side of the center is really tempting, but I can't afford putting 14 enemy worlds on permanent alert (of which 3 mk IV). So I'm just going to make my way to the Black Widow Golem on Core and from there to the Botnet on Convict. I just hope I can take out all the Raid Engines there. Of course most of the Raid Engines I've found so far are clustered in that area. Well played RNG.
All this scouting took me about 30-40 mins, so I had to deal with a few waves meanwhile. Put some extra forcefields on my home command, but it's not like the offenders got anywhere close. Bunch of bombers and neinzul ships. Nothing it's triangle counters couldn't handle.
I went to neuter Ravager and Wolfkin Cub. Right after I destroyed the warp gate on Wolfkin Cub, my entire fleet got wiped out by a dozen starship disassemblers from the special forces. Those things are deadly when faced with an early game fleet. After that I took Fire Element without much problems.
New Unlocks:
Bomber mk II
Engineer mk II
I unlocked more engineers already because I leave all the mk I ones on my homeworld. The mk II ones follow my fleet around on their conquest and I leave a single one behind every time I move on to a new planet.
I unlocked the bombers because I'm going to need something to take out the 2 forts on Guardian Ball.
1 hour ingame, that's it for today. Next time I'll find out how deadly the Raid Engines are going to be.
added a screenshot of my current galaxy. Might be a bit chaotic for the untrained eye, but I'm used to it myself.
