Okay, nice. Let's brainstorm! What game shall we play?
I'll start with the default settings, just to push open doors. Don't hesitate to tell me if you're ok or not.
Campaign Type: Conquest; 80 planets. Complex ships and everything turned on below that. Combat Style and Unit Cap Scale all to normal, unless you prefer otherwise. Full Fog of War; "show unexplored planets" on.
Auto AIP: +1 every 30 minutes? (Which is the true default; not +1 every 5 minutes.) Maybe 0 if hearing a clock ticking makes you nervous, as I do. However, 1/30 makes +20 AIP after 10 hours of game: 20 AIP is the worth of one planet and 10 hours is the average length of a game. Nothing dire, just psychological.
The AI Modifiers are rather bland; I would let them all off. I regularly play with "schyzophrenic" on; it don't change the balance of the game and makes the AIs show off their ships. We can set it on too if you'd like.
AI Plots are mostly pain for no gain. You'll explore them when you'll be more comfortable with the base game, I guess.
Now, the interesting things.
Map style! Have you a suggestion? Maybe we should start with a "simple" one. I would avoid "realistic" and the two "hubs" variants; they're pushing the difficulty upward. Snake and Lattice are very special and rather hard (too much or too few wormholes), IMO. Mazes are not very different from "tree", which is rather sad. So here is the list of map styles I think are both interesting and not too hard:
* Tree/Spokes/Vines/X
(Few wormhole per planets, good for defense, slightly harder offense because of roadblocks.)* Grid/Crosshatch/Honeycomb
(Slightly harder to defend because there's barely no chokepoints, but much easier to read.)* Cluster Simple
(I would avoid Microcosm and Encapsulated if you don't know the "Cluster Simple" first.)* Concentric
(A very interesting map style, open for route choices, slightly easier to defend, very easy to read.)* Wheel
(A bit harder, IMO, because there is no pure chokepoint, however territorial defense seems slightly easier.)(Oh, hey, look! There's a totally nice
wiki page I totally not created!)
If you want a rather vanilla game, pick "simple".
Now some MF pairs I think are both thematically tied and rather balanced.
* Human Marauders & Human Resistance Fighters (both 4/10): some ships sometimes show up during battles, either to help us or to pick on the weak winner.
* Zenith Miners & Zenith Dyson Sphere (both 4/10): Some miner golems spawn on random planets and we have 30 minutes to kill them before they eat their planets whole. Meanwhile, there is a Dyson Sphere sitting on a random planet that we can befriend to get a swarm of ships to protect our empire.
* Zenith Devourer & Zenith Trader: two golems roam the galaxy. One eats every ships it encounter (both AI and Human), the other trades defensive structures for metal on planets it crosses (both AI and Human). (That pair is rather harder.)
* Neinzul Roaming Enclaves & Neinzul Preservation Wardens (both 4/10): Neinzuls regularly spawn here and there; hostile ones try to sneak past our defenses and hit soft backyard planets while friendly ones stacks up and help us with defense and offense. (That pair is rather in our favor.)
Why would I avoid other MF in our game?
* Broken Golems, BotNet and Spirecraft: they are superweapons that dramatically (IMO) impact the balance of the game. I personally believe even the "hard" versions which sends periodic big waves at us is too easy. You'll definitely play with them because they're good MF, but I strongly recommend not getting used to them.
* Human Colony Rebellions: while self-balanced (risk/reward), it's rather mandatory and sometimes a lot of troubles. Basically, about once in a game, a human colony spawns in the wild. We have like an hour (I don't remember precisely) to capture this planet and gain a good chunk of fleet power or take +100 AIP. As I said, mandatory.
* Neinzul Rocketry Corp: AI can use warheads against us. It's as bad as it sounds. No lore, all pain. Should be a plot.
* Spire Civilian Leaders: a very interesting alternative to auto-AIP, but a notch harder.
* Dark Spire: a lovely piece of pain. I won't spoil you; just launch a game with nothing but this MF up to 10 and don't hope to win it in the first try.
* Alt. Champ. Progress/Nemesis: It's special content. Arcen added some sorts of RPG elements in their game. I'm personally not found of it.
* Showdown Devices, Exodian Blade, Fallen Spire: Loreful MF that provide alternative endings; Fallen Spire is even called a "campaign" and it's true, it's as engaging and game-changing as a traditional RTS's campaign. So why not? Because they're massive gamechangers. Let's start vanilla, shall we? (Same thing for the original Champion role, with the nebulae.)
* Nomad Planets: an awesome gamechanger; no spoil: some planets move! (Minor spoil: there's a way to influence their routing.) You'll try it on your own when you'll be comfortable with the vanilla game.
And now, the AI Types. We could just go with random easier and flush the whole question. Or we can go turtle/aggressive (like Shield Ninny & Sledge Hammer or Fortress Baron & Mad Bomber)
Last note: AI colors. Depending on our choices, we can give them similar colors, like Black and White (gray), Deep Blue and Pale Blue, etc.
I personally prefer orange, green or purple for myself; I'll take what best suits yours. Just avoid black: its flare (map ping) is barely visible.
Aaaand I did it again. The long post thing. Not sure you picked the right mate.
