Interstellar Space: Genesis - a modern MOO2-inspired game

[haphazard1]

RefSteel, the nebulas seem to come in three types: the dark ones which block all movement until hyperdrive tech is available, planetary nebulas, and supernova remnant nebulas. The last two slow movement before hyperdrive tech, and have increased chances of richer planets in systems within the nebula. They also have chances of hidden objects within them, which can be revealed by scanning. Supernova remnants are more likely to have black holes and boson stars, while planetary nebulas are more likely to have brown and white dwarf stars. (All this info is from the tool tips when you hover over them.)

On the victory conditions, they do feel rather Civ-ish. But I think it will be nice to have different ways to wrap up a game, without having to conquer every single system. Maybe they will be unbalanced, but I think RefSteel is right that if you are in a position to win by any of them, you will be strong enough to win in other ways if you wanted to put in the effort. I am least sure of the tech one, since I have not looked at the end of the tech tree to see how the "ultra techs" work yet. If this means getting post-tree techs in all 6 major fields, that would typically be a winning position. But if you had an AI with similar tech levels, each of you with half the galaxy? Hmmm. I don't know yet, I will have to look more at the tech tree. ISG does not seem to have an in-game civ-o-pedia equivalent, at least that I have found yet.

On the wonders there appear to be both galactic wonders and empire wonders, sort of like world and national wonders in Civ4. I can research the enabling techs for some of the empire wonders already, but they have huge construction costs so I have not yet bothered. You can create "capitals" for research, culture, and business/economy that boost their planet's output in that area by a lot. Sort of like Oxford University, Wall Street, and the Hermitage in Civ4 doubling science, gold, and culture output. I have not reached the point where I can research any of the techs for galactic wonders yet.

[WingsofMemory]

Likewise for me; that's actually what I was trying inadequately to convey above when I lost myself in the weeds of this specific event:  When I play a 4X game, a thousand different narratives can emerge from the gameplay.  But the more the game tries to tell you what the story is supposed to be, the more you have to (ignore it or) restrict your story to the same thing.  It's a bit worse when it's nonsensical, but only a bit, really!

So when the game says, "Some rich maniacs ran off chanting, 'Down With Government, Individuals Uber Alles!'  They seceded from your empire, tried to make their own space colony, and found out that oops, their uncompromising ideals don't work any better in practice than any other maniacs' uncompromising ideals because they equally ignore reality.  They're all going to die because space doesn't give second chances and they refuse to compromise anyway." - I'm thinking, "Sure, makes sense," and I can work it into my story (as long as I'm not imagining my people as a hive mind or something) though it's already getting too specific to have much narrative replayability.  And if the options said, "Nationalize their infrastructure and pay to fix it OR leave them to die without help in accordance with their proclaimed ideals OR rescue them, return them to your civilization, but fine them for the cost of saving their lives from their own blunders," I'd work within that and imagine the story, even coming up with twisted logic for what makes the rewards fit their relevant text.  But as cute as the "smugly" line might be (the first time you see it) that and other text like it among the choices is telling you how to feel about the options, or how your in-game avatar is supposed to, which has no place in a 4X game and straitjackets the narrative into the event-writer's narrow worldview instead of letting a story emerge.

Oh okay, sorry about that, I wasn't picking up what you were putting down.

Here's a question about events and their effect on replayability, are they more replayable when they don't offer choices? In MoO the GNN can pop up with random events, and you are given no list of responses for them. Instead in normal gameplay you figure out a response (if any.) Let's say in MoO you get a "mineral depletion" broadcast from the GNN and then you are given a list of choices of how to respond, something like:

1) Introduce new recycling initiatives to attempt to salvage and solidify the remaining mineral resources of the planet in hopes of combating the over-mining.
2) Accept the situation and attempt to steer the world towards non-mining and industry related operations with farming and education subsidies.
3) Begin freighting in minerals from nearby systems as to not cripple the colonies industry.
4) Sign a warrant for the execution of the planetary governor for his short-sightedness, then play a rousing round of space tennis to calm your nerves.

That's just a quick list from the top of my head, I'm certain there could be more and better choices. But the question remains, would you want to see that pop up in MoO? Would you want to see any pop ups like that in MoO? I don't think I would. But a game like Stellaris, I can't imagine not having those.

As for replayability, you're right in that the first time seeing something like that is the best time. And if the choices are interesting and different enough then that gives more replayability out of them. And perhaps if the gameplay bonuses/penalties were being hidden from the player, and semi-randomized in nature that would help a lot too. If the choices had a background 'roll' to determine the degrees of success and failure before you know their results, then that could keep things fresh after playing it more. I'm not opposed to events like that, in fact I quite like them in concept as I want the universe to feel more alive, and I think that there are better ways to implement them. But I understand and agree that they can make the game end up a bit more stale, which is a huge problem for a x4 game.

[WingsofMemory]

On the victory conditions, they do feel rather Civ-ish. But I think it will be nice to have different ways to wrap up a game, without having to conquer every single system. Maybe they will be unbalanced, but I think RefSteel is right that if you are in a position to win by any of them, you will be strong enough to win in other ways if you wanted to put in the effort. I am least sure of the tech one, since I have not looked at the end of the tech tree to see how the "ultra techs" work yet. If this means getting post-tree techs in all 6 major fields, that would typically be a winning position. But if you had an AI with similar tech levels, each of you with half the galaxy? Hmmm. I don't know yet, I will have to look more at the tech tree. ISG does not seem to have an in-game civ-o-pedia equivalent, at least that I have found yet.

On the wonders there appear to be both galactic wonders and empire wonders, sort of like world and national wonders in Civ4. I can research the enabling techs for some of the empire wonders already, but they have huge construction costs so I have not yet bothered. You can create "capitals" for research, culture, and business/economy that boost their planet's output in that area by a lot. Sort of like Oxford University, Wall Street, and the Hermitage in Civ4 doubling science, gold, and culture output. I have not reached the point where I can research any of the techs for galactic wonders yet.

Well, as long as the victory conditions are presented in a sensible way, I see not problem with it. I just worry that the Civ style victories might not make sense on the galactic scale rather than planetary.

Hmm, interesting. Civ already had the problem of "Well boys, I know we spent the last 80 years building these pyramids, and were one brick from completion, but apparently some people we've never heard of from a place we have no reason to believe exists since we haven't left our continent beat us to the punch I guess, so start dismantling it boys. How do I know that? I dunno, apparently our beneficent leader the warlord Gandhi has mystical powers that allows him to know when any pyramids are completed, and for some reason really really hates the idea of having his own if someone else had theirs first." not sure I'd want that in a MoO style space 4x.

At least Civilisation is comedic in tone (or atleast that's what I got from it) so stuff like that can be hand-waved as "because it's funny." Of course their is a simple solution in Civ to multiple world wonders. 1) after a wonder is completed no one else way start work on it. 2) If a wonder was already built and you are building it, you can continue to completion, but you will have a lesser-bonus providing version of the wonder. First to build the wonder gets it's full effects. Atleast that makes sense to me?

Problem with a galactic setting is the whole "Well boys" problem is even more ridiculous when it's light-years away that someone built something similar. If the game is trying to be comedic, then I have no problem with that. That could make the game even funnier. But, with the remote exploration and stuff like that, this game seems serious.

The capital mechanic sounds interesting, kind of like how you can designate a colony type in Stellaris I imagine. Makes sense generally, is interesting.

Keep us informed to the human empires happenings, and I personally am interested to hear what becomes of your ex-objectivist planet, so if anything wacky happens to them, let us know! Thanks for the game so far : )

[haphazard1]

I took a closer look at the later stages of the tech tree, to try and answer the questions about the wonders and tech victory conditions. The ultra techs are at the end of each of the major fields (propulsion, construction, etc.) and appear to be similar to future techs in classic MOO. You can keep researching them to get additional miniaturization, with each additional one doubling the research cost. An interesting twist is that each level of ultra tech also gives you bonus votes in the galactic council -- the game describes this as your tech being so amazing that other races are awed by your power and respect (or fear) you. So if you stacked up a bunch of these ultra techs, you would almost certainly win by council vote anyway. So it seems like a way to make sure the game does not last indefinitely.

The time victory should also prevent a game from stalemating forever. Someone will eventually be the winner even in a galaxy evenly divided between you and an AI of equal tech. I don't see this as being any worse than a space ship victory in Civ, where your space ship reaches the destination one turn ahead of youe rival's space ship. It forces a resolution to the game and declares a winner, rather than having an indefinite stalemate.

For the galactic wonders, they are all things that are intended to be unique which helps avoid the "someone we have never contacted or even heard of beat us to the Pyramids by one brick" problem. One galactic wonder is the equivalent of the Wall Street of the galaxy, for example -- the biggest trading and exchange hub of the galactic economy. It makes some sense that only one could be the biggest. Yes, in actual history over time such a hub may decline and be replaced, such as London being displaced by New York as a finance/trading center. London is still around and still very important, but only one can be "the biggest of them all." So for game terms I don't see these wonders as being a problem in the same way the Pyramids or a big statue or whatever might be. The seven appear to be trading/commerce, cultural, knowledge/library, spying (a galaxy-wide mega-surveillance thing ), the dominant mega-corp, the biggest amusement park , and I forget the last one. Each one is massively expensive to build and they are scattered around the tech tree, so getting all of them would almost certainly mean you could already win other ways.

Hmmm, looking at the victory screen on my current turn (I need to post an update) I see that I now have 3 of 8 colonized systems. So the AIs are expanding.

[WingsofMemory]

The future techs counting as extra council votes is an interesting idea, and gameplay makes a lot of sense to try and make the game smoother and funner. For story reasons though, the awe and fear that a technology inspires would be done by it's application against others. And high tech helping with conquest is already pre-baked into 4x games. So not my cup of tea personally, but I can see what they were going for and it probably improves the game for most people, which is the important thing.

The wonders being a bit more generic and simply being a stand in for the "biggest 'x' in the universe" is fine by me, so I suppose I was worried for nothing. "Biggest Amusement Park in the Universe" sounds really funny if you were to build it as bloodthirsty warmongers. "You know, I can't behind their policy of total civilian bombardment, but they make same damn good roller-coasters!"

[haphazard1]

The future techs adding council votes gives them some value in addition to just miniaturization, which definitely makes them more attractive. How well it works in practice, well I will have to wait and see. Most games of MOO and MOO2 I never get that far in the tree anyway.

And now for some updates on the human federation.

I have accumulated enough culture to unlock the next perk:

The knowledge perk is tempting -- it would allow us to run two remote scans at a time -- but I decide to grab the adventure perk that provides a free survey ship. A survey ship will be able to provide full scans of our systems, revealing mineral levels of our planets and specials. They are expensive to build, costing roughly the same as a colony ship, so this is a big boost.

The ship appears at our home world, giving a full scan of the Sol system:

We learn Venus is a rich planet , Mercury is poor, and Jupiter has reserves of the Helium-3 special resource. This triggers a choice:

We have to decide if we should use the Helium-3 (once we actually have it developed) for peaceful industrial purposes or for greater military strength. The other choice is permanently locked out, so this will have impacts for the rest of the game. Note that none of these benefits will be available immediately; we have to actually research them. But the chosen options will be added to our tech tree. The benefits of each tech scale with the amount of Helium-3 our empire controls, so they could become pretty significant. Faster drives, more powerful beam weapons and shields could make a big difference in a conflict. But I am a firm believer that MOO games are essentially economic competitions, so I choose the peaceful options.

The next turn our first potential leader shows up (remember that the culture perk indicated one would appear):

The explorer skill (the magnifying glass with Bas (basic)) would be nice, as it would allow this guy to act like a survey ship. But he is expensive and other than exploration offers only combat bonuses. I just got a free survey ship, so I decide to pass on him. I do not expect to be fighting anyone for quite some time yet, so he is not worth it. (We will have to see if I regret this decision.)

I send the survey ship on to the Okla system, where one of my colonies is located:

We see our first planetary specials on the other planets in the system: one with diamond crust (which produces extra wealth from the huge quantities of gems), and a huge acid planet with friendly natives. Getting a colony base built at our colony here to claim the acid world just became a much higher priority -- friendly natives were one of the better specials in MOO2. And the listed boosts are pretty nice. Too bad the planet is high gravity, that will penalize the colony somewhat.

A couple turns later another leader approaches us looking for a job:

This one is a colony leader, boosting production, research, and colony defense. I can not quite afford him, but he will be available for a number of turns. I will have enough money soon, and plan to hire him for the Sol system.

A couple turns later our latest remote scan of a sector north of Sol reveals a brown dwarf star.  One of my scout ships makes a stop there soon after, and the system has a decent planet.

Before the scan, this star was not even on the galactic map. These hidden objects are an interesting addition to the game.

Research on Acid Colonization finishes, and I choose Asteroid Mining next. This will allow me to build an outpost in Sol's asteroid belt to boost production on Earth.

Here's a look at the available planets for potential colonization:

The list at the left of the main screen can show a number of things. By default it shows your colonies, but this can be all explored planets (the equivalent of MOO2's planets screen) or your fleets or special resources. These can then be sorted and filtered in multiple ways. It is a useful tool. Here you see explored planets sorted by habitability.

More updates soon (hopefully).

[WingsofMemory]

Hmm, interesting. Not sure how I feel about the event with the civilian vs military fusion, but I think you made the right choice. Definitely worth getting that leader if for no other reason then to see how well he works. The hidden stars is a nifty idea.

Surprised you haven't ran into any hostile aliens yet?

[haphazard1]

I think the Helium-3 choice is not an event. Or at least it is not a random event, like the splinter group on my colony. ISG has a number of strategic resources, each of which provides empire-wide bonuses if you possess them. Helium-3 is the first of these I have encountered, and I suspect each of them will present a choice in how they are used. From the tooltips, the bonus increases with each source of the resource you control, so if you can find and exploit a bunch of them the total effect could be pretty significant.

I have played some more turns, and my empire seems to be progressing well. I have colonized Mars with a colony base built on earth, so the Sol system now has three worlds benefitting from my colony leader and his various boosts. Earth is now building a colony ship so I can continue claiming systems.

I have found my first signs of an AI race: there is an outpost in an asteroid belt in a system to my west. This does not produce diplomatic contact. This system is outside my normal range, but is linked to a system I can reach by a stable worm hole. The worm hole system has a barren planet with alien ruins, which boost research on the planet and can provide free tech if I colonize the planet. So I am currently researching Barren Colonization and will send the colony ship Earth is building there, to make sure the alien race does not grab the planet first. Hopefully I beat them there; I have sent my two pathetic laser pop gun scouts to the system so I have some kind of force there to stop unarmed ships. It may be time to think about some actual military power, not that I have researched any military techs yet.

My survey ship has been moving around getting full scan info on various systems, and I have several decent planets that I am hoping to colonize and expand my empire. I have also been trying out a new mechanic in ISG: migration allows you to set planets to either ship out emigrants or accept immigration. Planets set for emigration send half their pop growth each turn to the planets accepting immigration, splitting the amount among the possible targets. As my only planet with sizable pop, Earth has been feeding all the new colonies to accelerate their pop growth. This slows Earth's own growth and development, but I need to get the new colonies larger than size 1 or 2.

Each planet involved in migration requires a freighter fleet, so I have built a couple more of them. Unlike MOO2 where frieghter fleets had a flat maintenance cost in BC, in ISG each frieghter fleet costs a ship support point (SSP). These are the MOO2 command points, and work pretty much the same way -- generated by each colony, bonus for star bases and certain techs, and if you go over your cap it costs 10 BC per turn.

Speaking of costs, I have been struggling to keep my empire cash flow positive. Buiildings are quite a bit more expensive in ISG compared to MOO2. Leaders also cost more, although they also have more skills per leader. I am probably going to need to use the tax slider to raise cash, or maybe build trade goods at colonies that do not have anything more urgent to do.

The game has been a quiet building and colonizing process so far, but things may heat up with the first signs of imminent alien contact. I am curious to see how diplomacy and alient relations work in ISG.

[WingsofMemory]

Hmm, I wonder if it will be like Stellaris where to have contact with an alien species you first need to research their language. I hope their is no hostility with them, as I'm not confidant in our ability to fight them at the moment.

The immigration/emigration mechanic seems interesting. In MoO being able relocate millions/billions of people on command was always a bit odd. I understand that we are (usually) some kind of space super-dictator, but that's a pretty extreme power in the scope of things. This makes more sense to me, as making it a choice on whether people want to leave their planet given that we are footing the bill (using their tax dollars) for transport. Seems more realistic, and seems to fulfil the same gameplay goal.

The building maintenance is worse? How many buildings have you built on your capital? Maybe it's your capital that needs to produce trade goods, not her colonies? How much of that maintenance is going towards industry, and how much to non-industrial endeavours like research? Also, how good are new colonies at research?

[haphazard1]

The main structures I have built are the robot factories, which are pretty much like automated factories in MOO2. But the ISG robot factory costs 8 gold/turn, which is way more than MOO2's automated factory (which was 1 or 2, would need to check). I am wondering if the robot factories are actually worth it on worlds which are not rich or ultra rich, since they produce a much larger flat number of hammers on mineral rich worlds. Or maybe I am just epxected to make more use of the tax slider than is usually needed at this stage of a MOO2 game? Maybe I just need to adjust my expectations? ISG is not actually MOO2, despite the many similarities, and the economic balance may be quite different.

As for production at my capital, it is by far my strongest world and the only one capable of building a colony ship in even somewhat reasonable time. I also get a bonus to building colony ships at Earth due to the first culture perk I took. The colony ship was a 19 turn build when I started it; it would be somewhat less now as I have completed an outpost in the Sol system asteroid belt that is adding production to Earth. Asteroid exploitation is interesting -- you choose a specialization for the outpost and it can produce production (which gets assigned to a specific planet), trade income, or research. I am thinking that I am expected to build a lot more of these asteroid projects; the alien race outpost I found at the other end of the worm hole is a research outpost in the asteroids there.

On diplomatic contact, I do not know. I have not spotted a tech to research for contact, but it may exist and I just have not realized it. I think the lack of contact may also be because of the worm hole; the system with the alien outpost is outside my current range.