ete's AAR: Powergaming - coming August 2013

[Sigma]

That Prog drone picture is pretty intimidating.

[Buster's Uncle]

Yeah.

[ete]

Glad a few others are up for playing this I've been thinking, and will probably make it possible to play this AAR as multiple factions, giving most of the massive faction advantages via SPs rather than via faction bonuses, and creating turn 1 saves with the player set to each faction with that SP not given, so the human has to work hard from each side. The Usurpers and Annihilators will have just faction bonuses, and not be human playable.

Green1: Sounds like a good concept, though somewhat different from what I'm envisioning. My faction is not Prog, it's Planet's immune system gone mad due to the Usurpers messing with it in an attempt to control Planet, freed by Roze and on a rampage to clean all life off Planet. It's able to capture worms off the Planetmind, so needs a positive planet rating.

Thanks Sigma

@BU: Since these guys are not really Prog, the Locusts seem like the best choice.

[Buster's Uncle]

Okay; I'll need at least a concept for logos, bases, and diplomacy landscape...

[ete]

Logo.. maybe a red ring with dot in the center, ideally with some form of damaged looking effect on the ring (dripping with blood or slightly tattered).
Bases, either something with minimal personality (think http://fields.eca.ac.uk/gis/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/nw-30.jpg but worse) or something extremely falling apart/infested with fungal tower stuff. Probably the latter, but the former may be less work.
Diplomacy landscape, anything with lots of fungus is good.

Also I'm mostly done with the text files, so this is I think the last thing I need before doing a test run then working on the scenario.

[Buster's Uncle]

Okay, I've opened GIMP, and this goes to the top of my to do list for the day.  Let's see what I can slap together...

[ete]

Excellent, I look forward to seeing what you come up with

[Buster's Uncle]

Unexpectedly busy day, but I've finally commenced work for you; I don't think drawing a basic logo like you describe will be a big deal, I've got something I think will work nicely as a generic base, and while I don't have a DL yet, I doubt I'll have trouble finding SOMEthing with a locust to serve.  Stay tuned.

Leaderheads almost done already.

[Buster's Uncle]

This is what I've got so far.  I wanted to see what you thought before I got much further - you want standard shields, alien, or would you like to go look at the Shields file in Downloads and pick one of the non-standard ones I invented?

Will the red do as a faction color?  For the logo?  Tatter the logo more?  Think I should go to any trouble for the sea bases?

First thing I do while I wait is google locusts of chiron and look for screenies/landscapish shots...

[ete]

Looks good . I like the base, fits well with the logo. In the AAR they probably won't get many water bases, so no need to go to too much trouble on those.

Alien shields I think. Red is good, maybe a slightly darker red than wild natives if that's possible without making base names invisible on fungus.

[Buster's Uncle]

That's about as dark as it gets and still works - I'll darken about 10 more percent  for good measure, but they'll probably always look like the Drones on the minimap.

I've dropped in something I think will do for the landscape - bases will probably take about another half hour at most, then I'll have something for you to play with...

[Buster's Uncle]

See how this works.

You're easy to work with, sir - that's good.

[ete]

Great! Thanks, I'll play a game or two with it tomorrow

[ete]

So after doing a couple of quick tests (just start of the game, and handing over to AI a lot) I just spent about 4 hours adding detail to the map because it's unreasonably fun, despite AC crashing and me losing about an hour and a half of work due to not saving often enough. There's going to be a whole lot to explore, and a lot of the history is written into the map in landmarks. For example, there's a landmark+Monolith where each faction was destroyed.

I'm reconsidering wanting to play with map revealed, that can happen another time. This game I'd like to explore.

[Green1]

So after doing a couple of quick tests (just start of the game, and handing over to AI a lot) I just spent about 4 hours adding detail to the map because it's unreasonably fun, despite AC crashing and me losing about an hour and a half of work due to not saving often enough. There's going to be a whole lot to explore, and a lot of the history is written into the map in landmarks. For example, there's a landmark+Monolith where each faction was destroyed.

I'm reconsidering wanting to play with map revealed, that can happen another time. This game I'd like to explore.

There is something to be said about exploring.

By the way, Ete, any chance you can link all the files for that monstrosity of a faction you have created? Do not worry about balance. Balance is overrated. I want to play with cool toys, too.