Let's play on Youtube

[Alfapiomega (OP)]

Hello everyone!

I realize this is my first post but I would like to set forth my small plan to "promote" Aurora a bit.  You see I have learned about it only two weeks ago and since then I never met anyone who would know about it.  It is really weird that such a great game with such incredible potential doesn't get more coverage.  I. e.  on Youtube it has only two unfinished tutorials.

Now I have a let's play channel of my own that focuses on strategy games, currently with approximately 2300 subscribers (like here: www. youtube. com/alfapiomega) and I want to create a let's play that will give this game more known.  I turn to you, the more experienced, for help with that.  As I am still learning the game so it will be some time till I get to actual publishable play level but in the meantime I wanted to ask you guys several questions and I would be glad if someone would help me by answering them

Question no.  1: So to start of I was trying to play the game from trans-newtonian stage and it works perfectly.  However every single time I put the game to the following setting: industrial era, only 300 million people, two starting races, starting date 2050 and no tech points to start with, the game runs for about in-game 2 hours and then gets locked with infinite amount of errors 3201.  Now where exactly lies the problem? Is there any way to fix it?

Question no.  2: For the actual LP I would love to start with the setting of above + all the three alien types + 2 or 3 starting races in 1000 or more systems.  Anyone got experience with such settings?

[Erik L]

Question no.  1: So to start of I was trying to play the game from trans-newtonian stage and it works perfectly.  However every single time I put the game to the following setting: industrial era, only 300 million people, two starting races, starting date 2050 and no tech points to start with, the game runs for about in-game 2 hours and then gets locked with infinite amount of errors 3201.  Now where exactly lies the problem? Is there any way to fix it?

Did you allow the game to generate missile silos? Disable that for a non-TN start.

[Alfapiomega (OP)]

Did you allow the game to generate missile silos? Disable that for a non-TN start.

I don't remember there to be such an option.  Is it part of the "generate techs and ship classes"?

[Erik L]

It would be in that region of the new game screen. Bottom centerish.

[Alfapiomega (OP)]

It would be in that region of the new game screen.  Bottom centerish.

Found it! Thank you, now I tested it and works perfectly! Better get ready to do everything on my own *rolls up sleeves* Also I don't know how I could have missed that one *facepalm*

Now can you look at the second question? Would you give any advice regarding the starting setup to make the LP more appealing? Mind you I haven't even gotten past the first system, I just got to colonization of Mars and Moon so I am in the true sense of the word newbie.

[Erik L]

If you have all three spoilers active, and the invaders find a civilization pre-TN, or even early TN, you could pretty much write that civ off. I usually play with precursors on and the other two off. And I usually always start TN rather than pre-TN.

If you start pre-TN and set it so there are other NPR, they will start TN. So the player race(s) will be at a disadvantage that way.

[Alfapiomega (OP)]

If you have all three spoilers active, and the invaders find a civilization pre-TN, or even early TN, you could pretty much write that civ off.  I usually play with precursors on and the other two off.  And I usually always start TN rather than pre-TN.

If you start pre-TN and set it so there are other NPR, they will start TN.  So the player race(s) will be at a disadvantage that way.

I figured that would be the way.  How good is the AI in the game? I tend to challenge myself in the games I play (and sometimes record) to ridiculous levels so this seems to be something I would like to do.  Disadvantaged is not so bad if the AI isn't a master-race.

[Erik L]

AI is one of the weak points. It is easy to out-maneuver/out-think the AI. The only advantage the AI has is not paying maintenance costs.

[Alfapiomega (OP)]

AI is one of the weak points.  It is easy to out-maneuver/out-think the AI.  The only advantage the AI has is not paying maintenance costs.

That means any additional advantage I give the AI is welcome.  I like my setup more and more. 

Now please let me just ask you this - what is the ideal amount of sectors / enemy empires for a large scale game? I mean is it 1000 sectors with 40 empires or 1500 with 80? I have a new computer (3,7 x 4 GHZ with 8GB RAM) so I hope it will be able to lower the "long turn times" I was warned about.

[Alfapiomega (OP)]

Also question no.  3: When do I lose? When I lose Earth? When I lose all the colonies? Or when every single colony and ship is destroyed?

[chrislocke2000]

You probably don't want to start with more than 3-5 NPRs. The total number of NPRs are not fixed in any one game - there is a chance of a new NPR being generated whenever you explore a new system and the same goes for when an NPR explores a new system. Hence you can end up with a rapid expansion of the number of NPRs and this will drastically slow your game down through constant interupts. You can tweak the rate of growth somewhat in NPRs by changing the NPR generation chance in the game set up menu. Given the random generation process some people can go years and years without ever meeting an NPR whilst others will find them all on their back door.

On the number of systems I wouldn't go for more than say 250 but again the actual cap does not really kick in as everytime you explore a system you get a chance of finding more jump points.

[Alfapiomega (OP)]

You probably don't want to start with more than 3-5 NPRs.  The total number of NPRs are not fixed in any one game - there is a chance of a new NPR being generated whenever you explore a new system and the same goes for when an NPR explores a new system.  Hence you can end up with a rapid expansion of the number of NPRs and this will drastically slow your game down through constant interupts.  You can tweak the rate of growth somewhat in NPRs by changing the NPR generation chance in the game set up menu.  Given the random generation process some people can go years and years without ever meeting an NPR whilst others will find them all on their back door.

On the number of systems I wouldn't go for more than say 250 but again the actual cap does not really kick in as everytime you explore a system you get a chance of finding more jump points.

Thank you for the reply, I appreciate it.  So in effect there is no need for a system cap at all? So you would ammend my setup by raising the starting amount of NPR and lowering the system cap.  I see, not a bad thing to think about.  Especially because the NPR's can battle the invaders as well, correct?

I also have a question no.  4 - I tried the wiki but I can't seem to find answer to this.  What are the benefits / penalties for other than "player's race" starting organizations? I can't remmember what they were exactly but there are things like oligarchy, democracy, hive etc.  but without any clear explanation.  You choose this when you setup your own race.

[Black]

Different governments start with various numbers of installations, shipyards, research points. I think it also affects how much is your civilization militaristic, xenophobic and so on.

[Alfapiomega (OP)]

Different governments start with various numbers of installations, shipyards, research points.  I think it also affects how much is your civilization militaristic, xenophobic and so on.

Is there a list and description of these effects somewhere? Like a wiki page I haven't seen?

[Black]

I don't think there is a complete list. You can see how it affect your starting research labs and shipyards in Create New Game window. If you change your government it will immediately change the values in  Starting Population part of the window.

There is a forum topic: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,1948.0.html , but there isn't much info there.