Game 3 End of Year Reports

[Haegan2005 (OP)]

My first year write up is as follows.

I have come to discover that purchasing the Explorers Club and Assayers Office should be done at the beginning with NP. The 2 NP cost that is not spent on infra will be made up much more quickly and inexpensively then having to build these facilities while in the game. Fortunately, I had bought explorers and Prospectors in the pregame builds. However, I should have bought more of both.

My military is rounding out nicely with a solid core of space forces and a small ground presence. Pirates Beware! I should have spent more NP on my Staryards and made multiple merchant slips.

Ah well. The merchant fleet is coming along nicely as well.

Space industry is hideously expensive to expand, so buy as much as you can in the pregame.

I did not start planetary exploration until my water destroyer was completed, so my explorers would be escorted. The same is almost true for exploring my solar system. I waited for my second scout ship to be finished before I cut them loose. However, that was because I was not thinking. I could have started space exploration on turn 1 and added the scout later.

I have been spending Research points like there is no tomorrow, and have managed to get a good return for the expeditures. I will be pushing Research hard so I can get access to the faster drives and, assuming I find Monopoles, jump drives as well.

Low population limits expansion early in the game and it is possible to hit a production wall within one or two game years simply because you have no mor population to fill your factories. Based off of this, I do not see the point of not getting as large of a population in the beginning as you can get. Granted, Unhoused population must be paid for at the end of the year maintenance, but dedicated housing production should catch up and give you a huge Production bonus within 2 or three game years.

I have not designed nor found a need for new units. Good design choices inthe beginning will hold me for a bit, until I have the numbers to afford specialized designs. Of course, once the hundred legged millipedes of doom get into orbit, I may well wished I had spent some research on them....

Till next year!

[Þórgrímr]

Year one report for the United States of Terra.

One of my goals in the design for Beyond the Stars! was to give the player as many options as I could. Allowing them to design their species and Power in any form they could imagine. And even though I had to remove the Mechanology, Corporate, Bio-tech, and Machine Race options for later inclusion in expansions there is still quite a bit for the player to choose from.

So much it can be a wee bit intimidating the first time out. Case in point, I am the designer, yet I made a major mistake in the design of my power. I did not purchase any Explorer's Clubs or Assay Offices. That in and of itself would not be so bad as long as the player purchases a couple of Exploration and Prospecting teams to hold him over until he can build some later in the game.

Want to guess what I did? Oops. In designing the UST I had decided to purchase no civilian or military units beyond the initial, and free units you can get that are in production beginning pre-game. Well, I never used those points to purchase any Explorers or Prospectors.

So my exploration of the Sol system is limited to the basic P-Dat information that probes can give me. This is not enough to colonize or set up mining stations due to not enough data available. The kind of data ONLY Explorers and Prospectors can give you.

So my expansion is dead in the water until I can build an Explorer's Club and an Assay Office. And then wait until I can train some teams. All together I cannot place a single new colony or infra level for three friggin years due to that VERY bad mistake.

Other than that things are golden for the UST. The points I did not spend on a military I invested in the economy and a large population. I began with a population larger than both of the other testers combined. And beyond a nasty pop maint bill I had for the first year it will pay off in the long run since I can keep my economic expansion maxxed out and not have to worry about a labor shortage.



Cheers, Thor