SE4X - Death Machines 002
Starting Out
With the board already laid out - the system markers shuffled and placed upside down per the starting rules - so we’re going to start in the turn sequence. Generally speaking, you have three turns, and then an economic phase. Each turn consists of movement, combat, and exploration. Since we’re playing the easy/large scenario, the first doomsday machine enters on the 8th economic phase, and one every two economic phases after that.
I start out with a fully developed (20 CP) homeworld, and on that homeworld:
3 colony ships
1 miner
4 shipyards
3 scouts
Since it’s the first turn, all I can do is move. Even if I wasn’t restricted to Move-1 rates of 1 hex per turn, I must move into unexplored hexes from the immediate hex, and stop immediately, and I must use scout/armed ships to do so. With no combat we immediately go to exploration and flip the tiles. I’m in luck - no black holes. One nebula, mineral resources, and a prospective colony world.
I’m Glad we can get the colony started right away.
On the next turn I move two colony ships over to the new world on the presumption that one of the nearby scouts may find something for the second ship, and send the miner after the minerals. I don’t find much - more minerals to mine, another nebula, and a barren world I cannot settle without terraforming tech.
The miner tows the mineral deposits home in time for the economics phase, and the scouts are far enough afield that I elect to keep my third colony ship home. If the rightmost scout finds something, it’ll get there before the next economic phase, but if not, and the other scouts do, I screwed myself.
Sure enough…
Economics Phase 1
We start by collecting colony income - easy, as we only have the homeworld, it’s not blockaded, and it’s 20 CP. We also dropped off one batch of minerals, so we add that as well. I have no pipelines up yet - which have a dual function of improving navigation and aiding income - so that part is left blank.
I have three “ships” not including colony ships, bases, mining ships, or starbases, so I only have to pay for the scouts. At hull size 1, that’s three CP to maintenance.
Another step here is to bit a number of remaining CPs to change the player order, but for this solo game that’s a non-factor. In multiplayer games it can be abstracted as expending production to gain an advantage in initiative. You actually reveal the amount bid and designate the remaining turn order at the end of this phase.
That leaves me with 22 CPs to spend on tech upgrades and new ships. With three potential colony worlds already revealed I’ll need to prep at least one more, and likely want a second miner as well to improve mineral recovery. Beyond that?
This is why the economic aspect of this game is at least as important as the logistics of what you choose to place where.
One thing I like about the doomsday machine scenario as a learning one is that it vastly simplifies your econ choices. You know when the enemy will show up, if not where, or what weaknesses it will have. There are no surprise rushes because your opponent bought into higher speed tech, and while you may not know what advanced tech is effective against them, you also don’t have to play a guessing game of “what did my opponent buy?”
The colony I’ve already begun to establish - I discovered the other two inhabitable worlds on turn three so could not reach them - will not “grow” from colony ships to a 1CP colony until the end of the econ phase, and will give me one additional CPs on the second econ phase. Then three, then five on the fourth econ phase. This makes rapid exploration supremely important, because with doomsday machines arriving at the end of phase 8, the colony ship must be on site and colonizing by turn 6 to justify the expense - anything later is a gamble on what direction the death machine arrives from and the ability to redirect production. Since it can take 2-3 econ phases to get a colony ship to the periphery from the homeworld, econ phase 4, perhaps 5 if built further out, is the latest you can practically build colony ships that will pay back their investment.
So we want to focus on economic and empire expansion, and laying the groundwork to traverse our empire easily since we’re playing with the merchant pipeline rules. Investing in tech is good, but that’s both expensive and we don’t have the ships to apply it to yet. For that matter, ramping up warships too early means paying upgrade costs later for ships that aren’t fit to face the death machines.
Let’s look at what I can spend my money on.
Ships
I have several options, but as I said earlier, I’m not going to buy up warships just yet.
Scout - cost 6, 1 maintenance - Assuming no truly obstructive cases of nebulas and asteroids, or unfortunate black holes, three scouts alone will need 8-9 turns to explore just the ‘home” systems available, meaning that we will not know what exists in our corner of the universe until effectively econ phase 4. That doesn’t include the deep space systems. Given the scenario, that means somewhere around econ phase 4 or 5 we’re going to be making final deceisions on what to colonize. Incidentally, a speed boost may help a touch, but not immensely insofar as we’re relying on scouts for exploration. Crossing explored areas will be faster, but movement into unexplored systems needs to start in the adjacent hex, so being able to move two hexes is of little help.
Colony Ship - cost 8, zero maintenance - As I discussed above these will be phased out around Econ phase 4-6, because providing sitting ducks for a death machine to gobble up for recovery just isn’t smart, but for now we need them.
Base - cost 12, zero maintenance - nice to have, but cannot be built without a ship size tech upgrade.
Miner - cost 5, zero maintenance - Ive already got two untouched mineral resources on the board, only one of which I can recover.
Shipyard - cost 6, zero maintenance - I cannot establish one on my colony worlds yet until they are actual colonies and not just a ship preparing one. For the homeworld, it’s also not the only way to ramp up capacity.
MS Pipeline - cost 3, zero maintenance - Provide two advantages. The economic one is almost not worth it: every colony connected to the homeworld through a contiguous chain provides 1 additional CP per econ phase, or basically econ turn seven at the earliest. That requires at least six econ phases before there’s a breakeven even for adjacent colonies. Fortunately I have an adjacent colony and one beyond that, but it’s still an open question as to whether the money is better spent elsewhere. The Logistical advantage is in allowing unencumbered transit through asteroid and nebula hexes, as well as a ‘road” effect that any unit moving entirely within a pipeline chain in a turn gets an additional hex of movement that turn. Given the “home” systems alone are 6 hexes across, that’s a huge deal.
Tech
Some of these are helpful, some of these are utterly useless or irrelevant in the Doomsday machine scenario.
Ship Size - we need TL2 to build destroyers and bases, and 3-6 for CAs, BCs, BBs, and DNs respectively. Also - the hull size determines the maximum additional attack and defensive tech that can be deployed on any given ship.
Attack 0-3 - improves the attack rating up to it’s attack rating or hull size, whichever is smaller.
Defense - as above.
Tactics - grants an initiative advantage within any combat ship class. Fire resolution is not simultaneous. Class A resolves combat before class B, etc., and if two fleets are class B, the ones with higher tactics shoot first.
Move - Each level of move tech grants an extra hex oc movement per econ phase (starting at 1/1/1 at the default TL1, 1/1/2 at TL2, 1/2/2 at TL2, etc). Even moderate gains are useful to consolidate fleets, as the DM will not be vulnerable to small ones.
Ship Yards - at the beginning one yard can produce 1 hull point - so with my starting 4 shipyards I can build 4 total size points of ships right now on my homeworld. At TL2 that becomes 1.5 each for six total, and at TL3 that becomes 2 each.
Terraforming - allows me to colonize barren worlds like Hoth.
Exploration - Long range scanners that can only be deployed on Cruisers (on a five year voyage…), which allow you to preview one adjacent hex and reveal it, or not, before moving on to another hex. Vastly speeds up exploration, but you need hull size TL 3 to even deploy it, and we are under an intense time crunch for exploration.
Advanced Tech
Fighters - Unless the DM is somehow weak to fighters, useless. May be worth putting in a point, but the odds of two of them sharing the same weakness even in that case are slim.
Point Defense - Only deployable on scouts, and only useful against fighters. The DM will have none.
Cloaking - Only useful of the DM is weak to it, as they are presumed to have superior sensors
Scanners - Also useless, as the DM will not be cloaked
Mines - Like fighters, useless unless the DM is weak to it for some reason.
Mine Sweepers - pointless in this scenario as the DM doesn’t lay mines.
Our choices this round
I think two colony ships at minimum are a must. So is at least one miner. Since neither are affected by upgrades to movement tech, getting those in early makes sense and allows me to stage them forward for new discoveries. Unfortunately that sucks down 21 CPs (2x 8 and 1 x 5) but fortunately doesn’t add to my maintenance overhead. I think I can afford to wait to get a fourth scout up there but there are already minerals popping up everywhere. The three hull sizes are well within my homeworld shipyard capacity so I’m not shooting myself in the foot there. If there were any tech upgrades such as movement or terraforming, they would apply to any ships built this turn or later, as well as automatically upgrading all bases and starbases.
And so with that done I flip over the poor colony ships and establish my colonies.
We’ll meet again for the next econ set of turns and the second econ phase.
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