SE4X - Death Machines Pt 1
For our first foray into Space Empires, I’m going to stick with the original rules mostly as a personal refresher. I’ll get into the expansions on another round.
Solo Scenarios
Anyone who’s been around since the Avalon Hill bookshelf games days knows well the necessity of running through a solo game to learn the rules and mechanics. Many games at the time had no hidden movement mechanic or “AI” for one or the other side. Some, like my first purchased wargame Starship Troopers, have hidden motion mechanics that don’t translate well, but it’s still useful to play through the rules to learn how the game works. Others though have explicit rules for solo scenarios.
The basic rules for Space Empires has two sets of solo scenarios: Ancient Empires, and Doomsday Machines. For those who remember their Saberhagen, think “Berserkers,” giant autonomous moonlet-sized fortresses capable of sterilizing planets and solar systems.
Guess which one we’re playing?
The Doomsday Machine Scenario
Victory Conditions: One player sets up and plays his empire as normal. An evil race is sending “Doomsday Machines” at that growing empire. The player wins by defeating all of the Doomsday Machines sent at him and loses if his Homeworld is destroyed.
Turn Order: There is no need for a turn order bid. A player always takes their turn before the DMs.
The victory conditions are fairly black and white. That said, the human player can’t just funnel all of his development into one region, because the arrival of the doomsday machine is random.
I’m playing the larger map scenario, so as the human player, I not only start out with 26 home system markers, but an additional 4 hexes of “deep space” markers. The content of each of these markers is generally unknown in advance1. I’ll also play on “easy.”
That means the DM will enter on the eighth, tenth, and twelfth economic phases, at a strength of five, seven, and nine respectively. That means that each of these will have an insane number of attacks each turn (5, 5, and 6 respectively) with a high attack priority (B, and finally A) at a very high attack strength. They will also take a lot of hits before they stop.
Several factors allow for a lot of replayability. You don’t know where the death machines will show up, you don’t know where potential colonies - and thus industrial bases - can be set up, and finally, you have no idea in advance what potential weaknesses the DM has.
Note:
Unless specified as a weakness, all DM’s are immune to Mines, Fighters (their weaponry is too small to affect them), Cloaking (they are equipped with the highest level of Scanners), and the player does not get the Fleet Size Bonus (5.1.4) for outnumbering a DM.
You never know in advance if it’s even worth investing in these techs. But it might be. Worse, each Doomsday Machine has its own separate weakness, so what worked on the first one may not help at all.
The movement rules are simple - the DM will always move:
Toward the nearest colony,
Favoring the larger one,
Closer to the player homeworld if there is still no obvious target,
And finally, players choice if this still isn’t resolved.
Oh, and as the Doomsday Machine moves, the colony priority may change.
The DM permanently takes damage, but can rebuild itself by destroying a planet.
So with that said - here is the opening board.
See you next time for my first turn.
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Some technologies that you can develop allow you to scan a space in advance. Extremely useful in avoiding black holes and other nasty surprises when revealing an unexplored tile.