First Try at ToA: The Terrans

I finally got to download ToA. I had technical problems involving a changed e-mail address, passwords, and the like. Stardock finally got it sorted out. I was confused that I seem to have separate user names, e-mail references and passwords for Stardock forums and Stardock On-line store. That seems to be pretty inefficient, or I’m still a bit confused (quite possible).

Anyway, I have checked out the helpful tips on some of the changes in ToA and the rather good guides and starter outlines. Since the Terrans are the least changed I decided to give them a go, after bumping down the difficulty a notch (normally I play Painful). This isn’t one of my blow-by-blow AARs. Rather, it is some reflections after the fact. I chose a small galaxy with average to scattered everything. I accidentally left Tech Trading on (I generally turn it off), with my competitors the Drengin, Yor, Arceans, Altarians, and Torians. My home world had a 1x research special, but that’s it. I selected Federalist, with extra picks to Eco, Luck, Creativity, and as I recall morale.

My first impression is that the Terrans play much like they did in DA. Some of the facility outlines are different along with costs along with some re-arranging of the tech tree, but overall they have the same look and feel. As per the forums, they seem to be the easies to ease in to ToA.

The expansion of the Terrans went pretty well. I ended up with about the same number of planets than the Big Guys, who ended up being the Torians, Altarians and Drengin. The Arceans, Yor, and only colonized their home system (not sure why – they weren’t set to Fool, as sometimes happens). What was surprising is that the Altarians spread all over the place, literally spamming the galaxy with colony pods. Predictably, their population, influence and research shot up. The Torians did well initially, but they started flagging as they ran into my empire’s influnce. I generally let the AI colonize Mars, which will then revolt to my sphere of influence. Predictably the Torians did colonize Mars, which defected about 10 turns later with some useful free population and a few improvements. With Mars I had about 7 planets to the Altarians 8. As I recall the Torians and Drengin had about 6 each. Overall pretty even.

I generally do not wait too long to build at least a placeholder military (small hull defenders, attack 1 or preferably 2) and this game was no exception. A few defenders goes a long way to keep the wolves at bay, and interestingly seems to make the AI think better of you (no data here – just my impression). I was worried that my military maintenance would sink my economy but I didn’t have to worry. My high growth (low taxes/100% morale to bump growth, eco focus with points to Eco, federalist, and a few key Eco techs) got my economy in shape before my money ran out. Harvesting anomalies helped a whole lot, as always.

What as initially surprising in the early game was how useful Creativity was. The game now lets you know when Creativity gives you a boost, and it seemed to happen pretty often. Getting a 15-turn tech in one turn is pretty powerful, particularly if it is Extreme Colonization or another very expensive tech. In fact, I kind of learned to keep my science rate at a modest level (~30%) in the early game and used Creativity as a crutch so I could concentrate on social improvements and especially my military (initially colony pods and constructors, later defenders). The new tech tree did take a little while to feel around, but overall I like it. Many of the bonuses are still there but they are repackaged, with a few hidden Must Have gems, like Recruitment Centers. NOTE – get this tech early and build it first on all your planets. The extra growth and economy, low maintenance, and low build cost make it worth its weight in gold. I was confused with starbases since I am in the habit of giving all my starbases attack/defense pretty early. I eventually found that the ability to get second level attack (beyond 1-1-1) takes a few more techs, but I think the diversion is worth it (more on this later).

By early mid game (~2229) my economy was up and running, a few trade routes established to enhance my standing with my neighbors (economically it is pretty worthless at 4bc/turn forever, but I am a diplomatic race), I’ve beaten the AI to Extreme Colonization due to my Creativity and had snagged a few nice worlds. I didn’t worry about getting Advance Extreme colonization since I wanted to get population up before facilities could be built – simply put, I just wanted to claim the planets before the AI. My low-tax-high-morale bumped my population (and ultimately my tax base), and my Influence started to spike due to high populations and the two Influence resources I managed to snag. Restaurant of Eternity didn’t hurt either.

My influence started to cause problems, though. The Torians were annoyed when Mars rebelled, and my expanding influence shoved them to Cool and then Hostile. I dislike early wars so I decided to create one. I paid the Drengin a shockingly low amount of money to declare war on the Torians. Waves of Dominators promptly started washing across my territory and into the Torians’ space, smacking their defenders and starbases along the way. They pruned the defenders from the Torian colonies closest to me and the Drengin. In short order their attitude toward me went up (hehe – I’m a sneaky Terran) as they struggled against the Drengin War Machine Of Death.

With the Torian and Drengin (the #2 and 3 powers) fully occupied I continued to reinforce my starbases, get a few more trade routes set up, building enough military that I was either #1 or #2 (depending on whether the Drengin got more Dominators by declaring war on someone else), and increasing my research spending from 30% to 50%. By this time I’ve eclipsed the Altarian as the tech leader, and my economy has long since surpassed everyone else due to high population (building farms as I terraform my planets, along with extra banks).

I did notice that the Altarian build no military what-so-ever. None. Nothing. I wonder if that is the -20% weapons penalty they have? Regardless, this caused problems for them as the Torian-Drengin war heated up. Unfortunately for the Altarians they had spammed planets in and around the Drengin. With no defenders all the Drengin had to do was a never-ending wave of transports and one by one their outlying planets went down. I gave them a few ships but it never did any difference.

By this point I could see that the Drengin were in rising pretty fast. Their swarms of Dominators and build ships were eating the Torians’ military, and they were having their way with the Altarians. So, it’s time for the Terrans to crank up their military. I blasted through Particle Beams (creativity helped here again!) and medium hulls and went on a military building spree, with alternating transports, warships, and occasional constructor to ensure my starbases were very well defended. I picked up a few resources as the Drengin pasted the Altarians and Torians, and since these were near the Drengin I wanted them to be true starbases and linchpins to my defense/offense.

Another worrying item was that the Drengin started claiming the Ascension Crystals. Granted, even with 3 it will take them forever to win (333 weeks with 3). These ended up being a focus of warfare since the Torians and Drengin took turns smashing the starbases either established. The Drengin generally claimed them more of the time, but for both races it ended up being a stupendous waste of resources. It also made the Drengin very unpopular, even with their evil-aligned friends the Yor.

Around 2230 my military was in place, which was supported by a rather large economy. My old ships had been gifted to the Altarians or Torians, boosting my relations (and doing me no harm while reducing my maintenance costs). My relations with all the races but the Drengin were close and I wondered if I was ready to go to a series of alliances. I held off - with bad results: the Altarians surrendered to the Drengin.

This helped me get my butt in gear. The Drengin had either taken over via ground combat or through surrender the 8 Altarian worlds, which instantly made their empire competitive with mine. Granted, their economy and research were pretty low, but they now had significant potential. If this continued and they absorved the tiny Archeans and Yor and eventually the Torians I’d really have a fight on my hands. So, I sold Alliance to both the Arceans and Torians (Super Diplomat and Diplomatic Translators means I stole them blind), asked for an alliance (again, asking that they throw in non-military tech and money), and waited for the other shoe to drop – the Drengin to declare war on either of them. For some reason the Drengin had left the Arceans alone even though they only had 2 planets, and the Torians had bought peace from the Drengin. The Drengin were quiescent during this time, apparently absorbing the Altarians was causing problems. About a half a year later I also granted an Alliance to the Yor, which was worrying since being allied to all three races means I’m stewed if they declare war on each other.

For about a half year we had an economic boom, which meant I was getting an obscene amount of money. After my treasury was closing in on 35K I was wondering what to do with all the cash. Then I remembered that Tech Trading was on. I called up the Arceans, Torians, and Yor and bought ALL their non-military and some of their military tech. Now, that was kind of cool since it meant I got much of their race specific tech. I didn’t really care about the military tech anyway since by now I’d progressed well down the Beam track. By the time I was done I only had 5K left, but with a terrific surplus I wasn’t worried. The heartburn would come, I know, when the boom ended. But, frankly I would be happy when the boom ended. I had resources to change gears but the AI would be suddenly destitute and imploding due to over expansion of their military and infrastructure – which is good for me.

In the meantime I conquered the one minor race in the game. My native influence and the minor race influence meant that the two system planets that had been colonized by the Altarian and recently taken conquered via transports by the Drengin flipped. The very low populations did not help the Drengin, either. Apparently he had oppressive tax rates to support his military and low growth. With the minor race and the two flipped planets my influence extended to the very heart of the Drengin empire. All the transports I’d been hording flew over to populate these to planets, boosting my influence even more as the population spiked to near max levels (and conveniently stockpiling the transports near the Drengin!). My influence washed over 2 Drengin (a former Altarian and native Drengin) planets, but not enough to make them flip. The economic resource (acquired when the Altarian imploded) that was within ~6 sectors of the Drengin home world was maxed out with all level 2 weapons and defenses, giving it a combined attack in the low 20s and combined defense of ~15, which is very formidable in the early mid game.

Predictably the Drengin declared war on the tiny Yor (2 planets) and I honored my alliance and declared war on the Drengin. We had an event that requires all war units to retreat to home territory, which was fine by me since my influence engulfed 2 Drengin planets by the minor race and I had stockpiled ships and transports on the fortified Economic Resource. All of the Drengin ships retreated to his rather small sphere of influence near his capital when war was declared. My fleets and stockpiled transports near the minor race charged forward to take out the two planets within my influence.

I was waiting for the war declaration and the removal off the Drengin fleets he had all over space in my territory. I had 1 or 2 fleets of 3 medium hulls and a few small hulls (total logistics 16) at the eco starbase. After the Drengin’s ships were all moved to near his capital they all charged the nearest Terran target – my massvily reinforced starbase with fleet support. As I recall I lost a small hull ship or two, but his Dominators died in droves either by my fleet or the starbase. The Starbase took almost no damage, and within a few turns almost the entire Drengin war machine was blasted to little tiny pieces. 

My speed 4 to 6 fleets (the Terran ships are nice and fast, by they way) took out the native Drengin planet. Per advice from the forums, I led with a single transport of 1000 troops using Tidal Warfare. My plan was to lose, but eradicate most of the population. Drengin are hard to crack in ground combat due to their high native ability, and the Drengin had researched some ground combat tech. I was able to take the planet using a total of 4 transports (my ground combat was developing still), but that’s OK since I have lots of transports. I took the other planet in my sphere of influence a few turns later.

I had quite a shock when almost all of the improvement self destructed. You see, I didn’t have the technology for Slave Pits (and the like) so they were all scrapped. This VASTLY decreases the value of a Momentum race since you don’t get all the cool infrastructure for free. It also gives you a powerful incentive to acquire the technology of your rival so some of the infrastructure can be preserved, or perhaps improved. This meant that the captured Drengin worlds were all but useless as production centers since they looked like newly colonized planets.

About this time the Arceans threw in the towel and surrendered to me. This was a nice bonus since it expanded my influence. Since I bought all the Arcean technology the planets were intact!! Totally cool! They had an improvement that increased the HPs and combat of ships (don’t recall the name), so their capital became one of my primary Ship Forges. My influence now extended into former Altarian territory, which is also VERY useful. I wonder if an ally is more likely to surrender to the person to whom they are allied? I get so few alliance since I generally play with tech trading off and the AI rarely researches Alliance that I really don’t know. If true this makes alliance (and tech trading) even more useful.

My first target in the Drengin home system was his capital. I used the same transport wave technique, and in one blow another large part of the galaxy slipped into my sphere of Influence. I obliterated the defenders at Kona and a nearby system, whose planets promptly started to revolt.

By 2232 the game is in wrap up mode. My fleets are moving unopposed into the last bastion of Drengin territory at the 4 core former Altarian planets. All his fleets are smashed during his waves of failed attacks on my fortified starbase and all he has left are rather pathetic defenders. One of the planets near his former capital flipped and the rest were taken out by my transports, again using the wave technique. Eventually I was able to go from 4 1000-troop transports per assault to 1 old 1000-troop transport for the Tidal Disruption and then a single 1500-troop transport for the final assault. I got Shock Troops during an invasion and had been improving my ground combat, and bought Tir Quan so my ground combat was competitive with the Drengin.

The former Altarian capital fell, wiping out the Drengin influence altogether. A few turns later I took out Wisp and another planet nearby. With that the Drengin Menace was expunged all the remaining race were allied with me and I got a Diplomatic victory in 2233.

Final notes:

• I did change my development gameplay based on comments at these forums on ToA. I build fewer factories and more markets/banks. In DA never did buy factories at starter colonies except my capital and I didn’t in ToA either. But I did start the Recruitment Center as my first building instead of a Factory. When I had extra cash I bought the Recruitment Center (it’s really cheap at ~230) at new colonies and then let a factory build normally. The Recruitment Center (RC) is a high priority and a no-brainer due to the extra economy and growth (which means 2x economy, since pop means taxes). In DA I generally built 3 factories at almost all worlds initially, but in ToA I got away with 1 or maybe 2 factories. A few industrial worlds were close to maxed out, but I still made room for a farm, RC, and a bank or two if I could squeeze it in so I could keep some economy at all planets.
• The changes in the tech tree were manageable for the Terrans, but having most of the Drengin facilities be automatically scrapped after an invasion was a big surprise. Getting an opponent’s development techs are now a higher priority, and considering the Drengin are diplomatically challenged it should be pretty easy to pry it out of their claws for a modest sum or an useless tech. The salient lesson – plan your targets early so and beg-borrow-buy-or-steal their development techs so that you can take advantage of their infrastructure when the marines land! This also changed my opinion of Tech Trading. Now I’m not sure if it is wise to turn it off unless you plan on taking out an AI with a similar tech tree or you want the planets to be nice and clean (eg – your economy sucks and you can’t support the facility maintenance). But then, if you don’t want the facilities then just use Tidal Disruption and they’ll be wiped out for you…
• Ships function much the same. I never got to Warp Bubbles since early mid game techs mean the specialization isn’t worth it. The Terrans seem to be pretty speedy as long as you get go to Impulse. Going to Warp is pretty pricy, and since I was in a small galaxy it didn’t seem worth it.
• There were a few development techs that were different/new (like the cool RCs), but overall they felt the same. I didn’t pay close attention to facility maintenance, and I guess as I move up the difficulty I’ll have to.
• Creativity is must have ability. It really gooses your early game when your tech rates may be rather low so you can spam colony pods and constructors, and getting a decade or so of free tech now and then is wonderful. Frankly, it is the best 1 pt pick you can have – period. I also like Luck, but quantifying what it gets you is harder (some combat is defined in the Wiki, but I’m referring to cash from anomalies).
• The B-line for Sensor and building a few extra survey ships still works great, and helps me get through the early colonization and negative economy phase. The AI doesn’t seem to take advantage of this, which is a shame I suppose. But, more anomalies for me!!
• Economy picks seem to be a bit more important. My economy straightened out pretty well, but I also had lots of eco picks, Federalist, two resources (one picked up when the Altarians went down), and a good number of trade routes (done primarily for diplomatic reasons).
• Although I didn’t mention it in the above discussion, I did get hosed by a Council call to limit the trade routes of Evil races. I voted in favor to whack the Drengin and Yor. But, my alignment was ever so slightly Evil (but leaning neutral) and all my trade routes but one were eliminated. Ack!! I had to build more freighters to get those trade routes re-established so I could keep my Close and Allied neighbors. Next time I’ll make sure I am exactly neutral, or select a Neutral alignment earlier.
• My one complaint is that GC:ToA seems to be more unstable than DA. I had 2 game crashes/lockups for no apparent reason, and now when I Alt-Tab out the game freezes. That didn’t happen in DA, at least after the first few patches. I did notice a typo in one of the tech trees but neglected write it down unfortunately. The game seemed to play fine otherwise.

Overall it was an enlightening game, and a lot of fun!

Hydro