Episode 1: Introductions

I've just started a game for TOA and had some amazing luck. So, if there was any time to try making an AAR, it would be now. This will be my first AAR for GC2 and my second ever AAR. Now, I realize if I want to do an AAR I need pictures, but I've had a lot of trouble with doing so thus far. Can anyone give me some very explicit instructions?

I'm a noob to GC2 and have never actually beaten normal difficulty, so that's what I'm playing at. Research time is average, galaxy is large, and I'm playing as the Terrans with all the default charecteristics. I'll tell you the races as we make first contact.

As for the style of this AAR, I'll mix it up. It'll probably just be the usual-me narrating the events from an OOC perspective, but I might throw in some "extras"-transmissions and logs, that kinda thing, just to add a bit to the whole thing.

Lastly, I am a total noob and advice would be very appreciated. If you see me make a mistake please tell me so I can learn and hopefully live longer.

Okay, I'm writing this first segment during the first few weeks of the game. The sliders are set to colony rush mode-20% for research and Social and 60% for Millitary, while the spend bar is at 100%. (First though I rushed artificial gravity.) At during the first few weeks I converted my space miner to a colony ship and then sent both ships out in opposite directions. Almost immediately I found 2 class 8 planets. The first, Thindor II, has 2 300% manufacturing tiles and 1 100% one, making it perfect for my manufacturing capital. Epsilon 1 isn't quite as good with 2 100% manufacturing tiles, but it's still a great find.

The first thing I did was rush buy a factory on each of these planets to get things moving, but with both Thindor and Epsilon I won't be using Earth as a factory world. Instead, I'll put the population to full use and make it a money world-quite appropriate for my home planet anyway.

The next turn, my flagship, the Enterprise, discovered the Artemis system-it has only 1 class five planet which I won't care to colonize immediately. Still, it did turn out some interesting results....

Captain's log, TAF Enterprise, 22nd of Febuary 2227

"Today is a great day for all humanity. While scouting the Artemis system we made the first First Contact with an Alien life form since the Arceans tried to take over our planet. The ship was small-about 50 m long and wide- but had hyperdrive capability. They hailed us but to everyone's disappointment they didn't speak English. What I wouldn't have given for my translator then! Sadly though she's on leave teaching kids how to speak Spanish or something like that. They seemed friendly enough though-they looked for all the world like cute little squirrels. This revelation leads me to hypothesize that these beings have been on earth all along and that they in fact designed our planet as a supercomputer to find the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything.

First contact with the Snathi was big news-they usually live on a lush paradise planet whic, frankly is completely wasted on them. Considering it was so early in the game I guessed that their homeworld couldn't be far away. The Enterprise was diverted immediately to find it.

Sure enough, the next turn I discovered it right next to the Artemis system. Meanwhile, I had bought a starport on both Thindor II and Epsilon I and switched earth to social-the sooner I could grab those market centres and entertainment networks, the better. It also turned out that thindor also had 2 Happiness tiles. Since I already had a great industry going on that planet, I didn't see the harm in investing in the future of my economy by building on one of them. That left only 2 tiles- the second happiness one and a farming one. Since I always like to expland my population, I planned to use the seconnd happiness tile for my manufacturing capital. Epsilon I also had a happiness tile which I gladly used. That left another 3 tiles, on which I just built more factories.

...TRANSMISSION***EPSILON I COMMAND TO TERRAN ALLIANCE GOVERNMENT***SECURITY LEVEL BETA...

...SECURITY LEVEL BETA CONFIRMED***STAND BY FOR CHANNEL...

...ERROR...CHANNEL LOST***SUBSPACE INTERFERENCE...

Commander Susan Miller's Personal Log, 15th March 2227

"Due to some VERY fault equimpent our transmission to President Brandley was unsucsessful and I have been forced to take this pathetic excuse for a shuttle to deliver the message to the President in person. Just in case this ship doesn't make it back out of hyperspace I am recording this log to make sure that EVENTUALLY somebody will know that we have made first contact with another race. Unfortunately though they don't speak English or Spanish as it happens. Not sure I would want to talk the them anyway; they're all icky grey and tentacley. Anyway, we detected their ship due to the incredible coincidence of our subspace scanners ACTUALLY WORKING and hailed them, followed all the procedures and everything. Note to self: ' Is that lead or is your skin actually that icky?' is not a universal greeting. Anyway, we might have got something a bit more productive out of them but our resident translator refused to come out of her Spanish Class. Therefore I have prepared a small slideshow for President Brandley on the importance of Universal Translators."

The Iconians don't tend to be all that powerful in my games but considering their proximity to me trading might be nice. At the very least, another major race in the vicinity meant things were going to start chaning. Again, the Enterprise was sent to locate their homeworld.

The next turn saw yet another first contact- this time a Dark Yor scout ship in the Sol system. Since they are another race that tends to have a paradise planet that they absolutely despise living on, and I already had a rough idea of where the Iconian territory was, I once again diverted the Enterprise to find that planet.

By the following week my wallet was running out pretty fast. I lowered the tax rate to get my approval to 70%, which mean I was losing 85 bc per turn.

President Alan Brandley, Personal Log, 8th June 2227

"Okay, this whole first contact business is getting really annoying. Two more alien races this week and we didn't have the foggiest idea what they were saying. Look, screw this, it's too hard. I'm just gonna have to bite the proverbial bullet and allocate more funds to research and find a way of communicating with them. Fortunately though I only think we need to learn to talk to the blue-skinned guys. The other so-called "aliens" look suspiciously human. Personally, I think they're just talking in a made-up language to confuse us. Kids these days!"

I really didn't care either way about meeting the Scottlingas-I'm not bothered about conquering them as they don't have an evil alignment and have a very small chance of bothering me, though I might eventually attempt to open trade channels. The Altarians however were big news-usually I end up allied to them.

The week after that I decided I'd just colonise a class 5 planet I'd found and it turned out to be quite a nice research planet. Thindor II had produce several colony ships but absolutely no people were willing to leave their wonderful lifestyle of factory labour for another colony. I built an innovation complex and 3 market centres on Earth but the economy continued to rapidly decline. Luckily though I managed to exploit a moral rescoure that happened to be in the Sol system and that let me raise taxes a bit. Since I already had more colony ships than colonists, I switched the sliders to research to to try and finally grab Universal Translator among other things. The Enterprise was unable to locate the Dark Yor's homeworld to set out instead to map Iconian territory. I colonized Mars and Epsilon 3 the week after that, both endavours turning out to be completely useless. Following that I made contact with the Jessunius. Hopefully I could acutally get something out of all these races now I had almost finished universal translators.

As for Thindor II, my best planet continued to have some serious population problems. Then, after a few weeks, the situation stayed exactly the same and I had no idea why. I thought I told them to send an EQUAL NUMBER of males and females!

Epsilon III, I discovered, had the same problem but to a lesser extent. I decided to demolish 2 factories; maybe my population just wasn't able to support the number of structures I had. Meanwhile, my economy was really starting to fall apart. I'd lowered taxes early on in the hope that the population would grow more rapidly, but with the situation on my two original planets that plan was failling. I had to roll the spending back to 80% just to make sure I was back to losing only 85 BC per week. If things stayed as they were, I had less than 2 months before I would be in debt.

***

Please tell me what you thought of this and give me any suggestions you have for its improvement!

Episode 3: The Threat of War

Captain’s log, 15^th Apr 2228

Today is a great...er, sad...day for the crew of this ship. It turns out that those cute little squirrely guys weren’t so nice at all and killed him when he landed on their planet. We are all...er...very sad... at his loss. You know what that means? I AM THE CAPTAIN! YEAH BABY! Anyway, we decided to go an visit the spot on our sensors which showed a high concentration of yellow. Guess who we found? The ARCEANS! Well, anyway, they told us that we were in their galaxy or something and we decided to leave.

The Arceans are usually quite a loose cannon in my games, much like the Torians. They will either be rather weak and be steamrolled or they will become quite powerful and steamroll me. This time though I hoped to get them on my side; they could be a very powerful ally.

Unfortunately though a few weeks later those hopes seemed to have gone out the airlock when the Arceans told me I was pathetic and that I ought to hand over Hammer II to them. Maybe it’s not gonna be the Drengin and Yor after all, eh? Considering their extreme aggressiveness I made two goals: a) to research alliances and form a league against Arcean oppression and kick-start my military research program. Luckily I had already started planetary invasion with my research slider at 60%. The Torians and (surprisingly) the Yor Drath were warm towards me and the Iconians and Altarians were friendly. The Drath and Iconians were about en par with me technologically but the rest were seriously behind. To begin relations and increase their power I gave them a few techs-less to the Yor but I dished most of the ones that we didn’t share out to the Torians and the Altarians who I knew I could trust more. It wouldn’t be any good if some evil race went out and took their planets quickly; it would create a super power with double the strength of everyone else.

The next quarterly report brought some really bad news though-I was the least powerful of all the majors.

The same week, I met the Korath for the first time. I’d never actually had them in one of my games before-so this was going to be interesting. Here’s something even more interesting: they felt WARM towards me! At this rate I might have been able to turn everyone onto the Arceans. Still, I tried to turn the situation around by sending a freighter to one of the Arcean’s colonies, but that was as far as I was willing to go. If they wanted to take me on I’d bring the hammer down on them, hard.

Meanwhile, all the new research, recourses and trade had meant taxes were all the way down to 25% and dropping, and as a result my economy was booming. I had come dangerously close to a financial collapse though and decided to keep the spend rate down for the time being.

Meanwhile the Enterprise had discovered some terrifying news while mapping the Arcean empire-a FRIGATE orbiting their homeworld. Clearly I needed to step up my game, so I initiated contact with all those races I had been nice to in the past.

Talks went well-I got deflectors from the Altarians in exchance for space weapons and made sure everybody had it (the Arcean ship I found was using beams) but it seemed clear none of us could come close to matching Arcea’s might.

As trade boomed I finally returned the spending slider to 100%. The plan was to get medium hulls, some logistics and alliances and then start building frigates as fast as I could. In the meantime, I started grabbing transports and heavy fighters to act as a deterrent. The Enterprise continued to map the Arcean empire; knowledge of their colonies and installations would be vital.

Within a few weeks I received reports that several minors and even the Drengin empire were paying tribute to the Arceans and so I reluctantly opened diplomatic channels and gave them all but my most closely guarded technological secrets. Luckily for me they also had some juicy techs of their own and being rather impressed by my size they gave it me for Uts.

Now my population was starting to approach maximum for many of my colonies, so I brought taxes up so that approval was at 70%. This way even with spend rate at 100% I was pulling in 180 BC per week!

On the first of January 2229 I received a quarterly report which brought some encouraging news: my tech rating was at 169. Hopefully that would be enough to make the Arceans think twice before making acts of aggression against me.

And when I checked the diplomatic relations screen-surprise surprise, the Arceans were now friendly! Now, let me see about some of their tech...