Yep I had the same bug, I’m guessing all 1.5% with that achievement hit the same bug somehow.
The other thing I would say is: pay attention to the mission types and follow the advice you are given. E.g. on economic missions, you need to be oppressing the relevant types of planets early and often (I prefer 2 oppressons each). Where as expansion is critically important normally, you can potentially expand less and still win (especially since the Senate won’t directly attack you. Mostly). Don’t think you can play it like a conquest mission. You’ll get creamed by the unrest eventually.
How did I have no idea this existed?
This game is awesome after an hour or so at it. It answers two questions I didn’t know were burning in my soul: “What happened to those talented PopCap devs that made all those great games?” and “What if Sid Meier’s Starships were fun?”
This exists? How have I never heard of it? Because it sucks?
It is a non-XCOM Firaxis game since Civ V…
It is a fun little game. It’s got some problems though. Sometimes the randomly generated scenarios screw a player hard.
I can beat it with the starting spacebunny race, but I’ve been unable to get a successful campaign win with the spacebugs. Their weak ships means they are extra vulnerable to getting screwed by a bad starting spot because they rely on getting lots of fleets and leveling them up to snowball into a huge lategame swarm. A few nasty hard fights or chokepoints right near the homeworld will cripple them.
The ability to move twice before an attack is extremely powerful.
Who has that ability?
If I remember correctly, the whole race has it.
I’ve never noticed anything like that with the spacebugs.
Apologies. I misremembered. Techno-slugs are the ones who can move twice.
The bugs (Bzzzrt) are the ones who can have a huge economy.
Edit: I remember I managed to complete this race relatively quickly once I realise the economic strength and low powered units can be used to basically swamp the enemy with huge number of throwaway fleets.
I’ve been trying to enjoy it but I hit a point where I realized I was only playing to unlock more stuff rather than having any fun.
I think 2 basic changes would hugely improve it at this point.
They need to bump up the evil factor in the artwork. The loading screen with black & red stormtroopers? Perfect! Now why does none of that translate into the actual game? Instead your color is blue and the Senate forces of good are blood red? I don’t feel evil, I feel like I’m playing as Bucky O’Hare’s Ultramarines. The only thing telling me I’m evil is the mission text, which leads to the other problem:
I could do with the whole invasion die roll and missions cut out from the game entirely. Levels take 30-60 minutes but those two things double the playtime since you’re literally spending half your time on mission reading/choices, the RNG animation for missions, and having to sit through the invasion animations (and essentially losing a whole turn whenever you roll a 1). Sure there’s the BS of being screwed over by particular events (I always go with the “ignore” option for everything because the rewards are never worth it. Pay a drunk 100 credits so he maybe gives you 2 frigates?), but even that wouldn’t be so bad if levels were half as long once you focused on the pure gameplay rather than RNG fluff and animations.
I dunno, at this point…can we PLEASE let this King of Dragon Pass trend of RNG story choices die? I guess FTL revitalized it, but it died out for a good reason. EVERY strategy game feels like they have to shoehorn them in now. FTL, Space Tyrant, every other survival game, the upcoming Frost Punk, Thea The Awakening. It wouldn’t be quite so bad if it gave you a clear risk/reward indicator, but they almost never do. That so grinds against a good strategy game.
The activity in the thread made me erase my saved profile so that I can start from scratch.
I found a strange performance issue that was not there before their updates. Now the mouse input is kinda laggy. There’s something off with the dragging of units in the shopyard screen.
And yes. the unskippable animations make the game seem much longer than it needs to be.
But it’s still fun. Manage to beat the Hoplite campaign in the 1st attempt. Trying to do it with the Bzzzrt now.
Starships is okay, but you have to go in with very low expectations. If you view it as an ipad game it’s cool. If you’re thinking MOO you’re going to be disappointed.
It’s kinda like civ rev in design. Simple choices.
@Tortilla’s question made me replay a new Bzzzrt (space bugs) campaign.
My first attempt failed quite early when I got trapped behind space hamsters in the 3rd mission, killing my attempt at the campaign because I didn’t have anything unlocked. With no backup captains, the mission retry failed miserably, killing the campaign. But I manage to unlock the battleship (the large ship that is below the dreadnaught class) with a gold reward in the campaign attempt.
My next attempt was a success.
The bugs have an overwhelming economic advantage that we can make use of, choosing upgrades that are credit specific and concentrating on accumulating credits allows the bugs to have an overwhealming advantage.
Key things to note:
- Pick the free militia powerup
- Pick higher starting cash
- Hold off buying of ships if necessary as a larger pool of credits let you take advantage of power-ups that gives higher health and higher damage based on credits
- Do NOT be afraid to let your main captain Brzzzzt die. He’ll resurrect the very next turn. And if he dies 2 times, you will get a super powerful fleet card. You can actually use this to your advantage if you are unable to handle the hunters.
- Let the enemy come to you if necessary. The advantage of shooting first when you are defending is a crucial advantage.
Interestingly, I did recently go back and try the space bugs again and I won handily. With almost exactly the opposite strategy that you suggested.
On my first bug run through I tried taking all the perks that gave bonuses on big bank account. That works great once an empire gets rolling but makes the bugs really vulnerable to poor starts. So on my second attempt all my perks were of the +% income and bonuses-to-carriers variety. That turned out to be space bugs easy mode. Towards the end of the campaign my carriers were starting maps at tech level 4. I could just load up my starting leaders fleet with carriers and start punching above my weight from turn two. Once I unlocked the bug leader that has “launch fighters” as his command power it got even better.
Now I need to figure out space snails.
I couldn’t disagree more. I like the flavour that these text adventure bits add to these games. Sure, it’s sometimes not clear what the risk/reward is of a given choice, but I wouldn’t want these removed from games. I like the random events, missions, etc. These games would otherwise be too dry.
That’s interesting. I never knew that you can get startup-techs up to level 4! That can be insanely powerful.
The 2 move capability of the techno slugs allows for some very fast leveling and strategic moves and vision across the strategy map. I’m having fun mid campaign now (1st attempt), looks like i’ll be able to make it as the gold unlock is the battleship.
For the other races, I feel the battleships and dreadnaughts offer a huge boost, but for the slugs I find the basic cruiser, teched up somewhat, to be quite good, and extremely potent for its cost. To me the key upgrades during the campaign are cruiser-centric techs and bonuses. I mean, I love the battleships and dreadnaughts but they are super expensive.
That’s true. It would probably be possible to complete a campaign with just the cruisers. But battleships will make the job easier. =)