Star Ruler 2 - A Beginner's Attempt to Conquer the Galaxy!

[cicobuff]

Here we see that our contribution to the resource from our leftover budget last cycle is producing a effect, Influence is being produced. And we’ll use the produced Influence to participate in the diplomacy system.

Meanwhile our planet Dupo is now at 8/8 meaning it’s operating at maximum efficiency. Let’s produce 2 more population for and prepare for our colonization effort.

We also see that our Income is very healthy. We have a 1.1 million budget. Mainly from our increased income from Dupo I, and we had some of the 400K leftover from the Anomaly we scanned earlier.

This means that we can afford to build a factory (zero labour which will not interrupt our Population construction) which will cost 285K to maintain, which we can afford presently due to a healthy maxed out level 2 Dupo. So let’s add that.

I’m using undeveloped tiles because I am not sure how fast does the game generate develop tiles. The wiki is unclear on this point and I am afraid that if I use any of the developed tiles it may take too long to regenerate them. There are some forum threads that also allude that building on the developed tiles may have an adverse effect on pressure as Population “consume” tiles and interact with pressure. With such uncertainties, I apologies in advance for choosing a potentially more costly way to build our factory.

Game Mechanics: Developed vs Undeveloped Tiles When you build on developed tiles, the costs and maintenance is reduced.

I’ll add another Population to the build queue and wait for our queue debris scans and population build to complete.

This is 6 minutes into the game. We have barely expanded although we have explored a large section of our surroundings. As stated earlier, Mono have a slow start to the game because we need to devote labour to generate our colonists.

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Summary

1. We are at the 6 min mark in the game.
2. We have patiently built Dupo I to 8/8 population
3. We have 2 colonists queue up.
4. We have identified our expansion target. Towards the Galactic center via the left star systems.
5. Our scouts are busy scanning debris.
6. We started a factory on Dupo I because we have a healthy economy.
7. We started accumulating Influence so that we can use the diplomacy system.
8. Our research is approaching 500 steadily and we’ll be able to use the research system soon.

Overall, we have not encountered any big problems. Let’s proceed and put our colonization plans into action. The next section will proceed very quickly as I have already covered major portions of the UI. There will be less writing and more pictures!

We’ll then slow down again as we discuss diplomacy and research. I’ll also be keeping track of the time and highlight interesting things our scouts find.

[cicobuff]

More exploration

Research

The research tree/web from the plain vanilla looks very different from the DLC tree. In fact this is the first time I am looking at the new DLC research tree. It seems like SR2 has rebalanced the tree and have added new stuff in it.

Interface Tip: Research Screen You can left click+drag to move around the screen. The mouse scroll zoom in and out of the screen. Hovering over the various technologies which are represented by squares brings up a helpful tooltip which briefly explains what the technology does.

Take your time and move around the Research screen while paused. There are a whole heap of technologies available for research. You can see how much each research cost clearly. Sometimes, you can use budget or other types of resources instead of research points to buy the technology. It is my opinion that we should ALWAYS buy it with budget because research accumulates at an extremely slow rate relative to budget.

For our purposes, we’ll like to get some technologies that boost our economy. Let’s take a look at the web.

There was a big change to the Technology web in the DLC. I see that the Industry Techs are only along a narrow band, we also not that interspaced with key techs are general improvements that may also help productivity on planets. E.g. Metallurgy which makes Factories more productive are interspaced throughout the tech web.

Let’s research some powerful Economy tech. We aim for the Megacities.

And we pick up 2 technologies along the way.

All acquired technologies have a “research time” attached to them. This means that for the period of the research time, (like a cooldown), the technology benefits cannot be utilized. There is a special race that does not have any research time.

And we examine the other Anomaly.

The “Attempt to revitalize the entire system” looks quite interesting… Let’s do it!!!

And nothing! =(

And we un-pause and see how things develop.

[cicobuff]

No warship for us again…

[cicobuff]

Shifting Gears, Speeding Up

As you can see, we are basically using our scouts to explore the stars and see if we can find any interesting finds.

What’ll I’ll do for the following posts is to speed up the updates and show you guys how the empire is managed at a macro level. The rest of the interesting stuff you can find during exploration, I’ll leave it to you to experience the joys of discovering treasures yourself =).

Near Term Goals

My near term economic goal is to build 2 more level 2 level 2 planets before upgrading Dupo I to level 3. And meanwhile I’ll use the scouts to find if we can find an FTL resource. As you may have noticed, our FTL is being used at a high rate. And it will deplete even faster as we ramp up our economy for expansion.

[J_Thomas]

A tip about the Remnant fleets: they are usually guarding valuable objects. You may not be able to see the fleet directly unless you have a presence in the system, but after you have explored the system you can see the object they are guarding on the map. It will be a relatively small dot, and easy to miss if you don’t know to look for it. Mousing over that object will give you information on it, including what is guarding it. It’s an easy way to tell if an explored system has Remnant fleets, and the approximate location of those fleets within the system.

Also, Remnant fleets often aren’t very strong. I’m not sure about the Mono, but the Terrakin’s starting carrier could defeat many of them.

[cicobuff]

Thanks @J_Thomas! Thomas is right. With the Terrakin, their powerful Heavy Cruiser can typically fight the Remnants. Unfortunately, we have only a dreadnaught at this stage. Building another fleet takes a bit of time and resource to maintain so I’ll leave the Remnants alone and work around them. But not to worry, we’ll get them after we have a decent economy going.

##Building our Economy: The Patience Game

Game Time: ~7mins

We found another Unobtainuim. Unfortunately, we cannot do much at the moment was we just cannot utilize our finds due to our relatively weak economy.

We’ll keep producing Population at the Dupo I and we now observe that our Colony at Imaliz 3 is almost at 3/3.

Now we find that it is optimal to keep Planet Populations at Maximum so that our labour is high! It make a big difference!

Now, we have 2 Population on our Dupo I that can be used to build a new colony. Let’s do that with our Glass resource at Wiltirioa III. The reason we pick it is that it’ll be our Tier I planet which we’ll use to build up our Tier 2 planet. In addition to Income which we’ll need more of, it also generates 1 Energy.

Using LEFT CLICK Dupo I, RIGHT CLICK Wiltirioa III, LEFT CLICK “Transfer 1B Population”, we colonize the Planet with our excess Population from Dupo I.

We waste no time and queue 1 Population in Wiltirioa III. We’ll also ensure that Dupo I is still producing Population for the 3rd Population at Wiltirioa to jumpstart it’s economy.

Now, we can see Energy increasing. It’s increasing at only 0.25 per second. Yet we were told in our Planetary screen that it’s generate 1 Energy. What’s this?

Game Mechanics: How the Game Balance Economic Output SR2 balances the game so that certain numbers do not get out of control. Since Energy is used to activate Artifacts which gives special bonuses and the requirements do not change, the designers have opted to “balance” Energy generation so that it’s generation does not trivialize the requirements later in the game.

Each resource have a balancing curve that produces diminishing returns based on the number of planets, amount you have stocked piled as well as some hidden factors which I am not able to discern.
[Many Thanks to @GGLucas for feedback on this point.]

You will find that this applies to Research and Influence as well, this is how the game balances the economy. In our case, we note that we are penalized for having more planets when it comes to Enegry generation.

Game Mechanics: Diplomacy SR2 has a unique Diplomacy subsystem among 4X. IMO it’s a fantastic design that is easy to understand and provides players with a mental map of how Empires are interacting. It also comes with a simple to understand UI.

In addition to the usual treaty making 4X does, SR2 shuffles and randomly generates a pool of cards that perform various activities, like spying, economic, sabotage, defence boosting, loyalty enhancement, planet and system annexing etc.

You purchase the cards that you want with Influence or Budget and then plays them with Influence points. The UI makes it extremely simple to use. Simple clicks and well designed tooltips makes any beginner handle this easily. I’ll leave you guys to explore the Diplomacy UI.

My prediction is that a LOT more 4X will start to implement Diplomacy like this.

Some cards when played do not require a vote. But some other cards that affect other empires or have a global effect requires a vote by all the Empires that are in contact. When a vote is in effect, you can influence votes by using cards in your posession. So it’s important to play the Diplomacy game to ensure maximum advantage for yourself and not let your opponents get away with playing a card that make drastically affect you. Like annexing an entire Star system from you!

As you can see, the Diplomacy cards are expensive to both purchase and play. Let’s leave this for a moment and continue the game.

[tomchick]

The greatest thing about Star Ruler 2, a superlative space 4X strategy game, is also the most confounding thing about it: it’s nothing like Civilization. Sid Meier’s Civilization is the template for so many grand strategy games, including ones set in space. Cities are planets, armies are spaceship fleets, mountains are asteroid belts, tech trees are tech trees, voila! Space! That familiar gameplay is one of the reasons Master of Orion was so successful. It’s also one of the reasons the latest Master of Orion reboot is so rote.

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This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at http://www.quartertothree.com/fp/2016/09/06/now-chance-give-star-ruler-2-chance/

[robc04]

Awesome that you gave @cicobuff 's work some exposure so more people can benefit from it!

[LeeAbe]

Even the Tom Chick seal of approval? I might have to buy this game and give cicobuff’s tutorial a try.

[mono]

Sheesh, if I’d known there was a featured race called Mono, I would’ve hopped into this thread long before it hit the front page. What’s the use of discourse if you can’t throw a fella an @mono on important occasions? :)

Great guide @cicobuff!!!

[Brooski]

@robc04

Awesome that you gave @cicobuff 's work some exposure so more people can benefit from it!

Great stuff. I would have missed it without the front page.

[cicobuff]

Thanks guys. I’m travelling for a project this week and can only update this during the evenings when I reach the hotel, so the updates may appear slow in coming.

@tomchick, wow. Never expected such an endorsement from you! It’s really humbling and a great encouragement. Thanks!

Building up the Economy

Game Time: ~9min

We jumpstart our colony by transferring 1 more Population into Wiltirioa III. This cuts down the Population production there as we prepare to colonize another planet.

Meanwhile our scout discovered a potential rift from the debris scan.

As we do not need to travel elsewhere and would like to just patiently explore, we’ll collapse it.

Game Mechanics: Space Rifts Space rifts is another form of FTL travel. A rift is created between 2 points in space. It’s very fast form of travel and is utilized by a race that can generate rifts for FTL travel.

Game Time: 13min

We are now at 10/8 at Dupo I and is is ready for another colony.

Let’s build this up so that it can become productive. We export from Wiltirioa III to Wiltirioa I.

Game Time: 14min

We keep transferring Populations from Dupo I which is acting as our colonization engine to build up our base. But we are now getting concerned that our FTL generation is not keeping up with our colonization efforts. Our scouts have not been successful in finding a FTL resource so far ,which is unfortunate. This may mean that we’ll need to interrupt our colonization to tackle FTL generation by building a building. Meanwhile let’s continue to build up Wiltirioa I.

Game Time: 14min35sec

We note that Imaliz has produced a Population as well. As you can see, as we get more and more planets online, our colonizing efforts will become much easier with regards to Population. And we’ll start to feel huge pressures on our FTL resource production. Hopefully, we’ll be able to find a FTL resource to soon!

We’ll keep exploring and building the Populations on our planets to ramp up our economy.

As we can see, our budget is getting stronger.

[Telefrog]

This is terrific. So much better than watching a damn video.

[cicobuff]

Our 2nd “big” planet.

Game Time: ~13 mins

Our 2nd colony produces pressures for Influence and Income. As we have excess pressure capacity on our main planet Dupo I, it’ll be ready to receive the pressure from this planet. But we’ll need to link our 2 separate network up before we can export these pressure to Dupo I.

FTL resource found!

We found our badly needed FTL at last!

It’s really far away. And there is no way we will be able to get there by slow colonization in time. How do we make use of the FTL which we were trying so hard to find?

Racial Tip: Using Mono’s Teleport Colonizing and Unobtainium

So how do we make use of a planet so far away? Our answer lies in the Mono’s starting Unobtainum. Unobtainum will be able to transform into any resource that is on one of our colonies. So we’ll be doing this.

1. Teleport 1 Population into the FTL Crystal planet.
2. Use Unobtainium on Dupo I to transform it into a FTL Crystal.
3. Abandon the FTL Crystal planet.

Basically we utilize Mono’s starting Unobtainium and their instant teleport capability to address our greatest need at the moment. Generating FTL resource.

We have an excess Population on Dupo I 9/8, but it appears that we lack the FTL resource necessary to make the teleport. So we’ll have to wait until we have 137 FTL to jump.

Meanwhile we’ll get the scout to scan the debris. And get check on the rest of the planets. We can queue another Population on Dupo I it seems as it’s has just finished building the Population.

[cicobuff]

In my excitement, I forgot research!

I was tracking the research to wait for it to reach 600. But in my excitement and search for the FTL Crystals, I lost track of it. Better late than never. Time to get another tech!

Interface Tip: Queue Research To help us not waste any time in our research. SR2 allows us to queue our research. Our research points will be used on the queued item when it’s ready and will purchase it for use automatically.

We queue the research so that I dont get over excited and lose track of research points and thus get techs as fast as possible.

We unpause the game and let it run to reach 137 FTL.

[cicobuff]

Discovering Aliens and Unobtainium to FTL Crystal

Game time: 17min 30secs

We found our first alien empire.

As can be seen, it seems that we are evaluated to be slightly ahead of the opposition. Which is not surprising because we’re playing with Easy AI. Further more, we did a Peaceful trait so that we will not get harassed. This was a decision made at game creation so that we can develop peacefully and learn the ropes of the game.

More on interacting with the race later.

Using the Unobtainium

We’ve decided to transform the Unobtanium to FTL Crystals.

The way we do this is as follows:

1. Transfer 1B Population to the FTL Crystal Planet
2. Left Click Dupo I, Right Click the FTL planet, Left Click Morph Unobtanium
3. Abandon the planet

Result: We now have FTL Crystal on Dupo I and because we are a level 2 planet. Our FTL generation is increased by 1.

The reason we abandoned the planet was because we didn’t want to be burdened with a far off planet we cannot protect nor develop. It will also be a drain on our resources since SR2 balances resource generation by dividing the totals we generate over the planets we have.

We doubled our FTL generation!

We just made use of our racial starting advantage to tackle a huge need that our race need. FTL for our teleporting needs!

Game Mechanic: FTL is not subjected to Resource balancing/reduction It would seem that FTL Crystal generation on our home planet is not subjected to the Resource balancing that SR2 does for Energy, Research and Influence. This is a great boon for us as FTL is a very crucial resource.

[GGLucas]

Just a quick note on your awesome Mono AAR/guide, SR2 doesn’t reduce your resources based on the amount of planets you have, but Influence/Energy/Research do each have their own individual diminishing return curves. (Influence generation is static across all empires, having more influence resources only increases the percentage of the total you get, Energy generation is reduced the more energy you currently have stored, and each point of Research that you generate is increasingly harder to generate than the last. You can hover over the resource displays to get a quick rundown of how they work.)

When the planet says “1 Energy” without a unit like that, what it means is “produces for free the same amount as would be produced by 1 Energy Pressure”. Yeah, the terminology is way all over the place.

Also, terraforming in the DLC is now a non-default option, and has to be turned on before the start of the game. It’s a bit too repetitively micro-intensive, and the DLC replaced it with other ways to grow empires taller.

Keep up the great work, @cicobuff.

[cicobuff]

Thanks @GGLucas for the feedback. Regarding the balancing.

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Game Mechanics Disputes, Errors and Clarification and Correction

I went back and re-looked at the numbers. @GGLucas is correct, Influence, Energy and Research have different diminishing return curves and penalties. They seem to be affected differently by the number of planets and stockpile amounts, I dont not have the various factors involved here as they are hidden from us, maybe someone can provide the math for this. I’ve amended the tutorial posts above to more correctly phrase this so as not to confuse beginners with my simplistic explanation.

Thanks for the catch!

[cicobuff]

Our first outpost

Game Time: ~15 mins

We can either build an outpost or a colony planet to colonize a star. As we had learned earlier, stars must be linked up to participate in each other’s the economy as imports and exports travel along starlanes.

But level 0 planet colonies drain our Income due to their -80K maintenance costs. So the Mono, food and water planets does not help us grow at all but in fact is a drain on our resources. So how do we avoid this drain and still want to colonize a star for it’s starlanes.

Game Mechanics: Outposts Outposts are Orbitals we can build to establish a presence in a star. They allow us to utilize a star’s trade lanes with a minimal maintenance cost. Outposts can be constructed by a planet that is from a different star system.

Let’s build an Outpost instead of colonizing a planet that is not useful to the Mono.

We use Dupo I, because it has the highest Labour, to construct the Outpost.

1. To build an outpost, we double click into Dupo I’s planetary screen.
2. We select the orbitals tab and click on Outpost
3. We will be brought to the Galaxy screen where we can pick a spot to build the outpost. We left click on the place we want the outpost built.
4. We keep the Outpost out of the range of the Remnants.
5. We wait for the build to complete.

We can reasonably delay building our Population for a while because we are also accumulating FTL for the next colonization effort to build another level 2 planet.

[tylertoo]

http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/2013/06/bravo