- What is this -
This will be a Let's Play of the game Aurora, will community interaction.
Aurora is a Space 4x game with the quirk of being incredibly detailed. It's similar to Dwarf Fortress in that it is intended to be as much of a story simulator as an actual game, and in fact it was originally a tool for keeping track of the author's sci-fi campaigns before an AI was eventually added.
It's a very, very in depth game, where you can do things like determining the resolution your ships scan at, design the individual missiles they are firing (out of custom designed launchers), or colonize any one of several hundred asteroids in the Solar System alone. It would be called old school except there was never anything this complicated back in the day simply because the computers couldn't handle it.
This forum has a 650 page thread on Aurora
here. Bay12 seems to have a special fondness for the game, probably because of its similarities to Dwarf Fortress.
As a final note, Aurora has essentially no graphics; don't expect a lot of pretty screenshots. I suggest you pretend you're reading an extremely interactive book.
- How this will work -
I'll be playing both sides of the game, and probably also doing a little
cheating editing behind the scenes to make sure everything goes smoothly and stays interesting. However, the Federation is democratically inclined, and so I'll do my best to take into account suggestions of anyone in the thread.
If you haven't played Aurora, don't let that stop you from making suggestions; it's the kind of game where if you can think of something the game probably lets you do it. Aurora isn't called "the Dwarf Fortress of 4x games" for nothing. And please don't spare the suggestions; playing against myself is boring. Even if it's just "build a 10,000 ton ship that uses missiles" I'll do my best.
In addition, Aurora includes named officers. Feel free to request one be named after you; I'll be keeping lists and naming officers as needed (we probably wont need 20 naval officers right at the start, and they do get old and die eventually). Officers are available as Naval Officers, Ground Forces Officers (probably wont see much action), Civilian Administrators, and Leading Scientists. And feel free to suggest what your namesake should be doing/how they should act in combat.
This game will also use a few house rules, mostly for the sake of convenience:
1) I wont be using geosurvey teams; they're overly powerful and micromanagement intensive. If we want more minerals we'll have to find them.
2) No inexperienced fleet penalty: Because fleet training is more micromanagement I'd prefer to avoid
3) Missiles will do half damage (enforced by making warheads half geo sensor). Missiles are overly powerful in the base game, and I think this adds another strategic layer. This rule applies both to the Terran Federation and the Myriad, but not NPRs.
4) Component design research will all be done instantly and for free. Mostly just a matter of taste, since I think otherwise it encourages a homogenous fleet without any interesting variety.
5) Somewhere out there is another race, that I am controlling. This isn't a "Me vs You" game, though, and I have a sort of script that race will be following rather than trying to straight out win.
6) As part of the story, the human side begins this game with fairly high tech; everything with a cost <10,000 RP. This should slow down early research and prevent ships from becoming obsolete before they even finish being built.
- The Story so Far -
In the year 1983, by the old Earth calender, an experimental Soviet orbital telescope called the
Budushchyee detected intelligent radio signals of extraterrestrial origin. Under total secrecy, the Soviet scientists began attempting to translate the message, eventually deciphering the name of the aliens (transliterated as the "Thuem Concordat") and large amounts of technical data using new elements which did not obey Newton's laws. Applications of these new technologies began to spring up all over the Soviet Union, including destressingly effective military vehicles, and the western nations were quick to take notice.
Secrecy could not be maintained long, especially not in the espionage heavy environment of the time, and soon the United States began a rush program to deploy its own version of the
Budushchyee satellite called the
Stargazer. After an unexplained explosion destroyed the
Stargazer on its launch pad, US military forces destroyed the
Budushchyee with a surprise missile attack, though the government claimed it was the work of a rogue military commander. Open war broke out soon after, and the records become uncertain and contradictory.
The war was fought without reservation, and utilized conventional, nuclear, and biological weapons on an enormous scale. Countries all over the world found themselves involved, and even those who managed to stay neutral (mostly in the southern hemisphere) suffered famine and plague as the world economy collapsed and engineered diseases spread. Within ten years the world population had fallen from approximately 5 billion to less than one, and the war still appeared to be at a stalemate.
But just as the strange signal began the war, it was also what ultimately brought it to an end. Hoping more technological data could prove key to winning the war, both sides eventually rebuilt and launched more of the long range radio telescopes. But the signal was different now, telling the story of the Thuem's war with a horrifying new race they called "The Myriad". A war that they were losing.
As the transmission grew bleaker and bleaker, the aliens also transmitted technology they had been unwilling to share before, including weapons designs and the secret of faster than light travel. Where thousands of years of diplomacy had failed, an external threat was all it took to unite the world. Peace treaties were signed, and bitter enemies agreed to work together in case the Myriad came to Earth; as scientists were quick to caution, the signal was decades old and an invasion could come at any time. In the end an agreement was reached; while individual nations would retain their autonomy, a new global government known as the Unified Human Federation was formed with the purpose of defending the human race and expanding to the stars.
It is now January 1st, 2000, and it is time for the human race to finally reach out to the stars.
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Topic: Aurora - The Dwarf Fortress of 4X Games (Read 2730359 times)