This is the third part, and conclusion, of my AAR playing Endless Space (beta), with the Amoeba race. You can read the first part – Intro – here, and part two – Winds of Change – here. Enjoy!
Peace (by any means necessary)
The year is 3144 A.D. As the war against the Hissho rages, back home the Cravers and Pilgrims harass our homeworld with small scout ships. Our fleets eliminate them quickly, but not before they disrupt trade and production in our system. We ask them politely to stop, but they refuse. As is the case with the others in this galaxy, they desire destruction rather than diplomacy.
Admiral Kartal is now earning a significant wage. Our internal auditors asked us to assess his abilities. Admiral Kartal was more than happy to show us all that he had learned thus far as he defended our systems. Looking back into his past, we knew right away that his allegiance was and always had been to dust. Though it was worth asking, the final verdict was that our dust was being well spent.
(A look at more advanced battle cards. The cards that have a dust cost (top right corner) are hero specific abilities unlocked through leveling.)
By 3173 A.D., the galaxy is a different place. Antares is now ours, and Graffias, Placidus and Rhea (cutoff at bottom) are all simultaneously under siege. Admiral Kartal is leading the offensive. The Hissho had a chance to obtain greatness alongside us. Sadly, they forced our hand against them and now lay close to extinction.
The Pilgrims have quietly taken over much of the galaxy’s central core and now lay dangerously close to our border systems. We are thankful that we have strong fleets blockading the star lanes. Still, the Cravers and Pilgrims have been left alone for many years and, if they combined their forces, that would put us under significant military strain. Thankfully, the Cravers are not the diplomatic sort.
In 3183 A.D., we inhabit the last remaining Hissho system, Placidus. In 3185 A.D, the Horatio, sandwiched between the invading Cravers of the north, and the expanding Pilgrims to the south, facing war on two fronts, decide inexplicably to abandon our alliance. If only they had asked for our aid, we would have responded. In the end, perhaps we were simply not beautiful enough to be worthy of their presence.
Admiral Kartal has nearly reached the pinnacle of his career. With much gusto, he advises that our best chance of uniting the galaxy, and ending war forever, is to first assert our military dominance. This was not what we wanted. It was however, all we had left now that our last remaining ally had abandoned us.
With our approval, he brings a fleet of dreadnoughts to bear against the Pilgrims, who had decided to break the peace so many years ago. We siege Rath and Xitterbia simultaneously. This proves to be a very risky move that costs the lives of many Amoeba.
The last 10 years have showed us how little we still know of war. Trusting in Admiral Kartal, we allowed him to continue his advance on the Pilgrims, taking both Jovanus and Procyon, the former Sower homeworld. We had overextended ourselves and over estimated the abilities of one man’s leadership against multiple armies.
When the Cravers arrived behind Kartal, they brought heavy missiles and kinetics we were ill prepared for. We lost Xitterbia, and now Rath is suffering heavy casualties. Word has reached Admiral Bademdi, and he is called to the frontlines to assist. To make matter worse, the Pilgrims are battering our ships with heavy lasers and our engineers are forced to work constantly to keep up with the multitude of defenses needed. As we retrofit the ships, the pilgrims launch a sneak attack off-star lanes to take Rhea in our rear. Panic is beginning to take hold as millions of Amoeba colonists are wiped out by the invasion forces and our people wonder if even the most remote systems face the risk of death.
For the first time, we wonder if we have finally met our match.
Anxiously, we wonder when the Craver main fleets will arrive. That is all our people talk about. We tell them to give us time, and reluctantly, they do. In our dreams, we watch as the plague of Craver locusts darken the skies above Pisces. We hope that these visions remain only in our dreams.
By 3206 A.D., we have started to win back the love of our people. We have not only completed the retrofits, but we have also wiped the Cravers from Rath. Xitterbia is again under our control, as is Rhea. Admiral Kartal has proceeded to Grus, reassuring us that victory is nearly at hand. He seems inspired now. This time it seems more personal than financial. Being outwitted has caused him great anguish, and with each colony he takes he feels vindication. The battle at Grus is grueling, but reports from Admiral Kartal are that multiple Pilgrim fleets are being destroyed under his command. (Expansion Victory is at 92%)
In 3207 A.D., we push against the final Pilgrim system, Foris. We are widely considered the most powerful race in our galaxy. It has been a long journey, but it appears that it is finally going to come to a close.
The final years are all a blur. With the fall of Foris, and with it the Pilgrims, we received notice that the Cravers and Horatio had given up the will to fight. Though the Craver military was still mighty, they realized it was only a matter of time before our admirals would move against them. We have vowed to do our best to keep them alive, but we fear that without scientific breakthrough they will end up turning against us again some day, or risk facing their own extinction.
For the Horatio, we have dreams of one day achieving full integration of all our peoples. If we can get them to look beyond their own shared DNA, they may one day see that we share more similarities than we do differences.
I hope you enjoyed the AAR!
Keith Turner, also known as aReclusiveMind here on SpaceSector, has been an avid gamer ever since he first laid his hands on a Commodore 128 in the mid 1980s. He enjoys multiple computer game genres, but his primary interests are in deep strategy games, 4x games, rpgs, and action rpgs. He enjoys writing and hopes to contribute with additional reviews, previews, and informative AARs to the community. See all Keith’s posts here.
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The Amoeba I played against seemed a bit op, have you played in a game against them yet?
Terrific read,well done,looking forward to the 4Th.
@fafrin I don’t think there will be a 4th considering he finished the game. It was a very good read though!
I think he meant the 4th of July, release day :)
@Kyle Rees:
No, I’ve not played against the Amoeba yet. I only played the one full game on hard difficulty during the beta. I had previously beaten the game with the Horatio and United Empire in the alpha phase. At the time I tried the Amoeba, most people were complaining that the Sowers were the overpowered race. Had diplomacy worked better in the beta version I played (first beta release), I would have been able to achieve a diplomacy victory much faster than the expansion victory I ended up obtaining. All I would have had to do is help my allies push against the Cravers and eliminate them. The Amoeba are more of a passive race, so I had no real advantages when it came to combat.
@fafrin and Copin
Thanks for the comments! I’m glad you enjoyed it.
I’d like to do more AARs for upcoming games in the future if you guys enjoyed this short series. I could change up the format by making them longer or shorter, adding more or less flavor (fictional storytelling) text to keep things interesting, and by using more or less images to tell the tale. If you think changing any of these elements in the future would help, please let me know. Otherwise, I’ll just use my best judgment based on how my game is going at the time. Thanks again for reading the series.
Excelent read; but I would like that you do another one with the game finished.
Keith.
Keep up the good work:) by all means stretch it out a bit,a narrative story makes a revue much more interesting and believable and helps with immersion in the game. Top marks:D
Style over substance but a nice entry in the basic 4X space game arena.
Loved reading the AAR Keith! I hope you do more after the games release, it was a fun read!
And thanks to it I think I will give the game a try, despite my misgivings about how I’ve heard combat is handled.
Great AAR series Keith. It was indeed a fun read, and a refreshing way to read about space 4X games. I also hope you do more in the near future, with the game’s final release.
Hey Adam, I read in one of your reviews that you’re a huge GalCiv II fan. I happen to also be a huge GalCiv II fan and I’ve been playing Endless Space for the last two days and it just can’t seem to suck me in.
I love the graphics, the music and the beautiful interface, but gameplay-wise somehow the game doesn’t satisfy me. It doesn’t have that addicting effect 4X games have. Colony management is pretty weak I think. The combat system is pretty nice, good graphics, a little control and it’s pretty quick so you don’t waste time. But I dislike the fact that you can have only a small number of ships in a fleet. The game also seems to be focused on rapid expansion, whereas in GalCiv II even a small civilization with few planets can be very powerful.
Can you please tell me your personal opinion? What do you think of Endless Space in comparison with Galactic Civilizations 2 Ultimate Edition? I am of course aware that GalCiv II is a very mature game in comparison with Endless Space, which don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love for its design, its simplicity is brilliant.