Reading the subtitle, you likely believe I am being a bit hyperbolic. Fair enough; you’re correct and I absolutely am.
However, allow me to explain why I believe this ship has some value, and perhaps you’ll consider adding it to your fleet.
Most wars are won or lost long before the fighting starts. This series concentrates only on those critical few turns leading up to the Ship Limit as a key to achieving long-term goals necessary for victory.
Overview:
The Evil Empire fields one of the strongest warships in the Echo Cluster. The Gorbie Class Battlestation is the most massive and powerful battlecarrier available to anyone. The PL21 is a passable hyperspace probe that, when coupled with the Empire’s ability to Dark Sense, gives them the ability to project force intelligently across any cluster. Finally, the Super Star Destroyer is capable of capturing an enemy starbase intact without a battle.
Continue readingNapoleon Bonaparte possessed the mind of a genius of war. He gained his prowess by studying the traditions and theories of the military leaders who came before him. He was inspired by them and harnessed their wisdom to become one of the most ruthless, offensive-minded generals of his time. There is no other role model as perfect for this study on deadliness in VGA Planets.
“With speed, surprise, maneuver, thorough planning, dictatorial power over military affairs, and a boldness unmatched by any soldier of his generation, Napoleon wrecked army after army that the European powers hurled against him.”
(Teters, 2004, p. 14)
This second volume on prowess evaluates each empire’s fleet on its ability to kill, as measured by combat mass, warship armaments, and the class of ships in each fleet.
In Planets, like chess, there’s that hectic opening period where we rush out these patchwork abomination hulls any old how and just have to cope with for the rest of the game. There’s the serious middle game, which is all about optimizing logistics and supplying manufacturing hubs. Eventually, somehow, we arrive at the endgame, where one ragtag fleet end is battling the barrel-scrapings of another through exhaustion and out the other side.
It’s that ‘somehow’ on which I’d like to focus for just a moment: that poorly-defined transition point between the middle and the beginning of the end.
This is the eleventh in a series of anonymous reports that mysteriously appeared on the Editor’s desk. These redacted versions were approved by the Senate for immediate publication, to be read by commanders of each respective race so they can review their own vulnerabilities in the face of the unknown external threat that commissioned the studies. In this dispatch we focus on that faction known as the Solar Federation: its strengths, its weaknesses, and how best to defeat it in battle.
Ease Of Command: Veteran
Difficulty To Defeat: Hard
Playstyle: Detailed
You say you survived to the end of the game, but if you didn’t win, who cares?
The overarching goal of this series is to give players the knowledge, and therefore the confidence, to choose the path of action. This volume examines the agility of fleets on the battlefield as influenced by fuel consumption, attack accuracy, and warship maneuverability.
“The public supports war until the body bags come home” was a persistent thought meandering through my mind as I was writing these articles. I wanted to evaluate each race’s capacity for killing, and something in the back of my mind made that topic feel… uneasy. When I continued to hesitate putting it into words, I eventually recognised that my struggle existed because of the nature of what war games reflect. It also occurred to me that the trend of “winning games by making friends” surfaced, in part, because many of us were conflicted about aggression in competition.
Continue readingMost games are won or lost in the first few turns. This series concentrates only on those critical few turns leading up to the Ship Limit as a key to achieving long-term goals necessary for victory.
Overview:
The Colonies have a powerful yet limited ship list, remarkable for not only its low-cost heavy carrier, the Virgo, but also the fuel-generating Cobol. They lack low-cost endgame sacrifice ships and their best shield-scratchers are the Cygnus (against battleships only), the Tranquility, and the Iron Lady, which sets them at a late-war disadvantage against any powerful foe. However, their ability to sweep space mines from a distance with fighters alone balances the entire field in their favor.
Continue readingMost wars are won or lost long before the fighting starts. This series concentrates only on those critical few turns leading up to the Ship Limit as a key to achieving long-term goals necessary for victory.
Overview:
The Solar Federation fields a wide variety of top-end battleships, battlecruisers, and utility vessels. They lack a heavy carrier, but their diplomatic advantages, broad ship list, and above all crew combat bonus more than make up for this.
Continue readingThis is the tenth in a series of anonymous reports that mysteriously appeared on the Editor’s desk. These redacted versions were approved by the Senate for immediate publication, to be read by commanders of each respective race so they can review their own vulnerabilities in the face of the unknown external threat that commissioned the studies. In this dispatch we focus on that faction known as the Evil Empire: its strengths, its weaknesses, and how best to defeat it in battle.
Ease Of Command: Veteran
Difficulty To Defeat: Moderate
Playstyle: Slow
Planets Magazine 