Horatio
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"And Lo, in that Time the First came down to Base Earth, and was Blessed, for he found there Great Machines. Using the Techniques recorded by them, he took his perfection, and doubled it. Again and again, he used the machines, creating a vast Host of the perfect. They spread, building a great city, but in time the First grew troubled. This one planet was perfection, true, but the Stars in the Night were numerous, and the beings there flawed. Thus he decided to spread his perfection even further, till he covered all the stars.

-Horatio, Private Journal Entry 1"

The Year is 3000 After Dust. Vast interstellar Empires span the galaxy, but none are content with the incredible wealth and power they already posses. Drawing inspiration from the past, they look to the great precursors, the Endless. A race of seemingly limitless power, they rules the stars for Millennia. Now only ruins and Dust remain, but combined those can give even the most unlikely of subjects world-shaking power.

Now a Five of the Great powers have set their sights on a new frontier to expand to. Most are sending their Best and Brightest. The Horatio simply sent one, for all of their race, such as it is, is far beyond the best and brightest of any other. Horatio himself has said so, thus it must be true. This, is his story.

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So, this is my first real Let's Play, and here's how I'm going to set it up. Pictures are going to be in spoilers, and all text in spoilers is considered OOC. Text outside of spoilers should be considered In Character.

I'll be asking for opinions occasionally on what paths to pursue. If anyone wants to take "positions of power", ask and I should be able to fit you in somewhere.

Now, to start off, the startup screen.
This shows most of the basic information about the game. One thing to note: I've disabled the Wonder, Expansion, and Economic victory conditions, largely due to the ease with which one can obtain them, without even really trying or without the enemy stopping you. That still leaves quite a few conditions, though.


I, Horatio-1929019287375876, have been entrusted with a grand duty. Though I but recently left the tanks and finished my education, Horatio himself granted me stewardship of a colony! Of course, I was shuffled off so fast that I haven't even had time to look over the planets that are now my responsibility. Still, I imagine that it shouldn't be too difficult: I'll be able to rely at least partially on the goodwill of other Horatio, and things should be rather sedate at an established Colony.

But the Trans-warp liner has left Intra-Space. Finally my first glimpse of...
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....
That can't be right. Let me turn up the zoom a bit.
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Yep, that's our Home System. In addition, we start out with 2 ships: one scout, and one colony. The Blue dot indicates a colonied planet. The Orange dot is one we don't have the ability to colonize yet, though certain technologies can change that.

The normal lines are...I think they're called strings. I call them Warp Lines or Phase Lanes, because well, those terms are from games I'm more familiar with. They are the initial way one can travel between stars, and at any given tech they also allow the highest movement rate, though wether or not they are faster depends on how direct a route they take.

The Misty line is a wormhole. Once you research a certain technology, you can travel from one end of a wormhole to another instantly, but doing so leaves the ship unable to move any further, no matter how much movement they would have had.

The Large pink Circle indicates 2 things, though one leads from the other. First off, that this is a colony, instead of an outpost. Secondly, because it is a colony, it spreads my empires influences. Unless I have an open borders treaty or a war with a given faction, I cannot pass through their influnce zones, and I can't pass through their's.


Oh.
I see.

This is simply a new seed colony. And I've been tasked with the glorious job of managing it's growth, till it fulfill's Horatio's great vision? Creating an Entirely new sector to join with Perfection?

Well, that or go back to the tanks if I fail. And not in one piece, either: a Horatio has no defects, after all. Well, let's see what I've been given.

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As homesystems go, this isn't too great. Oh, there's nothing really wrong with the initial planet, but it's simply okay, not special in any way. The fact that the only other planet is a gas giant does hamper the early game some, and means that this system will likely become a Tertiary system by mid-game.

Now, to explain what the fields mean. At the top left is the name of they system, and underneath that is the FISD display: Food, Industry, Science, and Dust. Do not, this isn't measured by planet but by system. Food determines how large a population you can support, as well as how fast the population grows. Industry is pretty obvious, as is science. Dust is money.

Next to that we have the Population display, which tells us the current population, how fast it's changing, if it's increasing or decreasing and how many people the system can currently support. Below that is the Approval rating. When this is high, FIS all get bonuses, and when it's low they get penalties. Grey means neither.

In the Middle are the planet displays. This shows how many people each planet can support, who much FISD they provide, as well as if they have any special anomalies, either good or bad. It also shows the Planetary Explorations, if you have any, as well as any special resources on a planet.

Below that, in the center is the build queue: it shows what the system is currently building, and what it will be building in the future. On the Right is the Hanger, which shows all ships currently docked, and the improvement section, which shows currently built system improvements. On the left, you can see which system improvements you can build, as well as the ship tab, which allows you to build new ships.

This is the planetary view. It also shows the system queue in the middle bottom. In the upper middle, is shows the FISD that the planet provides, as well as what the current exploitation is, and what exploitation are available. Each exploitation boosts the production of a particular aspect of FISD on the planet it is built on. In addition, they give extra bonuses depending on the type of planet. For example, Arid planets proved bonus dust, so a Dust Exploitation built on an arid planet provides a total of +2 dust per population, instead of +1 per population. As you get more advanced Exploitations, the types of planets that provide bonuses increases, as does the bonuses provided. For example, using the last Dust Exploitation Tech, you gets a Base of +3 dust per pop, with an additional +3 dust if it's Arid, +2 if it's desert, and bonuses for a couple more planet types as well.

On the upper left, it would tell us the name and type of planet, but I had the mouse over the whirlpool in the uppermost left, which reveals the scores of all the players. Below that it reveals anomalies or resources if present, the local population, and the presence of a moon(this matters for certain things).

Especially in the Early game, production is more important than dust, so I'm building a production center. I'm going to need colony ships, and at the moment this is the only place they can come from.

Well, it's not the worst system. But why any Horatio would chose this as the start of a sector is beyond me. And why it hasn't been developed yet...!

Well, that's at least easy to rectify. Arid planets usually provide quite a bit of dust, but this sector needs production at the moment.

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Okay, there's more to come, but I need to get to sleep. I'll finish this tomorrow.