Galaxy 122

[wraith]

I know that I will. It's the type of game that I want to be playing.

[RktSci]

I know that I will. It's the type of game that I want to be playing.

Davin covered most of what I would have said. A few random comments.

Here is how I approach the turn. I open the program, choose the galaxy, open the turn on the web, open the turn in the program, open my basic scout and chart map. I look over the turn on the website, then choose the printer-friendly version. I select all and copy it. I open MS word to a blank document, set the margins to narrow, landscape mode, view as draft; then paste the copied turn to the document. I save it to a directory of turn reports, named "Turn 3500-01.doc" or something original.

I look at the map, then open actions. I open the turn summary and look at the shuttle summary. I copy and paste it to a word doc also. I go through it, looking for places I need to add shuttle runs - the summary will tell you which production center is closest if there are no shuttles going there. One thing that can help is to right click on a star. The box that pops up allows you to see the history there, check distances, and look at ships there. You can right click on a ship to get a menu of actions. This makes doing shuttles really easy.

I go down my turn, and as I assign actions to a ship or fleet, I use Word's highlighting feature to highlight it in green. I mark up things that need attention in magenta or blue. As I enter actions, I use the error check feature to see if I need to tweak them. Every so often, sort the actions (to look for things like "To" orders that can be collapsed down to two per line, etc.), then I transmit it to the web site.

Using a Word document and the highlighting feature lets me keep track of what's gone on if I have to stop working on the turn and resume.

[Davin]

That's a nice summary, RktSci - thank you!



I've had a few reports of difficulties copy/pasting the HTML report to Word, so I'm pleased that you managed to get it to work adequately. I think a soft copy is great to work from, though I tend to use the antique PBM method of actually printing my turn and making all my notes directly on the paper, typing it in later from there. It also has the sometimes-trivial advantage of being able to take it with me and work on it away from home.



I might add a few more thoughts...  for instance, when typing in your actions also open the Cash Flow window next to it. Then you can monitor your spending dynamically as you type (especially when PI is low, such as at the beginning of the game).



Also, I typically start a game with a basic map, such as Shuttles, and then add things to it as the game progresses to show me what is most interesting for that position. Eventually, the map gets pretty crowded but I can always create alternate versions for different purposes (economics vs. military, for instance) or sometimes delete parts of it after they're no longer necessary.



When setting up my initial Colonies I'll have the map draw a big box around my Home World showing how far away my shuttles can reach, so I don't send them too far. After Developing, it will display the boxes around other Production Centers as well. And the Shuttle map normally shows not only shuttles in progress but also newly-created shuttles as you type them into your turn, so you can easily see if you're sending two together or something too far away, though you'll have to request the map refresh itself to see those that you've just typed in. This also helps me tell if I've covered all the places I want to shuttle to in this turn. The Destinations map is also handy for this sort of "coverage" determination, since it only shows a single turn's movement.



Scouting routes I like to display right away because I believe in strong intelligence-gathering from the beginning of the game. After all, if I spot a Production Center in the first several turns of the game then it's bound to be someone's Home World that will obviously become a primary target later.



When conflicts start, having the map show me where intrusions are (usually with a little red ship symbol) helps me visualize where I need to concentrate my attention. And after I have fleets out roaming around, I'll display those on the map as well so I'll know from where I can draw reinforcements.



Late in the game, when I've scouted a large portion of the galaxy, I'll open up a Zones map to show me where all my opponents' territories are - this is more visual than just seeing the colored stars with space between them - which helps me choose who will be my next target and how to effectively deal with them.


There's a ton of fun stuff that can be done with the tools available. Enjoy finding out what works best for you.

[RktSci]

There can be issues pasting into Word with some of the fields being "squished" to be too small. But there are ways to show the "gridlines" and fix them. That's why I do landscape, narrow margins, and work in draft mode. Word sometimes spontaneously redoes field sizes and I have to fix them on the fly. It's no big deal.

[wraith]

I got lost in the data after a few turns. I tried exporting to spreadsheets, but it seemed like commas weren't escaped and I was always fixing the files up by hand and that took too much effort.

Some 80% of this would have been avoided if I'd played some practice rounds.

Did a side-bar with Davin. The export issue was self-inflicted. Commas are correctly escaped but Excel got confused on how to interpret locations that kind of looked like dates. I could have avoided by going to XLS instead of CSV.

So, it's closer to "100% of this would have been avoided if I'd practiced before starting."

[Davin]

Yeah, I try to encourage ALL new players to at least play a few turns of a solo game to practice with. They run at your own speed (whenever you say "go"), let you try out anything you want, gives you practice on turns and with GTac, and let you try out inventive strategies to see how they work. You may have have as many tries as you want and simply drop the game when you're done with it and it will go away.