Neptune's Pride Diary: Day 4

Things look to be hotting up, ever so slowly.

Two of the players in our game (the Light Blue Decadence and Orange Entity, as I named them) have had their empires transferred to AI control. I imagine they'll be crushed in record time, sandwiched as they are between myself (the Yellow Eternal Empire of Eternalness), Scooped (the Green Army) and vee (Red Reality). However, I still fear for my own empire as both Scooped and Jon (Dark Blue Danger) have ships within striking range of my territory.

Was it wise to plunge so much time and income into expanding the economy at the expense of building a fleet? It'll certainly give me something to hold onto should my core systems fall, assuming I can increase my ships' range to allow me to run away quickly enough :)

Fight fight fight fight fight

"It started over nothing".

Neptune's Pride Day 3

The universe as it stands. I'm the cowardly yellow empire, surrounded on all sides by enemies (and friends? MAYBE).

Turns out diplomacy in this game is all about the trust. If someone scratches my back, for instance, I'm under no obligation to scratch theirs. And that's fine by me - it sets the ground rules straightaway. I'm reasonably sure I'm going to get pounded on all sides at some point, but am unsure whether the best defence is offence or, well, defence.

Defenders get a bonus in combat in this game, so there's an element where it's all about the numbers. Stars create 2 ships per day based on their industry level, so the higher the level, the bigger the fleet that can be sent out every day  - or, indeed, kept orbiting - but upgrading costs money, and to get money you need stars. Sitting still and turtling your core worlds may mean you have slightly larger defence fleets but, at the end of the day, you have no cash.

As the second largest empire I have lots of cash coming in. Ooh look at me, I can has bling? However, that cash can't be used on upgrading ships or weapons, only on upgrading stars. So, spend cash to breed more cash by upgrading economic levels on new stars? Increase industry for more ships? Or build expensive scientific stations to boost research rate?

I think I was right in my first assessment of this game. It's not going to be short.

Neptune's Pride: Day 1-2

I decree this game likeable.

It is, however, incredibly complex, while at the same time being insanely simple. I have no idea if any of the other players have had a combat event yet - I'm not sure if it'll flag it up if I'm not involved, y'see - but so far my interaction with the game has been limited to moving fleets towards planets and using the ingame email as a diplomatic device. I have the third largest fleet in our game, but I also have the most direct neighbours, having started off smack bang in the middle of the map. It's a tad unfair, but one has to do one's best before one is completely obliterated.

At the time of writing I have the second largest empire in terms of number of stars conquered, but find myself with no buffer between the mighty Eternal Empire of Eternalness and five other sentient races. I have made contact with some of these races, have been ignored by others, and can only wait and see what progresses.

Neptune's Pride: Day Zero

As spotted on Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Neptune's Pride is a browser based 4X strategy game played in real time but with no fees. Intriguing, says I.

I've begun playing an eight-man (woman/entity) game with at least some of the other players being fellow readers of RPS. This is going to take some time, and I'm not entirely confident of doing at all well, but I shall report here every other day, with information and mis-information, just in case any of my fellow players are reading...