Forum Overview :: Pinback's Web Central :: More poorly documented than complicated.

[quote name="Mischief Maker"]The big thing to know about the game is it's a Master of Magic-style fantasy RPG renamed with sci fi terms. RESOURCES: * Energy is gold. Used to buy things and pay upkeep. * Cosmite is Vespene Gas. Used to upgrade things and upkeep top-tier units. * Knowledge is research points. * Influence is diplomatic currency. Diplomacy in this game is less RNG-based and more transactional and just about every action has a cost in influence. * Additionally each Colony consumes food (adds an additional population point when a threshold amount is reached) and happiness (random positive event when the amount reaches a threshold). * Operations are spells, and operation points are spell points. Tactical operations are cast in combat, strategic operations are cast on the map. Most Operations have a warmup time. * Doctrines are permanent spells, but each requires an open doctrine slot. You can research additional slots. STRATEGIC MAP: * The map is divided into provinces. All things equal, each province is controlled by a central building and can harvest a single type of resource (with exceptions). * The central buildings include Forward Bases, Colonies, Exploitations (harvester buildings) and Landmarks. * A forward base is built by moving a unit (usually a flying scout) to the central pin of an unoccupied province and spending influence to build the base. A forward base does several things. + Like all structures, it maintains a defensive garrison of basic troops (no more getting your capitol yoinked by a passing crow scout) + Building a forward base adjacent to a province you've already developed automatically builds a road network that speed up ground troops and colonizers. + Forward bases prevent rivals from making a diplomatic claim on that province later. + Building a new colony on top of a forward base gives the new colony a level 1 defensive enhancement for free. * Colonies are basic cities + As their population grows, you get citizens that can be slotted into different job categories to change the colony's output. (The game auto-assigns them by default) + Once the citizen pop passes certain thresholds, you can claim a province adjacent to the city's existing road network then build an exploitation building there. + Colonies' basic resource output comes from which "Central" building you choose (eg. Central Biofarm or Central Reactor) and don't seem to be affected by the resource levels of the province itself. Crappy provinces are better for colonies, high-resource provinces for exploitation. * Exploitations are resource extractor buildings. + Each province has a resource rating that can be seen at a glance by viewing the map at maximum zoom. + Building an exploitation harvester for a resource that's really abundant creates a higher-level exploitation building from the start. + You can research tech that allows you to upgrade exploitations for more resources from that province. * Landmarks are prebuilt exploitation buildings that need to be cleared of monsters before you can use them. They usually also give extra bonus mechanics. + Note that you still need enough population to claim a province with a landmark you've cleared. The one wrinkle is resource nodes. These are buildings that are not in the center of a province. They give a specific resource in an exploited sector regardless of what kind of exploitation building is in the center. Does this help?[/quote]