Hello all. I'm not a regular poster to this forum, but I felt that I should air out some opinions about the whole of this expansion.
First, I would like to commend Stardock on the effort they did put into their work. It seems like they spent considerable time trying to get things working, and should be commended for the work they continue to put into both GalCiv and Altarian Prophecy. Even so, one does get the feeling that the expansion was a little bit rushed, and that a certain amount of tweaking has yet to be done...
First, let's go with the campaign. A series of nine scenarios addressing the story of the so-called "Altarian Prophecy," this campaign deals with the drive to find out why the Altarians look so much like humans. In a strangely perverse way, the campaign could be called an extended tutorial - the first few scenarios are fairly easy to one raised on GalCiv. They get increasingly harder until you get some truly hair-raising scenarios, such as the ninth scenario, in which Altaria itself is captured.
On the surface, at any rate, things seem fine. But once you get into it, things begin to break down. For one thing, the missions do not necessarily define the storyline very well. Indeed, in some later missions (it may be a bug or just something with my program), the epilogue story information for the missions is entirely missing! Instead you see the standard victory text. Also, some missions have errors in listing teams - in the ninth mission, for instance, the Korx, Drath and Torians are listed on one team, but only the Drath appear in the scenario.
The scenarios themselves may seem a bit of a hodge-podge, but that is perhaps due to our being used to playing on the random maps of the original game. The impression of a hodge-podge may also occur due to vague instructions, although this is offset to a degree by the inclusion of a game map, which shows the locations of the planets contested and also some of the ships. Some scenarios seem designed to deliberately induce insanity, although in actuality they're trying to improve lateral thinking. The fourth, sixth and ninth scenarios (I think) involve some interesting situations that can be quite jarring, to say the least.
The fourth scenario mentions, in a somewhat offhand fashion, that the main Korx world is being defended by three Battleships. While this may seem a bit daunting, but on closer inspection these battleships are actually rather weak - while retaining the normal stats, they also are bereft of hitpoints (at least at the cakewalk difficulty). Nevertheless, this scenario will help teach you to group your ships into fleets for better offensive and defensive power. Focusing specifically on a drive towards their homeworld and keeping away from their colonies is the way to do it, as suggested by the briefing.
The sixth mission, by contrast, is a lot more unusual. Here, your ultimate goal seems to be a cultural domination, the recommended path of the mission. The task itself is rather complicated, since it is maddeningly difficult to get a wily foe to sucuumb to culture, especially when they're taking over the influence resources before you can get to them. Complicating this are two factors - first, the somewhat common appearance of Space Sharks (if you auto-survey with that Survey Ship), and second, the appearance of pirates once you get increased trade activity at your stations. The solution to the first complication is simply to avoid stellar objects that could harbor Space Sharks, but the more urgent dilemma of pirates can only be solved through active defense - guard your stations and planets heavily, keep good diplomatic relations with your neighbors, and group your forces together. The pirate units will generally be very tough (they have lots of hitpoints), so your only recourse is to defend your stations and planets just as heavily. The pirates may also do you a bit of good, however - by attacking the Torian stations and planets! This will decrease Torian influence and give you more breathing room. Eventually, when you get enough stations and flip a few planets to you, you'll get a message saying that you're dominating the galaxy culturally, and will make it permanent in a year if it keeps up.
The ninth scenario seems to be a real bear. You start with only one star system and no possibility of colonizing any others. You also start with a rather impressive fleet that costs over 80 bc per month, at a time when you can barely afford it. While some might call for balancing, it IS possible to win the scenario. You just need to be careful and plan ahead.
The first step is to decommission your Battle Cruisers. Yes, that's right, decommission them. You can hardly afford them now, so why bother? Keep your Transports and Battleships about, though, and group the Battleships together. Your operating expenses will have reduced, but perhaps not enough. Next, use that colony ship to colonize a good planet within your only star system, and then send in both Transports to boost the population and increase the speed at which things are worked on. Finally, feel free to explore the system with your Survey Ship, but bear in mind you have limited range - your battleships, for instance, can't travel beyond the current sector at the start, unless you have a Range bonus. But then again, neither can your opponents.
Now you've reduced your operating expenses...now to earn some money. Fortunately, you start with trade already researched, so go ahead and crank out two freighters to max out your current routes. If you have a third good planet in your system, invest in a colony ship as well and colonize that planet to increase taxes. You may have to raise taxes and reduce expenses carefully - check your economy tab EVERY TURN. With any luck, you won't go into debt, and hopefully, you will also be able to start researching offensive stuff. Look into getting more trade routes, new ship technologies and improved speed and range when researching.
Now for the big push - once you've maxed out trade and planets, it's time to start churning out Constructors. Go IMMEDIATELY for the economic resource (the sphere) near you, it will be EXTREMELY important as time goes on. Then go for the military and influence ones if you wish, but at this time it may be better to expand toward the Drath. Also expand your fighting forces using Transports and Frigates, so that you can have an effective invasion force when you reach Drath space. If necessary, build two or three fleets and move all three in turn towards the Drath. Don't neglect the defense of your home system though, as the Drath can eventually strike back at you. Research Logistics to help keep the costs of your Space Stations down. And remember that your objective is to destroy ALL of the Drath! With some luck, some exploitation of the UP, and a bit of debt, you'll be able to win the day.
Once you've finished with the campaign, of course, it's a little disheartening to know that you'll be going back to the normal random games, although new custom maps and scenarios help to make this a lot more interesting. Still, the campaign seems to be somewhat too short, odd as it may seem (though on the Cakewalk difficulty it WOULD be pretty short, I guess). Not only that, but the story doesn't seem as defined as it ought to be. One to help it, as suggested before, is to have in-scenario story events that reveal snippets of story to the player as they play. The big problem with this may be simply that this removes an element of randomness and replayability by making the game more linear. The second way is to come up with an expanded Altarian campaign, or even just a whole new campaign.
That said, Stardock did good by including the Map, Scenario and Campaign editors with the expansion, although arguably it should have appeared with the original game. Even so, better late than never - after all, the editors for many games (Total Annihilation springs to mind) didn't come until AFTER expansions had come out! The ability to make maps, scenarios and campaigns for the game is a great plus in my mind, although some features are missing, such as the ability to create story events at certain times...oh well. It's not like Stardock would try and make their own new movie sequences to make up the deficiency...
On the whole, Altarian Prophecy is nice, if rather unpolished. Hopefully our fine players will help work out the bugs and polish it to a fine shine!
Stardock Forums
