But on 25 planets mighty leaders stood up and took the challenge to rebuild their empires, with force if necessary. Also on a small Brungir (aggressive military race) planet a powerful man stood up and declared his Brungir empire independent, and promised to destroy the evil powers of Dark Lord Sauran and everyone else who stood in the way to Victory and Glory. His small sleet spread out to conquer chaotic and renegade worlds and search and destroy the fleets of the Dark Lord.
My trade fleet, which was warped to one of the trading planets, reports a safe arrival and will trade their cargo in the beginning of the second turn. I think that it is important to have constant trade routes running between your planets and the trading planets to increase your income. In my opinion, warping transporters, which carries the cargoships, is the best way to guarantee steady trade income. Standard moving ships can be pirated by Dark Lord Sauran ships and other enemies. My battleships are tracing the sector for enemy vessels, none are found however.
My trading fleet generated a nice 150,000 credits and warped back home. Another trade fleet arrived at the trading planet. Contacts with other empires are minimal.
This is a game that you can win without extensive contact between the players (inter-imperial trade, intensive alliances and cooperation like in Star Quest are impossible). It is recommended though to share information about the central enemy, Dark Lord Sauran. I reached a status quo with another player this turn. We both warped a search beacon (6 defence units) to the same (quite wealthy) planet. Both beacons are now stuck at this planet.
Finally, my war fleets have encountered the first Dark Lord's vessels. My powerful super battle, under the command of my Commodore, discovered two evil fighters roaming deep space. Hostilities have not yet begun, but they are like sitting ducks for my super battle. Another of my war fleets has begun the long standard voyage to my trading planet to protect my trade fleets against the upcoming attacks of the Dark Lord.
I now own the first ranking in points (most damage done to DLS ships) and have gained a new special ability by the crumbled Imperial Council. I can now build a new ship-type called Excavators (a mining ship). I am now going to give slightly more attention to colonising new planets. Therefore I built several probes (30 def. units) which are now randomly warped to unexplored planets and space sectors. I also expanded my trade fleet to double trading income.
At last I built a new large battleship which I have sent into deep space to search and destroy the ships of DLS. As far as I know, nobody has found one of the five DLS battle stations yet. A pleasant vacation lies ahead of me.
I'm still unhappy about the number of planets I own. So I'm going to build more probes. Fortunately I discovered some very rich planets, as my origin planet is running dry on cargo. I built a bulk carrier, cargo 300 instead of 30 from the small cargoships, and a cocoon to transport it. I hope to have reorganised my trading routes before turn 6.
DLS is showing his face everywhere now. In my sector just with fighters and destroyers, but in another sector he has a dreadnought on the loose. Four evil fighters are within all my might and fury.
On another part of the front I lost one of my planets to another player, Stardust Empire. The loss of the planet was partly my own fault, because I had activated all my planetary defence units on my planets. This means that when a another player ship flies over a particular world, the PDU will attack this ship. The rules states that every shot fired will result in the loss of one PDU, so at the end of the turn the planet has no PDU's left. As the overflying ship still has DU left, the owner of that ship automatically takes over control of that world. After a few phone calls we agreed to the return of the particular planet after one turn.
From player #12 I also heard that he and his alliance, the IDC, are planning to attack player #9. A small plan is breeding. Turn 6 Lord of the Strings (#9) has been hit hard by the IDC, I on the other hand abandoned my hostilities with the String Lord. He apologised for his brutal action and suggested a cease fire, which I accepted. I captured another three planets and destroyed one evil fighter and damaged another one very badly. I'm a little bit disappointed by the Dark Lord, because he only sends small fighters to battle my powerful war fleets. Fighters don't give much points, when destroyed. But this gives me the opportunity to build a very powerful war fleet, based on super battles and large battles.
Finally Dark Lord Sauran shows up with other ships instead of fighters. A large cruiser attacked one of my scouts doing fairly a lot of damage. I immediately sent two battleships to the battlefield. The damaged fighter of last turn didn't get away and was blown up, together with a large fighter which came to it's aid. Only one turn away from my first 20,000 points. There are some players who encountered heavier Sauran ships and already got 40,000 points. But there are also players which have already received 90,000 anti-points (damaged or destroyed ships). I have put a probe over every trading planet so I can see anything around there.
It appears that there's one evil battle station located and ready to be destroyed.
Talking about destruction. The first DLS battle station has been destroyed. One down and four to go, I'm not sure we're going to make in before turn 15, the turn of the evident sucking of the black hole. But what the hell. Congratulations to player #7 Me-shell, #9 Lord of de Strings (yes he's completely rehabilitated), #15 Klyoss and the illustrious Dave Lister.
Again good news, the second DLS battle station has been located and pinned down. This time the fleets of Partners in Crime will participate in the huge battle to come. But first I have to get rid of empire #22. The heat is on and I cannot get enough of it.
Intensive diplomatic action is taking place with the Stardust Empire #12, which is one of the spokesmen of the IDC. It appears to be that they have found yet another one of those darned battle stations.
My super battle destroyed the Sauran cruiser and took over control of the Sauran independent. Some of the NPC empires are becoming very annoying, shooting at harmless traders at random. My first batch of customised spies, the real Sauran killers, is now in position and ready to kill off Genocide. Genocide is accompanied by a relative small war fleet. Only 13 warships are lying around the battle station. This seems a lot but only three of Sauran ships have a fire range of 25. These ship are dealt with by me secondary war fleet, consisting of several super battles and large battles (which have that nice ability to fire long range and short range missiles).
All four remaining battle stations have been found. Three of them are attacked by members of the IDC (#9 Lord of the Strings, #10 Clan of War, #11 Peculier, #12 Stardust, #14 Cybertron and #20 Partners in Crime). The other battle station is found by #21 Aerosol, who claims to deal with it himself.
The IDC managed to shoot down another battle station, only three remain. Wars are breaking out everywhere now. The New World Foundation (17) was foolish enough to attack an IDC member, even after a peace agreement had been reached. But we've going to scan the son of %^%@#!*% so we can annihilate him.
On the Sauran front everything is going smoothly, I destroyed 4 of Sauran warships (two super battles and one dreadnought and a battle cruiser) and did some damage to his battle station. On the other fronts all plans are working out fine. I'm attacking several NPC for their planets (sorry Debauchee #3) and I now own 4.55% of the universe. And again, the cold war with #22 Iderion Irregular proceeded to the next phase, this time no mercy and no negotiations.
Thirteen customised spies, two super battles and two privateers are hammering on Genocide and her accompanying ships. With the aid of Lord of the Strings, who has recently left the game for a taineeship in Marocco and other members of the IDC we must be able to bring Genocide down.
Another nice thing happened this turn, after a combined scan in turn 17, which dramatically failed, I again scanned player 17 breaking down his steel door and receiving lots of information about his ships. The IDC knows the position of your monitors now Johan, so beware! BTW lost a lot of ships in turn 18 didn't you :-)
This turn I gained the first position in the Point area, I have 199,431 points, giving me over 30 special abilities. Trading income is at an all-time low as the prices are only at 15% of their starting levels. The I.D.C. is furiously attacking the New World Foundation. I'm still gathering a continuous stream of independents, even unowned ones that are falling towards Silverfall due to the pull of the Black Hole.
An emergency meeting of the I.D.C. resulted in the breaking of the alliance. Two members got out of the game (they didn't believe anymore, that the pull of Silverfall was actually stopped) while two other members (including yours truly) went on to win the planet grab. The whole universe fell apart. Wars and battles raged furiously and planets changed owners faster than the eye can blink. Only a handful of human players wanted to stick to the game and fight for the glory.
I built another range of battle cruisers, calling them all Planethopper. I took control of over 7 planets this turn, lost control over one, thus ending with a total of 6.33% of all planets. At this time the planet leader owned 54 planets, an impressive 9.49%.
I lost several planets to a NPC (which proves that they can be a real pain in the U know what) and gained control over only 4 planets. But I'm not stressing because I'm entering the territory of one of my old allies (greetings Olaf B.) and his NPC still has me rated as an ally. Some swift attacks should gain me almost a dozen planets next turn.
My ring fleet started the attack on the defending fleet, destroying two small fighters and a small cruiser. I should have control of the Ring of Peril next turn.
The war against #22 goes with ups and downs, winning planets, losing planets, destroying ships and losing ships. I will not be able to finish him off before the end of the game, that's a pity. I'm also fighting the remains of the fleets and planets of #12, #15 and #17. Due to a rookie flaw I didn't get control of the Ring of Peril. I attacked the planet, destroyed the planetary defence units and was ready to take over the planet. But I didn't because all my spies were cloaked and cloaked ships do not take over planets.
Before I end this dairy about the first Dutch game of Darkness of Silverfall I wanted to make some conclusions about the game. I think that DOS is one the most enjoyable SF-games running at the moment. At least I prefer it instead of Star Quest or VGA Planets, games I have both played. It's easy to master, has a fixed winning condition and has more depth than meets the eye at first. Especially the hundreds of special abilities which can be gained increasing the level of joy in the game. Even more the central enemy, DLS, gives the game that something extra other games don't have. And the game requires lots of diplomacy because you can't kill all five battle station by yourself.
I can recommend a game of DOS to any SQ and VGA planets player because it combines all the positive things of both games into one.
Return to the Darkness of Silverfall page
Return to Roma Games Front Page