Introduction and Start Settings

This blog will document my experience playing Aurora which is an incredibly deep but very enjoyable 4X set in space designed by Steve Walmsley who is still actively developing the game in his spare time the current version as of April 2010 is 5.02.

I have only just discovered this incredible game through hearing about it on a forum I frequent and in order to download and install the game you need to register at the games official forum:

http://aurora.pentarch.org/index.php

This forum is a fantastic repository for detailed information about Aurora and new players are asked to use the Academy http://aurora.pentarch.org/viewforum.php?f=19 for any questions they may have. After installing the game and starting new games five times I finally started to get a basic understanding of the game mechanics which really start to make alot of sense once the initial learning curve is tackled. One thing I felt as a new player was a lack of basic information and even though the forums are very helpful I still came away confused at some of the replies I got. The game does have a wiki http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.php?title=Main_Page which is useful once you have the basics down. Another way to gain info is by reading the incredible fiction posted by the more experienced users and the developer himself, which really brings to light the possibilities in the game.

After learning as much as I could and getting my feet wet I have decided to attempt a newbie AAR which is also hopefully going to be a learning tool for anyone interested in giving this gem a chance to shine. This will be my first attempt at an AAR and any comments are much appreciated I hope to post as frequently as possible and when I come across any areas causing me confusion I will post in the official forums and then clearly describe how the particular section of the game works. You will have to bear with me as I am still learning the game so to start with things may be a bit chaotic.

I also forgot to mention the official tutorials http://aurora.pentarch.org/viewforum.php?f=101which really helped me get started. Without this info I was very close to giving up.

Well that's enough intro lets start creating the game and see where it leads us.

The version of the game I will be using is 5.02, which is the currently the latest version. The game name will be "Lets Explore" with a starting year of 2025 all this info can be entered by selecting New from the Game Details screen. We will leave most settings on the default and the empire will be called the "Terran Federation" we will also start on Earth in the Sol system so we know where we are when we start the game. All tolerances will be left again at default which is accurate for the human race. One important choice is Trans-Newtonian or Conventional empire the difference is the level of research advancement. With a Conventional empire the ability to create space faring ships must be researched. So for this game I will go Trans-Newtonian.

I will keep all the starting population defaults but untick Assign starting tech points as this can make for an unpredictable game and I want to reduce unpredictability as much as possible. I will also make sure the system has not been surveyed as this I think is part of the fun and is an important part of the game. There is also an option to create starting ships and systems which I'm also going to untick so I can design all systems and ships myself.

I'm going to start with one NPR (Non Player Race) at the start of the game although more will generate as time passes and select real star systems again to keep things reasonably familiar.

Well now that the choices have been made I can create the game which doesn't take too long and once the creation process has finished clicking on Select will start the game.

Well thats my first post and the game is now created. Things will really start to get interesting from now at least I hope that's going to be the case.