Battlestar Galactica Deadlock....

BSG Deadlock has and is an all consuming game for me. Maybe moreso since the last post. I've found myself almost nightly in "one more turn" situations. The epitome of the meme, never 'just' one more turn. Always one more thing to fix or fidget with and then another few turns to see how decisions enacted all play out and another few to set more in motion. Or after 5 more turns a fleet gets to an enemy fleet and a battle starts that I'm not happy with so 'need' to replay it again.... again... 

I like that the game is so appeasing to how intricate you want to be with it. I've been in fairly even, fair, fights; But because I lost a ship or two, knew I could do better, reloaded and then tried it again.... And again. 

Last week I had to stop myself from the ongoing loop of prolonging the campaign. Huge amounts of fleets(one on each of the 12 colonies, plus 4 on the middle planets and another 6 more as 'frontline' main fleets; With more stray ships being gathered by another planet. More Tylium than I could ever need. My persnicketyness and the games lack of a scrap option all mean that older less effective ships all still exist... So they became the ad-hoc fleets to plug gaps. Expendables I can't just let go of, even in battle. As much a me thing as a game mechanic. Besides I'm a gamer that's all in on the underdog side so that was all extra challenge(and for some reason I couldn't shake the song Roads from Portishead while in game last week). Having only 7 ships per fleet is restrictive enough. Officers pretty much all up to level 10 as well. I was beyond happy with the setup. Happy with the way things were. I could have happily sat and played the game and battled away as was for a long long time and not progressed the story to the last mission.  

The main campaign 'war time' fleets were built on 2 Artemis's's's's(Artemiiiii?), 2 Rangers and three Adamant's and a support. All with level 8 to 10 officers. Towards the end I toyed with the idea of replacing the 2 Rangers for 2 Janus but that would leave me with a lot of Rangers floating in space; So replace Rangers with Janus on their loss was a better idea..... Then I didn't loose any.

But I needed to push on with the main story. There was DLC to see. So I did. And it was good. Getting the Galactica and a level 10 officer for a new fleet is no bad thing. That said it's a campaign that ends it's cut-scene and leaves you back to the main menu. That was a little jarring. Also in messing about with having the Galactica it seemed that any fleet it was with had to be manually used in fights. Even if projected losses are 0%(which is a bit annoying, no auto-win option) but I 'get it'. Special ship is special.

I'd heard that there was a carry over for saves into the DLC content so I started the Sin and Sacrifice DLC. It's a more involved storyline that continues on from the main campaign. It takes a save game of your choice to play from. That's a godsend. All carried over except for the end game Galactica and the fleet you have it with plus the officer as well as the end game system. Seeing that I reloaded that end game save normally, moved the Galactica fleet restarted the DLC and saw it was 'removed' from the game (not just due to the end system removal). Reloaded again I moved the fleet out of the end game system and detached the Galactica. Sorted. Importing that new save I got to keep the fleet less the Galactica and even kept the level 10 officer. Sweet. 

Lucky

The DLC does not pull any punches. The opening turns add more enemy fleets than at any time during the main campaign(that I've seen). They hacked, boarded and pressed harder then before.

All in all it felt like the older ships, the bulk of my fleets, were being shown up. Fights were a lot harder and only the newest ships were the ones surviving. Maybe I was too comfortable in my cosy Campaign pocket for too long.

The cylon fleets all had a feeling like I was playing a human player. Always targeting the weakest link and/or the support ship(more than before). Enemy fleets were also (like the campaign end)larger and using better tactics. Not just a difficulty thing but they seemed smarter. It was noticeable; But I've been surviving via more aggression(and maybe its after watching The Sandman that another track is in my head while gaming).

A Casual Carebear Gamer

For the bulk of my fleets after the main campaign and in my current S&S DLC time I'm changing out an Artemis for a full on Jupiter to try and compensate; With the Ranger for Janus swap looking like a logistic nightmare I may have to do. Time and more gameplay will tell.