Last updated: August 24, 1999

Escape From Earth (Version 1.2)

Background ~ Starting Escape From Earth ~ Notes on Play

Escape From Earth is a scenario for Emperor of the Fading Suns (EFS). It creates a totally new situation, very different from the standard EFS scenario. It is intended for multiplayer games only. Any computer players are likely to be eliminated from the game very quickly. Escape From Earth was designed by Richard Wein.

1. Background

There had been much talk about the possible consequences of the Millennium Bug, but no-one was prepared for the reality. On the 1^st January, 2000, the world was plunged into a period of chaos, mass hysteria and economic depression, far worse than anything that had been seen before. Unemployment soared to rates of 40%, 50% and more, and proved quite impervious to all the usual economic levers. With no end in sight after 10 years, hungry people all over the world despaired, and, in their desperation, abandoned the pursuit of science and technology that had led them to this disaster, turning instead to a renewed faith in religion. When their hunger was not relieved, faith turned to fanaticism and the world was devastated by decades of religious wars. Finally, the new Universal Church was victorious and took up spiritual and temporal leadership of the world, replacing all national governments and other religions.

The year now is 4956 AD. For nearly three millennia, the Universal Church has ruled, using the forces of the Holy Inquisition to stifle any dissent and prevent all technological development. Thus, Humanity has never developed space travel, never left Holy Terra, and never had contact with any alien race.

But now this long period of stasis has been ended by two shattering events. First, the Earth has been invaded by Symbiots. No-one knows where they came from, and the Earth has almost no defence against them. Second, in the hour of Humanity's despair, an emissary has arrived from the Vau.

The Vau are an ancient race that has colonized several planets in this sector of the galaxy. But the time of their great expansion is long past. Now their Empire is decaying. For centuries, there has been no Vau Emperor, and the Empire has been administered (in so far as it has been administered at all) by a caste of incompetent and indifferent bureaucrats.

The Vau have long known of our existence, but have avoided contact. Now, as Humanity faces extinction at the hands (tentacles?) of the Symbiots, the Vau have taken pity on us, and sent a fleet of spaceships to transport the Earth's population to safer planets. Their interest in us is perhaps not entirely altruistic. They hope that we may provide the military leadership and initiative that they lack, as they too face the onslaught of the Symbiots.

The Patriarch of the Universal Church opposes abandoning Holy Terra. He demands that the people fight to the death against the Symbiots, seeing this as the final struggle of Good versus Evil. But many people's faith in the Universal Church has been weakened by the recent events. They ask why the Pancreator appears to have abandoned them, and why the Scriptures make no mention of these alien races. Most people have turned to one of five new Sects which have emerged within the Church. These Sects (Incarnates, Sanctuary Aeon, Eskatonic Order, Brother Battle and Temple Avesti) have decided to break with the Orthodox Patriarch, lead their people into exile among the stars, and even begin developing the technologies that they will need to survive in a hostile Galaxy.

2. Starting Escape From Earth

2.1 Make sure you've installed the official EFS version 1.4 patch. (Escape From Earth will probably work OK with earlier versions of EFS, but you might as well upgrade to the latest one.)

2.2 There is no need to install Nova, as Escape From Earth comes with a full set of data files. You can install Escape From Earth directly on top of standard EFS, or on top of any version of Nova. Do not install any other data files on top of Escape From Earth.

2.3 If you haven't already done so, download Escape From Earth 1.2 (ESCAPE1-2.EXE). This is a self-extracting Zip file. Download it to any directory, and run it (double-click on it in Windows Explorer). Further instructions will then be displayed.

WARNING: This will overwrite many of the standard EFS files, not only the data files and galaxy file. Before unzipping, you should either

1. Make a back-up copy of your entire EFS directory, so you can restore it later when you want to play another scenario, or
2. Make a copy of your entire EFS folder and unzip the Escape From Earth files into it. That way you can play either Escape From Earth or another scenario whenever you like. I suggest you create a new Windows shortcut to the new copy of EFS.EXE.

2.4 Escape From Earth should be played in Random Map mode only. The following planets will remain the same each time you play Escape From Earth: Kish, Aragon, Severus, Delphi, Istakhr, Byzantium II, Holy Terra, Leagueheim and Stigmata.

2.5 Escape From Earth can be played with Universal Warehouse ON or OFF. I recommend OFF.

2.6 I strongly recommend that players agree on some house rules to ban unfair exploitation of the many bugs in the game. You can find a set of house rules at the Nova web site. References in these rules to "Nobles" should be read as "Bishops" for the purpose of this scenario. I suggest you use all the house rules except the following:

And that the following rule should not be applied to resources:

And that rule 30 ("You may not build labs on Holy Terra. The Inquisition seems to ignore any labs there!") be replaced with the following:

I also recommend that you use the alternative rule 15, i.e. switch the Plague option OFF at the start of the game.

If you choose to use the optional system for Balancing the House Traits, you should use the values given in square brackets. In any case, you cannot have any Ancient Documentariums because you don't start the game with a Lab (so you can't pay the research point maintenance cost of the technologies on the first turn).

3. Notes on Play

3.1 In this scenario, the players control Sects, not Houses. You will soon notice that many items of text and graphics in the game have been altered to reflect this. For the most part, these changes are merely cosmetic. The Sects in Escape From Earth operate like the Houses in standard EFS.

Nobles have been replaced by Bishops, and are represented by the Clergy icon.

Engineers have been replaced by Settlers, and are represented by the Peasant icon (not used in standard EFS).

3.2 At the start of the game, the players have forces on Holy Terra (Earth) only. Each player has 5 Bishops, 2 SEALs, many Settlers, a few Naval Transports, and a few garrison units. You also have 4 Vau Transport spaceships. These are nominally "on loan" from the Vau Empire, but you are not required to return them. Due to their superior construction, Vau Transports can land anywhere without taking damage (i.e. they are "landers"). Since there's very little room for expansion on Holy Terra, you need to use the Vau Transports to shuttle your Settlers to other planets as quickly as possible. This will require several journeys, as you have very limited transport capacity. Colonizing far away planets may be tempting, to avoid competition with other Sects, but it will mean that most of your Settlers will remain unproductive on Holy Terra for a long time.

3.3 Holy Terra has recently been invaded by the Symbiots, who have a Hive and strong forces on each continent. While your Settlers are waiting to be shipped off Holy Terra, they need to find somewhere safe to wait. Cities near Symbiot Hives should be evacuated immediately. One possibility is to ship them to islands and/or Antarctica, using your Naval Transports. They will be fairly safe there, as the Symbiots have no naval or hover units. However, you can still be attacked by Symbiot Spitters (air units) and by units landing in Pod Ships. Your Naval transports are also very vulnerable to attack by Symbiot Spitters. Consider razing vulnerable cities, so you can build cities in safer places nearby. After the Symbiots capture a city, they seem to leave it empty for a few turns before they get around to building units there; during this time, you can often grab it back and capture the resources which have accumulated there.

3.4 Each of the 31 randomized planets has only a 30% chance of being habitable. The rest are totally covered by ocean, which means you can never land a spaceship there. So you may have to search a while to find a new planet to colonize, and there may be strong competition between players for the limited space available. This gives some advantage to the players moving earlier in the sequence of play, so these players have been given fewer units at the start, to compensate. Random planets are unoccupied at the start, except for some Alien Ruins (there are no rebels).

3.5 The Patriarch of Holy Terra is always Orthodox, and performs much the same functions as the Patriarch in standard EFS. His forces are based in and around Greenland. As usual, he will send Inquisitors to deal with players who research proscribed technologies. The Orthodox Sect, like each of the 5 player-controlled Sects, has been loaned 4 Vau Transports, so the Inquisition can follow you to other planets. There's no point in asking the Patriarch to vote for you, as he has no scepters.

3.6 The Vau Empire takes the place of the League in standard EFS. Its forces are dark green, it has Agoras where you can sell resources, and you can interact with it through the League's diplomacy screen. The Vau Empire controls 7 planets, shown dark green on the star map. All except Stigmata are Megacity planets. With the exception of Byzantium, you can build cities on Megacity planets, but few resources can be harvested there. Stigmata is a Barren planet, rich in trace, but is under attack by the Symbiots. (You will notice that the names of the Vau planets do not sound very alien. Humans, unable to pronounce the Vau names, have given them names of their own.)

3.7 You will probably not want to attack the Vau Empire, as that would leave you unable to raise money by selling resources. However, if you do go to war with the Vau Empire and are able to capture the Palace of a Megacity world, you will receive an additional income of 5000 Fb per turn. (This is because each such Palace contains a Vau Mandarin, which is now an immobile non-combat unit with a negative maintenance cost of -5000 Fb.) Needless to say, capturing a Vau Palace will not be easy!

3.8 All Megacity planets have an Agora. You can identify it from orbit, as it is located in an area of grass, with a one-hex island nearby. (This one-hex island is the location of the planet's Palace.) In this scenario, Agoras will purchase any resources from you, but they have none to sell.

3.9 The position of Vau Imperial Regent may be occupied by a Human player (such is the apathy of the Vau people). However, you control no Scepters at the start, and must capture one before you can vote. You must also have a Bishop on Byzantium. A single vote is enough to win the election if you are not opposed by other players. There are 24 Scepters, all located on Byzantium. Each tower hex on Byzantium contains one Scepter, and towers can be seen from orbit, so you don't need to explore the surface of Byzantium to find the Scepters. It's likely that a Human Regent will be elected in the turn 20 election. If you're using house rule number 29 ("A noble may not vote unless he has been on the surface of Byzantium continuously since the previous election"), then you need to have a Bishop on Byzantium by turn 10 to vote in that election, but you can capture a Scepter any time prior to turn 20.

3.10 Except for the Palace and Agora, all the cities on Byzantium are Factories. Capturing one of these will enable you to build naval ships on Byzantium. All Scepters and Factories on Byzantium are controlled by the Imperial Guard. Don't be afraid of attacking the Imperial Guard, as this does not constitute an attack on the Vau Empire, and the Imperial Guard itself has no mobile forces that can attack you back. However, the Vau will not allow open warfare on Byzantium, so you need to use SEALs (remember that, in the latest version of Nova, Spies have no combat ability). As each Scepter and Factory is defended only by a single Vau Guard unit, you only need to attack with 2 SEALs to have a pretty good chance of success (but 3 is safer).

3.11 Once elected Vau Imperial Regent, you can assign the three Vau Industrial Concessions. These replace the Ministries of standard EFS. The Concessions are known to Humans as the Gauntlet, the Arachnid and the Winged Sword. (For convenience, Humans have named the Concessions after their emblems. The real Vau names are, of course, far more impressive.) Each Concession has a number of cities on Stigmata: Mines, Wells, processing plants and Vau Complexes (which replace the Vau Cities of standard EFS). The Concessions vary considerably in size, with the Winged Sword being by far the biggest, and the Gauntlet the smallest.

3.12 At the start of the game, the Concessions are already under attack by the Symbiots, who have 4 Hives on Stigmata. The Vau Empire has considerable forces on Stigmata fighting the Symbiots, but the Vau commanders are incompetent. They will not be able to prevent the Symbiots from capturing some cities. The longer it takes for Humans to be appointed to control of the Concessions, the worse shape they will be in.

3.13 Once you've been granted a Concession, you can build Vau units in your Vau Complexes. Vau Complexes cannot be captured (they're destroyed instead). You can also build Human garrison units in any city of your Concession. NOTE: The first player to receive the Gauntlet Concession will find that all his cities are completely full of units. These cities will not be able to produce any resources or build any units until some space has been made (for example by combining cargo pods).

3.14 The main benefit of a Concession is the resources it produces. Using the Concession's transport ships (which start at Byzantium), you can transport these resources to an Agora and sell them for your own personal gain (unless you're using house rule number 8), or you can transport them to a planet where your Sect has cities, for your own use. You may ask, why should I spend resources on building Vau units, which I will lose when I lose the Concession, when I could transport those resources and use them to build units of my own? There are several reasons for doing so, including the following:
(a) Vau units are much more cost effective and quicker to build than equivalent Human units.
(b) You can build advanced Vau units without having any technology (your Vau population has its own technology).
(c) It saves you having to transport the resources for sale or use elsewhere.

3.15 The Vau Republic is an independent Vau faction, which controls Kish. It will do nothing unless attacked. There's nothing to stop you landing on Kish, but all useful sites for harvesting cities are already occupied. You may wish to attack the Vau Republic to capture its cities and Vau Workers (which can be converted into Settlers). Note that, in addition to its city garrisons, the Vau Republic has some mobile hover and foot forces. It also has spaceships in orbit about Kish and two other planets.

3.16 In addition to their ground forces and Pod Ships (transports) on Holy Terra, the Symbiots have a space fleet in orbit about each of the three planets of the Symbiot Cluster (beyond Stigmata). Usually these ships don't move, as they seem to be afraid to move to Stigmata. But, sometimes there is a jump route out of the Symbiot Cluster which by-passes Stigmata. If there is such a jump route in your galaxy, then watch out for Symbiot warships! Any habitable planet in the Symbiot Cluster will have Symbiot Hives on it. Note: in EFS version 1.3, Symbiots could only build new Hives on Holy Terra. In version 1.4, they can build Hives anywhere. Even if the Symbiot fleet doesn't move past Stigmata, you may find the Symbiots expanding from Holy Terra!

3.17 Bishops and Settlers require no pay. This means your expenses are initially quite low, so the 10000 Fb with which you start the game should last you for a while. Before long, however, you will need to raise more money, and this will require selling resources to the Vau. You may also be able to make money by building Palaces and Churches. Until you've built a Palace, you might as well reduce your tax rate to zero, since you have no tax income to lose.

3.18 Bishop Holst's archives (in the Archives menu) have not been updated to reflect the changes in Escape From Earth. Neither have the Tutorial (Advisor) messages.

3.19 Escape From Earth is based on the Nova version 2.3 data files. For full details about Nova 2.3, refer to file NOVA.TXT, which is included with the scenario, or see the About Nova page of the Nova web site. Note, however, that the following changes have been made in Escape From Earth:
(a) As mentioned above, Nobles have been replaced by Bishops. Unlike Nobles, Bishops have no maintenance cost (unit pay), and they have a Psychic attack instead of Indirect.
(b) As mentioned above, Engineers have been replaced by Settlers. Unlike Engineers, Settlers have no maintenance cost, but they consume one point of food per turn instead.
(c) Patriots, Chemical Martyrs, Clergy and Blademasters can no longer be built (so Blademaster technology has no use).
(d) Most Vau units can now be built. Once you have a Vau Concession, you can look at the Build Screen for one of your Vau Complexes to see what each unit costs.
(e) Some Vau units have been changed: Vau spaceships are now stronger; Vau Interceptors are no longer jump-capable (but they can be transported like Space Fighters); Vau Guards are now immobile units, for defense only; Vau Mandarins are now immobile, non-combat unit with a maintenance cost of -5000 Fb (as explained above).

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