Some hints for approaching SEV

Beorne · #1 November 26th, 2007, 06:33 AM

I was a very avid SEIV player so I bought SEV As soon it was out. But I was overwhelmed with the interface complexity and I read there were lots of bugs so I rapidly dropped it. Now I've seen lot of debugging work has done on it and on the Kwok's balance mod so I ask you: is it a good and enjoyable game? Are there big issues left over yet?
Another thing ... I tried to start a game without using Quick start to edit some setting ... but I had to hand made my alien race and I did't found a way to load it from the pre-builts. It is possible?
Ah ... last question: I think with all this debugging the game is changed a bit, is there an updated manual? spaceempires5.com is a little confusing ...
Thanks

Siirenias · #2 November 26th, 2007, 07:09 AM

Try to relate between SE IV and SE V as two animals in the same genre, and it's a little easier. V is more intricate, and I personally enjoy hand-shaping my empires. I dunno about presets, but I just checked, and my saved empires from my current game are loadable into a new game.

I know I enjoy SE V. However, my empire now spans half the quadrant with a standing navy of over 250 ships...and a turn can take a while. Also, I must look into reworking enemy design doctrine, as I find their loadouts to be disappointing under battleship tonnage.

As for bugs...I say avoid trying to recover fighters during combat. No idea how, and every time I try, it crashes the game. However, it's more likely that I leave the game open for days, playing a few turns, and having to save and reopen the app due to memory usage. Try to avoid any battles that could overload your processor, too. The battles look great, but so many little moving ships...can sure consume processing power.

Hope that helps!

Fyron · #3 November 26th, 2007, 02:09 PM

Quick Start does not allow you to load empire files; all it does is generate the empire from the AI settings for you. You can save game settings and empire files in the normal start up mode.

An updated manual is available (last update was with 1.13 patch):

SE5 Manual 1.13

Beorne · #4 November 27th, 2007, 06:19 PM

I haven't been clear.
If I click on "new game" then I'd like, for example, play Eee Consortium. I go on Add new empire and I can' find how to load the Eee or any other pre made races, it appears I can only build a race from scratch. How could I, without doing a quick start, load a pre build race?
Thanks.

Fyron · #5 November 27th, 2007, 06:43 PM

The game does not ship with pre-built empire files, since you would need at least 16 copies of every race to cover every combination of racial points and starting tech levels (full isn't necessary, since any empire file selected will still result in full tech levels at game start). Maintaining all of these empire files with each patch would be a nightmare for Malfador, as would selecting them from the lists. Imagine scrolling through 240 empire files, and that's just the stock races... The game setup code just isn't designed to select a race based on the Empire folders, and still be able to customize whatever game options you prefer.

One possibility might be just a base set of empire files with only 2000 racial points spent, and 0 tech points. This is a flawed solution, however, since it would more often than not result in players starting with an underpowered empire file.

You can generate empire files as the AI would make them yourself, though. Start the game up with the settings you prefer to play with, turn all AI empires over to human control in the Players menu, and use the "save empire to file" feature. Then start a new game and load the particular race you want to use.

Beorne · #6 November 28th, 2007, 06:18 AM

Soryy, there is something I don't grasp.
If I do "Quick start" I can select forom some pre-built empires. So they have to be somewere ...

Hugh Manatee · #7 November 28th, 2007, 07:24 AM

The game builds it when the game starts, there are no saved "stock" empires in stock SEV. It would be kinda pointless with all the rule variations, point variations, tech points ect to try and make a "stock" set for each scenario outside of quickstart, so the game auto builds you an empire with the race style you choose when you quickstart.

You can quickstart a large game with each race, use the "master" password to take over for the non player empires, save all the empires as outlined above in fyron's post and use them as "canned" races, but you're better off getting to know the traits so you can build your own effective empire. If you're doing single player, you can still have AI empires randomly generated too.