Discussion on 4X games.

[Dragonlord]

FYI (For Your Information) :
IMHO means " In My Humble/Honest Opinion".

[Atrocities]

Birth Of The Federation was a good game that I still enjoy playing. Rebellion I liked a lot, and will always consider to be one of my favorate games. Past that, only SEIV, MOO2, and Stars are all that I can recall playing.

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New Age Ship Yards

"We've made too many compromises already, too many retreats! They invade our space and we fall back -- they assimilate entire worlds and we fall back! Not again! The line must be drawn here -- this far, no further! And I will make them pay for what they've done!" -- Captain Picard STNG

Borg Breen Species 8472 Cardassian Dominion STNG Ferengi Klingon Romulan
Trek Movie era TOS Illuminati Starwolf

[Shyrka]

quote:

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Originally posted by Aub:
Ascendancy. I spent one night, form 9pm to 8 am, playing Ascendancy non-stop. My wife was quite mad

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quote:

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The game had its charm, there really was something about it But, one night was enough to figure out that the AI sucked and the game had major bugs that were never fixed.

That game had great potential. But the attitude of the developers was just opposite to MM's. It's a real pity.

Still, that game had lots of fresh ideas and I don't resent buying it. You may laugh, but one of the things I enjoy is comparing ideas of different 4x games and the ways they are executed.

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Sometimes i do the same. SE4 is the game that best combines the 4X concepts, IMHO

[Shyrka]

quote:

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Originally posted by Dragonlord:
FYI (For Your Information) :
IMHO means " In My Humble/Honest Opinion".

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Thank you, Dragonlord. I'm improving my english in this forum!

Buying SE4 was a really good idea!

[Repo Man]

Ascendancy, now that was a an example of game with great ideas produced by people who don't play their own games. It had one of the worst bugs ever. Ships used rather large amounts of fuel in battle, so economy of force was paramount, or should have been. The bug caused every friggin ship to lose fuel when one ship moved. In SEIV terms, it would be the same the supply use of one ship would cause every ship in the fleet to use the exact same supply.

The producers did put out a patch, but it was too little too late.

The game was a turkey.

[Power Man]

I like playing the game SpaceWard Ho!
It is a fairly simple game that one could get trough a game in one Long day.
It has all of the 4X stuff. The ships look different, and it easly supports multiplayer on a LAN.
It even works in WIN 95 through WIN ME !
If you started out too close to an AI player you could even get Killed off.
I think it had a MAC as well as DOS Version.

[Baron Munchausen]

Has anyone been reading the MOO 3 site? (heh... like anyone in this thread would NOT have been to the MOO 3 site!)

The more I read of the over-views, pre-views, official pronouncements and what not, the better it sounds. They seem to be doing everything right! MOO 3 might be the greatest game of the genre just like Civ 3 is likely to be the greatest of its own genre.

Until Civ 4 and MOO 4, anyway...

The description of the new interstellar travel system sounds like modified warp points, btw. They seem to have no worries about borrowing good ideas from other games. They will have both the 'flat-space' model and something like warp-points in the same game. I wish MM would steal from MOO more shamelessly.


[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 18 October 2001).]

[JDC]

I'm showing my age here but the original SSG "Reach for the Stars" pointed the way for contemporary PC 4X space games. In it's day, it was unsurpassed.

Its later reincarnations has shown how a system can be too ingrown. While the "RftS" by-word was simplicity, the ability of gamers has outgrown the level of simplicity maintained. SSG confused improvements with graphics so the later Versions are the same constructs with a pretty interface. We've gone beyond that and that's the point designers should keep in mind. Is SE4 as pretty as the latest "RftS"? No. Is it a deeper game? Yes. Is it more popular? Yes. We can then conclude that designers should concentrate on gameplay.

I look forward to MOO3. I know one of the people working on it and he does have a sense of balance.

[Repo Man]

One of the best ground combat models which would work great for the SE series is the old Pacific War model by Gary Grisby. This classic was released in 1993 or so, and is now free for downloading at www.matrixgames.com.

Translating the pacwar model to SEIV (or maybe SEV<g> ), here is how I would approach it.

The basic ground unit would be a division. Of course, this name could me modded to pretty much anything, such as legion, corp, herd, or whatever.

Empires would raise troops from population (exceptions could apply of course for special races), these would fill the division� ranks. Equipment for the division could and would me upgraded; equipment would include troops personal armor, small arms, artillery, tanks, and so forth. The equipment would be produced similar to the way troops are now produced, but once produced, be treated like stored minerals.

This pool of equipment is directly from Pacwar and its cousin, War in Russia (also available for free).

Divisions would remain and not be scrapped to upgrade, but when ready, there would be an equipment upgrade. Of course, the training level would drop as the troops would have to be retrained in the new equipment.

Supply should also be critical for troops, and I would increase its importance for both ships and troops; not for micromanagement purposes but rather to give greater depth and meaning to the space combat. After all, the SE series is really about ship to ship combat. But I digress.

Ground combat should be designed to Last more than one turn, the average combat should be designed to take approximately 10 turns, provided the ground troops can receive both replacements and supplies. That in turn, results in fighting for control of the space around a planet becomes critical, cutting off the supply source would lead to a huge advantage on the ground. Of course, maintaining a tight blockade should be much harder than simply winning combat around the planet, and in fact, could give rise to a whole slew of new combats; blockade running.

If only I knew how to program.

[Tampa_Gamer]

Baron - I agree. I also like the advanced ground combat model. It looks like they took some of the better elements from the ground combat in Star General (my favorite aspect of that particular game). For SE5, I would love for MM to team up with one of the other engines here at Shrapnel (i.e. the War Engine or CC2 engine) for ground combat.

[This message has been edited by Tampa_Gamer (edited 18 October 2001).]