Discussion on 4X games. - Page 2

Pustov 2 · #11 October 16th, 2001, 03:51 PM

Reach for the stars. (by ssi) Did not reach to far. And I have to say that the AI in space Empire IV is one of the best I'v ever seen. The best is moo. moo2 is alright but I think SEIV is better

Pustov 2 · #12 October 16th, 2001, 03:56 PM

And by the way Pustov and Pustov 2 are the same I just got stuck in some kind of profile thing whith a change off aderess and passworld so I got a new one

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the only good bug is a dead bug = Starship Troopers

Master Belisarius · #13 October 16th, 2001, 04:12 PM

"And I have to say that the AI in space Empire IV is one of the best I'v ever seen. "

Are you the Aaron's brother?

Although I admit that:
1) The SEIV AI was really improved from the original release.
2) Modding the AI scripts you can improve a lot their behavior.
3) The SEIV AI doesn't cheat.

Honestly, Pustov, I'm far to believe that the SEIV AI is one of the best... After hours and hours and hours testings SEIV AIs scripts, I still can feel the frustration, looking how dumb the SEIV AI can be.

Taqwus · #14 October 16th, 2001, 04:57 PM

Hrmmm. 4X games, eh? Let me think 'bout this... which ones have I played, hrm.

Civ II, VGAP, SMAC, HOMM III, MOO II, SE IV. Perhaps less true to 4X: Strategic Conquest, XConq, EU. Even less strictly 4X: the old BBS doors Solar Realms Elite and Barren Realms Elite, and the old Mac game Bolo, and Netrek.

Of those, hrm. Civ II was pretty good, albeit it had a lot of misfeatures that really, really irritated me (stubborn AIs that demand tribute from a position of weakness; blatant cheating; nonsensical air unit handling; broken GOTO...).

VGAP never grabbed me that much. Dunno why. Maybe because I was the only one who had even the demo on the BBSes I frequented, heh.

SMAC: decent, but far too much 'former micromanagement needed. Again, inane AI diplomacy and cheating, and too little thought went into the design -- e.g. airport equivalents, but they were basically useless.

HOMM III: better, but hero-chaining bothers me. RoE Campaign easy for a novice to get into.

MOO2BAA: Fun. The joys of ship design (read: interesting design. SMAC's unit workshop was largely a joke, relatively speaking.) And the delight of wreaking terrible vengeance for all those Antaran raids.

SE4: Fun. Complex and flexible, not that usual of a combination. AI diplomacy needs a lot of work, 'tho.

Strategic Conquest: Along with the original 'Empire' (mainframe-ish? 'A/a' for army, O for city, etc), granddaddy of many a nice wargame. Expand by taking neutral cities, and then cities belonging to others. Xconq owes a lot to it design-wise, but is far more flexible.

EU: OK. I eventually hated the interface and the diplomacy, however -- especially the asymmetry of bribery (how every pipsqueak country needs bribery to be your friend), the inanity of it all (e.g. being Austria and +200 w/ Spain, Spain not wanting to join alliance, but countries which hate me (-50 and worse) do join?), and the rather blatant AI cheating (e.g. fleets never attriting).

SRE/BRE: Not really 4X, but more Hammurabi-style. Grow your domain, develop it, form pacts with those on the same BBS, and go after other people. The theme lives on in certain web games like 'Utopia'.

Bolo and Netrek: Team-play games where you expand your territory for resources and range, and crush the other guy. Not really 4X at all, but fun. Both require good tactical skill to do well, and both are old games that survive to this present day.

Pustov 2 · #15 October 16th, 2001, 05:15 PM

It's only as dume as you make It. The diplomacy is eratic and the combat system needs help. BUT the way the AI buildes colonies is impresive. Maybe It's because I can switch players in a game and see what they are doning that makes it so cool. I still think It's one of the best 4x games out there. And I don't concider Civ or EU To be a 4x game If they were then I'l agree with you.I'm not saying that the AI in SEVI is beter I,m just saying that for a 4 x game you don't have to worry about history and that there are not that many out there.

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the only good bug is a dead bug = Starship Troopers

[This message has been edited by Pustov 2 (edited 16 October 2001).]

Rhinestone Cowboy · #16 October 16th, 2001, 06:33 PM

Out of all the games mentioned I'm surprised not to see "Star Trek Federation" (Well maybe not that surprised!)

Definitly a MOOII Clone but I believe it was the first space game to include the notion of neutral races. It also had an interesting combat engine. With all the talk of SEIV combat dificiencies, this one may be worth looking at for ideas. Basically you gave your ships a strategy to implement before each combat turn. The AI then modeled the combat in 3D and you watched it unfold.

Unfortunately the AI was not the best and repeatability suffered because of it.

Although I did have fun being the Ferengi and basically buying my way to the top!

If you like MooII and Star Trek it's worth at least a look see....

RhineStone Cowboy

" I don't do Wetwork .... um...Cheap!"

mac5732 · #17 October 16th, 2001, 06:49 PM

I've played Moo & Moo2, but for some reason I enjoyed Moo better then Moo2, oh well, Civ and Civ2, Pax Imperia which I did like, However now with SE4, haven't played it since, The old SSI Imperium Galactica, the first one, was excellent in its time, Reach for the Stars, have the new remake but havn't played it yet, Europa Universalis I do like this one, waiting for II to come out, is interesting, has bugs & needs work but like the format, Birth of a Federation good idea just needs work, gets boring after awhile. Really enjoyed Star General by SSI only problem was buggy and I could never get the patch to load.. still, good beer and pretzel game if you can get it to keep from freezing up all the time. SE4 has become my favorite space game, Shogun favorite tactical game, with the tech of today look foreward to better & challenging games and am looking foreward to upgrades of SE4 and to SE5.

just some ideas mac

[This message has been edited by mac5732 (edited 16 October 2001).]

Repo Man · #18 October 16th, 2001, 06:49 PM

The Best 4X games, IMHO

Reach for the Stars, orignal Version. Huge black hole for time and a decent eco system given the age of the game.

MOO, the original Version. (of course). Had all the elements, but its strongest points were ship design, tactical combat and tech.

MOO II tactical combat and ship design was great, but the eco was rather silly. See the little people commenents below.

Stars!. I found this gem while waiting for MOO II to come out. Its not for everyone, and has its warts, but there is simply so much to do, and once you understand how the whole system works, its tons of fun. For me, it qualifies for the biggest black hole for time award. When fans start using logrithims and calculus to deterime play strategies, that is proof beyond all doubt that people are hooked.

SEIV. Strongest points are the ship design and tech tree. THe eco system is a little blah. Its still worth every penny in my book.

Shyrka · #19 October 17th, 2001, 01:18 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
More detail in certain aspects of the game would help it a lot, though. "Conditions" on planets are too generic. There should be seperate weather/temperature, gravity, and radiation factors, like in MOO or Stars!
[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 15 October 2001).]

Yes, the conditions of a planet are determined by type of surface, gravity, temperature, atmosphere (The gases) and weather (Atmospheric pressures). Weather and atmosphere can be displayed as an unique factor, so i think that te minimun factors to evaluate a planet would be type, gravity, temperature and atmosphere (Gases + weather). I think it is possible to be a race that don't need to breathe (A crystalline race as the Crysolnite would be an example.They are inorganic.) but was born in a gas giant.

There was a game called Ascendancy. The most remarkable thing was the races, with very elaborated concepts, and the shipsets. There was also very logic and advanced technologies. A good game 4X game, i think.

What do you think?

By the way, i'm spanish and i have a question:what does IMHO mean?

Thanks

Aub · #20 October 17th, 2001, 07:56 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Shyrka:

There was a game called Ascendancy. The most remarkable thing was the races, with very elaborated concepts, and the shipsets. There was also very logic and advanced technologies. A good game 4X game, i think.

What do you think?

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

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.

I even buy games sometimes just to "analyze" them and to figure out what they invented and how they applied the old ideas to their game. One remarkable game in that respect was SF: Birth Of the Federation. Lots of great ideas, but the implrmrntation sucked. Oh well.

Aub