Which to start with? 4 or 5?

Fenris99 · #1 September 7th, 2009, 03:26 PM

I actually own both SE IV (deluxe) and SE V but have never played either. Which one is easier to start with?

Fenris99 · #2 September 7th, 2009, 05:02 PM

Games I've played in the past: All the Civ games, Sins of a solar empire, Sword of the stars, Gal civ 2, Supreme commander, the whole command and conquer series, etc etc.

I understand SE is in a class all it's own.

Fyron · #3 September 8th, 2009, 02:48 AM

Start with SE4, don't move on to SE5. There are more than enough good, time-sinking mods available for SE4 to obviate the need for subjecting oneself to the horrors of SE5's UI.

Hugh Manatee · #4 September 13th, 2009, 11:18 AM

SEV's UI isn't "horrific", it could be better, but it's far from horrifying, and Kwok's balance mod is fun and the hex grids, 3D simultaneous space battles are cool. MoO3's ui otoh... *shudders* it's like that face melting head exploding scene from raiders of the lost ark.... THAT's horrifying, and SEV ain't nowhere near that.

Black_Knyght · #5 September 14th, 2009, 12:05 AM

Definitely go with SEIV, and don't even bother with SEV.

Captain Kwok · #6 September 14th, 2009, 04:36 PM

I suggest you try SE5 as well once you become familiar with the general gameplay of the SE series. SE5 has more features and generally better gameplay IMO, but its UI is less intuitive versus SE4 and its performance in Vista isn't too great.

Q · #7 September 15th, 2009, 04:35 AM

If you play solo games against the AI, I would try SE V. Balance mod has a much better AI than anything I have seen in SE IV. Kwok is just too modest to mention this!

Makinus · #8 September 16th, 2009, 08:52 AM

Definitely SEIV, since SEV, as already said, was a very hard UI to work around... i myself already tried a dozen times to play SEV, but the UI ultimately defeats me and i return to playing SEIV.

If someday a SEIV like UI is realeased for SEV then it would become the perfect game... but until them....

I´m perfectly fine with 2d battles/strategic level, and SEV is not really 3d, as the playing field is still 2d, you only can rotate it now in 3 dimensions...

capnq · #9 September 16th, 2009, 06:44 PM

IMO, it's hard to recommend one over the over. For every improvement in SEV over SEIV, there's a detriment of comparable magnitude. I can't say that SEV is better than SEIV; it's just somewhat different.

I'd suggest starting one game of each, and alternate between the two until you develop a personal preference for one or the other. I think I'd start the SEIV game first, but I'm not certain that learning its easier interface first won't make the SEV interface more aggravating to pick up.

PsychoTechFreak · #10 September 26th, 2009, 01:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Q

If you play solo games against the AI, I would try SE V. Balance mod has a much better AI than anything I have seen in SE IV. Kwok is just too modest to mention this!

Oh, is that so? Even better than Devnull and TDM's AI? I'll have to check this.

EDIT: Forget about it. European Versions do not get the latest patch, Empire Interactive is dead... nope.