SE:V, I'll be honest

[Ragnarok-X]

Uncle_Joe said:
Ragnarok,

Out of curiosity, what was your take on Sword of the Stars? I gather that you dont/didnt care for it. I have it, but havent really been able to get 'into' it. Its not really a '4x' game IMO, its more like an RTS with a turn-based econ side.

What about it was disappointing for you?

The game is bad. Combat is very bad, research is using an old, outdated system as well. The entire colony/development-system is horrible, actually the worst i have seen. One system is resembled by a single planet, which you develope by TWO sliders ? huh ?!

Ship construction is boring. Diplomacy is non-existant. Ground combat is hilarious, no depth or tactic or anything like that involved. The only thing that is good is that those 4 races are using unique expansion/propulsion systems, but thats about it. Should i compare SotS to SEV, i would say SotS is an even bigger let-down than SEV And that already means something.

I have to admit that a good mod, like Star Wars Mod or Adamant Mod or Devnull Mod could change my opinion about SEV.

[Theonlystd]

Now i know i dont post often so doubt many care of my opinion

But i start played Se3 empires prolly 6,7 years ago.. Been playing Se4 pretty much non stop for months here latly.


I was excited about the demo and well it was a bit of a let down.

I cringe to think how much time was wasted on horrid 3d graphics.. Ground Combat teh i thought that was lame when i was 13, 8years ago in imperium galactica 2..

And omg how did ship design manage to make it this far in its current shape that'll keep me from playing tell its fixed in some way even i have better things to do than that process? Y cant i double click on a planet to bring up the construction que? Scrolling and stuff seems a bit jerky. I also just dislike the 3d enviroment the zooming in and out.

Tho its not all bad.. I like the new supply and ordance system,the larger tech line, the real time combat could have potential really gotta test it againist Ai's in big battles to know if they can handle it or not.

[Barnacle Bill]

AngleWyrm said:
As an aside, what do you think about an economy based on one credit = one man-hour of work?

An hour of work by the guy who mows my lawn and an hour of work by a cardiovascular surgeon do not have the same market value (especially to the guy needing bypass surgery).

[Barnacle Bill]

PDF said:
If ever we could have a game with a good planet dev system such as MoO2's or Civ-like ...

I think it was a mistake for these sorts of games to move away from the more abstract "Stellar Conquest"-based system used in the original MOO, the original (8 bit) Reach For the Stars, etc... Most of the tedious late-game micromanagement of big empires stems from having to mess with all the individual buildings on planets/cities - and is worse in the Civ games (and to a lesser extent MOO2)where you've got to micromanage what the individual population units are doing, clean pollution, etc... Much more streamlined to have production calculated as (population + factories) * (some constant for planet "richness"), with advancing technology just raising the allowed ratio of factories to population. I'd rather spend my time micromanaging ship/unit design & tactical combat.

On the other hand, I do like the separation of resources from production, with resources being consumed proportional to production. This would eliminate the "richness" factor in the above calculation, which would instead factor into resource production (which would be relatively independent of population). The idea would be an economy of relatively few high population industrial worlds being fed by a larger number of low population mining colonies, the former probably being of high habitability and the latter mostly domed. Then some elegant rules to cover resource convoys to be defended from pirates & enemy player commerce raiders to create a military purpose for small ships...

[Raapys]

Did any game ever really have a better planet development system and economy model than MoO3? Looking past the bugs, I can't really remember any that even came close. All other games have such simple systems, MoO3's is *complex* and rather realistic.

IMO an ingenius macromanagement system( development plans, budgets, etc.) that even allows for very much micromanagement if you'd rather do things yourself.

[Barnacle Bill]

Raapys said:
Did any game ever really have a better planet development system and economy model than MoO3? Looking past the bugs, I can't really remember any that even came close. All other games have such simple systems, MoO3's is *complex* and rather realistic.

IMO an ingenius macromanagement system( development plans, budgets, etc.) that even allows for very much micromanagement if you'd rather do things yourself.

I can't honestly address MOO3, because I never got far enough into my first & only game of it to get even a little bit up the learning curve. I was a regular on the on the forum during its development, and was very enthusiastic about the game concepts ("The Elephant") described there by Alan Emrich. However, my enthusiasm receded as they first started throwing features overboard, and then threw Alan overboard, and a couple of high profile volonteer devs/ uber-betas / whatever-you-want-to-call-em left in a huff or were pushed. Anyway, I ended up buying the game but just didn't get drawn into it as I usually do with 4Xers.

[Ragnarok-X]

Raapys said:
Did any game ever really have a better planet development system and economy model than MoO3? Looking past the bugs, I can't really remember any that even came close. All other games have such simple systems, MoO3's is *complex* and rather realistic.

Yeah, that was pretty much the best system. Each planet had several regions, all with different fertility and mineral richness, plus regional AND planet-based extras. Plus DPAs which were influenced by the amount of people working each region. VERY good. It wasnt even as bugged as the rest of the game.

[AngleWyrm]

An hour of work by the guy who mows my lawn and an hour of work by a cardiovascular surgeon do not have the same market value (especially to the guy needing bypass surgery).

Or the guy needing a lawn mowed.

And here I wonder if the original reason is simply that there are a lot of lawns to mow, so a fella could make a living at it. But bypass surgery is a skill needed only rarely, thus we make up for it by paying him a full wage for a few hours' work.

Then of course greed set in.

[Xrati]

OK, you've divided the game into two separate issues. I�ve played Reach for the Stars and MOO3. MOO3�s economics are a game within the game and could stand on its own. RFTS is a basically simple game with all the economics factored in. Has anyone ever played any game that had economic micromanagement and space combat in it that was any fun to play? If you want economics the get a game based on that and if you want planetary development then go get something like SimCity. You cannot get all those factors into ONE game. Somewhere, if you want combat and ship building you have to regulate the economics and planetary building. Do you really want a game that will take you hours to do one turn. You just can�t have it all!

In MOO3 when you get large the economics become unmanageable, as at that point you want the computer to take over the many planets you now have. The AI is flexible but still has problems taking over where you leave off. What you are all asking for is four separate games in one that run well. When you find one, please let me know.

[Ragnarok-X]

Xrati said:
OK, you've divided the game into two separate issues. I�ve played Reach for the Stars and MOO3. MOO3�s economics are a game within the game and could stand on its own. RFTS is a basically simple game with all the economics factored in. Has anyone ever played any game that had economic micromanagement and space combat in it that was any fun to play? If you want economics the get a game based on that and if you want planetary development then go get something like SimCity. You cannot get all those factors into ONE game. Somewhere, if you want combat and ship building you have to regulate the economics and planetary building. Do you really want a game that will take you hours to do one turn. You just can�t have it all!

In MOO3 when you get large the economics become unmanageable, as at that point you want the computer to take over the many planets you now have. The AI is flexible but still has problems taking over where you leave off. What you are all asking for is four separate games in one that run well. When you find one, please let me know.

I want at least to be able to actually manage my economy. In Moo3, i was managing my planets almost ALL the time. It wasnt that hard. Of course its a matter of taste.
Click on a region, see its mineral value, and build mining or industry DEAs. Or research. Or gouverment. Or military.

In SEV, i have exactly 5 things to value, mineral %, organic %, radioactive %, pop, size. THats it. Again, should i grade those 2 eco models on a scale from 1 to 10, i would give MoO 3 a 7-8, and SEV probably a 4-3.

One thing you are missing in your comparion to Reach for the Stars is that that game was about macromanagment. You usually had fleets of douzens, maybe hundreds of ships, which you just send bulk against hostile fleets.
Research was very simple as well, same goes for colonization. There was only planet size and atmosphere/temperature to keep in mind, of thise the last two were indicated by a colorcode (yellow, blue, green..)

The entire game was more about big view. SEV offers a lot of micromanagment though, because of that i want to micromanage my economy as well.

btw Are there any news of Aaron liste to the suggestions, like double-click-opens-the-planet-window, or rightclick opens-component-details, another rightclick-close-component-details ?