Space Empires V screenshots

mmmm.... looks nice.

I see some things of potential interest for GalCiv2.

A victory condition of the kind "peace throughout the quadrant" seems pretty much like some kind of alliance victory, of a different kind. It is about the achievement of a common AND coherent drive towards whattever is wanted. I gess that it is pretty much the same as having one race which wins, staying the one to pursue the destiny of living beings into the future.

One problem with SEV is that is is not fully TB. Its tactical combat part is realttime.

Yes, I have been watch the development of SEV as well. I love that game as much as GalCiv, both are great stuff. If only the best of both were combined. Get both is challening, not so much a money constraint as it is a time constraint. However, I will end up buy both and trying to play both.

SE V does make some great headway into the space. BRad - I salute you in showing respect to a good game.

I think it is good to have friendly competition on Computer gaming.

Yea, can't wait for se5 and gc2 se5 has tactical combat, which may give it an edge, but we will see... regardless I will be getting both.

I'll pass on SEV.

The problem I had with SE (SEIV), in general, is that it was a play-by-e-mail game. In single player mode, this means *long* end-of-turn waits. Did they correct this in SEV by having the AI running in the background? I don't know. We'll have to see.

- N

Well, SE4 has always had a single player mode vs the AI (as far as I know).

Malfador sold old and turn the battles into a RTS. I have no interest in this game because of that, that was the first step that Quicksilver did to put out the blasphemy that is Master of Orion 3.

I really wish people would stop stepping into the RTS bandwagon, its an oversatured genre and putting it into a turn based space strategy game is NOT what the fans of the genre want to see.

SE4 was a great game, we played it on lan at my house often. I also liked its single player and modabity but i'll with with GC2 you guys haven't sold out yet

edit: BTW SE4 wasn't all PBEM, it had tcp-ip, lan, and hotseat as well. Only thing i didn't like about it was that the AI didn't use any special abilities like creating wormholes and complex ships.

I wouldn't say they are anywhere close to an rts. Just because the battles, which are not a large part of the game, are real time doesn't make it an rts. In moo2, there were tactical battles that were turn based. I would normally let the AI simulate and watch, which is the same as real time I suppose. I find it much more interesting than the civ style of combat.

I think its a shame that gc2 will not have this to start, they put in a great graphics engine, and awesome ship creation and yet they will fight it out civ style. I think theres alot of potential for tactical battles.

umm, there was nothing so wrong with realtime battles in moo3 , it was the rest of the game that made it bad. i would like Galciv2 to have realtime battles similar to HW or moo3 style(with better graphics and options) moo2 style is old and boring. something like was done in UFO:Aftermath would be even better, it wasnt turnbased but not entirely realtime either.

personally, i like moo2 combat best. I liked the way your ships can run out of missiles, the only real problem with it was that your fleets would start off too close i thought so it did not allow much monoverinng. but i loved the shiled system too, toobad i seemed to find myself faced up against the partical cannon too much. it is pointless to add in all these nifty features of customisatble ships unless you can do this. If it is realtime, the effect of the weapons will be overlooked and it will just become a slog match as it was in Impiruim Galactica 2.

using system similar to Ufo:aftermath would also allow such tactics but it would speed up the battle and would also be accepted by those who like realt time battles.

RTS has no place in TBS. If people want to play an RTS game, they should go play one! RTS battles in a TBS game are completely out of place.

RTS battles in MoO3 did suck! Why? Because the human player (you know, the guy or gal that paid money for the game) couldn't really tell what the effect of "his" designs had. There was no real tactics involved. If players cannot tell what the effects of their designs have, then there is no point in letting the player design ships. This means that in short order, players aren't designing ships, they are just taking the defaults. And they are skipping the battles. That means 2 large sections of code that the designers spent their precious resources on (time, money, and art) was wasted!

Compare MoO2 to MoO3. In MoO2, players had all the same options as in MoO3. But, more players took the time to do their battling themselves then in Moo3. Why? Because there, design and tactics could make a big difference. That made it fun for more customers. That means, it wasn't a waste of developer time to include.

If GC2 had to have tactical combat, it needs to be TBS, just like the main map. That will allow players to utilize their ship designs and utilize their tactical skills to their advantage. MoO2 combat, not MoO3 combat. The player should be the brain that makes all the real decisions and does all the strategizing and tacticizing--- not some AI code segment in the game.

umm, hysterical fear of rts elements shouldnt really be taken into account.

using the system that was in place in UFO:A, where u could pause and give new orders anytime, and where game paused when current orders were finished or new enemies appeared on the map would be perfect solution. anytime something new happened that could change the outcome of the battle the game paused and introduced you to this new threat. player was able to change its tactics depending on what was going on, to order his troops to move away when missle was fired at them and the success of this move depended on the distance the missle was fired from. it kept all the important elements from TBS battles of old UFO games and removed all that was not needed and slowed the game down. theres no waiting on ai to finish its turn, but you had all the time you wanted to order your forces as u will. this system could be perfected and used in games like Galciv very well.

altough i personaly have nothing against full rts battles. at the end whats important is the illusion of realety the battle needs to represent. if it gives u too much advantage and things to micromanage then it wouldnt be accepted by large part of players. same goes for Moo3s battles that were too alienated from players, you didnt really get the feeling that you were in control.

RTS battles in MoO3 did suck! Why? Because the human player (you know, the guy or gal that paid money for the game) couldn't really tell what the effect of "his" designs had. There was no real tactics involved. If players cannot tell what the effects of their designs have, then there is no point in letting the player design ships.

How do you figure real-time battle simulation has anything to do with being able to tell what effect your designs have? I mean, depending on how it's done, a real-time battle can be identical to a turn-based one (orders/actions occur on pseudo-turns, say, every 5-10s).

It's not like we're talking *Craft here. Heck, Stars! could have done it's combat in real-time, and it would have made no difference at all, since the battles are completely simulated (no player interaction) as a result of the simultanious turns.

It really comes down to two things: gameplay, and information. The game mechanics must be designed so players can easily understand how the battle was won/lost; if you have to pull out a calculator to figure out why your battleship was destroyed first, it's no good. You also need to provide that information to the player, so playing out a battle like a movie might be fine for the first watch, but it's useless if the player is trying to analyse the battle. For that you're going to need to cover up some of that pretty space background, give them the details, and let them step one-by-one through events.

Real-time and strategy are not mutually exclusive, just because a cold and windy company capitalized on one way of doing it. If you don't believe me, give the Knights of Honor demo a try.

It's not hysterical fear. I like RTS. I like TBS. Both have their strengths. Both have their drawbacks. I don't mind a little mixxing and matching when it's done to good effect. ie, the original X-COM used RTS on the main map and TBS tactical. That worked well for that environment and helped build a suspense and tension (very fitting for the game). Homeworld was an RTS that required lots of pause and order, making it practically TBS in certain scenarios.

RTS battles have no place in a TBS game in which you design your own units. MoO3 really alienated its customer base with their tactical system. Why? Because the scale of the combat and the speed of the combat was such that players didn't know what their own units were doing, nor how well they did it. Remove that connection, and you have just removed any reason to bother including ship design in the game. If players don't feel the connection between ship design and performance in combat, then the combat becomes meaningless to them. When it becomes meaningless, they then just skip it. If the majority of players are skipping the combat, there isn't a reason to have it in the game.

SP TBS games target customers are the micro-managers and people that have a want or need to play at their own pace (ie, dads and moms that have to put down the controls while they take care of something in the house and then return to what they were doing). RTS doesn't fit either of those people's needs. RTS tactical combats can look pretty (ie, Homeworld masses of small fighters swarming over capital ships, while the capital ships turn in a slow ballet to bring their weapons to bear), but eye candy like that disappears very quickly in the long term of a game. Indeed, it generally vanishes in the first couple of days of playing a game, unless its a game like X2 or Railroad Tycoon 3 which forces you into noticable spans of doing nothing except stare at the pretty graphics on the screen. Are you saying we should be forced to click once and watch the big fight movie the hundreds of times that you will fight on even medium maps? Why? If the player isn't interacting with that layer, there isn't a point on wasting time on it. Not developer time. Not player time. Star Dock doesn't have unlimited resources to spend on GC2, after all. And if it isn't going to contribute to a significant portion of GC2 players enjoyment of the game, it isn't worth Star Dock wasting their precious time and budget on it.

A secondary, but I think still important issue, is the time spent on waiting in games where you have seperate tactical combat layer. The transistion time alone will really mount up in GC2, and will be especially noticable from moderate map sizes onward. Think about it. How many fights do players get into on, say, Large, Rare, Tight map settings with full count of AI civs? Transition time (load screen time) will really add up. I play a lot of Japanese console style RGS. In these RPGs, you will fight thousands of times. In the games where you have a seperate tactical combat system/layer, whether its RTS or TBS, it really slows down the amount of time spent playing the game, because each battle has to load up, and then when that battle is done, then the main screen has to be loaded again. This load up time alone usually doubles the time it takes to play the game to closure, without adding to the fun of the game. Why? Because all that time added is pure down time looking at the load/transistion screen. If you are going to fight, and fight a lot, intergrate it. Put it on the main screen, regardless of what the combat system is, and let your players spend their time playing, and not waste time while the game switches between layers. With GC2's current game engine, it should just super zoom in on the tile being fought over, if the game just has to have a seperate tactical layer. Whether that's TBS or RTS, that one refinement will allow players to devote more time to actively playing. More playing means more time spent on having fun.

When we boil it all down, we have to remember this is about fun, and what it is about GC that we find fun. Why do you play GC? What is it that you find fun? Why does everyone else play GC? What is it that they find fun about it? What elements in GC attract its customers? What elements keep people playing the game? If the main map is set in a TBS environment, to allow us to spend all the time we want to on micro-managing our empire, then we are talking about a customer base that will be biased to micro-management and going at its own pace. Even the best RTS systems (using a "pause and give orders" UI) will not please that bias. Why? Because players will not be able to see what every unit of their forces is doing, and how well or poorly. That's diametrically opposed to being able to see on the main map how well each of your units there (ie, worlds, starbases, etc) are doing, and how well they do it. That will irritate a lot more customers then customers that the number of players that get a happy charge out of having a RTS tactical combat layer.

I don't care whether tactical combat is turn based or real time, I would simulate it anyways... The point is I like to watch how my designs did, see the new weapons and missles in action. There is no reason the battles can't be skipped if the player so desires. But the civ style combat is pretty old and considering all the new technology being pumped into this game it doesn't really fit. I would love to zoom into the battles, but if thats not possible, it needs some form of tactical combat.

UFO:A illustrates exactly why I prefer TBS to RTS.

Instead of moving individual units into position one by one, you moved a single "gun-mass" of troops that would kill anything with combined firepower. You couldn't really tell who did most of the killing. You didn't even care.

With TBS games, you move each unit separately. You tell the unit to fire. You get to see each unit kill his target. It makes them seem powerful. While you can still achieve the "gun-mass" effect in TBS, it simply feels different.

Also... Some of the rather amusing combat elements that made me fall in love with MoO2 wouldn't work in real-time. The phasing cloak + hyper-x capacitors + time-warp facillitator combo is simply not possible.

- Nobody

well thats just your way of playing. i knew exactly who did what in UFO:A, its u that didnt bother to use any real tactics.
in HW i never paused the game to give orders becouse that wasnt really needed in that game.

My way of playing, eh? Fair enough... but it worked and let me beat the game.

The point is, being forced to move individual units is more tactical and provides a better feel for strategy than group-mass movements. I prefer TBS games for this very reason.

- Nobody

My girlfirend and I enjoyed playing Moo2 together. We never got past the first game of Moo3 precicely because of the realtime tactical combat.

And I've played HW, if you can handle it's space combat without pausing, you're in no position to comment on how well the common player can handle real time combat. Not a knock, rather a sign of respect.

Speaking as someone with a little bit of knowledge of SE5, let me tell you that Malfador has publicly stated in IRC chats that the "realtime" combat will be pausable. Therefore it is more like a hybrid between a turn-based combat system and a real-time one. As far as I know, the reason Malfador chose to go to a semi-realtime method of combat was to resolve some long-standing issues with the turn-based combat system. Take this situation in SEIV as an example. You have a fleet of 50 dreadnoughts waiting to invade the enemy homesystem. However, he has 50 battlecruisers waiting for you on the other side of the warp point. The mechanics of the game dictated that the defender fired first (logically). However, since this was a warp point assault, the defender is waiting right around the warp point, and the invaders also end up mixed around the warp point (since they just went through it!). With a little luck, the defending battlecruisers (much weaker than the average dreadnought) may defeat the invading force, simply because they had the chance to soften up the enemy before they could even fire back! Wtih a real-time combat system, a more realistic result will occur, since both attacker and defender are able to fire simultaneously, so we dont' end up with totally unrealistic combat results.

That's about all I can say about SE5, since I'm a beta tester and have signed an NDA. But everything I said above is common knowledge in the SE community. Trust me, we have debated the real-time addition to the game endlessly, and have come to trust that the designers of the game know what we want, and know where their previous success has come from. And to be honest, isn't combat only one facet of any 4X game? Doesn't a lot of the fun in any 4X game come from creating an empire from scratch, outmaneuvering your enemies, gaining control of that critical system, defeating an enemy stronger than you due to your better tactics? I trust that the game will end up being great, as the previous games were.

Personally, I'm going to be buying both GalCiv2 and SEV. They both occupy the nearly void 4X space game genre, but occupy different parts of it. They are not mutually exclusive, and I'm sure will both be great fun to play for hours upon hours.

Who said they liked Moo2 combat? .... Have you ever played it agianst a person? opponents turn... opponent hits wait... your turn you move up cant fire out of range... opponent moves before end of turn moves up hits end turn, moves agian and is in your face, unloads all his mirv nukes game over.

Also I noticed since this game was going to be serious competition, strategy first nabbed publish rights, GG. Any news of weather this will have a real multiplayer as oppoest to the crap they had in se4?

Sadly SEV will have realtime tactical combat. There was nothing wrong with TB-tactical combat in SE1-4. En contraire, the player could evaluate the perfomance of his ships in this way. Tactical combat and the excellent "tactical combat simulator" have been essential tools for constantly improving the qualitiy of your own ship designs. And it was fun too.

The only problem was that tactical combat could last very long. For me it was just a minor problem, because if I play a 4x game I know that I have to invest days and weeks. And I am used to play wargames too (computer and board) and if anybody has ever played the wargames "World in Flames" or "Stalingrad" he will know how many hours alone the counter setup lasts.

But for others which are not very patient the slow pace seemed to be more of a problem. The designers heard their cries and so the misery begun. What could have been the perfect turnbased 4x game is now a hybrid with limited play value for me because of its new realtime combat.

As another poster (renegade 13) above said there have been some imbalances in SEIV combat because the defender shoots before the attacker. This is true, but to correct this problem is easy. So there is absolutely no reason to change from turnbased to realtime because of this little design failure.