This leads me to the conclusion that GNN is not reporting the whole story. I really think we need some more info, like WAR DECLARED updates and EVENT updates that should start off each turn, as they did back in MOO2. Half the time, I don't realize I'm at war with someone for a while. Even if you attacked them, they should come up and say "THIS MEANS WAR!" It would be more fun that way too.
This game heavily favors the attacker, so not defending is a good idea. I put no more than one cheap ship on each planet to stop some freak troop ship getting thru. I find the cost of an orbital fleet manager is too much (wasting a square) in most cases to be worth it, especially when is is only good for the defending (read: losing) side. On hard settings you must have that first strike attackers benefit in every combat, so a fle
Any square within about 6-8 squares (turn the grid on) will be close enough to the base to get the effects. 6 squares if you are on the diagonal, 8 on the horizontal or vertical.
The game is open-ended, but you do get declared the victor if you own like 80% of the map. Usually, this is a good thing because you probably won't feel like dragging it out when you have been playing for days already.
The "week" timeframe for turns is absurd, this has been mentioned many times, you are right. Just read it as "years", and it will feel right. The planetary combat is very "thin", you are also right there too, It could use some sprucing up. Gal Civ 3 anyone??
My daddy used to spank me, I want a free game... -Wah
The autoselect thing also drives me nutz especially in big wars. Would like to see it "turn-offable".
1. when i select a ship with a move order on it, I would like to see its destination light up green or something. right now, its destination is lost in mix with others. 2. make it possible to turn off the ship auto-select (when a ship is out of moves, switchs to next). 3. random races ? to fight would be nice. 4. I would sure like some more random events with raiding ships/monsters/dreadlords that attack nearest, or player only on hard s
I almost passed up buying this game over the lack of tactical combat, but I have found it to be much more satisfying than I thought it would be, the tactical part is all the big map manuever. Still, what the system lacks is a real effectual change in the play directly related to your techs. In MOO2, you would research transporters, or boarding assault ships, and then change your actions by trying to board and take over their ships. In this game, you ha
There are a lot of killer setups/tricks in this game. As soon as you figure a few out, move the difficulty up. You might find it isn't good enough to win on the higher settings. I'm playing on obscene now, crippling has become way too easy. So far, the difficulty setting is powerful enough to stop every trick I have (so suicidal is still suicide for me), but i'm working on it.
First off, I want to thank Stardock for a great piece of work, and offer my understanding in how much work it is to get a piece of software from 95% done to 99% done (no one ever seems to make it to 100%). Playing latest update, on win xp, 1 gig ram, X700 pro Radeon card, Intel P4 3 gigahertz. Playing custom race, medium galaxy, genius level AI. Cheats turned off. Settings pretty much default for interface. 1. My w
First off, I want to thank Stardock for a great piece of work, and offer my understanding in how much work it is to get a piece of software from 95% done to 99% done (no one ever seems to make it to 100%). Playing latest update, 1.0X i think it is, on win xp, 1 gig ram, X700 pro Radeon card, Intel P4 3 gigahertz. Playing custom race, medium galaxy, genius level AI. Cheats turned off. Settings pretty much default for interface
Yes, it does seem to me that playing good is currently underpowered and there is no added "fun factor" to keep you going with good. I mean, usually, who cares about trade and diplomacy at the end of the game when the final wars are all going anyway?
You should always have at least one small ship on each planet, that way the AI can't send one troop ship over and grab it, which they WILL do.
Great idea on the planet tiles, DG. Right now the planets look cool, but mean zip, really. I would love to see some slight twist to strategy on the planet tiles, should be easy to code, like a 10% bonus if a tile next to yours is the same type, so clumping up your factories gives you a bonus. Would make a whole new dimension to planet building for about 20 minutes of code time.
On the "weeks" thing, you can only change the text as far as I can tell, don't change the variables, or you will mess up the whole thing. On the screen, most of the time, you will see the term you want, "months" "years" "turns" whatever, so it works pretty well to smooth out that annoying wrinkle.
Great stuff! Looks to me you've done what the MOO3 team managed to botch (I did some beta testing for them). You deserve all the money ur making, and it sounds like you are earning it churning and burning hard on these fixes. Good work!
Only things I would like to see added to the ground combat display are: 1. Tell me if the enemy used gas or mass drivers etc. when they drop on me. 2. Maybe give me a bit of a graphic add in if there are space marines involved 3. Maybe a second or two starter graphic for the gas/mass driver effects. 4. Put a number of troops on the screen that directly correspond to the fight, maybe 50 to 1, so 500 m troops would show up as
I like the social labor lag in the game. I guess you can't just take a billion people trained in construction and turn them into starship technicians in one week.
Interesting concept and I like the screenshot!
Jeez, All I want is an end to the save game file corruption bug and a few balancing tweaks here and there. Such as: 1. AI that knows about engines 2. AI that protects its troop transports and constructors. 3. An option to build a map with "home areas" I mean, fix the randomizer to kind of cluster some of the planets around each homeworld, making it a bit more balanced and producing more playable maps. 4. Probably a
Citizen Pit, at the highest difficulty settings, you have to buy colony ships, the only question is how many. If you don't the AI will have all the planets before you get going and it will all be over. I pretty much agree with the rest of your stuff, however.
Here's my setup/build order to win on painful+ without exploits: Custom race: Federation with mostly ship speed techs and +economy bonuses, maybe some research and soldiering adds. Buy research center and colony ship, turn one. Turn two, buy factory, second colony ship. Turn three, usually I go for one more colony ship. Let second factory build by itself. As your colonies land, buy one factory for
Thanks for the analysis, Citizen Arentol, Your numbers correspond to my own investigations, but I would add that I don't think research costs money the way military and social production do anyway. Try just messing with your sliders, if you increase military or social percentages, your BC per turn income will drop, while increasing research it will rise (because you are dropping the other two.) So funding research, in this game, is the cheapest, r
This point has come up several times already and will continue to as new people buy the game and are baffled by the "week" long turns. You are right, at least in the sense of civilization growth, etc. The view on this seems to come down to whether people are "movie" sci-fi buffs or more "book" sci-fi buffs who are looking at it more realistically and historically. The "book" types are looking at it more like the era of the historical europe
