Which to start with? 4 or 5?
 

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

Re: Which to start with? 4 or 5?
 

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.

Re: Which to start with? 4 or 5?
 

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.

Re: Which to start with? 4 or 5?
 

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.

Re: Which to start with? 4 or 5?
 

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

Re: Which to start with? 4 or 5?
 

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.

Re: Which to start with? 4 or 5?
 

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!

Re: Which to start with? 4 or 5?
 

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...

Re: Which to start with? 4 or 5?
 

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.

Re: Which to start with? 4 or 5?
 

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

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