OT: Stardocks Fantasy TBS

[sector24]

You have a refreshing and ultra-rational approach to things, I too would like to hear why you're not interested.

Personally I think the game is starting to sound more and more like the fantasy version of GalCiv in which case I'll probably pass. GalCiv is great in its own way, but I don't think it has any replay value once you attain a certain level of competence. Same with Sins of a Solar Empire for that matter. A disturbing trend...

It's still too early to actually glean anything from the interviews and press releases though. Everything is still in the dreamtime phase where everything sounds "awesome" and no important design decisions have been revealed.

[licker]

Originally Posted by sector24

You have a refreshing and ultra-rational approach to things, I too would like to hear why you're not interested.

Personally I think the game is starting to sound more and more like the fantasy version of GalCiv in which case I'll probably pass. GalCiv is great in its own way, but I don't think it has any replay value once you attain a certain level of competence. Same with Sins of a Solar Empire for that matter. A disturbing trend...

It's still too early to actually glean anything from the interviews and press releases though. Everything is still in the dreamtime phase where everything sounds "awesome" and no important design decisions have been revealed.

Agreed, GalCiv becomes utterly pointless once you have mastered a few tricks, and other than putting strict self imposed limits on yourself (and I'm not talking about cheese...) the games are just an exercise in waiting for the inevitable and then deciding what the quickest way to win is without actually having to do anything other than click 'end turn'.

That said, I will likely get this game at some point anyway, just because I like Brad's overall philosophy of software, even if I don't always enjoy the actual products as much as I think I should. Still I'm sure I'd get enough game play out of it to justify the purchase.

I just hope that the actually design the game to allow for a competitive AI, as opposed to the incredibly open design of GalCiv which makes it seemingly impossible to actually have an AI capable of defending or attacking reasonably.

I have the same problem with AoW, though at least there you have MP, but the SP is just... uggg... tedious and painfully boring once you get the basics down due to the sheer idiocy of the game design crippling any potential for the AI to actually be somewhat competitive.

Oddly to most people, MoO3 had the best design to allow for a competitive AI, even if the initial release had a craptastic aI, however, the modders have actually addressed most of its major shortcomings, so that game actually plays pretty well now, well, if you can accept the macro style of empire management...

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by licker

That said, I will likely get this game at some point anyway, just because I like Brad's overall philosophy of software, even if I don't always enjoy the actual products as much as I think I should. Still I'm sure I'd get enough game play out of it to justify the purchase.

Part of my reasoning as well. I want to see Brad's "approach" the industry succeed, and while so far Stardock hasn't made any of my "favorite games of all time", they have yet to totally disappoint me either.

Originally Posted by licker

I just hope that the actually design the game to allow for a competitive AI, as opposed to the incredibly open design of GalCiv which makes it seemingly impossible to actually have an AI capable of defending or attacking reasonably.

This one I don't get. As long as I could trade technology with people, I could keep my horse in the race, but at higher difficulties I don't see how you could ever be on top of the game, the AI just expands so fast, and produces so many ships all the time. Actually, it reminds me of how I feel about Dom3 SP. :P There reaches a point where one on difficulty setting, I can bulldoze the computer in my sleep, and on the next they just enact super-alliances that I can't find tactics able to defeat the 10-1 odds coming down on my head.

Originally Posted by licker

I have the same problem with AoW, though at least there you have MP, but the SP is just... uggg... tedious and painfully boring once you get the basics down due to the sheer idiocy of the game design crippling any potential for the AI to actually be somewhat competitive.

I love AoW2SM, for the game it is, and the world it contains. I'd still play it more, if you could auto-resolve battles and stay competitive in the game, but I find I have to manually play out every tactical battle, so as to absolutely minimize losses, and it just gets so annoying.

Originally Posted by licker

Oddly to most people, MoO3 had the best design to allow for a competitive AI, even if the initial release had a craptastic aI, however, the modders have actually addressed most of its major shortcomings, so that game actually plays pretty well now, well, if you can accept the macro style of empire management...

I thought I was the only one in the world that thought that MoO3 was pretty awesome. I almost cried when I played it far enough to see how broken it was, and then not long after, the "big patch" arrived, and fixed some things enough that the game it was could shine through the flaws that it had. Damn, now you're making me want to see if I can find that disk again..... Nice to have some variety in between Dom3 MP turns.

[licker]

Originally Posted by JimMorrison

This one I don't get. As long as I could trade technology with people, I could keep my horse in the race, but at higher difficulties I don't see how you could ever be on top of the game, the AI just expands so fast, and produces so many ships all the time. Actually, it reminds me of how I feel about Dom3 SP. :P There reaches a point where one on difficulty setting, I can bulldoze the computer in my sleep, and on the next they just enact super-alliances that I can't find tactics able to defeat the 10-1 odds coming down on my head.

Well I've played it both with notech trading and with tech trading, and tech trading only makes it easier.

The point is that you can completely ignore building any war ships at all until you see someone has researched transports, and even then, if you have kept up your engine tech you just build some fast ships and pick off the AI transports when they do show up.

The AI was terrible at defending them, and terrible at hunting down your ships. So who cares if they have 100 ships and you have 10, they cannot take your planets and you will eventually out tech them (since you aren't wasting credits on ships) and be able to plow their fleets with a couple battleships or whatever you need to make to counter them.

Its also fairly trivial to keep on buying them off so they don't even DoW you, and then you just let them screw around with the other AIs while you tech up to some decent military techs and have a small fleet of FAST ships to deal with whatever you need to deal with.

Mostly my issue with the game is that space is completely open, and the AI cannot handle that strategically or tactically. You can yo-yo their fleets with your faster fleets, you can draw them out then jump their underdefended planets with your fast transports. You can Culture bomb them and they don't retaliate effectively.

Like I said, its cool to have alot of tools to use, but if the AI cannot counter them effectively then the game is pointless once you finish the initial set up for your end strategy.

I had this discussion with Brad waaaaay back when, and advocated that they move away from open space to node lines, or at least something which let the AI focus its fleets more easilly. He rejected it for what were good reasons to him, but ultimately the decision made it impossible for the AI to deal with your fleets. He admitted as much latter when I kept on asking why the AI seems to not see your fleets when it should. Well it turns out it saw them, it just had no way to actually process the threat they posed. So it continued to leave transports undefended, and leave planets open to lightning invasions by speed 20+ ships...

All of that would have been moot if the design forced you to use nodes or warp lines, or whatever.

And i've played GC2 on the higher difficulty levels, it makes no difference, just takes you a little longer to achieve dominance. Oh, you can play with different galaxy settings and such to make the game more or less challenging, but ultimately it always comes down to the same thing. The AI cannot handle its fleets, so once you finish your economy set up, and survive (nominally by paying off a neighbor not to attack you, which is dirt cheap compared to actually fighting them), you just pump out a few teched up war ships, conquer someone (if you feel like it), or use them as active defense while you go for culture or tech or alliance, or whatever vic condition you think is fastest.

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by licker

The AI was terrible at defending them, and terrible at hunting down your ships. So who cares if they have 100 ships and you have 10, they cannot take your planets and you will eventually out tech them (since you aren't wasting credits on ships) and be able to plow their fleets with a couple battleships or whatever you need to make to counter them.

I'm curious when you played GalCiv2? I didn't even try it until the release of the Twilight of the Arnor expansion, and my roommate bought it and told me I should check it out. It seems to me like now the problems that you describe are not as present as you portray them - the first being that the AI puts emphasis on military might in diplomacy, so not only are they more likely to view you as food if you put off building any ships, but it will cost more to convince them otherwise if you choose to stick with that method. Plus the dynamic between ship capacity, component cost, and engine speed, seems to make it an enormous money sink to go for the fast transport killer concept. At least, in all my tinkering, I never saw it as viable to even get your tech to the point you could have a 20+ speed ship with -any- weapons or anything else at all, without having produced some sort of mobile defenses (read: ships that can actually kill other warships) in the meantime.


I agree with you Omni - AlphaCentauri stands in my ranks of "favorites of all time", and I every time a new Civ version is announced (they made one for consoles? come on.....), I cry over it not being AC2.


For those of you who may not have tried Twilight of the Arnor, my roommate liked GalCiv2 from the beginning, and he says Twilight is an entirely new ballgame (and I believe him). There's tons of new content, and no 2 species play the same, etc. I found it to be a much better game than I am seeing described, where it sounds like dissatisfaction with the base game. Anyway, my point being that if they apply the things that transformed GalCiv via Twilight, into the first build of Elemental, and then add to it in fun and interesting ways as it looks like they intend to, I think it should be a pretty cool game.

(Oh and I agree that $10 is a bit exhorbitant for a movie, I usually wait til movies hit the local theater-pub, where I can get movie + 2 pints of hard cider for $10. )