Growing concern - but optimistic

RonGianti · #1 September 29th, 2006, 09:58 AM

Ok, so I've seen around 10 distinct "complaints" about the demo.

Around 5 of them turned out to be just changable options, (flag size, etc) that the poster(s) chose to complain about in overly forceful words ("I'll never buy this piece of crap, blah, blah until this is fixed!) rather than just poking around or asking a simple question.

2 or 3 of them boil down to "I'm used to SEIV and now I can't find stuff". Again, some posters choose to get out the big guns and start blasting away with "buggy piece of crap! I'll never buy this game, EVER!", instead of just asking a question.

Yea, fine, people are entitled to their opinion.

Heres mine: if you have to blast away with "I hate this buggy piece of crap and I'll never buy it EVER!" instead of just asking a question then you are being too negative.

There are so many new options and stuff to do and stuff that makes Space Empires LESS annoying that I cant believe the negative-fest here.

You know what I find annoying? When in SE4, one of my "allies" colonizes all the planets in MY systems! ARRRRGGGHHHHH. I'll never buy SE4 until they fix that buggy piece of crap. Oh yea, it IS fixed, in SEV.

You know what else I find annoying? Fighters are just one stack in SE4! Its not fair that a battleship can plow through my stack of fighters because the game conciders them one big stack! I'll never buy SE4 because its a buggy piece of crap! Good thing its fixed in SEV...

There are a couple minor, niggling little things in SEV that will probably be "updated" anyway, and don't HOLD A CANDLE to all the stuff thats been fixed, updated and just plain improved in SEV.

tmcc · #2 September 29th, 2006, 10:14 AM

Touche

Barnacle Bill · #3 September 29th, 2006, 01:02 PM

Quote:

RonGianti said:
You know what I find annoying? When in SE4, one of my "allies" colonizes all the planets in MY systems! ARRRRGGGHHHHH. I'll never buy SE4 until they fix that buggy piece of crap. Oh yea, it IS fixed, in SEV.

That was my #1 beef with SEIV. It is certainly better in SEV, but since I can't claim a system other than by colonizing in it, it isn't 100% fixed.

Example - let's say I have a colony in System A, which links to System B containing no planets I can colonize, which links to System C containing a colonizable planet. Let's say the only route from A (or anyplace else in my empire) to C is through B. Clearly I'd be wanting to call B "mine". However, if AI enters B through another warp point and colonizes in it, now it's "his" and my colony in C is cut off. So, I'd still like to be able to claim B before that happens, thus precluding it.

Still, for the system ownership situation that applies 99% of the time, SEV is much better than SEIV.

Quote:

RonGianti said:
There are a couple minor, niggling little things in SEV that will probably be "updated" anyway, and don't HOLD A CANDLE to all the stuff thats been fixed, updated and just plain improved in SEV.

I absolutely agree with this.

On the matter of seeing planets that so many people bring up - I actually like that because it slows down the land rush.

On the related subject of "seeing from memory", it looks from settings.txt like we have the option to set things by class, but I'd like the ability to set it by mobility. In other words to see things that can't move themselves like colonies, bases, satelites, troops, etc... from memory but not things that can move like ships & fighter groups.

narf poit chez BOOM · #4 September 29th, 2006, 06:42 PM

If you could claim a system simply by clicking on the map, wouldn't that mean some players would click on every system they found, thus overly limiting AI's with treaties?

(Don't actually know - Too many bugs in the demo.)

Kamog · #5 September 30th, 2006, 01:06 AM

Then an Ancient Race could claim the entire galaxy during their first turn!

Barnacle Bill · #6 September 30th, 2006, 08:20 AM

Quote:

Kamog said:
Then an Ancient Race could claim the entire galaxy during their first turn!

I don't know - did that happen in SEIV? I mean, even though the AI wasn't constrained much by claims, there were Ancient Races and the ability to claim explored systems...

If it is an issue, the fix is easy... You could have to actually have a presence in the system at the moment of claiming - but by "presense" I mean anything including an exploration ship, not just a colony. Sure, Ancient Races would still have an advantage, but they already do - and if necessary that could be balanced by raising the cost of being an Ancient Race.

arthurtuxedo · #7 September 30th, 2006, 01:23 PM

You could claim every system you saw in SE4, but it didn't really mean much since it couldn't be a part of treaties. In SE5 it does mean something, so it makes sense that MM restricted territorial claims to territory you actually have a legitimate claim on.

As far as the exploration goes, people have pointed out that you should be able to see the planets, even if it's just with telescopes. That's true, if the other system is fairly close by, but think of it this way: There are a maximum of 255 star systems in a game of SE5. There are hundreds of billions of star systems in a real galaxy. So for every system that is connected with warp points, there are a billion that are not. Therefore, it stands to reason that even a "neighboring" star system connected via warp point might be so far away that you can't see the planets, only the star.

Barnacle Bill · #8 October 4th, 2006, 05:20 PM

Quote:

arthurtuxedo said:
In SE5 it does mean something, so it makes sense that MM restricted territorial claims to territory you actually have a legitimate claim on.

But exploration gives you a legitimate claim on it! You know, the old plant the flag and "I claim this land for the King of Bling" routine?

As currently programmed, the net in-game effect is that I still don't dare agree to treaties letting the squatters past my warships until I've got a colony in every system within what I consider my borders (or at least every one with a planet in it). I have to reserve the right to kill any colony ships I catch on my turf, or glass any colonies founded by ones that slip through. That limits the utility of the diplomatic system vs one where my legitimate claims would be honored by my treaty partners.

capnq · #9 September 30th, 2006, 03:35 PM

Quote:

Barnacle Bill said:

Quote:

Kamog said:
Then an Ancient Race could claim the entire galaxy during their first turn!

I don't know - did that happen in SEIV? I mean, even though the AI wasn't constrained much by claims, there were Ancient Races and the ability to claim explored systems...

You didn't have to explore a system to claim it in SE IV. (Having to explore a system first might have slowed down AI expansion, for one thing.) In multiplayer games, some people routinely claimed the entire map on their first turn, so as not to give away any information about where their colonies actually were. Other people didn't claim any systems, or rename planets, for the same reason.

And why shouldn't an Ancient race claim the whole map? They were there first, after all.

Barnacle Bill · #10 September 30th, 2006, 08:14 AM

Quote:

narf poit chez BOOM said:
If you could claim a system simply by clicking on the map, wouldn't that mean some players would click on every system they found, thus overly limiting AI's with treaties?

I think it would be rather expected that you would claim any system you explored and which wasn't already claimed, as would the AI. I would that the AI could be programmed to launch a war of expansion against its (perceived) weakest neighbor if it ran out of planets to colonize within its own territory.