SEV Recommend?

[PvK]

SE5 adds some great new gameplay features to the series, in theory. In practice, the UI and AI and bug-lessness haven't caught up, so I'm waiting for lots of patch improvements before I try to really get into it. Meanwhile, I'm hoping it's a nice preview of things that will work well in future.

My guess is I will start wanting to play SE5 in about a year, assuming patches fix the UI, AI and other problems that can't be modded at Malfador's usual industrious rate. It also seems like very little effort was made to balance the stock techs (they seem far less balanced than SE4 even), so I expect a balancing mod will also always be wanted for SE5, but thankfully that task is already in capable fan hands.

Meanwhile, Dominions 3 is a solid release, and personally I like it at least as much as I like Space Empires. But it's a different kind of game, so not all SE fans will like Dominions (e.g. Fyron ).

PvK

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Hello, welcome back.

[Wardad]

Hi narf! Your always a funny criter.

I no longer have Internet, cable or TV at home.
I gave it all up for my cute little flexible yoga teacher.
I get to game once in a while.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

...Simple solution: Hook her on gaming. Once you're both geeks, you don't have to give up anything.

[PsychoTechFreak]

Thanks for this thread. I never looked closely at the other shrapnel titles, they looked more like worldwar titles for veterans to me. I was not aware of Dom 3 being a fantasy strategy game with magic. Very interesting!

So the AI is good for singleplayer gaming you say?

[Raapys]

Well, let's just say Dominions 3 is a much simpler game for the AI to play( move troops from one sector to another and recruit troops, basically), and as such it gives competition. The lack of diplomacy, i.e. full war as soon as you meet, adds to this as well.

Other than that I'd say SE V is by far a better game, or at least it will be when it's completed. I don't care too much for the general gameplay of Dominions, it's the smaller features( item making, spells, etc.) that makes that game fun to me.

[Wardad]

Narf,

Not a chance of that. She has a violence phobia. Understandable though. She is Serbian and her family has suffered Nazis, Commies, Moslems, ethnic violence, and Bill Clinton.

[dmm]

Eleven Ways to Help the AI (besides "cheats" like giving them unfair resource advantages, refusing to use certain weapons, abandoning all but one planet at startup, etc.):
1) Start with 10 good planets and high resources. Or 5 good planets and medium tech level. (AI is weakest in early game development.)
2) Don't make the galaxy too large. (AI doesn't expand as intelligently as humans.)
3) Make all AI players be aggressive xenophobic warmongers. (AI doesn't do diplomacy as well as humans.)
4) Don't choose any special racial techs for yourself.
5) Scramble the AI players (so you don't know what to expect when you first go to battle).
6) Turn off major disasters. (AIs don't know how to handle things like an impending supernova.)
7) Don't use galaxies that have lots of planet-less systems (which can stop AI expansion and agression).
8) Always use either strategic combat or automatic tactical combat. (This removes a huge advantage for human players over the AI, and prepares you for PBW.)
9) Use the option that gives everyone continuous full knowledge of every place they've ever explored. (This helps AI, which has no memory.)
10) Lower the setting that triggers Mega-Evil Empire (which causes all the AIs to ally with each other and gang up on you).
11) Set a strict limit on the amount of time you can spend on any one turn. Use a 3-minute egg timer. Once it runs out, you MUST end your turn. (Also a good rule for hot-seat play.)

When I do these things, the AI gives me a fun game. I still always win, but I like that.

If I want a real challenge, I can (additionally) use some of the cheats mentioned at the top. Role-playing is also quite fun and challenging. Examples:
1) Set MEE very low, and pretend to be an insane race intent on wiping out all other races. Never invade planets or capture ships; glass them. You might even consider blowing up their systems entirely to wipe out all traces of them.
2) Conversely, keep standard MEE, keep all AI players at standard settings, and pretend to be a dovish race that tries as hard as possible to avoid conflict (while trying to unite everyone under your peaceful rule). Never ever glass any colony, and concentrate on capturing or disabling enemy ships. You'll have to make and keep powerful allies to prevent triggering MEE.
3) Pretend to have a religious taboo against using warp points. Only give up this taboo when you can create your own.
4) Pretend to have limited authority. Use AI ministers to handle aspects of your empire over which you have no direct control.
5) Pretend that your empire has term limits that cause you to lose all political power for X years after serving 2X years as emperor. So alternate 24X turns of micromanagement with 12X turns of full minister control. People are SO fickle!
6) Play normally until you've triggered MEE, then switch sides. Now you are trying to rally the rag-tag rebels against the MEE! (Actually, I've always had MEE off when I did this. It is possible that, once MEE is triggered, the AIs would unite against the human player regardless of which empire he is playing. That would be a wacko bug!)

[Uncle_Joe]

I truly wish I could recommend SEV. I've been trying to 'get into it' off and on for the last few months. But it just doesnt grab me. It feels glacial compared to SEIV and the interface woes dont really help. I find myself playing the first 30-40 turns and then getting bored and saving it and not coming back. Then, a few weeks later I'll fire it up again, start a new game and repeat the cycle.

I've tried the Balance Mod (which is excellent work) but there is still something missing from SE5. I shudder to think about trying to play Stock. I cant put my finger on whatever it is about SE5 that just doesnt do it for me. I played SE4 to DEATH and would still be playing it now if the later patches hadn't broken TCP/IP play. The fact that SE5 also apparently doesnt work via TCP/IP is another turn-off as that was my group's preferred way of playing SE4.

Like PvK, I'm hoping that it eventually sorts itself out. There appears to be a lot of potential here. But at the moment, playing SE5 seems more like work and less like fun. I'm hoping some enterprising modders save the game much the way mods like Devnull and whatnot did for me for SE4. The only downside here is that modding SE5 seems to be a heck of a lot more complicated so I'm unlikely to do it myself, again unlike SE4 where I worked on my custom mod for years.

I'll keep trying SE5 though. With each patch and Balance Mod revision I usually fire it up and play again. Hopefully one day it will grab me and I'll be able to recommend it whole-heartedly!