I have only played a little of my SE5, but SE4 had lots of mods, so I would expect SEV to as well. Check Malfadors links.
[MoO] Master or Orion 4
- Thread starter Horizon
- Start date
Not a ST mod as yet for SE V, so far as I can see.
Maybe you are the person to ask, vmxa, toying with the idea of getting SE IV just for the mod, I went to the link for the mod but it is all in Japanese!!! I couldn't see or read where to download!
Live long and prosper.
Maybe you are the person to ask, vmxa, toying with the idea of getting SE IV just for the mod, I went to the link for the mod but it is all in Japanese!!! I couldn't see or read where to download!
Live long and prosper.
It's partly because even in games where it's possible to research/produce more than one thing at a time, it tends to be best to research/produce one thing at a time regardless, because that way you get the benefit of that one most important thing soonest and can then focus on something not-quite-as-important second. It takes a special effort to design a system where you can research/produce more than one thing at a time but are not forced to, and have both options be viable. It takes even more thought to come up with a way to balance it and present it to the player so that deciding which way is best is an interesting and non-trivial decision.
This is why you are usually forced to one end of the spectrum (e.g. all research in one big pot) or the other (e.g. production split up between many cities/colonies.)
DirtyFinger
Prince
- Joined
- Apr 20, 2008
- Messages
- 369
i hope Stardock stays the hell away from MoO.
Just look at the disaster Brad Wardell created with Elemental, "spirital successor" to MoM.
Want a game worse than MoO3 (sorry MoO3 fans) ? Call Stardock.
Just look at the disaster Brad Wardell created with Elemental, "spirital successor" to MoM.
Want a game worse than MoO3 (sorry MoO3 fans) ? Call Stardock.
Psyringe
Scout
While I agree that they dropped the ball with Elemental, there are two important differences:
1. Stardock is committed to fix Elemental. They've already released eight patches since release and Brad has even posted a roadmap of fixes and additions to expect in the near and far future. They really do listen to the complaints. Compare that to Infogrames/Quicksilver: After several weeks the game got two patches which didn't even fix 10% of the issues people had, then both the publisher and the developer simply abandoned the product. Important game elements like the diplomacy were acknowledged to be broken, but couldn't be fixed because "the person who coded the diplomacy doesn't work here anymore" (that's not a joke, it was an official statement in the forum).
2. Stardock does have a good track record for complex strategy games (with the GalCiv franchise) so it's realistic to assume that they are capable of fixing Elemental, given enough time and resources. Quicksilver's track record were ripoffs of other people's successes and a pretty bad game that was only successful because it had "Star Trek" tacked onto it.
It'll take a long time for Elemental to actually become a worthy successor for MoM though. Even if they sort the technical problems and gameplay issues out, there's still a large gap in the amount of actual content in both games.
DirtyFinger
Prince
- Joined
- Apr 20, 2008
- Messages
- 369
Yeah, the game was such a piece of crap that they needed 8 patches just to make the game merely very bad. Good hope for the future.
They listen to complaints and then tell complainers to take their trolling elsewhere, to the cheers of the stardock fanboys. They could have listened a tiny bit earlier ... beta phase earlier, like.
That's not a track record, that one game with several updates. GalCiv, GalCiv2, GalCiv2b, GalCiv2c ...
And boy, were they boring (just a personal opinion) when compared to MoO2.
Oh well, granted, they stick to their games, but they suck when it comes to game design. And they vacuum suck when it comes to quality control.
They shine in sucking up to customers after they suckered them into buying their shite, though.
True, and I don't want that to happen to an eventual successor to MoO.
By the way, Quicksilver ex-employees blame the evil publisher (Atari, I think) for the unholy Mess of MoO3. Who knows, maybe it's true. However, Stardock doesn't have that excuse. They
ed it up all by themselves.I put too many "doesn't" in there, vmxa, sorry. As I said before, the Space Empires download site gives you a URL for downloading a mod - the Star Trek one - which when you go to the site is entirely in Japanese! Ridiculous! 
Live long and prosper.
Live long and prosper.
That seems odd as it is on the Strategy First web site and they marketed the game from the start.
Try this one on Steam fo rthe same 9.99
http://store.steampowered.com/app/1610/
Try this one on Steam fo rthe same 9.99
http://store.steampowered.com/app/1610/
Psyringe
Scout
i may be missing something (just peeking in), but it seems to me that you're giving him links for buying SEIV, while he expects links to a Star Trek mod to take a look at before deciding whether or not to buy SEIV.
If I read post #62, he was looking to get SEIV as it apparently has the Trek mod. He already said there is no Trek mod for SE5. If that was wrong, then he can just ignore it.
Psyringe
Scout
Hi Cmcastl, finally found the time to reply to you.
I'm sorry, but I still have no idea what you mean. No offense, but I get the impression that you have a tendency to make very vague statements about GalCiv2 which, when asked to elaborate, you can't back up with concrete examples, but provide more vague statements instead. You also seem to contradict yourself, since you first said that GalCiv2 wasn't "robust" in terms of modding (which suggested stability problems in modded games), but now apparently say that you couldn't find out how to activate the mod, which is something totally different - but this _may_ be a misunderstanding on my part due to the vagueness problem mentioned above. Together, this makes it very difficult to understand what you mean. I can only say that from my experience, using mods for GalCiv2 was extremely easy. I installed the mod, told the game to use it (by switching on a single option in the settings screen; as I said, mod support is built into the game), and played the mod. I can't even imagine how it could be easier.
I think I understand now. Here's my guess: What you're after is a rather "complete" simulation of a galactic empire in the future, encompassing not only military advancements (as many sci-fi strategy games unfortunately do), but also social ones, probably economy and all kinds of science too. You want to immerse yourself in a complex futuristic universe. You can do that in BotF (because it ties into the Star Trek universe), and you can do that in MoO3, because MoO3 provides a ton of labels for research projects and buildings in very different areas. Now, in MoO3, these labels aren't actually fleshed out very well, they are usually just a name accompanied by a very vague description that sometimes sounds more like Star Trek technobabble ("throw out some incomprehensible tech terms instead of actually explaining things") than like an actual explanation or flavor text. However, this doesn't bother you much since you've read a lot of sci-fi and perhaps have a pretty fertile imagination, so you simply fill the gaps with it. While I regard the tech and building descriptions of MoO3 as an uninspired list of hollow sci-fi boilerplate terms, for you these labels provide the hooks to let your imagination run wild. I may of course be wrong, but if my analysis is at least somewhat correct, then I do understand why you like MoO3. However, in that case I'd still argue that your enjoyment comes mostly out of your own imagination (i.e., your ability to fill the hollowness of the game with meaning) rather than from the game itself, and that you're probably giving the game too much credit for it.
The above would also explain why you don't like GalCiv, because GalCiv explicitly doesn't provide such hooks for your imagination. GalCiv doesn't even provide labels for most of it's technologies - you're not researching things like "Nanotechnology", "subatomar construction techniques", or "quantum blueprints" - you're researching "Miniaturization I", "Miniaturization II", and "Miniaturization III". each of which are described with a somewhat funny joke (that doesn't tell anything about the actual technology though) and grant a bonus to your civilizations miniaturization trait. The buildings available on the planets aren't very inspired either, often they are just copies of things that we currently have (so you build "Xeno Farms", "Xeno Labs", "Trade Centers" etc.) While these generic concepts and labels work pretty well as a game (they are easy to understand, their effects are precisely described, and the AI can actually handle them), they don't provide many hooks for the player's imagination.
So to me, it seems that the better-working gameplay that GalCiv2 offers is something you actually don't care that much about, while the thing you do care about (providing hooks to let your imagination create the impression of a rich universe) is one of the areas where GalCiv2 is comparatively weak. GalCiv never tries to hide that it's just a game, it doesn't even try to give the player the feeling that he's really running a complex empire. Much of the in-game descriptions and diplomacy are light-hearted jokes to entertain the player, instead of seriously trying to create a believable world.
And now it's your turn to tell me that I'm totally wrong and that the above is just my imagination turning somersaults.
And while I'm waiting for a reply, I have time to contemplate why I can use my imagination to fill the gaps in GalCiv2's atmosphere, while the same doesn't work for me with MoO3. The difference may be that in my eyes, MoO3's gameplay is/was so broken that it simply wasn't worth the effort. If I want my own imagination to create interesting worlds while being guided by some external input, I can grab GURPS:Space and use its tables to create whole universes, complete with their own history. I don't need a broken strategy game for that.
One final point: As outlined above, I regard both MoO3's and GalCiv2's atmosphere as rather weak (I'm just more forgiving toward GalCiv in this regard since it works much better as a game). This raises the question what I'd regard as game that succeeds in creating such an atmosphere. And I think we'll probably both agree that this game is SMAC. SMAC's tech tree wasn't huge, but it touched many areas. Technologies were linked to another by short descriptions, and also had voice-over quotes from the faction leaders. These quotes defined the factions and the technologies. And when you built a building, you got another quote with a similar effect. Imho, SMAC had a quite brilliant combination of explaining its technologies and contributing to the atmosphere at the same time. Unfortunately I haven't seen such an approach ever since, though.
I never got ANY of the shipsets on Gal Civ to "take". You seemed to need additional files but I couldn't tell if they had "taken" either!
I'm sorry, but I still have no idea what you mean.
No offense, but I get the impression that you have a tendency to make very vague statements about GalCiv2 which, when asked to elaborate, you can't back up with concrete examples, but provide more vague statements instead. You also seem to contradict yourself, since you first said that GalCiv2 wasn't "robust" in terms of modding (which suggested stability problems in modded games), but now apparently say that you couldn't find out how to activate the mod, which is something totally different - but this _may_ be a misunderstanding on my part due to the vagueness problem mentioned above. Together, this makes it very difficult to understand what you mean. I can only say that from my experience, using mods for GalCiv2 was extremely easy. I installed the mod, told the game to use it (by switching on a single option in the settings screen; as I said, mod support is built into the game), and played the mod. I can't even imagine how it could be easier.I think I understand now. Here's my guess: What you're after is a rather "complete" simulation of a galactic empire in the future, encompassing not only military advancements (as many sci-fi strategy games unfortunately do), but also social ones, probably economy and all kinds of science too. You want to immerse yourself in a complex futuristic universe. You can do that in BotF (because it ties into the Star Trek universe), and you can do that in MoO3, because MoO3 provides a ton of labels for research projects and buildings in very different areas. Now, in MoO3, these labels aren't actually fleshed out very well, they are usually just a name accompanied by a very vague description that sometimes sounds more like Star Trek technobabble ("throw out some incomprehensible tech terms instead of actually explaining things") than like an actual explanation or flavor text. However, this doesn't bother you much since you've read a lot of sci-fi and perhaps have a pretty fertile imagination, so you simply fill the gaps with it. While I regard the tech and building descriptions of MoO3 as an uninspired list of hollow sci-fi boilerplate terms, for you these labels provide the hooks to let your imagination run wild. I may of course be wrong, but if my analysis is at least somewhat correct, then I do understand why you like MoO3. However, in that case I'd still argue that your enjoyment comes mostly out of your own imagination (i.e., your ability to fill the hollowness of the game with meaning) rather than from the game itself, and that you're probably giving the game too much credit for it.
The above would also explain why you don't like GalCiv, because GalCiv explicitly doesn't provide such hooks for your imagination. GalCiv doesn't even provide labels for most of it's technologies - you're not researching things like "Nanotechnology", "subatomar construction techniques", or "quantum blueprints" - you're researching "Miniaturization I", "Miniaturization II", and "Miniaturization III". each of which are described with a somewhat funny joke (that doesn't tell anything about the actual technology though) and grant a bonus to your civilizations miniaturization trait. The buildings available on the planets aren't very inspired either, often they are just copies of things that we currently have (so you build "Xeno Farms", "Xeno Labs", "Trade Centers" etc.) While these generic concepts and labels work pretty well as a game (they are easy to understand, their effects are precisely described, and the AI can actually handle them), they don't provide many hooks for the player's imagination.
So to me, it seems that the better-working gameplay that GalCiv2 offers is something you actually don't care that much about, while the thing you do care about (providing hooks to let your imagination create the impression of a rich universe) is one of the areas where GalCiv2 is comparatively weak. GalCiv never tries to hide that it's just a game, it doesn't even try to give the player the feeling that he's really running a complex empire. Much of the in-game descriptions and diplomacy are light-hearted jokes to entertain the player, instead of seriously trying to create a believable world.
And now it's your turn to tell me that I'm totally wrong and that the above is just my imagination turning somersaults.
And while I'm waiting for a reply, I have time to contemplate why I can use my imagination to fill the gaps in GalCiv2's atmosphere, while the same doesn't work for me with MoO3. The difference may be that in my eyes, MoO3's gameplay is/was so broken that it simply wasn't worth the effort. If I want my own imagination to create interesting worlds while being guided by some external input, I can grab GURPS:Space and use its tables to create whole universes, complete with their own history. I don't need a broken strategy game for that.
One final point: As outlined above, I regard both MoO3's and GalCiv2's atmosphere as rather weak (I'm just more forgiving toward GalCiv in this regard since it works much better as a game). This raises the question what I'd regard as game that succeeds in creating such an atmosphere. And I think we'll probably both agree that this game is SMAC. SMAC's tech tree wasn't huge, but it touched many areas. Technologies were linked to another by short descriptions, and also had voice-over quotes from the faction leaders. These quotes defined the factions and the technologies. And when you built a building, you got another quote with a similar effect. Imho, SMAC had a quite brilliant combination of explaining its technologies and contributing to the atmosphere at the same time. Unfortunately I haven't seen such an approach ever since, though.
I did manage to get the B5 Mod to work with Galactic Civilizations: Dread Lords and I am trying it out even now.
I also managed to get the Star Trek mod for Ultimate editions to work but it doesn't seem to come with Star Trek vessel designs so I have given up on that.
But I never managed to get the various Gal Civ 2 vessel design mods to work. I added a particular mod to a ship design file but it never seemed to take. Now I am not saying that it wouldn't work but the MOO3 mods usually did, whatever I tried, which made me conclude how robust a game MOO3 was for modding.
Live long and prosper.
I also managed to get the Star Trek mod for Ultimate editions to work but it doesn't seem to come with Star Trek vessel designs so I have given up on that.
But I never managed to get the various Gal Civ 2 vessel design mods to work. I added a particular mod to a ship design file but it never seemed to take. Now I am not saying that it wouldn't work but the MOO3 mods usually did, whatever I tried, which made me conclude how robust a game MOO3 was for modding.
Live long and prosper.
I would SOOOOO love to see a Masters of Orion 4.....An Updated MoO 2 would be awesome.....not much needed to be changed from that game, just more races, updated graphics and new techs. Otherwise, you have a great template on which to build.
Just Do IT!!!!
Just Do IT!!!!
scratchthepitch
King
- Joined
- Feb 13, 2010
- Messages
- 798
I would SOOOOO love to see a Masters of Orion 4.....An Updated MoO 2 would be awesome.....not much needed to be changed from that game, just more races, updated graphics and new techs. Otherwise, you have a great template on which to build.
Just Do IT!!!!
MOO2 could seriously do with an AI. The MOO2 AI was a random number generator and a series of simplistic "if this happens, then hit the player with this cheat" routines.
For a MOO4, the AI definitely needs to be completely reworked in my opinion.Although I'm still messing around with MOO2, crappy AI and all.
I think Sword of the stars is MoO 4. Like was noted, star dock wanted to make a moo 4 in 2005 and probably came out with their own version given license fees from atari were high?
I love sword of the stars and it an incredible value as an ultamate edition can be bought on sale for $10-15
I really do think turn based combat is dead. i loved MOO and SE4 as well as many others but i much prefer real time combat to turn based and SOTS does it well.
But please leave the strategy layer turn based. Its imposible to have a deep strategy experience if you have to run it in realtime. I've played sin of solar empire but its more of an RTS than a 4X game and it must be looked at that way. as a strategy game it was very simplified.
so in short i no longer care if there is a Moo4 ; there will be a SoTS 2 and thats all that matters.
I love sword of the stars and it an incredible value as an ultamate edition can be bought on sale for $10-15
I really do think turn based combat is dead. i loved MOO and SE4 as well as many others but i much prefer real time combat to turn based and SOTS does it well.
But please leave the strategy layer turn based. Its imposible to have a deep strategy experience if you have to run it in realtime. I've played sin of solar empire but its more of an RTS than a 4X game and it must be looked at that way. as a strategy game it was very simplified.
so in short i no longer care if there is a Moo4 ; there will be a SoTS 2 and thats all that matters.
At first, it seems that these games belong to such a slim genre. But delving deeper we can see that everyone needs to get something else out of an X4 game. This makes me pondering if it is even possible to create a game that more or less satisfies everyone. It's a shame because the audience for this type of game is already small compared to first person 3D games and such.
To be successful in this genre, a developer has to keep in mind which niche of the X4 fan-base it wants to appeal to. Or, even better, it is ambitious and creates a game with something for everyone. For this category of games, as is true for most games, I think this involves two elements: Immersion and game play. These aren't mutually exclusive, but there is a trade-off between them.
Let's start with immersion. To appreciate a space game it requires a certain amount of role playing in it. I think it's fun to get the idea that I'm the master(mind) of an entire civilisation. You scheme towards a goal with careful strategy and then it's fun when it works and your plans pay off. Set in space, it is much more fun to do this with an image in your head of what's going on. I like science fiction, not without reason. I want to let my imagination run wild. I wanna think, 'Hah! We got the suckers!' when I'm shredding a world to pieces or winning a heroic space battle. But I agree military advancements should not be so emphasised. Victory over your opponents should not be the main importance; it's the strategy that gets you there. But it could be seen as an effect of social advancements, bringing some satisfaction or reward with it. It's a confirmation your strategy works out.
I read Psyringe's reply with interest and agree with most of it. Moo3 is much more suitable for role playing than GalCiv. And while there aren't as many as I would like, its not just research labels that help you do this. It has much more hints, number one being the insurmountable differences between species and their inspiring race picks. But also random events that have galaxy wide repercussions and diplomacy. Also don't forget that immersion is improved thanks to foregoing the pointless game play elements such as as the need that buildings be placed on some meaningless grid in GalCiv. Or that every single thing is represented by some kind of icon, complete with colour code. To me, this distracts from role playing. Instead, if most things are just a number and text, you only have your imagination. It's like reading a novel. To illustrate the importance of this: did you look in the MOO3 forums over at Atari? There are people there who actually write stories about their game, summarising their turns accompanied by a dramatic tale in full prose about themselves as being the leader, governing their empire, kingdom, hyve, whatever.
Of Course besides being able to role play a developer should understand it is a game. 'Game play first,' is what a lot of people say. But if that's the only truth, the game isn't set in space for nothing. Otherwise, wouldn't you be entertained as much just playing chess? The first (and last) time I played GalCiv 2 I was greeted with my starting colony with a ship next to it that was almost as big as the planet. Next, as I was travelling to the next star system, I just had to steer that ship to a few steps further away than the main star was. I really was dumbfounded when playing the first 10 turns. I mean it doesn't have to be a 3-dimensional representation of a real galaxy, but at least make it graph like, showing that inner-system distances are negligible compared to distances between star systems.
Then there are other elements which contribute to successfulness, but these are more important for shooters and the like. This of course includes visual appearance and everything revolving around looks. Also a storyline helps if it is nicely portrayed (with nice visuals of those aliens!), sounds, music (MOO2 was very good! I can even recall the melodies - MOO3: It was its big flaw, it was more like a spacy reverberation).
Anyway, for any 4X strategy game the developers should understand that the galaxy is no checker-board, while at the same time not obfuscate the game mechanics. The latter which I admit is not very well done in MOO3. I saw two new recent games coming out, Distant Worlds and Sword of the stars 2. Might be worth a look.
To be successful in this genre, a developer has to keep in mind which niche of the X4 fan-base it wants to appeal to. Or, even better, it is ambitious and creates a game with something for everyone. For this category of games, as is true for most games, I think this involves two elements: Immersion and game play. These aren't mutually exclusive, but there is a trade-off between them.
Let's start with immersion. To appreciate a space game it requires a certain amount of role playing in it. I think it's fun to get the idea that I'm the master(mind) of an entire civilisation. You scheme towards a goal with careful strategy and then it's fun when it works and your plans pay off. Set in space, it is much more fun to do this with an image in your head of what's going on. I like science fiction, not without reason. I want to let my imagination run wild. I wanna think, 'Hah! We got the suckers!' when I'm shredding a world to pieces or winning a heroic space battle. But I agree military advancements should not be so emphasised. Victory over your opponents should not be the main importance; it's the strategy that gets you there. But it could be seen as an effect of social advancements, bringing some satisfaction or reward with it. It's a confirmation your strategy works out.
I read Psyringe's reply with interest and agree with most of it. Moo3 is much more suitable for role playing than GalCiv. And while there aren't as many as I would like, its not just research labels that help you do this. It has much more hints, number one being the insurmountable differences between species and their inspiring race picks. But also random events that have galaxy wide repercussions and diplomacy. Also don't forget that immersion is improved thanks to foregoing the pointless game play elements such as as the need that buildings be placed on some meaningless grid in GalCiv. Or that every single thing is represented by some kind of icon, complete with colour code. To me, this distracts from role playing. Instead, if most things are just a number and text, you only have your imagination. It's like reading a novel. To illustrate the importance of this: did you look in the MOO3 forums over at Atari? There are people there who actually write stories about their game, summarising their turns accompanied by a dramatic tale in full prose about themselves as being the leader, governing their empire, kingdom, hyve, whatever.
Of Course besides being able to role play a developer should understand it is a game. 'Game play first,' is what a lot of people say. But if that's the only truth, the game isn't set in space for nothing. Otherwise, wouldn't you be entertained as much just playing chess? The first (and last) time I played GalCiv 2 I was greeted with my starting colony with a ship next to it that was almost as big as the planet. Next, as I was travelling to the next star system, I just had to steer that ship to a few steps further away than the main star was. I really was dumbfounded when playing the first 10 turns. I mean it doesn't have to be a 3-dimensional representation of a real galaxy, but at least make it graph like, showing that inner-system distances are negligible compared to distances between star systems.
Then there are other elements which contribute to successfulness, but these are more important for shooters and the like. This of course includes visual appearance and everything revolving around looks. Also a storyline helps if it is nicely portrayed (with nice visuals of those aliens!), sounds, music (MOO2 was very good! I can even recall the melodies - MOO3: It was its big flaw, it was more like a spacy reverberation).
Anyway, for any 4X strategy game the developers should understand that the galaxy is no checker-board, while at the same time not obfuscate the game mechanics. The latter which I admit is not very well done in MOO3. I saw two new recent games coming out, Distant Worlds and Sword of the stars 2. Might be worth a look.
The perfect space strategy game can be easily defined but it is probably almost impossible to develop except with a lot of time, money and inspiration.
It has its strategic side. Developing your spacefaring civilisation, all the political, economic, sociological and diplomatic depth of that to a reasonably deep level, unless you choose to automate.
It has its warfare side. Fighting battles either strategically, or tactically, if you choose.
So a great many options about the level of depth to which you want to play on either the strategic or tactical side.
Great graphics, great music, moddable and very, very, importantly, robust enough to install in the widest range of machines above the minimum specs. I have acquired this one supposedly leading space strategy game at the moment which has this Games for Windows splashed on the box and I can't get it to work, despite have Windows 7 and more than adequate specs! But enough of that.
Like I said, the game for which we are all looking, like some gaming Holy Grail, would be easy to define and to recognise, if it ever came on the market, that perfect realisation of the game whose highest compliment is that we would kid ourselves with "one more turn and I shall go to bed" but probably so expensive and difficult to implement that we can only dream about it as we work with what we have, for I am am grateful enough. No I have played is perfect but many have been and continue be absorbing.
What I imagine is that in about twenty years or so, computers will have become so sophisticated that anyone with the minimum level of computer savvy, far below that required now, will be able to develop their own game ab initio but that is, as I say, at least a generation off and not of help to us right now. But it is something to dream about, like actually being on a space ship instead of only simulating it.
Live long and prosper.
It has its strategic side. Developing your spacefaring civilisation, all the political, economic, sociological and diplomatic depth of that to a reasonably deep level, unless you choose to automate.
It has its warfare side. Fighting battles either strategically, or tactically, if you choose.
So a great many options about the level of depth to which you want to play on either the strategic or tactical side.
Great graphics, great music, moddable and very, very, importantly, robust enough to install in the widest range of machines above the minimum specs. I have acquired this one supposedly leading space strategy game at the moment which has this Games for Windows splashed on the box and I can't get it to work, despite have Windows 7 and more than adequate specs! But enough of that.
Like I said, the game for which we are all looking, like some gaming Holy Grail, would be easy to define and to recognise, if it ever came on the market, that perfect realisation of the game whose highest compliment is that we would kid ourselves with "one more turn and I shall go to bed" but probably so expensive and difficult to implement that we can only dream about it as we work with what we have, for I am am grateful enough. No I have played is perfect but many have been and continue be absorbing.
What I imagine is that in about twenty years or so, computers will have become so sophisticated that anyone with the minimum level of computer savvy, far below that required now, will be able to develop their own game ab initio but that is, as I say, at least a generation off and not of help to us right now. But it is something to dream about, like actually being on a space ship instead of only simulating it.
Live long and prosper.
I own GalCiv 2, Sword of the Stars, MoO 1 to 3, Space Empires IV and V, Sins of a Solar Empire, and some other games. But of all those games, the only ones that I really got into was MoO series, and Space Empires IV.
My issue with the other games is that they're difficult to just "start a new game and have fun". First, I need to learn how the game works, then once I know how to play it, I need to develop some kind of strategy. One way of achieving this is to read the manual, but that's tedious and not fun. Another way is to just jump in and make mistakes, then learn from them, while occasionally referring to the manual for non-obvious things.
The reasons why I liked the games I mentioned above are those:
MoO 3 suffers a bit from complex gameplay, but it have the AI to help with stuff, so it reduces the "mistakes" part, and makes it more fun from the beginning. So I can just jump in and start having fun.
MoO 2 isn't complex, there's not a lot for the player to do aside from researching an item, opening a planet and assigning something to build, move fleet, and manage population, as well as diplomacy. So it was easy to pick up, and I had fun from the beginning.
MoO 1 is my favorite of all space TBS, it's really simple, not too many options to overwhelm you, but enough to make you feel that you're in control of your empire. Sliders reduce the actual items to abstract (factories means the total industry output).
You may say that I'm a "casual" TBS gamer, but the truth is, if the game's not fun on the first turn without reading the manual or instructions on how to play, it destroys my motivation to play it. This may be why so many players don't play TBS, because of the learning curve. They want to just start up the game and start having fun, without needing to read instructions (This may be reason why FPS and racing games are so popular, they're easy to play)
I really wanted a game that's similar to MoO 1 in terms of simplicity and imagination-boosting gameplay, but people either don't make it, or make games that's way too complex and misses the mark. So I decided to make my own MoO-esque game, I'm still working on it. You can see the progress at http://beyondbeyaan.blogspot.com/.
My goals for that game is: Easy to pick up, fun from the first turn without having to read a manual, but deep and complex enough so veteran players can develop advanced strategies.
My issue with the other games is that they're difficult to just "start a new game and have fun". First, I need to learn how the game works, then once I know how to play it, I need to develop some kind of strategy. One way of achieving this is to read the manual, but that's tedious and not fun. Another way is to just jump in and make mistakes, then learn from them, while occasionally referring to the manual for non-obvious things.
The reasons why I liked the games I mentioned above are those:
MoO 3 suffers a bit from complex gameplay, but it have the AI to help with stuff, so it reduces the "mistakes" part, and makes it more fun from the beginning. So I can just jump in and start having fun.
MoO 2 isn't complex, there's not a lot for the player to do aside from researching an item, opening a planet and assigning something to build, move fleet, and manage population, as well as diplomacy. So it was easy to pick up, and I had fun from the beginning.
MoO 1 is my favorite of all space TBS, it's really simple, not too many options to overwhelm you, but enough to make you feel that you're in control of your empire. Sliders reduce the actual items to abstract (factories means the total industry output).
You may say that I'm a "casual" TBS gamer, but the truth is, if the game's not fun on the first turn without reading the manual or instructions on how to play, it destroys my motivation to play it. This may be why so many players don't play TBS, because of the learning curve. They want to just start up the game and start having fun, without needing to read instructions (This may be reason why FPS and racing games are so popular, they're easy to play)
I really wanted a game that's similar to MoO 1 in terms of simplicity and imagination-boosting gameplay, but people either don't make it, or make games that's way too complex and misses the mark. So I decided to make my own MoO-esque game, I'm still working on it. You can see the progress at http://beyondbeyaan.blogspot.com/.
My goals for that game is: Easy to pick up, fun from the first turn without having to read a manual, but deep and complex enough so veteran players can develop advanced strategies.
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