Ello, need some advice.. kinda... |
Ello there, a few weeks back when the game was released i posted a bit of a rant on these forums bout the unplayable state of the game. After chatting to some folks here and generally calming down a lil i decided to shelve it and come back after a couple months and see if it was playable so of i went got stuck into WoW again, conquered the whole world in Medevil 2, played some Mark of chaos and went through Jagged Alliance 2 for the 4th time. After all that i come back here and see were up to patch 1.20 now which sounds promising to my ears and what i wanna know is simple... is it worth me installing the game and having another bash yet or not?
Please dont mistake this for a flame or a complaint, i love these games and accepted its a work in progress back when i was last posting all i want is some honest oppinions on the state of the game at its currant patch. Does it still crash all the time? Are there mental bugs like the ordinance one? is the AI better than a retarded banana? and does it still take a stupidly long time to process turns? that kinda thing. Of course what id love to hear is "Yeh dude its as cool as a fool in a swimming pool, challanging AI and a smooth running game." but id appreciate the truth a lot more even if its bad news.
I'd say it's playable. The
I'd say it's playable. The big bugs that I knew about have been worked out by now, though it does still crash on me every once in awhile, and load times can get pretty long between turns unless you restart the program every so often (memory leak, and all). The stock AI is still retarded, but, as the fellow above me suggested, downloading Kwock's mod can fix that, as it can be quite a terror when set to max. It uses the most effective tools available to it (mines), but without the originality or adaptability of a human player.
So, you'll still be frustrated, but not nearly as much. With the 1.20 patch and the Balance Mod, it's quite an enjoyable game, in my opinion. Not quite done yet, but a hell of a lot better than it was.
~ Kingside_Bishop
Yes it is better
I've been playing with 1.20 and Kwok's 101 mod. Player turns are much faster now. AI still needs work, but it is better than it was. As noted above, give the AI all the advantages you can and it will make it a more interesting game. The game has never crashed on my machine, but then I started out with ver. 1.17. I still notice occasional quirks, or minor bugs, while annoying, are not game stopping.
So YES, I think you will find it worthwhile now.
Syko
Ah, catch up
I recommend following the advice of getting Balance Mod yes. Furthermore, you can easily make it harder by going to Settings.txt and changing what "Maximum AI bonus" means - currently it means they get x5 points (including research and intel) and x4 construction rate. Now you can easily make that bigger if you want to be insane.
All big bugs are dealt with I think. I still have a few on my mind, making me wary of using fighters and drones (they can be rather overpowered if exploited correctly) but otherwise it's fine. Certainly the stupid things like "Fleet loses Ordnance for no reason" is gone.
Critical Advice: switch off "Display ship movement lines" in the Empire Options straight away - this has been proven to greatly slow down the game as it re-calculates the entire line every hex you move.
magical
I have freinds that say 1.20 was the patch they were waiting for. They also had big playability issues until now.
Kerry-
"...I say we must move forward, not backward, upward, but forward, and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom!"
-Kodos for President
Ive heard this "Balance Mod"
Ive heard this "Balance Mod" mentioned a lot, anyone mind explaining exactly what it is 
what does it do to the game. Seems annoying that the only way to get a fight outa the AI is to give it massive boosts to intel and reaserch tho, doesnt really mean its putting up a fight just gives it a mass of reasources for u to blow up.
Psieye, thanks for the
Psieye, thanks for the advice turning off movement lines. They are killer.
My favorite "cheat" is to choose High Tech and racial points for New Players in the game startup, and then only spend a fraction of those, all on defensive and non-combat techs. Since the AI's spend their full allotment of points on useful tech areas, you start out the game in the Stone Age, 40 tech levels behind the rest, and have to be very afraid of enemy ships until you catch up, which takes quite a while.
Honestly, though, my instinct tells me it would be better to put the game away for several months while the mods are perfected. I just don't have the willpower yet.
Id generally prefer not to
Id generally prefer not to have to use a mod to get a good game 
and dont like the idea of having to give the AI a massive advantage just to get a fight outa them, doesnt really solve the problem that it sucks. Id love to finally be able to sit down and enjoy a game of SE5 but im thinking you may be right after browsing the forums a bit, gonna get company of heroes and get stuck into burning crusade methinks and come back to this in another couple of months.
Balance Mod
Balance mod is basicly the stock game, improved and balanced. Takes the insanities out and puts sanity back in, improves the AI, stuff like that.
_______________________
There are 10 types of people in the world:
Those that understand binary, and those that don't.
Yes
if you want a game which fights back Install it with 1.20 and down load Kwocks Balance Mod set on hard with maximum AI bonus. It will fight back and wining whilst being possible to beat it (if you have enough mine sweepers). It’s not the most aggressive AI I have ever met but it’s bloody minded and dogged in defence and you will feel like the US in the Pacific during WWII in a prolonged war.