Game becoming too cult like?

Nice read. Interesting, of course i think that is what capt.kwok was trying to accomplish with his mods, simplify without giving up complexity. I personally like the 100 lvls, etc., even if i dont get to all of them, so long as each level offers something new or different to the game, like +10 supply, or +1 range, etc,lol. The more complex the game, the more i like it. That +10 supply or +1 range could be the real difference in a battle/war. I honestly hate the idea of having nothing to reasearch by turn 100, for example. I'm 49 years old and have always loved the most complex games, over the simple or arcade types. The most complex game i ever played was STW (star trek wars), a game I and 7 friends made (a mod i guess) combining Starfleet Battles with Federation & Empires, back in the early 80's in SanDiego CA. It took over a year to make and combine the 2 board games to the point of making a map to join the 2 maps of the games to make it work as well as a 7 piece hexegonal battle map of 61 hexes each so we could fight with out any form of boarders to box us in, lol those were the days 8D. Ofcourse simplifying the paper work was the real nightmare lol. I can see where simplicity combined with complexity can be useful, and to me computers have done just that.

I personnally think when they came out with the SE serries they should have tried to include a easy version doing just that, less levels etc, to speed up game play for those who hate the teediness of a long term type game, for the purpose of sales ofcourse, and to accomedate those who love this type of game with out the slow complexity this one has. But i would truly hate to see any loss of complexity just for the purpose of haste, or impatience. I bought the early Starcraft serries and was not impressed at all, played it maybe 10 times at most and concluded it was just a bad Age of Empires with a science ficton theme, and i haven't played it since and dont plan to in the future at anytime.

Well just my opinion ofcourse, and I hope the SE serries continues, as well as improves (especially the A.I.). Good article though. Good hunting and kill well.

I do not think the game is becoming Cult based but Fan Based.

The type of game requires its players to have a certain mindset.

The mindset helps to attract players of the same type.

I have looked at other games like CIV and they will go to a bigger audience since multiple mindsets are pleased with it.

To add a mind set I would add the ability for a Hyper start where much of what is done over many turns is done in the setup. Even more have levels of Hyperstart so the ppl that want to play fast games can be included.

Help! I have been assimilated

I like the tech progression the way it is. It gives the rather retarded AI many deep paths to waste time taking while I precisely target where I want to go.

I also liked combining SFB with F&E. I'd use F&E as is then switch to SFB to resolve any resulting battles. The downside of that is it would be difficult to find enough players in the entire US with the patience for one campaign game!

IMO, the entire turn-based strategy genre is "cult-based", at least in the way you're using the term. No TBS title is ever going to get a fraction of the market share a first-person shooter will.

"Good morning, Pooh Bear," said Eeyore gloomily. "If it /is/ a good morning," he said. "Which I doubt," said he.

The Civilization series is more mainstream than cult based. Once upon a time, virtually all games were TBS. Progress doesn't necessarily make things obsolete.

If you want an "easy type" mod to exist, just make one and point people to it. There are some mods with more simplistic data sets that still have tons of emergent complexity out there already, such as Carrier Battles for SE4 and Gritty Galaxy for SE5.

I bad-mouth Starcraft all the time. There is nothing special about it; its just another bland, run-of-the-mill RTS game. The tech/units/etc. are too simple, too basic... Each race boils down to essentially 1 viable strategy (with minor variations thereof), played over and over and over again. What's the point?

Start with 10 planets and a fair level of tech points, and you've got your "hyperstart" already.

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Starcraft is shit.So that makes 2 bad mouths.

I actually like teh complexity. One of the reasons I am buying this game and not other strategy games is because its not that in anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 hours your going to have mountains of technology at your disposal. If its that short to advance then the games don't last nearly as long or are not nearly as interesting.

Players willing to wait minutes just to play another turn is sign of cult status.

I don't understand how people can put up with the turn times. I like the complexity of the game too, but the turn times ruin it for me. Are the turn times in ANY other turn based game this long? No game that I can think is even close to se5.

No point comparing it to Starcraft; entirely different design-ideas and game types. And if you let all the people who liked Starcraft try Space Empires( or another 4x game ), probably 95% of them would instantly dismiss it as a poor, boring and slow-paced game. Spreadsheets in space.

Space Empires, and most 4x games in general, have always targeted a rather small and specific part of the gaming market. The more accessible ones, like GalCiv, have traded options and features for user-friendliness and fast-paced gameplay, and that's why those games interest alot more gamers; on the other hand, that's why those games are of less interest to Space Empires players( although I'm sure alot of you like that game too).

Your notion of making Space Empires more accessible while also keeping the "hardcore" players happy is a great one. But trust me, it wouldn't be the first time it's been tried with a game series, and it almost always fail. And it's always the old fans that loses out.

Can't please everyone.

Plenty of games have come out with long turn times on common hardware of the day... Civ3 is a prime example, especially when the game progressed to the later stages. There is no correlation between "cult" status and non-instantaneous turn processing times. Look at Master of Magic; it had an actual combat engine, and turn processing could take a while as a result. Also see Age of Wonders, Heroes of Might and Magic, Lords of Magic, Dominions, etc. The list goes on. Some games with combat engines cheat and just do some crappy auto-resolution calculations, without regard to the actual combat mechanics (Total War series, I'm looking at you), and it makes for a terrible experience.

If you are going to have a real combat engine, and not just fudge a few numbers for "auto-resolution," you have to give it time to process. This is especially true of DirectX real time engines, where its rather difficult to reconcile a purely math-calculated combat result with actual model rendering data (collisions of objects and such) and a real time clock. SE4 could be fast, since objects did not collide arbitrarily; only through an explicit entering of the same square. SE4 didn't need to worry about synchronizing the actions of every object, since only one object could act at a time. Same with MOO, same with most other 4x/TBS games (since most did not have real time engines). Civ doesn't have any sort of combat engine, so there is nothing to worry about there. Certainly, you can speed up the real time clock (which SE5 does for strategic combat resolution), but that can't just be done arbitrarily, since it affects every single function call during the combat resolution; if the clock is set to 8x, each function has to know how to scale its results accordingly. Then there are issues with how to handle the fundamental timer increments and such... Lots of bugs have cropped up in SE5 as a result of these faster timing settings, and lots of fixes have been necessary over the dev cycle. Its certainly not a simple issue.

SE5's AI script processing (and thus all the decision making) takes under a second most of the time, so its not a contributing factor to turn processing times. The only other big factor is ship movement, and calculating all of the sight information as each AI moves its ships about. There may or may not be ways left for Aaron to try optimizing the movement routines, but that's for him to say.

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I have to agree with all that has been said before.

The two first games I think I ever bought for a computer I yanked from a K-Mart bargain bin together; Solar Winds and Stars!;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Winds
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stars%21

Compared to Stars!, Space Empires V is other-worldly in graphics. In terms of grand strategy, I find Stars! to have a slight advantage due to the more fluid nature of space when you can move across an open plain galaxy versus simply camping out and pitching a tent over warp points. In all other regards, though, SE:V is a sound genre successor. Even in terms of strategy I suppose it's a matter of taste. While Stars! allowed for some interesting tactics regarding sensor strength, mine fields, vectors of attack, etc, it could also become an insane mess, at least with AI's.

Anybody that started off with similar games (MOO as well I assume, though I never played it) wouldn't want a more simple SE6. Some of the mods intentionally dial up the complexity in certain ways. Someone said turn-based strategy is a cult; I agree. We're your friendly neighborhood cultists, though, and the people around here are open and willing to bring anyone who can appreciate an in-depth game in to the fold.

All that said, oddly enough, I liked the 2-d top-down map of SE:IV better; I found it easy to see everything clearly. I think I'm in a minority, though.

Well all in all, cult or not, SE5 is in a class by its self IMHO. An elite class, a game for thinkers, strategists with tactical ability's. Being disabled and having gaming as my main hobby, i own alot of games, and i have my fav's. SE5 is in my top 3 most favorite games, MTW2, and COD serries the others. They all fill a need for my gaming moods, and i would miss any of the 3 if they were to changed from thier original formats to try and reach more people or discontinued for that matter. The truth of the matter is we all have our favorites, for our own reasons, and i agree with fyron, rather then try to make SE5 like something else, just go play something else. This weekend i'm in the mood for World of Warcraft, so i'm gonna kill me some alliance scum, with joy and determination, and to be honest, i think WOW is a cult game, 11 million players, peeps who eat sleep and live WOW are abundant, scarry indeed lol. Either way, i'm glad there is an SE serries and hope it lasts a long time for those of us who recognize its true potential and apprieciate its long, time consuming, campaigns made for us thinkers. Just my opinion of course, well good hunting all and kill well!!!

Sim City anyone????

That being said, 4x games are a breed unto themselves and comparing a 4x game to a RTS (if one could even add the 's' part of it...) is like when Diablo first came out and they called it a Role Playing Game: the mold fit enough at the time, but eventually it came to have its own class of game. It sure was not a gold box ' Pools of Radiance' or akin...Same thing here- RTS does not equal 4x (or TBS)

Perhaps that's some of the challenge in todays games: too much action, not enough thinking. Many popular titles require speed and visual recognition skills rather than complex planning and thought like 'where do I want to be 30 turns from now?'. Not that I mind that now and then, but Patience is the 4x's best friend.

IMHO I'd still like to see the combat be 4x instead of the hybrid RTS it currently is. SEIV was way better in using that 's' for strategy all around- each turn AND in combat. Now, it's more of try to click on every little thing to get it to try to be a TBS game. Most of the time I leave it on autopilot, with a bit of attack/defense tweaking.

-Z

Completely tangential comment: so where would you put Supreme Commander on the 'how much S of RTS' question?

I'd argue "Real Time Tactics" games do have room for thought & planning - it's just that the players don't really have the luxury to think. All they can do is react, and hence train their reflexes to follow the most efficient routines. Giving players the luxury of time to think in a Turn Based game... doesn't necessarily mean all players will actually Think either (as opposed to reflexes, both short-term and long-term).

"Where do I want to be in 30 turns' time?" is not complex planning - it's basics that any experienced player should do. Patience yes, but not 'complex'.

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go to this Wiki if interested. No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE

I've found that SupCom, while it uses big maps, is no more strategic than Total Annihilation was. It's got big maps, but units move briskly; it just takes a "rush" longer to reach the opposing base, and while it may (or may not) get repelled things devolve in to reactive combat situations like you describe pretty quick.

A key difference, if there is one, is that staging areas are larger and their are more realms to do battle over; sea, air and land are all more important to control than in TA, and there are short-range sets of weapons that fight fierce close-in battles, and a variety of strategic-ranged weapons that come in to play late-game (which, just like any spoiling super-weapon, often means game over if the opponent can't quickly eliminate them in a quick tactical attack -- no time for strategy at that point). Any variety of simple tactical errors can cause the house of cards to fall apart in a brutal attempt to fend off a foe.

It has a lot more strategy than, say, StarCraft, but less I think than 4X turn-based games. Even when battlefield set-backs (or surprise victories) happen in SE:IV, if you haven't worked out the logistics you may not get very far -- you'll run out of gas, literally. Also not impossible to wage a successful guerilla campaign, making it possible to overcome short term set backs. Strategy can offset tactics. I try to keep my shipyards and resource breadbaskets a couple systems away from the front lines for this reason, and as wasteful as it may be 90% of the time I also keep a reserve fleet parked deep at home.

Get your anti-nuke silo bombed by strategic bombers or a kamikaze ground attack and eat a nuke in the middle of your base, might as well call it a day.

Hmm, I only played Supreme Commander briefly, but from what I remember it was basically just the same as other RTS games only with the ability to zoom further out. What did I miss?

Too cult like? So some cult "flavor" is good? Hmmm. As there are other distinct games covering the same general turf, I doubt a strong case could be made to single out SEV. What about GalCiv? Sword of the Stars? Reach for the Stars? Master of Orion? It's just a genre. Cult status in pop culture usually denotes a very modest popularity coupled with extreme longevity. In other words the object of the cult status doesn't seem to be popular enough to flourish, but somehow refuses to fade away entirely. SEV is far too young to have such status. On a personal level I hope the SE series does eventually become more mainstream (popular). I respect indie game designer/developers and wish them all well.

Reason why I brought up Supreme Commander was that you don't need to tie up so much attention on actually getting your army out - as in, checking back every now and then to "replenish the build queue". Mind you, the flaw was that all your attention was instead spent on building economy buildings, but it seems (I need to get it and experience it first hand eventually) Forged Alliance has changed that - now resource sites actually matter.

I mentioned people don't have the luxury to think in most RTTactics games - their time is mostly spent on worrying about getting the next army out, micromanaging their existing units, etc. Supreme Commander (with Forged Alliance 'expansion') may give players enough time to actually think of strategic level thoughts. Huge maps help since, as mentioned, rushes are delayed.

Now what would really help is if you had an 'enemy base analyser' feature - something to tell you "your scout that died saw a superweapon under construction" or "latest intel counted X of this unit type". Actually, the latter is somewhat done for you I guess - radar still shows what unit types there were and hence, if you have luxury of thought, you can analyse what that rush is comprised of and possibly what its intention is.

Though I see the point that Logistics is lacking in Real Time Tactics games. Hmm I should clarify exactly what "strategy" means to me, and why I see there being a chance for it to exist in RTS games as well as TBS games.

Tactics is about finding the most efficient reaction routines - stuff you train your reflexes to do automatically to maximise your chances given no advance knowledge or preparation. E.g. "how to get the good rushes out fast" or "good earlygame ship designs to tech rush for"

Logistics is about getting your army into position and keeping it supplied - indeed RTS games usually don't have "fuel and ammo" considerations to worry about.

Strategy is about thinking about your opponent. "What is my opponent's mental state right now, how will it be affected by revealing this piece of information, and in what way can I take advantage of it?" If all you are thinking is 'this is where my army will be on turn X, that research will be done in Y turns, resupply will happen from here, enemy may come at any time with some fleet so these measures are in place...' then I don't see that as 'Strategy' - just tactics and logistics, without in-depth analysis of the opponent's thought processes.

In that sense, 'strategy' can exist in FPS games too, in the sense of "I just had an engagement with my opponent. Will he pursue me to get a kill, will he retreat to heal, or is he waiting to ambush me, or is he trying to go round and shoot me in the back?"

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go to this Wiki if interested. No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE

Psieye-
You hit the nail on the head: point was that in a RTS, you REACT with thinking along a predisposed set of 'options' to succeed. 30 turns later in a TBS allows one to plan if one has the capacity to think because of the analysis needed to ascertain where the 'enemies' will be or could be at that stage. That's all I was saying.

Game on!

-Z

I don't like the pseudo 3D effect in SE5 at all. The display in SE4 was far cleaner and easier to understand. The pseudo 3D view doesn't even make sense because the planets are all on the same plane so all the 3D aspect does is obscure the view. The plus with the 3D display is that you can show more information on the planet "sign". Imagine a load of houses with signs planted outside. Looked at face on you can see a lot of information but look at them from a helicopter and the level of information drops to nothing. There's only so much you can fit into a single hex BUT that's what the planet information box is for anyway, IMO.

While I've become used to the 3D display I still think a 2D option would have made more sense and would probably allow me to better enjoy the game instead of feeling I'm constantly battling the interface. Keep the snazzy 3D display for the screenshots but give us a 2D display for actually playing on.

On Fyron's point earlier about long turn times being a consequence of having a "real" battle system instead of a fudged system that runs the numbers - there are TWO real battle systems. The real battle system you use when you're playing single player and the real battle system you use in multiplayer. You can essentially "cheat" against the AI in singleplayer (in tactical) if you choose to. So if the "real" battle system allows for two very different results in tactical view how is it really "real"?

If it speeded up turn processing I would quite happily put up with calculated results. Give me a third option besides tactical and strategic - "Roll the dice". Even a 75% accuracy would be sufficient for me if it significantly speeded up game processing. Heck, you might even say it was MORE realistic because most of the simulated battles are going to end the same way with very little variance when run through the existing system and that's not really THAT realistic anyway. There are many battles which are time consuming to run, eg a battle with 200 ships on 1 side and a single out of ordinance fighter on the other, that require a LOT of processing for a foregone conclusion. Obviously in MP a decision would have to be made at the start whether a dice rolling system was used but turn processing isn't as big a deal in most MP games, apparently. For SP though I'd like to see it but don't really expect any such radical changes to be made at this stage.

Too often the game suffers from realism at the expense of gameplay. Which brings us back to the OP who I agree with wholeheartedly. There are probably two things that would introduce more players to the "Space Empires" fold - a gentler learning curve and a campaign mode. I would say that you'll see both with SE6, whoever ends up developing it for Strategy First. It'll also probably be an RTS so you'll have your Starcraft/Space Empires hybrid.

EDIT - and you know what I'd really like to see that would be fairly easy to implement - a no-tactical-combat mode that automatically ran through battle calculations at 32x in strategic and allowed me to just view the results at the start of my turn.

Uhuh, I find no comparison with SEIV's system view and SEV's. It's very clear that SEV's '3D' system view was made only because of the game's "need" for bells and whistles.

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go to this Wiki if interested. No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE

This is so true. Now let the true followers prepare the sacrifice....

Groovy Baby Yeah!

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If you do "same computer, sequential turns" then even if you tick 'No Tactical Combat' you still get interrupted during turn processing by this dialogue box, just so you can say 'I want strategic combat'.

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go to this Wiki if interested. No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE

Just play simultaneous movement... its much fairer on the AI, there are no extraneous "confirm that you want strategic combat when its the only option" dialogs, etc.

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I don't just play any else type games than TBS, I play a lot and I have been playing a looooong, loooong time (there WERE computer games already before personal computers...), so IMHO:

- (usually) simple game = no depth = not many (usually only one) possible strategy to win and when you find this strategy out, you (usually) win every time = boring after a while = short 'fun' period

- (usually) complex game = deep = have several possible strategies to win and you can allways make/develop/try new ones = you never can be sure (before certain point) that you will win = long 'fun' period and possibility to come back to play again even after years (I still play ocassionally good games like Alpha Centauri, MoO III and Patrician III)

Complex games are (usually again) difficult to learn game mechanics and find out different possibilities (as a strategial point of view) but (at least for me) learning a game is a part of fun.

Wenla
---
Before you can develop a strategy, you have to have a vision.

I'm glad that I'm one of the 5% minority then . Total annihiliation is better than Starcraft from a strategy mindset though I like all three games though I tend to play only Space Empires multiplayer.

Judging by the amount of newb questions that this forum get I would say that it is not a cult game, it is just a niche game (just like tabletop).

Nope. I got your point and disagreed with you so, as is typical, you came back with a snotty reply. As I made very clear I only see dice-rolled combat resolution as an option. It's actually something I use in Total War all the time for the very reasons I previously stated - it saves time!

I really find this sort of arrogant confrontational "discussion" very tiresome. It should be possible for me to express an opinion without you feeling I'm calling you out, hand hovering over the handle of my six-shooter.

You seem to have read something well beyond what I posted...

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---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go to this Wiki if interested. No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE

Well, i for one say becomming "cult like or not", its a great game and not for everyone. If sitting around for hours on end to injoy a game you like is a cult, then so be it. Most of us who play these games play many others as well, and yet we still come back to SE5. I'd like to believe i play it becuase its fun,is full of possible out comes,can change in the moment of 1 turn, to a whole other strategic situiation, and no 2 campaigns are the same.Maybe i dont know as much as i think, but to me a cult game is a game that people play incessantly, no matter what...like WOW, COH, WWIIOL, and not much else. But i guess those could be classified as an obsession or an addiction as well. I'll stick with the Elite gamers game for me, sounds cool he he. But on an end note, i'm glad its here and i plan on playing it alot, as much as my other favorites. I only hope the modders keep modding and the designers keep designing. Just my opinion ofcourse

I don't think that a simplified way to calculate combat would make such a difference in the turn processing time. Especially that its now resolving combats at 32X. It is mostly the ships movement algorithm that needs to be optimized.

Fyron is like he is. Still he’s one of the most involved person in the community for ages. He always go directly to the point. You’ll notice that he gives tons of useful information in a few words ... and he's always ready to discuss about those.

Sometimes I wonder how Fyron and captain Kwok are doing to keep answering posts almost every day?!? Not that I am complaining about this! Hmmm … are you working directly for MM guys? You should be paid for what you are doing.

Thanks,
Frank

SE V is a true strategy game. I like to be able to think about my moves, plan, setup a trap that might take a few (or dozens) turns to come to be... Very satisfying for a strategy gamer... The complexity of this game is what attracted me to it in the first place. It's one of the main reasons why I bought it.

RTS is horrible. It's a click fest. Nothing more. An action oriented arcade game, essentially. The use of the term RTS to categorize it is a complete misnomer, in my opinion of course...

And the turn times aren't really that bad if you think about it. You are playing against computer players that do NOT just have things materialize, like I've seen in some games... The computers in SE V really DO their turns, just like you would, by the same rules that you follow. (Not counting the computer player bonus you can set when starting the game, of course...)

This is one of the biggest reasons why developing the AI in this game is so hard... You actually have to get the AI to "think"... Easy you say? Try coding something one day and then get back to me...

Given that a dozen or more AI players do their turns in anywhere between 2 seconds and 1-2 minutes (for me so far, or even a total of 20 minutes from what I've read in the forums for some) that amounts to about a max of 1-2 minutes per AI player most of which do not take this long... Is that really bad? Given that MY turns can take upwards of 20-30 minutes (or longer later in the game) to play if I do the details, the computer is doing theirs much quicker (10-15 times quicker) than any real player could. AND you get the benefit of 19 other opponents at your whim when you want to play. I think it is a small price to pay for such an indepth game. And one that doesn't "cheat"...

I do agree that one suggestion would be to have an "intro" version of the game to let people get their "feet wet" that way the learning curve isn't so high for new players... But ultimately, some of the players attracted by te "basic" version of the game would soon realize that there is much more to this game than first meets the eye and they would be the same people to be discouraged from playing it in the first place, no?

It comes down to people who really want to play strategy vs traditional RTS players... They're just two different types of gamers...

I've some mod-programming for various games so I can appreciate how hard this must be for the developer. However, excuses, even if very valid, don't make the game better. Nevermind how difficult it must be to develop the AI and try to keep the turn processing times down; to a seemingly big portion of the player base this game has poor AI( especially in stock ) and very long waiting times inbetween player turns, and it's greatly reducing the fun of what is otherwise an excellent and unique game. And how much fun you're having is what it comes down to in the end.

It's like reading a great and immersive book and getting minute-long interruptions every few minutes. It takes away so much from the experience. More often than not I find myself hesitating when about to press the "End Turn" button, having to decide if the fun is worth the wait or if I should just quit and continue some other time instead.

I don't know if there's a definition of what a "cult game" really is, but as I observe there are a lot of people putting effort into moving the SE series forward with their intellectual products. To be quite frank, I'm really surprised by the amount of people who still play SEV in its actual state, especially the ones who developed their skills and killed their precious time into making new mods/shipsets, merely hoping that one day SEV will be as good as SEIV became in the end. It's I think can be called "love" or "addiction" towards the game. If there's a lot of people who feel so towards inanimate objects or ideals, I think it makes a cult, so in my opinion we can summarize SE's fan community as one.

One of my beefs with SEV is the lack of a story line. In Starcraft the story line brought you along, it was very cool and compelling. There is basically no story line in SEV. Another game that illlistrates what I'm getting at is Alpha Centauri, when you encounter a certain race you could expect they would behave in a certain way...

SEV, more than a feeling.

The lack of a storyline is a benefit, not a drawback, IMO. Storylines just railroad everything in the game, from the ground up, along specific paths; they are fine for some games, but we still need games with more of a sandbox feel to them..

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Games are similar to television series in this regard. Most people need motivation to stick to a game, and a storyline is the most effective instrument to create this factor. I don't say that players of future SE versions must follow a specific chain of events (that just doesn'f fit to SE), albeit a random based story development algorithm wouldn't do any harm to my health.

So it's not "story" so much as "distinct individuality/character" in the other empires that you seek? Last I heard, GidMod was the most advanced in doing this - certainly each empire had different tastes in what they look for in allies and would anger differently. Then you'd need someone to re-write all the diplomatic dialogues to tailor it for each race - not hard but it's long and tedious.

What you seek can be achieved in SE V - it needs to be written first though.

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go to this Wiki if interested. No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE

I meant an algorithm that is able to generate events/missions in a larger coherent sequence that gives newer and newer tasks to the player. Smaller tasks are like "go and blow up a meteor" or "go and help out a merchant" (typical IG side-missions). Larger ones are like "go and make an alliance strong enough to kick the mega-evil emperor's butt", and could be overlapped with or composed by smaller tasks.

I prefer open ended games to ones where I'm led around by the nose on scripted "missions". It feels like I'm playing someone else's game rather than my own.

I don't mind a plot-less game as such, but there's alot of things that would make the experience better. We really need pirates, space monsters and move events.

Those can be modded in, easily enough. Get to work!

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I find that monsters lack realism. Pirates are more believable.

Is this based on your experience exploring space?

Groovy Baby Yeah!

No. Other than being fun, monsters make no sense. Outside of panspermia, no living organism should be able to thrive or move in space. So a Space Amoeba (Star Trek), Space Dragon (SFB), or the monsters in MOO2 aren't very realistic. The Borg (Star Trek) and New Orions (MOO3) might be considered monsters but they are actually seperate races.

For those who like monsters, I would suggest they can be handled as random events instead of like ships. This being just a game people should be able to mod them in (or not) as they desire but I still don't like the idea, at least in this game.

I like pirates because as we explore and expand in space I could easily see something like this coming about. I believe as we go out into space we will discover that our worst enemy will be ourselves.

Realism and space opera are polar opposites... Bashing down features over "realism" concerns doesn't lead to very fun games.

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"Good morning, Pooh Bear," said Eeyore gloomily. "If it /is/ a good morning," he said. "Which I doubt," said he.

Not bashing/flaming you, this is my opinion, but what do you think Tactical Combat is in Space Empires V? Plenty of people line up to say how RTS’s are crap, but without it you’d have no Space Combat or Ground Combat. A Pure Turn Based Combat engine would be awful (Final Fantasy anyone?) in my opinion, or it'd be spreadsheets in space.

SEV’s space combat RTS actually is not too bad, and reminds me of Star Trek Armada, but what about ground combat?

Ground Combat is a ‘click fest’. There is no grand strategy involved, if your looking at it with that criteria. Plonk a load of units you made previously and click as many targets as you can. If you outnumber then you’re going to win.

Homeworld is essentially an RTS, and there’s nothing basic about that. HW should be what SE’s tactical combat should strive to be like, again IMO. Though as stated, I think SEV’s is pretty good.

If SE6 had HW’s graphics and tactical combat for space, Supreme Commanders graphics and quick pace for ground combat, and kept SE3/4/5’s style for Turn Based Empire building I’d be a very happy man...

SE3 and SE4 managed to do just fine with turn based combat systems (primitive though they were, lacking initiative).

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SE:V does bug me quite a bit in the complexity of it. When I really think about it, the game boils down to who can build the best fleet and maneuver it to eliminate the enemy. Everything else is merely means to building that superior fleet. Thus, unless a design idea adds some depth to this concept (like, say, a really survivable ship idea that isn't terribly powerful, but can witness a lot of combats and allows one to build a superior ship through experience rather than merely superior technology), it really doesn't belong.

To this extent I plan on simplifying a lot of things with my mod. The game does not need as many weapons as it does (beam, projectile, missile, with perhaps 2 variations of each and mounts to modify the purpose of all of these weapons), it does not need as much technology as it has. Like one of the ideas for my mod is to remove storage facilities and place that ability into the mining facilities themselves, or merge them all into one omni-storage facility.

Out of interest do you prefer SE3/4's Turn Based Combat over SE5' RTS combat?

I do think some of the complexity and thinking is lost when you move from Turn Based to RTS (hence why 4X games that are played totally in Real Time 'tend' to lack depth, i.e. Imperium Galactica), but I prefer fast-paced combat and think its more realistic thinking on your feet in a military situation than spending 5 minutes trying to work out how best to make one move, akin to playing chess. But that's just my opinion, for some i'm sure SE5's step into the RTS world was the wrong direction to take.

Interesting point, I'll have to give that some more thought. It did seem to work well enough in our history. It was a good way to deny resources to an adversary while enriching yourself.

I disagree with you about piracy. When space craft are about as cheap as a nice yacht, there are lots of places to hide and go and it would be easy to set up an ambush. Add in the fact that projectiles have unlimited range, you could lob a shell at a target taking a predictable route and have it hit a few minutes later, then sweep in and steal what they were carrying.

What is to be gained? There were lots of people eager to take all of America's gold and ship it back to Europe. That's likely to happen when colonization and exploration become a big thing.

capnq

"Good morning, Pooh Bear," said Eeyore gloomily. "If it /is/ a good morning," he said. "Which I doubt," said he.

Piracy as state policy (privateers, interdiction, etc.) still sounds viable. In Space Empires, it would be like placing a fleet around a world so the empire cannot use its resources.

Another way would be to use small ships to generally cause trouble so someone would be forced to divert naval assets that would have been used elsewhere. (game and real life)

Check out my new Mod. Space Empires LITE: http://www.spaceempires5.com/en-US/node/5065

SE5 Files hosted on Filefront (Patches,
Mods, Races, etc)

Oh I dont know the few space pirates I know do very well for theemselves.... Honestly the whole debate about such things when man has hardly left the planet is well.... like a caveman debating about the internet....

Groovy Baby Yeah!

I think a caveman would enjoy the internet.

I think the possibility of space piracy would belong to the travelling system. In SE, you have to pass wormholes to leave or enter a system. The ship on the one side of the wormhole doesn't see the other end. You can wait on merchants and the pirate ship will be armed...

In Weber's Honor Harrington series Manticore has lots of bases on the homeward side of their warp points. They are also unique in that they have six warp points when others have only one, if that. (They use FTL for normal travel which could take months and WPs for instant shortcuts, kind of like MOO3)