I must say, Amplitude... I have always loved your work. ES was one of the first games I played when I moved 3 years ago. Downloaded it in half an hour waiting for pizza, and loved it. Spent the rest of the night beating up the Pilgrims since they looked like nice non-threatening space hippies. I've always loved ES, and EL has potential...



but I must admit, I'm somewhat annoyed with you as of late.



It started around Disharmony, where there were a few questionable design decisions and some problems started to arise. The original ES was PERFECT and the AI was competent enough to use all the features of the game. Terraforming, ship design, siege mechanics, etc. But the new features, like strike craft modules, bombers and troops were not used by the AI. In fact, to this day, has anyone seen the AI use bombers in an ES game?



Similarly, the main problem EL has is that the AI has no idea how to deal with sieges. The main problem might be that the siege mechanics make no sense at all. The AI will sit in its town, accumulating damage until it's rendered defenseless where my response to a siege is just to get the garrison together, march it to an adjacent hex of the besieging army and run the ugly kids out of town. If the AI doesn't have a nearby army to rescue the town, the town it doomed.



Where am I going with all this? Rather than get to work on ES2, which.... ehhhh..I'm not super duper impressed by just yet, these large problems within the Endless games should be attended to and addressed. I'm hoping Ail is still on the forums here. He was doing all kinds of work with the AI, so he could be of use. The siege mechanic for EL, honestly, needs to be completely redone. You could probably sell it as part of an expansion pack. Be interesting to see the differences between what the Broken Lords would use for siege and the Necrophages would create for the same task.



Summing up? Fix the old games before you start creating the new ones or else, 1) you'll lose what little remains of the player base (most prolific poster lately seems to be a bot posting nonsense), and 2) the critics and reviewers will eat you alive. Heed my words, Amplitude. I'm only harsh because I care.

I understand where you're coming from but I'm not sure if I agree. If they focused on making Endless Space 1 perfect before they released Endless Space 2 they would have no reason to release Endless Space 2, and in some ways fixing the problems of the first game can probably be done easier by rebuilding it from scratch knowing more about how the mechanics work together and with new ideas to put in the game. Simply tacking on new mechanics without the rest of the game being designed to fit around them may even be the cause of some of the problems you mentioned.

Pondera wrote:




1 - but I must admit, I'm somewhat annoyed with you as of late.





2 - Summing up? Fix the old games before you start creating the new ones or else, 1) you'll lose what little remains of the player base (most prolific poster lately seems to be a bot posting nonsense), and 2) the critics and reviewers will eat you alive. Heed my words, Amplitude. I'm only harsh because I care.

1. Really? that's strange.



2. No one does this for free, don't forget that. They haven't lost any player base as far as that. There is an insane amount of competition for your/mine wallet right now, so "fixing" an old game doesn't have the same "sexy appeal" as making a new one. Having said that, they haven't stopped working on EL. The AI is getting a major overhaul soon, so most of your complaints might/should be addressed soon.



I too have many AI complaints, but as a VIP, I can see what they are fixing, and I can tell you that the fix is going to be huge.

I'm sorry to hear that the things you find upsetting with our games affect your opinion of the team.



Allow me to address the point the two members above haven't mentioned: I think I currently may be the most active poster? I can 100% guarantee I'm not a bot, even though nonsense is not out of the question.



If you're interested in taking part in the discussion on AI, since it seems to be your main concern, I suggest you head over to this thread, where willbefast often comments on suggestions and other community feedback.