monnikje wrote:
Please, don't numb it down! I love marathon games. My last HoI3 multiplayer game took us more than three months. Maybe add an option for fastplay, but please don't revolve the game around that. I don't want this to turn into a kind of Starcraft...



And about that problem of each turn taking an hour or so... Heroes of Might and Magic 5 had a system where you could all play your turn at the same time.

Don't worry Monnikje, we will not become a Stracraft, Endless space is a simultaneous turn based games in which you can control the length the game.

It is possible to do short 1-2 hours games up to very long marathon games, all depending on your game settings.

The other day in a 1V1 game, on a tiny map, Chronodrax surprised attacked me while I was totally naked, the war was short as I did not do any military research and all my newly built fleets, were obliterated in matters of seconds... that game did not last 30 mns.. so yes short games are possible

but I can guarantee that not only I will never let my guard down with chrono anymore, but a game with other settings can me much much longer.

BigityBalzworth wrote:
things I want to see:



-EPIC SCALE. I like to turn all the knobs up to eleven. Make it truly immense if the player so chooses. And with only 8 races, going with the minor races is a good idea. I like it so big that there are often alien races eliminated before you even meet them. this helps make a pretty dynamic and random galaxy.



- Quality AI and diplomacy. This must be the hardest thing to pull off, as it is so rarely done. I think it is often neglected because you can't take a screenshot of good AI to sell games. But if want to build a reputation as a game developer I think it is one of the most important things you can do with a strategy game. One thing I hate is games that simply jack up the enemy econimic/production etc. systems to increase difficulty by essentialy letting them cheat or to simply make it unfair. if you want to play like that, it could still be an option, though at the much higher difficulties. GalCiv II seemed to acheive this goal. And some sort of dialog is necessary to give empires personality. not just I'll give you this for this. I hope not to see anything resembling the god-awful ai/diplomacy in the Civ games. where every empire(devoid of personality) constant contacts you for the same meaningless open borders treaty. then the empire that you cant even reach declares war on you for no reason for 10 turns, then wants a peace treaty.



-Excellent ship design and research options. I would love to see something along the lines of MOO2. Ship design was fantastic and let the player truely customize ships with unmatched options. I liked how as research went past a weapon in the same category, the earlier weapons would get smaller and have more options like heavy mount, autofire, continuous, point defense, etc. this gave you all sorts of options for customization and meant that the latest greatest cutting edge weapon tech might not always be the one you wanted. there were options with the previous generation of tech since you had obviously become the master of that tech at that point, or simply because you jam them in using less space(bigger isn't always better). And stay away from the inexcusable lack of creativity in the tech lines from the GalCiv series. Lasers I-VI. "Remember lasers 3? well, these are better!"



- I'm not sure how the combat is supposed to work in ES. I would hope for full turn based control of my ships in battle. It seems like we don't get that anymore. here we are in the middle of turn based bliss; the excitement grows as our ships square off against the evil empire moving in on our territory. then we have to sit back and watch a movie of the computer making all the combat decisions for us. I am awaiting a clear picture of ES combat before commenting further.



- a fun and very detailed universe to explore. I would like to see nebulae, pulsars, black holes, etc. all possibly affecting travel, sensors, shields, etc. a living, breathing universe.



- flashy graphics are ok, but far from necessary in a strategy game and can often become a nuisance with massive empires and massive fleets. And a good strategy game shouldn't be limited to high end deathstar-type computers. and keep laptop gamers in mind when designing the controls, please!



thats what i have off the top of my head

I want this... and...



A game that is so epic that no race can ever conquer the whole galaxy and survive its own weight... ever... if I choose that type of large game.



I want to feel the gaming experience and not default to conquer the galaxy or win by scientific victory or some such victory condition that is the stock and trade of every 4x game. Just give me a scoring system that is based on time spent and feats completed to give me an indication on how good I'm progressing.



I want a mechanism that seriously curb large fast growing empires in it's tracks.

things I want to see:



-EPIC SCALE. I like to turn all the knobs up to eleven. Make it truly immense if the player so chooses. And with only 8 races, going with the minor races is a good idea. I like it so big that there are often alien races eliminated before you even meet them. this helps make a pretty dynamic and random galaxy.



- Quality AI and diplomacy. This must be the hardest thing to pull off, as it is so rarely done. I think it is often neglected because you can't take a screenshot of good AI to sell games. But if want to build a reputation as a game developer I think it is one of the most important things you can do with a strategy game. One thing I hate is games that simply jack up the enemy econimic/production etc. systems to increase difficulty by essentialy letting them cheat or to simply make it unfair. if you want to play like that, it could still be an option, though at the much higher difficulties. GalCiv II seemed to acheive this goal. And some sort of dialog is necessary to give empires personality. not just I'll give you this for this. I hope not to see anything resembling the god-awful ai/diplomacy in the Civ games. where every empire(devoid of personality) constant contacts you for the same meaningless open borders treaty. then the empire that you cant even reach declares war on you for no reason for 10 turns, then wants a peace treaty.



-Excellent ship design and research options. I would love to see something along the lines of MOO2. Ship design was fantastic and let the player truely customize ships with unmatched options. I liked how as research went past a weapon in the same category, the earlier weapons would get smaller and have more options like heavy mount, autofire, continuous, point defense, etc. this gave you all sorts of options for customization and meant that the latest greatest cutting edge weapon tech might not always be the one you wanted. there were options with the previous generation of tech since you had obviously become the master of that tech at that point, or simply because you jam them in using less space(bigger isn't always better). And stay away from the inexcusable lack of creativity in the tech lines from the GalCiv series. Lasers I-VI. "Remember lasers 3? well, these are better!"



- I'm not sure how the combat is supposed to work in ES. I would hope for full turn based control of my ships in battle. It seems like we don't get that anymore. here we are in the middle of turn based bliss; the excitement grows as our ships square off against the evil empire moving in on our territory. then we have to sit back and watch a movie of the computer making all the combat decisions for us. I am awaiting a clear picture of ES combat before commenting further.



- a fun and very detailed universe to explore. I would like to see nebulae, pulsars, black holes, etc. all possibly affecting travel, sensors, shields, etc. a living, breathing universe.



- flashy graphics are ok, but far from necessary in a strategy game and can often become a nuisance with massive empires and massive fleets. And a good strategy game shouldn't be limited to high end deathstar-type computers. and keep laptop gamers in mind when designing the controls, please!



thats what i have off the top of my head

I couldn't agree more. I don't want a little contained tactical smalltime 4x. I want to literally have an armada of thousands.



The ability to build upwards of 10 ships per planet. To have an average of 4 planets per system and 100s of system, the ability to have a fleet of thousands waging war all over the galaxy.

I'm looking for the ability to really build an empire that spans the stars. The most fun, for me, was the endgame in MoO2 and MoO3 (yes, I went there), where you had an empire so large that could lose hundreds of battleships in a single fight and still come back for more. What I found lacking in most recent attempts at a 4x Space game is just that, at most you have a few dozen planets in a few systems - that is not an empire. The ability to build an economic juggernaut is what makes these games fun for me, so I'm hoping ES will deliver!

I'm personally looking for something like this



- A 3d map of the galaxy. I want to go up, down, hence and forth to colonize

- Let each race have it's own way to travel faster than light.

- Have - besides a couple of major races that compete with you - some minor ones that probably won't go out colonising other planets: like city-states in ancient Greece.

- Have multiple planets in one system that can be colonized by different races. Maybe you can race X want totally different planets (you a lush green world, X a gas giant) and your empires can be intertwined.

- Have a complex tech tree. I like the idea in SotS that some techs are each game randomly available, but I actually prefer to have a system like in Hearts of Iron 3 (HoI3) where there are só many techs available, that it will be impossible to research them all, and you'll have to choose what your focus will be. For the people who are not familiar with the kind of complexity I'm referring to: in HoI3 you can not only research different kinds of tanks, but for each type you can also research several upgrades for the engines, for the hull, for the gun etc, and also research better doctrines that lead them into battle.



I like OP's ideas, but I'm also looking for this:



-Unlimited unit cap. Your army is only limited by your ability to fund it.

-Planet defense. When a colonised planet of yours comes under attack, the game lets you know and you can actively make strategic decisions in its defence (convert cities to heavily defended garrisons, construct orbital defence systems or purposefully obliterate the planet yourself, rather than let it be captured.Possibly have the ability to rescue survivors from besieged planets. This could factor into your reputation among your empire.

-

and a bunch of iothers i'll probably edit in

nope..

when on a lan party, multiple games are beeing played... and so there is not much time for one game a whole evening.. unless you plan a lan party with two or three friends... and the bottle ofcourse...

but then again... when life goes by time is getting more precious... but playing with friends stays da bomb.. but one plays in their own time..

Then again I am speaking not for the kids out there but for the fathers with kids who started lan gaming with coax cables...

they all still play a lot so a turn based pbem system would work .. specially if it could be done server side.. then yes we play marathon sessions...

we even now play games which can last two to three years... yes we would like to play marathn games but time is not there and we have to work so our kids can have a computer so they can play a marathon game...

I'd like to put in that I really really would like a tech stagnation option. For those of you who are not familiar with this it means you can set relative tech costs as an option at the start of the game. For example +250% tech costs, for myself I always choose something along these lines as I often felt like you would research something and half the time you wouldn't even build any of them as you can skip to the next tech without exposing yourself too much etc (Mostly I am referring to the civ series, but either way I like protracted periods with minor advances )

Can we have some more details and perhaps a screenshot or two here?

What kinde of time span are you guys aming for? how many difrrant setting are going for?

and when looking for her son disvoers the father withe an other wommen. and she is now in contoll of the dethstar

RaenirSalazar wrote:
Better yet, make it all in real time.

I agree with your ambitious call for a paradigm shift, this...not so much. That said, Star Ruler worked wonderfully in that regard (and was the game you were thinking of, with the Newtonian physics and the deceleration techniques etc.?)

Better yet, make it all in real time.

skamaks wrote:
Looks like a lot of people agree with you on this!

Anyone still interested in marathon games? Anyone?

Please, don't numb it down! I love marathon games. My last HoI3 multiplayer game took us more than three months. Maybe add an option for fastplay, but please don't revolve the game around that. I don't want this to turn into a kind of Starcraft...



And about that problem of each turn taking an hour or so... Heroes of Might and Magic 5 had a system where you could all play your turn at the same time.

Isn't 5X "Experience"? But maybe. Realistic starship designs and weapons would be nice, there was a game I played a while back that had newtonian physics in how ships moved, they had to accelerate/deccelerate to enter and leave battle, it was cool if a bit broken.

oh... so you want a 5X space opera?

What I am looking for is NOT a simply more polished more streamlined slightly more improved retread of all previous 4X strategy games but a game that can offer a substantiative paradigm shift that surpasses and exceeds all previous designs. We shouldn't be GalCiv II v2.0 b or Civilization V v3.145g but something that looks at what has been lacking in 4X games and what can be done to change the very rules of the game itself and make a big splash.

Alderbranch wrote:
Yes really... we are getting married this summer at that. Znork is gonna be there.



On the other hand she knew me enough to get an insurancepolicy so im not getting away that easily.

What with the new lady friend coming on board... I retract my earlier recommendation of CK II. Might get you paranoid.

Also, can you name ships? If so, I want a cheat code, so that if you name your ship Chuck Norris, it becomes invulnerable and all weapons are insta-kill.

Cow bell. 4X needs more cow bell.