Draco18s wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_empires

Space Empires V is crap.

StarCleric wrote:


You spend so much time planning and customizing ships, only to see a quick "blurry" picture of how the battle played out, which leaves you scratching your head as to what happened and what, if any, all those past many hours of work and stratagizing had on the ourcome of your battle.



It's like dating the best looking cheerleader in your highschool for 4 years, and after the senior prom, when you in the back of your van, you notice she has an adams apple. . .

Ignoring the disturbing choice of simile, how long are you spending designing your ships?



You make it sound like designing ships is an epic undertaking. Mid game you can easily be building full fleets in 2-3 turns, it's not that dramatic.



The combat system is good. Try different strategies against humans:



Load a fleet with nothing but missiles to bait them into using weapon disruption -use an engineering family action to get a block.

See them developing the same action pattern each battle? Wait for the perfect battle, counter the crap out of them, and destroy their biggest fleet.



You have to anticipate what your opponent is going to use based on the information he/she has about your fleet, and their past actions. The battle system is a prime reason why single-player doesn't shine a light to the joy of multi-player ES.

raw wrote:
Space Empires V is crap.

And? 4's still good, as is 3.

Buh? SE5 is amazing!



Bad....but amazing!

Current system is fine but way too shallow, unimaginative and repetitive. I play SP and I want more, please.



- MAKE IT DEEPER

The cards are fine, but I want more to play with. Same goes for the techs. It seems really bland as it is. It's okay, that it is kept simple and streamlined, but there's beauty in simplicity (when I have a simple system which offers a myriad of possibilities) and there's simplicity that dumbs everything down (I can't do much so why should I care?). I think ES right now tends to the second point and this is why it is so often critized. It's just different, but not elegant. I think the card system is fine, but it looks to as if the devs run out of steam, shortly after inventing the system. Please overthink this. You had a great start with a stabel Alpha and applaud you for that, but you you are losing customers, because the combat is bland for SP. And most 4x gamers are SP players... at least I think so.



- SHOW DON'T TELL

An old rule for movies - it works for games, too. The visuals aren't telling clearly what is happening. When the Melee phase happens for example... the ships fly by as in every other phase. Why don't the visually confront each other, fly closer by, nearly crush into each other, show why it is the Melee phase? It's always a parallel flight, some shots... not much more. Even damaged ships are juts damaged, it is difficult to gather how much from the visuals. All the information about the battle I have to gather from the menus. This needs some more work. The visuals are a great first step, but this can't be enough.



I think ES has great potential. There's hope, that it will be realized. Please don't only listen to vocal forumites... there are lots of people who play this game, that don't discuss on this boad, they are important, too. I normally don't write in game forums and I only registered to speak up, I probably won't post much more than that.

I too, I love Master of Orion 2, but I really love the card system. It is one of the charming qualities Endless Space calls it's own. It should be improved upon and tweaked as time goes on, but it should certainly stay!



Invasion on the other hand.. I'd like it system invasions to have their own card based system to make them more involved. Or perhaps a middle ground? Turn based sieges Heroes of Might and Magic style?

I would prefer a poker card system.

I'd like turn-based combat more deeply based on cards. Something like MTG, Duels of the Planeswalkers to be precise.



- Phase-specific cards

- Race-specific cards

- Ship-specific cards

- Fleet cards for the whole fleet

- Ship cards that points to a single ship (own or enemy)

- Hero specific cards (playable only if there is a hero in the fleet)

- Ability (needs research or something) to use cards several times.

- Minimal requirements to use cards (hero overall level, hero ability level, some tech, some resource, etc.)





But I think it's almost pointless while there is no fleet cap. It's easier to spam more fleets than to dive deep into card tactics.



But if every of your few fleets worth its weight in gold, you're going to look after them for sure.

ChillingTouch wrote:
- Race-specific cards

There are a few of these, but rare.

- Hero specific cards (playable only if there is a hero in the fleet)

There are several of these already. They're hero abilities.

Huh? There are no race specific cards. It's a brilliant idea though!

Apheirox wrote:
Huh? There are no race specific cards. It's a brilliant idea though!

*Shrug* thought I saw one once.

ChillingTouch wrote:


- Ship-specific cards

Yeah, this - so many times. Mainly to make larger hulls more competitive (possibly unlocked with certain ship components). Of course, this would make auto-resolve problematic (since cards have no effects) until the battle actions are implemented for auto-resolved combat.

Personally, I still feel that the card system -while an excellent system due to the multi-player aspects of the game- are not a great way to immerse yourself in the battles.



Having had some time to think about it, I feel I'd have prefered a system without cards altogether over the current one as it still feels random to me*.

Right now the combat of the game just feels like one of those interactive movie games: you click on a set of choices and then see a movie played, hopefully giving you the result you want.



It's not the cards themselves, mind you, they are nice enough. It's that the choosing the cards reinforces (to me) that I have no real control over how a battle will go - after all, all you do is pick three cards and watch a movie. Now, had it been just the movie and no choices, I probably wouldn't have felt the same way.



*) Being 'old school', I would have liked a more hands on approach kinda like some other well known spacey 4X games from the 90s, but I understand that isn't in the cards (heh).

RoondarJK wrote:
It's not the cards themselves, mind you, they are nice enough. It's that the choosing the cards reinforces (to me) that I have no real control over how a battle will go - after all, all you do is pick three cards and watch a movie. Now, had it been just the movie and no choices, I probably wouldn't have felt the same way.

I kind of like the idea behind the cards system, I do like battle systems that level the playing fields between the RTS and armchair strategist camps, but the current implementation is so basic that on balance it probably does more harm than good; it tempts you with the promise of influence over a very pretty battle scene when in actuality you have almost none. I too believe that if the cards system didn’t exists fewer people would be complaining about the combat experience in ES being lacking; people have seen a glimpse of something that could be great but in practice are denied that. The ES battle system is not entirely unlike being gifted with a grand piano only to discover that most of the keys are fake.



As I said, I like the philosophy behind ES’s combat mechanic, I just think that the current practical implementation of it doesn’t exploit the idea at all well. There are innumerable ways to make the battles far more engaging and tactically rewarding without compromising the design philosophy and without taking steps toward an RTS system.

defekt wrote:
As I said, I like the philosophy behind ES’s combat mechanic, I just think that the current practical implementation of it doesn’t exploit the idea at all well. There are innumerable ways to make the battles far more engaging and tactically rewarding without compromising the design philosophy and without taking steps toward an RTS system.

Yeah, as you said, the problem is that the current system hints at depth, without having any. The second aspect is that it uses a rock-paper-scissors-style mechanic - but rock-paper-scissors is random (at least against the AI it is, humans can have some bias towards certain options), so there's no real skill involved (apart from trying to synergize with your ships a bit, but that effect isn't very strong).



I believe the card system works fine, but could take a leaf out of the book of TCGs and have some extra depth and tactics. Some ideas to do so (and hence increase the potential tactical depth) could be:

• Combos: cards used in a certain order have a bigger effect, but the cost is of course predictability - which you can exploit, too, by using a counter to an obvious counter. There's some potential for some mind games there, especially with the ticking clock in the background.
• Ship/module-specific cards: Previously suggested and promotes different fleets and fleets with certain tactics (even in auto-resolve, sprucing auto-resolve up isn't bad either).
• Multi-phase cards: Essentially cards that don't just involve one phase, but several, giving up something in one phase for gaining something later, as example: "Drive me closer, I want to hit them with my sword!: -20% accuracy in the long phase, but +20% bonus damage in melee phase."
• More costly cards: We already have some dust-driven, but let us have cards that are paid differently or become gambles, stuff like "Ramming Speed: Destroys your weakest ship, applies damage equal to its HP to random enemy ship".
  
  

If there are cards - there must be card combos.

If you want to get right combos with your cards - there must be manual deck construction.



Oh, wait... Are those things we call "cards" cards in trading cards games' terms? They are seem to be, but do devs think that?



And by the way, card's costs are ridiculous. Zero dust?!

ChillingTouch wrote:
Oh, wait... Are those things we call "cards" cards in trading cards games' terms? They are seem to be, but do devs think that?

Cards is just a convenient short-hand for them, I believe. The official term is "battle actions" anyway. But it doesn't change anything - it's just the presentation.



But if they're representing tactics, combos still make sense (think "synergistic tactics"), countering makes sense ("out-manoeuvring a fleet"), zero costs make sense (it's a tactic, d'oh! Unless it's a hero's special ability, fuelled by dust)... while deck construction does not (what's a "tactics deck!?").