The first few times I started battles I was really excited to use battle cards and outstrategize my enemy. After some trial and error, I discovered the following things:



1) It is impossible to strategize farther than the first round, because AI ships tend to use the same battle card for the entire battle and you have no idea what the effects of the first missile barrage will be.



2) After the third time an enemy used camouflage to completely negate all of my cards, I discovered that was both simpler and more effective to just spam the hp repair card and keep my ships going as long as possible.



3) The animation, while certainly exciting and well done, is just plain long. For a lights show that lasts about 2-3 minutes, its great. But if I'm in the middle of some big invasion plan, I just don't have the patience to sit through each pre-determined battle, even if I enjoy the concept behind them.



I don't know, for a game about interstellar conquest and domination, it seems kind of iffy to base your strategy on three battle cards that may or may not be useless after the first volley. Say your offence works on the first round, good for you time to finish them off. But what if your card is countered and now you're on the receiving end, and there is a chance you will lose some of your more expensive ships if you press the attack. Well then its time to begin a retreat or raise your defences isn't it? The thing is, you have to decide this before it starts happening.



I probably sound like I'm complaining, but that's just my take on it. It's a small enough gripe and as you said this is an empire management game, the combat system certainly isn't the worst design I've seen in a game.

Really? Well, perhaps you play on a harder difficulty than I do. If I'm focused on war, typically I can hold my own even being a couple techs back, provided I make good moves with attacking and retreating. Then a quick binge in military techs brings me back up to speed for a counter offensive. I haven't come across having to focus harsh on making sure my guns are up to snuff yet.

Romeo wrote:
It's not that you're the only one it's happened to, people just have different takes. For me personally, not only do I like the "tug of war" nature of combat, sometimes I wish the AI would partake in it even more than it does.

The point is that you want to do something, do something to make you feel your choices. Making a bad move in a battle is one thing for me, its fun to be totally destroyed and still try to hold the enemies back, but now its rather the hunt of having the latest upgrade. I love the game, but Im constantly finding my self having this tech-hunt feeling. Im not that concentrated on the game, more on the next tech, do I dare to research something els or will they just kill me, not because they made a good move, but for having one tech better than me.



Hope you don't think Im nagging about it, its just that I really like the way the game looks, all the reading, the different races. But if I compare with other develop in progress games in the genre I think many of them have the same problems, some of them have a nice combat system but no story at all, and no races, and other have more of that. They should dare to choose, not just leave it the way it first was made, but that's the future.

It's not that you're the only one it's happened to, people just have different takes. For me personally, not only do I like the "tug of war" nature of combat, sometimes I wish the AI would partake in it even more than it does.

zepitou wrote:
You must first modify the ship design itself (from the ship design view), then from the fleet menu (military view) you'll be able to upgrade fleets stationing on a planet you own (and as long as you have the necessary resources and money).

thanks! now thats solved



still i hope my recent post made a point..? or Im I the only one who this happened to?

Donkadoo wrote:


And all the fleets are only good for some turns, if I have not missed some option or upgrade button? Because its not upgradeable? Why?

You must first modify the ship design itself (from the ship design view), then from the fleet menu (military view) you'll be able to upgrade fleets stationing on a planet you own (and as long as you have the necessary resources and money).

I think the card warfare works its not the best and not the worst I have seen.



But the thing that irritates me is that this is a future space battle, It should be different kind of vessels, some that are faster flying around dodging the bigger ships bullets/lasers/missiles.

I mean a sea battle in Europe in the 1200 must have been more tactical and action filled, right now its more like



"oh so you want to fight, lets place our ships at a range that will decrease and see who developed the best weapons"



And all the fleets are only good for some turns, if I have not missed some option or upgrade button? Because its not upgradeable? Why?



I don't know how many games I have played and just having a new high-tech fleet exiting the hangars and making epic battles that are a bit exiting

(except the fact that small ships is for no use after the first volley of missiles) and then suddenly being attacked by the enemy while trying to occupy his closest planet, believing that it will be a grate battle i realize that he just discovered the next defense tech for my beam weapons. And Im more dead than ever.

Then I have to research the next beam weapon to destroy that fleet, and when Im in almost the same position to take his planet, one of his new fleets comes and..

You get the thing.

Yeah, I'm with igncom on this one. Your failure to counter the enemies card isn't a fault of the game, it's just a learning experience. The combat is nothing to write home about, but I certainly don't mind it, especially with the new auto-card set-up.

Igncom1 wrote:
The current combat system was put in place to essentially have one that's not, one unit deletes another like in Civ (Which isn't bad for Civ).



I believe its on the same basis as the reason for the combat system in GalCiv2, it was to focus on the rest of the game rather then so much time on a system that could potentially not even work.



and Javarino, please use the enter key to brake up your paragraph, as it is currently very hard to read. thanks.

I agree, if they implemented a proper combat system it would take twice as long to develop since the game would be 2 in one(strategy and tactics). A combat based expansion is in the works but I wouldn't expect an overhaul of the system until a sequel, I for one have gotten used to it and actually like it.

Not sure it it would even be possible to implement this, but it would be interesting to have a battle continue for an indefinite number of phases (until one side dies or retreats) with you picking a card at the start of each phase (auto resolve could prompt you for more cards if the battle continues past the cards you entered), and the ships making an attempt to maintain their desired engagement range when each phase begins using a sublight engine module (engagement range could be input on ship creation).



Another idea would be to have available cards tied to ship modules - ships need a module to participate in Sabotage, repair modules boost the effects of the Repair card, etc. - let the player see what the enemy capabilities are before the battle, and more planning would be involved in choosing your cards.



Also, having the ability to speed up a manual battle seems like a good idea to me.

Truth wrote:
In combat you're trying to both counter their pick because of your modules, while also trying to negate their modules, which you can see, therefore it's not random at all. I do think, however, that the cards can play too much importance (40% bonuses, even 20%). It'd be far more boring if it was determined simply by MP (at least Civ has +/-s for its units, and a small chance to do more or less damage than its strength).



I think the tech tree is quite good. It forces you to pick a playstyle. Each tech is very important, particularly when they're taking many turns, and you're always worried about the AI or players getting ahead of you. Not caring what tech you get next seems to suggest you have no goals in mind, or you don't understand the strategy behind each technology. Some techs are less useful than others, but they all have their situations and they're all apart of a chain, just like most all technology-tree games.

Civ's system certainly got it right in that regard, though I'd hate to see it recreated here. I like the card system, I just think it needs tweaking. Also while you can see your modules, it can get tedious when the game presents all these big numbers for attack, defence, flak and such, but no "Watch out! Their X+Y is stronger than your Z!" You get one success vs loss bar, but you'd think if you had three different ranges of combat you could see your attack vs defence for each stage.



For what it does, I suppose the actual techs aren't the problem. The problem is trying to pair the techs together, when you need colonize lava to get a planet with a wonder but a researchable resource to build on it. Or researching the science tree but being unable to trade anything because you haven't gone into the commerce side. All while occassionally boosting up you military so it doesn't fall behind. It's not my main gripe about the tech tree, I just don't care for the presentation. This is one of the few games were opening the tech tree doesn't make me want to just take a few minutes to admire how interconnected and well presented it all is.

Good points. The one thing I can say is that #2 is a larger issue because it tends to narrow your strategic options. I tried countering camouflage, but it either leads to both cancelling out or neither being negated. Or I could use nano-repair. Lots and lots of nano-repair.



"war and domination" Sorry, I meant domination in the sense that you are supposed to create an empire stronger than your opponents, no matter what victory you're going for. I mean even if you're going scientific or colonial, what do you do if a militaristic empire invades you then? Even if military isn't your focus, you still need defense. Also I haven't played GalCiv 2, simply because when I went to get it I realized that it was already outdated by several games, such as this one.

In combat you're trying to both counter their pick because of your modules, while also trying to negate their modules, which you can see, therefore it's not random at all. I do think, however, that the cards can play too much importance (40% bonuses, even 20%). It'd be far more boring if it was determined simply by MP (at least Civ has +/-s for its units, and a small chance to do more or less damage than its strength).



I think the tech tree is quite good. It forces you to pick a playstyle. Each tech is very important, particularly when they're taking many turns, and you're always worried about the AI or players getting ahead of you. Not caring what tech you get next seems to suggest you have no goals in mind, or you don't understand the strategy behind each technology. Some techs are less useful than others, but they all have their situations and they're all apart of a chain, just like most all technology-tree games.

1: The AI does have a tendency to repeat battle cards if it thinks that they will be useful against your fleet, so if you go all missile, it will frequently use counter cards for that, but as you would expect, outsmarting an AI isn't really that difficult in that regard. But when facing other people, it has a tendency to produce a form of psychological warfare.



As for knowing the effects of a missile strike, I feel this might be a problem of the battle design itself, not killing missiles in the round they were countered.



2: If your enemy is using camouflage, then counter the defensive card with something that isn't offense like the nano-repair. I am not sure how that is a game fault when you get countered by a card and don't change mid-battle, unless your auto-battling, but then you really shouldn't play 3 of the same type of card.



3: Battles manually played are supposed to have this effect, but while I do feel like ship death takes too long, with manual battle mode, thats what you would expect.

And its a hell of a lot better then the micro-management nightmare of MOO2.

I don't know, for a game about interstellar conquest and domination, it seems kind of iffy to base your strategy on three battle cards that may or may not be useless after the first volley. Say your offence works on the first round, good for you time to finish them off. But what if your card is countered and now you're on the receiving end, and there is a chance you will lose some of your more expensive ships if you press the attack. Well then its time to begin a retreat or raise your defences isn't it? The thing is, you have to decide this before it starts happening.

This is a 4X game, so only a quarter of the game is about war and domination, rather then all of it.



Deciding things on the fly is something you have to do as a leader, the ability to adapt, so you can expect your every move to be certain, you must prepare for the unexpected.



Like chess, you must plan for the worst, or it is likely to happen.





But its as you said, not the worst system, it has room for improvement sure, as its much better then GalCiv2 of civilizations one unit deletes another.

Take this as you will, but it is honest (sorry if it is a duplicate, it denied my login after typing it.)



The short of it: This game does many things well, and has the potential to become a truly great game... but it does have some areas which would require vast improvement in order to achieve that.



Star map (5/5):



I like the way the star map works. The system oriented building queue limits micromanagement while still presenting hard choices to the user (it is in many cases better to build low build time items than push industry to your tech limit first, but this is not always true.) I could go on, but I think you nailed this part more so than any other game I have played.



Tech Tree (3/5):



Tech progression limits available ship paths until you research the appropriate tech, at which point you can go wherever you wish (a well implemented anti-rush measure.) The individual techs do not provide a distinct advantage, but I can see why it is hard to balance that, and do not have a particularly negative opinion of it (to get a 5/5 everything should be a distinct advantage and something to strive for... even if it involves a very difficult choice of what to research.) I find myself not really caring about what tech I am researching other than it should be quick (mixed blessing, the tech tree is not overly penalizing if you go for empire development at the expense of military techs, then suddenly need to tech military rapidly.) To be perfect I should have to carefully weigh tech choices in terms of empire development vs how risky my recent contact with aliens is, and if I need to start thinking about military. Right now I can tech empire development and if I need military it is better to only do so once it is necessary.



Combat (0/5):



The graphics are beautiful and amazing, the implementation is rather bad (sorry, there is no other concise way of saying that.) The rock / paper / scissors model is not fun, leaves very little room for real tactics or strategy, and involves way too much waiting time for such a poor implementation. I find myself wishing that you had an option to eliminate the "tactical" combat in favor of simply auto-resolving it without cards based on simple higher MP wins. The card counters are too powerful to have in the game without any sort of indication of what is going to be chosen by the opponent (and if you did have that knowledge would lead to constant victory... which you can currently reload saves until you get.) Minor tweaking cannot solve this, it should be scrapped and replaced (or simply scrapped, which would make it better than it currently is.) GalCiv has a better combat system (they just have RPS based autoresolve for those who have not played it.)



In short, you must win by press of numbers and technology, which makes the combat system totally irrelevant. If you count on it you end up reloading until you get a random favorable card selection... which is not much fun, and has nothing to do with either strategy or tactics.



Leaders (no score, just a suggestion):



Make it a standard tech tree so that one can easily tell what leads to what. The current selection method leaves a lot to be researched outside the game if you want to know, and the graphics if you click on a specialty leave a lot to be desired (I still had no idea what it means after looking at it until I had also browsed the wiki.)



Conclusion:



Maybe I should stop judging 4x games against Master of Orion 1/2 (3 was terrible, I gave the copy I bought to someone long ago who expressed some interest with the note "I hope you find more enjoyment in it than I did.") I have however played these games, and it is not possible for me to do (much like every review of a 4x game I have read.) Maybe that is why the genre is not so popular, as the "gold standard" is extremely hard to match, and was done rather early in terms of video games.



Much like every other 4x game I have played, it just makes me want to play MOO2 again. Even if it was released today would be a far superior game (the 1996 graphics hold up rather well.) As it is this is a game that I will play a few times, then abandon in favor of replaying MOO 1/2 again (which I have played hundreds of times.)



A good combat system and some tweaking of the tech tree to make choices harder would go a long way. This is the first game since in the genre which I think really holds potential, but it is not there yet. Rethink the combat system entirely, and tweak the tech tree, and it could be the standard to which all others in the genre are held.



It was worth the money, but the question is: Do you want the game to be legendary, and a point of comparison for all who follow?

Well this is an empire management game.....



But what specifically rubs you the wrong way about it Javarino?

raubtier86 wrote:
Sure, picking battle-actions is guesswork. But that does not unmake my argument that you still have a bunch of strategic and tactical options.

Like I said, I love the strategy behind everything leading up to the battle, but it doesn't change the fact that the battle itself is boring. I want to pick cards and watch as two galactic fleets rain hell on each other, but with the amount of control you have over the outcome, you might as well pick repair fleet and click auto-resolve so you can get back to running your empire.

Javarino wrote:
I think that the problem I see with combat, is that tactics before the battle can only go so far. You see the enemies strength, but everything is based off percent chances after that. When you're picking your battle cards, you only know the probabilities of you winning the first round, after that is just guesswork. After all, no plan survives first contact with the enemy. (Don't get me wrong, I love the system of weapon and defense module experimentation, I just dislike the actual battle itself)

Sure, picking battle-actions is guesswork. But that does not unmake my argument that you still have a bunch of strategic and tactical options.

I think the main issue with the cards is that I tend to pick the same three every battle.

raubtier86 wrote:
This is simply not true. The combat is not R/P/S and it has a bunch of tactical and strategical options. Neither military power nor countered battle actions make you autowin/autolose a battle, you should experiment some more. Ship-fitting and unit-combination are just as important as predicting your enemies movement, ship-fitting and battle-action picks.

I think that the problem I see with combat, is that tactics before the battle can only go so far. You see the enemies strength, but everything is based off percent chances after that. When you're picking your battle cards, you only know the probabilities of you winning the first round, after that is just guesswork. After all, no plan survives first contact with the enemy. (Don't get me wrong, I love the system of weapon and defense module experimentation, I just dislike the actual battle itself)