Thats what was so good about MoO2. Don't want all those planets? Use Stellar Converter and just destroy em one by one. Never took more than 15-20 mins

Another way to make the game more interesting in the end game is too implement another aspect of everyday life.

Dissidents and rebels.

If you have a galaxy spanning empire, with thousands of planets and cultures, there is bound to be some of your citizens that don't completely agree with you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_the_Roman_Empire is one empire that fell. The soviet union is another.



The thing is, if you expand too fast, and conquer all you enemies (which comon', happens almost every long game, you get a "snow-ball" effect and win 5 to 1 in army and score), there is bound to be some internal frictions which would ordinarily stop your advancing fleets for a while, giving the enemy time to build up their forces. Now, talking about it and actually implementing it are two different things, but I think it would be fun to be forced to try to hold my empire in check while winning and not just getting "easy-mode" victory against my "real enemies".



What do you think? How is the life fun/end-game viable for the Emperor from Star Wars? He doesn't really have any external forces to contend with does he?

fixou wrote:
For me the answer is more narrative, more game changing random events. what if it becomes clear you are the big shot in the galaxy, a random event makes all the faction make peace and share research, make cooperation agreements and coordinate a massive assault (each empire one fleet or two) against your homeworld ? A bit like the cruisade system of medieval empire 2 total war (thinking about this, it is a lot like the division of the realm of total war shogun 2 or the civil war of rome total war).

That's the "mega evil empire" solution. PLEASE don't advocate that be implemented without a toggle. It ruins my peaceful-building fun, makes my allies backstab me without justification, and just turns the entire end-game un-fun. By the time it activates, I'm advanced enough to stomp the AIs, anyways...

this the main flaw of 4x games. One way to fix this is to add game changing events (like half of your empire that rebels against you, a new race thats starts invading with a massive amount of tech. I especially loved the events of sword of the stars (the massive alien threats that destroy your world one after another and you have to unite your entire military forces to stop them).



I remember one game of galactic civilizations 2 where one of my opponents discovered an overpowered Aynor ships that destroyed most of my fleet and made me retreat. An other game where a game event involving a terrorist action killing the leader of an allied faction turned this very ally in a bitter enemy.



great memories. For me the answer is more narrative, more game changing random events. what if it becomes clear you are the big shot in the galaxy, a random event makes all the faction make peace and share research, make cooperation agreements and coordinate a massive assault (each empire one fleet or two) against your homeworld ? A bit like the cruisade system of medieval empire 2 total war (thinking about this, it is a lot like the division of the realm of total war shogun 2 or the civil war of rome total war).

Platescale wrote:
Nothing pleases me like a smoothly functioning economy. Once victory conditions can be turned off, I'm pretty sure I'm going to turn off science, economy, and wonder. Not because I want to go stomp the world with more aggressive victories, but because those victory conditions are natural end results of my end-game projects of developing everything... and thus they interrupt me!

Agreed. After Alpha II releases tomorrow (fixes victory condition bugs) then I will turn of ALL victory conditions except for Conquest. Even then, until there is a post victory play option enabled, I have a dream to whittle my enemy down to 1 system and then beautify the galaxy by terraforming all planets to Terran. That will be a fun weekend project.

Nothing pleases me like a smoothly functioning economy. Once victory conditions can be turned off, I'm pretty sure I'm going to turn off science, economy, and wonder. Not because I want to go stomp the world with more aggressive victories, but because those victory conditions are natural end results of my end-game projects of developing everything... and thus they interrupt me!

I love the end game fun. I would could sit for hours on Age of Empires II completely destroying all resources on the map. Same goes for the Civilization series. I always get to the end of the game and keep playing. Completing extensive railroad systems, covering every part of the planet with your influence, making every single available space a farm. All fun to pass the time.

AngleWyrm wrote:
There comes a point when the game is over, but the game won't actually end for many turns.



You are first in every category that is measured, and your score completely outstrips all other scores by a wide margin.



For me, executing the remaining turns has lost it's charm, because there is no further challenge. I would rather quit and start a new game. But the game end screen always claims that you have given up, that someone else will get the victory.

Watch out, as far as I can tell 'dust on hand' isn't counted in any of those variables.



*I* was first in every category and preparing to Unleash The Horde when my Craver opponent won an econ victory

zdesert wrote:
my last game as UE on a huge map around turn 256, i was first in every category, i had more than half of the galaxy and was aggressively stomping out the hisso and sophon alliance that was in its death throws on two separate spiral arms. the rest of the galaxy belonged to the Horatio and the cravers who were locked i a perpetual war for dominance. the cravers were depleted, the horatio ridiculously behind in every category and i had never lost one of my heavily armoured dreadnoughts in battle... then suddenly i lost, the horatio won an economic victory.... i was spending money on my conquered planets, ships, system improvements, and the horatio must have been hoarding dust the whole game. during my 50 turn military expansion where i destroyed the hisso and sophon conquering most of the galaxy the horatio had already won the game, it was just a matter of them hoarding the last of the dust needed for victory.



you might think you have won, but you can never know till you have. i shouldn't have lost but i did lose, to a society of clones half as advanced as me, with no military to speak of... a third rate power--> bought out my empire. go figure

Economic victory isn't about hoarding dust, it's about producing dust. You win if you're the first to have produced 300k dust during the game. I just finished a game on Economic Victory. I only had 25k dust in my actual reserves at the time of victory (but I was producing and then spending 14k per turn).

There comes a point when the game is over, but the game won't actually end for many turns.



You are first in every category that is measured, and your score completely outstrips all other scores by a wide margin.



For me, executing the remaining turns has lost it's charm, because there is no further challenge. I would rather quit and start a new game. But the game end screen always claims that you have given up, that someone else will get the victory.

AngleWyrm wrote:
There comes a point when the game is over, but the game won't actually end for many turns.



You are first in every category that is measured, and your score completely outstrips all other scores by a wide margin.



For me, executing the remaining turns has lost it's charm, because there is no further challenge. I would rather quit and start a new game. But the game end screen always claims that you have given up, that someone else will get the victory.

happens often with this kind of games... i usually start another game with higher difficulty. But if I manage to survive in the early game, there will be a moment when this turning point happens again. There's also a moment when you realize you have lost, and it's a bit frustrating, thinking about the time effort you use for these kind of games.

It's really hard to balance the game so that it keep making sense, while being challenging until the end.



I won't expect any 4x game to be so perfect.

my last game as UE on a huge map around turn 256, i was first in every category, i had more than half of the galaxy and was aggressively stomping out the hisso and sophon alliance that was in its death throws on two separate spiral arms. the rest of the galaxy belonged to the Horatio and the cravers who were locked i a perpetual war for dominance. the cravers were depleted, the horatio ridiculously behind in every category and i had never lost one of my heavily armoured dreadnoughts in battle... then suddenly i lost, the horatio won an economic victory.... i was spending money on my conquered planets, ships, system improvements, and the horatio must have been hoarding dust the whole game. during my 50 turn military expansion where i destroyed the hisso and sophon conquering most of the galaxy the horatio had already won the game, it was just a matter of them hoarding the last of the dust needed for victory.



you might think you have won, but you can never know till you have. i shouldn't have lost but i did lose, to a society of clones half as advanced as me, with no military to speak of... a third rate power--> bought out my empire. go figure

In the stupidest game I ever played, I spawned in half a galaxy, separated by a wormhole - I was by myself. I created a massive expansion and never researched the wormhole tech. When an opposing AI race finally got around to researching wormholes, so did I, while sending in the kind of Armada, that made the races in "Babylon 5" cry.



I ended the game with something like 50,000 points and the next nearest race had maybe 4,000 points and the only reason they got that was because I went to peace with them, so that I could drive my Armada through their territory. The AI was so dumb that it had fought with itself, and didn't even expand to the northern quadrant of their half of the galaxy! The stupid hiroshi had 1 blue system, orange had maybe 3 systems and green had the wormhole and 4 systems.



The wormhole mechanic / space lane thing is just a substitute for MOO2 killer AI.



The game was over as soon as it started.

I agree it is tedious and most games of this genre suffers from this one (and I've never heard of anybody that actually likes this "endgame-grind"). Total War's, Civ's; in all of them I love to start the game, but usually dont have the stomach to take it to the end.



One of the main reasons is the boring (and wrong imo) idea that the game should be made harder for the player by turning more and more of the enemy factions against him, so that in the end he is fighting them all. We know from history that it is something that actually usually happens to losers, not winners. I cant tell you how annoying I find this pattern in games. It reeks of lazy AI.



SUGGESTION:

At some point factions should recognise your power and yeald to you. Becoming allies, vassals, whatever.. (Of course some races, (or AI traits) fight to the bitter end. To spice things up.) This could also happen to other "powerbases" (AI's) in the game, so that the end game is more like a battle of alliances than one faction against the rest of them*.



*this could be optional with the hardness level of the game. Easy - only the player forms powerbase etc.

Personally, I will never use multiplayer, and I agree with the OP that having 5x the score of the others, but still being an hour away from an actual victory screen, takes away a lot of the fun.

davea wrote:
Many games have a "score victory" for just this case. However, score needs to be carefully thought out. Currently the total size of your fleets is a big component of the score. So a small empire, with decent econ, could "turtle" and just do huge fleet builds for the win.

That would be tragic, but probably preventable in multiplayer. I doubt anyone would let such an exploit just run by them without taking notice and action.

Many games have a "score victory" for just this case. However, score needs to be carefully thought out. Currently the total size of your fleets is a big component of the score. So a small empire, with decent econ, could "turtle" and just do huge fleet builds for the win.

AngleWyrm wrote:
There comes a point when the game is over, but the game won't actually end for many turns.



You are first in every category that is measured, and your score completely outstrips all other scores by a wide margin.



For me, executing the remaining turns has lost it's charm, because there is no further challenge. I would rather quit and start a new game. But the game end screen always claims that you have given up, that someone else will get the victory.

If you are already playing on Impossible, it just looks like you have outplayed the alpha. Just wait for multiplayer and we will make sure you never suffer that fate again.