Galdred
Studio Draconis
As we were discussing Eclipse on another thread about Age of Wonders 3, I thought we could as well have a new one here.
Which options are there in the first place?
-Eclipse
-Twilight Imperium
-Space Empire 4x
-Sid Meier's Civilization
I guess there are other I forgot or never played
Should Runewars count?
Now about Eclipse:
It is true that you can specifically counter plasma missiles a little with design that will get trounced by everything else
But the point is that it is over the top for such a tech IMO.
Now regarding the digital versions, both are basically the same as the base game pre ROTA, but suffer from horrible MP functionalities : players missing turns were not handled gracefully at all: if no turn has been submitted over 2 days or something like that, the games vanished forever. I think out of the 40 or so games I started on iOS with more than 2 players, I was able to complete 5.
That said, it seems to have been improved a lot, as players are now kicked and boted after they miss the deadline. I still would prefer having an option to let the AI take over for a turn instead of forever(or take forever after a fixed number of missed turns).
So I am on the fence about it. I would definitely get it if RotA was ported too, but I cannot go back to the vanilla game now
Which options are there in the first place?
-Eclipse
-Twilight Imperium
-Space Empire 4x
-Sid Meier's Civilization
I guess there are other I forgot or never played
Should Runewars count?
Now about Eclipse:
*Edit: Eclipse, which is one of my favourites ever, is also unbalanced as fuck.
But balance is a problem in Eclipse:
The plasma missile tech is the only useful weapon tech, so not having it cripples you, and getting it is more important that every other tech. The game would clearly be better if it were not the case. It resulted in 5 different fixes being implemented in the expansion.
This is actually OT but I assure you I've won many a game of eclipse even before the expansion and even without plasma missiles, which are nice but far from game winning. Literally. I've rarely seen anyone that spent much in fleet upgrades actually winning a game! It's more a case of a perceived unbalance... But to explain why I 'd need to derail this convo even more.
But then again, balancing a single item is never a problem. We're talking about balancing all civs so they can compete against each other so that each choice is viable or any other empty modern buzzword.
Actually, it depends on whether you are playing 1v1, teamgames, or free for all.
In 1v1, plasma missiles are not a perceived imbalance at all. In larger games, they might not be enough to let you overextend.
Iirc, the races are also imbalanced to the point they advise against allowing some of them in 1vs1 in the manual
But playing larger games sort of auto solve the issue indeed, as table politics>military imbalances.
Btw, how is the MP of the Steam version now?
I was pretty disapointed with the iOS version when it came to basic functionalities (games canceled if one player goes AFK, no replay of other player turns...), and the lack of expansion content. Did they patch the MP since?
Never tried the Pc version and never owned anything running iOS, I only play the board version. I don't even know if they are balanced exactly the same way so I don't know if what I'm saying is still valid on digital. You're right in that there are some incredibly OP races if you play 1 vs 1 (the manual says so) but you always have the option to go all humans if you want a balanced start. In any other situation Hydran are just the best race, give them to the newbs. I love mecha and planta above all. You know Plantas, the weakest of races, can actually pull of a rush in 1 vs 1 or alliance? You'll need someone to cover your ass afterwards but initially their lousy ships actually have an energy advantage over 4 races and the humies...
Spoilering because OT, sorry guys but I don't know where to respond to this:
The problem with Plasma Missile is quite simple, they are a pricey end-tier tech, do a lot of damage but only fire once per combat. By their nature, if you go PlaMis you'll want to spam them on interceptors (it's quite easy to stop plasma on a captial, and cap ships need staying power to get their full value in combat) so people are discouraged when 5-6 interceptors can output ~20+ damage dices.
Solution: just send there a single point of armor above that number, it doesn't matter in which form. A point of armor left and a basic cannon mean the whole system is yours after the initial barrage. If he mixes any other weapon with plasma to have a chance in the subsequent combat phases he's purposedly gimping himself, since he's either using basic or he wasted research for 2 top tier weapon and that means he has lost anyway. The point is you need a lot of ships to capitalize on plasma missile, and you have to mix them with other weapons if you want to actually keep the system after you destroy your enemy fleet.
Remember that ultimately you win by point in Eclipse, the only thing PlaMis are good for pre-expansion is to discourage a prowerful neighbour from attacking, if he spent a lot on fleet he needs to attack in order to capitallize, and you don't send your regenerating 3 moves 7 AR capital to attack someone with PlaMis, too much of a gamble.
All this is moot anyway, since Eclipse gets 1000 better with the first expansion and 10 better with the second one, so you can counter PlaMis with flux or whatever other tech you have around.
Hope no zelous moderator comes splitting those last pages...
It is true that you can specifically counter plasma missiles a little with design that will get trounced by everything else
But the point is that it is over the top for such a tech IMO.
Now regarding the digital versions, both are basically the same as the base game pre ROTA, but suffer from horrible MP functionalities : players missing turns were not handled gracefully at all: if no turn has been submitted over 2 days or something like that, the games vanished forever. I think out of the 40 or so games I started on iOS with more than 2 players, I was able to complete 5.
That said, it seems to have been improved a lot, as players are now kicked and boted after they miss the deadline. I still would prefer having an option to let the AI take over for a turn instead of forever(or take forever after a fixed number of missed turns).
So I am on the fence about it. I would definitely get it if RotA was ported too, but I cannot go back to the vanilla game now