Trash
Pointing and laughing.
Reminds me of the excellent novel The Gripping Hand.
-
Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.
"This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.
Endless Space
- Thread starter Tzaero
- Start date
Reminds me of the excellent novel The Gripping Hand.
potatojohn
Arcane
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2012
- Messages
- 2,646
Found a weird bug yesterday. I had all my planets set to the balanced AI the whole game and it worked quite well, then the amoebans offered me 120 dust per turn in exchange for 1 dustwater (bug in itself?). I accepted and suddenly found myself with a big surplus of dust, so I dropped the taxes to 0% to make everyone happy and productive while still maintaining a decent income. Unfortunately the 0% tax rate made the planet AI go crazy and it converted all my (already exploited) planets to finance exploitation. FUUUUUU. My attempts to 'convince' the AI to leave it alone proved to be futile.
Oh. Homeworld then? That's cool too. Downloadan.
Transgressive Grenadier
Educated
Raghar
Arcane
- Joined
- Jul 16, 2009
- Messages
- 22,720
No it's not Homeworld, it's RTS. Homeworld required some 3D movement and other stuff. This is a standard RTS in space.
Renegen
Arcane
- Joined
- Jun 5, 2011
- Messages
- 4,062
It's not RTS in space because I hate rts. You then ask the rts fanatics around here and they'll tell you it's too slow. The RTSers do dominate MP though.
RTS in 3D is still RTS. IMO.
Anyway, SoaSE might be decent but I couldn't get into it right now.
Guess I'll grab ES after all, unless someone can suggest a better recent TB 4X.
IMO, it's too barebones to spend anything on it yet.
Can't see why. It certanly had more to do with everything - there were choices on terraforming planets, choices on habiting space, choices in random events, ect. It lacked dynamics when playing culturaly or such, pressing End Turn to see your neat colored borderedges growing, but building overall was't bad.
potatojohn
Arcane
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2012
- Messages
- 2,646
The UI is pretty good, but it's looks odd that they mixed glossy and diffuse "materials". Also the planet screen only displays six planets even if there's room for twice as many in your resolution.
Norfleet
Moderator
- Joined
- Jun 3, 2005
- Messages
- 12,250
The UI is definitely not "exceptionally well designed". It would be "adequate", if occasionally unnecessarily clunky, for a TBS game...unfortunately, while this game appears to be turn-based on the surface, you've apparently not encountered the unpleasantness of trying to go to war against the AI...which requires basically lightning fast control responsiveness that the game utterly lacks. What's worse, the AI exploits this, to the point where you need to resort to savescumming a twitch mini-game just to catch a running fleet by moving your fleet to the area and slapping the Intercept button so he can't immediately go waltzing off through your space unopposed. This is a turn-based strategy game! There is not supposed to be a crazed clicking minigame, especially not against the AI!
All in all, the UI demonstrates the typical non-functionality you'd expect of designers who have never actually played the game and therefore have not bothered to include easy access to frequently executed moves, such as "check to see if I actually have enough moves to get where I'm going", "go here and block", "go here and then go there", "build this planet exactly like that other one", etc.
All in all, the UI demonstrates the typical non-functionality you'd expect of designers who have never actually played the game and therefore have not bothered to include easy access to frequently executed moves, such as "check to see if I actually have enough moves to get where I'm going", "go here and block", "go here and then go there", "build this planet exactly like that other one", etc.
It's definitely missing some features (turn counter for movement or even just distance between systems is a big one), but the things it does it does really well and it's intuitive. It never takes more than 1 or 2 clicks to do what I want and it behaves like I'd expect it to, unlike SotS where it took me forever to figure out how to merge fleets. Plus there's tooltips for everything. I call that well-designed because I've seen it done oh so much worse.
Anyway, playing pacifistic Amoeba and avoiding combat whenever I can coz I read about the simultaneous fleet movement and that time doesn't pause when you're on the battle screen.
Anyway, playing pacifistic Amoeba and avoiding combat whenever I can coz I read about the simultaneous fleet movement and that time doesn't pause when you're on the battle screen.
spectre
Arcane
- Joined
- Oct 26, 2008
- Messages
- 5,427
The simultaneous turns really bugged me at first. I've more or less gotten used to it right now, seems like it's best to put your fleets on intercept mode and catch all the swarming AI fleets.
It's super annoying when you're in a big war and the AI just swamps you with shitloads upon shitloads of ships. Almost as if it's pulling them out of the ass.
The UI is a mixed bag for me. Diplomacy screen is atrocious, partly because it's very hard to tell each empire apart (was I supposed to be friendly with the teal pilgrim or the blue one) . I had two craver empires spawn with almost the same hue of green as their faction color (color blindness ftw)
and it was impossible to tell them apart.
Some stuff desperately need more tooltips and advanced info. Took me a while to figure out invasions (didn't notice the progress bar). And I still can't figure out the space combat because I can't really tell what's happening back there (am I taking losses because the AI was super effective with the combat action, or is it because my deflectors suck, or did the other guys get lucky on the rolls).
Managed to play two "full" games thus far, the AI is expanding like mad. I often have trouble catching up, especially on large maps. The game slowly grinds to a halt in the endgame, where I scrap waves and waves of fleets one after another.
So far, my most broken strategy involves the +hero exp special trait. If you get lucky and get two industry leaders, you can immediately level them up to give them a +25 flat industry bonus, which allows you to out-produce anything.
Planetary improvements, ships, convert industry to science/dust, you'll get plenty of that.
As you increase in exp, slap some more industry bonuses plus a nice +50 food production. Add some propaganda, and just drop the guy on every newly colonized system, he'll bring it up to full speed (max population and all the necessary planetary improvements) in under 20 turns.
It's actually so broken, that corporate leaders really pale in comparison.
It's super annoying when you're in a big war and the AI just swamps you with shitloads upon shitloads of ships. Almost as if it's pulling them out of the ass.
The UI is a mixed bag for me. Diplomacy screen is atrocious, partly because it's very hard to tell each empire apart (was I supposed to be friendly with the teal pilgrim or the blue one) . I had two craver empires spawn with almost the same hue of green as their faction color (color blindness ftw)
and it was impossible to tell them apart.
Some stuff desperately need more tooltips and advanced info. Took me a while to figure out invasions (didn't notice the progress bar). And I still can't figure out the space combat because I can't really tell what's happening back there (am I taking losses because the AI was super effective with the combat action, or is it because my deflectors suck, or did the other guys get lucky on the rolls).
Managed to play two "full" games thus far, the AI is expanding like mad. I often have trouble catching up, especially on large maps. The game slowly grinds to a halt in the endgame, where I scrap waves and waves of fleets one after another.
So far, my most broken strategy involves the +hero exp special trait. If you get lucky and get two industry leaders, you can immediately level them up to give them a +25 flat industry bonus, which allows you to out-produce anything.
Planetary improvements, ships, convert industry to science/dust, you'll get plenty of that.
As you increase in exp, slap some more industry bonuses plus a nice +50 food production. Add some propaganda, and just drop the guy on every newly colonized system, he'll bring it up to full speed (max population and all the necessary planetary improvements) in under 20 turns.
It's actually so broken, that corporate leaders really pale in comparison.
It might be broken, but I don't see how else I could keep up with the expansionist enemy AI. 100 turns in and they've colonized the entire galaxy except my quarter that I have walled off at a couple choke points. If I'd open borders to my allies (as they keep requesting every turn) they'd overrun my territory in no time.
Nah, it's good for what it is.
What bothers me:
-only 6 ship hulls (boring)
-AI is pretty dumb. Cravers ran out of space to settle so invaded my territory. I fought them back at considerable cost (since I put 0 research in military tech) and they pulled their big fleets away to fight the other 2 empires instead of crushing me. Now they still keep sending civilian settler ships every turn that just get destroyed by my waiting fleets.
Norfleet
Moderator
- Joined
- Jun 3, 2005
- Messages
- 12,250
Well, to be fair, how many hulls do you need? A hull is just a bucket to put stuff in. But yes, the AI is dumb and cheats obnoxiously, making it very clear the AI isn't actually playing the same game you are, since YOU don't get to control multiple battles at the same time.
kris
Arcane
then again, you hardly control the battles to begin with.
Norfleet
Moderator
- Joined
- Jun 3, 2005
- Messages
- 12,250
I'm pretty sure my input has some influence, otherwise why is it that my stuff survives totally unscathed anytime I run the fight, but mysteriously explodes without apparent cause when I don't? Clearly, the one actual decision I make has some important impact.
Although honestly, I'm not sure why they bother with the cinematic when I could just make the damn decision and skip the cutscenes.
Although honestly, I'm not sure why they bother with the cinematic when I could just make the damn decision and skip the cutscenes.
spectre
Arcane
- Joined
- Oct 26, 2008
- Messages
- 5,427
Meh, I actually have thisthe other way around, I get nice results from autoresolve (flawless victory), and usually get shot up when I try doing shit on my own.
This game really needs some time controls and a detailed log of what the fuck is happening.
This game really needs some time controls and a detailed log of what the fuck is happening.
As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.