Beta 1Y seems much harder

I agree this build is much harder to get ahead. In my opinion the cost of the colony ship is too high. The best I have been able to do is buy three ships (on time of course) before I run out of money. This will allow me to settle 5 systems counting the initial on and the first colony ship. I have the opponents level set to dumb. Once I find other races virtually all systems over 15 are already settled by the other races in the area. It seams to me that if the other races are set to a low level of intellegence I should be able to get ahead of them.

The increase in price was a beta tester requested feature, ok it may not be balanced yet, but as long as all races get roughly the same (or even AI slightly more) initial planets - great! that way the political wheeling and dealing, technology race and alliances that this game sparkles in can have the time to kick in.

I havnt played the new beta yet but am delighted to here the initial phase is slower and harder - I am already plotting and scheming!

Are you using the smallest downpayment to buy the colony ships? Also, you can increase your Military spending to help crank them out faster. Trading for techs also helps.

Getting to battle cruisers is pretty easy:

Deflectors->Phasers->Turbo Phasers

As for the AI ships moving faster, they do put 20% of their abilities into speed. Add to that Impulse Drive and Warp Drive and that's +2 to speed.

My one concern is that the AI may be crippling itself in a long game by buying colony sihps at the low price that has a long term lease.

Brad,
crippling yourself long term in order to planet grab short term is a perfectly acceptable strategy. The human player just needs to be able to know when to make use of this, and the AI has to know how to get out of this problem later. Possibly by selling improvements or even trading some of these easily grabbed planets to another player for much needed cash?
An AI that grabbed as many planets as possible and then sold a few to pay it's debts would be very dangerous. Imagine opening bids for a planet! 'Race A has run out of money and offers system X for sale, plese type in your bid'. All empires then make offers. If above a minimal acceptable offer, the highest bid is accepted. That would be cool!

Paul.

Paul.

Ummm what happens if I trade a "leased" ship?
Makes me wonder who pay for it?

I just got invaded. The stats on the invasion screen show them it +28 for offense +28 for defense +19.5 for tech. I was at +0, +0 and +0. In a hundred or so turns how did they get that far ahead.

Also it seems that they beat me to all inhabitable planets leaving me with Earth only. This is on cakewalk. (maybe it is easier on a harder setting)

Yes, this is something I've noticed, too. The AI's seem to KNOW where the good planets are. I have seen them drive right up to one with a fast colony ship just 20 or so turns into the game when I have my own extra points set 5 on speed and 5 on tech. I was actually WATCHING the damn thing and there is no way they surveyed it! Their survey ship was 2 quadrants away surveying something else!

I agree this build is hard, but it's ONLY because the AI is colonizing like the plague. By time I have 4 systems they have like 10 - 15 which is clearly unfair since they will out produce me in a few years. I also don't want to HAVE to put all my points in to speed just so I can colonize quicker to keep up. I don't think colony ships should EVER get 5 turns especially so early in the game when there are only so many planets you can colonize. I suggest we only give the "speed bonuses" to military ships, or at least halve them for non military. So a battleship would get 5 moves while a colony would get only get 2. or something along those lines. I really feel getting 5 moves in general should be much much later in the game unless you put all 10 points into speed.

Hi,

well i don't know if it was my request that made the colony ships harder sorry for those of you who didn't like this but it didn't make sense to me that you build ships that are supposed to be able to start a new colony take only 3 turns to build. But mind you I did mention that the ai seems to know where to go all the time. Also what I find very funny is how the ai can build so many ships in so little time I've put my mil spending to 100% and I still can not make as many ships as they do mind you I don't have 30 planets like they do either.

I'm about to try the updated beta I've been away for a couple of days and haven't had a chance to check the new version out so trust me I will be giving comments. Remember people this is still the beta and so far things look very good and I'm glad the developing team is listening.

I have also found if I bump up my military (70%) production right at the start of the game. I can still build colony ships in 6-7 turns, IMHO I think that is much to fast this early. Since the planet is still developing and populating. I guess what I am asking for some time where I can actually just explore the galaxy while my projects are being built.
Right now the game feels to much like an arcade game, much to fast passed. I guess the way it plays now I don't get that feeling of accomplishment when I get a new planet.

Just think back to Civ and how long it took to get your 3rd city and how good it felt when you built.

I just noticed, I never see the enemy empires building scout ships........in fact I've never seen an enemy scout ship. I suppose they just use all of those easy to build colony ships as scout ships. I wouldn't mind colony ships being higher in fact than they are now(40%). Still in all, it is much better than it was before.....I can't wait for beta 2.


It needs ship ranges in the early game(up to warp drive?), star bases for the mid game, then big fleets for the endgame. There should be a natural progression and the early defense ships(defender, battle cruiser, etc.) orbiting a planet need a bigger defensive bonus(50%-100%). The pace really needs to be slowed down quite a bit.....

I've just noticed where the heck did the traslator go. Sorry for spelling mistake. I keep encountering the races and it say we need a translator. Problem is it doesn't show up in my reseach screen. I think I know how to recreat the problem. Just research other things don't research the tech that will give you the translator and it will soon disapear on the list leaving you with out the translator. I also have to agree if you play about 50 turns the ai has about 80% of the galaxy covered and I'm playing on the gigantic map. Also why is it that the maps always look the same.
I mean about 10 stars in one cornor 10 in the other and 10 in the other and about 30 of them in the center. Take a look you will see what I mean the maps mostly look the same does this affect how the ai sets up shop? Also ship ranges we need them. Not funny when I can send a fleet across the map ok move 1 ship at a time across the screen at a time which brings me to the next point fleets oh god please. Also I've noticed that right off the bat we know where the stars are. Shouldn't this be hidden from the user as to the fact that space has not been revealed to use yet and that the positsion of the stars should also be hidden. This plotting of the stars on the mini map takes away the fun of exploring because you alreay know where to send you colony ships it's just a matter of finding a good planet.

Well thats it 4 me 2night. I'm always open to discussion till later and goodnite.

Ship ranges would make probes a-LOT more valuable too................

Why should the start be hidden, look out at the sky at night and you can place thousands of stars! the location of the stars is not the basic mystery even if space there has not been explored (check out the latest Hubble pictures for proof of that)it's the location of races and eveything else. The basic scentific model is accurate on that account

Have you all read the description Brad gave of the preliminaries to where you start in the game? The other races have been exploring the galaxy with probes for millennia and already know where all of the prize planets are. It is your invention of FTL travel without the gates that causes the sudden panic to colonize them.

Cheers,
Jack

I have to agree with Tytan and everyone else advocating ship ranges ... I think this would go a long way towards improving the game play early on.

Currently, the early game is dominated by a scramble to build as many colony ships as possible. Ship ranges would limit the number of decent planets you and the AI players could reach at the outset. I think this would allow you to pursue a more balanced strategy and focus some on your military, social, and research projects while slowly expanding the boundaries of your races colonization. I also think this produces more of a satisfying dramatic backdrop and story line to the game.

The idea would be that the early FTL drives wear out quickly or need replenishing simply because they are new technology.....once you get to the mid-game drives they wouldn't wear out so quickly or at all.

By this time in the game a good space platform could be built for the cost of a battleship that would be loaded with enough weaponry to fight off battleship attacks, plus because it is orbital, it would repair its damage at the end of the turn. This would make it much harder for the roving battleships....which still have too much of an advantage. Plus if the orbital platform's defensive bonus was upped by new planetary defense upgrades and weapon techs that would make even the smallest platform harder as time went on.

The purpose of this is to get more focused attacks from the AI.....not just the roaming random battleships but thought out, concerted attacks. I don't like the current mode because its too much like a quake 3 free for all.....not much strategy.

Although there are a few situations where I could have really used a battleship-sized rail gun, I have to admit.

Ok guys, I think the majority has spoken. Ship ranges will be our next focus.

Regarding the AI - the alien civilizations do KNOW where the planets are. It's part of the plot of the game, they've been out there for tens of thousands of years with probes.

What we have to do as game designers is to ensure that this plot point doesn't imbalance the game. We'll probably put out a beta 1Z that addresses some of the thigns we've seen.

In fact, perhaps it might be a good idea to put ship ranges in BEFORE beta 2 so that we can see how the game mechanics of that work out. It's a pretty major game play change afterall.

How dead is the idea of being able to stake a claim and maybe create and drop a buoy (1 move, 0 def, 1 HP, 1 attack) that would allw an intercept of a colony ship. If the ship rams and destroy's the buoy (which it must to colonise the clamed system) it is a declaration of war. If I have the buoy destroy the colony ship, also a delaration of war.

The main problem with that idea is that bouys would almost certainly be easier to build than colony ships (if they weren't, there would be no use for them since you could get the actual colonies there faster), so one player could simply use them to claim every system within range. With someone focused enough on the appropriate techs, half the galaxy could be claimed by one player before anyone has more than three or four colonies, forcing at least one player (and probably all of them) into war way too early for anyone to be prepared for it.

A war of attrition fought with defenders does not seem like much fun to me....

During the early part of the game I don't think the UP even comes into play. What reason would any other race have to acknowledge your claim to an uncolonized system? I know I would not honor any other race's claim bouy for a system that I realy wanted if I didn't have to.

Cheers,
Jack

Having the Beta harder is not a good thing.
Stupid me when I want to play a game I want to win.
When I set the game setings to Cakewalk and the AI players to idiots and still have the AI win, the game is too hard.

The OS/2 version I could win every time at the easiest level.

For everybody who wants the game play harder I wonder if they have all the Game setting at Maximum difficulty ?

Might be a good idea to put a radio box button at the galaxy generation screen to toggle it on or off for a particular game..strategy people like lots of variants to play with..........you could also give them more points in the metaverse for playing with it off.