The biggest problem with Distant Worlds

[the1sean]

One thing that would make GDP a more interesting win option is increased population growth rates.

[Data]

Look who's back. Nice to see you're still around....you Iron Maiden trooper [:)]

[Merker]

The biggest problem with DW is the fact it's so supper dupper mega uber great that players just can't wait to get their grubby paws/hands/insect appendages/tails/whatever on the next update, and so start posting 50 topics about the supposed next update.

There, that's the major problem of this game, it's so freakin' unheard of epic that you just have to have the next update by sunset or else....
[8|][8|][8|]

[Data]

LOL, very true
ahh, sunset...what's the holdup?

[Canute0]

Back to the original topic

The problem is that ultimately, regardless of whether you are a Boskaran military dictatorship or a supposedly peaceful Teekan democracy, there is ONLY one way to win: War. Because every victory condition revolves around controlling a certain portion of the map

I startet Teekan Democracy, victory cond. are 50/50/50. I started with starting Tech, while the other Empire got some Tech advance. Large Map with 9 Empire.

At moment i lead with 22% the expansion goal, population i am at 4 place.

I think it would be ok, when i am doing War with the Shakturi, because i dont think i can't avoid that anyway.
But i think i can win without doing War against any other Empire.

[Apheirox]

The biggest problem with DW is the fact it's so supper dupper mega uber great that players just can't wait to get their grubby paws/hands/insect appendages/tails/whatever on the next update, and so start posting 50 topics about the supposed next update.

There, that's the major problem of this game, it's so freakin' unheard of epic that you just have to have the next update by sunset or else....

There's a ton of things that's awesome about DW. There are, however, also some things that aren't so great. Praising what works is good, but it does little to help with the things that need more attention.

What are your thoughts on the issue?

At moment i lead with 22% the expansion goal, population i am at 4 place.

Canute, I'll bet you anything you're not going to win that game without getting trigger happy on someone sooner or later. It's a looong way from 22 to 50%.

Look, just look at the victory conditions you've set up. You're playing a ten empire game? That's an average 10/10/10 slice for each empire, take or give. There's no way anybody is going to hit 50 without taking territory from neighbours through conquest.

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Also, there are actually two new victory conditions in ROTS. You can either unite to try to defeat the Shakturi, which depending on your race can mean that you need to build up serious military might or help the other AI empires by giving them economic or technological aid, or you can join with the Shakturi and help them defeat the Ancient Guardians. Both have worked for me without playing Humans.

Regards,

- Erik

Are these victory conditions reliant on you allying with one of the ancient races - Guardians or Shakturi? For example, can you take out the Guardians - and then defeat the Shakturi - resulting in a "good" victory?

[Canute0]

No, when you conquer the Ancient Guardian Homeplanet you have Won the game or when you conquer the homeplanet of the Shakturi.
But these 2 victory conditions only appear when the Shakturi show up as Shakturi. Before that you can take over the Ancient Guardians homeplanet but i think the Refuges homeplanet was invulerable against this.

Look, just look at the victory conditions you've set up. You're playing a ten empire game? That's an average 10/10/10 slice for each empire, take or give. There's no way anybody is going to hit 50 without taking territory from neighbours through conquest.

The goal was to win without doing any war against the AI empires.
But you still can do some revolts, and even without revoltes some planets from my neightbours joined my empire.

But i won now because i conquer the homeplanet of the Shakturi.

[Data]

[/quote]

But you still can do some revolts, and even without revoltes some planets from my neightbours joined my empire.

[/quote]

It will take some time if you want to get a big chunk of the universe this way but it depends on how each one of us chooses to play the game.

[Canute0]

Maybe you should reread the 1.posting. it was the Question to win without War.

[cookie monster]

ORIGINAL: Apheirox

While there are things like the AI sometimes leaving much to be desired (something the developers are clearly aware of and are working to improve, it seems) there is one issue that trumphs them all: The victory conditions.

The problem is that ultimately, regardless of whether you are a Boskaran military dictatorship or a supposedly peaceful Teekan democracy, there is ONLY one way to win: War. Because every victory condition revolves around controlling a certain portion of the map (population, colonies and GDP do ALL translate into pure map control - there is no difference whatsoever), the sole way to win is to conquer territory. Ultimately, there is no option for a peaceful victory. This is where DW is ultimately lacking compared to games like Civilization (diplomatic, cultural and scientific victory conditions) and, as an even better example, Armada 2526's wide variety of victory condtions.

Granted, with the RotS expansion, a new 'victory condition' was introduced: Defeat the Shakturi. However, IMHO the Shakturi are badly implemented and the expansion is as such unfortunately a failure in this regard (albeit it introduces a host of very welcome features, like the new GUI and the research tree). The reason I say so is the fact that the Shakturi are ridiculously powerful compared to anyone else. What was clearly meant to happen, then, is for the whole galaxy to gang up on them to stand a chance, but because the AI doesn't 'understand' this the Shakturi slowly but surely burn down each and every AI empire - only the human-controlled one can provide any sort of serious resistance. In other words, the Shakturi 'victory condition' is, well, bugged.

What DW really needs is an expansion pack that seriously steals the great ideas from Armada 2526 and introduces unique victory conditions for each race. The Teekans, for example, score 'victory points' by having a strong economy (but none of this '% of galaxy nonsense'). The Wekkarus can win by mining resources. Zenox score by researching technology. Boskara score both through military conquest AND genocidal bombardments of alien populations. Gizureans are geared towards controlling many colonies. etc etc etc - I think you get it.

Unless such changes are made, DW is, regardless of how refined and complex it is in many areas, nothing more than one big deathmatch blob. Republic or despotism - it doesn't really matter, the objective is always to win wars.

Please Armadadize the game!

A refresher of the initial post.

Only options are to wishlist what you want and have Igard include something like ''More Victory Conditions'' in a poll.

But it aint gonna change till the next expansion or DW2.

Also the Shakturi in my game were very weak, I coulda dropped 600 Elite Clone troopers on them if I chose to. There implementation (appearance) could be patched so that they come in all guns blazing with over 300 troops and 1500 size cloaked capital ships.

Anyone reached the victory screen yet?

It could do with some love!

[Data]

ORIGINAL: Canute

Maybe you should reread the 1.posting. it was the Question to win without War.

I don't need to, I knew that. I was not criticizing your way of playing the game (I also like to win it with as few wars as possible), I was anticipating Apheirox's retort; he has a valid point but as you also proved it winning the game this way can be done....though we still have to conquer the shakturi and that counts as war also.

[colberki]

I am new to DS and just playing my second attempt at the game as Human Republic. So far around year 2780 no wars and we are biggest empire by territory and have the strongest military. Economy is lagging several if the AI which I am now focusing on catching up I like being able to play as such without fighting endless wars. Or is that coming later? My one fleet is having fun swatting pirates. [:)]

[cookie monster]

ORIGINAL: colberki

I am new to DS and just playing my second attempt at the game as Human Republic. So far around year 2780 no wars and we are biggest empire by territory and have the strongest military. Economy is lagging several if the AI which I am now focusing on catching up I like being able to play as such without fighting endless wars. Or is that coming later? My one fleet is having fun swatting pirates. [:)]

My first real game was as the Humans. I also expanded far and wide. I only had to take 10 odd colonies and then I had won by having 33% of the galaxies colonies.

The Humans are easy as they are able to colonise the most ideal worlds early i.e continental planets.

The game is soo much harder playing a Ice/volcanic only race, as your starting choice.

[scotten_usa]

Here's one issue I have with the game (and overall I love it):

When I start a war, I slow the game down to .5x speed.  However, even at that speed, the games throws events at me so quick that by the time I have to pause it every 5 seconds, address the alert, unpause, run 5 seconds, etc.  I won't say it's 'annoying', but it is somewhat distracting.

[Rekm41]

I have experienced that as well, so what he is asking for is a slower speed setting. That should be able to be modded no?

[Rekm41]

Awesome game though and credit to the developers!!

[Data]

ORIGINAL: rekm41

I have experienced that as well, so what he is asking for is a slower speed setting. That should be able to be modded no?

Once it will be open for modding, yes; I'm sure some of us will mod it to 8x [:)]

[Rekm41]

LOL yes. But it does move by pretty quickly at times. Would be nice if it still ran when you were accessing some of the info screens though.

[Data]

Yes, having these as options we can check would be great. We could choose when to use them and when not to use them.