Distant Worlds is a vast, pausable real-time, 4X space strategy game which models a "living galaxy" with incredible options for replayability and customizability. Experience the full depth and detail of large turn-based strategy games, but with the simplicity and ease of real-time, and on the scale of a massively-multiplayer online game. Now greatly enhanced with the new Universe release, which includes all four previous releases as well as the new Universe expansion!
I have spent almost as much time at that one as DW...
When you are dominant, it would not matter what the AI does as long as they don't all build into bankruptcy and attack you no matter what you do. It would just look silly. And even if they did that, I would probably win quite easily. More money, more tech, better ships... And a few friends that had little or no reason to attack me, as I try to keep some buddies.
It would be very neat if implemented in a way that increased the immersion, though. DW is by far the most "alive" 4x game out there. It's absolutely ripe for random story-lines like that. Imagine if you didn't know which epic ending your game was going to have, instead of it automatically going to be "I out-did everyone" or "Oohps, it's those "refugees" again"
Some random story lines are nice, but the oh so predictable ganging up would get tiresome if it appeared every game. And DW got a badboy system, it is just a matter of every AI being badboy, and it so easy to be the goody of the galaxy by killing pirate bases while being bored.
Some random story lines are nice, but the oh so predictable ganging up would get tiresome if it appeared every game. And DW got a badboy system, it is just a matter of every AI being badboy, and it so easy to be the goody of the galaxy by killing pirate bases while being bored.
I've never had them not work, actually. But I also don't wipe out any AIs within the first 15 years or so unless circumstance calls for it. They show up every game, like clockwork, usually in the 2770s, though it apparently varies a bit.
In my very first expansion game after a long absence, I peeked at a somewhat mature Ring scenario. They appeared, but the game did not interest me.
I don't like the story lines, so mostly play with them off. I hate the fields of ship debris, I hate finding a huge cache of tech. This is a very nice of stopping the nasties from appearing.
When I actually play with the pain of hordes of alien ships and silly tech bonuses, they refuse to appear.
Actually a nice Idea would be that you don't simply take over every station of an empire you vanish.
And not every ship.
When all is lost, they form a BSG fleet, move as many civilians and most important colony ships if one survived or constructors if not, go to a newly opened area of the galaxy and start from new.
With the single minded target of getting you.
Think about it, the milky way has somewhere between 100 to 300 billion stars.
All our power struggle here is not even a mentionable slice of the orion arm.
So while you get the message that the enemy has been destroyed, you lean back and do nothing (as you never knew how many ships the enemy had to begin with).
You oh so slowly push your empire into new sectors (maybe after you "pacified" a sector you start anew in the next sector and get a massive support from the central sectors of your empire, without actually playing there any longer, only going back there when you lost your sector, or by manually switching, what takes 6-12 month ingame time as you, the leader, are simply somewhere else), and suddenly you find your old foes you thought exterminated years ago coming at you with a vengeance.
They have build a empire that actually can give you hard work.
They actually manage to drive you from this sector, as they prepared their campaign carefully with the clear intent to beating you.
So instead of the slow, careful and cost effective approach for getting the sector you now take an all in approach.
Sure, your empire with its 5 or 6 sectors fully controlled can take it. But that war takes 60% of your empires revenue (not tax, but the civilian as well).
You and your ancient enemy burn whole sectors in your war, mop up smaller "empires" as if they where not even there.
Making whole star clusters inhospitable.
A true war of the gods.
And then a third faction forms.
All the smaller empires that see you two coming combining with the desperate hope to defend them self, and you have a 3-front stale mate.
No side can make much ground as it is immediately cut down by the other two...
And somewhere a few thousand years later all breaks down.
No side is able to support the war anymore.
Just give us tools to set up really mean empires randomly. Easy to use tools. Let it be easy to share settings through the forum to face similar, but not same, challenges.
The Computer can take a sneak peek on your race, and make sure natural enemies are mean. It can do this even with random race, but rolling the race random first. But of course only do if you trigger the correct "I want this to hurt" settings.
Multiple mean versions would be better, so you don't know that "The other meanie is munching the galaxy from the other side".
Just give us tools to set up really mean empires randomly. Easy to use tools. Let it be easy to share settings through the forum to face similar, but not same, challenges.
The Computer can take a sneak peek on your race, and make sure natural enemies are mean. It can do this even with random race, but rolling the race random first. But of course only do if you trigger the correct "I want this to hurt" settings.
Multiple mean versions would be better, so you don't know that "The other meanie is munching the galaxy from the other side".
It certainly seems like the best answer would definately be more game sliders. And I really like you're idea, too. You could expand it and have a few checkboxes off to the side during game creation for things like "Painfully Masochistic Set-Up" or any number of other neat game "archetypes" out there, and clicking them would pre-set all the sliders to the best positions for that type of desired game.
Of course, more sliders in general is always good too.
I take it you guys always have a harsh homeworld start and give the AI excellent homeworlds. [:)]
No, actually I really suck at this game when it comes to war, so leaving everything on normal tends to even out for me. But you can never have enough sliders! So much of this game's lasting appeal is based on its ability to be a completely different game with just a few different clicks in the setup.
It's worth noting that we put a lot of effort into supporting different playstyles and many kinds of setup options, so if you find your games are coming out quite differently based on how you configured it and how you play, as long as you are enjoying yourself that's good news! [8D]
I don't think that game setup option scales well with more users, so I really want to get something remotely like that with sliders provided.
Not my cup of tea, but yes seems like lots of fun. Pity it crashed. Got to wonder what would have happened without the 3 alien cruisers and the 100 million odd war declaration though... [:)]
Sounds like we will have options to burn in Legends, yay.
(BTW taking out the storylines and embargoing tech trading/selling and resort building would push it to another level.)
What would have happened without some massive tech trade and 3 alien cruisers? The same as on the first two attempts - early death. Just not quite as early.
The start was insane, I think he put a some bonus pirate bases around the start, and with a huge tech disadvantage you are not only swarmed with pirates, but you can't kill them easily either.
Reading through the thread, I noticed how I had the Ancient Guardians kill off some pirates that I would not have managed to kill, for instance. It brought back nice memories.
Also fun to reread the humans stealing a colony while very fond of me. I wonder if that maybe is some strange stuff with an old order, like prepare and attack, that took forever to carry through.
Has anyone else noticed the AI attacking colonies without declaring war, and being on the positive relation side?
