Bouncing off again

[morganja]

I keep bouncing off this game. I want to love it. But it needs some work.
Perhaps some suggestions. There needs to be a check mark for learning players to not be put into instant loss scenarios. The current state of the game is that a player is supposed to be able to recognize that the game is ridiculously unwinnable by turn 4-5. That works for experienced players who can recognize that the setup is unwinnable. But if this is a player's first several games, then a ridiculous start looks the same as a normal start to them.
A check mark to prevent awful starts would go a long way to not driving new players away from the game. I understand the challenge of horrible starts for veteran players. That is not what one wants for new players.
So a checkbox that will prevent obvious things like bordering on three slavers, or being the only major without metal, or all the leaders are polar opposite of the nation's ethos, or any of the other terrible starts, might be a way to ease a player into the game.
You don't teach a person to bat by throwing hard 95 mph sliders at them in third grade.
The other thing that has caused me to bounce off the game is the state of recon and ambushes by minors at the beginning. It is absurd. There needs to be some indication of the probability of enemy troops. The binary of nothing there, or something there, is not working, especially when followed by an ambush. Maybe that is something that works well in the mid-game. I don't know. Because I can't get to the midgame without bouncing off hard.
The AI never blunders into your troops and gets ambushed. Why are the player's troops? It's bad enough that a unit loses all its movement. The player's troops are 'ambushed', by a neutral minor, and then they carry merrily on as if attacking and killing your soldiers isn't an act of war.
The whole border concept needs a rethink. If a player has a treaty with another county, and then a third party, as is too often the case, takes some hexes, it is suddenly free game for the treaty county to take your territory from the third party.
No. Just no. A treaty that recognizes a hex as belonging to another country needs to hold up, until the treaty is broken and war declared.
The complete absence of borders in the beginning isn't working, when minors abandon every other border to ooze invisibly over the player's.
I know that there is a great game in here, somewhere. Maybe a series of designed maps for beginners would be the way to go, accompanied by explanations. Watching 24 hours of videos to find basic information isn't viable to people who work for a living.
As it is now, it is a lot of wasted potential.

[Zanotirn]

One of the main things leading to "unwinnable" games is the nearby majors. However the beta has an option of putting more distance between starting positions of majors. Have you tried it? (the other thing that may lead to difficult start is very advanced native wildlife, but you can see at least the size of the creatures around during planet creation.)

I partially agree on ambushes and minors. At the start you are supposed to have no diplomatic relations, plus minors are supposed to be generally less organized - so running into them can easily lead to conflict. However I've never heard of an ambush leading to 2 months of fighting - an unfavorable ambush should just lead to immediate retreat and fighting lasting only 2 rounds. And generally in war when one force runs into another without expecting it, it in most cases just leads to surprise combat. A proper ambush is much harder to pull off, plus I don't think the game actually checks if the unit occupying the hex saw the moving unit coming - if it didn't, it had no chance to even try and organize an ambush.

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: Zanotirn
However I've never heard of an ambush leading to 2 months of fighting - an unfavorable ambush should just lead to immediate retreat and fighting lasting only 2 rounds.

Ambush combat is only 2 combat turns, not 10.
So that is 2/10 of 2 months or about 12 days. Seems reasonable for me.

[Rodia]

Against ambushes, you have to advance carefully and play 'Minesweeper': If surrounding hexes of an advancing unit are not converted into your territory, there's an ambush there awaiting for you.

If starting position has no ruins or is in the middle of a forest I usually just start again.

[bvoid]

It's rarely unwinnable, even on the highest difficulty. The new "spread out" option helps avoid a lot of the silly starts from the past.

Some of the most enjoyable starts are being surrounded by Kaiju or Nemesis and barely surviving.

[BlueTemplar]

bordering on three slavers

Is this particularly bad ?

being the only major without metal

AFAIK shouldn't happen on easiest difficulty levels, bug ?

all the leaders are polar opposite of the nation's ethos

agreed, though it's not clear to me how unlikely this is ?

The other thing that has caused me to bounce off the game is the state of recon and ambushes by minors at the beginning. It is absurd. There needs to be some indication of the probability of enemy troops. The binary of nothing there, or something there, is not working, especially when followed by an ambush. Maybe that is something that works well in the mid-game. I don't know. Because I can't get to the midgame without bouncing off hard.

Agreed, in the sense that the fog of war is not displaying correctly :
you shouldn't have to check every "revealed" & "empty" hex to see whether you have enough recon on it to show a unit or not, the game should do that for you !

The AI never blunders into your troops and gets ambushed. Why are the player's troops? It's bad enough that a unit loses all its movement. The player's troops are 'ambushed', by a neutral minor, and then they carry merrily on as if attacking and killing your soldiers isn't an act of war.

What makes you think so ?
I'm guessing that this is what happens when you see the AI doing some of those clearly "suicide" attacks ?

[morganja]

ORIGINAL: bvoid

It's rarely unwinnable, even on the highest difficulty. The new "spread out" option helps avoid a lot of the silly starts from the past.

Some of the most enjoyable starts are being surrounded by Kaiju or Nemesis and barely surviving.

I am sure those are probably amazingly fun challenges. I certainly don't think the options for planet generation should change. I know that that is part of the appeal. I only think that it would help newer players immensely if there were a set of pre-generated maps, or an option, to create learning maps.

[morganja]

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

ORIGINAL: Zanotirn
However I've never heard of an ambush leading to 2 months of fighting - an unfavorable ambush should just lead to immediate retreat and fighting lasting only 2 rounds.

Ambush combat is only 2 combat turns, not 10.
So that is 2/10 of 2 months or about 12 days. Seems reasonable for me.

Except why is there any combat at all? If two groups blunder into each other in the wild, shooting each other is only one of the options. I understand if there is already a state of war. But not for two neighbors who otherwise desire peace.
In any case, the mechanic itself is too arbitrary and gamey. Perhaps a cautious advance stance which costs extra movement, but avoids ambushes by otherwise non-warring states.

[morganja]

ORIGINAL: BlueTemplar

bordering on three slavers

Is this particularly bad ?

being the only major without metal

AFAIK shouldn't happen on easiest difficulty levels, bug ?

all the leaders are polar opposite of the nation's ethos

agreed, though it's not clear to me how unlikely this is ?

The other thing that has caused me to bounce off the game is the state of recon and ambushes by minors at the beginning. It is absurd. There needs to be some indication of the probability of enemy troops. The binary of nothing there, or something there, is not working, especially when followed by an ambush. Maybe that is something that works well in the mid-game. I don't know. Because I can't get to the midgame without bouncing off hard.

Agreed, in the sense that the fog of war is not displaying correctly :
you shouldn't have to check every "revealed" & "empty" hex to see whether you have enough recon on it to show a unit or not, the game should do that for you !

The AI never blunders into your troops and gets ambushed. Why are the player's troops? It's bad enough that a unit loses all its movement. The player's troops are 'ambushed', by a neutral minor, and then they carry merrily on as if attacking and killing your soldiers isn't an act of war.

What makes you think so ?
I'm guessing that this is what happens when you see the AI doing some of those clearly "suicide" attacks ?

Three slavers results in two wars and a rapidly diminishing unguarded border long before turn ten. They have immensely powerful, and fast armies, full of buggies and motorbikes. I have no idea how to defend against that, especially since the major on one of the slaver's other border is conquering the entire zone without resistance.

The last game, I saw a metal deposit right next to the other majors capital, while I had four fuel deposits, two water deposits and a rare metals deposit. Lots of deposits, but only one ruin to try to get metal from.

I hadn't noticed other zones units blundering into mine, except after a declared war. But maybe they do and I haven't noticed it?

[bvoid]

Slaver units are pathetic militia. They are only good against your own starting militia, or very low-tech troops.

The game is actually HARDER because you are picking a tech 1 start. If you start at t2 or t3, and start with some regular troops - then these minor troops are a pushover.

Do not pick tech 1 start!! Make sure you are playing the latest beta - and pick the "spread out" option to avoid majors spawning close.

[BlueTemplar]

Three slavers results in two wars and a rapidly diminishing unguarded border long before turn ten. They have immensely powerful, and fast armies, full of buggies and motorbikes.

Have you tried independent machineguns ?
Buggies and motorbikes (and infantry/artillery in trucks), besides being fast on flat terrain, aren't *that* good on offense, they aren't tanks...

Also, losing territory is not necessarily bad, as long as you don't lose valuable hexes :
hex perks, hexes 2 hexes from your assets, free folk towns maybe, defensible positions like mountain/forest/ruins...

But yeah, new players probably shouldn't be playing on Tech lvl 3 starts, but rather Tech lvl 4 starts.

I hadn't noticed other zones units blundering into mine, except after a declared war. But maybe they do and I haven't noticed it?

Non-Aligned units are basically always at "war" with you, surely you've seen some attacks from those ?