Matrix Games Forums

In honor of games like DW, I wanted to see, especially with the type of games at Matrix and 4Xers, what games you think are the hardest/most complex/most daunting games ever made. Bonus points if you have no chance of playing without reading the damn manual.

On a scale of 1-10, 1 being checkers, 10 being... essentially playing a game in binary, here goes my list:

6: MOO3 - Especially the first version, 1.25 was better, but very hard to pick up and play, and the production/tubes/PP system was just... odd.
9: Dangerous Waters - 724 page(!) manual. Enough said.
7: Harpoon 2: Naval games + limited graphics + college student = infinite frustration/delight cycle.
6: Stars!: Bonus points for a 300+ page manual.
6: Space Empires series - tons of options, tons of replay, tons of restarts.
9: EVE Online - there are actaully people who make a living creating spreadsheets and macros - for money - to determine the best/most efficient way to outfit ships and installations, as well as level your character. Perhaps the second most daunting game ever.
7: WITP (8: WITP:AE). When a series of games has a quarter of a million posts, many of them with AARs, strategies, or questions, you know you've got a crazy deep game.

All worthy candidates, but the (recent!) winner(?) of the Most Daunting Game Every Made is....

10: Aurora: First thought upon installing and loading up a basic universe: Whoa. WITP, you ain't got nothin' on this.
Second thought upon starting a new universe: Wow. After playing this, *I* could be Honor Harrington. And the Space Tyrant. At the same time.

Thoughts?

Steve

Signature under construction. Pardon my whiteness in the meantime.

WITP = War In The Pacific? Yeah I always heard how brilliant Grigsby games were, but they were always a little too grognard for me. Since you mentioned Dangerous Waters, I will throw in Falcon 4.0 one of the greatest Flight Sims ever. The original manual came in a binder! I actually still have it. lol

Oh yeah, Falcon! Good one. I would give it a 7. Y'know, I just remembered a really obscure game that I'd be amazed if anyone ever heard of (well, maybe not, with this group!). Without further ado...

7: Malkari - Poor manual, but a very robust unit design system.

ORIGINAL: lordxorn

WITP = War In The Pacific? Yeah I always heard how brilliant Grigsby games were, but they were always a little too grognard for me. Since you mentioned Dangerous Waters, I will throw in Falcon 4.0 one of the greatest Flight Sims ever. The original manual came in a binder! I actually still have it. lol

Good one, never played Malkari. Loved their Capitalism game though.

What about Emperor of The Fading Suns, while it would rank low like a 2 or 3 for complexity, it was a different take and could have been something if they had more resources to finish it right.

It also had one of the coolest gothic soundtracks, I still jam to it when playing other 4x space games.
The second best soundtrack was Space Empires V, I love track 8. [:D]

I have to rate WITP higher than anything.. The only game i've ever given up as being to hard/deep..

I have managed to figure out Aurora and play it

Goodaye,

Probably need to make a distinction here. Some games have incredibly steep learning curves but once you get your head around them they are pretty straightforward.

Dangerous Waters is a case in point here. Most of the huge manual is focused on the individual platform stations. The underlying game mechanics are consistent across all platforms.

On the other end of the scale is something like MOO3 which which had complicated, non-intuitive game mechanics that didn't get any simplier once you understood them 'cause of a horrible interface and limited information flow back to the player.

War in the Pacific is a complicated animal by virtue of it's scope. Understanding the rules and the mechanics doesn't negate the complexity bought about by the sheer size of the beast.

Aurora is mind blowing. It's worth keeping in mind that it wasn't created for a public audience, instead it's one man's vision of his ideal space game. Hence a lot of stuff is not intuitive or easy to grasp. A lack of any proper manual aggravates the situation. However the return on your time is rivalled only by the highly leveraged deals that Lehman Brothers used to specalise in.

Distant Worlds looks to have touches of Aurora and WITP with it's scope and size but with the advantage of a very informative interface (judging by the screenshots) that appears to overcome the limitations that bedevilled MOO3.

Here's hoping. Regardless, it's still a mighty effort by a tiny indie operation and worth supporting.

Cheers,
Lancer

Oh no, no. That is far to cruel. DW is certainly not 'The Most Ridiculously Complex Games Ever'.

War in the Pacific (with or without AE) and War Plan Orange. To name 2 Matrix titles. I will add here also Victoria: An Empire under the Sun (+ expansion Revolutions).

100 clicks not enough, 1000 far too little, 10000 and still counting, 50000 oh my goodness my mouse just exploded! [:D]

And for (not-good) old games flight simulator: Air Warrior (IIRC the title). Only keyboard to flight and ~260 combinations to memorize. It was completely bonkers. Unfortunately I didn't know about that before I bought it. [:'(]

Hmm...I agree with you when it comes to EVE Online. Fighting alone can be extremely complex, as you have to learn about the attributes of different ships and modules and how to combine them efficiently ("Fitting"). And that's just the fighting part. Once you are out in 0.0 with some alliance and learn about sovereignty or try to dabble into trading, etc...for each kind of profession you have to learn a whole lot of stuff.

Apart from EVE I would definitely add these two: Beyond Protocol (you have never really designed a ship until you designed one in BP) and Dwarf Fortress (if you don't know it: it's free. Go download now, but READ THE WIKI! lol)

Dwarf Fortress in Fortress mode, it's more complex than any commercial game I have ever encountered.

Anyone who's played it know what I'm talking about.

And it's quite amazing considering the main coder is just one single guy, doing it for free.

http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/

I hope I'm not the only one here who's played it, it's really considered like a holy grail of complexity.

http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/Boatmurdered/intro.html

There's an "AAR" of a succession game in DF; mostly based off older versions than the current one but it should still give you a good idea of the complexity of the game!

If anyone has played it and know of a game with equal complexity I'd love to hear what it is.

Get original 2D DF if you want challenge. The 3D Dwarf Fortress is much much much more easy unless you really start in a ridiculous area but then it can be almost impossible... which isn't nice

ORIGINAL: Deto

Get original 2D DF if you want challenge. The 3D Dwarf Fortress is much much much more easy unless you really start in a ridiculous area but then it can be almost impossible... which isn't nice

I know I played both, even played the precursor to DF before DF came out!

The "teams" games are great, Liberal Crime Squad is a great game by them too!

But we weren't talking purely about challenges, but complexity, I'd say z-axis DF(the modern DF) is more complex than the non-z DF(what you call 2D!)

I'd put Space Empires V at the top due to the horribly unfriendly interface.

Someone have a link for Aurora?

www.aurora.pentarch.org

I just entered the thread thinking I had to mention Aurora since it's pretty much the Dwarf Fortress of 4X games.