Distant Worlds and Star Trek Questions

[Marshall Thomas]

How much does The Distant Worlds "universe" have in common with The Star Trek "universe"? I'm mainly just referring to general concepts:

- when you play as humans (or any other race, for that matter), can you play similar to The Federation?
- does diplomacy in DW remind you of diplomacy from the Star Trek series?
- are there major alliance shifts (like the Federation and The Klingons becoming allies?
- are there complicated peace treaties (like the ST one between the Federation and the Cardassians)?
- is DW more like Star Trek than GalCiv2? If so, in what ways?
- can you get minor races (with only one planet or system) to peacefully join your "federation"? I was really disapointed by how "minor races" were played in GalCiv 2. You couldn't really do anything with them diplomatically.

and finally, on an unrelated note, what's the most efficient way to get past the learning curve and start playing? Thanks in advance and thanks for welcoming me to the forums!

[Data]

play the smallest maps to get into the thick of things earlier
not that many things in common with ST but there is also a modder's section where you can find ST mods....also star wars, enterprise etc; Igard is the name you want, he's the creator of the ST mod. But beware, he's a romulan

[ehsumrell1]

ORIGINAL: Data

play the smallest maps to get into the thick of things earlier
not that many things in common with ST but there is also a modder's section where you can find ST mods....also star wars, enterprise etc; Igard is the name you want, he's the creator of the ST mod. But beware, he's a romulan

WATCH IT DATA! [:-]

Igard and I are allies in the ST cause! Don't get caught in either the Neutral Zone or
the Briar Patch!

[BigWolfChris]

ORIGINAL: Marshall Thomas

How much does The Distant Worlds "universe" have in common with The Star Trek "universe"? I'm mainly just referring to general concepts:

- when you play as humans (or any other race, for that matter), can you play similar to The Federation?
You can't be a peace-maker between other races, and you can't ask independents to join you, you either have to colonize there planet or conquer them with troops
- does diplomacy in DW remind you of diplomacy from the Star Trek series?
Tbh, it's just like every other game with diplomacy (just with diplomacy with pirates as well)
- are there major alliance shifts (like the Federation and The Klingons becoming allies?
It's possible, but it's not easy and takes work
- are there complicated peace treaties (like the ST one between the Federation and the Cardassians)?
Not really, my opinion is, it's still as simple as most space games
- is DW more like Star Trek than GalCiv2? If so, in what ways?
The major difference DW has between all games and Star Trek is, there are no borders
- can you get minor races (with only one planet or system) to peacefully join your "federation"? I was really disapointed by how "minor races" were played in GalCiv 2. You couldn't really do anything with them diplomatically.
Answered above, but these independent planets can become empires if left alone long enough

and finally, on an unrelated note, what's the most efficient way to get past the learning curve and start playing? Thanks in advance and thanks for welcoming me to the forums!
Data's suggestion would be the best way

[ehsumrell1]

ORIGINAL: Marshall Thomas

How much does The Distant Worlds "universe" have in common with The Star Trek "universe"? I'm mainly just referring to general concepts:

- when you play as humans (or any other race, for that matter), can you play similar to The Federation?
- does diplomacy in DW remind you of diplomacy from the Star Trek series?
- are there major alliance shifts (like the Federation and The Klingons becoming allies?
- are there complicated peace treaties (like the ST one between the Federation and the Cardassians)?
- is DW more like Star Trek than GalCiv2? If so, in what ways?
- can you get minor races (with only one planet or system) to peacefully join your "federation"? I was really disapointed by how "minor races" were played in GalCiv 2. You couldn't really do anything with them diplomatically.
and finally, on an unrelated note, what's the most efficient way to get past the learning curve and start playing? Thanks in advance and thanks for welcoming me to the forums!

Welcome to Distant Worlds Marshall! I've played GalCiv2 and almost all other Space 4x games. This game
is the one for me. I'm DONE with GalCiv2. Although I loved it then....I'm true blue DW now!
- Yes, you can play similar to the Federation, and can do it without the Star Trek mod if you wish.
There must be a bit of "tweaking" of the races.txt and biases.txt files though. Plus it helps to
use a Star Trek shipset. {But much better for realism and easier to use a Star Trek Theme Mod}
- You can set treaties, barter, mutually defend and other diplomatic things similar to Star Trek.
- You have control over who you align with. You can use the biases file to set relationships
EXACTLY as you wish to have them. Set Governments also. {You need to learn how to edit the biases file
though so Bajorans hate Cardassians, etc.}
- No more wasted words on GalCiv2. May it R.I.P. in my opinion. Respectfully speaking! Don't get me
wrong though...I'm not game-bashing. It IS a great game in its own way.
- There are Independent races with there own worlds in the game. Some are friendly and may join you
peacefully by allowing you to colonize their planet and absorb them into your Empire. Some are
mean and hostile and if you wish to garner their racial qualities for your Empire you're gonna
need to send a few fully loaded troop transports to 'persuade' them to see things your Empire's way!

- As Data said, start with a small galaxy size and only a few races. Go through the tutorial and for
starters, set everything to Auto except for Ship Design, IMO.
- In addition, keep reading the forum threads...MUCH information, tips, etcetera here!
Good luck to you and have LOADS of Distant Worlds fun!

By the way....I should denote that for some of the responses I mentioned you need to have
the Return of the Shakturi expansion to the game. The vanilla Distant Worlds does not have
a biases.txt file. Just to clarify.

[Lord_Astraios]

ORIGINAL: Marshall Thomas

How much does The Distant Worlds "universe" have in common with The Star Trek "universe"? I'm mainly just referring to general concepts:

- when you play as humans (or any other race, for that matter), can you play similar to The Federation?
- does diplomacy in DW remind you of diplomacy from the Star Trek series?
- are there major alliance shifts (like the Federation and The Klingons becoming allies?
- are there complicated peace treaties (like the ST one between the Federation and the Cardassians)?
- is DW more like Star Trek than GalCiv2? If so, in what ways?
- can you get minor races (with only one planet or system) to peacefully join your "federation"? I was really disapointed by how "minor races" were played in GalCiv 2. You couldn't really do anything with them diplomatically.

and finally, on an unrelated note, what's the most efficient way to get past the learning curve and start playing? Thanks in advance and thanks for welcoming me to the forums!

- You could actually play as them, just you have to make house rules for yourself to be the Federation, apart from colonizing planets, The federation is also based on many minor races that has become members of the Federation.
- Kinda, there is no membership, There is no surrender as in taken under control by another empire, but here in DW is the same as the rest of the games.
- Sometimes but not that intense as in the series, Like Federation and Klingons, also there is the problem on steping on Neutral Zone with the Romulans, No Cloak treaty with the Romulans, Annoying Cardassians.
- Yes, i think there is more similarities in DW and Star Trek than GAlCiv 2. Trading ships, Minor Races that can do things or become them, There is Dilathium.
- No, Conquer them or colonize them.

= For me it was start playing and learn through mistakes, you should start from a small map, 1 vs 1, or get those pre-made missions in the quick start, or start as you wish, also you could read the game concepts in the galactopedia in the game.

[Data]

documenting from the pedia, game manual and the forum is a must...i understand if you want to bypass this learning curve but i say it again, this is actually the fastest way to learn

[Igard]

Hi Marshall.

DW is great in that you can play it in so many different ways. You can role-play pretty much any ST race you like. Installing one of the Star Trek mods is probably recommended for this, but try it with the original Distant Worlds races first, because then the game's story makes more sense. You can turn off the story modes when you play with a mod if you like.

Independant alien colonies are handled really well in DW and it's a vast improvement over GalCiv (like ehsumrell1 I'm a GalCiv fan too). When playing as the Federation, I'll usually leave the indy colony alone for a while to let it grow and develop on it's own before I decide if it's ready or not for memership. This is done by simply sending a colony ship to the planet and waiting to see if the population accepts it or not. There's no actual diplomacy involved here, but you should already have a good idea whether or not the indy race is ready.

Diplomacy in DW still needs alot of work to become as complex as that seen in Star Trek. Believe me when I say, that this game is good enough that you won't be disappointed even though the diplomacy is still lacking in some areas. There was a very comprehensive post about diplomacy actually (I think it was Simulation01 that made it?), where a great deal of suggestions for new diplomatic options were made. I had a quick look but can't find it.

So there's no actual membership in terms of it being a diplomatic option. If an indy colony decides to expand into a fully fledged empire, then you've lost your chance at bringing them into the Federation. There are no neutral zones or treaties where you can exchange planets and territory (ala the Maquis/Cardassian disputes). However if you have colonies or mining stations INSIDE another empires star system, then those can be exchanged on the diplomacy screen. So the mechanic is there, it just needs to be fleshed out a bit. I think we'll be seeing more additions to diplomacy in the future that will greatly increase the Trek vibe.

As mentioned, there is a bias setting for each race, so that Klingons hate Romulans and Bajorans hate Cardassians etc. This makes positive relations very hard to achieve with a race you have a natural disliking for. But it is possible to forge a good relationship even when there's a mutual distrust. I've tried to emulate the various changes in attitude throughout the ST series in my mods. So, TNG mod will see the Klingons and Federation have pretty good relations, where as if you play the Kirk era mod, they will have a negative liking for one another. In fact the Klinks are down right nasty in the Kirk era (as they should be).

Feel free to ask more questions or check out the Desing and Modding forums for more info about the mods. You can find a link to each mod on my signature. [:)]

Oh, and don't listen to Mr. Data. He's still angry about what we did to his brother, B4. That was ALL Shizon's idea, the man was a loon! [:D]

[Data]

LOL, very true [:)]

[Simulation01]

For me the thing that hurts this game the most ( and that's relative since I love the game ) is it's Diplomacy is not as deep as it should be and it currently has no 'territory' system.  It's really worse than the old west...squatters rights rules the day.  It's yours if you can hold on to it.

I really don't know why more hasn't been done to redress these issues.  I am not the only one wanting more diplomatic depth or a territory concept.

[Igard]

Simulation01, was it you that made that thread about diplomacy several months ago? I'd like to find that thread and resurrect it. Diplomacy is definately top of my wishlist.

Like I said, don't let this put you off playing the game. It's such a good game that lack of a few diplomatic options isn't going to affect your enjoyment so much that you want to shelf it.

[J HG T]

What Igard said. Superb game despite its small issues. About border thingy: Seems like everyone has opinion on this. I personally like the current system but can understand why some people don't like it. Interesting to see if CodeForce is going to change it in some way.
Also, I have this feeling that we will be seeing some upgrades to diplomacy options on some future patch or in next expansion.

[Simulation01]

ORIGINAL: Igard

Simulation01, was it you that made that thread about diplomacy several months ago? I'd like to find that thread and resurrect it. Diplomacy is definately top of my wishlist.

Like I said, don't let this put you off playing the game. It's such a good game that lack of a few diplomatic options isn't going to affect your enjoyment so much that you want to shelf it.

I found this dusty old thread many pages deep into the forums. Feel free to breathe some Romulan life back into it[;)]...I certainly welcome it.

Diplomacy

[Igard]

That's the one Sim. I might just bump that sometime soon. [;)]

I'm just concerned that there haven't been any threads like this recently and I wouldn't want Elliot to think we're not interested in improving the diplomacy. For me it's top of the wishlist. Yes even before all new modding support. [:'(]

[Simulation01]

ORIGINAL: J HG T


Also, I have this feeling that we will be seeing some upgrades to diplomacy options on some future patch or in next expansion.

I sure wish we could get some definite word on that and a timeline for it's introduction i.e...next patch...one after that...one after that. Give me something to hang my hat on. PLEASE![:(]

[ASHBERY76]

Sounds like you want Birth of the Federation.

[Simulation01]

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76

Sounds like you want Birth of the Federation.

I have BOTF. BOTF, I found wanting.

[ehsumrell1]

ORIGINAL: Simulation01

ORIGINAL: J HG T


Also, I have this feeling that we will be seeing some upgrades to diplomacy options on some future patch or in next expansion.

I sure wish we could get some definite word on that and a timeline for it's introduction i.e...next patch...one after that...one after that. Give me something to hang my hat on. PLEASE![:(]

I know we will soon be seeing some diplomacy tweaks upcoming. But I'm betting that the modability
of the tech tree has precedence next. Just my two bars of gold-pressed latinum worth {that I
'redistributed' from a fat Ferengi trader last week that drifted into the Briar Patch by mistake
after warping blindly out of Romulan territory....Igard must have been after him also!}
[:-]

[Data]

don't even know what i want most next, modability or diplonacy....anything is good enough, there are plenty of goodies
it will be christmas for a long time to go [:)]

[ehsumrell1]

Well said Data! [:)]