Newcomer and Prospective DW Owner

[Alexandus]

Hello everyone!

I just recently purchased StarDrive on Steam and was discussing with some other players of that game about how I felt that the game lacked..depth, as far as diplomacy and alliances and galaxy size and length of games etc. Almost all of the people on Steam pointed me to this game, so for the past couple of days I have been doing my research, reading various player reviews and watching hours of lets plays of the game.

Truth be told, I watched some lets plays of Vanilla DW and felt intimidated, but some videos of Legends made me feel a bit better about considering buying the game here soon. One thing that I wanted to question everyone about, well, a couple things, involved diplomacy and length of the games.

1) How deep can the diplomacy really get? I have seen where you can have the basic trade agreements and defense agreements down to the intricate refueling agreements and such, but I was curious about the idea of 'Federations' or something of a group of empires banding together to make a joint union/joint government, one where policies are voted on and member empires can apply for membership or leave the federation at will. Does this game feature something like this or has anyone talked about this idea before?

2) Sandbox gameplay..I'm a huge fan of it and I am very much against 'victory conditions'. I know that you can remove all victory conditions but I was curious about the AI behavior when they are removed...does the AI in fact act differently? An example would be if you are trying for a 50% territory control victory, everyone else might be more aggressive due to also wanting this goal, whereas in a sandbox they might be happy with just self preservation, survival and keeping the peace as long as you aren't overly aggressive towards them or do something to piss them off intentionally.


I suppose what I'm looking for answers to are questions or topics that would turn the game from a 4x strategy game into a bonafide galactic governmental simulation. Many of the things I would want are already in place with this game, but I am curious as to just HOW much this game would fulfill my wishes.

[Webbco]

Welcome to the forum Alexandus!

Firstly, be sure to check out Das's great Let's Play series: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL ... n0sojfl6Ij

Also Quill18's Let's Try episode: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sa_fN9P0x44

To try and answer your questions:

1) Diplomacy depth is not bad. Protectorates and Subjugated Dominions also exist alongside the treaties you mentioned, but not the "Federations" concept you suggested.

2) My experience is that the AI is more affected by the settings when setting up your game, e.g. the "Chaos" level of the galaxy, difficulty and other races and government styles than with victory conditions. Can't be 100% sure though as I've only played 1 or 2 games in sandbox mode and never finished them!

Hope that kinda helps!

[Alexandus]

I appreciate the info Webbco, I was watching Quill18's video when you replied, haha

I'm curious if they would ever integrate 'Federations' into the game, as it would be interesting to see 2-3 Federations in a power struggle or Cold War for being the "Dominant Federation", something similar to Star Trek

OR

One large Federation that is located in the Core and having to balance the various member Empire's requests for assistance against threats in the outer rim, sort of like the Galactic Republic in Star Wars.

[Webbco]

Yeah, it sounds like an awesome idea! Post it in the stickied Master Wishlist thread [:)] I know Erik and Elliot (both involved in the development of DW) read and consider the ideas there - many of which have ended up in the game.

[Alexandus]

Will do Webbco, thank you very much [:)]

[Mad Igor]

tldr [>:]

[Antiscamp]

Man! If you like StarDrive but think it lacks depth, then Distant Worlds is definitely your game. [:)]

[Rising-Sun]

plus there alot of mods for DW you may like, make sure you grab other two expansions. I know it cost even more, but its worth it.

[Bingeling]

About AI and diplomacy.

I don't think it cares about victory conditions at all. Which is nice when playing sandbox, and not so nice when playing with victory conditions.

The core of diplomacy is a numeric relation score, which is influenced by a lots. Past dealings, natural race relations, empire reputations, contested bases, coveted resources, trade volume... And from that score I think limits decides if they want free trade, defensive pacts, or more.

For war a certain dislike is needed, and also probably some AI calculation on empire powers. If you have a very strong start and strong military, don't expect to be attacked a whole lot

Add to this racial features, which may just influence the score needed for certain actions. Some are aggressive, others are passive, for instance.

[ASHBERY76]

The A.I does care about victory conditions.The A.I policy for all races is tuned for it for their individual conditions.

[Bingeling]

Well... I am pretty sure they don't care about the victory conditions, but their default behaviors are somewhat synched with them.

[Shark7]

You will like the sandbox mode. It is the only way I play the game, playing until I decide that the game is over (usually when I've conquered every other empire in the galaxy) [;)].

And it is very easy to get into sandbox mode, just set up your new game and at the victory conditions screen, uncheck the 4 victory condition boxes.

And while federations can't be formed (though having MDPs between a number of species is possible), so it has its similarities. The idea of being able to set up teams isn't a bad thing though... [:)]

[Plant]

I've yet to see an effective federations system in any game never mind in a 4X game. I remember that Sword of the Stars 1 have an alliance system where all the members have to agree to accept new members into the alliance, thus the alliance is able to form a united front. In any case, you have aliiances with the game.

[Mansen]

ORIGINAL: Plant

I've yet to see an effective federations system in any game never mind in a 4X game. I remember that Sword of the Stars 1 have an alliance system where all the members have to agree to accept new members into the alliance, thus the alliance is able to form a united front. In any case, you have aliiances with the game.

It also had/has the downside that if one of the parties declined they would be thrown out of the alliance - Making it incredibly easy to get rid of former allies by forcing them to decline an impossible offer.

[Plant]

That doesn't happen to my recollection. None of your allies are thrown out, all that happens is that the the other member cannot join and the alliance doesn't include the new member.