Before I click purchase...

[imperialus]

A couple of questions:

1) How is the game without the expansions? 100+ dollars is a significant chunk of change to throw down on a game.

2) How is the AI? Particularly how is the AI if you want to pursue avenues other than "crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentations of their women."

3) Are there any good "lol newb, learn to play" guides out there? Either on youtube, or text based is fine.

Thanks in advance.

[Fishers of Men]

Welcome to the forum, imperialus! These questions have been asked before, but they are still important for each game owner to ask.

1)Knowing what I know now about the original game and all the expansions, I could never go back and play the original be itself. There have been way too many additions and improvements. I would at least purchase the expansions up to and including Legends. I understand the financial commitment, but I did not have to deal with this because I purchased each expansion as it was released. It was a lot less painful that way.

2)Each expansion improves the AI. It is competent but not creative, like a human opponent. Each race has it's own goals to achieve to win the game, and some of these goals are not military ones. Experiment with being one of these races.

3)Youtube has a good series of videos entitled, "Let's play Distant Worlds......". They are very instructive, but the best way for me was just to jump in for myself and then read this forum.

Good Luck!!

[imperialus]

Thanks for the advice Fishers of Men.

So based on your suggestion I decided to go for the first two expansions as well. Got a 20% discount when buying them with the base game so it didn't hurt quite as badly as I thought it would.

While I was waiting on responses I putzed around on Youtube and found what seems to be a good series by DAS24680. I'm pretty good at just jumping in (Europa Univeralis II comes to mind) from the pre-youtube days but it's still nice to be able to watch someone at least walk me through the UI, particularly for a game as byzantine as this appears to be.

At any rate, thanks for the advice. Now to go get my rope and belay pins and try to climb this learning curve.

[FerretStyle]

Fastest way to learn is probably to play on expert settings (all manual) and looking up anything you're stuck with as needed. You can then put things you want on auto as you figure them out.

[Starke]

Das is a great player and IIRC he plays without most of the automation off, so his videos should expose you to most parts of the game. The issue is that Let's Plays of DW are LOOOONG. =P If you need help the forums is always a great place, there is a thread called the "Guide to Guides" with links to guides on many areas of the game, and you're welcome to create a thread with any specific questions you have.

Some random tips:

The default ships designs are serviceable but rather suboptimal and once you feel comfortable you should redesign them yourself.

Your homeworld will contain the vast majority of your population for a very long period, and this has many implications. Population is connected to build speed, so don't try to built a large space port on a fresh colony. Low taxes boost population growth, so keep them as low as possible until the planet reaches a good population - short term pain = long term gain. Again: the homeworld will supply 90% of your income via taxes, but if you can leave the rate low for awhile it's population will grow even bigger, and you'll get even more income from it.

Keep an eye on your private sector even though you can't directly command it. Mining stations are built with private money, and if it goes bankrupt, that will effectively end your game.

Some people like dozens and dozens of explorers and constructors, some people like less than a dozen of each. Find what works for you.

If you value your sanity, set auto-retrofitting on all stationary structures to OFF (e.g. manual retrofitting only). This will keep mining stations, etc. from perma-disabling themselves because of the private sector's inability to deliver small bundles of many different resources to the correct place.

[buncheesy]

@Starke - that last sentence is damn useful!!! thanks

If you value your sanity, set auto-retrofitting on all stationary structures to OFF (e.g. manual retrofitting only). This will keep mining stations, etc. from perma-disabling themselves because of the private sector's inability to deliver small bundles of many different resources to the correct place.

I bought the game a couple of weeks ago (all expansions) just over 2 weeks ago. I have been watching Das's shadows precursor series lets play - very helpful and a great sedative [:'(]. Without watching a game in action I think I would have struggled a lot more starting to play this game

After 7 or so Das episodes, a full read of the manual, and both tutorials, I launched into the default game set up - been pausing and reading the civilipaedia and have found my feet pretty much now.

Finding the game very fascinating and worth the money so far despite my current lack of pace (due to reading/tinkering) - theres just nothing quite like it that I have played before.

[Starke]

Glad to hear it. There really isn't much else like it. Even though progress takes a long time, each little step forward is extremely rewarding because of all the control and care that went into it. =)