This game looks too good to be true...

[Zakhal]

...so there must be something wrong with it!

Is the AI braindead/unchallenging? Any other possible major fallbacks? Too bad I dont see any demo here.

[Zakhal]

I cant find any reviews even user ones or any other real facts about the game. But Im still buying this because its exactly what doctor ordered. I was just graving for game like this just few days ago and here it is suddenly from nowhere!

Just hope this is not yet another 4x game that ends up in the graveyard of "promising" 4x space strategies. Since moo2 only one game has ever managed to avoid it.

[JudgeDredd]

And that game was?

[Zakhal]

ORIGINAL: JudgeDredd

And that game was?

Swords of the stars (with all the addons).

EDIT: Well there goes 44€ like smoke in the air. I hope I wont regret this.

[Zakhal]

Ok lets see now...

Battles can be epic affairs with more than a hundred ships on each side. They are presented to the player in their full majesty via real-time 3D rendering with glowing energy beams, shimmering shields, and spectacular explosions. The action is real-time, both to enhance the visual spectacle, and to introduce elements of tension and pressure; however, the emphasis is firmly on tactics and maneuvering formations, rather than frantic clicking on individual ships, and you always have the option of pausing the game to issue orders. [left]
[/left][left]Planetary assaults are especially intense with ship to ships battles, grounds battles and ground to air battles all taking place simultaneously. If the attacker doesn't complete the conquest quickly enough, the battle will continue into the next turn, giving each side the chance to throw in reinforcements.

The turn based side aka galactic conquest is ok. Not too much micromanagement. But the space battles dont really feel like 3d at all, because the camera is "locked" in all view modes and the ships move in 2d plane. First experience is very underwhelming.

You have like 3 views from straight up, straight towards the side of the ship (?) and straight forward from the ship. The latter two are totally useless since you cant see anything from them because the camera is always "locked" and the battles are too fast to follow.

Which brings me to teh second bad thing about the battles and that is speed of them. I like slow motion space battles not space battles that look like fast moving arcade shoot em ups. But there are only three movement modes: fast, turbo and pause. The only way for me to play it is use the pause-button continiously just to catch up whats going on.

Im still very early in the game and Ive seen few small battles but so far its more fun than the statistical galciv2 battles but not as fun as the battles of Sword of the stars (love the physics and UI). But its still enjoyable and I will keep playing.

[Andrew Loveridge]

You have like 3 views from straight up, straight towards the side of the ship (?) and straight forward from the ship. The latter two are totally useless since you cant see anything from them because the camera is always "locked" and the battles are too fast to follow.

Once you are in the alternate view modes you can change the angle and direction by moving the mouse with the mouse wheel held down.

[Zakhal]

ORIGINAL: Andrew Loveridge

Once you are in the alternate view modes you can change the angle and direction by moving the mouse with the mouse wheel held down.

Yeah I just discovered that too from the manual. [:D] Viewing by clicking down mousewheel is not enjoyable though. I think Ill map another key for that.

Apparently you can go behind the planets too like i.e sots (I just did so with one of my ships). You have only 3 minutes but you can do some manouvering in that time. In sots I usually put the timelimit to around 7-8 minutes. Havent found yet a way to change it in this game though.

Going around planets and other such 3d manouvering was useful in sots. Is it useful in this game I dont know yet.

The fast space battles might be just because I have small corvettes. Perhaps the bigger ships dont move so fast?

I need to play more to get to know this game but the space battles do look a bit better now.

[killroyishere]

King Authur is coming and it was a tossup between it and this. I'm still tossing the cat. haha

[Titanwarrior89]

I just could not get into SOS. Great graphics but it reminded me of a RTS trying to be a 4x space game.[:(]

[Zakhal]

ORIGINAL: Titanwarrior89

I just could not get into SOS. Great graphics but it reminded me of a RTS trying to be a 4x space game.[:(]

Thats what I thought first too when I tried the old demo but then year lated when I played a full game with all the expansions I suddenly played 24/7 for my entire holiday that lasted a week.

RTS battles in sots have lots of stuff going on with multiple tactical options and great ui to boot (just learn the keyboard commands). The strategic part doesnt have too much micromanagement but I like that. The stategic part about MoO wasnt about micromanagement either.

[Iceman]

I never really liked the SotS demo all that much either. Too light on the colony management game...

But there are only three movement modes: fast, turbo and pause.

Turbo and Fast (F8) are the same thing [;)]
I think the 2 levels (normal, or slow, whichever way you want to see it; and Fast) are sufficient.

The fast space battles might be just because I have small corvettes. Perhaps the bigger ships dont move so fast?

Nope, same speed. Hopefully that'll be changed in a patch. When I discussed that with Bob he said he could look into that when he had the time. [:D] Meanwhile, you can edit that in one of the XMLs.
Also notice that some races have faster (*tactical* speed) corvettes (Linkin "racial ability"), some ships are also faster or slower (Roid Rollers IIRC), etc. There's some variation. Other stats too.

[Zakhal]

ORIGINAL: Iceman

I think the 2 levels (normal, or slow, whichever way you want to see it; and Fast) are sufficient.

I think we have different definitions of what constitutes "slow". [:D]

ORIGINAL: Iceman
Also notice that some races have faster (*tactical* speed) corvettes (Linkin "racial ability"), some ships are also faster or slower (Roid Rollers IIRC), etc. There's some variation. Other stats too.

Thats good to hear. I was afraid that 3d model was the only difference. [:'(]

ORIGINAL: Iceman
Meanwhile, you can edit that in one of the XMLs.

Does this mean this is a "Do-it-yourself" game? I do XML editing during workhours so I dont want to do it at home too. [>:]

[Iceman]

For me, the regular speed is agonizingly slow. I always hit F8 , and zoom all the way out for even more speed [;)] (when there's little point in checking everything of course).
Then again, it may be because we have different machines.

[killroyishere]

For me I like 1 second to equal 1 second and 1 minute to equal 1 minute of real time. To me that is a real time game.

[Zakhal]

ORIGINAL: Iceman

For me, the regular speed is agonizingly slow. I always hit F8 , and zoom all the way out for even more speed [;)] (when there's little point in checking everything of course).
Then again, it may be because we have different machines.

I have core i7 with 6gb of fast triple bandwith memory and 250€ motherboard and overclocked 500€ graphics card. I thought about using mo'slo or somthing for the battles but it just didnt feel right.

Last time I hard problems like this was with dos-games...wing commander I think. I would think that during vista64 era we would no longer have overspeed problems with games.

ORIGINAL: killroyishere

For me I like 1 second to equal 1 second and 1 minute to equal 1 minute of real time. To me that is a real time game.

I just want a slider that everyone can use to adjust to their own speed-likings.

Overall most of my time in combat seems to go to two things: Fighting against the camera view and constant pressing of the pause/play -button just so I dont completely miss everything.

[Iceman]

Does this mean this is a "Do-it-yourself" game? I do XML editing during workhours so I dont want to do it at home too.

Was *that* what I said?! [&:]
You *can* change them. Works very well as is. If you want to add some extra spice, you have the means to do it. But the current values are those Bob wanted for the game. There's this thing called modding... [;)]

[killroyishere]

That would work for me as well Zakhal. A slider or something besides hard coded combat speeds.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Zakhal
Does this mean this is a "Do-it-yourself" game? I do XML editing during workhours so I dont want to do it at home too. [>:]

No, it just means it is moddable. You can setup just about any galaxy you want through the in-game "custom game" options.