Parting Thoughts

[SireChaos]

ORIGINAL: Tom_Holsinger

SireChaos,

Intentionally making the humans so weak was indicative of Quicksilver's judgment in game design.  It tended to show that the game was so rife with design flaws that it could not be salvaged with a patch.

Since I have yet to see any indication that the humans were indeed weaker in MoO3, or that there were any marked differences between races at all, their decision to make humans weaker shows they can´t do what they try to do... so I guess you might say it indicates MoO3´s suckiness, just not the way you claim.

Now you could make an argument that I am engaging in circular reasoning here, based on an assumption that sucky humans are a bad thing, but that is a widely held opinion in the turn-based space 4x game industry.  I certainly consider those who hold otherwise as having conclusively estabilshed their lack of judgment.

Now, I´ve been playing turn-based space 4X games every since the original MoO, and I´ve never even once heard of your widely help opinion. So I certainly consider your opinions, which you refuse to show evidence for, as having conclusively established your boundless arrogance.

If, on the other hand, you showed that humans actually do suck, rather than them being different than in MoO and no longer being suited to your one and only true style of play - namely, spreading across the galaxy like the plague -, then I could take your complaints more seriously. All you have shown us here is that Armada is different from MoO3 (which is a good thing), that you consider your own judgement infinitely superior over anyone else´s, and that you are completely incapable of adjusting your style of play to the game you are playing, but instead demand that games be adjusted to you, no matter what all the other customers think.

[Aroddo]

ORIGINAL: Tom_Holsinger
Armada's humans are allegedly its second weakest race - I haven't played any other races.

...

i don't know what else to say ...

[mllange]

Nice comment, Lancer.

Looking at this game and forum from the outside looking in as I haven't purchased the game yet. I must say, however, that from my perspective Tom's thoughts, criticism and suggestions only make the game seem more interesting to me. I have owned and played all of the 4x games discussed in the thread and have my own opinions about what makes a 4x game work and where they tend to fall apart for me.

That said, there is enough room for more than two schools of thought. Anyone who is looking to make a contribution, adding contributions and ideas while keeping a civil tone with the criticism should be welcomed by all.

I'm on the edge, considering a purchase, and the clutter from those who insist on promoting their own agenda (i.e., praise MOO3, trash MOO3 ad nauseum) is not only distasteful, but discouraging. I'd hate to see the game and forum become bogged down in a turf war.

I'd love to see the game evolve both on the merits of the game and the vision of the designer with helpful input from the player community.

[laika]

ORIGINAL: nim8or

Nice comment, Lancer.

Looking at this game and forum from the outside looking in as I haven't purchased the game yet. I must say, however, that from my perspective Tom's thoughts, criticism and suggestions only make the game seem more interesting to me. I have owned and played all of the 4x games discussed in the thread and have my own opinions about what makes a 4x game work and where they tend to fall apart for me.

That said, there is enough room for more than two schools of thought. Anyone who is looking to make a contribution, adding contributions and ideas while keeping a civil tone with the criticism should be welcomed by all.

I'm on the edge, considering a purchase, and the clutter from those who insist on promoting their own agenda (i.e., praise MOO3, trash MOO3 ad nauseum) is not only distasteful, but discouraging. I'd hate to see the game and forum become bogged down in a turf war.

I'd love to see the game evolve both on the merits of the game and the vision of the designer with helpful input from the player community.

There is nothing wrong with Toms visions of 4x space games. Thats not my problem. It only becomes a problem when Tom talkes about Leaving Aramada and going to play MOO3 again when they don,t make the changes he wants. Well in my opinion he wants to dominate how we all need to play our games when talking about leaving. But one thing i learned in the past. Never change the core gameplay when a game is on the market. Yes solving bugs, tweaking and make expansions yes that not a problem ofcourse. But another core gameplay needs another or second Armada.
I alway,s upset when peeps talk about games and want changes for there own bussines for his/her gaming style. Thats also the reson why we have so many clones these day,s. This is something different you like or dislike.

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: laika

There is nothing wrong with Toms visions of 4x space games. Thats not my problem. It only becomes a problem when Tom talkes about Leaving Aramada and going to play MOO3 again when they don,t make the changes he wants. Well in my opinion he wants to dominate how we all need to play our games when talking about leaving. But one thing i learned in the past. Never change the core gameplay when a game is on the market. Yes solving bugs, tweaking and make expansions yes that not a problem ofcourse. But another core gameplay needs another or second Armada.
I alway,s upset when peeps talk about games and want changes for there own bussines for his/her gaming style. Thats also the reson why we have so many clones these day,s. This is something different you like or dislike.

Bingo!!! The arrogance "I was involved in..... I spoke to..... The No. 1 most effective way for my critics to sink their credibilty is to contend otherwise." ad nauseum is way over the line. Nor, in all the years of playing 4X games, have I heard any of the stated contentions.

I find A2526 to be a fresh take on what is becoming a stale genre. Now, I think SoTS is a better game, but that doesn't mean I want this one to be a clone. There is room enough on my hard drive for both. And I like that how I play one isn't going to work with the other.

And there is nothing wrong with presenting ideas. But there is with the method.

[SireChaos]

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

ORIGINAL: laika

There is nothing wrong with Toms visions of 4x space games. Thats not my problem. It only becomes a problem when Tom talkes about Leaving Aramada and going to play MOO3 again when they don,t make the changes he wants. Well in my opinion he wants to dominate how we all need to play our games when talking about leaving. But one thing i learned in the past. Never change the core gameplay when a game is on the market. Yes solving bugs, tweaking and make expansions yes that not a problem ofcourse. But another core gameplay needs another or second Armada.
I alway,s upset when peeps talk about games and want changes for there own bussines for his/her gaming style. Thats also the reson why we have so many clones these day,s. This is something different you like or dislike.

Bingo!!! The arrogance "I was involved in..... I spoke to..... The No. 1 most effective way for my critics to sink their credibilty is to contend otherwise." ad nauseum is way over the line. Nor, in all the years of playing 4X games, have I heard any of the stated contentions.

I find A2526 to be a fresh take on what is becoming a stale genre. Now, I think SoTS is a better game, but that doesn't mean I want this one to be a clone. There is room enough on my hard drive for both. And I like that how I play one isn't going to work with the other.

And there is nothing wrong with presenting ideas. But there is with the method.

Bingo, indeed!

There´s plenty of different play styles out there that can be catered to for fun and profit. This is not so much about strengths and weaknesses than about what a game tries to do, and how well it does that. SotS´ style is "interstellar warfare and spectacular space battles with minimal micromanagement", and it does that well. MoO3´s style is being everything at once, and it predictably fails. Armada presents quite asymmetric races with asymmetric victory conditions, with a focus on trying to provide a suitable race for most players´ styles rather than races which are, each in their own way, suited to playing the same style of game; sure, there are things that could be optimized, but it is already pretty good and can get a lot better without being reworked into another MoO3-type game.

[Joram]

Well, you can thank Tom's critique of this in actually inspiring me to finally get the game.  While I disagree with almost all of the points there are a couple I agree with already.  UI is a bit obtuse.  You can get used to and I already have but it is a bit of a barrier to get into the game.  For some reason I find the load/unload mechanism a bit frustrating.  I don't care for the research or diplomacy screens either.  I'm not sure if I like the whole transporting population around idea as well.  Seems to add needless micromanagement in my mind.  Will have to play bigger maps to see.
 
Just about everything else though I do like so far!
 

[Gertjan]

[My first post] Interesting and immature discussion at the same time. I am also thinking about buying the game. Unfortunately and strangely enough there are no reviews available yet. I might buy it if the reviewers take too long though.

A question to you experienced 4x gamers is, how does this game relate to Sword of the stars? I have only played that game in the beginning. But I remembered that the combat was quite tactical and I didn't fully understood what I was supposed to do to maximise my effectiveness. I hate when I get the feeling I have no control over combat. I like to play 4x space games in which you are more an admiral/emperor and you don't have to get into the details of ship designing and battles. Which game is best for me in this case? Should I play Armada 2526, SoTS, both or rather a different one? I'm open to suggestions!

Thanks a lot in advance!

[Aurelian]

SoTS has a demo IIRC.

[Anguille]

I still don't have my Armada game so i still can't comment on it's gameplay.
 
However, i can say again that MOO3 is a fantastic game since Bhruic patched it. Don't like it, no problemo but don't say it's a bad game cos you just don't know what you're talking about.

[Aurelian]

It is beyond bad. Having played it, I do know what I'm talking about. The fact that you need 3rd party patches to play it speaks for itself.

But hey, different strokes and all that.

[Tom_Holsinger]

Ryvan's most recent post in another thread indicates that the unrest and population systems are more of a problem than I had thought:
[blockquote]

Not counting time spent in tactical combat, dealing with population issues takes about roughly 70% of my game time. It can be more or less depending on which race you play. The game doesn't have much micromanagement, but population is the exception ... In fact, expansion becomes impossible for most races as the game moves into it's later stages and warfare is generally only useful as a method to control your own population. (At one point I would say that 80% of my shipbuilding was trying to construct enough transports and fill them with enough of my people that I could suicide them at enemy fleets as a population control method.)

[/blockquote]
It is just deadly for a space 4x game to force players into such ridiculous gambits.  This terribly harms the role-playing side of such games, and Armada starts with a major role-playing weakness due to the absence of ship design.
 
Fiixes for the unrest & overpopulation problems so dramatically described by Ryvan should have a fairly high priority, but I am concerned that playtesting the fixes for balance might take excessive time.  It might be faster to use my proposed Emigration Structures as an easier & faster stop-gap solution, by simply bleeding population increases into the "ready pool" of population points in space.  They wouldn't go anywhere without newly colonized planets to immigrate to, but at least they wouldn't be causing overpopulation problems and unrest on existing colonies.
 
I.e., my proposed solution to the Population transport problem which honks me off so much (again, I'd be surprised if anybody else is as upset about that as I am) might merit doing sooner than I first recommmend as it can serve as a stop-gap fix for the much higher-priority overpopulation & unrest problems.
 

[SireChaos]

Okay, you´ve done it. You´ve convinced me that you simply completely ignore anything anyone writes that doesn´t confirm your opinions.

[06 Maestro]

Wow-crisis driven emergency management technique. All courtesy from the same guy-how lucky can you get. Now, where have I seen this method used before-oh yea, but best not mention that here.

[Aurelian]

I'm convinced. A2526 is a complete and utter failure. The fun I've been having is for naught. The AAR I started writing is now cancelled. The program is now deleted from the drive.

Now I got the time to play Ageod's WW1.

(The first sentence is sarcasm.................... Or is it.)[:'(]

[Aroddo]

Despite all the different opinions, this is all valuable feedback for the devs.

And since it's a simple fact that you can't make anything right for everyone, Ntronium simply has to decide whose bitching to ignore ... erm, I mean: Whose criticism to take to heart.

Bureaucracy was intended to be a mechanic to balance large empires versus smaller ones - and it sounds like it's doing it's job well (although some don't like the way it ruins their usual carefree playing style).
Admitted, having bureaucracy cause your planets to riot seems a tiny bit excessive ... and it's certainly disrupting. But it serves to drive the lesson home.

Transports, well, personally I like how they are. I even draw a certain amount of satisfaction out of scheduling an efficient colony population plan, but maybe I'm just weird ... I liked playing sid meiers railroads in the past. Should automatization be added? Sure, it really makes sense in very large and long games ... and what's the point in allowing gigantic maps if you don't support gigantic empires?

I'm sure Ntronium is willing to do it, but I'm giving them time to put things on their TODO list.

I can understand Tom, though.
It was the same with me and Master of Orion 3. When that game disappointed me on about every level, I became downright hostile and also did my very best in various posts to keep potential customers from buying it. I felt it was a social responsibility.
Perhaps Tom feels similiar disappointed in Armada, in which he placed so many hopes?

[kafka]

I don't see any hostile attitude in Tom's attempts to point out the main problems of the game, namely the population and the bureaucracy concept. Indeed these are the very reason why I stopped playing the game. Attacking Tom doesn't certainly make the game better.

I don't see any hostile attitude in Tom's attempts to point out the main problems of the game, namely the population and the bureaucracy concept. Indeed these are the very reason why I stopped playing the game. Attacking Tom doesn't certainly make the game better.

[Grandpoobah]

ORIGINAL: Tom_Holsinger

Fixes for the unrest & overpopulation problems so dramatically described by Ryvan should have a fairly high priority, but I am concerned that playtesting the fixes for balance might take excessive time. 

Actually I fixed most of my over population issues by requiring population be used for the building of ground units and the construction of large ships. It took me less than ten minutes to make the changes to two XML files. It eliminated my need to build "sacrifical population" transports for my battlefleets. It pretty much cleared up the issues that Ryvan describes.

[BletchleyGeek]

I think we're getting all here a bit too over the top. I don't agree with Tom in most of his points but I think I can contribute something constructive.

Tom, it's very simple to add a little faction to the game, which would fit better your playstyle and anthropocentric concerns. It boils down to adding a faction to the Factions.xml document, whose capabilities alleviate your two main concerns: bureaucracy and over-population (BTW, the latter is also a concern for me).

The full list of race capabilities hasn't been documented yet on Aroddo's fine wiki, though. I will try to document some of the capabilities and the victory conditions tonight (this basically means to copy the in-game text explaining them, brrr, no fancy xml for those texts).

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: Grandpoobah
Actually I fixed most of my over population issues by requiring population be used for the building of ground units and the construction of large ships. It took me less than ten minutes to make the changes to two XML files. It eliminated my need to build "sacrifical population" transports for my battlefleets. It pretty much cleared up the issues that Ryvan describes.

That's neat! Would you mind sharing your modded XMLs on the forum?