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I picked up this game a long time ago, I think due to the thread that was made when the first expansion came out, and then promptly forgot about it. Due to the LP (which is pretty great, I'd recommend reading it if you have got time) I decided to pick up the new expansion and play the game for real now. I've gotta say that this 4X is pretty drat awesome. For those of you sitting on the fence.... stop it! Go pick it up if you want a cool game. There is a ton of automation so you can literally just hop in and start playing. I've got Research, colonizing, taxes, designing, and diplomacy all set to manual. Everything else is on "suggest" which lets me have control of the big things (e.g. the AI will suggest military targets or when to purchase ships) but not really worry about the little things (like having all of my military ships patrol my space) . When you first start up you can feel like you should be controlling everything, and I think that is what causes some people to not like the game. I think it is impossible to micromanage everything in the game so teaching yourself to just let go of certain things is part of the game. I've got an empire going that is pretty small, but not doing so bad. I think I'm an average of 3rd or 4th out of 6. My colonies, population, and economy are all relatively middling but my military strength and tech level are way higher than anyone else. I am on relatively good terms with my two closest neighbors and am trying to hook them into more. However, two quick questions. Both of my neighbors are starting to "covet my planets and resources." How do I get rid of this? It's not a huge deal, but the negative is multiplying quite quickly. So much so that one of my neighbors is sitting at cautious due to the -44 penalty. Also, how much diplomacy do I need to work out an MDP? I've got my other neighbor at about +50, I have much more military might and I'm not sure why they are still turning me down. I just had a distant "evil" empire declare war on me, and while we are an almost even match for military (I'm sitting at about 5.5k and they are about 4.2k) I'd like to get my neighbors to help defend my systems in case someone else decides to declare war. And I guess some general weapon questions. I've focused this game into rail guns and missiles because slugs and booms are way cooler than pew pew lasers. I'm just curious if all the weapon trees are relatively viable, or is this like SOTS were certain techs are just for fun and will make you play at a disadvantage. I've got my fleet set up rather intelligently, I feel, with thee escorts being fast and loaded down with rail guns. Hopefully the rail gun's ability to penetrate shields can help them to disable ships while the slower frigates and cap ships close in and pound them to death with missiles. My destroyers are basically just middle of the road ships with heavy shields, 5 rail guns and 3 missile launchers.
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Sep 4, 2012 14:04
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Yeah there's no way you're going to be running more than one or two very specific things at a time when you get to the lategame and poo poo starts to look like this: -44 is crazy. You're encroaching on your neighbors' territory too much, go colonize elsewhere or get ready to invade one of 'em and take their stuff. You won't reduce the jealousy factor except by giving up territory or letting them expand a whole lot in some other direction but you can stop it getting any bigger by not taking up any more space along their borders. Generally I start offering free trade agreements around +20 - +40, and upgrade that to a military deal a few months later; generally unless a faction loving loves you it takes a while of stable good relations to get an MDP going. I don't think it's a strictly numerical thing since even some of of my longtime allies don't get to +50. Missiles seem like the weakest tech to me generally, their range advantage is nothing spectacular and doesn't really counteract their weak damage, especially since the combat AI doesn't seem smart enough to really handle standoff attacks. I'm not the biggest fan of them since it's hard to tell if/when they're working but railguns can be pretty nasty, especially to someone who rolls up expecting lasers etc. I'm not sure how you make ion weapons useful, they seem to work okay for other people but do virtually nothing in any quantity on my ships. Nothing's so terribly unbalanced that you can't make it work, and some of it's contextual (fighters are amazing if you just want to make a big murderball of ships that rolls around killing everything), and you're not playing against other humans where every advantage counts so it hardly matters, do what you feel. Tubgirl Cosplay fucked around with this message at 15:19 on Sep 4, 2012 |
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Sep 4, 2012 15:13
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Tubgirl Cosplay posted:Yeah there's no way you're going to be running more than one or two very specific things at a time when you get to the lategame and poo poo starts to look like this: Man, the AIs in your game have clearly never heard of coherent borders.
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Sep 4, 2012 15:18
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loving tell me about it, I have no idea what ~9/10 of that poo poo is. My own empire included. Seems to just happen if you don't have colonizable worlds cranked up to max, though, for the first ~half of the game you've gotta range pretty far to find a world you can actually land on and by the last half distance is no object so the AI will just invade or colonize wherever. Pretty easy way to get hosed by the RNG too, if you don't manage to find one close in pretty short order you're just not gonna be a competitor in the lategame. Tubgirl Cosplay fucked around with this message at 15:30 on Sep 4, 2012 |
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Sep 4, 2012 15:26
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There's a game startup option to limit colonization to X sectors away frome one of your existing colonies, that might moderate things a little for those who care (though that would also bring the "not enough colonizable worlds" problem into sharp relief.)
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Sep 4, 2012 15:47
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Dallan Invictus posted:There's a game startup option to limit colonization to X sectors away frome one of your existing colonies, that might moderate things a little for those who care (though that would also bring the "not enough colonizable worlds" problem into sharp relief.) This is the problem I've run into in my game. I'm desperately grabbing whatever colonization techs I can because I've set the distance to 1 sector. The CPU players in my game have a golden path with worlds spaced almost exactly one sector apart giving them huge reach, but I've only got my home world plus 2 colonizable planets close by. Here's hoping I can finish off desert colonization and get some more planets since marshy and continental didn't give me poo poo. And I've not been encroaching at all on the green dude's territory in my game. I'll try to take a screenshot and post it later, but our home worlds started about half a sector apart so we are humping influence bubbles. Am I basically going to be forced into a war because of this? I'm not really all that worried (my military strength is 5k+ and Greeny's is 1.5k) but I was hoping to make him a friend.
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Sep 5, 2012 03:22
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You can crank up the trade, or better yet try to get him in a fight with the dude on the other side of his sphere of influence, but no way you should be at -44 over that.
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Sep 5, 2012 10:28
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Tubgirl Cosplay posted:You can crank up the trade, or better yet try to get him in a fight with the dude on the other side of his sphere of influence, but no way you should be at -44 over that. Well I misspoke, I've actually got a colony planet sitting very near their sphere of influence, maybe that is causing the big negative? Either way, I can pay them off for a while. My war with the spiders, now that is going well. First they declared on me, which lets me get no reputation hit whatsoever. I jumped a fleet to take their nearest world, and managed to take it with no loses. While I was doing this they sadly bombed one of my colonies into ashes and I was a little upset with that one. So I ordered my second fleet into the action. They jumped in on top of the encroaching spider fleet and a blood bath ensued. Seriously, I'm not sure what it is, but they couldn't even scratch me. Maybe my improved cat-people shields (they're at tier 2 at the moment) were just too beefy for them? Either way, my missiles and rail guns shredded their entire fleet. Then I jumped and took over their next colony with a smallish fleet. No losses again. I guess I owe some thanks to the amazing cap ships I picked up while exploring, but I think I could have done the same without them and only really lost a couple escorts and frigates. My homemade cruisers seem impervious to enemy fire. The only thing I'm slightly disappointed in is the fact that rail guns look kind of like lasers. It's pretty lame. Other then that, great game. I'm not sure why my empire is so massively destructive but the poor spiders have lost two planets to me in short order and I'm planning on jumping both of my offensive fleets into their home system and taking it ASAP. tl;dr rail guns, missiles and advanced cat people shields are awesome.
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Sep 5, 2012 14:10
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Wow. don't let the AI get world destroyers... they use them very effectively. I had a mutual defense pact with one that happened to have a WD, and it wiped out half the colonies I was planning on taking (including about 100 troops battling for one, the bastard).
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Sep 10, 2012 02:55
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oogs posted:Wow. don't let the AI get world destroyers... they use them very effectively. I had a mutual defense pact with one that happened to have a WD, and it wiped out half the colonies I was planning on taking (including about 100 troops battling for one, the bastard). haha awesome. I've not had any show up in the two games I've played. One is still in the process of working itself out, while the other was a rousing "meh" for me. I think I placed 4th out of 6? My current game is a lot more competitive for my empire, but I've got a sincerely pissed off neighbor and am just counting the days until I go to war because of territorial disputes. I really gotta applaud the devs on this game. It's pretty drat fun.
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Sep 10, 2012 03:09
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Haha a decapitation strike on the totally-not-Shakturi-honest guys when they started getting positioned to take over the galaxy took me from maxed-out rep to Hated in one shot, I am space George Bush. Got a sweet as gently caress new colony out the deal tho
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Sep 10, 2012 21:02
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Silly question, but do you guys think a LP (in the LP subforum) would be worthwhile? I'm wrapping up my game - just need 2 more continental colonies to win.
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Sep 10, 2012 21:39
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How can I build up my reputation? After a couple of wars to knock out a civilization that started too close to mine for my liking, my rep kinda sucks. Aside from knocking over pirate bases, is there anything I can do?
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Sep 10, 2012 21:41
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AFAIK most stuff that gives you a positive to specific empire rep will also benefit your general rep, but yeah I don't know of anything that builds it up half so well as finding some pirates and kicking the poo poo out of them.
Tubgirl Cosplay fucked around with this message at 22:09 on Sep 10, 2012 |
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Sep 10, 2012 22:04
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Dammit, I managed to miss the sale on this. How often does it go on sale? Do they promote around the usual holiday periods (for the US)?
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Sep 10, 2012 22:07
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oogs posted:Silly question, but do you guys think a LP (in the LP subforum) would be worthwhile? I'm wrapping up my game - just need 2 more continental colonies to win. One just finished (for certain definitions of finished) but I imagine a non-participating LP is different enough. And at least it'd show that the game won't always crash before you win.
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Sep 10, 2012 22:08
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Hav posted:Dammit, I managed to miss the sale on this. Matrix have a yearly Christmas sale.
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Sep 10, 2012 22:21
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Dallan Invictus posted:One just finished (for certain definitions of finished) but I imagine a non-participating LP is different enough. Oh, I didn't see it. I should probably go look closer. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3488345 Found it! oogs fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Sep 10, 2012 |
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Sep 10, 2012 22:32
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Found a really gamey exploit you can use if you're having reputation problems. If you want to start a war with someone, just order your ships to attack one of their planets and after some fire is exchanged, they'll declare war on you, meaning your reputation stays intact. This might only work if you are actually landing troops, I haven't tested it with just shooting at a station or the planet.
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Sep 12, 2012 05:49
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Pulled the trigger on this game, spent more money on this than any game in my entire life, went for the physical with download (cuz I'm a huge nerd that needs physical copies of games for no reason). $120 for the base game and it's expansions. I justify this with how amazing this game is and probably how much overall time I will be spending with it. Other 4x's don't even compare really. I think one of my favorite features is the ability to enslave races not your own on your colonies. I'm not sure of the benefit's (there is a -12 or so penalty for resentment) other than my own wicked satisfaction at knowing I'm dominating a race of space rats. Space Frogs + Fascism = 
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Sep 19, 2012 21:02
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The Empire of  marches on. 
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Sep 19, 2012 21:16
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New Expansion! Distant Worlds: Shadowsquote:The title comes from the "Age of Shadows". Setting up my own ship, putting everything else on automatic, and blasting around the galaxy was one of my favourite things to do in DW. Haven't played for a while, but I like where this is going.
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Nov 1, 2012 05:49
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I'm amazed that this game did well enough to get three expansions. Awesome. I've still not played the first or second much despite owning them, maybe this is my chance! 
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Nov 1, 2012 05:50
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From what I can tell Codeforce is pretty much one guy in New Zealand, Eliot, who must spend all his time making content. If sales are enough for him to keep knocking out an expansion each year then that sounds good to me.
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Nov 1, 2012 06:22
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Well I'm soldSankis posted:I'm amazed that this game did well enough to get three expansions. Awesome. I've still not played the first or second much despite owning them, maybe this is my chance! Uh, don't they, like, stack If you're playing the third you're playing all three.
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Nov 1, 2012 06:47
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A lot of info up on the Matrix thread with more details - space-based factions sound really cool. But the release date will miss 2012 and is going to be Q1 2013 
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Nov 21, 2012 07:56
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Also the game and expansions are on sale. About $60 instead of $90! Still too high for me, I'm a patient lad and I will continue to wait.
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Nov 21, 2012 08:11
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doctorfrog posted:Also the game and expansions are on sale. About $60 instead of $90! Still too high for me, I'm a patient lad and I will continue to wait. Might be waiting for a long time. From my experience with Matrix Games they never really give huge discounts and keep the prices of even old games pretty high.
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Nov 21, 2012 08:50
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Erik on the Matrix forums did hint at 'bundling' the older titles.
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Nov 21, 2012 09:38
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Ok what is up with the Erutkah Refugees, I know they are secretly the Shakturi assholes. But seriously do they just warp in ships out of their rear end? They declared war on me minutes after discovering them, they had 1 fleet of 3 ships then all my colonies get wiped by like 8 fleets minutes later, they even took out my 80 ship fleet with only 6 of their destroyers. Can I turn these little shits off or is it mandatory per the expansion?
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Dec 3, 2012 21:12
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You can turn off the Shakturi storyline when starting a game. That's about it.
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Dec 3, 2012 21:28
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Playing this game again, the new Legends expansion is pretty cool. My 4x itch is getting scratched really hard. Is there any way to tell the AI to ignore a system or something? I've got it all on 'suggest' but it still handles patrols and whatever. The problem is there's a system with silver mist in it on my border and the AI keeps sending patrol ships 2 by 2 to get eaten and destroyed. It'll send a couple escorts, a capital once in a while, not really a drain on my military besides being annoying but now the system is chock full of fat silver mists and I'm going to need a massive fleet to clear it out. It just refuses to leave the system alone, I'll sit above it and tell all approaching ships to gently caress off and do something else but it keeps sending more. There's a ship or two warping in every 10-20 seconds and getting eaten at this point. Moridin920 fucked around with this message at 04:59 on Jan 14, 2013 |
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Jan 14, 2013 04:57
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You need some serious firepower to kill them! I'd upgrade your fleet; Only the largest 2 ships will have a chance. Get fighter bay's as a distraction tactic? Long range missiles? High technology gizmos like damage control for your capitol ships. You probably still won't be able to kill them, make your ships fast and set evade policies in ship design. Just remember that they are eating everyone else's ships too. Some of these "events" are from legends only, and can be annoying. They just prolong the game, roll with it or re-roll the game. 
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Jan 14, 2013 06:13
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I can kill them, I send in a carrier fleet and it swarms them with fighters and makes their pathing go nuts and they die. The problem is I seem to miss one and that'll set it all off again when the AI sends in a patrol ship or two. I just want to be able to ignore the system for a while and do other stuff without the AI sending in one or two ships at a time to just feed them until they are massive clouds everywhere. I was planning on going in with a few planet destroyers and burning the system once I could. Setting policy to evade rather than stand off is a good idea though, thanks. That should at least prevent the smaller ships from sitting there while the nanocloud descends (thing is fast as hell).
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Jan 14, 2013 06:24
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Tubgirl Cosplay posted:Yeah there's no way you're going to be running more than one or two very specific things at a time when you get to the lategame and poo poo starts to look like this: This picture. I'm waiting for Star Drive to come out and watching the Lets Play of the beta has gotten my 4x itch on pretty hard. So I stumbled across this game and am about to give it ago (got both exp), but that picture... my god... I can't wait to see how this goes.
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Jan 31, 2013 06:59
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It's not that bad. All those round dots are just private cargo vessels you have no control over. edit: for those interested, test team spots are being taken over on the matrix forum V for Vegas fucked around with this message at 07:10 on Jan 31, 2013 |
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Jan 31, 2013 07:07
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V for Vegas posted:It's not that bad. All those round dots are just private cargo vessels you have no control over. Just finished reading through the tutorial. It wasn't bad at all, gonna do the advanced one now. Gotta say I'm pretty excited to make my empire. I've played a lot of 4x but this one seems like a true 4x game.
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Jan 31, 2013 07:40
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This loving game. It didn't occur to me that with no fuel my ships couldn't use their weapons. Good bye 1st and 5th fleets, You served me well. I'm really loving the in-game wiki, or whatever it is called. E: I'm trying to figure out the research rate in this game. I see the numbers followed by a k and I see the empire research potential and the output for each tech tree, but what is that in time. What is the rate of say 140k in time? I hope someone is reading this... Bad WolfZxc fucked around with this message at 02:49 on Feb 1, 2013 |
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Feb 1, 2013 02:26
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I'm thinking about taking this up again now that Legends is out. Is the rubberbanding AI still as bad as it used to be? I really couldn't get it the game at all the last time I tried because the incredibly cheaty AI took all the fun out of it.
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Feb 1, 2013 20:33
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Cardiovorax posted:I'm thinking about taking this up again now that Legends is out. Is the rubberbanding AI still as bad as it used to be? I really couldn't get it the game at all the last time I tried because the incredibly cheaty AI took all the fun out of it. I haven't played this game enough to really speak to cheaty Ai. I'm still trying to learn this game and a lot of things still confuse me. What can I expect from the Ai in ways of cheating? If anything at all.
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Feb 2, 2013 03:05
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