I liked this game a lot, but I must confess. I have never finished it once. For some reason, I always loose interest in the mid to late game. It seems to turn into a giant slog fest.
I play on smaller maps (~20 stars) and bump the difficulty down to avoid the late game slugfest.
Part of that is planning your strategy early to keep the AI manageable, but yeah there’s quite a bit of work swatting down waves, managing your economy, and getting the last few high priority planets on the other side of the galaxy.
I still don’t understand this game…I’ve had it since launch, but haven’t managed to get through the tutorial a single time…
What don’t you understand? Is it the overall strategy or the nuts and bolts of the game?
You will understand the game when you get through the tutorial. Once you finish the guided mini-campaign in the final tutorial, you’ll know whether it’s for you or not.
Unfortunately you have to commit to all those hours to find out.
I think its because the tutorial for some reason felt like it took way too long… I love space games, and I love strategy games, so this may be a great game to play, although as I understand it, its NOT a 4x game, right?
Not exactly. It has elements of 4X. It’s an RTS/4X/TowerDefence game.
Depending on how long ago you tried it it might well have felt very slow; back in the mists of time the default combat speed was pretty slow. It’s faster now and you can make it faster still I think. Once you get into the swing of things there’s always stuff happening to keep you busy, be it waves, cross-planet attacks, various expansion events, scouting for targets, attacking beachhead systems, wormhole raids, etc.
I get frustrated by slow-burn tutorials too. The final mini-campaign takes 4-5 hours, from what I remember. The good thing is you’re pretty much playing the game at that point, so there’s no rush to get beyond it. Just block out some time one weekend.
Has the pacing changed? I loved the idea, but I found the pacing suffered from the Sins problem, too slow for the depth of the gameplay.
I never played the original, but the latest version has three speeds: “Epic” which is the slowest and was apparently the original speed, “Normal” which is considerably faster, and “Blitz” which is the fastest. The wiki claims that a standard 80 planet game will take 10-15 hours.
I don’t remember ever thinking the pace was slow. It was always a matter of grind. Certain versions had features that bogged down gameplay, like AI Eyes on most of the planets, but it’s pretty well-balanced now. Just don’t make the mistake I did by enabling too many options. You’ll have so much stuff flying at you it’s hard to make progress. And be careful with certain AI types, like the turtles that have highly-defended planets but rarely send waves. That’s a slog.
Yeah I’m in my first full campaign and I’ve got a turtle and another defensive-type AI and it’s a bit dull - they haven’t put much pressure of note on me yet and taking each world is a PITA. I might restart.
Go for it. I had to restart my first campaign for similar reasons. I had also alerted high level planets that were blocking my expansion, so I was doomed.
I can’t remember my favorite AI types off the top of my head. Maybe the one that sends stronger waves that isn’t the Mad Bomber. I was tempted to try vanilla since the asymmetric ones can be annoying at times.
Having one turtle and one offensive AI is a decent balance, but two defensive/turtle AIs means your victory is inevitable. It’s just a question of how long it takes you to slog through the enemy’s systems, not a question of if you can.
I’m not so sure, unless you set it to low difficulty. You have to be careful about which planets you put on alert. If you screw up and let a mark III/IV planet sit for a long time, it’s possible you might never defeat it.
Nuke 'em.
True, I did that in a recent game. That’s assuming there’s no anti-warhead turret on the other side of the map. Or maybe I’m not remembering how those work.
In any case, I’m allergic to AI Progress.
If we’re at the point where a planet is so clogged with ships that you can’t possibly invade it anymore, then AI Progress is something of a moot point. A planet won’t become any more impossible to invade if you dump another 500 ships on it.
The best solution is obviously to play intelligently and not alert planets if you can avoid it, but even if you do the game can be salvaged so long as neither AI player will send any forces directly at you. Without the threat of serious attack, you can channel all of your resources into your offensive operations easily enough. It might not be a cakewalk to actually win, but you effectively cannot lose.
You can if you fuck up an attack and get a monstrous counter-attack the same time as a particularly nasty wave (I do prefer mixed waves) and/or a cross-planet attack.