Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
A good thing for AI War. A game can be accessible without losing complexity or depth.
AI Wars has also benefited from a serious amount of active development, resulting in something that’s pretty damn well fine-tuned. Distant Worlds on the other hand has a long way to go, and a lot of its depth seems to come from obscurity right now.
Not to discourage anyone - it’s a pretty good creation, and as I said earlier, watching the empire grow by itself is cool.
Cool beans, look forward to trying it out. :)
Thanks!
And before I dash off to bed…
http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,4479.0.html
A lot of that AAR won’t make sense, but as long as you grok the core concept you’ll see the scope of the game. You’re up against 2 AIs, at the start they mostly ignore you, but actions you take in the game increase the AI progress (AIP) which increases their activity against you. Each planet is connected by wormholes, periodically the AI will send waves of ships against you, you can defend with turrets etc - meanwhile you’re trying to get research done and important structures captured, but you can’t afford to capture too much or the AI will get too powerful in response.
Each AI can have its own personality that defines how it plays the game, with some being very very different to others. It’s all on the Wiki if you’re curious.
http://www.arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War_-_AI_Story
I’d say the 2D artwork of space stuff is about the only way DW is similar to AI War. AI War is an RTS. Distant Worlds is a 4x strategy game. They’re both pretty bold approaches to their respective genres, but in terms of how they play, you might as well compare Age of Empires III to Civilization IV.
-Tom
Thanks, Tom, that’ll put me in the proper mindset when I try AI War out tonight. :) Probably right before I go back to DW. ;)
You might be pleasantly surprised. Ai War is one hell of a game.
I’ve heard it is, but I like to wait until games are on sale before snagging them. Somehow Distant Worlds overcame this rule. ;)
I found combat to be similar aswell Tom, but thats just me I guess.
After testing DW, I am a bit dumbfounded, I look at the starfield, and things are going on, but I have little or no indications on whats really going on, position of my fleets, enemy fleets, its just one big clutter.
I’m not so sure about whats the point of having something ingame when its fully automated anyway.
And more on to the point, seeing this, I wonder , why is it that Master of Orion 3 in the end became far more influental than number 2 in the series, seeing the 2nd was a masterstroke while the 3rd was a inaccessible mess.
Either way I will give DW a few more tries, but I just think the ‘ai’ aspect of things just ends up like Moo 3, where the AI is stupid, and I have to, in order to make things work micro so much that I just burn out.
I want to be emperor, not janitor…
More influential?
Perhaps in the same way MoO2 is more influential than MoO1. Being a considerably poorer game but having more people know about it.
Hmm the debate about moo 1 and 2 is not something I want to bring up, both are very good and different, but similar for them both, is a very tight, and clean setting, with a UI that presents you ALL the info you need to control your empire, VERY unlike DW. What moo 3’s influence more specifically was, is the sprawling gigantic empire feeling that seemingly all 4x are supposed to have now.
With tons of gimmick that has no bearing on gameplay whatsoever.
Sorry about that. But every few months I simply have to let my preference for MoO1 bubble up. :D
I haven’t played Distant Worlds yet (downloading right now), but I’m not sure I agree with the “sprawling giant empire” feel.
While Galciv 2 might have some huge maps for instance, I would assume only a very small faction of players actually ever finish one of those.
In my mind most 4X games are rather the opposite of sprawling. A number of pretty much inanimate colonies you have to micromanage to death.
Well, I like to think that I have choices and options to begin with, for example, in DW, I queue up 4 constructors, 4 explorer, set game to 4x speed, queue up some colonyships, then you sit there and wait, for quite a long time, (10-20 mins) while this stuff builds, then you sit and click on places you want to mine.
Compare to moo 2.
Choose research, send out scout ship, assign build queue on planet, 5-10 turns later, you are building colonyship, changing research , scout some more planets.
Timescale for both actions, DW - 20 mins Moo 2 - 2-3 mins.
I dont’ know.
You’re complaining you feel like a janitor in DW because you don’t do as much nitty gritty as MOO2? How does that make sense?
This. I also like the use of bold, it’s like Yes, Prime Minster’s use of courageous ;)
I just started playing it and even after the tutorial I’m still a bit overwhelmed; a question for the pros: gas and ore mining stations are built by the State but run by privates, do they incur any cost aside construction (as in maintenance)? If no, then I assume the best way of having a rich economy is to have as much mining facilities and colonies as possible, right?
I agree with Tom, the comparison to AI War is poor, because they are completely different types of games. But both AI War and DW are amazing games, so you can’t lose with having both!
Janster, this is something not 100% intuitive, but you can improve the zoom rate greatly by turning off Nebulas in systems (it’s in the options) and turning down Nebulas and/or Star Density. Sure, that may not be optimal looking, but some older systems (like mine) have a hard time drawing all that. Once I did this, my zoom and scroll rates were smooth.
Note, I also have to do this with the nebulas in AI War, FWIW.
Yes, I believe you do have a maintenance fee on those, but I’m not 100% sure. You should be able to see that in your empire screen or by bringing up the station list.
However, they will more than make up for their maintenance fee (if any) with the profit and resource they bring to you and the expansion they bring to the private sector. Mining bases are a good way to expand without spending tons on building up colonies and spaceports. Space Ports are expensive, so be careful about overbuilding these!
No demo and it’s only sold through their own store? They really don’t care about anyone outside their niche, do they?