Well fuck, I’m sorry guys. Should I choose another game?
Works great on Win 7!
This game gets pretty hard, fast. I got through the first couple of missions alright and then the new orders start flying by and I’m having a tough time keeping up…build this platform, build that platform, build more corvettes, kill the enemy platforms NOW! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!
It’s fun, but my RTS muscles are flabby.
Personally, I don’t think so, Brian. You guys who can play just need to post a lot about what the game is like!
Yeah, I fared no better with the GOG version.
Brian by all means keep the game, I’ll just watch from the sidelines. And play more MoO in honor of your pick. Sure it’s turn based instead of real time, but still it’s space ;)
Alright, I had to reinstall Windows over the weekend so I’m a bit behind, but I’ll get some play in tonight. Might even stream it.
I’ve played through the first couple missions. Enough to realize that I haven’t played an RTS for ages and ages, to the point where this “supply” mechanic is new too me.
Not a lot of RTS games have a supply mechanic like this one. It’s one thing that really sets it apart I think.
I played a bit of it last night and streamed it to test out OBS and shit since I had to do a fresh Windows install on Sunday. Visually it played fine but I’ve no idea why I didn’t get any audio. Shame because I so love the music. Anyway, started a skirmish on a random map, found four planets in my system (yay) and only one wormhole (yay!), so I can build a fairly nice base of operations once I get more manpower.
God I love this game.
Thanks for posting the stream, Brian. I’ll check out the game vicariously through you!
Yay! Now if only I could get the sound working!
So since I was unable to play the game myself, I watched your stream Brian. And since I have been playing a space game myself I wanted to get some discussion on one of the most important aspects of any strategy game: terrain. More specifically how you feel a game does with creating it.
Often the accusation is laid that space is boring. It’s not, space is frigging amazing, but in games it can often be a bit lackluster. The problem is that so much of space is, essentially, empty. How do you make an interesting game when 99% of the area is nothing? How do you create terrain for the great tractless expanses of space?
The reason this is on my mind is I just discovered another way MoO does create terrain in space. Now I had never played before it came up as the CGC choice, so it was all new to me. The first, and most obvious, was that planetary battles created terrain by adding asteroid spaces, which could be used to block opponents and to destroy missiles. Otherwise it uses the typical node type map.
But in my current game I noticed I was getting slowed down on (for a time) the border between my planets and the Silicoids. Those nebulae looking things which I had thought were just decoration were actually slowing my craft down. It was creating a terrain feature on the strategic map that I had to plan around, and use. Suddenly that map, which had only been limited by distance, opened up with new possibilities.
Conquest looks like it uses a node type map system to create terrain, with planets being connected by warp gates. The only other meaningful use of space was how far that gate was in relation to your planets. It reminds me of Sins of a Solar Empire in that respect, though with nodes containing more features in Conquest.
So how are the ways you’ve seen space games create terrain, and what works? Does Conquest do anything interesting, or is it a standard node type system, where the only thing that matters is the number of connections and the mineral wealth in a node?
I think space terrain is a massively important part of space gaming, and the best games make great use of it. Klingon Academy, Freespace, Distant Worlds and so on all use varied space terrain to make their games more interesting. Conquest has some varied terrain like planets, asteroids and gas clouds, but yeah, the multi-system map functionality is just a fantastic tool, I think, and I like how it’s handled better here because properly holding a worm hole with a jump gate means that system will also be in your supply system, which makes it a lot more important than just a throughway as in Sins. So yeah, Terrain is a damned big deal, and anyone who says space games don’t or shouldn’t have terrain is an idiot.
Ah, see that part doesn’t come through on the video. Probably because it’s just the very early game.
I agree terrain in space games is a big deal, it’s just a lot of games don’t do it particularly well. Hell until I discovered that nebulae negate warp speed bonuses I didn’t see MoO do too much with it. It certainly requires some creativity to do something interesting with space terrain. But it is one of the most important design challenges in designing any space game.
Have you played Klingon Academy? That game makes a very big deal about varied space terrain, and encourages you to use it to your advantage.
I can’t say I have. I wasn’t into Star Trek growing up (only in my early 20’s when they grew on me), and didn’t PC game much until later still. A few flight sims, X-wing vs. TIE, Red Baron, Janes stuff, and Age of Empires was it. So I missed that one. I’ll keep that in mind though.
Most “space terrain” discussions miss the point by applying the least interesting games to the discussion. Why would a game designer model space as if it was a patch of land with different types of terrain? In other words, space as a Civ map, but with nebulae instead of forests, asteroid fields instead of mountains, and planets instead of cities? That’s a terrible thing to do to the concept of space and its potential for unique gameplay! Hide in a nebula for a +2 defense bonus! Space terrain!
Instead, space is oceans. In a combat game, shouldn’t the model for terrain in space should be something along the lines of the island hopping warfare of World War II? What is the significance of each island? How is it protected? How does it project force? How do fleets move among the various islands? What are the lines of supply, communications, or travel? Which islands are more developed? Where and how far can you see? Anyone can treat space like a themed Civ map, and we’ve seen that a hundred times. But a really clever designer will apply a model to space that isn’t just Civilization with nebulae for forests.
As such, I’d say the best presentation of space as terrain is Sins of a Solar Empire.
Brian, you’re dismissive of wormholes in Sins for some reason, but I think you’re missing the point of the whole Sins model. Firstly, you need to hit a certain point on the tech tree to use wormholes, so they’re a terrain feature that ties into the resource model. But more important, they’re not just convenient shortcuts a la MOO2. They have the potential to subvert the entire map structure, which is based on chokeholds for each system node. That makes them far more important than wormholes in games that treat space as a Civ map where you can just go around a defensive position.
As a model for space terrain, how does Conquest: Frontier Wars measure up compared to Sins? It sounds like the supply model has a lot of potential to create this idea of space as naval warfare. Is it just a range thing, like space games where your ships can only travel so far from a planet or starbase (Galactic Civilization III is the most recent example of this)?
-Tom
I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be dismissive, I just like Conquest’s model more, since holding a wormhole with a jumpgate helps keep a fleet in suppy in that system.
Systems are connected via wormholes, and to make multiple systems in your supply lines, you need jump gates on worm holes. If you build a jump gate on that wormhole, that system you jump into is then in your supply system, and IIRC, when you build supply stations in connected systems they resupply ships within a certain radius (similar to repair stations) Ships have limited supply of ammo, so if you want to take excursions into unsupplied systems, you need to bring a supply ship with you to help keep the rest of the fleet supplied, but even these have limits, so you have to eventually go back for resupply unless you’re able to extend your supply lines behind you as you go from system to system. These make supply ships VERY important to your fleets, and they should always have a few ships set to specifically escort them in any fleet.
It makes expansion in this game much more methodical and deliberate, I think, than other games, which I really like.
Oh yeah, and one of the bonuses leaders typically give to fleets is a supply bonus (along with various other bonuses as well depending on the character), so assigning leaders to any primary fleet is a must.
Wow guys, I found the solution to no sound in windows 7, an extra little codec you need to install:
I think I’m in on this. Have had it up and running on my machine for a while.
What I also remember is that the developer of this game was a regular visitor to GoneGold and really willing to incorporate feedback into patches and help folks having trouble with the game. One of the first times I can remember a dev doing that. Really good guy.
Limits on player movement and ability is far from the least interesting thing though. Having restricted movement only along predesignated warp lanes is one way to do this. Having range limits is another. But seeing how the limits on player movement affect the feel of a game is an interesting design decision to me.
Node based maps, or as you call them the island hopping model, are one I’ve seen lots of places, and for good reason. It is a great way to create natural chokepoints, and to restrict movement. It isn’t the only way, or even always the best. Sins does this, as does AI War, Ascendancy, and countless others. But there can be more to it.
Personally I am a big map and geography nerd. I love looking at a well made map. So I find a basic node model to be somewhat lacking. This may be fine in some games, Sins is by no means held back by this, but I love to see when a game does something more with space. It is more difficult, or at least I’ve seen less tried, when it comes to standard space RTS games though. A game like Distant Worlds injects interest by having unique planets. AI War through the AI aggressiveness and features like golems. The supply mechanic in Conquest seems like an interesting idea, something to give the wormholes more importance than simply being a chokepoint.
Admittedly my thoughts are more related to Master of Orion, simply because that’s what I’m playing in lieu of being able to play Conquest. And there I found the strategic layer less interesting once most planets were colonizable. Then there were no meaningful restrictions once a certain level of technology was reached. The nebulae slowing me down was interesting because it placed limits.
But I do agree that simply mimicking the types of bonuses you’d make on a planetary game, such as your hypothetical +2 defense, isn’t a great answer. Space shouldn’t just be like a Civ map. But it shouldn’t just be a series of nodes either! So I was interested to see how Conquest does this, and Brian came through. Which is good, since I didn’t get a sense of that in his 15 minute video.
@CraigM: I always liked the way MOO2’s space maps unfurled for a couple reasons you’ve already mentioned, mostly the fuel range and Nebulae. I’m not sure if MOO1 has them, but the black holes in MOO2 are an even stronger geographic feature (since they’re impassable and slow fleets as they approach). However, I think the most important feature in MOO2 is variation in planet/system quality.
In my last MOO2 game, there happened to be a whole series of stars without planets, and that created a nice buffer between my empire and a neighbor. In general though, MOO maps can be a bit boring because the stars are so evenly distributed across the ‘map’. And as you say, later technologies mean you can travel most anywhere very quickly (although Warp Interdictors are a nice defensive tech). I much prefer space maps with more spatial heterogeneity because it can create no-man’s lands (equivalent to deserts or oceans) that further divide the map, but I think such things are too rare in space games without nodes. Games with nodes tend to enforce boundaries by simply including a lot of chokepoints, but node-lines are less interesting to me because they spell out the terrain in obvious terms from the beginning of the game.
Sword of the Stars probably has my favorite use of space terrain precisely because it has so much variation in the clustering of stars. First it’s 3d, which opens up a lot more possibilities. Second, its travel mechanics vary by race (so only some use nodes/space lanes). But most importantly, it it includes tons of custom maps (and fans added more) that allowed for all sorts of interesting 3d variation with clusters, galaxies with long spiral arms, etc.
My favorite SotS maps were always the clusters (or something equivalent) that included tons of heterogeneity between the nearby stars and the far away clusters (kind of like continents or island chains). This creates a maze-like environment where supply ranges would (mostly) prevent you from leap-frogging too far, so you’re forced to explore your chain of clusters until it reaches an intersection. Then you’d explore outward in more directions from that intersection and potentially bump into other players. However, since the maps are 3d and sensor ranges are limited, it was possible to accidentally stretch your empire right over the heads of an enemy because you were focused on stretching out to the ‘West’.
These clusters felt very close to how I imagine WW2 strategy over the Pacific, with certain boundaries formed by the huge span of the ocean, and other areas littered with tons of islands where you’d have to fight battle after battle to work your way up the chain. But, because SotS isn’t tied to nodes, and because technology made it easier to travel farther and faster as the game progressed, you were never sure when a previously uncrossable span would suddenly become an avenue of attack for your enemies. In fact, players of some races had unlimited range so long as they had fuel, so they could always throw a ton of tanker ships together for a Doolittle raid (and unlike Doolittle, they could bring a colonizer ship that let them get a foothold in hostile terrain).