PBEM is poor mans multiplayer, and nothing anyone really wants to use anymore, however, I think if they invested in server based mp here, this game could become a multiplayer masterpiece and generate a TON of interest…
I do love the game, so there is no denying it has appeal in SP too, but there is that nagging lost MP magic…
Also, noted about the turn times, I’ve been very tempted to turn AI turn times down, they are rather long at the moment and that also is a bit of a tough sell :(
Personally, I can’t stand the thought of waiting on 4-8 other players to take their turns in a turn based 4X. PBEM makes a lot of sense in this context.
Yeah, you’d need simultaneous turns for that kind of player count. I have a friend that I would love to play this game with, though.
Agreed that simultaneous turns would make much more sense. I also like the idea as it introduces uncertainty. Have any 4X done simultaneous turns well?
Age of Wonders: Planetfall and Gladius 40k are two recent ones that work quite well with simultaneous turns, although the former has a wrinkle with the tactical battles (they have options/solutions for this in the game settings). On the plus side, you can join your armies in the same battle if you’re allies which can be a lot of fun.
I had a lot of hours with Civ4 MP with simultaneous turns back in the day.
How are people finding the AI in general? Is this the sort of game where it takes a long, pleasurable time to figure out how to play, but once you understand it, you can see that the AI really doesn’t understand it? Basically, how long and high is this Chick parabola?
This game may be too much for me. I’ve read a couple AARs, most of the manual and watched a few videos. Each time I start a new game with confidence but after several turns…
.
And yet my limited brain keeps thinking about this game.
Have you tried as easy of a start as possible? A Siwa class with Haven of Calm(or whatever the thing is where the dissolution war didn’t hit hard) and Beginner difficulty worked pretty well for me. Make sure you get a breathable and farmable atmosphere and that will take away a number of concerns from your game. Less threatening wildlife is pretty good too. With that kind of start you can hopefully push units around to explore pretty easily which should help net a bunch of free resources that’ll help you build up your starting city. For me that was ideal since that meant a bunch of systems could live in the background without hugely affecting my game while I worried about building, exploring, and researching.
My full game was on beginner difficulty and I found the AI reasonably convincing during my big war. It certainly built up on the border opposite me and made some surprising moves that threw me off balance. It also made some really questionable retreats, but this was beginner difficulty. The AI does a good job of taking advantage of areas you don’t defend and will move quickly to cut off your supply. As we’ve noted a couple of times, it doesn’t seem like the AI is doing anything with air forces at the moment.
I’m a few dozen hours in and still feel like I’m struggling with various aspects each new game - I’ve never won one or gotten to the higher tiers in the tech tree. There are quite big lessons to learn each new game.
The AI is pretty opportunistic in cutting of your supply chains.
Well these are pretty good signs! I must admit the prospect of learning a complex new game is exciting but daunting - especially when I can only play in pretty small bite-sized chunks.
I don’t know how high the parabola is but I didn’t reach the far side of it myself. Caveat to that is that I didn’t sink dozens of hours into the game as it was still receiving significant updates so I decided to just shelve it and wait for the Steam release. I got my butt kicked in the games I did play although that can likely be attributed to poor play on my part as opposed to AI genius. They were able to take advantage of my mistakes, though, so there is that.
I found the game amazing when it first came out and played it quite a bit, but there is definitely a point where you crest the Chick parabola and see that the AI is really not capable of playing the game and has been given a number of shortcuts to make it competitive. I think the game is something special, and well worth its price, but it is definitely a flawed gem. There is a clear point, at least for me, after you have sort of figured out the crazy complex systems that it begins to break down. It reminds me a bit of Space Empires IV in that you have so many cool options that there is simply no way any AI could ever be competitive, but just messing with all the cool options is a game unto itself.
You misunderstand, nobody will be waiting for anyone in this game, ofcourse you can’t have realtime games, the wait would be insane…however, now you have to ship the file by email to each player…this is cumbersome and really not a very good way to do MP at all.
If we could send the file to a server that hosted matches, however, we could find and join games and with a click send our files…voila…problem solved.
Ah, yes in that case I agree - this game needs desynchronous turns, but having to literally email files is ridiculous.
This. I’ve yet to win a game, but I do find myself thinking about it a lot. I did read the manual pretty carefully way back when, but I’ve probably forgotten a fair bit of it. I still have lots of fun just making it up as I go along.
As with any game this complex, I’m sure the AI is flawed. But at my skill level, the AI gives me a good game.
The intro series by Wade Star was likely mentioned upthread but I watched the first one and it seems exactly what I needed to help me understand how the various systems work together.
DasTactic has a new Twitch stream that he ported to Youtube. First part is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIcVR71k2hI
Second part is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oXfofHMD-M
Is there any, and I mean literally any introduction (not the manual) to this that is not a video?
@Kolbex Here is a link to the Guide section for the game on Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1154840/guides/?browsesort=toprated&browsefilter=toprated&requiredtags[0]=English&p=1
Like @Kolbex , I prefer written guides, but I learned a lot from the Wade Star series mentioned by @orald.
For example, I was about to ask here how to solve my persistent cash deficit. Wade Star suggests building the Interior Council first, even before the Economic Council! I’ve got 4 or 5 councils going and I still haven’t built Interior. I guess it’s helpful because it makes tax rolls possible. I’m worried there will be a big happiness downside to higher taxes, but at this point I don’t seem to have much choice. Selling off my resources every turn is not a long-term solution. Is there any other alternative?