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*game is out of early access and is fully featured/playable*
Interested in turn-based space empires games? If so, this is an automatic buy.
Taking a bit from games Master of Orion 2, Pax Imperia, Space Empires IV etc. we fast forward to 2014 and here we have a dev patching/enhancing a game very similar to Moo2 with a dash of Pax Imperia. What's not to like?
Potential for a 5-star 4x game here if the dev can keep going to sharpen up the stability, AI, and features. In this early release version (feb 2014) I am getting "out of memory" crashes after @20 turns. So recommended to save/quit/restart after 15 turns or so once you have a pretty developed galaxy and large empire of your own.
Newbie tips: first, design your starbase and use max space. don't go crazy and spend into a deficit while colonizing and building ships. Then do try to get a starbase early...you need the starbase in order to refit a colonizer to be able to colonize another planet (the colonizer must re-enter orbit of the planet *with* the starbase in order to refit). Otherwise you have to scrap/build new colonizer ships for each and every planet...which is not sustainable.
There are a ton of features, some of which are not readily apparent. For example: it is very important and easy to terraform a planet. a) customize your starting race and ensure you have the terraforming tech b) level terraforming up a few levels and c) now when you establish an outpost on "poor, desert" Mars...you can immediately begin terraforming process *while it is still only an outpost*. Another is pollution: I found that my home planet had accumulated a "medium" level of pollution only by chance...when I moused over the relevant statistic in the planet window. Setting my planet to "clean" for few turns did wonderful things for productivity. Once the pollution was back to "low" I could set my planet back to normal.
The game is still in active development..which is why I give it 4 stars...quests, stability, and features are still being worked on. Join us! and get on the forums to add your input to how the game develops!
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Definitely am excited about this project and really would love to see this game continue to develop. I've already bought the expansion
at least in my head.Some quibbles. Apologies in advance if these are already known/to-be-addressed. Perhaps we need a "suggestions" thread:
a. an AI empire should never send an explorer to a system which has more than one scout, or may the gods forfend, a planet with a missile base. While at war with an enemy empire, I watched the AI send five consecutive one-ship explorers straight at the same planet....which happened to be mine, which also happened to have a missile base.
The AI planet in question that appeared to be sending this 1-ship armada was the AI homeworld...which was two sectors away from my planet's sector. I'm not sure if the AI was trying to send a scout to a sector *beyond* where my planet was located or not...
This effectively creates a resource sink *and* a blockade. A possible solution would be to establish a "warp ingress" bubble concept around systems: ships will be able to "pass by unengaged/unengage-able" to systems without being able to "drop warp" into that system. Ships can only enter the edge of a system after dropping from warp.
b. Custom race get a slight boost to initial ship designs: I choose a custom race, which changes the size of the core components usually...the result is that the initial "scout" build designs are usually -2 space. I.e. that nice bio-energy armor I swapped in is larger than the default build. Thus I get 1 regular, and 2 light weapons and should only be able to fit 1 regular, and 1 light weapon.
c. An auto-cleanup routine for moderate levels of pollution would nice...or least, a warning in the turn summary to alert the player to do something.
d. Much as I love the easy early terraforming...is this realistic? I get to start, with little cost, terraforming on my military outpost immediately after stepping foot upon the planet (since I chose terraforming in my custom race build). It pains me to mention this as I think it is a bit unbalancing...that is, unless the AI is doing the exact same thing and having a universe full of full-terraformed planets was the expected mid-game/end-game configuration?
e. I request a "Honey Badgers" alien race. "Cause they don't give a damn and take what they want.
f. no offense to the songwriter...but the title music is beginning to drive me insane.
