Yeah, then one person (i. e. you) has to loose so that the other (i. e. me, or anybody else) can win

I play with more planets because I like large scale epic 4x games which is kinda what this is suppose to be. Shrinking the galaxy size down so there are fewer planets and the games go fast pace basically turns it into a typical RTS.



I said near instant and not instant. You would still get the warning about income ships so it wouldn't be useless. I mean right now you may see the ship coming in but your fleet will still have to fly their to intercept if it's not already there. Also the real bonus of PSIDAR is being able to see 2 systems out so you'll still get warnings when enemy ships are on the move. So in the end you may get less warning time but on the same token your fleets will get their faster.

So? Even if your friendly fleets get there quicker too, it still makes PSIDAR pretty much useless since you can't build stuff before the enemy arrives... or even pre-position your ships to ambush in incoming enemy.

hmm, things to do to make things more interesting...

* how about a sort of king of the hill? say, spawn a new solar system in the middle for anyone to reach equally easy and say "the one who can hold this solar system/ establish a colony with x/y ... wins the game. then everybody could go there and try to get a foothold and it would be one gigantic slugfest.

at least it would end the stalemate if nothing else did.

* superweapons do lend themselves to break the late game, but personally I am not a great advocate of them.

* how about a quest to collect lets say a set number of relics/ ressources/ whatever scattered across the galaxy. this means that a) you will need to fight a good number of players to get it, but you don't need to completely defeat them, only get what you came for and get out as fast as you can. in theory you could combine this with a superweapon idea, so that these ressources enable to build it.

the big point here is that these valuable items - or rather their position - should be uncovered later, because otherwise these areas would be way too well protected to get it and it would not change the original situation.

I think what all these suggestions come down to is to change the victory conditions. the algorithm to do this has to be carefully designed though so as not to favour one faction too much, otherwise its just unfair und frustrating. I could imagine this would bring some dynamics into the late game and change the situation.

Hahah you said "quest".

uhh, another: change of phase lanes i.e. breaking up of existing phase lanes or the establishment of new ones, randomly. maybe the devs even have a system planned for voluntary creation of new phase lanes, due to lore the vasari would lend to that (or the closure of existing ones. the end of freespace two comes to my mind here). in any case - if it is technically possible - that also has the potential to suddently change the balance. only the quesion whether they should happen equally throughout the game or rather concentated towards the end.

Hey, I never really noticed that before. This Phase Gate system works perfectly with the FreeSpace warp gate concept. Somebody should make a Freespace Mod, the 2nd game ended with a lot of possibilities.

not exactly. in freespace only travel between solar systems, not planetary systems was restricted to jump nodes. inside a system you could jump all the way you wanted as far as I remember it.

nice thinking about the mod though. I see it right and clear: the unnkown threat that chases the vasari is: a huge fleet of shivan satanas juggernauts.

Now that would actually be a surprise and a half. Let's hope so.

I dont know, I have personally wanted more then a conquerors victory. What if there was a culture victory, or a relic victory, or a trade victory, or maybe even diplomacy?

ah, that certainly is a good idea. a diplomatic victory though seems most difficult with this game, as it appears to be much more geared to war than galciv or civ are (where you could win a game without ever declaring war, if lucky even without being attacked).

maybe there could be a victory such as in the traditional tbs games in that when you build a combination of stuff, or finish the research tree you automatically win. I think that even age of empires II had a world wonder win, but I am not quite sure anymore, if that was a dedicated game type.

another way would be different winning conditions for different races. I thought of this after having started to play that civ 4 mod rye's and fall of civilisations. for the vasari, maybe a certain amount of ressources could be a victory type, whereas the advent should ... oh well ... convert a certain percentage of their population to their faith, or reach some culture level. tec ... well maybe not losing a single planet for a certain period of time (remember the lore: the are largely fighting a defensive war). that way, it might be a bit funnier if different players try to go for different objectives. the big problem I see would be balance as each goal would easier or harder depending on the situation. on the other hand its also the player's to get himself in the right situation (also referred to as strategy). well, a point to discuss at the least I guess.

When you guys get around to do that ... no SOTS style please, it's highly inconvience getting your empire wiped out by random events.


As for Scheme question, at this point of the game I think the only things that will make the game interesting is to make the battle interesting, because like you said, that would be the only thing to do at this point.

As for how, I think Diplomacy play important role at this state, forming aliance pack, help attacking or defending (say like to keep balance between force or gain the upper hand), it would make the game more interesting then just a straight forward beat them scenario.

How about a star explodes? completely destroying a solar system and everything in it? . that wouldn't work at all, unfortunately.

actually, a solar flare would probably affect planets 3-5 jumps away. Solar flares hit earth. what we could do is say if your at the suns, shields are reduced by 100%, at 1 jump away, 90%, two jumps away, 50%, and 3 jumps away 15%

One thing I havent seen anyone mention here is missions. Civ IV, imperium galactica 2, m:tw and a few others all had missions to help spur on conflict. Its hard to keep turtling when your timed mission tells you to take your neighbors planet.

Im also a big fan of random events (again so long as they arent sots like, losing homeworld on 6th turn is just retarded) especially rebellions. I would also like to see pirates get capital ships (unique ones at that).

the tricky point with missions as well as with random events is balance. so far as I played civ IV I believe it was done nicely. some events were positive, some were negative, some required you (and only you) to conquer a target area, others required everybody to build a certain number of buildings and units. but the common point was that none of them were really severely game influencing. some of them changed the balance a bit, but the winning player would stay the winning player and vice versa.

the other point the devs should be careful of, is not to have an "all on one" situation provoked by a random event. I figure its really annoying to have everybody turn on you for no reason but chance. and making it the winning player is demotivating as its a punishment for deploying a good strategy.

hmm, that said ... how about something like those moral choices from gal civ II complete with moral alignment. in combination with random events this could result in a change of your alliances in that former allies turn away from you shocked whereas former enemies respect your cruel efficiency and offer their assistance. or the benefits could be so massive that you could afford to potentially lose some allies. this of course would require more incentives of allied victory as it would a stupid move if you absolutely have to eliminate your ally sooner or later to win the game.