[0.91] Mid game joy. And start and end game feedback.

from Elemental Forums

Just like to say I am loving the midgame section. The exploration, the dueling with other nations, the fighting of monsters etc is  just awesome. For me it has the one-more-turn quality I am looking for. I played a game this weekend and completely neglected my family as I explored and plundered my way across the world as Tarth.

 

Starting a new game however, is a chore and pretty dull. It is always the same ( or at least very similar), same choices same frustrations. And everything takes a long time to get off the ground.

 

End game is also not so great. In the end game you know you have won but the enemy AIs don't know it yet. Often I cannot cast spell of making because I need 4 influence (I can not find where that stat is).

Also I cannot get a diplomatic victory because some AIs refuse to warm up to me even after massive ongoing payments etc. So it is impossible to form an alliance with them all.

I can't do a conquest victory because I have various agreements with the other kingdoms that don't allow me to declare war.

 

The end game is often tedious. So why do I drag it out to the end? I want to see how many points I scored and I want to see the feedback in terms of graphs. Is there a reason we cannot access trhose graphs at any other time?

 

One last thing, why are there very few magic bows? Millions of swords, maces and other implements. But I believe I have only ever once found a magic bow.

 

 

4,490 views 9 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

I agree with this assessment of the game pacing too. Great game for the most part but drags at either end. Also finding I'm still just using a single 'Stack of Doom' to do all the work with a handful of other units protecting the cities.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

I was just about to come and post the same thing.

 

Essentially, the beginning of the game is slow and constricted with few choices. (The main choices at the beginning being faction and sovereign)

 

The middle of the game, when you begin to fight monsters, get gear, and move around is actually very fun, but it doesn't last very long.

 

The end game gets tedious, again factions begin to seem the same, most of the monsters and treasures are gone, all of the heroes are recruited, and it's just a slow slog to kill the last remaining AI's.

Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

I agree about the pacing too, but I found the Demand Surrender diplomacy option to be a huge improvement for wrapping up the game.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Demand surrender helps shorten the end game, but end games in 4X are never fun, so you want that to be short.

 

Early-game would probably be helped by more goodies and more randomness.  Quantity and variety tend to help in the early game.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Agreed, more surprises at the start would be good. Cool heroes, monsters, goodies. But also more differentiation between factions will help so that starting as a different faction requires changes in approach etc

At the end of the gamne it would be good to be able to ask allied or otherwise subservient AIs to surrender or accept you as overlord.

 

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

The start of a 4x game is usually about managing terrain, making placement choices and so on. Since this aspect has been heavily streamlined in Elemental, it's no wonder every game plays the same at start.

But again, being too late to change that, I'm hoping that the inclusion of the 3rd resource and some proper balancing will spice things up a bit. 

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

I don't see why it is to late to spice up the start. Faction differentiation is likely to still continue - that will help. It may also help knowing the significance of various game elements. For example it is still unclear how food and materials impact the game. I always seem to have enough so it doesn't feel like I need to pay much attention to these resources.

 

I find the start of Civ 5 also quite dull, so maybe it is a function of the game genre.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

I say it's too late because at this point they're not going to include things like single "workable" tiles and so on. 

 

I find the start of Civ 5 also quite dull, so maybe it is a function of the game genre. 
End of quote

I disagree, for classic games (like, say, Alpha Centauri) the start is often the most interesting part. Every single choice can have an avalanche effect and there's plenty of meaningful choices to make. This is true for Civ 4 too. I can't say about Civ 5 as I don't have it.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Well I was referring to civ 5 only. Alpha centauri is one of my fave games of all time.