Love and Hate
 

I love the flexibility of SE4 and Hate the user interface. I haven't bought the game but am considering it now, as I need a change from other games. I played SE3 to death and modded it a great deal - it has a UI that suits my style better (I did the Innova mod, just in case any of you might remember it - it did gain some popularity).

I checked out the SE4 gold demo again and it left me with a few detailed questions. I'd appreciate a comment on those.

1. I have a problem getting rid of the the rightclick popup info windows. It seems that I have to move the mouse to the window (it always appears in the center of the screen) and rightclick on it again to dismiss it - then move the mouse back again to complete what I was doing in the first place. Esc and Enter doesn't work. Neither does clicking or rightclicking elsewhere. Has that changed from the demo?

2. Similarly for the main game windows (F2 and onwards). I'd expect that hitting e.g. F3 with one of these open would dismiss the current window and open the design window. But it doesn't - I have to close the open window first. Has that changed?

3. The AI seems to be of the juvenile Category. Much like Civ3. An example: In a demo game, one AI offered a trade treaty, then declared war a turn or two later. They seem to know how to beat me with a stick, not how to deal with me diplomatically. As I said, much like Civ3 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
I know there are some AI mods out there - do they change the diplomatic aspect or do they simply make the AI more powerful?

4. I tried using ministers to construct facilities to reduce my workload. How well do they do that? Can they scrap facilities to make room for new, better ones (not just upgrade)?

In short - way too much mouse work for my taste, but lots of flexibility and opportunity for trying out different strategies.

Re: Love and Hate
 

1: The latest patches has helped a lot with this. All the most used popups now close properly, but there are still a few (mostly error Messages) that has to be closed by pointing and clicking.

2: You still got to close first, but as esc closes its no big deal anymore.

3: TDM modpack will improve the AI beyond recognition. Give them a bonus and they will be quite a handfull. Diplomacy is still not their strong side though, so if you want diplomacy; play against humans.

4: The ministers in SEIV are closely modelled by RL politician/civil servants. If you want the job done properly, do it yourself. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

As a carpal tunnel syndrome sufferer, I can symphathise with your consern about to much mousework. Even if the UI has more mousework than stricktly neccessary it is no problem for me to play this game (a lot). Features like waypoints, copying building queues, all the hotkeys (like space for moving through the ships available for orders), and Multi-adding both reduces and breaks up the workload, giving the neccessary rest to the mouse hand.

Re: Love and Hate
 

Thanks, primitive, that's helpful. Aaron et.al. have always been helpful in listening to requests, but it saddened me to see the UI go in the "wrong" direction (IMO).

Now, SE4 is expensive (for it's age) and only available by mail order. And before I decide to go for the expensive solution I'd like to hear what all that talk about SE5 is about. Is there anything official? There's bound to be a lot of rumours. What is the substance (reliable stuff, not wild speculation)?

Re: Love and Hate
 

SEV is not scheduled for another 1 - 1.5 years, so there is plenty of time for SEIV first. Except for it using the Starfury engine for battles, everything is guesswork at this point.

If you like slow-paced turn-based strategy games with a lot of depth, SEIV is IMHO still the best game around (if there is something better, please tell me http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif )

Re: Love and Hate
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The closest I have come to that recently is Civ3 with the Double Your Pleasure (DyP) mod. Civ3 in itself is boring (though I have been told that the Conquest expansion is very good), but DyP turns Civ3 into a very interesting experience. (I helped make DyP but that's not why I recommend it - I helped make it because it was worth the effort).

[ November 23, 2003, 11:24: Message edited by: RobO ]

Re: Love and Hate
 

Thanks for the tip, but I'm afraid my copy of Civ3 hit the garbage can a long time ago. I won't support a company that can release such a POS by purchasing it again http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Love and Hate
 

Hello RobO, and welcome to the forums - i'd just like to comment on the UI - yes, there is a horrible amount of mousework. BUT! Almost everything has a hotkey attached to it. If you learn some of those, the game will go considerably faster, and you wont use the mouse as much. And just a tip, dont compare it to SEIII - its a whole different game.

edit: Re: ministers - the ministers follow text files that guide them through building stuff. THey dont scrap facilities for newer ones, no.
If you realy like working with the ministers, forget the standard ones - find a race you like (or in full game, choose a custom? your own? race) and edit their ai construction files - so they will work the way you wanted them to.

[ November 23, 2003, 16:42: Message edited by: Taera ]

Re: Love and Hate
 

SE4 Gold is definitely worth it. I miss the good parts of SE3 too, but SE4 Gold has plenty of stuff that make it worthwhile, especially if you play against a modded AI, and/or play with humans.

As for other good turn-based conquest games - see Dominions II!

PvK

Re: Love and Hate
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Besides SEIV Gold, I can't think of another game that has given me so much pleasure and loss of sleep than Civ3. I can't understand why you two are against it, it's a great game. I have both expansion discs, and although they have added some elements to the game, I could play the original game forever. But like with SEIVG, I just can't find the time to play these games as much as I'd like to.

Re: Love and Hate
 

Play Civ 2 (plus expansions, esp. ToT) and you will understand why Civ 3 is a POS. It is a major step backwards in the genre.

[ November 24, 2003, 15:01: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Re: Love and Hate
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I have Civ 2 and a couple of expansion discs, Test of Time and Call to Power (couldn't play CTP2 at the time). They're all basically the same to me. Now they're may be differences in gameplay (I think CTP is the one where you could create space stations and underwater colonies), it's still the same basic game. Create a civilization, and try to keep it alive and growing for the next 6,000 years. I don't understand why some say CIV3 is a POS. As a matter of fact, I think I'll play a game tonight. This post has whetted my appetite again.

Re: Love and Hate
 

CTP is NOT an expansion, it is a game made by a different company.

Civ 3 is a POS for many, many reasons. Far too many to list in completeness. Here are some: First off, they specifically cut BASIC features from Civ 2 (multiplayer, organization of data files, moddability, victory points/conditions, etc.) so that they could release 2 expansions "featuring" them. The fact that these features came about in Civ 2 expansions is irrelevant because they were new features at the time. It is completely inexcusable to NOT have these in the original Civ 3. The "expansions" for Civ 3 are worth about 5 dollars in new features (and that is being generous). Next, you have the fact that modding Civ 3 for years took hacking of the game files in order to work. The Scenario Editor was a complete POS. Now it is just a POS. It took many patches to get it to even be useable to mod the game! Next, they removed the text files for storing data!!! This was a HORRIBLE move. I think we can all agree that text files are the way to go for moddability. Furthermore, they nerfed espionage/sabotage. It is damned near impossible to do it more than a few times in Civ 3 unless you are so much larger and more powerful than the other empires that you can afford it. But by that time, it will not make a difference! Additionally, the AI cheats much more horrendously (especially in the diplomacy department) than in CIv 2. The AI empires regularly trade their technologies for ludicrously cheap amounts. Next, they removed the EVENTS system! Especially in ToT, it had so much potential for creating cool mods and scenarios! Furthermore, you have the VERY common experience of ridiculous combat results like a tank being defeated by PIKEMEN! (who are ONLY armed with pikes, maybe some swords; any explanations of "they have mines and such" are ludicrous apologetic justification for garbage game mechanics) At least you don't have the classic Civ situation of a warrior defeating a battleship! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif Additionally, they removed EVERYTHING good added in the ToT expansion. There were dozens of cool new abilities for units you could use. All are gone. The only thing they kept was the ability to assign settler abilities to units individually instead of all at once.

I would continue, but I must get to class now. Expect more in the near future!

Re: Love and Hate
 

What did SE3 have that SE4 does not? I played SE2 to death, but missed SE3 entirely since I was out of the country...but I am curious as to what I missed...

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">

Re: Love and Hate
 

Well, I never really messed with any of the scenario or map editors, so I wouldn't know about that. I know CTP was made by another company, but it's still played basically the same, and it's still called Civilization. I guess my grammar could have been better in how I phrased it. Also, I know most of you are into multi-player, but it's not my bag, so again I wouldn't have noticed any differences. As far as espionage, it's something I might do every once in awhile, but not all of the time. You obviously have tried every fact of the game, while I just play the basic game. I don't doubt that in your opion, Civ3 is a POS. However, IMO, it's a great game worth playing (as I play it).

Re: Love and Hate
 

I enjoid Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri very much. (it is close to Civ, since it has got the same developers) Beside the fact that it has got a very decent AI (anyone in here capable of beating 6 AI opponents with every race, even the weak ones? using setups like small planet and little water? I bet there is nobody!) I enjoid a few MP games too, but they took lots of time.

I didnt like CTP as it was just a weak choice combared to SMAC in my eyes.

But SEIV is far better than any other turn based strat game I know if you enjoy MP games.

(though the AI of SMAC style games as CIV and others tend to be stronger)

Re: Love and Hate
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Some things I really like about SE3 that aren't in SE4:

* Much more detailed control of ship construction queues, being able to retrofit ships while they are under construction, and shift ships and units from one que to another, or foward and backward in the queues, ability to use a ship before it is finished building, ability to have multiple shipyards on a ship which build independently, etc.

* The ability to start the game with different tech levels pre-researched, and a very large resource Cache which could effectively let you start out with a developed empire which was different from your opponents' empires.

* Superb cross-referenced hypertext context-sensitive help system. You could pretty much get help on any display and link to a deep explanation of every part of the game.

* The ability to retreat from tactical combat - no "locked in the box of doom" SE4 tactical map.

* More control over the research queues - research all the techs at once, put 1% on the X tech, etc.

* Ability to control put planets on emergency production, at the cost of happiness (not just emergency construction, as in SEIV).

* Ability to move and re-size all of the windows.

* A better system for emissive armor effects.

* Better weapons balance.

* Better control of tactical strategies, in some cases, such as the ability to specify the amount of firepower to allocate to each target, so you don't have ALL your missile ships firing at the same enemy ship.

* Ability to stack ships in tactical combat.

* Construction had an element of time required, and not just resources used divided by resource use rate.

PvK

Re: Love and Hate
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">CTP being made by a different company necessarily means that the makers of Civ 3 could not include all of its unique features, as that would be copyright infringement.

Half of my list was about the basic game... the piss-poor combat mechanics and extreme AI cheating are some of the biggest game breakers.

Re: Love and Hate
 

the thing that really hit me was no mini-map in the editer. it just smacked off unprofessionalism to me.

Re: Love and Hate
 

I just found that Civ3 did not live up to all the hype created before the release (like MOO3). It may be an OK game, but I found it boring. It added nothing that made the game more exciting/challenging/fun compared to Civ2. A game that was great for it's time but does not compare well to todays best games.

Re: Love and Hate
 

To tell you the truth, I just don't remember Civ2. It's been years since I've played it. Every time a new Version comes out, I'll switch and start playing that game. As a matter of fact, I don't even have Civ2 here at home. It must be in storage along with some of my other games. I did notice on Civ3 recently that my cavalry was getting defeated by swordsmen. I'll just keep playing Civ3 with the expansion sets until Civ4 comes out, then I'll switch again. Or, if as someone has suggested, this is the Last hurrah for the franchise, I'll keep playing this Version. As long as I get enjoyment out of it, I don't care about some of the flaws. If I get tired or frustrated, believe me, I got more than enough other games to keep me busy.