Game Comparrisons.
 

How would you rank the following games?

SEIV (Space Empires 4)
BOTF (Birth Of The Federation)
IGII (Imperium Galactica 2)
MOOII (Masters Of Orion 2)

For me, the ranking would be a simple matter of likeability.

BOTF = 8 (Game play and graphics)
SEIV = 7 (Creatability, depth of play)
MOOII = 4 (AI)
IGII = 4 (Ground based assualts, graphics.)

Re: Game Comparrisons.
 

bump

Re: Game Comparrisons.
 

I played MOO then MOOII a lot but finally found it too easy even on impossible. Also I got tired of the AI cheating so much. Tactical combat was great, especially ship initiative. I used the race pick that got all the techs in an area researched, heavy gravity, and subterranean. I really hated the Saccra, seems like they bred like flies and were usually the race that gave me the most problems. But I guess this is not the right forum to talk about MOO. It is dead and gone so far as I am concerned. SE IV is the game of my dreams!
You forgot to mention Ascendacy - it was ok for a few months play.
Although not a SPACE empire game, the Civilization series was pretty good too. In all I got a couple years play out of that.

Re: Game Comparrisons.
 

Hey Atrocities I respect your opinion, but I really hated BOTF!
Bad interfase (with many colonies is a nightmare try to manage your empire, the map is pathetic), worst customization (you can not create a ship design for example), really short tech tree, the tactical combat is very limited.

So far, I think that SEIV is the better (well I like SEIII too, in some aspects was better than SEIV!).

Re: Game Comparrisons.
 

I mainly played MOO2 against friends so I rate it a 8.5 - tactical combat was great! I loved the Sakkrans! Once I had conquered them, I exported them to all of my planets as their subterranean ability increased the living place on any planet where they were present. My friends were stunned the first time I pulled that trick on them!
We still reminisce about some of the battles we fought. Played MOO2 solidly for over two years - even beats the amount of time that I spent on Civilisation.

SE4 rates a 9.

BOTF was very pretty and atmospheric but I only rate it a 5 as the AI stank and the game was very limited. Ascendancy was in the same Category - impressive music and graphics, but, that was it.

Never played IG2 - IG1 put me off and a couple of friends grated IG2 poorly.

Re: Game Comparrisons.
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>
Hey Atrocities I respect your opinion, but I really hated BOTF! <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It had a lot of faults, but overall, once you gave it a chance, the game was quite good. I especially loved the ships and bases as they provided me with the frame work to build my own unique star trek race set for SEIV.

Re: Game Comparrisons.
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Atrocities:
I especially loved the ships and bases as they provided me with the frame work to build my own unique star trek race set for SEIV.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

We agree 100% here... and is a good time to say thanks for your work!!!

Re: Game Comparrisons.
 

BOTF has faults but the overall game design makes it rather addictive.

I just wish we could have newly acquired races actually keep making the ships they did before they joined your race. I wanted fleets of cool mixed ships, not more of my race http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif.

But yeah SE:IV ranks higher but I am biased http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif.

------------------
Sarge is coming...

Richard Arnesen
Director of Covert Ops
Shrapnel Games
http://www.shrapnelgames.com

Re: Game Comparrisons.
 

I'm gonna expand the list a bit:

SE4 - 9. Insane customizability, great gameplay. Unimpressive AI and sound. Graphics are ok.

SE3 - 8. Excellent gameplay, damn good AI, and respectable customizability. Crap graphics and sound.

MOO2 - 7. I had never played this until Last year, but I found it rather enjoyable. Lots of options, restpectable graphics and sound. I found it really hard though, being soundly defeated at Easy difficulty.

Ascendancy - 5. Some interesting but poorly implemented ideas. Ship combat was very strange, the pacing was sporadic, and the AI was crap. Good graphics and sound.

SE2 - 5. My first Space Empires experience. It had even worse graphics than SE3 and really crappy interface, but it was incredibly fun and the AI was challenging enough. The construction system was funny (in hindsight), as it worked like repair components do now, you a starbase filled with shipyards could build a dozen dreadnoughts in a single turn. Some of my largest and most memorable space battles are from SE2 (it didn't have strategic combat and I don't think I really trusted the AI controlling my ships).

Imperium Galactic 2 - 4. Great graphics, but VERY slow and boring gameplay. Tactical combat was interesting but I don't think I ever had enough ships (or big ones) to make the options really stand out. Ground assaults had pretty graphics but you always ran right over the other guy with little or no trouble, so it didn't really matter.

Pax Imperia: Eminent Domain - 3. Ugh. I'm ashamed to say that I bought this game and thoroughly enjoyed it for a few months. It had exceptional graphics, sound and music, but the gameplay was VERY limited. Research options didn't matter much at all. The respectable ship design features were wasted, as tactical combat was incredibly straight-forward (had some nice graphics and sounds though) and the AI never made use of interesting tactics. Planetary development options, diplomacy, and intelligence were almost non-existant.

Re: Game Comparrisons.
 

In order that I remember playing them....

Reach for the stars - first 4X game I played, limited tech tree, no tactical combat, wasted MANY hours on it.

Pax Imperia - Don't remember if this is the name but it was on the amiga and all I recall is that it got boring and your best planetary minister always rebelled.

Stars! - Cool game in many ways but I could never really get into it. I actualy bought it as shareware and then gave my password/copy out to a friend and never played again.

Moo1 - Oh how I loved this one. I still remember having 'genocide days' when I would place a few massive ships over every one of an allies planets and then declare war. Wipe out the entire race in 1 turn. AI not bad but cheated like a mother.

Moo2 - I liked this one too, but the cheating AI again. I don't mind some cheating, the comptuer needs it I think, but the difference from easy to impossible seemed to be only production cheating. Taking out ship initative was a big mistake.

SE4 - My first SE game to date. While I like it a lot I wish the AI was a bit more challanging. TMD mod pack on moderate bonus and hard and not breaking a sweat. Seems the bonus matters in those first few turns but after that its inability to deal with mines, and rather happazard attacks make it easy to win. Think I"m going to try a game without taking any abilities myself to see how I do.

Re: Game Comparrisons.
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Richard:
BOTF has faults but the overall game design makes it rather addictive.

...
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

BOTF is still one of my Favorites (maybe 5% of the time that I spend for SEIV). But I guess the AI is cheating, I remember a game test where they have proved it, especially with Intel attacks, which makes Intel almost worthless in my opinion.

P.S.: Cheating AI; this seems to be the only way for some software developers to (almost) beat the human brain.



[This message has been edited by PsychoTechFreak (edited 02 June 2001).]

Re: Game Comparrisons.
 

BOTF?
Baah.
Played it for a while with a mate on cheapernet but the memory leaks were horrendous and we had to save and reboot periodically. The later patches seem to fix it a bit but by then I'de mastered the AI so it didn't matter.
AI in modern games will never be great, not because of poor programming but because these new fangled games are so complex. The player will always find a tactic the AI is not good at countering.
So I think cheating is alright if it makes a game more challenging. I just wish games had more options on how you would let the computer "cheat".

So my final list for the Spacey strategy games would be -
1. SE4 (Of course)
2. Moo2
3. Moo1
4. The original Reach for the Stars (AI was hard, gotta support my countrymen too!)
5. BOTF
6. Imperium Galatica 2 (never did it for me)


Askan

Re: Game Comparrisons.
 

I would like to add some other games to the list:

1. The original Imperium Galcium (not the PC Version but the C-64 Version). For its time is was great.

2. Imperium Galatica I. I thought the battle system was excellent. The rest was either avarge at best.

3. VGA Planets - stricly PBEM (my second fav. game after SEIV, nothing is like fighting other humans, graphics are ok, the battle system is very bad, simple model but somehow the game works http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

I was very unhappy with RFTS II (the first was a classic).
I also felt the BOTF was somehow limited, Did they ever release a patch or mods of any sort for that game.

Anyway in my humble openion my ranking:

1. SE IV
2. VGAP
3. MOO 2
4. MOO 1
5. Imp Gal (c64)
6. RFTS I / SE III
7. BOTF
8. Stars!
9. Pax Imp I(Mac)
10. Imperium Galatica 1

Somebody should compile a list, I own most of these games- it would be great to see the history of these great 4x games.

------------------

Re: Game Comparrisons.
 

Yes, there were several mods released for BOTF as well as two patches.

Most of which can be found at most hard core trek forum sites or links from there.

Re: Game Comparrisons.
 

Gotta say S.E.4, but also gotta say cause it's not mentioned here is Sid (the man) Meier's SMAC & SMACX they are up there with it, please don't berate me for it, it's purely a personal thing.

tic

Re: Game Comparrisons.
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Gotta say S.E.4, but also gotta say cause it's not mentioned here is Sid (the man) Meier's SMAC & SMACX they are up there with it, please don't berate me for it, it's purely a personal thing.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Why would anybody berate you for that? SMAC/X is another great game. I'm looking forward to the roleplaying sourcebook for it that Steve Jackson Games has licenced for GURPS as well.

------------------
Cap'n Q

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

Re: Game Comparrisons.
 

Bought BOTF, interesting game. Some excellent ideas but overall it was a let down. Loved their idea of turn based 3d combat. They just didn't implement it right. What would be a cool game would be a 3/4 view real time space strategy games similar to starcraft (only entirely in space, no ground fighting) with tons of maps all conected together via some sort of warp point system. (I actually began work on such a game, but I suck at game making so I gave up)

Re: Game Comparrisons.
 

There is a lot of other games out there, mostly freeware, or shareware. I would love to find more about them and help them to try to be like SE IV one day
Anybody aware of a web site that tracks 4x games

Re: Game Comparrisons.
 

PvK rates:
==========

SE4
(Beats SE3 mainly due to customizability.)
SE3
(I prefer several SE3 things to SE4 things.)
MOO2
(I prefer SE3, but it does some things better.)
Pax Imperia - Eminent Domain
(Too bad it wasn't better developed.)
Imperium Galactum (SSI / Atari 8-bit)
(Very good for its time, but limited.)
Cosmic Balance II (SSI / Atari 8-bit)
(Muahaha - linked to Cosmic Balance I for highly-detailed SFB-like tactical combat resolution... a true madman's unplayable monster game.)
Imperium (Atari ST)
(Seemed unplayable but had some very neat advanced ideas.)
Galaxy (Avalon Hill / Atari 8-bit)
(Funky BASIC game - almost elegant but spoiled by luck-based combat.)

Only briefly looked at, so I won't rate:
RFTS
BOTF
Pax Imperia I (Mac)
Imperium Galactica
MOO1
Gazillionaire

PvK